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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6802770" data-attributes="member: 27160">OK, so it's a sort of "rule of contagion" thing?Well, no - as both     [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and I have said, fail = mace is not found. Whether it is there or not remains ambiguous, which is a very good thing for story (and pretty neutral for "game" or "simulation", as far as I can see).So success or failure is decided before the dice are ever rolled? Isn't that what has been argued against for X pages?There can be mysteries, thinking and problem solving without any of the players (including the GM) knowing the "absolute truth". For proof of this in general, vide science...What I take from this is that you want someone to have made a firm decision and not told you what it was. How you can even know that this has happened, let alone have it make any difference to you, is rather a mystery to me, and it's one that I don't think any amount of rational problem solving is going to unravel...Again, you have completely mischaracterised what has been described. The character hits only when the die roll succeeds - as in pretty much any style of play I have seen.OKWell, no. They have one piece of evidence. Now, they might jump to conclusions based on that one piece - which might make a good story - but if the players are serious about playing the game instead of pure storytelling they should realise that one piece of suggestive evidence does not a conviction secure.The rational approach at this point would be to think what other evidence of the brother's pre-possession disposition there might be, and go look for it. Both scientific enquiry and modern detective work might be good inspirations, here.What stops "discovery by play" doing the same thing? The characters seek out more evidence, other clues, and accumulate it roll-by-roll. Ambiguity is whittled away until a firm body of evidence exists one way or the other. Even beating the demon and "saving" the brother will produce evidence - one way or the other. Only the characters either dying or giving up is likely to leave the ambiguity unresolved, in the end.So, what benefit was gained by having someone decide what the plot was ("save the innocent brother" or "salvage what we could despite the black sheep of the family going rogue") in advance? What is gained by having one character out of the brother (who thinks his brother is a possessed innocent) and the sorcerer (who believes that his master is a monster to be killed) being known to be wrong from the outset?What does that leave as possible results of failure? Doesn't this paint the situation as "success = coming to the conclusions the GM says are correct, failure = coming to any other conclusions"? That would seem to suggest a very one-dimensional world model, don't you think?</blockquote>

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