Failing Forward

[Maxperson]

To my mind, the distinctions being drawn here have nothing to do with realism. They are about preferred stakes for certain game checks.

In the real world, a skilled climber is:

* Less likely to drop/lose things (better packing, more careful in avoiding snags, etc);

* Less likely to have handholds break under his/her weight (better judgment, better/more careful testing of holds, etc);

* Less likely to get frostbite (better at wearing protective gear, better at judging when fingers are getting too cold, etc).\;

* Etc​

Of course suffering any of these things is bad luck, but skilled climbers make their own luck. Putting it all into a non-skill-dependent "fate roll" or skill fumble system does not seem, to me at least, to encourage or reflect realism about skill with climbing.

What it does do is confine the stakes of a climbing check to one very narrow question: does the character go up or down? Personally I don't think that's the only interesting question (or, always or even often, the most interesting question) to ask about a fiction in which a character is trying to achieve his/her goal by climbing up a mountain.


I'm not 100% sure what "connectedness" means here, but if it's a reiteration of "realism" then it's out of place as far as the ascent of Mt Pudding is concerned. There is no more or less "connection" between climbing skill and not falling, climbing skill and not having a handhold break, climbing skill and not dropping or snagging some gear, climbing skill and not suffering frostbite. All these things are connected to how skilled one is as a climber.

Examples of "non-connection" have been given upthread - eg there's no connection between skill in Scavenging and a PC's brother having been evil even before possession by a balrog - but Maxperson's complaints aren't directed at those examples.

"Holding tight to the story" is a red herring. In [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example, no one is holding tight to a story. The question is about what can be at stake when a check is declared and resolved. One might even say that insisting it must always and only be one thing - does the character go up or go down - is a form of holding tight to the story!

As I've posted repeatedly upthread, the "problem" for which "fail forward" is a fix is that of achieving a dramatic story via RPGing without the GM preauthoring a story.

If you don't have that problem - either because dramatic story isn't a high priority for you in RPGing or because you don't mind GM pre-authorship (and historically, D&D play has tended to fall into one or the other of these camps) - then you probably won't be interested in "fail forward" as a technique.

But this has nothing to do with what is or isn't "realistic" as stakes for a Climbing check.

It is all about realism. There is climb skill. The skill with climbing. And then there is experience with the event in general, which would include pack preparation and cold weather gear to prevent frostbite. Experienced climbers will be prepared. Their skill in climbing, however, doesn't come into play until they are actually climbing. A failed climb check determines that they fall or fail to climb farther along. A broken handhold could be a reason that they fall or fail to climb further. Picking the route is a part of the climb, so that example is not of something unrelated to the climb skill.

 

[Maxperson]

That's not generally true for me as a GM, both in the sense that I don't memorise the players' character sheets - so they might have skills, equipment etc I don't know about or have forgotten about - and in the sense that I certainly can't extrapolate from everything on those sheets to every feasible action declaration the players might make for their PCs.

What I do know is the PCs' goals. (Which, in [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION]'s terms, have been "meta" authored by the players so as to lead to action - a bit like Gygaxian D&D depending on the PCs being hungry for wealth and fame.) These are what I refer to in framing challenges. It's up to the players to work out what their PCs can, and want to, do in response to them. (In 4e I also know the PCs' levels. BW, though, doesn't have the same sort of scaling system that 4e has.)

I know the capabilities of the PCs and players, not necessarily what they will choose to do. I have a sheet where the players write down their PCs skills, notable items, class, level, AC, hit points, etc in short form so I can refer to it if needed. I base my encounters around those capabilities. I have also played with my players for years, so I have a know them very well. It's much harder to gauge a new player.

 

[pemerton]

it's also sort of hokey to discover that no matter what situation you're in, you can just fail your way forward.

The players are real people who have turned up to have a fun time playing a game. In those circumstances, it's not particularly hokey for the GM to make sure that, whatever happens, there is a game for them to play.

In Gygaxian D&D, this means the GM has a dungeon ready.

In "fail forward" style games, this means the PCs (and therefore the players) being confronted with challenging situations that reflect, and in their resolution will one way or another develop, the narrative momentum of the game.

It almost feels like "fail forward" is trying to take credit for anything a DM does. Which makes it a fairly meaningless idea to discuss. I suspect that not everyone would view it as all encompassing as this, but it is clearly more than "succeed at a cost". I'm just unclear where the line gets drawn.

The term is not a name for an invention. It's a label for a technique which has been in use for a long time, but has not necessarily been identified and deployed systematically. In this respect it belongs to the same lexicographic family as "scene framing".

