What is the point of GM's notes?

[Imaro]

This sounds like it's a bit of flavor and not much else. Kind of like the Traits, Bonds, Ideals, and Flaws of 5E D&D. It's there, and it potentially helps give a sense of character, but it doesn't influence play a lot, and usually only when the player would like it to.

And that's fine. I think some of us here in the discussion prefer when something like a character's flaw may actually be a flaw that causes trouble for them. I prefer that, I think. That can be achieved through some mechanical carrot, maybe offered by the GM or maybe suggested by the player....I think Fate does this, though my experience with that game is minimal. Blades in the Dark does it by simply offering XP if the PC struggles with their Vice or their Traumas; so it's still up to the player, but it offers them a whole new XP trigger that they can use to advance.

These kinds of mechanics make it so that the character traits of the characters are more central to play. They actually come up and matter, so that the game is actually about them.

Again, this is possible to do with something like D&D 5E's Traits and Flaws, but it will require a player who is wiling to work at it, and maybe some effort on the part of the DM make sure that it carries more weight.

I get that others may prefer something different, but at the same time if we are doing analysis then it's important not to leave a potential possibility out that might suit others better. Ultimately I just wanted to show another option, and one I would argue is popular enough that it should probably be mentioned as well.

I would also state that the flaw being established in this fashion does not preclude it from being central to play or from coming up and mattering. What it does do is push that determination solely onto the player who chose the flaw as opposed to enforcing it with game rules.

 

[AnotherGuy]

This is true. There's also a difference between a player wanting to turn off a hindrance so they can succeed in-game, and a player not wanting to deal with a hindrance for out-of-game reasons (they don't feel like dealing with a story about alcoholism at the game table tonight). A player who doesn't want yet another session to center around that hindrance, after some number recently, is different from both of those, but closer to the latter.

Looking at that, I guess it's pretty clear what my largest issue with such systems is ...

Given that D&D campaigns can certainly last a long time - one could have more than 1 flaw or have new flaws introduced by the player which may be temporary to a particular storyline. We should not cement characters to one singular unchanging flaw for an entire campaign. Furthermore the system I recommend upthread allows the GM to call upon the flaw via token earned only after one has used their Inspiration or only with the buy-in of the player via offering an Inspiration point for the PC to play to the flaw.
Therefore in both instances the player still controls how often the flaw comes into effect.

 

[Aldarc]

I wonder how much this has to do with genre though? I'll be honest when I think of heroic or adventure fantasy... I can't think of too many protagonists who fail when it's life or death due to something like alcoholism. They can be alcoholics and display it in plenty of situations where it's an inconvenience or embarrassing but rarely does it end up getting them killed.

Possibly, but that doesn't mean that analogs to alcoholism or such flaws don't exist in the adventure fantasy genre, both contemporary and older forms. For example, we can look at characters like Elric, whose physical condition has made him at first dependent on sorcery and drugs and then, later, on the soul-sucking sword Stormbringer. "He can quit Stormbringer anytime he wants to." He knows that what he does has a moral dimension to it and that it often wrecks his personal life. But he repeatedly falls back onto using the sword for his personal fix, which often gets his friends and loved-ones killed. It's not alcoholism but it is definitely a hinderance that creates narrative complications.

In Arthurian fantasy we may see flaws like "lust" (e.g., Arthur, Lancelot, etc.) and these flaws lead to fracturing of the Round Table and leads, quite literally, to Le Morte d'Arthur. This is what games like Pendragon and Prince Valiant attempt to emulate. In Greek epics, "hubris" often leads to the undoing or hinderance of many of its most valiant heroes. Odysseus does eventually get back home, but his own hubris (and lust) is personally responsible for prolonging this journey: "Cyclops, if any one asks you who it was that put your eye out and spoiled your beauty, say it was the valiant warrior Odysseus, son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca." Oops.

But if this is the concept the player has determined for their character and rewards have only a slight mechanical benefit shouldn't we trust the player to play the concept as they have envisioned it in an honest manner? Especially if said small mechanical benefit is still under the jurisdiction of the GM and/or the table as a whole?

Do you not agree that there may be a conflict of interest at play between at the player's rational understanding of optimal play and the irrationality of a character's in-fiction actions?

This is true. There's also a difference between a player wanting to turn off a hindrance so they can succeed in-game, and a player not wanting to deal with a hindrance for out-of-game reasons (they don't feel like dealing with a story about alcoholism at the game table tonight). A player who doesn't want yet another session to center around that hindrance, after some number recently, is different from both of those, but closer to the latter.

Looking at that, I guess it's pretty clear what my largest issue with such systems is ...

This is a point, were we playing Fate, that I would ask the player (1) "why did you pick this as your Trouble, if you didn't want to see it regularly come up into play?" (2) "how did you envision this Trouble would work out in play for your character?" and (3) "would you like to take the opportunity now to change your character's Trouble?" In Fate a character's Troubles can (and are even encouraged to) change. If a character's trouble involves their long lost brother, to borrow from a discussion from another heated thread, then that may Trouble will naturally change once that brother is found, whether they are living or dead.

