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

[pemerton]

The first three pages of this thread don't mention fail-forward at all. Did you have something else in mind?

See the edit to my post that you quoted.

 

[pemerton]

Okay. Then to me that would be an additional requirement in the definition of narrativist than rising action. Especially if we are staying close to the literary meaning of rising action.

At least I now know more about what it means to you.

I think the notion of "additional requirement" is misplaced. See this post:

Here is what rising action might look like: a scene with the character coming home, deadlocking their door; a scene with them lying in bed, turning fitfully because they are scared of the perpetrator; a scene in which they take a sleeping tablet to help them fall asleep; then a scene of them lying in bed, asleep, and someone seems to be turning the handle of their bedroom door . . .

Suppose, between the shot of them in bed asleep, and the cut to the turning door handle, I were to include two hours of footage on the model of Warhol's film Sleep. That would not contribute to rising action. It would not be an instance of, or a part of, rising action.

but it's never said a piece of literature or film doesn't have rising action simply because it spent significant time detailing hardware/logistics/inventory/etc

That is exactly the sort of thing that could be said! "The film sets out to have rising action, but gets distracted by lingering shots of military hardware."

 

[AlViking]

The sensible thing for Luke to do would not have been to listen to the old wizard and go off to try and save the princess. Instead, he should have turned the rogue droids in to the local imperial magistrate.

The sensible thing for Indiana Jones to do would be to safely sit in his classroom and teach archaeology and history and not go gallivanting across the globe getting involved with gangsters and Nazis and cultists.

The principle to make the characters’ lives not boring doesn’t mean “be a suicidal maniac”… but it does mean taking risks. And that’s something that people do. Especially in adventure fiction.

I get that mitigating risk was kind of baked into D&D early on… but not everyone wants a game that’s been boiled down to a list of best practices where everyone is walking around with 10 foot poles and performing door protocol every time they come to a door. That's not how actual people behave.

It’s encouraging players to make decisions for their characters that are engaging and interesting and drive things forward. To be passionate about their goals and to actively pursue them, even at risk of harm or death.

The whole 10 ft pole thing was almost always a joke as far was we were concerned. There was a specific style of play that pitted DM vs player, I even played one or two at conventions. But that's not what the vast majority of gameplay I ever encountered was.

I never have an issue motivating players without these techniques and from my personal perspective? The moments I remember most was when I took a real risk, a real chance at irrecoverable failure, where I knowingly put it all on the line make or break. Fail forward techniques would have taken those moments away from me. Taking the gamble is what made it exciting and memorable.

Meanwhile fail forward is designed to avoid leaving the situation unchanged. Sometimes I want to leave the situation unchanged. In a recent game the players tried to bluff their way past some guards and it didn't work. Nothing changed, the guards were not going to let them pass. Were they temporarily frustrated? Probably. But they still had options of fighting their way past, taking a different route which would have taken longer and a few more. Then they did something I hadn't expected, they told the truth of why they needed in (it made sense in context of the scenario). There was a lot of cheering when it worked - which wouldn't have happened had they just gotten through despite failure and was only worthy of cheering because of the momentary frustration. That's been my experience on many occasions, an earned win means more if there were previous setbacks.

Then there's the goal of fail forward avoiding a character looking incompetent, players aren't fragile flowers that wilt at a whiff of not always succeeding. Even experts fail sometimes and the characters in D&D anyway are not always the experts, at least not at lower levels. Then later on? When they can do things that would have been impossible before? I get a sense of accomplishment with my character's growth.

NOTE: last two paragraphs for design and goals of fail forward were taken from here.

 

[Enrahim]

Unless they're risky?

Touché? If you are looking for theme in trad play a major one tend to be exactly: How much are you willing to risk to reach your ambition?

Risk/reward and push your luck are popular terms when talking about this kind of play for a reason.

But people do that in real life all the time. People make decisions that are not in their own interests. Very often, they may not realize that's what they're doing, or they haven't stopped to consider it, but other times, they know it going in. Sometimes they are literally told that something is bad or wrong and they do it anyway.

We all have done this at one point or another in our lives. Very likely, only with minor consequences... or perhaps we did something stupid and the bad thing that could have happened, didn't. But that doesn't change that people behave this way all the time.

Yes. They happen all the time, and as such has been part of recordings since the dawn of time, fictional or otherwise. That doesn't make them good stories for me. I recognize they are good stories for others. It is the notion that this is somehow required or an "easy way" to make a good story that hits my nerve.

