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

[hawkeyefan]

The cook could be there. But it was clear from the example that the sole reason she was there was because of a failed lockpicking attempt. That may not matter to you, it matters to me. It would matter if this kind of thing happened on a regular basis.

What can I say, the GM adding in a complication completely unrelated to the action attempted isn't something I want. I should have probably said "random-ass-stuff" but there have been so many veiled and not-so-veiled negative comments about people who don't use fail forward that it gets a tad annoying after a while.

And none of the comments made here since pointing out why the example you sited was incomplete or how it could be made to work have done anything? I mean, maybe they haven't changed your mind, but you can at least onboard the information and stop describing things as "unconnected" and "random" and so on.

And "random-ass stuff" wouldn't really be any better. Know why? Because... again... a cook in a kitchen isn't really random.

I think we're in broad agreement here, though the devil is in the details.

Where I prefer the granular approach, within reason, as it helps keep things that should be unrelated (e.g. the pick-locks attempt vs whether the cook is awake or asleep) separate.

Again, those need not be unrelated. If you're picking a lock in the real world, what are some of the possible consequences?

I would think that they would include any number of the following:

• failing to open the lock
• damaging the lock in some way
• damaging the lock pick in some way
• being discovered while picking the lock

These are all things that when someone decides to pick a lock, they're going to be worried about in some capacity.

None of those consequences, if they're realized, are unrelated to the lock picking.

If the GM doesn't roll for the NPCs then who does?

In some games, the players make all the rolls. The ones I've had the most experience with recently are Blades in the Dark, Stonetop, and Spire. Each of them allows for degrees of success depending on the outcome of a roll. Critical Failure, Failure, Success With Complication, Success, Critical Success.

So depending on the outcome of the roll, the GM has NPCs act accordingly. Sometimes this is dictated in specific ways. When you "Clash" in Stonetop, for example, you roll 2d6 and add your Strength stat (ranging from -1 to +3). If you roll a 6 or less, you're taking your enemy's damage. On a 7-9, you hit your enemy, but they also hit you. On a 10+ you hit them, and you can either avoid their attack or choose to do some extra damage.

In Spire, you roll a dice pool of d10s based on applicable stats and situational factors. You'll roll anywhere from 1 to 4 dice, and keep the highest roll. If it's a 1, you suffer your enemy's attack and take twice the normal damage. On a 2 to 5 you fail and suffer your enemy's attack and take damage. On a 6-7 you succeed and inflict damage to the enemy, but also take theirs. On an 8-9 you succeed, inflicting damage and taking none. On a 10 you inflict double damage.

In these kinds of games, it is expected and required that a dice roll does more than mitigate just the task of the PC. The game won't function if that's not the case since the GM never rolls. This is why some folks, notably @Campbell , have cited how poorly the thief/cook situation works as an example. It assumes so much about the way the scenario is constructed and presented.

Not everything an NPC does is going to be known to a PC or even relatable - and here the cook is a fine example: if the thief never gets into the kitchen then he has no way of knowing whether the cook was awake or asleep; relevant in that if she was awake and heard someone trying to break in she might report this to someone in the morning, where if she slept through it then everyone's none the wiser.

Personally, I'd have hinted at the presence of the cook (or someone) beyond the door before the roll was made. Part of making Fail Forward and similar techniques work is telegraphing things... establishing stakes before the roll is made. A flickering firelight seen beneath the door, the sound of footsteps, or someone humming while they work... anything like that, and then the cook is just "offstage" but ready to be introduced.

Instead, it seems to be with failed rolls adding new information which was unrelated to the check to the narrative. For example, the lockpick fails, and now there is a cook. What's-his-names song doesn't make him feel better and therefore a guard shows up. That sort of thing.

Again, you're failing to acknowledge everything that has been said about that example since it was first shared.

The consequences here are logical--a cook could be in the kitchen, a guard could hear a song--but they aren't part of the check.

Why not? According to what game?

For me, they easily can be... even if I'm playing D&D.

 

[AlViking]

What I replied to, about adventures, was this:
And that characterisation is (in my experience) not accurate for Burning Wheel.

