anyway.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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....

Luke: "The the players are in disagreement about something at the table.

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.

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.

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."