What is the point of GM's notes?

Bedrockgames said:

This is where we disagree. I think there is a model, and it is a product of the GMs notes, maps, NPC descriptions, the GMs thinking on what is going on in the campaign setting, etc. There is an image the GM is sustaining that he is meant to refer to when making decisions about the present situation. There isn't just the present. There is the surrounding imaginary world (and I think calling that a model is reasonable here. If you disagree that is fair. I can't force you to agree, and you can't force me to agree with you. I think we have both made pretty persuasive cases for our positions.

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Where does this model exist? I presume you mean (in your case anyway) that it exists in your mind. It seems odd to tell someone else that a model exists in their mind though, at least when they contend that it does not. Arguing about the differences in out mental conceptions of campaign material seems like a fruitless task when no evidence can be brought to the table. I'd stop short of stating the existence of some sort of unified model, personally, as that doesn't match my experience in least in many instances. I'm certainly not "maintaining an image" in any way I can tell. The more developed the setting the more this might be true of course, but it's been an age since I've done serious development of an extensive campaign setting in the form of pre-prepped stuff. I tend to start small these days and work out as necessary.

The extent to which a particular game works without extensive prep, like Dungeon World for example, also puts paid to the notion that an extensive model of some kind need be the reference for adjudication. I'm not saying it couldn't be, or that you aren't describing one kind of GM approach, only that functional RPGs get played without anything of the sort.

pemerton said:

But the more general point is that there is almost always more than one plausible way things can unfold. Even with your factions - suppose that the party's action involves a lost kitten. How do we know that the faction leader doesn't have a soft spot for lost kittens, dating from his/her own childhood, which affects how s/he responds to what the PCs do?

The answer seems to be we know that because the GM hasn't thought of it. And when the players learn that the faction leader is as heartless towards lost kittens as s/he is to everyone and everything else, then the players are learning that fact about what the GM thought of.

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Sure, I am not saying there is just one logical outcome. But the assertion is there are logical courses of action you can identify. And as in the WWI example, sometimes you need to mix things up with a die roll to make sure it isn't too orderly and predictable.

In the case of the lost kitten, I think it isn't so important that you arrive at the one correct solution (there isn't a one correct solution). It is more a "based on what I know about this character, about this faction and even about the religion this leader belongs to, I think this would be his reaction to the kitten being lost. A specific detail about the leader's childhood is something I think, just out of fairness of play, the GM should either establish before the campaign starts and stick with it, or leave to a random roll if he doesn't have sufficient character history. But soft spots and sympathies are things I try to establish with my NPCs (and if they aren't there I may try to extrapolate them like I said before from other background details).

No one is denying the GM though of the fact about the leader. Obviously that fact was created by the GM or by one of his procedures. But the point is, if he has in fact put in place a soft spot for kittens with the character (or has put in place a surprising cruelty towards them), then that is something that now exists in the living world and will help drive interactions between the PCs and that NPC. And the players may never know that fact. They may simply encounter it by way of the leader refusing to help them find a lost kitten (or if he is sympathetic to the cause, by giving them enormous resources to find the lost kitten). That detail is part of the model

Fenris-77 said:

Where does this model exist? I presume you mean (in your case anyway) that it exists in your mind. It seems odd to tell someone else that a model exists in their mind though, at least when they contend that it does not. Arguing about the differences in out mental conceptions of campaign material seems like a fruitless task when no evidence can be brought to the table. I'd stop short of stating the existence of some sort of unified model, personally, as that doesn't match my experience in least in many instances. I'm certainly not "maintaining an image" in any way I can tell. The more developed the setting the more this might be true of course, but it's been an age since I've done serious development of an extensive campaign setting in the form of pre-prepped stuff. I tend to start small these days and work out as necessary.

The extent to which a particular game works without extensive prep, like Dungeon World for example, also puts paid to the notion that an extensive model of some kind need be the reference for adjudication. I'm not saying it couldn't be, or that you aren't describing one kind of GM approach, only that functional RPGs get played without anything of the sort.

