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

[EzekielRaiden]

It appear point (b) is the contested part.

I am not sure if you accept the "no retry", but knowing that we cannot take that way in adds to my experience at least.

I see this as "adding to one's experience" in the same way that clarifying that you don't have blue eyes, you have grey eyes (to reference the Dr. Demento D&D bit) "adds to the experience". Technically, yes, it "adds" a piece of information you did not already have, but that information does not functionally change the situation in any meaningful way. You are outside. No threats, nor any change in threats. You need to get inside. Your (thus-stated) only means of entry is now verboten. That's...a gameplay dead end, except there isn't a labyrinth in which to situate that dead end.

And in games with random monsters and hidden clocks the players are usually aware that these procedures is in play, so knowing the "clock is ticking" add something to their experience even if they cannot hear it.

But there is no such clock. You are now adding something to the situation that was not present--Lanefan was quite specific that everything is quiet, that no change in the context has occurred other than the knowledge that you can't pick this door.

And even in the last and most far fetched example, the players are likely aware the GM can do anything at their whim, and their mode and tone changing is indeed a very real addition to their experience.

Frankly, I'm not going to engage with this because it's explicitly in conflict with what several posters--IIRC including you!--have told me. This would be unacceptably "arbitrary" GMing--in the sense of capricious and fickle.

So all of these clearly can be said to "add to the experience". So I guess the only point of lack of clarity is the "genuinely"? Is this a purely subjective term allowing you to declare anything you don't feel good about as "bad"?

No. See above for an example which technically meets the definition of "adding to the experience" but which I think both of us would agree does not meaningfully (genuinely, whatever) add anything.

Examples of other things that don't meaningfully add to the experience, in the vast majority of cases:

• My example WAAAAAY back, where the GM stonewalled a player trying to act on their established, GM-approved backstory
• The GM revealing that a particular businessman won't do business with the party, when equivalent alternatives are available
• Learning that a wealthy merchant wears brocade silk rather than damask silk
• The gender of some particular character or other (NPC or PC)
• The precise heraldic description of a noble house's coat of arms
• Any character's (NPC or PC) favorite color
• The particular instrumentation of a piece of music heard in the world
• What date a particular city was founded

Etc.

These are pieces of information which, technically, add to the experience. The later examples might be valuable information for adding richness to a world, but otherwise they are not particularly productive; in the vast majority of cases, it wouldn't be seen as a problem if the GM simply invented an answer on the spot, so long as they stuck with it. Whether a specific merchant is wearing fancy expensive silk of one type rather than another, for example, is almost never going to be super important. We can, I know, contrive a situation where that thing is the MOST important thing ever, but let's...not? Like can we agree on at least that much, that while it is theoretically possible in the infinitude of potential campaigns, it just isn't going to matter at any time in the vast majority of campaigns?

Conversely, well, I feel I've been pretty clear about what qualifies as meaningfully mattering. It's something that does, directly, increase tension, rather than only incidentally implying greater tension (especially tension merely manufactured by GM fiat); or, something that in-the-moment introduces a new threat or concern that must be dealt with one way or another (because even doing nothing means dealing with it...just means you deal with the threat coming to bear or the concern flowering into a problem); or, something which actually takes away a resource the players were relying on.

For that last bit, this is why I keep emphasizing the "couple minutes"/"five minutes" thing. If the Thief was trying to pick that lock for, say, over an hour, then sure, that's a sizable investment of time. (It's one of the reasons why I dislike how long Short Rests are in 5e, and I've never wavered in that position.) Spending a LOT of time is a resource cost--and should almost surely come with significant other changes. Y'know, changes like servants and guards moving around, damage to one's equipment, leaving behind suspicious evidence...in other words, exactly the kinds of things I keep talking about as being much more than "nothing happens". Wasting an hour when you have only, say, a six to eight hour window to get your heist done? That's a huge cost, around a sixth of your time. Wasting one to five minutes? Even if we assume five minutes spent and only five hours available, that's one-sixtieth of your available time. It's simply not a meaningful cost. Call it a sorites paradox issue if you like, one or two or three grains if sand ain't a heap but 10k, 9999, 9998 are--but the point remains, teeny-tiny nickle-and-dime actions need to pile up immensely before they can rise to the level of being even noticeable. As in, you need to have ten, maybe fifteen of these little teeny-tiny time-wasters in order to have it add up to any kind of meaningful cost.

