RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[AbdulAlhazred]

Are they in any of the 1e D&D game books? If not, then the answer is and will be no. But I promise you that the strength and conviction of my opinions about those blog entries will be inversely proportionate to how little of them I have read.


Could you imagine a student writing this in a paper or even discussing this in a debate?

"I guess we have no idea what John Rawls thought about democratic societies because they're dead so we can only ask people who talk about Rawls."

Meanwhile you're just silently screaming on the inside, "Yes, we do know what he thought about this basic issue. Read the freaking books, essays, and lectures that were all provided for you in the syllabus and class materials!"

I'm quite sure John Rawls was alive and kicking when I studied him, lol.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This shows why what I called the "rawest" form of "task resolution". GM ignores even the immediate goal of "the safe is cracked" and just narrates the performance. I'm pretty sure no one thinks GMs really do this. Turning briefly to @Lanefan's proposed counter-case

Nope, because NOTHING WAS RESOLVED, in fact the dice were irrelevant here. This is not something that ever happens in ANY actual play of which I'm aware, except maybe in trivial non-conflict 3e-ish "I bake some cupcakes" sort of play, which I personally would dismiss as degenerate in the sense that it falls outside of any need for system whatsoever.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But if the location of the bag of chips was predetermined you necessarily couldn't do that. It still seems to me that the wiggle room relies on a lot of things being undetermined so that the GM has leeway to create new fiction to conform to the player goals.

Meh, in my experience there's no such thing as an environment so completely specified that its impossible to logically advance the character's progress in terms of their intent when success is indicated. I mean, sure, you can't roleplay in Chess, if nothing else the environment of the chess board is simply too barren, and yet completely specified, to provide any meaningful fictional position beyond 'you kill the black knight'. NO actual RPG has this characteristic, though some games that are only marginally RPGs, like Car Wars and Wizard, or Dungeon! may come close to this (but then in most cases you can simply follow the mechanics and the game works, which true RPGs don't always allow).

When I first brought this up I said the following:



To me it seems my latter paragraph effectively describes the same thing than yours here. Yet it got rejected as not proper in conflict resolution game, because we are not saying yes or rolling the dice.

Well, you're describing a case where the intent fails, and I'm describing a case where the action fails, but NOT the intent. I think they're different...

 

[FrogReaver]

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.)

Yes, and I said there are multiple intentions - so even if they are hiding one, they aren't hiding all.

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.

Same again - Multiple intentions cares for this.

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,

Sure. That's an intent. One of their many.

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?

Depending on the game/playstyle that might very well be embraced and expected play.

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.

That's one way to do it. Certainly not the only.

 

[FrogReaver]

Nope, because NOTHING WAS RESOLVED

The quality of the performance was.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think there's more substance to this than you are asserting here. D&D 'task' resolution differs substantively from more narrativist 'intent' resolution.

I agree the way D&D resolves actions is substantively different than more narrative systems. What's being addressed isn't whether there is a difference, it's where precisely that difference lies.

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.

Also known as different intents! - what you are describing is two games that constrain player intentions differently! There is very much a difference there - no doubt! But it's not about one game being based on player intent and the other not (intentionless play is absurd!) - it's about what intents each game allows the player to declare.

 

[FrogReaver]

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.

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

I don't understand the continued insistence that I am saying everything is the same when I have repeatedly stated that is not the case. Let me say it one more time just so it's really clear. I acknowledge differences - real, meaningful, substantive differences! I'm not hiding my intentions here. I'm not going along to argue later that there are no differences. However, what precisely the real, meaningful, substantive differences are - the details there are very much in dispute.

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 don't understand what repeating the same example to me when I've already explicitly addressed it is going to accomplish. Do you want my to go copy and paste my previous answer to it? Like, what kind of response do you hope doing that will illicit me to provide you? If you can tell me, I'll be happy to oblige.

And just a curiosity, but currently, why are approx 75% of your posts just a copy and paste from previous posts you've made?

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Yes, and I said there are multiple intentions - so even if they are hiding one, they aren't hiding all.

No, you said, "I think what you're talking about is multiple intentions." I assure you — I was not.

Sure. That's an intent. One of their many.

What I'm trying to say is that (in my opinion and experience) multiple intentions (in some combination of stated and unstated) for one declared action leads to muddled and unsatisfying play.

Depending on the game/playstyle that might very well be embraced and expected play.

Right, which is why I made my parenthetical comment at the beginning of my post: "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." Of course there are playstyles where this might be embraced or expected. I'm not even opposed to them. Upon additional consideration, I'm not even sure that I'd call all of them adversarial.

That's one way to do it. Certainly not the only.

Sure, that's why I said "at my table" — I'm not saying that my way's the only way.

 

[FrogReaver]

Right, which is why I made my parenthetical comment at the beginning of my post: "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." Of course there are playstyles where this might be embraced or expected. I'm not even opposed to them. I'm not even sure that I'd call all of them adversarial.



Sure, that's why I said "at my table" — I'm not saying that my way's the only way.

Sorry, it kind of sounded like you were saying your way was the 'better one'. Glad to see I was wrong.

No, you said, "I think what you're talking about is multiple intentions." I assure you — I was not.

Then I think you are mistaken, but let's walk through the logic.
Your original post talked about a player hiding intentions. How does a player hide intentions? He can't provide no intention. He has to provide you with an alternate one of his intentions! That's how he hides an intention. Thus, it is about multiple intentions.

If you still disagree, maybe you can explain where i'm going wrong with this assessment.

What I'm trying to say is that (in my opinion and experience) multiple intentions (in some combination of stated and unstated) for one declared action leads to muddled and unsatisfying play.

IMO. English language isn't structured precisely enough to generally convey a single intention - at best the desired intention is ambiguous.

'I want to look in the car to find my lost phone.' Is my intent to look in the car, to find my lost phone, or to look in the car to find my lost phone? One sentence, at least 3 possible intents!

Thus, i don't think it's possible to get away from multiple intentions ever. Which is why I don't agree with your assessment here.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

'I want to look in the car to find my lost phone.' Is my intent to look in the car, to find my lost phone, or to look in the car to find my lost phone? One sentence, at least 3 possible intents!

Thus, i don't think it's possible to get away from multiple intentions ever. Which is why I don't agree with your assessment here.

This is our point of departure, I think. I don't agree that this is ambiguous. Finding my lost phone is the intent — it's what you want to have happen. Looking in the car is a task. It's how you want to achieve your intent. There are other ways you could go about finding your lost phone; you don't have to look in the car. You could steal a passerby's phone so you could call your own phone.

To be clear, this is not my construction. It's Luke Crane's. In Burning Wheel Gold: Hub and Spokes (p 25), here's what he says about tasks versus intents:

A task is a measurable, finite and quantifiable act performed by a character: attacking someone with a sword, studying a scroll or resting in an abbey. A task describes how you accomplish your intent. What does your character do? A task should be easily linked to an ability: the Sword skill, the Research skill or the Health attribute.

Inappropriate tasks are: “I kill him!” or “I convince him.” Those are intents. After such pronouncements, the first question any Burning Wheel player asks should be: How? By what means? The answer, “I stab him with my knife,” is an appropriate task description for a murderous character. “I persuade him to take my side by explaining his wife’s affair with the cardinal.” is appropriate in the second case.

So, to get back to your other question, how does a player hide her intention? It's straightforward: they declare a task without saying what they want to have happen if they succeed. It could be that what they want is obvious, in which case we can elide that part: in D&D, I don't ask for intents in combat (generally). The game (generally) takes care of that. But it's not always obvious, and I've played with people who sit on it like their ideas are solid gold.