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What is the point of GM's notes?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8241092" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Here I'm with [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] and [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] - everything else being equal, once the GM has decided what the Society of the Silver Sword is doing when the PCs first encounter them, does it need to be changed before the Society comes "online"?</p><p></p><p>[USER=29398]@Lanefan[/USER] says - yes, if that initial situation doesn't make sense given what's happened in play since. I think that is covered by @Manbearcats notion of direct or <strong>indirect</strong> interaction. Manbearcat is talking about contexts in which there is neither direct nor indirect interaction.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The "freeze frame" room is a classic in dungeon design. But I think it's pretty apparent that you don't use the same freeze frame if the PCs come back again; you present something new that makes sense.</p><p></p><p>In one of my Classic Traveller scenarios a PC was able to steal some powered armour (<em>battle dress</em>, to be precise) because its owner and previous wearer was in the shower. As it happens, I came up with that framing on the spot. But I don't think it would have been any more or less viable, in play, had I come up with the idea a week earlier and made a note of it.</p><p></p><p>In Castle Amber, when you enter one of the closest rooms to the entryway you encounter a member of the Amber family training his boxing magen. A good GM would frame the situation in that room differently if a PC came back to it; but the "freeze frame" isn't objectionable because that's what you'll get if you enter that room after 1, 10 or 100 turns in the castle.</p><p></p><p>When we move away from freeze frame rooms to the goals and dispositions of factions, governments, and similar sorts of social/political groups, I don't see that anything changes. Let's say the notes for the Society of the Silver Sword say that the society is preparing to disinter the body of its founder because they wish to use some of the body parts for alchemical purposes. Does it matter if that fact about the Society comes online after the passage of 1, 10 or 100 ingame days?</p><p></p><p>Here's another thought about this:</p><p></p><p>Suppose the GM is using a published setting, or is preparing his/her own setting in a similar fashion.</p><p></p><p>Then it will say that in (say) Year 579 the state of affairs with respect to A, B, C etc is X, Y, Z etc. Now if the PCs don't encounter the Cs until Year 589, and the GM still uses Z as the state of affairs with respect to the Cs, this implies that the Cs have been static for 10 years. The alternative is to prise the events and circumstances of the timeline, but that falsifies the timeline.</p><p></p><p>I think the way to avoid this problem is to avoid the use of timelines in that classic fashion - I assume that they don't figure in BitD in that traditional way - but timelines seem to be very popular in setting design/presentation!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8241092, member: 42582"] Here I'm with [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] and [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] - everything else being equal, once the GM has decided what the Society of the Silver Sword is doing when the PCs first encounter them, does it need to be changed before the Society comes "online"? [USER=29398]@Lanefan[/USER] says - yes, if that initial situation doesn't make sense given what's happened in play since. I think that is covered by @Manbearcats notion of direct or [B]indirect[/B] interaction. Manbearcat is talking about contexts in which there is neither direct nor indirect interaction. The "freeze frame" room is a classic in dungeon design. But I think it's pretty apparent that you don't use the same freeze frame if the PCs come back again; you present something new that makes sense. In one of my Classic Traveller scenarios a PC was able to steal some powered armour ([I]battle dress[/I], to be precise) because its owner and previous wearer was in the shower. As it happens, I came up with that framing on the spot. But I don't think it would have been any more or less viable, in play, had I come up with the idea a week earlier and made a note of it. In Castle Amber, when you enter one of the closest rooms to the entryway you encounter a member of the Amber family training his boxing magen. A good GM would frame the situation in that room differently if a PC came back to it; but the "freeze frame" isn't objectionable because that's what you'll get if you enter that room after 1, 10 or 100 turns in the castle. When we move away from freeze frame rooms to the goals and dispositions of factions, governments, and similar sorts of social/political groups, I don't see that anything changes. Let's say the notes for the Society of the Silver Sword say that the society is preparing to disinter the body of its founder because they wish to use some of the body parts for alchemical purposes. Does it matter if that fact about the Society comes online after the passage of 1, 10 or 100 ingame days? Here's another thought about this: Suppose the GM is using a published setting, or is preparing his/her own setting in a similar fashion. Then it will say that in (say) Year 579 the state of affairs with respect to A, B, C etc is X, Y, Z etc. Now if the PCs don't encounter the Cs until Year 589, and the GM still uses Z as the state of affairs with respect to the Cs, this implies that the Cs have been static for 10 years. The alternative is to prise the events and circumstances of the timeline, but that falsifies the timeline. I think the way to avoid this problem is to avoid the use of timelines in that classic fashion - I assume that they don't figure in BitD in that traditional way - but timelines seem to be very popular in setting design/presentation! [/QUOTE]
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