GM fiat - an illustration

[FrogReaver]

I'm happy with having the game be the rules and processes of the game, and the play experience including the other elements. It seems a pretty natural take on it, to me.

Game is often used to refer to a particular play experience and not the rules of the game though. Example: did you see the basketball game last night?

I get what you mean. But the terms you are using to get there are going to be controversial. Especially when you are telling others they are wrong because their usage of 1 of the terms albeit common doesn’t match yours.

 

[Umbran]

My feeling is that if you have to remove the fiction and replace it with Weapon 1, Room 3 and Suspect 4, then the game had fiction to begin with or there would have been nothing to remove.

No, because you cannot lay down a stack of names, and say you have created a work of fiction. Fiction is more than names.

Here's an interesting thought - if you can remove the fiction, and still know and reach the win condition of the game, then the game really doesn't involve the fiction.

Clue has a formal win condition defined separate from the fiction.

D&D does not have any formal win condition - the only goals of play are the fictional states the players decide are their goals.

 

[Manbearcat]

And what is common to all of these, that there is an objective correct answer. That to me makes it "real solving."

Yes, those 3 x parlor games have pre-authored solves + either the drawing + the pantomiming + the deft wordplay that are the equivalent of the GMs prep of initial situation + clues & obstacles & exposition dumps + pre-authored solve in prepped Trad mysteries. That much is kindred.

But that isn't remotely the whole story, which is why I was pointing at the significant divergence between the two being contained vs labyrinthine. This is extremely relevant for the challenge-based priorities that matter to the question of "did the integrity of the solve maintain with the players performing the solve sans-GM Force...or did the GM prod/breadcrumb/corral them to the solve in part or in whole...or did the solve not emerge at all because the GM or players (or both) failed at their respective role (devising + articulating for GMs and investigating + solving for players)."

Key here is, in contrast with contained, labyrinthine comes with severe signal dampening noise + breadth and scope (either artificially/incidentally because players start chasing the wrong inference/information set or actually because the mystery is convoluted and vast). When playing a Sherlock Holmes boardgame mystery, there is no accumulating fiction and free roleplay and backstory and "living breathing world" to distract (or inform) the mystery nor is there a GM to damage the integrity of the effort to solve. There is no challenge-based priority, solve-integrity harm to the "legitimacy of the solve" via tried & true (and well-endorsed everywhere...certainly here is no exception) Trad techniques of any of (i) ensuring clues (particularly "essential" ones) find their way into play even if players' investigation efforts would miss them, (ii) GM-rerouting players on Wild Goose Chases or lost in erroneous inference chains via strategic NPC exposition dumps or site-based info dumps (breadcrumbs), or (iii) action resolution manipulation.

Why do GMs in Trad mysteries do this (at scale)? "Because labyrinthine." Because either the core build of the mystery has failed (typically due to convoluted fiction and attendant convoluted inference chains or overwrought breadth/scope that engineers in too much bandwidth-stealing noise into individual and collective player mental space) or the play has failed (perhaps both). Or it could be that the GM basically mainlined Ouija play straight into the mystery architecture. On the surface it looks like the players are doing the investigatory work, but the GM is controlling the planchette which means the investigation strategy > clue-finding > inference chain > legitimate solve = a complete veneer. And once the GM has interfered with the integrity of the investigation strategy, the clue-finding, the inference-chain....any of it...to any degree...well, the legitimacy of the solve in terms of challenge authenticity is kaput. The integrity of any related challenge-based priorities becomes zero and the force of “but the solve was written down beforehand(!)” does the same work; zero.

The Sherlock Holmes boardgame mysteries fail at an alarming rate; probably 60+ %. This is “expert” boardgame mystery writing and unburdened by TTRPG’s obscurant dynamics mentioned above (it is just straight solving of a singular mystery with no other priority nor TTRPG-specific phenomena, like "living & breathing world" content, vying for table time and precious mental bandwidth). There is no way Trad mysteries (which necessarily folds in the large % of those mysteries that feature the challenge-integrity destroying techniques above which are tantamount to “the GM playing the game for the players”) do better or even near that number. My guess is, folding in that GM Force intervention above as a failure-state, Trad mysteries flop at an 80 % clip or worse when it comes to solve-integrity or successful solves. I'll give you a very charitable 20 %. 1 in 5 feature (a) well-built and well-GMed mysteries + (b)no GM Force to corral and guide the investigation strategy/clue gains/inference chain/solve + (c) players coming up with and executing the correct, pre-authored solve. I suspect the number is lower (I've only heard about these unicorns in the wild...I've never seen one...but boy have I heard about and seen the opposite!), but I'll give you 1 in 5.

