What is the point of GM's notes?

[pemerton]

Just to clarify, are we talking about notes we write ahead of a session of the inclusion of GM notes in pre-written adventures?

In the OP I'm referring to notes made in preparation, not notes made ex-post as a record of what happened in the session. The point of that latter category of notes seems clear to me: it's a record of the shared fiction.

I think maybe one of your "of"s should be an "or"? Though even then I'm not fully clear on your question - I don't see any difference, as far as the relationship to play is concerned, between a GM writing his/her own notes in advance of a session and a GM paying someone else to write notes in advance of a session.

 

[John Dallman]

Are you able to elaborate what the point of the notes was? Were you describing some events in advance, or the outcomes of some action declarations?

Or something else?

The setting is not a sandbox: the PCs get given missions, although they have a lot of freedom in how they carry them out. It is not a truly hard SF setting, but it's a lot closer to that than Star Trek or Star Wars (which I'd be utterly unwilling to run, or play in). This means that figuring out how to accomplish things is definitely required.

One of the simpler points was that the ship they were escorting to Vesta is much larger than their own ship, and has lower acceleration, but much more delta-V (semi-hard SF). The obvious solution, given the numbers, was for the small warship to be refuelled by the large passenger ship, and I suggested this to the players. They took up the idea (they've done this before), but if they'd come up with a different plan, I'd have been happy with that.

I also asked them how much trouble they wanted to be able to cope with at Vesta, where the situation was legally and politically very complicated. The warship the PCs fly was being sent to make sure that nobody tried violence; that had been established in the previous session. They decided that they wanted to be able to cope with not being able to refuel at Vesta, but also that they wanted to get there faster than a no-refuelling round trip would allow, so they needed to be able to refuel somewhere else. I then had to find somewhere for that to happen, and consider if Biotech Euphrates, the company which has just bought Vesta and is paying expenses, was willing to pay for the refuelling. It seemed like a sensible idea, so they went for it.

 

[Umbran]

We can talk meaningfully about these different roles for notes. Which is the point of this thread.

After we note that the point of notes is really, "have information at the GM's fingertips", sure. The top level of this is like, "What is the point of a word processor?" Given that an argument over frelling railroading came up within two pages, I felt that cementing the general was important. Notes are not "to impose a railroad" or similar style war stuff.

A more useful form of the question may be - "As a GM, how do you structure or use notes during a session of play to enhance the play experience?"

This may separate between notes the GM is holding behind their screen at runtime from, say, notes back in their setting binder that they use during adventure design.

We probably also need to come to agreement on what qualifies as "notes". In basic form, notes are "a brief record of facts, topics, or thoughts, written down as an aid to memory." A detailed map of London would not count as notes in my book. A quickly scrawled diagram of London's overall districts might.

With those couple of things mentioned, then...

When using published adventure content, I rarely need much in the way of notes. I may pull out stats on monsters or the like, because they are rarely included in a way that's easy to reference in play. But otherwise, I find the text of the adventure sufficient for my needs.

When doing my own adventure design, notes are a whole other ballgame. I don't generally do a full adventure writeup - everything is notes. I wind up with two levels - one (typically kept in MS OneNote these days) for idea generation and organization, the other, used at runtime, is abstracted from the first, sometimes with stats for things added.

Then, the notes for doing D&D (which, for a dungeon crawl, is going to be a sketched map and bits about encounters) is vastly different from when I run Ashen Stars (which is more about the series of events that the characters are investiagting, and the information bits that can be found, and how.

 

[jmartkdr2]

For myself:

1. Improvising is hard. While I know I will need to do it, I'd like to minimize it to a degree. So I pre-plan a number of things that way I can pull up a card rather than make it up on the spot. This is why I prep npc's by knowing motivations, personalities, etc.

2. DnD in particular requires math at some spots, especially combat building, and doing that math at the table can drag things a lot. So I definitely prep combats and other game-based tasks. Because building a fun combat encounter on the fly just doesn't work in DnD, since you need a good mix of enemies and terrain to make something that isn't a punching slog.

3. I also like to over-prep a few drop-in options: I'll prep a few wandering monster encounters just in case I need a quick battle, even if I only know the general area that battle will take place in.

