So this thought occurred to me a while ago, and I couldn't get it out of my head. Mechanically I haven't ironed it out, but here's the basic idea:
 
Advance the scene along standard "say yes or roll the dice" until you've defined the conflict. Next, define the key action that will resolve the conflict.
 
Once you've done that, there are four possible outcomes:
 
- The player succeeds with his action, and achieves his goal.
- The player succeeds with his action, but through circumstances, fail to achieve his goal.
- The player fails with his action but still achieve his goal through circumstances.
- The player fail with his action and fail to achieve his goal.
 
Needless to say, this isn't even close to being functional system. I'm just wondering if someone can point out any glaring faults with the idea. Is there some good reason not to combine task- and conflict resolution? Granted, most of the time it will mostly be about flavor - after all, if you get what you wanted, what does it matter how you got it? Except of course, if you roleplay just to get those bits of flavor. But it could also give hints how to progress the story.
 
Or maybe I shouldn't talk about conflict resolution at all, just say it's task resolution with two additional outcomes beyond the pass/fail?
 
Gah.

I don't understand.
 
Success at goals is determined by whether you choose the correct tasks to undertake.  Success at those tasks is determined by the dice.

I get the basic idea I think.

Maybe an example would make it more concrete, including  '"say yes or roll the dice" until you've defined the conflict.'

What determines the possibility of task success but goal failure (vice versa)?  Is it just level of success/failure?  or something else?

One possibility that would work for some groups is a die mechanic that determines task success.  At the same time, roll dice that add random noise to the task outcome that determines the goal outcome - something like D4 - D4.   The noise represents the whims of fate or factors outside of the of the player's control, you could even adjust the size of the noise dice depending on the volatility of the situation.

Quote from: SobekI don't understand.
 
Success at goals is determined by whether you choose the correct tasks to undertake. Success at those tasks is determined by the dice.

Well, I'm figuring that the randomness is beyond the scope of the task in this system. You're rolling to do everything within your capacity, but even if you do that, you can still fail at what you set out to do due to unfortunate circumstances.
 
Let's say we decide that the scene is about the rogue Adam trying to sneak past the guards into the castle unnoticed.
 
He can succeed at his sneakyness and get past the guards, but random chance can make him run into the kitchen maid who yells out, revealing that an intruder is in the castle. He didn't do anything wrong, but still (partially) failed with his goal.
 
Or the other way around, he fails his roll to sneak, but gets a Goal: Success result. Maybe the guard just at this moment had a visitor from his sister, or had to go around the corner to take a leak, or whatever.
 
This system would have to be simple, or it would slow down the game more than the benefit it would bring, which is a support in telling the story.

Quote from: NicephorusI get the basic idea I think.
 
Maybe an example would make it more concrete, including '"say yes or roll the dice" until you've defined the conflict.'

Conflict resolution circles around the idea that there's no reason to roll the dice until you have a situation where both success AND failure results in an interesting situation. So the player can describe what he does, and the GM nods and says "go on", until the description gets to a point where the GM says "hold on, this looks interesting", and they iron out what the scene is about - in my example above, about whether the rogue gets into the castle unnoticed or not.

Okay.  I see what you're getting at.  I'm not sure I want to go down that path.  But, it's something where, if the right mechanic were put in front of me, I'd certainly give it a fair shake.

I think the thing that bothers me most is the nagging feeling that this really isn't both task- and conflict resolution, just conflict resolution with some trappings that look like traditional task resolution - you get to know if you passed the task or not, but it doesn't really matter, because a different level decides the outcome of the scene.

If I can't find a meaningful purpose with the two-fold system, it's just a gimmick. Plenty of systems already do conflict resolution well. It was the idea of having both at the same time that appealed.

One way of making a more mechanical version of this rules is by the concept challenges/complications.

You figure out what the goal is and what task(s) it would take to accomplish it and set a difficulty.  The player then can decide to accept a challenge/complication or not.  Accepting the challenge increase the difficulty of the task, but at greater reward for doing so.  Perhaps not only does he succeed at sneaking past the guards but some other excitement draws them away from their posts so his further tasks are easier.

Accepting a complication lowers the difficulty of the task, but introduces a risk into it.  So if their difficulty was say 20 they accept a complication and lower it to 15.  If they roll a 15 - 19 they pass the task but the complication happens - running into someone unexpected (which in turn calls for more role playing /tasts).   If they roll 20 they've passed the task and the complication doesn't take place.  If they'd rolled less then 15 they fail at their task and their goal.

I'm afraid I still can't quite see how this works exactly.  I think I'm stuck on the definitions of "task" and "conflict" that you're using.  I just don't get it.

So could you maybe clarify that whilst I go get my dunce hat?  

Quote from: GunhildaI'm afraid I still can't quite see how this works exactly.  I think I'm stuck on the definitions of "task" and "conflict" that you're using.  I just don't get it.

So could you maybe clarify that whilst I go get my dunce hat?  

The conflict is getting past the guards - that's your goal.  In this case the task you are using is sneaking past them.   But the task could potentially be diverting them by tossing a stone in the corner and running in (bluff check) or swinging above their heads on a rope grappled to the rafters (dex/acrobatic check).  

So you could succeed at the task check of sneaking ie. you made your skill check.  But as you made it past the guards a maid stumbles around the corner and bumps into you so you fail the goal.  That type of incident would normally be just a GM task.

So in a standard D20 setting you make your sneak check you are past the guards, you fail your sneak check you are heard by the guards the task is synonymous with the goal.  However in this case we are adding another element of randomness to the equation so that the goal itself can be altered based on more then the strict results of the task check.  So now the goal itslef is seperate from that single task.

