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

[TwoSix]

That's a fair way to run things but it's not at all what the examples were about.

That is not my reading of the examples at all.

 

[The Firebird]

That is not my reading of the examples at all.

In the lock picking, fail forward case: success means you get in, no cook. Fail means you get in, cook.

What you're describing changes success to you get in, cook, but you also skillfully avoid the cook.

For me that would be ok because it doesn't make the cooks presence dependent on your lockpicking skill.

 

[TwoSix]

In the lock picking, fail forward case: success means you get in, no cook. Fail means you get in, cook.

What you're describing changes success to you get in, cook, but you also skillfully avoid the cook.

To me, they both reduce to "success, no conflict; failure, conflict". The framing you put around them could possibly be of interest for determining next steps, but is generally just for color.

 

[AlViking]

Let's walk through the screaming cook scenario as I see it. The character's goal is to break into the estate to get a map. I'm assuming they've done a bit of investigation and decided to sneak in during the middle of the night when the risk of running into someone is at a minimum because breaking in during the middle of the day when everyone is awake makes little sense.

Fail forward:
Player: I try the door.
GM: It's locked, you'll need a [whatever is needed] to open it.
Player: Okay ... dang I only got a [some low number not good enough to pick the lock]
- the player knows they failed
GM: [ignoring the failure]. The lock clicks and you can open the door.
- the GM, who wants the characters to get into the house to retrieve the map, adds the screaming cook NPC
Player: I open the door
- the player now knows that there's going to be something bad, because of a bad roll they know the feces is flying towards the fan.
GM: There's a cook in the kitchen fixing a late night snack. They scream loudly enough to wake the neighborhood, what do you do?
- This to me feels contrived. More importantly, it's not really a surprise to the player because they knew something bad was going to happen.
Player: We go in [and deal with the screaming NPC, etc..]

My take? The players are forced into a specific set of actions and decisions because of a bad roll. They have to quiet the cook, it's going to be a quick smash-and grab to get the map. Meanwhile because finding the map is critical to the GM, the map has to be easily discoverable and retrievable. The GM is making a decision on how to form the narrative based on the failed roll, but also not interfering with the "find the map" goal. Depending on the game the GM may have had a tense scenario set up with protective ward guarding the map or similar in mind, that's no longer an option because there is no time in-game for it.

The way I would run it:
Player: I try the door.
DM: It's locked, you'll need a slight of hand check to open it.
Player: Okay ... dang I only got an 8.
DM: [looking at notes, the DC is 15]. The lock is just too tough for you, you can't open it.
Player: Dangit. We really need the map so guys, what was our backup plan? Anyone else have ideas on how to get in, or do we want to sneak around and try to find a different entrance? We only have a few minutes before the patrol will be by!

The players now have an interesting puzzle. Do they look for another way in knowing the guards will be by soon? Maybe the paladin can find a window and misty step through, although that will leave them potentially vulnerable. Perhaps the druid could shape shift and crawl under the door. The barbarian suggests the cleric cast silence and he busts the door down. Someone else mentions the kennel is connected to the house and that door is likely unlocked if they can figure out a way to quiet the dogs (they're always looking for a way for Animal Handling to be useful).

There are other options still available to them. Perhaps they could bluff their way into the estate or pretend to be collectors. For that matter maybe they decide the map is just not worth the risk at this point and they go on to pursue other goals.

For me this is more dynamic, fun and engaging. As a DM it may take a bit more planning or improv because I want some viable, if riskier, options. I have to think about what happens if they fail, the campaign shouldn't end because of bad luck. Meanwhile when it comes to the cook I may have even decided that there's a 1 in 20 chance that there will be someone or some pet in the back kitchen. But it will always follow the logic of the setting, not the narrative demands of a story. As a Gm I don't want to drive the narrative for the players, the world will respond to what the characters do but it's the players driving the narrative not me.

As always do what works best for you. Fail forward just isn't for me.

 

[The Firebird]

To me, they both reduce to "success, no conflict; failure, conflict". The framing you put around them could possibly be of interest for determining next steps, but is generally just for color.

Fair enough. But man I struggle with the term color as it's been used in this thread. The NPC is there or they aren't, and that matters. For me.

 

[Enrahim]

Sure, we can restrict it to "independent vs dependent". When you try to make less noise or lack care with light, you're doing something that has a causal relationship with encounters, so it makes sense for encounters to be dependent on them.

When you make NPCs existence dependent on lock picking skill, you've connected two things without a causal relationship.

