What about those situations where a character demands a scout report to verify the presence of a noble in a region? i.e. after an assassination attempt or other infiltrator sabotage. Or a looting. We, as players, know that scout reports regarding the presence of a noble can't be faked. Is it therefore acceptable to demand a scout report to verify the presence, because we know it can't be faked? Or in those cases should we be forced to accept the player's word for it, since that can be faked?
I think this is the key point.
I feel very oddly about this. On the one hand, my gut reaction when I read the original complaint was "ugh, that's awful". And then I thought about it, and realized that we all do this all the time with scout reports, as Indirik points out. I'm in a weird state of disconnect at the moment.
In theory, I don't like 100% reliable information in the game, period. In practice, it's utterly necessary to keep people from just going OOC, as I saw happen far too often in games like Utopia, where third party software became standard because people
need reliable information.
On this specific matter: I don't think torture reports should produce scribe notes. But that's not my call, and using them since they exist does not seem like it should be a punishable offense, any more than asking for a scout report after an assassination is.
