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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6784759" data-attributes="member: 2067">If the goal of Mt. Pudding is to get the coin hidden there, then any result that still provides me an option of getting the coin doesn't feel like a very meaningful failure to me. If what is happening is still INPUT("I want the coin")->STUFF HAPPENS->OUTPUT("I get the coin."), in broad strokes, the STUFF that HAPPENS doesn't affect the end result much (though it could flavor the getting there - maybe it's miserable and barely eked out, maybe its easy and it's triumphant, but no matter how miserable it gets it'll always be possible). That can make me feel powerless as a player - like my struggles, rather than helping to define my story, are rather meaningless (making my successes also rather meaningless - there's no challenge when there's no fail state). If there is a potential for it to be "I want the coin"-> STUFF HAPPENS -> "I don't get the coin and can't try again", then the STUFF that HAPPENS is meaningful, meaning my struggles and my successes within that STUFF are meaningful, too. My impression, from Manbearcat's example and Umbran's example, is that "I don't get the coin and can't try again" isn't a potential outcome of STUFF HAPPENS using Fail Forward. Specifically because me not getting the coin is "stopping the action." I fail to find the secret door and I can't fight the BBEG or I fall down a ravine and die and I can't get to the top of Mt. Pudding or I drop the divining rod which is the only way to find the coin...these are not possible outcomes of the STUFF that HAPPENS, however grim that STUFF may be, because those outcomes mean I will not be pursuing the goal of "Slay the BBEG" or "Get the Coin" or "Climb the Mountain." That option not being there is what I describe as a "bottleneck," or what might be called the waterfall or the flow to the sea: the goal doesn't change. Meaning that it's not really as interesting for me to play through.Oh! AND:I might argue that it isn't, actually. At least not from a player's perspective. The character probably seeks that, in-character, but the player seeks complications and difficulties that they can then overcome (or fail to overcome) to show off the personality traits and fantastic abilities of their character. The player wants to roll dice and do math to defeat challenges. An easy climb to the top, while it might be what the character has in mind, probably isn't satisfying for a player (too easy, too uninteresting). The old example of failing a social interaction so that it degenerates into combat is handy here - when the incentive is toward combat (either directly, through things like XP, or indirectly, through robust systems that allow the player to control dynamic interactions), degenerating into combat isn't a punishment, it's more fun for the player (even though the character might've sought to avoid that). Difficulty itself isn't a disincentive, it's something you WANT as a player. At least until it becomes so difficult that your goal can't be realized.But the examples of Fail Forward so far don't seem to comfortably accommodate a goal that can't be realized, so that level of difficulty would also seem to be off the table, if you're applying the design logic of Fail Forward.</blockquote>

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