[Legends of Lanasia] Conflict Flow
dindenver:
Here is what I have so far:
Conflict Flow
1) Agree that there is a conflict
2) Players declare their Stakes (what are they fighting for?)
3) Judge declares the Stakes for NPCs
4) Judge declares Scope (if they win, how long will the Stakes last?)
5) Judge sets Target Numbers for all Characters
6) Judge selects Action Types
7) Player(s) select Action Type(s)
8) Players narrate the action so far
9) Roll the dice
10) Assign one die to Drive and one to Caution
11) based on the Action Type selected, add the appropriate Aspects to Drive and Caution
12) If you have any applicable Special Abilities, Talents or other Mofifiers (such as spending Luck), add those now.
13) Compare your Drive + Aspect + Modifiers to the other Character's Caution + Aspect + Modifiers. If your total is higher, score progress equal to the differennce.
14) Compare your Caution + Aspect + Modifiers to the other Character's Drive + Aspect + Modifiers. If your total is higher, the other character scores no progress. Otherwise, they score progress equal to the differennce.
15) All characters total their progress across all rounds of this Conflict, if that total is higher than their Target Number, they win their Stakes.
16) If no one has won their Stakes, any character can surrender abandoning their Stakes. If only one character remains, they get their Stakes. Otherwise, continue from step 6.
17) if more than one character wins their Stakes, see if it is possible for both players to achieve their goals. Otherwise, use this tie-breaking rule:
a) The player with the highest overall Progress wins
b) in the case of a tie, the player with the highest Target Number Wins.
c) If still tied, the tied player with the Highest Talent Wins
d) If still tied, the tied player character wins over the Judge’s character.
e) If still tied, the Judge decides among the tied Player Characters
18) Assess Harm
a) Opponent’s Progress is higher than your lowest Aspect - Minus 1 to either Drive or Caution (Loser chooses) for the duration of your next conflict,
b) Opponent’s Progress is higher than your lowest Aspect - Minus 1 to both Drive and Caution for the duration of your next conflict,
c) Players that lost their Stakes can choose between learning a new skill, refreshing their Luck (and getting a new luck point if they are out of luck), gaining a new Destiny Point and gaining a new Friend.
19) Narrate the Action so far (including the manner in which the Stakes are won and lost).
What do you think? Are there any weaknesses int he mechanics I am not seeing? Is there a flaw in my logic? Does this answer all the questions that need to be answered in order to resolve a conflict?
Ron Edwards:
Hi Dave,
Your presentation suffers from a bad case of Story Game Disease. That's my term, hotly resented by some, for designs which storyboard play rather than playing, resulting in extensive discussion at the table about what the conflict is about, as well as fully pre-narrating the possible outcomes for it.
In my experience and observation, this process is so aggravating, boring, and exhausting that it is even worse than the decades-old squabbling about whose character is where and who's in whose way in an ambush-combat situation while playing AD&D2. Yes: worse than that. It characterizes way, way too many recent game designs proudly designated "Story Games" by many people who've come to the independent design scene after 2005 or so, as well as by some who were in it earlier and should know better.*
Consider these minor visual revisions, which I think yield profound differences in play.
1. Instead of "Start," begin with "narrate actions and dialogue," with arrows pointing into itself. In other words, this is a cyclical loop of a single box, which is ongoing play. In many ways, your whole conflict-resolution scheme needs to occur inside it. My impression is that you already know this because your final step is another Start.
2. Replace "Player set Stakes" with "Recognize crisis of intent," meaning that someone has already narrated characters in imminent action, which carries risk, invites obvious opposition, or both.
3. Put another "Narrate action so far" with each Action Type statement, or perhaps one just before those statements.
Looking it over with these revisions, I'm hoping that you see that play doesn't stop during the process. As I see your posted scheme, and as I've explicitly observed when participating in playing similar designs, play does stop between the two "Starts." And it may seem seductively clear and fun the first time, but it turns aggravating, boring, and exhausting very quickly.
As another point, consider deeply whether the Judge needs to set Stakes at all. In some designs (HeroQuest), he does, at least in terms of what an NPC may be striving toward; in others (Trollbabe), he does not. Both work, but they work profoundly differently. Make sure you really want the one that you choose to use in your design.
