What is the point of GM's notes?

[Emerikol]

@Emerikol

Granting you the leeway to say “I wasn’t making an objective claim and my conjecture entirely allows for the prospect of me being wrong/under-informed” is no trouble for me whatsoever.

Wrong about what? My own tastes. My own reaction to your style of play is mine. For me it is absolute truth but that is the limit. And yes, I am not unique in my preferences. We have all sorts of people and there is overlap. It's rare we have 100% overlap though which is what makes these forums interesting.

“...realize that people are different.”

I take lots of breaths (literally). And I’m quite composed.

It's good you are breathing. I only say things like "realize people are different" because you seem hell bent on defining exactly why I don't like something and denying the reasons I give.

If you would, can I ask you to please get back to saying interesting things about techniques and play (preferably with deconstructed play excerpts) as it relates to “GM notes.”

I'm not sure what you want here but I will think on it and post perhaps some details on how I go about world design in a future post.

 

[Emerikol]

While there may be players who punish GMs that way, I never got the feeling that was what was happening. It was a matter of the GM saying, "What do you want in the setting?" and the players saying "This" or "That" and those things not meshing well (at least in my brain, either as a player or as a GM). The larger problem was that (at least in some instances) it was hard, hard work getting ideas out of them. If you ask the players for that kind of input, and you don't get (much of) it, it doesn't make the GM's workload particularly lighter. If there's a difference in the amount of input you get from the players, it's hard not to at least look as though you're playing favorites (especially if the player giving the most input is your wife) but that's a different consideration.

Yeah, my tongue was a little bit in my cheek when I said they were punishing the DM. They aren't likely doing things to bug the DM on purpose. I avoid those people. But, it's kind of like kids making a mess. I'm sure they don't want to make their parents mad or upset but sometimes they just can't help themselves.

I also think at times there is a lack of seriousness in the approach to the game by some. That can manifest as problematic or it can just be a fact of the situation. Some people just want to slaughter enemies. As long as I have a decent sized groups, one or two of these types are okay. There are also though those who seem hell bent on disruption whether intentional or not.

 

[Maxperson]

For clarity, I should probably add that I've actually run and played Scum and Villainy

I wonder how many versions of Moss Eyesly have been created as characters for that game.

 

[prabe]

I guess all I can say on this is the following:

1) The overwhelming % of people I play with (virtually all of them) are at least as creative and/or/both as smart as I am. That is certainly the case with @darkbard and his wife, @hawkeyefan , and @Fenris-77 (and it was clear after 1 session).

If I have those resources available to me (and they’re sincere as well, which, again is virtually always the case), I would be appalled at myself (this as an autobiographical footnote about myself) if I didn’t leverage them.

2) In any given situation or any given complex system with multiple independent variables (a game setting for instance), things should be able to “fit together” in a * sensible, provocative, and interesting way.

As such, I find it a rewarding creative challenge to put those pieces together in * such a way.

The people I game with are all intelligent and creative. My wife is a hobby novelist, and I have dabbled in shorter fiction (though these days when I play with words it's more likely to be poetry). As far as I know the other people at the tables have never really written fiction. I think that background helps, when it comes to generating setting details, especially on the fly; obviously practice at gaming this way helps, too, and this was (mostly, I think) people's first experience with this sort of gaming.

That said, I really think the bigger problem for me was that people had ideas that really didn't mesh, in my brain. Obviously this was more of a problem when I was GMing, but it kinda nettled me as a player, too.

It probably says something about me that I found it challenging but not spectacularly rewarding.

 

[Manbearcat]

The people I game with are all intelligent and creative. My wife is a hobby novelist, and I have dabbled in shorter fiction (though these days when I play with words it's more likely to be poetry). As far as I know the other people at the tables have never really written fiction. I think that background helps, when it comes to generating setting details, especially on the fly; obviously practice at gaming this way helps, too, and this was (mostly, I think) people's first experience with this sort of gaming.

