What is the point of GM's notes?

[pemerton]

There is a difference between Tolkien sitting down and developing a world in his head, then putting it into prose so he can communicate that world versus him making it all up as he writes

For me as a reader of LotR there is no difference. I can't tell what editing he went through just by reading. I learn that stuff by reading critical editions, Thomas Shippey's book, etc.

I any event this seem irrelevant to the post that you quoted. As I said, "No one can explore the contents of someone else's imagination unless that other person tells them. Communicates and tells are synonyms in this context." JRRT can make it up and then write it down, and then tell me. Or JRRT can tell me as he makes it up. Either way, he is telling me what he made up.

my he difference in an rpg is it is interactive. You are not simply being told things

Do you think I don't know this?

But what does the interaction consist in? Who says what to whom? And what effects does that have on who imagines what?

If the players are exploring the GM's mental model of the gameworld, how do they do that except by saying things that prompt the GM to tell them stuff about what s/he is imagining?

 

[pemerton]

the secret door example is such a bright line between the different play styles I don't know why we need another example. If there's a secret door in the dead end because the DM's map says so or because the DM rolls on a table, it's the "living world"/"DM's notes" way. If the player can expend a resource or a check to generate a secret door in the fiction, than it's a player focused method.

What about a PbtA-type system where only the GM can establish the existence of a secret door but the players can make moves that oblige the GM to narrate something that will be useful to the player's PC given the context - which, if the context is a dead end, might be a secret door?

 

[Aldarc]

since the Gzm notes is also non literal I don’t see why my terminology is so horrible. But living world is the terminology I have always used. If you want to call it an imagined world or the GMs world (with imagined being assumed in the description) that seems accurate enough for me and it doesn’t confuse exploring an imagined location with exploring a real world city. No one is saying those are identical experiences.

One problem with your insistence upon "living world" terminology, which @pemerton, @hawkeyefan, @innerdude, @Campbell, et al have repeatedly tried explaining to you to little or no avail - regardless of whether they explain it to you with patient due diligence or with "lawyerly" language - is that it's euphemistic terminology and double-speak that doesn't give a real transparent sense for the actual play process or play loop that's going on. And in the absence of you providing accurate terminology, which "living world" is not, it's all just peddling romanticized flowery mumbo jumbo, which "living world" is. What is the "ladies' room"? It's a flowery term for a toilette room designated for use by female-gendered persons. What's a "living world" or "imagined GM's world"? It's the euphemistic and figurative "ladies' room" that doesn't give us a real sense for what we can actually expect behind the doors.

The point being is that it's the GM's own person (vis a vis their world, notes, mind, filter, intuition, arbitration, say-so, etc.) that this is ultimately about. You may find "notes" insulting, but it at least gives some credence to the idea that the GM put some forethought into the thing, and the players aren't playing to discover what the GM hides in and pulls out of their "living bum" or that the GM is changing it all up on a whim the moment the players get a whiff that it's something foul.

 

[TwoSix]

I don’t see this at all. Plenty of people are running perfectly functioning and fulfilling sandbox campaigns on the basis of this metaphor and on the variety of tools. The metaphor is essential for understanding what you are doing. And I wouldn’t say it is only metaphorical: the GM is literally imagining a world. A world is not being literally made in physical form but a mental model is being created and given moving parts or a kind of life. And there is a fundamental exchange between players and GM at the table that can in very very simple form be reduced to “the GM describes what the players perceive, the players say what they do, the GM responds with a description, ruling, invoking a mechanic’. But your efforts to break down that process always seem extremely reductive, binary and to not describe what I experience at the table (and just seem to be an effort to minimize or deny the players ability to explore and involve themselves in an imagined place). If you can provide a description that truly describes what we are doing, that isn’t a trap and doesn’t seem like a playstyle argument in disquisition (better yet: is not a playstyle argument in disguise) I will happily use your language. So far you have failed to do that for me. And even if you do: to me this will always remain exploration of a loving world: I think any description of the process must start there for me

You're not having a séance. When you're playing, the players ask a question, you rummage around in the vast mental holodeck of a setting you've constructed, and then you answer. Maybe you knew the answer right away, maybe you wrote it down before, maybe you derived it from a table, or maybe you just made it up right now. But that's all you do. There's no spiritual or mystical element to it. They ask, you answer.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You're not having a séance. When you're playing, the players ask a question, you rummage around in the vast mental holodeck of a setting you've constructed, and then you answer. Maybe you knew the answer right away, maybe you wrote it down before, maybe you derived it from a table, or maybe you just made it up right now. But that's all you do. There's no spiritual or mystical element to it. They ask, you answer.

