RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[pemerton]

Something I'm trying to tease out is how wedded who decides is to raw conflict resolution.

What is "raw conflict resolution"?

Okay. So would you say that on choosing tasks, players can have in mind outcomes they think those tasks will lead to?

As I just posted in reply to @FrogReaver, this is a pretty basic feature of almost all action declarations by players in RPGing. It's inherent in the way the games are designed and played.

Task-resolution when outcomes a player has in mind are respected is the same as conflict-resolution.

<snip>

The rawest version of task-resolution I can think of has no outcome in mind. And the rawest version of conflict-resolution has no performance in mind. TR would answer the question then, solely of performance. It produces no binding result. CR then tells us result. It produces no binding performance. And that isn't what folk want or experience.

Here is the Vincent Baker blog again:

In task resolution, what's at stake is the task itself. "I crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!" What's at stake is: do you crack the safe?

In conflict resolution, what's at stake is why you're doing the task. "I crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!" What's at stake is: do you get the dirt on the supervillain?

Which is important to the resolution rules: opening the safe, or getting the dirt? That's how you tell whether it's task resolution or conflict resolution.

Task resolution is succeed/fail. Conflict resolution is win/lose. You can succeed but lose, fail but win.

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.​

If the GM does not break the relationship, we still don't have conflict resolution. We have task resolution in which the GM maintains the relationship. This is still within the domain of GM fiat as that is found in Harper's diagram.

We can see the contrast between task resolution in which the GM maintains the relationship and conflict resolution by looking at the BW rules (I'm quoting from Gold, pp 24, 30, 32), which anyone who wants to can download for free from here):

What do you want do and why do you want your character to do it? . . . When declaring an action for a character, you say what you want and how you do it. That’s the intent and the task.

Now we have a grasp on a variety of ways to manipulate the dice pools for a test, but what happens after the dice have come to rest and the successes are counted? If the successes equal or exceed the obstacle, the character has succeeded in his goal - he achieved his intent and completed the task.

This is important enough to say again: Characters who are successful complete actions in the manner described by the player. A successful roll is sacrosanct in Burning Wheel and neither GM nor other players can change the fact that the act was successful. The GM may only embellish or reinforce a successful ability test. . . .

One of the most important aspects of ability tests in game play in Burning Wheel is the Let It Ride rule: A player shall test once against an obstacle and shall not roll again until conditions legitimately and drastically change. Neither GM nor player can call for a retest unless those conditions change. Successes from the initial roll count for all applicable situations in play.

A GM cannot call for multiple rolls of the same ability to accomplish a player’s stated intent. Nor can a player retest a failed roll simply because he failed.​

BW does not rely upon the GM to maintain the relationship between success at the task and getting what you want: this is guaranteed by the resolution rule which (i) oblige the player to state intent and task, (ii) on a success, make that player statement become part of the shared fiction, and (iii) preclude retries, vetoes, override etc.

The only version of non-combat resolution in D&D that I'm aware of that implements conflict resolution is 4e D&D, with skill challenges. (And a Save My Game article in 2011 suggested Let it Ride as a general principle for 4e.)

Hopefully you see my line of enquiry. Connect my "VM" to that picture: what continues to separate it from conflict-resolution?

Right, so let's call that player-stakes-regarding GM our Virtuous GM or VM for short.

What stops task-resolution becoming conflict-resolution when refereed by VM?

Because it relies on the "virtuous GM".

If you want conflict resolution in your game, why frame it in terms of "GM virtue". Just state a rule, like BW does.

When you play DitV, who decides outcome when NPC dice picked by GM beat players? If it is GM, does it stop being conflict resolution?

Pages 76-78 of the DitV rulebook give the GM advice on how to work with the players to establish what is at stake in conflicts.

Pages 64-7 set out the rules for Fallout and Experience. These include the following:

This is the experience list. Choose only one per conflict, no matter how many 1s you rolled in Fallout. . .

All of these many choices you get to make, whatever you choose, you have to justify it out of the events of the conflict. If any of your fellow players can’t see it, you have to explain better, say more, and win that person over.​

And p 54 states this pretty important rules:

To launch a conflict, we begin by establishing what’s at stake, setting the stage, and figuring out who’s participating. . . . Whoever’s left at the end gets to decide the fate of what’s at stake.​

If that's a GM-controlled character, then the GM decides. According to what principles? Here they are:

Drive play towards conflict (p 138)
Actively reveal the town in play (p 138)
Follow the players' lead about what's important (p 140)
Escalate, Escalate, Escalate (p 141)
DO NOT have a solution in mind (p 143)​

The contrast with the two main approaches to task resolution (see my post just upthread) is apparent. Puzzle-solving, map-and-key based play contains no principles of driving towards conflict or escalating. And the players follow the GM's lead, by (eg) working out whether or not the dirt is in the safe by declaring actions that prompt the GM to provide information about the (hitherto) hidden fiction. And obviously, straightforward railroading play does not involve following the players' lead, and it begins from the GM having a solution in mind.

