D&D General Supposing D&D is gamist, what does that mean?

[kenada]

@kenada

I read your post 2016. Instead of replying point-by-point, I'm going to try and set out some thoughts systematically. You will see (I hope) that what you've posted, and the Ron Edwards post, have both been given as full a consideration as I'm capable of at present! I think (or again I hope!) that you'll see we've landed on pretty much the same page.

Thanks! I appreciate it. It helps knowing that I’m at least not alone in the direction my thinking is taking me.

When we refer to a participant enjoying authority that can be temporally extended ("the GM has authority over backstory") or can refer to a particular moment of play ("the GM exercised authority over backstory"). I think some of my posts upthread have been sensitive to this, but not all of them. When Paul T refers to the player exercising plot authority over revealing the masked villain, I think that is a reference to a particular moment of play - and it is a successful fortune roll that permits it. When Edwards refers to "giving up" plot authority as GM so that plot became "emergent", I think that he is talking in the extended sense. What generates the "emergence", moment to moment, will be particular exercises of authority that in a typical game are gated behind fortune resolution (be that pulling off the mask, bursting open the door, cracking the safe, etc): if the check succeeds then the player's have exercised their authority over plot, and now they (and the PCs) have the revelation; if the check fails, then the GM gets to exercise some sort of authority - eg rather than revealing the contents of the safe, the GM reveals that guards are storming the room.

Whereas I think we readily envisage plot authority being subject to fortune (as in the previous paragraph), it is less common to look at situational or content authority through that lens. But it's easy to do so. I've mentioned Circles checks in BW, which allow the player to exercise situational authority (subject to the check succeeding); wandering monster checks in classic D&D gate a GM's situational authority; Wises checks in BW can allow players to exercise content authority; wandering monster checks in classic D&D gate a GM's content authority at the same time as they gate situational authority.

Taking suggestions for content and situational authority seems fairly common. Sometimes it is filtered through a "plausibility test": eg the player asks "Can I find a scrivener in the town?" and the GM reflects that it's a big town and the PCs are in downtime and so says "yes". I think taking suggestions on content and/or situational authority independent of that sort of "plausibility test" - eg framing the PCs straight to the mouth of the dragon's cave when a player asks "is their a dragon near here" - is less typical, and often a hallmark of exposure to more "indie" styles of RPGing. I think it's not entirely easy to describe the boundary here, but it might be around higher-stakes content and higher-stakes situations?

Taking suggests for plot authority seems like it can be a bit underwhelming or anticlimactic. If the focus of the game is all about unmasking the villain, the GM just saying "yes" to the player's declaration I tear of the mask seems a bit uninspired! BW follows DitV and says, in these sorts of stake-laden situations, the dice must be rolled, even if it's an easy check (and the dice pool system means that failure on the roll is also possible). Apocalpyse World is interesting here because it doesn't say "say 'yes' or roll the dice" but rather is "if you do it, you do it" - so AW depends upon ensuring a system-level overlap between high stakes moments of play and action declarations triggering player-side moves. I think that's part of why custom moves are such a big deal in AW, and why each PbtA game needs its own set of moves.

Finally, in this list of conceptual reflections and clarifications, protagonism. I think the key here is that the players know what is at stake and hence, in their play of their PCs, can orient themselves towards the situation as they think is best. If the players exercise situational authority - as in classic D&D dungeon exploration, or via a Circles check - or if the GM takes a suggestion in respect of situational authority, then protagonism is ensured: the players have got the situation which has, at stake, whatever it is that they were hoping for.

If the GM exercises situational authority independently of the players, then it becomes necessary to communicate what is at stake. If this is not immediately implicit in the framing (eg "The masked villain crashes in through the skylight!") then it needs to be established in some other fashion - for instance, the necessary content has already been provided (eg GM: "The room you enter has a red ceiling"; Player: "Hey, remember the warning from the magic statute earlier, about the red sky presaging death from the heavens? We better be careful here - I poke the ceiling with my 10' pole").

