GM fiat - an illustration

[Pedantic]

So, I've been checking in and out, because this whole thing is wild, but it seems to me that this has been rather too focused on the "nature" of mysteries and mystery narratives. The whole question of whether something is a "real mystery" is rather beside the point of the activity we're doing one way or the other. It seems to me that the differentiator here is the gameplay created by the conditions the whole mystery scenario sets up.

Are the players engaging in deductive reasoning, trying to eliminate possibilities, and honing in on an understanding of fixed facts, or are they proposing possibilities that might be reified into the narrative? How are their decisions restricted, and what goal are they pursuing with them? The issue isn't really about the resulting narrative, because that could be achieved either way or completely separately, and it's not really about analogy to actual criminal investigation. The point of contention is about the loop players will be engaging with, how they can succeed or fail, and on what basis they'll choose to make decisions.

I think the case is better laid out: having a fixed set of facts about what has happened leads to a different set of possible compositions of gameplay than not doing so.

 

[Bedrockgames]

All sorts of things are like this. Cooking, brewing, printing. Consider music. It is foolish to say that (say) Tuvan-Mongolian throat singing is "better" than neoclassical composition or that rap music is "worse" than librettos. But within a particular instrument or expressive form, we can compare technique--and it is objectively true that we have a better understanding of the technique of orchestral composition today than Mozart did in his day. That doesn't mean Mozart was inferior, such a thing is chronological snobbery and should be actively avoided. Instead, it means we have gained a better understanding of what we are doing, and in many ways that better understanding actually deepens the beauty and profundity of the great masters of the past.

I am not so sure we understand this better than Mozart did. He understood differently but you can teach someone music theory and they won't be able to replicate Mozart. I think people are still trying to understand Mozart because he had such a strong command of that style of music. Also while I definitely think Music theory is a good thing. It can be blinding too. You see this if you watch youtube videos of classical musicians listening to modern music and then playing it by ear on a piano (often times their mind fills in the blanks based on music theory and they play notes that aren't actually present on the recording: it is a completely understandable error but ends up producing something that actually sounds different). I am only modestly proficient in music theory and it can sometimes steer me wrong or blind me too. And to be clear I am not complaining about it. I think music theory has value. I also think music theory isn't for everyone. Some composers are well served by it, some aren't. And for some composers, a little music theory goes a long way, while too much music theory ruins a good thing. It is really individual.

I will say though again on this point: music theory is generally expanding its ability to describe different styles of music. But when it is used to limit other styles or play favorites it doesn't illuminate. Western music theory is based on 12 tones, but some forms of music, like middle eastern have microtones and have 24 tones. So if you learned a 'middle eastern' scale when you were a kid that used western music theory it was usually a very reductive understanding of middle eastern music that tried to compress those 24 tones into the 12 tone system (and there isn't anything wrong with that, Slayer got a lot of mileage out of it and it sounds great, but it misses the nuances of real middle eastern music)

 

[Maxperson]

How can they come to you with an issue if the issue is hidden inside a black box they aren't allowed to know or see? How can they speak to you about a problem if the problem is actually ineffable, as Badrockgames has described?

It's not inside a black box. When the players come up with things if the DM unfairly(and it will be obvious most of the time) blocks it in bad faith, they will see it.

And how do you explain the simple fact that, on this very forum, from folks like yourself (I can't recall if it included you specifically), when someone described a situation where the table collectively chose to walk because they weren't happy with the game a DM was offering, numerous people accused the players of being unfair and inappropriately leaving without giving the DM appropriate leeway to fix the issues, when so, so, so, SO many times you and others have insisted that if a player isn't happy with a game their clear recourse is always to just depart the table?

It wasn't me. I do think that in general if players have an issue they should talk to the DM, but I'm not going to say that table was wrong. Maybe the DM was that bad and they knew talk wouldn't be fruitful. I wasn't there.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So, I've been checking in and out, because this whole thing is wild, but it seems to me that this has been rather too focused on the "nature" of mysteries and mystery narratives. The whole question of whether something is a "real mystery" is rather beside the point of the activity we're doing one way or the other. It seems to me that the differentiator here is the gameplay created by the conditions the whole mystery scenario sets up.

