Mental Conflict

[Guy Srinivasan]

Because they feel different. Sometimes you want to zoom in on a brawl, sometimes you want to zoom in on an argument, sometimes a chase or a mastermind battle of wits. Each of these has a different feel and it is possible to support such a feeling through rules. For example, in a brawl I'd want the feeling that everything is chaotic, whereas in a mastermind battle of wits I'd want the feeling that the only chaos anywhere comes from me not perfectly knowing my opponent's mind. So once the table agrees that you will try to stop me by striking me down, we may choose to zoom in with some kind of fighty rules, but if instead we agreed you'd try by outwitting me, if we zoom in on that, maybe a different set of rules can help support an outwitting scene than can help support a fighty scene.

[Jay Hatcher]

@Tom: I think limiting the number of reversals to two is a great idea for serious/dramatic genres.  This would leave the instigator of the original attempt to outwit with the final say (if she wins) without it getting absurd.  I think this matches what often happens in fiction, with both parties confident they have outwitted each other until the final reveal and we see who really outwit who.

@soundmasterj: Guy hit the nail on the head, and articulated it better than I probably would have.

@Guy: Thanks!

Some time in the next few days I'll post a rough outline of how mechanics might match up with actual scenarios from fiction.  I want to review some fictional battles of wits I have at my disposal to try to make sure the mechanics are leading to believable results.  Then you can all try to outwit me ;-)

[soundmasterj]

i]this<

[Tom Garnett]

I had one more thought about this while driving yesterday: Start from a very sketchy description of the final confrontation, and work backwards, filling in the lead-up with flashbacks, and added details.

Establish that you are going to try and outwit both the cops, and the other drugs gang, starting with a deliver due to arrive at the docks at midnight.

Frame the final scene - a three-way standoff in a derelict warehouse, surrounded by crates.

Then go back and fill in more and more details, filling in the confrontation as you do so.

e.g. Your positioning another goon squad in ambush on one particularly large crate.

e.g. An earlier confrontation with the police, in which they were able to plant a bug on your lieutenant.

e.g. A sniper shot taken at the leader of the opposing gang, leading to a wound he is concealing, but which will affect him.

Again, maybe not what you want, but I can see it working somewhere.

[Jay Hatcher]

@soundmasterj: I'll try to clarify what I mean by a mental conflict, and how it is distinct from what you are describing.

I believe your getting at the fact that all conflicts are in some way mental, in that you are trying in some sense to surprise or outmaneuver your opponent.  However, your examples are what I would call physical and social conflicts.  A fist fight is a physical conflict.  Trying to make someone angry is a social conflict.  Both of these have mental aspects to them that rules can support.  I've seen "Enemy at the Gates", and I'd call it a physical conflict, with a lot of tactics and patience involved.  So you are right that these examples are in some sense mental conflicts, but the nature of the fight itself is resolved through physical or social actions and reactions.  The character is using their mental abilities along with their physical/social ones to create a desired physical/social result.  The mental abilities are basically augmenting the result.  You succeed in your social or physical effort by using your head, thus you get the girl.

What I'm trying to get at is somewhat different.  We are not necessarily talking about a face-to-face confrontation here.  Those are easy to resolve through physical or social interaction.  How do you represent larger scale planning?  Lets say there is a mastermind behind the final showdown of "Enemy at the Gates."  He is a third party in the war, and he wants to smuggle his goods through another location without worrying about either of these top snipers posing a threat.  He uses his brilliant mind to manipulate events such that both parties are going to be in the same place posing a threat to each other.  He reasons that their battle will take a while because they're both skilled and cautious, buying him the time he needs to meet his own objective.  However, one of the snipers (our protagonist) is very smart as well, and he realizes he is being manipulated from outside the usual channels based on snatches of overheard conversation.  After the showdown with his enemy sniper, which he cannot avoid due to present orders/circumstances, he tracks down his manipulator, locates him, and snipes him.

In that kind of scenario, there is a mental conflict between two people that is wholly separate from any social or physical engagement of the moment.  The idea behind a mental conflict of this nature is that by the time a face-to-face confrontation occurs, everything has already been previously set in motion by the mastermind(s).  They are trying to out anticipate each other, not wait for a good shot or look for an opportunity to make someone lose their cool.  Does that make sense to you?

@Tom: I'll think about your suggestion and get back to you.

