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"Fail forward" is crucial for movies, and its important technique for screenwriters.

But for GMs? Not so much.

To me, it always reeks of railroads and deus ex machina being imposed on players before they even have the chance to think of their own solutions. It's interesting that boardgames don't have "fail forward" - you just fail, often losing the game, so you either switch tactics and fight to win, or just learn better for your next game.

Failing forward is fine for the groups where the DM is telling a story that the players are interacting with, but not with a more traditional "the story is what happens at the table" mindset.

Does the argument that failing forward causes you to break character sound super pretentious to anyone else?

Just me?

A GM telling a story is bad GMing!  

But yeah, those GMs need fail forward to keep the railroad chugging toward their pre-ordained conclusion.

A few years ago, my friends and I got "stuck" at one of these GM's tables at a con. We decided to have fun by "doing everything wrong" and watching the GM desperately force the game back onto the railroad. We opened the obvious traps, ignored the obvious clues, killed the helpful NPCs, didn't cast any healing spells or use potions so we walked into the "big fights" with 1/2 or less HP and kept "forgetting" to use the magic goodies we were given. And the GM did everything to make sure we could not fail.

We're such sadists we even told the GM afterward what we were doing and he couldn't comprehend why any players wouldn't want to paint by number. I dared him to try letting the dice fall where they may and allowing bad player plans to come to bad ends, but I might as well have suggested he start gaming naked.

"Heroes don't fail" is a common mentality among RPGers. It's the basis for how 99% of OrgPlay adventures are written. It's been that way for ages, since Living City, and continues unabated into Adventurer's League (aka the 5e Babysitting Club) where the assumption is you will sit down, roll dice for 4 hours, win the game, then collect XP and goodies.

It's why I'm looking forward to the Zombicide Invader boardgame. If one PC dies, everybody loses. And the big bad monsters have the ability to destroy rooms so if you didn't get the McGuffin out in time, everybody loses. The gameplay result is the players knowing that loss is a real possibility and success depends on a combo of good decisions and dealing with fickle dice.

THAT risk is what I love from RPGing, but few GMs are willing to let give up their "stories".

Quote from: Longshadow;1098730Failing forward is fine for the groups where the DM is telling a story that the players are interacting with, but not with a more traditional "the story is what happens at the table" mindset.

Indeed. Not my cup of tea - but I'm not sure that it's badwrongfun if everyone knows what they're getting into as well. Just like I don't have an axe to grind with people playing Minecraft on creative mode or some such. Not my thing - but as they say, 'you do you'.

Though I will say - it does annoy me when those who are fans of 'fail forward' style mechanics try to proselytize as if it's the 'one true way' to play as well. And there seem to be a lot more of them out there opposed by a lone RPGPundit screaming back atop his hill to die on. :P

The way I understand it, there are two methodologies referred to as "Fail Forward"; one of them is a misnomer, and is not actually 'fail forward' but is rather 'add a complication and let them through anyway' or 'success at a cost' which is almost always fucking dumb. Most games with "fail forward" built into their mechanics use the incorrect definition and methodology, where 'fail forward' is really supposed to be a mentality/philosophy and doesn't need to be codified into game mechanics whatsoever. In fact, even the shitty fake version of 'fail forward' (success at a cost) doesn't need to be codified into game mechanics.

The real "fail forward" is just ensuring that no single roll can bring the game to a dead end (unless, of course, it is literally a dead end). That is, no, you don't get to accidentally have the guards see you but get through the door anyway. You failed. The door is still fucking locked, and guards are not going to magically phase in behind you just because you suck at picking locks. However, if you look around, maybe there's a different way in? If not, maybe you need to adventure for some explosives and blast your way in if it's so important. Or knock on the door, shout and holler until an angry orc finally opens it from the inside to bash your skull in. Or maybe you simply can't get in, so you go to rob the graveyard down the road instead and get eaten by ghouls. In any event, the game continues. You fail, and then literally move forward.

In other words, as long as you are running a living world, you are ALREADY using the ACTUAL, BEST version of "fail forward." That's literally all there is to it. If getting through a single locked door is the only remaining option to the players and there are no other paths, goals, opportunities; you have already failed and fucked up as GM.

Any time I see "fail forward" referred to as a game mechanic, ala Fate and the like, I know I'm not going to like the game. It's dumb and it rarely adds anything to a game, and in fact takes away from it if it's a codified option. *IF* you are going to use 'success at a cost' it should be both sparing and situationally appropriate. It should NOT be codified as a core option of action resolution. Ever. Full stop. Unless you enjoy your campaign feeling like looney toons.

I can't believe how many people there are who treat 'success at a cost' like a holy commandment. Then again, their table is their table, so whatever. I'll just keep doing my thing over here.

I think we're all on the same page, that a challenge in an RPG necessitates the possibility of failing that challenge. Having the GM fudge the players past an obstacle begs the question, why have the obstacle in the first place if there was no risk of failing.

From Antiquation!'s post, the one thing I do take from Fail Forward, is providing an opportunity for the PCs to learn from their failure and Fail Forward in the sense that they gain more knowledge about the challenge.

The truth is that many GMs aren't cognizant of how a challenge can easily become a bottleneck, and frustrate instead of challenge the players. Fail Forward is a band-aid on poor scenario design.
If I, as a GM, feel that I've made a mistake in designing my scenario, I'll use some of the bugaboo GM tricks like illusionism, fail forward, or fudging die rolls. But only if I think it was my fault as a GM. I use them sparingly, and only as a last resort.

Never had a problem with the concept as implemented in Apocalypse World, Fate, Edge of the Empire, etc. On the contrary, I find it usually more interesting than reaching dead-ends in some other games. Of course, that assumes the players make it flow naturally from the fiction, as those books advise.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1098790The truth is that many GMs aren't cognizant of how a challenge can easily become a bottleneck, and frustrate instead of challenge the players. Fail Forward is a band-aid on poor scenario design.
If I, as a GM, feel that I've made a mistake in designing my scenario, I'll use some of the bugaboo GM tricks like illusionism, fail forward, or fudging die rolls. But only if I think it was my fault as a GM. I use them sparingly, and only as a last resort.

This is my perspective as well. Such varieties of 'fudging' should be reserved as a backup tool almost exclusively.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1098788The way I understand it, there are two methodologies referred to as "Fail Forward"; one of them is a misnomer, and is not actually 'fail forward' but is rather 'add a complication and let them through anyway' or 'success at a cost' which is almost always fucking dumb. Most games with "fail forward" built into their mechanics use the incorrect definition and methodology, where 'fail forward' is really supposed to be a mentality/philosophy and doesn't need to be codified into game mechanics whatsoever. In fact, even the shitty fake version of 'fail forward' (success at a cost) doesn't need to be codified into game mechanics.

The real "fail forward" is just ensuring that no single roll can bring the game to a dead end (unless, of course, it is literally a dead end). That is, no, you don't get to accidentally have the guards see you but get through the door anyway. You failed. The door is still fucking locked, and guards are not going to magically phase in behind you just because you suck at picking locks. However, if you look around, maybe there's a different way in? If not, maybe you need to adventure for some explosives and blast your way in if it's so important. Or knock on the door, shout and holler until an angry orc finally opens it from the inside to bash your skull in. Or maybe you simply can't get in, so you go to rob the graveyard down the road instead and get eaten by ghouls. In any event, the game continues. You fail, and then literally move forward.

In other words, as long as you are running a living world, you are ALREADY using the ACTUAL, BEST version of "fail forward." That's literally all there is to it. If getting through a single locked door is the only remaining option to the players and there are no other paths, goals, opportunities; you have already failed and fucked up as GM.

Well said! I think Pundit is right that success-at-cost generally sucks, certainly as a mechanic - it can be great as the rare, occasional, organic outcome of play.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1098790If I, as a GM, feel that I've made a mistake in designing my scenario, I'll use some of the bugaboo GM tricks like illusionism, fail forward, or fudging die rolls. But only if I think it was my fault as a GM. I use them sparingly, and only as a last resort.

Yeah, I do this too - very rarely - when I think I've screwed up, or more commonly the module author screwed up. Like 6 months ago letting the Cleric roll Medicine to bring back the Druid insta-killed by stirges.

Quote from: S'mon;1098798Well said! I think Pundit is right that success-at-cost generally sucks, certainly as a mechanic - it can be great as the rare, occasional, organic outcome of play.

I agree, I think it certainly can be used correctly and to good effect. I think the main obstacle to proper implementation is that as a GM, you have to have enough experience to recognize when those opportunities arise.

I suppose this is my main gripe with including 'success at a cost' as a mechanical option for action resolution; it implies that it should be a relatively common occurrence/offering, even when it makes no sense circumstantially and pushes the boundaries of believability (and after extended use, it becomes a stretch to think up of the 'cost' part of the equation; how many times can you possibly come up with new, creative, interesting and plausible ways for the thief to 'fail forward' through doors?!).

Even worse to me is when it's the PLAYER who gets to decide, such as in Fate which suggests the GM offer someone the choice to either fail, or succeed at a cost (and then tell them what that cost is prior to making the choice, or ask them to offer one up). Granted, there's no gun to your head saying you have to play that way as a GM, but those sorts of design decisions echo throughout the rest of the framework.

Just rubs me the wrong way!

The more reasonable definition I always heard of the term "fail-forward" was not that "No, But" meant the players had to be able to have control over the game world or that they had to be immune from consequences of their actions, but that a failure which did nothing except stop the players in their tracks, or require them to expend disproportionate amounts of in-game resources and play time on defeating it before they could move on, was boring and poor GMing.

The requirement is that any outcome to resolving a challenge has to offer options to advance the plot in a way the players will find interesting, even if it's to their characters' disadvantage.  Not so much "fail forward" but "fail sideways"; you're not railroading the players, so much as making sure one failed roll or bad choice doesn't cut off every possible pathway to the goal.

• The RPGPundit is conflating two things here: the basic concept of "Failing Forward" itself and games in which there is no failure other than "Failing Forward". The former I have no issue with. In Apocalypse World, for example, most Failing Forward is on results of 7-9. But on 6 or less, you may fail hard. I also have zero problems with succeeding at a cost, for as long as complete failure is possible. As to why, I again have to refer to this scene:
  
  [video=youtube;mC1ikwQ5Zgc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC1ikwQ5Zgc[/youtube]
  
• Pundit is also promoting his preferred game style here; it's not my own personal preference though. Certainly not the holy grail of gaming. It just falls short of what I want from RPGs. If you play according to the RPGPundits advice, then, yeah, you can go and travel around Westeros and experience adventures there. But you will not be Jon Snow-tier, at least not Jon Snow season 1 to 6. You will be some guy on this continent. Maybe even some extremely competent guy but just one guy. Your dice will eventually fail you and the dungeon doors won't open and you'll have to move on. That's because the RPGPundit's advice leaves out any concern for dramaturgy. Dramaturgy in his style of gaming is "alea iacta est". It's a valid style but not to everyone's taste. That's why some GMs sometimes fudge the dice behind the screen. That's why some games have metacurrency. RPGs are not just world simulation, especially if you want to experience stories like Jon Snow's in a setting like Westeros. Sometimes a running game might need a lil' nudge to reach dramaturgical points you want to reach. There's a middle road between railroading nothing and railroading everything, you know?
  
• As such Failing Forward is largely a pacing mechanism. Instead of the players having to spend time and effort to devise a work-around, you can keep the pace up by having them succeed at a complication.
  

• Quote from: Antiquation!;1098788If getting through a single locked door is the only remaining option to the players and there are no other paths, goals, opportunities; you have already failed and fucked up as GM.

  I have to be the contrarian again here and state that this is another internet meme that does not withstand entirely scrutiny. Yes, standing before the only locked-door-to-the-adventure(tm) can suck. It can be dull, dumb, boring, whatever. BUT, sometimes, when the players are in the right mood for it, the greatest, most hilarious sessions can ensue as they're trying to devise a harebrained workaround scheme. That's what so great about role-playing to begin with! So my assessment is not that it's necessarily bad design. Instead, it's risky - the players might not like it/be in the mood for it or just be unimaginative and start calling you foul names because they've read on the internet that it's a sure tell-tale sign of bad GMing.
  

I just think of it as Boolean Abuse. All that "no, but" and "yeah, but" comes off like Vickie Pollard from Little Britain.

Vickie Pollard in Thailand, Little Britain skit comedy show

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1098803BUT, sometimes, when the players are in the right mood for it, the greatest, most hilarious sessions can ensue as they're trying to devise a harebrained workaround scheme. That's what so great about role-playing to begin with! So my assessment is not that it's necessarily bad design. Instead, it's risky - the players might not like it/be in the mood for it or just be unimaginative and start calling you foul names because they've read on the internet that it's a sure tell-tale sign of bad GMing.

Firstly, I am speaking from my personal experience. If anything I said is a "meme" somewhere then that meme has some grain of truth.

Secondly, yes, you are correct. Fun/ridiculous sessions can absolutely be had when players get obsessed with trying to open a door/cross a chasm that goes nowhere with only a ball of string/etc. Getting hung up on certain elements of a game is half the fun.

However, this does not conflict with anything in my post. The fact is that if such an obstacle is the sole method of continuing the game, i.e. they are locked in a room with a single locked indestructible door that they cannot overcome, or walk away from, or whatever: you fucked up. If your players' collective CHOICE is to stand around fucking with the locked door all day, that is entirely a different scenario than if the game literally cannot continue simply because the GM was not doing his job properly.

If your players are becoming frustrated because they don't UNDERSTAND that they're making a CHOICE by repeatedly trying to open the door instead of walking away or trying something else, then that is a sign of miscommunication or a misunderstanding of the nature of the campaign. This, too, is likely a GM fuckup (partially; obviously, some players can be very thick-skulled and need to be reoriented from time to time) and needs to be rectified through communication; this can even be done in-game via NPC's such as hirelings, guides, etc. ("why the hell are we still trying to chip the lock away with a spoon?! It's been six hours and this is never going to work, I'm going home!"). You can even imply this using a fast-forward technique: "you continue trying to open the door in every way you can think of. It's now almost midnight and you are no closer to budging it. You're exhausted and starving, drenched with sweat. Are you going to continue trying to open the door, or do something else?"

Unimaginative is not generally something I have had problems with. If anything, my unimaginative/bored/tired/whatever players would be the FIRST ones to walk away from a locked door or some other obstacle they couldn't traverse after a couple tries. It's the IMAGINATIVE ones that you have to watch out for, in terms of getting hung up on that "one loose brick in the wall! There must be a secret door! Hmm, pushing on it doesn't work... I'm going to turn around counter-clockwise three times, bow to the wall, and say some mumbo-jumbo magic words!"

I can say decisively I can only recall two occasions where a player cried foul on me as a GM with that type of 'bad GM move' accusation, and one of those times the player was 14 and cranky. Your players need to understand the way you run your campaigns, and they WILL understand they have other options if you run your campaign in such a way that provides them regularly.

Oh, look! Pundit's spewing more of his opinions as fact. Fuck right off with this shit. Again.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1098803

• The RPGPundit is conflating two things here: the basic concept of "Failing Forward" itself and games in which there is no failure other than "Failing Forward". The former I have no issue with. In Apocalypse World, for example, most Failing Forward is on results of 7-9. But on 6 or less, you may fail hard. I also have zero problems with succeeding at a cost, for as long as complete failure is possible. As to why, I again have to refer to this scene:
  

I've always considered that scene a straight failure. Probably succeeding on the saving throw to GTFO!

Quote

• Pundit is also promoting his preferred game style here; it's not my own personal preference though. Certainly not the holy grail of gaming. It just falls short of what I want from RPGs. If you play according to the RPGPundits advice, then, yeah, you can go and travel around Westeros and experience adventures there. But you will not be Jon Snow-tier, at least not Jon Snow season 1 to 6. You will be some guy on this continent. Maybe even some extremely competent guy but just one guy. Your dice will eventually fail you and the dungeon doors won't open and you'll have to move on. That's because the RPGPundit's advice leaves out any concern for dramaturgy. Dramaturgy in his style of gaming is "alea iacta est". It's a valid style but not to everyone's taste. That's why some GMs sometimes fudge the dice behind the screen. That's why some games have metacurrency. RPGs are not just world simulation, especially if you want to experience stories like Jon Snow's in a setting like Westeros. Sometimes a running game might need a lil' nudge to reach dramaturgical points you want to reach. There's a middle road between railroading nothing and railroading everything, you know?
  

You get to be Jon Snow because of the choices you make in the game (along with some luck) can lead you to that path. It is in developing skill as a player that leads to that success. You learn things all the time as your characters get killed and you get better at the game. D&D is no different than any Euro game or Chess, or Billiards, or Poker. Being good at it is a skill that needs to be developed. Some people are awful at chess or poker... they can still have fun with the game as they improve, same thing with D&D.

You can definitely get to Jon Snow by smart play and when you do, it is because you got better at the game.

My opinion is that fudging and metacurrency detracts from the ability of a player to improve at the game. They are kind of like 'get out of jail' cards.

But yeah, this is one style of play, but it is the style I prefer. I want to have to the ability to see tangible improvement in my game play. I want the difference between getting to level 2 or dying in a pit trap to be because of my own choices. This is because it is fun for me to develop skill and mastery in a game. Anything that cheapens or invalidates that is disappointing to me.

As an aside... a while back, I joined an amateur pool league. When I started I was pretty awful and I got beat quite a bit. Getting beat kind of sucked, but I practiced and improved. Eventually, I developed my skill into being a solid player who could walk into a random bar in NYC and likely be the best player there. The journey was filled with frustration but was extremely satisfying. I want my D&D experience to be similar. It was incredibly rewarding to go from total suck to being competent.

Quote

• As such Failing Forward is largely a pacing mechanism. Instead of the players having to spend time and effort to devise a work-around, you can keep the pace up by having them succeed at a complication.
  

Pacing is a thing that is highly dependent on preference. As you mention below, maybe the most fun in the game is the effort to devise a work-around. In that case, why would you use pacing to prevent that fun by invalidating it? In games I run, I use a different style of 'fail-forward'. A failed roll usually results in a glimmer of knowledge of what is needed to succeed. Failure is failure, but it can lead to "If I only had the , I can get through the door". Failure, for me, should lead to more adventure. It doesn't get glossed over, but it opens a new avenue of adventure.

QuoteI have to be the contrarian again here and state that this is another internet meme that does not withstand entirely scrutiny. Yes, standing before the only locked-door-to-the-adventure(tm) can suck. It can be dull, dumb, boring, whatever. BUT, sometimes, when the players are in the right mood for it, the greatest, most hilarious sessions can ensue as they're trying to devise a harebrained workaround scheme. That's what so great about role-playing to begin with! So my assessment is not that it's necessarily bad design. Instead, it's risky - the players might not like it/be in the mood for it or just be unimaginative and start calling you foul names because they've read on the internet that it's a sure tell-tale sign of bad GMing.

I agree that this kind of situation can be fun. The point of the comment is that when it is the only way forward, it is poor adventure design. If the group decides that what is best and most interesting for them is to continue devising harebrained schemes then that is fine. But it is more than risky, it is bad design. Why take the risk? Why not design better and let it be a choice of the players? Put the choice of what is fun in the hands of your players.

Quote from: fixable;1098846You get to be Jon Snow because of the choices you make in the game (along with some luck) can lead you to that path.

I definitely prefer earning it to be giving it. I was even OK with Jon Snow's GM giving him a free Raise Dead since IMO the GM had screwed up with the asssassination - I felt it made no sense for the rebel Nightwatch to let the Wildlings through the Wall THEN kill Snow. My overall rule is, you can end up like Jon Snow or Robb Stark depending on player skill and the luck of the dice. I like a system like 5e D&D which gives players a reasonable chance to do either; rather than the more 'gritty' ones where random permanent death is highly likely.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1098805Firstly, I am speaking from my personal experience. If anything I said is a "meme" somewhere then that meme has some grain of truth.

It's nothing personal, just to be clear. I'm just voicing a caveat to some commonly repeated internet wisdom that in my view doesn't entirely withstand scrutiny.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1098805If your players are becoming frustrated because they don't UNDERSTAND that they're making a CHOICE by repeatedly trying to open the door instead of walking away or trying something else, then that is a sign of miscommunication or a misunderstanding of the nature of the campaign. This, too, is likely a GM fuckup

Again a matter of pacing, imho. How long do you want to allow this dragging on as a GM? When does it become seriously unfun?

Quote from: Antiquation!;1098805Unimaginative is not generally something I have had problems with. If anything, my unimaginative/bored/tired/whatever players would be the FIRST ones to walk away from a locked door or some other obstacle they couldn't traverse after a couple tries. It's the IMAGINATIVE ones that you have to watch out for, in terms of getting hung up on that "one loose brick in the wall! There must be a secret door! Hmm, pushing on it doesn't work... I'm going to turn around counter-clockwise three times, bow to the wall, and say some mumbo-jumbo magic words!"

Still it's easy to set the pacing here, as desired, for the GM: "Your PCs fiddle around with the brick for a while, trying all kinds of things, but nothing gives." Or, if you want to really cut it all short: "Your PCs proceed to try to open the door in all kinds of ways but it sumply won't budge. Seems like you're at a dead end here."

Quote from: fixable;1098846I've always considered that scene a straight failure. Probably succeeding on the saving throw to GTFO!

You get to be Jon Snow because of the choices you make in the game (along with some luck)

Emphasis mine. You may have missed it a while back but...

[video=youtube;tsFeIVJfKsA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsFeIVJfKsA[/youtube]


Jon Snow is acting really stupid here and he survives in spite of - through ridiculous amounts of luck, particularly with those barrages of arrows incoming. If you want your characters to feel like the protagonists in a story, they need have this kind of luck from time to time. Heroes don't survive just on their wits and skill.

Quote from: fixable;1098846Being good at it is a skill that needs to be developed. Some people are awful at chess or poker... they can still have fun with the game as they improve, same thing with D&D.

WIth RPGs, there is literally one person, other than you, who can arbitrarily decide how successful you are though.

Quote from: fixable;1098846You can definitely get to Jon Snow by smart play and when you do, it is because you got better at the game.

My opinion is that fudging and metacurrency detracts from the ability of a player to improve at the game. They are kind of like 'get out of jail' cards.

That's pretty much what Jon Snow has. It's called heroic luck.

Quote from: fixable;1098846But yeah, this is one style of play, but it is the style I prefer. I want to have to the ability to see tangible improvement in my game play. I want the difference between getting to level 2 or dying in a pit trap to be because of my own choices. This is because it is fun for me to develop skill and mastery in a game. Anything that cheapens or invalidates that is disappointing to me.

That's gamism. A valid style as well, just not my personal preference.

Quote from: fixable;1098846I agree that this kind of situation can be fun. The point of the comment is that when it is the only way forward, it is poor adventure design. If the group decides that what is best and most interesting for them is to continue devising harebrained schemes then that is fine. But it is more than risky, it is bad design. Why take the risk? Why not design better and let it be a choice of the players? Put the choice of what is fun in the hands of your players.

Sure, especially for pre-published adventures, but then again thinking on your feet and improvising is part of the GM's job description. And coming up with workarounds usually isn't that hard to do.

Scenarios, just like rule systems, are by their nature quite flawed, generally. The most important question is how difficult it is to fix a flaw and whether we should get hung up on flaws that are fairly easy to paper over. Not referring to you personally here. Just speaking generally.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1098804I just think of it as Boolean Abuse. All that "no, but" and "yeah, but" comes off like Vickie Pollard from Little Britain.

And with this post, Opaopajr joins the Ascended Masters!

Yep for me this kind of game is as bad as the killer GM games where they GM is 100% adversarial and determined to murder your PCs never give you decent gear and never let anything good happen. Both are equally wearing, how about if we make a good plan, execute it well and the dice roll decently we just succeed brilliantly for once you old fuck?

Why is it I seem to run into the killer GM more in traveler than any other game? Is there something about traveler that attracts railroad obsessed killer GMs with no discernible ability to actually wing it or RP npcs? :)

Quote from: fixable;1098846As an aside... a while back, I joined an amateur pool league. When I started I was pretty awful and I got beat quite a bit. Getting beat kind of sucked, but I practiced and improved. Eventually, I developed my skill into being a solid player who could walk into a random bar in NYC and likely be the best player there. The journey was filled with frustration but was extremely satisfying. I want my D&D experience to be similar. It was incredibly rewarding to go from total suck to being competent.

This is just a normal game.  You start at 1st level and suck compared to everyone else and eventually you get to high level and can walk into a random bar and likely be the best player character there.

I agree that fail forward is a bad mechanic if you value Gameplay > Plot, which I most certainly do. Taking the randomness out of the game is, as always, a very bad idea.

It is not so much that "No, But" is bad. It is the ideal that some push forward that the DM should NEVER just say "no". Or "no" at all. There was a discussion on this over on BGG last month and several were advocating this. Or worse yet, that the DM yes to everything.

Instead like everything in a RPG, it is... Situational.

There are times when "No, But" is the right answer.

Such as in 5e a PC makes a detection check vs someone sneaking. The roll fails to actually find the sneak. But the PCs passive perception is just enough to get a feeling or note a clue. "No you do not see anyone around at all. But you have a feeling someone is near."

Or the PCs look for a secret door and fail. But do notice an exit from the room in the ceiling that they would have likely missed if they had not searched.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1098850It's nothing personal, just to be clear. I'm just voicing a caveat to some commonly repeated internet wisdom that in my view doesn't entirely withstand scrutiny.

I didn't interpret it as personal. Generally, when someone calls a difference of opinion a "meme" it comes off as dismissive of that perspective entirely out of hand. Beyond that, I'm still not certain what you're actually trying to say; none of your contentions conflict with anything I have posted thus far. I have to say, we must be talking past each other, because I still don't understand where you are actually disagreeing with me. I will attempt to elaborate below.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1098850Again a matter of pacing, imho. How long do you want to allow this dragging on as a GM? When does it become seriously unfun?

Sure, but the GM isn't the only one controlling the pacing. The PC's do that just as often, if not moreso; per your example with having an entire session about players trying to finagle their way into a door, which some groups might find completely intolerable and want to gloss over (per my example). Beyond that, when it becomes tiresome or frustrating as either player OR GM, that would be an indicator that the game should probably begin moving again or experience a shift in scope. This tolerance level varies from group to group, you can't make a universal statement about this type of thing, and it needs to be a judgement call which the GM should become familiar with from group to group (I can tell when one of my players is getting frustrated or bored fairly easily). Which you seem to agree with given each of your examples so far.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1098850Still it's easy to set the pacing here, as desired, for the GM: "Your PCs fiddle around with the brick for a while, trying all kinds of things, but nothing gives." Or, if you want to really cut it all short: "Your PCs proceed to try to open the door in all kinds of ways but it sumply won't budge. Seems like you're at a dead end here."

Right. Per the example I provided in the post you quoted, which is almost 1:1 the same example you just provided. Pacing doesn't really have anything to do with my argument about PC failure anyway, which is still the same statement: you should never arrive at a scenario where failing at a single point stops the game. You can change pacing all you want to, but if the PC's are locked in an indestructible room with a single indestructible door the game fails to move on regardless. "Fifty years later, you still can't open the door. At this point, you die of old age." You can dilate time all you want, the fact is that alternative CHOICES and OPPORTUNITIES still don't appear unless you allow the players to fail at something, and walk away from it/move on, or attack the obstacle from a different angle. That is, unless you use 'success at a cost' to let them somehow get through the door; thus further proving my point that, had the GM done his job right, it would be unnecessary to use such a technique. Yes, this is a ridiculous white room scenario, but I felt this was the only way to further elucidate my point to you.

Basically, my statement stands: if you are doing your job correctly as GM, "success at a cost" is always entirely unnecessary because you never need to "fail forward" through a locked door. It can be fun and appropriate under certain circumstances, but that is highly situational and should not be codified into game mechanics for reasons I stated previously (at least, for any game I would be willing to run or play). You posit using it to control pacing, but again, it's not only the GM's territory to control pacing. As per your example with the session-long door example; such a session would never happen if you liberally use 'success at a cost' to keep the pace up ("well, we don't want them to slow down and make the game un-fun or prevent them from getting the Big Plot Gem this session... your lockpick breaks but you get in!" - cue an exasperated sigh from the player who was excited about the prospect of building an improvised explosive, or bribing a bored-looking guard around the corner for the key [those options which coincidentally, might spin off into an entirely NEW complication or plot hook / story beat, in so providing more OPPORTUNITIES and CHOICES, adding variety to PACING and potentially FUN]).

Success is meaningless without the true chance of failure. If I'm playing a game and I can't REALLY fail, what is the fucking point? I'll just read a novel instead.

Quote from: Brad;1098876Success is meaningless without the true chance of failure. If I'm playing a game and I can't REALLY fail, what is the fucking point? I'll just read a novel instead.

Yeah, this too. Codified 'success at a cost' as a core game mechanic for action resolution turns your campaign into the game equivalent of a bouncy castle or a poorly-written fantasy trash novel.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1098877Yeah, this too. Codified 'success at a cost' as a core game mechanic for action resolution turns your campaign into the game equivalent of a bouncy castle or a poorly-written fantasy trash novel.

Exactly. "Fail forward" is a narrative mechanism to ensure that the predetermined plot proceeds no matter what. aka "the show must go on".

Quote from: RandyB;1098879Exactly. "Fail forward" is a narrative mechanism to ensure that the predetermined plot proceeds no matter what. aka "the show must go on".

And one of the worst narrative mechanisms, at that. "Chekhov's what-now? Never heard of him!"

Quote from: RandyB;1098879Exactly. "Fail forward" is a narrative mechanism to ensure that the predetermined plot proceeds no matter what. aka "the show must go on".

Completely unlike real life.

I thought RPGs were supposed to be "real life adventures!", not, "here, play this character in a novel I'm writing." If you have some plot that REQUIRES the PCs do something to achieve its end, that is pretty boring. Like I said, what's the point?

Quote from: Brad;1098881Like I said, what's the point?

To rob every last shred of atmosphere, meaningful choice, suspense, challenge and mystery from the experience.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1098882To rob every last shred of atmosphere, meaningful choice, suspense, challenge and mystery from the experience.

First time I ever got to play Rifts, 20 minutes in we witnessed some dude roughing up another dude and he looked suspiciously like the dude we were after (as explained to us by the GM). So, we captured the dude and started interrogating him. GM stops the game then explains that this was supposed to be the setup, we were to see the event happening, and that we'd have to "figure it out" before we were allowed to encounter this dude again. Further he said we were, "rushing the adventure." I just got up and left.

Quote from: Brad;1098881Completely unlike real life.

I thought RPGs were supposed to be "real life adventures!", not, "here, play this character in a novel I'm writing." If you have some plot that REQUIRES the PCs do something to achieve its end, that is pretty boring. Like I said, what's the point?

Quote from: Antiquation!;1098882To rob every last shred of atmosphere, meaningful choice, suspense, challenge and mystery from the experience.

Yup. Too many "GMs" and "adventure writers" are wannabe-tryhard novelists who instead try to subject gamers to their unsalable stories.

