What is the point of GM's notes?

[hawkeyefan]

Well in anything we are talking averages. I definitely think, for the same reason given by the author of that book, that on average having more detail is going to improve the game. I agree there are other factors and that is not the exclusive property of a good game.

My experience with DMs/GMs is that those that ad lib a lot are not very good. So as soon as I figure out that there is nothing under that DM's hat, I tend to move on and leave that game. I've gotten better at figuring out this stuff ahead of time than when I was in college.

But what does that even mean about the DM's hat? I mean, it's all made up...does it matter when?

I mean, I can understand how it can be done poorly, sure. Or that certain kinds of games would not be the best fit for this.....something like a classic dungeon delve is probably best served by having a map and tracked resources and random encounters charts and the like, but that's more about this kind of game being about player skill.

There's no reason that a dungeon delve style of scenario could not be crafted by a GM in a game that doesn't rely so heavily on GM prep. I've done it myself, so I know it's possible.

My reaction is that generally ten authors can't write as good a story as one author can but I'm sure some author could be found that is worse than some selection of ten authors. So I view it as a typical truth and not absolute for every single situation ever. Just like authors who bother to build a world tend to write better worlds than authors who don't. I'm sure there are exceptions to everything.

I think the difference here is that writers benefit from having the chance to edit and to rework things, and to revise and retroactively fix things before publication, and all of this is without having to consider any kind of interactive quality with their audience. The audience will either like their work or not, but the audience will not shape an individual work with their own actions.

Gaming is different. If the whole point of play is for players to experience a novel that's been crafted by the GM with some points of input, then sure, I would think advice on writing novels and worldbuilding for novels becomes more relevant.

I do agree that whatever enhanced the fun of the game is a good thing for that game. No argument there. I just wonder if perhaps the benefits of the "opposite" of my style are in other areas and not verisimilitude.

In my opinion it is time well spent but then I enjoy it and I enjoy making my players happy with a good world that they enjoy.

The benefit for me is that I don't need to spend so much time preparing for a game. I don't need to have a vast and detailed knowledge of anything prior to play. And I as GM am discovering a lot during play. I'm learning about the setting right along with the players a lot of the time.

I also find sharing the creative process with the players tends to invest them more in the game and the setting. They feel more involved, which usually enhances play. Things matter more, they feel more immersed, they care about what's happening.

In a lot of my earliest games that I GMed, I as GM cared a lot more about the setting than the players did. They just wanted a setting to enable play more than learning about as an interesting place.

Well by your own definition, the fiction is only what emerges from play and does not include the entirety of the living world.

Well it's all fiction. But as far as what is "the fiction" of a specific game, then I think it is limited to what's been established. Prior to it being established, it can change.

Well stories are emergent from almost any hobby. I have stories of great chess games I've won or lost. Maybe my time ran out and I had a winning position. That doesn't mean the game is ABOUT creating a story. If so then did I make the clock run out on purpose to make the loss more memorable and dramatic? Absolutely not. I was playing to win.


So in my own style of roleplaying the players are trying to advance their agendas. They develop their agendas from experiencing the world and creatively thinking about their character. That a story emerges on occasion is a side effect and by no means the purpose.

This is my point. The goal isn't to craft a story, even if we can kind of describe the events of play as a "story" after the fact. But it's not constructed as such with the kinds of dramatic considerations that authors typically use to craft stories.

But it's still fiction. It's make believe. I feel like this is one of the few things that EVERY game each of us has mentioned in this thread has in common.....they all create some kind of make believe.

I feel like denying that removes one of the central commonalities that all RPGs have, from Sandbox to Adventure Path to Story Now and anything in between.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Please go back and re-read the thread. It's been the crux of pushback because it has.

