[Vocab] Task versus Conflict

[Ron Edwards]

I think a lot of you guys are all mixed up. See my comments about eggs in Using Task Reso to get Conflict Reso.

Ben, I dunno where you got this "meaningful" jazz; it seems like a drastic case of synecdoche to me. Jay recently told me he wanted to work against a general dismissive tone against Sim at the Forge, and I told him he was being too defensive. Please don't prove me wrong.

Don't forget that Vincent (who you are using as your model, apparently) can get away with calling Sim "stupid play" at Anyway, because it's his blog about his aesthetic standards. The Forge doesn't allow for that kind of judgmental focus.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

OK, that helps, I think. I'll note that this is quite different from what Ben is talking about. Just to clarify -- Ben explicitly says that D&D combat is Conflict Resolution by his definition. It seems to me that from your description, D&D combat is not Conflict Resolution. (Could you confirm that, by the way?)

Honestly, I'm not really sure what Ben is talking about.  The thread may be labeled "Vocab" as a desire to nail down some definitional statements, but I consider this thread to be far more about musings and exporing possibilities.  Because, really, Ben's so far out in the weeds I'm having trouble even seeing him.

I'm not sure what he means by suggesting D&D combat is conflict resolution.  Perhaps he's refering to some nostalgic rememberance of little white book past.  It certainly doesn't match any D&D experience I've every had.

Take your typical group of orcs who've kidnapped a princess.  The players have been sent to get her back...pretty bog standard D&D set up.  Its the final battle...the orc shamans about to sacrifice the princess in the back of cave and the warriors are poised to fight you off.

IF you start by saying the goal is to rescue the princess before she's sacrificed and the stakes are failure = she gets sacrificed and some demon is released into the world (or whatever) success = the sacrifice is halted and the princess is alive.  And then you move into a resolution system that's designed to resolve that issue.  That would be conflict resolution (note: its the mindset that's appropriate not the specific verbage about goals and stakes).

D&D doesn't come anywhere close to doing that.  When I roll to hit on an orc the only thing being resolved is whether this orc takes damage from this blow.  It has no direct effect what so ever on whether the princess gets sacrificed or not.  That's task resolution 100%.  Oh, indirectly it does...if I do enough damage to enough orcs quickly enough etc. etc.  But indirectly doesn't count.  Conflict Resolution resolves the conflict directly.

Similiarly if you just had 1 Orc that you were fighting and you framed the conflict as being nothing more complicated as killing that orc, D&D doesn't resolve that conflict directly.  There is no "roll to see if you defeat the orc" system.  Its a "roll to see if you hit the orc" system and THEN if you do that enough times you can kill the orc.  

Also note that when I say "roll" that doesn't necessarily mean a single roll.  It could be card draws or a roll with lots of interpretation like DitV, etc.  "roll" in this context should be understood to mean "resolution entitiy"



What Ben is trying to do (it seems to me) is lay claim to any and all resolution entities and label them Conflict Resolution when they address meaningful outcomes and label them "Task Resolution" with the definition of "rolls that aren't about anything meaningful".  A sentiment I couldn't disagree with more and one I don't think is supported by the majority of Conflict vs. Task discussions out there.

With all due respect to Ben, I think this line of reasoning is just seriously muddying up what is actually a very straight forward concept.  Conflict vs. Task Resolution is all about how you frame what is actually being determined by a given resolution.  You're either resolving individual tasks and then building them up into resolving the conflict.  Or your resolving the conflict and then filling in the details of the tasks.  Its really that simple.

The key distinction that I see is that in your description, resolution depends on the stated reason why the character is doing the action. So depending on how I answer why my character is climbing the cliff, the results will vary. So, for example, suppose my PC is a callous showoff. He doesn't care about the villagers, but another PC bets him that he can't make it to the village before the enemy horsemen. Now the conflict might be against the other PC, to try to win the bet. Right?

Absolutely.  Or any of a number of other similiar permutations.  

Also, this may be yet another topic, but you interpret conflict with importance. i.e. The cliff is irrelevant, but the enemy leader is important. That seems like a stylistic choice to me. To my mind, the enemy is often a MacGuffin (to steal a term from Hitchcock) -- i.e. a vital goal to the character but relatively unimportant to the nature of the work. As I look at this, though, this should really go into another thread.

