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="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7055564" data-attributes="member: 29398">And in a system that doesn't use d% for pretty much anything any more, your chance of failure is more likely to be 5% anyway (1/d20); making failure yet more of a possibility.But - and not to pick on you at all [MENTION=89537]Jacob Marley[/MENTION], it's just your post triggered some thoughts I've had percolating for a while - this raises a tangential and much bigger question:What's so bad about outright failure?It seems from reading some posts here - particularly [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], though I suspect he's just putting it more eloquently - that straight failure is something to be avoided at all costs.  Say yes, roll the dice, and fail-forward, but never straight-out fail.  Why not?1. Overly-sensitive players who can't handle being told "no"?  Let's for the sake of sanity hope not, and dispense with this one right now; players like this aren't what anyone needs and if you have one (or worse, more than one) you have bigger problems, and my sympathy.  That said, a player coming from a say-yes-or-roll-dice system might be in for some culture shock...2. Saying "no" is a railroad?  Not true at all.  Sometimes "no" is a fact of life, both in reality and in the game, and there's no harm in it.  My somewhat silly example upthread of finding previously-nonexistent diamonds only because I look for them and force a roll is case in point: the answer should just be "no" without a roll.3. Saying "no" breaks continuity, or is a dead end?  There's no reason why it should be provided the players/characters can think on their feet and come up with a plan B.  Example: "Is there a cup in the room to catch the blood?"  "No."  "Fine, I'll tear off some cloth - from my own clothes if I have to - and soak it with the blood..."  That, and sometimes dead ends are also a fact of life - the characters are trying to do something that simply cannot be done given their current state/resources/abilities and they really need to give up and try something else.  Saying yes or rolling dice in these situations only serves to provide false encouragement.  And, sometimes there just isn't a plan B....And I can hear it now: "a dead-end scene shouldn't have been framed in the first place".  Well, why the hell not; particularly if it's the players who did it.  Example: party hears passing talk of the Ruins of Fortune and sets out to explore said Ruins for whatever reason; they get a certain distance in then hit a choke-point door they simply cannot open, beyond which lies the meat of the adventure (which, by the way, is probably more than they can handle at their current level).  The door has 100% magic resistance, the DC to pick the lock is somewhere in the lower stratosphere - they're stuck.  Meanwhile you as DM are gnashing your teeth; you know full well they were going to get stuck here because they ignored every clue you could give them suggesting they go to Verbrugge the Giant's Hold first, and Verbrugge's got the key (he uses it for a toothpick).  So, the players have marched themselves into a dead end.  That's life.  That's D&D.Lan-"sometimes the right answer can only be found by trial and error, which doesn't work if error is not an option"-efan</blockquote>

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