As far as techniques are concerned, [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION]'s example of having a jailer turn up to taunt (or otherwise interact with) the trapped PC is a standard example of how "fail forward" adjudication might work. Failing the "avoid pits" roll leads to a complication - trapped and taunted - which was not desired by the player or PC (and hence is a failure) and which opens up a difficult choice for the player and PC (eg what is the PC prepared to offer the jailer in return for freedom?).

 

[pemerton]

It is all about realism. There is climb skill. The skill with climbing. And then there is experience with the event in general, which would include pack preparation and cold weather gear to prevent frostbite. Experienced climbers will be prepared. Their skill in climbing, however, doesn't come into play until they are actually climbing. A failed climb check determines that they fall or fail to climb farther along. A broken handhold could be a reason that they fall or fail to climb further. Picking the route is a part of the climb, so that example is not of something unrelated to the climb skill.

How is avoiding one's gear getting snagged; or hanging one-handed so as to be able to catch a falling item with the other hand; not a part of one's skill at climbing?

You seem to me to be using a very narrow, artificial demarcation of what is or isn't climbing skill which has no basis in natural language, but seems closely related to early D&D's discussion of a thief's Climb Walls ability.

 

[Maxperson]

How is avoiding one's gear getting snagged; or hanging one-handed so as to be able to catch a falling item with the other hand; not a part of one's skill at climbing?

It's a part of the climbing preparation. Tightening straps, etc. It's done prior to the climb even beginning. Even if you did apply it to the actual climb, like a strap being loose enough to snag on something, a rod inside a pack still wouldn't be a part of that scenario. The straps that would be snagging would be the ones on the front or side of the body, not the back of the body where the pack opens. A climber would be far more likely to lose the entire pack than to lose the rod out of it, and it's highly unlikely that a snag will cut through a leather strap, so any snags would just prevent climbing further.

 

[grendel111111]

How is avoiding one's gear getting snagged; or hanging one-handed so as to be able to catch a falling item with the other hand; not a part of one's skill at climbing?

You seem to me to be using a very narrow, artificial demarcation of what is or isn't climbing skill which has no basis in natural language, but seems closely related to early D&D's discussion of a thief's Climb Walls ability.

Each person or group will put that cut off point at a different place. Some like a very tight definition of skills and abilities. Others like it to be more loose. Some systems are clear about how they want you to run the game giving clear boundaries, others state the boundaries must be very wide. My personal favorite is when the rules let the table decide. That does mean in those systems 2 tables will play differently, but it also means it can adapt to a wider range of play styles. I think this is where 5th has aimed to be and one of the reasons I think it is doing well.

And just to be clear your demarcation of what skills include is just as artificial as anyone else's. It's just the one you are most happy with.

 

[Balesir]

It is all about realism. There is climb skill. The skill with climbing. And then there is experience with the event in general, which would include pack preparation and cold weather gear to prevent frostbite. Experienced climbers will be prepared. Their skill in climbing, however, doesn't come into play until they are actually climbing. A failed climb check determines that they fall or fail to climb farther along. A broken handhold could be a reason that they fall or fail to climb further. Picking the route is a part of the climb, so that example is not of something unrelated to the climb skill.

I don't know where to start with this. It's self contradictory ("experienced climbers will be prepared" and yet this has nothing to do with "skill with climbing"???!?!) and fails to account for a myriad of mishaps and failures that can occur when climbing that don't have the effect of either preventing climbing or leading to a fall.

On the first, preparation is an utterly vital part of many skills, such that to teach the skill without covering the preparatory aspects of it would be negligent, that to not count it as part of the skill seems, well, bizarre.

On the second, if "failure" during a climb only ever meant falling I'm not sure there would be any "successful" climbers! Delay is certainly a valid failure mode - but so is loss of equipment (a particularly common one, actually), minor injury (scrapes and twists, particularly), hazard to those below (due to falling rock caused by a crumbling hold) and equipment damage.

It would be possible, I guess, to roll for each individual aspect and step individually - but then (a) it gets fiddly and boring (analogous to "pixel bitching" when it comes to searching) and (b) the chances of actual success go way down (because the chances of rolling even a 3+ on a d20 is good, but the chance of rolling 3+ six times in a row is only just over 50%). This way are flawed systems made, IME.

 

[grendel111111]

To my mind, the distinctions being drawn here have nothing to do with realism. They are about preferred stakes for certain game checks.

In the real world, a skilled climber is:

* Less likely to drop/lose things (better packing, more careful in avoiding snags, etc);

* Less likely to have handholds break under his/her weight (better judgment, better/more careful testing of holds, etc);

* Less likely to get frostbite (better at wearing protective gear, better at judging when fingers are getting too cold, etc).\;

* Etc​

Of course suffering any of these things is bad luck, but skilled climbers make their own luck. Putting it all into a non-skill-dependent "fate roll" or skill fumble system does not seem, to me at least, to encourage or reflect realism about skill with climbing.

