What is the point of GM's notes?

[Campbell]

this is one reason why the fiction is a problem as a term: can’t you see how it plays much more strongly into story now rather than sandbox? And it is because the term

You might have a conception or model of what the greater setting might look like (I do when I run sandbox games) you use to inform the judgments you make as a GM, but that's not the same thing is a shared imagined space or shared fiction. It's impossible to play a shared game inside a mental model or conception that exists in one person's head. We play inside what game designers call The Magic Circle, our shared understanding. When we say something is established in the fiction we mean the shared fiction, not the GM's conception or mental model of the game's overall setting.

So I think what you are probably objecting to here is more the perceived elevation of the shared experience over your personal experience of your mental model. I'll admit to that. I think everything we do on both sides of the screen regardless of playstyle should be in service to that shared experience. That we play for each other, not ourselves. It's also what we all RPG shares, that here and now of the shared imagined space. Once you leave that shared space behind our ability to have a conversation about play that is amenable to a discussion of a variety of play paradigms becomes less viable in my opinion.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Oh, I agree. The bits about "fiction" are quite silly. But let's discuss more about the "living world" and how it eats PCs. What does it breath, and how does it survive the cold vacuum of space?

I'd ask about reproduction, but that's probably not Grandma friendly.

You've cracked me Omnivancer. I am about to reveal the dark, dark underbelly of the living world equivocation.

To answer your question. It doesn't eat player characters: it eats players. Countless men and women have died in service to this nefarious engine of our imaginations. But that really isn't the worst of it.

Living World equivocation happens more than I have acknowledged. In fact it happens a lot. And the price is high as the above illustrates . Not only does the living world devour the bodies of hapless players, what it does to their minds, is unimaginable. I once had a player equivocate so hard, he thought he was in a living world: he went full Tom Hanks. I only have the courage to visit him once, sometimes twice a year at the psychiatric hospital. He is so lost though, all I can do is give him some 'gold pieces' for him to spend on the drinking and gambling habits he's developed in his living world delusion (I never should have put so many gambling halls in the main city).

And no, you don't want to know about how the living world reproduces. You will just have to trust me on that one

 

[Emerikol]

Following that chain of thought leads to questions of how much of a fictional setting exists beyond what the characters encounter, which feels as though it's getting awfully close to angels-on-pins territory.

Well in order to benefit from deep world knowledge when adjudicating the game you have to have reliable world knowledge well established. It goes back to that premise. So my creative effort is on things that are added because they are not yet known vs things which have been established. High level overview stuff to the degree it's known is established. Kingdoms, history, etc... Sandbox style stuff that is created each time a new sandbox is made are not established. So I'd say one level more detailed than a World of Greyhawk Gazetteer is where I typically have far away places established.

Inside the sandbox, I tend to establish things that are fixed and I tend to not establish things that are not. Actual NPCs in town I establish. Where they are at at any given moment, I do not. I do create calendars etc.. but that could easily change even off camera. A lot of change is in world change because the world is a living world that changes. So those sorts of changes aren't really changing the truth but just progressing it along in time.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You might have a conception or model of what the greater setting might look like (I do when I run sandbox games) you use to inform the judgments you make as a GM, but that's not the same thing is a shared imagined space or shared fiction. It's impossible to play a shared game inside a mental model or conception that exists in one person's head. We play inside what game designers call The Magic Circle, our shared understanding. When we say something is established in the fiction we mean the shared fiction, not the GM's conception or mental model of the game's overall setting.

So I think what you are probably objecting to here is more the perceived elevation of the shared experience over your personal experience of your mental model. I'll admit to that. I think everything we do on both sides of the screen regardless of playstyle should be in service to that shared experience. That we play for each other, not ourselves. It's also what we all RPG shares, that here and now of the shared imagined space. Once you leave that shared space behind our ability to have a conversation about play that is amenable to a discussion of a variety of play paradigms becomes less viable in my opinion.

And this is why fiction is loaded. You are loading assumptions into the word and it has everything to do with style. I would argue, the stuff that happens at the table matters but so does the stuff the GM prepares. If the GM decides "This castle is going to exist in this spot, no matter what" it exists in the setting, whether the players find it or not (and that is important because it should exist in the setting in a sandbox whether they find it, they don't, they find it in session one, or they find it in session 10, and treating as existing matters because even if they don't directly encounter it, they may encounter signs of its existence-----if there are encounters in the area around the castle, very possible those encounters are inhabitance of said castle for example---even if the players don't realize that until ten or twenty sessions later)

 

[Ovinomancer]

You've cracked me Omnivancer. I am about to reveal the dark, dark underbelly of the living world equivocation.

