Mechanical limitations to the scope of conflict resolution

[Andrew Morris]

Right, that's exactly what I'm talking about, Tony. But what I'm most interested in are ways in which the rules specifically disallow those game-ending stakes, without resolving to common sense, genre convention, group vote, or whatever. Well, group vote could actually be a mechanic for it, I suppose.

What would be a game-ending conflict in Capes? Is that even possible?

[Bankuei]

Hi Andrew,

Games that would have concrete mechanics to prevent "all or nothing" conflicts would include:

1) Anything with specific endgame mechanics (My Life with Master)
2) Anything with up front negotiated stakes, everyone involved in the stakes has to agree for it to be the end-all-be-all (Trollbabe, Dogs in the Vineyard)
3) Anything with resources limiting the narration of the outcome (Universalis, Donjon)

If you look through many games with conflict resolution, they usually fall in to one of the above categories, although the two other ones include GM's Decision(which is really the functional version of Task Resolution) and Group Consensus as you've already pointed out.

Chris