Unfortunately, I do not have time to answer all of the specific criticisms to my post. There's some good stuff there! I will say that my experience with the jargon debate comes from academics rather than gaming and I am making the assumption that the same basic principals apply.  I will also say that it is pretty hot topic that we are not likely to resolve here.

Not all Jargon is created equally.

Jargon can be helpful or harmful depending on the system form (open or closed), origination, and acceptance.
 
Regardless of the above, a specific term of jargon must fill a lexical gap or it will cause more harm than good.

Terms that fill a lexical gap within a closed system are easy to learn and almost always beneficial.  Hit points, level, class, and armor class are such terms.  Thac0 is a term in a closed system that does not fill a lexical gap because there was already a concept in place that it tried to replace.

Terms that originate organically or democratically because of a lexical gap are generally helpful and easy to understand.  "Crunchy" is a term we all understand in the context of game design because it fills a lexical gap that is universal to the context.  However, game design and game theory is not a closed system, it is an open system, so people may disagree on whether or not GURPS is "crunchy" (well, maybe we all agree that GURPS is crunchy – but you get the point) but we don't have to disagree on what "crunchy" means.

Within an open system the viability of jargon that fills a lexical gap depends on the system's breadth of context.  Historians reject Jargon out of hand because history encompasses all of human experience.  Jargon in such a broad context causes confusion and is harmful to communication.  Plain English is always better in this context.  Psychologists, working in a much narrower field, need some jargon but are careful not to use too much.  Computer programmers find jargon essential, though their heavily invented language still causes other problems by excluding people who want or need to dabble without full immersion. In any case, game design is an open system that is fairly narrow in context but need to appeal to a fairly broad group unless we plan to exclude people.

Most of the time, if there is a lexical gap in a narrow enough system a term will arise organically so there is no need to invent terms.  People will come up with something that fits and everybody will just use it – like "dice notation," or "skill system."  Sometimes the gap is fuzzy so multiple terms arise: feats, adds/disadds, boons/flaws.  They are all roughly equivalent but the gap is slightly larger than any one term has managed to fill.  All of these terms are useful because of their organic origins and the gaps are clear.

Sometimes however, people try to create words when there is no lexical gap, or they try to create a gap where none existed before and then fill it. One way to do this is to divide a word and create new categories (language is infinitely divisible). "Gamist, narrativist, and simulationist," break the term roleplayer into new categories.  These categories are artificial because they did not arise within the context organically.  The gaps they fill were contrived by an individual or sub-group of the system and are not universally accepted by the context group.  You can also attempt to create a gap by creating a word because, in our minds, the existence of a word assumes the existence of a gap. The distinctions between CR and TR attempt to fill tiny lexical gaps that only exist because the terms exist.  The words survive only through complex and convoluted definitions effectively wedging in between other words to create their own distinctions. These types of terms are harmful to communication in any environment because most of the context group cannot see the gap that some people insist is there.  Most of the time with such terms the epistemology is dependent on the weakest form of knowledge – authority – and this causes conflict.


In academics, there are disciplines that swear by their jargon (in fact they swear with their jargon) and there are disciplines that vehemently oppose it.  As a historian by training, I strongly agree with the later, but as a coordinator of an interdisciplinary program I have to deal with professors who refuse to use plain English and students who are almost universally upset by the technical language that makes learning harder.  It is interesting that sociologists have realized that their field is in decline, not because the material is irrelevant, but because their language has become a barrier.  20 years ago you could publish a sociology paper by inventing a new term.  Today you can publish a paper by destroying one.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;883242That thread was a trap from the start, covered in the pretense of unbiased discussion but designed to attack a specific mechanic. And CRKrueger was not using jargon to elucidate but to obfuscate.

How sweet, I guess you never found that shotgun, eh?

Which thread was the trap, the one I didn't start or the one I did where I spent most of the time asking rules questions until the argument hit that thread too?

