This past August, I had the chance to spend some time in Scotland. During my time there, I saw many beautiful places, and took the chance of contacting some gamers through this forum. To my relief, they weren't creepy, smelly, or too brain damaged. Instead, they were fun, friendly, warm-hearted people who invited me into their home, cooked dinner, introduced me to Polaris, and then even helped me playtest a game I've been working on. (To Per, Gregor, Joe, and Malcolm, thank you once more!)

I'm posting here because of an interesting issue that came up during the game. In this design, play is separated into distinct scenes, each one involving two players: a Narrator (GM-type figure) and a Protagonist (a player character). Uninvolved players essentially handle the game mechanics, deciding when they enter play so as to resolve an existing conflict*. In our playtest, there were three players, which meant that in any given scene, there was only one "bystander". That player's most important role was in deciding _when_ the game mechanics come into play.

What cropped up was an interesting problem. In two scenes where I was the uninvolved player, I hesitated to introduce the game mechanics, feeling uncertain whether a conflict was developing or not. I assumed that I could wait a little more, until the conflict escalated or became more clear, and then make my call. Those scenes weren't terrible, but there was clearly some confusion at the table, and we ended up closing both scenes without using the mechanics at all (which was fine, but not the most desirable outcome).

Our discussion post-game revealed the point of confusion. (I'm hoping that the players will chime in if they disagree with my analysis, by the way! Or perhaps they might just be able to give a different perspective.)

In those scenes, the two players, seeing that I was hesitating to "call for the conflict", decided that I was uninterested in that conflict, and would move on to developing something else. (This was interesting: there was quite a bit of body language going on, where they would narrate the characters saying or doing something, then glance at me expectantly to gauge my reaction! Unfortunately, at the time, being unsure what that meant, I ignored it, interpreting it as some kind of request for approval from myself as game designer.)

From my perspective, however, it seemed like they were dropping the developing conflicts (or resolving them) before I had a chance to call in the mechanics. I felt like I couldn't really "grab on" to anything--the moment a conflict was starting to get interesting, the two players playing out the scene would "change the subject". The result was a certain deflation of the focus of the scene and the tension of the story.

This got me to thinking: It seems like we were expecting the mechanics of conflict resolution to enter play at different stages of the conflict itself. Kind of in the same way that "Fortune-at-the-End" means that the mechanics (of "Fortune") come into play later in the scope of resolution, here we were looking to engage the mechanics at different times.

It seems to me that when the two players glanced at me at the table, there were thinking, "OK, here's a juicy conflict! Will he call in the mechanics?" And when I didn't, they felt that I just wasn't interested, or felt let down, and started looking for something else.

For me, however, the experience went something like: "OK, I can see a potential conflict beginning to develop. Will both sides push harder, committing to this conflict? Let me wait and see." When they glanced at me, I was thinking, "Yeah! OK, go for it! What happens next?"

So, as I see it, we crossed wires a bit because we were expecting (or were used to?) the mechanics engaging at a certain point during the narration of a developing conflict, and for me that point was further along than it was for the other two players.

I'm finding this hard to explain, so I hope this is making sense. Perhaps another example might help: Imagine a few groups that play Burning Wheel and resolve arguments between _the players_ through a Duel of Wits. (The ever-popular "Duel of Wits or shup up, now!") One group might resort to the Duel the minute a disagreement rears its ugly head, another might only call in the mechanics after they see that people have been arguing for 5 minutes, and yet another group (perhaps one that enjoys those arguments) might begin a Duel only when everyone has run out of arguments and is purely butting heads, with nowhere left to go.

Does this make sense? I'm suggesting that in the same way that Fortune can be involved at different points during conflict resolution, conflict resolution itself can enter play at different stages of the narration of a conflict.

My question is:

-Who else has seen this as an issue in play? How did you deal with it?

And, also:

-Are there any game designs out there that address this issue directly? Or perhaps game designs that challenged your idea of where the mechanics come into play?

I'd also be particularly interested in hearing about games where this sort of disconnect was unpleasant, and rubbed you the wrong way. If so, did you learn to adjust to it, or did it spoil your enjoyment of the game?

Thank you!

Paul T.

*: A little more detail on the system: The Narrator and Protagonist play out a scene in fully freeform roleplay until the uninvolved player decides to call to engage the game mechanics. The game is structured so that the uninvolved player is rewarded for choosing a moment that is significant enough for the Protagonist to spend some currency, which the uninvolved player hopes to gain. In addition, there is a risk of losing resources for a player who chooses poorly (calls for the mechanics at a time where the Protagonist is not seriously invested and chooses not to spend any resources on the conflict).

Another Note:

I also didn't expect the problem we experienced in play because I didn't think players would be concerned about the uninvolved player's opinion. As the designer, I expected to see people playing out scenes however they wanted, and let the uninolved player come in with the mechanics whenever they wished to. So, that was an eye-opener.

Ah, awesome, you've posted!

Cool, Paul pretty much has it covered. I felt there is maybe some crossover on the talks people have been having recently about Acts of Evil.

My feeling is that in a scene almost any time is a good time to say "let's go to the mechanics" but someone has to do it. Pretty much in all the scenes we were all diving into meaty stuff, but what Per and I thought was great for us didn't hit a sweet spot for Paul. So it broke down when he was the observer. Hmm, help!

Here's my AP of the game.

Thanks for posting this, Paul, very interesting.  Let me note a couple of thoughts (I was one of the players).

