RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[clearstream]

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.

What is your view of DMG237 ability check rules? Provided they are administered by my model VM, do they count as conflict resolution because they are concerned with stakes and require outcomes that resolution will make binding to be in place up front.

 

[Manbearcat]

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.

Negative. Not all conflict resolution is closed (meaning a mechanical framework of initial condition to mechanical endpoint with intervening resolution along the way) scene resolution. But all closed scene resolution is conflict resolution.

Again, we can discuss these alternative forms of conflict resolution later (what they have in common and what they do not). I don’t want to get into the weeds and circle around, backwards, etc. Let’s just lock into the core concepts of my prior post, please.

 

[pemerton]

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.

@Manbearcat has asserted that all scene resolution procedures are conflict resolution.

In the same post he noted other approaches to conflict resolution - such as Apocalypse World moves - but sets them to one side to focus on one core case.

There is no assertion or implication that all conflict resolution must be scene resolution. Which is good, because Vincent Baker provides an example of conflict resolution that is not scene resolution:

you can conflict-resolve a single blow . . .

"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."​

EDIT: ninja'd by @Manbearcat

 

[pemerton]

What is your view of DMG237 ability check rules? Provided they are administered by my model VM, do they count as conflict resolution because they are concerned with stakes and require outcomes that resolution will make binding to be in place up front.

I assume you're referring to the 5e DMG. I don't have a copy and have not read it.

Can you describe what resolution process you are using? Then I might be able to form a view as to whether it is conflict resolution or task resolution.

 

[FrogReaver]

@Manbearcat has asserted that all scene resolution procedures are conflict resolution.

In the same post he noted other approaches to conflict resolution - such as Apocalypse World moves - but sets them to one side to focus on one core case.

There is no assertion or implication that all conflict resolution must be scene resolution. Which is good, because Vincent Baker provides an example of conflict resolution that is not scene resolution:

you can conflict-resolve a single blow . . .​

​

"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."​

EDIT: ninja'd by @Manbearcat

Would you also say this example is task resolution - if not, why not?

 

[FrogReaver]

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?

I don't know if you remember, but once upon a time you were defending Story Now games against accusations that players can declare all sorts of ridiculous goals that don't follow from the fiction. That a player couldn't simply look under a random rock with the intent of finding his brothers dagger. There had to be more fictional framing around it than that (or any other number of even more ridiculous things).

I believe that's the game state and legitimated intention that @clearstream and myself are talking about. Like, it's a concept I would have thought you would have picked up on very quickly given that prior discussion. Maybe we just aren't phrasing it in your preferred lingo.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't understand where scene resolution came into the discussion - but I'm not understanding how it helps us understand conflict resolution vs task resolution?

 

[pemerton]

Would you also say this example is task resolution - if not, why not?

Do you mean this example that Vincent Baker provides, of conflict resolution?

you can conflict-resolve a single blow, or task-resolve the whole fight in one roll:

"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."​

That's conflict resolution.

I don't understand where scene resolution came into the discussion - but I'm not understanding how it helps us understand conflict resolution vs task resolution?

Because scene resolution frameworks - eg Herowars/Quest; MHRP; 4e D&D skill challenges; Maelstrom Storytelling; conflicts in Torchbearer 2e - are all examples of conflict resolution.

So understanding how these frameworks work is a helpful on-ramp to understanding conflict resolution.

I don't know if you remember, but once upon a time you were defending Story Now games against accusations that players can declare all sorts of ridiculous goals that don't follow from the fiction. That a player couldn't simply look under a random rock with the intent of finding his brothers dagger. There had to be more fictional framing around it than that (or any other number of even more ridiculous things).

I believe that's the game state and legitimated intention that @clearstream and myself are talking about. Like, it's a concept I would have thought you would have picked up on very quickly given that prior discussion. Maybe we just aren't phrasing it in your preferred lingo.

So what is the "game state" in this context? Can you give me an example, from actual play or from a RPG system, of what you are talking about?

