I hate compromises

[Filip Luszczyk]

First things first.

I've run Mouse Guard again yesterday. This time, the player who previously pointed out we have to agree was absent. One of the players present had no previous experience with Mouse Guard (or anything with similar compromise rules), and he haven't read the manual. The other player had very little experience with other games (a few D&D sessions), and my previous Mouse Guard session was her first (she seems to quickly learn rules through play, though).

We had three conflicts, all of which ended with a compromise. The one time I lost with a compromise, nobody objected to my proposal. Here's what happened the two times they lost with a compromise: I've read their options and gave some examples where explanations were needed. They promptly went with those. So, effectively, those were my contributions.

It was uncomfortable for me. I felt as if I was robbing them of what they mechanically earned in the conflict mini-game. I never feel comfortable when an inexperienced player just takes my suggestion instead of trying to come up with something of their own along those lines. Here, I was particularly afraid they might develop an impression that it's actually always the GM's job to decide.

Now, the thread was developing quite rapidly. At the moment, I'm busy re-reading and re-thinking some possibly relevant APs, and it will take some time composing my responses to some of you. So, I'll start with some shorter answers, leaving the rest of the thread for later.

Callan,

Heh, it's only after I've checked your blog that it struck me we're more like nodding to each other rather than discussing the thing

So what do we do here when individual behaviour is to deny their individual positions, denying whatever physical evidence you can bring to bear, and their individual action is to say it's 'the group' that does things?

Here's what I do. I roll my eyes. Got a better suggestion, I'm sure?

Ben,

This is very interesting.

I've run three campaign of Bliss Stage so far, and most of the persons in question were in at least one of those. The game works remarkably well for us, in general.

Polaris seems like it should work for me, procedurally, but I've only played it a few times and with only one of those particular players, so I lack reliable data. The game clearly isn't very good as a one shot, and the only campaign attempted so far fizzled. Every now and then we consider giving Polaris a shot, but there's always something more immediately appealing to play. It doesn't help that while I like the system, I don't really like what the game is about.

Luke,

A campaign or two ago, my group got so heated up about a high-stakes argument, it took us another 30 minutes of wrangling to find the appropriate compromise. We had the words of the argument ringing our ears. Everyone knew what was at stake. And the mechanics told us the necessary scale of the concessions. But both sides refused to be generous. We had to toss out some bad ideas and let them die -- let tempers cool and vindicitiveness fade -- before a reasonable option presented itself. It was an intense moment at the table, but ultimately productive.

This. Productive or not, what you seem to describe is something I don't want in my gaming. I can only see it as a failure of the game. Like a video game crashing and returning to the operating system. Or like suddenly going into the debugging console. It feels out of game.

Well, if you're referring to my designs, the formality of the procedure for compromise is the same as the formality for the baseline resolution procedure -- build context, state what you want from the context, operate the game mechanism, negotiate between all parties to ensure the result suits the context.

Is it possible... and stop me if I'm sounding crazy... that you didn't do it right?

In Mouse Guard specifically, I don't see how it's the same. Perhaps it's coded into other rules in a way that makes it invisible, I don't know. You lost me with that "negotiate" part. I don't see this in any other resolution procedure in this game. Frankly, that's why I find most of those other procedures strong.

I'm sure your mechanics tell you and your players the necessary scale of compromises*. Perhaps in this case the manual doesn't formalize what's going on at your table adequately, however?

I keep thinking how our Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard GM, who's big on podcasts, once noted that there's plenty of actual play recordings available, but none by your group. "I wonder how Luke actually plays this" was a recurring saying at our table. While the procedure in Mouse Guard seems generally clear, the examples provided often seem to only illustrate random bits of it. Other than those, though, we have no way to compare our actual play discourse with yours.