No, I think the flaws of people have been foundational to fiction since its inception and will continue to be so. I think your analysis here is skewed in several ways.

This made me realize something I think might be important. I mindlessly typed "flaw" in a causal everyday usage, not thinking of the established usage in drama. Absolutely! Since antiquity "flaw" in persons have been recognized as a central piece of drama. However in that antique theory we are typically interested in flaws of virtue rather than flaws of reason.

What I realized now is that in our modern more morally relativistic culture the concept of "virtue" is no longer the focus or language used when talking about this topic. Rather it is more common to talk about differences in value. It is also a lot more tolerant. While mild cowardice would be a flaw of virtue in ancient Greece, a somewhat heightened instinct for your own survival would hardly be considered a "flaw" in modern parlance.

So that is my question now: Might it be that what is commonly refered to as "flaws" in the context of drama advice is actually refering to what in more normal parlance would be more natural to think of as "deviations from the author/writer's own ideals"? Is this well known in art circles that that is indeed the way the advice about flawed characters is meant to be understood? Is it indeed well understood to mean this even among the happy hobbyists in this forum, and that I happen to be the hard science nerd that just haven't gotten the picture?

In any case - when I said flaws in my previous post, I think what I had in mind would be best described as self defeating behavior. I think that is generally recognised as flaws in common parlance. It might have been a very poor choice of words.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And yet they still exist, because as far as I'm concerned we live in a logical universe.

This seems to suggest impulsive decisions and "going with the gut" are things that do not exist. Unless we are communicating from different universes, that's a counterfactual, or you're using "logic" in what seems like an idiosyncratic way here.

 

[Enrahim]

So that is my question now: Might it be that what is commonly refered to as "flaws" in the context of drama advice is actually refering to what in more normal parlance would be more natural to think of as "deviations from the author/writer's own ideals"? Is this well known in art circles that that is indeed the way the advice about flawed characters is meant to be understood? Is it indeed well understood to mean this even among the happy hobbyists in this forum, and that I happen to be the hard science nerd that just haven't gotten the picture?

Self replying as I realise this is worth a seperate post. Dramas and literature have (typically) only one author. Making sure the characters are not just representations of (aspects) of you, the author, seem in such a context to be quite important writing advice for several reasons. One of them is that interesting drama tend to happen naturally when different multifaceted characters meet up.

However in RPG we are not capitalising on this at all if we try to transfer this advice to players. Players typically only create one character, and other participants are creating characters by their own that is almost certain to be significantly different from this one character in any number of ways. The variation in characters needed for drama is ensured by this process - no advice about making the character different from yourself is needed at all from a drama perspective? (There are of course other very good reasons to ensure aproperiate separation between yourself and your character)

In other words, what can actually character flaws bring to the table in terms of making a "good story" in an rpg setting?

 

[Enrahim]

The sensible thing for Luke to do would not have been to listen to the old wizard and go off to try and save the princess. Instead, he should have turned the rogue droids in to the local imperial magistrate.

This is the reason I haven't and won't give any examples of literature I think do not use flaws of rationality as a plot mechanism. It is always possible to make any action irrational or insensible if you just impose the wrong valueset onto it.

Given what you see from Luke, how high do you think he valued his life in no man's land? How would you evaluate his belief in this wizard given the presence of stories about magic claimed to actually be true he grew up with? Do you get the sense that he is instilled with some sense of deep loyalty to the empire and their customs? Might there even be some buried memories from his earliest days somehow influencing some value judgments here? This is all without even drawing in force influence.

Indeed I think in light of this, throwing away your chance of getting out of your current hell hole by turning it in to the local imperial magistrate sound highly insensible.

But I am not interested in analysing every event in any major piece of work in this maner. And absolutely not in the context of a forum thread mostly about completely unrelated matters.

 

[Gimby]

In other words, what can actually character flaws bring to the table in terms of making a "good story" in an rpg setting?

We could for example be trying to evoke a certain genre - in 7th Sea for example it cost build points to have character flaws but you gain XP for whenever they cause your character trouble. The actual implementation of this was fairly ropey, but the point was to encourage players to take actions that hinder the long term goals of their characters and take self-destructive actions in ways that reflect the genre fiction that the game draws inspiration from.

We can also see this kind of thing in something like Conan 2D20 with the carousing rules - the point is to get players to have a mechanical incentive/force to make the characters act like characters inspired by the fiction the game is inspired by. And to give the characters a reason to get back to adventuring.

