GM fiat - an illustration

[pemerton]

Isn't it fair to say that any solvable mystery is simply a matter of gathering evidence and logical deduction from that evidence? That is, all solvable mysteries boil down to basic logic puzzles.

No.

For instance, here's a simple mystery I solved recently: my daughter couldn't find her diary.

I thought about places she had been sitting or had likely been sitting - that is an exercise in memory, together with inferences from my knowledge of the places she likes to sit. And I went to some of those place, and thought about where a book might be placed by someone sitting in them - that is an exercise in reasoning about human behaviour, about the size and shape of books compared to seats and tables and other surfaces. I also kept in mind that the diary couldn't be anywhere so obvious that my daughter would already have noticed it. I found it, after a few minutes, next to a floor cushion.

There was no logical deduction involved. It was all empirical inference.

 

[FrogReaver]

I mean, in the absence of information used to make informed decisions about play, pick moves, play becomes a trivial set of blind choices, right? Even if a game is about a mystery, like Clue, the total lack of relevant information means the moves are a series of blind guesses. In dungeon play isn't the best option to just basically follow a rule like "always go left?" Those are not really choices in a nontrivial sense and thus it is hard to see them bearing on agency.

1. Blind choices can yield information which can then make your next decision meaningful.

2. In terms of agency, a blind choice is no different than a random dice roll. Including either in your game isn't removing player agency. There would be an issue if all the choices were blind or no fiction was produced except via random dice rolls. But that's never the case.

 

[Campbell]

Autonomy and ability to impact your environment in a meaningful way are both necessary conditions to have sufficient agency. I personally that both exist a spectrum where having too much or too little will have a negative impact on play. What I really want is enough autonomy to deal with the situations framed in front of us in the way of our choosing and enough efficacy that we can a meaningful impact that requires us to make good gameplay decisions to achieve what we seek out to achieve.

Too much autonomy and we have no game. Too little and we have no game.
Too much efficacy and we have no game. Too little and we have no game.

 

[FrogReaver]

No.

For instance, here's a simple mystery I solved recently: my daughter couldn't find her diary.

I thought about places she had been sitting or had likely been sitting - that is an exercise in memory, together with inferences from my knowledge of the places she likes to sit. And I went to some of those place, and thought about where a book might be placed by someone sitting in them - that is an exercise in reasoning about human behaviour, about the size and shape of books compared to seats and tables and other surfaces. I also kept in mind that the diary couldn't be anywhere so obvious that my daughter would already have noticed it. I found it, after a few minutes, next to a floor cushion.

There was no logical deduction involved. It was all empirical inference.

Ummm, the exact process you described is logical deduction.... It's a perfect and very detailed example of it.

 

[Maxperson]

Huh? I made a post about market transactions in response to another poster (not you). And you replied with this post, which was about market transactions, not RPGing:
If you didn't want to discuss agency in market transactions, why did you make a post about it?

And it is that post that I am replying to by way of my "Appeal to Authority". And my "Appeal to Authority" is entirely relevant to your post.

Sometimes I forget that you sometimes post things that have nothing to do with the discussion. That was my bad for thinking you posted about legal agency in relation to the topic of RPG agency.

 

[pemerton]

Ummm, the exact process you described is logical deduction.... It's a perfect and very detailed example of it.

When @AbdulAlhazred and I and (I believe) @Pedantic describe Clue(do) as logical deduction, we are using "logic" in the technical sense, to mean reasoning simply by reference to formal relationships between terms and propositions and geometric arrangements - like the examples I gave upthread, of calculating the square root of 169 or working out how white can mate in 3 moves.

The process I described didn't involve any reasoning of that sort. It was all about empirical conjecture and empirical generalisation.

 

[pemerton]

I do, personally, agree that for something to be a...let's call it "sincere mystery" rather than a "true mystery" since that "true" bit there is causing a lot of issues...

Anyway, for something to be a "sincere mystery" to the players, there has to be:

1. An unanswered question that the players really want answered (such as who the perpetrator of a crime was, where a missing person has gone, or what chain of events occurred to result in the observed current situation)
2. A truth-of-the-matter within the fiction: that is, there is a particular answer within the fiction that was true from the very beginning, rather than being authored due to player actions after this specific story begins
3. In-fiction veritable evidence, which may include false leads or intentional deceptions from NPCs, but necessarily must also include evidence which points to the aforementioned truth-of-the-matter consistently, regardless of what actions the players do or do not take

If any of these elements isn't present, then it isn't a mystery to the players. Sort of like how a mystery novel cannot meaningfully be a mystery to the author, because in order for the author to write an effective and compelling mystery narrative for others to read, they have to know too many things for #1 to be true; they already know the answer to the unanswered question.

