Roll for Effect or Intent?

[BenjaminPey]

I vote "for intent", though I'm more familiar with the "conflict resolution" naming.
I've nothing against task-resolution, it suits some gameplays, especially in the OSR and FKR spheres, where the main point is very often to choose the (or a, rather) good action, in order to achieve the desired intent.
But I'm very much fond of conflict-resolution in general, for the speed and snapinness (is that a word?) it confers.

I just wanted to add something that I found to be interesting in this conversation, regarding D&D 5E, a game I very much enjoy, among many others. It's mostly task-oriented in my opinion, but it can be played with conflict resolution to some degree, as a poster (I think it was @Charlaquin) exemplified by saying that, in order to distract a guard by throwing a rock on a tree, you could ask for a Dex (deception) check.

See, the Dex part is rather task-oriented: by choosing Dex, we're saying that what will be tested is the throwing part, the one requiring dexterity. But by adding that it will be a Dex (Deception) check, the test becomes: did we throw this rock in such a way that it will achieve our intent (which is: deception)? And that's when it becomes a conflict resolution.

I'll add that the other way to do this (it was added later), still conflict-oriented, is to directly test the guard reaction, by making them making a saving throw. This way, we make sure we focus on the intent (distracting the guard), not on the task (throwing a rock).

Wa can maybe deplore the game is more or less mute on this question and don't clarify all this at all, but I think (much emphasis on that) it's really a feature, not a bug, to put the game in this kind of liminal space between old and new school and allow the tables to choose and even to go back and forth between the two, depending on the situations, the scope, the flow. It suits me very well, in any case.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don’t understand this dichotomy at all. Every action should have both an intent and an approach to trying to achieve it. A roll is called for to resolve uncertainty in whether the approach succeeds in achieving the intent or not. You can’t divorce one from the other.

I think there is a big boundary over what counts as valid intents. Like a player in d&d typically won’t have the intent to get to the ship before it sails. That may be his overarching goal but his intent is always the here and now, can I convince this guard to let me past so that I am one step closer to the ship.

In some games getting to the ship before it sails would be a valid intent. What I find is that the action space doesn’t cleanly align with such an intent (persuasion doesn’t fictionally guarantee no other obstacles arise between you and the ship) and as a consequence, resolving that intent tends to involve needing to keep the fiction a lot more fluid than heavily prepped scenarios allow. One cannot guarantee the intent unless all the potential fiction from X to Y can be forced to align with a successful/unsuccessful intent.

 

[Desdichado]

I'm still trying to figure out if I roll for effect or affect...

 

[Hriston]

In Burning Wheel, on a successful roll the task is successful and the intent achieved. On a failed roll, the intent is not achieved - and the GM narrates what happens, which may or may not include the task succeeding.

So there are three possibilities:

<snip>

• Task succeeds, but intent fails (GM narration of a failed roll) - the stone hits the tree but the guard ignores it (because they are strong-willed; because they don't hear it; because it disturbs a beehive and the guard doesn't want to move closer to the angry bees; etc);

I'm curious about this possibility with regard to conflict resolution. Even though it honors the failure result of the roll (i.e. it "cares" about intent), it also "breaks" the relationship between task and intent which Vincent Baker, in his twenty year old blog post, says conflict resolution maintains. Does this push it more toward task resolution, or does the failed die roll give the GM license to do whatever they want with the task, having it fail or succeed according to whichever is more interesting? I believe this is what @Charlaquin said she would do on a failure.

I think they're not just different, but actually contraries, or close to.

I meant to emphasize the difference more but reflexively resorted to ineffective use of understatement, probably because I wasn't sure how it was relevant to the conversation.

"Say 'yes' or roll the dice" - in its DitV and BW formulation (and I don't really know of any other) - means that we first work out, by reference to player intent, whether or not there is anything at stake, and then on that basis decide whether or not the dice need to be rolled, and hence whether or not there is uncertainty.

This seems similar to the practice of some 5E DMs (me included) of not calling for a roll unless there's a "meaningful consequence of failure". I think reference to player intent is probably key in spelling out a difference in some approaches to this.

Whereas the 5e-style "roll where there's uncertainty" first calls upon the GM to make a determination about the fiction (which can include having regard to secret/unrevealed backstory and setting elements), before then deciding whether or not to make a roll. Thus it is primarily the GM who gets to decide what is at stake in the situation.