Are the players engaging in deductive reasoning, trying to eliminate possibilities, and honing in on an understanding of fixed facts, or are they proposing possibilities that might be reified into the narrative? How are their decisions restricted, and what goal are they pursuing with them? The issue isn't really about the resulting narrative, because that could be achieved either way or completely separately, and it's not really about analogy to actual criminal investigation. The point of contention is about the loop players will be engaging with, how they can succeed or fail, and on what basis they'll choose to make decisions.

I think the case is better laid out: having a fixed set of facts about what has happened leads to a different set of possible compositions of gameplay than not doing so.

Part of the issue with this, and I am not saying this to be difficult, is I think a lot of the people taking the position I am, but at the very least myself, would question the utility of thinking of RPGs in terms of a game loop

 

[Bedrockgames]

It wasn't me. I do think that in general if players have an issue they should talk to the DM, but I'm not going to say that table was wrong. Maybe the DM was that bad and they knew talk wouldn't be fruitful. I wasn't there.

I have been trying to think about what it could have been. I know in some of these discussions I have taken a position along the lines of "The GM does the most work so a lot of groups give more weight to what a GM wants to do". Not sure if that was a factor.

Another thing here though I tend to play with a group where there are players who also will run games for us. So I can be a player in my group when I want, and players can GM. And there is mutual respect even when our styles are different. I am generally not going to ask a GM to alter their style for me. And I am pretty open minded about participating in most styles of play. While I will leave a game I have no interest in, normally when that has occurred, it has been more around peripherals at the table than style (i.e. I don't like this particular person running the game, or I don't want to be around people who get drunk while they play)

 

[Maxperson]

I have been trying to think about what it could have been. I know in some of these discussions I have taken a position along the lines of "The GM does the most work so a lot of groups give more weight to what a GM wants to do". Not sure if that was a factor.

Another thing here though I tend to play with a group where there are players who also will run games for us. So I can be a player in my group when I want, and players can GM. And there is mutual respect even when our styles are different. I am generally not going to ask a GM to alter their style for me. And I am pretty open minded about participating in most styles of play. While I will leave a game I have no interest in, normally when that has occurred, it has been more around peripherals at the table than style (i.e. I don't like this particular person running the game, or I don't want to be around people who get drunk while they play)

I've only ever walked out of one game, and it was over style differences. I had been invited to a game by some guys I met at a game store. After I made my character and the game began, it quickly became apparent that this was a comedic/silly game, which is just not my thing. At the end of that first game I politely let them know that it was not my thing, thanked them for the invite, and let them know that I would not be returning.

 

[Pedantic]

Part of the issue with this, and I am not saying this to be difficult, is I think a lot of the people taking the position I am, but at the very least myself, would question the utility of thinking of RPGs in terms of a game loop

I don't think it makes a lot of sense to partition this off into sides, given it looks like there's at least 4. If it helps, I'm solidly in the "a mystery is about deduction from a fixed set of facts" camp, but I think it's significantly more important to look at what that means for the players and then hone in on why you would do it that way.

I think it's pretty clearly about the player's experience interacting with the problem; it's satisfying to eliminate possibilities and deploy strategies to get down to a hidden piece of information. To call it a "puzzle" is too reductive, because this isn't a sudoku: the players can make a lot more moves, and multiple combinations of moves might work to resolve the problem. The bit that's interesting and unique to RPGs is how unbounded the play space is and the potential that offers for unusual/unexpected kinds of gameplay to emerge, but that doesn't free anyone from the basic questions of game design; what decisions will the players be making and how do we make those decisions interesting and significant? How do we evaluate good and bad play in a such a broad space?

Gameplay is all about trying to get from some here to a desired there by navigating interesting systems, and then getting feedback on how well you did. A mystery should present an interesting there to get to, with unique strategic options for navigation.

 

[pemerton]

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!)

Clue(do) is not "pawn stance". Clue(do) has no fiction, no player characters, and hence no stance.

