GM fiat - an illustration

[Bedrockgames]

What if we look at it another way.

A mystery is something unknown, right?

So isn’t the only way to do a real mystery for nobody to know the answer? So that it’s actually a mystery to all parties in the game?

I mean… I suppose you could say that’s an example of me trying to use semantics to show that my way is real and other ways are not. And you’d be right.

Now apply that same logic to the idea of what anyone else says about a real mystery.

The problem with this is in the example we are giving, people actually are solving a mystery. Their theory of who did it can eb tested against the established facts the GM has about what happened and who is guilty.

However, I am not saying you can't run a mystery where people are discovering an unknown is collectively. But that was never a mystery to be solved. It is one they collectively engineered to gather. Like I said it is kind of the like the difference between a mystery novel where the writer has taken pains to establish what happened before writing it, so that the reader has opportunities to perceive clues and guess before the end of the book, and one where the writer is just making it up as they go (and none of the clues would have any real predictive power)

 

[pemerton]

I think this both misses some of the nuance and frames it in a way that just doesn't match what the experience. It is like describing a boxing match as two men swinging their arms till one falls down.

A textbook description of eating is not the same as the experience of eating. That's a truism.

@hawkeyefan is not trying to evoke the feeling of being there. He's trying to analyse the process of game play. He's writing as a technician, not a poet.

And in fact his analysis is not like your putative analysis of boxing. Your description of boxing does not include any account of purpose, or of what follows from that - all sorts of choices about how to stand, how to move, etc.

But to talk about the players declaring actions so as to prompt the GM to reveal elements of their notes does include the relevant purpose.

It isn't that you are simply prompting the GM to say something. The GM has modeled a crime, who committed it, what evidence they left, etc. There is a mental map of this thing and that model is what people are talking about when they say it is real (and again, to be clear, no one is saying it takes on real world substance; just that the idea of it is concrete and objective). The process of solving it is also real. The players are deducing facts, they are going to locations in the game, discovering clues, putting those clues together. And they can be wrong or right in their deductions.

But the players don't go to locations. They stay in the same location. The players imagine characters going to locations. And the GM shares that imagination. And this is precisely what determines what bits of their notes the GM is obliged to reveal.

No one denies that the players are reasoning. For instance, the GM tells them "You see blood in the kitchen sink". The players then perform reasoning like blood is a sign of injury, blood is a sign of a stabbing, blood loss causes ill-health, ill people go to hospitals, etc - and they then make conjectures as to what actions they should declare for their PCs so as to get more information from the GM.

Of course, this can break down - perhaps the GM hasn't thought about the hospital angle, and so has nothing prepared to say, if a player says that their PC goes to the hospital looking for stabbing victims. And I think part of @hawkeyefan's reason for saying there is no real mystery is to make this sort of point. In the real world, in a real mystery, there is some fact of the matter about who was where when, about whether or not anyone ever went to a hospital. But in the sort of gameplay we are talking about, the real facts are facts about what the GM has authored. And these may not cover every inference or conjecture that the players make. In the real world, if I go to a hospital trying to find out about stabbing victims, and someone at the desk gives me the brush-off, then there is a fact of the matter about whether they don't know, don't care, are protecting private information, are part of a conspiracy, etc. But in the game play, if my PC goes to the hospital and the GM has a NPC give me a brush-off, perhaps what is happening is that the GM is trying to get play "back on track". And if the GM hasn't authored anything further, there is no fact of the matter about what the brush-off means in terms of solving the mystery via play, even though we are all presumably committed to the principle that, in the fiction, the NPC has some or other motivation.

In mystery-solving play, the sort of issue I've just described is somewhat analogous to those parts of the Alarm spell identified in the OP as requiring GM fiat to resolve.

 

[pemerton]

You are using agency in a way that is unnatural when it comes to the way most of us are using it. I have 100% agency in the real world by the definition I use. I do not know everything or every scenario. Knowing more doesn't increase my agency at all.

Thankfully, the legislators who added to the law of contracts by mandating truthfulness and disclosures in the context of consumer contracts, real estate contracts, etc didn't agree with you!

 

[Bedrockgames]

A textbook description of eating is not the same as the experience of eating. That's a truism.

Bur solving a mystery isn't analogous to eating. To really eat something I have to actually eat. To solve something, I dont' physically need to investigate. We can do it as a mental exercise

@hawkeyefan is not trying to evoke the feeling of being there. He's trying to analyse the process of game play. He's writing as a technician, not a poet.

And in fact his analysis is not like your putative analysis of boxing. Your description of boxing does not include any account of purpose, or of what follows from that - all sorts of choices about how to stand, how to move, etc.

But to talk about the players declaring actions so as to prompt the GM to reveal elements of their notes does include the relevant purpose.

