RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[clearstream]

I see. Sure, if the intent is always just to try, then we can argue that you can "try" even if the GM decrees that you automatically fail. But I am not sure this is what is usually meant by honouring the intent.

Though this is related to the important point of what sort of action declarations the players are allowed to make in the first place. Basically any game has some sort of limit on this. The discussion about downgrading the stakes in DitV was about this. In some games the GM is allowed to deny the action declaration, in some the outcome; but in either case it is the GM saying that the thing is a no go.

Another way to see hidden information could be just as a factor in the resolution method itself: one that can force the result.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Another way to see hidden information could be just as a factor in the resolution method itself: one that can force the result.

That's actually really good way to frame it.

 

[FrogReaver]

You're a step down the line from me here. I'm not making an argument about whether saying "no" can ever honor a player's intent for a declared action. I'm just saying that, in my opinion, a game can only have intention-based resolution if it explicitly requires the two things that I've listed above in its rules. You could play a game such that it does work this way, even if the rules don't require it, but that'd be a house rule. And I've played in a number of games where players have hidden their intentions for action declarations or declared actions almost algorithmically, and these games have been exhausting but otherwise chugged along in accordance with the rules. Mostly this has been D&D (every edition but OD&D, which I've not played), but it's not only been there.

I think what you are talking about here is the possibility of multiple intentions - and probably not all even related to this specific action.

 

[Manbearcat]

After writing my last I was pondering the same thing. I found it helpful to directly prompt for additional notions. The key is that the construct must explicate.

So as you say, one could have other creative purposes in mind. Leaning on my analogy of the sculptor and strokes of the chisel, one is still resolving scene against a creative purpose or ideal. Measuring performances towards that; and this has utility... it can, as you show, inform design and play.

Then we're still not resolving tasks for their own sake and I retain reservations about using one label for what are in fact distinct principles of resolution.

The question becomes:

"What work is the goal doing in play?" Specifically, how does the goal interact with (a) GM situation-framing, (b) player's decision-space and orientation to/coordination of their prospective lines of play (c) GM's job in building out a constellation of outcomes and fallout (both gamestate and attendant evolution of the imagined space), (d) GM's negotiating/winnowing that constellation of outcomes and telegraphing consequences to the player, (e) player declaring action, (f) and all of this getting filtered through system (procedures, GMing principles and techniques, widgets and various tech/ephemera).

For instance, action declarations around "consulting your accumulated knowledge" in 3.x D&D (Knowledge Skill Check) vs in Dungeon World (Spout Lore) are extremely different in all of ways (a) through (f) above.

On a miss in 3.x, the result is:

In other words, "a dead end."

On a miss in DW, the result is that the GM makes a move as hard as they like and the player marks xp. Making a move as hard as you like on a Spout Lore miss in DW should always be:

* Here is something interesting about your stipulation of thing x when you "consult your accumulated knowledge" (the 7-9 result)...but here is how its complicated/makes your life difficult...and that may be "if you pursue it" (in that game's parlance a Discovery + a Danger) or it may be you pointing at a Danger that is now looming and activated after this Discovery; a knowledge Sword of Damocles.

 

[Pedantic]

There's a question of scope though, right? At a high level glance, systems that emphasize conflict resolution tend to have much less granular actions than task resolution. Achieving a player intent is often expected to involve stringing several actions together in the latter case.

 

[Lanefan]

So this is the problem that Baker's thoughts on high-myth and conventional approaches to resolution, and Harper's bottom diagram point to. If the goal of a scene is X, but resolution of the scene doesn't concretely resolve for X/not-X, then you get open-ended scenes. Where's the endpoint? Who is that up to and what are their compelling/constraining rules or rubrics for deciding?

I've mentioned that you get the same thing with "unlucky or error-prone players" in conflict-resolution. A string of misses leaves the scene open unless - like 4e skill challenges - the game procedure also tracks misses to close the scene (not all do.) Strings of poorly chosen and contradictory goals can close a scene without that scene contributing anything to resolving the overall situation. At least, not in any satisfactory way. You can see the virtue of a system that takes heed of interstitial resolutions while advancing inexorably toward closure, and thus are born skill challenges (4e), clocks (BitD), journeys (ToR), momentum (L5R), progress tracks (Ironsworn), and etc.

