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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 6358551" data-attributes="member: 58197">What would be a possible compromise that a TRPG company could make along these lines? All the stuff you listed above is in the GM's hands, not the company's, unless you're running a prefab adventure. (And even then it's in the GM's hands, it's just a question of whether the adventure supports the GM or not.)I suppose &quot;fail forward&quot; could be considered an example of this, but I don't really see that as dumbing down--rather, I see it as attempting to remove the scenario where bad luck on the dice, or player inability to solve a given puzzle, stops a campaign in its tracks.I learned the importance of &quot;fail forward&quot; a decade before I ever heard the phrase. Ironically, I learned it from a scenario where the players didn't fail--but they almost failed, and left me wondering what the heck I would have done if they had. It was the grand climax of a huge campaign, the PCs were in the heart of Hell with the Lords of Hell descending on them in full fury, there was a puzzle they had to solve in order to break Hell's power, and they weren't solving it. I was faced with a choice between wrapping up my campaign with a TPK, or wussing out completely on my uber-villains. Fortunately, one of my players figured it out at the last second and the night ended on a high note, but from then on, I determined that in any such scenario I would arm myself with a backup plan. (I won't tell the players about it, though, unless I have to use it. No sense defusing the tension.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 6358551, member: 58197"] What would be a possible compromise that a TRPG company could make along these lines? All the stuff you listed above is in the GM's hands, not the company's, unless you're running a prefab adventure. (And even then it's in the GM's hands, it's just a question of whether the adventure supports the GM or not.) I suppose "fail forward" could be considered an example of this, but I don't really see that as dumbing down--rather, I see it as attempting to remove the scenario where bad luck on the dice, or player inability to solve a given puzzle, stops a campaign in its tracks. I learned the importance of "fail forward" a decade before I ever heard the phrase. Ironically, I learned it from a scenario where the players [I]didn't[/I] fail--but they almost failed, and left me wondering what the heck I would have done if they had. It was the grand climax of a huge campaign, the PCs were in the heart of Hell with the Lords of Hell descending on them in full fury, there was a puzzle they had to solve in order to break Hell's power, and they weren't solving it. I was faced with a choice between wrapping up my campaign with a TPK, or wussing out completely on my uber-villains. Fortunately, one of my players figured it out at the last second and the night ended on a high note, but from then on, I determined that in any such scenario I would arm myself with a backup plan. (I won't tell the players about it, though, unless I have to use it. No sense defusing the tension.) [/QUOTE]

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