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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SableWyvern" data-source="post: 9678171" data-attributes="member: 1008">If I'm playing a game where wilderness exploration is taken that seriously and the characters don't have the necessary skills to survive but go wandering around anyway, then this is perfectly reasonable outcome. The players, knowing this, won't go wandering off into the wilderness without the necessary skills and resources to handle the chance that they become lost at some point.Again, if they do end up in such a situation, it will have been a long sequences of specific decisions and outcomes leading to what sounds like a campaign end-state.There is a big difference in feel and mood between a game where the players know that if they don't take wilderness dangers seriously they might get lost and die, and one where they know that they can take any degree of risk and fail forward their way to some kind of successful outcome anyway. Neither is inherently better than the other; my point is simply that they're not equivalent and you can't just offer fail forward as a solution without recognising that you're changing the nature of the game.I'm not saying fail forward can't be useful or it should never be used. I'm opposed to two things:First, the assertion that it's a key tool that all GMs should learn and use, as if there are problems that can occur in any game that can only be fixed with fail forward (or that fail forward is always the best solution for them).Second, the idea that if a game is being run without a fail forward mechanic, suddenly inserting the mechanic to get around an unexpected problem (as if to create the illusion that it was the mechanic and not GM fiat that just occurred) is somehow a better solution than just admitting a mistake was made and fixing that mistake with open communication.</blockquote>

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