Failing Forward

[Umbran]

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.

It's pretty explicit in Ashen Stars. The game gives you qualitative writups of playable alien species, and then says that the details of culture or history can be made up by player and GM as you go along. It is like ST:TNG, where we didn't know much about klingons when we first see Worf, and Klingon history is only made canon as it is revealed through that character.

 

[GMMichael]

Essentially, it's a mechanic, fairly common these days, which ensures that the game doesn't grind to a halt on a failed skill check. Instead of the task at hand failing and stopping the game, the task is successful but with an attached disadvantage.

This is, for the record, the definition that started the conversation. Have we slipped from it? Because this thread is starting to look an awful lot like an alignment thread.

I will use this definition to stand by my assertion - fail forward is an essential rule when you're on a railroad.

EDIT: From another angle: it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs with tunnel vision.

 

[pemerton]

fail forward is an essential rule when you're on a railroad.

EDIT: From another angle: it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs with tunnel vision.

From yet another angle, how about actually engaging with posters describing their use of the technique, and its purpose - in some cases giving actual play examples.

"Fail forward" is about preserving momentum in play. It is part of a broader approach to RPGing in which the GM is expected to frame the PCs into challenging and/or confronting scenes (challenging and confronting both to the PCs and the players), and when the GM stopping to ask "What do you do now?" is a rare pause in the dynamics of play, rather than the norm.

This has nothing to do with railroading or "tunnel vision".

 

[DEFCON 1]

EDIT: From another angle: it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs with tunnel vision.

Or from another angle: it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs who aren't so precious about the "reality" of their little made-up game worlds.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Edit: Sorry, that came out sounding way more hostile than I'd intended. You raise a valid point, and it makes sense how collaborative improv could increase immersion at the table. The single-author style definitely experiences a bottle-neck of information, when the GM needs to divide their attention multiple ways, and splitting up the responsibility for world-building (and detail-building) seems like a sufficient way of addressing that issue. At worst, it's just a trade-off in priorities.

And, dealing with [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]'s complaint, there are two times it's really not a good technique.

The first is oD&D style skill/challenge based play as in Tomb of Horrors or White Plume Mountain. Acecerak plotted everything out meticulously - and having the challenges solved through declarations would weaken the game. Puzzles and traps based games are utterly destroyed by the players changing the puzzles.

The second is exploration-based play as in Caverns of Thracia or even Feast of Goblyns or other "You've just wound up in Ravenloft you poor suckers" games. Part of the point about Caverns of Thracia is that there is a rich, intricate setting, and the PCs are explorers in a strange land with the multiple layers of backstory adding to the strangeness. If the game is about explorers or archaeologists or as fish out of water exploring strange new worlds and boldly going where no one has gone before then making the PCs more in tune with their environment is precisely what you don't want to do.

And it isn't a coincidence that oD&D has the DM/Player split being as harsh as it is. It works well for oD&D to do what oD&D was normally trying to do. Challenge and exploration with the PCs being taken far away from their home setting most of the time.

 

[Umbran]

If the game is about explorers or archaeologists or as fish out of water exploring strange new worlds and boldly going where no one has gone before then making the PCs more in tune with their environment is precisely what you don't want to do.

Well, that can be mitigated somewhat - see the Ashen Stars / Star Trek example. If only one player's got a Klingon character, and you're exploring Klingon stuff, having one PC in tune with their environment, and the others off-balance, is totally cool, and even enhances the spotlight that should be on at that time.

 

[Umbran]

EDIT: From another angle: it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs with tunnel vision.

Or from another angle: it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs who aren't so precious about the "reality" of their little made-up game worlds.

And, here we see the problems with a particular rhetorical form in action. When you ascribe use of a tool to a flaw, you will cheese folks off.

Ascribing use of a tool to a flaw on the part of the user is, remember, *insulting*. We expect folks to show respect for each other on these boards. Expect... and require.

So, at this point, I think some cooling down and reconsidering of approaches is in order. Play nice, please and thanks.

 

[Imaro]

This is, for the record, the definition that started the conversation. Have we slipped from it? Because this thread is starting to look an awful lot like an alignment thread.

I will use this definition to stand by my assertion - fail forward is an essential rule when you're on a railroad.

EDIT: From another angle: it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs with tunnel vision.

I'm going to disagree here... I think the key words in Morrus's definition that you might be missing are... "failing and stopping the game..." so it's not that the PC's don't fail, it's that they don't both fail and said failure stops the game (so they can actually fail... it just shouldn't stop the game), personally I would rather design my adventures with multiple paths for the goals of the PC's... but since I am not omniscient and my players can throw me for a loop at times I am not adverse to using fail forward as a tool in my DM toolbox... with the caveat of it being a last resort unless we are playing a game that encourages or has rules for it. I also think that yes, it has the potential to be a railroad but it doesn't inherently create one... no more that pre-planning inherently forces a railroad along what has been pre-planned.

 

[iserith]

I see "fail-forward" (or D&D 5e's "progress combined with a setback" or "success at a cost") to be just another form of stake-setting. On a successful check, you succeed at your goal. On a failed check, you succeed at your goal with a cost or complication. I use it when outright failure wouldn't be particularly interesting or when the a binary pass/fail would result in a disconnect between player and character knowledge.

For example, many people suggest rolling ability checks secretly when players try to search for traps, knowing that if a player sees a low result on the die and hears the DM saying "There are no traps," "You believe there are no traps," or "You find no traps," the player may be tempted to repeat the task or have another character make a pass at it. (Cue the cries of "Filthy metagamer!" Not that I give even a single flumph when players "metagame.") By using progress combined with a setback, I can narrate a failed check as being, for instance, "You find the trap - and your foot is on the pressure plate! There is a continuous, disconcerting clicking noise coming from the walls around you. What do you do?!" I thus avoid that disconnect and don't have to take the dice from the players as others DMs do.

 

[Imaro]

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.

Why?