What is the point of GM's notes?

[AnotherGuy]

How many experienced DMs out there have asked question

What is the point of the AP/Module's notes?

One has to wonder why such a question was raised by a veteran DM.

 

[pemerton]

One can always improve one's craft.

And speaking to other RPGers about ways of playing RPGs is pretty much the raison d'etre of these boards.

 

[Emerikol]

Even accepting that, player authorship isn't required for the GM to frame a note-free, full-improv world that responds to player declaration and resolution mechanics only. The players can stay totally in character, only framing situations that they know in-character to be likely (no making up cities or geography or anything). And the GM responds to that, taking responsibility to frame necessary situational information as becomes relevant.

Obviously if the GM makes up everything then the player would not be authoring anything. And I was only tangentially interacting with the example which did not seem player authorish. I do though believe many have said that there is some player authorship in the game and that when they establish something, within genre limits I accept, that something comes into existence. So when that happens, the character viewpoint cannot be maintained almost by definition (Actor vs Author role).

 

[Emerikol]

Yup. They authored that they asked the barkeep for ale and info, and provided 10 gold coins as a sweetner.

And what about that could a character in that world not do? The use of authoring here in our discussion implies the player does something the character could not do.

 

[Emerikol]

I don't agree with your description, here, of character viewpoint. Having all my character's cognitive access to his/her life, his/her knowledge, his/her world mediated via GM description is radically non-immersive. Just to give a really clear example: my PC is in his/her home town. The GM narrates a NPC. If I have to ask the GM things like Do I know this person? Do I love this person? Did we part on good or bad terms last time we met? that is not immersive to me. It actually creates a radical dissociation from the fiction, and makes me feel like my PC is a space alien or visitor from another world.

Okay so maybe we are getting somewhere here.

Do you not agree though that in the real world I do not see people and make up a story about them and it become true? Can we agree on that? In a GM notes based world, the notes are reality. So if a character just up and says he knows someone out of the blue when in fact at that moment the character does not know anything about that person, that is not something anyone in our world would ever do.

I get the distinction somewhat though. Obviously how radical you get at authoring as a player would dictate how outrageous this might seem. And minor authorings like knowing a barkeep etc... might not seem so bad to many people who would balk at you conjuring a city into existence out of nothing. So there are I suppose extremes.

So here is the process that happens....
1. GM says you enter a tavern in the shady part of town
2. Bob the player of the rogue character decides as the player that his character knows the barkeep and thus puts that thought into his characters head.
3. The rogue character then says "Hey I know this barkeep let's see if she knows anything"

Now, the #2 part is not spoken. It's a thought in Bob's head.
In my style here is how it might go...
1. GM says you enter a tavern in the shady part of town
2. Bob asks what his rogue sees. What are the rogues eyes taking in....
3. GM consults notes and sees that the barkeep is someone the character knows.
4. GM says "You see Blondy the Barkeep an old friend of yours. She smiles and waves."

So in one instance, information is put into a characters head by that characters player. In the other the GM is describing what the character sees and is passing information to the player from the characters mind. I see a difference here. Call it what you will.

Now if this area is full of people the PC knows, a lot of this information might be handed out ahead of time. Prior to the game it would be fine if a PC says he wants to be immersed in the underworld and known by a lot of people. Okay assuming I have an underworld, I take note of that.

 

[Emerikol]

I disagree a little here. A character can't invent a backstory out of nothing, I'll give you that, but once there's a framework of a backstory I have no problem with the player fleshing it out.

An example: a PC I play has, as part of her DM-plus-random-determined background, done some time in the (Roman-equivalent) legions. That's all I got to work with; but I-as-player then expanded on that to say which legions she was in, who the commanders were, what rank I achieved (and how I then lost it!) and what my role was, and the vague timing around all this. All subject to DM veto, of course, but as yet he hasn't vetoed any of it and it sometimes gives me a nice foundation to roleplay from.

I'll bite. Isn't this done ahead of time outside the actual game? You and the DM talking about things and you suggesting ideas for your character? For me this happens iteratively prior to the start of the game. But even when it happens during a campaign, which would be fine, it would happen outside of the game. During the game maintaining only character role is important. So if I had a cleric player who said "Hey, I want to flesh out my religion and come up with the marriage rites, or develop the hierarchy further, or whatever." That would be fine but it would be done and checked by the GM to be sure it didn't go against already established things. Most of the time if such a thing happens it's because it's not been established. And most of the time it's fine, and even if it weren't fine it's typically only a very minor adjustment for consistency etc...

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Maxperson, @Bedrockgames.


Do you agree that there is an approach to RPG play in which the GM is empowered to determine the outcomes of action resolutions based on a prior conception of the fiction (whether that is sourced in notes or imagination)? And do you agree that there is an approach to play in which the answer to a player's question what do I see or what do I find or what do I know about <this gameworld element the GM has just introduced> is typically provided by the GM making a decision based on his/her prior conception of the fiction, perhaps relying on a Knowledge check (or INT check or whatever the system dictates) to determine how much of his/her prior conception to share?

