TheRPGSite

Since this would be a massive threadjack, taking this out of the Questions for Jason Durall thread since we're no longer talking about the game.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882460I am puzzled.

Where did you get this idea that "Conflict is when you do not resolve everything at the single action level" from? It is wrong, and I cannot recall any CR advocate describing conflict resolution in this way.

It does not matter how many rolls you make to determine whether you are using CR or TR. For instance, in Hero Wars (from which Edwards took a lot of his ideas that he later appllied to other games) you describe each single action in detail, exactly like in OD&D combat. You can easily go on for 20+ single exchanges before the scene is over. And that is 100% recognised as Conflict Resolution, not task. No one would call it Task Resolution.

No, strictly speaking, number of rolls does not matter, but the abstraction of multiple rolls each involving one specific task into a single more general roll which determines the overall goal is Conflict Resolution.

In other words, look at the Take 10 or Take 20 rule.  If I'm doing something that there is no real consquence to failure then instead of rolling the die 20 times to determine the outcome of every single task, I can compress that and say I took 20 times and one of those times I hit the number I needed.

Now, I think your argument there is that this is still Task Resolution, because what was determined was a Task, ie. whether or not I opened the lock, not "did I accomplish what I wanted to do by getting through the lock".

However, Task vs. Conflict can get murky, for example the classic description of trying to get to a ship before it sails.  Task Resolution would be determining whether I jumped over those barrels, slid underneath those guys carrying the crates, got around the guards without delaying by fighting them, or overcoming each individual obstacle on my way to the ship, but Conflict Resolution would determine whether I got onto the ship or not.  Because depending on how I resolved those tasks, I might succeed at every single one of them, yet still fail to make the ship on time.

However, why did I want to get on the ship? Every goal is usually just a minor step of a larger one.

So generally, What vs. Why is sometimes used to describe it or focusing on the End as opposed to the Means is sometimes used.

Once you start moving from single Tasks, Attack/Parry, Hit or Miss, to abstracted mechanics then you start blurring the lines.

For example, going back to the 2d20 system, if I am fighting an Elite or a Mighty Foe, then we are dealing with a blow by blow situation Attack, Parry, Hit, Miss, Damage, Breaking Guard, Regaining Guard, etc...  Individual Tasks that I can succeed or fail at multiple times, yet still Win or Lose the overall Conflict.

However, when faced with a Mob, I hope we are concluding that I don't literally make one single swing and cut through 5 people, right?  That would be silly.  So, the goal is to kill all of the mob, and my attack and damage is abstracted to determine how well I did against the entire mob.  Perhaps only killing one or two, perhaps killing all five.

Against 5 Elites, I must win enough individual tasks to kill all 5 before I can win the fight.
Against a 5-man Mob, I can kill them all in a single roll, abstracting all the back and forth.

I call the latter shifting to Conflict Resolution.  

Similarly, the ability to abstract a series of individual tasks of individual characters into a single roll that determines the overall outcome I also interpret as Conflict Resolution as the individual successes or failures are meaningless, only the overall outcome is determined.

You may disagree with my interpretation or feel free to call me an ignorant, uninformed maniac if you prefer. :D

Quote from: CRKrueger;882464You may disagree with my interpretation or feel free to call me an ignorant, uninformed maniac if you prefer. :D

Nope. You are simply giving the term a definition that is not the same used by the one who brought the subject on the table (that is, Ron Edwards or someone else at the Forge).

This is perfectly legit, but it is absolutely prone to generating confusion. Exactly in the same way as Ron's usage of the word "Simulationism" to denote "genre emulation" is prone to confusion.

What you describe here I would call "levels of abstraction" rather than task resolution / conflict resolution. I am using your own words, so it sounds plausible.

That said, I agree that "level of abstraction" may be a component of "suspension of disbelief", so I am rather willing to agree with you that the choice for this rule is questionable. The more detail you put in your gritty combat, the more it "feels like Conan" to me. I have used mook rules in 13th Age (and some players gave me a "suspension of disbelief alert" for them), and I am unconvinced whether they are the right way to go for Conan.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882468Nope. You are simply giving the term a definition that is not the same used by the one who brought the subject on the table (that is, Ron Edwards or someone else at the Forge).

So you're saying that all those examples which I think blur the line and move into Conflict Resolution are still Task Resolution.  Fair enough.  Can you give me one concrete example of Conflict as you understand the term, and contrast that with an example of the Task approach?

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882468That said, I agree that "level of abstraction" may be a component of "suspension of disbelief", so I am rather willing to agree with you that the choice for this rule is questionable. The more detail you put in your gritty combat, the more it "feels like Conan" to me. I have used mook rules in 13th Age (and some players gave me a "suspension of disbelief alert" for them), and I am unconvinced whether they are the right way to go for Conan.

Well as I mentioned, there's a time and place.  You want to win a bar brawl with 5 random sailors in a bar, ok, a Mob of Minions might be appropriate, especially if you're trying to do something like flip a table so they all fall or dodge around them as opposed to dropping all 5 with a single Haymaker.

Out on the frontier, against the Picts, the famed Forest Devils of legend, the oldest and bitterest foe of the Cimmerians, maybe not so much.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882472So you're saying that all those examples which I think blur the line and move into Conflict Resolution are still Task Resolution.

Nope. I think they are already part of a broader instance of Conflict Resolution, whether or not the level of abstraction of how the single exchange is resolved is high or low.

The big problem is that the same resolution method can be used as

a) an action outside combat (Task Resolution)

b) one exchange in combat (Conflict Resolution)

This is much more evident in D100 games than in D&D, which did not use "skill challenges" outside combat until 3ed.

For instance, take combat in RuneQuest 1-3 and combat in RuneQuest 6. In RQ2/3, a melee attack is an abstraction of more than one blow (you can only attack one enemy once per 12 seconds in melee, so it is clear that this is an abstraction). RQ6 allows you to swing more than once per 6-second round, so the correspondence between a die roll and an actual, individual swing is stricter. Yet I would not say that RQ2/3 is more "conflict" resolution than RQ6 - it just uses a higher level of abstraction

The core rule in both cases is "once one combatant is down to negative HP equal to the starting HP in a vital location, the fight is over". And this is a conflict resolution rule: it tells you when you are declared dead, irrespective of the number of rolls per round - which varies among the editions of the game.

Both editions use the same mechanics used for out-of-combat TR as the "building block" for the CR they use in combat. The difference is in level of abstraction, not in what mechanics they use.

Why does this distinction even matter?

It is a spectrum depending on how detailed the mechanics are for a given situation.

A chase could be resolved by a single die roll with a few modifiers.

or not down to the level where there is a detailed map with miniatures and the action is played out second by second.

As which point on the spectrum works better depends entirely on out-of-game consideration as to how the group plays and what going on in the campaign.

Hell to confuse the situation, the referee may make a single roll on time and opt for a detailed resolution the next.

There is no limit to how far thing can be abstract. I could even see a case for an RPG involving the players being deities for things like whole wars and lives being resolved by one or two dice rolls.

I think it is enough to know that you could break it down to the level of 1 second round where every action has a mechanic. And you can opt for a more abstract mechanics that encompasses more.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882464You may disagree with my interpretation or feel free to call me an ignorant, uninformed maniac if you prefer. :D

I disagree, for the same reason as RMS does:).
Oh, and your dislike for anything narrative isn't quite maniacal, yet;).

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882468Nope. You are simply giving the term a definition that is not the same used by the one who brought the subject on the table (that is, Ron Edwards or someone else at the Forge).

This is perfectly legit, but it is absolutely prone to generating confusion. Exactly in the same way as Ron's usage of the word "Simulationism" to denote "genre emulation" is prone to confusion.

Yeah, this, I've always assumed genre emulation to fit under narrativism:D!


Now, as an example of task vs. conflict resolution.

"I want to win the archery tournament in order to impress the princess and gain her heart", the player says, in both games.
The rolls differ, though.

In a RQ6/Mythras game, or a Traveller: Mercator game, I tell you to roll your skill opposed by the skill of the other archers.
If you win, I decide whether the princess is the kind to be impressed.
If she is, you get your critical range (RQ6) as a bonus to your Seduction skill, or your level of success bonus as a chained task (MgT1e/2e) as an DM adjustment to your relevant skill to impress the princess.
If she is the kind to be repulsed, you get to talk to her, but you get your skill bonus as a penalty.
If she's the kind that goes "yeah, men do this, let them play", you get nothing, although as a winner, you might get to talk to her - which at least allows you a roll;).

As you can see, this kind of stuff means you need to find out whether your approach wouldn't backfire.

In conflict resolution, if I agree she's the kind to be impressed, I might tell you to roll your Archery skill, or your Impress skill with a bonus from high Archery.
If you win, we decide whether you won the tournament, but we know the princess is impressed. Maybe you won, or at least got in the top 10, and later could talk to her while she was giving you your prize personally!
But maybe you didn't win - maybe your string snapped and cut your hand! Then, as a lady-in-waiting is taking care of your hand (she knows full well that the princess likes archery, and is trying to curry favour), the door opens and the princess comes to check on you, feeling sorry for your misfortune, and kinda guilty because the tournament has been organised to please her...:p
We can just negotiate on that account (or I can decide, being the heavy-handed Referee). I can impose the last option, because it wasn't your goal to win the tournament - the conflict was "do I impress the princess", not "do I win":D!

But what if I think that she's not that kind of princess? Well, assuming a Conflict Resolution game with no scene editing (or assuming I don't want to allow you scene editing), I just tell you so. "You can roll to win the tournament, but it's not going to serve this goal. If you want it just for the prestige that might be useful in other circumstances, roll Archery, not your roll and skill, and remind me when you want to use it. Now, how are you gonna impress that princess you've set your sights on:p?"

Does that clear the matter;)?

Quote from: estar;882479It is a spectrum depending on how detailed the mechanics are for a given situation.

Yes, but "how detailed" it is, doesn't tell us anything about whether it's conflict or task resolution. You can make any task resolution as detailed or not as you wish, and proceed similarly with conflict resolution.
Here's an example for the ORC-Classic system, which is pretty solidly based on Task Resolution, no narrative mechanics of any sort.
http://www.vajraenterprises.com/new/?p=362

Quote from: AsenRG;882481We can just negotiate on that account (or I can decide, being the heavy-handed Referee). I can impose the last option, because it wasn't your goal to win the tournament - the conflict was "do I impress the princess", not "do I win":D!

Good example AsenRG. And also a good example of why good conflict resolution mechanics do not use only one roll/step to determine the outcome. You might very well miss your main attempt and then succeed through a secondary route. This, of course, is better depicted with a second "step" in the resolution process, no matter how many rolls are required for each step.

Hmm, I am going by what Ron Edwards described.  Basically what you're saying is that combining the individual tasks, round by round, of fighting, in the very end is Conflict Resolution because it all leads to one goal, namely, winning the Conflict.

Ron himself says "For Narrativist play, the key is to focus on conflicts rather than tasks." and "I submit that trying to resolve conflicts by hoping that the accumulated successful tasks will turn out to be about what you want, is an unreliable and unsatisfying way to role-play when developing Narrativist protagonism."  In other words, Conflict Resolution Mechanics should NOT just be the accumulation of a series of tasks that grant the desired end to the Conflict.

Here's more Ron for you:
Fortune-at-the-End: all variables, descriptions, and in-game actions are known, accounted for, and fixed before the Fortune system is brought into action. It acts as a "closer" of whatever deal was struck that called for resolution. A "miss" in such a system indicates, literally, a miss. The announced blow was attempted, which is to say, it was also perceived to have had a chance to hit by the character, was aimed, and was put into motion. It just didn't connect at the last micro-second.

Fortune-in-the-Middle: the Fortune system is brought in partway through figuring out "what happens," to the extent that specific actions may be left completely unknown until after we see how they worked out. Let's say a character with a sword attacks some guy with a spear. The point is to announce the character's basic approach and intent, and then to roll. A missed roll in this situation tells us the goal failed. Now the group is open to discussing just how it happened from the beginning of the action being initiated. Usually, instead of the typical description that you "swing and miss," because the "swing" was assumed to be in action before the dice could be rolled at all, the narration now can be anything from "the guy holds you off from striking range with the spearpoint" to "your swing is dead-on but you slip a bit." Or it could be a plain vanilla miss because the guy's better than you. The point is that the narration of what happens "reaches back" to the initation of the action, not just the action's final micro-second.

A combat system where you can Succeed with Complications, or you can fail in the roll, yet still have a mechanic that can guarantee success, (like Momentum or Doom) is classic Fortune in the Middle.  Likewise, when you take a single roll to take out 5 guys, we know that you did not just literally cut through 5 guys with one swing, so therefore the resolution requires narration to determine exactly what occurred.

If you use no Narrative metapoints, and fight an Elite, it's basic Fortune at the End.  I swing, he parries, I hit or miss.  That's it, the roll is the sole determiner of what happened.

When you add in metapoints or add in additional abstractions that allow for Fortune in the Middle, that (according to Ron) is a much better way to achieve Conflict Resolution.

In the end, Task vs. Conflict can sometimes be Shrodinger's Mechanic.  If I am opening a safe looking for a mob guy's ledger, what happens when I open the safe?  

Well if the ledger was in there, then I achieved the goal, I got the ledger, therefore it must have been Conflict Resolution.
If it wasn't in there, then I didn't achieve the goal, therefore it was simple Task Resolution.

Since sometimes both Task or Conflict could be resolved with a single roll, and therefore be the same thing, focusing on the mechanic itself is key.

Most games that are simple physics engine are pure Task Resolution.  Do I find the ledger.  Well the GM knows where the ledger is, so 4 options.
1. If it is in the Safe, and I open the Safe, I get the ledger.  I succeed at the Task and Succeed at the Conflict.
2. If it is in the Safe, and I don't open the Safe, I don't get the ledger.  I fail at the Task and fail at the Conflict.
3. If it is not in the Safe, and I open the Safe. I succeed at the Task, but the Conflict is unknown (I need to look elsewhere).
4. If it is not in the Safe, and I don't open it, I fail at the Task and could fail at the Conflict if I assume the ledger is in there and I give up because I can't open it.

Any kind of mechanic that lets me adjust the reality of whether or not the ledger is in the safe, or something that abstracts the search process so it doesn't matter if it is in the safe, or hidden in the bookshelf is a textbook Fortune at the Middle Conflict Resolution Mechanic.

It doesn't matter what Task I choose to accomplish in 2d20, I can spend Momentum or Fortune to alter the results of that Task roll to win the Conflict.

Quote from: AsenRG;882482Yes, but "how detailed" it is, doesn't tell us anything about whether it's conflict or task resolution. You can make any task resolution as detailed or not as you wish, and proceed similarly with conflict resolution.
Here's an example for the ORC-Classic system, which is pretty solidly based on Task Resolution, no narrative mechanics of any sort.
http://www.vajraenterprises.com/new/?p=362

Why is the distinction between conflict resolution and task resolution important?

All conflicts are resolved by doing something (or not doing something as the case may be). So logic demands if a conflict can be resolved by a series of actions each with detailed mechanics that it can be also resolved abstract mechanic that encapsulates all those actions into a single simple mechanics (perhaps a single dice roll).

So my point stands, it is a spectrum with no clear distinction that the exact mechanics employed is matter of personal taste.

I will add some point if you make the mechanic abstract enough then it also resolves the conflict in one fell swoop as well as the actions at the same time.

Quote from: estar;882488I will add some point if you make the mechanic abstract enough then it also resolves the conflict in one fell swoop as well as the actions at the same time.

Right, which is why my argument that abstracting Mob fights by cutting down several with a single roll that represents a series of tasks without actually resolving a series of tasks is in reality Conflict Resolution.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882486Hmm, I am going by what Ron Edwards described.  Basically what you're saying is that combining the individual tasks, round by round, of fighting, in the very end is Conflict Resolution because it all leads to one goal, namely, winning the Conflict.

Ron himself says "For Narrativist play, the key is to focus on conflicts rather than tasks." and "I submit that trying to resolve conflicts by hoping that the accumulated successful tasks will turn out to be about what you want, is an unreliable and unsatisfying way to role-play when developing Narrativist protagonism."  In other words, Conflict Resolution Mechanics should NOT just be the accumulation of a series of tasks that grant the desired end to the Conflict.

Here's more Ron for you:

You forgot to specify the date. Each of Ron's statement has an implicit "best before" clause :) He probably has changed his mind since he wrote that stuff.

The point is that in all combat mechanics the core mechanics is not "how to win a single exchange" but "how to win the battle" (e.g. how to disable all opponents). In D&D, this implies eliminating all of their HP.

This alone makes this "conflict resolution". The number of rolls, and the fact that the rolls are of the same kind you use outside combat for achieving "actions" that are not conflicts, does not matter. Nor is it always true, as in the unlikely event that all combatants are magicians, no one will make any attack rolls: it will all be saving throws and damage rolls.

There is no "attempt to achieve conflict resolution through a sequence of tasks". The mechanics is "you win by elimiinating all of your foe's HP". How you do this (swords, spells or napalm grenades) is secondary.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882484Good example AsenRG. And also a good example of why good conflict resolution mechanics do not use only one roll/step to determine the outcome. You might very well miss your main attempt and then succeed through a secondary route. This, of course, is better depicted with a second "step" in the resolution process, no matter how many rolls are required for each step.

Thank you, though I actually remembered it from TBP:).

I wouldn't say you need many rolls in all cases, BTW. Personally, I like the ORC approach of more rolls for more important stuff with higher stakes, as shown in the above link;).

BOO!!! BOOOOO!!!!!

Someone answer Estar!!!!! /pounds his table

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882495There is no "attempt to achieve conflict resolution through a sequence of tasks". The mechanics is "you win by elimiinating all of your foe's HP". How you do this (swords, spells or napalm grenades) is secondary.

Actually it is exactly a series of tasks and those tasks matter, because I can win by Turning him to stone, charming him, putting him to sleep, lopping an arm off with a Sword of Sharpness, or in some forms of D&D defeating through a failed morale roll.

If anything is a series of tasks that you hope add up to a desired result, it's D&D combat with it's upteen individual hit and damage rolls that eventually add up to winning, but even then what does killing one foe get you if you are facing a group of five?

There are ten doors I have to get through to enter the vault.  If the system doesn't give me any other way to accomplish that goal other than picking those 10 locks one at a time, then that is a Task Resolution system.  The system speaks nothing to the Conflict, the system speaks to the Tasks.  If the Tasks end up solving the Conflict, then they do, or don't.

If the system gives me ways of resolving the Conflict outside of picking those 10 locks one at a time, then it is a Conflict Resolution system because it lets me deal with the Conflict directly, outside of the individual Tasks resolved.

Forget D&D combat, what I just posted is why 2d20 is a Conflict Resolution system.  The game gives me many ways to ignore the tasks and deal with the Conflict directly through the spending of metapoints.

Quote from: tenbones;882499BOO!!! BOOOOO!!!!!

Someone answer Estar!!!!! /pounds his table

Because we're Theory Wonks and are about to create the best sleep aid thread for Old Geezer in existence.

Estar's question has been addressed in another thread (where I chose not to post to avoid the usual load of polemics related to these subjects). Please re-read that thread about "do we really need a conflict resolution mechanics" for the answers.

My personal answer to the question is in a post I made on my last kickstarter, which shows why - even in a context of classic gaming - a mere TR system can lead to unsatisfactory situations.

This specific thread - despite the generic title CRKrueger gave it - originates from my statement that all classic combat systems are in fact conflict resolution mechanics - and not sequences of task resolutions. Thus 2D20 Conan cannot be accused of "drifting towards conflict resolution" because all traditional RPGs use conflict resolution in combat, in any case.

Quote from: estar;882488Why is the distinction between conflict resolution and task resolution important?

Because whether the GM should surprise you by giving you a win for losing or a penalty for winning, matters to some people:)?
Because CRKrueger dislikes Conflict Resolution mechanics, and what's the meaning of this term kinda matters if we want to know what he dislikes? I guess he started a thread to make sure he's communicating exactly what he dislikes, instead of shouting loud and clear (to him) "I hate apples", and us hearing the equally loud and clear message "CRKrueger hates oranges":D?
But mostly, it matters because he started a thread, in my book;).

QuoteAll conflicts are resolved by doing something (or not doing something as the case may be). So logic demands if a conflict can be resolved by a series of actions each with detailed mechanics that it can be also resolved abstract mechanic that encapsulates all those actions into a single simple mechanics (perhaps a single dice roll).

So? How does that have any bearing upon "CR vs TR mechanics", when both can be as detailed or as abstracted as you like?

QuoteI will add some point if you make the mechanic abstract enough then it also resolves the conflict in one fell swoop as well as the actions at the same time.

No, it doesn't, in the case of task resolution. Or it does, but not in all cases.
If the conflict is a straightforward "I kill you/I kill you", it does. One of us succeeds, the other fails, and I guess if we get even, we both succeed:D.
If the conflict is "I want to beat him to teach him a lesson", the conflict is not in whether I'd manage to knock him out. In fact, I don't even want that, as he might forget the lesson.
The conflict is whether I manage to teach the lesson, though. And the "beat him" roll just doesn't resolve that, if you're using task resolution;). It just ensures that I did, indeed, beat him, and probably gives me a bonus for the lesson-imparting part.
If the roll also includes whether I succeed in imparting the lesson, then it's conflict resolution.

Quote from: AsenRG;882503If the conflict is "I want to beat him to teach him a lesson", the conflict is not in whether I'd manage to knock him out. In fact, I don't even want that, as he might forget the lesson.
The conflict is whether I manage to teach the lesson, though. And the "beat him" roll just doesn't resolve that, if you're using task resolution;).

Which is pretty much a classic example of the reasoning behind the Conflict Resolution system in Dogs in the Vineyard.  You determine the overall goal, and then the system becomes a means of how far you are willing to do to accomplish it through the "betting and raising" for lack of remembering exactly what they called it there.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882500Forget D&D combat, what I just posted is why 2d20 is a Conflict Resolution system.  The game gives me many ways to ignore the tasks and deal with the Conflict directly through the spending of metapoints.

And who said otherwise? The point is that it would be a CR even without that particular mechanics. The metapoints only make the thing more explicit, but the fact is true even without the metapoints.

Again, the fact that each exchange can be identified as a task generates confusion, but they are not tasks, they are exchanges. You are not swinging your sword "to show you can hit that bastard", you are swinging TO KILL THE BASTARD (and friends).

Quote from: CRKrueger;882506Which is pretty much a classic example of the reasoning behind the Conflict Resolution system in Dogs in the Vineyard.  You determine the overall goal, and then the system becomes a means of how far you are willing to do to accomplish it through the "betting and raising" for lack of remembering exactly what they called it there.

From the sound of it, it is the same. Furthermore, DitV is recognised as an example of conflict resolution mechanics:).
Then again, I'm not sure DitV is the best example, especially since its creator believes it's not his best design, and I can only say both the system and the setting are boring to me;).

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882507And who said otherwise? The point is that it would be a CR even without that particular mechanics. The metapoints only make the thing more explicit, but the fact is true even without the metapoints.

Again, the fact that each exchange can be identified as a task generates confusion, but they are not tasks, they are exchanges. You are not swinging your sword "to show you can hit that bastard", you are swinging TO KILL THE BASTARD (and friends).

Well my point was the NON-combat system does the same thing.

Plus, a series of exchanges to kill someone, or 7 someones, isn't really any different than having to pick 10 locks.

Essentially what you're saying is every series of tasks that serves a common goal is CR even if you have to do it by individually accomplishing every single individual task.  I don't think Ron, even today, would call that CR, or if so, he'd say it was as good an implementation of CR as the Storytelling system was at telling stories. :D

Saying all combat, by definition, is CR, regardless of system, is going way too far, IMO.

You may as well say Tractics uses CR mechanics as well.

"Dogs" brings the idea to the limit. The "steps" into which the conflict is broken come from dice that are thrown at the beginning of the conflict, and then applied later.

But the concept is the same: each sub-step is not a task in itself. Throwign all dice at one time only stresses the fact more clearly. If the dice were thrown each time someone makes a raise, would it become a TR system? Definitely not.

Same with classic combat systems: it does not matter how many dice I throw, and how many times I am in an advantage position over my foe: the only important thing is who is the last bastard standing with at least one HP.

I think the point we're sticking on is Conflict Resolution vs. Conflict Resolution MECHANICS.

If you wanted to, you could describe every single roll you make in any RPG in existence as a form of Conflict Resolution.

However, if a system does not give me any way to affect the Conflict other then by succeeding at a series of individual task rolls, then it the system has no Conflict Resolution Mechanics, there are no Mechanics to allow me to engage the Conflict directly (or in Ron speak, nothing but Fortune at the End and no Fortune in the Middle mechanics.)

If I go on a heist using GURPS am I using Conflict Resolution?  Only in the most broad definition, because everything I do supposedly adds to the overall success or failure of the heist, but I don't know how you could ever define GURPS as having Conflict Resolution Mechanics.  You couldn't.

Somehow, maybe from Hero Wars, you've gotten convinced that 10 rounds of attack rolls is fundamentally different from 10 locks to pick.  They're not.

Even if I accepted, for the sake of argument, that all combat is Conflict Resolution, which then I'd have to admit all roleplaying is Conflict Resolution under that definition...

D&D does not have any Conflict Resolution Mechanics.  There are no Mechanics that let me affect the Conflict directly or somehow influence other than the addition of a series of individual rolls.

In other words, whether I look at D&D combat as TR or CR, matters not one bit, because I have to resolve it the exact same way no matter which I think it is.