Burning Wheel play is not about overcoming a series of obstacles in order to succeed at "an adventure". That is the "finish line" model I've referred to upthread, and gets things the wrong way around as far as Burning Wheel is concerned. Burning Wheel play starts with a situation - presented to the players by the GM - that in some way speaks to or puts pressure on some player-authored concern/goal/aspiration/relationship/etc of the PC(s). That prompts the player to declare an action for their PC. Which results in something happening - the situation changes, the GM says new stuff, and it goes on.

Or even an "adventure" that is pre-conceived but not written down in a literal sense. It's the idea of "obstacles to be overcome in order to reach the finish line" that I'm saying is not applicable to BW. And I think not applicable to Apocalypse World either.

Which is why I was clarifying that the term "adventure" may not apply to any and all games. I can't possibly know or list the proper term for every game in existence.

 

[James Gasik]

Of course, maybe we shouldn't be asking for a roll to open the lock in the first place. I don't know about you, but most of the time if you fail to open a lock, you just try again. Most locks don't break or summon guards if you fail to open them in the real world...

 

[The Firebird]

Personally, I'd have hinted at the presence of the cook (or someone) beyond the door before the roll was made. Part of making Fail Forward and similar techniques work is telegraphing things... establishing stakes before the roll is made. A flickering firelight seen beneath the door, the sound of footsteps, or someone humming while they work... anything like that, and then the cook is just "offstage" but ready to be introduced.

Again, you're failing to acknowledge everything that has been said about that example since it was first shared.

We've talked about this and I believe I have taken it into account. My mental model is "roll is 7-9, GM performs a soft move to introduce a cook using the established fiction of the kitchen. They ask the players how the respond, only moving to a hard move (yelling an alarm) on a failure". Am I still missing anything?

Why not? According to what game?

For the kind of game I'm interested in playing.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Of course, maybe we shouldn't be asking for a roll to open the lock in the first place. I don't know about you, but most of the time if you fail to open a lock, you just try again. Most locks don't break or summon guards if you fail to open them in the real world...

Again, this depends a lot on the game. This is one of the reasons that "nothing happens" is seen as an undesirable result by some.

However, personally, even when I'm running trad type games, I don't allow multiple checks for the same action, or dogpiling by every member of the party. So when there's some kind of situation in D&D that may call for an ability check, I have the players decide who is best equipped and capable of making the check, and that's their guy. If he fails, that's it.

I typically have more happen on a failed check, but I'm sure there are times when I don't, as well. In those instances, they can't just sit there and retry over and over. If that was the case, then I don't even have them roll at all in the first place. Or if I do, it's not a success or failure roll, it's more to determine how long the action takes or similar.

We've talked about this and I believe I have taken it into account. My mental model is "roll is 7-9, GM performs a soft move to introduce a cook using the established fiction of the kitchen. They ask the players how the respond, only moving to a hard move (yelling an alarm) on a failure". Am I still missing anything?

If we're playing a game like Stonetop, and the soft move on a 7-9 was to say that the character picks the lock, but then comes upon the cook inside... then I'd ask what they do next. Depending on the result of that roll, I'd then inflict consequences accordingly, depending on what the characters did. A 6-, though, and yes, I'd likely hit them with a hard move and have the cook scream bloody murder.

For the kind of game I'm interested in playing.

Perfectly understandable preference.

 

[The Firebird]

If we're playing a game like Stonetop, and the soft move on a 7-9 was to say that the character picks the lock, but then comes upon the cook inside... then I'd ask what they do next. Depending on the result of that roll, I'd then inflict consequences accordingly, depending on what the characters did. A 6-, though, and yes, I'd likely hit them with a hard move and have the cook scream bloody murder.

Right, this is what I described. Is my understanding accurate, then?

 

[pemerton]

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.

OK. So if the break-in is in the middle of the night when the house is quiet, why would the GM use a cook as the complication? As opposed to, say, a watchman?

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.

Three things here:

(1) Why are you saying the GM is ignoring the failure? You say that the player is cognisant that the failure will have a consequence. You go on to describe the GM giving effect to the failure. So how is it being ignored?

