Hey Ron. Since you're bringing up task vs. conflict resolution, it occured to me that- well, maybe I'm missing out on some subtext here, but to me it seems some part of the distinction here is redundant or misplaced. (Emphasis mine-)
Quote(1) Always, forever, no matter what, you must roll or apply a given game mechanic of any kind to see whether the character cuts the pole successfully. Or perhaps this "always" exists in vague range of difficulty as judged by the GM, but still, inside that range, the mechanic must be applied.
Quote(2) You consider whether cutting this pole is opposed by any other character or character-equivalent. Does any current action or pre-established action (even in the GM's notes) act as an opponent to this action? Does the timing of this action play a relevant part in some other circumstances in play? If yes, then you apply the relevant mechanic. If no, then you don't, and the character simply cuts the pole.
A. If there is nothing opposing the character's intended action, then the estimated difficulty for a task-resolution mechanic ought, logically, to be 'this is trivial'. I mean, there is literally "nothing stopping you"- so wouldn't that fall outside the judged 'range of difficulty' where a resolution-mechanic is even required?
B. If there is no particular time-pressure involved in completing the task (because nothing else of interest is really on the line, time-wise,) and there is even a slim chance of the task succeeding on a moment-to-moment basis (or whatever the time-scale of resolution is,) then logically the character can simply attempt the task over and over until they succeed. Their success is really a foregone conclusion, which is another way of saying that the difficulty associated with completing the task is, ultimately, 'this is trivial'. In other words, this is just a disguised form of (A), and there should, again, be no need to roll.
C. I'm assuming here, partly on the basis of various RPG texts that seem to employ conflict resolution, that 'character-equivalent opposition' would cover things like 'cliffs that need climbing', or 'wind resistance' or 'an unruly mob'. In other words, that that problematic aspects of the environment can count as obstacles here, and that's as true of task resolution as it is of conflict-recognition.
Which really just leaves your final clause/requirement, which is that 'the action play a relevant part in some other circumstances in play'. I agree that's an important and non-trivial distinction, (and perhaps historically, though I can't say with assurance myself, it may be fair to observe that groups which failed to 'get' that criterion also tended to be remiss in inferring the others.) It just seems to me that large chunks of your definition of "conflict resolution" are actually implied by taking "task resolution" and thinking it through to it's logical conclusions, and perhaps attention would be better spent on explaining what constitutes "conflict" in the first place.
The first example that would spring to mind for me was a zombie-survival game I took part in (over a year ago at this point). Me and the other players were having our characters busily boarding up an abandoned grocery depot, trying to see if could tack planks over the windows, erect barricades, etc., and I pointed out to the GM "we can just keep rolling for success- why not assume we succeed?" To which he replied, in my view quite correctly- "Ah, but the question is whether you can board the place up
before the zombies arrive", and then stated that we only had 10 minutes (i.e, a handful of rolls) remaining to get the job finished (i.e, get all the enumerated entry points blocked up.) That's when the task took on a real urgency, for me at least.
I hope you'll agree that's a reasonable example of conflict-resolution in action, but from my perspective, it 'emerged' from simply taking the implications of task resolution and extrapolating them to the point where the need for applying said mechanics was brought into question, and hence had to be clarified.
What might be more interesting here is that precise problem of 'clarification'- if a given group is committed to Illusionism, for example, then the GM might not be able to specify the 'window of crisis' that's actually relevant to the conflict at hand without inadvertantly leaking OOC information to the players. e.g, if our GM had been committed to strictly-IC information in the above example, and had determined that the zombie horde had actually wandered away someplace else entirely different from our hideout, then he would
still have been obliged to have us roll for every boarded window and impromptu barricade, or risk tipping us off to the fact that our PCs weren't actually threatened.
If you can't actually tell your players at the time which of their characters' actions will really matter and which won't, while trying to sustain belief in an omnipresent-but-vaguely-defined-ambient-threat, I'd venture you'll wind up having to roll for every conceivable humdrum task the PCs might want to accomplish, however irrelevant it actually is- (i.e, as a hypothetical, whether a given PC can successfully take a dump in less than a minute- based on the player's belief in the off-chance that it
might matter.) Off the top of my head, this kind of setup seems to be a prime candidate for generating copious Murk (or rather the latter of the dysfunctional solutions to it you mentioned.)
It's occurred to me my last post is probably veering a little off-topic from the present thread. I sometimes get struck by relatively isolated passages in a given thread that leap out at me as incongruous, but I'm not trying to actively derail the conversation or nitpick for nitpick's sake. (Anyways, if a split is in order, well and good.)
Hi Morgue! Good call, so it's split into this thread.
I'll be on it, in a kind of "hold your ticket with your number on it" way.
Best, Ron
Is this about "task vs conflict" resolution, or is it about "when should you test something = when should you roll dice"?
My answer to the second question is when the character is attempting something under pressure, and the stakes are high.
pressure = opposed action, time pressure, physical or mental pressure (wounded or scared etc...) or simply not proficient at the task at hand
high stakes = significant consequences rest on the result
Hi Morgan,
That's a beautiful answer for you, and I know it well because it was my answer too. Of course you didn't bother with tasks unless they were relevant to a conflict. To do otherwise would be silly!
Except that my "silly" is another group's hard and fast "the right way to play," and the GM points sternly to the rules which say something like, "When the character attempts to shoot his bow, roll the dice." Period. And to them, my criterion is obviously "metagame," which to them is degenerate play. They would be perfectly competent to point out how much you "gave away" or "did wrong" every time you glossed over tasks that were not relevant to conflicts, calling it "fiat" and (based on their experience) associating it with railroading, favoritism, and similar things.
Task resolution is a real, beating-heart criterion of play for many. They aren't giving it up. They aren't going to adopt a conflict-centric mode of play no matter what you say. Explaining what you're doing isn't going to make a difference. My task here isn't to advocate for one over the other but to understand the difference and to find functional versions of each.