Or was it the thread where I set a trap for Modiphius by spending a whole night running an adventure in this system I'm supposedly trying to destroy then a couple hours the next day writing a Playtest Review where I say how much fun people who don't like narrative games had playing it?

As an evil schemer, I really suck, or I'm so damn good you're all doomed? :idunno:

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;883242No, it was CRKrueger, using jargon to obfuscate and misdirect instead of clarify. And he knew damn well that the conflict resolution James was talking about was not the Forge definition.

Who the hell is James?  RosenMcStern?  

I still think, even though Eliot and Rosen are technically right, (and I said they were right), I still think that if I know I have to pick X locks means X examples of TR and I know I need to pick 10 locks is one example of CR,  it amounts to Schrodinger's Mechanic and is so fine a technicality as to be not that useful.  I did agree with Rosen that he was right, it was the Narrative Meta aspect that was the key to my complaint and just because 9 times out of 10 I hear someone using the term CR, that's exactly what they mean, it's a lazy definition and that's not the definition of CR.  Ok.  Whatever.  

To be honest, until I heard people say it 12 different ways until it clicked, I thought saying D&D combat was CR was the stupidest thing I had ever heard, I was just giving the benefit of the doubt because it was obvious what was being communicated I was not receiving.

I'm not sure I should be insulted that you think I try to lay theory traps for the likes of Rosen, Eliot and Kim, or whether I should be complimented that you think I can.  

In any case, while you're looking for that shotgun, go get your fucking shinebox.

Quote from: jhkim;883335In D&D, I can state what I want when I try an action - but the statement of intent isn't connected to the mechanics. A good DM will often take intent into account, but still, whether you succeed or fail is often based on a GM judgement call - not the die roll per se.

Meh.

It almost seems your assumption that it calls for the judgment of a good DM makes everything murky here. I'm playing AD&D 1st Ed. So let's see what happens if I just follow the rules.

Jab with a pike is just a physical motion. We don't need to check whether a character can do that. And since harming the orc is not part of the intent, the orcs defenses are irrelevant. It's basically uncontested action that sends a signal to the orc that if he steps closer, he will get cut. Communication, especially in such a universal language as that, requires no check in D&D.

True, it is on the orc to decide whether to test the fighter or not. After all, what if the orc were another PC? You can't just toss out his agency. So it's inappropriate no matter what game you're playing to automatically relegate that to a dice mechanic. But suppose it is just a DM controlled monster. The DM can decide to leave it to a die roll if he pleases, essentially making a morale check for the orc.

As to the attack itself, a roll is only necessary if the orc chooses to advance. This would be a situation where initiative is determined by weapon length. The pike would go first. And at 1d10 damage versus an orc with just 1d8 hit points, odds are more than likely that if the hit roll is successful, the orc will be slain. If the fighter has a STR bonus, even more so.

QuoteFor example, if you jab at the orc with your pike to hold him at bay, there are many possible results:

1) The orc is wounded and stays back
2) The orc is wounded but pushes ahead anyway
3) The orc isn't hurt but backs away
4) The orc dodges the spear and gets past

The way I describe the exchange, #1 is not a possibility. There are only three possibilities--four if you make a distinction between the orc merely being wounded and being killed.

QuoteIn Tb/DitV, you would declare your intent, and then begin rolling off against dice that are determined by me. There is a known procedure for the roll-off, and if you succeed, then the orc is definitely held back - and if you don't then the orc gets through. However, whether he is wounded or not isn't covered by the mechanics (probably).

Okay, so here's a quick and dirty resulting probability matrix for the two systems.

AD&D (assumes a 1st level fighter, 17 STR, against an AC 6 orc, morale 50%)
Orc stays back. 50%
Orc pushes forward and is wounded 20%
Orc dodges the pike and gets past 30%

Generic test of the Fighters skill (40%) vs Orc's boldness (50%) to see if the orc is held back:
Orc stays back. 45%
Orc pushes forward. 55%, maybe wounded, maybe not.