To build on what I said above in this post, "roll where there's uncertainty" is quite consonant with techniques like the three clue rule. Whereas "say 'yes' or roll the dice" is not, because of the way that it generates finality on a failure.

Right, I think 5E leaves it pretty open whether the DM needs to consider the player's intent at all without adhering to principles not found in the rules themselves. Thanks for the explanation!

 

[pemerton]

I'm curious about this possibility with regard to conflict resolution. Even though it honors the failure result of the roll (i.e. it "cares" about intent), it also "breaks" the relationship between task and intent which Vincent Baker, in his twenty year old blog post, says conflict resolution maintains. Does this push it more toward task resolution, or does the failed die roll give the GM license to do whatever they want with the task, having it fail or succeed according to whichever is more interesting?

In Burning Wheel, the rule for failure is this (I'm quoting from Gold Revised p 31; the text on p 34 of Revised is pretty similar):

When the dice are rolled and don't produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass.​

This is followed by an example:

"I pick the lock quickly, before the guards come!" This is an easy intent to judge a failure for: The character doesn't get the lock open. Simple, right?

But what if that's changed a bit. Failure doesn't have to mean the lock doesn't open. Look at the intent: "before the guards come." What if the character opens the lock just as the guards arrive? Suddenly, you have trouble - drama and action!​

The GM should be making these judgements based on what is at stake, and what will be at stake as a consequence of failure - which, in turn, relates back to the priorities that the players have established for their PCs, as part of the build and play of those PCs.

Look at Baker's example of fencing:

"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."​

Here, the task succeeds (there is no failure to slash at the opponent's face) but the intent fails (because the opponent is skilled enough to duck side to side, fwip fwip).

In terms of maintaining the correlation, here is how Baker explains it:

In conventional rpgs, success=winning and failure=losing only provided the GM constantly maintains that relationship - by (eg) making the safe contain the relevant piece of information after you've cracked it. It's possible and common for a GM to break the relationship instead, turning a string of successes into a loss, or a failure at a key moment into a win anyway.​

But he is talking about task resolution. As the fencing example shows, in conflict resolution we can have the PC lose (as the roll dictates) yet the task succeed.

Here's an alternative version of the fencing example:

"I slash at his face, like ha!" "Why?" "To force him off-balance!"
Conflict Resolution: do you force him off-balance?
Roll: Loss!
"As you lift your blade to slash at his face, he brings his blade down hard on yours - crack! Your blade breaks into two. He keeps his feet and grins."​

In this version, the task as well as the intent fails.

Which narration a given RPG permits, and which one the GM should choose, will vary with the details of the game. (Eg, in PbtA language, the broken blade is clearly a harder GM move than the ducking to the side.)

This sounds like it doesn't so much give the GM in BW and TB2e authority over genre and/or fictional positioning, and so might not come up in response to the "shoot the moon" example, as it encourages the GM to communicate with the players when they risk butting up against whatever planned backstory the GM has in mind. Is that about right?

Here's the example given in the Codex (pp 206-8; the Adventure Burner has very similar text at 300-2):

I played in a game in which the Big Picture established that long ago the black dragon descended upon a great Dwarven Hall . . . [Our] long term goal was to slay the dragon . . .

Thor was playing a wizard . . . Trying to come up with a place to start, he asked the GM, "Do I know any stories about the origins of dragons?"

Before answering the question, the first thing Anthony, the GM, had to consider [was] whether he knew the answer or not. When he was preparing this campaign, did he determine where dragons came from.

For argument's sake, let's say he did. At this point, Anthony would have to decide whether to simply Say Yes and give Thor the information or call for a Dragonwise test. . . .

But what if Anthony hadn't considered the origins of dragons in the game? In that case, he would need a little more information about what Thor was looking for and why. For instance, Thor might tell him he wanted information about where dragons came from so we could go there and hopefully pick up the trail of this particular dragon. Thor might even have suggested they came from a particular remote island known for its monstrous inhabitants . . .

At that point, Anthony would have had to consider more questions . . . If the answer . . . was "No", Anthony could have said yes and gone with Thor's suggestion. . . .

