Failing Forward

[Janx]

I think this explains much of my confusion here. I have been struggling to understand Fail Forward (every time I think I have it, it slips away with new information). I definitely seem to take a much different approach to GMing from scene framing, so that is probably why I am struggling to see how Fail Forward would fit into one of my sessions.

I like your phrasing here. It's really about what version of the concept you understand, and whether it could be useful to you.

It's OK if you don't have the same idea of it as me. It's OK if your idea of it doesn't come into value in your game.

What is handy, is figuring out how your idea of it differs from say Pemertons, and whether there's anything useful there to consider for your own GMing.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I like your phrasing here. It's really about what version of the concept you understand, and whether it could be useful to you.

It's OK if you don't have the same idea of it as me. It's OK if your idea of it doesn't come into value in your game.

What is handy, is figuring out how your idea of it differs from say Pemertons, and whether there's anything useful there to consider for your own GMing.

Loss of momentum or story flow seems to be the common denominator here (at least that is how it appears to me). If so, I believe Failing Forward offers a solution to a problem I don't really have (just due to the way I run games and the dynamic at my table, preserving momentum isn't much of a concern for us). I suppose the way to look at it, is in our games, a failed roll could produce all kinds of results depending on the circumstances, but it isn't necessary going to lead to a plot complication or development. When I ask for a roll it is generally to see if the person succeeds on an action. Maybe I am not getting it still though.

 

[Umbran]

When I ask for a roll it is generally to see if the person succeeds on an action. Maybe I am not getting it still though.

Well, we all call for rolls to see if someone succeeds on an action. That's not really at issue. What is at issue is, what happens if they fail? Not what happens to the characters. What happens to the *players*? Say the players have, for the past hour and a half of play, been going full bore at a path to some goal they choose, they're engaged, they're excited. And that failure effectively runs the ship aground.

What, as the GM, do you do here? Have them sit for the next hour fumbling around trying to figure out another plan? Lose that excitement, and make them go all the way back to square one? Or do something that doesn't make it a clean success, but keeps the team rolling along, engaged and excited? Think of it, for the moment, as a question of dramatic tension management, and that might make it more clear. While your table isn't making a movie following a script, there is still a natural flow of highs and lows that can be killed by a bad die roll. That is the "momentum" that's under consideration here - the group is in the groove. Do you let that fall apart for a bad die roll?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, we all call for rolls to see if someone succeeds on an action. That's not really at issue. What is at issue is, what happens if they fail? Not what happens to the characters. What happens to the *players*? Say the players have, for the past hour and a half of play, been going full bore at a path to some goal they choose, they're engaged, they're excited. And that failure effectively runs the ship aground.

What, as the GM, do you do here? Have them sit for the next hour fumbling around trying to figure out another plan? Lose that excitement, and make them go all the way back to square one? Or do something that doesn't make it a clean success, but keeps the team rolling along, engaged and excited? Think of it, for the moment, as a question of dramatic tension management, and that might make it more clear. While your table isn't making a movie following a script, there is still a natural flow of highs and lows that can be killed by a bad die roll. That is the "momentum" that's under consideration here - the group is in the groove. Do you let that fall apart for a bad die roll?

I don't really worry about dramatic tension. But the session never grinds to a halt over a failed roll. My style and approach very much much eschews pacing concerns, so that might be part of why this just isn't clicking for me. If the dice produce an undramatic or anticlimactic result, we're all on board with that. I've never seen group completely run aground due to a bad roll, but I have seen a group thwarted and they have to regroup and figure out another way around the problem. I am always open to different solutions if they are feasible. But a big failure could certainly send them back to the drawing board for a bit.

We are speaking abstractly though, so maybe we are just talking past each other due to vagueness and a lack of concrete examples.

 

[pemerton]

This blog post from Eero Tuovinen gives another take on the approach to consequences and pacing/drama management that "fail forward" is generally associated with as a technique:

The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end. . . .

The GM . . . needs to be able to reference the backstory, determine complications to introduce into the game, and figure out consequences. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges, and in addition the GM might have methodical tools outside the rules, such as pre-prepared relationship maps (helps with backstory), bangs (helps with provoking thematic choice) and pure experience (helps with determining consequences).​

To given an example of a rules system that is intended to help with figuring out consdequences, Burning Wheel requires action declarations to be expressed in terms of intent and task. If the check succeeds, the task succeeds and the intent is realised. (This is important: there are no successful rolls that nevertheless fail to realise intent because the GM calls for a further check, or introduces additional secret backstory into the mix.)

