...give the players something to roll. That is all.

I didn't say anything was arbitrary.

I think players are very purposeful when building characters with abilities, and equally purposeful when using those abilities in game. Similarly GMs are not arbitrary is asking for tasks. They ask for the appropriate task check to be made, and even assign suitably acceptable values of difficulty to the task, often in a consistent and fair way.

But... whether the player gets anything out of the task roll is entirely at the whim of the GM. Most of the time a GM will give them the goodies if they succeed, after all he is entertaining the masses and keeping to his plot. Other times the GM won't punish them for a failed roll, as that too might derail the plot. Whatever you rolled as a player makes a good story but it's the GM that let you have the victory, or not.

But, hey, I can feel myself slipping into a rant about illusionism, story before and GMs turning tricks. So I'll stop.

I hear this a lot and it's still (mostly) untrue.

A GM's absolute power is an illusion. The vast majority of things decided in a game are not decided by the GM alone, although that's the way a lot of game texts present things. Events are in fact decided as the result of negotiation between the GM and the players within whatever framework the mechanics present. That holds true for both Task Resolution systems and Conflict Resolution systems.

Two examples to explain what I mean:

Umlaut uses a pretty explicit Conflict Resolution system. You want to put the smackdown on another players band? You declare a Clash Scene, both players draw cards equal to their Band's current Ego and whoever gets the most black cards gains a point of Fanbase, while whoever gets fewer gains a point of Ego. Whoever has the highest card narrates the details of what happens. There are no arbitrary decisions to be made about the possible outcomes because the system does not allow that. You can't petition the GM for a +1 ambush bonus for jumping them in an alleyway, not can you ever be given a penalty because your band is very drunk when the fight happens.

On Tuesday I ran a Star Wars game using Savage Worlds. In one scene, the PCs (a pair of bounty hunters) were following a guy out of a bar to see where he was going. I said this would require a Notice roll from the players, vs the Stealth skill of the guy they were following. Claire suggested that, in fact, her character's Tracking skill should be used instead. I didn't really need to think about this, it was obvious to me that Claire wanted to use a different skill and that it was very reasonable of her to use Tracking. So we agreed that Tracking could be used instead. Dave, the other players who'd created a character who was basically a murderbot with no Tracking skill still wanted to use Notice, which we agreed was perfectly fine too. I asked if they were trying to be subtle about it and follow him without being spotted. Dave suggested that murderbot wasn't really into subtlety, so no.

They rolled, both beat the guy and they followed him into a alleyway where they saw him mounting his swoop. They confronted him and he panicked and tried to ride the bike past them and out of the alley to escape. Dave decided that his character was going to have none of this and was going to try and knock the dude of his bike with his electrostaff. Another negotiation begins: I suggest that murderbot is basically trying to hit this bloke with a stick, so it's a Fighting roll, just like a normal melee attack. That's opposed by the defender's Parry stat. Murderbot has D10 in Fighting, the guy on the bike is pretty typical and has 5 in Parry. But hitting a guy on a moving bike should be harder I suggest. There aren't any specific rules for knocking a bloke off a moving bike, so Dave suggest that -2 seems about right. The system helps a lot here, doing somethng which is a bit hard is usually -2, while doing something very hard is usually -4. We agree that this should be a bit hard and not very hard, so we give murderbot a -2, meaning he need to roll a 7 or more to hit.

He rolls, he hits. This pleases Dave. I suggest that the guy is knocked off the swoop and Claire suggest that he might not be, or might be seriously injured. Again, since there are no specific rules for this, I suggest that Dave should roll damage as usual and we'll tak the result of that: No damage means the guy doesn't even fall off the bike and rides off, Shaken means he falls off and is winded, but not seriously hurt and wounded means the guy is properly hurt. Everyone agrees to this, but Dave suggests that since the bike is moving towards him at great speed, he ought to get a bonus to his damage roll. Before I can agree to this, Claire pipes up that, honestly, the electrostaff does enough damage already and any bonus will make smearing the guy far too likely. Dave seems happy with that, and I don't really care (I can see murderbot might be pulling this blow in a rare case of kindness) so we apply not bonus damage. Dave rolls damage and it's small surprise to see that the guy is shaken is shaken. He falls from the bike and is winded, but unhurt.

Needless to say, he didn't survive "questioning", but that's another story...

