TMW - The Mountain Witch Question regarding conflict resolution

[skie]

Hi,

I just  bought TMW and am very exited to run it. I've read everything I could find on this site about it and am still unclear on exactly how Aiding and Group conflict resolution works. Let's say Ronin A and Ronin B are fighting Oni X and Oni Y.

If A and B are fighting as a group against X and Y, in most cases each Ronin would be fighting an Oni, and would therefore be occupied and unable to aid each other. Could you possible narrate this kind of  Aid as Ronin B stands to fight both Oni and Ronin A harries them at the flanks? If so, what if the Oni surprised the ronin and attacked the ronin so that each ronin had to square off and go toe to toe with the Oni. In this case could you choose to either go into group conflict or individual conflict? If so, who determines this? What if Ronin A then decides to aid Ronin B against Oni Y, does he not get a dice for his own conflict with Oni X? ( This solution was suggested by another poster in some other thread).

In the case of a snowstorm going into conflict with Ronin A and B , can Ronin A aid Ronin B and also fend off the snowstorm?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[skie]

if this is not the correct forum in which to pose these questions, please let me know. thanks!

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Welcome to the Forge! You are asking exactly almost the right questions in exactly the right place. If you ever have any questions about that, just send me a private message (click on my username, and follow the options) and I'll help.

What will make your question just right is this: post about another time in some other game in which this kind of question arose. It doesn't have to be very detailed, just a game system and a real-life play-experience in which this was either a problem or not a problem.

One other thing you should know - Forge discussions tend to go very slowly. Some people are waiting to see whether Tim (the author) has time to answer you. Some are composing replies and making sure they're phrased just right. Others want to see what the first reply looks like before they jump in.

So your job is to be a little patient and to remember that we're trying for the best answers, not the quickest.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Good question, by the way. I'm working on my answer but will probably wait to see what others say first.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Patience, young one. I read your question during the day, and even drafted a longish answer, but the browser ate it. I will now endeavour to give you the condensed version, sadly devoid of examples and theoretical explanations. Note that I play in some things differently from the designer. I also crosspost with Ron.

Who decides the groupings: all the players decide in cooperation by the means of narration; you tell the other players how you want to play it, you garnish with some narration of the fiction to justify your call, then others add to it, make changes, and participate in general in crafting the situation. In other words, the groupings are based on your common vision of the situation in the fiction.

What can be decided in the abovementioned manner: who conflicts with whom? About what? Who is on his side, or the opposing side? Who aids? Who has separate goals? In general, all negotiation over what to roll, when and why, is done in cooperative narration mode, wherein you both state the conflict details you want, as well as fiction to support it. Why should you get to split the enemy? Why, because you trapped half of them in a narrow valley. Why should you not participate in the fight at all? Why, because you hide beneath the blankets and keep quiet. Generally any player can suggest all kinds of narration in this manner, not just for their own characters, but the world as well. But the GM has final call on the world, and the players have final call over their characters' intent.

What should the GM do: the GM's job is by no means to put up barriers for players in this process. When a player wants to split up the enemy or the ronin, or wants to go aid his comrade or whatever, you don't say no, you say yes. Your job as the GM is to introduce the situation, define the potential opposition, and let it develop where it may. Consider: do you have the call on whether the characters will fight an opponent behind a closed door? Is it not up to the players to decide whether they want to open the door? Similarly, it's up to the players to decide how their characters act to bring about whatever conflict it is they want, in their own terms.

How to make it difficult: However, you don't always let the players have everything they want. You decide what the NPCs want, after all. If you think that some alteration in the conflict scheme is too much, you still don't say no. You set up a side conflict about it! The player wants to split up the enemy to defeat them one by one? Fine, but only if he succeeds in a short, fast conflict about bringing about the situation he wants. Will he conflict about it with the whole of the enemy? Perhaps, or maybe he only needs to beat their leader. In short, deal with any conflict like this the same way you'd deal with any conflict at all. All conflicts are potential leads and positioning for future conflicts, a conflict called to split up the enemy or to regroup your friends is no different.

How you do it: how to keep the negotiation fluid and fun? You have lots of white dice for the GM, to represent any monsters or other obstacles. You have one die per player, in the color of his character. Let the players position their dice to show how their characters are, side by side, back to back, against one another, hiding on the corner, whatever. Situate the monster dice to show how the monsters maneuver, circle around the ronin, split up to hunt the stragglers, whatever. If one ronin aids another, you put their dice on top of each other. If a ronin confronts a group, you put the group opposite him. If a group meets a group, you put them in opposition. This way you have a visual map at all times of the state of the negotiation. When everybody is happy with who's going to roll against whom (don't forget to define the stakes!), you roll the dice on the table and put them back, all the better to evaluate the results in conflict narration.