Except it doesn't. Because the purpose here isnt' to simply have the GM reveal note content. It is for the players to be immersed in in the solving of a mystery or exploration of an adventure. The notes are a tool. Not the end in itself

But the players don't go to locations. They stay in the same location. The players imagine characters going to locations. And the GM shares that imagination. And this is precisely what determines what bits of their notes the GM is obliged to reveal.

but the notes also form a mental model. The point is you can objectively explore these locations and objectively solve the mystery. It isnt' teh same as literally being in those locations. But it is more objective than if these details are amorphous. But it also not limited to that. There will be necessary extrapolation and invention along the way. IN a mystery, what wouldn't be altered are the core details of the mystery and what happened

No one denies that the players are reasoning. For instance, the GM tells them "You see blood in the kitchen sink". The players then perform reasoning like blood is a sign of injury, blood is a sign of a stabbing, blood loss causes ill-health, ill people go to hospitals, etc - and they then make conjectures as to what actions they should declare for their PCs so as to get more information from the GM.

Of course, this can break down - perhaps the GM hasn't thought about the hospital angle, and so has nothing prepared to say, if a player says that their PC goes to the hospital looking for stabbing victims. And I think part of @hawkeyefan's reason for saying there is no real mystery is to make this sort of point. In the real world, in a real mystery, there is some fact of the matter about who was where when, about whether or not anyone ever went to a hospital. But in the sort of gameplay we are talking about, the real facts are facts about what the GM has authored. And these may not cover every inference or conjecture that the players make. In the real world, if I go to a hospital trying to find out about stabbing victims, and someone at the desk gives me the brush-off, then there is a fact of the matter about whether they don't know, don't care, are protecting private information, are part of a conspiracy, etc. But in the game play, if my PC goes to the hospital and the GM has a NPC give me a brush-off, perhaps what is happening is that the GM is trying to get play "back on track". And if the GM hasn't authored anything further, there is no fact of the matter about what the brush-off means in terms of solving the mystery via play, even though we are all presumably committed to the principle that, in the fiction, the NPC has some or other motivation.

In mystery-solving play, the sort of issue I've just described is somewhat analogous to those parts of the Alarm spell identified in the OP as requiring GM fiat to resolve.

Again, no one is claiming a perfect model of a real life murder. They are trying to create the best possible one they can for players to investigate, explore, and solve. And the more they run them, the more they create them, the better they generally get at it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

And in fact his analysis is not like your putative analysis of boxing. Your description of boxing does not include any account of purpose, or of what follows from that - all sorts of choices about how to stand, how to move, etc.

His doesn't either. It just describes part of the process. This is why I said it was like describing boxing as people swinging their arms till someone falls down. But it was just an analogy to make a point about how you can describe something and miss a lot of the details that really matter. My point was this way of explaining the GM style, misses a lot of the stuff that matters

 

[pemerton]

If the GM hands the player the dungeon map, do they suddenly have more agency? I don't think they do (in the sense of what agency generally means in an RPG).

I ask again what is the point of play? As I already posted upthread, Moldvay Basic (at p B4) notes that, over time, the players' map will come to more-and-more closely resemble the GM's map. That is one of the goals of play - to create an accurate map of the dungeon. So handing over the map at the start would be self-defeating - the game would become impossible. (One of the beauty's of Moldvay's presentation of the game, and to a lesser extent Gygax's in his AD&D rulebooks, is that they are not coy about the goals of play, and aren't afraid to talk about things in terms of what play actually involves in the real world, as opposed to relying on references to fictional cause and effect.)

A rough analogue to open-map classic D&D would be playing bridge with all the cards on display. This is something that is often done as a teaching tool: instead of having to infer to the hidden information from the bidding and the subsequent play, play becomes purely logical (like, say, solving a chess puzzle for white to mate in 3 moves). And so it can be used to explain how the relationships between the cards, the lead, the winning of tricks, etc all works. But it's not really playing bridge.

But if the point of RPG play dos not include solving architectural puzzles, then revealing the map can easily make play better. Over the past several years I've used a few pre-prepared maps in my Classic Traveller game (from the modules Shadows, Annic Nova, and Amber to Red), and on each case I haven't bothered to keep them secret from the players. Because puzzling out the architecture of the installation or the plan of the vessel simply wasn't a point of play.

To speak more generally: RPGs, in general, don't involve a focus on discovering initially-secret architecture. That's a distinct D&D-ism, and its carryover into other contexts of play is in my view not that helpful. I mean, I have CoC modules with maps and keys in them just like TSR dungeon modules, and it's a bit silly. It just gets in the way of the actual focus of play (in those modules, generally, piecing together bits of information found in written records, by way of interview, or by looking in cupboards).

 

[Bedrockgames]

To speak more generally: RPGs, in general, don't involve a focus on discovering initially-secret architecture. That's a distinct D&D-ism, and its carryover into other contexts of play is in my view not that helpful. I mean, I have CoC modules with maps and keys in them just like TSR dungeon modules, and it's a bit silly. It just gets in the way of the actual focus of play (in those modules, generally, piecing together bits of information found in written records, by way of interview, or by looking in cupboards).

