What is the point of GM's notes?

[Lanefan]

I'll bite. Isn't this done ahead of time outside the actual game? You and the DM talking about things and you suggesting ideas for your character?

Doesn't matter when it's done, the point is that it's done at all.

The pattern of DM provides the base framework and then players and-or DM flesh it out was what I was trying to get at.

For me this happens iteratively prior to the start of the game. But even when it happens during a campaign, which would be fine, it would happen outside of the game. During the game maintaining only character role is important. So if I had a cleric player who said "Hey, I want to flesh out my religion and come up with the marriage rites, or develop the hierarchy further, or whatever."

What if this comes up out of the blue in mid-session, though? Two PCs want to marry each other and the PC Cleric wants to run the ceremony in detail. Can the Cleric's player make the specifics up on the fly? Sure, why not.

 

[prabe]

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

In general, when a TRPG is going well, there's a feeling that what's happening in the game is more than the sum of the participants' contributions--which is my understanding of what "gestalt" means, though that may be incorrect. That's very much like playing in a band, and the only thing that seems to cover it is "group chemistry," though it's both more than chemistry and not the entirety of the answer to that, either.

Specific to the D&D 5E games I'm running:

Everyone contributes. While I might talk more than half the time, because of how 5E distributes actual narration, I feel as though I contribute well less than half of the actual fiction that applies in play. Yes, I did most of the world-building (because I enjoy doing it, and because I haven't enjoyed running/pplaying in collaborative worlds as much) but it's possible for remarkably little of the broader setting to be relevant for a given session; and given that I think character and action are a greater part of narrative--and the players are bringing more of those (again, relevant to the story) than I am, I think the distribution between players (as a whole) and DM is pretty even.

Pace of play ... varies. I don't like for anything to take so long in the real world that the players forget why the characters are doing it, so even if the characters are exploring something like a dungeon, or traveling, I try to keep why they're doing it foregrounded some. But if a party is coming up on something that looks as though it's going to turn into a major fight, I don't mind if they take as much time as they need to, to get their plan/s together. Also, there is variation in how quick on the uptake the people around the table are (both person-to-person, and a given person session-to-session).

I frame situations, usually by throwing stinky stuff at a convenient fan. Sometimes a party can choose not to engage that; often they can't. I make an effort to over the course of a campaign provide multiple longer-term goals for the party to pursue (some from their characters' backstories, some arising during play). Decisions as to how to handle a given situation, which goal/s to pursue and how, and such, are pretty much entirely up to the players. You want to go to Auriqua to try to avenge Taman's family's death--sure, I'll work out what's going on in Auriqua and put leads there to get you in the direction of Taman's revenge. Action-resolution is 5E, though I find it efficient and fair to announce DCs for saves (most of the time) and to publicize ACs for monsters after like a round or two. If there is real risk in a skill check, I try to make sure the player/s and the DM are on the same page as far as that, and as far as what success will look like. I use some checks--knowledge-type checks mostly--to see how quickly the PCs can learn something. I don't (much) play NPCs as cagey--there isn't a ton of call for social skill rolls.

I am not entirely sure what you mean by "system integration" in this context. The answer that comes to mind is that everyone at both tables knows 5E pretty well at this point, so there isn't a lot of fumbling in the rulebooks, and no one a the table is likely to be surprised by something lurking in an edge-case. I very much trust the players to know the rules for how their characters work and play by them--I almost never check the players on the rules (in fact, I'll ask about a rule sometimes). I have a sneaking suspicion I haven't answered you on this, which is unintentional.

I am not a theatrical GM. I've worked with (voice) actors--15+ years recording audiobooks--and I know my limitations in that regard. I have a grasp of how to use language, though, and while I can't really do accents I can modulate my voice to convey character. My exposition length varies, I think. I have in the past been pretty explicitly cinematic (referring to something as "having blown the F/X budget," for instance) and I've been known to sprinkle "oh crap!" moments into scenes.

Best I can tell, everyone at both tables really likes each other. Some of the people I've known a while, others I've only known as long as I've been DMing for them. They certainly tend to work well together in-game, and at the table. There might be some variation in playstyles, but nothing that's way out of the norm for D&D, as far as I know.

--I think I might have answered a slightly-wrong question, and described what that gestaltish vibe looks like at the tables I'm DMing, not so much how it came to be; but I think the answer to that is kinda contained in what I've said. I think it has come to be, because the people at the tables wanted and allowed it to come to be. The players have said kind things about my DMing, and I've been clear--always--that I could not be the DM I am without excellent/compatible players. I'm deeply aware how fortunate I am in that regard.

 

[Lanefan]

Time to get to some actual practical stuff. All of this assumes I am not running a game with specialized prep requirements.

I tend to favor an iterative approach to setting and character creation. Usually what I will do is come up with an initial scenario to kick stuff off. Some inciting event and enough setting information to give that event context. Then we will do a Session Zero where players create characters with a stake in the inciting event. The purpose is generally to get an idea of who the PCs are, how they are connected to each other, and to start building a supporting cast for each character.

From that point on most of prep tends to revolve on building out both the initial scenario and building circles of NPCs around the PCs. I will have more details about this process later this weekend. Time for me to get ready for work.

