What is the point of GM's notes?

[Manbearcat]

@prabe

You've got 3 sessions (not a ton, but some) of No Myth Story Now play as a player under your belt. Do you have any thoughts about how your "immersion" (however that works out for you) is affected by the content (the fiction, the shared imagined space, the whatever the eff people want to call it) being procedurally generated through the structured freeform (our conversation being governed by the principles of play + the resolution mechanics) that is governing our play?

Do you have any thoughts about orientation toward your character. Orientation toward the story that is emerging. Eg; do you feel like you're following your character, leading your character, inhabiting your character, etc. Whatever comes to mind.

Do you have any thoughts about how the people in this thread who are advocating for "orientation via character viewpoint only" would feel about our play (both playing it and watching it).

Maybe you could cite a particular moment of play (like when you consulted the spirits in your weapon last night and "downloaded" the ancient tongue for the social conflict) as an anchoring point?

 

[Emerikol]

Do you have any thoughts about orientation toward your character. Orientation toward the story that is emerging. Eg; do you feel like you're following your character, leading your character, inhabiting your character, etc. Whatever comes to mind.

I'd be interested to hear what @prabe says as well.

In fairness, I am not disputing that you and your group are having fun. I believe you. There are many ways to have fun though right? I don't think the play of our two games would resemble each other all that much. So there is a different feel to those games. That feel is interpreted differently by different people based on our own viewpoints.

You may not like the terms I put on that feeling but the difference is real. So when I use those terms, I am explaining what I think is making the game not as fun for me. It's my interpretation. For example, I played 4e for a while and something about it just didn't sit well with me. I didn't realize it at the time but I believe I was dissociated from my character but that is my interpretation of a dissatisfaction that already existed. Since coming to understand such mechanics, I realized that a lot of games I have issues with had them in common. So my theory that I don't like such things was strengthened.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'd be interested to hear what @prabe says as well.

In fairness, I am not disputing that you and your group are having fun. I believe you. There are many ways to have fun though right? I don't think the play of our two games would resemble each other all that much. So there is a different feel to those games. That feel is interpreted differently by different people based on our own viewpoints.

You may not like the terms I put on that feeling but the difference is real. So when I use those terms, I am explaining what I think is making the game not as fun for me. It's my interpretation. For example, I played 4e for a while and something about it just didn't sit well with me. I didn't realize it at the time but I believe I was dissociated from my character but that is my interpretation of a dissatisfaction that already existed. Since coming to understand such mechanics, I realized that a lot of games I have issues with had them in common. So my theory that I don't like such things was strengthened.

I'm sure you think we're having fun. But fun is not something I'm interested in talking about. That goes nowhere.

I'm interested in how the actual machinery of play (the structure of the rules, the focus of the play agenda, the guiding and constraining principles, the procedures that generate content) creates and changes (a) the gamestate, (b) the stuff we're imagining, and (c) the orientation of the participants toward (a) and (b).

Some of that is going to be native to the players themselves for one reason or another (neurological predisposition is no doubt a big part of it). But, like fun, that isn't a particularly interesting thing to talk about. So I'm more interested in talking about (a), (b), and (c) across a healthy population distribution of participants.

Like for instance, as you mentioned above, there is no doubt in my mind you would hate being a part of any of the 4 (soon to be 5) games I'm running. Each of these games have subtly different chemistry/alchemy due to the nature of the participants involved. But there is a clear and present through line in all of those games (driven by the signal of that a - c above) that would surely make it so Emerikol of the internet would find it impossible to enjoy. The only feeling about that I have is "that is unfortunate". I mean, I'd invite you to play in a game I'm GMing, but I'm confident your misery would be an implacable force that makes misery of the entire experience for all involved (like the other night when I was running Blades and the leader of a gang was sword-fighting the ghost of the former gang leader that she murdered in a coup...there were aspects of that sword fight where I'm confident that Emerikol of the internet would have found "jarring").

I totally understand your neurological disposition toward this stuff. As I've mentioned above, one of my best friends is exactly the same way you are (and you and I have had tons of discussions these last almost 9 years so I'm confident I've got your hardware pinned down pretty well). But, again, your orientation toward this stuff (like my best friend) is native to you. Across a large distribution of participants, there will be no evidence of some objective property of play that should engender the disposition that you guys share. Its the way you're wired (to orient yourself toward stimuli from a very specific angle, model it in a very specific way, and then resolve your collisions with it through that very specific lens...if there is any deviation from that array, you guys "go on tilt" to use the poker euphemism).

