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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6804818" data-attributes="member: 27160">This is (collectively) a good point, and I think it has some degree of merit, but I don't think it is particularly clear cut. For example...While really full-on tactical challenges might need some careful design, I think more modern tactical rule sets, both RPG and wargaming, can be made pretty tactically rich with very little setup or using setup tools designed to work quickly with the rules they are attached to. Several folk have said they can run encounters on the fly with 4E, 13th Age is certainly pretty well set up for it and, on the wargames side, the "De Bellis Antiquitatis" series can be played with very short setup times and quick action. So, a qualified "pre-authoring/pre-design useful" but not, I think, necessary - at least not for the whole game.I can see that if you want to use "clever" clues as beloved by mystery writers that pre-design of the "truth" behind the mystery could be useful, but, again, I don't think that mystery and discovery are impossible with a "no myth" approach. I think Dungeon World stories and Universalis show this most clearly, to me. The approach is actually similar to the scientific method, except that repeats of the same test are generally assumed (rather than "happen to have") the same outcome.In other words, a "rule" has to be that, once some "observation" is made, that observation is assumed to be "the truth", and any repeat of the same essential experiment will yield the same result. Investigation proceeds by a process of identifying untested possibilities, working out an in-game way to test them, and then resolving the (randomised) outcome of those tests and considering what the outcome of the test means for the revealed "truth". When you have eliminated that which the dice say is untrue, whatever remains must be the truth.Note that this method is not without the benefits (and I agree that there are some) of constraint and limitation. It's just that, instead of being set at the beginning (and not revealed to all participants), the constraints are built up gradually as "facts" are established in the fiction.Yes, I see that, but I don't think that "discover as you play" style play need be in the slightest bit removed from the application of logic.Further, I wonder whether an analogous case might be made that more effective emotional or aesthetic impact can be achieved through the use of prepared material than via pure improvisation? I guess the question I would narrow down on is "at what point does an increasing focus on individual design and preparation make the whole thing an entertainment rather than a collective creative activity?" The "in the moment" end of the spectrum has, if nothing else, the benefit of being more of the latter than the former.As almost an aside, I have generally found that the use of "clever clues" in RPGs has a nasty tendency to fall flat. I think the trick is that mystery writers have the singular advantage of both controlling the main investigators and creating the "clever" clues; they can thus be assured that the "truth" revealed by the "clever clue" will, at some point, become evident to the stalwart detective...</blockquote>

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