 

[Lanefan]

This never occurs in Dungeon World--and, IMO, it should be extremely rare anywhere else.

Our opinions differ on the latter. If "nothing happens" is what makes fictional sense then that's what I'm gonna narrate.

And now you're doing what all sorts of OSR fans do, following in the path of the execrable "Quick Primer": actively presenting the thing you don't like, don't play, and don't know all that well in the most antagonistic light possible.

This is why people keep telling you you keep horribly mischaracterizing things, to the point that it becomes willful ignorance when you have been told--and explicitly shown--how your descriptions are wrong, but you keep doing it.

I respect your intellect. But I'm starting to get very frustrated with your argumentation tactics, where you put overtly, intentionally uncharitable descriptions that are factually wrong.

Because the thing you described here? That isn't how it works in Dungeon World.

Ideally it doesn't happen in any game, but it appears there's some it does. No idea why you'd assume I was talking specifically about Dungeon World.

That said, however, ...

Tricks of the Trade​

When you pick locks or pockets or disable traps, roll+DEX.
✴ On a 10+, you do it, no problem.
✴ On a 7–9, you still do it, but the GM will offer you two options between suspicion, danger, or cost.

As is the case with most DW moves, the result of failure is not explicitly stated. It is basic system information that (a) if your roll is 6 or less ("6-"), that's a "miss" or a "fail", and (b) the GM must make a "hard" move in response (or, if they feel it more appropriate, they may choose to make a "soft" move).

... does "a cook, on hearing your lock-picking attempt, screams to wake up the household" not count as a valid 'hard move'?

All you're doing is inventing reasons why the character might succeed. Obviously, if the character did not succeed, those reasons could not apply. This is exactly equivalent to all the reasons that a Fighter's axe might fail to connect, and yet the roll tells us it did, so those reasons cannot apply in this context.

I'm not inventing reasons why the character could succeed. The character still fails and can't get in that door by unlocking it, but by sheer good luck the cook isn't there to notice and thus - wait for it - nothing happens. The character can then carry on to try getting in at a different point of entry if so desired, or can bail out on the attempt, or can try bashing the door in, or whatever; it's up to the player now.

Fail forward is still a failure. It is simply failure which pushes things toward some kind of terminal point, a conclusion of some kind, from which new things can then spring after.

"Pushing things toward a ... conclusion" is an irrelevant consideration for me. New things can spring from 'nothing happens' just as well as they can from complications, provided the players are proactive enough to make it so. I don't mind if the resolution pushes things farther away from a conclusion, or leaves the status quo intact; with very rare exceptions it's not like there's no other options provided the players will just look for them.

 

[Maxperson]

Upthread, @Maxperson gave an example of a player saying their PC looked for a farrier in the village. And though Maxperson's notes didn't include a farrier, he added one in.

That is the GM responding to the player's hope. But no one supposes that, in the fiction, the PC's hope made the farrier exist.

Likewise in the runes example. The character's hope is not changing anything. At the table, though, the content of the shared fiction is responsive to the player's hope. You seem to be ignoring the difference between what happens in the fiction and what happens at the table.

That is incorrect. The farrier existed because it should exist in a town like that and I just forgot it, not because the player hoped it would. The player may also have hoped it would, but it wasn't the hope that put the farrier there.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

By 5e RAW, maybe, but it's easy to fix.

First, use and enforce training-to-level rules.

5e does not have these. I wouldn't be surprised if such rules have not been included as part of the core rules since at least 3e, possibly earlier; I don't know 2e's mechanics all that well.

Then, have the new spell(s) acquired as part of levelling come as part of the training, and be random; they're what the trainer happened to teach you as examples of that level of spell.

I guarantee you it simply would not be accepted by the playerbase at large to make spells random. It simply isn't going to happen. You might think this is a simple change, but it simply would not fly. Suggesting a "simple" fix that will be adamantly rejected by the playerbase is a bit like saying the "simple" fix to climate change is to just make it illegal to burn fossil fuels. It ain't gonna cut it, chief.

And boom - suddenly the fiction makes a lot more sense with the mechanics, and vice-versa.