Best, Ron
Hi Stephan, *
It's about task vs. conflict, but that is best understood as a criterion for "when you should roll the dice." (insert whatever specific resolution method you want, of which dice is one example)
To take this to a more general level just for a second, Murky play means among other things that you don't know whether or when to employ a given resolution mechanic, or people say that you must but the criteria seem inconsistent, arbitrary, or a tool of a specific player's control over events.
So let's dive closer: right at the moment when someone talks as if "Roll your Diplomacy" were a perfectly rational and understood thing to do at that time in play. I say talks as if because, no, in the vast majority of role-playing I have done or seen, it's not a rational and understood act. It's done only because a guy at the table says you do it, and if you pay attention, you find there are lots of times when you don't, even though the fictional circumstances appear to be the same.
I mean, really - without any reliance on jargon like "the stakes" or any fallback on boilerplate phrasing like "under stress," could you write instructions as to why players of D&D 3.5 do not roll Diplomacy or something similar every fucking time their characters speak? If so, then get out there and write a new rulebook because every author for that game title, and the vast majority of game authors historically, have demonstrated that they could not do it. Again: I do not accept that the usual phrasings actually work. People read them and try to apply them, but in the absence of meaning, the applications end up being either good or bad house-rules and nothing more.
I submit that my distinction between Task and Conflict is at least a good start to nailing down working criteria for when to use any such methods. Obviously it's difficult because unlike certain other principles I've discussed (especially SIS), it begins with a fundamental and incompatible dichotomy. If your criteria are for Task, then you can't be doing Conflict Resolution (even if you happen to resolve conflicts via all those tasks) and if your criteria are for Conflict, then you can't be doing Task Resolution (even if competence at tasks factors heavily in succeeding or failing in the conflict).
Why? Because if you're doing Task resolution, then each and every task/act is its own thing, to be assessed in its moment according to in-fiction circumstances. Even if "the task" is the whole fight among many different characters at once, because scale is not the issue. The issue is whether the stated/known action gets done. Neither is context the issue: if it's about pounding nails into the door really fast, then that's what this roll is about, whether or not a ravenous ghoul is about to crash into that door.
But if you're doing Conflict resolution, then what matters is the point at issue, what the Hero Wars rules called "stakes." ** Someone wants something. Someone or something is in the way, either directly or indirectly, and either orthogonally or in opposition. And the mechanics in question are going to be applied only toward the purpose of getting through that particular problem. Even if the units of resolution are very fine-grained, measured in microseconds, because scale is not the issue.
I hope you can see how this relates to Morgan's issue: he's played for years doing Conflict resolution even though the mechanics in question seem to be about tasks. But because he doesn't use the mechanics unless a genuine conflict is at hand, and because he plays through tasks until and because a conflict is getting resolved, then that's conflict resolution. It's about the fictional criteria for starting the rules-use in question, and about criteria for why and how you finish using them.
The reason people have trouble with all of this is that, characteristically of our hobby, everyone is dealing with the other variables flapping about like bats in their minds: scale, obviously; time/retroactive issues about the order of events; negotiatory mechanics of various sorts ... But the problem may be even greater, considering the explosion of design details right at the time that I was trying to talk to people about this distinction, it's no wonder that people think Conflict resolution means "Play like Polaris," and say "But isn't Dogs in the Vineyard resolution about Tasks, because I roll to see whether my bullet hits?"
Best, Ron
* Please correct my spelling of your name if I messed it up.
** Which I'm realizing, and remembering, is actually where that term comes from. We'd all forgotten that ... Also, please note my careful definition, which has nothing to do with the misbegotten bullshit people call "stakes," which is to say, endlessly negotiating about what a given roll will resolve.
Hi Ron, Im happy with Stef - Stefoid is my consistant internet handle. If you see it somewhere else, thats me. Steven Mathers is my real name.
My point is that
other than a criterion for when you roll the dice, task vs conflict is irrelevant at the table, and since its also something that 1000 roleplayers have 1000 different views of, maybe its better to concentrate on the goal - when to roll dice (or whatever) -- and work backwards?
For me anyway, task vs conflict isnt a distinction I find important at the table. I think about the context of a character action, but not whether that means I am implicitly thinking about resolving the conflict.
FWIW, as 1 of 1000 roleplayers, heres my opinion of task vs conflict resolution, which makes sense to me. I think about it as a system thing - I figure that if the resolution mechanic resolves if a character gets their intention, then the system is performing conflict resolution, but if the mechanic relies on player interpretation to resolve if a character gets their intention, then the system is performing task resolution.
example: character intention is to stop the nazi from hitting the switch
If the system says , roll your 'nazi stopping skill' and if you succeed, you have stopped him hitting the switch, then its using conflict resolution
If the system says, roll to hit the nazi, and if you succeed, the GM/player decides if you have done enough damage to stop him from hitting the switch, then its using task resolution.
So its not the scope of resolution thats important, but whether or not there is human interpretation required. Im mindful of that distinction as an aid in making mechanics more than anything. Its more player empowering for the mechanic to guarantee the character gets what they want if the resolution is favourable.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on August 24, 2012, 10:17:41 PM
Hi Stephan, *
It's about task vs. conflict, but that is best understood as a criterion for "when you should roll the dice." (insert whatever specific resolution method you want, of which dice is one example)
To take this to a more general level just for a second, Murky play means among other things that you don't know whether or when to employ a given resolution mechanic, or people say that you must but the criteria seem inconsistent, arbitrary, or a tool of a specific player's control over events.
So let's dive closer: right at the moment when someone talks as if "Roll your Diplomacy" were a perfectly rational and understood thing to do at that time in play. I say talks as if because, no, in the vast majority of role-playing I have done or seen, it's not a rational and understood act. It's done only because a guy at the table says you do it, and if you pay attention, you find there are lots of times when you don't, even though the fictional circumstances appear to be the same.
