D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Eric V]

Hard as it may be for you to get it, there are plenty of games where, within the range of events you've chosen to get into, the risk of losing a character to a bad die roll is not considered to interfere with fun. We get that you don't feel that way, but I don't think acting like its a completely ridiculous position is doing this conversation or you position any favors.

Sure, if it's a CoC-type game, where people going nuts/dying is part of the genre, fine. Players approach the genre with genre expectations. Thing is, even within that genre, the character death from insanity is meaningful in the genre; it's radically different from rolling a 1 while climbing the cliff.

 

[AlViking]

You are no longer arguing the same thing. The argument was about death through a random roll, not player choice. I said myself that even though combat is a series of rolls, players can always choose to retreat.

P.S. The way you phrased your response was fairly illuminating, and explained your position on this topic quite well.

If I have a situation where a single roll (or even a handful) would guarantee the character's death I'll let the player know ahead of time*. After that it's up to them what they do.

*There are exceptions to every rule, including this one of course.

 

[Eric V]

If I have a situation where a single roll (or even a handful) would guarantee the character's death I'll let the player know ahead of time*. After that it's up to them what they do.

*There are exceptions to every rule, including this one of course.

Those are what I am talking about, unfortunately.

 

[Pedantic]

Now, maybe you don't find it boring. OK, whatever. But "this is a thing I like" is very different than what you've actually been doing, which is trying to claim a game works differently than it actually does.

I'm doing no such thing. I'm pointing out a consequence of fail forward design, a thing it cannot do, not offering advice on how a game featuring it should be played. If you don't care about evaluating the quality of the players decisions, it does not matter.

That's only true if you think of an RPG as something you can "win". Which... they're not. RPGs are pretty famous for being games you can't win; you can only enjoy playing them.

Getting into what "winning" is in general and in an RPG specifically feels like a much bigger discussion, but it roughly maps to the evaluation of goals thing I keep talking about. Taking it at face value, I don't really care if the players win or not. What I'm driving at is that players should be trying to win, and that should look different than players trying to lose or not being concerned either way.

All I can say is that you're working from profound ignorance on how these games actually run. You may want to actually read some thoroughly, or even play one.


Again, you're completely misunderstanding how these games work.

I'm not laboring under some misapprehension about the purpose of these mechanics. I'm saying "I have this other purpose within the umbrella of playing an RPG and this mechanic cannot serve it, and here is why."

And no, it would not be ideal if "nothing happens" is the best result because that is the most pointless and boring result. What it does is turn those types of games into people rolling the dice until they happen to roll high enough or low enough or whatever before they can continue--Lanefan's example of spending 2.5 sessions, each multiple hours long, on getting past one door. That is such a waste of time

That's a totally different design question, solved a totally different way. I don't find Lanefan's answer "players get to roll once" particularly good, but it does meet that design brief. I'd point towards take 10/20 earlier as a better model, and I'd tend towards more absolute effects that don't have a dice component at all if I were building from scratch.

Having to roll only to find out either nothing happens or you win is not a system that sounds even remotely interesting to me.

If "winning" is a question of a single die roll, the design is flawed in a whole new way.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure, if it's a CoC-type game, where people going nuts/dying is part of the genre, fine. Players approach the genre with genre expectations. Thing is, even within that genre, the character death from insanity is meaningful in the genre; it's radically different from rolling a 1 while climbing the cliff.

I'm not talking about CoC (though its not unrelated); I'm talking about games where a critical hit is potentially lethal. People still play these and accept the risk (which they can mitigate in various fashions but not eliminate). And yes, that can happen to a character in long play too in many cases (though its usually somewhat less likely).

My point is "I don't want to lose a character I've developed a long time to dumb luck" is a valid position, but its not a universal position, and you just need to accept that. Even among those who prefer that to not happen, there may be other elements of a game it can happen in that balance it out.

 

[AlViking]

Perhaps you could keep it to the actual principles involved, rather than providing play examples that do a poor job of reflecting the actual nuances of other playstyles. Because it's not about what you do or do not like, but accurately portraying the things work when people have a firm handle on how to do this stuff in order to avoid people getting the wrong idea of how play actually looks. Perhaps we could start by assuming competence on everyone's part. That this isn't about proving that one way is better than another.

What have I misrepresented? You keep making accusations, you don't clarify and you don't provide any examples that better represent what you feel is correct. I do not care what you do in your game and I have no way of knowing what it is you do because you won't say.

Instead my only options are to read up on multiple descriptions of what fail forward mean to various people and then you tell me it's not correct? Really? What other option do i have? In the example of opening the lock the goal of the scenario was to find a map but as far as I'm concerned their goal and the stakes do not matter one iota because the screaming chef only existed because they failed a check. I don't think in terms of stakes because that's not the type of game I'm playing or want to play.

From what I've read I don't care for fail forward. If you use something in your games that you term fail forward that doesn't match what I've found feel free to share. Or not. The one example that I thought had a logical consequence was failing a check to bust down a crumbling brick wall, taking damage and being temporarily restrained by the fallen bricks. Not sure I'd use that but at least it was a logical consequence of the declared action.

 

[pemerton]

Who says any of us care what Luke Crane (or Gary Gygax, or Ron Edwards, or or or) have to say about this?

Someone upthread asked what "fail forward" means, and what it looks like in play. I thought I would answer them.

If you think they ought not to have asked the question, please chide them.

 

[pemerton]

If the character hadn't failed to pick a lock there would have been no screaming chef. The only reason the chef exists in the fiction is because of a failed check. If that's not clear enough there's nothing else I can say.

Hang on, so now you're back to quoting some random website?

I don't see why I should take it seriously as a guide to how to play RPGs.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, it's a consequence of failure. If you succeeded, you wouldn't suffer the complication. Eg if you get to the top of the cliff in time, your friend who is to be sacrificed at the appointed time will still be alive.

I don't know what this means. The complication is an event, so I'm not sure what you mean by saying that it "exists only because of the failure".

I mean, if I lose a D&D combat, my PC is dead only because of the failure. That was the point of rolling the dice! If someone - the GM? - has already decided what is going to happen next, why are the dice being rolled?

I think he's talking about the differences in the two playstyles.

In our playstyle, the climb is its own discreet event and is not connected to getting to the top in time. You can fail and possibly still make it in time with a second climb or different method, or you could succeed in the climb and still not make it in time to save your friend.

In a narrative game the focus is more on the goal than the method. You're rolling to see if you make it in time to save your friend, and/or see how the PC reacts to success/failure to do so. The climb is almost incidental to that, so the resulting complication from a failure to succeed at the climb is going to be aimed in some way at the goal of rescuing the friend.

 

[TwoSix]

Hang on, so now you're back to quoting some random website?

I don't see why I should take it seriously as a guide to how to play RPGs.

Does that website not have…authority?