Well, in Mouse Guard's manual there's no example of a compromise at all. I don't know about BE (and I don't have the manual). I'm currently reading BW in preparation for our upcoming Jihad campaign, and while there are some examples, they're very sketchy and focus on fiction rather than what's actually going on between the people at the table. This manual doesn't even explain the scale, it just provides a pretty vague scale. It instructs the players to agree on fiction stuff, when they are likely not to have the same sense of "very minor", "legitimate" and "major" categories. Quantifying fiction is hard!

[greyorm]

Callan, you're still putting anyone who can and does do this regularly into some weird/other/abnormal category. That's asinine. And pointless. Because Filip doesn't need someone defending his group as normal and labeling everyone else into the abnormal corner; what he needs is a solution, not repeated insistence that his group is just fine, or isn't fine, or other defenses of or attacks against.

I'm going to repeat myself in paraphrase from earlier: "Other folks can do this, and do so regularly; why can they and how can we use that to help Filip make it work, and better our game texts to account for the issue?"

Note: this is not a sneering, derisive statement of "Well, others can, so why can't you?" that needs righteous defenders of normalcy to leap into action and pat everyone on the head to tell them they're OK and alright and don't worry. It's just cold, hard fact and examination: "This bunch of people can. This bunch of people can't. Why? And how do we use that?" That is all I am saying.

Only a couple of people have come close to examining that. Everyone else has spun off into the atmosphere.

And I think Filip gets to the heart of this question, or perhaps rephrases it, in his post just above: "Perhaps in this case the manual doesn't formalize what's going on at your table adequately, however?"

[Luke]

Filip,

Page 90, Passed Tests. "Describe your success or let the GM embellish." Right there, you're negotiating the results in the fiction. Pages 91-92, Conditions of Success. This is the basic building block of negotiated compromise -- you get what you want, but...

These basic exercises are expanded upon in the conflict compromises.

Negotiation is the very heart of a roleplaying game system. Not in a "I roll my Negotiations skill" sense, but in terms of people at the table are jockeying for position at the table, using the system to tell them who has authority over what when.


BWR, BE and MG have been around the block enough, been played so far outside of my group, that this isn't a case of the missing text. People who have never played with me, never even met me, manage these rules just fine. Based on what you said about you presenting options to players and having the players accept the options without discussion, it seems like there's something going on in your group dynamic that is making accepting compromises difficult.

And what you view as a failure of the game, I view as a strength. The players use the game to pound out a space in which very intense, very difficult decisions can be made. The inspiration for these decisions comes from the iterative conflict mechanic, but the nature of the decisions springs straight from the gut. This is vital to my designs. The game can only do much. I want my games to create the space in which you have to make the meaningful decision about the direction of the story before we dive back into the nitty gritty. It's very hard to do in the design of a roleplaying game, I admit.

And if you don't like the mechanics for Mouse Guard and Burning Empires, forget Burning Wheel. It's the loosest of the bunch. There's very little guidance, if any, on how to structure a compelling adventure, let alone on how to come to a compromise.

If you have questions about the rules, you should post over on burningwheel.org

Good luck!

[Filip Luszczyk]

Luke,

Page 90, Passed Tests. "Describe your success or let the GM embellish." Right there, you're negotiating the results in the fiction. Pages 91-92, Conditions of Success. This is the basic building block of negotiated compromise -- you get what you want, but...

I still don't see this. I don't see how this is the same as conflict compromises. I see a very concrete procedure that gives the player a choice between two options. The same goes for the "twist or condition" rule. Options. Buttons. There's no moment to moment group agreement necessary here. We've all agreed to play this here game. The game has these here buttons, pushing them does this and that. At any point it's generally clear who can push which button.

With compromises... there is a button, but there is only a single button and there are two or three or four or more players reaching for it simultaneously. Also, there's this special player who is given a hammer and instructed to smash the button should too many reach at once. Incidentally, the hammer guy is the target here, but in the end, he is the only one who has real say in how the button is used. Well, how is that even a compromise at this point?

I don't see how this is the same.

