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

[Enrahim]

Burning Wheel has a "no retry" rule - called Let It Ride. Torchbearer has a similar rule called Fun Once.

By "fail with no retry" do you mean "nothing happens, but you can't try again?"

Yes.

And are you asking if that could be a meaningful ramification of a test in Burning Wheel?

No.

My view is typically not: that is not really "two directions" nor "pushing the story in another direction".

Two Directions . . . Failure is not the end of the line, but is a complication that pushes the story in another direction. Failure Complicates the Matter . . . the GM should present the players with the possible ramifications of their tests."

So the quote indicates that there is one clear narrative direction that need to be singled out for failure before the dice are rolled? In that case I agree the former excludes fail with no retry, but the latter (before dice are rolled) do not seem to have been explicitelty fulfilled in any of the examples I can remember off the top of my head right now. It might have been an omission for brevity, but if this part is essential for the very definition of FF it seem a bit weird to omit when explaining it to someone fully new (and sceptical) to the concept.

Is there an actual example you have in mind?

Not actual play. Abstract situation that is common in a certain kind of play: There is a myriad of known options that the players has indicated would be interesting to explore. They settle on first trying to pick a lock. Picking the lock fails. Would simply disalowing retry (complication) pushing the players to chose a different option be an example of fail forward as a general concept? It would (presumably) not be an acceptable complication in BW. But it contrasts nicely with "no meaningful time passes, and you can just keep rolling until you succeed".

I mean, suppose that the only other possibility is reading the rune of prayer to Pazuzu: and so the "fail with no retry" means that the player is apt to be moved to have their PC read the rune. Maybe, in the right context, that could be a "fail forward". Is that the sort of thing you're thinking of?

You sort of lost me here. I am not sure what example you have in mind. But I do not think the situation you describe is relevant for my question beyond being a facinating edge case.

 

[Lanefan]

But by definition, simply by having any backstory at all, the player does this. Immersion damaged from the outset.

Maybe, though if the backstory (or its major elements) are a) generated randomly as part of char-gen and-or b) supplied by the DM or some other external source then subsequent immersion will be as before: you take what you've got and make what you can of it.

Note this is not a "perfect sim is impossible therefore don't even try". It is that the standard you have set here is that the PCs cannot, ever, for any reason, have any control over any content in the fiction, unless by the one method of the character personally acting upon the world. This is incompatible with writing a backstory for the character--flatly, absolutely. There cannot ever be a case where the GM would ask the player about something from the character's backstory. Either the backstory must be purely randomly generated, or it must be pre-generated by the GM and handed to the player.

Indeed. Or - and this has in fact happened to one of my own major characters - the backstory gets rendered largely moot during play when the party gets punted 250 years into its own past and stays there: even though my character remembers it all, none of the backstory has actually occurred yet! That said, if I do a detailed backstory for a character it's 99% for my own benefit, to inform my roleplay; I don't expect the DM to bring it into play in any significant way.

It might not surprise you to learn we randomize the major elements of backstory: character age, past skills and professions (e.g. sailor, baker, nobility, armourer, etc.), life skill abilities (swimming, riding, boating, etc.), non-native languages spoken (and of those, languages literate), +++ family details (siblings, parents, etc. and what they did/do), hometown, sometimes upbringing details, past travels if any, and so on.

Everything before the '+++' is and must be done during char-gen, with a subsequent roll to determine how good you are at each skill you have or have had. The rest is often left until the character has stuck around long enogh to become relevant, and is a good excuse for an out-of-session visit to the pub.

 

[Lanefan]

Heaven forbid that the fiction in a RPG be affected by (i) the actions the players declare for their PCs, and (ii) their success or failure when they roll for those actions.

The fiction is affected. Sometimes maybe just not as much as you'd like it to be.

But it is obvious that failed burglary is related to startling people.

If there's people there to startle, sure. But if it's previously undetermined or not noted whether there's people there or not then it really does seem like the failed break-in attempt is causing those people to appear where they otherwise would not.

The way you do it, at least one of my four lock-cook outcomes becomes impossible: I can't narrate a cook being present if the lock attempt is successful.

That's one of the main ways a burglar can fail! You prefer a system where the GM decides if that sort of failure occurs, independent of the player's declared action and roll for it. But your preference is not universal, and is certainly not normative.

Not normative in your circles, perhaps. Kinda SOP round here.

 

[clearstream]

That said, I do think this disagreement about what "gamism/gamist" means is quite relevant. It's easy to talk past one another if we forget it.

I think if "gamist" is to label anything, it has to be along the lines of

I was replying to @The Firebird, who (at least as I understood things) used the word "gamist" in the sense of playing for winning/achievement (what has also been called "Step on Up").

It otherwise winds up in the region of what a game is. Compare your words that I've bolded...

For my part, I would not quite use the first definition you gave, but it's very close. I would instead phrase it as "...to achieve one's goals in a measurable way"--that is, while victory is by far the most common goal, it isn't the only one. We can see this in, for example, those who set out to optimize a concept rather than trying to develop the single most optimal path through a game (or, if two+ paths are close enough so as to be indistinguishable, developing at least one of them).

...with the definitions listed in Salen and Zimmerman's Rules of Play. They settle on "A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome." Among proposed definitions informing that is Costikyan's "A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal."

As a creative agenda then, it skirts saying it's "gamist" to play a game. But that can't reasonably be denied any other agenda that chooses game as its expressive, explorative, narrative mode!

