How to Set Stakes, or When Binary Resolution is About More Than Two Choices

This is a good post by Behind the Helm. Maybe even good enough to go in the hall of fame.

It has the simple, elegant "rule of threes" vibe of this post, which outlines a principle so good that I have it attached to the computer I use for running games.

What both of these posts are getting at is that adjudicating uncertain or dangerous situations in an RPG requires the GM to think critically about possible outcomes, and what outcomes the dice should be suggesting.

Many RPGs fail to teach GMs that game action is viewed through the lens of the ruleset. Rules clarify  and focus the game action rather than define it. Calling for a roll of the dice is not (just) a chance for excitement and risk; it is a way to orient everyone at the table around what is happening. A roll of the dice syncs everyone at the table with the current fiction.

Yes, part of this is just knowing when not to roll the dice. It just succeeds. But if dice must be rolled, the GM must understand how to set stakes. 

I have just begun running Mothership, and its an interesting game to examine in the context of Behind the Helm's post. At a casual glance, it feels like a binary resolution game. Roll under, succeed; roll over, fail. Doubles are crits. My D&D-trained brain says, binary resolution plus crits. Easy, right?

But how closely did I read the Warden’s Manual? On page 20, regarding the marine class: “Interpret their failed Combat rolls more generously than others.” Hmmm. Page 26-27 includes a lovely adjudication flowchart; the "warden sets the stakes" phase of the chart is clearly an opportunity to choose binary resolution between success/success-at-cost/failure, although it doesn’t explicitly say that. Page 30, under “there’s more than success and failure at stake,” is essentially making the same point as Behind the Helm's post. 

But I missed it! I read the manual cover to cover before I started running the game, and I didn’t really internalize what those bits collectively mean until I reread it with this blog post in mind.

In one player’s very first session in our Mothership game, they rolled exactly the target number. We had to look it up and confirm that only results under the target succeed, so it was a failure. But I had already set the stakes for the roll at total success or success-at-cost, so I already knew how to adjudicate it. 

The character escaped from their pursuer, but wasn't able to fully close the airlock door. Their pursuer was still trying to pry it open. Binary resolution supported by thoughtful stakes-setting framed the action and made it easy to say to the players, “well, what do you want to do next?”