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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6358566" data-attributes="member: 4937">I didn't saw that the situation doesn't change.  Sure, something about the situation gets 'worse', even if in fact the door is now open.  It's just that in practice changing the drapes is mainly what 'fail forward' does.  It's that illusionism for GM's I mentioned.No, no, no, no, no.  The situation changes in Gygaxian D&D because hit points go down and eventually run out.  That wandering monster showing up isn't a consequence to failure unless it tangibly decreases the players resources.  The wandering monster showing up after all, is potentially a good thing - bringing XP and loot.   In practice though it's a bad thing, bringing lost resources and lost opportunity costs precisely because Gygaxian D&D has this logistical subgame.   In 'fail forward' games, there is really no way to do that.   All you do is change the drapes.That's just failure to understand the mechanics.  Bad gameplaying or bad GMing doesn't make for a bad system.  No, but any generalized idea that all failures bring mitigating consequences is just as bad.  But seriously, you are just really confused.  If the concept of 'fail forward' is that all failure brings negative consequences, then Gauntlet (the old coin op video game) is the premier example of 'fail forward'.   'Elf, your life force is draining!'.   But of course, by negative you don't actually mean negative.No, it's says failure must be interesting.  Seriously?  If that is failing forward then Gygaxian D&D is failing forward par excellence.  If that's failing forward you've invented nothing new.   There is no novelty to the mechanic at all.   The realization that failure can have negative consequences and indeed should have negative consequences is nothing new to gaming.  No one needed to verbalize that.  No one needed to add the qualifier 'forward' to that.  And ironically, even in this thread Umbran (using the term much more correctly) called out 'falling to the bottom of a pit' as an example of not failing forward.  If the bottom of the pit isn't interesting, you didn't fail forward you just failed.  If falling into and getting out of the pit isn't interesting, fail forward suggests you shouldn't have narrated that consequence. But it only matters if the player/character is losing something.  Color of hardship isn't actual failure.But its also valid 'try again, only the stakes are getting higher'.  That's why I said that allowing someone to try again is perfectly valid failing forward.   All that failing forward requires is that trying again is interesting.  Well, I disagree.  Outside the community of Ron Edwards style 'everyone else is doing badwrongfun' snobs, even when the promoters of failing forward have the opportunity to demonstrate the value of the concept in the most advantageous situation possible - writing examples of play in rule books where they are under no time pressure to create interesting failure - the results are often laughable and mockable.No, because my argument about slapstick comedy doesn't depend on one particular transformation.  All it depends on is consistent application of the concept.  You see the problem with 'failure is always interesting' is that it doesn't really correspond to actual experience in any meaningful way, so the more often it happens and the more forced that result seems, the more ridiculous the story you are generating becomes.  There is nothing naturalistic about 'fail forward' happening all the time.  Consistent fail forward (or success backwards!) is perfectly fine for a session of Paranoia or Toon.  But is hardly universally genera appropriate.Fail forward is a short phrase intended to deal with a particular problem.   Fail forward isn't intended to deal with a general problem of failure not carrying a negative consequence (as if failing forward games are somehow harsher than those that aren't).  Fail forward isn't even just 'say yes or throw the dice' in different words.   Fail forward is intended to deal with the problem of stories not advancing because a success is needed to overcome some hurdle.   If the DM designs a story that can only advance if a door is opened, in traditional gaming lacking the concept of fail forward you get 'failure sucks'.   If that door can only be attempted to be opened again after the PC's gain a meaningless level, and the DM has no story around 'you failed to open the door' then the game comes to a meaningless halt.  If the bad guys can only be followed if they players find a clue, and they fail their search check and get away leaving no trail, then the game comes to an anticlimactic halt.  Fail forward teaches the DM to watch out for and avoid these fail no where results.   So for example, if the door really must be opened, then failure on your open locks check still means the door opens, but a complication occurs.   Or, if the door really must be opened, then failure on your open locks check means that you can try again, but with higher stakes (and again and again if need be, as long as it is interesting and not merely mechanical rolling - in which case, like 'taking 20', dice should have never been rolled in the first place).</blockquote>

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