Generative resolution

[pemerton]

A little while ago @thefutilist posted this:

Think of a scene as a chunk of stuff with entities in it. The entities can be people or even things, like a cliff face, numerous winding corridors, like discrete bits of fiction.

So we set a scene up. Does the resolution method create new entities or does it just change the status of already established entities? (By change status, I mean does entity A do something to entity B that causes the change. Like hit them with a sword or marry them.)

The former is what's often called fail forward. Although it's a naff phrase really because it doesn't always mean that.

I prefer the terms, generative resolution V positioning resolution or something along those lines.

The actual line can be far more blurry than it first appears but I think there is a line.

I agree that the term "fail forward" isn't really the best here, because not all fail forward involves generative resolution. Suppose, for instance, that it's already established that a particular NPC is part of the situation: then a "fail forward" narration that has that NPC pipping a PC to the post won't be generative. But some "fail forward" involves generative resolution.

Here's an example from Torchbearer 2e play, that shows both possibilities:

Golin used his 2nd level Outcast ability to haggle for free. The test failed, but the Failed Haggling Events roll didn't hurt him. He also bought some candles and food, but had some trouble with other purchases. He failed an attempt to buy rope, and I introduced a twist - a constable of the Tower, who wanted to learn more about Golin's involvement in an explosion at the hedge wizard's establishment, and its subsequent burning down. Golin decided to turn the gathered crowd against the constable and in his favour - opposed Oratory tests! Fea-bella helped with her Manipulator ("He's an innocent Dwarf, just trying to buy some rope!" called a heckler from the crowd), and Golin succeeded. So the constable backed off, but not without giving a look to the rope vendor that made it clear no rope was to be vended (ie the failed Resources test was to stand).

Golin then decided to buy a small shovel (pack 1 compared to the standard pack 2) - I asked whether he wanted wooden (Ob 1) or metal (Ob 2) and his player replied "Wooden, of course!" - it can also be used as fuel if necessary. But the three dice (Resources back up to 2 by this stage, plus +1D from a stimulated economy) yielded not a single success, and who should Golin see coming towards him once again but the constable! I told him to note down his new enemy, and that the town phase was now done.

Introducing the constable is generative: when the situation is initially established, their is the PC Golin trying to acquire rope from a vendor of rope; and then, when the roll fails, the GM (that is, me) introduces a new element into the scene to explain why the PC can't purchase the rope that he is after.

The second time the constable turns up, though, is not generative. The presence of a constable who doesn't like Golin has now been established as a feature of the situation in town, and so narrating a failure as the constable chasing Golin out of town is "positional" - an already-established element of the situation (the constable) acting on an already-established element of the situation (Golin) to change the latter's status (driven out of town).

When this episode happened, I had (as best I recall) already written up some notes for important NPCs in the town: the wizard Burne and the warrior Rufus (both taken from dungeon module T1 The Village of Hommlet). And in a much more recent session, I identified Rufus as the constable who had harassed Golin. But this "retcon" doesn't change the fact that the resolution of the first failure was generative. A note in my prep, which down the track I apply/re-purpose, doesn't change the fact that - as the situation was framed at the table - there was no constable in it.

I also think this example shows how the line can be blurry. After all, a town probably has a constable, and so implicit in any situation of doing things in town, is the possibility that a constable might approach you to ask questions. (And the constable was correct to suspect that Golin had some connection to the explosion and fire at the Hedge Wizard's place, and Golin's player knew this at the time.) And so it's hardly the case that the constable comes from nowhere!

Compare this example, from a John Harper blog:

I've seen people struggle with hard moves in the moment. Like, when the dice miss, the MC stares at it like, "Crap! Now I have to invent something! Better make it dangerous and cool! Uh... some ninja... drop out of the ceiling... with poison knives! Grah!"​

That's generative resolution that does come out of nowhere.

When is generative resolution so implicit in the situation that it really should be considered "positional"? Post your answers in this thread!