In the 2d20 system the addition of mechanics that give me the option of engaging the Conflict directly, and providing that "in the Middle" part of overriding the rolls or otherwise altering the narration makes it completely different from a system that does not give me that option.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882510Essentially what you're saying is every series of tasks that serves a common goal is CR even if you have to do it by individually accomplishing every single individual task.  

NOPE. I say that it becomes Conflict Resolution if you assess a clear, defined, mechanics that determines "when you have reached your goal". In combat, that mechanics is HP. HP, not "roll a D20 vs. Armor Class".

"There are 10 doors and one leads to the solution" is a defined mechanics that tells when you have achieved your goal.

Move the action to a jungle where you do not know beforehand how many Track rolls you will need to find the entrance to the lost temple, and you do not know after how many failed Track rolls the GM will tell you that you have mistakenly entered the lair of Joe-the-Tiger-who-has-not-eaten-in-one-week, instead. Do you see the difference?

THAT is the difference between TR and CR. Just the simple, stupid fact of determining clearly how many "rolls", or "doors" or "hit points" you have to overcome to win, and what happens when you have overcome them.

Edit: it is worth noting that most CR mechanics generally tend to use only one "door" to overcome, and encourage you to add more complexity and details to the single roll needed to open the "door". But this does not make any difference between the "single-door" and "multi-door" mechanics. Both are CR.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882517THAT is the difference between TR and CR. Just the simple, stupid fact of determining clearly how many "rolls", or "doors" or "hit points" you have to overcome to win, and what happens when you have overcome them.

Again, you're not talking about mechanics, at all.  According to you, if there is tunnel with a number of doors behind it I have to pick to get to the treasure, and I know the number is 10, then every single roll I do is Conflict Resolution because I know the first one I pick is only part of it, where if I don't know how many there are, or even if it is the right door, then each one is an isolated task and thus TR.

Now we're back to Schrodinger's Resolution, which doesn't meet any definition of the term I've ever seen (and nothing by Ron, who you brought into this) but again, says nothing about MECHANICS.

Rob, it was mainly important to Forgers who were coming at RP from a very railroady, illusionistic, GM-centric background. For them the distinction between succeeding at a task (I win the joust) and achieving your goal (do I impress the princess? I guess not, because the GM always finds a way to move the plot in the direction planned) was extremely obvious and important.

RE's comment about having conflict resolved through an aggregation of tasks was a typical overstep on his part--or more charitably, a bit of Narrativist advocacy clouding the general point. Obviously if the conflict is resolved after you complete a bunch of atomic action, you have a resolution. But (a) it's not necessarily satisfying to the story-centric folk who thrive on hopped-up Drama! (b) in the general case, if you don't articulate or conceptualize the conflict at some point, in a manner that ties it into a well-defined procedure or principle of resolution...then you can't be too sure it will get resolved. Combat is straightforward, assuming the conflict is something like "kill the other guy" or " get to point X before the other guy kills you". If there's no mechanic for "impress the princess" though, you either need to cobble something together on the spot ("hey, GM, if I make a Difficult maneuver during the joust can I impress the princess?") or rely on the possibility that doing "a bunch of stuff" will eventually throw off a side effect that answers the question.

In practice I think the "movement Narrativists" overstate the problem because it justifies adding a bunch of OOC narrative control mechanics that enable them to co-author the story. In reality if a player is interested in X, they'll ask the question and an impartial GM can come up with a way of answering it. Or natural human interaction will signal interest and sometimes resolve the question. E.g. the player can do a Difficult maneuver and then salute the princess, leading to a series of interactions. There's also the possibility that people don't care about abstract conflict in any remotely conscious sense and simply enjoy "what happens next?" come what may. (Obviously this is an alien mindset to hardcore Narrativists.) But I do think the problem is worth bearing in mind and being open to the idea of asking players (or yourself) "what are you trying to do and how can we decide if you succeed?"

It may be helpful to look at the use of Intent in Talislanta resolution. Also the Bringing Down the Pain mechanic in The Shadow of Yesterday--or general conflict resolution in DitV--to see how tasks can be circumscribed within a well-defined mechanical conflict resolution.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882514I think the point we're sticking on is Conflict Resolution vs. Conflict Resolution MECHANICS.

Yes. It would pay to remember that you can take any traditional RPG mechanics and repurpose them to act as conflict resolution:). And you could do the opposite to most storygames, too.

QuoteIf you wanted to, you could describe every single roll you make in any RPG in existence as a form of Conflict Resolution.

Which you agree with. But the point is, those rolls would mean different things then!
Because skill numbers mean different things.

Let me give you the example from two almost randomly picked systems.

What are skills in RQ6/Mythras? They're how good you are at a skillset. How you use those skillsets to achieve your goals is part of the game.
To play the bumbling fool who falls his way forward to victory...you'd need a character with low skills, and a cooperative GM who wants to see whether you can succeed by failing elaborately at the right place.

What are skills in Heroquest2? They're how often, when you use that skill, you manage to influence the events to go your way. To play the bumbling fool who falls his way forward to victory, you'd need a character with extremely high skills.

QuoteHowever, if a system does not give me any way to affect the Conflict other then by succeeding at a series of individual task rolls, then it the system has no Conflict Resolution Mechanics, there are no Mechanics to allow me to engage the Conflict directly (or in Ron speak, nothing but Fortune at the End and no Fortune in the Middle mechanics.)

I feel you're mistaken. Ron Edwards might or might not think only storygames use Fortune in the Middle, but the fact of the matter is, both traditional and narrativist games can use either FatE or FitM mechanics.

QuoteIf I go on a heist using GURPS am I using Conflict Resolution?  Only in the most broad definition, because everything I do supposedly adds to the overall success or failure of the heist, but I don't know how you could ever define GURPS as having Conflict Resolution Mechanics.  You couldn't.

I could. I'd need to change the description of what skill rolls mean, see above, but then I could do it just fine.
And your GURPS character with high skills would be an extremely successful bumbling fool;).

Quote from: CRKrueger;882501Because we're Theory Wonks and are about to create the best sleep aid thread for Old Geezer in existence.

HAHAHAHAHAHAH! touche

Quote from: CRKrueger;882516D&D does not have any Conflict Resolution Mechanics.  There are no Mechanics that let me affect the Conflict directly or somehow influence other than the addition of a series of individual rolls.

And who said that one has to be able to affect the conflict directly for it to be called CR?

Besides, the typical D&D situation is that one side flees when "low on HP". Doesn't this mean that there is a way of assessing "how the conflict is going" separately from how the exchanges have been rolled. We may have rolled more hits, but that single blow the Tarrasque inflicted to Sir Gawain had us change our minds about the importance of that treasure.

QuoteIn the 2d20 system the addition of mechanics that give me the option of engaging the Conflict directly, and providing that "in the Middle" part of overriding the rolls or otherwise altering the narration makes it completely different from a system that does not give me that option.

This is true. But it is a matter - again - of director's stance vs. actor's stance, not of CR vs. TR.

RMcS--can you link the other thread or quote it so I don't have to hunt for it?

Quote from: CRKrueger;882518Again, you're not talking about mechanics, at all.  According to you, if there is tunnel with a number of doors behind it I have to pick to get to the treasure, and I know the number is 10, then every single roll I do is Conflict Resolution because I know the first one I pick is only part of it

Nope. Because no single roll achieves anything in itself. Only the ten of them do.

Quotewhere if I don't know how many there are, or even if it is the right door, then each one is an isolated task and thus TR.

Exactly. Because each roll determines only whether you open the f*****g door or not, not whether you get the treasure. You cannot even be sure that there is an exit at the end and not a concrete wall with "I f***ed you" written on it. Once the number of doors is known, you have a procedure that tells you how to achieve the goal.

The actual "conflict" is going on in the GM's mind, in fact, while he determines how many doors you need to open. Not in play. Which brings us to the next comment....

Quote from: Arminius;882519Rob, it was mainly important to Forgers who were coming at RP from a very railroady, illusionistic, GM-centric background. For them the distinction between succeeding at a task (I win the joust) and achieving your goal (do I impress the princess? I guess not, because the GM always finds a way to move the plot in the direction planned) was extremely obvious and important.

Ditto. The big problem is that Conflict Resolution forces the GM to lay down the actual odds on the table and "play fairly", in the exact same way he would not add extra HP to a monster already added to a combat.

With task resolution only, the GM is continually in the temptation of adding "just one more roll to pass" to push the story in one direction. Sometimes even subconsciously. He might even not realize he's cheating. That's why forgies hate TR so much: it is the basis for Wod-style railroading.

Of course, a decent GM does not do such things, Task Resolution or not. But having a defined procedure to clear up "when the guy has obtained his goal" is an invaluable tool for simplification. And it has nothing to do with OOC variables and narrative control. Just think of it as "number of doors" that the GM determines beforehand instead of letting you roll and deciding afterward if that roll was enough.

Quote from: estar;882488All conflicts are resolved by doing something (or not doing something as the case may be). So logic demands if a conflict can be resolved by a series of actions each with detailed mechanics that it can be also resolved abstract mechanic that encapsulates all those actions into a single simple mechanics (perhaps a single dice roll).

This is only true if we ignore or disallow any ability to make different choices in the midst of a series of actions.

For example: We can create a single roll that combines the cumulative probabilities of a series of rounds where attacks, parries, and damage rolls are made between two combatants A and B to arrive at the same cumulative probability for A to kill or disable B and for B to kill or disable A. We can even add in detail to represent the level of damage that the winner might also take. But in the series of actions there are multiple opportunities for A or B to change tactics by choosing to negotiate, yield, or flee. Since these are, in task resolution, the result of choices made by the players of A or B that have no assigned probability, we cannot calculate those as cumulative probabilities.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882495The point is that in all combat mechanics the core mechanics is not "how to win a single exchange" but "how to win the battle" (e.g. how to disable all opponents). In D&D, this implies eliminating all of their HP.

No. The point of combat is to convince the enemy that he can't win before he can convince you of the reverse.

Conflicts don't continue until everyone is dead or disabled. They continue until one side is no longer fighting. And while cessation of combat may occur due to death or disablement of the opposing side, it may also occur due to the opposing side surrendering,fleeing, or to both sides declaring a truce.

QuoteThere is no "attempt to achieve conflict resolution through a sequence of tasks". The mechanics is "you win by elimiinating all of your foe's HP". How you do this (swords, spells or napalm grenades) is secondary.

Did I miss some artificial narrowing of combat solely to being about killing or incapacitating opponents?

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882522Besides, the typical D&D situation is that one side flees when "low on HP". Doesn't this mean that there is a way of assessing "how the conflict is going" separately from how the exchanges have been rolled. We may have rolled more hits, but that single blow the Tarrasque inflicted to Sir Gawain had us change our minds about the importance of that treasure.

At least we now have included fleeing rather than assuming all fights are to the death (or disablement). But neither the number of hits rolled nor the amount of damage taken or inflicted matters in and of itself. What matters is how hits rolled and damage inflicted affects the belief of the combatant that they can win. (Survival is usually, but not always part of winning for a combatant.) Two players faced with the exact same situation (of hits rolled, damage inflicted, hit points remaining, etc.) may draw different conclusions. One may decide to her chance to win is still acceptable and will continue to fight while another may decide his chance to win is unacceptably low and will choose to run, negotiate, or surrender.

Too high a level of abstraction removes the ability for a combatant to choose to do something other than fight to the death based on how the combat has gone so far.

BTW, Krueger, if the GM says "If you succeed on 20 lock-pocking rolls, then you accomplish goal X" then that is absolutely an example of mechanical Conflict Resolution.

The bit about the plans being in the safe or not--and AsenG's question of the princess's personality--are also emblematic of Forger concerns due to past illusionistic habits trained by various GMing handbooks (and I'm guessing, heavily reinforced in the White Wolf heyday) as well as a belief that the game world always runs on pure improv with no facts that are established in secret before being revealed. Again the idea that the GM might know in advance that the plans are or are not in the safe isn't on the radar, so the only options are "GM decides == TR == illusionism" and "dice determine who decides == CR == player agency". It leaves out the possibility that you can have can have conflict resolution through a combination of preexisting game-state plus resolution of a task--but obviously you can. It just doesn't compute when people are obsessed with narrative control.

Quote from: Arminius;882531BTW, Krueger, if the GM says "If you succeed on 20 lock-pocking rolls, then you accomplish goal X" then that is absolutely an example of mechanical Conflict Resolution.

The bit about the plans being in the safe or not--and AsenG's question of the princess's personality--are also emblematic of Forger concerns due to past illusionistic habits trained by various GMing handbooks (and I'm guessing, heavily reinforced in the White Wolf heyday) as well as a belief that the game world always runs on pure improv with no facts that are established in secret before being revealed. Again the idea that the GM might know in advance that the plans are or are not in the safe isn't on the radar, so the only options are "GM decides == TR == illusionism" and "dice determine who decides == CR == player agency". It leaves out the possibility that you can have can have conflict resolution through a combination of preexisting game-state plus resolution of a task--but obviously you can. It just doesn't compute when people are obsessed with narrative control.

But when we're talking about mechanics, Eliot, not processes, telling me that in some cases this mechanic could be used by the GM as a task, in other cases, a conflict, tells me nothing about the mechanic or it's design as opposed to a mechanic specifically designed to be used purposefully to achieve Conflict Resolution.

If the GM tells me there's 10 doors or tells me I don't know how many doors, how I engage with the system and how I go about my process, does not change at all in the slightest.  I still pick X doors, in order, only I do not know the value of X.  You call it TR, you call it CR, you call it FYMR, it doesn't matter.  My character does the exact same thing, thinking the exact same thing.  I do not go OOC.

If the mechanics of the game were specifically designed to give me the ability to avoid simply relying on the individual tasks and let me address the Conflict directly, and even overturn or change the results of the tasks, through narrative authority, than that is a Conflict Resolution Mechanic.  I do go OOC, I have to, in order to engage the mechanic.

I think everyone agrees that Fortune, Doom, and Momentum are Meta Conflict Resolution Mechanics.

Quote from: Bren;882529Since these are, in task resolution, the result of choices made by the players of A or B that have no assigned probability, we cannot calculate those as cumulative probabilities.

What the problem? That what happens you introduce an abstraction. That is the consequence of going that route.

If you care about being able to change tactics, strategy, or technique midway then you need to drop your mechanics to the level of abstraction that accommodates the distinctions you care about.

If you find the details of a particular mechanics to be tedious or asking "Why I am bothering with these details" then would be better off with something at a higher level of abstraction.

Eventually if you raise the level of abstraction high enough, the conflict itself could be resolved with a single set of mechanics.

Also to make it even more confusing there can be varying levels of abstraction bundled into the same mechanics. For example maybe your I win combat roll is very simplistic, but your damage from combat resolution is complex.

Quote from: Bren;882529Conflicts don't continue until everyone is dead or disabled.

So you known I am talking about conflict I talking about anything a player desires for his character but has to overcome a challenge to achieve. That includes combat, crafting, exploring, diplomacy, bargaining, etc, etc.

Note also I feel you can have different levels of abstractions for different stuff. Combat resolution is very abstract but social interactions have detailed mechanics, etc.

Hell, I'll even stipulate that picking 10 if you know it's 10 is CR, but to be honest, I can see the technical argument that knowing the number of doors beforehand can technically affect goal, but that's a damn fine hair, even for me.  Kudos to RMS, it's not often I get out-technical'd. :hatsoff:

Because in the end, AsenRG was right, that the thread's point was to explain what sticks in my craw, and RMS is right, it's the meta-aspect.

Most of the time, when I experience meta-point economies, their purpose is to provide for CR and narrative control, so most of the time, a CR mechanic means an OOC narrative one.  But, that doesn't have to be the case, even though, like I said, it mostly is, IMO.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882535If the mechanics of the game were specifically designed to give me the ability to avoid simply relying on the individual tasks and let me address the Conflict directly, and even overturn or change the results of the tasks, through narrative authority, than that is a Conflict Resolution Mechanic.  I do go OOC, I have to, in order to engage the mechanic.

It is not a conflict resolution mechanics. It is a narrative authority attribution mechanics. Do not conflate the two.

If the mechanics say "The GM says how many doors you have to open to escape, and then you roll for each", the narrative authority is still 100% on the GM. You have no means to bypass a roll because of the fact that the GM has determined that they will be 10.

If you have "bennies" to spend on the rolls, then that is a sort of narrative authority mechanics. But they are two completely different and unrelated components of the mechanics. The presence of one does not imply the other. They are usually found together only because they both appeal to the same kind of author.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882490Right, which is why my argument that abstracting Mob fights by cutting down several with a single roll that represents a series of tasks without actually resolving a series of tasks is in reality Conflict Resolution.

Let me come at this from a another angle. Conflicts don't need mechanics to handle. In fact they shouldn't have mechanics because for the most part such mechanics would be so abstract to obliterate differences in the approaches to resolving a conflict.  Differences that have important secondary consequences.

Sometimes the consequences of how you resolve a conflict is as interesting as resolving the conflict itself.

Then again not everything that could result in a conflict in a RPG campaign needs a detailed resolution. A simple mechanic is satisfying enough to deal with it. In the end it is a judgment call based on the situation.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882502Estar's question has been addressed in another thread (where I chose not to post to avoid the usual load of polemics related to these subjects). Please re-read that thread about "do we really need a conflict resolution mechanics" for the answers.

There is thing called links that you can use if you are going to cop out on a direct answer.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882539It is not a conflict resolution mechanics. It is a narrative authority attribution mechanics. Do not conflate the two.

If the mechanics say "The GM says how many doors you have to open to escape, and then you roll for each", the narrative authority is still 100% on the GM. You have no means to bypass a roll because of the fact that the GM has determined that they will be 10.

If you have "bennies" to spend on the rolls, then that is a sort of narrative authority mechanics. But they are two completely different and unrelated components of the mechanics. The presence of one does not imply the other. They are usually found together only because they both appeal to the same kind of author.

So if it lets me affect the Conflict and succeed through narrative authority, it's not a Conflict Resolution Mechanic AND a Narrative Control mechanic, but only Narrative Control.

I can't find it right now. It was on this forum, named "Do we actually need Conflict Resolution?" or something similar.

Kind of hard because we need three terms to do an exact search.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882543So if it lets me affect the Conflict and succeed through narrative authority, it's not a Conflict Resolution Mechanic AND a Narrative Control mechanic, but only Narrative Control.

It's both. If there is a Conflict and it lets you address it through Narrative Control, then it must be a Conflict Resolution Mechanics, too. If it was not, it would not let you affect the outcome of the conflict, just the outcome of a single task.

Example: I am climbing a cliff. The GM calls for a Climb roll. I fail. I spend a Bennie to force the roll to a success. I succeed. The GM says my progress brought me to a ledge that I cannot pass unless I can fly.

The mechanics is task-resolution and narrative control. Had it been Conflict Resolution, I would not have wasted my bennie.

The GM, on the other hand, is an asshole.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882514However, if a system does not give me any way to affect the Conflict other then by succeeding at a series of individual task rolls, then it the system has no Conflict Resolution Mechanics, there are no Mechanics to allow me to engage the Conflict directly (or in Ron speak, nothing but Fortune at the End and no Fortune in the Middle mechanics.)

Every RPGs every made starting with OD&D has a way of effecting the resolution of combat other than succeeding at as series of individual task rolls.

People forget that the rules are not what makes a game an RPG. That playing the rules are not the point of playing an RPG. Playing the rules is the point of a wargame or a boardgame. For an RPG is to play a character interacting with a setting with their action adjudicated by a referee.

The rules are just a tool used by the rules to determine the result of the players acting as their a character. What comes first this the fact the players describes what their character is doing.

So even if the referee opts to resolve a fight between mobs with but a single dice roll, the reality of the campaign is that multiple fights are going on for a period of time. It just the details of that fight are not important enough to resorts to detailed mechanics.

However if the player say "Hey, I want to start lobbing Molotov cocktails into the mob.", the referee needs to make a ruling on this. If the Molotov cocktails is that much of a factor then a fair referee would factor that into the mechanics he is using to resolve the fight.

But people are people and some would be uncomfortable with this and because the rules don't have a molotov cocktail modifier or mechanic and rule it doesn't matter.

Which in my view is unfair to the player and violates the primary rule of RPGs which includes the idea that players are allowed to attempt anything that is possible for their character to do.

Conflicts are things that do not need mechanics. They arise out of the situation that the referee and players create for themselves. To resolve any conflict with any RPG requires the players to do one thing first. To say "As my character, I am going to do X."

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882544I can't find it right now. It was on this forum, named "Do we actually need Conflict Resolution?" or something similar.

Then save some time and answer the question as it is germane to the topic of this thread.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882547It's both. If there is a Conflict and it lets you address it through Narrative Control, then it must be a Conflict Resolution Mechanics, too. If it was not, it would not let you affect the outcome of the conflict, just the outcome of a single task.

Example: I am climbing a cliff. The GM calls for a Climb roll. I fail. I spend a Bennie to force the roll to a success. I succeed. The GM says my progress brought me to a ledge that I cannot pass unless I can fly.

The mechanics is task-resolution and narrative control. Had it been Conflict Resolution, I would not have wasted my bennie.

The GM, on the other hand, is an asshole.

Right, but could have been both, it just wasn't because the GM is a piehole.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882547Example: I am climbing a cliff. The GM calls for a Climb roll. I fail. I spend a Bennie to force the roll to a success. I succeed. The GM says my progress brought me to a ledge that I cannot pass unless I can fly.

The mechanics is task-resolution and narrative control. Had it been Conflict Resolution, I would not have wasted my bennie.

In what sense did you waste the bennie? You didn't fall off the cliff and break your arm or die. True you may have to climb back down the cliff and get pitons, climbing ropes, gear, and some skilled mountain climbers before you have a chance to ascend the cliff or you may have to find, raise, and tame a hiippogriff to get to fly to the top of that cliff but the bennie has at least kept those possibilities open since you didn't fall to your death.

QuoteThe GM, on the other hand, is an asshole.

Setting aside the problem of a GM who decides there is only one possible solution for a problem, it may just be that you expected to get too much of a benefit out of a single bennie.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882528Nope. Because no single roll achieves anything in itself. Only the ten of them do.



Exactly. Because each roll determines only whether you open the f*****g door or not, not whether you get the treasure. You cannot even be sure that there is an exit at the end and not a concrete wall with "I f***ed you" written on it. Once the number of doors is known, you have a procedure that tells you how to achieve the goal.

The actual "conflict" is going on in the GM's mind, in fact, while he determines how many doors you need to open. Not in play. Which brings us to the next comment....



Ditto. The big problem is that Conflict Resolution forces the GM to lay down the actual odds on the table and "play fairly", in the exact same way he would not add extra HP to a monster already added to a combat.

With task resolution only, the GM is continually in the temptation of adding "just one more roll to pass" to push the story in one direction. Sometimes even subconsciously. He might even not realize he's cheating. That's why forgies hate TR so much: it is the basis for Wod-style railroading.

Of course, a decent GM does not do such things, Task Resolution or not. But having a defined procedure to clear up "when the guy has obtained his goal" is an invaluable tool for simplification. And it has nothing to do with OOC variables and narrative control. Just think of it as "number of doors" that the GM determines beforehand instead of letting you roll and deciding afterward if that roll was enough.

Which is why I like saying that all new Referees should run a storygame or two first. Then they can go into traditional games:).

Quote from: CRKrueger;882538Because in the end, AsenRG was right, that the thread's point was to explain what sticks in my craw, and RMS is right, it's the meta-aspect.

Well, I think we can write /thread, then;)?

Quote from: CRKrueger;882552Right, but could have been both, it just wasn't because the GM is a piehole.

In a CR model, I could have used the bennie to get my goal, not just the single step. It depends on the specific mechanics whether this counters "GM dickery" completely, but at least it would have made it clearer.

The point is that - as Gronan says - the rules cannot fix stupid. But they provide a good framework for highlighting that the GM is acting stupid :)

Personally, I prefer Task Resolution, because it's more 'precise' in certain settings and genres.  For example, you're playing a Crime Fighter in a Supers game, and you've just crashed an evil organization's base.  You are being swarmed by mooks and goons with funny green outfits and energy blasters.

In 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?

In Task Resolution based mechanics, where you have to roll for each individual situation.  It's admittedly more time consuming, but it also allows for adjustment on the fly.  Same situation, 85% chance of hitting all the minions, via the various attacks.  However, half way through the assault, Mr. Batman Wannabe WIFFS his attack.  Well, now it would be the minions' turn to beat on his armoured form.  It's more precise in terms of giving out information, in MY opinion.

To reiterate:  Conflict Resolution tends to quick and dirty.  Task Resolution is slower, but offers a level of precise granularity that I personally like, but some people might find tedious.

I think this is the thread referred to, "The need for Conflict Resolution?"

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=1503

In my experience on the Forge, people were often inconsistent about how they used the term Conflict Resolution. Rather than assuming a binary divide of all possible mechanics between Task Resolution and Conflict Resolution, I think it's better to contrast resolution in a few canonical games - like D&D on one hand compared to Trollbabe, Dogs in the Vineyard, and The Mountain Witch.

In these games, the basic idea is that you have an opponent, and then somehow you define your goal versus their goal (also called the stakes), and you begin some series of dice mechanics to establish steps back and forth to attaining that goal.

