Quote from: robiswrong;679451That certainly can be part of it.  But I really think it's mostly about just keeping shit moving in some direction.

And even for the cliff climb, given infinite time and resources, the players could conceivably train in cliff climbing, get appropriate/better gear, acquire appropriate magic, etc.  So falling can be a consequence, as it puts something at risk.

But again, it's not the *only* possible consequence.  Making it to the top, but having lost stuff is very possible as well.  Getting bruised/banged up on the way is possible.  I bet that if you were to query people that actually do rock/cliff climbing in the real world, that they'd tell you that those types of failures are far more common than "splat".

But now we are just talking about degrees of success, not failing forward. A degrees of success system that includes a range of results from falling to bumping yourself on the way up is fine in my book. What I do not like is taking out the risk of falling (which is clearly still a major concern if you are climbing a mountain), or having my skill rolls automatically trigger interesting things on failures. Just doesnt do it for me.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;679420Honestly, on some checks I just roll with it and say there are no bonuses or penalties. Trying to do it on every check is tiring. If I can't think of something that fits in context, or no one else suggests something that I think fits in context in a very short amount of time, I would just go "Ok, you succeeded/failed" and move on.

Oh, another point on this: In Edge of the Empire, there is always the default to fall back on: Taking strain "damage" (which is basically mental stress) or healing strain (which basically means you did it in such a way that you were able to take a mental breather).

Its not exciting but it lets you do something for those times when there is nothing really contextually interesting you can think of. (Basically saying "Good lord, that lock was a pain in the ass" or "Man, that lock was so easy, you feel like nothing could go wrong")

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;679456But now we are just talking about degrees of success, not failing forward. A degrees of success system that includes a range of results from falling to bumping yourself on the way up is fine in my book. What I do not like is taking out the risk of falling (which is clearly still a major concern if you are climbing a mountain), or having my skill rolls automatically trigger interesting things on failures. Just doesnt do it for me.

Falling is a consequence.  It changes the situation, and makes you deal with new complications.  It's "failing forward".

The big thing that I see with "failing forward" is that it also gives you tools to avoid insta-PC death in cases where you don't want that on the table.  It certainly beats fudging rolls, or making sure that you set difficulties in such a way that failure is impossible.

If you're walking across a rope bridge, and you get a failure, does that mean the PCs fall to their death below?  I've known very few GMs that would actually kill characters like that.  So your options normally are either "kill the PCs" or "remove the realistic possibilities of risk".   "Fail forward" gives you a third option - you don't die, but something bad happens.  This could be getting stuck in the bridge.  It could be the bridge breaking, and you hanging onto it Indiana Jones style.  It could be lots of things.

You can call that "partial success" if you want.  You can think of it as rephrasing the question from "do I succeed or fail" to "do I succeed without complications?"  And you certainly don't need to invent new caves and stuff for the advice to be useful.  Hell, I'd argue that someone that's always inventing new caves to fall into on failures either has pretty crappy imagination or the PCs are usually in situations without any real consequences, so why wouldn't they just take extra time to ensure success?

Quote from: robiswrong;679464Falling is a consequence.  It changes the situation, and makes you deal with new complications.  It's "failing forward".

I don't think it is as I understand the term. I mean, this is basic failure of the climb skill in virtually every game. If that is failing forward, then the label is so broad as to be meaningless.

QuoteThe big thing that I see with "failing forward" is that it also gives you tools to avoid insta-PC death in cases where you don't want that on the table.  It certainly beats fudging rolls, or making sure that you set difficulties in such a way that failure is impossible.

I agree this is largely what failing forward is all about. It is what seperates it from the style of gaming that I tend to prefer where falling to your death or missing the vital clue are possible. I am not judging failing forward, just saying there are reasons it isn't for everyone. When I have seen people talk about it online, this is exactly what they say. I like gaming with failure as a possibility.

QuoteIf you're walking across a rope bridge, and you get a failure, does that mean the PCs fall to their death below?  I've known very few GMs that would actually kill characters like that.  So your options normally are either "kill the PCs" or "remove the realistic possibilities of risk".   "Fail forward" gives you a third option - you don't die, but something bad happens.  This could be getting stuck in the bridge.  It could be the bridge breaking, and you hanging onto it Indiana Jones style.  It could be lots of things.

There are lots of GMs who do this. If my players are crossing a rope bridge and they fall, I have them take falling damage according to the height. It may or may not be enough to kill them, but if it is enough, I don't feel bad about it and I don't fudge. And I prefer the GM do the same when I am the player.

Again, I think failing forward gets around the problem you identify here. But its important to remember it isn't a problem everyone feels needs to be solved.

QuoteYou can call that "partial success" if you want.  You can think of it as rephrasing the question from "do I succeed or fail" to "do I succeed without complications?"  And you certainly don't need to invent new caves and stuff for the advice to be useful.  Hell, I'd argue that someone that's always inventing new caves to fall into on failures either has pretty crappy imagination or the PCs are usually in situations without any real consequences, so why wouldn't they just take extra time to ensure success?

