Why do you need to disagree about most trivial things? If we accept GM prep about safes existing and PC action of looking in the safe to be axioms then certain logical conclusions follow from that.
If only you could have been around to tell Baker that before his initially abstract designs influenced the concrete designs of what would become your favorite games.
<snip>
The vehicle didn’t design itself. Someone had to have an abstract idea of what they were trying to achieve first.
<snip>
Logical derivations are not speculation.
So one set of things I'm disagreeing with this this, namely, the claim that heuristics for play, and empirically-informed characterisations of that play and those heuristics, are
axioms from which logical deductions can be made.
The two of you are relying on suppressed premises that are
false in the RPGs you are purporting to speak about. Actual play, or even close reading of the rulebooks, might reveal this to you. Purely abstract thinking won't, because you keep re-importing the premises and disagreeing with my various attempts - by explanation, by reference to designer blogs, by posting rules extracts, by working through imagined or actual examples of play - to reveal this.
"Logical derivations" that rest primarily on suppressed or un-questioned premises that experience and observation have refuted - and would refute again, if the one engaged in the derivation actually had that experience or made those observations - is nothing but speculation.
And this is the reason that I used the example of technical invention: because this discussion about
methods of inquiry is one that is well-known in history and philosophy of science. Your position seems to me to be close to those who want to assert that science is purely deductive, without paying attention to the question of
where would the premises come from. Kepler's great contribution to knowledge, for instance, is not in geometry but in astronomy - based not on logical deduction from the studies of the orbits of Mars, but on developing, in response to the, a new conception of planetary motion that didn't take the circular character of that motion as an unquestionable premise.
Likewise, only science-fiction writers conceive of vehicles in the abstract. James Watt (for instance) was familiar with a variety of (stationary) steam engines, and their problems (including leakage of steam), and he tested and re-tested and iterated his own designs. Much as
@Campbell describes for the "indie" RPG designers not far upthread: they were not sitting around pontificating, they were designing and playing games, finding out what did and didn't work, and on that basis developed more general conceptions of what is possible in RPGing.
Not very exact because it is a low myth game.
You keep fastening on this and thereby miss my point.
You asserted that conflict resolution requires "no myth"
so that the GM is free to introduce the appropriate backstory at the moment of resolution, so as to preserve the connection between
success at the task and
what is at stake. And that is what I disagreed with, and continue to disagree with. Conflict resolution, of the DitV sort, is quite compatible with the GM having established, as part of their prep,
where the title deeds are.
The DitV advice on town prep starts on p 112:
Before you start in earnest, there are three things you’ll want to be sure to get out of the process: some NPCs with a claim to the PCs’ time, some NPCs who can’t ignore the PCs’ arrival, and some NPCs who’ve done harm, but for reasons anybody could understand. In the following procedure I talk about whether the town “seems grabby enough” and whether there are “enough NPCs to keep the PCs busy” — those three things are what I’m talking about.
It can also be very useful to bring a secular authority figure into play, a person who represents the Territorial Authority in some fashion. Since the needs of the Territorial Authority are different from the needs of the Faith, you can thereby introduce a person who a) has legitimate reason to be involved in the situation, but b) is working at cross-purposes to the Dogs.
The next couple of pages take the GM through the process of thinking up problems in the town, advising the GM at each step to
write a paragraph. Then they conclude (p 114) by instructing the GM to answer the following three questions:
What does each named person want from the Dogs? Write a sentence or two for each.
What do the demons want in general? What do they want from the Dogs? What might they do? Write a paragraph.
If the Dogs never came, what would happen - that is, what’s the next step up the “what’s wrong” ladder? Write a sentence or two.
Nothing in those instructions precludes the GM coming up with the idea of the sinners' meeting hall, which has been inherited by the young innocent, but with the will and title deeds hidden in the mayor's safe to make sure the property does not have to be given over to that heir.
And such a set-up could
nevertheless be resolved in DitV, using its conflict resolution method.
