What is the point of GM's notes?

[Lanefan]

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.

There's another differentiator that just leaped to mind and on thinking of it I'm surprised someone (including me) hasn't brought it up earlier.

There was talk not far upthread of "emergent" setting, where the setting (to paraphrase a bit) kinda shapes itself around the dramatic needs of the PCs even before play begins and continues to do so as play goes on.

This, however, assumes the PCs' dramatic needs are known ahead of time; that the players are going in to the campaign with these needs already in place and that the campaign will focus on them.

But what about the type of play where the setting's locked in and it's the dramatic needs of the PCs that are emergent as play goes on? Put another way, this type of play starts as geocentric and then quite possibly takes on a more anthrocentric bent once the PCs become established in their personalities and have interacted with the setting - and each other - to some extent.

An example would be inter-PC relationship dynamics. Sure, the geocentric dungeon-crawling might be going on almost as a backdrop but the actual drama for two PCs is the developing romance between them. Or the developing rivalry, or whatever. Things like this pretty much have to emerge through play, and personally that's the sort of drama I'm looking for, and care about, in a game.

Another example might be on the introduction of and interaction with a heretofore-unknown NPC the emergent drama comes via a PC's ongoing reaction to said NPC (be it positive or negative) and what said PC says and-or does about it.

 

[Aldarc]

Yes, well, that's a problem. Because, we need to set the lofty authorities aside for a moment and remember the practicalities of a game - at your table, you have a collection of players, who, broadly speaking, all deserve to be protatgonists. If your definition of "protagonist" only allows for one, then a bunch of people at the table are getting kinda shafted by your model.

In your Session Zero, do you have the group define who is playing the one single protagonist of the campaign?

You realize that we are not speaking about mathematics, or hard sciences - there is no singular right or wrong. There are, at best, merely different frameworks of thinking that may illuminate aspects of fiction. Authority, at best, points us at models that we may find useful.

I question the utility of a single-protagonist model for general tabletop RPG play.

I think that I can address this with the same point: I have been discussing the term "protagonist" as it's understood in authored fiction, which describes film, comics, television, etc. - the sorts of texts used to talk about "multiple protagonists" - rather than in the interactive trope play of TTRPGs. In the case of TTRPGs, I don't think that we are really dealing with textual notions of "protagonists" at all, though I do think that the players are often advocating on behalf of their PCs as if they were.

 

[Umbran]

I think that I can address this with the same point: I have been discussing the term "protagonist" as it's understood in authored fiction, which describes film, comics, television, etc. - the sorts of texts used to talk about "multiple protagonists" - rather than in the interactive trope play of TTRPGs.

Which, sure, you're allowed to do. But, next time, consider whether having such discussions of related words, but unrelated contexts, is actually constructive to the thread as a whole, hm?

 

[Aldarc]

Which, sure, you're allowed to do. But, next time, consider whether having such discussions of related words, but unrelated contexts, is actually constructive to the thread as a whole, hm?

It may have escaped your modily notice, which can be easy to do in this mega-thread, but I didn't bring the Avengers into this discussion. I was initially responding to the idea of Iron Man being one protagonist among many in the Avengers Infinity War/Endgame movies. I was responding to a Rubicon long since crossed.

 

[Fenris-77]

There's another differentiator that just leaped to mind and on thinking of it I'm surprised someone (including me) hasn't brought it up earlier.

There was talk not far upthread of "emergent" setting, where the setting (to paraphrase a bit) kinda shapes itself around the dramatic needs of the PCs even before play begins and continues to do so as play goes on.

This, however, assumes the PCs' dramatic needs are known ahead of time; that the players are going in to the campaign with these needs already in place and that the campaign will focus on them.

But what about the type of play where the setting's locked in and it's the dramatic needs of the PCs that are emergent as play goes on? Put another way, this type of play starts as geocentric and then quite possibly takes on a more anthrocentric bent once the PCs become established in their personalities and have interacted with the setting - and each other - to some extent.

An example would be inter-PC relationship dynamics. Sure, the geocentric dungeon-crawling might be going on almost as a backdrop but the actual drama for two PCs is the developing romance between them. Or the developing rivalry, or whatever. Things like this pretty much have to emerge through play, and personally that's the sort of drama I'm looking for, and care about, in a game.

Another example might be on the introduction of and interaction with a heretofore-unknown NPC the emergent drama comes via a PC's ongoing reaction to said NPC (be it positive or negative) and what said PC says and-or does about it.

Play can flow both ways. I think it's also important to point out that even heavily developed settings aren't actually all that 'locked in' as regards this issue unless the GM is a jerk.

As for the rest of your post, I agree. All excellent examples of how dramatic need might arise during and out of play.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.

It's not a trap, because we can easily expand to ask if the dungeon focuses play on any of the PCs. If you created the dungeon without consideration for the PCs that might explore it, that answer is obviously no. And this is fine -- I highly enjoy dungeon delving, actually. That it doesn't address PCs' dramatic goals is rather the point -- a dungeon delve really shouldn't, because it's not that kind of play.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.

Dear god, no it doesn't postulate that. Toy examples are useful because they illustrate the point cleanly. I could easily have written up a dozen dramatic needs (although that many is a mess) and the point still stands -- a dungeon written without consideration for those needs will not support badwrongfunveryterrible play.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

I like that post, but if coming up with information on the fly, such as the name of the boat, who owns it, what's on it, etc.(ie improv) is now note generation, then both playstyles have to fall under, "Playing to find out what's in the DM's notes." Unless you don't have a DM that puts in any input whatsoever.

 

[innerdude]

I like that post, but if coming up with information on the fly, such as the name of the boat, who owns it, what's on it, etc.(ie improv) is now note generation, then both playstyles have to fall under, "Playing to find out what's in the DM's notes." Unless you don't have a DM that puts in any input whatsoever.

Well, yeah, exactly. The alternative is the players provide the notes. Or the group holds an open discussion about it.

Or does all of the above, while also utilizing a random table / "oracle" content generator.

Or does one or more of the above and takes the resulting content and runs it through an action resolution system designed to handle player-facing input, and see what follows.

I contributed a basic premise and inciting incident to our current Ironsworn campaign. Beyond that, in our 3 sessions of Ironsworn so far, there have been very, very, few times where I-as-GM have unilaterally instantiated something in the fiction without consulting the players. It's simply not required, nor even desirable for the GM to do so.

I'd be fascinated to hear play reports from people who went out and downloaded the Ironsworn rules for the exorbitant sum of $0.00, and tried doing a 2-hour session of solo mode play---because the principles in the solo mode play directly apply to "guided"/GM play using the same ruleset.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, yeah, exactly. The alternative is the players provide the notes. Or the group holds an open discussion about it.

From what I've seen described here, even most of the player facing games don't go that far.

I'm sorry, but I reject the idea that the DM coming up with stuff on the fly = "Play to find out what is in the DM's notes." I also reject the idea that improv = DM's notes. Those don't jive with my experience and how people on both sides of this issue describe how things work in RPGs.