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

[EzekielRaiden]

My character knows that they can't pick this lock; at least not here and now.

That did not answer the question. How is this a major fact about the world?

Partly, something happens (per above) and partly play continues.

But that isn't something happening. By definition, it's something NOT happening. Mere awareness of a fact is not a happening!

Can you see how that reaction shows why you cannot get on-board with simple-fail?

No, I can't. I genuinely have no idea how this is related.

You're not required to like it, and I doubt anyone can persuade you of its merits.

I wasn't expecting you to achieve that.

Someone I know hates bananas: nothing anyone says can change her mind. To stretch this analogy, in your case it goes beyond the flavour to include texture, and beyond that to a genuine suspicion of bendy fruit in general.. and no sympathy at all with yellow ones!

I have no idea how you have divined this from my genuine lack-of-an-answer. Because I didn't actually tell you what either of those opinions were. I intentionally did not answer the question; I returned a different question, which would shape the kind of answer you got.

I'll note here, you didn't actually pick either one. So I'm still stuck in "I intentionally didn't answer the question because I want to know the kind of answer you would like to receive". I can say that my polite opinions would be rather brief, at least, while the frank ones would not be.

 

[The Firebird]

No… as the person who went through this, I’m telling you why I didn’t go on the date. It was because I failed the test. I was embarrassed and didn’t want to rely on my parents for a ride and so on.

Right...you mention the license test, then another cause, then several others buried in "so on"...

You see how this is A --> B --> C, not A --> B?

So if someone were to have asked me why I didn’t go on the date, what would you have said was the reason?

Colloquially, you'd say "I failed my license test and couldn't pick her up". Precisely, it would be "I failed my license test, she couldn't drive, I didn't want a ride from my parents, there was no way to meet without driving...". There are many causes and the license failure is a step removed from not going on the date.

I’m not saying, in any way, that the maniac was caused by the failure to open the door. I’m saying that consequences depend on context.

Yes...everyone is on board with this. This happens when "nothing happens" on failure too. If nothing happens on an ordinary Sunday, no big deal. If nothing happens while you're running from an assailant, big deal.

That works without using a single die roll to connect the events. It captures real life, which was the original point.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Right...you mention the license test, then another cause, then several others buried in "so on"...

You see how this is A --> B --> C, not A --> B?

And yet in essentially everything we do, we do exactly this. A caused B, B caused C, C caused D, and yet we refer to what courts call a "proximate" cause all the time. "Why were you late for work, Pat?" "Because I clocked in after my shift started." That's the most immediate cause, literally the reason--and yet I don't think you would accept that as the cause of being late. You would ask, okay, what led to that event? "I wasn't able to find a parking space." Okay--why couldn't you find a parking space? "I had to drive a different vehicle today." Why did you have to drive a different vehicle? "My normal, small car got in an accident." Why did the normal, small car get in an accident? "Because my teenage child was learning to drive and hit something."

Here, we would (most likely) cut off the causal chain at the parking space--higher up than THE single most direct possible cause, because that ultra-most-direct cause doesn't really cut it. But also lower than "any cause whatsoever", because we could continue this chain of reasoning on to "the boundary conditions of the universe being operated upon by the laws of physics", or what-have-you.

Your own argument undercuts itself. People don't look only to THE single most direct thing. They recognize that things are more complex than that. As a good example, taken from a real homicide case in Ohio: a man punched another man, who (as a result of that punch) struck his head against a vehicle and then the pavement. He was rushed to a hospital for his injuries, but refused a CAT scan, and was then sent home. He continued to feel unwell, and as a result of mental disturbance resulting from his injuries, he failed to take the insulin he needed to take, and thus died. According to your analysis, the one and only acceptable "cause" of his death is his failure to take his insulin, and thus the defendant in State [of Ohio] vs Smith would have been innocent of homicide. The court ruled otherwise, in a but-for way: but for the injury sustained to his head, he would not have forgotten to take his insulin, and thus would not have died. Hence, even though Smith was not the one who prevented the victim from taking insulin, Smith's violent act was held to be the proximate cause of the victim's death.

Exactly the same logic applies here. Yes, other intervening causes could theoretically have come into play. But the proximate cause of the date not occurring is that Hawkeyefan failed a driver's test. This is not weird; this is not abnormal reasoning; this is not somehow pulling a fast one. Real actual people, groups, and formal standards think and work this way.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Only half of this discussion is making that consideration. Once we accept that difference, all of a sudden the entire disagreement makes sense.

