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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 7769245" data-attributes="member: 5142">I don't think that players-opting for Success with a Serious Cost is standard in Fate, so you can lower your hackles. I often like to give players the chance to offer "success with a major cost" ideas on a failure, because sometimes they propose more interesting alternatives than what I originally had in mind. In Fate it's the GM's role to decide the cost of your character's failure, which may include "Success with a Serious Cost." The player, however, may get some say in what cost is appropriate for their character, if it is a "success with a serious cost," though the GM has the final say. Why might the player have any say at all? To make sure that the player and GM are on the same page about the fiction in play for determining consequences for the character. The player and GM may be envisioning the fiction surrounding the character differently. What was the character doing? How were they doing it? How might the character fail? What were the stakes? Would this perhaps failure require the PC concede a conflict? What would the PC sacrifice to succeed? Many prolific proponents of "fail forward" have explained it that way before. I did not pull that phrasing out of a vacuum, but, instead, from my prior discussions on this topic in this forum and likely also elsewhere. And many have conflated the two as well, as I most assuredly have before too, which may have added to your confusion. I have conflated those two before myself until I learned otherwise. I am still learning. Coming to the realization that they are different and sufficiently articulating those differences has been a process requiring a bit of listening and practice. How does this different explanation contribute to your understanding of differences between the two? Dungeon World does essentially have all three options in its 2d6 dice resolution: * 1-6: "No, but instead..." * 7-9: "Yes, but..." * 10-12: "Yes." Fate also has "Success with Style" and Blades in the Dark has "Critical Success" (double sixes) which adds "Yes, and..." to the mix. These are also the moments where some games would not have you roll at all. Fate recommends calling for rolls only when there are interesting consequences in success and failure. In fact, some recommend that the GM be transparent about the consequences of failure, almost like setting the terms and conditions of the roll for the PC. Let's take climbing the wall example from earlier. The PC wants to ascend the city wall to make their escape with the gold they stole. The GM may then tell them upfront that the PC knows that they can climb the wall. BUT if they fail - the GM notifies the PC - then they will drop the gold in the process. The roll is not "Can you climb the wall or not?" It becomes about "Will you make it to the top of the wall with the gold you want?" These are the actual stakes for the player character when climbing, and both results will have more interesting consequences than determining the PC's ability to gain elevation or "nothing happens." (And this ignores the possible Tie and Success with Style results.) You misidentify the "problematic" issue here while placing your thumb on the scales a bit. The problematic element is "that for many players and DMs the narrative only moves in one general direction - forward..." That is the problem. Suggesting that "fail forward" is somehow at fault here is identifying the white blood cells as the problem instead of the disease they fight. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> "Nothing exists beyond this box. Don't believe me? Come inside with me and unsee the outside world for yourself." There is a difference, despite however subtle it may seem, between "the expectation of continuous action" and the expectation that action continues despite failure.</blockquote>

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