I mean, obviously, a RPG in which it is typical for the player to declare "I open the safe to see what is inside" and similar sorts of things and that triggers a check is using task resolution, not conflict resolution. But you and @clearstream seem to have in mind some context in which it would be an instance of conflict resolution. Can you actually spell out what the case/context is that you have in mind?

 

[FrogReaver]

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.

Let me start here. It's not clear why conflict resolution requires this 'no GM choice'. I've seen this asserted a few times now but not demonstrated. And it may very well make a better overall game to have this be the case. Great! But not everything that makes a better game has to be lumped under the 'conflict resolution'. Wouldn't it be more accurate to have a classification of 'conflict resolution' with 'no GM choice' and another classification of 'conflict resolution' with 'GM choice'. It's just really strange to suggest that GM choice is the hinge that turns something from task resolution to conflict resolution because GM choice should really be orthogonal to tasks or conflicts... IMO.

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.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but it's not clear why the potential success and fail states need established before hand to have conflict resolution. It's also not clear why secret backstory cannot be employed in conflict resolution. Again, i get it's not typical, may make for worse gameplay, etc - but i'm interested in the nuts and bolts of what constitutes task vs conflict resolution, and there's alot of non-obvious requirements that are getting applied to conflict resolution without being justified.

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.

Not in 5e. But I understand the example. The reason a DM sometimes asks for a roll even when the outcome isn't uncertain (not a 5e technique as skill checks only are done when the outcome is uncertain) was to keep player knowledge and character knowledge in sync to prevent metagaming and because players often report a better experience when this is the case. If the DM has you roll and you roll low, then you know the doors are there despite the PC not knowing.

Maybe I'm missing something else, but given this rationale, it's clear the roll isn't resolving anything in this situation. The conflict of trying to find secret doors was resolved though - by the DM referencing his back story and determining there are no secret doors here.

 

[pemerton]

Let me start here. It's not clear why conflict resolution requires this 'no GM choice'. I've seen this asserted a few times now but not demonstrated.

It's definitional. Here's the definition:

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.​

Harper's diagrams, posted by @Manbearcat, represent the same thing using visuals rather than words.

The difference between task resolution and conflict resolution consists precisely in the sort of relationship that obtains between succeeding on the check, the GM's authority over the fiction, and what happens next. If the GM the mediator between success on the check and achieving intent/goal, then we are talking about a system of task resolution, and it doesn't cease to be that because the GM often maintains the relationship.

(If it is understood that the GM will always maintain the relationship then the GM has no relevant mediating authority, and the system is one of conflict resolution. See, as an eg, my excerpt of the Burning Wheel rules not too far upthread.)

not everything that makes a better game has to be lumped under the 'conflict resolution'. Wouldn't it be more accurate to have a classification of 'conflict resolution' with 'no GM choice' and another classification of 'conflict resolution' with 'GM choice'.

I don't follow this at all.

For a start, where does better come from? White Plume Mountain is a perfectly good classic D&D module, and it only works if the resolution framework used is one of task resolution.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but it's not clear why the potential success and fail states need established before hand to have conflict resolution. It's also not clear why secret backstory cannot be employed in conflict resolution.

The failure needn't be known in advance; but the parameters within which it will be narrated need to be settled - in particular, no retries ("Let it ride") and no squibbing (eg having the documents be in the waste paper bin). I posted the principle from DitV upthread. In Burning Wheel the core principles are on a failure, the player doesn't get their intent and when the GM introduces content, it is to put pressure on a Belief, Instinct, Trait or Relationship.

Obviously secret backstory play is completely different from this. White Plume Mountain, again, provides a completely straightforward illustration. When playing WPM, the GM is not obliged to always drive play towards conflict; does not actively reveal the dungeon in play (bits of it only get revealed when appropriate fictional "triggers" occur); does not have regard to the fact that the players want their PCs to find the magic weapons.

And 2nd ed AD&D setting-tourism type play, where the players have their PCs move through the setting, engaging in relatively small-stakes encounters to gradually learn things like what the (GM's pre-scripted) power dynamics are, where the treasures might be, whom they might ally with, etc - this is, again, obviously completely different from (say) DitV or BW.