The Dumbing Down of RPGs

[Zhaleskra]

By itself, it is not bad advice to make sure the Unopenable Door is openable/bypassable somehow. Either by specific method or GM flexibility to accept a good feasible solution from the players

It is not bad to have a room that is really hard to get into, unless that room is required to complete the adventure AND the solution is so obtuse that you'd have to be the GM in order to solve it.

That's a the kind of rail-roady crap that starts the ball rolling toward GMing ideas like Fail Forward and such, that taken to the other extreme, look like a Dumbing Down of the game.

Leading me to further justify why I left a GURPS group over a year ago. There were so many cases where the GM had a specific solution in mind, and thought we the players were dumb for not being able to read his mind. This could, and often did, do on for hours. Which meant most of the session as we were usually only playing for three hours a night.

On the other end of the spectrum, I think D&D 3 going to mainstream RPGs lead to a lot of the simplification of RPGs that I didn't like. Was THAC0 really hard? Again, in my opinion, no. However; I have come to the realization that a calculation to hit a specific Armor Class is kind of dumb. I was never really fond of each class having its own experience track.

Before D&D 3E, I ran into people who'd say things like "you have to be smart to play those games". While it gave me a mild ego boost, it isn't really true to me. The math is basic: addition, subtraction, a dash of multiplication and division, and some very simple algebra in a few cases. Except when games go out of their way to complicate the math. Because, I admit it, some go out of their way to make things overly complicated.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I just watched a FoolTube video, pretty well done, about how the Elder Scrolls games are being "dumbed down" to meet the lowest common denominator. To make more money. And I had to ask myself:

Are TRPGs doing this too?

Now, obviously, the video's arguments don't apply directly to TRPGs. But for your reading pleasure, here they are (with my additions in parenthesis):

1) You can't fail (except to die and reload in the same place).
2) No consequences for faction membership (or, the Imperials don't care if you're a Rebel).
3) You make little impact in the world.
4) The quest and journal system (does little more than make you walk toward arrows).
5) NPC conversations are heavily reduced (and bear little significance).
6) Massively oversimplified puzzles (usually, with the solutions in plain sight).
7) The value of (special) items has been reduced (and supply has been greatly increased).

This would probably be easiest to view through the lens of multiple D&D editions, on which I'm no expert. But most big companies are out for your dirty dollar - are they making compromises as well?

In a word: no.

I don't see any evidence that big or small TRPG producers are "dumbing down" TRPGs in any of the ways you've described.

On the contrary, looking at, say, Dungeon World, I see it moving in the precise opposite direction:

1) You can fail, and it kind of matters more, too, because it potentially pushes you into more danger (in a way totally untrue of older RPGs).
2) Doesn't really apply to TRPGs. D&D has always been a game where it's the DM who has decided how extreme reactions are to the PCs. Two people running the same official setting in the same edition with the same PCs will have wildly varying levels of factionalism, racism, and so on.
3) In DW you make more impact on the world than old RPGs. Vastly more.
4) Doesn't really apply to TRPGs. 4E and a few others did actually try a little "quest card" system, but it got no traction and no case can be made that the industry is "moving towards it" in 2014 (a case could have been made in 2009, say - but it turned out to be a dead end, now abandoned).
5) Haha no, opposite direction.
6) Puzzles have always been easy and a specialized interest in TRPGs. Also entirely DM and adventure dependent. Some DMs/groups love them, some find them zero-challenge and boring, etc. etc. Certainly no change here, apart from fewer official adventures contain childishly easy word/number puzzles.
7) No, has always varied wildly. 3E was the D&D where items were most available and unimportant, but generally this hasn't happened across the industry and modern games, including 5E and DW, certainly tend to the other direction.

 

[GMMichael]

GUMESHOE bypasses that. You get the clue easily. That is to get you to the point where you have to *interpret* the clue - something you cannot do by rote, or by going exhaustively through a list. You actually have to think to figure out what the clue means!

