The Necessity of Questions in Conflicts

The adoption of Conflict Resolution by many games in recent years has focused on asking questions on the nature of the conflict. For instance, 'Why are you doing that', 'What are you trying to achieve', 'What do you want to happen'.

In traditional games these questions often went unasked, and were implied in the usage of the skill chosen. Combat was mostly about a series of attacks and defences, and most other skills were defined in detail, usage and scope within the rules. It is not necessarily true that the question was not present or implied, but it was rarely dwelt upon. Indeed in some groups, questions that pulled one into the meta-game were suspect at best.

There were however mechanics that supported Conflict Resolution, an example that comes to mind would be the Resistance Table in RuneQuest, which sought to provide a percentage chance of succeeding against any value of passive resistance. A heavy object would resist passively and the character had to cross reference his skill against the resisting skill to discover the chance of lifting it. The idea that the passive resistance was acting was hard-wired into the rules.

RuneQuest also grappled with that perennial situation getting past the guard.

In RQ2(1979) which itself was but a polished version of the 1978 first edition a sneak would be accomplished by Move Quietly, which on a successful roll would surprise an opponent unless he rolled a successful Listen. Listen is described as taking precedence over Move Quietly

Here we have some elements of conflicting interests. The guard is naturally watching and listening as part of his roll, and we have two opposing rolls. Boiling it down the player will only be successful if he succeeds and the guard fails. If he fails then the guard need not roll and if the guard succeeds then a success will not be enough.

However, this was frequently house ruled to take into account the Fumble and Critical rules, which led to an actual mechanical Conflict Resolution, as both results were necessary for a description of the result. RQ3(1984) had us subtracting the stealth skills from the guards skill which did away with the need for the house rules and made the rolls more task focused again, but only by adding a distinction of active listening, which brings the interests of the opposition to the fore.

As soon as games began to allow skill names that were not chosen from a set list but made up to suit, it became far more difficult to define rules that handled such issues because you could no longer have detailed skill descriptions. And, more to the point, it became possible for misunderstandings over intent. Couple with this the prevalence of universal resolution systems and you have issues of scope and skill application to handle.

Asking questions to pin down exactly what is about to be resolved becomes necessary.

Why Scope and Stakes cloud Conflict Resolution

My reason for posting these ideas on Conflict Resolution is that many definitions of the term seem to focus on the scope and or stakes of the conflict, see for instance Vincent Baker:

In conflict resolution, what's at stake is why you're doing the task. "I crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!" What's at stake is: do you get the dirt on the supervillain?

or this Glossary:

A Forge term for a resolution mechanic which depends on the abstract higher-level conflict, rather than on the component tasks within that conflict.

as opposed to the The Forge Glossary (which still clouds the issue by contrasting 'components'):

A Technique in which the mechanisms of play focus on conflicts of interest, rather than on the component tasks within that conflict.

or the far more succinct definition by Tim Kleinert:

Conflict Resolution is when the dice decide whether a character/player's interest is realized, most often in contrast with another character/player's opposing interest.

In my opinion the key is in assigning opposing interests. Where confusion has arisen is in ideas of scope and stakes, seeing conflict resolution as deciding on the outcome of the overall conflict as opposed to the individual tasks in the conflict, and using the question 'why' to decide on the scope and stakes, in the process de-emphasising the clash of interests.

Where this becomes most apparent is in games like our two earlier examples Dogs in the Vineyard and HeroQuest. Both attempt to define the contest using conflict resolution and then allow the contest to be broken down into individual actions.

I would argue, just because these games focus on the individual actions, this does not mean that they move towards task resolution. The conflicts are still defined in a context of conflicting interests, and outcomes of individual rolls are interpreted within the overall conflict.

Both of these games can confuse players more used to task resolution, because component actions can easily be misinterpreted as tasks. If you fall into this trap in HeroQuest, you find yourself playing a game of point scoring which feels like a sub-game removed from the conflict at hand, and in Dogs, you end up playing a competitive dice game which becomes a battle over the stakes, instead of a conflict over the importance of the stakes to the characters or players.

Conflict Resolution and Agendas

I will discuss the javelin example again in order to illustrate Conflict Resolution as I have defined it in my previous post.

There is no other character involved, so there is no inherent conflict. I think there are three possible options, an external conflict (with the elements or the world), an internal conflict (with himself), or an internalised external contest (with his non-present father).

The Forge Glossary suggests that the world should be seen as having interests even if abstracted, so the external conflict could be the breeze attempting to push the javelin away or the target itself appearing small distant and un-hittable.

An internal conflict needs to contain a conflict of interest, part of the character must either have an interest in failure (he wants to miss because he is uncomfortable with the symbolic patricide), or contain a potential for failure that can be abstracted as an interest(he has never managed to hit this target before and so his own doubt seeks to cause him to miss).

The non-present character option is a kind of internal conflict asserted upon the character by external forces. So we might have our character remembering his fathers scolding dialogue which serves to make him miss. We could use his fathers disapproval skills here even though he is not actively using it here and now.

