What is the point of GM's notes?

[Bedrockgames]

No one is using that definition except you. We've all pointed out "no, not that definition.....the next one".

I understand. I understand you are using definition a(imagined stuff) and I am expressing concern about equivocation to definition b(story) or even c (novel), my point is this equivocation is very likely arise because fiction and story are nearly synonyms the way fiction is used in speech (and it is nearly a synonym for literature as well).

 

[Maxperson]

If you can't clarify what it means as succinctly as I clarified what "fiction" means, then there we go.

Your attempts to define living world are byzantine and non-specific, presented in giant walls of text.

No. You don't get to force the definition of Living World into 7 words or less. Not everything can or should be forced into such a small definition. We have defined it for you. You can accept it or not as you choose, but if you don't accept it, then there we go.

 

[pemerton]

Well in order to benefit from deep world knowledge when adjudicating the game you have to have reliable world knowledge well established.

<snip>

Inside the sandbox, I tend to establish things that are fixed and I tend to not establish things that are not. Actual NPCs in town I establish. Where they are at at any given moment, I do not. I do create calendars etc.. but that could easily change even off camera. A lot of change is in world change because the world is a living world that changes. So those sorts of changes aren't really changing the truth but just progressing it along in time.

There is a lot that exists in the game world that won't change. Even if there is a small subset of things that theoretically might change. So we view that stuff as established just like events the PCs are involved in.

This stuff that exists in the gameworld that doesn't change seems to me to be things written down by the GM in his/her notes, or things imagined by him/her and apt to be so written down even if that hasn't actually taken place yet.

The GM rewriting that material in accordance with his/her imagination about how those places and people might change over time lseems to me like it is adding more notes. Similar to JRRT's Appendices A and B to LotR.

So dungeons and further detailing of a world goes on as the game progresses but it's built on what already exists. So if I decide to use the campaign world for another campaign after the first one ends, I may create a whole new sandbox in another place and the dungeons in that sandbox may not have existed earlier. I am not though changing the world wholesale though as that to me is established.

I would argue, the stuff that happens at the table matters but so does the stuff the GM prepares. If the GM decides "This castle is going to exist in this spot, no matter what" it exists in the setting, whether the players find it or not (and that is important because it should exist in the setting in a sandbox whether they find it, they don't, they find it in session one, or they find it in session 10, and treating as existing matters because even if they don't directly encounter it, they may encounter signs of its existence-----if there are encounters in the area around the castle, very possible those encounters are inhabitance of said castle for example---even if the players don't realize that until ten or twenty sessions later)

I have bolded something which is a bit obscure, even equivocal, to me.

In any standard FRPG, if the PCs find a castle then that castle will have existed in the setting prior to them finding it. And it would have existed even if they had not. In the BW game in which my characters found Evard's Tower, the tower existed before they found it. How else could they have found it?! In fact my PC found evidence in the tower - ie letters apparently written by his mother as a child - which implied the tower had existed from well before he was born.

So it is not at all distinctive of a sandbox that a castle, or tower, or any other relatively permanent thing should exist in the setting independent of who finds it.

Similarly for Emerikol's dungeons: presumably if Emerikol decides to use a campaign world for another campaign, set a year or so after the previous campaign, and drops in a new dungeon that is 1,000 years old, then that dungeon existed in the world during the last campaign too (and was about 999 years old when that old campaign finished).

So when Emerikiol says it may not have existed in the sandbox earlier I think that means the GM hadn't thought of it yet, and so hadn't written it down. And when Bedrockgames says it should exist in a sandbox whether or not they find it I think that means the GM should have thought of it already and written it down, so that (eg) the GM can narrate signs of its existence.

I don't know how those two claims - and related claims about verisimilitude, feeling "real", etc - are to be reconciled.

We see the off camera stuff as an information feed that aids the GM in giving better answers and playing better NPCs. The world is more consistent.

This seems to fit with what Bedrockgames said about the castle But I don't see how it is supposed to be reconciled with the possibility of subsequently authoring in a 1,000 year old dungeon. Obviously the GM will not have narrated signs of the existence of that dungeon prior to thinking it up; yet presumably such signs ought to have been present.

