Failing Forward

[Nagol]

Eh, I'm staring to see where I have issues with this approach as well... mainly with causality and narrative control.

So because I didn't succeed at climbing... the DM now gets to create consequences which, while they may follow from the fiction can be unrelated to the fact that I failed at a climbing check... Looking at this from the perspective of a player... I want my consequences to flow organically from what I did or did not accomplish with my rolls. Why? Because that's the character I built... either I'm a great climber and this is one of those rare mishaps everyone suffers at some point... or I'm not that good at climbing and I knew that when I tried this, either way my character messed up climbing. What my character isn't known for are his fumbling fingers, so why am I suddenly a butterfingers or so incompetent I didn't tie down my divining rod? This approach also makes it difficult for consistency in knowing (at least in general) what the results of failing at something will be.

As a player I'd also wonder just how far these consequences can go, which was part of my objection to the earlier example where failing to find a trap while searching for it suddenly put me in the position of having activated the trap itself... I'm loosing agency here both in my character's actions and in the narrative of my character itself.

As a DM... for me it does feel kinda railroady since I am inventing what I want to happen on the fly... How do I guarantee that I not push towards the outcome I want and/or what I find fun, interesting, etc? The other side of that question being, how do I know what I find interesting or entertaining for other people's characters is what they also find entertaining or enjoyable at that moment? In the climbing example, what if a player would have preferred falling into the crevice below and taking his chances with whatever denizen was down there... if he survived? It also seems like in failing forward, regardless of the scenery of the path... the path still leads to the top of the mountain, which also feels kind of railroady... I won't go so far as to say it leads to a railroad... but I will say I can see where one can get that impression from.

Depends on the style used. I am not a fan of utilising consequence that does not follow from the failure since that can muddy in-character thought processes in ways I find disconcerting as a player. More typically in my case, the failure will in addition trigger an event / effect in the environment that is already plausibly present, but presently undetected or apparently inconsequential. If there is an option to introduce a new stake (such as dropping a valuable item), I'll present that to the table as a choice in advance --> the player fails a climb check* sufficiently badly that a fall is a normal consequence and the player is presented with the option to accept the fall or drop the item as he desperately grabs for holds.

Can the technique be used to railroad? Sure. Any technique that relies on GM force can be used to railroad. The GM needs to guard against (or at least be honest with himself and the table) as he would with any other technique.

* this is a poor example for the way I typically use fail-forward which is more about when the players have painted themselves into a corner and the situation is threatening to enter stasis and/or the table is furiously pursuing a self-created red herring out to sea.

 

[iserith]

Eh, I'm staring to see where I have issues with this approach as well... mainly with causality and narrative control.

So because I didn't succeed at climbing... the DM now gets to create consequences which, while they may follow from the fiction can be unrelated to the fact that I failed at a climbing check... Looking at this from the perspective of a player... I want my consequences to flow organically from what I did or did not accomplish with my rolls. Why? Because that's the character I built... either I'm a great climber and this is one of those rare mishaps everyone suffers at some point... or I'm not that good at climbing and I knew that when I tried this, either way my character messed up climbing. What my character isn't known for are his fumbling fingers, so why am I suddenly a butterfingers or so incompetent I didn't tie down my divining rod? This approach also makes it difficult for consistency in knowing (at least in general) what the results of failing at something will be.

If your character is not known for his fumbling fingers or to be an "incompetent butterfingers," as you say, then it may not follow from the fiction that you drop your divining rod and thus would not be a good choice of narration for the GM. You're arguing against something nobody is stating even though you seem to understand that the GM's narration must follow from the fiction (bolded in your quote).

As a player I'd also wonder just how far these consequences can go, which was part of my objection to the earlier example where failing to find a trap while searching for it suddenly put me in the position of having activated the trap itself... I'm loosing agency here both in my character's actions and in the narrative of my character itself.

