Quote from: Azraele;1055461You find it incentivizes certain things

Like players developing their characters through the course of the campaign, rather than frontloading them with a backstory from the start

And playing more conservatively and intelligently as they emotionally invest in their character

And treating the game's world as a serious, threatening place with lasting consequences

I find that stuff desirable: it's completely understandable that someone might not feel the same way

-We don't detail much backstory, only what's "needed on-screen". A front-loaded backstory gets cumbersome for everyone.

-There should be lasting consequences, we simply find death one of many, and often the least interesting.

We do the same but get there a little differently, which is really cool! It's great there are so many switches and dials irrespective of system to gift the experiences you want. Azraele, you should really consider trying Blades in the Dark. It does a lot of what you seem to enjoy. And it's got three of my favorite design choices ever.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1055452Eh. Cut down on the homeless problem.

Whoa, whoa, WHOA! Too soon...

Claudio was a dick then, but I get why you did it. lol

For context...if people care...one of Mr Squee's most excellent PCs (the fucker has so many awesome characters!) in our Blades in the Dark game grabbed a vagrant who had witnessed them dealing with a demon. The demon said, "Bring me the meat, dead one" (Claudio was a vampire), which he did. The demon grabbed the mewling, terrified man, distended its jaws and slowly bit his face off, his muffled screams giving way to crunching bone and gurgling blood. The demon then dove into the water with his twitching body and swam off, leaving a wake of crimson.

I miss that game!

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1055463-We don't detail much backstory, only what's "needed on-screen". A front-loaded backstory gets cumbersome for everyone.

This is one of the things these modern games like PbtA, Blades and Cortex do right. Make backgrounds relevant to the actual game in a way that's on point and not cumbersome.

In our last Sagas of the Icelanders game (a PbtA) the clan members past grudges with each other ended up not only fueling, but driving, the adventures. And it was a blast. Our godi kept trying to make the shieldmaiden the predestined leader he saw in a dream, while the shieldmaiden kept being a prick provoking fights with neighbour clans and the father, chief of the longhouse, kept trying to hold the clan from falling apart. At first the group kinda expected the game to be about viking raids and great battles, but soon sidelined that opting instead to pursue their personal agendas. It was then that the game really took off, as the GM just backed off to a reactive stance while the players dictated the flow and direction of the adventures. Everybody got much more invested because of this.

It does seem like there is a central design concern of many games to eliminating players failing at stuff. Which is odd because somehow there's a ton of people who play games that allow failure and they have great times. Which is also weird because IN FICTION protagonists fail CONSTANTLY.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1055472It does seem like there is a central design concern of many games to eliminating players failing at stuff. Which is odd because somehow there's a ton of people who play games that allow failure and they have great times. Which is also weird because IN FICTION protagonists fail CONSTANTLY.

Some people have an expectation when playing an RPG that automatic success is baked in some shape or form into their stories. This is a product of wish-fulfillment that they require because of whatever shit they are unable to deal with in their own lives. Hence the rabid popularity with psychotic SJW's of games like FATE where the GM has less power and control than in other traditional RPG's.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1055472It does seem like there is a central design concern of many games to eliminating players failing at stuff. Which is odd because somehow there's a ton of people who play games that allow failure and they have great times. Which is also weird because IN FICTION protagonists fail CONSTANTLY.

For some people there is an expectation that automatic success be baked into their stories when playing an RPG. This is a product of being unable to separate gaming from their real lives and all the shit that they perceive whether unfairly or not that life has thrown at them. So for such people, their character's stories must succeed in order to counterbalance the unfairness of their own existences. This is why games such as FATE are so popular with the psychotic SJWs, which takes power from the GM (The Man who wants to keep them down) and putting more of it into the hands of the players unlike more traditional RPGs.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1055472Which is also weird because IN FICTION protagonists fail CONSTANTLY.

And (assuming competent writers) those failures are entertaining / dramatic / funny / tearful because they are scripted in advance. Remember Inigo trying and failing to break through the door to chase after the six-fingered man? You could have ended the movie right there, but it would have be dull as hell.

