Torture Reports as Message Forwarding

[Zuma GM]

...
The Zuma made the request, apparently because they believe the word of the judges scribe over the word of the judge.

Isn't that what the GM is saying, essentially?

I would object to that, IC, if I were Vellos.

And I'm very curious why the Zuma place more trust in non-noble humans, than on noble humans. Why the distinction?

You make the assumption that the Zuma consider hierarchy in the same way as humans and think in the same way as humans. The Zuma have seen from their own experience that torture is a proven way to get the truth from humans. That is why they demand it.
Some of the points of view given in various places in the forums are very good at discouraging any one from wanting to do any GM work and at making current GMs wonder why they even bother to invest their time trying to do anything to give more to the game for the benefit of the players. Adding some flavor.
Everything the Zuma have done has been because of player interaction. Everything. Some of the interactions no one knows about apart from the individual concerned, some of it is known in many places.
Please just stop analysing the Zuma based on human ideologies.

[Chenier]

You have a wiki account. Instead of complaining that it's not there, why don't you go put it there?

I had forgotten it existed here to do so.

If it's not done by january, give me a prod then and I'll do it then.

[Chenier]

For the record, I don't consider meta-gaming to break the game rulers we are mandated to enforce. I've said this before, and I think it was here: I think the magistrate's role is to make sure people play fair, not that they play well. Playing "well" is only regulated by SMA, which only applies to Dwilight, and which the Titans have juridiction over.

[Fury]

Has nobody seen the REAL problem with the request? Nobody?
What's wrong with the request IC?

The Zuma made the request, apparently because they believe the word of the judges scribe over the word of the judge.

I would take scribe notes as official documents. Letters are just letters. Asking for an official document is asking for an official word rather than a personal word.

In a similar but not same comparison: asking for an official oath (through game mechanics) is preferable to a lord giving you his personal word (through a letter) than he will pay you 10% of the region's tax gold every month.

* A poll has been started in the backroom and a decision should be reached in 3 days.

[Fury]

Discussion on Meta-gaming has been moved to Questions & Answers.

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php?topic=1670.0

Some off-topic discussion related to the case is fine but as as it has now branched off for several posts from the main topic it is time to move it.

[Vellos]

So you admit that you sometimes ask for scribe notes for the 100% OOC certainty that it gives you, the player. But you're here prosecuting a magistrates case against another player claiming that's what he did?

I have never predicated the destruction of years of history and entire realms on it. There's a slight difference between, "I'm OOC curious, so a scout report would be nice" and "I'm OOC curious, so I'll destroy your realm until you give me a torture report."

Vellos is so pro-activist bench! 

No. I'm not. My expectations of the Magistrates are predicated on, I suppose, "special knowledge," that being that I re-read several threads in the Backroom before posting my complaint, and so thought my argument had a reasonable chance of success.

But more on those larger issues would need to be discussed, not here, but in the Backroom.

[fodder]

you know... the best thing to do is for the zuma to go out and capture a bunch random nobles and peasants  (who might have witnessed whatever) and torture them all, rather than asking torture reports from foreign realms.

whole thing is a bit weird isn't it? you have to get a foreign noble to torture a peasant (the foreign noble can't just torture a noble on the fly...) and then tell you what that peasant witnessed or said or whatever.. so they can tell the peasant is lying?

surely the use of a torture report link is not necessarily to send it around as such, but so the torturer can actually read the damn thing again later at leisure rather than at the time of clicking torture link? (or does torture not resolve until turn change and then you get a 30 day time limit to read it like normal event messages?)

[Chaotrance13]

you know... the best thing to do is for the zuma to go out and capture a bunch random nobles and peasants  (who might have witnessed whatever) and torture them all, rather than asking torture reports from foreign realms.

You'd have a similar problem, though. The GM would be accused of OOC interference and we'd be here arguing over the semantics of another case. Even if the nobles and peasants/adventurers gave permission for this to happen, someone would cry foul and demand it be stopped.

[vonGenf]

You'd have a similar problem, though. The GM would be accused of OOC interference and we'd be here arguing over the semantics of another case. Even if the nobles and peasants/adventurers gave permission for this to happen, someone would cry foul and demand it be stopped.

That's not quite true.

No one is complaining that torturing someone yields the truth. If you are a Judge and you witness the torture sessions, then you do get the truth.

What people are complaining about is the use of scribe notes as a mechanism between foreign governements to ensure that a foreign noble is not lying about what happened within these session.

To respect SMA, if the Zuma judge wanted to be 100% certain that the Terran judge did torture the adventurer and that the adventurer said a certain thing during the session, the Zuma judge should have to torture the Terran judge himself,
because torturing is the only way to get the truth and the Zuma know it.

The Zuma don't know IC that scribe notes can't be forged. That's a purely OOC mechanism. It's the transfer of scribe notes that's in question, not torture.

[Chaotrance13]

That's not quite true.

