What is the point of GM's notes?

[Bedrockgames]

This is different from what @Bedrockgames described. He referred to the players gaining knowledge of the GM's mental model.

I also said it is more complicated and not simply learning what is in the GMs mind. Not sure what max has in mind exactly but it sounds somewhat like my games (would need to drill down more to know)

 

[Aldarc]

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

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.

It's pretty clear that you are missing a pretty gosh darn big point. We are not talking about our AIMS; we are talking about our PROCESS. Because the general aims of desiring to create a "living world" may be incredibly similar, but the issue is about the underlying process, the nuts and bolts, of how we realize that through play.

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)

But it's just our job to describe your games in ways that assure you? That seems fair.

Is this the general sentiment? Are you so sure? Do the number of people who say something make it more or less truthful? A majority of people, or posters on a thread, can be very wrong (history is filled with examples of majorities who were very, very wrong). History is also filled with majorities who were wrong who made compelling cases for their beliefs (which were often hard or impossible to refute under the reigning paradigm). I see several posters agreeing with me. And I am sure there are tons of lurkers who haven't weighed in. Also there is a circle of posters here who frequently post i the same threads and are like-minded on this topic. I am quite sure if we randomly ventured into other forums, onto facebook groups and elsewhere we'd find very different general sentiments around this discussion. That you, Pemerton and one or two other posters generally disagree with me on things, is not something I find particularly upsetting nor is it something that impels me to reconsider my position.

I was attempting to summarize the general sentiment of people who are pushing back against you in this thread. I thought that was abundantly clear. There's simply no need for you to engage in this sort of cheap rhetorical game of casting aspersions, @Bedrockgames. Cut it out.

A bathroom for women. I don't really see how using euphemism to evade discussion of urination and bowel movements is related to what I am talking about

The underlying process of what goes on behind the closed doors of the "Living World" in Sandbox play.

 

[pemerton]

So upthread @Campbell posted this:

I'll be honest. I really could live without the 'living breathing world' framing.
<snip>

It's also not very descriptive of the process of play - only of how most of want it to feel in play.

When I post about the methods of Burning Wheel, I don't refer to immersive play or gut-wrenching play or astonishing play - although those are all part of the experience I hope to have, and the reasons for playing that system.

I try to describe the techniques actually used: who is expected to say what to whom, in accordance with what sets of rules and procedures and expectations and constraints.

Surely the same is possible for sandboxing. We all understand that the desired experience, on the player side, is to explore a world. But what actually takes place at the table that enables that to happen. I don't believe it is incapable of being literally described.

 

[Maxperson]

Honestly, the fact that you find metaphorical descriptions of play so important and are so offended by literalism is what makes these discussions drag on ad nauseum.

"you miss a lot of the subtle things that are going on. I just prefer a much more open approach that doesn't starkly define or formalize player-GM interactions." is a bunch of platitudes. It's a nothingburger. If you can't define what these subtle things are, or provide examples of what an open approach would look like in contrast to some other play example of a "closed" approach, you're simply not providing much utility to the discussion.

A lot of the problem is that I don't know at what point money turns into a lot of money, but I recognize a lot of money when I see it. Further, when it comes to art, and running a game is like art, there are a lot of undefinables that are involved. There are rules to what makes good painting. Correct brush strokes and so on. However, despite many, many, MANY people using those correct methods, very, very few are master painters. The undefinables in art make all the difference.

We're not giving you platitudes and nothing burgers. We are telling you what is going on from an artists point of view. The artists who are "painters"(DM our style) understand it perfectly and in many ways intuitively, but you "sculpters"(different DMing style) just aren't getting it and are looking for us to explain how we chisel the game, but we don't use chisels.

 

[pemerton]

A lot of the problem is that I don't know at what point money turns into a lot of money, but I recognize a lot of money when I see it. Further, when it comes to art, and running a game is like art, there are a lot of undefinables that are involved. There are rules to what makes good painting. Correct brush strokes and so on. However, despite many, many, MANY people using those correct methods, very, very few are master painters. The undefinables in art make all the difference.