Granted - interpreting clues is smart play. In Skyrim, in many cases, when you pick up a clue, you just get an arrow leading to the next clue or the end of the job. No interpretation necessary.

However, while I like the rule, I think it leaves out some of the greatest charm of RPGs. It's very rewarding to pick up on a verbal clue that the GM gives in order to find the in-game clue. And the GM has a number of options to aid in the finding of that clue -if necessary-, and his final option is to fail the PCs forward.

In a word: no.

I don't see any evidence that big or small TRPG producers are "dumbing down" TRPGs in any of the ways you've described.

That would be because they don't apply directly to TRPGs, which I've already mentioned. Some do, actually, especially the "you can't fail" problem, so fervently discussed in this very thread.

But responding to your observations about DW...
1) Good! Let's note here that failure is often subjective, and if DW can find a way to create fun out of failure, more power to it.
2) This actually can apply to TRPGs, especially ones with factions hard-coded into them - like D&D's Birthright campaign. Eberron made factions important, as well.
6) Yes, heavily GM dependent. However, as has been presented in at least 2 D&D 3E books, you can write rules for both puzzles and traps. One was the DMG's trap rules, which was pretty dumb: roll for success. Then there was Dungeonscape's smarter encounter traps: involve the whole party in the trap, in different ways.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

2) This actually can apply to TRPGs, especially ones with factions hard-coded into them - like D&D's Birthright campaign. Eberron made factions important, as well.

I don't agree that it really can, though, because it's complete up to the campaign and DM. It's pure roleplaying and doesn't need mechanics, nor benefit from them, imho (though WotC has been using such recently, I believe). YMMV.

6) Yes, heavily GM dependent. However, as has been presented in at least 2 D&D 3E books, you can write rules for both puzzles and traps. One was the DMG's trap rules, which was pretty dumb: roll for success. Then there was Dungeonscape's smarter encounter traps: involve the whole party in the trap, in different ways.

Traps and puzzles cross over but are essentially different ideas, imho. Neither is typically very exciting or involving compared to NPC interaction or combat, in my experience (no change from old to new). In non-procedurally-generated CRPGs/MMORPGs they're low-value, because if you beat them once, you know how to do it forever, and it's just a matter of them being fiddly, so yeah, they get used less than they used to.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't agree that it really can, though, because it's complete up to the campaign and DM. It's pure roleplaying and doesn't need mechanics, nor benefit from them, imho

That's purely an opinion though. I don't necessarily agree. My suspicion is that most DMs would benefit from a faction system, but that it would be difficult to design a system that works better than the hand waves and rulings of a good DM and that the burden of book keeping in a complex campaign might be onerous. But in general, my experience is that most DMs default to not rewarding players for thinking in terms of logistical resources, including the ability to call upon reliable allies. And, there are certainly times when handling those things systematically would result in better emmersion and better gameplay. One example of doing something like this well IMO was in the Savage Tide campaign, where cRPG style faction mechanics were ported over into a framework for strengthening a faction which in turn directly impacted how well the faction resisted attacks by a mutual enemy. That IMO would be an example of 'smartening up' PnP play by encouraging thoughtful activities which otherwise many DMs wouldn't tangibly reward.

On the contrary, looking at, say, Dungeon World, I see it moving in the precise opposite direction:

I'm not convinced. I'm certainly convinced that there is a general dumbing down in mainstream cRPG titles as cRPGs become more mainstream and have larger and larger development budgets. I'm less convinced of the same in PnP games just because they don't have the same constraints. However, I'm even less convinced than that that some new system is revolutionizing play, particular in the case of something like Dungeon World where I have pretty mixed feelings about the proposition/resolution mechanics.

1) You can fail, and it kind of matters more, too, because it potentially pushes you into more danger (in a way totally untrue of older RPGs).

Wait? What??? I'm still unconvinced that anything tops "Die no save." when it comes to making failure "matter more" from the perspective of failure implies great danger. Heck, in Dungeon World failure is not only expected but at times even desirable.