 

[thefutilist]

A little while ago @thefutilist posted this:
I agree that the term "fail forward" isn't really the best here, because not all fail forward involves generative resolution. Suppose, for instance, that it's already established that a particular NPC is part of the situation: then a "fail forward" narration that has that NPC pipping a PC to the post won't be generative. But some "fail forward" involves generative resolution.

Here's an example from Torchbearer 2e play, that shows both possibilities:
Introducing the constable is generative: when the situation is initially established, their is the PC Golin trying to acquire rope from a vendor of rope; and then, when the roll fails, the GM (that is, me) introduces a new element into the scene to explain why the PC can't purchase the rope that he is after.

The second time the constable turns up, though, is not generative. The presence of a constable who doesn't like Golin has now been established as a feature of the situation in town, and so narrating a failure as the constable chasing Golin out of town is "positional" - an already-established element of the situation (the constable) acting on an already-established element of the situation (Golin) to change the latter's status (driven out of town).

When this episode happened, I had (as best I recall) already written up some notes for important NPCs in the town: the wizard Burne and the warrior Rufus (both taken from dungeon module T1 The Village of Hommlet). And in a much more recent session, I identified Rufus as the constable who had harassed Golin. But this "retcon" doesn't change the fact that the resolution of the first failure was generative. A note in my prep, which down the track I apply/re-purpose, doesn't change the fact that - as the situation was framed at the table - there was no constable in it.

I also think this example shows how the line can be blurry. After all, a town probably has a constable, and so implicit in any situation of doing things in town, is the possibility that a constable might approach you to ask questions. (And the constable was correct to suspect that Golin had some connection to the explosion and fire at the Hedge Wizard's place, and Golin's player knew this at the time.) And so it's hardly the case that the constable comes from nowhere!

Compare this example, from a John Harper blog:

I've seen people struggle with hard moves in the moment. Like, when the dice miss, the MC stares at it like, "Crap! Now I have to invent something! Better make it dangerous and cool! Uh... some ninja... drop out of the ceiling... with poison knives! Grah!"​

That's generative resolution that does come out of nowhere.

When is generative resolution so implicit in the situation that it really should be considered "positional"? Post your answers in this thread!

I want to rewind a bit. My issues with generative resolution are:

One: Structural. How the generation of content relates to the trajectory of the game as a whole.

Two: Aesthetic. What does the resolution mean in the fiction and how do we read it on the level of meaning and human value.

Three: Technical. Clarity around what’s going on as a procedure.



Johns blog on PbtA moves misses the point because he mixes different stuff together (three). Specifically, if what follows meets the group standards of ‘seems real’ with stakes. Furthermore John uses an example of bad play, the Ninjas, where as I would consider generative resolution bad even if it met group plausibility standards.

Although your specific framing of when implicit situation becomes positioning is a challenge to my view, if such a thing is possible then does my demarcation make any sense? I’m going to argue that it does (in PbtA anyway).

Torch bearer, and the Golin example you use, are a bit trickier for me because it shows how system specific content generation is. In the case of Torcbearer, what is the trigger for the roll? By which I mean, someone has to decide it is time to roll, how do they do so?

I’m betting that the more concrete the trigger, the less generative resolution occurs, we know what the failure state is going to be because it’s implicit in the roll.

Or if we flip the whole thing about and look at Golin attempts to buy within the framing of Apocalypse World.

The MC has to say, ok act under fire and the fire is that the constable will see you.

So the constable is there whichever way the dice go. Although the constables sudden invention is still subject to the ‘seems real’ standards.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think that what counts as generative depends to some extent on resolution. So the introduction of the constable is certainly generative in the first example, but I'd probably call the second generative as well because the constable isn't part of established situation involving the purchase of the shovel - he's introduced to the situation. That said, I do think that the two examples are different to some degree for the reasons you mention, specifically that in the second case the presence of the constable in the setting has already been established, but his presence in the situation at hand had not.

I think the difference there has a lot to do with how the constable 'feels' to the players as appropriate. Here's I'm speaking more generally about generative resolution. The first instance is the really tricky one because there's a lot of verisimilitude riding on it, while there's is far less at stake in that regard in the second instance.