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I think it exists in your mind but it is a product of a process involving your thoughts, your notes, etc. I am not advocating for a platonic form of the setting or something (though I am sure there are GMs who take this view somewhere). It is a concept. A model. I am not saying it is real. I am saying it resides somewhere in between the two extremes being offered (total non existence, and real). It exists in that it has some objective parameters the GM can track and build on in his mind. When I am running a setting, I am regularly modeling it in my head. I am not saying that is a perfect model. When I likened it to a computer simulation, I made a point of calling it primitive because I am using very remedial instruments (notes, maps, sketches, outlines of institutions, outlines of political structures, descriptions, knowledge of what is happening in the setting, knowledge of what the PCs are doing). It isn't as perfect as a computer model by any stretch. but it s also clearly not the same as a method where there is no attention paid to the setting as a living world model. This isn't something where you always have this mental projection going on in your mind obviously. It stops and starts. But I can imagine it pretty clearly when I think about it (and again not everything: I am not saying I have a zoom in and zoom out objective map of the setting in my head---I am saying I have a workable model).

And also there can be more worked on and less worked on areas in the setting. Just out of necessity you may decide there is a vast basin to the west, but because you know it isn't likely to come up you don't tend to those details as much as the eastern provinces or something (though eventually you may need to: and there at least ought to be some idea of what is going on in that basin so the eastern provinces aren't in a vacuum).

Perhaps the possibility that your particular mental construct might not be a universal occurrence needs to admitted into evidence. Just a thought.

Fenris-77 said:

The extent to which a particular game works without extensive prep, like Dungeon World for example, also puts paid to the notion that an extensive model of some kind need be the reference for adjudication. I'm not saying it couldn't be, or that you aren't describing one kind of GM approach, only that functional RPGs get played without anything of the sort.

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I am not quite sure what puts paid to the notion means here. But I do think dungeon world might provide an interesting contrast in approach that could get us at something tangible. But I would have to rely on your description of how dungeon world operates.

Fenris-77 said:

Perhaps the possibility that your particular mental construct might not be a universal occurrence needs to admitted into evidence. Just a thought.

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Oh, I am not saying this is universal. This is just one approach. And it isn't going to be a good approach for everyone. We all have different ways of thinking and organizing play. This is just how I do it. I get the sense many other world in motion/living world sandbox GMs do the same thing.

Bedrockgames said:

I think it exists in your mind but it is a product of a process involving your thoughts, your notes, etc. I am not advocating for a platonic form of the setting or something (though I am sure there are GMs who take this view somewhere). It is a concept. A model. I am not saying it is real. I am saying it resides somewhere in between the two extremes being offered (total non existence, and real). It exists in that it has some objective parameters the GM can track and build on in his mind. When I am running a setting, I am regularly modeling it in my head. I am not saying that is a perfect model. When I likened it to a computer simulation, I made a point of calling it primitive because I am using very remedial instruments (notes, maps, sketches, outlines of institutions, outlines of political structures, descriptions, knowledge of what is happening in the setting, knowledge of what the PCs are doing). It isn't as perfect as a computer model by any stretch. but it s also clearly not the same as a method where there is no attention paid to the setting as a living world model. This isn't something where you always have this mental projection going on in your mind obviously. It stops and starts. But I can imagine it pretty clearly when I think about it (and again not everything: I am not saying I have a zoom in and zoom out objective map of the setting in my head---I am saying I have a workable model).

And also there can be more worked on and less worked on areas in the setting. Just out of necessity you may decide there is a vast basin to the west, but because you know it isn't likely to come up you don't tend to those details as much as the eastern provinces or something (though eventually you may need to: and there at least ought to be some idea of what is going on in that basin so the eastern provinces aren't in a vacuum).

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I'm curious how your mental model would process the below to come to a result (rather than consulting a game's procedure for building a dice pool > rolling dice > interpreting result based on the action resolution mechanics). And I'm assuming you wouldn't "go to the dice" here? This would just be full GM extrapolation. Consider the following parameters and let me know what your instinct tells you would happen by answering the below questions (in like a sentence):

* Supernatural apocalypse so when people die their spirits don't crossover. They haunt the world. The sun "died", cities are tiny "points of light", little enclaves, each having to develop their own means for dealing with the horrific circumstances of the apocalypses. The land in between is called "The Deathlands" (you can imagine why).

* However, the powers-that-be in the city of Duskvol have engineered a functional but imperfect solution; infrastructure + a small group of personnel capable of preventing their city from being completely overwhelmed by spirits:

Infrastructure - Arcane Spirit Bells at an attuned Bellweather Crematorium ring out when someone dies. This sound channels through the Ghost Field (the arcane fabric of the world) and can only be heard locally. Deathseeker Crows then release from the belfry and move inexorably toward the ward of the death(s) and circling when they draw nearer the corpse(s). Back at Bellweather, there are special electroplasmic crematoriums to dissolve the spirit.

Personnel - The Spec Ops who handle the missions are few, but they are capable and geared to help them do the work of locating corpse(s) and getting it back to the crematoriums. This is very time sensitive and a short loop (well within a day...maybe within a few hours).