YES! I 100% agree that the crux of the pushback has been a misinterpretation of the point -- that no one is saying that the only, sole, or even primary purpose of playing is to learn what is the GM's notes, but rather that quite a lot of play revolves around this. And that's fine -- I listed a number of things my players play for in my current game, and quite a lot of them feature finding out what I think the fiction is -- skill play relies on this being done fairly and clearly, the railroad plot absolutely relies on it, a good bit of the fun comes from how I describe my conceptions. This isn't a problem -- it's a vector to enable the other things we play for. Yet, you, and others, seem to lock down and misattribute this to somehow claiming that all play is just sitting around listening to the GM tell you things. This hasn't been anyone's point in this thread, except may you when you argue against this phantom.

EDIT: Honestly our discussion around this can probably end here. It's becoming a pointless back and forth and honestly the thread has veered off and transcended the topic so many times that to keep using the OP as some sort of fallback at this point feels like you are choosing to willfully ignore parts of the conversation. Which is your choice but also tends to make me think we won't get anywhere on this line of discussion.

S'Ok, feel free to disengage.

 

[prabe]

Would you say that the purpose of the GM's notes in this kind of game is to offer something for which the GM/players to interact with in order to facilitate your A through C?

That's part of it. It's also kinda an aide de memoire, so I can keep things consistent with what's gone before. My wife takes excellent notes, but I can and to distill those down so the relevant bits stay in my head.

Also, anything that I'm specifically framing in probably come out of my prep for a given session.

I can't really say how your game goes, but I imagine it is similar to mine in this regard. I feel that my 5E D&D game allows much more player freedom than the default 5E expectations, and most other similar games. This is not always 100% true at all times.....in my campaign I've incorporated some published materials, and they do constrain this somewhat. But overall and in general, I think that my approach to 5E grants them a lot more ability to determine how play will go.

But even then, it's largely shaped by my input. Not entirely of course....but a significant portion such that I would say it's still the majority.

Other than not using published stuff (because I can never make the kind of sense I need to, to run it) I concur that our games are probably similar. There are certainly instances when I have no idea what the party will next pursue, or how, or where. I improvise a lot those times.

Sure. There's also influence in the other direction. The players make decisions that are influenced by the GM. It's a loop, for sure, and the GM's influence on that loop is significant.

Which would you say is greater? Player influence on GM's ideas of the fiction, or GM's influence on players' ideas of the fiction?

It's a genuine question.....one I don't think has an objective answer, but I think it is kind of central to the idea here.

There's certainly at least one feedback loop.

The players have some influence on the setting, both as they write stuff in as backstory and as they do stuff. I think some of the stuff they've done has been more or less directly responding to the setting as presented to them. I think a lot of the stuff they've done has been mostly pursuing their own desires and needs.

I think it's possible that their influence over the setting and my influence over their actions is roughly equal: They only get to influence the setting by backstory and by character action, and I only get to influence their actions by framing events in (and to an extent by defining the setting, which I think of as outside any individual campaign, if that makes sense).

I get the connotations and why people have an issue with the first. But mostly this thread has just confirmed for me that it's a pretty accurate description. I don't think it must be a pejorative, even if that's how it may seem or may have been intended (although I think it was meant more to provoke a response than to really put a style down).

I definitely think the description was ... provocatively phrased. It's interesting that it's gotten maybe a little less provocative (at least for some of us (or for me anyway)).

Does it undersell the importance of the players? I don't know. I get what you're saying, but it talks about the players role as "discovering" so that's in there. I feel like maybe it undersells the fictional world, since that's what's being discovered and that's what's actually in the GM's notes.

But that then brings us to the original question, what are the GM's notes for. If you wanted to say "To help construct a fictional world in a collaborative manner with the players, where we are free to discover things about the world and the characters through play" then I think that's a more complete picture.

So ... I think I have to answer that question twice.

The setting notes are to give me (and the players, if they bother to look at them) a sense of place. Maybe better phrased as a sense of context for the place the characters are in. They're on Urnod, which is part of Erkonin; here's where the biggest cities on Urnod are, and the biggest geographical features. They're in Embernook; here's where the neighborhoods are, and kinda what's in them, and here's an overview of the city. These are some of the oddities of Erkonin, overall. This is how clerics are organized on a world without gods.

