[Mortal Coil] Frozen Alaska and serious rules questions

[Doyce]

Umm... it doesn't sound at all like a Social Contract thing, does it?  That strikes me as sounding kind of squishy and fiat-ish, and the system seems pretty solid in this regard.

Round One: Two actions. Each side wins one, and thus the results of the Conflict are inconclusive.
Round Two: More actions. Each side wins enough that the results are still inconclusive.
Round Three: More action. One side wins everything. Conclusive. Conflict over.

[Brennan Taylor]

Winning takes place when one side succeeds in an action that allows them to achieve their stakes, and the other side cannot succeed in blocking this. Sometimes, you will have a conflict where the stakes on more than one side can actually be achieved without precluding the other side from achieving their stakes, but in the conflict that caused the trouble, this was not the case. In the initial round of the conflict, both the shaman and the nurse won an action. However, neither win meant that one side was successful in achieving the stakes. If you do another round of conflict, you may end up with the same result. Conflict rounds continue until one side or the other decisively wins. For example, the nurse failed to stop the shaman from taking the child. If he then can go outside, put the child over the fire, and drive out the spirits, he will succeed in achieving his stakes. If the nurse can somehow prevent him, she achieves her stakes instead. Conflict over.

I don't think this is really entirely on the social contract level. Some social contract stuff will be involved, in that the group must agree that one side has actually achieved their stakes in the conflict. This is usually pretty obvious when it happens, though, at least in my experience with the game.

[Nathan P.]

What I remember from playing with Brennan, and the way I'm going to approach it when I run the game, is that the GM is the buck-stopper in terms of whether you go another round for conflict or not, and when stakes are acheived and when they're not. I don't think that this is in the rules as written, though. I am also a big fan of delineating what stuff the GM has say over in a concrete manner.

Looking on page 58, it just says stuff about the group and uses passive voice in describing whether you go multiple rounds or not. In my games, I'm going to give this job to the GM; Brennan, is there any reason why this shouldn't happen?

[Brennan Taylor]

Looking on page 58, it just says stuff about the group and uses passive voice in describing whether you go multiple rounds or not. In my games, I'm going to give this job to the GM; Brennan, is there any reason why this shouldn't happen?

No reason. I think it is important for the GM to strongly guide these things, and my description in the book is probably too passive. As a Mortal Coil GM, I am constantly trying to facilitate motion in the game, and letting a conflict linger too long would definitely be a problem. On the other hand, when it is clearly not resolved, you've got to move on to another round of actions.

This whole discussion has definitely given me insight into some problems with the way I wrote this section in the book. All of the important stuff is there, it's just hard to identify or described too passively considering its key role in conflict resolution.

[Andy Kitkowski]

Interesting, I didn't catch that either on the first read-through.  Seeing how the rounds can continue if both sides win, and imagining the allocation posturing, fatigue etc that ensue, it smells very similar of diceless Bringing Down the Pain in some ways.  Very cool.

[Brennan Taylor]

Interesting, I didn't catch that either on the first read-through.  Seeing how the rounds can continue if both sides win, and imagining the allocation posturing, fatigue etc that ensue, it smells very similar of diceless Bringing Down the Pain in some ways.  Very cool.

Exactly! Damaging your opponent's effectiveness through fatigue or harm is a key part of winning in this situation.