Torture Reports as Message Forwarding

[Vellos]

To sum:

The question is not if the basic things requested (torture, report forwarding, etc) are acceptable, but if the OOC motivating reasons for them are acceptable. The Magistrates do not seem to have had much substantive discussion on that matter yet.

[Chenier]

SMA reports go to the titans, however, and not to us. Are we competent to debate the respect or not of SMA?

[Lavigna]

This is getting way confusing

What do i mean by that.The said character GM or not asked for a torture in order to see the accurate letter.Torture from what i remember from my days as Judge are random and may not include the messages you would wish to read but many torture hoping for that right letter to appear.

First he asks for a report that includes said letter and afterwards he asks for the report alone (that of course can be short way of saying he wants the report with the letter)

Two things can be said.

1) You have a point in a way because he specifically asks for a report that includes letters so yeah it is kinda bad stated because it is like knowing the mechanic of torture and asking for it.
2)On the other hand he asks for a torture on the said matter and asks for the "report" answer of said tortured person.

What i mean is that it may as well be a bad stated request and nothing more.

It is a fact that when you torture someone you ask for certain information.Chances you will get your answers depends from the person you torture and i suppose this is why Tom made the letters that come out on the report random.STILL you must take in consideration that this report is to make things easier and by that i mean that a person in prison is not in there with a bunch of letters waiting to give them up.Such information is in his head so a letter cannot be given to anyone anyway.

He can be tortured and you can actually write a report from what the prisoner spit when in pain but a report with the actual letter would be an insane thing to ask.

Under this light it is indeed more complicated than it seemed on the first read.

[Lavigna]

SMA reports go to the titans, however, and not to us. Are we competent to debate the respect or not of SMA?

Agreed.

[Geronus]

Clarification:

Did a Magistrate seriously just imply that preventing meta-gaming is not their job?

Why yes, I did.

Our job is to enforce the Social Contract and the IRs. Please note that nowhere in either document does the word 'meta-gaming' even appear. If our job IS to prevent meta-gaming, then the Social Contract should be modified to include a clause that defines and explicitly bans 'meta-gaming'. The closest we get is the clause you are referencing about exploiting bugs; this is not the same as meta-gaming, which is a *far* broader term. You can also fairly argue that the very idea of 'Fair Play' precludes meta-gaming, however I'm not sold on that. Meta-gaming is defined thusly:

"...the use of out-of-game information or resources to affect one's in-game decisions." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming

This sin is committed routinely, by even the most well-intentioned players. By pen and paper standards, BM has a *lot* of highly arbitrary limitations on your characters' actions. Not all of them are easily explicable in RP terms. We must, by necessity, use OOC information about the game mechanics to make rational decisions about what to do in the game. I.e, we have to RP *around* the game, within the limits that we all know exist OOC. Just like you know that the only way to win a rebellion is to capture the capital, or that you can only recruit troops in your capital as opposed to any region with a recruitment center (which have a proven effect on character actions), so too do you know that the only foolproof way to get an accurate copy of a letter you weren't the original recipient of is through a torture report. We meta-game more or less constantly. Do I approve of what the GM is doing here? No. I do not. I think it's pretty lame actually, mostly for the many reasons you've already spelled out. However, I do not think our mandate covers this particular scenario.

This is not a bug. This *could* be construed as a loophole, however since the GM does not benefit from it unless you actually agree to supply him with what he's asking for, it's hard to say that he's exploiting it. Seeing as he could decide to destroy Terran for any reason at all, even a completely arbitrary one, his asking you for this particular thing is hardly exploitative since it confers upon him no advantage, even if he were to get it. Poor RP? Definitely. However we don't punish that here, we merely heap derision upon it.

EDIT: Just to clarify, some forms of meta-gaming, such as the exploitation of bugs to gain a material advantage in the game, are *clearly* against the spirit of Fair Play. In my opinion this is not one of them.

[Fury]

I never thought I'd see the day when the Zuma got brought to court 

My preliminary thoughts:

Firstly, it seems unlikely the Zuma will be able to defend themselves here without taking on a mortal form and thereby revealing their mortal identity. We will most likely have to proceed without their input but I think there is already enough information to act upon.

As Tom has stated before, secret police reports do not generate a scribe note because it is 100% intentional that there is no way to share the information in a 100% verifiable accurate manner.
100% accurate and verifiable manner, you would not get a scribe note link.

Even if police reports are scribe-linkable they are also not 100% accurate (by the way comment).

If it was intentional that you cannot share the information with other players in a 100% accurate and verifiable manner, you would not get a scribe note link.

Sounds like it's the way it's meant to be, if there's a link it can be shared.

Also do note that if there isn't a link anything can still be shared or asked for. It's up to the recipient to give it or not. A torture request was made and information was asked IG on the official report of the torture. IG official would mean scribe-linkable reports.