Well it certainly isn't in every RPG. I don't do a lot of this kind of mapping in an organized crime campaign. But it isn't unique to D&D either. Lots of RPGs feature this kind of secret architecture. I think even in Call of Cthulhu it has a place. It isn't like Lovecraft never had something analogous to an underground passage or chamber that could be discovered. And dungeon-like structures show up in all kinds of games and genres (there is a staple of something very much like a dungeon for example in wuxia movies and books-----most people don't think of that when they think of the genre, and it isn't usually the focus but trapped underground tombs, fortresses and chambers can be a big part of it)

 

[Bedrockgames]

But if the point of RPG play dos not include solving architectural puzzles, then revealing the map can easily make play better. Over the past several years I've used a few pre-prepared maps in my Classic Traveller game (from the modules Shadows, Annic Nova, and Amber to Red), and on each case I haven't bothered to keep them secret from the players. Because puzzling out the architecture of the installation or the plan of the vessel simply wasn't a point of play.

I am not denying this at all. I was just making the point to show that more knowledge doesn't always mean more agency

 

[pemerton]

This above just doesn't seem helpful to any broad discussion of TTRPGing. It also seems to obscure or mystify what is actually happening in these games.

Only a certain from of TTRPGing is contingent upon:

* freeform puzzle solving where players explore a GM-exclusive prefabricated conception of an imagined space and that GM's attempts at deftly veiled elucidation of content in order to prompt clues, reveals, exposition dumps and then attempt puzzle solves.

* freeform, conflict-neutral or premise-neutral play (or sometimes free of both) where color, affect, and overall performance of participants are central (at least in isolated chunks) as participants explore or give expression to mundane & benign "goings-ons."

* social pressure-enforcement along with techniques deployed (no orientaint/clarifying meta-conversation, GM vetting "what you would know" as a fundamental part of player's decision loop, GM rolling behind a screen, "blind" action resolution numbers) to constrain player POV thereby limiting information expressed or acted upon to only that which the table perceives and agrees "the character would know."

But even within this particular form of TTRPGing, there are ways to evaluate how expansion or contraction of player POV expands

I interpreted the rest of your post as saying that Torchbearer 2e is one of those ways that is particularly well-developed!

 

[pemerton]

I would call Clue just a pretty basic logic puzzle. I recall realizing this around age 6. If you index all the answers to all the players guesses you can derive the contents of the envelope. It is really just an exercise in note-taking at that point. It's about as much a 'mystery' as working out the product of 2 10 digit numbers, you just grind through an algorithm and get the answer.

Clue does have a game component, rolling dice and disrupting other players be guessing their character into the wrong room, but the solution to the game is just logic.

I think this post - whether deliberately or by good fortune - interacts with @Manbearcat's post that I quoted just upthread, about the constraints the make for robust exploration-oriented gamist play.

You correctly state that Cluedo (as it is known in my country) is just a logic puzzle.

And if Moldvay Basic had no components to play other than the players declaring their PCs' interactions with and movements within the architecture, then the game of getting the players' map to match the GM's map would require nothing but (i) patience, and (ii) a moderate skill at Pictionary-esque parlour games.

Now, introduce treasure + gold-for-XP, and there is a new goal to go with the mapping goal. But if that's all there is, then again all that is required is time/patience, and parlour-game skill. If you do end up searching everywhere, and looking behind every tapestry to find every hidden clue, then you will get all the treasure (assuming that the dungeon is self-contained, and assuming that the GM allows re-rolls to find secret doors after the passage of a certain amount of time/play).

But Moldvay Basic introduces other elements of the game besides the mapping and the hidden treasure: there are passive threats (traps), active threats (monsters), the wandering monster clock, and the hit point "clock". (The game includes rations and waterskins on its equipment list, but - to its detriment - doesn't have a food/water clock.) There is a bit of randomness here, and more importantly (in my view) enough complexity that the game is not easily solvable, at least until the players start taking genre-breaking steps like you "search-and-sniff" (? have I got it right?) and dungeon-crew procedures (of blasting everything with burning oil, then proceeding very slowly, protected by mantlets and the like, etc) at which point we're back to play being a patience-demanding parlour game

The conclusion I draw from the preceding analysis is that what makes for satisfying game play in classic D&D is the interplay of hidden information with other aspects, and especially the two clocks. The parlour game aspect on its own can be fun, especially if the fictional situation is a very complicated one (like the various trick rooms in White Plume Mountain) - but I think something like Tomb of Horrors (which has basically no clocks) shows the limits of the parlour-game approach.

I also conclude that, once/if players adopt the sorts of approaches-to-a-solve that your group did, we need to find a different approach to RPGing if it is going to be fun.