What is the point of GM's notes?

[Manbearcat]

The reason why I don't like the comparisons to jazz et al is because there is intense structure, boundaries, constraints, encoded rules in what we're doing.

I don't know enough about jazz, but it seems much more akin to Unstructured Freeform TTRPGing than Structured (and very rules-and-roles-binding) Freeform in Story Now TTRPGing.

I totally get the comparison because of the "Ask Questions and Use the Answers" aspect of play is pervasive (well south of omnipresent, but its pervasive enough). But while I'm GMing, the structure of play is sitting in my brain constantly, occupying a not-insignificant part of my mental bandwidth.

 

[prabe]

The reason why I don't like the comparisons to jazz et al is because there is intense structure, boundaries, constraints, encoded rules in what we're doing.

I don't know enough about jazz, but it seems much more akin to Unstructured Freeform TTRPGing than Structured (and very rules-and-roles-binding) Freeform in Story Now TTRPGing.

I totally get the comparison because of the "Ask Questions and Use the Answers" aspect of play is pervasive (well south of omnipresent, but its pervasive enough). But while I'm GMing, the structure of play is sitting in my brain constantly, occupying a not-insignificant part of my mental bandwidth.

In my experience ...

Writing songs with more-or-less pop structure is ... intensely structured and constrained. It's not writing sonnets or villanelles, but there are strong, tight limitations. The process of finding the music that goes into those songs is ... often more free than that.

The above holds as true for composing with others as it does for composing alone.

 

[Manbearcat]

Honestly, I can't think of an experience that it reminds me of. You know what.

It actually may remind me of rolling with a Blue Belt who I'm better than in all ways but he has a decent bottom game with a good guard and one reliable sweep. I'm testing him, he's testing me. But I'm the primary facilitator of what is happening, and he's got enough surprises that I'm on my toes and curious about what is going on next.

And we're both very cognizant of the constraints at play here (because neither of us want to hurt the other person or get hurt while we're sparring).

That is probably what it reminds me of. Its a creative dance but its absolutely structured and constrained and one party is the primary facilitator of the action.

 

[Manbearcat]

In my experience ...

Writing songs with more-or-less pop structure is ... intensely structured and constrained. It's not writing sonnets or villanelles, but there are strong, tight limitations. The process of finding the music that goes into those songs is ... often more free than that.

The above holds as true for composing with others as it does for composing alone.

Then that sounds entirely applicable. What you're talking about I'm entirely ignorant on, but it definitely sounds apt.

I was just bringing up the Freeform Jazz angle (of which I'm nearly equally ignorant on to what you're talking about)! I understand the sentiment, but my understanding of it is (a) the collective energy is similar to what is happening at a Story Now game but (b) the lack of constraints/structure is particularly different (but, again, I'm willing to concede that I have no idea what I'm talking about here and that Freeform Jazz is actually much more constrained and structured than I know!).

 

[prabe]

Then that sounds entirely applicable. What you're talking about I'm entirely ignorant on, but it definitely sounds apt.

I was just bringing up the Freeform Jazz angle (of which I'm nearly equally ignorant on to what you're talking about)! I understand the sentiment, but my understanding of it is (a) the collective energy is similar to what is happening at a Story Now game but (b) the lack of constraints/structure is particularly different (but, again, I'm willing to concede that I have no idea what I'm talking about here and that Freeform Jazz is actually much more constrained and structured than I know!).

I was never a jazz musician, but my understanding is that there's more structure to even the "freest" jazz than it might look like.

 

[Fenris-77]

The music comparison only goes so far. At the surface level I think it has something to say, perhaps, but it falls apart when you push it too hard. Some games are like jazz, where everyone has the central idea and everyone is riffing and playing off that. If you push that simile any farther it falls apart, but that doesn't make it less apt.

 

[prabe]

The music comparison only goes so far. At the surface level I think it has something to say, perhaps, but it falls apart when you push it too hard. Some games are like jazz, where everyone has the central idea and everyone is riffing and playing off that. If you push that simile any farther it falls apart, but that doesn't make it less apt.

I think any metaphor comparing one experience to another is likely to fall apart under close examination and/or differ among people. Creative-type experiences aren't really any different.

 

[Aldarc]

I was never a jazz musician, but my understanding is that there's more structure to even the "freest" jazz than it might look like.

Improv may be an important element of jazz, but there are still jazz standards. Jazz improv often happens within bounds and constrains set by the piece.

 

[darkbard]

That is a really thoughtful, interesting and circumnavigated response.

I'm glad we got these thoughts down now. I'll be interested in revisiting them in a little bit of time as things get more intense and complex (in terms of stakes and the consequential downstream effects of one approach to a situation or a string of situations vs another). We're not in "tutorial" mode, but we're definitely just "warming up the engine" for the drag race to come.

Thanks for this response. I'd be curious what your wife (I know that is weird for me to say that, but I'm not going to name drop her) thinks in comparison to her experience with other systems.