The negotiation process is mostly unwritten and rarely discussed, but it's almost always there. GMs who make arbitrary and unreasonable decisions usually find themselves with either no players, or only with players too tied up in immersion or socially inhibited to comment on the arbitrary unfairness of the GM's decisions. Being a theory monkey, I'm pretty up on social contract stuff and tend to be pretty upfront with players and looking at the way they react when I make a decision too ensure they agree, but you'll find that the majority of GMs too that too.

This is one of the things I'm looking at quite closely for Urban Mythos. I'm actually of the opinion that stuff like that ought to be written more explicitly, because I've never really seen it written up properly in a game text.

...social sanctions and peer pressure affect what the GM will and will not allow. Mess it up and you've got no players, and hence no game. Try and enforce this state of affairs too much in your rules, and you risk making it so structured that it is only suitable for a small number of gaming groups or within a limited range of expression.

Ash

I think it's equally important to note that the rules of your game are just as important a negotiant in either kind of resolution. The GM and player may negotiate over how to apply the rules, but the rules are often pretty explicit about what can and can't happen. Your blow does X damage and is never going to kill your target for instance, even with a bonus.

I think task resolution systems, because they are more fine grained (and in my limited experience, much more endowed with rules!) have much more of this rule input, and it explicitly takes away GM fiat, for good or ill. It is after all the point of a rule system to enforce a consensus of what happens, or how you resolve a situation.

I think 'enforce' is a bit of a strong word, myself. In any RPG I always treat rules as guidelines, and there will almost always be points in any game where those rules simply don't make sense and have to be rewritten on the fly. I've always been more interested in making a good story than enforcing a set of rules, and if those rules are going to get in the way then they are not fulfiling their purpose. If I was to make a definitive statement about what I felt rules systems were for, I'd say they were for resolving disputes between the players of the game and offering inspiration as to what might happen next when those playing aren't too sure.

Ash

Okay, that is a better word than enforce :)

I meant they enforced things when you were in disagreement and have no other way to resolve the dispute. Often though I find a lot of players will go with the letter of the rules even if they don't like the outcome, especially in a big complex rule system like GURPS, because once you start questioning one bit the whole edifice starts to fall apart.

Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually

Yes, I've played in games like that... and usually lasted precisely 30 minutes as a result of my notoriously bad luck with dice rolls hehehe

Ash

Maybe time to start a new thread? Because I think the last handful of posts from Rich, Ash and David were about something more than conflict resolution, and more about roleplaying itself (roleplaying being negotiated fiction) - how stuff gets established in the shared fiction.

I don't think I've used task resolution since 2002 - or maybe I should say I've only used conflict resolution since then. If it's not a conflict (depending on which game) there's no need to resolve it. I still shudder when I think of Spot Hidden or Library Use rolls...brrrrr.

But I agree with Joe, maybe a discussion about what the heck CR is before thowing it out as potential bollocks.

Joe's game Contenders uses CR all the way to resolve scenes fx. You could maybe argue that the individual rounds in fights are TR (not sure), but the whole fight is one extended conflict. Or?

Per
http://darkplaces.squarespace.com

Well I don't mind hiving off to another thread, although I am about to go away for a few days so I won't reply either way, but I am curious as why you hate Task Resolution so much Per? To me how you do something matters as much as what you do. Resolving a conflict (if there is such a thing going on) requires taking actions, which are tasks

And then there are all those tasks which are not conflicts, like how well you use an artisan skill, or how many days it takes to march somewhere, and the like

I don't hate it, really, it just doesn't rock my boat. If it's good for you, then it's good for you.

CR or TR are not "good" or "bad" - they're techniques embedded in the complex thingy we call roleplaying. It doesn't make you a better person/roleplayer/whatever if you use a certain technique, IMO.

There is perhaps a case for saying that tasks can be the smaller components in CR - like in TSOY's Bringing Down the Pain. They can zoom in on situations and make them more tense, elaborate, colourful.

Per
http://darkplaces.squarespace.com

Good write up Rich. I love Savage. Now I love it even more.

You are entirely correct. Personally, I think a good GM comes up with the alternatives 9 times out of 10 in most games. This is usually because he knows the system best, what fits and what works. If players have got a bona fide reason for using something different, then that's all coolio. The danger of saying it in rules is that some players just try and hit their big skill all the time, using it tenuously (same way some people got trait whoring for five minutes while the game sits waiting).

I'd be all for a "GM has the final say" caveat, but this may be the wrong crowd. That's mainly in order to get the game moving and making sure your rules help this. Individual groups could discuss individual merits of various skills / traits all night if that's their bag.

Savage is the perfect example of a traditional game done right.

Word.

