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.
As I have said in other threads: I do think that your character should treat the scribe note as equivalent to me giving you a verbal confirmation. They're the same thing. Except one comes from a noble, and one from a peasant. I have operated under that rule for as long as I've been in BM. I only request scribe notes when:
1. The information is too complex to be easily summarized (if I want the full details of a military deployment, for example)
2. I don't want to tell someone what I actually want to know
3. Other issues of OOC convenience
It has, in fact, always been my understanding (especially given the basic unreliability of scout reports; I forget, do they perfectly report infil presences? advy and priest movement also seems to complicate the issue) that scribe notes were purely an OOC convenience for players. The idea that these are actually some type of formalized document (that this is ACTUALLY what our characters are looking at) seems quite novel to me, and a major alteration to existing game custom.
For myself, if somebody says, "General Gooba of Kepler is in Kepler City" my first response isn't to go "Scribe report plz?" Or, if it is, that isn't so that I can test the veracity of the fact of his presence, but so that I can get the full details the initial reporter left out. And because I as a player enjoy the psychological certainty of a scout report, and sometimes that bleeds through (though I actually rarely look at scout reports).
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.
And that's exactly my point.
Scribe notes ARE necessary, they keep a modicum of sanity to a game and forestall people going OOC for information. PLAYERS need reliable information to feel comfortable in the game. But CHARACTERS do not need that same level of certainty. And when CHARACTERS operate with a certainty only achievable due to understandings they could never have, but players do have, it seems like clear metagaming to me.
Even if the verdict is not ultimately decided against the Zuma GM (and I understand fully that the lack of the case's falling under a specific sub-heading renders that practically inevitable) I do request that the verdict still take note of this issue somehow, and reflect what several Magistrates have said: that even if this type of behavior is not explicitly forbidden, it's still pretty !@#$ty, especially from a GM on an SMA island.
