Quote from: robiswrong;686336Let's just say that there's a coin flip to determine if I'm successful or not.  And if I'm not successful, that nothing changes.

Why the hell wouldn't I keep flipping the coin until I was successful?  So if that's the case, then what's the point of even *having* the failure result

This is key. (It's also one of the reasons I'm not all that friendly towards Take 10 or Take 20.) Only if the world's context is static in relation to the players is this even a remote possibility. You'd have to be role playing Limbo, essentially (which, too, is possible in In Nomine, though not really recommended as it tends to drive both PC and player crazy).

That's the reason for timekeeping in all games, maintaining setting context. Otherwise you get this misguided idea that perpetual effort until success comes with no cost. Keep rolling for that 5% or less assumes a contextless void where only "interesting values" of success or spectacular failure matter. RPGs have settings and their settings *must* matter, so this assumption about context is literally badwrongfun.

Quote from: robiswrong;686336In most cases, something will eventually happen (even if not immediately) that prevents you from continuing on the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-like quest to get a different coin flip.  So if the choice is really between that thing (whatever it is) and success, why not just roll the damn dice for that in the first place, and get rid of all the intermediate stuff?

You are talking about characters from literature. They have zero free will. They are props in service to a story. RPGs make shitty story generators because the players involved have actual free will.

The world's context does not need "in your face" intervention for one's repeated attempts to have consequence. Again, if the imaginary world has a context of time and space, then repeated attempts changes the game state regardless. The changed state need not be a mere foot from the acting PC. That instead assumes the PC is the nexus point from which all reactions occur, and a whole other problem entirely.

Quote from: robiswrong;686336I haven't played In Nomine, so I can't really comment on it.  But even so, "degree of success" has got to be relative to the task.  What's the worst that can really happen if you're searching a desk - it takes longer than you thought and you stub your finger?  Though, again, I'd go back to "what will eventually stop you from just keeping on trying", and push to just roll for that the first time, rather than rolling a hundred times until the terminal condition finally happens.

Intervention from God. Or Satan. That's the worst that can happen, and why you roll d666 at all times. Ineffable beings are ineffable. And even then their scope of intervention is assumed guided by GM ruling of setting context.

It's the other values that can be safely ignored. And since you are often on missions from your Superiors wasting their time is the last thing you'd ever consider. Setting context frames meaningful consequence preventing endless repetitive attempts.

Quote from: robiswrong;686336Well, that's an interesting point you bring up - what's the boundary between setting context and system?

Setting IS the world, as it makes sense to itself. System is merely one of two predominant means on which to adjudicate resultant attempts within the world. Means one is referee judgment, means two is system stochastic or framework arbiter.

e.g. A plain fighter wants to cast a stone into a pond; GM uses own judgment.
e.g.2 A plain wizard wants to cast a spell that summons a stone of indeterminate size into a pond; system says roll dice to determine size of stone from spell.
e.g. 3 A plain fighter wants to cast the same spell the wizard just did; system says class framework prevents.

Quote from: robiswrong;686336BTW - I've enjoyed this discussion.  Your questioning has really made me drill down to what I see as the core concept.

I find degree of success a generally useful thing, though, so long as the "degree" is generally considered to be relative to the task at hand, rather than absolute.  An absolute degree of success mechanic that must be applied regardless of the relative import of the task?  That strikes me as really weird and having a high potential for artificial and disjointed results.

You're welcome. Clarifying ideas is one of the reasons I enjoy this hobby so much. Thinking about a world and how to resolve it can have more than one expression and thus a pleasurable challenge. But like anything, one learns that not all solutions are equal or relevant.

By the way, Star Wars End of Empire Beta really needed to clarify the GM application of such Degree of Success. As it was it was very much an absolute application when my friend GM'ed and I played. The results were artificial and disjointed, as was predicted. You can advise someone with experience, but it's up to them to listen...

Quote from: robiswrong;686336But even coming up with those cases becomes really difficult without drilling down into what the failure conditions for the task really are.

Yes. That's why thinking about the world continuously is important, even on your down time. It is also why GMs produce minor automated programs and outlines to help with bookkeeping it all. It also requires a lot of improvisation as well, as we human GMs are finite beings and can only do so much emulation of the world.

