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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9836535" data-attributes="member: 42582">Can you elaborate a bit more on this?I think that the &quot;no hard failure&quot; idea sometimes gets mixed up with some other things:* Not grinding the adventure to a halt - but this notion only has purchase if there is a &quot;the adventure&quot; which has a pre-determined trajectory, and so shouldn't really be apposite in narrative play.

* Not deflating the rising action - I think this is the one that can cause some issues in narrativist play, sometimes perhaps because there aren't enough &quot;elements&quot; in the overall situation to allow the hard &quot;no&quot; from this one?Going back to mechanics - BW's PC build mechanics, with so many different elements on which rising action can be hung (multiple Beliefs, multiple Instincts, traits, relationships, reputations, affiliations), really helps with that second issue. The rising action doesn't have to be &quot;one note&quot;, and thus at risk of deflation if there is a hard &quot;no&quot;; because the hard &quot;no&quot; can be used to foreground some other source of pressure/conflict.Well they're related, aren't they? One of the issues that people are worried about with the hard &quot;no&quot; is that it doesn't create a pathway to a new scene (or a satisfactory evolution of the current scene).The hard &quot;no&quot; from Rufus didn't have that effect. What I would think of as a classic poorly-handled hard &quot;no&quot;, in a fictional context similar to the one I described in my post, would be a hard &quot;no&quot; from a door warden, in a context where the PCs have no Beliefs etc that pertain to forcing entrance, or sneaking in, or that sort of thing: the hard &quot;no&quot; doesn't leave an obvious pathway to a relevant scene.I think this can be a real issue when GMing, given the need to make fairly quick decisions about consequences and then framing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9836535, member: 42582"] Can you elaborate a bit more on this? I think that the "no hard failure" idea sometimes gets mixed up with some other things: [indent]* Not grinding the adventure to a halt - but this notion only has purchase if there is a "the adventure" which has a pre-determined trajectory, and so shouldn't really be apposite in narrative play. * Not deflating the rising action - I think this is the one that can cause some issues in narrativist play, sometimes perhaps because there aren't enough "elements" in the overall situation to allow the hard "no" from this one?[/indent] Going back to mechanics - BW's PC build mechanics, with so many different elements on which rising action can be hung (multiple Beliefs, multiple Instincts, traits, relationships, reputations, affiliations), really helps with that second issue. The rising action doesn't have to be "one note", and thus at risk of deflation if there is a hard "no"; because the hard "no" can be used to foreground some other source of pressure/conflict. Well they're related, aren't they? One of the issues that people are worried about with the hard "no" is that it doesn't create a pathway to a new scene (or a satisfactory evolution of the current scene). The hard "no" from Rufus didn't have that effect. What I would think of as a classic poorly-handled hard "no", in a fictional context similar to the one I described in my post, would be a hard "no" from a door warden, in a context where the PCs have no Beliefs etc that pertain to forcing entrance, or sneaking in, or that sort of thing: the hard "no" doesn't leave an obvious pathway to a relevant scene. I think this can be a real issue when GMing, given the need to make fairly quick decisions about consequences and then framing. [/QUOTE]

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