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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6777993" data-attributes="member: 7006">I agree a good number of players who use various story-forwarding techniques might be those of us who are of the improvisational or &quot;lazy DM&quot; types. This was mentioned earlier by someone about the game philosophy differences between the wargaming-leaning type of player, and improv/roleplaying type of player.&nbsp; Us in the latter camp... more often than not I don't have situations where the &quot;failure&quot; is actually defined ahead of time.&nbsp; I'm improvising as things come up.&nbsp; So for example, if a door is locked... I have not necessarily determined what the &quot;failure&quot; is when dealing with this lock.&nbsp; Is not opening the door a potential &quot;failure&quot;?&nbsp; Sure.&nbsp; Is alerting someone on the other side a potential &quot;failure&quot;?&nbsp; Absolutely.&nbsp; Is the door actually a mimic in disguise?&nbsp; Who knows!&nbsp; Maybe!&nbsp; In all of these cases... if the potential player tries to pick the lock and does not reach the DC I arbitrarily create for it at that time... more often than not i'll just improvise whatever results I can think of based upon the roll, where the players are at in the story, what's still to come.They are &quot;failing forward&quot; per se, because while their die roll was lower than the DC I set, what happened as a result of that keeps the players advancing their story.&nbsp; But I'm also not &quot;railroading&quot; them, because I'm making up the successes, failures, and consequences on the fly.I freely admit this type of DMing flies in the face of a good number of other styles of DMs.&nbsp; But I'm okay with that.&nbsp; And which also explains how I can have absolutely no real bother or concern for when someone like DMMike says with authority and passion that failing forward is the hallmark of the railroading DM.&nbsp; I'm sure for his particular style of gaming, he's absolutely right.&nbsp; But as I have absolutely no conception of what his style is, I can't get bent out of shape that he has no concept of mine (wherein failing forward does not equal it.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 6777993, member: 7006"] I agree a good number of players who use various story-forwarding techniques might be those of us who are of the improvisational or "lazy DM" types. This was mentioned earlier by someone about the game philosophy differences between the wargaming-leaning type of player, and improv/roleplaying type of player. Us in the latter camp... more often than not I don't have situations where the "failure" is actually defined ahead of time. I'm improvising as things come up. So for example, if a door is locked... I have not necessarily determined what the "failure" is when dealing with this lock. Is not opening the door a potential "failure"? Sure. Is alerting someone on the other side a potential "failure"? Absolutely. Is the door actually a mimic in disguise? Who knows! Maybe! In all of these cases... if the potential player tries to pick the lock and does not reach the DC I arbitrarily create for it at that time... more often than not i'll just improvise whatever results I can think of based upon the roll, where the players are at in the story, what's still to come. They are "failing forward" per se, because while their die roll was lower than the DC I set, what happened as a result of that keeps the players advancing their story. But I'm also not "railroading" them, because I'm making up the successes, failures, and consequences on the fly. I freely admit this type of DMing flies in the face of a good number of other styles of DMs. But I'm okay with that. And which also explains how I can have absolutely no real bother or concern for when someone like DMMike says with authority and passion that failing forward is the hallmark of the railroading DM. I'm sure for his particular style of gaming, he's absolutely right. But as I have absolutely no conception of what his style is, I can't get bent out of shape that he has no concept of mine (wherein failing forward does not equal it.) [/QUOTE]

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