You could pass the task (the sneak check) but still fail your goal of getting past the guards.  What's the big deal you may ask?

Picture this.  You approach the guards and the GM says they are very alert and it's going to be an extremely difficult check to sneak past them.  But you try anyway and roll exceptionally well.  For plot reason the GM doesn't want you to sneak past them so as soon as you roll he chymes in with "A maid walks around the corner and shrieks alerting the guards."   Many players would feel cheated by this sort of scenario.

The point of this is to remove that cheated feeling by allowing players some abiltiy to narrate their own fortunes (or lack thereof).

Quote from: kryystPicture this.  You approach the guards and the GM says they are very alert and it's going to be an extremely difficult check to sneak past them.  But you try anyway and roll exceptionally well.  For plot reason the GM doesn't want you to sneak past them so as soon as you roll he chymes in with "A maid walks around the corner and shrieks alerting the guards."   Many players would feel cheated by this sort of scenario.

The point of this is to remove that cheated feeling by allowing players some abiltiy to narrate their own fortunes (or lack thereof).

The light dawns!  I know the misery of that scenario all too well.  As a matter of fact, I don't know if I have EVER had a character sneak in and out of a place without a fight of some sort -- no matter how badass a ninja he was.  And it sucks more and more every fucking time it happens.  :muttering:

I am now on board with this idea, though I have no idea how one would implement it mechancially.  

Quote from: GunhildaThe light dawns!  I know the misery of that scenario all too well.  As a matter of fact, I don't know if I have EVER had a character sneak in and out of a place without a fight of some sort -- no matter how badass a ninja he was.  And it sucks more and more every fucking time it happens.  :muttering:

I understand your frustration.  This is nothing like a perfect plan ruined by a GM that won't let there not be a big fight.  I can't remember the last time we didn't end up having a blood bath in a fantasy game no matter how sound the plan was.  (For me its been specific to fantasy.  Plans have gone off flawlessly in Sci-Fi.  I think the difference is just GM's but I'm not 100% sure.)

The more I think about this, the more I like it.  I don't mind plans going gang aft angly, per se, but the arbitrary "I am the DM and you are GOING to fight these guards" thing got old a long, long time ago.

Another thing that I can't get out of my mind is that the task resolution should be based on skill, but the conflict resolution should be based on something else - something like Story Weight, for lack of a better word. I'm stumped how to do it elegantly though.
 
I kinda like kryysts idea, even if it's quite far from what I originally had in mind. I think the possibility for complication should always be there. Before the challenge (good word there) is resolved, the player and GM should always agree on what the consequences should be, for success (DC 20), complication (DC 15) and failure (Anything < 15). So success means getting in unnoticed, complications means running into the kitchen maid (who will likely raise the alarm), while failure means the guards see him sneaking in.
 
I'm sure this could be codified further - for example, for a less dangerous complication the player can take a bigger "complication range" and raise the level for outright success, or the reverse, increase the danger of the complication for lowering the level of outright failure, probably by 5 in each case.
 
But this mechanic removes one of the possibilities in my original idea. It's the "success despite task failure" that isn't represented. Not a big deal, perhaps, but I want to keep at this. There should be a way to represent all the possible outcomes somehow.

The issue with setting guide lines depends on the regidity of the game itself.  In rules light games translating believebility into numbers is usually simpler because the modifier scale is not as granular.  In a game where a +/- 1 is important and +/-3 is extremely rare then assigning a challenge/complication is easier.  You really only have to look at how much of an impact it has on the story and go from there.

In D20 or any other game that works with a more granular difficulty scale it becomes a little harder.  Personally I'd try and keep it in incriments of +/-5 that is appropriate for a D20 based scale.  With that in mind it should be just as easy to decide on how much of an impact a particular challenge/complication will have.  As for actually trying to give some examples I'd have to pour through some other games that use this sort of mentality to try and come up with a scale.  But it should be relatively easy to create a universale type of scale that could be used in any game, you just need to modify the numbers to the mechanics.  

Quote from: Dr_AvalancheBut this mechanic removes one of the possibilities in my original idea. It's the "success despite task failure" that isn't represented. Not a big deal, perhaps, but I want to keep at this. There should be a way to represent all the possible outcomes somehow.

I was thinking about your succeeding despite failing at the task and how to turn that into a mechanic.  You could work that a few ways.  The easiest way would be through the use of a luck/fate/action point system.  You spend a point and can then narrate your success of the goal despite your failure.  This would limit the number of times you can do this and a mechanic like this would feel pretty comfortable in a more chunky game system (D20, Warhammer, Paladium etc...).  It's also a pretty simple/quick way to do it.

An example, is you fail your task, spend your 'point' and you have now simply succeeded.  This style of mechanic is kinda boaring, but it'll work.

The other way is to apply complications after fact.  This style would be total narrative control and need to collaborate between player(s) and GM.  The player would have to accept complication(s) to offset his failure enough to equate success at the goal.  Think I'll need an example here.

Our friend the theif is sneaking past the guards and fails his sneak roll.  However he doesn't feel like batteling the guards.   So he (the player) takes control he must now introduce a compilcation to be able to achieve his goal of getting past the guards.  So he says that as he's sneaking by he bumps a table knocking a vase to the ground.  He quickly tries to throw his hat under the vase to cuishon the fall, but fails.  The guards come running in as but he manages to duck around the corner.  

So he's gotten past the guards - however his life has become more complicated now because the guards see the vase on a hat and now know somone is there.

Another exmaple would be the maid one.  He fails his sneak so he takes control.  He narrates that he did infact sneak past the guards but then bumped into the kitchen maid so now he has a new goal get past maid.  So his taks is probably a (bribe/bluff/intimidate) check which could accpet more challenges/complications to get out of this new situation.