PIE: Player Interpretation of Expectation

[themaloryman]

Also, that is not how you spell appalling (see my post a couple above) and I'm a little ashamed!

[Altaem]

I return later tonight (after our next session) to clarify what I can.
In the mean time It's fun watching you all bounce ideas and theories around.

Self = PC performance (relevant to O&D)
Opposition = enemy performance (relevant to O&D)
Environment = objects not on either combatant's person, or forces not in either combatant's control

This. Don´t do it any other way. Do this.

This will definitely be the correct method going forward.  Which of course means my swordsman's first action (badass killing of orcs) no longer fits.

I get the impression that your play has avoided this.  I am guessing this is because (a) the GM has final say, and the players know there's no point in arguing the GM's calls, but (b) no one minds because they trust the GM to arbitrate "fairly and realistically", which is what they want, and (c) the explicit Expectation statements keep everyone on close enough to the same page to head off huge differences of opinion.

Does that sound right, or is there another explanation?

Spot on, players are given near complete freedom for interpretation of their actions.  The GM's primary role is ensuring consistency.

Nifty! Rather than modifiers, what you need is, in my opinion, rules allowing players to decide when to zoom out, when to zoom in - or clearly formulated ideas on how to get players (including GM, of course) to agree on the zooming level. It´s pretty genre-dependant, I´d guess.

Zoom in or out is an excellent term to describe manipulation of the action length to alter the expectation.
I'll see what I can do about knocking up some rules so these can replace modifiers and opposed dice.

[themaloryman]

I've spoken to Altaem about this already, but in brief:

The trouble with exchanging modifiers for zoom-in and out ability is that the zooming in doesn't improve performance, it just decreases risk. By breaking a large action into a series of discreet actions, you make it far more likely that you will get an average result, and not accidently get yourself killed. Modifiers, on the other hand, allow you to boost your dice roll result, and therefore do better at things (obviously), particularly in a system such as this, where the probability curve is so steep, and so even relatively small modifiers, such as +3 or +4, can make a huge difference. Zooming in and out is good, but it exists inherently in PIE, and to my mind is more of an aid to immersive play than a tool for a player to perform better. I think both Zoom and Modifiers have their place here.

Something that strikes me as a useful, though so far not used, application for PIE, is the potential existence of 'Progressive Success Actions'. To borrow from a video game again (because they're familiar to me!) I remember a moment in Max Payne where I burst through a door, switched to bullet-time, leapt sideways through the air, and began killing badguys as I made my jump. I would shoot one until he died, then move to the next. Ideally I wanted to hit all of them, but of course, by the time I landed I'd only nailed maybe two out of five. It strikes me as analagous. You can declare a long term action (I take out the badguys, but my priority is to not die.) but instead of setting a descriptive success/fail result, the GM can tell you how long your action is successful for before it's interrupted by failure (You shot two before the others got their sh*t together and returned fire. You are now the target as you scramble for cover.). It seems a little blindingly obvious now that I put it that way, but it hadn't struck me as a way to use the system before.

[soundmasterj]

No, zooming in also allows you to change the details (you might describe your character as going all in on the first attack, thereby making him more vulnerable on the next). Also, actually, it makes for more extreme results; if every subscene could result in extreme failure or success, chances are that more of these will happen. While on one hand, more dice makes for less randomness of numbers all together, on the other hand, more results makes for a wider spread of results. Just think about the growing number of local criticalities!

Also, I am not against modifiers, it´s just that I think it goes completely against the spirit of the game to make them reflect physical realities. As a metamechanical tool, they work just fine (also I´d rather go the way of bonus dice than +/- numbers).
Say we play out a scene where I want to fight the evil goblin lord. Expected result: goblin lord gets wounded, but me too, so I need to flee. What I do is I decide to zoom in. We have one roll for deciding if I kill the goblin lord, another for deciding if I flee succesfully. Say I have the righ to "prioritize" and say my motive is revenge; I absolutely want to see the goblin lord dead, without much care for my own health. I take one bonus die for the first conflict, ensuring he dies, but taking a malus die or the second conflict in exchange, thereby raising the risk of me getting captured by the goblin lords´ warriors.
That´s how I would use modifiers; as a way of further allowing the players to make sure their stories get their appropriate narrative bent.

