What is the point of GM's notes?

[Imaro]

I think that the fact that you can't come up with a better description is telling, though. It "playing to discover the GM's notes" somewhat blunt and unromantic? Absolutely it is. It's also a succinct description of the play. And, I one I willing admit to using myself. If your interest is in teasing out what's actually happening in play, so that you can do it better, a blunt, unromantic description is best. It's not a negative, though, because it produces fun play, it's just blunt.

I think a large part of the hostility that occurs in these threads is that a number of people have how they game as a core identifier of self -- it's important to their self image. So, any statement that seems to reduce the import of that becomes extremely fraught very quickly. It's why we get people trying to shut down these threads or lockdowns about terminology. If you use a positive sounding term for other gaming, it's bad, because it suggests that positive things isn't about your gaming. If you describe a process bluntly (playing to find out the GM's conception of the fiction vs living world, for instance), then there's a feeling that this is an attack on self. The people that hold gaming as part of their identity are always going to be resistant to any breakdown or analysis, because this threatens their sense of self.

If we can define it... why can't you accept it? In the same way you defined protagonism and many had too... without all the pseudo-psychoanalyzation about our thoughts, identities or beliefs?

 

[Ovinomancer]

If we can define it... why can't you accept it? In the same way you defined protagonism and many had too... without all the pseudo-psychoanalyzation about our thoughts, identities or beliefs?

It hasn't been defined. I'll be all ears to hearing it defined.

 

[prabe]

I think that the fact that you can't come up with a better description is telling, though. It "playing to discover the GM's notes" somewhat blunt and unromantic? Absolutely it is. It's also a succinct description of the play. And, I one I willing admit to using myself. If your interest is in teasing out what's actually happening in play, so that you can do it better, a blunt, unromantic description is best. It's not a negative, though, because it produces fun play, it's just blunt.

I think a large part of the hostility that occurs in these threads is that a number of people have how they game as a core identifier of self -- it's important to their self image. So, any statement that seems to reduce the import of that becomes extremely fraught very quickly. It's why we get people trying to shut down these threads or lockdowns about terminology. If you use a positive sounding term for other gaming, it's bad, because it suggests that positive things isn't about your gaming. If you describe a process bluntly (playing to find out the GM's conception of the fiction vs living world, for instance), then there's a feeling that this is an attack on self. The people that hold gaming as part of their identity are always going to be resistant to any breakdown or analysis, because this threatens their sense of self.

Maybe a somewhat more neutral phrasing would be "playing to discover the GM's world/setting." At least that allows for the possibility that the GM might be discovering (OK, more probably realizing) things about the world about the same time the players are. If you broaden it slightly to "playing to discover the world/setting as created by the players" (where "players" includes the GM for economy of phrasing) it allows for players other than the GM to create/place setting elements--something I allow as GM readily before/between campaigns but reluctantly during them. Of course, then it seems as though there's less differentiation between playstyles--and differentiation between playstyles is, I suspect, a large part of the phrasing.

 

[Maxperson]

* If you're having an interesting conversation about "online/offline" content in Sandbox gaming and the impetus to evolve "offline content suddenly turned online"....DO NOT ASK PEOPLE (a) what their impulse and hopeful payoff is when challenging conversation with "this analysis is deeply niche and the overwhelmingly majority of the hobby doesn't care about it" and (b) when you have a thought like "self, I wonder if some of the frustration around looking at TTRPGs through an engineering lens is similar to the pushback on baseball/football analytics and the Evolutionary Biology/Psychology and Neuroendocrinology in research on love...again, DO NOT ASK IT.

You can ask me. I don't mind delving questions from people who are genuinely interested in conversation. There are some here who appear to use these conversations as cover to put forward their style and bash the others, but I don't think that you are one of them.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Maybe a somewhat more neutral phrasing would be "playing to discover the GM's world/setting." At least that allows for the possibility that the GM might be discovering (OK, more probably realizing) things about the world about the same time the players are. If you broaden it slightly to "playing to discover the world/setting as created by the players" (where "players" includes the GM for economy of phrasing) it allows for players other than the GM to create/place setting elements--something I allow as GM readily before/between campaigns but reluctantly during them. Of course, then it seems as though there's less differentiation between playstyles--and differentiation between playstyles is, I suspect, a large part of the phrasing.

So the negative connotation is "GM's notes?" As you note, softening this leads to ambiguity in approach, and I'm really not sure how this is negative if the GM has written extensive notes? These aren't rhetorical.

 

[Fenris-77]

Maybe a somewhat more neutral phrasing would be "playing to discover the GM's world/setting." At least that allows for the possibility that the GM might be discovering (OK, more probably realizing) things about the world about the same time the players are. If you broaden it slightly to "playing to discover the world/setting as created by the players" (where "players" includes the GM for economy of phrasing) it allows for players other than the GM to create/place setting elements--something I allow as GM readily before/between campaigns but reluctantly during them. Of course, then it seems as though there's less differentiation between playstyles--and differentiation between playstyles is, I suspect, a large part of the phrasing.

