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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7344231" data-attributes="member: 42582">The absence of foot prints is a result of causal processes that actually took place in the world (eg the person didn't go there; or the earth was very hard; or etc, etc).The absence of foot prints in a RPG mystery resolved in a &quot;hidden backstory&quot; style is because the GM decided not to author any such element of the fiction. Playing a game and having the outcomes of my moves stipulated by another participant is not remotely the same thing as actually carrying out an investigation.It may make for good or bad game design and game play to give a participant such a power of stipulation. But comparing it to the reality of engaging with an independently and objectively-existing world gets us nowhere towards considering those matters.Again, it's not remotely realistic. In real life, the suspect is (say) scared of &lt;going to jail&gt;, &lt;being beaten up by his/her cohorts&gt;, &lt;betraying his/her loved one&gt;, etc. The GM is not scared of any of those things. Presumably, if the game is going well, the GM isn't scared at all.The suspect can be tricked eg maybe the investigator pretends to be someone else. The GM can't be tricked in that way: s/he knows who the player is, and why s/he is asking certain questions (ie because s/he is making moves in a game).I know some GMs are very confident in their ability to &quot;realistically&quot; predict the causal consequences of social interactions, such that they can predict how and to what extent the suspect would be scared, or tricked, and narrate appropriate consequences. Personally I think that a simple reaction roll system is more likely to give more verisimilitudinous results than GM predictions of this sort. And in practice, the way those GM &quot;predictions' tend to be operationalised is via simple descriptions or checklists: If the investigator asks X, the suspect replies Y; if the investigator threatens P, the suspect does Q; etc. That's not realistic - it's just stipulating the possible paths the fiction might take. Whether it's good or bad to stipulate such things is, as I've repeatedly said, an open question: but concepts of &quot;realism&quot; don't help us answer it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7344231, member: 42582"] The absence of foot prints is a result of causal processes that actually took place in the world (eg the person didn't go there; or the earth was very hard; or etc, etc). The absence of foot prints in a RPG mystery resolved in a "hidden backstory" style is because the GM decided not to author any such element of the fiction. Playing a game and having the outcomes of my moves stipulated by another participant is not remotely the same thing as actually carrying out an investigation. It may make for good or bad game design and game play to give a participant such a power of stipulation. But comparing it to the reality of engaging with an independently and objectively-existing world gets us nowhere towards considering those matters. Again, it's not remotely realistic. In real life, the suspect is (say) scared of <going to jail>, <being beaten up by his/her cohorts>, <betraying his/her loved one>, etc. The GM is not scared of any of those things. Presumably, if the game is going well, the GM isn't scared at all. The suspect can be tricked eg maybe the investigator pretends to be someone else. The GM can't be tricked in that way: s/he knows who the player is, and why s/he is asking certain questions (ie because s/he is making moves in a game). I know some GMs are very confident in their ability to "realistically" predict the causal consequences of social interactions, such that they can predict how and to what extent the suspect would be scared, or tricked, and narrate appropriate consequences. Personally I think that a simple reaction roll system is more likely to give more verisimilitudinous results than GM predictions of this sort. And in practice, the way those GM "predictions' tend to be operationalised is via simple descriptions or checklists: If the investigator asks X, the suspect replies Y; if the investigator threatens P, the suspect does Q; etc. That's not [I]realistic[/I] - it's just stipulating the possible paths the fiction might take. Whether it's good or bad to stipulate such things is, as I've repeatedly said, an open question: but concepts of "realism" don't help us answer it. [/QUOTE]

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