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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8661574" data-attributes="member: 6696971">And on this, lets zoom out a little further.What was the point of Gavin's (The Blessed) entire journey conflict from Stonetop to Marshedge?To ensure the already-at-issue (because the player in question, Trys' player, proposed a kicker to make it an issue!) relationship strain between Stonetop and Marshedge didn't escalate.What was the point of Gavin's micro-conflict with the Marshedge Woodcutters and the Treant's grove?To convince the Treant to save his chosen charges (the Marshedge Inquisitor family) with its healing magic.So.Things go pear-shaped with his primal magic (infusing the area with wards and bindings) so I escalate on the grounds of the macro-conflict while giving Gavin what he wants in the micro-conflict; the Treant uses this primal power as a conduit to animate his grove and all hell breaks loose (4 woodcutters slaughtered immediately and the rest of the camp in disarray and terror with Gavin at the scene of the crime).  Now Gavin has significant danger to his primary objective.  What is he willing to do to resolve that?  What is he willing to stake to achieve the goal of the macro conflict?  Would he kill all of the woodcutters to prevent them from reporting back to Marshedge?  Would he act on his Instinct (the framing of this entire situation was player-directed from the outset of play; Instinct - to protect the natural world)?  Would he yield or balk in the face of all of these questions?Ultimately...he let the Woodcutters go. His decision. The overarching macro conflict was still in play until that decision.  Now Stonetop has a real problem of an escalated threat.  He saved the Marshedge Inquisitor Family...they are now Stonetop residents (moved by his aid)...but he intentionally folded on preventing the escalation of relations with Marshedge (there is only one "Wood-witch"/Blessed of Danu...Gavin...and he resides in and represents Stonetop), and while he protected the natural order, he didn't do so in a way that was complete (the bulk of the woodcutters and their foreman got away...and they weren't made aware of the reason vengeance was laid upon them...hence there is no "moral hazard" in play for them which disincentivizes them from subsequent "natural order-defiling" action) .  So we learned quite a bit about Gavin in this little (not so little) affair.So yeah...There are levels to all of this agency stuff and that is why the simple "sequence of events" litmus test espoused in the post you're responding to doesn't do much work beyond satisfying some particular cognitive need for extremely granular action resolution.EDIT - And really...this gets us back to Harper's Conflict Resolution vs Task Resolution diagrams that [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] posted from the other thread.</blockquote>

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