What is the point of GM's notes?

[Manbearcat]

@prabe

Returning to my questions above:

My character asks your character “what were your dreams last night” and “did you try my coffee I brewed over the spit this morning?”

How is you channeling your character and providing an answer not “experiencing things out of chronological order?”

 

[darkbard]

Um, at least as I experience them, they might be discontinuous, but they're in chronological order. I do not experience the past after the present. Or in the middle of the present. While I might not experience all of the sequence of A-to-Z, the experience will be A-D-F-E-H-L-P-V-Y, not D-T-H-S-W-V-T-Q-N.

Are you saying you never daydream of some past event that overtakes/interrupts your experience of the present? We are speaking of imaginative acts here. How is that anything but disrupting the chronological flow of time as you experience it?

EDIT: Ninja'd!

 

[prabe]

@prabe

Returning to my questions above:

My character asks your character “what were your dreams last night” and “did you try my coffee I brewed over the spit this morning?”

How is you channeling your character and providing an answer not “experiencing things out of chronological order?”

Because the character either A) had dreams or B) tasted the coffee before being asked. Remembering the experience is not the same thing as experiencing it. Or, the memory is a different experience than the event (and memory not being a perfect recording, that seems like a better description).

(Leaving aside the fact my character probably wouldn't have an answer to the first question because I the player almost never remember my dreams.)

 

[prabe]

Are you saying you never daydream of some past event that overtakes/interrupts your experience of the present? We are speaking of imaginative acts here. How is that anything but disrupting the chronological flow of time as you experience it?

EDIT: Ninja'd!

Actually, that is more or less exactly what I'm saying. Flashback is a storytelling technique that works to overlay events across multiple time streams--it's not a replication of actual human experience, IME.

 

[pemerton]

When my character figures a puzzle because I really figured it out then that is skilled play that I am doing through my character. I am being my character.

If I come up with an imaginative plan to ambush the enemy orcs then that is very much being in character. My character came up with that plan so to speak.

Whereas if I weave in a flashback or invent new fiction, that is a player activity but not a character one.

In Burning Wheel, when my PC meets his brother when he was hoping to do so, I am being my character. I think this is more immersive than solving a puzzle - because solving a puzzle (I'm thinking here of, say, a number puzzle or a typical riddle) is a cognitive task that is largely independent of my character's distinct personality, whereas hoping to meet my brother is intimately connected to the details of this character's history and relationships and aspirations for his future.

It is true that, but for me expressing my hope and then me and the GM resolving a Circles check, the shared fiction would not include my PC's encounter with his brother. That does not change the fact that I (my character) had a hope to meet his brother.

I have never read nor played BitD, but I don't see that the flashback mechanic involves any sort of stepping out of character. Here and now, my character is confronted with a problem. I as my character recall what I planned for, in anticipation of the problem; and the GM and I now resolve the operationalisation of that plan. That is me being my character.

Can you explain the difference you see between having a good imagination to weave outcomes (whatever it is you think that means) versus having a good imagination to think the things you do as a player are things your character is doing?

Like you, I struggle to see any contrast. In all these cases I (pemerton, the player) am using my imagination to imagine what I (pemerton's PC) am doing.

We don’t inhabit our characters and experience anything like an actual cognitive continuity (and again, there is no such thing). If one PC asks another PC “what were your dreams like last night” or “did you try my coffee I brewed over the spit this morning” or “when was the last time you were sick” or “you’re from here...where is the farrier...we need to get our horses taken care of”, the Player in question is going to have to make something up for the PC to recall. There are dozens and dozens of instances like this that can/will come up in play

Um, at least as I experience them, they might be discontinuous, but they're in chronological order. I do not experience the past after the present. Or in the middle of the present. While I might not experience all of the sequence of A-to-Z, the experience will be A-D-F-E-H-L-P-V-Y, not D-T-H-S-W-V-T-Q-N.

In @Manbearcat's examples of play, the bolded thing is not true.

Because the character either A) had dreams or B) tasted the coffee before being asked. Remembering the experience is not the same thing as experiencing it. Or, the memory is a different experience than the event (and memory not being a perfect recording, that seems like a better description).

(Leaving aside the fact my character probably wouldn't have an answer to the first question because I the player almost never remember my dreams.)

In BitD, the character engaged in the planning before operationalising the planning. The fiction does not involve any sort of time travel.

But just like Manbearcat's examples, the time sequence at the table does not correspond to the time sequence in the fiction.

If my character is asked to tell another character what s/he dreamt, then I (the player at the table) have to make something up about what my character dreamt. In other words, first I experience an event that happens in the (fictional) morning - Character X asks my PC "what did you dream about?" - and then I experience an event that happened earlier (my PC's dreams - it doesn't matter to the point if we assume that at this point I'm actually experiencing my PC's sleeping thoughts or if I'm experiencing my PC's recollection of those upon waking, because both those things happened, in the fiction, before X asked my PC the question).

