Failing Forward

[grendel111111]

I don't think there is confusion. I think there are different views around what counts as significant player contribution.

In the sort of game that Emerikol describes, the key story elements (people, places, things) are authored by the GM and plonked into the sandbox. As he describes it, this is done "neutrally" without regard to what makes for an interesting game.

That is different from a game where the backstory and the unfolding plot arises as a result of adjudicating player action declarations, and is responsive to the priorities signalled and introduced into play by the players.

The confusion I am referring too is that a non improv games must be tightly scripted and linear (Emerikol's games is an example of preauthored, but not having a linear plot). The PC's decide where that go and what they do in the sand box. They might fight for or against any of the occupants in the world. There is no scripting of plot, but there is scripting of places and people. Plot comes from the characters immersing themselves in the world and deciding what they want to do. Contrast this with the original Dragon-lance adventures or an Adventure path, where the plot is decided before the characters are introduced to the world. These are very different things but seem to be being portrayed as "not improv" and the failings of 1 are being applied to both.

The plot in these games arise from the characters interacting with and making choices about the world around them.
Yes, this is different from the plot is molded to directly respond to players choices, but that does not make it predetermined or linear as some people seem to misunderstand it.

Emerikol have I understood this correctly?

 

[Imaro]

You haven't explained how this will happen, though. If the question of whether or not the mace is in the tower; or, of how the cult followers will respond to the building of the effigies; doesn't even arise until the player establishes a certain backstory for his/her PC and then makes an action declaration, then how is the GM railroading towards a pre-determined story? The GM doesn't have the requisite authority over either content or situation.

I have explained it numeorus times... either my answer doesn't satisfy you in some way, which I'd be open to discussing further... or you're just choosing not to accept the answer... especially since other posters have at least gotten the main gist around this point of contention (even if they don't agree). Anytime the DM can decide the outcome of a failed roll with no restrictions outside... it must follow logically from the fiction (where he/she also decides what follows logically)... there is a higher probability that he will subvert the result (as opposed to a result that is clear cut, like you fail a climb check ... you fall) to go in the direction he wants the story to go in.

Look at the effigy example... the player created a tribe to lead and once the DM gets his hands on it (even though he had countless options that wouldn't have removed control of the player's created fiction from the players hands) The DM decides that what would logically follow from the fiction ... is that the very tribe that was player created and character driven/led is now subverted so that it is trying to kill the character... How is that not having the power to railroad the story in the direction you want to take it?

No. Ahead of time I decided that I liked the idea of a dark elf. As I posted, and as you quoted, I created the Dark Elf as an NPC who might be introduced.

"No" to what exactly??... you pre-prepped a Dark Elf NPC... I mean you're stating it in the italics part of this very quote...

The dark elf was introduced in response to a failed check to navigate through the desert to the ruined tower in the Abor-Alz. Had the PCs been going to the pyramid the orcs were hoping to assault, there would have been no dark elf. (Dark elves don't live in the desert.)

You gave him a percentage chance (based on the Skill score of the PC) for the Dark Elf to appear in the terrain of the Abor-Alz... In a pre-prep campaign this is done all the time, though it is more likely to be based on independent variables as opposed to a skill check... for practical play purposes from the view of the players it serves the same purpose... creating a chance for the Dark Elf NPC the DM created to to appear.

I brought him in as an antagonist in response to a failed check. (As you quoted me saying upthread, He became a foe in virtue of being introduced as part of the narration of a failed check.

Just a note it was not at all clear that the failed check was what defined him as an antagonist... though I find this interesting since you state the Dark Elf only appears because of failed checks... so at what point can he appear and not be an antagonist?

And naturally, in a party where one of the PCs has as a Belief to "always maintain the elven ways", a dark elf is likely to be an antagonist. And given that BW dark elves are driven by Spite (an emotional attribute that is part-way between elven Grief and orcish Hatred) the NPC was never going to be terribly friendly.

But had the players decided to have their PCs try and negotiate or befriend of course that was feasible.