This is why I have decided that no gaming is better than bad gaming. I have better things to do with my time than put up with that garbage.

Quote from: Brad;1098883First time I ever got to play Rifts [...]

Haha holy shit, that's way worse than any session I've ever been in. Seriously, why even have players at all?

I've had some pretty bad GMs before, a few of which were intolerable, but even the worst never stooped to that level.

Quote from: RandyB;1098884I have better things to do with my time than put up with that garbage.

Agreed. I've never had much of a problem getting a game together when I wanted to, but I vastly prefer theorycrafting, setting building, and reading my books to being in a shitty game. I've left groups for far less than what Brad experienced.

Quote from: Brad;1098876Success is meaningless without the true chance of failure. If I'm playing a game and I can't REALLY fail, what is the fucking point? I'll just read a novel instead.

Failing forward is still failing - it's just that the game continues rather than ending.  

If the only 'plot' is you have to succeed to save the world, failing doesn't have any way to continue.  The campaign is over and the world dies.  But in most good stories the heroes suffer setbacks.  Thanos snaps his fingers and half the people in the Universe are dead.  Failing to stop that didn't mean the campaign was over.  They found a new way to move on and 'win'.  

Lots of mechanics that allow 'guaranteed success' come with a cost to be paid later.  I don't really see a problem with that.  If you could adventure in two different worlds that are the same except for a single event decided by a coin flip, I can see advantages to letting players explore the one that they find more interesting.  If they want to 'cheat' to make sure fate comes up heads in their reality, fate will collect a price somewhere else.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1098899Failing forward is still failing - it's just that the game continues rather than ending.

You have an extremely limited view of what constitutes a game then.

QuoteThe campaign is over and the world dies.

I dunno what fucking games you've been playing, but whenever my characters died in a campaign, I made a new one and continued on.

Basically this whole "failing forward" nonsense is like getting your ass handed to you in a boxing match, but you last 15 rounds so they give you another shot and then you win. Except you already KNOW you're getting the second shot. Do you know why Rocky busted his ass in the first fight with Apollo? Hint: he thought it'd be the only chance he ever got in his entire life. That's it. If you KNOW Rocky will have another opportunity later, then the first movie, and every subsequent one, is just a bunch of crap. It also makes Rocky look retarded because why wouldn't he throw in the towel and not cut his eye open, possibly ending his career totally, if he knew he was "failing forward"?

The whole concept is antithetical to gaming, and actually makes storytelling stupid, too.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1098899Lots of mechanics that allow 'guaranteed success' come with a cost to be paid later.  I don't really see a problem with that.  If you could adventure in two different worlds that are the same except for a single event decided by a coin flip, I can see advantages to letting players explore the one that they find more interesting.  If they want to 'cheat' to make sure fate comes up heads in their reality, fate will collect a price somewhere else.

You've just described the mechanic on one of my favorite PbtA hacks, Sagas of the Icelanders: each time you roll 7-9 on 2d6, you succeed but at the cost of giving Fate a bond with you. Later then, the GM can use those accumulated bonds to collect Fate's price, by penalizing a player roll by -1 for each bond cumulated, potentially leading to disastrous outcomes.

Again, "Failing Forward" does not mean there can be no failure.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1098932Again, "Failing Forward" does not mean there can be no failure.

Sure, but IMO the amount of 'success but at a cost' that shows up in a game inversely correlates to how meaningful and satisfying your successes and triumphs are. The further you push it, the more hollow and cheap everything feels. Obviously you feel differently and that's okay.

Does anyone know of some game that does exactly what Pundy says in the vid (Fail forward = there can be no failure) ? Because I don't know of any game that does that.

Usually the concept is implemented in two ways:

1. If you fail a roll, something changes - the result is never "nothing happens".
2. Success with complication (Yes, but); or failure with some benefit (No, but).

But what Pundy says is more like..

3. A failed roll doesn't fail, but succeeds at a cost instead.

What games do this specifically?

Quote from: Antiquation!;1098937Sure, but IMO the amount of 'success but at a cost' that shows up in a game inversely correlates to how meaningful and satisfying your successes and triumphs are. The further you push it, the more hollow and cheap everything feels. Obviously you feel differently and that's okay.

I mean it depends of the campaign, no? In an Indiana Jones campaign, I would deem it fairly appropriate. It's kinda cinematic. In a RECON 'Nam campaign or in CP 2020? Not so much.
Btw, Failing Forward and Success at a Cost are similar but not the same. Failing Forward means you fail but something good happens. Success at a Cost means you pass but something bad happens. Highly simplified but that's the gist.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1098937Sure, but IMO the amount of 'success but at a cost' that shows up in a game inversely correlates to how meaningful and satisfying your successes and triumphs are. The further you push it, the more hollow and cheap everything feels. Obviously you feel differently and that's okay.

What do you think of:

1 you fail and mayor consequences
Any roll that doesn't beat the target number fails with minor consequences
Any roll (except 20) that beats the TN succeeds with minor benefits
20 you succeed and mayor benefits.

???

Quote from: Itachi;1098953Does anyone know of some game that does exactly what Pundy says in the vid (Fail forward = there can be no failure) ? Because I don't know of any game that does that.

Usually the concept is implemented in two ways:

1. If you fail a roll, something changes - the result is never "nothing happens".
2. Success with complication (Yes, but); or failure with some benefit (No, but).

But what Pundy says is more like..

3. A failed roll doesn't fail, but succeeds at a cost instead.

What games do this specifically?

Well, while I think #3 is essentially the same as the first part of #2, #3 is explicitly mentioned as an option in Fate Core; to be fair, the GM must offer it to the player who then chooses whether they want an ordinary failure or success at a cost.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1098955I mean it depends of the campaign, no? In an Indiana Jones campaign, I would deem it fairly appropriate. It's kinda cinematic. In a RECON 'Nam campaign or in CP 2020? Not so much.
Btw, Failing Forward and Success at a Cost are similar but not the same. Failing Forward means you fail but something good happens. Success at a Cost means you pass but something bad happens. Highly simplified but that's the gist.

I would personally be sparing with success at a cost regardless of the style of campaign. With the systems I use, there are alternative means of achieving similar effects for a highly cinematic campaign; various rules toggles, potentially appropriate traits such as Luck, Serendipity, the equivalent of hero points, etc. To me these are acceptable in more cinematic campaigns because they remain quantifiable and controllable. They still rely on the GM go-ahead but they have clear limits and stipulations. In general I still prefer to keep them to a minimum, but if I'm going full pulp then some adaptation may be appropriate.

Edit: P.S. An Indiana Jones game is inherently silly and cheap/non-plausible, so while I would still dislike success at a cost the threshold would be easier for me to stomach per my guidelines mentioned earlier. So I suppose in a sense you are correct, though I still wouldn't be thrilled about it as it still cheapens my fun.

As far as the "failing forward" definitions, I already stated the two as I understand them upthread. Your definition is equally as valid, but one I have never seen or used let alone experienced in any game I've played or run.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1098956What do you think of:

1 you fail and mayor consequences
Any roll that doesn't beat the target number fails with minor consequences
Any roll (except 20) that beats the TN succeeds with minor benefits
20 you succeed and mayor benefits.

???

I think this is alright. It seems to be fairly standard repercussions of margin of success/margin of failure which I use often (with more granularity than what you've offered as an example). For instance, hit the TN exactly and you squeak by. Succeed by 5 or more, something nice happens. 10 or more is usually critical success. Then the same in reverse for failures, as an example fail a Climb check by 5 or more and you actually fall vs. just not making meaningful progress (to be fair this is not my idea but standard GURPS assumptions regarding MoS and MoF, though I tend to apply it to other games where it can be feasibly used as well; as an example, succeed a knowledge check with MoS 3 and I'd probably elaborate on what you know some or give an extra tidbit).

My primary point of reference in this discussion is a session of Living Arcanis (a 3.5e setting) at Origins about a decade ago where the session was predicted on your party going out on a patrol. Shortly after starting the session the party comes across a tower with a magical barrier on the door. As the only spellcaster in the party I tried dispel magic on it and rolled like crap.

I had two other dispels prepared so I cast those, never rolling above a 9 so the door remained locked. We explored the outside of the tower (including climbing to the roof) and even using brute force to open the door or break through elsewhere, but the tower was impervious.

So the party decided it was a curiosity, but we had a patrol to finish (expecting to run into something else because it was a patrol where an enemy army was know to be in the area and we were ostensibly looking for its location to report back) so marked it on the map and moved on.

The GM informed us we encountered nothing further on the patrol. Adventure over after less than 20 minutes of play in a four hour session). No XP. No treasure. No ability to ever replay it even with an alternate character by the Living Arcanis campaign rules. Between the share of con admission and table price it was close to $15 for the experience.

It turned out the ONLY way the module writer included to enter the area where the actual adventure was to occur was dispel magic vs. DC 20 (and the check modifier is capped at +10) with no other alternative means of entry. The module literally provided no alternatives and said anything else fails.

So, my comment is this... if you're going to have people pay money for the privilege of playing your module; don't make crap where a single bad roll (or just failing to have a PC with dispel magic prepared) means you just wasted the buyer's time and money.

If you want the PCs to go somewhere, don't include any mechanics that could keep them from doing so. Don't even leave a 1% chance of failure because that means someone will be unlucky enough to run into that wall at some point.

That's not saying "make things fail forward." It's saying "if your module includes an element that has even the slimmest chance of roadblocking the entire module then you have failed as a module designer."

Fail to find a secret treasure cache? No problem.

Have to fight the orcs because you blew a reaction roll? No problem.

Fail to even enter the dungeon antechamber because you gated it behind a detect secret doors check for the sake of "realism"? Your customers should be entitled to a free strike at you using the HERO 5e core book while you do the "barefoot walk of a thousand d4s".

"Fail Forward" in the sense of "the designated plot must always move forward" was invented for the same reason as postmodern art... to disguise the fact that the game designer/artist utterly lacks the basic skills of their respective mediums behind a veneer of "you uncultured louts just don't understand the nuances of true roleplaying/art."

Quote from: Chris24601;1098973My primary point of reference in this discussion is a session of Living Arcanis (a 3.5e setting) at Origins about a decade ago where the session was predicted on your party going out on a patrol. Shortly after starting the session the party comes across a tower with a magical barrier on the door. As the only spellcaster in the party I tried dispel magic on it and rolled like crap.

I had two other dispels prepared so I cast those, never rolling above a 9 so the door remained locked. We explored the outside of the tower (including climbing to the roof) and even using brute force to open the door or break through elsewhere, but the tower was impervious.

So the party decided it was a curiosity, but we had a patrol to finish (expecting to run into something else because it was a patrol where an enemy army was know to be in the area and we were ostensibly looking for its location to report back) so marked it on the map and moved on.

The GM informed us we encountered nothing further on the patrol. Adventure over after less than 20 minutes of play in a four hour session). No XP. No treasure. No ability to ever replay it even with an alternate character by the Living Arcanis campaign rules. Between the share of con admission and table price it was close to $15 for the experience.

It turned out the ONLY way the module writer included to enter the area where the actual adventure was to occur was dispel magic vs. DC 20 (and the check modifier is capped at +10) with no other alternative means of entry. The module literally provided no alternatives and said anything else fails.

So, my comment is this... if you're going to have people pay money for the privilege of playing your module; don't make crap where a single bad roll (or just failing to have a PC with dispel magic prepared) means you just wasted the buyer's time and money.

If you want the PCs to go somewhere, don't include any mechanics that could keep them from doing so. Don't even leave a 1% chance of failure because that means someone will be unlucky enough to run into that wall at some point.

That's not saying "make things fail forward." It's saying "if your module includes an element that has even the slimmest chance of roadblocking the entire module then you have failed as a module designer."

Fail to find a secret treasure cache? No problem.

Have to fight the orcs because you blew a reaction roll? No problem.

Fail to even enter the dungeon antechamber because you gated it behind a detect secret doors check for the sake of "realism"? Your customers should be entitled to a free strike at you using the HERO 5e core book while you do the "barefoot walk of a thousand d4s".

"Fail Forward" in the sense of "the designated plot must always move forward" was invented for the same reason as postmodern art... to disguise the fact that the game designer/artist utterly lacks the basic skills of their respective mediums behind a veneer of "you uncultured louts just don't understand the nuances of true roleplaying/art."

What kind of fucked up GM was that? You don't need to let them fail forward, you need to read the module and have alternatives so the choke point isn't such. Like the 3 clue rule in investigation RPGs. And if the GM was the author of the module then his stupidity knows no bounds and shouldn't be running games at any con, hell not even at a kitchen table.

There are plenty of Living Campaign adventures that are poorly designed, badly edited and not playtested. AKA, the joys of free labor.

Its why in D&D 4e's Living Forgotten Realms, the RPGA GMs were written permission from WotC to modify (or mutilate) official adventures for LFR. Because Living Campaign participants are very RAW oriented, they needed the written permission whereas I've always been a naughty rogue monkey. In fact, 13th Age took it the next step and empowered their Living Campaign GMs to tailor the official adventure to that table.

BTW, the Fail Forward mechanism is one of the main reasons I consider "storygames" to be a separate genre of games from RPGs.

The Fail Forward mechanic works if your PC is a protagonist in a story. We know how stories work. There is a beginning, middle and end and the heroes usually wins the day or goes out in a dramatic manner with meaning and spotlight.

But in RPGs, your PC is living in their world, which to them, is real. It's not a story until the adventure is over.

This isn't a dig against storygames. When I play boardgames, I usually have to start my turn by drawing cards that majorly affect my actions for that turn. In RPGs, I don't have to draw cards to figure out what my character wants to do. However, this difference does not mean boardgames suxxors. It's just that different kinds of games have their own mechanics to achieve their goals.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1098975What kind of fucked up GM was that? You don't need to let them fail forward, you need to read the module and have alternatives so the choke point isn't such.

Yeah, absolutely. This is pretty much a GMing failure. If the scenario has a chokepoint and it comes up due to bad dice luck, you at least need to be able to improvise a workaround. Taking simulation to that extreme is unfun. RPGing is not free from story concerns.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1098975Like the 3 clue rule in investigation RPGs.

Yeah, see, that is an excellent example. And yet another point of conventional wisdom I got to go against. The 3 clue rule is extremely lame. Does every mystery really have three core clues out there that can be discovered to crack the case? Probably not. So it's not good simulation. It's also not exciting from a games perspective if I know that every fucking time clues are littered somewhere out there.

I maintain the stronger paradigm is mixing the above with  situation with other situations with single clues but succeeding at a cost if the party takes too long to discover the clue.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1098975And if the GM was the author of the module then his stupidity knows no bounds and shouldn't be running games at any con, hell not even at a kitchen table.

At least he should learn from his mistakes and improve.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1098899If the only 'plot' is you have to succeed to save the world, failing doesn't have any way to continue.  The campaign is over and the world dies.  But in most good stories the heroes suffer setbacks.  Thanos snaps his fingers and half the people in the Universe are dead.  Failing to stop that didn't mean the campaign was over.  They found a new way to move on and 'win'.  

I think Fail Forward as a story creation mechanism is definitely better than the Pathfinder AP Railroad style approach where the PCs have to defeat every challenge or the plot ends. With Fail Forward the story is not predetermined, other than that the PCs likely reach some kind of narratively satisfying ending.

Still if the goal is world-exploration & challenge, sandboxing et al, it has little place.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1098975What kind of fucked up GM was that? You don't need to let them fail forward, you need to read the module and have alternatives so the choke point isn't such. Like the 3 clue rule in investigation RPGs. And if the GM was the author of the module then his stupidity knows no bounds and shouldn't be running games at any con, hell not even at a kitchen table.

One following the actual rules of the Living Campaign where "decisions and consequences matter"

Let me translate that from one of the lead developers... "if our mechanics suck because we can't do math it's your fault" which was outright stated when they felt they had to write their own system after 4E came out (they didn't anticipate the success of Pathfinder and didn't want to be beholden to edition churn after the headaches of 3-3.5e conversions)... the gist of which can be summed up with "they thought 2d10 was the same as a 1d20 for task resolution so left the target numbers in the ranges used by 3.5e."*

I looked at the actual mod hard copy afterwards (I had over three hours to kill and it's not like I was allowed to try it with one of my other PCs), written by one of the lead devs and there was nothing... the literal only way in was to be able to cast dispel magic (or equivalent) and beat a DC 20. No work arounds at all and the reminder that mods must be played "as written."

* The head guy was a great weaver of stories, which got him a bunch of slack, but I can further sum up how bad they were at actual mechanics with the following anecdote...

Because I'm actually good at math, I worked up the probabilities based on the target number needed for all their die combinations (in addition to 2d10, the attribute bonus was another die from 1d4 to 1d12 that exploded on a maximum result while skill bonuses were static) and posted them on their forum during their playtest.

Their head math guy posted a reply saying "yes, those numbers look like the ones we have."

Only about 15 minutes later I got an email from the head math guy begging me for my calculation spreadsheets because they actually had no numbers AT ALL. They were 100% guessing when they were assigning Target Numbers to actions, using a flat 1d20+static modifiers distribution as their benchmarks.

I sent them the spreadsheet, but they never actually changed anything. I heard later they liked the TNs being divisible by 5 because it was easier to keep track of even if what was supposed to be a 30% chance was actually only 15% because of the bell curve.

There's a reason their system crashed even faster than 4E did.

Quote from: Chris24601;1099013One following the actual rules of the Living Campaign where "decisions and consequences matter"

Let me translate that from one of the lead developers... "if our mechanics suck because we can't do math it's your fault" which was outright stated when they felt they had to write their own system after 4E came out (they didn't anticipate the success of Pathfinder and didn't want to be beholden to edition churn after the headaches of 3-3.5e conversions)... the gist of which can be summed up with "they thought 2d10 was the same as a 1d20 for task resolution so left the target numbers in the ranges used by 3.5e."*

I looked at the actual mod hard copy afterwards (I had over three hours to kill and it's not like I was allowed to try it with one of my other PCs), written by one of the lead devs and there was nothing... the literal only way in was to be able to cast dispel magic (or equivalent) and beat a DC 20. No work arounds at all and the reminder that mods must be played "as written."

* The head guy was a great weaver of stories, which got him a bunch of slack, but I can further sum up how bad they were at actual mechanics with the following anecdote...

Because I'm actually good at math, I worked up the probabilities based on the target number needed for all their die combinations (in addition to 2d10, the attribute bonus was another die from 1d4 to 1d12 that exploded on a maximum result while skill bonuses were static) and posted them on their forum during their playtest.

Their head math guy posted a reply saying "yes, those numbers look like the ones we have."

Only about 15 minutes later I got an email from the head math guy begging me for my calculation spreadsheets because they actually had no numbers AT ALL. They were 100% guessing when they were assigning Target Numbers to actions, using a flat 1d20+static modifiers distribution as their benchmarks.

I sent them the spreadsheet, but they never actually changed anything. I heard later they liked the TNs being divisible by 5 because it was easier to keep track of even if what was supposed to be a 30% chance was actually only 15% because of the bell curve.

There's a reason their system crashed even faster than 4E did.

Decisions and consequences matter in every RPG, but hell, Besides the first time playing a new system I don't get the RAW mentality. And from what you say their system was trash.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1098932Again, "Failing Forward" does not mean there can be no failure.

Normally yes. But as its come to be over-uses and mis-used, like about every other gaming term has, whatever meaning it had is getting overwritten.

But there is still the problem that no matter how badly you fail, you still get a cookie. This is what bugs some. Or the over use or even exclusive use that some advocates want to push.

It may also be a problem if failure mitigation unearned.

In a normal situation the players are quite often trying to set up mitigations to failure. like "Ok if we loose this fight we still have an escape route" or "If we fail this negotiation we still have others to talk to." etc. Rather than every dark cloud automatically having a silver lining no matter what the players do.

Quote from: Itachi;1098953Does anyone know of some game that does exactly what Pundy says in the vid (Fail forward = there can be no failure) ? Because I don't know of any game that does that.

I cant think of any. But I have seen people advocating DMs do this for EVERY RPG. It is more an ideal than a mechanic.

But I'd bet that at some point someone, probably a Forgeite or one of Pundits Swine have tried to make one that does exactly that.

The closest I have seen was the mechanics in Gumshoe so that no matter how badly the investigators mess up. They allways get a clue and advance. I havent looked at the game since it came out so am not sure now if other parts of it had that sort of ideal enforced as well.

Quote from: Itachi;1098796Never had a problem with the concept as implemented in Apocalypse World, Fate, Edge of the Empire, etc.

I don't see how FFG's SW games are really fail forward. You have two axis of success: Success/Fail and Advantage/Threat but they are independent. While it's possible to Fail with Advantage, the way the dice work, you're much more likely to Succeed with some Advantage or Fail with some Threat. So it's more like Succeed Forward or Fail Backwards.

Quote from: Omega;1099020I cant think of any. But I have seen people advocating DMs do this for EVERY RPG. It is more an ideal than a mechanic.

And this ideal is being subscribed to by famous people (1:30):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB9tb_XMnNk&list=PL7atuZxmT954B-AtfJsw_YbULHL_L7J8z&index=14 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB9tb_XMnNk&list=PL7atuZxmT954B-AtfJsw_YbULHL_L7J8z&index=14)

So it's coming from improv theater. My impression is it's a bit like role-playing with training wheels on? I like her engagement and enthusiam though.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1099015Decisions and consequences matter in every RPG, but hell, Besides the first time playing a new system I don't get the RAW mentality. And from what you say their system was trash.

To be fair, they started out as a third-party 3e world setting that got a lot attention for its focus on historical details and non-standard setting (it was based on Imperial Rome instead of the medieval and its gods were beyond the concepts of alignment so you could be a lawful good paladin of the god of darkness and death). They didn't really get into mechanics until WotC launched 4E and rather than use a no longer supported game system (nobody knew Pathfinder would explode the way it did at the time) they decided to build their own system so they'd never be subjected to edition churn again. It was something they'd never done before and it showed.*

In this case, the RAW mentality came from it being a "Living Campaign" and a particularly interactive one at that. The main events for Living Arcanis at Origins that year were the Battle Interactive (which had 200 players that year... all fighting in the same battle, with individual table results turned in periodically affecting outcome) and LARP (where the players joined with various factions and affected the politics that turned up in mods for the following year). If you played a module within the first three months of release the GM could report the results to the developers and the majority outcomes became canon for any future module.

As a result, because they wanted consistent results, they insisted that the modules particularly ones just released like the one I ended up in, be played "as written" since the results affected their canon outcomes. It made more sense to them in the moment than it does now I'm certain.

* The only really good mechanic from the whole system in my opinion was the turn clock. At the start of combat you rolled Xd10 (based on your quickness stat) and the lowest result became the tick of the clock you first acted on. Every action then had a speed that you added when you acted and then you got to go again once your new count came up (ex. You first go on tick 2 and make an attack with a dagger (speed 3... bigger weapons had speeds 4-6). On tick 5 (2+3) you can take another action, adding its speed to your total to determine when you go next until the encounter is complete. The result was a pretty dynamic turn system where turn order changed based on how quick your last action was to perform.

I'm still not sure how Failing outside of a railroaded adventure is terrible. People in real life and fiction fail all of the time. Satisfying STORIES and REAL LIFE events often involve a bunch of failures before eventual success. Even hyper-competent fictional characters fail at stuff.

Org Play is ob da debil! :mad:

But yeah, shit railroad adventure is shit. If Chris' OrgPlay fiasco was open-ended -- where encountering the insides of the magic tower, or not, mattered only in part -- and there was content to do stuff elsewhere otherwise, fine. :) What does it matter if your group couldn't open curtain #1 when there is a whole wide world out there?

But that's the whole problem. ;) There was no whole wide world out there. There was a single (deep & layered) encounter, gated.

Hence Fail Forward. And why Fail Forward like this is a bandage to bad design. It masks design failure through 'herded' play and excuses not having a 'whole wide world' out there. The world loses animus, loses dynamism; it becomes video game NPCs, regurgitating programming and no further. Fail Forward is the Cheat Code to the Pixel Bitching.

Sure, that's fun for some. :o But it is very lazy adventure construction with some bad habits added to swallow it down. There's better fare out there to enjoy. ;)

Quote from: Spinachcat;1098853And with this post, Opaopajr joins the Ascended Masters!

Thank-kyew! :D Gloria in excelsis Deo! I will sing your praises in the higher heavens, along with my homilies to puppies, kitties, and recycling! :)

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1099022I don't see how FFG's SW games are really fail forward. You have two axis of success: Success/Fail and Advantage/Threat but they are independent. While it's possible to Fail with Advantage, the way the dice work, you're much more likely to Succeed with some Advantage or Fail with some Threat. So it's more like Succeed Forward or Fail Backwards.

Yeah, I meant the "success with threat" or "fail with advantage" results, which are possible even if improbable.

Quote from: Antiquation!Well, while I think #3 is essentially the same as the first part of #2, #3 is explicitly mentioned as an option in Fate Core; to be fair, the GM must offer it to the player who then chooses whether they want an ordinary failure or success at a cost.

So it's not really like Pundy advocates, right?. Blades in the Dark uses a similar concept called Devils Bargain: the GM can give a bonus to a player roll, or make it automatically succeed, if the player accepts a setback later (like letting evidence leading to you, or losing face with some faction, etc). It's Fail Forward, and it has nothing to do with what Pundy says in the vid.

So, with everything Pundy, he creates a Strawman based on his own misunderstandings about some concept. Then you ask him "But what games do that?" and no one teally knows. Not even Pundy. Lol

Quote from: Omega;1099020I cant think of any. But I have seen people advocating DMs do this for EVERY RPG. It is more an ideal than a mechanic.

You may have a point. The first time I've seen the concept was in Dogs in the Vineyard in 2004. It advocated "Say Yes or roll the dice" because that was appropriate to how the game operates (if you engage in simulationist vagaries in it, the game breaks). Then people take that and apply to different contexts - that don't fit it - and yeah, it becomes problematic.

Quote from: Chris24601;1098973My primary point of reference in this discussion is a session of Living Arcanis (a 3.5e setting) at Origins about a decade ago where the session was predicted on your party going out on a patrol. Shortly after starting the session the party comes across a tower with a magical barrier on the door. As the only spellcaster in the party I tried dispel magic on it and rolled like crap.

I had two other dispels prepared so I cast those, never rolling above a 9 so the door remained locked. We explored the outside of the tower (including climbing to the roof) and even using brute force to open the door or break through elsewhere, but the tower was impervious.

So the party decided it was a curiosity, but we had a patrol to finish (expecting to run into something else because it was a patrol where an enemy army was know to be in the area and we were ostensibly looking for its location to report back) so marked it on the map and moved on.

The GM informed us we encountered nothing further on the patrol. Adventure over after less than 20 minutes of play in a four hour session). No XP. No treasure. No ability to ever replay it even with an alternate character by the Living Arcanis campaign rules. Between the share of con admission and table price it was close to $15 for the experience.

It turned out the ONLY way the module writer included to enter the area where the actual adventure was to occur was dispel magic vs. DC 20 (and the check modifier is capped at +10) with no other alternative means of entry. The module literally provided no alternatives and said anything else fails.

So, my comment is this... if you're going to have people pay money for the privilege of playing your module; don't make crap where a single bad roll (or just failing to have a PC with dispel magic prepared) means you just wasted the buyer's time and money.

If you want the PCs to go somewhere, don't include any mechanics that could keep them from doing so. Don't even leave a 1% chance of failure because that means someone will be unlucky enough to run into that wall at some point.

That's not saying "make things fail forward." It's saying "if your module includes an element that has even the slimmest chance of roadblocking the entire module then you have failed as a module designer."

Fail to find a secret treasure cache? No problem.

Have to fight the orcs because you blew a reaction roll? No problem.

Fail to even enter the dungeon antechamber because you gated it behind a detect secret doors check for the sake of "realism"? Your customers should be entitled to a free strike at you using the HERO 5e core book while you do the "barefoot walk of a thousand d4s".

"Fail Forward" in the sense of "the designated plot must always move forward" was invented for the same reason as postmodern art... to disguise the fact that the game designer/artist utterly lacks the basic skills of their respective mediums behind a veneer of "you uncultured louts just don't understand the nuances of true roleplaying/art."

This is the kind of example I often see presented for the need to fail forward. When what I actually see is a terrible GM-ing / adventure design.

What should really occur is having alternates. Ok, so the door is sealed, dispel magic failed, now what. Can the PCs climb to another entry point? Bang on the door attracting a guard, then over power the guard? Blast a hole in the side of the tower? Moon the tower luring the evil wizard out for a "fair" fight? Watch for a supply run, and slip in with them?

Failure isn't the issue, the problem is a lack of options when the PCs fail. The idea that an adventure comes to a screeching halt because the PCs missed a clue, didn't find a secret door, or failed to follow the right courier just strikes me as amazingly short sighted.


I simply can not imagine running or playing in a game that has something like this.


                         Roll to find clue
                             
                             
                         
   Players find clue          |           Players don't find clue                
                                                     
                                                       
 Game proceeds           |            Game over, order pizza, see what is on Netflix



Based on comments I see on forums this seems to be more of an issue than I've personally experienced. I've been in a few games where everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and we ended up taking the adventure to places the GM had no expectation of us going. Often it turned out to be great fun, but does require a GM who is fairly flexible and can think on their feet.


Ok, so Frodo gives the ring to Boromir... Not where I saw this going, but lets see what happens.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1099053Ok, so Frodo gives the ring to Boromir... Not where I saw this going, but lets see what happens.

That's awesome!

Quote from: RandyB;1098879Exactly. "Fail forward" is a narrative mechanism to ensure that the predetermined plot proceeds no matter what. aka "the show must go on".

100% this.

Quote from: RandyB;1098879Exactly. "Fail forward" is a narrative mechanism to ensure that the predetermined plot proceeds no matter what. aka "the show must go on".

You dont need fail forward to have a predetermined plot.  I have played in plenty of railroad plots before fail forward was even a thing.

Quote from: Shasarak;1099121You dont need fail forward to have a predetermined plot.  I have played in plenty of railroad plots before fail forward was even a thing.

Also very true. But it's an enabler.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1099122Also very true. But it's an enabler.

Don't know. It seems to me the concept would be orthogonal to the matter of railroading. Specially because the games that use Fail Forward usually put it in the players hands (like Fate or Blades in the Dark), or in the roll of the dice (like Apocalypse World or EotE) so the GM's control over it is inconsistent at best.

Quote from: Shasarak;1099121You dont need fail forward to have a predetermined plot.  I have played in plenty of railroad plots before fail forward was even a thing.

You also don't need to have a predetermined plot to use failing forward.  I've played in several sandbox games where it was implemented and things ran just fine.

Also, it's been a good while since I've read any of my *World books, but I don't recall fail forward being a big thing in them.  The success with a consequence result is more akin to a partial success. Which, well, the idea of degrees of success has been around for ages. (edit: and now that I think about it I may be mixing my threads up with this point.  If I am just ignore this part. I need more coffee)

Quote from: Itachi;1098953Does anyone know of some game that does exactly what Pundy says in the vid (Fail forward = there can be no failure) ? Because I don't know of any game that does that.

