OK, so this is split from Conflict vs Task Resolution to facilitate Narrativism. That topic was closed, but I think there were still a lot of issues and good points to discuss. There's been a bit of time to cool down and/or reflect, so I'd like to try again to focus in on specifically Task Resolution in a Narrativist game. Towards the end of that, we were discussing specific ways that Task Resolution interfered with Narrativism. I would prefer that there be examples from actual play, as I feel that is likely to be most productive. (I discussed resolution methods in the Actual Play thread, Spirit Tests in Vinland. However, really I'd like to discuss examples where Task Resolution is ostensibly interfering with Narrativism.)

This is of personal interest to me because I generally use and prefer Task Resolution. Given the statements that Task Resolution is opposed to Narrativism, I'm left with a couple logical possibilities: (1) my self-assessment is false -- what I am doing is not Task Resolution; (2) the statement is false -- Task Resolution is not opposed to Narrativism; (3) I am not generally interested in Narrativism; or (4) my techniques actually impede my intended style of play without my realizing it. I'm fine with any of #1, #2, or #3. However, I would have a problem with #4 and it would take some convincing to show otherwise.

The specific suggestion from Valamir was that Task Resolution allowed in results which prevent the address of premise.

Valamir wrote: Task Resolution MAY wind up eliminating the Situation (C). Returning to the Captains choice issue. The captain must choose between his friend and his mission and the situation is that the enemy ship is about to escape. The rules of the game call for a "sailing check" or the like whenever a ship is trying to escape. The GM abides by that rule and certainly by the logic of causality the situation warrants it. The enemy ship fails the check and suffers a mandated critical hit. It loses a mast, gets thrown in irons and is now helpless. Boom, no more thematically charged moment. The captain no longer has to choose between getting his friend to port or pursuing the enemy for an extended period during which his friend will almost certainly die.

Is this a question of Task vs. Conflict resolution? Or of "positioning"? Vincent described positioning as "a rule that lets you say, with the weight of the rules behind it, 'this thing right here? I really care how it turns out.' " It's mechanisms like drama points, or fallout dice. I'm really grooving on that definition, so maybe I'm seeing it where it doesn't apply.

But assume that the rules (Task or Conflict) are such that you will very, very likely fail in catching the ship or saving your friend in the absence of positioning. If you don't position you'll fail on both, in fact. You have to show that it's very important, to get some sort of bonus, before you'll succeed at either task.

Further, assume that your resources to position on issues are limited. You only have enough Squeegee points (at this moment) to position on one issue or the other.

There's your choice, right? And it doesn't even matter if freak dice luck lets you save the friend and then find the ship later, because you made the choice in the moment you did the positioning.

I see the "Chase or Heal" distinction as one addressed by positioning. The claim that a roll that lets you catch the ship has no effect on whether you can heal the man looks like it's saying "The positioning mechanism was unnecessary to the issue." Does that really have anything to do with whether it's Conflict- or Task- based?

John, you got hung up on this in our PM conversation too.

My examples were not about how that situation came to be. Assume that situation came to be organically by whatever combination of actual play events you like...maybe it spontaneously came about by the random-typing-monkey's method...maybe someone used a whole lot of author stance to get there...maybe some one burned a bunch of meta game resource points...who cares. For the purpose of the example it was (and is) entirely irrelevant how that situation came to exist.

What is relevant for the example is that the situation DOES exist and is thematically charged with the potential to address premise (and note, the premise example I used is not necessarily the only one present in the scene...one could find other premises to address also...like "Should a gentleman allow his enemy to save face in defeat".

So given that the situation exists, how does the situation get resolved, and what resolution principle is more likely to allow it to be resolved in a premise addressing fashion.

Hello,

John, I'm gonna call it like I see it, in full knowledge that I may be wrong.

I think you guys play Ouija Board Narrativist. That means you focus very, very strongly on in-game development of all aspects of Premise, with little if any acknowledgment of personal agendas.

