Failing Forward

[Balesir]

You have honed in on what it is that I dislike about GM pre-authorship: it means that, if the PCs (as played by their players) disagree over something of importance to them, it's already predetermined that one is right and the other wrong.

Yes, I can see that being subject to strong overtones of taste, but at this point I'm more interested in what the nature of pre-authorship is and what benefits it might be seen to have. I'm currently struggling to see any, but it's entirely possible that I'm missing quite a bit.

 

[BryonD]

You have honed in on what it is that I dislike about GM pre-authorship: it means that, if the PCs (as played by their players) disagree over something of importance to them, it's already predetermined that one is right and the other wrong.

This can be appropriate for certain sorts of mystery/puzzle-solving games, where the emphasis is on the procedural challenges of learning the truth rather than on the dramatic/evaluative challenges of coming to grips with the truth. But I don't think it makes for very good character-driven drama. (This distinction, in turn, goes back to one that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] drew way upthread between play that focuses on competence and play that focuses on character.)

That, for me, is the railroading aspect of it: the GM has already decided that there is only one appropriate view of the possessed brother, and has determined what that view is. (There is some resemblance here to GM-adjudicated alignment, which I also dislike.)

This presumes that the DM's expectations become set as a "Success / Failure" standard.

If however the conflicts are established an valid and fun resolutions are possible regardless of what the players do with their (potentially asymmetrical) knowledge then a lot of doors are opened.

I would say that the issue you describe is a more complex version of DM "read my mind" syndrome and most every DM has crashed a session through some form of it in the process of learning to be a better DM. So it is certainly a real hazard and threat.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

No.

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] introduced the example with the pudding and the rod. In his (and others') discussion of that example it has been clear that losing the rod creates a choice: go on without it but have a less certain means of finding the pudding; or try to recover the rod from the ravine into which it has fallen.

The mace example is mine. It is from an episode of actual play. I have described it several times upthread, including in a very recent post, so I won't reiterate it. But the mace is not needed to kill any monster.

This is not how the scene-framing style of play generally associated with paradigmatic "fail forward" techniques works. The players don't follow the GM's cookies. Rather, the players - via the build and play of their PCs - set "cookies" for the GM. Eg the mace became relevant in my BW game because one of the players added backstory and a goal to his PC.

"Fail forward" is a technique that is generally an alternative to "exploring a world". The GM authors backstory in response to adjudicating checks, not as an input into that adjudication.

This makes me feel that you are not really following the discussion of how "fail forward" techniques work. If everything the PCs do is aimed at getting the pudding, it does not follow that they will find it. Because they may fail. (As the PCs in my BW game initially failed to find the mace.)

If the PCs decide to pursue something else, that is there prerogative. (The 5 PCs in my BW game each have 3 Beliefs, although some of those beliefs overlap in content so that is not literally 15 possible goals in play, but its certainly more than 1.) But that is up to the players, not the GM. If the PCs pursue something else, then the GM has to adjudicate those new action resolutions. (That is actually how the mace became relevant in my BW game - as I've explained, that "alternative option" was introduced by the players, not by the GM.)

Through a combination of note-taking and memory. Writing everything in advance doesn't per se increase its depth, nor ensure consistency.

I've got plenty of actual play threads, some of which I've linked to upthread. Here's another. They illustrate how the technique works.

If the check succeeds, then the goal/intention that motivated the check has been achieved. If the new challenge/complication invalidates or reverses that particular achievement, I regard that as rendering the players' resource expenditure pointless.

Why not?

OK, part of my problem is just following this thread...well, threads, there are several semi-related discussions about some related and some not related techniques and it's getting difficult to parse through it all in what spare time I've got...

Having said that, I think I'm getting it (really!).

I'll start backwards - one skill check is fine for everything if that's OK with your group. Most seem to want a bit more granularity where the skills of the PCs make a difference. Something not as complicated as combat, but more than a single check.

Now, for the greater discussion, when you (I) start thinking through the discussion, there are two distinct points of view here - the DM and the players. The techniques in play by the DM in many cases should be largely invisible to the players. They players have no idea whether the mace is there or not, so if the DM decides to either make that decision on the fly, or change his decision on the fly, or if it's written on a page of paper makes no practical difference to the player's experience.

There is always a mix of improvising, changing, retconning, and following a predetermined (if not written) idea on the part of the DM. The mix is really a question of what the DM is comfortable with, and falls within their skill set. In theory, the players shouldn't care one way or the other.

First, the players may have a preference for the crunchiness of the game. So the number and types of checks will come into play in part based on that. Then there is the matter of trust. The game is dependent on the trust of the DM by the players. Now in my opinion, if the players can't trust the DM to make rolls in secret, then it's probably the wrong group of players with that DM. On the other hand, there are players that aren't comfortable with any DM rolling in secret, that's a different issue outside of the scope here.