What it does do is confine the stakes of a climbing check to one very narrow question: does the character go up or down? Personally I don't think that's the only interesting question (or, always or even often, the most interesting question) to ask about a fiction in which a character is trying to achieve his/her goal by climbing up a mountain.


I'm not 100% sure what "connectedness" means here, but if it's a reiteration of "realism" then it's out of place as far as the ascent of Mt Pudding is concerned. There is no more or less "connection" between climbing skill and not falling, climbing skill and not having a handhold break, climbing skill and not dropping or snagging some gear, climbing skill and not suffering frostbite. All these things are connected to how skilled one is as a climber.

Examples of "non-connection" have been given upthread - eg there's no connection between skill in Scavenging and a PC's brother having been evil even before possession by a balrog - but Maxperson's complaints aren't directed at those examples.

"Holding tight to the story" is a red herring. In [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example, no one is holding tight to a story. The question is about what can be at stake when a check is declared and resolved. One might even say that insisting it must always and only be one thing - does the character go up or go down - is a form of holding tight to the story!

As I've posted repeatedly upthread, the "problem" for which "fail forward" is a fix is that of achieving a dramatic story via RPGing without the GM preauthoring a story.

If you don't have that problem - either because dramatic story isn't a high priority for you in RPGing or because you don't mind GM pre-authorship (and historically, D&D play has tended to fall into one or the other of these camps) - then you probably won't be interested in "fail forward" as a technique.

But this has nothing to do with what is or isn't "realistic" as stakes for a Climbing check.

So lets replace realistic with the phrase narrowness of skills. Some people like a "narrowness" of skills others like a "wideness" of skills. When some people are using the word realism (which you think is misplaced) you would prefer that they say: For me, you use to skills is too wide and I prefer a more narrow definition of skills... hence why I feel uncomfortable with this part of the technique. Each persons narrowness of skills preference will of cause be different.

 

[grendel111111]

I really think it would be helpful if you engaged with some of the actual play examples that have been posted upthread, Then you could talk about how actual games are actually being played rather than how you imagine them being played.

In my game where the PCs searched the ruined tower for the nickel-silver mace, and instead found black arrows apparently forged by the mage PC's brother before his possession by a balrog, there was no "teaming at the metagame level". The players were just playing their PCs. What is different from the style that you seem to prefer is that I, the GM, authored some new campaign backstory as a result of the failed Scavenging check, so as to put the fiction into a situation which (i) was not what the PCs (and players) had wanted it to be, and (ii) forced the players to make new, hard choices.

That is "fail forward" in action.

OK so lets engage with this example.

Narratively it work fine. It does what you want it to do.
For me the issue is Schrödinger's nickel-silver mace. Until the players search, it is both there and not there. Only when they search do you discover if it is or is not there. The roll you are doing here does not determine if the player "finds" the mace, but rather it determines if the mace is there. If it is there they will find it, but if they are bad at searching they won't just not find it but it will not be there.
For me using a players search skill to determine if something is there or not is a jump to far.
So I prefer "pre-authoring" which at it's most basic level means that the DM will know the state of play before the roll is made, either the mace is there or it is not there. If a searching roll is needed it could determine how long it takes to find or how long it take the players to assure themselves that it is not in this location, and instead find the black arrows.
At this level of pre-authoring we are not talking about pre-planning whole sand boxes or worlds. Just that the the facts of the world "as they are at the time" do not get changed by players skill rolls. The DM know the current situation and and the players discover the current situation.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't know where to start with this. It's self contradictory ("experienced climbers will be prepared" and yet this has nothing to do with "skill with climbing"???!?!) and fails to account for a myriad of mishaps and failures that can occur when climbing that don't have the effect of either preventing climbing or leading to a fall.

There is no contradiction at all. It has to do with climbing, but not the climb skill. If I am skilled at putting models together, that doesn't mean that the same skill is used when selecting and knowing which models are best to build

On the first, preparation is an utterly vital part of many skills, such that to teach the skill without covering the preparatory aspects of it would be negligent, that to not count it as part of the skill seems, well, bizarre.

Right. You teach the knowledge of what to do and also the skill itself. They are different. One is a knowledge and the other is a skill.

On the second, if "failure" during a climb only ever meant falling I'm not sure there would be any "successful" climbers! Delay is certainly a valid failure mode - but so is loss of equipment (a particularly common one, actually), minor injury (scrapes and twists, particularly), hazard to those below (due to falling rock caused by a crumbling hold) and equipment damage.

I don't know why you people keep persisting with this strawman. I never said failure only results in falling. It's just a failure to successfully climb.