What is the point of GM's notes?

[Imaro]

This is all true.
In 5e D&D one can introduce a mechanic whereby when a PC uses their Inspiration, the DM gains a token.
The DM may, if the PC's flaw works within the moment's fiction, use such token to hinder* the PC, thus weaponising as you've put it.

* Raise the DC required by 5 or incur the disadvantage mechanic on the die roll.

The other method is the DM offering the PC an Inspiration point to incur disadvantage on their roll by activating their flaw (again if it works for the fiction in the moment). I have not had much success with this method.

I wonder how much this has to do with genre though? I'll be honest when I think of heroic or adventure fantasy... I can't think of too many protagonists who fail when it's life or death due to something like alcoholism. They can be alcoholics and display it in plenty of situations where it's an inconvenience or embarrassing but rarely does it end up getting them killed. While in a genre like urban horror, say something like the Kult rpg that is inspired by movies like Seven and by Clive Barker stories I could totally see a protagonist failing in a life or death situation due to alcoholism. I think 5e's genre for the most part is supposed to be heroic fantasy and dying to a goblin with a rusty dagged because you were drunk doesn't line up with most people's genre expectations very well. Personally I think this is why the flaws, ideals, bonds, etc are kept light because in the genre it is inspired by they usually are. That's not to say they can't easily be given more weight, I've done it on my own games.

 

[Emerikol]

A further comment about inhabiting the inner mental life of one's character, as a player (building on my post 2016 upthread).

It relates to what @Bedrockgames has said about "mental models", and what @prabe has said about spontaneous production of fiction.

When, as a player of a character who is trained in the lore of the great masters and who is intent on finding spellbooks to enhance her repertoire of magic, I think Isn't Evard's tower around here, I am engaging in the same mental process as the GM who, in response to a question from a player, feels that there is no logical or possible answer but this is how things are in the gameworld.

In my view both are acts of authorship. But to the extent that someone is hesitant to use that word, because it doesn't feel like making things up, then that is as true for the player playing the character as the GM "playing" the world.

I think that for me at least I would be as unsatisfied if the GM made it up at that moment as I would if the PC made it up. I will readily say that historically my rejection of campaigns has been more about GM's making too much stuff up on the fly than it has been about players authoring the fiction. I suspect my belief that a GM can't effectively make up something so central to the game in a believable way is why I am hesitant about players doing it.

Face it, the average GM is more knowledgeable and more invested than the average player. Now there are players who are every bit as invested. GM's play too and of course there are just really good players. So I said "on average". So my doubt that a good GM can pull it off just continues on to players doing it.

 

[Emerikol]

Yet in real life some people, sometimes, screw up at key moments because of (say) alcoholism.

So one possibility is no PC in this game will ever be an alcoholic. In my experience that's basically how classic D&D plays.

I think generally this is how my games have went. D&D doesn't really have a disadvantages system so it's not really been a big challenge. There are disadvantages though you could put on a PC that would be playable like bad eyesight which would just give negatives in certain instances. But those involving willpower vs addiction, are hard to do without going to metagame approaches which is too high a cost for me. Even with a player that would roleplay an addiction in a believable way, I would not like it because it's still separating the player from the character.

 

[Emerikol]

Sort of. I have tables for determining historical developments and events. Something like this:

This is a great approach and works on a small scale too. It's a great way if you reach the end of your calendar to generate new events on into the future. Inside a sandbox, it keeps the GM somewhat honest.

