What is the point of GM's notes?

[Maxperson]

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

You don't think in sentence construction. You think in thoughts. If you think of the Emerald City, then thinking of the Emerald City is your thought.

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.

Those are two completely different thoughts. One is a thought where you imagine Elminster. The other is a thought where you imagine me imagining him. They are not the same. That is correct. In both of those cases, though, what the thoughts were about were also the thoughts.

 

[Manbearcat]

I think one difference is that if you're not sure how high your house wall is you can measure it. But you can't measure the height of the wall you're imaging. When you imagine the measuring tape hanging down the length of the imaginary wall you have to further imagine what number it shows. There is no objective standard of correctness.

This is also relevant to your remark upthread about a "thought experiment". Thought experiments in mathematics and physics have objective standards of correctness, because they are worked out applying mathematical rules.

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

God I don't want to get involved in this conversation (and @hawkeyefan 's point was to prevent exactly what is happening here!), but even when you do have actual quantitative measurements (eg a mapped 10 * 15 * 10 dungeon room where the exits have suddenly shut), the GM isn't performing the actual calculations necessary to determine how quickly the cubic volume of the room will fill up with the water that is pouring into it after a trap has been triggered. They're eyeballing things (or following the adventure modules eyeballing of things) and using the exploration rounds as units of time and currency for action declaration/resolution as a proxy for resolving "can you get out in time or solve the trap problem"?

So even when a mental model or thought experiment actually could be accurately parameterized and run to accurately answer the question inherent to the model, no GM is doing that! They're qualitatively abstracting and using the game's units/resolution mechanics (or they're using a Scientific Wild Ass Guess if the resolution mechanics/intersection with the game's units are wonky/lean/incoherent and/or the game is "loosey goosey") as a proxy for deciding the interactions between the players, the system, and the gamestate!

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

Pre planning is important. Notes are important. Imagining the world, it’s npcs are important. What I object to is your reductionism to it just being about one of these things and the fact that all of us on the other side have said ‘playing to discover the GMs notes’ is insulting because there is so much more to it than that. I have laid out my reasons for why it is more than that. I have emphasized the importance of the living world, explained what the living world is, and talked about the role of players helping to shape things through their characters, the synergy between the players and the living world, the techniques used to help run the living world. If you are not persuaded, you are not persuaded. But I am also not persuaded by you. We might just have to accept our description of what is occurring at the table and in the world creation is not going to arrive at agreement

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

God I don't want to get involved in this conversation (and @hawkeyefan 's point was to prevent exactly what is happening here!), but even when you do have actual quantitative measurements (eg a mapped 10 * 15 * 10 dungeon room where the exits have suddenly shut), the GM isn't performing the actual calculations necessary to determine how quickly the cubic volume of the room will fill up with the water that is pouring into it after a trap has been triggered. They're eyeballing things (or following the adventure modules eyeballing of things) and using the exploration rounds as units of time and currency for action declaration/resolution as a proxy for resolving "can you get out in time or solve the trap problem"?

So even when a mental model or thought experiment actually could be accurately parameterized and run to accurately answer the question inherent to the model, no GM is doing that! They're qualitatively abstracting and using the game's units/resolution mechanics (or they're using a Scientific Wild Ass Guess if the resolution mechanics/intersection with the game's units are wonky/lean/incoherent and/or the game is "loosey goosey") as a proxy for deciding the interactions between the players, the system, and the gamestate!

but no one is asserting simulation of real world physics. They are asserting a mental model that is good enough for a game. For me personally as a player, I don’t need real world physics when it comes to filling a room with water: as long as it feels right and the GM is giving me a good indication of the time it is taking (so I can safetly figure it will take day 4-5 rounds to fill), for me that is enough.

 

[Manbearcat]

but no one is asserting simulation of real world physics. They are asserting a mental model that is good enough for a game. For me personally as a player, I don’t need real world physics when it comes to filling a room with water: as long as it feels right and the GM is giving me a good indication of the time it is taking (so I can safetly figure it will take day 4-5 rounds to fill), for me that is enough.

It is enough. And its enough for everyone.

But if that is the case, then I have no idea what is being argued here about the "realness" of the imagined space. I don't think everyone is working from the same framing. When I initially involved myself (with persistence and volition being a requirement of a "real" imagined space and that without those two things you couldn't falsify Ouija Board play as not being "real"), I thought it was clear where people were...but now its not clear at all.

An imagined space sufficient to resolve play is wholly different from any claim to it being "real" or subsistent (its neither...just like the imagined space of Ouija Board play).

Jesus, this is as "shark-jumpey" a conversation as I've seen on here in awhile.

 

[pemerton]

God I don't want to get involved in this conversation (and @hawkeyefan 's point was to prevent exactly what is happening here!), but even when you do have actual quantitative measurements (eg a mapped 10 * 15 * 10 dungeon room where the exits have suddenly shut), the GM isn't performing the actual calculations necessary to determine how quickly the cubic volume of the room will fill up with the water that is pouring into it after a trap has been triggered. They're eyeballing things (or following the adventure modules eyeballing of things) and using the exploration rounds as units of time and currency for action declaration/resolution as a proxy for resolving "can you get out in time or solve the trap problem"?