If the check fails, the GM gets to narrate what happens. Failure can be a failure of task, or a failure of intent - in the latter case, the GM is expected to introduce additional hitherto-secret backstory into the mix. The GM advice encourages the GM to focus on intent rather than task in narrating failure, because of the way this will tend to support narrative dynanism (what Tuovinen calls "choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices"). The GM is expected to draw and develop the hitherto-secret backstory out of the already-established context of play and backstory (which the players will have had an important role in establishing) - not to just make stuff up arbitrarily out of whole cloth. Other parts of the rules systems come into play here - eg the rules whereby player establish Beliefs and Instincts for their PCs, the rules whereby the table as a whole votes on traits for characters, the relationship rules, etc. These all contribute context and content for determining new backstory that fits in terms of both theme and content.

Another important rule in BW action resolution is "Let it Ride" ie once a check has been made and a consequence determined, it stands. For successes, this is a limit on GM power. For failures, it does two things: (i) it prevents players engaging in retries, and forces them to rethink their approach to the situation; (ii) it creates a further incentive for the GM to narrate failures in such a way as to open up opportunities for new approaches to be deployed.

There are versions of D&D which, in my view, lend themselves more towards a similar sort of approach than others. Original Oriental Adventures, for instance, has fairly elaborate relationship rules, plus a thematically rich backstory to which many PCs (eg shukenja, monks, kensai, samurai) will be connected. The hit point rules for combat create a sort-of "Let it Ride" in that domain; although the actual rule book has only limited advice on how non-combat proficiencies are meant to work, the BW approaches of intent-and-task and let-it-ride could probably be applied.

4e also has a thematically rich backstory to which many races and classes are connected, which helps with the backstory stuff. Skill challenges provide a framework within which intent-and-task can be readily applied. Stephen Radney-MacFarland had a Save My Game column for 4e advocating let-it-ride as an appropriate approach to the game.

To give a contrasting version of D&D: Moldvay Basic, at least as set out in the rulebook, doesn't lend itself especially well to this sort of approach. There is little or no emphasis on PC backstory, which means that the material for narrating consequences other than as spun out of whole cloth is not there. There is no general action resolution system to which intent-and-task can be applied. And rather than let-it-ride, the issue of retries and pacing is meant to be managed through a system of GM timekeeping combined with wandering monster rolls. (Upthread, [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] pointed to the similar features of original D&D.)

Unlike OA or 4e, I don't think this is a game system in which "fail forward" can be straightforwardly applied.

I'll leave it for others with more experience to reflect on 3E and 5e in this context.

 

[pemerton]

Loss of momentum or story flow seems to be the common denominator here (at least that is how it appears to me). If so, I believe Failing Forward offers a solution to a problem I don't really have (just due to the way I run games and the dynamic at my table, preserving momentum isn't much of a concern for us).

I don't really worry about dramatic tension.

<snip>

My style and approach very much much eschews pacing concerns

If pacing concerns, and dramatic momentum/tension, aren't of concern to a group, then I think "fail forward" as a technique has little or no relevance to them.

Sometime in the early-to-mid-80s issues of pacing and dramatic tension/momentum clearly became a big deal for many RPGers, as is shown by discussions at the time, by the design of various adventure modules, by GMing advice found in various RPG books, etc. The "solution" to the problem that became very prominent especially in the 90s was GM-forced railroading.

"Fail forward" has become popularised as a technique by designers who share the concerns about pacing and dramatic tension/momentum, but loathe the railroading. It's an alternative to GM pre-scripting, which preserves the significance to play - both the mechancial procedures of play and the fictional content generated by play - of player choices.

Some posters in this thread have linked "fail forward" to railroading, as if the GM - by narrating consequences of failure a certain way - is pushing things towards a pre-determined outcome. I notice that there is an implicit assumption here, namely, that the GM got to choose what the players' action declarations would be, and got to set the stakes for them.

But in games that emphasise "fail forward", the players get to choose action declarations, and have a key role in setting the stakes for them. Which is yet another reason why "fail forward" has nothing to do with GM pre-scripting.

 

[Manbearcat]

We are speaking abstractly though, so maybe we are just talking past each other due to vagueness and a lack of concrete examples.

My TLDR post on the prior page has the concrete example (and subsequent analysis) below:

GM (Me):

The wind dries your eyes to the point of pain. Your training ensures that you easily pick up the odd lope of the dog, its gait clearly weary, hobbled by age and its recent torment. It must know the territory well as it appears to have made a go for a line of snowdrifts that it could dig into and hide behind as the gusts pick up speed.