 

[pemerton]

A problem one runs into with that is what we touched on before - how far out can/must aims be? It might be that the intention best legitimated by game-state is "I want to crack the safe to see what's inside." And surely groups normally rule out "reaching" intentions that go beyond what is legitimated by game-state?

I don't understand this post.

For instance, what do you mean by "game state"? What do you mean by an intention being "legitimated" by the game state?

Here's an example from BW Gold (pp 30-31):

Pete announces,“I want to poison the wizard.” The GM arches his eyebrow, “How so?” Pete’s got a plan: “I’ll sneak into the kitchen disguised as a Hound Sergeant, then I’ ll Intimidate one of his slaves to take him poisoned tea in the guise of herbal medicine.” The GM considers for a moment, “That’s pretty good. You’ ll need to make a linked test with: Disguise, Inconspicuous and Intimidation, plus Hound-wise, I think.” Pete nods and gets ready to burn some artha. If his rolls are successful, the wizard will be poisoned even though he didn’t drop the poison directly in his mouth. Why? Because Pete stated his intent, described his task and the dice came up in his favor.​

That would be an outrageous action declaration in most approaches to D&D. But is "legitimate" in Burning Wheel.

If the game "legitimate" I want to look in the safe to see what's there, then at least at that moment of play we are looking at task resolution, serving the purpose of revealing more of the GM's (hitherto) hidden fiction to the players.

Notice how DitV expressly rules this out, via Drive play towards conflict (which includes "Every moment of play, roll dice or say yes") and its concomitant, Actively reveal the town in play. Whereas an approach in which the GM does not just "say 'yes'" to revealing the contents of the safe, but makes the players roll, is neither driving towards conflict nor actively revealing the context and possible stakes for conflict. This is classic task resolution.

 

[FrogReaver]

Harper's diagrams aren't detailed enough to show this, which can be seen by picturing what else I could write in the "Situation Resolves" bubble of the first chart. "Situation Resolves by Designer Fiat", "Situation Resolves by Player Fiat", "Situation Resolves by GM Fiat", "Situation Resolves Randomly". Any of those still produces the same orderly flow. The difference between task and conflict resolution isn't about the orderly flow.

Right, so long as a players aim's are being upheld that's enough to establish something as conflict resolution.

But that brings up a good question -
Can players have any aim or goal with any action? Even in games with conflict resolution we are told no. Your aim must match up with the fictional position. You can't just say in the opening scene that my aim is to resolve all conflicts by sitting on the ground! In fact, there's restrictions not only what your action can be but what your aim can be. Whether these restrictions are derived from game text or Norms, they serve the same purpose.

Exactly, and this dissolves the mysteries around @FrogReaver's earlier comments. Task-resolution when outcomes a player has in mind are respected is the same as conflict-resolution.

Yes, except see below -

But RPGs also, again at least in mainstream cases, aim to be exciting or engaging in some fashion. They presume that players will declare actions for their PCs with an eye to those actions achieving, or at least furthering, some goal. Not just for the sake of seeing whether or not the action can be performed.

I think it's both! Players have multiple simultaneous goals, even D&D ones. Micro goals and Macro goals. Often a Micro goal is related to a Macro goal. Macro- "I hope to find incriminating pictures in the safe". Micro- "I want to see what's in the safe". Depending on which player goal we reference in this situation we can frame the same interaction as either binding that goal to outcome or not. That's what I meant by we can frame it either way earlier.

Now, suppose that you succeed on your roll to crack the safe - is the GM nevertheless at liberty to say "Well, the tumblers all fall into place, but you discover the hinges are welded shut, and so the door won't open"? If the GM enjoys that liberty (whether a liberty to make that up, or a liberty to introduce it into the shared fiction by reading from their notes), then we know that the resolution in question is task resolution.

This gets to the heart of outcome binding! But the explanation is there is often some 'play' around the players stated goal and the DM's interpretation of it. The player said he wanted to pick the lock, not get in the safe. And while I dislike the notion of the DM pedantically following through with the player doing exactly what they claimed, it's not as if the stated 'aim' was negated - just the one we all believe is there implicitly.

To summarize - is the 'aim' to pick the lock or to 'pick the lock to get in the same', or to 'get in the safe' or 'to find the pictures', or 'crack the safe to open it to find the pictures inside'.

