D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

Maxperson said:

We aren't talking about being discovered by someone who is already there before the lock is picked and hears the rogue. We are talking about a quantum cook that only appears in that room if the roll fails.

The cook is not connected to the roll in any way.

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Is the cook a quantum if the GM decides that’s where she is? She’s never actually in the kitchen until the GM tells the player she is.

Many of the folks who advocate for heavy prep said that they, at times, still have to come up with material on the fly. So what if the GM decides that, based on their idea of a living breathing world, there’s a cook in the kitchen?

Is that a problem in any way? Is this a “quantum cook”?

Maxperson said:

You absolutely know who I mean by "we." You'd have to be ignorant of the entire thread not to. There are two significant sides in this discussion and that hasn't changed since the OP. Understanding fail forward or not doesn't have any bearing on who "we" are.

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No, I mean specifically who. There appear to be several different takes on fail forward among the folks you seem to be speaking for, and not all are in lock step. So I’m asking who you’re speaking for to have a better idea of your take on it.

Micah Sweet said:

There's an awful lot of personal opinion dressed up as objective fact here. Maybe try considering the idea that your thoughts on what everybody wants are not actually what everybody wants?

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...where am I dressing it up as objective fact?

Faolyn said:

Is there a reason why you can't just make it up in your head instead of random tables? Do you simply not want to? Is it something you feel you're not good at?

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Tables systematize the results and make the choices more meaningful. Compare two hexcrawls where the players go into tundra territory. In case 1, the weather and encounters are determined by a table -- the players choice has a meaningful effect on the outcome. In case 2 the DM makes it up. Here there is still some influence because they'll get tundra encounters, but it will be more subject to the DMs mood, whether they saw a cool yeti movie last night, etc.

Eric V said:

...where am I dressing it up as objective fact?

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By stating it as if it were the truth and not one person's opinion. Read what you wrote again.

Campbell said:

I think it's a huge mistake to cast GM Moves as just what GMs do. I know that a lot of us kind of intuitively picked up scene framing and so it seems like that's what GMing just is, but it's just one way to approach roleplaying games. Especially when it comes to moves like separate them that are very explicit hard scene framing sorts of moves.

This is not how I approach with Worlds Without Number or Into The Odd at all. Nor even how I approach Chronicles of Darkness.

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I think this is going to be one of those times where it's the same things but different terminology.

In all of the games you've mentioned, you're going to sometimes have hints that there's something bad coming. The pool of blood, the weird drag marks, the brutally murdered corpse, whatever. You don't call them Hint at Future Badness or think of it as a move. You'd call it something else, like foreshadowing or setting the mood or providing clues, if you called it anything at all. And even if you wouldn't use a specific hard move, such as Separate Them, other GMs would--Lanefan talked about a teleportation trap, for instance. You may, however, use that as a soft move--the party sees a rickety bridge that looks like it will collapse at any moment. Do they want to cross or find another way around?

The Firebird said:

Tables systematize the results and make the choices more meaningful. Compare two hexcrawls where the players go into tundra territory. In case 1, the weather and encounters are determined by a table -- the players choice has a meaningful effect on the outcome. In case 2 the DM makes it up. Here there is still some influence because they'll get tundra encounters, but it will be more subject to the DMs mood, whether they saw a cool yeti movie last night, etc.

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So you never, ever make up anything by yourself, is what you're saying?

Yeah, I'm going to say that really misses most of the point, and fun, of an RPG. And honestly, I cannot imagine how a random die roll makes anything more meaningful than something that actually has had some thought into it. Random tables are just that--random, and therefore are far more likely to produce nonsensical results at the best of times.

The Firebird said:

Tables systematize the results and make the choices more meaningful. Compare two hexcrawls where the players go into tundra territory. In case 1, the weather and encounters are determined by a table -- the players choice has a meaningful effect on the outcome. In case 2 the DM makes it up. Here there is still some influence because they'll get tundra encounters, but it will be more subject to the DMs mood, whether they saw a cool yeti movie last night, etc.

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Except that the only actual difference here is time.

After all, the DM either made or chose (in the case of using someone else's) the random table that is used. The events generated by the random table have absolutely nothing to do with player choices, other than perhaps initiating which random table is used. There is essentially, though, absolutely no difference between the DM simply making it up on the fly and using a table that the DM made up on the fly two weeks ago and is using now. Both are 100% subject to DM bias. If it wasn't, then the table you make, I make and someone else makes would look a heck of a lot more similar.

Your "tundra encounter" table might only have more or less mundane things you might meet on the tundra - deer, bears, etc. My table might be full of ice themed elementals. Bob's has a bunch of undead. Dave's is a mix of all of the above.

At no point are the events not 100% subject to DM bias and mood.

AlViking said:

They are logical consequences to failure that you've implemented because you're playing a style of game where something must happen. But they are logical and connected directly to the failure in a cause-and-effect way.

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Why does hoping to meet an Elf cause a guard to arrive?

In terms of cause-and-effect, I don't see any difference (when we're talking about structures/processes of play) between the guards being brought onto the "stage", and the screaming cook being brought onto the "stage". It's just that my GM, in narrating the guards, was relatively deft. Whereas the screaming cook has been presented in a way that suggests clumsy GMing.

Which goes back to @Campbell's posts: if you assume that "fail forward" is being done clumsily then of course it will look clumsy. But those of us who are good GMs of Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World or whatever other RPG do our best to be deft rather than clumsy.

AlViking said:

I don't have a problem with nothing happening because there will always be other ways for the players to drive the action forward, as GM I provide opportunities that the characters can pursue I don't drive the flow of play.

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OK, yes, this is reiterating that you don't adopt "fail forward" narration of failure.

Maxperson said:

What authority do you have standing over your shoulder telling you that the Google street view is accurate or not? That's just weird.

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I don't understand this post.

hawkeyefan said:

Is the cook a quantum if the GM decides that’s where she is? She’s never actually in the kitchen until the GM tells the player she is.

Many of the folks who advocate for heavy prep said that they, at times, still have to come up with material on the fly. So what if the GM decides that, based on their idea of a living breathing world, there’s a cook in the kitchen?

Is that a problem in any way? Is this a “quantum cook”?

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I think it was @Enrahim who upthread mentioned wandering monsters.

Wandering monsters are "quantum" beings. That's the essence of their use in classic D&D. As Gygax explains, wandering monster rolls - in the classic game - are made based on time and based on noise. Suppose that the player is having their PC pick a lock in a dungeon - that will take time. Which can trigger a wandering monster roll. That can in turn trigger surprise rolls, and reaction rolls. One possible upshot is that the wandering monster is startled to see the PC, and screams.

As you ( @hawkeyefan) have already posted upthread, a "fail forward" approach to resolution tends to compress and combine some of these processes. For instance, instead of a separate wandering monster roll, the possibility of being caught red-handed is built into the check resolution itself. And instead of a separate reaction roll, the response of the NPC who catches the PC red-handed is decided by the GM as part of the consequence narration.

People can like this, or not. These are different ways of establishing the shared fiction. But one is not more "quantum" than the other.

Now maybe there is a type of contemporary play that eschews wandering monsters, or at least eschews them in the classic form, and that aspires to track the movements and actions of all the beings that exist in the setting. That would be less "quantum". But as you note, there are at least some prep-oriented posters who also seem to use something like random encounters in their games. Those are just as "quantum".