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

[Xetheral]

But not if the successful distraction of Thoth grants a bonus to the subsequent roll to not alert him.

Very true! But I don't think that's pertinent to my argument. A subsequent roll to avoid alerting Thoth doesn't have "nothing happens" as a possibile outcome on a failure in the first place, so there's no need to apply Fail Forward techniques to avoid such an outcome.

 

[Xetheral]

I want to call out a few properties this example is having that the (silly) example that has been discussed before have, that can be educational for how to properly handle fail forward in a trad system:
1: The fail condition is known ahead.
2: The fail condition involve the door not being unlocked (it is a "real" fail).
3: The fail condition make full sense in the fiction as a consequence of failing the action.
This is still fail forward as "something" is happening on failure.

I think that with these properties as a requirement, fail-forward should work fine as a recommendable principle in traditional play - with a lower priority than the principle of allowing risk mitigation.

Rather than characterize Fail Forward as a "recommendable principle in traditional play - with a lower priority than the principle of allowing risk mitigation" (and I greatly appreciate the inclusion of that final caveat, by the way!), what would you think about recharacterizing your proposed advice as:

"If these conditions are met and wouldn't undermine any of the PCs' previous choices, Fail Forward can be a useful technique in traditional play in cases where the GM wants to avoid 'nothing happens' as a potential outcome."

I see my suggested wording as having two advantages: (1) it avoids any hint of prescription by omitting the word "recommendable"; and (2) it generalizes the caveat about risk mitigation to avoiding undermining PC choices in general.

With those changes, I think it's more likely that your excellent observation about the conditions for using Fail Forward techniques in traditional games would be broadly acceptable to GMs with a traditional focus.

 

[Faolyn]

but 5e first players seem to glaze over when you try to present them with a fully developed skill system, so I think I might be out in the cold.

Really? I've never seen that. Except, possibly, in cases where a "fully developed skill system" ignores bounded accuracy.

 

[Faolyn]

And this makes loads more sense than what I saw earlier, which implied that the roll couldn't be modified by anything the character did in the fiction. That it can puts to rest many of my concerns with at least that part of it.

OK, I know I've said that the roll is modified and there can even be ad hoc bonuses for prep and equipment.

 

[Faolyn]

Shouldn't teaching also include how to deal with failure?

Shouldn't teaching actually teach to keep trying after a failure?

Which isn't something that usually isn't allowed in RPGs.

 

[Faolyn]

It's not about failing the dice roll, it's about how to deal with the fact that you fail sometimes because we all fail sometimes. Do you get upset or just accept failure, figure out what went wrong and try a different approach?

In any case I'm not going to argue about it I just don't see the issue being failure, it's how you deal with failure. If you never fail we might as well be handing out participation trophies.

Except that this is about failing die rolls, not the premise of the campaign. They can still fail to stop the BBEG or evil ritual or apocalypse. Failure in that actually has meaning and purpose.

Failure in opening a lock? Not so much.

 

[Enrahim]

Rather than characterize Fail Forward as a "recommendable principle in traditional play - with a lower priority than the principle of allowing risk mitigation" (and I greatly appreciate the inclusion of that final caveat, by the way!), what would you think about recharacterizing your proposed advice as:

"If these conditions are met and wouldn't undermine any of the PCs' previous choices, Fail Forward can be a useful technique in traditional play in cases where the GM wants to avoid 'nothing happens' as a potential outcome."

I see my suggested wording as having two advantages: (1) it avoids any hint of prescription by omitting the word "recommendable"; and (2) it generalizes the caveat about risk mitigation to avoiding undermining PC choices in general.

With those changes, I think it's more likely that your excellent observation about the conditions for using Fail Forward techniques in traditional games would be broadly acceptable to GMs with a traditional focus.

Yes. Some minor nitpick. With "recommendable" I meant it might be something that it might be possible to formulate a recommendation to use. You just made such a formulation

The more controversial point is that I feel like the last condition (the GM wants to avoid 'nothing happens' as a potential outcome) is a bit too passive. You are already stating that it is a "useful technique" which indicate that it is not a requirement in any situation. So I think the advice is stronger if it promotes its intended usecase/purpose a bit more agressively. Something like: ".., Fail Forward can be a useful technique in traditional play for preventing the game to stall."

