What is the point of GM's notes?

[Bedrockgames]

This is why exploring a gameworld is metaphor, whereas having the GM tell you what s/he is thinking of is literal. Only the latter can actually take place.

This I think though simplifies greatly what is going on. The experience isn't simply one of being told what the GM is thinking, you are exploring the model the GM is thinking in his head, and you do so by telling the GM what you want to do, how you are looking, and the GM responds by telling you what you see, resolving any actions you take. The GM can be imagining a model in his mind that has parameters and is mapped out objectively. And that is different than if the GM were making it all up as you went along (there is a difference I think if you are facing a house with two doors, and the GM has decided in advance what is behind those two doors (say a dire wolf in one, and a healing priestess in the other), and what doors and chambers lie beyond the rooms behind the doors, than if the GM makes sure the first room you go into has a dire wolf and doesn't really have it mapped out in his mind.

 

[pemerton]

This is a Strawman of what I said. I said that the game world was real as a thought, not that a real world suddenly sprang into being because you thought about it. When I said that the game world is real, it is real as a thought. It has reality, even if it's not a tangible reality.

All "real as thought" means here is imagined. Unicorns are also "real as thought" in exactly the same way. But that doesn't mean they're real. In fact they're not. And their non-reality is not just a lack of tangible reality. It's a lack of reality per se.

This I think though simplifies greatly what is going on. The experience isn't simply one of being told what the GM is thinking, you are exploring the model the GM is thinking in his head, and you do so by telling the GM what you want to do, how you are looking, and the GM responds by telling you what you see, resolving any actions you take. The GM can be imagining a model in his mind that has parameters and is mapped out objectively. And that is different than if the GM were making it all up as you went along

No one is disputing the difference between the GM telling you something s/he already worked out - for convenience, let's call it "notes" - and the GM telling you something s/he is making up now.

But neither is any literal sense an exploration of anything. You're not "exploring" the GM's mind. You're asking questions and getting answers. When you say I open the door and the GM says you see a dog behind it, the action declaration poses the question what is behind the door and the GM answers it by reference to his/her notes (on the premise that she's not just making it up).

This isn't terribly opaque or complicated as a process. I read explanations of it when I was a child. There's no need to shroud it in obscurity.

 

[Aldarc]

Is this true though? I find more young people DMing than ever, and while new DM’s might not be as good as someone that’s been doing it for 20+ years. Personally I’ve found 1st time DMs these days are much better than when I was starting out in high school in the late 80’s.

There are a number of videos out there on DMing. Some of them have a "DM as mystic" approach, while others are about "demystifying DMing." I find that its these latter ones that are the most helpful for newcomers, while the former seem to mostly exist to aggrandize the DM and their sense of authority.

 

[Aldarc]

This I think though simplifies greatly what is going on. The experience isn't simply one of being told what the GM is thinking, you are exploring the model the GM is thinking in his head, and you do so by telling the GM what you want to do, how you are looking, and the GM responds by telling you what you see, resolving any actions you take. The GM can be imagining a model in his mind that has parameters and is mapped out objectively. And that is different than if the GM were making it all up as you went along (there is a difference I think if you are facing a house with two doors, and the GM has decided in advance what is behind those two doors (say a dire wolf in one, and a healing priestess in the other), and what doors and chambers lie beyond the rooms behind the doors, than if the GM makes sure the first room you go into has a dire wolf and doesn't really have it mapped out in his mind.

I have read through your posts, and I'm thankful for all that you posted clarifying your approach. I feel that we are approaching some progress in our discussion, which is always welcome. Some of my own personal takes to those posts have already been said by @Campbell, so I would mostly be repeating things.

This is a fairly nice summation of the underlying process though. However, here this does make it metaphorically sound like "GM as spirit medium" or "GM as telephone operator." In order to engage the world, the players are primarily engaging the GM in order to decipher and interact with the apparitional fiction. IMO, this post also shows that there is a difference between "GM as spirit medium" who prioritizes a living world and one who does not. Also, this somewhat comes across as "playing to discover what the GM is thinking," where "playing to discover the world" for players requires first "playing the GM," which is a situation I think nearly all of us have experienced firsthand.

@Manbearcat's whole "Setting Solitaire" analogy does seem apt. A lot of sandbox games, including Kevin Crawford's fantastic distillation thereof, focus on providing the GM with tools to help support their role in generating a sandbox campaign. When we look at what those tools are doing, many of those tools are a lot about generating/running kingdoms, factions, and NPCs in the background of and (at least partially) independent of the PCs. The PCs may affect through their actions which things get generated by the GM first, but the GM is still running other setting programs in the background until the PCs decide to engage them. This also seems fairly contingent with what @Lanefan's approach where the setting is much bigger than and self-reliant from the PCs.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is a fairly nice summation of the underlying process though. However, here this does make it metaphorically sound like "GM as spirit medium" or "GM as telephone operator." In order to engage the world, the players are primarily engaging the GM in order to decipher and interact with the apparitional fiction. IMO, this post also shows that there is a difference between "GM as spirit medium" who prioritizes a living world and one who does not. Also, this somewhat comes across as "playing to discover what the GM is thinking," where "playing to discover the world" for players requires first "playing the GM," which is a situation I think nearly all of us have experienced firsthand.

