What is the point of GM's notes?

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not sure if we are missing anything. The general sentiment seems to be that you are needlessly 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).

I am not overstating the complexity (we have offered all kinds of description of the process and the tools we use). And I am certainly not trying to mystify the GM or aggrandize (I have consistently said I don't get overly precious about 'my world!' and that I regularly seek input from players (often asking them if they think a given ruling I propose is adequate or fair). I even pointed to the genesis for me of the living world/living adventure concept (which really if you break it down is about having moving parts: about having NPCs with a will of their own like PCs have, and having NPCs form into things of greater complexity through groups and organizations). Maybe this model doesn't work for you. That is fair. I am not trying to get anyone to play the way I play. But I definitely don't think or feel the way about RPGs the way you, Pemerton, and some of the others do. I have a much different approach, informed in part by metaphor, emotion and inspiration (which I think is the element you guys are really having a hard time with and seem to take personally for some reason), in part by a background in history-religion-philosophy, in part by things like the Feast of Goblyns section I quoted, in part by a love of world building and thought experiments. I am decidedly not an engineer. Nor am I a theorizer or a lover of jargon. There is nothing wrong with taking an engineers approach to gaming (even I have to sometimes when I am doing things like designing mechanics). But I simply am unable to fall in love with the way of talking about games, of understanding games, that you do. You read that as stubbornness or a hard headed refusal to see the facts. I don't know, I feel when you have identified your actual argument and the premises of the arguments, I've pointed to the spots in them where I am unmoved or disagree. That isn't hard headedness. I am just also not someone who is easily persuaded by good rhetoric (and there is a of good rhetoric on your side) when it runs counter to my own experience and I sense there is some fundamental flaw in the logic (even if I can't immediately identify it: though I will say I often do and that gets ignored)

 

[pemerton]

if you have an argument lay it out

Sandbox RPGing is not seance. It is not telepathy. The players do not, in any literal sense, enter or explore another world.

The GM imagines something. S/he may prepare it in advance (notes). S/he may extrapolate from those notes in the moment. S/he may just make stuff up in the moment. (You, @Maxperson and @Emerikol seem to have different methods in this respect. But the upshot of all of them is that the GM is imagining something.)

The only way for the players to learn what the GM is imagining is for the GM to tell them.

This telling normally takes place in two sorts of ways: (1) the GM describes to the players what their PCs perceive and what their PCs know; (2) the GM describes the outcomes of action declarations the players make for their PCs, where (in the fiction) those outcomes depend upon the PCs doing things to the world around them. Searching for a secret door is a simple example of (2). Making an offer to to a NPC is a more complex example of (2).

Neither (1) nor (2) is done by the GM arbitrarily. The GM is either drawing upon his/her prep (notes). Or s/he is extrapolating from prep in a principled fashion. (This is what @Emerikol calls "neutral" or "fair" GMing.)

And explain to me how this questions makes the game ‘discovering the GMs notes’ the thing we are disputing

You seem obsessed by that phrase. I used it in a post replying to @Emerikol, where the latter referred to a preference for RPGing being the "exploration" of a world. My point, in that reply, was that there is no literal exploration: there is learning what the GM has authored. As I already posted upthread, I am quite happy to use the phrase GM's conception of the fiction to describe what it is that the players are learning. Upthread you used the phrase mental model. I think conception or imagination are less jargonistic terms to use, but they are all synonyms in this context.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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."

Again I think this overlooks the synergy that Justin Alexander mentioned in his video (which is the living component). I am not saying there isn't a Q&A process going on. But there are other things at work which I and others have already described. I guess a better thing for me to ask here is what is the point of getting us to concede the Q&A thing? What argument are you building towards with it?

 

[Bedrockgames]

You seem obsessed by that phrase.

It is the title of the thread and the language people were refusing to budge on after people said they felt insulted by it.

 

[Aldarc]

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.

I think that "living world" is equally reductive and a problem when trying to explain people how to run a sandbox. It just romanticizes the outward aesthetic rather than the underlying nuts and bolts process. However, I personally find that the underlying nuts and bolts are far more informative and insightful when learning/explaining how to run a sandbox than the euphemistic speak.

Living world isn’t just romantic language, it encapsulates the philosophy by which you run the setting.

The fact that you are using romantic language to encapsulate the "philosophy" of your preferred playstyle doesn't somehow make the language less romantic. Furthermore, is Blades in the Dark or Dungeon World less of a "living world" even though they operate with a different set of guiding principles in terms of GM/player roles? This is another problem with insisting on "Living World" as your preferred terminology. It could also apply to other games that we can recognize have vastly different underpinning architecture and play principles though they produce a similar output: i.e., a "living world."

