Quote from: Justin Alexander;886774The names "conflict resolution" and "task resolution" are, objectively speaking, terrible names for the concepts being discussed: They simply are not descriptive of the distinction being drawn between the two resolution types and, as a result, a lot of people make the same categorical error you're making here (including myself when I first encountered the terms).

I've had better luck when I use the terms "narrative resolution" and "action resolution".

At this point I'd like to add another term: "effect resolution"

This refers to the resolution of the character's actions on the current scene which converts the current situation (state) to the next situation (or state) in the game. This can be achieved by a piecemeal "action resolution" or a broader "narrative resolution".

The question is "How does the current character action affect the story at hand?"

Quote from: Justin Alexander;886774The classic example to distinguish between narrative resolution and action resolution is the PC attempting to find hidden documents in an office with a locked safe. With action resolution, the mechanics determine whether or not the PC can crack the safe. With narrative resolution, the mechanics determine whether or not the PC finds the documents in the safe.

Note that a single "action resolution" can refer to something as discrete as a single swing of a sword or something as abstract as an entire afternoon of negotiating grain prices with a merchant.

There's a difference here. One achieves the outcome without altering the scenario and one requires the scenario to be changed to fit the outcome. Namely, the former reveals the interior regardless of the presence or lack of the incriminating documents within. The later, on the other hand, causes the documents to materialize within the safe so they may be "found". But were they in the safe in the first place? Important question! Because, if they're in the safe and they're not acquired, then they can't be somewhere else!

Lets take a combat view of this scenario. I'll be focusing on a modern warfare scenario in which your party comes under attack, aka ambush. Uncertain as to the enemy's location you open fire at a tree line from which you suspect the fire is coming from (it could also be a misleading eco from the cliff behind the trees). Question, do the rules require you to know the exact location of the enemy combatants for combat to be resolved? Your action is "I fire at the enemies behind the tree line". Your concern is to stay alive, that is your most basic concern. This is followed by neutralizing the enemy, of which killing them is a commonly expected outcome, but in reality it is not an absolute prerequisite. Hammering hard enough will keep them taking cover long enough for you to do something, which for all practical purposes is as good as killing them.

So you fire at the tree line. You might hit or miss. You might resolve this in a "narrative" or "action" based way. You might achieve a more "macro" effect of pushing them back by means of a "narrative" resolution, and in doing so stay alive. You might achieve this in a more "piecemeal" "action" resolution in which you miss or hit and deliver damage, etc. (you know the drill), and ultimately achieve your goal after a few iterations of "action resolution". Either way you "know" the enemy is there, but what if it is not? What if you're just firing at ghosts and noises. No matter how hard you fire into the area, the enemy is not there! You can nuke the whole treeline for all that it matters.


So...

Quote from: Justin Alexander;886774This isn't accurate, either. The "HP 0 = DEAD" mechanic isn't a narrative/conflict resolution mechanic. It's just telling you whether or not you've killed somebody (just like the attack roll tells you whether or not you've hit someone with your sword).

This doesn't carry much weight if you're firing at ghosts. How can you "HP 0 = DEAD" something that isn't even there?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;886774With narrative/conflict resolution, the players declare "I would like to accomplish X by doing Y".

Ok, but with "effect resolution" the players declare "I take such action in the attempt to achieve something". Once again, within the context of modern warfare this can take the form of different mechanisms. It is not the same to fire a 9mm single handed into the treeline vs lighting up the treeline with a 50 cal machine gun. Effect carries its weight. Firing single shots may require individual rolls while the 50 cal may require a single "suppression roll".

Either way you want to resolve it, you can't just say "I would like to eliminate the enemies behind the treeline by firing with my 50 cal". You can't do this because it presupposes the enemy is there to begin with. How do you know that? Did you send a scout to flank the position and confirm their presence? No you did not.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;886774In this specific case, you've set the narrative goal to be "kill that guy". This superficially makes the "HP = 0" mechanic look like narrative resolution.

Question: Is "killing that guy" the only relevant outcome possible from your actions? Once again from a modern warfare perspective, taking fire can neutralize you just as good as getting killed (depending on your training). So taking a huge blow from a warhammer to your shield can make your character run in total fear just the same as taking heat from a 50 cal.

Question: Independently of narrative or action resolution, do you really need to "kill that guy" to achieve your goal?

So, "I attack", what happens? I might not deliver damage, but my blow is so hard my opponent surrenders or simply runs away in fear.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;886774With narrative/conflict resolution, the players declare "I would like to accomplish X by doing Y".

