What is the point of GM's notes?

[Bedrockgames]

If you've been in enough of these threads as you claim, then I would have hoped that you knew by now how to navigate them with more grace without raising Cain anytime there is a perceived slight against your preferred playstyle or making passive aggressive barbs. If you can't handle that, then you shouldn't repeatedly choose to engage these threads and should rather voluntarily avoid them as you are able. Period.

I don't have to agree with you. And if I think something is shady rhetoric which I do think this is, then I think it is fair to point out

 

[Bedrockgames]

You need to read what I wrote again if this was your takeaway.

I mean...you could aptly describe what I wrote as:

“IN DEFENSE OF RAILROADS”

Framing degenerate play as it was used above wasn’t something to anchor a screed. It was used to defend purposeful, transparent Railroads from being included in the “Railroad as Epithet” bin (eg play specifically advertised as something else but actually being an undesired Railroad).

I mean, the inverse is also true:

Player sits down expecting a Railroad (as advertised)

< GM proceeds to run a Story Now game >

That is definitely degenerate play. It’s basically The Pea and Shell game or 3 Card Monty as RPGing.

I am having some trouble following this post Manbearcat. But my point was linear does not equal railroad. An adventure path isn't a railroad, it is a linear adventure. It becomes a railroad if you are not allowed to deviate from it. Plenty of GMs, use adventure path structures as a starting point, possibly an end point, but are fully open to the possibility that the game goes in other directions. This is a very common way to run adventure paths from what I have seen. Again, I really hate using the term degenerate for things like art, media and games. I really can't support its use here, but I think by the definition of that word you are using, this doesn't constitute degenerate play. People playing adventure paths know there is a path but there are also different attitudes from group to group, on how much you can deviate from that path. For most, deviating from it can be fine. Framing starting out as an adventure path and ending up with another kind of mode of play, whether that is story now, sandbox or something situational, is itself a problem I think. That is one of the things that makes RPGs great, there is a freedom to not be constrained by these structures.

 

[Manbearcat]

Imagine you’ve accepted an invite to a Sandbox game where damn near everything is nailed down beforehand. Loads of high resolution maps, fully fleshed out sites and fixed NPCs, and a node-based map detailing the interactions of all of the above.

You sit down and by the middle of session 2 you’re certain that none of the above is true. You’re in full-throated No Myth Story Now play where everything is emerging via play, people/places/conflicts accreting around PC dramatic need and player + GM + resolution mechanic interaction.

Degenerate play.

Just like if you signed up for a Sci Fi game and the GM ports the PCs to Narnia. Bait-and-switch. Pea and Shell. The game lost the desired qualities that it once had (or at least alleged to have). Degenerate.

 

[Lanefan]

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?

IMO, yes. Not because of the systematic enabling of additions, but because of - I can't think of the right words - what you're adding to?

A GM using a pre-made setting still has to improvise all the time, no argument there. The thing to me is that having the pre-made setting in place allows (and if done well, even slightly forces) consistency in what one improvises such that it fits with whatever's already in place. In a somewhat-floundering analogy, the pre-made setting is a wall - a wall in a solid house that's already passed building inspection - and the on-the-fly improv is a picture you're hanging on said wall. The end result is a prettier room in a still-solid house.

My worries come when you're not just improvising the picture but the wall as well, and in fact the entire house. How solid is it? How consistent is it? How reliable is it? Unless you've got an incredible memory*, the only way to achieve this is by making notes for the future summarizing everything you improvised just now...which means all you've done is taken work that could have been done earlier and pushed it back (or foisted it onto the players, which I as a player would likely end up resenting); and you still end up with a pile of notes.

* - I don't, and experience has taught me to put very little faith/trust in those who make this claim.

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."

I don't suggest it has to be fully built down to the nth degree, but I do suggest that there needs to be enough of a framework in place to put everyone on the same page - the map and gazetteer shows and tells what's where and who's there, the history tells briefly how things got to how they are, etc. These are the walls on which the pictures - the in-game improvisations and additions - can later be hung.

