GM fiat - an illustration

[bloodtide]

Continuing with the mystery story meme, suppose I were to think about a game where one of the players is a real-life police detective. Do you think your murder mystery seems at all real to them? I doubt it would.

Well, yes, a real mystery is a real mystery to all. And the part were the real life police detective sits down and pieces together clues to solve a mystery is the same when any human does it.

I don't know why this is such a controversial point. Again no one is saying it is genuinely real, or that it is like real world police work (though I did once go to the Boston FBI field office to do research, and was able to ask about things like evidence collection, for one of my games and so I think it is possible to elevate some of the realism in certain ways). What we are saying is there is a difference between a game where the solution to the mystery is generated and entirely unknowable at the start of play, to one where the GM has established that fact and treats all of the facts of the investigation as objective facts that can be discovered. The aim of the former is not for the players to actually solve the mystery, the aim of the latter is for them to actually solve the mystery. None of this is commentary on the quality of either approach, both have their advantages and disadvantages, and there are also plenty of options between these two extremes).

I for one see a huge difference between:

1)The players must solve a real mystery for real
And
2)The players just do random game play until it is randomly decided in some fashion to stop.

And I would say the fist one is better, but it does not make doing the second one badwrongfun or anything.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You too have rules and procedures for who invents what!

Its just the case that you have decided that the GM invents most before play, the players invent little during play, and from what little they do, the GM gets to cherry pick which ones stick to what he invented before play.

To me it's like real life in that way. The people solving the mystery don't get to decide what the answer to the mystery is, either individually or collectively. They have to interact with the setting and figure it out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Indeed.



Not quite accurate. Regardless, my point about what is and isn't a real mystery stands. Now if you feel, (and I think you do) that this what I call "real mystery solving" is not that important, and by giving up on it you can bring into the game something you find more valuable, then that is of course perfectly fine.

But I believe (though it has been awhile, so who knows) that this tangent started when it was pointed out that there is a trade-off. This is how these threads always go. A narrativist tells that their way of doing things is better. Someone points out that sure, you could do it that way, but then you lose X. And then the narrativist for some reason cannot accept this, they argue for dozens of pages how X isn't real or whatever, instead of just saying "Sure, but I don't really care about X that much, so I prefer this method."

It does seem that these threads would be a lot shorter if folks just came out and said "this is my preference, but yours is just as valid for you as mine is for me".

 

[Bedrockgames]

I very strongly disagree with your last sentence.

I don't expect you to agree with that sentence

What is true is that in the latter, the aim is not to learn what the GM pre-authored.

I agree the aim in the latter is for the players to solve the Mystery

 

[Micah Sweet]

I very strongly disagree with your last sentence.

What is true is that in the latter, the aim is not to learn what the GM pre-authored.

How can you solve a mystery if you and the other PCs are creating it as you go? Isn't that collaborative storytelling and acting?

 

[pemerton]

How can you solve a mystery if you and the other PCs are creating it as you go? Isn't that collaborative storytelling and acting?

Assuming that by "PCs" you mean players/participants, than obviously you can't.

That's why I use RPGs instead of collective fiction-writing.

It does seem that these threads would be a lot shorter if folks just came out and said "this is my preference, but yours is just as valid for you as mine is for me".

When people assert that certain things are "objectively real", or that only their approach to RPGing can involve solving a mystery, they seem to be saying things other than simply what they prefer.

 

[pemerton]

In case anyone is interested in an actual example of play in which (i) there was no pre-authored backstory which the players were trying to discover, and (ii) the players played a game in which they as their PCs solved a mystery, here is an example: Cthulhu Dark - another session

The RPG used was CthulhuDark. You can find the rules here, and they're very short (about 4 pages) and so easily read: http://catchyourhare.com/files/Cthulhu Dark.pdf

As set out on those 4 pages, the rules don't state a complete system: they are incomplete in their instructions on how to frame scenes, and how to establish consequences. In the example of play that I've linked to, I was basically following Burning Wheel and Prince Valiant norms.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That's why I use RPGs instead of collective fiction-writing.

However, the style of RPG play you prefer has many qualities of the latter.

When people assert that certain things are "objectively real", or that only their approach to RPGing can involve solving a mystery, they seem to be saying things other than simply what they prefer.

Indeed, such as "words mean things." People are are not having your usual semantic obscurantism.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Assuming that by "PCs" you mean players/participants, than obviously you can't.

That's why I use RPGs instead of collective fiction-writing.

When people assert that certain things are "objectively real", or that only their approach to RPGing can involve solving a mystery, they seem to be saying things other than simply what they prefer.

I don't understand what you're saying about RPGs vs. Collective fiction-writing. Your version of RPG play, like storytelling, has the mystery's answer created during active play. That's the part I see as incompatible with solving a mystery (as fun as it may be for you and yours).

And I think it's obvious that a person's preference is going to be considered better for them, otherwise it wouldn't really be their preference.

 

[Bedrockgames]

When people assert that certain things are "objectively real", or that only their approach to RPGing can involve solving a mystery, they seem to be saying things other than simply what they prefer.

The language of calling it objective and real is not meant as an assault on other approaches. The point of taking this approach is you want to have players who really feel like they are solving a real mystery. And you have objective details about that mystery so that they are actually solving something. The downside to this approach is it is rarely or never going to play out like an Agatha Christie Novel or have the emotional impact and drama of using something like Hillfolk (and I am just using that game because it is the one I am most familiar with). I used my own sessions as an example and the reason I was cludging Hillfolk onto RBRB was because I wanted to the session to feel more like the movie Blood Parrot. And it succeeded in giving it that feel. The only downside of the approach was because the mystery was being authored through dialogue there wasn't an objective mystery and the players weren't really solving it (it was more like they were discovering it). But the point of the session was never to have them actually solve the mystery it was to play out an exciting wuxia mystery adventure that felt cinematic

Also none of this is to say with some modification, the Hillfolk approach couldn't have preserved an objective mystery that the players discovered. There may have needed to be other ground rules in order to sustain a sense of real investigation while they are also authoring through dialogue. But I had a friend after who was more familiar with the system give me some pointers on how to achieve this.

The only real reason why I even raised this point was to talk about information and agency and I was simply trying to make the point that more out of character information doesn't always increase agency because sometimes you need limits on out of character knowledge to make meaningful choices in a mystery. And I used "real mystery" to describe this style of play because the point of it is the players want to be actually solving it (which they can't do if they have omniscient knowledge of the scenario).