Usually the concept is implemented in two ways:

1. If you fail a roll, something changes - the result is never "nothing happens".
2. Success with complication (Yes, but); or failure with some benefit (No, but).

But what Pundy says is more like..

3. A failed roll doesn't fail, but succeeds at a cost instead.

What games do this specifically?

For all his intelligence and creativity, he has a staggeringly arrogant and narrow-minded view of what an RPG is.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1099122Also very true. But it's an enabler.

In most games where its actually implemented its really just a reframe of a "margin of success" mechanic, which makes it a lot older than the SJW influence that's being railed against. Hell, if you really look at it the old school Reaction Roll could be considered "fail forward."

(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vA1uKcyEZg4/VIouK-mgm3I/AAAAAAAABiI/3-d8pH4bO5Q/s1600/reaction.png)

The only difference is in the framing... in B/X stuff its just a table of random results. But if you wanted it to be a "2d6 Fail Forward mechanic" you could describe it as...

2) Really Bad
3-5) Bad
6-8) Neutral (including "negotiate", the ultimate in social success with cost)
9-11) Good
12) Really Good

Or how about the percentage based Reaction Rolls from AD&D... they can be summed up as (with Fail Forward terms in parenthesis);

1-5   really bad (critical failure)
6-25   bad (failure)
26-45 neutral, negative bias (success with high cost)
46-55 neutral (success with cost)
56-75 neutral, positive bias (success with low cost)
76-95 good (complete success)
96-100 really good (critical success)

Or take any system where Margin of Success determines outcome (i.e. partial success or success at cost) or that allows you try again if you only miss the target number by a few points, but not if you fail by a wider margin giving you "failure with benefit (you can try again)" instead of just pure failure.

The point is, that type of mechanic has actually been around for a long time and a lot of people use that mechanic not thinking of it as "fail forward" just as "task resolution."

Quote from: Chris24601;1099177In most games where its actually implemented its really just a reframe of a "margin of success" mechanic, which makes it a lot older than the SJW influence that's being railed against.

This. Perfectly put.

Quote from: Chris24601;1099177In most games where its actually implemented its really just a reframe of a "margin of success" mechanic, which makes it a lot older than the SJW influence that's being railed against. Hell, if you really look at it the old school Reaction Roll could be considered "fail forward."

Um... you do know that your whole example is not one of fail forward... right?

And that is not the table from BX.
In BX it goes
2: immediate attack
3-5: hostile: possible attack
6-8: uncertain: monster confused
9-11: no attack: monster leaves or considers offers
12: enthusiastic friendship

That is in no way "fail forward" unless your definition of fail forward is "may have a chance to succeed"... :rolleyes:

Quote from: Chris24601;1098973That's not saying "make things fail forward." It's saying "if your module includes an element that has even the slimmest chance of roadblocking the entire module then you have failed as a module designer."

I had a similar outcome to your experience running Expedition to Barrier Peaks.  In my defense, I was 15 at the time, and had only been a GM about a year.  In a way, it was a very fortunate thing, because the players were all my age and still very forgiving.  "OK, we all starve to death.  Let's roll up new characters and try that other adventure you borrowed."  It never occurred to me or them to take another party into the module. :)  The experience definitely affected how I wrote my own modules, though.  Nothing like complete failure to teach a lesson.  

OTOH, my friends didn't all pay for the privilege of having their characters starve less than 1 hour into the session.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1098713"Fail forward" is crucial for movies, and its important technique for screenwriters.

But for GMs? Not so much.

To me, it always reeks of railroads and deus ex machina being imposed on players before they even have the chance to think of their own solutions. It's interesting that boardgames don't have "fail forward" - you just fail, often losing the game, so you either switch tactics and fight to win, or just learn better for your next game.

I'm only familiar with fail forward via PbtA games where the DMs, or whatever they call them in that system, are instructed to NOT prepare any adventures prior to sitting at the game table.  So in such a system I don't think "railroading" is a fair criticism.

Failing forward in traditional systems where  the DM prepares an adventure, locations, NPCs, motives all ahead of time can definitely be seen as railroading, but these systems, AFAIK, never recommend failing forward.

I¨m a but-guy. I like the "yes", "yes, but", "no", and "no!!"-approach. You can scale a wall (success), you can scale the wall, but not quickly/stealthily/equipment-retainingy enough (moderate fail), you can't scale the wall (fail), or you can't scale the wall, only realizing this halfway up and are either stuck or in freefall (when everything goes wrong). All of these variant results are dependant on circumstance and seat of pants.

Quote from: AmazingOnionMan;1099284I¨m a but-guy.

And cannot lie.

Quote from: MindofMinolta;1099279I'm only familiar with fail forward via PbtA games where the DMs, or whatever they call them in that system, are instructed to NOT prepare any adventures prior to sitting at the game table.  So in such a system I don't think "railroading" is a fair criticism.

Railroading doesn't always require preparation:

(https://i.giphy.com/media/3oz8xtBx06mcZWoNJm/giphy.webp)

it just requires that the PCs continue towards their goal regardless of their success or failure. The benefit is you always get to continue playing. The downside is that it very quickly removes all sense of achievement from the game.

I remember playing in an early D&D game with a still relatively low level character and having to make a deadly poison saving throw. I failed. The sensation was gutting. I asked the DM if he wanted me to roll a new character. But he said no, and contrived some story about it being a knock out poison. He wasn't very convincing and it felt somehow worse than death. From that moment on, playing that character was a lot less fun. I later checked the module and it should have been save or die as I suspected. Since then I've made it a rule whenever I DM: if you fail, you fail. Because unless you are allowed to fail, success becomes a shallow experience.

The only experience I've had with fail forward as a deliberate game mechanic was with Burning Wheel and it was one of the things I disliked about it.

One approach I do like though is rewarding failure with skill improvement. This represents learning from the failure. I much prefer this to systems where you improve through success or levelling or spending experience points. I like it because it's a self balancing system and it encourages you to evolve your character through their in world choices.

I don't agree with Fail Forward, I find it a crap idea.
If you fail, you fail. Just like in real life.
Maybe you'll get another go at it, maybe not, but that's the breaks.
I don't mind systems that allow for borderline rolls that describe succeeding at the cost of doing so with a glitch, or taking longer or whatever.
So perhaps ties with a target number and such.
But clear failure is just what it is. Otherwise just throw away the dice and make the whole session purely narrative.

The Demi-God of InCels grants us his wisdom once again. You have to be incredibly introverted to believe that anything is "simulated reality." And still threatened by women as always.

Welcome aboard Saladin!

However, I'm not understanding your comment!

Is RPGPundit your "Demi-God of InCels"? Or some other poster?

Explain how being "incredibly introverted" has any affect on believing "anything is simulated reality"?

Also who is being "still threatened by women" and how?

Quote from: Saladin;1099948The Demi-God of InCels grants us his wisdom once again. You have to be incredibly introverted to believe that anything is "simulated reality." And still threatened by women as always.

Is it just me or have we been getting a fuckton of trolls this month?

To keep this on topic, I'm inclined to agree with RPG Pundit.

Say what you will about his personal beliefs or his politics, but the man knows tabletop game design better than almost anyone on this forum.

And the one thing he does better than designing an RPG is being the DM of one.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1099952Welcome aboard Saladin!

However, I'm not understanding your comment!

Is RPGPundit your "Demi-God of InCels"? Or some other poster?

Explain how being "incredibly introverted" has any affect on believing "anything is simulated reality"?

Also who is being "still threatened by women" and how?

&

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1099954Is it just me or have we been getting a fuckton of trolls this month?

To keep this on topic, I'm inclined to agree with RPG Pundit.

Say what you will about his personal beliefs or his politics, but the man knows tabletop game design better than almost anyone on this forum.

And the one thing he does better than designing an RPG is being the DM of one.

Don't feed the trolls.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1099955&

My, what a big ampersand you have.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1099957My, what a big ampersand you have.

Not the only thing mexicans are famous for their big size :cool:

Yeah, their sombreros are enormous!  :eek:

I'm happy to welcome the new trolls.

We're a free speech forum...thus everyone gets to speak freely.

Plus, trolls are just XP bags to Trogdor the Burninator!!!

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1099959Not the only thing mexicans are famous for their big size :cool:

Overstuffed breakfast burritos? :)

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1099955&



Don't feed the trolls.

Agreed, instead why don't we talk about Pundit's sage wisdom for aspiring DM's.

I'm currently watching Pundit's livestream right now.

Quote from: Shasarak;1099967Yeah, their sombreros are enormous!  :eek:

Almost there

Quote from: Spinachcat;1099968I'm happy to welcome the new trolls.

We're a free speech forum...thus everyone gets to speak freely.

Plus, trolls are just XP bags to Trogdor the Burninator!!!

Overstuffed breakfast burritos? :)

We're a free speech forum, not asking for their banning, just don't take their bad quality bait.

Almost, almost.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1099969Agreed, instead why don't we talk about Pundit's sage wisdom for aspiring DM's.

I'm currently watching Pundit's livestream right now.

Not big on watching livestreams. especially when I learn of them after they started :( Will watch it latter.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1099954Say what you will about his personal beliefs or his politics, but the man knows tabletop game design better than almost anyone on this forum.

I agree, but you're damning with faint praise.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1099954Say what you will about his personal beliefs or his politics, but the man knows tabletop game design better than almost anyone on this forum..

Does he? As far as I know his games are all clones (of oD&D and Amber respectively). What original design he did that achieved some measure of success or recognition outside his own backyard?

Quote from: Itachi;1100020Does he? As far as I know his games are all clones (of oD&D and Amber respectively). What original design he did that achieved some measure of success or recognition outside his own backyard?

They may be "clones" in terms of mechanics, but the guy is an OSR badass and is one of several designers who helped the OSR move past being simple retro-clones and into a full game movement of its own.

Of course, I may be biased because I freakin' love Lion & Dragon.

Fair enough for his support of the OSR style, but being an "OSR badass" says very little in terms of actual tabletop design since 90% of what's created are house-rules for oD&D.

Quote from: Itachi;1100052Fair enough for his support of the OSR style, but being an "OSR badass" says very little in terms of actual tabletop design since 90% of what's created are house-rules for oD&D.

If I were to quantify Pundit's greatness as a game designer, it would be because of his knack for style and the fact that he is an OSR specialist of sorts. It's his field of gaming expertise.

Pundit is to the OSR what Dave Ramsey is to financial responsibility.

Just like how Steve Jackson is the Nikola Tesla of tabletop games, with a wide variety of talents and successes, or how Ron Edwards is the William McGonagall of tabletop gaming, in that he is an untalented hack.

Quote from: Saladin;1099948The Demi-God of InCels grants us his wisdom once again. You have to be incredibly introverted to believe that anything is "simulated reality." And still threatened by women as always.

Lot of one post wonders lately. Pundit must have hit a nerve.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1100055If I were to quantify Pundit's greatness as a game designer, it would be because of his knack for style and the fact that he is an OSR specialist of sorts. It's his field of gaming expertise.

Pundit is to the OSR what Dave Ramsey is to financial responsibility.

Just like how Steve Jackson is the Nikola Tesla of tabletop games, with a wide variety of talents and successes, or how Ron Edwards is the William McGonagall of tabletop gaming, in that he is an untalented hack.

Fair (again) for Pundy being an OSR specialist. But what this means in terms of actual design? Even if we assume that the kind of house-rules -oriented design we see in OSR has it's place and importance... is Pundy even in the discussion for greatest OSR authors? Say, what are the reference products of the OSR and who designed them? Will Lion & Dragon figure among those? I'm skeptic.

And you mention Ron Edwards. Well, for all the shitstorm he caused in the hobby, the guy actually designed a game from scratch that was seminal for the movement he advocated, which went on to spawn an improvising low-prep story-aware playstyle that keeps strong to this day through the likes of Fiasco, Fate, Cortex, PbtA, Forged in the Dark, Hillfolk, etc. Can Pundy reinvidicate the same influence for the OSR? For anything at all?

Not wanting to piss on anyone fun here. Just seeking a fair assessment of Pundy design capabilities.

Quote from: Itachi;1100231And you mention Ron Edwards. Well, for all the shitstorm he caused in the hobby, the guy actually designed a game from scratch that was seminal for the movement he advocated, which went on to spawn an improvising low-prep story-aware playstyle that keeps strong to this day through the likes of Fiasco, Fate, Cortex, PbtA, Forged in the Dark, Hillfolk, etc. Can Pundy reinvidicate the same influence for the OSR? For anything at all?

Edwards' Sorcerer RPG was only marginally influential even within Forge games at the time - and his other games had even less. He ran a forum and generated controversy, but didn't have much influence solely through his game design. Dogs in the Vineyard, My Life With Master, Burning Wheel, and Fiasco were the most influential of the games from The Forge era (2001 - 2012). Edwards did have some influence on Vincent Baker for Apocalypse World and Jason Morningstar for Fiasco -- but that was more through discussion than through the design of Sorcerer. Fate, Cortex, and Hillfolk have very little lineage to Edwards, if any.

I think Pundit is in a similar position. His videos and posts have influence, but I don't get the impression that many game designers are influenced by the game design of Arrows of Indra, Lion & Dragon, Lords of Olympus, or GnomeMurdered. If people are - I'd encourage them to post more about it here. We could use more actual gaming talk.

Quote from: jhkim;1100410Edwards' Sorcerer RPG was only marginally influential even within Forge games at the time.

Are you sure of that? Sorcerer introduced kickers and bangs that would inspire the whole narrativism/Story now scthick. I agree that Dogs in the Vineyard, My Life with Master and Burning Wheel were more important, but don't these games drink from the basis Sorcerer laid down in a way? Isn't the Town in Dogs a big bandoleer of bangs? Aren't Beliefs and Instincts in BW another way to do kickers and bangs?

Vincent Baker matters as a designer. Ron Edwards? Not so much. It's one thing to have ideas how to play RPGs differently; it's a very different thing to translate these floating ideas into something that can have mass appeal. Ideas are cheap; implementation matters. Can't call Edwards a theoreticist either, as his approach lacks any rigor whatsoever. So, what's left is that he's an influencer within our hobby. If he has helped inspired Baker to create AW, that's an achievement in my book.

As for the RPGPundit, I can't really assess. Based on his videos, I think he's a smart dude and what he says about D&D 5E from a marketability perspective seems spot-on, so I choose to buy his claims that he has had some significant input into D&D 5E. And if so, that is a job well done. I'm not huge fan of D&D or 5E in particular but it has been solidly designed (for a gamist RPG) and expertly marketed.

Just remember: no one is saying Ron Edwards matters as a designer. What is being said is that Edwards did design a game - new, from scratch - with ideas that ended up influential to a whole new playstyle and movement.

And that is much more than anything Pundit ever did in terms of design.

The idea that you need Fail Forward or "Nothing Happens" is a pathetic joke, and a bald-faced lie.

The thief didn't pick the lock...

• The party may not be able to get through the door, they need to come up with some other way.
• The party can't get through the door silently, now they have to break it down.
• They spent time in the attempt, time they may not have.
• A dozen other consequences any GM or player could come up with without even trying.

Even if the door is unbreakable, your Thief has proven unable to pick it, and there is no other way in...

• Find a magic item that will do it.
• Come back when the Thief is more skilled, maybe you're not ready for what lies within.
• Recruit another thief, with all the danger and drama that can lead to.

There's ALWAYS another option or another thing to do.  The whole "nothing happens" is like the whole "consequences can be worse than death" in those games without non-player sanctioned death.  It's bullshit, and the story peeps rationale is bullshit, it's all a cover for them wanting to be Literary Protagonists and, no matter how close it gets, always be the hero and win.

Quote from: Itachi;1100459Just remember: no one is saying Ron Edwards matters as a designer. What is being said is that Edwards did design a game - new, from scratch - with ideas that ended up influential to a whole new playstyle and movement.

And that is much more than anything Pundit ever did in terms of design.

I think it was Edwards' ideas, not his mechanics and not the way those ideas were embodied in Sorcerer, that were influential. Bangs is a pretty obvious idea, and you certainly see Bangs in published adventures pre-Edwards, but giving it a formal name keeps it in people's minds. As an antidote to the curse of Railroading I'd say Kickers & Bangs were good things. Of course Edwards' main influence was as a cult leader and Pundit's main influence is as an anti-cult-leader, like Brian in Life of Brian shouting You Are All Individuals!

Quote from: CRKrueger;1100489The idea that you need Fail Forward or "Nothing Happens" is a pathetic joke, and a bald-faced lie.

You're right. You don't need Fail Forward/Succes-at-a-Cost per se. You can have fun gaming without it. On the other hand, though, a GM can use without ruining the game as well.
It all depends on the type of gamign experience you're craving.

Take the example that Pundit uses: if you can't open the dungeon door, well, then you have to move on and the world has to deal with the ramifications of you not disposing of the old, evil wizard or whatever.
Sure.

If that's what you want from your games.

But if you want to feel like a Jon Snow-like character, you don't stand before a door you can't open and then just move on. If you crave a game in which you're destined to be a hero like that, it would be immersion-shattering.
It doesn't mean that such PCs can never fail or die (there is the cases of Valeria, Boromir, Ned/Rob Stark) but if and when they do, it should be either small failures or big and dramatic ones.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1100489There's ALWAYS another option or another thing to do.

Yeah, I agree. You can do that. You can also do Success-at-a-Cost instead, just as pacing dictates.
But the Pundit recommends including big, unspectacular failures in your games and that is not for everyone and every campaign.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1100489The whole "nothing happens" is like the whole "consequences can be worse than death" in those games without non-player sanctioned death.  It's bullshit, and the story peeps rationale is bullshit, it's all a cover for them wanting to be Literary Protagonists

It's not about writing a novel; it's about what happens in the game or what doesn't happen in the game. And when I want to play as a hero, I don't want significant but unspectacular failure in my game.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1100489and, no matter how close it gets, always be the hero and win.

Failure/Death should be possible but rare (and dramatic) for heroes.

If Jon Snow knows he's the Destined Hero then he's not being brave when he does heroic things. To feel like you are Jon Snow being actually heroic there has to be an actual substantial risk to the PC. Otherwise it feels like a story creation exercise not "you are the hero".

Quote from: S'mon;1100518If Jon Snow knows he's the Destined Hero then he's not being brave when he does heroic things. To feel like you are Jon Snow being actually heroic there has to be an actual substantial risk to the PC. Otherwise it feels like a story creation exercise not "you are the hero".

Fantastic heroes, especially martial ones, very rarely enter combat having to struggle with fear. And in many combats the audience doesn't fear for the life of a protagonist either. Both especially go for fights against what are obviously mooks. Now, there are exceptions but this is generally the norm. Even Boromir wasn't taken down by mooks, just swarmed by them and then eventually shot by Lurtz.

It's okay for me if some gamers say that this is not enough for them and that they routinely want higher stakes in their games. But there clearly are other gamers with a different taste.

You somewhat need a fail forwards approach when it comes to Adventure Paths and Organised Play. Too many of them are linear to the point where I usually avoid them now.

In a more free-form campaign, you can always go back to that tower (the example given in this thread) the next time you pass it and try again, or there is something else to do instead.

I've recently used a "fail-sideways" approach. Try something else or do something else. If the GM can't accommodate that then that's bad on them imo.

Quote from: S'mon;1100490I think it was Edwards' ideas, not his mechanics and not the way those ideas were embodied in Sorcerer, that were influential. Bangs is a pretty obvious idea, and you certainly see Bangs in published adventures pre-Edwards, but giving it a formal name keeps it in people's minds. As an antidote to the curse of Railroading I'd say Kickers & Bangs were good things.

Makes sense. Even if I think Sorcerer is a clear and succint implementation of those ideas, it's the ideas themselves that were influential. Indeed, Sorcerer apparently has very little fans of it's own, as other games managed to use it's ideas in more interesting ways. This may be a point for Pundit actually: his games may be clones, but they're well done clones that see actual play and get some love from fans.  

QuoteOf course Edwards' main influence was as a cult leader and Pundit's main influence is as an anti-cult-leader, like Brian in Life of Brian shouting You Are All Individuals!

Makes sense too. :D

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1100519Fantastic heroes, especially martial ones, very rarely enter combat having to struggle with fear.

Leaving aside Wuxia & Anime kerbstomp battle tropes (which have more recently made it into Western cinema eg The Matrix), if the hero does not have to struggle with fear, it's because he's brave. Not because he knows he has plot protection.

Quote from: S'mon;1100541Leaving aside Wuxia & Anime kerbstomp battle tropes (which have more recently made it into Western cinema eg The Matrix), if the hero does not have to struggle with fear, it's because he's brave. Not because he knows he has plot protection.

Maybe, maybe not (the Hound knows exactly that he's going to cut through three or five king's men), but that does not change the fact that he has it. Nor does it mean that plot protection is endless. As I said before - even with basic plot protection you don't know if you're going to be Subotai or Valeria, if you're Faramir or Boromir, if you're Arya Stark or Rob Stark. Gameplay is for finding that out.

If you prefer to play without, that's fine. It's just not for everyone.

Hit points and saving throw bonuses give plenty of plot protection to equate with what the Hound or Jon Snow perceive themselves as having - probably more, since the Hound appeared to nearly die from a bit ear... You certainly don't need plot protection mechanics slathered on top of high competency.

One of the things that feels a bit off in this discussion is "just what sort of situation is there where a failure stops everything cold?"

I mean, a locked door is brought up, but unless both it, its hinges (and the wall its attached to for that matter) are adamantium or something, the thief's failure to pick the lock just means the fighter has to do some work with his axe and everyone on the other side of the door knows you're coming.

"Time for the fighter to do his thing" IS the fail forward mechanic in both of those situations.

"Kill them and take their stuff" IS the fail forward mechanic of a failed negotiation if you REALLY need what they have.

Other than a secret door or "can only bypass with a specific spell" and there's some life or death situation with a time limit in effect, there's not a lot of actual situations where I could see fail forward even being needed in a normal campaign.

As someone pointed out, you really only need fail forward mechanics if you're playing a railroad adventure (as is common for organized play modules) where everything is basically scripted out ahead of time. "Jon Snow" only needs to "get through the door" if you're trying to make an adventure have the same outcome as the books/show did.

If you're not married to that, but only to say; "Let's use the characters, inciting incident and what we know from the backstory in the books and game out what happens from there" you don't.

So the GM has the following hooks; The Wildlings are gathering under the leadership of Mance Rayder to storm south of the wall before the White Walkers come, Jon Arryn has been murdered by his wife at the behest of Littlefinger, the heir to the throne is the offspring of an ongoing incestuous love affair between the Queen and her brother and somewhere far to the east, the last daughter of House Targaryen is being sold off to a warlord in exchange for troops so her older brother can invade Westeros (given how she ultimately turned out, Daenerys should probably be an NPC in all this).

All the PCs know at the start is that they're various members of House Stark and that the king and his entourage are coming to their home to convince Lord Eddard to be his Hand. Go!

Maybe Bran makes his stealth check and doesn't get tossed from the tower so the entire Joffrey mess gets dealt with at Winterfell and because he was not injured, Cat, Bran and Tommen all go south with the King as originally intended, but with no betrothal to the Prince, Sansa remains behind to be the lady of the castle (i.e. get experience handling all the duties that will be expected of her once she is married off) and without the extra push from Cat, Jon doesn't feel pushed into joining the Night's Watch and instead remains at Winterfell with Robb and Theon.

If they're the PCs, they all get some experience managing the kingdom for their parents and then news reaches them that the Wildlings have broken through the Wall and a horde of them 100,000 strong are making their way south and will reach Winterfell in two weeks while their parents and the armies needed to really fight the Wildling Horde are a month's ride south at King's Landing.

There's just as much of a story that could be told (after the fact) in that version of events as there is in what Martin decided should happen in his story. There are just as many opportunities for Jon Snow to prove himself a hero; just not the same ones.

The GM has no way of knowing ahead of time which events will bring the most interesting results. He may THINK that Bran uncovering the secret affair in act one will lead to the most interesting results, so gives him a fail forward option so he escapes with the information even if he fails his stealth check... but then you'd get the scenario above and not what ended up on the pages of "A Game of Thrones."

The only reason you KNOW something actually needs a fail forward is if you already have the story written and you're just using the players as free acting talent to see it played out. If that's your idea of GM'ing you should just write a story and do readings at your local coffee shop... you'll get better feedback and not be wasting players' time.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100574One of the things that feels a bit off in this discussion is "just what sort of situation is there where a failure stops everything cold?"

A perception check? A climbing attempt? A crafting check? A hacking attempt? A persuasion attempt? A clue finding check?

Any situation where some games advise players to try again at a higher difficulty or something? I know of a few that do that.

Quote from: Chris24601One of the things that feels a bit off in this discussion is "just what sort of situation is there where a failure stops everything cold?"

Quote from: Itachi;1100579A perception check? A climbing attempt? A crafting check? A hacking attempt? A persuasion attempt? A clue finding check?

Any situation where some games advise players to try again at a higher difficulty or something? I know of a few that do that.

Yeah. I've experienced plenty of play where after a player misses a clue-finding roll then we boringly putter about for a while, because we can't yet get to the planned next stage of the adventure. For example, searching a house for clues - and miss the evidence to get into the danger-filled secret basement. So we look at more mundane rooms in the upper house for a while, leave, and then eventually get another clue that sends us back to look through the basement.

One can correctly say that this is bad GMing -- but a lot of gamers have GMs who are bad in one or several ways.

I don't like fail-forward because I think there are better ways to approach the issue, but I think there are real problems in some people's play that it's trying to address. It's similar to the issue that the GUMSHOE system is trying to address. (I also dislike GUMSHOE, for what it's worth.) The idea is to keep the action faster - so the PCs move forward but get greater opposition, rather than being slowed down.

Mostly, I think this is better addressed by just having things be faster paced in the first place - so that a few slowdowns are acceptable or even welcome by the players.

Quote from: Itachi;1100579A perception check? A climbing attempt? A crafting check? A hacking attempt? A persuasion attempt? A clue finding check?

But why do those stop things cold? Again, I'm talking about a regular campaign not an organized play railroad module.

You fail to notice a secret door? Unless there's something that will end the world (or at least the part the PCs happen to be in at the time) why does that stop a campaign cold? Is there nothing else in the world except what's behind that door?

You fail to climb something? Is there no other way up? Is there nothing else in the world but what's at the top of whatever they failed to climb?

Again... unless there is a particular story you as the GM are trying to make happen none of the those things is a campaign ender. At most they curtail a particular set of actions that might have gone in a particular direction, but if you miss the secret door in one dungeon, there's always another dungeon or another hex crawl out there.

Sometimes the cops and all the investigators in the world fail to ever find someone who's been kidnapped... sometimes the PCs can fail to find or rescue a kidnapped princess. There's as much a story in that as there is in succeeding and getting a reward from the king. Maybe this results in an Avengers-esque "If we can't protect the [Kingdom], you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it!" mission where they hunt down the villains responsible and make them pay.

The supreme irony for me is that the exact sort of low-prep systems that encourage "fail forward" are actually the best ones for NOT doing so because the GM can easily create new material on the fly in reaction to the players missing the perception check or not climbing the wall or failing to persuade the king. If it only takes 5 minutes to roll up a new dungeon, it doesn't matter that the players never found levels 5-10 of the last one.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100634But why do those stop things cold? Again, I'm talking about a regular campaign not an organized play railroad module.

You fail to notice a secret door? Unless there's something that will end the world (or at least the part the PCs happen to be in at the time) why does that stop a campaign cold? Is there nothing else in the world except what's behind that door?

You fail to climb something? Is there no other way up? Is there nothing else in the world but what's at the top of whatever they failed to climb?

Again... unless there is a particular story you as the GM are trying to make happen none of the those things is a campaign ender. At most they curtail a particular set of actions that might have gone in a particular direction, but if you miss the secret door in one dungeon, there's always another dungeon or another hex crawl out there.

Sometimes the cops and all the investigators in the world fail to ever find someone who's been kidnapped... sometimes the PCs can fail to find or rescue a kidnapped princess. There's as much a story in that as there is in succeeding and getting a reward from the king. Maybe this results in an Avengers-esque "If we can't protect the [Kingdom], you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it!" mission where they hunt down the villains responsible and make them pay.

The supreme irony for me is that the exact sort of low-prep systems that encourage "fail forward" are actually the best ones for NOT doing so because the GM can easily create new material on the fly in reaction to the players missing the perception check or not climbing the wall or failing to persuade the king. If it only takes 5 minutes to roll up a new dungeon, it doesn't matter that the players never found levels 5-10 of the last one.

It's usually stopping things cold because the players don't want to give up and keep beating their head against the wall over and over to try and get the same thing they failed at. Eventually the players themselves get bored, but feel compelled to keep at it because they don't want to give up.

A classic example is trying to find a hidden door somewhere you know is hiding treasure. No matter how many times they fail players will keep trying because they don't want to give up on the treasure even though in real life half the players will be bored to tears of the constant waiting around.

You guys seem to be forgetting that the Pundit himself recommended that "Hey, if they can't open the dungeon door, well, that's too bad then and then you go deal with the ramifications for the region."
It's a specific playstyle, that's fine. But it's not for everyone.

HP bloat and having good saving throws increase survivability, yes. But heroic luck in fiction is more than survivability.
And it serves a point too: it makes characters look less Mary Sue-ish. You can either have a character that is so competent, so good at perception, that he always finds the vital clues.
OR you can have a character that is reasonably competent, so that he catches those clues much of the time and is bailed out by dumb (heroic) luck at those other times. To keep tension in the game, that's where Fail Forward comes in.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100574As someone pointed out, you really only need fail forward mechanics if you're playing a railroad adventure (as is common for organized play modules) where everything is basically scripted out ahead of time. "Jon Snow" only needs to "get through the door" if you're trying to make an adventure have the same outcome as the books/show did.

That's too binary, too black and white. The way published scenarios are used isn't that you railroad everything. You can get off the rails for a while but eventually you need to get back on track. You only go completely off-the-rails when the PC's actions promises a story development that is particularly intriguing.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100574All the PCs know at the start is that they're various members of House Stark and that the king and his entourage are coming to their home to convince Lord Eddard to be his Hand. Go!

That's basically sandboxing. Can be fun. But it's just one type of fun. It has it's pros but it also has clear cons. Just as running pre-published adventures with a touch of railroading does.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100574There's just as much of a story that could be told (after the fact) in that version of events as there is in what Martin decided should happen in his story. There are just as many opportunities for Jon Snow to prove himself a hero; just not the same ones.

The GM has no way of knowing ahead of time which events will bring the most interesting results. He may THINK that Bran uncovering the secret affair in act one will lead to the most interesting results, so gives him a fail forward option so he escapes with the information even if he fails his stealth check... but then you'd get the scenario above and not what ended up on the pages of "A Game of Thrones."

