Failing Forward

[Imaro]

Agreed.

I'm not sure that I agree with your psychological hypothesis as to why pre-authorship can lead to railroading, but I think there is a very clear system reason: the GM is supposed to be using that pre-authored stuff (NPC motivations, metaplot, etc) to constrain the framing of scenes and the success of action declarations. That's what it's for. And multiple posters upthread have said that it's important that sometimes the PCs are thwarted by obstacles they didn't anticipate, because that's what makes the gameworld "realistic" and not just "all about them".

What I often find a bit weird in these discussions, though, is how games with Schroedinger's hit points and Schroedinger's gorge are conjectured at one and the same time to have some flaws or weakness resulting from that (eg a lack of a "living, breathing" world) but in all other respects play out exactly the same (eg in the way that GM force in determining backstory won't work any differently, and so railroading is just as likely). So that these games aren't really different, and the use of the alternative techniques has no helpful consequences; they're just slightly inferior versions of what we would otherwise be doing if we knew how to run sandboxes properly!

I actually find your explanation above of why railroading might be more predominant in a pre-authored campaign to make more sense to me than [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] 's... "wants to show stuff off explanation".... since I feel DM's want to do that in both playstyles. The reasoning above however is giving me pause since it seems makes more logical sense IMO... have to think on it some more.

 

[Aenghus]

I'm not sure if this post will make sense, I'm writing here to examine the topic. I'm using my own definition of railroading as constraining player choice, where some players approve of that particular railroad and see it as ok and others don't and see it as "bad railroading".

A player who wants a naturalistic sandbox game trapped in a high drama/fail-forward game. S/he's unhappy with all the bad railroading (as s/he sees it), as s/he's been shunted at accelerated speed from dramatic scene to dramatic scene and isn't getting the decision points s/he expects that he thinks would allow the "bad railroad" to be derailed, or get a feel for the world away from all the emotionally-wrought conflicts. S/he expects to see events not related to drama that s/he can interact with. The other players who want the game as it is would likely see such events as irrelevant time wasting.

A player who wants high drama/fail-forward trapped in a sandbox game will likely feel railroaded into lots of irrelevant scenes s/he feels have no relevance to their PC's personal agenda. Content they would find relevant may be out there somewhere, but even if they hijack the party and unilaterally decide it's direction of travel the vagaries of fate in a highly-detailed sandbox may mean they just happen not to stumble on the right encounter or rumour, or arrive in the right place just after it's been obliterated by the main baddie in the setting (whom the player doesn't care about). The path of conquest of the main baddie could have been pre-authored and mapped out from the very start of the game - the player could experience it as yet another obstacle to their personal goals or as a deliberate effort by the referee to make their goal impossible.

An adaptable player could probably enjoy both the dramatic railroad of the former game(railroad in that you can't get away from the drama) or exploring the unknown vistas of the sandbox game. The former game is better for exploring dramatic personal goals, the sandbox game has no guarantee that personal goals will ever be relevant. The latter game is better for exploration-focused players, or players who don't want an accelerated pace and/or constant personal drama. Sandbox games tend to be slower paced some of the time, and the players have some ability to choose a faster or slower pace depending on their decisions.


There's railroading by constraining player choice, removing decision points, and there's railroading by adding new unexpected decision points which delay them from arriving at their destination. Depending on one's investment in the destination, the latter can make the game seem vibrant and alive or slow and frustrating.

Pacing is one of the main controls a referee has in a conventional game, what time steps are being used at any point in the game. While it's true a player can ask for a particular timestep at most points, a lot of referees instinctively have nothing happen in the game in response to the timestep change until the players get bored, to reinforce their personal control of pacing. This is a sort of railroading and simultaneously encourages the players to be reactive rather than proactive.

 

[Imaro]

I'm not sure if this post will make sense, I'm writing here to examine the topic. I'm using my own definition of railroading as constraining player choice, where some players approve of that particular railroad and see it as ok and others don't and see it as "bad railroading".

