I don't have answers to your questions other than that some GMs don't like making up something off the cuff, and they worry that your (a) approach will reduce the consistency or "interconnectedness" of things.
What is the point of GM's notes?
Bedrockgames
Legend
I think I disagree with "is just a matter of deftness of GM framing." Unless I misunderstand your point. The point of living monsters, living NPCs, is they in effect have agency. I am not saying every single situation gets handled this way, because there are always exceptions, always things that you do out of convenience in play, but ideally, the notion is instead of prepping static situations, you are loading the game with NPCs and creatures who have clear enough goals on their own, they are something the the PCs interact with, not stumble into all set up and primed if that makes sense. Sometimes though, with dungeons, for convenience, I think this often happens less. You can do it in dungeons too, there are ways to set up a dungeon so it is more like a lived in residence than a place where the inhabitants wait in a room for you, or situations are held in stasis for the party, but sometimes it is just easier to say "there is a poisonous demon monkey in the grain barrel foraging for food" (and I have certainly done that from time to time)
but like I said earlier, you can evolve these things as much as you like. It isn't a law code you have to abide by. Everyone takes a slightly different approach. I think with a case like an initial situational, you may be fine not evolving it. You really have to judge that for yourself. But I do think, overall, if you are not evolving things, you are going to miss out on some of the life a living world can bring (for the reasons I stated in my previous post). And again, ideally the characters and factions are clear enough in motives and goals, that even if you are using some kind of table to trigger changes, it is pretty easy for you to logically figure out how these forces are playing out in the setting even if you don't rolll).
If I understand your situation correctly though, the players having heard about something three weeks ago, may in fact be a good reason for evolving the situation. I can't really say based on what you've said here, only you would know the answer really in the context of your campaign. But if I have a rumor that the players encounter, like General Lai is contending with a group of rebel bandits who a fortified in a trapped forested hill. When the players get there if he is still at the bottom of the hill and hasn't done anything in those three weeks, they may get the sense it doesn't seem like I considered anything that ought to have happened in the intervening time.
The answer to your question is the reason you would do it, is to prevent the players from feeling like the situation was held in stasis before they arrived like in a video game. If you don't feel that is going to be the case do what you want, if you feel the trade off in fun, isn't worth the effort and annoyance of evolving the situation, then just stick with the situation as you set it up. This really isn't meant to be some kind of straight jacket. It is a tool. Take Feast of Goblyns for example. There is a dungeon in that adventure with stuff keyed to it. But at least when it comes to the major NPCs, you are expected to move them around more so they have life and don't just feel like they are waiting around. For me, that is the starting point for this technique. Then it is just a matter of how far you want to take it. I would never tell you "every dungeon you make has to be evolving constantly". I think that would be rigid, bad advice. But I would say, if you want a living world, try evolving some of the situations if you can. If the players go somewhere and it strikes you there should have been developments to the situation they are heading in, that is a perfect time to try it. Or you can always structure you dungeons so they are more like homes (i.e. people aren't pinned to a specific location---instead maybe everyone is on some kind of wandering encounter table, or when the PCs arrive you roll to see who is there, who isn't; etc). Also if you have a conflict in a dungeon between factions or something, when you set it up, you can do it in a way that it is easy to evolve (i.e. by spring the Goblins take half the dungeon, by summer they take three quarters, etc----this can also be left to rolls: roll each season to see who gains more territory). Like I said, these are all tools. I think at the end of the day, if you are using a living world it shouldn't be done in a way you think harms play at the table. And sometimes you can mix and match structures. You can run a sandbox that has the occasional structured murder mystery in it. Sometimes when we talk about these things they come off as codes you must obey, and philosophies that cannot bend. I think that is a bad way to go. Sometimes you are going to find it easy to evolve situations and settings 90 percent of the time (for example when I am dealing with sect factions I find this very easy to do), other times the percentage could be 10%. One of the reasons I have tables for this sort of thing, is precisely so I don't have to constantly be checking in on and maintaining these things if my campaign is getting complicated. But definitely always try to keep those core NPCs active, generally prepare goals and intentions, rather than prepare events or set pieces, for a living sandbox.