So wait was it the failed check that made him an antagonist, your choice to make him an antagonist, the nature of Dark Elves (which is pre-written), or was it feasible for them to interact with the Dark Elf... all of these can't be true at the same time, so which one(s) determined the NPC's attitudes towards the PC's?

I don't think so. It's a while ago now, but I think the idea of the dark elf having fouled a waterhole was something I came up with when the check failed and I had to narrate some content for the failure.

Wait in your original post you stated that you had decided you wanted to use a Dark Elf NPC... so had you decided beforehand you wanted to use a Dark Elf NPC or not? If so, then how did you also create the Dark Elf NPC as content off the cuff due to a failure?

I think you have misdescribed what I posted (and what you quoted), and what happened in play.

I think your play example and the methods/thoughts/etc. you used aren't terribly clear at certain points in your original post, which is usually the case when relaying information from the past to others (one of the reasons I dislike dissecting play examples in discussions as it leads to unclear back and forth as more and more clarification needs to be added).

The post from @sheadunne captures what I have in mind.

If the PCs don't follow the GM's pre-authored hooks, then in effect it's not a pre-authored game! The GM is making stuff up in response to player action declarations.

You're defining a pre-authored game too narrowly, again a pre-authored game can be prepped between sessions in response to the PC's actions in the previous games. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's still pre-prep not improvisation. In fact I would argue, for me at least, the best sandboxes (and how I've always run them) are updated, changed and respond to the actions of the PC's (among other things).

 

[pemerton]

The confusion I am referring too is that a non improv games must be tightly scripted and linear (Emerikol's games is an example of preauthored, but not having a linear plot). The PC's decide where that go and what they do in the sand box.

<snip>

The plot in these games arise from the characters interacting with and making choices about the world around them.

As I said, there is no confusion. The players in a sandbox of the sort you describe don't choose the key plot elements, nor are those elements authored and/or introduced into play in response to the signals sent by the players in the build/play of their PCs. They are chosen in advance by the GM and laid out as possibilities for the players to interact with (via their PCs).
[MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] expresses this using his "pinball" phraseology. That's new terminology for me, but it makes it clear that there is no confusion about how the game works.

 

[Imaro]

As I said, there is no confusion. The players in a sandbox of the sort you describe don't choose the key plot elements, nor are those elements authored and/or introduced into play in response to the signals sent by the players in the build/play of their PCs. They are chosen in advance by the GM and laid out as possibilities for the players to interact with (via their PCs).

@sheadunne expresses this using his "pinball" phraseology. That's new terminology for me, but it makes it clear that there is no confusion about how the game works.

As I said... you're defining a sandbox too narrowly... If you're really trying to understand the play styles of others, you might want to leave those pre-conceived notions and actually try reading/understanding the counter points others are presenting to your assumptions.

 

[pemerton]

I have explained it numeorus times... either my answer doesn't satisfy you in some way, which I'd be open to discussing further... or you're just choosing not to accept the answer... especially since other posters have at least gotten the main gist around this point of contention (even if they don't agree). Anytime the DM can decide the outcome of a failed roll with no restrictions outside... it must follow logically from the fiction (where he/she also decides what follows logically)... there is a higher probability that he will subvert the result (as opposed to a result that is clear cut, like you fail a climb check ... you fall) to go in the direction he wants the story to go in.

I don't understand what you mean by the word "subvert". How does this relate to the word "author"? What is being subverted?

I reiterate my point: if the material the GM has to work with (the mace, the effigies, whatever it might be) only comes into the game as a result of player action declarations and backstory authorship; and if the fictional context of the GM's narration, which constrains and shapes that narration, is the result of player action declarations; then how is this the same as GM pre-authorship?

Obviously, for any given set of events in a "fail forward"-style game, it is conceivable that a pre-authored game might produce the same set of results. At the extreme, for any given book that is deliberately written it is conceivable that the same text might be authored just by cutting up and arranging words from newspapers and magazines! But the process is different, and the experience of playing the game is different.

