GM fiat - an illustration

[hawkeyefan]

It is because we feel, or at least it seems, when you break things down to incremental steps and parts as you do, it is reductive and misses a lot of the nuances of ‘trad play’. That is why we prefer natural language and language you find vague. We think more precise language overlooks details that might be more subtle or even unconscious. It is five if you want to take a scientific approach but maybe do it with less hubris?

Hubris? I play plenty of trad games. I understand the appeal of them, both from GMing and playing. Like with the mystery scenario… there’s a different element of skilled play going on. It’s the working out of the puzzle. Like I said, it’s not a kind of play I’m crazy about, but I understand the appeal.

It’s a similar one to successfully navigating a dungeon. Of facing a specific obstacle or series of obstacles and seeing if you can come out on top.

But it’s clearly GM-driven. By its very nature, it must be so. Someone has to create the set obstacles.

Also this isn’t a style fight. All people are saying is there are scenarios where the players are really trying to solve a mystery that exists as an objective thing in the setting. That isn’t even about trad play versus other styles of play

I think that many trad proponents mistake GM decisions for truths. Which is the pitfall of simulationism, and I think also of this idea of a “real” mystery.

The experience of things feeling real will vary by preference. This is why I’m pushing to separate the experiential quality from the actual process.

 

[soviet]

It is because we feel, or at least it seems, when you break things down to incremental steps and parts as you do, it is reductive and misses a lot of the nuances of ‘trad play’. That is why we prefer natural language and language you find vague. We think more precise language overlooks details that might be more subtle or even unconscious. It is five if you want to take a scientific approach but maybe do it with less hubris?

Also this isn’t a style fight. All people are saying is there are scenarios where the players are really trying to solve a mystery that exists as an objective thing in the setting. That isn’t even about trad play versus other styles of play

I mean, it exists as an objective thing in the GM's notes. I'm not quite sure it's the same thing. The setting does not exist as an entity independent of the GM's notes and any further ideas that participants in the game might add to it.

This discussion reminds me of discussions around social conflict rules. Some people feel that because diplomacy or intimidation or whatever involve talking, and players and GMs can talk, that in-character roleplay is a close enough approximation to the real thing that we can resolve things organically and no social conflict rules are necessary.

Personally I think that in-character conversation misses out a lot of the pressures and consequences of real life social interactions, and I don't think it's a good replacement for effective social mechanics at all. BUT, I do also think that in-character conversation is fun, and adds a lot to the game, and so I use the two things in parallel (one impacting the other).

Now I know that no-one is talking about replacing all interaction with a 'solve mysteries' roll. The analogy isn't perfect. But what strikes me is that there is a similar approximation issue. I think that yes, a GM can create a fun puzzle to solve within their notes that has an objective solution, and that through interacting with the GM's notes and characters etc the players can feel a real sense of satisfaction in solving that puzzle. But I take the point also that this is an approximation of a real mystery, in the same way I think that a roleplayed conversation is an approximation of a real social conflict. There is a lot of depth, nuance, frustration, etc in a real life mystery that cannot possibly be present in a roleplayed mystery, including (as has been pointed out) the frustration that many real life mysteries do not have a detectable solution, and do not have further clues that can conveniently emerge if the assigned mystery-solvers seem to be hitting a brick wall.

Just food for thought. I don't have a strong opinion on this. I'm not even sure which 'side' I'm on, to the extent there are 'sides'. I've only ever played these scenarios in games where the identity of the murderer etc is a pre-authored fact. I've never read Brindlewood Bay or the like, although I am interested to know more about how these games work.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It is because we feel, or at least it seems, when you break things down to incremental steps and parts as you do, it is reductive and misses a lot of the nuances of ‘trad play’. That is why we prefer natural language and language you find vague. We think more precise language overlooks details that might be more subtle or even unconscious. It is five if you want to take a scientific approach but maybe do it with less hubris?

