D&D 5E Do you use the Success w/ Complication Module in the DMG or Fail Forward in the Basic PDF

[Nikosandros]

I struggle to imagine a scenario where failure has a meaningful consequence but success doesn’t.

I agree, it sounds a bit strange. If failure has consequences, than succeeding avoids those consequence and hence it is meaningful. Am I missing something?

 

[Argyle King]

It’s an excellent system.

From the few blurbs I've read about it online, it sounds as though some of the concepts function similar to how advantage and threat are used in Genesys/FFG Star Wars.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Hey @loverdrive thanks for the insight into your games, much appreciated. And thanks @Manbearcat for a great thread.

If there's something to make a task particularly difficult, I use adv/disadv. Other than that, these numbers are static -- I don't want to be bothered with setting DCs and I want the players to know the odds.

Even though a little different, your mechanic reminds me very much of SIEGE from Castles and Crusades with set DCs.

So I can see such a system easily implemented for skill checks.

But do you use it for saving throws such as the
Exhaustion for a force march?
A dragon's breath weapon? or
The spell of a wizard

What about combat does armour class (which sets the DC traditionally) a consideration?

 

[Lanefan]

No, I literally could have done better, if I had rolled anything else.

In the metagame, perhaps. From the character's point of view - and she's the one trying this action - she does the best she can at that time and in that situation; and that's what the one roll is modelling for me.

You can rule that I’m not allowed to try again until circumstances change if that’s how you prefer to run the game, but it’s an objective fact that I could have done better.

Again, only in the metagame. Your character can't see your dice.

Difficulty isn’t what I’m concerned about here.

Which is good. A lot of this whole issue regarding fail-forward etc. seems to revolve around difficulty mitigation and-or removal of obstacles; things which IMO 5e already does more than enough of.

That’s not what I do. DCs aren’t just out in the wild, existing independently of actions. There’s no difficulty to compare to unless there’s an action being performed that could succeed, could fail, and has a consequence for failure, and in that case what I compare it to is the result of the player’s actual roll, not to the best they could have rolled.

When you say "DCs aren't out in the wild", I kind of disagree in that any given thing e.g. a lock is going to present the same difficulty whether or not someone is trying to pick it at the time. Put another way, the lock always has a DC to pick.

However, if there’s no chance of failure or no consequence for failure, there’s no DC and no comparison. I just narrate the results of success.

There's no such thing as "no consequence for failure", though, as gaining the knowledge that you can't do something is still a consequence; as is the fact that either something else now must be tried or the goal of passing the obstacle must be abandoned.

It’s not purely binary - some actions have costs that must be paid to even attempt them, and some have consequences on a failure that result in progress with a setback. Some tasks even have different consequences at different thresholds, though I generally try to avoid using that.

Might I ask why you avoid the bolded bit? I far prefer a sliding-scale type of resolution to straight-up pass-fail, when it's possible.

This is the only defense I’ve ever seen of the “your first try represents your best attempt technique” and I don’t find it compelling because I don’t see any gameplay value in modeling that.

I do, in that it seems far more believable than always being able to give your best-ever shot at something. Also, it's not "your first try represents your best attempt" but rather "your first roll represents your best attempt", in that you're concatenating what might in the fiction be a series of tries or attempts into one roll.

Well, sure, sometimes you get a great roll. That’s the nature of dice.

Again, I’m not advocating for take 20. I don’t like take 20. It’s a sloppy attempt to make best DMing practice (only calling for rolls when there are sufficient dramatic stakes to warrant it) and turns it into a player-facing mechanic. In so doing, it causes weirdness like comparing the best possible result to the difficulty of every task, which also necessitates the nonsense that is having naked DCs absent an specific action they’re being used to resolve. Take 10 has similar issues, though not as bad. There are at least some situations where it can be useful to represent the average result of a task performed repeatedly over time with a 10 + relevant modifiers.

Odd: we agree on Take-20 but probably come from opposite directions to do so.

 

[Lanefan]

A third option exists: both you and 5e are wrong. This is to say, that you should call for a check if (a) there's doubt to the outcome, and (b) there's a meaningful consequence to both success and failure.

Close. I'd say (b) should read "there's a meaningful consequence to either success or failure, or both".

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Something has always bothered me about the interpretation that automatic success in 5e isn‘t effectively take 20. If it isn‘t that, are we saying you can succeed at this task even though if I were to assign a fitting difficulty to it that difficulty would be so high that you would still fail on a 20? With the flatter math in 5e that wouldn’t even make sense. In systems with more squishy moving parts than D&D, like a narrative focus where difficulty follows needs of the story or something, it might make more sense, but in 5e where DCs are assigned on what is intended to be an essentially static scale, it really doesn’t. It could make reasonable sense to say that someone has no chance of success attempting something and just skip a DC (though players often wouldn't like that if its something they want to try), but the other direction, where you auto-succeed regardless of whether you could beat a hypothetical DC or not makes little sense and mathematically would almost never come up anyway. A commitment to that angle seems to me both more philosophical than practical, and not a fit that‘s easy to make in D&D.