I don't see it as GM as spirit medium. I see it as the GM is literally imagining a model, and the players are trying to explore the model the players are imagining [EDIT: GM is imagining] through a two way street of communication. My problem with Pemerton's description is he tends to reduce it to a one way street (the GM tells the players). And I think overall a lot of the description of what is going on just feels reductive to me, a bit constraining. But what the players try to assert they are doing in that mental model is an important piece of the exchange here. The idea is what the GM is thinking is a mental model of a world. On a small scale that is very possible. I can imagine a house with six rooms, what is in those rooms, or better yet, I can imagine a house with six rooms lived in by a family of four (and know who each of those people are, what kinds of things they like to do, and what they have in the house). And the players can force the GM to expand this model ("who lives next door"----which will force him to form a model of another place). My point is it isn't the telling of things that matter here. What matters is the models the GM keeps producing in his head, and how the players tackle that model. I can also imagine very broad scale a world (who the gods of the world are, what the rough sketches of its past are, what key places there are etc). This is where notes, maps, etc help the GM to elaborate on the mental model and pin things down for the purpose of memory. So the model can get quite extensive. Still you will always have those moments of expansion (whether the PC are literally pushing beyond the established geography or exploring the established geography in greater granularity. My sense is the GM is always imagining something clearly in their mind. And that is the thing being explored. I think where the world can "disappear here" is those expansions can get lost to memory (this is why taking notes can be helpful). And if the players play in such a world long enough, it does reach the point where it feels like the sandbox is running itself (like Justin Alexander said). I have had long campaigns where that happens (where the players are familiar enough with the setting that is more like they live there, whereas when it started, even if they were born in the world and their character was 20, they were initially more like a visitor to a new place (they constantly ask the GM questions about who lives where, what religions there are, etc). But a year or so in they could easily be the pope of a church in the setting and know enough about it to be making meaningful decisions. They also know the geography, the institution, and inhabitants enough that they can just say "I want to go south into the banyan and speak with Lady Plum Blossom to convince her people to support the church's efforts". Before a year in, the players would have to ask "What sects are in the Banyan Region", "Who is Lady Plum Blossom and what does her sect believe?", etc

I do think it is is pretty clear no one is probably imaging the same model. My banyan might appear different when I think about it than when player A does, or player B. But there are still agreed upon points: there is a banyan, it is south of Li Fan, there are many sects there hiding from the empire, one of them is purple cavern sect (located in the far south of the banyan in the purpose caverns), they are led by lady plum blossom. And having an actual map makes it easier to get everyone on the same page. And again, notes and maps, these all matter. They all serve as foundation. They just aren't dead. We are all able to imagine something very vivid happening in those spaces, helped by the fact that we have notes and a map, but still something that makes the players very much feel like they are there in Li Fan, ruling their own sect from the court of Bone Kingdom. And ultimately that is the point of this style: that people feel like they are there. As long as that is achieved, and as long as they are able to make meaningful choices, as long as things and people around them interact with them in ways that feel real, then I would say it is more than the GM telling them, or more than them discovering what is in the GM's notes (especially if you are leaving plenty of room for the GM to be surprised---to me this later point is key).

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Manbearcat's whole "Setting Solitaire" analogy does seem apt. A lot of sandbox games, including Kevin Crawford's fantastic distillation thereof, focus on providing the GM with tools to help support their role in generating a sandbox campaign. When we look at what those tools are doing, many of those tools are a lot about generating/running kingdoms, factions, and NPCs in the background of and (at least partially) independent of the PCs. The PCs may affect through their actions which things get generated by the GM first, but the GM is still running other setting programs in the background until the PCs decide to engage them. This also seems fairly contingent with what @Lanefan's approach where the setting is much bigger than and self-reliant from the PCs.

Sure and these tools exist in a variety of forms (I mentioned my tables for having world events for example). But I think the issue is: this is not the purpose of play. All that stuff you do in the background (and mind you not all GMs tend to that in the same way in a sandbox) is just to create a sense on the large scale that they live in a world (because that is how our world works: things change). But the purpose is more about the small scale. More what that Feast of Goblyns entry was talking about: the change that occurs immediately around the players when they are contending with enemies and allies who are treated as active players----where the GM is running them intelligently, emotionally, etc; making decision about what the NPCs try to do in response to what the players do. That is really the focus here. I do care that the empire in the background is believable, and so through tables or fiat I may occasionally introduce changes (I like having them marked on my calendar in advance if I can---and I find tables are helpful of breaking me out of the same mental patterns, as well as more fair). This is also why I still very much like to use encounter tables on the local level. Sometimes I know enough about the immediate situation that I don't need a table (in the Feast of Goblyns example the players are already embroiled in a plot with Harkon Lukas, so I can simply decide if he tries to meet them on the road or not---in my game probably giving him a survival roll to meet them and asking the players to make one to see if they are able to see him first and avoid him if they choose). Or maybe, instead of going to the PCs, he tries to get to where they are going first and plant false clues or information. It all depends on the situation.