This is generally more abstract than most traditional games handle things - the closest equivalent might be Tunnels & Trolls. However, the steps toward the goal are conceptually similar to D&D hit points. If a creature has taken half its hit points in damage, it's left unclear what has actually happened - is it tired, dazed, wounded in the leg, etc. The mechanics only say that it is closer to being defeated.

Regarding the original question,

Quote from: CRKrueger;882464Against 5 Elites, I must win enough individual tasks to kill all 5 before I can win the fight.
Against a 5-man Mob, I can kill them all in a single roll, abstracting all the back and forth.

I call the latter shifting to Conflict Resolution.

One thing missing in the comparison is having the defined stakes. So, for example, if the elites are guarding the secret chamber - and you're trying to break it - you might have a conflict to get past them. You might kill them in the process, but the resolution is whether you succeed.

That might take more rolls than individual task rolls, but in the end you accomplish your goal or don't based on the result.

I usually prefer task resolution for a couple reasons, but I also usually prefer quick task resolution - resolving in just a few rolls.

Again, most combat situations are such that the atomic task resolution and rules for time-and-motion can resolve the abstract "conflict".

As such Christopher's example doesn't really hold since the difference between mechanical CR and TR isn't scale or granularity--it's whether the resolution of the conflict or achieving the goal is more or less the result of mechanical procedures.

Things are also often enormously muddied by clashing assumptions about GM motivation and the role of pre-established facts. The Forge theorists generally assumed the GM was trying to exert a lot of control over the sequence of events--guiding a particular storyline or controlling pacing or protecting a favorite NPC--whatever. They also assumed that the GM would freely make things up as long as they didn't contradict stuff that had been revealed/stated to the players.

So in their examples the CR mechanics result in the GM giving up control of the storyline and sharing the ability to make things up.

For the more sandbox/world-based style that's favored around here, those concerns aren't really on the radar so it's better to posit that the GM doesn't have a story in mind and largely works from preestablished fact. Even if something isn't known in advance it can be extrapolated or determined randomly rather than selected to favor a certain storyline.

What I mean is this should be the baseline for examples of CR--but I can't get into that just now.

Thanks for finding the thread JHKim. I knew it was there but could not locate it.

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.

The problem is that we have spent the last five pages discussing the fact that this is NOT the case. The equation Conflict Resolution = Single Roll for one scene is NOT true. Many games created by CR advocates use a single roll, but this is not a rule, just a tradition (see Arminius' consideration for why this tradition exists - I think he is rather accurate in depicting the facts). CR means simply that you apply a procedure to checke whether a goal was achieved in spite of an opposition. The procedure can be as detailed as the game inventor wishes it to be. As detailed as an old-school combat session, for instance.

So the point is... if you like details ("crunch") and the game lacks them, Conflict Resolution is not the culprit. Other design principles and techniques are at the basis of your dislike for that particular game.

I just treat everything a character does as a task. The more interesting tasks are rolled for. Don't care what the game mechanic labels them.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882658Thanks for finding the thread JHKim. I knew it was there but could not locate it.

Note: you can search on Google restricted to a single domain by using a search string like

site:therpgsite.com "Conflict Resolution"

The "site:therpgsite.com" restricts the search to just this site, and the quotes around "Conflict Resolution" mean that they're going to turn up in just that order.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882658CR means simply that you apply a procedure to checke whether a goal was achieved in spite of an opposition. The procedure can be as detailed as the game inventor wishes it to be. As detailed as an old-school combat session, for instance.

So the point is... if you like details ("crunch") and the game lacks them, Conflict Resolution is not the culprit. Other design principles and techniques are at the basis of your dislike for that particular game.

I would say that number of rolls isn't the same thing as crunch. Tactical crunchiness is about having different choices each round.

As long as there are freeform stakes in the conflict (like in Trollbabe or Dogs in the Vineyard), then it's hard to have tactical choices that are specifically connected to what the character is doing. So, for example, in Dogs in the Vineyard, there is a lot of dice rolling and  number of choices - but they're all highly abstract. There isn't much room to have different mechanics for grapple vs. shove, because the stakes could be anything from "get him back over the line" to "make him bleed".

Conflicts in FATE have a similar very abstract approach.

In task resolution, I can be unclear about my goals or change my goals in the middle of the fight. I like that as a feature.

Quote from: Arminius;882531BTW, Krueger, if the GM says "If you succeed on 20 lock-pocking rolls, then you accomplish goal X" then that is absolutely an example of mechanical Conflict Resolution.

The bit about the plans being in the safe or not--and AsenG's question of the princess's personality--are also emblematic of Forger concerns due to past illusionistic habits trained by various GMing handbooks (and I'm guessing, heavily reinforced in the White Wolf heyday) as well as a belief that the game world always runs on pure improv with no facts that are established in secret before being revealed. Again the idea that the GM might know in advance that the plans are or are not in the safe isn't on the radar, so the only options are "GM decides == TR == illusionism" and "dice determine who decides == CR == player agency". It leaves out the possibility that you can have can have conflict resolution through a combination of preexisting game-state plus resolution of a task--but obviously you can. It just doesn't compute when people are obsessed with narrative control.

Quote from: Arminius;882649Again, most combat situations are such that the atomic task resolution and rules for time-and-motion can resolve the abstract "conflict".

As such Christopher's example doesn't really hold since the difference between mechanical CR and TR isn't scale or granularity--it's whether the resolution of the conflict or achieving the goal is more or less the result of mechanical procedures.

Things are also often enormously muddied by clashing assumptions about GM motivation and the role of pre-established facts. The Forge theorists generally assumed the GM was trying to exert a lot of control over the sequence of events--guiding a particular storyline or controlling pacing or protecting a favorite NPC--whatever. They also assumed that the GM would freely make things up as long as they didn't contradict stuff that had been revealed/stated to the players.

So in their examples the CR mechanics result in the GM giving up control of the storyline and sharing the ability to make things up.

For the more sandbox/world-based style that's favored around here, those concerns aren't really on the radar so it's better to posit that the GM doesn't have a story in mind and largely works from preestablished fact. Even if something isn't known in advance it can be extrapolated or determined randomly rather than selected to favor a certain storyline.

What I mean is this should be the baseline for examples of CR--but I can't get into that just now.

I just wanted to thank you as your posts here have done more to disambiguate than the entirety of several topics I've read before on this subject.

Conflict Resolution is about achieving the goal (regardless of directness, frequency, or manner) by nailing down the stakes "outside of possible GM disruption."

Thus the conflict and stakes are inherently player determined because they know best what they want to achieve for their character through their approach. There is no GM filtration of the outcome to the setting because it is all layed out and determined beforehand by player-desires and their interpretations of success. It is a form of authorship by player-side through fixing the stakes as deemed relevant to their course of action/s. The dice (cards, etc.) sound like the arbiter of who wins the temporary tug-of-war of conflict authorship.

How it looks to me:

Task resolution resolves tasks performed by characters.

Conflict resolution resolves conflicts between participants. This conflict is usually no more than one being glad to take a given outcome for granted, whereas another thinks it calls for a roll.

What seems a more usual distinction, though, is that CR determines the "what" of the end mechanically while leaving the "how" of the means or middle just an ex-post-facto story to make up.This requires a larger teleology to be formulated in the first place, so we can identify "the goal" in question. If it's not in Bob's eyes larger than some "tasks" seen as significantly glossed over, then Bob is likely to call it TR.

That CR is a teleological game of "guess when the player is satisfied for their PC"?

Quote from: Opaopajr;882675Thus the conflict and stakes are inherently player determined because they know best what they want to achieve for their character through their approach. There is no GM filtration of the outcome to the setting because it is all layed out and determined beforehand by player-desires and their interpretations of success. It is a form of authorship by player-side through fixing the stakes as deemed relevant to their course of action/s. The dice (cards, etc.) sound like the arbiter of who wins the temporary tug-of-war of conflict authorship.

True. But the two parts that I underlined are not intrinsic in Conflict Resolution. They happen to be the preferred way for many authors who use Conflict Resolution in their games, but they are not mandatory.

- You need not set the stakes beforehand. The existence of the conflict is triggered by the fact there is "something" you want, but nothing can guarantee you will get it. You might as well end up with an alternate achievement ("the documents were not in the safe, but you found a clue about where they might be").

-Conflict Resolution can be achieved also without giving narrative control to the player. The player character attempts something, throws everything he has in the attempt, and the outcome is that he fails, he succeeds or something in between (suggested by the Narrator). This can be achieved by means of strictly in-character decisions, so no need to invoke authorship. The key point is that once the conflict begins, its exit conditions and outcome are no longer determined by GM fiat but by a precise procedure. Whether this procedure uses associate, in-character mechanics or dissociate, OOC mechanics is up to the system.

Quote from: Arminius;882531BTW, Krueger, if the GM says "If you succeed on 20 lock-pocking rolls, then you accomplish goal X" then that is absolutely an example of mechanical Conflict Resolution.

The bit about the plans being in the safe or not--and AsenG's question of the princess's personality--are also emblematic of Forger concerns due to past illusionistic habits trained by various GMing handbooks (and I'm guessing, heavily reinforced in the White Wolf heyday) as well as a belief that the game world always runs on pure improv with no facts that are established in secret before being revealed. Again the idea that the GM might know in advance that the plans are or are not in the safe isn't on the radar, so the only options are "GM decides == TR == illusionism" and "dice determine who decides == CR == player agency". It leaves out the possibility that you can have can have conflict resolution through a combination of preexisting game-state plus resolution of a task--but obviously you can. It just doesn't compute when people are obsessed with narrative control.

Quote from: Arminius;882649Again, most combat situations are such that the atomic task resolution and rules for time-and-motion can resolve the abstract "conflict".

As such Christopher's example doesn't really hold since the difference between mechanical CR and TR isn't scale or granularity--it's whether the resolution of the conflict or achieving the goal is more or less the result of mechanical procedures.

Things are also often enormously muddied by clashing assumptions about GM motivation and the role of pre-established facts. The Forge theorists generally assumed the GM was trying to exert a lot of control over the sequence of events--guiding a particular storyline or controlling pacing or protecting a favorite NPC--whatever. They also assumed that the GM would freely make things up as long as they didn't contradict stuff that had been revealed/stated to the players.

So in their examples the CR mechanics result in the GM giving up control of the storyline and sharing the ability to make things up.

For the more sandbox/world-based style that's favored around here, those concerns aren't really on the radar so it's better to posit that the GM doesn't have a story in mind and largely works from preestablished fact. Even if something isn't known in advance it can be extrapolated or determined randomly rather than selected to favor a certain storyline.

What I mean is this should be the baseline for examples of CR--but I can't get into that just now.

Excellent points, I can only add that I always presume that CR is being used by a sandbox GM who has preestablished facts about the setting.

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.

Ergo, you don't understand them.

Quote from: Opaopajr;882675I just wanted to thank you as your posts here have done more to disambiguate than the entirety of several topics I've read before on this subject.

Conflict Resolution is about achieving the goal (regardless of directness, frequency, or manner) by nailing down the stakes "outside of possible GM disruption."

Thus the conflict and stakes are inherently player determined because they know best what they want to achieve for their character through their approach. There is no GM filtration of the outcome to the setting because it is all layed out and determined beforehand by player-desires and their interpretations of success. It is a form of authorship by player-side through fixing the stakes as deemed relevant to their course of action/s. The dice (cards, etc.) sound like the arbiter of who wins the temporary tug-of-war of conflict authorship.

True, though I'd point out that the stakes being determined by the player is a bad idea. It should be the result of player and Referee negotiation.


What I don't like about CR is that it removes the surprising results that I, as a player, didn't expect.

Quote from: Phillip;882710How it looks to me:

Task resolution resolves tasks performed by characters.

Conflict resolution resolves conflicts between participants. This conflict is usually no more than one being glad to take a given outcome for granted, whereas another thinks it calls for a roll.

Maybe I don't understand your point, but the only systems I can think of that actually do that are both Task Resolution based.

Quote from: AsenRG;882734Maybe I don't understand your point, but the only systems I can think of that actually do that are both Task Resolution based.

If by "that" you mean settle conflicts between players as opposed to tasks by characters, well, that's both the "say yes or roll" (or "pay a resource or let it be" in some games) principle as commonly applied and the player-goal (treating "how" as ex post facto) resolution that I mentioned after that.

In simplest form I guess it could be no more than an abstract handing off of narrative authority with no particular goal stated beforehand. However, I haven't seen people commonly calling that CR; "narration resolution" or such might be more proper. Clear statement of stakes (usually with some sort of negotiation) seems usually to be very important.

Quote from: Phillip;882788If by "that" you mean settle conflicts between players as opposed to tasks by characters,

Namely conflicts regarding whether an obstacle is worth rolling for, yes.

Quotewell, that's both the "say yes or roll" (or "pay a resource or let it be" in some games) principle

Doesn't resolve it. "Why do I have to pay a resource for something obvious" is a valid line of argument.
OTOH, "I don't need to roll against such difficulties" does resolve such arguments (CORPS, EABA v2 and in a roundabout way, Unknown Armies 2e).

Quoteand the player-goal (treating "how" as ex post facto) resolution that I mentioned after that.

Once you apply a skill against meaningful opposition, "how" is always ex post facto. The use for the skill, here, is to find a way to achieve your goal, or something close enough to it.
The best illustration of that principle that I know is the hit location mechanic in Flashing Blades, BTW.

QuoteIn simplest form I guess it could be no more than an abstract handing off of narrative authority with no particular goal stated beforehand.

Now, that would resolve it, but it's usually, from the examples I'm familiar with, not being used to resolve such OOC conflicts.

As RMcS says, usually but not always. There was a big thread (on storygames I think) years ago where RE and other leading lights disclaimed the idea of "stakes" being equal to CR. Yet it's obvious they've been a popular tool.

I think these days it's become more fashionable (and from my perspective more palatable) to have a "fail forward" rather than a prenegotiated failure result. The GM inflicts appropriate penalty/harm and/or narrates something that indicates the opportunity has irrevocably passed.

Quote from: Arminius;882800There was a big thread (on storygames I think) years ago where RE and other leading lights disclaimed the idea of "stakes" being equal to CR.

Actually, I remember Ron himself caling this popular fashion of pre-defining stakes "crap" or some other not-so-nice name. He really dislikes pre-set results.

So no, "stakes" are not a forge thing. Popular among designers who grew up with Forge theory, yes. Forge-endorsed, absolutely not.

And as a matter of fact, I am also in favour of not having anything pre-defined. It ruins the surprise of discovering what fate has in mind for the heroes :D

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882806Actually, I remember Ron himself caling this popular fashion of pre-defining stakes "crap" or some other not-so-nice name. He really dislikes pre-set results.

Didn't know the first part, but this is part of the reasons I like Sorcerer;).

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882806Actually, I remember Ron himself caling this popular fashion of pre-defining stakes "crap" or some other not-so-nice name. He really dislikes pre-set results.

So no, "stakes" are not a forge thing. Popular among designers who grew up with Forge theory, yes. Forge-endorsed, absolutely not.

And as a matter of fact, I am also in favour of not having anything pre-defined. It ruins the surprise of discovering what fate has in mind for the heroes :D

That doesn't fit with what I know. In particular, Ron Edwards wrote Trollbabe shortly into Forge discussion (as opposed to Sorcerer which was designed pre-Forge). And Trollbabe resolution is based around predefined goals which are either gained or lost.

Quote from: Ron EdwardsThe person declaring the conflict must specify who is in conflict, about what, and what Action Type is involved – basically pro- viding everybody with a "squaring off" context in which to get involved, knowing who is up against whom, and about what.

• If the declarer of the conflict is the GM, he or she states which trollbabe characters are necessarily involved.
• If the declarer of the conflict is a player, his or her character must be involved, and the declaration should specify what NPCs are involved as well.
• Players of trollbabes who are not involved in the conflict may become involved if they choose.

Characters involved in conflicts must state Goals, which are essentially the desired outcomes for those characters. Goals can actually affect the initiation aof the conflict itself, as follows.

Quote from: Ron EdwardsThe most important element of any conflict is the player-character's Goal. Announced actions are not sufficient; actions are only stated as means to achieve the stated Goal. Here are some points about Goals and their relation to Action Types.

I think it's more helpful to talk about specific resolution mechanics. Cite the resolution mechanics of some games you like or would apply, rather than assuming a binary conflict vs. task.

The specific thing that was common and which was decried in the SG thread was stuff like, "If I win, I get into the palace sight unseen, steal the jewels, and assassinate the king in his bedchamber; if you win, I'm captured, painted blue, and crucified on the city walls."

I seem to recall that Burning Wheel comes very close to saying exactly that.

As for Trollbabe, I wouldn't hold up RE as a paragon of consistency but the parts quoted don't specifically address outcomes, just goals. The rules state that the loser of the conflict narrates the result, and I'm sure there's some language that binds them to narrating the achievement of the other party's goal, but I can easily see a difference between that and pre-narrated "stakes" as they have commonly been deployed.

Quote from: Arminius;882822As for Trollbabe, I wouldn't hold up RE as a paragon of consistency but the parts quoted don't specifically address outcomes, just goals. The rules state that the loser of the conflict narrates the result, and I'm sure there's some language that binds them to narrating the achievement of the other party's goal, but I can easily see a difference between that and pre-narrated "stakes" as they have commonly been deployed.

Exactly. Not that I give a shit about Ron's opinion, but on this specific matter I agree with him. He has clearly expressed dislike for "determining outcome beforehand". Intention, of course, is rather different from outcome.

Can you give a contrasting example of a game that has pre-narrated outcome - as opposed to Trollbabe's goals?

In practice, it seemed to me that in this aspect, The Mountain Witch, Dogs in the Vineyard, and Trollbabe were all pretty similar. You declare what you want (the goal or stakes), and go through resolution and if you succeed, you get it - but the details can vary a lot.

Quote from: AsenRG;882797Namely conflicts regarding whether an obstacle is worth rolling for, yes.


Doesn't resolve it. "Why do I have to pay a resource for something obvious" is a valid line of argument.

Huh? You're off on a weird tangent. There's no argument at all. There's just a rule getting applied.

Quote from: AsenRG;882797Once you apply a skill against meaningful opposition, "how" is always ex post facto.

Not at all. An application of skill IS the process. With carpentry I build a house. First the measuring, then the cutting, then the nailing, and at last the house. It's not, "I want a house. Oh, a lucky toss gives me a house! Now let's rationalize how this house got here."

Quote from: jhkim;882860Can you give a contrasting example of a game that has pre-narrated outcome - as opposed to Trollbabe's goals?

HeroQuest. It has been clarified that if you do not enter combat stating "I want to kill him", then he cannot die.

Also PTA, I think. But I am not so familiar with this system as I am with HQ.

https://www.burningwheel.com/wiki/index.php?title=Introduction_To_The_Rules#Intent_and_Stakes

QuoteOnce you have crystallized your intent, you and the GM will set the stakes. Burning Wheel is built on risk vs. reward; the more you're willing to risk, the more reward you can earn. The GM explains what happens if the roll succeeds or fails before the dice are rolled. Success always means that the intent you declared succeeds exactly as you described. The player who succeeded describes it just so! Failure is defined by the GM. Failing does not always just mean you do not succeed. The GM may create stakes in which you achieve your intent, but not in the way you wanted. Trying to pick that lock before the guard comes back? If you fail, you might get the door open just as the guard comes around the corner!

I haven't read or played carry but this is what the author says about it:

https://hamsterprophet.wordpress.com/2006/08/27/invert-not-revert/

QuoteSo I had an awesome revelation while writing up my carry demo materials. So, how stakes resolution works in the game is that all of the player involved set their stakes if they win the conflict. If the players have a conflict with each other, it's easy, they either win their stakes or the other guy wins his stakes. The GM can throw extra counterstakes into this, if he wants. Now, if the conflict is against the GM, he sets counterstakes for if the players lose. The GM never sets positive stakes for NPCs, just negative stakes for PCs.

Now, the easy and logical thing to do is just reverse the positive stakes, right? So the player goes "If I win, I diffuse the bomb and we make it to the checkpoint." Reversing this would be the GM saying "If you lose, the bomb goes off and you don't make it to the checkpoint."

Blah. How lame is that?

Now, whats awesome is when you invert the stakes. "If you lose, you diffuse the bomb, so everything thinks that you guys are home free – until you get captured by the VC patrol thats been trailing you."

I tend to look at it as pretty simply:

Situation:  You and Bob are fighting on top of a cliff.

Goal:  You want to knock Bob on the ground to pin him.

Task Resolution:  "I want to charge Bob".  You then roll to find out what happens, which on a success could mean he gets knocked down (your goal) or even knocked off the cliff (not what you want).

Conflict Resolution:  "I want to knock Bob on the ground by charging him."  You then roll to find out if you succeed and get what you want, or if something else happens that's not what you want (either failing to knock him down or knocking him down the cliff) if you fail/crit fail.

A lot of the other stuff that's been talked about gets conflated in with these, but I see this as the core of it.

Quote from: robiswrong;882965I tend to look at it as pretty simply:

Situation:  You and Bob are fighting on top of a cliff.

Goal:  You want to knock Bob on the ground to pin him.

Task Resolution:  "I want to charge Bob".  You then roll to find out what happens, which on a success could mean he gets knocked down (your goal) or even knocked off the cliff (not what you want).

Conflict Resolution:  "I want to knock Bob on the ground by charging him."  You then roll to find out if you succeed and get what you want, or if something else happens that's not what you want (either failing to knock him down or knocking him down the cliff) if you fail/crit fail.

A lot of the other stuff that's been talked about gets conflated in with these, but I see this as the core of it.

Here's where it's not so simple. If I'm playing a "traditional" game and the player just says, "I want to charge Bob" it really isn't clear what the player even means. Go running in at him to strike him with a weapon? Go running in at him to tackle him to the ground? And then once you have him down, what do you intend to do then? In other words, the player typically does need to articulate the goal as part of the action. This is extremely common in "traditional" game mechanics.

People can always contrive examples to illustrate the difference between CR and TR, but the examples consistently fail to stand up to scrutiny. That's because all actions consist of means and ends as a matter of reality. RPG rules don't get to overrule that. It's also true that we sometimes engage in means that have no chance of bringing about the ends. Doing a rain dance has zero chance of making it rain.

That doesn't mean the goal plays no role whatsoever in the task itself. Two pimple-faced teens slapping together fast-food burgers, the goal of the first is just to get through the work day so he can get paid, the goal of the second is to provide the very best customer service possible. Would you expect the results to be the same in each case?

So the contention here is that CRs are 100% about adding a layer of narrative control. Without that, any attempt at articulating a difference between CR and TR involves pigeonholing one or the other or both in a way that's completely at odds with how anyone actually plays.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883025So the contention here is that CRs are 100% about adding a layer of narrative control. Without that, any attempt at articulating a difference between CR and TR involves pigeonholing one or the other or both in a way that's completely at odds with how anyone actually plays.

I contend it is a useless distinction as long you play the campaign as bunch of players describing what their characters do.  Especially if you add in a human referee that adjudicates their actions.

Because of the focus on playing individual characters, the player will develop goals. Goals that require a series of decision and actions by the players to achieve. For campaigns focused on creating a story or narrative this would include out of game metagaming that is related to what the participants feels makes for a good story.

Either way there is no escaping the fact that a RPG campaign is a series of actions in pursuit of various goals. The only way to escape this is to make a completely different game.

Quote from: estar;883027Either way there is no escaping the fact that a RPG campaign is a series of actions in pursuit of various goals. The only way to escape this is to make a completely different game.

Not even then. A series of actions in the pursuit of goals is simply the reality of human action. There's no escaping it at all.

Even if all you're doing is playing chess. You move your pieces towards some goal. And no, the goal isn't defined by the game necessarily. My dad taught me how to play chess. The first time I played, I won. I assume his goal during that game wasn't "to win" as defined by the game.

What distinguishes RPGs is that each pawn is treated as a person who has goals of his own. To subjugate that for the sake of the greater story? You're right. At that point, you're going against the very distinguishing characteristic of the RPG. But you still haven't abandoned the means-ends relationship of everything the players do. The game then becomes about the players, not the characters. How this is supposed to be specialized at making for better stories is beyond me.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882510...
Plus, a series of exchanges to kill someone, or 7 someones, isn't really any different than having to pick 10 locks...

Sounds like they aren't fighting back, and/or the combat system being used is pretty lame.

This whole discussion has been pretty educational for me, a GM of 37+  years who apparently does not have the appropriate vocabulary to discuss games because until last week, I have been hiding under an internet rock.

It is remarkable to me how the industry has become filled with technical jargon. I understand the impulse to create tightly defined vocabulary as there are semantic arguments everywhere throughout these forums: "your immersion is not really immersion" kind of crap.  

However, I am worried about all of this jargon and vocabulary in principal because A) such arbitrary language creates paradigms that don't necessarily reflect reality and B) lots of people aren't privy or interested in this jargon, in which case the technical language serves as a barrier rather than a facilitator of communication.

I much prefer plain English, warts and all.

We could at least partially solve point B above by providing a glossary of "accurate" definitions (if such a glossary exists then I would love to see it).  However, whoever constructs such a glossary has immense (too much) power in defining our thought processes about gaming in general.  

If we have to use someone's specific and invented vocabulary in order to discuss a rules concept and its interaction with playstyle then the PoV of the person or group that crafted the vocabulary will dominate all conversations.  I see this happening all over these forums.  This thread is a perfect example.  CRKrueger was trying to make a point about the interaction of the mechanics of the new 2d20 Conan game with the setting, but he had to create this separate discussion and define terms for 5 pages just to talk about it.  RosenMcStern graciously and patiently spent pages defining terms, and Arminius was good enough to provide commentary and explain how and why these terms came to be, but my main take away was that the original point was left hanging primarily because the invented vocabulary doesn't allow for the original thought to gain verbal traction.

