What is the point of GM's notes?

[Bedrockgames]

Quick addendum to the above post.

Ny position on these things is surely driven by my martial life (not academic). “Perfect practice makes perfect” is an axiom in sports and martial arts but it absolutely applies to GMing. What it means is:

1) Fundamentally in derstand what you’re trying to do:

• 1st principles.
• Discrete concepts and holistic concept.

2) Develop your base and be technically sound in doing so.

3) Attack your weaknesses and be technically sound in doing so (make them your strengths).

4) Improve your strengths and be technically sound in doing so.


It defies all logic how GMs are encouraged to just jump right in whole hog without this path above. If you don’t fundamentally understand what you’re doing and don’t work on fundamentals and developing your base, it’s inevitable that you’re going to pick up technical flaws and bad habits (overwhelmingly cognitive habits in the craft of GMing). Those become hardwired because theyre formed in the crucible of a high stress situation of full-on running a game. And then you have to put in a lot of work to undo them and rewire yourself.

Or...more likely...people just quit.

New GMs should practice the constituent parts of their GMing with a friend or friends, for a nice stretch, long before they ever run a full game.

I don't know, I think there is room for lots of different approaches to GMing, and I do think this should be fun (not something where people feel like they are training for a big fight every session). Definitely experiment with different techniques, different approaches, but I think we can run into issues if we hold up this ideal of the perfect GM (especially when tastes are so varied: for some folks a GM like matt mercer is perfect, for others they want someone who is more interested in micromanaging the local economy or in bringing really great tactical combat to life at the table.

Maybe it is the striker in me but the idea of being thrown to the fire is one I tend to think is informative (it is also usually how things were done around here when I started----I realize this does vary by region). I like to think of GMing more like being a stand up comedian, where you only get good by doing it. There is craft to it, but 1) there are different types of comedians, and 2) to improve your craft you have to risk bombing and you need to understand what is happening when you do bomb. One technique I use is when I have a bad session I try to mentally detach myself a little, so I am not troubled by the fact that the session is going badly and instead focusing on figuring out what is going wrong---why the session is going off the rails and seeing and testing techniques to see how much they can push it back. We can have craft and technique, but the goal of all those things in martial arts, is to make them instinctual. If you are taking even a split second to think, that's too much time. In gaming there is a flow and rhythm too and I find I GM best when I am doing so naturally, without really having to think about what I am doing. Occasionally I will be very conscious of something (like "I am going to try this technique now" or "I am going to make a point of thinking about the consequences of what the party just did and how that will play out in the enemy organization").

 

[Lanefan]

Fair enough. But why call it setting solitaire if that isn't the main purpose? I can say I keep getting hung up on 'the solitaire' bit and my mind goes to an idea of the GM literally playing the game on their own.

Ditto, which is why I've thus far avoided engaging with the term.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I have to admit Hawkeye, when I see posts like this, they seem a little bullying to me.

I don’t see it as bullying. A little hyperbolic, sure....but otherwise a legitimate request to avoid a line of discussion that is a dead end. You said as much yourself.

 

[Lanefan]

New GMs should practice the constituent parts of their GMing with a friend or friends, for a nice stretch, long before they ever run a full game.

For all your talk about wanting to open the doors to more GMs, this idea seems completely counterproductive in that - to me at least - it puts up a rather significant barrier. If I'm going to GM I'm going to do it now, dammit, not a year from now after a bunch of training and practice.

Far better that a new GM (first) make sure the players are alright with a rookie GM and (second) just dive in and do it, "learning on the job" through trial and error as things go along.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don’t see it as bullying. A little hyperbolic, sure....but otherwise a legitimate request to avoid a line of discussion that is a dead end. You said as much yourself.

My post wasn't directed at him. I thought the overall discussion from both sides of it wasn't going to help shed any light on the topic. And I didn't like the direction it was taking. Maybe I read too much into your tone. I feel like people were starting to nitpick his posts on the topic

 

[Maxperson]

I’ve largely been silent for many pages of this thread because I don’t feel I have a lot to add that’s not already being said, and far better than I would say it.

But I want to jump in here and beg you to drop this tangent about thoughts and how real they are. It seems like a desperate grasp at being right in some way, but it’s a way that doesn’t matter.

It’s not adding anything to the discussion. Please, I beg you, in the name of all that is just and good to stop.

There are posters here, one in particular, that like to use, "But it's not real." as a means of dismissing the other side. Removing that worn out excuse is a good reason for this tangent, and if you really wanted me to drop it, you wouldn't use language like I bolded above. I have no inclination to drop something that I feel is valid for a request delivered in a backhanded manner.