 

[prabe]

I'd be interested to hear what @prabe says as well.

Tag!

@prabe

You've got 3 sessions (not a ton, but some) of No Myth Story Now play as a player under your belt. Do you have any thoughts about how your "immersion" (however that works out for you) is affected by the content (the fiction, the shared imagined space, the whatever the eff people want to call it) being procedurally generated through the structured freeform (our conversation being governed by the principles of play + the resolution mechanics) that is governing our play?

So, upthread I mentioned types of immersion, or different things one could be immersed in while TRPGing. They were story, game, character, and setting. Setting isn't relevant: I've never experienced it, and the possibility of it is dubious.

While I think I understand Toru pretty well, and I think I've been playing him honestly, I don't know that I've been immersed in him during our DW play--but remember, character-immersion isn't something that's a big part of my TRPG experience. Like, I may have never experienced it, ever (so if I don't experience it with Toru, it's not a critique of Dungeon World or you as a GM).

When I mentioned immersion-in-game, I was talking (mostly) about the processes and rules and literal game-stuff taking up so much bandwidth there wasn't room for much else in my head. When I'm running 5E, this is usually during some large set-piece fight where I have a lot to keep track of; it's really like getting head-down in, say, Gloomhaven and losing track of the evening (or like getting head-down in my MIDI space and losing track of time, hunger, sleep ...). From the player's POV, there aren't enough of those kinds of rules and processes in DW for me to get lost in; that's not snark--I think that's in line with the intent of the game.

What there has been (for me, my wife may be having a different experience; I haven't spoken to her about this) is immersion into story. I wouldn't say it's been constant, but for me immersion into story roughly never is constant, in roughly any medium--so that's me, not you or the game.

The experience most-closely tracks with college-age-me sitting in a room with friends, all of us writers, and passing around stories for 15 or 30 minutes at a time, or maybe one of the small handful of times a band I was in set out to write lyrics together. There's a lot of bouncing off each other's ideas, and a lot of curiosity about where the story will be when it gets to be time to contribute. Here, I get to say that as with a writing circle, or a band, chemistry around a gaming table matters, a helluva lot; the time passes quickly for me while we're playing, an awful lot like good band times.

Do you have any thoughts about orientation toward your character. Orientation toward the story that is emerging. Eg; do you feel like you're following your character, leading your character, inhabiting your character, etc. Whatever comes to mind.

Probably mostly watching Toru.

Do you have any thoughts about how the people in this thread who are advocating for "orientation via character viewpoint only" would feel about our play (both playing it and watching it).

I have a sneaking suspicion some of the people in this thread would see it as not too much different from "passing the conch." There might be a sense there wasn't much of a way to make much difference to your character's success in the build process. There might be a feeling there wasn't much in the way of tactical choice mattering. There might be the thought that the things that emerge in the story are emerging at the whim of the dice (especially after someone earns 3 XP within 7 minutes of play) and not out of any putatively objective sense of action-consequence--especially not as the result/s of character choice/s.

OTOH, I think anyone observing would see that the three of us are enjoying the hell out of the game.

Maybe you could cite a particular moment of play (like when you consulted the spirits in your weapon last night and "downloaded" the ancient tongue for the social conflict) as an anchoring point?

Asking the sword for words to speak was ... a result of a concatenation of other things: The decision to describe defeating a spirit as it being pulled into the sword (because that seemed ... cool); the decision to describe throwing off a later possession as involving using the sword to cut myself; the decision (at character advancement) to take the Heirloom move, instead of my more-typical kill-things-more-quickly approach. It wouldn't have worked without the GM's decision that "downloading" the Old Speech from the sword was a plausible use of the move. The decision to go intimidating there was the situation in-game cutting across the player's sense of fairness, in a way that landed more negatively on people mostly like Toru--people who had already lost roughly everything.

 

[Emerikol]

I have a sneaking suspicion some of the people in this thread wouldn't see it as not too much different from "passing the conch." There might be a sense there wasn't much of a way to make much difference to your character's success in the build process. There might be a feeling there wasn't much in the way of tactical choice mattering. There might be the thought that the things that emerge in the story are emerging at the whim of the dice (especially after someone earns 3 XP within 7 minutes of play) and not out of any putatively objective sense of action-consequence--especially not as the result/s of character choice/s.