@darkbard , what do you think about the above (you obviously have a TON of experience with Dungeon World at this point as we're probably 20 sessions in or something?) thoughts from prabe. What do you guys think about the above and how you guys are oriented toward your own characters, each others characters, the unfolding situations/setting/story, the actual play.

@hawkeyefan and @Fenris-77 . Dungeon World is a different game in particular ways from Blades (some of them extremely meaningful), but there is a huge amount of overlap (as you guys know) in key ways (principles, agenda, level of myth, nature of the action resolution snowballing machinery). What do you guys think about the above and how you guys are oriented toward your own characters, each others characters, the unfolding situations/setting/story, the actual play.

Where do you guys agree with prabe and where do you differ?

Been a moment, but I have some time to set down some scattered thoughts in response.

First off, I have to note that character immersion is not a high priority for me and, like @prabe, I don't think it's ever really been a part of my RPG experience. That said, immersion in story is a high priority, and I think our game propels us perpetually forward into the emerging fiction. Further, I would go so far as to say that our (seemingly everexpanding) cast of NPC characters as part of "the party" (however fraught that term seems to me) is crucial to immersion in/inhabitation of story (as we discussed in another recent thread). It's not just that I want to watch as gameplay develops out of Alastor's actions and their consequences, but I also want to observe how these affect his protege, Rose, for example, and shape the story we imagine revolving around her.

For me, the play process has been much more of leading and following Alastor than being immersed in or inhabiting the character. This is probably quite noticeable as I almost always speak in third person during our sessions, only occasionally speaking directly from Alastor's perspective. (Aside: I don't think person is necessarily equivalent to where inhabitation lies, but it might as well be for me.)

Immersion in story very much comes about by both (1) play principles and agenda, like (a) the GM asking questions and using the answers and (b) filling the characters' lives with adventure and (2) mechanical resolution, where the tension built before the dice determine resolution is more substantial, in my estimation, than the d20 model and its probabilistic and often binary outcomes (I know there are systems that complicate the latter, but those aren't within my personal experience). There are no dull moments in this game! And the snowballing effect of the resolution system ensures that.

My wife has a useful example of how this inhabitation of story helped immerse her in Maraqli's character in the scene of the excavation site of the dragon well. When her wand surged with electrical feedback and ricocheted down the well, she felt the story required Maraqli jump down after it (using the Stormrider aspect of a custom spell Storm Aura), and thus she inhabited Maraqli's impetuosity in the moment, following the story as it demanded her action.

In another vein, my wife has another useful insight into how those who advocate for "in character viewpoint" only might view our game: they might have the perception that her character, at least, is inconsistent (a charge we see plenty of posters level at Story Now gaming broadly) but that on a deeper level the process of "ask questions and build on the answers" has helped her understand Maraqli in ways she didn't earlier in play, that these seeming-inconsistencies are actually more reflective of the Whitmanesque "multitudes" of human complexity. As a specific example of this, Maraqli from the beginning has been depicted as a bookish and insular (in terms of focusing on study and theory as opposed to the more tangible aspects of the physical and natural world) arcane scholar. But when you and she had some back-and-forth about the nature of the mad dryad's primal and elemental magic, Maraqli discovered (perhaps seeing something of herself in this feminine figure) how turning to Druidic magic can help heal the fraying fabric of the arcane Tapestry that subtends the world. Mechanically, she has taken Expanded Spellbook as an advanced move, but more importantly my wife has learned something new about Maraqli: that she too is connected to the primal powers of the earth (with, perhaps, all the tropes of Great Mother that play out in one of our underlying themes of Girl Power, aka Sisterhood of Vengeance).

Returning to me, I think the priority of immersion in setting has allowed me to shape the PC of Alastor as a legitimate mentor figure to the NPC Rose. By allowing the thread of fostering Rose to become central to play, genuine immersion in a sense of powerlessness to protect her, as when we just faced the ancient blue wyrm Avorandox, rise up in play. And, though we spoke about this "in person" in the post mortem last session, this bears repeating here: If Rose's last Volley against the dragon had struck true, the beast would not have escaped us, and the characters' goals in the scene would have been successfully completed. But the fact she missed led to a much more satisfying situation, for the tension is drawn out, we must lick our wounds quickly and pursue the dragon, and the lack of resolution in the moment feels (oxymoronically) more satisfying and cinematic. Were we "immersed" only in character, I don't think this response would be possible.

 

[darkbard]

There might be a sense there wasn't much of a way to make much difference to your character's success in the build process. There might be a feeling there wasn't much in the way of tactical choice mattering. There might be the thought that the things that emerge in the story are emerging at the whim of the dice (especially after someone earns 3 XP within 7 minutes of play) and not out of any putatively objective sense of action-consequence--especially not as the result/s of character choice/s.

Because of your rhetorical framing, I can't tell if these are suspicions you yourself entertain or whether you are speculating about outside observers here. Regardless, I'm curious to find out how you feel once your characters advance to fifth, sixth level or so and have an opportunity to see more advanced moves in play, particularly at the cost of the hard choices of taking some moves over others. I have definitely found that my opinion before playing DW that the mechanics of character build are almost besides the point to the fiction or unimpactful was unfounded, for example.