sim: what it is, what it isn't

Any ideas about what sort of difference there could be in Conflict Rez as it applies to Story Now vs. Right to Dream?

I'm not sure this even applies! I think the "site" at which Creative Agenda occurs is far broader than Conflict Rez. "Resolution" here is shorthand for player-driven resolution, but that's no reflection on CA.
You know what? I don't buy that it's possible to have Sim that's all about faithfully portraying a genre. I mean, I have never encountered Ron's fabled Sim game where the GM protects the genre from outside influence.
Maybe that is a literal statement - maybe I haven't encountered such a thing, but it's out there anyway. It sounds like the mechanics are protecting the genre in Pendragon, for example (but the GM isn't doing it) - being a Romantic knight is about grappling with the tug between virtue and ignobleness (if that's a word...), and so in Pendragon your virtue-themed stats mean you're pinging back and forth between them the whole time. You aren't allowed to simply be a knight, and explore what that means for yourself.

Of course, when I say "allowed", others might say "abandoned"! The things that make a knight into the "time bomb" Ron Edwards talked about somewhere - Story Now requires characters that have been "wound up" and have plot waiting to unfold, but it also, equally, requires procedures and mechanics that allow players to drive play forward with their choices.
But honestly, I don't know if I've come across his alleged "pastiche-play". I think V:tM is about being a vampire and stuff, but the mechanics don't empower the player to engage in the struggle of it all. When you lose Humanity points, it's totally a GM-centered thing. In Sorcerer, you agree to burn them. The difference is the procedural text, I think - - there really needs to be an understanding (on someone's part, if not everyone's) that the point of play is to hand the players morally and emotionally complex situations and give them the wheel. The first bit (complex situations) is procedural play, what the GM/GM-role is for. The second bit (the wheel) is the mechanics, what the player-role is for. The mechanics help them drive around in the emotional/moral complexity; whatever other dangers or strife are thrown in there too, they exist to draw out the emoraltional (ha) stuff.
(forgive me while I go on about the general idea of CAs for a bit...)
Gamist play is very similar, with a crucial difference - the point of play is to hand the players dangerous or unsafe situations, and empower them to decide what to do about them. There can be licentious, disturbing, or harrying material in there for flavor, but it's not the point.
It would seem that Sim play can have any kind of content it pleases, but most Sim-ish gamers I've met aren't interested in taking the wheel. They like being thrown into morally harrying situations, maybe, but they don't seem interested in getting there on their own. This isn't an attempt to impugn their play style. But what I've seen seems to be "Hey, GM! Put me in some interesting situations, wouldja?" (as opposed to "Let me do it!") And that mentality seems to dovetail with some concern for how things are supposed to operate, in terms of game physics, genre expectations, etc.

I was thinking about those scenes in movies where the hero has to choose between two people who are about to die. In movies where the hero chooses, the character would end up in that situation as a result of their own actions. In movies where the hero ends up escaping the choice, the character ends up in the situation because of others' actions.
Take Batman Forever, if you will - in that scene where Nicole Kidman and Robin are both about to fall into respective death-pits, Batman refuses the choice and saves them both. If the point of the film were about the pain of deciding between love and friendship, he would have made an actual choice; failing to do so would have made the film fall flat, unless a Cunning Twist is employed.
Like, if a film is about a guy who has a male best friend and a girlfriend, and he and his best friend end up falling in love, that might seem like not choosing at all, but really he has determined that Love Is Friendship.
On the other hand, if the movie was about the difficulty (not pain) of choosing between love and friendship, then we're watching Saving Silverman - the choice is resolved by a) Silverman finding a new, less objectionable love interest and b) one of his closest (and most jealous) friends finding that what was missing from his own life was (gay) love. The movie is more about what a pain in the ass it is to juggle close friendships and a romantic life, rather than about the pain of choosing and then living with that choice.
It seems to me that Nar play is about choices and living with them, whereas Sim play is more like "slice of life" fiction - the point is to portray, or explore, a "correct" vision of a particular lifestyle, world, or whatever.

