anyway.

Very clear, Vincent.  Thanks.

So when the player says 'I climb the social ladder', this turns out to be more of a first draft statement of 'intent' than it is an action.  Then you use questioning to make it more specific and concrete.  Which is pretty much how I would run things most of the time, I guess.

A couple of things about this especially interest me.

First:

It seems to imply that (in Rocko'T), every time a player says something like 'I do X', the game function of that statement is unknown until the GM responds (or otherwise indicates assent).  It might pass directly into the world as accomplished 'fiction', OR it might become a statement of intent (or a draft statement of intent, or the beginning of a discussion of intent) in a formal resolution process, depending on whether the GM detects a need for resolution.

Second:

How do you handle the case where the player doesn't really know how specifically to go about carrying out his intent, but you imagine the character would know exactly what to do?

E.g. I personally have never been very good at climbing the social ladder, but I could imagine playing a character that was.  So if I said 'I climb the social ladder' and the GM said 'OK, what does your character do about that here and now?'  I'd be tempted to say: 'Beats me!'

Or closely related: how would you handle a case where neither the GM nor the player knew how to break down a particular abstract action, but it is established that the character IS very good at this?  I often have this problem in sci-fi games, and with magic-use generally.

More Terminology Help Please

In the rules for SCENES at your link above, it says '...make like a GM and play free.'

I think I know what 'play free' means, but I'm not sure.

I'm guessing it refers to something like 'make up things and events that seem to make interesting sense in response to the players, without recourse to formal resolution mechanisms'.  How does that sound?  What have I missed?

One could play entire sessions like this, I guess.

RE: Functional

...as in every functional fictional form, nothing happens outside of a scene

I can hear Hemmingway spinning in his grave... ;o

But I strongly agree that most scenes are more effective when the language is kept concrete, specific, visceral.

Cheers

Bwian

Dear Mr. Hemingway,
Oh you know I'll never stop being self-grandiose. "As in every functional form," I'm all. Don't mind me.
Sincerely, Vincent

This looks related to task resolution vs. conflict resolution.

Roger: Say more about that?

Bwian: First, yep, right on.

Second, I dunno. Usually some prompting from the GM, or a quick group conversation about how one climbs a social ladder, will solve it. After all, you have to create fiction that convinces only the tiny audience of you and your friends, you don't have to worry about any outside standards of plausibility.

Free play: you could go whole sessions in free play, sure. It's not likely in Rock of Tahamaat - I set the game up on purpose so that, soon or now, somebody's going to take action that'll bring her into conflict or expose her to danger.

Worth pointing out, maybe, that the rules say "GM, when you judge that a character's undertaking action that would bring her into conflict or expose her to danger, go to resolution," they DON'T say "GM, when you judge that a character's undertaking action that would bring her into conflict or expose her to danger, you can choose whether to go to resolution." A GM who sees a conflicting or dangerous action, but decides to free play it anyway, is breaking the rules.

Oh, here's another thing to notice about this example. As GM, I had Iana's player roll dice when she said "I climb the social ladder," because I judged it to be an action that would bring her into conflict. The game adapted to it, but really I had her roll dice prematurely. Here's how it might better go:

We join the scene in progress...

"There you are!" I say. "The circus-orgy is underway, you can ... hear it. You've eaten. Out here at the third-seating tables, the brandy is watered, the crustaceans are overcooked, and the salad herbs were arranged upon your plate with bare perfunction. You're here amongst your peers and your just-betters. What do you do?"

"I climb the social ladder."

"Okay, sure thing. How do you go about that? You talk to somebody or what?"

"Well, let's see. I leave the third-seating tables and go casually among the second-seating tables. I'm looking for somebody likely, somebody obviously connected, but maybe bored by the event-"

"Sure," I say. "A young man, handsome and very well-dressed, surrounded by people clamoring for his attention but trying not to seem desperate. He's ignoring the circus-orgy, picking over the carcass of his crustacean with his crustacean-needle. Like him?"

"Perfect," she says. "I wait for an opening and sit next to him."