 

[pemerton]

Except the GM isn't simply referencing notes. This is why the notes are called a 'snap shot'. Whether the dog is there when the PCs open that door, is up to the GM (based on what is going on, based on some random method for determining these things). The whole point of the living world and the whole point of the feast of goblyns text is you can have monsters, NPCs and other things in the setting that don't just sit and wait in the rooms for the party. So it isn't as simple as "the gm consults the notes". And it isn't as simple either as the GM just makes it up arbitrarily (if the GM has been playing these monsters and NPCs, there is going to be a logic to where they are in that moment).

I said "the GM answers it by reference to his/her notes (on the premise that she's not just making it up)." I didn't use the word arbitrarily. Of course one way of referencing notes is to use them as the basis for non-arbitrary extrapolation.

Referencing notes and making it up between them cover the field of possibilities. It doesn't take a lot of words to make that point.

 

[pemerton]

Either thoughts are real, or they are not. If they are real, and you've already stated that they are, then so are the the worlds comprised of such thought.

This is just a non-sequitur.

The following sentence The Wizard of Oz lives in Emerald City is a real thing. I just wrote it down. I'll write it down again: The Wizard of Oz lives in Emerald City. English speakers can understand it: even those who don't know the story of the Wizard of Oz can tell that the sentence has the syntax The [person/entity X] live in [place Y] and hence can work out that the Wizard of Oz is a person, and that Emerald City is a place.

It does not follow that the Wizard of Oz or Emerald City are real. In fact they're imaginary.

One of the reasons your sentence is a non-sequitur is that you refer to the worlds comprised of such thoughts but there are no such worlds. The sorts of things that are built out of thoughts include theories, novels, poems, essays, perhaps axiom sets. But not worlds.

If you're interested in learning more about this, you might read Wikipedia entries on philosophy of language, semantics, reference, Frege, Russell and Meinong. One of the best accessible treatments remains Russell's 1912 book The Problems of Philosophy in which he discusses the semantics of Desdemona's love for Cassio. (Spoilers for Othello: the point of the example is that Desdemona loves Cassio is a meaningful sentence, but false, because in fact there is no such love - Iago is telling a lie.)

They are real while you are imagining them, and are not when nobody is thinking of them.

No. Dreams aren't real - neither when I'm dreaming nor when I'm not. Nor is Doctor Who. Nor is Elminster. What's real, when I'm imagining these things, is the event of my imagining them.

In a group playing roleplaying games, the world is a shared imagined(thought) reality.

No. Two or more people can think the same sentence (eg The Wizard of Oz lives in Emerald City or Desdemona loves Cassio). This is what happens when people get together and create a shared fiction. The fact that they imagining the same things is real. The things they're imagining are not. That's part of the point of using the verb imagining!

 

[Maxperson]

This is just a non-sequitur.

The following sentence The Wizard of Oz lives in Emerald City is a real thing. I just wrote it down. I'll write it down again: The Wizard of Oz lives in Emerald City. English speakers can understand it: even those who don't know the story of the Wizard of Oz can tell that the sentence has the syntax The [person/entity X] live in [place Y] and hence can work out that the Wizard of Oz is a person, and that Emerald City is a place.

It does not follow that the Wizard of Oz or Emerald City are real. In fact they're imaginary.

Repeating a Strawman does not prevent it from being a Strawman. I never claimed or argued that they were real places. You know that, though. Or should if you're the language expert you portray yourself as.

One of the reasons your sentence is a non-sequitur is that you refer to the worlds comprised of such thoughts but there are no such worlds. The sorts of things that are built out of thoughts include theories, novels, poems, essays, perhaps axiom sets. But not worlds.

They are not built out of thoughts. They ARE thoughts. If they could be built out of thoughts, such that they are no longer thoughts, then they would have some sort of independent reality.

No. Dreams aren't real - neither when I'm dreaming nor when I'm not. Nor is Doctor Who. Nor is Elminster. What's real, when I'm imagining these things, is the event of my imagining them.


No. Two or more people can think the same sentence (eg The Wizard of Oz lives in Emerald City or Desdemona loves Cassio). This is what happens when people get together and create a shared fiction. The fact that they imagining the same things is real. The things they're imagining are not. That's part of the point of using the verb imagining!

If thoughts are real, and the things we think about(such as worlds) are thoughts(and they are), then those worlds are real in the same sense that the thoughts are real. They have an intangible existence only when actively being thought about. It's really an easy concept.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is exactly the kind of conversational direction I was hoping it wouldn't go. One major problem our hobby has had is people lording degrees over others and humiliating people for not having the same knowledge. If anyone here really wants to help someone learn more, that can and ought to be handled in PM. I am not interested in watching someone with an advanced degree intellectually kick around posters who presumably don't hold those same kinds of degrees.