In the case of Blades in the Dark, I'd probably start with the faction and PC relationships (to decide who's the most likely to be sticking their oar in) plus events and characters from recent play (because recent setting elements are, I think, easier to swallow than ones dredged up from months ago). That, combined with the current setting state and moving parts is a lot of possible triangulation.

 

[Fenris-77]

I would also like to state that I support any and all adjudication that involves ninjas.

 

[A_Carrington]

It's not really clear to me what the distinction is. Everything in a game is generated. Does it matter how long ago it was generated? Are there any games where the GM is expected to have already created every living thing in the world at the start of the game? Even just writing down a single unique symbol the size of an English letter for each mammal (ignoring all other living things) would require around 50 million pages. Imagine getting that as your lore dump in the first session.

Regarding the ninjas, I can understand how this could be undesirable since we assume the players would have at least had a chance to detect them at some point. So in that sense, they're probably not appropriate for an instant generation. Generally, as long as the generation follows logically from circumstances and doesn't violate game rules, I don't see why it should matter if a thing is generated immediately, five minutes ago, or last week.

 

[zakael19]

When I think of "generative resolution" a la Harper's blog, I'm thinking of making a Hard Move on a Miss that adds something to teh scene I think? Like in stonetop the other week, we'd established there were undead lurking around the Ruined Tower. A couple PCs were out foraging and found a tunnel, they went down it and tried to do something and got a Miss. I introduced one of my Dangers, and told them the dim sunlight into the tunnel was occluded by a figure - one of those undead scenting around fresh meat.

Is that what we mean?

 

[thefutilist]

When I think of "generative resolution" a la Harper's blog, I'm thinking of making a Hard Move on a Miss that adds something to teh scene I think? Like in stonetop the other week, we'd established there were undead lurking around the Ruined Tower. A couple PCs were out foraging and found a tunnel, they went down it and tried to do something and got a Miss. I introduced one of my Dangers, and told them the dim sunlight into the tunnel was occluded by a figure - one of those undead scenting around fresh meat.

Is that what we mean?

Yes but let me break it down further.

If making a move on a miss means introducing a problem we could, very broadly, put the generation into a few different tiers.

Ninja’s attack (This breaks plausibility, seems naff and probably doesn’t have anything to do with anything)


What if it’s established that Ninja’s are pursuing the character (well then we’re drawing from the broader material and we were constrained by what we add. This adds plausibility but plausibility isn’t the issue we’re discussing. It’s the use of pre-established material and how that gives constraints to what’s added)

The ninja’s are established to be in the area when the scene is described. Either they’re there in the GM prep unknown to the players or the GM might state, your character doesn’t know this but there are Ninjas about. Or maybe the characters do know there are ninjas in the scene. Either way they’re established to be in the area as a fixed fact.

My contention is that all of those are forms of generative resolution although it gets muddier as we move down the tier list. @pemerton is asking at what point the established facts cross over from generative resolution to positional resolution. Which is an interesting topic but I’m not sure they ever cross over. To be determined.


My claim is that for resolution to be positional, the positioning itself must be the conflict trigger. The easiest way to frame this is just that the stakes are discussed before the roll. Although if we’re getting really technical then it’s about established positioning before we even get to stakes (although it gets really fuzzy).

So you’re trying to be quiet and the Ninjas are trying to find you. You need to open the loud tomb or whatever. Can you do it quietly enough so that the Ninja’s don’t hear and are alerted to your presence? We know the set up, the stakes are obvious, let’s roll.

 

[zakael19]

My claim is that for resolution to be positional, the positioning itself must be the conflict trigger. The easiest way to frame this is just that the stakes are discussed before the roll. Although if we’re getting really technical then it’s about established positioning before we even get to stakes (although it gets really fuzzy).

So you’re trying to be quiet and the Ninjas are trying to find you. You need to open the loud tomb or whatever. Can you do it quietly enough so that the Ninja’s don’t hear and are alerted to your presence? We know the set up, the stakes are obvious, let’s roll.

yeah, that's literally how the Threat Roll works. Like, the last bit? Exactly the sort of rolls we make. "So you'll get into the tomb, but the threat is that the ninjas will hear you and come searching. How do you avoid that?"

