Failing Forward

[Jabborwacky]

It should be a standard entry in almost any modern tabletop RPG, the only exception being something like the Gumshoe system that eliminates the need for it almost entirely.

 

[Balesir]

It's just that, in a general sense, the GM owes it to the players to know what's going on in the background. The GM needs to be able to answer those sorts of questions, should they arise, in order to maintain consistency; if the players suspect that the GM doesn't actually know anything, then they are likely to lose confidence that everything is consistent, and that can really undermine enjoyment of the game as a whole.

Well, if you feel the GM needs to assign a "truth value" to all that kind of thing, go right ahead - but it's certainly not required in order to maintain consistency. Universalis has rules to maintain consistency, and that doesn't even have a GM.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Well, if you feel the GM needs to assign a "truth value" to all that kind of thing, go right ahead - but it's certainly not required in order to maintain consistency. Universalis has rules to maintain consistency, and that doesn't even have a GM.

It seems intuitive to me that you would need a singular authority - that actually knows everything going on behind the scenes - to avoid contradiction. Of course, that could just be one of those personal biases talking.

I'd be interested in seeing how Universalis handles this sort of thing. Oddly, I have never even heard of the game.

 

[Umbran]

It should be a standard entry in almost any modern tabletop RPG, the only exception being something like the Gumshoe system that eliminates the need for it almost entirely.

Gumshoe eliminates it only for gathering information relevant to the mystery/problem at hand. You still have failure with active skill use. No guarantees there.

 

[Janx]

It seems intuitive to me that you would need a singular authority - that actually knows everything going on behind the scenes - to avoid contradiction. Of course, that could just be one of those personal biases talking.

I'd be interested in seeing how Universalis handles this sort of thing. Oddly, I have never even heard of the game.

It is impossible to know everything going behind the scenes. Heisenberg didn't just make meth, he also compensated for transporters and established that there's too much wiggly stuff to track.

therefore, that singular authority operates on a mix of what's been documented and Shroedinger's cat fills in the rest when it comes up.

You don't actually have to know everything to avoid contradictions. You simply have to remember every fact that has been exposed thus far and not contradict those. Which is a far smaller dataset to remember than trying to document and define everything absolutely and remember where to find it to use it. You can't prevent contradicting the bible if you can't remember every single page in it. Which for most people is impossible.

So for some people, only defining the data they are sure they need, and winging the rest may be sufficiently "realistic". Given that parts of our own reality may work in the same fashion, who's to argue with science.

 

[Janx]

An RPG is neither of those things.

I believe there is a thread where I lost the definition of "game" so yup.

the word game itself is so nebulous that it basically means an activity that is meant for recreation. playing house, with toy cars, make believe, etc all qualify as games despite a total lack of rules or structure.

so anybody defining RPG better keep it loose

 

[dd.stevenson]

2) I wonder whether the styles that players like are affected by their Myers-Briggs type, maybe? Specifically this bit about whether you Judge or Perceive extrovertedly? This is nothing more than speculation, obviously, but it feels as if it might have some bearing - would be interesting to test it empirically. My own tendency is to Perceive Introvertedly and Judge Extrovertedly; this might explain wanting the world model inside my head rather than coming from the GM, but being happy to find out what happens collaboratively. If you were of the opposite tendency, I'm guessing the collaborative establishment of the situational parameters would feel more natural, but the democratisation of the outcome would feel less so, maybe?

Good thought, and it wouldn't shock me if you were more than somewhat correct; but I would caution against over-generalizing. In my experience, the best indicator of which playstyle a person wants is how well they internalize the rules of the game (besides the ones that get them excited about their specific characters.) Bearing in mind that there IS a personal cost for internalizing these rules, i.e. the amount of time spent out of game thoughtfully reading about relatively dry system maths, I would say that for most players this is a simple cost/benefit exercise: is the benefit of interacting directly with the rules system worth the effort of learning the rules?

Of course, any player's answer to this question will depend on how much their current gaming group leverages the system--but that just reinforces the point that most players I've encountered see system awareness as a cost that must be justified, rather than an absolute, personality-based preference.

"Mouth feel" is a nice way to put it - as an enjoyer of wine I can relate to that! It also relates to taste, which seems appropriate, and I can say that, for me, GM-fed world model seems like a rather crude, un-nuanced sense of taste (and sight, and hearing...)

It seemed apt to me; glad you agree!

It's by the by, but in my game prep I distinguish between "hard scenes" which are solely DM-provided, and "soft scenes," over which everyone has (or is encouraged to have) some authorship. At the end of the day, my DM motto is "You Can Tell a Craftsman by His Tools," and I do take some amount of pride in my role as facilitator when I'm able to deploy the right technique in the right situation.

 

[Lanefan]

"Fail forward" isn't an alternative to failure, and moreso, therefore, isn't a way of guaranteeing success. It's a particular method of narrating the result of a failed check. It's a way of giving effect to failure.

True, but the term "Fail Forward" rather strongly implies the narration has to be somehow beneficial to the PCs; which is untrue. Hence my use of the added terms "Fail Sideways" and "Fail Backward". Your example with the mace is an interesting conflation of two of these: it's fail-backward for PC #1 and ultimately fail-forward for PC #2.

