How is any of this "realistic" or "immersive"? Why is it realistic that I notice the hole in the wall, or the sweat, but not the flies? Why is it realistic that I notice the man's sweat, but not his general build, or his likely age?
Likewise, how does any of this pertain to the GM "just assuming" certain actions?
@Lanefan's description assumes that the PCs look at and take note of features of the wall, but that they don't look at and take notice of flies in their immediate visual field. I mean, how is it supposed to be the case that
I've identified the ceiling is 8' high and yet I haven't noticed the flies my eyes must have passed over in order to take in the ceiling?
In a setting where flies are fairly commonplace and the window is open, mentioning that there's a few in the room seems superfluous. More noteworthy would be if there weren't any flies, in a room like this.
I can see bottles on the floor under the window. The window is opposite the door (on the "far wall"). Presumably the man slumped forward in the simple wooden chair (but with no table to lean on? Why isn't he sliding off/down? Has he been nailed to the chair by the people who killed him?) is between me and the window, so how am I even seeing those bottles?
It says right in the original description that the man's head is resting face-down on the table.
And that you can see the bottles beneath the window implies either that the table-chair-man are not directly between you and the window or that they are not fully obscuring the view of the bottles (and maybe there's more empties back there that you can't see yet?).
I don't see any realism here.
Well, better would be if I could hold up a picture and say "That's what you see", elaborating on things the picture doesn't convey e.g. the smell, the heat of the room, etc. But I ain't that good an artist, so description is all they get.
It's all just gameplay: the GM makes a decision to dispense some information and to withhold some other information; the GM takes for granted that the players will infer some things from what is not said (eg will infer that there are no aliens with rayguns in the room because the GM didn't mention any); and the GM likewise takes for granted that the players will know - in general terms - what information might have been withheld, and hence needs to be asked about. (Or, perhaps, gated behind dice rolls.)
How is that any different than any other description in any RPG, though? Yes there's no obvious rayguns in the room, nor are there any bicycles, longswords, or fish tanks full of piranha; and it's kinda ludicrous to expect me (or any GM) to mention everything that isn't there.
And yet, in the original write-up there is one clue, where something is both mentioned in one way and not in another: there's a smell of stale cigarette smoke (noted in the description) but no ashtrays or butts or other signs of smoking are mentioned as being in the room. Why's that? Because there are no ashtrays or butts etc. and a search of the slumped man will find no cigarettes or matches; so who was smoking here, and when?
The sort of gameplay implicit in
@Lanefan's set up - which I've described in some earlier posts, and also just above - is not very interesting to me. If the highlight of a "gumshoe" game is
asking twenty questions of the GM to get a description of a sweaty man in a room, so that the play experience is not dissimilar to poking a Gygaxian dungeon room with a 10' pole, then count me out.
What's interesting about the room is the man in it; and what is interesting about the man is whether he's dead or alive, and whether or not he's the person I'm looking for. The GM is able to dispense that information. So why not do so? Either "You open the door, into a poorly furnished office. There's a man sitting, slumped, in the simple wooden chair. Flies are hovering about and above him. You can't see his face. He looks like his dead." Or "You open the door, into a poorly furnished office. There's a man sitting, slumped, in the simple wooden chair. Flies are hovering about and above him. He barely stirs in response to you, but from his breathing and his sweat you can see he's alive."
This might just point to difference in preference as to degree of detail. You-as-player have for some reason fixated on the flies, and thus left them in your short-form description even when there's other elements here that are - or potentially could be - far more important to the PCs.
The fist-hole in the wall could, for example, go right through to another room where someone is listening; and maybe it's that careless person's cigarette smoke that has drifted into this room. The bottles could be of a particular liquor known for its potency...or could be empty pop bottles, with the smell of liquor being due to the man intentionally spilling some on himself earlier to enhance his fakery of being drunk...or could just be cheap bourbon. The open window could be a clue, if it's the sort of neighbourhood where nobody usually dares leave a window open. Etc.
The possibilities are endless. Give the players room to engage with them at their pace and choice.
Now the players can engage with the man, or check out the room, or whatever they want to do, without having that interesting stuff gated behind a bizarre dance of the seven veils as to the basic set-up of the scene.
The "basic set-up of the scene" consists of what they see (and smell!) in the first few seconds after opening the door. Determining anything about the slumped man is going to take a longer look than that, even if only waiting to see if he's breathing.