Look at the effigy example... the player created a tribe to lead and once the DM gets his hands on it (even though he had countless options that wouldn't have removed control of the player's created fiction from the players hands) The DM decides that what would logically follow from the fiction ... is that the very tribe that was player created and character driven/led is now subverted so that it is trying to kill the character... How is that not having the power to railroad the story in the direction you want to take it?

Who has been railroaded? What choice has been denied to the player?

It's not the GM who is forcing the player to engage with the tribe/cult - the player chose to make the tribe/cult the focus of play. It's true that the tribe/cult is not behaving as the player (and PC) hoped - but that's because the check to influence the tribe/cult was failed. (Which brings us back to the point from way upthread, that the word "fail" in "fail forward" is not a euphamism for success.)

"No" to what exactly??... you pre-prepped a Dark Elf NPC... I mean you're stating it in the italics part of this very quote...

<snip>

You gave him a percentage chance (based on the Skill score of the PC) for the Dark Elf to appear in the terrain of the Abor-Alz... In a pre-prep campaign this is done all the time, though it is more likely to be based on independent variables as opposed to a skill check... for practical play purposes from the view of the players it serves the same purpose... creating a chance for the Dark Elf NPC the DM created to to appear.

I didn't decide in advance to introduce a dark elf. I wrote up a dark elf NPC, and had it in the folder with the dozens of other BW NPCs I have statted up. When a navigation check was failed I needed to narrate some adverse consequences for the PCs, and narrated a fouled waterhole which - upon examination - had been fouled by an elf. That point - during the course of actual play, in narrating the consequences within the fiction of a failed skill check - was when I decided that the dark elf was part of the fiction.

Just a note it was not at all clear that the failed check was what defined him as an antagonist... though I find this interesting since you state the Dark Elf only appears because of failed checks... so at what point can he appear and not be an antagonist?

There are any number of ways in which an NPC might appear. In the last session of the campaign that we played, an NPC knight ("Dame Katerina of Urnst") was introduced into play initially to rub into the players that their PCs had spent the night sleeping on the filthy streets of the Keep on the Borderlands; and then she reappeared to defend her confessor against accusations that he is an evil priest of a death cult.

If there had been no failed check I might have introduced the dark elf in some other way. Or not. We'll never know, because that alternative possible world never came to pass!

So wait was it the failed check that made him an antagonist, your choice to make him an antagonist, the nature of Dark Elves (which is pre-written), or was it feasible for them to interact with the Dark Elf... all of these can't be true at the same time, so which one(s) determined the NPC's attitudes towards the PC's?

Of course they can all be true. Dark Elves make good antagonists (because of their Spite), especially for the elf PC in my game. That means that, if I want an NPC antagonist to figure as part of the narration of a failed check, a dark elf is a good candidate. And the fact that the dark elf appears as an antagonist doesn't mean that the PCs can't try and interact with him. They saw him escaping through the darkness, when he threw a knife at one of them. They could have called out and tried to speak: between them they have Intimidation, Persuasion and other social skills, any of which they might have tried to deploy. (Although, as it turns out, they didn't.)

Wait in your original post you stated that you had decided you wanted to use a Dark Elf NPC... so had you decided beforehand you wanted to use a Dark Elf NPC or not? If so, then how did you also create the Dark Elf NPC as content off the cuff due to a failure?

I have a lot of ideas about what I would like to use in my game. In my folder of notes I also have multiple hermit NPCs statted up, various monks and inquisitors, some heretic priests, some evil wizards, etc.

Some of them might get used; some won't.

This was [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION]'s point, upthread - having ideas about what might make for fun elements of the fiction isn't the same as preauthoring the fiction.

 

[TwoSix]

Aha! Another very palpable advantage to (written) pre-authoring, be it published or home-grown: it can be shared with the (other) players in "downtime" and provide bandwidth for player knowledge of the game world.

I feel that we are teasing out some genuine and objective advantages for both methods, here, which might form a good grounding in why and when to use which - I hope!