I looked up the exact rule in question. In ShadowDark if your light go out, the environement become deadly meaning you roll random encounter every crawling round. This is about 2-3 times as often as more common. I have a hard time seeing the causal relationship that suddently make the cave a lot more crowded once there are no light around. Rather I would expect hostile creatures to be attracted to a light source that can be seen from far away. For a few encounters you could argue the strongly disadvantaged characters makes for a less intimidating target, but that doesn't fly with a lot of them.

Of course a good lock picker spends less time and makes less noise than an amateur; making there both being less time for the creature to show up, and less danger for anyone coming around to check out what is going on. Causal relationship stablished.

 

[FrozenNorth]

That is an enormous difference to some of us. The big one, as it were.

So, if you roll a cook on a random table, does it suddenly become less implausible?

The criticism that was made against « fail forward » was that a character picked the lock, and when a failure was rolled, the GM « created » a cook in the kitchen that noticed the break in attempt, with the character having to deal with the cook before they alerted the house.

I fail to see how that is meaningfully different from a trad game, where the character picked the lock, then the DM rolled on a random table and then the GM « created » the cook because that is what was rolled on the random table.

If anything, the second example seems more implausible: in the first, the GM is constrained by what is realistic, while in the second, they are constrained by the table, even if « table of things included in a random person’s home » includes things that wouldn’t reasonably be found in a kitchen.

 

[TwoSix]

Fair enough. But man I struggle with the term color as it's been used in this thread. The NPC is there or they aren't, and that matters. For me.

I mean, my settings theoretically have billions of NPCs that "exist" in the setting. But the only ones that matter are the ones that actually interact with the PCs.

 

[The Firebird]

I looked up the exact rule in question. In ShadowDark if your light go out, the environement become deadly meaning you roll random encounter every crawling round. This is about 2-3 times as often as more common. I have a hard time seeing the causal relationship that suddently make the cave a lot more crowded once there are no light around. Rather I would expect hostile creatures to be attracted to a light source that can be seen from far away. For a few encounters you could argue the strongly disadvantaged characters makes for a less intimidating target, but that doesn't fly with a lot of them.

Of course a good lock picker spends less time and makes less noise than an amateur; making there both being less time for the creature to show up, and less danger for anyone coming around to check out what is going on. Causal relationship stablished.

In Shadowdark iirc the monsters all have darkvision, so the light doesn't help them see anything. They avoid it as a threat.

In the cook scenario, if the cook was alerted to the intrusion by the noise made during lockpicking, that's not as much of an issue for me. But that's not what is happening in the scenario: the cook just happens to be in the kitchen because of the failed roll.

I fail to see how that is meaningfully different from a trad game, where the character picked the lock, then the DM rolled on a random table and then the GM « created » the cook because that is what was rolled on the random table.

What happens when the character progresses in lockpicking? The world lacks for cooks and the orphans go hungry.

I mean, my settings theoretically have billions of NPCs that "exist" in the setting. But the only ones that matter are the ones that actually interact with the PCs.

Like the cook?

 

[Pedantic]

My bolding.

I agree to the principle, but the devil lies in the fact that we in trad play doesn't actually specify what is the failure mode for the task at hand. And most tasks can have several failure modes. This is the ambiguity that typically allow for fail forward in traditional play. In other words, I reject the bolded assertion.

Take the player saying "I pick the lock". A success on the roll typically would be expected to mean quite a few things:
1: The door is now unlocked.
2: The character did it in a reasonable amount of time
3: The character stayed silent while doing so
4: The door was left reasonably unharmed.
Which one of these are of the player's primary concern is generally not stated. For instance you as a GM might think that managing 1, 2, and 4, but making a bit of noise is an appropriate ", but" on a just barely succeeded roll. However the player might actually have preferred the door to not be opened (they could have taken the windows anyway) over making noise.

As such the approach that allow for the least GM bias would be the stance that all of these expectations is fulfilled on a success result. But what then about the failure result? To on a failure narrate "After working on the lock until dawn, your character loses patience, screams out in frustration and kicks the door so it leaves a dent" might be hilarious once, but is not conductive of a game that tries to take itself at least a little bit seriously. Hence the sane response to what should happen on a failure is that at least one of the things that would indicate a success did not happen, but not necessarily all.

And this is the conceptual "loophole" that allow for trad-fail forward. If you free your mind from the idea that it has to be number 1 that is the primary concern in the resolution, you could allow 1 while rather having one or more of the other success criteria fail.

This has always just looked like incomplete design to me. Surely you could just list the time it takes to perform the action and what failure/success look like? Damaging the door and/or leaving traces are modifiers, making it easier or harder to achieve, and acting silently is clearly a general modifier to most actions, possibly paired with another skill check.

All of these parameters are just things you could write down in your lockpicking skill, making them known to players who can then decide how to apply them, which risks are worth taking at which times and so on.