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Desk playtest 10: the Close, and the branch nine passes never reached

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Three parts: a census of twelve independent seeds rolled only as far as the
three outstanding branches; a played session on the seed that reached two of
them at once (4417); and a read of the Close, the only act never given a pass.

The census settles the "still untested" list. Ashcroft accepted and was taken
in 3 of 12 — one session in five or six, not rare, and nine passes missing it
was ordinary luck. The swap succeeded twice against an expected five, which is
a mildly cold run at p~0.05 and is recorded as noise: the four consecutive
failures passes 6-9 reported are the same thing from the other end.

1. The branch nobody had reached is the one the document has no answer for.
   Act Four says taking the party's muscle "is a better scene than the anchor
   being it" and then, one bullet later, arranges the anchor being it in 37%
   of games. Ashcroft is not an interchangeable body: he holds the door
   everyone else goes through, Transposition 63 is his, and the Close cannot
   happen until somebody is back through. The document states all three facts
   separately and never puts them together. The only guidance on a taken PC is
   two sentences about the player's evening.
   And it is worse than a gap, because the thing now has a reason to
   cooperate: an understudy wearing the anchor does not need to escape the
   party, it needs them to walk it home, and it holds the door properly
   because that is what the file says an anchor does. That is the best scene
   in the scenario and it is not written.
2. "Telling Ivy. Or not telling her" is called the act's real scene and is one
   sentence — no read-aloud, no failure case, nothing downstream — in a
   document that gives the fumbled Medicine six lines. And the Close opens
   with Ivy asking whether there is a north, which only works if she was never
   told. Its "works in both branches" covers how the PARTY learned, not
   whether IVY was told.
3. The Close is the only scene in the document with no failure case, and its
   failures are likely: the clock, a split table, a dead Ivy, a downed party.
4. "Four across, then cancel anyway" is a third ending, not a failed second
   one, and choosing the four is the most brutal question the case can ask.
5. A critical Research at the depot, with nothing written above the success —
   the second consecutive pass to land an unwritten special on the first
   honest session after check-outcomes recorded 83.7%.

Five fixes listed, unapplied. npm run check: 20 guards pass.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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# CLEAN GROUND — desk playtest 10 (the Close, and the branch nine passes never reached)
**Scenario version:** v0.20.1, at commit 137ab82
**Date:** 13 September 2026
**Method:** three parts. A **census** — twelve independent sessions rolled only as far as the
three outstanding branches, to find out whether they ever fire. A **played session** on the
one seed that reached two of them at once, **4417**. And a **read of the Close**, which is
the only act in this scenario that has never been the subject of a pass.
**Why this pass.** Nine passes closed with the same three lines — a fight the players choose,
Ashcroft accepted *and* taken, a hollow man that succeeds at the swap — and the honest way to
reach an 18% branch is not to keep rolling one session and hoping. It is to roll twelve and
say how many hit. And the Close has had nine passes' worth of attention paid to Acts One
through Four while carrying the decision the whole case is for.
**Verdict: the branch nobody had reached is the one the document has no answer for. When
Ashcroft accepts THE OFFER and is taken, the thing is wearing the Anchor Officer — who holds
the door the party goes home through, and whose Transposition 63 is the way back. The Close
requires somebody to be back through before it can happen. Nothing in the document connects
those three facts, and its own text argues against the scene it arranges.**
---
## Part one — the census
Twelve independent seeds, rolled only as far as THE OFFER, the Act Three swap, and countdown
step 5:
```
seed OFFER swap step 5 target outcome
3301 accepts fails Ashcroft 42 they hold
4417 accepts SUCCEEDS Ashcroft 42 TAKEN <<< both
5523 refuses fails Okonkwo 55 they hold
6639 accepts fails Ashcroft 42 they hold
7745 accepts fails Ashcroft 42 they hold
8851 refuses fails Okonkwo 55 TAKEN
9967 refuses fails Okonkwo 55 they hold
1073 refuses fails Okonkwo 55 TAKEN
2189 accepts SUCCEEDS Ashcroft 42 TAKEN <<< both
3295 refuses fails Okonkwo 55 unsettled
4401 accepts fails Ashcroft 42 TAKEN <<< the pairing
5507 refuses fails Okonkwo 55 TAKEN
```
| | Observed | Expected |
|---|---|---|
| Ashcroft accepts | 6/12 | ~4.4 (37%) |
| The swap succeeds | 2/12 | ~4.9 (40.7%) |
| **Accepted *and* taken** | **3/12** | ~2.2 (18%) |
**So the pairing is not rare — it is one session in five or six**, and nine passes missing it
was ordinary luck rather than evidence of anything. The swap coming up twice against an
expected five is a mildly cold run (p ≈ 0.05) and is recorded as noise, not as a finding: the
four consecutive failures passes 6–9 reported were the same thing seen from the other end.