Looking at all your desk example's DoS results I noticed you fixed your results' locus upon the desk the PC is searching. That was a familiar old lapse in GM creativity. With time passing a lot of horrible things can happen, especially wherever the PCs are not. Long ago PvP PCs in In Nomine showed me quickly the error of such thinking; wherever you're not, you're exposed. Devious players teach one how to run a devious world better.

Anyway, this will be my last wall of text on this. If you want to continue this with me, let's discuss smaller things at a time.

(snipping everything I basically agree with... which is like 95% of your post)

Quote from: Opaopajr;686459You are talking about characters from literature. They have zero free will. They are props in service to a story. RPGs make shitty story generators because the players involved have actual free will.

Apologies.  The choice of character there was more a reference to the coin-flipping-scene in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, given that we were talking about exceptionally long coin-flipping sequences.  No other meaning was implied, except a humorous reference.

Quote from: Opaopajr;686459The world's context does not need "in your face" intervention for one's repeated attempts to have consequence.

Agreed, and I'm not claiming that all consequences need to go to 11.  There just need to be consequences.  I think we agree on this, so I don't fully understand why you keep bringing up "in your face" consequences.  It's a bit of a strawman at this point.

Quote from: Opaopajr;686459Setting IS the world, as it makes sense to itself. System is merely one of two predominant means on which to adjudicate resultant attempts within the world. Means one is referee judgment, means two is system stochastic or framework arbiter.

There's some grey areas here.  "Waterdeep" is setting, and the factions in it are setting.  AC is system.

Wandering monster rolls are something I could make an argument for either way.  Same with resource consumption rules, though I think those edge closer to system.

There's an interesting difference in perspective here - you seem to be focusing primarily on the resolution mechanics, while I'm focusing primarily on the player-facing decisions.  So from my view, those things become system as they are heavy inputs into the player's decision making process.  From your view, they're not, because they don't impact the resolution mechanic.

(to grossly simplify)

Quote from: Opaopajr;686459Looking at all your desk example's DoS results I noticed you fixed your results' locus upon the desk the PC is searching.

Fair 'nuff, it was mostly an off-the-cuff example.

As a tangent I'll note people don't often make random tables personalized. One of the more jarring examples is using magical item tables directly and then complaining about them in fora when their power level does not mesh with the campaign. The random table is just a tool for the GM to offload setting preparation and decision-making onto a nice little function.

It is not part of an RPG system per se because it is a tool that can be tailored in any fashion, from selection means, probability, and on to input layout. It is not tied to the system framework in a way that changes to the table affects its role in adjudication. Basically it falls under method one, GM judgment, as a subcategory because it is not dependent upon the system. Example, if I used a bunch of old Magic the Gathering cards to select the monster input, or used d100 probability, or a dartboard for selection, it has no bearing on d20 as a system or effect a player's magic user PC's abilities.

Not all mechanics used to run a game are actually system mechanics. Just as a dungeon or name generator are not part of an RPG system, same as an outline or table.

I'm not sure what the advantage/usefulness is of making that distinction.

Quote from: TristramEvans;686764I'm not sure what the advantage/usefulness is of making that distinction.

It's a reminder that the GM referee is part of the system of how RPGs work, but they themselves are not a codified commodity of a publisher.

Part of recent RPG design has been fixated on drawing this nature of GM as referee into this codified commodity paradigm, and their frustration at its lack of success. RPGs are a multi-contextual game. The hobby is fine with this knowledge; the industry is frustrated on the untapped monetized potential.

Quote from: Opaopajr;686777It's a reminder that the GM referee is part of the system of how RPGs work, but they themselves are not a codified commodity of a publisher.

Part of recent RPG design has been fixated on drawing this nature of GM as referee into this codified commodity paradigm, and their frustration at its lack of success. RPGs are a multi-contextual game. The hobby is fine with this knowledge; the industry is frustrated on the untapped monetized potential.

I see. Fair enough, I agree with you.

Quote from: CRKrueger;678953I actually kind of like the weird die mechanics in WFRP3, but constantly coming up with a fictional explanation every time to explain why makes it seem like Madlibs or the campfire storycircle thing, stilted and artificial.

Many moons ago I wrote "Dice of Destiny" for Pyramid Magazine: It's a system for adding qualitative feedback to any game using a dice pool or multi-dice core mechanic.