I suppose my next question is what's wrong with open-ended scenes? For example, in the safe-cracking piece the scene isn't closed (or at least, not for me) when the papers are or aren't found, instead it's extended by the approaching footsteps and then by whatever that leads to, be it a combat or an escape scenario or the PCs hiding in place or whatever.

I suppose this could be looked at as scenes overlapping - the footsteps "scene" opens before the papers one fully closes - but to me that's just one long scene.

To use an analogy (and I'm famously terrible at analogies) think of task resolution as the chisel in the hands of a sculptor addressing a block of marble. Each good stroke of the chisel (successful performance) brings the sculpture further into definition. At some point, the sculptor sees that their creative purpose is achieved, and they put down the chisel.

So with task resolution, if the player character performance - succeed or fail - doesn't end the scene, then what will? 4e's approach is just to count successes and failures, and end the scene at the stipulated count. You can see why folk played it differently - some conflict resolution, some task resolution. It works either way. But the scene ends whether or not the fictional position at that point feels dramatically appropriate. Referring back to my analogy, we've given Michelangelo fifty chisel strokes - no more, no less - to create David....

This assumes that Michelangelo intended to create David all along. But what if he instead takes that chisel to the marble on a more improvisational basis, with no intent other than "let's see what this block of marble's got in it for me".

A better analogy here would be a band going into the studio: do they have a set of pre-written material they want to record, or is their plan to just make it up as they go along and hope for the best? (I've done both, and some of the best - and worst! - stuff comes from the latter approach)

Thus, another way is to care about setting and situation prep, and dramatic appropriateness. The right performances culminating in the right fictional-position.

Ah, here we might be diverging a bit.

I look at it more as [any] performances culminating in [a] fictional position. There's no real right or wrong, from a macro view (though the players might think differently in the moment!).

We talk about GM as author, sometimes without giving that characterisation any real meaning beyond "they get to decide things". But authors don't just decide things, they pursue a creative ideal. So with the sculptor, and so with the player character performances that together culminate in the right fictional-position.

In the end, it's more important to rehabilitate the construct than change the language. Resolving tasks for their own sake is absurd. Either they're resolved for the intents they express, or for the sake of their effect in shaping - sculpting - the fictional-position. Task resolution must be understood in a way that has explanatory power and utility to play.

Examples

High-myth + task-resolution (demonic papers are concealed in a Bible on the bookshelf)​

Player: "I crack open the safe in hopes of finding the demonic papers the mayor told us about. Jory, keep watch at the door."​

GM: "Ok." [invoke system's resolution method, to a either result] "Result: the safe's too tough to crack / you open the safe but find nothing in it... and [complication] Jory, you hear footsteps rapidly approaching the door!"​

Player: "Maybe that mayor ain't so honest as we thought he was - this is a trap!" (etc. etc. as the PCs try to escape)​

GM has a dramatically appropriate fictional-position in mind up-front, and character performances haven't reached it. It might be wondered, why should we care so much about what we had in mind up-front if something better emerges during play? On the other hand, what really is the motive for compromising if we don't find it satisfying? Play for enjoyment.

High-myth + conflict-resolution (demonic papers are concealed in a Bible on the bookshelf)​

Player: "I crack open the safe in hopes of finding the demonic papers the mayor told us about. Jory, keep watch at the door."​

GM: "Ok." [invoke system's resolution method, to a fail result] "Result: You crack open the safe [apparently successful performance] but find nothing in it [failed conflict]... and [complication] Jory, you hear footsteps rapidly approaching the door!"​

Player: "Maybe that mayor ain't so honest as we thought he was - this is a trap!" (etc. etc. as the PCs try to escape)​

​

The risks of conflict resolution are irrelevance of performance to result, and reaching. See Baker's comments on players wanting to go large with their goals, and talking them down. But what if a player says nope, it's sins absolved or nothing!?

