What is the point of GM's notes?

[Bedrockgames]

Finally, I think we all agree that the players' "exploration" of the GM's world isn't happening via telepathic processes, and that the GM is not creating the sense of a real world via any means other than speaking and perhaps making the occasional sketch? So would you agree that the actual social process whereby these things - the players' exploration and the GM's creation of a sense of a real world - occur is that the GM tells things to the players, either in the process of framing or in the process of action resolution?

no i don't agree with this

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's not "trapping" or "lawyerly" to take someone at their word.

@Bedrockgames has asserted - repeatedly -

This is what I mean by lawyerly. It just never feels like a real conversation with you Pemerton. It just feels like you are simply looking for opportunities to bend my words to your point. Again, ultimately what we are debating is the terminology of 'playing to discover the GM's notes'. I reject this terminology and I find it insulting and reductive. Whatever other points are made along the way, what ever other statements people make you choose to dissect over a 46 page thread, this is the point of disagreement. No amount of 'Bedrock games has repeatedly' is going to force me to adopt your vocabulary or your framework for understanding RPGs.

 

[Emerikol]

Let's get down to brass tacks. How deep is your game? Where are the actual play posts that will let me assess that?

I haven't read the minds of my players. They say they appreciate the depth of my world and that when they play in other worlds it is less satisfying because mine has ruined them. So I take them at their word.

I try to figure out where different people are coming from on this stuff. I really just think we are probably talking about something at least slightly different and maybe somewhat different when we talk of immersion. I mean we may write the same definition down but the actual feeling or experience seems a bit different.

One example. Bennies, Fate Points, 1's in Cortex, Hero Points, and on and on would definitely ruin my immersion in a game. Stepping back and taking that authorial stance would throw me right out of the game. I'd be back to playing monopoly. Now, can I enjoy an occasional game of monopoly with friends? Maybe (let's make it Settlers of Cataan). I don't want to spend an entire campaign doing that though.

I suspect none of those things would affect your immersion. I also suspect you are not unique in your view and neither am I. Different tastes make the world go around.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's not "trapping" or "lawyerly" to take someone at their word.

It is trapping and lawyerly to use peoples words in the course of a conversation to try to pin them to a position they are not holding, to try to find some inconsistency to force them to accept a position you know they don't. This is not persuasion and it isn't discussion. It is simply rhetorical arm wrestling. it is the difference between trying to win an argument and legitimately trying to find some kind of truth. I think you are just doing the former. And when you combine that with your obvious disdain for our approach it is naturally going to be infuriating (which is why I put you on ignore and why I am not fully engaging your posts at this point)

 

[Emerikol]

I've been a player in the sort of game you describe. It was shallow and basically a vehicle for the GM to show of his half-a-dozen clever ideas. Everything that was deep about it was introduced by the players via intra-party roleplay - that is, in effect, in respect of fiction that the GM couldn't easily touch or control.

You've caricatured my own world by your own bad experience. Hey I've had bad experiences like that myself. It is not a condemnation of the style any more than a bad practitioner of your style would be a condemnation of your style. In our discussions, my assumption is always "done in the best sort of way for that style". While no one is perfect, I believe I'm a pretty good practitioner of my style. I've seen plenty of bad practitioners of all sorts of styles.

 

[Bedrockgames]

......the players are learning what the GM is imagining. It's human, not lawyerly, to be confused by that juxtaposition.

Also to be clear this is not a good word to describe it at all. It isn't simply learning. Discovering suggests much more active exploration. Learning sounds as if they are simply being told what is the in the GMs head

 

[Bedrockgames]

You've caricatured my own world by your own bad experience.

This about sums up the analysis I think. I am sure pemerton's style is very rewarding for him. I don't understand this quest to prove other peoples styles are somehow more shallow, less impressive than his own

 

[Emerikol]

Upthread I suggested GM's conception of the fiction and you rejected that too.

In the example you give in the post I have just quoted, the GM decides if a secret door is present. The players, in learning that there is no secret door, learn the GM's conception of the fiction. Don't they?

I think for clarification. The campaign setting is mostly constructed in advance. The GM then becomes to the best of his or her ability a neutral arbiter from then on out. When you say something like "The GM decides if a secret do is present" the implication is that the GM is allowed to improv but the players are not. That is not the case at least in my games. The door is either there or not there per the campaign world. If it is not there then of course it cannot be found. If it is there and the roll is made it will certainly be found and if the roll is not made it will certainly not be found.

So the GM does two jobs. To the degree he can separate them that is good.

One is constructing the setting which he does before the campaign for the most part but also between sessions for things like advancing a calendar or reactions to PC actions that are not immediate. He takes care to dice for probabilities and not just choose and to be neutral.

The second is adjudicating what is happening in the setting during the play session. At that time the GM is not doing very much fictional creation. He is adhering to the campaign setting as much as possible. His goal is to be a neutral arbiter and purveyor of what the PCs are interacting with.

Question:
Suppose a GM purchased a really detailed setting. Suppose one exists to purchase even if none is on the market right now. If the GM purchases it and then adhered to it with great fidelity, would the GM still be creating that fiction? He is just relaying the information from the store bought setting as the PCs interact with it.

 

[Emerikol]

This about sums up the analysis I think. I am sure pemerton's style is very rewarding for him. I don't understand this quest to prove other peoples styles are somehow more shallow, less impressive than his own

I think it is fine to state that such and such a game style is not immersive for you. I have no problem with Pemerton saying his style immerses him. Who can argue what someone else is feeling? To the degree we try to make it some absolute is when we get in trouble. I know his style will not be immersive to me and it won't satisfy my roleplaying itch. I don't need to suffer through many sessions of it to determine that. I know I do not like 5e due to certain rules they adopted and I don't need to play it to determine that.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Would you agree that sometimes that "informing" takes place in virtue of the GM making decisions about action resolution by reference to what s/he is imagining in his/her head?

I am going to need an example of what you mean here. I think my answer is yes but I suspect you might have slightly different meaning than I do here so don't want to agree unless I am certain.

Also, would you agree that what you are describing here is an asymmetric relationship between what the GM imagines and controls and what the players imagine. And that that is what makes it possible for the players to "explore" the GM's imagination?

I would agree that there is an asymmetric relationship between the control the GM has over the imagined world, his knowledge of it, and the players control of that world. I would not agree that it is the thing that makes it possible for the players to explore the GMs imagination (it is one thing that contributes to that).

I would say it is complicated though, because while the GM has control of the world, he does not have control of the player characters themselves. And there are limits to the GMs power over the world (it is conditional on the players not rejecting his descriptions, rulings and conceptions: a GM who starts describing total nonsense or has NPCs regularly respond in bizarre and questionable ways to what the PCs do, is going to find him or herself not the GM after a while). I think the asymmetry of the power over the world, versus the players control of their characters, is one of the things, when it is fully embraced and not resisted, that can make RPGs so immersive and exciting.