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

[EzekielRaiden]

Please tell me how that in any way shape or form connected with the phenomenom I described? Yes these are things that is in these games, but I absolutely fail to see how they in any way adresses the issue at hand.

I mean, you've described what sounds, to me, like some...pretty formulaic play? I don't know about you, but having things boil down to such a formula--especially when it involves something like "guards literally follow me to prevent me from knocking down house doors"--doesn't really sound like it would be in keeping with the Principles from (most) PbtA games, including AW and DW.

If what the players want is so precious to them, maybe you should consider have that drive the story for a while, rather than denying it based on a single roll, and insert your own completely unrelated GM decided thing to do instead?

Where is this coming from?

Where is the GM "insert[ing their] own completely unrelated GM decided thing to do instead"?

You're asking about something that, as far as I can tell, doesn't happen. This is more sophisticated than the kinds of questions I've been asked by other users, but this is functionally exactly the same as what I've said to Lanefan. You're describing something genuinely at odds with what these games instruct the GM to do.

Save or die would be the classroom example of a high stakes roll. Is this an excelent example of how things should be done, or an almost universally recognised example of how not everything was better before?

I don't think I understand what you're asking. Are you saying that this is an old example of an all-or-nothing roll? I agree it is such.

But you have a compound question here. You seem to be asking both:
1) Is this an old and well-known example of an all-or-nothing roll, and
2) Is this good design or not

The answer to the first question is "yes", simply as historical fact. The answer to the second question is...complicated, but if you forced me into a hard yes-or-no answer, I would, reluctantly, have to say "no".

That is, if I were allowed a single additional word, I would answer "mostly no". I think it is possible for good design to use this tool under some circumstances, but those circumstances are pretty limited, and the original use of this mechanic was almost totally unlimited and often highly capricious. (The Tomb of Annihilation was chock full of such things for a reason.) It's sort of like deus ex machina in writing; it is wrong to say that it should never be used, but it is correct to say that it should usually be avoided except in very particular circumstances. (Tolkien knew this and agonized over his usage of the Eagles in his works, for example.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Until you change it (or try to) by trying a different approach than the one that just failed.

This isn't a retort?

I don't see how anything you've said disagrees with what I said.

That is, your response here is: "Well yes, but once the players choose to do something else, things happen."

But that is an admission that this whole action was a waste of time! That we should simply have gone to whatever that different approach was in the first place, because the entire process of doing that first thing got nowhere, cost nothing, risked nothing, and changed nothing!

Your assertion was that it could only be a waste of time if the action in question was impossible (which "you can't try picking the lock again" meets, per your own usage), and if the status quo remained the same after the action was done--which you've now said it has remained the same, and does until the PCs do something else.

That's literally admitting that the action did nothing to change the status quo!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Putting myself in position of PC I didn't feel an iota of railroading. I considered a few likely options and chose to smash the window, as the most direct. Your character wanted stealthy infiltration; mine didn't.

But if I did, what would have stiffed me is jumping from failed lock picking to screaming cook. That really does railroad me into going loud.

Successful play is available in both modes. GM needn't railroad to screaming cook (or we can have agreed that picking lock is my one shot at the quiet way), and GM needn't railroad to pick this one lock or I stop play.

I'm not the one who brought up the screaming cook. @Lanefan did. Ask them.

I even specifically referred to such a thing as dubious GMing that I would never engage in, and which I would find highly suspect.

 

[Enrahim]

Why not? Is this view based on a close reading of the MHRP rulebook?

You might want to have a chat with @Campbell and @AbdulAlhazred ref the posts quoted in

I think this more effectively explain the issue with your reasoning:

I got a similar vibe from @Campbell 's exelent post a while back.

The resolution lie in that in this style of play your wishes as a player should be surpresed compared to the motivations of the character. This is similar to how some sim play is requiering the self dicipline of not to take meta knowledge into account when declaring actions.

If it is a common understanding of this, then the player agency you refer to evaporates. It is true that there is a mechanism for modifying the world outside standard in-fiction causality, but this mechanism is still based on character, not player. There are hence no player agency competing with character agency in this type of play as long as you are not a weasel

They both liked this attempt at summarising their positions. I am just the messager.

