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[rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9678301" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Is it acceptable for the GM to forbid some outcomes and permit other outcomes, because the forbidden outcomes would be bad for the campaign in some way (e.g., "the campaign just ends in a really dull and disappointing way"), while the permitted outcomes would avoid whatever is bad about the bad outcomes?</p><p></p><p></p><p>Nope! Because, <em>as I have now told you at least three times</em>, "fail forward" DOESN'T MEAN YOU SUCCEED.</p><p></p><p>Do I need to put it in thousand-foot-tall neon letters? I'm getting extremely frustrated here, because I know I've said this to you several times over, and you keep saying stuff like this.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Proper application of fail forward should always have failure in the outcome. Period.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Only if you define failure as <strong>that one circumstance and nothing else ever, forever.</strong> That's the problem here. You are <em>rigidly</em> defining one and only one consequence as what "failure" means, and excluding any other possibility that <em>could still be failure</em>, but not that SPECIFIC failure.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Consider: You are climbing a rocky cliff face in order to save your friend. You fail the roll. The GM says, "You reach the top...and find the corpse of your friend, dead long enough that rigor mortis has set in."</p><p></p><p>Is that not a failure? I don't see how one can parse that as anything <em>but</em> a failure. It's just not a failure <em>in the one narrowly-defined sense of</em> "you fell off the cliff face". It accepts a broader range of results that are still, objectively, failures. The only difference is that the roll is not the singular narrowly-defined condition, "Did you climb this cliff face, yes/no?" It is "Did you succeed at your goal?" The goal was to save the friend--and that failed.</p><p></p><p>It's worth noting here, Dungeon World (which is my PbtA game of experience; I know most others work mostly the same) does not have a "Climb" roll. If a character tries to climb a sheer cliff face, that would be a Defy Danger roll. You are acting despite an imminent threat. In this case, you'd be defying the danger of the wall, in order to <em>do something</em>. What is that something? That is where the failure lies. If you roll 6-or-less total on your check (2d6+MOD), then you failed. In this case, the danger of the cliff overpowered you; sure, you <em>got to the top</em>, but the danger meant you could not reach your goal, namely, saving your friend's life. Now they're dead, and that isn't going to just go away. Maybe you can fix it, maybe you can't. That's why we play to find out what happens.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, I rolled and you got a 2 on the d20. (I actually <em>did</em> roll, in the roller bot I use for my Dungeon World game; I can get a screenshot if you care. Roll was made at 12:52 AM Pacific time, with the description "DC 16 Illusion" for fluff. I gave you a +2 modifier for presumed Wisdom bonus.) So I'm afraid you can't disbelieve this illusion!</p><p></p><p>More seriously, I've made the argument above.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Well then, [USER=1008]@SableWyvern[/USER], I think I've made my point. There is in fact at least one person in this thread who <em>would</em> do that, if time allowed. Likewise, the above example of the GM admitting a mistake and correcting it is something Lanefan would never do.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9678301, member: 6790260"] Is it acceptable for the GM to forbid some outcomes and permit other outcomes, because the forbidden outcomes would be bad for the campaign in some way (e.g., "the campaign just ends in a really dull and disappointing way"), while the permitted outcomes would avoid whatever is bad about the bad outcomes? Nope! Because, [I]as I have now told you at least three times[/I], "fail forward" DOESN'T MEAN YOU SUCCEED. Do I need to put it in thousand-foot-tall neon letters? I'm getting extremely frustrated here, because I know I've said this to you several times over, and you keep saying stuff like this. Proper application of fail forward should always have failure in the outcome. Period. Only if you define failure as [B]that one circumstance and nothing else ever, forever.[/B] That's the problem here. You are [I]rigidly[/I] defining one and only one consequence as what "failure" means, and excluding any other possibility that [I]could still be failure[/I], but not that SPECIFIC failure. Consider: You are climbing a rocky cliff face in order to save your friend. You fail the roll. The GM says, "You reach the top...and find the corpse of your friend, dead long enough that rigor mortis has set in." Is that not a failure? I don't see how one can parse that as anything [I]but[/I] a failure. It's just not a failure [I]in the one narrowly-defined sense of[/I] "you fell off the cliff face". It accepts a broader range of results that are still, objectively, failures. The only difference is that the roll is not the singular narrowly-defined condition, "Did you climb this cliff face, yes/no?" It is "Did you succeed at your goal?" The goal was to save the friend--and that failed. It's worth noting here, Dungeon World (which is my PbtA game of experience; I know most others work mostly the same) does not have a "Climb" roll. If a character tries to climb a sheer cliff face, that would be a Defy Danger roll. You are acting despite an imminent threat. In this case, you'd be defying the danger of the wall, in order to [I]do something[/I]. What is that something? That is where the failure lies. If you roll 6-or-less total on your check (2d6+MOD), then you failed. In this case, the danger of the cliff overpowered you; sure, you [I]got to the top[/I], but the danger meant you could not reach your goal, namely, saving your friend's life. Now they're dead, and that isn't going to just go away. Maybe you can fix it, maybe you can't. That's why we play to find out what happens. Well, I rolled and you got a 2 on the d20. (I actually [I]did[/I] roll, in the roller bot I use for my Dungeon World game; I can get a screenshot if you care. Roll was made at 12:52 AM Pacific time, with the description "DC 16 Illusion" for fluff. I gave you a +2 modifier for presumed Wisdom bonus.) So I'm afraid you can't disbelieve this illusion! More seriously, I've made the argument above. Well then, [USER=1008]@SableWyvern[/USER], I think I've made my point. There is in fact at least one person in this thread who [I]would[/I] do that, if time allowed. Likewise, the above example of the GM admitting a mistake and correcting it is something Lanefan would never do. [/QUOTE]
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