Again, absolutely.  In any given game you have to frame the terms of the conflict around what is really important...where the real source of the conflict is.  In my example that was the enemy...but certainly the enemy might very well be as important to the conflict as the cliff was in my set up.  Perhaps the PC was ordered to warn the village by his king who he is very loyal to, but the village is full of Skeltlings who his family has been feuding with for generations.  In that case the conflict might actually be between the PC's loyalty to his king vs. his hatred of the Skeltlings (or love of family or whatever)...completely internal.  The strength of the enemy might actually benefit the loyalty to the King because the greater the threat to the king the more the PC will feel the tug of loyalty.  The difficulty of the cliff may well be a modifier to his hatred of Skeltlings because it serves as a convenient excuse as to why he didn't make it in time despite his "best efforts".

Or you could wind up framing things much more conventionally.  How you wind up frameing the conflict and identifying what's important about it and what the stakes are has alot to do with (and says alot about) your creative agenda.  That Skeltling example might be pure gold to a Narrativist, and absolutely horrifying to a Simulationist.  Not because one is more wrong but because when you ask the question "what's really important, what is this conflict really about, what are the stakes" you can get very different judgements  (most of my examples have been from a Nar slant since thats what kicked off the latest series of discussions, and thats what I have most direct experience using Conflict Resolution for).

 

I'll also point out that this is why I've said previously that one CAN coopt a system designed for task resolution and try to employ it in a conflict resolution fashion.  I'm sure you can see how, once having framed a conflict pretty explicitly in this manner, you could then through very selective and judicious choosing of what task rolls to call for, what to skip, what modifiers to allow, what modifiers to ignore, etc. etc. make rolls that would appear to be fairly typical Task Resolution.  

At that point there are really IMO two possibilities.

Either you go all the way with it, and start to employ the mechanics in a way that would very likely appear to be quite "wrong" or even "abusive" to die hard literalist fans of the system as written.  Or you stop short of that and run the risk of having some of the weaknesses of Task Resolution muck things up a bit.

[John Kim]

I'll note that this is quite different from what Ben is talking about. Just to clarify -- Ben explicitly says that D&D combat is Conflict Resolution by his definition. It seems to me that from your description, D&D combat is not Conflict Resolution. (Could you confirm that, by the way?)

Honestly, I'm not really sure what Ben is talking about.  The thread may be labeled "Vocab" as a desire to nail down some definitional statements, but I consider this thread to be far more about musings and exporing possibilities.  Because, really, Ben's so far out in the weeds I'm having trouble even seeing him.

I'm not sure what he means by suggesting D&D combat is conflict resolution.  Perhaps he's refering to some nostalgic rememberance of little white book past.  It certainly doesn't match any D&D experience I've every had.

What Ben is trying to do (it seems to me) is lay claim to any and all resolution entities and label them Conflict Resolution when they address meaningful outcomes and label them "Task Resolution" with the definition of "rolls that aren't about anything meaningful".  A sentiment I couldn't disagree with more and one I don't think is supported by the majority of Conflict vs. Task discussions out there.

OK, so Ben has a different concept of what Conflict Resolution is.  He's not being nostalgic -- rather your D&D experiences I suspect do match this definition of Conflict Resolution -- namely that there are concrete game-mechanical results for each roll.  The example of D&D is directly from Vincent's blog anyway.  I don't see where the example is, but here's where he talks about the principles of how he sees Conflict Resolution:
http://www.septemberquestion.org/lumpley/anycomment.php?entry=187

As a semantic question, there isn't a right or wrong -- we just need to come up with ways of labelling the two differently.  

With all due respect to Ben, I think this line of reasoning is just seriously muddying up what is actually a very straight forward concept.  Conflict vs. Task Resolution is all about how you frame what is actually being determined by a given resolution.  You're either resolving individual tasks and then building them up into resolving the conflict.  Or your resolving the conflict and then filling in the details of the tasks.  Its really that simple.

Dude.  This is circular -- i.e. "Conflict Resolution is resolving conflicts".  You're just shifting out the definition to your own internalized vision of what "conflict" is and what "task" is.  But it doesn't define them usefully to someone who doesn't already know what you're talking about.  

