* 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.
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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 don't understand why you're presenting my example back to me.
In Vincent Baker's example of task resolution vis-a-vis the safe, he says "Let's assume that we haven't yet established what's in the safe." He's not an idiot - he's noticed that if it's already established that the desired documents are in the safe, then succeeding at the task is the same as winning the conflict. This is why, in my post, I said
to change player from Baker's example of task resolution, we need to establish, prior to the opening of the safe, what's in it.
And Classic Traveller does this via a conflict-resolution mechanic, namely, the Streetwise check: the player declares
I'm talking to workers, thugs, criminals, etc to learn where the dirt is kept and then the GM establishes a difficulty, and then the player makes a throw appropriately modified by Streetwise skill, and if it succeeds the PC acquires the desired information.
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.
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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!
Are you familiar with the rules for Streetwise in the 1977 edition of Traveller?
Those rules are clear. As I stated in the the post that you quoted, those rules give the player content authority, and there is no pathway to
successfully engaging with the rumour mill via Streetwise but
getting a false rumour. The result of a successful Streetwise check is not
You hear this thing or
You believe this thing, it's
You learn this thing. (As I've also posted, the rules are not clear on what the GM is supposed to do on a failed check. This is where this 1977 game shows its age. My own view is that a reasonably hard move would be fair enough.)
I mean, I can picture a chess player who is losing knocking over the board. That's not really a move in chess, though.
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.
OK? I can picture GM-as-glue play too: I've experienced plenty of it as a player and run some of it as a GM.
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.
OK, I'll be more specific then. Based on everything you have said in the last 30-odd pages about how you approach 5e D&D, it describes how you GM 5e D&D. See eg the quote just above this one.