With action/task resolution, the player declares "I want to do Y" with the expectation or hope that it will result in X being accomplished.

With effect resolution the players declare "I do X with the intent of accomplishing Y, tell me what I perceive"

The players will fire at the treeline and generate an effect. They will perceive nobody else firing from it, but this can be because they neutralized whoever was there or because there was nobody there to begin with!

Quote from: Justin Alexander;886774Being able to say "this is how I would like to solve this problem" allows players to control their spotlight and it allows the GM to take a more general approach to prep. (The GM knows that there is incriminating evidence to be found at the club. The players decide whether they want to get it by sneaking into the office and cracking the safe; seducing the lounge singer; interrogating the club owner; or putting the place under surveillance.)

On the other hand, task resolution allows for a more simulationist experience of the game world (which, in its verisimilitude, can be more immersive for many). And it also allows for a more diverse array of possible outcomes (which can prevent the game from becoming predictable). (For example, they succeed at opening the safe, but instead of finding the incriminating evidence of a criminal enterprise they find the mob's blackmail photos of John F. Kennedy schtupping Marilyn Monroe. Now what do they do?)

Not quite sure what you mean by controlling the spotlight and being simulationist. In the first case it sounds more like stealing the spotlight. If two characters are investigating and searching for the "incriminating evidence" in two locations, and one rolls  for the "narrative" outcome and succeeds then the second can never succeed even if the roll is successful. The evidence is in the safe (as rolled by the first player) and not in the hotel room as investigated by the second player, no matter how good the second player rolls. It seems like the outcome of the story depends on an initiative roll or whoever speaks first instead of some articulated plan by the "enemy".

Now if both players fail then the evidence in neither in the office safe nor in the hotel room! So where is it?

In regards to the "simulationist" not sure about that either. Trust me, if you're getting hammered by a 50 cal you will not stick your head out and thus can't fire back, thus you're as good as not there. No need for an HP = 0 rule to take an opponent out of the battlefield. If a dragon sweeps down at you and breaths down on your party you will take cover regardless of saving throws and hit point damage and "narrative mechanics". A stand and deliver attitude while your flesh is melting off due to an acid breath weapon is as unrealistic and un-simulationist and un-narrative correct as it gets.

Question: Is the dragon only effective if it can drive your character's hit points down to 0? Otherwise it's as good as not being there?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;890172I gotta echo Lunamancer:  What does Narrative Resolution mean?

As someone who sincerely is not getting the difference between task and conflict in this context, I need clarification.

Here ya go.

Quote from: Agkistro;890192So... does that mean that if one GM is picturing an attack roll as representing a series of maneuvers and counter maneuvers (as the rules say), and another GM is picturing an attack roll as representing a single swing of a sword (as most GMs treat it by convention), that it's Task resolution for one of them, and Conflict resolution for the other, even though they are using the exact same mechanics?

The short answer: No.

The distinction between task/action resolution and conflict/narrative resolution is not the amount of activity abstracted into or covered by the mechanic.

In task/action resolution you are determining whether or not a specific action is successful or not. In conflict/narrative resolution you are determining whether or not you are successful in your goal. (These can be made superficially identical if you goal is identical to a specific action.)

Quote from: Saurondor;890505This refers to the resolution of the character's actions on the current scene which converts the current situation (state) to the next situation (or state) in the game. This can be achieved by a piecemeal "action resolution" or a broader "narrative resolution".

What utility do you see this term having? What's your definition of "state" / "situation"?

QuoteWith effect resolution the players declare "I do X with the intent of accomplishing Y, tell me what I perceive"

How is this different from action resolution?

QuoteThis doesn't carry much weight if you're firing at ghosts. How can you "HP 0 = DEAD" something that isn't even there? (...)

Question: Is "killing that guy" the only relevant outcome possible from your actions?

No. But it's the only thing that HP 0 tells you in a system where HP 0 = DEAD (and nothing else).

The fact that there are also other things you can hypothetically do in a system where HP 0 = DEAD doesn't change the nature of that specific mechanic.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;890515The distinction between task/action resolution and conflict/narrative resolution is not the amount of activity abstracted into or covered by the mechanic.

In task/action resolution you are determining whether or not a specific action is successful or not. In conflict/narrative resolution you are determining whether or not you are successful in your goal. (These can be made superficially identical if you goal is identical to a specific action.)

The thing is that there is never a single goal. There is always a hierarchy of things that you want to accomplish, in order to accomplish higher-level things.