A player who wants a naturalistic sandbox game trapped in a high drama/fail-forward game. S/he's unhappy with all the bad railroading (as he sees it), as s/he's been shunted at accelerated speed from dramatic scene to dramatic scene and isn't getting the decision points s/he expects that he thinks would allow the "bad railroad" to be derailed, or get a feel for the world away from all the emotionally-wrought conflicts. S/he expects to see events not related to drama that s/he can interact with. The other players who want the game as it is would likely see such events as irrelevant time wasting.

A player who wants high drama/fail-forward trapped in a sandbox game will likely feel railroaded into lots of irrelevant scenes s/he feels have no relevance to their PC's personal agenda. Content they would find relevant may be out there somewhere, but even if they hijack the party and unilaterally decide it's direction of travel the vagaries of fate in a highly-detailed sandbox may mean they just happen not to stumble on the right encounter or rumour, or arrive in the right place just after it's been obliterated by the main baddie in the setting (whom the player doesn't care about).

An adaptable player could probably enjoy both the dramatic railroad of the former game(railroad in that you can't get away from the drama) or exploring the unknown vistas of the sandbox game. The former game is better for exploring dramatic personal goals, the sandbox game has no guarantee that personal goals will ever be relevant. The latter game is better for exploration-focused players, or players who don't want an accelerated pace and/or constant personal drama. Sandbox games tend to be slower paced some of the time, and the players have some ability to choose a faster or slower pace depending on their decisions.


There's railroading by constraining player choice, removing decision points, and there's railroading by adding new unexpected decision points which delay them from arriving at their destination. Depending on one's investment in the destination, the latter can make the game seem vibrant and alive or slow and frustrating.

Pacing is one of the main controls a referee has in a conventional game, what time steps are being used at any point in the game. While it's true a player can ask for a particular timestep at most points, a lot of referees instinctively have nothing happen in the game in response to the timestep change until the players get bored, to reinforce their personal control of pacing. This is a sort of railroading and simultaneously encourages the players to be reactive rather than proactive.

I think an interesting question is whether the fail forward/improv style is by (this) definition a railroad (whether the player enjoys it or not being irrelevant). I mean it constrains choice and decision points in steadily and inexorably having everything encountered, created, improv'd, etc. lead to the character's goals or dramatic needs... doesn't it? Isn't that railroading (again putting aside the question of whether the player enjoys it or doesn't) towards a specific or constrained set of outcomes?

 

[Aenghus]

I think an interesting question is whether the fail forward/improv style is by (this) definition a railroad (whether the player enjoys it or not being irrelevant). I mean it constrains choice and decision points in steadily and inexorably having everything encountered, created, improv'd, etc. lead to the character's goals or dramatic needs... doesn't it? Isn't that railroading (again putting aside the question of whether the player enjoys it or doesn't) towards a specific or constrained set of outcomes?

I think so. I disagree with the phrase "towards a specific or constrained set of outcomes" though, at least in the general case, for a particular game it may or may not be true. Fail forward games tend to have stake setting, and a lot of latitude in declaring outcomes, so at the ultimate decision point the player decides what happens if his or her quest succeeds, and the referee decides if s/he fails. The player likely doesn't know the full ramifications of failure, and the referee likely doesn't know the full ramifications of player success. The relevant game systems attempt to guarantee narrative closure at such decision points, so goals succeed (maybe with a cost) or fail (maybe with some consolation). There will be no stalemates, last-minute takebacks, revelations that the goal was futile, or that the goal was always going to succeed, and other possibilities that can crop up in more naturalistic games. The uncertainty is provided by distributing the game authority so that no-one knows what's going to happen in the end, or the exact details of that resolution.

