What is the point of GM's notes?

[Bedrockgames]

RPGing doesn't look like this except in some corner-case instances such as correlating distances, movement rates and time passed.

My point is I can imagine a place with things measurable for the purposes of an RPG and I can fill that place with imagined cultures and societies; and these things can be explored

 

[Bedrockgames]

In the sort of play where maps and keys are important, I think that this is very important. As I've posted upthread, it dictates the outcomes of many action declarations the players make for their PCs.

I don't know anymore whether you agree or disagree with that - because upthread I thought you disagreed but now you seem to be agreeing.

I am not saying maps are unimportant. Maps matter a great deal. So do the notes. As I said earlier I want to be careful not to define what I am arguing in opposition to your position. My chief complaint is the reduction fo the game to 'discovering the GM's notes'. I think the process is much more involved than that (which I have explained I think)

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't know what synergy means here. Gygax's explanation is very straightforward: there are notes that tell us how the limed-over skeleton will behave if prodded. If those notes weren't there, then the GM would have to extrapolate something from his/her notes.

In this and other threads I have referred to players declaring actions for their PCs which oblige the GM to provide information taken from or extrapolated from his/her notes. This is what Moldvay and Gygax illustrate for us in their examples of play.

As far as I can tell you think that something different is happening, but I don't know what the difference is. I can't tell if you think that Gygax and Moldvay are describing a different process of play from the one you favour, or not. I am describing exactly the same thing that they exemplify.

Synergy is the way a campaign setting starts to have an energy of its own as the players interact with the GM's setting. To me, it is how the moving parts (the PCs, the NPCs, etc) of the living world create unexpected developments and shift the course of the campaign. I was quoting Justin Alexander from the video I posted where he talks briefly about sandboxes and tries to explain them to people who find them daunting or have had them crash and burn. In the video he talks about this synergy and how the ultimate aim of the sandbox is really to have it run itself.

Lol. I don't know that Gygax's description is all that straight forward. It depends on whether you are talking about the white box, the AD&D DMG, etc. I don't necessarily disagree. He did say notes were important. He did say the GM speaks to the players. But he also lays out tons of procedures for things like exploring the wilderness, and while he does contrast D&D as a Game versus other games that maybe make greater attempts at simulating realism, he is definitely giving you tools to create a believable world to explore. That said, Gygax always struck me as very engineer like in this respect and focused on maps and exploration. For me the launching point into living world is Ravenloft. I realize other people have different launching points. But the reason I keep pointing to Feast of Goblyns is because it expands on the concept from the module, and for me that was just a moment where I realized you can treat things like NPCs as living characters in the setting (which I hadn't thought to do before 1991: keep in mind I came to the hobby in '86---not by D&D but in a science fiction campaign using a system that I haven't been able to identify since; it is possible it was mechwarrior--- and didn't start GMing myself until 89 with the 2nd edition rules). I like the White Box, the 1E DMG (that was something that especially helped me get away from the EL/CL adventures I was not enjoying in the early 2000s). But my thinking is largely shaped by my discussions with posters like Rob Conley, Clash Bowley and others, various sandbox threads, as well as GM advise from a variety of sources (blogs, rulebooks, etc), the OSR and experimentation with what works and doesn't for me.

And I like Moldvay, and I appreciate much of his advice, but I don't think I don't think I approach the game entirely the same way he does. He is pretty dungeon focused. I do very much like the Moldvay basic set though. I think it is great example of less is more in an RPG. Though it definitely depends on the type of game I am running. Right now I am talking about living world sandboxes, but that isn't the only thing I run.

What I am talking about is pretty much not that different from what Crawford describes in stars without number (particularly in the section talking about sandboxes as living worlds).

 

[Manbearcat]

For all your talk about wanting to open the doors to more GMs, this idea seems completely counterproductive in that - to me at least - it puts up a rather significant barrier. If I'm going to GM I'm going to do it now, dammit, not a year from now after a bunch of training and practice.

