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This is the reason I haven't and won't give any examples of literature I think do not use flaws of rationality as a plot mechanism. It is always possible to make any action irrational or insensible if you just impose the wrong valueset onto it. Given what you see from Luke, how high do you...

Self replying as I realise this is worth a seperate post. Dramas and literature have (typically) only one author. Making sure the characters are not just representations of (aspects) of you, the author, seem in such a context to be quite important writing advice for several reasons. One of them...

Touché? If you are looking for theme in trad play a major one tend to be exactly: How much are you willing to risk to reach your ambition? Risk/reward and push your luck are popular terms when talking about this kind of play for a reason. Yes. They happen all the time, and as such has been...

I don't know - maybe that there is a divide between physical realism and psychological realism at play here? Or maybe the fact that I am not in the realism lair, and I can't really speak for what those folks prefer in their stories? I think I know better what I intended to convey than you. To...

Because "perfectly" of course has to mean "the most (...) possible" in the context of a rant.

The finer details that enable meaningful conversation about it. That is how to reach a sufficiently common understanding of "fail forward" that we avoid conversations of this kind: A: Avoiding the game stalling by the player getting stuck on a thing is great, and is called fail forward. B: I...

I did not say all great works of literature. Though I see how I was not really precise and nuanced in my passion rant. Chalk it down to this thread not being a good story.

Pursuing the interesting ambitions we created for them before play. Yes, hence almost. Start looking for people doing things they should know runs counter to their overall valueset and goals, and you start seing them almost everywhere. (On the other hand it is indeed possible to rationalise...

Let us just say: There are a couple different notions at play here. One is your argument about how people actually work. This is the classic realism argument for justifying this notion of "flawed" characters. This is a perfectly valid concern to bring in when writing a story. Many want to read...

Yes, Ancient greek drama started the trend. I do not know Hamlet well enough, but at least Romeo and Juliet gets a whole new layer if you start contemplating if their actions actually could be considered pragmatic and rational given their unique and extreme set of values. I did not claim it was...

I have absolutely now words for how much I hate this notion. It has poisoned almost all modern fiction. If you look at the great works of literature it is filled with instances of conflict between characters that do exclusively perfectly rational and pragmatic decissions given their set of...

I learned to drive using manual transmission. It was an essential part of my training to be able to change gears without loosing any attention on the things going on around the car. It needed to be fully automated. I think most players have a similar relationship to rolling dice. It hardly...

I think you miss the point. @Lanefan described a in my eyes completely valid interpretation of the text provided read in isolation. The reading is valid if the character is considered a fixed piece created on session 0 to be handled according to player vision. In this context "It’s your job to...

I actually wanted to bring attention to a deeper point: The ideas behind those passages in the new games isn't new. However the way these same ideas play out is wastly different when they make contact with a new set of mechanics and purpose of play. I think this is where a lot of the confusion...

This is how I would be laying it out if mentoring a player in trad D&D Make each main character’s life not boring. Set an unobtainable ambitious goal for your party. It could be general like become the wealthiest or most fameous party in the world, or something more tied to the campaign the DM...

Talking about that post I also want to point out that this particular blog post seemingly uses the term fail forward differently than everyone I have seen arguing for the concept in this thread. This is the example provided as the alternative to fail forward: There are two ways that you can do...

That is the thing. The blog post failed to specify this. Hence someone pointed out that the scenario where the people at the table knew the cook would not be arround at all (empty kitchen) could be a possible interpretation of the example, and that to them this particular situation would be...

Well it sort of has mattered. My impression is that basically the starting point of most of this thread was someone advertising such an abstract notion of "fail forward" disconnected from any existing rulesystem. My guess is that about 50% of this thread by now has in one way or another been...

Yes. No. So the quote indicates that there is one clear narrative direction that need to be singled out for failure before the dice are rolled? In that case I agree the former excludes fail with no retry, but the latter (before dice are rolled) do not seem to have been explicitelty fulfilled...

I deleted my previous somewhat critical post about this, as I realise this might be essential and constructive. First of, I read the quote itself as not excluding fail with no retry. (While I read the gold version of this exact section to exclude fail with no retry) However you here point to...