>I'm familiar with Mike's advice (it was his writings about HQ that originally lead me to it), and I do go after the intent when applicable. It however breaks immersionist play, IMO, and easily causes the zooming out I want to avoid.
Speak of the Devil...
I agree, actually, about the fact that getting to intent by querying the player directly being... intrusive. What is optimal is intuiting fun outcomes for players. The technique in discussion is useful for when you either are very much not sure about what the player's intent is, or if you're inexperienced, and just trying to get your feet in understanding what people are really after. With practice, you should be able to do this sort of thing less and less, in general, and if you know your players well, you should have a strong head start in getting to the point where you don't have to do it much at all.
At some point you just go back to taking risks, albeit small ones, with selecting stakes.
By the way, one thing that I'm very opposed to is actual explicit stake setting. Note that even in the technique we're discussing, I only say you should look for intent, which informs stakes, but does not firmly set them. If I get into a brawl, I'm probably trying to hurt somebody... but it's a messy form of fighting, and traditionally often results in weird outcomes. So, as an example of a kind of conflict, it's one where you've probably got quite a lot of latitude. Not only in terms of what defeat will bring (which generally you have larger latitude with anyhow), but even with intent. Character A might be intending to brain character B, but if he ends up knocking him through a window into a pile of manure, that's probably fine.
Intentionally saying something like, "What do you want to happen to your character if he fails" is... well lots of people are playing like this these days. And I can see why as a reaction to the bad old days of GMs abusing intent to move things in directions they want. But, very simply, explicit stake setting drains tension from the conflict... you've already decided what the possible outcomes are. For instance, if the conflict is a mortal looking combat, but we say that the losing side will end up escaping with their dignity in tatters, well that means we know that somebody won't die... when sharp things are flailing about, no matter how improbable death might be in such a situation, ruling it out means losing the ability to feel the fear of those sharp things that the character feels. Yes, there might be something important at stake, there might be some tension, but it's relatively artificial.
Sure, we're pretty sure that Indiana Jones won't die when fighting on the cliff edge... but we're not 100% sure. Don't make it sure in your game, either. Yes, take into account player intent. No, don't let em know what that means in terms of your devilish outcomes before it's time to resolve.
Mike
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