Also this isn’t a style fight. All people are saying is there are scenarios where the players are really trying to solve a mystery that exists as an objective thing in the setting. That isn’t even about trad play versus other styles of play

I mean, I don't think @hawkeyefan is in any way incorrect with this analysis. What you call the "nuances" pretty much are just DMing with good grace by an unspoken gentleman's agreement, which by its unspoken nature can never be reviewed, challenged, critiqued, or even meaningfully responded to by players. They must either shut up and deal with it, raise a stink in hope that something changes, or beat feet. Those aren't exactly great options; the first is perilously close to "not gaming is better than bad gaming", the second will get demonized exactly as we see in replies above this one, and the third is "not gaming is better than bad gaming" (and, despite many claims to the contrary, people will ALSO demonize this! I've seen it from the very people who claim that any player who isn't happy should quit the table.)

This doesn't necessarily mean you need to construct a technical jargon of your own. But it does kinda mean you need to respond with more than "but there's maaaagic in it you're missing" because that's not, in any way, a rebuttal or meaningful response. It's the sophisticated, grown up version of the playground "nuh-uh!", an insistence that the person who actually made a full argument is Just Wrong without anything substantive to back it up.

So...pursue an answer that isn't vague. It doesn't have to use complex technical vocab. But specificity and clarity are essential if you want to actually rent a claim in a debate. Right now, "well, all your sciencey talk is hubris because you're missing the unconscious part of play!" reads like "I don't have an answer but I'm 100% sure you're wrong anyway" and that's not really a very persuasive argument.

And to be clear, I agree that there are differences here. I've said as much throughout the thread. Rules that set patterns for how new fiction gets authored are not, to my eyes, comparable to things like the rules of mathematics or logic, because even the most stringent fiction-introduction rules are worlds less stringent than (say) disjunction elimination or applying L'Hôpital's rule. They depend, critically and unavoidably, on purely elective and creative acts, and I don't see the creation of a new (fictional) truth as being the same thing as discovering a truth that was always there to begin with by reasoning (abductive, inductive, deductive) from evidence about it.

But responding to an argument with "well all your fancy words just get in the way of gut feeling" isn't going to accomplish much of anything. In fact, I suspect it will be taken as a concession that you don't have an actual response to the argument made.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Now I know that no-one is talking about replacing all interaction with a 'solve mysteries' roll. The analogy isn't perfect. But what strikes me is that there is a similar approximation issue. I think that yes, a GM can create a fun puzzle to solve within their notes that has an objective solution, and that through interacting with the GM's notes and characters etc the players can feel a real sense of satisfaction in solving that puzzle. But I take the point also that this is an approximation of a real mystery, in the same way I think that a roleplayed conversation is an approximation of a real social conflict. There is a lot of depth, nuance, frustration, etc in a real life mystery that cannot possibly be present in a roleplayed mystery, including (as has been pointed out) the frustration that many real life mysteries do not have a detectable solution, and do not have further clues that can conveniently emerge if the assigned mystery-solvers seem to be hitting a brick wall.

Again I wouldn't use the language you are using around GM's notes. But that aside: no one is saying it is anything other than an approximation of a real mystery. This is a point we have repeated in almost every post because it keeps getting brought up as an argument. The argument has not been: this exactly like solving a real world mystery.

 

[soviet]

Again I wouldn't use the language you are using around GM's notes. But that aside: no one is saying it is anything other than an approximation of a real mystery. This is a point we have repeated in almost every post because it keeps getting brought up as an argument. The argument has not been: this exactly like solving a real world mystery.

OK, but to me the language you've used such as 'the players are really trying to solve a mystery that exists as an objective thing in the setting' goes beyond this. That sentence does not seem to concede this is an approximation at all.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I mean, I don't think @hawkeyefan is in any way incorrect with this analysis. What you call the "nuances" pretty much are just DMing with good grace by an unspoken gentleman's agreement, which by its unspoken nature can never be reviewed, challenged, critiqued, or even meaningfully responded to by players. They must either shut up and deal with it, raise a stink in hope that something changes, or beat feet. Those aren't exactly great options; the first is perilously close to "not gaming is better than bad gaming", the second will get demonized exactly as we see in replies above this one, and the third is "not gaming is better than bad gaming" (and, despite many claims to the contrary, *people will ALSO demonize this! I've seen it from the very people who claim that any player who isn't happy should quit the table.)