Now, if I'm not mistaken, Premise does arise and the situations get resolved in thematic ways, but there seems to be this kind of self-induced fog that prevents anyone actually from talking about it ... an intense focus (which is to say, verbalized attention) on Exploration which equates, for instance, "character" with "thematic potential" without ever openly pointing at the latter.

All of which is pure Narrativism without any kind of need for talking about Sim, as I use the term. But also poison for discussing Narrativism, because people who play in this fashion would rather be disemboweled than admit they (the people) actually produced the story.

Why not? Easy answer: Experiences with railroading and carefully flensing their group of Typhoid Marys, and keeping their own play from restricting one another's ability to address Premise (create theme, "authorship," whatever you want to call it). All use of "story" and "plot," to such role-players, or "personal goals," just raises the hideous spectre of the Force-wielding GM.

"Story-play? We never do that. Our stories 'just' arise from the characters. We 'just' play it like we see it. Of course we get themes; characters and situations are thematic, aren't they?"

Again, I could be wrong! But your play-traditions come straight out of my own history as well, with a strong emphasis on tweaking the Hero System into certain forms, or finding ways for BRP to focus on situational conflict rather than on details of weapons-clashes. I've seen a lot of folks whose sentiments echo yours but whose play is brutally Narrativist when observed.

What's almost funny about all this is that Sorcerer plays similarly, without any special mods procedurally - but just takes the hood off. You don't have to do anything differently, but you can see it happen up through Social Contract ... which is why Ouija Boarders don't like Sorcerer much. To them, it's like the Visible Man - ewww!

But that's why you don't really like My Life With Master or other "get to it" Narrativist things, either, because it fixes Situation right up front. It seems like railroading to you to have any Explorative element nailed down before play. I think this is a pretty damaged, defensive outlook, but that's the only judgment I'll bring to this post, so you'll know where I'm coming from. And since that approach does not lead to dysfunctional play (as far as I can tell from your accounts), then basically, I have nothing to get bent out of shape about anyway.

So what does all this have to do with Task Resolution? I'll tell you.

1. Conflict Resolution of some kind is necessary for Narrativist play.

2. Cumulative Task Resolution may result in Conflict Resolution, but only with a specific cognitive, social shift at specific times, such that everyone understands it at the time.

In a group who has been playing together using a mainly Task-based system for a long time, who are closely attuned to one another's cues and preferences, such a shift is practically invisible ... and when they are dedicated never to admitting any personal "interference" into the imagined events of play (even when they blatantly use System which does it, like Whimsy Cards), they won't even notice the shift - it's what they came to do, after all, so no reflection or self-observation is ever made.

So here you are with this bug up your ass, and it looks like this:
We use Task Resolution. We get themes all the time. Forge-people say Task Resolution is No Good for getting theme. We are therefore being accused of lousy themes (no Narrativism). Since we get themes, someone must be wrong about this.

Well, screw that. How long have you been here? How much longer must I and others endure this crap? John, lose the bug and admit that you and your group achieve Conflict Resolution in a self-induced fog of denial.

Does that mean you "play wrong" or should use, for instance, some kind of one-roll summary as in My Life With Master? No, it doesn't. You have nothing to protect. Keep enjoying the Task-heavy matrix which, for you guys, eventually produces Conflict and keep enjoying your group-idiosyncratic shift which lets everyone know that these Task rolls, in this scene, are thematically special.

But quit with this noise about Task Resolution in any form must mean "no Narrativism." No one said that. No one says it now.

Your posts about all this are defensive, unnecessary, and gum up any possible discussion of the diversity of play. It feeds fuel to semi-trollish argumentation. It's why many of your points resemble weird little fixations on some minor aspect of a discussion, blown up into hugely verbal, yet always circling exchanges.

Best,
Ron

Tony, it's a great point about positioning, but as you say, I don't see how it has to do with Task Resolution vs Conflict Resolution. The point isn't this specific example, but rather the principle of whether and how Task Resolution interferes with Narrativism.

