Linked Conflicts?

[Sindyr]

If you have two conflicts that are semantically linked, must one be resolved before the other?

For example, Alice, Brad, and Chad are playing capes. Alice is playing Supergirl and Brad is playing the Villain Kane. Chad is playing a non powered charater, Det. Wilkes.

Brad, knowing that Det. Wilkes is about to get in a car and drive to a murder scene, throws down the conflict : Goal: Kane causes [not WILL cause] the Detective to crash his car to crash on the way to the murder scene.

Now Alice throws down a Goal: Supergirl talks with the Detective before he goes anywhere, because Alice wants Supergirl to have a conversation with the Det. before he may or may not get in a car crash.

Does this second goal prevent the first one from being resolved until the second one is?

As I understand it, nothing may be narrated that either makes a goal impossible or completes it until the goal is resolved.  Therefore, the Detective cannot be narrated leaving Supergirl and driving away until the second goal, Supergirl's chat with the Det., is resolved.

And even if the example I came up with is not air tight, please look past it to the overall issue I am bringing up:

If a particular goal prevents a condition from happening until it is resolved, and a second goal requires that condition for its resolution, then the second goal cannot be resolved until the first one is, right?

Or if not, how does one handle this contradiction?

[Tuxboy]

Doesn't really seem to be an issue...logic dictates that they would have to resolve in order just the same as in any "traditional" RPG situation.

GM: What are you guys up to?
Kane: I'm setting up an accident for Detective Wilkes on the way to the crime scene..
Supergirl: I want to talk to the detective before he leaves.
GM: K...what does Supergirl want to talk about?
...

[Sindyr]

So even if the rules say that a conflict could be resolved at the end of a certain page, if another conflict prevents that from happening, than the other conlfict must be resolved first.

Interesting. Thanks.

[Matthew Glover]

So even if the rules say that a conflict could be resolved at the end of a certain page, if another conflict prevents that from happening, than the other conlfict must be resolved first.

This seems wrong wrong wrong to me.  I don't have a particular rules citation to back it up, but my instinct is that a conflict that by its very wording would prevent another conflict from resolving breaks the Not Yet rule and is illegal.  I'd say you'd have to reword the second conflict.  Preventative conflicts may block narration but not other conflicts.

[Tuxboy]

Thinking about it, from memory I think there is an example in the rules (I could be wrong and it could have been on this forum) of conflicts being played in the past as some sort of flashback as a dramatic convention.

Sort of like the detective have a flashback to his last conversation with Supergirl as his car spins off the road and crashes into a ditch. Both conflicts can be resolved and under those circumstances it doesn't matter in what order they happen as causality will be in effect.

The more I think about it the more I like the idea...

[Eric Sedlacek]

If you have two conflicts that are semantically linked, must one be resolved before the other?

No.  I understand that other people have answered the opposite of this, but with respect, they are mistaken.

For example, Alice, Brad, and Chad are playing capes. Alice is playing Supergirl and Brad is playing the Villain Kane. Chad is playing a non powered charater, Det. Wilkes.

Brad, knowing that Det. Wilkes is about to get in a car and drive to a murder scene, throws down the conflict : Goal: Kane causes [not WILL cause] the Detective to crash his car to crash on the way to the murder scene.

Now Alice throws down a Goal: Supergirl talks with the Detective before he goes anywhere, because Alice wants Supergirl to have a conversation with the Det. before he may or may not get in a car crash.
.
.
.
Or if not, how does one handle this contradiction?

I assume the problem situation is the car crash resolves and the conversation goal is left unresolved.  There is no contradiction here when you realize that order of narration has nothing to do with the chronological order of events. 

So on Page X, I resolve the car crash goal and have him crash.  He is left by the side of the road on his way to the crime scene. 

On Page X+1, the conversation goal resolves.  I narrate, "The Detective arrives at the murder scene.  'Sorry I'm late.  Someone staged an accident on my way here.  Supergirl told me before I left that there was more going on here than meets the eye, and it looks like she was right!'"  Yes, the event described in the goal took place before the other goal, but in the *story* it comes up afterwards.  If the goal had resolved the other way, I could have just as easily said, "I got a message from Supergirl before I got in my car to come here.  Maybe she has some light to shed on this situation.  We have to find her!"

Narrative paradoxes caused by goals are not the problem you might think.  A legitimate paradox might be theoretically possible, but I've never seen one in play.  I have had to scratch my head for a minute to come up with a narration that fits the goal landscape, but there has always been an answer. In fact, some of the most interesting stories come from nonintuitive combinations of goal resolutions. 

[Sindyr]

Interesting.  Three different and equally intriguing answer to the dilemma. :)

What if I reverse the question. What if someone proposes a Goal that would alter the past or contradict something that has been established?