[David Berg]

Altaem,
I suggest we start a new thread to discuss "zooming".  I am I having trouble sifting through the info about it in this thread.  I have an example and some questions to pose, but I worry about clogging things up.

[Altaem]

- Does anybody know the statistics of opposed vs. unopposed rolls? I´d think opposed rolls are less random (tighter bell curve) due to more dice being involved, I´m not sure though.

I hadn't realized that before you mentioned it.  I've since checked the math, and found you're correct.  Opposed rolls will tighten the bell curve, thereby increasing the chance of the encounter going with the expectation.  Take a powerful boss with the intention of the whole party ganging up on him to win the day .  If a single character is forced to fight the boss for one round before the rest of the party arrives, an opposed roll will increase the risk to that character. 

Due to this discrepancy between opposed and unopposed rolls, I'm attempting to remove unopposed rolls from the system altogether.

Friday nights session included a 3 player vs 5 NPC gunfight.  I attempted to run the fight without opposed rolls or NPC rolls, instead having the player's actions include resolution of incoming gunfire.  I can't say I was too happy with the results.

Otherwise It was a really cool session, with all the players having a good time and everything flowing smoothly.

Altaem,
I suggest we start a new thread to discuss "zooming".  I am I having trouble sifting through the info about it in this thread.  I have an example and some questions to pose, but I worry about clogging things up.

Not convinced "zooming" needs its own thread.  However it can hardly be a unique concept to PIE, does anyone know of other discussions on this topic?

[soundmasterj]

Not convinced "zooming" needs its own thread.  However it can hardly be a unique concept to PIE, does anyone know of other discussions on this topic?

TSoY, bringing down the pain, http://files.crngames.com/cc/tsoy/book1--rulebook.html#bringing-down-the-pain
It´s pretty much a feature of comparable tasks in Conflict Resolution versus Task Resolution having a fixed scale in TR and not so much in CR.

...opposed rolls ...

While you still haven´t answered my question about local criticality, I´ll add another question: how do you do opposed rolls with PIE? "X wants to shoot Y, Y dodges. Expected result: Y gets hit. If X is at least tied, Y gets hit"? Or what? Because "X wants to shoot Y. First roll: will X hit? X rolls, hits. Now Y dodges. Expected result: Y doesn´t dodge. Y rolls, doesn´t dodge." is really stupid.
Ron Edwards, talking about Shock:, somehwere said that in Conflict Resolution, two Characters rolling against each other should set orthogonal stakes for CR to work. I tend to concur.

I´m not sure about the mathematics of opposed rolls. There is a lot of talk here:     http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=2695.0      http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=3716.0
It seems like opposed rolls actually are more random in the sense that the less likely results becomes more likely. But to be honest, mathematical texts in foreign languages mostly go over my head and I might have gotten it wrong.
Actually, I´d think it´s a question of external factors like aesthetics, feeling, handling time, consistency than. If one would want more randomness, higher dice sizes would be more appropriate (2d10 instead of 3d6).

[David Berg]

Altaem,
Okay, I'll try to ask my question quickly, then. 

Yes, TSoY zooms, but it doesn't have multiple timescales being resolved simultaneously.  You said that in PIE you have no problem with someone rolling a long action while someone else rolls a short action.  That's what I want to ask about.

Example:

2 characters fight two villains.  Player 1 wants to do a cool move with multiple actions in mid-air as he jumps across the room, while Player 2 only has the fight's final outcome in mind.

Player 1 wants his first roll to cover whether he can jump over the table while simultaneously pulling his gun out of his holster with one hand and loading in the clip with the other.

Player 2 just wants his first roll to resolve whether he kills Villain 2.

Does Player 2 get to roll, or does he have to wait on Player 1?

