RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[clearstream]

Just a note here - it seems there’s a feeling from at least 1 poster that in conflict resolution a players stated goal can be substituted for a related but unstated player goal. Maybe that’s technically included in the middle ground you are talking about, but that’s not clear to me.

Can you expand on that a bit please? Is the goal substituted in before resolution, or after? And do players adopt it (choose to pursue it)?

Also, there is the case of the dm saying no to the players goal (possibly proposing a different one) and that doesn’t seem to be mapped on this. The DM obviously cares about player intent and not performance. This and my first paragraph my be explaining similar stances - but I’m not lumping them together in case there’s some nuance I’ve missed.

Are you referring to this

As GM, you get to help establish stakes. If your player says “what’s at stake is this” you can say “no, I don’t dig that, how about what’s at stake is this instead?” Not only can you, you should. This is an important duty you have as GM and you shouldn’t abdicate it.​

​

As GM, you should push for small stakes. It’s natural for the players to set stakes big. “Do we get the whole truth from her about everything that’s going on? Do we convince him to give up his sinnin’ ways and do right forever after? Do we undo all the harm the cult has done?” You as GM have to engage with them and wrestle them down. You should be saying, “no, how about do you win her trust about some small matter? Do you give him a moment’s pause? Do you make this one person breathe easier, right now?” It’s out of creative tension between their big stakes and your small stakes that the right stakes are born.​

(Unless performance includes the player stating an intent the dm won’t ‘veto’ or agreeing with the DMs proposal of a different intent.)

Anyways I’m probably digging to deep - you did say it was a simple diagram.

Is it right that what you are getting at is - what happens if DM vetos the player goal? Can you give an example? Are they doing that because of a miss output from the resolution method? Is it because they are legitimating against drama?

 

[FrogReaver]

Negotiation of stakes might involve the GM saying no. However, in different games the reason why the GM is allowed/advised to say no are quite different, making the decision making process fundamentally different too.

But originally when I brought up "say yes" it was indeed in the context of the GM not vetoing stuff based on secret myth. And I still believe that existence of solid secret myth and the GM not being allowed to say no based on it are rather difficult to successfully combine.

From my perspective it’s just as important of a point that the GM can say no to player stated intentions. Maybe more important.

It’s the mechanism that keeps the dm from having to deny resolution outcomes when there is ‘myth’ involved in the stakes. And while that solves the current problem (mismatches between myth and resolution outcome), in some sense it introduces another that’s similar but different than what I believe was the initial ‘problem’ being solved for (dm fiat over outcome) - that being dm fiat over intent - which in a game based on resolving conflicts based on intent seems just as capricious as dm fiat over outcome in a game based on resolving outcomes based on player performances and myth.

 

[FrogReaver]

Thank you for the explanation. I understood some of it!


Right. This is important. It means the game is very low myth, which helps avoiding impasse with established myth and "say yes" principle. This is exactly the sort of wiggle room I would expect for this to function. We probably won't have contents of the safe bindingly pre-determined in this game.

Right, but if there’s myth then something must be bindingly predetermined - and if something is bindingly predetermined then players can set goals around that bindingly predetermined thing, which the resolution of could conflict with the predetermination UNLESS players are prevented from setting goals related to the predetermined.

So the question becomes, how do we keep players from setting goals around the predetermined.

Obviously GM says no is one method - which my previous post implicitly postulated as the only method, but I’m open to there being others. Are there others?

 

[clearstream]

Be aware that your preference for task resolution has been formally banished from the hobby; both the lexicon and from all game engines in TTRPG. It no longer exists (in fact it apparently never did exist in the first place so we have to retcon your protests from 10 years ago out of existence!)! So you can no longer protest the conflict resolution of that game and advocate for your preferred model of task resolution. Your mental model of that situation is no longer allowed. Assimilate into the Shrodinger's Gorge collective!

Given I'm dismissing or radically revising a construct dear to some, it's reasonable to ask if anything of value is lost? Is the baby being thrown out with the bathwater!? I've characterised "task resolution" as absurd. That's harsh: a generous characterisation would be - lacking in explanatory power.

I aim to robustly uphold conflict resolution, which not only continues to have explanatory power but becomes less blurry (to use the characterisation a poster in another thread gave the lines between it and "task resolution"). I say that new lenses - particularly that of drama resolution - better explain alternatives to conflict resolution with genuine utility to play. That the alternative to conflict resolution is indeed drama resolution, and not resolving tasks for their own sake!