Aside from a 5 percentage point swing, the only difference I see between the two systems is that the second one is obviously inferior.

Now you might be tempted to say, no, it's not inferior. I mean, what if I'm playing D&D and didn't want to hurt the orc? What if I was just bluffing? And the answer is simple enough. Just don't make the attack when the orc steps forward. Then the resulting probability matrix is:

Orc stays back. 50%
Orc pushes forward and gets through unharmed. 50%

Well, now there's no question of whether or not the orc is hurt. The traditional mechanic got you your intent with more precision and less uncertainty than the mechanic designed by misguided fools trying to reinvent the wheel to make it do exactly what you want.

Not only that, under the traditional mechanic, you are given time to change your mind. You might be willing to hurt the orc to keep him at bay when you first make the declaration. But when you see the orc boldly moving forward, you could change your mind, feeling it's better not to hurt him. Which is kind of how the real world works. You use means to achieve ends, but the means takes time, and in that time your ends can change.

QuoteI don't actually like the required declaration of intent / goals, because often characters have multiple and/or complicated intent in a fight. Often, in a fight, my intent might be something like "I want to hold the orc back, unless it seems like everyone else is getting overwhelmed, in which case I'll let him through and try to hit him in the back". Further, priorities might shift during the fight - like if I see my buddy get killed, then maybe I change my mind and my only priority is getting revenge.

Tb/DitV have problems with changing intent partway through a conflict - requiring the GM to make alternate rulings.

Well, yeah. Assuming you can ever resolve anything based on intent alone is a mistake from square one. And the insistence that traditional mechanics excluded the intent in resolution is downright annoying. It's like sometimes observing humans breathe, at other times observing humans circulate blood, and then trying to create a new type of human specialized in one by abandoning the other. What follows will be a lot of argument and justifications in denial of the fact that the patient is dead.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883358Okay, so here's a quick and dirty resulting probability matrix for the two systems.

AD&D (assumes a 1st level fighter, 17 STR, against an AC 6 orc, morale 50%)
Orc stays back. 50%
Orc pushes forward and is wounded 20%
Orc dodges the pike and gets past 30%

Generic test of the Fighters skill (40%) vs Orc's boldness (50%) to see if the orc is held back:
Orc stays back. 45%
Orc pushes forward. 55%, maybe wounded, maybe not.

Aside from a 5 percentage point swing, the only difference I see between the two systems is that the second one is obviously inferior.

I don't particularly care if you think that Trollbabe and Dogs in the Vineyard are inferior, but this really doesn't express the difference, in my experience.

I was trying to illustrate with a single specific example that you gave, but I may not have communicated it well. In Tb/DitV, goals are defined more broadly for the whole fight, though it can take multiple rolls to achieve it. That's key to the difference.

I don't have time for an extended example right now, but it'd be something like - I'm trying to stop the orc from getting through, while he wants to get through and send out the alarm. I can try several actions - threatening him, poking at him with a spear, tripping him, grabbing him. Each of these would be a step / roll in the conflict - with potential choices.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;882604In Conflict Resolution based mechanics (as I understand them) you make a single roll to see if the Crime Fighter can clear the room.  Let's say the dice give him a 85% chance of success.  And the player describes that the Batman analog is bouncing from minion to minion, throwing the bolo and boomerangs when necessary, punching them in the goolies when they're too close, so on and so forth.

However, if the roll fails.  So the question becomes an issue of, what happened?  Where did the onslaught end?  Did the hero get captured?  Knocked out/killed and thrown out of the base?  Or simply missed the last goon, and now has to try again, after avoiding all the retaliatory strikes?

There was a period that I read a bunch of the forums where the Conflict Resolution model was discussed. The primary thing I think this current discussion misses is illustrated by the above quote. In my Conflict Resolution mechanics, you have to be explicit about the Stakes. So, "you make a single roll to see if the Crime Fighter can clear the room" AND the GM tells you what consequences you will suffer for failure ("if you fail this scene roll, the fight goes on too long and alarm bells start to ring - drawing in more guards"). You see similar things with DitV, Shadow of Yesterday, etc. Failure MEANS SOMETHING and all the players buy into the stakes before rolling, and the effects are not made up on the fly by the GM after you fail the roll.

