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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7978346" data-attributes="member: 42582">The last paragraph is confused.In the fiction, whoever put the widget whereever it is knows that it is there. Anone who has seen it there in the meantime knows that it is there. This who would include anyone who opens the box.At the table, no one knows anything about the fiction until it is authored. It may be that no one needs to author anything until a search check is made. It may be - depending on the system and techniques being used - that making a check is the prompt for or determiner of what is authored.There is no person who both opens the chest and makes a serach chest - unless you are playing a RPG about a person who opens chests and then plays RPGs in them. This seems a fairly straightforward point about RPGing, but it seems that it needs to be stated expressly more often than one might think!And the whole "Schroedinger's" thing is nonsense. What was the shape of the buckle of Sam Gamgee's belt? Where was his box from Galadriel stored at Bag End when he wasn't using it? No one knows the answers to these questions, not even the late JRRT, as he didn't author those particular things. But Sam Gamgee's belt buckle had a definite shape. And there was some definite place in Bag End where he kept his box of enchanted earth.Suppose that a PC in a RPG finds him-/herself in an alchemist's laboratory. Is there a jar of thistle seeds? That probably hasn't been authored yet. How to decide? There are so many mechanical possibilities: GM decides (at will, or by spending some GM-side resource); player decides (at will, with GM permission, or by spending some player-side resource); a die is rolled ad hoc; a die is rolled on a random chart; a player makes a check, perhaps influenced by player-side resources (PC abilities; points, whatever); others I haven't thought of at the moment too I'm sure.The choice of method will profoundly affect the play experience. None will produce Schroedinger's thistle seeds. That's an utter red herring.There is a premise here, particuarly in conjunction with the notion of "adventure parameters", that there are events that "have to" occur as part of the game.I don't know of any game that operates on such a premise and that uses any method for deciding whether or not the PCs find the widget when they look in a chest other than "GM decides". But maybe there are some?</blockquote>

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