"Oh! Don't worry about it Richard, I'll Cover you here by putting some noisemakers on a timer. They'll be too busy investigating that to hear us slip in." "Cool, sounds like Tinkering, yeah? Roll it!"

 

[pemerton]

@thefutilist That most recent post sets things out very clearly.

I'm trying to think about some of my play through that lens. I think that my Prince Valiant play has little (off the top of my head, none - but that probably isn't right) generative resolution. Generally the conflict, if there is any, is between the PC(s) and NPC(s) already present in the scene, whose motivations are established as part of the scenario write-up.

Here's an example where the NPCs were present, but their motivations/context were left a bit hazy in the write-up; and were solidified a bit in play, but via the players rather than the GM:

The PCs and their warband continued their crossing south-east - and (as I narrated it) found themselves on the edge of a heavy forest somewhere in the vicinity of Dacia (=, in our approximating geography, somewhere in the general area of modern-day Transylvania - I haven't checked yet to see how butchering of the map this is).

I asked the PCs who would be with the four of them if they were scouting ahead to verify whether the band could pass safely through the forest, and they nominated their two NPC hunters - Algol the Bloodthirsty who is in service to Sir Morgath, and Rhan, the woman who had joined them at the end of the last session I posted about.

I was using the Rattling Forest scenario from the Episode Book, and described the "deep and clawing shadows [that[ stretch across the path, and the wind [that] rattles through the trees." The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging from his shoulders, and six men wielding swords and shields, their clothes equally tattered. The scenario description also mentions that they have "broken trinkets and personal effects" and I described rings and collars that were worn, notched and (in some cases) broken. The description of the collars was taken by the players as a sign that these were Celts (wearing torcs), and I ran with that.

The scenario gives the following account of the Bone Laird and his Bone Knights:

The Rattling Forest is haunted and cursed, as the soldiers who died in the service of a forgotten lord restlessly roam its boughs. All who would travel through the Forest must deal with the Bone Laird and his Bone Knights.

There are two ways to remove the curse from The Bone Laird: by defeating him in a combat to the death; or if the Adventurers can convince him to leave his sword in the forest and travel away with them. In either case, the curse will be broken, laying the Bone Laird and all his Bone Knights to rest, as they forsake their eternal battle. . . .

The Bone Laird demands all who would traverse his forest first free him of the curse. If questioned, he does not know how such can be accomplished. . . .

If the Adventurers can bring the Bone Laird low . . . they will have done a great and good deed. Instead of defeating the Bone Laird in combat, they may convince him to leave his sword and the forest and break the curse. This is not an easy matter as the Bone Laird does not want to be tricked away from the forest. Still, here are the kinds of arguments the Adventurers can make to convince him:

*Convince him the answer to his curse is with Merlin and he should visit the wizard.

* Tell him he just needs to visit the Healing Waters found at the mouth of the river Glein.

* He must visit the seat of his former lord and receive forgiveness from its current occupant.​

Sir Justin was the first to speak, in (Old) English, and asked the black knight to let him pass. But the Bone Laird (being an ancient Celt) could not understand. I then had the Bone Laird address the PCs, telling him that they may not pass him and his men: his geas was to kill all who tried to go through the forest. Because he was speaking an ancient form of Celtish - not the British the PCs are fluent in - a roll was called for on Presence + Lore. Sir Morgath and Twillany succeeded. The ensuing back-and-forth established that the Bone Laird could not recall the origin of his geas; but Twillany tried to persuade him that he should lay down his burdens and let these good Celtic folk pass. I set the difficulty at (I think) 4, with 3 successes getting some of the way there (partial success is not an official thing in Prince Valiant, but is a device I've been using a bit). Three successes were rolled, and so the Bone Laird agreed to let the women - whom it would be dishonourable to fight and kill - pass. So Twillany (whose gender is indeterminate and whose sex is not known to anyone either in the fiction or at the table except her(?)self and perhaps the player) and Rhan were able to pass.

