Generative resolution

[thefutilist]

I was just rereading Vincent Baker on character sheets and currency: anyway: Things on Character Sheets (2)

In the constable example, there is a currency relationship between position and effectiveness: when you make a Resources test (which is about your character's effectiveness at acquiring stuff in town), you put (what we could call) your town position at stake.

It's mediated by the GM, who does have the power, on a failure, to give you what you want but at the cost of a condition (which, when it comes to Resources, can include a direct hit on effectiveness by taxing Resources). But equally the GM can give a twist - a complicating or worsening of your town position.

This is why I keep coming back to the idea of the implicit.

Consider this example, from Harper:

She stares at you coldly. 'Leave me alone,' she says. What do you do? . . .​

​

'Don't come back here again.' She slams the door in your face and you hear the locks click home.​

Implicit in a cold stare, and a request to be left alone, is the slamming of a door in one's fact.

Similarly, implicit in permitting a cinder imp to escape and burn down the Hedge Witch's place, is being hassled by the town authorities. The fictional causation in this second example is different - it's not internal to a person who's already in the scene. But it is internal to a social structure - a town - that is already in the scene (and towns in Torchbearer do have an orientation towards the PCs, namely, of suspicion tending towards hostility).

@thefutilist, what am I missing here?

I went and thought about it for a bit, especially in the context of more low-myth systems, and there were complicating factors (I don’t appreciate the irony).

If we take very bare bones conflict resolution it works as follows:

One: Triggers when an ACTION in attempted in the fiction that is OPPOSED by another character’s ACTION in the fiction.

Two: Has explicit stakes due to the above.. The ACTIONS of one force win out. ACTIONS can get fuzzy but it’s the same (more or less) as the task, tactics, involved.

Three: Any generation must predominantly be done before the roll. This gets very fuzzy but at the least ‘something’ must exist that allows the conflict mechanism to trigger. Even if that’s a social network and even if it’s decided right there and then that this ‘character’ is implicit in the scene.

So let’s take a haggling scenario. I’m a broke rockstar who has just turned up to L.A with $3 in my pocket. There is a vendor who is selling hotdogs for $8. I haggle with him to bring the price down. I am opposed by his self-interest (let’s say). The roll determines whether the haggling or self-interest wins out. The ACTION RESOLUTION causes a positional change (or not).

Let’s take a counter example.

I’m a broke rockstar trying to open the safe of a pharmacist, by picking the lock, to get to the medications inside. If my roll means I pick the lock anyway but it then determines what is inside, say on a failure there’s nothing there but aspirin, it’s a different kind of resolution than the first kind. Specifically because picking the lock, the ACTION, is orthogonal to the resolution.

I suspect that distinction makes sense to both of us but I want to check before getting into some PbtA stuff and what Harper is saying. I want to put Torchbearer aside for the time being. I think it does some fascinating stuff but I don’t want to muddy the waters.

 

[pemerton]

I suspect that distinction makes sense to both of us but I want to check before getting into some PbtA stuff and what Harper is saying.

I'm waiting for the next post!

 

[thefutilist]

I'm waiting for the next post!

So talking specifically about Apocalypse World as I would run it. The problem with John’s explanation is that the set up and follow through aren’t ‘necessarily’ the connected parts. The connected part is the conflict trigger, which a lot of the time will be activated on the PC side. When you do X then roll.


In the examples John gives, he’s both (1) not giving us a lot of context to determine position (2) coming in so hot he’s almost framing things like a saving throw.

You sneak into the garage but there's Plover right there, about to notice you any second now. What do you do?

Let’s say I point a gun at him and press my finger to my lips. I’m going aggro. Then yeah the miss could well be he just starts shouting “intruder” because the implication of the go aggro is that I want him to shut up. There are oppositional forces at play that come into play in response to what I want.

If he sees me and I decide to seduce/manipulate, then depending on what I say, on a miss he might not be shouting “intruder” at all. The action I take is what gives the miss context.



If I want to get into the garage without being seen then we ask if there is anyone would could see me. Yeah maybe, so that’s the fire.

10: I get in unseen

7-9: Plover is right there about to notice you any second now. What do you do?

Miss: Plover sees you in the act of sneaking


Both the 7-9 and the miss are failures of me sneaking V Plovers perception.

So the miss in this case just determines that you’re seen. It’s the subsequent narration, where the MC makes their move. Which could very well be, Plover starts screaming “intruder”. Now I’d probably pre-commit to him shouting ‘intruder’ before the roll because that’s what dice are for. Which does make me seem pedantic but I think the distinction (between the fact of of who wins and the narration) can matter more or less depending on circumstance, so it is worth noting. Especially if you’re playing a game where the narration can be given to either player or GM, or is up in the air about it.

 

[Fenris-77]

Part of the deal here is what I'll call proffers. The player says I want to do X with the intent of Y. The GM responds with some framing and possible consequences. There's a moment there where the player gets the chance to reframe his declaration based on feedback. The initial declaration is the proffer, about which the conversation allows some negotiation. So we don't need to proceed from awkward examples, since the conversation should allow for change and mitigation before things move to adjudication. I think that deciding how to respond to a player proffer is a key GM skill for this kind of game. It needs to suggest possible difficulties and outcomes as well as at least gesturing in the direction of alternatives if the GM wants to highlight some specific negative outcomes.