Remember my main contention in response to setting solitaire was 'this isn't really solitaire'. I wasn't saying you had to evolve every situation 100% of the time 'because'. How you use this set of tools is going to be up to you if you try doing the living adventure thing. But even distant events and developments can be relevant to the party. If moving this stuff in the background was totally pointless and only for the GM, I would have stopped doing it a long time ago. It is because I've found it adds to he players' experience of the world I continue to do it.
hawkeyefan
Legend
The only reasons that seem reasonable to me have already been mentioned. You proppsed the idea of game face....that this kind of exercise can keep a GM in game ready form. @prabe mentions what I would have...that you have a different idea in mind than what you originally thought or what’s in the text. For some, this may just be something that they enjoy in between sessions.
So although there may be reasons, I would argue that none of them are really about portraying a living world. i suppose an argument could be made for the game face helping the GM do so, but then it’s a kind of indirect impact. They all seem to serve some other purpose.
And what I find very odd is that when I’ve gotten into discussions about this, many folks who say that you should do it seem to also talk about agency and living world and that kind of stuff. They seem very much against the idea of GM plot.
But if the GM is advancing things without any input from the players, how is that anything but GM plot?
Bedrockgames
Legend
No. GM is plot is the GM having a story he wants the players to participate in (often with a clear structure to that story already planned out). This is about playing the characters, factions, and forces that exist in the world the players inhabit. It is more like history than story. And it isn't like "here is an event causing an adventure you must now go on". It is about when the players go to speak to the head of the Society of Silver Sword, the GM being able to say things like "this is what they are dealing with when you get there" and if the players ally with the Silver Sword, the GM then being able to figure out how the other sects will react (which may or may not directly impact the PCs). I don't see that as plot at all.
Older Beholder
Hero
Thanks for the video, it gave me a better understanding of what's been discussed in the thread.
I thought the guy had a lot of good ideas.
One thing that I found interesting was when he says a GM should be honest/upfront about everything with the players, giving an example that if he improvised something he'd tell the players that it wasn't planned. And while I don't think there's anything wrong with that approach, (it's certainly better than hiding things are deceiving the players OOC), I know my players really don't like to know those 'behind the certain' details.
Anyway, I'll give it some more thought.
hawkeyefan
Legend
But if the Silver Sword has in no way come up, there is nothing to advance. There is no difference to the players if they encounter the Society of the Silver Sword 6 months into the campaign if you had the status quo set when the campaign began, or if it’s been something you’ve advanced as the campaign has gone on, or if it’s something you’ve just thought up on the fly.
GM skill at each of those things being equal, there’s no difference.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
What happens when your players try to map what you're describing?There's another way to do dungeons?
I'm joking, but I can count the number of times I've actually used a pre-drawn map for site exploration on one hand. I just usually picture what the place would look like and narrate it.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I ran this once - the party had in effect got to the plane of dreams, where your thoughts come out real. It took the players (and thus the PCs) a surprisingly long time to figure out that their own words were causing and driving the scenes around them.
Bright side: for once I didn't have to worry about consistency or coherence.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I get this.
I don't get this.
Within the pool of RPGers, GM is one role. Mapper is another, caller another, treasurer another, note-taker another, etc.; though none are/were ever as common or widespread as GM.
Within the pool of humanity, martial artists plus craftspeople plus artisans are many roles, some of course more common than others.
You're positing a false equivalence.
A true equivalence would be to pick one "role" within humanity - blacksmithing, pole-vaulting, hockey-playing, I don't care which one - and compare that to GMs within RPGs in terms of a) how many there are vs the overall possible pool and b) how the role perpetuates itself.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
In part because their state at session 1, since frozen, might no longer make sense by session 5.
For example, if Faction A is at war with Faction B as the start state (session 1) and the PCs wipe out Faction B in session 3 without ever hearing of Faction A, Faction A's starting condition no longer makes sense and needs updating.
Another and IMO bigger issue: the passage of time. The starting conditions for everyone reflect the state of things on Day 1 of the campaign. By Day 63 in session five, those things have all had over two months to develop and change on their own, never mind what the PCs have done to them. Leaving them in stasis, as you suggest, is to me just another use of GM force - similar to a GM arbitrarily deciding that these four Ogres will be down whichever passage the party chooses to take after the next intersection.
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