It's been many moons since I used this system, but one of the things I learned while using it was that qualitative feedback works best if you also feel free to ignore it. As a simple example: A player rolled a critical success and you don't immediately see some way to make their success extra-super-cool? Then they just succeeded. Move on.

I haven't played Edge of Empire, though, so I don't know if the system supports the "just ignore it if it's not giving you anything" philosophy.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;686902I haven't played Edge of Empire, though, so I don't know if the system supports the "just ignore it if it's not giving you anything" philosophy.

I hear the full release does in converting it into Healing Stress. I don't know what happens when there's no stress to heal, but I hope you can ignore it. I'd have to read my friend's full copy and not his beta. He does a good job in general, but it might have been something buried and not highlighted with a box.

If it is like modern games with a Fate or Don't Rest Your Head economy, I'd be very unhappy. I tried running that game without refreshing the economy and it starved out the players' pool to "invoke cool things." I'd really hate it if Edge of Empire stress has to be one of those mandatory things to engage. The proprietary dice is already a pain enough as it is for new players.

I think "fail forward" could be better thought of as "you fail unless."  It's not that you don't fail, it's that you're going to fail unless you take some action (i.e., you roll to climb up a cliff and discover hallfway through, you're too tired to make it up unless you lighten your load).

Quote from: Archangel Fascist;686948I think "fail forward" could be better thought of as "you fail unless."  It's not that you don't fail, it's that you're going to fail unless you take some action (i.e., you roll to climb up a cliff and discover hallfway through, you're too tired to make it up unless you lighten your load).

Again, this can be handled via degrees of failure. A climbing failure doesn't have to involve a fall.

-You get halfway up and can't get any further due to equipment failure.

- you climb partway up then realize there is an outcrop you can't get around.


Both of these could be climbing failures that don't involve a fall. The important part of the failure is that you do not complete the climb.


You fail "unless" mechanics are just making the task a best 2 out of 3 contest after blowing the first roll.

Quote from: GrumpyReviews;686431I am going to have to comb through this thread to see if someone coherently and succinctly explains what "failing forwards" even means. But if it means what I think it means, then I have objections to it, ethical and moral objections. Failures should always be punished. Success does not have to be rewarded, but failure should be punished.

There seems to be several different interpretations under discussion:

• First, failure gives some sort of reward, points to spend later.
• Second, advancement of skills etc shouldn't be penalised for failure.
• Third, partial failures where you almost hit the target roll but still do something.

...and a variety of other odd but minor tangents.

I disagree with the first, I actually use the second in my games, and the third is interesting but comes with some overhead for the GM. Also it's best used in smaller games, if you have a partial failure table for every skill and there are two hundred skills, most of your table time will be spent looking stuff up. You could use a single rule like "fail by up to three points, partial failure" but again more work for the GM.

I kind of like the concept of partial failures but I'd reserve them for single life or death rolls; I keep my combats fast paced and fluid and don't need to be coming up with ricochets and '-1 to your next move' for near sucesses on the fly.

Quote from: The Traveller;687097There seems to be several different interpretations under discussion:

• First, failure gives some sort of reward, points to spend later.
• Second, advancement of skills etc shouldn't be penalised for failure.
• Third, partial failures where you almost hit the target roll but still do something.

There's at least one more - the idea that failure should in some way move the game "forward" (which doesn't mean on a linear path towards a predetermined end).  In a lot of ways this is just figuring out what's really at stake with what you're doing, and getting to that point already.

Searching a desk?  Great.  If you fail, you search again.  At what point do you stop?  And what's the cost of that time involved?  The question isn't really "do I find it?"  The question is "do I find it before...".  It's not about inventing crazy things, it's about understanding what is actually happening in the game world, and the actual consequences of a character's actions.

I've talked about it before as finding the terminal condition for the activity.  At what point are you forced to stop, or do you at least re-evaluate whether you want to continue or not?

Quote from: The Traveller;687097if you have a partial failure table for every skill and there are two hundred skills, most of your table time will be spent looking stuff up. You could use a single rule like "fail by up to three points, partial failure" but again more work for the GM.

Wouldn't the 'partial failure' for a skill be totally dependent on the scenario in which you're using the skill, making such a table useless?