I think this is an incredibly insightful way of describing a game that lacks skilled play. When talking about choices mattering, they obviously matter in all styles of game but do they matter as to succeeding? So good point.

 

[prabe]

I think this is an incredibly insightful way of describing a game that lacks skilled play. When talking about choices mattering, they obviously matter in all styles of game but do they matter as to succeeding? So good point.

I wouldn't so much say that Dungeon World lacks skilled play, as that skilled play in Dungeon World looks radically different than skilled play in Moldvay. (Note--I don't know what you play, and I haven't ever that I know of played Moldvay.)

 

[Manbearcat]

Tag!

So, upthread I mentioned types of immersion, or different things one could be immersed in while TRPGing. They were story, game, character, and setting. Setting isn't relevant: I've never experienced it, and the possibility of it is dubious.

While I think I understand Toru pretty well, and I think I've been playing him honestly, I don't know that I've been immersed in him during our DW play--but remember, character-immersion isn't something that's a big part of my TRPG experience. Like, I may have never experienced it, ever (so if I don't experience it with Toru, it's not a critique of Dungeon World or you as a GM).

When I mentioned immersion-in-game, I was talking (mostly) about the processes and rules and literal game-stuff taking up so much bandwidth there wasn't room for much else in my head. When I'm running 5E, this is usually during some large set-piece fight where I have a lot to keep track of; it's really like getting head-down in, say, Gloomhaven and losing track of the evening (or like getting head-down in my MIDI space and losing track of time, hunger, sleep ...). From the player's POV, there aren't enough of those kinds of rules and processes in DW for me to get lost in; that's not snark--I think that's in line with the intent of the game.

What there has been (for me, my wife may be having a different experience; I haven't spoken to her about this) is immersion into story. I wouldn't say it's been constant, but for me immersion into story roughly never is constant, in roughly any medium--so that's me, not you or the game.

The experience most-closely tracks with college-age-me sitting in a room with friends, all of us writers, and passing around stories for 15 or 30 minutes at a time, or maybe one of the small handful of times a band I was in set out to write lyrics together. There's a lot of bouncing off each other's ideas, and a lot of curiosity about where the story will be when it gets to be time to contribute. Here, I get to say that as with a writing circle, or a band, chemistry around a gaming table matters, a helluva lot; the time passes quickly for me while we're playing, an awful lot like good band times.

Probably mostly watching Toru.

I have a sneaking suspicion some of the people in this thread wouldn't see it as not too much different from "passing the conch." There might be a sense there wasn't much of a way to make much difference to your character's success in the build process. There might be a feeling there wasn't much in the way of tactical choice mattering. There might be the thought that the things that emerge in the story are emerging at the whim of the dice (especially after someone earns 3 XP within 7 minutes of play) and not out of any putatively objective sense of action-consequence--especially not as the result/s of character choice/s.

OTOH, I think anyone observing would see that the three of us are enjoying the hell out of the game.

Asking the sword for words to speak was ... a result of a concatenation of other things: The decision to describe defeating a spirit as it being pulled into the sword (because that seemed ... cool); the decision to describe throwing off a later possession as involving using the sword to cut myself; the decision (at character advancement) to take the Heirloom move, instead of my more-typical kill-things-more-quickly approach. It wouldn't have worked without the GM's decision that "downloading" the Old Speech from the sword was a plausible use of the move. The decision to go intimidating there was the situation in-game cutting across the player's sense of fairness, in a way that landed more negatively on people mostly like Toru--people who had already lost roughly everything.

That is a really thoughtful, interesting and circumnavigated response.

I'm glad we got these thoughts down now. I'll be interested in revisiting them in a little bit of time as things get more intense and complex (in terms of stakes and the consequential downstream effects of one approach to a situation or a string of situations vs another). We're not in "tutorial" mode, but we're definitely just "warming up the engine" for the drag race to come.

Thanks for this response. I'd be curious what your wife (I know that is weird for me to say that, but I'm not going to name drop her) thinks in comparison to her experience with other systems.

@darkbard , what do you think about the above (you obviously have a TON of experience with Dungeon World at this point as we're probably 20 sessions in or something?) thoughts from prabe. What do you guys think about the above and how you guys are oriented toward your own characters, each others characters, the unfolding situations/setting/story, the actual play.

