Okay I'm a little confused are we speaking about specific systems or play styles? They are two different, though admittedly connected, things
I'm not seeing why system and playstyle can't be talked about separately... especially since there are systems that don't actively support a specific style
Certain playstyles are associated with certain systems - as per the first of these two posts.
Given that the self-conscious advocacy for, and implementation of, "fail forward" and related techniques is associated with particular designers (eg Luke Crane, Ron Edwards, Robin Laws, Vincent Baker) and with their games (eg BW, DitV, *World games, etc) then I think actual examples from the play of those games is highly relevant to the discussion of those techniques.
Have you changed the definition of Fail Forward again? Last I heard, it was 1) not allowing failure to stop the PCs dead in their tracks by having other options, and 2) Success with a cost when they roll a failure. Neither of those definitions has anything to do with railroading, and neither of them don't work very well in a pre-authored setting.
I explained what I understand "fail forward" to be, as a technique, in post 156 of this thread. I self-quoted that post not very far upthread.
The terms doesn't come from nowhere. It was introduced by particular RPG designers to describe a particular technique intended to achieve a particular RPGing experience.
Success with a cost is only one way of narrating "fail forward", and even then only if
success is understood as meaning
success at the task - by definition, if the check fails, the PC must fail to succeed in respect of his/her
intent. (A classic example would be - you arrive at the top of Mt Pudding, but the pudding thieves got there first because you were too slow: task success, intent failure. Also a very well known trope from adventure fiction.)
And having other options may have nothing to do with "fail forward" at all. If those other options all exist in the GM's notes (eg as per the so-called "Three Clue" rule), then the existence of those "other options" may not prevent play stopping dead in its tracks, if the players don't think of or discover those other options.
"Fail forward", in the sense of the technique that actually brought that term into the RPG lexicon, is not about "other options". When the PCs in my BW game fail to find the mace by scouring the ruined tower, there are no "other options". Or when they fail to stop the ship they are on sinking, after being tethered to a ghost ship, there are no "other options". But in both cases I used the technique of "fail forward": the upshot of the failure was that the PCs found themselves in a new challenging situation, different from the one they had hoped to be in, in which hard decisions were called for ("You're floating in the waters of the Woolly Bay, clinging to the wreckage of The Albers. How are you going to save yourselves?"; "In what used to be your brothers private workroom, you find a rack of black arrows. Let me tell you what those are for . . .")
pemerton said:
To give a concrete example: it makes a huge difference to me that the absence of the mace from the ruined tower is the result of a failed check by the players, rather than something I stipulated in advance.
You say that, but you really haven't given any real reason for it other than you like it that way, and incorrect perceptions of pre-authorship and sandbox play.
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There is zero difference between my pre-authoring a dark elf antagonist at the beginning to appear at the water hole, and you authoring it in the moment of the water hole. Both are a dark elf antagonist, and both are pre-authored for every single second after it appears at the water hole. That you didn't know before hand is irrelevant to game play. Game play is going to act on the dark elf being a pre-authored antagonist for both playstyles.
<snip>
I am fully capable, without changing anything, of deciding an angel feather is cursed. Nothing about that pre-authorship keeps that from happening.
This is very strange, in the context of a discussion about techniques and railroading. You say I have "incorrect perceptions" about the nature of pre-authoring, but then say that you don't see any difference between something being the result of a failed check and something just being stipulated as true by the GM.
The significance of the waterhole being narrated as fouled, or the feather being narrated as cursed, because of a failed check, is exactly that: it's a
failure. Had the players
succeeded on the check, the fiction would have turned out quite differently, namely, as they (and their PCs) wanted it. The GM didn't just stipulate the fiction.
That's the whole point of the scene-framing/"fail forward" style. The GM doesn't just stipulate the fiction; rather, key elements of the fiction unfold as part of the process of adjudicating action resolution, with responsibility distributed between players and GM (depending on success or failure), and with the system being designed to produce some sort of alternation between success vs failure which helps generate the dramatic dynamics of a story (in the strong, literary sense).
Of course the GM might try to introduce that sort of pattern just by way of stipulation. But that's the sort of approach to play, and the use of GM force, that the alternative techniques are intended to avoid.
all we're doing now with it is dueling anecdotes (which is why I find these calls for play experiences kinda pointless)
Just to be clear - there are
no anecdotes of scene-framing/"fail forward" play being used to railroad. As far as I can tell, that is pure conjecture by you and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].