I swing my sword because I want to kill this orc. I want to kill this orc because I want to get into the dark fortress he is guarding. I want to get into the dark fortress because I want to discover the secret of the blight. I want to discover the secret of the blight because I want to make life better for the towns being affected. etc.

A lower-level goal is always a step towards a larger-level goal.

The original conflict resolution mechanics (like Dogs in the Vineyard or Trollbabe) resolved this as being always at the level of a single defined opponent. There was a defined set of rolls to resolve conflict with one individual or group.

Taken more broadly, I don't think there is any distinction about what is a goal in itself and what is an action towards a larger goal.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;886774With narrative/conflict resolution, the players declare "I would like to accomplish X by doing Y".

With action/task resolution, the player declares "I want to do Y" with the expectation or hope that it will result in X being accomplished.

Hold on a tick...

THEY'RE THE EXACT SAME THING!  They achieve the SAME result.  It's just words you use to describe what you want before you roll!

What the hell?  So what you're saying, in essence, is that this entire discussion is a lot of about nothing?

Wow.  OK, I'm done.  I just spent way too many minutes of my life trying to figure this out and there's nothing to figure out.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;890569Hold on a tick...

THEY'RE THE EXACT SAME THING!  They achieve the SAME result.  It's just words you use to describe what you want before you roll!

What the hell?  So what you're saying, in essence, is that this entire discussion is a lot of about nothing?

Wow.  OK, I'm done.  I just spent way too many minutes of my life trying to figure this out and there's nothing to figure out.

Yes, that is what I saw too.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;890515What utility do you see this term having? What's your definition of "state" / "situation"?

How is this different from action resolution?

A state is a point in which all players know the story to be in(GM included if applicable). Players call their actions with the intent of leading the current state into a future state more favorable to their intents. This may seem like action resolution, but I want to keep it separate as sometimes actions don't really change the state in any real way. In many cases it requires a chain of actions to "change the state". The question here is, can we optimize this process to make the change less "mechanically intensive" while still maintaining the degree of detail and also "simulation" if you will. There is also the concern of looking into rule outcomes that can create paradoxes and there is the possibility of multiple states existing concurrently which must be resolved.

Conflict resolution mechanics tend to "pick" a desired state and then describe how the group went from state A to state B. Task resolution mechanics tend to "seek" the desired state by a succession of actions or tasks performed. They go from A to B by first stepping over A1, A2, A3, etc. until they arrive (hopefully) at B.

The issue with conflict resolution mechanics is that you're changing the backdrop to the scene. What happens when two teams are out to search for the documents? Or two teams breach a room to "kill the boss"? Both teams can't find the documents in two places at the same time! If blue team rolls success then state B results in the documents being in the blue room, but if red team also rolls success then state B (or should I say B') has the documents in the red room. Which is it? B or B'? Or do we fuse both realities into a single one and how?

Now task resolution works on a "single thread" of reality, if you'll allow me the expression. The documents will be in the red room. Now it's a matter of having the red team find them. What happens if the red team fails to acquire them? Well the game can't go from A to B and all subsequent states derived from B are unattainable. This seems to leave the whole story depending on a single roll. This is particularly noticeable in combat.

Getting killed by one hit would be a game stopper so this concept of hit points gets factored in and now HPs act as a buffer to uncertainty. Combat is a succession of attacks in which HPs are depleted until HP = 0, and then something happens. In many games we play under the impression that we're changing things, hit points are dropping, I roll more dice, hit some more, roll more damage. Things are "changing", but are they? My character is as combat effective as with full hit points, my opponent too. We might add "wound" rules to factor this in and make it even more "realistic". But are wounds the only effect of an attack? Am I missing something?

What effect resolution looks into is the question: Are we spending too much into some mechanics and getting too little and are we missing out on possible and equally impacting effects? There is also a time constraint to all this. The faster this flows through your mind the better you will be able to recreate the state the story is in. If I keep asking myself "where were we?" then maybe a great deal of the "detail" I'm rolling for is getting lost or at least it is not as effective.

Now all this comes from my interest in modern combat RPGs. Looking at many rules (task based usually) I saw a great deal of "detail" and "realism" and "simulationism", but as I played them out and then saw videos and combat footage I was like this doesn't match. The succession of task resolutions was not building up to a "realistic" and interesting combat scene and on the other hand conflict resolution wasn't as "detailish" as I wanted it. I realized that the problem was that many "effects" were not being "simulated" by the task resolution mechanics, it was either hit or miss, and even conflict resolution was not factoring in many of these effects either.

