RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[pemerton]

Right. To some degree I think the concepts of no-myth and conflict resolution are being combined when they don't need to be.

By whom?

Not by those of us who are familiar with (say) DitV, or HeroWars (Glorantha brings a lot of myth) or 4e D&D.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, and I asked what makes that not task resolution.

Because what is resolved is not whether or not my blow slashes his face (the task) but whether or not I force him off-balance (the goal of the declared action).

 

[pemerton]

I think task resolution can be played in a say yes or roll the dice way as well.

Here is DitV (p 138):

Every moment of play, roll dice or say yes.

If nothing’s at stake, say yes to the players, whatever they’re doing. Just plain go along with them. If they ask for information, give it to them. If they have their characters go somewhere, they’re there. If they want it, it’s theirs.

Sooner or later - sooner, because your town’s pregnant with crisis - they’ll have their characters do something that someone else won’t like. Bang! Something’s at stake. Launch the conflict and roll the dice.​

Here is BW Gold (p 72):

In his game, Dogs in the Vineyard, Vincent Baker articulates a convention of Burning Wheel so well that I’d rather use his words than my own. He says:

*Every moment of play, roll dice or say “yes.”

If nothing is at stake, say “yes” [to the player’s request], whatever they’re doing. Just go along with them. If they ask for information, give it to them. If they have their characters go somewhere, they’re there. If they want it, it’s theirs.

Sooner or later - sooner, because [your game’s] pregnant with crisis - they’ ll have their characters do something that someone else won’t like. Bang! Something’s at stake. Start the conflict and roll the dice.

Roll dice, or say “yes.”*​

Vincent’s advice is perfect for Burning Wheel. Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn’t know, covets something that someone else has, roll the dice.

Flip that around and it reveals a fundamental rule in Burning Wheel game play: When there is conflict, roll the dice. There is no social agreement for the resolution of conflict in this game. Roll the dice and let the obstacle system guide the outcome. Success or failure doesn’t really matter. So long as the intent of the task is clearly stated, the story is going somewhere.​

This is what "say 'yes' or roll the dice" means.

It's incoherent to talk about applying this to task resolution. Task resolution doesn't have a notion of "stakes" that would tell us whether and when to call for a check.

The relevant 5e DMG237 text is this (which must be read together with PHB174)

USING ABILITY SCORES​

When a player wants to do something, it's often appropriate to let the attempt succeed without a roll or a reference to the character's ability scores. For example, a character doesn't normally need to make a Dexterity check to walk across an empty room or a Charisma check to order a mug of ale. Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure. When deciding whether to use a roll, ask yourself two questions:​

​

Is a task so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure?​

Is a task so inappropriate or impossible- such as hitting the moon with an arrow-that it can't work?​

​

If the answer to both of these questions is no, some kind of roll is appropriate. The following sections provide guidance on determining whether to call for an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw; how to assign DCs; when to use advantage and disadvantage; and other related topics.​

​

MULTIPLE ABILITY CHECKS​

Sometimes a character fails an ability check and wants to try again. In some cases, a character is free to do so; the only real cost is the time it takes. With enough attempts and enough time, a character should eventually succeed at the task. To speed things up, assume that a character spending ten times the normal amount of time needed to complete a task automatically succeeds at that task. However, no amount of repeating the check allows a character to turn an impossible task into a successful one. In other cases, failing an ability check makes it impossible to make the same check to do the same thing again. For example, a rogue might try to trick a town guard into thinking the adventurers are undercover agents of the king. If the rogue loses a contest of Charisma (Deception) against the guard's Wisdom (Insight), the same lie told again won't work. The characters can come up with a different way to get past the guard or try the check again against another guard at a different gate. But you might decide that the initial failure makes those checks more difficult to pull off.​

I've discussed this text here, and would draw attention to my third bullet under "For emphasis" which frames refereeing it in terms of what I might now call VM-ship. The general through-line is something like - player expresses their intentions in their choice of performances, and GM (functioning as VM) gives regard to those intentions by assigning them as binding consequences in resolution. And we're only rolling if it's uncertain and the stakes matter. In the past I would have thought of this as task-resolution based on the immediacy of intentions to performance (a basic legitimate intention for opening a safe would be to see what's in the safe, but game-state could legitimate getting the dirt.) But that does not fit your take on task-resolution, so I'm wondering if you'd call it conflict-resolution? You might also see how this prompted my earlier question about how we know how far out a goal has to be, before it normally counts as reaching.

Who decides what is uncertain? Based on what principles? Who decides if there is a meaningful consequence for failure, or if "the stakes" matter? Or, for that matter, what the stakes are?

The general tenor of the passage that you have quoted seems to be the GM. The GM decides whether to deem the player's declared action successful, unsuccessful, or in need of a roll, by reference to considerations established by the GM and perhaps - but not necessarily - shared with the players.