As long as the players trust the DM and feel that the world is consistent and 'fair' (another loaded term), then how the DM goes about generating that world and story is ultimately irrelevant as well.

Since there has finally been a term noted that does apply to this technique, my recommendation (which won't get anywhere, it's OK, I understand), is 'Just In Time' storytelling or DMing, GMing. It's a technique where the DM determines the details of the plot, story, world, situation, whatever on the fly and in the moment. The framework of the world is in place, there are a mix of knowns and unknowns in the world, as there always are, and the results of an event or situation are determined in the moment.

I ran another session last night, and I have to admit it didn't go as well as I'd like. I think it was a mix of the players (all essentially new), and to some degree a lack of planning on my part. I had a good idea of what would happen, due to the particular circumstances, but my brain just wasn't working through potential options quickly enough. So I would have benefitted with more 'pre-planned' stuff to drop in. This is part of the skill side of making these techniques work - I didn't have enough stuff percolating in my brain, and the players/characters weren't providing much in the way of inspiration.

So now I think I really understand what you specifically are calling 'fail forward' and I also see the, um, legitimacy of the concept of deciding if the mace is there/not there at a given point of time. I guess the benefits are that if you're good at it you probably don't need as much prep time, and also allows more possibilities since you're writing the story in a combination of a reactive/proactive approach.

I've been doing this for years since I think it plants the characters more firmly in the world, although not always at the table, a lot of it has been in the planning and thinking between sessions.

Ilbranteloth

 

[Balesir]

I like the way you have summarised (what you understand by) the discussion so far. I will just make a comment on this bit:

I'll start backwards - one skill check is fine for everything if that's OK with your group. Most seem to want a bit more granularity where the skills of the PCs make a difference. Something not as complicated as combat, but more than a single check.

Multiple rolls (or randomiser resolutions, to make it properly general) can be combined together as long as they are independent. Even dependent determinations can be combined if you are careful about how much the factors that you want to allow for (like PC skill) affect the probabilities if they affect more than one aspect of the determination. Two considerations might cause you to separate randomised resolutions into multiple steps:

1) Decision points. A random determination cannot take account of a player decision, so the "end points" of the resolution should come when a player has an opportunity to take a decision. This is a player decision, not a character one, because many character decisions are subsumed in the use of a skill. The idea is not to substitute a player's (and gamemaster's) probably hokey or at best partial understanding of medieval fantasy crafts for the character's, but to allow the player to make in-character decisions for their character where they are not purely skill-based.

2) Psychological connectedness. Apparently, some players and GMs are made uncomfortable by the association of multiple random determinations if the randomisations for them are combined together. If this is so for your group, you might want to make several rolls (or draws, or whatever) instead of combining them into one, even if the overall probabilities are the same for the two approaches.

P.S. I will add that I think a bit you missed about "Just In Time" adjudication is that it is (arguably) best done in response to the declared PC actions and the success/failure determinations that result from those actions (by die roll, card draw or whatever).

 

[TwoSix]

This can be appropriate for certain sorts of mystery/puzzle-solving games, where the emphasis is on the procedural challenges of learning the truth rather than on the dramatic/evaluative challenges of coming to grips with the truth. But I don't think it makes for very good character-driven drama. (This distinction, in turn, goes back to one that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] drew way upthread between play that focuses on competence and play that focuses on character.

It makes me think of [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] 's assertions of the hidden map of the dungeon that the DM kept behind the screen that the players were trying to puzzle out. It feels like as the game's scope expanded beyond a dungeon crawl, the "hidden map" simply became the DM's understanding of the moving parts of his campaign scenario, and the puzzle was for the players to figure out how the secret plot was unfolding.

 

[chaochou]

Since there has finally been a term noted that does apply to this technique, my recommendation (which won't get anywhere, it's OK, I understand), is 'Just In Time' storytelling or DMing, GMing.

As an aside, this is why 'Story Now' is a more appropriate name for a particular gaming style than Narrativism. It's not just 'story' or 'narrative' that are important, it's also 'now-ness.'

It's a technique where the DM determines the details of the plot, story, world, situation, whatever on the fly and in the moment.

The other key point, is that the DMs determination happens because of an action or statement or belief expressed by a player. In this way the players are the shapers the game, and the GM reacts, instead of the other way around.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

The other key point, is that the DMs determination happens because of an action or statement or belief expressed by a player. In this way the players are the shapers the game, and the GM reacts, instead of the other way around.

I agree with this, and have always used the players/characters as an input into the story line. However, I can also see that there's a danger in allowing it to control things 'in the moment' too much, in that it should not ever appear to the players that they are writing any part of the story other than their (character's) own.

