GM fiat - an illustration

[Bedrockgames]

So what. I really hate this fallacious argument implied by that statement.

"X is on your side, so you all must be in some sort agreement."

What he says has no bearing on what I, @Crimson Longinus, and @Bedrockgames are saying. It only has bearing on what he is saying.

Yeah I think there are significant areas where our views are different than his

 

[Maxperson]

I'm pretty confident I can find posts from you, and @Crimson Longinus, and perhaps also @FrogReaver, that object to describing this as playing to find out the content of the GM's notes. Yet here you are saying that what @hawkeyefan is missing is that the players can declare actions that will prompt the GM to reveal further elements of their notes.

Why do you assume that we have notes?

 

[Bedrockgames]

But this makes the actual mystery the following thing: what answer has the GM written down?

The GM knows, and the other players are trying to learn. And the way that they do that is by declaring actions that prompt the GM to tell them things from their notes - things that conform to, or follow from, the answer that the GM has written down. And the players try to infer from these things the GM says, to what the GM's answer is. The GM's answer thus resembles the cards hidden in the envelope in Clue(do); or the code pegs behind the shield in Mastermind; etc.

But when we spell it out as I have, then it becomes obvious that prompting the GM to reveal their notes by declaring appropriate actions is central to play.

Again, this brings me back to the boxing example. You're not being inaccurate, but this the least interesting way to describe it I would say. And the notes are just there to record what the GM has modeled in their imagination

 

[pemerton]

Why do you assume that we have notes?

I didn't know that you were one of @Bedrockgames, @Crimson Longinus or @FrogReaver.

My post was about their techniques. I don't know how your run "mysteries".

 

[Bedrockgames]

Why do you assume that we have notes?

This is a good point. Different GMs do this sort of thing differently. Not everyone needs notes. I have run mysteries on the fly that were objective but had no notes. I just remembered the details enough that I didn't need to write them. But I do think most of the time GMs are operating on notes of some kind in these situations. Normally I do use notes. But the notes are just a convenient way to record the information. The mystery isn't the notes. Its details might be contained in my notes but the mystery is the thing I imagined happening

 

[pemerton]

Again, this brings me back to the boxing example. You're not being inaccurate, but this the least interesting way to describe it I would say. And the notes are just there to record what the GM has modeled in their imagination

I don't agree with your last sentence. The notes are there to constrain the GM's imagination. They provide the basis for extrapolations, for instance.

Now if you want to say that the "notes" could exist as a series of mental states and resolution by the GM, I'm not going to quibble. Blindfold chess is a thing, after all. But I've never heard of blindfold D&D or blindfold CoC.

This is a good point. Different GMs do this sort of thing differently. Not everyone needs notes. I have run mysteries on the fly that were objective but had no notes. I just remembered the details enough that I didn't need to write them. But I do think most of the time GMs are operating on notes of some kind in these situations. Normally I do use notes. But the notes are just a convenient way to record the information. The mystery isn't the notes. Its details might be contained in my notes but the mystery is the thing I imagined happening

I would hope that you can recognise that notes is a shorthand for fixed ideas about the content of the fiction from which the GM is not at liberty to depart, and which the GM is committed to using as the basis for extrapolation. Or something along those lines.

Without something of that sort, none of your metaphors of objectivity etc make any sense!

 

[Maxperson]

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!

That doesn't affect agency. When I bought my house, I could have just decided with full agency to sign all the documents without bothering to read them. It would have still 100% been my decision(agency) to do so. Having more information doesn't increase my agency, though it might affect the direction I choose to go with my agency.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's not a "model" of solving a real life murder at all. I've never trained as a homicide detective, but I doubt that homicide detectives train by playing through CoC scenarios. (On the other hand, I would expect mystery writers to be better at solving CoC scenarios than the average RPGer, just because they have had more practice at imagining links between bits of information presented in a story to point at the solution to a fictional mystery without actually outright giving it away.)

Again no one is saying that is is a real world simulation. It is however a model of a mystery the players can really solve. Again you keep reducing it to notes on a page and prompts. If that is how you like thinking about it fair enough. I don't think that captures everything that is going on (especially the things the GM has imagined that his notes are meant to be capturing and the interplay between that, the GM, the players, the setting, the NPCs, etc.). You can keep doing it, but I think you are basically just describing it in the most boring and least flattering way possible in order to make a point. It is a very fluid and organic experience and it does have a real mystery for the players to solve at its core

 

[pemerton]

That doesn't affect agency. When I bought my house, I could have just decided with full agency to sign all the documents without bothering to read them. It would have still 100% been my decision(agency) to do so. Having more information doesn't increase my agency, though it might affect the direction I choose to go with my agency.

On this matter I prefer to adopt the analyses and conclusions of economists, lawyers, policy makers etc - who have thought very hard about the nature of agency and choice in a free market - than the view set out in your post.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't agree with your last sentence. The notes are there to constrain the GM's imagination. They provide the basis for extrapolations, for instance.

The notes are a way for the GM to pin down what they have imagined. What they represent are more than just he words on the page. In many instances they are simply prompts for the GM to remember what they have imagined.