I also somewhat disagree with the 'partial failure' analysis.  I think it's interesting that we're so locked into, in this hobby, this idea of 'absolute success vs. total failure'.  I think it's a question of "what happens?".  Sometimes that really is just a binary thing - but many if most times it's not.  Sometimes there may be several possible 'failures', that are all just as possible and just as total.  But in a lot of cases, there's more than two possible outcomes of an action.

Sure, sometimes it *is* a 'partial' failure or a 'partial' success, but not always.  Again, in the cliff-climbing situation:  What can happen?

1) You can make it to the top with no complications
2) You can make it to the top, but it takes longer than you wanted
3) You can make it to the top, but take damage on the way
4) You can make it to the top, but have lost some gear because it fell
5) You can make it partway, and realize you have no way to go up from there, and go back down
6) You can utterly fail to even start the climb, finding no way to even realistically approach the cliff
7) You can make it almost all of the way to the top, but then be stuck at the last bit and need help getting pulled up
You can fall from any part of the climb

That's a lot of different possibilities, and I'd say that at least three would count as 'failure', unless by 'failure' you mean 'failure should always mean that the worst possible thing happens'.

Quote from: robiswrong;687107There's at least one more - the idea that failure should in some way move the game "forward" (which doesn't mean on a linear path towards a predetermined end).  In a lot of ways this is just figuring out what's really at stake with what you're doing, and getting to that point already.

Surely everything moves the game forward - if it takes time, things move forward. What you maybe mean is 'move the plot towards some desireable end' which is its own can of worms given the arguments about sandboxing, narratives and whatnot.

Quote from: robiswrong;687107Searching a desk?  Great.  If you fail, you search again.  At what point do you stop?  And what's the cost of that time involved?  The question isn't really "do I find it?"  The question is "do I find it before...".  It's not about inventing crazy things, it's about understanding what is actually happening in the game world, and the actual consequences of a character's actions.

I've talked about it before as finding the terminal condition for the activity.  At what point are you forced to stop, or do you at least re-evaluate whether you want to continue or not?

I don't really understand - skills rolls may be reattempted at a cumulative -5 in my game, which means after the third try or so you may as well just give up for a while.

Quote from: robiswrong;687107Wouldn't the 'partial failure' for a skill be totally dependent on the scenario in which you're using the skill, making such a table useless?

That's why I said 'a single rule', not a table. However this:

Quote from: robiswrong;687107Again, in the cliff-climbing situation:  What can happen?

1) You can make it to the top with no complications
2) You can make it to the top, but it takes longer than you wanted
3) You can make it to the top, but take damage on the way
4) You can make it to the top, but have lost some gear because it fell
5) You can make it partway, and realize you have no way to go up from there, and go back down
6) You can utterly fail to even start the climb, finding no way to even realistically approach the cliff
7) You can make it almost all of the way to the top, but then be stuck at the last bit and need help getting pulled up
You can fall from any part of the climb

...neatly illustrates what I was saying about partial failure tables being more or less useless in games with more than a couple dozen skills, at most.

Unless you mean that individual skill failure tables are dependent on the situation - they aren't really, that climbing table you whipped up would work in just about any climbing scenario. The same applies to swimming, swinging a blade, any skill really.

"Fail Forward" as a term applied to game design is not "as a GM, consider whether a roll is actually needed, and logically apply consequences for failure".

You can't just say, "Oh when I use the term I mean something different then any game that's ever used the term." and then declare the term is not what people say it is based on your definition.

Critical failures have added the difference between a normal failure and a really bad failure for decades based on simple probability in "physics engine" systems.

Fail Forward as the concept that "the game fiction must progress" is an inherently ooc narrative metagame concept that is used as such in games that propose it.

When you have full-blown Fail Forward mechanics, what is the point?  Almost everyone supporting them says "Well of course you ignore them if it doesn't make sense." but if that is true, then essentially the consequences are GM fiat, so why not just rely on the GM without the mechanic.  Because the GM is a dick?  Well if you don't trust the GM, then why not rely on Critical Failure mechanics that have worked for decades.

The reason you design and create something new is because you want something new.  Fail Forward mechanics are specifically designed to give that narrative element.  Something different from GM Fiat and something different from Critical Failures.  Saying otherwise is fairly disingenuous.