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

[JConstantine]

Then why is it called, "fail-forward" if it sometimes doesn't mean failure?

In my understanding of the term, it absolutely should maintain the failure (the "fail" part), but that something else must happen to drive the narrative forward (the "forward" part). For example, with the following:

But we've also been told that fail forward means something happens and that the door remaining locked is not adequate.

The door remaining locked is perfectly appropriate, but perhaps the rogue (or whoever) notices that there's an alternative, more risky, ingress.

 

[JConstantine]

I think it require a very spesific kind of discipline to prevent fail forward to become a chaos engine. Indeed my impression is that this quality is an important part of what make Blades in the Dark so popular..

Indeed, one of the common complaints about BitD is that a score can turn into a comedy of errors if a GM doesn't exercise such discipline (combined with the earlier observations about maintaining character competence).

 

[DinoInDisguise]

This particular observation isn't so surprising. People tend to try to conform in a group of strangers. People tend to feel more comfortable pushing their personal views in a group of friends. This is basic group dynamics at play.

If the difference were just about social behavior in different settings, we wouldn’t see so many horror stories from online pickup groups, or so much player churn in games with strangers. The issue goes deeper than conformity or comfort. It's about intentionality.

Whether someone tries to build alignment in the first place, or whether they just default to playing with friends because that’s what’s expected or convenient. The latter is a valid choice in a vacuum, but one who's drawback often manifests through misalignment of views and the resulting social and in-game problems we so often read about here and elsewhere.

I have a hunch that this misalignment is fully solvable if people put forth the effort to find the right table-mates. If we value like-mindedness over dictating the who from the start.

In my experience, the difference is night and day. I'd take like-minded strangers over misaligned friends in a heartbeat. One provides a fun game. The other feels like a social struggle mired in emotional baggage. And the same would likely be true if you flipped the friends and strangers part of the equation.

 

[AlViking]

I believe @AlViking is using the term as set out in the article by John Harper I mentioned.

Other things as well but that's the one I was thinking of.

 

[JConstantine]

The runes didn't say anything before the check was made. Once the wish was made, the outcome was decided. If the player succeeded on their roll it was a map. If they failed it was something other than a map.

It seems the discrepancy could resolved for you if the runes remained a map (or way out, or whatever), even on a failure, but something else happened instead, like they were magically booby-trapped or something? But I'm not sure if such a thing would occur in @pemerton's game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

OK?

Perhaps you've missed it, but there have been many posts in this thread, from a variety of posters, asserting things like there is no connection between the character who read the runes, and the runes or that there is no connection between the burglar and the cook or that there is no connection between Aedhros singing and the guard harassing him. (As well as "unconnected", "unrelated" has also been used.)

In all these cases, what is meant is no casual connection .

But of course in each case - whether or not there are connections of that sort, which is not clear in all of them (eg singing might attract the attention of a guard) - there is a different sort of connection that might be important:

* The moral connection between the burglar and the cook - this is called out in the blog that the example came from, which asks "In my example with the cook, do you kill the innocent cook who was just at the wrong place at the wrong time?" @thefutilist gave a possible example from AW play.

* The ethical connection between the guard and Aedhros - the guard is sordid reality at the moment when Aedrhos is seeking some sort of escape into Elven transcendence.

* The connection of salience and hope that arises between a character who has been teleported who-know-where in the dungeon, sees some strange runes on a wall, and wonders whether they might reveal a way out.

I posted this upthread, in response to @The Firebird, elaborating on that last dot point:

None of those connections should, IMO, affect the roll.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nor does it in my example.

The runes show a way out; but the character doesn't know that yet. The character tries to read them, hoping that they will show the way out. And they do!

But when was it decided what the runes say? I want that decision made before the roll, ideally before the runes are introduced into active play, and am uncomfortable with it occurring otherwise. It is important to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't really see how this matters.

Upthread, multiple posters - including you, I think, but maybe I'm wrong one that - described the player as deciding what the runes say. My point is that he didn't. He rolled dice, and won the roll. Much as a person might enter a lottery, and win: that doesn't mean they decided.

Much as a person might choose to have their PC fight in D&D, and win: that doesn't mean that they decided.

If you now want to ask how does someone set stakes in MHRP, I'm happy to have that conversation.

How does the character know they have a chance of hitting it? I mean, if attack Bruce Lee I have no chance of hitting him.

They know that it could be a map. Just as they know that an Orc is the sort of being that can be hit.

Trying to parse out the difference in resolution by reference to these sorts of counterfactuals and statements of possibility won't work. This is because;

(1) The epistemic possibilities are the same in both; and,​

​

(2) There are no metaphysical impossibilities at work: by which I mean that, in the real world if the runes say <X> then I can't read them to learn <Y>, whereas in fiction - as I posted upthread - metaphysics follow belief, it doesn't constrain true belief.​

(That is why posters who say that the player changed the fiction are wrong. There was no established fact about the strange runes, beyond them being strange runes on the dungeon wall, until after the declared action was resolved. Nothing was changed.)

There are two differences, not unrelated:

*Who gets to exercise authorial control over which bits of the fiction? Eg does the GM have sole authority over backstory?​

​

*Must causal processes in the fiction and causal processes at the table be tightly correlated, at least where players are concerned? Eg if a player at the table does a thing that causes everyone to agree that <X> is part of the fiction, must that correlate to that player's character in the fiction bringing about <X>.​

All RPGing that I know of allows some player authorship of backstory that violates the second dot point: eg the player deciding who and what their PC is; the player deciding facts about their PC's family, memories, etc. But often this is low-stakes stuff. Whereas the example of the runes is something that is less low-stakes.

That's the difference that's being skirted around, IMO. It's not that what we're saying isn't true for us, it's that it doesn't matter to you.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This can't be known from the descriptions you gave.

For example, why does the player describe their PC as having a bond with a blacksmith? If it's because they're inhabiting their PC and that is what follows, then actor stance. If it's because they think that that is a bond that will help generate some desirable in-game payoff later on in the session, then author stance.

Yeah I stand corrected. In DW bonds are written during the session wrap up, along with allocation of XP for certain things, and leveling up or other 'house keeping' tasks. So not in character. And I agree that the criteria for bonds is very much focused on game or narrative considerations, like what will be interesting to play. That being said, whatever is asserted in a bond should follow from the fiction. You can't write a bond about owing your life to some other PC without some kind of fiction to reference. The exception being at the start of the game where you can locate said fiction in your backstory (perhaps implicitly).

 

[Micah Sweet]

What got modified?

When a player decides, say in the second session, that their PC's mother was a soldier in her youth, they are not modifying the past of the world. It's not as if there was some established fact about their PC's mother that is being changed. They are just adding to the fiction.

Likewise in the rune example. Nothing is modified. The runes, necessarily, say something - now we know what it is!

All you're saying here, as best I can tell, is that MHRP doesn't support the sort of investigative, puzzle-solving RPGing that you prefer.

I can tell you that there was no harm to verisimilitude at my table. The players felt the weight of being lost in the dungeon, the possibility that strange runes presented, the tension of trying to decipher them, the elation that they revealed a way out.

So it's fine for you. You and your players don't have a problem with something other folks do. In short: preference.

Why can't we all leave it at that? Does anyone by now not understand?