I think it's probably impossible to use truly thematic Conflict Resolution in a Sim game. If play focuses on exploring dramatic themes and gives the players the power to make meaningful decisions about them, that's Nar play, straight up. If either element goes away - thematic content (i.e. it's emotional, it's ethical, it's about choices) or strong player input, it changes.
You take away the thematic *oomph*, but not the input, and you have Gamist play. It can still pluck your heart strings, but the mechanics and procedures aren't going to help you do it. If you play a heist game and it's all about the cool plan and what could go wrong, it's Gamist.
You take away the input, but not the oomph, and you have Sim play that's focused on emotionally engaging the players. Horror games are definitely molded from this clay pretty often - in V:tM, in my opinion, the Storyteller is supposed to make the players confront how ugly and creepy vampires are, but he's showing it to them - they poke at it and turn it over a bit, and look it up and down, but ultimately the Storyteller brings it mechanically/procedurally, by enforcing Humanity checks.

If you take away both, you might end up with upbeat, Illusionist adventure games, or, basically, various relatively low-emotional-risk iterations of Sim. I think. Certainly, no-oomph/no-input is the kind of Sim I grew up on.

Okay, so I guess Conflict Resolution does sound like foreign territory, from a Sim perspective. I dunno, though - CR has been painted as the difference between merely performing a task and making the effect of that performance stick. The sticky widget seems to be how we define making it stick - do we do the thing from a mechanical perspective so that we can beat a dude, or do we do the thing so we can handle a relationship?

That is, are we engaging the mechanics to gain meaningful authority over the outcome of a conflict? If yes, then it is Conflict Resolution. If we are engaging the mechanics but don't gain meaningful authority over it (that is, if the authority stays where it would otherwise lie), then it is Task Resolution.

On one level, CR is where tasks are nested - you must achieve your goals through tasks in order to ground your play in the fiction, lest you get the equivalent of:

Checkmate: Whenever you get into a fight, roll +sharp. On a hit, win the fight.

TR, on the other hand, is the opposite of "tap A to win the game" - - you can only do the component tasks, and you never get the narrative weight to say "Yep, this solved it." You are asked to handle individual bits of the fiction, but they never become the whole until someone (likely the GM) touches them - they remain the "sum of the parts" only.
Gamist play would be totally ruined by TR - if your actions don't meaningfully settle the matter (there are rubrics for determining this in a successfully Gamist design), then you've been hosed by the GM.
In Story Now play, TR totally can't happen - if your actions don't matter, how the heck are you going to address Premise?

Going back to Story Now vs. RtD: I played AW last night, and it's weird how the procedures do a lot of the heavy lifting in that they push the players into making choices about stuff they care about. They don't push them so much as help them along - the MC's various moves basically help to raise the stakes or take a loose thread and tug on it. Ultimately it's the players who are pushing things forward; the MC just helps them maintain their forward velocity.

I don't know how much more I can say about RtD play; I feel like I can only define it by what is lacking from Story Now play, rather than "positively" defining it as something unto itself.

0e D&D has those little details...

Just lookin' at the Swords and Wizardry text, and I noticed that the ability score descriptions don't actually reference the "meaning" of the scores, only their mechanical effect. "Strength" does not measure your character's power, it "gives your character bonuses when attacking with a ... melee weapon." Very straightforward, almost jarringly so.
The best of these has got to be Wisdom:
Wisdom is the Prime Attribute for Cleric characters, and any character with a Wisdom score of 13 or higher gains a 5%
bonus to all experience point awards. If a Cleric has a
Wisdom score of 15 or greater, he gains an additional
first level spell.
Note the utter lack of reference to the fiction. Wisdom serves literally no other purpose than to, potentially, give you a bonus to experience and Cleric spell-casting. I cut my RPing teeth on much more complicated tables for ability scores - anyone else remember 18/01-00? If you rolled an 18, you got to roll on an additional chart to see what kind of 18 Strength you had - it's basically a minigame. That, and, who knows why, the 2nd edition design team decided to make 18 and 19 Strength very, very different values - they were preserving the might and majesty of rolling an 18, I guess?
Speaking of minigames - the whole 0e ability score thing is really six short games that give your character little party favors for winning - the physical stats grant bonuses that seem so triflin' that it draws the power of a good Int or Cha roll into question - you mean to tell me that +1hp/level is as much of an accomplishment (more or less) as knowing four languages? If you're a magic-user, the access to 7 out of 9 magic levels is pretty rad, too.
Maybe since every character has a score in all six abilities, they're just being granted a "suite" of different perks, a sort of grab bag with categories or something. I dunno.
Tomorrow I may sketch out some ideas for Level Three of The Lair of the Cyclops - it's technically the fourth area from the start of the dungeon, but I read a thing, and decided to hold off on Level Four encounters for now.