To answer your question. It doesn't eat player characters: it eats players. Countless men and women have died in service to this nefarious engine of our imaginations. But that really isn't the worst of it.

Living World equivocation happens more than I have acknowledged. In fact it happens a lot. And the price is high as the above illustrates . Not only does the living world devour the bodies of hapless players, what it does to their minds, is unimaginable. I once had a player equivocate so hard, he thought he was in a living world: he went full Tom Hanks. I only have the courage to visit him once, sometimes twice a year at the psychiatric hospital. He is so lost though, all I can do is give him some 'gold pieces' for him to spend on the drinking and gambling habits he's developed in his living world delusion (I never should have put so many gambling halls in the main city).

And no, you don't want to know about how the living world reproduces. You will just have to trust me on that one

Interesting. What role do your notes have in this horrorscape?

 

[Emerikol]

So I think what you are probably objecting to here is more the perceived elevation of the shared experience over your personal experience of your mental model. I'll admit to that. I think everything we do on both sides of the screen regardless of playstyle should be in service to that shared experience. That we play for each other, not ourselves. It's also what we all RPG shares, that here and now of the shared imagined space. Once you leave that shared space behind our ability to have a conversation about play that is amenable to a discussion of a variety of play paradigms becomes less viable in my opinion.

Well I have accepted for purposes of our discussion that when you and others use the term "fiction" that you mean shared fiction. I've been in that mode now for a bit.

I believe though that you are missing our point about the non-shared fiction which we call the living world. We believe that living world enables the GM to be more effective when adjudicating the actions of NPCs/monsters/even nature inside the shared fiction. So our living world feeds the shared fiction and makes it better. At least that is true for us in our playstyle.

 

[Ovinomancer]

And this is why fiction is loaded. You are loading assumptions into the word and it has everything to do with style. I would argue, the stuff that happens at the table matters but so does the stuff the GM prepares. If the GM decides "This castle is going to exist in this spot, no matter what" it exists in the setting, whether the players find it or not (and that is important because it should exist in the setting in a sandbox whether they find it, they don't, they find it in session one, or they find it in session 10, and treating as existing matters because even if they don't directly encounter it, they may encounter signs of its existence-----if there are encounters in the area around the castle, very possible those encounters are inhabitance of said castle for example---even if the players don't realize that until ten or twenty sessions later)

Yes, "fiction" is very loaded. It means "stuff you made up" and also "novels." I think this describes your play very well, though, as your above passage is clearly a fictional work that suggests a story similar to a novel. As such, the word is very loaded because it bears a large load in describing your games. I think that "loaded" is a good term here, because many gamers are going to see that as "bearing a large weight," and, indeed, it is doing so here for your games, as you've described them, at least in a metaphorical sense. I am unclear, though, does your "fictional world," as it's eating your players, also bear a large weight? This is a solid question that I think will better illuminate your approach to gaming.

 

[prabe]

And this is why fiction is loaded. You are loading assumptions into the word and it has everything to do with style. I would argue, the stuff that happens at the table matters but so does the stuff the GM prepares. If the GM decides "This castle is going to exist in this spot, no matter what" it exists in the setting, whether the players find it or not (and that is important because it should exist in the setting in a sandbox whether they find it, they don't, they find it in session one, or they find it in session 10, and treating as existing matters because even if they don't directly encounter it, they may encounter signs of its existence-----if there are encounters in the area around the castle, very possible those encounters are inhabitance of said castle for example---even if the players don't realize that until ten or twenty sessions later)

So you're treating "in the notes" as "established in play." Which means it exists in the fiction before it appears, because you're privileging the GM's notes.

 

[prabe]

And no, you don't want to know about how the living world reproduces. You will just have to trust me on that one

Mitosis?

 

[Ovinomancer]

So you're treating "in the notes" as "established in play." Which means it exists in the fiction before it appears, because you're privileging the GM's notes.

Good point! It also means that the GM is establishing story -- ie, saying what is happening with characters and events -- removed from what's occurring in play at the table, so this really gets to "fiction" because it's both made up and writing a story like a novel or short story that is to be shared with an audience.

I'm starting to question why @Bedrockgames feels "fiction" doesn't describe his gaming....