4. I like worldbuilding. I do it for fun. Sometimes, I write bits down and use them later. Sometimes I don't.

 

[Arilyn]

Writing notes ahead of time cements the ideas in my head. How detailed they are depend if I'm playing in a more traditional style, or running a game like Dungeon World. I also condense stat blocks down to absolute minimums for potential antagonists.

APs get reduced to more quickie notes, so at my fingertips. We usually end up in a vastly different place than the AP, so no railroading here!

 

[Emerikol]

One feature of the map of London is that it's shared, not hidden. Upthread @S'mon referred to shared campaign descriptions.

But D&D has a long tradition of hidden maps. I think there's scope for more discussion about when it makes sense for maps to be hidden, and when shared, than we often see.

That might help new DMs. Personally I think I'm at least mostly with you. I tend to show a city or village map with limited detail early. I don't show them the interiors of every building or define all the NPCs. I will give them some further knowledge on people that everyone should know about. I don't show the whole dungeon map early though. I also don't show the low level wilderness map early either but I might give them a large scale regional map. If you have at least one educated person in the group they will likely at least know the names of neighboring kingdoms and the major cities around.

 

[Emerikol]

I would think that in a shared fiction is the only reality style that making sure you don't forget the shared fiction would be important. So taking a few quick notes would be as important as it would be in a prepped game. Obviously making notes ahead of time would vary depending on style.

My players tend to map the dungeon and take notes. Some of them have even taken to writing a journal which is always a colorful narrative of what happened during a session. Everyone seems to enjoy reading that a day or two later. I don't force them to do anything but I suggest mapping in the dungeon would be a good idea. If I have some technology solution it tends to not be as big a deal.

I absolutely think having NPC/monster names done in advance is a real winner. So many off the cuff names are really stupid and nearly ruin the game when I'm a player.

 

[prabe]

There are two sets of notes in the campaigns I'm running. Possibly a third.

One set of notes is the notes I write as prep. Names of NPCs, places, and such. Situations as they exist at the start of session (or when encountered). If I'm anticipating combat, lists of the opposition. Treasure, if I'm placing it.

The other set of notes is what my wife writes down. What actually happens in the session. (These are what I'm posting in the Story Hour threads.)

The notes I write in prep, I write after reading my wife's in-session notes for the previous session, so I can keep the situations consistent with prior events. Often, what happens in a session results from (metaphorically) standing at the starting (framed) situation, looking past the PCs' actions, and narrating what we see.

The possible third set of notes is the world-building notes I'm generating as I create the setting the campaigns are happening in. If I'm being honest, I enjoy world-building a lot, and that's a major part of why I reserve most of it for myself.

I saw where @Manbearcat compared AP-play to Gloomhaven, and I think that's a strong comparison. I enjoy the tactical elements of Gloomhaven (and I enjoy other collaborative games like Arkham Horror and Eldritch Horror) but I think the RPG-esque elements--including the campaign style of long-term play--are the weakest parts. Between Arkham Horror 3 (current edition) and Eldritch Horror, I much prefer Eldritch Horror: I find it more-replayable precisely because the elements are more random, and not written to fit into a path. I guess a summary of my feelings here is that I think writing RPG-esque elements into a collaborative boardgame or putting a TRPG on a fixed (ish) path make for games that don't give me what I want out of either. Which isn't really about notes. Sorry.

 

[Lanefan]

What do you mean by falling back on prep notes? What does this look like? What work do the notes do, in play, when a GM falls back on them?

The notes keep things consistent.

If the map of the keep (maps are part of the GM notes) shows a room as 30 x 40 feet then when a player asks how big is the room I can look at the map and say it's 30 x 40 feet. If instead I were to wing it and say it was 40 x 50 feet then suddenly it wouldn't fit in between all the other rooms and passages around it, thus to make things fit the whole structure has to get bigger, meaning there's now an unacceptable inconsistency between the inside dimensions and the outside dimensions I gave them as they approached the place.

Side note: it's of note that you put this thread in General where the original that spawned it was in - and thus mostly discussing - D&D.

 

[Lanefan]

Orrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...one might do the things I wrote if they want to reduce their preparation overhead (only one of the benefits).

This assumes the players are willing to take on and-or accept the offloading you suggest. As a player, in general I'm not willing; instead I'd rather the GM worry about (most of) the bureaucracy and leave me to play my character.