GM fiat - an illustration

[hawkeyefan]

....are you seriously calling this a "mystery"? Because I feel like I'm being trolled here.

You asked me to provide an example where the answer is generated by the process of looking for it. I did so.

Name for me an example where the answer is GENERATED by the process of looking for it.

 

[thefutilist]

Even if the rules and procedures sanction the GM to declare a new fact which establishes that the Countess was the killer rather than the Earl, the fact that it was not established until that fact was declared means the players couldn't be reasoning toward that conclusion--as, very literally, there was nothing to reason toward until that declaration occurred. This isn't fudging, but it does break the chain of player reasoning; everything they have previously observed remains in a superpositional limbo between "valid clue pointing to the real result" and "false lead trying to prevent you from finding the real result", and both results are perfectly consistent with the fiction of a whodunnit situation. When both results are perfectly consistent with the fiction but mutually exclusive and (usually) jointly exhaustive, it becomes impossible to do any reasoning with them.

I don't like thinking about this stuff but my mind does its own thing and so I ended up jotting down the skeleton of two games to work through it. Some brief thoughts at the bottom.


THE 'REAL' KEY

The occult apocalypse machine is ticking down. In one hour the world will be devoured. You need to find Albrecht Wainwright's key to stop this. The key lies somewhere in his study.

GM: Think about Albrecht Wainwright a bit. He's an occultist of some sort. Maybe a medical genius, maybe someone who spent too long thinking about the metaphysics of maths...

The location of the key: The key is somewhere in Albrecht's study. Think about the precise location. Base it on the personality of Albrecht. Maybe if he's a medical occultist it's located within a skull on a shelf. That type of thing.


PLAY

The players ask questions about what's here and the GM can give rough details. If the players ask more probing questions then the GM gives even more details.

The GM marks time when things are studied. Half a minute at the minimum but as long as the GM thinks it will take (tell the player how long you think it will take before they engage in study)

The players can also smash things, open them, burn them, that kind of thing. Tell them the time it will take and mark the time


GM MAKES STUFF UP

Your job is simply to say what Albrecht would have in his study and mark time. Some of the stuff that Albrecht has may provide possible clues as the location of the key. That's none of your business though. Your job is just to say what Albrecht has in his office.

------


ALBRECHT'S METAPHYSICAL MYSTERY KEY

Make up Albrecht but not the location of his key. Play the game as above but when the player investigates something, decide if Albrecht would have put his key there.

-------

THOUGHTS

If 'reason' means heuristic/strategy, then there probably are better or worse strategies in both games. Although I suspect the strategies will be different. If you add a few more rules about how you either convey information or ask for information, the strategies will probably diverge even more.

In the state the rules are in. I'm not sure they're that good but I'm guessing a lot of GM's who play this sort of stuff have a load of 'hidden rules' that they're using without even necessarily being aware of them.

@EzekialRaiden I think one can evaluate the rules, both hidden and written down, by how well it produces that flash of learning/insight you were talking about earlier. That's the social/aesthetic reward toward which games either contribute or don't. Although that's also got to be off-set by 'play feel'. You're not just looking for flashes of learning, you're looking for those flashes in a game that's similar to the ones above. I'd actually bite the bullet and just say that the players are trying to discover what's in the GM's notes. It's reductive and strips away the magic but it's by stripping away the magic we can evaluate the raw mechanisms by which something operates. (mostly fiat but as we've established, fiat is itself a stripping away, not all fiat is the same)

 

[hawkeyefan]

If all it is is a logic puzzle, then that's all a mystery is in the real world as well. Because in the real world you put together clues to try and figure out who dunnit. Just the same as in a game where the DM puts together clues for you to put together to try and figure out who dunnit.

You're arguing, whether you mean to or not, that there's no such thing as a mystery.

No, not at all. Because a mystery in the real-world lacks the bolded above.

I don't think a mystery is constructed in that way. It's something that happens due to a collision of many different factors, with no driving force behind them all.

