What is the point of GM's notes?

[TwoSix]

Here's an example from my own play of the use of notes (maybe that should be "notes"):

During a Wuthering Heights one-off, one of the PCs died. It had already been established that this took place in a bookshop in Soho, London. Another PC together with a NPC carried the dead PCs body in a box to the Thames, to dump it. It mattered how long this would take, because in the game a dead PC becomes a ghost within 2d10 minutes. To answer the question I Googled up a map of London. On the basis of this we decided that the body was dumped before the PC ghost emerged from it.

That seems to be to be using notes as a cognitive aid to the tracking of the shared fiction. You've already established in the fiction that the characters are in London, a real place that has a defined map. You could have improvised the situation, of course, and left it up to some sort of random resolution, but I imagine referencing a real place granted a sense of grounding within the setting.

If you have the same situation, except the PCs are in Waterdeep, or Absalom, or Minas Tirith, and you pull out a map instead of resolving via random resolution, than I imagine it might invoke a similar sense of grounding within the setting.

 

[pemerton]

My notes are there for me to remember stuff I thought of to use in game. That's it.

What does use mean here?

A list of names is something to use in the sense that, when a NPC is introduced into the fiction by the GM, s/he can easily give the NPC a name.

A whole lot of descriptions of places might be used to introduce new material into the fiction, via framing. Or to establish the outcomes of action declarations, as in my reply upthread to @S'mon.

I've read modules which include descriptions of events that will happen in the future of play.

Are any of these the sorts of uses you are talking about?

 

[pemerton]

If you have the same situation, except the PCs are in Waterdeep, or Absalom, or Minas Tirith, and you pull out a map instead of resolving via random resolution, than I imagine it might invoke a similar sense of grounding within the setting.

One feature of the map of London is that it's shared, not hidden. Upthread @S'mon referred to shared campaign descriptions.

But D&D has a long tradition of hidden maps. I think there's scope for more discussion about when it makes sense for maps to be hidden, and when shared, than we often see.

 

[Umbran]

What does use mean here?

A list of names is something to use in the sense that, when a NPC is introduced into the fiction by the GM, s/he can easily give the NPC a name.

A whole lot of descriptions of places might be used to introduce new material into the fiction, via framing. Or to establish the outcomes of action declarations, as in my reply upthread to @S'mon.

I've read modules which include descriptions of events that will happen in the future of play.

Are any of these the sorts of uses you are talking about?

All of the above, and probably some you haven't mentioned. Notes are INFORMATION. Any information use you may have at runtime can be served by notes. It could be a track list for mood music. It could be stats of challenges I want to use. Anything.

Notes are not specific.

 

[AmerginLiath]

To remember how you described your off-the cuff NPCs for the next time they appear. Because your players somehow will remember perfectly and call you out on the shepherd changing accents.

 

[pemerton]

Notes are not specific.

I don't understand this claim. The role of notes in Keep on the Borderland is clearly and radically different from the role of the map of London in my Wuthering Heights one-off.

We can talk meaningfully about these different roles for notes. Which is the point of this thread.

 

[TwoSix]

Agree. I'd probably rather play this than a full improv game. Neither though satisfies me as much as my traditional sandbox. As long as it is clear what the point of the game is everyone can partake of what they want. It's why I've always favored better terms to describe the different sorts of play.

It's kind of like calling dice a game.

"What are you guys playing?"
"Dice"
"Yeah I realize you roll dice but I need more detail than that"

I feel like even table top rpg has gotten to the point that it is practically like saying "dice". Okay not that bad but bad. It's a bad thing for a group to show up and realize they don't want to play the same game.

Well, I think most types of games have similar issues of categorization. If we're grouping up for a night of board games, there's a big challenge is some people want to play Chutes and Ladders and others want to play Twilight Struggle. If we're going to do a video game night, and some people want to play Call of Duty and other people want to play Mario Party.

The big difference with TTRPGs is that about 80% of the player base assumes that by "RPG" you mean D&D or something D&D-adjacent. But even then, running a Pathfinder Adventure Path compared to a dungeon crawl in LL or LotFP is a big difference.

 

[Mallus]

I'm tempted to post some of the notes from my --- oh my god it was two years ago?! -- old Spirit of 77 campaign based on our declining middle-aged minds remembering the television from childhood. Perhaps I'll check them for profanity first...

 

[DemoMonkey]

Because they are fun.

Is any other answer relevant?

 

[TheAlkaizer]

Just to clarify, are we talking about notes we write ahead of a session of the inclusion of GM notes in pre-written adventures?