3) In DW you make more impact on the world than old RPGs. Vastly more.

Wait? Wait??? How can you passionately argue that how factions behave is overwhelmingly in control of the GM, and yet throw out the argument that in DW you make more impact on the world than old RPGs. Isn't that entirely the province of the GM as well? What in the world is your standard of measurement? Becoming a king and shaping the politics of a world on a global level? Saving the world from certain doom or a new dark age? Becoming an immortal god and changing the world even to the extent of changing the rules as physics at the metagame level? These are all features I've seen explored in old RPGs and all of which was encouraged by the rules of said RPGs. How in the world can DW force 'vastly more' impact than any of that, particularly given the very limited nature of the propositional/response play its designed to resolve?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's purely an opinion though. I don't necessarily agree. My suspicion is that most DMs would benefit from a faction system, but that it would be difficult to design a system that works better than the hand waves and rulings of a good DM and that the burden of book keeping in a complex campaign might be onerous. But in general, my experience is that most DMs default to not rewarding players for thinking in terms of logistical resources, including the ability to call upon reliable allies. And, there are certainly times when handling those things systematically would result in better emmersion and better gameplay. One example of doing something like this well IMO was in the Savage Tide campaign, where cRPG style faction mechanics were ported over into a framework for strengthening a faction which in turn directly impacted how well the faction resisted attacks by a mutual enemy. That IMO would be an example of 'smartening up' PnP play by encouraging thoughtful activities which otherwise many DMs wouldn't tangibly reward.

Strengthening/weakening factions is not what was being discussed. Relationship of PCs to factions was.

You seriously do not need mechanics for the latter. MMORPGs use them because it's a cheap way to create a big fat grind, and there's no DM to assess the actual relationship. They use them less now than they did because they're lame grinds in MMORPGs. Skyrim actually tracks a bunch of factions which have a strong effect, and the OP seems unaware of this. Some matter less because it's an insanely complex game as is and making it more complex costs millions upon millions (literally), it's nothing to do with anything but that. Anyway...

For the former, I think there is a niche for what you're describing, but only a niche, and further, I agree that it would be difficult to come up with rules that weren't more a burden than they were an asset.

Can you name some of the pre-Savage Tide CRPGs which feature mechanics involving you strengthening/weakening factions, btw? I didn't see much of that in pre-2006 CRPGs - indeed, it's still rare, being more common in open-world games and the like (GTA San Andreas, etc.).

I'm not convinced. I'm certainly convinced that there is a general dumbing down in mainstream cRPG titles as cRPGs become more mainstream and have larger and larger development budgets.

Certainly? No, certainly not. Having played CRPGs since the 1980s, I very much disagree, unless your definition of "dumbing down" is removing extremely complex combat mechanics which render a game niche, and I think that's a ridiculous definition.

The RP in RPGs has actually increased massively in complexity. There's far more you can say/do and the NPCs have a much wider range of reactions in, say, Witcher 2 or ME2 or Fallout: NV than BG2 or Fallout 2.

I'm less convinced of the same in PnP games just because they don't have the same constraints. However, I'm even less convinced than that that some new system is revolutionizing play, particular in the case of something like Dungeon World where I have pretty mixed feelings about the proposition/resolution mechanics.

Revolutionizing is irrelevant to the discussion.

All we are discussing is whether they are being "dumbed down". DW certainly isn't "dumbed down" compared to any RPG I've ever played. It's actually a hell of a lot smarter than most RPGs, particularly overwrought '80s mechanic-fests.

Wait? What??? I'm still unconvinced that anything tops "Die no save." when it comes to making failure "matter more" from the perspective of failure implies great danger. Heck, in Dungeon World failure is not only expected but at times even desirable.

Fake-o surprise makes your whole post seem disingenuous, just FYI.