I therefore agree with estar in asking why the distinction between CR and TR is necessary or helpful. CRK's original point about 2d20 mechanics and the Hyborian Age remains valid.  The "official" language served only to make communicating that relatively simple point a lot more difficult, and to provide hair-splitting arguments about language use to people who disagree.

Obviously I have missed some very deep theory discussions somewhere, but the implication throughout this discussion is that Ron Edwards and the Forgites are the final authority on RPG vocabulary, and thus thought processes.  No offense to anyone on this discussion, but to an outsider trying to understand what is going on, the whole thing smacks of thought police trying to push their design agendas by defining RPG design language and forcing others to discuss games on their terms.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883056No offense to anyone on this discussion, but to an outsider trying to understand what is going on, the whole thing smacks of thought police trying to push their design agendas by defining RPG design language and forcing others to discuss games on their terms.

Well, that's pretty much this site's raison d'etre, a response to exactly what you are mentioning, at least as far as how Pundit describes his involvement, but his description would include the word Swine. :D

Quote from: Madprofessor;883056No offense to anyone on this discussion, but to an outsider trying to understand what is going on, the whole thing smacks of thought police trying to push their design agendas by defining RPG design language and forcing others to discuss games on their terms.

It certainly seems that way as far as the whole CR vs TR thing.

But the bigger picture I see is, any time someone thinks they have some new, "modern" approach to gaming, I cast detect bullshit. We're still using some combination of language and math. There is no advanced technology. And in the roleplaying world, there is also nothing new under the sun.

A long time ago, some GMs used to run D&D in a style that many might consider "CR" nowadays, the dice determining whether or not you achieved what you were trying to accomplish then inserting the appropriate description of how it all got to that point. I mean, where the fuck do you think the idea of "CR" came from anyway?

I've done it for a time. It doesn't require a new set of rules, stats, or a fancy new dice mechanic. I stopped doing it because I've learned it really doesn't live up to all the hype. People whose desires exceed their competence have a tendency to see the grass as always greener elsewhere. But if they would put the same effort into honing their craft as they do cranking out new garbage and then trying to defend it, they'd realize you don't need to reinvent the wheel to get where you're going. You just have to learn how to drive.

Thanks for the kind words, I guess. And also you're welcome to OpaOpaJr.

My main response to recent posts though is that if someone starts using jargon, it clouds discussion even more if it turns out they mean something other than the established definition UNLESS they clearly state their personal definition up front. Maybe that did happen--and if so I personally prefer a response along the lines of "not to sidetrack but that's not the standard definition; still since we all understand each other let's move on".

About this specific topic, I'll just say again that this distinction is far more important to folks who either need to overcome GM railroading, or who want to exercise OOC control over the narrative. If those don't apply to you then absolutely, the IC operation of tasks implicitly includes carrying out a goal and the conscious control-feedback loop that lets you adjust mid-task to "stay on target". I think there are times both in play and in design notes to make this explicit but mostly it boils down to "don't be a jerk". The main issue then is more for GMs who don't want to be jerks but need help making a decision when the existing mechanics and table interaction don't give enough guidance on how to resolve things.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883056I much prefer plain English, warts and all.

We could at least partially solve point B above by providing a glossary of "accurate" definitions (if such a glossary exists then I would love to see it).  However, whoever constructs such a glossary has immense (too much) power in defining our thought processes about gaming in general.

I don't think having a definition for a term is the same as thought control. I can accept someone's definition of a term, and still disagree with them on whether it is fun to play or otherwise. Agreeing on terms is vital to expressing disagreement.

In short, I think well-defined glossaries are a good thing regardless. What sucks more is sloppy definitions when people change what they mean by the term based on whatever the current argument is - or use the same term to mean different things.

Plain English can be better - but sometimes it really does help to have shorthand for common stuff in a specialized field. When I play an RPG, and my GM asks me to roll 2d20 against a target number for my fight against the NPC opponent, it's a lot easier than describing those jargon out to the layman.

I think "conflict resolution" is a troublesome term because it never had a clear, succinct definition - and even among those who were there for the debates on the Forge, they often use the term differently. And resolution mechanics don't all fall into a simple binary of conflict or task. I haven't been following Conan 2d20, so I don't know how those work, but maybe it would be better to talk about those mechanics.

QuoteOriginally Posted by jhkim
I don't think having a definition for a term is the same as thought control. I can accept someone's definition of a term, and still disagree with them on whether it is fun to play or otherwise. Agreeing on terms is vital to expressing disagreement.

I think it depends on the term.  There is no harm in defining terms in common usage (plain English) because they mean what they mean.  You can call a chair a teleporter but that doesn't make it so.  Consensus says it's a "chair."  The fundamental principal of general semantics is that the object is independent of the word and that the word changes perception of the object but not the object itself.  When a word has enough use, then the concept, word and object, for all practical purposes, are indistinguishable.  

The problem comes when we invent terms or create terms that are far out of common experience - such as abstractions about game theory.  Thought and language are semi-dependent. It is possible to have thought without language but it impossible to have language without thought.  In other words, whenever you think in language you cannot help but direct your thoughts into the patterns, paradigms, and images that those words represent.  So if someone creates a vocabulary essentially from scratch to reflect their thoughts about a specific topic that has no words of common usage, gives each term specific definitions, and the expects or insists that others use their words and definitions whenever the topic is discussed - that is thought control, even if it is unintentional, and at the very least it sets artificial parameters about what can and cannot be thought.

I realize what you are saying.  We need to communicate and sometimes that involves splitting hairs, but two people can come to agreement about how discuss their thoughts without scribing new vocabulary in stone as if it is Hammurabi's edict and defining the way everyone should think.

QuoteThanks for the kind words, I guess. And also you're welcome to OpaOpaJr.

Thank you for explaining the origins of this argument.

QuoteAbout this specific topic, I'll just say again that this distinction is far more important to folks who either need to overcome GM railroading, or who want to exercise OOC control over the narrative.

I don't mean to thread-jack (if that's a term) but is there really such a shortage of good GMs out there, and if so, how does handing portions of GM power over to players who are likely less qualified to run the game improve the situation? Theoretically? Excuse my ignorance, I am new at this, a short answer will do.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883076I realize what you are saying.  We need to communicate and sometimes that involves splitting hairs, but two people can come to agreement about how discuss their thoughts without scribing new vocabulary in stone as if it is Hammurabi's edict and defining the way everyone should think.

Yet it is common knowledge that when they agree on the meaning on terms, communication is faster and less vulnerable to misunderstanding.

The whole reason of this thread's existence is that I had perfectly understood what Krueger did not like in Conan 2d20 (and I stress that he is not alone in not liking that kind of mechanics). Yet he conflated the part he dislikes with other stuff that has nothing to do with it. It took five pages to reach the conclusion of "Aaaaah, you meant that. It is not the same thing as this, which is what I do not want in my game." With a well-defined common language, we would have reached the same POV five pages earlier. And the discussion is not futile, because there are points that people legitimately question in that particular game. Their doubts cannot be dismissed as prejudice. Language helps a lot in this process.

A common language helps identify these points earlier in the discussion, and focus on nailing down the facts, rather than discuss the wording.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883031Not even then. A series of actions in the pursuit of goals is simply the reality of human action. There's no escaping it at all.

That definitely a better way to put it.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883031What distinguishes RPGs is that each pawn is treated as a person who has goals of his own. To subjugate that for the sake of the greater story? You're right. At that point, you're going against the very distinguishing characteristic of the RPG. But you still haven't abandoned the means-ends relationship of everything the players do. The game then becomes about the players, not the characters. How this is supposed to be specialized at making for better stories is beyond me.

I always contended that there are better tools for collaborative storytelling than RPGs. I am vaguely aware that there is entire hobby based around writing fiction in a shared environment. Much of it what would be called fan-fiction, there are other niches that are involved in more original works like my own favorite alternate history.

There is one novel series out there, 1632 by Eric Flint, that it driven by a huge collaborative writing team lead by the original author.

And none of the ones I am aware are using RPGs to create stories as a group.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883056However, I am worried about all of this jargon and vocabulary in principal because A) such arbitrary language creates paradigms that don't necessarily reflect reality and B) lots of people aren't privy or interested in this jargon, in which case the technical language serves as a barrier rather than a facilitator of communication.

I much prefer plain English, warts and all.

As do I.

In the end the idea of the RPG is simple, it is a game centered around a group people pretending to be characters interacting with some setting where their actions are adjudicated by the referee.

Do this over a number of sessions while keeping the same characters from session to session and you got a RPG campaign.

That what Dave Arneson invented and what Gary Gygax built on to create the first ever set of rules for running RPG campaigns.

All Strum and Drang is about how to make that fun and interesting.

The central problem is that it demand a fair, wise, and creative human referee to run the campaign. if the referee is weak in any of those area the campaign suffers.

Because people equate RPGs with the rules, the trend has been to try to fix this with better rules.

My view is that RPGs are NOT about the rules but about the campaign. That the only way to fix RPGs is to teach people how to be better referees. It doesn't matter what you do with the rules or how things are setup if the referee is incompetent.

Some have designed rules to share the responsibility of the referee among the entire group. My opinion that doesn't fix the central issue but just creates a bunch a different issues that has to be dealt.

Managing RPG campaigns has always had a element of team building but it can work with hostile players. People forget that RPG campaign, including the first Blackmoor, were run with players playing on opposing sides and actively competing against one another.

But by trying to share the referee authority it not just one person who has to be fair, wise, and creative but the group as a whole. A considerably more difficult challenge especially for a leisure activity.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883056We could at least partially solve point B above by providing a glossary of "accurate" definitions (if such a glossary exists then I would love to see it).  However, whoever constructs such a glossary has immense (too much) power in defining our thought processes about gaming in general.

I think we haven't lost the ability to use plain english in these type of discussion.  

Quote from: Madprofessor;883056Obviously I have missed some very deep theory discussions somewhere, but the implication throughout this discussion is that Ron Edwards and the Forgites are the final authority on RPG vocabulary, and thus thought processes.

Ron Edwards and his crew were the first to put together the first comprehensive theory of RPG. The problem is that it just technobabble and has much relevance to actually running a RPG Campaign or creating products to support people running RPG campaigns as Star Trek physics has to do with running a space program.

Like the background Star Trek a lot of work has gone in to make Edwards' theory sound good. Also it is very consistent with itself much like Star Trek's background is largely consistent with

However like Star Trek in regards to the real life space program. There is little in Ron's theories that is of little use in actually creating a game or running a campaign. And what there is traditional advice on how a group can work together in pursuit of a goal with fancy and made up terms.

However like Star Trek inspires a lot of people to do thing with technology and space. Ron's theories have inspired a lot of people to create new and different games. The ones that are successful (like Fate for example) seem to succeed in spite of Ron's theories.

So I avoid using of any Ron's works or ideas in my own discussion on RPGs.

My view is that the "theory" of RPGs is best advanced by sharing experiences in the form of I had to deal with X or I wanted to do X, I did Y, and Z was the result. A novice referee then can learn from those accounts

The terminology is problematic and murky. A few alternatives:

Stake Resolution - Before you roll, negotiate what's at stake.

What's the opposite? Either the outcome is determined by the procedure used. When you succeed on Climb, there will be climbing. When you hit with a sword, it's d8 damage. Or it is unclear what is going to happen: Diplomacy and Knowledges in many games.


Scene Resolution - A single instance of the procedure will determine how the scene goes on.

What's the opposite? You roll, whenever certain predetermined actions are taken, like attacking is always a roll. Or you roll whenever it suits you (or the GM).

There is also the case of combat systems which are composed of many rolls.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883081I don't mean to thread-jack (if that's a term) but is there really such a shortage of good GMs out there, and if so, how does handing portions of GM power over to players who are likely less qualified to run the game improve the situation? Theoretically? Excuse my ignorance, I am new at this, a short answer will do.

I don't know if there's a shortage of good GMs but there's come to be a significant contingent of RPGers who approach gaming with the expectation of creating/experiencing a "story", with various amounts of baggage attached to the term. From an early date these expectations were met by published adventures and GMing advice that encouraged linear, pre planned sequences of scenes with various tricks to keep the players on track. In the 90s this style became so dominant that even when people rebelled against it, the question wasn't "why does the GM have a plot that they control" but "why don't we let everyone 'control the plot'"?

As for the second question, it's a matter of taste and expectations, and who you're playing with. At very least it can take a lot of work out of the GM's hands and be the basis for quick impromptu games. But my experience is, it's not the same as a traditional game with a good GM.

QuoteYet it is common knowledge that when they agree on the meaning on terms, communication is faster and less vulnerable to misunderstanding.

Uh, so this was fast and created less confusion? It is faster to communicate in common language than it is to make up a new vocabulary and ask everybody to use it.

QuoteThe whole reason of this thread's existence is that I had perfectly understood what Krueger did not like in Conan 2d20 (and I stress that he is not alone in not liking that kind of mechanics). Yet he conflated the part he dislikes with other stuff that has nothing to do with it. It took five pages to reach the conclusion of "Aaaaah, you meant that. It is not the same thing as this, which is what I do not want in my game."

So he misused your specialized language which caused the confusion.  You meant one thing by your jargon and he meant another.  Still, it's the Jargon that got in the way of communication.

QuoteWith a well-defined common language, we would have reached the same POV five pages earlier.

We have a well-defined common language that is capable of immense complexity: English.

Edwards' GNS jargon is not a common language, nor should it be.

QuoteAnd the discussion is not futile, because there are points that people legitimately question in that particular game. Their doubts cannot be dismissed as prejudice. Language helps a lot in this process.

I don't think the discussion is futile, and I agree that he had legitimate arguments.  You need language to communicate, I agree. Creating a new specialized vocabulary does not help though.  It makes communication more difficult as this thread has shown.

QuoteA common language helps identify these points earlier in the discussion, and focus on nailing down the facts, rather than discuss the wording.

As I said, we have a common language. You are not talking about a common language. You are talking about specialized jargon.

Does a specialized jargon help us "focus on nailing down the facts, rather than discussing the wording"? It seems like this entire thread is discussing language, not gaming.

Do we really need a set of jargon, "a common language" as you say?  I think that both Krueger and yourself have demonstrated that you can use the English language with excellent clarity and efficiency. After all, you used it to split hairs on these invented terms.  

Questions:

Who defines this specialized language?  Do we all have to agree to its definitions, precepts, and paradigms?   Is it okay to talk without the use of this specialized vocabulary?  What if my thoughts can't be accurately expressed using your terms?  Can you understand me if I don't use your language?

Among experts who share the understanding of a jargon, it can be very useful for expressing concisely what would otherwise take a lot of words.

In this case, however, the jargon seems usually not to do that, but instead to get people spending even more words debating what it ought to mean than it would take to specify any aspect that is of real practical utility.

Quote from: Arminius;883104At very least it can take a lot of work out of the GM's hands and be the basis for quick impromptu games. But my experience is, it's not the same as a traditional game with a good GM.

Agreed. It produces different experiences. And both are fun.

What is not fun is hearing the two camps' never ending claims that the experience provided by games designed the other way "is not true roleplaying".

Quote from: Madprofessor;883125We have a well-defined common language that is capable of immense complexity: English.

Do the meaning of the following terms have a meaning in plain English? And does that meaning equate the one we give them when discussing RPGs?

• class
• downtime
• hit point
• immersion
• level

....
[/LIST]

As you can see, there is no way to avoid "jargon" (I prefer technical terms). And they do help the discussion: imagine having to explain that we are not talking about scuba each time one makes a reference to "immersion".

QuoteI don't think the discussion is futile, and I agree that he had legitimate arguments.  You need language to communicate, I agree. Creating a new specialized vocabulary does not help though.  It makes communication more difficult as this thread has shown.

Only if the specialized language has been "loaded" with negativity, that is if the terms have not been used to explain the difference between two approaches/techniques but as the basis for a "UR FAVORITE GAME SUCKS" monologue. Which has happened rather frequently with GNS theories or derivatives (and with OSR in response).

QuoteWho defines this specialized language?  Do we all have to agree to its definitions, precepts, and paradigms?   Is it okay to talk without the use of this specialized vocabulary?  What if my thoughts can't be accurately expressed using your terms?  Can you understand me if I don't use your language?

The first question is the most important. It sounds to me that you accept everything that is not GNS-derived as "common language", even when it does not have the same meaning as it has in everyday English, and consider forgie terms as "jargon".

The problem is that historically the Forge is the source of many (but not all) of the terms we use at the moment. This is simply because they took the time to sit down and give definitions for the terms they used. Sometimes murky definitions, but at least definitions. As the Pundit stated in a thread on this forum, "If we do not give a definition of this, then Ron Edwards will", because Ron, being a damn taxonomist (like me :) ) has the habit of giving a precise definition of things ingrained in his brain.

If we do not want to use forgie terms, then someone has to provide alternate terms that are useful (and like it or not, forgie terms ARE useful, as Arminius pointed out) and are closer to common use. I see many terms becoming common (ex. associate/dissociate, introduced by Justin Alexander, I find particularly useful) that do not come from the Forge.

As for being able to talk without using a specialized vocabulary... yes, no problem. The only point is when you use a "specific" term and attribute a meaning to it that is different than what the theory says. One common example is "Narrativism", which has a clear, unambiguous meaning in GNS but is used with a gazillion other implications (usually "games that I do not like" :D ) by people who do not have the faintest idea of what "Story now" means.

Edit: I have just seen on the other thread that someone labeled Chris Lites' answer as using "forge terms". I cannot spot anything but plain English in his replies: no jargon at all! Yet he elicited a negative response.

Do we need any more proof that the problem is not that the terms are "technical", but it is that the terms are "loaded" by the baggage of 10+ years of stupid polemics and flame wars?

{taps mic} is this thing still on? I thought theory moved past this Conflict vs Task resolution thing (let alone GNS) decades ago. Why are folks so stuck on this? Even The Forgites moved beyond these theories, yet here we are arguing about the same old shit again.

Like most RPG theory, Conflict Resolution emerged out of the mismatch of expectations. The central idea was simple: a player should get what they intended on a 'successful' result. Now in Task Resolution, cause and effect are hard coded and known before the action is taken: Hit With Weapon → Do Damage. Pick Lock → Open Safe. Problem was this didn't help participants communicate expectations in cases where things weren't covered by the rules.

With Conflict Resolution, the player doesn't just declare their action, but also the cause and effect. Hit Target → Impress Princess because. Forge Signature → Get Past Border because. Problem is this chain of events can be infinitely subdivided and extended forever in either direction, leaving the decision of where/when to roll somewhat arbitrary, and you can end up achieving the result you wanted yet not in the way you expected, so what exactly is the roll determining?

Now games like Apocalypse World draw the line of uncertainty right between the causes and effects most interesting and relevant to the themes and setting. Make Move → Trigger Result. There is no ambiguity, the stakes are hard coded, and negotiation is unnecessary once you know which move is being made. So it's technically Task Resolution, yet that term seems somehow ill suited here. Luckily Vincent has his own design language for this kinda thing, which surprisingly nobody argues about.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883056It is remarkable to me how the industry has become filled with technical jargon.

Most of this jargon came out decades ago and is becoming less defined and more dogmatic with each passing year.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883056However, I am worried about all of this jargon and vocabulary in principal because A) such arbitrary language creates paradigms that don't necessarily reflect reality and B) lots of people aren't privy or interested in this jargon, in which case the technical language serves as a barrier rather than a facilitator of communication.

Jargon can be used to communicate concepts more efficiently and accurately (which numerous technical industries do), or it can be used to warp the perception of reality in ways that match cultural touchstones to keep the undesired out (which numerous sociopolitical groups do). Sadly tabletop RPGs apparently have more in common with sociopolitical groups than technical industries.

The Forge was one of the few forums which attempted to treat the field as a technical one, and for that I give them props regardless of how successful they ultimately were.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883056However, whoever constructs such a glossary has immense (too much) power in defining our thought processes about gaming in general.

If we have to use someone's specific and invented vocabulary in order to discuss a rules concept and its interaction with playstyle then the PoV of the person or group that crafted the vocabulary will dominate all conversations.

Definitions are not mind control. We still get to decide which words we used to describe things (at least so far). The problem is people fighting over word definitions instead of engaging with their meaning, and that's not vocabulary's fault.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883056I see this happening all over these forums. This thread is a perfect example.  CRKrueger was trying to make a point about the interaction of the mechanics of the new 2d20 Conan game with the setting, but he had to create this separate discussion and define terms for 5 pages just to talk about it.

That 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.

Quote from: CRKrueger;880783if there is no difference between Task Resolution and Conflict Resolution... Why do they need different names?

You don't need different names to discuss the conceptual difference between TR and CR, and both terms are ridiculously unclear and should have dies out ages ago. I see this same outlandish thinking in computer science too, where some people insist that class, type, kind, and sort (which only escapes use as a noun because it's already in use as a verb) must have meaningful differences just because they exist.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883056Obviously I have missed some very deep theory discussions somewhere, but the implication throughout this discussion is that Ron Edwards and the Forgites are the final authority on RPG vocabulary, and thus thought processes.  No offense to anyone on this discussion, but to an outsider trying to understand what is going on, the whole thing smacks of thought police trying to push their design agendas by defining RPG design language and forcing others to discuss games on their terms.

The irony is that despite being the antithesis of The Forge, this site has just as much of an agenda and is the only one left on the entire internet where these theories are discussed in any significant way.

Quote from: estar;883096I think we haven't lost the ability to use plain english in these type of discussion.

One man's plain English is another man's WTF. And I don't think most gamers realize how much jargon they already use which looks like complete moonspeak to outsiders.

Quote from: estar;883096Ron Edwards and his crew were the first to put together the first comprehensive theory of RPG. The problem is that it just technobabble and has much relevance to actually running a RPG Campaign or creating products to support people running RPG campaigns as Star Trek physics has to do with running a space program.

All the products that met player needs and players finally able to point out why they weren't having fun say otherwise. Sadly though, no crew has put together the next comprehensive theory of RPG, because I'm going to have tremendous fun pointing out how their models are based on or already exist on The Forge :D

Quote from: estar;883096Ron's theories have inspired a lot of people to create new and different games. The ones that are successful (like Fate for example) seem to succeed in spite of Ron's theories.

Well that's a strange exception to make. How so?

Quote from: Madprofessor;883125So he misused your specialized language which caused the confusion.  You meant one thing by your jargon and he meant another.  Still, it's the Jargon that got in the way of communication.

No, 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.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883125It makes communication more difficult as this thread has shown.

No, it's the unwillingness to reach consensus on what words mean because someone thinks it's some sort of contest to be won.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883125We have a well-defined common language that is capable of immense complexity: English.

Define 'well-defined', preferably in English.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883125I think that both Krueger and yourself have demonstrated that you can use the English language with excellent clarity and efficiency.

I'll grant you that clear English is vastly underused in these discussions. Then again, clear jargon is vastly underused in these discussions. The issue is clarity though, not vocabulary.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883125Creating a new specialized vocabulary does not help though.

Apparently all the scientists, engineers, mathematicians, programmers, and medical doctors who rely on specialized vocabulary didn't get the memo (or if they did it wasn't written with the right jargon).

Quote from: Madprofessor;883125Who defines this specialized language?

Who cares, as long as it's consistent and not exclusive?

Quote from: Madprofessor;883125Do we all have to agree to its definitions, precepts, and paradigms?

How can we have a meaningful discussion otherwise?

Quote from: Madprofessor;883125Is it okay to talk without the use of this specialized vocabulary?

Sure, as long as people aren't deliberately using it to establish tribal bounds and status.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883125What if my thoughts can't be accurately expressed using your terms?

Then use different words. Better to have new words than shoehorn new meanings onto existing ones.

Quote from: Madprofessor;883125Can you understand me if I don't use your language?

Yes, but are they willing to understand you if you don't use their language?

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;883242Jargon can be used to communicate concepts more efficiently and accurately (which numerous technical industries do), or it can be used to warp the perception of reality in ways that match cultural touchstones to keep the undesired out (which numerous sociopolitical groups do). Sadly tabletop RPGs apparently have more in common with sociopolitical groups than technical industries.

Well said.

And it isn't an either or. Members of technical industries also use knowledge of jargon as a proxy for assessing education, training, certification, experience, and apprenticeship.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;883242The Forge was one of the few forums which attempted to treat the field as a technical one, and for that I give them props regardless of how successful they ultimately were.

Except that Forge Theory is disconnected from how RPG Campaigns are played and managed. The main issue is that people preferences in terms of RPG Campaigns are much more nuanced than Forge theory makes it out to be. The reason for this that the life inside of a RPG Campaign mimics of that of real life. The players and referee use the same processes they do in real life to evaluate, plan, and act within the setting of the campaign. No campaign is rarely about just one thing.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;883242One man's plain English is another man's WTF. And I don't think most gamers realize how much jargon they already use which looks like complete moonspeak to outsiders.

I think what outsiders have a problem with is the idea you can simulate a life of adventure with pen & paper. Let's Pretend is considered a childhood game for a good reason as the lack of challenge quickly causes an individual lose interest as they grow older.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;883242All the products that met player needs and players finally able to point out why they weren't having fun say otherwise. Sadly though, no crew has put together the next comprehensive theory of RPG, because I'm going to have tremendous fun pointing out how their models are based on or already exist on The Forge :D

My comprehensive theory on RPG is that there isn't one because RPGs are fundamentally about a group of people cooperating with other to bring alive a virtual reality. In the real world there is no theory about how to get people to cooperate with each other. There is are a series of best practices and and examples that a person can draw on to adapt for their own circumstances.