I want to finish this post by thinking about the safe scenario in four systems. Here it is again, from Vincent Baker:

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.​

In my account of this in four systems, I'm also going to note where I have to depart from Baker's premises to get conflict resolution and hence avoid GM-as-glue and ensure protagonism:

* In Classic Traveller, breaking into a safe is task resolution (using Demolitions, or Electronics, or Mechanical, or even a weapon skill, depending on the details). If the GM has framed the presence of the safe, and the players open it hoping to find useful stuff, it's just like Baker's example of task resolution. To change this, we need to establish, prior to the opening of the safe, what's in it. In Classic Traveller, Streetwise would do this: the typical sequence would be Streetwise first to learn which safe to break into (so successful Streetwise gives the players a moment of content authority - in a 1977 RPG!), and then using the task resolution mechanics to actually break into it. But the prior establishing of the content ensures that the link of success/win is maintained. Note that the GM might still break the fail/lose nexus (because at the moment of crunch its task resolution). Also note that there is no pathway to successfully engaging with the rumour mill via Streetwise but getting a false rumour. In other words, Streetwise in Classic Traveller doesn't support a process simulation agenda. (A bonus fifth system: 4e D&D would use a skill challenge in a sequence similar to Traveller, with an earlier Streetwise check feeding into a later Thievery check; but the skill challenge framework maintains the fail/lose nexus.)

* In Marvel Heroic RP, the players are able to exercise not only plot authority when the PCs crack the safe, but content authority too (by creating an asset or establishing a resource - there are lots of different pathways to somewhat overlapping outcomes in MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic). So there is no need to establish the fiction of what's in the safe in advance, in order to ensure protagonism at the point of crunch. This sort of thing has come up fairly regularly in my play of this system.

* In Burning Wheel, the players are able to exercise content authority to establish what is in the safe - a Safe-wise or Dirt-wise check, for instance - and thus ensure that the succeed/win nexus is maintained. The principles that govern GM failure narration will ensure that the fail/lose nexus is maintained too.

* In Rolemaster or AD&D 2nd ed or (I think) 5e D&D, there is no way for the players to exercise content authority at the moment of crunch (cf BW or MHRP). And there is no way to exercise prior content authority to ensure that the task resolution at the moment of crunch will preserve the win/succeed nexus (cf Classic Traveller, or BW in which the Wises check is made at an earlier time): for instance, even if the PCs shake down an informant, the GM is the one who gets to decide whether the informant's information is accurate. So the GM has to use their content authority to establish the contents of the safe, and somehow that has to be revealed to the players at an appropriate earlier time. This is where we start to see the pull towards GM-as-glue. I'm not saying it is inevitable, but the pull is definitely there.

EDIT to add a sixth system:

* AW (or similar): it's a bit like Classic Traveller, with a prior exercise of content authority carrying a lot of weight. Either the GM asks Who has the dirt?, and so takes suggestions for content authority from the players, or the players use an information-oriented move (eg Opening their Brains to the Psychic Maelstrom) to oblige the GM to exercise content authority; and thus when they tackle the safe, they know what's in it. And even if they tackle a random safe, the principles around soft moves mean that what they find in it will be interesting in some fashion.

For my homebrew system, it would look a bit like Classic Traveller as you describe it or a FitD game. The players would first need to establish the existence of the safe. The direct analogue would be using Connect (CHA) to find someone who can tell them about the safe. Once it’s located, there are several approaches they could take. They could Tinker (WIS) or Exert (STR) to (both figuratively and literally) crack the safe open. They could also try to get the combination from someone using Connect (CHA) to find staff at the facility then Convince (CHA) or Command (CHA) them to obtain the information.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In my preferred mode, "the lock-picker opens the safe" is unlikely to be the consequence that players are concerned with, that brought them here to this safe. There is something inside this safe connected with their objectives. That's why I'm saying we don't really check to open the safe, we're "really" checking to see if players got what they needed (in case of success, and where failure is also meaningful.)

OK, but then what happens if the PCs are just exploring the area and find a safe? What determines its contents? If a player casts Knock and opens the safe without a check, how do we determine whether the papers we were after were inside or not?

