Well what do you mean by conflict resolution Joe?

I think of a mechanic that resolves the entirety of a conflict, whether its a fight or whatever, in a roll as conflict resolution. Dogs in the Vineyard uses conflict resolution.

Task resolution is the other end of the scale, where a conflict is broken up into several tasks, be they rounds or turns or whatever. I think you'd describe Burning Wheel/Empires as using task resolution, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

I don't think it's bollocks - it worked very well for us in Cold City on sunday night. Six Bullets uses it too, although I have played a game where its turned into task resolution. There's a place for both though. Task resolution tends to create more detail, more close-up and personal and more granular games. COnflict resolution is a lot broader, and tends to create more narrative, sweeping games. YMMV of course.

I'll have a better think though and make a more convincing argument!

Joe,

Are you seriously telling me that you don't see the mechanics for Brawl, Work and Connection scenes in Contenders as Conflict Resolution?

They have explicit stakes rather than player set ones (which is what's so fucking cool about the way they work) but it's very much Conflict Resolution.

Edit for clarity: pretty much what Andrew said of definition. Conflict resolution is where the mechanics concern themselves with conflicts, rather than tasks.

So a Conflict Resolution system asks the question "Do I defeat my enemy in this fight?" whereas a Task Resolution system asks the question "Did my foot hit his face? If so, how much did it hurt?"

Part of the issue is that lots of folks have drifted into using conflict res quite happily on their own. Generally as an antidote to the "roll until you fail" school of GMing, or as what they consider "good roleplaying" to be. Some haven't, or apply it inconsistently (and then likely claim they are consistent). Some use subtle cues to judge when and what people really want.

The thing about conflict res is that it's explicit in the game text about first setting the goal, and then not allowing player intent to be subverted by the GM after the fact.

Contrast that with GM techniques chapters in certain games which are all about "roll the dice and then decide what happens anyway".

-Matt

Realms Publishing

I invoke Vincent, scroll down a few topics to Conflict Resolution versus Task Resolution.

Personally, I see a lot of Task Resolution (and its required leaning on GMs, or a player with authority) masquerading as Conflict Resolution.

Rich, I'd call the Contenders mechanics scene resolution rather than conflict resolution. Although the scenes are structed around a central conflict.

Though this entire thread may be an argument about semantics...

I think the problem I've had with conflict res is who gets to set what is and isn't a conflict and what they can or can't ask for. I've found it does kill immersion a bit. Most people I play with are more traditional gamers and I don't know how to even begin to explain it to them.

So to clarify, conflict res is more useful if you're pursuing a narrative oriented agenda and want to get to plot points quickly?

The problem I've had with say Shock was that none of the conflicts seemed to really matter and it was mechanically beneficial to fail. Are you suppsed to set stakes your PC wants or that you want as a player?

DitV is very unusual, it seems like you set the stakes and the conflict but then resolve it task by task to determine the outcome and fallout etc.

Maybe I should have asked whether conflict res as a term is bollocks!

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JoE
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Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

And you have conflict resolution right there :)
Contenders (and PTA and Dogs) are the most clear cases of pure CR, IMO.

What is it you have against the term exactly, Joe?

The point is that CR always moves the story along, while TR doesn't necessarily do that.

That the conflicts didn't matter in our Shock game all comes down to ourselves - not CR as such. We set up too uniteresting conflicts, and we were therefore not very interested in them.

Per

My personal opinion (which I know a lot of people don't agree with) is that yes, stopping the narrative to set stakes for a conflict does break character stance immersion. Players have to go from the point of view of "being" their characters (the type immersion that a lot of people play RPGs for) to "being" the one of the authors of the story. This is jarring for a lot of people and yeah, it'll kill character stance immersion because it's literally asking them to remove themselves from that POV.

That's never really bothered me to be honest. But then I'm not really into character stance play, I'm much more into author/audience stuff.

On a personal note, I think the whole "character stance immersion" is a bogus cop-out vs. conflict resolution. But that's just me :)

Bringing stakes into this discussion might confuse it more than help, I feel. Setting stakes is not a prerequisite for CR. In Sorcerer, fx, players declare their characters' intentions and the systemt clicks in to help determine the outcome.

