jasper
Rotten DM
Because my Jim Beam soaked brain can't remember all the details, I dream up.
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What is the point of GM's notes?
- Thread starter pemerton
- Start date
Scott Christian
Hero
So if you hadn't changed the AP, but instead ran into the problem of pacing, which you said you did. Let's run through a hypothetical example of what I am describing:
You have a problem with the pacing during play. You notice this. Then, as GM, you decide to try a cut scene, something you don't use or haven't used in a long time. The cut scene works well. Your players like it. That AP just helped you learn or, probably in any of our cases, relearn a little skill we haven't used in a while.
Another hypothetical:
You are having a problem with an encounter mid session. Maybe it is too flat, nothing environmentally interesting. a few frozen trees, some snowy ground, and a rock. It's combat, kinda fun, but needs livening up. You notice the lag time on your players and decide to throw in a family of squirrels in the tree that the opponent is hacking around. Now your druid is climbing the tree and having the little furballs climb in his sack. This impromptu thinking just developed two skills, reading the table (which you probably already do well). But maybe you haven't thrown in an innocent bystander or cute munchkin in years. This is a reminder that, that tool was on your toolbelt, maybe just forgotten about.
What I am not saying is that APs are the ultimate teacher. But what I am saying is that for those that always create their own stuff, they can be very good teachers. Much like watching a teacher follow a published lesson plan versus their own, they have a tendency to learn a lot when having to teach a published lesson. I see the AP as no different.
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
And what I'm saying is that there's nothing about an AP that particularly enables this over anything else. Your point is nearing a tautology -- APs teach good play because either it's well written and you like it or it isn't and you have to fix it. The part missing here, the actual skill necessary for a good GM, is the ability to recognize which is which. This isn't something APs help with.
Emerikol
Adventurer
Let's imagine that what the players see is the land above the sea. The parts they don't see are underwater. The underwater part though is connected to and supports what is above the water. So, in some styles what is above water has no underlying basis other than off the cuff imagination. They try to backfill the undersea parts to fit some new idea they have. For us, the well established landscape, enables us to provide things new to the group but having a strong basis in the environment.
The example given about the young girl and the bad boy thief is a good example. If for some reason the PCs cross paths with those NPCs, having them already existing for me is far better than just making them up at the moment. I don't doubt "in theory" you can have the same result either way but my "practical" experience is they are not nearly the same. A deep well developed world has a consistency that is lacking in off the cuff designs. That is my practical experience. I just don't think DMs can pull it off. I doubt for me you could do it. I would find a lot of peoples games on here "trite".
Now having said that, if those groups are having fun they don't need me. They should keep on having fun. There is no absolute good in gaming. There are no absolute rules of game design. There might be some shorthand ideas that work with large numbers of people. That is the absolute best it gets. For me, having a DM with a deep world makes that world more real to me because those who don't quickly reveal themselves. So when choosing to play a game, reality trumps theory.
Manbearcat
Legend
Like the walls in a dungeon are there to support Secret Doors, Trapped Doors, Doors-to-be-Unlocked, Doors-to-be-Listened-at, etc.
Of course.
But this isn't Protagonist Play. That is the point that @pemerton was making. Landscapes and vistas upon which to hang new geographical content (be it to journey through or to find a ruin to delve in or to encounter a mysterious travelling peddler of magical/cursed wares) or dungeon corridors to hang trapped floors and locked doors are awesome.
But its not Protagonist Play...and that might be desirable (like when Skilled Play is an apex priority and the Protagonist Play, when not designed to integrate with Skilled Play, actually contravenes the Skilled Play priority)!
When you and Lanefan and others post this exact thing, its not helpful. It doesn't help anyone understand what you're trying to get across and it doesn't help delineate Sandbox Play from Protagonist Play.
