- For other uses of the term, see Conflict (disambiguation).
A conflict is a situation in which a character, a player, or the rules are trying to prevent another character or player from achieving their desires or goals in a scene. This includes situations when two characters or two players have mutually incompatible desires or goals.
Conflict necessarily means that there is uncertainty in the outcome of the situation, and therefore the conflict must be resolved before the scene and the story can continue. Note however that not all types of uncertainty are necessarily conflicts. Also, while some types of resolution (conflict resolution) are designed to address the central desires of a conflict, any type of resolution (including task resolution) can be used when a conflict occurs.
Conflicts can take place in different spheres, such as physical (including combat) or social.
Examples of conflicts[]
Character vs character[]
Character A (Alex) wants to accomplish a goal, but character B (Bailey) wants to prevent them from doing so. For example,
- Alex attacks Bailey in a combat situation, but Bailey is defending against attacks;
- Alex tries to stealthily follow Bailey through town, but Bailey doesn't want to be followed and is on the lookout;
- Alex wants Bailey to reveal important information, but Bailey is unwilling to do so;
- Alex wants to win a race, but Bailey is also competing and wants to win instead.
Player vs player[]
Player vs player conflict happens when two players (which can include a GM) have different ideas of how a scene could end. This is often a metagaming discussion and the scene might not even involve some of the player characters of the players in conflict. For example, player C (Charlie) thinks that character Alex destroying the magic item should lead to a big explosion, whereas player D (Dylan) thinks that Alex destroying the item should cause Alex to gain new magical abilities. In this example, this can be a valid conflict even if Alex is not the player character of either Charlie or Dylan (or even if Alex is not a player character at all).
Player vs player conflict is not as common as character vs character conflict, and only a small number of games include specific rules for it.
Character vs rules[]
This type of conflict happens when a character wants to make an action but the rules require a resolution before it can happen. Requiring this in rules is risky, because it potentially goes against the principle that success and failure should both be interesting, i.e. that resolution should be used if every outcome (success, failure, etc.) are interesting and not merely based on the type of action that is happening in the game world.