-edit

I think part of this is that all fictional characters, but RPG characters in particular for this discussion do not generally have the same needs and subconscious desires as a real person.

A simple example would be our mighty thewed barbarian - in real life to maintain the kind of physique that the art and mechanics suggests for a high STR and CON score requires highly consistent exercise, a high protein and calorie diet and probably at least decent sleeping arrangements. In 5e, as long as you hit the requirements for avoiding exhaustion you can take the money and time it would have required you to maintain these and invest it in other things.

Equally, real people will overindulge on food or booze because of their desires - in 5e at least a character has perfect self control over these things and is mechanically incentivised to not do so. Or to skip on expensive accommodation - by saving money this way you can be better prepared for the next adventure, or get a gear upgrade sooner and so on (less true in 5e than some other D&D, but still the case at low levels). In other games, you may get XP for indulging (see 7th Sea) or use it to restore other resources (see BiTD)

Now, I'll fully admit you don't need these kind of flaws to make a character interesting and that a good story can be told about characters that don't exhibit them (Carrot Ironfoundersson is probably a standout example of this, and to a lesser extent Havelock Vetirnari if we consider the Discworld series) but it's often the contrast with the other characters that makes them so.

 

[hawkeyefan]

What's your rationale for successful lockpicking attempts making no noise? Because if both success and failure make noise, then noise isn't a result of the failed attempt.

That more noise is made on the failed attempt... enough to alert someone nearby. Similar to a stealth roll.

If you cast a silence spell it is. If not, metal on metal and the clicking of the lock tumbles is going to happen no matter how good you are.

Also, the same caution happens on a failed attempt as with a successful one, so the noise will not be significantly more on a failed attempt. Since the same caution is happening, all that really should result is the failure to open the lock. The noise levels will be about the same for both success and failure.

I don't think either of these things is true. I believe that one attempt at picking a lock can be quieter than another, just like one can walk more quietly, or attempt to do just about anything else quietly.

You picking up on the noise would not be a direct result of the fall, since if you weren't there it wouldn't happen. A direct result happens regardless.

The branch making noise would be a direct result, as that noise happens no matter what. You hearing that noise is a step removed since you may or may not be there, while the noise happens no matter what.

Another example. Fire burning you because you put your hand in it is a direct result. Fire causing your house to collapse is a direct result. You being hurt by that collapse is an indirect result of the fire. The fire only directly affected the house.

Yeah, I don't agree... I think this is all semantic nonsense.

The mechanic represents a step.

Yes, I understand that. I've simply represented that step in another way. It's one step removed... the lock picking makes noise, someone hears it.

Like fluff and lore needing to match in the game, the rule names and what the rules actually do should actually match. When they are completely different, it's, well, dumb.

The name of the mechanic is stealth in 5e for when you are sneaking, not hamburger. If they named it hamburger, it would be dumb.

The principle tells you to do what it wants you to do. It's not telling you to do something completely different.

Your example is hamburger.

Maybe. Some games do. Some games don't.

But according to your logic, the 5e text is accusing every other game that exists of encouraging metagame thinking.

The same way that you're reading an insult into the advice in another rule book to "Make the characters' lives not boring".

Yes they are. By virtue of playing the game, those characters' lives are interesting. Nothing further need be done, especially through a rule with a name that has nothing to do with the advice it gives

Things are not just interesting because we play the game. We have to make it so. If the characters meet in a tavern, and the GM never presents them with anything to do, and they don't think of something themselves... that's not inherently interesting. We're not going to just say "wow these characters sitting in this tavern is totally not boring at all" automatically.

The players and the GM should actively do something to make things interesting.

It isn't. Luke's life was exciting, even though he went to get training, which from the look on Luke's face, was often boring.

Luke's life on Tatooine was boring. If we looked at it as a game, his player deciding to investigate the mysteries of the droids, and to go see the weird old hermit, were decisions to make his life interesting. I mean, he's literally given a choice at one point and says "I want to go with you and train to be a jedi like my father". If he was a PC, that would be the player making his life not boring... he's leaving Tatooine.

First you make the case for why I should respond to this strawman. Not one person has argued that games should be boring.

Because you've positioned sensible as the opposite of exciting and have advocated for the players to be sensible. Then you get mad at perceived suggestions that sensible is boring.

No one is commenting on your play here. At all.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Touché? If you are looking for theme in trad play a major one tend to be exactly: How much are you willing to risk to reach your ambition?

Risk/reward and push your luck are popular terms when talking about this kind of play for a reason.

So you agree with the principle of "make the characters' lives not boring"?