Failing Forward

[Manbearcat]

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.

I think we're in the same general orbit of "being on the same page" at this point. And I'm fairly confident (given the above post and your posting history) that you are not someone who would be inclined to either (a) use Fail Forward as a general technique for determining how the situation changes, post-action-resolution, or (b) run games that systematize its usage.

Since you've expressed that you're still uncertain, I'm going to create a truly bare bones example (to remove any potentially obfuscating details and because of your take on social mechanics):

- Bob (PC) wants pudding.

- Mount Pudding has pudding at its peak.

- Bob therefore summits Mount Pudding (action) to retrieve said pudding (intent).

A game where the technique of Fail Forward is deployed puts the retrieval of the pudding as the reference-point by which the fictional results of action-resolution are anchored/contextually framed. As Bob attempts to summit Mount Pudding, whenever Bob's player fails a roll involved with the physical effort to summit Mount Pudding, the GM changes the situation. However, the GM does not do so by solely referencing the causal logic chain of the action undertaken, say, a failed hazard navigation check:

Bob, you fall into the crevice (with whatever mechanical result)!

They may do that if it is sufficient to create an interesting setback to the retrieval of said pudding. However, the GM may also change the situation by tying the setback directly to the retrieval of said pudding. Failed hazard navigation? Crap:

Bob, you barely escape disaster by grabbing the edge of the crevice before you fall down into the deep dark (!)...but the leather strap holding your Pudding Divining Rod to your belt tears free and you hear the awful sound of it clanging off the rock as it cascades down...down...down (oh no!). You going down after it or do you think you can find that dastardly evasive pudding without it?

The latter is Fail Forward. Action succeeds (Bob evades the hazard) while intent is compromised/complicated (retrieval of said pudding).

 

[Manbearcat]

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

3) Things are not progressing to satisfy the GMs desire to tell a story...

Just for clarity, the above two aspects of play agenda are utterly central to games that systematize Fail Forward. In fact, they are engineered pretty explicitly to satisfy them both.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Just for clarity, the above two aspects of play agenda are utterly central to games that systematize Fail Forward. In fact, they are engineered pretty explicitly to satisfy them both.

If we agree on one or two key points, but diverge on others that may explain some of the tension that arises in these discusses (when there is 80% agreement but the remaining 20% is extremely contentious, that seems to be a recipe for misunderstanding). Would you say my other points conflict with Fail Forward in any way: 2) A sense of the world being separate form the players they are exploring and 3B) the players desire to be in a story*

*Not in the sense of a pre-planned tale, but in the sense that what they are experiencing is very much in line with being the stars of an action movie, fantasy novel, or other type of plot.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think we're in the same general orbit of "being on the same page" at this point. And I'm fairly confident (given the above post and your posting history) that you are not someone who would be inclined to either (a) use Fail Forward as a general technique for determining how the situation changes, post-action-resolution, or (b) run games that systematize its usage.

Since you've expressed that you're still uncertain, I'm going to create a truly bare bones example (to remove any potentially obfuscating details and because of your take on social mechanics):

- Bob (PC) wants pudding.

- Mount Pudding has pudding at its peak.

- Bob therefore summits Mount Pudding (action) to retrieve said pudding (intent).

A game where the technique of Fail Forward is deployed puts the retrieval of the pudding as the reference-point by which the fictional results of action-resolution are anchored/contextually framed. As Bob attempts to summit Mount Pudding, whenever Bob's player fails a roll involved with the physical effort to summit Mount Pudding, the GM changes the situation. However, the GM does not do so by solely referencing the causal logic chain of the action undertaken, say, a failed hazard navigation check:

Bob, you fall into the crevice (with whatever mechanical result)!

They may do that if it is sufficient to create an interesting setback to the retrieval of said pudding. However, the GM may also change the situation by tying the setback directly to the retrieval of said pudding. Failed hazard navigation? Crap:

Bob, you barely escape disaster by grabbing the edge of the crevice before you fall down into the deep dark (!)...but the leather strap holding your Pudding Divining Rod to your belt tears free and you hear the awful sound of it clanging off the rock as it cascades down...down...down (oh no!). You going down after it or do you think you can find that dastardly evasive pudding without it?

The latter is Fail Forward. Action succeeds (Bob evades the hazard) while intent is compromised/complicated (retrieval of said pudding).

Thanks for the bare bones example, that actually helps a lot here. Yes, this is how I am picturing fail forward. The failure is converted into a less than stellar success with some kind of complication that makes things interesting. Is that correct?

For me, if you fail your Climb or you Jump roll or whatever it is, you are going to experience the full effects of failure. Now that doesn't mean your trek up the mountain is at end. You could fall into a ravine and make your way up the mountain. It also doesn't mean something interesting won't arise because of the failure. For example it is possible there is something cool at the bottom of the ravine. But I am not assisting the player forward in his pursuit of the pudding. He may fall, decide the damage he took was too much and finding the pudding at this point too risky, at which point he returns to the party at base camp and assesses the situation. Failure to 'complete the adventure' is always a possibility in the game I run. Though failure isn't always things like 'you don't get the pudding' it could be interesting things too, like 'the demons of the infinite mirror pavilion are unleashed upon the kingdom'. But the stakes of failure are always pretty dependent on what is going on.