High-myth + conflict-resolution (demonic papers are concealed in a Bible on the bookshelf)​

Player: "I crack open the safe in hopes of finding the demonic papers the mayor told us about. Jory, keep watch at the door."​

GM: "Ok." [invoke system's resolution method, to a success result] "Result: the safe's too tough to crack but as you are turning away you notice the spine of a bible sticking out a little further than other books on the shelf... the papers are tucked inside... and [complication] Jory, you hear footsteps rapidly approaching the door!"​

Player: "Maybe that mayor ain't so honest as we thought he was - this is a trap!" (etc. etc. as the PCs try to escape)​

​

Makes you wonder what the point of all that prep was, right? for conflict resolution. Would it really have mattered if GM had just narrated the papers being in the safe players were focusing on?

IMO yes it would, as that plays into bloodtide's (somewhat overblown) observations in the other thread of the GM too easily giving the players what they want.

Low-no-myth + task-resolution (players are hunting for demonic papers but GM hasn't prepped their location)​

Player: "I crack open the safe in hopes of finding the demonic papers the mayor told us about. Jory, keep watch at the door."​

GM: "Ok." [invoke system's resolution method, to a success result] "Result: You open the safe and the demonic papers are there, rustling and crackling even though there's no air movement... and [complication] Jory, you hear footsteps rapidly approaching the door!"​

Player: "Maybe that mayor ain't so honest as we thought he was - this is a trap!" (etc. etc. as the PCs try to escape)​

​

Low myth gives GM greater freedom because they haven't decided in advance that one perfect shape they care about. Maybe it'd be like carving sympathetically in knotted wood. A shape emerges, but rather than being the exact figure you had in mind in advance, it's the figure that was contained in the wood itself.

Makes sense, but for me this puts too much of a balancing act on the GM to not unduly obstruct the players and yet not give them everything on a silver platter; and while dice rolls can help with this they're not the full answer. It also puts a burden on the GM of keeping everything consistent, and while some may be good at this I know I am not.

Great breakdown, by the way, of how the different resolution frameworks function.

 

[pemerton]

Ive never seen a d&d GM not honor the players intent. The d&d player doesn’t intend to do things the rules won’t support, thus the d&d player never intends to go against hidden myth - hence why their intent is virtually always - ‘try instead of do’

This is what I was pointing at, upthread. On your account, there is no difference between playing DL or Dead Gods, and playing DitV.

Yet it's blindingly obvious that the difference is very big. And it consists in a range of things, including how stakes are established (in part in virtue of how prepped fiction is actively revealed in play) and how conflicts are resolved and how consequences of conflicts are established.

That difference is what is labelled by contrasting task resolution and conflict resolution.

And we can boil it down to a single example: in classic D&D play, there is nothing degenerate about an action declaration to listen at a door, or to search for a secret door, even though the GM knows there is nothing to be discovered by doing so. In DitV that is a degenerate situation: as I posted way upthread in response to @Crimson Longinus, it would be a sign that the GM has made some sort of error in their play of the game.

These differences in principles, procedures, technical modes of resolution - they are real things.

One other thing I’ve noticed, keeping the discussion in the abstract helps me much more than play examples from games I don’t know.

If you have no familiarity with any games that use conflict resolution, or that use closed scene resolution, then on what basis are you making confident assertions about how they do and don't play, and how the techniques that they use do or don't work?

And here's another example:

There's a question of scope though, right? At a high level glance, systems that emphasize conflict resolution tend to have much less granular actions than task resolution. Achieving a player intent is often expected to involve stringing several actions together in the latter case.

Let me post the following once again:

Whether you roll for each flash of the blade or only for the whole fight is a whole nother issue: scale, not task vs. conflict. This is sometimes confusing for people; you say "conflict resolution" and they think you mean "resolve the whole scene with one roll." No, actually you can conflict-resolve a single blow, or task-resolve the whole fight in one roll:

"I slash at his face, like ha!" "Why?" "To force him off-balance!"
Conflict Resolution: do you force him off-balance?
Roll: Loss!
"He ducks side to side, like fwip fwip! He keeps his feet and grins."

"I fight him!" "Why?" "To get past him to the ship before it sails!"
Task Resolution: do you win the fight (that is, do you fight him successfully)?
Roll: Success!
"You beat him! You disarm him and kick his butt!"
(Unresolved, left up to the GM: do you get to the ship before it sails?)

