What is the point of GM's notes?

[Guest 85555]

The big problem for me is what I've bolded in the snippet above---namely, it's almost impossible for me as a GM, even with the absolute best intentions, to remain fully neutral/impartial/fair within all of the parameters available. Whether it be scene framing, adjudicating action, prefabrication of world elements, challenge and combat encounter creation, etc., I always find that inevitably some sort of bias creeps into my decisions.

Most of the time, that bias is in favor of the players, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's stuff that I just think, "Man, I really really really want the players to see or experience X, because that would be sooooo cool!"

And suddenly that desire to have the player experience X becomes this hidden seed that pushes the action.





The bolded part here is the problematic component. You keep talking about "the world" as if it operates in some wholly independent sphere of the shared fiction, as if it is possessed of some immutable, objective properties of existence separate from other components of the imagined fiction.

This is the whole crux of the argument around how and what player-facing game mechanics are designed to address---that there is no "world," there are only conceptions of the fiction in question. Saying that it's all part of the grand, overarching "natural, simulated world" doesn't give those conceptions any additional weight or gravitas.

Honestly, this was one of, if not the biggest mental hurdle for me to get over in regards to knowing how to approach player facing mechanics. Because the "game world" simply had to be this independent construction, operating under its own parameters. How else could anyone know anything about anything if there wasn't an assumed, "fully realized" game world?

Until it finally clicked that there is no "world," there are only conceptions of the fiction. Any given conception exists in one of two states---1) something that is already established as true within the fiction state, and 2) things that are proposed to be true, but not yet known to be true (and potentially may end up being false).

By default, D&D assumes that a GM's notes / prefabrications / headcanon are conceptions that fall into Category 1 --- "Something already established as true within the fiction," until/unless the GM deems otherwise. The fact that the players don't know about the overwhelming majority of prefabricated "truths" is irrelevant, they're still considered "truth" for the fiction.

Category 2 conceptions are generally propositions from the players---"I kill the orc." This isn't known to be true until the game plays out, and the fiction state resolves. It may end up being true---and may end up being false, if the player's dice perform badly, or some other interposition happens first (e.g., the orc successfully runs away or the character trips and falls down).

Category 2 conceptions/propositions can be negated. For example, a player can say something as simple as, "Bob the Fighter walks across the room to head toward NotBob the Vile's private dining area." But this can be rendered untrue in any number of ways, e.g.:

Player 2: Joe the Wizard grabs Bob the Fighter's arm as soon as he stands up. [in character] 'I don't think you want to mess with NotBob right now, friend. He'll probably kill you.'

Or,

GM: You go to walk across the room, but the barmaid slips, crashes a tray of empty flagons to the floor, and falls into your arms in disheveled confusion.

In both cases, Bob the Fighter has not, in fact, walked across the room to NotBob's private dining area. At least not until the interposed propositions are either accepted or rejected as truth.

RPG gameplay is really nothing more than Category 2 conceptions/propositions steadily moving to Category 1---it was unknown if the conception is true, and now it is known to be true or not.





The bolded portion of your quote cannot logically follow from the sentences that precede it. A response is necessarily a decision.

I just can't agree with you sorry. This all very much is not how I conceptualize play. I think the world exists as a concept (shared fiction is actually something different in my mind: that is has more to do with the collective understanding the players at the table and the GM all share, the current state of play (or narration if you prefer). But a mental concept can be something that exists outside the players. It is a model that the GM has and maintains in his or her head, in notes, in instincts they've developed about the settings truths, and in addition to this the world grows and expands as the players interact with it and as the synergy people talk about arises. Now if you've found this doesn't work for you, fair enough. But it isn't a zero sum game between this and more player facing mechanics. Both approaches can exist. Arguments like yours frankly are like the ones people on my side make when they try to deny that a more narrative RPG is an RPG at all (by, for example relying on proscriptive definitions of RPG). I am not here to wage war on play styles people enjoy. I am happy to make distinctions. because distinctions are useful. but I also won't take seriously someone telling me what I know works at my table isn't working because they have developed a lexicon around concepts that fit their own preferred style of play (again RPG theory is nowhere near something like Music theory and even music theory is an imperfect language for understanding all forms of music)

 

[Manbearcat]

I wonder if Emikol, Lanefan et al (and their players) would describe their play by the sort of "collective flow state" that is being depicted above; I suspect not. If not, I wonder if the source of being incredulous at the cognitive state that has been depicted in these kinds of games (which advocates say enhances their immersion rather than detracts) is because of an expectation of a discretized agency/cognitive position.