Far better that a new GM (first) make sure the players are alright with a rookie GM and (second) just dive in and do it, "learning on the job" through trial and error as things go along.

Barrier, eh?

Well, I think you're going to have to explain two things:

1) How is it that the entire world of sport and martial arts and artisans/tradesfolk (from dance to boxing to smithing to football (both) to hockey to basketball to knitting to climbing to cobbling to skateboarding to golfing to woodworking to archery to running to weightlifting to baseball to wrestling to pommel horse to cheesemaking to pole vault etc etc etc etc) have created functional athletes/artisans in the billions (at least 1/4 of the world population is capable in some kind of martial affair or physical trade) range...that don't quit? Its because humankind has developed a tried and true methodology (as I depicted above) that has been passed down through the ages...that spans all cultures (the overwhelming number of which were indendent from one another).

2) Why is it that TTRPGs (D&D in particular) has failed miserably over its 40 year arc at pulling anything even close to a 10 % rate of functional GMs out of its population? I don't know what you guys see, but in my life (physically...I'm not talking about on here or the folks I'm playing games with virtually), I've encountered about 400 TTRPG participants. Of those participants, only about 25 or so have appreciably tried their hands at GMing for anything approaching a duration sufficient to say "I'm a GM." Of those 25, not even half are functional to good (and several of those are oblivious to that fact and completely unwilling or incapable of acknowledging their weaknesses and working on them). So my guess is 10/400ish. That is a dreadful ratio by comparison to (1) above.

It seems like where "the barriers" need to be sussed out is in (2) above (and, again, I'd say that the daylight between the two is likely to be found in what I wrote above on it). Humankind has done a comparatively excellent job at solving the athlete/artisan/martial artist problem.

 

[pemerton]

I am saying it is a thought experiment in the sense of counterfactual history or in the sense of thinking about an imaginary situation. So I am using it in the sense of "What would a culture of people who can't die from old age, but can die a violent death look like". Most game worlds are filled with these kinds of thought experiments

I don't think it is useful to describe those as thought experiments. They're imaginings and speculation.

How would a culture of people who can't die of old age but can die of violence live? There's no single objective answer to this question. There are anthropologists and other social thinkers who could offer more or less plausible accounts. Very little RPGing looks like this, though - the only designer to have even tried something along these lines, as far as I know, is Greg Stafford in RuneQuest.

In most cases its just making things up. I don't think it does any sort of disservice to actually call it what it is.

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't know, I think there is room for lots of different approaches to GMing, and I do think this should be fun (not something where people feel like they are training for a big fight every session). Definitely experiment with different techniques, different approaches, but I think we can run into issues if we hold up this ideal of the perfect GM (especially when tastes are so varied: for some folks a GM like matt mercer is perfect, for others they want someone who is more interested in micromanaging the local economy or in bringing really great tactical combat to life at the table.

Maybe it is the striker in me but the idea of being thrown to the fire is one I tend to think is informative (it is also usually how things were done around here when I started----I realize this does vary by region). I like to think of GMing more like being a stand up comedian, where you only get good by doing it. There is craft to it, but 1) there are different types of comedians, and 2) to improve your craft you have to risk bombing and you need to understand what is happening when you do bomb. One technique I use is when I have a bad session I try to mentally detach myself a little, so I am not troubled by the fact that the session is going badly and instead focusing on figuring out what is going wrong---why the session is going off the rails and seeing and testing techniques to see how much they can push it back. We can have craft and technique, but the goal of all those things in martial arts, is to make them instinctual. If you are taking even a split second to think, that's too much time. In gaming there is a flow and rhythm too and I find I GM best when I am doing so naturally, without really having to think about what I am doing. Occasionally I will be very conscious of something (like "I am going to try this technique now" or "I am going to make a point of thinking about the consequences of what the party just did and how that will play out in the enemy organization").