As has already been posted, multiple times, Clue(do) is simply a logic puzzle turned into a board/parlour game, with the flavour text of a murder mystery overlaid.

 

[pemerton]

Things, facts, and details can have an "objective" / "external" / "real" / "factual" existence if the frame of reference being used for that language is that of the characters within said setting.

In the fiction, there is a difference between waking and dreaming, and hence between reality and imagination.

But that is clearly not what @Bedrockgames means when he calls a mystery "real" or "objective", as all the RPGs that I and @hawkeyefan have posted about draw exactly the same distinction in their fiction.

I am drawing a distinction between something that exists objectively in the setting and something that doesn’t. I.e there is a shop called WAN’S MUTTON STEW. It didn’t arise because the players came to town looking for a mutton stew ship. The GM has created it as part of a specific city, located in a specific area of the empire. So it isn’t an objective detail of the setting. I don’t think it is that outrageous of use. But in a mystery whether the players are solving it hinges on that.

I take it that when you say "So it isn't an objective detail", you actually mean "So it is an objective detail".

I do think this is an outrageous use, in that it is a point of needless jargon - you are using "objective" to mean "pre-authored" (ie it is a detail of the setting that has been pre-authored by the GM without having regard to any player action-declarations or salience/priorities that arise during play). Why you refuse to use the term "pre-authored" to describe the process of authoring stuff prior to play is a mystery to me.

If the DM created it as part of the setting, how is it not an objective part of the setting?

What work is "objective" doing here? None that I can see.

Here are a couple of extracts from the actual play post I've referred to several times in this thread:

I started by asking the player of Appleby what he was doing in London - his answer was that he was there to hand the documents over to the lawyers, given his master the Earl's mysterious absence. This started a plot thread about the need to obtain a power of attorney from the Earl's trustees - missing from the documents handed over - which took the loyal butler to the well-appointed apartments of Willoughby Smythe, who - it turned out through subequent play - was the Earl's principal guardian with the capacity to execute a power in favour of Mr Jerome the Earl's solicitor.

When I asked Randal's player whether he was likely to be having a meeting at a Mechanics Institute or a gentlemen's club he opted for the latter, and so we played through his meeting with Sir Ronald Livingstone (distantly related to the famous Livingstone of Africa), who revealed an interest in using colonial labour and expansion in East Africa while cultivating markets in America as a way to respond to industrial strife in England. Sir Ronald was called away suddenly, but arranged for Randal to call upon him at his apartments later that evening - which he did, but after taking brandy on his own in the drawing room and waiting for much longer than he had anticipated he smelled smoke, and realised the house was on fire. Running out what seemed to be the safest way, he found himself in Livingstone's first-floor study where Sir Ronald was slumped dead at his desk. A quick look at the books and papers revealed some financial information and what seemed to be a detailed hand-drawn topographic map: he took the latter and jumped out the window (breaking his leg in the process, due to a poor roll, and so he was in a plaster cast and dependant on crutches or a wheelchair for the rest of the session).

The mysterious absence of the Earl was authored by Appleby's player, in response to my asking him why Appleby was in London.

My authoring of Sir Ronald Livingstone, his political and economic concerns, his apartments, his drawing room and brandy, his study, and his books and papers, were all done by me in the course of framing a series of scenes for Randal.

Those things are all clearly parts of the setting. Are they "objective"? They certainly weren't dreams.

This is also why I said to Pemerton that there are is also middle ground and ask for more information on his examples, because even in these other approaches things can become objective after they are introduced in play

I have posted plenty of information, to little avail.

 

[pemerton]

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.

Notice that, if your criteria for "discovering a truth" are applied to a classic CoC scenario, than there is no discovery.

Because it is not possible to solve a CoC scenario by way of abductive, inductive or deductive inference. Here is the short reason why this is is so: the player always needs to add an extra premise, such as "the GM has presented me with all the salient information", and that premise is not warranted abductively, inductively or deductively but rather is arrived at by exactly the same means as the "fiction-introduction rules" that you decry.

I can post a longer explanation if you like, that elaborates on this short one.