Failing Forward

Umbran said:

The absolute statement's a bit too strong, but... For one thing, the GM will typically know that there's a problem before the players. The GM also knows better what's available to work with to move forward.

Click to expand...

Sometimes these are true; other times the DM doesn't see the "problem" coming until it hits; and I put the word 'problem' in quotes as this sort of thing is only a problem if the group as a whole lets it be a problem. Players are (usually) creative people. Adventuring parties are surprisingly resilient things.

Where is that "something" coming from? How many times have people talked (and complained) about how long it takes to prepare adventures? If the PCs seek a new adventure in the middle of a session, is the GM likely to just have something that matches on hand, already prepped and ready to go? Not all GMs are magicians with, *poof* an adventure right out of their hat!

Click to expand...

I guess I'm lucky, then, as pretty much every DM I've ever had was/is usually able to fly blind for long enough to keep the session going for the night no matter what we-as-players do, and tidy things up afterwards if need be. For my own part as a DM, I've almost always got at least one or two adventures or mini-adventures or ideas sitting in reserve in case the main adventure goes off the rails (many times the party is on its current adventure having had a choice of more than one adventure to do anyway, it's easy enough to fall back to plan B); failing that I can always wing something...and if I'm really stuck (which happens now and then despite my best intentions) wandering monsters can be a very good friend. (on at least one occasion in the past said wandering monsters have in fact become their own adventure)

And, if the GM is going to improvise a whole new adventure on the spot, why not just improvise a way for the PCs to continue on the current adventure?

Click to expand...

Depends. If the party in fact has the means to continue either within its own resources or by finding a plan B such as another access already present in the adventure and for whatever reason they don't do it, I'm not going to hold their hands. If the party's screwed due to no fault of their own e.g. the only key to the door got melted by a fireball last night and they've absolutely no other way through then I'll put something in.

Picture this:

"Well, gee, we know the BBEG was going to smuggle 500 people into slavery to the orcs. But, I guess we'll just go shopping instead!"
"Nah, I don't wanna go shopping! I wanna quibble over who gets what magic item!"
"Okay, that sounds like a fun use of the next three hours of our time..."

Sound realistic?

Click to expand...

Sigh...those are players without any concept of a plan B.

Let's see...just from the tiny snippet of an example you give above the players could try sending the party to:

Plan B: Find and intercept and take out the orcs to whom the slaves were to be sold (then set up an ambush to take out the slavers on arrival)
Plan C: Find where the slaves-to-be are being held right now and bust 'em out
Plan D: Determine what route the slavers and slaves will be taking to get to the orcs and set up an intercept
Plan E: Find out where the orcs will be taking the slaves after purchase and either intercept en route or rescue once they're on site

Note however that all these options require some proactive information gathering by the characters, something that IME seems to be anathaema to some players.

Lan-"there's always a plan B"-efan

Personally I feel that any response which boils down to "you're just an inferior GM to me" can be dismissed out of hand. Let's not do that, folks. We're a niche hobby at its best; having our own little sub-version of playground bullying is just sad.

Lanefan said:

failing that I can always wing something...and if I'm really stuck (which happens now and then despite my best intentions) wandering monsters can be a very good friend.

Click to expand...

One minor inconvenience which I have experienced, in moving from Pathfinder to 5E, is that I can no longer rely on a random encounter to buy me an hour to plan when something unexpected happens.

It's a minor complaint, really, but stalling tactics are always useful whether or not you're Failing Forward.

Morrus said:

Because sometimes they're fun, and because Tolkien did it. And fail-forward is an easy way to do that, so why not do it?

Click to expand...

What would "fail-forward" mean in this example, though? In my opinion, if the GM needs you to find the secret door, the GM should not make you roll for it. Because rolling has the possibility of failure, and the GM is not prepared for this failure. So the PCs are going to succeed no matter what. So there's no need to roll dice at all. Because the only time you roll dice is if the action can succeed, can fail, and has some cost or consequence to failure. Right?