"Do that, you'll be cutting in line," I say. "There's obviously a pecking order. Now and then he'll even glance at one, and they all practically swoon. You want to cut in?"

"Yeah. Screw them."

"Okay! Roll for 'I'm craven.'" Iana's player rolls a 6 and so, indeed, Iana cuts in. "You're blocking them, so now roll for 'I'm desperate.'"

...And from there resolution continues as above.

Going (way) back to this:

In task resolution, what's at stake is the task itself.  In conflict resolution, what's at stake is why you're doing the task.

"Climbing the social ladder" is the why behind the tasks—cutting in line, talking up the chump, etc.

"I know that she's hoping to climb the social ladder, so that's how I'll choose my best-good-worst."  This is what keeps it within the realm of conflict resolution.  Still possible to "fail but win"—maybe you can't cut in line, maybe you get knocked down, but then chump comes running over to see if you're alright.

Roger: It is conflict resolution, yes.

You're quoting me at my most outdated, though! I've been idly worrying what to do with that piece for ...yikes. A couple of years I think.

Quibblingly: as it happens, in Rock of Tahamaat it's not possible to fail but win. If that guy's sycophants knock Iana down, she's going to have to come up with a new action, she doesn't get to keep rolling to see what comes of it beyond that.

(She seems a resourceful person, though. I bet she comes up with some way, even flat on her back, to turn it around.)

I don't think that "conflict resolution" is about the why or beliefs or reasons. It its merely another timeframe
or about generating interpretation resources for adjucating the outcomes of tactics or strategies rather than
persona actions.
To use the terminolgy used here you could say that:
a) IIEE repeats itself in a fractal manner across differnt scales
b) if an intent is to vague for the current resolution mechanics, you use a recursive "divide and conquer"    method to arrive at the level/scale of the available mechanics

if the conflict is resolved in some way or another, there no need for Iana to feel an effect on her whys/beliefs/reasons)

In Rock of Tahamaat, as in every functional fictional form, nothing happens outside of a scene.

A lot of fiction consists of summary / scene. This is also true in RPGs. A GM might say "OK, over the next five days, you equip yourself for the expedition. As you set off, the weather turns bad and the road dissolves into mud."

Unless you include summary as part of scene framing - in which case I think your statement is a tautology.

Carsten: In Big Model terms, which is what I'm using here, task resolution vs conflict resolution isn't a matter of scale. It's also not a matter of intent, though. It's a matter of opposition, of conflict.

Stick around. I'll make a front-page post about it later on.

Simon: Well, if I'm going to say crap like "as in every functional fictional form," I damn well better be saying a tautology!

(You can see my apology for that one up at the top of the thread, under "Dear Mr. Hemingway.")

Thanks Vincent.

OK.  Happy with all of that at 4 and 5 above.

RE: 'Usually some prompting from the GM,...'

Yes, usually.  And certainly we only need to please ourselves.  I was tempted to ask about what if nobody in the group knows?  Or they feel odd because they know what they have come up with is lame, but don't know how to do better?

Musings:

It seems to me that part of the function/ effect of simulation models found in many RPGs' rules is to 'delegate' all that unknown/ mysterious stuff away from the players.  Especially true of magic 'systems'; often true of combat/ conflict rules.

Is this also part of the reason that (semi) historical/ alternate earth/ fictional genre/ famous fictions so often provide the setting for RPGs?

I'm not saying its good or bad.  It seems to me that it can be useful.  For example, if you are doing something like 'magic'.  I don't know how magic works.

GM roles?

Also thanks for spelling out the difference between 'whenever x ' and 'may whenever x'.  I didn't really notice this the first few times through.

This is refreshing.  Sort of distinguishing between the GM's creative role ('the GM's imagination') and the GM's referee/ judge role - something that can easily get lost.

Cheers

Bwian

I'll stick around, because your blog is very interesting for me RPG-theory-wise.

I am sorry if I will put unfamiliar spins on the Big Model, but I recently listend to "Have games, will travel" 108,109 and 111, and came to the conclusion that the Big Model is too socially-centered for me [I cut out my out list of reasons], and I will go for a more historical and design patterns centerd approach.