We can argue about realism, or consequences, or claim there’s some sort of higher obligation to "keep the game moving," but all of those arguments miss the more fundamental divide. One side is leaning into the game-ness and the other is suspending it.

So even if people disagree on whether I should fall off a wall, or trigger a new scene, when I fail to climb it, the real question remains, do we consider the fact we are playing a game at all? And if I don’t make that consideration, your argument will always seem odd, because it's unaligned with the very premise of what my table values.

Lanefan summed it up well with his question;


And you summed up the other side with your response;

I don't know where the bridge that connects these two views is. I don't even know if it exists. But I feel like we need to acknowledge the difference, or we’ll just keep talking past each other.

I don’t think that only one side is acknowledging this. Everyone I recall posting in favor of Fail Forwars acknowledged that it’s about notetting the game get boring. That “nothing happens” is not an acceptable answer.

No one said “nothing happens” is not an acceptable answer because “that’s not how the real world works” or anything like that.

Sometimes, nothing much does happen when someone does something or fails to do something.

But other times, things do happen when you do something or fail to do something.

Only one side is claiming that their approach is “more realistic”.

So?

So games don’t tend to work the way real life does.

Sure, but if every time you failed to open the pickle jar you dropped (and maybe broke) it or hurt your wrist or the cat dragged in something half-dead you'd pretty quickly come to associate Bad Stuff with stuck pickle jars and thus you'd stop eating pickles from jars entirely.

Sure, but who would make someone roll for such a mundane thing? We’re taking about D&D right? Aren’t the PCs in your game generally doing things that might actually cause harm to themselves or others? Aren’t they doing things with actual stakes?

Are your games filled with pickle jars and other consequence free crap?

Same is true in a game setting - if every failure brings calamity, why would anyone (other than the most gonzo of players) ever want to risk failure?

Please. Do your players shy away from all danger because sometimes bad things happen?

With many simple tasks, when it comes to their actual resolution any surrounding context other than maybe a time limit is often utterly irrelevant. Doesn't matter if you're trying to open the pickle jar in your kitchen or at the beach or in your camper in the wilderness - if you can't open it, closed it remains.

Yes, closed it remains. But there could very likely be other consequences. If I was trying to open the jar for my pregnant wife who’s having a craving, then a trip to the grocery store may be in my future.

It also may help if we come up with examples that aren’t ridiculously ordinary. I imagine that most first responders don’t have the same view of consequences that you and others are espousing. I imagine soldiers in combat don’t share the sentiment.

Again, the same is true in the game setting. Sometimes there's time pressure, other than that the surrounding context is usually irrelevant to the simple success-fail resolution of a task (though it may very well affect the success-fail odds before resolution occurs e.g. you're more likely to fail at climbing a cliff if you're blinded than you are if you can see).

The surrounding context is why you’re trying to do the thing. To say it is irrelevant seems delusional.

In real life, sometimes the only consequence is that you failed to do the thing.

Sure, I already said as much.

I think a better description would be "indirectly connected", where @AlViking clearly wants direct connection.

Perhaps that’s true! Perhaps if instead of continuing to use “unconnected” after this was pointed out to him several times, he could have adjusted what he was saying. Perhaps then maybe he wouldn’t be complaining about folks repeating themselves!

I thought @hawkeyefan had posted fairly extensively about doing just this?

Yeah, I gave an account of a very low-pre game of 5e I ran for some buddies while we were on vacation a week ago.

The game worked fine! Fail forward and similar elements were not difficult to implement into the 5e framework… though a small amount of adjustment may have been needed.

 

[Maxperson]

This is both the blessing and the curse of D&D. People sign up for it without actually knowing what they're signing up for, and those who do and then stick around often do not realize just how narrow D&D's structures can be. It's a gateway, but it's also really narrowly specific. Like how Dragon Ball Z was the gateway anime for a lot of Americans--but if you think that ALL anime has to be mostly-comedic vaguely-martial-arts-inspired and drawing heavily on Journey to the West, you're going to react rather negatively to a HUGE, HUGE swathe of what "anime" is, because you're coming at it with the mistaken belief that all anime should be like DBZ.