The players, and at least some of the PCs, had decided that there must be something in the forest that would be the anchor or locus of the curse, and Twillany's player spend the earlier-awarded Storyteller Certificate to Find Something Hidden ("An item which is lost, hidden, or otherwise concealed is discovered almost by accident by a character. The thing must be relatively close at hand, and the character must be searching for it at the moment.").

The published scenario doesn't say anything about this, so I had to make something up: as Twilland and Rhan were riding along the path deeper into the forest, Twillany's horse almost stumbled on something unexpected underfoot. Inspection revealed it to be a great tree stump that had been cut close to the ground, levelled and smoothed, and engraved with a sigil very like one that Twillany had noticed on the Bone Laird's cloak as the two women had ridden past him. It seemed to be a mysteriously preserved wooden dais of an ancient house or stronghold - and looking about it there were still visible signs of posts and postholes of a steading wall.

There is no player-side magic in Prince Valiant - as per the rulebook, "there is no magical skill available in the Adventurer creation process. This ensures that only you, the Storyteller, have access to effective magic in the game, should you want it." When Twillany's player declared that Twillany was trying to make sense of the dais and its sigil, I called for a Lore + Presence check, which succeeded. I narrated the images Twillany experienced, of a happy place in the forest welcoming and full of life, that had then been overrun by and suffered the depredations of Goth and Roman and Hun, with the upshot being sorrow and desolation.

The resolution here was unfolding fairly quickly, and I can't remember all the details. At one point there was a Poetry/Song check as Twillany recited a piece of appropriate verse (which Twillany's player was making up for the purpose). But the upshot was that Twillany's player decided that the curse couldn't be lifted simply by working on the dais - the Bone Laird would have to be brought back there to confront it (this was therefore our version of "He must visit the seat of his former lord and receive forgiveness from its current occupant").

Twillany and Rhan therefore returned to where they had left the Bone Laird, his warriors and the other PCs. But (as I stipulated) before they could get back matters there had to be resolved.

Sir Justin had the idea of converting these ancient Celtic ghosts to Christianity and the reverence of St Sigobert - "a Celtic saint" as he emphasised several times - and he also thought that their bones could be put in the reliquary that had been made for martyrs of the order a few sessions ago. Sir Morgath dispatched Algol to bring the reliquary back from the main body of the PC's band, while Sir Justin drew his blessed silver dagger of St Sigobert to begin the attempt. Unfortunately his roll was a bust, and the Bone Laird interpreted this as a threat and so attacked him. The resulting combat was brutal for Sir Justin, who was started with 13 dice (4 Brawn, 4 Arms, 3 armour, 2 for the magic weapon) vs the Bone Laird's 16 (7 Brawn for his supernatural strength, 4 Arms, 3 armour, 2 for his mystical greatsword). Sir Justin lost every roll until he was reduced to zero dice - and using the GM's fiat allowed by the system, I narrated this as a serious wound (the greatsword having thrust through a gap between breastplate and pauldron to inflict serious bleeding) and not mere stunning and exhaustion.

During this fight Sir Morgath's player made a roll to see if Algol had come back with the reliquary but this also failed (5 Brawn, -1 for no riding skill when trying to ride in haste, so 4 dice vs a difficulty of 3).

Sir Gerren made two Healing checks, one to stabilise Sir Justin and a second to restore 3 of his lost Brawn. I made it clear that I reserved the right to call for further checks if he was to try and fight again, to see if the wound reopened.