A few examples

• We need this gold to resurrect Jo (the "real" consequence of opening the safe is going to be resurrecting Jo)
• These incriminating documents will allow us to defy the Baron (the "real" consequence is defiance of the Baron, which probably goes on to open up new options)
• Tomorrow when they get the books, they'll see the purloined letter I'm putting inside and know they've been duped (the "real" consequence is the scales falling from their eyes, which probably goes on to cause other stuff)

So we could end up with

• Party's broke, but Jo's back, with all their strengths, flaws and goals, maybe changed
• The Baron is roiling but powerless (for now) and the party's free to get on with whatever it is service to the Baron was in the way of
• The scales fall from their eyes and the volatile political situation blows up, catching everyone in the fall out

An assumption, which in my experience has been a safe one (heh), is that players can come up with and pursue objectives. That doesn't need to be reified in the system as it is reified in players as humans.

Well, as they say, system matters. If its not supported, then it will happen in a more haphazard way, and the question I asked above about exploration is much more likely to come to pass.

Some modes don't create much space for those objectives - we're in room 12, which per the map key contains a trapped but empty safe. The up-front meaningful consequence that could justify a roll is the trap. What do players describe?

1. Player describes opening the safe without checking for traps? No roll, with time they get it open. Trap triggers.
2. Player describes checking for traps? Now we have player intent (avoid death or attrition) and we're resolving something consequential.

The mistake in the above would be to roll to open the safe, because, as I've put it, 5th edition really uses consequences-resolution.

But what I would say is that the entire scene envisaged here isn't really one that a really narrative focus would produce, because why would you focus on aimless exploration? In such systems of which I'm familiar, engagement with the safe guarantees that there's plot significance to it and its opening is consequential. This is the nut of the difference between your 5e* play and something like Dungeon World, they are really significantly different in character!

 

[Aldarc]

But what I would say is that the entire scene envisaged here isn't really one that a really narrative focus would produce, because why would you focus on aimless exploration? In such systems of which I'm familiar, engagement with the safe guarantees that there's plot significance to it and its opening is consequential. This is the nut of the difference between your 5e* play and something like Dungeon World, they are really significantly different in character!

I'm keenly reminded of when @Ovinomancer talked about their character in a Blades in the Dark game in another thread. From what I recall, the crew was in a haunted house, and his PC chose to interact with a painting, possibly appraising its worth, in order to repay a debt for a patron or something. But in interacting with the painting and rolling dice, what was once scenery description gained dramatic importance as part of their character's story.

 

[clearstream]

* In Classic Traveller, breaking into a safe is task resolution (using Demolitions, or Electronics, or Mechanical, or even a weapon skill, depending on the details). If the GM has framed the presence of the safe, and the players open it hoping to find useful stuff, it's just like Baker's example of task resolution. To change this, we need to establish, prior to the opening of the safe, what's in it. In Classic Traveller, Streetwise would do this: the typical sequence would be Streetwise first to learn which safe to break into (so successful Streetwise gives the players a moment of content authority - in a 1977 RPG!), and then using the task resolution mechanics to actually break into it. But the prior establishing of the content ensures that the link of success/win is maintained. Note that the GM might still break the fail/lose nexus (because at the moment of crunch its task resolution). Also note that there is no pathway to successfully engaging with the rumour mill via Streetwise but getting a false rumour. In other words, Streetwise in Classic Traveller doesn't support a process simulation agenda. (A bonus fifth system: 4e D&D would use a skill challenge in a sequence similar to Traveller, with an earlier Streetwise check feeding into a later Thievery check; but the skill challenge framework maintains the fail/lose nexus.)

I'd like to take a closer look at this. First let's confirm that a rumour is - a currently circulating story or report of uncertain or doubtful truth. There shouldn't be a path to a false rumour, because rumours are never guaranteed veracious. However, what I feel the intuition here suggests is something reasonably straightforward

When I read

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?

My intuitive response is always "Huh? What's at stake is getting dirt on the supervillain!" But one can reply "Sure, but you don't know/guarantee that the safe is a means to that, right?" One ordinary response in line with your Traveller example is "I do know/guarantee, because player did something else to lock in that content: they used social skills to get information from lackeys confirming the location of the dirt. It's in this safe. That's why we're here."