I also think that your conception of this depends on a fairly arbitrary matter of level of conflict.  Let's take your example of a character trying to climb a cliff to get to a village to warn them about the incoming enemy.  You interpreted this as rolling against the enemy leader's Ride score.  But that's also just a step in the overall conflict of defending his people, right?  He could warn the village, but it could be that the village is destroyed despite his warning.  So we could alternately roll against the higher level conflict of protecting the village.  But even if that village is safe, the enemy might destroy a neighboring village instead.  So we could alternately roll against the general protection of the country.  etc.

The key distinction that I see is that in your description, resolution depends on the stated reason why the character is doing the action. So depending on how I answer why my character is climbing the cliff, the results will vary. So, for example, suppose my PC is a callous showoff. He doesn't care about the villagers, but another PC bets him that he can't make it to the village before the enemy horsemen. Now the conflict might be against the other PC, to try to win the bet. Right?

Absolutely.  Or any of a number of other similiar permutations.

OK, I'd like to suggest that this is a pretty good definition -- that Conflict Definition makes the chances and/or results depend on the motivation why a character is doing an action; while Task Resolution only depends on what actions are performed.  

This eliminates the issue of scale -- which several people (including Ron) have suggested is irrelevant.  So Conflict Resolution isn't necessarily Scene Resolution -- which your prior definition implies.  Plus you can have Conflict Resolution at a much finer scale.  

(You have some other points, but they're not really related to the definition of Conflict Resolution and Task Resolution -- thus I'd like to take them to other threads.)

edited for grammar

[lumpley]

On my blog, for what it's worth, I've held that D&D combat is conflict resolution when and only when the reason you're fighting is to kill your opponent. Otherwise, it's task resolution with some irrelevant bookkeeping about hit points attached.

-Vincent

[Matt Snyder]

On my blog, for what it's worth, I've held that D&D combat is conflict resolution when and only when the reason you're fighting is to kill your opponent. Otherwise, it's task resolution with some irrelevant bookkeeping about hit points attached.

-Vincent

Right. Because, if we say "Ok, if you kill enough orcs, the girl will be saved from sacrifice" there is no codified system support to enforce that goal. The GM can simply swoop in with fiat-power and say, "Ok, you kill the last orc, but it's not really the girl. It's really a doppelganger! FIGHT!" (sigh)

[Matt Snyder]

Oh, man, that helps me realize once again what I understand the difference between Conflict and Task resolution to be:

Conflict Resolution is the means by which players assent to stakes. It's the Lumpley Principle in action. Conflict resolution is an agreement among players -- "We all agree. If X happens, then Y results. Got it everyone?"

Whereas Task Resolution simply says "X happens." It does not tie result Y to X. Sure, Y may happen a lot in play, but it's because a player (the GM, typically) can say, "Well, Z happens, regardless." And, doing so ain't busting the rules, as written or agreed upon by the group.

Historically, RPG texts have not been clear on this (or, indeed, clear that it's *not* up to the group, but to the GM).

In my memory and understanding, too few texts state, "If X happens, Y results, even if the GM and his blessed story don't like it, so there!"

We're seeing this kind of language creep into texts. YAY!

(And, yes, this is my long-winded restating of Vincent's definition of Conflict Resolution, in which he emphasizes GM fiat as the defining feature of Task Resolution.)

[Valamir]

John I think we're getting largely on the same page, but I'll make a couple of additional comments.

Conflict vs. Task Resolution is all about how you frame what is actually being determined by a given resolution. You're either resolving individual tasks and then building them up into resolving the conflict. Or your resolving the conflict and then filling in the details of the tasks. Its really that simple.

Dude. This is circular -- i.e. "Conflict Resolution is resolving conflicts". You're just shifting out the definition to your own internalized vision of what "conflict" is and what "task" is. But it doesn't define them usefully to someone who doesn't already know what you're talking about.

I don't see it as circular at all.  Someone who isn't able to identify the underlying conflict in a situation has a lot more cognitive problems than I can address in a forum thread.  In your earlier response you rattled off another example (about the bet) which I offer as demonstrating just how easy it is to start to see things in terms of the conflict at large.

So I don't really think there is anyone out there who can't identify what the source of conflict is, and what the stakes of that conflict are.  Its pretty basic reading comprehension 101 type stuff.  I also don't think that having done that that said person couldn't easily identify any of a number of possible steps that a character might take to try and deal with the conflict.

At that point its a simple question of what are you rolling for.  Are you rolling to determine the outcome of the conflict; or are you rolling to determine the outcome of one of the possible steps?

