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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 9624217" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I’m not saying that you said one is better than the other. My point all along is that both are equally real. Using the realness to differentiate the two is mistaken. Sure but this is also the point of games that don’t have predetermined answers for everything in a mystery. Those games are about the players engaging with solving a mystery. Yes, you balk at the description of learning what the author has predetermined. In RPG phrasing we’d call that learning what the GM predetermined, or learning what’s in the GM’s notes.It’s very clearly what is happening, but for some odd reason you don’t want to say that… even though it’s the crux of your insistence that the mystery is real. I don’t think that’s the case. I will happily play in a trad mystery game like Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green, or any number of other trad games that may have a mystery scenario. I have no problem with that kind of play, and indeed, I understand the fun. But I don’t make the mistake of considering that approach more real. I have recognized that cause and effect in fiction is a construct of the author. It isn’t real. It may be something that guides the author or GM in his decision making… he likely considers cause and effect throughout his process… but that doesn’t mean that cause and effect is actually at play. Likewise, games that don’t rely on predetermined GM decisions also apply cause and effect. If we’ve previously learned that the widow Barnes was in the company of several people at the Velvet Room, then we know she can’t have been anywhere else during that time. Cause and effect still matters in informing the “facts” of the case. Neither one is good or bad, and I know you accept that… but neither is actually solving a mystery.</blockquote>

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