I mean, really - without any reliance on jargon like "the stakes" or any fallback on boilerplate phrasing like "under stress," could you write instructions as to why players of D&D 3.5 do not roll Diplomacy or something similar every fucking time their characters speak? If so, then get out there and write a new rulebook because every author for that game title, and the vast majority of game authors historically, have demonstrated that they could not do it. Again: I do not accept that the usual phrasings actually work. People read them and try to apply them, but in the absence of meaning, the applications end up being either good or bad house-rules and nothing more.
I submit that my distinction between Task and Conflict is at least a good start to nailing down working criteria for when to use any such methods. Obviously it's difficult because unlike certain other principles I've discussed (especially SIS), it begins with a fundamental and incompatible dichotomy. If your criteria are for Task, then you can't be doing Conflict Resolution (even if you happen to resolve conflicts via all those tasks) and if your criteria are for Conflict, then you can't be doing Task Resolution (even if competence at tasks factors heavily in succeeding or failing in the conflict).
Why? Because if you're doing Task resolution, then each and every task/act is its own thing, to be assessed in its moment according to in-fiction circumstances. Even if "the task" is the whole fight among many different characters at once, because scale is not the issue. The issue is whether the stated/known action gets done. Neither is context the issue: if it's about pounding nails into the door really fast, then that's what this roll is about, whether or not a ravenous ghoul is about to crash into that door.
But if you're doing Conflict resolution, then what matters is the point at issue, what the Hero Wars rules called "stakes." ** Someone wants something. Someone or something is in the way, either directly or indirectly, and either orthogonally or in opposition. And the mechanics in question are going to be applied only toward the purpose of getting through that particular problem. Even if the units of resolution are very fine-grained, measured in microseconds, because scale is not the issue.
I hope you can see how this relates to Morgan's issue: he's played for years doing Conflict resolution even though the mechanics in question seem to be about tasks. But because he doesn't use the mechanics unless a genuine conflict is at hand, and because he plays through tasks until and because a conflict is getting resolved, then that's conflict resolution. It's about the fictional criteria for starting the rules-use in question, and about criteria for why and how you finish using them.
The reason people have trouble with all of this is that, characteristically of our hobby, everyone is dealing with the other variables flapping about like bats in their minds: scale, obviously; time/retroactive issues about the order of events; negotiatory mechanics of various sorts ... But the problem may be even greater, considering the explosion of design details right at the time that I was trying to talk to people about this distinction, it's no wonder that people think Conflict resolution means "Play like Polaris," and say "But isn't Dogs in the Vineyard resolution about Tasks, because I roll to see whether my bullet hits?"
Best, Ron
* Please correct my spelling of your name if I messed it up.
** Which I'm realizing, and remembering, is actually where that term comes from. We'd all forgotten that ... Also, please note my careful definition, which has nothing to do with the misbegotten bullshit people call "stakes," which is to say, endlessly negotiating about what a given roll will resolve.
@ Steven-
My personal inclination, for whatever it's worth, would be to say that, in and of itself, in some idealised-newtonian-physics sense, whether 'the stakes are high' is not going to, e.g, make bullets less or more likely to hit trees. However, whether you have plenty of time to accomplish that bullet-in-tree-insertion probably will affect your ultimate likelihood of success (quite possibly to the point where it's trivial,) and whether the stakes are high could well affect whether the character inclines to persue or persist in that goal in the first place.
I think this may have something to do with how conflict resolution is often expressed- as you yourself have- in terms of resolving conflicts of interest for the characters. It's not necessarily because the world's physics specifically molds itself around the axis of success/failure with respect to the player's intent (though it can, if you take BW's Artha as an example,) but because character interests/goals determine whether or not a character will persist in trying to achieve success at a given task. (I mean, you could keep stopping every X in-world minutes and asking if the PCs 'want to do something different', but until something substantial changes about the circumstances that prompted their original decision, it's the illusion of choice without any real basis for choosing differently. (Which I've seen happen, BTW.) This is probably why conflict-centric systems emphasise boiling down the whole affair to as few rolls as possible, settling the matter, and moving on to the next scene.)
But yeah, like Ron says- I don't think this is specifically about whether 1 roll is used or 10 or a hundred. I personally don't mind making a half-dozen rolls to establish, e.g, whether I nick the enemy's clavicle in mortal combat, as long as I know why I'm rolling in the first place- what led up to the encounter, why my character would give a fuck, and what happens if I win/lose.
@ Ron-
I'm still kind of processing the above remarks, and I'll probably come back later in the week with some more elaborated response once I've had a chance to masticate them thoroughly, but for now I'll just try to throw out a few preliminary responses and queries.
* I'm not saying that conflict resolution is superior or better per se, just that, in many circumstances, I don't really see the functional distinction. (For example, how would you characterise the 'Take 10' and 'Take 20' rules in 3E D&D, which basically allows you automatic success on tasks that don't involve significant time-pressure?) And in the circumstances where this is a distinction... I'm just having trouble understanding why players might regularly and willingly have their PCs putter around doing stuff that- by definition- can't make the faintest difference to anything.
* Just to clarify, I'm assuming that things like 'distance from the tree' could be considered a relevant form of 'opposition' when deciding whether you can fire an arrow/bullet into the thing? I mean, if I as a hypothetical GM found a player asking whether they can do this, and couldn't see any obvious reason why it would matter, my inclination would be to look a bit askance at the player and say "Okay... is there some particular reason why your character would do this?" I mean, if they pushed, I'd probably let them go ahead and roll, but again, the 'why' here mystifies me.
* When you say that these groups are resistant to conflict-resolution as a form of 'GM fiat' or 'metagame', are you saying that these groups are resistant to the idea of fixed plotlines? Or do they have some other common characteristics or correlated concerns that you can make out? Is there any merit to the connection with illusionist play?