And if you don't like the mechanics for Mouse Guard and Burning Empires, forget Burning Wheel. It's the loosest of the bunch. There's very little guidance, if any, on how to structure a compelling adventure, let alone on how to come to a compromise.

Luke, read closely, please. I like Mouse Guard. There are only three things I don't like in Mouse Guard, compromises being one of those, and the only one that poses actual problems in play. In contrast, there are perhaps three things I like in many other games on my shelf.

Burning Empires... never again. However, whether Burning Wheel proves playable enough for my purposes, I'll decide after our Jihad campaign. Note that I purchased BW with hacking in mind, so in this case, I only really need it for spare parts. Specifically, my plan is to run Fading Suns later this year. Initially, Mouse Guard hack seemed like a good idea, but that's a lot of work. When Jihad was proposed, it occurred to me BW already has a lot of the detailed content I need, so it might be easier to just substitute what I don't like with its Mouse Guard equivalents, and to patch subsystems as needed. For now, I need that Jihad campaign to assess actual compatibility.

Also, to be clear. I don't really expect you to be helpful here. I have little trust in you as the designer. Here, my trust ends at the product. All being said, Mouse Guard's manual is very solid, and it proves sufficient in most other respects. If it's not already there, well, if you couldn't put it there in the first place, then I doubt you can help me now.

Raven,

Your posts are next in the queue and I guess I'll try to answer tomorrow.

[Luke]

Filip,
I know you're Polish, so I'll let the snark pass.

I admit, I've clearly failed to make the procedure clear to you. But I ask you to reassess your position -- reexamine your habits at the gaming table. The design is functional, clear and important. Why didn't your players step up and offer a compromise of their choosing? And when they failed to hold forth, why didn't you stop and encourage them to utilize their power?

Bad analogies in second languages don't help the matter either.

The whole point of the conflict mechanics in BE/MG/BWR is to build consensus around a specific issue. The mechanics recognize, however, that consensus is unlikely to happen. Thus, the system works to build a context and then stops at a certain juncture and says, "Now you come to an agreement based on these parameters that you've created." Sometimes the result is obvious -- one side wins outright. Other times, the result is nuanced and must be carefully instructed lest the game fiction be disrupted.

It's the same procedure as fundamental roleplaying. The GM says, "You go down this path." You say, "No, we go down another." You discuss a bit and decide which action makes the most sense in the context of the game.

Which builds into rolling dice to overcome obstacles: Later you say, "I do this thing like this!" You roll the dice and do not get the number of successes needed. The GM says, "No, instead you do this thing." You say, "But my guy would never do that." The GM says, "You're right. You do this other thing instead." You agree that that's acceptable and move on.

This is how Mouse Guard is played. There is constant negotiation and compromise. It's easy to overlook this aspect of the smaller, sharper rolls since they happen so quickly and the stakes aren't usually so high.

[ThoughtBubble]

This thread sort of mirrors some of my experiences in this last year. My play group exploded last summer. We ended up in a set of groupings I'd call the color focused people, and the procedure focused people.

The procedure people follow the rules. They bring strong ideas about playing the game by following the rules in the book. They're the ones who poke around in power-combinations, read through the books multiple times, love grid based games and tracking status. Aside from me, they're also the only people who've ever run campaigns. Their characters have rock solid abilities and fit in party niches. Their characters also tend to have few in game issues and mostly "go with the plot", doing what's necessary to stick with the party/greater objectives. These are the guys I'd play 4E or Mouse Guard with. Though Mouse Guard has some caveats.

The colorists aren't really so concerned with the rules and trust me to help them with that. They bring a larger sense of the game world with them and create bits of it as time progresses. They tend to have stronger character concepts and build on them as the games progress. These are the guys who draw their characters, and form attachments to NPCs. They're the ones who the plot ends up building out of the bits and pieces they hand me in game. These are the guys I'd play In A Wicked Age or Burning Wheel with. Though Burning wheel has some caveats too. What is it with your games Luke?