Twillany and Rhan then returned. This led to the final stage of the encounter with the Bone Laird, which went surprisingly long due to a long series of poor rolls by the players vs good rolls by me. Twillany persuaded the Bone Laird to come back to the wooden dais, but the Bone Laid's final two dice to resist social persuasion lasted through many many checks - I rolled many double successes, counting as three successes because the rules of the system are that if every die succeeds then the roll scores a bonus success, while the PCs repeatedly rolled none or one success getting ties at best. Which meant that Twillany's repeated explanations that the Celtic people had not been fully overrun by Romans and others, and continued to flourish in the west, were not calming him. And he interpreted references to his past in the forest and the old fortress as jibes and taunts. And so during the course of all this the angered Bone Laird beat Sir Gerran down to one die remaining, Sir Morgath down to one die, and sent Twillany - who at one point interposed herself between the Bone Laird and Sir Gerran - flying across the clearing reduced to zero dice. Sir Justin, who had got himself back into the action, also failed his social checks and ended up unconscious and bleeding again sprawled across the wooden dais.

It was only after a second roll for Algol, against a lower target number due to the passage of time, was successful - so that he returned carrying the reliquary - that the PCs triumphed: Sir Gerran persuaded the Bone Laird that he and his men would find rest and release from their geas if they acknowledged God and St Sigobert and their bones placed in the reliquary. The Bone Laird - physically unharmed to the last but with his social resistance pool finally reduced to zero - cut the heads off his companions and went to fall on his sword. Sir Morgath intervened at that point, persuading him that it would be more honourable for another to take his life - and so the Bone Laird handed him his greatsword and Sir Morgath made a successful roll to decapitate him.

The choicest bones were then placed in the reliquary. And Sir Morgath had a new magical but dangerous sword to replace the jewelled one that he had lost in the previous session.

I don't think my account of the Bone Laird episode quite does the actual play justice - in part because I can't remember all the intricacies and twists and turns - but it was really driven by two things: (i) the ability of the system to seamlessly integrate social and physical action; and (ii) the requirement that the players actually declare their moves, so that we had impassioned speeches, declarations of faith to St Sigobert, Twillany's player reciting verse and setting out her (?) vision of what Celtic honour required, etc. I guess also (iii) at least in my experience, dice pool systems increase the tension (compared to D&D-style roll and add) because even a large pool has a chance to come up with zero successes, and (again as I have experienced them) ties are more likely, which keep the action going while raising the sense of anticipation.

I would expect that in our next session the PCs will arrive at Constantinople.

I'm not sure how this looks to you. The two bits of significant content-introduction that I see are (i) that the NPCs are Celtic and (ii) that their is a wooden dais in the forest to which their curse is linked.

The first was introduced by the players simply by way of assumption, and I ran with it: I would consider it a consensual part of the initial framing.

The second was introduced by me as GM, in response to a player's use of a fiat ability (ie spending the Storyteller Certificate to Find Something Hidden). To me, it's not unlike a successful Wises check in Burning Wheel: generative, but on the player side because of a success, rather than on the GM side because of a miss/failure. If you have any thoughts I'd be interested.

In contrast to my play of Prince Valiant, my Burning Wheel experience is rife with generative resolution. Here's an example, that you've seen me talk about before, that has two instances in close proximity:

Alicia and Aedhros escaped the guards, but Alicia then returned to fight them so that Grellin would not be captured. Alicia defeated the guards near single-handedly with her martial art; Aedhros helped a little at the end, and was then going to kill one of them with his black-metal long knife Heart-seeker. Due to a failed test of some sort (Intimidate, I think) it had been established that Thurandril, Aedhros's father-in-law, whom Aedhros blames for the death of his spouse (the event that sent him onto the Path of Spite) was watching things unfold (having come to the docks on some or other business). Alicia tried to use Persuasion (analogous to D&D's Suggestion spell) to stop Aedhros, but she failed both her casting of the spell, and her roll to endure the tax of casting. . . .

The failed tax roll caused overtax equivalent to a mortal wound, and so Alicia was dying. Her player - my friend - spent the Persona to establish that she had the will to live. Aedhros, determined not to have another person in his charge die in front of Thurandril, tried to staunch her bleeding with his Song of Soothing, but failed. So then he did the only thing he could think of - as someone whose Circles include the Path of Spite, and who has a reputation as ill-favoured for himself and others, he looked to see if a bloodletting or surgical necromancer or similar ill-omened type might be nearby the scene!

