[INGENERO] conflict res - tactical crunch players would u like this?

[stefoid]

'3,4' , 'northwest corner' or 'planet earth'.     '2/10 hitpoints' or 'badly injured'   -  they can all be valid in their own context.   They are all just varying degrees of abstraction - you pick the one most appropriate to your game.   Saying one abstraction - '3,4' is more consistent than another - 'n/w corner' doesn't make any sense to me.

[Callan S.]

It's absolutely consistant, because if you took one hundred people and told them to put a piece at position 4,3, they would all do the same thing. But if you tell one hundred people to put a piece 'somewhere in the northwest corner', you will find the piece ending up in all sorts of positions across the hundred samples.

If you took a series of narrated actions that gained the play bonus with one GM, then repeated that narrated action to one hundred people and asked them if it'd get the bonus, not all of them would say yes. It's gamble, rather than tactical. If 20% would say no out of the sample, it means that narrated description had a 80% success rate on the gamble (relative to the small number of test samples).

If I had to play chess through an intermediary to whom I could only give vague commands 'Move my rook down a fair bit', 'Move my queen a little bit to the west', I wouldn't call chess tactical, either.

[stefoid]

It's absolutely consistant, because if you took one hundred people and told them to put a piece at position 4,3, they would all do the same thing. But if you tell one hundred people to put a piece 'somewhere in the northwest corner', you will find the piece ending up in all sorts of positions across the hundred samples.

No, they would all be in the northwest corner.  putting it in the southeast corner would be wrong. 

a chess board is the wrong context for that abstraction so why bring it up?

Here is the 'board' that makes sense for that level of abstraction

------------------------
|   nw     |    ne  |
+----------+---------+
|    sw    |     se |
+----------+---------+

[stefoid]

If you took a series of narrated actions that gained the play bonus with one GM, then repeated that narrated action to one hundred people and asked them if it'd get the bonus, not all of them would say yes. It's gamble, rather than tactical. If 20% would say no out of the sample, it means that narrated description had a 80% success rate on the gamble (relative to the small number of test samples).

Lets put the location issue to rest, its getting us nowhere.

I would like to discuss the bolded part.  One of the things about 'plays' is that include the effect that the character wants to achieve - by their nature, they are conflict resolution stakes.  If you say 'climb the crates', the roll to climb the crates, succeed, and the GM has the power to say whether you get a bonus, then yeah, its an arbitrary tactic. 

but a play is 'climb the crates in order to get an advantage over the guard' - the stakes are not arbitrary, they are explicit.  The thing that is then arbitrary is whether there is any plausible fictional cue from which to leverage an advantage play.  That is arbitrary, but not because the crates may or may not exist.  If they do or they don't is not an issue -- the player bases his tactics on the situation as it is -- con or sans crates.  The issue is the requirement for the GM to be the judge of what is plausible.  Is it plausible that the crates could be used in any way at all to gain advantage over the guard?

In my experience, the first situation (task res), where the GM is required to make the call 'does the player get the advantage for being on the crates?'  you will get a wide variance in response.  You are explicitly leaving the vital outcome to the GMs plausibility meter.

But the second question is different- in my experience, people are happy to 'let the dice decide' when a borderline decision has to be made.  The question 'could crates plausibly be used in some way to gain advantage?' is overwhelmingly likely to be answered 'yes', and lets go to the dice to decide if that actually occurs.  The GMs responsibility is now not even really a plausibility detector now, its more like a complete bullshit detector.  He is happy to let the dice decide unless what the player proposed is complete bullshit.  "I want to use this blade of grass as an ambush advantage play!'  'dude, that is complete bullshit.'

[stefoid]

Oh, and you could even take the GMs bullshit meter out of the equation completely if you wanted to, like this:

player - "is there anything in the room that would allow me get the drop on the guard"? 
GM either  "yes, theres these crates"  or "no, nothing substantial enough to hide your presence"

that is unequivocal - now deal with the situation as it is.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi,

Stefan, is this the discussion you would like to see in this thread? If so, that's great, but if not, then please provide a concept or question to re-focus the discussion.

Best, Ron

[stefoid]

Id like to get feedback on the conflict resolution mechanics from players who appreciate a tactical style of play, like D&D players, etc...  Are these rules a turn off because they are too abstract / different , etc?