Misuse of stakes sometimes pre-set the outcome of a conflict, which is totally contrary to CR. I think we might have done that in Shock. Ron E says about Shock in particular:

"..don't pre-narrate outcomes, prior to the roll. All you need is the information that you utilized to establish the conflict in the first place. Don't "set stakes," which has hideously evolved into a stupid, abstract, no-fun exercise. Before rolling, don't talk about how the roll will determine how a given character will feel about the outcome. Don't bring in stuff like "well, then, if I win, then the villain is your mother."
Per

darkplaces.squarespace.com

I'm even more confused noe - so character/player intent does not matter in CR?

Players just need to state that there is a conflict to be resolved (which I'm still hazy as how you get there).

And I still don't see how DiTV is CR, surely it's just a funky way of doing task resolution?

I'm hearing that the Forgian mindset decrees anything that isn't traditional task resolution to be conflict resolution by default, is this right?

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JoE
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Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

I think the problem you're having here is the way that Dogs breaks down a conflict into chunks. Those chunks aren't the same as combat rounds or individual actions (or tasks).

For example, the last time I played DitV, there was a conflict between my character and another PC. We were both trying to conduct a ritual, my goal was to absolve a woman of her sins, and James' character wanted to damn her to hell. So we get into this massive conflict that lasted for a whole bunch of raise/see turns. A typical one was James' character deciding to know my character's bible out of his hands. So James makes the raise and says, "I knock the bible out of your hands". The mechanics don't determine whether he succeeds and fails in knocking the bible to the ground, the mechanics don't care. They determine whether or not knocking the bible out of my hands gets James nearer to winning the conflict, or me.

Contrast that to a regular task resolution system. Say you're (for whatever reason) running the same scenario using Storyteller or whatever. James wants to knock the bible out of my hands. When his initiative slot comes up, he says that's what he wants to do it and the GM decides that James and I make an opposed Strength roll. If I win, I keep hold of the bible, if James wins, I don't. The mechanics determine whether James succeeds in his task. They do not care whether this action gets James or I closer to our goal, and the fate of this woman's soul will be determined in a roundabout way by a bunch of these task checks: Do I lose the bible? Does losing the +2 that gives make the difference to the overall ritual? Do I hit him when I try to whack him with my gun-butt? If so, does the penalty he gains for the injury mean I succeed? Etc Etc.

Joe, the term was pretty much coined to differentiate between traditional task-based res and this other thing. So by definition, there's task res and conflict res.

At its rawest form it's about communication of what we're invoking mechanics to decide.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

I feel that with task resolution players attempt to do "things" (i.e. tasks), but what they really want are outcomes.

In, say, Call of Cthulhu, my character is rooting through someone's hotel room. I get a Listen roll (a task) which I pass, and the GM says "OK, someone is coming" (didn't tell me who,or maybe did, but that's the GM's call). I then might say "hide in the cupboard" which is a task (and no doubt I would get a "Hide" roll, or a flat "there is no cupboard from the GM"), but the outcome I want is "root about their room and not be discovered".

I punch the intruder, but I probably want to knock him out or beat him up so I can escape, etc.

Can we work through an example, maybe? I guess these things off the top of my head are a bit hand wavy.

Re: Stakes, etc. I agree with Per, can we leave them out?

As I understand it, and as Vincent points out, is that Task resolution is about

what

you are doing and Conflict Resolution is about

why

you are doing it.

Also task resolution tends to give the GM authorship over the result whereas conflict reolution allows the players to better define what they want from the outcome of a given action.

Conflict resolution I think, is basically task resolution with the authorship of the outcome changed. Would that be fair?

If this is the case, which I think it is, then all GMful games, or whatever the hell you want to call them, have conflict resolution when they give complete authorship of a task over to the player.

In something like polaris, where antagonist and protagonist change, then it would be possible to have a task resolution situation occur and the 'win but lose' scenario happens.

