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

[Maxperson]

There is no way to know if a guars would have arrived onna success. He doesn’t know that. We don’t know what didn’t happen.

YOU don't know. WE know.

If the guard would hear a singing failure, he also hears a singing success. He is in the same spot. The song is at the same volume. His perception is the same for both. We don't have guards who have their ears closed if the roll to sing was a success, or who are only there on a failure.

 

[Maxperson]

In actual play, do you really call for that many checks? I mean, I have a preference for task resolution over conflict resolution, but that seems excessive. It's pretty much setting the PCs up to fail on sheer probability.

I've answered this twice now and you'll get to those posts shortly I think.

 

[The Firebird]

Hello folks. I have something to add. There is an argument being presented that it is not meaningful to ask "what would have happened on a success", because the player does not know. Therefore there is no awareness, from the player perspective, of 'weird correlations'. I quoted some posts but will put them at the end.

I want to bring in my own experience. As a player, the first games of BitD I played were really enjoyable, even though the GM was using these weird correlations, because I didn't quite get them at the time. There was enough of a disconnect and enough of a veil that the world seemed organic.

But, this fell apart when I tried running BitD myself. The illusion is only player facing. As the GM, when the player says "I want to open this lock", I start thinking:

ok, what will a success look like? I guess they get in clean. What about fail forward? Hmm, we've established that this is an estate, and the lord will want to eat breakfast early, so maybe the cook is getting in to start working on that. That's nice, it follows from the fiction.

Then there is no illusion and I know exactly what happens on success because I decided it. This made me feel dishonest and like I was cheating my players.

Once I had this experience, I started seeing the "what would have happened on a success" question everywhere, and because I had run it as a GM it felt bad to me as a player. The veil was lifted and the mechanics no longer worked for me.

First… you’re making the same mistake as @AlViking above. You’re assuming you know what would have happened on a successful check. You don’t.

This misses the point of the example. I thought everyone at this point was aware that the problem situation at hand require the cook to be there because failure. So, yes, it is an underlying assumption that we know what would happen on a success. So if your "you don't" claim that the example do not specify the successfully check, that is you misunderstanding the context.

If you "you don't" refer to that the player in the hypotetical game wouldn't know that is also an interesting but ultimately not relevant point. It is true this would not be a problem for the player if they are left in the dark, but that is not guaranteed. The mechanism for how the player get to know about it is unspecified, but it is clearly not impossible. For instance the GM should have a pretty good idea of what we planned to do on a success, and they might "confess" this to the players. Maybe more likely might be the player sensing a certain pattern emerging based on what happen when they succeed and fail rolls.

I just want to second @Maxperson reply to this, how things is established in play is important. Even the GM taking inspiration from skill checks when determining content carries the risk of producing weird correlations that over time can build up to something hard for the brain to accept. The brain is very good at detecting patterns.

Do you not understand that asking @pemerton what would have happened on a success in his example is not a comparison of two games? It is a question about a specific game, and it is one that makes no sense… because as I stated, we can only guess what may have happened if the roll succeeded instead of failed.

Fail forward

1. The character goes to the door, attempts to open the lock
2. The player rolls poorly and fails.
3. The GM adds some complication that they feel is plausible for the current scenario. It may or may not be helpful, but something will happen. Examples have included a guard showing up, rolling on a wandering monster table and a grick appears, the door is opened anyway and there's a cook inside who cries for help.

That's pretty much it in an abbreviated form and of course I've left a lot out on the narrative side of things.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't think that's a mistake, for two reasons.
Firstly, understand how things would play out on a success gives a contrast to how things play out on a failure that aids in understanding the rules and/or playstyle.
Secondly, as established in the tangent with @EzekielRaiden, such questions are viewed as necessary for establishing trust with the GM.

But as we’ve seen with the cook and the burning house examples, any number of alternate possibilities can be offered.

If the roll was successful, perhaps the guard shows up, having heard the song, and because of the quality of singing, offers help to the singer.

@AlViking assumes a specific answer where there is not one… that’s the mistake.

 

[JConstantine]

But as we’ve seen with the cook and the burning house examples, any number of alternate possibilities can be offered.

Which is precisely why asking what would happen on a success aids in understanding. There's going to be difference based on whether the system is task vs conflict resolution. There's likely difference between two different systems that both use task (or conflict) resolution. There's going to be difference between two GMs running the same system. Asking for clarity should be encouraged.

 

[Enrahim]

Based on hundreds of hours of play, I believe there is little evidence for this assertion about weird correlations.

Instead of empirical conjectures for which there is little evidence - it's not as if posters like @AlViking and @Maxperson have played a lot of Burning Wheel and found its resolution rules untenable because of the fiction that resulted from them <snip>

I was about to answer this when @The Firebird fully invalidated my answer by giving a much better answer.

Hello folks. I have something to add. There is an argument being presented that it is not meaningful to ask "what would have happened on a success", because the player does not know. Therefore there is no awareness, from the player perspective, of 'weird correlations'. I quoted some posts but will put them at the end.