(Those examples show small-scale conflict resolution vs. large-scale task resolution.)​

The first example could easily be from Burning Wheel play.

it’s also worth reiterating that Baker himself called that saying no.

Not to the action declaration. Not to any bit of "what happens next". He is talking about how stakes are established before any actions are declared and resolved.

I am tired of with this obfuscating of what is actually happening, twisting of meaning of words and piling a ton of questionably related citations.

What you describe there is saying "no." It is "not really," but that is still form of saying no. Now the GM has good reasons for doing this and these may be different reasons than in some other game. But what is really happening here is the GM blocking the players original suggestion, and that by normal understanding of English language is obviously saying "no."

I have been responding to the idea of "saying 'no'" expressed in this post, by reference to declaring an action declaration a failure in virtue of hidden fiction:

I don't see how it is coherent to have both "GM's secret backstory exists" and "GM is not allowed to block player actions due secret backstory."

And any piece of "myth" that is not already revealed to the players is "GM's secret backstory."

@FrogReaver posted something similar here:

What prevents the players from interacting with a piece of unrevealed backstory in play before you have revealed it? If they can, then if they do how do you maintain that backstory while saying yes or rolling the dice?

Both of you were asking, in effect, how there can be secret backstory and yet conflict resolution.

And the answer I've given, is that the GM manages this in virtue of actively revealing their backstory in play. And part of that, as per the quote from DitV about the GM encouraging the players to de-escalate stakes, is by pacing.

That is not blocking an action declaration. It is scaling back what is at stake in it, as part of the discussion of framing.

I mean, you don't even seem to have asked yourself - how it is established in the first place that there is a safe to search? In DitV, there can only be a safe in the town if the GM declares as much. And so how the GM reveals the existence of that safe, is intimately connected to how it is then established, as a possible action declaration, that I look in the safe to find the title deeds.

What's one reason that the GM might declare that there is a safe in town? If the players have their PCs question a NPC, to get them to tell why it is that they are refusing to talk to the young innocent about the latter's inheritance. So what is at stake is, will the NPC reveal the truth about the inheritance? And if the GM (playing their NPC) loses that conflict, and if the GM has - in their prep - noted that the title deeds are in the safe, then the GM might have the NPC say The mayor keeps all them documents in his safe! I done seen him put them in there.

This would also be an illustration, of what I posted in the abstract above, that there is no conflict between prep/myth and conflict resolution, provided that no contradiction obtains between the prep, and the stakes the player puts into play in their action declaration.

It might be worthwhile to discuss these different ways and reasons for blocking the player's wish, but unless we can agree on the plain reality of it actually happening this is going nowhere.

I mean, think about it: how do you, and @FrogReaver, envisage the safe even becomes part of the fiction? You haven't posted about that. Neither has he. As far as I can tell, neither of you has even given it any thought.

Yet you make confident assertions about what must be possible, in a game in which the contents of the safe might be part of GM prep, and in which I look in the safe is a legitimate thing for a player to say in the play of their PC.

To close this thread, let me reiterate this: in classic D&D play, there is nothing degenerate about an action declaration to listen at a door, or to search for a secret door, even though the GM knows there is nothing to be discovered by doing so. In DitV that is a degenerate situation: it would be a sign that the GM has made some sort of error in their play of the game.

These differences in principles, procedures, technical modes of resolution - they are real things.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I think what you are talking about here is the possibility of multiple intentions - and probably not all even related to this specific action.

So, I mentioned players hiding intentions for action declarations and declaring actions algorithmically. For me, at my table, these would both be examples of dysfunctional play in most games. (I'd be inclined to be less bothered with them in more adversarial games, like if I were running old tournament modules or something similar.)

If a player makes an action declaration and hides their intention, what are we resolving in play? What's the situation? I wasn't driving at the possibility of multiple intentions, because, if the player's hiding their intention because they have two intentions (or, God help me, more) and haven't picked what they want out of their action declaration, we're all in the soup — the best case scenario is that I've framed things poorly, they just don't know what to do next, and we're going to muddle around for a bit until we can get back on track.