The same with RPGs, the best we can do is document best practices. What happened, why was it done in the first place, what actions where taken, and what were the positive outcomes, and what were the negative outcome.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;883242Well that's a strange exception to make. How so?

Fate succeeds not because it is a RPG focused on the narrative. Because it has a simple game engine that can be used as is or expanded to make a RPG with detailed mechanics. For example the Fate Fractal, the idea that anything you want to detail in your campaign can be represented as a Fate Character which can be comprised of Fate Characters.

IT has a designer who skilled at creating a community around the game. It under the Open Game Licensed backed by a company who encourages participation. It has a wide variety of easily learned setting that are unique. Plus a handful of detailed settings. All of them using the same game.

Fate is basically a Fudge RPG done for the most part right. Also Fate is a Generic Universal RPG that is actually comprehensible to the average gamer.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;883242Like most RPG theory, Conflict Resolution emerged out of the mismatch of expectations.

I call bullshit.

Dungeon Masters were creative and unique in their approaches to the game. What happened is some people liked one style better than another, gave it a name, made it make sense by unrealistically pigeonholing what everyone else was doing, then making up "mismatch of expectations" as the bullshit reason to justify why it was a superior approach.

QuoteThe central idea was simple: a player should get what they intended on a 'successful' result. Now in Task Resolution, cause and effect are hard coded and known before the action is taken: Hit With Weapon → Do Damage. Pick Lock → Open Safe.

The central idea is broken. A shaman can be very successful at doing a rain dance. It still does nothing to bring the intended rain.

Ironically, the very reason why this central idea is broken invalidates your characterization of Task Resolution. The effect is not known before the action is taken. Sure. Some effects are common, expected, and even standard. But you don't actually know until you try.

QuoteProblem was this didn't help participants communicate expectations in cases where things weren't covered by the rules.

I'm not sure this statement actually means anything. Why is communicating expectations important? What's wrong with a player having his character open a chest expecting it to be full of treasure and not trapped only to end up being wrong? It seems to me that's part of the game.

And what does it matter whether something is or isn't "covered by the rules." Where is it carved in stone that players need to know all of the rules in the first place? Do you hold a written exam before a new player can earn a seat at the table? Are veteran players rendered mute and incapable of communicating just because they haven't committed the DMs guide to memory?

QuoteWith Conflict Resolution, the player doesn't just declare their action, but also the cause and effect.

Traditional gaming: "I jab at the orc with my pike to hold him at bay."

Explain how what you're describing was ever anything new in RPGs without mischaracterizing what gaming was like before high-minded jargon came along.

QuoteAll the products that met player needs and players finally able to point out why they weren't having fun say otherwise.

Were they finally able to point out why they weren't having fun? Or did they just think they were? Because I've seen nothing but misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis.

QuoteSadly though, no crew has put together the next comprehensive theory of RPG, because I'm going to have tremendous fun pointing out how their models are based on or already exist on The Forge :D

Really? I've been running a pretty simple one. Situation, Action, Resolution. Of course, it's not RPG specific. That describes everything. Action consists of means and ends, where the ends is a state preferable to that of the current situation. Resolution applies the laws of nature to the concrete means chosen to produce the new situation.

In a game, the resolution replaces the laws of nature with the rules of the game. The rules are important for coordinating multiple participants, for they all share a common "situation" space, despite their different desired ends. So resolution takes the various means as input and creates a single outcome. There are two levels to a game. In-Game and Out-Of-Game. An injured player in a sport is an example of how something out-of-game can effect the game itself.

In a role-playing game is simply identifying that the characters portrayed are portrayed as themselves living, breathing beings who also follow the situation-action-resolution paradigm. So in the RPG there are three levels of play going on. In-Character, Out-of-Character (but in-game), and out-of-game (things like Billy not showing up to play this week because he has to visit his aunt in the hospital).

And that's all there is to it. The in-character level is the bread-and-butter of RPGs. It's not all there is. The other two levels exist regardless. But it is what defines an RPG as separate from other types of games.

In this view, the traditional GM is equal parts master and servant. Master in the sense that he makes a disproportionate number of out-of-character choices. Servant in the sense that he takes on all those burdens to enable players to focus on in-character play.

QuoteApparently all the scientists, engineers, mathematicians, programmers, and medical doctors who rely on specialized vocabulary didn't get the memo (or if they did it wasn't written with the right jargon).

When Nassim Taleb wrote in plain English, he was criticized. He then re-wrote the same things in formalized mathematics. He was then declared to be brilliant. Either way, he learned to tell when someone has read his work and when they have not. He began writing titles to his chapters that had nothing to do with the chapter itself because he knew reviewers were just reading the chapter titles and making up what they thought the chapter was about.

What he learned from his experience in publishing is that plain English is actually something more people will read and gain a better understanding. Jargon, people praised him because mathematicians don't want to admit they can't read their own language. So they couldn't criticize him otherwise they'd be discovered to have not understood formalized writing.

Just because technical vocations use jargon is not evidence that jargon is a more effective way of communicating highly technical information. Even there, the main point still seems to be to keep out laypersons and make the profession itself seem more important and untouchable than it really is.

I do not wish to engage in a lengthy debate about the usefulness of CR: everyone is free to think whatever he or she wishes about game theories. I avoided the thread JHKim linked for this reason. This thread was about which attributes were inherent to CR and which were simply "more liked by CR advocates and thus more widespread in games that use Conflict Resolution", instead.

However, I have one single, punctual comment to make:

Quote from: Lunamancer;883265And what does it matter whether something is or isn't "covered by the rules." Where is it carved in stone that players need to know all of the rules in the first place?

Personally, I work under the general assumption that in any game (not just RPGs) players are supposed to know the rules and use them to regulate their gaming. A "players need not know all the rules" statement would certainly elicit hilarity in a chess or monopoly forum. I am still wondering to see why it should be regarded as something normal in a RPG forum :D.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;883270Personally, I work under the general assumption that in any game (not just RPGs) players are supposed to know the rules and use them to regulate their gaming. A "players need not know all the rules" statement would certainly elicit hilarity in a chess or monopoly forum. I am still wondering to see why it should be regarded as something normal in a RPG forum :D.

Because the focus of RPGs is the campaign not the game. The game is just one tool to help the referee decide the result of something the players want to do as their character. The referee can decide the result of the action on the basis of other factors other than the rules.

This demonstrated by the fact that in the development of RPGs it was campaign, Blackmoor, that came first not the game.

Without the campaign an RPG is just a wargame/boardgame about individual characters.

The clearest example is the difference between Metagaming's Melee/Wizard and The Fantasy Trip. The two use nearly identical rules, but Melee/Wizard are presented and sold as wargames while The Fantasy Trip is presented and sold as a tabletop roleplaying game.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;883270Personally, I work under the general assumption that in any game (not just RPGs) players are supposed to know the rules and use them to regulate their gaming. A "players need not know all the rules" statement would certainly elicit hilarity in a chess or monopoly forum.

Neither chess nor Monopoly use a GM as the interface between the players and the setting. Because there is a GM, the player may not need not know the rules because they can tell the GM what they are attempting and allow the GM to select or create an appropriate game rule to resolve any uncertainty about the outcome.

Chess and Monopoly, like most (all?) board games, have a narrow and well-defined scope of play. A player in chess cannot decide to have his pawns try to build a trebuchet to hurl captured enemy pawns at the opposing king even though this was something that happened in actual warfare, because chess is not supposed to model actual warfare. And the building of artillery or the hurling of 'dead' pawns is not allowed in the rules. In Monopoly one cannot decide to have the Flat Iron crush the Dog's skull and loot his player's Monopoly money and holdings nor can one build a new railway line to try and break up the monopoly of the existing rail line cards.

Aside from a few niche products, RPGs do not have a narrow nor a well-defined scope. The GM must adjudicate attempts by creative players to build trebuchets, rob the rich, or attempt to break up monopolies based on fairness, common sense, subject matter and historical knowledge, and any existing rules.

I am wondering why anyone on an RPG forum would be confused about these obvious differences between an RPG and chess or Monopoly. :D

Quote from: RosenMcStern;883270Personally, I work under the general assumption that in any game (not just RPGs) players are supposed to know the rules and use them to regulate their gaming. A "players need not know all the rules" statement would certainly elicit hilarity in a chess or monopoly forum. I am still wondering to see why it should be regarded as something normal in a RPG forum :D.

Well, how about Magic: The Gathering? The individual cards contain rules text. And not only that, but they supersede the rules in the rule book. If you are not aware of the cards in your opponent's deck, you don't know all the rules for that particular match. If you are not aware of the existence of certain cards, you don't know all of the rules for the game in general.

How about computer games? Or even CRPGs in particular? You don't need to see the code to be able to play the game. You don't know the exact rules by which everything reacts. You can figure a lot of them out over time, but knowing the rules is NOT a per-requesite to playing the game.

RPGs are not unique in this regard.

Quote from: Anon AdderlanWith Conflict Resolution, the player doesn't just declare their action, but also the cause and effect.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883265Traditional gaming: "I jab at the orc with my pike to hold him at bay."

Explain how what you're describing was ever anything new in RPGs without mischaracterizing what gaming was like before high-minded jargon came along.

I'm not speaking for Anon, but I can speak to what I see as differences between D&D and, say, Trollbabe or Dogs in the Vineyard.

In 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.

For 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

For example, as DM, I might make a ruling that you can roll a regular hit - and if you hit then the orc has to either back up or take damage (maybe with some bonus damage). However, whether the orc takes the damage or backs up is my call as DM. (So it's either #2 or #3.)

Alternately, I might say that to first make a hit roll to get in the way. If you hit, then I might say make a check against Strength to hold him back with the hit.


In 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).


I 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.

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. :D

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. :D

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.

Quote from: Arminius;883768Conflict 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 I could agree with. I've used as the example a shaman doing a rain dance. No matter how successful, it will not bring about the ends of making it rain.

QuotePlayer: "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."

Well, I have a number of issues with this particular example. We start to get into the problem of social skills as mind control, and I have a very specific way of handling that, but that's a topic for another thread.

QuoteIf 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 irony, of course, is that the GM is going through all the proper rules and procedures but with the intent of cramming through a pre-determined storyline. The GM is obviously aware, then, that intent does affect the outcome of a task in the real world, and yet refuses to take that into account in his adjudications.

Now it's unfortunate that there is advice out there like that. Thing is, I have no intention of catering to the lowest common denominator. It seems like such a GM is essentially trying to get something for nothing. But on the other hand, so is trying to fix it will rules without going through the work to change the people. I mean, have we not just established here the fact that no matter what the rules may be, bad intent will pervert them?

QuoteThe 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.

Well, the concept was there long before there were RPGs. This is just describing how the real world works. Every action is the use of scarce means to achieve some ends. But the means are selected according to what the actor believes will best bring about the ends. Not necessarily according to what will best bring about the ends.

It's probably the case that most often beliefs align closely enough with reality that the means DO bring about the ends. Resolving the task DOES resolve the conflict. However, if the beliefs are far off from reality, the means may have no chance of bringing about the ends, no matter how well executed.

The question becomes, what do you do about it? Do you 1) change the game world to match the player's beliefs? 2) Do you provide the player with additional information so that their beliefs match the way the game world is? Or do you 3) allow the mismatch to stand?

Option #1 would be some form of additional narrative control. A balance of #2 and #3 to resolve differences between player and character knowledge would be ideal for role-play. Too much of #3 could become pixel-bitching. Too much of #2 would kill a lot of the nuance of the unique character perspective (as would #1).

RPGs are about conflict resolution - at the core of the game is how the conflict is resolved. Players state what actions their characters will take, some of which require rules and possibly rolls - so the game rules focus on task resolution. The interest is in what actions are taken and how that pans out.

The more you move the rules to be more about conflict resolution, the more you reduce conflict resolution to being like a traditional game. In addition you make it more players versus DM, as opposed to players and an impartial referee.

single-roll conflict resolution is an abomination.

Quote from: RPGPundit;885169single-roll conflict resolution is an abomination.

I agree with you on this specific subject - although I prefer to phrase the concept as "it does not produce a result that I like". This is why I stressed with CRKrueger that the multi-roll combat model of classic RPGs, starting with OD&D, is a perfect (and working) example of conflict resolution. Once you have cleared the table of the "one roll" myth, CR does not sound like a monster any longer, even for people who like their RPGs "the classic way".

Quote from: CRKrueger;882472So you're saying that all those examples which I think blur the line and move into Conflict Resolution are still Task Resolution.  Fair enough.  Can you give me one concrete example of Conflict as you understand the term, and contrast that with an example of the Task approach?

The 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".

The 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.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;882477The core rule in both cases is "once one combatant is down to negative HP equal to the starting HP in a vital location, the fight is over". And this is a conflict resolution rule: it tells you when you are declared dead, irrespective of the number of rolls per round - which varies among the editions of the game.

This 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 is a common mistake that people often make when trying to explain narrative resolution (and I suspect, once again, it's because the terminology is confusing): If you set the character's goal to equal the outcome of a successful action resolution, you can superficially make an action resolution mechanic look like a narrative resolution mechanic. But that's not actually the case and the result just breeds further confusion over the actual distinction.

In 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.

But you could just as easily set your narrative goal to be "hit that guy with a sword". That doesn't make a mechanic to determine whether or not your action of hitting someone with a sword is successful or not into a narrative resolution mechanic.

What would a narrative resolution mechanic look like? Well, it would be "HP 0 = you accomplished whatever you goal was". Was it to escape? Was it to convince the princess you're a better swordsman? Was it to impress your master? Was it to kill somebody?

Quote from: estar;882488Why is the distinction between conflict resolution and task resolution important?

With 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.

The example of the safe illustrates the difference: With narrative resolution, if you succeed on your Safecracking check the incriminating information will be in the safe. With action resolution, if you succeed on the Safecracking check you have successfully opened the safe and you will find whatever is in the safe (which may or may not be the incriminating evidence).

There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.

Being 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?)

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.

That's true.

QuoteThe example of the safe illustrates the difference: With narrative resolution, if you succeed on your Safecracking check the incriminating information will be in the safe. With action resolution, if you succeed on the Safecracking check you have successfully opened the safe and you will find whatever is in the safe (which may or may not be the incriminating evidence).

That's untrue in some cases. Quite a few GMs wouldn't allow you a roll if you're looking in the wrong safe. You might get to roll if they agree to tell you what's inside, and you want that, instead.
Of course, some GMs decide where the evidence is after the fact, even when using task resolutions systems, so it will definitely work as you said in their campaigns.

QuoteThere are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.

That is absolutely true.

QuoteOn 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?)

Sell the photos to the highest bidder, of course, probably the JFK foundation:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;886863That's untrue in some cases.

Sure. And in those cases they're not using narrative/conflict resolution.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;887000Sure. And in those cases they're not using narrative/conflict resolution.

I disagree.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;887000Sure. And in those cases they're not using narrative/conflict resolution.

The horse carcass bears the marks of intense, continuous flogging...

Conflict Resolution does not imply necessarily that you get exactly what you wanted/asked - the (in)famous pre-negotiated conflict stakes. This is true in some games, but not in all of them.

For example, you implied that your JFK photos case study is a sample of Task Resolution. But this is not true. Please note that in Trollbabe (I cite TB not because of a particular love for the game or its author, but because I use the same techniques in my games, as Arminius noted some months ago) a result like that is a legal end for a conflict: something useful for you to advance the story, but not exactly what you wanted. The conflict loser chooses what exactly happens, and is not bound by the winner's stated intent.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;887127For example, you implied that your JFK photos case study is a sample of Task Resolution. But this is not true. Please note that in Trollbabe (I cite TB not because of a particular love for the game or its author, but because I use the same techniques in my games, as Arminius noted some months ago) a result like that is a legal end for a conflict: something useful for you to advance the story, but not exactly what you wanted. The conflict loser chooses what exactly happens, and is not bound by the winner's stated intent.

I own the first edition of Trollbabe. That's not how the game works.

First, the narrator is not "the conflict loser". Successful series are narrated by the GM and unsuccessful series are narrated by the player. If the series is successful, it is explicit that the narrator must "make sure to keep the stated goal successful". Maybe the second edition completely changes the entire game, but in the first edition the narrator is very much bound by the winner's state intent.

In any case, if the player's goal is to find X and the mechanic is determining whether or not the safe is successfully opened (and has no impact on whether or not X will be found inside the safe), then the mechanic is not conflict resolution. By definition.

Quote from: AsenRG;887006I disagree.

I find your complete lack of argument uncompelling. (Shocking, I know.)

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.

Here's the problem. It's not one of definitions or poor choice of terminology. It's the very idea is dead from the neck up.

ALL human action, including but not limited to playing a game, fits the form of, "I would like to accomplish X. I expect doing Y will work," then hoping it actually does.

Theorizing a split between CR and TR, whatever you prefer to call them, is a lot like creating one group of humans that breathes, another group that circulates blood, and being oblivious to the fact that either all of your subjects either in fact fit into both categories or are dead.

Now this is only the billionth time we've been through this in the thread, but your action/task resolution, despite its shiny new name, still doesn't resemble any actual traditional resolution that would establish narrative/conflict resolution as something new, different, or separate.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;888175I find your complete lack of argument uncompelling. (Shocking, I know.)

That's because I provided exactly as much argument as you did making the opposite statement, in the post I quoted;).

There isn't really any difference between task and conflict, sounds like a weak semantics argument. However, I prefer the mechanic to be the same just for simplicity's sake anyway. Having too many different mechanics just burdens the GM with extra work and slows down the flow of the game.

Quote from: Lunamancer;888212Here's the problem. It's not one of definitions or poor choice of terminology. It's the very idea is dead from the neck up.

ALL human action, including but not limited to playing a game, fits the form of, "I would like to accomplish X. I expect doing Y will work," then hoping it actually does.

Narrative resolution is not a model of human action. It's determining narrative control.

You appear to be arguing that you don't like narrative resolution and therefore it doesn't exist. That's an... odd way of interpreting reality.

Quote from: AsenRG;888379That's because I provided exactly as much argument as you did making the opposite statement, in the post I quoted;).

Sorry, I thought it was self evident that when you said that some GMs won't let you use the mechanic in situations X, Y, or Z that you were, therefore, not using the mechanics. It's fairly tautological, in fact.

When you said, "Quite a few GMs wouldn't allow you a roll..." did you mean something other than the GM not using the resolution mechanic?

Narrative/conflict-resolution are not an RPG mechanic. They're an anti-RPG mechanic.

Quote from: RPGPundit;889952Narrative/conflict-resolution are not an RPG mechanic that Pundit likes. They're an anti-RPG mechanic as far as he's concerned.

Here, fixed your omissions for you, 'cause I'm helpful like that;).

Quote from: Justin Alexander;888955Narrative resolution is not a model of human action. It's determining narrative control.

I never mentioned a thing about a model. But the fact that the game is played by humans means humans are acting.

QuoteYou appear to be arguing that you don't like

I never said a thing about what I do or don't like. So you're being dishonest again.

Quotenarrative resolution

What does that even mean? You're resolving a narrative? Or you're resolving things through narrative? Because the ONLY definition of narrative, whether you're talking about the common use of the word or the specialized literature meaning, is that it's an account of events. I don't know how you resolve an account of events. And resolving by account events? As in, "Oh, thank you for your explanation. I guess there was never really a problem to begin with. I guess that resolves the matter."

Quoteand therefore it doesn't exist. That's an... odd way of interpreting reality.

Except you utterly fail to even cite my "interpretation" much less point out where the error is. All you're doing is lying about what I said and stringing together words that don't mean anything--or if they mean anything at all, it's clear they don't match the context you're using.

Yeah. A lot of stuff exists. Like the possibility of stringing together nonsense. Just because you can articulate it doesn't make it not nonsense.

Quote from: Lunamancer;890104

Quotenarrative resolution

What does that even mean?

We know you read the definition because you not only replied to it but insisted that it was irrelevant. But now you're demanding that supposedly irrelevant definition because... you've suffered amnesia? You're illiterate? You're just trolling?

I'd like to pretend to be interested in which of these things is true. But it turns out I'm not, actually.

I 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.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;890160We know you read the definition because you not only replied to it but insisted that it was irrelevant. But now you're demanding that supposedly irrelevant definition because... you've suffered amnesia? You're illiterate? You're just trolling?

I'd like to pretend to be interested in which of these things is true. But it turns out I'm not, actually.

Well, your dishonest commentary aside, a pretty accurate recap of this thread is that "conflict resolution" doesn't seem to mean anything. Task resolution is also a dubious phrase, but insofar as "traditional mechanics" is sometimes substituted as a synonym for it, we might be able to play along. But in trying to understand how "conflict resolution" is anything new that wasn't done in traditional play, it's been impossible to pin down any definition.

You come along acting like people are just some how confused--as opposed to the reality that they're informed but skeptical about the theoretical difference--and presuming you can solve it just by using different terms.

The fact that you swap in "narrative resolution"--which in terms of the English language is nigh meaningless--in for a term that we've already deemed meaningless, surprisingly, doesn't seem to do anything but pile on the evidence that you're talking about something that doesn't really exist.

I still think the only way this division makes sense is to say that:

One one hand, you can play where you can *wiff* a roll and nothing significantly changes in the game-state. "Boring combats" and unlimited lock-pick attempts in an empty room. This play style led directly to the "take 10, take 20" rules. I.E. people were just re-rolling until they got it anyway.

On the other hand, we have a style where there is no mechanical way to do that. Failure on a dice-roll/procedure always has an outcome on the game-state and narrative.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882464For example, going back to the 2d20 system, if I am fighting an Elite or a Mighty Foe, then we are dealing with a blow by blow situation Attack, Parry, Hit, Miss, Damage, Breaking Guard, Regaining Guard, etc...  Individual Tasks that I can succeed or fail at multiple times, yet still Win or Lose the overall Conflict.

However, when faced with a Mob, I hope we are concluding that I don't literally make one single swing and cut through 5 people, right?  That would be silly.  So, the goal is to kill all of the mob, and my attack and damage is abstracted to determine how well I did against the entire mob.  Perhaps only killing one or two, perhaps killing all five.

So here's the problem I have.  Several editions of D&D, maybe going all the way back to the first (speak up if anybody knows) explicitly declare that each attack roll does NOT represent one action, but actually a series of feints, parries, missed attacks, and so on.  If memory serves, an attack roll in AD&D represented an ENTIRE MINUTE of combat. I know virtually every GM ignores that and treats one roll as "I swing my sword one time at one guy",  but that's not what the book says; if you critically hit with a dagger, you are well within the literall interpretation of the rules to state that this represents stabbing somebody six times over the course of a brief struggle.

So... 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? If so, it seems to be a mere matter of description and the distinction becomes moot as others have said.

Also, if killing a mob in 2d20 represents the resolution to a protracted battle and not a single task, then what do we say about somebody who is killing a mob of five at the same time as his ally is taking a single swing at an Elite in the same combat?

Quote from: Agkistro;890192Also, if killing a mob in 2d20 represents the resolution to a protracted battle and not a single task, then what do we say about somebody who is killing a mob of five at the same time as his ally is taking a single swing at an Elite in the same combat?

That's one of the reasons I don't like Mook rules in general, certain weird anomalies can pop up depending on how the system deals with timing in combat, among a lot of other reasons.

Quote from: Agkistro;890192Also, if killing a mob in 2d20 represents the resolution to a protracted battle and not a single task, then what do we say about somebody who is killing a mob of five at the same time as his ally is taking a single swing at an Elite in the same combat?

That he or she is well-trained. We all know that actually spotting an opening in an Elite's defences might take a while, so that one swing doesn't actually happen immediately, we just abstract the jockeying for position:).

I'm pretty sure the rounds in 2d20 specify not having the same duration all the time, anyway;).

Maybe I'm a freak, but I like rolling to see if I can hit each minion.  OK, I have a game that allows for that, if you take a special Advantage to clean out rooms, depending on the various superpowers, but I can end up missing ONE dood, and the other 20 can really set me up for a world of hurt.

Quote from: Telarus;890186On the other hand, we have a style where there is no mechanical way to do that. Failure on a dice-roll/procedure always has an outcome on the game-state and narrative.

I've heard this argument before. Actually, I think it's been addressed in the thread. The thing is, a "fail" result always does have an outcome on the game-state. If nothing else, the action takes time. And the world continues on. This is most apparent in combat when a failed attack allows that opponent to live longer, another opportunity to hurt you--a pretty substantial consequence to failure.

I always saw the "take 20" rule as being about something else--exchanging risk for uncertainty. You remove the luck of the dice, but in the case of take 10 the possibility of failure comes from not knowing for sure if the 10 is sufficient. In take 20 (assuming you can succeed at all) the possibility of failure comes from not knowing for sure if you have enough time to complete the task. Keep in mind, the player opts whether to take these. It's not the GM that assigns them according to making the game flow the way he likes. As such, they are chosen according to the player's purpose, not the GMs--reducing the odds of failure by only using take 10 when it is believed it will be sufficient, or take 20 only when it is believed time allows.

This raises another crucial point. Hypotheticals like, "Oh, we have this big empty room where you can take unlimited lock pick rolls" is kind of a complete bullshit example. The player who decides his character is doing the lock picking never knows that for sure. As far as the player knows, each failure is important. Is there even an argument to be made without resorting to illegitimate examples? Or is this really just bad GMism?