If my character is asked by character X did you try my coffee? then whatever I answer, I (the player) am experiencing the episode of being asked the question before I have any experience of how the morning's coffee-drinking or coffee-declining unfolded, although in the fiction the sequence of events was of course the other way around.

The flashback mechanic is no different in the way it affects the relationship in-fiction time sequences to at-the-table time sequences except that instead of a leisurely question about coffee or dreams which is mere colour, it's more like - as a fight breaks out in a D&D game - one character asks my character Did you cast Stoneskin on all of us this morning? The affect on the time sequence is no different; it's just that the stakes of one rather than another answer are a bit higher.

 

[prabe]

So, I should be clear that my problems with BitD do not center around the Flashback mechanic, and my problems with the Flashback mechanic do not center around the non-linearity of it. I think I see how people might have problems with that, but I personally do not.

If my character is asked to tell another character what s/he dreamt, then I (the player at the table) have to make something up about what my character dreamt. In other words, first I experience an event that happens in the (fictional) morning - Character X asks my PC "what did you dream about?" - and then I experience an event that happened earlier (my PC's dreams - it doesn't matter to the point if we assume that at this point I'm actually experiencing my PC's sleeping thoughts or if I'm experiencing my PC's recollection of those upon waking, because both those things happened, in the fiction, before X asked my PC the question).

If my character is asked by character X did you try my coffee? then whatever I answer, I (the player) am experiencing the episode of being asked the question before I have any experience of how the morning's coffee-drinking or coffee-declining unfolded, although in the fiction the sequence of events was of course the other way around.

If your character is asked in the morning "What did you dream about?" or "Did you try my coffee?" you are not experiencing the dream, or the coffee-drinking, after the question. You are experiencing your character remembering the dream, or the coffee-drinking. The experiences remain in chronological order.

The examples do not relate to the Flashback mechanic being non-linear.

 

[prabe]

Sorry to respond to the same post twice ...

The flashback mechanic is no different in the way it affects the relationship in-fiction time sequences to at-the-table time sequences except that instead of a leisurely question about coffee or dreams which is mere colour, it's more like - as a fight breaks out in a D&D game - one character asks my character Did you cast Stoneskin on all of us this morning? The affect on the time sequence is no different; it's just that the stakes of one rather than another answer are a bit higher.

I have allowed something very like this in my 5E campaigns. I suspect you have, too, in 4E. It's one of those instances where I figure the characters might be more with-it than the players, sometimes.

This example is a bit more akin to a BitD Flashback, I think.

 

[pemerton]

So, I should be clear that my problems with BitD do not center around the Flashback mechanic, and my problems with the Flashback mechanic do not center around the non-linearity of it. I think I see how people might have problems with that, but I personally do not.

If your character is asked in the morning "What did you dream about?" or "Did you try my coffee?" you are not experiencing the dream, or the coffee-drinking, after the question. You are experiencing your character remembering the dream, or the coffee-drinking. The experiences remain in chronological order.

The examples do not relate to the Flashback mechanic being non-linear.

The experience of drinking the coffee is established after the experience of being asked the question. Just as in a flashback, the experience of having primed the safe to blow when I give the signal is established after the experience of giving the signal.

If you want to respond to the coffee example by saying that we skip the drinking and even prior memories thereof and only focus on the recollection, here and now, that is prompted by the question, well we can do the same for the flashback: what is happening in the BitD game is not that I am now establishing some experience that is temporally prior to giving the signal, but rather than - while we skipped RPing that experience - I am now establishing the recollection that I have here-and-now as I give the signal!

 

[pemerton]

I have allowed something very like this in my 5E campaigns. I suspect you have, too, in 4E.

I've got no perfect recollection here but I think my general response in 4e would be to tell the player to suck it up!

(It's complicated by the fact that 4e has few prep-type spells of the Stoneskin variety. So it tends not to come up.)

In Burning Wheel one of the PCs has the Instinct Always maintain Turn Aside the Blade. The player relies on that Instinct quite a bit.

 

[prabe]

The experience of drinking the coffee is established after the experience of being asked the question. Just as in a flashback, the experience of having primed the safe to blow when I give the signal is established after the experience of giving the signal.

The establishment of the experience is not the experience. What you experience around the table is that the existence of the coffee is established, then the drinking of the coffee is established--neither of those is the experience of drinking the coffee. To the extent that you are experiencing what your character is, sitting around the breakfast fire, what you are experiencing is your character remembering drinking the coffee, which is not the same thing.

And I gotta say that I'd probably have problems with any fiction that established what would happen on a given cue after showing that cue--it'd seem more graceful to put the flashback before showing the signal, don'tcha think?