Conflict Resolution vs. Action Resolution

[Alan]

Using conflict resolution, in a game like Trollbabe, this sequence might instead read:

• Player, "I punch him in the head"
(The player's intent is to incapacitate the target, but is not vocalized.  Resolution is conflict based)
• Roll, Failure!
• GM, "You describe how you failed."
• Player "I clock him right on the mouth, but he just grins at me.  He's got some magic sympathy with the rock.  I grimace and say 'Oh crap.'"
• Other Player "Yeah, that's cool."

[/i]

[contracycle]

I have another example to offer, using the HW mechanic, to demonstrate a scene level resolution.

Lets say we have a mighty broght low and sent to the Roman arena.  The SCENE we want to run, rather like a movie montage, is one in which this character cust there way through sundry opponents and lives or dies by the end of ther day.

So, in the HW mechanic, you could run the whole thing as a single extended contest.  each EXCHANGE in the contest represents a single opponent.  It can easily be presumed that all opponents bar the last are going to die; so each exchange resolves how they die and what effect this has on the viewpoint characters AP total.

So after 4 exchanges, the viewpoint characters AP will have changed and 4 opponents will have been dragged from the sand.  Each exchange resolves what is really a whole duel in a single action; but this permits the narraytion to move swiftly on and maintain seom dramatic momentum, without getting bogged down in exchanges of precise blows.

This is much more cinematic - in a literal sense - than most action resolution methods, because the tasks which comprise the overall challenge are reasonably abstracted while the challenge as a whole is mechanically rigorous.

[Jason Lee]

Ahhh!!!  Thanks, that's a great example.  That resonates with me particularly since this almost exactly happened in the last Buffy episode.  My Slayer PC, Dot, staked a vampire through the heart but he turned out to be immune to staking.  Sudden plot twist, and Dot thinks "What the hell?"  So she had to grapple with him, and in the meantime a minion of his hit her friend Max which she felt really bad about.  They eventually destroyed the vamps, and they are now in the process of figuring out why he was immune and what to do about it.  

I liked it, but I agree with you that people's preferences can and will differ.

Yippy!  I go back and forth a lot on it myself.  It depends on whether I'm building up to something with my character, or whether I'm more interested in just seeing how situations develop the character.  Which, gets all sorts of entangled in the issue of who has narration rights; whether their particular thematic preferences support or violate mine, and whether I find their particular Color preferences engaging or trite.

*****

StumpBoy & Alan,

Totally, and good examples to boot.  I guess that in both examples 'character integrity' would be a better word than 'intent' for what you're trying to preserve.

"Why can't my frickin' slayer dust this lame as vamp?"
"Ummm... 'cause he's not a lame ass vamp?"
"Yeah!"

[aplath]

It seems as though some parts of a game will always need more in-depth resolution. That is, if I get to the end of a session and the Big Bad is waiting to kick my butt, I (pretty much regardless of GNS) would be let down if that dramatic conflict were reduced to the fickle fate of a single roll.

I'm sure there is something key here that just isn't making it through my thick skull. Can anyone clear this up for me? Any clever examples of play that illustrate how to make this work?

Maybe what´s missing is that you have to design your story to work with the kind of rules you are using.

If the climax of your story is a combat resolution between the PCs and their antagonist, probably a more task oriented, tactical combat system will prove more satisfying.

On the other hand, if you are using more conflict oriented rules you'll probably want to design something that can't be resolved in a single combat.

If there is a final showdown between PCs and the Bad (Good) Guy, you'll probably want that one of the sides is already defeated at that point and the conflict at hand will only decide a nuance of the overall result (will the defeated bad guy escape to return in the future with another masterplan?).

Resolution of the main story conflict must depend on the story as a whole, or on the outcome of several smaller conflicts that happen all through the game. Not a single climatic conflict in the end.

Also, story resolution aside, if you want to play turn-by-turn combat, you certainly want a task oriented resolution system.

That´s becaude if you do focus in conflict, combat turns out to be simply color because when characters engage in combat they seldom do so for the sake of combat itself. The conflict is usually something beyond combat like escaping an ambush, humiliating an opponent, storming a gate, etc...

It doesn't mean that you can't break down a combat in several smaller conflict resolutions. I play "The Pool" and some important combat scenes are resolved over two or three dice-rolls.

I think both ways of playing are fun if you are in the right mood. I usually play D&D (just love those two-hours combat resolutions!) and "The Pool", which go on opposite directions in this matter, and have loads of fun with both.

Andreas

[Paganini]

It seems as though some parts of a game will always need more in-depth resolution. That is, if I get to the end of a session and the Big Bad is waiting to kick my butt, I (pretty much regardless of GNS) would be let down if that dramatic conflict were reduced to the fickle fate of a single roll.

I'm sure there is something key here that just isn't making it through my thick skull. Can anyone clear this up for me? Any clever examples of play that illustrate how to make this work?

Gotta chime in here.  The game I'm working on right now (Draconum) is basically exactly what you describe as being undesireable. The more intense, important, dramatic, major, etc., the conflict, the fewer rolls you use to resolve it. Draconum is a game about dragon slayers... actually killing a dragon is the culmination of a series of sessions. A to-the-death dragon battle is handled with exactly one roll. If you fail, you die. If you succeed, you don't.

I'm not saying that you'd enjoy playing with this system. However, I'd suggest that you're mistaking your personal play preferences for general preferences. RPGs don't *need* resolution mechanics at all. The Lumpley Principle says that the role of system is to decide who gets to say what during play. That can be done at the social contract level... no need for mechanics at all.

So, resolution mechanics aren't even necessary. Whether or not you even have a resolution mechanic, and what type it is, depends on *what you enjoy.*

This is the reason that the Conflict vs. Action distinction came about in the first place. Picture a D&D fight... hard-core action resolution. You roll the d20 *to see if something happens.* If you succeed, way to go, you hit him! If you miss, well, sorry, nothing happened. Maybe next time.

The point of conflict resolution is that something *always* happens. There are no "whiffs" or "misses." If you fail, it's a *real* failure, with consequences.

In Draconum, if you fail the final battle roll, you DIE. If you fail other battle rolls, the town gets burninated, the princess gets eaten, your friends are hatcheling chow, and so on.