In the context of a TTRPG, you can have it be the case that there is a genuine unanswered question, but fail to meet one of the other two, which is unlike (most) novels, where it's expected that there be a truth-of-the-matter in most cases and the whole point is to provide a mixture of evidence that the reader must suss out. That is, you can have the group be acting out a mystery from their characters' perspective, but to the players it isn't actually a mystery anymore, it's the group collectively acting as authors for a mystery someone else could experience by reading through a written-down description of what they did.

I don't agree with this.

(I mean, off course you can define "sincere mystery" by stipulation, and then your claim will be tautologically true; but given that you (i) are intending to capture something by the phrase that we all have a sense of independent of your coining of the term, and (ii) are intending the rest of your post to have explanatory power rather than being mere tautology, I am comfortable saying that I disagree.)

One reason I disagree is because your (2) is not coherent. You label it as a truth within the fiction; but then explicate that in terms of non-fictional states of affairs like when the fiction was written.

To see what I am getting at, consider the character Wolverine. Obviously, it was always true within the fiction that he has some-or-other given name. But the readers didn't know that name until Chris Claremont wrote a little exchange with another (then relatively minor) character who addressed him as Logan (I believe this was in Uncanny X-Men 140, the Wendigo issue). The fact that Claremont didn't know what name he was going to give Wolverine until he wrote it, doesn't mean that there was no mystery about Wolverine's real name.

Perhaps by (2) you simply mean, pre-authorship of the answer to the mystery, prior to the play of the mystery starting. Which has nothing to do with in-fiction matters and all is about procedures at the table.

If that is what you mean by (2) then it is false: it is possible to have a mystery which is genuine but not pre-authored. Your analogy to a novel, where the answer can't be a mystery to the author, is inapt because it is possible to have a way of providing answers that is not analogous to writing a novel (either solely, or collectively as a group).

What other ways of playing to find out are there other than relying on random rolls? Player authored fiction? DM authored fiction? Or some combination of these things? How else in an RPG can something be 'found out?'

Obviously I am not @AbdulAlhazred. But I think the answer to your question is much the same as the explanation, in response to @EzekielRaiden, of how an answer to a mystery can be generated without it needing to be pre-authored and yet without it being simply authorial fiat in the moment of play.

To be clear, I don't have in mind here the Brindlewood Bay techniques, which I'm not that familiar with. (I've heard a bit about it, but have never played or read it.)

I'm thinking of the techniques that are used in a game like Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World, which can oblige the GM to narrate things under constraints, which include constraints about following from the fiction already-established in play.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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

Okay, so aside from the GM notes part, how does the rest not pertain to a mystery based game without a fixed solution to the mystery? Those games are also about players being immersed in the solving of a mystery or exploration of an adventure.

Not in my view. The DM is running the entire world and everything in it except the PCs, so they have to represent the closest thing to objective truth in the setting that we're going to get. I know you have a different view though, do I doubt this will get us anywhere.

Yes, I know your view. This is why I offered a semantic argument that portrayed another game type as the “real” way to do mysteries. To show how neither is real, neither deserves to be privileged above the other in that way.

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.

I’m not making any argument. I’m pointing out that you seem to share some of the sentiments that he expresses.

If I found myself on the same side of the conversation… I’d maybe pause and consider that.

Or not… you do you. I was just pointing it out.

I didn't say the GM didn't decide. I said very clearly the GM has imagined the mystery. But I have objected to the note pad metaphor because I don't think it is about working out what the GM has in their notes. It is about exploring the mystery and setting around it, as well the characters, that the GM has mapped in their head. The notes are just a tool to help the GM.

The notes… whether written down or just remembered… are the resolution. They’re more than just a tool. They are the goal.

Everything else you describe here is not unique to this style of gaming that you’re advocating.

I also think the notepad explanation misses out on the nuances of how this plays out at the table (it suggests a much more static scenario, where the GM is not responding fluidly when players do unexpected things).

I don’t think it does. I have no problem at all with this type of game. I enjoy them frequently. One of my best friends loves to run Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green. These games are exactly the kind that you’re talking about. They’re evocative and flavorful and entertaining.

The goal of them is also very often to find out the solution that’s been determined by the GM or the scenario’s writer.

All this talk of immersion and the like is not unique to this type of play. It’s the predetermination that’s the differentiator.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't agree with this.

