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="grendel111111" data-source="post: 6802153" data-attributes="member: 6803870">It isn't about plot control. My games very rarely have a "plot" but are more "setting" that can be explored with many factions, events and "happenings" The players choose what they do within the world, not the DM. But there are some truths that the players may not know and have not been articulated yet. I have run games where there has been a "plot" the players were unaware of. My "next" game was like that. The characters were in a bubble world that had been created to protect the last of "humanity" from a demon incursion that had destroyed the world, but so much time had passed no one had any knowledge of what happened in the old times, or why boats never came to the ports because they had fallen into disrepair from generations of not being used.The game for the players was not just telling the story of the characters, there was real mystery to solve. Why did things not behave the way they expected them to? Why did the time mage lock them in? Why is the bubble collapsing? Is there a way to the outside world? How could they restore the outside worldNow clearly this is not the style of game for everyone and I got the buy in that this was the kind of game I would be running. I thought it would be a fun interlude for 2-3 sessions, and it ended up running for 6 months. The game was really engaging for the players that I had at the table, because that extra layer of players solving a mystery as well as telling the characters stories.  Other players may not have got it at all.I think this is a key difference between the styles of games. Are the checks about what the characters want or what the players want. For me discovering the characters brother was always evil is good for the characters (now they have more info to fight the demon) but bad for the player (my characters brother is lost). I would tend to see it as a good thing and so the discovery would happen on a strong success, or more likely spread over many smaller successes. Fail forward games work because they are built to account for it in the way the skill systems work, bringing it into something like 5e involves adapting the skill system to be closer to how Fail forward focused games see skills. But that doesn't mean that there aren't thing in fail forward games that other games won't benefit from (which is what I am looking for)For me complications don't come from failed skill checks, complications happen to everyone, your skills/abilities/powers are how you deal with the complications when they happen.</blockquote>

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