How to be the narrator

The narrator is not a passive referee. They are the person who decides whether the story lands or goes flat.

Read the premise exactly as written

Do not add detail, do not explain, do not foreshadow. Premises are written to say the bare minimum: every extra word you add is a discovery you take away from the table.

If they ask, read it again word for word. Re-reading is allowed, rephrasing is not.

When to answer «irrelevant»

Use irrelevant when the answer, whatever it is, does not change the solution. It is a valuable signal: the group learns it is exploring a dead branch and moves on.

The common mistake is answering «no» to an irrelevant question. A «no» implicitly says the question was pertinent, and sends the table hunting for the opposite of something that does not matter.

Ambiguous questions

It often happens that a question can be read two ways. Two routes:

• ask for a rephrase, if the ambiguity is in the question itself;
• answer literally, if the ambiguity comes from a wrong assumption the player is making. Answering literally is often exactly what brings that mistake into the open.

Do not cheat in the other direction

The strongest temptation is to help too much: fixing a badly posed question, stressing an important answer with your tone, sighing when the table drifts. Answer everything with the same face, including when they are one step away.

Unsticking a stalled round

If the group has been going in circles for a few minutes, do not reveal a piece of the solution. Better:

• say which of the hypotheses already raised is the closest;
• point at an area nobody has explored yet («you have not asked anything about the place»);
• confirm that an assumption everyone is taking for granted is wrong.

Those are clues about method, not about content: the table still gets to the answer on its own, and that is what makes the ending satisfying.