As it stands, the XP to be gained in these four areas gets you most of the way through the 3rd character level (jeeeeez, is that ever an overused term, with multiple, distinct meanings ^_^;;), unless of course you're a bad-ass Cleric with +15% XP - - Clerics already advance in level about 25% faster than Fighting Men, and 40% faster than Magic Users, so the extra bonus is just crazy - you can level up your Cleric twice(!) as fast as a Magic User if you rolled good Wisdom and Charisma (and the MU didn't). Is that why they're considered the most powerful class in the default S&W game? 'cause they get to access their higher-level content so much more quickly?
Honestly, I think it brings us back to being a polyglot (high Intelligence) vs. getting a single extra hit point every level - you have to claw and scrape for every little extra bit of help on dice rolling, but if you're clever you can possess advantages far beyond those of mere combat perks. Maybe? I don't know - it seems like Magic User is an "advanced" class - they rely the most on careful rationing of resources, but those resources can result most readily in "crazy shit happens" - consider how easily a lowly Hireling could reason out a mundane equivalent of a Fireball spell, and how hard it would be for a Magic User to reach the fifth level. So, you need to be super-careful with what you've got, but in exchange, you don't have to think as hard to get it to do what you want. Maybe?

It's late, and I'm trying to delve into the design ethos of the game. It's kind of interesting to ponder the role of "talking through" challenges - certainly, MU's have to think things through when it comes to combat situations, but they may have some spell on hand that's perfect for a puzzle or other non-combat encounter. The notion of being that careful both in and out of combat seems like a natural space for the Thief role to fill, but to properly do that, you'd need a character with very little explicit in-game resources of any sort. That would be a true "master class" for 0e - you literally have only your wits with which to win the day. (for that matter, the Fool archetype might very well make more sense here than that of the Thief, just to highlight the character's lack of special tricks or tools at hand)

This makes Clerics kind of the un-thinking-man's character - you have healing spells and attack-magic, you can turn undead, you can fight pretty well well... you've got it all!

It's pretty odd, in this light, that Thieves, who could be the aforementioned "master class", have so many weird little tricks in dungeon-crawl games (they do lots of damage with Backstab, they can circumvent drawn-out puzzles with Pick Lock and Disarm Trap...), and the nature OF some of those tricks seems to center around obscure or unusual situational rulings in-game:

"Well, instead of talking about tumblers clicking, or the shape of the key-head, let's just say that *your* dude can roll dice to open the door. Well, instead of pouring sand in a bag to get the idol's counterweight just right, let's just say your dude rolls dice to bypass the giant-boulder trap." This rambling thought-train stems largely from the enthusiastic suggestions of the "Quick Primer for Old School Gaming", most especially the "sixth Zen moment", that is to say,

This is a game about exploration, not combat.

Even when you're in combat, the point is to turn every possible, literally conceivable, advantage to your own ends, meaning that combat is just another puzzle. Your character's magical or martial powers act as a golf handicap or a buffer against having to use pure reason and description to get every little thing you want. This ties in to the "second Zen moment", or,

Player skill, not character abilities.

