Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="SableWyvern" data-source="post: 9678190" data-attributes="member: 1008">On a slightly different point, this comment helped me identify more clearly the problem I have with fail forward in a more grounded game.Using a typical fail forward type of resolution system, if the PCs are picking a lock, the expected outcomes are likely to be:<ul>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">We get through the door and get closer to our objective. (Success)</li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">We get through the door and get closer to our objective but also discover some interesting complication. (Success with complication)</li>
<li data-xf-list-type="ul">We don't get through the door, but something else interesting occurs; or we do get through the door, but something interesting and very bad happens. (Fail forward).</li>
</ul>In my mind, I can't help but see that the game world is responding to character decisions with interesting outcomes, which makes it feel like a world that exists to do things the players find interesting. But that's not how the real world works. Making a decision to act doesn't mean something interesting happens. Sometimes, the door just stays locked.I'm sure it's possible to disassociate those things -- just because the player decision led to a roll that led to something interesting happening doesn't mean that the interesting event is actually tied to the character decision. But it certainly feels that way to me, and that's typically not the feeling I want.Interestingly, I'm completely OK with the Unusual Event results in Rolemaster, which are basically failure with an interesting complication (and predate AW by 15-odd years) but this is largely because they are rare (literally 1-in-100) outliers, which makes it much easier for me to rationalise them as &quot;unexpected coincidence&quot; rather than business as usual.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="SableWyvern, post: 9678190, member: 1008"] On a slightly different point, this comment helped me identify more clearly the problem I have with fail forward in a more grounded game. Using a typical fail forward type of resolution system, if the PCs are picking a lock, the expected outcomes are likely to be: [LIST] [*]We get through the door and get closer to our objective. (Success) [*]We get through the door and get closer to our objective but also discover some interesting complication. (Success with complication) [*]We don't get through the door, but something else interesting occurs; or we do get through the door, but something interesting and very bad happens. (Fail forward). [/LIST] In my mind, I can't help but see that the game world is responding to character decisions with interesting outcomes, which makes it feel like a world that exists to do things the players find interesting. But that's not how the real world works. Making a decision to act doesn't mean something interesting happens. Sometimes, the door just stays locked. I'm sure it's possible to disassociate those things -- just because the [I]player[/I] decision led to a roll that led to something interesting happening doesn't mean that the interesting event is actually tied to the [I]character[/I] decision. But it certainly [I]feels[/I] that way to me, and that's typically not the feeling I want. Interestingly, I'm completely OK with the Unusual Event results in Rolemaster, which are basically failure with an interesting complication (and predate AW by 15-odd years) but this is largely because they are rare (literally 1-in-100) outliers, which makes it much easier for me to rationalise them as "unexpected coincidence" rather than business as usual. [/QUOTE]

Verification