The way you state it, I'm wondering why GRRM takes so long to write his novels and why he just doesn't write down whatever comes to him, just the way a GM has to improvise on-the-spot during such sessions.
Mulling plot developments over and over again obviously doesn't have much merit.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100574The only reason you KNOW something actually needs a fail forward is if you already have the story written

This is a meme that doesn't even make sense. Pre-published scenarios come with a main plot and a plethora of conditionals. The way it works for most people who run these scenarios is that the PCs can only fail if they act particularly dumb OR roll spectacularly badly. Which implies that there is a basic plot from which can be deviated up-to-a-degree and whose outcome is (only somewhat) in doubt. So the players engage with the expectation that unless they mess up, their PCs will survive and beat the scenario. And they're playing to find out how.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100574and you're just using the players as free acting talent to see it played out. If that's your idea of GM'ing you should just write a story and do readings at your local coffee shop... you'll get better feedback and not be wasting players' time.

I have to observe that pre-published scenarios (those that come with a basic plot) keep selling for a wide plethora of games; obviously the buyers and players of such scenarios continue to find value in them, contrary to your assertions.

Quote from: jhkim;1100591One can correctly say that this is bad GMing -- but a lot of gamers have GMs who are bad in one or several ways.

It depends. Sometimes a slow pace can be quite comfy.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100634But why do those stop things cold? Again, I'm talking about a regular campaign not an organized play railroad module.

Basically a sandbox, which is just one flavor of role-playing. Perhaps the one you personally like best, yes, but still only one.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100634You fail to notice a secret door? Unless there's something that will end the world (or at least the part the PCs happen to be in at the time) why does that stop a campaign cold? Is there nothing else in the world except what's behind that door?

You fail to climb something? Is there no other way up? Is there nothing else in the world but what's at the top of whatever they failed to climb?

These questions are made meaningless by your presuming a sandbox-style of play: if I'm doing a hexcrawl, sure, then it's not a big deal if I don't get to enter that one dungeon.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100634Sometimes the cops and all the investigators in the world fail to ever find someone who's been kidnapped... sometimes the PCs can fail to find or rescue a kidnapped princess. There's as much a story in that as there is in succeeding and getting a reward from the king. Maybe this results in an Avengers-esque "If we can't protect the [Kingdom], you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it!" mission where they hunt down the villains responsible and make them pay.

One CAN play that way and enjoy it, yes. But one can also play a game with a pre-conceived (whether devised on your own or via a bought publication) basic plot in which certain thing MUST happen to keep the plot going and reaching its ultimate decision point.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100634The supreme irony for me is that the exact sort of low-prep systems that encourage "fail forward" are actually the best ones for NOT doing so because the GM can easily create new material on the fly in reaction to the players missing the perception check or not climbing the wall or failing to persuade the king. If it only takes 5 minutes to roll up a new dungeon, it doesn't matter that the players never found levels 5-10 of the last one.

Which should indicate to you that it's not about wasted prep but about players wanting to feel like heroes.

You guys are conflating things. It has nothing to do with railroads or sandboxes, but simply with boring outcomes. One good example is perception checks where one player rolls bad then another player says "Let me try now!". Then this one rolls bad too a third wants to try etc. This is the kind of situation fail forward addresses.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1100649It's usually stopping things cold because the players don't want to give up and keep beating their head against the wall over and over to try and get the same thing they failed at. Eventually the players themselves get bored, but feel compelled to keep at it because they don't want to give up.

A classic example is trying to find a hidden door somewhere you know is hiding treasure. No matter how many times they fail players will keep trying because they don't want to give up on the treasure even though in real life half the players will be bored to tears of the constant waiting around.

Exactly this.

As I said, the Pundit recommended in this video: if you don't get to open the dungeon door, then move elsewhere and explore the consequences of that failure.
This is tied to playstyle: if the dungeon is just one location in your regional campaign, then sure, no problem. If the dungeon is a pre-published scenario you have bought and prepped for the session, then this is a problem, depending on your willingness to throw it all away and improv the rest of the night.

But if, as you say, failure doesn't stop the action, just delays the progress, then fail forward is, as I said before, a pacing technique. My only contention here is that the action plodding slowly along is sometimes good. You don't need to maintain a high pace throughout all the time - it would be the GMing-equivalent to writing in bold all the time.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1100684As I said, the Pundit recommended in this video: if you don't get to open the dungeon door, then move elsewhere and explore the consequences of that failure.
This is tied to playstyle: if the dungeon is just one location in your regional campaign, then sure, no problem. If the dungeon is a pre-published scenario you have bought and prepped for the session, then this is a problem, depending on your willingness to throw it all away and improv the rest of the night.

Published scenarios with strong gatekeeping of critical material are definitely a problem, yup.

Quote from: S'mon;1100686Published scenarios with strong gatekeeping of critical material are definitely a problem, yup.

A fundamental question of gaming: Do you believe that somewhat carefully designed and prepped content is, on average(!), stronger than improvised, on-the-spot content?

If no, then all prep work is essentially a waste of time and effort and we should always GM unprepared. (And GRRM should just write down whatever he feels like in a given moment for his final two books.)
If yes, then there is plenty of incentive for me, as a player, to stay at least near the rails (aka GM's prepped content) - unless I have a really intriguing plot path that I'd like to see explored. (I have those once in a while; it's annoying when GMs railroad those away.)

The difference between sandboxes and pre-published scenarios with a basic plot is basically the degree of focus; sandboxes are broader but less focussed for the same amount of prep work. And because they are broader, Fail Forward is less justified.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1100684But if, as you say, failure doesn't stop the action, just delays the progress, then fail forward is, as I said before, a pacing technique. My only contention here is that the action plodding slowly along is sometimes good. You don't need to maintain a high pace throughout all the time.

Yup, this is how I see it. But notice that failures can also be made interesting as long as it doesn't stop things in their tracks and create new situations. This is the "No, and..." part of fail forward.

But yeah, I think it can (and should) be dialed up or down according to group preferences and demands of the adventure.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1100731A fundamental question of gaming: Do you believe that somewhat carefully designed and prepped content is, on average(!), stronger than improvised, on-the-spot content?

As is common for people with an agenda, you're pushing a false binary (prep everything or prep nothing) and further obfuscating with the false equivalency that all prep work is created equal (organizing stats for potential encounters vs. predetermining event outcomes the PCs will be taking part in before the session).

I am regularly asked to GM for things and I'll tell you exactly what I prep for a campaign. I prep a list of current events and the motivations of the major players in the area. I prep the stats for any opponents (or potential allies) the PCs are likely to encounter where they're at and I have a list of names for when I need to introduce a new NPC on the spur of the moment because I suck at names.

As a general rule, I'll end a session early if the group reaches something that requires more prep work than I can do on the fly (like a full dungeon complex vs. 3-5 room mini-dungeons that I just wing) so that I can do the needed prep (basically a microcosm of the campaign prep) and have it ready for next time.

Beyond that its all improvisation. I leave clues all over the place. Sometimes they run with them, sometimes... Ooh SHINY! One time a party got so distracted by an ancient book that was only there to establish the resources the group whose lair they were exploring had access to that they went off in search of the book's origin and traveled halfway around the world on a dozen plus session quest that ended up including exploring the crypt of the book's author, thwarting the plans of an evil demigod and the entire party deciding to play matchmaker for one of the PCs that ended with him bringing back a wife.

Oh, and because they were away for six months and not doing anything about the group whose lair they'd infiltrated, said group sorta took over their homeland and was generally making a mess of things that the PCs now had to struggle to clean up (because based on the group's goals and plans and capabilities that's what would have most likely happened without the PCs there to oppose them).

Fail forward would have resulted in the PCs finding the local group's plans even though they never even made it to the leader's office (where the plans were on his desk... because if you don't want the PCs to fail, don't give them a chance to fail, because odds are they'll find a way to derail things anyway). Instead we had a bunch of completely unplanned adventures which introduced several extremely entertaining NPCs I had to invent on the spur of the moment who are part of the campaign to this day... AND the party got a lesson in maybe... possibly... finishing what they start before they Oooh SHINY!!! on something else (plus the look on their faces when they realized the rest of the world didn't pause just because they left the area was PRICELESS).

Fail forward would have resulted in none of those amazing things happening.

Quote from: Itachi;1100672One good example is perception checks where one player rolls bad then another player says "Let me try now!". Then this one rolls bad too a third wants to try etc.

I think the problem you have here might be a turn taking issue. If the first player says their character wants to examine something, the rest of the party shouldn't be kicking their heals waiting for them pass or fail their perception check. I go round the table first, asking each player what their character is doing. Only when I come back around, do I ask them to make the roll. It doesn't always work but my party has mostly broken that habit now.

In Pathfinder perception rolls are secret so the DM makes the roll, the Players just know if they found something or not.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1100731A fundamental question of gaming: Do you believe that somewhat carefully designed and prepped content is, on average(!), stronger than improvised, on-the-spot content?

If it's me doing the creating, my best work seems to be on average from seat of the pants improvisation drawing on some tools/aids, such as a reasonably detailed sandbox setting, encounter tables, treasure tables, and stat blocks.  Eg my last few Primeval Thule sessions as the PCs infiltrate then lead an attack on a slaver fortress (the Isle of Woe) have been improvised, but I had a sheet of NPC soldier stats, a treasure table, and the setting book to draw on. Stuff like the map of the town and the defences was all improvised in play.  I had a published adventure prepped, but the players decided to go do this instead.

Quote from: Itachi;1100744Yup, this is how I see it. But notice that failures can also be made interesting as long as it doesn't stop things in their tracks and create new situations. This is the "No, and..." part of fail forward.

I've been thinking a lot about this and it has allowed me to reframe what my own game is doing... I'm starting to regard it as Success-at-a-Metacost/Success-at-a-later-Cost. Because you can spend Fortune similarly to Fate Points in FATE, except here it will come back to biter you in the ass - latest when the GM uses it to impact the final scenario scene or the epilogue. A complaint that I sometimes read about Dungeon World, but especially about FFG Star Wars, is that you sometimes struggle to think of a good complication in a given situation. Success-at-a-Metacost allows you to defer the pain towards pre-planned tragedies at the scenario high-point, as it befits my game's setting.

Which means that the Fortune Points metacurrency gets used quite sparringly -by either side- and actual gameplay is to a high degree traditional. It's more an exception handling mechanism. (And since the GM has veto powers

Quote from: Chris24601;1100747As is common for people with an agenda,

Everyone has an agenda, including you, including me, including the RPGPundit.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100747you're pushing a false binary (prep everything or prep nothing)

I don't think I did though. I didn't even begin to frame the scope of the question. We can break it down to, let's say, a single character. Is it on average stronger to have one carefully prepped or to come up with one spontaneously? And we could go through various elements of play, if you like, to see if any of them are of better quality when improvised as opposed to designed in advance.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100747and further obfuscating with the false equivalency that all prep work is created equal (organizing stats for potential encounters vs. predetermining event outcomes the PCs will be taking part in before the session).

That is still not the proper "versus". If we're going to compare, then we need compare:
coming up with creature stats on the fly versus drawing on previously organized stats for an encounter (whether preplanned or not)
OR
improvising an event spontaneously versus having prepared for an event,
OR
etc.

Note: none of the above presumes that the event/encounter HAD to happen or that it has to go down JUST AS PLANNED by all means.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100747I am regularly asked to GM for things and I'll tell you exactly what I prep for a campaign. I prep a list of current events and the motivations of the major players in the area. I prep the stats for any opponents (or potential allies) the PCs are likely to encounter where they're at and I have a list of names for when I need to introduce a new NPC on the spur of the moment because I suck at names.

As a general rule, I'll end a session early if the group reaches something that requires more prep work than I can do on the fly (like a full dungeon complex vs. 3-5 room mini-dungeons that I just wing) so that I can do the needed prep (basically a microcosm of the campaign prep) and have it ready for next time.

Beyond that its all improvisation. I leave clues all over the place. Sometimes they run with them, sometimes... Ooh SHINY! One time a party got so distracted by an ancient book that was only there to establish the resources the group whose lair they were exploring had access to that they went off in search of the book's origin and traveled halfway around the world on a dozen plus session quest that ended up including exploring the crypt of the book's author, thwarting the plans of an evil demigod and the entire party deciding to play matchmaker for one of the PCs that ended with him bringing back a wife.

Oh, and because they were away for six months and not doing anything about the group whose lair they'd infiltrated, said group sorta took over their homeland and was generally making a mess of things that the PCs now had to struggle to clean up (because based on the group's goals and plans and capabilities that's what would have most likely happened without the PCs there to oppose them).

That's fine, I have no issue with that! It's one playstyle of many that gamers enjoy. (Another, which other gamers may prefer, is running pre-published/preplanned adventures.)

But let's see... I have a legally obtained PDF of Dark Albion's DAA1 The Ghost of Jack Cade on London Bridge with my name on it open in my PDF reader, as I type this. And I can tell you: it does have pre-planned events - including rules for chases on the river Thames. Do you think you can come up with compelling rules for that on-the-fly? And, no, it's not a hardcoded event in that book, more a conditional thing.

So... I'm just checking out which content types are stronger when prepped as opposed to spontaneously created.

It seems (seems!) to me that the Pundit (or his partner) don't believe that improvised events/encounters/locations/characters are necessarily stronger when improvised on-the-spot. Maybe they believe that just the overall plot should not be fixed because then you'd be "writing a story" or "would be better of being a shitty fiction author than a GM" (not necessarily their words but surely the view of a number of posters in here)?

You know what really the only difference is that I have found between DAA1 and old Shadowrun scenarios regarding overall plot? DAA1 frames it as "if x, then y SHOULD happen", instead of "if x, then y does happen". That's pretty much it. The difference seems to be primarily in the area of language.

Quote from: Chris24601;1100747Fail forward would have resulted in the PCs finding the local group's plans even though they never even made it to the leader's office (where the plans were on his desk... because if you don't want the PCs to fail, don't give them a chance to fail, because odds are they'll find a way to derail things anyway). Instead we had a bunch of completely unplanned adventures which introduced several extremely entertaining NPCs I had to invent on the spur of the moment who are part of the campaign to this day... AND the party got a lesson in maybe... possibly... finishing what they start before they Oooh SHINY!!! on something else (plus the look on their faces when they realized the rest of the world didn't pause just because they left the area was PRICELESS).

Fail forward would have resulted in none of those amazing things happening.

Allow me to quote myself from #15 in this thread please: "Yes, standing before the only locked-door-to-the-adventure(tm) can suck. It can be dull, dumb, boring, whatever. BUT, sometimes, when the players are in the right mood for it, the greatest, most hilarious sessions can ensue as they're trying to devise a harebrained workaround scheme. That's what so great about role-playing to begin with!"

So, I am kinda with you there, you know? At the same time I recognize that not every GM will want to take the detour in every moment of play.

I guess, in summary, I am trying to take a stand for variety in play here. Whether it's Fail Forward versus Detours or improvised content (which has its place) versus carefully prepped content.

Have to agree with others who say that bottlenecking the players into a situation where "no" ends all significant motion by players is poor GMing. Beyond that, "fail forward" is (to me) simply a way of encouraging GMs to think beyond the simple binary of "yes/no," which is the simplest, and least imaginative way to run a game, IMHO. I don't interpret FF as mandating that characters cannot fail. Then again, I don't run systems that mechanically mandate the "no fail" scenario. I DO run systems with "Yes, but..." which is simply a different form/gradation of success. In either case, the existence of a non-binary system of Success/Failure in no way indicates the game world is not "immersive." The "simulated reality" referred to in the video is another way of saying "the world moves outside the players." This doesn't, however, make a "simulated reality" less "fictional." It's all fiction, whether you're building the world inside-out, or outside-in. Your simulated reality is a fictional setting. Further, your character is fictional. Their experiences are fictional. Their successes and failures are fictional. How the GM applies the consequences of success/failure is what matters.  The video implies that the S/F mechanism only works if the consequences are based in some sort of grounded reality (I think), which doesn't hold water, really, since the "reality" isn't real at all. It's all fiction. The argument therefore is off the mark.

What's being criticized more roundly is a style of GM'ing in which character choices don't affect the greater (fictional) world (which, I agree with Pundit that their choices SHOULD matter, all the time). It's the same argument as all the rest -- OP doesn't like a certain playstyle, and so applies a supposedly targeted critique that spins outward to encompass millennials, "storygaming," and non-traditional approaches to TTRPG'ing. The finer points of the argument also fall flat, particularly if we want to discuss "immersion" (the level of which is a preference, not a mandate to a successful experience at the table). Immersion occurs through investment. Investment can be achieved in more than one way. Certainly, realizing that your players are people, and working to increase their enjoyment of what they're doing has to increase investment. Further, not everyone is there to fully assume the character of Gragnor the Unwise. Some folks just want to roll some dice, be part of a social group, and, one hopes, enjoy a story, regardless of how the story is generated. That may be, for some, the limit of "immersion," and that's okay (unless you're not playing the way Pundit wants you to play, in which case, nothing is ever okay outside his narrow parameters).

Regardless, the idea that the only way to make any of said immersion happen is to go full on binary, all the time, is simply ludicrous. I agree that failure is as important to success in terms of creating a compelling game (i.e., emerging story), but there's more than one way to do that. The argument here is, like many of the others Pundit makes, targeted at certain players and playstyles. The only nugget in here, IMHO, is the one about whether "No, but..." mitigates risk to the point where risk no longer exists. A discussion over that would be a fair one. Unfortunately (and not unexpectedly) The conflation of culture, social subgroups, and one-true wayism within that nexus just turns the whole thing into another screed.

100% what Cranebump just said.

/thread.

In general there is a strong push in game design to bake into the rules many ways to avoid players failing. Pundit isn't the only person who has noticed this - see https://mythcreants.com/blog/blades-in-the-dark-is-innovative-but-difficult-to-run/ (at the bottom where they point out at first its great to always be awesome, but then it's not very interesting or satisfying).

I'm on the fence about mechanics like Coriolis or the new Star Wars where you can succeed now to give the GM a token to do something bad to you later. This seems to work okay, but starts to put a lot of pressure on the GM to come up with interesting stuff, and it is just a weird loop - you use currency to succeed, which lets the GM do stuff to make your life harder, which then makes you need to use currency even more to succeed. It also isn't clear anymore in systems like this when I can just have the natural consequences of an action occur.

Of course I am just being a cheap shill for my game again but this exactly the problem that I have solved in KotBL, perhaps the central feature of the game's rules outside of combat.

There's pre-planned "Twists of Fate" at the end of the scenario, just before any final showdown. Unlike in FATE, the GM's Fortune Points should get spend here as he is encouraged to not save them for the final battle - because that would again contribute to possible player failure (though that's occasionally fine too, I like variety). Instead, he can buy preplanned consequences, the Twists of Fate, that won't kill the players nor necessarily diminish their chances to beat the scenario/win the final confrontation. For example, they might miss out on treasure, the villain might escape and become recurring, a beloved NPC might die or things might change in the campaign/game world for the worse even, impacting following scenarios.

The side-benefit is that such negative story events aren't hard-scripted anymore (which is always suspect of being a cheap shot by the GM) but foremostly dependent on player performance in the scenario. For the GM, spending a Fortune Point during the scenario means merely trading future pain for more immediate pain for the players.

And the reverse goes of course from the POV of the players. I call it Success-at-a-Metacost or Success-at-a-later-Cost.


(And the challenge for the player when the GM spends metacurrency to make their life harder is to prevail regardless without spending metacurrency themselves. That means the GM has less to spend later and thus less future pain and more future gain for them.)

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1100855In general there is a strong push in game design to bake into the rules many ways to avoid players failing.

There are a lot of different kinds of games, and I'd consider 'genre emulation' a major consideration in game evaluation.  In a lot of ways D&D came to exist before these were things to even think about - it was it's own thing and you evaluated it on its own terms.  These days it's very common to start the game with a premise (like you're supernatural investigators, or you're superheros, or you live in a world of wire-fu style martial artists).  I think it's fair to say that D&D doesn't do 'real life' very well and it often struggles for 'cinematic' inspired sources.  Consequently, the development of games that attempt to do these genres well have to consider the fact that they are making a game of 'single-author fiction' where a protagonist survives because of author fiat.  Where author fiat does not exist (as it should not for these games) some other form of plot protection MUS exist.  

When Indiana Jones goes over the cliff in a tank, in a standard game that's 'game over' for his character.  Offering a 'impossible escape' is completely in-genre and doesn't necessarily make defeating the tank 'meaningless'.  Using an impossible escape AFTER defeating the tank is very different from using it to ESCAPE from the tank.

In fiction (movies, TV, and others) protagonists fail all the time. We're told that they don't by people who bake in lots of failure avoidance mechanics.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1100910In fiction (movies, TV, and others) protagonists fail all the time..

Yep, but their failures usually lead to interesting consequences for the story. Which is exactly what "fail forward" as a concept tries to do.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1100855In general there is a strong push in game design to bake into the rules many ways to avoid players failing. Pundit isn't the only person who has noticed this - see https://mythcreants.com/blog/blades-in-the-dark-is-innovative-but-difficult-to-run/ (at the bottom where they point out at first its great to always be awesome, but then it's not very interesting or satisfying).

I'm on the fence about mechanics like Coriolis or the new Star Wars where you can succeed now to give the GM a token to do something bad to you later. This seems to work okay, but starts to put a lot of pressure on the GM to come up with interesting stuff, and it is just a weird loop - you use currency to succeed, which lets the GM do stuff to make your life harder, which then makes you need to use currency even more to succeed. It also isn't clear anymore in systems like this when I can just have the natural consequences of an action occur.

That's not how and why Destiny points work in Star Wars. Failure doesn't drive that. Coriolis? Yes, in that failure does. I GM'd it and my pool was massive very quickly. Failure was far too common.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1100910In fiction (movies, TV, and others) protagonists fail all the time. We're told that they don't by people who bake in lots of failure avoidance mechanics.

This shows a profound lack of understanding of the word 'fail'.  The first definition that shows up is to 'be unsuccessful in achieving one's goal'.  Now, in most stories and ALL of the good ones, the protagonists suffer SETBACKS that make it look like they won't succeed or that it'll be harder than they expected - OR MAYBE questioning whether they really need to succeed at all.  But in Star Wars the Death Star gets blown up, in Indiana Jones he recovers the Arc of the Covenant, and in the Lord of the Rings Frodo drops the ring into the fires of Mount Doom.

Not every game cares about conforming to genre norms, but I can't fault a game for at least considering them.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1100983This shows a profound lack of understanding of the word 'fail'.  The first definition that shows up is to 'be unsuccessful in achieving one's goal'.  Now, in most stories and ALL of the good ones, the protagonists suffer SETBACKS that make it look like they won't succeed or that it'll be harder than they expected - OR MAYBE questioning whether they really need to succeed at all.  But in Star Wars the Death Star gets blown up, in Indiana Jones he recovers the Arc of the Covenant, and in the Lord of the Rings Frodo drops the ring into the fires of Mount Doom.

Not every game cares about conforming to genre norms, but I can't fault a game for at least considering them.

This is just an asinine response.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1100983This shows a profound lack of understanding of the word 'fail'.  The first definition that shows up is to 'be unsuccessful in achieving one's goal'.  Now, in most stories and ALL of the good ones, the protagonists suffer SETBACKS that make it look like they won't succeed or that it'll be harder than they expected - OR MAYBE questioning whether they really need to succeed at all.  But in Star Wars the Death Star gets blown up, in Indiana Jones he recovers the Arc of the Covenant, and in the Lord of the Rings Frodo drops the ring into the fires of Mount Doom.

I'm gonna be pedantic here again, but this isn't true. Frodo actually does FAIL. He is overwhelmed by the power of the ring (Tolkein's intention was essentially that all men, even the strongest are subject to sin). It was only his earlier mercy to spare Gollem, whose own desire for the Ring led him to bite it from his finger, and in so doing stumble and fall into Mount Doom that destroyed the Ring (thus demonstrating man's salvation often comes from the least expected direction... that God works in mysterious ways to save us).

It's kinda ironic, given the discussion here, that one of the biggest influences on D&D actually hinges upon the "PC" outright failing.

Quote from: Itachi;1100913Yep, but their failures usually lead to interesting consequences for the story. Which is exactly what "fail forward" as a concept tries to do.

I think this is the best way to look at it - fictional protagonists have lots of real failures, even if they achieve a good ending at the end of the film. In Krull at the start Prince Colwyn fails to defend his castle, fails to save his father, fails to stop his fiancee being kidnapped. The only thing he achieves is killing a few Slayers, then making his three death saves & not dying. :D

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1100872I think it's fair to say that D&D doesn't do 'real life' very well and it often struggles for 'cinematic' inspired sources.

I got to partially defend D&D here in pointing out that OD&D was the epitome of genre emulation when it came out. The game didn't refine that aspect later though and instead did its own thing - and went the gamist route, mostly.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1100872When Indiana Jones goes over the cliff in a tank, in a standard game that's 'game over' for his character.  Offering a 'impossible escape' is completely in-genre and doesn't necessarily make defeating the tank 'meaningless'.  Using an impossible escape AFTER defeating the tank is very different from using it to ESCAPE from the tank.

It depends on what you set out to be the challenge in that scene for the PC. The main thing in handling metacurrency (or more generally plot protection) is that it does not subvert the game aspect of RPGs, challenging the players and their PCs and attaching consequences to success or failure. So as long as the 'impossible escape' doesn't undermine the scene challenge the GM has established before the start of the scene (probably secretly so), escaping from the tank is a-okay as well.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1100939That's not how and why Destiny points work in Star Wars. Failure doesn't drive that. Coriolis? Yes, in that failure does. I GM'd it and my pool was massive very quickly. Failure was far too common.

I have to disagree here. If the players fail in Star Wars, one way for them to bail themselves out is by spending Destiny - so the subjects are connected.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101004I'm gonna be pedantic here again, but this isn't true. Frodo actually does FAIL. [...] It's kinda ironic, given the discussion here, that one of the biggest influences on D&D actually hinges upon the "PC" outright failing.

Well, judging purely by the outcome, he didn't fail the mission. But how are you going to emulate such a thing without Success-at-a-Cost? It's the pivotal roll of the campaign, everything comes down to this, the player rolls his Willpower saving throw... and fails. There's three options for the GM in session prep:

• if the roll fails, the campaign ends in tragedy OR
• if the roll fails, I'm going to fudge things around and it will have a happy end nonetheless OR
• if the roll fails, there will still be a happy end of some sorts - but I will make it bittersweet

Option #2 is tension-undermining and should be ruled out. Option #1 is all that is left for those who oppose Success-at-a-Cost (which is Option #3).

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101016I have to disagree here. If the players fail in Star Wars, one way for them to bail themselves out is by spending Destiny - so the subjects are connected.

This simply isn't true. A Destiny point may be spent on:

-Upgrading a die in your pool.
-Upgrading a die in an enemy's pool.
-Activating certain Talents.
-Minor narrative uses, such as suggesting there are stimpacks in a crashed medical speeder or that there's a rock to hide behind in combat.

There's no bailing yourself out (presumably by re-rolling) save specific Talents, but those are based on skill, not an all-encompassing metacurrency.

Also, which version of Star Wars are you referring to? That's a big consideration. :)

Edge of the Empire. When your party fails to crack a computer system, you may spend Destiny to find a scribbled down password, for example, as per page 316.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101036Edge of the Empire. When your party fails to crack a computer system, you may spend Destiny to find a scribbled down password, for example, as per page 316.

Ah! I stand corrected. I'm not familiar with that entry and that seems to be a really dumb exception to how they're used. I'm basing things on the section of how to spend Destiny points, which does not have that in there. That's a really big shift in how to use Destiny points that should be in the section that covers them, not shoved in the ass-end of the book. I will look at that part when I get home. Thanks for pointing that out.

As far as doing that kind of thing, I'm not bothered but there's no sense in trying to defend such things against the terminally stubborn and close-minded who believe their way of gaming is the only good way, certain people excluded. :)

I don't mind fail forward (though "partial/full/critical success" probably describes my preferences a bit better).

What I'm not a fan of is meta-currency being used to resolve it. Meta-currency, in my experience, changes it from a role-playing game (where you're focused on what your character would do... including how they react to failures and setbacks) to a "dueling authors" game where the players strategically spend their meta-resources to bend events to their preferred narrative. When you're trading success now for failure later (or the reverse) and looking for the most opportune points to spend your meta-currency, you're not playing a character; you're playing a system.

You're welcome to enjoy that... but it's also worth understanding why others think that you'd probably be happier just doing a collaborative writing blog instead of trying to torture RPGs into that.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101004I'm gonna be pedantic here again, but this isn't true. Frodo actually does FAIL. He is overwhelmed by the power of the ring (Tolkein's intention was essentially that all men, even the strongest are subject to sin). It was only his earlier mercy to spare Gollem, whose own desire for the Ring led him to bite it from his finger, and in so doing stumble and fall into Mount Doom that destroyed the Ring (thus demonstrating man's salvation often comes from the least expected direction... that God works in mysterious ways to save us).

It's kinda ironic, given the discussion here, that one of the biggest influences on D&D actually hinges upon the "PC" outright failing.

I don't think that's pedantic at all. As you outlined, Frodo indeed does not complete his quest. Though Frodo did hold out long enough to get the Ring to Mount Doom and set up the circumstances for the Ring's destruction. His labor was not in vain.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101048I don't think that's pedantic at all. As you outlined, Frodo indeed does not complete his quest. Though Frodo did hold out long enough to get the Ring to Mount Doom and set up the circumstances for the Ring's destruction. His labor was not in vain.

Well, pedantic just means "to be instructive" so if anyone learns something from it was definitely pedantic. :D

Anyway, the most interesting part of it though is that while his labor was not in vain... it was actually not his will and determination that saved the world (heck, Samwise had to carry him along the last leg of the journey... he'd already given out physically before he even reached the summit... if not for the loyalty of his friend he'd have failed even sooner). Lots of people were determined to end the One Ring. In the films Isildur made it to the edge of the abyss too before the call of the ring overwhelmed him. Everyone else acknowledges they lacked the willpower to do the deed.

What saved the world, which was from all accounts Tolkein's point, was Frodo's (and Bilbo's) mercy... not at some moment that seemed pivotal at the time, but when he had the hapless creature in his power with no benefit to sparing him, he showed mercy.

That's not something I think even player-side meta-currency could successfully emulate because it required so much forethought and planning to put all the pieces in place.

It's honestly one of the biggest problems with trying to do genre emulation in RPGs. The genres being emulated, when done well, don't just asspull things out of nowhere to turn defeat into victory... its something that's been set up from much earlier in the story to be where it needs to be at the critical moment (sometimes to the point of being a 'rewatch bonus' to catch just how cleverly it was put into place).

Quote from: S'mon;1101014I think this is the best way to look at it - fictional protagonists have lots of real failures, even if they achieve a good ending at the end of the film. In Krull at the start Prince Colwyn fails to defend his castle, fails to save his father, fails to stop his fiancee being kidnapped. The only thing he achieves is killing a few Slayers, then making his three death saves & not dying. :D

Yup, exactly. And this is how the concept is implemented in most games that adopt it - to make failure interesting. Nothing to do with "players never failing" or whatever nonsense Pundit talks about in the vid (but then it's no news that Pundit likes to speak out of his ass of anything that's different from his preferred style of play).