The issue with modern warfare or mechanized warfare, vs say medieval warfare, is that it is massive firepower vs massive firepower, but it can also be individual and very effective. A machine gun nest can be firing 1200 rounds a minute, am I going to roll for every single one? Am I going to keep tabs on the ammo? On the other hand a single sniper shot can have very devastating effect. What's the effect of the machine gun? Is it required that every shot hit to cause an effect?

Am I concerned with the task of firing the machine gun round after round, or the effect of the machine gun firing as a whole or the conflict of keeping the advancing forces from the beach? How does my character's skill factor into this? Is my character only effective if I hit something?

This last question raises another important point about effects. Sometimes rules prevent some effects from taking place. For example, since there are hit points, and in some case these may be high, I can't quickly reduce them to 0 and thus some surprise attacks may seem impossible to resolve unless there are "exceptions" to the rules which allow for this, but also add complexity to the rule system.

So going back to something more fantasy styled. I'm fighting an orc. If all I can do is deliver damage to "cause an effect", if the only effect of my task is to "reduce hit points" then I'll focus on doing damage. Yet I can do other things like push the orc back, instill fear, chase him around etc., but how do I determine this out of my task resolution mechanism? How do I determine this from a conflict resolution?

If I do conflict resolution I want to attack the orc with the intent of defeating it. Ok, I roll, I succeed, ok. Is the orc dead? Retreated? Ran away never to come back? How do I get all this info from a single die roll?

Task on the other hand may lead to many rolls that supply more info. A set of attacks that may incline the orc to run away or may invite me to run away if I'm not that successful. But this can get boring if I'm not really changing much, if as a player I become aware that the story is slowing down due to a set of rolls that are not adding much to the plot.

So the question is how much effort are you putting in, how much are you getting out, in what amount of time and how relevant are the details of your character to the outcome of the actions?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;890569Hold on a tick...

THEY'RE THE EXACT SAME THING!  They achieve the SAME result.  It's just words you use to describe what you want before you roll!

What the hell?  So what you're saying, in essence, is that this entire discussion is a lot of about nothing?

Wow.  OK, I'm done.  I just spent way too many minutes of my life trying to figure this out and there's nothing to figure out.

It's not the same thing. As mentioned previously with the document example if the success is narrative the documents are there and can't be somewhere else. On the other hand if the success is action based the contents of the safe are revealed which may lead to the documents or not depending on them being there in the first place.

Quote from: Saurondor;890657Conflict resolution mechanics tend to "pick" a desired state and then describe how the group went from state A to state B. Task resolution mechanics tend to "seek" the desired state by a succession of actions or tasks performed. They go from A to B by first stepping over A1, A2, A3, etc. until they arrive (hopefully) at B.

Of course, this has already been discussed repeatedly in this thread, and the distinction between task and conflict resolution consistently fails to stand to close scrutiny. The reason this thread keeps going around and around and around is because when one characteristic is debunked, people go hopping to the next one, and so on, only to eventually circle around back to the first.

Here again, we have this nonsense about A1, A2, A3, etc. Yet, if I repeated this to someone who believes in conflict resolution, they would say, "No. You're just talking about scale. It's not about that. It's about resolving figuring out whether the intent is successful, not the action."

But what the fuck does it even mean for an action to be successful or not, save for judging by whether its results were in line with the intent?

From there the fall back is the documents in the safe. Now earlier in the thread, I likened this to the solo-gaming appendix in the 1st Ed DMG. Apparently 1st Ed DMG must not be a "traditional" game because it uses "conflict resolution", what with it's 1 minute abstract combat rounds and a solo-gaming section where the dungeon is created according to where you explore, and secret doors are placed according to where you search.

Anyone who's ever played that section knows, the rules don't work as an absolute. There are times when you wander into an already-mapped area. In such cases, your precious "narrative authority" (the meaningless string of words that forms the jargon for this stuff) goes out the window as it's constrained by a previously established element.

You've identified a different example of this problem:

QuoteThe issue with conflict resolution mechanics is that you're changing the backdrop to the scene. What happens when two teams are out to search for the documents? Or two teams breach a room to "kill the boss"? Both teams can't find the documents in two places at the same time! If blue team rolls success then state B results in the documents being in the blue room, but if red team also rolls success then state B (or should I say B') has the documents in the red room. Which is it? B or B'? Or do we fuse both realities into a single one and how?