* Charterhall (where the Bellweather Crematorium is located) is on the far side of the city (Eastern end). Barrowcleft, the city's breadbasket (any other food must be imported in via the Electro-Rail trains that span The Deathlands and connect the dispirate cities of The Imperium) where The Radiant Farms are located, is situated on the West Wall of the big city.

* A massive death toll erupts, and secretly, in multiple places in Barrowcleft in the middle of the night. The scale and circumstance of this kind of event would profoundly strain The Spirit Wardens in terms of personnel/capability and finding each body comes with an uncomfortable margin-of-error, despite the resources afforded to the group.

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So what happens and how do you mentally model/extrapolate "what happens" based on the above parameters?

1) Is there a massive outbreak of malevolent spirits in Barrowcleft that then feeds back into more spirits (a supernatural pandemic) as new people are killed and the situation force-multiplies? Is it completely contained? Partially contained?

2) If it is only partially contained, is there food shortages (and when does it start)? If its a complete cluster-eff, when does hysteria, famine, and violence (creating another feedback loop) overtake the city?

3) Does the city's elite rulership try to contain the newspread of the problem to the public? Or do they get out in front of it and let everyone know the dynamics in play? How does the public respond?

4) Do warring factions temporarily truce under a cease-fire banner due to the bigger fish to fry? Or do several/all use this as an opportunity?

5) Does the elite rulership declare martial law on the whole city, just the affected ward, what? Refugee crisis?

6) What resources do they martial in order to address the problem (whatever magnitude you decide it is)? Do they enlist the public and invest them with temporary authority/capability in order to bulwark the Spirit Wardens ranks?

---

Procedurally, how do you answer those questions? All extrapolation? Some dice?

If some dice, when, and how is that informed/what does it look like?

Ultimately, what are your answers?

Manbearcat said:

I'm curious how your mental model would process the below to come to a result (rather than consulting a game's procedure for building a dice pool > rolling dice > interpreting result based on the action resolution mechanics). And I'm assuming you wouldn't "go to the dice" here? This would just be full GM extrapolation. Consider the following parameters and let me know what your instinct tells you would happen by answering the below questions (in like a sentence):

* Supernatural apocalypse so when people die their spirits don't crossover. They haunt the world. The sun "died", cities are tiny "points of light", little enclaves, each having to develop their own means for dealing with the horrific circumstances of the apocalypses. The land in between is called "The Deathlands" (you can imagine why).

* However, the powers-that-be in the city of Duskvol have engineered a functional but imperfect solution; infrastructure + a small group of personnel capable of preventing their city from being completely overwhelmed by spirits:

Infrastructure - Arcane Spirit Bells at an attuned Bellweather Crematorium ring out when someone dies. This sound channels through the Ghost Field (the arcane fabric of the world) and can only be heard locally. Deathseeker Crows then release from the belfry and move inexorably toward the ward of the death(s) and circling when they draw nearer the corpse(s). Back at Bellweather, there are special electroplasmic crematoriums to dissolve the spirit.

Personnel - The Spec Ops who handle the missions are few, but they are capable and geared to help them do the work of locating corpse(s) and getting it back to the crematoriums. This is very time sensitive and a short loop (well within a day...maybe within a few hours).

* Charterhall (where the Bellweather Crematorium is located) is on the far side of the city (Eastern end). Barrowcleft, the city's breadbasket (any other food must be imported in via the Electro-Rail trains that span The Deathlands and connect the dispirate cities of The Imperium) where The Radiant Farms are located, is situated on the West Wall of the big city.

* A massive death toll erupts, and secretly, in multiple places in Barrowcleft in the middle of the night. The scale and circumstance of this kind of event would profoundly strain The Spirit Wardens in terms of personnel/capability and finding each body comes with an uncomfortable margin-of-error, despite the resources afforded to the group.

---

So what happens and how do you mentally model/extrapolate "what happens" based on the above parameters?

1) Is there a massive outbreak of malevolent spirits in Barrowcleft that then feeds back into more spirits (a supernatural pandemic) as new people are killed and the situation force-multiplies? Is it completely contained? Partially contained?

2) If it is only partially contained, is there food shortages (and when does it start)? If its a complete cluster-eff, when does hysteria, famine, and violence (creating another feedback loop) overtake the city?

3) Does the city's elite rulership try to contain the newspread of the problem to the public? Or do they get out in front of it and let everyone know the dynamics in play? How does the public respond?