Ilbranteloth

 

[Umbran]

Yes, I can see that being subject to strong overtones of taste, but at this point I'm more interested in what the nature of pre-authorship is and what benefits it might be seen to have. I'm currently struggling to see any, but it's entirely possible that I'm missing quite a bit.

Pardon if I have missed this somewhere in the mix...

One major benefit of pre-authorship is pre-design. Sometimes, you actually want to make sure what you are presenting is really thought through before players encounter it.

Games that are tactically deep typically need fairly carefully considered design of the tactical challenges, resource depletion rates, and the like, to keep them challenging, but not overwhelming. But, you can't pre-design the tactical challenges without knowing what's going to come up - that means you need pre-authorship of much of the material. IMHO, nobody should be "winging it" for mid to upper level D&D 3.x play focusing on combat, for example. Meanwhile, a game like FATE, or Cortex+, that isn't so tactically detailed, can be authored on the fly easily, because the number of tactical bits needed to make a worthy challenge are far fewer.

Cogent mysteries also need a fair bit of pre-authoring. If the goal is for the players to use reasoning to figure out what amounts to a big logic puzzle, you have to pre-author that puzzle, or you are likely to become either inconsistent, or not put in enough information for the players to work out the puzzle, both of which will lead to highly frustrating play experiences.

Note how both of these are situations where play has a significant center around use of logic.

 

[pemerton]

This presumes that the DM's expectations become set as a "Success / Failure" standard.

Not particularly.

Player A, in character, hopes that his brother is a victim. Player B, in character, believes that the brother is a villain and wants to be revenged against him.

If the GM decides, secretly, in advance, whether the brother is victim (of balrog possession) or villain (who invited possession), then the GM had decided that either A is right and B wrong, or B right and A wrong. The standard here has not been set by GM expectations - it is the GM secretly choosing against a standard (of victimhood vs villainy) that is common between players A and B.

That's (part of) what I don't like about pre-authorship.

 

[BryonD]

Not particularly.

Player A, in character, hopes that his brother is a victim. Player B, in character, believes that the brother is a villain and wants to be revenged against him.

If the GM decides, secretly, in advance, whether the brother is victim (of balrog possession) or villain (who invited possession), then the GM had decided that either A is right and B wrong, or B right and A wrong. The standard here has not been set by GM expectations - it is the GM secretly choosing against a standard (of victimhood vs villainy) that is common between players A and B.

That's (part of) what I don't like about pre-authorship.

I was referring to the general statement you made. But even in your specific case one being right and the other being wrong does not lock down the success/failure options.

But this just comes back to the role-playing vs. being a author conversation.

Gandalf had no say in whether or not Bilbo found the one ring. When he showed up at the beginning of Fellowship and threw the ring into the fire, he was inside a story controlled by facts outside of himself. If he had suddenly starting talking to the reader and announced that he decided it was not the one ring, that would be a very unsatisfying development.
Same thing for whether or not the brother was possessed willingly.

Obviously a DM and players may plan outside of a game to agree to certain truths. At a macro level this happens when the group decides to play D&D over Mutants and Masterminds. If a player wants part of the plot to be that his brother was possessed against his will but this truth is not generally accepted, then this is fine. But ultimately a great deal of pre-authorship is still mandatory for the experience to model "being that guy in these circumstances". If the player can keep changing the rules in media res, then the resolution is completely divorced from the character's capabilities.

There is a great deal of merit to the idea of experiencing a story exclusively as an individual inside that story. The demand for significant pre-authorship in no way prevents players from contributing to the "pre" part of that.

But if the brother may or may not be possessed willingly and the mace may or may not be there, then this is a scenario that is distinctly different than what many people are looking for.
I don't think it is reasonable to call having this extra-character powers "role playing" by any reasonable definition of role playing.
That doesn't mean you can't flip back and forth from moment to moment between truly role playing and using forth wall powers. But, to me, the experience of the role playing is contaminated if it can be by-passed.
If Gandalf decides in the second that the ring is flipping into the fire that it is not the One Ring, then this does nothing to prevent the group from role playing an evening of dinner party at Bilbo's, or going off to explore Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains. But the whole thing is tainted by the fact that everything is in the shadow of a change which Gandalf had no power to impose.

To be clear, I make no claim that my way is better. You may be having a thousand time more fun than I am and I have no idea what my limited capacity to appreciate your view is costing me.

But I am saying it is important distinction and again results in people talking past each other.

Being very highly pro "pre-authorship" is not in contrast to player input. As stated, the players and DM coudl easily agree about the brother in advance ("pre-") or a group could easily decide "Hey, what if it WASN'T the One Ring? Let's play that.". But once the story is moving at the table the players are either in the role of characters within a set of circumstances or they are not.