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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8254676" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Probably a safe assumption, although I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions. But yeah, prep heavy seems to be a pretty common approach to games that are about skilled play in the classic sense, and also for sandbox approach as it's been described often in this thread, with the GM as the primary authority on setting.Do you mind if I ask what game you played? I do think it's a paradigm shift in some ways, but not so much when it comes to roleplaying. If we mean in the sense of adopting the role of a character within the fictional setting of the game.It was bound to happen at some point! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />So this is where I don't know if I would agree. If the fiction is just the made up stuff that happens when we play, and the living breathing world is the setting in which we play (I think?), then I don't see how they split. If the setting includes all the off camera stuff, then I think the answer to the question "what is the point of GM's notes?" becomes pretty clear. They are the world. The players then discover that world through play. But may objected to this idea.Now, I have ideas that are "off-screen" when I run a more story now focused game like Blades in the Dark. Some of these things will influence the fiction (the make believe happening in play) in ways that are indirect, and so they aren't yet established as being true within the fiction. My intention may be that they are, and I may be having the world behave that way. But prior to actually revealing this thing, it could change. Maybe a better idea occurs to me, which also fits with what's happened in play. Maybe my players veer away from this thing and explore other ideas, and then by the time we come back to it, another idea has come along that makes more sense. Any number of reasons could actually come up.If we treat our notes as inviolate.....that they are established as part of play as much as the things that come up during actual play.....then again, I think the answer to the question about GM notes becomes very clear.Well, what are you trying to achieve in your games? You've touched on it, but what would you say are your play priorities? Maybe top three. For me, when I play a story now game, it's something like this:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Have fun</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Be creative with my friends</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Play my character honestly, and learn about them through play</li> </ul>That's probably not incredibly different from when I play a more traditional game like D&D which would be something like:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Have fun</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Be creative with my friends</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Play my character and overcome challenges through play</li> </ul>I don't know if this is "well established" at all. There is some amount of similarity in what an author does and what a GM does, but there are also significant differences. Imagine if an author had to simply release a chapter to the audience on a weekly basis, and allow them to make changes to it, and to shape what could follow based on these changes and their ideas. Then he has to write the next chapter, and release it the next week. That process is incredibly different from writing and revising and editing and rewriting and so on. Also, there's nothing stopping a writer from changing the "backstory" or setting information that informs his story to suit the needs of the story. In other words, he's free to make the changes he needs to tell the story he wants to tell. I don't expect any author is going to say that the most important part of their book is the stuff that didn't make it in. No.....the story is about what's in the book, by its very nature, that's the important stuff. Anything else is there to serve that. I'd say the same for GM notes.</blockquote>

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