This is the point and the reason to contrast Pictionary/Charades/Taboo with Trad TTRPG mysteries. Same goes for Pawn Stance dungeoncrawling where it is basically a sequence of isolated (contained) puzzles/obstacles and a strategic throughline of logistics and resource management. It is where they diverge that is the consequential piece, not the overlap on the Venn diagram...and what that divergence yields in terms of solve legitimacy (which only matters if your play champions these related challenge-based priorities as the hill to die on).

 

[Maxperson]

No, because you cannot lay down a stack of names, and say you have created a work of fiction. Fiction is more than names.

But that's all D&D is. We lay down names like Baldur's Gate instead of City #33, and we lay down Dwarf instead of Race #6. If the ability to genericize everything means there is no fiction, then D&D has no fiction.

Here's an interesting thought - if you can remove the fiction, and still know and reach the win condition of the game, then the game really doesn't involve the fiction.

Clue has a formal win condition defined separate from the fiction.

D&D does not have any formal win condition - the only goals of play are the fictional states the players decide are their goals.

D&D's primary goal is enjoyment. The goals of players/PCs is secondary and help to achieve the primary goal of enjoyment. It's essentially a cooperative game with the goal of having fun. It was important enough for the 5e PHB to put it in as a "win."

 

[FrogReaver]

No, because you cannot lay down a stack of names, and say you have created a work of fiction. Fiction is more than names.

Here's an interesting thought - if you can remove the fiction, and still know and reach the win condition of the game, then the game really doesn't involve the fiction.

Clue has a formal win condition defined separate from the fiction.

D&D does not have any formal win condition - the only goals of play are the fictional states the players decide are their goals.

My take is the game of clue generates fiction. It’s not particularly robust fiction or rpg like in open endedness of play and goals, but at the end of the game we have a fiction of who the killer was, in what room they did it and with what weapon. It’s not very detailed fiction. It’s also not a game where the generated fiction materially matters in resolution, which I think is what you are getting at with your ‘really doesn’t involve the fiction’. And depending on what precisely is meant by involve the fiction I agree. But generating fiction at the end is a type of involving the fiction IMO. Which just highlights my primary point, these things aren’t easy to describe in detail because the best words we have to do so are completely overloaded.

 

[Maxperson]

My take is the game of clue generates fiction. It’s not particularly robust fiction or rpg like in open endedness of play and goals, but at the end of the game we have a fiction of who the killer was, in what room they did it and with what weapon. It’s not very detailed fiction. It’s also not a game where the generated fiction materially matters in resolution, which I think is what you are getting at with your ‘really doesn’t involve the fiction’. And depending on what precisely is meant by involve the fiction I agree. But generating fiction at the end is a type of involving the fiction IMO. Which just highlights my primary point, these things aren’t easy to describe in detail because the best words we have to do so are completely overloaded.

Yeah. I don't see the fiction as separate from the rules, with the rules being the game. Both are the game. If someone came to me and had a board game with Rooms 1-12(or however many Clue has), and had characters 1-6, with weapons 1-6, etc., and then told me that we had to figure out which character #, and weapon # are in which room #, I'd walk away.

I play Clue to find out of Colonel Mustard did it in the Conservatory with the Lead Pipe.

 

[Umbran]

But that's all D&D is.

No, it really isn't.

We lay down names like Baldur's Gate instead of City #33, and we lay down Dwarf instead of Race #6. If the ability to genericize everything means there is no fiction, then D&D has no fiction.

Yes we do. But that's not all we do.

 

[Umbran]

It’s also not a game where the generated fiction materially matters in resolution, which I think is what you are getting at with your ‘really doesn’t involve the fiction’.

Yep.

And depending on what precisely is meant by involve the fiction I agree. But generating fiction at the end is a type of involving the fiction IMO.

And, you are allowed to have your opinion. I hope it serves you well.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah. I don't see the fiction as separate from the rules, with the rules being the game. Both are the game. If someone came to me and had a board game with Rooms 1-12(or however many Clue has), and had characters 1-6, with weapons 1-6, etc., and then told me that we had to figure out which character #, and weapon # are in which room #, I'd walk away.

I play Clue to find out of Colonel Mustard did it in the Conservatory with the Lead Pipe.

Right. Or to think about it differently, one could make a different game just like clue with different characters, locations and weapons, perhaps set in a medieval castle. Call it Mystery Castle and it would be a totally different game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I am not a fan of either but that is just me

What term would be acceptable to you?