What is the point of GM's notes?

[hawkeyefan]

The DM probably says something about hearing rumors of blah blah blah. Something that big would be talked about all over. The players wouldn't need to inquire.

And yes it does. It's also not a recitation. The players are free to investigate or not as they please.

What do you mean?

I meant how do these things come up? Is it the result of the PCs asking around, or perhaps an interaction with an NPC or some similar action? Do the PCs somehow elicit this information from the GM? Or does the GM simply decide to tell them some random stuff?

Because I would expect the context to matter quite a lot. And if it's in some way elicited by the PCs, what places it "outside of their bubble"?

Yes, but they roll it and establish those events prior to the PCs learning about it and set the timing of the event. It happens independently of the PCs.

You can say whatever you like. Free speech and all that.

But seriously, nothing is perfect. You might mistake a living world for not or vice versa before you get to know a DM.

So would you say that, ultimately, it's the players or the GM who determines if a world feels living?

 

[innerdude]

From where I sit, it's becoming clear that the "living world" descriptor is apparently about the same as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's definition of obscenity---"you'll know it when you see it."

There's some arbitrary time frame in which a GM must have prefabricated some significant percentage of the world, but there's no firm definition of what percentage has to be prefabricated to cross the line from "improv" to "living world." Furthermore, elements cannot be introduced to the players any earlier than 10 business days after being prefabricated, otherwise you're just "improv-ing" and not "staying true to a living world," and abandon all hope, ye who enter therein.

And of course, any GM who isn't attempting to live up to the arbitrary standards of "living world" play is having shallow, trite roleplaying experiences, and GMs playing those hippie-dippie, baloney "Story Now" games (which barely qualify as RPGs at all, if even) should just go away and leave the purity of the "living world" experience alone, and stop ruining gaming groups and causing contention with all of this "game theory" nonsense.

Listening to "living world" proponents try and describe actual play processes reminds me of a scene in the U2 concert movie Rattle and Hum, where the movie director is interviewing the band.

Phil Joanou (the director): "So what's the film about?"

Larry Mullen Jr. (the drummer): "It's sort of a musical journey, really . . . you know . . . ."

<The whole band giggles and scofflaws at the pretentious inanity of Larry's comment>

Adam Clayton (the bassist): What the movie is about . . . is, when a band is developing, it goes through certain stages. And for us, we're not the same band as we were when we recorded the War album, for instance, and that was . . . we captured that with Under a Blood Red Sky. And we just wanted to capture this period of the band to . . . oh f*** it, I don't know . . . ."

<Band laughs and banters>

Phil Joanou (more insistent): "What's the film about?"

Larry Mullen Jr.: <already giggling> "It's a musical journey!"


So until we get a better definition, the programmer in me is going to define it as,

const livingWorld = "It's a musical journey!"

 

[AnotherGuy]

For my part, the living, breathing world goal is used in an attempt to (1) heighten immersion and to (2) infer some measure of Skilled Play. Enough people have spoken about (1) in this thread so I'm not going to focus on this at all - but I did try address (2) upthread with a question to @Manbearcat which got lost in the posts.

Again for me, I'm not interested in secret GM notes which do not impact the game in some way, so in the example of this meteorite event that wiped out 1/2 a city, in my game it would have to some sort of knock-on effect, whether it is an influx in refugees, perhaps a shortage of a certain material or two, rising costs of equipment...etc. It needs to affect decision making otherwise as a DM I'm just doing a Meg Ryan.

Essentially the techniques used for one's typical D&D version of living, breathing world are DM decides, rolling off tables (if a DM is that industrious) and/or rolling out pre-planned specific timed events. The last two IMO infer some measure of Skilled Play. I liken this to BitD which has the clocks system, and as we have heard in this thread, not all clocks are player-facing.

 

[Manbearcat]

For my part, the living, breathing world goal is used in an attempt to (1) heighten immersion and to (2) infer some measure of Skilled Play. Enough people have spoken about (1) in this thread so I'm not going to focus on this at all - but I did try address (2) upthread with a question to @Manbearcat which got lost in the posts.

Again for me, I'm not interested in secret GM notes which do not impact the game in some way, so in the example of this meteorite event that wiped out 1/2 a city, in my game it would have to some sort of knock-on effect, whether it is an influx in refugees, perhaps a shortage of a certain material or two, rising costs of equipment...etc. It needs to affect decision making otherwise as a DM I'm just doing a Meg Ryan.

Essentially the techniques used for one's typical D&D version of living, breathing world are DM decides, rolling off tables (if a DM is that industrious) and/or rolling out pre-planned specific timed events. The last two IMO infer some measure of Skilled Play. I liken this to BitD which has the clocks system, and as we have heard in this thread, not all clock are player-facing.

I must have missed this or forgotten it. Can you send me the question again, please (apologies)?

