GMing without an inner monologue.

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm not a cognitive scientist, but I don't think they are, in the sense of an "inner monologue" of a person

Given that our assumption that other humans brain’s work in a similar way to ours seems to be quite wrong, I suspect you are right about other species. The idea that animal intelligence is “like ours, but littler” is no doubt quite wrong, but it’s really the only model we have to work with. If I want my cats to come, I call them by name, even though the concept of “name” is incomprehensible to them.

As I understand it, what we think of as the narrative of a dream is after-the-fact rationalization of random impulses/images.

I don’t think it makes a difference when the images are formed. It is still using the brain’s capacity to create a picture of things that do not exist. However, how would sleepwalking and other parasomnias work if that where true?

 

[Umbran]

Given that our assumption that other humans brain’s work in a similar way to ours seems to be quite wrong,

Eh, maybe not.

Having done some quick reading, and speaking with my resident biologist... we should not equate our conscious experience with the fullness of our thought process, most of which happens without our being aware of them. People using inner monologues, and those not using such, don't so much "think differently" - they present their thoughts to themselves differently.

Basically, the inner monologue is a kind of user interface to your thoughts. It is the words on the computer screen of your mind, but you only see the results, not the data processing going on in the CPU.

If I want my cats to come, I call them by name, even though the concept of “name” is incomprehensible to them.

So, that one I know a bit about. Animals do not possess language, and they don't have an abstract concept of names, in general.

However, dogs and cats do associate sounds with things. The can opener is associated with "tuna will be available", and so that sound means the thing. Their understand that the noise of their name is a reference to their self.

Moreover, they get that the noise of their name is different from the noise that demands an action. If you have two pets, they know the difference between "Jimmy, come here" and "Sally, come here". Sally can figure out that she doesn't need to show up when you call for Jimmy.

I don’t think it makes a difference when the images are formed. It is still using the brain’s capacity to create a picture of things that do not exist.

Yes, but the brain's ability to make a picture, or even to have a picture associated with some emotion, is different from building a narrative of pictures, which is what we are usually talking about when we speak of dreams.

However, how would sleepwalking and other parasomnias work if that where true?

Well, parasomnias typically happen during non-REM sleep, when we are NOT dreaming, so dream processes won't tell us much there.

 

[Celebrim]

Wait, your position is that people who don't hear a constant voice in their head aren't thinking? Thoughts can only exist as spoken words?

Well, it's just difficult for some of us to conceive what thoughts are if they aren't like talking to yourself. And I say that as a guy who often doesn't know the word to say to myself (especially names of new people) because it's been filed in some non-verbal manner such as a picture or related group of memories (the person who is associated with these events).

 

[soviet]

I just got done watching The Killer (2023) which features a character that is constantly thinking to himself. Once it was over, I hopped online to read other's reviews of it and became puzzled at a few responses that didn't understand the "inner monologuing" that was happening. That led me down a rabbit hole of discovering that only around 50% of people do this?

I've talked about my inability to imagine pictures, like in this thread here, but the inability "to talk" inside one's head is new to me. Personally, my brain doesn't... shut... up... ever, and I kind of just assumed that was how everyone's brain worked.

Anyway, this got me thinking about TTRPGs (like everything does) and how it was possible to DM without verbal dialogue in your head. For instance, how do you decide what an NPC might say? When creating maps, encounters, etc., are you really mentally silent the entire time?

I'm always blown away by how unique we all are and curious to hear other's thoughts and experiences.

I don't see pictures in my head and I don't have any kind of inner monologue playing. I can make one, in the sense of articulating a planned sequence of actions to myself, but this is just like speaking silently. Nothing is said that I don't control. In fact I don't hear non-diegetic noises (remembered music etc) in my head either.

I can imagine images and noises in a very abstract sense, like a sonar outline of their coordinates. And I guess my thoughts are quite abstract in that sense too. It seems you've discussed the aphantasia part before, I'm sure this affects my GMing in the sense that I don't see a visual representation of the world that I can then pass on, but I have an abstract sense of it and I can articulate the main descriptors. In fact (maybe just leaning into this aspect of my own mind) I deliberately try to keep my descriptions fairly vague to allow players to fill in some of the visual gaps themselves.

It sounds like you're saying that when you GM an NPC's dialogue, what you're really doing is almost just turning the tap on inside your head of what the NPC would say, and then channeling that towards the players? I think for me I am writing the dialogue in my head as I say it, it's a conscious process of creation albeit often in a flow state, improvising and finding a voice for the character as I go. I'm not sure you would see a difference IRL (although all my accents and impressions are terrible).

