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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9556365" data-attributes="member: 42582">And when is the last time in one of your sessions that a PC was distracted by the design of a carving above a doorway? Or by a beautiful sight more generally?Even when it comes to retreating from combat, I don't believe that many players ever, in a typical D&D game, literally panicked. It seems to me - based on my own observations and experience, plus the reports of others - that retreat and surrender are almost always actions decided upon rationally, and not things that occur because of an emotional response in the player.Even moreso when it comes to, say, having a PC fall in love - or even be infatuated by - a NPC. This is almost always the player making a decision, not the player being emotionally moved by the power of the GM's narration.And? I mean, suppose that I replied that my TB2e example is from a Trickery conflict? (Which it is.) What difference does this make?On the contrary - the RPGs I prefer generally don't have fiction-divorced resolution of the sort that is common in D&D combat. For instance, in the context of a TB2e Trickery conflict, the stakes are established and consolidated, and the ensuing possible scope for compromise made clear, in the course of the conflict - in the case of a Trickery conflict, via the details of what the players have their PCs say and do, and what the GM has the NPCs say and do.Had the players wanted to roll into a Kill conflict in the event of a failure at Trickery, they could have tried to achieve that - eg by including threats and/or the loosening of weapons in their sheaths as part of their action declarations for their PCs. But they didn't - the last thing they wanted was a Kill conflict, given that they were already in terrible shape (as per the actual play report, all the PCs were Injured and two were Sick as well).So, as per what I've posted above, the last thing you say is not true. It depends on what is staked - which is something I have repeatedly mentioned, with reference also to the content of the compromise, but does not seem to be something that you are taking seriously - I suspect because you are used to a system in which the GM is at liberty to decide what is at stake in any conflict at any time.As for whether or not an encounter will be combat or negotiation, that depends on how the encounter occurs - if the players initiate it, then they are free to declare whatever action for their PCs they prefer. In 5e D&D, the GM is at liberty to decide that a combat will be a combat one, by having the NPCs just ignore entreaties and parleys and so on. But there are other versions of D&D - eg AD&D and B/X - where the GM is generally expected to roll a reaction to see what happens if the PCs attempt to negotiate. In TB2e, rather than one-roll resolution it is open to the players to call for an extended conflict, or for the GM to suggest one.If an encounter is the result of a twist - GM narration consequent on a failed test - then the GM determines the nature of the conflict. This is how, for instance, the PCs in my TB2e game ended up having to fight a giant lizard and then a giant tick in Kill conflicts:</blockquote>

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