Does that seem correct that this is bascially a case of who gets authorship of the outcome?

Cheers

Iain

Lead Developer Mob Justice RPG

Check out my home brew games like 'Reel Adventures'

Hi Iain

My understanding is that with Task Resolution the GM absolutely has authorship of the outcome of the conflict.

The outcome of the task is (commonly) determined by your PC's stats/skills and a roll of the dice, maybe even by the player spending a Spiffy Point (karma, Fate, whatever). But whether the task succeeds or fails, the actual conflict at hand is in the hands of the GM.

You're fighting the Big Boss. As a PC you are nails: deadly weapons, finest fighter in the game, the works. Well, the GM rolls some dice, you roll some dice. Damage is dealt, wounds taken, and in the end you prevail. You have won a repeated bunch of tasks and so we could assume that you won the conflict too, right? Not so. Whether you have defeated the Big Boss, that's up to the GM. After all the GM just has to say "Oh, that wasn't the real boss."

And conversely the Boss could win and the GM fudges it so that you actually win the conflict. Really, you're just following the story authorship of the GM here.

Of course, it is possible the GM agrees with the outcomes of tasks and your wishes with what that means for the underpinning conflicts, but that's the GM's call. The GM has veto/authorship privelege on it.

With conflict resolution, whether you win or lose at tasks is up for debate, but we are going to roll the dice and allow them to guide the resolution of the conflict and we all abide by that resolution.

Aha, so 'conflict resolution' isn't about resolving conflicts, it's about eliminating GM fiat with regard to player goals. Hence bollox.

I've got things clearer in my head a 'task' is a little story chunk a 'conflict' is a big story chunk. A 'scene' is a discrete episode in the story (which may include multiple conflicts/tasks).

You could have a task based system but if the player wins narrative authority then it's 'conflict resolution' despite resolving tasks.

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JoE
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Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

To be honest I don't think this really matters that much. This is about defining things after the fact. If I am designing a mechanic and it turns out to be conlfict resolution as oppose to task resolution it does not matter a jot, as long as the mechanic does what I intended it to.

Although I have contributed to this debate, in restrsopect I dont think it matters a bit.

Cheers

Iain

Lead Developer Mob Justice RPG

Check out my home brew games like 'Reel Adventures'

Well, I don't agree that "Tasks" [less than] "Conflicts" [less than] "Scenes" in terms of scale.

I think that "Tasks" and "Conflicts" are different beasts in nature (one is concerned with resolving detail and the other direction), but both can have any scale really. They are neither smaller or larger in themselves, that is determined by the scale you put to them.

Examples:
Task Resolution: Wilderness Survival roll could be one roll and a large scale task (you escape the jungle) or you could roll many times as each tasks is smaller in scale (find water, work out that plant is poisonous, find somewhere safe to sleep tonight, find way out of this valley, etc.).

Conflict Resolution: Could be large scale or small scale depending on how you frame the conflict.

The other point I wondered about is can GM's deny Conflict Resolution outcomes in the way they deny Task Resolution outcomes? That's maybe something that needs challenged? OK, you win the conflict and I immediately reframe a follow up conflict stacked so that my NPCs invalidates that first conflict? Can GM's force the situation to ignore the winner of a conflict (I think the answer may be "yes").

I have to admit that most of the game systems I've written have task resolution at their heart. A number to roll against that gauges a skill or talent -- there's a task, we roll for it and see if you succeed or fail. But it seems disconnected. The first patch on to simple task resolution was when games started having opposed task rolls I think.

Edited: to put words [less than] in place of the angular bracket that upsets the forum!

Iain:
I disagree about just designing and then afterwards figuring out what it is. I prefer to think that if I'm aware of fundamental stuff underneath the system then I should think about it and design it purposefully one way or the other. Though each to his own.

JoE:
I figure that in Task Resolution there are rules that explicitly resolving the tasks, but the authority to resolve the underlying conflict is in the hands of the GM.

In Conflict Resolution the underlying conflict is explicitly being resolved by the system, the tasks that are performed to get there are left in the hands of the person(s) with narration.