 

[Fenris-77]

I wasn't denying that. Perhaps it was your blank hex comment that got me. There are no blank hexes inside my sandbox. Of course if the hex is a woodlands hex, I will describe some trees. I don't have that description noted other than maybe broadly that the forest is a temperate climate forest. So if I describe branches with leaves rustling in the wind, I don't have it noted that the wind will blow at 2pm on Friday or that there is a tree in spot X that will have branches that rustle. I agree that some details must be improv'd.

Ah, I didn't say blank hexes, I said blank spaces in your prep, which was more to stand in for whatever's not prepped in a given game, rather than map areas specifically. Although in games other than yours that could be map areas, and perhaps in your game as well depending on what lies beyond the borders of your map. Anyway, yeah, improv and random tables.

 

[Imaro]

Possibly, but that doesn't mean that analogs to alcoholism or such flaws don't exist in the adventure fantasy genre, both contemporary and older forms. For example, we can look at characters like Elric, whose physical condition has made him at first dependent on sorcery and drugs and then, later, on the soul-sucking sword Stormbringer. "He can quit Stormbringer anytime he wants to." He knows that what he does has a moral dimension to it and that it often wrecks his personal life. But he repeatedly falls back onto using the sword for his personal fix, which often gets his friends and loved-ones killed. It's not alcoholism but it is definitely a hinderance that creates narrative complications.

I'm not so sure I agree with this assessment of Elric. If anything he actually succeeds more when using drugs, sorcery or Stormbringer, it is actually his non-Melnibonean morality that causes those he cares about to be killed (and it's not because he was weaker in a fight or couldn't accomplish a skill due to said hindrance). Case in point if he had handled his cousin Yyrkoon as a Melnibonean would have... Well let's just say the entire story would have been different.

In Arthurian fantasy we may see flaws like "lust" (e.g., Arthur, Lancelot, etc.) and these flaws lead to fracturing of the Round Table and leads, quite literally, to Le Morte d'Arthur. This is what games like Pendragon and Prince Valiant attempt to emulate. In Greek epics, "hubris" often leads to the undoing or hinderance of many of its most valiant heroes. Odysseus does eventually get back home, but his own hubris (and lust) is personally responsible for prolonging this journey: "Cyclops, if any one asks you who it was that put your eye out and spoiled your beauty, say it was the valiant warrior Odysseus, son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca." Oops.

Yes but these aren't really the pulp and adventure fiction that D&D drew it's greatest inspirations from. Now that said I definitely feel there is room for these types of flaws in the game but... with the wide range of sources it draws on I do not think mechanically enforcing detrimental effects for flaws would have been appropriate or appreciated. I think giving a mechanic that can easily fade into the background or easily be given more mechanical weight by individual tables was actually a pretty good way to go. As @prabe hinted at in one of his posts, I may want to explore my characters flaws in a session here or there but that doesn't mean I want them to always be the focus of the game, especially in D&D. It offers a wider palate at the expense of some mechanical heft (unless the DM/players are willing to add to it).

Do you not agree that there may be a conflict of interest at play between at the player's rational understanding of optimal play and the irrationality of a character's in-fiction actions?

I'm not disagreeing that there may be... but with a reward system that is minimal, and controlled by the other participants of the game...does it matter?

 

[Emerikol]

This is something that comes up a lot, and I don't think is very accurate. Pretty much every game I've ever played or GMed has involved some amount of improvisation. Even the most railroady of adventures still had the players do something that made the GM have to think on their feet and narrate stuff on the fly. And all of those games worked perfectly fine in that respect.

The GM having to wing it does not cause everything to fall apart.

Now, I do think that any game needs to have some information established as a foundation. I'm not saying that GMs should start at zero input and then expect to craft a world for the players on the fly. But the amount of prep and pre-determination that is often considered "necessary" simply isn't.

You've mixed winging it with having to improv on occasion. I think we can agree that at the edges improv has to occur to some degree. Winging it though is making up the adventure or inventing whole groups of important NPCs on the fly. And I very much have observed games fall apart under such conditions.

 

[Campbell]

I am of the mind that we cannot really know what is minor or what is essential prior to actually playing the game. A significant chunk of any session involves a lot of structural play and setup. Some amount of authoring needs to happen if we are going to have as rich an experience as possible. I generally want to get to the point where as little of that is happening as possible (including from the GM). If we lean solely on the GM for it than it becomes demonstrably harder to get to that point. In the midst of actually playing the game I would prefer the GM be able to be as focused as possible on playing the world with integrity.

I am generally not a minimalist when it comes to prep, either as a player or a GM. I probably spend 5-10 hours a week on prep as a GM if I'm really into the game I am running and about an hour or two as a player. It looks different depending on the game and might have more details pinned down in something like Exalted than something like Blades, but if I'm passionate about the game I am running or playing in I cannot help myself.

