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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9226967" data-attributes="member: 42582">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?My answer to your question - in most circumstances, what that will produce is boring play.For instance, suppose that we have an action resolution system for power-lifting (maybe some combination of dice and resource expenditure associated with a STR stat). And what is at stake is Can I power-life 300 lb? Now our action resolution system gives us conflict resolution, without factoring in any element of the fiction beyond performance of the task.But that is not a very exciting RPG.Here's the reason why it works out like this:RPGs are, at least in mainstream cases, based around players declaring actions for their PCs. That is one important thing that distinguishes a RPG from mere shared storytelling: the players "interact" with the fiction by declaring actions for particular characters in that fiction. They perform tasks.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.To go back to the power-lifting example: in a RPG, aimed at exciting events occurring in play, the power-lifting would have a purpose. Perhaps the PC is freeing a friend trapped under a log - in which case, success at the task will, in a conflict resolution system, be determinative of whether or not the friend is freed. Perhaps the PC is trying to carry some treasure (say, a statue) out of the dungeon - in which case, success at the task will, in a conflict resolution system, be determinative of whether or not the statute is carried out.In task resolution - by definition, and as Baker explains and as Harper's diagram posted by [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] shows - the relationship between success or failure at the task, and achieving or failing at the goal, is mediated by further GM decision-making that sits outside the framing and resolution of the action declaration. Eg the PC lifts the log - but then (as narrated by the GM) the log breaks, and a bit falls back onto the friend leaving them trapped. Or eg the PC fails to lift the statue, but then (as narrated by the GM) it magically shrinks itself so the PC can carry it out in any event.This is a definition that tells us nothing interesting. I've played a lot of D&D, and GMed a lot of D&D. I've read a lot of D&D rulebooks and a lot of D&D modules.Only the most terrible forbid the players from having any goals other than prompt the GM to tell us more about their fiction. Most assume that the players have some aim other than find out what th GM will tell us <is in the safe>, <is in the room>, <is around the corner>, <is in the chest?, etc. They assume that the players will be aiming to find loot, to earn XP, to achieve the quest, etc. This assumption is built into the classic game and the modules up to around 1983. Subsequent modules assume that the GM will provide the players with a "hook" that gives them an aim; and then the players declare actions to try and achieve that aim.As [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] posted not too far upthread, at its best this is a type of puzzle-solving play:Of course, at its worst it is full-blooded railroading.The idea that a railroad is conflict resolution where the players are confined to stakes of "see what the GM tells us next" just sheds no light at all on different approaches to play.</blockquote>

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