In any of these cases it is necessary for the opposing agenda to actively oppose the character during the mechanical resolution so that we can decide on the outcome. So in HeroQuest we would have the resistance be the opposing interest in order to have two dice to compare, and in Dogs in the Vineyard we would use the Demonic Influence as the opposing dice pool.

Deemphasising the ‘Why’ of Conflict Resolution

I have been concerned for some months about the categories of Conflict and Task Resolution.

The problem is in how the ideas have been explained. It is common to break them down into Task = What and Conflict = Why, which I don't believe is a correct interpretation.

It is probably better to define them thus:

Task resolution is concerned with the individual action that a character is performing and deciding whether that action is successful.

Conflict resolution is concerned with a character's interests in opposition to, or at least interacting with other interests, leading to a description of the resulting outworking of that clash.

This is not a new definition and is broadly in line with the Forge glossary which emphasises “conflicts of interest”.

The idea that the difference is in the 'what' and 'why' seems to be born from the concept of agenda taking a central role in the latter, but an over emphasis of this as the key difference leads to all kinds of confusion. The key difference is in how the GM defines the opposition.

Lets think of a really simple example, target practice with a javelin.

Task resolution simply requires the player to roll his javelin skill to determine if he is successful. He could have a reason and it could be emphasised heavily in the narration but that reason does not inform anything at the mechanical level.

Conflict resolution needs an opponent, we could abstract an opponent as the physics of the universe having a conflicting agenda that reflects the difficulty of the shot, or we could take the current context of the action to determine the opponent.

They may appear similar take this example that appears to fall between the two:

Player: I throw my javelin at the target.
GM: OK, but why are you even doing this now?
Player: To let out my frustration with my father!
GM: OK, so you visualise the target as your father and throw your javelin, make the roll.
Player: I get a critical!
GM: The javelin sails straight at the centre of the target and impales itself deeply with a satisfying thud, and you have to put all of your strength into pulling it out again leaving you exhausted but relived of frustration.

I would argue that this is task resolution. Yes we have a why, and yes we even have an idea of the opposing force, but there is no actual mechanical opposition, we only resolved the task at the mechanical level. I think this kind of example illuminates a current confusion inherent in the What/Why definitions and the current state of Task/Conflict theroy.

Humakti on the Marsh Edge : Intro

Dogs in the Vineyard, Glorantha style

We started playing my DitV variant last week, which I originally ran at Tentacles Fumble 2008.

When I started reading about DitV, I imagined Humakti PCs fitting with the play style so I was quite keen to give it a go. Humakti have a strong honour code and an interestingly stark outlook on life, but their values are rarely challenged in RuneQuest. Besides, death magic wielding teenagers with family issues is just too tempting to ignore.

I didn't want a thinly disguised Utah setting, so rather than make an exact Dogs parallel I chose an area where Humakt is very prominent (near Delecti's Marsh) and where a number of taboos and superstitions would develop over death. And, rather than a list of religious strictures I have laid down some flavoursome local customs to help highlight how the people think, and some religious restrictions, which could be seen as unworldly or overly pious by outsiders or non-cultists.

I have maintained the idea of being sent away for training. In this case a military training and initiation camp, which gives us plenty of options for accomplishment conflicts. I also wanted to really focus in on the community level, so the game is set in the characters' home village, and plays on the fact that the characters have been away and will not be sure if it's the village that has changed or their own mindset. A year having taboos and injunctions force fed to young minds is bound to confuse and change perspectives.

Death Magic replaces Gunfire, and conveniently Humakti would consider wielding a sword death magic. Cult Runes replaces Coat, The Unquiet Dead replaces Demons and Necromancy replaces Sorcery. This is not to say that the whole area is crawling with necromancers so much as in a Humakti world view necromancy would include any magic or practice that deliberately contravenes their black and white attitude to death (at least in this game which I acknowledge has an extreme interpretation).

I will post a story overview and also focus in on some of the key conflicts. I am recording the game for this purpose but the recordings will not be published as I would not gain permission to record if I was to do so. I do find the reflective insights that spring from being able to listen back after a few days invaluable. The nuances of what people say are often missed in the moment, including the effects of my own wording on the game. Listening back to the tricky parts and thinking 'how could I have made that better' is a great way to reflect and learn for me.

The De-emphasis of Numbers in HeroQuest

One way of examining a game's mechanics is to focus on the numbers, specifically the dice used, their relative probabilities and what they represent in the game. HeroQuest is not easily analysed in this way, and even when it is, it confounds normal expectations. Indeed it is often accused of being broken, the D20 cited as having a flat probability curve, or the break points around 20 and 1W being strange and non-linear. Alternative dice are even suggested to fix these problems.

However, for me these issues fade into the background, and more radically I believe the numbers to mean very little within the context of the game as a whole.

To explain this let us imagine a situation within a game, and for simplicity's sake the game is structured around simple contests and makes use of a formal scene framing technique, with only a few key rolls per scene focused on areas that shape the story.

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The story so far:
Our hero the prince has fought his way through the monstrous and shadowy thorn bushes surrounding the castle and has found his way through the maze like corridors to at last find himself in the bedchamber of the comatose princess.