Regarding undermining PCs previous choices. To me it isn't obvious what that would entail? It is clear from the context that it includes previous risk mitigation, but without this context I think I wouldn't recognize that. Risk mitigation appear to be the obvious case of this technique working against player agency, so I think it would be clearer to have a reminder about this particular potential conflict. Or is there anything else in particular you have in mind? In particular anything that is still needed to be mention given that the integrity of the fiction should be ensured by criteria 3 (The fail condition make full sense in the fiction as a consequence of failing the action)

 

[Campbell]

The example I quoted only focused on one particular skill check failure. Obviously there could have been other checks, or not. If the character(s) had looked before they attempted to open the door there would not have been any indication of anyone inside but that could be easily explained. Perhaps the windows are shuttered or similar, perhaps they didn't think to look.

Just as obviously there are stakes to breaking into a house that were not explained in detail but "stakes" do not matter to me. I don't think in terms of "stakes" so I do not care. Please stop telling me I'm doing it wrong if I do not share your approach to gaming. If there is impending danger and risk I will decide what the players know based on what I think the characters would know.

I am not playing a narrative game. I don't want to run a narrative game. As DM I'm providing the setting that I think provides plenty of opportunity for adventure. If there's a dog inside and they listen at the door as a precaution, they may hear the dog. If there's a chef inside, they may hear the rattling of pots and pans. Except in the example I found there was no dog nor was there a chef until the lockpick check failed.

I understand where you're coming from but no amount of explanation is going to change how I run my game. I do not understand why you care that your preferred style would not work for me, I know I don't care how you run your game. I do what works for me, what works for my players. I see no reason to add fail forward techniques when we have fun with the game we're running and I don't see fail forward having any benefit. If it makes sense in the fiction that a failed check complicates things, it will.

Sometimes clarification isn't about arguing a point or however you and others choose to play. Often it is about accurate representation of the craft of both game designers and the players of these games. It's about not spreading a false impression of how stuff works. This is why very few responses to you have addressed your premises or preferences. It's the justification that presents a reductive view of techniques, games and styles of play you do not care for that gets responded to because that is the part of your posts that is flawed.

You might not care about stakes, but most implementations of fail forward do - so not representing that is part of your example does a disservice to the technique and what resultant play actually achieves and looks like in active play. Not including it will of course lead to a disjointed view of how these techniques operate out in the wild.

When you say stuff like "not real failure" and "not connected to what the characters are doing" but fail to include an accurate account of how these things actually function expect to get responses. It's not about how you wish to play. It's about how you represent the way other people play.

 

[Lanefan]

There's wrong stuff here.

Gamist =/= mechanics. Gamist = treating the game as a game. For example, the player knowing and using weaknesses, AC, etc. for monsters the PC would have no way of knowing about. Mechanics exist in games of all types, not just gamist ones.

Not so sure on this. Your example of "gamist" is nothing but player-side metagaming.

To me, gamist design wants to put the mechanics front and centre and gamist play embraces that, while non-gamist design tries to move the mechanics out of the way where it can and non-gamist play doesn't look to mechanics first for in-fiction solutions.

Simulationist =/= sandbox. You can in fact have a sandbox game that doesn't attempt to be simulationist and is gamist or narrativist. And you can have a non-sandbox game that attempts to simulate things to a great degree.

With this, I agree. The linear-sandbox spectrum is unrelated to whether the game being run or played is S or N or G or any combination of those.

 

[Faolyn]

<pedantry>

I want to segway this into something I have been thinking quite a bit about lately. How to feel out what players expect to happen. It is the classic "which way should the flag on a sailboat flag flap?" The realistic answer is in the direction the ship is moving (more precisely, the wind is blowing), but some video game designers found that this caused too much cognitive dissonance with players used to motor boats where it flaps backwards.

It's "segue."

Segway is a brand name for those scooter things.

</pedantry>