What is the point of GM's notes?

[Campbell]

My number one priority as a player is a consistent standard for what good play looks like. It does not have to be a game described in any particular book, but the consistent application of both play principles and techniques is critical to me personally. That's also something I try my damnedest to provide to the people I play with.

What I personally value most in gaming is a shared sense of purpose. It's really what I value most in life. One team. One fight. That's really what draws me to games with more clear objectives. I know what the mission is. In the absence of clear objectives built into a game I will generally try to build that consistency back in.

 

[Maxperson]

My number one priority as a player is a consistent standard for what good play looks like. It does not have to be a game described in any particular book, but the consistent application of both play principles and techniques is critical to me personally. That's also something I try my damnedest to provide to the people I play with.

What I personally value most in gaming is a shared sense of purpose. It's really what I value most in life. One team. One fight. That's really what draws me to games with more clear objectives. I know what the mission is. In the absence of clear objectives built into a game I will generally try to build that consistency back in.

I think that bolded portion is true of almost everyone. For a sandbox game to run smoothly, you need proactive players that are going to set those goals and then begin pursuing them. Without that a sanbox fails and you need a game where the DM or RPG itself puts the goals out there.

 

[Aldarc]

Yep I get the idea, but this is the type of stuff I would rather dig into than discussing the wider umbrella of playstyles which I'm not so sure many games neatly fall into... Why do you disclose DC's... what is the result you are trying to achieve... How well does it achieve that result... What are the downsides of that technique... What are the upsides... what other techniques could achieve the same result... If there are, why not use those?

This is the type of stuff I am interested in hearing about from others.

Much like Fenris-77, I use it to give players a sense of the difficulty. It's meta-knowledge that communicates an in-character perspective. Also, it makes things more transparent to players, and I don't think that hiding the DC from players really adds much.

I tell the players the TN in the Cypher System as well. After which point, the players can use their various resources and abilities to overcome that task. The GM doesn't roll, so a lot of the task resolution tends to be player-facing.

I do this in Index Card RPG as well. Hank Ferinale even recommends putting a d20 in front of players that shows the singular DC (and even AC) of everything in the room. So an entire room (and the monsters therein) may have, for example, a DC/AC of 13. So it's like saying that this is a "DC 13 dungeon room." For some variation: if something is easy, it's -3 of that base number or if it's challenging, it's +3 of that number.

 

[Campbell]

Speaking more generally one of the reasons I like giving out DCs or Target Numbers is because it forces me to make a decision about what is at stake and helps me to stay honest.

 

[Bedrockgames]

i don’t have any problem telling players TNs. If there is a special reason to hide it or make the roll myself secretly, I will do that (for a divination roll for instance), but otherwise telling them TNs doesn’t bug me

 

[pemerton]

Games like Blades, or Dungeon World, have a very specific style that their mechanics are purpose-designed to foster and support. Talking about them is, at least in that way, pretty easy. Those games still vary from GM to GM of course, but not to the same extent that D&D or OSR games do. With those latter games things change. They lack the same mechanical support for a specific style or approach, that portion of their rules is left very much to the GM or perhaps the table to decide on. Here I'm talking about things like the division of agency or the fashion in which outcomes are driven by player decision making.

On the one hand, I agree and what you are saying is pretty apparent to most RPGers who are familiar with a variety of games.

On the other hand, I disagree in the following way: I think the degree of variation or "flexibility" of D&D is easily exaggerated. For instance, Moldvay Basic and Gygax's AD&D do offer mechanical support for a specific style: skilled play dungeon exploration (with rules for doors, traps, treasure in rooms, etc) and in the latter case hexcrawl exploration also. There is also a clear division of agency: the GM decides what is there to discover, and frames it in general terms as a threat to the PCs (eg how much damage will the scything blade do? are there dragons in those hills?) while the players declare where their PCs move, what their PCs look at, who their PCs talk to and who their PCs fight.

There are plenty of people who have used Gygax's AD&D to run political campaigns. But to me that seems like using Dungeon World to run a Moldvay-esque dungeon crawl. In both cases a lot of gaps have to be filled and probably some bits of the rules ignored or papered over. The reason there's more of that "variant D&D" than "variant DW" I think is mostly because nearly every RPGer in the world knows the former, whereas reltively few know the latter. And almost anyone who knows the latter already knows it's not a system one would use to run a skilled-play dungeon crawl.

 

[Fenris-77]

I was talking about the full range of editions, not just the old ones. At that point i don't see a lot of arguments. YMMV I guess.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yep I get the idea, but this is the type of stuff I would rather dig into than discussing the wider umbrella of playstyles which I'm not so sure many games neatly fall into... Why do you disclose DC's... what is the result you are trying to achieve... How well does it achieve that result... What are the downsides of that technique... What are the upsides... what other techniques could achieve the same result... If there are, why not use those?

This is the type of stuff I am interested in hearing about from others.

Sure. I agree....I'd rather talk about specific processes and what they do or don't do.

For me, always sharing the DC keeps everything in the open. The players know their chances, and know that nothing is being done to alter the outcome of the roll. It also establishes a clear process of play: they say what they want to do, I say what kind of roll it is (although they may also suggest a specific skill) and I set the DC, and then they roll.

That routine helps keep expectations set accurately, and streamlines play, and eliminates any chance for me to force an outcome.

 

[Campbell]

I was talking about the full range of editions, not just the old ones. At that point i don't see a lot of arguments. YMMV I guess.

I think generally a fair number of people who do not have much experience with general use indie games like Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World tend to oversell how focused indie games are and dramatically undersell how many mostly unspoken expectations inform most mainstream play. I kind of blame a decent portion of this on indie community overselling the notion of the focused game and no real counter marketing now that it is substantially less true.

Speaking personally I know that when I run something like Scion, Exalted, or L5R I would be extremely careful about making the sort of hard moves, dramatic consequences or aggressive framing I utilize when running indie games. I think it's really important to give players more room to think things through as a group in more traditional/mainstream games. I am also a lot more careful about the sort of questions I ask players and how I ramp up tension.

When running Blades in the Dark or Apocalypse World I do things as a GM I would not dream of doing in D&D.

 

[Imaro]

For me whether I share the DC's or not depends on what type of fantasy I am trying to emulate. If I am trying to emulate the high, pulpy, heroic, etc. type genre then I definitely want the players to know the DC's as these are supposed to be capable and confident heroes and knowing the DC tends to foster this type of play. That said if I am running a more horror oriented, dark or gritty fantasy style game I will sometimes opt to hide the exact DC. I like the uncertainty, the tension and even the hesitation it tends to engender in my players and thus their characters is something I associate with those genres.