I'll leave our poor situational player alone for now, and not talk about our bi-polar player who jumps between procedure and color. : )

But what I found is that our color people are pretty good at negotiating, while our procedure people aren't. Why? There's no damn procedure for my procedure people to follow, while the color people look at what happened before and pick out something that "feels" right.

Filip, my guess is that you're pretty strongly procedural too. As such, you don't have as much fun when you need to rely on color and "what's reasonable" to make a decision. This thread seems to be asking about the lack of hard rules to deal with the situations that come up. If I'm wrong, ignore me from here.

This comes back to the beginning of the thread and about the fight with the snake. It might be reasonable to get an injured status after fighting a snake, it might not be. It's pretty dependent on the color and description of the moves that happened during the combat. So, other than feeling bad for your suffering, we can't really offer anything worthwhile to help you. The negotiation issues all depend on what the color of the game was at the time, and this is a detail that we haven't heard about at all. Can you tell us a little more about the color in the situation with the snake or another unsatisfactory negotiation? Let me know if you'd like an example of the sort of thing I mean by color.

[Callan S.]

Callan, you're still putting anyone who can and does do this regularly into some weird/other/abnormal category. That's asinine. And pointless. Because Filip doesn't need someone defending his group as normal and labeling everyone else into the abnormal corner; what he needs is a solution, not repeated insistence that his group is just fine, or isn't fine, or other defenses of or attacks against.

I don't know about the defending stuff, but he has a solution - the mechanical default. You seem to want to use a different solution, one involving group dynamic fixing or suchlike. I'm speaking in cold hard facts as much as you said you are - I don't think I'm playing defender or labeler any more than you are when I say they appear to fall into the scope of normal human behaviour, so a group dynamics fix isn't needed or applicable.


Filip,

Here's what I do. I roll my eyes. Got a better suggestion, I'm sure?

Oh crap! No!

Anyway, yeah, I'm really just agreeing here. I might move toward just sending PM's of support if I feel it's warrented, since that's my only back up plan!

[Filip Luszczyk]

Luke,

When I say I have little trust in you as designer, I mean it. There is no snark here (heh, you haven't seen real Polish snark yet, apparently). There are reasons I'm discussing it here and not on BW forums. We read your forum. We even discussed some threads in our group. We know how dicussions tend to progress there, especially when someone points out an obvious flaw in the design. Also, I've read your posts in other places, I can see some patterns. Frankly, I've been hoping to avoid your participation in this thread. For once, I'd like to discuss a game without the designer's post-release involvement. It's a big book, it can stand on it's own.

So, I linked your posts to our BE GM*, and he dismissed your points. We both see the disconnect between what you say and what's in the game. Your words plain don't align with how we've witnessed your mechanics to work at the table. If those were your design goals, sorry, you failed. But the game does work that way and it does constistently produce fun play, regardless. If you want to convince me your game is not fun, you are going to have a hard time with that!

Now, I understand you had your reasons for doing thigns the way they are done. You wouldn't be the first designer out there who includes a flaw in the desing consciously. A flaw is a flaw, still.

I don't want to say your participation in this thread is completely unwelcome, but I don't find it particularly productive as well. It's rather obvious your designer ego is at stake, and it blurs the actual issue.

*) Oh, and it turns out you have actually played a game with our BE GM when you visited Poland. Unfortunately, that sample doesn't make things more clear at all.

Bubble

(What's your name?)

Filip, my guess is that you're pretty strongly procedural too. As such, you don't have as much fun when you need to rely on color and "what's reasonable" to make a decision. This thread seems to be asking about the lack of hard rules to deal with the situations that come up. If I'm wrong, ignore me from here.

I find your characterization of the two types somewhat off. For instance, I don't think your point about "going with the plot" is connected with the procedural inclination. Also, I find it strange how you make strong concepts and NPC attachments exclusive to "colorists".

Other than that, however, your guess is quite accurate.

