2005-03-23 : Archive 195
Emily:
Resolution. When is it about resolving conflict between players? When is it about providing adversity? Does it matter? What else is it about?
Yay!
It's never about resolving conflict between players, you have to look up from the game to do that. That's why the old "cops and robbers but with rules to prevent fights" line is bogus. If we were really fighting, game rules wouldn't stand in our way. Instead of "I shot you!" "Did not!" we'd have "I get +2 for surprise!" "Do not!" A profitless substitution, fighting over the rules' application instead of fighting over outcomes.
No, game rules in general are for when we're already in full agreement with one another. Resolution no less than any other kind of rule. So ... what, then?
One of the initial steps in every single resolution is for us all to buy in to the list of possible outcomes. By the time we determine which outcome is the outcome, we've all pre-agreed to it and we're all willing to accept it.
Resolution as such, then, is almost an afterthought. The real negotiations, the real work, happens just before resolution, when we say "what's at stake, now? are we going to roll for it or what? how bad could it conceivably turn out, and are you willing to accept that if it happens? am I?" Once we've hammered all that out, then we go forward with deciding which outcome, already in full agreement.
I may have my favorite, you may have yours, but we're all willing to accept any of them. Otherwise we wouldn't be resolving yet, we'd still be narrowing the range.
That's resolution from the point of view of the player as a participant in this social thing we do.
Adversity, though! We have to look at resolution from a whole different point of view to see adversity.
Here you have a passionate character in a dynamic situation, right? Let's say it's a ten year old girl, she's a tough pretty manipulative survivor kid, and a sadistic DA has just this very minute murdered her drug dealer father and her mother and her two siblings, he's still in the apartment and she's coming down the hallway with groceries, and at the end of the hallway lives a mob hitman who's been watching the whole thing and with whom our character has had a single positive interaction in the past, and the sadistic DA looks at her as she walks past and wheels are turning in his head.
This situation will, very soon, become a new situation; that's what dynamic means. It's not stable as it is, she can't keep walking down that hallway forever.
Resolution is when one situation resolves into a new situation. The new situation is dynamic too, so it resolves into another new situation, and another, and another, and another ... until finally we land in a stable situation, demanding no more resolution, and we roll credits.
The process of resolving one situation into the next may be very immediate, one decision made, one single conflict, one instant and everything changes, like does Leon take her in? It may instead unfold slowly, over the course of many conflicts and scenes, like does Leon teach her to shoot people? When we talk about "resolution" we usually mean it per conflict, not per situation. That's fine, because resolving a situation is the exact same thing as resolving a conflict or a series of related conflicts.
A dynamic situation is made of unresolved conflicts. Resolve the conflicts and you've automatically resolved the situation. "We resolve this dynamic situation into a new dynamic situation" is the exact same thing as "resolving these conflicts spawns a whole new set of conflicts for us to deal with."
So adversity! Since a conflict is made of adversity, creating adversity means creating or heightening conflict, and resolving a conflict means disposing of its adversity, one way or the other. The character faces the adversity, that's conflict, and overcomes or succumbs to the adversity, that's the conflict's resolution.
The adversity Matilda's facing is Leon's self-preservation instinct and the wheels turning in the DA's head. Who wins?
And that's resolution from the point of view of the player as a creator of fiction.
Bring the two views of resolution together and what do you get? Oh baby.
"One of the initial steps in every single resolution is for us all to buy in to the list of possible outcomes." One of the initial steps in every single resolution is for us all to buy in to the list of possible changes to this existing situation.
"...Then we go forward with deciding which outcome..." Then we go forward with deciding what new situation this situation becomes.
Does Leon take Matilda in? Does the DA grab her first, so Leon has to come out of his apartment with his gun to fight for her? Does Leon not, and she has to break away from the DA and run down the stairs and out into the street, alone? Does the DA grab her and haul her back into her family's apartment? Any of those is possible, each is a new dynamic situation, none is automatically a story killer.
Matilda (tough pretty manipulative survivor kid) vs. Leon's self-preservation instinct vs. the wheels in Gary Oldman's head. We all agree that any of the three might win, and whichever wins, the story goes forward in that direction. Then we resolve!
1. On 2005-03-23, xenopulse said:
Best. Example. Evar. :)
I think the agreement on rules is a little more important, however, because of the difference between explicit and implicit rules. Playing cops+robbers (or roleplaying without mechanics as I frequently do) is almost always based on implicit rules. The "you need to take a hit sometime, too, or I'll stop playing" rule (aka give-and-take rule) is implicit, most of the time, so that players get frustrated when their implicit rules don't match up with the ohter players'. By adopting a set of rules, you explicitly state that those rules apply and how they work. Sure, there are points of disagreement (as you said, about application and interpretation), and if players are unwilling to work those out, they'll break the game. But they provide at least a basic explicit framework, and the discussions about disagreements take more and more of the rules from the implicit side and add them, through precedent and agreement, to the explicit side. The goal is to have as many of the rules explicit when you start the game.
Regarding adversity, you're right on point. I don't think I could possibly add anything except to hope that I personally can develop a better sense for keeping a game dynamic. Or a story, for that matter.
- Christian
2. On 2005-03-23, Vincent said:
Christian: "...except to hope that I personally can develop a better sense for keeping a game dynamic."
