What is the point of GM's notes?

[prabe]

I don't understand this. I've run RPGs with lots of notes: maps and keys; calendars and annals of past years; NPC descriptions and stats; possible actions those PCs will take if not disturbed by the PCs; etc. Those were all notes. When the players were having their PCs move through the lost pyramid in the Sea of Dust trying to find Vecna's tomb (or something like that - it's been a long while) a lot of what was happening was that they were declaring actions which prompted me to reveal elements of my notes.

But there was no planned story. I don't feel the force of the implication that you are pointing to. At all.

So, I believe that you don't mean it to have the meaning of a pre-planned story (or railroad), and that the inference is entirely on my end. I do think the phrase "GM's notes" fails to capture what goes on with some more-improvisational GMing, but that's a different objection--and I know you consider "GM's notes" to include "stuff the GM makes up on the spot," but that's ... not obvious to someone who hasn't discussed it with you.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If you're making it up on the spot, then it is the only way that it happens.

For example, if the PCs have wandered through a village 5 times and the last time through they gave a man who was down on his luck 200 gold. The man used it to buy a building and start a tavern and now the village which previously did not have tavern, has one. That's not the sort of information that travels from town to town. In a living, breathing world, that was created off screen and the next time the PCs come through, they will discover what their actions wrought. However, they may never go through that village a sixth time and may never find out. If the DM makes it up on the spot, though, it's because the PCs did go through the village a sixth time and the creation is therefore, part of the PC bubble(that which happens around them.). Things created as part of the PC bubble are not part of a living, breathing world.

So you think there is a difference between the GM imagining the tavern being built before the PCs return to the town and the GM imagining it being built when they return to the town?

What are the differences? What’s the benefit of one approach over the other?

 

[Fenris-77]

So you think there is a difference between the GM imagining the tavern being built before the PCs return to the town and the GM imagining it being built when they return to the town?

What are the differences? What’s the benefit of one approach over the other?

I'm anticipating an unsatisfactory reply on this item...

 

[prabe]

So you think there is a difference between the GM imagining the tavern being built before the PCs return to the town and the GM imagining it being built when they return to the town?

What are the differences? What’s the benefit of one approach over the other?

I think a GM who's more comfortable prepping things should prepare the taven, and a GM who's more comfortable ad-libbing things should ad-lib it. GM comfort is a thing. Also, if the players tend to want to know all about every tavern in the city before going to one, it makes sense to have at least names and top-level information for a number of taverns ready.

Somehow I don't think that's the kind of answer you were asking after, though.

 

[Maxperson]

So you think there is a difference between the GM imagining the tavern being built before the PCs return to the town and the GM imagining it being built when they return to the town?

What are the differences? What’s the benefit of one approach over the other?

The feel. One feels like a living world and the other, while it can still be a great addition to the game, just doesn't.

 

[Fenris-77]

The feel. One feels like a living world and the other, while it can still be a great addition to the game, just doesn't.

Hmm, this sounds like your opinion of some specific instances in play rather than something grander. You can;t really speak for how other people feel about, right? Whole games manage quite well without much in the way of established change in the background the way I think you mean. And I mean living world games there, not random stuff. Sometimes the time that makes sense to roll change is when the PCs push that button. It doesn't have to be made-up either, most GMs would rely on randomization there, in some fashion.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think a GM who's more comfortable prepping things should prepare the taven, and a GM who's more comfortable ad-libbing things should ad-lib it. GM comfort is a thing. Also, if the players tend to want to know all about every tavern in the city before going to one, it makes sense to have at least names and top-level information for a number of taverns ready.

Somehow I don't think that's the kind of answer you were asking after, though.

I may not have been expecting that answer, but it’s probably the only one that really makes any sense. It seems a very subjective thing.

The feel. One feels like a living world and the other, while it can still be a great addition to the game, just doesn't.

Is this from the GM perspective? Or player perspective?

 

[AnotherGuy]

My humble opinion on this living world matter is
GMs who focus on living world as their stated goal, would likely prepare more off-screen notes than those who run player-centric (or story now) focused games where much of the fiction is created in the moment.

The best people to ask as to which is more living are players that have experienced both styles, hopefully from similar GMs to best compare. We all have our biases.

 

[Emerikol]

I’m familiar with Blades in the Dark. And although I would say that the focus is on the characters, there is still plenty involved with establishing a living world.

This is why I don’t find the “living world” as an approach to be all that enlightening. It would appear to include all manner of games that otherwise have some significant differences.

It doesn’t seem to do anything more than the term sandbox, which is something that all kinds f games can be.

You see we invented a term that you argue is inappropriate just like you guys have invented many terms that go too far. But in fairness, living world as I defined it above, was pretty much the definition for decades before Story Now existed.

 

[Emerikol]

This happens in all RPGing that I'm aware of.

Not as it was originally defined. At least not nowadays. Probably not then either with many low effort DMs who were still ostensibly playing that style.

So we all know that the world is not really living right? It's not a real world. The only living world we know about is our own real universe.

So the term like most gamist terms was adopted and morphed for purposes of talking about gaming. This was done a long time ago. At least the 80s.

At that time, the definition would be: Things are happening in the world off camera. Could a stranger walk up to a DM and ask him what is happening in another part of the world that the PCs have never went anywhere near and have never talked about in game session and the DM could answer? That would make it a living world. Things are happening "off camera". Off camera meaning when the PCs are not looking at it.

Now that is just a gamist definition. No roleplaying game meets the real definition above. For decades though that term has been the way we describe these sorts of campaigns. We didn't make it up last week.

It's just like protagonism, fiction, bla bla bla that have been appropriated by the Story Now community to mean something that they don't mean in real life. They turned them into gamist terms. Well right back at you on living world. We can all agree to be careful with these terms or we can just consider them placeholders for a particular playstyle and ignore the underlying english meaning of the word. I don't care which but it has to hold for all sides.