In short: usually you let the players group themselves and the enemy whichever way their narration seems to suggest. If you want to make a point about the setting, genre or the enemy, you can call positioning for them. Most of the time don't bother, the players will have hard enough time when they lose. But if you do, and the players think that their characters should get their way, make the matter of positioning a conflict; whoever wins gets to say who fights against whom. Some times the players will have such conflicts among one another, when one ronin betrays another and leaves him to fight the monsters alone, for instance. Savor the moment.

--

Your other question concerns the trickiest part of the rules. You recognize, just as I do, two different situations: some times a character can defend himself by defending another, like in the case of a fight. In some other situations, however, we have difficulty imagining how he could help the other without leaving himself wide open; such is the case of an avalanche, or a cave-in in the crypt under the witch's castle. In those situations a character should surely suffer for putting another's wellfare ahead of his own, shouldn't he?

(We should note that I'm not particularly discussing snowstorms from this point on: my call is that if two characters huddle in the cold, for instance, they're quite succesfully protecting both at once, just as is the case with making a fire, for instance. Thus it's pretty rare that a character in my game would leave himself vulnerable to the cold by simply helping another combat it. Below, I will constrain myself to situations where this is not the case: those situations where a character, to help another, will have to leave himself helpless.)

Tim tells me that he usually gives the aiding character a "free" pass, by assuming that whatever happens to the other character happens to the aider as well. Thus, if he saves the other, he saves himself as well. The way I do it is to introduce the concept of being "passive" in a conflict. This does not mean that the character does nothing or approves of the opposition (if he did, there would be no conflict), only that he is focused on doing something else and does not care to resist whatever happens to himself. When a character is passive in a conflict, the player does not roll for him; the opposition is automatically victorious, and the player's roll is assumed to be zero!

When do I use the concept of passivity? It's foremost when the situation is such that all the characters are obviously in dire danger, and whatever the player narrated as his character's response leaves himself at risk. Thus, if the gaijin allies of the witch shoot out a hail of lead at the ronin, and one "aids" another by throwing himself in harm's way, then he's certainly being passive about his own wellbeing, while aiding the other. Furthermore, when you accept the concept of a character possibly being passive in a conflict, you start seeing all kinds of interesting possibilities: does he defend himself or his friend to the magistrate, when one of them must be the one at fault? Does he protect himself from the Oni, when he could strike a decisive blow against the witch? Does he take the antidote, when he could win the respect of his murderer? When ever a character simply has too much on his plate to believably resolve simultaneously, it's useful to know that you don't necessarily need to leave all the other stuff for the narrator, when you can make the player choose, instead.

Why do I use the concept of passivity? The foremost reason is the philosophy of the system, which can be described as one character, one die, one goal. While Tim's solution plays fine and encourages use of trust, I find it annoying that a player is getting a goal for free. His die is working for two goals simultaneously, in a way. I like my solution better, because it gives clear mechanical means of adjucating what happens when one die is not enough.

When not to use passivity? Note that I am by no means advocating for indiscriminate and deprotagonizing use of the concept of passivity! It is not a method of controlling the players, by letting secret murderers teach them a lesson at night when they are "passive"! A character is passive only if and when, in the fiction, his one die is simultaneously working on some other goal. This is not a common situation! How can the player avoid this situation: by narration and defining the conflict in such a manner that his character needs not to resolve two goals simultaneously. For example, let's say that there's this avalanche that threatens everybody. But one of the characters is close to a branch (resolved as a separate conflict if you really care about it that much), grabs hold, and takes the hand of another character. Now the two characters are in it together! The vague situation of "everybody is washing away with the snow" has been changed into "these two characters are together trying to survive". The importance? While "I save both him and myself" might not have been an appropriate goal without the branch, it is quite acceptable when the fiction concretely supports the possibility! With the branch, by saving himself, he's saving the other character as well, just like in a fight. Likewise, the only way for all the characters to pool their strength instead of fighting the avalanche separately is to have some manner of justification for that in the fiction - if they tied themselves together beforehand, for example, the case is quite clear!

A variant: my use of "passivity" here is how I prefer to run the things, and it pretty much reflects how I interpret the soul of the rules system. Here is another way of using passivity, one that might feel better for you: whenever a character is passive in the above manner, instead of rolling zero for himself, he has to declare ai-uchi! So he can, indeed, save both himself and his friend, but only by taking whatever degree of wound is necessary. Like the above conception, this has the benefit of sticking to the rule of one character, one die. It does, however, allow the character to get two successes simultaneously. When your die is otherwise occupied, your only choice is to take however many ai-uchis you need to. This variant also has the additional benefit of emphasizing the ai-uchi mechanic, which is intended exactly for this kind of thing: when the character does not care of his own wellbeing, he sacrifices to gain his goal. (I don't use this variant myself, because it's less sound in currency terms; it has other benefits other people might like.)

Am I making sense here? Ask for clarification, if necessary.