 

[Maxperson]

This sounds like what everyone who ever wanted to know something unknown ever did.

Eh, that's so wrong it's not even funny.

"Whether or not the answer is created as the output of actual play, if there is no answer at all until the moment play generates one, how could you reason toward that answer prior to its generation?"

In the real world no one who wanted to know something unknown ever did that, because in all cases there was an answer prior to when they went looking. The answer wasn't generated when they found it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You asked me to provide an example where the answer is generated by the process of looking for it. I did so.

An example that is a mystery. We are talking about mysteries.

For goodness' sake, at least try to be engaging in good faith!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't like thinking about this stuff but my mind does its own thing and so I ended up jotting down the skeleton of two games to work through it. Some brief thoughts at the bottom.


THE 'REAL' KEY

The occult apocalypse machine is ticking down. In one hour the world will be devoured. You need to find Albrecht Wainwright's key to stop this. The key lies somewhere in his study.

GM: Think about Albrecht Wainwright a bit. He's an occultist of some sort. Maybe a medical genius, maybe someone who spent too long thinking about the metaphysics of maths...

The location of the key: The key is somewhere in Albrecht's study. Think about the precise location. Base it on the personality of Albrecht. Maybe if he's a medical occultist it's located within a skull on a shelf. That type of thing.


PLAY

The players ask questions about what's here and the GM can give rough details. If the players ask more probing questions then the GM gives even more details.

The GM marks time when things are studied. Half a minute at the minimum but as long as the GM thinks it will take (tell the player how long you think it will take before they engage in study)

The players can also smash things, open them, burn them, that kind of thing. Tell them the time it will take and mark the time


GM MAKES STUFF UP

Your job is simply to say what Albrecht would have in his study and mark time. Some of the stuff that Albrecht has may provide possible clues as the location of the key. That's none of your business though. Your job is just to say what Albrecht has in his office.

------


ALBRECHT'S METAPHYSICAL MYSTERY KEY

Make up Albrecht but not the location of his key. Play the game as above but when the player investigates something, decide if Albrecht would have put his key there.

-------

THOUGHTS

If 'reason' means heuristic/strategy, then there probably are better or worse strategies in both games. Although I suspect the strategies will be different. If you add a few more rules about how you either convey information or ask for information, the strategies will probably diverge even more.

In the state the rules are in. I'm not sure they're that good but I'm guessing a lot of GM's who play this sort of stuff have a load of 'hidden rules' that they're using without even necessarily being aware of them.

@EzekialRaiden I think one can evaluate the rules, both hidden and written down, by how well it produces that flash of learning/insight you were talking about earlier. That's the social/aesthetic reward toward which games either contribute or don't. Although that's also got to be off-set by 'play feel'. You're not just looking for flashes of learning, you're looking for those flashes in a game that's similar to the ones above. I'd actually bite the bullet and just say that the players are trying to discover what's in the GM's notes. It's reductive and strips away the magic but it's by stripping away the magic we can evaluate the raw mechanisms by which something operates. (mostly fiat but as we've established, fiat is itself a stripping away, not all fiat is the same)

And what of the Clue/Cluedo method? That is, a situation where nobody authored anything, and the GM does not have notes--but there is still a single, definitive answer that was always the answer, and which still permits revealing clues (mostly negative clues, at least the way Clue/Cluedo is traditionally played, but I suspect there are still ways to have positive clues nonetheless). By your logic, this cannot be discovering the GM's notes because, as noted, there aren't any. But it still does the thing I described, where there is a single specific answer that can be discovered by gathering evidence and reasoning on the basis of that evidence.

 

[Bedrockgames]

And what of the Clue/Cluedo method? That is, a situation where nobody authored anything, and the GM does not have notes--but there is still a single, definitive answer that was always the answer, and which still permits revealing clues (mostly negative clues, at least the way Clue/Cluedo is traditionally played, but I suspect there are still ways to have positive clues nonetheless). By your logic, this cannot be discovering the GM's notes because, as noted, there aren't any. But it still does the thing I described, where there is a single specific answer that can be discovered by gathering evidence and reasoning on the basis of that evidence.

