What is the point of GM's notes?

[Ovinomancer]

You still didn't answer the actual question but it doesn't matter as most of us have moved on from that line of discussion.

The question being "should we use different terms for "learning what's in the GM's conception of the fiction" for AP vs sandbox play?" I think he did answer that -- no, they are both doing this. The difference between would then be other terms in addition to this one. Like, saying a cat has retractable claws in addition to four legs while a dog does not have retractable claws in addition to four legs. Both having four legs is still a valuable statement, it's just not the sole descriptor for each. And, I hope we've moved past the claim that "playing to find out what the GM's conception of the fiction" is meant to be a sole descriptor rather than one among many.

 

[pemerton]

If the player tells me what his PC does, I don't have the option to decide if it's part of the shared fiction. It IS part of the shared fiction at the moment the player told me what his PC did.

<snip>

D&D allows the following.

1) DM contribution to the shared fiction without any players.
2) DM and player collaborative contribution to the shared fiction.(You don't need the DM to agree to this.)

I don't really get what is going on in (2). If the GM doesn't have to agree, where is the collaboration?

But anyway, there have been posters on this board - eg @Saelorn - who have expressly denied what you assert in the first part of this quote. They have said that an action declaration is simply a statement of what the player wants to be part of the shared fiction, but that it doesn't become part of the shared fiction until the GM approves it.

I also think it is, perhaps, continuing to conflate "setting" and "fiction." The former is a subset of the latter, and everything the players have their characters do changes the fiction.

The second sentence is true. But what I think tends to matter is what is the nature and degree of such change? If it is confined to adding into the fiction that the PC performed a certain bodily movement, or that such a bodily movement had some local result, but then the GM "manipulates" other offscreen elements to confine or minimise or negate any broader ramifications of these things the player hasn't changed the fiction very much.

There are various ways that my italicised thing in the previous paragraph can happen. One I associate with some modules/APs: the GM is instructed to do it in order to keep things "on track" - eg if the BBEG is killed early than a henchman takes over and keeps the plot going; if the PCs fail to save the world then some helpful NPC turns up and set things right; etc.

Another one I associate with sandboxing/"living world", in which the GM draws upon his/her sole-authored fiction that has not yet been revealed to the players (I also often call this secret backstory) to determine that the consequence of what the player successfully had his/her PC do is different from, or less significant than, the player intended. Eg the player does all the right things to learn the fate of his/her PC's long lost brother, and the GM reveals that it was a completely prosaic death in a minor plague five years earlier, with nothing more of consequence that follows.

I think that to the extent the GM is playing to discover the players' conceptions of their characters, the players have say over that; seems to mean the players are deciding what is emerging.

<snip>

The players can change my world--and have done so. Granted, in play that's been entirely through character action/s, but there've been changes based around backstories as well.

The next questions I would want to ask is who decided what the changes were? and what sorts of topics did the changes pertain to?

In most games that aren't using the AP-type techniques I mentioned above, the PCs can (say) set fire to a forest or kill a bandit leader. But who decides what happens - eg does killing the bandit leader cause the bandits to be cowed and flee? Or to fight back in revenge? Or to seek service with the victorious PC? In some RPGing, these sorts of things might be the stakes of actions declared by players for their PCs and so the GM would not be the one to unilaterally decided what the change is. In other RPGing the player can have his/her PC kill the bandit leader, but deciding what results from that is entirely up to the GM. In both cases it is true to say that the player changed the world but in the second case the causal influence was indirect - a prompt to the GM to do some authoring of the change in question.

As to topics: can the players make changes such as establishing that a 1,000 year old dungeon exists? Or can they only make changes that involve the future of the imagined world?

Note that both the above ways in which RPGs can differ are completely consistent with in play that's entirely through character actions. Burning Wheel depends entirely on character actions, and allows for players to decide not just that change will occur but what it will be (via the role of intent as well as task in resolving character actions) and permits players to make changes on topics like the presence of ancient dungeons (because of the way it resolves actions like I search in these hills for an ancient dungeon).

But to get the scope of player-change-of-setting found in BW, the role of the players has to go beyond presenting a conception of their characters. We have to look at how action declaration is understood and resolved.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I understand. I understand you are using definition a(imagined stuff) and I am expressing concern about equivocation to definition b(story) or even c (novel), my point is this equivocation is very likely arise because fiction and story are nearly synonyms the way fiction is used in speech (and it is nearly a synonym for literature as well).

But do you see how you're the only one who's actually done that? And that the conversation has become about that rather than anything else?

Now, I won't assume that was your intention....but that's what has happened. You have made the thing you were scared of happen! Like in classic works of fiction make believe!

 

[Ovinomancer]

But do you see how you're the only one who's actually done that? And that the conversation has become about that rather than anything else?

Now, I won't assume that was your intention....but that's what has happened. You have made the thing you were scared of happen! Like in classic works of fiction make believe!

Oh, gods, am I causing the procreation of living planets through equivocation because I'm scared of it?!?!1eleven!!?

 

[Maxperson]

I don't really get what is going on in (2). If the GM doesn't have to agree, where is the collaboration?

You aren't understanding. You don't need the DM to agree, because he can't do anything else but include it. The social contract forbids the DM from gatekeeping the player contributions until such time as he agrees with it. You don't need his agreement.