That's a nice definition, but I think it misses a key element that GM Notes captures perfectly. Let's set aside, for a moment, everything about play style and adjudication, and focus for a moment on the specific idea of deep prep. This is a common thing for many GMs running many systems. It is also not, in itself, a bad thing as it can certainly lead to enormously deeply compelling and developed game worlds, something that I think we all enjoy to some degree. The nature of that prep, in other words the content and purpose of the notes, can differ greatly from GM to GM, and the differences there start to outline some of the negatives that can accompany this particular approach to setting design.

I think we can agree that prep about mythology isn't harmful, nor are maps and geography, nor indeed are NPCs and factions. All of those things can exist in GM notes and be produced as needed to add depth and interest to a game. However, when those notes contain items that index more to plot than content that is where problems can start to arise. That sort of prep involves things like where specific information can be found, which NPCs know what, which factions are doing what, and more broadly, what the next steps of the adventure will look like. None of that has to be a negative, but it certainly can be. The extent to which a GM relies on those notes and his existing prep to try and guide the game in a specific direction, and the extent to which, in play, he does or does not make other avenues of action and investigation options functionally available to the players is also probably, quite fairly, the extent to which the term railroad might be applied to that game. In short, the extent to which the plot is something to be discovered is probably where this turns into a problem in a lot of games. Taking a different tack, the extent to which those notes are treated as inviolate in play is telling.

The point of this is to differentiate the existence of GM notes period as an issue, which is isn't, from some specific uses and approaches to those notes, which can be a problem.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But if you're telling me my takeaway from this exchange is wrong and you think I'm just as likely to be a person of integrity as not (someone who is a pompous

someone who bullies has no integrity, but I know a lot of pompous people who just don’t know the effect their words have on others (who are upstanding good people). On a forum where tone isn’t clear and everything is literal it is easy to post in ways others find pompous, even if that isn’t the intention.

So the negative connotation is "GM's notes?" As you note, softening this leads to ambiguity in approach, and I'm really not sure how this is negative if the GM has written extensive notes? These aren't rhetorical.

but then that means the divide is over more than language. One of the reasons we find it insulting as a descriptor is because of how in a curate it seems. So it’s the persistence of using an inaccurate label that provoked the reaction. The reason it is inaccurate is it is not just about notes or just about what is in the GMs mind, it is about being oriented towards and open to all the stuff happening at the table in the setting the notes and GMs mind are meant to model. And there is a focus, even on the part of the GM on acting through characters, driving the game forward through what characters choose to do (not through events, scenes, story, etc). And the techniques and procedures described earlier are ways in which all that is achieved (though I would say there isn’t a single recipe for making living world sandbox work: there are tool sets to draw on)

 

[Aldarc]

Nuance often gets lost in these sort of discussions, particularly as we tend to treat our games and how we run them as a gestalt rather than a series of interlocked constituent approaches, goals, mechanical systems, play feedback loops, etc. For example, can one have sandbox play without a "living world"? Sure. Can one have a "living world" in games with more story now games? Sure. Can one have sandbox games in story now games? Sure. Can one have non-sandbox games with more traditional GMing and player roles? Most definitely.

Maybe a somewhat more neutral phrasing would be "playing to discover the GM's world/setting." At least that allows for the possibility that the GM might be discovering (OK, more probably realizing) things about the world about the same time the players are. If you broaden it slightly to "playing to discover the world/setting as created by the players" (where "players" includes the GM for economy of phrasing) it allows for players other than the GM to create/place setting elements--something I allow as GM readily before/between campaigns but reluctantly during them. Of course, then it seems as though there's less differentiation between playstyles--and differentiation between playstyles is, I suspect, a large part of the phrasing.

This has been proposed before. I still think that phrase is inaccurate to the play process: i.e., GM as the nigh sole intermediary/arbiter/filter between the players and the fiction of the setting. Regardless of the goals of the GM, the positive/negative framing of the point or its phrasing, or whatever other new tangent or goal post put forth, this point has been fundamentally acknowledged as accurate at numerous points in this conversation.

 

[prabe]

So the negative connotation is "GM's notes?" As you note, softening this leads to ambiguity in approach, and I'm really not sure how this is negative if the GM has written extensive notes? These aren't rhetorical.

To me, the "discovering the GM's notes" sounds ... more like reading a book. (Note: I have never particularly enjoyed sandbox play--all my experiences have been roughly consistent with being told by the GM, "Go and find the fun.") It sounds less interactive and more one-sided than I have found it to be in practice, other than the most linear AP-style play.

I think "playing to discover the GM's notes" misses the idea the GM might not know everything (and probably doesn't, no matter how extensive their notes). I think there's often the implication the GM's notes include plot--as @Fenris-77 indicates, that's the worst-case scenario (I think there's probably some disagreement about whether it's the only bad instance, but I suspect it's the case most likely to be considered bad).

 

[prabe]

This has been proposed before. I still think that phrase is inaccurate to the play process: i.e., GM as the nigh sole intermediary/arbiter/filter between the players and the fiction of the setting. Regardless of the goals of the GM, the positive/negative framing of the point or its phrasing, or whatever other new tangent or goal post put forth, this point has been fundamentally acknowledged as accurate at numerous points in this conversation.

I think what I'm trying to get at is that the GM may also be discovering/realizing things about the setting, even if they are effectively the sole arbiter thereof.

There's also, I think, something in the phrasing that tends to change from being about the process of play to being about the purpose of play. If the intended purpose of play is to change the setting, there needs to be some definition of what the setting is before the change.