thread: 2006-10-02 : Conflict resolution sans stakes
On 2006-10-04, NinJ wrote:
"Stakes" are something that have to exist, but they can be implicit.
In Absinthe, player sheets are pretty much a list of stuff you care about. If you want to do anything, you risk your relationships to those things implicitly. They're your resources; by using your resources, you affect the things you care about. If it's not on that list, either you don't care about it or it should be written down.
That means that conflicts are without explicit stakes ??? the stuff you do determines what's at stake.
Do I know how the character's life will end? Nope! Do I know if they succeed? Not at first. Do I know what the dude will lose in the course of the story? No! But I know that the protagonists have the tools to succeed in changing the world for the better with the power of their vision and craft. I know that the players will make statments by what they write down and what they risk, and for what.
We roll dice (or whatever) to determine if this is a story about artists, triumphant against the grey world, or a story about art crushed as WWI looms. They both say things about artists and art (maybe they even say the same things) but the events of the story will be tightly tied into what those characters are designed to address no matter what.
Is this what you're talking about, V? Cuz if so, I'm with Kirk and his big "Well, duh." I mean, stakes setting is a transitional technology and we're doing other things too. But... so? Where does this take us?
(Or am I misinterpreting and missing your point?)
