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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6829244" data-attributes="member: 6790260">[Sblock]Er...that's...not what Fail Forward is usually taken to mean? That is, every time anyone has presented the concept to me, it's that failure presents a clear or understood cost, but does not bring the game to a screeching halt. E.g. you fail the Search roll to locate the secret entrance to the thieves' guild base. Congratulations: you found the door...after six hours of searching. But in your banging, bumping, and noodling around, you alerted the thieves to your presence, and they've skeddadled into the streets...along with the crown jewels you promised to bring back to the king. Now, instead of having a simple fight on your hands, you've got to do this the hard way--locating each piece individually and winning it back, whether by force, wit, or cold hard cash.That's "fail forward." The adventure continues--everything is always moving in a forward plot direction--but a Serious Consequence happens right now as a result of your failure. What you're talking about sounds like...I dunno, "deferred failure"? "Oh, you succeed just fine, but SURPRISE there are ten times as many thieves as you expected BECAUSE REASONS."Well...of course? Knowing what you're risking is perfectly compatible with both Skill Challenges and "fail forward" methods. It just means that "you search for 30 seconds and find nothing at all, what do you do now?" is no longer the default response to a failed search check to find a secret door, or "you ran as hard as you could but the bad guys got away and you have no idea where they are" is no longer the default response to a failed athletics check to see if you can catch the bad guys. Instead, it's (as said above) you waste precious time, or inform your enemies of your presence (losing the benefit of surprise), or arrive exhausted (in 4e, -1 healing surge; in 5e probably something like "the enemy gets an off-initiative turn to act first"), or "one of the hostages is already dead." Failure creates a clear, non-metagame cost, which is explained to the player(s) up front; you just don't make the plot come to a screeching halt because the players can't seem to roll above 5 to save their lives on a check they ABSOLUTELY MUST PASS in order to continue.[/Sblock]Edit: And this is what I get for immediately responding to a post without scrolling down and seeing the rest of the discussion. My apologies for dragging this back into discussion. You've said you're done, and I respect that, so I'm spoilering my response--read it if you want, but you don't have to.</blockquote>

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