The session notes are there to help me keep straight what's going on right now. This is a situation which the PCs might encounter. This is where the PCs are now in whatever they're doing. This is the opposition and what they're doing. These are the creatures and/or geographical oddities they might encounter along their travels. This is the treasure an enemy has.

That's probably dividing the idea of "GM's notes" up more than you intended.

I won't deny being less collaborative about creating the setting than ... someone running Dungeon World, so I'd probably phrase it in a way that didn't imply there was active collaborative worldbuilding going on, but there's definitely collaboration on a fiction happening, and I'd say my input as a GM is probably roughly equal to the players', overall.

 

[Fenris-77]

Fiction can mean ‘made up’ but it can also mean ‘a story’ or ‘a novel’. The problem of equivocation with this term is very real in these discussions

First, no, it doesnt mean that. Those are types of or specific examples of forms of fiction, which is something else entirely. Second, I am beginning to doubt your use of 'equivocation' in these discussions.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think that to the extent the GM is playing to discover the players' conceptions of their characters, the players have say over that; seems to mean the players are deciding what is emerging. I'll grant that's probably not a common GMing approach in D&D--but it's part of mine.

I also think it is, perhaps, continuing to conflate "setting" and "fiction." The former is a subset of the latter, and everything the players have their characters do changes the fiction. At least, it should--and the fact it really doesn't much in AP-style play is probably my biggest gripe with that playstyle.

The players can change my world--and have done so. Granted, in play that's been entirely through character action/s, but there've been changes based around backstories as well. But yes, I have far more authority over the setting than the players do, and I have far less authority over their characters than they do.

Right, my point isn't that players don't have input, but rather than you have to agree to and incorporate that input -- there's nothing that doesn't pass through your filter first.

 

[Maxperson]

YES! I 100% agree that the crux of the pushback has been a misinterpretation of the point -- that no one is saying that the only, sole, or even primary purpose of playing is to learn what is the GM's notes, but rather that quite a lot of play revolves around this. And that's fine -- I listed a number of things my players play for in my current game, and quite a lot of them feature finding out what I think the fiction is -- skill play relies on this being done fairly and clearly, the railroad plot absolutely relies on it, a good bit of the fun comes from how I describe my conceptions. This isn't a problem -- it's a vector to enable the other things we play for. Yet, you, and others, seem to lock down and misattribute this to somehow claiming that all play is just sitting around listening to the GM tell you things. This hasn't been anyone's point in this thread, except may you when you argue against this phantom.

S'Ok, feel free to disengage.

It's the "play for" that's the problem. I don't play to find out what's in the DM's notes. Like at all. Zero. DM's notes are an important part of the game, but they are not any thing that I play for. I drive a hybrid car. Gas is a very important part of my driving experience. No gas. No go. I don't drive for gas. I don't drive to find gas. I drive for other reasons.

You guys are trying to make an aspect of the game into something we play for, and you're getting the pushback because we don't do that. It's an inaccurate statement on your part, not a misinterpretation on our part.

 

[Maxperson]

Right, my point isn't that players don't have input, but rather than you have to agree to and incorporate that input -- there's nothing that doesn't pass through your filter first.

There is no "agreement." It's automatically incorporated, because that's how the game works.

 

[Ovinomancer]

What you're describing is the difference between Neo-trad cited in the Culture blog and No Myth Story Now.

And they're extremely different.

I'm not so sure about this. It seems more like this is a shared feature of Trad, and Classic, as those feature strong GM control over what can be introduced into the fiction. Neotrad seems more focused on RAW and 3rd party setting canon acting as constraints on this GM control. What I've described above is very Trad play -- I'm the GM in charge and here's the play -- and less about NeoTrad -- I'm running strictly according to

 

[Emerikol]

But what does that even mean about the DM's hat? I mean, it's all made up...does it matter when?

Sorry I was meandering briefly into a Texasism. I guess I could have said he wasn't holding anything in his poker hand.