In most of the games I run and play in these days there is a substantial slice of life component. We place a lot of emphasis on character's families, friends, mentors, lovers, et. al. My vampire character has an estranged wife, coworkers (still works as a security consultant), clan ties, a driver, a couple apartments, a handler from Mossad, etc. He lives a full life. Getting to that level of depth and sense of history requires a lot of work / authorship. I find it best if players have a hand in helping create the things and people their characters would value because it feels a lot more natural than "Let me tell you about your brother." to me.

 

[hawkeyefan]

We are talking PCs here not the entire world. So no it doesn't bother me that a small group of five people does not have an addict. I encounter such groups in the real world all the time. I can have NPC alcoholics because I as GM are not immersed at all. I am just playing roles.

At least with D&D, I don't think killing monsters and taking their treasure as a motive for adventurers is hard to sustain. To the degree x.p. motivates that is about it. My players engage in lots of other things and have all sorts of desires that don't come back to the x.p. motivation. The x.p. will come from playing and it's not a driving force. If I told my players "I'll just tell you when you level", it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Sure, I'm not saying that a game is only about what it rewards. It's just going to very much be about that. Anything else will be secondary, or perhaps wrapped up with the main goal of play. So in D&D, most things will somehow revolve around killing monsters and taking their stuff. Not everything, for sure, but that's going to be central to most games, I would expect.

And although alcoholism was an example, it's just one. The idea that a group of five people could be subjected to what is essentially an unending stream of violence and trauma and not pick up some serious flaws.....seems utterly preposterous. But that may be absolutely fine.....I've played in plenty of action/adventure style games where that's the focus and we're not really interested in the psychological/emotional/physical toll it would take on the characters.

Again, it really just boils down to preference and what participants want to see in a game.

I get that others may prefer something different, but at the same time if we are doing analysis then it's important not to leave a potential possibility out that might suit others better. Ultimately I just wanted to show another option, and one I would argue is popular enough that it should probably be mentioned as well.

I would also state that the flaw being established in this fashion does not preclude it from being central to play or from coming up and mattering. What it does do is push that determination solely onto the player who chose the flaw as opposed to enforcing it with game rules.

Sure, I agree. I think that the option you're proposing, which as I said is similar to how D&D 5E does it, is far and away the most common approach. I don't think it needs any champions in that regard......it's the way the most popular game handles it, and by many accounts, plenty of players and DMs don't even bother with the Traits, Bonds, and Flaws anyway.

But I do agree it is possible. I've run a very long 5E campaign and the PCs have these kinds of elements, and they're almost entirely based on us handling as a group rather than any mechanical system in place. Although I think we benefit from having played some other games that do use those kinds of sticks and carrots, and that influences our play in 5E as well.

 

[Maxperson]

This is true. There's also a difference between a player wanting to turn off a hindrance so they can succeed in-game, and a player not wanting to deal with a hindrance for out-of-game reasons (they don't feel like dealing with a story about alcoholism at the game table tonight). A player who doesn't want yet another session to center around that hindrance, after some number recently, is different from both of those, but closer to the latter.

Looking at that, I guess it's pretty clear what my largest issue with such systems is ...

I hand out roleplaying experience. The award gets larger if the roleplay is a flaw that appropriately shows up at a time that is inconvenient for the players. If that alcoholic was at the feast table of the king as a reward for service and there was lots of wine and other liquors available. Getting overly drunk and all that comes with that would garner a pretty nice exp bonus. As well as the possible ire of the king as determined by roleplay and other circumstances.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm not so sure I agree with this assessment of Elric. If anything he actually succeeds more when using drugs, sorcery or Stormbringer, it is actually his non-Melnibonean morality that causes those he cares about to be killed (and it's not because he was weaker in a fight or couldn't accomplish a skill due to said hindrance). Case in point if he had handled his cousin Yyrkoon as a Melnibonean would have... Well let's just say the entire story would have been different.

We can quibble about this assessment of Elric some other time. But that's the nature of the incentive structure in play in these stories. Elric is pushed to use sorcery, drugs, and Stormbringer because it helps him succeed, but it's also a source of his tragedy (and death). He is effectively addicted to these things for the sake of his success. If it were Dark Sun, one could say that defiling magic can help you succeed, but it's also at the cost of the world's life.

Yes but these aren't really the pulp and adventure fiction that D&D drew it's greatest inspirations from.

I don't think that the issue is whether this is the fiction D&D drew its greatest inspiration from, because we could certainly find flawed characters in significant sources of inspiration (cf. see Elric above, or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, etc.), but, rather, what formed the primary assumption of play in the nascent period of D&D: i.e., skilled play. IMHO, the issue arises in D&D when there is a conflict between the various play priorities.

As @prabe hinted at in one of his posts, I may want to explore my characters flaws in a session here or there but that doesn't mean I want them to always be the focus of the game, especially in D&D. It offers a wider palate at the expense of some mechanical heft (unless the DM/players are willing to add to it).

Sure, but might that also have to do with D&D having less active support or focus on dramatic protagonism in comparison with other games?

I'm not disagreeing that there may be... but with a reward system that is minimal, and controlled by the other participants of the game...does it matter?

If it doesn't matter, then why bother? It may as well not be a flaw at all, as it's essentially a character flaw in name only. FINO?