What is the point of GM's notes?

[Imaro]

I have repeatedly found that exceptionalism as a principle rarely, if ever, holds up to serious scrutiny.

Edit: Missing the bigger point... but ok.

Please expound... what inherent constraints of a videogame/ MMOrpg exist in TTrpg's? I'll readily admit I mis-spoke if you can list some that do but right now I'm drawing a blank, especially as it applies to the context we are discussing this in.

 

[Ovinomancer]

There is nothing about this statement that I disagree with. But, in all of my examples, flaws do not present themselves until gameplay occurs. That is the case for most games I know; the GM thinks something is good, but winds up being so-so or blah. And the reverse can also happen, one the GM thought would be blasé turns out really fun. And then the majority turn out as expected.

It is those unexpected events that occur during play that can help a GM stretch or relearn some skills. And many of those occur running an AP as opposed to one's own material. One's own material generally doesn't have as many unexpected situations.

All of this falls under the assumption that the GM is omniscient and can accurately predict everything. Which a quick glance through any of these posts on this site often proves otherwise.

If you don't accept the premise that an AP might have more circumstances in game than an event/notes/campaign written by the GM running the table, then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Because my entire claim rests on this idea.

I do appreciate your viewpoint though. Thank you.

Okay. You have the following:

Premise: APs are good training tools for GMs.
Assumption 1: This is because APs have many flaws and flat scenes.
Assumption 2: These flaws are usually not visible until play is occurring.
Conclusion: Ergo, APs are good training tools because they force the GM to react to poor design on the fly.

I find this to be a flawed argument. Particularly, A2 is doesn't at all apply to me, as I fix things in prep and so don't often encounter the need to correct for bad AP design on the fly. When I create my own material, I incorporate this knowledge in my scenes as I go. So the argument that APs force GMs to fix things on the fly seems very weak, and that this is a learning tool is also weak because you keep skipping over the point that knowing when a scene is flat isn't taught by an AP, it's taught by experience that's gained just by gaming. If anything, APs hinder this realization because you have to overcome the assumption that APs are well-written or the intended way to play to begin with.

 

[Aldarc]

Edit: Missing the bigger point... but ok.

Out of all my post, you picked out an imperfect analogy for your scrutiny, but okay as well, I suppose.

Please expound... what inherent constraints of a videogame/ MMOrpg exist in TTrpg's? I'll readily admit I mis-spoke if you can list some that do but right now I'm drawing a blank, especially as it applies to the context we are discussing this in.

How about we shelve that conversation for some other time? I do think that it's an interesting topic of conversation and one worth exploring, but it may not be the most pertinent one for the topic at hand, though I will freely admit my own culpability in inviting it with my analogy to a AAA MMORPG franchise property. Because I think that the pertinent matter at hand in our conversation is about the distinction and overlap between "play to explore and interact with the GM's world" and "play to discover what's in the GM's notes" rather than the shared and distinct constraints of MMORPG and TTRPG gameplay.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not saying this about you, but there is at least one poster here who comes across like, "My playstyle is awesomesauce, because it's protagonistic and has lots of agency, you're playstyle is just playing to find out what's in the DM's notes." Whether that's intentional or not, it comes across as both arrogant and dismissive, which of course gets the other side's dander up. The phrase itself is also somewhat pejorative in and of itself.

@Manbearcat, this reflects my sense of things over the course of these threads; and my point was really about the rhetoric. Where it genuinely feels like no matter how many times we say "No that isn't what we do, you are missing the point of play for us" a lot of people here just plow forward with an analysis that has this level of certainty to it that is not capturing anything we recognize at work within these styles. And in particular the rhetoric really does seem to focus on a kind of word play, where anything we say gets dragged into the GMs notebook (even after we take great pains to explain why its more than a note on the page, and in play it isn't merely about discovering the note). And finally, "playing to discover what's in the GM's notebook" is dismissive and insulting. You can ignore that as much as you want when people say it. But it has emerged in the course of playstyle debates, and was initially presented to say something to the effect of "no you are not creating a living world, your players are just playing to discover what's in the GM's notebooks". If you don't attempt to understand these playstyles on their own terms, I don't think you will never understand them. And I think there is something seriously wrong with a mode of analysis that always seems to reinforce you and the other posters' who adhere to it's playstyle preferences (this is pattern I've noticed on my side of the aisle too, which is why I am no longer interested in things like definitions of RPGs that exclude narrative RPGs: it isn't honest analysis, it is playstyle debate disguised as analysis----and sometimes we don't even realize we are doing it).