To me, conflict in a roleplaying game is when two different parties want different things - when a player meets opposition to what he is trying to negotiate into the shared fiction and somebody opposes it. Therefore it felt strange when a conflict was apparent in a scene and left unresolved - a bit like coitus interruptus - because in this case my opponent (Gregor) didn't have the authority to simply say "you can't have that! Conflict."

Yes, I think both Gregor and I thought Paul was not interested in the conflicts we created and therefore we tried to maneuver into other conflicts - but there's wasn't a mechanic/meyhod other than calling the conflict to show Paul appreciated it (Paul could have just told us, of course, or gestured, but I seem to remember that he didn't look over-enthusiastic with some of the situations in the game.).

We've suggested some mechanical ways to change this "vacuum", but Paul didn't feel they pulled his game in the right direction, which is totally cool.

What about the scenes where either Gregor or I were narrators, and you were an active part in a scene? What was different, and did you think we called for conflicts too early for example?

Per

Gregor,

Thanks for posting in this thread. I'm very happy to have your input, and your AP was awesome (as well as helpful).

Gregor wrote:
My feeling is that in a scene almost any time is a good time to say "let's go to the mechanics" but someone has to do it. Pretty much in all the scenes we were all diving into meaty stuff, but what Per and I thought was great for us didn't hit a sweet spot for Paul. So it broke down when he was the observer. Hmm, help!

Per,

I'm glad to have you participating in this thread as well! Fantastic! Everyone's on board.

It's really interesting to see how different our perspectives are on this game. It looks like we were all coming to the game with very different assumptions about how it was "supposed" to work (scare quotes applying to me just as much as to you two, just to be clear).

Per wrote:
To me, conflict in a roleplaying game is when two different parties want different things - when a player meets opposition to what he is trying to negotiate into the shared fiction and somebody opposes it. Therefore it felt strange when a conflict was apparent in a scene and left unresolved - a bit like coitus interruptus - because in this case my opponent (Gregor) didn't have the authority to simply say "you can't have that! Conflict."

Yes, I think both Gregor and I thought Paul was not interested in the conflicts we created and therefore we tried to maneuver into other conflicts - but there's wasn't a mechanic/meyhod other than calling the conflict to show Paul appreciated it (Paul could have just told us, of course, or gestured, but I seem to remember that he didn't look over-enthusiastic with some of the situations in the game.).

We've suggested some mechanical ways to change this "vacuum", but Paul didn't feel they pulled his game in the right direction, which is totally cool.

What about the scenes where either Gregor or I were narrators, and you were an active part in a scene? What was different, and did you think we called for conflicts too early for example?

Regarding whether the conflicts were interesting or not - when I roleplay and engage in a conflict (ie: there is opposition as to what gets established in the shared fiction) it's BECAUSE I find it interesting. I see no reason to have an un-interesting conflict. So, when  Gregor and I landed in conflict, we found it interesting, assuming this goes for Gregor as well - but conflict wasn't called, which I thought was because Paul as the observer didn't "ignite" on the conflict in question, that he wasn't interested in that particular conflict. I came to that conclusion exactly because it wasn't identified. That's what I meant by there's no mechanic to say, for example, "Conflict identified, interesting, go on and let's see if we can get it more meaty"-kinda stuff.

I don't know if that clears anything up or not?

Per

Per,

I think we're understanding each other. Let me just check that you didn't misread me:

My question wasn't "why would maneuver into conflicts YOU find interesting" but, rather, "Why did you try to maneuver into conflicts that _I_ (Paul, the uninvolved player) would find interesting", as opposed to conflicts that you and Gregor found interesting?

This is actually one reason the observing player doesn't get to decide what the conflict is about--I want the Narrator and Protagonist to go with what they're into. The observer is just trying to get some Coins out of the deal when it happens.

Does that clarify my question in the previous post?

Paul

Per,

My apologies about the double post, but I just saw something I felt I should comment on. It may help further clarify what I'm trying to ask, as well. Let me quote something from your post one more time:

Per wrote:
Yes, I think both Gregor and I thought Paul was not interested in the conflicts we created and therefore we tried to maneuver into other conflicts - but there's wasn't a mechanic/meyhod other than calling the conflict to show Paul appreciated it (Paul could have just told us, of course, or gestured, but I seem to remember that he didn't look over-enthusiastic with some of the situations in the game.).

Paul wrote:
Maybe that was the problem--you were looking for cues from me, but I was looking for cues from the two of you? That would explain why things weren't moving along as much as they might have...

Per,

The torture scene was most definitely a conflict! In that situation, I just hesitated. I wasn't yet sure where you two were going with the scene--was Emile trying to get a name out of Fellini, or was that just a setup for some other conflict? By the time I knew that was the crux of the scene, Fellini had blurted out my character's name, and it was too late to call for the conflict--it had already been resolved.

Perhaps if I had had the opportunity to game with you two before, and had known you better, I would have called for it earlier. Lacking that experience, I really wasn't sure where you were going with the scene until, as I said, it was too late.

As I mentioned, I also wonder whether you two simply know each other well enough to communicate with just a few words. I was in unfamiliar territory with two other players I didn't really know! Perhaps, if that is the case, it just wasn't quite enough for me to catch on--you two knew each other well enough to read where the other was going, but I couldn't quite see it yet.

As for the cues I'm looking for from the players, it's commitment to the conflict by both parties. What I mean by commitment is two things:

1) Having a character within the fiction take action in order to move towards the object of their desire (ex: Emile asks Fellini to admit he didn't write the Mass), and

2) That character doesn't immediately give up when faced with opposition, thereby demonstrating that the player is willing to see this conflict come into play (ex: Fellini replies, "Never!").

