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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6804999" data-attributes="member: 177">I think you miss my meaning.  The issue at hand isn't about it being "clever".  Merely that the clues are logically consistent and actually eliminate all but one possibility.  In Atomic Robo, a FATE-based game, there's an excellent procedure for the PCs to figure out what is causing a particular weird science phenomenon, and in the process generate an Aspect they may tag to help deal with it.  The players determine a series of "facts" (usually, but not necessarily, based on things they've witnessed about the phenomenon), and then come to a "conclusion" that is consistent with those facts.  The GM does not need to decide how the phenomenon works, as the players will generate the reason it works for the GM.So, for example, in a recent arc of that game I ran, I put forth a swarm of giant bees the PCs had to deal with.  They used the fact that they had apparently escaped during a lightning storm, a completely made up piece BS about how bees navigate that is patently not true in the real world, and something else I cannot recall, to come to the conclusion that the bees were vulnerable to strong electromagnetic fields.  They then sacrificed an electric car to kit-bash it into an electromagnetic beacon to attract and capture the bees.  As weird science creativity, it worked just great, and generated a solution to the problem I would not have considered.  It even told me how the bees had escaped their confinement, which I hadn't determined that before play began.This functions just so long as the final result can be *anything*, unconstrained.  For a murder mystery, for example, so long as you can generate a suspect the PCs have never actually met to be the ultimate bad guy, this will function - if you can always claim there's a Mr. Whithers that has not been seen before the PCs unmask him, you are fine.  However, if they try to pin it on a specific person they've already seen, unless they are *very* careful (as in, are taking care at a level I simply don't expect is practical) the facts they may generate may not be consistent - the butler will have been in the study, and the kitchen at the same time, with the candlestick and the pipe wrench, respectively.  Or, those "facts" will not actually converge and narrow the field to any particular conclusion at all!Moreover, this sort of procedure does *not* give the players the satisfaction of solving a logic puzzle!  The mental act of creation is not the same as the mental act of deduction, and the players can tell the difference!I don't think we can generalize.  I think some people will find the emotional or aesthetic impact of prepared materials greater, and others will find improvisation more effective.  I don't even think we can state it clearly for a single person, as we cannot really separate the impact of the source of the material from the impact of the content of the material, from the impact of the presentation of the material - it could be more a question of the GM's theatrical skill and/pr understanding of the players than the source of the material.I might go further to say that while Pemerton has found what works supremely well for himself and his group, his group's tastes are likely in the minority.  Likewise the folks who argue against his positions from the polar opposite point similarly have groups that have been selected for those particular tastes, but are likewise in the minority.  The "truth", such as it may be, may thus lie in the middle - the most generally effective approaches are apt to be hybrids, not purebreds.  Individuals may like something specific, but mutts are pretty broadly beloved <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Or, we might posit that generation of material is like my generation of characters - maybe one GM is most inspired by improvisation, another GM is inspired by the process of authoring beforehand, and that is what generates the impact.If I am getting what you mean by "clever clues", that's not what Ashen Stars operates on.  They do not recommend you find one key point that's arcane or obscure in order to solve the case.  In the adventure I'm currently running, there are no fewer than four different ways to discover the source of the trouble the PCs are contending with.  It is by no means hidden in some particularly clever minor tidbit.</blockquote>

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