[Jay Hatcher]

I'm going to adjust the scenario I described above.  I realized its not as clear as it could be.  Instead of tracking down the mastermind and sniping him, our protagonist instead arranges for a friend of his to place land mines along the mastermind(s) smuggling route.  The mastermind does not anticipate this, and his smuggling operation gets blown to high heaven.

[soundmasterj]

[soundmasterj]

[Jay Hatcher]

@soundmasterj:  I can't talk long this morning, but I'll say this.  If you come up with a workable mechanic to do this, I can't stop you from using it even if I wanted to.  Mechanics cannot be copyrighted (just don't try to patent it please).  The only constraint if we both end up using the same mechanic is that we can't use the same names for things (as these are copyrighted) unless we have permission to do so.  This is true in the US, and I believe it is true in many other places as well.

Option #2 sounds a lot like Hero Wars' Action Points.  This is the kind of approach I will probably use.  I want to avoid lots of dice and many different kinds of dice for my game, so if you want to avoid copycatting me, use #1 or #3.  Regarding terminology, I like using strategy vs tactics, as I think it highlights the distinction between the two levels of conflict.

Regarding your nitpick, I think this comes down to how a conflict is defined.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are defining the type of conflict based on the result of the roll, where as I am defining the type of conflict based on the intended result prior to the roll.  This may be hard to see, but I believe both can use Fortune in the Middle.  In my system, one roll covers more than one type of conflict.  The initial intent is stated up front (I'm trying to punch you and I'm trying to make you angry).  You roll to see if you succeeded.  Depending on your roll and your Physical and Social traits, your physical attempt may succeed or fail, and you social attempt may separately succeed or fail.  You describe what actually happens based on the level of success or failure after the roll.  Thus its possible that your punch connects but doesn't make your opponent angry, or that your punch misses but that fact that you tried to hit your opponent made him angry anyway.

The problem I can see with waiting 'til the success or failure to reveal the hidden agenda (I'm trying to make you angry) is that you can pile on the hidden agendas whenever you get a good roll.  For example, initially you just want to hit your opponent.  However, you get a really good roll, so you decide as a player that you were actually trying to make him angry too, and effectively get extra effect for your roll that doesn't necessarily make sense in the story (there may not be a plausible reason for a social aspect of your attack).  It is more obviously a problem when the initial attack is social.  You just insulted your enemy, but because you got a good roll, you decide that you also used the insult to distract him so you could clobber him with a knockout punch.  There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, I just think it opens up some potential for abuse that the other approach of stating what your trying to do up front helps to mitigate.  Note that there is a difference between what you are intending to do vs what you actually end up doing, so this can still be FitM.

[soundmasterj]

[soundmasterj]

[Jay Hatcher]

Thanks for your input.  I agree that conflict resolution fits very well with the larger scale mental conflicts I have in mind, and task resolution does not fit so well.  Your point is well taken.  However, I think that the scale of a conflict is very relevant.

Because they feel different. Sometimes you want to zoom in on a brawl, sometimes you want to zoom in on an argument, sometimes a chase or a mastermind battle of wits. Each of these has a different feel and it is possible to support such a feeling through rules. For example, in a brawl I'd want the feeling that everything is chaotic, whereas in a mastermind battle of wits I'd want the feeling that the only chaos anywhere comes from me not perfectly knowing my opponent's mind. So once the table agrees that you will try to stop me by striking me down, we may choose to zoom in with some kind of fighty rules, but if instead we agreed you'd try by outwitting me, if we zoom in on that, maybe a different set of rules can help support an outwitting scene than can help support a fighty scene.

You see, I don't think that a game needs to always choose conflict resolution or always choose task resolution.  My personal view is that task resolution is generally better suited to small scale contests, and conflict resolution is better suited to large scale conflicts.  The victor may write the history books, but the history books don't go into tiny details of a particular soldier's experience on the front lines of the war, they talk about the overall strategy behind the victories and why they worked.

	Logged

"Imagination is more important than knowledge" --Albert Einstein

[Jay Hatcher]

One thing I forgot to mention.  Think for a moment about how much power a pre-planning skill gives you compared to a punch.  Pre-planning can do just about anything if it is not constrained in some way.  Instead of tying shoelaces, what about opening a trap door below your opponent that descends into a bead of lethal spikes?  I feel a zoomed-out use of a planning skill that uses conflict resolution restrained by point costs for what you are allowed to introduce makes a bit more sense.  Otherwise I fear someone with a high pre-planning skill could stop anyone from doing anything to them and singlehandedly wipe out the opposition by "seeing it coming".

[soundmasterj]

[soundmasterj]