Also, if by "Stakes," you mean "narrate exactly what happens if I win," then I suggest revising that definition for everyone.
Best, Ron
* And to rant further, Primetime Adventures as written does not suffer from this disease, nor does Polaris, nor does Dogs in the Vineyard. People frequently mis-read and mis-play these games based on contracting the disease on the internet.
dindenver:
Ron,
Thanks for taking the time to check this out.
OK, so the gag is, I used a lot of short hand on the graphic.
The text that follows is close to how the rules will be written.
So, I have played a lot of Shadow of Yesterday and ditv and I have sort of made my own procedure for setting stakes. I have noticed that with certain players (the internet infected ones) stakes setting involved pre-playing the scene. So, what I do as an attempt to bypass this is to ask the question, "What are you fighting for?" (or why are you arguing, etc). I find that this is a decent verbiage to illicit proper stakes, but not pin the scene down to some sort of binary outcome.
Yeah, if the box should be bigger, I would replace "Start" with "Players agree that there is a conflict" because I have seen players who enjoy particular conflict mechanics pick up the dice even when both parties really want the same outcome. This step is intended to make sure we aren't rolling for nothing (and the chicks for free).
Oh, and the start at the end is a copy and paste flub. It is supposed to say "End" the idea being that the characters aren't trapped in a perpetual conflict loop. but that conflicts happen and when they do, follow this procedure.
I think that "Recognize crisis of intent" would be good verbiage for the "Start" box. Until that happens, there is no conflict.
As to Set Stakes, maybe I will put, why is there a conflict? So that the answer will be more interesting than "I kill that guy" unless killing him is the most interesting option.
As to Narrate the action so far, you are exactly right. In my mind it was there (I had to actually scroll down and make sure it wasn't already).
Yeah, I think the Judge setting the opposing Stakes is important. It is the one chance for them to really explain what is in it for the Antagonist. I find that the having the losing Stakes be "nothing happens" or "the opposite of what you wanted to happen happens" gets boring pretty quick and it strips the Antagonists of any real story or flavor eventually.
So, yeah to sum up, "Stakes"="Why are we doing this?" Not "What do I get if I win."
Again, thanks for checking this out and let me know if my answers are at all illuminating.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Dave,
Your answer is a bit of a relief for me. What follows is a matter of refinement rather than revision.
My take on the right phrasing, at least in Trollbabe, The Shadow of Yesterday, Dogs, Dust Devils, and a number of related games, is, "What is he or she driving at?" In other words, staying fully within the fictional intention - or better, initiated intention - of the character.
Saying "why is there a conflict," as I see it, is not too useful, as it prompts abstract discussions and a lot of focus on how the story "should" go. Instead, given "what is he or she driving at," the next question rather intuitively becomes, "and why is that a problem?"
Best, Ron
Callan S.:
Hey Dave,
I wonder about 'Agree there is a conflict'. I mean, the way that presents it, what if one person thinks there is a conflict, and another doesn't? They both continue on, thinking each other wrong? It kind of smacks of an insistant sim base to me, one that insists something about the spoken fiction/sound waves through the air exists. Rather than asking, after looking back at what we'd written so far, roughly what sort of fiction we would like to write next (well, speak aloud rather than write, but you get me)?
Then again I don't know if that's some kind of deal breaker to remove that, "it's there" reference. I mean, Ron is using "in imminent action, which carries risk, invites obvious opposition" and recognise crisis of intent, rather than simply talking about the imaginative reaction one has to the prior spoken fiction and pitching that reaction as something to further write/narrate about. Is there some sort of impetus in refering to it as existant that is necessary for the creative process here? It's just that to me were dealing not with existant things, but peoples psychological reactions to prior spoken fiction (note how I avoid using the term 'SIS' here) - and inevitably those reactions will be starkly different at some point (as much as we are not hive mind). The 'existant' phrasing in 'Agree there is a conflict' seems a risk with no benefit, by my current measure? Or is there a benefit I'm not seeing?
Note: I'm second guessing a 'your reading it wrong' responce. As I measure it, if the listener/reader reads it wrong, then both communicator and reader have failed, not just the reader. Which in essence is the problem I'm talking about here. I get that refering to something as existant which isn't can be a creative inspiration, but it has risks involved as well. Babel being one.
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