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And in the real world it does not.

One might call those things that exist 'the books' or 'CS Lewis's notes' or 'the GM's notes'. It is not the same as saying that Narnia exists.

The setting doesn't exist. The setting doesn't exist. The setting doesn't exist. You keep acknowledging that this is true and then saying that things can have an objective existence within it. They cannot, because it does not exist.

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.

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 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...

I think this is very dependent on what kind of play experience a game is designed to support. I'm not sure what your first bullet point actually means. But for the other two, I would ask how often do the rules touch play in other circumstances like combat, or stealth, or travel? What inputs are...

You can get people to do pretty much anything with the right pressures. Even something unthinkable today can become acceptable tomorrow. Look at world events 80 years ago and world events happening right now. Look at people strongly advocating certain actions right now that they argued...

Even if books are exempt, surely the point is: we've already seen that the policy around tariffs is ahem subject to rapid change. I don't think it's smart for anyone to make decisions based around it. The only smart play is to play things very safe and minimise your potential exposure as best as...

Personally the murders my players solve are real ones I have committed.

It's always a mistake. Canned speeches are boring. Write descriptions or keywords that the GM can read and riff off when they verbally describe the scene, sure. But let the GM verbalise that organically so they can adapt to what the PCs just did, how the players react, etc.

What would people think about a hybrid of the two approaches? Is that even possible? I'm thinking something like: there are X possible suspects, the GM has prepped clues and backstory that eliminates all but two of them, but the GM does not know which of the two and when the players have...

Thinking back to some of the art and costumes in 1990, it's not an unreasonable assessment :)

Some things go without saying ;)

Encounter tables, treasure tables, XP tables, to-hit tables, crit tables... lotta tables

Seems to me that the G is at the end

I think for sure there's a weird consumerism thing in this hobby where people feel they must reflexively switch to the new edition when it comes out. No, if you like the old edition, keep playing it! This is also the fault of publishers who continually put out revised editions for purely...

'Threatening legal action against people helps them'

Family Guy already did it

'Whoops we hired the Pinkertons!' A mistake anyone could make.