I also think that your conception of this depends on a fairly arbitrary matter of level of conflict. Let's take your example of a character trying to climb a cliff to get to a village to warn them about the incoming enemy. You interpreted this as rolling against the enemy leader's Ride score. But that's also just a step in the overall conflict of defending his people, right? He could warn the village, but it could be that the village is destroyed despite his warning. So we could alternately roll against the higher level conflict of protecting the village. But even if that village is safe, the enemy might destroy a neighboring village instead. So we could alternately roll against the general protection of the country. etc.

Right.

...and....


You can blow up the scale on conflict resolution as large as you want.  General protection of the country side...to the overall war...to underlying generational shifts in population demographics...to the never ending war between the gods.

You can also go the other direction and focus in on progressively smaller scale conflicts to the extent you can identify them.

That's your job as a player in the game to determine at what scale the conflict becomes most interesting to the player.  Most often this would have something to do with the scale that the characters operate on.  If the PC in question is the messenger sent to warn the village the scale I used may well be ideal.  If the PC, however, is the king who sent the messenger to warn the village, then his conflict may well involve the defense of the general country side...and the successes of the messenger may well roll up into that conflict.

The key distinction that I see is that in your description, resolution depends on the stated reason why the character is doing the action. So depending on how I answer why my character is climbing the cliff, the results will vary. So, for example, suppose my PC is a callous showoff. He doesn't care about the villagers, but another PC bets him that he can't make it to the village before the enemy horsemen. Now the conflict might be against the other PC, to try to win the bet. Right?

Absolutely. Or any of a number of other similiar permutations.

OK, I'd like to suggest that this is a pretty good definition -- that Conflict Definition makes the chances and/or results depend on the motivation why a character is doing an action; while Task Resolution only depends on what actions are performed.

Hmmm...I'd definitely agree that's a helpful way of looking at it...I'm not 100% certain its definitional...have to think more on that one.

This eliminates the issue of scale -- which several people (including Ron) have suggested is irrelevant. So Conflict Resolution isn't necessarily Scene Resolution -- which your prior definition implies. Plus you can have Conflict Resolution at a much finer scale.

I intended no implication about scale as I hope my comments above cleared up.

But a Conflict is by definition assembled from tasks.  So in an abstract sense Conflicts always act at a scale larger than the underlying tasks used to describe them.

Now whether the underlying task is a single sword swing, or an entire season of battle field campaigning is another thing entirely.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

You can blow up the scale on conflict resolution as large as you want. General protection of the country side...to the overall war...to underlying generational shifts in population demographics...to the never ending war between the gods.

You can also go the other direction and focus in on progressively smaller scale conflicts to the extent you can identify them.

That's your job as a player in the game to determine at what scale the conflict becomes most interesting to the player. Most often this would have something to do with the scale that the characters operate on. If the PC in question is the messenger sent to warn the village the scale I used may well be ideal. If the PC, however, is the king who sent the messenger to warn the village, then his conflict may well involve the defense of the general country side...and the successes of the messenger may well roll up into that conflict.

This is something I had to get past as well.  Large scale resolution does not equal conflict resolution.  Neither does small scale resolution equal task resolution.  For resolution to be "conflict" there has to be a why or a because beyond simply achieving the task itself.

Peace,

-Troy

[Andrew Morris]

But a Conflict is by definition assembled from tasks.  So in an abstract sense Conflicts always act at a scale larger than the underlying tasks used to describe them.

I'm not sure I understand your use of "in an abstract sense" here, Ralph. Even task resolution is made up of smaller components. For example, hitting someone with a sword involves positioning, spotting a target, executing the swing properly, etc. Also, conflict resolution might be part of a "larger" task. For example, the "conflict" of "defeat the Duke in witty debate" could be part of the "task" of "use Politics Skill to make a good showing at the party." What I'm getting at is that I don't think task or conflict resolution have anything to do with scale. In the end, this may really just be a semantics quibble, since I don't think I'm disagreeing with you on any substantial points here.

[Valamir]

The key phrase there Andrew is "used to describe them".

Any given conflict will be, by definition, at a larger scale than the individual tasks used to describe that conflict.

I suppose to be completely pedantic one should include "same or larger scale" to account for 1 task conflicts.

[John Kim]

OK, I'd like to suggest that this is a pretty good definition -- that Conflict Definition makes the chances and/or results depend on the motivation why a character is doing an action; while Task Resolution only depends on what actions are performed.

