Some other posters have already explained how finding a ruby can be a failure. Here's another way: the PC is searching for gold pieces because only gold pieces can lift the curse of the whatever-it-is (I'm imagining some variant of the gem-crushing gargoyle in ToH). Finding a ruby is a, in that circumstance, a failure - although maybe if the PC can make it to a gem market and cash in the ruby s/he can get some or even all of the gold s/he needs.
As to your possibilities:
(1) I don't really see how this can be known in advance unless the GM has already plotted the story out. Which maybe s/he has, but then that brings us back to the question of what the role of the players is in relation to the fiction.
(2) This has been dealt with ad nauseum by @
Ovinomancer and by me. If the action declaration would violate the established ficiotn then that should alreayd have been sorted out. Furthremore, this is not particularly a GM function. I mean, the GM's narration of the ruby could negate some prioer fiction to if the GM is careless (eg maybe the PCs already scanned the area with a gem detection spell and it registed no gems). So all-in-all this particular possibility is a red herring.
(3) I don't understand this at all. If the GM tells the player the PC fails to find 1000 gp then why is the player then making a check? What is the check for? And if this check whose purpose I don't understand is successful, what is the reason for telling the player that the PC finds a 1000 gp instead of the 1000 gp s/he was looking for.
I think all they did was define how any apparent success could turn into a failure. Their method was to assert something additional that I didn't claim about the scene. The same can be done with 1000gp to turn it into a failure as well. Basically they aren't arguing that the ruby can't be a success, but rather that giving the player what they want with a major downside isn't necessarily something that should be called a success.
So what actual reasons do you have for asserting that a 1000gp ruby can never be a success? (not that a 1000gp ruby with a major downside is not a success).
On a side note: if you can fail forward... I suppose it's also possible to succeed toward escalating conflict. We could have a whole discussion around that idea.
Not in the way that I and (I believe) @
Ovinomancer are talking about. An author can write about a character's struggle with identity and responsibility (think eg about JRRT's account of Aragorn's self-doubt after the Fellowship leaves Lorien). But that is not playing a game. The author wasn't challenged except in the sense that authoring can be a difficult thing.
That's why I've been soo picky about whether you refer to challenging the player or the character. Rolling a dice doesn't challenge a player. The narration of a failure may challenge something the player previously regarded as true. (Of course it seems the narration of a success could also do that). In any case, you don't need dice to challenge the players conception of their character or the fictional world as the same narration that challenges the player can be achieved with no dice being rolled.
Stating an attempted action is suggesting something to be true in the fiction - namely, that the PC performs the actin as described! That's the whole starting point for the OP of this thread.
The only fictional truth declaring an action does is set the truth to be that your character attempted to do X. The player declares with explicitness something which becomes true. The player never once suggested something that might be true.
The DM then determines what happens. Was your attempt successful. Was it uncertain. Did you fail?
Your claim that the GM always decides in D&D is obviously very controversial But even at those tables where it is true, it doesn't follow that the GM never considers what it is that the players have suggested.
I don't think that the GM always decides is controversial in D&D. I mean their is a social contract and all and if the DM fails to honor that then the game will fall apart. But even then it's still the DM deciding whether to abide by that or not. And it's still him ultimately deciding. But that's a side point.
The important thing is: When did the players suggest something? They declare attempted actions. Are you equating an attempted action declaration with a suggestion?
But if acting is not roleplaying, then where does the roleplaying consist of in a game in which the GM decides all the outcomes? What are the players doing in such a game other than some improv acting?
Playing their character and seeing what happens.
To echo @
Manbearcat, the point is not that people like what they like. The point is that some systems make possible certain experiences that others don't.
That's your assertion yes. It's interesting to note that all the systems with good to have experiences are not D&D. It's almost as if all of this is just a subtle way to tell everyone that they are having badwrongfun, without actually needing to call it that.
But that aside, on an individual level I full agree that different systems can yield totally different experiences. I'm not sure you can extrapolate that to everyone such that you can generally say this system only allows this experience and that system only allows that experience for everyone.
My repeated theme this whole thread has been that has been that different game systems play differently and appeal to different people, but that most everything you claim my favored system can't handle, that it actually can and does. That it's rules light non-combat system offers greater opportunities in roleplaying than other more codified systems (not saying those other systems aren't fun).
But it seems that anything positive said about D&D is just crapped on here as if the OP suggesting that all RPG's have pros and cons really means all RPG's except D&D have pros and cons.
I'll give an example from a slightly different field of hobby: I don't believe that it is possible to get the same thrill from swimming laps in a pool as it is to get from catching a wave at a beach. That's not a criticism of lap-swimming or a praise of beaches - taking that extra step would require deciding whether or not we like the thrill (some do, but not everybody does).
"Thrill" is a very personal thing. Some people would not find swimming in the ocean a thrill at all. Fear and anxiety may be their response. Whereas getting in the pool at the beach and swimming around may be quite thrilling to them.
Personally I much prefer the ocean and would agree that for me it's more thrilling. I don't think it's objective fact that it's more thrilling though.
Now maybe there's someone out there who finds lap swimming really thrilling.I guess that's conceivable. But I would want pretty good evidence before I contemplated this possibility in a serious way. Because it is very much at odds with my own experiences and obvservations of both lap swimmers and body surfers.
My wife tends to dislike being in the ocean because she is afraid of it. For her the pool is much more thrilling.
In RPGing, not every system can produce the same experience. In Rolemaster, when the first crit die is rolled, there is a sense of thrill and antiipation that cannot be achieved in an AD&D combat when the first damage die is rolled vs anything much bigger than a gnoll. Becuase in RM everyone knows that if that crit die comes up high, the combat is over; wheres in AD&D that combat can't be finished by the first damage roll.
That's a good example. I agree with you that the game part is different in every RPG and can create a different feeling. Constant Danger or relative safety with some danger etc.
What has been asserted for most of this thread is that the roleplaying is superior in these other games. That the roleplaying examples being mentioned aren't possible in D&D etc. That's where the disagreement lies.
If you are just wanting to say X mechanic tends to make the game feel like Y for many people then I agree. But that isn't what appears to be happening to me.
A
nd turning from combat to other domains of struggle, a typical AD&D game can't produce the sort of experience in relation to charavter that is being discussed here, because the typical AD&D game has neither the formal rules nor the informal practices necessary to bring the right sort of pressure to bear on the player in the play of his/her PC.
Which ignores my counterpoint that you don't need rules at all to generate pressure on the player
For instance, there is no way to put family relationships in jeopardy beyond either GM stipulation or consensus roleplaying - unless (as I think I mentioned upthread) one uses the honour and family rules from Oriental Adventures. While there is plenty of fail this check and your PC willl be hurt bad physically there's almost no way, in typical AD&D sans OA, to generate fail this check and your PC will be hurt emotionally - for instance, because his/her family rejects him/her. Unless the GM just stipulates that outcome, which isn't very dramatic in the context of playing a game.
You seem to be stuck between 2 ideas and conflating the 2. It's definitely more dramatic to the player if there's dice being rolled and an observable possibility for success and failure. That's the mechanic part I keep talking about. It's fun for the game but serves to restrict the ways in which a player can roleplay his character (for the fun and drama of the game). There's a tradeoff there - full unrestrictive roleplaying vs greater drama etc.
Do you accept that there is a difference between assertions grounded on experience and assertions grounded in mere conjecture?
Sure. They both can be wrong in very different ways. In your case it's imagining that your experiences must be the same as everyone elses. In mine it's imagining that I'm capable of imaging how a system plays without playing it.