 

[Lanefan]

Notice I said "stiffed" rather than "stifled". That is, from my perspective, the GM screwed the player over, and thus they had to do something that guaranteed fundamental failure on their current goal (stealthy infiltration). I don't know if that affects your position or not, but it's worth mentioning; my issue isn't that a player's first attempt didn't work the way they wanted, it's that this reads to me as "nope, I'm going to nix your intent completely, you have to play it my way", but masquerading as respecting player choice.

Note that in @clearstream 's example it's the player who escalates things by choice, not the GM forcing said escalation.

The player could just as easily have had the character turn away, leave quietly, and come back another night with a better lock-picker in tow. Or could have tried knocking on the door, prepared to ambush and knife anyone who answered. Etc.

Instead, if nothing else from the sheer entertainment and amusement aspect, the player does the right thing: when in doubt, go gonzo. Smash that window, and let mayhem ensue. Love it!

One might call it a more subtle version of the "alright, roll three consecutive nat 20s and you can have it" problem. That is, claiming to respect player choice by "allowing" things....but making the actual chance of success on "allowed" things outside of the GM's preferred set borderline impossible. It's not as bad as the (intentionally-dramatized) need to get a 1-in-8000 result; I 100% recognize that. But the way you've presented this, basically the players got one and only one chance to do the thing they actually wanted to do (stealth), and the moment that failed, they were--as far as I can tell--railroaded into "going loud".

Going loud was by no means the only option. It is, however, probably the most entertaining for all involved.

 

[Lanefan]

This isn't a retort?

I don't see how anything you've said disagrees with what I said.

That is, your response here is: "Well yes, but once the players choose to do something else, things happen."

...things might happen. It's only if the players choose to do nothing that indeed, nothing further will happen.

But that is an admission that this whole action was a waste of time! That we should simply have gone to whatever that different approach was in the first place, because the entire process of doing that first thing got nowhere, cost nothing, risked nothing, and changed nothing!

If you want to look at everything in hindsight like that, then loads of things end up as being wasted time. Trying to court one particular lass in junior high school was, in hindsight, a mighty waste of my time: turned out she didn't want anything to do with me. So what?

And you don't and can't know in the here-and-now moment whether something will be a waste of time when looked at later in hindsight; that's why you try it in the first place. You don't know trying to pick the lock is a waste of time until after you've already tried, at which point who cares? It's over, move on.

Real life is full of such examples. No reason for the game to be any different.

Your assertion was that it could only be a waste of time if the action in question was impossible (which "you can't try picking the lock again" meets, per your own usage), and if the status quo remained the same after the action was done--which you've now said it has remained the same, and does until the PCs do something else.

If I somehow know going in that something is impossible, odds are high I'll be wasting my time trying it anyway. High, but not unity, as I might learn somehting useful from my failure. Example: applying for a job I already know I won't get. Waste of time? Probably, but going through the motions is still good practice at job-search techniques nonetheless.

 

[Enrahim]

Suppose that the player, as their character, knows that there is a sniper nearby. And they try to read a sitch to get a handle on the sniper. And miss. The GM is quite at liberty to inflict harm as a hard move.

Upthread I posted an excerpt from the Moves Snowball part of the rulebook that actually illustrates this:
See how Marie's player misses on reading a sitch, and the GM makes a hard move which includes Marie taking 4 harm from a grenade.

Ok, guess I read the entry incorrectly. I thought the "but" was reflecting back on the answer to the question. But it is rather that you get to ask the question, but have to be prepared for the worst anyway. Thank you for clarifying! I don't think this is the only game affected by this misreading :/

Then this example didn't serve the purpose I thought, and can accept the notion that the proposed criterion of requiering "material change" (as opposed to gaining information) on fail forward might be a feature of at least some system implementations of fail forward.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not the one who brought up the screaming cook. @Lanefan did. Ask them.

I brought it up more recently, based on someone else bringing it up somewhere further upthread. The cook's screaming is not my invention.

I even specifically referred to such a thing as dubious GMing that I would never engage in, and which I would find highly suspect.

Well, at least we agree on that much.

 

[Enrahim]

How much Apocalypse World, or Dungeon World, or Burning Wheel have you played?

You keep making these conjectures, but they don't fit at all with my experience, or the experiences that I hear reported from other posters with extensive experience of these RPGs.