Hmmm...I'd definitely agree that's a helpful way of looking at it...I'm not 100% certain its definitional...have to think more on that one.

I think it's going to depend on the question of scale (see below).  The trick with definitions is how you treat the the less-common cases.  

This eliminates the issue of scale -- which several people (including Ron) have suggested is irrelevant. So Conflict Resolution isn't necessarily Scene Resolution -- which your prior definition implies. Plus you can have Conflict Resolution at a much finer scale.

I intended no implication about scale as I hope my comments above cleared up.

But a Conflict is by definition assembled from tasks.  So in an abstract sense Conflicts always act at a scale larger than the underlying tasks used to describe them.

Now whether the underlying task is a single sword swing, or an entire season of battle field campaigning is another thing entirely.

I don't follow this.  If the level of conflicts can vary, can't there be many conflicts within a day-long battle?  i.e.  My character charge forwards with the head of her troops.  I want to break through the enemy lines to establish a foothold.  I roll a conflict with the sergeant commanding that line, with my reason being to gain that foothold.  I break through.  Meanwhile, Jim's PC is trying to take the hill overlooking the field to get a good view.  He tries to sneak, with his goal being to get a good view of the battle without being seen.  

Contrast this with resolving the entire battle through a mass combat system which resolve it in a single round (like the one in GURPS or Pendragon).  Would you agree that the mass combat system is Task Resolution?  And yet it is at a higher scale than the conflicts above.  

Let's consider another case:  My PC is in a bar, and he's talking to a guy whom he thinks has information about the cult which has been operating nearby.  We have a conflict -- do I get him to tell what he knows?  I succeed, and he tells me what he knows -- which leads me to a club across town where someone who used to be in the cult is hiding.  I go and then I try to find that guy.  Here's another conflict: I'm trying to find him, he doesn't want to be found.  I roll against him.  

Fair enough?  

On the other hand, what if I just roll Gather Information for the whole evening to find out how much I learn about the cult?  Would that be Task Resolution?

[Andrew Morris]

Any given conflict will be, by definition, at a larger scale than the individual tasks used to describe that conflict.

Okay, gotcha. In that case, John's just stated my viewpoint much more clearly than I would have.

[Valamir]

I don't follow this. If the level of conflicts can vary, can't there be many conflicts within a day-long battle? i.e. My character charge forwards with the head of her troops. I want to break through the enemy lines to establish a foothold. I roll a conflict with the sergeant commanding that line, with my reason being to gain that foothold. I break through. Meanwhile, Jim's PC is trying to take the hill overlooking the field to get a good view. He tries to sneak, with his goal being to get a good view of the battle without being seen.

Ummm. Right.  I'm not sure what you're not following.  That's exactly correct.  As I noted above, its up to you, in the game, in real time, to decide what scale of conflict you're operating under for any given resolution.  (Caveat:  Some games like Troll Babe provide rules restrictions on this...but that's game specific not a feature of the concept).

Can you resolve conflicts at different scales as part of the same master conflict?  Of course.  Could all of the little participants in the battle run their own Conflict at their own scale and then roll those successes up into a larger conflict at a larger scale?  Of course.  Did I not explicitly SAY that above?  I believe I did.

I'm having trouble seeing even where you're getting hung up on this scale thing...it seems to me that the answers to these questions are all "yes, absolutely, that should be obvious by now."

Why is scale such a big bogey man for you.  FORGET FRIGGING SCALE.  Erase all questions of scale from your mind, you're just driving yourself in circles.

YOU AND YOUR GROUP set the scale when YOU AND YOUR GROUP define the conflict.  YOU AND YOUR GROUP identify the source of conflict that you desire to resolve and identify what's at stake with that conflict.  I can't set the scale for you.  I don't care whether the scale is finding your dinner or becoming master of the known universe.  Its entirely irrelevant to the question of whether or not its conflict resolution.  

Now it very well might make a difference as to how well you enjoy play.  Vincent frequently gives advice about keeping the scale of Conflict for DitV small because that's where you get the most bang for your buck in that system.  

Contrast this with resolving the entire battle through a mass combat system which resolve it in a single round (like the one in GURPS or Pendragon). Would you agree that the mass combat system is Task Resolution? And yet it is at a higher scale than the conflicts above.

