I'm sorta confused, so which meaning is it?

Is "fail forward" about failure by degrees: failure that offers either softened  failure or lateral opportunity to try again, or success that spawns the absurd?

Is it "no, but" a) failure not so dire, thus task is recoverable in the future by trying again.

Or "no, but" b) failure changed setting state with new opportunity, thus task is recoverable in the future by picking an expanded choice of paths (including just trying again).

Or is it going full Little Britain on us with "no but, yeah but, no but, yeah it couldn't happen that way because Jenny Fischer totally fancies griffons, and Stephen Driscoll is just gorgeous with tattoos, and they had a snog on the rope bridge last Saturday during the festival, but principal Goodley doesn't approve, so the bridge was under reconstruction, and then real griffons nested while no one was there... so yeah, Sally couldn't have fallen down. But the griffons would be mad, though."

Is it just a new way of saying the Peter Principle of "falling upwards"? Needs clarity!

Some folks love that obfuscation. If we cut out jargon like "failing forward," we might actually talk about, you know, what question we're really trying to answer with the dice roll.

Quote from: Opaopajr;680123I'm sorta confused, so which meaning is it?

The way I interpret it is more 'yes but'. You might have failed the roll but that doesn't mean you made no progress towards achieving your action.

Look at it another way: a thief is trying to pick the lock on a building and there are guards walking the perimeter. You could make the player roll every round and either 1) decide ahead of time how many rounds the player has before the guards would arrive and see them, or 2) say that there is a random chance every round that the guards arrive.

The thief might pick the lock, or they might take to long. And to model that outcome you need to go through multiple dice rolls for the thief and the guards.

Or you could just give the thief one roll and either say that they pick the lock in plenty if time (success) or mange it only at the moment that the guards arrive and see him (failure).

Same possible results, same plausibility, but 'fail forward' only requires a single dice roll to resolve the situation whilst the other method may require many rolls.

So it can just be used to save table time rather than for any other nefarious purposes. To me, this is worthwhile as my time for RPing is limited.

Quote from: dbm;680169Or you could just give the thief one roll and either say that they pick the lock in plenty if time (success) or mange it only at the moment that the guards arrive and see him (failure).

Same possible results, same plausibility, but 'fail forward' only requires a single dice roll to resolve the situation whilst the other method may require many rolls.

That's exactly what I've been doing since early-90's(urgh).
I really did not call it anything but "playing the game".

I'll just quickly apologize because I think I caused some of the confusion, as I brought up the EotE dice rolling, which isn't "failing forward" the way people here see it but is more just a nonbinary resolution method. (Success and Failure is one axis, Advantage and Threat is another and they are independent from one another).

However that's just "yes, but"; that's still a success.

Look, I understand about compounding tasks resolutions, but that example is not about two separate tasks. It's one task contested, in that case by time pressure. It does have an issue of bookkeeping that could be folded into a singular roll, but degree of success already handled that ages before.

To "yes, but" you 'can open the lock, but the guards saw you.' However that avoids answering an actual "no, but." It's losing sight of the task resolution and conflating it into conflict resolution and then talking itself into circles where there's no presence of actual failure. To task rez "no, but" that situation it would be you 'cannot open the lock, but the guards turned around to go back around the block, you have more time' (or you 'cannot open the lock, but a discreet cover to a number pad panel is revealed').

It's like a trapeze artist trying to swing to the next trapeze artist. When you fail you don't successfully grab the next trapeze artist, but only got one hand grip (or other artist is now unbalanced, etc.). That's "yes, but." When you fail you do not complete the task. So the trapeze artist either fails and falls onto a safety net, fails and aborts to try again, or fails and aborts and aims for another swing.

If there is no risk to actually finishing the task on that specific attempt, merely about benefits or inconveniences later, why don't we skip to rolling the dice for just benefits or inconveniences. For yes to matter there has to be a real no.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;680179I'll just quickly apologize because I think I caused some of the confusion, as I brought up the EotE dice rolling, which isn't "failing forward" the way people here see it but is more just a nonbinary resolution method. (Success and Failure is one axis, Advantage and Threat is another and they are independent from one another).

