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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7056056" data-attributes="member: 42582">Yes. I posted that in my first reply to you, and have reiterated since.The issue of "dead end" failure and the issue of "railroading" are independent. As I said in the post you quoted.I don't understnd what you mean. Failing the check means that the PC (and hence the player) does not get what s/he wanted.The consequence of failure is established by the GM - as I posted, it might be expressly stated in framing the check; it might be implicit in the situation; it might have to be worked out by the GM after the roll is made. Narrating a failed consequence is an exercise in framing, in drawing out implicit strands and elements in the game that might be pushing against the PC and brining them to the fore, at the centre of the action.This is why I find [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s suggestion that a computer could do it, or [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]'s suggestion that it crushes GM creativity, rather odd. Those are completely at odds with my experience. It can sometimes be quite a challenging thing, to hit upon the right failure consequence for a given check.One example I may have already mentioned in this thread is the following: Jobe the mage and Tru-leigh the naga-serving spirit summoner, knowing that Halika the assassin would try and kill the unconscious mage that night, fed her a sleeping potion before seting out through the sewers and catacombs to find their way into the tower (so that they could take the mage from the tower for their own purposes). But they failed their check to make their way quickly through the catacombs; and so, as time passes, they find themselves under a grille and Halika's voice calls through, taunting them: the consequnce of failure is that they have spent so long wandering through the undercity that the sleeping potion has worn off, and Halika now has a head start on her way to the tower (in the fiction it's already been established - in a previous session - that she's spent a week casing the place, so there's no question that she can make her way there without getting lost).That is failure - as per my recent reply to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], it's not "success with complication". The PCs don't get to the tower unopposed by Halika. Instead, she has the head start (in mechanical terms, a bonus die).The failure isn't just conjured out of thin air. It has none of the non sequitur quality of "rocks fall". It draws on the established fiction of the game, but also puts a new twist on it that is adverse to the PCs, and thereby the players (in this case, the sleeping potion, instead of being an instrument of success for the two PCs, becomes a symbol of the division between the two of them and Halika).It's probably worth noting how this example connects to the ideas of "no failure offscreen" and "no determination of consequences by reference to the GM's secret backstory": the relationship between the PC's travel time and the duration of the sleeping potion effect isn't worked out by comparing GM's charts and maps. Rather, it's narrated as a result of the players' failed check.The game is not lacking in backstory and interconnection between events. But they are established via play, not via pre-authorship.As I said in reply to [MENTION=89537]Jacob Marley[/MENTION], what is key is that even low DCs are set when the action pivots upon simple but crucial deeds. Some of these will fail (due to bad luck; due to poor bonuses; etc). Framing the check even when failure is unlikely is part of establishing an overall tone and feel.</blockquote>

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