 

[Lanefan]

In the OP I distinguished "descriptions of imaginary places; mechanical labels and categories applied to imaginary people or imaginary phenomena; descriptions or lists of imaginary events, some of which are imagined to have already happened relative to the fiction of play and some of which are imagined as potentially yet to happen relative that fiction".

It is clearly the first of those that is especially salient in @Emerikol's case, though I suspect the others also figure in his RPGing.

There's an important word word missing in that description which, for purposes of pointing it out, I've taken the liberty of inserting above.

Adding that word changes the whole tone of the definition away from including things that must happen towards including things that may happen, and will unless the PCs - for better or worse - somehow do something about it.

What's already happened in the fiction is locked in, yes. But locking in the future as well, as your definition seems to want to do, points to a railroad where there may well not be one.

 

[Lanefan]

You're starting a new game as a Fighter in a BECMI/RC or AD&D Sandbox or Hexcrawl game.

You were beseeched (and paid) by the last surviving member of a caravan (a merchant) to explore a ruin to the SE. The merchant believes their guards and goods were taken there by the ambushers.

You go.

You uncover some horrible truth with grave implications in the delving.

You return and head directly to the palace to request an audience with the king. After earnestly parleying with the Chamberlain, you're rebuffed (no dice are rolled).

---

The city where you meet the merchant = GM Notes.

The merchant and his/her story = GM Notes.

The parley with and acceptance of the merchant's pleading/offer = Player decision-point.

What equipment or hirelings is/are available for purchase when you loadout for the delve = GM Notes.

How you spend your available coin = Player decision-points.

No Random Encounters on the road to the ruin = GM Notes

The map and key of the ruin/delve itself = GM Notes.

The players' loadout and execution of character and party moves during the delve = Player decision-points.

The ruin/delve's response to the PCs' delving = GM Notes.

Random Encounter on the road back from the ruin = GM Notes.

The player's execution of character and party moves during the Random Encounter = Player decision-points.

The circumstances/orientation of the city when you return from the delve = GM Notes.

Go see the king = Player decision-point.

The Chamberlain receiving you = GM Notes.

The parley with the Chamberlain = Player decision-point.

The Chamberlain rebuffing you (the GM "saying no") with no dice being rolled = GM Notes.

---

Agree or disagree with this formulation above? If so, where and why?

Disagree on just a few specific lines where you seem to be rolling "rules-based events" in with GM Notes, perhaps to bolster your point. Random wilderness encounters i.e. frequency, creatures potentially met, etc. - are often laid out in the base rules system the GM is using for that campaign (e.g. the 1e DMG); meaning that if the GM is playing the game as written then sooner or later those encounters are going to arise unless she in effect overrides her dice and tells them not to.

Other than that, your assessment is more or less correct.

What I don't see is where there's any problem with any of the above. There's a nice foundation laid for a campaign which could go in any number of directions; and the players/PCs end up faced with a series of questions they now need to answer regarding the Chamberlain, the King, and what to do next:

narrator voice

"Do they seek someone else in high authority e.g. the head of a major local temple or guild, and warn that person instead? Do they start investigating the Chamberlain to find out if he's a crook? Do they examine the King's recent actions and try to figure out if he's acting under his own free will? Do they try to sneak into the palace to get to the King directly? Do they chuck it all and head back out to find more ruins to plunder? Stay tuned for our next exciting episode..."

/narrator voice

What's left unsaid in the summary of events is whether the GM planned this specific outcome, whether the GM had plans for several possible outcomes, or whether she'd left herself in react mode once the PCs got back to town with their info assuming they went back to town at all.

 

[Bedrockgames]

@BRG

I'm just going to lead with this. Look at your post. That entire thing is challenging my integrity and impugning my motives. The entire thing.

You get to a point in these conversations where you and I nearly always arrive here. I don't do this to you (I don't recall ever doing it actually) but you seem to very often arrive here with me and this is just more de ja vu. Just please throttle it back.

Alright, onto talking about TTRPGs.

I've puzzled a bit on what the disconnect is here. Why there is this inability to communicate and these hard feelings. Here is what I've come up with.

"Play to find out what happens" is (a) not the exclusive priority of play in Dogs, x World games, and Forged in the Dark games.

"Play to find out what happens" (b) could trivially be taken offense at. For instance:

"Oh so I'm just beholden here to whatever happens with no agency? I'm just strapped in as a passive audience member with no input into 'what happens'? I'm just watching stuff unfold...just finding out? Is that it? Is that what you think is happening in my games?

No buddy. I'm MAKING STUFF HAPPEN. And I don't appreciate your disingenuous rhetoric!"