Let's say Player 1's 5th roll in the course of his arial maneuver would kill Villain 2.  And let's say that Player 2's first and only roll would also kill that same villain.  Presumably, whichever player gets to make their roll first will get to kill the villain, and whichever player rolls second will have to take into account that Villain 2 is dead, and either choose another action (like attacking Villain 1), or lose their action.

So, how do you navigate this?

[Altaem]

While you still haven´t answered my question about local criticality

You've not been forgotten, it's just that you've requested rules rather than an example.

Put simply; local criticals will inflict modifiers on the success of 1 or more future rounds.
These modifiers may be temporary such as a positional advantage or be as severe as wounding hits.
For any given critical it's a choice of the narrator to choose between a minor but long term modifier or a more severe but short term modifier.

You'll have to wait for fixed rules as they're directly related to the modifier and wounding rules.  Making it a fairly complex answer.

in Conflict Resolution, two Characters rolling against each other should set orthogonal stakes for CR to work. I tend to concur.

Don't understand this at all.  Surely if the stakes are orthogonal they're no longer rolling against each other?
...
that's a wonderfully in depth discussion you've directed me to, how am I going to answer any questions now?

2 characters fight two villains.  Player 1 wants to do a cool move with multiple actions in mid-air as he jumps across the room, while Player 2 only has the fight's final outcome in mind.

Assume both players want to kill the same target.
Resolve the zoomed in (shorter in character time) action first.
Player 1 leaps over table while drawing weapon. (action time approx 5 seconds)
Player 2's action "Aim at opponent and fire until they're dead"
use player 2's roll and narration to estimate time required.
The time is used to judge how many more actions Player 1 gets.
Advantage of zooming in: can focus on smaller details and react to other players, plus change in situation.
Advantage to zooming out: actions take effect before other players.

[soundmasterj]

Well, how about: never set conflicting stakes. We try shooting each other. My goal is: shoot you dead. Your goal might be: shoot me dead; shoot someone else dead. Not: survive.

Alternatively, whoever rolls better HAS his outcome fulfilled. If mine is, shoot you dead, yours, shoot me dead, and I win, the only possible way of me fulfilling my outcome is me shooting you dead first, so there, I "win initiative".

Concerning crits., I dislike them having mechanical effects for the aforementioned reasons. I´d only let the single dice provide color.

[David Berg]

Altaem, I can't imagine how you'd implement this.

Player 1 rolls, succeeds, and narrates: "I push off the ground, going horizontal as I clear the table.  Simultaneously, I snap a clip into place.  This takes less than 1 second."  Player 1 is now thinking, "Next action, I'll fire at Villain Man, and then, after that, I'm also gonna try to drop the gun into the closing garbage chute before I land.  3 actions in 2 seconds equals 'bullet time' coolness!"

Player 2 rolls, succeeds, and narrates: "I beat the hell out of Villain Man with my club.  He puts up a good fight, but I eventually wear him down through the sheer force of my blows."

Player 1 says, "Uh, well, as you're taking your first whack at him, I'm also shooting him..."

Does the GM say, "No you aren't.  You don't get to do anything that might contradict the already-narrated beating"?

Does the GM say, "Fire away, but even if you succeed, narrate it in a way that doesn't contradict the already-narrated beating"? (this gets weird if Player 1 rolls tons of damage that should kill Villain Man)

[soundmasterj]

How about you have the players talk to each other? Like in, hey, I wanna kill V-Man, you gonna go save the princess erstwhile. You say, no I´m not gonna do some stupid princess saving I wanna kick ass man. I say, well, I guess that´s a conflict, I try killing V-Man before David does, dice dice dice!
We roll against each other, you win, now you roll against V-Man while I save the princess (who wonders why her savior seems to hate her). Or we roll against each other who kills him first and also against V-Man to see if he actually dies. I win against you and V-Man, you win against V-Man, but not against me. I narrate how I, fast like a really fast person, draw my gun and shoot V-Man dead. You narrate how you hit the dead body and curse.

Or I say, Ok you go kill V-Man if it´s so damn important to you, Ima get laid man, laterz. I go save princess, you go kill V-Man.

So how about talking? Could that work?