We believe that living world enables the GM to be more effective when adjudicating the actions of NPCs/monsters/even nature inside the shared fiction. So our living world feeds the shared fiction and makes it better.

I don't know what effective means here. Does it mean more consistent in narration? If so, then how is that meant to fit with introducing new elements, like dungeons, into the gameworld?

 

[Ovinomancer]

I understand. I understand you are using definition a(imagined stuff) and I am expressing concern about equivocation to definition b(story) or even c (novel), my point is this equivocation is very likely arise because fiction and story are nearly synonyms the way fiction is used in speech (and it is nearly a synonym for literature as well).

Totally agree. Look at this thread, where it's arisen with only you. Very likely, that.

 

[prabe]

I understand. I understand you are using definition a(imagined stuff) and I am expressing concern about equivocation to definition b(story) or even c (novel), my point is this equivocation is very likely arise because fiction and story are nearly synonyms the way fiction is used in speech (and it is nearly a synonym for literature as well).

So, the only one here coming close to using fiction to mean story is you, and you think everyone else is equivocating? You're acting as though we're confusing compose and comprise.

 

[pemerton]

You totally side stepped the real question so maybe I wasn't clear, I'll try again... why is "Playing to find out what's in the GM's notes" an apt descriptor of sandbox play but not of AP play... and if it actually is an apt description of both then isn't it probably better to use a different descriptor for one, the other or both?

Ok just to be clear... are you now stating that AP play and sandbox play are not different?? Just looking for clarification here.

Aren't we discussing the differences in these playstyles

It's being used as a reference/characterization for the entire playstyle... not as one of many descriptors...

Here is a quote of the post in which, in this thread, I used the phrase "playing to find out what happens in the GM's notes". That post occurred on page 17 of the thread ie some hundreds of posts subsequent to the OP.

I think people like me are at heart explorers. They want to learn about a new world and explore it. It's a big motivation. They also want to achieve something by dint of their skill as players. So they feel they "earned" their PC's greatness.

Gygax speaks to this a lot in the 1e DMG.

I have posted about this approach to play probably more than anyone else on these boards. I call it playing to find out what is in the GM's notes. The play process consists in the player's making moves with their PCs which oblige the GM to provide the players with information from the GM's notes: this is how the players "learn about a new world" (information) by "exploring it" (making moves that trigger the GM to provide that information).

In my own experience - of reading setting material and reading accounts of this sort of play and occasionally seeing it in action - the worlds themselves are rarely very deep. Sometimes they are quite detailed though.

As you can see, it was a response to another poster - @Emerikol - describing him and RPGers like him as "explorers" who "want to learn about a new world and explore it".

So he was the one who introduced the idea of learning or finding out as a point of play. What I did was clarify what is actually being learned: given that the "world" being "explored" is purely imaginary, what is actually being learned is what the GM has made up and written down in his/her notes. I even described the process of play that will generate this learning.

Now as I already posted, distinguishing between what Emerikol describes, and AP play, isn't a high priority for me. But one obvious difference between them is that the content of the notes is different. In sandbox play the notes are primarily guidebook-type notes: the sort of stuff one would find in a Lonely Planet. There may be a reference to future events, but that is to be understood as a way of pointing to a present disposition of some person or place in the fiction (a murder that will occur; a volcano that will erupt) which is apt to be thwarted if the players declare the right sorts of actions for their PCs (eg they apprehend the murderer first; they use magic to calm the volcano).

In an AP, on the other hand, the notes are mostly a series of events laid out in a time sequence. So references to future events aren't just references to present dispositions but to things that will happen. Because of the way action declarations typically work in RPGing - ie they have a "temporal" aspect to them of generating things that happen next - there is some tension between APs of this sort and taking player action declarations seriously. That is why APs are full of advice to GMs about how to disregard or negate the effects of action declarations, like if the PCs apprehend person X then person Y will commit the murder or if the PCs find a way to calm the volcano, Imix himself turns up and makes it erupt.

