What is the point of GM's notes?

[Imaro]

Correct. What you describe in your second paragraph is a general property of RPGing.

Whereas, as @Ovinomancer has explained, by player protagonism he is referring to a phenomenon that is a particular property of only some RPGing.

Hence what he is referring to is not what you describe. It is the sort of approach that is quintessentially found in such games as Prince Valiant, Maelstrom Storytelling, HeroWars, Burning Wheel, DitV, and most PbtA games. Ovinomancer's own experience of this sort of play is, I believe, primarily with Blades in the Dark.

One feature of those games, relevant to this thread, is that the GM's pre-play notes do not serve the function of establishing the principal parameters for framing or for action resolution.

So far all intents and purposes, "protagonism" is a word being used as a placeholder for a nebulous grouping of characteristics shared by some games but not D&D? If thats the case have those characteristics been defined in this discussion at some point? If not how can a discussion take place if the thing we are discussing is ill-defined and vague in meaning?

Edit: Instead of discussing "protagonism" perhaps a discussion of the specific characteristics that define the word should be the topic...

 

[Umbran]

Games which emphasise the centrality of player-authored dramatic needs for PCs typically have a range of formal and informal techniques and processes for handling this.

So, this doesn't directly relate to what I was saying, leaving me to have to guess why it is relevant.

I am not regarding protagonism as a thing that one only aims at with purpose-built rules, so the existence of those rules are really not telling.

 

[pemerton]

@Imaro, this thread is in General, not D&D. Deliberately so.

Those games and the sort of RPGing they support are pretty well known. And it's not particularly nebulous, ill-defined or vague. To paraphrase @Ovinomancer from post 112 upthread, what distinguishes these games is that the player-authored dramatic needs of the PCs are the primary focus of play. Which means that players have a significant degree of authorship responsibility in respect of key NPCs, places and events in the shared fiction; and player provide the primary trajectory of play.

To again try and make this relevant to this thread, that sort of RPGing calls for GM notes to perform a very different purpose from the purpose performed by (say) an Adventure Path used in its standard fashion.

 

[Imaro]

Correct. What you describe in your second paragraph is a general property of RPGing.

Wanted to address this separately.

Is it though? It seems a general property of some ways of RPG'ing but not all. As an example, a game ran in bad faith will not necessarily have these properties... another example might be a game run with high degrees of illusionism.

 

[pemerton]

So, this doesn't directly relate to what I was saying, leaving me to have to guess why it is relevant.

I am not regarding protagonism as a thing that one only aims at with purpose-built rules, so the existence of those rules are really not telling.

I took you to be saying that it is hard to "juggle" half-a-dozen PCs' dramatic needs at once. And I replied by saying that games that prioritise PC dramatic needs as a focus of play have techniques to respond to this perceived difficulty, so as to render it merely an apparent difficulty.

I thought that my reply was relevant to your concern.

Its relevance to this thread is that some of those techniques implicate the GM's notes: how they are written; what they include; how they are used; etc.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No, bad faith is violating the implicit agreement the DM made when the player stated his goal (avoiding the guards), the DM agreed to a DC for success and the player rolled successfully. To then find a way through narration to negate that agreement is DM'ing in bad faith.

See, here I actually agree with you, but this is not how play normally fares, nor is it even implied in the rules for 5e. I mean, find the rules passage that says this -- you cannot. You can find the rules passage that says the GM narrates the result of an action declaration.

 

[pemerton]

It seems, and I could be wrong, that there is some sort of criteria outside of having the freedom to declare actions for my character within the fictional confines of the game with all parties applying the rules in good faith that is being used here to define... "true protagonism"?? if so what are we using the word to mean here?

What you describe <snippage> is a general property of RPGing.

It seems a general property of some ways of RPG'ing but not all. As an example, a game ran in bad faith will not necessarily have these properties... another example might be a game run with high degrees of illusionism.

I wasn't thinking of degenerate cases. Chess played in bad faith can include accidentally-on-purpose tipping over the board if one is losing, but I don't think we need to factor that into any general discussion of how chess can be played.

