What is the point of GM's notes?

[prabe]

Interesting. To me it feels like a handful of posters, particularly you, object to any word or phrase anyone else comes up with - GM's notes, fiction (shared or otherwise), authorship, etc - that makes it clear without equivocation or metaphor that the fiction in RPGing has to be invented, and that in your favoured playstyle it is the GM who is doing the bulk of that invention.

To be clear: I have no problem admitting that I author the vast majority of the world in the games I run, but I dislike the phrasing "the GM's notes" because it feels as though it is implying that the GM has planned a story, which seems like a railroad--or at least railroad-adjacent. I have less problem with your construction "the GM's conception of the world," but I realize it's both less pithy and less provocative.

 

[Maxperson]

Is it possible to actually state this aspect of the "living world" method independent of making the contrast with my BW campaign?

I already did stated it independently of BW and you used your BW campaign as an example. I needed to use your example combined with mine to show how yours didn't reach living world.

But if my reasons in BW stop that from being a "living world" game, wouldn't the same be true in the railroad game? The GM would be doing the stuff you describe for different reasons.

No it's not the same as a railroad. In a railroad, the DM is forcing the players down a line. He can be introducing events that happen as a logical result of PC actions or as events that happen in other areas of the world. He would then either force them towards or away from the events. The world can go on independently of the PCs, but it wouldn't be the players' choice whether or not to engage with what they hear.

 

[pemerton]

I dislike the phrasing "the GM's notes" because it feels as though it is implying that the GM has planned a story, which seems like a railroad

I don't understand this. I've run RPGs with lots of notes: maps and keys; calendars and annals of past years; NPC descriptions and stats; possible actions those PCs will take if not disturbed by the PCs; etc. Those were all notes. When the players were having their PCs move through the lost pyramid in the Sea of Dust trying to find Vecna's tomb (or something like that - it's been a long while) a lot of what was happening was that they were declaring actions which prompted me to reveal elements of my notes.

But there was no planned story. I don't feel the force of the implication that you are pointing to. At all.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, for me GM notes is like 'fiction' - they're both neutral terms that shouldn't give anyone the yips. Regardless of game we all have notes, and those notes have content. Yay! What gets done with that is separate from the notes themselves.

 

[innerdude]

No it doesn't make it a living world. You don't really prep much ahead of time, so that rumor was introduced for their benefit(ie into the PC bubble), rather than as part of the world moving on its own. The players, knowing that they are playing Burning Wheel are aware of that, which alters the feel of the game.

I don't really see how the timing of when something enters the fiction as being relevant to whether the label "living world" can be applied to a given play structure.

So what if he made it up on the spot?

 

[Maxperson]

I don't really see how the timing of when something enters the fiction as being relevant to whether the label "living world" can be applied to a given play structure.

So what if he made it up on the spot?

If he made it up on the spot, then things did not happen independent of the PCs. It happened because of the PCs and is just a part of the PC bubble. That prevents it from being part of a living, breathing world.

 

[Fenris-77]

If he made it up on the spot, then things did not happen independent of the PCs. It happened because of the PCs and is just a part of the PC bubble. That prevents it from being part of a living, breathing world.

Bollocks. Things happening because of the PCs and their actions is half of what makes a living world. The other half is things progressing apace despite of or not in connection with their actions.

 

[Maxperson]

Bollocks. Things happening because of the PCs and their actions is half of what makes a living world. The other half is things progressing apace despite of or not in connection with their actions.

Sure, but with the caveat that it happens outside of their knowledge and they may not ever learn of it. If you're making it up on the spot, it's to tell them, which makes it PC centric. There's no real possibility of them not learning about it. You're just coming up with something and hitting the PCs with it as part of their bubble.

 

[Fenris-77]

Sure, but with the caveat that it happens outside of their knowledge and they may not ever learn of it. If you're making it up on the spot, it's to tell them, which makes it PC centric. There's no real possibility of them not learning about it. You're just coming up with something and hitting the PCs with it as part of their bubble.

Being PC centric doesn't make in not a living world unless that's the only way anything happens.

 

[Maxperson]

Being PC centric doesn't make in not a living world unless that's the only way anything happens.

If you're making it up on the spot, then it is the only way that it happens.

For example, if the PCs have wandered through a village 5 times and the last time through they gave a man who was down on his luck 200 gold. The man used it to buy a building and start a tavern and now the village which previously did not have tavern, has one. That's not the sort of information that travels from town to town. In a living, breathing world, that was created off screen and the next time the PCs come through, they will discover what their actions wrought. However, they may never go through that village a sixth time and may never find out. If the DM makes it up on the spot, though, it's because the PCs did go through the village a sixth time and the creation is therefore, part of the PC bubble(that which happens around them.). Things created as part of the PC bubble are not part of a living, breathing world.