GM fiat - an illustration

[soviet]

True, but that's not what @pemerton claimed.

Yes it is?

 

[Pedantic]

Yes, this. And I see that a lot of people on both sides of the discussion have liked this post. So do we have common ground? This is what is meant, regardless of the exact words used to describe it, and there is a marked difference? Agreed? Debate over?

Well, I think the problem we'd run into next is what is meant by "gameplay." My first point in this whole thread was saying the fiat/no-fiat divide isn't a useful razor, or rather it's an insufficiently useful razor. I don't generally find the critique of "processes of play" useful; it encourages a substitution of the process for the machine. It does not matter (except in quite specific aesthetic targets) whether we use dice or cards as a randomizer, or if a board game has hexes or squares to mark spaces. Those are technologies that are used to provide players with points of interaction within a game, and there may be a reason to use one or the other in the delivery of particular gameplay, the interesting decision laden here->there states I described earlier, but the mehcanisms aren't in and of themselves, those experiences.

Pages and ages ago, I presented "GM extrapolates from established facts" as such a technology precisely because it enabled specific kinds of gameplay loops. The problem that drives this whole discussion comes from substituting one kind of gameplay for another under the guise of adjusting/progressing the technology used to deliver gameplay. If we disagree on the deliverables, no amount of discussing the process of delivery gets us anywhere; this is what seems to have been the source of the "real mystery" disagreement.

 

[hawkeyefan]

You won't like my answer, but I find play loops a reductive way about thinking of games. RPGs aren't video games and it feels like it is applying a way of thinking about games better suited to video games than the boundless play of RPGs.

No, that's fine. It wasn't something I brought to the conversation, so I was just curious why you didn't like it.

I mean, I can understand its use... "players- GM- players" is kind of the flow of the game... or even "adventure - rest- adventure" or "wilderness- town- wilderness"... I see these kinds of loops. And I don’t really think it’s bad to focus on them. I mean… clearly the designers have to consider them.

Mainly the process used for learning that information.

Which involves what? Can you describe the process?

 

[Umbran]

Yes it is?

Just to stave off the argument - pemerton asserted that "Clue(do) has no fiction, no player characters, and hence no stance."

I personally think that is accurate. Since you could replace every named person, place, and thing in the game with things like "Weapon 1" "Room 3" and "Suspect 4" without altering gameplay in the slightest, that means that there is no fiction IN the game. The fiction is not a part of the gameplay - it is merely marketing, and mnemonics for the players.

If you are playing chess, and call the king and queen, "Ralph" and "Alice" doesn't mean that chess has fiction.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Which involves what? Can you describe the process?

Players declaring actions that reveal clues, and making deductions based on those clues.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Just to stave off the argument - pemerton asserted that "Clue(do) has no fiction, no player characters, and hence no stance."

I personally think that is accurate. Since you could replace every named person, place, and thing in the game with things like "Weapon 1" "Room 3" and "Suspect 4" without altering gameplay in the slightest, that means that there is no fiction IN the game. The fiction is not a part of the gameplay - it is merely marketing, and mnemonics for the players.

Then again, the fiction is a big part of appeal of the game. That it evokes the imagery of a classic murder mystery is not trivial to the actual play experience, and if that was absent none of us would be discussing this game as it would have not survived past its first print run if it even made that far. Furthermore, it is possible to play RPGs in a way where the fiction really doesn't matter for the results and many people do. I don't see the appeal, but it happens. Like there is just dungeon map which is basically the board and then there are enemies that are just collection of stats and then characters that are just collection of stats as well and then they fight. 4e was particularly suitable edition for this boardgame play, as the rules were quite self sufficient and did not really require much interpreting based on the fiction, but people have definitely always done it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But this is true in any RPGing. Whether or not the players can declare that their PCs telephone people and ask questions, or got to some place and look for clues, has no connection to how the game was prepped and what (if any) pre-authorship the GM undertook.

I mean, upthread when @hawkeyefan noted that you seem to be treating in-fiction cause and effect as if they were real you denied that. But in the post I've just quoted you're doing exactly that!

When, in a classic CoC module, a player decides to telephone someone, why are they doing that? Because the GM has somehow made that person salient! This is already a departure from real world mystery solving, where there is no authorial agent setting out to make salient the pathways that will lead to a solution to the mystery.

