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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6798020" data-attributes="member: 85870">Interestingly, though, for purposes of this thread, highly granular process sim doesn't preclude a GM from using "fail forward" techniques if they so choose. Such an approach would seem to cut against the purpose of using a granular process in the first place, obviously, but you can still use "fail forward" regardless. But to your real point --- I think the vast majority of conflicts that arise over a particular action or scene resolution probably occur because the GM and players disagreed on what was at stake---not because the resolution mechanics "failed them." No RPG resolution mechanic is ever going to satisfy participants if the player and GM have differing ideas about what particular actions/consequences "mean" in context of the scene. From this perspective it's easy to see why combat traditionally gets so much focus in RPGs---because the GM doesn't have to do ANYTHING to set the stakes; death is always an assumed stake. This has always been my problem with GURPS, frankly. Playing GURPS rules-as-written never seems to result in the "payoff" promised in the presentation of the rules. To really get what the players want out of it, they either have to A) powergame the crap out of it to get their characters to even remotely resemble what they see "in their head", B) drastically reduce the level of granularity (the whole idea of BANG! skills from GURPS 4e comes to mind)---but then why are you playing GURPS in the first place?, and/or C) make liberal use of "fail forward" techniques / GM fiat to simply keep things running . . . and then once again, why are you using GURPS in the first place, when there's so many other systems that do this so much better?*Edit -- I just read [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s follow-up reply, and now I'm wondering --- is "fail forward" inherently antithetical to process sim? Is there any "coherent" way the two can reasonably co-exist?</blockquote>

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