* Speaking personally, I consider myself pretty sensitive to things like blurring the distinction between IC and OOC information, and what constitutes 'metagame' in the classical sense, and both subtle and overt forms of Force techniques (which I actually consider to be prime examples of the former in action.) I also think, however, that people have a tendency to identify 'metagame' in terms of superficial attributes like 'OOC discussion of fictional events', whereas my personal definition is both laxer and some respects and stricter in others (specifically, "factors with no clear correlate in the fiction nonetheless impacting resolution of fictional events." This is a very thorny thicket, though, so I'll probably save my perspective on the topic for another time.)
Quote from: Morgan Allen on August 26, 2012, 08:44:48 PMAnd in the circumstances where this is a distinction... I'm just having trouble understanding why players might regularly and willingly have their PCs putter around doing stuff that- by definition- can't make the faintest difference to anything.
This may have come across as faintly condescending, so I'd just like to qualify as follows: (1) I am genuinely curious on this point, and (2) as outlined in the OP, I can *kinda* understand why this might be practiced if the players were restricted solely to IC information. (I actually have a couple of speculations as to the 'why' here, but all of them seem tough to reconcile with complaints about railroading or metagame or GM fiat- e.g, if it's supportive of functional illusionism, then wouldn't the players be loosely aware that they are, on some level, being railroaded anyway? Or is this representative of a variety of complaints coming from entirely different groups with entirely different creative agendas?)
So with the zombies, OOC info etc... Instead of asking what type of resolution do I apply, concentrate on when do I apply it? Then maybe the angst resolves itself.
Well, the PCs are boarding up windows unaware that zombies are descending on the house. Do we need to apply conflict resolution mechanics at all this point? Do any of the players actually care? I guess if they did, they would say so - "man, we better get this house secure before any zombies find us". that signals a potenial conflict res worth playing out to me.
But if nobody cares, what is the point of focussing the game on boarding up windows at all? Just narrate soemthign appropriate to the situation and get on with it.
I think the point I am making is that if you take your cues from what matters to the players/their characetrs at any given time, the nature of the reoslution mechanic to use comes naturally from that. If someone at the table seems to want to make a big deal about something that is best resolved using task resolution, then use task res at that time.
I am hijacking this a bit, but I just thought of it and its funny - imagine emplying a conflict res mechanic of any kind as the dramatic music aprt of a movie. Maybe action music, or suspense music or emotional music. A lot of simmy type games I have played, that music is playing ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Im just going to climb this tree -dah-dah-DAH!!! Now Im going to baord these windows "ooo-eee-OOO" Its tedius and numbing. If you concentrate on when to roll, then you will know why you are rolling and the resolution mechanic should be obvious, and you dont have to listen to that fucking music all the time.
Quote from: stefoid on August 27, 2012, 02:13:00 AM
So with the zombies, OOC info etc... Instead of asking what type of resolution do I apply, concentrate on when do I apply it? Then maybe the angst resolves itself.
Well, the PCs are boarding up windows unaware that zombies are descending on the house. Do we need to apply conflict resolution mechanics at all this point? Do any of the players actually care? I guess if they did, they would say so - "man, we better get this house secure before any zombies find us". that signals a potenial conflict res worth playing out to me.
But if nobody cares, what is the point of focussing the game on boarding up windows at all? Just narrate soemthign appropriate to the situation and get on with it.
I think the point I am making is that if you take your cues from what matters to the players/their characetrs at any given time, the nature of the reoslution mechanic to use comes naturally from that. If someone at the table seems to want to make a big deal about something that is best resolved using task resolution, then use task res at that time.
Well, while I agree that looking at players' engagement as a sign of when to roll dice is probably helpful, in my opinion it may be a confusion of cause and effect. I mean, ideally, the players are interested and engaged because they recognise the inherent dangers/tension/risks of the situation, and want to be able to resolve the outcome well.
But if, for example, our group had given every sign that 'No, I reckon the zombies will amble off elsewhere, why should we bother with barricades?', then I would say our GM would be fully entitled to give us a meaningful glare, and proceed to have our compound, at some point or another, assaulted by zombies, whether we cared about it or not. And that said zombies would be substantially harder to fend off or escape from due to a lack of barricades. I mean, sometimes, the 'situation-appropriate narration' is 'zombies eat your brains. The end.'
But that strikes me as a breakdown on the social contract level more than anything else (if your players aren't prepared to pay attention to fixing up barricades, what on earth on they doing playing this game?)
Quote from: stefoid on August 27, 2012, 02:18:42 AM
I am hijacking this a bit, but I just thought of it and its funny - imagine emplying a conflict res mechanic of any kind as the dramatic music aprt of a movie. Maybe action music, or suspense music or emotional music. A lot of simmy type games I have played, that music is playing ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Im just going to climb this tree -dah-dah-DAH!!! Now Im going to baord these windows "ooo-eee-OOO" Its tedius and numbing. If you concentrate on when to roll, then you will know why you are rolling and the resolution mechanic should be obvious, and you dont have to listen to that fucking music all the time.
Interestingly though, in the Sims series you have the option to 'fast forward' past the time it takes for a given character to finish up an otherwise tedious, time-consuming task, which I think is sort of related to the question of stakes/time-pressure.
I mean, in a situation where a player wants their PC to put a bullet in a tree, and there's no time pressure or significant side-effects to failure, I'm inclined to assume that the character keeps shooting until they hit. Not that they never miss when trying, or suddenly develop preternaturally uncanny aim. Just that- unless their 'miss ratio' is somehow relevant to the character or situation, I dunno, maybe he's trying to impress the miller's daughter- then I'm taking their *eventual* success as a given, so we can move on to some more interesting scene.
By contrast, in your example of trying to prevent the nazi from hitting the switch, the point is that you've already identified the 'crux' of the scene- whether or not the nazi hits the (self-destruct?!) switch- and whether you settle that directly, through one agglomerated roll, or indirectly by-
* rolling to hit,
* rolling for the nazi's dodge attempt,
* rolling for damage,
* having the nazi roll vs. fortitude to see if they wince and lose their next action,
* then performing a rush tackle with your athletics skill vs. the nazi's strength to knock him away from the switch,
* etc...