I am talking about partial success on a full spectrum of degrees of success (something like catastrophic failure, failure, partial success, success, great success). Based on your above comments, I suspect you are talking about a mechanic that shifts things away from flat failure to avoid things like character death. Like I said, I have seen failing forward used by two groups of people: those who want to soften the effects of failure (which appears to be the angle you are taking) and those who want it to produce interesting narrative results. Neither of those are really what interest me about gaming. And so I don't tend to go for Failing Forward, while I am fine with degrees of success.

Quote from: robiswrong;679363In theory.

But look at it like fixing an engine.  It's when you fuck up and smash your finger that you scream out "SUMBITCH!"

and that's actually a great point.  Failing Forward assumes not only did I fail, I failed, smashed my finger and screamed Sumbitch or whathaveyou.  Narrative addition outside of Task Resolution.

There is already a mechanism in place in many many games that accomplishes a non narrative-inspired Failure with Stuff.

It's called a critical failure or a fumble roll.  That's been around decades before the Fail Forward business concept phrase was adopted for narrative gaming.

So if I include a mechanism for sometimes failing, and sometimes failing big, I've got myself a Critical Failure or Fumble mechanic with no need to raid Baker and Crane's vocabularies and attempt to redefine them again.

Just for historical reference, one of the main methods of argument by people advocating ideas from the Forge and GNS proselytizers was the redefinition of terms and the play of language.  On this site, as a result, you're not gonna get too many people to just say "Well yeah, Fail Forward was originally a narrative technique, but I'm just talking about Critical Failure, so let's all agree Fail Forward is good and move on".

Quote from: Emperor Norton;679458Oh, another point on this: In Edge of the Empire, there is always the default to fall back on: Taking strain "damage" (which is basically mental stress) or healing strain (which basically means you did it in such a way that you were able to take a mental breather).

Its not exciting but it lets you do something for those times when there is nothing really contextually interesting you can think of. (Basically saying "Good lord, that lock was a pain in the ass" or "Man, that lock was so easy, you feel like nothing could go wrong")

Hmm, that's an obvious genre emulation mechanic, but I like it.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;679471I don't think it is as I understand the term. I mean, this is basic failure of the climb skill in virtually every game. If that is failing forward, then the label is so broad as to be meaningless.

I understand your point.  I think it's also a matter of recognizing that in many cases, the game designers have implicitly understood the value of this, and incorporated it into many rules.  Basic D&D's 'you can't retry a lock or a lift attempt until you level' provides consequences to an attempt and prevents the 'roll until I win!' strategy.

I'm not trying to claim it's some kind of golden rule or new revelation.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;679471I agree this is largely what failing forward is all about. It is what seperates it from the style of gaming that I tend to prefer where falling to your death or missing the vital clue are possible. I am not judging failing forward, just saying there are reasons it isn't for everyone. When I have seen people talk about it online, this is exactly what they say. I like gaming with failure as a possibility.

I absolutely like gaming with failure as a possibility.  Death isn't the only possible failure mode, though.  I just don't think that, in most cases, binary success is particularly realistic, or in most cases, particularly interesting.

Missing the vital clue?  Sure!  Failing to stop the bad guys?  Absolutely!  Not getting the treasure?  Awesome!

Hell, when I play "more narrative" games I tend to actually go harsher on my players than I do when I play more old-school games.

Again, with the cliff example, there's lots of possible outcomes of climbing a cliff.  Even if you want to look at it from a "pure sim" viewpoint, getting stuck on the cliff with no obvious way up or down, dropping some gear, going up really slowly, or getting banged up (taking damage) are at least as valid failure modes as simple falling - and they're often a lot more interesting to the players.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;679471There are lots of GMs who do this. If my players are crossing a rope bridge and they fall, I have them take falling damage according to the height. It may or may not be enough to kill them, but if it is enough, I don't feel bad about it and I don't fudge. And I prefer the GM do the same when I am the player.

Failure needs to be a possibility, and I tend to let the dice fall where they may.  And there's subtle fudging as well - ensuring that the fall *won't* be enough to kill the character.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;679471Again, I think failing forward gets around the problem you identify here. But its important to remember it isn't a problem everyone feels needs to be solved.

If by "the problem" you mean "avoiding failure", then I disagree.  Hell, I look at "failing forward" as giving me new and exciting ways for my players to fail.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;679471I am talking about partial success on a full spectrum of degrees of success (something like catastrophic failure, failure, partial success, success, great success). Based on your above comments, I suspect you are talking about a mechanic that shifts things away from flat failure to avoid things like character death.