A lot of the time I would agree with you gregor but here I must differ. I think the difference between conflict and task resolution is so slight, and as we are seeing here, a matter of perception that it makes little difference to the design of a mechanic.

I can't envision at any point the difference between conflict and task resolution changing the way I might design something. To me a mechanic is designed to do a certain thing. If it then happens to drop into a particular category of theory then it does not change the mechanic I have just designed.

I was going to give an example but that would also be pointless as it was going to be for MJ. I realised I cannot say that this conversation would absolutely not have influenced design deciscions in that game.

Thinking of Stitch, and some other projects I am working on, I cannot see how I can apply these differences in definition to those games. I will design a mechanic I think works, test it, refine it, wash, rinse and repeat, until I am satisified.

Knowing about GNS and the different types of players can help design more focused games, I am hesitant to use the word better. Knowing how to playtest properly and polish well can make games play better. Learning and understanding layout and clarity of presentation can increase accesibility.

Knowing the difference between conflict and task resolution I really dont see affecting me, but others may see differently and I am willing to change my mind if someone can convince me these terms are more than merely an analytical tool.

Cheers

Iain

Lead Developer Mob Justice RPG

Check out my home brew games like 'Reel Adventures'

JoE:
Sleeping in it I could envisage a game where task resolution was used in a moment-to-moment way within a larger scale conflict resolution system, which would fit your thinking.

The reason that I favour having an explicit way of a resolving the conflicts is that it is the conflicts that make a meaningful game.

Iain:
Fair enough.

Sorry, guys, but I have been mulling over this, partly due to my deteriorated brain, and partly due to not getting why Joe is so pissed on CR.

I hear Joe saying something dangerously close to: "Now, I tried to bang these nails in with a screwdriver. Screwdrivers are bollocks!"

Maybe I get it wrong?

Contenders would, to me, be an exemplary model of applied CR in games (together with its inspiration MLWM and PrimeTime Adventures). I'm confused. Was that on purpose, or didn't it quite turn out as you had anticipated, Joe? I'm sure we played it more or less as written (Malc, Joe M or Iain can confirm hopefully).

Apart from what Gregor said above, CR is about the story, it's moving/changing the story. TR isn't necessarily moving anything, except from testing an in-game causality thingy after which the participants may or may not be wiser as to what happens in the game.

I haven't played with TR for years, and find it near impossible to go back, but there's probably loads of space for new games that utilise it in strange and unforeseen ways. I think Clinton mentioned that he wanted to try that, in a blog post or somewhere else.

Dogs: I'm sure Vincent has written extensively somewhere why Dogs is hardcore CR, and can't be "gamed" at all.

Per

darkplaces.squarespace.com

Well if Vincent is allowed to come up with CR and then say Dogs is hardcore CR. Then I'm allowed to come up with Scene resolution and say Contenders is hardcore SR!

In Scene resolution, each scene moves the story on in a meaningful way, either by incorporating conflict (involving the protagonists) or by setting up something that will be important in the future (training,promotion).

SR is a special case of CR, in which the scope and definition of conflicts are built into the mechanics. There will not be more than one major conflict per scene. Some special extended conflicts, like fights, will be resolved by a series of tasks.

Of course vince may just be covering his ass and saying 'Dogs isn't fun if you game it, because you're not supposed to game it'.

I'm not pissed at CR, I'm just bewildered by some of the terminology. I didn't mean to focus on our recent games, I wanted to be more general.

I think Iain's right - it doesn't matter what you call a mechanic as long as it works!

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JoE
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Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

If we're talking definitions of conflict resolution, then I'd define it as simply this: a mechanic by which a particular challenge is resolved, that uses a structured, turn-based approach in which several rolls or tests or whatever go to make up eventual success or failure, and in which there are at least two opposing sides.

The most obvious example is combat, but it doesn't have to be combat. It could be any form of extended opposed task that is so vital to the continuing story that it should not be allowed to rest on the result of a single roll of the dice.

That's the problem with the RP design field. So many terms, and most of them mean different things to different people.

Ash

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