If the dramatic question of the encounter is "can you find the secret door" and the GM knows the players will find it regardless of what they do, that's obviously a bogus encounter.

On the other hand, if the GM ensures that the players find the secret door, and the actual encounter is about "can you open it the right way" (it gets opened regardless, but on a failed DEX check it alerts the guards or whatever), that would be totally fine. I guess that's an example of a "fail forward?" But that's just basic application of adventure design fundamentals.

My issue is, the following encounter could also be called a fail forward: the encounter is "can you find the secret door." The GM asks for perception checks, and the players whiff. The GM suddenly realizes that the adventure can't begin unless they find the secret door. So the GM says you find the secret door by stubbing your toe on it; you can progress, but you lose 5 hp and drop to half speed for the next minute. That's a fail forward too, right? Except this ends up being a bogus encounter, just like my first example. Props to the GM for making the most of a bad job (a railroad is better than a train wreck), but GMs should aspire to never get into that sort of pickle in the first place.

I think using the term "fail forward" conflates these two very different maneuvers, and wrapping them up into a piece of jargon actually distracts from and obfuscates the important point here:

A good adventure is designed with bottlenecks in mind. The designer should consider the consequences for success and failure of each encounter (as much as possible, of course). Perhaps with some sort of flowchart--possibly a very special type of flowchart known as a dungeon map. If failing a given encounter leads to failing the overall adventure, the designer can either accept it or change it; whichever works best for the given situation.

So, to answer the question, "Do I like Fail Forward?" Sure. I like it about as much as swarm rules, stealth checks, and initiative order. By which I mean, use it when it makes sense, don't when it doesn't; the important thing is how it fits into the overall experience.

Saelorn said:

At least if you're playing a traditional RPG - D&D, Rifts, Shadowrun, etc - one of the highest responsibilities of the GM is to be fair. That means being a neutral arbiter of conflicts, but it also means not changing the world based on GM knowledge that the NPCs don't have.

Click to expand...

Uh, why? To be fair, I would change the world if a player brought something up that I had forgotten. Fancy haberdashers may not be super common, but cobblers were. Now, if I had arranged the whole town and forgotten cobblers and PCs started looking for one, I think I had better add one because sticking to a mistake I made... wouldn't be fair.

billd91 said:

Uh, why? To be fair, I would change the world if a player brought something up that I had forgotten. Fancy haberdashers may not be super common, but cobblers were. Now, if I had arranged the whole town and forgotten cobblers and PCs started looking for one, I think I had better add one because sticking to a mistake I made... wouldn't be fair.

Click to expand...

Yeah, nothing wrong with that, if you made an honest mistake. As long as you add the shop because it really should be there, and not because the player does or does not want it to be there.

Saelorn said:

Yeah, nothing wrong with that, if you made an honest mistake. As long as you add the shop because it really should be there, and not because the player does or does not want it to be there.

Click to expand...

This nicely encapsulates, for me, where I have real problems with the "GM's world" paradigm. The shop "should" be there according to what metric? It seems to me to be the GM's opinion, based on the usual human-brain cocktail of heuristic and bias, world model and belief. So the cobbler is there and the haberdasher isn't, and the player looking for the former is successful for thinking of something the GM likes whereas the one looking for the latter is SOL because they are looking for something the GM doesn't like. That just doesn't comport with my conception of "fair". Or of "fun". Maybe for others it does - but for me it fails.

This is why I would prefer a systematic or perhaps customary "fail forward". The stakes stop being "will you (the player) be able to pursue this plan and see if it works", and become "what number of difficulties will you have to overcome to succeed?" This requires breaking down what the character really needs, and ensure it is available - at a cost to be determined by events and die rolls.

In looking for a haberdasher it's likely that you are actually in need of a hat. So roll Streetwise to see if you find a haberdasher. If the roll fails you don't find a haberdasher*, but you do find a hat of just the sort you're looking for. It's being worn by a richly dressed and important-looking man with a fine-looking servant and a bodyguard in tow... What do you do now?