In our game, what actually happened is that Anthony had not considered the origin of dragons at first, but he'd been rolling it around in his head as we played and the campaign developed. When [Thor] asked the question, he had an idea in mind: "Remember when you were searching for the Lost City of Panax and you fought your way to the Chronicle of Ages in the Hall of the Allfathers to do some research? You recall there was a section that was dedicated to dragons that you didn't have time to investigate."

And so Thor had to wait for another opportunity to test Dragon-wise. And it would be a bit more time before he learned the awful truth: Dragons are born when a Dwarf advances his Greed to exponent 10.​

So it's communication, but also decisions about how to resolve declared actions.

More "local" fictional positioning is handled fairly loosely, though the GM has final say (Gold Revised p 28; Revised is almost identical on p 30):

Whenever a player can claim his character has a clear advantage over his target - definitively favorable conditions like higher ground, pushing your opponent onto an ice patch or a weight advantage in wrestling - he gains +1D to the ability being tested.

A player may only lobby for one +1D advantage per test. In order to gain this advantage, he must state how and why he deserves such a boon in one clear sentence - no situation lawyering. . . In the case of social skill tests, good roleplay, keen description or just good timing can earn the advantage die.

The GM has final say over what is and isn't an advantage. . . . The GM can also add additional advantage dice if he thinks the character is in a strong position. If he disagrees with the player regarding the nature or benefit of an advantage, then no bonus is granted. Only one to two advantage dice should be granted to each roll (at maximum).​

A relevant factor here is that the advancement rules mean that a player does not always want to be rolling a big pool of dice; and so doesn't always want to lobby for advantage.

Genre is also ultimately with the GM, but in a kind of "gedouttahere!" way. From p 560 of Gold Revised (Revised has the same text at 262):

A player cannot make a stand for beam weaponry in the Duke's toilet and hope to get a DoF roll. Gear mongering for superior quality arms in a village is also an executable offence.​

The example (beam weaponry in a mediaeval fantasy RPG) and tone ("executable offence") show that it is generally assumed that everyone is on the same page and pulling in the same direction as far as genre and large-scale fictional positioning are concerned.

 

[soviet]

I'm curious about this possibility with regard to conflict resolution. Even though it honors the failure result of the roll (i.e. it "cares" about intent), it also "breaks" the relationship between task and intent which Vincent Baker, in his twenty year old blog post, says conflict resolution maintains. Does this push it more toward task resolution, or does the failed die roll give the GM license to do whatever they want with the task, having it fail or succeed according to whichever is more interesting? I believe this is what @Charlaquin said she would do on a failure.

I wonder if you've ever read Elfs, by Ron Edwards. You might find it interesting. Essentially the characters are dumbass lowlifes, and one of the things you can put points into is Dumb Luck, where you declare two separate intents - one representing what you the player wants, and one representing what the character wants. On a basic success the character's intent fails but the player's intent succeeds; on a critical success you get both. So it generates results like missing an attack on an enemy goblin only to hit the button releasing a secret door, or failing to persuade a guard but attracting the notice of a recruiter for the rebels. It sort of models oafish, Thrud/Groo type characters.

 

[soviet]

I'm still trying to figure out if I roll for effect or affect...

If it looked cool it was for affect
If it achieved something it was for effect
If you felt ill afterwards it was for infect

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm curious about this possibility with regard to conflict resolution. Even though it honors the failure result of the roll (i.e. it "cares" about intent), it also "breaks" the relationship between task and intent which Vincent Baker, in his twenty year old blog post, says conflict resolution maintains. Does this push it more toward task resolution, or does the failed die roll give the GM license to do whatever they want with the task, having it fail or succeed according to whichever is more interesting? I believe this is what @Charlaquin said she would do on a failure.

This “maintaining the relationship between the task and intent” thing is confusing to me. The intent is what the player hopes will happen as a result of their “task.” Whether it does or does not, it has a relationship with the “task; either the “task” brought about the intended result, or it failed to do so. The results, be they success or failure, would not have happened without the “task.”

I also wouldn’t say that I have the “task” succeed or fail according to what’s more interesting. It succeeds at achieving the “intent” if the roll is successful. If the roll fails, then the “task” fails to achieve the “intent.” Whether it does so because the character failed to even accomplish the “task” or because accomplishing the “task” was not sufficient to bring about the “intent” depends on the specifics of what activity is happening in the fiction and the internal logic of the fiction.