I've been thinking a lot lately about Conflict resolution - I've actually been struggling with fitting ranged weapons and magic into it, but that isn't what this thread is about. It seems to me that there isn't any actual 'line' between task and conflict resolution but that instead they are just regions on a long spectrum of possible resolution crunches.

I can think of five possible regions along this spectrum, although I only know of games that use the first two:

(NB: I'm using roll, and rolling, in the descriptions below but there's no reason this needs to be fortune only, I just couldn't think of a good generic word to use)

Task - familiar to you all, no doubt, where you might roll to attack, defend or climb 10'. But even task resolution is a broad church - from ultra-crunchy 'parry', 'swing', 'thrust' divisions to T&Ts round-at-a-time dice roll.

Conflict - Lumpier still, you find conflict resolution. Where you resolve the fight as one, or the running away as one. Conflict resolution can also vary in degree: is defeating the Orcish lieutenant a conflict? Or defeating the whole band? Is mixing the poison a conflict, and delivering it another? Or is the whole process of assassination one conflict?

Scene - Instead of simply rolling to resolve one conflict within a scene you could conceivably roll to decide the outcome of a whole scene. Instead of rolling to fight Dr. Squid, and then again to rescue the damsel before she gets hit by the speeding train - one roll could decide the outcome of the scene, and then you'd just fill in details knowing the final outcome. I could see this working very well in a more story telling sense, since knowing the outcome of the scene you could plan your actions to produce the charectorial impression you desired.

Session - At this point, I think I become a little less well defined. Perhaps this should be 'arc' rather than session. The play would begin by deciding what the session was going to cover ('we attack the goblin fortress', 'we will trade beans to Glythank', etc.), then a roll would decide the outcome and play would consist of plotting out interested events that lead to that pre-determined outcome.

Story - I'm not sure this one deserves it's own category, it might be better lumped with the above. The whole story is determined by the roll. 'We will destroy the ring', 'Romeo and Juliet will find happiness together'. As before play then consists of filling in the details.

As you can see, as we move up the chain from Task to Story resolution there is a change from resolving details and building up to results to resolving results and filling in details. But even in the finest levels this occurs ("you rolled a 15? Ack, your sword blow slides off their shield").

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, but I'd be interested to know whether anyone else has followed similar lines of thought and whether anyone knows of any games that use the latter three forms of resolution.

Hi Jack

You're not alone...

Scene - Instead of simply rolling to resolve one conflict within a scene you could conceivably roll to decide the outcome of a whole scene.

Does MLwM fall into Scene or Conflict? I'm inclined to say the former. One scene is limited to one roll and one conflict and the details are made up around the results.

Chris

Hiya,

Jack, if you're interested, I'd recommend picking up Dust Devils, Trollbabe, and HeroQuest to check out games which are very, very clear about distinguishing among your categories and customizing just which level is getting the attention at any given moment of play.

Best,
Ron

Also here is a handy old post of Ron's on the subject, if I may.

-Vincent

Cheers Vincent!

That was indeed an a most useful post (thanks Ron!), I can see I was trying to make a line out of something that isn't.

Oh well.