I was going to say that there is no [Forge alert!] "Conflict Resolution" in 0e, but that'd be incorrect - the conflicts you're tackling really are composed entirely of their component tasks. That's why you can't fudge *how* you do the thing you're doing; you get to fudge the How in games when the What (are you trying to accomplish) is more important. All we have here is the How - the game is all about encouraging and rewarding skillful players. On some level, the degree of seamlessness between What and How is pretty much complete, such that the rule book doesn't really cover anything else.
Hell, the bit about p.c. alignment is pretty sparse - to the point where they're basically saying, "Okay, this particular 0e game was actually published in the 21st century, long after other games had started using alignment. We don't really care one way or another, and there is absolutely no game effect for choosing whatever you want [for your p.c., that is. Protection from Evil is a 1st-level spell*]. But, hey, if the little bit of color it adds is important to you..." I have to respect the designers' complete apathy to the notion of Telling a Story, or The World Making Sense, in the face of Beating the Game.

*one last thing: I read the spell description, and it actually protects against "enchanted monsters", including both demons and the generally neutral-seeming elementals. Also curious: the Cleric can make this spell last for twice as long as the Magic User can. That feels like plain old niche protection; [Forge term] "Color" be damned!

The Otherkind Challenge

This post is as much about fleshing out my comprehension of the material as it is about sharing it with others.

Vincent Baker, like four years ago, came up with a generic version of the core mechanic for his 2002 design, Otherkind, which was a game about fairy-like creatures trying to flee the world of Man with as much Numina (mystic essence-stuff) on hand as possible. Their opposition: Men, with their Iron.
In the original design, (thanks, RPG.net!) you roll four dice whenever you attempt something. Then, you take the dice results and apply them to four categories:

Narration - does the GM or the player get to narrate?
Motion - did the character accomplish what he set out to do?
Life - did the character harm anyone in the process?
Safety - did the character get hurt in the process?

Only Life needs further explanation - it's anathema to the Otherkind to destroy life; Numina is the very essence, sort of the divine byproduct, of life, so of course causing death is super-bad for them, and makes them more like Iron (which is really bad!). I've been unable to find the original full entry on lumpley.org that explains all the rules, but this is what I can recall.

Anyway, here's the distilled essence of the game, usable as the core of any setting or whatever:

roll 3d6. After you've rolled them, assign one each to the three things.

Assign one of the dice to the accomplishment at stake:
1-2: the character does not accomplish it. The character punches him but doesn't get past him. Update the circumstances and roll another conflict, or go forward with the accomplishment totally unachieved.
3-4: the character makes progress toward the accomplishment, but doesn't achieve it outright. Update the circumstances and roll another conflict, or go forward with the accomplishment partly achieved.
5-6: the character accomplishes it!

Assign the two remaining dice to the two dangers:
1-3: the danger comes true.
4-6: the danger doesn't come true.
If the 1-2/3-4/5-6 scale works for the dangers too, feel free to use it.

So say I roll 1 3 4. How do I assign them? It depends on my priorities, of course. Maybe what matters most to me is Millicent's regard: I assign 4 to that danger, so it doesn't come true. Maybe what matters next is getting past the guy, who cares about a black eye: I assign 3 to getting past the guy, we'll roll again, but pow! he gave me a real shiner.

Say instead I roll 4 6 6. I do the butt dance of victory!

The system here isn't necessarily complete - as it stands, there is, obviously, no room for any traits specific to the character to directly affect the dice rolls. Traits might be relevant as hell for assisting assignment of dice, but they don't give pluses or minuses or allow rerolls or anything. Yet. Notice that you always succeed in the task - in true Firefly fashion, failure comes not from a lack of ability, but from complications that arise as a result of plowing on ahead.

This doesn't mean that people never fail at anything, ever. It means that the thing you've put your mind to is beyond the icy grip of failure; where it gets complicated is that what you were trying to do through the action might screw up (as simple as performing an amazing crack-shot ... on the wrong guy).

So. Easy way to make things more complicated: if you're attempting an action that your character is good at, that is really important to your character, etc., then you could get bonuses on the dice results. You'll notice that higher is always better (thanks, Vincent!), so this is an easy way to "break into" the mechanic and start messing around. You could instead add more dice and more complications - more things can go wrong, but you also have a bigger pool of dice to choose from to put things where you like.