Does that make sense? Is there a logical flaw in looking at it this way that I'm getting hooked up on?

Finally, there's no reason why the Protagonist (or any of the players) can't step out of character for a minute and say, "I want this as a conflict!" I added that note to the "advice" section of the rules immediately after our playtest.

Best,

Paul

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this.

Basically, I felt I had reached an impasse in some of those scenes where I was the GM. I turned the screw on Per, he reacted back, and I got to the point where I was thinking "damn, we need to know if this guy breaks, or not". We didn't get a contest, so... do I just, uh, stop?

In hindsight I maybe should have just picked a line in the sand and said "hey, I want a conflict here".

But that would have papered over the cracks as I now see them. I think the observer can have a vital role in judging when there is a conflict or not. The thing is that as GM in Land of Nodd I can do whatever the hell I like, and the player can't do a damn thing about it. They get to control their character (sure, let them think that) but if the GM can just pick a winner and how things turn out then I think the player doesn't have any power at all. He can't even call a conflict with me if I hose him. Which is where the observer comes in. The observer can stop me and call a conflict on the terms that they want. The player then, at last, gets their input since they set a goal. Reacting to that goal the GM and the observer in turn set Risks. Now if the GM wishes to set horrendous risks the observer has the opportunity to set much lower risks on his side. And an interesting meta-game of punishing a harsh GM can set in, which I think is quite cool.

But anyway, the set up with the GM having ultimate power, and able to force just about anything in the fiction, is kept in check by the observer. But the observer has to be aware of that. As much as watching the story he has to be mindful that we shouldn't "overshoot" or "undershoot" a scene.

Paul, you felt that the scenes you were in were "undershot", while we felt other scenes were "overshot". That's fine, I think a group will find their feet in play and react to under and overshooting to get it right over time.

The question is whether you can have a scene without a conflict. I wonder if that's just pointless dialogue? I'd be tempted to say there must be a conflict, even if the goal and risks are small. In fact, better to have smaller goals and risks than large ones (i want peace in europe... oops, if he gets that goal the campaign in borked).

Anyway, my other answers to points in the thread, which I e-mailed to Paul, were...
-----
Basically, I wasn't looking to please you in my role-playing (I look to please myself) but we were looking for you to call our conflict. I
felt I was coming out the other side of the conflict before you felt it was "warming up" if that makes sense.

Oh, never gamed with Per much before (maybe never before Land of Nodd). I've know him a while but we've always seemed to miss out on gaming together (even when at games conventions in the same building).
-----

Which is to say that I had reached the decision point in a conflict and I felt it was needing a decision made. Being the GM, and with the power to do so, I made one. We then went on and found more conflicts, and the same happened too.

Considering Per and I had never gamed before we found our feet and conflicts pretty well. But I guess we maybe have similar gaming preferences?

Hope this helps?

Does anyone else reading have any questions? I'm sure there's stuff we're not vocalising to the watching crowd?

Gregor,

I basically agree with everything you wrote here, and I'm glad you did. Your brief analysis of the system itself (the long paragraph beginning with "But that would have papered over...") is pretty much exactly how I see the game working.

In addition, there's the issue (which didn't really come up in our brief game) of a sort of Step On Up situation, as we discussed earlier:

If a given player ends up with a large pile of Coins, the challenge for the other players becomes, "can we get this player to care enough to spend those Coins?" In that situation, the other players begin trying to find some sort of conflict and suggested Goal that will really get the "target" player fired up. This is a neat dynamic, which I saw more of in the very first playtest of the game.

When it comes to scenes without conflict, I have a few thoughts about it.

-In the context of this system, a Narrator is playing to gain more Coins. An unexciting scene without conflict penalizes the Narrator, since she has no chance to win any game currency. In this sense, a cutoff point is "necessary", both to keep the game from stalling and to drive the Narrators to create conflict in their scenes. The danger of getting cut off must be real. Does this make sense?

-In the context of roleplaying more generally, I'm not convinced that scenes without conflict are always bad. There's been all the discussion of "sequels", for instance, over at Story Games... and in the first playtest we had a great scene that was essentially a dream sequence. We took it to conflict and it felt kind of forced. I think we all would have been happy just to say "cut".

I think that ideally every scene (or at least the vast majority of scenes) in this game will end in conflict. But for those two reasons, I included an option for ending a scene without going to the cards. We had problems in the two previous playtests without that option.

Per and Gregor: Do you think that, with a little more gameplay, we would have "found our groove", or do you think something was seriously awry to such an extent that this problem might have kept cropping up?

In particular, one aspect of that scene which comes to mind is: The Protagonist was the character who was in power in this scene, by pretty much any definition, he held the reins. At some level, it felt like he was bound to get what he wanted one way or another. Does that make it harder to "spot" conflict?

...

No one else has commented to answer my more general questions, which is kind of disappointing. Maybe I should ask again:

What other games deal with this issue? ("This issue" = the timing of game mechanics within the narration of a conflict) Are there any designs out there that have interesting properties in terms of this question? Any more relevant APs?

Best,

Paul

Hi Paul

Yes, I think we would have found our groove, because, hey, it was obvious there was a disconnect in those scenes where it fell down. Being reasonable people we have discussed why that was so. If it weren't for the fact we're on different continents we could happily have continued play and been aware of the need for communicating when we all think a conflict has been reached ("Hey, call it!" say the participants), or not ("Go on, more!" says the observer).

However, what we've discovered you should make people reading the rules aware of. Just so they don't have to find it out for themselves too much. After all we've done the work they should share in the acquired wisdom.

