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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6151679" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is exactly what I'm talking about by "finality" in conflict resolution.I did say what you attribute to me here.But the way you paraphrased that is as follows:I don't see the relationship between "the social skill must resolve a conflict once and for all" - ie finality in conflict resolution - and "one successful Diplomacy check will mean the target is your obedient slave for ilfe".There are two obvious points of disconnect, both of which I hope are obvious if one keeps in mind the example of skill challenges, or Duel of Wits from BW, or social conflict from The Dying Earth RPG, or the infliction of mental and emotional stress or complications in MHRP, etc.The first is that none of those systems uses "one successful Diplomacy check". Like the D&D combat system that I mentioned in my post, they are complex resolution systems in which the participants have the opportunity to alter the fiction (and hence shape the outcome) in the course of resolution.The second is that "A resolving a conflict with B" does not entail that B is A's slave for life. All these systems involve, either overtly or as an inherent feature of their resolution, the setting of stakes - this informs both initial "credibility" tests on framing (ie some things are just impossible, whether for ingame reasons or metagame genre reasons), and also the details of the resolution (including but not limited to difficulty). For instance, persuading the bandit guard that s/he should let the PCs enter the bandit camp without raising the alarm is an instance of a social conflict which lends itself well to finality in resolution. It has nothing to do with anyone making the bandit guard a slave for life.A third, less obvious point is that finality itself has a duration and work arounds. For instance, hit point damage in D&D can be healed. In MHRP there are rules for recovery from complications and stress. In BW there are rules for overcoming the result of a Duel of Wits. But the key thing about each of these is that they are not simply subject to GM fiat. The players know what they are - for instance, in MHRP a complication typically lasts until the end of the scene, and so the GM can't have the bandit guard raise the hue and cry until the infiltration scene is resolved. So the GM can frame the following scene as one in which the PCs are being pursued by the bandits, but at that point the PCs have already resolved their infilitration, and have got whatever they are going to get out of it.You have missed a third way, which is in my view highly salient here. That is director stance, ie the authority to introduce new backstory outside the in-fiction "locus of control" enjoyed by the PC.Here is an instance of backstory introduction by a player that is not director-stance at all: "When I was a kid I use to go fishing." It is not director stance because it does not deal with anything outside the "locus of control" of the PC (ie the PC, as a kid, was in a position to choose to go fishing). This would be controversial, I think, only if it contradicted already-established backstory or genre (eg the game is a Dark Sun game, or is a Greyhawk game in which we've already established that the PC grew up among the nomads of the Bright Desert).Here is an instance of backstory introduction by a player that, in D&D, I think would normally be regarded as uncontroversial even though it takes place in director stance: "My guy was born in Saltmarsh and used to go fishing with his dad, who was a fisherman." This is director stance because the PC does not control where s/he was born, nor the occupation of his/her parents. Note that in RQ a player does not enjoy this degree of director stance (parental trade is rolled on a random table). And in D&D this can start to become controversial if (for instance) the player wants to stipulate that s/he was born in the royal palace to the ruler of all the land.And now here is the sort of director stance that is used in the RPGs I'm aware of that give players of non-magical PCs serious narrative space options: "My guy sneaks up to the bandit guarding the gate, and when I'm pretty close I step out and say "Sshh! Don't say anything - I know all about the trouble your parents are in back home, and I can sort that out for them as long as you don't sound the alarm!" Btw, I'm using my [insert ability name here] - I recognise this guard as the child of [insert description of parents who live in PC's home town, and explanation of the trouble that they're in]."Resolving this sort of director stance play has two dimensions - first there's establishing the truth of the player's desired specification of backstory, and then there's resolving the conflict (social conflict, in my example; but if the backstory is about the existence of a secret door into a palace, the conflict might not be social but exploratory) in which the player's PC wants to trade on that backstory. The first can be done via skill rolls (as in BW, via Wise checks or Circles checks) or via sheer stipulation based on a limited points resource (this is how MHRP does it, with the rules for Resource creation). The second then needs some sort of conflict resolution mechanic of the sort I've already mentionted upthread and in this post. In D&D it is almost certainly going to be dice-based, although      [MENTION=14391]Warbringer[/MENTION] upthread has suggested the possibility of doing this in a points/slot-based way (eg at stage 1 I expend resources to make it true in the fiction that the bandit guard has the "aspect" worried about his parent's troubles; at stage 2 I expend resources to "compel" that aspect, establishing that because of those worries, and my promise to help resolve them, the guard will let me into the bandit camp without raising the alarm).EDIT: A further complication with Stage 1 done via dice rolls is whether the resolution happens ingame, or purely at the metagame level. BW does a bit of both, but tends to favour the ingame approach: so when "my guy" approaches the bandit guard to bargain over the fate of the guard's parents, if the skill roll to establish the truth of the fiction is a failure, that means that the PC had a false belief. And tthe GM can therefore have the guard reply "Huh? With the money I'm making here I've already set my parents up for life - I guess you're working from out-of-date information! Hey, everyone, we've got intruders here!"</blockquote>

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