Illusionism is not in my view generally bad faith. The example the @Ovinomancer gave - of allowing the check to climb the wall to be resolved although the GM knows it won't result in being hidden because there is another guard atop the wall - doesn't look like bad faith to me. It seems like completely standard D&D-ish GMing.

Upthread a poster - @jmartkdr2, I think - said that in the right mood s/he might allow the players to have their PCs find a secret passage that wasn't on his/her map. That sounds to me like a type of illusionism, but not remotely bad faith. When you refer to your notes being "suggestions" - so you might use them to settle the outcomes of declared actions, but might not - I also see the possibility of illusionism. But where is the bad faith?

In these games with illusionistic features in action resolution, the player has the freedom to declare actions, and the GM resolves these applying the rules in good faith, which includes a permission on the part of the GM to adjudicate by reference to posited elements of the fiction which only s/he knows about and which, at the moment of resolution, s/he has unilateral control over.

 

[Imaro]

@Imaro, this thread is in General, not D&D. Delibeillusionist.

Yes, I know that. I'm not sure what bearing that has on whether the definition of protagonism being used in this thread is understood by the majority of users on the site, or even the majority of those in this particular thread...

Those games and the sort of RPGing they support are pretty well known. And it's not particularly nebulous, ill-defined or vague.
To paraphrase @Ovinomancer from post 112 upthread, what distinguishes these games is that the player-authored dramatic needs of the PCs are the primary focus of play.

Ok, and D&D can easily be played this way if your group wants to, it just doesn't force you to play in this way.

Which means that players have a significant degree of authorship responsibility in respect of key NPCs, places and events in the shared fiction; and player provide the primary trajectory of play.

See this is where it falls apart for me because I don't see why the above stated playstyle necessarily needs to have this... especially the first part of your statement.

To again try and make this relevant to this thread, that sort of RPGing calls for GM notes to perform a very different purpose from the purpose performed by (say) an Adventure Path used in its standard fashion.

But these aren't the only 2 forms notes take and I don't believe there's only one way to play a game where player-authored dramatic needs of the PCs are the primary focus of play.

 

[Imaro]

See, here I actually agree with you, but this is not how play normally fares, nor is it even implied in the rules for 5e. I mean, find the rules passage that says this -- you cannot. You can find the rules passage that says the GM narrates the result of an action declaration.

So we need a rule that states the agreed upon goal and the agreed upon threshold to successfully attain said goal when following the game mechanics as laid out in the books should be... Really agreed upon instead of fake agreed upon?? Are you serious right now?

 

[Ovinomancer]

So far all intents and purposes, "protagonism" is a word being used as a placeholder for a nebulous grouping of characteristics shared by some games but not D&D? If thats the case have those characteristics been defined in this discussion at some point? If not how can a discussion take place if the thing we are discussing is ill-defined and vague in meaning?

Edit: Instead of discussing "protagonism" perhaps a discussion of the specific characteristics that define the word should be the topic...

Yes, I defined it previously, and game examples. Protagonism is where the focus of play is on the character's dramatic needs.

Dramatic needs are things that the character is about -- ie, things that are defining for the character -- and that you can hang a story on all by itself (ie, it can drive an entire story arc in play). I'm not talking about scripting, here, but that the dramatic need is the impetus for story. The examples I gave including such things as "I will get revenge on the murder of my family, no matter the cost." This is meaty -- it's defining, and it's something that a lot of story can hang on.

So, then protagonism would be that the game that features the character with the above example of a dramatic need would have play that focuses on that need, and not something the GM wants in play. IE, the protagonist of the story is the character, because the story is going to be about them.

This is clearly NOT D&D, as D&D is focused on a story/location/hexcrawl/sandbox created by the GM, often without direct concern for the characters. Sometimes the characters are built into a session, but only as the GM allows. This means the play is usually about something other than the dramatic needs of the PCs -- usually it's about the dramatic needs of some NPC, which the players then try to foil. This isn't a bad thing -- D&D does D&D very well, but that's just not protagonism. As I still run D&D (and am doing so now), this clearly isn't something that I think is, in any way, a bad or negative thing.