When you spot her, she has dug into the side of the drift facing away from the wind. Laboring over the effort, her tongue is out as she is in full pant. She doesn't notice your presence and as you watch her, you can see the fear in her eyes and the hunger betrayed by her gaunt form.

Saerie's player:

I slowly get into her line of sight so as not to startle her. When she sees me, I'll carefully pull out some dried meat from my pack. I'll get down on all fours, assume a non-threatening posture, and entreat her to a free meal, given in good faith.

Parley (Cha)

My leverage is food for the starving dog.

5, 1 - 1 = 5. Fails.

Mark 1 xp

GM (Me):

Her ears perk up. The dog looks interested in your offering. However, if she is deaf she doesn't need ears to perceive the thundering herd of reindeer bearing down on you. She, like you, can feel it in the ground. Your mind is ushered back to the Winter Wolf's words regarding a maddened realm near the two great bodies of water in the highlands where "...herds of reindeer would stampede each other and tear each other, and themselves, to pieces." Whether they're simply running from the fury of the storm that is hot on their tails or deranged creatures intent on your harm is impossible to say at this distance (far, 10 creatures).

The scared dog abruptly bounds out of her carved hole and rushes to your position where she might see the obscured threat. When she sees what is on its way, she tucks her tail between her legs and runs in a circle behind you, looking to you with uncertain eyes.

The reindeer are closing fast.

If a player in your game wants to develop a rapport with a sentient thing because they have a greater intent of sating motivation x, which sentient thing can fulfill, do you think a failed Parley/Diplomacy/Reaction/Rapport (etc) should only and always result in:

- locking out the prospects of an immediate NPCC relationship

or

- outright hostility/attack by the NPC upon the PC

or

- some other form of unfriendliness or adversarielness by NPC made manifest right now?

OR...

...do you think addressing greater intent of sating motivation x with some other sort of immediate and interesting problem that complicates its realization, that could snowball into something disastrous, is on the table?

If you answer the former, you don't use/like Fail Forward. If you answer the latter, you do.

 

[Bedrockgames]

If a player in your game wants to develop a rapport with a sentient thing because they have a greater intent of sating motivation x, which sentient thing can fulfill, do you think a failed Parley/Diplomacy/Reaction/Rapport (etc) should only and always result in:

- locking out the prospects of an immediate NPCC relationship

or

- outright hostility/attack by the NPC upon the PC

or

- some other form of unfriendliness or adversarielness by NPC made manifest right now?

OR...

...do you think addressing greater intent of sating motivation x with some other sort of immediate and interesting problem that complicates its realization, that could snowball into something disastrous, is on the table?

If you answer the former, you don't use/like Fail Forward. If you answer the latter, you do.

Just based on the language and flow of your example, I believe my play style is quite different from the one presented (it have to admit, I had some trouble following the details for some reason). When you say "greater intent of sating motivation X" I am not 100% sure I know what you mean. But social rolls are probably not the best example for me, as I place a lot more emphasis on what the player character is saying and doing than on a roll for that (for me, social rolls are things I invoke when there is just a lack of clarity on how the NPC might react). But that said, let's say a player character meets a scholar-official on the road and has some interest in becoming that scholar officials student (I am assuming this would be his "greater intent of sating motivation X"). And he tried to present himself as a well educated man, with a thorough training in the classics in order to impress the scholar official (and let's say this isn't true, the character has only a passing knowledge of the classics). I'll let the player say what he is going to so, but then I might make him make a Deception roll to see if he observes all the correct formalities and subtle expectations. If he fails, this scholar official is not going to buy his story.

However, whether combat ensures, whether the NPC remains open to a relationship down the road, whether they become adversaries, that is all going to be a product of the NPCs motives, goals and how those interact with the actions of the player character. The failed deception roll would be a factor, because the player just lied to him and that might not paint the character in the best light. But rarely would such a roll tell me how their relationship is going to pan out for the rest of the session or the rest of the campaign, it only tells me what happened in that one instance and that feeds the bigger picture of things. I'm not going to have the scholar official respond in some way that meets the players desire for a particular motivation though. It is going to be dependent on what seems like an appropriate reaction based on what happens.

 

[Bedrockgames]

If pacing concerns, and dramatic momentum/tension, aren't of concern to a group, then I think "fail forward" as a technique has little or no relevance to them.