The better question, Lunamancer, might be:  What type of failure?

D&D is notorious for its binary result, yes/no, hit/miss, and so on.  But other games have wide ranges and actual degrees of success or failure states.  This is actually important.

To continue the Lock Picking example, even if you have all day to open up a chest, a bad slip and you broke the tumblers and the chest will now never open. An even worse slip up and you broke the pick IN the lock, losing part of the toolkit.

On the other hand a good roll, might mean you unlock the chest with incredible speed.

Quote from: CRKrueger;890195That's one of the reasons I don't like Mook rules in general, certain weird anomalies can pop up depending on how the system deals with timing in combat, among a lot of other reasons.

There's something about the theory behind mooks that bothers me. The idea of

"You know how there's bad guys that are so incompetent and unimportant to the story that the heros should be able to dispatch 20 or 30 of them without breaking a sweat?"

not only clashes with the kind of game I tend to run, but it sounds like it's saying "We all know most of the combats in your game are going to be pointless filler with no real threat of failure, so here's a rule to get through them as efficiently as possible."

Which I disagree with. If an encounter is pointless filler, REMOVE it.  This is one of those situations in which RPG's shouldn't emulate movies- a fight where the heroes aren't inany real danger isn't a spectacle (because RPGs are visual media), it's tedious.   The fight in Kill Bill vs. the Crazy 88 was amazing to see, but imagine if you had to describe it.  "Then she kills a guy. Then she kills another guy. Then she kills TWO guys. Then there's this one guy who's like "Hyeeaaaah" but she kills him too. Then she does a flip, and kills this one guy, and his blood is like "PFHSSSSSSSSSshh...."

 The one thing I do like mook rules (at least in 2d20) for is representing mobs of creatures like zombies that are justifiably less dangerous than a human, and only pose a threat due to their quantity.   You can think of treating a 'swarm of rats' as one creature as a sort of mook rules in that sense. That gives the efficiency of dealing with a swarm with out the impression of "These humans with guns are less dangerous than those humans with guns because we both know this is a bullshit encounter, amirite?"

Quote from: Christopher Brady;890395To continue the Lock Picking example, even if you have all day to open up a chest, a bad slip and you broke the tumblers and the chest will now never open. An even worse slip up and you broke the pick IN the lock, losing part of the toolkit.

This is certainly a more obvious example.

I guess the crux of my objection is that the distinction between task and conflict resolutions, or whatever they go by, is an artifact of bad analysis and nothing more. All action utilizes scarce means to achieve ends. Even the Garden of Eden, where resources are presumed to not be scarce, actions still take time and individuals are still unique.

Scarcity is unavoidable. All actions have a cost, even if the only cost is opportunities foregone. The results of the action, whatever they may be, are either of benefit to the actor on net (profit), or not (loss). As indifference is merely an intellectual concept and is never an observable fact, there is no middle no null effect--cost and gross return are not homogeneous quantities that can be merely netted out to zero.

In fairness, Telarus did say "nothing significantly changes"--you see this sort of thing all across RPG message boards. An innocuous little adverb slipped in that allows a vague idea to be communicated without the speaker having actually said anything to be tied down to.

Significantly according to whom?

Quote from: Agkistro;890192So here's the problem I have.  Several editions of D&D, maybe going all the way back to the first (speak up if anybody knows) explicitly declare that each attack roll does NOT represent one action, but actually a series of feints, parries, missed attacks, and so on.  If memory serves, an attack roll in AD&D represented an ENTIRE MINUTE of combat. I know virtually every GM ignores that and treats one roll as "I swing my sword one time at one guy",  but that's not what the book says; if you critically hit with a dagger, you are well within the literall interpretation of the rules to state that this represents stabbing somebody six times over the course of a brief struggle.

I would not argue that you can interpret a good hit as multiple stabs. However, when you consider ranged weapons which use ammo, it's pretty clear that it really is one hit roll represents one attack.

As I understand the AD&D system, you are correct that combat rounds are about a minute long and represent blocks, feints, parries and so on. Where my understanding differs from yours is that the attack roll represents that one opportunity, that one opening to deliver a meaningful attack. When fighters gain multiple attacks at higher level, it's not that the character is literally faster. It's that experience in battle has made him keen to find more opportunities to deliver an effective strike. And so is the case in 1st Ed when a 2nd or higher level fighter attacks a creature of less than a full hit die. The extreme difference in combat ability yields a fighter one opportunity to strike per level.

You might also compare this to 1st Ed magic-users. Most first level spells only have a casting time of 1 segment. Despite there being 10 segments in a round, the magic-user may only cast one spell per melee round. That's the limit of a magic-user's opportunities during combat.

So I think it's worth noting that number of allowable actions per round are not just a matter of how long they take vs how long the round is. They are limited by both time and opportunity.

Still, there's no reason a single hit roll might not actually represent a combination attack when it seems reasonable for the situation.

QuoteSo... 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? If so, it seems to be a mere matter of description and the distinction becomes moot as others have said.

I agree with your assessment, and there was plenty of exactly what you describe observable in the 80's, if not before. This is where jaded me starts to think, "Where the fuck do you think all these so-called innovations of modern gaming came from?" I've yet to see a single idea that I hadn't first seen someone do in D&D more than 20 years ago.

My bigger point with the lack of distinction though is not that there are two different ways to play that are only separated by how you describe D&D combat. Rather there isn't even that much distinction to begin with. Every attack in D&D includes not only a means (I stab with my silver dagger or I swing my flame tongue, etc) but also an ends--a goal. Usually the goal is implicit. It doesn't need to be said. But the mere fact that AD&D does include things like "attacking to subdue" means the so-called 'task' cannot be resolved without also knowing the so-called 'conflict,' or what you hope to accomplish. It's just an assumed default that when you attack someone with a deadly weapon is that you intend to kill them if you can, or at least hurt them. So you don't need to say it. Just because you don't have to say it doesn't mean there isn't an intent that is communicated, understood, and has mechanic effect in the game.

Also note, when you say things like "I attack" you're not saying "I swing" or "I stab." You aren't describing precise movements. The term "attack" carries both the assumption of intent as well as assumption of the "task" that involves. It's efficient language. Not a dictate that lends any credence to the crackpot theory of task vs conflict resolution.

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. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=886774#post886774)

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.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;891294What 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.

That works if the two groups do their rolling at the same time (real time not game time). If the second group can't roll at that time (e.g. if they aren't at a point where it makes sense for them to roll or we don't which skill they are going to select to roll against) then you can't have opposed rolls and thus the first group to roll may find the clue which controls reality for the second group. That or the outcome of the first group's roll to crack the safe has to be put on hold in real time while waiting for the second group to get to an opportunity in real time to use conflict resolution e.g. by searching the villains briefcase, finding a diary in the library, or some other method of clue acquisition.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;891294You 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.

Or that the intent was to open the door regardless of what might be on the other side or based on an erroneous belief or hope about what was on the other side. But his means, ends conversations are a too much of an Aristotelian dead end for my tastes.

The differences you cite for conflict resolution make sense to me. The PC's motivation isn't a concern for me, the weird ontology of cause and effect is in conflict resolution is.

• Conflict resolution allows a successful roll to find the clue rather than simply opening the safe, i.e. by successfully searching the safe the player in effect causes the clue to be inside the safe (or somewhere else where it will be found during the attempt to crack the safe) rather than (or in addition to) the clue being somewhere else.

• And conflict resolution on an unsuccessful roll to pick the lock on your cell determines that you can't escape by picking the lock (possibly including the guards preventing any escape attempt at all) rather than just failing to pick the lock this time.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;891299What you're saying here looks like English, but I can't make any sense out of it.

He's right though, because both of your statements can be reduced to y+1=x.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;891294What 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.

What if both succeed the check roll? Is there then a duplicate set of documents?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;891294I 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.

That's because I don't think all task resolution mechanics exist at the specific "per bullet" level of abstraction. Nonetheless even in a multi-bullet-roll-mechanism the system may arrive at a point in which damage is rolled. What's the effect of such damage? Is it only to deplete a HP value? In such a case the task is successful, but there is no effect. Your opponent is just as capable as before. Aside from meta-data, the game reality hasn't changed much and there's really no "effect".

It's not only a matter of performing a procedure to resolve the outcome of a task, but also to evaluate the impact such outcome has on the story.

Quote from: Saurondor;891316What if both succeed the check roll? Is there then a duplicate set of documents?

If there are degrees of success, the higher degree of success wins, failing that one could use some sort of best roll, a reroll, or some other method of tie breaker. Unless the item exists in duplicate (like say the password to a computer account) I wouldn't expect to end up with a duplicate pirate's treasure map, golden key, Hope Diamond or whatever.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;891299What you're saying here looks like English, but I can't make any sense out of it.

You noticed that about this thread too?  I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds this entire exercise full of moon-talk and utter crazy.

Quote from: Saurondor;891274If they never "fail" in a mechanical sense, then what's the purpose of the mechanics?

Simple. Not everyone is a god.

We usually don't feel the need to create some clever mechanic that gives a normal human a one-in-a-million chance to randomly trip while walking. A god may know advanced human skills to such a degree, it's as easy as walking.

I use a percentile mechanic. If skill rating exceeds 100, I don't feel the need to map this to some fraction-of-a-fraction of a chance for failure. And in cases where I feel some margin for auto-failure is warranted, it's based more on the situation that makes it warranted rather than the actual skill. For instance, maybe attack rolls cap out at 99% chance for success, magic caps out at 95%. All regardless of actual skill.

I never understood the gamer obsession to pour every possible thing that could affect the outcome or probability into one great stew.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;891294You 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.

I'm not at all. I've been arguing the exact opposite.

QuoteNone of those things are conflict resolution.

Blah, blah, blah, and you go on to make points that have been refuted no fewer than 3 times in this thread including the very post you're responding to. CR comes down to 3 basic points in these sorts of discussions. All of them have been debunked into oblivion. Just because I debunk point #1, followed by #2, followed by number three doesn't mean you get to refute point #3 by re-arguing one and two.

You don't exactly have what's known as a valid argument.

Quote from: Lunamancer;891348Simple. Not everyone is a god.

We usually don't feel the need to create some clever mechanic that gives a normal human a one-in-a-million chance to randomly trip while walking. A god may know advanced human skills to such a degree, it's as easy as walking.

I use a percentile mechanic. If skill rating exceeds 100, I don't feel the need to map this to some fraction-of-a-fraction of a chance for failure. And in cases where I feel some margin for auto-failure is warranted, it's based more on the situation that makes it warranted rather than the actual skill. For instance, maybe attack rolls cap out at 99% chance for success, magic caps out at 95%. All regardless of actual skill.

I never understood the gamer obsession to pour every possible thing that could affect the outcome or probability into one great stew.

Well I don't see it so much as figuring out if my character is a god or not or if there's a 0.0001% chance of failure by rolling d100 three times. It's more along the lines of what do I do with that 99% of the roll that tells me nothing more than the obvious: "I hit".

If I'm going to spend two minutes, or five or ten minutes figuring out a roll I want to get a bit more out of it than success/failure or yes/no. Specially if I know that success will occur 95% or 99% of the time. A die roll tells me more the more uncertain the outcome is. If I have a 50%/50% chance of success then I'll know more from rolling the dice than if I have a 95% chance of success. In the former I'm uncertain of what will happen next in the later I'm quite certain, the die roll in the later case is not telling me much I don't already know.

A die roll is more efficient in providing information the more uncertain the outcome is. Namely the less one result overshadows another. For example, in the classic d20 roll with critical a 1 is critical failure, there's a point in between with success/failure and 20 is critical hit. If your character requires a 19 or better to hit then the range between 2 and 18 that indicates failure overshadows all other outcomes. There's a 5% chance of a critical failure, a 5% chance of a hit, a 5% chance of a critical hit and an 85% chance of failure. Now what happens if the odds of critical failure and critical hit increase as a function of the success roll. For example if critical failure is required roll - 8 and critical hit is required roll + 1 with 1 and 20 always being critical failure and hit respectively? Looking back at the example now the character gets a critical fail on an 11 or worse, fails from 12 to 18, hits on a 19 and critically hits on a 20. On the other hand a character that requires a 4 or better to hit critically fails on a 1 hits on a 4 to 12 and critically hits on a 13 to 20. In these two later examples no outcome occurs more than 50% of the time. I'm more interested in the outcome because I'm less certain of what it will be.

I can't say I agree with your assessment there.

In hindsight, probabilities collapse. Once the coin is tossed, it's not 50% heads AND 50% tails. It's either 100% heads OR 100% tails. I think I mentioned in the other thread that gamers obsess too much on probability when they should be looking at effect. We could make a bet, flipping a coin, heads I win a dollar, tails I lose a dollar. Or we could roll d100. If it comes up 100, I win $99 otherwise I lose $1. The collapse of the latter probability tells me a lot more about the state of my checking account. The former, I already knew with a great deal of precision--give or take a dollar.


This is pretty significant. The deities I'm creating not only have 99%+ chance to hit, but the damage they deal is 100 times what a starting fighter (about 60% hit probability) can do. It's kind of a similar situation with the two types of bets.

But here's where you have to take the leap from isolated hypothetical to where it might matter in actual play. If I'm the defender and I can think of a way to substantially reduce the probability of being hit--say, something similar to the AD&D mirror image spell. By creating a mirror image of myself, whatever my opponent rolls, they are 50% likely of that attack being directed at my mirror image. Against the guy with 60/40 chance, it flips to 30/70. It's a decent swing, but in terms of difference from that 50/50 line, not super significant. Against the deity, however? That's bringing nigh-certainty down to 50% against a much more significant attack.


These are the sorts of challenges the deities would face in actual play. Because they are so potent, in the face of false information (like an illusory target), the difference in effect is massive. A duel between starting fighters in the system I'm using involves a lot of luck of the dice and depleting hit points. A duel between gods in the same system? More like a game of chess. You're looking at surviving one hit at most, and the attack virtually always hits. You either find an angle, or your entire fate rests on the initiative die, which will be about 50/50.

Quote from: Bren;891307That works if the two groups do their rolling at the same time (real time not game time). If the second group can't roll at that time (e.g. if they aren't at a point where it makes sense for them to roll or we don't which skill they are going to select to roll against) then you can't have opposed rolls and thus the first group to roll may find the clue which controls reality for the second group.

Sure. And, to take another example, if Group 1 slays a dragon in February then Group 2 won't be able to slay it in March (unless its brought back from the dead first).

Saying that you can't go around killing dragons because somebody might hypothetically want to kill them later (even though they don't want to kill them right now) doesn't really make any sense.

QuoteOr that the intent was to open the door regardless of what might be on the other side or based on an erroneous belief or hope about what was on the other side.

Sure. As I mentioned many, many pages ago if you set your goal to match the mechanical outcome in a task resolution system the distinction between task resolution and conflict resolution vanishes.

QuoteThe differences you cite for conflict resolution make sense to me. The PC's motivation isn't a concern for me, the weird ontology of cause and effect is in conflict resolution is.

They bug me, too. I don't actually use conflict resolution very often in RPGs.

I do find them useful for social interactions, because the cause-and-effect problems don't seem to come up: You want to make the character you're talking to do X, Y, or Z; and you can define whether you're going to beat it out of them, seduce them, bribe them, or whatever. I can setup the parameters of what's required (whether that's one successful check or several; or, in other systems, X number of successes) without trying to figure out whether, for this particular character, intimidating them once and then offering them a deal in a bad cop/good cop routine is sufficient.

I've also been doing a thing with the Infinity system where, due to the way the mechanics work, you can prepare for a heist or whatever by making a number of checks and build up a pool of Momentum that you can then spend on the job. (This ends up being kind of a weird hybrid, because the ultimate resolution is still task-based.)

Quote from: Saurondor;891316What if both succeed the check roll?

That's not how opposed checks work in any RPG that I'm aware of.

Quote from: Saurondor;891321Nonetheless even in a multi-bullet-roll-mechanism the system may arrive at a point in which damage is rolled. What's the effect of such damage? Is it only to deplete a HP value? In such a case the task is successful, but there is no effect. Your opponent is just as capable as before.

Okay, so we're supposing a task-based mechanic in which the only thing an attack can do is deplete HP and HP loss doesn't affect your opponent's capability.

And then you're waving your hand and saying there's some sort of "effect resolution" that happens because you appear to have added a task-based mechanic for suppressive fire. It's the waving of your hand which I'm still asking you to explain.

Quote from: Lunamancer;891350Blah, blah, blah, and you go on to make points that have been refuted no fewer than 3 times in this thread including the very post you're responding to. CR comes down to 3 basic points in these sorts of discussions. All of them have been debunked into oblivion. Just because I debunk point #1, followed by #2, followed by number three doesn't mean you get to refute point #3 by re-arguing one and two.

Oddly enough, asserting three strawmen, vigorously babbling about nonsensical "blood circulation" metaphors, and then being offended when people point out that they're strawmen doesn't actually "debunk" anything.

Quote

Quote

QuoteBut 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.

I'm not at all. I've been arguing the exact opposite.

Intent: I want to unlock this door so that I can shoot Don Carlo on the other side!

Reality: Don Carlo isn't on the other side of the door.

Now, according to you, it's impossible to be successful at unlocking the door unless Don Carlo is on the other side of it. That's a thing that you said. I quoted you saying it. But I've also quoted you saying that you were, in fact, arguing the exact opposite of that.

Explain yourself.

Quote from: Lunamancer;891380I can't say I agree with your assessment there.

In hindsight, probabilities collapse. Once the coin is tossed, it's not 50% heads AND 50% tails. It's either 100% heads OR 100% tails. I think I mentioned in the other thread that gamers obsess too much on probability when they should be looking at effect. We could make a bet, flipping a coin, heads I win a dollar, tails I lose a dollar. Or we could roll d100. If it comes up 100, I win $99 otherwise I lose $1. The collapse of the latter probability tells me a lot more about the state of my checking account. The former, I already knew with a great deal of precision--give or take a dollar.


This is pretty significant. The deities I'm creating not only have 99%+ chance to hit, but the damage they deal is 100 times what a starting fighter (about 60% hit probability) can do. It's kind of a similar situation with the two types of bets.

But here's where you have to take the leap from isolated hypothetical to where it might matter in actual play. If I'm the defender and I can think of a way to substantially reduce the probability of being hit--say, something similar to the AD&D mirror image spell. By creating a mirror image of myself, whatever my opponent rolls, they are 50% likely of that attack being directed at my mirror image. Against the guy with 60/40 chance, it flips to 30/70. It's a decent swing, but in terms of difference from that 50/50 line, not super significant. Against the deity, however? That's bringing nigh-certainty down to 50% against a much more significant attack.


These are the sorts of challenges the deities would face in actual play. Because they are so potent, in the face of false information (like an illusory target), the difference in effect is massive. A duel between starting fighters in the system I'm using involves a lot of luck of the dice and depleting hit points. A duel between gods in the same system? More like a game of chess. You're looking at surviving one hit at most, and the attack virtually always hits. You either find an angle, or your entire fate rests on the initiative die, which will be about 50/50.

Ok. Let me take the bet example. Let's say you have two dollar bills, one fake and one real. If you lose (which happens 99% of the time) your opponent gets to pick a dollar from you. There's a 50-50 chance the fake dollar is taken and you lose nothing really. On which question does the loss of a dollar hang on most? Will you lose the bet? Will your opponent pick the fake bill?

In my game's case I took a bit different approach. Characters have almost no hit points and getting hit means almost certain death or incapacitating effects. Weapon damage rules are not very complex or detailed when compared to other games. This is because weapon damage is not very important in the minute to minute resolution of combat.

Quote from: Saurondor;891429Ok. Let me take the bet example. Let's say you have two dollar bills, one fake and one real. If you lose (which happens 99% of the time) your opponent gets to pick a dollar from you. There's a 50-50 chance the fake dollar is taken and you lose nothing really. On which question does the loss of a dollar hang on most? Will you lose the bet? Will your opponent pick the fake bill?

Well, this started with us talking about information, right? Well, what's the other guy's perception? How does his knowledge state change?

Assuming he'll eventually find out the bill is fake (when he goes to spend it), which bet has him more likely to discover I've got fake bills? If his odds of winning were only 50%, his odds of discovering the fake bill, thereby gaining information, are only 25%. He must first win the bet, then be unfortunate enough to choose the fake bill. Whereas if his odds of winning the bet are 99%? Well, now his odds of discovering the fake bill are nearly 50%.

My point is, when you use a more complete hypothetical that more closely represents actual play, your point about information does a 180.

QuoteIn my game's case I took a bit different approach. Characters have almost no hit points and getting hit means almost certain death or incapacitating effects. Weapon damage rules are not very complex or detailed when compared to other games. This is because weapon damage is not very important in the minute to minute resolution of combat.

In the system I'm using, at the higher levels of play--doesn't even have to be at the God level, this starts to happen at the upper end of mortal play--it pretty much is one or two hit to kill. Not only are hits nigh-certain. Damage from a hit doesn't vary in any significant way at that level. The game just focuses more on choice than dice at higher levels of play. Even at lower levels of play, the impact of choice tends to be roughly double the impact compared to D&D, in terms of the degree to which situational modifiers affect chance for success.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;891402Oddly enough, asserting three strawmen, vigorously babbling about nonsensical "blood circulation" metaphors, and then being offended when people point out that they're strawmen doesn't actually "debunk" anything.

Screaming "strawman" does not mean the argument actually was a strawman. If a person with a valid argument encounters a strawman argument, they generally are able to point out specific points that show the strawman argument doesn't apply. When a person is on a losing side of the argument, that's when they're likely just to blurt out random fallacy names. That's pretty much what you're doing.

QuoteIntent: I want to unlock this door so that I can shoot Don Carlo on the other side!

Reality: Don Carlo isn't on the other side of the door.

Now, according to you, it's impossible to be successful at unlocking the door unless Don Carlo is on the other side of it. That's a thing that you said.

I didn't say anything that even remotely resembles that.

QuoteI quoted you saying it. But I've also quoted you saying that you were, in fact, arguing the exact opposite of that.

You haven't.

QuoteExplain yourself.

Simple. You're a liar.

The reason that I, at least, associate Conflict Resolution as something different from Task Resolution is because games and mechanics are specifically designed with this distinction in mind.  Here's an explanation from Vince Baker that starts with the safe, moves on to longer conflicts and poses the combat question:

Spoiler

Quote from: Vince BakerConflict Resolution vs. Task Resolution

In task resolution, what's at stake is the task itself. "I crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!" What's at stake is: do you crack the safe?

In conflict resolution, what's at stake is why you're doing the task. "I crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!" What's at stake is: do you get the dirt on the supervillain?

Which is important to the resolution rules: opening the safe, or getting the dirt? That's how you tell whether it's task resolution or conflict resolution.

Task resolution is succeed/fail. Conflict resolution is win/lose. You can succeed but lose, fail but win.

In conventional rpgs, success=winning and failure=losing only provided the GM constantly maintains that relationship - by (eg) making the safe contain the relevant piece of information after you've cracked it. It's possible and common for a GM to break the relationship instead, turning a string of successes into a loss, or a failure at a key moment into a win anyway.

Let's assume that we haven't yet established what's in the safe.

"I crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!"
It's task resolution. Roll: Success!
"You crack the safe, but there's no dirt in there, just a bunch of in-order papers."

"I crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!"
It's task resolution. Roll: Failure!
"The safe's too tough, but as you're turning away from it, you see a piece of paper in the wastebasket..."

(Those examples show how, using task resolution, the GM can break success=winning, failure=losing.)

That's, if you ask me, the big problem with task resolution: whether you succeed or fail, the GM's the one who actually resolves the conflict. The dice don't, the rules don't; you're depending on the GM's mood and your relationship and all those unreliable social things the rules are supposed to even out.

Task resolution, in short, puts the GM in a position of priviledged authorship. Task resolution will undermine your collaboration.

Whether you roll for each flash of the blade or only for the whole fight is a whole nother issue: scale, not task vs. conflict. This is sometimes confusing for people; you say "conflict resolution" and they think you mean "resolve the whole scene with one roll." No, actually you can conflict-resolve a single blow, or task-resolve the whole fight in one roll:

"I slash at his face, like ha!" "Why?" "To force him off-balance!"
Conflict Resolution: do you force him off-balance?
Roll: Loss!
"He ducks side to side, like fwip fwip! He keeps his feet and grins."

"I fight him!" "Why?" "To get past him to the ship before it sails!"
Task Resolution: do you win the fight (that is, do you fight him successfully)?
Roll: Success!
"You beat him! You disarm him and kick his butt!"
(Unresolved, left up to the GM: do you get to the ship before it sails?)

(Those examples show small-scale conflict resolution vs. large-scale task resolution.)

Something I haven't examined: in a conventional rpg, does task resolution + consequence mechanics = conflict resolution? "Roll to hit" is task resolution, but is "Roll to hit, roll damage" conflict resolution?

The parts I highlighted, show the thinking behind the point of mechanics specifically designed for conflict resolution: shared collaboration over a story being told.

The problem with Task Resolution as some see it is that it can be boring and relies totally on GM authority.  The infamous "35 stealth rolls to get through a castle" are an example, as is the infamous "keep rerolling to open the door".

For a lot of people, these aren't really a problem, just a problem with a bad GM.  A good GM knows how to balance skill rolls. A good GM knows that time is a consequence, and makes sure the world reacts appropriately.  For others, this isn't good enough, because a bad GM must be corrected for with mechanics.