 

[Imaro]

I think so. I disagree with the phrase "towards a specific or constrained set of outcomes" though, at least in the general case, for a particular game it may or may not be true. Fail forward games tend to have stake setting, and a lot of latitude in declaring outcomes, so at the ultimate decision point the player decides what happens if his or her quest succeeds, and the referee decides if s/he fails. The player likely doesn't know the full ramifications of failure, and the referee likely doesn't know the full ramifications of player success. The relevant game systems attempt to guarantee narrative closure at such decision points, so goals succeed (maybe with a cost) or fail (maybe with some consolation). There will be no stalemates, last-minute takebacks, revelations that the goal was futile, or that the goal was always going to succeed, and other possibilities that can crop up in more naturalistic games. The uncertainty is provided by distributing the game authority so that no-one knows what's going to happen in the end, or the exact details of that resolution.

I was moreso talking about the outcome of this type of game in the described playstyle always leading towards some resolution of the character(s) needs, desires or goals... There's no chance (at least as I understand the explanations presented in this thread) of offering an option, conclusion, outcome, etc. that doesn't tie into these things... at least not if one is running it properly...

 

[pemerton]

I think an interesting question is whether the fail forward/improv style is by (this) definition a railroad (whether the player enjoys it or not being irrelevant). I mean it constrains choice and decision points in steadily and inexorably having everything encountered, created, improv'd, etc. lead to the character's goals or dramatic needs... doesn't it? Isn't that railroading (again putting aside the question of whether the player enjoys it or doesn't) towards a specific or constrained set of outcomes?

There's no chance (at least as I understand the explanations presented in this thread) of offering an option, conclusion, outcome, etc. that doesn't tie into these things... at least not if one is running it properly...

Here is some evidence in favour of your conjecture, again arising from an actual play example.

First, the example:

In my 4e game, around 3rd level, the players suffered a TPK - in the sense that the PCs were in a combat, and all were dropped below zero hp, and one (the paladin of the Raven Queen) was dropped to negative bloodied, which in 4e is outright death. The fight was with a group of undead spirits who had been conjured by a goblin shaman.

This event marked the end of the session's play. I then asked the players who wanted to keep playing their PC - all but one, including the player of the paladin, said yes.

From my point of view, I therefore had to come up with a scenario in which three PCs who had been defeated in combat could come back into play; in which a dead paladin could come back to life; and in which a new PC could be introduced.

In the break between sessions the player who wanted a new PC - he had found his half-elven fey-pact warlock a bit mechanically challenging in play - decided that he was going to bring in a drow chaos sorcerer.

The next session began, then, with three PCs regaining consciousness in a barred cave. They can hear voices talking in Goblin. And they can smell the roasting flesh of a half-elf on a spit. Also in the goblin's prison is a strange drow. The player of the paladin I made wait a little while - but in due course, I told him that his character regained consciousness lying on a stone slab, with the goblin shaman speaking some sort of ritual. The precise details of how the next bit got narrated I can't remember (this happened nearly 7 years ago), but the basic story was this: earlier in the campaign the paladin had taken an enemy magic-user prisoner; he had tried to befriend her, but she had remained resentful of her capture, and ended up dying in a fight with undead (also conjured by goblins) when the PCs were 2nd level; the goblin shaman had now, successfully, summoned her dead spirit as a vengeful wraith, using the body of the dead paladin - the object of the dead spirit's anger - as a ritual focus; and the Raven Queen had sent the paladin's spirit back into his body to combat this vengeful spirit. (And on the metagame side, I allocated the notional cost of a Raise Dead ritual to the paladin's share of the treasure parcels.)

All these five PCs are still alive and active in the campaign at 30th level, although two have been rebuilt, one ingame (the human wizard with invoker multi-class died and came back to life revealing his true nature as a deva invoker with wizard multi-class) and one out of game (the ranger with cleric multi-class was rebuilt as a hybrid ranger-cleric around 6th level, in a process called Operation Do Something With My Character Other Than Twin Strike)​

In the past, when I have posted this example online in discussions of how to handle TPKing, I have been told that it was a railroad. I think the intuition is that, because I framed the PCs into a challenging situation (being imprisoned by goblins) that wasn't just a naturalistic extrapolation from prior events, it is a railroad.

Similarly, I've heard the start of Out of the Abyss described as a railroad because the PCs begin as prisoners.