Sometime in the early-to-mid-80s issues of pacing and dramatic tension/momentum clearly became a big deal for many RPGers, as is shown by discussions at the time, by the design of various adventure modules, by GMing advice found in various RPG books, etc. The "solution" to the problem that became very prominent especially in the 90s was GM-forced railroading.

"Fail forward" has become popularised as a technique by designers who share the concerns about pacing and dramatic tension/momentum, but loathe the railroading. It's an alternative to GM pre-scripting, which preserves the significance to play - both the mechancial procedures of play and the fictional content generated by play - of player choices.

Some posters in this thread have linked "fail forward" to railroading, as if the GM - by narrating consequences of failure a certain way - is pushing things towards a pre-determined outcome. I notice that there is an implicit assumption here, namely, that the GM got to choose what the players' action declarations would be, and got to set the stakes for them.

But in games that emphasise "fail forward", the players get to choose action declarations, and have a key role in setting the stakes for them. Which is yet another reason why "fail forward" has nothing to do with GM pre-scripting.

Okay. That background is really helpful for clarifying (and I think maybe what is going on is a lot of us have diverging assumptions about what the point of play is when we are running or playing a game). So just to fill that in here, my own experience may shed light on my preferences.

Having grown up in the 80s and 90s and experienced what you are referring to, I believe I follow (and at the very least, I am pretty sure I have a concrete sense of how you are using this term and definitely think it isn't something that I would use, or have an easy time implementing, in one of my sessions). I played those kinds of campaigns, pretty much bought into a lot of the GM advice up through 3E. Around the time 3E was at its height, I really started to experience frustration with the very pre-planned, path-driven type of adventure (the focus seemed to shift a bit from story to encounters, but it amounted to something similar in my experience, where a lot of adventures were designed around a flow of encounter sequences that each hit particular increments). I kind of felt like these two choices were mainly what was being offered and I didn't like it. Maybe that wasn't actually the case, but that is how it felt to me at the time. Basically as a player I felt like I was being walked through what the GM had planned, and as a GM I felt that I might as well just hand my players my GM notes and call it a night. I think I must have found an old hex crawl adventure or they reprinted one somewhere, and that got me thinking. I had also been experimenting now and again with much more open style and freeform GMIing approaches (where I prepped very, very little and just responded to things as they came up). I think for me, the turning point was picking up the 1E DMG again and reading through it. I honestly kind of did it for a laugh at first, because I remembered old school play from my early days being a bit hokey (mainly because my group was so young and we were applying it without much thought). But it actually answered a lot of my frustrations. I had learned to GM from the 2E PHB, and anyone familiar with that, knows a lot of the advice from the 1E book simply isn't in there (there is just less emphasis on exploration procedures). I wasn't that I read the 1E book and game away a Gygaxian GM who ran things exactly as described there, but those tools and guidelines really got me thinking in a much more back to basics approach that I built up on. What I found excites me as a GM and as a player is a sense that:

1) I don't know where things are going to go; there isn't a pre-planned sense of an adventure that has to pan out a particular way

2) A sense that the world is separate from the Players and they are exploring it. Whether it is a dungeon, a mystery or a royal court, the experience from the player side is that of really being there and dealign with characters and places that have weight and feel real.

3) Things are not progressing to satisfy the GMs desire to tell a story or the player's desire to be in a story. That doesn't mean I avoid excitement, twists, etc. But it does mean I try to avoid patterns that make the players feel like they are heroes in a movie or book. So I don't fudge rolls out of pacing concerns, spotlight, etc. If I ever fudge, which is incredibly rare, it is only because the dice produce a result I strongly feel would be unrealistic.

Based on this, I am assuming fail forward would be an awkward fit for someone like me. But I have someone in my group runs games differently than I do, with a little more focus on things like spotlight and the cinematic, so I suspect he'd probably have more use for it than I would.

You mention the players setting the stakes. Can you elaborate on this? That may be another major point of divergence. One of my big gripes with skills like Diplomacy in 3E was that players sometimes used them to set the stakes or direct the outcomes (i.e. "I use Diplomacy to get to the princess to marry me" where the player is framing the consequences of a successful roll rather than allowing the GM to do so....the wording can lead the GM to believe that a successful roll must result in the princess saying yes to marriage, even if the character in question simply wouldn't' or couldn't do that). It took me a while to figure out why this bothered me, but eventually that seemed like the cause.

 

[mfc]

I like Fail Forward