[Bossy]

I like it a lot, that's the sort of thing I was looking for lately... I have questions about conflict resolution.

As I understand plays are resolved more or less simultaneously, right? In that case it becomes very important to rule in which order characters decide their play. How do you see that?

In the conflict resolution examples, you give examples of rolls and play scores. It would be really helpful to provide for each one an example (or several examples) of outcome. Because at the moment I'm not sure of how the plays are resolved in fact.

Have you already tested it already?

[stefoid]

I like it a lot, that's the sort of thing I was looking for lately... I have questions about conflict resolution.

As I understand plays are resolved more or less simultaneously, right? In that case it becomes very important to rule in which order characters decide their play. How do you see that?

In the conflict resolution examples, you give examples of rolls and play scores. It would be really helpful to provide for each one an example (or several examples) of outcome. Because at the moment I'm not sure of how the plays are resolved in fact.

Have you already tested it already?

Hi Bossy, yes playtests have went well for plays.  they just seem to work.

Think of plays as outcomes a character can generate, so when characters oppose each other, its a case of dueling outcomes and the highest score outcome occurs and the other doesnt.  If there is a tie, neither outcomes occurs.

As all plays are resolved simultaneously, the only time order is relevant  is when a cross play comes into it.  Thats a play designed to stop another play from occurring.  In that case you resolve the cross plays first.  They either stop their target play from occurring or they dont.  Just follow the chain of cause and effect.

Or do you mean order of players announcing their intentions?  As in aha! you're going to do that, in that case I do this.  Oh well in that case I change my mind and do this?  ad infinitum?  yes, it seems that there is a 'last mover' advantage.  Well there is one rule I have about that.  If you are going purely defensive in order to get the +1 defensive bonus, you have to announce that first if other plays insist.  I dont think its worth having explicit initiative rules to resolve order of stated intentions.  It would hurt more than it would help, overall.

In practice, NPCs arent fussy about the order of announced intentions - they do what they do and players react to them.  I suppose for player vs player there could be some angst about order of intentions, but I figure 90% of conflicts will be PC vs NPC.

There is a fairly detailed example with diagrams.  It covers ever conceivable case of play interaction.  Can you point to any specific parts of that which are hard to understand?  that would help me a lot.

[stefoid]

The specific pages you would be looking at are 35-41 which detail how to determine play scores and apply plays with an example and diagrams.

[stefoid]

In the conflict resolution examples, you give examples of rolls and play scores. It would be really helpful to provide for each one an example (or several examples) of outcome. Because at the moment I'm not sure of how the plays are resolved in fact.

Oh, the outcome of those example plays are in the sidebar as annotations.  It looks better if you download the pdf rather than use the online google docs viewer.

But by way of example, lets say my play is "stomp on your toe with my hobnail boot" and you resolve to make a counter-play "poke me in the eyes with both index fingers"  highest play score wins and that outcome occurs as stated.

Now lets rewind and say that Ron wants to protect you - he targets my play with a cross play "smack me upside the head".  we resolve that first.  my play score vs his.  He loses.  Perhaps he did smack me but it didnt put me off, or perhaps I evaded the smack.  Either way, the stomp is still good to go.  Now you roll and we see whose play prevails, mine or yours.  In this scenario it was mine.  stomp.

[Bossy]

Hi Bossy, yes playtests have went well for plays.  they just seem to work.

Good. Sometimes we devise a mechanic that seems interesting and in practice they're not fun at all.

Or do you mean order of players announcing their intentions?  As in aha! you're going to do that, in that case I do this.  Oh well in that case I change my mind and do this?  ad infinitum?  yes, it seems that there is a 'last mover' advantage.  Well there is one rule I have about that.  If you are going purely defensive in order to get the +1 defensive bonus, you have to announce that first if other plays insist.  I dont think its worth having explicit initiative rules to resolve order of stated intentions.  It would hurt more than it would help, overall.
In practice, NPCs arent fussy about the order of announced intentions - they do what they do and players react to them.  I suppose for player vs player there could be some angst about order of intentions, but I figure 90% of conflicts will be PC vs NPC.

That's what I had in mind: order of declaration of intention. But you're right about NPCs doing what they're supposed to do.

Oh, the outcome of those example plays are in the sidebar as annotations.  It looks better if you download the pdf rather than use the online google docs viewer.

That's what I was looking for. Somehow I missed it...