> And, AFAIK, the only person to suggest that withholding
> information from GMs is in some way a *good* thing, rather than an
> unfortunate necessity of non-infinite page-count.
>
I think this might be a US vs UK thing myself - Certainly in the recent posts on this subject this view appears to have been supported by people from across the Atlantic (eg Jeff R.) and opposed by Brits (You, Trotsky). "Legend of the 5 Rings", particularly in the 1st Edition, also did this a lot, and many people on that list seemed unable to comprehend why deliberately keeping information from GM's was a really stupid idea...
In Jeff's earlier example, he said, IIRC that he didn't know, or need to know if Orklar's bull had genuinely been stolen or just wandered off, and it was something that could be determined in play - but here I think he is missing the point in a couple of fundamental ways. (Bear in mind that as this is referring to a scenario that I have not read, my entire knowledge is what is in Jeff's post)
First, is it an issue about which the Players are (a) likely to be concerned and (b) have some way of (relatively) easily being able to determine. Now, some players will always come up with some really perverse ideas in any situation, or invent outlandish theories to explain scenarios, such that no published scenario can possibly hope to cover all possible options, but that's not an excuse for not attempting to answer any questions...
Secondly, is it an issue which might have future repurcussions in the ongoing campaign (the "metaplot")? If the "thief" is going to return in a later episode as a villain with an axe to grind because the PC's played a part in thwarting his plot, or as an ally, thankful that they cleared his name then the GM should be aware of this before they potentially derail large sections of future plot.
This doesn't mean that "Orklar's Bull has gone missing, and he claims Snorri has stolen it" isn't a potentially useful (or useable) scenario seed, or that a GM has to rigidly stick to every detail of a published scenario if their inventive players come up with something better/more fun - however something published as a scenario (rather than a seed) should aim to be as complete as possible, and where something has metaplot implications, the GM should have sufficient information to decide whether they are likely to be deviating widely from it if they make a particular choice.
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