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See, this is a great summation of the ongoing fight about language. That's a narrativist summation of what's happening; I'd propose the GM is an attempt to generate and report on a fictional setting that players can interact with via mechanical mediation. The GM is an imperfect technology for...

Right, I don't really think that's a bad thing, so much as the earseeker was a stupid escalation that led to weird results. Fundamentally, I want players to come up with procedures to resolve problems as safely as possible. My ideal state as a GM is reluctantly acknowledging the player has...

I think mine fall somewhere between James Bond films and heist stories. A big problem presented upfront to a recurring cast of characters that occasionally cycle in and out, who then build a plan applying their expertise to solve it, either returning to the status quo, or discovering a bigger...

I'm not sure how to read any of that as an argument in favor of a fail forward model. Either you're introducing yet more points of failure if those perceptions rolls are subject to the same risks, or you're proposing a play pattern where the correct approach is to first anticipate all fiction...

Hold up, you're conflating two different things here. Novel stuff, like encounters, creatures, situations, traps, all that, is not the same as an unknown result to an action declaration. I'm all about all about knowledge checks, perception all that (and have argued before they should generally...

It seems to me that there's at least 2 lines of argument against a fail forward model, which I'm categorizing as "the argument from naturalism" and "the argument from gameplay." I'm frankly less attached to the argument from naturalism, at best I think it can serve to make the game state more...

One dreads the conversation turning toward "immersion" or "realism" but I've argued before that forward facing causality of action declaration->resolution is an underlying prerequisite off players looking for that experience.

I suppose a mechanical consideration of this that does deserve more attention is that not having fail forward style contingent fiction works best when you have competent and powerful PCs with high agency abilities. If the only play the PC's have is a roll to unlock a door and a roll to break it...

I don't think this is quite right; the question at stake isn't the actual play or recitation of those situations in full. It's perfectly possible and one imagines quite common that you get "alright, you buy 6 days of rations and a waterskin, there aren't any arcane focuses for sale in this town"...

That's just causality all over again though. The situation, ideally, should be interesting enough that there doesn't need to be fiction contingent on the roll to pick the lock, so much as picking a lock being an emergent thing that occurs in an already interesting state. I think the focus on...

That is actually an interesting line for playtesting. I wonder if you couldn't break those triggers up over several rolls and move the ones closest to complications back into the GM's hands, and if that wouldn't have a significant effect on player sentiment. Well, I suppose that's essentially...

For sure. I'm saying here that a player who's looking to find the correct sequence of 3 decisions that gets them out scott free isn't going to be bothered if they get it wrong on decision 2 and get caught, but they are going to be very upset if the resolution process doesn't fundamentally allow...

There's a framing problem here though; it's not a question of "scenes" at all to the player enjoying the exploration element here. If the goal is a sense of a consistent, fictional setting, then null results or low tension moments provide validation that high tension situations are as "real."...

That's... Just exactly the problem again, and also seems incredibly prone to negotiation, a thing I think is an unalloyed bad, but opinions clearly vary. I'm proposing instead that after the introduction of an obstacle players be given a knowable amount of mechanical space before their actions...

Right, we should be able to do better than "this isn't a problem" and "this is the solution to problem" as our only points of discussion. Take 10/Take 20 is a perfect example, or you could turn knowledge/investigation/perception into defenses that hidden stuff/information is rolled against...

I'm a big proponent of Take 10/20, definitely the most maligned mechanic from the era. They cleared up most of the issues of the big D20, while still leaving it open to roll when it was actually tense, and provided a clear way to determine the maximum effect that was possible. But yes...

Technically yes, but the story in that game fits in a postage stamp and is well beside the point. From a gameplay perspective, you are missing literally nothing.

It's great! MT has a higher drive toward "escape velocity" than StS. It gives you ample opportunities to exceed the obvious design tolerances, lots of doubling and potential infinites, and unlike StS it intentionally scales such that you're required to use those tricks. That being said, it is...

I'm coming from a 3e table, primarily. Dice were for fighting and for cases you're forced to use a skill you aren't good at. Nearly everything else came down to creative spell use or invoking a system that output a specific result. There was a lot of leveraging the carry/drag numbers and we were...

That's been a big change in my experience; I started with an understanding that dice are the failure state. Good play involves minimizing their impact on getting to the outcome you want. It's been quite an adjustment dealing with players who actively like gambling.