Then I wonder if the "4e Warlords suck because they're ordering around my PC" is an inevitable outgrowth of this (eg rather than finding a way to achieve cognitive unity and make all of this work, or politely decline the synergy, there is offense at the sense of encroachment on someone's domain).

What do you think of the above with respect to what you have written below (and maybe comment on the team synergy/continuity vs distributed/siloed pieces concept)?

When the ghost kid's ball landed at my feet, as a player I felt a sense of....excitement, I think is probably best. A little thrill at something so creepy and immediately engaging. I knew this was going to be a tipping point of some sort. Here was something that needed to be dealt with, and depending on how it went, things could proceed in drastically different directions. It was a tense moment.

I would agree that the feeling I had wasn't really about the prose you used to set the scene....I think the description was very straightforward rather than evocative.



I'd say that my engagement with the scene was also so strong because it was connected to my character's interests. He has a scientific interest in the arcane, and this was his first really significant foray into dealing with ghosts and the like. It spoke to the character.

It also allowed my to use the gadget my character has created (one of my significant choices during character creation), his "ghost gloves", which gave me the idea to simply interact with the spectral ball and "throw" it back to the kid. But, deciding to bring those to bear actually made it a bit more risky because they have a drawback of being "volatile" and possibly attracting unwanted spectral consequences. So the ghost gloves having that quality meant that I knew using them as a part of the solution to the situation meant that if it went wrong, it would have been that much worse.

The entire scenario, from beginning to end, had that feel to it. I was very aware I was in dangerous territory, and pretty obviously out of my character's depth, and at any moment things could have went horribly wrong. All of it felt genuine to the fictional world we'd established, and the situation you described, and my character's place in it.



I don't want to say what @Emerikol may feel about it, but I can say that I felt the world and the scenario had depth, and I felt immersed in the situation as my character. I don't think that any of this suffered from a lot of the details clearly arising only through play and not being decided ahead of time.

I know that at one point earlier in my life as a player/GM....even only about 5 years ago.....I likely would have balked at this to some extent, but I think that's largely due to the phenomenon that @Arilyn just mentioned when we find ourselves in an RPG that clearly requires prep of some sort, and the GM has not done any, and so they're struggling to riff on the fly using a system that's not designed to support that, for players who likely weren't expecting that. I've been in those games and they can be frustrating.

But playing with a system and processes that actively support and promote this kind of play, and with people who are comfortable with it and who clearly enjoy it, like you and @Fenris-77 , it works quite well. The world feels as real as any I experienced in my younger days, and my character feels like a natural and unique part of that world.

 

[Guest 85555]

The bolded portion of your quote cannot logically follow from the sentences that precede it. A response is necessarily a decision.

Not is not. A decision is the result of thought and deliberation, before making a choice. A response can just be a gut reaction. However that is besides the point because decide is being used informally here. What is more important is I am trying to explain why the GM isn't simply declaring something by fiat or always the one deciding the outcome. There are other factors and it is probably more accurate to say the GM responds. Because what the players do matters, and it prompts the decisions the GM makes

 

[Guest 85555]

Pretty much, yeah. In more traditional games immersion comes from action declaration and exposition (which is fine), but Blades does it differently. The mechanics and pacing of the game itself, in the form of the feedback loop, are designed to foster that feeling of being swept away. Without having playing a game like Blades its almost impossible, from the traditional D&D/OSR perspective, to envision what the difference is. The mechanics look one way when you're just reading them, and another way entirely when you're not just playing them, but playing them with some confidence. This reminds me of some of the prefatory material in Burning Wheel where Luke Crane is up front about the game needing some time and attention to really make fly.

To be fair, this is true of traditional sandbox style RPGs too (or really any RPG). RPGs are experiential. When I first sat down to play an RPG, the rules were explained, the character sheets made clear, the dice and pencils placed down on the table. I expected to be bored. When play began, suddenly I wasn't in another world. I think we've all had the experience of reading a game thinking it will play one way, then it plays another (and sometimes you play enough games of one style, you can guess pretty well reading similar rules how they play). I read Blades in the Dark Recently. I still feel I have no idea how it feels to play. At some point I will get to playing it (though I have to admit it isn't the game I am most excited about playing at the moment). Something similar happened with HIllfolk. I new about the rules, though they would be disruptive to immersion. Then I played it and the game was actually quite immersive. Since then I've bought the book, played it a number of times. It is definitely good for immersion. But at the same time there are things it doesn't do well, or itches it doesn't scratch that would make it more of a once in a while game for me. One thing I did see right away when I had my players in my regular campaign play it was a lot of the different assumptions really tripped them up and it took a bit of time for them to get over that.