 

[zakael19]

It's interesting watching Harper slowly work out how he's going to frame BITD via posts like the one you're referencing here.

[1]This reminds me of another rant I need to write about: How so many gamers create characters that are crazy risk-takers at heart (dungeon raiders, say) and then play them like timid, risk-averse, weenies. Ugh.

cf. BITD's Player Principles.

Both the 7-9 and the miss are failures of me sneaking V Plovers perception.

So the miss in this case just determines that you’re seen. It’s the subsequent narration, where the MC makes their move. Which could very well be, Plover starts screaming “intruder”. Now I’d probably pre-commit to him shouting ‘intruder’ before the roll because that’s what dice are for. Which does make me seem pedantic but I think the distinction (between the fact of of who wins and the narration) can matter more or less depending on circumstance, so it is worth noting. Especially if you’re playing a game where the narration can be given to either player or GM, or is up in the air about it.

The miss is supposed to be not getting your intent, whatever that is, yeah? If you wanted to get in unnoticed, well you don't. If you wanted to get the drop on Plover, you can't. If you're establishing the risk to the level of "you can get in, but you risk Plover seeing you and screaming a warning" then you've arrived all the way at Harper's Threat Roll circa 2024!

 

[thefutilist]

The miss is supposed to be not getting your intent, whatever that is, yeah? If you wanted to get in unnoticed, well you don't. If you wanted to get the drop on Plover, you can't. If you're establishing the risk to the level of "you can get in, but you risk Plover seeing you and screaming a warning" then you've arrived all the way at Harper's Threat Roll circa 2024!

I would frame it as avoiding the negative consequence (the fire) rather than not getting your intent. Unless your intent is exactly the same as avoiding the negative consequence. The issue is that sometimes getting into the garage and not getting seen are orthogonal.

Say there are two threats in play. Then on a 10 you avoid both, on a 7-9 you avoid one, on a miss you get hit with both.

 

[Fenris-77]

I would frame it as avoiding the negative consequence (the fire) rather than not getting your intent. Unless your intent is exactly the same as avoiding the negative consequence. The issue is that sometimes getting into the garage and not getting seen are orthogonal.

Say there are two threats in play. Then on a 10 you avoid both, on a 7-9 you avoid one, on a miss you get hit with both.

This is an issue once players start framing actions in terms of multiple goals. It gets a lot harder to adjudicate. Action declarations should mostly be about the action being declared, framing them with direct reference to the clocks/threats in play is not quite how things are supposed to work on the declaration side. As a GM I'd usually only reference one threat at a time in the conversation about an action, and I'd usually suggest the player decide more concretely what they want to do if they are trying to do more than one thing at a time. What I frame as consequences need to be pretty specific in order for the player to make an informed decision about going ahead.

 

[thefutilist]

This is an issue once players start framing actions in terms of multiple goals. It gets a lot harder to adjudicate. Action declarations should mostly be about the action being declared, framing them with direct reference to the clocks/threats in play is not quite how things are supposed to work on the declaration side. As a GM I'd usually only reference one threat at a time in the conversation about an action, and I'd usually suggest the player decide more concretely what they want to do if they are trying to do more than one thing at a time. What I frame as consequences need to be pretty specific in order for the player to make an informed decision about going ahead.

I’m the exact opposite. The reason to play Apocalypse World is because you can use multiple threats (within a conflict arena).

To give a concrete example. I want to climb the mountain but the mountain wants to kill me.

Then the outcomes are:

I climb and live

I climb and die

I don’t climb and die

I don’t climb and live



This is basic orthogonal resolution but we get a choice baked in.

10: You climb and live

7-9: You’re freezing and tired, you can press on but the climb will kill you (climb and die)

OR

Back out (don’t climb and live)

Miss: You don’t climb and also die


Some of the arena specific moves follow a very similar pattern to the one above, On a hit choose 3, on a 7-9 choose 2, on a miss choose 1.

 

[Fenris-77]

I’m the exact opposite. The reason to play Apocalypse World is because you can use multiple threats (within a conflict arena).

To give a concrete example. I want to climb the mountain but the mountain wants to kill me.

Then the outcomes are:

I climb and live

I climb and die

I don’t climb and die

I don’t climb and live



This is basic orthogonal resolution but we get a choice baked in.

10: You climb and live

7-9: You’re freezing and tired, you can press on but the climb will kill you (climb and die)

OR

Back out (don’t climb and live)

Miss: You don’t climb and also die


Some of the arena specific moves follow a very similar pattern to the one above, On a hit choose 3, on a 7-9 choose 2, on a miss choose 1.

None of this really captures specific action declarations by the player. My concern here is that is that the basic declaration - climb a mountain, isn't actually one that a player in any PbtA game would ever make. You might climb a wall, but a mountain climb is a whole series of things, not a single action. If you reduce the zoom to specific actions, like climbing a specific cliff face, things get more manageable.

There's another problem with the example, which is your move from 'the mountain wants to kill me' (which is actually really cool) to your positing death as an outcome for the action roll. That's also not how PbtA game actions and adjudication work. If I put death on the table as part of adjudication it's usually a signal to the players that they need to adjust their action declaration. Even if the situation was dire, my consequence is never going to be 'you die' but at worst perhaps, 'you fall' which is still something that can be adjusted based on specific die rolls and the actions of other players. That might well mean death depending on outcomes, but if we want to analyze how this all works we need to be using examples that actually match game play.