[quote=Sarcor]I have been working myself over to post an advanced interest check in the forums for quite some time now, and have balked at every opportunity. I have tried to put my finger on exactly what was bothering me and I think I have found it.

Conflict Resolution in a non tabletop setting.

How can it be done where everyone is happy? How does one know when to lose? When to win? How does a GM accurately and decisively act on the knowledge that their creations may die? Or that a specific player's character may not live?

I am not talking about dice rolling in a D&D game. A good, old fashioned roleplay in the general freeform, casual, and advanced forum is my focus here. I would like to hear opinions from GMs as well as players who have had this sort of experience in their travels on this site. Please, open discussion.[/quote]

Conflict resolution? Several manners, usually intermixed of the following though.
[b]A.[/b] Players agree in advance what the results will be, usually in a duel setting. (ex: Player A and Player B agree in private that X will lose, but not before he manages to hurt Y.)
[b]B.[/b] GM's word is law. If the GM says you got hit, you got hit. Nobody else but the GM can enforce this.
[b]C.[/b] Story-based wounding. Like the above, but wounds are judged based on what would be appropriate for character expy, rather than what they would probably get. (ex: Getting a harmless enough scar across the cheek, as opposed to, say, having half your jaw cut off.)
[b]D.[/b] GM rolls dice, either keeping the results private or displaying them publicly. Often supported by B, but not always.
[b]E.[/b] Everyone rolls dice. Typically supported by at least a light system of some sort, with a site that records the rolls of registered users used to ensure nobody can lie about results.

Combine with proper battle etiquette (ex: Instead of saying "I hit your character", you say "I attempted to strike your character") and everything usually works out, so long as your fellow role players are not dimwitted power mongers.