Three things: 1) since you automatically succeed at the task itself, it's up to the Social Contract to enforce what sort of tasks you can attempt in the first place. 2) Any player should be allowed to take on more dice (and for each one, a complication/thing that could go wrong), gaining the benefits mentioned above. 3) Characters get some number of points to put into traits they possess; whenever you use one of your traits to perform a task, you can use all the points attached to it to change die results, 1 point per pip on the die. This represents the greater control in the overall situation that comes with mastery of a skill.

Lastly, I think I've changed my mind about the "lack of setting" presented by this system. You go to people, explain this system, and then ask them "so, what do you feel like playing?" If they're gamers, they'll come up with something. If anything, this could actually increase your odds of finding something folks like, or scratching an itch somebody has had lately - you guys just saw The Mummy again and want to do that, but nothing on your gaming shelf has that genre. Good stuff.

Hero Quest (the boardgame) and conflict resolution

This relates to the previous post, and is an easy way to inject Conflict Resolution into pretty much anything, no matter how crunchy or tactical:

The players should make assertions, like in Polaris.
Don't say, "I search for traps."
Say, "I ensure there are no traps around."

In the former, you have the player fact-checking the scenery. Boring!
In the latter, you have the player declaring that there are no traps, or that he's found one, assuming he succeeds on the dice.
Don't hide it: give the PC the successes/target number he needs to beat, so you don't screw him around.
If he fails on the dice, he could miss something, especially if he fails really badly. Important: tell him if he fails. It's not a secret to the player, only the character.
What's at stake is that there could be a trap that might impede his progress. From there, if he finds or triggers a pit trap or a trick floor tile, then next you've got a dexterity check.

Go after what you want, and then see if the dice will back you up.

I can't wait to play, instead of run, a game with CR. Yee!

Transparency and RPGs

I've been browsing a thread at story-games.com, and a college game of D&D 3.0 comes to mind.

I was playing a thief in a very brief (maybe 3 sessions?) adventure, and I think it was around the time I was checking the hallway for traps every five feet when I decided I was done with conventional Credibility.

In that story-games.com thread, they're talking about sharing information. But really, now, there IS no information, only what the GM is deciding from moment to moment! He might have taken notes and made preparations beforehand, but that's like saying a speech is set in stone (and cannot be changed, no way) just because you brought index cards.

It's a game - the contents are imaginary. If you like being surprised by hearing other people's ideas, with timing and pacing and whatnot, that's cool. That's totally cool. But sometimes I think trad gamers can get a little caught up in "what's really happening" and forget that, hey, we're all making this up as we go.

Honestly, the fixation stems from the amount of prep the GM (or whomever) puts in - you don't want to "break" or "interrupt" the thing being devised for your entertainment, so you sit and let it unfold. But it's a whole lot easier for everybody in the game (less work for the GM, more entertaining for the players, IMO) if credibility is shared.

All you need to do to change credibility is to give players the power to create plausible play elements. Conflict resolution is all you need: give players the real chance to decide what happens in the story, and their creative energy will explode! forth, saving all us Game Masters a ton of work. Setting stakes is where it's at.

As for the important, if redundant, issue brought up in the thread, that of respecting people's right to play as they please, absolutely! That's fine. All I ask is this - if you notice a frustration or discontentment with your RPing experiences, consider giving it a try.

On the subject of credibility and climbing checks

I was just checking out Joe McDonald's blog (on hiatus for the time being) and there was a discussion about the concept "Yes, or roll the dice".
I'll let you read it for yourself to get the full scoop, but I wanted to put this out there: "Yes, or" is an assertion that the resolution mechanics should only be engaged when a) something significant happens b) that creates a conflict of interest between a player and one or more parties. You have to have A and B; we know from Conflict (not Task) Resolution that inanimate objects and such can, in this context, have "interests" that they defend.
Let's expand on that, though, as it's not really the mountain you want to climb that has a stake in this: it's the rest of the game group. You're rolling against the mountain, sure, not another PC or a GM character, but it's important to the group that Credibility be established and enforced here. This has always been the case; it's nothing new. But it's gone unsaid, and should be clearly stated. CR's little "rocks have feelings" clause is there to acknowledge that, if we frame conflict as a conflict of interests, then the interests are really between the acting player(s) and everyone else at the table, using the mountain as a pawn, a stand-in.