Manbearcat
Legend
Quick question... if the PC's fail, is that result also final and who decides the resulting consequence of said failure?
I assume we're not trying to reduce the complex down to the simple here, because the answer isn't "the GM has mandate to do as they please" (if the above is angling toward the rhetorical device of "begging the question").
The answer is:
1) The System has its say.
2) The GM has their say.
3) The Players get their say (which comes in the form of (a) engaging this bit of fiction and the goals therein in the first place, (b) deploying resources which provide the trajectory for the scene's evolution, (c) having PC build resources that bind GM framing - eg Instincts in Burning Wheel - and (d) deciding how many "stops to pull out" to prevent the consequences of failure in the first place.)
4) The Players may have more say (such as the deployment of PC build resources or meta resources to constrain/forbid/rewrite scene outcomes).
In Cortex+ Fantasy Heroic Exploration Scenes, you're talking:
1) The System has its say:
This is a "Go To the Action" system which expects the GM to manage the Doom Pool and the fiction to escalate genre-related danger and optimize drama. The general procedure is the GM frames the scene and then the resolution mechanics have the players declaring their actions and building their dice pools. The GM deploys the Doom Pool, Scene Distinctions, and any Complications.
2) The GM has their say:
If the players lose? Something goes wrong for the PCs and the GM is obliged to cause trouble. They get to immediately frame them into a scene of their choice (which follows from the fiction - this could be a Combat, Social, or another Exploration Scene). They also get to either (a) use their Effect die to inflict any type of Stress on a hero, (b) create a Complication that persists into this post-failure follow-on scene, or (c) add trouble to the follow-on scene (in the form of stepping up scene/NPC traits or splitting up the PCs and running multiple scenes).
Is Cortex+ good enough for this question about Exploration/Social Closed Scene Resolution? If this was meant to be a conversation about 4e rather than System/GM/Player say in closed scene resolution failure generally, I can gladly break that down. Let me know.