I really think that a scene should have conflict. And as I recall it's not necessarily the player with the player character who's scene it is, right? I mean, on my turn I can either choose to play and pick a GM, or choose to GM for another player. That's right isn't it? So, I'm a bit fuzzy on what that does to the economy of these coins. If I choose to GM (to get coins, right?) and I don't get a conflict I'm a bit pissed.

For really driving the fiction I think a conflict is good, otherwise we're just throwing colour out there and where do we call the scene? And getting to a conflict has the coolest things in Land of Nodd: Goals and Risks. They were the bit I really liked. Someone says: Oh, I want this, and then we're saying ...but the risk is this or that. Pick your poison.

Finding conflict is pretty subjective to me. My mind is abuzz with a hundred things that we could conflict over in any one of those scenes, and I guess the observer is trying to pick a meaningful and interesting one, really. That's not always the case, but at least they can try.

I would recommend you pick up 1001 Nights, Paul.

And to agree with Paul's question: What other games deal with this issue? ("This issue" = the timing of game mechanics within the narration of a conflict) Are there any designs out there that have interesting properties in terms of this question? Any more relevant APs?

Gregor,

In reverse order:

I've never played 1,001 Nights, but I am aware of it, as well as the "question" mechanic, which is brilliant. I am not keen on including it as an option for the observer, since it cuts the Protagonist out of the process altogether--in that case, the observer and the Narrator would have pretty much full control over what happens. I think leaving the naming of the Goal in the Protagonist's hands is really important.

Is there some other aspect of 1,001 Nights that's relevant to this game? Let me know!

(Sidenote for Gregor: However, I am considering using the "questions" format for the Desires--either allowing players to have more than one at a time, or allowing players to name the other characters' Desires, or something like that. I totally agree with you about Desires needing more of a mechanical angle. I'm just waiting for more playtesting to see which direction to take that in. Since I only get to playtest maybe twice a year, my process is really slow!)

You're absolutely right about the Goals and Risks being the heart of the game--there's very little to the game at all, and they are the fun part. The way I've seen the game go so far is kind of like this:

-The Narrator throws some situation at the Protagonist.
-The Protagonist struggles, picking something to fight for.
-A story contest is called for, and suddenly things spiral wildly out of the Narrator's control and the Protagonist is faced with some tough choices.

I really like this aspect of the game.

In the original write-up, a scene simply did not end until a contest was called. Ever. The problem with that was: it meant the most boring scenes were the longest ones, and would take up the most game time.

As the system is written right now, everyone is encouraged to get to the conflict. If they do, we get the fun "story contest" action, and everyone wins--the Protagonist gets a chance to get what they want, and the observer and Narrator most likely win some Coins. However, there's an option to end scenes without conflict. This is so that play doesn't stall; it serves mainly to cut out boring play and penalizes the Narrator (and everyone) for creating that boring play in the first place. It's my hope that this mechanic would "train" a group over time to get rid of boring scenes altogether. I have yet to see whether that works, though.

You're absolutely right about one thing: the game and the text need to address the issue we came across. Esentially, the system rewards everyone when there's hot conflict (unless I've missed something, which is possible!). So, it should gravitate towards that as often as possible, and everyone wins when that's happening. So far, so good. All the players' play goals are aligned.

However, I hadn't considered the issue of _skill_. (That's not quite the right word, but I hope you understand what I mean:) There we were, playing, and I wanted to call the conflict just as much as you did, but I just didn't quite get what was going on and before I could you two had wrapped it up. I'm not sure I've made this clear before, so if I haven't, this is important and I don't how or why I left it out: in that scene, I was just lost in the fiction you were narrating. I couldn't quite follow what was going on--Emile was a spy, and he almost got caught, and now he's interrogating this guy? Huh? Why? What's going on?

Maybe I should have waved a hand and asked, out-of-game? Not sure.

Anyway, is there some advice or rule in there that should be put in? Or does the game text already cover this? Several things Per has written suggest that he may feel the game text, if followed, already wouldn't lead to such a situation. (If you're going to take a look, it's basically the last two pages of the document, as well as the footnote on the previous page, "Advice for Protagonist Players".)

I think the text already says this, but should I make it explicit a la Vincent Baker ("Say no until you roll the dice")? Or is this an issue that wouldn't be covered by that advice?

(Another side-note: As the number of players increases, this problem practically disappears, since whoever calls it fastest gets it. With three players, though, it's up to one participant. But even in the playtest with )

Per and Gregor,

A couple more questions:

1. Do you think that the power dynamic presented in the "torture" scene might be responsible for some of the "murkiness"? I mean, as an observer, there I was waiting for the Narrator to throw some adversity at the Protagonist, but he had actually put the Protagonist in a position of power! When the Protagonist has pretty much full control of what's going on, it's hard to locate adversity. In many ways, I was expecting Fellini to blurt out some terribe truth or threaten to blackmail Emile, or may for ninjas to burst through the door. :)

2. What sort of advice or wisdom can we distill from this hiccup we experienced in our game? I'd be tempted to write that "you should call for conflict even if you're unsure of what's going on--the mechanics will clarify things"... but that actually seems like bad advice in some ways. In particular, I'm the only player in all playtest thus far who waited too long. Most of the time, people call for it too early (particularly if there is more than one observer in a scene). That's what made me start thinking about this being an issue of game style in the first place.

And, of course, the questions about 1,001 Nights as well as any other games that deal with these issues are still out there.

Thank you for all the feedback thus far!

Best,

Paul

Oh, point 2. Yes! If you're unsure call for a conflict becuase the mechanics are going to set a Goal, Risks and all that stuff.

