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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 6199970" data-attributes="member: 386">I think that's fair. I put my 3E campaign on hold because I wanted to play Burning Empires again.  BE is kind of a "fail forward" game, where you can succeed at your task but fail at your intent.One of the most important duties for the DM in BE is to make sure that failure is interesting.  Usually that means having failure create some tension or pressure on the PC's Beliefs (which are both philosophical beliefs and goals).  When a PC gets into a conflict, the DM states the results of failure on the check: "If Basi fails to gather evidence pointing to the hidden location of the kidnapped Chamberlain, then the Contre-Duke is going to question whether or not Arkady really has the connections he brags about, and he won't grant Arkady the contracts to build the new bio-dome."That example probably deserves some explanation:[sblock]Arkady is the PC, who had a Belief that went something like, "I deserve to rule this world, and I need to gain legitimacy to do so.  I'll leverage my privileged position of friendship with the new Contre-Duke to get him to provide me with exclusive contracts to build the new bio-dome."  Probably more concise.The Contre-Duke's Chamberlain (!) had been kidnapped by another PC's henchman, who was prepping him for torture.  (Poor Chamberlains.)  This is why I didn't use a more "fail-forward" failure condition: if the task (find the Chamberlain) succeeded, it would have ruined the other PC's yet-to-play-out scene.Basi is Arkady's henchman, who was using his connections (Circles) with the working class and security agents, along with his detective skills (Investigative Logic) to find the kidnapped Chamberlain.  Basi successfully Circled up some NPCs - the player told me who they were - and their information gave him a bonus to his Investigative Logic check.Basi was unable to put it all together, so when Arkady met with the Contre-Duke, the Contre-Duke questioned Arkady's competence and didn't give him the contracts he was hoping for (these contracts were outside of his station; they went to the merchant League and other nobles).[/sblock]Anyway, while that isn't a good example of failing forward, it shows how you put tension on a failed check.  Fail forward might have been something more like this: "Okay, so if you fail your check to find the Chamberlain, you'll still find the Contre-Duke's Chamberlain, but he'll already have been tortured and beaten, his loyalty compromised, and the Contre-Duke will question whether or not Arkady really has the connections he brags about, and he won't grant Arkady the contracts to build the new bio-dome."Or the Chamberlain might have been found on a failed check, but dead by that time.  Or whatever would put pressure on the PC's Beliefs.  This is where the "art" of DMing really comes into play in these types of games.Anyway, failing in these types of games is more about change to the situation and the PC's relationship to it than anything else.  You might be able to try again to convince the Contre-Duke to grant you those contracts to build the new bio-dome, but failure means that the situation has changed.  Now you have to respond to the changed situation.  In my experience, this makes PCs (and NPCs) more and more desperate, which I think leads to more interesting fiction.For instance, I can imagine that Arkady (the PC) keeps trying to gain the Contre-Duke's favour, continues to fail, the consequences of failure keep ramping up until the most satisfying resolution to the situation is the death of one or both of the characters.</blockquote>

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