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Player: Hey… can I have gathered herbs while we were traveling from Luskan to Neverwinter? GM: Sure, you’d have had plenty of time, let’s roll to see how it went. Problem solved.

My Stonetop campaign went for over two years. Biweekly sessions, so probably wound up at 65ish sessions. Great game.

Yes yes you’re extrapolating. And in the many years since the place was built, with the many subsequent inhabitants that you’ve decided have lived there, you can have them do anything at all. So yeah… choosing to have a chokepoint like that is poor design, no matter what fiction you use to...

That’s all fine. My point is not that anyone has to like this approach… it was that your characterization of it was inaccurate. There’s no reason that a fail forward approach must include things that don’t make sense. EDITED TO ADD: the key word “don’t” in the final sentence!

Sure… but then that’s not because of the single point of failure issue we’re talking about. Yes, that’s one way to handle it. As I said, a lot of times, we’d play the modules individually, so that likely wouldn’t have happened. That was in our earliest days though. It’s one thing to fail...

I think, in the sandboxes I’ve seen, there is clearly consideration for things like level and danger. I don’t think that means that there are never exceptions… there may in fact be a super dangerous creature not far from the starting town, or there may be a hostile, powerful NPC among the staff...

I had it happen to me, too… plenty of times. Mostly years ago when all the play I was taking part in would be called “trad”. I think it’s far more likely or common in location based scenarios. The classic example is the secret door that’s missed which prevents the group from actually...

I don’t know if that’s accurate. What if the low climb roll indicated that it took you a really ling time to climb the cliff… and because of that, your friend was killed? There’s no reason that what happens in fail forward needs to be totally separated from the fiction. Most of the examples...

Yeah, I was just pointing out that “that’s not the way the real world works” is true of every RPG. Because often in these conversations and comparisons, that idea gets lost and what people feel makes sense starts being presented as what makes sense objectively. Not saying you did this here...

So I just wanted to snip this bit out because I think it’s very relevant. First, I want to say that I understand your reasoning on this, and even if I didn’t, it’s a preference and like any preference, you’re entitled to have it. But there aren’t any RPGs that work the way the real world...

Expense? It was as low-stakes as your typical RPG session!

I mean... saying you can skip past some stuff is decent advice was met with resistance. If that doesn't sum up the thread title nicely, I don't know what would!

I wasn't complaining! I was making a joke.

No one can make anyone do anything. I don’t think that telling GMs that the flow of time in their game is something they can control is in any way bad. They can choose to speed it up or slow it down as suits the needs of the table. I consider it along the lines of the kind of universal advice...

Yes, of course! nothing new can happen! Even if it's not new and we all do it to some extent anyway! Never change!!!!

Nah, I think it's still good general advice. The group should talk about it ahead of play, and revisit the topic as needed. But once a general consensus is reached, it helps speed things along. I mean, every game does this to some extent... it's really not problematic.

Sure, what might be worth skipping in this way may vary. But my point that doing so won't harm the consistency or continuity of a game still stands.

I would say it’s more like how most movies handle it. You watch the character get into a car and pull away… then they cut to a scene of him arriving at his destination. No one’s baffled by what happened in between. It really doesn’t. You insist this always whenever this comes up… but it...

I'm not shifting anything. The authority that we're talking about... my preference for keeping the game moving and focused... is different than your living world approach. We're both concerned with some kind of logic and plausibility in how we make decisions or introduce new information, but...

I don’t think that’s a very accurate interpretation of the exchange. It started with this: That doesn’t sound to you like @Micah Sweet saying that what I’ve just described as my game makes no sense as a verisimilitudinous setting? My comment was me defending what I described against his...