Does Conflict Res = No Roleplaying?

[Alan]

Hi guys,

In d20, we see the equivalent effect when a player rolls a skill at the end of a narrative description, without declaring it in advance or being asked, and then says "I got 23 on fast talk."  In situations when I've seen this, there's a tacit acceptance that the GM can ignore the roll, but in an experienced group the player can usually guess when a roll will be required.

The development of skill and understanding is what Mike is refrerring to.   After playing with a conflict resolution system for a while, players develop a better sense of when to use it and how goals should be defined.  As this happens, they find less explicit discussin is necessary to handling each resolution.

[Vaxalon]

One of the neat things about HQ conflict resolution is the idea of "augments".  You have a wide variety of attributes on your character sheet, and when you're in a conflict you pick one to roll on, but can gain support (or in the case of flaws, the opposite) from other attributes.  This gives a rich set of influences on which to base the narration and/or dialogue that comes after the dice hit the table.

[S'mon]

Hi guys,

In d20, we see the equivalent effect when a player rolls a skill at the end of a narrative description, without declaring it in advance or being asked, and then says "I got 23 on fast talk."  In situations when I've seen this, there's a tacit acceptance that the GM can ignore the roll, but in an experienced group the player can usually guess when a roll will be required.

That seems rude to me - rather breaking the game-contract.  As player I'll request a roll, but I wouldn't normally just roll and declare it like the GM was obliged to declare me victorious.  If I do do that it's not something I'm proud of doing, it feels like trying to browbeat the GM.  Likewise as GM I'd be mildly annoyed if a player rolled without being requested; certainly if he rolled first, _then_ said "That's my fast talk roll - 23!" he'd get a good dressing-down.  :)

[TonyLB]

Okay, but you know that that's only rude in the context of a social contract where the GM has total power over the dice and rules, right?  And that that's only one possible social contract.

Frankly, I think it's usually a very dysfunctional one.  If the game rules are meant (at least in part) to arbitrate disputes, how can they work if one of the disputants has complete control over when and whether they'll be used?

It does, however, underline your dependence on negotiation as a source of player power, since that's the only method of resolution you can go to of your own will.

[Larry L.]

(Edit: was targeted for PM.)

[Vaxalon]

There's a variety of cheating where a player will idly "fiddle" with a die at the table, as he's RPing along, and if a good roll comes up, declare that that's his bluff/diplomacy/whatever check.  Since it's my job as DM to keep an eye out for that kind of thing, a roll only counts if a player declares it FIRST.

"I'm going to roll bluff now."

"Go ahead."

Everyone looks over and sees what he rolled.

The "I'm going to roll bluff now" declaration is subject to validation, the same as ANY declaration is.

[aplath]

Hello all,

Interesting stuff in this thread so I've decided to share a few examples from my Pool games.

As to Darcy's doubt of how you know when it's conflict resolution time, in my games it is pretty straight forward. We will simply roleplay the game as usual until someone (either the GM or another player) states that something will happen or that character X will do something and another player (GM or not) feels like saying "No he's not" and call for a roll.

Example:

GM: As Bob the PC is walking in the middle of the crowd, he sees a man pushing an old lady and running for it with her purse.

Bob's player: Bob immediately runs after the culprit yelling "Hey! Thief! Somebody stop that man!"

GM: People don't react quickly enough and the thief has a good start. Looks like he will outrun Bob and escape.

Bob's player: No, he won't. (And calls for a roll)

But the scope of conflict resolution in the Pool can go way beyond that.

For instance, some time back we've played a Pool Game called X-Riders where two bikers would roam the countryside of Brazil facing all kinds of supernatural challenges. The two bikers were pretty much a Mulder-Scully pair in the sense that one of them was a total believer in the supernatural while the other was the total skeptic.

Very well, what this meant was that many conflict resolution scenarios developed in attempts of each player forcing his character personal view on the game world.

An example:

In the very first session, they were in a small town full of rumors about the recent night attacks to cattle by a "creature" that the locals thought to be a werefolf. During the whole session, when facing evidences of the attacks the two PCs each developed his own theory about them. While one totaly believed in the werewolf theory, the other one was trying to prove that the attacks were made by some very mundane wild animal.

At one point, the Mulder type PC was alone at the countryside when he heard noises of cattle being attacked. The PC raced towards the noises and the player asked for a roll in order to "finally see who is the responsible for the attacks". The roll succeeded and he got to narrate how he saw the werewolf attacking a cow (however, he never managed to actually prove it later to the Scully type PC, but that's another story).