Imagine that this story is unfamiliar to the player and that it need not progress inevitably to the conclusion that we all know from childhood.

The Scene:
A once regal bedchamber with a thick layer of settled dust everywhere and old heavy cobwebs hanging from every available object. Draped in these cobwebs like a funeral veil is an apparently dead young lady. Our hero is exhausted following some narrow successes and some setbacks.

Some HQ2 Stats:

• Adventurous Prince 5W (Keyword)
• Heirloom Sword 18
• Valiant 3W
• The Good Fairy's Prophesy 17
• Virginal Naivety 2W

The GM is selecting resistances based on story judgement and wants the hero to face a climactic challenge in this scene but also has planned that the beauty of the princess should play a major role in this. Letting the player take the lead he asks what the Prince's first move is and the player goes straight for "I part the cobwebs from her face".

The GM sees the opportunity for a nice heavy resistance and states "the Princess's unsurpassed beauty holds you paralysed and you find yourself unable to do anything but stare at her, as if your whole quest was leading up to this moment, and there is nothing else to surpass this, and if you want to do anything else at all you must resist her beauty". He has in mind a 'Very High' resistance (Base +9) which is 3W for a game of three sessions or less.

The Player decides this is the ideal time to go for The Good Fairy's Prophesy 17 and states that he is driven to action by the prophesy which has been described as "a prince will one day liberate a forgotten princess from within the dark thorny forest, lift the 100 year curse and they will wed".

This is probably the ideal skill selection in terms of the story and is an assertion that the prophesy applies to his character at this crucial moment, which is interpreted as a specific bonus so gains +3 to the skill taking it to 20 v 3W. The Player rolls 15 and the GM rolls 8 gaining a marginal defeat.

The GM narrates this as "You contemplate the prophesy whilst held by the princess's beauty and you find yourself lost in a fantasy of your future together which like a waking dream seems real to you, as if you have passed this point and moved on. It is only when a spider crosses your face halfway through spinning a new web between you and the princess do you realise that you are still trapped in her beauty and that your fantasy was but a naive dream of what could have been if you had had the courage to act".

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This example is designed to highlight the subtle forces that work to make the numbers part of an abstract game in HeroQuest. At first glance it is a straightforward examination of the basic mechanics of HQ as expressed in skill numbers, resistances and modifiers, but there are many places where the story elements and subjective judgement start to de-emphasise these.

There is the GMs initial vision of the story arc, and the current position within that trajectory, in this case he has sought to make some of the earlier scenes difficult and physical to make any victory sought feel hard earned. He has an arc for the player in mind, possibly playing on the virginity and inexperience of the character by drawing out the overtones of loss of female innocence that lie in the sleeping beauty story. He has the power to frame the scene to present a suitable situation for a particular resistance level and specifically draw out the attitudes of the player via the character to the situation.

The player has the ability to choose skills that best reflect his character, which in turn will have an impact on skills rolled on and modifiers gained, in this case he is emphasising the alignment of his fate with that of the prophesy and so emphasising in the story that he is seeking either an ending that gets the girl or perhaps an ending that shows how he is naive to believe he is the one. He can tip the results in his favour via use of Hero-Points. With his choice of skill he is also negotiating with the GM over skill applicability and modifiers and to some extent resistances and future story trajectory.

The GM is then casting the narration to direct the narrative arc towards another challenge or situation which while paying heed to the result subtly re-interprets the failure to suit his plans and tie into the planned themes and the character's issues.

The numbers are at the heart of it all, and by far the easiest part to discuss and explain, but the subjective aspects that surround these are using the numbers in far less direct ways and de-emphasising them at every turn.

Resistances Revisited

The preview edition of HQ2 has hit my desk, and the first thing I am interested to see, is how resistances are handled in this new rule set.

And, there are some definite improvements. Mainly, in the form of advice on how to set resistances, with a table and tools to help gauge what the resistance should be. I am delighted to see that much of the advice is focused on setting the resistance based on the flow of the story, where levels are decided primarily in relation to how successful the players have been in their last two conflicts.

There is guidance on how one should set the resistance first and then find story reasons why the resistance is at this level, so one could imagine a challenge with a clan champion which would normally be a high resistance but situated in the story after a sting of losses. In this case a low resistance would be selected and perhaps a secret weakness is revealed to the player by a surprise ally making it far easier to win the fight.

Another positive move is the advice that factors that cannot be changed by the players should be rolled into the resistance and not used as modifiers. This again allows otherwise complex sets of situational factors to be folded into the overall story and kept away from the mechanics. So if our champions challenge is on a cold and foggy morning this can be used as colour without the temptation to start adding modifiers for visibility or cold to both sides in a relatively pointless exercise. And indeed we have advice on folding away all of those weapons and armour modifiers as well unless there is good reason to bring them in.

Such guidance certainly steers the new HQ Narrator away from the habits of constant high resistances as challenge and instead moves towards high resistance when appropriate to the story, so I for one am delighted.