Note that I've found 4e fun in combat, but lacking in most other areas, while 3.x proved consistently fun all across the (heh) board. 2e was... a mess. Mouse Guard proved consistently fun, other than the compromise thing. IAWA proved consistently fun. BE proved frustrating in many ways, but some of the people I'm successfully gaming with found it less frustrating.

This comes back to the beginning of the thread and about the fight with the snake. It might be reasonable to get an injured status after fighting a snake, it might not be. It's pretty dependent on the color and description of the moves that happened during the combat. So, other than feeling bad for your suffering, we can't really offer anything worthwhile to help you. The negotiation issues all depend on what the color of the game was at the time, and this is a detail that we haven't heard about at all. Can you tell us a little more about the color in the situation with the snake or another unsatisfactory negotiation? Let me know if you'd like an example of the sort of thing I mean by color.

Color was adequate.

During the fight, the mice were abused by the snake in all sorts of ways. They were smashed with its coils, smacked with its rattle and, most imoportantly, both mice wound up in its mouth at some point. Injury was clearly an adequate consequence.

However, Injury was not the only adequate consequence. Luke,

When I say I have little trust in you as designer, I mean it. There is no snark here (heh, you haven't seen real Polish snark yet, apparently). There are reasons I'm discussing it here and not on BW forums. We read your forum. We even discussed some threads in our group. We know how dicussions tend to progress there, especially when someone points out an obvious flaw in the design. Also, I've read your posts in other places, I can see some patterns. Frankly, I've been hoping to avoid your participation in this thread. For once, I'd like to discuss a game without the designer's post-release involvement. It's a big book, it can stand on it's own.

So, I linked your posts to our BE GM*, and he dismissed your points. We both see the disconnect between what you say and what's in the game. Your words plain don't align with how we've witnessed your mechanics to work at the table. If those were your design goals, sorry, you failed. But the game does work that way and it does constistently produce fun play, regardless. If you want to convince me your game is not fun, you are going to have a hard time with that!

Now, I understand you had your reasons for doing thigns the way they are done. You wouldn't be the first designer out there who includes a flaw in the desing intentionally. A flaw is a flaw, still.

I don't want to say your participation in this thread is unwelcome, but I don't find it particularly productive. It's rather obvious your designer ego is at stake, and it blurs the actual issue.

*) Oh, and it turns out you have actually played a game with our BE GM when you visited Poland. Still, it doesn't make things more clear at all.

Bubble

(What's your name?)

Filip, my guess is that you're pretty strongly procedural too. As such, you don't have as much fun when you need to rely on color and "what's reasonable" to make a decision. This thread seems to be asking about the lack of hard rules to deal with the situations that come up. If I'm wrong, ignore me from here.

I find your characterization of the two types somewhat off. For instance, I don't think your point about "going with the plot" is connected with the procedural inclination. Also, I find it strange how you make strong concepts and NPC attachments exclusive to "colorists".

Other than that, however, your guess is quite accurate.

Note that I've found 4e fun in combat, but lacking in most other areas, while 3.5 proved consistently fun all across the (heh) board. Mouse Guard proved consistently fun, other than the compromise thing. IAWA proved consistently fun. BE proved frustrating in many ways to me, but some of the people I'm successfully and regularly gaming with found it less frustrating (which is still frustrating, but they seem better at gritting their teeth).

This comes back to the beginning of the thread and about the fight with the snake. It might be reasonable to get an injured status after fighting a snake, it might not be. It's pretty dependent on the color and description of the moves that happened during the combat. So, other than feeling bad for your suffering, we can't really offer anything worthwhile to help you. The negotiation issues all depend on what the color of the game was at the time, and this is a detail that we haven't heard about at all. Can you tell us a little more about the color in the situation with the snake or another unsatisfactory negotiation? Let me know if you'd like an example of the sort of thing I mean by color.

Color was adequate.

During the fight, the mice were abused by the snake in all sorts of ways. They were smashed with its coils, smacked with its rattle and, most importantly, both mice wound up in its mouth at some point. Injury was clearly an adequate consequence.

