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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 8275674" data-attributes="member: 6677017">I'm not generally a fan of fail forward mechanics. While I like the idea behind them, I think they are hard to do well. D&D is a great example of a game they are particularly poorly suited to in my opinion.In D&D, you make a lot of rolls. You don't generally want to slow the game down with analyzing each roll and coming up with some unique functional interpretation of what the result means based on constantly adding setbacks and complications that leads to branching paths of play. That would be playing in snail mode. It's D&D. Roll and move on.This also doesn't work well because of the high randomness factor of the d20 where you are usually just as likely to get any particular possible die result as any other. In a system where the expected range of your results was weighted to certain outcomes, this would go a bit smoother.What I do implement, and I've seen other DM's implement enough that I'd consider it to be standard practice, is interpreting varying degrees of success on skill checks rather than always making it binary. For instance, if you are making a check to pick up rumors, instead of setting a specific DC, you just look at their result and give them more or better rumors the better they roll. You may set specific DCs ahead of time "DC 10, this common rumor, DC 15, that plus this other rumor, DC 20 those plus this important and rare rumor", or you might just look at the result and interpret it on the fly. I'll do both depending on the circumstance.I've also granted partial success on failed rolls, which is really just an extension of above. Usually this is purely descriptive fluff "the friendly innkeeper smiles and gives you a drink on the house, but doesn't produce the key you asked for", but sometimes it has mechanical weight, such as granting advantage on your next attempt or opening up a new angle of approach "the friendly inkeeper smiles and replies, 'Well, I wouldn't know anything about that, but I hear Mark the Cooper is a fan of keys'". The latter is a type of "fail forward" mechanic that is actually useful and fits fine in D&D, though it's best used on checks where you are limited in how many you can make. If you can just keep repeating them until you succeed, it's generally a waste of effort.I think these sorts of partial success are far superior to setbacks and complications. Particularly the DMG version. Most of the time players would rather fail than succeed with a complication. Would you rather successfully hit your opponent but end your turn prone when you missed by 1 or 2? Probably not. It introduces a sense of risk to basic rolls that is foreign to your D&D-playing mindset, and takes away a feeling of control. You could give players an option to take those results or not--which I think can be great fun in other systems--but in D&D it's going to bog down the game. Non-combat examples can be just as bad. The risk of a trap going off if your attempt to disarm it fails by 5+ is a well established tool of the DM. Adding in that if you fail to disarm it by 1 point, you actually succeed, but then after you pass through the door the mechanism goes off wrong behind you and ends up effectively blocking that door is just irritating. "So either I need to succeed, or I need to fail by exactly 3 or 4 points to get a simple failure? Blech."Since it came up, I will put a plug in for the Social Interaction rules in the DMG, and why those rules are superior to how most DMs run it. DMs tend to want to (and I thought there was still some place in the 5e rules that encourages it, though I can't seem to find it on a quick check so maybe it was only in the playtest) is have you make a Charisma check opposed by the opponents Wisdom in some way. This isn't the best way of doing it. It works great if you are trying Deception, but when you are trying Persuasion and what you are attempting to persuade them to do is actually for their benefit or even neutral in its impact on them, it makes zero sense. If you are attempting to get them to do something beneficial, it should be easier the higher their Wisdom is! Wisdom does not equal stubbornness and pride. Trying to get the duke to take a more effective approach in his war effort should absolutely not be opposed by his Wisdom.The DMG Social Interaction rules don't have that problem. The difficulty you have to beat to influence someone is based on their attitude towards you and whether they perceive the action as requiring risk or sacrifice on their part. If the duke likes you already, he's going to be easily influenced towards your point of view, but even if he doesn't like you his Wisdom isn't going to get in the way of your interaction, just his aversion to risk. All you need to know for the system to work as written and make sense is, "does this NPC consider the actions the PCs are trying to get them to take to be a significant, minor, or no risk or sacrifice?" You can determine that however you want (including by potentially considering Wisdom as a positive or negative factor), and it is likely pretty obvious if the character is at all fleshed out.</blockquote>

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