Valamir wrote: So given that the situation exists, how does the situation get resolved, and what resolution principle is more likely to allow it to be resolved in a premise addressing fashion.

Ron Edwards wrote: 1. Conflict Resolution of some kind is necessary for Narrativist play.

2. Cumulative Task Resolution may result in Conflict Resolution, but only with a specific cognitive, social shift at specific times, such that everyone understands it at the time.

In a group who has been playing together using a mainly Task-based system for a long time, who are closely attuned to one another's cues and preferences, such a shift is practically invisible ...

Ron Edwards wrote: John, lose the bug and admit that you and your group achieve Conflict Resolution in a self-induced fog of denial.

Ron Edwards wrote: But quit with this noise about Task Resolution in any form must mean "no Narrativism." No one said that. No one says it now.

Whew - John, thanks for cutting me some slack on the emotionality.

I think that I've been taking a fairly "charitable reading" approach toward Eero, Whiterat, etc ... which means, to paraphrase them, that an unreserved and unmodified adherence to Task Resolution will disrupt Narrativist play. I'd tend to agree with that.

I think that whatever we call it, we can construct or imagine an approach to resolution in which lots of little tasks are resolved on a very can-he-do-it, physical-modeling or genre-modeling way ... but then this play is also operating on a larger-scale, conflict-basis with judgments and decisions on that level too.

There's certainly an unpleasant version, in which the GM (for instance) lets anything and everything happen on the basis of tasks (hitting the villain, dodging successfully, etc, etc) but pretty much has the outcome of the encounter taped from the start and adjusts the beginning and the end of the scene accordingly.

So let's posit the pleasant version - in which the group enjoys and embraces the uncertainty and vicissitudes of the success/fail process of all the little task rolls ... but also utilizes some method (verbal or otherwise) of reinforcing instances of thematic weight, the difference between set-up and climax and "rests," and so on. And this method is communal rather than centralized in one person; the people are listening and responding to one another both for pacing and for emotional (thematic) commitment.

Again, I think Sorcerer play lends itself very well to this kind of appproach, partly because the task-resolution grades very well into conflict-resolution due to the IIEE system (all FitM), but mainly because the reward system operates wholly on that larger scale. So that larger scale tends to be explicit - listen dude, I say as GM, you wrote that Kicker, not me.

Perhaps a little charitable reading is called for all 'round. Bear in mind that Eero and the others were dealing with very provocative posting by Oliver, and so their relatively flat take-it-or-leave-it responses are themselves vulnerable to uncharitable responses ... and I think yours definitely paints the issue into unnecessary black-and-white terms. "Who started it" doesn't really seem worth going into now.

Again, thanks. I hope this post brings me back to Earth a bit.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: I think that I've been taking a fairly "charitable reading" approach toward Eero, Whiterat, etc ... which means, to paraphrase them, that an unreserved and unmodified adherence to Task Resolution will disrupt Narrativist play. I'd tend to agree with that.

Ron Edwards wrote: So let's posit the pleasant version - in which the group enjoys and embraces the uncertainty and vicissitudes of the success/fail process of all the little task rolls ... but also utilizes some method (verbal or otherwise) of reinforcing instances of thematic weight, the difference between set-up and climax and "rests," and so on. And this method is communal rather than centralized in one person; the people are listening and responding to one another both for pacing and for emotional (thematic) commitment.

Ron Edwards wrote: Perhaps a little charitable reading is called for all 'round. Bear in mind that Eero and the others were dealing with very provocative posting by Oliver

Hiya,

Examples? Lots. I'll break them into three categories which aren't really exclusive, just all off the top of my head.

1. Purely social, as you suggest, pointing to a roll or upcoming roll and saying "This is it!" or whatever.

2. Organizational toward the SIS, probably in terms of Director Stance and Scene Framing, making sure that the important components of a given conflict are present when it appears that certain oppositional characters are headed toward a confrontation. For example.