Quote from: Chris24601;1101052What saved the world, which was from all accounts Tolkein's point, was Frodo's (and Bilbo's) mercy... not at some moment that seemed pivotal at the time, but when he had the hapless creature in his power with no benefit to sparing him, he showed mercy.

This is why I'm not too keen on the Jackson films. They get the details right, but lose the theme and tone. Especially the moment in The Hobbit films where the king of the wood elves puts an orc to death (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h318jKI9uC0) in an almost verbatim exchange that Sauron did in The Silmarillion (https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Gorlim). Jackson didn't get the mercy angle, and only got it right in the films due to the fact that changing up the ending would have caused a nerd revolt.

QuoteThat's not something I think even player-side meta-currency could successfully emulate because it required so much forethought and planning to put all the pieces in place.

It's honestly one of the biggest problems with trying to do genre emulation in RPGs. The genres being emulated, when done well, don't just asspull things out of nowhere to turn defeat into victory... its something that's been set up from much earlier in the story to be where it needs to be at the critical moment (sometimes to the point of being a 'rewatch bonus' to catch just how cleverly it was put into place).

I agree, and that's why I try to distinguish between inspiration and emulation. A game can be inspired by Lord of the Rings (or Barsoom, or Oz, or Narnia) but emulating them requires turning the game into a static narrative, which IMO is not an RPGs strength, and arguably is the opposite of it.

Quote from: Itachi;1101055Yup, exactly. And this is how the concept is implemented in most games that adopt it - to make failure interesting. Nothing to do with "players never failing"

I find the kind of linear railroad games that cannot handle any PC failure, such as Paizo Pathfinder Adventure Paths, are not the kind of games that use a Fail Forward mechanic. If anything 5e has better Fail Forward mechanics, such as the death saves system which can allow for dramatic recovery following failure.

I feel like people are talking past each other here, getting lost in the weeds of the LOTR example.

In the Frodo case the point is: let's say you have the final deciding roll of the campaign and the player botches it. Do you just let it stand as a failure then? Or do you turn it into a way to succeed anyway but with some consequences?

Example: final boss is about to throw a Meteor spell that has enough damage to wipe out everyone. Last player goes before the boss's turn, and tries to shoot the boss -- they're all low on HP, if he hits, they win.

He misses.

Now the boss is about to go and drop the meteor on them, they have no health to resist it.

What now?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1101061I feel like people are talking past each other here, getting lost in the weeds of the LOTR example.

In the Frodo case the point is: let's say you have the final deciding roll of the campaign and the player botches it. Do you just let it stand as a failure then? Or do you turn it into a way to succeed anyway but with some consequences?

Example: final boss is about to throw a Meteor spell that has enough damage to wipe out everyone. Last player goes before the boss's turn, and tries to shoot the boss -- they're all low on HP, if he hits, they win.

He misses.

Now the boss is about to go and drop the meteor on them, they have no health to resist it.

What now?

Every dies, roll up new characters using the Midnight campaign settings, just change a few names.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1101061I feel like people are talking past each other here, getting lost in the weeds of the LOTR example.

In the Frodo case the point is: let's say you have the final deciding roll of the campaign and the player botches it. Do you just let it stand as a failure then? Or do you turn it into a way to succeed anyway but with some consequences?

Example: final boss is about to throw a Meteor spell that has enough damage to wipe out everyone. Last player goes before the boss's turn, and tries to shoot the boss -- they're all low on HP, if he hits, they win.

He misses.

Now the boss is about to go and drop the meteor on them, they have no health to resist it.

What now?

Kneejerk reaction: let the roll stand. In order for the PCs to be able to succeeed, they have to risk failure.
Many fictional sources start with the "bad guys" on top. The Empire in ANH, the Skesis in Dark Crystal, etc, etc.
Sometimes the heroes fail, and set up a situation where the bad guys are on top for a while. But the game doesn't have to end. They can roll up the next generation of heroes.
Even if it was the end of the campaign, having it end with a failure would be memorable, because so few GMs are willing to stick to it, and would rather fudge a hollow "victory".

Also, the GM should never put something in the game unless they're willing to have that thing broken, spindled and mutilated. Don't but a big red "Destroy the world" button in the game unless you're willing to have someone press it. Don't have a bad guy that can wipe out the party with a meteor spell unless you're willing to have the party wiped out.

If the characters can't fail, don't blow smoke up their asses that there's any kind of risk of failure.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1101061Example: final boss is about to throw a Meteor spell that has enough damage to wipe out everyone. Last player goes before the boss's turn, and tries to shoot the boss -- they're all low on HP, if he hits, they win.

He misses.

Now the boss is about to go and drop the meteor on them, they have no health to resist it.

What now?

Oh, in my game the boss drops the meteor swarm, wipes them out, end of campaign.
I probably return to that campaign world in a couple years with new PCs & players.

This has happened to me twice in the past decade, where the BBEG won and TPK'd the party, ending that campaign. One was Rise of the Runelords #1 using 1e AD&D with Nualia wiping the PC group and burning Sandpoint, the other was a Wilderlands 4e game with Boritt Crowfinger the Necromancer conquering the town of Bisgen and refounding the Empire of Nerath under the Set-worshipping Black Sun.
Both times I started new games in the same worlds a few years later, new campaigns with 5e rules, new PCs & players, and an interesting setting backstory.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1101061What now?

The problem with this example is that there's not much "forward" for the story to go, since this is apparently the agreed climax/final showdown. As Vincent Baker says somewhere here (http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html), the concept works best as a way to put off/post-pone the end (whatever it is) with interesting complications, not to avoid it. And if it's the climax the group waited for, then let it burn.

Now, let's assume it's not apparent that this is the climax and you can see in players faces that they'll be frustrated if everything ends now. Then, for fucks sake, let them have it by turning that failure into something that makes things interesting instead of ending it cold. Make it a new story arc where the meteor shattered reality and now the characters are lost in another plane of existence trying to find a way back home to get revenge on the mage (or something).

Yeah, I guess the example would be just as valid if it was say, a mid-boss and not the end of the campaign.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101016Well, judging purely by the outcome, he didn't fail the mission. But how are you going to emulate such a thing without Success-at-a-Cost? It's the pivotal roll of the campaign, everything comes down to this, the player rolls his Willpower saving throw... and fails. There's three options for the GM in session prep:

• if the roll fails, the campaign ends in tragedy OR
• if the roll fails, I'm going to fudge things around and it will have a happy end nonetheless OR
• if the roll fails, there will still be a happy end of some sorts - but I will make it bittersweet

I disagree with the premise that this situation could not naturally arise during gameplay without forcing 'success at a cost,' fudging or etc. although I concede it depends on the RPG in question.

As an example, it's entirely possible for the ending of LotR to occur naturally (read: RAW) in GURPS through player choices and the Will Of The Dice; the finger biting, the messy grappling, the falling mid-struggle, etc.

I continue to maintain that no situation requires 'success at a cost' for the game to continue or resolve, in any scenario, provided the GM is doing their job properly and the game's resolution can properly account for the situation in question. Whether or not you choose to use that technique is up to you and your table, though I still find it to be inappropriate in the vast majority of scenarios (and in fact has the potential to rob the game of some value, and the players of true agency) and is best used sparingly/when highly appropriate should you decide to use it at all, and as well should generally be left to the GM's judgement rather than mechanically hard-coded (per our earlier conversation and per my last post posited to you directly on the subject, #27).

I am still operating on my original definitions of 'fail forward' and 'success at a cost' as well, posted early in the thread, although I can see this thread has spun out wildly in a few different directions and appears to be operating under a few new varieties of assumptions since earlier.

Edit: I would also posit that the hopelessness of the situation in the final scene of LotR is what gives it the emotional and dramatic power that it does. If mechanically or with GM fiat the situation is externally manipulated somehow to allow success (cost or no), I would again say that robs the situation of its dramatic and emotional value. Additionally, I would say the example you provided is not a great example of 'success at a cost' at all; I would argue that in that situation, a "proper" success would be dropping the ring into the lava, with the 'cost' being Frodo's life - not Gollum's. Granted, you were talking specifically about the will roll itself, but I think context is important here; one other success at a cost I could see would be "succeeding" (but not actually) at the will roll, at the expense of Gollum getting away with the ring. After all, if you both keep your life/sanity as well as accomplish the campaign goal of destroying the ring, well... that's *success with a success,* not success at a cost.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101058This is why I'm not too keen on the Jackson films. They get the details right, but lose the theme and tone. Especially the moment in The Hobbit films where the king of the wood elves puts an orc to death (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h318jKI9uC0) in an almost verbatim exchange that Sauron did in The Silmarillion (https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Gorlim). Jackson didn't get the mercy angle, and only got it right in the films due to the fact that changing up the ending would have caused a nerd revolt.

You know, it just occurred to me that other great pillar of Nerddom ALSO hinges on a moment where your average PC would go for kill but the protagonist instead shows mercy and it saves him and the galaxy. When Luke spares his father and casts aside his blade.

It's something I think gets lost by not just a lot of imitators, but many fans themselves who can't see past "laser sword fights" for the deeper morality struggles that actually make many of these stories classics.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1101061In the Frodo case the point is: let's say you have the final deciding roll of the campaign and the player botches it. Do you just let it stand as a failure then? Or do you turn it into a way to succeed anyway but with some consequences?

Example: final boss is about to throw a Meteor spell that has enough damage to wipe out everyone. Last player goes before the boss's turn, and tries to shoot the boss -- they're all low on HP, if he hits, they win.

He misses.

Now the boss is about to go and drop the meteor on them, they have no health to resist it.

What now?

Now, the story picks up some time later with a new band of heroes arising to fight the tyranny the Final Boss. If its soon after, perhaps the previous PCs will be immortalized as the Spartans at Thermopylae... as heroes who held the line long enough for others to live. If its the end of a typical campaign for most of my group's, then almost certainly at least one of the PCs who's had a child (or five), so another option is that we fast forward to when the child/children come of age and seek to attempt what their parent failed to do.

Revenge of the Sith ends with one of the main heroes becoming a villain, another main hero being killed by them, the previously heroic clones turning into the minions of the villain, most of the heroes' allies being slaughtered and the government they fought to protect being consumed from within as the only two survivors go off into hiding to wait for the next generation to come of age and fix things.

Or, Sauron regains the One Ring and rules for a thousand years... until some other brave souls rise up and seek to defeat him and cast the One Ring into Mount Doom (with or without Sauron still attached).

Unless the aim of the bad guy is literally metaphysical annihilation, SOMETHING comes next and that's where the story will pick up.

It's a-okay to let a campaign run out in tragedy, although it might depend on the campaign. I probably wouldn't end a fun Indiana Jones RPG campaign with a TPK or the world consumed by darkness/Nazis, personally.
In LotR though? Yeah, I could see that - a sad song.

However, I'd like to take stand for variety again, in saying that it doesn't have to end that way when the one pivotal roll fails. The world doesn't have to end; success-at-a-cost may be a fine choice too. The one ring gets destroyed but Sam or Frodo (or both) dies. The rest of the party lives, mentally scarred, but the world goes on.

Success-at-a-cost provides variation. And it does not undermine tension for as long as you are credible that you are basically willing and able to let the world end; all that is necessary for tension to persist is that the players are not entirely sure if the world is truly at stake THIS TIME or something else. They can't take chances.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1101076I disagree with the premise that this situation could not naturally arise during gameplay without forcing 'success at a cost,' fudging or etc. although I concede it depends on the RPG in question.

As an example, it's entirely possible for the ending of LotR to occur naturally (read: RAW) in GURPS through player choices and the Will Of The Dice; the finger biting, the messy grappling, the falling mid-struggle, etc.

I think it's always sketchy to use examples from fiction for role-playing. That said, I have a hard time picturing this sort of scene being satisfying under standard mechanics. If we picture that Frodo is a PC, and Gollum is presumably an NPC. The player fails a roll to resist the Ring. If the GM is then controlling NPC Gollum, so he attacks, succeeds, and then accidentally kills himself. Even if the GM makes some sort of roll out in the open, the whole thing would come across as very much a deus-ex-machina move from the GM.

I have been in traditional RPG sessions where the PCs decisively failed in the climactic scene, and the GM was feeling pity and had some NPC or coincidence save the day for them. It always felt very dissatisfying. Within a traditional game, if the PC fails, I'm not sure there's a way for success through coincidence or NPC action to be satisfying for the players under traditional mechanics.

In games with some sort of meta-mechanic, then there are some options for save by a coincidence or NPC to feel more satisfying - if it flows from player resources or player choices. That doesn't make them better in general, but they can be better specifically for having this sort of outcome be satisfying for the players.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1101076I continue to maintain that no situation requires 'success at a cost' for the game to continue or resolve, in any scenario, provided the GM is doing their job properly and the game's resolution can properly account for the situation in question. Whether or not you choose to use that technique is up to you and your table, though I still find it to be inappropriate in the vast majority of scenarios (and in fact has the potential to rob the game of some value, and the players of true agency) and is best used sparingly/when highly appropriate should you decide to use it at all, and as well should generally be left to the GM's judgement rather than mechanically hard-coded (per our earlier conversation and per my last post posited to you directly on the subject, #27).

Basically nothing in RPGs is absolutely required. Diceless games can be fun - so dice aren't required. Freeform games can be fun, so rules aren't required. etc.

That said, I agree that don't think success-at-a-cost mechanics are very important. I've had them used to good effect in some cases, but I haven't been convinced to use them myself. I tend to agree that success-at-a-cost works better if it is offered at GM discretion, rather than always being an option for the player.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101086It's a-okay to let a campaign run out in tragedy, although it might depend on the campaign. I probably wouldn't end a fun Indiana Jones RPG campaign with a TPK or the world consumed by darkness/Nazis, personally.

Raiders of the Lost Ark ended with total PC failure and a literal deus ex machina asspull by the GM. :D

I remember a Star Wars d6 campaign ca 1988 where the Jedi PC, having been captured by the Empire, sacrificed himself using the Power of the Dark Side to take out an imperial naval base, resulting in the Rebels later winning a major space battle victory against a weakened imperial fleet. It was very grimdarkly heroic and felt like a satisfying ending, but really not Star-Warsy.

Quote from: jhkim;1101088I think it's always sketchy to use examples from fiction for role-playing.

I certainly agree, which is why I've attempted to avoid doing so up to this point. Rather, I thought it might be most fruitful to address Alexander on his own grounds there (as he regularly speaks in terms of genre sim and cinematic tropes). I don't think it's particularly relevant or useful to compare fiction or its tropes to RPGs in these discussions, but for the sake of making my point... :o

Quote from: jhkim;1101088That said, I have a hard time picturing this sort of scene being satisfying under standard mechanics. If we picture that Frodo is a PC, and Gollum is presumably an NPC. The player fails a roll to resist the Ring. If the GM is then controlling NPC Gollum, so he attacks, succeeds, and then accidentally kills himself. Even if the GM makes some sort of roll out in the open, the whole thing would come across as very much a deus-ex-machina move from the GM.

I can see your point here, particularly as the entire scene by design revolves around the PC ending up essentially deprived of meaningful agency; what I was trying to get across in my post was that, at least in one system I currently play, such events could be played out completely by-the-book without outside intervention, whether that be fiat or otherwise. I can break it down further if desired; I'm imagining a situation where both the PC Frodo as well as NPC Gollum fail their will rolls, then both decisively going after the ring and the grappling rules and etc. handling it from there. This is a "perfect world" description of what would happen to result in the scene at Mt. Doom, granted; my only point was that indeed, it is certainly possible.

Quote from: jhkim;1101088I have been in traditional RPG sessions where the PCs decisively failed in the climactic scene, and the GM was feeling pity and had some NPC or coincidence save the day for them. It always felt very dissatisfying. Within a traditional game, if the PC fails, I'm not sure there's a way for success through coincidence or NPC action to be satisfying for the players under traditional mechanics.

I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand I absolutely agree that GM fudging or fiat getting involved and saving a character or specifying an outcome is shitty. On the other hand, I've actually found that totally harebrained game coincidences allowed to play out to their (perhaps disappointingly logical) conclusions have a powerful ability to surprise the table for the better as well as the worse; IMO it's worth the risk to play it out, even if it means the player might not necessarily have total agency at that very moment (in my mind, they in a way make the choice to risk that by the very act of carrying the ring to the precipice, knowing full well its power and what they're willing to sacrifice in that moment). I can only speak to my personal tastes and experiences that in the games I've been in and the campaigns I've run, we are fully willing to submit and go where the dice and our imaginations take us; sometimes it sours a moment as you say, but I find the greater tapestry of the campaign is richer for it.

Quote from: jhkim;1101088In games with some sort of meta-mechanic, then there are some options for save by a coincidence or NPC to feel more satisfying - if it flows from player resources or player choices. That doesn't make them better in general, but they can be better specifically for having this sort of outcome be satisfying for the players.

I agree that such games exist and provide functional rules structures to address such potential events; "more satisfying" is the debatable part, and I don't know whether or not I would call it more effective than 'success at a cost' used sparingly by a GM. This mostly comes down to personal taste, both as a GM and as a player; I wouldn't be particularly satisfied having a currency or codified "out" as a player, but I know there are people who would and don't want a situation's fate even partially ruled by the GM (outside of what's expected as the "norm" anyway, if there is one).

Quote from: jhkim;1101088Basically nothing in RPGs is absolutely required. Diceless games can be fun - so dice aren't required. Freeform games can be fun, so rules aren't required. etc.

That said, I agree that don't think success-at-a-cost mechanics are very important. I've had them used to good effect in some cases, but I haven't been convinced to use them myself. I tend to agree that success-at-a-cost works better if it is offered at GM discretion, rather than always being an option for the player.

Yeah, that's more-or-less where I'm at. And the tolerance level for this type of discretion (on both sides of the screen) is quite the sliding scale, it's really something you should either dictate up front or get a feel for over time with each group.

Quote from: S'mon;1101059I find the kind of linear railroad games that cannot handle any PC failure, such as Paizo Pathfinder Adventure Paths, are not the kind of games that use a Fail Forward mechanic. If anything 5e has better Fail Forward mechanics, such as the death saves system which can allow for dramatic recovery following failure.

Pathfinder 2 has even better Fail Forward mechanics because players can use Hero Points to allow their characters a dramatic recovery or to get a second chance at success in a clutch situation.

Quote from: Shasarak;1101099Pathfinder 2 has even better Fail Forward mechanics because players can use Hero Points to allow their characters a dramatic recovery or to get a second chance at success in a clutch situation.

This word, "better," from the rest of that sentence, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1101103This word, "better," from the rest of that sentence, I do not think it means what you think it means.

"Pathfinder 2 has even Fail Forward mechanics because players can use Hero Points to allow their characters a dramatic recovery or to get a second chance at success in a clutch situation" ?

That does not even make sense, silly Fonzie.

Quote from: jhkim;1101088I think it's always sketchy to use examples from fiction for role-playing. That said, I have a hard time picturing this sort of scene being satisfying under standard mechanics. If we picture that Frodo is a PC, and Gollum is presumably an NPC. The player fails a roll to resist the Ring. If the GM is then controlling NPC Gollum, so he attacks, succeeds, and then accidentally kills himself. Even if the GM makes some sort of roll out in the open, the whole thing would come across as very much a deus-ex-machina move from the GM.

Yeah, and if the players(! not the PCs) don't care for Gollum, that is not Success-at-a-Cost either. They just failed the pivotal test and it cost them nothing, really. That's not good.
One way I could see it work in KotBL is this: the Frodo-PC fails his test to resist temptation and Gollum (for simplicity's sake here) automatically gains possession of the ring. However, the Frodo player has one Fortune Point left which causes Gollum to struggle for balance, forcing the NPC to take an Agility test. He fails and the day is saved through pure (heroic) luck. Not through the skill of the PC, mind you.

Quote from: jhkim;1101088I have been in traditional RPG sessions where the PCs decisively failed in the climactic scene, and the GM was feeling pity and had some NPC or coincidence save the day for them.

This is the prime scenario to support Success-at-a-Cost. Think about it: the GM did set a stake in advance but then, in actual play, he wasn't able to follow through with it - because the stake was set too high for him after all. He should have instead, from the outset, settled for lesser stakes -stakes he'd actually be able to commit to- and implemented them with Success-at-a-Cost; the PCs fail the pivotal test but the apocalpyse doesn't strike, instead some other, lesser tragedy hits.

What I have been advocating with my challenge-driven scenario approach, at least in part, is to always be conscious of the stakes before you frame a scene that you want to have tension. You should never pick states you're not willing to follow through with.

And there's another reason why choosing lower stakes (via Success-at-a-Sost or otherwise) is a good idea: constantly saving the world makes players become jaded. Varied stakes is less one-note.
And I'm not sure what stings more: failing to destroy the one ring and having another chance to stop Sauron with other characters in the next age OR stopping Sauron at the cost of losing Sam (a fellow PC) who has to make the choice to sacrifice himself just because you failed your willpower test. I think the latter alternative might have the stronger dramaturgy than resolving the scene under "standard mechanics".

Quote from: jhkim;1101088That doesn't make them better in general, but they can be better specifically for having this sort of outcome be satisfying for the players.

Yes, under the condition that the player has metacurrency left because he struggled earlier on hard to gain it or retain it. Because then it's earned - not in the scene in which he failed but prior to that. Earlier competence giving you a secodn chance. Also, metacurrency shouldn't be an automatic bailout under such dramatic conditions - in my above example I suggested that it might prompt Gollum to take an Agility test (or make a Reflex save or whatever); that's the way to maintain tension.

Quote from: jhkim;1101088That said, I agree that don't think success-at-a-cost mechanics are very important. I've had them used to good effect in some cases, but I haven't been convinced to use them myself. I tend to agree that success-at-a-cost works better if it is offered at GM discretion, rather than always being an option for the player.

The latter can work if it means delaying the pain aka a (possibly more severe) complication later in the scenario because it makes that option a rare consideration.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1101061In the Frodo case the point is: let's say you have the final deciding roll of the campaign and the player botches it. Do you just let it stand as a failure then?

Isn't that the backstory to Lord of the Rings. Prince Isildur cuts the ring from Sauron's hand. But he fails his saving throw. Swarmed by orcs. TPK. The ring is lost. This is then the backstory to the new campaign once the ring is found again many years later. You miss out on that ready made background if you just fudge the result in the moment.

The problem with the "Frodo fails his save so Gollem gets the ring, Frodo's PC spends metacurrency to make Gollem stumble and fall" is that, as discussed about the Peter Jackson films... may have the surface details of the scene, but NONE of the actual nuance of the actual story.

That was a story about the limits of the human will and the divine grace that came through an earlier act of mercy (as in, the actual choice that saved the world occurred in The Two Towers, not in The Return of the King).

The ONLY way I could see something resembling a player driven version of the drama on Mount Doom working without utterly subverting the message would be if, in 3e terms, Frodo hit level 6 during The Two Towers and took the Leadership feat and showed Gollem mercy so he could make Gollem his cohort. Then when he fails his Will save he remembers his cohort is still around and, because his PC is currently under GM control, is allowed to run him. Remembering how one of Gollem's primary motivations was gaining the Ring, he has him grapple his PC to try and get the ring off of him (so he can get control of his PC back). Things get desperate so he uses Gollem's bite attack to take his PC's finger, but then flubs his own grapple check and instead of his planned dramatic moment where his now freed PC would push Gollem into the pit, Gollem goes plummeting all on his own so the glory goes entirely a critical fumble.

That would preserve the narrative element of the PCs act of mercy tying into the successful resolution after his failed Will save... but again, is not something ever likely to come up narratively through anything other than shear happenstance.

This reminds me that one of my favorite things about the Mutants & Masterminds books is that they do explicitly discuss the limits of genre emulation (a section called "Lost in Translation"). They go over a number of very common comic book tropes that while they're enjoyable to read about, aren't all that fun in the sense of a cooperative game (Defeat & Capture, Escaping Villains, Guest Heroes, Differing Lethality Levels, and Loner Heroes all get sections).

Different mediums do different things well and other things poorly. Books excel at being able to shift between external events and internal narratives (i.e. what a character thinks and feels about what's going on, even bringing up associated memories) without bogging down the story in the slightest, but generally has a harder time with the sort of spectacle a mass battle in a film or television medium could convey (and visa versa... film does action spectacles easily, but would drag or feel incoherent if their adaptation of a book tried to include the internal narratives of the characters involved.

RPGs are no different. They excel in certain areas and absolutely fall flat in others.

The events from the climax of The Return of The King are something that can work in a 100% narrative (i.e. book or film) -or- the result of happenstance in an RPG session that is recounted as a story later (in large part because it requires that much earlier event of mercy that no amount of spending meta-currency could plausibly retcon into place)... but it would utterly fall flat as a meta-currency directed series of events precisely because it would only produce cosmetic similarities to the themes of the story.

I mean, for a LOT of actual story climaxes your meta-currency wouldn't have to just give a second chance for an action; it would have to include the ability to mass retcon the entire campaign.

"Hey! Remember that prophecy we got at the start of this whole quest about X?"
"No."
"I spend a fate point to have there have been a prophecy about X we heard at the start of the campaign. Look, there's X. It's the one thing we needed all along to defeat the Big Bad, but didn't see it until just now."

Novels can do that because if the writer really decides that a Chekov's Gun is needed for their resolution, they can go back and write one into the story and then deal with any other changes that causes elsewhere in the story. You can't do that when you're "writing" the story in real time.

Well, I suppose you "could", but after the second or third take back from level 20 to level 2 because you now need to replay the campaign with the changes included I suspect the whole campaign would collapse out of frustration.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101036Edge of the Empire. When your party fails to crack a computer system, you may spend Destiny to find a scribbled down password, for example, as per page 316.

I just read the book and you misrepresented the rules. Using a Destiny point to "undo" a failed roll (save through perhaps, a Talent) is not a thing that's mentioned.

As far as your example, you could spend a Destiny point to find a password to a computer prior to rolling, but doing so after a failed roll is very much against their intended use, as per the page you referenced.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101129Different mediums do different things well and other things poorly..

...

RPGs are no different. They excel in certain areas and absolutely fall flat in others.

This, yeah.

I'd say some games do explore internal motivations and epiphanies (even with flashbacks) better or with more nuance than others, but eventually it will reach a limit imposed by the medium.

For many years I've seen posts from people about how getting into RPGs taught them lessons they applied outside of the game in their normal lives: working as a team, planning, and even socialization.

I agree there's a place for the type of game that Alexander describes, and that he's built.  He's looking to step into a cinema-esque environment where the same feeling you get watching a great movie plays out with you as a participant instead of a spectator.  Everyone is buying into the premise that something cool is in store that you don't know about, and we're going to find that together and the way you approach it determines how the middle affects the end.

But as a D&D guy; a sand-boxy DM; I think allowing player failure to happen is good, especially for younger players.  There is no sting less ephemeral than the sting of make-believe not turning out as you'd hoped it would.  But for people who may not be inclined to risk failure in meat space where it counts, learning how to overcome failure in an RPG setting - how to accept not all goals happen even if desired, how to redirect to different opportunities, or possibly how to try a different way than the first approach which crumbled around you - is an object lesson that can carry out into the wider world.  Failure and how it's processed is a mindset that doesn't differ all that much in fantasy space or meat space.  Better to learn where there are no real penalties.

Quote from: Itachi;1101137This, yeah.

I'd say some games do explore internal motivations and epiphanies (even with flashbacks) better or with more nuance than others, but eventually it will reach a limit imposed by the medium.

I'd actually say that RPGs handle internal motivations, at least on the PC level about as well as any medium could. After all, you're playing in the shoes of your PC so you're kind of deciding their internal motivations as you go. You may not be sharing them with others, but ideally you should become aware of them as events come up where you have to ask "what would my PC do here?"

Where I think they absolutely fall flat is foreshadowing and similar narrative devices that preordain events yet to occur. Because PCs aren't typically directed by the person laying down the foreshadowing and because actions aren't guaranteed to succeed or fail exactly when needed such literary devices are trivially easy to derail unless the GM is practically running the PCs for you (i.e. the box text railroad).

Frodo did botch his last roll against the One Ring. :p And Gollum made the meaningful choice of taking that opportunity to get his Precious back. And thus a full corruption and redemption arc, each in complementary parallelism, occur for the final conflict... And luck, in these moral reflections mortally wrestling, at the edge of a precipice, decides Middle Earth's fate. :)

How do you suspend disbelief in stories if most are assumed to end in success? You need to suspend disbelief in the possibility of failure.

It's far more beautiful seeing real failure shape the opportunities for meaningful choice, and the breathtaking tension of luck while on the edge, than having the narrative sequence Fail Forward merrily on. ;)

Quote from: Shasarak;1101099Pathfinder 2 has even better Fail Forward mechanics because players can use Hero Points to allow their characters a dramatic recovery or to get a second chance at success in a clutch situation.

Sounds good - should lead to better AP play.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101129The problem with the "Frodo fails his save so Gollem gets the ring, Frodo's PC spends metacurrency to make Gollem stumble and fall" is that, as discussed about the Peter Jackson films... may have the surface details of the scene, but NONE of the actual nuance of the actual story.

That was a story about the limits of the human will and the divine grace that came through an earlier act of mercy (as in, the actual choice that saved the world occurred in The Two Towers, not in The Return of the King).

...The events from the climax of The Return of The King are something that can work in a 100% narrative (i.e. book or film) -or- the result of happenstance in an RPG session that is recounted as a story later (in large part because it requires that much earlier event of mercy that no amount of spending meta-currency could plausibly retcon into place)... but it would utterly fall flat as a meta-currency directed series of events precisely because it would only produce cosmetic similarities to the themes of the story.

Yeah, I agree strongly with this.

Tolkien's theme of Divine Grace as written isn't going to work in an RPG when it will just come over as "player spends plot coupons" or "GM takes pity on loser PCs".
I might be able to do something with "mercy is good" but it would have to be a lot more obvious, like a spared NPC helps the PC survive the final challenge. What Tolkien did would come over terribly cheesy if it were a GM-fiated moment, and likely hilariously bathetic if it were the organic outcome of play through dice rolls and critical fumbles.

Yeah, Role-playing games have their own limitations as a medium. However, the context of my last post was the question of how to represent the protagonist obviously failing the pivotal test but still the world not ending. My reply was that Frodo was saved by heroic luck (or just dumb luck), so if you want to emulate that you might need to represent fortune (and , btw, metacurrency isn't the only way to do that). One problem here is that being saved by luck should feel earned too.

Is this superficial? Well, yeah. I'm playing role-playing games primarily for the adventure, not for heavy themes, so that's my focus in this thread. Plus, once you have succeeded in emulating the adventure aspects of the story, then you can look at narrative thrust as a separate issue (which is what I will be doing with my game).

Also, I'd like to emphasize that even if you're playing an adventure story in which the PCs are destined for greatness you still can have tension: no player can be certain that his PC won't be the Boromir or Valeria or Rob Stark of his party. And, depending on GM and campaign, the final outcome might be in doubt. If you fail the pivotal test of the campaign, it may or may not end in tragedy. Doesn't have to always be the world falling to darkness (it already has in my setting anyway), it might as well mean personal tragedy or whatever.