That's the exact reason I have a love/hate relationship with published campaign settings. IF the players and DM are both familiar with the setting, they provide an excellent way for the DMs and players to share a common narrative experience that provides some novel avenues for play. If it's only the DM that's familiar with the setting, though, all the setting does is to encourage constant exposition dumps by the DM and giving tour-guide scenarios to the players. ("And over to your right, we have the Screaming Tower of Infinite Pain, built on a foundation of damned souls. Coming up, the glorious city of Phanfool, a city of a million drow in the middle of a vast desert!")

 

[grendel111111]

Sorry can't figure out how to deleate the post.

 

[grendel111111]

As I said, there is no confusion. The players in a sandbox of the sort you describe don't choose the key plot elements, nor are those elements authored and/or introduced into play in response to the signals sent by the players in the build/play of their PCs. They are chosen in advance by the GM and laid out as possibilities for the players to interact with (via their PCs).

[MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] expresses this using his "pinball" phraseology. That's new terminology for me, but it makes it clear that there is no confusion about how the game works.

And yet as people have pointed out the pinball explanation misses the point.

I think you are confusing background, character, elements with "plot".

The dark elf city and it's hatred of the surface dwelling races is background and geography. The queen of the dark elves is character.
Plot is how the PC's interact with these. The DM does not make plot.
They may go to the dark elf city and decide to over throw it. They might decide to side with the dark elves and free them from their bonds of darkness by aiding them in assaulting the surface dwellers kingdom above, the might decide to depose the queen and take over rulership of the under realms, they might decide that it's just a stopping point on the way to the planes, they might do a million other things. That is the "plot" what happens in the story.

The "pinball" phraseology said that players can't make any meaningful headway because the DM hasn't decided the "plot" for them, so they basically bounce around because the DM isn't telling them the pre-made plot.

If the players need that much hand holding then sandbox is not the game for them, then AP or pre-scripted might be what they are looking for. If they need that much hand holding I suspect that full improv may also be a leap too far for them.


For example in mad max, he didn't create any of the places he went to but once he got there how he interacted with the settlement/gangs/environment is the plot of the movie.
So in a mad max game those elements are all there. They could be there because the DM put them there, or because they are "play now" created. Both are fine. They will however create different gaming experiences. So the question just comes down to which experience do you prefer.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?473785-Failing-Forward/page77#ixzz3yeIpxeAs

 

[Imaro]

I don't understand what you mean by the word "subvert". How does this relate to the word "author"? What is being subverted?

I reiterate my point: if the material the GM has to work with (the mace, the effigies, whatever it might be) only comes into the game as a result of player action declarations and backstory authorship; and if the fictional context of the GM's narration, which constrains and shapes that narration, is the result of player action declarations; then how is this the same as GM pre-authorship?

I never claimed it was the same as GM pre-authorship... I claimed the results, a campaign world that revolves around the PC's backstory and changes/responds to the player's decisions and actions can be attained in a pre- prepped (you started using pre-authored) campaign...

Obviously, for any given set of events in a "fail forward"-style game, it is conceivable that a pre-authored game might produce the same set of results. At the extreme, for any given book that is deliberately written it is conceivable that the same text might be authored just by cutting up and arranging words from newspapers and magazines! But the process is different, and the experience of playing the game is different.

The process is definitely different, but there were claims earlier in this discussion (and that you are still making abut sandbox play) that the pre-prepped game couldn't produce the result I am claiming it can. And your comparison is off... I am not saying that through pure luck and random chance one can produce these results, I am saying by applying repeatable principles and a specific structure of pre-prep one can attain the same things an improv game can...

Who has been railroaded? What choice has been denied to the player?

It's not the GM who is forcing the player to engage with the tribe/cult - the player chose to make the tribe/cult the focus of play. It's true that the tribe/cult is not behaving as the player (and PC) hoped - but that's because the check to influence the tribe/cult was failed. (Which brings us back to the point from way upthread, that the word "fail" in "fail forward" is not a euphamism for success.)

