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Note that in @clearstream 's example it's the player who escalates things by choice, not the GM forcing said escalation. The player could just as easily have had the character turn away, leave quietly, and come back another night with a better lock-picker in tow. Or could have tried knocking...

Until you change it (or try to) by trying a different approach than the one that just failed.

Both. Why on earth wouldn't they work the same? It's not? Have you never, when faced with a task you can't complete by one means, tried another? You can't open the pickle jar by hand 'cause it's too tight, so you pull out an opening tool to help. Or you run the lid under hot water knowing...

Come on, Max - it's blatantly obvious what the runes said before the roll: S - C - H - R - O - E - D - I - N - G - E - R :)

Failure does not merely maintain the status quo when other avenues of approach exist (I should have been clearer on that the first time round, sorry). What failure does do - and all it does - is shut down one avenue of approach.

It's a while since I read the 5e DMG but I thought training-to-level was still in there as an option. I know it was in 3e. Can't remember for 4e, it's even longer since I read that one's DMG. There's many things the player-base have, no thanks to WotC, become conditioned to expect that don't...

Maybe in those players' eyes bad gaming is still better than no gaming, and so they're kind of playing under protest.

Whaddya mean there's no alternative paths? Does this house not have any other doors besides the one to the kitchen? No windows? Did nobody bring a crowbar to pry the door off its hinges, or a good pair of boots to kick it in? Do we have magic that can help? Defaulting to "there's no...

They're only wasting their time if both of two conditions are true: 1. They cannot possibly succeed at the task they are trying, and 2. Failure merely maintains the status quo. If they could have succeeded but didn't, their time was not wasted; they tried to succeed and failed. Now they...

Our opinions differ on the latter. :) If "nothing happens" is what makes fictional sense then that's what I'm gonna narrate. Ideally it doesn't happen in any game, but it appears there's some it does. No idea why you'd assume I was talking specifically about Dungeon World. That said...

By 5e RAW, maybe, but it's easy to fix. First, use and enforce training-to-level rules. Then, have the new spell(s) acquired as part of levelling come as part of the training, and be random; they're what the trainer happened to teach you as examples of that level of spell. And boom -...

It wasn't my choice to go online. I voted against it, but lost.

We got a new router a few months back which made discord somewhat better at our end. Not much we can do about bandwidth, however, as our building isn't fitted for fibre (and may never be). Now it's the DM having trouble with discord, lots of dropouts. And he just got a new fancy hi-tech...

Problem there is that other people live in the same living space as the player, and it's a bit much to ask them to not do anything while the game is on. And muting's not much of an option if you're trying to stay in the conversation (especially when, like me, you constantly forget to unmute...

Can't blame the DM if the players have their characters go to unforeseen or unexpected places all the time. Roll20 (which is what we use) isn't great for on-the-fly mapping - or so says our DM, and I fully believe him. We use discord for audio (no cameras, and I'm glad of that!) and it's...

My game logs are 99% for myself and the current players with the other 1% being ex-players who might still want to check in on how things are going. I mean, anyone else can read 'em if you like but you'd be on your own for figuring out what was what. :) Their main purpose is to remind us what...

Critical failure is kinda my take on it also, but I think it came up as a fail-forward example to begin with; first from someone's blog then expanded on within this thread.

Hey, they seemed big at the time! :) I grew up on a rocky seacoast. To get from my house to the beach while staying on our property involved going down a steep bank (easy, because we'd put in some stairs to cover the rough bits) then after a bit of flattish ground climbing down a steep rocky...

At first glance this seems similar to the distinction between Rules as Written (RAW), Rules as Intended (RAI) and Rules as Played (RAP). RAW is what the words in the book(s) actually say. RAI is what the designer(s) wanted them to say and-or achieve. RAP is how the rules are interpreted and...

Sure. In fact going through the specifics of learning a new spell probably would be more interesting - the first time or two it came up. After that, it gets reduced to SOP or a handwave to save doing the same process dozens of times as different casters expand their spell repertoires. Much...