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<blockquote data-quote="uzirath" data-source="post: 8244987" data-attributes="member: 8495">Last night I ran a GURPS game and had a situation where my notes ended up being less useful than I had hoped. The group had just begun exploring the ancient vaults of a long-dead dragon. It's a relatively traditional dungeon crawl. I focused my &quot;notes&quot; on preparation for a few combat encounters and a trap. I underestimated the amount of time I needed to spend getting the maps set up for the VTT. The one thing I had left on my prep list was thinking through two role-playing encounters with undead spirits. But, time was up so we played the game. The combat prep material was very helpful. A big battle early on was fast-paced and rewarding, partly because I had reviewed the relevant rules in advance and anticipated some likely questions. When the first role-playing encounter came along, I found myself stumbling a bit. I felt like it would have gone better if I had curtailed the VTT prep and spent a bit more time considering who this person was and what she wanted. As it was, it was acceptable but clunky. In the terms of this discussion, which I have been attempting to loosely follow in my spare time, I think it is clear that the function of my notes is to contain material that the players will discover through play. Though I initially found the phrase &quot;playing to find out what's in the GM's notes&quot; a bit reductive, I've mostly come to terms with it. I also think of the game world as a &quot;living world&quot; in the sense that I try to portray a sense that the world is larger than the bits that the PCs are engaged with and that PC action (or inaction) will cause ripples that have consequences.I don't believe, however, that anything is &quot;real&quot; until it actually enters the played fiction. In other words, nothing in my notes is &quot;fixed&quot; until the players have experienced it. If I change it up during play (or, as sometimes happens, forget what was in my notes), I go with the logic of how things played out. The players add elements to the fiction that I hadn't anticipated. Also, they sometimes come up with connections and ideas that were better (more dramatic, more fun, more connected to the characters...) than what I had in my notes. In which case, I always toss my notes.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="uzirath, post: 8244987, member: 8495"] Last night I ran a GURPS game and had a situation where my notes ended up being less useful than I had hoped. The group had just begun exploring the ancient vaults of a long-dead dragon. It's a relatively traditional dungeon crawl. I focused my "notes" on preparation for a few combat encounters and a trap. I underestimated the amount of time I needed to spend getting the maps set up for the VTT. The one thing I had left on my prep list was thinking through two role-playing encounters with undead spirits. But, time was up so we played the game. The combat prep material was very helpful. A big battle early on was fast-paced and rewarding, partly because I had reviewed the relevant rules in advance and anticipated some likely questions. When the first role-playing encounter came along, I found myself stumbling a bit. I felt like it would have gone better if I had curtailed the VTT prep and spent a bit more time considering who this person was and what she wanted. As it was, it was acceptable but clunky. In the terms of this discussion, which I have been attempting to loosely follow in my spare time, I think it is clear that the function of my notes is to contain material that the players will discover through play. Though I initially found the phrase "playing to find out what's in the GM's notes" a bit reductive, I've mostly come to terms with it. I also think of the game world as a "living world" in the sense that I try to portray a sense that the world is larger than the bits that the PCs are engaged with and that PC action (or inaction) will cause ripples that have consequences. I don't believe, however, that anything is "real" until it actually enters the played fiction. In other words, nothing in my notes is "fixed" until the players have experienced it. If I change it up during play (or, as sometimes happens, forget what was in my notes), I go with the logic of how things played out. The players add elements to the fiction that I hadn't anticipated. Also, they sometimes come up with connections and ideas that were better (more dramatic, more fun, more connected to the characters...) than what I had in my notes. In which case, I always toss my notes. [/QUOTE]

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