I am really agreeing with everything in your post just prior to that last one too.

How I saw "Emile was a spy, and he almost got caught, and now he's interrogating this guy?" was that last time we saw Emile he was in Berlin fleeing (successfully) so ... Bang! He's back in France and interrogating Fellini to see where his bible went. And we know, wink, that your character stole it from Fellini as a goal. I figured it probably got to Fellini somehow. No idea how, just let's run with it.

Actually, I really recommend Graham Walmsley's book Play Unsafe. Its advice is just the sort of thing needed for players of Land of Nodd. I'm sure you could mine it for some really great player advice.

Anyway, it was interesting in that the player is normally under the yoke of the GM, right. But the interesting thing in that scene with Emile was that he appeared to have the power, but he doesn't really. Sure, he wasn't getting anything out of Fellini unless I said yes (perhaps I should have stuck to No!). Anyway, the point being he can't force me (the GM) to yield in any way. He has to have a conflict to do that. The advice I would have for the observers is that they must bear that in mind. Whether the GM gives the player high or low status, whether they get something or not comes out of a contest. So, call it when you see one you like.

I think your world generation stuff is bang on and the conflict stuff and economy seems fine. I'm glad to see you keeping on with developing this.

I guess the issue we had was not knowing each others preferences for calling a contest, and we had found that by the end of the game session.

Hi,

There's a GM and an 'observer' who calls for conflict rules? No one else can initiate a conflict unless they get the observers agreement to start a conflict?

That contradicts itself - to start a conflict is to disagree someone should just get something. In this set up, the player is saying 'I disagree - if you (the observer) agree with me doing that'. That isn't disagreement. To disagree is to say something like 'Stuff what you all think, I do not agree'. But with this set up its 'I'll only disagree if you do as well, observer'. In that set up, the only person who can actually initiate a conflict is the observer.

From the account it seems the players have intuitively rejected this setup

In those scenes, the two players, seeing that I was hesitating to "call for the conflict", decided that I was uninterested in that conflict, and would move on to developing something else. (This was interesting: there was quite a bit of body language going on, where they would narrate the characters saying or doing something, then glance at me expectantly to gauge my reaction! Unfortunately, at the time, being unsure what that meant, I ignored it, interpreting it as some kind of request for approval from myself as game designer.)

From my perspective, however, it seemed like they were dropping the developing conflicts (or resolving them) before I had a chance to call in the mechanics. I felt like I couldn't really "grab on" to anything--the moment a conflict was starting to get interesting, the two players playing out the scene would "change the subject". The result was a certain deflation of the focus of the scene and the tension of the story.

Hi Callan

You misunderstand. The only person who can call a conflict is the Observer. Period. The player cannot call anything. If there is a disagreement between the GM and the player then it's the GM's call as to what happens next, unless the (one of the) Obsrvers steps in.

Oh, reading my response again it seems slightly pointed. That wasn't my intention, it was just meant to be a clarification, really.

Callan wrote: Basically the players figured out where they disagreed/conflict with each other. They know they are disagreeing now - to emphasize it, they know it's right now. Not latter on, right now.

So they get into resolving it, but then they see your about to swing in with 'conflict initiation' and can see that although one (or both) of them started the arguement and then started to figure out how to resolve it with each other, your going to insist its resolved by your methods. Because they started the dissagreement/conflict, they know how they want to resolve it. And it's not by your method. That's not really by preference, it's by access - they can't initiate conflicts via the systems rules, only the observer can, so they wont use that method cause they can't.

So they resolve the arguement real quick before you can insist on that. Or even drop the arguement without resolving it, because it's better to drop it than resolve it in some way they did not choose.

Right. What Gregor said: Callan's first and third quoted paragraphs are spot-on, but not the second one.

The third paragraph also describes what it felt like for me as the observer, but I'm pretty sure wasn't an intentional tactic on Gregor and Per's part. The mechanics would have rewarded them for going to the conflict resolution--in fact, in this game, it's pretty much the GM/Narrator's goal to get this to happen whenever they narrate a scene.

Basically, this is a content-free post. I just wanted to confirm that Gregor's response is spot-on.

Thanks for the feedback, Callan! Do you have any further observations or questions? Did we answer your post, or did we miss what you were saying?

Best,

Paul

Hi,

For the moment ignoring the motives I suggested, from the account it seems like you can still talk to the observer or atleast look at him pointedly.

I know your saying you wanted to use the mechanics, but its tricky for me because in the account you didn't say 'Hey, come over here observer and start them mechanics' or some less formal version of that. It looks like you didn't want to use them to resolve the conflict, since it would have been relatively easy to call the observer in.

Here's an idea, but the examples odd so it'll probably seem wacky. Imagine the player and GM get into a thumb wrestling competition. Okay, so their thumb wrestling for awhile. And the observer has rules for running a tug of war game he can introduce to play.

A tug of war game isn't going to resolve thumb wrestling. If you guys stopped thumb wrestling and had a tug of war, yeah, the tug of war would get resolved. But the thumb wrestle would have been interupted and more importantly never resolved.

Okay, wacky example over. Would you agree a tug of war cannot resolve a thumb wrestling match? If so, what sort of conflict was brewing between players and GM? Was it different to the observers resolution rules? Perhaps as different as thumb wrestling is to a tug of war game?

Anyway, that makes sense to me. It's probably not terribly well written, though.

Callan,

I'm not sure I fully understand your point, so if I missed it, let me know.

