I'm trying to pick out what your actual argument point is, but it's shrouded in a cloak of strange words like "fake-because". From what I can infer, your first issue is that the quantum ogre robs the players of the pleasure they derive from outsmarting an obstacle (at least, I think that was your point?).
You have begun by highlighting the subjective - that different folks like different things, some like cubicles and some don't, etc. This only strengthens my resolve to shut down anyone who claims the Quantum Ogre is detrimental to the game, precisely because the game is subjective. What breaks some games does not break all games. If you can't make it work at your table, ditch it, but if you tell me it won't work at my table then you are speaking from a place of total ignorance - you know exactly NOTHING about my game, my players, and my table. In the subjective world of isolated gaming group experiences, one should never give blanket directives to outside groups.
The primary fallacy is that experiencing the loop of risk-danger-victory is what players are looking for. What players are really looking for is victory, only.
...
Identifying that risk and entirely avoiding it through your own efforts while still securing the victory is the height of achievement.
Again this stems from the subjective. How do you know this? Was there a survey or something, or are you just jumping to a conclusion based on your own table? I suspect the latter.
Identifying that risk and entirely avoiding it through your own efforts while still securing the victory is the height of achievement. Quantum ogres entirely defeat this objective, because the DM has decided "this shall not stand", or "you can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat (that I have so laboriously created)"
First, I question the validity of your initial statement - "height of achievement"? Subjective, debateable, unsourced... Pick any reason why I can't take the claim as set-in-stone fact. Second, as for quantum ogres "defeating" this objective: if the ogre itself is not a risk (for example, my password-having cultist defector), then how the heck can this rob players of a chance to overcome a risk?
I've often felt that "Quantum ogre" is a needlessly misleading name for the whole thing because 1) apparently people aren't quite clear on the definition of "quantum"; and 2) ogres are enemies, when we are not talking explicitly about enemies. A quantum ogre could be anything prepared ahead of time by the DM - a dungeon, a clue, a friendly NPC. Hell the whole world is a quantum ogre until the players interact with parts of it.
The second part of the post appears to be a dig at one specific, off-the-cuff scenario I used as an example (something I've already PLEADED for people to stop doing... picking at the tangential and spinning minor points as somehow being the crux of my whole position). The players haven't gained or lost anything beyond what I, the DM, was going to present them. You claim they've been denied opportunity, and therefore will not enjoy the game. I counter-claim - not every situation needs to be open to opportunity, and not every missed opportunity forecasts the non-existence of other opportunity.
They've been denied the opportunity to understand they lack something needed
Denied an opportunity to understand the lack of something... I chalk this to me just using a quick example. If the characters did need a password from a cult defector, then that can be communicated BEFORE the expected encounter, not DURING the encounter. There is no loss here.
They've been denied the opportunity to devise a stratagem to obtain something needed after they've discovered their lack.
If it grates on you, then flip it around - found the password... What's the password even for? How do we know they didn't change it? What about disguises? What if it was entrapment? More options, always more chances for emergent play. New situations spawn more situations, regardless of the circumstances of their formation.
But I wonder how stratagem can even by skipped in a random encounter? You can't form strategy around a surprise. That's the definition surprise. And certainly quantum ogres are meant to surprise the party, not be broadcast (back to the argument about what "quantum" means).
They've been denied the opportunity to experience the satisfaction of seeing their stratagem unfold for good or ill against a challenging but neutral environment, and the tremendous satisfaction if it does go to the good.
Watching a stratagem unfold is good fun, that's true. Again I defer to my point about strategy for an unexpected encounter. I also, more importantly, defer to my point about quantum ogres being a rare, situationally-relevant tool. Not every situation needs to be approached with a chance to build a strategy for some big payoff. I mean, some players do that, but then I imagine those games result in six hours of play for twenty minutes of action. But my point is that there's a place for plans and strategy and payoff -
one instance bypassing that opportunity does not preclude future opportunity, nor is it a bellwether of things to come in the game. Quantum ogres are
ONE-OFF INSTANCES. You people keep arguing it from a point of perpetual over-use, which is absolutely the wrong way to use them.
The DM has gained the satisfaction of experiencing exactly what they wished, which is experiencing the stratagem the DM has devised and called "plot", with all of the DMs effort entirely rewarded.
You are correct in the conclusion that the DM is happy, but it's not because he had a chance to inflict his ultimate whim upon the party - It's because he knows the game will be better for having had the encounter.
You can watch a movie for the first time and still be surprised by what happens, even if all the frames are already assembled in order on the filmstrip. Sometimes a DM has to step in and show what needs to be shown when he needs to show it - it's not a villainous, combative action on the DMs part, it's just how stories are formed, literally their structure. Yes, the players are the ones telling the story through play, and yes, having the whole story mapped out ahead of time is going to end in tragedy, but no, it is not against the spirit of the game for the DM to drive the story once in a while (I say ONCE IN A WHILE in caps, because someone is 100% going to misconstrue something here). You know what movie would suck? One where the scenes were all in the wrong order (and I don't mean like some Donnie Darko shit... I mean like blowing up the Death Star before even introducing Darth Vader).
A DM that needs players to go through what they've created have a mentality I don't understand. For them, the act of creating isn't complete; the tree does not fall in the woods unless it was seen to fall. Creation of content is actually a deficit of time spent that another must debit with a transaction of their time spent, which will certainly occur.
Again the subjective. It's hardly rare to find a DM who gets pissed off when the players just bypass everything he uses to hook them... especially if he fears them getting bored with his improvised material.
Also like Squeen says, content creation is very fun for many of us. Do you believe people would enjoy producing content as much if they knew ahead of time that none of it would ever be used in a game? Watching players react to the situations we've devised and the dungeons we've designed is, for many of us, the best part of DMing and content creation. Forgive my lack of sympathy for the player who laments the missed chance to discover that he needed to discover something, in exchange for the whole group getting to run through the dungeon I've spent weeks making or the homebrew monster I thought would make for a fun fight.