Ok, on a more serious note, I don´t think after player 1´s description, player 2 would narrate doing something as boring as slowly clubbing someone to death.

Also, jumping over the table and snapping a clip in place, I wouldn´t roll for that.

Third option after "have players talk, if it doesn´t work, roll dice" or just "when somebody succeds in x, he DOES x, no questions asked" which I still think is fine (well, action 2 for player 1 could as well be "Ok, so I´ll just shoot some mooks from my table-jump while you go a-clubbing.") would be: finest temporal resolution / highest zooming lvl. determines overall pace.

[David Berg]

Maybe the simple answer is that if one player wants to do stuff in extreme closeup and another wants to do stuff in extreme broad-scale, and their actions intersect and affect each other, there simply isn't a way to give 'em both what they want.  So, yeah, talking, and compromise. 

Does the system provide any guidance on reaching such compromise?  Earlier, Altaem stated that one goal was "going through a fight in the amount of time it would take in the real world".  That could turn into a guideline, and basically say, "Don't roll to resolve a microsecond, and don't roll to resolve 10 minutes, unless everyone playing is into that.  Most rolls should resolve an amount of in-game time equal to the amount of real time the process of rolling dice and narrating takes."  (If any of y'all who plays PIE wants to record how long that is, great.)

[Altaem]

Oddly enough I've never tried timing the declare intent - roll - narrate cycle.  I know it feels fast, but I guess my claims that combat resolves roughly in real time have no proven basis.

A quick test:
A gunfight starts with a near miss to a player character.
Player: I've already got my SMG out.  I fire on full auto at my attackers while running for cover.  I've using observant on Environment.
I've rolled 12, leaving the 4 for environment.
"I run swiftly, moving for a obvious cluster of rocks.  My firing is more a distraction than an attack, but I gives me the time I need to get myself completely out of sight."  Don't suppose I hit anything?

Player time: 30 seconds

GM: rolls for NPC response - Possibly!  "From what you can see there's two attackers.  Both are prone and caught in the open.  It's not clear if they've been hit.  In any case you've claimed the initiative."

GM time : another 15 seconds

ok so 45 seconds is maybe twice what this exchange would take in life.  It's still pretty fast.
The slowest points are always the local critical failures.  I don't see that as a problem.  Those awkward moments are one of PIE's highlights.

Also, jumping over the table and snapping a clip in place, I wouldn´t roll for that.

This is a remarkably strange action for a PIE game.  Zooming in should never be used simply for coolness.  Declare the action in rough terms, roll the dice and narrate the coolness in afterwards.  This keeps everything moving nicely.  In play I strongly encourage players to zoom out as far as they're confident with.
PIE easily allows for actions as complex as; "I swing across the room on the chandelier, back flip onto my Nemesis's table and shot him between the eyes".
Naturally the action will hinge on every local critical, and the narration will include considerable compromise.  But it's all just one action.

Altaem, I can't imagine how you'd implement this.

In truth, I've never had to deal with such differing timescales between players.  A ratio of about 3:1 is the most severe I've encountered.
I'm currently developing rules for dealing with multiple conflicting actions all operating in different game times.

I'm currently thinking; Everyone declares - everyone rolls -
The trick is to work out the order of narrations.  As a basic objective editing of complete narrations should be kept to an absolute minimum.  Hopefully eliminated altogether.

[themaloryman]

The apparent conflict is probably not that big a deal, I think. It's a really extreme example, and they have a way of breaking, or at least pushing the limits of, a system. But they rarely come up in actual play, in my experience. If you're hoping to engage and enemy hand-to-hand, but your friend pops him between the eyes first, well most players just pick another task. Or to flip it around, if the clubber obscures line-of-fire, most shooters would think of something else to do. I think as long as in-game actions are allowed to follow their natural time-sequence, there's normally a logical conclusion to arrive at.

And as Altaem mentioned, as a group we've never seen a discrepancy of this scale. I think anyone who wants to get down to describing the nitty-gritty of every action as they're doing it, rather than after the fact based on the dice, as Altaem said, hasn't got the idea behind PIE.