I even think rolling for reactions to actions by the players that influence an NPC is a good idea. If the PCs attack an lair and end up retreating, what do the inhabitants do? You could just use common sense based on what you know about them. You might though assign probabilities with the largest being what you think is most likely but the other options are possible and roll for it. It keeps the GM from falling into a rut and becoming predictable.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I wonder how much this has to do with genre though? I'll be honest when I think of heroic or adventure fantasy... I can't think of too many protagonists who fail when it's life or death due to something like alcoholism. They can be alcoholics and display it in plenty of situations where it's an inconvenience or embarrassing but rarely does it end up getting them killed. While in a genre like urban horror, say something like the Kult rpg that is inspired by movies like Seven and by Clive Barker stories I could totally see a protagonist failing in a life or death situation due to alcoholism. I think 5e's genre for the most part is supposed to be heroic fantasy and dying to a goblin with a rusty dagged because you were drunk doesn't line up with most people's genre expectations very well. Personally I think this is why the flaws, ideals, bonds, etc are kept light because in the genre it is inspired by they usually are. That's not to say they can't easily be given more weight, I've done it on my own games.

Sure. I was not delving into genre but looking at a possible mechanic solely in relation to Aldarc's post about the "conveniently forgotten" character flaws.
Also, I guess as your example highlights, different DMs would use such flaw tokens differently. Goblins killing a PC due to alcoholism isn't what I would consider working within the fiction. Perhaps there should be a further limitation in how the DM could utilise such token. Trust works great at tables you are familiar with not so much with strangers.

 

[prabe]

I think that for me at least I would be as unsatisfied if the GM made it up at that moment as I would if the PC made it up. I will readily say that historically my rejection of campaigns has been more about GM's making too much stuff up on the fly than it has been about players authoring the fiction. I suspect my belief that a GM can't effectively make up something so central to the game in a believable way is why I am hesitant about players doing it.

Face it, the average GM is more knowledgeable and more invested than the average player. Now there are players who are every bit as invested. GM's play too and of course there are just really good players. So I said "on average". So my doubt that a good GM can pull it off just continues on to players doing it.

My experience is that players do (or ask about) things I didn't anticipate. There are times--my last Saturday session was one--where I look at where the PCs are and I realize I have literally no idea what they'll do or ask, after a few things pending from the previous session (the players are more-than-reasonable about letting me work out answers between sessions, where it fits to do so); in those instances I prep very little--this past Saturday I prepped literally nothing at all (other than answering a couple pending things). I don't think the fact the session was more-improvised than most sessions I run was damaging to anyone's suspension of disbelief. Now, I'm running in a setting I've made up, and I know it pretty well, so--especially since the PCs weren't spoiling for a fight right away--I was able to fall back on that. I wouldn't argue that I'm more knowledgeable about my setting than the players are, but I'd be kinda reluctant to say I'm that much more committed to it.

 

[Aldarc]

I think there might be a fourth possibility. In this possibility the player has declared his character an alcoholic and it is for the most part a flavor thing with the option for the player to choose when and how severely it affects their character mechanically, gaining a minor benefit when it does affect them in game.

IME this is how I've seen the modern version of D&D play out. One of my players takes alcoholism as their flaw, whether it is a focus of their character, a hindrance that pops up a majority of the time or an addiction that they manage to control for the most part is entirely up to them and since the reward is minimal the player doesn't feel forced to lean into it any more than they want to. Commonly the effects of actually drinking alcohol in-game are decided in one of two ways... either the DM and player talk it out and come to an agreement or it is usually codified through an equipment like list.

Of course, but to bring this to my earlier point, as I think that a potential pitfall of this fourth possibility again comes from minimizing/excising character flaws in practice, particularly when it comes to the ability "for the player to choose when and how severely it affects their character," as there is a potential conflict of interest between the player's rational meta-analysis of play (e.g., win/victory conditions of the game) and the character's own irrational psychology (e.g., the character's alcoholism). A "hinderance" than can be easily turned off or on at-will by the player as convenient for them is often in practice not a hinderance at all.

 

[prabe]

When, as a player of a character who is trained in the lore of the great masters and who is intent on finding spellbooks to enhance her repertoire of magic, I think Isn't Evard's tower around here, I am engaging in the same mental process as the GM who, in response to a question from a player, feels that there is no logical or possible answer but this is how things are in the gameworld.