4) Do warring factions temporarily truce under a cease-fire banner due to the bigger fish to fry? Or do several/all use this as an opportunity?

5) Does the elite rulership declare martial law on the whole city, just the affected ward, what? Refugee crisis?

6) What resources do they martial in order to address the problem (whatever magnitude you decide it is)? Do they enlist the public and invest them with temporary authority/capability in order to bulwark the Spirit Wardens ranks?

---

Procedurally, how do you answer those questions? All extrapolation? Some dice?

If some dice, when, and how is that informed/what does it look like?

Ultimately, what are your answers?

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I am not familiar enough with this setting to really walk through the process on it (and I am quite unclear on many of the events, causes, etc to run that through the procedures and process I would use). I think you need a high degree of familiarity with the setting. For example there was a time when I had a strong enough command of Ravenloft (pre-3E era) to run through situations like you seem to be describing: alas no more! Now I am focused primarily on my own campaign setting. What I can say is if a region in my world for whatever reason was struck by an even that caused a massive death toll, I would try to look at things like what institutions are in place to respond, what are the consequences given the location itself (and the specific nature of the event would determine if this were some kind of expanding threat or just an isolated instance: is it a zombie plague, is it a massive natural disaster, is it a supernatural catastrophe like you describe above--or seem to describe). I would also ask what sects might become involved etc.

But lets take a much simpler example: an invasion on the border of a major empire. Let's say the Kushen tribes finally decide to invade the Empire via its client kingdom Li Fan which serves as a kind of buffer in the south. The way this kind of event might play out in my game is I would look at the map, look at the size and quality of the invading army, the size and quality of the defenses (in this case how many thousands of men are stationed in the forts along the border) and I would assign d10 dice pools to each side. I might break this process up into stages that represent increments of time, or I might just simply and roll to see whether they manage to take Li Fan (generally for an earth shaking event like this it is going to play out more slowly so there can be a shifting of the 'front line' and an ongoing background changing war). I might also think about things like how is this handled in the capital of the empire, how does Hai'an, a potential enemy south of the empire react, how do the various martial orders react. Much of that is going to be dependent on how successful the Kushen are. This could eventually become a situation where the capital is taken by the Kushen and a new imperial order established and Kushen rule over the people of the empire (which might have an analog in the Mongolian or Jin invasions of the Song Dynasty). But it is also hard to know exactly how this might play out because in a wuxia campaign martial heroes are worth hundreds of men, and player characters can have significant impacts on historical events (this is something Jin Yong actually breaks down into numbers in Legends of Condor Heroes and Return of Condor Heroes, where characters are involved in historical battles and as martial heroes they kind of serve as tanks that just radically imbalance things).

But to answer these questions:

Procedurally, how do you answer those questions? All extrapolation? Some dice?
In the case I outlined above (which I used simply because I am more familiar with the setting and more comfortable making decisions about it): extrapolation and dice for sure. I would definitely want dice involved in something like determining the outcomes of major battles. I would probably chart the course of the Kushen invading forces and try to track the movements of the imperial forces (consider alliances and such as well, and the role of major sects that get involved). Some diplomacy might even be handled by dice because I would still want that x factor (I think I know how Hai'an would respond, but lets put a 10% chance on me being wrong). This probably is akin to the setting solitaire you described earlier, but it is very much in service to the creation of a canvass should the players become involved (and it is up to the players if they want to). Let's say the players don't get involved. Again, it could result in many different things based on how many men each side is losing with each step (they could repel the Kushen, the Kushen could take just the client kingdom, they could just take the client kingdom and some imperial prefectures, they could reach the capital, they could conquer the empire but crumble and quickly be replaced, or they could assert control. The dice will have a significant impact here. Sects and PCs would also potentially have a significant impact (and for sects I would look at how many oppose and how many support the empire, what the levels are of the disciples and leadership, etc). For me the key is I shouldn't know if the Kushen will reach the capital or not. And I shouldn't particularly care if they do. I should try to either figure things out logically and/or resort to dice rolls to chart how that pans out.

And there may be other things that arise from all this the more I think of it (for example the empire may put out a call to all martial heroes and offer clemency to everyone who answers the call, supernatural forces such as gods could become involved: if the emperor has the mandate of Heaven, then the empire would get bonuses on its rolls, if the emperor doesn't have the mandate of heaven (for this particular emperor I would have to check my notes on that), the empire would get a penalty (or possibly in both cases, if I think it warrants it, because it is a heavenly mandate: Kushen get a bonus/penalty, the empire gets a bonus/penalty).