I'm not groking your point here at all.  Pendragon's Mass Combat system is a far far cry from a single round resolution, so I'm not sure where you're coming from with that.  I'm also not sure where the leap to "would you agree its Task Resolution" comes from.

Why would I agree to that?  Why would you?  Have we not just spent pages and pages talking about the difference between task and conflict resolution?  Is it not entirely obvious by now that the answer to whether Pendragon's Mass Combat system is Task or Conflict Resolution is "Depends on how you use it"?   I mean...it should be...or what was the point of all of this discussion...

Let's consider another case: My PC is in a bar, and he's talking to a guy whom he thinks has information about the cult which has been operating nearby. We have a conflict -- do I get him to tell what he knows? I succeed, and he tells me what he knows -- which leads me to a club across town where someone who used to be in the cult is hiding. I go and then I try to find that guy. Here's another conflict: I'm trying to find him, he doesn't want to be found. I roll against him.

Again, I'm not seeing whatever point you're trying to make with this...what's so special about this case?  It's not immediately obvious to me whether you're using Conflict or Task Resolution to resolve the "tell me" "find him" issues, but what exactlly am I supposed to be considering?

On the other hand, what if I just roll Gather Information for the whole evening to find out how much I learn about the cult? Would that be Task Resolution?

<blink> <blink>
You tell me John.  I've explained the distinguishing characteristics of Conflict Resolution about a dozen times now.  You haven't provided enough information here to even begin to judge.  I'm about at my wits end because I can't even see what it is that's giving you difficulty.  Did you identify the source of the conflict?  Can you identify what the stakes are?  Are you rolling to resolve that conflict or are you rolling to resolve a step in that conflict?  If you're doing those things then its Conflict Resolution.  If you're not...then its not...why are you asking me?

And don't you dare say "how do I tell what's a step and what's a conflict?" because that WILL cause me to scream and pull out my hair (what little I have left).

[Walt Freitag]

Let's consider another case:  My PC is in a bar, and he's talking to a guy whom he thinks has information about the cult which has been operating nearby.  We have a conflict -- do I get him to tell what he knows?  I succeed, and he tells me what he knows -- which leads me to a club across town where someone who used to be in the cult is hiding.  I go and then I try to find that guy.  Here's another conflict: I'm trying to find him, he doesn't want to be found.  I roll against him.

That's task resolution. If the first roll had succeeded at resolving the conflict, then why did you have to go to another bar and do it all over again? It didn't, because you were resolving whether or not you get the NPCs information about the cult, not whether or not you actually learned whatever it was you wanted to know about the cult (such as, where it meets, or who the members are). The latter was the conflict; but the roll only resolved the former (succeed/fail at getting the guy to tell). The resolution of the conflict was left to depend on happenstance or GM fiat: once the guy talks, does he know what you need to know, or not?

You're right that this has nothing to do with the absolute scale. What, then, is the difference? It's the stakes relative to the character action being performed. Success in task resolution wins you the right to narrate into the SIS a fact regarding the character's performance of an action. Yes, you do climb the cliff, hit the enemy with a sword, get the information the NPC knows. Success in conflict resolution wins you the right to narrate into the SIS a result that is brought about by the character's performance of an action. You warn the village (by climbing the cliff), kill the enemy (by hitting him with a sword), learn the location of the cult's headquarters (by finding out what an NPC knows). The actual character action might or might not, depending on the system, even be specified at the time that the success or failure aspect of the resolution is decided. (If it's not, that's a pretty reliable indicator that conflict resolution is going on.)

This distinction can hold on any scale. On any given scale, conflict resolution resolves questions on a larger scale or of greater significance than the specific character actions that eventually get narrated. Task resolution resolves the character actions themselves. That makes conflict resolution appear to be "larger scale" because the scale we perceive is pretty much determined by the scale of the character actions we narrate (e.g. "I lead my legions to victory in the battle" vs. "I send 200 reinforcements to the left flank" vs. "I swing my mace at the guy in front of me.")

To illustrate this, let me rewrite the warn-the-village example. Instead of showing the two starting from the same situation and leading to different results, I'll show them starting from slightly different scales of character action and leading to the same results:

Task resolution: You're standing at the signal fire that, if lit, will warn the village of the approaching marauders. You've climbed the Cliffs of Insanity to get there in time, but can you light the pyre, dampened by the recent rain, in time? You roll against your Wilderness Survival skill (which lighting a fire under difficult conditions is clearly an aspect of). You succeed! The pyre blazes. You trust that the villagers, who always keep a sharp lookout, will see it in time. You later find out that indeed they did, and they hail you as a hero.