I don't disagree with the whole of this. Just a couple thoughts though:

1) I want to make it clear (and to @Lanefan ) that what I have in mind isn't some kind of Rocky montage of a 12 week fight camp with absolutely no actual "at-the-table" GMing. I don't mean that at all. What I'm talking about is (a) having a structured plan to both understand what you're doing and hone your craft, (b) work at those fundamentals a bit before you GM (even if its just a session of picking discrete scenes/conflicts, practicing framing, practicing handling action resolution, practicing figuring out complications/fallouts at both the action resolution and scene level, and integrating the whole process), (c) running a game with actual confidence (because of (a) and (b) ), (d) then understanding how to reflect and humbly perform a post-mortem of your GMing, (e) then continuing to practice honing your craft.

2) I don't know how many comedians you know. I don't know a ton, but the ones I'm familiar with (I know 2 in real life) actually describe a structured process that hews very closely to what I'm talking about. Anecdotes of professional comics and guys I know make the tradecraft part of it look like this:

* Always be switched on. Always have a pen ready to write new material. You're constantly practicing the cognitive framework.

* Understand your shtick, develop it (these things don't accidentally come together), stick to it.

* Be around other comics as much as possible so you're always bouncing material off of each other. This is practice.

* Practice your material and delivery in small clubs (even HUGE comics do this regularly) so you're constantly sharping your iron and trying out material with considerably reduced stakes.


That looks exactly like what I'm talking about.

 

[Maxperson]

No. My argument is The fact that thoughts are real does not entail that what those thoughts are about is real.

What the thoughts "are about" ARE the thoughts. They are one and the same.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't think it is useful to describe those as thought experiments. They're imaginings and speculation.

How would a culture of people who can't die of old age but can die of violence live? There's no single objective answer to this question. There are anthropologists and other social thinkers who could offer more or less plausible accounts. Very little RPGing looks like this, though - the only designer to have even tried something along these lines, as far as I know, is Greg Stafford in RuneQuest.

I think it is pretty clear we disagree on terminology. I find thought experiment a very useful way to think if these things: to me it suggests one seriously thinks through the ramifications to arrive at a compelling conclusion. That there isn’t one objective answer is the appeal (and that is also the appeal of counter factual history: no one can say for sure what the outcome would be had Caesar not been assassinated but it is an interesting exercise in historical thinking and there are are better and worse conclusions (if my thought experiment leads me to conclude Aliens would have invaded Rome had Caesar not been assassinated, that is a lot less compelling than a conclusion like ‘the civil war would have been averted’—-not saying this would be the outcome, just it is better than ‘aliens’)

I am not claiming to be Greg Stanford or an anthropologist; but I do think this approach is a fun part of world creation and can lead to interesting setting details

 

[pemerton]

What the thoughts "are about" ARE the thoughts. They are one and the same.

No. When I'm thinking of the Emerald City and I'm thinking of me thinking of the Emerald City are not synonyms.

This is even more clearly brought out by second and third person instances:

I'm imaging Elminster in Shadowdale is obviously not the same thing as I'm imagining Maxperson imagining Elminster in Shadowdale.

 

[pemerton]

I think it is pretty clear we disagree on terminology. I find thought experiment a very useful way to think if these things: to me it suggests one seriously thinks through the ramifications to arrive at a compelling conclusion.

<snip>

I am not claiming to be Greg Stanford or an anthropologist; but I do think this approach is a fun part of world creation and can lead to interesting setting details

Every time you say this sort of thing you drive home how important you take the pre-planning to be.

Then when I refer to "notes" you complain about that.

Then when I refer to "GM's conception" you complain about that.

Then when I refer to "stuff the GM has made up" you complain about that, because you take it to imply a lack of planning or seriousness.

And then when I go back to some terminology like "notes" or "prep" to try and capture the planning and seriousness you complain about that.

For reasons I don't understand you seem to object to anyone who is not Moldvay or Gygax pointing out that there is an approach to RPGing in which the GM invents the setting details and a big part of play is these being communicated by the GM to the players, generally as a response to the players declaring actions for their PCs that trigger such communication.