RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[FrogReaver]

For the sake of argument, let's banish the idea of task resolution. Let's say that the sole thing we're interested in is that our method of resolution bindingly decides if goals are achieved. And that we are entirely impartial as to how goals are fed into that system. Maybe it's player character performances signalling player goals. Maybe it's players declaring them outright. Doesn't matter.

it's conflict resolution iff the process of resolution decides what happens next in regard to player goals​

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The part in italics was I felt implied by context, but here I've spelt it out.

That helps. I banish idea of task resolution for now. Though what you propose above all hinges on what exactly the player goal is, or as I’ve mentioned before, which player goal as at any time there are many player goals.

What I’m getting at is that something can be conflict resolution with respect to one player goal and not with respect to another of that players goals. And since goals can mostly overlap, there’s usually some player goal present that can be used such that a scenario that might not seem conflict resolution at first, is actually that.

 

[clearstream]

On "secret backstory".

There is an approach to RPGing in which the GM "hoards" the secret backstory, and parcels it out in small bits, and only when the players declare the correct actions for their PCs to trigger such parcelling out. Depending on the RPG in question, and the details of those declared actions, this parcelling out may or may not be gated behind a check. Eg in classic D&D, if a player opens a door, the GM will tell them what their PC sees with no check required. Whereas listening at a door will typically trigger a check.

The gameplay reason for this is fairly apparent - in classic D&D, opening a door may trigger an encounter (hence is a higher-stakes action) whereas listening at a door typically won't (and so, being a lower-stakes action, has a lower expected pay-off). Later, non-classic versions of D&D tend to retain this contrast in resolution methods even though the gameplay rationale has somewhat faded, though I'm sure some D&D players overlay a theory of the reliability of sight vs hearing as methods of obtaining knowledge via the senses.

CoC uses a lot of checks, but not so much for listening at doors as for searching for and through esoteric volumes, studying art and architecture, etc. The gameplay reason for this is not apparent at all, and it's no surprise that GUMSHOE does away with many of these checks and replaces them with the same "GM narrates" approach as classic D&D uses for opened doors.

In all these games, obtaining information from the GM is, at least to some reasonable extent, its own reward. It is a point of play.

These games generally use task resolution in these information-gathering contexts.

It's drama-resolution. Is GM looking for specific performances to release the information? Then they're letting themselves be swayed by how players act. Not what they want, how they act.

Or, is it that checks change the information state of the game and due to limits written into the game text, that's all players can legitimately declare? Then it's conflict resolution. Possibly rather frustrating conflict resolution, but conflict resolution nonetheless. (You want to comprehend estoreric lore, the books want to obscure it.)

There is a different approach to RPGing in which the GM does not hoard the secret backstory, but reveals it at every opportunity, using it to frame the PCs (and thereby the players) into conflicts, using it to taunt the players or make ironic points, using it to confront them with questions or quandaries about what they should do - where the "should" there is the should of ethics or morality, not the should of expedience or rational calculation.

Vincent Baker explains and illustrates this latter approach on pp 138-9 of the DitV rulebook:

The town you’ve made has secrets. It has, quite likely, terrible secrets — blood and sex and murder and damnation.​

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But you the GM, you don’t have secrets a’tall. Instead, you have cool things — bloody, sexy, murderous, damned cool things — that you can’t wait to share. . . .​

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The PCs arrive in town. I have someone meet them. They ask how things are going. The person says that, well, things are going okay, mostly. The PCs say, “mostly?”​

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And I’m like “uh oh. They’re going to figure out what’s wrong in the town! Better stonewall. Poker face: on!” And then I’m like “wait a sec. I want them to figure out what’s wrong in the town. In fact, I want to show them what’s wrong! Otherwise they’ll wander around waiting for me to drop them a clue, I’ll have my dumb poker face on, and we’ll be bored stupid the whole evening.”​

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So instead of having the NPC say “oh no, I meant that things are going just fine, and I shut up now,” I have the NPC launch into his or her tirade. “Things are awful! This person’s sleeping with this other person not with me, they murdered the schoolteacher, blood pours down the meeting house walls every night!”​

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...Or sometimes, the NPC wants to lie, instead. That’s okay! I have the NPC lie. You’ve watched movies. You always can tell when you’re watching a movie who’s lying and who’s telling the truth. And wouldn’t you know it, most the time the players are looking at me with skeptical looks, and I give them a little sly nod that yep, she’s lying. And they get these great, mean, tooth-showing grins — because when someone lies to them, ho boy does it not work out.​

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Then the game goes somewhere.​

The preceding is all under the heading Actively reveal the town in play.