We can even see this somewhat in a different example you gave where the aim = 'crack the safe to find pictures', but the fiction on success becomes you crack the safe finding it empty but find the pictures beside it. The DM didn't actually fulfill the players stated aim here. He instead substituted the aim for a more simple but related one of 'find the pictures'.

 

[FrogReaver]

Really?

Based on your extensive experience of GMing and playing conflict-resolution-based RPGs, would you care to enlighten us on what Vincent Baker and John Harper have in mind?

To answer your question - yes, really. Based on the points being raised in this thread.

Also, would you please stop commenting like this. It only serves to inflame/dismiss by making it personal. It’s not a response to any of the actual content of my posts.

 

[Campbell]

A player in a conflict resolution-oriented game has a different set of responsibilities then one does in a task resolution-oriented one. One of those responsibilities is to aggressively pursue aims that seek to change the environment and push the momentum of play forward. Exploring the environment simply to do so is fundamentally at odds with conflict resolution because with no established stakes the GM does not have what they need to determine fallout in a way that is hygienic (oriented around the larger conflict at hand) to the play model.

An example of this contrast at play is the way Carved by Brindlewood (Brindlewood Bay, The Between, Apocalypse Keys) games work compared to solving mysteries in most traditional games. Each threat in The Between is given a set of Questions that provide an opportunity to resolve that threat when resolved. In our game of The Between one of our active threats, The Shoreditch Slugger, has two active questions 'What is the source of its strength?' (Complexity 2) and 'what is its weakness?' (Complexity 6). During our investigation into the slugger, it was our imperative to actively pursue clues that both answer one of these specific questions and fit within our characters' working theories of what may be afoot while tying in our characters' personal goals as much as possible. This is necessary for @Manbearcat to both provide clues that maintain the momentum of play and to assess what consequences would be compelling / frustrate our aims.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'll need a few reads to parse this, but at first glance - we're not debating whether "Situation resolves via referee" can replace "Situation resolves" in the top chart, and otherwise they're the same, are we?

I'll be honest that "I'm not sure what we're debating." I know what I'm saying and what I'm trying to convey (that task resolution and conflict resolution are very different modes of play and "here are the distinguishing characteristics"), but its not clear to me what you and FR are saying. I thought you were disputing that contention (either that you flatly don't believe they're different or that you don't believe the distinguishing characteristics are sufficiently sturdy and sensitive to perform the necessary, distinguishing impacts), but I'm not sure at this point.

You mentioned me with this, so I'm going to grab it and throw some words at it:

Exactly, and this dissolves the mysteries around @FrogReaver's earlier comments. Task-resolution when outcomes a player has in mind are respected is the same as conflict-resolution.

@Manbearcat You hopefully now see that the crucial rules detail for my example lies in DMG237 Using Ability Scores rather than DMG244 Social Interaction. To see how, just picture that GM declares the same set of outcomes up front that game designers did when they wrote Social Interaction, and then go one step further and suppose that players chose their performances because they had those outcomes in mind.

I'm going to say a few things that break out some key concepts which, I hope, illuminate and elaborate. I'm hoping this does some work here. I'm only going to talk about scene resolution here. I'm not going to talk about independent tests, versus tests, or PBtA moves or whatever else. I'm only talking about scene resolution. I really think in order for there to be any clarity achieved on these subjects we need to nail down core concepts and focusing on scene resolution should do the most/best work:

All scene resolution frameworks are conflict resolution.​

Why? For starters, its because (a) there are initial conditions which include all of setting, situation, character(s), and goals/stakes that are transparently understood by the participants. Secondly, (b) there is finality of resolution at the the endpoint which does the work of determining the outcome of those evinced "goals/stakes" and the impacts on the prior three (setting, situation, character(s) ). Thirdly, (c) the respective participants (players, GM) are "performing their necessaries" within the unfolding play in a way that inherently indexes the prescribed, structural endpoint of "goals/stakes resolved" while simultaneously respecting the evolution of setting, situation, character(s) along the way. The scene is not over until the resolution framework says its over. The GM doesn't get to make extra-system extrapolations about some conception of spatial/temporal/metaphorical dimensions or some conception of the fictional arc and therefore decide "ok, in the interests of simulation of process or in the interests of story imperatives, this seems a good place to stop." No, the scene is over when the resolution mechanics say they're over.

NOW...various systems might provide GMs some mechanical widgetry that affords them latitude to go outside of that prescribed endpoint and say "scene resolved" before the typical terminating endpoint of a scene. An example here is "GM Folds in Dogs in the Vineyard to end the scene" or "GM deploys the Doom Pool in Cortex+ to end the scene." But on those occasions, these endpoints are not (comparatively unconstrained) GM fiat. Those "early endpoints" (lets call them) are themselves principally and mechanically systemitized (constrained, directed, and structured by system).