@Lanefan , you were heavily involved in the Shrodinger's Gorge conversation of yore. The one where you protested heavily at my introduction of The Gorge complication/obstacle due to the failed Nature check where the player's goal was "to find the trail out of the badlands" (which that final success would have been the endpoint to the closed scene conflict resolution mechanics and cemented the "escape from the snake-men cultists pursuit with the stolen idol" goal). Remember that? You levied that protest because your headspace in games is governed by task resolution. You protested my introduction of the gorge on that failure because you felt (a) it violated your personal sense of causality and (b) your sense of sufficient granularity-in-resolution and (c) it didn't connect to/reflect your sense of "a rider's competency at using their horse to navigate terrain and find a remote badlands trail while under the duress of being chased by a horde of naga cultists." The rider should have been thrown from their horse and it should have been tighter blow-by-blow and endpoints of closed scene resolution cementing the goal for the scene was artificial and having overt conversations about all of this stuff (goals and stakes) in-situ is bad metagaming, etc, etc.

Here's the Schrodinger's Gorge example from play -

GM: <Metagame - "Escape With the Idol" Hard complexity 3 Skill challenge 8:3. Of note; subsequent uses of the same skill by the same player in a skill challenge is used at - 2 and then - 5.)​

​

[...stuff happens, until]​

​

B: I work in earnest to keep my horse steady despite it all. I curse the Goddess of Night for taking away the stars as I am now blind in guiding my companions. I hope my horse knows the way better than I. I hold tight, steering him free of any hazards and any incoming enemy fire. I look for natural signs of the trail that brought us into this harsh place...and hope. <Nature as Ride + animal handling + looking for the natural terrain signs. He elects to use his + 2 here from * - Failure >​

​

GM: Your horse moves sluggishly and its natural sense of the way appears askew due to its state. You see none of the scant trail-signs that you marked in your mind on the way in. Everything looks the same. Over the next rise your worst fears are realized in the shape of a deep gorge. Your horses in their best state could leap across the chasm...but they are tired. Doubling back may be the only way out. But your pursuit closes in on you. <We are now down to next success or failure dictates the outcome of the Skill Challenge>​

​

D: This place looks familiar from stories I was told in my youth. Many thousands of years ago, wildmen once roamed here and used hot springs for winter baths. A story told of a barbarian king who won this territory when the ground opened up and swallowed his enemies. As our enemies close in for the kill and my friends dismount their horses to prepare to fight, I consult the earth spirits and the annals of my mind for a means of earth-borne egress. < History - Failure>​

​

GM: Were the stories right? Perhaps yes. Perhaps no. Regardless, "earth-borne egress is what you get." As the gathered force of the snake-men surrounds you, the earth yaws wildly beneath your feat. Screams from man and beast alike fill the air. The smell of dank, dusty death fills your nostrils for a moment and the splash of freezing water sends you to unconsciousness.​

Combing through @Lanefan's objections shows them to fall around adequacy of GM preparation and risk of consistency issues. An argument on the merits of high versus low/no myth. Those aren't addressed by preserving an inaccurate construct of "task resolution". Thus my first question would be to discover what the objections were that putatively related to "task resolution". Has anyone a link to those?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Right, but if there’s myth then something must be bindingly predetermined - and if something is bindingly predetermined then players can set goals around that bindingly predetermined thing, which the resolution of could conflict with the predetermination UNLESS players are prevented from setting goals related to the predetermined.

I think @AbdulAlhazred offered one solution to this with their pizza and chips example. If the fiction around the locked fact is flexible enough it is usually possible for the GM to massage it in a way that roughly results honouring the gist of the player's action declaration, even though it might not take the exact form the player envisioned.

 

[FrogReaver]

Can you expand on that a bit please? Is the goal substituted in before resolution, or after? And do players adopt it (choose to pursue it)?

In this specific case I’m thinking after and players wouldn’t have to explicitly adopt it, though if all goes right they are probably fine with it.

Are you referring to this

Not exactly but it’s related. This to me reads more of a case of changing intents before the roll with player opt in. I’ll try to get the exact quote in thinking of referenced. Not as easy on the phone.

Is it right that what you are getting at is - what happens if DM vetos the player goal? Can you give an example? Are they doing that because of a miss output from the resolution method? Is it because they are legitimating against drama?