To quote H.L. Menken, “Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.” Of course, he was talking about explaining the source of "inspiration" (the essay it's from is titled The Divine Afflatus), but the point stands. Your explanation has all the wonderful qualities it needs except the most critical of them all: whether it would ever actually work in the real world.

The fact of the matter is, it simply won't. Players-in-general won't accept randomly-generated spell picks; I don't even believe GMs in general would accept such a path. I sincerely doubt either side would even accept GM-curated spell picks, but that one, I will admit, I am not 100% certain of.

 

[Lanefan]

But it's precisely a dead end caused by failing to clear a mechanical hurdle that is the thing I'm talking about.

Talking through a dead end purely within fiction is perfectly acceptable. Good, even--in moderation. I've made very clear here that it's about invoking mechanics where mechanics have no place. Pretty sure I've said some variation of the phrase "why would you invoke mechanics for this" half a dozen times already.

What I'm getting at here is that dead-ends which
(a) only occur because the characters failed to clear a mechanical hurdle
(b) add genuinely nothing to the experience other than "you spent maybe a minute and nothing happened, what now?" and
(c) do nothing to advance toward any kind of (local) conclusion

are something that should be avoided.

If it happens without invoking mechanics, sure, fine, whatever, knock yourself out. That's part of the conversation of play, and that conversation can have all sorts of things in it. Or, if it happens and invokes mechanics, but the result does in fact add something, anything other than "you wasted a little time, now what?", awesome, have at it--whatever was added is, necessarily, new information, or a new avenue of approach, or something which helps keep the game going. Or, if it happens, invokes mechanics, and doesn't add anything, but does inherently push the situation toward some kind of (local) conclusion, any kind of local conclusion, good, bad, weird, whatever, awesome, more power to ya.

But if all that's happening is the PCs are wasting their time and the players are wasting theirs, why on earth are we invoking mechanics for this? Just keep it in the fiction.

They're only wasting their time if both of two conditions are true:

1. They cannot possibly succeed at the task they are trying, and
2. Failure merely maintains the status quo.

If they could have succeeded but didn't, their time was not wasted; they tried to succeed and failed. Now they either have to find something else to try or something else to do.

 

[pemerton]

They changed from a state of uncertainty (helpful or unhelpful, map or spell or secret passage or...) to a state of certainty (helpful map).

What you're describing there is a change in the real world, namely, the content of the shared fiction.

The change that occurs in the imagined, fictional world is that the PC learns what they didn't know, but hoped might be true: that the runes reveal a way out.

 

[pemerton]

That is incorrect. The farrier existed because it should exist in a town like that and I just forgot it, not because the player hoped it would. The player may also have hoped it would, but it wasn't the hope that put the farrier there.

Had the player not asked about the farrier, because of their hope, it would not have come up and you would not have narrated the farrier.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Our opinions differ on the latter. If "nothing happens" is what makes fictional sense then that's what I'm gonna narrate.

Ideally it doesn't happen in any game, but it appears there's some it does. No idea why you'd assume I was talking specifically about Dungeon World.

That was the game I was speaking about when you replied to me. I'm afraid I'm not going to spin on a dime to "generic TTRPG" or "Lanefan's personal TTRPG derived at some length from a past edition of D&D".

That said, however, ...

... does "a cook, on hearing your lock-picking attempt, screams to wake up the household" not count as a valid 'hard move'?

Depends. I would see that as such a fantastically hard move as to be...well. Being an actively malicious GM in most contexts? I guess you could do it. But I don't think you'd have players for very long if you did that sort of thing on the regular.

But the point was that you were giving this as a possible result for success--not even partial success, full success. DW GMs don't make hard moves when the players get full success (sometimes called a "hit" in DW.) A GM might still get to make a hard move in response to partial success, however: one of the instructions for when the GM should make a move is, "When the players give you a golden opportunity", and the explanatory text specifically refers to players, consciously or not, ignoring an impending threat. A threat ignored comes to bear, or otherwise causes problems.

So, for example, the player could succeed at getting through the locked door, only to discover that the cook they thought was asleep isn't (perhaps because I-as-GM know that the cook is up to cook food at an ungodly hour for the Mistress' guest; such is perfectly valid prep), and is instead busying about the kitchen only ten, fifteen feet away. If the Thief in question elected to completely ignore the cook, then that's 100% a golden opportunity and a hard move may be perfectly warranted. I find it unlikely that a player would choose to do that, but it is at least theoretically possible.

