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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6786394" data-attributes="member: 85870">Just a thought on this, hopefully not too far off on a tangent --- A game's mechanics can definitely lean one way or the other to point out to players and GMs how binary or fluid "failure" should be.  For example, I don't recall anywhere in the D&D 3.5 PHB or DMG there being references to non-binary failure. As in, "One failed check may not mean 'total failure,' it may merely mean a complication has arisen," etc. etc. Well, as a consequence, one of the things that happens when binary pass/fail is the default mode of resolution is players start looking for ways to guarantee sucess when making checks. When hard failure is failure, you tend to find ways to alleviate that problem. As a result, in 3.x the only reliable indicator to a player that a character will succeed at a task is the bonus number associated to the relevant skill or check---the natural result being that players power-gamed the heck out of the skill system to increase the bonus numbers (further exacerbated by the fact that D&D has never really supported a "bell curve" model for probability).To lead away from this kind of circular "system building," your system either needs to incorporate broader levels of competence across skills (this is Savage Worlds' approach, and I think 4e's as well), directly incorporate more granular levels of success/failure in resolution (Savage Worlds also does this to a small degree), or influence GMs to build granular success and failure into scene frames with codified scene-resolution mechanics (the obvious example being skill challenges in 4e).Anyway, my real point is that "fail forward" mechanics are a "looped in" process that may have a number of general side effects on system development.To @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=29398" target="_blank">Lanefan</a>'s point, how binary is that "failure" to climb the mountain?Interestingly, 4e seems to at least unconsciously address this with skill challenges ---- Reading between the lines, the 4e skill challenge mechanics seem to be a clue to GMs that they should be very careful about using binary pass/fail situations for framed scenes, and do something more nuanced.</blockquote>

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