An entire game system, Gumshoe, was created to give players mechanics to resolve the overall conflict of finding clues without having to go through the actual individual tasks to find them.  This idea is real, is influencing design and mechanics that are making it to systems played on a lot of tables.

When you start to parse the difference between Task and Conflict in any game there is, you get bogged down in theory, because it depends on how you are viewing the game, which is why not defining certain things (like some players have a pathological reluctance to do) always ends up with a big forum clusterfuck.

If you're seeing Roleplaying as Playing a Role, ie. immersing yourself in character and trying to think as that character, etc...  then task and conflict do not matter.  Every Conflict is just a series of one or more Tasks and every small goal is part of a larger one.  When you see Roleplaying as simulating life of your character, and the mechanics are Rules as Physics, there is no difference.

If you are seeing Roleplaying as creating a story, and you are part authoring that story by Roleplaying your character, then Task vs. Conflict matters, because as a participant in the creation of a narrative, you need OOC mechanical tools to resolve the Conflict, finish the scene in a satisfying way, move to the next Beat in the Sequence, etc.  You're partly responsible for Pacing, and you need mechanics to allow you to affect that.

It's a fundamentally different way of handling What Happens based on a fundamentally different way of looking at the process of roleplaying.

That's why for me at least, Conflict Resolution has always been tied to games that feature Narrative Control mechanics, because usually those mechanics are specifically designed to provide players the means to resolve Conflicts in some fashion other than by simply making the proper series of Task-based skill rolls.

So for me, "Is OD&D combat Task or Conflict" is missing the point in a White Room, "How Many Angels Dancing on the Head of a Pin" kind of way.  Task vs. Conflict only matters when you approach Roleplaying from a narrative paradigm.

Or for Lunamancer, when you're one person "the character" the difference between Respiration and Circulation doesn't matter. because you never have one without the other.  When you're two people "author and character", then you can.

Quote from: CRKrueger;891452For a lot of people, these aren't really a problem, just a problem with a bad GM.  A good GM knows how to balance skill rolls. A good GM knows that time is a consequence, and makes sure the world reacts appropriately.  For others, this isn't good enough, because a bad GM must be corrected for with mechanics.

Is the bold section what's important?

In the safe example, in order to find the dirt on the villain, TWO things must happen. You must successfully get in the safe, and the dirt must actually be there. Whether we resolve these separately or in tandem is simply a matter of scale.

So here's the thing. If the point you bolded were really the heart of the issue, it would be solved by simply deciding whether or not the dirt is in the safe randomly. 70% of it being there, times 70% lock picking skill is not really all that different, save for scale, from a mechanic that gives about a 50% chance for finding the dirt by picking the lock of the safe.


Now sometimes I do just that. We could be at a point in an adventure where things have gone a completely different direction. I as GM haven't given any thought to whether or not there was any dirt to be found in the safe. So I leave it up to the dice.


However, I have a problem with shoe-horning everything you do into this sort of schematic. For one thing, in an absolute sense, it's just not something that is possible. We've mentioned this time and time again. Sometimes you traverse into an area you've already mapped out. The location of the dirt might already be an established element due to a previous resolution. If it's not there, "conflict resolution" won't make it be there.

People who self-identify as those who use, even prefer CR say that's not what actual play is like. They'd call that a stupid strawman example to try to make CR look bad. Of course we DON'T roll dice to determine things we already know.


So now this circles back to the bolded text. It seems to operate under the assumption that rolling dice is somehow central to the game. That the focus of the game surrounds the dice mechanic. It's not a sensibility exclusive to "simulation" nor "narration" that we just don't roll for stuff we already know. Thus the REAL purpose of dice and game mechanics is NOT resolution. It's NOT players and GMs deferring to the rules because rules are somehow smarter than their human frailties. Or more "fair." None of that is actually true. We defer to dice as a tool to help guide us with things we just don't know. Which is why when I never anticipated players might be looking for dirt on a supervillian and they surmised the safe would be a good place to look, I'll leave that up to a die roll.


To be sure, these are all issues tangential to the point here. But if you're telling me the heart of the matter relies on a bolded quote that implicitly assumes these tangentials, and that those assumptions are false for a lot of people regardless to what other theories they subscribe, then this case just falls apart completely.

The critical aspect of the safe example and my rejection of some versions is, that I would roll when there is a chance but not certainty as defined by the game world situation that there is such info available and could be in the safe (and for example thus possible to get found out by defined and thus meaningful decideable other means) and some other versions sound more like "I want to have some fitting info in the safe - give me a roll".

Quote from: CRKrueger;891452The problem with Task Resolution as some see it is that it can be boring and relies totally on GM authority.  The infamous "35 stealth rolls to get through a castle" are an example, as is the infamous "keep rerolling to open the door".

For a lot of people, these aren't really a problem, just a problem with a bad GM.  A good GM knows how to balance skill rolls. A good GM knows that time is a consequence, and makes sure the world reacts appropriately.  For others, this isn't good enough, because a bad GM must be corrected for with mechanics.

I agree that task resolution can have an issue converging at a solution and a succession of events may not lead to the desired/expected result. The question here is if conflict resolution is the best answer or not.

As it has been pointed out before (and indicated in Baker's comments too) conflict resolution changes the setting in the process or resolving the conflict. The documents are there or not.

Now let me use another example. Your party comes under attack from a man in a room who immediately takes cover behind the wall. I declare that I'll take out the opponent to enter the room. I resolve the conflict and I succeed. I have taken out the opponent by shooting through the wall or dropping a grenade or whatever. This requires the NPC to remain in the room. If the NPC had left the room he'd been impervious to my actions. How can the NPC be dead if it left the room? The NPC's actions seem to depend on the PC's intent, which is good because as you mentioned you're co-authoring the story. Nonetheless this limits NPC actions, the NPC can't opt to leave the room because that would lead to an automatic failure of the conflict resolution roll. Although the room would be empty for all practical purposes.

Now Baker points out that:

Quotewhether you succeed or fail, the GM's the one who actually resolves the conflict.

Really? So you succeed at taking out the NPC by firing through the wall. Great! You walk into the room and get blown up by the claymore mine set by the entrance, or you walk in and get blown up as you turn the NPC's body over and a live grenade rolls out. The NPC set it under the weight of his body just before taking his last breath. Or your armor piercing bullets ripped open a case of VX nerve gas, now your dying, game over. Overall if the GM wants to be an ass the GM will be an ass and no amount of rule design will spare you from it.

Baker says:

QuoteTask resolution, in short, puts the GM in a position of priviledged authorship. Task resolution will undermine your collaboration.

Not so sure about that. Is the power of the GM derived from task resolution of from just being a GM?

You mention that

QuoteIf you are seeing Roleplaying as creating a story, and you are part authoring that story by Roleplaying your character, then Task vs. Conflict matters, because as a participant in the creation of a narrative, you need OOC mechanical tools to resolve the Conflict, finish the scene in a satisfying way, move to the next Beat in the Sequence, etc. You're partly responsible for Pacing, and you need mechanics to allow you to affect that.

This sounds fine and I agree with it up and to the point it starts removing options from the game. If resolving by conflict resolution implies that something must be a certain way then I begin to have an issue. In the previous example the NPC has no apparent autonomy beyond that which is required to satisfy the player's whim. Which is fine if that's what you want out of the game, a sort of gamified proxy to writing a book. The issue is that I might fall into the habit of always opening safe to find the documents because that finds me the documents. Ah! A room with a safe. Why should I look in the closet, inside the shoe boxes, in the desk drawers, under the bed, etc.? No!. I'll look in the safe, because I always create characters that are good at opening safes and opening the safe gets me the documents. More so, I'll complain that the GM is unfair because in this one room the GM decided not to put a safe when there clearly should be a safe. [Tantrum follows...]

BTW, I also equip my characters with armor piercing bullets. That way I can easily shoot targets behind walls. I don't even need to use that little worm-cammera-thingy under the door. I'll just shoot everyone through the wall. If I succeed, improbable as it may seem, they're all dead, unfortunate enough to have stood in the wrong place at the wrong time. Remember, I can always take a consequence to get that point that gets me the lucky shots through the wall.

And yes, I'm exaggerating a bit, but I hope it makes the point. There's a risk that I always fall into telling the same story the same way, just with different protagonists and there's no sure way to mitigate GM related issues.

Quote from: CRKrueger;891452The problem with Task Resolution as some see it is that it can be boring and relies totally on GM authority.  The infamous "35 stealth rolls to get through a castle" are an example, as is the infamous "keep rerolling to open the door".

For a lot of people, these aren't really a problem, just a problem with a bad GM.

I agree that collaborative storytelling and fixing bad GMs is a rationale for pepole who want conflict resolution mechanics, I don't think they are the only reason. You alluded to another reason when you said, Task Resolution "can be boring."

Certain die rolls can be disappointing (which can be a kind of boredom) in that the expectation of the outcome is better than the actual outcome. We've probably all seen or been the player who rolls really well on a to-hit roll only to roll crap for damage.

• "I rolled [really well]* to hit, what do you mean I only did 1 point of damage?"

This sort of disappointment inspires some designers to give damage bonuses for rolling above the required to hit number or to create degrees of success. It's the same rationale (good roll should mean good damage) that inspires other designers to dispense with a separate damage roll altogether and base any variable in the damage on the amount of the roll over on the to-hit roll.
 
Other examples of disappointed expectations:

• "I cracked the safe but the plans aren't inside? Well that sucks."
• "I rolled well on my persuade skill, but we still get thrown in jail?"
• "I have to make another climbing roll? But I rolled really well on the first roll."
• "I made my running roll but I still didn't catch him? But I wanted to run real fast so I could catch him."
  
• "What do you mean I missed? I rolled a 19 and I have a +6. That means I have to critical just to hit? That sucks!"

I think another aspect of what conflict resolution is designed to do is to align the expectation of what a successful roll means between the player and the GM and part of it is an attempt to avoid the disappointment of rolling something that feels like a good roll only to get a minimal or negligible effect because the player sets the outcome before the die roll.

Like any subjective thing, people will vary on how much they care about stuff like that. T

he example of rolling a 19 but doing only 1 point of damage is a minor disappointment to me because I understand how separate to-hit and damage rolls work and I'm comfortable with and like that method. I've certainly encountered people who have a whole lot more subjective disappointment about getting a crappy damage roll after a decent to-hit roll.


* For "really well" substitute in whatever really well means in your system of choice, e.g. 07 when I had a 60% chance to hit, a 19, 8 over what I needed to roll, etc.

Lunamancer, I think you miss my point.  The bolded part wasn't the most important to understanding Conflict Resolution as the author understands it, the bolded part was important to show that people to whom these things matter and are different are essentially playing a different form of game than you (or playing the same game in a fundamentally different way).

You say - "If it's not there, "conflict resolution" won't make it be there."  That's simply incorrect as many games that feature conflict resolution include some form of OOC Metagame Point Economy that lets them do just that, make it be there.

The key part of the quote really was the following:
"The safe's too tough, but as you're turning away from it, you see a piece of paper in the wastebasket..."

That was an example of Task Failure, Conflict Win.  The character failed to open the safe (presumably failed at a Skill Roll) but there is some mechanism in place to let them succeed at the Conflict anyway, so they find the information.

It could have just as easily said "You open the safe and it's empty, but as you turn away from it, you see a piece of paper in the wastebasket."  Success Succeed, Conflict Win.  In the end, Conflict Resolution allows X to happen, no matter how you got there.  There is no reality of the setting, whether or not the information was actually anywhere is immaterial.  The idea is that the goal of the characters was achieved and the story continues, and is not bogged down.

When your First Principle is "we are all telling a story" then the foundation that lays and the structure you build on it is going to be much different then a First Principle of "we are pretending to be other people".

Quote from: CRKrueger;891494Lunamancer, I think you miss my point.

Not really. And I don't much care for the conceit of these discussions that the other guy just doesn't get it. I got your point. I understood it. There are holes in it. I even came right out and said that the holes are tangential to the central point, but they do form a part of the implicit assumptions of the central point.

QuoteThe bolded part wasn't the most important to understanding Conflict Resolution as the author understands it, the bolded part was important to show that people to whom these things matter and are different are essentially playing a different form of game than you (or playing the same game in a fundamentally different way).

I call bullshit on this sentiment. You don't know how I play, what my aim is, or what my priorities are. You've never bothered to ask. There's a very strong sense here in which you are assuming the facts in such a way so as to support your point.

QuoteYou say - "If it's not there, "conflict resolution" won't make it be there."  That's simply incorrect as many games that feature conflict resolution include some form of OOC Metagame Point Economy that lets them do just that, make it be there.

I never said anything to the contrary. I pointed out what forum theorists refuse to admit, even though they do come up in actual play. That there's no guarantee that you can just make it be there. Big difference.

QuoteThe key part of the quote really was the following:
"The safe's too tough, but as you're turning away from it, you see a piece of paper in the wastebasket..."

That was an example of Task Failure, Conflict Win.  The character failed to open the safe (presumably failed at a Skill Roll) but there is some mechanism in place to let them succeed at the Conflict anyway, so they find the information.

It's not as "key" as you imagine. It's no more key than the case of successfully opening the safe and the paper is not there. It's a difference between "Open Lock AND Paper There" and "Open Lock OR Paper There". Which is only a difference of whether it's easier or harder than normal.

QuoteIt could have just as easily said "You open the safe and it's empty, but as you turn away from it, you see a piece of paper in the wastebasket."  Success Succeed, Conflict Win.

Inclusive OR handles that.

QuoteIn the end, Conflict Resolution allows X to happen, no matter how you got there.  There is no reality of the setting, whether or not the information was actually anywhere is immaterial.

Never said anything about the reality of the setting. There are constraints placed on the game due to the reality of real life. The people playing it are real people living in the real world.

QuoteThe idea is that the goal of the characters was achieved and the story continues, and is not bogged down.

LOL. That remains to be seen.

QuoteWhen your First Principle is "we are all telling a story" then the foundation that lays and the structure you build on it is going to be much different then a First Principle of "we are pretending to be other people".

As per above. I call bullshit.

Let's be clear about one thing. The first principle isn't "we are all telling a story." People may claim it, but it's definitely not true. Any string of events in a game will make for a story. Clearly not just any old string of events appeases them or they wouldn't sweat it. What some people are really after is a *good* story. I have to say, there isn't anyone at my table who is "pretending to be other people." I want a good story.

Quote from: Lunamancer;891589I have to say, there isn't anyone at my table who is "pretending to be other people." I want a good story.

None of the people at my table are there wanting a good story out of our RPG session. They are to play by exploring and interacting with the setting/world I have created as GM as their character. They aren't interested in narrative mechanics to make the resulting story that a third party might tell after the fact about "better" (where "better" in this case means something like "can be told like a good short story in a publication as opposed to just a string of events"). If they are looking for the secret documents, they expect me as GM to have them in a definite location and they want to explore the environment to find them. If I suggested they bypass actually searching for the papers by making one roll "to find the papers" they would tell me that would take all the fun out of it.

Story elements (from writing) can be useful in creating an adventure, however, as far as playing goes, aren't that helpful.

Quote from: dragoner;891613Story elements (from writing) can be useful in creating an adventure, however, as far as playing goes, aren't that helpful.

If the type of adventure you are creating is an adventure path type, they probably can be. However, IMHO, story elements are far less useful if you are designing an sandbox/location-based adventure. I'm far more interested sandboxes and location-based adventures than I am in adventure path because the latter is very hard to do without at least some railroading/illusionism to keep the PCs on the path.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;891402That's not how opposed checks work in any RPG that I'm aware of.

Ok I get it. I thought you meant opposing rolls as their rolls against individual rolls from the GM. So what you mean is that one team roll opposes the other and the better of the two wins.

The issue I see with this is that the whole fabric of the story is getting modified by the roll of the teams. What if there is only one team? Who do they roll against? What if I setup a really bad blue team that I know will fail? I can rig the roll so red gets out not out of red team's ability, but rather due to blue team's inability to find anything.

Quote from: RandallS;891674... without at least some railroading/illusionism to keep the PCs on the path.

Which is why the story elements aren't that helpful when playing the game. It's ironic, that the sandbox style of play hands off narrative control to the players, and thus gets tagged "storygame", even though it runs against linear plot development like a story.

Quote from: RandallS;891674If the type of adventure you are creating is an adventure path type, they probably can be. However, IMHO, story elements are far less useful if you are designing an sandbox/location-based adventure. I'm far more interested sandboxes and location-based adventures than I am in adventure path because the latter is very hard to do without at least some railroading/illusionism to keep the PCs on the path.

Well, hold up. You seem to be making the same mistake pretty much everyone makes. A game is a different medium from a novel or a film. The "story" in a game isn't required to be linear. It also shouldn't be judged as to it's entertainment value in the same way as a story. In a game, the "audience" are the participants. In order for a story to progress, the sort of knowledge the audience needs is very different from the sort of knowledge a player in an RPG needs in order to effectively participate. This means the nature of "reveals" is going to be different as well.

This is the point I'm getting around to. What I say about all action utilizing scarce means to achieve ends, the reality is you can't just make your intent come into being just because you want it to. If your intent is to make a good story, it's not like you can just go and do "story stuff" and your there. That's just not how it works. What's important is the means. You have to focus on the process. The means is chosen according to the ends. But once chosen--if you've chosen wisely--the way to manifest your intent is by focusing solely on the process.

After much careful consideration of years of experience, and also examining what some of the differences are between good stories and shitty ones, I've concluded that focusing on the process of a role-playing game, by which I mean a game that is engaged through the playing of roles.

Mic's still on :P

Quote from: Lunamancer;883527intent is at least implied if not stated explicitly.

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.

The heart of the matter is whether intent is implicit or explicit. Perhaps there are other differences, but this is the only one I consider important.

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.

Quote from: Arminius;883768there'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.

Problem is it's always possible to be a 'Bad Genie'. At some point you're just going to have to assume the rest and resolve the action even if not intentionally invalidating the player's input. And it's sad there's so much more advice like above than on recognizing and respecting player intentions.

Quote from: Agkistro;890486The fight in Kill Bill vs. the Crazy 88 was amazing to see, but imagine if you had to describe it.  "Then she kills a guy. Then she kills another guy. Then she kills TWO guys. Then there's this one guy who's like "Hyeeaaaah" but she kills him too. Then she does a flip, and kills this one guy, and his blood is like "PFHSSSSSSSSSshh...."

The verbal medium is pretty terrible for this, yet this is exactly what most RPGs are trying to emulate, so they tend to rely on props and rules to do it. Just find this kind of fascinating.

Quote from: jhkim;890567The 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.

I agree with everything you've said and consider this issue one of the most important open problems in RPG design. Apocalypse World deals with this by immediately resolving certain 'moves' before any higher level goals can even be pursued. Most RPGs do the same with combat. For everything else though things get rather ambiguous.

Quote from: estar;883252The reason for this that the life inside of a RPG Campaign mimics of that of real life.

No it doesn't.

Quote from: estar;883252The players and referee use the same processes they do in real life to evaluate, plan, and act within the setting of the campaign.

No they don't.

Quote from: estar;883252Let's Pretend is considered a childhood game for a good reason as the lack of challenge quickly causes an individual lose interest as they grow older.

That's not why.

Quote from: estar;883252In the real world there is no theory about how to get people to cooperate with each other.

That's not true. Besides a theory explains why something works the way it does, not how to achieve an end, so your statement doesn't even make sense.

Quote from: estar;883252There is are a series of best practices and and examples that a person can draw on to adapt for their own circumstances.

Theories are derived from best practices, and best practices are based on theories.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883265What happened is some people liked one style better than another, gave it a name, made it make sense by unrealistically pigeonholing what everyone else was doing, then making up "mismatch of expectations" as the bullshit reason to justify why it was a superior approach.

Not sure about superior, but it is the more accurate approach. The more implicit consequences you rely on, the more likely you're not going to achieve them.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883265A shaman can be very successful at doing a rain dance. It still does nothing to bring the intended rain.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883804I've used as the example a shaman doing a rain dance. No matter how successful, it will not bring about the ends of making it rain.

So how exactly is a rain dance successful if it doesn't bring the intended rain? What does the shaman achieve for a successful rain dance?

Quote from: Lunamancer;883265The effect is not known before the action is taken. Sure. Some effects are common, expected, and even standard. But you don't actually know until you try.

So what effect does the player get on a successful action? What they expected? And how do you know what that is unless they conveyed it to you in some manner?

Quote from: Lunamancer;883265Why is communicating expectations important?

Because not everybody thinks like you.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883265Where is it carved in stone that players need to know all of the rules in the first place?

Nowhere, which is why I never said that.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883327Well, how about Magic: The Gathering? The individual cards contain rules text. And not only that, but they supersede the rules in the rule book. If you are not aware of the cards in your opponent's deck, you don't know all the rules for that particular match. If you are not aware of the existence of certain cards, you don't know all of the rules for the game in general.

There's a difference between knowing how to play and knowing all the rules. Are you saying you can play Magic without understanding the core rules?

Quote from: Lunamancer;883265Do you hold a written exam before a new player can earn a seat at the table? Are veteran players rendered mute and incapable of communicating just because they haven't committed the DMs guide to memory?

I don't run/play RPGs which require a written exam or committing large chunks of text to memory. Yet for some reason I still encounter backlash regarding RPGs simple enough to fit on a single page, so go figure.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883265Traditional gaming: "I jab at the orc with my pike to hold him at bay."

Explain how what you're describing was ever anything new in RPGs without mischaracterizing what gaming was like before high-minded jargon came along.

I never said it was new, only identified and categorized.

Most RPGs are still ill equipped to handle the degrees of nuance such staged intents require, as you could jab the ork but fail to keep him at bay, or fail to jab him but keep him at bay. Most resolution systems cannot determine the success of each intent independently, and yet they do exactly that when it comes to attack and damage.

Perhaps that's why most players just say "I jab the ork" and leave it at that :)

Quote from: Lunamancer;883265What he learned from his experience in publishing is that plain English is actually something more people will read and gain a better understanding. Jargon, people praised him because mathematicians don't want to admit they can't read their own language. So they couldn't criticize him otherwise they'd be discovered to have not understood formalized writing.

Mathematicians understand their language just fine. Complicated theorems are hard to understand regardless of which language they're written in, and some are impossible to express in plain English at all. I get the feeling you consider any language you do not understand to not be effective, which actually makes a weird sort of sense.

Quote from: Lunamancer;883725Presumably, the intent of an attack in D&D is to kill (or KO, or disarm, etc).

Presumed by whom?

Quote from: Lunamancer;883804But the means are selected according to what the actor believes will best bring about the ends. Not necessarily according to what will best bring about the ends.

So again what does the player achieve on a successful result?

Quote from: Lunamancer;890275in the case of take 10 the possibility of failure comes from not knowing for sure if the 10 is sufficient. In take 20 (assuming you can succeed at all) the possibility of failure comes from not knowing for sure if you have enough time to complete the task. Keep in mind, the player opts whether to take these. It's not the GM that assigns them according to making the game flow the way he likes. As such, they are chosen according to the player's purpose, not the GMs--reducing the odds of failure by only using take 10 when it is believed it will be sufficient, or take 20 only when it is believed time allows.

So who determines if it's actually sufficient to Take 10 or there's enough time to Take 20? The GM? Then the GM can still make the game flow in any direction they want.

Quote from: Lunamancer;890504It's just an assumed default that when you attack someone with a deadly weapon is that you intend to kill them if you can, or at least hurt them.

Yet despite the clarity of that implication it always seems to have the most rules dedicated to it.

Quote from: Lunamancer;891589You don't know how I play, what my aim is, or what my priorities are. You've never bothered to ask. There's a very strong sense here in which you are assuming the facts in such a way so as to support your point.

Despite the saying, all my pots and kettles are silver :)

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;903655The heart of the matter is whether intent is implicit or explicit. Perhaps there are other differences, but this is the only one I consider important.

It sounds like you've just conceded that there is no difference between task and conflict resolution. All mechanics are fluid in actual play because whether or not something must be explicitly stated is a human affair, not one of game design or game design theory. In some cases, it is possible to communicate intent unambiguously without actually stating it. And even failing that, as a safeguard, the GM can (and yes, I've even seen them do it in actual play) ask, "Why, what are you thinking?"

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;903655The heart of the matter is whether intent is implicit or explicit. Perhaps there are other differences, but this is the only one I consider important.

I agree that is a difference between task-based and conflict-based resolution. Why do you consider it the only important difference? What is you think is important about the difference?

QuoteSo what effect does the player get on a successful action?

The action succeeds. That success may cause other consequences to occur as a result of that success.

QuoteWhat they expected?

That depends on what they expected. An actual example would help.

Player A declares her PC swings their sword at the goblin. What might Player A expect as a result of this?

[1] That if the blow hits, the goblin takes damage.
Sounds good, this is a very reasonable and accurate expectation in many systems, e.g. a system like D&D. However, in a system like Runequest where armor absorbs damage, the expectation needs some adjustment e.g. That if the blow hits and it penetrates the goblin's armor, the goblin takes damage.

[2] That if the blow hits, the goblin dies.
This assumes more than did [1]. But in some systems it might be a very reasonable and accurate expectation e.g. Honor+Intrigue where a goblin counts as a Pawn-type of opponent. Any damage to the goblin-Pawn defeats the goblin. It might be a reasonable expectation in some systems if we had more information e.g. the PC has a damage bonus sufficient that the minimum damage from a hit will kill a goblin.

