What is the point of GM's notes?

[Bedrockgames]

Sure, but what does your euphemistic use of "ladies' room" really describe?

A bathroom for women. I don't really see how using euphemism to evade discussion of urination and bowel movements is related to what I am talking about

 

[Bedrockgames]

One problem with your insistence upon "living world" terminology, which @pemerton, @hawkeyefan, @innerdude, @Campbell, et al have repeatedly tried explaining to you to little or no avail - regardless of whether they explain it to you with patient due diligence or with "lawyerly" language - is that it's euphemistic terminology and double-speak that doesn't give a real transparent sense for the actual play process or play loop that's going on.

Part of the problem here, and I can't speak for everyone on my side, is I think we are not very comfortable with the play loop concept being applied to RPGs, because we find it reductive. If it works for you and enhances your understanding, go for it. But I think often when you reduce a game to a play loop you miss a lot of the subtle things that are going on. I just prefer a much more open approach that doesn't starkly define or formalize player-GM interactions.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The general sentiment seems to be that you are overstating that "complexity"

Is this the general sentiment? Are you so sure? Do the number of people who say something make it more or less truthful? A majority of people, or posters on a thread, can be very wrong (history is filled with examples of majorities who were very, very wrong). History is also filled with majorities who were wrong who made compelling cases for their beliefs (which were often hard or impossible to refute under the reigning paradigm). I see several posters agreeing with me. And I am sure there are tons of lurkers who haven't weighed in. Also there is a circle of posters here who frequently post i the same threads and are like-minded on this topic. I am quite sure if we randomly ventured into other forums, onto facebook groups and elsewhere we'd find very different general sentiments around this discussion. That you, Pemerton and one or two other posters generally disagree with me on things, is not something I find particularly upsetting nor is it something that impels me to reconsider my position.

 

[Maxperson]

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?

Sometimes is an accurate.

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?

Yes, it's asymmetric with the DM controlling more, but it's not just the DM's imagination that is being explored. The space is called the shared imagined space for a reason, and since the DM is not truly God and is imperfect, very often the players will try to explore something that the DM did not think of. During those times it's the players' imaginations that are being explored and the DM is deciding on.

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?

It's not telepathic, no. However, DMs do often create the sense of a real world via their descriptions. Further, the players' input is also critical to the process of action resolution.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The more that the GM is just making stuff up, without prep as some sort of constraint, the more that it makes no sense to describe the GMing as "fair" or "neutral", and the closer the game is getting to what Lewis Pulsipher was criticising as GM-as-storyteller back in the early 80s.

This isn't the case. The issue isn't volume in a sandbox (though there are definitely GMs who want to make up less during play). The issue is the rationale and logic behind what they are making up. Storyteller play is about the GM making up a story that the players don't have any meaningful impact on. If the GM is enabling the players to make meaningful choices, including not engaging the story, and the GM is legitimately trying to remain true to the setting, to the motivations of his NPCs and groups, and creating things that he feels fits that truth, that is outside the storyteller GM approach

 

[pemerton]

It is the title of the thread and the language people were refusing to budge on after people said they felt insulted by it.

The thread asks what is the point of GM's notes. And contemplates possible answers.

I've spoken about the use I've made of notes in various games I've RPGed. So have other posters. If you think asking that particular question is some sort of covert attack upon you or your RPGing, well to me that seems to be your problem.

there is no literal exploration: there is learning what the GM has authored.

Something in this phrasing fails to capture the experience for me. And I do disagree in that I think the players are exploring imagined worlds. They may not being on a literal voyage into unknown but it is an exploration where they are not mere passive recipients of the GMs description.

I am not trying to capture your experience. I am trying to describe the actual process of play.

At the start of the session, the players did not know - for instance - that the City of Greyhawk contains a wizard's guild whose building is shaped like a pyramid. At the end of the session they now know that. How did they learn it? That is not a strange or opaque question. Surely it has an answer.

I know how it was answered when I first GMed GH games: I told them.

 

[Aldarc]

It isn't euphemistic language. Euphemisms suggest I am using a word to evade some darker meaning or to reframe something that is unpleasant in a more pleasant light. The point here isn't deception. The point here is to to produce a clear image for people what the goal is.

