NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6799702" data-attributes="member: 42582">I believe you are referring to the "Why does 5e SUCK?" thread.You were not given a hard time for suggesting that 4e has level-appropriate numbers. You were criticised, by some posters, for seeming not to follow the relevant techniques for narrating the fiction in 4e. Eg you appeared to assert, or at least imply, that the height of a given cliff, within the fiction, would be described differently depending on the level of the PCs adjacent to it. Whereas nothing in the 4e books suggests such an absurd approach to the gameworld, and I have never heard of any GM actually running the game that way.  [/threadjack]On topic, this point ties closely to the debate at hand.  I think there are larger issues than how to handle bad rolls which are mudding the water for this conversation.Of course, in the fiction, the mace is either there or is not. The relevant question is when that authorship decision is taken. In games that deploy "fail forward" in a systematic fashion there is no such thing as a "sideplot". The notion of a "sideplot" only has meaning in the context of there being a principal, non-"side" plot - one that (presumably) has been pre-authored by the GM.In the sorts of games that deploy "fail forward" in a systematic fashion, "the plot" is whatever results from adjudicating the players' action declarations for their PCs. If a PC has finding the mace as a goal, and the player declares that the PC searches for it, then the location of the mace has become a central part of "the plot". If the search check succeeds, "the plot" is what the player (and PC) wanted - namely, the PC finds the mace. If the search check fails, then the GM is at liberty to introduce a complicating or vexing "plot" (ie "fail forward) - such as, in this case, the discovery of black arrows in the ruins of the (formerly) private workshop of the (now) balrog-possessed brother.Something which I don't think anyone has raised yet is this: if, as a GM, I had no interesting idea about where else the mace might be other than in the ruined tower, it would have been just as reasonable for me to decide that, on the failed Scavenging check, the PCs find the mace and the black arrows. (This would be similar to the example that I mentioned some way ago upthread of the feather the peddler was offering for sale truly being an angel feather, as claimed, but having a curse on it.)But I didn't do that because I did have an interesting idea about where else the mace might be, namely, in the hands of the dark elf.This is a modest illustration of the general principle that - in "fail forward" play - consequences should be narrated in a way that maintains narrative and dramatic momentum.</blockquote>

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