I want to bring in my own experience. As a player, the first games of BitD I played were really enjoyable, even though the GM was using these weird correlations, because I didn't quite get them at the time. There was enough of a disconnect and enough of a veil that the world seemed organic.

But, this fell apart when I tried running BitD myself. The illusion is only player facing. As the GM, when the player says "I want to open this lock", I start thinking:

ok, what will a success look like? I guess they get in clean. What about fail forward? Hmm, we've established that this is an estate, and the lord will want to eat breakfast early, so maybe the cook is getting in to start working on that. That's nice, it follows from the fiction.

Then there is no illusion and I know exactly what happens on success because I decided it. This made me feel dishonest and like I was cheating my players.

Once I had this experience, I started seeing the "what would have happened on a success" question everywhere, and because I had run it as a GM it felt bad to me as a player. The veil was lifted and the mechanics no longer worked for me.

Thank you so much for sharing!!

 

[Campbell]

The reason we cannot know what happens on success (beyond the player achieving whatever their intent was) is because the GM has not framed the next scene. There's no mental model to perform if-then analysis on because there is no mental model of things that have not been established. On a high level we know regardless of success or failure to achieve that intent the GM will narrate an outcome (that respects the outcome of task and intent) that frames a new scene that puts one of a player character's belief statement to the test. It must follow from what has just been established, but it could be 2 seconds from now, 2 hours from now, 2 weeks from now or 2 years from now and in a different place entirely. There is no "well obviously this chain of events happens next" because the GM is not framing based on some mental model. They are framing to build up conflicts relevant to the characters - they must still follow from the established fiction, but not just the fiction. There is an agenda we are all playing to, on success as much as failure.

I mean it's very possible the next scene frame might involve a guard in some way since it's obviously top of mind but we cannot know what's next until it's framed.

A similar sort of logic applies to GM Moves in games that use them. We're dealing with a lot of undefined stuff. Make a move that follows allows a lot of room for a lot of different possible moves.

This is why approaching a given game from a holistic view of its design is so important. Discrete rules and mechanics only make sense when viewed in tandem with the rest of the game.

 

[AlViking]

In actual play, do you really call for that many checks? I mean, I have a preference for task resolution over conflict resolution, but that seems excessive. It's pretty much setting the PCs up to fail on sheer probability.

A failure on a check can be just a minor setback. You fail your perception check and knock something over does not mean the guard comes charging in the next round, it just means that there's a chance you might have woken someone or something up. If you woke up the dog you may need to feed it some treats, perhaps an animal handling check. Woke up a person they may not realize why they woke up and they go back to sleep but another stealth check is required. For that matter if Chuck knocks over a vase I'd likely give Val who's right behind him a dexterity save to catch it.

It will always be a balancing act. Just like I could populate every closet with Godzilla, I can stack up so many checks that they're bound to fail. On the other hand if they're going to automatically succeed and they know it, the game tends to get boring after a while.

 

[AlViking]

Do you not understand that asking @pemerton what would have happened on a success in his example is not a comparison of two games? It is a question about a specific game, and it is one that makes no sense… because as I stated, we can only guess what may have happened if the roll succeeded instead of failed.

Do I have to add the tagline "If I ask about your game it's because I'm curious. If I talk about your game it is only to contrast how it works compared to my game. " on every single post? Because I say it a lot and, if you read to understand my position, that should be clear by now.

There is no way to know if a guard would have arrived onna success. He doesn’t know that. We don’t know what didn’t happen.

It was specified as an example of how to implement a consequence of failure. I did also clarify the example somewhere along the lines and was told that no, the guard would not have shown up. But this is quite the strawman here. The whole concept that people have explained as fail forward is that "nothing happens" on a failure is something to avoid and that something will happen due to the failure.

 

[The Firebird]

The reason we cannot know what happens on success (beyond the player achieving whatever their intent was) is because the GM has not framed the next scene. There's no mental model to perform if-then analysis on because there is no mental model of things that have not been established. On a high level we know regardless of success or failure to achieve that intent the GM will narrate an outcome (that respects the outcome of task and intent) that frames a new scene that puts one of a player character's belief statement to the test. It must follow from what has just been established, but it could be 2 seconds from now, 2 hours from now, 2 weeks from now or 2 years from now and in a different place entirely. There is no "well obviously this chain of events happens next" because the GM is not framing based on some mental model. They are framing to build up conflicts relevant to the characters - they must still follow from the established fiction, but not just the fiction. There is an agenda we are all playing to, on success as much as failure.

I mean it's very possible the next scene frame might involve a guard in some way since it's obviously top of mind but we cannot know what's next until it's framed.

A similar sort of logic applies to GM Moves in games that use them. We're dealing with a lot of undefined stuff. Make a move that follows allows a lot of room for a lot of different possible moves.

This is why approaching a given game from a holistic view of its design is so important. Discrete rules and mechanics only make sense when viewed in tandem with the rest of the game.

What is the GM thinking? Do they also have no idea how they will frame a scene until the dice are rolled?