Is beside the point. The point is that in both examples, the
purpose of your rolling is to settle the real crisis of the scene- whether or not the nazi hits the switch. Which I think is what Ron is expressing as 'conflict resolution'.
In contrast to that,
if, having established that the nazi does not hit the switch, you now want to tie him up and gag him, and the GM/players insist that you must roll vs. your 'tie knots' skill as many times as it takes to actually succeed in tying him up, then that's task resolution. Whereas, if you assume that, because the fortress has been cleared of other threats, tying a knot only takes a minute, and he's not going to wake up for hours, that your
eventual success at tying him up is essentially guaranteed, so that you can skip over the actual rolling... then, again, you have conflict resolution. (Or rather, the recognition of a lack of serious conflict.)
Right on, you will get more bang for your buck focussing on why you are applying a resolution mechanic at all as opposed to the nature of those mechanics. And as it turns out the overwhelming majority of situations where it is a good idea to use resolution mechaics will be obvious conflicts of interest rather than tasks, and so be better suited to conflict res mechancis.
I did not want to post in this section when I subscribed to these forums, but there are a couple of points that are rather relevant, and that either I did not understand very well or else sound incorrect to me. As I am discussing these topics elsewhere, and the correct interpretation of what is written in the wiki is relevant to the discussion there, I could use some clarifications.
Let us examine the explanation about Conflict Resolution. Ron made a statement that claims to encompass all RPG rulesets now available.
QuoteThe difference is enormous. It is not trivial, and there is no spectrum between these approaches to play and to rules. This is a binary and real distinction that applies to any role-playing rules ever written and played.
I am not really sold about this. All the examples you have provided about Task Resolution are rather extreme (rolling dice to see if you can cut a pole, hit a tree trunk with a pistol etc.). There is a wide spectrum of alternatives within both task resolution and conflict resolution, with plenty of different implementations of both approaches. Why do you deny that this can also constitute a "spectrum" between the two extremes? Can you speculate further, and show why a progressive transition, in design or in play, from task to conflict or vice versa is impossible?
And now the second point:
QuoteMy task here isn't to advocate for one over the other but to understand the difference and to find functional versions of each.
Let us throw in a possible trick that could produce functional results for both methods. Suppose that we wish to introduce this simple criterion:
"Would failure produce an interesting result? If not, the players succeed."
Even though the word "failure" hints at task resolution, this rule (it is by Robin Laws) is in fact supposed to be applied to conflict resolution. However, I see no reason why this should not work with a task resolution mechanics. If the Narrator sees no interesting result could come from failure, no roll or other procedure is called for.
NOTE: in some gaming groups, survival of your character when he or she should have died is not considered an "interesting" result, as it breaks their SoD, so any outcome that could potentially kill a PC is automatically relevant for them.
Clarifications: it is not the examples about Task Resolution that are extreme, it is how the method appears to be applied in the examples given that sounds extreme to me. I know task-based rulesets that would not behave as Ron described the "standard" Task Resolution response to such situations ("your roll whenever you fire a bow").
Quote from: RosenMcStern on August 30, 2012, 08:41:32 AM"Would failure produce an interesting result? If not, the players succeed."
If by 'interesting result' one meant, e.g, 'time lost under a deadline' or other inconvenient fictional side-effects, then yeah, I can get behind that. I suggest that the mental block people have with criteria with this, particularly if they're simulationist in inclination, would be that the phrasing suggests that the players' moment-to-moment focus of attention spontaneously warps the modelling of probability within the fictional world. And while it *can* be expressed or implemented that way, I suggest it's not the only method of explaining what's going on.
(Note: Whether good or bad, I imagine you could only call PC-death 'uninteresting' if the players were wholly indifferent to their PCs' survival one way or another.)
Quote from: Ron Edwards on August 24, 2012, 10:15:33 PMTask resolution is a real, beating-heart criterion of play for many. They aren't giving it up. They aren't going to adopt a conflict-centric mode of play no matter what you say. Explaining what you're doing isn't going to make a difference. My task here isn't to advocate for one over the other but to understand the difference and to find functional versions of each.
Alright Ron, after due consideration here's how I see it. I go to look at the page on Conflict Resolution, and I see a long explanation of the concept with several examples for the purposes of clarification as to how and why you would/should use it, but without any particular mention of problematic execution or associated risks. Then I look up the page on Task Resolution, with much of the text devoted to:
Quote from: Task Resolution Wiki PageKnown issues and problems
...In general, this combination is less and less used in more modern role-playing games, supplanted by Conflict Resolution and Fortune-in-the-middle.
I realise this is very much a work in progress, but regardless of your intent, the overall impression I get from the wiki is that you are, in effect, advocating for CR and see very little point to using TR. Now, maybe that's not your intent. Maybe you have participated in fun, functional groups that used TR to great effect, and you know first-hand that there are circumstances which make it much easier to work with, or maybe there are potential drawbacks to using CR which offset it's relative advantages.
Well, in the case that there are Pros to TR and/or Cons to CR, perhaps the wiki should be updated to reflect that. If, on the other hand, you are genuinely drawing a blank on the subject, because you haven't found 'functional versions' of one, then there's little point to claiming 'fair and balanced' coverage, and you might as well just... advocate. *spreads hands* Either way is fine with me.
There are other points I might quibble with- in particular, I wonder if the problems you list with Task Resolution aren't more symptomatic of, e.g, funky modelling of probability distributions- but if this doesn't interest you, I'll be happy to drop the subject. However, given that Paolo has pointed it out, I do find the following passages difficult to reconcile-
Quote from: Conflict Resolution Wiki PageThe difference is enormous. It is not trivial, and there is no spectrum between these approaches to play and to rules. This is a binary and real distinction that applies to any role-playing rules ever written and played.
Quote from: Task Resolution Wiki PageAre Task Resolution and Conflict Resolution incompatible?
No. Many games present both, for different cases. Even D&D, from the first editions, had a Conflict Resolution Combat System associated to abilities used with Task Resolution.
