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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AlViking" data-source="post: 9698922" data-attributes="member: 6906980">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 <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/rant-the-conservatism-of-d-d-fans-is-exhausting.712674/post-9698694" target="_blank">here</a>.</blockquote>

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