However, Injury was not the only adequate consequence. Still, I've said it upthread, and it's worth reapeating. Fiction is a flexible beast.

[Filip Luszczyk]

Oops! I didn't notice the text got pasted twice. I curse the lack of the edit function.

The last line got cut off in the first copy and it's easy to miss that, so I'll repeat it just in case:

However, Injury was not the only adequate consequence. Still, I've said it upthread, and it's worth reapeating. Fiction is a flexible beast.

[CedricP]

From reading the original post. Filip dont want to discuss about if compromises are a flaw or not, he already made is mind on the subject.
He asked for a hack for mouse guard to remove compromises or to find a more specific way to aply conditions without having negotiate.

Why simply removing compromises or negotiation was not a option for your group? You could simply say that you alway fully win your stakes/intentions when you win a conflict with DoW, Fight, etc... even when you win with only one remaining point of disposition? So if you loose the fight even by only one point, one the mouse get eaten by the snake, this is more radical but maybe more interesting for you. And if you win by only one point, you win wihout compromise. Maybe players could exanges conditions for check marks for the player turn.

(For my part, I have no problems with compromises in the burning games, we quickly agree on them and often they drive the fiction in interesting directions.)   

[Moreno R.]

Filip, I think that a compromise is ALWAYS reached following procedures. They can be more formal (as in "written on the game manual") or informal (as in "Paul is always the first one to suggest something because the other players are used to following his input") but groups usually don't change their habit every time they play is there is not a reason to do so.

So, I think that the difference in not in the "kind of players", as thoughtBubble suggested before, but in the kind of procedure used.

IAWA give a sort of formal procedure to do this ("suggest something good to the other guy or he will hit you with the stick"), other games don't. In the latter case, if the group has already a functional procedure to quickly reach an agreement, not only the procedure is faster, but it "feels" as a prosecution of the game, without having to step out of it, while if there isn't such a procedure, the game hangs.

I did thought of this reading your posts, because the impression I got is (correct me if I misunderstood your post) that in your group, the procedure is something like "the GM propose a compromise. People say no, they want to hear another possible compromise. This continue until the GM finds a compromise everyone agree to". If this is the case, I think it's natural that the game hangs for a lot of time: I, too, in this case, would like to "hear every choice on the menu" from the GM. It's like a waiter at the restaurant listing every dessert: you want to hear everything on the list, you don't want to choose the first one, in case there is something better later.

This is another procedure that, in my experience, work much better: one player suggest a compromise. The other (than can be the GM or not) can agree, or can suggest another one. If both agree at this point, or reach quickly an agreement, good, if not, the GM choose. The GM is not the first one to talk, he is the last. There is no "menu", the players are invited to suggest ONE compromise they like. There is no "list of choices"

You can try this procedure or another one you like more, but to solve your problem, in my opinion , you need a formal procedure to reach an agreement in your group, one that don't encourage players to hear the whole list of compromises on the Menu.

[CedricP]

(well naturally in my exemple, eating a mouse could be a boring intent for the GM to choose for the snake)

[Filip Luszczyk]

Cedric

Why simply removing compromises or negotiation was not a option for your group?

We did consider it a few times.

It won't work. It breaks the mini-game itself. It shifts the tactical balance of various options. As it stands, even with a strong starting disposition it's still important to protect your points. You want to win with as little points lost as possible. That way, Attack + Attack + Attack is a potentially strong, but very risky tactic. Sometimes, you want to Defend. Your opponent knows it, so sometimes he wants to Feint. Because you know he will, you try to predict his Feint and time your Attack accordingly. And so on, and so on. This is how it works. It's not possible to remove compromises without sacrificing tactical tension or entirely reworking the mini-game.

Besides, I have no problems with mixed outcomes. Mixed outcomes are good. It's how the outcome is disconnected from the mini-game that I don't like. The mini-game is solid, but it only tells us whether the outcome is mixed or not. We can't just proceed with that, however, we need to know how is the outcome mixed. This is something that we are forced to establish out of game.

