Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8598869" data-attributes="member: 42582">Are we talking about Torchbearer still?If so, at the moment Dro says "I put a bolt in his face!" then it is true, in the fiction, that Harguld has shot his crossbow. Still on p 33 of the SG, Thor's response (as GM) to Dro's action declaration is "Right. Fighter skill test versus its Ambushing Nature 5." The test being made follows from the (newly)established fiction that Harguld is shooting a bolt at the Gnoll. This is just the same as <a href="http://www.lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/427" target="_blank">Vincent Baker's</a> When your character attacks mine, roll dice (a rightward arrow, from clouds/fiction to boxes/cues/mechanics).In the case of Torchbearer, the point is reinforced by the SG discussions of action declaration and resolution: "If a player describes their character's actions in relation to an obstacle . . . they make the test. There's no backing out" (p 31); "Don't negotiate with players. . . . [W]hen relaying their decisions to you, player describe the actions of their characters. You then interpret that action into a skill test an an obstacle" (p 217).None of this changes the fact that the action has been declared, and in the fiction that thing is happening.As far as I can tell, what you're saying here is that if the action declaration - and hence the fictional position - was different (eg instead of declaring I shooot, Dro declares I scarper) then the fictional constraints that govern the use of a trait would change. That's true, but is not about "intentionality". It's about the fiction being different: Harguld would be doing a different thing.Whose intent? Harguld's intention to shoot the Gnoll is part of the fictional position, but largely irrelevant as Torchbearer has no mechanical processes that are sensitive to a character's intent - the relevant mechanics (eg what skill or attribute is tested) are all determined by task, not intent. (Contrast, say, In A Wicked Age where the character's intent might enliven With Love or For Others rather than With Violence or For Myself; or HeroWars/Quest, where if a PC's intent pertains to a relationship, then that relationship rating can figure in the process of action resolution.) I also agree with [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER]'s remarks that more subtle aspects of the character's mental states, while perhaps being imagined by individual participants, are frequently not part of the shared fiction because not really articulated. And of course in the example we're discussing, one key part of Harguld's mental state - ie his Cunning, which leads him to wait too long trying to lure the Gnoll in - is not made part of the shared fiction until after the mechanical process of resolution is complete.Turing from character to player: Dro's intent (ie, how Dro is hoping the shared fiction will turn out; what Dro thinks this action declaration will contribute to the play experience at the table; that Dro is looking for a chance to spend a trait to earn some checks; etc) is a real thing and not part of the fiction and hence not part of anyone's fictional positioning.Again, we don't need intentionality. Action does the job: Harguld is shooting his crossbow at the Gnoll. Introducing discussions of Harguld's mental state only muddies the waters, because it leads to this obscurantist notion that Harguld's waiting too long is a part of the fictional position that caused the tie and caused the use of the trait; whereas the actual process, that I've spelled out in posts upthread, is that the rolling of the dice and the noting of the tie is a cue, and the expenditure of a trait is another cue, and these mechanical processes all culminate in the introduction of a new bit of fiction: namely, that Harguld waited too long. And some thing that is narrated as an output of action resolution is, simply in virtue of that, not a component of the fiction that underpinned the action declaration.</blockquote>

Verification