As the game does not provide means of faking scribe notes through game mechanics the request has to be understood as wanting your official word on the report in an official format. The character could of course send his own (non-game formatted) report and it would be up to their respective characters to hash it out IG.

In short OOC motivations can be translated into IG motivations.

[Geronus]

Firstly, it seems unlikely the Zuma will be able to defend themselves here without taking on a mortal form and thereby revealing their mortal identity. We will most likely have to proceed without their input but I think there is already enough information to act upon.

Actually, the Zuma GM has a forum account, which he has used to respond to entries in the Zuma thread under the Dwilight board. He can presumably use the same account to respond to this thread should he feel the need. Therefore, if he says nothing you should assume it is because he either has nothing to say or cannot be bothered to give us his perspective here.

[Vellos]

SMA reports go to the titans, however, and not to us. Are we competent to debate the respect or not of SMA?

This seems silly.

Titans handle very severe issues like multis... and comparatively very low-level immersion issues like SMA. So Magistrates handle... only the awkward middle?

[Vellos]

Why yes, I did.

....The closest we get is the clause you are referencing about exploiting bugs; this is not the same as meta-gaming, which is a *far* broader term. You can also fairly argue that the very idea of 'Fair Play' precludes meta-gaming, however I'm not sold on that.
....
EDIT: Just to clarify, some forms of meta-gaming, such as the exploitation of bugs to gain a material advantage in the game, are *clearly* against the spirit of Fair Play. In my opinion this is not one of them.

So some meta-gaming is just more meta-gamerish than other meta-gaming. Maybe we should create a scale, 1-9, ranking the relative severity of meta-gaming, and Magistrates only handle cases ranked 4-7, while Titans handle 8-9. A little bit of unfair play by GMs, hey, that's just BM being Gygaxian, right?

I get that we are titled Magistrates. But do we have to be so lawyerly? We admit that this is basically extremely poor form by the GM, you said it should be heaped with derision. And yet you're going to give it the rubber stamp of approval. Seriously? The Magistrates are a body for regulating a community. This is a case where the GM, according to you: "Do I approve of what the GM is doing here? No. I do not. I think it's pretty lame actually, mostly for the many reasons you've already spelled out. "

And I have to go now. But I will return. WIth a vengeance.

[Anaris]

This seems silly.

Titans handle very severe issues like multis... and comparatively very low-level immersion issues like SMA. So Magistrates handle... only the awkward middle?

I can definitely see an argument to be made that SMA reports should be handled by the Magistrates, and the ability to force-deport as a resolution in those cases be an option.

However, as it stands, the code sends SMA reports to the Titans, as it has done for...well, I'm not sure exactly how long, but certainly over a year before the Magistrates existed.

[Indirik]

Even if police reports are scribe-linkable they are also not 100% accurate (by the way comment).

The accuracy of the content of the scribe note is not the issue with the lack of a scribe note link for secret police reports. The issue is that the game intentionally does not allow a ruler to have a 100% guaranteed accurate way for the ruler to report the results of the secret police to other players. The ruler character cannot provide a scribe note link and say "See, I'm not lying, and the game itself will back me up." The report is intentionally not scribe noted so that there is guaranteed to be an element of mistrust involved. You can /never/ be 100% certain that the character is telling you the truth about what the game told him. Assuming that the game even told him, because he may not even have used the SP, but fabricated the entire thing.

[Indirik]

I can definitely see an argument to be made that SMA reports should be handled by the Magistrates, and the ability to force-deport as a resolution in those cases be an option.

I agree that the Magistrates should be able to handle SMA issue. I don't see any particular reason why not. I mean, I know why they can't at the moment, but I don't see any reason the system couldn't be changed to let them. Maybe once enough cases have been tried, and Tom is happy with the results, it will be.

[Indirik]

irstly, it seems unlikely the Zuma will be able to defend themselves here without taking on a mortal form and thereby revealing their mortal identity.

The Zuma GM has actually created a forum account specifically for anonymous posting as the Zuma GA without revealing his identity.

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php?action=profile;u=247

[Indirik]

The question I was raising is why it is acceptable for a character to operate on the assumption that torture reports are 100% always accurate...

Our characters would request scout reports whether or not they were known to be 100% accurate (and in fact they are not 100% accurate. maybe 90%. if you count misdirections, maybe even less). But "torture reports" are purely an OOC convenience to add a fun feature to the game.

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?

And, after all, as far as our characters should be concerned, your character telling mine that Kepler was in Kepler City is just as accurate as a scribe report showing it. Why should I trust a scout report that you had your scribe write out by hand any more than I would trust you to dictate the exact same list of names to your scribe? It seems to me that by your reasoning in this case, the very act of demanding *anything* as a scribe note is indicative of metagaming, since the only point of demanding a scribe note is that we, as players, know OOC that they are guaranteed 100% accurate.

[Bedwyr]

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.