What is the point of GM's notes?

[Maxperson]

I am saying that specialization in the moment matters. That for any given moment in time or space of time that we cannot serve all masters equally. That specificity of technique matters. Diversity of play helps a good deal, but we cannot experience it all at once. I also play and run games utilizing a variety of techniques. You should know that based on my posting history in this thread and elsewhere.

I am simply talking about managing cognitive load, mental stress, and effective utilization of our limited energy. It's Athletics 101, but it's also Creativity 101. We all have limitations. Acknowledging and working around our limitations helps us to improve.

Okay. That makes more sense, but I'm not seeing where that conflicts with what @estar wrote. He wasn't saying to use multiple techniques at any given moment. He was saying to draw upon the different techniques that you've mastered and pick the best one for the moment. You're still specializing and using only one tool, but the more tools you have to draw upon, the more likely you will have one that works great for that moment and results in player fun.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I am not saying there are only two approaches here. That's a category error. My basic argument is that there is a cost to everything we do - effort spent in one direction is effort that is not available elsewhere. There is also a cognitive cost in that one sort of prep or time spent focusing more on high level strategizing during the session affects our mental processing. That we do not get to have the best of all worlds ever.

What I often get from your commentary seems to imply that these sorts of tradeoffs do not exist for you.

Maybe I misunderstand what you mean by mental trade offs. But I am not suggesting that trade offs don't exist or that you have infinite energy to distribute. I think it is often more about what you like dwelling on, what procedures make sense to you, etc. I know some GMs who focus a lot on acting, and acting out their NPCs, to the point that it is clear a lot of their energy is going in that direction. And they seem to get more energy out of doing that through interacting with people. For them that works and it probably doesn't take much away from drawing the dungeon and populating it. But for me, I would find that exhausting as a GM. It would take away from drawing the dungeon. Thinking about structures in the game world, thinking about NPCs, charting this all out, doesn't feel like work to me if that makes sense. It is a part of the hobby I really like. So it doesn't feel as enervating as the above to me

 

[robconley]

Could you explain that further? I've seen the social contract used with the force of rules, but not mechanics, so I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Consider rules and mechanics to be synonymous in my reply.

 

[Aldarc]

My problem with social contract mechanics is that they are cast as mechanics. At least in western civilization it is heavily drilled into folks from a young age that you play a game by its rules or you are cheating. Transferring what should be part of Human Relationship 101 into game mechanics now has different dynamic as a set of game rules. Game mechanics are too rigid of a form to be successful as a guide for human relationship.

If I'm perfectly honest, this feels like a patronizing "old man yells at clouds" sort of take on the issue of games having explicit social contract mechanics, rules, principles, and guidelines, particularly with the appeals to "western civilization" values that are "drilled into" you bit.

Consider rules and mechanics to be synonymous in my reply.

...doesn't help anything or make it less problematic.

I do think critically about my games. I give them a great deal of thought, and I am equally critical of myself and my own ideas. But that doesn't mean I am going to reach the same conclusions as you and pemerton or put things into he same terms and frameworks as you and pemerton. Me disagreeing with your analysis doesn't mean I am not thinking critically (and by the way, I think you disagreeing with me doesn't reflect anything like that about you either).

I will trust your word that you do think critically about your games. However, I think that the issue is less about the conclusions you reach and more about your ability to express yourself critically and in concrete ways. It often feels like we waste pages upon pages trying to fish basic or concrete answers out of you about your games. Your posts often feel evasive or being overly defensive/sensitive and when we do somehow get answers, they often come across as idealized, romanticized, or genericized. It feels less like it's trying to resist reductionism so much as it does trying to resist anything that goes deeper or beyond this sort of idealized "living world" end aesthetic. So it would be nice if the critical thinking that you do do is more regularly reflected in the content of your postings, particularly in ways that engaged the subject matter rather than expressing how insulted you feel by the word "notes" for the umpteenth million time. I know from the perspective of someone who was reading along in this thread and then later participating that this has been the somewhat regularly frustrating thing about reading your posts.

 

[Maxperson]

Consider rules and mechanics to be synonymous in my reply.

Okay. Personally, I don't consider them to be one and the same. Having a rule that one player has to bring potato chips doesn't seem like a mechanic to me.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I will trust your word that you do think critically about your games. However, I think that the issue is less about the conclusions you reach and more about your ability to express yourself critically and in concrete ways. It often feels like we waste pages upon pages trying to fish basic or concrete answers out of you about your games. Your posts often feel evasive or being overly defensive/sensitive and when we do somehow get answers, they often come across as idealized, romanticized, or genericized. It feels less like it's trying to resist reductionism so much as it does trying to resist anything that goes deeper or beyond this sort of idealized "living world" end aesthetic. So it would be nice if the critical thinking that you do do is more regularly reflected in the content of your postings, particularly in ways that engaged the subject matter rather than expressing how insulted you feel by the word "notes" for the umpteenth million time. I know from the perspective of someone who was reading along in this thread and then later participating that this has been the somewhat regularly frustrating thing about reading your posts.