I actually think a player declaring actions algorithmically is even worse in most situations because there's an intentionality to it and a hostile undertone — the player has a clear endpoint they're aiming at, which I would argue is their intent, but we're going to resolve a series of tasks that solve that intent partially in order for the player to avoid bad/unexpected consequences? Tell me what you want, and we'll figure out how to resolve it fairly. Maybe it's multiple rolls, but maybe it's not. (Burning Wheel handles this sort of thing pretty elegantly with linked tests, though I think the consensus is that there's a danger of overusing them? At least I seem to recall advice to that end somewhere, either on their messageboards or in one of the books.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The more important implication is that they may execute on goals established by someone or means other than themselves.

Well, Narrativist play is not ONLY about, or necessarily substantively about, resolving issues originating with the character. Many games have premises that are external to any one character. BitD asks questions about the group and its relation to society, for instance (but also about character specific stuff). Other games may be almost entirely related to specific premises that are not established by the players. Monsterhearts is certainly a narrativist game, but the essential premise is baked into the game. Same with My Life With Master. I think it would be unlikely you would find a game of this sort, however, where the PC doesn't bring a lot to the table, there's always going to be a unique view of the premise of play that specifically arises out of how each character interacts with it. Even Stonetop has this sort of architecture.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've read these same debates many times over the years, in multiple forums. If one wants to salvage "task resolution" then a route sometimes pursued is to consider immediacy of action to goal. I've used the word "absurd" to describe at least one definition of task resolution offered in this thread, which is an accurate characterisation of what happens if one detaches player character performances from goals. Consider -

Player: "I climb the wall"​

GM: "Okay, roll for perfomance"​

Player: "nat-20!"​

GM: "That's some nice climbing"​

Player: "I'm at the top now, right?"​

GM: "Oh no, you've just done some really nice climbing. Top notch."​

Player: "So... I need to roll again?"​

GM: "No need, we've got your performance. Great climbing. Really good."​

​

It's absurd, and it's not necessary to have any construct in mind for task resolution in order to understand conflict resolution.

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

​

What this shows is that if you want to counterspell banishing for "task resolution" then you have some work to do. Players do not declare goaless actions. Go ahead and observe some actual play. Bring back examples of players declaring actions where their only motive is the performance of the action and not the effect they hoped it would have.

I can readily buy that what has been called "task resolution" is a form of drama resolution: GM considers not what players want, but how their characters act. Others have described the "puzzle" this produces: what act will lead to the desired effect? But I cannot buy that players declare intentionless performances.

I think there's more substance to this than you are asserting here. D&D 'task' resolution differs substantively from more narrativist 'intent' resolution. As I stated in my previous post, the differences may get blurred at times because we often use shortcuts and assumed context in play, eliding the specific actions in something like D&D, or likewise simply describing the fictional action taken in, say, BitD. So it can seem like they're 'the same thing', but they're not in the critical sense of WHAT IS THE THING IN DOUBT. In straight up D&D task play you throw dice to see if the action you described your character taking is, ATOMICALLY successful, that is if the blow you attempted to strike lands, if you were able to climb successfully (the unit of success here will vary depending on edition), etc. Canonically when a character in a D&D game is said to be taking a swing, and the dice indicate a miss, then the blow itself does not land, and cannot be described as landing. This is the heart of the hostility towards DOAM, because it is undermining the very nature of task-based resolution!

Contrariwise the thing which is in doubt in BitD isn't the success/fail resolution of the described fictional action, it is the accomplishment or non-accomplishment (or somewhere in-between/with caveats) of the thing in doubt, whatever the character wanted to get out of the situation. If I wanted to get across the courtyard without raising an alarm, I can simply say "I try to cross without raising an alarm." Now we will go on to discuss which ability I use, which will certainly suggest (and it will probably be explicated) some action and the discussion of position and effect will further refine that (along with any declarations of resource use, help, etc.). Finally, even after the dice have been rolled and consequences dolled out there are likely further elaborations in the process of resistance rolls and such. If, at the end of this, my character has reached the other side of the courtyard and the guards are not responding to an alarm, then I have succeeded, though it may be that there's now a clock ticking, etc.