I've criticized the idea of task vs conflict resolution by drawing an analogy to breathing and blood circulation. If you try to imagine a human that does just one and not the other, you're either deluding yourself, or you've killed the patient.

Here, if you have to decide on B or on B', one of those groups has bumped up against one of those exceptions to the concept that "conflict resolution" ALWAYS allows the documents to be in the safe. For what it's worth, people who play alleged CR games responded to this point earlier in the thread saying that's just not how the games work in actual play. Either the documents are in the blue room or the red room. Not both. In other words, self-described CR, in actual play, does not guarantee the documents are findable in the safe like you claim they are. I understand it's a hypothetical meant to explain the difference in concept. But as I've maintained, the difference consistently fails to stand up to close scrutiny. This is such a case. It is a human that both breathes and circulates blood. For whatever reason, game theorists have fooled themselves in fixating on one and pretending the other doesn't exist.

There is another alternative, and it's the one you're getting at, where you imagine things splitting off into two different threads. This is analogous to having killed the patient. This is no longer a "resolution" of any sort at all, because it failed to resolve the conflicting actions of the red team with the blue team.

Quote from: Lunamancer;890832But what the fuck does it even mean for an action to be successful or not, save for judging by whether its results were in line with the intent?

Well, regardless of success or failure an action has an effect, and if it doesn't have an effect is it worth creating a rule to resolve it? As we've also discussed, I believe it was in another thread, some actions carry more "weight" than others. Sometimes individual actions are critical to the story and this is what task resolution tends to center around. At other times it's the aggregate value that matters and resolving each individual action becomes slow and tedious and this is what conflict resolution tends to center around. Now, as you mention "fixating on one and pretending the other doesn't exist" is an issue in games because once you commit to one you fail to obtain the benefits of the other, or should I say perceive, because you are correct in that one and the other are the same, it's just a matter of scale. Like you said "distinction between task and conflict resolution consistently fails to stand to close scrutiny".

One of the issues I faced when working on modern warfare rules was that sometimes a single shot was important and at other times it was but one in thousands. A single sniper shot can change the course of a story on the other hand a minigun at 4000 rounds per minute is only making the enemy stay low. Task resolution is fit for the former, but tedious for the later. Now, what about time? Sometimes half second reactions matter, and sometimes an event can span minutes or tens of minutes. Do I really need to follow protocol and resolve it at 6 second intervals, always?

Sometimes a task based mechanism was more fitting and at other times a conflict based mechanism seemed best. Either way I looked at it there was an issue that stuck out: damage. It seemed like doing damage was the only way to affect the story regardless of the choice of task or conflict resolution. Now I don't want to generalize by stating that all conflict resolution mechanics centered around combat require "damage" to be done, but since the player is stating the desired outcome, this usually narrows down the possible effects. It's either the desired player outcome on success or some sort of "opposite" on failure.

This got me thinking about ways to get more out of a die roll once you know success is guaranteed or that failure is guaranteed. Let's not forget that someone's success is somebody else's failure. For example if I need a 19 or 20 on a d20 that's a 10% chance of success. I can either roll 19, just barely enough, or 20 great roll and possibly critical based on the rules being used. Yet I can't roll 21 or 22 or greater on a d20, there simply are not enough sides, but let's imagine a d20 that goes up to 30 and for the moment being consider 20 as a normal outcome (not critical). The odds of getting 19 or greater (up to 30) is also 10%. In this magical die the odds of 19 is like 4.2%, a 20 3.8%, a 21 0.8%, etc. with diminishing odds as you reach 30 with the odds of 0.0001% of getting "rolled". Now I have more values within the success range while still having the same 10% chance of success. If I roll a 19 I barely succeed, but if I roll a 22, well that something great! I can now begin to distinguish between bad good rolls, good good rolls and excellent good rolls. Even outstanding good rolls as I can roll a 30 (uncommon as that may be) and send the ball out of the stadium so to speak. I really can't do this with a normal d20, I need my magical d20 that behaves like a magnifying glass as the odds of failure or success get too high.

When your characters are the best of the best they're trained to succeed. It's hard to tell an interesting story if all you see is success without a gradient, and its hard to get that gradient without some help from the dice mechanics. This is a limitation that I see task and conflict mechanics share. They're coarse in their outcome, fail to provide fine detail once the general outcome is guaranteed, and fail to allocate for an ever present (but very small) chance of an unexpected opposite result once the character is very good at something or the player has enough "points" to "buy the roll".