The consequences are a part of the stakes which are set prior to the check and based on the fiction up to that point. No agency is lost here. You are still acting freely and impacting the fictional world by your action. I explained this clearly upthread. If you are moving around searching for a trap and you fail the appropriate check, then it is reasonable that you step on a pressure plate. (You found the trap, but...") If your stated goal and approach clearly did not include moving about to search, then stepping on the pressure plate after a failed check would not follow in the fiction and would be thus unreasonable.

As a DM... for me it does feel kinda railroady since I am inventing what I want to happen on the fly...

It's not railroading or "railroady" by any definition of the term as I understand it.

How do I guarantee that I not push towards the outcome I want and/or what I find fun, interesting, etc?

Depending on the goals of play of the game being played, perhaps you should be - and what the players find fun and interesting, too. Or what contributes to the creation of an exciting, memorable story. Or whatever.

The other side of that question being, how do I know what I find interesting or entertaining for other people's characters is what they also find entertaining or enjoyable at that moment?

If you don't know, you can ask. As I've mentioned, offering the stakes prior to the roll makes sure everyone is on the same page and allows for the occasional renegotiation from a player such as in the case of:

In the climbing example, what if a player would have preferred falling into the crevice below and taking his chances with whatever denizen was down there... if he survived?

Whereupon you could say, "Sure, that's sounds good. Roll for it."

 

[Maxperson]

I present to you the same thing I already said upthread with slightly different words: Is it a safe assumption that a player, stating a goal and approach to climbing a wall, seeks to do so without cost or complication? Or must he or she state that outright to satisfy you? If it is indeed a safe assumption that this is the full if unstated expression of a player's stated goal and approach, does it not then follow that getting up that wall with a cost or complication is, in fact, a failure of the goal?

I would say that it is.

Sure, it's a safe assumption that there is risk that the player is aware of and doesn't want to happen. It's just as safe to assume that they will expect the failure to be tied to the actual act of climbing and be an unrelated loss. I stated one way that losing the rod could be directly related to climbing, but it's extremely rare for a PC to try to climb with a hand that is full. Instead, the rod will be secured away in a pack or something, so it doesn't make sense to tie the failed climbing roll to the loss of the rod.

 

[iserith]

Sure, it's a safe assumption that there is risk that the player is aware of and doesn't want to happen. It's just as safe to assume that they will expect the failure to be tied to the actual act of climbing and be an unrelated loss. I stated one way that losing the rod could be directly related to climbing, but it's extremely rare for a PC to try to climb with a hand that is full. Instead, the rod will be secured away in a pack or something, so it doesn't make sense to tie the failed climbing roll to the loss of the rod.

You're falling into the same thinking that Imaro is above - positing that the rod falling from the pack (or whatever) doesn't follow in the fiction up to that point. To understand what is being discussed, we're asked to be charitable and assume that it does follow for whatever reason you'd like to imagine - the pack is not well secured or damaged or what have you.

The mechanic just resolves the uncertainty that exists with regard to the player's goal and approach for the character. In this case, the uncertainty of climbing the ravine without a cost or complication of some kind. A cost or complication that follows in the fiction. Make sense?

 

[I'm A Banana]

OK.

If you're going up Mount Pudding with a divining rod it's probably because someone hid either a giant gold sovereign or a giant silver dollar in the pudding and for whatever reason you want that. The divining rod is to help you find it. Not getting that is a serious setback - and not having your divining rod makes it a lot harder. You could get the actual pudding from the bottom of the mountain.

What are the consequences of not having that giant coin? You probably want it as something other than a bat-cave prop. Which means you either need something else to pay the giants, or you need to fight them (which is going to be rough). So you want that coin or things get rougher.

But you can keep going without the divining rod. And instead go diving into the pudding, wading through it, and trying to eat your way out. Not a good option either. You can do it but it's not going to be quick - and you need to avoid the Brandy Butter - or worse yet the rum-and-light. The divining rod would have saved you time - and time is really important. It keeps you safe andm means there's les to go wrong when you are gone.