Of course, I can come back to that with "Sure, but it's still not really guaranteed, is it?!" I believe that will generate a sense of not really getting it from many DMs. It comes down to principles. One set of principles has it that efforts by players can constrain or lock in content. That can come as description or description and system, such as social interaction.

I can picture a possible Traveller GM (not one I'd like) chuckling and pointing out that "rumours" are not facts, and the safe is empty. Gotcha! Alternatively, and in a wide ranges of RPGs, I can picture a GM working with player on a narrative/system path to this specific safe, that has the dirt in it. A gotcha at this point, as I hope is evident from that first possible GM, would for many groups break their social contract... make the GM a spoilsport.

 

[clearstream]

OK, but then what happens if the PCs are just exploring the area and find a safe? What determines its contents? If a player casts Knock and opens the safe without a check, how do we determine whether the papers we were after were inside or not?

I think what you have described here is that the PCs have accessed an area and are exploring it with the intent of finding some papers - those they were after. They don't know where in the area those papers are. There are generally two possibilities here.

1. The players are under no pressure, and will be able to search the whole area thoroughly.
2. The players are under pressure, and need to make some choices about what they will search.

In case of 1., so long as the players have good reason (they've taken steps) to know the papers are in this area, we don't need to roll anything. "You find them in the safe."

In case of 2., how players open that safe matters. A knock trades noise and a spell slot against time. Perhaps it goes like this "Your knock rings out loudly. A flickering light ripples over the safe as it suppresses an arcane lock. You've got 10 minutes to open it. With this complexity of lock, each check takes 5 minutes."

So now we're in an interesting situation where the players need to make decisions. Did the knock attract attention? If they've no good reason (they've taken no steps) to know/guarantee the papers are in the safe, are they sure it's worth the risk? Still, seems likely the papers are in the safe... they've checked those locked desk drawers, right? There are a lot of ways this can go. Framing matters. Description matters.

Well, as they say, system matters. If its not supported, then it will happen in a more haphazard way, and the question I asked above about exploration is much more likely to come to pass.

It's one of those things, OMMV

But what I would say is that the entire scene envisaged here isn't really one that a really narrative focus would produce, because why would you focus on aimless exploration?

Exactly! If my setup and player predelictions lead to a lot of intentless wandering, I agree players could come across safes of no known import, toward which they perforce have no intentions. There are in that case no papers they are looking for.

In such systems of which I'm familiar, engagement with the safe guarantees that there's plot significance to it and its opening is consequential. This is the nut of the difference between your 5e* play and something like Dungeon World, they are really significantly different in character!

Do you feel it is right to describe that in DW, the subjective-resolution is oriented toward lighting up and resolving conflict? In 5e, the objective-resolution is oriented toward resolving consequences, which can include resolving conflict, but isn't certain to.

 

[clearstream]

I don’t know if you were around for some of the conversations in the last 10 years or so, but it sounds like what you’re getting at above is what we’ve been calling “subjective DCs” (4e DCs based on the level of the heroes or PBtA spread of results) which are based on a distribution/mathematical model to ensure a spread of results and reliable protagonism (see “Whiff Factor mentioned prior) vs “objective DCs” (TB, any Process Sun game, the version of 5e DCs that are baselined off of how “in-world inhabitant with 10 ability score and no Prof would perceive the difficulty of a task”) that attempt to model the internal causality of a world.

I like that terminology. I can't automatically assign "simulationist" aesthetic priorities to players choosing an objective-resolution game, because they might have chosen that type of resolution due to their intuitive assumptions about what it is like to inhabit a world. A metaphysical priority.

 

[pemerton]

@clearstream

I think you are focused entirely focused too much on the dice roll here. When we speak about conflict or task resolution we're fundamentally talking about how do we collectively get from player says their character does X to fallout of that action. What guides that process? What decisions need to be made? By whom? What guides that decision making process? What are the constraints on those decisions? That's all part of the resolution process.

The dice roll doesn't resolve the task or conflict. We do. The fundamental question is 'how do we do it?'.