One area we had a real hard time with with Hillfolk was trying to do mystery. We ended up having a good mystery campaign, but we realized you are really there to enjoy the drama not discovered what actually happened (or to collectively figure out what happened, but the problem that created was there was this amorphous mystery that wasn't pinned down like a regular mystery is: i.e. some killed so and so, in this way, at this time, then did this to cover it up, etc). In Hillfolk those facts could emerge later, and in our case because we didnt' know who the guilty party was you always kind of had to play your character knowing it could end up being you (not sure if that makes sense or not). Also we were new to Hillfolk, so I might have missed some cool 'mystery tool' in the book somewhere. Still a great game. Just mentioning the mystery thing to point out these are all just tools and styles, and there isn't one right way. Every approach is going to have limits or not click with certain people. That is why you want a variety of styles

 

[prabe]

I wonder if Emikol, Lanefan et al (and their players) would describe their play by the sort of "collective flow state" that is being depicted above; I suspect not. If not, I wonder if the source of being incredulous at the cognitive state that has been depicted in these kinds of games (which advocates say enhances their immersion rather than detracts) is because of an expectation of a discretized agency/cognitive position.

I've described a TRPG table that's going well as having a gestalt-ish vibe a lot like playing in a band. There is, at least subjectively for me, a feeling of flow very similar to reading a particularly engaging book or banging away in my little MIDI room or--more similarly--playing in a band, where I can look at the clock then look again and see that three hours have gone by.

I get that not every one experiences any of those things the same way. I'm also--I think--not as far in the direction you're talking about as the posters you name, so my experiences are plausibly less-relevant.

 

[Manbearcat]

I've described a TRPG table that's going well as having a gestalt-ish vibe a lot like playing in a band. There is, at least subjectively for me, a feeling of flow very similar to reading a particularly engaging book or banging away in my little MIDI room or--more similarly--playing in a band, where I can look at the clock then look again and see that three hours have gone by.

I get that not every one experiences any of those things the same way. I'm also--I think--not as far in the direction you're talking about as the posters you name, so my experiences are plausibly less-relevant.

Can you break this out into its constituent parts for me? How does this "gestalt-ish vibe" come to be with respect to:

• Distribution of contribution at the table
• Pace of play
• Table-facing vs GM-facing decision-points and action resolution
• System integration (as it relates to the above 3 things)
• GM theatricality and exposition length
• Group chemistry

 

[Manbearcat]

BRG's post above about mystery and Hillfolk reminds me @hawkeyefan and @Fenris-77 .

How did you think the mystery of the killings sorted itself out? Going into that I didn't know what the gist was going to be. I was thinking maybe it was an accidental fertilizer explosion at the Radiant Farms, workplace violence, a labor union meeting gone bad, a Jack the Ripper Spree Killer thing gone amok. I had a lot of potential ideas. The Crow extortion racket and leadership coup via Demon summoning just sort of emerged and snowballed after the initial framing and something that was said or done.

So, for me, personally, that was a mystery going in and I (the GM) got to "play to find out" what actually ended up happening. How did that work out for you guys?

 

[Fenris-77]

I thought it worked out well. The unfolding events played perfectly with what had gone before and there were no false notes or moments of cognitive dissonance. I was pretty sure that was how it played out on your side, but there wasn't a moment where it felt like you were just making crap up.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yeah, it definitely seemed like what was causing the the situation was uncertain at the start of play. Like it could have been a few different things. Then details slowly started to emerge, and a picture became clearer.

To me, that seems like a natural progression of a mystery.

 

[Manbearcat]

I thought it worked out well. The unfolding events played perfectly with what had gone before and there were no false notes or moments of cognitive dissonance. I was pretty sure that was how it played out on your side, but there wasn't a moment where it felt like you were just making crap up.

Yeah, it definitely seemed like what was causing the the situation was uncertain at the start of play. Like it could have been a few different things. Then details slowly started to emerge, and a picture became clearer.

To me, that seems like a natural progression of a mystery.

That was my experience as well.

We often hear these laments of mysteries “not workable” or them being terrible.

Do either of you have a process and/or an outcome for last week’s session that would have yielded “not workable” or terrible?