That said, either option here...

I'm late to the party, but I think there's a subtle broadening of "gamist" going on here. Sometimes it seems to mean "a game that's about pursuing an agenda of making strong gameplay decisions to achieve victory", and other times it seems to mean "a game with overt mechanics that don't map causally/temporally to fictional events."

I don't think those are really that comparable. The latter might lead to the former, but it isn't guaranteed to.

could lead to the dislikes you lay out here..

Folks who are gigantic fans of sim treat "gamist" as the latter almost all of the time, and specifically cite that as why they cannot stand gamism. For my part, I would not quite use the first definition you gave, but it's very close. I would instead phrase it as "...to achieve one's goals in a measurable way"--that is, while victory is by far the most common goal, it isn't the only one. We can see this in, for example, those who set out to optimize a concept rather than trying to develop the single most optimal path through a game (or, if two+ paths are close enough so as to be indistinguishable, developing at least one of them).

While "achieving goals I'm a measurable way" would only do so if amounting to @Pedantic's second framing, i.e. where not limited to representative abstractions.

 

[pemerton]

There is a myriad of known options that the players has indicated would be interesting to explore. They settle on first trying to pick a lock. Picking the lock fails. Would simply disalowing retry (complication) pushing the players to chose a different option be an example of fail forward as a general concept? It would (presumably) not be an acceptable complication in BW. But it contrasts nicely with "no meaningful time passes, and you can just keep rolling until you succeed".

I don't know. I mean, to me it seems pretty weak, unless there is something at stake in trying one of those different options (my example was having to speak a prayer to Pazuzu; another might be having to garotte a guard, rather than just sneak past them) - but that in itself will depend on what matters in the broader context of play. For instance, in some sorts of pretty classic D&D play, it doesn't really matter or cost anything to speak a prayer to a dark god, or to garotte a person.

I guess I'm not really clear on why it matters whether something-or-other fits some abstract notion of "fail forward"?

 

[clearstream]

In Burning Wheel, a test doesn't represent anything at all.

I'd like to better understand your thought here.

The character's rating in a skill represents something: their degree of ability and expertise. The obstacle represents something too, namely, the difficulty of a task. The rules are clear about both of these. (You can find the relevant rules text in the free download of Hub and Spokes.)

At least some of the dice rolled in systems like Cortex, Paragon, and 5e represent something. Is that what you have in mind too? For example respectively, a seasoned journalist trait, a small luxury, a bitter trait, a longsword.

But the roll itself doesn't represent anything. It's a decision-making technique. If the player succeeds, then the character succeeds at their task and realises their intent. If the player fails, then the GM introduces a complication which negates the intent.

A roll may also index a result or be an input in a formula: being in that way an element of an abstraction or game dynamic. For example the Hit Location roll in RQ that ensures players are more likely to agree to arms being hit rather than chests, or the Encounter Difficulty roll in 4e that ensures DM is more likely to propose, given tacit agreement, moderate encounters than hard.

It seems like roll A and roll B (being cases of the above) can be reasonably characterised as a decision-making technique while also delimiting what can be agreed to in ways that represent something.

 

[pemerton]

Not normative in your circles, perhaps. Kinda SOP round here.

Surely you're capable of appreciating that your approach to RPGing is not the only one that people engage in or aspire to.

 

[pemerton]

At least some of the dice rolled in systems like Cortex, Paragon, and 5e represent something. Is that what you have in mind too? For example respectively, a seasoned journalist trait, a small luxury, a bitter trait, a longsword.

An attribute/ability rating in Cortex+ represents something - eg Godlike Strength d12 represents that the character has godlike strength.

But the roll of the dice doesn't represent anything. Choosing which two dice to take as the total, and which die to use for effect, is not a representational process.

A roll may also index a result or be an input in a formula: being in that way an element of an abstraction or game dynamic. For example the Hit Location roll in RQ that ensures players are more likely to agree to arms being hit rather than chests

The probability distribution of the hit location chart is intended to represent the likelihoods of various sorts of blows being struck in combat. What the roll of the dice represents is much more contentious, as Edwards notes:

The causal sequence of task resolution in Simulationist play must be linear in time. He swings: on target or not? The other guy dodges or parries: well or badly? The weapon contacts the unit of armor + body: how hard? The armor stops some of it: how much? The remaining impact hits tissue: how deeply? With what psychological (stunning, pain) effects? With what continuing effects? All of this is settled in order, on this guy's "go," and the next guy's "go" is simply waiting its turn, in time.

The few exceptions have always been accompanied by explanatory text, sometimes apologetic and sometimes blase. A good example is classic hit location, in which the characters first roll to-hit and to-parry, then hit location for anywhere on the body (RuneQuest, GURPS). Cognitively, to the Simulationist player, this requires a replay of the character's intent and action that is nearly intolerable. It often breaks down in play, either switching entirely to called shots and abandoning the location roll, or waiting on the parry roll until the hit location is known.​

the Encounter Difficulty roll in 4e that ensures DM is more likely to propose, given tacit agreement, moderate encounters than hard.

I'm not familiar with this roll.

It seems like roll A and roll B (being cases of the above) can be reasonably characterised as a decision-making technique while also delimiting what can be agreed to in ways that represent something.

Some rolls in RPGs may be representational, although I suspect many are not. My post that you quoted was talking specifically about Burning Wheel.