But the Circles check failed: and so no friendly bloodletter appeared, but rather the Death Artist Thoth, who - for reasons not yet clear, but certainly not wholesome - carries a lock of the hair of Aedhros's dead spouse (even though that death occurred when the now-41 year old Thoth was only two years old). Thoth took Alicia into his workroom, through the secret entrance that leads onto the docks; and Aedhros had no choice but to go with him.

<snip>

The session then focused predominantly upon Thoth. His Beliefs are I will give the dead new life; Aedhros is a failure, so I will bind him to my will; Cometh the corpse, cometh Thoth! And the player leaned heavily into these. Thoth also has a rather idiosyncratic pattern of speech - something of a lisp, and at least a hint of a European, perhaps German, accent.

Thoth wanted to go to the docks to find corpses, of those who had died at sea.

<snip>

A die of fate roll indicated that one corpse was available for collection, and Aedhros helped Thoth carry it off.

<snip>

Thoth successfully performed Taxidermy - against Ob 5 - to preserve the corpse, with a roll good enough to carry over +1D advantage to the Death Art test but did not what to attempt the Ob 7 Death Art (with his Death Art 5) until he could be boosted by Blood Magic. And so he sent Aedhros out to find a victim

Aedhros had helped collect the corpse, and also helped with the Taxidermy (using his skill with Heart-seeker), but was unable to help with the Death Art. He was reasonably happy to now leave the workshop; and was no stranger to stealthy kidnappings in the dark. I told my friend (now GMing) that I wanted to use Stealthy, Inconspicuous and Knives to spring upon someone and force them, at knife point, to come with me to the workshop. He called for a linked test first, on Inconspicuous with Stealth FoRKed in. This succeeded, and Aedhros found a suitable place outside a house of ill-repute, ready to kidnap a lady of the night. When a victim appeared, Aedhros tried to force a Steel test (I think - my memory is a bit hazy) but whatever it was, it failed, and the intended victim went screaming into the night. Now there is word on the street of a knife-wielding assailant.

Aedhros's Beliefs are I will avenge the death of my spouse!, Thurandril will admit that I am right! and I will free Alicia and myself from the curse of Thoth!; and his Instincts are Never use Song of Soothing unless compelled to, Always repay hurt with hurt, and When my mind is elsewhere, quietly sing the elven lays. Having failed at the most basic task, and not knowing how to return to Thoth empty-handed, Aedhros wandered away from the docks, up into the wealthier parts of the city, to the home of the Elven Ambassador. As he sang the Elven lays to himself, I asked the GM for a test on Sing, to serve as a linked test to help in my next test to resist Thoth's bullying and depravity. The GM set my Spite of 5 as the obstacle, and I failed - a spend of a fate point only got me to 4 successes on 4 dice.

My singing attracted the attention of a guard, who had heard the word on the street, and didn't like the look of this rag-clothed Dark Elf. Aedhros has Circles 3 and a +1 reputation with the Etharchs, and so I rolled my 4 dice to see if an Etharch (whether Thurandril or one of his underlings or associates) would turn up here and now to tell the guards that I am right and they should not arrest me. But the test failed, and the only person to turn up was another guard to join the first in bundling me off. So I had to resort to the more mundane method of offering them 1D of loot to leave me alone. The GM accepted this, no test required.

Then, repaying hurt with hurt, Aedhros followed one of the guards - George, as we later learned he was called - who also happened to be the one with the loot. Aedhros ambushed him from the darkness, and took him at knife point back to the workshop, where Thoth subject him to the necessary "treatment"

I've included quite a bit of prelude, as this is important - I think - for elaborating on Aedhros's Beliefs, both in relation to Thurandril (a NPC) and Thoth (introduced as a NPC, but then becoming my friend's PC while Alicia recovers from her Mortal Wound).

It occurs to me that the prelude actually includes two bits of generative resolution - Thurandril being present and observing; and Thoth coming out of his secret door. I'm happy to talk about them, but they're not what I'm going to focus on at the moment.