"Oh, and Betty the farmgirl's there too!" suggests someone, received by "Yeah!"

In my experience, no one tends to remember that they do this. Note that the rolls are not going to be fudged; what matters is that the components are present, not that they turn out a certain way. More on that in a minute.

3. Resource-based, as with Hero Points or EXPs being spent to modify rolls or whatever. Any such "metagame mechanic" as Stephan O'Sullivan called it will do.

I really want to emphasize that in the groups I'm familiar with who play like this, this is very much a matter of anyone suggesting or utilizing these tools, with a very strong social contract that no one gets rushed into rolling or whatever. Pushy GMing in particular "Goblin attacks go! Too slow! He hits you!" is totally out of line.

I also suggest that fudging is directly opposed to any of the listed methods and represents a fairly debased form of input into the SIS from a Narrativist point of view, being far more conducive to Force than to the kind of open and social "oh boy is this important" message that I'm talking about.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: 1. Purely social, as you suggest, pointing to a roll or upcoming roll and saying "This is it!" or whatever.

2. Organizational toward the SIS, probably in terms of Director Stance and Scene Framing, making sure that the important components of a given conflict are present when it appears that certain oppositional characters are headed toward a confrontation.
...
3. Resource-based, as with Hero Points or EXPs being spent to modify rolls or whatever. Any such "metagame mechanic" as Stephan O'Sullivan called it will do.

Arrrghhhh!

John, all of these are Task Res modified into Conflict Res in some fashion.

What won't work well for Narrativism is unconstructed, non-contextual adherence to Task Resolution. Which none of these are. But which is common among RPG designs/texts.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: John, all of these are Task Res modified into Conflict Res in some fashion.

What won't work well for Narrativism is unconstructed, non-contextual adherence to Task Resolution. Which none of these are. But which is common among RPG designs/texts.

I don't think this typed medium is ever going to suit communication between us.

For example, your point about resource-spending strikes me as a total red herring. I can't imagine how it matters how long a particular approach has been around. I didn't say a word about how "new" they were or what games they were or weren't in ... just that unmodified Task Resolution (relative to Conflict) is common. And it is.

(As a sideline, every damn time I generalize about "common game" issues, you seem to think I'm talking about the Hero System. What's up with that?)

So I don't have much of an answer for you. My answer was above, and you are not understanding it. There eventually has to come a point where I say, "I guess you don't," at least not in terms of how I can explain it. When the dialogue hits the point where everything you're saying sounds Martian to me - i.e., I'm not dodging by denying you a valid objection - then someone else has to step in.

H'm. Or maybe I'm really thinking of three threads at once. Over in RPG Theory, in one of these Task/Conflict threads, I wrote a bunch of stuff about eggs and a supervillain's wife. And so my answer here is colored by what I feel like "I just said" there. (bad things, feelings, at least of this kind)

Can you check that out and come on back here? A bit to ask, I know. I'd really rather not write off the discussion at the "well you're not going to get it from me, I guess" point.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: For example, your point about resource-spending strikes me as a total red herring. I can't imagine how it matters how long a particular approach has been around. I didn't say a word about how "new" they were or what games they were or weren't in ... just that unmodified Task Resolution (relative to Conflict) is common. And it is.

(As a sideline, every damn time I generalize about "common game" issues, you seem to think I'm talking about the Hero System. What's up with that?)

I've said this on my blog, and maybe it's true, and maybe it'll be helpful here: conflict resolution started out as a GMing style. However much we recognize and formalize it into our game designs, it remains fully possible as nothing more formal than a GMing style.

So when people are like, "my group's been playing it that way all along!" my answer's "yep, I'm just designing my games so that other groups have to play it that way too."