I am not asserting a seance but I think reducing it to Q&A also misses the complexity of what is going on

 

[Bedrockgames]

One problem with your insistence upon "living world" terminology, which @pemerton, @hawkeyefan, @innerdude, @Campbell, et al have repeatedly tried explaining to you to little or no avail - regardless of whether they explain it to you with patient due diligence or with "lawyerly" language - is that it's euphemistic terminology and double-speak that doesn't give a real transparent sense for the actual play process or play loop that's going on. And in the absence of you providing accurate terminology, which "living world" is not, it's all just peddling romanticized flowery mumbo jumbo, which "living world" is. What is the "ladies' room"? It's a flowery term for a toilette room designated for use by female-gendered persons. What's a "living world" or "imagined GM's world"? It's the euphemistic and figurative "ladies' room" that doesn't give us a real sense for what we can actually expect behind the doors.

The point being is that it's the GM's own person (vis a vis their world, notes, mind, filter, intuition, arbitration, say-so, etc.) that this is ultimately about. You may find "notes" insulting, but it at least gives some credence to the idea that the GM put some forethought into the thing, and the players aren't playing to discover what the GM hides in and pulls out of their "living bum" or that the GM is changing it all up on a whim the moment the players get a whiff that it's something foul.

I just disagree with you. And I don’t think your framework or language is as objective or as clarifying as you assert. I find it reductive. And reductive is a problem when you are trying to explain to people how to run a sandbox. Living world isn’t just romantic language, it encapsulates the philosophy by which you run the setting. And I said replace ‘discover GM’s notes’ with ‘explore GMs world’ or ‘imagined world’ and I am fine with it. Also ‘exploring a living world’ isn’t where we end it. We have all elaborated on the process, the tools, the techniques. What we refuse to do is reduce all that to ‘discover what’s in the GMs notes’

 

[Bedrockgames]

For me as a reader of LotR there is no difference. I can't tell what editing he went through just by reading. I learn that stuff by reading critical editions, Thomas Shippey's book, etc.

I think it is very easy to sense when writers have worked out a world in advance versus when they have not.

 

[Aldarc]

I am not asserting a seance but I think reducing it to Q&A also misses the complexity of what is going on

I'm not sure if we are missing anything. The general sentiment seems to be that you are overstating that "complexity" for the sake of needlessly aggrandizing and mystifying the GM's role in the Q&A process, presenting it as if the GM were some sort of divine intermediary to "the Deity" (aka the GM's imagined world).

 

[Bedrockgames]

If the players are exploring the GM's mental model of the gameworld, how do they do that except by saying things that prompt the GM to tell them stuff about what s/he is imagining?

if you have an argument lay it out, so I can see how the points connect and if I agree with it. But not going to play a game where you ask me questions point by point to steer me into your conclusions. State your conclusion clearly and defend it with minimal jargon. If I agree I agree. If I don’t I don’t. And explain to me how this questions makes the game ‘discovering the GMs notes’ the thing we are disputing

 

[TwoSix]

I am not asserting a seance but I think reducing it to Q&A also misses the complexity of what is going on

It doesn't. I learned to play in the '90s, when having a detailed world with a ton of factions and NPCs running around doing their own thing was considered the pinnacle of RPGs. I've run and played in plenty of those games. Other than reading thick books to absorb the setting information, RPG play consisted of asking the DM to answer questions and the DM answering, along with intra-party in-character discussion.

I mean, the other play style is "The player says 'I do something', the DM says 'OK, that happens but then this happens after', and sometimes you roll dice."