I've never seen a table that wouldn't ask about the level of lighting in the defile if not told, as if it's in deep shadow who knows what could be hiding in there.
In the context of Cortex+ Heroic, the GM can just make something up if asked! I mean, there could be something hiding in shadows. Or perched on a peak waiting to drop. Or about to teleport in. Etc. In Cortex+ Heroic the introduction of new scene elements is generally handled by expenditure of dice from the Doom Pool, so that status of the defile as shadowy or well-lit only pertains to the
colour accompanying any such thing.
Players who are worried about threats watch the Doom Pool, which tells them how much latent danger is in the situation; they don't worry about mere colour.
Of course I could have used, as a Scene Distinction, Shadowy Defile Between the Peaks, but I didn't. That different scene distinction would generate different outcomes in some circumstances - eg if a player was using Enhanced Senses to try and establish (say) a Clear View of the Battlefield asset, I could put the Shadowy Defile distinction into the Doom Pool for the opposing roll.
But as it happens I didn't, so I couldn't. But in any event it didn't come up because no one was worried about the lighting in the defile. They were concerned with the wyverns, and their rider and leader: should they fight them or befriend them? (It ended up going <failed attempt to befriend>, <fight which the PCs won>, <grudging agreement to lead them through the mountains>).
if "Narrow Deflie" doesn't have a clear definition somewhere in the system rules
"Narrow Defile" is a natural-language phrase that I made up. Just like Boulders Aplenty, Unpassable Snow, Terrible Drops, Clear Skies, Chill Wind (obviously the last two at least have been used by English speakers before me!, but I was the one who coined them in this context).
Cortex+ Heroic isn't a fully-fledged natural-language descriptor RPG (like HeroWars/Quest, or Maelstrom Storytelling, and probably others I don't know). But it does have a strong streak of that.
doesn't the system limit of so few distinctions - in a scene that might have many - tend to overmuch lead the PCs by the noses to where they need to go?
The scene distinctions tells the players what the GM thinks is interesting here. (Upthread some posters have asked "Does the 'story now' GM not get to exercise any creativity and affect the direction of play?" As [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] has said, the answer is obviously "Of course s/he does!" Here we see one way that manifests in MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic.)
But there is no
need. There is a situation - the GM provides the framing, the players declare actions for their PCs, and we find out what happens. Of course the framing contributes to shaping that: eg it would be odd (although maybe not impossible given the PCs include a character with Supreme Sorcery) for a scene that involves Chill Winds, a Narrow Defile Between the Mountain Peaks, Unpassable Snow, a flight of wyverns, a rider of one wyvern, and Asgeir the chief of the mountain-folk, to end up with the PCs all resting on a sunny beach drinking cocktails with Asgeir. But it wasn't foreordained that it would end with the PCs being guests in the village of the mountain folk, hearing tails of the Earth Giant. Nor was it foreordained that
this would be the event that led the berserker PC to foreswear words (his attempts to sway Asgeir having been unsuccessful, and leaving him looking slightly foolish as his words blew away on the wind).
For example, you only mentioning as distinctions the Furniture, Desk and Box immediately tells me-as-player I can ignore the rug, the papers on the desk, the small chandelier*, the fireplace*, and the faded portraits* on the walls as they've all just been defined as irrelevant. My PC, however, wouldn't know this.
* - not included in my original description but I throw them in now as things that could easily be in such a study
And another example of misinterpretation, in this case of a detailed description: in my narration I state the window looks out to the north, meaning that while the room is daylit it's unlikely to actually be sunlit unless it's early morning or late evening in the summer (and if such was the case I'd have amended the narration to suit). Sunlit vs. daylit makes a huge difference to the ambient light level in the room; only being daylit means there'll be some dark shadowy corners, and with all this dust if someone lights a torch or candle during their search...
Lan-"yeah, there's a reason I mention the dust three or four times in that narration: it's the room's hidden hazard"-efan
In the dusty study scene I narrated a page or three back I'd want a lot more specific detail on what the PCs are doing it and how; and in what sequence if not simultaneously.
Why's that, you ask? Because the room has a hidden-in-plain-sight Hazard (the dust, quite flammable if stirred up and then a flame is put to it) and a resulting fire could damage or destroy various key elements in the room, not least of which might be the very map they seek should it happen to be exposed if-when the room goes up.
Further, with a Hazard like this I-as-DM should place the map ahead of time such that - for continuity purposes; if it wasn't important they wouldn't be looking fo rit - it's in a safer location (e.g. inside the box on the desk) should the room catch fire. But I can't, and thus there's the risk of someone successfully searching the papers on the desk and finding the map there just as someone else lights a torch and *woof!*
As far as the map is concerned, there is no
it's important and so has to be in the box.
But if you want the dust and the lighting to be important, than frame it that way: the action takes place in a room with Pools of Shadow, an Intriguing Box, and Layers of Dust. Then, when a player says something about using a candle or torch or whatever to look in the shadowy areas, spend a die from the Doom Pool to introduce a complication into the scene: Room Ablaze! You can even make it a timer complication, so it starts at the size of the die spent and steps up on is turn, until it gets to d12, and then on its next turn doubles and moves to the Doom Pool (allowing the GM to end the scene).
Or if you want an explosion rather than a timed threat, spend a die to introduce Gunpowder as a distinction that takes an attack (using the Doom Pool) at the end of the action sequence. (Allowing players who still have actions left to take the chance to try to get the powder away from the flame, using their Reflexes or Wind Mastery or whatever abilities.)
There are a lot of GM-side tricks that can be used in Cortex+ Heroic, and for my part I'm still developing my familiarity and capabilities with the full range of them. But they're about spending GM-side resources to introduce various sorts of elements into the scene. In mechanical and resolution terms they have almost nothing in common with writing up a dungeon map and key.