No apology necessary. I brought it up first in this topic along with IN SJG. But again, that's just degree of success attached to pass/fail. It's a very old resolution tactic and what I thought people were talking about. If anyone's to blame its me for not getting what people are talking about.

Apparently there's a strain out there among other fora that interperets "no, but" directly into "yes, but" as if they are interchangeable. And the justification is because "saying no doesn't keep the game moving" (rather cryptic nonsense, but whatever). What you are talking about sounds grounded with consequences, whereas this interpretation handwaves failure away outright. At that point you might as well dump the pass/fail axis entirely.

It's to one extent understandable, yet at the same time curious, how hung up people get on defining "success and failure," as opposed to considering "what happens."

Quote from: baragei;680172That's exactly what I've been doing since early-90's(urgh).
I really did not call it anything but "playing the game".

Well, yeah.  I don't give a shit about the jargon, I don't consider it a rule, but I find it to be a good piece of advice for playing the game.

Quote from: Phillip;680192It's to one extent understandable, yet at the same time curious, how hung up people get on defining "success and failure," as opposed to considering "what happens."

I think there's also a backlash against anything from those evil "story games", regardless of what it is.  And I think a lot of that is from a perception that story games involve never failing and "roll to see how awesome you are".

And "roll to see how awesome you are" sucks ass.

Again, I like some things that would be considered story games, and I also like traditional games.  I see the two as being separate, but good, things.  The games I've spent the most on in the last year or so are Fate, AD&D 1, and GURPS.  So, I, for one, am not trying to convince anyone to run "story games" or that traditional games are teh suxxor.

Quote from: Benoist;680108"Failing forward" is a solution in search of a problem, very similar to the (narrative/meta) way Trail of Cthulhu tried to "fix" not finding a clue in intent and execution.

I think that a lot of storygame mechanics are a good read for newbie DMs.  I learned a lot just by reading Dungeon World.  The idea of "failing forward" is interesting to me because I never considered it in the first place.  Having been raised on 3e D&D (and having played with shitty DMs), I was very much a binary pass-fail kind of guy.

The purpose of failing forward isn't really trying to fix bad DMing, I think, but to teach people how to DM.  It's the training wheels of DMing, providing structure to the game that might overwhelm newbies.  Failing forward encourages the DM to put pressure on the players, to throw obstacles at them, to throw kinks in their plans.  People who have been DMing for 15+ years might not need it, but not everyone has a history of DMing.

One of the problems, perhaps a major problem with this concept is that you're limited in the number of skills or actions that can be codified in the rules. Even a rulings not rules approach isn't much help here either. Which is fine if all you want are a few options but for other games unless you and the group are looking forward to spending a lot of time scouring through hefty rulebooks for references on what happens when you failcceed this particular skill, it's a non starter. It's a pity since it can add a lot of depth to a game if done right.

Quote from: Archangel Fascist;680202I think that a lot of storygame mechanics are a good read for newbie DMs.

I COMPLETELY disagree. I think these teach all the wrong lessons, ESPECIALLY to newbie DMs. But since I just don't have any time to spare going back and forth with you on this topic, I'll just leave it at that.

Sounds like we need a community primer on basic resolution mechanics, compare and contrast what they offer, and how they can be mixed and matched to campaign tailored effect.

Well, there are two basically different attitudes:

A) The game is GM-driven, so it's up to the GM to arrange 'failure,' 'success' and 'interesting complications.'

B) The game is player-driven, so the natural accumulation of variable outcomes suffices to make interesting enough their pursuit of whatever goals they may choose for themselves.

Quote from: Benoist;680208But since I just don't have any time to spare going back and forth with you on this topic, I'll just leave it at that.

:rolleyes:

Too busy to slapfighting with Justin to spare the time.