Also I'd like to reiterate it: it's enough if the players can't be sure if failing the willpower test will cause Middle-Earth to be lost or if failure means Success-but-at-a-horrible-Cost to create high tension. They don't have to be certain that failing that one pivotal roll will mean game over for the setting. Leveraging uncertainty about what's at stake, not just in the final scene of the campaign, means you can on average reduce what's at stake in encounters in your campaign and thereby contribute to the longevity of characters - if that's what you and your players desire.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1101132I just read the book and you misrepresented the rules. Using a Destiny point to "undo" a failed roll (save through perhaps, a Talent) is not a thing that's mentioned.

As far as your example, you could spend a Destiny point to find a password to a computer prior to rolling, but doing so after a failed roll is very much against their intended use, as per the page you referenced.

I'm saying that the game allows the players invoking dumb luck. If there's any passage that precludes invoking it after a failed attempt to crack a system, highlight it to me please. Otherwise, as RPGs are permissive, my representation seems spot-on.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101200Yeah, Role-playing games have their own limitations as a medium. However, the context of my last post was the question of how to represent the protagonist obviously failing the pivotal test but still the world not ending. My reply was that Frodo was saved by heroic luck (or just dumb luck), so if you want to emulate that you might need to represent fortune (and , btw, metacurrency isn't the only way to do that). One problem here is that being saved by luck should feel earned too.

Is this superficial? Well, yeah. I'm playing role-playing games primarily for the adventure, not for heavy themes, so that's my focus in this thread. Plus, once you have succeeded in emulating the adventure aspects of the story, then you can look at narrative thrust as a separate issue (which is what I will be doing with my game).

Also, I'd like to emphasize that even if you're playing an adventure story in which the PCs are destined for greatness you still can have tension: no player can be certain that his PC won't be the Boromir or Valeria or Rob Stark of his party. And, depending on GM and campaign, the final outcome might be in doubt. If you fail the pivotal test of the campaign, it may or may not end in tragedy. Doesn't have to always be the world falling to darkness (it already has in my setting anyway), it might as well mean personal tragedy or whatever.

Also I'd like to reiterate it: it's enough if the players can't be sure if failing the willpower test will cause Middle-Earth to be lost or if failure means Success-but-at-a-horrible-Cost to create high tension. They don't have to be certain that failing that one pivotal roll will mean game over for the setting. Leveraging uncertainty about what's at stake, not just in the final scene of the campaign, means you can on average reduce what's at stake in encounters in your campaign and thereby contribute to the longevity of characters - if that's what you and your players desire.



I'm saying that the game allows the players invoking dumb luck. If there's any passage that precludes invoking it after a failed attempt to crack a system, highlight it to me please. Otherwise, as RPGs are permissive, my representation seems spot-on.

There are examples I cannot quote due to a lack of having the book at work. The burden of proof is on you to showcase that dumb luck is attached to a failed roll. It's mentioned that the GM is the final arbiter of what's viable and cautions against abusing Destiny point narrative use. It does not outright say you cannot use "Dumb Luck" to find a password after a failed rolled, however is assuredly does not say you can, which is how you framed it. You're applying your interpretation as a hard rule, which it is not.

Ultimately any group can do what it wishes in whatever way is wants, however the intention of what's a "bridge too far" is quite clearly in the hands of a GM. It's obvious the intention of "Dumb Luck" was not to move past a failed roll and nowhere in the section of
"Dumb Luck" does it ever allude to being able to do so.

I agree with damn near everything I read that you post however you very clearly misrepresented how Destiny Points are to be used.

It seems to me Alderaan Crumbs is right on EOTE. The book is explicit on the usage of Destiny pts, and turning failures into successes is not an option.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101143I'd actually say that RPGs handle internal motivations, at least on the PC level about as well as any medium could.

I'd say it's different. Internal monologues for e.g., don't work so well in tabletop.

QuoteWhere I think they absolutely fall flat is foreshadowing and similar narrative devices that preordain events yet to occur.

There are even games that explore similar narrative devices, in special ones that build characters around themes or dilemmas and make play about exploring those (see Mask's Moments of Truth, Marvel Heroic's Milestones or Chuubo character arcs, for e.g.), but again, it ends up being different from other media, no matter how satisfactory the experience. At least IMO.

By the way, can someone transcript the 3 reasons in the vid? I've stopped hearing when the author brought "in fail forward, PCs never fail" which showed to me he doesn't really know what the concept is about But maybe he got some actual relevant points against the concept later in the vid?

Don't wanna sidetrack this, so I'll try to be brief:
We agree that players may use Destiny to compel the GM to make them find a computer system access code scribbled down somewhere.
Do the rules need to state explicitly that they still can after a failed cracking attempt to make the player action legal? Or do they need to explicitly restrict such usage if it's not allowed?

Quote from: S'mon;1101197Yeah, I agree strongly with this.

Tolkien's theme of Divine Grace as written isn't going to work in an RPG when it will just come over as "player spends plot coupons" or "GM takes pity on loser PCs".
I might be able to do something with "mercy is good" but it would have to be a lot more obvious, like a spared NPC helps the PC survive the final challenge. What Tolkien did would come over terribly cheesy if it were a GM-fiated moment, and likely hilariously bathetic if it were the organic outcome of play through dice rolls and critical fumbles.

Yep. RPG strengths are not the same as static narrative ones. Chasing after static narrative tropes without keeping that in mind can lead to horrible game sessions where failure is not an option, and the players become passive agents, instead of active ones.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101200Yeah, Role-playing games have their own limitations as a medium. However, the context of my last post was the question of how to represent the protagonist obviously failing the pivotal test but still the world not ending. My reply was that Frodo was saved by heroic luck (or just dumb luck), so if you want to emulate that you might need to represent fortune (and , btw, metacurrency isn't the only way to do that). One problem here is that being saved by luck should feel earned too.

Frodo was not saved by luck, heroic or otherwise.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101225Don't wanna sidetrack this, so I'll try to be brief:
We agree that players may use Destiny to compel the GM to make them find a computer system access code scribbled down somewhere.
Do the rules need to state explicitly that they still can after a failed cracking attempt to make the player action legal? Or do they need to explicitly restrict such usage if it's not allowed?

Players can't compel narrative uses of Destiny points, making the GM accept their desires. A GM can veto any narrative use of a Destiny point. A player asking to find a password after failing to slice is not a thing the GM should or must accept.

FWIW, I'm not trying to bust chops or play "Gotcha!", I simply found the example unfairly represented Destiny points.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101233Frodo was not saved by luck, heroic or otherwise.

Well, prove it.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1101249Players can't compel narrative uses of Destiny points, making the GM accept their desires. A GM can veto any narrative use of a Destiny point. A player asking to find a password after failing to slice is not a thing the GM should or must accept.

FWIW, I'm not trying to bust chops or play "Gotcha!", I simply found the example unfairly represented Destiny points.

Remember that my original assertion was: "If the players fail in Star Wars, one way for them to bail themselves out is by spending Destiny". And I still think they can by RAW, unless the GM vetoes it.
BTW, the significance of the GM veto regarding such uses of metacurrency is one discussion we had a while back - and you're right regarding that. If there's a GM veto in play, ultimately all the players can do is suggest some dumb luck that might help them out.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101324Well, prove it.

Quote from: JRR TolkienFrodo: It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had the chance.
Gandalf: Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.

... The most important point was that of Frodo's "moral failure". Only one other correspondent has referred to it; and he abused F. as a scoundrel, and me -- for holding him up to admiration ... Frodo failed as a 'hero' conceived in abstract ideal terms: he succumbed to the pressure of the Ring, which at that instant reached its maximum, when starved, utterly exhausted, and after months of increasing fear and torment. But we are all finite creatures, having absolute limits to our powers of soul, mind, and body ... Frodo took the Ring in complete humility, and his motive was entirely selfless ... By his sufferings he provided a situation in which the quest could be achieved, and by his pity (for Gollum) he made the means for this available. We, the readers, and within the book the Great can, I think have no doubt whatever in our praise ...
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_to_Eileen_Elgar_(September_1963)

....

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101324Well, prove it.



Remember that my original assertion was: "If the players fail in Star Wars, one way for them to bail themselves out is by spending Destiny". And I still think they can by RAW, unless the GM vetoes it.
BTW, the significance of the GM veto regarding such uses of metacurrency is one discussion we had a while back - and you're right regarding that. If there's a GM veto in play, ultimately all the players can do is suggest some dumb luck that might help them out.

No, they can't but I applaud the attempt at trying to wriggle through. ;) By your assertion, any game can work that way. A DM can allow a player to use Inspiration to find the key to a chest in a drawer. You could spend hit points to add to your roll as if it was Effort, such as in Cypher. And so on. None of these are RAW and GM fiat. They don't follow the ethos of the D&D, nor does allowing a player to flip a Destiny point to undo a failed roll.

Quote from: Itachi;1099046So it's not really like Pundy advocates, right?. Blades in the Dark uses a similar concept called Devils Bargain: the GM can give a bonus to a player roll, or make it automatically succeed, if the player accepts a setback later (like letting evidence leading to you, or losing face with some faction, etc). It's Fail Forward, and it has nothing to do with what Pundy says in the vid.

So, with everything Pundy, he creates a Strawman based on his own misunderstandings about some concept. Then you ask him "But what games do that?" and no one teally knows. Not even Pundy. Lol

Who is making this decision in Blades in the Dark? Is the player playing their character or sitting at the chess board moving pieces?

Quote from: Itachi;1100020Does he? As far as I know his games are all clones (of oD&D and Amber respectively). What original design he did that achieved some measure of success or recognition outside his own backyard?

He has chosen to apply his (considerable) talent to making adventures and settings and rules tweaks for OSR/D20/D&D. Yes, he could have put his efforts into the task of writing an original game but his work is good and seems quite popular, given the lack of corporate backing. "Arrows of Indra" is a great evocation of ancient India and his medieval authentic work for "Dark Albion" is groundbreaking, although set much later in the middle ages than I like.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101331....

Indeed. Me thinks Alexander has only seen the Peter Jackson film, and we've already discussed in this thread the manner in which Jackson missed the mark because of his own failure to grasp the message of the power of mercy/pity and not courage as what saved everyone in the end.

If the climax of The Lord of The Rings was truly just sheer happenstance it would not have become the classic of literature it has for its ending would ring hollow and crudely designed.

To Alexander; you are aware that J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Catholic who incorporated his beliefs, however subtly, into his books, yes?

This information about the themes and messages has been known to anyone who's bothered to look for decades. The author himself has written about it. It's not some random interpretation we're pulling out of our hind ends just to thwart you.

Your constant focus on attempting to use meta-currency in reference to duplicating only the gross events in visual media suggests you've probably NOT actually done much of a deep dive on the actual source material and their themes and messages and have only considered replication of the most superficial surface events in your modelling attempts. The pushback you're getting is largely because most of these stories are beloved classics because of all the material you're discounting and trivializing, not the trivialities you're so focused on emulating.

Okay, I don't understand the narrative focus when i said earlier: "Is this superficial? Well, yeah. I'm playing role-playing games primarily for the adventure, not for heavy themes, so that's my focus in this thread."
Maybe I should have been driving this point home more: if we revise the RPGs published for the Middle-Earth setting, we find that they all pretty much center around the adventuring and not around philosophical themes like the power of mercy (yes, I include TOR here). What's particularly confusing is that somebody else already pointed out that there is a difference in medium and P&P RPGs has in many regards the depth of improv theatre. So what's the point?

As a consequence and since I primarily play fantasy for the journey and the adventure (and it seems to me that most fantasy gamers are the same though I guess this is going to prompt a huge discussion of how my attitude is atypical), my focus is on emulating the adventure side of LOTR. To that end (and here's where we connect to fail forward), the question has arisen of how the adventure side of the ending of LOTR -the main protagonist fails his crucial test, the pivotal roll of the game to resist the ring before its impending destruction and STILL the campaign doesn't end in complete desaster as Sauron gets evaporated after all- could work out satisfyingly in a fantasy adventure game. Or if at all!

I suspect there is widespread agreement here that if the PC fails the pivotal check in a campaign and then the GM goes soft and lets the campaign finish with a happy end anyway, as if the test has succeeded, that this is generally seen as unsatisfying. For that would be akin to the "failure not allowed" that the Pundit is characterizing in his video.

So then the question is if there is a path between that and "the pivotal test fails, the world succumbs to darkness" that could still be satisfying, at least for a range of players. And that middle road would probably have to draw on Success-at-a-Cost. Which is in turn where heroic luck could come in (but doesn't have to), just as Gollum slipped in his moment of triumph and then died.

So that's roughly how I see the state of discussion. I'm not sure how exploring the underlying theme of LOTR's climax figures into that.


PS Regarding Destiny: the game explicitly states you can use Destiny to draw on dumb luck and find a scribbled down password. It's clear that this can be veto'd by the GM. But the game does not state: you can't draw on dumb luck after you failed a test and you're stuck. Or does it? I guess what I have been trying to say all along is this: failing to crack a system and then spending a Destiny point in order to be bailed out by dumb luck is a legal move. A legal move that can be denied by GM fiat, of course. But it doesn't have to.

So there's been a lot of naysaying here lately and instead of joining the choir, I'd rather contemplate ways of how a plot like the journey of Frodo and Sam could work out in an RPG - the adventuring side of it primarily, to be clear.

Here's one way I could see it work, though very likely not the only one:

Quote from: me as an Example of PlayFrodo and Sam form a two-man party that go through many trials and tribulations. Lets say Frodo has 1 Fate Point as he begins his journey with Sam. Many times through his journey the Frodo player is tempted to spend that Fate Point to save his PC or Sam but always decides to hold back and with some good wits and some good dice-rolling he manages to struggle through to Mount Doom. As he approaches the chasm, the GM calls for a final test of his resolve to not succumb to the ring. The Frodo player, his PC under heavy penalties from hunger and exhaustion, fails the test. Now the Frodo player invokes the 1 Fate Point he managed to hold on to through many dangers and frustrations and the GM agrees to reward him for his earlier frugality in the face of near doom (especially when previously encountering Shelob and getting ambushed by her!). He adjudicates that Gollum in his moment of triumph starts to slip and must take an Agility test. Gollum fails and the world is saved after all.

Not because of mercy, not because of Frodo's willpower or purity of heart but because of heroic luck. Luck that the Frodo player had earned for himself earlier on for making the dangerous journey all without the help of fortune.

Will some players not like such a campaign finale? Probably, yeah. Is there a different breed of players who wouldn't mind that ending at all and would be thrilled for getting a second chance to prevail based on performance throughout the campaign prior? I'm pretty sure of it.

Now to the power of mercy. A different variant of the above example: when Frodo and Sam encounter and capture Gollum, the GM could have rewarded them for not killing him by granting Frodo a 2nd Fate Point. Later, when they encounter Shelob, the Frodo player spends one of them to not get struck by deadly poison and we're again entering the climax of the adventure with the Frodo PC having 1 Fate Point. It all plays out as before, but this time the world will have been saved only because Frodo earlier on showed mercy to Gollum. And has been clinging to that last Fate Point otherwise.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101359Your constant focus on attempting to use meta-currency in reference to duplicating only the gross events in visual media suggests you've probably NOT actually done much of a deep dive on the actual source material and their themes and messages and have only considered replication of the most superficial surface events in your modelling attempts. The pushback you're getting is largely because most of these stories are beloved classics because of all the material you're discounting and trivializing, not the trivialities you're so focused on emulating.

Definitely agree with this; it seems to be a persistent theme. (1) Emulating the (2) surface patina of the (3) film version of a (4) story via (5) tabletop RPG mechanics. I don't think this either recreates the feel of watching a film, nor the feel of being a character in the story.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101359... and have only considered replication of the most superficial surface events in your modelling attempts..

Makes sense. I think the games that do genre emulation best do it by emulating motivations first, events second. Have characters with genre-coherent drives and a gameplay loop that rewards developing/challenging those... and chances are genre-coherent events will follow in emergent fashion.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101373PS Regarding Destiny: the game explicitly states you can use Destiny to draw on dumb luck and find a scribbled down password. It's clear that this can be veto'd by the GM. But the game does not state: you can't draw on dumb luck after you failed a test and you're stuck. Or does it? I guess what I have been trying to say all along is this: failing to crack a system and then spending a Destiny point in order to be bailed out by dumb luck is a legal move. A legal move that can be denied by GM fiat, of course. But it doesn't have to.

The same page you referenced earlier, p316, says:

QuoteThe characters should not be allowed to use a Destiny Point to make up for forgotten items or poor planning, or to give them something they purposefully avoided or left behind.

I'd make the argument that not looking around for the password ahead of time would fall under poor planning.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101331....

You're wasting your time. Instead of trying to figure out a way to make an RPG that emulates heroic fantasy, he's trying to describe heroic fantasy in RPG terms. That's literally impossible unless you're using "roleplaying game" in the loosest interpretation. At this point it sounds like he's advocating for a reality TV show with fantasy characters: scripted improv with a manufactured story arcs and conflict, with a definitive resolution.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101373Okay, I don't understand the narrative focus when i said earlier: "Is this superficial? Well, yeah. I'm playing role-playing games primarily for the adventure, not for heavy themes, so that's my focus in this thread."
Maybe I should have been driving this point home more: if we revise the RPGs published for the Middle-Earth setting, we find that they all pretty much center around the adventuring and not around philosophical themes like the power of mercy (yes, I include TOR here). What's particularly confusing is that somebody else already pointed out that there is a difference in medium and P&P RPGs has in many regards the depth of improv theatre. So what's the point?

As a consequence and since I primarily play fantasy for the journey and the adventure (and it seems to me that most fantasy gamers are the same though I guess this is going to prompt a huge discussion of how my attitude is atypical), my focus is on emulating the adventure side of LOTR. To that end (and here's where we connect to fail forward), the question has arisen of how the adventure side of the ending of LOTR -the main protagonist fails his crucial test, the pivotal roll of the game to resist the ring before its impending destruction and STILL the campaign doesn't end in complete desaster as Sauron gets evaporated after all- could work out satisfyingly in a fantasy adventure game. Or if at all!

I suspect there is widespread agreement here that if the PC fails the pivotal check in a campaign and then the GM goes soft and lets the campaign finish with a happy end anyway, as if the test has succeeded, that this is generally seen as unsatisfying. For that would be akin to the "failure not allowed" that the Pundit is characterizing in his video.

So then the question is if there is a path between that and "the pivotal test fails, the world succumbs to darkness" that could still be satisfying, at least for a range of players. And that middle road would probably have to draw on Success-at-a-Cost. Which is in turn where heroic luck could come in (but doesn't have to), just as Gollum slipped in his moment of triumph and then died.

So that's roughly how I see the state of discussion. I'm not sure how exploring the underlying theme of LOTR's climax figures into that.


PS Regarding Destiny: the game explicitly states you can use Destiny to draw on dumb luck and find a scribbled down password. It's clear that this can be veto'd by the GM. But the game does not state: you can't draw on dumb luck after you failed a test and you're stuck. Or does it? I guess what I have been trying to say all along is this: failing to crack a system and then spending a Destiny point in order to be bailed out by dumb luck is a legal move. A legal move that can be denied by GM fiat, of course. But it doesn't have to.

You're REALLY reaching there, especially since the way you framed it from the beginning was so glaringly disingenuous. If you had framed it differently I might've gotten behind you, but you gave a false reference through cherrypicking disparate parts. To try to push that you're correct because the book doesn't explicitly say you cannot do something is bullocks. By your view such a criticism can be applied to nearly any RPG. Are games supposed to cover every single possibility of what can and cannot be done? It's clear what's intended and that's the basis for an official rebuke of your argument.

Quote from: S'mon;1101382Definitely agree with this; it seems to be a persistent theme. (1) Emulating the (2) surface patina of the (3) film version of a (4) story via (5) tabletop RPG mechanics. I don't think this either recreates the feel of watching a film, nor the feel of being a character in the story.

Well, you're wrong about me being hung up on film, that is only one medium for fiction - except that it lends itself best for combat emulation due to information richness. We did take a look at the fight in the Frost Giant's Daughter a while back, if you recall, and it was fairly sparse info.

But let's have a look at some traditional RPGs:

Star Wars Saga, which I am currently in as a player. It (1) emulates the (2) surface patina of the (3) film version of a (4) story via (5) tabletop RPG mechanics*. And if you think WEG Star Wars is any different, let's hear it. Or the WEG Indiana Jones RPG, etc.
Or let's take MERP: no heavy exploration of deep themes, just an adventure game. But, lo and behold, it went so far as to emulate the capabilities of these characters by giving official statblocks for them. What it didn't do is provide mechanics so that game sessions would more naturally flow like Tolkien's stories - instead they flow like normal fantasy RPGs. TOR is a step in the direction of Tolkien though.
As for Conan, ironically the rule system that addresses underlying story dynamics more than other Conan games, 2d20 Conan gets panned in these halls whereas Conan games that play more straight (surface patina) get praised.

We can go through a wide range of traditional RPGs for specific IPs and we will find that (a) they mostly stick to surface patina level and (b) are not very good at getting the surface patina level right.
Or let's look at more generic genre games. CP 2020 is arguably the most successful straight cyberpunk game. It's largely an adventure game on the surface patina of the cyberpunk genre. It doesn't delve any deeper

How about successful online streamers like Mercer or Colville? Are their games more than largely surface patina? Do they use rules in their games that reach any deeper? Or is role-playing largely just fun adventure games?

So I guess my contention is that the kind of pushback I receive from some here is on grounds that appear to be absurd at face value.

Spoiler

Destiny: I have to take note that invoking Destiny under the aforementioned circumstances remains a legal move by RAW. And yes, such rights given to players or characters need to be explicitly qualified (restricted), just the way you'd limit how often a spell-caster can cast fireball, otherwise they're not. The only RAW restriction brought forth so far is GM veto, which is a very effective but vague restriction. Switching to RAI does not change that, nor does a "should" quotation that is merely tantamount to a guideline when a GM should exercise said veto powers.
Given that, I fail see how my characterization could be regarded as disingenious and I simply stand to it, absent of an actual RAW restriction that I am not aware of.

*Yes, the film version came first and novelization came later. Bite me.

@AK - No, I don't think any of those games seek to emulate blow by blow cinematic action in tabletop format the way you do. Some (mostly the older ones) like WEG d6 are trad "you are the hero" world-sim immersionist RPGs, the newer ones like Modiphius stuff add dramatist story-emulation elements at the cost of (some) immersion. Nothing I am familiar with resembles your particular schtick.

For instance, WEG d6 Star Wars does not give any plot protection, it only very weakly encourages players to play like the OT characters and IME in practice it plays a lot more like Rogue One - a story set in the Star Wars universe where everyone dies, because that's the natural consequence of their actions - than like the SW OT.

The advantage of this approach is immersion - when a PC in my WEG d6 game did something heroic, it actually felt heroic, because there was no plot monkey looking over their shoulder keeping them alive. If I know I (my PC) can be 'heroic' and definitely not die, it doesn't actually feel heroic.

Or in my 5e Red Hand of Doom game last Sunday, when the PCs were debating whether to try to take the bridge at Skull Gorge - they were worried, they were scared. If they went ahead then their PCs might die. This created actual dramatic tension, at a higher level than in plot-protected fiction. Like watching Game of Thrones characters not called Jon or Arya debating whether to do the heroic/risky thing.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101394Or let's take MERP: no heavy exploration of deep themes, just an adventure game. But, lo and behold, it went so far as to emulate the capabilities of these characters by giving official statblocks for them. What it didn't do is provide mechanics so that game sessions would more naturally flow like Tolkien's stories - instead they flow like normal fantasy RPGs. TOR is a step in the direction of Tolkien though.

Hey, you finally figured it out! MERP is a roleplaying game, and thus is incapable of simulating a novel. It had stat blocks for Aragorn and Gandalf and Sauron and whoever else because that's what you do...make stat blocks for the main characters in a property your RPG is based off of. Why in the fuck would you want mechanics that would force games to flow like a Tolkien story? That is AGAIN not an RPG but something else (*gasp* perhaps a storygame..?)

Your outright dismissal of the entire "Frodo was saved by divine grace" thing just proves you really have no concept of literature. I'm guessing you've seen a lot of action movies, wish you could exactly replicate one in an RPG, figured out it's impossible to do so, and began down some path to demonstrate how bad conventional RPGs are because instead of saving the universe your PCs all got killed by a lucky bowshot from a goblin.

QuoteAs for Conan, ironically the rule system that addresses underlying story dynamics more than other Conan games, 2d20 Conan gets panned in these halls whereas Conan games that play more straight (surface patina) get praised.

Because it sucks. The End.

Heh, this whole discussion has a parallel one with playing at mystery versus running an actual mystery.  It's part of why so much of the "how to run a mystery in an RPG" advice is so inconsistent and often counter-productive to what people are trying to do.  You'll get endless discussion of how to use the 3-clue rule, when the first thing you should do to run an actual mystery in an RPG is throw the 3-clue rule out the window.  

If you want to dress up in a trenchcoat and make world-weary comments to the dames, but the plot is just something you are guided through, then the 3-clue rule is fine.  The characters aren't solving anything.  The players aren't solving anything.  It's not a mystery.  It kind of looks like typical mysteries on the surface.  OTOH, to do an actual mystery, you have to abandon some of the things from books and film in order to arrive at ways that players can find subtle clues, miss some of them, and still have a chance to solve the blasted thing.  You'll need a lot more than 3 clues, and they'll need to be different than the clues you see in a typical mystery narrative.  The characters might fail.  The players might fail.

Just an example of how this distinction is not limited to typical heroic fantasy tropes.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101375Not because of mercy, not because of Frodo's willpower or purity of heart but because of heroic luck. Luck that the Frodo player had earned for himself earlier on for making the dangerous journey all without the help of fortune.

Except that NONE of the classic stories you so wish to emulate resolve the climax through heroic luck. That's one of the key tells between the classics and the shlock produced by imitators who have only a surface understanding of why the original was successful.

In the classics there may be some heroic luck in play in the form of evading gunfire and such, but that only exists to ensure the hero gets to the point of the story where THEIR CHOICES MATTER (including employing any Chekov's Guns in play). Luck isn't ultimately what saves a hero in any type of classical plot construction (what actual experts in the field call an Arch-plot because a causal series of events where a protagonist struggles against external forces in finite real time appeals to roughly 90% of the population).

What you are describing with a reliance on luck as the resolution mechanic is the hallmark of what is called an Antiplot; basically the same sort of postmodernist crap that appeals only to SJW types because it is the antithesis of the stories you're trying to emulate. Barely 5% of the population actually finds that sort of story satisfying (even many SJWs don't enjoy the "success and failure is nothing but happenstance, your actual skill or decisions don't matter because it all comes down to luck in the end"). More people enjoy Miniplot construction (which is focused more on internal psychological struggles of the protagonist) than enjoy Antiplot.

As to heroic luck as employed in Classical plot construction... we already have that; they're called Hit Points. Employed as written (instead of as pure meat) they are literally the Plot Armor that enables the protagonists to reach the critical points of the plot without succumbing to a random event along the way (though if they run out and plummet down the cliff on the way, clearly they won't be the protagonist when the story is recounted).

The reason you're not getting the reaction from people here you want is because what you're proposing doesn't accomplish what you want it to. Indeed, it does the opposite; turning moments of high dramatic tension where the character's choices actually matter to the outcome and turning them into accounting exercises where the character choices don't matter because whatever they choose can be papered over with happenstances.

You take what should be meaningful and make it meaningless.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101394Well, you're wrong about me being hung up on film, that is only one medium for fiction - except that it lends itself best for combat emulation due to information richness. We did take a look at the fight in the Frost Giant's Daughter a while back, if you recall, and it was fairly sparse info.

But let's have a look at some traditional RPGs:

Star Wars Saga, which I am currently in as a player. It (1) emulates the (2) surface patina of the (3) film version of a (4) story via (5) tabletop RPG mechanics*. And if you think WEG Star Wars is any different, let's hear it. Or the WEG Indiana Jones RPG, etc.
Or let's take MERP: no heavy exploration of deep themes, just an adventure game. But, lo and behold, it went so far as to emulate the capabilities of these characters by giving official statblocks for them. What it didn't do is provide mechanics so that game sessions would more naturally flow like Tolkien's stories - instead they flow like normal fantasy RPGs. TOR is a step in the direction of Tolkien though.
As for Conan, ironically the rule system that addresses underlying story dynamics more than other Conan games, 2d20 Conan gets panned in these halls whereas Conan games that play more straight (surface patina) get praised.

We can go through a wide range of traditional RPGs for specific IPs and we will find that (a) they mostly stick to surface patina level and (b) are not very good at getting the surface patina level right.
Or let's look at more generic genre games. CP 2020 is arguably the most successful straight cyberpunk game. It's largely an adventure game on the surface patina of the cyberpunk genre. It doesn't delve any deeper

How about successful online streamers like Mercer or Colville? Are their games more than largely surface patina? Do they use rules in their games that reach any deeper? Or is role-playing largely just fun adventure games?

So I guess my contention is that the kind of pushback I receive from some here is on grounds that appear to be absurd at face value.

I agree with you that traditional RPGs are historically bad at emulating stories (there's a reason narrative RPGs became a thing somewhere along the road). And that's exactly the argument folks are defending here - in trying to justify LotR story in (traditional) RPG terms, you're missing the point entirely. These games were not design for this. Period.

Or, see things this way: traditional RPGs are too far into the "Simulationist" and/or "Gamist" poles to make sense from a story/narrative angle. The same way games like Fiasco or Hillfolk or Bluebeard's Bride are too much on the "Narrative" pole and may not make sense from other angles.

Quote from: S'mon;1101401@AK - No, I don't think any of those games seek to emulate blow by blow cinematic action in tabletop format the way you do.

But nobody has made that claim. I have been listing games that merely capture the surface patina of the thing they're emulating to refute the relevance of whether the world was save by Frodo's mercy or not. If we're fine with RPGs being primarily about the adventuring part, then it's valid to interpret the climax of LotR as Frodo having luck that Gollum slipped after stealing the ring. And that in turn ties into Failing Forward, in that case failing forward towards the campaign conclusion.

Quote from: S'mon;1101401Some (mostly the older ones) like WEG d6 are trad "you are the hero" world-sim immersionist RPGs, the newer ones like Modiphius stuff add dramatist story-emulation elements at the cost of (some) immersion.

Immersion is quite personal and mine isn't very fragile in that regard. It doesn't get lost when I have to juggle some metacurrency, just as it doesn't get lost when I calculate whether it's advantageous to do a full Power Strike or some other Feat/Talent. I don't lose my immersion when I ask a buddy to pass a bag of crisps, nor when I have to take a bathroom break during an entertaining movie.

It does get lost however when I have to enter a dungeon with a backpack full of healing potions.