[skie]

Ron, Eero, Thank you for your responses and welcome.

Eero, I've read pretty much all your posts regarding the TMW and really appreciate your thoughful posts.

I'll illustrate my point in response to Ron, first.

In the case of two characters fighting two opponents, it may or may not be a problem to aid another player while not leaving yourself open to attack in traditional role playing game systems. Consider DND (just because I'm more familiar with that than systems that are new to me, such as Dogs). If my friend's opponent is close enough, I can easily make an attack on their opponent and still have my full defensive capabilities working for me to defend against my opponent (such as my armour class or in variants my class defense bonus and any armour I'm wearing as damage reduction). If the opponent were farther away, it might take me a while to get over there while taking 5 foot steps, but eventually I could make my way over and provide aid. On the other hand, I could disengage and run over to my friend's opponent causing in attack of opportunity. The attack of opportunity is an interesting rule and is in some ways similar to Eero's Variant of taking Ai-Uchi.  It seems that the aided character could narrate this aid in any number of ways. In fact, this kind of aid could be used in narration to state that the aiding character takes some damage (if any was taken, say in a mixed success) because the aiding sacrificed their own safety to aid them.

I think maybe I am trying to box this problem in a little too much, primarily because I didn't understand how to conceptualize group conflict and aiding. I think I'll see what the situation calls for and use Tim's in some, Eero's in others and Eero's variant for situations where personal sacrifice would seem appropriate and perhaps enliven the story.

This brings me to some new questions, which I'll try to make as cogent as possible.

According to the rules, group conflict is dealt witih in rounds. Is each round symbolic of a single conflict resolution? And if so, are narration/damage doling rights given to whoever wins each conflict/round? If this were the case, the narration of an overall battle between two opposing forces would likely trade off between players and GM and would make for really interesting gameplay.

Can characters or npc's break out of conflict? For example, the characters are in fight and start getting wiped out, can they break out of conflict and run? Would  that be a separate conflict then to see if they can run?

Thanks for reading and your consideration,

skie

[Eero Tuovinen]

Eero, I've read pretty much all your posts regarding the TMW and really appreciate your thoughful posts.

Hey, thanks. I'm preparing to edit a Finnish translation of the game later in summer, so the game is on my mind right now. I hope Tim comes and tells me where I'm wrong here, so my understanding improves as well.

In the case of two characters fighting two opponents, it may or may not be a problem to aid another player while not leaving yourself open to attack in traditional role playing game systems. Consider DND (just because I'm more familiar with that than systems that are new to me, such as Dogs). If my friend's opponent is close enough, I can easily make an attack on their opponent and still have my full defensive capabilities working for me to defend against my opponent (such as my armour class or in variants my class defense bonus and any armour I'm wearing as damage reduction). If the opponent were farther away, it might take me a while to get over there while taking 5 foot steps, but eventually I could make my way over and provide aid. On the other hand, I could disengage and run over to my friend's opponent causing in attack of opportunity.

That's a good breakdown of how it works in D&D. How frequently does this movement subgame reflect in your D&D in character cooperation? That is, do you get situations similar to TMW aiding? What do you think, is it more fun if a character has to sacrifice to save another, or does that tend to leave everybody surviving on their own?

I think maybe I am trying to box this problem in a little too much, primarily because I didn't understand how to conceptualize group conflict and aiding. I think I'll see what the situation calls for and use Tim's in some, Eero's in others and Eero's variant for situations where personal sacrifice would seem appropriate and perhaps enliven the story.

You'll probably want to just start playing the game without making much of a decision either way. I want to emphasize that 90% of the time there's no earthly reason to heap on "extra" punishment. In normal fights with monsters, for instance, a character is certainly not "passive" or anything else if he aids another character!

When such a situation comes along, remember that unlike most things in conflict preparation, passivity-related issues are the GM's call. This is because character passivity is just another way of saying that a character can't have a certain kind of goal - like saving everybody from the sudden avalanche without any prior preparation whatsoever. So a player needs to resolve the problem inside the fiction, if the GM is calling for passivity. Also: don't ever, ever, make any aspect of the conflict resolution process secret! If the gaijin are preparing to shoot the characters and the players declare their intent, make it clear who's going to face what dice, and who's going to resist whom. THe system will surely break apart if the players aid each other valiantly only to find out after the fact that their choice left their own characters bleeding on the ground.

According to the rules, group conflict is dealt witih in rounds. Is each round symbolic of a single conflict resolution? And if so, are narration/damage doling rights given to whoever wins each conflict/round? If this were the case, the narration of an overall battle between two opposing forces would likely trade off between players and GM and would make for really interesting gameplay.

