Before Stakes: What is your intent?

[Angaros]

This discussion made me think about a lecture I saw recently. It had nothing to do with roleplaying but with motivation and how to reach your goals (as an individual and/or as a company). The lecturer (Kjell Enhager) spoke of three vital questions that needed to be answered:

1. What do you want?
2. What do you have to do to get what you want?
3. What/who/how do you have to be to be able to do this?

The last question is sort of about mood and state of mind as an invidual and about competence for a company. What does this have to do with the discussion at hand? To me, the first question is about your Intent. The second is about the Task and the third, well that's the Stakes. Basically you need to put stakes on the table, make your character risk something, so that the Task becomes avaliable. In some cases there is little or no conflict. That's when the stakes are so low that you can easily put your character in a position where the task itself can be resolved easily or with little fuss mechanically. Does this make any sense to you? Are the questions helpful? It's late here but I'll pop in tomorrow or Sunday and elaborate a bit further.