Is this a matter of taste? Absolutely. But I hope you can see that mine isn't either kooky or unreasonable. I work from the assumption that yours isn't, either, from your point of view.

*: Note that this sidesteps the issue of whether there is a haberdasher in town or not. Apart from the practical gaming advantages of leaving that fluid, how would the character(s) know?

Balesir said:

This nicely encapsulates, for me, where I have real problems with the "GM's world" paradigm. The shop "should" be there according to what metric? It seems to me to be the GM's opinion, based on the usual human-brain cocktail of heuristic and bias, world model and belief. So the cobbler is there and the haberdasher isn't, and the player looking for the former is successful for thinking of something the GM likes whereas the one looking for the latter is SOL because they are looking for something the GM doesn't like. That just doesn't comport with my conception of "fair". Or of "fun". Maybe for others it does - but for me it fails.

Click to expand...

I can certainly respect not enjoying an approach rooted more in "the GM's world" approach but I think this kind of sets up a bit of a straw man. I like the world to feel real around my character, and I think the metric here is the GM tries to answer questions like "is there a cobbler" or "is there a magic guild in town" as logically as he or she can based on what has been established about the world and what seems reasonable. That is subjective to a degree, and every GM will have biases, but just because we have biases doesn't make us total slaves to them or require that we throw our hands up in despair and say "GM's world is impossible!". In my experience if the GM strives for impartiality, honesty and fairness in pursuit of running the world around the PCs, it will feel consistent and real. There will be imperfections, there will occasionally be bad GMs, but most GMs I've played under can manage this well with minimal issues. It takes the GM checking him or herself from time to time and asking "am I making this ruling because it goes somewhere that is convenient for me, or because its what the NPC would do, or what would be the case in this world." It isn't the only approach, but it is an entirely valid one. If the GM makes a serious error in judgment, like one thing exists in town, but something else that should be there isn't, if it is really glaring, probably warrants a reversal or explanation. But again it depends on how nitpick the players are about levels of realism there. Every group is different and part of the GM's responsibility here is to respond to the group's concerns about details. For me, I am honestly not going to worry or notice if the GM says there is a cobbler but no haberdasher. Some groups might be concerned about that kind of detail, but it probably wouldn't warrant a second glance in my current group (I have been in groups where that sort of thing matters though and when you are running for those kinds of players, the GM has to step up those kinds of details). I'll probably just assume articles for sewing are just made at home or something by most people or some other arrangement is in place. If you were playing in a campaign I was running though, and any time that sort of thing came up, it clearly bothered you (or attracted your interest) I would make a point of reading up on that aspect of culture and make sure it was as believable as I could make it. This is actually something I really enjoy as a GM. I'm a history buff, but I have my own areas of interest (I've never been too into things like textiles for example, and am much more interested in history of knowledge and social history). But I've had players who really want a ground level explanation of how things like Carp farming work in the setting. When that happens it gives me something to research that I might not normally take an interest in (and almost always expands my sense of the world).

But that doesn't mean a carp farm is going to exist in a particular place just because a player expresses an interest in them. My feeling as a player is when things exist simply because I suggest an interest in them....it feels like the world around me is too malleable and not a solid, external thing.

Again, none of this is about achieving a 100% perfect representation of reality in the setting. It is about believability and maintaining the illusion that the world is a real place external to my character.

Bedrockgames said:

I can certainly respect not enjoying an approach rooted more in "the GM's world" approach but I think this kind of sets up a bit of a straw man. I like the world to feel real around my character, and I think the metric here is the GM tries to answer questions like "is there a cobbler" or "is there a magic guild in town" as logically as he or she can based on what has been established about the world and what seems reasonable. That is subjective to a degree, and every GM will have biases, but just because we have biases doesn't make us total slaves to them or require that we throw our hands up in despair and say "GM's world is impossible!".