The thought seems to be that any time the GM opens the narration by putting the PCs in a situation where some actual, high-stakes choice is forced, the GM is railroading. (Hence, presumably, why the stereotyped opening scene of a D&D campaign is a group of drifters in a tavern.)

For my part, I can't see the railroading. The players had the chance to control the fiction by making successful checks in the resolution of the combat, and failed (by way of TPK). I asked the players about which PCs they wanted to play. And I opened the next session in a situation in which they were playing those characters they had chosen confronted with a situation that spoke to the "dramatic needs" they had established for those PCs - including bringing back into the game the paladin's earlier "story arc" concerning the magic-user NPC.

This relates back to Paul Czege's endorsement of the notion that "There are two points to a scene - Point A, where the PCs start the scene, and Point B, where they end up. Most games let the players control some aspect of Point A, and then railroad the PCs to point B. Good narrativism will reverse that by letting the GM create a compelling Point A, and let the players dictate what Point B is (ie, there is no Point B prior to the scene beginning)."

In my example, Point A is the players need to choose how their PCs will escape from the goblins. Subsidiary choices at Point A are how the three PCs who know one another deal with the strange drow, and how the paladin deals with the vengeful wraith spirit of his dead magic-user would-be protege.

But there was no pre-determined Point B: no particular path to take, no set of options (like the "three clue rule"). I can't remember all the details anymore, but I think in the end the PCs escaped the lair after fighting some goblins, then launched a frontal assault on the lair, defeated the rest of the goblins, but let some who surrendered leave on the strength of promises to (i) stop their predations, and (ii) not return to the lair. No particular outcome or sequence of events was forced.

In the first of the two quoted posts, I think the sentence everything encountered, created, improv'd, etc. lead to the character's goals or dramatic needs is not quite right. It doesn't lead to those goals/needs. It speaks to them or engages them. There is no leading or path - they are already there, implicated in the situation that the GM has established.

For me, the preceding paragraph is not just word-play. I am trying to mark out a distinction of practical importance to RPGing (or, at least, to my RPGing). In a lot of "conventional" or "traditional" scenario design, the setting and the backstory set up hurdles that must be overcome, or hoops that must be jumped through, before the players can get to the dramatic meat. For instance, first the PCs have to find the map, and then once they have the map they can rescue the princess. Assuming that saving the princess is the goal or dramatic need of the PCs, in the scenario just outlined there is still a whole chunk of play - finding the map - that doesn't speak to or engage that need, except in terms of a promise of a payoff later. I think that makes for boring, uninspired play.

A published adventure that I've used that had exactly this problem is Heathen, an adventure in one of the Dungeon magazines that was free online in the early days of 4e. This adventure has a strong theme and a narratively compelling climax, as the PCs confront a fallen paladin. But it also has a lengthy bit of travel to the location where the climax takes place which is full of mostly uninspired, uninspiring encounters. (Obviously not all travel has to be uninspiring, but in a story like Apocalypse Now the encounters en route themselves speak to the dramatic situation; they are not just filler.) When I ran the adventure I cut out most of that stuff, and adapted what I retained to make it relate to the dramatic situation that was driving the PCs to confront this fallen paladin in the first place.

The word railroad has connotations of a journey or a path. It fits with the verb to lead. But if every scene framed, and every complication that is narrated as part of "failing forward", already, in itself, speaks to the PC (and player) goals/needs, then there is no forced journeying or leading. There is forcing of choices - the players, having chosen to play these PCs with these needs, are going to have to engage with that. But in making their choices, including especially their choices abut action declaration, they are the ones who determine the general nature of the (narrative) paths their PCs will travel on. But if they fail their checks, then the GM has licence to turn those paths into unhappy rather than happy ones. (Eg as per the episode of the PC being shoved by her followers into a burning effigy; or as per the episode of the black arrows, rather than the mace, being the item recovered from the ruined tower.)

 

[Maxperson]

I explained what I understand "fail forward" to be, as a technique, in post 156 of this thread. I self-quoted that post not very far upthread.

