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]

So what I´d look for is how do you think they feel different (to be honest, I don´t get it) and try creating the rules from there. Ie., a mental conflict feels like this, so the rules should capture exactly this; a physical conflict feels like this, so rules should capture it.

But as I said, I am not convinced. A fistfight might as well be a mental conflict. Say we throw punches and suddenly you see that I wasn´t actually trying to bash your nose in, I was trying to make you angry so you would embarass yourself. I get the girl again. Or I am trying to make you lose your cool so I cut you up when you are randomly thrashing around. You´re dead, I get the girl. Or maybe you only pretended I had you and actually, when I try to cut you up while you seem all mindless rage, suddenly, your left hits me from where I´d never expect it and there I go to the floor. You get the girl.
I distinctly remember the movie "Enemy at the gates" about two snipers duelling and while they aren´t doing much but shooting each other, it actually is a battle of the mind; and the sniper with the cooler temperament wins. (He shoots the other one dead, but the girl, sadly, eats it, too, so noone gets her.) I´d think the distinction lies elsewhere.

[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]

Ok, now I get it. I´d propose different terminology: short-scale, tactical, nondeterministic conflic vs. long-scale, strategical, deterministic conflict. Obviously, short-scale tactical conflict could be mental, too (playing speed chess).

First idea of how to model this coming to my mind is, how about you have a row of seperate opposed rolls of some kind. Whoever wins one of these, he gains 1 "Point" and has to narrate how some act of planning in the past of his plays out. First player to get X Points gets to narrate how a final reversal, a final plot, puts the last final in is opponents coffin.
How about the first roll won gives 1 Point, second roll 2 Points, third roll 3 or 4 Points etc (doubling or increasing by each roll)1? In this way, one could succed by only winning one of these conflicts (the one that gives 16 points), revealing that actually HE HIMSELF was Kayser Soze.
I kind of like this, Jay. I need to know how your finished game looks like

One nitpick: my exampls only became this and this kind of conflict as soon as it was decided how it was won. All examples were "physical conflicts" until it is learned that actually, one of the combatants was playing a second game, too, beating his opponent in a battle of wits the other one didn´t neccesarily even know about. They become mental/physical/social conflicts only a posteriori: after you´ve been beaten, you learn which game the other one was playing. Rules-wise, I think, FitM is the only way to succesfully integrate this fact into rules (suck it FatE).

[soundmasterj]

Please tell me you like that Idea, Jay, because if you don´t, I am going to use it and I don´t have the time for it

To further flesh it out, two ideas of how the "point system" might work:
1. Points of first roll: 1, 2nd.: 1d2, 3rd.: 1d3, 4th: 1d4, 5th: 1d6, 6th: 1d8, 7: 1d10, 8: 1d12, 9: 1d20, 10: 1d100. Players win as soon as one player owns twice as many Points as his opponent, but only if he has more points than the other ones "mental hitpoints". Or: as soon as he owns more Points than his opponent has "mental hitpoints".
2. Before each roll, both players decide how much this one will be worth. Say, both start with a ressource pool of 100 Points. Each roll, each player offers X of his Points, thereby forcing his opponent to take the same amount from his pool. When one players pool is empty, the player with the most points won (not in his pool, points won) wins. So you may go all in if you are 50 points behind and still win.
3. Both ideas, combined: in the ressource pool are not points, but dice. So round 3, player A offers 3d6 from his pool, player B offers 2d6. Both put 5d6 (2+3) from their respective pool onto the table. Now, both roll their "mental combat/strategic conflict" skill. The winner earns 10d6 points.

Winner has to narrate how his final plot etc.

I am in love with this idea.

[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]

I wasn´t talking about legal problems, it was more that I don´t have the time to write a game about strategical conflicts. Thankfully, it seems it´s already witten (HeroWarrrrrs! Why, oh why must you spoil my evil plans!)

I would say conflict is not defined by rolls, but by results. I would base my reasoning on the simple fact that the winners write the historic books; ie., what kind of conflict was the dominant one is determined by whoever lives to tell the tale about the conflict. So, apriori, you enter conflict thinking about how you want to hit him, but when you leave combat and you outsmarted him, it WAS (as in, what is told) aposteriori a battle of wits.
One important thing is not to talk about actions, but about results. Not - I punch you, roll dice; but, I want to make you hurt (/angry) by punching you, roll dice. Otherwise, you get: ok, you hit him. He isn´t hurt nor angered. What do you do now? So- conflict resolution, not task resolution.

I would think that piling on hidden agendas was exactly what a battle of two masterminds would be about? I´m thinking of Batman vs Joker in The Dark Knight (contrasting to enemy at the gates, a good movie): Gordon is dead! No, Gordon just pretends to be dead so he may take the Joker prisoner! No, the Joker WANTED to be taken prisoner so his evil plan etc etc.
Again, whoever dealt the last blow determines what kind of conflict the conflict was (the Jokers plan was to get taken prisoner and execute his kidnapping, Gordons plan was to take the Joker prisoner. Because the Jokers plan embraces Gordons plan, the Joker determined what actually went on.).