Concentrating solely on these technical implementation details does us no good. It avoids rather than furthers discussion over the actual structure of play. How do we get from scenario to resolution? How are conflicts resolved? How does the play group collectively determine what happens? How does that satisfy what we are trying to do? These are not simple questions. Design questions worth talking about are generally not simple.

PbtA and similar systems are built around one core resolution-proces. That's over-simplifying, but also kind of true. It's a design strength.

5e is not built that way. It employs multiple game systems with transactions between them. So putting a laser-focus on the ability check procedure cannot provide the whole picture.

5e doesn't really offer advice on how a DM can keep the story moving forward, which is one of the greatest strengths of 'story now' play. I'm not sure we can say D&D has an actual process for that. Instead, it has many different tools and techniques the GM can deploy to accomplish moving the story forward.

Upthread @Campbell linked to the following two diagrams, that set out (at a certain level of abstraction) two contrasting approaches to play:

The one on the left is "story now" RPGing. The one on the right is "traditional" RPGing.

To say that 5e D&D has many tools and techniques the GM can deploy to accomplish moving the story forward is to say that 5e D&D follows the right-hand diagram.

So why do we have dozens of pages arguing that it doesn't?

Conversely, Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel don't just have processes a GM uses to keep the story moving forward. They have processes that the table uses to keep events in motion. Those processes tell various participants to say various things under various constraints at various times. They are not just addressed to the GM. The tell us when a situation resolves without anyone having to decide, of their own motion, that it does.

This doesn't really have very much to do with uniformity of resolution system. Burning Wheel doesn't use uniform resolution systems: Steel is different from Resources is different from Circles is different from Wises is different from Duel of Wits is different from Fight! is different from Range and Cover is different from making a Climbing check to see if you can escape by climbing a tree. Classic Traveller doesn't use uniform resolution systems: the Streetwise subsystem is different from the vacc suit subsystem is different from the travelling-from-system-to-system subsystem is different from the evasion-in-a-small-craft subsystem, just to call out a few, but they are all conflict resolution systems. They all tell us when a situation resolves.

I don't see how this can be controversial.

 

[pemerton]

I was mulling this and felt we could generally observe the following difference between types of system (comparing two specific RPGs as examples)

• In 5e, rolls are oriented to supposed facts about the game world. Probabilities are strongly modified by what that aspect of the game world is supposed to be like. Frex, the distinction I indicated between the question of what was true, and what the ranger knew about what was true.
• In Stonetop, rolls are made to agree what to add or change to fiction or system. Probabilities are not strongly modified by supposed facts about the game world. Frex, rolling for Know Things sorts between alternatives for what GM is bound to tell you. There's not that distinction between what's true and what you know to be true.
• In both games, players can favour some sorts of actions by choosing to have better modifiers connected with them. Frex, in both player could choose to favour Int-based actions.

The picture is of course far more complicated than that, with many exceptions and some overlaps. However, generally speaking one can observe something like

• In 5e, rolls test against a supposed external world. I can call that "Compare-roll-with-world."
• In Stonetop, rolls test for what to add to the game state. I'll call this "Use-roll-to-index-result."

I'm not saying anything here is suprising or novel (hopefully it is not!) I am also not saying either is better, they're distinct. That distinction does mean that any description of 5e resolution, for almost any game sub-system, is going to follow the compare-roll-with-world template.

I don’t know if you were around for some of the conversations in the last 10 years or so, but it sounds like what you’re getting at above is what we’ve been calling “subjective DCs” (4e DCs based on the level of the heroes or PBtA spread of results) which are based on a distribution/mathematical model to ensure a spread of results and reliable protagonism (see “Whiff Factor mentioned prior) vs “objective DCs” (TB, any Process Sim game, the version of 5e DCs that are baselined off of how “in-world inhabitant with 10 ability score and no Prof would perceive the difficulty of a task”) that attempt to model the internal causality of a world.

It is obscurantism to say that in 5e rolls are tested against "a supposed external world". The roll takes place in the real world, not an imaginary one. The comparison of the number rolled, to some target number, occurs in the real world. There is no comparison of a roll to a world.