 

[Staffan]

I don't see pictures in my head and I don't have any kind of inner monologue playing. I can make one, in the sense of articulating a planned sequence of actions to myself, but this is just like speaking silently. Nothing is said that I don't control. In fact I don't hear non-diegetic noises (remembered music etc) in my head either.

So... no earworms?

 

[John Dallman]

This is interesting to me. I'm one of those people who has deep levels of closed-eye hallucinations (level 4 on the scale Wikipedia is talking out here after just a minute or two having my eyes closed, pretty often), but I don't think I've ever seen a visual calendar when thinking about tomorrow's schedule. It comes to me in words.

Ooo, that's interesting! I'm a high 3 on that scale: the patterns and motions come readily to me, but as far as I know, they are not particularly connected to my thoughts. When I have been concentrating hard, they will start taking over parts of my visual field when my eyes are open. This has been described to me as a form of painless migraine, but I don't know if that is true.

I have inner monologue some of the time. I don't use it very much when GMing or preparing, although I will talk to myself out loud, occasionally, when doing those things, usually when I've reached a decision about something. During a very long campaign where I played a stealthy infiltrator who had a lot of solo scenes, I developed the habit of deliberately using inner monologue, spoken aloud to give the other players some entertainment.

My thought processes when GMing are not particularly verbal. It's more that things for the players to contend with come out of my unconscious when I need them. When preparing, when an idea is ready I can formulate it in words and write it down.

 

[soviet]

So... no earworms?

None. I guess I'll be pretty good at overcoming traumatic experiences once the William Gibson jackpot we're in really starts to accelerate.

 

[Jahydin]

I don't see pictures in my head and I don't have any kind of inner monologue playing. I can make one, in the sense of articulating a planned sequence of actions to myself, but this is just like speaking silently. Nothing is said that I don't control. In fact I don't hear non-diegetic noises (remembered music etc) in my head either.

That is really interesting, thanks for sharing. I think the verbal aspect is similar to my wife's in that she doesn't have an inner monologue, but can create verbal "lists" (as she calls them) in order to execute tasks.

I can imagine images and noises in a very abstract sense, like a sonar outline of their coordinates. And I guess my thoughts are quite abstract in that sense too. It seems you've discussed the aphantasia part before, I'm sure this affects my GMing in the sense that I don't see a visual representation of the world that I can then pass on, but I have an abstract sense of it and I can articulate the main descriptors. In fact (maybe just leaning into this aspect of my own mind) I deliberately try to keep my descriptions fairly vague to allow players to fill in some of the visual gaps themselves.

Exactly me. And since most of the games I've played are so grid/miniatures and math based, I never had an issue. Then I started playing Dungeon World and realized my thought process was very different then my gaming friends.

It sounds like you're saying that when you GM an NPC's dialogue, what you're really doing is almost just turning the tap on inside your head of what the NPC would say, and then channeling that towards the players? I think for me I am writing the dialogue in my head as I say it, it's a conscious process of creation albeit often in a flow state, improvising and finding a voice for the character as I go. I'm not sure you would see a difference IRL (although all my accents and impressions are terrible).

Had to think about this a moment. I suppose this is how I do it.

Its still me talking and how I would respond, but modified by internal/external factors. Like, "What would I say if I was tired, slightly drunk, and disliked royalty?"

 

[Retros_x]

I decide what a NPC says at the table. I don't prewrite dialogue, I think about the needs and wants of the NPC and act it out. Improvise. And of course I am able to have an inner monologue if I really need to. But its not my default. When I write out dialogue (which I rarely do for TTRPG, but I played and wrote for multiple amateur theatre projects) I think its even better to not just think the sentences but actually say them out loud.

 

[Retros_x]

ell, it's just difficult for some of us to conceive what thoughts are if they aren't like talking to yourself.

I understand that its hard to conceive, but obviously these people without inner monologues are thinking. So the problem is a lack of imagination on your side. Which is completely understandable, if your whole consciousness experiences thoughts only as words. Its hard to wrap your head around how other people actually think.

My best explanation is that its like concepts. I just think in concepts for the most time. And I think people with monologue also do it. You know what a government is without having an internal monologue about what a government is. At least I hope that you don't have to do that everytime. Thats how it is for many people without monologue the whole time. You just know, you just think. Its concepts, relations etc. Really hard to describe but maybe that helps.

And its the same for DMing. I just imagine and know what the NPCs/Factions are, how they relate to each other, who is antagonistic, who is friendly. There is no monologue telling me this again and again, I just know and act upon it when DMing. Only when I really think about actual speech or write something down (like this enworld post) I hear a inner monologue. When I slowly think (in Kahnemanns terms) about words, language, speech, thats when the monologue activates for me.