Sure, the description of HOW the success or failure manifests in the game-world can be narrated by who-ever the system grants narrative rights to, but everyone agreed on the basic thrust of success AND failure before the roll was made. So it's not, "If you succeed you pick the lock, and have 9 more to go...", but also, "AND if you fail this roll, I'm making a wandering monster check to see if anyone rounds the corner while you are swearing at yourself and breaking lock picks." A failure in a Conflict Resolution system is never a *WIFF*.

Quote from: Telarus;883443There was a period that I read a bunch of the forums where the Conflict Resolution model was discussed. The primary thing I think this current discussion misses is illustrated by the above quote. In my Conflict Resolution mechanics, you have to be explicit about the Stakes.

Why?

I mean, there have been plenty of times playing D&D when the DM might call for an intelligence or wisdom check when the player is trying to do something risky. Success in the INT or WIS check means the DM will clue the player in by making the stakes explicit, which are otherwise implicit.

So in those 50% or so of cases, does that mean the DM is actually playing D&D under a conflict resolution model?

If the answer is yes, then that seems like an odd and arbitrary distinction.

And if the answer is no, then I guess explicit stakes do not a CR mechanic make. So what REALLY distinguishes a CR mechanic then? It's not that the discussion is "missing" what you think is important. It's that what you think is important doesn't get to the heart of the matter at all.

QuoteSo, "you make a single roll to see if the Crime Fighter can clear the room" AND the GM tells you what consequences you will suffer for failure ("if you fail this scene roll, the fight goes on too long and alarm bells start to ring - drawing in more guards").

So is this just some random goofy hypothetical example, or is this REALLY how the game flows? Because my immediate reaction as a player is "Hey, fuckhead. I'm obviously not going to stick around that long. As soon as I realize this is taking too long, I'm out."

It's like you've captured the feel of that day that really bad GM discovered critical fumble tables or read about twisting the wording of a "wish" and said, "Hey, there ought to be a mechanic that produces that feel every single time!"

QuoteYou see similar things with DitV, Shadow of Yesterday, etc. Failure MEANS SOMETHING

Only problem is the statement "Failure means something" itself doesn't mean anything. Failure always means something. At a bare minimum, it means the squandering of scarce time. And guess what? The player is aware of those stakes. So, every mechanic is a form of conflict resolution, right? Just some instances are less obnoxious than others.

Quoteand all the players buy into the stakes before rolling, and the effects are not made up on the fly by the GM after you fail the roll.

Aside from the mechanic described being literally less fun than even the worst game I've ever run as a novice GM in grade school, this seems inefficient on the face of it. Really? You HAVE to figure out everything that COULD happen even though we know half of those things will never come to pass?

No, it doesn't have to be that explicit, but it does involve some open negotiation. It could be as simple as consequences built into the mechanics that everyone buys into, see The Mountain Witch or a couple other games mentioned in this thread. And we were working with contrived examples lacking a system context, right? Let's examine some actual rules that were around way before the term tried to be defined.

I've been helping the Earthdawn forum understand the much misunderstood Airship/Riverboat combat rules from first edition so that we can update them for 4E. These first appeared as an abbreviated system (by Lou Prosperi, I believe) in the adventure Terror In The Skies (1994). As presented in the adventure, the Airship Combat system is definitely a Conflict Resolution system, as opposed to a task resolution system. Well, actually, 2 conflict resolution systems nested in each other, both serving to drive the plot of the adventure, which was tracking down a Horror-corrupted 'pirate' airship while you yourself were being chased by giant batwinged Horrors that can shoot jet-flames out of their limb orifices. ED adventures from the 90s try to follow a narrative arch, with each chapter as a small sandbox, see any FASA adventure from that era.