The terms doesn't come from nowhere. It was introduced by particular RPG designers to describe a particular technique intended to achieve a particular RPGing experience.

Success with a cost is only one way of narrating "fail forward", and even then only if success is understood as meaning success at the task - by definition, if the check fails, the PC must fail to succeed in respect of his/her intent. (A classic example would be - you arrive at the top of Mt Pudding, but the pudding thieves got there first because you were too slow: task success, intent failure. Also a very well known trope from adventure fiction.)

And having other options may have nothing to do with "fail forward" at all. If those other options all exist in the GM's notes (eg as per the so-called "Three Clue" rule), then the existence of those "other options" may not prevent play stopping dead in its tracks, if the players don't think of or discover those other options.

"Fail forward", in the sense of the technique that actually brought that term into the RPG lexicon, is not about "other options". When the PCs in my BW game fail to find the mace by scouring the ruined tower, there are no "other options". Or when they fail to stop the ship they are on sinking, after being tethered to a ghost ship, there are no "other options". But in both cases I used the technique of "fail forward": the upshot of the failure was that the PCs found themselves in a new challenging situation, different from the one they had hoped to be in, in which hard decisions were called for ("You're floating in the waters of the Woolly Bay, clinging to the wreckage of The Albers. How are you going to save yourselves?"; "In what used to be your brothers private workroom, you find a rack of black arrows. Let me tell you what those are for . . .")

Right. That's why I said there were two definitions being used, not that you used both of them. You use the second definition I provided as the examples in the above paragraphs show. What I am saying is that fail forward as shown in your examples works perfectly in a pre-authored setting. Schrodinger's mace can happen in a pre-authored setting with zero difficulty. The climb outcome happening the way you just described is also doable with zero difficulty. Fail forward is not system dependent.

This is very strange, in the context of a discussion about techniques and railroading. You say I have "incorrect perceptions" about the nature of pre-authoring, but then say that you don't see any difference between something being the result of a failed check and something just being stipulated as true by the GM.

I'm talking about the outcome. The result of "Dark elf as antagonist." is identical in both playstyles. To the PCs there is no difference at all. It's irrelevant to the outcome whether or not the dark elf was pre-authored.

That's the whole point of the scene-framing/"fail forward" style. The GM doesn't just stipulate the fiction; rather, key elements of the fiction unfold as part of the process of adjudicating action resolution, with responsibility distributed between players and GM (depending on success or failure), and with the system being designed to produce some sort of alternation between success vs failure which helps generate the dramatic dynamics of a story (in the strong, literary sense).

Of course the GM might try to introduce that sort of pattern just by way of stipulation. But that's the sort of approach to play, and the use of GM force, that the alternative techniques are intended to avoid.

I understand all of that. I'm just saying that it's easier to railroad when nothing is pre-authored than when it is. Nothing prevents the DM from bringing his pre-desired outcomes about whenever a player fails a roll.

Just to be clear - there are no anecdotes of scene-framing/"fail forward" play being used to railroad. As far as I can tell, that is pure conjecture by you and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].

No. I'm 100% that it happens. That nobody on your side has mentioned it here doesn't change that. Also, while it's easier to do with your playstyle, it's also harder to prove, so the percentage of people who catch on to the railroad will be much smaller.

Whereas I can point to every railroad thread on these forums, plus examples that have been posted in this very thread, where pre-authoring of content by the GM and then using it as a constraint on the framing and outcome of situations in play has led to a railroad-y experience.

Railroading is 100% a DM caused and 0% a system caused, though. Pre-authoring was irrelevant to all of those examples.

And it's not a coincidence that there are no anecdotes of the first sort: you can't run a game in the scene-framing/"fail forward" mode and railroad. The GM simply doesn't have the right sort of control over the fiction.

Yes you can. I guarantee you that if I run that sort of game, I can cause failures to go the way I want them to go in a railroad type fashion. You can't run that sort of game properly and railroad, but neither can you run a pre-authored content game properly and railroad.

Have you ever played Dogs in the Vineyard? Any of the "Powered by Apocalypse World" games? HeroWars/Quest? Burning Wheel? FATE? Marvel Heroic RP? Even 13th Age?