Quote from: Saurondor;890980Well, regardless of success or failure an action has an effect, and if it doesn't have an effect is it worth creating a rule to resolve it?

But all actions by necessity have effects because they are the utilization of scarce means to achieve ends. At the very least, the fact that you chose an action means you there are actions you did not choose. If you could do something without it costing any time, effort, energy, material resources, disutility associated with labor, or mental focus, you'd just automatically do it if it were beneficial to you. It wouldn't be a choice.

QuoteAs we've also discussed, I believe it was in another thread, some actions carry more "weight" than others. Sometimes individual actions are critical to the story and this is what task resolution tends to center around. At other times it's the aggregate value that matters and resolving each individual action becomes slow and tedious and this is what conflict resolution tends to center around.

Well, again, scaling up is not the essence of so-called conflict resolution. I can play a traditional RPG, and within the same RPG we could choose either to play out the thief character going around town and gathering information. Or I could just say, "Roll against Urbane ability." and sum the whole thing up that way.

This isn't just because I chose to play an exceptionally clever RPG. It's because the nature of action is utilizing scarce means to achieve ends. Every action has a means and an end. As jhkim pointed out (and I actually beat him to this many, many pages ago), these things are just part of a chain anyway. Achieving the ends of this action is only important because it's the means by which we've chosen to achieve a much greater goal.

As such, it's a trivial task to pull a skill check out from the means-ends chain, scale it to the level you need, and then apply it back to the means-ends chain.




Sometimes a task based mechanism was more fitting and at other times a conflict based mechanism seemed best. Either way I looked at it there was an issue that stuck out: damage. It seemed like doing damage was the only way to affect the story regardless of the choice of task or conflict resolution. Now I don't want to generalize by stating that all conflict resolution mechanics centered around combat require "damage" to be done, but since the player is stating the desired outcome, this usually narrows down the possible effects. It's either the desired player outcome on success or some sort of "opposite" on failure.

QuoteWhen your characters are the best of the best they're trained to succeed. It's hard to tell an interesting story if all you see is success without a gradient, and its hard to get that gradient without some help from the dice mechanics. This is a limitation that I see task and conflict mechanics share.

I'm not 100% sure where this fits into the topic, but I don't agree with this. I'm not saying it's easy, it would certainly be a fun creative exercise, but it's certainly possible to imagine a story unfolding where the protagonist does nothing but succeed, succeed, succeed. It just might be that things are such a tangled mess to begin with that the "story" or "process" is the act of progressive discovery.

I seem to recall even in the hay day of GNS theory, you had one camp who was insistent that "exploration" wasn't covered. Exploration isn't the term I'd use. But there are certain knowledge problems inherent in real life. And they're also the stuff of RPGs as well. Keeping player knowledge vs character knowledge straight. Because a character may choose differently if he has some other piece of information.

He may choose poorly due to a lack of that information but still "succeed" on every die roll. Maybe he's actually going backwards with regards to the goal due to his not being properly informed. But how exactly does one measure going backwards? If the problem to begin with was one of knowledge, even if he seems to be going backwards from your omniscient perspective, as he does so he slowly gains knowledge and information that will ultimately allow him to right his course and proceed accordingly. Thus a back-and-forth struggle can still be observed.


It just so happens I'm faced with this exact sort of thing in something I'm working on. I'm developing a new campaign world, and I'm currently detailing the active deities. Their skills, of course, are such that they virtually never "fail" in a mechanical sense. Does that mean they automatically achieve their goals without struggle, though?

Quote from: Lunamancer;891126It just so happens I'm faced with this exact sort of thing in something I'm working on. I'm developing a new campaign world, and I'm currently detailing the active deities. Their skills, of course, are such that they virtually never "fail" in a mechanical sense. Does that mean they automatically achieve their goals without struggle, though?

Well obviously not. There has to be some effort that leads up to the goal. The question is how much of this effort is modified by the die roll? If they never "fail" in a mechanical sense, then what's the purpose of the mechanics? This is what I like to refer to as "the impact of the highly probable". You know the characters will not fail. The roll is not to determine success, that's a given and "highly probable" outcome, the roll is to determine the impact of such success. Success is no longer a matter of rolling above a value, but rather interpreting the difference (above or below) to such a target value. The more possible outcomes the die roll has the more you can "read" from it and the more modifiers you can put into place. For example if I depend of a flip of a coin heads may mean somewhat successful while tails may mean very successful, but that's it, I can't read any more. With a d6 on the other hand I have more values and even more so with 2d6 and so forth. A +2 weighs more on a 2d4 than a 2d6 than a 2d8 than a 2d20. So I have more leeway on the modifiers I can include if the dice are "bigger".