 

[iserith]

If we agree on one or two key points, but diverge on others that may explain some of the tension that arises in these discusses (when there is 80% agreement but the remaining 20% is extremely contentious, that seems to be a recipe for misunderstanding). Would you say my other points conflict with Fail Forward in any way: 2) A sense of the world being separate form the players they are exploring and 3B) the players desire to be in a story*

*Not in the sense of a pre-planned tale, but in the sense that what they are experiencing is very much in line with being the stars of an action movie, fantasy novel, or other type of plot.

For my part, I don't think so. With regard to (2), and referencing [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s last example, there is nothing about losing one's pudding divining rod down a ravine instead of falling in that contributes to a sense that the world isn't separate from the players. As to (3B), the characters are in a story no matter what our approach to the game, the story being a tale of what the PCs have done during the course of a session. Some DMs try to make it where the story that emerges from play is a little more like fantasy novels or action movies in terms of presentation, but that's just a matter of style really. I find the emergent story just comes out a little more polished in such a game.

 

[iserith]

For me, if you fail your Climb or you Jump roll or whatever it is, you are going to experience the full effects of failure.

I think this is where the disconnect may be. Falling into the ravine or losing your divining rod down the ravine are both "the full effects of failure." It's just a matter of what stakes were set before the task/conflict resolution.

 

[Bedrockgames]

For my part, I don't think so. With regard to (2), and referencing [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s last example, there is nothing about losing one's pudding divining rod down a ravine instead of falling in that contributes to a sense that the world isn't separate from the players. As to (3B), the characters are in a story no matter what our approach to the game, the story being a tale of what the PCs have done during the course of a session. Some DMs try to make it where the story that emerges from play is a little more like fantasy novels or action movies in terms of presentation, but that's just a matter of style really. I find the emergent story just comes out a little more polished in such a game.

That isn't what I mean by story here though. I understand that story can mean something that broad in an RPG (and just came off of a discussion elsewhere about this subject). But if story happens no matter what we do, then it is so broad in meaning, that it doesn't really matter here (because whether the players sit there and twiddle there thumbs, or whether I throw anything at them at all, it all amounts to story no matter what). By story I mean a sense that you are a character in something that feels similar to a story unfolding in a book or novel. Not necessarily a story being told by the GM, not a linear path, but a sense that collectively a story is being told (and therefore some outcome will be better for the story than others). When I am playing I don't worry about outcomes contributing to that sense of story.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think this is where the disconnect may be. Falling into the ravine or losing your divining rod down the ravine are both "the full effects of failure." It's just a matter of what stakes were set before the task/conflict resolution.

Now this is muddying things for me, because if it is just a matter of setting the stakes, I don't really see what fail forward is. If it is a matter of taking a failure and turning it into something more productive for the adventure or storyline, that I can grasp. But in any game, the GM is setting the stakes for failure. To me fail forward sounds like it is meant to sidestep the initially set stakes (i.e. stake seems to be you tumble to your death or fall down the side of the mountain, but in actuality once the failed roll occurs, it is about losing a vital piece of equipment or not----so falling down the ravine was never really a potential outcome in hindsight).

 

[iserith]

That isn't what I mean by story here though. I understand that story can mean something that broad in an RPG (and just came off of a discussion elsewhere about this subject). But if story happens no matter what we do, then it is so broad in meaning, that it doesn't really matter here (because whether the players sit there and twiddle there thumbs, or whether I throw anything at them at all, it all amounts to story no matter what). By story I mean a sense that you are a character in something that feels similar to a story unfolding in a book or novel. Not necessarily a story being told by the GM, not a linear path, but a sense that collectively a story is being told (and therefore some outcome will be better for the story than others). When I am playing I don't worry about outcomes contributing to that sense of story.

Depending on the RPG, a goal of play might be an exciting, memorable story emerging as a result of what happens at the table. D&D 5e, for example. Achieving that goal of play might require some attention to actually making it exciting and memorable. Some might put more attention into it than others, but I would go so far as to say that we all worry about it to some extent, be that how we adjudicate tasks and conflicts or what kind of content we include for players to experience.

Now this is muddying things for me, because if it is just a matter of setting the stakes, I don't really see what fail forward is. If it is a matter of taking a failure and turning it into something more productive for the adventure or storyline, that I can grasp. But in any game, the GM is setting the stakes for failure. To me fail forward sounds like it is meant to sidestep the initially set stakes (i.e. stake seems to be you tumble to your death or fall down the side of the mountain, but in actuality once the failed roll occurs, it is about losing a vital piece of equipment or not----so falling down the ravine was never really a potential outcome in hindsight).

If the GM sets the stakes, as you say, then nothing is being sidestepped, right?. There are no "initial stakes." There are only ever the stakes the GM sets which are then tested by the mechanics and/or dice.

 

[Maxperson]

I think this is where the disconnect may be. Falling into the ravine or losing your divining rod down the ravine are both "the full effects of failure." It's just a matter of what stakes were set before the task/conflict resolution.

Failing a climb roll involves the person climbing failing to climb. It can be no progress or a fall. Dropping a divining rod is failing to hold on to it, not failing to climb. Falling into the ravine and dropping the rods are full effects for failure, but they are full effects of failure for two completely different things.