"Die no save" is pure DM fiat, so not sure that has anything to do with anything. Again you bring up an irrelevance - whether failure "matters more", and seem to think that "failure = great danger" is a state that exists as the norm in D&D, which it is not. You constantly fail attack rolls and skill checks and even saves in D&D, and in the vast majority of cases it's expected and pretty meaningless (most failed saves mean more damage or the like) - those where it isn't are a rare exception, not the norm. Simple analysis of a D&D game will show this very clearly. DW is not that way - failure matters more because it leads to change and the situation getting worse - often dramatically worse - and yes, that can mean "die no save", it's just that you'd have to be doing something where that was a logical consequence and so on.

Wait? Wait??? How can you passionately argue that how factions behave is overwhelmingly in control of the GM, and yet throw out the argument that in DW you make more impact on the world than old RPGs. Isn't that entirely the province of the GM as well?

Wait? What??? You claimed you didn't like Dungeon World's mechanics and so on, but apparently have no idea how Dungeon World works?

Dude, go read your copy of DW.

What in the world is your standard of measurement? Becoming a king and shaping the politics of a world on a global level? Saving the world from certain doom or a new dark age? Becoming an immortal god and changing the world even to the extent of changing the rules as physics at the metagame level? These are all features I've seen explored in old RPGs and all of which was encouraged by the rules of said RPGs. How in the world can DW force 'vastly more' impact than any of that, particularly given the very limited nature of the propositional/response play its designed to resolve?

Wow, seriously? You really don't know how DW's world, with Fronts and so on, works? Yeah, it certainly is much more likely to involve any of the things you describe than any mainstream RPGs from, say, 15-20 years ago. Old RPGs did sometimes explore these things, but not routinely. It is routine with DW.

I am very skeptical that you know anything about DMing DW at this point. Have you even played it as a player? It is free, you know, you can just go DL it.

 

[Celebrim]

Strengthening/weakening factions is not what was being discussed. Relationship of PCs to factions was.

Ok. So? Relationship with the faction can be tracked in the same way and would have the same tangible benefit. One could easily imagine complicating the Savage Tide situation by allowing the PC's to work for both sides, and working out the consequences of that.

You seriously do not need mechanics for the latter.

You don't need mechanics for anything. You don't even need rules. My kids play RPGs without formal rules all the time. However, there are times that rules strengthen rather than detract from play. There is fundamentally nothing wrong with the DM cataloging how various actions might strengthen or weaken a relationship with a faction, tracking that in terms of faction points, and using that as a guideline in how to roleplay a faction. Could you just wing it? Sure, but you could just wing combat too.

Can you name some of the pre-Savage Tide CRPGs which feature mechanics involving you strengthening/weakening factions, btw? I didn't see much of that in pre-2006 CRPGs - indeed, it's still rare, being more common in open-world games and the like (GTA San Andreas, etc.).

Just off the top of my head, Fallout 2 features a section where you build up faction relationships with a group of competing crime families. Most actions involving gaining points with one and losing them with another, but it was possible with a bit of planning to build up enough points with all three to become a 'made man' in all three families. I'm quite sure its not a new concept. Savage Tide was just the first time I'd seen a really compelling PnP implementation. There may however be earlier examples I'm not aware of.

Certainly? No, certainly not. Having played CRPGs since the 1980s, I very much disagree, unless your definition of "dumbing down" is removing extremely complex combat mechanics which render a game niche, and I think that's a ridiculous definition.

Anything intelligent is going to be inherently niche. All while it may require a lot of intelligence to make an elegant and accessible game, I think it's ridiculous to arguing that accessible is the definition of smart.

The RP in RPGs has actually increased massively in complexity. There's far more you can say/do and the NPCs have a much wider range of reactions in, say, Witcher 2 or ME2 or Fallout: NV than BG2 or Fallout 2.