That said, I really think the bigger problem for me was that people had ideas that really didn't mesh, in my brain. Obviously this was more of a problem when I was GMing, but it kinda nettled me as a player, too.

It probably says something about me that I found it challenging but not spectacularly rewarding.

This is not a statement about you, your wife, or any one particular writer of fiction.

However, my instinct tells me that writers of fiction (particularly prolific ones) may be less inclined toward improv-intensive, emergent or procedurally-generated setting in TTRPGs. Two words come to mind that both start with a P and an R:

Precious

and

Process

It would not surprise me in the least bit of most writers of fiction (whether fan-fic or professionally) (a) have a process that they've derived results from (and that process wouldn't be possessed of a distributed authority) and (b) are precious about both that process and their results/creations (I mean...the trope of editor and writer having an adversarial relationship is a trope for a reason).

What do you (and anyone else) think about that (broadly...not any one person's case...across the population of gamers).

 

[hawkeyefan]

Note that the "GM notes" are table-facing and players can use them to inform their own proposed Devil's Bargains or Flashbacks (which then could feed back into further "GM notes" being generated).

So, not to bring our game too much into the thread here, but one thing that did occur to me is that the idea that our Cohorts Hans and Piotr will need medical attention, and I mentioned we may need to retain the services of a doctor to deal with my sore jaw from our first score.....I think I'll propose an idea connecting the two things (Hans and Piotr's Harm and my character's Harm) and maybe introduce the Long Term Project to gain the steady use of a doctor. I have some ideas on who this doctor may be and how I know him.

So your notes, provided to me, have given me some ideas to connect two things in the fiction through my character. And then when I share those with you, that will likely prompt more ideas on your end, giving us other potential vectors for the fiction.

One of the advantages of the player facing nature of these details.

I've had one very good experience of being involved with setting design as a player. This was for an SF game where the would-be GM had a good general idea of what he wanted his future to be like, but wanted to construct an outline of history from here and now to then. There's a game specifically for doing that, Microscope.

Since this was a play-online game, several years before the pandemic, we did the Microscope session in Google Hangouts, and Google Docs: a word-processor where several people can edit the same document simultaneously is marvellous for getting decisions recorded and agreed quickly. We didn't do any roleplaying within Microscope, but it proved to be good for structuring a brainstorming session.

That's great.....I think that Microscope lends itself to worldbuilding, and I really want to use it to build a setting that our group then uses for play with another game. I think this seems like a natural use for Microscope (I think it may even be suggested in the book itself). Haven't had the chance to do so yet, but I really want to do that.

It probably says something about me that I found it challenging but not spectacularly rewarding.

It may, but it may not.....it may just be that it's not your default approach and so it may take adjusting. It's certainly possible that it may never click with you, but I would imagine that, through use and exposure, you'd probably become comfortable with it, if not outright enjoy it.

 

[Manbearcat]

So, not to bring our game too much into the thread here, but one thing that did occur to me is that the idea that our Cohorts Hans and Piotr will need medical attention, and I mentioned we may need to retain the services of a doctor to deal with my sore jaw from our first score.....I think I'll propose an idea connecting the two things (Hans and Piotr's Harm and my character's Harm) and maybe introduce the Long Term Project to gain the steady use of a doctor. I have some ideas on who this doctor may be and how I know him.

So your notes, provided to me, have given me some ideas to connect two things in the fiction through my character. And then when I share those with you, that will likely prompt more ideas on your end, giving us other potential vectors for the fiction.

One of the advantages of the player facing nature of these details.

Yup.

These engender creative positive feedback loops which then become gamestate feedback loops (now you have a doctor which enables moves that weren't present prior and renders Harm less...harmful!).

And it anchors characters and locales within the fiction as it fleshes out the setting. It increases resolution of and orients people/places/things and enhances relationships. This in turn generates more prospects for conflict framing and complication introduction (eg, once your doctor, apothecary, witch becomes an established ally/asset, they then become a pressure point that the GM, or another player through a Devil's Bargain, can deploy to escalate things).

