Problems with Poisn'd
Valamir:
Quote
I don't know where you got the idea that being stabbed was inconsequential. It wasn't from the game text!
Oh, and yes I did get that from the game text. I won't harp on it here cuz we're past that. But if you think it would be helpful to know for purposes of writing text that would reach people like me I can outline it in fair detail...as soon as I get home where I can download the PDF and quote the rules accurately.
lumpley:
Scope: You say your character's action. If you like, you can say your character's intent, it doesn't matter. It's often very natural to do so. Either way, you make your success roll; that determines whether the action "comes off," and whether it's to your advantage X-wise.
The consequence of your action depend on lots more than the success roll.
"I sink the dagger" is a consequence, and intent, not an action. "...And destroy the ship and everyone on board" is a consequence too. So is "...and the entire city burns to the ground." No, one success roll doesn't decide those things. Those things are complicated to decide.
This, oh my god, you'll get me ranting. This question? It's a result of stupid stakes-setting rules. Stakes setting has stunted our collective ability to tell the difference between an action and its consequences. I'm seeing the same thing with In a Wicked Age. If you bring intent-action-consequence confusion into the game, where there is no such confusion in the design or the text, based only on your assumptions about how indie games obviously must work, you WILL fuck it up.
You'll notice that even Dogs in the Vineyard, one of the three great pillars of stakes setting, distinguishes clearly between actions and consequences.
("I build a rocket ship and fly to the moon" can go fuck itself. If I thought you had a moment's genuine confusion about that one, I'd give you your money back.)
-Vincent
Valamir:
I'm not seeing any stakes setting issues here. I'm well aware of those pitfalls, so no need to point them out to me.
But this is a point of the rules that is absent. If you prefer to use the terms intent and consequences, great, lets do that. Who has the authority to decide the consequences...the GM? The player? The player's collectively? Somebody has to. Somehow those consequences get entered (or not) into the SIS...what is that process in this game?
So my action is to set fire to the barn...my intent is that the fire will spread with the consequence that the whole city of Cartegena burns to the ground. I make my success roll. I have successfully lit the barn on fire. So then what? What process determines whether or not Cartegena burns, and if so, how much?
Scope is a totally non trivial thing, it should not be left to whim lightly. We wrestled quite a bit with this problem in Universalis and dedicated an entire section of the text to it.
One could just as easily say that my action is NOT to set fire to the barn. My action is to knock the lantern over into the hay...my intent is that the hay will catch fire with the consequence that the fire will spread to the barn.
Who gets to decide whether the scale of the action is knocking over the lantern, or setting fire to the barn.
Somewhere the buck needs to stop for these decisions. You acknowledged issues like this in Dogs with the simple expedient of following the aesthetic of the most critical person at the table. Other games like Uni and DIrty Secrets use a more formalized challenge / appeal system. There's lots of ways to do it, but it needs to be done somehow.
But this discussion is ranging farther and farther, from the initial issues, most of which are still open questions, so perhaps we should wait until more specifics are clarified before getting too esoteric
Peter Nordstrand:
Hi Ralph,
Quote from: Valamir on February 28, 2008, 02:21:31 PM
But this discussion is ranging farther and farther, from the initial issues, most of which are still open questions, so perhaps we should wait until more specifics are clarified before getting too esoteric
I've been following this intently, but I'm beginning to get lost. Just to clarify, would you mind telling us which of your original questions you feel haven't been answered? I'm not taking a poke at you. Elucidating this matter would really make the thread (and your points) easier to follow.
Thank you in advance for indulging me.
/Peter
Valamir:
Well, there’s part 2 of question 1 on the matter of what “draw a new weapon” means for escalation.
Pretty much all of question 2 related to whether all fights start on level 1 of the escalation table, the confusing example with Tom Reed and strange success roll at the end of the fight and why Tom isn’t dead. And I’m still not clear on why, if you have a disadvantage in dice, and you’re losing you wouldn’t just choose “lose” as your fight option and never escalate the fight to where there are actually damaging consequences.
And pretty much all of question 4 except a) and d)
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