This is the basis for my claim, that there is no
inherent conflict between GM prep and conflict resolution. And conflict resolution does not depend, as you have asserted, upon the GM being free to manipulate the fiction so as to ensure that a goal is achieved if the task is successful. (In fact, based on my experience, I think looseness of fiction is more important for (i) framing, and (ii) narration of
failure consequences, than it is for ensuring the connection between success-of-task and attainment-of-goal.)
you have decided that you need to fight my observation that conflict resolution works better in a low myth environment. I find this curious, as in the past you have made yourself many examples of conflict resolution that rely on low myth.
I am disagreeing with your assertion because it is wrong, and is misleading as to the topic at hand.
"Low myth" (and now "no myth" and "low myth" are the same thing?) - what I have just referred to as "looseness of fiction" - is often important for framing, and for narration of failure consequences. What I am contesting is your assertion that it is important for narration of
consequences on a success. It can be in some contexts, but there are RPGs where it is not. Ron Edwards made this point
almost twenty years ago:
A lot of people have mistakenly interpreted the word "Narrativist" for "making it up as we go." Neither this nor anything like it is definitional for Narrativist play, but it is indeed an important issue for role-playing of any kind. . . .
I'm not saying that improvisation is better or more Narrativist than non-improvisational play. . . .
In designing a Setting-heavy Narrativist rules-set, I strongly suggest following the full-disclosure lead of HeroQuest and abandoning the metaplot "revelation" approach immediately.
That last sentence is obviously related to the principle of
actively revealing the town in play.
One of the earliest RPGs to use conflict resolution in a thorough-going fashion is Prince Valiant. That game's rulebook includes a collection of scenarios; and when I bought it, it shipped with a second book consisting purely of scenarios (the Episode Book). These scenarios are prep that includes information about who is where, who did what, etc. The Blue Cloak, for instance (on p 22 of the Episode Book), turns on the fact of a murder. It's possible to run a RPG where facts like that are the product of resolution rather than part of their framing (eg I've run Cthulhu Dark in this fashion, and have linked to an actual play report upthread); but the Blue Cloak is
not an example of this.
The scenario begins with the PCs, as they journey on their errantry, meeting a blue-cloaked figure at nightfall. He is "seeking their aid in apprehending the bandits who robbed him." Once he has led the PCs to the bandit's camp, he vanishes. And when the PCs meet the bandits,
The Adventurers also notice the bandit leader wearing a blue cloak with a silver clasp identical to Kallo the Merchant’s, though his is spattered with dark stains - the merchant’s blood.
If the bandits are confronted and defeated,
They admit to murdering Kallo and that he is buried in a shallow grave near the camp.
The key backstory is established as part of prep,
and yet this scenario can be resolved using conflict resolution. Here's an actual play report:
Sir Justin "the Gentle", so named because of
his deads at the Abbey of St Sigobert, was gifted a fine silvered dagger that had been blessed at that shrine.
<snip>
The PCs decided that saving even a single soul is an important thing, and so decided to take the wise woman to the Abbey of St Sigobert before going to fight Saxons. As they were getting close to Warwick, and travelling in the dark still looking for a place sheltered enough to camp without a tent, they came across a weary old man in a blue cloak. (The scenario in the Episode Book is called The Blue Cloak.) A merchant, he had been set upon by bandits who had taken his mule and his goods. He knew the game trail they had travelled down, and asked the PCs to help him. Being noble knights, of course they agreed to do so! As they travelled through the woods and down the trail, he asked about their families - learning that one was the son-in-law of the Duke of York ("What an honour to be aided by such a noble knight"), and that the other was returning to Warwick to woo the Lady Violette - and told them of his own daughter and son-in-law living in Warwick. Then, as they could hear the lusty singing of the bandits at their camp, he asked the PCs to go on without him as he was too weary to continue. The PCs were a little suspicious (as were their players) but opposed checks of his fellowship vs their Presences (even with bonus dice for suspicion) confirmed his sincerity.