Click to expand...

I should say further, here, that I am generally the GM, and this taste I have developed is quite heavily framed from there. If I am building a world based purely off of my own predilictions it doesn't feel valid or alive to me - and I assume (another inbuilt bias!) that if it seems that way to me it's likely to strike (some) players that way, too.

I would also say, though, that the current state of research shows pretty clearly that we are slaves to several of our biases, because the most "dangerous" ones are the ones we don't even realise we have. I thoroughly recommend listening to Dan Kahneman, Timothy Nisbett and Elizabeth Loftus (either their TED talks or the University of Queensland MOOC "Thinking 101"). People who have been studying the workings of the mind their whole lives have discovered that biases and assumptions they don't even realise they have are so ubiquitous that they know they will never escape them. The trick is to learn how to (consciously) live with them.

Finally, I like world building as much as anyone. But these days I much prefer to do it as a collaborative thing. Partly this is to get a mix of viewpoints, a blend of particular biases and heuristics involved to make the world actually richer. But it's also because, as a social activity, I find it can be quite fun.

Mechanical systems, on the other hand, I find are usually best formulated by one mind, and then tested on others - over and over again, if you want a really strong system...

GX.Sigma said:

What would "fail-forward" mean in this example, though? In my opinion, if the GM needs you to find the secret door, the GM should not make you roll for it. Because rolling has the possibility of failure, and the GM is not prepared for this failure. So the PCs are going to succeed no matter what. So there's no need to roll dice at all. Because the only time you roll dice is if the action can succeed, can fail, and has some cost or consequence to failure. Right?

If the dramatic question of the encounter is "can you find the secret door" and the GM knows the players will find it regardless of what they do, that's obviously a bogus encounter.

On the other hand, if the GM ensures that the players find the secret door, and the actual encounter is about "can you open it the right way" (it gets opened regardless, but on a failed DEX check it alerts the guards or whatever), that would be totally fine. I guess that's an example of a "fail forward?" But that's just basic application of adventure design fundamentals.

My issue is, the following encounter could also be called a fail forward: the encounter is "can you find the secret door." The GM asks for perception checks, and the players whiff. The GM suddenly realizes that the adventure can't begin unless they find the secret door. So the GM says you find the secret door by stubbing your toe on it; you can progress, but you lose 5 hp and drop to half speed for the next minute. That's a fail forward too, right? Except this ends up being a bogus encounter, just like my first example. Props to the GM for making the most of a bad job (a railroad is better than a train wreck), but GMs should aspire to never get into that sort of pickle in the first place.

I think using the term "fail forward" conflates these two very different maneuvers, and wrapping them up into a piece of jargon actually distracts from and obfuscates the important point here:

A good adventure is designed with bottlenecks in mind. The designer should consider the consequences for success and failure of each encounter (as much as possible, of course). Perhaps with some sort of flowchart--possibly a very special type of flowchart known as a dungeon map. If failing a given encounter leads to failing the overall adventure, the designer can either accept it or change it; whichever works best for the given situation.

So, to answer the question, "Do I like Fail Forward?" Sure. I like it about as much as swarm rules, stealth checks, and initiative order. By which I mean, use it when it makes sense, don't when it doesn't; the important thing is how it fits into the overall experience.

Click to expand...

Taking your explanation here, Fail Forward is the GM correcting the die roll that roadblocked to find the secret door into a roll to see if you have a problem while finding the door (the finding of the door being the guaranteed part, the problem part being that which your skill check is trying to avoid).

Let's say the GM should have built the encounter that way in the first place. But as Morrus indicated, we're not here to chastise a GM for making mistakes. Fail Forward is simply how a GM transforms that little oversight into how the encounter "should" have been built in the first place.

Knowing there's a work-around for in-game situations like this that come up due to imperfect preparation is useful. A GM who goes strictly by the text, and refuses to budge when the text is wrong/causing a problem, is likely going to get classified as a bad GM by his players.