Narrated combat results - a problem

[Jesse Paulsen]

Either the players have "directorial power" or the gamemaster has 'unrevealed facts,' I don't see how both could work concerning a single 'thingie' in the game.

For once I gotta agree with Fang. If the players are licensed to use Director Stance with regard to a particular game-world object, the GM can't readily reserve control of that object.

Is anyone else reminded of memory protection, unix file permissions, and database locking?

[Andrew Martin]

Either the players have "directorial power" or the gamemaster has 'unrevealed facts,' I don't see how both could work concerning a single 'thingie' in the game.

For once I gotta agree with Fang. If the players are licensed to use Director Stance with regard to a particular game-world object, the GM can't readily reserve control of that object.

Is anyone else reminded of memory protection, unix file permissions, and database locking?

I actually thought it related to playground politeness; don't mess with other people's "stuff". :)

[Christoffer Lernö]

Thanks folks. Interesting comments on the problem. At least I feel satisified with your analysis, is there anything more to add or should we leave this thread for now?

[contracycle]

Is anyone else reminded of memory protection, unix file permissions, and database locking?

Yes, IMO thats exactly what it is.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Is anyone else reminded of memory protection, unix file permissions, and database locking?

Yes, IMO thats exactly what it is.

Watch out, then, or you'll deadlock with one of your players when each of you needs control of two NPCs and you don't lock them in the same order. You'll either need to apply a deadlock avoidance strategy (such as global resource ordering) or transactionalize your gameplay and run a deadlock detection/recovery algorithm.

And let's not forget about two-phase commit when you're spending XP.