For instance, the instruction to the BW GM is, in narrating failure, to focus on intent. And this sits within the general instruction that the GM is to present situations ("frame scenes') that put pressure on the player-authored PC priorities.

So how is the GM forcing the game to be about something else than what the players were striving for?

Here's a concrete example, from play, that I gave upthread:

And here's another example (posted by me as Thurgon on rpg.net):


How, in these examples, is play being "forced to be about something else than what the players were striving for"? The framing, the narration of consequences, is all being done in accordance with the principles I stated (and have been reiterating for a good chunk of this thread): player-determined priorities, intent + task resolution, and the GM having regard to those priorities, intent and stakes in framing scenes, calling for rolls, and narrating failures.

But in both these examples there was no change in situation beyond new information being established? So I guess it doesn't make them exactly classroom examples of fail forward according to @AbdulAlhazred at least?

And the concern about the consequence should be matching character intent or traits have been conspicuously absent in all other examples of fail forward I can think of in this thread. For i stance how do getting a grenade go off point blank between her feet relate to her character traits and wish to get out? (Beyond the obvious that loses her footing is likely to make it quite hard for her to pursue that intent anymore - hence forcefully changing the scope of play in a different direction than the intent)

How does the screaming cook relate to the signaled player wishes? Or the cook that mistake them for someone else? Or the (paralysing, slow acting deadly poison) trap on the lock? Or the guard that happens to round the corner? All of these are examples presented in this thread as approperiate fail forward measures with no reference whatsoever to whatever the players would like play to be about. In all these cases the play was originally about how the players presumably on their own initiative wanted to get into this house, and now is about something different. And it is seemingly fully up to the GM to decide which of these they go with.

The only thing that they are not allowed to is to let play continue to be focused on the player introduced agenda of getting into this house without being detected.

Edit: As an addendum, if you rely on stated GM principles to keep the GM in check from abusing the rules - what is the problem with accepting the age old trad GM principle that the job of the GM is to ensure the game is enjoyable for everyone!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

...things might happen. It's only if the players choose to do nothing that indeed, nothing further will happen.

You aren't helping your case with such quibbles. This indicates that even if the players act, it may still be a total absence of change to the status quo.

If you want to look at everything in hindsight like that, then loads of things end up as being wasted time. Trying to court one particular lass in junior high school was, in hindsight, a mighty waste of my time: turned out she didn't want anything to do with me. So what?

I'm simply using the standard you set for me. You said:

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.

Point 1: You have already specified, previously in the thread, that the only acceptable intents must be narrowly-tailored to the action the character takes and its direct consequences. Hence, a failure to pick a lock means they cannot possibly succeed at that task; we have met the requirement.
Point 2: You have specifically said nothing changes. Contra what others have said, you specified that no one in the house is alerted, the house remains placid and quiet, and (as far as I can tell) you are not doing anything in the "changing tone of voice etc. to make things feel more tense". As a result, we have a Thief (possibly with allies) currently outside of a house they wish to break into and enter. That was the situation we had before the attempted lock-picking occurred. Hence, the status quo remains precisely and exactly what it was before, nothing has changed.

Thus: the roll has shown that the task is impossible, and that failure has meant the status quo is identical.

Per your standard, this situation has been a waste of time.

And you don't and can't know in the here-and-now moment whether something will be a waste of time when looked at later in hindsight; that's why you try it in the first place. You don't know trying to pick the lock is a waste of time until after you've already tried, at which point who cares? It's over, move on.

I care! That's literally what I have been saying this whole time! We have established that it was a waste of time. What is the benefit of doing that?

Real life is full of such examples. No reason for the game to be any different.

Sure there is.

For the same reason that "adventurers" have never been a thing IRL, nor have "quests", nor have a huge swathe of the things which make games interesting and worth playing. Deviating from real life is one of the most important things we are doing when we do a game!

If I somehow know going in that something is impossible, odds are high I'll be wasting my time trying it anyway. High, but not unity, as I might learn somehting useful from my failure. Example: applying for a job I already know I won't get. Waste of time? Probably, but going through the motions is still good practice at job-search techniques nonetheless.

But we have quite clearly a situation here where nothing was learned. You have yourself defined that as such. It was quite a bit further back so I'm a bit too tired to go combing through to find it. But you have made quite clear that nothing happens. Developing new skills is certainly not nothing!