Recent content by FrozenNorth

In the initial example (which came from a website) there was no mention that the break-in took place at night. That detail was added later.

So the issue isn’t that the « cook appeared out of nothing » which as we’ve established occurs whether the GM uses fail forward or a random encounter. The issue as you’ve identified is that if the PCs have approached breaking into the manor in a particular way « verifying the presence of...

Whether you like or not, 4e was as much a traditional D&D game as AD&D or BECMI. Fail-forward is not an optional rule in either DMGs I mentioned: it is DM advice. As for the rest, you are just stating your previous unsupported point, only with more emphasis. It’s not particularly more convincing.

I was only referring to versions of D&D for which I feel sufficiently confident I correctly remember a reference to failing forward. Failing forward may have been raised in earlier DMGs or other advice for earlier editions, I do not remember.

You speak for most traditional DMs now? As far as I recall, fail-forward was included in the 4e DMG, 2014 DMG and 2024 DMG, so it is a pretty standard tool and piece of advice in DM's arsenal. If you want to claim that many, if not most, DMs don't want to use the technique, you're going to...

In a fail-forward scenario, the consequence for failing forward is necessarily one the GM would consider plausible, so it is natural that the GM would be prepared to explain why the consequence is plausible. What you wouldn't see in a fail-forward scenario is a situation like the one here...

Why does this make a difference? You keep on returning that in one case, the cook is just "created" but in the other case they aren't, but the reasons you give don't support the claim that the cook is "just created" in the fail forward scenario, but isn't if the GM is improvising the scene...

Except you aren't considering the facts presented by the fiction. You're inventing new facts. Like that picking a lock or opening a door can only be heard from immediately next to the door. Absolutely I would hear the door if someone opened it with a key, even if they tried to be quiet. I...

If that is the case, doesn’t the fail-forward GM have exactly the same amount of latitude to decide that the consequence of the failure is something that makes sense?

But they weren’t. They were only there because the GM made a random encounter roll and rolled 82: cook. And the GM only made the random encounter roll because the PC was trying to break into the house!

But you are only considering circumstances in which it DOESN’T make sense. That is the point. If the situation was that a cook was rolled up on a random table, you would make a proactive effort to come up with a reason that it makes sense in context. Why aren’t you doing that in this case...

It seems well within the trad approach for the DM to roll a random encounter because of the rogue’s lock picking failure. So how is the cook being the result of a random encounter roll any less « created out of thin air » than in the fail forward example?

There might be any number of reasons why a failed roll to pick a lock might be heard by someone in the room next to the kitchen. You’re choosing to conclude that it wouldn’t be heard, to the extent that you’re arguing that a failure would be less noisy because it MIGHT be a deadbolt. If you...

No, it doesn’t. You’re changing the example to justify your conclusions. The example was that a rogue PC unexpectedly decided to break into a random house for cash. In both examples, the DM needs to come up with a resolution on the fly. So, when the DM rolls on a random encounter table and...

Same thing that happens if a trad GM rolls on a table and no encounter (or a different encounter) happens. The cook was elsewhere.