That's funny, because I find the reverse. A game like Witcher2 or ME2 certainly presents the interaction in greater visual and audible richness and more nuanced acting by the NPCs', but in terms of richness of presentation I don't think we've topped some of the old school adventure games like 'The Longest Journey' or 'Grim Fandango'. The graphics have more pixels in them and sometimes (but not always) the amount of script has increased, but that's about it. And in terms of richness of the RP interface and depth of characterization, we stalled out at something like Torment: Planescape and have never yet bettered that. I like ME2 as much as the next guy - I've got 150+ hours replaying the game as different classes - but honestly its a big step back from ME1 in terms of storytelling within a CRPG. But even though the BG/P:T style interfaces work, they have a limitation that I don't think existed in the older text driven interfaces and that is they are basically telling you what to say and how to interact with someone. They really bring front and center how limited our RP options are at present. Fundamentally, you could only play one of two predetermined characters in the whole ME system, and it really wasn't possible to bring your own choices to the table. ME1 is like watching a good science fiction summer blockbuster, but nothing brought out for me just how limited the RP options really were like replaying it and even more so seeing how little impact I was actually having in ME2. ME3 only reinforced that.

ME2 certainly dumbed down the system with reduced numbers of play styles, reduced choices, reduced open world, and a fixed rote episodic structure that really prevented the same richness of interaction you could have in ME1. More characters with less meaningful interaction with each wasn't an improvement (the only ME2 character the equal of the ME1 characters was probably Mordin Solus, who I admit is great). They had to simplify things in order to reach the console gamer crowd with its shorter attention span, simpler control interface, and narrower expectations concerning problem solving.

So, 'fancy', yes I'd buy that. But 'smart', not so much.

Revolutionizing is irrelevant to the discussion.

If you are doing things no one else has ever done, that's a revolution. I would have thought you would have wanted to argue how revolutionary DW is. Actually, you did argue that DW was revolutionary. More on that latter.

DW certainly isn't "dumbed down" compared to any RPG I've ever played.

I'm reserving judgment until I get actual experience with the game, but on first blush I can see my reaction to it going either way. I agree however that its harder for an PnP to really dumb itself down because so much depends on the GM. I like some of the goals, and I think the rules do a good job teaching GMing in a structured way that few if any games have attempted. But rather its a smart game rather than just a smart designer, I'm not sure.

Fake-o surprise makes your whole post seem disingenuous, just FYI.

I can't really control that. I'm not faking anything. I was genuinely surprised and didn't understand what you mean (or how it was even possible). Turns out it appears you didn't mean what you said. All this defensiveness sans an explanation makes it look like you are deflecting and moving the goal posts.

"Die no save" is pure DM fiat, so not sure that has anything to do with anything.

Err... no. It has to do with consequences of failure, and it need not be fiat if you mean by that 'without rule' rather than 'by rule'. You are the one that said, "It is totally untrue that failure pushes you into more danger in other RPGs." I think what you mean is that every fortune mechanic in a process simulation doesn't bring immediate important consequences, which is true. One could argue that made each individual dice roll meaningful where it wasn't necessarily the case that every dice roll would be meaningful, but again that's mistaking small mechanical features for the core of play. Having every fortune mechanic that fails lead to complication doesn't necessarily heighten the importance of avoiding failure, or necessarily implies greater encouragement to allow players to fail in their goals. We have to step back from the picture a bit and see what it looks like after a few actions have been proposed. Failing in a hack and slash and taking a negative consequence isn't inherently more consequential than failing to hit and then getting hit by a monster. We could argue about elegance and speed of resolution, and those are important points, but they don't mean that one is more or less dangerous and tense than the other.

Again you bring up an irrelevance - whether failure "matters more", and seem to think that "failure = great danger" is a state that exists as the norm in D&D, which it is not. You constantly fail attack rolls and skill checks and even saves in D&D, and in the vast majority of cases it's expected and pretty meaningless (most failed saves mean more damage or the like) - those where it isn't are a rare exception, not the norm. Simple analysis of a D&D game will show this very clearly.

Simple analysis? Maybe you are making a mistake in assuming analysis is simple. I don't agree you are doing a good job with yours. Don't mistake individual rolls for the process. DW encourages you to eliminate, "You both fail, so nothing happens." Great for as far as that goes, but that doesn't imply that it is untrue that failure pushed you into more danger in older RPGs.