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

Sure, but what does your euphemistic use of "ladies' room" really describe?

 

[Bedrockgames]

. I used it in a post replying to @Emerikol, where the latter referred to a preference for RPGing being the "exploration" of a world.

You have been using the phrase for ages in these discussions, usually to dismiss our style as 'just leaning what is in the GMs notes'. I know we've had conversations before where you have said this to me

 

[Bedrockgames]

My point, in that reply, was that there is no literal exploration: there is learning what the GM has authored. As I already posted upthread, I am quite happy to use the phrase GM's conception of the fiction to describe what it is that the players are learning. Upthread you used the phrase mental model. I think conception or imagination are less jargonistic terms to use, but they are all synonyms in this context.

Something in this phrasing fails to capture the experience for me. And I do disagree in that I think the players are exploring imagined worlds. They may not being on a literal voyage into unknown but it is an exploration where they are not mere passive recipients of the GMs description.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think that "living world" is equally reductive and a problem when trying to explain people how to run a sandbox. It just romanticizes the outward aesthetic rather than the underlying nuts and bolts process. However, I personally find that the underlying nuts and bolts are far more informative and insightful when learning/explaining how to run a sandbox than the euphemistic speak.

Living world isn't the explanation of how to run the sandbox, it is however an important key to understanding the purpose of something like "a major wandering encounter"---which is the GM acts as if the NPCs (thus the 'They live!" exclamation in Feast of Goblyns that for me was a real light bulb moment.

It isn't euphemistic language. Euphemisms suggest I am using a word to evade some darker meaning or to reframe something that is unpleasant in a more pleasant light. The point here isn't deception. The point here is to to produce a clear image for people what the goal is.

But if you look at things like the video I showed, like Rob's article on how to run a sandbox, you see we are not affraid to get into the nuts and bolts of what that actually means. There is nothing wrong with using evocative language to describe something.

 

[pemerton]

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."

Adding to this: the conversation takes place under constraints.

In Burning Wheel, there are certain key things the GM is expected to have regard to in deciding what to say: (i) the PCs' Beliefs, and to a lesser extent their Instincts and Traits; (ii) the intent of any action declaration; (iii) the result of every dice roll. The GM is also expected to manage scenes and their pacing, which affects what s/he says.

In Apocalypse World, the constraints are not identical. There is no clear analogue to Beliefs, Instincts and Traits; but the GM is expected to ask questions and have regard to the answers to those in what s/he says. Each individual move also generates constraints, if the roll is successful (eg a successful "search"-type move will require the GM to narrate some new, useful thing); and if a roll fails, the GM is obliged to narrate some new complication that will follow from the established fiction.

In a canonical sandbox, the constraints arise from the GM's prep. There is no analogue to Belief, Instinct and Traits - in fact the GM is expected to be neutral vis-a-vis the aspirations of the players for their PCs in his/her narration. The focus in resolution is on task, not intent: a player may make a roll to find a secret door that would succeed, if there were a door to be found, and yet fail because the GM's prep (or his/her extrapolation from prep) says there is no door there. The more that the GM is just making stuff up, without prep as some sort of constraint, the more that it makes no sense to describe the GMing as "fair" or "neutral", and the closer the game is getting to what Lewis Pulsipher was criticising as GM-as-storyteller back in the early 80s.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The fact that you are using romantic language to encapsulate the "philosophy" of your preferred playstyle doesn't somehow make the language less romantic. Furthermore, is Blades in the Dark or Dungeon World less of a "living world" even though they operate with a different set of guiding principles in terms of GM/player roles? This is another problem with insisting on "Living World" as your preferred terminology. It could also apply to other games that we can recognize have vastly different underpinning architecture and play principles though they produce a similar output: i.e., a "living world."

1) My point is it isn't merely romantic language. There are bigger reasons for invoking living world than the romantic sound it has. And I tried to explain those to you

2) I've never asserted Blades in the Dark is less of a living world. This isn't a commentary on other style of play. It is just how I see and understand this style of play. If the issue is you feel jealous or angry because you think I am implying other styles are somehow less vibrant or alive, that simply isn't the case. Still I am not going to stop calling what I do a living world because it is a concept that has really helped me and other people understand the aims. I have to say this comes up so often in these discussions (i.e. we say agency is important in our sessions, so you assert that the most agency is attained by player games like PbtA; we assert our sessions are built on a living world concept). Look this term can be applied like any to a number of styles of play. When it is applied to sandboxes it has particular meaning, which people have explained to you. It isn't our job to describe our games in ways that assure you that your games are also okay (that your games are fun, alive, etc is not in dispute)