Well they are still attacking the city... so yeah success is still on the table, it's just the PC will be burned while they do it. The point you're missing is that the tribe is behaving how the DM wants (and this is actually one of the differences I see in the two approaches) there is no objectivity here such as when using NPC reaction rules from D&D. I haven't made claims about "railroading"... what I've made the claim is that the DM will be pre-disposed towards and have the power to shape the outcome of the game to produce the story he/she wants. You're example of the Dark Elf... clearly shows that a Dm pre-disposed towards including an element will put it into the "story" and [MENTION=6682826]CH[/MENTION]achou has shown the DM has the power to totally reverse a situation when improving so I'm not sure what else I need to "prove"?

I didn't decide in advance to introduce a dark elf. I wrote up a dark elf NPC, and had it in the folder with the dozens of other BW NPCs I have statted up. When a navigation check was failed I needed to narrate some adverse consequences for the PCs, and narrated a fouled waterhole which - upon examination - had been fouled by an elf. That point - during the course of actual play, in narrating the consequences within the fiction of a failed skill check - was when I decided that the dark elf was part of the fiction.

Again... why I don't like play examples for discussion... it seems like nothing is ever fully explained in the example until you start questioning it... So...
1. You pre-prep all the time.
2. It's not actually about pre-prepping for a campaign it's about how/when you introduce the pre-prepped material.

Does the above about sum it up?

Now I thought one of the benefits to improv play was to cut down on the out of game work... you know that work that's not really part of the game. But here it seems as if you are doing just as much or more work, prepping material with the added disadvantage that it may or may not be used...

There are any number of ways in which an NPC might appear. In the last session of the campaign that we played, an NPC knight ("Dame Katerina of Urnst") was introduced into play initially to rub into the players that their PCs had spent the night sleeping on the filthy streets of the Keep on the Borderlands; and then she reappeared to defend her confessor against accusations that he is an evil priest of a death cult.

If there had been no failed check I might have introduced the dark elf in some other way. Or not. We'll never know, because that alternative possible world never came to pass!

So again a demonstration that you really have no limitations beyond a logical tie to fiction (again where you as DM decide the line that can't be crossed) in controlling and manipulating the story in the spur of the moment... and yet you don't see how a DM's biases, preferences, etc. have just as great if not a greater chance as a DM who pre-preps ending up railroading at improv 'ing the game towards the outcome he as DM wants (whether consciously or subconsciously)...

Of course they can all be true. Dark Elves make good antagonists (because of their Spite), especially for the elf PC in my game. That means that, if I want an NPC antagonist to figure as part of the narration of a failed check, a dark elf is a good candidate. And the fact that the dark elf appears as an antagonist doesn't mean that the PCs can't try and interact with him. They saw him escaping through the darkness, when he threw a knife at one of them. They could have called out and tried to speak: between them they have Intimidation, Persuasion and other social skills, any of which they might have tried to deploy. (Although, as it turns out, they didn't.)

I meant they can't all be true in this particular instance/example...

I have a lot of ideas about what I would like to use in my game. In my folder of notes I also have multiple hermit NPCs statted up, various monks and inquisitors, some heretic priests, some evil wizards, etc.

Some of them might get used; some won't.

This was [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION]'s point, upthread - having ideas about what might make for fun elements of the fiction isn't the same as preauthoring the fiction.

Ideas aren't fully statted up NPC's... the whole point of improv is that you don't have to do all that non-play, pointless work... yet here you are doing it and even less efficiently that many that pre-prep for their games. As to pre-authoring "fiction"... I'm not sure where you're drawing s distinction here, could you explain?

 

[chaochou]

When you define them in the manner which you chose to, it makes me highly doubt you are fully aware of what they have to offer... It seems more likely you are fully aware of a small and very narrow subset of the particular styles...

It's funny - I get the exact same impression with you with regard to improvisation and narrative styles.

I'd like you to give actual game examples of improvised sessions you've run where you felt yourself to be railroading the players so we can see how you managed it, since that is something you've claimed happens.