---
## Part two — seed 4417, played
```
Ashcroft Insight — it is offered, not remembered 74 vs 63 FAILURE -> ACCEPTS
Act Three hollow man 75 rolled 36 success vs Okonkwo 55 rolled 77 failure
-> THE SWAP SUCCEEDS. First time in ten passes.
Act Four understudy 75 rolled 51 success vs Ashcroft 85->42 rolled 92 failure
-> ASHCROFT IS TAKEN. Accepted and taken, first time in ten passes.
Bhattacharya Research — Corrigan's paperwork 56 vs 63 success
Braithwaite Medicine — the body 66 vs 53 FAILURE
Renshaw Persuade — Swinburne 10 vs 63 SPECIAL
Pollard Spot — the stump 48 vs 53 success
Renshaw Persuade — the column 74 vs 63 FAILURE
Pollard Spot — the six at the back 53 vs 53 success
Bhattacharya Research — RESERVE ENTRY (NORTHERN) 1 vs 63 CRITICAL
Ashcroft Anomaly Lore — what a peg is 29 vs 63 success
Braithwaite Xenology (Baseline) — the understudy 22 vs 53 success
Renshaw Insight — it is word-perfect 82 vs 63 FAILURE
Bhattacharya Anomaly Lore — the record is not over there 86 vs 63 FAILURE
```
---
## ⚠ FINDING 1 — the anchor is the way home, and taking him is the branch the text arranges
Act Four, on who the countdown reaches for:
> **Who it reaches for: the lowest POW in the room.** … The party's muscle being the easiest
> thing in the room to take **is a better scene than the anchor being it**.
>
> **Exception — if Ashcroft accepted THE OFFER in Act Two, it reaches for him instead.**
**The document states a preference and then, one bullet later, arranges the opposite in 37%
of games.** That is not a contradiction in itself — the exception is good, and it is what
accepting *cost* him. What is missing is everything that follows from it.
**Ashcroft is not an interchangeable body.** His own entry:
> *Holds the door open while everyone else goes through it, and stays filed correctly for as
> long as that takes.*
>
> **At the table:** **Transposition 63**, Anomaly Lore 63, Insight 63, Listen 63, Dodge 63.
And the Close:
> **So it cannot be done from inside**, and **somebody has to be back through** before it
> happens.
**Three facts the document states separately and never puts together:**
1. Cancellation is a Registry act on our side, so the party must get back.
2. The anchor holds the door, and Transposition 63 is his.
3. In the accepted branch, the anchor is the one the thing takes — and it takes him **48.7%**
of the time.
**Nothing says what the party's way home is when the thing is wearing it.** The only guidance
on a taken PC is two sentences about the player's evening — *hand that player the understudy
sheet and a private note, they keep playing, do not sideline them* — which is good advice
about a chair at a table and says nothing about a door.
- ⚠ **And it is worse than a gap, because the thing now has a reason to cooperate.** An
understudy wearing the Anchor Officer does not need to escape the party. **It needs them to
walk it home**, and it is the one carrying the skill that gets everybody there. A creature
whose whole method is being useful and correct has just been handed the most useful and
correct role in the case.
- **This is the best scene in the scenario and it is not written.** The party gets out
because the anchor holds the door; the anchor is the thing; the thing holds the door
*properly*, because that is what the file says an anchor does. The horror the case is built
on — that it passed every test because it is doing the job correctly — arrives at the exact
moment the party is most grateful.
- **Fix direction.** Say what happens, in the accepted-and-taken branch specifically: the way
home works, it works *well*, and the price is that the thing crosses with them and is
standing in Registry when the paper is signed. Then the Close's question — who is standing
where when it takes effect — is the same question with a second edge on it.
---
## ⚠ FINDING 2 — "Telling Ivy. Or not telling her" is the act's real scene and it is one line
Act Three, in full:
> - Telling Ivy. Or not telling her. **This is the act's real scene and it has no roll.**
That is the entire entry. No read-aloud, no guidance on what she does with it, no failure
case, and nothing on what changes downstream — in a document that gives the fumbled Medicine
six lines.
