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Indeed. Not quite accurate. Regardless, my point about what is and isn't a real mystery stands. Now if you feel, (and I think you do) that this what I call "real mystery solving" is not that important, and by giving up on it you can bring into the game something you find more valuable, then...

Yeah, like integrating the character backstories to the events of the game is pretty basic thing that has been done for as long as I remember. 🤷

That you have rules and procedures for who invents what doesn't mean you're not collaboratively inventing a mystery story rather than solving a mystery. I do no understand why you and some others feel the need to write opaque walls of text to obfuscate this simple fact. And unlike your earlier...

This is one thing @bloodtide and @pemerton have in common: they both use the word "railroad" in unorthodox way, giving it far broader meaning than commonly understood.

I would not be so sure of that. People decide what their character does based on other reasons too. The player might decide their character refuses the duke's offer because they (the character, no the player) dislikes the duke. Similarly the character might decide to join the pirates, because...

I'm pretty sure that compared to mystery solving and exploration in trad(ish) games whole narrativism is an incredibly tiny niche.

Yes. It is not a real murder. But it is a real mystery.

Yes. And if there was objective information to be learned, to be deduced, then that is solving a mystery. It indeed would not be, too bad you seem to be unable to do that. We are talking about difference between a situation where the shared imagination is about solving a mystery but what's...

@hawkeyefan It makes just as much sense to say that there cannot be real decisions, real drama or real agency in an RPG because the events are fictional than to say there cannot be real mystery for the same reason. It is complete nonsense.

Hard disagree. There are a ton of hidden information in real life, and "rules" of the system are fuzzy at best too, yet I think people in real life have agency. Agency is the ability to make meaningful choices that affect the direction of the game. And there are a lot of ways to get there.

Mate, this is just silly. Of course it is all made up. So are the crime puzzles in a Sherlock Holmes computer game I've been playing. Those puzzles still are real mysteries that can be really solved even though no real people were killed in making it. (I hope!)

Yet if it fails because of GM generated fiction, you think agency is undermined? I think your way of looking this is illogical. To me it seems you have irrational bias against the GM being involved in the resolution. I am far more concerned with what actually happens rather than how we got...

Though it can be undermined by a bad roll instead. (And I broadly agree with the rest of your assessment.)

I think we all care about something that could be called agency, but I still think I get your point. Like there is fundamental difference in what the purpose of playing a RPG is, which also probably reflects to how agency is understood. And it certainly is possible that the word is sufficiently...

Yeah. This is why I don't like social mechanics that compel my character to react or act in certain way.

Well, don't think you can really measure agency in a game in "can decide more thing therefore more agency" kinda way. Because certain kind of agency requires some limitations. Otherwise a game with ultimate player agency would be one where the player just produce whatever fiction about their...

It is an incoherent convoluted mess? I don't know, it has been decades since I last played it, and I never player much of it. All games of course have random elements and old school D&D often had notoriously lot deadly and untelegraphed randomness. Not fan of that. But how Blades work is...

There is that, but there is also more. Having agency means being able to make meaningful choices. So completely blind left-or-right choices do not really offer it, as it might as well be random. Players don't need to have perfect information, but for the choice to be meaningful, they need to...

Sure, agreed. Puzzles need to be solvable to be fun. Doesn't mean they always get solved though. We disagree on that, but I am not sure it is worth arguing over anymore. To me many of your "fail cases" seemed rather tortured though. Of course. I have been saying many times that not everyone...

If you say so. And I didn't say you cannot do it, it is just there are elements that undermine it. But perhaps "skilled play" is wrong word. I just feel that malleable myth combined with high level of randomness and the game being geared toward there being consequences most of the time results...