-Vincent

Valamir wrote:
My examples were not about how that situation came to be. Assume that situation came to be organically by whatever combination of actual play events you like...maybe it spontaneously came about by the random-typing-monkey's method...maybe someone used a whole lot of author stance to get there...maybe some one burned a bunch of meta game resource points...who cares. For the purpose of the example it was (and is) entirely irrelevant how that situation came to exist.

What is relevant for the example is that the situation DOES exist and is thematically charged with the potential to address premise (and note, the premise example I used is not necessarily the only one present in the scene...one could find other premises to address also...like "Should a gentleman allow his enemy to save face in defeat".

So given that the situation exists, how does the situation get resolved, and what resolution principle is more likely to allow it to be resolved in a premise addressing fashion.

I apologize if this is utterly inappropriate or not understanding the topic as I have only just skimmed this thread but I was struck by the following which I, though I have not thought it through yet, I thought my be useful.

Task resolution is geared towards the establishing of facts (objects/symbols) within the Fact Space of the SIS. (Proposal Space -> Fact Space -> Individual Affect Space)

Conflict resolution is geared towards the manipulation of "concepts" that are important to or are derived from the Individual Affect Space - Which includes and encompasses such "concepts" as theme, premise, scene, "meanings," victory, challenge, plot, antagonist, protagonist, bangs, feints, etc.

Think of the first as the rules by which one is allowed to move the chess piece on the board - the fact space.

The latter operates on the high order elements of aesthetic assessment/consideration and assigns the significance of the relationships of the objects/symbols as laid out on the "chess board/Fact Space." Conflict resolution would then rearrange the pieces/objects/symbols of the Fact Space outside the "self-confined rules of movement on the chessboard" in order to establish certain aesthetically informed relationships among the "pieces/objects/symbols" on the board/Fact Space so that play may again resume in a satisfying direction.

I don’t know if this helps or hurts…As I said I haven’t thought all this through yet…

I suppose that as long as Jay has thrown in his way of seeing it, I might as well throw in mine.

I tend to think of these more in terms I would have called "outcome resolution" and "event resolution". I realize that in some ways this seems like it turns it into a question of scale; but I'm not thinking in quite those terms.

Event resolution resolves the overall conflict by building the pieces one at a time. In a Prisoner of Zenda sort of conflict, the question is whether we're going to defeat Black Michael and save the throne for the king, but we get there one task at a time. In a sense, we invent the resolution of the conflict by figuring out what tasks must be successful (singly or in combination) for the conflict to be resolved one way or the other.

Outcome resolution is something like describing a chess game in terms not of the individual moves but of the shifts in power or position. We could still break down our Prisoner of Zenda scenario into many resolution steps, but now we're not thinking in terms of whether Rudolph survives Rupert's surprise attack based on skill, defenses, and damage, but rather the degree to which Rudolph's confrontation with Rupert advantages one over the other. We decide through our mechanic whether Rudolph or Rupert has the upper hand coming out of this encounter, and in a very real sense we invent the resolution of the tasks again "by figuring out what tasks must be successful (singly or in combination) for the conflict to be resolved"--but this time, we are saying that because the outcome favors Rupert, he must have succeeded at surprising Rudolph with the attack and so injuring him seriously.

Thus in task resolution we are allowing the individual moves made by the characters to determine through their success or failure how the conflict is resolved, while in conflict resolution we are allowing the determination of how the conflict is resolved to determine the success or failure and even in some ways the choice of the individual moves made by the character.

Looked at another way, "I draw my sword and stab him" could be the sum total of the result of either a single-roll task resolution system or a single-roll conflict resolution system. However, in the task resolution system you're going to announce that it is your intention to do this and then roll to see if you are successful, while in the conflict resolution system you're going to roll to see if you are successful at winning the conflict and, once it is determined that you succeeded, you create the act of drawing the sword and stabbing him to explain how the success was achieved.

I will admit to being a bit fuzzy on this in places, and it's entirely possible that Ron will say this doesn't work as an explanation, but thus far it seems to fit what I hear Ron and Vincent saying on the subject.

--M. J. Young