But anyway, there have been posters on this board - eg @Saelorn - who have expressly denied what you assert in the first part of this quote. They have said that an action declaration is simply a statement of what the player wants to be part of the shared fiction, but that it doesn't become part of the shared fiction until the GM approves it.

I can't see what @Saelorn says, but this wouldn't be the first time I disagree with his extreme positions. I think he's coming from the position that the DM has the power to say now, but having the power and using it are two different things. The police here in America have the power to search your home without a warrant or probable cause. If they arrived to do so, nobody could stop them. They have that power. Similarly, the DM has the power to say no to a player declaration. The player can't stop them. Engaging those powers, though, would be a violation of the Constitution(police)/Social Contact(DM).

 

[pemerton]

I think a game with little prep is not going to go very well.

Then you'd be wrong. I've run many games with little prep and some with no prep.

Here are links to games I ran with no prep. The first two were Cthulhu Dark. The third was Wuthering Heights. All went very well: the PCs were created, starting situations were envisaged, events unfolded as imagined by the participants and guided by the action resolution processes; and in each case a satisfying resolution was reached which no one had any anticipation of when we started.

I think this is a key insight about player skill. I would say player agency maybe on top of that. For example, in some games getting the group "in trouble" is built into the game and pretty hard to avoid. The dice will lead their eventually. Whereas, in theory at least, with careful planning and strategy, the group might accomplish their mission without getting into serious trouble. Then they have that "I love it when a plan comes together" feeling. A feeling of having overcome real obstacles.

Player agency is eminently possible in games that don't involve skilled play in the way you describe it. The skilled play that you describe is that of overcoming a problem or a puzzle. For instance, in my Classic Traveller game the players (via their PCs) confronted a problem: how do we get through 4 km of ice? The answer was fairly straightforward (and deliberately so on my part as GM, as I tend to downplay the role of that sort of problem-solving in my RPGing): use our starship's triple beam laser to blast it away!

But player agency can manifest in many other ways besides coming up with solutions to problems. Changing the fiction is the most generic form that player agency takes in RPGing, and not all changes to the fiction are solutions to problems. When my Burning Wheel characters encountered Evard's Tower that was a manifestation of player agency (given that I was the one to come up with the idea that the tower was in the general area and hence apt to be found) but it wasn't a solution to a problem. It was the cause of some though!

 

[Imaro]

What puzzles me a bit is that no one thinks that reading a book or listening to an audiobook or podcast is boring or stupid. Lots of people do that.

Lots of people also read Choose Your Own Adventure books or play Fighting Fantasy books; or engage with their equivalents in computer game form.

I'm not sure why it's pejorative to point out that, in doing this, the reader/player learns what the author was imagining. That's kind of the point!

Can I ask why this is so important to you?

EDIT: I mean it's a playstyle you don't particularly enjoy or advocate for so why is it so important that you get to name it?

EDIT 2: At this point it's starting to feel like a power or control thing vs. a seeking analyzation and understanding thing

 

[hawkeyefan]

No. You don't get to force the definition of Living World into 7 words or less. Not everything can or should be forced into such a small definition. We have defined it for you. You can accept it or not as you choose, but if you don't accept it, then there we go.

I'm not trying to force anyone to do anything. My point was that concern over the term "fiction" versus the term "living world" seems silly because when asked what I mean by fiction, I can very clearly say "make believe" or "definition 2 from the dictionary" and then we should be able to move on with that understanding.

By contrast, the term "living world" is open to all manner of interpretations and based on descriptions that have been offered, it's not always easy to define. As such, the term is much more prone to equivocation of the kind BRG has described.

Although, I'd also add that it's even more prone to another definition of equivocation, which is to use vague language in an attempt to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself.

 

[pemerton]

It is a well established truth that authors who know their world well before writing are more likely on average to produce a compelling and immersive world.

Is it? The Phoenix on the Sword is pretty compelling as far as fantasy stories go. And yet REH was pretty much making it up as he went along.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Upthread you posted the definition of equivocation. You can use different meanings of a word in the same discussion without equivocation. It's when you use multiple meanings within a single argument that you start equivocating.

An example would be if you said something like, "I'm talking about fiction as a story, not fiction as imagined stuff." and I responded with, "Fiction means imagined stuff and fiction means story, therefore fictional imagined stuff is the same as fictional story." My response there would be equivocation. Another way would be, " I have the right to watch "The Real World." Therefore it's right for me to watch the show." There multiple uses are also being used within a single argument.

Absolutely. I am not disagreeing there. Terms can be consistently applied. But I have objected to the term The Fiction anytime someone has asked me to sign off on a description of what I do and invoked the term because it is so equivocable. The fiction has strong connotations d of story and literature. Not vague, not mild: strong. One of the first things you see if you look it up is ‘a type of literature’. Given that there is so much dispute around the role of story in RPGs, why use a term that suggests story and novels when describing what happens in play? It just seems like a bad word to select if your aim is neutral clear terms to analyze play (one that squeezes in sone of these meanings just in its use, even when big isn’t intended, and one very prone to equivocation). I can elaborate more later when I have time, but you will see that I frequently object to using this term myself on these grounds. I don’t think it is exactly reaching on my part to see potential problems there