That said, I don't think your thumb-war analogy is really applicable. There is no "thumb-war" between the Narrator and the Protagonist, because they aren't on even footing. The Narrator has pretty much total power to walk all over the Protagonist, so there isn't any real contest going on, and certainly not any sort of contest that either player would want to return to and resolve.

Does that make sense to you?

Paul

Gah, now I'll know I'll lose you, cause I'm gunna rant for a second 'It doesn't have to be balanced to be competition'.

But I'll step back abit - instead of a thumb wrestling, think of haggling. Think of the narrator and the protagonist haggling with each other. Now, unless the protagonist player is being held there by gun point, he can stop haggling and just leave play, right? That means the narrator isn't in any supreme power position during this haggling.

Lets look at what Gregor said...

Gregor wrote: I guess Per and I found our feet with each other quickly and gleefully rattled through the back and forth of a rising conflict quicker than Paul had antiicipated.

OK.  What I see is a game design that looks like it is designed to keep the Observer interested when they're not in play.  And if the Reward for the Observer is that they might get a few Coins out of the Mechanics... then they're only going to activate Mechanics when they feel that the Players are willing to risk their Currency to get their Goal. Maybe you didn't play this way, but that's the behavior that your design enforces.

For the players, you've made their ability to narrate things very complicated.
"Say 'yes' or roll the dice" turns into :
"Say 'yes', or say 'but...' and hope the Observer decides to activate the mechanics."

I would add a mechanic where in order to say something challenging that might be a conflict, Player 1 must risk a coin.  Player 2 can choose to accept the coin, and go along with it, or not.  Player 2 can then offer a coin to state something challenging, and player 1 can accept it, or not. 
Accepting the coin means "saying yes."  If the coins aren't accepted, they go into a pile.  This pile is how the Observer can measure how involved the two people are.  Once the Observer calls for Mechanics, the pot is split between the Observer and the "attacker". That gives each Player incentives in the Mechanics:

The Observer wants the tension to build.  He wants the Players to challenge each other, and put more coins into the pot.

Player 1 wants to make challenges to Player 2. 
  If Player 2 accepts the coin, then he gets what he wants. 
  If Player 2 rejects the coin, there's a chance that the Observer will call for Mechanics,
          and Player 1 will get to split the pot with the Observer. 
  If Player 2 challenges him, then he can :
    Accept the coin, and go along with it.  He is rewarded with a coin, which he can use himself later.
    Not accept the coin, and risk the Observer will call "Mechanics!"  Player 2's challenge stands, and is not resolved.

(Player 2, of course, wants exactly what Player 1 wants, except reversed)

How does Player 1 avoid losing his coins in the pot?  By immediately making a Proposal of his own!

This drives each player to challenge each other, and keeps the Observer involved.  What do people think?

Callan,

I agree that competition doesn't have to be equal to be competition. But some shared arena must exist for the competition to be at all meaningful. As a healthy adult human, I cannot have a meaningfully competitive race with a 2-year old, for example.

In this game, the Narrator effectively has total power over the Protagonist, just like a GM does in a traditional RPG. While the Protagonist's player can decide what actions he would like to take, it is the Narrator who decides how those actions turn out.

So, if your 'haggling' analogy is referring to the two players at the table, then no, the Protagonist player does not necessarily have the option to "step out". (Yes, he can quit the game altogether, but I hope that's not what you meant.)

I think that Per and Gregor started a back-and-forth and a conflict because that was what they were supposed to do in the game. As they've stated, however, they both wanted to go to the mechanics to resolve the conflict.

Then again, perhaps I'm just not getting what you're saying.

Best,

Paul

Fred,

Thanks for the feedback! I'll address your points about the game as-is first.

FredGarber wrote:
OK.  What I see is a game design that looks like it is designed to keep the Observer interested when they're not in play.  And if the Reward for the Observer is that they might get a few Coins out of the Mechanics... then they're only going to activate Mechanics when they feel that the Players are willing to risk their Currency to get their Goal. Maybe you didn't play this way, but that's the behavior that your design enforces.

For the players, you've made their ability to narrate things very complicated.
"Say 'yes' or roll the dice" turns into :
"Say 'yes', or say 'but...' and hope the Observer decides to activate the mechanics."

Hi Paul,

Pretty much what you said

I think that Per and Gregor started a back-and-forth and a conflict because that was what they were supposed to do in the game. As they've stated, however, they both wanted to go to the mechanics to resolve the conflict.

So, if your 'haggling' analogy is referring to the two players at the table, then no, the Protagonist player does not necessarily have the option to "step out". (Yes, he can quit the game altogether, but I hope that's not what you meant.)

"Say no until you roll the dice."

Callan,

OK! That's good, I suppose. I still don't understand your "hard question", but maybe it's just better to let it lie.

As for leaving the game, no, it's not really something I'm interested in considering in terms of game design. I'm interested only in what happens when people stay in the game.

As for "say no until you roll the dice", I can try to explain. The phrase is a little misleading, because it's a generalization as opposed to a hard-and-fast rule, and because it doesn't specify who the "you" is targeted towards.

The GM/Narrator in Land of Nodd _can_ say 'yes', but is most effective when saying 'no'. Basically, you can say 'yes' a few times, until you've got the situation you want set up, and then you keep saying 'no', until the observers decide to roll the dice.

So, you can say 'yes' sometimes, but in terms of the meat of gameplay, the GM/Narrator should be saying 'no'. If you are making 'yes' responses, it should only be to lead to setting up an upcoming 'no' statement. Once the GM/Narrator is saying 'no' consistently, we wait for the observer(s) to 'roll the dice'.

Does that explain it?