We're not giving you platitudes and nothing burgers. We are telling you what is going on from an artists point of view. The artists who are "painters"(DM our style) understand it perfectly and in many ways intuitively, but you "sculpters"(different DMing style) just aren't getting it and are looking for us to explain how we chisel the game, but we don't use chisels.

Frankly this is not very plausible.

You and @Bedrockgames and @Emerikol talk with utmost confidence about "narrative power" and "dissociated mechanics" and the like. You think you can talk about PbtA and FitD and Cortex+ and Fate and other approaches to play that you have little or no experience with. They are not ineffable.

Why, of all the ways of playing RPGs that have been invented over the past 40+ years, would the one you favour happen to escape literal description?

 

[Manbearcat]

One quick (lol?) thought.

One of the huge differences between (say) Dungeon World/Blades “Sandbox Story Now” play and Trad Sandbox play is the systematized avenues for player aggression to advocate for their PCs (and through that advocation, wrest control of play trajectory).

Just briefly upthread I was talking about how the players felt ( @hawkeyefan and @Fenris-77 ) as the mystery of the slayings in Barrowcleft unfolded via their Score. I did this because I wanted to discuss player feel and mysteries as that was topical at that moment (due to incredulity at both of those things in a Blades game).

However, perhaps more interesting than how they felt is how I (the GM) felt and why.

I felt:

Curious - Fenriswas running a kill pool and prop bet game back at “home base” (a casino). I was curious at how he would do this (it was mechanized via a Clock, but how would HE do it). He made and buffed and Asset during downtime (a Runner/Spy) to go into the haunted ward > recon > deliver intel to the other PC (the siege squad) > come back to the casino and report). This recon > intel loop was the primary facilitator for this portion of play. It was effectively “comms”.

I was curious at how much hawkeye would press his luck and express his background/Vice with the dangerous, but provocative situations/complications of (sidetracking and therefore Score-threatening) of interest.

I was curious myself as to “what happened in Barrowcleft”. As the Score progressed and more and more fiction had to be created (via framing > declared actions > action resolution > fallout loop), which was bound by prior fiction, a picture began accreting around a culprit and a story. At a point it become clear to us what happened.

Constrained and Obliged but (simultaneously) Liberated - The machinery of play is laid bare and we discussed and agreed prior how the Kill Pool Win Con and the Barrowcleft Investigation Win Con would be achieved. Then there are all of the player-facing mechanics and all of the various mechanical and integrated points of pressure and incentive structures that I can use to create difficult decision-points for players.

For instance, I’m very confident that if a put a “Candy Red Button” Devil’s Bargain in front of Hawkeye out in the field...he’s VERY apt to push it (capture the ghost of an old friend who did a turn in Ironhook Prison with him). He wants the xp, for Bavkgroubd/Vice, he wants the extra 1D for action resolution, he wants the ability to unlock a potential Downtime Project via this trapped ghost. I feel liberated...empowered. If he even rolls a 4/5 (Success with Complication), the Complication is going to have big time (possibly snowballing) fallout.

But he got a 6. So now I’m obliged to turn this potential powderkeg of a scene into a decisive win for Team PC.

Same thing with the Ghost Ball and the poltergeist later. Same thing with the killer’s scarf in the field with a pack of ghosts bearing down on the “field unit.”

Every Win by them and move toward the Win Con, I’m obliged to reframe things toward the Score Win.

When the Lamblacks and Red Sashes (sworn enemies) are in the thick of a supernatural cluster-eff at one of the ground zero sites of death (and therefore hauntings), I don’t get to leverage secret backstory/offscreen to just decide what is happening. 3 Fortune Rolls are made based on the Tiers of the two Gangs and the Scale/Magnitude of the Ghost Threat (which outranks them both) and the results are binding (they tick Faction Clocks and they impose a certain type of new gamestate/trajectory of fiction).