No one is complaining that torturing someone yields the truth. If you are a Judge and you witness the torture sessions, then you do get the truth.

What people are complaining about is the use of scribe notes as a mechanism between foreign governements to ensure that a foreign noble is not lying about what happened within these session.

To respect SMA, if the Zuma judge wanted to be 100% certain that the Terran judge did torture the adventurer and that the adventurer said a certain thing during the session, the Zuma judge should have to torture the Terran judge himself,
because torturing is the only way to get the truth and the Zuma know it.

The Zuma don't know IC that scribe notes can't be forged. That's a purely OOC mechanism. It's the transfer of scribe notes that's in question, not torture.

I'm not doubting that torture gives the truth. What I was saying was that if the Zuma decided to go on a kidnapping spree as Fodder suggests, then we'd be back here with another case because someone wouldn't like it. Even with the approval of the players themselves. Hence it wouldn't really work.

But that said, the Terran judge having to present themselves before the Zuma, or being kidnapped during the night by a gargoyle or something (with player permission)... that's an interesting thought.

Edit: Either way though, this idea of alternate ways of procuring the information is probably off-topic and should be left for another time.

[vonGenf]

or being kidnapped during the night by a gargoyle or something (with player permission)... that's an interesting thought.

I don't even see why player permission would be needed. There would be no problem whatsoever with the Zuma capturing the Terran Judge. It would play out IC.

Edit: Either way though, this idea of alternate ways of procuring the information is probably off-topic and should be left for another time.

This is neither here nor there. You implied that the players were complaining of the Zuma taking any action. That's not the case: the complaint is specifically about the way it was done.

[Chaotrance13]

Forget it, I'm done.

[Vellos]

You'd have a similar problem, though. The GM would be accused of OOC interference and we'd be here arguing over the semantics of another case. Even if the nobles and peasants/adventurers gave permission for this to happen, someone would cry foul and demand it be stopped.

No, I wouldn't complain about that. The Zuma spontaneously and surprisingly invaded both Terran and Barca. I didn't complain. I've actually enjoyed the affair immensely. The whole ongoing thing with the Zuma has actually been extremely enjoyable to me, up until the demand for a torture report, which, to me, seemed like meta-gaming, and meta-gaming quite likely to result in serious IG consequences.

[vanKaya]

I've spent some time reading about this case and it's a lot more complex than I first thought.

Not that it matters, but I agree with Vellos. I wouldn't go so far as to call this particular instance "meta-gaming", because I think that term implies malicious intent which I don't believe is what motivated the Zuma GM. However, I do agree that the ruling of this case sets an important precedent.

If I may point out an alternative situation in which this issue would come up:

[The King asks the General "Give me a scout report of the region of Keplar."

The General, for some reason, does not want to give the King the true scout report and instead replies with a "My scouts have come back and report that Keplar is free of enemies"

The King, suspecting something, asks for a *scout report*.]

Now what? Is the general forced to oblige and risk the King uncovering his plot?

I think that the King is in this case is violating SMA and the spirit of IC/OOC separation. Why would the *scout report* be any better than the general's word? In medieval times it would be no problem at all for the General to send the king some forgery that looked identical to a "scout report" but was not actually accurate. In OOC terms however, it is impossible to send anything other than a 100% accurate scout report. This is where the problem lies.

Now, it would be one thing if 100% accurate * torture/ scout reports* served some sort of game-balancing purpose. If this was the case Vellos' criticisms would fall under the same category as people who ask for more recruiting locations, i.e. Sure it's more historically correct to recruit in places other than the capital, but for the sake of game balance that's how it must be.

However, unless I'm mistaken (totally possible), the fact that *torture reports* are 100% accurate (i.e. impossible to forge) is not a game- balancing issue, but simply a matter of keeping the game simple/ efficient/ easy to code.

In my opinion the heart of this issue is the separation of IC/OOC knowledge. The Zuma GM, though well intentioned, used the OOC knowledge that scout reports are 100% accurate as motivation for his IC actions (i.e. the request that an "official report" be provided)

I'm not sure how pertinent it is to the case, but I'm pretty sure that Vellos is not trying to hide anything from the Zuma, rather he is concerned at the potential for future abuse. I've seen the "official report", there's nothing there that we would want to keep from the Zuma... but if there were, this would totally ruin any chance at "thickening the plot".

[egamma]

You need to replace "100% accurate" with "unforgable".

Here's my theory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_line

Here's my theory--strung throughout the lands of Battlemaster are semaphore towers. These are managed by an order of monks who are absolutely neutral to all realms (although mentors sometimes get an 'in' with them, maybe the monks like the mentoring messages).

These same monks are also present for the writing-down of scribe notes and torture reports. The 'hash' we all get is actually a semaphore tower short-code that is used to transmit the messages.

The Zuma are aware of these semaphore monks, and trust the torture reports created by them.

Oh, and the semaphore tower explanation also covers the instantaneous message delivery and message size limits.