I don't know Aldarc. I feel I have been offering very clear concrete examples (I have done so in other threads too). I have even posted links to videos and podcast of me playing or running games. I have posted links to my blogs. I have posted sections from my own games (knowing many in the room are hostile towards me). I don't think I have been evasive. In terms of romantic language. I don't know what to say there. Living world is a common expression among sandbox GMs. As are most of the other terms I used (and I was happy to break those terms down, explain how I use them, and explain how I thought other people used them). I do generally resist labels that seem insulting. That isn't that weird. I am sure if I tried to characterize player authored games uncharitably or inaccurately, and insisted I was just doing objective analysis, you guys would object too.

 

[prabe]

My problem with social contract mechanics is that they are cast as mechanics. At least in western civilization it is heavily drilled into folks from a young age that you play a game by its rules or you are cheating. Transferring what should be part of Human Relationship 101 into game mechanics now has different dynamic as a set of game rules. Game mechanics are too rigid of a form to be successful as a guide for human relationship.

I meant something more along the lines of the difference between a social contract around the table concerning, e.g., how much consideration the GM will give the PC's needs/goals/history, and specific rules that tell the people at the table how much consideration will be given. Or, how much and how often authority will be shared around the table. If I want to do that in my 5E games, I need to explicitly hack the system or implicitly hack the social contract; someone running, say, Blades in the Dark has those rules right there.

I don't disagree that game rules are not the way to handle out of game problems, but that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about games that take some steps to codify the social contract as far as who does what in the game. I suppose in a way I'm talking about table-safety stuff, too (like the X-card) but most of what I've seen in that space is pretty system-agnostic.

 

[robconley]

If I'm perfectly honest, this feels like a patronizing "old man yells at clouds" sort of take on the issue of games having explicit social contract mechanics, rules, principles, and guidelines, particularly with the appeals to "western civilization" values that are "drilled into" you bit.

Sorry you feel that way but I can't see how a game author can write a better essay on small group dynamics than somebody who specializes in the subject.

doesn't help anything or make it less problematic.

A poster asked to clarify what I meant . I did. If you are reading more into my use of mechanics versus rules then you will go nowhere. @Maxperson said "I consider having one player bring the potato chips a rule not a mechanics." I understand his point, and I understand the source of confusion.

Moving on, rather engaging my point whether it better to read a book on small group dynamics versus a game author writing about how to handle dynamics of a small group playing RPGs. You elected to resort to insult.

If you think an game author has the better insight then good for you. I happen to disagree. I think nearly all the game authors have too narrow of an experience base to offer generally useful advice when it comes to dealing with the nuances of small group dynamics. Especially when there books by authors who studied this as their career. Among the things addressed are how to get folks on the same page about what to do together and to make that process a fair one where everybody is heard. If you expand this to how to deal with amateur sports organizations then you will learn some useful technique to sue when the participant are not just in the group but competing with each other. But competition among players is situational when it comes to RPG and not always applicable.

If one doesn't want take the time to learn this stuff and go the quick and easy route that fine too. Just don't complain when things come up short and don't work out. Like anything it takes time and study to become good at handling small group dynamics.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So I have two examples in mind, of similar situations in two different games that I've recently run for my players. It was the same players in both cases, all of whom I am familiar with from years of friendship and gaming. One is D&D 5E and the other is Blades in the Dark. Both involve an NPC in the given game who serves as an enemy of the PCs in that game, and specifically as a rival of one PC in particular. I'm gonna describe how my GM Notes came into play for each, and how that facilitated play, or provided some other kind of benefit.

D&D 5E

• NPC villain has connections to PC- both were apprentices to a wizard that the NPC wound up slaying at the behest of an evil faction
• Has clear goals that I've set before hand- he's a classic toady in the sense that all he wants is to be treated as an equal among the evil faction, but he will never get that
• He is useful to the evil faction, and helps their cause, but is never acknowledged as a true member
• As a result, he hates what he has done and what he has become, and those in the evil faction who are his allies- he'd love nothing more than the change to bring it all crashing down around them
• He's still unrepentantly evil and horrible- perhaps even more so because of all that he's been through

So he's still currently furthering the ends of the evil faction, but really no longer cares about any of it, and he's just waiting for some moment to try and sabotage all they've done, or else somehow seize power for himself. He's got elements of Gollum and StarScream and similar characters.