Quick, possibly bad, example off the top of my head:
"Goal: Mr Evil robs the bank on Sunday" was resolved already, with the resolution being that yes, Mr. Evil did rob the bank on Sunday.

Now someone throws down Goal: Mr. Evil was in Jail all weekend.

Now what?  Improper Goal?  Retroactive editing of the story? The guy who robbed the jail looked like, but was not in fact Mr Evil?  Mr Evil suddenly has powers of bilocation or time travel?

[Tuxboy]

Now what?  Improper Goal?  Retroactive editing of the story? The guy who robbed the jail looked like, but was not in fact Mr Evil?  Mr Evil suddenly has powers of bilocation or time travel?

I think that really depends on the direction the group want to take the story.

The result could range from a simple veto and rewrite of the conflict to the possibility of a doppelganger Mr Evil, or an intriguing mystery plot line.

The bank should remain robbed and the perpetrator (whoever it turns out to be) should retain their debt, so no retconning.

Just my opinion...

[Zamiel]

I think that really depends on the direction the group want to take the story.

I think I really have to go with the "improper Goal" for this one. There's no actor, and no conflict, which is exactly what Conflicts are supposed to have. Thus the name.

Now, there are options ...

• Event: Someone testifies they saw Dr Evil last weekend.
• Goal: Mister Hero convinces the Pox to admit he was partying with Dr Evil last weekend.
• Event: Evidence that Dr Evil was in jail last weekend comes to light!

All of these things hinge on introducing conflict and ambiguity. The first doesn't posit the content of that testimony nor who does it, so the guy vested in keeping Dr Evil in jail will fight hard to make it either a lousy source or that, yes, they saw him committing the crime in question. The second keeps the pressure on, in allowing the goal to be derailed entirely, and the admission might not change the fact that Dr Evil was committing crimes last weekend. The third is an Event, so once it's accepted, it will occur -- but it says nothing about what that evidence is, nor what comes of it, so there's reason to fight over it.

Introducing bare facts about things that have already been reified in the game narrative is not really likely to get folks to fight over them, thus lousy for profiting. If Dr Evil is in jail and the Players at the table narrated him there, just dropping a raw fact attached to a Conflict on the table makes little sense. Its far more engaging and, thus, profitable to posit something that's an actual Event or Goal.

[drnuncheon]

Now Alice throws down a Goal: Supergirl talks with the Detective before he goes anywhere, because Alice wants Supergirl to have a conversation with the Det. before he may or may not get in a car crash.

I think that part of this is getting practice in setting good goals.  If I were Alice, I'd throw down the goal (or maybe even the Event): Supergirl gets the information she needs from the detective.

Now it doesn't matter whether he gets in the car crash or not.  Maybe Supergirl is flying by and sees the crash and swoops down to be given the message before the detective dies/passes out/is loaded into the ambulance in a coma.  Maybe she's nowhere near the crash - but the detective has left a message for her somewhere.  Maybe he's just in a fenderbender.

[Hans]

Just to let you all know, here:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17537.msg185392#msg185392

I asked a very similar question, and got an answer from Tony.

[dunlaing]

Page 1: Brad resolves "Goal: Kane causes [not WILL cause] the Detective to crash his car to crash on the way to the murder scene."

Detective Wilkes gets in his car and drives toward the murder scene. It's wet out, but not dangerously so....until he gets to the spot in the road that Kane has covered in K-Y Jelly! Detective Wilkes' car goes careening off the road and into Seemy Valley!

Middle of Page 2: On Alice's turn, she rolls up the blue die on "Goal: Supergirl talks with the Detective before he goes anywhere" using Super-Speed

Supergirl punches Kane and zips up to the rooftop at superspeed, taunting Kane into following her. "You don't know where I was a half hour ago, do you?"

Alice rolls well. No one else rolls on that particuar conflict.
End of Page 2: Alice resolves "Goal: Supergirl talks with the Detective before he goes anywhere"

We flashback to a half hour ago as Detective Wilkes is getting ready to leave his office. Supergirl appears as if from nowhere as his blinds clatter in the open window. "You're in terrible danger Detective Wilkes. Kane is going to cause your car to crash!" "Oh no, Supergirl! What do I do?" "Don't worry about it. I'll fly you to the roof at the murder scene so you'll be there when I trick Kane into confessing the whole thing, then I'll fly back, disguise myself as you, and drive your car myself!"

I don't see any problem with resolving those two conflicts out of order. Frankly, if Alice is going to deliberately put a conflict on the table that she'll have trouble resolving if things don't work out perfectly, that's her problem. She should either be creative enough to deal with it, or not put herself in that position.

[dunlaing]

I realized after rereading the thread that my previous post would look like a rehash of what other people said. My point is in the last paragraph. The other stuff was just me having fun with the situation.

