What is the point of GM's notes?

[Manbearcat]

So I think skilled play of the fiction does not necessarily have to rely strongly on geography and physical space. I think what you prep is just as important as how much you prep. When leaving the dungeon behind we can continue to focus on physical space, how well fortified a particular area is, and other such concerns. That definitely benefits from less myth because trying to navigate those sorts of questions beyond a narrowly confined physical space is untenable as the physical space we care about increases. My own games feature less of a focus on those sorts of details.

My favored approach is more what Paul Czege calls a social crawl. Prep looks a lot like the scenario design in Blades in the Dark, town creation in Dogs in the Vineyard, fronts in Apocalypse World and the Sorcerer NPC/location venn diagram thing. A lot of focus on competing factions, NPC agendas, obstacles between PCs and their goals. Not less prep. Different prep.

Agreed with all of that. My guess is my Dogs, Sorcerer, MLwM (if you play it), and Torchbearer, and Moldvay Dungeon Crawls looks exactly the same as your own (prep and execution).

However, my guess is my D&D 4e, Mouse Guard (if you play it), Blades, and any game PBtA looks different than your own because my prep is virtually nill. Those games are basically fully no myth except for Duskvol. My prep in those games is (a) acquaint myself with the dramatic needs of the PCs, (b) keep the game's premise in mind at all time, (c) generate content that interacts with (a) and/or/both (b) constantly (whether its in the framing or in complications/consequences)...just let all accrete into a fine mess. And write meaningful stuff down as it happens to cement it in my mind.

So if we ever play in real life, we won't be playing 4e, MG, FitD, PBtA! But my TB and Dogs games are likely right up your alley!

 

[Maxperson]

So...yeah...sorry for all of you folks who love PBP...I can't stand it and its not remotely how I run games normally.

I feel the same way. The last time I played by post was literally way back when I had to dial directly to boards on my Apple IIe with its 300 baud modem, rather than just surf a net.

 

[prabe]

Just going to break out some thoughts here and they're going to be a bit all over the place.

If

* a 5e game used the Success w/ Complications module

And

* a 5e game had every single aspect of action resolution encoded (therefore intuitable before the orient > action declaration phase) and player-facing

And

* the 5e game had more pressure points to exert on players than just HPs and Fatigue (the game just doesn't have enough vectors to attack player resources...real resource cost with teeth...and diversity of resource cost with teeth)

A) I am not convinced that success-with-complication helps if one wants heroic play. In fact, I think I still come down on the side of "it doesn't."

B) I'm also not convinced that the players need to know everything about what they're about to attempt. They should know everything their character should know, without question, but I'm not sure that's what you mean by "[having] action resolution encoded."

C) I have found that 5E has plenty of pressure points, if the players are running their characters honestly; the higher-level party I'm DMing for felt themselves to be enough in debt to an NPC that they fought a mythic (similar to stuff in the Theros book) Death Knight and some of its allies in a cage match, to save the NPC's wife's soul. (When I talk "heroic," that's what I mean.) I've also run gantlet-type adventures, and had the PCs running on fumes by the end.

Act Now Plan Later and Embrace the Soundrel's Life (Go into Danger Boldly....Fall in Love With Trouble) would be much more portable to 5e. That is because 5e PCs, like Dungeon World and Blades PCs are extremely robust/potent against threats that can take them out (however, unlike DW/Blades, 5e suffers from (a) lack of parity in noncombat conflict resolution and (b) serious runaway power by some classes in noncombat conflict resolution).

I haven't run into those problems in 5E to the extent you have, which could come to differences in how we run 5E, or differences in the players. I agree, though that the PCs are extremely robust: That just means I can throw more stuff at them.

Act Now Plan Later isn't just about marshalling resources/the fiction via Flashbacks. Its about (a) going heedless into danger because you know you're up to the challenge (you can both play skillfully and the PC build mechanics and action resolution mechanics create robust PCs who can come off the ropes from an early setback) and/or (b) just playing your character recklessly because its fun.

I'm not opposed to letting the PCs plan for things they know are coming. They prepped like hell (heh) for that fight against the Death Knight, and they took like a whole session prepping for the assault on Steeltear and the Masked Ones. I don't mind a PC being played as reckless, so long as it's a character thing; there are some types of characters I'd argue shouldn't/wouldn't be reckless in the ordinary course of things.