This is how the GM Drives play toward conflict and Escalates, Escalates, Escalates. By using this pre-authored material to provoke the players, respond to their choices, as Baker puts it (p 141) "'really? Even now? Even now? Really?'"

The difference between the two approaches is a real thing.

I see this as more the development of theory about GM rather than players. What attitudes are the most fruitful for GMing. How do they pay off differently.

 

[Campbell]

The question IMO is more, what role does the DM play in that process. Generally he is determining what happens on a fail state (sometimes with more constraints, sometimes less). The process just dictates whether that determination occurs before or after the dice are rolled.

The exact role of the GM/DM/MC will vary from game to game. Usually, their role is to frame scenes/situations that are relevant / provide adversity to player characters' aims, determine broader fallout from success (the downstream impact of what achieving the player character's intent results in) and providing complications/consequences.

Upon success or failure, the GM needs to frame a situation/scene that reflects the previous outcomes while providing opportunities for players to continue to pursue their characters' agendas and/or provide adversity to the same. There is plenty for the GM to do. Always be framing in the vein of always be closing.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's drama-resolution. Is GM looking for specific performances to release the information? Then they're letting themselves be swayed by how players act. Not what they want, how they act.

Or, is it that checks change the information state of the game and due to limits written into the game text, that's all players can legitimately declare? Then it's conflict resolution. Possibly rather frustrating conflict resolution, but conflict resolution nonetheless.


I see this as more the development of theory about GM rather than players. What attitudes are the most fruitful for GMing. How do they pay off differently.

Would performance resolution be a better name?

 

[hawkeyefan]

What I’m getting at is that something can be conflict resolution with respect to one player goal and not with respect to another of that players goals.

I have to say that, after having read the past several pages or so, it's hard to understand what you're "getting at". Are you honestly curious about these concepts? Or are you asking about them just so you can try and shoot them down?

I mean, if you're not getting these concepts after the length of explanations that have been offered, I don't know if you will. You don't come across as genuinely curious so much as antagonistically curious. Like you're interrogating people to get at the truth that you already know.

 

[clearstream]

Would performance resolution be a better name?

I expect that would bring us right back to where we were.

 

[FrogReaver]

I have to say that, after having read the past several pages or so, it's hard to understand what you're "getting at". Are you honestly curious about these concepts? Or are you asking about them just so you can try and shoot them down?

Interrogation of the ideas doesn’t mean I have my mind made up. It means I’m not going to just blindly accept them.

I mean, if you're not getting these concepts after the length of explanations that have been offered, I don't know if you will.

Perhaps the reason I don’t get them is because I’m not just blindly accepting the whole of them.

You don't come across as genuinely curious so much as antagonistically curious. Like you're interrogating people to get at the truth that you already know.

Why personally attack me by impugning bad motives?

 

[FrogReaver]

I expect that would bring us right back to where we were.

Maybe. I don’t really feel like drama resolution gets there either though.

Regardless of name, your description of it seemed mostly spot on.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's drama-resolution. Is GM looking for specific performances to release the information? Then they're letting themselves be swayed by how players act. Not what they want, how they act.

Or, is it that checks change the information state of the game and due to limits written into the game text, that's all players can legitimately declare? Then it's conflict resolution. Possibly rather frustrating conflict resolution, but conflict resolution nonetheless. (You want to comprehend estoreric lore, the books want to obscure it.)


I see this as more the development of theory about GM rather than players. What attitudes are the most fruitful for GMing. How do they pay off differently.

Can a game provide mechanics that depending on how they are used be what you term-drama resolution in some cases and conflict resolution in others?

That is does drama and conflict resolution define the system itself or specific instances in the system?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What you're describing here is - as best I can judge - not conflict resolution play. It seems to be puzzle-solving play, in which task resolution is the method for revealing the secret backstory to the players.

Perhaps. But it also shows how having myth can be incompatible with conflict resolution. Yes, task resolution works way better with this sort of play, which sort of was my point.

As for the safe example: it is not incompatible with pre-established myth that the papers are located in the safe!, if that myth is what informs the stakes of the action declaration. Whether and how this might work would depend on further details of the RPG in question.

But it is incompatible with pre-established myth that the papers are not there or are somewhere else!

It is a feature of conflict resolution that it can "decide" acausally decide facts about the setting, like here whether the papers are in the safe or not. It is blatantly obvious that this is incompatible with those facts being predetermined. I don't understand why you keep evading this. It is not criticism of conflict resolution, merely an observation.