[TonyLB]

"Goal: Mr Evil robs the bank on Sunday" was resolved already, with the resolution being that yes, Mr. Evil did rob the bank on Sunday.

Now someone throws down Goal: Mr. Evil was in Jail all weekend.

Wow!  How did he do that?

No, I mean it seriously.  If both of those were important conflicts to people then the next challenge to the heroes will be to figure out how Mr. Evil pulled off such a perfect crime.  After all, if he can manufacture the perfect alibi that way then there will be nothing the heroes can do to touch him.  He can conduct his crimes with impunity and there's no way the heroes can bring him to justice (at least under the law).

And maybe, when the heroes confront Mr. Evil in prison, he is evil and clueless.  I mean ... imagine how pissed off the villain would be if crimes were being done by him, only he knows he didn't do them.  Man, somebody is gonna freakin' pay.  He demands that the heroes get him released in their custody ... after all, only Mr. Evil himself is enough of a genius to solve the crimes.  And hey, you both want the criminal found ... it's just that he wants them found, and then he wants to escape.

So, example, example, example, right?  But how do you do that?

Don't try to make things make sense now.  You can just let things seem confusing and impossible now.  Then the characters are motivated to try to find some explanation.  Then the impossible, contradictory things you've defined cease to be a problem for the story ... instead they become an opportunity.  They become a challenge to which your characters (and the players) want to rise.  If they succeed (as, for instance, Alan Moore succeeded in creating a brilliant explanation for the apparently-nonsensical Swamp Thing series) you've got the solution to whatever apparent contradiction occurred.  If they don't succeed then you've still got the mystery, and the mystery rocks.

In our first playtest, we had Landshark attack the natural history museum.  Nobody quite knew why he was attacking.  And then there was this obviously mystical amulet just ... well ... sitting there.  For no goddamn reason at all.  And we all thought "Wow ... that's stupid.  But let's roll with it."

So next session Volcanis, explosive hero and all around good guy, got too close to the amulet and was possessed by an evil spirit within it (Wauna-Tiki!)  And, once again, we were all thinking "Oh GOD ... so he just happened to pick something up, and it just happened to possess him.  This story stinks!"

And after the session we were saying "Man, Volcanis is going to be all alone next session, against all our team.  We're gonna freakin' trash him.  What other characters can we bring in to help him?"  And someone mentioned that Volcanis had an Exemplar, Eclipse, who was an ex-partner who had turned to crime.  We all giggled.  "Man, Eclipse is gonna freakin' love this.  He's been trying to bring Volcanis to the side of evil for, like, forever.  And now it's happened totally by accident.  Volcanis would never have gotten near that amulet if Eclipse had been even marginally involved, but just finding it on the floor he had no reason to be suspicious.  I mean, this couldn't have worked out better for Eclipse if he'd planned it that way from the start."

And then there was this long, freighted silence as we all looked from one to the other. "Oh shit," I said quietly.  "He did plan it.  He's been behind it from the start."

Eric summed it up best:  "Wow ... if I hadn't been here, playing the game, I'd think we were all geniuses!"

[Sindyr]

Don't try to make things make sense now.  You can just let things seem confusing and impossible now.  Then the characters are motivated to try to find some explanation.  Then the impossible, contradictory things you've defined cease to be a problem for the story ... instead they become an opportunity.  They become a challenge to which your characters (and the players) want to rise.  If they succeed (as, for instance, Alan Moore succeeded in creating a brilliant explanation for the apparently-nonsensical Swamp Thing series) you've got the solution to whatever apparent contradiction occurred.  If they don't succeed then you've still got the mystery, and the mystery rocks.

That's what I was wondering.  Frankly, as a GM in other games I frequently let the game and PCs solve itself, all the whlie the players think I have masterminded a fiendishly clever set of plots and twists...  it almost always works out better than well.

By the way, what was Alan Moore's explanation?

And after the session we were saying "Man, Volcanis is going to be all alone next session, against all our team.  We're gonna freakin' trash him.  What other characters can we bring in to help him?"  And someone mentioned that Volcanis had an Exemplar, Eclipse, who was an ex-partner who had turned to crime.  We all giggled.  "Man, Eclipse is gonna freakin' love this.  He's been trying to bring Volcanis to the side of evil for, like, forever.  And now it's happened totally by accident.  Volcanis would never have gotten near that amulet if Eclipse had been even marginally involved, but just finding it on the floor he had no reason to be suspicious.  I mean, this couldn't have worked out better for Eclipse if he'd planned it that way from the start."

And then there was this long, freighted silence as we all looked from one to the other. "Oh shit," I said quietly.  "He did plan it.  He's been behind it from the start."

Eric summed it up best:  "Wow ... if I hadn't been here, playing the game, I'd think we were all geniuses!"

RIght on!