Conflict resolution: Marauders are heading for the village. Just barely able to stay ahead of the mounted horde yourself, you have little hope of being able to save the village. Your only advantage is that this is your home territory, and you know every detail of the landscape. There must be a way! You say, "I want to roll my local topo knowledge against the enemy horde's Hordiness." GM: "Okay, what are you looking for?" You: "Of course! The old signal pyre on top of Mesa Vertigo! If only I can reach it in time!" GM: "You can try, but to reach it you'd have to climb the Cliffs of Insanity. Success means saving the village, but failure will mean plummeting to your doom. Do you accept those stakes?" You agree and roll, and succeed! GM: "You climb the cliffs and light the fire. The village is saved."

In the conflict resolution example, the stakes being decided (saving the village vs. doom) are larger-scale than the character actions eventually narrated (climbing a cliff and lighting a fire). Actually lighting the is never even in doubt and never rolled for; it's too small-scale to bother with. In the task resolution, only the lighting of the fire is actually resolved by the resolution system. Climbing the cliff had already been resolved previously, and the rest, the saving of the village, is left to logical causality and/or GM fiat. In theory the villages might not see the fire, or see it but not react effectively. With pure task resolution, causality and GM fiat is the only way conflicts on a larger scale than the narrated character actions can ever get resolved. (No matter how many times you hit with a sword, the monster might still have more hit points.)

In practice, though, task resolution can be informally tied to conflict resolution by building the situation toward a crux. Movies do this all the time: If Roy Scheider can shoot the oxygen tank in the shark's mouth, he'll win; otherwise the shark will eat him. What turns task resolution rolls into conflict resolution de facto system is agreement, explicit or implicit, that certain task results will result in certain larger-scale (relative to the task) conflict result. In the task resolution example of lighting the signal pyre, there's a reasonable expectation that the signal will work; it would be hard for the GM to justify it not working. But there are no guarantees. Make the understanding a bit more explicit, and you have:

Conflict resolution, informally, using a supposed "task resolution system": Marauders are heading for the unsuspecting village. It's established that you can warn them if you light the signal fire in time. The signal fire is atop Mesa Vertigo, and can be reached only by either climbing the Cliffs of Insanity or by hiking 40 miles through the mountain pass. You roll your cliff climbing ability; you succeed! You light the signal fire and the village is saved.

- Walt

[John Kim]

I don't follow this. If the level of conflicts can vary, can't there be many conflicts within a day-long battle?

Ummm. Right.  I'm not sure what you're not following.  That's exactly correct.

OK, let me be a little more assertive here, then.  I am going to assert a definition for Conflict Resolution which I hope is clear and which does not depend on scale.  In my formulation here, the definitional feature of Conflict Resolution is that the chances and interpretation depend in part on the intent of a character, not just on the actions taken.  

Scale is not a factor -- we can resolve a battle as one conflict, or as many conflicts.  We can also resolve the battle as one task or many tasks.  Thus, something that is one conflict could be broken down into many tasks; and conversely something that is one task can be broken down into many conflicts.  The distinguishing feature is that a conflict is expressed in terms of what a character wants; while a task is expressed in terms of what a character does.  

Let's take an example: there is a criminal character and a guard.  Let's consider two intents and two methods.  The intents could be: (1) the character may want simply to get past the guard, not caring if he sets off any alarms -- just doesn't want trouble from him; or (2) the character wants the guard to not raise any alarms.  The methods could be: (A) the character tries to fast-talk his way past the guard; (B) the character tries to sucker-punch the guard and knock him out.  In a pure Task Resolution system, what happens will depend only on the declared action.  In a Conflict Resolution system, what happens will depend in part on the intent.  In extreme cases of Conflict Resolution, the chance will be independent of the method (A or B).  

Here's a point which many people seem to miss: unless the entire adventure just consists of a single roll, it is always possible for a success result to be invalidated by a larger-scale setback -- or for a failure to be recovered by a larger-scale gain.  This is true of both Task Resolution and Conflict Resolution.  So even if you succeed at one conflict, it is always possible for the larger-scale conflict to turn against you.  i.e. If your character is in conflict with a villain, and wins the conflict -- it could turn out that he is part of a cult of villains, or has a twin brother.  Or more broadly, if your character were fighting the villain to protect her country, the country could be ravaged by an earthquake.  etc.  