Quote from: S'mon;1101401For instance, WEG d6 Star Wars does not give any plot protection, it only very weakly encourages players to play like the OT characters and IME in practice it plays a lot more like Rogue One - a story set in the Star Wars universe where everyone dies, because that's the natural consequence of their actions - than like the SW OT.

And the existence and commercial success of FFG Star Wars underscores that there is a crowd of gamers who enjoy games in which the PCs are more special than that. Saved by "dumb luck".

Quote from: S'mon;1101401The advantage of this approach is immersion - when a PC in my WEG d6 game did something heroic, it actually felt heroic, because there was no plot monkey looking over their shoulder keeping them alive. If I know I (my PC) can be 'heroic' and definitely not die, it doesn't actually feel heroic.

In the example I had given, Frodo had 1 Fate Point (in the alternative scenario 2 Fate Points). Note that in the alternative scenario Frodo either had died OR the Gollum would have not slipped, if the Frodo PC didn't have 2 Fate Points.
In FFG Star Wars, PCs can die as well, I believe.  

Note furthermore that it's not as black and white as some make it out to be. It's not "EITHER the PC has no plot protection OR he cannot die, ever". Just as it's not "Either you play a loose sandbox or you're a wanna-be auteur shitty railroad GM that wants to shove an entire script down his player's throat".
First of all there's many degrees inbetween. And secondly, there can be variation from scene-to-scene.

Quote from: S'mon;1101401Or in my 5e Red Hand of Doom game last Sunday, when the PCs were debating whether to try to take the bridge at Skull Gorge - they were worried, they were scared. If they went ahead then their PCs might die. This created actual dramatic tension, at a higher level than in plot-protected fiction. Like watching Game of Thrones characters not called Jon or Arya debating whether to do the heroic/risky thing.

It's not just that you can vary plot protection from scene-to-scene, doing so even enables you to run higher risk encounters after having run a string of low risk encounters.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101373Okay, I don't understand the narrative focus when i said earlier: "Is this superficial? Well, yeah. I'm playing role-playing games primarily for the adventure, not for heavy themes, so that's my focus in this thread."
Maybe I should have been driving this point home more: if we revise the RPGs published for the Middle-Earth setting, we find that they all pretty much center around the adventuring and not around philosophical themes like the power of mercy (yes, I include TOR here). What's particularly confusing is that somebody else already pointed out that there is a difference in medium and P&P RPGs has in many regards the depth of improv theatre. So what's the point?

As a consequence and since I primarily play fantasy for the journey and the adventure (and it seems to me that most fantasy gamers are the same though I guess this is going to prompt a huge discussion of how my attitude is atypical), my focus is on emulating the adventure side of LOTR. To that end (and here's where we connect to fail forward), the question has arisen of how the adventure side of the ending of LOTR -the main protagonist fails his crucial test, the pivotal roll of the game to resist the ring before its impending destruction and STILL the campaign doesn't end in complete desaster as Sauron gets evaporated after all- could work out satisfyingly in a fantasy adventure game. Or if at all!

The scene at Mount Doom is a poor example. For starters, no one could resist the Ring in the heart of Sauron's realm. No dice roll required. Autofail. It was always a "hopeless" quest in that sense.

Quote from: Tolkien"Gandalf put his hand on Pippin's head. "There never was much hope," he answered. "Just a fool's hope, as I have been told."

QuoteSo then the question is if there is a path between that and "the pivotal test fails, the world succumbs to darkness" that could still be satisfying, at least for a range of players. And that middle road would probably have to draw on Success-at-a-Cost. Which is in turn where heroic luck could come in (but doesn't have to), just as Gollum slipped in his moment of triumph and then died.

In such a situation, it was divine fiat, or the will of Illuvatar that events turned out the way they did. Not in the direct sense of a godhand descending from the clouds to push gollum in, but the very fabric of existence rewards pity and mercy in the final tally.

The problem here is that you are trying to interpret a complex static narrative into game mechanics, and that just doesn't work. There are no dice rolls to interpret. Frodo didn't fail a will save, gollum didn't roll to attack to bite his hand, and gollum didn't fail a dex check to avoid falling into the crack of doom.
Tolkien wrote it that way.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101375Not because of mercy, not because of Frodo's willpower or purity of heart but because of heroic luck. Luck that the Frodo player had earned for himself earlier on for making the dangerous journey all without the help of fortune.

Holy fucking missing the point, Batman. You're not playing Lord of the Rings at that point. You've hollowed it out, like Buffalo Bill wearing a woman-skin-suit.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101425Holy fucking missing the point, Batman. You're not playing Lord of the Rings at that point. You've hollowed it out, like Buffalo Bill wearing a woman-skin-suit.

At this point I'm not sure if he's just poorly read on the subject of story structure in general (and Lord of the Rings in particular) or if he's just one of the less than 5% who thinks antiplot is superior to classical plot construction and doesn't get that he's the critical failure on a d20 roll in terms of preferences.

To Alexander; I'm going to recommend a book to you... "Story: Style, Structure, Substance and the Principles of Screenwriting" by Robert McKee (https://www.amazon.com/Story-Structure-Substance-Principles-Screenwriting-ebook/dp/B0042FZVOY). If you've ever seen a list of the people who've taken his course on screenwriting, it's practically a who's who of the top writers in Hollywood and this is the book they read for his class on how to do it.

If you REALLY want to make a game based off emulating what you see in stories, I recommend you start by looking at the heart of how those stories are composed and structured so you can actually build something that's not borderline offensive to 90+% of your potential audience.

Quote from: Brad;1101387At this point it sounds like he's advocating for a reality TV show with fantasy characters: scripted improv with a manufactured story arcs and conflict, with a definitive resolution.

Oooh, like Critical Role!

Quote from: Zalman;1101431Oooh, like Critical Role!

Or any of the many many "Frustrated Author" GMs I've encountered over the years who have a particular story they want to tell and see the players as a captive audience for it. Only this one wants official rules to make his ignoring anything that might derail his 'grand epic' okay and 'by the book' instead of the borderline dick move it's generally seen as in the broader RPG community.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101421But nobody has made that claim. I have been listing games that merely capture the surface patina of the thing they're emulating to refute the relevance of whether the world was save by Frodo's mercy or not.

Do we agree that you cannot successfully recreate LoTR as an RPG?

(BTW this is one reason I tend to take my RPGing inspiration more from low quality pulp fiction than from the classics. The kind of pulp adventures that really don't say anything about life/the human condition are way more emulatable than even REH's Conan, never mind LoTR.)

Quote from: Chris24601;1101410Except that NONE of the classic stories you so wish to emulate

Genrestory Emulation is PbtA's thing though, not mine. In Genreworld Emulation, however, story is still emerging from interactions with the game world, except there is a limited exception handling mechanism. Did you read the example of play that I posted?
Anyway, with that misunderstanding cleared up, I feel the rest of both your posts is kinda invalid, I'm afraid. It's not about emulating story structure through rules.

Quote from: Itachi;1101420I agree with you that traditional RPGs are historically bad at emulating stories (there's a reason narrative RPGs became a thing somewhere along the road). And that's exactly the argument folks are defending here - in trying to justify LotR story in (traditional) RPG terms, you're missing the point entirely. These games were not design for this. Period.

Actually, I have just been recommended hitpoints as a mechanic for emulating heroic luck. :(
Furthermore, I invite everyone to listen to this podcast here (https://bedrockgames.podbean.com/e/rpg-lab-adventures-in-middle-earth/) and witness how much some members of this forum enjoy faithfulness to the world of Tolkien in a traditional game. "I found this to be very good at emulating the trilogy [...] it felt like I was in a new story in Middle Earth."

These are small steps towards genresim.

Quote from: Itachi;1101420Or, see things this way: traditional RPGs are too far into the "Simulationist" and/or "Gamist" poles to make sense from a story/narrative angle. The same way games like Fiasco or Hillfolk or Bluebeard's Bride are too much on the "Narrative" pole and may not make sense from other angles.

So this seems to be a common misunderstanding. I encourage you and Chris and Ratman to take another look at the example of play I provided. Fate isn't used to shape story in a narrativist sense. The whole thing plays very traditionally EXCEPT you have a limited exception handling mechanism in the form of heroic luck which is totally compliant with heroic fantasy, including LotR and its climax. Most importantly: story is still emergent from interactions with the game world.

And I must come back to what started the whole conversation: the question if failing a pivotal roll and the world not going up in flames could be implemented viably (and genre-faithful) in a RPG and if yes, how so? After some thinking my answer was that one way I could see it working was through Success-at-a-Cost and another way was what I provided in the example of play - passing the challenge of reaching the climax without relying on fortune's help.

Quote from: S'mon;1101441Do we agree that you cannot successfully recreate LoTR as an RPG?

Only if we can agree that no one in this thread suggested we should do this in actuality to begin with. It seems like the invisible mutant commie railroad GM from the 90s is a favorite strawman among this crowd here. The subject is Fail Forward and it's notable that Frodo fails to resist the ring but the world doesn't go up in smoke.

This (PC fails, for example, on a pivotal endgame test but the campaign doesnt end in complete failure) is something that can be emulated. There's other stuff that can be emulated, as TOR and AiME demonstrate - and people seem to enjoy those. :eek:
What else can be emulated?

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101444Only if we can agree that no one in this thread suggested we should do this in actuality to begin with. It seems like the invisible mutant commie railroad GM from the 90s is a favorite strawman among this crowd here. The subject is Fail Forward and it's notable that Frodo fails to resist the ring but the world doesn't go up in smoke.

Frodo failed to resist the Ring, but that wasn't why the world didn't go up in smoke. Frodo showed mercy to gollum, and set up the circumstances where the quest succeeded.
Frodo did not fail forward.

QuoteThis (PC fails, for example, on a pivotal endgame test

In order to be an accurate comparison, Frodo's failing a critical 'test' would have been to slay gollum when he was subdued.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101442Genrestory Emulation is PbtA's thing though, not mine. In Genreworld Emulation, however, story is still emerging from interactions with the game world, except there is a limited exception handling mechanism. Did you read the example of play that I posted?
Anyway, with that misunderstanding cleared up, I feel the rest of both your posts is kinda invalid, I'm afraid. It's not about emulating story structure through rules.





Actually, I have just been recommended hitpoints as a mechanic for emulating heroic luck. :(
Furthermore, I invite everyone to listen to this podcast here (https://bedrockgames.podbean.com/e/rpg-lab-adventures-in-middle-earth/) and witness how much some members of this forum enjoy faithfulness to the world of Tolkien in a traditional game. "I found this to be very good at emulating the trilogy [...] it felt like I was in a new story in Middle Earth."

I'm gratified they use the term 'emulate' instead of 'simulate'. I'll try to give the podcast a listen.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101442Genrestory Emulation is PbtA's thing though, not mine. In Genreworld Emulation, however, story is still emerging from interactions with the game world, except there is a limited exception handling mechanism. Did you read the example of play that I posted?

Anyway, with that misunderstanding cleared up, I feel the rest of both your posts is kinda invalid, I'm afraid. It's not about emulating story structure through rules.

Actually, I have just been recommended hitpoints as a mechanic for emulating heroic luck.

I encourage you and Chris and Ratman to take another look at the example of play I provided. Fate isn't used to shape story in a narrativist sense.

At this point I'm going to chalk this up to a language/culture barrier because I'd rather not presume you're a blithering idiot.

I'm the one who mentioned hit points as plot armor... and how their purpose is to get you to the climax, not resolve your problems for you. That what you took from my comment was "meta-currency that solves all problems is A-Okay" is why the only categories that can explain this gross misinterpretation that don't make you a disingenuous troll are language barrier or blithering idiot.

We did look at your example and, to make it perfectly clear... I don't misunderstand you, I'm telling you your concept sucks donkey balls and utterly fails to provide the drama and interest you believe it should. You're doing the equivalent of trying to sell Playboy magazines to someone married to a perpetually horny supermodel who's super into whatever kink turns you on most. Your selling a pale flacid imitation of the drama and tension that actual RPG play can provide precisely because they don't have an idiotic meta-currency safety net.

Let me illustrate this further by using your own crappy meta-currency against you. You've reached the climax of the campaign* and everything hinges on a roll of the die, which fails. The players spend all their banked up meta-currency on re-rolling various things and they STILL come up short. What then?

If your answer is anything other than "they fail" then your meta-currency is a lie. A clever misdirection to disguise the fact that you were never going to let the PCs fail with extra layers where you hope the odds of the re-roll/re-do will change the actual rolled results enough to hide that what the players are rolling never mattered in the first place; the ending was pre-ordained and all their efforts were just a con game to make them think there were stakes.

And if the answer IS "they fail" then you also don't need meta-currency, you just need a better grasp on mechanics in the system so that the proper ratio of success vs. failure to get whichever feel on the scale of heroic to gritty you desire for your game.

Put simply, your idea is ill-formed at best. Go back to the drawing board, read that book I recommended to learn just how ill-formed it is and try again.

*the idea that you can pre-ordain when and where the climax of an RPG campaign occurs is a whole other kettle of fish.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101449At this point I'm going to chalk this up to a language/culture barrier because I'd rather not presume you're a blithering idiot.

AK always comes across as having something missing upstairs. But maybe it's language too. On his first thread here I eventually responded "Not sure if Autism or German", and I haven't seen anything much to change that view.
He seems nice enough though. :D

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101444This (PC fails, for example, on a pivotal endgame test but the campaign doesnt end in complete failure) is something that can be emulated.  

Ok fine, fail forward can emulate that. BUT don't you agree there's an important difference between that hapenning by chance/as a dice roll, and that happening due to some overarching theme of judeo-christian morality (like Tolkien apparently adhered to) ?

I think a more appropriate way to emulate that would be with some trait or pool that fills up as PCs act according to Christian virtues - like demonstrating mercy to Gollum for e.g. - and then spend it to enact changes in the world. This way you provide incentives and rewards for players behaving according to Christian values.

Quote from: Itachi;1101452Ok fine, fail forward can emulate that. BUT don't you agree there's an important difference between that hapenning by chance/as a dice roll, and that happening due to some overarching theme of judeo-christian morality (like Tolkien apparently adhered to) ?

I think a more appropriate way to emulate that would be with some pool that the group fills up as they act according to Christian virtues (like demonstrating mercy to Gollum for e.g.), and then spend it to enact changes in the world or something.

At least that's closer to the theme. Idea could certainly use some polishing though. :)

Quote from: S'mon;1101441Do we agree that you cannot successfully recreate LoTR as an RPG?

(BTW this is one reason I tend to take my RPGing inspiration more from low quality pulp fiction than from the classics. The kind of pulp adventures that really don't say anything about life/the human condition are way more emulatable than even REH's Conan, never mind LoTR.)

I agree that a written novel is inherently different than an RPG.

However, I feel that the experience of playing an RPG - by virtue of being interactive and personally creative - can be more engaging, and say more about the human condition than reading a classic novel. In much the same way, listening to a concert by a world-famous musician isn't necessarily a more meaningful experience than an active session of jamming with friends. The music in the jamming session isn't objectively better, but the experience can be just as important and meaningful, especially because it is creative and social.

Any comparison of the plot of a classic novel and the events of an RPG is tricky. But I don't think that the RPG is inherently trivial or meaningless compared to the novel. It's meaning just comes through different processes.

Quote from: jhkim;1101454I agree that a written novel is inherently different than an RPG.

However, I feel that the experience of playing an RPG - by virtue of being interactive and personally creative - can be more engaging, and say more about the human condition than reading a classic novel.

A point orthogonal to my point. But still a good point. :D

Yes, I have had deep and moving experiences from playing/GMing RPGs. I have learned things, and seen players learn things, about the human condition.

I don't think AK's approach is the way to get there though! :P

Quote from: S'mon;1101455A point orthogonal to my point. But still a good point. :D

Yes, I have had deep and moving experiences from playing/GMing RPGs. I have learned things, and seen players learn things, about the human condition.

I don't think AK's approach is the way to get there though! :P

Of course. Obviously, the only way for anyone to learn about the human condition is to play only the games that I like. :p

Quote from: jhkim;1101457Of course. Obviously, the only way for anyone to learn about the human condition is to play only the games that I like. :p

Depends on what you want to learn about the human condition.  There were a few times where I've learned quite a bit about it from some seeing some extremely bad play. :)

Quote from: Itachi;1100459Just remember: no one is saying Ron Edwards matters as a designer. What is being said is that Edwards did design a game - new, from scratch - with ideas that ended up influential to a whole new playstyle and movement.

And that is much more than anything Pundit ever did in terms of design.

You're presuming that "writing a game new, from scratch" (which you yourself are specifically pointing out need not be a good game in this example, as in, not enough to "matter as a designer") as:

1. Something that is the slightest bit desirable. Making a new RPG "from scratch" is generally an awful idea. It's usually done by someone with no talent, not even the talent to have the discernment to tell what works about D&D (which, indeed, Edwards doesn't).

2. Something that is harder to do than to write a masterpiece from an existing framework. That's like saying that a post-modern artist taking a literal dump on a canvas requires more effort than a neo-renaissance guy making a masterpiece in the STYLE of say, Durer, following the same design rules Durer had, but also being a completely new work unlike any of his own.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1101512You're presuming that "writing a game new, from scratch" (which you yourself are specifically pointing out need not be a good game in this example, as in, not enough to "matter as a designer") as:

1. Something that is the slightest bit desirable. Making a new RPG "from scratch" is generally an awful idea. It's usually done by someone with no talent, not even the talent to have the discernment to tell what works about D&D (which, indeed, Edwards doesn't).

2. Something that is harder to do than to write a masterpiece from an existing framework. That's like saying that a post-modern artist taking a literal dump on a canvas requires more effort than a neo-renaissance guy making a masterpiece in the STYLE of say, Durer, following the same design rules Durer had, but also being a completely new work unlike any of his own.

Sure, I agree with your points. But what OSR game is (quoting you) "a completely new work unlike any of his own" in regard to D&D ? Because I don't see any. All OSR games do is replicate D&D core gameplay but with different tweaks and in different coats of paint. And that's it. A proper example of what you say would be Pendragon. It's based on an existing framework (Runequest), but goes enough in it's own direction it ends up completely different from it's father in form and purpuse. This looks more like a masterpiece to me. There's nothing like this in the OSR.

The OSR design space is like 80's glam rock. All glitz and no substance. I'm sure there are geniuses in glam rock, the genre fans must have elected some. But would they look like geniuses in the context of the whole music industry to you? Not for me.

IMO, YMMV, etc.

Where do I even begin?

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101446Frodo failed to resist the Ring, but that wasn't why the world didn't go up in smoke. Frodo showed mercy to gollum, and set up the circumstances where the quest succeeded.
Frodo did not fail forward.

In order to be an accurate comparison, Frodo's failing a critical 'test' would have been to slay gollum when he was subdued.

The GM (or the scenario author) sets the challenge and the consequences of passing vs failing.
One possible set-up: if the Frodo player passes the test, he can throw down the Ring, if he fails Sauron wins and the campaign ends.
Another: if the Frodo player passes the test, he can throw down the Ring, if he fails Sam can still save the world by declaring to tackle Gollum, tumbling down with him and the ring. (Success-at-a-Cost)
Another: if the Frodo player passes the test, he can throw down the Ring, if he fails (or, say, he automatically succumbs) Gollum will jump at him and grapple with him for control and we'll simulate the situation from there..
Another: if the Frodo player passes the test, he can throw down the Ring, if he fails Gollum will jump at him and take control of the ring. If Frodo still has a Fate Point, he can force an Agility test on Gollum, else the world ends (same if Gollum passes the test). If Gollum fails, he tumbles to his death with the ring. (Saved by shrewd performance during the scenario prior, allowing to retain a Fate Point.)
All of these are valid, workable variants some of which may be more appealing to some gamers than others; they're certainly not the only ways to handle the event of Frodo bringing the chasm.

In any case, I hope everyone has been paying attention and has realized by now that this was never about actually replaying the LotR plot as Frodo. Instead, it was a thought-experiment about how you could implement in a somewhat satisfying way in an adventure RPG.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101447I'm gratified they use the term 'emulate' instead of 'simulate'.

Never mind the nomenclature; as long as everybody understand the meaning in the context of RPGs, it's not very important.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101449At this point I'm going to chalk this up to a language/culture barrier because I'd rather not presume you're a blithering idiot.

I'm the one who mentioned hit points as plot armor... and how their purpose is to get you to the climax, not resolve your problems for you.

And I was pointing out that they're an inaccurate tool in emulating how things work in fantasy fiction (especially in cinema but it goes roughly the same for much of other fantasy media). You may educate yourself more in this thread. (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?40315-Cinematic-Combat-Part-3-of-3-Combat-Events-warning-GIF-heavy&highlight=cinematic+combat) Also, in the meantime, you can help explain how hitpoints are going to help emulate Jon's luck at 2:28 here:

[video=youtube;Qgu8ecKn3p0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgu8ecKn3p0[/youtube]

Quote from: Chris24601;1101449they don't have an idiotic meta-currency safety net.

Instead they have worse: the hitpoint inflation safety net, judging by modern D&D standards. But a safety net you need or else you can't play heroic fantasy. It's impossible. By definition. (Unless you're presuming that your players are blessed with heroic luck themselves.)

Let me reiterate it: all heroic role-playing requires a safety net.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101449You've reached the climax of the campaign* and everything hinges on a roll of the die, which fails. The players spend all their banked up meta-currency on re-rolling various things and they STILL come up short. What then?

What then? See above in this post. Or things I have posted earlier in this thread. That you're asking this question indicates that you haven't been following the conversation.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101449And if the answer IS "they fail" then you also don't need meta-currency, you just need a better grasp on mechanics in the system so that the proper ratio of success vs. failure to get whichever feel on the scale of heroic to gritty you desire for your game.

You're wrong here. Having moderately-skilled protagonists is pretty much strictly superior to having mary su-ish highly-skilled protagonists, as the former are generally way more relatable. In fact, the point to the hobbits is that they're simple guys, little guys, instead of superninjas trained from birth to min-max they're adventuring stats.

Heroic luck is crucial to that effect.

Quote from: Itachi;1101452Ok fine, fail forward can emulate that. BUT don't you agree there's an important difference between that hapenning by chance/as a dice roll, and that happening due to some overarching theme of judeo-christian morality (like Tolkien apparently adhered to) ?

Sure but that is more in the realm of scenario design, don't you think? Look at my alternate example of play in which Frodo gains a second Fate Point for being merciful on Gollum. That is primarily scenario design, albeit one that makes use of a certain mechanic to get its point across. Yet, if we're discussing Failing Forward, we're debating mostly mechanics, don't we?

Quote from: Itachi;1101452I think a more appropriate way to emulate that would be with some trait or pool that fills up as PCs act according to Christian virtues - like demonstrating mercy to Gollum for e.g. - and then spend it to enact changes in the world. This way you provide incentives and rewards for players behaving according to Christian values.

Sure you can do these kinds of things and you're coming from that angle. I am coming from the adventuring side. I don't really want to replay Frodo's adventures; instead it's about emulating the world of Tolkien, a world in which there is such a thing as heroic luck, it seems. To me, it's not so much a story element as it is a world element like exploding cars in a Last Action Hero universe. Which is why I delineate my approach as genre-world emulation as opposed to apocalypse world's genre-story emulation. Some people, PCs or certain important NPCs, seem to be favored by fate. Sometimes they run out of luck and then they die. It's an old trope in RPGs as well, the early beginnings are PCs and important NPCs having more hitpoints than others. Hitpoints just don't emulate the luck of heroes in fiction well. Nor how wounds work.

Quote from: jhkim;1101454But I don't think that the RPG is inherently trivial or meaningless compared to the novel. It's meaning just comes through different processes.

Lord of the Rings wasn't written on a Sunday afternoon. It was mulled many times over. Surely Tolkien didn't waste all those years?
And the people who watch and play Critical Role - don't they do it primarily for the adventure?

Spontaneously created content can occasionally be golden, yes. But on average it's highly unpolished.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101560Where do I even begin?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD3dcGUUPAU

QuoteThe GM (or the scenario author) sets the challenge and the consequences of passing vs failing.
One possible set-up: if the Frodo player passes the test, he can throw down the Ring, if he fails Sauron wins and the campaign ends.
Another: if the Frodo player passes the test, he can throw down the Ring, if he fails Sam can still save the world by declaring to tackle Gollum, tumbling down with him and the ring. (Success-at-a-Cost)
Another: if the Frodo player passes the test, he can throw down the Ring, if he fails (or, say, he automatically succumbs) Gollum will jump at him and grapple with him for control and we'll simulate the situation from there..
Another: if the Frodo player passes the test, he can throw down the Ring, if he fails Gollum will jump at him and take control of the ring. If Frodo still has a Fate Point, he can force an Agility test on Gollum, else the world ends (same if Gollum passes the test). If Gollum fails, he tumbles to his death with the ring. (Saved by shrewd performance during the scenario prior, allowing to retain a Fate Point.)
All of these are valid, workable variants some of which may be more appealing to some gamers than others; they're certainly not the only ways to handle the event of Frodo bringing the chasm.

I've already pointed out why this scenario is not a critical test. No one could throw the ring into the fire, thus there is no test to make. All of your "choices" spring from a false asumption.

QuoteIn any case, I hope everyone has been paying attention and has realized by now that this was never about actually replaying the LotR plot as Frodo. Instead, it was a thought-experiment about how you could implement in a somewhat satisfying way in an adventure RPG.

Next time I suggest using a more appropriate example. I even gave you one earlier. The test was made when Frodo chose to spare gollum.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101571I've already pointed out why this scenario is not a critical test. No one could throw the ring into the fire, thus there is no test to make. All of your "choices" spring from a false assumption.

He doesn't care. He's not even listening really and his replies are only to the strawmen he's created of our statements.

He just wants his Antiplot RPG where no one can ever truly fail (just succeed with cost) if the GM wants them to succeed (and conversely if the "plot" demands it they can never succeed unless the GM wants them to either) and is frustrated that no one else seems to think its anything other than pure crap.

The worst part I just realized there's a far superior game out there already that already does EVERYTHING Alex wants to accomplish with his hair-brained heroic luck meta-currency, only with the ability to set up the actual complex themes and morality play element which actually underlie those stories.

It's called Amber (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1447/Amber).

Quote from: jhkimBut I don't think that the RPG is inherently trivial or meaningless compared to the novel. It's meaning just comes through different processes.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101560Lord of the Rings wasn't written on a Sunday afternoon. It was mulled many times over. Surely Tolkien didn't waste all those years?
And the people who watch and play Critical Role - don't they do it primarily for the adventure?

Spontaneously created content can occasionally be golden, yes. But on average it's highly unpolished.

Polished isn't the same as meaningful. Any personal creative activity I do isn't polished at the time that I'm doing it, but it's often more meaningful than passively consuming someone else's creativity - even a classic, polished novel.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101580The worst part I just realized there's a far superior game out there already that already does EVERYTHING Alex wants to accomplish ... only with the ability to set up the actual complex themes and morality play element which actually underlie those stories. It's called Amber (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1447/Amber).

How exactly does Amber do that? Because as far as I know, the only thing Amber does is incentivize PvP through it's atribute auction in chargen, and then leave everything to players once play begins. Where is that "actual complex themes and morality element" in Amber?

Edit: oh, and..

Quote from: Chris24601As to heroic luck as employed in Classical plot construction... we already have that; they're called Hit Points

This is nonsense. Hit Points are based on naval hulls from wargames (https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-history-of-hit-points/) that Gygax and Arneson knew at the time. Nothing do to with "classical heroic luck".

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101571I've already pointed out why this scenario is not a critical test. No one could throw the ring into the fire, thus there is no test to make. All of your "choices" spring from a false asumption.

Since the whole thing was just cause for a thought experiment to see if the protagonist failing but the campaign not ending in disaster was workable in an RPG (a special type of Failing Forward), you're not adding to the conversation, you're just showing-off. And even THAT is ignoring that the citation you provided by no means proves that Frodo could have never cast the ring into the fire. If you got some better quote though, let's hear it, even though it's not relevant to the thought experiment itself.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101571Next time I suggest using a more appropriate example. I even gave you one earlier. The test was made when Frodo chose to spare gollum.

That doesn't apply to the thought experiment though. If you were less busy demonstrating your knowledge of LotR, you might have noticed that.

Quote from: Chris24601;1101580and his replies are only to the strawmen he's created of our statements.

He just wants his Antiplot RPG where no one can ever truly fail (just succeed with cost) if the GM wants them to succeed (and conversely if the "plot" demands it they can never succeed unless the GM wants them to either) and is frustrated that no one else seems to think its anything other than pure crap.

I had just posted:
"One possible set-up: if the Frodo player passes the test, he can throw down the Ring, if he fails Sauron wins and the campaign ends.
Another: if the Frodo player passes the test, he can throw down the Ring, if he fails Sam can still save the world by declaring to tackle Gollum, tumbling down with him and the ring. (Success-at-a-Cost)
Another: if the Frodo player passes the test, he can throw down the Ring, if he fails (or, say, he automatically succumbs) Gollum will jump at him and grapple with him for control and we'll simulate the situation from there..
Another: if the Frodo player passes the test, he can throw down the Ring, if he fails Gollum will jump at him and take control of the ring. If Frodo still has a Fate Point, he can force an Agility test on Gollum, else the world ends (same if Gollum passes the test). If Gollum fails, he tumbles to his death with the ring. (Saved by shrewd performance during the scenario prior, allowing to retain a Fate Point.)
All of these are valid, workable variants some of which may be more appealing to some gamers than others; they're certainly not the only ways to handle the event of Frodo bringing the [ring to the] chasm."

Quote from: jhkim;1101586Polished isn't the same as meaningful. Any personal creative activity I do isn't polished at the time that I'm doing it, but it's often more meaningful than passively consuming someone else's creativity - even a classic, polished novel.

I mean... it depends on what is meaningful for the person in question. Some people write songs to deal with depression or loss and so the act of self-expression is meaningful to them. For me, getting a new angle on the fundamental nature of life is meaningful, for example. I think I had one or two such moments watching Game of Thrones but I can't recall the last time I had that in a game.

Beyond those two examples for ways of finding meaning in creative endeavours I am sure there are many, many more out there. But I guess the above explains at least my skepticism. Plus, personally, I find the power of mercy theme in Tolkien's story not too profound either. Otoh, if the intention was to advocate being merciful to younger readers in particular, it's probably an effective approach, so I have no quibble.

Quote from: Itachi;1101595This is nonsense. Hit Points are based on naval hulls from wargames (https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-history-of-hit-points/) that Gygax and Arneson knew at the time. Nothing do to with "classical heroic luck".

I don't know. I mean the basic purpose is to increase the survivability of heroes beyond that of common man. (The funny part is all the charges leveled against metacurrency as suspension-undermining could be leveled against hitpoints just as well. It's a safety net.) But even if we look purely at the luck side of hitpoints and ignore its nonsensical mixing with health, we find that hitpoints just reflect a subset of the luck heroes have in fantasy stories: the luck of escaping being seriously wounded or killed, at least initially, until your luck runs out.