So, to address (a) as it pertains to our discussion on GM notes:

Obviously "finding out what is in the GM notes/prep" is just the inversion of "playing to find out what happens." Put another way:



Contrast with "play to find out what happens":

"This game is so prep light that it nears no prep territory. The setting, adventuring sites, NPCS, puzzles, mysteries emerge in the course of play. Almost all of the content generated happens during play...discovering it > orienting it > engaging it > resolving it > defeating it is the primary point of play."

So a few differences here:

• When content is generated.
• How content is generated.
• Prep-intensity.
• The track as it pertains to content. Discover vs uncover (everyone at the table is discovering it simultaneously in the latter form of play) + REorient at the end of play in the first with orient at the beginning of play in the latter (because there is an orientation already established in the first while the 2nd has no orientation up front and must be oriented during play).

Just one quick example and then I'm tapping out and someone else can respond/run with this for awhile (I'll be back on tonight most likely):

In the first, that chamberlain (yes, back to the chamberlain of yore!) is uncovered. He has already been derived as a piece of content. He already has an orientation.

In the second, that chamberlain is discovered. He surely exists (kings have chamberlains of course) but he has to yet to be derived as a piece of content. He has to be oriented right now.

I don't really have time tonight to dive into this, but I think this really presents a false choice between two extremes, and one of those extremes, isn't even a real playstyle (at least play to discover what is in the GM's notes isn't capturing me or Maxperson's approach as far as I can tell--Maxperson can weigh in if I am wrong). I would say there is a probably a bit of play to find out in a typical game featuring lots of prep. There also probably lots of what I would call situational adventure. And lots of living worlds going on. Your analysis keeps stopping at the notes on the page, which again are just there as a tool. A lot of times it is more like the GM has notes on what is presently going on and what the situation in the world is (i.e. so and so wants to get such and such, from this guy) and so it isn't even as much about the players discovering what is in the GM's notes when they arrive at location X: it is about the GM figuring out what is actually going on at location X when they get there, and figuring out what the actors at location X are up to. This gets even more complicated when the players start interacting with the NPCs. Ultimately, my experience is most of the sandbox campaigns I've run, really become about the NPCs and groups in the setting. It is a fluid, organic interaction between the world the GM built, the choices the players make and the actions they take, and the response of the NPCs. I think when you try to break that down into something like a 'play loop' or procedure it fails to capture the nuances (because this is a very open type of play that is open precisely because you don't know what to expect in terms of how people are going to interact and when or why players might ask questions). And all the notes are are tools in service to all the this. The emphasis is on the sense of a real living world. And that is just sandbox, there were lots of other styles of play that got hit with the play to discover what is in the GM's notes label. All the notes are really for is so the GM can have some kind of foundation for there being this world that exists outside the players (at least in the style I am describing, in a lot of things like adventure paths and meta plot play, those notes are probably a lot more flexible in that it isn't as important to create the sense of an objective world, as much as it is important to create a thrilling adventure or emotionally powerful plot---many of the adventure path and meta plot focused GMs I speak with seem more at ease with changing these details during play----and just want to say I think this is no the correct use of meta plot, but it seems to be meaning a style of adventure where the GM is weaving a story around the PCs, often conceived in advance of play.

"This game is prep-intensive with pre-established, high-resolution setting, adventuring sites, NPCs, puzzles, mysteries...this stuff exists before play...this is the significant bulk of content generation in this game (before play, between sessions, not at the table during play)...uncovering it > engaging it > resolving it > defeating it > reorienting it is the primary point of play."

Others can weigh in, I think this really oversimplifies. Especially when the PCs themselves are going to be creating setting content through their characters. It is odd because it describes with some accuracy parts of what is going on, but seems to totally miss the point of it. Again, I feel like there is an arrogance in this analysis, where someone is viewing it from without, imposing a model of understanding that has zero connection to the way people who actually engage the style think about it. Just take the statement 'this is the significant bulk of content generation': I would argue most of the game content is generated during play through the interactions. I may make an NPC with goals, but I may have no idea what kinds of adventures that will itself create until play begins and until the players start doing things. Again, for me the proof is in the fact that if you took the "uncovering it > engaging it > resolving it > defeating it > reorienting" and tried to apply that in play, the game would fall flat on its face. It isn't that orderly. It isn't that neat. It isn't that rigid. And you are not just missing the spark, there are things missing here as well like the PCs generating content, the NPCs having agency of their own, emergent adventures and events, etc. Yes sometimes I may plan a mystery in a campaign. You can do that in this framework. But most of the time, it is a much more laid back, organic experience that is more like a chemical reaction than a set of procedures or bullet points.