Your posts in this thread are making me think that the answer to my question is "no". And that you are not very familiar with the dynamics of those systems.

No I haven't, but I am very familiar with fail forward at this point.

If a player writes on his PC sheet, in one of those games, "My brother is my hero", then the player is asking - in fact, telling - the GM to frame a scene in which that conviction is put under pressure. That's the point of those games; that's how they generate story (in the strong, literary/dramatic sense of hat term).

This is not the GM forcing his/her idea on the player - quite the opposite! It is the player forcing his/her idea (namely, that the heroism of the PC's brother is an important topic of the story) onto the GM. Furthermore, there is no railroad - there is no destination in which things end up. A question isn't the same thing as an answer. Finding black arrows in one's brother's workroom raises, in one's mind, the possibility that he was an evil enchanter even before he was possessed by a balrog; but it doesn't settle that question.

Does the player get to tell the DM how to challenge that conviction? If the answer is no, then it's the DM's desire that is coming into play. The DM can paint the brother in an iffy light, or he can outright destroy the brother in ways that would cause the PC to not be able to view him as a hero any longer. Whatever the DM desires happens to the PC, regardless of what the player wants.

Not only do I get the sense that you have no familiarity with these RPGs, or with the sort of playstyle that they are designed for, I also think that this is colouring the way you think about pre-authoring. By pre-authoring I don't mean coming up with ideas. I mean establishing truths in the shared fiction, which are then used by the GM to adjudicate outcomes in play. For instance, deciding that the mace is not in the tower before the players roll the dice is an instance of pre-authoring (whether the decision is made a year, a week or a minute before). Thinking about what to do with the mace if the players fail the check, though, isn't pre-authoring in this sense (though it may be a type of GM prep, especially if done other then while playing at the table) - that doesn't determine the content of any fiction, or determine the outcomes of play. It doesn't pre-empt any dice rolls.

Pre-authoring is a established fact that can affect the game in the future. It doesn't matter whether it was established unilaterally by the DM, or though shared game play like you use. Once the fact is established, it becomes pre-authored content for future game play.

When you say that pre-authored material is no constraint, I don't know what you mean. If the GM is rewriting it on the fly, or inventing new material to counter-act the pre-authored material (eg s/he has pre-authored that, at such-and-such a place and time Oswald will shoot at Kennedy, but then only fly writes in an angel who blocks the bullet once it becomes clear that the PCs have botched the job of protecting the President), then it's still pre-authoring (ie establishing the fictional circumstances independent of action resolution), just pre-authoring on a shorter timeline.

Well, I said light constraint, not no constraint. What I mean by that is that it doesn't really limit you very much. If I pre-author angel feathers to remove curses, that doesn't mean that I can't author them on the fly to do other things. For that matter, nothing says that there can't be a special anger feather that does not remove curses. There are exceptions to every rule, so pre-authorship does very little to actually constrain the DM.

Also, your equation of established elements of the shared fiction with pre-authored fiction is very strange to me. Elements of the shared fiction that are established in play aren't authored prior to, and as a constraint on, action resolution. They are outcomes of it! And when they are then used to help in the framing of subsequent scenes and subsequent action declarations, they are known quantities whose impact on the situation is determined before player resources are committed and the dice are rolled. This is not analogous to the GM deciding unilaterally that the mace is not in the tower, and hence that no matter how well the players roll on their Scavenging check they won't find the mace.

Once you author in finding black arrows and no mace in the tower, those are now authored facts. Those authored facts will affect future game play as pre-authored content. Those facts happened and have the same limited constraint as any other pre-authored content.