I think the emphasis on "death as only mechanism of failure" is overrated.  I'll happily kill characters off, but I don't think that it's the only, or even best, form of "failure".  Making characters live with the consequences of failure?  That sucks a lot more, if you've done your job right.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;679471Like I said, I have seen failing forward used by two groups of people: those who want to soften the effects of failure (which appears to be the angle you are taking) and those who want it to produce interesting narrative results. Neither of those are really what interest me about gaming. And so I don't tend to go for Failing Forward, while I am fine with degrees of success.

I'm more concerned about interesting *gameplay* results.  "You fall and take 20 damage" is fine.  "Okay, now you've got someone stuck halfway up this cliff with no rope, and they really don't have a viable place to move to.  How are you going to deal with this?" I find to be a lot more interesting.  Not from a "narrative" standpoint, but it's an interesting situation for the players to deal with.

So is "Okay, you make it up to the top of the cliff, but you've dropped your pack with all your crap in it."

And those are all just as realistic as "you fall and take 20 damage".  Probably more realistic, depending on the game you're playing, as in a lot of games *cough D&D cough* falling just means you lose a few hit points.  I certainly don't see any reason to prefer one of these realistic possibilities over the other, from a "realism" standpoint.

And, as far as "softening failures" goes, if my players don't give me the "you're a dick" look at least once a session, *I've* failed.

Quote from: CRKrueger;679480Hmm, that's an obvious genre emulation mechanic, but I like it.

Could also be considered as a rough morale mechanic.

Quote from: robiswrong;679482I
And those are all just as realistic as "you fall and take 20 damage".  Probably more realistic, depending on the game you're playing, as in a lot of games *cough D&D cough* falling just means you lose a few hit points.  I certainly don't see any reason to prefer one of these realistic possibilities over the other, from a "realism" standpoint.

And, as far as "softening failures" goes, if my players don't give me the "you're a dick" look at least once a session, *I've* failed.

I never said realism was my goal. I do want things to make sense thugh and not feel artificial. For me part of the fun of gaming is the risk of harm coming to my character, and death is a big part of that. I dont need binary pass-fail. And D&D isnt my prefered system these days. But I do want the possibility of falling to my death if I am crossing a rope bridge over a chasm. To me that is why it is exciting. Encountering a complication or missing some pieces of armor, just doesnt seem like very heavy stakes for scaling a mountain or making it over a narrow ledge (fine with things like ta being on the table too but certainly feels like something is missing if bodily harm, including death, is not on the table).

I would add, while those other things are realistic consqueqnces of failure, if the possibility of falling isnt also a potential outcome of failure, then the game isnt believable enough for me.

I am a fan of the "fall forward" action resolution idea. With ZWEIHÄNDER, this idea is embraced during structured narrative in combat. Here is a Movement Action that employs this idea:

RUN
(3 Action Points)
Effect: Move up to x3 your Agility Bonus (AB) in yards. Your foes suffer -20 Base Chance with Attack Actions to hit you until your next Turn. When your Turn ends, make an Athletics Test to catch your breath. If failed, suffer 1 Peril. If Critically Failed, fall to the ground and drop whatever is in your hands, suffering 1d6 Peril. If Critically Succeeded, move once more up to x1 your Agility Bonus (AB) in yards.

Quote from: robiswrong;679483Could also be considered as a rough morale mechanic.

It is targeted by fear type affects as well, so yeah, it does have a bit of morale mechanic to it. (though the fear resist rolls have two axes as well, one causes strain, one adds setback dice (small penalties) to checks)

This is a crock of shit.

When I first heard of the concept of "Fail Forward" it was being pushed by a real proponent of the "Roll to see how awesome you are" school of gaming so it came across as a variation on that. PCs can't just fail because failure is upsetting and makes things less cool so the worst that can happen in they succeed but some sort of complication is thrown in but not too much of a complication as that would threaten their success.

But this discussion paints the idea in a different light which makes it seem more like the margin of success/failure mechanics I've been using for years in my favorite systems. Which makes me wonder why its considered such a new idea.

Quote from: Nexus;680094When I first heard of the concept of "Fail Foward" it was being pushed by a real proponent of the "Roll to see how awesome you are" school of gaming so it came across as a variation on that. PCs can't just fail because failure is upsetting and makes thinsg less cool so the worst that can happen in they succeed but some sort of complication is thrown in but not too much of a complication as that would threaten their success.

But this discussion paints the idea in a different light which makes it seem more like the margin of success/failure mechanics I've been using for years in my favorite systems. Which makes me wonder why its considered such a new idea.

Your first impression of the term was correct. There are two different things being discussed here; degrees of success/failure, and failing forward.

The concept of varying degrees of success havebeen around forever. The only thing that has changed is the narrative crowd wants to pretend that failing forward is the same thing. They are not.

It doesn't take genius levels of GMing to figure out that failures have consequences in the game. "Failing forward" is a solution in search of a problem, very similar to the (narrative/meta) way Trail of Cthulhu tried to "fix" not finding a clue in intent and execution. It's basically trying to fix lousy/lazy GMing via game mechanics instead of sound advice and practice, and that just doesn't work.