# Failing Forward



## Morrus

I was curious how folks felt about this concept?  I'm a fan.  

Essentially, it's a mechanic, fairly common these days, which ensures that the game doesn't grind to a halt on a failed skill check.  Instead of the task at hand failing and stopping the game, the task is successful but with an attached disadvantage.

So, if the way into a dungeon is to pick the lock, and failing to do so would mean the party could not continue, the lock gets picked but a trap is set off.  Or something.  That was a _terrible_ example; don't use it as a basis for judging the concept!

Some people love this; some games adopt it whole-heartedly. Other people dislike it, saying that the players should just think their way around to another solution and that the GM should be able to handle that. I'm in the former group; I think it's very useful, and use it for travel in my own RPG design.

So what do you think?


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## Nagol

It is an essential technique for more narrative games, but some situations make more sense (either narratively or contextually) for a failure to force a regroup/reevaluation.


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## Zaukrie

I think in 4e a friend of mine posted rules for this somewhere on this very site


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## darjr

When the game comes down to these stallable moments it can be a powerful tool and I've used it. 

Though I would prefer the players try to figure something else out, and if I've been good I've provided for other ways or can think of them on the fly. Even within an unchanged fiction.

Like anything I think it can be overused and I think it works best if those failing consequences were already present in the game.


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## Mercule

I'm generally in favor of it, in theory, even if I don't always remember to practice it as a GM.

My only issue with it is that, sometimes, failure really is part of the deal. While I've never had a TPK and only a few actual PC fatalities, I absolutely despise playing where death or some equivalent (forced retirement, gone crazy, whatever) is impossible. I just find success to be unfulfilling when it's guaranteed.

Worth calling out: That's a far, far cry from saying that I like meat grinders or that death and despair should be boon companions.


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## The Crimson Binome

Morrus said:


> Essentially, it's a mechanic, fairly common these days, which ensures that the game doesn't grind to a halt on a failed skill check.  Instead of the task at hand failing and stopping the game, the task is successful but with an attached disadvantage.



I think that it makes for a silly world, if outright failure is never a possibility. If you're testing whether someone can pick a lock, and there is no chance of failing to pick that lock, then the game mechanic is not providing a reasonable model of the activity.

A further consideration is that defining one direction as "forward" would imply that the GM is trying to direct the course of action of the player characters, which violates the GM's role as neutral arbiter. As the GM, I should not become attached to the outcome of any action. Whether they succeed or fail in opening that lock, either path is equally valid.

If you insist on meddling with the PCs and enforcing certain outcomes, there are subtler ways to do it. You could have the NPCs decide to use a cheaper lock, or a type of lock which one of the PCs is so familiar that no roll is necessary.


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## Umbran

I generally like fail forward, though I'm not sure if you're describing what I'm used to considering "fail forward".

Specifically, "fail forward" is not, as I understand it, "Succeed, but at cost," as FATE games often put it.  It is "Fail, but there is a pretty clear path to try something else."  And, as such it isn't so much a mechanic, as a bit of advice for the GM to not have all progress in an adventure blocked by a failure.

For example - Say the PCs are exploring a tomb, hunting the BBEG, who is in his secret lair, behind a super-secret door.  The players go through the dungeon, search for for secret doors, but they botch the roll, and fail to find it.

In "standard" play, this is basically a blocking issue.  The PCs cannot continue forward unless they find that door.  There's no clear path to moving forward.  The PCs don't even really know where they failed, as they don't know for sure there was a door to begin with.  All they know is they were told the BBEG was here, and they didn't find him.  Oh, well...

In "fail forward" the PCs fail to find the secret door.  Oops!  So, shortly, a minion comes up from the area of the dungeon they have cleared, that should be empty.  If they are smart enough to not kill the minion outright, the minion may be a source of information on where the BBEG is.  The PCs still have a chance to find the enemy, even though they failed the basic way.  Perhaps this will be a bit harder, or more complicated, as their guide is untrustworthy, or perhaps not.

In "succeed, but at cost," you find the door alright - just as the hairy troll steps out through it!  In order to use that door, roll for initiative!

We might say that, "Succeed, but at cost" is one way to get a fail forward, but it is not the only way.


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## Balesir

I think part of good "failing forward" is picking out what mustn't be failed at. To take the original example, must the lock picking succeed, or must the party just get past that door? If it's the former then maybe some deus ex machina might be required, but if it's the latter then maybe the door has a mishap  ("you were only supposed to blow the bloody door off!"...)

Given suitable "goal selection", though, I'm a fan.


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## Bedrockgames

Morrus said:


> I was curious how folks felt about this concept?  I'm a fan.
> 
> Essentially, it's a mechanic, fairly common these days, which ensures that the game doesn't grind to a halt on a failed skill check.  Instead of the task at hand failing and stopping the game, the task is successful but with an attached disadvantage.
> 
> So, if the way into a dungeon is to pick the lock, and failing to do so would mean the party could not continue, the lock gets picked but a trap is set off.  Or something.  That was a _terrible_ example; don't use it as a basis for judging the concept!
> 
> Some people love this; some games adopt it whole-heartedly. Other people dislike it, saying that the players should just think their way around to another solution and that the GM should be able to handle that. I'm in the former group; I think it's very useful, and use it for travel in my own RPG design.
> 
> So what do you think?




I'm not a fan of it. But I also think games don't have to grind to a halt simply because of a failed skill roll. Life moves on, so the game can move on too. I get why some people like it, and if fail forward works for you, I say go for it. It is just something that always rubbed me the wrong way as a player.


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## Umbran

Mercule said:


> I absolutely despise playing where death or some equivalent (forced retirement, gone crazy, whatever) is impossible. I just find success to be unfulfilling when it's guaranteed.