Yes, the key thing is that an objective answer exist from the start. And that doesn't mean events in the session need to be planned out or anticipated. But the backstory being a concrete thing you can discover through play is the point that matters in terms of this distinction

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No, not at all. Because a mystery in the real-world lacks the bolded above.

Sure. And hired mercenaries clearing out IRL ruins or fighting "invading hordes" etc. don't have a person on high placing dangerous opponents in interesting places, but TTRPGing does--even Dungeon World, Apocalypse World, and most other such games that aren't outright "no-myth".

I don't really see where this argument goes. We are necessarily talking about something constructed through the efforts of people.

I don't think a mystery is constructed in that way. It's something that happens due to a collision of many different factors, with no driving force behind them all.

Certainly! But if you can give me an example of a mystery where there is no answer until that answer is generated by the people investigating it, I'd love to hear it. And, to be absolutely clear, since this seems to have been a point of unclarity:

1. It needs to be recognizable as a mystery. I hope that doesn't come across as hand-wavy, but that's the most concise way to express it.
2. It needs to not have any solution whatsoever before investigation begins. This doesn't mean that the answer is "no" or the like--it means that you cannot assign a truth-value, neither true nor false, to the key question of the mystery, an irresolvable question like "X+Y=7, X and Y are integers, what singular value is X?"
3. The solution to the mystery must be created by the actions of the investigators solving it. Again, this is not like "creating" a number by writing its digits down, nor about (say) developing the theory of distributions to make rigorous an idea that was purely BS handwavium, but rather that the investigational act itself literally produces a new truth where neither truth nor falsity existed. Again using the "X+Y=7, X and Y are integers" thing, where one of the investigators declares that Y=5 and thus creates the truth that X=2.

If you can give an example of that, I'd be all ears! That would be really weird, and while it might be a little disappointing, it would also be interesting to delve into what makes such a strange thing a mystery.

 

[Maxperson]

No, not at all. Because a mystery in the real-world lacks the bolded above.

That's an irrelevant distinction. The clues are there to be put together. That the DM puts the clues together in the real fictional mystery doesn't negate that the process is the same in both cases.

In the real non-fictional mystery, some of the clues will be placed by say the killer, and others by the environment, but they will be there to be discovered, put together, and then solved. They will never be generated as the investigator goes along and then the answer generated at the end. The clues and the answer are there prior to the investigator finding them.

In the real fictional mystery created by the DM, the clues are there to be discovered, put together, and then solved. They will never be generated as they go along and then the answer generated at the end. The clues and answer are there prior to the party of investigators finding them.

I say "real fictional mystery," because that fictional mystery has been pre-generated here in the real world and is written down on real paper, typed into a computer, etc., so it exists in reality, even if it is still fiction.

When you generate the clues as you go along and then create the answer, there is no level of reality to the mystery there.

I don't think a mystery is constructed in that way. It's something that happens due to a collision of many different factors, with no driving force behind them all.

Some are for sure. And even if the clues aren't placed deliberately, they still end up there due to a driving force. The killer was the driving force behind the clues to solving the murder. The thieves were the driving force behind the clues to solving the art theft. The killer and art thieves didn't accidentally commit those acts.

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A Bitcoin millionaire has hidden $2 million worth of treasures across the United States, leaving clues in a book to guide treasure hunters.

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Where those treasures are is a mystery.

 

[Maxperson]

“I wonder what would happen if I post a comparison of the 5e D&D Alarm spell with the 2e Torchbearer Aetherial Premonitions spell?”

That answer existed before hand. People, due to personalities, opinions, etc. were going to react in the manner that they have in this thread, prior to the question being asked. This thread is just revealing that answer to you now.