What is the point of GM's notes?

[TwoSix]

Yet even with all that, Thanos is still at all times the ANtagonist; the villain. Like any good story with a well-rounded villain, Infinity War gives us a good look into his motivations, background etc., but that doesn't make him anything more than a better-fleshed-out antagonist.

Protagonist and "good guy" are not synonymous, certainly not in how they're being used in the conversation.

 

[innerdude]

I don't negotiate with them, play mother may I or hand waive anything. They simply tell me what they are doing and I react accordingly. If they tell me that they are going to the port city of Athkatla to steal a ship, that's what they are doing. When they get there they will let me know how they go about it, and the game world will react to it.

And this is always my approach to GM-led / "geo"-centric play (to borrower the term used earlier) as well. The situations in which I'd outright deny a player declaration are almost zero. And of course there's always spin-off / downstream consequences for what they do.

But even if they players declare this action, the framing for the "steal the ship" scene is still largely going to be of my devising---unless I wholesale grant the players the ability to do some of the framing themselves.

If I wasn't willing to give the players some of the fictional creation / framing power, I had to do it myself.

What kind of ship are they trying to steal? Who owns it? What's the owner's relationship to other people in power inside the city? Who's guarding it? How well is it guarded? What's on the ship when they steal it? How easy is it to access the dock? Is the party likely to be pursued afterwards? Who will the pursuers be and how will they be engaging in the pursuit? What happens if they're recognized at another port of call? Who recognizes them? <ad infinitum>

There's just so much detail that falls out from that single action declaration---"I steal a ship from the harbor."

And so many of the answers to those questions ultimately become "stuff in my (the GM's) notes"---stuff that the players are going to want to have knowledge of. Because players don't like to do stuff without understanding the risks, understanding their potential level of success, whether stealing the ship actually has a net positive or negative outcome on their goals (or fulfills some of the goals while undermining others, etc.). Someone at the game table has to ultimately generate these kinds of details for the fiction / framing around the proposed scene.

If it's all the GM's call to determine these details, then a significant portion of the players' actions are then going to be just what @pemerton described, which is, they're now playing to find out what's in those notes so they know how and when to actually initiate their "steal a ship from the harbor" action declaration.

I'm always willing to pivot and let players pursue new courses of action. But there's a ton of ancillary "note generation" that then goes into it, and those notes have a significant impact on play.

*Edit---this is the kind of thing I was talking about in my earlier post about how making the players the focus of the action "required a significant amount of negotiation / 'Mother-may-I?' or outright 'handwavium' to make them the focus of play." All of this stuff around framing the scene for stealing the boat is stuff that I basically have to generate---and if I-as-GM am the only one creating those notes, then I either have to outright tell those players what I've noted, or the focus of play now becomes figuring out what I put into those notes.

Even with the best of intentions, the ability of the players to successfully carry out their course of action is all based on a GM judgement call of what did I put into my notes?

This is what I was trying to communicate to @Emerikol previously, which is that no matter how detailed your initial "prefabrication" is, these types of details around individual scene frames (like "We steal a boat") are not pre-existent when the action declaration is presented, or even if they are, they're still "notes" that the players have to now retrieve from the GM before they can realistically make the "I steal a boat" action declaration.

 

[Lanefan]

This is an interesting thing to disagree about. I fail to see how any game that is driven by player actions could not be about their dramatic needs.

That's an easy one: the players (via their PCs) are driving the action yet the PCs haven't been created with dramatic needs as "drama" isn't important to the players. This would most often be seen in (and as) "pawn stance" play, likely in a pure sandbox.

 

[Fenris-77]

I've focused on one PC for simplicity of argument. Having to constantly talk about multiple PCs just inflated word count and confusion and doesn't improve the discussion. But, yes, you can have multiple PCs worth of dramatic needs -- expand my points to cover this and they don't change.

As for the world, take any of the published settings. None of them engage protagonism badwrongfunveryterrible play. Why? Because they were written entirely without regard to what PCs would be playing in them. Can a GM make changes to enable badwrongfunveryterrible play? Sure, but that's a conscious decision to incorporate the PC's dramatic needs into the game. And if the GM pushes back on a PC dramatic need, other that for reasons it violated established fiction or genre conventions, then the GM is not engaging the PC but asking the PC to change to engage the GM's prepared material. This is not badwrongfunveryterrible play. Even if the player can, later, make meaningful choices in play through their PCs.

To put it a different way, it's like the difference between scene framing and resolution. Protagonism Badwrongfunveryterrible play is about the framing, whereas you're talking about what happens in the resolution.

Well, I think my issue with the way you're framing (har har) this is your assertion there is some inherent need for the setting to support protagonist play, and I disagree completely. I think that can be entirely down to how the GM and the group approach character building and how the GM manages the play cycle and to what extent he responds appropriately to player input. Moreover, I am also absolutely talking about framing, it's essential. What I'm proposing is that framing is something that evolves out of play and in the case of protagonism is very much a GM responding to player inputs in terms of roleplaying and decision making. I suppose what I'm suggesting is that GM framing, by and large, flows from evolving play. What I'm really mitigating against here is the idea (not yours) that character motivation and drive is something that exists on the character sheet. For my part it only matters to the extent that players actually play it.