 

[Imaro]

Out of all my post, you picked out an imperfect analogy for your scrutiny, but okay as well, I suppose.

I think I've replied to more than one of your posts in this thread...

How about we shelve that conversation for some other time? I do think that it's an interesting topic of conversation and one worth exploring, but it may not be the most pertinent one for the topic at hand, though I will freely admit my own culpability in inviting it with my analogy to a AAA MMORPG franchise property. Because I think that the pertinent matter at hand in our conversation is about the distinction and overlap between "play to explore and interact with the GM's world" and "play to discover what's in the GM's notes" rather than the shared and distinct constraints of MMORPG and TTRPG gameplay.

Yes, let's.

I've already expressed that I feel "Play to discover what's in the GM's notes" is both a mis-characterization and slightly insulting, akin to claiming pemerton or Manbearcat's style is "Play to test the group's improv skills". Yes both relay something used during the average play session, either notes or improv... but IMO that's about all either identifies.

The distinction between "Play to discover what's in the GM's notes" vs "Play to explore and interact with the GM's world" is that one is much more widely encompassing and thus accounts for what happens in an actual play session better than the other. I have never ran a session purely off of notes, no matter how deeply detailed they were, where said notes encompassed and accounted for everything that happened. However everything that happened in the game session did become part of the exploration and interaction with the GM's world... whether that entailed seeking treasure, pursuing personal needs and goals or exploring some lost and forgotten tomb. That my friend is the distinction. One is a simplistic mis-characterization that tries to define the playstyle using a singular component (something I find missing with the more broad "Play to see what happens" of the other playstyle being discussed) to try and shoehorn the playstyle with an ill-fitting, slightly insulting descriptor.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The distinction between "Play to discover what's in the GM's notes" vs "Play to explore and interact with the GM's world" is that one is much more widely encompassing and thus accounts for what happens in an actual play session better than the other. I have never ran a session purely off of notes, no matter how deeply detailed they were, where said notes encompassed and accounted for everything that happened. However everything that happened in the game session did become part of the exploration and interaction with the GM's world... whether that entailed seeking treasure, pursuing personal needs and goals or exploring some lost and forgotten tomb. That my friend is the distinction. One is a simplistic mis-characterization that tries to define the playstyle using a singular component (something I find missing with the more broad "Play to see what happens" of the other playstyle being discussed) to try and shoehorn the playstyle with an ill-fitting, slightly insulting descriptor.

This

 

[Lanefan]

Obviously "finding out what is in the GM notes/prep" is just the inversion of "playing to find out what happens." Put another way:

"This game is prep-intensive with pre-established, high-resolution setting, adventuring sites, NPCs, puzzles, mysteries...this stuff exists before play...this is the significant bulk of content generation in this game (before play, between sessions, not at the table during play)...uncovering it > engaging it > resolving it > defeating it > reorienting it is the primary point of play."

Contrast with "play to find out what happens":

"This game is so prep light that it nears no prep territory. The setting, adventuring sites, NPCS, puzzles, mysteries emerge in the course of play. Almost all of the content generated happens during play...discovering it > orienting it > engaging it > resolving it > defeating it is the primary point of play."

So a few differences here:

• When content is generated.
• How content is generated.
• Prep-intensity.
• The track as it pertains to content. Discover vs uncover (everyone at the table is discovering it simultaneously in the latter form of play) + REorient at the end of play in the first with orient at the beginning of play in the latter (because there is an orientation already established in the first while the 2nd has no orientation up front and must be oriented during play).

Just one quick example and then I'm tapping out and someone else can respond/run with this for awhile (I'll be back on tonight most likely):

In the first, that chamberlain (yes, back to the chamberlain of yore!) is uncovered. He has already been derived as a piece of content. He already has an orientation.

In the second, that chamberlain is discovered. He surely exists (kings have chamberlains of course) but he has to yet to be derived as a piece of content. He has to be oriented right now.

Ah, the old chamberlain, resurrected yet again. In 1e his Con score would be down to about 5 by now...

There's a third, combination option which is IMO likely how many GMs would do it: the chamberlain pre-exists as a piece of content in that the notes say or imply the king has a chamberlain, but what that content actually does in the fiction (i.e. how the chamberlain responds to the PCs) is derived in the moment - with or without the aid of any game mechanics - based on the PCs' words and approach.

As for your differences list, there's one other difference not listed: the (perceived or real) robustness and-or consistency and-or stability of the framework that newly-generated content rests upon.