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Each person or group will put that cut off point at a different place. Some like a very tight definition of skills and abilities. Others like it to be more loose. Some systems are clear about how they want you to run the game giving clear boundaries, others state the boundaries must be very...

Here is a very clear example of story first vs. gamist approach to RPG's. The characters death due to being trapped at the bottom of a pit is less satifying or heroic than being killed in a dramatic stand off over a lava pit. So if your focus is primarily on having a good story then this kind of...

I don't even see this as failing forward. If it is then is it such a generalized term to almost being meaningless. Failing forward becomes just "don't let the game have a dead end". You don't need failing forward to realize that people who make traps will check traps, or that dungeons with...

I agree that all games tell a story. The difference for me is in how you get to the story. Are you actively making choices that will result in the best "story" or is the story arising out of what happens during the game. It can be a mixture of both. and there is always a story. One area that...

I think this is partly due to many of these options being in the DMG and so people don't give them a fair shake. WTC needed to choose a default settings and these are the choices they presented in the Players Handbook. But people have become so hung up on "official" rules that they don't look at...

I totally agree. I totally disagree. The first is clearly stating that you have a choice in how you define skills working. People like different levels of connectedness. Playing the way that they want to play is in no way wrong and is a good way to play. I play that way in Leverage and...

Exactly If you have a DM that is causing these problems that need to be fixed, either get a new DM or work with them to improve. That fix might include fail forward, or it might include helping them set clearer goals, non-linear objectives, having more open plans for the session (or to not hold...

If a single failed climb roll is thwarting your quest then the DM may not be your problem. It may just be that you are a bad player. How about coming up with other solutions? Can't get over the mountain, we may be forced to brave the mines of Moria. Of cause LotR just stopped when they couldn't...

What I have written above is my experience and about my preference, so in a thread about "Do you like fail forward? and why or why not?" it is relevant. This is a thread about what you like about fail forward correct? and there is more than one way to run fail forward, correct? It wasn't until...

This is an excellent article, it gives clear examples and clears up some misunderstandings right up until the last paragraph. Then suddenly it turns into "if you don't play the game my way you are wrong." Honestly when presenting a style of play it is important to see that it is just that. A...

I am a little confused as to why it is important for you that everyone has the same level of abstraction for all action, but I will accept that for you this is very important. Accepting that I think your example misses the mark. If you want all parts of the game to have the same level of...

As you have said you don't have the patience for GURPS. Surprisingly some people do, and even enjoy it (I'm not really one of them). So we have a continuum of how to deal with skills: 1. Roll for each little thing. (I hide in the shadows (roll), I sneak up to the cliff (roll), I check for...

I think cheating for the "good story" is actually part of using tables. They give you a start point in creating things happening around the players that are not dependent on the players and even early D and D rule sets, that had lots of tables, suggested using them as sparking of points, and...

I'm not sure it is really a preference against anything. But this is all about peoples preferences for their style of play and kind of game they like. I think the truly great thing about 5E as opposed to dungeon world/ gurps/ Merps/ burning wheel, it that it doesn't push the game into only 1...

My original post didn't get posted it some how got lost in the sending and when I refreshed it was gone. So I wrote the post above. Unfortunately I missed a couple of things out in the repost. One was that I use it in D and D almost the same as you. I also gave example of the lock picking fail...

Likewise many people who like failing forward see everyone who dislikes it as not understanding it. "If they could just understand it they would love it like I do." And so they try and explain the way it works, missing the fact that some people may well understand it and still dislike it for a...

Some games work well like this. I like the idea of a karma where failure gives the DM a chance to do something bad to you later. But it very much depends on the players buying into that style of game. Leverage works on that basis and does it very well, but the focus isn't on individual actions...

But it rains on the skilled and unskilled alike. If it is going to rain then your lack of skill isn't going to cause it to happen. then it becomes to different things unrelated to you picking the lock (that has been decided already that yes you do). Does it rain? not in any way affected by your...

I agree with this. Tying unrelated events to a skill makes it too disjointed for me. In picking a lock a fail resulting in broken tools or alerting the rooms occupants is a logical follow on from failing to pick a lock (you used too much force, dropped you tools, etc.) but a failure that let...

(for some reason this part did not copy: I read an article about emergency treatment that totally changed how I look at failure from a narrative point of view. Serious complications are unavoidable in a hospital situation, but some hospitals keep more patients alive despite this. The key to...