If the goal of Mt. Pudding is to get the coin hidden there, then any result that still provides me an option of getting the coin doesn't feel like a very meaningful failure to me. If what is happening is still INPUT("I want the coin")->STUFF HAPPENS->OUTPUT("I get the coin."), in broad strokes, the STUFF that HAPPENS doesn't affect the end result much (though it could flavor the getting there - maybe it's miserable and barely eked out, maybe its easy and it's triumphant, but no matter how miserable it gets it'll always be possible). That can make me feel powerless as a player - like my struggles, rather than helping to define my story, are rather meaningless (making my successes also rather meaningless - there's no challenge when there's no fail state).

If there is a potential for it to be "I want the coin"-> STUFF HAPPENS -> "I don't get the coin and can't try again", then the STUFF that HAPPENS is meaningful, meaning my struggles and my successes within that STUFF are meaningful, too.

My impression, from Manbearcat's example and Umbran's example, is that "I don't get the coin and can't try again" isn't a potential outcome of STUFF HAPPENS using Fail Forward. Specifically because me not getting the coin is "stopping the action." I fail to find the secret door and I can't fight the BBEG or I fall down a ravine and die and I can't get to the top of Mt. Pudding or I drop the divining rod which is the only way to find the coin...these are not possible outcomes of the STUFF that HAPPENS, however grim that STUFF may be, because those outcomes mean I will not be pursuing the goal of "Slay the BBEG" or "Get the Coin" or "Climb the Mountain."

That option not being there is what I describe as a "bottleneck," or what might be called the waterfall or the flow to the sea: the goal doesn't change.

Meaning that it's not really as interesting for me to play through.

Oh! AND:

I present to you the same thing I already said upthread with slightly different words: Is it a safe assumption that a player, stating a goal and approach to climbing a wall, seeks to do so without cost or complication? Or must he or she state that outright to satisfy you? If it is indeed a safe assumption that this is the full if unstated expression of a player's stated goal and approach, does it not then follow that getting up that wall with a cost or complication is, in fact, a failure of the goal?

I would say that it is.

I might argue that it isn't, actually. At least not from a player's perspective. The character probably seeks that, in-character, but the player seeks complications and difficulties that they can then overcome (or fail to overcome) to show off the personality traits and fantastic abilities of their character. The player wants to roll dice and do math to defeat challenges. An easy climb to the top, while it might be what the character has in mind, probably isn't satisfying for a player (too easy, too uninteresting).

The old example of failing a social interaction so that it degenerates into combat is handy here - when the incentive is toward combat (either directly, through things like XP, or indirectly, through robust systems that allow the player to control dynamic interactions), degenerating into combat isn't a punishment, it's more fun for the player (even though the character might've sought to avoid that).

Difficulty itself isn't a disincentive, it's something you WANT as a player.

At least until it becomes so difficult that your goal can't be realized.

But the examples of Fail Forward so far don't seem to comfortably accommodate a goal that can't be realized, so that level of difficulty would also seem to be off the table, if you're applying the design logic of Fail Forward.

 

[Neonchameleon]

If the goal of Mt. Pudding is to get the coin hidden there, then any result that still provides me an option of getting the coin doesn't feel like a very meaningful failure to me.

Well, yes. If you are as single minded as Captain Ahab in catching your white wale and don't care what happens to your friends and comrades and the crew of your ship or how many of them die, then yes the prize is the only thing that matters. And the very lives of your friends and comrades don't.

I would suggest that this level of solipsism is either an issue with the character or with the player. For most people the question "How much are you willing to sacrifice in the quest for what isn't even your ultimate objective" is a meaningful one.

I would further suggest that most people have a terrible understanding of compound probability. And don't realise how unlikely you are to succeed when you require multiple checks.

 

[Janx]

As an aside...I have a small confession to make. Part of the reason I enjoy coming up with absurd play examples has nothing to do with elucidation...it is because I get to watch grown men (myself included) then carry on totally serious conversation about Pudding Mountain and Mommy Kissing Booboos Away for the next several days!

yes. I got that. I also liked it for divorcing the discussion from people's specific campaigns into something we could chuckle about while explaining our point in reference to getting pudding from Mount Pudding.