Good designers build-out resource and widgetry management (thematic, tactical, strategic) with this paradigm as the nexus of their design. Better ones systemitize it in a more compelling fashion that better imbues play with a moment-to-moment experience and general sense of what this game is about. Worse ones struggle at one or both of these.

---

I'm going to stop here. Hopefully that does some kind of work to illuminate concepts and focus thought. If we get anywhere on that, I'll be interested in examining other forms of resolution. But I'm personally not going outside of that until we grok the core concepts and dynamics above.

 

[Campbell]

@clearstream

Getting back to agenda, things the GM always says, principles, etc. Those aren't just there for GM training in Apocalypse World. It calls upon the MC/GM to treat them as if they are rules and thus makes following them something the GM is then accountable to the players for. The GM not being a fan of players' characters or not being generous with the truth is then just as much the GM stepping out of the rules as ignoring the soft move -> hard move play loop or ignoring what a 10+ on go aggro means. They establish accountability.

 

[clearstream]

@clearstream

Getting back to agenda, things the GM always says, principles, etc. Those aren't just there for GM training in Apocalypse World. It calls upon the MC/GM to treat them as if they are rules and thus makes following them something the GM is then accountable to the players for. The GM not being a fan of players' characters or not being generous with the truth is then just as much the GM stepping out of the rules as ignoring the soft move -> hard move play loop or ignoring what a 10+ on go aggro means. They establish accountability.

Training in the sense of learning to play the game as intended, which I think you just described. One could have a theory that you either know how or you don't, but that would make a lot of game text redundant if not inexplicable. I hope that elucidates my choice of words!

 

[pemerton]

Right, so long as a players aim's are being upheld that's enough to establish something as conflict resolution.

No. See my reply 751 to @clearstream. A resolution procedure/framework doesn't become conflict resolution simply because the GM chooses to maintain the success = win, failure = loss relationship.

In conflict resolution, the process itself maintains that relationship without giving the GM a choice.

Which as @Campbell has pointed out just upthread, entails several other features of the process. For instance, the framing of the declared action must establish stakes. (I referred to Vincent Baker's discussion of this in DitV, not far upthread.) The GM is not entitled to refer to secret backstory to determine what happens when the action is attempted, or to "veto" certain outcomes.

Say 'yes' or roll the dice is not the only approach to conflict resolution (eg it is not part of AW), but its presence in the process is a clear marker of conflict resolution. Conversely, task resolution calls for rolls even when nothing is at stake (eg if the players declare their PCs search for secret doors when none are there) because it is not concerned with stakes, it is concerned with mediating the relationship between the GM's decision-making about the fiction that they "own", and the players declared actions.

Can players have any aim or goal with any action? Even in games with conflict resolution we are told no. Your aim must match up with the fictional position. You can't just say in the opening scene that my aim is to resolve all conflicts by sitting on the ground!

Are you talking here about goals or actions? You begin the passage by referring to the first, but end the passage by pointing to (what you believe to be) an absurd examples of the second.

In fact, there's restrictions not only what your action can be but what your aim can be. Whether these restrictions are derived from game text or Norms, they serve the same purpose.

What purpose is that? What RPG do you have in mind here?

Players have multiple simultaneous goals, even D&D ones. Micro goals and Macro goals. Often a Micro goal is related to a Macro goal. Macro- "I hope to find incriminating pictures in the safe". Micro- "I want to see what's in the safe". Depending on which player goal we reference in this situation we can frame the same interaction as either binding that goal to outcome or not. That's what I meant by we can frame it either way earlier.


This gets to the heart of outcome binding! But the explanation is there is often some 'play' around the players stated goal and the DM's interpretation of it. The player said he wanted to pick the lock, not get in the safe. And while I dislike the notion of the DM pedantically following through with the player doing exactly what they claimed, it's not as if the stated 'aim' was negated - just the one we all believe is there implicitly.

How does this discussion - which is focusing on task resolution, and pointing to some technique GMs use to control the fiction in task resolution systems - fit with the action resolution processes in Burning Wheel, DitV, Apocalypse World, HeroWars/Quest, or Marvel Heroic RP?

More generally, what is the point of denying the contrast between (say) the play of a CoC module, and the play of Cthulhu Dark described here.

 

[clearstream]

All scene resolution frameworks are conflict resolution.​

I like the perspective you present in your post, and before diving into that can I check something basic.

Do you intend your statement to imply that if C is conflict resolution then C is a scene resolution framework? So that there should be no examples of conflict-resolution that are not also examples of scene resolution frameworks.