So if setting solitaire describes that the setting can be managed by the GM alone. That is fair, except the isn't the point of play. I can manage a setting in a vacuum I suppose. But what purpose would that serve? I can't really have this situation with Harkon Lukas come to life unless I have active players with wills of their own pushing against it. It just isn't the same. For me the fun is my own discovery as GM of what this whole situation leads to. Again, I would invoke here the character driven-situational GMing I spoke of earlier as a part of this process.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But neither is any literal sense an exploration of anything. You're not "exploring" the GM's mind. You're asking questions and getting answers. When you say I open the door and the GM says you see a dog behind it, the action declaration poses the question what is behind the door and the GM answers it by reference to his/her notes (on the premise that she's not just making it up).

This isn't terribly opaque or complicated as a process. I read explanations of it when I was a child. There's no need to shroud it in obscurity.

Except the GM isn't simply referencing notes. This is why the notes are called a 'snap shot'. Whether the dog is there when the PCs open that door, is up to the GM (based on what is going on, based on some random method for determining these things). The whole point of the living world and the whole point of the feast of goblyns text is you can have monsters, NPCs and other things in the setting that don't just sit and wait in the rooms for the party. So it isn't as simple as "the gm consults the notes". And it isn't as simple either as the GM just makes it up arbitrarily (if the GM has been playing these monsters and NPCs, there is going to be a logic to where they are in that moment).

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Manbearcat's whole "Setting Solitaire" analogy does seem apt. A lot of sandbox games, including Kevin Crawford's fantastic distillation thereof, focus on providing the GM with tools to help support their role in generating a sandbox campaign. When we look at what those tools are doing, many of those tools are a lot about generating/running kingdoms, factions, and NPCs in the background of and (at least partially) independent of the PCs. The PCs may affect through their actions which things get generated by the GM first, but the GM is still running other setting programs in the background until the PCs decide to engage them. This also seems fairly contingent with what @Lanefan's approach where the setting is much bigger than and self-reliant from the PCs.

And I am a fan of Crawford as well. Most sandbox GMs are (even those who take different approaches than he does). His material is widely respected for a reason. But he also talks about living worlds in Stars without Number:

The only area where I'd quibble, at least form an underlying assumption in this section and the one that comes before it, I think sandboxes and living worlds can have genre conventions baked into them. The world doesn't have to be purely run on what I'd call "History logic" or "game of thrones" logic, it can be run on Seven Deadly Venoms logic, or Goodfellas logic. I always like to talk about establishing what franchise the players are in for example. I do agree though on having the NPCs act when they'd act, rather than a dramatically appropriate time (even when I am doing genre stuff: you can see that kind of thinking in the boxes tracking how many days before Feast Beetle Li kills the abductee and in the boxes tracking how long before she drops the beetles on the PCs themselves-----part of the reason for doing this is to make sure I am not tempted to have a final moment rescue (the possibility is there, but more likely the players arrive well before or well after). And the one part here I might actively disagree with, though it has been a while since I've read this whole section so I might simply be misunderstanding his point, is NPCs acting without reference to what the PCs are doing or have done. I don't think he intends this meaning, though he may, but that doesn't seem to leave as much room for the NPC to be responding to actions the players are taking and to adjust their plans accordingly. For example I often pay a lot of attention to intelligence gathering done by NPCs. An NPC who is dealing with the party, very likely will send people to follow them, or use an information network to acquire info about them. And if any of that is done, I will actively be tracking how that is happening (in order to give the players a fair shake: so they might potentially see someone following them, or might hear someone has been asking about them). I doubt Crawford is against this. But I think that phrasing might suggest something more like the setting solitaire Manbearcat talked about, that I don't think living world is meant to capture (I can at least say for me, the player characters, their actions, and the synergy that creates with NPCs are very important in a living world)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Also I want to be clear about something I just said: I think one could probably have a sandbox where the NPCs acted at dramatically appropriate moments, but I don't know how you would do it while avoiding the problem of it feeling like the NPC is just waiting for the players to show up at the lair at the right time, or the NPC is destined to appear at a dramatic moment regardless of what choices the players have made. I like to do genre, but this is one area I have been cautious around because, at least as far as I can see, it seems to undermine some of the living world assumptions I find important. I just might have not thought about it enough. Maybe someone has tackled this issue. What I find tends to happen with genre in sandboxes I run, is there are genre features and logic you can easily pull into a living world sandbox, and there are some that feel at odds with the core idea. I don't think it is a choice between 'historical realism' on one hand and 'flash gordon' on the other though

 

[Bedrockgames]

I have read through your posts, and I'm thankful for all that you posted clarifying your approach. I feel that we are approaching some progress in our discussion, which is always welcome. Some of my own personal takes to those posts have already been said by @Campbell, so I would mostly be repeating things.

This is something at least. Lol, I disagreed with most of Campbell's points though, so I think i should probably assume we still disagree. But if we at least understand one another better, that is an improvement.