All it does is create a scenario where people who have literally thousands of hours of highly successful improv play, doing exactly what you say isn't possible (creating deep, thematically coherent, provocative, continuity-consistent settings), roll their eyes or shake their heads. That is all it does. I have a hundred such players that I've GMed for in Dogs or Mouse Guard or My Life With Master or Sorcerer or Apocalypse World or 4e or Dungeon World or Blades in the Dark or Scum and Villainy or Torchbearer that have experiential evidence that what you're saying is empirically not correct. They would say "yup, with capable GMs and systems that enable it, its absolutely possible for deep, provocative setting to emerge." And I would say "yup, with capable players and systems that enable it, its absolutely possible for deep, provocative setting to emerge."
It would be a million times better to just humbly cede the ground and say "I don't like these games, I won't play them, but I'm not possessed of the experience to substantiate my inferences/hypothesis." If you played in the DW game that I'm running for @darkbard and his wife or the Blades game I'm running for @hawkeyefan and @Fenris-77 you may very well come away from the experience feeling that our play is trite and lacking of depth. I don't remotely possess the hubris to deny that possibility. But I'm also not certain that would be the case (that you would come away feeling the play is trite or lacking in depth). What I am certain of, however, is that if you (Emerikol the person) left the game feeling that way, yet the other 3 participants disagreed entirely, that would be more an autobiographical fact about you than a statement of fact about the depth or triteness of the conflicts, the characters, or the setting that emerged from play.
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Emerikol
Adventurer
Last I checked this thread was about GM notes. I wasn't judging protagonist play. I was explaining why it did not appeal to me and why GM notes are important to me. I was explaining how it affect my experience of the game.
I'm assuming you read my entire post. I explained afterwards that my own judgment of these things was not determinative for everyone. I find playing league play at a game shop to be entirely not to my liking for entirely different reasons. Nowhere have I said that my own views apply to everyone. If I told you I didn't like a movie because I thought the plot was trite and yet others were totally moved by the movie, what does that say? People interpret things differently.
So sure I don't like those style of games. I am giving my reasons that apply to me. I have not said "most people" and definitely not "all people". I am not though going to say my reason is just some random flavor preference to avoid getting to the real issue for me. The worlds seem shallow and trite TO ME. Making it up as you go just doesn't produce deep and immersive in MY EXPERIENCE. I have made no absolute proclamations here.
I think many like me will agree with the reasons. So there is some group of people that are affected as I am affected. I do not claim it represents everyone.
Manbearcat
Legend
I didn't say you were "judging" Protagonist Play. My response to you doesn't imply that. You were responding to a statement about Protagonist Play by pivoting entirely to something else. So it wasn't clear to me that you understood that you were pivoting. Therefore I attempted to highlight the pivot to clarify that you're talking about something else.
If your point was just to pivot and talk about something else...then I guess...fair enough.
I read your whole post.
This is an empirical claim (which I've seen many times before):
"A deep well developed world has a consistency that is lacking in off the cuff designs."
This is a conjecture:
"I just don't think DMs can pull it off (a deep, consistent world that isn't trite)."
My response to this is the same as it always is:
Your empirical claim isn't true. Your conjecture based on your practical experience (its unclear exactly how much this is) with these games (a) isn't true (GMs can pull it off) and (b) your feelings may change with sufficient exposure of deftly played games that feature heavy improv. Run more games and play more games (with people who are proficient in running them) that do these things. You may still end up hating them but I don't see any evidence that you've run or played these games enough to know.
Play Dogs in the Vineyard. Play Torchbearer. Play Blades in the Dark. Play Apocalypse/Dungeon World. You know what, once I free myself up from one or more games, I'd be MORE THAN HAPPY to run one of these games for you and one of your friends. If you still feel that these games only bear out trite play, that is completely cool. I'm TOTALLY fine with that orientation toward these games as a judgement from experience. But you actually have to have a reasonable amount of play (or any?) to make that claim and not get pushback (even if your claim is just "I feel").
So, sorry for inserting myself, but I've said things similar to what you're responding to ...
I would say that as a GM, I found greater player-input (in the sense of putting things into the game-world) to be more work than doing everything myself. This applies both to the setting-design stuff, such as that built into Dresden Files (which is what we used) and to in-progress additions. I found (and find) it easier to keep track of the stuff that comes out of my own brain than the stuff that comes out of my brain + 3-4 players' brains.