And the interesting thing is that, historically, the issue with cohorts/followers being introduced in games like D&D, its been viewed as adversarial play by GMs to then use them as a source of pressure.

But that isn't the emotional or physical orientation of players and play in a game like Blades.

Why?

Because everything is transparent, table-facing, and integrated within the mechanical architecture of the game. If I threaten your doctor (etc), you know exactly how that threat was generated and exactly how to attempt to resolve that threat (if you so choose).

In a game like historical D&D, the problem has been that this sort of thing is handled overwhelmingly (a) offscreen and/or (b) the mechanical architecture that caused the pressure point to be invoked and the means to resolve it are overwhelmingly or exclusively GM-facing.

Transparent, table-facing, integrated systemization of these things changes the orientation of players and the play when it comes to this kind of stuff.

 

[prabe]

This is not a statement about you, your wife, or any one particular writer of fiction.

However, my instinct tells me that writers of fiction (particularly prolific ones) may be less inclined toward improv-intensive, emergent or procedurally-generated setting in TTRPGs. Two words come to mind that both start with a P and an R:

Precious

and

Process

It would not surprise me in the least bit of most writers of fiction (whether fan-fic or professionally) (a) have a process that they've derived results from (and that process wouldn't be possessed of a distributed authority) and (b) are precious about both that process and their results/creations (I mean...the trope of editor and writer having an adversarial relationship is a trope for a reason).

What do you (and anyone else) think about that (broadly...not any one person's case...across the population of gamers).

The prolific writers I've interacted with threw off ideas like sparks. So have some non-prolific writers. The difference seems to be more one of persistence/work ethic.

My experience leads me to believe that a writer who free-writes may have a brain that works well with improving in a gaming context. My brain does, and my wife's does. She wasn't super-comfortable DMing, but that may be more connected to not liking the authority distribution in D&D from that angle. I have not noticed any hangups in her playing--and she improvises well as a player, and she contributed a lot to the collaborative tables we were at.

I think that having the sort of brain that generates fiction helps a lot when it comes to bringing things into the fiction, and what I think I'll describe as shaping the narrative (pacing, but not just pacing). It's not the only sort of brain that helps, and it's absolutely possible that some people at the more-collaborative tables were unable to grok the different distribution for reasons unrelated to intelligence/creativity, and it's absolutely possible to GM improvisationally with a different sort of brain.

 

[Umbran]

No. You are wrong. I'm going to put "in my opinion" before and after everything I write. It is implied. Especially on something subjective.

So, an aside from someone who has a pretty constant task of breaking up arguments... as a practical matter on this site, it is not implied.

More specifically - you are in an environment where that implication is not reliable. Too may posters will speak with the same structure, and will be making broad assertions of universal truth, rather than "IMHO" or "IME" or "This is just my personal preference." Moreover, folks often don't realize that they begin with what they think is a statement of personal preference, but they elide into arguing as if it were not. So, overall, folks have to take you at what you actually say on the page, because assuming otherwise fails too often.

So, in the name of considering the broad audience, there's something to be said for adjusting one's posting style to make such things more evident. It can be a bit stilted, but it does seem to be fairly effective.

 

[Scott Christian]

And what I'm saying is that there's nothing about an AP that particularly enables this over anything else. Your point is nearing a tautology -- APs teach good play because either it's well written and you like it or it isn't and you have to fix it. The part missing here, the actual skill necessary for a good GM, is the ability to recognize which is which. This isn't something APs help with.

You don't think that it is easier/harder to spot and create an alternative to ones own writing versus another person's?

I get that one of the skills a GM needs is assessment. And the use of that ability, when applied before play, is to write an alternative. The use of that ability during play, often forces different tools to be used.

Maybe it is just me, but I have never seen a GM write an encounter, then change it before hand, unless the context absolutely warranted it. (Such as the wizard started a huge forest fire, so now the area they were going is burning or burnt.) But, I have seen a hundred GMs change encounters or scenes that other people have written.