[My As Yet Unnamed RPG] Skill system

[John Griffith]

If Bob has misread the clues and thinks a map is in the safe, or the map was in the safe but was later moved before Bob go there, or Bob has followed a herring to get the map from the safe but its not actually there because its a trap, isn't that part and parcel of the story. Either Bob has made an error in judgement, was too slow to act on information he had, or has been fooled. In which case resolving the task of cracking the safe will at least tell him that his information is wrong or at least incomplete.

Maybe what I'm asking is is there a definite opinion about which is more appropriate under which circumstances? Task Resolution or Conflict Resolution?

I have lots of questions about this but I'm having trouble forming cogent thoughts out of them.

[TonyLB]

Maybe what I'm asking is is there a definite opinion about which is more appropriate under which circumstances? Task Resolution or Conflict Resolution?

As a player, I consistently have vastly more fun playing with conflict resolution.  Simply, when I want to do something ("find the map") I don't have to read anyone's mind, or guess the lucky combination in order to try to do it.

I'm actually really, really good at reading the GMs mind.  I can hear a description of an office, and watch facial expression, track voice tone, and all that ... and say "Okay, I look in the trash-can.  Did the villains rip the map into pieces?"  Most of the time GMs will say "Uh ... yes."    So I speak not from frustration with the outcome (which is generally fine, for me) but frustration with the totally dysfunctional process.  I shouldn't have to read the GMs mind.  That's not what I come to play for.

Now there are people who do come to play in order to show off their ability to read the GM, solve puzzles, and put together clues.  So, for them, Conflict Resolution runs the risk of spoling their fun.  Where's the challenge in figuring out the riddle if you can say "My stakes are that my character figures out the riddle ... let's roll dice"?

I think it's a question of what style of play you want to support.  So many things are.

[John Griffith]

Would I be correct is saying that this goes straight to the heart of the Three questions?

[Adam Dray]

Where Conflict Resolution (CR) really shines is when you start adding in more elements of player authoring -- and let me tell you, it was hard to separate them in my example.  What I mean is that CR gets more fun when you let players make shit up. Instead of the GM saying there is a safe, let the player interpret his failure to find a clue in the room any way he wants. Maybe the player says, "But there's a safe that I haven't opened yet" or "What about the computer?" And the GM never mentioned a safe or a computer.

Maybe the source of information about the secret base comes from the janitor. There are tons of creative ways to get to the end point -- the stakes -- without thinking too hard about all the little tasks that you have to do to get there.

[John Griffith]

Does CR de-emphasize individual character abilities at all?

[Adam Dray]

No. In fact, CR opens the door to emphasizing different character abilities than TR would usually allow.

For example, if you need to find the plans before the janitor catches you, and you're using TR, likely the GM has planned a series of obstacles that are overcome by "key" character abilities and no others. Locked safe? Probably only one or two skills will get past that.

CR (especially combined with more player authority to narrate and create setting elements) encourages more creativity. The player can redefine the tasks that lead to the end-goal and bring in his Stubborn ability or his Chummy with Blue-collar Workers ability.

[Adam Dray]

Do you have any questions about how Conflict Resolution and Task Resolution might apply to your game design?

[John Griffith]

Yes I do:

If I were to use Conflict Resolution instead of Task Resolution, what about my system would need to change:

Task: Climbing down the cliff face to reach an injured party member
Resolve how: Climber's skill vs. sheerness of cliff face interescts to give percentile chance of success, roll percentile dice
Succes: Climber makes it down safely
Failure: Climber falls

That is how it would work currently. So to move to Conflict Resolution what would need to change?

[Adam Dray]

What would have to change? The entire mindset of you (the designer) and the players and GM.

Conflict: Can I heal my party member before they die?
Success: You heal the party member.
Failure: They die from wounds.
Resolve how: This is up to you, the designer. ;)

There are different mechanical ways to resolve conflicts. You can do it in a single roll with multiple modifiers. You can do it in a single roll with no modifiers, though this leaves a lot of players feeling "flat." You can do it in a series of rolls. I'm sure there are other ways. Here are some examples (assume the stakes of the conflict have already been clearly stated and it's just a matter of using dice to resolve the conflict).

Here's how Dogs does it:
The player has a bunch of traits rated in dice (e.g., 1d6, 3d6, 2d8). The GM also has a bunch of dice. Both sides roll. Each side takes a turn Raising with two dice (pushing them forward) and the other side must See (match) the total on the dice with dice from his own pool. See with two dice and you Dodge or Block. See with three or more dice and you Take the Blow (and take Fallout, which can change your character). See with only one die and you Reverse the Blow. You can always Give (forfeit) without taking additional Fallout.  Every time you push dice forward, you have to narrate the use of that trait. At the end, the winner narrates what happens according to the stakes, colored by the traits that were brought in.

Here's how Verge does it:
The player has a bunch of traits rated in boxes (e.g. [ ] [ ] [ ] is three boxes). Some help him (Strengths, Allies, Gear) and some hurt him (Weaknesses, Enemies). The player bases his initial dice pool on a single useful "helpful" trait and maybe adds in his Drive if he's putting it all on the line. The total number of boxes give the player that many dice. The player tells the GM how many dice to roll against him and other players can increase that number a couple dice each if they want. More dice for the GM = more risk for the player = more rewards for the player. The player and GM roll their initial dice and count successes (details not necessary here). Some narration occurs based on who is "winning." The player decides if he wants to go another round (if he's winning, probably not; if he's tied or losing, he probably does). If the player continues, he checks off a box for one of the "helpful" traits, explains the use appropriately, and rerolls all his non-success dice. Then the GM checks off a box of the player's "hurtful" traits, explains the use appropriately, and rerolls all his non-success dice. The situation is reassessed and the player can choose to continue again. When the player finally decides to stop, either the player or GM narrates the result according to the stakes, colored by the traits that were brought in.