 

[Aldarc]

So if something’s made up on the spot, then that can't be a living world? What if a roll on a random table is made? I’ve seen a lot of living world proponents endorse random tables.

What if I’m playing a new game of 5E D&D with a GM I don’t know well yet. He shares details and I’m not sure if they’re made up ahead of time or on the spot.

Am I not allowed to say “wow this GM is good at portraying a living world”?

This seems at odds with how Bedrockgames described how his living world sandbox games work, which involved, in his own words, making stuff up on the spot based upon the player questions asked or the actions taken, albeit with the goal of making it believable.

 

[pemerton]

the DM should know a good bit about the off camera world and it should be changing over time. That is the minimum for me to think it is a living world as I've used the term. The off camera world is the world unseen by anyone during an actual play session.

This sounds like what @Manbearcat upthread called "setting solitaire".

I do think that the detail of knowledge you have lessens as you expand out from the sandbox. So the sandbox is pretty detailed. And other areas outside the sandbox don't have nearly that level of detail.

No one can track everything they interact with in every place they do so and figure it all out.

<snip>

If the DM is planning events that happen now and again, whether selected, from a random table or some combination, and has some interactions develop into more, the feel of the world moving around them, but outside of them is generated.

Nobody can prep for everything, so some amount of improv is necessary.

<snip>

Outside of general prep, the prep DM trying to create a living world(Many prep DMs don't, and that's not inherently a bad thing) will also prep some events and other aspects of the world that show it moving along outside of the PC bubble. Those thing are intended for the PCs to learn about, because DMs don't just do work that nobody will ever see, but doesn't always come to the PCs attention.

If the DM has come up with an event that happens on the far side of the world, say a meteor hitting a city and taking half of it out, and word reaches the PCs, it's still something he decided on prior to session 8 when the players hear about it, even if it wasn't written down.

<snip>

For an improv DM, there was no preparation of the event ahead of time. He's simply inserting something for the PCs into the PC bubble that has to do with the other side of the world.

I don't know what is meant by the PC bubble.

How is that different from word reaching the PCs?

And given that the "living world"/sandbox GM doesn't (and can't) prep everything, and has to improvise some stuff eg by relying on random tables or extrapolation, how is that different from (say) me GMing Classic Traveller using random tables or me GMing Prince Valiant making decisions about what might be interesting?

So first, in "one game", the status of the city doesn't come up and then they learn it was hit by a meteor. They just learn it was hit by a meteor. The information comes to them. They also know that they are in a prep game where the DM preps events like this.

In "another game" it's unlikely that the information comes to them on its own like in the prep game. More likely they ask if they've heard anything interesting and get the response. They went looking for something interesting and it got fed into their PC bubble. They also know that they are playing an improv game and that information was made up on the spot.

In a living world, stuff happens outside of the PC bubble, much of which doesn't center on the PCs(hence outside of the bubble). In an improv game, everything centers on the PCs(is inside the bubble), so it doesn't allow living world.

How do the players learn the city was hit by a meteor? Personally I think the players asking if their characters have heard anything interesting is far more likely to take place in a "prep"/"living world" game than in an "improve" game.

The timing matters a great deal to the feel.

Can you explain in what way?

I'm curious to flip this around a bit and think of my experiences as a player. I don't typically care much if a GM prepares ahead of time or not.

As a player, I want interesting situations and interesting consequences.

 

[pemerton]

This seems at odds with how Bedrockgames described how his living world sandbox games work, which involved, in his own words, making stuff up on the spot based upon the player questions asked or the actions taken, albeit with the goal of making it believable.

Outside of Toon, Paranoia etc what GM doesn't have the goal of making it believable?

 

[pemerton]

The key element of the "living world" as I am making sense of it is that the fiction is created by the GM. This is what makes it possible for the players to learn it without also creating it. And the fact that players can learn it is what makes skilled play relevant.

In Prince Valiant, by way of contrast, and even moreso (say) Cthulhu Dark, there is really no skilled play in the D&D/Gygaxian sense. There is the skill of knowing your character and engaging the situation, but that's a completely different skill. It's about picking up the trajectory of the fiction and running with it.

 

[pemerton]

I also know my religions inside out.

I wanted to pick up on this separately.

No one on earth knows any single religious tradition "inside and out". Even if they devote their whole life to that goal - whether as a practitioner or a scholar - there will be aspects of the tradition that escape their comprehension, either literally in the sense that they're ignorant if those aspects, or in the more metaphorical sense that they can't make sense of them and integrate them into their understanding.

So I don't think it can be possible to for one person to know imaginary religions inside out.

 

[Aldarc]

Outside of Toon, Paranoia etc what GM doesn't have the goal of making it believable?

I was parphrasing what Bedrockgames had previously said about their own games and approaches.