But the point of this isn't to say solving a real mystery better than other approaches at all.
I’m not saying that you said one is better than the other.
My point all along is that both are equally real.
Using the realness to differentiate the two is mistaken.
But I think the the concept that this is about really solving a mystery, is crucial to understanding the difference. That doesn't mean it is better. Like I said, you aren't going to get something that likely feels like an Agatha Christie novel using this method. The point of the method isn't to emulate the feel and flow of an Agatha Christie novel, it is to let the players engage with the game of solving a mystery (and that could fall apart, it could end up being unexciting, it would be confusing, etc). There have been lots of advice written to avoid many of the problems and whole systems have been created to get around the problems (Esoterrorist and Gumshoe are system solutions to the problem of things like the missed clue).
Sure but this is also the point of games that don’t have predetermined answers for everything in a mystery. Those games are about the players engaging with solving a mystery.
I didn't balk at this example. I used this example. I said this approach is like a mystery novel where the author has established all the facts from the beginning so he is working with an objective truth of what happened, that can inform the rest of the book, allowing the reader to guess.
I balked at the GMs notes procedural description
Yes, you balk at the description of learning what the author has predetermined. In RPG phrasing we’d call that learning what the GM predetermined, or learning what’s in the GM’s notes.
It’s very clearly what is happening, but for some odd reason you don’t want to say that… even though it’s the crux of your insistence that the mystery is real.
I really don't
@hawkeyefan, and I wish you could at least see that I am sincere about this, and that many people find this kind of language illuminating and not at all obscure. Since the first days of the hobby people have used very different language to try to describe what the hobby is because it is a difficult concept to wrap our heads around. And people use different modes of analysis to understand the hobby. It is pretty clear that a lot of the difficulty is the fact that we come from different approaches. I don't think my way is better than yours. I don't believe I have found the one true answer to addressing these questions. I just think people are different and think differently about hobby. It is totally fine with me that you have a different approach. And I understand that my approach doesn't work for you for whatever reason. But by the same token, your approach doesn't work for me
I don’t think that’s the case. I will happily play in a trad mystery game like Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green, or any number of other trad games that may have a mystery scenario. I have no problem with that kind of play, and indeed, I understand the fun.
But I don’t make the mistake of considering that approach more real. I have recognized that cause and effect in fiction is a construct of the author. It isn’t real. It may be something that guides the author or GM in his decision making… he likely considers cause and effect throughout his process… but that doesn’t mean that cause and effect is actually at play.
Likewise, games that don’t rely on predetermined GM decisions also apply cause and effect. If we’ve previously learned that the widow Barnes was in the company of several people at the Velvet Room, then we know she can’t have been anywhere else during that time. Cause and effect still matters in informing the “facts” of the case.
Neither one is good or bad, and I know you accept that… but neither is actually solving a mystery.