Are Task Resolution and Conflict Resolution the only possible choices?
No. They only list two possible "triggers" for the use of a fortune mechanic (when the character try to do something, as a task, or when the character is in a conflict)
Anyhoo, moving on-
Quote from: Ron Edwards on August 24, 2012, 10:17:41 PMSo let's dive closer: right at the moment when someone talks as if "Roll your Diplomacy" were a perfectly rational and understood thing to do at that time in play. I say talks as if because, no, in the vast majority of role-playing I have done or seen, it's not a rational and understood act. It's done only because a guy at the table says you do it, and if you pay attention, you find there are lots of times when you don't, even though the fictional circumstances appear to be the same.
I mean, really - without any reliance on jargon like "the stakes" or any fallback on boilerplate phrasing like "under stress," could you write instructions as to why players of D&D 3.5 do not roll Diplomacy or something similar every fucking time their characters speak? If so, then get out there and write a new rulebook because every author for that game title, and the vast majority of game authors historically, have demonstrated that they could not do it. Again: I do not accept that the usual phrasings actually work. People read them and try to apply them, but in the absence of meaning, the applications end up being either good or bad house-rules and nothing more.
I submit that my distinction between Task and Conflict is at least a good start to nailing down working criteria for when to use any such methods.
Yeah, I'm pretty much in agreement here. The problem is that a strict and literal interpretation of the D&D diplomacy skill lends itself to two fairly absurd situations, depending on whether or not you omit the 'retries don't work' clause:
1. Allow re-rolls for diplomacy, thus allowing high-charisma characters to badger people into doing whatever they want,
as long as they keep trying.
2. Don't allow re-rolls for diplomacy, therefore turning affected NPCs into reflexive automatons, incapable of revising their opinions and goals.
And yes, I would agree that conflict resolution is probably the solution to this dilemma, because capital-C "Conflicts" tend to be marked or punctuated by events that signify changes in circumstances relevant to the characters' decision-making. (i.e, because a goal or sub-goal of theirs has just been attained or frustrated, wound up at odds with another goal or sub-goal, etc.) And these shifts mark where an involved character might be susceptible to fresh persuasion- because the circumstances have changed, and they now have to make a new decision. "I want you to reconsider your position, because Important Thing X has happened and Important Thing Y has happened and now we ought to do A and B in response."
QuoteI hope you can see how this relates to Morgan's issue: he's played for years doing Conflict resolution even though the mechanics in question seem to be about tasks.
Just to clarify: I'm not claiming to be some weathered grognard with extensive first-hand experience of all of these modes of play. Half of my opinions are based on second-hand, anecdotal testimony from forum discussions here and elsewhere, or relatively brief exposure to con games and demos. And I can accept that this distinction between Task/Conflict *does* exist as an overall philosophy of play. I'm just not certain that the phrasing currently being used to differentiate them on the wiki will really clear up confusion for anyone curious on the subject.
Ron should be fighting against a deadline at this moment, so don't be surprised if he will not be able to reply for a few days.
I am replying about the part that talks about something I wrote. I wrote the first "fleshed out" pages both for conflict resolution and task resolution (after the first stubs taken from the glossary). The task Resolution page is still the one I wrote at the beginning of July, but little survive of what I wrote on the Conflict Resolution page, that Ron rewrote almost completely.
So, if these is a difference between the two pages, it's because one (the task resolution one) reflect what I think, the other reflect what Ron thinks.
(I hope that this thread will be able to reconcile the two visions in a coherent wiki...)
So...
Quote from: Morgan Allen on August 30, 2012, 05:14:28 PM
Quote from: Task Resolution Wiki PageKnown issues and problems
...In general, this combination is less and less used in more modern role-playing games, supplanted by Conflict Resolution and Fortune-in-the-middle.
I realise this is very much a work in progress, but regardless of your intent, the overall impression I get from the wiki is that you are, in effect, advocating for CR and see very little point to using TR.
I wrote that part, and yes, I consider conflict resolution vastly superior for almost anything (even if I can't exclude that task resolution would be better for some kind of purpose, I still have not encountered one of that kind not tied to simple conservatorism and habits). But I didn't let that opinion spill on the wiki page this time: that one is simply an historical observation. For a lot of years, in the 80's and 90's, almost 100% of the games were about task resolution, it was so ingrained that it was "the way you play a rpg". Seeing that at this time there are literally hundreds of new games using conflict resolution, with more and more being published, it would be difficult to negate that, in objective, measurable terms, the percentage of games using conflict resolution greatly increased from that old 0%, and so the percentage of task resolution games decreased.
Quote
Quote from: Conflict Resolution Wiki PageThe difference is enormous. It is not trivial, and there is no spectrum between these approaches to play and to rules. This is a binary and real distinction that applies to any role-playing rules ever written and played.
Quote from: Task Resolution Wiki PageAre Task Resolution and Conflict Resolution incompatible?
No. Many games present both, for different cases. Even D&D, from the first editions, had a Conflict Resolution Combat System associated to abilities used with Task Resolution.
Are Task Resolution and Conflict Resolution the only possible choices?
No. They only list two possible "triggers" for the use of a fortune mechanic (when the character try to do something, as a task, or when the character is in a conflict)
I was talking about entire games. There is nothing that force someone to use task resolution (or conflict resolution) in every single aspect of a game (AD&D for example didn't)
I suspect that Ron was talking about the specific single resolution of a single situation, that can be with task resolution or conflict resolution, but not both.
There is really no incompatibility at all in these two positions, seeing that they talk about different things. I am saying that in a sack you can have both apples and oranges, Ron is saying that an apple is not an orange.
About resolutions that are not task or conflict: I was thinking about things like the roll in Bacchanal (where you "resolve" a situation before it happen, without even knowing if there will be a conflict, and with no relation to any task whatsoever), the choice of love/pity in Kagematsu (this one is an interesting example: I would love to talk about Kagematsu in another thread, when Ron will have more free time), the roll at the beginning of a session of a Hardholder in Apocalypse World, for example.
