RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[pemerton]

I think the Social Interaction rules in the DMG indicate how declaring consequences up front can make task resolution play out akin to conflict resolution (for obvious reasons, really.)

The Social Interaction mechanics in the 5e DMG are not task resolution mechanics. They are classic conflict resolution mechanics.

This.

 

[Campbell]

Honey badger Task resolution just doesn't give a ****. Conflict resolution by its very nature is concerned with resolving conflicts - moving characters either closer or further from achieving their aims. Task resolution is agnostic, even when it's binding.

Here's an example of fairly binding task resolution from Pathfinder Second Edition :

You create a disguise to pass yourself off as someone or something you are not. Assembling a convincing disguise takes 10 minutes and requires a disguise kit, but a simpler, quicker disguise might do the job if you’re not trying to imitate a specific individual, at the GM’s discretion.

In most cases, creatures have a chance to detect your deception only if they use the Seek action to attempt Perception checks against your Deception DC. If you attempt to directly interact with someone while disguised, the GM rolls a secret Deception check for you against that creature’s Perception DC instead. If you’re disguised as a specific individual, the GM might give creatures you interact with a circumstance bonus based on how well they know the person you’re imitating, or the GM might roll a secret Deception check even if you aren’t directly interacting with others.

• Success You trick the creature into thinking you’re the person you’re disguised as. You might have to attempt a new check if your behavior changes.
• Failure The creature can tell you’re not who you claim to be.
• Critical Failure The creature can tell you’re not who you claim to be, and it recognizes you if it would know you without a disguise.

What it accomplishes is that the creature affected believes you are the person you say you are. This may or may not help you to get ingress, get an audience with a given NPC or any number of things. Whether or not you actually get closer or not to your larger objective is entirely left for the GM to judge based on established fiction and prepared material. They are a referee - not an MC.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't understand why one sort of verb of communication ("reminding") is permitted here, but another ("suggesting") is not.

One describes the situation much more accurately!

What is the permitted verb to describe a player proposing that the fiction include a certain action taken by their PC, which then has to be retracted or modified because the GM "reminds" them of some bit of the fiction.

I don't think there's any single verb that completely conveys that concept as you define it here.

 

[FrogReaver]

Honey badger Task resolution just doesn't give a ****. Conflict resolution by its very nature is concerned with resolving conflicts - moving characters either closer or further from achieving their aims. Task resolution is agnostic, even when it's binding.

Here's an example of fairly binding task resolution from Pathfinder Second Edition :



What it accomplishes is that the creature affected believes you are the person you say you are. This may or may not help you to get ingress, get an audience with a given NPC or any number of things. Whether or not you actually get closer or not to your larger objective is entirely left for the GM to judge based on established fiction and prepared material. They are a referee - not an MC.

What I see in every one of these examples are proposals that the conflict/aim is something 'larger' than the task itself. But what I want to ask is - what if the characters conflict/aim is to accomplish this task? How is that not conflict resolution by your very definition above? Is the real differentiator the requiring a conflict/aim that's larger than the task itself?

 

[clearstream]

Honey badger Task resolution just doesn't give a ****. Conflict resolution by its very nature is concerned with resolving conflicts - moving characters either closer or further from achieving their aims. Task resolution is agnostic, even when it's binding.

Here's an example of fairly binding task resolution from Pathfinder Second Edition :



What it accomplishes is that the creature affected believes you are the person you say you are. This may or may not help you to get ingress, get an audience with a given NPC or any number of things. Whether or not you actually get closer or not to your larger objective is entirely left for the GM to judge based on established fiction and prepared material. They are a referee - not an MC.

Something I'm trying to tease out is how wedded who decides is to raw conflict resolution. When you play DitV, who decides outcome when NPC dice picked by GM beat players? If it is GM, does it stop being conflict resolution?

 

[Campbell]

Something I'm trying to tease out is how wedded who decides is to raw conflict resolution. When you play DitV, who decides outcome when NPV dice picked by GM beat players? If it is GM, does it stop being conflict resolution?

What matters is that resolution is done in terms of what the character is trying to do in a broader dramatic sense. When the GM decides what fallout looks like they are constrained to do so in reference to that broader character intention. The GM can still be granted some specific and constrained latitude to say what exactly happens, but it must be done so with regard the larger stakes set by a player through their play for me to consider it conflict resolution.

 

[FrogReaver]

This makes no sense to me.

You're saying that it is possible to have, as an instance of conflict resolution, that I crack the safe. OK. That doesn't show that there is no difference between task and conflict resolution.

I'm not claiming there is no difference between them. The claim is that you are incorrect on the fundamental difference between them.

Now, suppose that you succeed on your roll to crack the safe - is the GM nevertheless at liberty to say "Well, the tumblers all fall into place, but you discover the hinges are welded shut, and so the door won't open"? If the GM enjoys that liberty (whether a liberty to make that up, or a liberty to introduce it into the shared fiction by reading from their notes), then we know that the resolution in question is task resolution.

If they are not, we know it's conflict resolution.

Good example!

We can look at it through the lens of failure also. If you fail on your roll to crack the safe, is the GM nevertheless at liberty to say "As you walk away, you see some photos sitting on the desk" and those turn out to be recent photos taken of the inside of the safe? If yes, task resolution; if no, conflict resolution.

The difference between the two is not macro/micrco (as Baker himself explains in the blog I linked to), nor external/internal (whatever exactly that encompasses). It's the relationship between (i) the player establishing what is at stake, (ii) the making of the roll/check, and (iii) what permissions the GM enjoys, based on the result of the check, to introduce new fiction that breaks the relationship between the result of the check and gaining or losing what is at stake.

You are talking about task resolution and confliction resolution with respect to the conflict/aim of 'finding photos' as if the players aims in a task resolution game and conflict resolution game would be the same. A D&D player is not going to 'aim' to find photos in a safe (unless they have great fictional assurance that the photos are in this safe), instead they are going to 'aim' to see what's in the safe.

Which is why I would define the difference between task and conflict resolution around what the game allows a player to 'aim' for.

 

[FrogReaver]

What matters is that resolution is done in terms of what the character is trying to do in a broader dramatic sense. When the GM decides what fallout looks like they are constrained to do so in reference to that broader character intention. The GM can still be granted some specific and constrained latitude to say what exactly happens, but it must be done so with regard the larger stakes set by a player through their play for me to consider it conflict resolution.

Exactly what I've been saying! Conflict resolution is about 'larger' stakes. That's what separates it from task resolution.

 

[clearstream]

What matters is that resolution is done in terms of what the character is trying to do in a broader dramatic sense. When the GM decides what fallout looks like they are constrained to do so in reference to that broader character intention. The GM can still be granted some specific and constrained latitude to say what exactly happens, but it must be done so with regard the larger stakes set by a player through their play for me to consider it conflict resolution.

Right, so let's call that player-stakes-regarding GM our Virtuous GM or VM for short.

What stops task-resolution becoming conflict-resolution when refereed by VM?

 

[clearstream]

This.

Okay. So would you say that on choosing tasks, players can have in mind outcomes they think those tasks will lead to?