These notes give me a sense of how to portray him. They also indicate some ways in which the PCs could interact with him; clearly, they may want to eliminate him (especially the one whose master he killed), but if they realize how far gone he is, perhaps they could capitalize on that, and turn him into an asset, if not an ally.

So I have a very strong sense of this character. I know his goals, I can reasonably take some PC action that interacts with him, and then craft his response in a believable way. I'd say this is the way in which my GM Notes help me. I know this guy very well and can reasonably predict how he'd behave in any situation.

The way that they may hinder me is that I've kind of already plotted things out to an extent, haven't I? I mean, exactly how it goes will depend on the PCs, I expect, but still.....certain paths would seem far more likely than others. How much of a hindrance this may be is probably dependent on taste. For my purposes, and for those of my players, there seems to be plenty of opportunity here for player input with the PCs to influence how things go, and so I'm comfortable with it.

Blades in the Dark

• NPC villain has connections to a PC - both served in the army together a few years before the start of the game
• His goals are not specifically defined, all we know is that there was some kind of falling out or bad blood between the NPC and the PC, and that the NPC is now a vicious killer
• I introduced the NPC into a score as a complication on a failed roll- the PC rolled a Failure to try and bluff his way past some officials into a property owned by another faction, and I had the Rival show up- he had not previously been seen in play

As you can see here, the notes are minimal. All I know is that they have a contentious relationship, and that the guy is a vicious killer. I had the guy show up and say something like "Oh if it isn't Cross Coleburn as I live and breathe" and then the NPC guards the PC was trying to trick are onto him. They try and seize the PC, but he manages to make a hasty escape.

So what was the Rival doing there? Was he affiliated with the faction who owned the property? Was he also working against them like the PCs were? Was it simply chance? Was he there specifically to interfere with the PCs' plans?

I didn't know the answer to any of these questions at the time. Some of them did indeed get answered in play, but I'm not going to elaborate on them other than to say that the player had some interesting ideas on why he may have been there, and I was able to incorporate those ideas into the game.

The drawback, if there was one, was that my portrayal of the NPC was based on a very minimal sketch. I didn't have an elaborate backstory to offer ideas on how he'd behave. However, I don't think I needed one. I was actually free to portray him in any way I want. I mean, "vicious killer" and "former soldier" as your touchpoints would seem to yield all manner of NPCs. I was free to depict him how I thought it made sense in that moment.

In this case, having very minimal notes was no hindrance at all. In fact, it was a good thing because this Rival's ultimate role in play was shaped very much by the player, with some input from me and the other players, as well. His presence at the Score actually prompted questions that sparked ideas and creativity, and we were able to harness that creativity, and not watch it go to waste in favor of some idea I already had ahead of time. My portrayal of the NPC instead flavored the backstory that emerged as we determined their relationship and history in play.

It had the added benefit of me as GM being able to be surprised by the situation with this NPC, and the relationship between him and hte rival PC. I hadn't defined their history together, so I was able to be surprised by it. I like that feeling when I GM. I think it's one of the best things that can happen.

***********

Now, these are different games, and neither is right nor wrong. Different people may favor one approach over another. Some players may balk at having any ability to help shape the game's fiction in any way beyond character generation. Some GMs will struggle to come up with ideas if they're not determined ahead of time.

But ultimately, there are notes involved in both instances, and those notes inform play. It just seems to me that they do so in different ways.

 

[robconley]

The way that they may hinder me is that I've kind of already plotted things out to an extent, haven't I? I mean, exactly how it goes will depend on the PCs, I expect, but still.....certain paths would seem far more likely than others. How much of a hindrance this may be is probably dependent on taste. For my purposes, and for those of my players, there seems to be plenty of opportunity here for player input with the PCs to influence how things go, and so I'm comfortable with it.

I say you described tersely how the character exist in the setting. I am not sure what you think the possible hinderances are? Either the NPCs life will intersect the PC's life in which case the prep is useful. If they never do then it wasn't useful except perhaps the enjoyment it brought you while sketching the character out.

The Blades in the Dark version is even more tersely described with the specific pushed to later. Blades in the Dark is designed in part to facilitate this kind of thing. Very rough sketch first, details fleshed out later in the interest of getting on with play.

The former can be an issue if your time is limited and need to make every moment of prep count. The latter can be an issue because the campaign develops differently as the details are made up after when they are needed.

None of this is good or bad it just how it is when you use one or the other.