Exactly!
And that's what a well-designed RPG does for you. If you've never seen it in action you're likely to be skeptical, but well-designed RPG rules make it so natural and effortless that it takes your breath away.
We freeformers have a harder time of it. We have to learn how to do it ourselves, plus then we have to teach our friends how to do it.
3. On 2005-03-23, luke said:
Hi Vincent,
Resolution mechanics "aren't" or "generally not" designed to resolve conflict in the players? The explicit subtext for the Burning Wheel Duel of Wits mechanics is that they are for use in resolving conflict between players at the table. Fuck the characters, it's about creating a fair and neutral medium through which players can attempt to enforce their will.
So what gives?-Luke
4. On 2005-03-23, Chris said:
Hi Luke,
Not to answer for Vincent- but from what I read in the download of Dual of Wits, isn't one of the first things that both the players agree to stick to the outcome of the contest, before they commit to rolling dice?
While the players might disagree on what outcome they'd prefer, they're agreeing on the methods of deciding it. If you don't have that, at that point, the rules don't matter, right?
Chris
5. On 2005-03-24, xenopulse said:
Vincent: We freeformers have a harder time of it. We have to learn how to do it ourselves, plus then we have to teach our friends how to do it.
That is so very true, and that's the reason I've gotten much more interested in RPGs again, after 9 years of freeforming, once I found the Forge. At first I was just curious because I'm a theory nut, but then I realized that there is so much potential in well-designed games that drives play more effortlessly than freeform ever could.
I think the game I want to play needs to have not only conflict resolution, but a ... conflict dialectic. Dynamic situation with inherent adversity, the adversity is resolved and the situation elevated, and the resulting new situation once more carries within it new adversity. Much like you described, really, leading up to the climax of the story. The more a game can do this for me, the better.
And yes, I've yet to actually play Dogs, for example, but my wife, who has never wanted to play anything but freeform, has expressed interest simply because of my enthusiastic description of the game. That's a first already :) So I can hope.
- Christian
6. On 2005-03-24, luke said:
Hi Chris,I'm talking about the step prior to that. The the players are in disagreement about something at the table.
We say, "stop, let's go to the rules." Of course, the players can walk away from the table, "I'm not playing." But most decide consciously, "yeah, ok, I'll let the rules resolve this."
Which then gets into the territory Vincent's talking about. I may be wrong, but I feel like I've encountered very visceral player disagreement/conflict prior to that.
Or perhaps I'm splitting hairs.-L
7. On 2005-03-24, Charles said:
It seems to me that the use of mechanics is intended to either avert player-player conflict, or resolve player-player conflict, but that the mechanics themselves don't resolve player-player conflict (if that makes sense).
When I think this happens, and you think that happens, then we agree that we will allow the mechanics to decide between my outcome and yours. Often, we don't get to having discordant beliefs about what happens, because we agree that what happens will be mediated through the mechanics (or the GM), so I know what I want to happen, or what I think should happen, but I don't claim that it does unless the mechanics support that outcome.
8. On 2005-03-24, Judd said:
I have seen, as I'm sure we all have at one time or another, bullshit arguments stop a game dead in its tracks and freeze everything up. The players say the argument is in-game and no-one is getting upset but clearly they are.
I have found that a Duel of Wits mechanics can help a situation like that.
It doesn't help the player who has trust issues from having trust issues but it keeps the game moving in a fair manner.
I have found myself looking such player-player conflicts dead in the facts and saying, "Everybody, this is getting talked out. Someone needs to roll some dice and decide something decisively or shut the hell up."
And let the game flooooow....
9. On 2005-03-24, Vincent said:
Luke: "The the players are in disagreement about something at the table.
We say, 'stop, let's go to the rules.' Of course, the players can walk away from the table, 'I'm not playing.' But most decide consciously, 'yeah, ok, I'll let the rules resolve this.'
Which then gets into the territory Vincent's talking about. I may be wrong, but I feel like I've encountered very visceral player disagreement/conflict prior to that."
Sure. That's consistent with what I'm saying. The players agree to go forward with the rules; from that point on, they're no longer in (real) conflict.
The rules don't resolve the real-world conflict; the real-world agreement to go to the rules does. The rules wait, inert and unapplied, for the players to agree to use them.
That the rules are there waiting can certainly help make agreement easier, but that's not the rules in application.
10. On 2005-03-29, Ben Lehman said:
Situation Handling is the new Conflict Resolution.
By which I mean: A game doesn't have to tell you how the present situation resolves if it tells you what the new situation is. Humans are great at filling in blanks. And they are doing it either way.
yrs——Ben
P.S. Like, look at OtherKind dice. The narration die is boring. A dump stat. But when you add in "frame the new situation?" It's golden.
P.P.S. Must... resist... urge... to... totally reconfigure Polaris.
11. On 2005-03-30, Vincent said:
Ben: "A game doesn't have to tell you how the present situation resolves if it tells you what the new situation is."
I'd say it, "a game has to tell you how the present situation resolves or what the new situation is, same thing either way."
You can push and pull what the process is like, what details it provides and leaves blank, what it abstracts and what it makes concrete, absolutely. To your taste! You can say that you're looking at situation-as-such instead of at conflict if you want, too - but that's just saying so. There's not really an "instead."
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