(a) and (b) above push back hard against orthodox D&D culture. Overwhelmingly, our culture has stigmatized (b) as unskillful play because D&D has historically (outside of 4e) rewarded extreme planning and extreme turtling and the most careful of resource rationing and dedication to controlling the resource refresh cycle. Everything about this is different than in Blades and in DW. And its not just because the game mechanically isn't suited for this (the action resolution mechanics are going to put you on the ropes...its how you deal with being on the ropes that is skillful in DW/Blades...interestingly...this is 100 % the exact same arc as 4e D&D combat), but the game is just fundamentally less fun and not rewarding (from an xp paradigm/advancement paradigm as well) if you play that way.

If "turtling" is an extremely cautious playstyle, where no risks are taken, I agree, and I don't encourage it in campaigns I run. I don't mind if someone chooses to optimize for AC. though, which can also be considered a form of turtling, maybe.

And I award XP for the PCs advancing story things. So, I suspect the incentives are operating a bit differently from by-the-book 5E.

So if you can (i) manage that culture, (ii) ensure that the game doesn't get away from you and become way too dangerous because you're using a large number of creatures (5e's bounded accuracy makes #s profoundly more dangerous than D&D of yore), (iii) play with that module, (iv) encode action resolution and make it player facing (so its inferable and modellable for skilled play), (v) develop/hack in more pressure points for complications than is present in 5e...

So far, so good, but I haven't explicitly hacked in anything from any PbtA or FitD games, either. I haven't felt the need--I just was pointing out that playing that way works in 5E, too, because the players in the campaigns I'm running are doing exactly that--without my having posited them as the principles I want to see.

You do all of those things, then those principles will be considerably more harmonious in their integration with 5e (and when I say harmonious here, I'm meaning both in potency on play and in coherency with the entire loop of play).

But its more complex than just porting them in. Now, you can port them in, but the potency and coherency is not going to be there like it is for DW/Blades. The work its doing won't create a through line of play that is both consistently and potently product of the signal of those principles (at least not in the way that it is in the aforementioned games).

Oh, if I were going to be explicit about those principles being the ones I want in the game, I'd have to hack in stuff to make them work.

And I'm pretty sure there is a through-line in play, at least narratively, in both campaigns I'm running--though long unplanned campaigns do unquestionably have a tendency to end up kinda on the picaresque side. I'm reasonably OK with that.

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't mind PbP at all, but that's not something I've a lot of with Blades/AW type games. For OSR type games where there's less back and forth about action declarations it works just fine. I'm starting a MotW PbP so we'll see how that goes. We'll probably need to adopt some posting rigour about what to include just to keep down the total number of back and forth posts.

 

[Manbearcat]

A) I am not convinced that success-with-complication helps if one wants heroic play. In fact, I think I still come down on the side of "it doesn't."

B) I'm also not convinced that the players need to know everything about what they're about to attempt. They should know everything their character should know, without question, but I'm not sure that's what you mean by "[having] action resolution encoded."

C) I have found that 5E has plenty of pressure points, if the players are running their characters honestly; the higher-level party I'm DMing for felt themselves to be enough in debt to an NPC that they fought a mythic (similar to stuff in the Theros book) Death Knight and some of its allies in a cage match, to save the NPC's wife's soul. (When I talk "heroic," that's what I mean.) I've also run gantlet-type adventures, and had the PCs running on fumes by the end.

I haven't run into those problems in 5E to the extent you have, which could come to differences in how we run 5E, or differences in the players. I agree, though that the PCs are extremely robust: That just means I can throw more stuff at them.

I'm not opposed to letting the PCs plan for things they know are coming. They prepped like hell (heh) for that fight against the Death Knight, and they took like a whole session prepping for the assault on Steeltear and the Masked Ones. I don't mind a PC being played as reckless, so long as it's a character thing; there are some types of characters I'd argue shouldn't/wouldn't be reckless in the ordinary course of things.

If "turtling" is an extremely cautious playstyle, where no risks are taken, I agree, and I don't encourage it in campaigns I run. I don't mind if someone chooses to optimize for AC. though, which can also be considered a form of turtling, maybe.

And I award XP for the PCs advancing story things. So, I suspect the incentives are operating a bit differently from by-the-book 5E.

So far, so good, but I haven't explicitly hacked in anything from any PbtA or FitD games, either. I haven't felt the need--I just was pointing out that playing that way works in 5E, too, because the players in the campaigns I'm running are doing exactly that--without my having posited them as the principles I want to see.

Oh, if I were going to be explicit about those principles being the ones I want in the game, I'd have to hack in stuff to make them work.

And I'm pretty sure there is a through-line in play, at least narratively, in both campaigns I'm running--though long unplanned campaigns do unquestionably have a tendency to end up kinda on the picaresque side. I'm reasonably OK with that.

A lot of stuff!

Let me work backwards (I'll probably miss stuff anyway).

1) By through-line I meant "a through line of Act Now Plan Later and Go Boldly Into Danger potently and consistently propels play from initating gamestate a all the way to endstate z." Not "a coherent through line of narrative." I'm sure your game has that!

2) By pressure points I don't mean "Story Stakes/Wins/Losses." Those are enormously important, but that isn't what I'm talking about here. Here I'm talking about (if its Dungeon World) complications/costs that feature any/all of the above:

* Oh no I've lost (disarmed or fell down a gorge) my Spear so I don't have a weapon at all!

* Oh no I've lost my Spear so I've lost my Reach tag advantage!

* Oh no, I've lost my Longknife and I'm in a deadly grapple without a Hand tag weapon!

* Oh no, I've lost Ammo so I can't fire my bow (or I won't be able to soon!

* Oh no, I've lost Rations and I'm running low and we've got more Camps to make on this Journey!

* Oh no, I've lost Adventuring Gear...how am I going to navigate this obstacle (the dark, a climb, et al)!

* Oh no, I've lost my Bag of Books so I lose my bonus to Spout Lore!

* Oh no, my armor/shield was damaged/ruined by the Messy tag!

* Oh no, I've got a Debility (any of the 6 ability scores)!

* Oh no, my Hit Points!

* Oh no, take -1 forward!

* Oh no, take -1 ongoing to a move!

* Oh no, my hireling/cohort is in trouble!

* Oh no, my Potion/Salve/Antitoxin/Bandages/Poultices is/are lost!

* Oh no, I'm Stunned!

* Oh no, Forceful tag is throwing me off of this cliff/into this hazard/into this bad position!

* Oh no I've lost a Spell!


Many more than that as well. The game has dozens of Pressure Points that are extremely consequential that can be a straight up cost or an either/or decision-point for the player. 5e (and D&D broadly) just doesn't have this sort of framework of unified and diverse complications/costs that have serious teeth (both now and downstream).

3) On Action Resolution codification and table orientation (GM or player facing). I mean I guess a part of this is native to me as an athlete, outdoorsperson, and martial artist my whole life. But my experience is these sorts of people perform risk assessment and navigate obstacles in a very math-intensive way. Everything I do physically I can give you a tight percentage spread on whether I'll be able to accomplish it or not. If that is taken away from me and it becomes much more unbounded...man, I won't have any idea how to orient myself to any obstacle. If I can't orient myself to an obstacle I can't decide on an approach. If I can't decide on an approach...I can't act. If I can't act...I can't act skillfully (yes OODA Loop again!)!

Maybe I'm just a weird though (but I know there are a LOT of other people like me)!

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't mind PbP at all, but that's not something I've a lot of with Blades/AW type games. For OSR type games where there's less back and forth about action declarations it works just fine. I'm starting a MotW PbP so we'll see how that goes. We'll probably need to adopt some posting rigour about what to include just to keep down the total number of back and forth posts.

A game that is wholly freeform would be fine with PBP.

Or a game that is basically like Gloomhaven or a Moldvay Basic Pawn Stance Dungeon Crawl (where everything is encoded and table facing and you're basically taking turns making moves within a very precise action economy).

In my experience, anything between that where the framing > orientation clarification > action declaration > action resolution > complication/cost loop requires a lot of good and clear communication? That is where the overhead and handling time creep gets sticky!

 

[prabe]

Let me work backwards (I'll probably miss stuff anyway).

I'll work forward. I am apparently relentlessly linear.

1) By through-line I meant "a through line of Act Now Plan Later and Go Boldly Into Danger potently and consistently propels play from initating gamestate a all the way to endstate z." Not "a coherent through line of narrative." I'm sure your game has that!

Fair enough. I think that in any given arc, there's a throughline of causes, effects, decisions, actions, and consequences (in some order) and I think the players I'm DMing for do a really good job of propelling play and/or story.

2) By pressure points I don't mean "Story Stakes/Wins/Losses." Those are enormously important, but that isn't what I'm talking about here. Here I'm talking about (if its Dungeon World) complications/costs that feature any/all of the above:

{snip}

Many more than that as well. The game has dozens of Pressure Points that are extremely consequential that can be a straight up cost or an either/or decision-point for the player. 5e (and D&D broadly) just doesn't have this sort of framework of unified and diverse complications/costs that have serious teeth (both now and downstream).

What I snipped was, essentially a list of things that can be done to/taken from a PC. As a player, any possession I (or my character) didn't earn, I don't really care about; and there are, in principle, a bunch of conditions that could be applied to the PCs--though just doing so randomly wouldn't be kosher in 5E. And in principle a player in 5E can do things to avoid many of those losses/consequences (as build choices, and sometimes as advancement choices) which that I can tell isn't possible in Dungeon World (though some of that might be my dice).

In principle, at least, anything can have downstream consequences.

3) On Action Resolution codification and table orientation (GM or player facing). I mean I guess a part of this is native to me as an athlete, outdoorsperson, and martial artist my whole life. But my experience is these sorts of people perform risk assessment and navigate obstacles in a very math-intensive way. Everything I do physically I can give you a tight percentage spread on whether I'll be able to accomplish it or not. If that is taken away from me and it becomes much more unbounded...man, I won't have any idea how to orient myself to any obstacle. If I can't orient myself to an obstacle I can't decide on an approach. If I can't decide on an approach...I can't act. If I can't act...I can't act skillfully (yes OODA Loop again!)!

Maybe I'm just a weird though (but I know there are a LOT of other people like me)!

Oh, that's not weird. Any sort of physical activity, I'll probably tell the player what the DC is--absolutely will if the PC has proficiency in a relevant skill. It's be different in a situation like "you can't know the DC to see the hiding thing" or "you can't know the DC to do this research" or "you can't know the DC to persuade this person of a thing" because there usually aren't plausible ways to know those DCs (the persuasion, I can see a way, but it's not guaranteed).

 

[Campbell]

A game that is wholly freeform would be fine with PBP.

Or a game that is basically like Gloomhaven or a Moldvay Basic Pawn Stance Dungeon Crawl (where everything is encoded and table facing and you're basically taking turns making moves within a very precise action economy).

In my experience, anything between that where the framing > orientation clarification > action declaration > action resolution > complication/cost loop requires a lot of good and clear communication? That is where the overhead and handling time creep gets sticky!

I'm pretty much not a fan of Play by Post in almost any scenario. It pretty much makes maintaining any sort of appreciable sense of tension extraordinarily difficult, makes clarifying/negotiating details of the fiction damn near impossible, slows pacing down to a snail's crawl, and makes blocking (IEEE with teeth) socially difficult.

Of those the last is particularly important to me. Roleplaying (particularly RPGs) is somewhat unique in that when someone says something happens we can actually block what happens. Where we have the ability to block (Intent, Initiation, Execution, Effect) and procedures for doing so will vary from game to game. That "No actually" piece is incredibly important to me.

The reason this is socially difficult in Play by Post is that people get really committed to the things they write down. This is particularly true in Play by Post culture because people often write their post as if it were a piece of a novel instead of a proposition. Medium is the message I guess.

That ability to block is also a big part of what is meant by roleplaying as an act of negotiation. That when any participant including the GM says something happens there should be opening to respond.

 

[hawkeyefan]

@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?

I think the following bit is pretty interesting. I do feel that our Blades game, as well as those I've run, and my experiences with PbtA games, that they do tend to feel more collaborative overall than my D&D (and similar) games. I've never been in a band, but I can see understand the comparison @prabe makes below.

And that's not to say that it's anything like conch-passing style games, but there are some elements that are more in line with than than a game like D&D would have. I mean, that's pretty much by design, so it's not really surprising....but a lot of folks don't quite realize it until they experience it.

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.

I also agree about the chemistry being super important. Sometimes, that comes with time. My longstanding group has some real varied personality types and player goals in the mix. At different points in our gaming history, we've had some rough patches. But mostly, it's been solid because we've learned each others' goals and methods and expectations. Largely because we went through those rough patches, likely.

With some folks, though, there is an immediate chemistry. I sat down at two different con games at GenCon about 8 years back. The first one was rough.....the GM and I just didn't click, and it seemed like neither did the other players, one of which was one of my friends. Nothing went smoothly in this game and everyone was asking questions and the GM was getting frustrated, and then we all were. I've had worse gaming experiences, but not a whole lot.

The second game went perfectly. It felt like we were playing with a GM who had been a part of our group for years. I give him a lot of credit as he read the room and I could tell he was adapting to the group, and he was just relaxed and easygoing and prompted every player at different points. The game went smoothly and everyone had a blast.

I think this chemistry is even more important in the more collaborative minded games.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The past few pages have been an enjoyable read. Thanks, @Manbearcat and @prabe.

I was just going to say that all these thoughtful posts were messing with my head.......we need some terms to define and argue about!!!