**And the Close assumes it did not happen.** Its opening:
> She does not ask who you are, or what you are holding, or what the paper says — **she asks
> whether there is a north.**
**If the party told her in Act Three, she already knows**, and the Close's opening beat, its
read-aloud, and the line the document calls *"the one question the agents cannot answer kindly
and truthfully at the same time"* are all answering a question that was settled an act ago.
- The Close does say *"This works in both branches"* — but the branches it names are how the
**party** learned (briefing or depot), not whether **Ivy** was told. Two different forks,
and only one of them is handled.
- **Fix direction, and it makes the Close better rather than merely consistent.** If she was
told, she does not come south to ask. She comes south to find out **whether they are going
to do anything about it**, which is a harder scene and a better one — and it turns Act
Three's real scene into something with a consequence instead of a shrug.
---
## ⚠ FINDING 3 — the Close is the only scene in the document with no failure case
The house rule this scenario keeps everywhere else: every clue and every scene states what
happens if it is missed, skipped or broken. Seventeen failure cases are written across the
acts. **The Close has none**, and its failures are real and likely:
- **The clock runs out.** It is last, it is 25 minutes, and every timing pass has shown the
Close is what pays when an earlier act overruns.
- **The table will not decide**, or splits three–three. A decision with no roll has no
tiebreak, and the document supplies none.
- **Ivy is dead** — entirely possible if the table shot into the column, which EXPOSURE now
prices at length.
- **The party is down.** EXPOSURE says three of the column wipe 45.3% of four-player parties.
Who signs then?
**Fix direction:** Registry signs whatever they write, and the document already says so. The
failure case is that **nobody writes anything** — and then the entry stays filed by default,
which is a real ending and should be stated as one rather than left as a hole.
---
## FINDING 4 — the compromise is the likeliest choice and gets one clause
> **Bring them through** — the thing the table will try. It costs Coherence per person at a
> rate no party can pay… **Let them get four across** and understand what that means about
> the other thirty-seven.
That is correct and well-judged. But "get four across, then cancel anyway" is not a failed
attempt at the second option — **it is a third ending**, and it is the one a table that has
spent four hours with these people will reach for. Four saved, thirty-seven cancelled, and
the agents choosing which four.
**Choosing the four is the most brutal thing the scenario can ask and it is not asked.** One
paragraph: they do not get to pick, because Ivy picks, and she picks the youngest.
---
## FINDING 5 — a critical on the depot Research, with nothing written
Bhattacharya rolled **1 against Research 63** on RESERVE ENTRY (NORTHERN). The beat states a
*Missed* case — Ivy's 1962 ration tin — and nothing above a success. `check-outcomes` puts a
session hitting an unwritten special at **83.7%**, and this is the second consecutive pass to
land one on the first honest session after the figure was recorded.
The obvious one, and it is nearly free: a critical gets the **cancellation form itself**,
blank, filed with the entry in 1962 by somebody who expected this to end. It is the paper
they will sign in the Close, and it has been waiting sixty-four years.
---
## What worked
**v0.17's Swinburne special fired again** (10 against 63) and remains the best thing the fix
lists have produced. **v0.19's "they hold" branch** was exercised twice in the census and the
text reads correctly for it. **Pollard's Spot 53 rolled exactly 53** on the six at the back —
a success on the number, which is the kind of thing that only turns up in volume and which
the banding handled without comment.
---
## Fix list
1. **⚠ Write the accepted-and-taken branch's consequence.** *(Act Four, and the Close)* The
thing is wearing the Anchor Officer, who holds the door home and carries Transposition 63,
and the Close cannot happen until somebody is back through. Say that the way home works —
*works well* — and that the price is the thing standing in Registry when the paper is
signed. One session in five or six reaches this.
2. **⚠ Give Act Three's real scene more than a sentence, and make the Close answer it.** If
Ivy was told, she does not come south to ask whether there is a north; she comes to find
out whether they are going to do anything about it.
3. **⚠ State the Close's failure case.** Nobody writes anything, the entry stays filed by
default, and that is an ending. Cover the clock, the split table, a dead Ivy and a downed
party.
4. **Price the compromise as a third ending.** Four across and thirty-seven not; and Ivy
chooses them, not the agents.
5. **Write the critical on the depot Research** — the blank 1962 cancellation form, filed by
somebody who expected this.
**Still untested after ten passes:** a fight the players choose — the last of the original
four, and the only one left that dice alone cannot reach, because it needs a table that
decides to shoot. And the run with human beings.