Drama, Fortune, Karma -- Is there anything else?

[Andrew Morris]

M. J., I think it is a very important distinction. I'd contest Ralph's statement ("highest score"), but I'll happily agree with your clarification ("credibility"). Of course, we've just come around full circle and defined resolution system, which doesn't help in terms of classification.

[Valamir]

Quite.  I called it "Highest Roll" as a parallel to Andrew's immediately prior post.  Sorry if that wasn't clear.

[John Kim]

Ultimately D F and K are different mechanisms for determining who has the most credibility in the current situation.

Well, hold on.  Let's say that the rules are absolutely clear that Bob is the one who final say on a resolution.  There is still the issue of how does Bob decide, right?  i.e. Does he roll dice, does he compare the stats, or does he simply say what he wants?

[kenjib]

Well, hold on.  Let's say that the rules are absolutely clear that Bob is the one who final say on a resolution.  There is still the issue of how does Bob decide, right?  i.e. Does he roll dice, does he compare the stats, or does he simply say what he wants?

Does Bob really have final say in your three examples?  It looks to me, rather, like the following really do:

Roll dice:  The dice do.
Compare the stats:  The stats do.
Say what he wants:  Bob does.

[Valamir]

Ultimately D F and K are different mechanisms for determining who has the most credibility in the current situation.

Well, hold on.  Let's say that the rules are absolutely clear that Bob is the one who final say on a resolution.  There is still the issue of how does Bob decide, right?  i.e. Does he roll dice, does he compare the stats, or does he simply say what he wants?

You've got that backwards.  The person who has credibility is the person whose words get accepted in the SIS.  Not the person who then decides how to decide.  If you're still deciding how to decide, then you haven't established credibility yet.

Player A:  I attack Player B
Player B:  I parry.

Who has credibility here?  We don't know.

Perhaps Player A's attack score is higher than B's defense so A has the credibility and what he says happens...his attack is successful.

Perhaps they roll dice and Player B roll's higher so he has credibility in what he says...the attack is parried.

Perhaps Player C decides which outcome is more dramatic and gives credibility to whomever he chooses.


But you can't say Player B has the Credibility and THEN turn to the resolution system.  Its the system (Lumpley version) that granted the Credibility to B.

[John Kim]

Well, hold on.  Let's say that the rules are absolutely clear that Bob is the one who final say on a resolution.  There is still the issue of how does Bob decide, right?  i.e. Does he roll dice, does he compare the stats, or does he simply say what he wants?

You've got that backwards.  The person who has credibility is the person whose words get accepted in the SIS.  Not the person who then decides how to decide.  If you're still deciding how to decide, then you haven't established credibility yet.

I'm not establishing an ordering.  I'm just saying that personal internal decision process is different than social assignment of responsibility.  I mean, take Everway as hopefully a good example of DFK.  Suppose the GM doesn't verbally announce which rule he is using, but instead just says what happens.  The players would probably have noticed a card draw (Fortune) -- but they can't tell if this results from the Rule of Drama or the Rule of Karma.  

So you could have:
1) Everyone agrees to accept Joe's decision even before Joe decides.  Then Joe comes up with an answer.  Here you have social assignment, followed by a decision process.  

2) Mary and Pat have conflicting interpretations of the rules for which happens.  Each present their view of what should happen and why.  Then the group has to decide which answer to accept.  Here you have decision-making first and then social assignment afterwards.

[M. J. Young]

I see your distinction, John, but I think it's missing the point.

In case #1, where everyone agrees that Joe decides, Joe has been given credibility up front, and whatever he says goes. There might be mechanics, but in that case (your Everway example) the mechanics serve as a guide to Joe, not as a resolution system which apportions credibility. An example might be Multiverser's General Effects Rolls. If I'm the referee, a lot falls on me in terms of deciding what happens. If I am not sure what kind of thing happens, I can call for a General Effects Roll, either rolling it myself or asking the player to roll it. All that roll really tells me is whether the events should be (from the player's perspective) favorable or unfavorable; it then lends credibility to whatever I create as being the appropriate favorable or unfavorable result, because I've fit my response to the roll. I could have decided what I wanted to have happen before I rolled, and skipped the roll. I could have decided that good rolls would be thing A and bad rolls thing B, and then rolled. I could have rolled cold, and then crafted something that fit the roll. I had the credibility all along. The GE roll enhances my credibility by giving me an authority for my statement, but it does so by limiting the range of possible statements to those it supports.