In my view both are acts of authorship. But to the extent that someone is hesitant to use that word, because it doesn't feel like making things up, then that is as true for the player playing the character as the GM "playing" the world.

I wanna comment on this, since I was tagged into the larger post:

I agree that both of these are authorship, and I am clear, now (though I might not have been clear or stated it clearly in the past) that my preferences in GMing-style are very much mostly centered around being much more comfortable GMing when the vast majority facts I have to keep track of are the ones I add; there's also at least a little bit of bad experience with worlds where different people wanted different things in the world seeming muddled.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I agree, but until-unless we get all the players wearing DM-controllable virtual-reality headsets with the whole setting programmed in it's kind of all we've got.

Not at all. People are literally sharing other ways of doing that in this thread, and have in many others that you've read.

It's really real!!!!

In part, this is why I tend to like playing characters who are foreign to the adventuring area when first starting a new campaign: I can discover the region along with my character. Then for a future character in the same game I can play a local and have some local knowledge already built in.

Sure, that's a perfectly fine way to play. I do think it works for certain approaches, or certain types of games. I don't think I'd ever want that to be the default for my PCs. I prefer when my PC actually feels like a part of the world....that they existed and had a life before the game starts, and that those past experiences can matter to what we do in the game.

That makes me feel much more involved and immersed than if we're both strangers arriving in a new frontier in every game.

I think there might be a fourth possibility. In this possibility the player has declared his character an alcoholic and it is for the most part a flavor thing with the option for the player to choose when and how severely it affects their character mechanically, gaining a minor benefit when it does affect them in game.

IME this is how I've seen the modern version of D&D play out. One of my players takes alcoholism as their flaw, whether it is a focus of their character, a hindrance that pops up a majority of the time or an addiction that they manage to control for the most part is entirely up to them and since the reward is minimal the player doesn't feel forced to lean into it any more than they want to. Commonly the effects of actually drinking alcohol in-game are decided in one of two ways... either the DM and player talk it out and come to an agreement or it is usually codified through an equipment like list.

This sounds like it's a bit of flavor and not much else. Kind of like the Traits, Bonds, Ideals, and Flaws of 5E D&D. It's there, and it potentially helps give a sense of character, but it doesn't influence play a lot, and usually only when the player would like it to.

And that's fine. I think some of us here in the discussion prefer when something like a character's flaw may actually be a flaw that causes trouble for them. I prefer that, I think. That can be achieved through some mechanical carrot, maybe offered by the GM or maybe suggested by the player....I think Fate does this, though my experience with that game is minimal. Blades in the Dark does it by simply offering XP if the PC struggles with their Vice or their Traumas; so it's still up to the player, but it offers them a whole new XP trigger that they can use to advance.

These kinds of mechanics make it so that the character traits of the characters are more central to play. They actually come up and matter, so that the game is actually about them.

Again, this is possible to do with something like D&D 5E's Traits and Flaws, but it will require a player who is wiling to work at it, and maybe some effort on the part of the DM make sure that it carries more weight.

 

[prabe]

Of course, but to bring this to my earlier point, as I think that a potential pitfall of this fourth possibility again comes from minimizing/excising character flaws in practice, particularly when it comes to the ability "for the player to choose when and how severely it affects their character," as there is a potential conflict of interest between the player's rational meta-analysis of play (e.g., win/victory conditions of the game) and the character's own irrational psychology (e.g., the character's alcoholism). A "hinderance" than can be easily turned off or on at-will by the player as convenient form them is often in practice not a hinderance at all.

This is true. There's also a difference between a player wanting to turn off a hindrance so they can succeed in-game, and a player not wanting to deal with a hindrance for out-of-game reasons (they don't feel like dealing with a story about alcoholism at the game table tonight). A player who doesn't want yet another session to center around that hindrance, after some number recently, is different from both of those, but closer to the latter.

Looking at that, I guess it's pretty clear what my largest issue with such systems is ...