But it's very easy to demonstrate that this is just one of many ways in which heroic luck works (and in fact I have given an example above with Jon Snow suddenly finding a hammer), so hitpoints are not an accurate representation. It's incomplete.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101608Since the whole thing was just cause for a thought experiment to see if the protagonist failing but the campaign not ending in disaster was workable in an RPG (a special type of Failing Forward), you're not adding to the conversation, you're just showing-off. And even THAT is ignoring that the citation you provided by no means proves that Frodo could have never cast the ring into the fire. If you got some better quote though, let's hear it, even though it's not relevant to the thought experiment itself.

1. Why would you want to see a citation (https://excerpts-from-tolkien.tumblr.com/post/54918610934/sauron-rules-a-growing-empire-from-the-great) that isn't relevant?

2. Your experiment fails because you are misinterpreting the events at Mount Doom.

QuoteThat doesn't apply to the thought experiment though. If you were less busy demonstrating your knowledge of LotR, you might have noticed that.

Then come up with a more appropriate example. All you've managed to do so far is demonstrate how trying to simulate a static narrative like LOTR requires deforming the narrative with band-aid mechanics like "fail-forward".
Perhaps a better approach would be to look at Tolkien's themes and see how an RPG scenario could emulate them.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;11016221. Why would you want to see a citation (https://excerpts-from-tolkien.tumblr.com/post/54918610934/sauron-rules-a-growing-empire-from-the-great) that isn't relevant?

Because if true it would be an interesting bit of trivia.

"It was indissoluble in any fire, save the undying subterranean fire where it was made–and that was unapproachable, in Mordor. Also so great was the Ring's power of lust, that anyone who used it became mastered by it; it was beyond the strength of any will (even his own) to injure it, cast it away, or neglect it. So he thought. It was in any case on his finger."

I have no idea why you think that this is a quote in favor of your assertion, just like I don't get why you think quoting a statement made by a non-omniscient character in the fiction stating that success was remote (implying that it's not impossible) is of any use to you.

I was hoping for something more unambiguous, to be quite frank.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;11016222. Your experiment fails because you are misinterpreting the events at Mount Doom.

It cannot fail because of that since Lord of the Rings was no more than inspiration for the thought experiment. We can re-evaluate it without taking any recourse to that particular story since all we need is:
- protagonist fails at crucial moment and
- a catastrophic ending is averted anyway.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101622Then come up with a more appropriate example. All you've managed to do so far is demonstrate how trying to simulate a static narrative like LOTR requires deforming the narrative with band-aid mechanics like "fail-forward".

You're missing the point. Nobody wants to recreate the narrative of LOTR. The point of simulationism is well-encapsulated in that quote from the podcast:
"I found this to be very good at emulating the trilogy [...] it felt like I was in a new story in Middle Earth."

Combining the familiar (recognition value) with the new. If you have mechanics that help produce fiction like your static narrative, at least the adventuring side of it, you can write different scenarios and nonetheless help your players feel like they're "in a new story in Middle Earth" through these mechanics.

As an aside, that's also why Indiana Jones would be the best well-known setting for PbtA's Success-with-Complications - there's huge recognition value in that because it happens to Indy all the fucking time.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101622Perhaps a better approach would be to look at Tolkien's themes and see how an RPG scenario could emulate them.

Theme is more a question of scenario design than rules design. Rules can lend a helping hand here, yes, but the main thing is the scenario itself. Plus, as mentioned before, my top priority is getting the adventuring side right, not having less useful mechanics like D&D hitpoints (complete with healing magic and potions) get in the way of that. And heroic luck helps me do that.

Let's not forget that the most important quality to simulationism is a negative one: the absence of mechanics that induce fiction that conflicts with whatever you're simulating. Case-in-point: MERP/Rolemaster's magic system in a MERP campaign.

Unironically, the thread that started with One-true-wayism now is brought down by One-true-wayism.

I'm out.

P.S: Alexander, try to be more concise in yiur posts. You have good ideas and reasoning but when each paragraph is a bible, it becomes a tiresome reading.

Quote from: Itachi;1101595This is nonsense. Hit Points are based on naval hulls from wargames (https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-history-of-hit-points/) that Gygax and Arneson knew at the time. Nothing do to with "classical heroic luck".

I heard it was AC that came from the naval hulls and hit points came instead from traditional wargaming units where a single miniature might represent dozens of men. The idea was that as a character levelled up, they'd be worth more than one. That becomes your hit dice and hit points are a randomisation on top of that. As far as I'm aware, the luck / fate rationalisation came later.

Back to Fail Forward, I think there are two ideas getting crossed. One is the idea of Fail Forward as a deliberate game mechanic. The other is the idea that failure is not always the end of a game.

With the example of Frodo and the ring, Fail Forward would suggest that if you fail your objective you might still get what you want at a cost. He fails to destroy the ring himself, but the ring is still destroyed and he loses a finger. As a player, I know that would feel like a cop-out.

But normal failure would suggest that Frodo puts the ring on and becomes possessed by it. You now have options: the player takes on the role and objectives of the ring, or the player loses control and continues with a new character, or existing NPC, etc. The first is a good choice if you have a player who likes that kind of role play. The same situations might play out naturally, or something else entirely. It might not be the story but it also might not be less interesting for it. It will however, be your story to tell to your descendants should you survive.

What if the player succeeds? Natural 20. Frodo throws the ring into the fire. Now Gollum has nothing to do. Maybe he just jumps in after the ring? Maybe the ring loses its hold over him too.

None of this requires Fail Forward as a mechanic. That is only required if you want to force the story to follow your predetermined plot.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101678"It was indissoluble in any fire, save the undying subterranean fire where it was made–and that was unapproachable, in Mordor. Also so great was the Ring's power of lust, that anyone who used it became mastered by it; it was beyond the strength of any will (even his own) to injure it, cast it away, or neglect it. So he thought. It was in any case on his finger."

And yet, it was Gollum's neglect that let it fall into Bilbo's hands. And Bilbo passed it on to Frodo, with a bit of encouragement from Gandalf. Sam, also was able to give it up, even after wearing it. Gandalf, Galadriel, and Aragorn were all able to refuse it even when it was freely offered. And Tom Bombadil was entirely untouched.

Quote from: mightybrain;1101838With the example of Frodo and the ring, Fail Forward would suggest that if you fail your objective you might still get what you want at a cost. He fails to destroy the ring himself, but the ring is still destroyed and he loses a finger. As a player, I know that would feel like a cop-out.

I agree. However, the reason why it would feel like a cop-out is because the cost involved here is so little. That's why one of my alternative suggestions was that the Sam player has one final chance to stop Gollum but only at the cost of taking his character down with him. I surely would feel badly as Frodo player if a friend had to sacrifice their beloved PC only because I failed the pivotal roll. So that might work for me.

In essence, Success-at-a-Cost allows you risk management, since you can set the costs anywhere between marginal and full-blown catastrophe. It sure beats "fudging the dice because the GM can't commit to the stakes he originally set out."

Quote from: mightybrain;1101838None of this requires Fail Forward as a mechanic. That is only required if you want to force the story to follow your predetermined plot.

...which is sometimes a fine thing to do.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101862I agree. However, the reason why it would feel like a cop-out is because the cost involved here is so little. That's why one of my alternative suggestions was that the Sam player has one final chance to stop Gollum but only at the cost of taking his character down with him. I surely would feel badly as Frodo player if a friend had to sacrifice their beloved PC only because I failed the pivotal roll. So that might work for me.

In essence, Success-at-a-Cost allows you risk management, since you can set the costs anywhere between marginal and full-blown catastrophe. It sure beats "fudging the dice because the GM can't commit to the stakes he originally set out."



...which is sometimes a fine thing to do.

if by sometimes we mean almost never.

Quote from: mightybrain;1101838I heard it was AC that came from the naval hulls and hit points came instead from traditional wargaming units where a single miniature might represent dozens of men. The idea was that as a character levelled up, they'd be worth more than one.

That makes sense. That sort of mechanic is still used in wargames, such as Lion Rampant. The figures in the unit are removed as damage is taken, as a visual representation of how much strength the unit has remaining... and solitary figures, command and such, will have a few more points than the average infantry figure.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101862the reason why it would feel like a cop-out is because the cost involved here is so little.

No, the reason it would feel like a cop-out is because it would be the like the DM reaching into the game to make sure that you can't fail. The thrill is in risking everything.

[video=youtube;PMFAOvzkcEs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMFAOvzkcEs[/youtube]

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101678Because if true it would be an interesting bit of trivia.

"It was indissoluble in any fire, save the undying subterranean fire where it was made–and that was unapproachable, in Mordor. Also so great was the Ring's power of lust, that anyone who used it became mastered by it; it was beyond the strength of any will (even his own) to injure it, cast it away, or neglect it. So he thought. It was in any case on his finger."

I have no idea why you think that this is a quote in favor of your assertion, just like I don't get why you think quoting a statement made by a non-omniscient character in the fiction stating that success was remote (implying that it's not impossible) is of any use to you.

I was hoping for something more unambiguous, to be quite frank.

I think you're being intentionally obtuse, and this topic is getting very tiresome.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1101961I think you're being intentionally obtuse, and this topic is getting very tiresome.

I think you're being intentionally obtuse.  

Even Bullwinkle (of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame) knows that the hero is supposed to arrive in the 'Ta-Dah' Nick of Time.  

In a standard adventure, there's really no reason why the PCs shouldn't arrive 3 days before or 3 days after the cultists have begun their dark ritual.  But narrative concerns indicate that the PCs arriving in the 'ta-dah' nick of time is more interesting for the players and the game.  Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE takes some narrative considerations with their game.  It may become a point of pride to pretend that they don't, but ultimately every example I have seen ultimately boils down to simple obfuscation.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1102165I think you're being intentionally obtuse.  

Even Bullwinkle (of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame) knows that the hero is supposed to arrive in the 'Ta-Dah' Nick of Time.  

In a standard adventure, there's really no reason why the PCs shouldn't arrive 3 days before or 3 days after the cultists have begun their dark ritual.  But narrative concerns indicate that the PCs arriving in the 'ta-dah' nick of time is more interesting for the players and the game.  Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE takes some narrative considerations with their game.  It may become a point of pride to pretend that they don't, but ultimately every example I have seen ultimately boils down to simple obfuscation.

This reminds me of a Star Wars adventure that was built with a really tight timeline. So tight, in fact, that it was impossible for the PCs to pull it off in their ship with a Class 2 hyperdrive. The adventure never said you needed a Class 1 (or better) hyperdrive to have any chance of success, so after the second scene, the PCs were just like "man, that sucks, but we'll never be able to get there in time and if we get there late we'll be no help at all, so let's just not bother."

Quote from: mightybrain;1101955No, the reason it would feel like a cop-out is because it would be the like the DM reaching into the game to make sure that you can't fail. The thrill is in risking everything.

You can risk everything only so often before losing everything. With Success-at-a-Cost you can set the stakes anywhere between marginal and losing near everything.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1102165Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE takes some narrative considerations with their game.  It may become a point of pride to pretend that they don't, but ultimately every example I have seen ultimately boils down to simple obfuscation.

Every group has their own balance between considerations of game aspects, dramaturgy and plausibility, just like most writers have to struggle with what might be dramatically pleasing but implausible versus what might be plausible but rather boring. As long as they don't try to sell me their own balance as objectively better, I'm fine with it.

Quote from: Itachi;1101682Unironically, the thread that started with One-true-wayism now is brought down by One-true-wayism.

Indeed.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1102504You can risk everything only so often before losing everything.

Which is entirely the point.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1101350Who is making this decision in Blades in the Dark? Is the player playing their character or sitting at the chess board moving pieces?

Alot of board gamers trying to play RPGs want the second part and try to "fix" RPGs to be more like board games. Or just ARE board games.

Quote from: mightybrain;1102628Which is entirely the point.

Which might be fine if you're not engaged in heroic roleplaying. For, if you are, characters are presumed to not be short-lived, on average. Restricting high risk situations for campaign enders does work in that context but lower stakes might work for different groups as well.

Quote from: Omega;1102637Alot of board gamers trying to play RPGs want the second part and try to "fix" RPGs to be more like board games. Or just ARE board games.

I think part of it stems from thinking we are playing against the GM and that having more tools to win is a good thing. I enjoy board games and war games (and card games) but I don't need RPGs to scratch that itch.

I've been chewing on the whole LotR moment discussed here, Frodo's "failure" to immediately toss the ring in the pools, below. The key, of course, is consequence, which, in the case of the movie, anyway, is that Frodo finally succumbs to weakness, and keeps the ring. If we're dealing with simple P/F, he likely just becomes Sauron's tool, and the ring goes to the Dark Lord. Campaign maybe ends there, but, then again, maybe it continues with the resistance, as stalwarts continue the fight in a now darkened world. Instead, though, Gollum shows up, and a struggle ensues. The ring ends up destroyed, but so does Frodo. He can never enjoy the fruits of the pyrrhic victory. However, because the ring IS destroyed, it would seem to me that the result was "Success, at a cost," since, ultimately, the quest is fulfilled. To me, a "Fail Forward" indicates that the current objective failed, but the campaign can continue, with the parameters changed. Maybe the next iteration is figuring out how to recover the ring once more, with a darkened Frodo as the key.

I had a similar situation long, long ago, in which the PCs were completely outclassed by the bid bad, who took the macguffin (can't recall what it was), and placed them in suspended animation. They were freed sometime later, by members of the current resistance. Resistance thought the PCs had the ability to defeat the bad guy. But then there was the whole, "why aren't we dead?" question. Turned out that the Big Bad had created some sort of pact that ensured his invincibility as long as any of the PCs were still alive. Now, they could simply say, fine, we'll all just commit suicide and rid the world of this thing. But, of course, there's a way, a very risky way, to break the bond, thus rendering the BB beatable, while giving the PCs the ability to take him out, if they succeeded. The Fail Forward led to a less desirable situation, in which the PCs were pursuing said means to win without sacrificing themselves, while certain members of the resistance were hunting them down (along with the Big Bad's lackeys). Alas, we never finished the thing, but the whole affair was brought about by serious fails on the part of the PCs in their initial attempt -- no one made a saving throw. And I mean more than one. But rather than just stop there, we just complicated the situation. Further, Big Bad had a backup in place, in that, an NPC who appeared vaporized was TP'ed and put in stasis. We never quite got to that nasty surprise, however.

Anyhoo, that situation occurred playing 2E, with not FF mechanic. It was just a way to keep the campaign going, and give the players a second chance. Because they liked their PCs, and liked the idea of the new struggle. We just didn't finish because, well, that happens sometimes.

Quote from: cranebump;1102800I've been chewing on the whole LotR moment discussed here, Frodo's "failure" to immediately toss the ring in the pools, below. The key, of course, is consequence, which, in the case of the movie, anyway, is that Frodo finally succumbs to weakness, and keeps the ring. If we're dealing with simple P/F, he likely just becomes Sauron's tool, and the ring goes to the Dark Lord.

Well, it would be my first consideration as well. But it has drawbacks: first, it's predictable. It just gets old when the world is at stake everytime. Gimme something else, at least once in a while. It's as with the Marvel movies: a huge part of Marvel fatigue is that the villain very often seeks to destroy or conquer the world. Kinda stale.

Also, as I have discovered running Deathwatch, the death of one person is a tragedy, the death of billions is a statistic.

Quote from: cranebump;1102800Maybe the next iteration is figuring out how to recover the ring once more, with a darkened Frodo as the key.

I'd very hesitant about that. "Second chances" at winning tend to be tension-undermining, part of why I have avoided any rerolls in my game. Not a suggestion like yours can't be pulled off but it needs be done in an interesting way (not just a repeat) and you need to signal that THIS TIME IT'S FINAL.

Quote from: cranebump;1102800Anyhoo, that situation occurred playing 2E, with not FF mechanic. It was just a way to keep the campaign going, and give the players a second chance. Because they liked their PCs, and liked the idea of the new struggle. We just didn't finish because, well, that happens sometimes.

Sounds fun; the only caveat I have is that I am no big fan of GMs changing the stakes spontaneously because they can't commit to the stakes they have set-out to begin with. What I have called challenge-driven design (http://www.knightsoftheblacklily.com/2018/03/a-brand-new-angle-on-running-rpgs/) requires the GM to set up the stakes in advance and stick to them. To that end, you need some system tools for setting stakes to exactly the level you're comfortable with and can stay committed to.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1102878I'd very hesitant about that. "Second chances" at winning tend to be tension-undermining, part of why I have avoided any rerolls in my game. Not a suggestion like yours can't be pulled off but it needs be done in an interesting way (not just a repeat) and you need to signal that THIS TIME IT'S FINAL.

I agree with your basic observation here. However, I don't know that it's a true "second chance," if the parameters/goals change in some way. I liken it to crafting a sequel, based on the outcome of the previous arc (for ex, Luke confronts Vader, discovers a truth, loses a hand, and now his goals change). I think, though, that that example fits your "not a repeat" criterion, as the rebellion has essentially evolved due to a setback (as have the characters). I also feel like there's still some tension involved if failure means things get much, much worse. Survival in a shittier situation isn't really desirable, either. I do agree with you that it's a tenuous balance, and that an end point in sight, with very high stakes, is definitely preferable to generating high tension/drama.

QuoteSounds fun; the only caveat I have is that I am no big fan of GMs changing the stakes spontaneously because they can't commit to the stakes they have set-out to begin with. What I have called challenge-driven design (http://www.knightsoftheblacklily.com/2018/03/a-brand-new-angle-on-running-rpgs/) requires the GM to set up the stakes in advance and stick to them. To that end, you need some system tools for setting stakes to exactly the level you're comfortable with and can stay committed to.

Well, I disagree here, as I feel like my commitment is to challenging the players (and their characters). Therefore the challenges should evolve with them, in my book. To that end, I've taken a page from DW's Front design in order to track campaign and individual stakes, with an eye toward sacrifice, if it comes to it, when/if things become unraveled. You fail versus the invasion? Live under a tyrant. You join the rebellion? Good. This fails, you get trucked to a labor camp (if you're lucky). You and some allies break out? Great. Where you gonna go now? And are you gonna travel with these other folks, some of whom really are shady bastards? You decide to find greener pastures? Cool, but what about those family members that still live in Tyranttown? Fuck them? Okay, live with the guilt (if you have any), and maybe face a similar situation in a different location, where a chance to redeem yourself through an adopted family asserts itself. Fuck them, too? Okay, now what? I'll wait...:-)

This probably fits the "changing goals" definition, but that's how'd I'd approach campaign evolution, assuming I was running something long term. If I'm sticking to one front or end goal, then, yeah, when it's over it's over. I much prefer having the game world evolve, however, and the PCs along with it. Provided, of course, that the players wanted their PCs to continue. I should note here that I don't have a problem with lethality. We always have PCs bite the dust, because, like you, I do not reroll (and I roll in the open, save for such things as perception, stealth, etc.). I don't fudge the rolls, but I do consider the consequences as springboards to something else, particularly if the players fail (by that I mean to achieve goals, not specific task rolls). "Forward" doesn't mean they don't have setbacks. It just means the game goes on. That's a play style, I'll grant, and not for everyone.

Quote from: cranebump;1102912I agree with your basic observation here. However, I don't know that it's a true "second chance," if the parameters/goals change in some way.

It solely depends on the expectations with which your players (! compare below) approached that first pivotal test.

Quote from: cranebump;1102912I liken it to crafting a sequel, based on the outcome of the previous arc (for ex, Luke confronts Vader, discovers a truth, loses a hand, and now his goals change). I think, though, that that example fits your "not a repeat" criterion,

I agree. Same for fighting evil Frodo. Still, it's not for every group of players, as you can see from some of the reactions in this thread. For me, personally, it also comes down to what I was refering to in my last post: was that sequel always the planned outcome for a failed test OR did the GM soften the stakes mid-stream?

Quote from: cranebump;1102912Well, I disagree here, as I feel like my commitment is to challenging the players (and their characters). Therefore the challenges should evolve with them, in my book. To that end, I've taken a page from DW's Front design in order to track campaign and individual stakes, with an eye toward sacrifice, if it comes to it, when/if things become unraveled.

The thing is that challenge is all about beating expectations (GM or scenario author expectations in this case) and the less spontaneous and the more rigidly set-up (and tested) those expectations are, the greater the potential satisfaction. It's less whimsical and makes your performance more comparable to others, even if just in theory. It gives you more bragging rights.

Quote from: cranebump;1102912You fail versus the invasion? Live under a tyrant. You join the rebellion? Good. This fails, you get trucked to a labor camp (if you're lucky). You and some allies break out? Great. Where you gonna go now? And are you gonna travel with these other folks, some of whom really are shady bastards? You decide to find greener pastures? Cool, but what about those family members that still live in Tyranttown? Fuck them? Okay, live with the guilt (if you have any), and maybe face a similar situation in a different location, where a chance to redeem yourself through an adopted family asserts itself. Fuck them, too? Okay, now what? I'll wait...:-)

This sounds more like story-driven role-playing to my ear (which, ofc, is not a judgemental statement coming from me).

Quote from: cranebump;1102912I don't fudge the rolls, but I do consider the consequences as springboards to something else, particularly if the players fail (by that I mean to achieve goals, not specific task rolls). "Forward" doesn't mean they don't have setbacks. It just means the game goes on. That's a play style, I'll grant, and not for everyone.

In Knights of the Black Lily, the GM isn't supposed to fudge the dice either - he just spends Fortune to create a new event that manipulates the situation (which means that doing so always creates a forwards motion in the story, whether good or bad for the players, instead of directly undoing some situation), which goes into the player's pool. At least, if it's an event detrimental to them. And, of course, the players can spend themselves Fortune in place of a "GM dice-fudge".
The point is that it all has positive or negative consequences at the end of the scenario, when you take the final tally of Fortune Pools. It's not like in FATE or FFG Star Wars, where it doesn't matter how much you or the GM has left.
And by doing all of this, you're creating a metric for player (! not PC) performance. Which in turn is all about beating expectations.

Breaking my promise of non-participation to comment on this:

Quote from: cranebump;1102912Well, I disagree here, as I feel like my commitment is to challenging the players (and their characters). Therefore the challenges should evolve with them, in my book. To that end, I've taken a page from DW's Front design in order to track campaign and individual stakes, with an eye toward sacrifice, if it comes to it, when/if things become unraveled. You fail versus the invasion? Live under a tyrant. You join the rebellion? Good. This fails, you get trucked to a labor camp (if you're lucky). You and some allies break out? Great. Where you gonna go now? And are you gonna travel with these other folks, some of whom really are shady bastards? You decide to find greener pastures? Cool, but what about those family members that still live in Tyranttown? Fuck them? Okay, live with the guilt (if you have any), and maybe face a similar situation in a different location, where a chance to redeem yourself through an adopted family asserts itself. Fuck them, too? Okay, now what? I'll wait...:-)

This probably fits the "changing goals" definition, but that's how'd I'd approach campaign evolution, assuming I was running something long term. If I'm sticking to one front or end goal, then, yeah, when it's over it's over. I much prefer having the game world evolve, however, and the PCs along with it. Provided, of course, that the players wanted their PCs to continue. I should note here that I don't have a problem with lethality. We always have PCs bite the dust, because, like you, I do not reroll (and I roll in the open, save for such things as perception, stealth, etc.). I don't fudge the rolls, but I do consider the consequences as springboards to something else, particularly if the players fail (by that I mean to achieve goals, not specific task rolls). "Forward" doesn't mean they don't have setbacks. It just means the game goes on. That's a play style, I'll grant, and not for everyone.

THIS is a great encapsulation of Fail Forward as actually used in games, by someone with actual play experience in them. Notice how it has nothing to do with "players never fail", instant gratification or other strawman cited by Pundit in that vid.

Here, bro..

(https://i.imgflip.com/rko2w.jpg)

Quote from: Itachi;1102921Breaking my promise of non-participation to comment on this:


THIS is a great encapsulation of Fail Forward as actually used in games, by someone with actual play experience in them. Notice how it has nothing to do with "players never fail", instant gratification or other strawman cited by Pundit in that vid.

Here, bro..

(https://i.imgflip.com/rko2w.jpg)

Well, you know...blind squirrel and all that...:-) (thanks, man)

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1102919It solely depends on the expectations with which your players (! compare below) approached that first pivotal test.



I agree. Same for fighting evil Frodo. Still, it's not for every group of players, as you can see from some of the reactions in this thread. For me, personally, it also comes down to what I was refering to in my last post: was that sequel always the planned outcome for a failed test OR did the GM soften the stakes mid-stream?



The thing is that challenge is all about beating expectations (GM or scenario author expectations in this case) and the less spontaneous and the more rigidly set-up (and tested) those expectations are, the greater the potential satisfaction. It's less whimsical and makes your performance more comparable to others, even if just in theory. It gives you more bragging rights.



This sounds more like story-driven role-playing to my ear (which, ofc, is not a judgemental statement coming from me).



In Knights of the Black Lily, the GM isn't supposed to fudge the dice either - he just spends Fortune to create a new event that manipulates the situation (which means that doing so always creates a forwards motion in the story, whether good or bad for the players, instead of directly undoing some situation), which goes into the player's pool. At least, if it's an event detrimental to them. And, of course, the players can spend themselves Fortune in place of a "GM dice-fudge".
The point is that it all has positive or negative consequences at the end of the scenario, when you take the final tally of Fortune Pools. It's not like in FATE or FFG Star Wars, where it doesn't matter how much you or the GM has left.
And by doing all of this, you're creating a metric for player (! not PC) performance. Which in turn is all about beating expectations.

No overt disagreement. I would only clarify that said "story" I use as an example is nothing more than consequence-driven outcomes, based on the results of the tasks/goals at hand. I'm not worried about a comparable performance (probably because my GM brain doesn't work that way), and I don't think my players are either. At least, none of them seem to be (they keep showing up, so that's probably my metric).

That said, I do dispute the value of a planned sequel versus an evolving one (assuming I'm reading that right), as you can't plan a true sequel without knowledge of previous events. I mean, you can tack a sequel on to a successful end campaign result, too (a new threat arises, the success produces an unexpected consequence, the characters find their fame complicates their life in undesirable ways [ex: everyone wants their treasure/time now]). So, I'm not sure what you mean there, and why I should value it over what I'm already doing that seems successful. Maybe I need a different example?

Beyond that, I think players have their own metrics, some of which may be quite simple (as in, "Wow...that was some good beer we had during the last session...").:-)

Quote from: Itachi;1102921THIS is a great encapsulation of Fail Forward as actually used in games, by someone with actual play experience in them. Notice how it has nothing to do with "players never fail", instant gratification or other strawman

It's a great encapsulation of failing forward as a description of the results of normal play. But it's not an example of using a Fail Forward game mechanic.

What cranebump is describing, is playing on with the consequences of the failure leading to new adventure opportunities. I think we all do that anyway. But with a Fail Forward game mechanic you would typically negotiate the consequences of success and failure before making the roll. The result would then be automatic and fast wind you to the next decision point. In that sense it's a shortcut. But it also allows the players a say in the consequences of their actions.

Quote from: cranebump;1102912To that end, I've taken a page from DW's Front design in order to track campaign and individual stakes, with an eye toward sacrifice, if it comes to it, when/if things become unraveled. You fail versus the invasion? Live under a tyrant. You join the rebellion? Good. This fails, you get trucked to a labor camp (if you're lucky). You and some allies break out? Great. Where you gonna go now? And are you gonna travel with these other folks, some of whom really are shady bastards? You decide to find greener pastures? Cool, but what about those family members that still live in Tyranttown? Fuck them? Okay, live with the guilt (if you have any), and maybe face a similar situation in a different location, where a chance to redeem yourself through an adopted family asserts itself. Fuck them, too? Okay, now what? I'll wait...:-)

[...] I much prefer having the game world evolve, however, and the PCs along with it.

But, you see, that raises the question of stakes: what's even at stake for the players in the entire scenario you established above? If they get a sense that all that is at stake is how the story goes on, that is nowhere the same as putting the life of their characters in the line. But then again, you said your PCs can die - it just doesn't express itself in the paragraph above.

So, if you're saying that you have mix between this kind of Failing Forward and other, high-risk scenes along the way, then we're on the same page. Again, I take stand for a certain amount of variety in the gaming experience.

Quote from: cranebump;1102928That said, I do dispute the value of a planned sequel versus an evolving one (assuming I'm reading that right), as you can't plan a true sequel without knowledge of previous events.)

I didn't mean to imply detail planning here. It's enough to set the stake in advance as: "If the Frodo PC fails his Willpower test, he irrevocably succumbs and becomes an evil NPC. If that happens, Middle-Earth doesn't automatically get consumed, however; the remaining PCs will still have a chance to kill evil Frodo somewhere down the line in a follow-up campaign and save the setting."

Quote from: cranebump;1102912Beyond that, I think players have their own metrics, some of which may be quite simple (as in, "Wow...that was some good beer we had during the last session...").:-)

Regarding the topic of challenges specifically, let's just say that if the players feel the GM spontaneously lessened the stakes above from an earlier stake of "If that Willpower test fails, then it's immediately Game Over", then it might undermine any sense of accomplishment in the follow-up campaign.

Which is why my assertion is: the more thoughtfully planned out in advance a challenge is (stakes, difficulty level), the greater the potential satisfaction in beating said challenge. Challenges are about beating expectations.

Quote from: cranebump;1102912Well, I disagree here, as I feel like my commitment is to challenging the players (and their characters). Therefore the challenges should evolve with them, in my book. To that end, I've taken a page from DW's Front design in order to track campaign and individual stakes, with an eye toward sacrifice, if it comes to it, when/if things become unraveled. You fail versus the invasion? Live under a tyrant. You join the rebellion? Good. This fails, you get trucked to a labor camp (if you're lucky). You and some allies break out? Great. Where you gonna go now? And are you gonna travel with these other folks, some of whom really are shady bastards? You decide to find greener pastures? Cool, but what about those family members that still live in Tyranttown? Fuck them? Okay, live with the guilt (if you have any), and maybe face a similar situation in a different location, where a chance to redeem yourself through an adopted family asserts itself. Fuck them, too? Okay, now what? I'll wait...:-)

This probably fits the "changing goals" definition, .

Changing Goals is a great term to differentiate dealing with the concequences of failure versus Failing Forward into success.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1103625Changing Goals is a great term to differentiate dealing with the concequences of failure versus Failing Forward into success.

Goals evolve, if the campaign continues though, don't they? And I don't agree with failing into success, which isn't what fail forward is supposed to be, I don't think. I always interpreted it as, "don't fail into a dead end."

Alexander K: I think you're implying that anything other than a strict adherence to a present stake, or rather consequence, is the best way to arbitrate challenge, as it provides a clear, non-shifting benchmark (is that it?). I may be off on that one. I do think we're mostly in agreement as to the way we might run the same scenario. Maybe. Part of that, too, is that I envision possible consequences, but, when adjudicating results, I might think of something better on the fly. Going by a strict recounting of our campaigns, though, we've had plenty of characters fall, so I can't unequivocally say I'm 100% on the FF wagon. I don't discount it, though, if it leads somewhere worth pursuing, in my judgment (which includes how I perceive the players' desires when it comes to what's fun).