No. This isn't the language I would use at all (we've contested over terms like 'the fiction' before). Your terminology, in my view, is loaded and reflects a philosophy about gaming, about analyzing games that we don't share at all

 

[Emerikol]

No. This isn't the language I would use at all (we've contested over terms like 'the fiction' before). Your terminology, in my view, is loaded and reflects a philosophy about gaming, about analyzing games that we don't share at all

Agree.

My goal as GM is to simulate a world in a neutral and fair way. The players then interact with that world in the same way we interact with our real world. To the degree, I can provide that sort of experience in an imaginary fantasy world, I consider myself a success.

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Maxperson, @Bedrockgames.

I don't really follow your replies. You say that the GM is in charge, but you also say that the players "have input" and "help shape things". But they don't have "narrative power" (whatever that means - narrative power sounds like the power to shape the fiction, so if players don't have that then I'm not sure what their input and shaping consist in, so maybe it means something else?).

Do you agree that there is an approach to RPG play in which the GM is empowered to determine the outcomes of action resolutions based on a prior conception of the fiction (whether that is sourced in notes or imagination)? And do you agree that there is an approach to play in which the answer to a player's question what do I see or what do I find or what do I know about <this gameworld element the GM has just introduced> is typically provided by the GM making a decision based on his/her prior conception of the fiction, perhaps relying on a Knowledge check (or INT check or whatever the system dictates) to determine how much of his/her prior conception to share?

When we say narrative power, it is just a convenient term for describing games where the players can narrate things into existence like the GM, or possibly games where they have limited abilities to establish setting content as players, not as characters.

Also i don't think any of us disagree there is a difference between a game where players have that kind of power, versus ones where the GM is the one with power of setting. Where I think most of us disagree is your simplifcation of the latter to "The GM decides" "playing to discover the GM's notes". You are describing it like a very binary process, and I think it is much, much more organic than how you are describing it. There is simply more to it than that. And part of what that is is the GM is beholden to other things (dice, what the players do in the setting and what gets established by their characters)

For example if you say "What do I see", the GM isn't responding based on their prior conception of the fiction. That isn't how we conceive of play at all. It is not this unfolding fiction that is happening that gets built up in binary exchanges of players say X, GM decides. There is that component of the GM making his decision. But you are ignoring things like players can make a case outside character for things, and the GM will often be considering their words. It isn't as simple as "I decide". My answer needs to make sense too. And most GMs I have played with, will allow back and forth, where players often explain hwy they think something ought to be present. The players don't have direct power, but they have the tools of persuasion (expected to be used in good faith, not to advance their character's interest) to help smooth out this process. In a typical sandbox the GM is making his decision not based on the prior fiction, but based on the world, the ongoing situations in that world, and what has just previously occurred (I think this is a much better term than the fiction, because the fiction seems to sidestep or minimize the role of the world).

To take another example, if the players go to the head of phoenix moon gang and ask for her help finding the disappeared daughter of a local magistrate, the GM is going to respond, not decide, but respond, based on what the players say, what the leader's motivations are, weighing any rolls they might make, who the player characters are, etc. What the players say here could be very important. Then he might declare what the leader says or does, and even then he isn't often simply deciding. If he says the leader throws her crescent moon blade at the party (which would be out of character here, but let's use that as an example), he still has to roll her attack. He can say what she tries to do, but he is frequently just as bound by the dice as the players. I think a much better conception, one that many sandbox GMs invoke is the GM is playing the world, the players are playing their characters. If you want to reduce that to the players are playing to discover the GMs notes, or the GM decides what happens based on his prior understanding of the fiction, I think you can do that, but like I have said it is very reductive, and it oversimplifies something that will feel very different in play if you follow the oversimplification as a model or as a procedure.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Just a side point: I have seen some posters on this board assert that a player's action declaration does not establish anything in the fiction until the GM incorporates it. I would characterise play done this way as the player's making suggestions to the GM via the process of declaring actions, which the GM is at liberty to take up or decline as seems to fit the GM's conception of the fiction.

I've also seen posters on this board say things that imply the above even though it hasn't been outright asserted. Examples include "You wouldn't do that, would you? You're Lawful Good." (I can see it might be argued that breaking alignment is a type of metagaming and so perhaps is captured already in what you posted.) A weaker version, but one that I have noticed a fair bit, is "Make a INT check" or "Make a WIS check" with the result of the check being a trigger for the GM to soft-veto the action on the grounds of the adverse consequence it would produce.

The GM helping the players understand something in the world their characters would understand due to intelligence isn't the GM trying to shape vetoing an action at all. It could be if the GM is doing so to encourage certain results or to mislead. But the GM is supposed to not care one way or another whether the players take action A, B, or C. If the PCs do something that leads to disaster, that is an entirely fair outcome and it is the GM respecting their ability to make choices in the setting. But if a player would know something that might lead them to choose a different action, the GM has a responsibility to make sure that is fairly adjudicated