Those are differences in the content of the notes, and also differences of GM technique.

 

[Imaro]

Here is a quote of the post in which, in this thread, I used the phrase "playing to find out what happens in the GM's notes". That post occurred on page 17 of the thread ie some hundreds of posts subsequent to the OP.

As you can see, it was a response to another poster - @Emerikol - describing him and RPGers like him as "explorers" who "want to learn about a new world and explore it".

So he was the one who introduced the idea of learning or finding out as a point of play. What I did was clarify what is actually being learned: given that the "world" being "explored" is purely imaginary, what is actually being learned is what the GM has made up and written down in his/her notes. I even described the process of play that will generate this learning.

Now as I already posted, distinguishing between what Emerikol describes, and AP play, isn't a high priority for me. But one obvious difference between them is that the content of the notes is different. In sandbox play the notes are primarily guidebook-type notes: the sort of stuff one would find in a Lonely Planet. There may be a reference to future events, but that is to be understood as a way of pointing to a present disposition of some person or place in the fiction (a murder that will occur; a volcano that will erupt) which is apt to be thwarted if the players declare the right sorts of actions for their PCs (eg they apprehend the murderer first; they use magic to calm the volcano).

In an AP, on the other hand, the notes are mostly a series of events laid out in a time sequence. So references to future events aren't just references to present dispositions but to things that will happen. Because of the way action declarations typically work in RPGing - ie they have a "temporal" aspect to them of generating things that happen next - there is some tension between APs of this sort and taking player action declarations seriously. That is why APs are full of advice to GMs about how to disregard or negate the effects of action declarations, like if the PCs apprehend person X then person Y will commit the murder or if the PCs find a way to calm the volcano, Imix himself turns up and makes it erupt.

Those are differences in the content of the notes, and also differences of GM technique.

You still didn't answer the actual question but it doesn't matter as most of us have moved on from that line of discussion.

 

[Maxperson]

But that is the nature of equivocation. A word has multiple meanings and one can invoke different meanings of it in the same discussion. I can invoke fiction to mean 'imagined stuff' but I can also invoke it to mean 'a story' and I can also invoke it to mean stuff like 'novels'.

Upthread you posted the definition of equivocation. You can use different meanings of a word in the same discussion without equivocation. It's when you use multiple meanings within a single argument that you start equivocating.

An example would be if you said something like, "I'm talking about fiction as a story, not fiction as imagined stuff." and I responded with, "Fiction means imagined stuff and fiction means story, therefore fictional imagined stuff is the same as fictional story." My response there would be equivocation. Another way would be, " I have the right to watch "The Real World." Therefore it's right for me to watch the show." There multiple uses are also being used within a single argument.

 

[pemerton]

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).

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.

What puzzles me a bit is that no one thinks that reading a book or listening to an audiobook or podcast is boring or stupid. Lots of people do that.

Lots of people also read Choose Your Own Adventure books or play Fighting Fantasy books; or engage with their equivalents in computer game form.

I'm not sure why it's pejorative to point out that, in doing this, the reader/player learns what the author was imagining. That's kind of the point!

 

[hawkeyefan]

I would say there is a huge overlap between the living world, skilled play, heavy prep crowd. Not an absolute overlap but an overlap.

Probably a safe assumption, although I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions. But yeah, prep heavy seems to be a pretty common approach to games that are about skilled play in the classic sense, and also for sandbox approach as it's been described often in this thread, with the GM as the primary authority on setting.

That is a good point. I've read a lot of different games but I have tried playing a Story Now game. I just now willing to invest in a campaign to play something that doesn't really seem my cup of tea. I do think I understand the game and I can see where some people might enjoy it. It's a big paradigm shift from traditional D&D, heck even roleplaying.

I'm a rules collector so I own all sorts of games I don't play. I'm keeping some of these small outfits in business I think. ;-).

Do you mind if I ask what game you played? I do think it's a paradigm shift in some ways, but not so much when it comes to roleplaying. If we mean in the sense of adopting the role of a character within the fictional setting of the game.

We definitely agree on this point.

