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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7512685" data-attributes="member: 42582">A complicating factor here is that AD&D doesn't really have an action resolution system! There's combat which has its own fairly detailed system; there are thief abiliites, which at least as presented are purely task resolution except perhaps hide in shadows; and there are some rules for dealing with doors and traps.Fail forward depends on there being a player intent behind the action declaration, which the GM then draws upon to establish the failure. In AD&D, you might be able to use ability checks or similar to resolve actions and adjudicate them in a fail forward fashion - but this would be complicated by the pretty ad hoc gating of certain capabilities behind non-weapon proficiencies.And a comment on GM-force: if the GM is providing the intent of the action (eg deciding what will be gained by opening a door, listening at a door, searching for a trap, etc; this goes back to [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s post upthread) then success with complications tends to mean that the intent is realised but something bad accompanies it; and the "badness" is also a reflection of the GM's intent as to where the "plot" should go. You find the clue, but break your thieve's tools in doing so or You open the door, but make a loud noise.That is quite different from "fail forward" as I'm putting it forward in this thread, which is about player-established intent.And on 4e skill challenges - because there is a defined structure for resolution, the way "fail forward" works is a bit different. Within a challenge, success can't be total or else there would be no need to go on - it can either be partial success, or DW 7-9 style "one step forward, one step back", or any other sort of change to the fiction that both (i) respects the success and (ii) maintains the pressure on the PCs (and thus the players) to act. And within a challenge, a failure can likewise be (partial) success with a cost, or just making the situation worse (like DW 6-) - the change to the fiction should (i) give voice to the failure, and thereby (ii) amp up the pressure on the PCs (and thus the players) to act, while (iii) leaving overall success a possibility. Whether a failure inevitably changes the stakes of the challenge (eg take some damage on a failure; make a lasting enemy on a failure) is up for grabs from challenge to challenge, I think, though it probably adds to the sense of "heft" if failures carry weight beyond the resolution of the challenge rather than simply affecting the colour and framing within it.To elaborate on that last comment about framing within a challenge: a success within a skill challenge should make it more feasible for the players to declare the sorts of actions they want to - it reflects the PCs taking control of the situation; while a failure in the challenge should make it harder for the players to do this, and increase the pressure on them to declare actions that they don't want to (eg the wizard finds him-/herseld needing to take some physical action). And as per the previous paragraph, this is something that is independent of the question of whether failure generates enduring consequences.(To elaborate further with reference to Burning Wheel: in BW both the melee combat subsystem (Fight!) and the social conflict subsytem (Duel of Wits) operate a little bit like a skill challenge. Failures in Fight! generate lingering consequences - injuries - as well as impacting the framing of downstream declarations within the combat. By default, though, while failures in DoW impact the framing of downstream declarations within the conflict, they tend not to generate lingering consequences - eg affects on reputation or relationships - unless the GM introduces some sort of consequence outside the formal resolution framework.)In a 4e skill challenge, the ultimate outcome should respect fail forward: if the PCs succeed then their intent is realised; if they fail, then the GM needs to narrate a situation in which they don't get what they want, but stuff that they (and their players) care about is still able to be engaged.In a fail forward game, if the upshot of resolution is that the GM establishes fiction in which nothing the players/PCs care about is present, then the campaign is over! The PCs have resolved everything that mattered to them in the context of the game.</blockquote>

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