Paul

For the phrase "Say Yes or Roll the Dice," the person who is agreeing or rolling is the person who has been challenged.  The key to the concept is that if another player adds to the scene in a way you disagree with, you have two options: Agree to the change, or use the game mechanics to resist.  It's supposed to stop players arguing about things without engaging in the mechanics of play (which is a common problem)

I don't want to get too much into a mechanical discussion in About Play, because, well, it makes the thread no longer "About Play" :)
I didn't realize Player 1 and 2 have different roles.  One is the Protagonist, and one is the Narrator?  And the Narrator's job is to say "no" to the Protagonist with challenges, until the Observer notices that the Protagonist is engaged and calls "Roll the Dice?"  The next scene, players change roles, right?

So a madeup Transcript might be :
Protag: I want to get in the room with the secret maps.
Narrator: The door's locked.
Protag: I force it.
Narrator: It makes some noise
Protag.  I accept that, and kick in the door.  What's in the room?
(Observer has missed a chance to call Mechanics. The Protag obviously wasn't too concerned with sneaking in the door.)
Narrator: A young girl, in a tattered burlap dress.  She's chained to the floor, asleep.
Protag:  But they're supposed to be here...  Oh.  I look at the girl's back.
Narrator: You see the maps, tatooed on her back. She wakes up and says "Rescue me, please."
Protag: I pretend not to speak English, and copy her maps into my notebook.
Narrator: She is pleading with you, and says her older brother will reward you.
Protag: Still copying...
Narrator: She mentions her older brother's name.  It's your boss.
Protag: Drat. I keep my head down, so she doesn't see the tear as I turn to leave.
(the Observer thinks that "Do you rescue the girl or not" is a sufficient challenge that the Protag may want to spend coins.)
Observer: Roll the Dice! Do you rescue the girl or not!

Does this seem likely? 

Paul wrote: OK! That's good, I suppose. I still don't understand your "hard question", but maybe it's just better to let it lie.

As for leaving the game, no, it's not really something I'm interested in considering in terms of game design. I'm interested only in what happens when people stay in the game.

*snip*
So, you can say 'yes' sometimes, but in terms of the meat of gameplay, the GM/Narrator should be saying 'no'. If you are making 'yes' responses, it should only be to lead to setting up an upcoming 'no' statement. Once the GM/Narrator is saying 'no' consistently, we wait for the observer(s) to 'roll the dice'.

Does that explain it?

Callan,

OK, I follow you in terms of the whole "if play sucks people will stop playing" angle. I don't understand why you brought it up here, or what you want me to take from it, however.

As for...

Callan wrote:
I think I understand it now. But...to me, it's kind of 'say yes, or the observer rolls dice'.

Fred,

I'm not sure where you're going with your example, but... it's close to what happens in this game, but not quite there. You see, the observer does not decide what the conflict is about. The Narrator and Protagonist do. The observer merely says, "ok! Enough! Roll the dice already!"

Part of what is being explored in this thread is whether this is a bad design. My own so far is that it doesn't seem to be... but there was this one hickup (described in this thread), and I'll be looking forward to more playtesting, which may or may not reveal a serious problem.

One possible different design that comes to mind as a combination of your suggestion and Per and Gregor's suggestions would be this mechanic:

-During a scene, an observer may suggest a point of contention for the Protagonist. (e.g. "Can you turn your back on this girl?")
-To do so, the observer slides forward one Coin.
-If the Protagonist is willing to fight for this goal, he says so, and we go to a contest, as written in the rules with the point of contention becoming the "Goal".
-If the Protagonist refuses, the Coin stays in the middle of the table, and will be added to the "stake" of the eventual conflict. (If one never materializes, I'd be tempted to say that the Protagonist gets this Coin.)

Now, here's the catch: if the Protagonist refuses, they immediately and irrevocably lose that point of contention. In this case, the Protagonist would have to agree to rescue the girl if he wanted to avoid a contest.

This is interesting, but might be a little too intensive for this game. The Protagonist player already gets into serious pain and trouble in every scene as written (unless he is very, very lucky), and this would push the game into nose-bleed pain territory. (An RPG for masochists, perhaps?) Worse, in addition to all the pain, this would remove the Protagonist's only input into the fiction.

Additionally, I suspect this would make it harder to come up with Risks.

But interesting, anyway.

Paul

OK.  I read the rules, linked through Gregor's AP, so I have a better understanding. (and I'll use your pronoun conventions, too). Please ignore my previous example.

I think Paul, as Observer, was too forgiving.  If the Protagonist and the Narrator aren't giving you exciting conflicts, withdraw your Stake Coin.  As soon as the Observers do that, that turn ends, right? The Protagonist doesn't get the chance to move towards their Goal, and the Narrator doesn't get the chance to win Coins.  And then you say "That wasn't exciting enough."  The next go-around, the two are more aware that you are watching for higher stakes conflict.

Also, Per and Gregor they weren't using the rules.  If they found themselves in a conflict that really was interesting and had value to them, then they don't need to indicate it with subtle body language. The Protagonist can say "Gee, I wish some Observer would call for a story mechanic." 

All told, Paul, I think you had your Designer hat on, and not your Player hat on. 

But this has been a very interesting thread of a method to keep players engaged in play even if their characters aren't involved in conflict.

Hey Paul, as someone who's spent a bunch of hours designing gamist and gamist-esque mechanics...here's where I think the weak point in your design is.

The currency mechanic earns the Observer resources if he accurately predicts the protagonists interest in the conflict.
But it also penalizes the Observer for getting it wrong.