 

[Maxperson]

You're falling into the same thinking that Imaro is above - positing that the rod falling from the pack (or whatever) doesn't follow in the fiction up to that point. To understand what is being discussed, we're asked to be charitable and assume that it does follow for whatever reason you'd like to imagine - the pack is not well secured or damaged or what have you.

I've given the one way that I can see that the rod could be a part of the climb check. A pack that isn't secured well or damaged is something else entirely. It could break and the rod is lost due to bad luck, and it could even happen as a result of the failed climb check, but there would still be the failed climb check to contend with. The loss would be a separate result that was triggered by the climbing failure, not the actual climbing failure. The climbing failure would be a failure to advance in the climb, a loss of progress, or even falling.

The mechanic just resolves the uncertainty that exists with regard to the player's goal and approach for the character. In this case, the uncertainty of climbing the ravine without a cost or complication of some kind. A cost or complication that follows in the fiction. Make sense?

I understand what you are saying, but I don't agree with it. A failure to climb is a failure to climb in some way and nothing else. The violence of that failure could result in the loss of items, including the rod, but that loss is a separate cost that is only indirectly tied to the failed climb check.

 

[Janx]

If the goal of Mt. Pudding is to get the coin hidden there, then any result that still provides me an option of getting the coin doesn't feel like a very meaningful failure to me.

this part here doesn't map to reality. Thomas Edison once quipped that he had found a 1000 ways to not make a light bulb. Implying he had failed a lot.

Now from the scope of standing in a cocktail party with Thomas Edison, he clearly invented the lightbulb as we are all now toasting his accomplishment.

But in listening to his actual story about it, it wasn't "I got up, baked some thread and made a bulb and tried it, and it worked"

The stuff in the middle was really, "I started 3 years ago, tried this, then that, then this other thing. Got sidetracked by a hernia..."

As no plan survives contact with the enemy, no success is actually without failures along the way. If it doesn't kill you, you're still likely to keep going. Or not.

If what is happening is still INPUT("I want the coin")->STUFF HAPPENS->OUTPUT("I get the coin."), in broad strokes, the STUFF that HAPPENS doesn't affect the end result much (though it could flavor the getting there - maybe it's miserable and barely eked out, maybe its easy and it's triumphant, but no matter how miserable it gets it'll always be possible). That can make me feel powerless as a player - like my struggles, rather than helping to define my story, are rather meaningless (making my successes also rather meaningless - there's no challenge when there's no fail state).

A GM likely has to decide when to use a FailForward to make it interesting, from just letting you take damage as you fail your 3rd climb roll. I'd posit that some climb failures should be a slip, with a chance to catch yourself. Some should be straight falls. Others should be some other result (like the dropped wand).

To get up Mount Pudmore, there might be 20 sections to climb (as defined by the GM originally). Do you really want to play through 20 Climb rolls, where as you get higher, the only difference is that you'll take more falling damage if fail?

Sure, it simulates escalating stakes, but statistically, you are going to fail a roll at least once, and murphy's law says it won't be the first one for 1d6 damage. Let alone, it doesn't make for an interesting story or any variance in the situation. Bad design of the challenge to be sure. But FailForward hands us a tool to consider shaking things up.

 

[Maxperson]

this part here doesn't map to reality. Thomas Edison once quipped that he had found a 1000 ways to not make a light bulb. Implying he had failed a lot.

Now from the scope of standing in a cocktail party with Thomas Edison, he clearly invented the lightbulb as we are all now toasting his accomplishment.

But in listening to his actual story about it, it wasn't "I got up, baked some thread and made a bulb and tried it, and it worked"

The stuff in the middle was really, "I started 3 years ago, tried this, then that, then this other thing. Got sidetracked by a hernia..."

As no plan survives contact with the enemy, no success is actually without failures along the way. If it doesn't kill you, you're still likely to keep going. Or not.

Right, but when light bulb #1 blew out, Edison had no chance of completing the light bulb with that failed check. He failed. The same goes for the climb check. If you fail, you should have no chance to succeed in the climb with that failed check. Like Edison, you have to try again in a different way. Failure for #2 at making a light bulb wasn't his screwdriver falling out of his pocket and the light bulb working.