In the play of Burning Wheel (as an example) there are also ways to make things salient. They just don't rely so heavily upon pre-authorship by the GM.

No one disputes this. @hawkeyefan has posted about his play of CoC and Delta Green. I've played plenty of CoC and have also posted about the freeform investigation scenario of the type you describe that I GMed a few years ago. @AbdulAlhazred was playing CoC back in the 1980s, I think. So everyone in this thread has done what you're talking about.

The point is that you are insisting that the process you describe is uniquely "real" and "objective" as far as the solving of a mystery is concerned. Which is not true.

I'd just note that, IME, a vast majority of these sorts of "follow the bread crumbs" things fail. Masks of Nyarlathotep is like the ultimate poster child. I've run it, played it, yet to see it, or any other CoC module, really run through. Inevitably the GM has to drop clues, introduce additional NPCs, fudge, etc to get this stuff to creak along. It's not badly written either, very high quality. The thing is, ultimately if this kind of thing needs to be stage managed, where's all the supposed realness?

I mean, sure, the GM can just let the PCs flop around until old Gnarly ends the world"hey all it's March 20th, everyone make a d100 SAN check..." Lol.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'd just note that, IME, a vast majority of these sorts of "follow the bread crumbs" things fail. Masks of Nyarlathotep is like the ultimate poster child. I've run it, played it, yet to see it, or any other CoC module, really run through. Inevitably the GM has to drop clues, introduce additional NPCs, fudge, etc to get this stuff to creak along. It's not badly written either, very high quality. The thing is, ultimately if this kind of thing needs to be stage managed, where's all the supposed realness?

I mean, sure, the GM can just let the PCs flop around until old Gnarly ends the world"hey all it's March 20th, everyone make a d100 SAN check..." Lol.

So my experiences regarding success rate have been more positive than yours, but yeah, with a real mystery it is perfectly possible outcome that the characters fail to solve that. If one doesn't want such possibility, then one should not run a game that way.

My solution to this in my D&D game has been to make the mysteries to be just a part of what's going on. Like sure, there is a mystery that can be solved, but there is other stuff going on too. Solving the mystery might be beneficial to the PC, it might put them into a better position, but the game does not just stall if they fail to solve it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Players declaring actions that reveal clues, and making deductions based on those clues.

So we have...

1) Players declare actions (for their characters)
2) Clues are revealed
3) Players make deductions based on the clues.

... as a rough summary of the process. Step 2 seems incomplete.

How is it determined if a clue is revealed? What constitutes a clue? What determines the quality/scope of the clue?

Then again, the fiction is a big part of appeal of the game. That it evokes the imagery of a classic murder mystery is not trivial to the actual play experience, and if that was absent none of us would be discussing this game as it would have not survived past its first print run if it even made that far.

I think this is how we separate the rules of the game from the experiential quality of play. The fluff of Clue... the mansion and Mr. Body and all the weapons and suspects... may help enhance the feeling of solving a mystery. "Weapon 1" isn't as evocative as "dagger" or "candlestick" and so on. This stuff enhances the feeling or experience of play.

But the actual process is we roll dice and when we reach a room we can make a supposition that includes that room, another suspect, and a weapon. If the person we make the supposition to has any of those cards, they show us one of their choosing, and we can cross them off our list.

These two things can easily be separated for discussion.

With an RPG it's harder to do because the fiction matters quite a bit to play. But it's not impossible. For me, that's been part of the frustration with the discussion... I think it makes sense to make such distinctions to discuss play, and I don't always understand why it's so difficult to do so, or why folks seem reluctant to do so.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Just to stave off the argument - pemerton asserted that "Clue(do) has no fiction, no player characters, and hence no stance."

I personally think that is accurate. Since you could replace every named person, place, and thing in the game with things like "Weapon 1" "Room 3" and "Suspect 4" without altering gameplay in the slightest, that means that there is no fiction IN the game. The fiction is not a part of the gameplay - it is merely marketing, and mnemonics for the players.

If you are playing chess, and call the king and queen, "Ralph" and "Alice" doesn't mean that chess has fiction.

Unless the game itself gives the king and queen names, like Clue(do) does. Thin fiction is still fiction.