benlehman

Well, it's conflict resolution because the genre we're emulating is arthouse wuxia, which is structured around a family drama, which is, in turn, structured around interpersonal conflict. And more than a few people have argued that conflict is what drives all stories, which is why roleplaying focuses on resolving conflicts and trusts the rest to take care of itself.

However, what Ben nailed here is that telling good stories or emulating genres or creating fun instances of play is about much more than creating and resolving conflicts in an interesting way, since there's a lot of play that doesn't directly involve conflicts.

Character creation is a great example. Town creation in Dogs is a great example. Setting and color is also HUGELY important. What would Nobilis be without all the laws, including both the in-game law of "Thou Shalt Not Love" and the meta-game Monarda Law that encourages you to say "yes" to player requests? These things form the boundaries within which stories are told. They're about limiting the possibile choices so that the decisions players make seem to have a consistent feel.