The first of the ones that I want to focus on is the Sing check. The context for this is (i) a Belief, that I will free Alicia and myself form the curse of Thoth together with (ii) an Instinct, When my mind is elsewhere, quietly sing the Elven lays. The rules of the game demand a test at this point: given that, as a player, I'm trying to establish an advantage die that bears directly upon my Belief, there is something at stake, and so it's time to roll the dice. What's the conflict? I guess it's a conflict within Aedhros's spiteful soul, between his reality and some aspiration he still has to truly be an Elf. (One of his character traits is Self-deluded.)

In non-generative resolution, the failure would therefore - I guess? - have to pertain to Aedhros himself. Whether adding a new, disadvantageous die trait (perhaps in some fashion stepping up Self-deluded from a character trait); or carrying forward a penalty to his next test. (This seems to be what Vincent Baker does in some of his examples of AW play, turning their move against them.)

Speaking as the player, I found the guard turning up very compelling. It obviously follows from the fiction in a way that the ninjas don't. But it also worked very well as a consequence: my attempt, as a player, to try and shift the frame away from Aedrhos's enmeshment in the world of Thoth, into the world of Elves, is undone. The GM brings the world of Thoth right back into the foreground: Aedhros is not in the world of Elven lays and Elven courts and Elven lays, but in the world of the night-time city where kidnappers and assassins do their work and guards try to stop them.

The second bit of generative resolution pertains to the failed Circles test. This is really an attempt at escalation of the reframing by me, playing Aedhros: if Elven lays won't do the job, what about Elven Etharchs? And the GM, in response to the failure, doubles down on the previous consequence: and so although superficially this looks like the "enmity clause" for a failed Circles test, it's not really about relationships in the strictest sense at all: it's about reasserting the curse of Thoth, from which Aedhros can't escape.

When I decide to have Aedhros bribe the guards, and the GM says "yes" rather than calling for a test, that is my resignation as a player to what the mechanics have dictated, and that is Aedhros's resignation to the reality that he has failed to transcend. Both I, and Aedhros, affirm this resignation by kidnapping George and bringing him back to Thoth to be subjected to "Blood Magic".

What would non-generative resolution, in the Circles case, look like? Having one of the Elves appear, but being angry or dismissive of Aedhros? I don't think it would have been as satisfying.

@thefutlist, I'm curious as to what thoughts you might have about these Burning Wheel examples. to me, it seems like confining the resolution to positional resolution would have narrowed the thematic significance and impact. The curse of Thoth would have been confined to Aedhros's own emotions and relationships, rather than a sordid world in which he is enmeshed, with Thoth (for the moment at least) at the centre.

It's not really clear to me what the distinction is. Everything in a game is generated. Does it matter how long ago it was generated? Are there any games where the GM is expected to have already created every living thing in the world at the start of the game?

As per thefutilist in post 7, it's about the start of the scene, not the start of the game.

And about whether the GM, in the course of introducing the fiction that resolves a conflict, can introduce new elements into the scene, thus changing the fictional position rather than working within it. Eg, in the example I've just set out involving Aedhros, the narration of failure introduces new elements into the scene in which Aedhros's conflicts arise - namely, the guards - rather than resolving the conflicts by reference to the extent elements. (Which include Aedhros, and the Elves who are his Relationships and Circles.)

 

[zakael19]

Yeah, actually this split between generative and position resolution is perhaps pretty distinct to the change between the core Blades in the Dark Action Roll (which is as you'd expect from a PBTA offshoot full of "I introduce a complication to the scene on a miss that should follow from teh established fiction but may not be from the immediate established fiction) and the Deep Cuts Threat Roll.

The latter resolves what you said. You get the Effect ("ok sure, you'll Do This, but"), and you either avoid or take the Threat/Risk ("this Will Happen, how do you avoid it?"). On a 4-5, the already established badness comes to bear. You're basically always Telegraphing Future Badness and then Resolving It; it happens or not.

Interestingly enough, I've seen some folks around the internet who really dont like the Threat Roll say that the very act of being bound by establishing the Threat up front makes them feel less creative because they can't do the generative resolution after seeing the roll of the dice.