Because we don't have any actual play examples of railroading using scene-framing and "fail forward" techniques, and also because - at least in your case - I get the sense that you have basically no familiarity with those techniques in your own RPGing, I'm having a lot of trouble envisaging your conception of how it would work. You seem to be envisaging that whatever the player has written on his/her PC sheet about his/her PC's convictions and concerns, and whatever action declaration the player has declared for his/her PC, the GM - on a failure - narrates "You find yourself at the Misty Lake with your brother's hat at the top of the brothel stairs." I guess it's conceivable that a GM somewhere might run that game, but as I responded to [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] the problem with that game isn't railroading - no outcome has been determined or player action declaration thwarted. The problem with that game is that it's silly, boring and hence pointless.

If the players are trying to somewhere other than misty lake, then constantly moving towards it is railroading. I also agree, railroading is silly and boring. That applies to any style of game play that isn't built around railroading, though.

Which version of D&D?

All of them can be run well with a variety of game styles.

To me, this answer suggests that you haven't tried to run a non-exploratory, scene-framed/"fail forward"-style game (perhaps at all, certainly not using most versions of D&D). AD&D and 3E will actively push back against this. 4e generally facilitates it, but has a few well-known problem areas (eg the interface between the very abstract, non-granular skill challenge system and the combat system, which is very granular when it comes to space and time while at the same time being quite abstract in other respects, such as damage and healing). By default, 5e's emphasis on the "adventuring day" as a unit of balance and its seeming use of objective DC seems to be less friendly to it than 4e.

Fail forward is success or success with a cost. No edition of D&D actively pushes back against that. 5e, which you say is less friendly towards it, goes out of its way to suggest that people can use it.

Just to give one instance: how, in D&D, do you handle a player making a roll to see if his/her PC can meet up with an NPC that the character knows from his/her past associates (ie an NPC whom the PC has not actually met or engaged with in actual play at the table)? The default is that the GM decides whether or not such an NPC exists, and then either sets a DC reflecting further aspects of the fiction or just makes a roll (perhaps a % check).

Or else he doesn't and uses fail forward. In every edition of D&D, the rules are just guidelines that the DM can add to, subtract from, or change as he desires. That means that if the DM wants to use fail forward in D&D, it will work flawlessly as the DM just makes it work flawlessly.

You can work around it, eg by allowing Streetwise to be used as an analogue to BW Circles or MHRP's resource rules. But that doesn't tell us much about the "neutrality" of D&D. It just shows that you can graft bits of other systems onto D&D. By the same token, I could introduce encumbrance rules into BW if I wanted, using the D&D rules as a model. But that doesn't count as evidence that BW is well-suited to exploration-oriented dungeon crawling. (Which is why Luke Crane wrote Torchbearer.)

D&D is designed to be malleable and for the DM to mold it to his playstyle.

I've never been GMed by Luke Crane or Vincent Baker, but I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt! I think they can run games pretty competently, and are playing with pretty high-quality players

That's a Strawman. I didn't say they couldn't run a game competently. I said that if what you say is true about what they said, they don't know how to run a sandbox game properly. Sandbox games when run properly don't have to work the way they say. You can do sandbox AND story if you want to.

 

[Aenghus]

I was moreso talking about the outcome of this type of game in the described playstyle always leading towards some resolution of the character(s) needs, desires or goals... There's no chance (at least as I understand the explanations presented in this thread) of offering an option, conclusion, outcome, etc. that doesn't tie into these things... at least not if one is running it properly...

However I think the failure modes of conventional RPGs and RPGs designed ground up with fail forward/stakes setting are different.

Old RPGs like D&D and World of Darkness are haunted by the spectre of the dictatorial GM, railroading his or her players through a pre-scripted nightmare of deprotagonisation and being deaf to player feedback and complaints, often excommunicating those who dare to question their decisions or authority. There was little recourse to player frustration except leaving the game and finding a better one. The advice in rulebooks tended to be terrible and seemed to be predicated on a flawless infallible and long suffering referee dragging his or her unruly teenage players through RPG boot camp.

GM advice has improved over the years, but conventional games tend to lack formal player feedback mechanisms, and so the boogeyman of players of conventional games continues to be terrible GM railroading.

I'm not saying conventional games are doomed to bad railroading here, my own game is fairly conventional, though I put a lot of effort into listening to my players and their evolving goals for their PCs and integrating them into my game.