Your example has already left me behind in a bunch of ways:

You're positing a situation where you know who the players - never mind their PCs! - will be before doing most of your prep.

You also assume the PCs will be pre-connected to each other; which as a player, though I'm not necessarily averse to the concept in principle, I dislike having forced on me.

And by the sound of it, any prep done after session 0 isn't neutral, but rather is tailored to the specific PCs. How does this work out if one or more of those PCs dies in session 1?

 

[innerdude]

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)

Wasn't trying to be provocative or denigrating at all. What you describe is nigh identical to a mindset I once held. I believed it was both important and necessary that the game world in RPG play had some sort of "existence outside the players." That in order for RPG play to work coherently, that the game world needed to exist as an "externality".

But ultimately I couldn't refute a simple syllogism:

All fiction is constructed by one or more authors. All RPG play operates within a fiction. Ergo, the fictional space of RPG play is constructed.

The game world doesn't exist independently as an externality, it's constructed. Even if the construct is generated for particular purposes, needs, and agendas (usually good ones), it doesn't change its nature as a construct. Pulling a piece of that construct out, setting it aside and declaring, "This thing here, this piece of the fiction, it exists independently and externally to the rest of the fiction," doesn't turn it from fiction into not-fiction. Applying the "externally existent" descriptor to the game world is a category error.

Under scrutiny, eventually I had to recognize that those advocating for player-facing mechanics had a point---all RPG play starts as an idea in someone's head. All of it. It's something that somebody, somewhere, woke up one day (or over hundreds of days) and constructed. And the verb constructed was the tipping point.

I have no issue with your game style, or that it's enjoyable to you. At some point, I'm going to play in that style again myself!

But setting apart the "game world" from the rest of the shared fiction doesn't make it less fictional, it just means that I-as-GM have privileged that part of the fiction more than other parts.

But I completely understand the justification for privileging the fiction pertaining to the game world. It's a very useful conceit if the agenda is to limit "experiencing the game world only through the view of the character." And I get why that agenda exists. It's driven by the desire to provide pleasurable gaming experiences---the unfolding of mysteries, the experience of exploring the unknown, of exploring an alternative ego / mind to better understand the self. It's driven by a desire to provide some of the really deep, valuable, and pleasurable outcomes that only RPG play can produce.

I have zero problem with you wanting to privilege the game world fiction for your own play. Just don't turn it into a category error.

 

[Lanefan]

But, what's the difference? The secret door being there or not is still authored into the fiction by one of the game's participants. What's the functional difference in who does it?

The difference is that the players have a direct and immediate interest in authoring a secret door right here right now as its presence will bail their asses out of some sticky situation. This puts them in a conflict of interest: gaining an immediate advantage in play vs long-term setting integrity.

Far rather that conflict of interest be removed via having setting elements such as these be locked in ahead of time. The GM has no such conflict of interest when she puts that secret door there ahead of time: she has no idea whether it'll ever be found and-or what the situation might be at the time. She just neutrally puts it there and then allows play to interact with it later in whatever manner might arise.

 

[Lanefan]

I think that D&D style characters are far more siloed than characters in Blades. Character's in D&D have very little mechanical effect on each other and as a result have a significantly different (and larger) cognitive distance from each other. Blades, on the other hand, demands that the players work as an actual team, in mechanical terms, at least some of the time. I might call the resulting difference immersion in the game (Blades) rather than strictly immersion in the character (D&D), although the former certainly includes the latter.

Edit: sorry, forgot the actual point, which is that the team approach really obviates the preciousness you sometimes see about character control and autonomy you see in conversations about traditional games.

I have no problem backing the concept of character autonomy. I'm a somewhat chaotic player and thus don't much enjoy situations where my character is supposed to just be a cog in a machine; I'd rather be able to both think and act independently, thank you very much.

 

[Fenris-77]

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?

A set of pre-planned clues and locations?

 

[Fenris-77]

I have no problem backing the concept of character autonomy. I'm a somewhat chaotic player and thus don't much enjoy situations where my character is supposed to just be a cog in a machine; I'd rather be able to both think and act independently, thank you very much.

I think you're perhaps misunderstanding my reply, which is maybe foreseeable given how I phrased it. I have marvelous character autonomy in that game. My character and @hawkeyefan 's are very different and do very different things well. We also do a lot of work as a team given the mechanics in questions, but that doesn't impact my character autonomy. YMMV of course.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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?

No, not really.

I think that what a game like Blades may not be good at is a more classically designed "whodunnit" kind of scenario rather than a mystery of the sort we played through.

Such a whodunnit is kind of expected to have a culprit and clues that can lead to the culprit, and having those set ahead of time could, in some way, make it tricky. It's kind of a set path, and Blades kind of works against such strong GM determined paths. Or at least, it very easily can do so.

But I'm not sure if that's accurate at this point, honestly. I think you might be able to do a scenario like that without predetermining everything and instead just let it emerge through play.

 

[Fenris-77]

You also assume the PCs will be pre-connected to each other; which as a player, though I'm not necessarily averse to the concept in principle, I dislike having forced on me.

Who's talking about force? This is the sort of thing you agree to in in the pitch and session zero (or not). It's not going to be a surprise unless the GM is a wanker.