In gaming terms, I as the GM want to have a dramatic chase that culminates in a dramatic showdown. As the GM I could (and have) played the whole thing completely loose, but not for this particular game. In this particular game, I (and probably Inigo's player) know that the pursuit will ultimately succeed. In the event, Inigo's player failed his pursuit check, but in "interesting failure" terminology, I rule that Inigo is simply delayed until Fezzik shows up next round.

That's why I take issue with Azraele's analysis.

QuoteIn the comic, the characters cannot fail to get through the tundra, and the techpriest cannot fail to hack. That means you, as the GM, can't make an adventure out of either of those things; no actual logic puzzle to challenge the player at the hacking terminal, no actual map of the terrain for the guardsman to plan an optimal route through. Just rely on the unfailing strength of your avatar to succeed. This means the only real question asked by the game, of the players, is "Can you afford the price of not instantaneous victory?" and if the answer is "yes", you will get the next chunk of content.

As a GM, playing that style of game, I want the main action to take place inside the evil fortress, with interesting scenes beforehand serving as dramatic build up. The players fumbling some rolls in the first twenty minutes and their PCs all dying of frostbite ain't fun for them, and it ain't fun for me. The party will get through the snow, they will get through the door.
In a looser game, I might say "there is a snowstorm, and there is a locked door, what are you going to do?" The chips then fall where they may, but that's a different tone of game.

With GUMSHOE, there is plenty of room to fail, but generally it forces you to choose a different path (or possibly to burn additional resources), it doesn't bring the game to crashing halt.

One of the mechanisms that I like the sound of (but have bounced off in the couple of times I practised) is the one from Burning Wheel, where in order to improve skills you need to have a certain number of failures marked.

Compare that to say Call of Cthulhu where using a skill allows you a roll against your percentage (at level-up time). If you fail that roll, you improve the skill (harder to teach an old dog new tricks). It's good, but I've have seen that it tends to encourage people to push for the use of weird skills just to claim a roll.
In Burning Wheel, the players need to (can) have their characters make riskier decisions than they might otherwise would, the intention being that this adds more drama to scenes. (It didn't resonate with me, but I am not dismissing the creative intent).

Gumeshoe Investigative Skills only automatically work IF the clue is for that skill. That is, the GM or adventure designer has to design in advance that the clue is an Art History clue or whatever, and then IF you have at least one point you automatically get it with no role-playing required. I think this is right.

Quote from: Itachi;1055469This is one of the things these modern games like PbtA, Blades and Cortex do right. Make backgrounds relevant to the actual game in a way that's on point and not cumbersome.

In our last Sagas of the Icelanders game (a PbtA) the clan members past grudges with each other ended up not only fueling, but driving, the adventures. And it was a blast. Our godi kept trying to make the shieldmaiden the predestined leader he saw in a dream, while the shieldmaiden kept being a prick provoking fights with neighbour clans and the father, chief of the longhouse, kept trying to hold the clan from falling apart. At first the group kinda expected the game to be about viking raids and great battles, but soon sidelined that opting instead to pursue their personal agendas. It was then that the game really took off, as the GM just backed off to a reactive stance while the players dictated the flow and direction of the adventures. Everybody got much more invested because of this.

So true and a thing I have carried forward in my GMing. Even with a very character-focused/-driven game like Invisible Sun you only detail what's needed in the beginning. I really enjoy this way of creating characters lore.

The PCs are 40k heroes. If your players are too fucking stupid to figure out how these heroes can survive a snowstorm and enter a fortress, then you need new players.

No amount of rules are going to save those fuckheads.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1055669The PCs are 40k heroes. If your players are too fucking stupid to figure out how these heroes can survive a snowstorm and enter a fortress, then you need new players.

No amount of rules are going to save those fuckheads.

Well, Tier 1 characters are no heroes. Having some Imperial Guardsmen die of hypothermia or walking off a cliff in a blizzard isn't at all out of place.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1055013So what's the truth?  The truth is, Fail Forward is nothing more than a storytelling apparatus.  It's just the old Improv thing of "never go against what someone else says, just add to it".  The GM doesn't go against what the players say if they roll badly, he just adds to it, ie. has them succeed anyway, but with complications.

Exactly, which is why it has no business whatsoever in an RPG.