It was bound to happen at some point!

I think here is where "the fiction" and the "living breathing world" part ways. The living breathing world includes all the off camera people, places, and events. Some of which could affect the PCs overtly, some in subtle ways and others not at all. We view this living breathing world as a thing apart from what you are calling the fiction. Now you've defined the term "the fiction" so you are right by your definition. To me the campaign setting is an entity apart from just what happens during the session.

Those of us who think as I do believe these non-fiction parts of the campaign setting, the living world, ultimately make the fiction better. The GM would be the conduit for why it's better. For the same reason an author knowing her world really really well far beyond what she reveals to the reader, is a better author. The touches of verisimilitude come more easily from a wealth of knowledge. At least that is my take.

So this is where I don't know if I would agree. If the fiction is just the made up stuff that happens when we play, and the living breathing world is the setting in which we play (I think?), then I don't see how they split.

If the setting includes all the off camera stuff, then I think the answer to the question "what is the point of GM's notes?" becomes pretty clear. They are the world. The players then discover that world through play. But may objected to this idea.

Now, I have ideas that are "off-screen" when I run a more story now focused game like Blades in the Dark. Some of these things will influence the fiction (the make believe happening in play) in ways that are indirect, and so they aren't yet established as being true within the fiction. My intention may be that they are, and I may be having the world behave that way. But prior to actually revealing this thing, it could change. Maybe a better idea occurs to me, which also fits with what's happened in play. Maybe my players veer away from this thing and explore other ideas, and then by the time we come back to it, another idea has come along that makes more sense. Any number of reasons could actually come up.

If we treat our notes as inviolate.....that they are established as part of play as much as the things that come up during actual play.....then again, I think the answer to the question about GM notes becomes very clear.

I see the Story Now crowd not even having the same objective. They aren't trying to achieve what I am trying to achieve in my games. The joy for them is the organic evolution of the story where even the GM is learning about the world. They like that and that is why they like those games. At least that is my take.

Well, what are you trying to achieve in your games? You've touched on it, but what would you say are your play priorities? Maybe top three.

For me, when I play a story now game, it's something like this:

• Have fun
• Be creative with my friends
• Play my character honestly, and learn about them through play

That's probably not incredibly different from when I play a more traditional game like D&D which would be something like:

• Have fun
• Be creative with my friends
• Play my character and overcome challenges through play

It is a well established truth that authors who know their world well before writing are more likely on average to produce a compelling and immersive world. That point is not really all that disputable. So in a game, of course there are differences but the ability of the GM to interact with the PCs still benefits for the same reasons with a good knowledge of the existing world. That is the point we are making. That solid reliable world information is a great foundation for making better judgments and providing better info to the PCs as they progress through the world.

I'm not really sure what you mean by objective as that seems like a red herring. When I say more "real", I am saying "easier to suspend disbelief" just like you do when reading a fantasy novel. We all know the fantasy world is not real but we still come to care about the characters and the world. If you are going to get your PCs to care about the world, and if they do care they will be more immersed and more engaged, then that world needs to feel real to them. You are aided in making it feel real to them by having a good foundation of prep that guides your answers.

Edit:
I was once told by a player in one of my campaigns that my setting just felt more like a real place than any other they'd played in. They couldn't say why. It was just a feeling. It's a feeling I want to foster in all my players.

I don't know if this is "well established" at all. There is some amount of similarity in what an author does and what a GM does, but there are also significant differences.

Imagine if an author had to simply release a chapter to the audience on a weekly basis, and allow them to make changes to it, and to shape what could follow based on these changes and their ideas. Then he has to write the next chapter, and release it the next week.

That process is incredibly different from writing and revising and editing and rewriting and so on. Also, there's nothing stopping a writer from changing the "backstory" or setting information that informs his story to suit the needs of the story. In other words, he's free to make the changes he needs to tell the story he wants to tell.

I don't expect any author is going to say that the most important part of their book is the stuff that didn't make it in. No.....the story is about what's in the book, by its very nature, that's the important stuff. Anything else is there to serve that.

I'd say the same for GM notes.