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

[FrogReaver]

"Fail forward" is a fairly well-known technique. It is part of an approach to play that emphasises (to use a metaphor) the "momentum" of play, including trajectories of threat and promise. It is related to players having clear goals or intents or hopes in their action declarations, which - on a failure - the GM will thwart by introducing a complication. It is also related to approaches to the framing of scenes (or, if you prefer, the presentation of situations by the GM to the players) that have threat and promise implicit in them.

The Burning Wheel text, which you have read, is an example of how this can be set out in a rulebook.

It is quite possible to play D&D in this way, in my experience. I've done it in 4e D&D, and I've also done it in AD&D using thief's skills and non-weapon proficiencies as the basis for rolls. I suspect it is not that hard to do in 5e D&D, given that the 5e D&D system for ability and skill checks is pretty minimal in its core presentation.

People who don't want this sort of thing won't use "fail forward". Those who do, might use it. Where is the confusion? What is the issue?

Note: your definition above leaves off nearly all the specific implementations of it in games like AW or burning wheel. The confusion being referenced is this conversational shift between the general notion of fail forward to any specific implementation of it. Of particular note is that when others are talking about the general notion of it, you bring up a specific implementation and probably unintentionally make it sound like that specific implementation has necessary requirements for fail forward when even you agree it doesn't. These kinds of general to specific or specific to general shifts when not recognized/acknowledged make for extremely frustrating conversations.

 

[FrogReaver]

The only disruption I see is a handful of RPGers, playing what seems to be reasonably mainstream D&D, apparently being upset that there are other RPGs out there which are offering alternatives to that.

Where is this projection coming from? Or am I mistaken and someone did say that? If so prove me wrong. Quote one person here who has said anything remotely close to that? Everyone on this thread has went to great lengths to say this is just our preference and we are happy there are RPGs that cater to your preferences too and have said that repeatedly.

 

[The Firebird]

Where is this projection coming from? Or am I mistaken and someone did say that? If so prove me wrong. Quote one person here who has said anything remotely close to that? Everyone on this thread has went to great lengths to say this is just our preference and we are happy there are RPGs that cater to your preferences too and have said that repeatedly.

Aye. I am quite happy narrative games exist because they provide an interesting toolset for a different type of experience. I've had my fun with them in the past. Just not what I'm looking for now.

 

[AlViking]

I get what you're saying here, and, for a large amount I agree. Someone who just disrupts the game for the sake of disrupting the game is being a jerk.

OTOH, playing the game and always choosing the most rational, logical, advantageous option is not being true to a character either. The character should make choices that are different from what you might think are the best at the time. That's what being a character means. So, sure, while you, the player, absolutely know that that hooded woman is a medusa, sometimes, it's a lot more interesting in the game to act as if you don't.

I do my best to make the logical choice for them. Even if I decide their judgement is clouded because of who they are. That's a big part of roleplaying. Not sure how you took anything I've said to indicate otherwise.

On the other hand I don't want artificial restrictions and prompts created by game rules making those decisions for me. If my character does something I wouldn't do because the rules say they should those decisions would be meaningless to me. I would no longer be method acting, I would feel like I was following a script.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I do my best to make the logical choice for them. Even if I decide their judgement is clouded because of who they are. That's a big part of roleplaying. Not sure how you took anything I've said to indicate otherwise.

On the other hand I don't want artificial restrictions and prompts created by game rules making those decisions for me. If my character does something I wouldn't do because the rules say they should those decisions would be meaningless to me. I would no longer be method acting, I would feel like I was following a script.

But no one is talking about that.

Genuinely. Not one person talking about these rules has even suggested that. What makes you think anyone has?

 

[Faolyn]

None of that has anything to do with sleight of hand though, nothing in the rules or my understanding of how lockpicking works would indicate that the noise level would change based on success or failure.

The rules don't need to spell everything out, because the writers assume that the players and GM have an imagination. For instance, if you fail a stealth check, the rules don't say how. But you probably wouldn't use the following:

Instead you'd say something like "I stepped on a twig." Even if a twig hadn't been previously established.

You are still adding the cook to the kitchen,

I also added the lock to the kitchen door, and the kitchen itself. Adding a cook is no different or strange.

I'm not and the original example didn't put a cook in the kitchen unless there was a failure. If the cook is always there why would they only scream because of someone is picking the lock but not a second later when the character opens the door after a success?

Because you did a bad enough job picking the lock that your actions alerted the cook. You didn't

You can, of course, still have the cook scream when someone enters the kitchen, even if they didn't hear the lock being picked. However, because the sound of the lock being very poorly picked didn't alert the cook, they're not paying undue attention to the door, leaving the PCs open to try to silence the cook in one way or another.

Take another example. The characters are in an not-so-abandoned crypt but they dealt with all of the undead denizens. The room is slowly filling the room with sand because they didn't completely disable a trap and I'm a fan of The Mummy movie so there's a time limit. There's an iron chest bolted to the floor but they fail the sleight of hand to pick the lock. Because of it's construction they could eventually break the chest open but the room will flood before then. What is the fail forward option? My option would be that they can't get it open in time, nothing happens.

