Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AlViking" data-source="post: 9679745" data-attributes="member: 6906980">One more note on fail forward - some people do define or use it differently than an immediate cost because we can't have common definitions. That would be just too easy!An example I found from <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/408-failing-forward-losing-without-ending-the-campaign" target="_blank">https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/408-failing-forward-losing-without-ending-the-campaign</a> would be okay for me. The character is trying to smash down a crumbling brick wall and fails so they knock down the wall but take damage and are temporarily restrained. That makes sense to me, the bricks falling are a directly tied to breaking down the wall.  Personally I'd call that a partial success and it's dependent on how much they missed the target number by.  Miss it by less than 5 and you succeed at what you were attempting but it doesn't work quite like you hoped.  In this scenario breaking down a wall, in a climbing example it might be taking some damage and more time because you fell part way.On the other hand I'm not sure I'd even categorize their other example as fail forward - they fail to stop a thief.  They manage to track down the thief only to find them dead and now have another trail to follow.  To me that's just ensuring that a single incident doesn't end the campaign, the fact that the rogue they tracked down was dead isn't even particularly relevant. Not stopping the theft was a fail, they just had other options to get the McGuffin by tracking down the thief.My primary thought on this though is that I do my best to avoid having only one way forward.  The other ways may not be what you were hoping for but it doesn't end the campaign.  Of course since I run a sandbox the thief getting away with the McGuffin is not the end anyway.  You still have a chance to track down the thief or worst case the thief gets away Scott-free, the party's reputation takes a bit of a hit and they don't get paid.  They move on to something else and perhaps have another shot at stopping the thief.But what doesn't happen in my games is a consequence of failure being completely separate from the declared action.</blockquote>

Verification