What is the point of GM's notes?

[pemerton]

How do they discover? Other than by prompting or provoking the GM to tell them things?

by saying what they want to do, where they go, what they say, by asking the GM questions, etc.

How do the players, by saying things and asking questions, discover anything? Wouldn't someone have to respond to what they say and answer their question? And wouldn't that someone be the GM?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Surely you can see that it is impossible to take such a contention seriously?

I don’t see this at all. Plenty of people are running perfectly functioning and fulfilling sandbox campaigns on the basis of this metaphor and on the variety of tools. The metaphor is essential for understanding what you are doing. And I wouldn’t say it is only metaphorical: the GM is literally imagining a world. A world is not being literally made in physical form but a mental model is being created and given moving parts or a kind of life. And there is a fundamental exchange between players and GM at the table that can in very very simple form be reduced to “the GM describes what the players perceive, the players say what they do, the GM responds with a description, ruling, invoking a mechanic’. But your efforts to break down that process always seem extremely reductive, binary and to not describe what I experience at the table (and just seem to be an effort to minimize or deny the players ability to explore and involve themselves in an imagined place). If you can provide a description that truly describes what we are doing, that isn’t a trap and doesn’t seem like a playstyle argument in disquisition (better yet: is not a playstyle argument in disguise) I will happily use your language. So far you have failed to do that for me. And even if you do: to me this will always remain exploration of a loving world: I think any description of the process must start there for me

 

[Ovinomancer]

This is where we part on our opinions. Some well known authors have said stories are not written they are rewritten. As analogy in this case it makes sense. My point is that crafted fiction done ahead of time and thought through carefully will be better than off the cuff fiction on average. Now you can find a really bad crafter and a great improver and that might be an exception. I'm saying on average.

If you want to add "for the kind of immersion and verisimilitude I am seeking" then by all means add that caveat.

Except that you have no experience with the other approach, have said so yourself, and are making an assumption. Given the below, it's not a good one.

I understand how you do it. Each player, including the GM, at various times asserts some truth about the fiction and it is built up from that. I am not in the dark about your style.

This description is... look this could describe @pemerton's play, but if it does, it's so shallow that it describes your play as well. After all, in your play a player action declaration establishes a truth (the PC does this) that is then built upon (the GM narrates the result of the action), and the fiction goes on. At this level, this is trivial to the point of uselessness. If you mean that play is some kind of conch passing, then it's woefully incorrect. Either way, it certainly doesn't establish that you understand.

 

[Bedrockgames]

How do the players, by saying things and asking questions, discover anything? Wouldn't someone have to respond to what they say and answer their question? And wouldn't that someone be the GM?

no one is denying that the GM communicates the imagined model to them as they explore it. But I would say it is still more than just the GM telling them. And the GM refers to the model, to instinct, to the motivations of npcs, to what has arisen, in order to respond to players

 

[pemerton]

since the Gzm notes is also non literal I don’t see why my terminology is so horrible. But living world is the terminology I have always used. If you want to call it an imagined world or the GMs world (with imagined being assumed in the description) that seems accurate enough for me and it doesn’t confuse exploring an imagined location with exploring a real world city. No one is saying those are identical experiences.

no one is denying that the GM communicates the imagined model to them as they explore it. But I would say it is still more than just the GM telling them. And the GM refers to the model, to instinct, to the motivations of npcs, to what has arisen, in order to respond to players

When I read LotR, I "explore" Middle Earth by reading what JRRT wrote. I read the novel, I read the appendices. I learn things that JRRT is telling me.

No one can explore the contents of someone else's imagination unless that other person tells them. Communicates and tells are synonyms in this context.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It is not the same as what @Maxperson and @Bedrockgames are describing, because they both do contemplate the GM engaging in fictional creation during the play session. Maxperson especially. (This is why I keep getting confused by their repeated use of "we" and "our".)

In the style you are describing, when the players move their PCs from square to square of the map, and ask questions about what they see and are told things by the GM, they are very much learning what is in the GM's notes. In X2, for instance, the players learn about the different members of the Amber family, they find the portal to Averoigne, they find the ingredients they need to recover Stephen Amber's tomb, etc. There can't be any "exploration" without the GM telling them about these things.