It would, however, be pretty blatantly GM foul play to have the cook expectantly watching that specific door, have the player roll full success (10+), and thus the PC is met instantly with a screaming, whole-house-alerting cook as a result of that success, with no opportunity to learn or know that they were doing something so overwhelmingly foolish. If it were a situation where the cook absolutely would 100% no questions be continuously monitoring that door, I would expect either the thing already described (cook is present but you got lucky, they're looking away for just a moment, what do you do to hide/bluff/charm/whatever?), or some meaningful opportunity to learn that someone's watching before the threat comes to pass (so the player ignoring that chance is itself the golden opportunity for you as a GM), or an opportunity to silence/pacify the cook before the alarm is raised.

Because, otherwise, this just looks like blatant GM dickery, screwing over the players simply because the GM decided the players were getting screwed over.

I'm not inventing reasons why the character could succeed.

....but those were literally reasons why they would succeed. I don't understand why you're saying them then, because they aren't reasons why nothing would happen?

The character still fails and can't get in that door by unlocking it, but by sheer good luck the cook isn't there to notice and thus - wait for it - nothing happens. The character can then carry on to try getting in at a different point of entry if so desired, or can bail out on the attempt, or can try bashing the door in, or whatever; it's up to the player now.

Why? Why bother with all of that? Genuinely sincerely, why? What is gained from making them jump through seven hoops? I sincerely do not get this. It's not productive!

"Pushing things toward a ... conclusion" is an irrelevant consideration for me. New things can spring from 'nothing happens' just as well as they can from complications,

No, they can't. Because "nothing happens" by definition means nothing can spring from it. That's WHY it's "nothing happens"!

If "nothing happens" there are no changes. There are no new things. The situation is unchanged. That's literally what "nothing happens" MEANS!

provided the players are proactive enough to make it so.

But that's...that's...you're literally ADMITTING NOTHING HAPPENS!

I don't mind if the resolution pushes things farther away from a conclusion,

Except that that is ALSO pushing things toward a conclusion, by definition. It's just not a desirable conclusion. It isn't possible to push away from all conclusions. By pushing away from other conclusions, you definitionally push toward "you failed to stop the thing(s) you didn't want to happen". By being present in a place, with a plan, you want some particular thing to happen, and don't want some other thing or things to happen.

But "nothing happens" doesn't change any of that. Because...as has been so consistently reiterated...nothing. happens. There is no pushing in any direction. There is nothing at all!

or leaves the status quo intact; with very rare exceptions it's not like there's no other options provided the players will just look for them.

You've never once given even the slightest hint of such. Preserving the status quo is precisely the problem--because that literally means, again, nothing bloody happens!!!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

They're only wasting their time if both of two conditions are true:

1. They cannot possibly succeed at the task they are trying, and
2. Failure merely maintains the status quo.

If they could have succeeded but didn't, their time was not wasted; they tried to succeed and failed. Now they either have to find something else to try or something else to do.

You have already expressly said that 1 is true: they simply cannot pick the lock, that is the one and only fact established by their attempt. You have already made clear that you don't allow for broader intents than that, so we are locked into 1 by definition.

And you are specifically--and repeatedly--saying that 2 is true.

Hence, by your own definitions, both of those conditions are met.

 

[Lanefan]

I mean it seemed pretty clear to me that that was precisely what Lanefan was previously arguing for, using the locked door as an example.

The party fails to pick the lock. Nothing happens. A few minutes were wasted trying to pick that lock. The house is dark and quiet. Nothing happens, no meaningful amount of time was spent, no danger, no development, no new leads, no alternative paths--nothing. Just...you failed. What now?

Whaddya mean there's no alternative paths? Does this house not have any other doors besides the one to the kitchen? No windows? Did nobody bring a crowbar to pry the door off its hinges, or a good pair of boots to kick it in? Do we have magic that can help?

Defaulting to "there's no alternative paths" on failing to get in to a big house through a specific door is exactly the kind of stuck-in-the-box thinking that leads directly to the problems you're describing.