This by itself is not a problem, but on top of this you want the Observer to call the conflict at the right time narratively as well.  I think that's a pretty tall order, and I wonder if the success you've seen with the mechanic so far is primarily due to you and your playtesters being on the same "timing wavelength".  My gut reaction reading this thread is that your Scottish experience would be the more normal save with groups pretty tightly attuned to each other.

Possible suggestions:

1) eliminate the risk of loss for the Observer.  This would eliminate one potential source of hesitation that could cause the observer to miss the opportunity.  The Observer would still be motivated to not go to conflict frivilously, because they want, after all to gain resources.

2) Incorporate some mechanical signalling by the protagonist and narrator that would cue the Observer.  Not knowing the rules, I don't know what form this might take, but some variation on having the protagonist commit resources (i.e. ante up) before the conflict is called might work.

3) Attack it from the other side:  i.e. tighten up the parameters on what the protagonist and narrator can freeform about.  From your write up I'm reading:  "I as the observer was waiting for the right moment to call for conflict, but the players instead of getting deeper into that conflict were sideslipping into something else and the right moment never came".

Assuming that's accurate...what possibilities are there to just not let them do that?  I'm thinking of the effect Polaris Key Phrases have here.  The Key Phrases pretty much keep the narration focused on the "thing we're on about" and forces on going escalation of that "thing"

Consider:  "I'm doing X", "but only if Y", "But only if Z", "and further more A", "But only if B" until finally the "thing" is just so BIG that someone can't handle it and uses one of the "out phrases" like taking it to a die roll.

I'm not saying to use the key phrases, but what if the narrating players were constrained in some fashion so that their back and forth narration required going deeper on the "thing" rather than skipping over to a different "thing".  That would seem far more likely to reach a point where the moment of conflict becomes clear, and well built up.

Ralph and Fred,

Thank you for the input! You've given me so stuff to think about.

Also, I'll get back to you again when I next have a chance--things are hectic right now (holidays coming), so I might be away from the internets for long periods over the next two weeks. In the meantime, please don't take my silence in any negative way!

Fred-

You're right on with the "too forgiving" comment... except for that one problematic scene. See, it was an interesting scene. It's just that by the time I'd figured out what was going on, the other two players had already had enough and moved on.

More below...

Ralph-

I have a few questions about your first suggestion. Namely, does it change things at all if the risk of loss for the Observer is really, really low?

Secondly, in terms of the "same wavelength" issue, this is where I find it gets interesting. I haven't playtested this game a whole lot (sadly), but each time has been with different people and each group was from a very different background. All three groups were people who did not regularly play together.

Whenever the observers called for the mechanics too early or misjudged in one direction, things went well. We did have some scenes which had no conflict and so no "dice", which was also fine. However, in this one instance, this one scene, I didn't jump in quickly enough, and the players moved on, which felt a little.. unsatisfying for everybody (I'll refrain from using Per's slightly more explicit analogy). That timing issue is what brought me to post this thread. I'd love to have some more discussion of the issue.

For instance, is it possible to keep a conflict "going" for a long time, without mechanical support? Or does that break down after a while? (In the context of this game, "a long time" doesn't have to be very long, but for people like myself who are either a little sllloooowww or just want to see things simmer a little more, it should be more than a few lines of dialogue.)

Finally, I might as well post a link to the rules here:

http://ihousenews.pbwiki.com/f/Land+of+Nodd.pdf

(If anyone wants to play this game, please do, and let me know how it went. It's easy and fun. It's not as innovative as I thought when I wrote it--I've since seen some of the games developed here--but still kind of neat.)

For those of you who have the time to read a couple of pages, scroll down to the last bit, "Advice for Narrators". Do you think the advice there would help prevent this problem in future playtests?

Best,

Paul

Paul wrote:
Ralph-

I have a few questions about your first suggestion. Namely, does it change things at all if the risk of loss for the Observer is really, really low?

Secondly, in terms of the "same wavelength" issue, this is where I find it gets interesting. I haven't playtested this game a whole lot (sadly), but each time has been with different people and each group was from a very different background. All three groups were people who did not regularly play together.

Whenever the observers called for the mechanics too early or misjudged in one direction, things went well. We did have some scenes which had no conflict and so no "dice", which was also fine. However, in this one instance, this one scene, I didn't jump in quickly enough, and the players moved on, which felt a little.. unsatisfying for everybody (I'll refrain from using Per's slightly more explicit analogy). That timing issue is what brought me to post this thread. I'd love to have some more discussion of the issue.

Ralph,

As far as the "opportunity loss" for the observer goes, you're right, of course. Either it's a factor, or it's not.

And my design goal IS that the player consider it from a "game" perspective... however, the idea is that the most advantageous move for that player is one and the same as the best moment in the story for the other players.

Is that an impossible goal? It seems to have worked pretty well most of the time so far, but there hasn't been all that much playtesting yet. In particular, all the games have been too short to get into the meat of the game--not only the whole converging plotlines thing, but also the idea that playing this game, the players all settle into the same groove, since everyone reaps the biggest in-game rewards when the story is the most engaging.

At least that's the idea--the mechanics "train" the players to learn each other's likes and dislikes.

Finally, it WAS just the one scene, which leads me to hope it was just an isolated incident. However, I was hoping to start discussion about two aspects the incident brought up:

1. Does my "Narrator advice" sound like it would help groups avoid such scenes? (I haven't yet added Gregor's suggested advice from this thread.)

2. The whole issue of the timing of mechanics relative to the narration of a conflict. I was wondering whether this is an issue that's been discussed by any theoryheads, and whether anything came of it--for instance, games or AP reports that deal directly with that issue.

Best,

Paul