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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 7769227" data-attributes="member: 5142">It may appear that way to you from the outside, but from the inside, it appears that you are conflating "fail forward" with "success-with-a-cost." Fail Forward is best encapsulated as "You fail and then something happens." In the case of Fate, a player opting for a "success with a cost" is more appropriately opting into a "success with a major cost." You may have jumped to the next roof successfully, but... You injure your leg in the process. You may have climbed the wall successfully, but... The guards on the wall will drag you up and put you in chains. (One guard waiting would likely be a minor cost.) Or your bungled climbing alerts the entire garrison. Sure you have succeeded. You have outrun the boulder chasing you, but you lose the golden idol you came for to a rival. Sure success is success and failure is failure, but <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> happens. Even if you succeed at an action, failure can be a consequence of the action. Most assuredly, there is overlap between "success with a cost" and "fail forward," but that overlap primarily rests in how both entail the continued momentum of the action/drama/narrative through the introduction of new complications. But this is a difference between "Yes, but..." and "No, but instead..." Sure, if this was the only way that 'fail forward' was expressed it would indeed get old quick, but that is often not the case. It's usually one example among many that gets floated often because the "impasse at the wall" is probably the most commonly discussed case study. The preferred approach with fail forward is typically that the consequences proceed from the contexts of the narrative. Guards will not always come out of the dungeon wall. Why would they? There are no theys here, as this crypt has been abandoned by any sentient creatures. Let us be clear here. Fail Forward is not about precluding character failure; it's about precluding narrative inertia by maintaining a continued momentum, and this continued momentum is not necessarily towards a singular or forward direction (i.e., railroading). This seems simplistic given that it lacks a a certain depth of ranges between full success and full failure, particularly when one holds up such definitions to the light of reality. I have faced success in my failure and failure in my successes. IME the false dichotomy of success and failure does not hold up to scrutiny. And perhaps NSRPGs stem from some dissatisfaction with the more binary approach to character actions and consequences. You are adding something extraneous here in your description of 'fail forward,' which ties into your earlier misunderstanding. 'Fail Forward' is not the DM finding a way to grant success to the players. It's a way to keep the action going. That action does not even necessarily require the GM providing the players with any form of success. Nothing requires that the aforementioned secret door will or should open in a 'fail forward' scenario, only that action continues in some manner despite failure. This may mean that a monster drops from the ceiling and chases them down the corridor that leads them elsewhere. Some other trap may be triggered in the process of navigating the room. Have you succeeded in opening the secret door? Nope. The door remains hidden/locked, but the action continues.</blockquote>

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