In the next story-arc of the campaign, they were faced with mysterious lights believed to be UFO's. This time the Scully PC was in a situation to finally discover the truth and when his roll succeeded, he found out a drug smuggling operation using the town's UFO fame as a cover, Scooby-Doo style.

In this particular game, when the dice decided that the GM (me) should narrate the outcome, I would always do it in a ambiguous way in order to feed the mistery and the competition between the players. It was lots of fun.

Hope this adds something to the discussion ...

Andreas

PS: Off-topic, Darcy are you the same Eggo/Darcy that was playing the Diplomacy game "Smith" a while back?

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm. The "how you know" when to roll is what seems to be the crux here. And here's the rule with conflict resolution that should solve the problem for everyone. You roll when the players feel it would be cool to roll. So, S'mon, you'd probably not personally call for many rolls about diplomacy, and instead just narrate them out. That's how you "should" do it. There are no cases, none, where the in-game circumstances mandate a roll. It's only when the players (and not that I include the GM as a player here) think it would be cool. In The Pool, the GM has final say on this. But, again, it has to at the very least be interesting to him to have the possibility of failure on such a roll before he calls for one.

Otherwise you just "roleplay" everything else out.

If you happen to use this rule, and find that you never roll for anything, then you've just proven that you ought to be a freeformer.

Mike

[Andrew Cooper]

I do something similar to Mike when I GM The Pool.  Mine's a little meaner though.  I, as the GM, never call for a roll.  I tell the players at the beginning of the game that I won't ever call for a roll.  This essentially gives me complete control over what is added to the SIS until one of them calls for a roll and wins the right to add what they want to the SIS.  In order to get them to do this I won't resolve anything in their favor without a roll.  I keep piling up complication on top of complication on top of complication with no resolution in favor of the PCs until one of them goes, "Hey... if I call for a roll and win, I can resolve this conflict in my favor the way I think would be cool."  Once one of them does that, it's amazing how quickly they start figuring out when to roll and how often.

[Trish2]

Here's a question, that I hope is somewhat related to this thread....

If you RP everything like diplomacy in D&D then why spend the points in it as  a skill? What if you as a player have no diplomatic skill, but want to play a character who is diplomatic? How does one compenstate for these things?

I suggested to my GM that there be some roleplay and based on the roleplay, a character can get modifiers to their roll.

Oh and I usually ask the GM if he wants a roll from me before rolling.

[Vaxalon]

If you RP everything like diplomacy in D&D then why spend the points in it as  a skill? What if you as a player have no diplomatic skill, but want to play a character who is diplomatic? How does one compenstate for these things?

This is one of the quintessential questions of roleplaying games, and each game answers it a little differently.  

The way I do it, personally, is let the player be as eloquent or inarticulate as he likes, or even just say, "My character convinces the guard to let him through by impersonating Duke Varlis," roll the dice, and present the results of the action based on the die roll.

If the player was eloquent and the dice come up badly, then the subject (for example) thought he was "too slick" and reacted badly to the eloquent speech.  If the player was inarticulate and the dice come up well, then the subjuect might have taken pity on the poor slob.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey folks,

This thread has grown all sorts of excrescences and no longer knows whether it is standing or swimming. So let's close it here and take discussions of specific topics into new threads of their own.

Best,
Ron

[S'mon]

Okay, but you know that that's only rude in the context of a social contract where the GM has total power over the dice and rules, right?  

Yes, but Alan wrote "in d20, we..."   :)

[S'mon]

Frankly, I think it's usually a very dysfunctional one.  If the game rules are meant (at least in part) to arbitrate disputes, how can they work if one of the disputants has complete control over when and whether they'll be used?

"Arbitrate disputes" implies there is an actual dispute between player and GM, and one side 'wins' at the others' expense.  I don't see it like that - as GM I use dice rolls to help adjudicate the interaction between the PCs and the game-universe, but I'm not a hostile force trying to do them down.  I don't see trusting the GM's judgement as dysfunctional.  And as GM I like it when the PCs win, much more than when they lose.

Edit: Just to clarify, if a player requests a roll at my game, they always get a roll.  And I'll take the result into account when judging what happens next.  As pointed out above, rolling dice then retroactively declaring what the roll was for can be used to cheat and is undesirable IMO.

[S'mon]

*oops*