Quote from: Morgan Allen on August 27, 2012, 11:58:34 AM
Quote from: stefoid on August 27, 2012, 02:13:00 AM
So with the zombies, OOC info etc... Instead of asking what type of resolution do I apply, concentrate on when do I apply it? Then maybe the angst resolves itself.
Well, the PCs are boarding up windows unaware that zombies are descending on the house. Do we need to apply conflict resolution mechanics at all this point? Do any of the players actually care? I guess if they did, they would say so - "man, we better get this house secure before any zombies find us". that signals a potenial conflict res worth playing out to me.
But if nobody cares, what is the point of focussing the game on boarding up windows at all? Just narrate soemthign appropriate to the situation and get on with it.
I think the point I am making is that if you take your cues from what matters to the players/their characetrs at any given time, the nature of the reoslution mechanic to use comes naturally from that. If someone at the table seems to want to make a big deal about something that is best resolved using task resolution, then use task res at that time.
Well, while I agree that looking at players' engagement as a sign of when to roll dice is probably helpful, in my opinion it may be a confusion of cause and effect. I mean, ideally, the players are interested and engaged because they recognise the inherent dangers/tension/risks of the situation, and want to be able to resolve the outcome well.
But if, for example, our group had given every sign that 'No, I reckon the zombies will amble off elsewhere, why should we bother with barricades?', then I would say our GM would be fully entitled to give us a meaningful glare, and proceed to have our compound, at some point or another, assaulted by zombies, whether we cared about it or not. And that said zombies would be substantially harder to fend off or escape from due to a lack of barricades. I mean, sometimes, the 'situation-appropriate narration' is 'zombies eat your brains. The end.'
But that strikes me as a breakdown on the social contract level more than anything else (if your players aren't prepared to pay attention to fixing up barricades, what on earth on they doing playing this game?)
I missed this reply. I am going to use 'roll dice' as shorthand for "
use the games conflict resolution mechanics to resolve a situation", OK?
So I didnt mean that issues or conflict or confrontation or challenging situations cant/shouldnt occur if you dont roll dice. You can resolve stuff without rolling dice! You can have the zombies get in easilly if the players dont board the windows. You can have the zombies stuck outside hammering on the boards if they do - choices have consequences, regardless of dice rolling.
What Im saying is you need to look hard at the situation and pick your 'battles' to roll dice for. A conflict between the players boarding the windows before (potential) zombies get there may or may not be appropriate to focus on by rolling dice, or it may be approprite at one time and not another. It depends. Theres nothign worse than grinding through a bunch of shit in a game that nobody actually gives a flying fuck about.
Like Ron says, conflicts (of interset) is one criterion of rolling the dice, but it doesnt follow that you should roll dice for
every conflict of interst that may arise.
Quote from: Moreno R. on August 30, 2012, 06:34:49 PMI wrote that part, and yes, I consider conflict resolution vastly superior for almost anything (even if I can't exclude that task resolution would be better for some kind of purpose, I still have not encountered one of that kind not tied to simple conservatorism and habits). But I didn't let that opinion spill on the wiki page this time: that one is simply an historical observation. For a lot of years, in the 80's and 90's, almost 100% of the games were about task resolution, it was so ingrained that it was "the way you play a rpg". Seeing that at this time there are literally hundreds of new games using conflict resolution, with more and more being published, it would be difficult to negate that, in objective, measurable terms, the percentage of games using conflict resolution greatly increased from that old 0%, and so the percentage of task resolution games decreased.
I'm not disputing the historical accuracy of this statement. All I'm saying is,
if you and other Forge regulars are genuinely at a loss to describe how all-TR-all-the-time might functionally be employed, then there's no particular need to make some show of defending it or pretending it's equally valid.
If, on the other hand, it really is an integral part of certain styles of play, then perhaps you should outline and describe those.
Based on my own limited observations, FWIW, I'm fully of the opinion that gratuitous task-resolution could die in a fire to no great loss to anyone. But I am interested in where the all-TR-all-the-time philosophy
comes from, because I have this tickling, back-of-my-mind suspicion that it's somehow related to a couple of priorities- the idea of enforcing an impartial standard of causality, of a fictional world that keeps turning on it's own axis, that the PCs are not the centre of the universe even if they are an integral part of it- that I
am kinda sympathetic to. I can't
prove that's the case, but if it were it might lend some clues to the kind of game design that would scratch that particular itch in a more... efficient fashion. So... that's why I'm curious about whether these groups share any other common characteristics or agenda.
QuoteI was talking about entire games. There is nothing that force someone to use task resolution (or conflict resolution) in every single aspect of a game (AD&D for example didn't)
I suspect that Ron was talking about the specific single resolution of a single situation, that can be with task resolution or conflict resolution, but not both.
There is really no incompatibility at all in these two positions, seeing that they talk about different things. I am saying that in a sack you can have both apples and oranges, Ron is saying that an apple is not an orange.
*spreads hands* ...Again, all I am saying is that the phrasing currently employed by the wiki is, IMHO, likely to engender confusion and could stand some cleanup or clarification in that regard. It's all well and fine and good to explain this to me, but you need to explain it there as well.
Quote from: stefoid on August 31, 2012, 12:54:47 AM
I missed this reply. I am going to use 'roll dice' as shorthand for "use the games conflict resolution mechanics to resolve a situation", OK?
So I didnt mean that issues or conflict or confrontation or challenging situations cant/shouldnt occur if you dont roll dice. You can resolve stuff without rolling dice! You can have the zombies get in easilly if the players dont board the windows. You can have the zombies stuck outside hammering on the boards if they do - choices have consequences, regardless of dice rolling.
What Im saying is you need to look hard at the situation and pick your 'battles' to roll dice for. A conflict between the players boarding the windows before (potential) zombies get there may or may not be appropriate to focus on by rolling dice, or it may be approprite at one time and not another. It depends. Theres nothign worse than grinding through a bunch of shit in a game that nobody actually gives a flying fuck about.