Ship captains who encounter each other in the skies declare their intent, and can freely change their mind in response to other declarations. Once all intents are agreed upon and if any of their intents are in conflict (i.e. one wants to engage the other and the other side wants to get away - as opposed to: they ignore each other, they all want to close to combat range, or they all flee from each other), then they got to an engagement phase where they each start start making Speed Tests vs the opposing (slowest/fastest) ship's Speed Step as a difficulty number. First to 3 successful rolls wins the conflict, if tied then first to break the tie wins.

If this engagement phase fails, the timescale shifts to 1 hour rounds and the pursuing ship(s) can make a Speed Test vs the (slowest) fleeing ship's Speed Step to try to re-engage  within that hour (Failure consequence: 1-hour & 8-hour travel rounds are when you make piloting/navigation rolls vs the Hazard level of the area. If this fails the GM makes a Hazard Step test vs your Maneuverability Step, with each success level on the roll causing a -1 to your Speed Step).

If the engagement succeeds, you break down to 1 minute rounds and each captain declares a Maneuver, like: Boarding Run, Ram, Assault(fire weapons), Disengage (requires another "first-to-three chase scene" where the chasing ship gets a free Maneuver because yours is fleeing), etc.

Here's what makes the combat a conflict resolution system, not a task resolution system.
A) If you succeed at your Maneuver, no ship with a lower initiative result can succeed at a maneuver against you.
B) If you fail at your maneuver, every ship with a lower initiative gets a bonus to their Maneuver roll equal to the "Failure Bonus" listed on your chosen maneuver. Examples: fail at your "firing all guns" (Assault) maneuver and everyone later in the round gets a bonus of +1 for every target you fired at past the first one; fail a Disengage roll for that round, and everyone left gets a +2; fail a Boarding Run and everyone left gets +4 to their roll; fail an Assault against a Grounded target (+4); and fail a Ramming attempt (+6).




I also really don't care if a system tries to use conflict resolution for everything or not. This thread was an interesting discussion so far, so thanks to everyone.

Quote from: Telarus;883468Conflict Resolution system, as opposed to a task resolution system

See, you sneak this phrase into your post twice, and as far as I'm concerned, you may as well toss it out in the garbage. Because in order to get across that Conflict Resolution is something special, you have to manufacture a thing called Task Resolution and define it in a way that does not reflect how anyone actually plays.

Here's the thing. After observing different games obsessing over initiative systems, and no GM ever happy enough to not tinker with it, all of which strikes me as absurd because you may as well just flip a coin to see who goes first, I've created a universal procedure that I plug into any RPG I play to coordinate actions of multiple participants. It's 100% traditional in nature.

See if it looks familiar at all...

QuoteShip captains who encounter each other in the skies declare their intent, and can freely change their mind in response to other declarations.

First, each participant (or ship captain if the encounter was about ships) declares an action. You might recall, I continually emphasize actions have both means and ends. So intent is at least implied if not stated explicitly. Each can freely change their mind in response to other declarations.

QuoteOnce all intents are agreed upon and if any of their intents are in conflict (i.e. one wants to engage the other and the other side wants to get away - as opposed to: they ignore each other, they all want to close to combat range, or they all flee from each other), then they got to an engagement phase where they each start start making Speed Tests vs the opposing (slowest/fastest) ship's Speed Step as a difficulty number. First to 3 successful rolls wins the conflict, if tied then first to break the tie wins.

Direct quote from an example used in my document, "Since the Forester's arrow could spoil the Shaman's spell, or the Orcs could interrupt the path of the arrow by blocking, initiative is rolled." Which I cite to make it clear that although I do not use the same words as you, my system is doing the exact same thing. Only when something is in conflict do we start rolling dice for the "initiative" system.

