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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6785484" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is absolutely spot on.Of course plenty of RPGers may not care for the sorts of game you describe. That's why "fail forward", like any other RPGing technique, is not the be-all-and-end-all for everyone.But for those who want to play a game where the players have strongly-held and defined goals, and in which there is a high degree of narrative momentum in relation to those goals - the *action* that you refer to - then "fail forward" is a very useful and important technique.Of course the GM is narrating consequences that s/he thinks are fun and interesting! What else would s/he do - narrate consequences that s/he thinks are frustrating and boring?Upthread, I noted that GM skill is important here. In Gygaxian play, some GMs are known for building interesting dungeons and others for building dungeons that suck. Likewise in scene-framing, "fail forward" play - a good GM is able to build trust that s/he will narrate interesting and engaging consequences. Of course, these games also tend to use lots of devices for players to send signals to the GM as to what is interesting to them, which the GM is then expected to have regard to in narrating consequences. This is part of what I was gesturing at when, upthread, I mentioned that the consequences are not just spun from whole cloth.As to whether or not the consequences of failure are spelled out, and perhaps negotiated, before each check - as I also mentioned upthread, with reference to both the rules and GMing advice for BW, this is an issue of table practice, GM/player rappor, the vibe of the moment, etc. But even in your example - if the player would have preferred his/her PC to fall down the ravine, then nothing is stopping an action declaration to that effect: "I jump down the ravine after my divining rod, hoping to catch it like Gandalf does Glamdring in the opening sequences of The Two Towers film."A lot of this I don't think I fully follow. But there seem to be some assumptions that don't quite make sense to me.First, on goals and failure: in 4e, the odds of failing a given check are typically between 10% and 50% (depending on details of difficulty, build, etc). And a given session has many checks. In BW, I feel from play experience that the odds of failure are generally higher than this (though the maths of dice pools, and the extreme variability in PC builds, makes it harder to calculate typical odds of failure). And again, a given session involves many checks.If each check raises a serious prospect of failure, and each failure raises a serious prospect of changing goals, I don't see that dramatic arcs are going to arise. Dramatic arcs, especially in adventure fiction, tend to be generated by failures that are incurred while resolutely sticking to a goal. For my own RPGing, major dramatic arcs tend to unfold over many sessions - perhaps a year or two of play. Having the goal of attaining the pudding on Mt Pudding be abandoned because of a single failed Climb check doesn't strike me as very conducive to the sort of play I'm interested in.Second, on goals and success: there is no guarantee that the PC will attain the pudding on Mt Pudding. "Fail forward" is a guarantee of *action* that is oriented towards or arises out of the dramatic themes and framing. It is not a guarantee that any paticular goal will be achieved. I posted some actual play examples upthread: the PCs in my BW game, instead of escaping the orcs unscathed and getting to explore the pyramid the orcs were heading towards, had to regroup to a tower in the Abor-Alz so that there injured party members (following a scathing by the orcs) could rest and recuperate.Third, on INPUT > STUFF HAPPENS > OUTPUT: doesn't that describe every episode of RPG play ever? Maybe you are assuming that there is no connection between the OUTPUT and the STUFF THAT HAPPENS? But why would you assume that?Fourth, on meaningful failure: losing the diving rod is meaningful. It makes it harder to get the pudding. If, at the end of the campaign, the PC nevertheless got the pudding then we might say, in retrospect, that losing the diving rod didn't matter. Just as, at the end of LotR, we can see (as can Frodo himself) that losing the mithril coat didn't matter. But that doesn't mean that, at the moment of loss, it's not meaningful. After all, how do we know there won't be another troll with a spear, just as there was in Moria?The reason, in [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example, for narrating a loss of the divining rod rather than a fall into the chasm is because, at the table Manbearcat is inviting us to imagine, being dead at the bottom of the ravine is likely to bring an end to the arc that no one would really enjoy, whereas losing the rod is a failure - the PC no longer has the apparatus for easily obtaining the pudding, even should s/he make it to the summit - which pushes into new interesting play.As for the questions you ask - the fate of the diving rod, the actions of enemies, etc - they are for play to determine. The loss of the rod creates new (and dramatically salient) fiction to be incorporated into new narrations, not unlike the example of the mace from my BW game, that I've mentioned upthread.The goal is to climb the mountain and get the pudding. Losing the divining rod is an impediment to this goal, just as falling down the ravine would be. It is a failure.If you focus only on task and not intent, then you may not see it as a failure. But in "fail forward" games, intent is as important as task. I've already mentioned the BW rules and advice on this several times upthread.The action does stop when the rod is lost, in the sense that that is the narrated consequence for the failed check, and now the player has to declare a new action for his/her PC. Maybe s/he dives into the ravine after the rod (or tries to climb down in search of it). Maybe s/he keeps going to the top without it.In the latter case, the GM may well not call for a roll, if there is no sense of any more interesting consequences resulting from the climb, and the real action is in trying to recover the pudding without the rod. That would be an instance of "say yes or roll the dice", which is another technique fairly common in scene-framing, "fail forward"-type play.To me, this implies that a rod can be lost when a character falls due to a failed climb, but a rod can't be lost without the character also falling, because there is (in D&D) no separate mechanic for determining whether or not gear is lost on a climb.In any event, reiterating that, for you, the only stakes to a Climb roll are "Do I climb or do I fall" is a clear reiteration that you don't like "fail forward"-type techniques. Key to "fail forward" is that the stakes are governed by intent as well as by task.</blockquote>

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