anyway.



2009-07-15 : Abstract Actions in Rock of Tahamaat

Bwian asked about abstract actions down here and I think it'll make a fun example.

This is about resolving the actions of characters who are not Rock of Tahamaat. Please read up on the rules, here; scroll down to RESOLUTION - Characters' Actions, not Rock of Tahamaat's.

For our example abstract action, let's use Bwian's "I climb the social ladder," and let's use my character, Iana of the Family Lark.

Here goes!

The scene

In Rock of Tahamaat, as in every functional fictional form, nothing happens outside of a scene. A player never just announces "I climb the social ladder" without the character first being somewhere, in some circumstance. So let's suppose a scene where "I climb the social ladder" is a reasonable thing for the player to say.

The Family Lark is in turmoil. Rock of Tahamaat's enforcers have been arresting them, apparently without plan or reason. Some get released after brief, polite questioning, some disappear forever, some turn up after a few days dazed and drugged and bearing wounds from their questioning. Some of the Family Lark have gone into hiding, others are proudly going about their business-as-usual, most don't know what to do.

Iana isn't on Joron, the Family Lark's native planetoid, she's in the magistrate's city on Bheto, so she's doesn't think herself in immediate danger. She's at the magistrate's annual dinner-reception-fancy dress ball-circus-orgy; as a scion of the Family Lark she's entitled to attend, and to eat, although she isn't entitled to approach the stage beyond the blue sashing or participate in the circus-orgy herself. ("That's fine, believe me," her player says.)

"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."

It's not super concrete, but it's obviously an action that'll bring her into conflict with other characters. So let's go with it and see what happens.

First, I have Iana's player roll for "I'm craven," let's say 3 dice. Her high die's a 6, so yes, Iana starts to climb the social ladder. "Cool," I say. "You start to climb the social ladder."

Now I have to judge. Is Iana attacking someone, blocking someone, exposing herself to personal danger, exposing herself to impersonal danger, or none? I get to ask her player questions until I can judge, and right now I just don't know. "So, like, what are you doing?" I say. "You talk to somebody?"

"Oh you know," says Iana's player. "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."

Perfect! Iana's blocking someone, preventing this guy and his friends from doing their accustomed thing. "Roll for 'I'm desperate,'" I say. (You can see what's happened. By asking Iana's player for more information, I've led her to tell me a concrete action instead of an abstract action.)

So she rolls 2 dice for "I'm desperate" and gets a 4, for a sum of 10.

If she'd gotten a 1, for a sum of 7, something would interrupt Iana's action. I think I'd've gone with "knocked down," and brought out the nasty side of these sycophants. But she got a 10, which means that Iana does her action uninterrupted, and it's time for me to choose possible effects.

"Cool, you cut in," I say. "He glances at you with a fleeting moment's hope that you'll say something interesting. What do you do?" I need to know this before I can choose effects.

"This guy's an ass," Iana's player says. "I look just as bored as he does, and I say to him, 'I recognize you. Your mother - she's the sprong-clown on stage, isn't she?'"

Oh baby. NOW I can choose effects. I know that she's hoping to climb the social ladder, so that's how I'll choose my best-good-worst. Accordingly: at best, she'll overawe him. Good, she'll put him off course. At worst, she'll be left culpable.

Since she might not kill or hurt anyone, I say "roll for 'I'm craven.'" She rolls her 3 dice and gets another 6, for a sum of 16. The good effect comes true: she puts him off course.

"His mouth falls open," I say. "He stares at you, and all his friends draw back, wondering what will happen. You have a few beats before they regather themselves."

The end

That's the end of this action's resolution; we've resolved Iana's intent into concrete action, and into the action's final effect. So I mark the transition out of resolution as I generally do: "what do you do?"



1. On 2009-07-16, Bwian said:

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

 



2. On 2009-07-16, Vincent said:

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

 



3. On 2009-07-16, Roger said:

This looks related to task resolution vs. conflict resolution.

 



4. On 2009-07-16, Vincent said:

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.

 



5. On 2009-07-16, Vincent said:

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.

 



6. On 2009-07-16, Roger said:

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.

 



7. On 2009-07-16, Vincent said:

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.)

 



8. On 2009-07-17, Carsten said:

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)

 



9. On 2009-07-17, Simon Rogers said:

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.

 



10. On 2009-07-17, Vincent said:

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.")

 



11. On 2009-07-17, Hemingway said:

Thanks Vincent.

 



12. On 2009-07-17, Bwian said:

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

 



13. On 2009-07-17, Carsten said:

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.

 



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