I mean, I can understand how it can be done poorly, sure. Or that certain kinds of games would not be the best fit for this.....something like a classic dungeon delve is probably best served by having a map and tracked resources and random encounters charts and the like, but that's more about this kind of game being about player skill.

I think this is a key insight about player skill. I would say player agency maybe on top of that. For example, in some games getting the group "in trouble" is built into the game and pretty hard to avoid. The dice will lead their eventually. Whereas, in theory at least, with careful planning and strategy, the group might accomplish their mission without getting into serious trouble. Then they have that "I love it when a plan comes together" feeling. A feeling of having overcome real obstacles.

There's no reason that a dungeon delve style of scenario could not be crafted by a GM in a game that doesn't rely so heavily on GM prep. I've done it myself, so I know it's possible.

I would agree if you mean my level of prep but I think a game with little prep is not going to go very well. So there is a vast amount of prep between my level and very little. I admit I base that only upon my own experience but I do have a lot of experience.

I think the difference here is that writers benefit from having the chance to edit and to rework things, and to revise and retroactively fix things before publication, and all of this is without having to consider any kind of interactive quality with their audience. The audience will either like their work or not, but the audience will not shape an individual work with their own actions.

Gaming is different. If the whole point of play is for players to experience a novel that's been crafted by the GM with some points of input, then sure, I would think advice on writing novels and worldbuilding for novels becomes more relevant.

I think the impact of the prep on verisimilitude and character immersion (as opposed to just regular immersion) is impacted by these same techniques. I recognize that having to be ready to infuse the game with new world details as a player can keep you focused. So that sort of immersion seems likely.

The benefit for me is that I don't need to spend so much time preparing for a game. I don't need to have a vast and detailed knowledge of anything prior to play. And I as GM am discovering a lot during play. I'm learning about the setting right along with the players a lot of the time.

And that is the key division. It's either a blessing or a curse depending on the person.

I also find sharing the creative process with the players tends to invest them more in the game and the setting. They feel more involved, which usually enhances play. Things matter more, they feel more immersed, they care about what's happening.

I don't think it's obvious to me they would be more invested in the setting. It's not my experience. I think there are aspects of the game in that style which would garner a lot of focus on the game.

In a lot of my earliest games that I GMed, I as GM cared a lot more about the setting than the players did. They just wanted a setting to enable play more than learning about as an interesting place.

I find there are techniques to draw them into the game and make them care more about the setting. Of course it varies by individual but my groups tended to care about the setting. I also tend to detail things that tend to be of interest to PCs.

Well it's all fiction. But as far as what is "the fiction" of a specific game, then I think it is limited to what's been established. Prior to it being established, it can change.

Is that a game rule? A practice? I've seen this stated many times but if like me you tend to view the setting as established it doesn't happen.

This is my point. The goal isn't to craft a story, even if we can kind of describe the events of play as a "story" after the fact. But it's not constructed as such with the kinds of dramatic considerations that authors typically use to craft stories.

But it's still fiction. It's make believe. I feel like this is one of the few things that EVERY game each of us has mentioned in this thread has in common.....they all create some kind of make believe.

I feel like denying that removes one of the central commonalities that all RPGs have, from Sandbox to Adventure Path to Story Now and anything in between.

I would agree that it's all make believe. I think when you establish facts about the setting matters. I like to keep DM the creator apart from DM the judge. Both are important roles but I see it best to keep them apart as much as you can.

 

[Fenris-77]

I would agree if you mean my level of prep but I think a game with little prep is not going to go very well. So there is a vast amount of prep between my level and very little. I admit I base that only upon my own experience but I do have a lot of experience.

I'm not sure why you keep dragging this out like it's true. Lots of games, games played successfully and enjoyed immensely by people in this very thread, do exactly that. They just aren't games you've played or have experience with. So, in short, you are incorrect. Please stop insinuating that your way is the only way to play in this regard, whether you mean to or not, it's been the cause of no little friction in this thread.