Here's how My Life with Master does it:
Characters have just a few traits. If the conflict is violent, the player uses one set of traits; if the conflict is non-violent, he uses another set of traits. The traits give the player dice to roll. Maybe the player role-plays his character or the GM role-plays the Master in a certain way to get an extra die to roll (e.g., a d6 for Desperation). Dice are rolled. The results are narrated according to the stakes.

Does that give you some ideas? I recommend reading some of the better Actual Play reports to understand how different games do things. Better, see if you can try out some of these games we talk about with your friends. You might like The Shadow of Yesterday, which is free online in text form.

[John Griffith]

Okay well despite all of your hard work I have to admit to being bumfuzzled. What if there was no cliff and just an injured party member. Now I would expect that if you wanted to save their life you would need to be able to effectively apply some kind of skill, whether it be healing magic or medical knowledge, in order to stop them from bleeding to death. Are you saying that Conflict Resolution opens up the range of possibilities in saving the wounder party members life? So if you don't have healing magic or medical knowledge you can try something else, like praying for a miracle? If so, how is that different from Task Resolution? Consider me bumfuzzled Adam.

[John Griffith]

Does Conflict Resolution use specific abilities and skills in narrating success or failure but employs only broad categories of traits? So your Knowledge could be used for say bandaging the wounds to stop the bleeding, or you could use Divinity to pray for the miracle, or Magic to heal the wound?

[TonyLB]

Are you saying that Conflict Resolution opens up the range of possibilities in saving the wounder party members life? So if you don't have healing magic or medical knowledge you can try something else, like praying for a miracle? If so, how is that different from Task Resolution? Consider me bumfuzzled Adam.

You're straying from the distinction (task resolution vs. conflict resolution) into the particulars of individual implementations (what skills apply to what resolutions, and how).

Some systems only let you apply certain skills to certain types of situations:  A system where only lockpicking can be used to pick a lock, for instance.  Some systems encourage you to apply skills broadly:  Feng Shui, for instance, encourages you to use your Guns skill to open locked doors  ("Boom!  Open now"), or your Drive skill to heal your comrades ("I got them to the hospital just in time!").

It so happens that Conflict Resolution often convinces people that skills should be applied broadly, simply because the multitude of conflicts people offer boggles them in terms of applying things strictly.  When someone's stakes are "I want to open the door to her memories of better days," do you use lock picking?  If you're trying to scare the bejeezus out of some street punks, does your gun-polishing skill have relevance?  It is a very shiny gun, after all.

But there's nothing intrinsic to Conflict Resolution that says that skills are applied in one way or another.  That's a matter for the individual system designer (i.e. you).

[Adam Dray]

What Tony said. It's up to you-the-designer to determine how traits/skills/attributes/etc. apply to conflict resolution. It's extremely cool when you can drag your Big, Excellent Boots 3d8 into a conflict that seemingly has nothing to do with it: "Is my character Socrates convinced that the other Dog killed Virgil?" "Cut back to when the other Dog was hatching this plan. Socrates' boots and one watchful eye peek out from around the corner. He sees the other Dogs planning the fake death of Virgil."

Are you less bumfuzzled?  If not, I recommend seeing a doctor! Or asking more questions. =)

[John Griffith]

In fact I am more bumfuzzled than when I started. My head is starting to hurt so I'm going to give it a rest for today and revisit this again in the near future. If I don't get this straight I may need a straight jacket.

[Callan S.]

Hi John,

Yeah, I'm not surprised you bumfuzzled...but your still asking some really good questions, regardless!

If Bob has misread the clues and thinks a map is in the safe, or the map was in the safe but was later moved before Bob go there, or Bob has followed a herring to get the map from the safe but its not actually there because its a trap, isn't that part and parcel of the story.

I think your expecting a puzzle or challenge aspect to CR, which (I'd argue) isn't there and that's why it's confusing you. Let's seperate out the puzzle aspect first.
Game situation A: Your presented with a room with ten interesting objects and you only have enough time to search five of them for a hidden map. You then use your imagining/GM mind reading ability to try and guess which object holds it.

Game situation B: Your presented with a room with ten interesting objects and you only have enough time to search five of them for a hidden map. The GM turns to you and asks you "Which object holds the map?"


Situation B holds no puzzle or challenge at all, clearly. It's the player who decides...so the only real interest is what object the player chooses. The interesting thing about it isn't the puzzle, but what the player decides to add.

Okay, this is where conflict resolution steps in. Because instead of the player just saying which object contains the map, they ALSO say what their goal is for getting the map. Something INTERESTING! As GM, you might have included the idea of the map because you thought the players would pursue it and dig it up. But if the players can decide what their goal is, they might say "If I pass the roll, I get the map and then give it to pirate Betty, so she'll finally go out on a date with me!". Bam! The player has just given significant input into how the session/story will turn out.

Why use dice?
The question might come up "Why use dice if the player just gets to say whatever will happen, why not just freeform?". You and the player set up what happens with a pass or fail. When you do that, neither of you really know where the story is going to go like you would if you had just decided the one thing that will happen next.

Also there's a little bit of resource managment (which falls into GM/fellow player mind reading as well, I'd argue), in that it's very difficult to imagine a character healing someone else with their orate skill. So even though people might pump up skills, the nature of the game world, as reflected by the agreement/disagreement of fellow players, wont always allow their best skill to be used.

Just forget about the players job being to figure out puzzles and instead their job is to add interesting goals, and conflict resolution will start to make sense.