Ha, I knew you'd like that! I've actually been referring to it as the Gaz Effect for a while. After what you said a while ago over at Tom's place. (Hope you don't mind)

Sure, you and I know that's a good way to run things, but that's all a bit meta and all a bit woolly and far too hit and miss to be honest. Where did I learn stuff like this? Not from the Savage Worlds rulebook, it's something I know because I've been running and playing RPGs for 20 years or so. I bet you didn't learn to run games like that from reading that book either?

How many times have you sat with a new group or at a con and found that the GM was running one of your favourite games like an utter chimp? Happened to me at Conception, I played in a Savage Worlds game with the worst GM ever*.

The text isn't just there to give you the rules of the game, or the setting, or some nice fluffy fiction which the author wrote because he thought it was cool. It's there to teach you how to run the game. If a game works better when it's played in a certain way, then the book should bloody well say so!

Classic example: I was chatting with a mate of mine about his game. It's very trad, oldschool even, and is to be honest, not really my thing. We were discussing my feelings about it. I pointed out that the system was hella deadly. He said that, yeah, it was, but there were a few tricks and stuff in the rules that meant a good GM could keep players alive in most situations if they wanted to. I asked him if that stuff was explicitly laid out anywhere in the book and he admitted that it wasn't. So, what, I said, you expect the GM to just figure this stuff out for them self? What kind of crappy teaching is that?

* OK, that might be hyperbole, but he managed to run a game with one of my favourite systems and make it suck donkey dong.

Not sure which bit is Gaz Effect, but I’ll just assume it’s a compliment, or at the very least something to be remembered for, like Pyrrhic Victory… :)

You’re right, I’ve “learned” how to play from 25+ years of gaming (fnck me, I’m old) – definitely worth explaining all that cool stuff that “we” know and no-one ever writes down in a game. Absolutely.

As an extension of a previous debate, I think an issue has come for me in playing some games because I then can’t do the things I normally would because I’ve no Plot Tokens left and you need one. Or I have to use one of a dropdown list of traits, when I want to make it up on the spot and get a bonus to whatever an appropriate roll is, yadda yadda. I’ve been in a big fight in SotC and unable to do anything useful because the GM couldn’t find a reasonable way to give me any chips back apparently (can’t remember the proper name).

But as I said originally, I agree it needs spelling out.

Savage is a fantastic system, but its not a complete game in itself.

Gaz

PS Disclaimer! I almost didn’t type this bit because it will only encourage people to look when they might not have done before… but beware I’m fncking brutal over at "Tom’s place" (partly to generate debate) so some comments will undoubtedly ruffle feathers if my views on a specific game or two are read. Its not personal. If in doubt, don’t look (I scare myself sometimes). Bo.

The Gaz Effect, to clear that up, is when an experienced GM who knows his onions makes up for a game text's shortcomings by bringing his own expertise to bear on the game being run.

It doesn't mean it's ideal, a better written book would leave no doubts and let a relative novice GM run a decent game with ease. But yeah.

System's relevant here too. A good system can assist an inexperienced GM get the game running well. And it makes life easier for us old bastards too. I mean, I remember the first session of Savage Worlds I ran and how easy it was to get into. Compare that with the first session of some other system's I've run and there was more of a learning curve before the games really took flight.

The Gaz Effect is arguably the other side of the System Matters coin.

It's the same thing really. All system is, is a way of deciding what happens in the fiction. The classic "great GM" just substitutes his own systems/methods/etc for the ones the book provides. People get so used to doing these things, they forget there was time when they had to learn them.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

Going back a bit to Per's reply I am thinking there there is a split going on between feeling that what you do is what matters, to how you do it being what matters. Per is saying that task resolution can be useful when extra detail is needed while resolving a conflict / scene, but his default assumption is still that generally what matters is resolving a scene / conflict i.e. the endpoint is the important bit.

On the other hand I play with hardcore simulationist players who are all about the how, not the what. They don't feel happy achieving a goal unless they have gone through the details of how to get there (as tasks) and actually thought it through, planned it, solved the puzzle, made their way past the challenge and so on.

Interestingly for me I can see Rich's example going both way. The players were interested in their goals and how to achieve them, of course, but also in how they did it, how they reach the goals mechanically as well.

I see it as a case of the journey being the point. Sometimes scene / conflict resolution seems to me to skip the good bit and go straight to the end, like using a cheat code to beat a computer game. Satisfying, in its way, because you get the reward, but not as satisfying as actually playing your way to it.

Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually