What is the point of GM's notes?

[innerdude]

So it's sort of become clear to me that this hangup over the phrase, "the fiction," really is the key point, or lynchpin, in the whole mindset of "dynamic campaign" (***) play.

Without the core conceit of there being some true, pure, ur-state "objective model" from which all further inferences about the shared imaginary "stuff" / shared imaginary space (SIS) is derived, the entire conception of "dynamic campaign" play ceases to be relevant.

I think Bedrockgames has alluded to this already a couple of times, with the "I might as well just show the players my notes" comment around running adventure paths.

And I think I finally caught a glimpse as to why in the Actor Stance / Immersion / "Playing as my character" thread.

Would you say, @Emerikol and @Bedrockgames, that one of the reasons you prefer players to only "play as their character" is that it necessarily---and purposefully---limits the quantity and scope of mental modeling they do?

Something like, "If I can just keep the players from trying to do all of the scene and history extrapolating, and keep that behind my curtain, it will make it easier for them to mentally envision/enmesh/insert their consciousness into the world. They're not having to jump out from their segmented character mindset to worry about the 'dynamism' of the setting, or feel pressure to make things work. Furthermore, it's too easy for external inputs that I-as-GM haven't envisioned to disrupt the balance/harmony of the ur-state 'external model' I've already spent so much time building.

"If we can just keep the characters immersed 'playing as their character', I can more fully enable and maintain the fine balance of managing the verisimilitude of the SIS, while also having the secondary benefit of reducing distractions in getting the players into our desired 'immersion flow.'"

Is there any accuracy to this?


*Side note: I've mentioned it already, but the biggest paradigm shift (and I mean that in the absolute, literal sense of the world) for me came when I finally let go of the notion of there being an "objective external model" of the SIS. As soon as I could lay that conceit aside, and recognize that the "objective external model" was just as much a constructed fiction as everything else, my entire mindset changed.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm curious about whether players can engage in observation like this in Blades? What would happen? I'm very fuzzy on these non-traditional games, but here's what I imagine based on following some of these conversations. The player can't just fish for information with no outcome in mind. So instead of saying, "I observe the guards to see if I notice anything useful," they could say, "I secretly observe the guards and discover a gap in their patrol route which I then exploit." Something like that?

When I've been a player in a traditional game, a significant amount of the fun has been in gathering information. Which seems to be an effort to transferring as much of the GM's conception to the players as possible before declaring a high-stakes action.

So, what would happen in Blades would be the character makes this action declaration. We have stakes -- they want to not be discovered -- and this is in question, so this is an action declaration and can be challenged by the GM. If the GM doesn't challenge this (and that would be poor play), they say yes, and the player gets what they want. If they do challenge it, then the mechanics are invoked. Without a lot of explanation, there's an agreement as to how effective this attempt will be (Effect) and how dangerous it is (Position). This codifies both the scope of success and the scope of failure. The player, if they agree, then rolls their action (if they don't, they can then do something else -- the negotiation is to establish shared understanding of the fiction). The outcome is either failure, in which case the GM establishes a consequence within the scope of the Position and the action declared and play goes from there (maybe now a chase through the streets), or success. Success has two modes: with consequence and full success, depending on the roll. With consequence means that the player achieves what they wanted -- they now know when a gap in the rotation occurs they can use to sneak across -- but it comes with a cost the GM imposes, again with respect to the action and the Position. Maybe the player overhears a conversation that the guards have posted dogs inside the courtyard on the other side of the square, so now the player has to overcome this challenge, or they got the info, but realize as soon as they're moving across the square that they left some gear behind, and not have to chose to go on without it or double back at more risk. On a straight success, they get what they want, no strings attached.

Blades is very focused on generating a specific kind of experience, and so focuses on playing rogues in a haunted city. The players have a lot of things they can do to affect rolls and alter outcomes, and access to a flashback mechanic to introduce new things on the fly that they did prior to the score. As such, Blades absolutely focuses play on Act Now, Plan Later. The idea that you'd need to spend lots of gametime investigating targets and planning your approach is anathema to the concept of Blades. Blades instead assumes that you're very competent at being criminals, and your characters have done this work, but you don't need to play through that, you just get to the end product. It's system, which allows players to set success conditions, lends itself to this, and the variety of tools the players have do as well. It's a very different mode of gaming from more traditional games, where the GM is the owner and arbitrator of all things setting. It takes some mental adjustment, but it works very, very well. Most of the thinking people that haven't played these games have are from the wrong mindset -- I know, I was one of them. Trying to figure out how this works, how the GM can do a setting that's that malleable, is hard to grasp, until you, almost quite literally, realize that there is no spoon.

 

[prabe]

Honestly your style of play sounds similar to mine. The main differences probably being that I ask my players to have goals and make sure to tie them into the setting which helps alleviate some of the problem of the "finding their fun" style since they already know what their fun is and just need to go find it. Also recently I've started using more randomizing tools (mainly from OSR games and supplements) to generate fiction in the moment (and sometimes, though rarely, in the past) along with creating some of it on my own. I also have factions with goals motivations, etc that I purposefully plan to create conflict, strife and drama but that's as close to an overarching plot as I tend to have.

I suggest (but do not insist) that players write up short backstories for their characters, which A) gives the players a chance to establish motivations and B) gives the players (and me) a chance to establish connections between the characters and the setting. I start off the campaign by putting all the characters in the same place at the same time, then throwing manure at an air circulator. As they deal with the repercussions of the opening, I start threading in things from their backstories. So maybe that difference isn't so different (and if you aren't tracking me and all my posts, there's no reason you would have known, so IMO we're good).

 

[Ovinomancer]

I didn't say you did it all. I said the fiction was still created by the GM in the majority of cases. My point is that even under constraints you created the majority of the fiction, not them. They guided it and directed it but you created it, not them. If I constrain an artist to work in a certain medium, with a certain color palette... did I then create the work of art?

It's been quite a while but yeah I have played it. I'm cloudy on the exact details since it's been a long time but if I remember correctly the crew were hawkers (drug dealers) and one of the stories that emerged was them attending a rave-like party to pass off laced drugs as belonging to their competitors in order to weaken their competitors hold on the neighborhood. I remember they had a Whisper who, because of a roll ended up causing an entity to invade the party. And I also remember them running into members of their competitors gang who realized they were passing of drugs with their marking on it... again because of a roll. The main thing though is that I was still the one generating most, though not all of the fiction.

So, what just occurred to me is that, in Blades, the players are not declaring actions with the hope the GM will tell them something about the setting/game/event -- this is the failure state. They are declaring actions so as to tell the GM something about the setting/game/event.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Which I maintain isn’t especially since you are prone to fear-mongering arguments.

I am not fear mongering. That is hyperbole

 

[Maxperson]

I am not fear mongering. That is hyperbole

It was also Ad Hominem. Rather than counter the argument, he attacked you directly.

 

[Aldarc]

I am not fear mongering. That is hyperbole

You are expressing fear about the vague possibility that people may equivocate terms.

 

[Imaro]

So, what just occurred to me is that, in Blades, the players are not declaring actions with the hope the GM will tell them something about the setting/game/event -- this is the failure state. They are declaring actions so as to tell the GM something about the setting/game/event.

I would say they are declaring actions with the hope of achieving their goal (Sometimes this goal could be to get the GM to tell them something about the setting/game/event... sometimes it is to tell the GM something about the setting/game/event). We know from the rulebook that most of the time achieving the goal will come at a cost.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I would say they are declaring actions with the hope of achieving their goal (Sometimes this goal could be to get the GM to tell them something about the setting/game/event... sometimes it is to tell the GM something about the setting/game/event). We know from the rulebook that most of the time achieving the goal will come at a cost.

You're trying to hide the pea. In D&D, players declare actions for the GM to tell them how it went. This is part an parcel of 5e, it written on page 4 of the PHB -- the GM narrates the outcome of an action. There are almost no constraints on this -- if the action runs afoul of the GM's conception of the fiction, then the GM is 100% free to narrate a failure outright, even after asking for a check (some GMs advocate for doing this so as to obfuscate even further). This is starkly different from Blades, where the player gets exactly what they want. The point you make about some cost being likely is true(ish), but this doesn't change that the player still gets to say what happens, but the GM also gets to say something else happens in addition. This extra say of the GM cannot negate or reduce the player's success -- they get to say that thing happens.

 

[Imaro]

You're trying to hide the pea. In D&D, players declare actions for the GM to tell them how it went. This is part an parcel of 5e, it written on page 4 of the PHB -- the GM narrates the outcome of an action. There are almost no constraints on this -- if the action runs afoul of the GM's conception of the fiction, then the GM is 100% free to narrate a failure outright, even after asking for a check (some GMs advocate for doing this so as to obfuscate even further). This is starkly different from Blades, where the player gets exactly what they want. The point you make about some cost being likely is true(ish), but this doesn't change that the player still gets to say what happens, but the GM also gets to say something else happens in addition. This extra say of the GM cannot negate or reduce the player's success -- they get to say that thing happens.

So who is generating majority of the fiction? If the DM is framing, setting the scene, playing the NPC's and on the most common roll also narrating fiction... How is he not still the majority contributor in this game? No one is arguing it is the same as say D&D, only that in both the lion's share of the fiction is generated by the GM.

EDIT: You seem to be arguing that the games operate under different constraints... that's not what I've argued against.