It's like, if it was a video game, every now and then the game would stop and require us to manually edit the save data in order to proceed. But it doesn't even tell us its syntax!

[Luke]

Hi Filip,

I entreat you once again to shift from your defensive stance and examine your own behaviors at the table. Why can't you compromise? What is that you are doing (or not doing) that elicits the hate?

However, the last word is yours, sir. The thread is yours.
-Luke

[Filip Luszczyk]

Moreno,

So, I think that the difference in not in the "kind of players", as thoughtBubble suggested before, but in the kind of procedure used.

Yes. I believe that's what my opening post is about.

I did thought of this reading your posts, because the impression I got is (correct me if I misunderstood your post) that in your group, the procedure is something like "the GM propose a compromise. People say no, they want to hear another possible compromise. This continue until the GM finds a compromise everyone agree to". If this is the case, I think it's natural that the game hangs for a lot of time: I, too, in this case, would like to "hear every choice on the menu" from the GM. It's like a waiter at the restaurant listing every dessert: you want to hear everything on the list, you don't want to choose the first one, in case there is something better later.

Aha, two corrections.

First, "the group". This seems to come up in many posts in this thread, despite my clarification earlier. Apparently, there's an impression I'm talking about several games with the same group, while I'm talking about several games with varying player overlap. "Group" applies only in the "extended group" sense. We are talking about a pool of players here. We play various games in different combinations. Not all people are in every game. I'll go into more details on this environment in my response to Raven once I finally manage to get down to it.

Second, the way you interpreted it applies only to how it worked in the game I've run last Friday. It was a game with inexperienced players. Of course they couldn't choose and needed the menu - they didn't know their options in the first place. What bothers me is how they went with my (creative) suggestions rather than trying to produce something (creative) of their own, and it bothers me how the game as it is could teach them to do so as a habit. In IAWA, I'd just suggest that they default to damage if they don't have any better idea. It's a perfectly valid outcome that doesn't elicit much creative input. I only have to ask what form the damage takes, and it's generally easy to come up with that. Also, I'd make it clear that if they don't like my ideas, they can always default to damage. Sooner or later, creative ideas become a neccesity, but before that point, most players already pick it up on their own. In IAWA, it certainly helps that there are usually several complete cycles of resolution per hour, as opposed to Mouse Guard, which rarely has more than two or three conflicts per session, and uses entirely different, simple and clear test procedures for everything else.

That's with players new to the game.

With more experienced people it goes like this:

1. Somebody, generally the losing player, proposes a compromise.
2. If nobody objects, it stays.
3. Otherwise, there's some uh, oh, maybe, but no. It's this awkward moment when everyone in the game knows the other person really wants this outcome, but they are not fine with that and have to dismiss it. (Note that if it was in Dogs, somebody would just veto at this point, stating what's wrong, with no uh, oh, maybe.)
4. Then, somebody proposes a different compromise. Go to 2.

Oh, there are also rare cases when we look at our goals and consider the progress of the, and no adequate idea comes up to anybody. Conditions are generally easy to apply in those situations. It works fine, at least when it's the GM's victory. When the party wins, Conditions are usually the least beneficial option on the list. They have a significant impact on play when applied to player characters, but usually no real impact when applied to NPCs.

You can try this procedure or another one you like more, but to solve your problem, in my opinion , you need a formal procedure to reach an agreement in your group, one that don't encourage players to hear the whole list of compromises on the Menu.

Yes.

Only, I'm not convinced the menu is an obstruction in general. It's only so with novice players. Personally, I like having a menu.

I'm not sure if I like the idea about limiting the process to two proposals, especially if the GM's proposal still has more weight at all times. I had a similar formal procedure in one of my projects, but it was GM-less, and it was an entirely different game. Also, in that game, no situations that would require us to reconcile our interests that way occurred in playtesting, so the procedure was never used in practice.