1: It depends on the kind of campaign I am running

2: generally speaking I would have something like a secret door mapped in advance. Sometimes the players go somewhere not yet mapped and I have to decide at that moment. Sometimes they go somewhere mapped, ask if there is a secret door, and I consider it even if no secret door is marked on the map because it’s possible I was wrong not to put one down when I made the map. Generally speaking though you don’t want to shift things around and make them pop into existence when the players prod: it is just sometimes the world has a logic you ought to bow to when the players ask about something you overlooked in prep. World building is a lot of stone foundation in advance, elaboration at the table as things pan out and synergy as the players become more active and interact with the world

 

[Bedrockgames]

When I read LotR, I "explore" Middle Earth by reading what JRRT wrote. I read the novel, I read the appendices. I learn things that JRRT is telling me.

No one can explore the contents of someone else's imagination unless that other person tells them. Communicates and tells are synonyms in this context.

No they aren’t. He had to imagine it first. There is a difference between Tolkien sitting down and developing a world in his head, then putting it into prose so he can communicate that world versus him making it all up as he writes (also worth noting he is telling a story, you aren’t exploring in the way you can in an rpg). the experience of reading these is entirely different

 

[Bedrockgames]

No they aren’t. He had to imagine it first. There is a difference between Tolkien sitting down and developing a world in his head, then putting it into prose so he can communicate that world versus him making it all up as he writes (also worth noting he is telling a story, you aren’t exploring in the way you can in an rpg). the experience of reading these is entirely different

my he difference in an rpg is it is interactive. You are not simply being told things

 

[TwoSix]

One issue I have with calling everything a living world is that if nothing happens without the PCs being present then it's not a living world as I define it. A living world is one that changes and continues whatever the PCs do even if they just fall into a sleep for ten years. When they wake up the world will be different. It's the fact that NPCs have agendas that may or may not cross paths with the PCs anyway.

Come on now. No one is running games where if the PCs fall into a magical sleep for 10 years, they wake up and everything is exactly the same because the game isn't a living world.

Even in games driven by player narrative, the DM still has the responsibility to frame the next scene, and that framed fiction should, by necessity, be extrapolated from the previous fiction.

Honestly, the secret door example is such a bright line between the different play styles I don't know why we need another example. If there's a secret door in the dead end because the DM's map says so or because the DM rolls on a table, it's the "living world"/"DM's notes" way. If the player can expend a resource or a check to generate a secret door in the fiction, than it's a player focused method.

 

[pemerton]

the GM is literally imagining a world. A world is not being literally made in physical form but a mental model is being created and given moving parts or a kind of life. And there is a fundamental exchange between players and GM at the table that can in very very simple form be reduced to “the GM describes what the players perceive, the players say what they do, the GM responds with a description, ruling, invoking a mechanic’.

The players have no access to the GM's imagination except by the GM either speaking to them or drawing sketches.

Describe is a synonym, in this context, for tell or communicate. What you have stated - the GM describes what the players perceive, the players say what they do, the GM responds with a description, ruling, invoking a mechanic - is no different from what I have posted dozens, maybe hundreds, of times. The GM describing what the players (I think you mean PCs?) see is the GM telling them what is in his/her imagination. The GM responding to player action declarations with a description is the GM telling them more about what is in his/her imagination.

But your efforts to break down that process always seem extremely reductive, binary and to not describe what I experience at the table

The description you gave of the "fundamental exchange" is no different from anything I am posting. You assert that it is reductive to say that the GM tells the players what is in his/her imagination but think it is non-reductive to use the synonymous (in context) the GM describes to the players the world that they are perceiving.

As @Campbell has mentioned already in this thread, you seem to regard any description of the process that does not also valorise the aim and experience of your play as reductive. I don't regard it as incumbent on me to assure that you're enjoying your RPGing - I assume you can do that yourself. I am describing the process of play. And it's hardly foreign to me - I've engaged it in, a great deal, as player and as GM.