Not darker. Cruder. We are sometimes socially put-off by the crude, hence "ladies' room" instead of "toilette room for female-gendered persons." There's nothing fundamentally "dark" or "unpleasant" about the latter, though we still recognize that "ladies' room" is a euphemistic term, much in the same fashion that "living world" is. It's positively framed lingo for something cruder.

What I am fundamentally asking you to do is to complete the analogy by providing an answer for X:

Ladies' Room : Living World :: Toilette Room for Female-Gendered Persons : X

Spoiler

The answer is not posting yet another tiring round of outrage about "play to discover what's in the GM's notes." It's about being using this opportunity to be constructive.

But if you look at things like the video I showed, like Rob's article on how to run a sandbox, you see we are not affraid to get into the nuts and bolts of what that actually means.

Cool. Now what's a non-euphemistic/evocative term or phrase that describes that fundamental "nuts and bolts" process?

There is nothing wrong with using evocative language to describe something.

"Evocative language" is doublespeak, in this context, for "euphemistic language." But at least you seem to implicitly recognize that "Living World" is euphemistic, romanticized, and/or evocative rather than procedurally descriptive.

 

[TwoSix]

Part of the problem here, and I can't speak for everyone on my side, is I think we are not very comfortable with the play loop concept being applied to RPGs, because we find it reductive. If it works for you and enhances your understanding, go for it. But I think often when you reduce a game to a play loop you miss a lot of the subtle things that are going on. I just prefer a much more open approach that doesn't starkly define or formalize player-GM interactions.

Honestly, the fact that you find metaphorical descriptions of play so important and are so offended by literalism is what makes these discussions drag on ad nauseum.

"you miss a lot of the subtle things that are going on. I just prefer a much more open approach that doesn't starkly define or formalize player-GM interactions." is a bunch of platitudes. It's a nothingburger. If you can't define what these subtle things are, or provide examples of what an open approach would look like in contrast to some other play example of a "closed" approach, you're simply not providing much utility to the discussion.

 

[pemerton]

it's not just the DM's imagination that is being explored. The space is called the shared imagined space for a reason, and since the DM is not truly God and is imperfect, very often the players will try to explore something that the DM did not think of. During those times it's the players' imaginations that are being explored and the DM is deciding on.

This is different from what @Bedrockgames described. He referred to the players gaining knowledge of the GM's mental model.

This is an example of the sort of thing that makes me think that you and @Bedrockgames are not using identical techniques. And which, for me at least, makes your use of the plural first person pronoun puzzling.

It's not telepathic, no. However, DMs do often create the sense of a real world via their descriptions.

This happens in all RPGing. When the GM in my Burning Wheel game described Evard's tower I was able to imagine it. (I think this is what you mean by "the sense of a real world".) But that was clearly not an example of sandbox play, given that the GM's narration of that tower was the upshot of a successful Great Masters-wise check made by me for a PC, the wizard Aramina.

Further, the players' input is also critical to the process of action resolution.

As I noted upthread, their declarations matter. But I don't think you have regard to player intent in narrating outcomes, do you?

 

[pemerton]

The more that the GM is just making stuff up, without prep as some sort of constraint, the more that it makes no sense to describe the GMing as "fair" or "neutral", and the closer the game is getting to what Lewis Pulsipher was criticising as GM-as-storyteller back in the early 80s.

This isn't the case. The issue isn't volume in a sandbox (though there are definitely GMs who want to make up less during play). The issue is the rationale and logic behind what they are making up. Storyteller play is about the GM making up a story that the players don't have any meaningful impact on. If the GM is enabling the players to make meaningful choices, including not engaging the story, and the GM is legitimately trying to remain true to the setting, to the motivations of his NPCs and groups, and creating things that he feels fits that truth, that is outside the storyteller GM approach

I honestly don't understand what you are disagreeing with. I say the more the GM is just making stuff up, without prep as some sort of constraint - and then you go on to talk about rationale and logic and remaining true to the setting. How is that any different from what I said? What do you think is the difference between prep as some sort of constraint and remaining true to the setting? What do you think is the difference between just making stuff up and having no rationale or logic?