(I mean, off course you can define "sincere mystery" by stipulation, and then your claim will be tautologically true; but given that you (i) are intending to capture something by the phrase that we all have a sense of independent of your coining of the term, and (ii) are intending the rest of your post to have explanatory power rather than being mere tautology, I am comfortable saying that I disagree.)

One reason I disagree is because your (2) is not coherent. You label it as a truth within the fiction; but then explicate that in terms of non-fictional states of affairs like when the fiction was written.

To see what I am getting at, consider the character Wolverine. Obviously, it was always true within the fiction that he has some-or-other given name. But the readers didn't know that name until Chris Claremont wrote a little exchange with another (then relatively minor) character who addressed him as Logan (I believe this was in Uncanny X-Men 140, the Wendigo issue). The fact that Claremont didn't know what name he was going to give Wolverine until he wrote it, doesn't mean that there was no mystery about Wolverine's real name.

Perhaps by (2) you simply mean, pre-authorship of the answer to the mystery, prior to the play of the mystery starting. Which has nothing to do with in-fiction matters and all is about procedures at the table.

If that is what you mean by (2) then it is false: it is possible to have a mystery which is genuine but not pre-authored. Your analogy to a novel, where the answer can't be a mystery to the author, is inapt because it is possible to have a way of providing answers that is not analogous to writing a novel (either solely, or collectively as a group).

Obviously I am not @AbdulAlhazred. But I think the answer to your question is much the same as the explanation, in response to @EzekielRaiden, of how an answer to a mystery can be generated without it needing to be pre-authored and yet without it being simply authorial fiat in the moment of play.

To be clear, I don't have in mind here the Brindlewood Bay techniques, which I'm not that familiar with. (I've heard a bit about it, but have never played or read it.)

The three points may not be perfectly coherently described, but the fundamental disconnect remains.

There is a clear difference between any two of:

1. Portraying Sherlock Holmes in a stage adaptation of Hound of the Baskervilles (or any other specific mystery)
2. Reading a Sherlock Holmes mystery you've never read before, trying to figure out the real perpetrator as you read
3. Writing a Sherlock Holmes "whodunnit" yourself, which you hope someone else might enjoy reading and solving

Only #2 actually involves the personal act of "solve a mystery". #1 doesn't involve any solving because the task the person is attempting to complete is performance, not mystery-solving. #3 doesn't involve any solving, because the person in question already knows the answer in advance; they are instead producing a mystery for someone else to solve.

I don't see why these three don't correspond to the pure "no-myth" detective game/experience (you're portraying a detective, but you aren't doing mystery-solving; you're telling a detective story, but you aren't doing detective work yourself), a "some-myth" detective game/experience (you are both portraying a detective trying to solve a mystery, and also doing mystery-solving yourself), and finally a player-authorship of a mystery and then deciding what the solution was on the basis of past fiction and the like.

I'm thinking of the techniques that are used in a game like Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World, which can oblige the GM to narrate things under constraints, which include constraints about following from the fiction already-established in play.

I have never seen any of these things that actually achieve what you describe--doesn't mean they aren't there, I'm just not sure what in particular you're talking about that could achieve this.

Separately, I don't see how those constraints lead to the thing that seems necessary to me here. To solve a mystery as a player, the player needs to be able to reason about evidence, verify whether that evidence is reliable, and build a case that pursues the truth. How can there be a truth if it's genuinely not determinate until someone declares it so? Whether they declare it in a way that conforms to prior experience or not, it's still being declared, not being revealed. Whether there are or aren't rules that shape the choice, if there is no truth, there can be no mystery.

Like...consider a math test. It isn't and can't be a test to the person who wrote it, because they need to know what the answers to the questions are in order to grade the test. It is a test to a student, because there is a knowable answer (against which their performance can be compared). You could, of course, have a game where you are acting as a student who is taking a test, and follow rules and the established fiction to decide what the warranted result of finishing the test would be, but the player isn't personally doing the process of take-a-test, they are narrating a story about someone who is taking a test, and what consequences might follow from the taking of that test.

I'm not saying this is in any way an invalid way to play games, it absolutely is perfectly fine. But I can entirely understand why a person would say, "I want to be personally doing the task of solve-a-mystery, in addition to playing a character who is solving a mystery."

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sometimes I forget that you sometimes post things that have nothing to do with the discussion. That was my bad for thinking you posted about legal agency in relation to the topic of RPG agency.

Mod Note:

How in the world is this post in accordance with ENWorld’s rules about civility? Not making things personal?

Do better going forward, please.