 

[loverdrive]

But do you use it for saving throws such as the
Exhaustion for a force march?
A dragon's breath weapon? or
The spell of a wizard

No. Generally, I don't want to be bothered with setting DCs. For me, it's easier to cap the success ("this is one sturdy lock, there's no way you'll be able to pick it in one action") than to attach a number to it, but if someone else has already done the job, why not just use it?

When applied to a generic roll, not covered by other rules, using a pre-set table reduces amount of work required -- I still need to decide, what's the risk and what's the reward, but at least I don't have to pull a number out of my ass.
When applied to an already defined roll, it increases the amount of work -- instead of just using the rules I'd need to come up with additional results.

When you say "DCs aren't out in the wild", I kind of disagree in that any given thing e.g. a lock is going to present the same difficulty whether or not someone is trying to pick it at the time. Put another way, the lock always has a DC to pick.

Does it, though? Is picking a lock on a chest that you keep in your basement, while you're well-fed, under no stress and using quality tools no easier than picking the same lock in a collapsing building on fire, with nothing more than a screw driver and a dragon (almost literally) breathing down your neck?

 

[Lanefan]

Does it, though? Is picking a lock on a chest that you keep in your basement, while you're well-fed, under no stress and using quality tools no easier than picking the same lock in a collapsing building on fire, with nothing more than a screw driver and a dragon (almost literally) breathing down your neck?

Sure. The lock itself hasn't changed (same DC). The surrounding elements and situation have, however (disadvantage and-or some other major penalty on the roll; or an auto-fail).

 

[Steampunkette]

1) Why do you use it if you do or why do you not use it if you do not?

2) Is this the first game you've used this GMing technique or did you use it in the past in other games (and when did you first use it)?

3) If you use SWC or FF, do you use it on every instance of action resolution or only certain instances of action resolution?

4) If you only use SWC or FF on certain instances of action resolution, what principles/reasoning underwrite your decision to use it here, but not use it there.

I use them both because they're the same thing. In both cases you're allowing the player to succeed on a roll but with problems rising from the attempt. The DMG's version just formalizes it with "Within 1 or 2 points" rather than leaving it vague. Also I find it weird that people are -offering- their characters the option to succeed with a complication. I never let my players know they've failed unless they've actually failed and they get nothing at all.

1) I use it because it makes things more interesting. It can lead to new avenues of questioning, some of which are red herrings, it can lead to developing a deeper character, and more than a few times it's birthed a petty nemesis for the party. Generally not someone with enough power to -do- anything against the party, but an annoyance going forward.

2) I've used it since 3.5, actually. I thought I was being -particularly- clever in having it be a thing at my table, when really I was just doing what I'd seen other DMs do.

3) Certain Instances. Mostly Exploration/Social pillars. But in particularly tense "I have a hostage!" type moments I've used it for combat, as well.

4) "Will it be dramatic if the players succeed in this moment, but also make a mistake?"

 

[Steampunkette]

Uhm... Kinda? (didn't vote, don't know what to pick) I just use a simple and straightforward table.

10-: You fail (or succeed in a way you wish you didn't) and there's a complication.
11-17: You do it, but there's a complication.
18+: You do it.
Nat 20. You do it and enjoy some additional benefits.

... see... this makes me want to houserule up a simple system to get rid of "Abject Failure" except in extreme cases.

Like... Instead of it being a table for rolls, make it a table for roll totals, even in combat.

Roll a total of X and do not beat the Social DC:
1-10: You fail. Or you get the information/assistance from someone who is actively working against your interests.
11-14: You succeed, but have aggravated your target and their disposition toward you shifts one step toward the negative.
15+: You succeed, but the information you've gained is partial or misleading, or the assistance is half-assed.

Roll a total of X and do not beat the Exploration DC:
1-10: You fail. Or you succeed and lose 1d4 hit dice or supply in the process and increase the difficulty of others accomplishing the same task by 2.
11-14: You succeed at the cost of 1hd, but your mistakes make it harder on everyone else, the DC for others to complete the same task is increased by 2.
15+: You succeed, but your mistakes make it harder on everyone else. The DC increases by 2.

Roll a total of X and do not beat the target's AC:
1-10: You fail. Or you succeed in hitting your target, but you only do 1 damage and provide advantage against the next attack against you.
11-14: You hit the target and deal your relevant attribute modifier in damage. The target focuses their next attack on you in retaliation.
15+: You hit the target and deal your relevant attribute modifier in damage.