It is obscurantism to suggest that it is something distinctive to Stonetop that rolls are made to agree what to add or change to fiction or system. That is the essential function of fortune mechanics in all RPGs: to determine what is added to the fiction. For instance, rolling a Str (Athletics) check in 5e is one way of determining whether or not the fiction includes the character climbing up some-or-other surface. (I say "one way" because another way is the GM just "saying 'yes'" to the action declaration.)

Whether a system uses (what Manbearcat) calls "objective" or "subjective" DCs tells us nothing about its relationship to conflict or task resolution. Burning Wheel uses objective DCs. It also uses conflict resolution. Cthulhu Dark uses subjective DCs, and could be played using task resolution. (I personally play it using conflict resolution, by adopting principles from BW.)

 

[pemerton]

I think what you have described here is that the PCs have accessed an area and are exploring it with the intent of finding some papers - those they were after. They don't know where in the area those papers are. There are generally two possibilities here.

1. The players are under no pressure, and will be able to search the whole area thoroughly.
2. The players are under pressure, and need to make some choices about what they will search.

In case of 1., so long as the players have good reason (they've taken steps) to know the papers are in this area, we don't need to roll anything. "You find them in the safe."

In case of 2., how players open that safe matters. A knock trades noise and a spell slot against time. Perhaps it goes like this "Your knock rings out loudly. A flickering light ripples over the safe as it suppresses an arcane lock. You've got 10 minutes to open it. With this complexity of lock, each check takes 5 minutes."

So now we're in an interesting situation where the players need to make decisions. Did the knock attract attention? If they've no good reason (they've taken no steps) to know/guarantee the papers are in the safe, are they sure it's worth the risk? Still, seems likely the papers are in the safe... they've checked those locked desk drawers, right? There are a lot of ways this can go. Framing matters. Description matters.

In Burning Wheel framing matters and description matters. Likewise in every RPG I can think of. How do these matter in 5e D&D? What difference do they make to the resolution process?

Contrast Apocalypse World - because a player fails a roll to act under fire, the GM makes a hard move: guards burst in! - with what I take you are describing for 5e D&D - because the GM has written some guards into their description, we are in case 2, and the GM calls for a check and makes decisions about how the guards respond.

The contrast is depicted in John Harper's two diagrams.

 

[clearstream]

Upthread @Campbell linked to the following two diagrams, that set out (at a certain level of abstraction) two contrasting approaches to play:

View attachment 249616View attachment 249617
The one on the left is "story now" RPGing. The one on the right is "traditional" RPGing.

To say that 5e D&D has many tools and techniques the GM can deploy to accomplish moving the story forward is to say that 5e D&D follows the right-hand diagram.

So why do we have dozens of pages arguing that it doesn't?

Conversely, Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel don't just have processes a GM uses to keep the story moving forward. They have processes that the table uses to keep events in motion. Those processes tell various participants to say various things under various constraints at various times. They are not just addressed to the GM. The tell us when a situation resolves without anyone having to decide, of their own motion, that it does.

This doesn't really have very much to do with uniformity of resolution system. Burning Wheel doesn't use uniform resolution systems: Steel is different from Resources is different from Circles is different from Wises is different from Duel of Wits is different from Fight! is different from Range and Cover is different from making a Climbing check to see if you can escape by climbing a tree. Classic Traveller doesn't use uniform resolution systems: the Streetwise subsystem is different from the vacc suit subsystem is different from the travelling-from-system-to-system subsystem is different from the evasion-in-a-small-craft subsystem, just to call out a few, but they are all conflict resolution systems. They all tell us when a situation resolves.

I don't see how this can be controversial.

Viewing the systems through the lense of "opinionated" versus "vague" (explained up-thread), a vague system can only be fully analysed in the context of a known cohort. You outline - rightly in my view - that keeping things in motion is afforded in different ways, by distinctly different systems. Seeing as system + cohort matters more in a vague system, the system alone can't definitively settle what happens in play.

The right-hand diagram may capture what is going on for a cohort committed to a culture of "traditional" play. It doesn't show what's going on for all cultures of play.