[3] That they will cut off the goblin's head in a single blow.
This assumes more than did [1] or [2], but might be OK in certain systems, e.g. one's that allow called shots to particular locations. In a lot of systems, [3] is a possible outcome of a successful hit, but not an outcome that should be expected. In a lot of systems [3] is a reasonable outcome from a result like [2].

[4] They will cut off the goblin's head and all the other goblins will flee in terror.
This assumes even more than does [3]. In some systems I'd expect that a morale check would result from the PC's attack. As a GM I use morale regardless of system. Certainly it seems more likely that a morale check would occur if the goblin's head did get cut off in a single blow.

QuoteAnd how do you know what that is unless they conveyed it to you in some manner?

You don't know. Sometimes they don't know either. If they do know, you can often deduce their expectation from the circumstances. Otherwise, they have to tell you. Or if the situation is ambiguous, you (the GM) can ask.

QuoteMost RPGs are still ill equipped to handle the degrees of nuance such staged intents require, as you could jab the ork but fail to keep him at bay, or fail to jab him but keep him at bay.

Sure. Which would be why keeping the orc at bay is (to my mind) a different task than is successfully hitting the orc with your weapon. If all you tell me is "I jab the orc." Then I'm going to resolve that as a normal attack, figure out if the orc takes any damage, figure out if the damage taken cripples or kills the orc, and figure out if the attack or the damage taken triggers a morale check or effect that causes the orc to hold position, retreat, or rout.

QuoteMost resolution systems cannot determine the success of each intent independently, and yet they do exactly that when it comes to attack and damage.

I'm not following you. Can you unpack what you are saying?

QuotePerhaps that's why most players just say "I jab the ork" and leave it at that :)

Or they assume everyone thinks just like them and their meaning is clear. Or they don't have a clear expectation. Or they differentiate between hoped for outcomes and expected outcomes.

I didn't read the whole thread, but what I got out of it is that I constantly switch back and forth between task resolution and conflict resolution in any given game session, with a very blurry line between the two distinctions.

Quote from: Old One Eye;904179I didn't read the whole thread, but what I got out of it is that I constantly switch back and forth between task resolution and conflict resolution in any given game session, with a very blurry line between the two distinctions.

I'm still trying to figure out what makes them different.  All the examples so far just seem to be the same thing.

Quote from: Bren;903677I’m not following you. Can you unpack what you are saying?

I think he means that when you do something as simple as jabbing with a spear at a humanoid with an axe, you're not only focused on inflicting damage. You want to keep a distance that favours you, get a position that makes future attacks easier, get a position that makes your future defences easier as well, threaten the orc psychologically, prevent the orc from getting a superior position himself, and going around his armour or through a weak spot and actually inflicting damage is exactly last in this until you've covered all your bases:).

Most RPGs outright suck at modelling anything more than the damage part, though, which is why many RPG battles devolve into slugfests, so if it's going to be a slugfest anyway, you don't actually need two rolls;).

Quote from: Christopher Brady;904187I'm still trying to figure out what makes them different.  All the examples so far just seem to be the same thing.

There are far too many RPG designers who make it their goal to redefine the wheel, so it's only expected to see them describing different (perhaps slightly similar) events and aspects with same words and expressions, without making sure whether they are properly defined and what the definition is. Quite often it either means something different than they assume, or there's no definition at all, what doesn't stop them from using it, like "everyone knows what it is".

Therefore, it is common for players and GMs alike, each with a slightly different background and experience in RPGs to argue over shit, without realizing that what they defend/attack/propagate is poorly defined stuff they've read in some sourcebook written by apparent meth addict thinking his subjective opinion is enough to dictate how things are in reality.

Happens all the time. :cool:

Anyway, in real life the difference between conflict and task would be similar to the one between a square and a rectangle - each square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square, hence all conflicts involve/consist of tasks, but not each task involves/consists of a conflict. In case of former one might claim that certain conflicts simply exist, with all involved parties/people not lifting a finger to solve them, and therefore there are no tasks, AND in case of latter one might argue by evoking highly esoteric and philosophical constructs along the lines of "the task to satiate one's hunger is an emptiness-based conflict happening in the microcosm of his body", but way I see it, everyone who uses similar line of defense should consider visiting nearest mental asylum, like everyone who thinks that once-in-a-lifetime, very specific scenarios prove a thing. I'm not talking about applying for the position of any staff member, of course.

Well, it's been 20 pages so far. Who's winning?

Quote from: AsenRG;904397Most RPGs outright suck at modelling anything more than the damage part, though, which is why many RPG battles devolve into slugfests, so if it's going to be a slugfest anyway, you don't actually need two rolls;).

Meh. I think it's more likely the case that gamers suck at breaking out of the modeling mindset. Models, by their nature, are inaccurate and terribly limiting. They may be good for illustrating a particular point or getting across a particular idea. But to model anything broader than that (pretty much anything in reality) is asking for trouble. RPGs CAN be written to model something. But they are NOT inherently models. So say I have a bunch of stats, Strength, Magic, Angst, whatever. If an RPG says (and most do) that the GM (or group as a whole, however y'all run things) have to look at a situation and decide which stat or stats are most applicable, then roll against the stat.

The mechanics of the RPG only hash out how to make that stat check. It's not modeling anything. It doesn't even know the situation. The participants aren't modeling anything either. They have a better understanding of the specific situation than the game system or the game designer. But all they're doing is matching the situation to the most appropriate rule.

The example of jabbing at the orc with the polearm to hold him at bay is mine, so I can claim some authority as to the situation there.

First, the player actually specified "I'm jabbing with my polearm to hold the orc at bay." This is a pretty common sort of description players give about what their character is doing. Obviously not everything has to fit this form. But it is common, nonetheless, not uncommon as some who would prefer to railroad this discussion insist. In fact the rules call upon you to announce things like "attacking to subdue." The same exact allegedly "task-driven" mechanic affects the game very differently depending upon the Player/Character's intent. It is in a very real way intent-driven. Players decline to list an intent for specific reason--either they feel the intent is obvious, or they prefer to hide their intent at that time for one reason or another. That a player could be mistaken about the clarity of their intent changes nothing. You can make your intent explicit and still be misunderstood.

That said, next we can look at how to resolve this action specifically. Here's how most GMs I know would handle it. Make your regular skill check. Success doesn't indicate a hit. It indicates you have "guarded" the space, and the orc cannot enter it without dire consequences. And presumably the orc somehow knows he will step into an auto-hit if the PC's skill check is successful.

I handle it a little differently. Jabbing at the orc is a simple, physical movement. It requires no check. Anybody can jab. The main effect is it communicates to the orc that you are ready and able to harm him if he steps to you. Whether or not you successfully have kept the orc at bay is not a function of your skill, but rather the orc's decision-making. How bold is he? And is it worth a fight just to cross the guarded area? If I chose to resolve this strictly mechanically, I would call for a morale-type check, with modifiers for how important or unimportant it is to the orc. If the orc steps into the guarded area, the player hasn't actually "gone" yet, so a normal attack roll is called for.

Notice the way I handle it. The "task" as it's being termed here is the jab. The jab is not what's "resolved." The intent is. Had the player announced he was jabbing playfully, the effect would have been very different because it would have communicated something different to the orc. You could have also given a jab while nodding towards the open door to a prison cell--communicating "If you don't get in there, I will hurt you."

Have I made the leap to conflict resolution? Not quite. Notice also that my way adheres more strictly to the traditional rules. I don't make up new combat options of "guard space" or "hold at bay" or "march at pike-point." I'm just being observant and honest about the fact that what the player is trying to achieve with a weapon is not actually a function of weapon skill but rather something else, and that the "something else" doesn't require special rules.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;904404Well, it's been 20 pages so far. Who's winning?

Not all tasks have been completed and the conflict is still ongoing.

Quote from: AsenRG;904397Most RPGs outright suck at modelling anything more than the damage part, though, which is why many RPG battles devolve into slugfests, so if it's going to be a slugfest anyway, you don't actually need two rolls;).

I think that certain versions of D&D, sans magic, can degenerate into a slug fest. That is not inherent in the rules for some versions of D&D nor for Boot Hill, Traveller, In the Labyrinth, Runequest/CoC/BRP, Pendragon, Star Wars D6, or Honor+Intrigue.* Certain players may default to that style of combat, but that is no more indicative of a rules failing than is playing chess by focusing almost solely on eliminating your opponent's pieces.

The notion that a player saying "I want to use my spear to try to keep him at bay" would result in the GM saying, "You can't do that, all you can do is try to do damage and pray that he falls down first" doesn't strike me as a problem with the rules as much as a problem with the GM. Now if the player never says anything other than, "I jab him with my spear." That isn't the fault of the rules or the GM.



* H+I does include specific maneuvers for a lot of things that are abstracted or left as a judgment call in other RPGs, such as gaining, maintaining, and countering positional advantage (offensive or defensive), disarming an opponent, intimidating an opponent, and aimed attacks to hit specific locations or to avoid armor. Many systems use situational bonuses and penalties to more abstractly model things in combat that aren't jabbing for damage. I'm unable to think of a system that completely ignores position, morale, etc.

Quote from: Lunamancer;904456Meh. I think it's more likely the case that gamers suck at breaking out of the modeling mindset. Models, by their nature, are inaccurate and terribly limiting. They may be good for illustrating a particular point or getting across a particular idea. But to model anything broader than that (pretty much anything in reality) is asking for trouble.

Depends. Models tend to be pretty good at what they model - the problem is when all you have is a model that accounts for X and Y, but you want to make it account for the variable Z, and it predictably can't do that:).

QuoteRPGs CAN be written to model something. But they are NOT inherently models.

From my PoV, that's what they are;).

QuoteThe example of jabbing at the orc with the polearm to hold him at bay is mine, so I can claim some authority as to the situation there.

First, the player actually specified "I'm jabbing with my polearm to hold the orc at bay." This is a pretty common sort of description players give about what their character is doing. Obviously not everything has to fit this form. But it is common, nonetheless, not uncommon as some who would prefer to railroad this discussion insist. In fact the rules call upon you to announce things like "attacking to subdue." The same exact allegedly "task-driven" mechanic affects the game very differently depending upon the Player/Character's intent. It is in a very real way intent-driven. Players decline to list an intent for specific reason--either they feel the intent is obvious, or they prefer to hide their intent at that time for one reason or another. That a player could be mistaken about the clarity of their intent changes nothing. You can make your intent explicit and still be misunderstood.

That said, next we can look at how to resolve this action specifically. Here's how most GMs I know would handle it. Make your regular skill check. Success doesn't indicate a hit. It indicates you have "guarded" the space, and the orc cannot enter it without dire consequences. And presumably the orc somehow knows he will step into an auto-hit if the PC's skill check is successful.

Weird. Most GMs I know would model it as a "hold your action, stab if anyone gets into your range", possibly with some bonus damage to reflect that the orc was moving towards you.
It's easy for the orc to notice you're preparing to use his forward movement and attack him while he's on the move, if he's got any experience fighting at all.-

QuoteI handle it a little differently. Jabbing at the orc is a simple, physical movement. It requires no check. Anybody can jab. The main effect is it communicates to the orc that you are ready and able to harm him if he steps to you. Whether or not you successfully have kept the orc at bay is not a function of your skill, but rather the orc's decision-making. How bold is he? And is it worth a fight just to cross the guarded area? If I chose to resolve this strictly mechanically, I would call for a morale-type check, with modifiers for how important or unimportant it is to the orc. If the orc steps into the guarded area, the player hasn't actually "gone" yet, so a normal attack roll is called for.

So, you'd resolve it...the way it is resolved in GURPS and similar systems. Which are very much doing their best to model reality.

QuoteNotice the way I handle it. The "task" as it's being termed here is the jab. The jab is not what's "resolved." The intent is. Had the player announced he was jabbing playfully, the effect would have been very different because it would have communicated something different to the orc. You could have also given a jab while nodding towards the open door to a prison cell--communicating "If you don't get in there, I will hurt you."

Err, it's not the same jab.

QuoteHave I made the leap to conflict resolution? Not quite. Notice also that my way adheres more strictly to the traditional rules. I don't make up new combat options of "guard space" or "hold at bay" or "march at pike-point." I'm just being observant and honest about the fact that what the player is trying to achieve with a weapon is not actually a function of weapon skill but rather something else, and that the "something else" doesn't require special rules.

Then it's funny how you reached the exact same result as "ready action" achieves. Maybe the people who wrote that rule were just being honest about the intent of preparing an action to be delivered if a trigger happens:p?
At least, I'd hope so.

Quote from: Bren;904469I think that certain versions of D&D, sans magic, can degenerate into a slug fest. That is not inherent in the rules for some versions of D&D

Some people would argue that if other actions aren't in the rules, it is inherent. If the GM doesn't know how to apply the rules in non-standard situations, they would be right for that specific group at least...

Quotenor for Boot Hill,

Not familiar, but from what I know of passing references, it's more like an iaijutsu duel...

QuoteTraveller,

It's not, but only because of the death spiral.

QuoteIn the Labyrinth,

Not familiar again.

QuoteRunequest/CoC/BRP,

Alas, some versions of it are very susceptible to this - see the note on D&D...

QuotePendragon,

Very susceptible to this, especially with some players believing that doing anything but rolling your combat skill is unknightly.

QuoteStar Wars D6,

Agreed.

Quoteor Honor+Intrigue.*

* H+I does include specific maneuvers for a lot of things that are abstracted or left as a judgment call in other RPGs, such as gaining, maintaining, and countering positional advantage (offensive or defensive), disarming an opponent, intimidating an opponent, and aimed attacks to hit specific locations or to avoid armor.

That's one of the systems that are not susceptible to slugfests, purely because the different combat options make it obvious you're not supposed to be just stabbing and parrying. Or at least, if slugfests happen, it's because the players wanted that.

QuoteCertain players may default to that style of combat, but that is no more indicative of a rules failing than is playing chess by focusing almost solely on eliminating your opponent's pieces.

Not quite. The rules of chess allow taking positional advantage because of the interactions inherent to the rules.
"Playing backgammon without working your opponent's nerves" is closer to a good comparison.

QuoteThe notion that a player saying "I want to use my spear to try to keep him at bay" would result in the GM saying, "You can't do that, all you can do is try to do damage and pray that he falls down first" doesn't strike me as a problem with the rules as much as a problem with the GM.

Depends. We know the player's intent, but what's the GM's intent? In other words, why did he say that?
If he just think this doesn't work in a real fight, it's not a problem with the rules, sure.
But if he says that just because the rules don't have an option for what the player doesn't want to accomplish? It is part a problem with the rules, part a problem with the GM, in my book.

QuoteNow if the player never says anything other than, "I jab him with my spear." That isn't the fault of the rules or the GM.

Why doesn't he do that?
If he doesn't care to, you're right.
If he just doesn't think it's allowed, because it's not in the rules, or believes it would be a problem for the GM to adjudicate it because it's not in the rules, that's still partially on the rules.

QuoteMany systems use situational bonuses and penalties to more abstractly model things in combat that aren't jabbing for damage.

True...but you'd be surprised how many people have only ever played one system that didn't spell that out, and thus think everything but jabbing for damage is against the rules.

QuoteI'm unable to think of a system that completely ignores position, morale, etc.

I am quite able to think of a system that never mentions them, but that's besides the point;).

Quote from: AsenRG;905387Not familiar, but from what I know of passing references, it's more like an iaijutsu duel...

Yes. And if you "fan" your gun you get three "cuts" with a single draw.

QuoteIt's not, but only because of the death spiral.

In part it’s that. In large part it is because you don’t use level-based, ablative hit points and there isn’t any attack/parry stalemate.

QuoteNot familiar again.

RPG that came out of Melee and Wizard and was, more or less, the precursor to GURPS.

QuoteAlas, some versions of it are very susceptible to this - see the note on D&D...

Runequest can if you don’t use magic for anything (other than Protection) and if you don’t use quality of success to break the “I attack” – “But I parry your attack!” stalemate that can occur with higher level opponents.

QuoteVery susceptible to this, especially with some players believing that doing anything but rolling your combat skill is unknightly.

Due to roll under black jack method of matching opposed attacks that Pendragon uses, someone typically hits at least every other round and most of the time damage is done. And since hit points are not level-based, ablative hit points (and since healing takes a whole season) combat usually doesn’t become a slug-fest.

QuoteNot quite. The rules of chess allow taking positional advantage because of the interactions inherent to the rules.

But if the player’s strategy is too simplistic to grasp positional advantage and to play for checkmate (or a draw) then the game can degenerate into a contest of elimination of pieces until the number of pieces on the board have decreased so that the situation is simple enough for the player(s) to figure out how to win i.e. checkmate.

QuoteDepends. We know the player's intent, but what's the GM's intent? In other words, why did he say that?

Since this is a hypothetical situation and since I am on an Internet forum, I will leap to the conclusion the GM said this because he is moron. (Unless there is some good situational reason why no other actions are possible.)

QuoteIf he just doesn't think it's allowed, because it's not in the rules, or believes it would be a problem for the GM to adjudicate it because it's not in the rules, that's still partially on the rules.

I’m assuming adults who know that the rules of an RPG require human judgment and interpretation which makes them significantly different than the purely mechanistic rules of a game of chess.

QuoteTrue...but you'd be surprised how many people have only ever played one system that didn't spell that out, and thus think everything but jabbing for damage is against the rules.

Not so much surprised as disappointed.

QuoteI am quite able to think of a system that never mentions them, but that's besides the point;).

Now you got my point of view.

Quote from: AsenRG;905387Depends. Models tend to be pretty good at what they model - the problem is when all you have is a model that accounts for X and Y, but you want to make it account for the variable Z, and it predictably can't do that:).

In anything of substantial complexity--not just the real world, but your typical RPG would qualify--you don't know what variables you need to account for. Hence why the modeling mindset fails.

QuoteFrom my PoV, that's what they are;).

Which doesn't contradict what I said. RPGs CAN be built to model. They just don't have to be.

QuoteErr, it's not the same jab.

Yes. That's what I said. Very good. Gold star for you.

QuoteThen it's funny how you reached the exact same result as "ready action" achieves.

That's more your pretense than fact. You never once acknowledged or touched on my use of the morale-type check for the orc. See. The question of the orc's behavior is what was essential to the intent of the act. And as I made clear, it's the thing I was resolving. You just side-stepped the meat of the thing and instead had some kind of spastic nerd moment when you saw something I said similar to something you read somewhere once. Was the morale check a variable not accounted for in the sacred "ready action" model after all?

Quote from: JesterRaiin;904398There are far too many RPG designers who make it their goal to redefine the wheel, so it's only expected to see them describing different (perhaps slightly similar) events and aspects with same words and expressions, without making sure whether they are properly defined and what the definition is. Quite often it either means something different than they assume, or there's no definition at all, what doesn't stop them from using it, like "everyone knows what it is".

Therefore, it is common for players and GMs alike, each with a slightly different background and experience in RPGs to argue over shit, without realizing that what they defend/attack/propagate is poorly defined stuff they've read in some sourcebook written by apparent meth addict thinking his subjective opinion is enough to dictate how things are in reality.

Happens all the time. :cool:

Anyway, in real life the difference between conflict and task would be similar to the one between a square and a rectangle - each square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square, hence all conflicts involve/consist of tasks, but not each task involves/consists of a conflict. In case of former one might claim that certain conflicts simply exist, with all involved parties/people not lifting a finger to solve them, and therefore there are no tasks, AND in case of latter one might argue by evoking highly esoteric and philosophical constructs along the lines of "the task to satiate one's hunger is an emptiness-based conflict happening in the microcosm of his body", but way I see it, everyone who uses similar line of defense should consider visiting nearest mental asylum, like everyone who thinks that once-in-a-lifetime, very specific scenarios prove a thing. I'm not talking about applying for the position of any staff member, of course.

So let me see if I understand your analogy, and I want to stress this is an honest attempt at trying to figure this conversation out:  If a Square is a Rectangle (Fact) but not all Rectangles are Squares (also Fact), then what your effectively saying is that one of these Resolutions is part of a greater whole?  So, let's assume that in this case Task is the Square, and Conflict is the Rectangle, then Task Resolution can be part of the Conflict Resolution, but not all Conflicts can be resolved by Tasks?

I'm not sure I'm getting it, sorry.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;905433So let me see if I understand your analogy, and I want to stress this is an honest attempt at trying to figure this conversation out:  If a Square is a Rectangle (Fact) but not all Rectangles are Squares (also Fact), then what your effectively saying is that one of these Resolutions is part of a greater whole?  So, let's assume that in this case Task is the Square, and Conflict is the Rectangle, then Task Resolution can be part of the Conflict Resolution, but not all Conflicts can be resolved by Tasks?

I'm not sure I'm getting it, sorry.

It's just that you haven't grasped the right angle...

Quote from: Bren;905439It's just that you haven't grasped the right angle...

...I'll just show myself out.

C'mon, I'm not that obtuse...

Quote from: Christopher Brady;905433So let me see if I understand your analogy, and I want to stress this is an honest attempt at trying to figure this conversation out:  If a Square is a Rectangle (Fact) but not all Rectangles are Squares (also Fact), then what your effectively saying is that one of these Resolutions is part of a greater whole?  So, let's assume that in this case Task is the Square, and Conflict is the Rectangle, then Task Resolution can be part of the Conflict Resolution, but not all Conflicts can be resolved by Tasks?

I'm not sure I'm getting it, sorry.

He's saying that all conflicts involve tasks but not all tasks provide conflicts. Then he spends time on two provisos, handling cases he himself cites that kind of prove him wrong.

He babbles a lot about people coming from different experiences not being able to understand one another. From what I've seen in this thread, people concerned with conflict resolution are concerned mainly with the intent of the action. That's one point on which there is zero confusion, unless he's bringing it. I also don't think there's confusion that what is meant by "intent" is "intended result" as opposed to "intended action." It's thus synonymous with "ends", while the "task" is synonymous with "means."

All actions consist of means and ends. You can't argue against that without engaging in a performative contradiction, because the argument itself is an example of engaging in means towards ends. So the means-ends anatomy of an action is presumed true simply because anything else is absurd.

This means the better analogy is the one I've used in this thread; task is like breathing, conflict is like blood circulation (or vice versa if you prefer). You can linguistically talk about the two like they're two separate things. But theories that follow from such analysis are either talking about things that just don't exist, or they've killed the patient. In reality, they are inseparable. Thus the distinction between resolution types is non-existent. Unless you're sneaking in some other baggage. Like narrative control. This is an example of where differences in definitions HAS reared its head, not only in this thread but virtually every time the topic is discussed. But if you're sneaking in other baggage, then distinction has everything to do with that baggage (such as narrative control) and zip to do with whether intentions are being honored in resolution. So the terminology itself (task vs conflict resolutions) is either talking about something that doesn't exist or else a gross misnomer.

Now this is the argument I've been putting forth the entire time. Let's say you don't want to buy that. Fine. Let's entertain the idea that conflict resolution is a real thing, really concerned with intents and not baggage. Well, again, the idea behind it is to avoid cases where a task can be resolved but not a conflict. Like if you crack a safe with the intention of finding evidence, succeed in cracking the safe only to find the evidence is not there (I call this a "rain dance"--we know no matter how good you do it, it doesn't actually cause rain).

Well, if conflict resolution allegedly eliminates an entire class of possibilities that do exist under so-called task resolution, then that means task resolution can do at least one thing conflict resolution can't do, while at the same time it can also resolve conflicts (we know it's just as possible under task resolution that the evidence WAS in the case). This would seem to indicate he's got his squares and rectangles backwards. Task resolution is the rectangle. It comes in all sorts of dimensions. It's only a very special assortment of them, the square--those cases when the conflict is also resolved, that you have conflict resolution.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;905433So let me see if I understand your analogy, and I want to stress this is an honest attempt at trying to figure this conversation out:  If a Square is a Rectangle (Fact) but not all Rectangles are Squares (also Fact), then what your effectively saying is that one of these Resolutions is part of a greater whole?  So, let's assume that in this case Task is the Square, and Conflict is the Rectangle, then Task Resolution can be part of the Conflict Resolution, but not all Conflicts can be resolved by Tasks?

I'm not sure I'm getting it, sorry.

1. Every conflict produces a series of tasks - you need do things to handle it (solve, constrain, extinguish, find a common ground, evolve, etc, etc).
2. Not every task involves a conflict - the process of making a coffee consists of series of tasks and there's no conflict involved.

There are exceptions, as observed earlier. In case of above examples:

1. Someone did you wrong, and it begets a conflict, but you don't do a thing about it (the reasons for that are irrelevant), so there are no tasks involved (although one might argue that "not doing a thing" is also a task and from certain perspective, it is).
2. The possibility for you to get your cup of coffee is somehow limited by other people - your boss halts you on your way to the cafeteria and orders you to go back and do something, there are too many people in cafeteria, there's a long waiting line, there's no coffee... These are different kinds of conflict.

...but "in general" - Conflict = tasks, while task doesn't immediately involve a conflict.

Quote from: Lunamancer;905446He babbles a lot

Ah, Millennials and their Twitter-molded attention span... :D

#SimpleMindsMatter

DCC did a really great job of resolving the "D&D slugfest" question.

Quote from: RPGPundit;906106DCC did a really great job of resolving the "D&D slugfest" question.

At least if you play an Warrior.

22 pages. People will argue about anything it seems. And this is basic RPG 101 stuff.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;906129People will argue about anything it seems.

News at 11.

Quote from: AsenRG;906109At least if you play an Warrior.

That's part of the solution, I think.