 

[Lanefan]

Let's postulate a dungeon. The play features exploring this dungeon. Does the fact that one PC has a dramatic need that they want to be the best pit-fighter in the realm have anything at all to do with the dungeon, or would play look largely similar with a completely different dramatic need for that PC?

Trap question.

The play for the moment features exploring a dungeon; and in this regard (and for this time) the overall play would look largely similar regardless of any one PCs' dramatic needs or even of which PCs were in the party. The trap here is that the focus during dungeon exploration is almost always on the party as a whole rather than any one PC, and so asking about focus on one PC in this situation is just bait.

Where the dramatic needs can (and IME do) come to the fore is during downtime between adventures, where focus moves from what the party is doing to what individual PCs are doing. Here's where your pit-fighter can (try to) shine, and also where your questin carries more relevance.

 

[Lanefan]

You are right. Some people took a fiction writing term and adopted it to fit their game design perspectives. Since they are strong advocates for their approach they then immediately said other games lack this quality that they like. The problem is they took a word with meaning. I can define the word "hat" to mean "turtle" and we can have a conversation. The hat has a pretty shell etc... That doesn't make hat really mean turtle.

And Teenage Mutant Ninja Hats is simply a non-starter...

I've tried to help you out by pointing out the term is loaded and perhaps we should avoid it. Perhaps Dramatic Need Focused play would be a better term.

More seriously, @Aldarc 's suggestion upthread of "geocentric" and "anthrocentric" looks pretty good from here.

 

[Manbearcat]

Well, I think my issue with the way you're framing (har har) this is your assertion there is some inherent need for the setting to support protagonist play, and I disagree completely. I think that can be entirely down to how the GM and the group approach character building and how the GM manages the play cycle and to what extent he responds appropriately to player input. Moreover, I am also absolutely talking about framing, it's essential. What I'm proposing is that framing is something that evolves out of play and in the case of protagonism is very much a GM responding to player inputs in terms of roleplaying and decision making. I suppose what I'm suggesting is that GM framing, by and large, flows from evolving play. What I'm really mitigating against here is the idea (not yours) that character motivation and drive is something that exists on the character sheet. For my part it only matters to the extent that players actually play it.

Ideally they're well-integrated and the incentive structures are aligned.

(For instance) If we're playing Dogs and you having a wonderful Relationship with your horse, but its a d4, I know that (a) I need to be foregrounding your relationship with your horse but (b) the framing needs to be troublesome (because that d4 means "complicated" in play). But we also, collectively, know that you're apt to get XP/Advancement with horse-related-troubles (because the way Advancement works in the game)!

Well-integrated PC stuff for framing and aligned incentive structures!

Same thing goes with Boldness and Vice. If you want bold heroes who get themselves in trouble because of their scoundrel-inclinations, have Action Rolls with Desperate Position yield XP and Devil's Bargain's attached to Vice complicating your life (which also yields XP...and may turn into more Desperate Position)!

 

[Manbearcat]

Also...lol at this...

I don’t have time to engage in the way I like to but I skimming. I’ll try to tonight if I can...

15 posts later.

I should get lots of xp for engaging with my Vice.

 

[Fenris-77]

That's an easy one: the players (via their PCs) are driving the action yet the PCs haven't been created with dramatic needs as "drama" isn't important to the players. This would most often be seen in (and as) "pawn stance" play, likely in a pure sandbox.

Pure sandbox and pawn stance are not synonymous. You can have characters built with drives and motivations in a 'pure sandbox' that will emerge in and effect play and framing and whatever. Let's use the pitfighter example, just to keep things streamlined. In our sandbox game you say to me I want to play a fighter who wants to be the best pit fighter in the realm. One of two things happen, I either have pitfighters written in somewhere and I can suggest that as a where you're from, or I don't and I can say hmm, well, these places all work, whaddya think? There's a third option of course, being this world doesn't have pitfighters, which is appropriate, but how often is that actually the case in a fantasy world? All of this is possible in a Gm notes/pure sandbox setting. The dramatic goal of becoming a renowned pitfighter will naturally emerge in play to the extent you as a player use it inform decisions and roleplay and I as a GM use that input to decide on consequences and frame future action. This is true no matter the setting.

I do agree completely that some players have zero interest in 'drama' in any of the forms we've been discussing it, which is completely fine. I'd also agree that in a game populated by players like that, geocentric is a fine descriptor.

 

[Umbran]

Trap question.

The play for the moment features exploring a dungeon; and in this regard (and for this time) the overall play would look largely similar regardless of any one PCs' dramatic needs or even of which PCs were in the party.

Additionally, it posits that being a pit fighter is the only dramatic need that character has, and that the sequence in the dungeon must be centered on that one character's dramatic need, as opposed to anyone else's. Moreover, it suggests that the location has to be serving the one need of the one character, and it cannot be something found within the space....

Ashen Stars is a Gumshoe-based game. Being primarily a mystery/procedural engine, you'd expect that play is going to largely consist, as they say, of play designed for the players to uncover the GM's notes - the mystery or difficulty at hand, and find a solution. However, the game contains discussion of adventure design, and how to address character needs within the framework of the mystery/procedural.

A given setting or framework shouldn't be taken as the whole story of meeting needs.