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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9230702" data-attributes="member: 42582">As per my post 984 upthread, conflict resolution is not something that just gets glommed onto RPG play with nothing else being changed.For instance, it requires that there be genuine stakes, which connect in some fashion to the unfolding fiction, and which everyone at the table has reason to care about.It also requires that we separate those stakes from the actions that the players are having their PCs perform, so that we get a contrast between intent and task.In [USER=29398]@Lanefan[/USER]'s example, of sneaking across the castle courtyard and checking out the door, does success mean that the PC is undetected? Is it possible, in the play of the game, for the player to succeed on their Stealth check and yet be observed by a scrying wizard, or even by a non-guard peeking through an upstairs window?If the answer to these questions is no - and from [USER=29398]@Lanefan[/USER]'s past reports of his play I am pretty confident that, at his table, the answer is "no" - then we do not have conflict resolution, and there is little point (as far as I can see) in trying to parse the declared action into a task and an intent. Drawing this distinction is significant (again, as far as I can see) only in a context where success at the task is binding in relation to the intent also.******************To build on Lanefan's example:Suppose that the GM's notes include that there is a magical scrying glyph, or Magic Mouth, or similar, that the PC will trigger if they do what the player is planning to have them do. How does a conflict resolution approach incorporate this?The details would depend on the particular system. In Torchbearer 2e, the most natural way to incorporate this that occurs to me as I am typing is narrating it to the player in response to their action declaration, and building it into the difficulty of the Obstacle. And now the player also has a pretty good idea of what the twist will be if their check fails!The Torchbearer approach works because the player has resources to try harder when the Obstacle turns out to be higher than they hoped (fate, persona, traits, wises for re-rolls, etc). In a system without such resources, it wouldn't work. Apocalypse World doesn't have such resources, but nor does it have variable difficulties: so in AW the incorporation of the concealed warning device would be different. In a check for Acting Under Fire, it could inform the result on a 7 to 9, or on a 6-. And if the check succeeds on a 10+, the GM could narrate the character narrowly avoiding triggering the device, thus setting things up (via a soft move) for some possible consequences down the track, should a hard move be enlivened.**************************************I believe your example, of turning on the light, is taken from Donald Davidson via this post of mine, or some other post where I have mentioned the same passage:Davidson thinks that your action was all those things, although you may have intended it under some but not other descriptions.Whether or not Davidson is correct, thankfully we do not need to solve such fundamental problems in the philosophy of action in order to design and play RPGs that use conflict resolution rather than task resolution. I assert this quite confidently, because it is at least arguable that there are unresolved fundamental philosophical problems in this field, but the RPG work has already been done!</blockquote>

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