Thanks! I've been wondering and wondering what to watch for the last few days, and this made me realize that I haven't been to Crunchyroll in a long time.

 

[Maxperson]

False Equivalence #1: In my example the initial status is undefined. In yours it's defined as a living orc.
False Equivalence #2: In my example a successful roll moves undefined to defined in favor of the PC. In yours it is defined(alive) to defined(dead).
False equivalence #3: In my example a failed roll can result in defining the runes/shadowy figure as definitions 2 through infinity(definition 1 would be what the player wanted) that the DM chooses. In yours there is only the player's failed attempt to redefine the orc's state and the DM doesn't choose it.

The two examples weren't even close to being equivalent to one another.

@pemerton you asked me what was a False Equivalence and then I spent time answering you. Are you going to respond?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Right...you mention the license test, then another cause, then several others buried in "so on"...

You see how this is A --> B --> C, not A --> B?

Well, first off… do you see what those little arrows are doing to the letters? They’re connecting them! If we look back, I was objecting to the use of “unconnected” as a descriptor for consequences. I’m not sure how you expect visualizing the connection as a counter to my argument.

Second, I don’t quite agree that the example I gave is A --> B --> C.

A: I failed my driver’s test.

B: I canceled the date.

You’re citing the alternate means I could have used to keep the date as being involved in the causal link between me failing the test and canceling the date. But they are not. They are not your B.

At best, they are just other reasons I canceled the date. They are additional instances of A.

A: I didn’t want my parents to drive me on the date.

B: I canceled the date.

However, since I’d already dismissed those options, they were no longer a factor. It was all down to whether or not I failed the test, which I never expected to fail. But I did… so I canceled the date.

Colloquially, you'd say "I failed my license test and couldn't pick her up". Precisely, it would be "I failed my license test, she couldn't drive, I didn't want a ride from my parents, there was no way to meet without driving...". There are many causes and the license failure is a step removed from not going on the date.

Colloquially, I said “I failed my driver’s teat, so I had to cancel my date with Amanda”.

I want to take a moment to clarify that this was actually a thing that happened to me when I was 16. I didn’t just make this example up.

Yes...everyone is on board with this. This happens when "nothing happens" on failure too. If nothing happens on an ordinary Sunday, no big deal. If nothing happens while you're running from an assailant, big deal.

Yes… context matters. The no big deal and the big deal are the consequences of failing to open the door. They’re radically different because of the context of the situation.

That works without using a single die roll to connect the events. It captures real life, which was the original point.

I’m bot following this at all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The surrounding context is why you’re trying to do the thing. To say it is irrelevant seems delusional.

Now you are calling people who disagree with you delusional. This is getting increasingly insulting.

 

[pemerton]

You do realize this is, by name, your personal way to play 4e?

I learned it from the 4e rulebooks. Read the DMG's discussion of combat and non-combat encounters (especially skill challenges), and also the rules in the PHB and DMG for player-authored quests.

 

[pemerton]

Oh, for--! Are you doing this thing again?

We are all aware that the game takes place in an imaginary state.

In that case, I assume you can distinguish the following two things:

*The character's reading of the runes causing the runes to be <this> rather than <that> as an event within the fiction. (Did not happen.)

*The player's resolution of their declared action for their PC, which succeeds, thus causing everyone at the table to agree that the runes reveal a way out (Did happen.)​

No matter what you might claim, "what the player hoped for" and "what the player decided" is, in this case using these rules, exactly the same thing. Because--by the rules of the game--your "fun and interesting" runes that otherwise had no meaning turned out to be exactly what the PC wanted them to be.

But not in virtue of the player deciding they would be that thing. You say that you are not hinting that the roll doesn't matter - but if you agree that the roll was crucial, then you agree that the player didn't decide the outcome.

As I've repeatedly posted, no one talks about a player, whose successful rolls kill an Orc, as deciding that the Orc is dead. Likewise, in this case: the player declared their action, and it succeeded, and thus - as per the rules of the game - everyone agreed that the runes revealed a way out.

By those rules, if I said that I hoped the runes were a guacamole recipe, and then succeeded on my roll, then it certainly seems like they would be--even though that makes absolutely no sense in context.

Is this true? Which rule are you referring to, that says that there is no credibility test on permissible action declarations?

I'm really getting quite fed up with you correcting me on the play of games that you're not familiar with.