QuoteIf this engagement phase fails, the timescale shifts to 1 hour rounds and the pursuing ship(s) can make a Speed Test vs the (slowest) fleeing ship's Speed Step to try to re-engage  within that hour (Failure consequence: 1-hour & 8-hour travel rounds are when you make piloting/navigation rolls vs the Hazard level of the area. If this fails the GM makes a Hazard Step test vs your Maneuverability Step, with each success level on the roll causing a -1 to your Speed Step).

And if one party did try to disengage, there would be some sort of evasion & pursuit procedure for me as well, though I usually don't see it needing so many dice checks.

QuoteIf the engagement succeeds, you break down to 1 minute rounds and each captain declares a Maneuver, like: Boarding Run, Ram, Assault(fire weapons), Disengage (requires another "first-to-three chase scene" where the chasing ship gets a free Maneuver because yours is fleeing), etc.

Yeah, I'm also shifting time scales.

QuoteHere's what makes the combat a conflict resolution system, not a task resolution system.
A) If you succeed at your Maneuver, no ship with a lower initiative result can succeed at a maneuver against you.

..And if the Orcs have initiative over the Forester and succeed at their blocking maneuvers, the Forester's maneuver can't succeed. However, if the Orcs fail and the Forester has initiative over the Shaman, if the Forester succeeds at his maneuver, the Shaman's maneuver cannot succeed. That's how traditional initiative generally works.

QuoteB) If you fail at your maneuver, every ship with a lower initiative gets a bonus to their Maneuver roll equal to the "Failure Bonus" listed on your chosen maneuver. Examples: fail at your "firing all guns" (Assault) maneuver and everyone later in the round gets a bonus of +1 for every target you fired at past the first one; fail a Disengage roll for that round, and everyone left gets a +2; fail a Boarding Run and everyone left gets +4 to their roll; fail an Assault against a Grounded target (+4); and fail a Ramming attempt (+6).

...And if the Knight fails at his maneuver against the chieftain, that's one more round the chieftain lives and therefore one more attack he may make on the Knight. In most cases, if you give the player a choice between a token bonus on their die, or an extra action, they'll take the extra action. So it may not be a plus to a die roll or even a bonus in game parlance, but it's a pretty substantial bonus nonetheless.

I mean I'm doing the exact same thing, only in a much more streamlined way. Much less abstract, too, so players actually know what the hell is going on.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883527You might recall, I continually emphasize actions have both means and ends. So intent is at least implied if not stated explicitly.




Direct quote from an example used in my document, "Since the Forester's arrow could spoil the Shaman's spell, or the Orcs could interrupt the path of the arrow by blocking, initiative is rolled."

Are saying that when the orcs chose to close on the Forester, their conscious intent was to get in the way of his arrow (possibly with their neck), not just to close to attack range on the Forester?

Quote from: Telarus;883468Ship captains who encounter each other in the skies declare their intent, and can freely change their mind in response to other declarations. Once all intents are agreed upon and if any of their intents are in conflict (i.e. one wants to engage the other and the other side wants to get away - as opposed to: they ignore each other, they all want to close to combat range, or they all flee from each other), then they got to an engagement phase where they each start start making Speed Tests vs the opposing (slowest/fastest) ship's Speed Step as a difficulty number. First to 3 successful rolls wins the conflict, if tied then first to break the tie wins.

If this engagement phase fails, the timescale shifts to 1 hour rounds and the pursuing ship(s) can make a Speed Test vs the (slowest) fleeing ship's Speed Step to try to re-engage  within that hour (Failure consequence: 1-hour & 8-hour travel rounds are when you make piloting/navigation rolls vs the Hazard level of the area. If this fails the GM makes a Hazard Step test vs your Maneuverability Step, with each success level on the roll causing a -1 to your Speed Step).

Interesting.

Thanks. Something like this might be useful for nautical ship encounters in my Honor+Intrigue game.

No problem. It's been interesting to re-examine the system.

And I agree, it's mostly an argument over jargon. I think we should play games and then talk about how the mechanics function in actual play (see morale, reaction, wandering monster checks).

