diff --git a/docs/scenarios/CLEAN_GROUND_PLAYTEST_10.md b/docs/scenarios/CLEAN_GROUND_PLAYTEST_10.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..98cd941 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/scenarios/CLEAN_GROUND_PLAYTEST_10.md @@ -0,0 +1,245 @@ +# 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.