[Pitfighter] SBP: is there anything better to roll for than success?
David Berg:
Gah, this is frustrating and hard for me to communicate.
Quote from: David Berg on November 09, 2011, 09:12:42 PM
How often the GM does this is less of a concern for me right now.
That may sound way more open than I meant it. There's definitely a lower bound of "how often". And that is, "often enough for this to be an ongoing mode of play". Less often than that, I'd design for differently.
David Berg:
Roger,
While CYOA could definitely fall under this umbrella, it wouldn't be my first choice as a model. As GM, I neither want to put in the work to support player path selection really mattering, nor want to concern myself with prepping something that doesn't really matter. I wanna focus on my story. But that's just me...
Frank Tarcikowski:
Hi David,
I’m the last person to rule out the possibility that there could be interesting new applications of Resolution to spice up SBP. But I’ll say this much: Mind the pitfalls. Look closely. Do not readily put the axe to something that seemingly “doesn’t matter” before you are sure it really doesn’t matter. That’s also why I pointed out the huge difference between “fiction leads” and “rules lead” in the parent thread.
Personally, I have found that I actually like the way that trad games build the fiction. I did not like high points of contact and handling times, did not like how rules mastery gave you a lot of an edge, did not like large amounts of crunch or implausible results produced by Resolution. So I cut all that away and built a system that did not have any of that, but apart from that, resolved actions and conflicts just like that ol’ Star Wars d6. Then I added some rules for transparency and a Reward System. That’s my way and it works well for me, but of course it’s not the only possible way. But it gives me a hard time with your brainstorming approach.
As far as Reveals go, sure, it’s part of SBP, but I suggest that there is a huge difference between just some fun revelation providing for an “aha” moment or a surprising plot twist, and the Grand Revelation that is the whole point of a scenario or even a campaign. When I run an SBP game, the players know more or less what’s going on. There is certainly some stuff they still need to figure out, but they have a good idea to start with. Or maybe there is this one thing that I deliberately mislead them about, and then start dropping clues so they eventually figure out that they’ve been fooled.
But this is way different from the Great Unknown where the players can play several sessions without the slightest clue what’s going on and who’s behind it. I don’t know if that’s what you’ve been doing in your Pitfighter games, and I do know that many players and GMs enjoy it, but again, me personally, I just hate it with passion and so I’m probably the wrong person to say anything about it. One should note that by necessity, a lot of control lies with the GM in that kind of scenario, so the P for Participation will have to work on a micro level, which is why you will often play scenes in a very detailed way and pacing will be rather slow.
About the Fruitful Void, I don’t want to start rambling but I am very suspicious of a certain mindset, let’s call it the Dumb Story Games Poster Mindset, that kind of goes like this: “Hey, let’s look at what this is really about. It’s about fishing. So, what’s up with all the camping and the beer and the guitars and the friends coming along? Do you need any of these for fishing? And what about those terribly inefficient fishing poles? Just toss in this dynamite bar and you’ll be done with the fishing in a minute. Anybody can do it, just light the cord, and be home for breakfast! You’re welcome!”
Just be sure not to walk into that trap.
- Frank
contracycle:
My own experience, though, is that the resolution system - of the existing types anyway - steadily lose significance, to the npoint that I start to discard them. I mean sure, it's moderately useful to know if this PC and pick this lock or whatever, but really it's either information I want them to know - cf. wandering clue type things - or it isn't, in which case I'm not going to let them anyway.
I've more or less come to the conclusion that this sort of resolution just doesn't matter very much. Almost everything that is really significant is happening outside the action resolution system, and occurring in the GM's control of scene setting, pacing, information access and so on. That's what the real system is - GM fiat. By default, because it's not formally regulated by any specific techniques. Therefore I think it is correct to approach this from the angle of trying to systemetise what the GM is doing, and setting conventional resolution aside - or at least, not being trapped within it. System is bigger than resolution, and it is that larger system we need to construct.
Ron Edwards:
This is incredibly productive.
First, in private messages, David hazarded the term "pre-plotted" to clarify to me what he was talking about, That's the confirmation I was hoping for; yeah, that's what I mean by Story Before subject to the unusual medium of role-playing. So all's good with that, name-confusion mis-messaging aside.
Second, what Gareth just wrote, and the posts flowing into it, finally explain to me why the hell so many RPG resolution examples are so loaded toward "does he notice me" and similar, and why discussing resolution often has a so-what, isolated quality. If resolution does not have a concrete, consequential role in resolving situation, then it's not really "resolution" so much as a means of adding Color. And the breakdowns we've all seen in "can I, can't I," "you can, you can't" arguments seem to me now as classic disputes over the border between Color and System. Or rather, since Color is kind of like a modifier of everything else, whether we're talking about a verb (System) or an adverb (Color).
Best, Ron
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