How Does Ends and Means Resolve Conflicts?

Many role-playing games break conflicts down into dozens of lesser tasks determined by the GM. If you want to steal valuable military secrets, for example, the GM might tell you to:

	Thwart the perimeter security of the government base.
	Sneak around the base without being seen by any guards.
	Find the room holding all the information you want.
	Hack a computer to get the data.
	Backtrack through the base to escape.

Ends and Means doesn't do that.

Instead, when a conflict begins, you and your opponents each pick what matters most to you. This is called your Stake in the conflict. In the example above, your Stake would be "I steal valuable military secrets." The GM's Stake might be, "The military captures you."

Next, you use the Ends and Means on your character sheet to try to win your Stake. Your opponents do the same. If the conflict isn't going your way, you get the chance to change that by paying Plot Points to your opponent. I won't go into too much detail on those rules here.

One of you wins your Stake, and the other loses.

Suppose you win your Stake, "I steal valuable military secrets." Now that you know you will be successful, you fill in as much detail as you like. How do you thwart the perimeter security? How do you evade the guards? How do you hack the computer? You don't have to use any more rules: you can simply role-play it out as you imagine it happening.

Sometimes you win your Stake, but your opponent wins the right to Direct the scene. That means your opponent gets to describe the kind of opposition you end up facing. Your opponent must abide by the fact that you ultimately achieve your goal, but he can sure make it interesting along the way.

Sometimes you lose your Stake - but you also win the right to Direct. You fail, but you get to describe how you fail. That means your super-stealthy character doesn't have to do something dumb like stumbling into a break room full of Military Police. Instead, you can choose to ditch the incriminating evidence before they catch up to you.

Of course, there are also times you lose and your opponent gets to Direct. Those are the moments that nothing goes right.

That Sounds Kind of Complicated. Why Do It Like That?

It's really not as complicated as it sounds. Consider this advantage: once you have it down, you'll never need to learn another rule. Compare that to any game with long lists of rules for specific maneuvers and special powers.

You never have to spend hours of real time resolving a conflict that takes only seconds of in-game time. In one playtest I ran, a battle between six warrior-mages and a teeming goblin horde took perhaps fifteen minutes (and that was when nobody involved had ever used the system before). Imagine how long it would take if we were defeating the goblins one by one using dozens of rules for special sword techniques and magic spells!

This method also gives you imaginative freedom. If you want to win through guile, through strength of arms, through keen tactics - just describe it that way and it happens.

Enough high-level stuff. Show me the guts!

I created a Quick Reference Pamphlet for the players of my most recent playtests. While I won't go to any lengths to explain it all here (the full explanation does, after all, take up a chapter in the book!), I'm sure you can glean a sense of how it works nonetheless.