The PCs approached the camp, and Sir Gerran drew his sword and called on the bandits to surrender. Their leader - wearing a very similar blue cloak to that of the merchant - was cowed, as was one other, but the third threw a clay bottle at Sir Gerran (to no effect) and then charged him sword drawn (and gaining a bonus die for knowing the lie of the land in the darkness), only to be knocked almost senseless with a single blow, resulting in his surrender also ("When I insulted you, it was the wine talking!").
The wise woman and old man, who had been waiting up the trail with the merchant, then arrived at the camp to say that the merchant had (literally) disappeared! Which caused some confusion, but they decided to sleep on it. The next morning, in the daylight, they could see that the brooch holding the bandit leader's cloak closed was identical to that which the merchant had worn. Sir Justin suggested he no doubt had multiples of his favourite cloak and fitting, but Sir Morgath had a different idea - "When you left the merchant you robbed, was he dead?" His presence roll was a poor one, and the bandits answers that the merchant fell from his mule and hit his head and died, and that they had buried him and had intended to place a cross on his grave first thing in the morning. Sir Morgath doubted this - "You didn't give him a proper burial - his ghost came to us last night!" - and I allowed a second presence check with a bonus but it still failed, and the bandits simply muttered protestations of innocence under their breaths.
Sir Justin received a vision from St Sigobert, and by plunging his dagger into the ground at the head of the grave was able to sanctify the ground. A cross was then placed there, and the group returned to Warwick with their bandit prisoners and returned the merchant's goods to his daughter.
One interesting feature of the Episodes in the Episode Book - which I have commented on more than once before - is that some are not well-conceived for conflict-resolution play, because they depend upon the GM breaking the connection between success/failure and win/lose in just the way Vincent Baker describes. The most egregious in this respect is Mark Rein-Hagen's "A Prodigal Son - in Chains" (pp 60-62), which contains such directions as "They [the PCs] need to capture and question Quink the hunchback and find out who he worked for" and "At this point you want Bryce to win over the Adventurers with his nobility of spirit despite his physical shortcomings" and "The Adventurers must now scour the forest to find Quink" and "Whatever happened, you need to have things end up with Bryce’s father, the duke, dead."
This is similar to a CoC scenario, or many TSR and WotC modules for D&D (including but by no means limited to Dead Gods). It is not compatible with conflict resolution.
One recurring instruction in Vincent Baker's rulebooks is this:
DitV, p 124: don’t have an answer already in mind. GMing Dogs is a different thing from playing it. Your job as the GM is to present an interesting social situation and provoke the players into judging it. You don’t want to hobble their judgments by arguing with them about what’s right and wrong, nor by creating situations where right and wrong are obvious. You want to hear your players’ opinions, not to present your own.
DitV, pp 137-8: Don’t play “the story.” The choices you present to the PCs have to be real choices, which means that you can’t possibly know already which way they’ll choose. You can’t have plot points in mind beforehand, things like “gotta get the PCs up to that old cabin so they can witness Brother Ezekiel murdering Sister Abigail...” No. What if the PCs reconcile Brother Ezekiel and Sister Abigail? . . . You can’t have a hero and a villain among your NPCs. It’s the PCs’ choices that make them so.
DitV, p 143: DO NOT have a solution in mind. If you have a solution in mind, the game rules are going to mess you up bad. . . . Your job is to present the situation and then escalate it. The players’ job is to pronounce judgment and follow through. The solution is born of the two in action.
Apocalypse World, p 107: DO NOT pre-plan a storyline, and I’m not [mess]ing around . . .
Apocalypse World, p 124: Before the 1st session . . . Daydream some apocalyptic imagery, but DO NOT commit yourself to any storyline or particular characters.
Preparing situations without preparing story, without stipulating heroes and villains, is one part of the use of conflict resolution in a context of GM prep of the relevant backstory.