I don’t get to “say no” based on setting/genre extrapolation and I don’t get to change Team Monster HPs or fudge my own dice rolls (figuratively in both cases) if events unfold way x vs way y.

Surprised -

Surprised they won. This was a brutal Score. The analog to D&D would be a hugely Up-CR and Up-Encounter Budget Combat.

But due to extremely savvy play by the two players and some luck (extraordinarily good dice rolls in action resolution), they won out (and just barely).

Surprised that they decided to turn over all of the Coin for the Payoff in exchange for a big Faction bump with the Dimmer Sisters (making them actually the face of “uncovering the plot”). This loss of Coin gives them a new ally and saves them from the Faction hit (which would have put them At War with The Crows).

Surprised that the antagonists turned out to be the Crows and one of the heads of The Ministry (who manages labor unions/grievances) and now the PCs have an Entanglement with this powerful figure in The Ministry who wanted his role (whether that was incompetent or corrupt beaurocrat ) in the cluster-eff completely below board do it would quietly go away.

Not now though as the PCs secured Union Meeting notes and a journalist is about to publish a huge story on The Ministry’s role in this (unless the PCs do something about it...depends on if they want that kind of heat).

---

The constituent parts and the integrated whole of this sort of GM orientation doesn’t exist in Trad Sandboxing.

The way a GM’s orientation and the “feels” (certainly the way I feel when I run a Hexcrawl or Sandbox) are just extremely different (polar opposites in many ways).

 

[Bedrockgames]

But it's just our job to describe your games in ways that assure you? That seems fair.

No. But I am not misdescribing your games or imposing terms on your games you feel are immaculate or insulting. If I did so, it would be fair for you to object

 

[Maxperson]

Frankly this is not very plausible.

You and @Bedrockgames and @Emerikol talk with utmost confidence about "narrative power" and "dissociated mechanics" and the like. You think you can talk about PbtA and FitD and Cortex+ and Fate and other approaches to play that you have little or no experience with. They are not ineffable.

Why, of all the ways of playing RPGs that have been invented over the past 40+ years, would the one you favour happen to escape literal description?

I'm only going by what you and others who play your style are describing, though. I'm not your kind of artist, and from the way you talk about our playstyle, you were one of the "painters" who never mastered the art. I expect that there are undefinables to your style as well that those who do it well have a hard time explaining, because your explanations fall flat with making it sound like a fun, engaging way to play, yet a lot of people say that it is.

Edit: and we have described ways in which a world becomes living, breathing to you more than once. Why have you ignored what has been told to you?

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's pretty clear that you are missing a pretty gosh darn big point. We are not talking about our AIMS; we are talking about our PROCESS. Because the general aims of desiring to create a "living world" may be incredibly similar, but the issue is about the underlying process, the nuts and bolts, of how we realize that through play.

in this style the aim is very important. We have tried to describe the processes we use (though those can vary: what seems to unite us is the aim of providing a living world, but there are different schools of thought on how to best achieve that). Still processes have been describe. Articles and videos on ways to do it have been proposed. We just generally reject reducing it to one simple exchange, which you have been characterizing as learning what is in the GM’s notes

 

[Bedrockgames]

You and @Bedrockgames and @Emerikol talk with utmost confidence about "narrative power" and "dissociated mechanics" and the like. You think you can talk about PbtA and FitD and Cortex+ and Fate and other approaches to play that you have little or no experience with. They are not ineffable.

No I don’t. I have said repeatedly I don’t play PbtA and can’t really comment on its mechanics. I was just using narrative mechanics to distinguish between games like my own (where players don’t have narrative power) and ones like drama system (where they do: and which is a game I enjoy playing). I sometimes make assumptions about your playstyle but I am not bent in defining it or imposing my own language on it. I often do not understand your description of your style so I am sure there are times I get the things wrong. However I am happy to be corrected when that occurs.