@hawkeyefan and @Fenris-77 . Dungeon World is a different game in particular ways from Blades (some of them extremely meaningful), but there is a huge amount of overlap (as you guys know) in key ways (principles, agenda, level of myth, nature of the action resolution snowballing machinery). What do you guys think about the above and how you guys are oriented toward your own characters, each others characters, the unfolding situations/setting/story, the actual play.

Where do you guys agree with prabe and where do you differ?

 

[Emerikol]

I'm sure you think we're having fun. But fun is not something I'm interested in talking about. That goes nowhere.

I'm interested in how the actual machinery of play (the structure of the rules, the focus of the play agenda, the guiding and constraining principles, the procedures that generate content) creates and changes (a) the gamestate, (b) the stuff we're imagining, and (c) the orientation of the participants toward (a) and (b).

Yes I agree that is why we have a discussion. I am just trying to assure you that my own preferences are not a condemnation of your preferences. I do find it easier to discuss these things with you than with many others.

Some of that is going to be native to the players themselves for one reason or another (neurological predisposition is no doubt a big part of it). But, like fun, that isn't a particularly interesting thing to talk about. So I'm more interested in talking about (a), (b), and (c) across a healthy population distribution of participants.

Agree. I just want perspective so we avoid antagonism.

Like for instance, as you mentioned above, there is no doubt in my mind you would hate being a part of any of the 4 (soon to be 5) games I'm running. Each of these games have subtly different chemistry/alchemy due to the nature of the participants involved. But there is a clear and present through line in all of those games (driven by the signal of that a - c above) that would surely make it so Emerikol of the internet would find it impossible to enjoy. The only feeling about that I have is "that is unfortunate". I mean, I'd invite you to play in a game I'm GMing, but I'm confident your misery would be an implacable force that makes misery of the entire experience for all involved (like the other night when I was running Blades and the leader of a gang was sword-fighting the ghost of the former gang leader that she murdered in a coup...there were aspects of that sword fight where I'm confident that Emerikol of the internet would have found "jarring").

I think you'd be surprised. While I may not really love a game, I'd try not to be a jerk. I wouldn't seek to undermine the game or to question the premises. I might be a bit passive until I understood what was going on. I've never said I could not play one of your games and have a good time. I said that given my limited time and the long term commitment I'd prefer to favor what I consider my optimal approach for me.

I don't really have time and I don't generally like players who wander in and wander out after a session. Such people are risks and as a GM I avoid them. They aren't invested in the game. I definitely would not want to ruin your groups experience inadvertently.

I totally understand your neurological disposition toward this stuff. As I've mentioned above, one of my best friends is exactly the same way you are (and you and I have had tons of discussions these last almost 9 years so I'm confident I've got your hardware pinned down pretty well). But, again, your orientation toward this stuff (like my best friend) is native to you. Across a large distribution of participants, there will be no evidence of some objective property of play that should engender the disposition that you guys share. Its the way you're wired (to orient yourself toward stimuli from a very specific angle, model it in a very specific way, and then resolve your collisions with it through that very specific lens...if there is any deviation from that array, you guys "go on tilt" to use the poker euphemism).

We all have our preferences. Some people are broader in the variety of their tastes. When it comes to literature my tastes are very broad. I like Classical Literature, Modern Day Literary (think John Irving), Epic Fantasy, Science Fiction, Historical, even some Romance if it's set in one of those other genres.

When it comes to potato chips, and ice cream my tastes are more limited. I almost always buy vanilla ice cream and plain Snyders potato chips. I don't like ruffles. I like almost any ice create but again I don't want the commitment of eating an entire container of some other unique flavor. I really love good vanilla so that is what I eat. If I'm at a birthday party for someone else and they have another flavor, I have no trouble eating it.

If roleplaying were a board game, I'd probably still GM my style but I'd play almost anything. One nights entertainment is not a great investment. It's probably why I am willing to play a lot of board games. It's primarily about the company. Whereas when you talk rpg campaigns, you are talking a years long investment often so the game is really important.

 

[prabe]

That is a really thoughtful, interesting and circumnavigated response.

It is possible that what you see as "circumnavigated" is my awareness that my experience with the game and playstyle is scant, and being well aware there are things--oceans--I do not know.

 

[Emerikol]

And realize folks that I find game rules very interesting and reading them is almost a hobby in and of itself. I've probably never played a campaign in half the games I own.

So I follow some of the threads, just to see what people say and how they think about the game.