In case #2, neither Mary nor Pat have credibility at all. The credibility lies in the group decision. Mary and Pat each propose an outcome. The group then endorses one of those outcomes, making it part of the shared imagined space by the credibility invested in the corporate decision making process. When in this kind of situation the group says, "Yes, let's do that," they haven't actually given one of the players credibility. They have inherently examined the two statements and then stated one as being the credible statement--but it has credibility not because of who originally said it, but because "Yes, let's do that" is the means by which the group states it.

Does that clarify anything?

--M. J. Young

[John Kim]

I see your distinction, John, but I think it's missing the point.

In case #1, where everyone agrees that Joe decides, Joe has been given credibility up front, and whatever he says goes. There might be mechanics, but in that case (your Everway example) the mechanics serve as a guide to Joe, not as a resolution system which apportions credibility.

That's fine, but the topic here is DFK, right?  Not just the apportioning of credibility.  Now, if you categorize the Everway mechanics as a "guide" rather than a "resolution system which apportions credibility", that's fine.  However, I would say that regardless of how you classify Everway mechanics, DFK applies to them.  Thus, DFK applies to more than just the apportioning of credibility.

[Andrew Morris]

Then I guess we go back to the original question of this thread. Is DFK a useful and complete tool for categorization of resolution mechanics? If not, what needs to be added to complete it? Is it Skill?

[JMendes]

Hey, :)

Sorry to be out of sequence, here, but I'm keeping with Andrew's intents for the threads. :)

Many games have such inadequate rules for social interation that players (in my experience) choose to neglect them, and instead resolve social interactions by simply role-playing it out.  This effectively means that more charismatic players have more charismatic characters.  Is this an example of Skill?

This is not at all obvious to me. Upon thinking about it some, I'd say yes.

Yes, but hybrid. It would be a mix of Skill and Drama, as someone would still have to arbitrarily resolve the actual in-game effect of said charisma.

Note that this may not have been the actual intent of the rules as laid out, but I'm going by the more generic 'lumpley principle' system here, which I think is the more valid one for analysis.

Cheers,

J.

[gorckat]

my only concern in saying that 'ability to roleplay' (as described in J's and Grover's posts) is Skill and Drama is that it also means 'knowledge of game world' becomes a hybrid resolution method- Drama/Knowledge

for instance, in a game set in a modern world, i once had a character use his katana to slash a refrigeration line on an indutrial piece of HVAC equipment.  combined with the GM mentioned rain, i tossed an incendiary device (a flare maybe, its been a half dozen years) into the spewing refrigerant igniting the escaping oil it contained.  the ultimate result is that the flame, refrigerant and moisture created a nerve agent (phozgene gas, i think its called)

my experience as an HVAC mechanic allowed me to provide my character (who had a high mechanical skill) a means of dispatching a group of security guards.  very dramamtic, yes, but what i'm saying is that its silly to then say "You resolved the situation with the Knowledge method"

maybe i'm just bucking against reform, but how would that help game design?  some people are very knowledgable about things like botany- does that mean a player can use Knowledge to influence resolution on his Alchemy checks by defining where his character looks for ingredients, as in "based on how you described the land, and the fact that you said it's medival europe like in its flora and fauna, i decide to look on the northern side of the trees  by the stream for herb X, which is there in the real world, so will inevitably be there in this one"

unless we change the term knowledge to skill, as it is used in roleplaying games typically.....did i just go in a circle? not sure....but i'll chew on it and refine it later if i see anything to this :)

Cheers
Brian- the Ninja that fixed your air conditioning 6 summers ago :)

[John Kim]

Then I guess we go back to the original question of this thread. Is DFK a useful and complete tool for categorization of resolution mechanics? If not, what needs to be added to complete it? Is it Skill?

Well, just to put in my two cents.  DFK as defined in Ron's glossary is essentially complete, because Drama and Karma are defined as inverses of each other -- i.e. uses game stats vs doesn't use game stats.  For example, if a resolution method depended on a player skill contest but didn't use any game stats (like some boffer combat, perhaps), then it would be Drama by the current definitions.  Drama is defined negatively rather than by use of "drama" in the common sense.  Fortune is a separate category.  If the method uses randomizers at all, it is Fortune.  

Now, technically there is a gap between these D and K.  Karma depends only on comparing game stats, while Drama requires not using game stats at all.  The gap is resolution methods which use game stats plus something else but no randomizers.  An example might be boffer combat like NERO which has modifiers for character skill.  Another example would be Amber DRPG, where stat comparison is modified by GM evaluation of attempts to cheat.  These could both be viewed as hybrid D/K.  

Then again, I don't think DFK is useful as expressed -- but I realize that such discussion is off topic for this thread.