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

[AlViking]

So media would tell us.

But then, media tells us that if someone is using a silencer, a gunshot won't wake someone in the next room, or sleeping next to the target...

There was a time when lockpicking became a bit of a hobby, you could buy kits, and boxes covered in locks to practice on. I didn't pick up the hobby, but fromsitting near friends who did... Picking a lock seemed to sound roughly like someone futzing around with a key in the lock.

I think I said that it wasn't completely silent, it was like someone using a key. On the other hand, if I have to be an expert on every single thing characters could attempt before I judge the results of an action I'm doomed as a GM.

 

[Umbran]

If that is the case, doesn’t the fail-forward GM have exactly the same amount of latitude to decide that the consequence of the failure is something that makes sense?

With the qualifier that there is no objective "makes sense", yes.

The lengthy discussion of a single example has largely overridden the fact that there are nigh infinite other scenarios to choose.

Don't like the cook? Make it some other complication.

 

[Enrahim]

Oh I couldn't disagree more. The important part is the open ended nature of goal setting, not undefined interaction. A robust set of rules, if anything, makes it clear what players can achieve with each action and in the rare cases an activity outside then comes up, gives the GM more to model a novel interaction on.

The last part here indicate we are not disagreeing at all with regard to the enumeration part? You open for novel interactions, which means you preserve the possibility of actions outside the set actually described by your system. Hence you are not enumerating actions in your system. (Maybe the confusion is in the term enumerate? My understanding of the term is that it involves listing up all possible actions so that you can theoretically give a number to each)

But, then how is this system not just as open to your criticism of being "incomplete" due to the requirement for the GM to come in and try to work as a designer modeling a solution based upon existing examples? That exactly the approach taken by basically all traditional RPGs?

And I really cannot understand your second sentence. I guess you are not claiming those playing tournament D&D modules with a scoresheet and defined conditions for getting points were not playing TTRPG?

 

[Faolyn]

Why can't it more consistently be "fail backward", though?

When breaking into a kitchen and failing the roll, why can't the narration be that a previously undetected alarm goes off, or that an unexpected electrical trap in the lock shocks the thief for [a bunch of damage, however the system does such things], etc.*, while - honouring the root 'fail' roll - the door remains locked? One of my favourites for such things is that the thief, thinking she was unlocking the door, has in fact just locked it i.e. for some reason it wasn't locked to begin with.

Because this doesn't move the game along or provide an interesting consequence. It's merely punitive. Or worse, if the thief had checked for traps and rolled well--yes, there are traps the thief might not be able to see, but you're making one up here on the spot for no reason other than to "fail backwards."

(The last one is, IMO, pretty dumb. You're assuming that part of the thief's door-checking routine doesn't involve checking to see if the door is opened. If you did that to me, I'd start narrating every time I inhale, just in case you decided I was holding my breath. I'd make a little recording and have it play on a loop.)

* - or even the old standby "the thief breaks her tools in the lock", but that one gets overused and thus a bit stale.

Lockpicks are very thin and fragile; having them break often is fairly logical, unless they're made of, like, mithril.

Ah, there's another place where I differ in philosophy from this lot: even the most competent people aren't perfect, and every now and then when under pressure they'll mess up on something they otherwise do consistently well all the time. The thief might pick that lock 100 times out of 100 while practicing in the guild hall, but the stress of doing it in the field when it counts - even if she has all night - might cause her to mess it up. And from all external appearances, that'll look like incompetence every time.

As for "no whiffing": even the very best hitters in baseball whiff on a fairly regular basis. Why should PCs be any different?

Fail forward takes this into effect. Here's something I found on an old reddit post, with the idea that the PC is chasing a mysterious assassin:

a. You lunge at the assassin, ripping off his cloak. He shrugs it off and makes good his escape, but now you have an article of his clothing and possibly a clue to his identity. (The player gets a new challenge/storyline)

b. The assassin turns around and throws a dagger at you. It is poisoned. Someone will need to identify the poison in order to cure it- a possible clue (A new challenge and the player gets more than she bargained for)

c. You lose track of the assassin in a dark alleyway. Suddenly, he lunges at you out of the shadows (The player gets put at a disadvantage, but gets another chance at her goal)

d. You grab the assassin and wound them. He struggles with you, quickly escaping your grasp. he scurries up a wall and looks down at you, bleeding. You get the sense he is memorizing your face. (The player/party now has a new antagonist, the nameless assassin is now a character.)

Note that none of these involve the PC automatically catching the assassin. What they all do is make the adventure continue to move.

When it comes to picking the lock, if there's no consequences for failure other than "nothing happens"--there's no deadline they have to beat, no monsters or guards that might find them if they take too long, nobody relying on them, nothing to learn from the lock itself, a failure simply means "nothing happens"--then why have them roll at all? Why not just say that the thief picks the lock? Having them roll, whether it's a failure or a success, is just a waste of time.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm just going to redirect you to my previous posts as I feel they answered all of these objections. Virtuous DMing balances improvisation and fixed content. (A table is fixed content).

So games that are primarily improvised are... not virtuous?

 

[CreamCloud0]

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?

In a fail forward scenario, if the players decide not to enter by the kitchen, there is also a 0% chance that the will encounter the cook.

okay i missed that the example was a random house they were trying to rob, but that doesn't actually significantly change the point i was making, the players announce they want to rob the house and maybe even also their intended method of entry via lockpicking, the GM now, in complete isolation of the lockpicking check, rolls to determine the inhabitant(s) of the house and their respective locations.

in said fail forward scenario the cook has a 0% chance of even existing if they don't enter through the kitchen, but the players may instead encounter the butler, or the lady of the house or, or, or..., none of which existed before a failed roll in their entry attempt, do you not see the difference? in the trad scenario the cook, the butler and the lady all exist in their set locations and can all be potentially encountered or avoided by good or bad decisions, not good or bad rolls, decisions, in fail forward none of them actually exist anywhere until a failed check calls for a complication and they pop out of the woodwork specifically to impede the players.

 

[Faolyn]

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.

You're hung up on the cook.

In lock picking, fail forward means, you get in, but there's a complication of some sort. Such as:

• you lose or break your tools
• you startle someone who is in the room and they make a noise, alerting others
• you cause an inordinate amount of noise doing so, alerting others
• you leave evidence behind that can be tracked to you
• you hurt yourself in the process
• someone sees you and doesn't immediately scream, but they can ID you later on

Pick one. There doesn't have to be a quantum anything; three of those results require nothing but the PC.

 

[LordBP]

So media would tell us.

But then, media tells us that if someone is using a silencer, a gunshot won't wake someone in the next room, or sleeping next to the target...

There was a time when lockpicking became a bit of a hobby, you could buy kits, and boxes covered in locks to practice on. I didn't pick up the hobby, but fromsitting near friends who did... Picking a lock seemed to sound roughly like someone futzing around with a key in the lock.

I would say modern locks don't create much noise when lockpicking, but a Medieval lock would be much louder as the components probably aren't as refined as a modern lock.

 

[Umbran]

Why can't it more consistently be "fail backward", though?

"Fail backward" would be, "not only did you not succeed, but now things are worse than if you hadn't tried at all."

You want a disincentive to trying things? You got one right there.

 

[LordBP]

Good book for older locks is below.

Locks and Keys throughout the Ages