If some dice, when, and how is that informed/what does it look like?
I believe I described this above but generally I use dice when there are lots of unknowns or I am unsure or it is something like war (where you can never simply say "logically this side will win----there is always a chance things go another way). I have a few simple systems and procedures for handling war. The simplest is the opposing dice pools I mentioned. I like having various procedures to draw on. But I also have this, which I sometimes use (and I have about three or four variations on this--this one is written with player characters being present in mind, but I use it all the time for conflict where they aren't there, and I have about two or three sect war-sect conflict systems as well):

pemerton said:

I don't understand why you assert the bolded bit.

I think it's very common in RPGing for the GM to not know an answer to a question before it is asked. The GM then makes up an answer, having regard to whatever constraints the system and the context require. For instance, in my most recent Traveller session the PCs travelled to a gas giant moon that they knew to have been of interest to psionically-inclined aliens 2 billion years ago. I therefore had to narrate something about the moon.

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So, in that instance, were you playing to discover your own conception of the fiction?

I ask, because my top priority isn't to find out my own thinking on ... setting things. My top priority is to find out what the characters will do. Discovering that information about the Epiphany Machine comes in the form of Ramones lyrics was a salutary side effect.

I see that below, you describe it as the players learning the GM's notes. Are you considering the GM to be a player in this? I'm curious about your thinking regarding the GM's intents and priorities.

pemerton said:

I didn't know this in advance. I made it up on the spot. And then told the players. There was probably some back-and-forth in that - one of the players is an engineer who sometimes winces at my "science" - but the quoted passage gives the gist.

In the same session, one of the PCs, Alissa, was put on trial by the NPC Toru von Taxiwan. The trial was being held inside a pinnace - a small spacefaring vessel with capacity for 8 passengers/crew.

The description began with me. But it was Alissa's player who established that Alissa went to the bridge when she spoke in her defence, after having first established that she could speak in her defence. I went along with all of this as GM: I had no prior conception of how a Taxiwanian trial would proceed.

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I had a similar instance where a PC wanted to give a speech to a city council, to try to get them to change the law of the city more than they were intending to. That in-play process, I think, went pretty close to your description of the trial (except no one threw any grenades ...).

pemerton said:

Obviously the players in my Traveller game might change the fiction, in the sense that (eg) they could use their starship beam lasers to destroy some or even all of the mining structures. (They probably can't change the orbit or volcanic character of the moon). In the case of the trial they did change the fiction - the player had his PC blow everyone else up with a concealed grenade. This was in fact why he wanted to establish that he went to the front of the pinnace.

But changing the established fiction (which I think is what you mean - as opposed to adding to it as happened in the play of the trial) requires the fiction to be established. And that has to come from someone.

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I think we are in agreement about something needing to be established before it can be changed. I think I might describe what happened at the trial as the GM and the player/s negotiating some on the framing, and I think I'm more willing to do that than you might anticipate.

pemerton said:

I find it hard to tell. I get the feeling that your play might be similar to @Maxperson's, though I think you are a bit more self-conscious about techniques. I think both of you are different from @Bedrockgames who is in turn, I think, different from @Emerikol. But those are just impressions formed on a very thin evidence base.

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I think I agree with you, mostly. Thanks for answering: It occurs to me that might have come across as putting you on the spot, and I was really more interested in how much difference you saw between the people you are ... arguing with (with varying degrees of heat).

@Bedrockgames

That seems like fairly anodyne sandbox play to me. The sort of stuff I would do when running RuneQuest, Godbound or Stars Without Number. Lots of high level detail, but pretty impersonal stuff. That's not meant as an insult either. It's a tradeoff. We all have a limited amount of energy and it has to go somewhere. Both away from the today and at the table we need to prioritize.

One thing I will say is I do believe you can have quality sandbox play while being mindful of the process and creative decisions you are making. It just requires playing the setting with integrity. You can absolutely make decisions for an NPC based on your prep and your sense of the situation without seeing them as having their own volition. I know because I have done it for years in a variety of games.

I think my biggest issues, both in the commentary in this thread and also historically, from living world proponents comes down to what I see is a lack of acknowledging the cognitive limitations all us must deal with and what I personally view as a fairly reductive view of their own play. Basically my personal experience both with other GMs (I have played with and talked to in person) as well as in online communities is a sense that they have found the secret sauce. That they are literal Mentats who do not operate under the same limitations we all face. There also seems to be an erasure of the messier elements of running a game that do not fit their aesthetic goals. Stuff I cannot help but see when I run or play a game.