That's why the Initiative in Earthdawn's ship combat makes in more 'conflicty' than 'tasky' (silly jargon). In D&D, if I succeed at an attack, but don't kill/KO an opponent, he still gets an action that round. In this tactical-ship-game, if I succeed at Ramming you, and you have lower initiative, it is assumed I succeed by dealing with whatever you were going to do. If I fail, I am at a disadvantage while you take your turn.

Quote from: Telarus;883716That's why the Initiative in Earthdawn's ship combat makes in more 'conflicty' than 'tasky' (silly jargon). In D&D, if I succeed at an attack, but don't kill/KO an opponent, he still gets an action that round. In this tactical-ship-game, if I succeed at Ramming you, and you have lower initiative, it is assumed I succeed by dealing with what every you were going to do. If I fail, I am at a disadvantage while you take your turn.

Presumably, the intent of an attack in D&D is to kill (or KO, or disarm, etc). If you're just doing some damage, that's shy of the intent. It may be a successful hit, but a mere hit wasn't the intent. It failed to achieve the goal.

Of course, sometimes just hitting can be the intent. But if that's the intent, is there a conflict? If you're not stopping the other guy from doing his thing as well, then the two actions are perfectly compatible, not in conflict.

But typically, the only sense in which hitting is an intent is as a secondary intent. Likewise, the sense in which that is in conflict with what someone else is doing is insofar as defending themselves is also a secondary intent. This justifies why an attack roll must be made merely for a hit, but also why it wouldn't cancel out someone else's primary action.

Of course, we don't come out and say all this in a traditional mechanic. The fact is the traditional mechanic provides far more layers of nuance so effortlessly that it isn't even given a thought. But if you're going to analyze through the lens of goals, whether they succeed, and whether they're in conflict, this is exactly what the traditional mechanic looks like.

Again: explicit, predetermined success/failure stakes don't define conflict resolution.

Also, I'm pretty surprised to hear that historians don't use jargon. Maybe things have changed since I got my degree.

Quote from: Arminius;883734Again: explicit, predetermined success/failure stakes don't define conflict resolution.

This discussion is slowly crawling forward as it circles around again and again.

Scale doesn't define conflict resolution.
Explicit stakes don't define conflict resolution.

Eventually we'll admit that all actions have both means and ends, so intent is ever-present in any kind of resolution, so that can't be used to differentiate conflict resolution either.

That leaves only narrative control. I'm just waiting for it to be settled that either conflict resolution is just a smokescreen for narrative control, or else confess that it is not a new, different thing from traditional resolution.

(To preface: by CR I'm referring to mechanical or procedural CR. It may come off as splitting hairs but in some discussions people like to make the point that CR is always present even if the way it happens is "GM decides". With that out of the way...)

I realize this thread has gone long and there's a lot of people talking without paying attention.

But upthread we already went over this. I'm not even a fan of Forge theory or the various Forge/Story-Games darlings, but when you say that Conflict Resolution implies anything like detailed pre-narration of two possibilities, you're misrepresenting the concept. That's certainly a form of CR. But the idea is more generally just linking goals or intents, via overall procedure, to outcomes. Actually, you could even say it's broader than that--since there are games with narration-trading, you could have something like:

1) Someone declares a conflict, noting that someone's goals or intent are coming up against some kind of opposition.
2) Group does some kind of mechanic/procedure, rolling dice, spending points, arm-wrestling, dance-off.
3) The "winner" of (2) narrates how the conflict is resolved.

In fact I'll bet there are games that follow this exact pattern. Note that in this example "winning" the conflict doesn't mean that your character (assuming he or she is party to the conflict) gets what they want.

But in something more like a traditional RPG, CR is more likely to follow along the lines of:

1) Someone declares a conflict.
1a) The people in control of the PCs and other entities involved in the conflict express their intention or goal.
2) Players engage mechanics or procedures (and the more trad the game is, the more they players will be trying to manipulate the procedures with an aim to achieving their PC's goal).
3) A "winner" is determined.
4) Somebody narrates the outcome in a manner which must reflect the achievement of the winner's goal and/or the failure of the loser's goal.

