What is the point of GM's notes?

[Emerikol]

I think the point of this post is that the impact of different approaches to prep, and its use, on the play experience is (perhaps obviously) affected by details of the system being played.

I don't disagree. I think by now I've made it clear the style of games I prefer.

 

[Emerikol]

That was a very long post just to say that the 5 minute work day is very D&D centric, except for 4e which did things differently from the other editions.

I would say the 5 minute work day runs through all the "children" of Gygax which includes the early editions of D&D and a bunch of offshoots since. Not all of them are OSR but many are of course. They all seem to tout the old school feel though which it seems to me must be something they think people these days yearn for.

And yes, at-will and encounter powers changed the dynamics of D&D in many ways. Not in good ways in my book but of course others mileage may vary.

 

[Ovinomancer]

20 questions might be extreme but I wouldn't declare this as a bad way to game as you do. My players are super cautious. It's why game balance was never an issue for them. They never cast a spell they didn't think they had to cast. Why? It's a limited resource and the next enemy could be worse. Sometimes that was true.


Now there are plenty of times when they throw caution to the wind but most of the time they act like real people facing such challenges. Real people with great skills and powerful magic of course so they don't just stay home. They play like they don't want to die which I think is a good thing.

Where did I say it was bad? I said it was different. The "bad" part is being afraid of gotchas (and running them), because gotchas are an abuse of the GM's authority in the game to hide information and then punish players with the hidden information. It's icky.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I wouldn't mind them but I do agree with many maybe even @Ovinomancer that in practice they don't often turn out that great. Most of the time it's min max time. But with the right player, it can be gold.

I... how the H-E-double-hockey-sticks can you min-max BIFTs?! I really need to know because this is utterly alien to any thought I have in my head.

 

[Emerikol]

I... how the H-E-double-hockey-sticks can you min-max BIFTs?! I really need to know because this is utterly alien to any thought I have in my head.

Well when you take a negative trait, you often get something in return. Like advantages and disadvantages. So some players will choose a disadvantageous trait they think they can minimize the impact in the game and take an advantageous trait they think they can use to enhance their power.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well when you take a negative trait, you often get something in return. Like advantages and disadvantages. So some players will choose a disadvantageous trait they think they can minimize the impact in the game and take an advantageous trait they think they can use to enhance their power.

LOL. No, they don't work like this at all. You're pretty far off the mark.

 

[prabe]

Well when you take a negative trait, you often get something in return. Like advantages and disadvantages. So some players will choose a disadvantageous trait they think they can minimize the impact in the game and take an advantageous trait they think they can use to enhance their power.

This is broadly possible in games like Champions where one can acquire extra character points by takind Disadvantages. Bonds, Ideals, Flaws, and Traits in D&D 5E (the acronym "BIFT") bring next to nothing mechanically to the character. A very mild incentive to role-play your character in such a way to get Inspiration (a token spendable for Advantage on a roll). The big problems are that Inspiration doesn't stack, and no one really wants to use it except in an emergency, and Advantage is stupidly easy to get other ways, and that the DM is supposed to keep track of 5 things per PC and allot Inspiration. There may also in the RAW be a limitation on how often you can get Inspiration (aside from it not stacking) but since I don't use Inspiration or BIFTs, I don't have that stuff internalized.

 

[Emerikol]

LOL. No, they don't work like this at all. You're pretty far off the mark.

No. I can show you many games where they work exactly like this. I won't claim I know every game but many many games with traits, advantages, disadvantages etc... have rules for taking a bad one and getting a good one.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Haven't read the thread (because 72 pages is far too many posts) but for my part, my session notes are for the following:

1. Not needing to take extra time to create a monster, scenario, or situation when the party heads in generally-expectable directions. E.g., when I know the party is heading to the Chapel of Fundamental Tacky, I can make Tacky Priests and Tacky Phlogiston Fundamentals and not waste time, and can have maps already made for the floors of the chapel, that sort of thing. Obviously this doesn't help for 100% of sessions, but it really does make a difference and my players definitely notice.
2. Keeping track of the relationships established between NPCs. We have a lot of named NPCs in our game, so records of past NPCs and notes of how future NPCs feel about them and vice-versa is useful for maintaining a living, breathing world. It also helps for things like cosmology; I've put a lot of work into making a cosmology that is thought-out, unique, and responsive to the players' actions. With my memory less than ideal, shall we say, keeping notes helps me remember the structure during the variable gaps between times where it comes up.
3. Producing consistent theme across different encounters. I have various factions that ploy, surge, recede, etc. as the world turns. Player choices can radically affect their plans, but that includes ignoring them for too long when the opportunity has arisen to do stuff about it. Being able to give a consistent feel/flavor to each faction helps make them distinct, despite all of them fighting "from the shadows" as it were and striving to control/conquer, and helps the players make informed choices (e.g. preparing for known strategies/powers associated with specific factions.)

I don't make hyper-detailed notes about absolutely everything. I've actually forced myself to not be hyper-ultra prepared all the time, because I know I've got a risk of locking things down too far. But having some notes, having some prep work, really is very valuable to me and my group.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No. I can show you many games where they work exactly like this. I won't claim I know every game but many many games with traits, advantages, disadvantages etc... have rules for taking a bad one and getting a good one.

We weren't talking about those games. BIFTs refers to 5e D&D, it's not a wider discussion.