Again, I don't think we ultimately disagree on this point. I am simply suggesting that, in a group which functionally employs Conflict Resolution, then if you look carefully at when the players are interested, it is
because the fictional circumstances entail significant uncertainty about outcomes relevant to their characters.
I just feel that the alternative emphasis- that the players' real-world moment-to-moment shifting of interest is what should shape the fiction, or saying "it's not about
character priorities, it's about
player priorities"- can lead to exactly the kind of problems with "stakes negotiation" that Ron was talking about earlier- "endlessly negotiating about what a given roll will resolve." I have this vague recollection of a thread on Story Games (found it (http://www.story-games.com/forums/discussion/1199/big-gencon-stakes-discussion/p1)) where he elaborated on this sort of thing:
QuoteGM: The demon-guy is going to burn the book with your mother's secret letters in it!
Player in PTA, playing Buffy (by whatever name): That demon has gone too far this time. I kick his ass!
GM: If I win, then your mother falls in love with him!
Player: Oh yeah? If I win, then his dick shrivels up!
It's the same chesting (not "chest-beating," a listening-error made by some people that evening, but rather butting and shoving with chests) as in the previous example - but positioned before the roll, not after.
It can go on to pretty absurd extremes, with people really expanding the scope ("if I win, the school burns down!!" "If I win, you're really a man in disguise!"), but it's not that absurdity I'm talking about, but the basic structural problem.
People who say, "But we have fun! This works! You're just inveighing against something you don't like, as usual, Edwards!" are using exactly the same argument that used to be applied to the older version. "It worked for us!" Why? Because they enjoy chesting with one another, and have little to no interest in whether the demon-guy burns the book or whether he gets his ass kicked. All in-game conflicts are present only for the opportunity to chest. Any minute now, they'll say "you just have to find the right group" to support their point, which is no argument at all.
The problem I see within this example is that there's no particularly plausible connection between whether you succeed/fail at kicking a demon's ass and "your mother falls in love", etc. The
real player (or GM) might want this, but it has absolutely nothing to do with fictional causality. It's biting off too much, because the conversation is focused on the wrong thing- real-people priorities, instead of fictional events.
Now, sure, you need to be able to sit down at the table with people who are likewise committed to that kind of integrity-of-fiction, and
yes, that is a reflection of real-people priorities.
Yes, players can modify the fiction and instigate conflict either through character-actions or structured metagame. But having
established that social contract, I feel that character-relevant conflicts incipient within the imagined world should have the players pricking their antennae, rather than moment-to-moment real-people priorities dictating what does or does not count as a 'conflict'.
Hey guys,
There are maybe too many topics competing at once in this thread.
I think the one called How is Task Resolution described in the Wiki? is pretty much done. Morgan, thanks for your points, which should serve as the guide for refining the entry.
Another one is Why are Task and Conflict being dichotomized so severely?, which is fine, but way, way too abstract and I already see too many problematic claims and assumptions throughout. Alessandro, this seems to be your issue, so I am flatly saying it requires an actual-play based thread in either Your Stuff or My Stuff (depending on the game). In fact, I spy a golden opportunity for you to tell us about your experiences with HeroQuest, because that resolution system is ideal for discussing these issues.
Yet another is Why ever use Task Resolution? and that too really needs to get turfed to new thread in another forum, based on real play. Stef, this one seems like yours. I think if you wanted to start with merely a description of resolution as typically occurred in some game of your experience, it could serve to work through the issues you're raising here.
At present, people talking about one of these tend to get replies that are more relevant to another ... or perhaps, continue to get replies because the responder isn't seeing their preferred question being addressed. And that'll go on forever without much benefit.
I'm not closing this thread, but I think the daughter threads should get started, and then we'll see whether this one should be put to bed.
Best, Ron
Cheers, Ron. Assuming it's not subsumed under one of the topics you've mentioned, I'd also be interested by the topic of conflict-recognition and how it relates to mediating, e.g, diplomacy rolls and the like. I'll leave it there otherwise.
Morgan
Your Italian spelling is improving Ron. You managed to spell Alessandro's name without any typos. Too bad that Alessandro does not play HeroQuest :) So I suppose you were addressing my question. I will open a new thread as soon as I can put together a couple of concrete examples.
Paolo: that is a grossly inconsiderate post. People make mistakes. You spotted a chance to showcase my mistake socially and you took it, in a particularly nasty way which began with a false compliment. Scoring points like this is adolescent and basically rotten. Although it is ordinary behavior in most internet venues, it's not permitted here; I will not permit even the slightest hint to infect this website. Please do not pester me with emails about it, either.
Vincent: disable the smileys, please. I hate them; all they do is provide a window for people to be assholes.
Paolo, please start the thread you mentioned.
I think this thread really needs to close after all.
Best, Ron
Please note that I am not very pleased by being (indirectly) called "adolescent", "rotten" and "asshole". Nor is the reference to "pestering with email" any more polite, IMO. Consider this as a formal disagreement with your moderation rules, which I am now expressing in public because you have just complained about me doing it - properly - by private messages in the past. I will, nevertheless, adhere to the rules for as long as I will stay here.
From now on, all my posts on this board will be absolutely and totally smiley-free and aseptic, in an attempt at avoiding other social messages that you consider inappropriate to pass through. I politely ask you to be equally aseptic when you address me.
I will post the aforementioned thread soon.
I know this game. It's called "bait the moderator." It does not work on me.
You continue to miss the crucial point that standards at other sites, or even what you might think of as the internet as a whole, do not apply here. There is no "proper" aside from what I say it is. What pleases you or fails to please you about any aspect of this site, and how I moderate it, carries no interest or weight.
You have posted to a closed thread. The following moderation now applies.
1. The thread you began in Your Stuff is closed to posting until one week has passed (to the minute) from your opening post.
2. You are not to post at this website at all until that same deadline.
3. Your latest posts in current threads are valid and others may reply to them normally.
Best, Ron