Generally speaking, larger-scale conflicts and tasks will mean that more is covered under resolution mechanic.  So it's less subject to the subjective methods that happen between resolution -- but it also means that the resolution mechanic provides less information about what happens.  Often people associate high-level resolution with Conflict Resolution, but it's not true.  

Let's consider another case:  My PC is in a bar, and he's talking to a guy whom he thinks has information about the cult which has been operating nearby.  We have a conflict -- do I get him to tell what he knows?  I succeed, and he tells me what he knows -- which leads me to a club across town where someone who used to be in the cult is hiding.  I go and then I try to find that guy.  Here's another conflict: I'm trying to find him, he doesn't want to be found.  I roll against him.

That's task resolution. If the first roll had succeeded at resolving the conflict, then why did you have to go to another bar and do it all over again? It didn't, because you were resolving whether or not you get the NPCs information about the cult, not whether or not you actually learned whatever it was you wanted to know about the cult (such as, where it meets, or who the members are).  The latter was the conflict; but the roll only resolved the former (succeed/fail at getting the guy to tell).

No, I asserted what the conflict was -- does this guy tell me what he knows?  You can push out to a higher-scale conflict, but that's arbitrary.  For example, I can always push it further.  i.e. I can ask why the character is trying to find out about the cult in the first place.  Rather than go through the step of trying to find out about the cult first, I can suggest that we just roll to resolve what I would want to do with the information.  If we continue to escalate this, then the result is that the adventure as a whole is resolved as a single roll.  I can do this for any example you bring to me of Conflict Resolution.  

To illustrate this, let me rewrite the warn-the-village example. Instead of showing the two starting from the same situation and leading to different results, I'll show them starting from slightly different scales of character action and leading to the same results:

Task resolution: You're standing at the signal fire that, if lit, will warn the village of the approaching marauders. You've climbed the Cliffs of Insanity to get there in time, but can you light the pyre, dampened by the recent rain, in time? You roll against your Wilderness Survival skill (which lighting a fire under difficult conditions is clearly an aspect of). You succeed! The pyre blazes. You trust that the villagers, who always keep a sharp lookout, will see it in time. You later find out that indeed they did, and they hail you as a hero.

Conflict resolution: Marauders are heading for the village. Just barely able to stay ahead of the mounted horde yourself, you have little hope of being able to save the village. Your only advantage is that this is your home territory, and you know every detail of the landscape. There must be a way! You say, "I want to roll my local topo knowledge against the enemy horde's Hordiness." GM: "Okay, what are you looking for?" You: "Of course! The old signal pyre on top of Mesa Vertigo! If only I can reach it in time!" GM: "You can try, but to reach it you'd have to climb the Cliffs of Insanity. Success means saving the village, but failure will mean plummeting to your doom. Do you accept those stakes?" You agree and roll, and succeed! GM: "You climb the cliffs and light the fire. The village is saved."

In the conflict resolution example, the stakes being decided (saving the village vs. doom) are larger-scale than the character actions eventually narrated (climbing a cliff and lighting a fire). Actually lighting the is never even in doubt and never rolled for; it's too small-scale to bother with. In the task resolution, only the lighting of the fire is actually resolved by the resolution system.

This is a pointless example, because you have deliberately mixed up scale -- making your Task Resolution example at a much smaller scale than the Conflict Resolution example.  But Task Resolution doesn't require a particular scale, so this is just a red herring.  Let's compare apples to apples:

Task resolution: Marauders are heading for the village.  Just barely able to stay ahead of the mounted horde yourself, you have little hope of being able to save the village.  Your only advantage is that this is your home territory, and you know every detail of the landscape.  You: "I the player don't know what the home territory is, but my character does and she'll do her best to signal the village."  GM: "OK, and we don't want to take forever on this anyhow.  Let's make this a roll on your Wilderness skill, difficulty 15."  Player: (rolls) "Success by 5"  GM: "OK, they've been alerted.  Say you've signalled them from an old signal pyre on top of a mesa."  

Note that there are clear differences between these examples, but it is absolutley vital not to mix it up with scale.  The difference is in how the intent is handled relative to the action.  I'd like to go in more detail on this, but I think I should stop here and see responses.