The sand is the fail-forward--the room is slowly filling with sand because they didn't completely disable the trap. If they had a full success on the roll, thus completely disabling the trap, they wouldn't be dealing with the sand.

Also, the chest and trap are unconnected, beyond the fact that they're in the same area. Picking the lock, breaking the chest, ignoring the chest and moving on doesn't affect the trap in any way. It's not an Indiana Jones thing where they have to deal with the chest in a specific way to avoid spring the trap, after all.

The whole point was that they couldn't get into the event and failed a check to bluff their way past. Picking someone's pocket is fine, but it's a whole other set of actions and an alternative way to get in.

That's fine. That's still part of fail forward.

But nothing happened on a failure. Which is fine, I was asking what a fail-forward would look like.

The point of fail forward is to make sure the game doesn't stop moving, and especially so the GM always provides other options. Since there was still the long way around, the game didn't stop moving.

But let's assume that failure to find the passageway would grind the game to a halt. OK: someone else enters the area. If the PCs run rather than fight, they may get herded to a potentially useful location. If they fight, they might find a key on one of the bodies that doesn't fit a known lock.

They had a chance to decipher the code, probably via an investigation check but failed. If they had figured out the code they could have quickly read it and learned the plans. There may potentially be other options of course depending on the capabilities of the characters.

Here's the problem. You gated the event behind a single die roll. This is what fail forward is designed to prevent.

So one thing to do is to decide how many pertinent bits of information are in the papers. Let's say there are five. On a successful roll, they get all five pieces. On a partial success, they get three. On a total failure, they get one. It doesn't have to be those exact numbers. Maybe a partial success is two pieces, or four.

To make it fairer, you could number the pieces of info and then ask them to choose the numbers.

With knowledge checks? Frequently there are multiple levels of knowledge but roll low enough and you don't get anything other than common knowledge.

Which is literally a type of partial success.

 

[pemerton]

How does GM introducing complications on failure encourage you to take risks or display passion any more than GM not introducing complications on failure?

I think you're confusing cause and effect.

In a game, like classic D&D (eg the original game, Gygax's AD&D, Moldvay/Cook/Marsh B/X), that emphasises problem solving, clever operational play, obtaining maximum treasure at a minimum cost, etc, then "fail forward" is probably not a good fit. This sort of play has its own techniques for introducing complications - wandering monster rolls being the most obvious - and don't need additional complications.

But in a game that encourages players to embrace the risks their PCs take, and the passions they experience, then the complications and consequences that flow from "fail forward" resolution will not be experienced as an unfair hosing.

Here's a post of mine from over a decade ago, that tries to capture the contrast:

4e's a system that's pretty resilient, and that at least for me doesn't push back when I push it - it goes in the direction that is advertised. And it's a lot more forgiving than classic D&D, I think - for instance, in classic D&D it would hurt quite a bit for a psion to take damage as "psychic backlash" when inspecting strange crystals, as hp are a scarce resource and low level casters are very squishy. But in 4e roll on your page 42 chart (1d6+3 psychic damage is a good amount of psychic backlash for 1st level)! The player can spend a surge to be ready for the next combat/trap, so there isn't an immediate attrition issue, and by inflicting damage you let the players see the fiction expressed mechanically, and also get them engaged with the whole page 42 idea that they can try stuff (like divining info from strange crystals by using Arcana and/or Dungeoneering) in a freewheeling way, but you'll be freewheeling too. For me, that's the paradox of 4e - a mechanically very tight system has for me at least produced some of my most freewheeling and open-ended RP experiences.

I don't know if you have come across the phenomenon of new GMs of Dungeon World complaining about players "spamming" Discern Realities - because they (that is, the new GMs) haven't yet worked out how to make as hard and direct a move as they like when the Discern Realities roll fails. They are not used to "fail forward" adjudication, because they are still approaching things in more of a "classic D&D" mindset.

The players thinking differently about how risk and reward and consequence are related is another part of the mindset shift.

 

[pemerton]

If you look at the great works of literature it is filled with instances of conflict between characters that do exclusively perfectly rational and pragmatic decisions given their set of values, and limited information.

I think this is an over-generalisation.

Romeo and Juliet. Les Miserables. The Great Gatsby. Howard's End. Just to name a few works that don't seem to conform to your statement.

 

[pemerton]

For someone with such an encyclopedic recall of Edwards, of the Forge theory and definitions, for a dozen actual play examples, it is disappointing to see such a poor grasp of what your interlocutors think.

The poster to whom I replied said that there is no in-world cause and effect between failing an attempt at picking a lock, and startling a cook. My point is that the in-world cause and effect is obvious.

 

[The Firebird]

The poster to whom I replied said that there is no in-world cause and effect between failing an attempt at picking a lock, and startling a cook. My point is that the in-world cause and effect is obvious.

Right--except you've got @AlViking wrong, and the argument from my side has never been otherwise. Of course there is cause and effect between the failed lock pick attempt and the cook being startled.