Both of the previous paragraphs are, I hope clearly, entirely rooted in my experiences and preferences, and are not about anyone else's game/s.
I wouldn't say the games I was involved in, where the players had direct input in the setting design, were trite or shallow so much as they were muddled. My inclination has been to blame that on the fact that different people had different things they wanted in the game/setting, and at least some of those things were not great tastes that went great together. There's also, I think, a sense that a singular setting-designer has an easier time being consistent, and an easier time ditching a less-attractive idea than if there's someone else's feelings to consider.
I would say that as a GM, I found greater player-input (in the sense of putting things into the game-world) to be more work than doing everything myself. This applies both to the setting-design stuff, such as that built into Dresden Files (which is what we used) and to in-progress additions. I found (and find) it easier to keep track of the stuff that comes out of my own brain than the stuff that comes out of my brain + 3-4 players' brains.
Both of the previous paragraphs are, I hope clearly, entirely rooted in my experiences and preferences, and are not about anyone else's game/s.
Um. If you'd be generous enough to extend that invitation my way, I'd be happy to take you up on it. Any game you want. If the PDF isn't free, I'll buy it. I'll admit to a specific curiosity about Dogs ... I picked up the genericized version a while ago and it looks interesting; the possibility of your character eroding out from under you as damage accrues more rapidly than healing/experience add/refresh things seems as though it could be a perfect match for the right type of campaign. That said, when I say, "Any game you want," I mean exactly that.
Manbearcat
Legend
Yup, I read you.
The last I'll say on it is that these things take practice and take chemistry (which is both innate but can be groomed). If this isn't something you've done before and you've done the exact opposite for a long period of time, there is a regime of re-orienting yourself that is required which is an alchemy of a little different things. Its similar to learning the sometimes jarring paradigm of learning the controls of a new video game (after you're used to a certain setup of controls for a long period of time in a genre). Or sparring southpaw after you've mastered orthodox footwork and angles. Or going from a "Tricks-based" card game to "Hold 'em." There are cognitive barriers that you just have to push past.
Absolutely!
If Dogs interests you and you've got someone else that you know who is equally interested (someone you have chemistry with), I'll be more than glad to run a game for you when time opens up for me. It would be my pleasure!
When time opens up I'll let you know!
innerdude
Legend
The GM's construct of the "world," or the "fiction," or the "milieu," or whatever you want to call it, is just that---a construct. At what point is the construct "complete" enough for it to feel "real" to you?
Does there have to be detailed background information for every point or line drawn on the map of the world? Every city? Does every town need to have 20 fully realized NPCs before it will feel "real" to you? Do all 20 NPCs need to have fully realized daily schedules so you can roll on random tables to see if the PCs encounter them?
Does every nation-state in the world have to have a detailed 3,000 year history, with a list of kings, queens, regents before it will feel "real"?
And if not, what components of the construct do you decide is privileged / has primacy in making it "feel real" to you?
The thing of it is, a GM has to constantly generate off-the-cuff / in-the-moment "stuff to add to the fictional construct" no matter how much of the construct is prefabricated.
There's constant additions as the players interact with things in the world that simply didn't exist until the very moment the player says, "I look at / touch / act on X." It doesn't matter how much prefabrication happens beforehand, these situations still arise in every single moment of every single game session.
Yet somehow, a GM having to constantly make these spur-of-the-moment additions to the prefabricated construct don't make gameplay / the gameworld trite---but using a ruleset that systematically enables these additions coherently does?
I mean, you're entitled to your own preference. But it's my impression that if you really analyzed your preference as stated ("I prefer the world to be largely prefabricated, because it feels more real to me"), that you'd find there's a lot of un-analyzed assumptions and process gaps around the nature of what all that "prefabricated world fiction stuff" is actually doing.
I know, because I once believed EXACTLY as you do. I used to believe that without a "fully realized," "coherent," pre-fabricated fictional milieu, that RPG play would consistently fall short of reaching my goals of "realism" and "immersion."
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