Now the probability curves for these types of die rolls are very bell shaped (as is common in many games). What happens when the probability curves are cymbal shaped? That is a set of highly probable central values and a set of very improbable outlying values. Imagine a distribution that goes from 1 to 30, but values between 10 and 20 occur 95% of the time and all the others are very improbable. Requiring a roll of 10 or better guarantees success 97.5%, marginal success (10 to 15) will occur 45% of the time, average success or better will occur 50% of the time, getting something above 15 will be progressively harder, outstanding success will occur only 2.5% of the time (better than 20). It is possible to bat the ball out of the stadium by rolling a 25 or better, improbable as that may seem, and of course it's possible to fumble it and roll a 5 or worse!

I've become very interested in these types of curves and their corresponding dice mechanics because they allow me to work comfortably in a "success zone" with a lot of outcomes to fiddle with and still maintain a degree of failure that keeps the game interesting. The "success zone" represents outcomes that favor the character's intents to a greater or lesser degree.

Quote from: Lunamancer;891126But there are certain knowledge problems inherent in real life. And they're also the stuff of RPGs as well. Keeping player knowledge vs character knowledge straight. Because a character may choose differently if he has some other piece of information.

He may choose poorly due to a lack of that information but still "succeed" on every die roll. Maybe he's actually going backwards with regards to the goal due to his not being properly informed. But how exactly does one measure going backwards? If the problem to begin with was one of knowledge, even if he seems to be going backwards from your omniscient perspective, as he does so he slowly gains knowledge and information that will ultimately allow him to right his course and proceed accordingly. Thus a back-and-forth struggle can still be observed.

Player knowledge vs character knowledge is something that's very interesting to me as well and particularly important in my settings. Actions such as cutting the blue or red cable to disarm a bomb, firing through a wall at an enemy, firing into a treeline or bush at a "suspected" enemy position, turning an agent to your side, etc. Should players know the outcome of such actions or just the effect of such actions? How does "knowing the outcome" affect player decisions? I've done my best as a character to disarm the device, I got a pretty good roll, do I open the briefcase? Would it be unfair for it to still explode? I opened fire against the wall. Did I hit my target? Is my target down or just faking it? Am I firing at the actual targets or is there nobody behind those trees? Did I convince the local operative to turncoat and join our cause or is he playing us as a double agent?

Let me take the target behind a wall as an example. Rules and mechanics can be articulated so I don't need the exact location of the target to make a roll, but in many rules and mechanics it is needed. Elements such as cover, armor, and protection come into play and are declared beforehand. Not to mention damage rolls which is a dead give away of a successful hit. It's quite different to say roll over 16 to hit, vs. roll without knowing the target value and I'll narrate what happens. In the former case rolling an 18 leads the player to believe a hit was achieved, but what if the target is not there anymore? How do you work this out? In the later case I can narrate that your character hears an "arrghhh" and an a thump. Is the NPC really down or just feinting it and is now prone waiting for the unexpected PC to walk in? If as a player your know you're working against target values and you can estimate the target value and you roll well above such value is it fair to just walk into the room in the understanding the target is down? I've taken a bit of flak for this because I don't allow it. The NPC has the same right to play the system and dupe the players into a trap as the PCs do. If the players are careless they get what they deserve.

The other thing to consider is if hitting and delivering damage is the only way to affect the story. If the PC fires through the wall and hits nothing the NPC could (and really should) be scared enough to retreat fearing the next shots may not miss. Yet in many games we get the feeling than if we don't deliver "damage" then the action hasn't been successful. In the case of conflict resolution how do I resolve this? I what? I open fire at the wall and eliminate the enemy behind it. Great roll, but why should I narrate the outcome? How does this get narrated? If I succeed in the conflict resolution roll then the target (NPC) "was there" and there's no option to be elsewhere, the NPC can't just retreat, or fake the death or anything. Conflict resolution in this case is narrowing the outcome (states) set to what the PC dictates (which will be always favorable for the PC, by definition). Under conflict resolution a very skilled PC not only gets a great shot through the wall, the player also gets to rewrite the story so the NPC was there to get hit in the first place.

Quote from: Saurondor;891274The other thing to consider is if hitting and delivering damage is the only way to affect the story. If the PC fires through the wall and hits nothing the NPC could (and really should) be scared enough to retreat fearing the next shots may not miss. Yet in many games we get the feeling than if we don't deliver "damage" then the action hasn't been successful.