(2) Why does the player have the option not to open the door? Or to put it another way: if the roll is not to go through the door but simply to unlock the door, then why is the GM not brining home failure at this point. You are separating roll from consequence here in a manner that makes no sense to me.

(3) Why does the GM want the character to get into the house? You seem to be describing a railroad game. In Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World, the GM should be following the principles of those games, not the sorts of principles that govern something like a D&D adventure path.

So in these 3 ways your example to me shows a misunderstanding of "fail forward" as a technique.

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..]

And here your misunderstandings compound. Your complication doesn't follow from the fiction - why is the cook in the kitchen in the middle of the night? Your consequence is not connected to the resolution, as you have brought it home based on opening the door, not based on the failed test.

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.

This just makes no sense to me, full stop. What is the specific set of actions? Suppose that, in a bog-standard dungeon crawl, a PC is crossing a river on a fraying rope, and the relevant roll (Use Rope, Climbing, rope-tensile strength roll, whatever the game in question calls for) fails. And so the GM narrates the PC falling into the river. Does that count as the players being forced into a specific set of actions?

And in your cook example, can't the PCs - murder the cook? bribe the cook? befriend the cook? kidnap the cook? charm the cook? trick the cook? etc etc.

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.

I don't really follow this either. You seem to be describing a railroading GM who is bad at railroading: who wants to push things towards some particular event (dealing with a ward guarding a map) but who clumsily defeats their own railroading by introducing a cook encounter that gets in the way. I don't know what any of this has to do with "fail forward".

 

[Maxperson]

To be fair, simple whim might drive the players to choose an alternate path. I'd argue part of the point of playing a TTRPG of any flavor as opposed to another kind of game is that there are never just two paths.

That is true. In my experience, though, players rarely leave the road to go into the more dangerous wilderness without some sort of incentive. In all likelihood, they'd have gone down one path or the other unless told that the ogre frequents both roads.

 

[pemerton]

If your issue is that fail forward means we're no longer in task resolution / sim mode, cool. You do you. An example of what fail forwards looks like is not needed to make that point.

But if your issue/point is that fail forward means the results will lead to inconsistent or implausible fiction than I'm going to say that depends on how the GM frames both success and failure. I don't think providing an example of a GM making a poor framing choice is all that condemning because there are all sorts of coherent moves/framing choices that will be available in any circumstance. Choosing to use examples where we are juxtaposing poor fail forward GMing to experienced trad GMing is not fair and incredibly misleading (and I am much more concerned with the misleading part).

<snip>

I'm also not really sure why our examples are always the sorts of conflicts that are much more likely to be seen in exploration-oriented play. I cannot remember the last time a locked door was relevant in any of the games I run or play.

Agreed.

Upthread I think I posted this play example:

Our last session ended with Alicia and Aedhros sitting out-of-the-way on the docks, Aedhros quietly singing Elven lays. I had set as homework for my friend to determine what trouble might result from this, to be the start of our next session of this game. It turned out that, despite having over 20 months to do his homework, he hadn't!

<snip>

After a bit of prompting, he decided that a petty harbour official came up to Aedhros, telling him to move on and stop begging. (The singing being treated as busking, and hence a type of begging.)

Aedhros's response was to sing a short verse of the Rhyme of Unravelling, breaking the official's belt with the result that his pants fell down. I decided that Aedhros kept singing, sufficently to give me a test to cause the official intense sorrow (this is the Dark Elf version of Wonderment from spell songs). The official - Will B3, we agreed - fell to his knees weeping bitterly, in remorse for all his pointless past actions (including his harassment of Aedhros).

The encounter with the harbour official is not an "obstacle" that Aedhros has to overcome in order to succeed at "an adventure". Nor is it a puzzle to be solved.

It's not something on the way to the real point. It is the real point.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, basically only one very specific game mechanics is acceptable and all other variations are simply wrong because they're different. As I say, conservatism is frustrating, lol

How do you know the detailed nighttime behaviors of random cooks? This is a detail you invented.

Well, yes, the quantum ogre is an illusionist tool, and the cook is not. So what? I don't label the cook either quantum nor illusionist. You guys invented this issue, not me. I've stated my position.

Wrong for the person, not wrong in general. Why are you so "exhausted" by dealing with people who don't like what you like?