Obivously, one would have to state ones first action and that actions direct goal (I hit him, if I connect, he hurts), but 5 turns later, well, lets see. I don´t see where abuse would be a problem? The examples you gave were examples of tactical (at best) conflict, where results were immediate (punch or insult). But what you want is conflict were preplanned actions later reveal their effects, right? So you have to put aposterioric results above aprioric intents.

Well... What you want in conflict on such a large scale is exactly piling on of hidden agendas, right?

By the way, I´m in Germany so your evening is my midnight. Not exactly the best foundation for communication, i fear.

[soundmasterj]

I don´t know. Should you NOT want to center your game about "big reversals", but want to integrate it in another game, just have "preplanning" as a skill/trait/whatever.
So we battle (whats at stake is, who gets the girl). I roll my X dice for skill: punching. You roll your Z dice for skill: preplanning. You roll higher. We narrate how I go at you, but what I didn´t know is that you are prepared for this situation and secretly tied my shoelaces together. I fall down, you marry her. Or: I roll higher. We narrate how you preplanningly brought a gun to our knife fight, but I punch it out of your hands and marry her. My punching beats your preplanning, your preplanning beats my punching, whatever, that´s what dice are for.
But here I am, lying on the floor, boots tied together, and spend a Metagame Point to escalate. I roll my own preplanning skill! You roll your punching skill! You win. I narrate how actually, I KNEW how you had tied my shoelaces together and untangeled them. I only pretend to fall down. You come to check out if I´m hurt. I kick at you with my non-tied legs, but you karate me KO (your punching beats my preplanning). Damn, seems like I´ll have to attend to your wedding with a black eye.
Seems simple.

[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.

I´d propose different terminology: short-scale, tactical, nondeterministic conflict vs. long-scale, strategical, deterministic conflict.

I think your right on here.  Task resolution tends to favor results that are more nondeterministic because only the task attempted is being resolved as successful or not, instead of the results of the conflict itself.  This is much more chaotic because your success on a task (and how much impact it has) is more strongly influenced by events outside your control, represented by the randomness of the dice.

Conflict resolution, on the other hand, tends to favor results that are deterministic because the results of the conflict itself are determined by the winner.  It tends to be more all or nothing.  Hero Wars uses conflict resolution for just about everything as far as I know, and one of my problems with it is that winning a small scale fight "zoomed in" with Action Points results in the final winner having the authority to narrate what really just happened.  Events occurring during the battle itself have much less weight because they are edited according to the winner's perspective.  This can create very cinematic battles, but in my opinion this takes much of the chaos out of a fight.

I think a pre-planning skill would be more suited to a more zoomed out conflict resolution, or to set up the stage just prior or just after a zoomed-in battle.  Secretly tying your opponents shoelaces so his punch fails to me feels like a tactical maneuver, not strategy.  I doubt you could see a punch coming tomorrow and arrange to have your opponent's shoelaces secretly tied just before the predicted punch happens.  To me that feels more like a creative kind of dodge.  It may still draw on mental traits to work, as its based on the idea that you predicted the punch shortly before it happens, but on the scale of a zoomed-in contest, I feel that task resolution is a bit more appropriate because it is more chaotic.  Even if you see the punch coming, do you have the skill to tie the opponents laces without them knowing fast enough to prevent the punch?  I think task resolution is a better fit when we are talking real-time tactics.  I guess I feel that masterminds work on the entire playing field, and not as much on the moment to moment decisions of battle.  They may pull a surprise during a battle, but what that surprise can accomplish is just as affected by the chaos of battle as everything else.  Am I making sense here?

That is all just my opinion, and I know some people will disagree, and that's fine.  I just want everyone to know where I'm coming from.  Its nice to have people with different perspectives on game design to bounce ideas off of.  I welcome other people's input.  This is beginning to feel like a friendly debate between soundmasterj and myself, and I invite others to join in as well to broaden our perspectives.

[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]

Nah, task resolution just sucks
I don´t think it is usefull, ever, but that is another discussion. Likewise the want for "chaotic task resolution"; if I want a battle to be chaotic, I have the players roll dice to solve the conflict and narrate it chaotically. I want characters to be confused, not players, and I´d think a focused, not-distracted player makes a better narrator of a chaotic battle.

Why would a supposed "preplanning" skill be overpowered? I roll my five dice punching, you roll your four dice preplanning, I roll higher, my punching beats your preplanning! What´s the problem? Just don´t treat them any different mechanically.
If you want to treat them any different mechanically, that´d be a choice. Do you actually want to have a focus on large-scale strategical conflicts? If so, go HeroWars; what you described sounded like what you want. I´d love to go over some details with you as soon as I understand how strategic conflicts are positioned in your game, because while I don´t know much, I sure like to speculate.

[soundmasterj]

In keeping with the tradition of double posts, here comes Vincent D. Baker on large-scale Task Resolution and small-scale Conflict Resolution: http://www.lumpley.com/hardcore.html , search for "task resolution" on the page and read the ~5 paragraphs, it´s great!