Also a talented old style GM with players who wholeheartedly embrace the GM's style of play can have a very fun game, though it may lack certain sorts of player proactivity.

Fail forward/stakes setting games generally have a negotiation step where the referee and player must agree on the particulars of the current conflict and set the stakes of success and failure. I suspect that this often is the point where irreconcilable differences are discovered, and that the failure mode should no compromise be found is that the game stalls at that point, or one of the participants leaves. And because players in this mode of play have a certain amount of game authority, they are more used to using it and probably more willing to express their frustrations than passive players might be in a conventional game.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Gameworlds are created, artificial, made up. The creators are responsible for making a setting that facilitates the goals of the game being aimed at over everything else. A common goal is worldbuilding as a pursuit in and of itself, which can create complex worlds suitable for exploration centred games. But worldbuilding isn't a goal of every game.

Players seek a variety of different things from games, and sometimes there are tradeoffs. Players who are looking to emphasise the direct pursuit of evolving personal plotlines that are reflected in the gameworld around them may do it at the cost of not exploring a pre-existing setting. Yes, it may make the world feel more like a tragedy, melodrama or soap opera, but this may be appropriate to the goals of a particular game.

A lot of players nowadays have more limited playing time and may need to play "faster" to achieve what they want to achieve in a particular campaign given their time limitations.

Playing "faster" to me has come to mean rapid leveling because the game isn't one of exploration, adventure or even plot resolution. Its a game of "what do I get next level?" Speed of play to facilitate accumulating mechanical crap to add to your character doesn't appeal.

What's your evidence for this?

Graham Greene is famous for (among other things) evoking the settings of his novels. But in novels like The Quiet American or The Human Factor, he does not indulge in setting for its own sake. It's part of the context for establishing the dramatic situation of the characters.

Check out the Truman Show. By all accounts Truman Burbank should have been happier than a pig in poop that the whole world revolved around him. That wasn't the case though. Pointless setting detail for its own sake can get boring but I enjoy playing in world that feels like it could exist with or without the PCs.

The connection, and this seems obvious to me, is that the barbarian tribe/dwarven city/sea elf culture is something that was made in the course of the game. It's got the little personal quirks that I/we added, that we thought made it more interesting, that let me/us add our personal stamp on the world. Whereas the pre-created one is something I got told about. And yes, that we can add quirks and little personal bits too, as long as they don't contradict the existing material, but past a certain point it's not the pre-created group any more but another one that we've made that has only a few pre-created bits left that we weren't interested enough in to change; or it's as stated, in which case it's far less something we feel any connection to. At least that's how it plays out with the people I play with.

The difference is that you enjoy playing as a co-author. Nothing wrong with that. I enjoy playing as an inhabitant of the game world and any changes I contribute to that world I prefer that they be done by the character in actual play. Perhaps an entire new culture might get formed because of the results of our adventures? That would be really cool. Just making it up and having it be so from a character perspective, not so much.

 

[Aenghus]

Playing "faster" to me has come to mean rapid leveling because the game isn't one of exploration, adventure or even plot resolution. Its a game of "what do I get next level?" Speed of play to facilitate accumulating mechanical crap to add to your character doesn't appeal.

No, that's not what I mean. I meant to refer to a game with an accelerated plot, where extraneous filler is left out, and slice of life and downtime content is omitted or summarised rather than played through at length. The game might not have levels, or even character progression. Play moves from one scene important to the personal goals of the players to another such scene as smoothly as possible. This style of play is specialised and not for everyone, but suits certain player goals.

The difference is that you enjoy playing as a co-author. Nothing wrong with that. I enjoy playing as an inhabitant of the game world and any changes I contribute to that world I prefer that they be done by the character in actual play. Perhaps an entire new culture might get formed because of the results of our adventures? That would be really cool. Just making it up and having it be so from a character perspective, not so much.

Which is fine. Though appreciating the nuances and gradations of various ways of transferring some creative authority to players can help to avoid an all or nothing attitude, there's a lot of middle ground in there.