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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7769250" data-attributes="member: 16814">When did pacing become a cycle of winning and losing, or doing well and not doing well?!Pacing is pacing -- how quickly the game is moving -- not success/fail ratios.&nbsp; Failure can affect pacing only if you have only one correct way forward and so have to stop the game until that correct way is sussed out or pixel bitched.&nbsp; In that sense, yes, OS gaming more often has this problem, not because the system does but because the system focuses on the process-sim of resolving discreet actions rather than resolving goals.&nbsp; IE, if your goal is to get to the top of the wall, OS will have multiple checks of your climbing ability -- it sims the process of climbing the wall.&nbsp; Failure prevents the goal while often doing nothing else or perhaps you fall.&nbsp; You can try again.&nbsp; NS focuses on the goal -- not just that you want to climb the wall but why you want to climb the wall -- and uses mechanics to resolve the goal, not the process.&nbsp; In doing so, failures can thwart the goal while still allowing the fiction to evolve.&nbsp; If, for instance, you wanted to climb the wall to infiltrate a keep undetected, then a failure in NS may have you climb the wall, but you're detected -- the goal is failed, but the game isn't stopped.&nbsp; In OS, the climb check must be made, and it's result is that you don't climb.&nbsp; Your goal is delayed, but not failed by this failure.&nbsp; Instead, you have to either keep at it until you run out of hp/time, or find a different way to achieve your goal.&nbsp; In this example, NS play is much more brutal with failures, as it focuses on the overall goal, not the atomic actions necessary for that goal.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7769250, member: 16814"] When did pacing become a cycle of winning and losing, or doing well and not doing well?! Pacing is pacing -- how quickly the game is moving -- not success/fail ratios. Failure can affect pacing only if you have only one correct way forward and so have to stop the game until that correct way is sussed out or pixel bitched. In that sense, yes, OS gaming more often has this problem, not because the system does but because the system focuses on the process-sim of resolving discreet actions rather than resolving goals. IE, if your goal is to get to the top of the wall, OS will have multiple checks of your climbing ability -- it sims the process of climbing the wall. Failure prevents the goal while often doing nothing else or perhaps you fall. You can try again. NS focuses on the goal -- not just that you want to climb the wall but why you want to climb the wall -- and uses mechanics to resolve the goal, not the process. In doing so, failures can thwart the goal while still allowing the fiction to evolve. If, for instance, you wanted to climb the wall to infiltrate a keep undetected, then a failure in NS may have you climb the wall, but you're detected -- the goal is failed, but the game isn't stopped. In OS, the climb check must be made, and it's result is that you don't climb. Your goal is delayed, but not failed by this failure. Instead, you have to either keep at it until you run out of hp/time, or find a different way to achieve your goal. In this example, NS play is much more brutal with failures, as it focuses on the overall goal, not the atomic actions necessary for that goal. [/QUOTE]

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