I like the safe example, except not tied to any specific game.

Myth is that incriminating papers are in the wastebasket, not the safe. Resolution method normally is say yes or roll dice. Player wants to open the safe find the incriminating papers. What are the methods we can prevent the resolution (let’s say success in this case) from conflicting with the myth?

 

[FrogReaver]

I think @AbdulAlhazred offered one solution to this with their pizza and chips example. If the fiction around the locked fact is flexible enough it is usually possible for the GM to massage it in a way that roughly results honouring the gist of the player's action declaration, even though it might not take the exact form the player envisioned.

My answer would be that the player hasn’t actually put stakes around the bindingly predetermined if that’s the case. They may be putting stakes around something close to it (maybe a non-blindingly predetermined aspect of it), but not quite the bindingly predetermined.

 

[clearstream]

Myth is that incriminating papers are in the wastebasket, not the safe. Resolution method normally is say yes or roll dice. Player wants to open the safe find the incriminating papers. What are the methods we can prevent the resolution (let’s say success in this case) from conflicting with the myth?

Assuming high-myth

If it's drama resolution it's set up and performance. What's dramatically appropriate? Resolution of performance confirms the safe is cracked, but stage notes imply a cut to the supervillain tossing the dirt into the wastebasket. This is an instance of the "puzzle" other posters spoke of.​

​

If it's conflict resolution, success means that as the player character is turning away from the empty safe, they spot a bunch of crumpled documents in the wastebasket.​

​

An alternative in both cases is simply, say yes - describe how characters find the dirt in the wastebasket. That does not take us to resolution. Choosing this would depend on the game's intended focus.​

​

Is that what you mean to query? It's honour goals or honour fiction. Or don't go to resolution, say yes.

 

[Lanefan]

@Lanefan , you were heavily involved in the Shrodinger's Gorge conversation of yore. The one where you protested heavily at my introduction of The Gorge complication/obstacle due to the failed Nature check where the player's goal was "to find the trail out of the badlands" (which that final success would have been the endpoint to the closed scene conflict resolution mechanics and cemented the "escape from the snake-men cultists pursuit with the stolen idol" goal). Remember that? You levied that protest because your headspace in games is governed by task resolution. You protested my introduction of the gorge on that failure because you felt (a) it violated your personal sense of causality and (b) your sense of sufficient granularity-in-resolution and (c) it didn't connect to/reflect your sense of "a rider's competency at using their horse to navigate terrain and find a remote badlands trail while under the duress of being chased by a horde of naga cultists." The rider should have been thrown from their horse and it should have been tighter blow-by-blow and endpoints of closed scene resolution cementing the goal for the scene was artificial and having overt conversations about all of this stuff (goals and stakes) in-situ is bad metagaming, etc, etc.

Be aware that your preference for task resolution has been formally banished from the hobby; both the lexicon and from all game engines in TTRPG.

By whose decree?

And where do I find the issuer of this decree? You see, I've got this longsword and there would appear to be a few tasks it needs to resolve...

It no longer exists (in fact it apparently never did exist in the first place so we have to retcon your protests from 10 years ago out of existence!)! So you can no longer protest the conflict resolution of that game and advocate for your preferred model of task resolution. Your mental model of that situation is no longer allowed. Assimilate into the Shrodinger's Gorge collective!

Schrodinger's Gorge - industrial death metal? Or really out-there jazz fusion? It fits for both...

 

[Lanefan]

I have no one on block, I have never reported a single post/soul on this message board (nor any other).

Kudos for this, sir!

I can't quite claim the same, as I've reported my share of spam posts in the past. But I'm close.

EDIT- <To Everyone> The amount of brand new, out-of-nowhere, jargon that has been reflexively accepted (without a sniff of either hand wringing or protest about exclusionary, ivory tower, x/y/z) in this thread while I've been absolutely bitched at incessantly about jargon the last 7 years...think about how that looks.

The problem isn't new jargon (well, it is a problem, but it's not this problem), it's when existing jargon either a) gets repurposed or redefined - even if only subtly - to suit or better support a particular point of view; or b) gets used/quoted out of context so as to mean or imply something other than what was said.

Add to that a tendency to IMO greatly overthink all this stuff, plus some obfuscation and wordplay as we all dance around saying what we really think in order not to get banned (some of us are much better at said dance than others, who aren't here any more), and clarity ends up as the victim every time.