Whereas I can point to every railroad thread on these forums, plus examples that have been posted in this very thread, where pre-authoring of content by the GM and then using it as a constraint on the framing and outcome of situations in play has led to a railroad-y experience.
And it's not a coincidence that there are no anecdotes of the first sort: you can't run a game in the scene-framing/"fail forward" mode and railroad. The GM simply doesn't have the right sort of control over the fiction. The vice of that sort of game isn't railroading; it's GM paralysis, and/or failures in managing the backstory, and/or boredom because the GM can't frame interesting and engaging scenes. And unsurprisingly, there
are anecdotes that bear this out: [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] and (I think) [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] have both mentioned examples of this, and I've pointed to my own BW game, where I think the dark elf and his naga master didn't yield the full pay-off in play that I had been hoping for. I can add another one if you like: A long time ago (1997) I had a campaign come to an end when, in effect, the backstory collapsed under its own weight - even as the GM I couldn't keep track of what had been revealed in play, and couldn't maintain a coherent fiction (either in my head, or in play) that gave rational motivations for all the NPCs and factions and the like who had become active in the game after 8 years of play.
One of the reasons for this outcome is that, as GM, I wan't careful enough in linking scenes framed to player (and thereby PC) motivations, so there was too great a density of extraneous backstory, and too much of the burden of enthusiasm for it was falling on me as GM rather than on the players. In the three big campaigns that I have run since (another Rolemaster game, my 4e game, and now my BW game), an important consideration for me arising out of that experience has been to keep the backstory under control, in part by being sharper in my focus.
In this thread I think I've already cited
Eero Tuovinen more than once. Here, again, is his comment on the challenges of GMing a non-exploration-focused, scene-framing/"fail forward"-style game:
The player’s task in these games is simple advocacy, which is not difficult once you have a firm character. . . . The GM might have more difficulty, as he [sic] 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
Instead of speculating about railroading, with (as far as I can see) no actual evidence, I think it would make for more fruitful discussion to focus on the actual things that can go wrong in GMing this sort of game. For instance, what are the techniques that a GM can use to integrate the dramatic storylines of 4 or 5 PCs into a coherent, on-going game? (FATE tries to tackle this through its PC-generation process, just as one example.)
Seriously? You're claiming that that there are no bad DMs out there that railroad in those systems? Somehow only other systems have those sorts of DMs?
How would it work? Well, it doesn't have to happen on every check, so player successes are irrelevant. If the DM inserts his desires into failed checks to drive the game down paths he wants them down, railroading has occurred. If you seriously can't see that railroading can happen in those systems, then you're too blind to continue having this conversation with.
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Pre-authored content doesn't constrain the DM any more than a PC being an elf constrains him. Such light "constraint" is irrelevant and meaningless. It's still easier to railroad with your system. Unless the players can't fail rolls anyway. If they can, the DM can push them wherever he wants, however he wants with nothing and no one to say otherwise
<snip>
Or are you saying that DM forcing his idea on the player and moving towards that goal at every opportunity isn't railroading?
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The possibility or the fact? My example wasn't of a possibility, it was of a fact that the DM pre-authored and forced to happen.
<snip>
Then you guys are for pre-authorship, because that's what you are doing when you do that.
<snip>
The DM knows. That's the point. He knew from the beginning before any actions were declared and resolved and then deliberately forced the resolution to that goal. That's railroading.
Have you ever played Dogs in the Vineyard? Any of the "Powered by Apocalypse World" games? HeroWars/Quest? Burning Wheel? FATE? Marvel Heroic RP? Even 13th Age?
Your posts in this thread are making me think that the answer to my question is "no". And that you are not very familiar with the dynamics of those systems.
If a player writes on his PC sheet, in one of those games, "My brother is my hero", then the player is asking - in fact,
telling - the GM to frame a scene in which that conviction is put under pressure. That's the point of those games; that's how they generate
story (in the strong, literary/dramatic sense of hat term).
This is not the
GM forcing his/her idea on the player - quite the opposite! It is the
player forcing his/her idea (namely, that the heroism of the PC's brother is an important topic of the story) onto the GM. Furthermore, there is no
railroad - there is no destination in which things end up. A question isn't the same thing as an answer. Finding black arrows in one's brother's workroom raises, in one's mind, the possibility that he was an evil enchanter even before he was possessed by a balrog; but it doesn't
settle that question.
