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Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 10:00:53 -0400
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Subject: Re: [CONTENT] Puzzle fairness
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Mike Roberts wrote:
[...]
> It seems like the focus of your displeasure is responses that reveal new
> information - the point you seem to be making is that a response is bad when
> it's not supported by some previous disclosure.  IF being an interactive
> medium, though, what exactly is wrong with revealing information through
> interaction?

Partially, I suppose, because that falls back on the "why the ****
don't I know anything about the character I'm playing" issue that so
many other people (other than myself, usually) seem to have with
games.

Also, partially, because if there's only one thing I'm allowed to do,
then I (as a player) am not really part of the process.  The game is
playing me, rather than vice versa.

> Especially in the early parts of a game, why not fill in
> details on a character interactively?  I'd certainly agree with the
> objection if we were talking about a glaring inconsistency, where the PC had
> to kill another character in one scene but "would never do that" in a
> subsequent scene;

"Violence isn't the answer to this one?  It was a minute ago..."

Yeah, I've seen quite a few like this, and it may be tinting my view.

> but the only inconsistency you're talking about is with
> the player's preconceptions of what the PC ought to be like.

Maybe.  But, then, as I asked elsewhere, how is this somehow better
than the player being inconsistent with the author's views of how the
PC should be acting?

