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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6784603" data-attributes="member: 2067">Yeah, the jargon-y problem is being difficult to lock down what it is or what it is for. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> But the Mt. Pudding example doesn't really dispel my concerns over the idea as a player or as a DM. That example posits that the intent of retrieving the pudding is something that is not really changing. Thus, it is related to my description of Umbran's "finding the secret door to fight the BBEG" - a "bottleneck" in that play can functionally proceed in only one direction (or be bereft of interesting choices/stop while we wait for someone to make a check/etc.). Though events happen on the way, the action is driven inexorably toward the pudding/BBEG, and this is accepted by all players as basically the ride you're on.  For my enjoyment, it is better to be able to be able to raise the question: what happens if I don't get the pudding/fight the BBEG? What possible actions are capable of potentially changing my intent, to use Manbearcat's verbiage? What would make Bob not want the Pudding, or make the Pudding forever unavailable to Bob, and how would Bob react? I like these questions because they produce interesting gameplay scenarios about character motivations - what do I want, what am I willing to do to get it, what happens if I can't get it - and leave the ultimate arc of the narrative in question (is this going to be a story where the hero does something heroic or a story where the hero fails to do something heroic?). Every challenge becomes a decision point - do I undertake this risk, or do I do something else? Do I want the pudding that badly? Less "How do I get the pudding?" and more "Do I even want to get the pudding?"It's an old acting trick - what is your motivation and how is this scene building to it? The pudding isn't important, but the reason my character wants the pudding is critical. "Fail forward" seems a bit more concerned with the Adventure to Get The Pudding or the Quest to Slay the Evil Thing than it is with The Story of Bob (who might like pudding and hate evil), which weakens it as a role-playing tool, IMXP. At least if Umbran and Manbearcat present it fairly. I might be using the term "bottleneck" in a slightly different way than you may be fearing. I've no fear of Fail Forward, no crusade against it. There's no value judgement placed on "bottleneck", it's simply an attempt to describe a player's meaningful options in a given scene.If the scene can lead in only one real direction (toward the pudding, toward the BBEG), that's a bottleneck/story funnel/railroad/arrow/directional movement/queue/roller coaster/flowing to the sea/waterfall/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. The end of the scene is: Bob is making progress toward the pudding. The end of the scene is never: Bob makes healthier choices about his diet. From your description and Manbearcat's description, that seems to be a core feature of Fail Forward - Bob is never just UNABLE to move toward the pudding (which would kind of paralyze play). Instead, Bob needs to decide HOW to move toward the pudding. I see the same problem - Bob's unable to move toward the pudding - and rather than solving it by allowing Bob to move toward the pudding (and deciding how), I'd prefer to solve it by making Bob's other options (to move toward the broccoli, to search for a secret door, to hang out at the inn, etc.) as equally appealing as the pudding. Even to the extent of having many other options, and no possible way to actually perform them all in the time allotted. Because to me, it's an interesting decision when your character has to question their goals, often more interesting than a character who just has hurdles in place of achieving their goals. I'm a big nerd, so my go-to is a project management metaphor. Fail Forward seems to be analogous to a waterfall model: a cascade of cause and effect that all leads to the ultimate goal of Your Character's Goal (the end product). The crevasse scene hands off to the ridge scene which transitions into the peak scene. I prefer a bit more of a spiral model or an agile model, with flexible goals (Do I really want the pudding?), risk assessment (what could go wrong in pursuit of pudding? What if I never get the pudding?), and iteration (can I get the pudding this way? Maybe that way? How did my last approach fail?). The end product here might not entirely be what we set out to create, but it is the product that arose from that creative process. The crevasse and the ridge and the peak are all there to charge into if you're ready, but you might fail any or all of them and have to go back and contemplate your pudding. The latter choice allows my character to achieve discrete goals, but also lets them shift goals or abandon goals or realize that a certain goal just isn't going to work for them due to the limitations of the campaign as it plays out. It also keeps the interesting decisions focused around which goals you pursue, which helps display a character's personality and motivation - what's really important? Those tend to be more interesting questions to me than "How do you get to the big bad?" or "How do you get the pudding?", by and large.</blockquote>

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