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Just for clarification: the second and third ways to get checks net you two (2) checks apiece, rather than one.

Keehnelf wrote:Just for clarification: the second and third ways to get checks net you two (2) checks apiece, rather than one.

Good catch! (Edited the prior post.)

Conflicts, an overview, for GreyWolfVT...

Okay, this is the big extended dice roll challenge in Torchbearer.

If you want to kill a bunch of Bandits, trade riddles in the dark with a cannibal Halfling (and escape with your life), or convince a Goblin to provide you with help, then you will likely want to initiate a Conflict.

It is an abstracted way of structuring versus contests, loosely breaking actions into Attack, Defense, Feint, and Maneuver. You may not literally be Maneuvering in a Convince (debate), but the structure of your argument may be to shift the discussion from one topic to another... and, thus, a Maneuver.

It's not a literal, "I stab you in the face" kind of Contest. Technically, Red Box D&D isn't literal either. A combat round is one minute. 1 Attack is the culmination of a series of jabs, feints, maneuvers, and so on. In some ways, the abstracted combat system is much closer to the original Dungeons & Dragons.

The setup for a Conflict is something like:
1. Say what you want to happen.
2. Gamemaster says, "No, and it's complicated, so we have a Conflict."
3. Players agree on a Conflict Captain (who will organize the player side in the Conflict)
4. Conflict Captain rolls Disposition for the group. This is sort of like Hit Points. It measures how strong your side is for this Conflict.
5. GM sets the Disposition for the opposing side.
6. Each side divides the total Disposition into individual hit points for each participant.
7. Each side chooses 3 Actions to be performed by the 3 Actors per side. Any other participants provide "help" (supportive actions that provide a bonus die).
8. Repeat the rounds of 3 Actions until one side loses all their initial Disposition.

It does take some getting used to, like any system. And it requires a Conflict Captain on the Player side, which makes it a bit clunky in a PbP setup.

so now the restraining my dwarf from killing goblins do I need to roll something to prove I am capable of such a feat/ test of my beliefs and so forth?

GreyWolfVT wrote:so now the restraining my dwarf from killing goblins do I need to roll something to prove I am capable of such a feat/ test of my beliefs and so forth?

No. Burning Wheel doesn't work that way. I am forbidden from saying "this is how your character feels". I'm supposed to put your character in situations where his belief system is challenged, but only you can say whether he passes the test or not.

D&D is about the yes/no and the pass/fail duality. In Burning Wheel, pass or fail, you always walk the river of fire. For Horris, not trying to kill the a-hole Goblin Chief is as illuminating about character as would be the case if a huge fight broke out. I don't care that you don't test because you've already had a test, and it might even be worth experience in the coinage of the game.

Now, there are also dice tests for individual and separate actions, like sneaking through a sleeping dragon's lair or catching enough fish for a meal. These are governed by the player's intentions, and not strictly in a pass/fail context. Failing a dice roll might still accomplish 75% of what the player intended. It's the 25% consequences where it gets interesting.

Just to reiterate since the discussion went all over the place.

Helping during a Conflict. We'll follow what it says on page 72.

You only get Helper dice if the Helper has the specific skill or ability listed for that Action in the volley, or if someone has an appropriate Wise.

I had this whole thing written up, and then the browser decided to set itself on fire...

So, I didn't describe what we do in a Conflict (as I see the rules, anyway).

Lets take a Kill Conflict as the theoretical example. 4 adventurers want to Kill 4 Hobgoblins, who want to kill them back. This is the most DnDish thing I can think of.

In DnD, you would roll initiative and swing away. Damage comes off your individual HPs, and 0 HP or less means you're likely headed to a dirt nap.

In Torchbearer, we have Disposition. This is set at the group level, and doled out to individual members. We don't track HPs (I.e. Individual Disposition points) outside of the Conflict. Your Disposition gets reset at the next Conflict. What you care about is to survive the Conflict without gaining a Condition. (ooh. Maybe I should throw some Conditions on the group after this last Convince Crowd thing) Conditions are what messes you up in this game, not the loss of HPs.

(okay. Posting this now so the browser doesn't go up in a dumpster fire. Will follow up with more later...)

Conditions aren't appropriate for a failed social conflict unless they're called out in advance--instead, the goblins laid out a set of demands to start with and now that we lost with no compromise we have to satisfy them.

I was joking (mostly) about the Conditions. I will keep them in mind for future Conflicts, though.

...

So, I think the main thing is the volley system. Each round of a Conflict is made up of 3 volleys. A volley is one participant performing an action. Think of it like a round in DnD. In a way, it is limited to 3 actions, but that doesn't count Help.

There are 4 different actions: Attack, Defend, Feint, Maneuver. These represent abstracted concepts that apply to many situations.

In a Kill Conflict, it's obvious. Attack is a direct attempt to take someone out of the fight. Defend will keep you alive, and possibly can bring back a participant who got stunned or otherwise knocked out. Feint is a bold misdirection attack. Maneuver is an attempt to gain beneficial ground... to flank, for instance.

What about casting an offensive spell? It fits into the attack skill. It all boils down to the four abstract actions.

Actually, to further clarify--casting a spell does not take up an action in a conflict, but needs to happen before the beginning of a round. Eldritch Darts, the basic attack spell, doesn't directly injure--instead, it allows the caster to use their Arcanist skill instead of Fighter to attack in combat, thus increasing the chances of inflicting damage.

It's quirky but it all fits together.

so what happened did I kill the game?

I think I killed it with the unbalanced contest with the King of All Caves.

I'm thinking I need to play a bit more in Keehnelf's Torchbearer game before I really run this system in earnest... or I need to flip it over to Dungeon World since I'm picking up that system a lot quicker.

Okay, judgment day.

I'm not sure this will work out soon (due to me not being 100% ready for this), I think we should call it. I'll pitch in to move it forward again if you like, but I'm thinking its time to put this in the Archives.

If there's no objections, I'll ask for this to be archived on Monday.

Sounds good for now--let's come back to it later!

Sounds like a plan to me.

i've no objections to the archiving.