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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8418638" data-attributes="member: 42582">Warning: long, analytical post incoming!This post drives home that a RPG is more than just a rule for how to generate random numbers as part of the action resolution process.The contrary, but mistaken, thought was found in a post upthread by [USER=6915329]@Faolyn[/USER] - I stated that Classic Traveller has no read a situation subsystem, and Faolyn replied by pointing out that it has various social skills. The premise of that reply is that what defines Traveller as a rpg is simply its list of potential modifiers to checks - but that we already know what the process of resolution looks like (ie roll a die/dice of the size and number specified by the rules when the GM tells you too; add the bonus from the appropriate list as specified by the rules and/or the GM; compare that to a target number specified by the rules and/or the GM that the player may or may not know; have the GM tell you something about the fiction as the result and/or the rules prompt them to).With that mistaken assumption in place, the question about how does AW do mysteries? is equivalent to the question what list of bonuses does the game offer to add to rolls, and what sorts of things does the game prompt the GM to tell players after they have made the rolls that the GM calls for. Which then prompts the complaints But why is there no general "investigation" ability? (Ie why is the list of bonuses constrained in a certain way?) And Why can the GM not call for a roll when the situation is not charged?Whereas probably the most important features of a RPG are its rules for who gets to say what, when, and make it part of the shared fiction. Now it's true that between the early 1980s and the late 1990s almost no RPGs actually stated their rules about this (I choose those cut-off dates because there are earlier RPGs that are clear about this: I think Moldvay Basic and Gygax's AD&D are tolerably clear although the latter is a bit convoluted about it, as is well known; Classic Traveller is clear in places; and then there are late 90s/early 2000s RPGs that are clear like Maelstrom Storytelling, HeroWars, Sorcerer I assume without actually having read it, Burning Wheel, In a Wicked Age, etc). They just assumed that everyone knows that RPGs work as described in the second paragraph of this post.That's a way to play a RPG, if that's what someone wants. But obviously it puts nearly everything about the shared fiction into the hands of the GM, unless some sort of ad hoc understandings or protocols emerge at the table.I think the easiest way to bring out how AW is different - and its there in [USER=99817]@chaochou[/USER]'s post that I've quoted, and in some of my posts upthread - is to ask how is this bit of content being established as part of the shared fiction? By whom? In accordance with what rule or principle? Because AW is so crystal clear on who gets to say what when, answering those questions in a way that is consistent with what AW says will quickly reveal that the mystery is not going to look or play like a typical CoC module.Like you, I think it's easy to exaggerate the importance of pre-authorship. I've certainly heard (is it still accepted fact?) that the script for Casablanca was still being finalised while filming was taking place. And then there's the notorious observation that even Raymond Chandler himself didn't know who had committed one of the killing in the film version of The Big Sleep.When I've played Cthulhu Dark there have been "loose ends" like that - ie events that certainly took place (because they were part of the shared fiction established in play) and that definitely propelled things forward, but no one at the table has known exactly who caused them or what their precise rationale was. They don't impede the play of the mystery. (And think about playing a typical CoC module: there will be stuff in the module that the players never learn. So for them the experience is always of loose or not fully resolved threads. My experience is that it makes no difference to the sense of mystery if this is true for the GM also. In the CoC case, the players may suppose that the module author tied it all together in what they wrote. In the Cthulhu Dark case I'm describing, everyone knows that we could tie it all together if we wanted to, by writing the additional fiction that would link it all up. But do we need to?)I'm responding to this through the lens of AW in particular. (I think DW is close enough in its principles and GM-side moves that it might make sense for DW too.)Building on what I've said just above, I think the key issue here is what does the GM say when? I think there's no formal objection to the GM preparing a threat clock which includes if such-and-such a thing happens, then the Duke gets his factotum to hide his diary in the billiard room cupboard. I also think there's no formal objection to the GM writing a custom move for the billiard room. Baker gives the example of a custom move (AW p 144): When you go into Dremmer’s territory, roll+sharp. On a 10+, you can spot and avoid ambush. On a 7–9, you spot the ambush in time to prepare or flee. On a miss, you blunder into it.So speaking purely from a formal point of view, the following seems an acceptable custom move:When you search the billiard room, roll+sharp. On a 10+, you find whatever others have hidden there; the MC will tell you what this is. On a 7-9, you locate something interesting before the Duke's help arrives: you can re-hide it just before they come in, or you can grab it as they enter (they'll see you taking it!). On a miss, you've been caught red handed!Moving from the formal to the substantive, though, we have to ask: what would the point of such a custom move be? It rests on a premise that the billiard room and its hidden stuff has the same sort of significance, for play, as does Dremmer's territory and his ambushers. So how would that happen? Well, one of the basic principles is say what prep demands. And one of the GM moves is make a threat move. So if the GM has authored a front and threat in such a way that the billiard room is significant, that should emerge in play via the GM's moves; so that when the PCs are searching the billiard room, the custom move makes sense.So where I'm heading with these ruminations is here: AW doesn't object to prep. But it has clear principles about who says what when.Consistently with those principles - and assuming now that there is not a custom move for searching the billiard room - the GM might even say that a search of the billiard room reveals nothing. But that wouldn't be all that the GM says, because that's not a move. So let's suppose that a player has their PC go off to search the billiard room. And (for whatever reason) it's not a charged situation, and there's no one there to interact with. So no player-side move has been triggered, and the GM just makes a move as normal. And that move could be your search of the billiard room reveals nothing; but when you come back home, you find that someone took advantage of your absence to really turn over your place! What do you think they might have found that you'd rather they didn't? (To some extent I'm taking my cue here from the Moves Snowball example of play, where Marie goes back home after Isle collapses.)Whether what I've just described would be fair play, or crappy (even "gotcha") play, would depend on all the surrounding context. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think it's helpful to say that AW can or can't do fictional situation of such-and-such a sort. Putting to one side basic questions of genre (like maybe we should really be talking about car sheds rather than billiard rooms) I don't think AW puts any limits on the possible fiction.The key question is always who is getting to establish it, when, in accordance with what rules and principles?</blockquote>

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