Systems vary in how they handle morale, fear, suppression fire, and the melee threats equivalent to suppression fire. Few systems handle all of those elements, some handle almost none, almost none handle all of those elements well. Many systems leave most of those elements to GM judgment calls for the NPCs and ignore the direct effects of those elements on PCs. Both can be a bit of a problem.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;890569

QuoteWith narrative/conflict resolution, the players declare "I would like to accomplish X by doing Y".

With action/task resolution, the player declares "I want to do Y" with the expectation or hope that it will result in X being accomplished.

THEY'RE THE EXACT SAME THING!  They achieve the SAME result.  It's just words you use to describe what you want before you roll!

In one system success determines whether or not X is true. In the other, it doesn't.

Your definition of "EXACT SAME THING" must be radically different from mine.

Quote from: Saurondor;890657The issue with conflict resolution mechanics is that you're changing the backdrop to the scene. What happens when two teams are out to search for the documents? Or two teams breach a room to "kill the boss"? Both teams can't find the documents in two places at the same time!

Surely you're familiar with the concept of opposed checks, right?

What you have here are two groups who have the same goal. In a typical conflict resolution system, both groups would make an opposed check using whatever skill best suited the method they were using to locate the documents (which might be the same method and skill for both groups). And the group which succeeded on the check would be the one to find the documents.

QuoteNow task resolution works on a "single thread" of reality, if you'll allow me the expression. The documents will be in the red room. Now it's a matter of having the red team find them. What happens if the red team fails to acquire them? Well the game can't go from A to B and all subsequent states derived from B are unattainable. This seems to leave the whole story depending on a single roll.

That's only true in task resolution if:

(a) You absolutely have to find the documents in order for the "story" to continue;

(b) There is only one possible action that can be taken to find the documents; and

(c) That action requires a skill check that cannot be retried.

But none of those things need to be true. (Or are even likely to be true unless you go out of your way to make them true.)

QuoteSo going back to something more fantasy styled. I'm fighting an orc. If all I can do is deliver damage to "cause an effect", if the only effect of my task is to "reduce hit points" then I'll focus on doing damage. Yet I can do other things like push the orc back, instill fear, chase him around etc., but how do I determine this out of my task resolution mechanism?

I'm still not seeing the distinction you're trying to draw here. You seem to be saying that "effect resolution" is creating a task resolution mechanic in a system that doesn't currently have that task resolution mechanic. Or possibly it's just another way of saying "task resolution mechanics can handle things at different levels of abstraction"?

I agree with you that modeling every bullet fired by a machine gun as a separate die roll isn't a great mechanic. I'm just not clear why you think that all task resolution mechanics exist at the specific "per bullet" level of abstraction.

It's like arguing that QWOP isn't a very friendly way to model running in a video game. That's true. It just doesn't follow that you're no longer playing a video game if moving is handled by just pushing the joystick on the controller.

Quote from: Lunamancer;890832But what the fuck does it even mean for an action to be successful or not, save for judging by whether its results were in line with the intent?

You appear to be arguing that it's impossible to unlock a door if you are wrong about what you think is on the other side of it.

QuoteApparently 1st Ed DMG must not be a "traditional" game because it uses "conflict resolution", what with it's 1 minute abstract combat rounds and a solo-gaming section where the dungeon is created according to where you explore, and secret doors are placed according to where you search.

None of those things are conflict resolution.

A 1 minute abstract combat round is no different from a 6 second abstract combat round , a 10 second abstract combat round, or a 10 minute abstract combat round.

Randomly generating the dungeon room behind the door a PC chooses to open (instead of the doors they don't open) is neither task resolution nor action resolution. It's random content generation.

The secret door mechanic in that random generation system isn't conflict resolution, either, although it's close. (In a conflict resolution system, the players would be able to say, "I'm going to find the secret door in this room." and be able to succeed on the check even if the map and/or random generator hadn't determined the possibility of a secret door being there.)

Quote from: Justin Alexander;891294In one system success determines whether or not X is true. In the other, it doesn't.

Your definition of "EXACT SAME THING" must be radically different from mine.

I was just told in this very thread, the 'one system success' isn't either form of resolution...

And again, I'm left confused.  You people have way too much time.  And I'm stuck at home, crippled!

Quote from: Christopher Brady;891295I was just told in this very thread, the 'one system success' isn't either form of resolution...

What you're saying here looks like English, but I can't make any sense out of it.