This doesn't necessarily mean you need to construct a technical jargon of your own. But it does kinda mean you need to respond with more than "but there's maaaagic in it you're missing" because that's not, in any way, a rebuttal or meaningful response. It's the sophisticated, grown up version of the playground "nuh-uh!", an insistence that the person who actually made a full argument is Just Wrong without anything substantive to back it up.

I think if you have read my posts at all when I have talked about GMing you would know this isn't at all what I am getting at. It isn't about the players sucking it up and never challenging the GM. This kind of game hinges on player buy in and trust. My point is there is a lot more going on at the table between players and the GM. It is an organic conversation and process. And when you try to break that down into individual components I do think that by its nature is reductive and appears to miss an awful lot.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Hubris? I play plenty of trad games

I don't doubt you do. But I think you have an inflated sense of confidence in your conclusions here. I think you genuinely believe everything stated in the rest of this post. But I think it is reductive

I think that many trad proponents mistake GM decisions for truths. Which is the pitfall of simulationism, and I think also of this idea of a “real” mystery.

The experience of things feeling real will vary by preference. This is why I’m pushing to separate the experiential quality from the actual process.

This isn't about feel hawkeye. And it isn't about simulation. Like I said, this has little to do with style debates. In this scenario there is a real mystery to solve. The GM has established it. That is different from a scenario where there isn't an established mystery to solve that has established concrete facts about it to uncover. We have been over it a million times. And I don't think we are going to make any gains at this stage in the conversation

 

[EzekielRaiden]

OK, but to me the language you've used such as 'the players are really trying to solve a mystery that exists as an objective thing in the setting' goes beyond this. That sentence does not seem to concede this is an approximation at all.

I see a distinction between players creating new fiction about a mystery, even when constrained by rules, and players discovering new information they did not create.

There is a reason I keep referring to Clue/Cluedo. That's a space where nobody "authors" anything. Nobody is creating new fiction with their participation. You can't, even in principle, enter a new fact into the situation which completely turns the thing on its head and reveals that all the work you'd done up to this point was a sham, a fabrication, a ruse, etc. Such a thing is not only possible but in many ways desirable under systems that defer any solution even forming until after the players have done extensive investigation. Such a thing is not possible in anything I would consider "the players themselves are, personally, solving a mystery."

In Clue/Cluedo, the whole point is to figure out who did it, where, and with which weapon. You are only able to access negative clues (your own cards and the ones you are shown by other players), but these negative clues allow you to narrow down the range of suspects, locations, and weapons until you have a small enough set that you feel comfortable risking a gamble at the correct solution. If you fail, you're out of the game; if you succeed, you've won specifically by solving the mystery, yourself, using your own deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning. Your character is theoretically doing the same thing but it's almost pure pawn stance (given you can literally accuse "yourself" in most versions...and might even be correct to do so!)

 

[Bedrockgames]

OK, but to me the language you've used such as 'the players are really trying to solve a mystery that exists as an objective thing in the setting' goes beyond this. That sentence does not seem to concede this is an approximation at all.

I don't think it does. Many things in a game setting are approximation that we try to treat as having objective qualities. An NPC with stats is an objective entity in the setting, but just an approximation of a real person. A mystery here is objective in that it has things you can measure, it has definition and facts, and it exists outside the players (it is something for them to discover). Again no one is saying it is exactly like a real mystery in real life, no one is saying it comes into actual existence. But the players understand that whoever killed the victim in the mystery, that fact is always true no matter what. There is a big difference between a game where that fact is always true from the start of the session and one where it isn't

 

[soviet]

I see a distinction between players creating new fiction about a mystery, even when constrained by rules, and players discovering new information they did not create.

I don't know what 'creating new fiction about a mystery' means. It seems to suggest a kind of round robin 'oh how about in the next scene the butler confesses that he did it' thing that I'm not sure I've seen anyone advocate.