So even when a mental model or thought experiment actually could be accurately parameterized and run to accurately answer the question inherent to the model, no GM is doing that! They're qualitatively abstracting and using the game's units/resolution mechanics (or they're using a Scientific Wild Ass Guess if the resolution mechanics/intersection with the game's units are wonky/lean/incoherent and/or the game is "loosey goosey") as a proxy for deciding the interactions between the players, the system, and the gamestate!

I think this gets to an important aspect of gameplay in Gygax/Moldvay mode.

Just as serious wargamers use tape measures, firing dowels etc, so in serious skilled dungeoneering play I think the GM is expected to do those calculations that are feasible - eg how much volume is there to soak up the fireball?

Where the calculations can't be done - like the filling up the room example, which I think requires is a fairly complex differential equation - then things can get quite hairy! I remember playing a sci-fi game at a convention a few decades ago - I don't recall the system (not Traveller; what was a popular sci fi game in the early 90s?) - where we were trapped in a room with no oxygen supply beyond the room's volume. The GM made an arbitrary call as to how long we could survive, which was (i) pretty low and (ii) because of its low-ness had a big impact on the sorts of actions we could declare to try and escape/achieve our mission. This caused a bit of friction at the table, especially as our group included a chemical engineer who was fairly good at eyeballing this sort of thing.

In my Traveller game my solution to this is to get the table to agree. This is how we did drilling and blasting through ice, and how I got away with very slow propeller planes on Byron!

 

[Maxperson]

But if that is the case, then I have no idea what is being argued here about the "realness" of the imagined space. I don't think everyone is working from the same framing.

We all have different ideas of what feels right and where the lines of "realness"(realism) are drawn. Realism is a spectrum, though, so even if we are not attempting to mirror real world physics, we can pick a place closer or farther down the spectrum for the point that feels right to us.

By moving closer, you can make the game feel more real. When you move farther, it can feel less real.

 

[Manbearcat]

We all have different ideas of what feels right and where the lines of "realness"(realism) are drawn. Realism is a spectrum, though, so even if we are not attempting to mirror real world physics, we can pick a place closer or farther down the spectrum for the point that feels right to us.

By moving closer, you can make the game feel more real. When you move farther, it can feel less real.

I don't disagree!

I'm not sure who does disagree. Or who agrees.

Or how...or why.

I linked this recently in another thread but I feel its very apropos for our interlude here!

"What did we learn Palmer?..."

 

[Aldarc]

The difference is, spirits don't exist (or at least their existence is very much in dispute and not acknowledged by science), but mental models of concepts do exist (at least as thoughts).

This is such a weird rebuttal.

When you call it being a spirit medium, you are pointing to it being all illusionary and con-artistry. When you describe it more accurately as the GM imagines a model in his mind, and the players explore that model (by communicating with the GM) that is a more ground depiction of what is going on (and I think a lot less dismissive---EDIT: not trying to accuse you of being dismissive, just saying that the term feels like a dismissive term).

Although I do think negatively about mystifying the GM's role, I don't necessarily think of my point here as negative or con-artistry; however, I do certainly believe that it's illusory. The point is that it's illustrative of how the GM operates as a medium between the players and the "world beyond."

 

[pemerton]

For me personally as a player, I don’t need real world physics when it comes to filling a room with water: as long as it feels right

We all have different ideas of what feels right and where the lines of "realness"(realism) are drawn. Realism is a spectrum, though, so even if we are not attempting to mirror real world physics, we can pick a place closer or farther down the spectrum for the point that feels right to us.

By moving closer, you can make the game feel more real. When you move farther, it can feel less real.

I don't disagree!

I'm not sure who does disagree. Or who agrees.

Or how...or why.

I'll bypass Manbearcat's humour, because that's the sort of person I am, and cut to the issue of adjudication.

I'm sure the GM who made the call about duration of oxygen supply in my sci-fi convention game hadn't set out to make the game feel less real. When I had unrealistically slow planes on Byron, that wasn't deliberate either. I just didn't know much about the speed of military prop planes! (Or even civilian ones - I've just Googled and learned that a Focker Friendship goes faster than what I called in our game.) Surprisingly, but also helpfully insofar as it avoided any issues, apparently none of my players did either, not even the military history guy.

This drives home my point that we're not talking about "thought experiments" here. We're talking about the GM making stuff up, by reference to his/her conception of the thing which may include some stuff that's written down (ie notes). It's needless obscurantism to overlay this with metaphor such as "exploring a world" or "really existing in thought". It's stuff that someone is authoring based on whatever considerations inform those authorship decisions.

EDIT: An author extrapolating from his/her description of something to something else "that feels right" isn't a thought experiment. It's just more writing. It's not constrained by "reality" in any way beyond being constrained by the other ideas and beliefs and expectations and aspirations of the author.

There's no need to complicate this, or use metaphor. It is what it is. Gygax is upfront about that. So is Moldvay. It's an approach that obviously puts the GM's conception of what is happening in the fiction in the forefront of framing and adjudication.