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

[chaochou]

Upon her character failing to force open a ground floor window, I introduced an open window on the second floor.

i don't know how you live with yourself and your quantum windows. Madness.

The open / closed / locked / jammed / broken state of all windows must be tracked at all times.

 

[pemerton]

What really “fails forward” IMO is the scene and the fiction. It’s not “fail succeed,” it’s a conscious avoidance of “nothing happens.”

Daggerheart defines it like this

FAILING FORWARD
In Daggerheart, every time you roll the dice, the scene changes in some way. There is no such thing as a roll where “nothing happens,” because the fiction constantly evolves based on the successes and failures of the characters.
​

It would have been great if an experienced Burning Wheel GM had been posting for the past many pages that "fail forward" is a label for resolution where "nothing happens" is not an option . . .

Where Daggerheart is incomplete is that it misses the other aspect of "fail forward"/"no whiffing", namely, that failure need not be narrated as incompetence on the part of the acting character.

And it's clear from the rest of the text, examples, actual plays, that failure can mean you don't open the lock. The designer's purpose seems similar to that of 5e i.e. "consequences resolution". What I wonder is if others take fail forward to properly include not opening the lock (as an option), just so long as there are consequences?

Would that be like Aedhros trying to kidnap someone, but failing and thus giving rise to word on the streets of a knife-wielding assailant? Or would it be like Aedhros wandering into the wealthy part of town where the Elven Ambassador lives, quietly singing the Elven lays to himself, but instead of centring himself and meeting welcoming Elves, instead being harassed by guards?

Maybe it would be like Jobe hoping to receive a job offer from the sorcerer Jabal, only to have Jabal send his thug instead to tell Jobe to leave town because he is "marked" (by a cursed angel feather). (An example that I posted way upthread.)

Or perhaps it would be like Jobe and Tru-leigh trying to sneak into Jabal's tower via the catacombs under the city, but instead getting lost, so that their rival - whom they had drugged - regains consciousness and is able to out-race them to the tower.

I feel that many, many examples have been given in this thread. What they all have in common is that none of them involves "nothing happens". And in some of them, although the player's roll failed, the character didn't act ineptly.

 

[Enrahim]

Because there is one very obvious and always-present consequence of failure, namely that you can't get through the locked door to whatever it is you want to get to on the other side.

I think the point of the example was that there were nothing in there preventing infinite rerolls.. The detail that fixes this for most trad is that "nothing to learn from the lock itself" is typically not true. In most trad you get to learn that the lock is beyond your abilities (until you level)

 

[Lanefan]

The "failure" is the metagame result of not meeting the target number, not so much the narrative result.

The number on the die is there specifically to inform the narrative result, isn't it?

I just thought of another fun example of "failing forward": damage on a miss.

Yeah, another hideous mechanic that needs to die in a very hot fire and for the same reason: fail = fail.

 

[pemerton]

In a fixed world game, the estate will have a list of inhabitants and their locations. If the cook is encountered as a wanderer, then they wouldn't be encountered elsewhere. The cook existed already, the roll just determines where they are encountered. This is different than the roll determining their existence.

This "fixed world" game is in my view a very distinctive thing:

Now maybe there is a type of contemporary play that eschews wandering monsters, or at least eschews them in the classic form, and that aspires to track the movements and actions of all the beings that exist in the setting. That would be less "quantum". But as you note, there are at least some prep-oriented posters who also seem to use something like random encounters in their games. Those are just as "quantum".

In my experience, which when it comes to random encounters is based on the B/X and AD&D rulebooks, wandering monsters tend to be regarded as coming from what is - for game play purposes - an endless supply of such beings.

 

[zakael19]

Where Daggerheart is incomplete is that it misses the other aspect of "fail forward"/"no whiffing", namely, that failure need not be narrated as incompetence on the part of the acting character.

No, it has that elsewhere like all good games of this sort. I just didn’t want to quote the entire set of GM stuff and make a huge post!

 

[Hussar]

Easy. I know the party is going to be traveling through a forest for three days. So I roll random encounters for all three days prior to the session ever starting. I know what the random encounter will be, when during the day it happens, what direction it is coming from, and so on.

A day is a day. If they are in the forest, the random encounter is happening at 6pm that day, whether they are futzing around looking for herbs or traveling straight through. Random encounters are not preset encounters with a specific location, but rather a specific time. They wander into the group, which is why they are also called wandering monsters.

With regard to the cook, I've established through rolls that she is going to be in the kitchen from X time to Y time, then she is going to bed. If the party shows up during that time period, they will encounter her regardless of their pick locks roll. If the show up outside of that time period, they aren't going to encounter her, even if they fail the roll. She is a preset encounter, not a random one.

Still not quantum, because a preset encounter remains in that location whether they ever go there or not. It's existence is not based on whether the party wanders there.

Nothing about what I am saying is quantum. Nothing is based on whether the party does something or not in order to be in a particular spot or time.

So those trolls might be at any location the party happens to be at a particular time.

But they’re not quantum? Right.

 

[pemerton]

An adventure normally intends for players to achieve certain objectives, even if in a nonlinear, sandboxy, way.

So, while "fail forward" "does not have to open the lock", the "forward" part of the term implies guiding players toward an objective, even if by means of a different path.

This is not accurate. Or, rather, it is a taking of a term coined to describe a technique for a complete different type of RPGing, and then applying it to railroad-y play.

Depends on how they approach the obstacles, but aren't most adventure scenarios a series of obstacles?

In the RPGs I'm familiar with that make the exclusion of "nothing happens" an important part of play - Burning Wheel, Sorcerer, Apocalypse World and some similar games - there are not adventures.

I've already made this point in relation to BW, and you can see it in the examples that I've posted.

 

[Lanefan]

Also, I've always looked at random encounter tables as a list of people/creatures that can be encountered in the given area. The roll doesn't conjure them into existence... they were always there... it just means that they're now right here, where the PCs are.

On this much at least, we're in full agreement.

The only time a roll might in fact conjure them into existence is if-when there's a spawner or gate or random summoning involved; rare, to be sure, but I've DMed all of these in the past at some point(s).

 

[AlViking]

This is not accurate. Or, rather, it is a taking of a term coined to describe a technique for a complete different type of RPGing, and then applying it to railroad-y play.

In the RPGs I'm familiar with that make the exclusion of "nothing happens" an important part of play - Burning Wheel, Sorcerer, Apocalypse World and some similar games - there are not adventures.

I've already made this point in relation to BW, and you can see it in the examples that I've posted.

If not adventures than ongoing narrative development or whatever term you think appropriate. Another game could call it a series of tests or some other verbiage. Doesn't really change anything.