As to whether any particular episode of play is task or conflict resolution, you'd have to give me an example. The text you've quoted doesn't get that far - for instance, it would be consistent with the quoted text for the dice never to be rolled, and for all resolution to be "drama" resolution (to used Tweet's term).

If I assume that the GM, when calling for a check, is free to establish stakes of, and consequences of, a check without regard to the player's goal - which certainly seem to be what is implied (eg the GM could call for a check to open the safe, yet there be nothing in there that the players want for their PCs) - then it is task resolution.

The whole thing looks, to me, like Harper's diagram.

 

[pemerton]

What about when the goal is simply to perform the task and see what happens next? For example opening a safe just to see if there's anything in there worth stealing, or climbing a curtain wall around a manor house just to see what other obstacles might lie between the wall and the building before attempting a break-in.

Then we're not playing a conflict-resolution oriented RPG. We're playing a RPG in which players declare actions to prompt the GM to reveal more hidden backstory, as per my post 789 upthread.

 

[pemerton]

Say the GM establishes what victory in the conflict means. In what way exactly is the scene now not closed?

What RPG are you talking about?

I'm strongly with @Manbearcat here. There are a family of games known for their closed scene resolution - Maelstrom Storytelling, HeroWars/Quest, MHRP, 4e skill challenges, BW Duel of Wits, etc.

These are all conflict-resolution frameworks. That's the whole point! (As @Campbell noted.)

What is the point of trying to pretend and obfuscate that there's no difference between the way these games work, and the way a typical CoC module works? I've played both. The differences are vast. Vincent Baker explained them, at least in rough outline, 20 years ago. John Harper diagrammed them 18 years ago.

Putting up examples of "GM as glue" and trying to get everyone to agree (at one and the same time?) that it's not GM-as-glue, and that GM-as-glue is no different from those other RPGs, seems weird and obfuscatory.

 

[FrogReaver]

By whom?

Not by those of us who are familiar with (say) DitV, or HeroWars (Glorantha brings a lot of myth) or 4e D&D.

Then there’s a major communication gap, because that’s exactly the ones it seems to me are combining no-myth and conflict resolution.

 

[FrogReaver]

The entire point of closed scene resolution is that at the start of the scene the group establishes what victory in the conflict means. Within the context of a game within which players are allowed to set the aims of their characters how then could that not be conflict resolution? I mean if the GM is disregarding that predetermined victory state than they are no longer engaging in closed scene resolution.

Maybe a dumb question - what constitutes a scene?

Could a scene be…

Scene Start.

You come to a chasm but can see the footprints you’ve been tracking on the other side - what do you do? Player: i try to jump across the chasm.

End of scene.

EDIT:
Also, is it being suggested here in the underlined portion of your quote that games featuring task resolution do not allow players to set the aims of their characters? Because, if so I don't believe any RPG does this and thus the implication being that if true, there would be no task resolution games.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Then there’s a major communication gap, because that’s exactly the ones it seems to me are combining no-myth and conflict resolution.

I can't speak to HeroWars, as I've never played it. And, at least in my group 4e, as we played, played very much like previous editions of D&D (this, I think was our failing, as we didn't gel with 4e as a group — three of us were invested and two of us played like it was 1e; this did not work). I'm not sure that 4e would be no-myth even if played as intended, but it was playable in more or less traditional ways in my experience.

Dogs, on the other hand, is explicitly not no-myth — the GM comes to the table with a town created (as @pemerton mentions above).

 

[FrogReaver]

I can't speak to HeroWars, as I've never played it. And, at least in my group 4e, as we played, played very much like previous editions of D&D (this, I think was our failing, as we didn't gel with 4e as a group — three of us were invested and two of us played like it was 1e; this did not work). I'm not sure that 4e would be no-myth even if played as intended, but it was playable in more or less traditional ways in my experience.

Dogs, on the other hand, is explicitly not no-myth — the GM comes to the table with a town created (as @pemerton mentions above).

I’m being told
1. Myth is GM curated backstory. No myth is the absence of this.

2. Games with any as of yet unrevealed backstory are not conflict resolution. If necessary I’ll find the quote, but hopefully this isn’t in dispute.

3. DitV is conflict resolution but has at moments in play unrevealed backstory.

Somethings not adding up here.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I’m being told
1. Myth is GM curated backstory. No myth is the absence of this.

2. Games with any as of yet unrevealed backstory are not conflict resolution. If necessary I’ll find the quote, but hopefully this isn’t in dispute.

3. DitV is conflict resolution but has at moments in play unrevealed backstory.

Somethings not adding up here.

I'm only speaking of Dogs here. We're in alignment on 1 and 3 completely and to some degree on 2, too (inasmuch as I don't have much appetite to go back through the thread to find the quote either). But there's absolutely unrevealed backstory in Dogs and the process of play is absolutely conflict resolution.