The-Magic-Sword
Small Ball Archmage
I think that those are two different meanings of the word 'discovery' that are both valid, but not interchangeable. Discovery of 'oh hey, I came up with this, so logically this other piece of fiction would also be true' and 'Oh hey, we're one step closer to solving the puzzle of what happened here' aren't the same play aesthetic.
One is fundamentally an act of creation, the other an act of investigation, you view them differently because in one there's an existing answer you want to uncover the truth of, and in the other you know the 'question' is open ended.
A question you know has a specific answer, and a question you know is a prompt to create your own answer, are very different questions, one is learning, the other is creating. Your example mixes them as ingredients of the same dish, but it doesn't transmute them into the same concept. Its two acts in quick succession, one an act of curation as you utilize the random generation as a prompt to create, and another as the players file this information
This also contrasts with Story Now play, in that the GM is the primary agent of this creation-- the players aren't establishing anything, for them its completely an act of discovery just like if you'd written about that capability of Wights in your notes. The only way they even know that this piece of the fiction was a spur of the moment addition, is if you tell them. 'Story Before' and 'Story a Few Seconds Before' are not, in this context, exclusive concepts. You as composer are simply working randomization into your generation of the composition. You might not know the recipe up front, but the players are still eating, rather than cooking.
In Masks, a player might provide that information spur of the moment, knowing that it currently has no connections to rest of the fiction, making it an act of generation, rather than discovery. There's no mystery to uncover, only a story to tell-- there's no answer until one is generated, and that act is not uncovering something already there, but creating it. This is especially true since the implication of something established is itself only a prompt, its still a multiple choice question that defies the sense of a discrete answer existing, precluding the transition from creation to information gathering.
I sort of want to push back on making them the same, because to me, that sense of information gathering is a core aesthetic of both play as a player and the fun of GMing, whereas some players would rather it not exist and that all elements be established as generated rather than gathered. Sort of a sense of "Why are there elements of the fiction I don't control?" By conflating them, we create a weak substitute for information gathering that allows it to exist in theory, but not in practice. Something that might let us say 'You can explore and gather information!' but then deferring the act of exploration of an existing fictional space to a generative act of that same fictional space.
This is a trick of language, where 'playing to find out' really means 'playing to author and enjoy your friends authoring' as opposed to 'playing to uncover' The two can be mixed to an extent, but different ratios provide different products and different experiences. The more we have of 'playing to author' the less we have of 'playing to uncover' and vice versa, that gap can't be bridged by demanding those who are playing to uncover be satisfied by playing to author. Vice versa, this is why railroading is accepted as a bad thing, player agency in interacting with the world is traditionally their avenue for authorship, forming a symbiotic relationship between a world that can be uncovered and an emergent series of events that can be authored.
One is fundamentally an act of creation, the other an act of investigation, you view them differently because in one there's an existing answer you want to uncover the truth of, and in the other you know the 'question' is open ended.
A question you know has a specific answer, and a question you know is a prompt to create your own answer, are very different questions, one is learning, the other is creating. Your example mixes them as ingredients of the same dish, but it doesn't transmute them into the same concept. Its two acts in quick succession, one an act of curation as you utilize the random generation as a prompt to create, and another as the players file this information
This also contrasts with Story Now play, in that the GM is the primary agent of this creation-- the players aren't establishing anything, for them its completely an act of discovery just like if you'd written about that capability of Wights in your notes. The only way they even know that this piece of the fiction was a spur of the moment addition, is if you tell them. 'Story Before' and 'Story a Few Seconds Before' are not, in this context, exclusive concepts. You as composer are simply working randomization into your generation of the composition. You might not know the recipe up front, but the players are still eating, rather than cooking.
In Masks, a player might provide that information spur of the moment, knowing that it currently has no connections to rest of the fiction, making it an act of generation, rather than discovery. There's no mystery to uncover, only a story to tell-- there's no answer until one is generated, and that act is not uncovering something already there, but creating it. This is especially true since the implication of something established is itself only a prompt, its still a multiple choice question that defies the sense of a discrete answer existing, precluding the transition from creation to information gathering.
I sort of want to push back on making them the same, because to me, that sense of information gathering is a core aesthetic of both play as a player and the fun of GMing, whereas some players would rather it not exist and that all elements be established as generated rather than gathered. Sort of a sense of "Why are there elements of the fiction I don't control?" By conflating them, we create a weak substitute for information gathering that allows it to exist in theory, but not in practice. Something that might let us say 'You can explore and gather information!' but then deferring the act of exploration of an existing fictional space to a generative act of that same fictional space.
This is a trick of language, where 'playing to find out' really means 'playing to author and enjoy your friends authoring' as opposed to 'playing to uncover' The two can be mixed to an extent, but different ratios provide different products and different experiences. The more we have of 'playing to author' the less we have of 'playing to uncover' and vice versa, that gap can't be bridged by demanding those who are playing to uncover be satisfied by playing to author. Vice versa, this is why railroading is accepted as a bad thing, player agency in interacting with the world is traditionally their avenue for authorship, forming a symbiotic relationship between a world that can be uncovered and an emergent series of events that can be authored.
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