You claimed you didn't like Dungeon World's mechanics and so on, but apparently have no idea how Dungeon World works?

Actually I didn't claim I didn't like DW mechanics. I claimed I had mixed feelings about the rules. For example, I'm not sure I like the formal 'move' based structure. I know why they did it, but I'm not sure I like it.

Wow, seriously? You really don't know how DW's world, with Fronts and so on, works?

Fronts no more guarantee that you'll make a big impact on the world than playing an adventure path would. They certainly are not a one word proof that DW inherently allows for a bigger impact on the world than any other game system. (I suppose if you equated a published module with a system and then defined a system down to only that sorts of modules and styles of campaign, and then made a straw man of that, but then, that's back to your inability to compare equivalent parts...) Fronts certainly are an interesting concept to organize your thoughts around and I like how they encourage the GM to make NPC's proactive rather than passive, but all of this is tangential to your thesis. Your claim was, "In DW you make more impact on the world than old RPGs. Vastly more." You did not say, "In DW you could sometimes make the same huge impact as you sometimes could in some RPGs", which is the proposition you are now defending. You did not say, "In my experience with DW, you make more impact on the world than in the games I played 20 years ago.", which is presumably what you really meant. You claimed that as an absolute fact, playing DW you'd make more impact on the game world than in old games, and based on my experience with old games if that was the truth, then I really really wanted to know what possibilities that it opened up that wasn't present in games I played or run because it lay outside the powers of my imagination to conceive what that great change was, but whatever it was, I wanted it in my games.

Now you are just going, "Oh yeah, because... FRONTS! Seriously, man, I can't explain it and oh yeah..uh... FRONTS!"

Whatever.

Yeah, it certainly is much more likely to involve any of the things you describe than any mainstream RPGs from, say, 15-20 years ago.

Well seeing as 100% of the RPGs I played 20 years ago had these things in 100% of the games, I'm really having a hard time understanding your math. How is it much more likely than things that I had all the time? What is your definition of 'sometimes'? I don't think I was that atypical of old school play. Of the 5 or so other groups I encountered prior to leaving high school, they were all doing mostly that same sort of thing often at epic scales. My high school/college group played a D&D game where we not merely changed the political map of the FR through PC action, but actually changed the physical map as well, fought off alien invasions and settled alien worlds. Later in college I talked to a player who'd been in a high concept D&D game that covered 1000's of years of game time, where the PC's were responsible for changing the climate, the rise and fall of empires, causing species to go extinct, and so forth. Sepulchrave’s 'Tales of Wyre' sets an extremely high bar in terms of PC ability to impact a setting, but save for the fact that it reads like a game played by philosophy majors it's not that out of line of my experiences as a kid. You are doing a very poor job of convincing me DW routinely tops that or anything else.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Keep telling yourself that. Failure has consequences inherently. That's why it is failure. If that was what it meant, we wouldn't need a special term for it.

What 'fail forward' means is that failure always has some mitigating consequences. And in particular, it means that for the majority of players with the typical set of aesthetic motivations, what you call 'failure' never really impacts their goals of play in a negative way. And in that sense, for probably 80% of players, it means failure never does have consequences. That isn't necessarily a 'wrong' way to play, but at least understand what it is.

You are quite incorrect on this score.

The concept of fail forward isn't "the PCs move forward even if they fail." Fail forward is "things continue to happen even if the PCs fail a roll." Oftentimes those things moving forward are bad for the PCs, but good for gameplay.

Fail forward means that the game does not stop because of a failed roll. If a rogue tries to open a lock in D&D and fails the roll then nothing happens. With a fail forward mechanic, this might mean that the rogue fails to open the door but the time it took to try leads to the PCs being stumbled upon by guards, forcing a new interaction in gameplay. Basically, the game never stops because of player rolls. There is no "nothing happens" concept in a game like this.

