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

[Micah Sweet]

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.

The table would not include such things or, if it did, such results would be ignored in favor of something that made more sense.

 

[Maxperson]

I also use Binary as I've said way upthread.

PC: I'm going to try and pick the lock.

AnotherGuy: Okay, the DC is 1-0-1-0-0.

 

[Pedantic]

For sure. The bulk of the issue is that a large subset of players don't like the idea that the GM is just "making things up"; they don't want to see any sort of narrative "contrivance". They want to imagine the setting exists outside of the shared playspace at the table.

Techniques that let the table see the sausage being made, as it were, and that the setting is just the GM imagining things aren't appreciated. The pain of the "quantum cook" is being reminded that the GM is just making stuff up.

I think that's slightly reductive, that's also part of a set of principled restrictions on the GM's power, and it's part of the board state players make moves on. There's more going on than just moving some imagination from prep to at the table.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Well, my world is more than a bubble surrounding the PCs and their interests. Making and populating that world is a major source of fun for me not just in the campaign, but in the hobby.

 

[AlViking]

I've no idea the relevance of this point.

You said that things would come to an end because there are multiple check and multiple points of failure. I think adventures almost always have different checks with potential failures along the way. It's how we deal with those and keep the game moving that matters.

If you mean there should always be multiple avenues to your goals, I don't agree. I think it's often preferable, but sometimes the fiction is such that there might only be one way. Maybe it's bad form and a social contract violation to run a scenario where that might the case, but it's easy to imagine fiction where that is the case. Generally players just have to pick a new goal when that occurs.

The characters goal was to obtain the map unseen. Don't any of the failures here mean that goal wasn't achieved?

Even if the players don't achieve their goal there will always be other options. If their goal is to get a map and they can't, they'll have to find some other way to get the information they're looking for. If they can't find another option they'll have to pursue some other completely different goal. Failure is always an option, failure doesn't mean the game ends because I don't run a linear game.

 

[Yaarel]

If that's the case and it's not just something that moves the story forward, then it's very much a railroad technique. The DM is pushing the players down a specific path, even if it's one they want to be on.

A published adventure presumes objectives for the players to accomplish. If players decide to achieve different objectives, elsewhere, then the DM would be designing a new adventure, and no longer using the published adventure.

There is a difference between a "railroad", where the players are trapped inside some fantasy that the DM (or the publisher) is having, versus the players having a sense of self-determination.

Adventures are, by definition of a story, how to accomplish a new desire. An objective. Ultimately the objective tends to achieved in a surprising way, which is why it hadnt been already achieve earlier.

 

[Maxperson]

A published adventure presumes objectives for the players to accomplish. If players decide to achieve different objectives, elsewhere, then the DM would be designing a new adventure, and no longer using the published adventure.

There is a difference between a "railroad", where the players are trapped inside some fantasy that the DM (or the publisher) is having, versus the players having a sense of self-determination.

Adventures are, by definition of a story, how to accomplish a new desire. An objective. Ultimately the objective tends to achieved in a surprising way, which is why it hadnt been already achieve earlier.

Players opting to get on the rail doesn't make it not a railroad. If everything the players do propels them down the same path towards the same goal no matter what they try or whether they succeed or fail, that's a railroad,

If your interpretation of Fail Forward is true, then narrative play is far more likely to end up railroading the players than traditional play is.

 

[zakael19]

When I run any of my games right now, if a PC “fails” a roll the first question in my head is: given the fictional circumstances and stakes established what happens next. Even when I make a move that’s not immediate (a clock, advancing a Grim Portent), it’s always going to tie back to the events and obstacles at hand in a reasonable way.

What I simply no longer wish to ever see, having recently tried OSR style play to validate, is a style of play where people say they want to try something, it fails, and they look at each other and go “well now what” and we lose real life time off our lives to a bunch of boring ass back and forth with no movement. My life is too valuable for that (I say: posting to ENW).

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, it doesn’t. You’re changing the example to justify your conclusions.

The example was that a rogue PC unexpectedly decided to break into a random house for cash. In both examples, the DM needs to come up with a resolution on the fly.

So, when the DM rolls on a random encounter table and gets a cook, how is the cook any less « created out of thin air » than in the fail-forward example?

Because the cook is there regardless of the player's roll.

Haven't we been through this?

 

[FrogReaver]

If there's nothing particularly challenging about entering the house, there really shouldn't be a roll. The DM should just narrate the entrance and play should go from there.

Define particularly challenging? It’s doing a lot of work here.

Players opting to get on the rail doesn't make it not a railroad. If everything the players do propels them down the same path towards the same goal no matter what they try or whether they succeed or fail, that's a railroad,

If your interpretation of Fail Forward is true, then narrative play is far more likely to end up railroading the players than traditional play is.

Linear does not equal railroad