>Could you say more? Also, could you untangle setting goals and setting stakes? (Since the rules say "you get your goal".)
"Stakes" is simply a technical term for the process of determining what is at risk for each side in a conflict, right? So a player, by stating his "Goal" for his character, is attempting to set the win condition stakes for their side. And to some extent the loss stakes tend to be include simply that they don't get their goal (amongst other potential downsides, depending on situation).
The thing is that goals can be somewhat vague, as in my example. If the player says, "I'm beating him up" well I can think of a whole lot of specific outcomes that would satisfy that goal. Moreover, again trying to intuit intent, there's the question of whether there's really something more behind what the player is asking for. Why does his character want to beat up the NPC? The NPC insulted him? Ah, well then it's really honor that's at stake.
He probably doesn't want to kill the other guy, for instance. If the player gets a complete victory, and I narrate him beating up the opponent until dead, that's probably ignoring the player's intent. The player wants a little justice, not to commit murder. Or what if I have the character disable his opponent for life or somesuch? Leaving the opponent with his honor intact, however, and still able to continue to insult the character? Is that the proper response?
A more appropriate long-term effect of such a beat-down in the case of a complete victory should probably be something like the opponent becoming so afraid of getting another beat-down, that they never again say a bad word against the player's character. Oh, he may be injured as well. But the "Complete" part, the long-term disablement of the target, is probably better set as him being cowed.
So you can see how a stated goal isn't always clearly indicative of what's really at stake. I also think the example shows how relatively easy it is to perform this sort of analysis. Few GM's would make the mistake of applying death or life-long disability, etc, and will probably get just what it is that will be a satisfying outcome for the player.
It's really not very hard at all once you've gotten used to thinking about the player's intent. Yes, I could be guessing completely wrong... maybe the player really did intend to have his hero commit murder as a revenge. The solution to the occasional mismanagement is pretty simple, too. Watch the player's response. Do they like it? If they don't seem to, ask them if you missed the target, and what they thought might happen. You can always redact the resolution to fit, worst case.
The speed and suspense and surprise you gain, are, in my opinion, well worth the occasional mistake that you'll make when guessing what the intention behind the stated goal is really all about. Take that risk, as long as you think you've got a good idea what's going on.
Note that what makes this even easier is that a substantial percentage of the time the goal does in fact directly speak to the outcome. "I want to climb the wall, before the guard gets to me" is pretty clear. It's when the player just says "I want to climb the wall" when there's a guard that's pursuing them, that you have to put two and two together to get the important stakes behind the goal statement.
You mentioned that the phenomenon of explicit stake setting seems to occur because it's deemed as needed, since bad mistakes are happening. I posit that it's not happening, not much lately. I think that, again, this new habit is an over-reaction to the bad old days when GMs were told to manipulate the outcomes of contests to orchestrate their own ends (often this was done as punishment for "stupid" actions, for instance, or for plot control, etc). Or sometimes the game locked in X outcome for use of Y skill. If you're not sorta actively messing with your player's intents, or using rules that completely ignore intent, I think that intent gets met most of the time in most games.
Again, I don't think that this is really very hard stuff. It may simply not be what some folks are used to. And getting used to it can take some time.
It did for me.
Mike
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