Dungeon World would be a post boy for this, as a roll of 6- means that the DM is free to use any DM move he wants, regardless of the circumstances of the roll. Any time a PC attempts to do something and rolls less than 6, the result is something really really bad. A roll in Dungeon World can never be nothing happens.

There are mechanics in some games where on a failure a PC can take a penalty to turn it into a "success, but..." However, those are "success at a cost", and are not considered "fail forward" rules, as the decision is PC based so there is still the possibility of failure with no plot movement. Fail forward's purpose is to remove stagnation from play.

What games have you actually played that use fail forward, and can you give examples of how it worked in play? Because I see a lot of theorizing here, and not a lot of play experience.

 

[billd91]

You are quite incorrect on this score.

The concept of fail forward isn't "the PCs move forward even if they fail." Fail forward is "things continue to happen even if the PCs fail a roll." Oftentimes those things moving forward are bad for the PCs, but good for gameplay.

Fail forward means that the game does not stop because of a failed roll. If a rogue tries to open a lock in D&D and fails the roll then nothing happens. With a fail forward mechanic, this might mean that the rogue fails to open the door but the time it took to try leads to the PCs being stumbled upon by guards, forcing a new interaction in gameplay. Basically, the game never stops because of player rolls. There is no "nothing happens" concept in a game like this.

Dungeon World would be a post boy for this, as a roll of 6- means that the DM is free to use any DM move he wants, regardless of the circumstances of the roll. Any time a PC attempts to do something and rolls less than 6, the result is something really really bad. A roll in Dungeon World can never be nothing happens.

There are mechanics in some games where on a failure a PC can take a penalty to turn it into a "success, but..." However, those are "success at a cost", and are not considered "fail forward" rules, as the decision is PC based so there is still the possibility of failure with no plot movement. Fail forward's purpose is to remove stagnation from play.

What games have you actually played that use fail forward, and can you give examples of how it worked in play? Because I see a lot of theorizing here, and not a lot of play experience.

The way you're describing it sounds like it's more of a pacing mechanism than anything else. The game doesn't stop when failure is simply failure in any game (unless you've designed a bottleneck which is bad scenario design no matter if you're using "fail forward" or not). You just fail to progress at that task and suffer the consequences, if any. The PCs are still free to go do something else, try to get around the obstacle in another way, time still marches on and the next random encounter check is that much closer, etc. Fail Forward, as you are describing it, just seems to try to set a particular pace.
And, if that's the case, it sounds more like fancy jargon to carve out an impression of something new and innovative when it's probably been around a while just never given a name.

 

[ThirdWizard]

The way you're describing it sounds like it's more of a pacing mechanism than anything else. The game doesn't stop when failure is simply failure in any game (unless you've designed a bottleneck which is bad scenario design no matter if you're using "fail forward" or not). You just fail to progress at that task and suffer the consequences, if any. The PCs are still free to go do something else, try to get around the obstacle in another way, time still marches on and the next random encounter check is that much closer, etc. Fail Forward, as you are describing it, just seems to try to set a particular pace.
And, if that's the case, it sounds more like fancy jargon to carve out an impression of something new and innovative when it's probably been around a while just never given a name.

Keep in mind that it also means that "I miss... next" never happens. That's the main thing that keeps success at a cost from being fail forward.

For example, in D&D if try to shoot someone and miss, it means you tried to hit but nothing came of it.

In FATE if you try to shoot someone and miss, you can turn that into a hit at some kind of cost. (success at a cost)

In Dungeon World if you try to shoot someone it isn't a binary hit/miss dilemma. (fail forward)

Either

• You hit and dealt damage.
• You hit and dealt damage, but you moved into a dangerous position, you dealt -1d6 damage, or you took several shots and have less ammo
• Something bad happens, and the DM makes a Hard Move against you. You might have hit or not depending on the situation.

So, fail forward tries to remove the concept of two outcomes one of which is "you failed... next" from the game entirely.