 

[Maxperson]

This isn't passive aggressive this is a direct criticism of the discussion. And I think these kinds of playstyle attacks couched as analysis do deserve to be called out for what they are. And I am not even defending my playstyle. So far we've been talking about two playstyels I don't even like. I just don't think 'playing to discover the GM's notes' is a fair description of them.

It's not an accurate description of that playstyle, especially if you have proactive players. The DMs notes may say that there are scattered barbarian tribes in the north, but I'm not playing to discover what's going on with those tribes. I'm playing to take over the Bear tribe and become chief. Then I'm playing to merge the rest of the tribes into a cohesive barbarian host and lead them as we descend upon Silverymoon to loot it and raze it to the ground. I guarantee you that there's nothing in the DMs notes about what I'm playing for. His notes are there for our purposes, not just so that we can discover what's in them.

 

[prabe]

His notes are there for our purposes, not just so that we can discover what's in them.

It sounds as though you're saying his notes are there so y'all can change what's in them.

 

[Maxperson]

It sounds as though you're saying his notes are there so y'all can change what's in them.

Bend them to my will.

 

[Lanefan]

If you've been in enough of these threads as you claim, then I would have hoped that you knew by now how to navigate them with more grace without raising Cain anytime there is a perceived slight against your preferred playstyle or making passive aggressive barbs. If you can't handle that, then you shouldn't repeatedly choose to engage these threads and should rather voluntarily avoid them as you are able. Period.

While this thread has contained some really great discussion, even on first reading the OP I saw the thread as being something of a trap; with the bait being the discussion's premise and the catch being another round of denigration of one playstyle and evangelism for another; a movie I've seen before.

Impressively, it took 17 pages before someone (not even me, for once!) set the trap off.

@Bedrockgames is merely pointing out its existence.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's not an accurate description of that playstyle, especially if you have proactive players. The DMs notes may say that there are scattered barbarian tribes in the north, but I'm not playing to discover what's going on with those tribes. I'm playing to take over the Bear tribe and become chief. Then I'm playing to merge the rest of the tribes into a cohesive barbarian host and lead them as we descend upon Silverymoon to loot it and raze it to the ground. I guarantee you that there's nothing in the DMs notes about what I'm playing for. His notes are there for our purposes, not just so that we can discover what's in them.

This is something I have tried to find words for in these discussions about playing to discover the GM's notes. And what is more, the GM is going to be responding by playing the NPCs and factions. They are not dead words on a page

 

[Bedrockgames]

Imagine you’ve accepted an invite to a Sandbox game where damn near everything is nailed down beforehand. Loads of high resolution maps, fully fleshed out sites and fixed NPCs, and a node-based map detailing the interactions of all of the above.

You sit down and by the middle of session 2 you’re certain that none of the above is true. You’re in full-throated No Myth Story Now play where everything is emerging via play, people/places/conflicts accreting around PC dramatic need and player + GM + resolution mechanic interaction.

Degenerate play.

Just like if you signed up for a Sci Fi game and the GM ports the PCs to Narnia. Bait-and-switch. Pea and Shell. The game lost the desired qualities that it once had (or at least alleged to have). Degenerate.

The problem isn't play degenerating (and again I really think we shouldn't be adopting this term for RPG stuff, to describe a misalignment of expectations). The problem is you can't always predict the dynamics of a group before you play, language is imperfect for playing gaming conventions etc. Sometimes someone says "I am going to run a sandbox" and they mean something else. That happens. Sometimes someone sets out to run a sandbox but he or she discovers the players are really there for a dramatic story and so the GM shifts gears and adapts, accommodating the tastes of the players. You can do these things in an RPG. You can also get overly rigid about the expectations you are setting "We are going to play sandbox! Nothing more!".

Also, minor point, your description of a sandbox isn't how I would see sandbox play myself (this idea of everything being nailed down before hand: which by the way is one of the reasons why I think there is so much disagreement about the GM's notes thing. There is world building, but you are not pinning things on the map, waiting to be discovered by the PCs: that is why language like world in motion, living adventure are 50% of the discussion in a sandbox). I don't usually use high res maps for the players (the maps are typically for the GM). I may simply not understand the term fully, but I wouldn't describe it as node based either (there are not preset paths I am putting down for players to discover: interactions are more spontaneous).