Note that there's no detailed pre-narration here. If I've donned a disguise and sneaked into a party, trying to learn more about the baron's political scheme's, the result of the CR is going to be learning about the schemes or not. Details of how that happens are left up to the narrator in step (4). Yes, this is kind of loose. Also, some games are going to have partial successes. And it can still fall apart absent additional guidelines or a strong group. E.g. just going by the steps listed above, somebody could say I overhear a detailed discussion but find out that while I've been at the party, the baron's already carried out his plan, end of story, end of game.

My point here is to correct the resurfacing of this notion (I think coming from Telarus who clearly hasn't read the thread) that explicit, detailed stakes are definitional for CR. They aren't.

QuoteI'm just waiting for it to be settled that either conflict resolution is  just a smokescreen for narrative control, or else confess that it is  not a new, different thing from traditional resolution.

At this point we have to step away from my parenthetical preface and return to what I already said a couple times in this thread: Conflict Resolution in the general sense was a concept, not a method or tool, designed to highlight the fact that resolution of a task (usually via a mechanic) doesn't necessarily resolve the conflict where the task was attempted. This is especially true if nobody at the table recognizes the players' ability or prerogative to approach the game in terms of goals. Player: "I want to get the princess to agree to meet me. I know, I'll make a fancy maneuver on horseback and salute her. And I roll a success. Is she impressed?" GM: "Maybe a little, but she still doesn't agree to meet you." This is arguably a legitimate interaction by the rules in many RPGs unless something says the GM has to pay attention to abstract intent; if the rules only say that tasks succeed or fail, then there's no way in the rules to resolve conflicts which aren't directly defined by tasks.

If this sounds ridiculous and kind of screwed up to you, I agree. But there's a ton of GMing advice out there that explicitly encourages GMs to respect the outcome of tasks while thwarting the intent, in order to achieve an outcome that either advances a predetermined storyline or follows a certain dramatic pace. The point of developing the concept of CR was to show that the task was being resolved by the dice, but the conflict was being resolved by something else.

Now, getting back to mechanical/procedural CR, we can see in the actual games where it's used, it's designed to regularize if not completely constrain the method of resolving conflicts, and usually to give players the concrete ability to act in their characters' interest, or at least to concretely influence the outcome of conflicts involving their characters. (I'm making that distinction because there are a number of games--regardless of what I think of them--that encourage players to engage conflicts and then make a sort of authorial decision to lose.)

CR could also be an analytical tool--if we assume that conflicts are always present in games and always get resolved somehow--to just ask "how are conflicts resolved, and on what principles?" E.g. in the stereotype of the 90's pre-Forge storytelling game, conflicts are resolved by the GM based purely on whatever's needed to move the game to the next pre-planned scene. In the game Theatrix, a whole flowchart was provided to determine outcomes, which basically boiled down to "let the PCs win or lose based on their abilities, if it doesn't upset the plot; have external forces intervene when needed to advance the plot". An illustrated example showed (something like) an Old West gunslinger shooting down a bunch of bandits, only to be caught flatfooted by a showgirl whom he didn't suspect would betray him. But I don't know if this analytical approach was ever used exhaustively to show how various games "really worked".

The final point: yes, in most forms of mechanical/procedural CR which is designed as such in Forge-influenced, yes it does entail a degree of narrative control for the player. But not necessarily complete narrative control, and also not necessarily much more narrative control than comes from doing stuff with a purpose. But for people who came from the GM-centric storytelling culture, this was a lot more narrative control than they ever had before.

And I'll say again, being aware of conflicts (or intents, if you prefer), can be a useful skill to develop even if you've never planned to run a game along a pre-set path, because it'll keep you from spinning wheels, unconsciously railroading, and pixel-bitching your players. I feel this applies even if you believe--as I do-- that there are clearly cases where you can rule success or failure without resorting to any type of mechanic.