Game Definitions and Real-World Definitions. Really good definitions are easy to find online and these days easy to master. Concepts that were vague back in the day, are now more concise and differentially defined from other similar terms.
Language is the medium of the game, and being able to define the parameters more clearly and accurately helps in communicating most effectively and facilitating the game. If we want players to ask a lot of questions then we have to have a lot of stock knowledge and be able to connect many intuitive relations in everything we describe.
No one just "gets" this habit of filling in details. Details don't come out of thin air. It really does take a curious or inquisitive personality and one that likes asking "stupid" and elementary questions. A GM's attitude to questions depends in his own attitude to knowledge.
From Socrates followed Plato and Aristotle, by the same hierarchy the skill of asking Question came before the other methods of deriving knowledge.
The skill in asking questions is not just filling up the blank spots, but also the ability to know where to look for blind spots. It reminds me of when I do my 3d work, as I always change angles in order to triangulate what is really going on. Each angle is insight and the more angles I can view the more accurate I am able to judge what I am doing. being able to ask the right Questions work in the same way: it is narrowing down a solution by eliminating what you can and already know.
Language has a lot of assumptions built into it. Philosophy 101 is about having an introspective awareness of these assumptions and being able to verify them before proceeding into further inquiry.
I guess its not about the system, but the Critical thinking skills and process displayed and used by the players. I can remember falling asleep when the games are so straight forward, there is nothing mentally stimulating. if you went through the same predictable formulas in a CRPG what's the point of the freedome of Face to Face RPGaming?
Violence without rational context or drama is just boring. Its basically a way to sate personal ego by focusing on a very simplified puzzle that has very strict set of limitations and certainties. This boredom and disappointment is not really from the game system, but GMing and Player expectations.
Of course there is a tendency to be disappointed when the oversimplified nostalgic system gets bashed by years-refined problem solving. The old systems were improved for a reason.
guess in the end, there is a RPG Kaizen to aspire to and problems are never going to be as simple as the system but the actual problem solving skills of the group.
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