I think [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] gave a good example of a "fail forward" mechanic that is not degrees of success/failure: namely, task succeeds but intent fails.

Wouldn't that be "Succeed Backward"? The task in question succeeded, thus there is no failure; but with poor results.

I think these posts evince a fairly fundamental misunderstanding of "fail forward" as a technique. It has nothing to do with keeping the game "on track" or the GM deciding that something "HAS to happen in a specific way".

Again it comes down to the use of the word "forward", and some DMs taking it to mean "continuing on track".

These aren't predetermined outcomes. They're more-or-less spontaneous responses to, and riffs on, the evolving in-game situation.

There is a connection here between "fail forward" and the (mostly but not completely tangential) discussion about player vs GM world-building. "Fail forward" is a GM-side technique. It's about the GM maintaining control over scene-framing and narration, because the player - in failing to succeed on a check - did not acquire the authority to stipulate the content of the ingame situation. But GM control over narration and backstory isn't - under any definition I'm familiar with - equivalent to railroading. It's just the GM doing his/her job within a fairly traditional assignment of RPG responsibilities.

All quite true.

The contrast with "adventure design" should be fairly clear: adventure design is about establishing a secret backstory; whereas "fail forward" depends upon a readiness to create new backstory in order to narrate meaningful consequences for failure that maintain narrative dynamism - such as the curse on the angel feather, or the trip wire on the secret door.

But to again draw the link to the world-building discussion in this thread - this is not the players building the world. It is the GM building the world, in response to players' declared actions and the results of player dice rolls.

That depends on the DM, of course. Some have their worlds (or specific parts of them) more fleshed out than others. If for example I've already drawn out a map of Town X and determined what is in each building, and there isn't a hat shop, I'm not going to put one in just because it'd be handy for someone at the time. But if the party goes to Town Y that I haven't done much more than give a name to I'll just dream up the odds of a) there being a hat shop, and b) of the PCs being able to easily find it, and roll some dice.

It's much trickier changing actual adventures on the fly. If the PCs fail to get past a significant door and there's no other way in I'm not going to add another way in just so they can get there; they're out of luck and have to go to one of a near-infinite number of plans-B...which could even include going back to town and hiring a better lock-picker!

@Neonchameleon has also, many times, refuted this claim. Even in this thread he has made the point that player narration can be a key technique for maintaining in-character immersion, because it ensures that the character is able to act as someone who actually inhabits the gameworld rather than being a stranger in it.

Now here I agree, as long as all involved keep in mind that the DM can veto anything the player dreams up if it clashes with her own ideas for how things work in her world.

I make stuff up about my characters all the time. Some of it even sees the light of play - I'll usually run the basics by the DM first to make sure he's cool with it but sometimes the run of play needs something *now* and away we go.

An example: a PC I'm currently playing is a Magic-User from that world's equivalent to the Roman Empire. Once she'd stuck around long enough for me to care I made up her life's story; including getting some field experience in the Legions (this is where she gets her somewhat unyielding sense of order and discipline from) before beginning her adventuring career. Up until then Hestia (the empire) hadn't ever had formal Legions...but it does now, with the DM's approval. And ever since I've been boring people with my "back when I was in the Legions..." stories!

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

True, but the term "Fail Forward" rather strongly implies the narration has to be somehow beneficial to the PCs; which is untrue.

The "forward" isn't about beneficial to the PC. It's about maintaining dynamism or momentum. (Which, given some reasonable assumptions about the preferences of players and GM playing in a game using this technique) is beneficial to the players at the table.

That depends on the DM, of course. Some have their worlds (or specific parts of them) more fleshed out than others. If for example I've already drawn out a map of Town X and determined what is in each building, and there isn't a hat shop, I'm not going to put one in just because it'd be handy for someone at the time.

This sort of GMing approach is not really consistent with "fail forward". If you want to use "fail forward" techniques, you have to be ready to spontaneously invent new elements of backstory (new magical effects - eg curses and spirits of mountain streams; new NPCs, or new NPC motivations; new tripwires; new haberdashers; etc).

A fully pre-built world looks to me like it's better suited for exploration/discovery play. For that sort of approach, degrees of success, the Alexandrian's "Three Clue Rule", advice about not putting "the plot" behind a single secret door, etc, all seem better adapted than "fail forward".

 

[pemerton]

Now here I agree, as long as all involved keep in mind that the DM can veto anything the player dreams up if it clashes with her own ideas for how things work in her world.

I make stuff up about my characters all the time. Some of it even sees the light of play - I'll usually run the basics by the DM first to make sure he's cool with it but sometimes the run of play needs something *now* and away we go.

An example: a PC I'm currently playing is a Magic-User from that world's equivalent to the Roman Empire. Once she'd stuck around long enough for me to care I made up her life's story; including getting some field experience in the Legions (this is where she gets her somewhat unyielding sense of order and discipline from) before beginning her adventuring career. Up until then Hestia (the empire) hadn't ever had formal Legions...but it does now, with the DM's approval. And ever since I've been boring people with my "back when I was in the Legions..." stories!

Yep, I think this sort of simultaneous playing of character and invention of campaign backstory is very common in RPGing. In my experience, for a lot of players it's part and parcel of increasing their immersion in and involvement with their PC - not an obstacle to that at all.