Indeed, each round is a separate conflict. Tim phrases this in a bit confusing manner in the rules, but what he means to say is that in combat where you're trying to kill your opposition you just have several rounds of conflict, and cause enough wounds to kill him. So there is no "rounds", really; the difference between a single-round conflict and several round conflict is just that the players are choosing time and time again to cause wounds and continue fighting, instead of taking a goal like "driving the enemy off" or similar.

So, remember: you don't have to, and shouldn't, have long, multiple-round conflicts if the situation is not warranting! The most common beginning problem with TMW seems to be that the GM, quite rightly, throws out a simple combat as the first conflict, and then the game is stuck in endless combat rounds of resolving who lives and who dies. This is not the way. The way: if you put in enemies, give them interesting goals. Not "kill everybody", but "drag that one character into my lair", or "scare the ronin so they don't dare to continue further today" or even just "try and see if they're an easy catch". Then, when the ronin win the first round, have the enemy escape with their lives! They can continue stalking the ronin if you want, and return at an inopportune moment.

TMW differs from most conflict resolution games in that it explicitly allows several conflicts about the same thing in combat situations. And because "all conflict is a form of combat" in TMW, this principle holds true in other situations as well. But you should never start thinking about it as conflict "rounds" in the sense of one following the other automatically and with no deliberation from the players; the decision to fight another round is always a momentous one, and should include new goals as well as new tactics.

An example:
First round: The ronin fight a group of ogres in the snowstorm. The ogres try to grab one to eat and escape, the ronin try to drive them off. The ronin win, but the narrator opts for damage instead of actually driving the ogres off. The ogres decide to continue, they're desperate with hunger.
Second round: The ogres try to lead the fight closer to the ravine. The ronin try again driving the ogres off, except one tries to talk them down by offering them food from his packs. The ogres win this time, and opt for the fact of moving the fight to the ravine.
Third round: The ogres try to send the ronin falling into the ravine in the blizzard (to pick up the bodies later), while the ronin try to cross over a slim bridge, leaving the ogres on the other side (too large to cross, you see). One or the other party wins, most probably ending the conflict; they could opt for damage too, in which case the situation continues.

See? It's not so much rounds, but one conflict being a springboard for another. And the point is not whether or not you kill your opposition, but whether you win the fight. And you can win without killing; indeed, in TMW it's much, much easier to win without killing, as even a partial success can give you conditions that make continuing the fight foolish for the opposition, while killing them might require as high as a double success.

What to make of it? Generally you will always opt for the fact instead of the damage. Your fact in most conflicts resolves the conflict and ends it, because it's the very thing you're conflicting over. If you're trying to climb a wall, and narrate success, then there's no conflict to continue. The only situations where you get multiround conflicts are:
- When a player loses a conflict, and the GM opts to not take the fact. This can be because he finds continuing more interesting, simply; as we might remember from some other thread, the real job of the GM is to grind and delay, not to have any grand narrative scheme. If he feels like it, he might just cause some damage and let the player try again.
- When a player wins, and opts for damage. The only situation where a player does this is when he anticipates having to deal with the opposition again in the future. If the opposition is a one-time thing, there's never a reason to delay your victory by dealing damage and taking another round.
- When a player is, for narrative reasons, invested in actually killing the opposition. Death has a very special place in the TMW rules, because to cause it you almost always need to have a duel or a multiround conflict.
So, why would a character opt for damage when climbing a wall? Easy: he knows he has to come back the same way he went, so he causes "damage" to the wall by striking toeholds into it before trying to actually climb it. This way it's easier to get over it fast and quiet when he comes back!

Can characters or npc's break out of conflict? For example, the characters are in fight and start getting wiped out, can they break out of conflict and run? Would  that be a separate conflict then to see if they can run?

I explained the nature of multi-round conflict in so much detail above because the general theory answers this question too: there are no conflict rounds that force players to participate. Of course they can whenever they want opt for the stakes of "we escape unharmed". If they win, the narrator then just describes how the fight ends with the ronin escaping. Or if they succeed really well, the narrator might opt to cause damage instead, describing how they trap their enemy while preparing to escape or while in the process of escaping, and continue the conflict from there!

Things like "breaking out of conflict", "harrying the enemy", "coming at them from both sides", "suprise"... they are not primarily mechanical issues in this game! Indeed, they have no meaning for the rules, you roll your die the same always. Those are issues for the stakes and the narration, not for the rules. We've discussed how the fiction intersects the rules in defining the stakes (as you can only try things the group agrees are possible for your character to try) and who rolls against whom (as your opposition ultimately depends on both who can and who will oppose you in the fiction). But there is no rules for what the stakes or the groupings can be; those matters are decided by your relation to the fiction only, the way I described earlier.

Does that make sense?

[skie]

Eero, Thank you for your elaborate and thoughtful response to my questions. Yes, it makes a lot of sense. I will take your advice and try running a game this weekend. I'll post on how it goes.

skie

[skie]

p.s. I will have time after this weekend to write more in response to your questions.