What is the point of GM's notes?

[Fenris-77]

A properly prepared GM would have a random chart for Elminster's Stockings.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In my case it's simple: I don't take much of it anywhere nearly as seriously as some of you and can't for the life of me understand why anyone would.

I mean, some folks have literally explained why they look at games the way they do.

Like you just did. You just explained your stance on it. Should I respond with “I can’t understand why Lanefan feels the way he does” or “Why don’t you care?” or “Why aren’t your views the same as mine?”

Some people take a hobby seriously, some don’t. Either is perfectly fine.

 

[prabe]

See, this is where I get stuck. The world doesn't exist, so how is the GM discovering or realising things about it?

This is possible in mathematics - ie 2+2 = 4 even if someone hasn't noticed yet.

But how is it possible to discover that Elminster is wearing red rather than blue stockings other than by having someone make that up?

Have you ever written fiction, aside from gaming? The GM is discovering or realizing (or I suppose composing) what's in the world in the same way a free-writing novelist does, approximately. GMing feels different to me than writing fiction did (note the past tense--I quickly ran out of things to say as a writer) but it's the closest thing in my experience I can point to. It feels a lot like discovery--at least one writer I respect has compared it to being a paleontologist on a dig, and that makes sense to me, though it wasn't exactly my experience of it.

To use your Elminster example: The GM hasn't considered the color of his stockings, until asked. I'm not going argue that the answer isn't a decision, but it doesn't feel like one--any more than describing a character in fiction does, most of the time.

I think this is where our respective ways of thinking about (and possibly experiencing) what happens at a TRPG table are different enough that bridging the gap is difficult.

 

[prabe]

I don't see why.

I've often posted that one important aspect of RPGing is that players declare actions for their PCs that oblige the GM to narrate more stuff. What do we see? is a paradigm example but there are many others.

That is very different from reading a book, but it is still playing to discover the GM's conception of the fiction.

GMing that way, I mean, would feel more like reading a book. I mean, playing a TRPG isn't a lot like reading a book, and neither really is GMing one. I guess that your description feels more ... rote, than my experience of it is. Like writing from an outline (something I've never, ever been much good at).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Again, this is where I get stuck. There is nothing that is being modelled. Not in any literal sense. When the player says I check out Elminster's legs. What colour are his stockings? the GM isn't deriving an answer from a model in the way that a weather forecaster might try to. The GM is making a decision.

This seems to be a sticking point. As far as I can tell, you seem unwilling to discuss play from the starting point that someone has to make up the imaginary stuff.

Forget it. not worth it

 

[Maxperson]

Why not?

This is how crosswords work. This is how escape rooms work. This is how Call of Cthuhlu modules work. This is how Tomb of Horrors work. This is how Christopher Tolkien has made his living. Many of those are regarded as fun pursuits by a non-trivial number of people. The notion that it's pejorative to actually describe how puzzles work in the context of a RPG is strange to me.

I'm sure you understand how words work. You can say something that is true in two different ways. One neutral and one highly offensive. I very much doubt that you fail to understand how "playing to discover the DM's notes." is pejorative.

 

[Maxperson]

See, this is where I get stuck. The world doesn't exist, so how is the GM discovering or realising things about it?

This is possible in mathematics - ie 2+2 = 4 even if someone hasn't noticed yet.

But how is it possible to discover that Elminster is wearing red rather than blue stockings other than by having someone make that up?

The world does exist in our thoughts. It just doesn't have an independent existence or an existence outside of it.

If I decide that one country does X and that another country does Y, those are decisions. If I ponder how X and Y work together, sometimes I discover Z. I'm not making a decision for Z to happen. I'm discovering that X + Y = Z. If X + Y might have multiple outcomes, I have to decide on one.

 

[hawkeyefan]

To use your Elminster example: The GM hasn't considered the color of his stockings, until asked. I'm not going argue that the answer isn't a decision, but it doesn't feel like one--any more than describing a character in fiction does, most of the time.

I think this is where our respective ways of thinking about (and possibly experiencing) what happens at a TRPG table are different enough that bridging the gap is difficult.

I wouldn't say that a GM's notes somehow preclude discovery on their part. I think that there are things they will discover through play based on their notes. I think that's something that can happen in play in even the most railroaded "GM's fiction as game" situation.

Having said that, my experience has been that such discoveries are more of the "Elminster's stockings are mauve" variety, where as in games where I rely less on my notes, it's more about something like "Elminster's an awful person" or "Elminster can't be relied upon", something along those lines.

Generally speaking, of course.

 

[pemerton]

Most of the good GMs I've been around have written up things because they wanted the players to find out about them.

<snip>

In my instance, I enjoy being asked specific questions about my setting--I have a number to answer before a session tomorrow night, and I'm expecting to have a good deal of fun doing so; but the questions are relevant to PC goals, so very much in service of PCs' dramatics needs, IMO.

I think this is an example where we can probably talk meaningfully about the point of the GM's notes, how they contribute to play, and how player's learning what they say factors into that.

Of the past four sessions of Clasic Traveller that I GMed, two of them had a large component of the players discovering the GM's notes: the PCs were escavating and exploring an ancient pyramid complex buried under 4 km of ice. Some of the play was focsed on the action declarations that would put the PCs in the fictional position that would enable their players to declare the actions that would trigger my exposition. I had deliberately set it up so that those action declarations woldn't be "puzzle solving" (as in how do we excavate 4 km of ice) but rather social dynamics: there was a group of NPCs at the site, with drilling and blasting equipment, and the PCs had a starship with a triple beam laser that is prety deadly even over 100s of thousands of km in space, so the immediate situation was about how to resolve rival claims to the site and how to integrate (or not) the efforts of the two expeditions.

Once the PCs entered the complex, I narrated away, referring to my notes (ie Shadows in Double Advntre 1) and making appropriate adjustments on the fly to bring the ficational elemements into line with my conception of the place which was built on what had already been established about these aliens (which was different from some of the premises of the module).

In the last two sessions, the "exploration" aspect has dropped away a bit, which I have found good. The old Traveller modules are not terribly dynamic situations as written.

If the intended purpose of play is to change the setting, there needs to be some definition of what the setting is before the change.

This is an interesting point, but I don't think I agree with it. At least not fully.

For the players to self-consciously change the setting there does need to be some shared conception of what the setting is. But I don't think that requires the sort of GM-side prep work that I (at least - maybe others would agree with me) would associate with a sandbox.

Dogs in the Vineyard, for instance, includes changing the setting as part of the goal of play. But it's approach to setting is very different from what (say) @Emerikol is describing in this thread.

 

[Aldarc]

There's a difference between a) actively wanting to improve and b) naturally improving through simple experience without any conscious effort involved. Most people are quite happy with b) and many see a) as overkill and all too often - rightly - equate it with wanting to be "the best".

This assertion seems pretty blatantly contradicted by not only the number of GM's actively looking for advice online discussions on how to improve, including here on ENWorld, Reddit, Discord, and other forums, but also the sheer number of GMing Advice videos on YouTube. There are a LOT of D&D content creators on YouTube who mostly cater their content to GMs, new and veterans alike. On the whole, Generation Y and Z are the main players of D&D, and they have long been using YouTube as a general resource for instructional material.