AbdulAlhazred
Legend
I think you are taking things a bit too literally here. I am definitely not arguing that people are figuring out how it would really play out if this fictional setting was modeling real world causality. All I am saying is when the GM makes a determination, "What do I think would really happen here" is a perfectly valid way to decide, and it can result in a world that feels believable. I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that the GM is somehow tapping into what would really happen. It is a judgement call. I think that you have the same person making this judgement over the course of the campaign does tend to produce a sense of a consistent world. But no one is claiming perfection here. We are just claiming it is perfectly fine and works for our purposes. Also you can make that judgement using any number of criteria: what would be most cinematic? What would be mosts genre appropriate? What would be the most exciting? What would be the most scary? etc. You can even combine these things: What would really happen and ALSO be exciting?
Sure, and as I say, I think there is coherency, which dictates that at the very least the players are able to look at what they know about the game world and come up with a determination of what they will find when they go into the inn. All of the possible criteria can be factored there too, though it is certainly a positive when you can say "well, the CHARACTERS line of reasoning was..." and it doesn't come across as completely absurd (because, again coherency, if my character's personality and story are based on internally inconsistent material its hard to understand or portray).
I don't think you and I, and probably a lot of the other people around here, are really saying anything too different. I do think some people put more emphasis on this idea than seems needed by me, but its just different strokes.