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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9226985" data-attributes="member: 42582">What is "raw conflict resolution"?As I just posted in reply to [USER=6795602]@FrogReaver[/USER], 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.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 <a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/98542/Burning-Wheel-Gold-Hub-and-Spokes" target="_blank">here</a>):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.)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.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.</blockquote>

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