Not only do I get the sense that you have no familiarity with these RPGs, or with the sort of playstyle that they are designed for, I also think that this is colouring the way you think about pre-authoring. By pre-authoring I don't mean coming up with ideas. I mean
establishing truths in the shared fiction, which are then used by the GM to
adjudicate outcomes in play. For instance, deciding that the mace is not in the tower
before the players roll the dice is an instance of pre-authoring (whether the decision is made a year, a week or a minute before). Thinking about what to do with the mace if the players fail the check, though, isn't pre-authoring in this sense (though it may be a type of GM prep, especially if done other then while playing at the table) - that doesn't determine the content of any fiction, or determine the outcomes of play. It doesn't pre-empt any dice rolls.
When you say that pre-authored material is no constraint, I don't know what you mean. If the GM is rewriting it on the fly, or inventing new material to counter-act the pre-authored material (eg s/he has pre-authored that, at such-and-such a place and time Oswald will shoot at Kennedy, but then only fly writes in an angel who blocks the bullet once it becomes clear that the PCs have botched the job of protecting the President), then it's still pre-authoring (ie establishing the fictional circumstances independent of action resolution), just pre-authoring on a shorter timeline.
Also, your equation of
established elements of the shared fiction with
pre-authored fiction is very strange to me. Elements of the shared fiction that are established in play aren't authored prior to, and as a constraint on, action resolution. They are outcomes of it! And when they are then used to help in the framing of subsequent scenes and subsequent action declarations, they are known quantities whose impact on the situation is determined before player resources are committed and the dice are rolled. This is not analogous to the GM deciding unilaterally that the mace is not in the tower, and hence that no matter how well the players roll on their Scavenging check they won't find the mace.
Because we don't have any actual play examples of railroading using scene-framing and "fail forward" techniques, and also because - at least in your case - I get the sense that you have basically no familiarity with those techniques in your own RPGing, I'm having a lot of trouble envisaging your conception of how it would work. You seem to be envisaging that whatever the player has written on his/her PC sheet about his/her PC's convictions and concerns, and whatever action declaration the player has declared for his/her PC, the GM - on a failure - narrates "You find yourself at the Misty Lake with your brother's hat at the top of the brothel stairs." I guess it's conceivable that a GM somewhere might run that game, but as I responded to [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] the problem with that game isn't railroading - no outcome has been determined or player action declaration thwarted. The problem with that game is that it's silly, boring and hence pointless.
Just a quick question... do you believe there is such a thing as a "neutral system" in that it neither hinders nor promotes any one particular playstyle?
Speaking for myself, I would say yes. D&D can be run very well with many different styles of play. It even goes out of its way to suggest a bunch of them.
Which version of D&D?
To me, this answer suggests that you haven't tried to run a non-exploratory, scene-framed/"fail forward"-style game (perhaps at all, certainly not using most versions of D&D). AD&D and 3E will actively push back against this. 4e generally facilitates it, but has a few well-known problem areas (eg the interface between the very abstract, non-granular skill challenge system and the combat system, which is very granular when it comes to space and time while at the same time being quite abstract in other respects, such as damage and healing). By default, 5e's emphasis on the "adventuring day" as a unit of balance and its seeming use of objective DC seems to be less friendly to it than 4e.
Just to give one instance: how, in D&D, do you handle a player making a roll to see if his/her PC can meet up with an NPC that the character knows from his/her past associates (ie an NPC whom the PC has not actually met or engaged with in actual play at the table)? The default is that the
GM decides whether or not such an NPC exists, and then either sets a DC reflecting further aspects of the fiction or just makes a roll (perhaps a % check).
How does that "run very well" for a scene-framed/"fail forward"-style game? I don't think it does.
You can work around it, eg by allowing Streetwise to be used as an analogue to BW Circles or MHRP's resource rules. But that doesn't tell us much about the "neutrality" of D&D. It just shows that you can graft bits of other systems onto D&D. By the same token, I could introduce encumbrance rules into BW if I wanted, using the D&D rules as a model. But that doesn't count as evidence that BW is well-suited to exploration-oriented dungeon crawling. (Which is why Luke Crane wrote Torchbearer.)
Just because the PCs can go in any direction, does not mean that exploration and discovery rule out over story, or story is lacking. I run a sandbox. Story is huge.
Funny. I run sandbox games and story is reliably generated all the time. People claiming otherwise just can't run a proper sandbox game and/or don't have players that are up to playing in a sandbox game.
I've never been GMed by Luke Crane or Vincent Baker, but I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt! I think they can run games pretty competently, and are playing with pretty high-quality players
I think that [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] is correct, and that you are using "story" to mean something a bit different from the sense in which these designers want their RPGs to produce
story.