Well, "fail forward" is not usually applied to combat and character death.  It is more usually applied to tasks or events the PCs have to get through to move onward in the adventure.


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## Sunseeker

I like failing forward, because I've played in a game or two where continuation, especially in a story-based game, hinges on a single roll of a single stat, if that roll fails the entire game stops.  To me, that just seems inconceivably silly.


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## Bluenose

I like systems where there's a bit more nuance than Succeed with No Problems or Fail with No Recourse, and I also like it when there's a mechanic that lets me turn a failure into a success by accepting some sort of consequence. For rather obvious reasons I think it's a bad fit for D&D, which already has spells which ensure Success with No Problems in virtually all non-combat situations, to make skills less reliable and with more down-sides.


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## Jan van Leyden

Great in theory, but hard to implement in a covincing manner.

The hard task is to define a fail which triggers the situation.

In your example, Morrus, the party might have other ways to get through the door: the fighter may bash it down, the mage might have lots of different options. If any of these methods are still available and possible, the thief's failure to pick the lock doesn't mean a failure for the party's attempt to get past the door. The GM might wait for other approaches and not implement the fail forward.

But what if the players are unsuccessful in different ways or don't consider all the way the GM can think of? Say, the fighter unsuccessfully tries to bash the door down and the mage doesn't have the inspiration to use Gaseous Form to get to the other side and simply turn the key.

The GM still sees approaches to the problem, but the players don't. And now? Having the lock Deus-ex-machina-like open while the thief feels a prick in his finger? 

Ideally one would use the fail forward mechanism on the party's last attempt at the task, but how would one notice this?


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## delericho

Morrus said:


> So what do you think?




It's a good tool for a DM to have in his toolbox. But it isn't, and shouldn't be, the _only_ tool you have. Sometimes, a failure can just be a failure.



> Essentially, it's a mechanic, fairly common these days, which ensures that the game doesn't grind to a halt on a failed skill check.




IME, most such instances are a failure of game design - the designer forgot to consider "but what if they fail?" It's no different from an adventure designed assuming the PCs will just fight their way through everything, without considering the possibility that they might at least try to talk.



> So, if the way into a dungeon is to pick the lock, and failing to do so would mean the party could not continue, the lock gets picked but a trap is set off.  Or something.  That was a _terrible_ example; don't use it as a basis for judging the concept!




Accepting your disclaimer about the quality of the example, it does show exactly the problem: basically, a barrier which _must_ be passed and which can _only_ be passed in one particular way is a bad idea.



> Other people dislike it, saying that the players should just think their way around to another solution and that the GM should be able to handle that.




I'd go further than that - the GM (or adventure designer) should have at least considered alternative solutions when setting up the situation. I generally try to consider at least four broad approaches: brute force, negotiation, deception, or evasion. Obviously, not all apply in all cases - locked doors tend to be immune to deception (but you could still batter it down, pick the lock, or find another way in).


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## Jhaelen

Umbran said:


> Specifically, "fail forward" is not, as I understand it, "Succeed, but at cost," as FATE games often put it.  It is "Fail, but there is a pretty clear path to try something else."  And, as such it isn't so much a mechanic, as a bit of advice for the GM to not have all progress in an adventure blocked by a failure.



All right, that changes just about everything I was going to write.

As outlined by Morrus, 'fail forward' seems to be a concept to solve a problem that a well designed adventure presented by an experienced GM should never have. I simply don't design adventures in a way that they're grinding to a halt if a skill check doesn't succeed. If the players are at a loss how to continue with an adventure, there's always other things to do, other clues to follow. I realize it's a common problem of 'official' adventure modules, though.

Umbran's understanding, however, describes exactly why it's never a problem in my games, i.e. apparently I've already internalized the concept. Imho, it's a lot easier to avoid the problem when playing homebrew adventures in a homebrew setting because then the GM is basically omniscient and has (or should have) a very clear vision about the grand scheme of things. The 'worst' that can happen is if the players are trying a totally unexpected approach, catching the GM completely unprepared. But that's a different topic.


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## Mercule

Umbran said:


> Well, "fail forward" is not usually applied to combat and character death.  It is more usually applied to tasks or events the PCs have to get through to move onward in the adventure.



Sorry for not being clear. I was trying to make a comparison, but it looks like my train of thought got derailed.

My point really is that it's sometimes appropriate to have a "game over" condition, including the ability to totally botch an adventure to the point of being unable to finish it. A TPK is simply the most dramatic and obvious such condition, even if "fail forward" doesn't usually apply to death. Even so, I do feel that it should be fairly obvious that the PCs have "failed" the adventure and it's over -- there's little more frustrating than spinning your wheels for an entire session for no good reason. Also, not every locked or secret door should be a game over situation -- that should be reserved for (relatively) obvious decision points, just like I'd inclined to fudge the dice more during a random encounter with orcs than I am during the climactic showdown with the dragon.

I'm not entirely sure whether the "typical" advocate for "fail forward" leaves room for truly being able to fail at an adventure/reaching your goals or if it's more a matter of just having to take the long way around. I'm fully on board with reducing frustration, meaningless dead-ends, and gear-grinding. I'm not okay with no chance of real failure, whether the failure is hard (TPK) or soft (you brought the king anchovies, that's a crime and you'll never convince him, now).


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## delericho

Mercule said:


> My point really is that it's sometimes appropriate to have a "game over" condition, including the ability to totally botch an adventure to the point of being unable to finish it. ... Even so, I do feel that it should be fairly obvious that the PCs have "failed" the adventure and it's over -- there's little more frustrating than spinning your wheels for an entire session for no good reason.




Yep, I agree. Both success and failure should have fairly obvious signs: the PCs win when they kill the dragon; they lose if the dragon wipes out the village instead. Otherwise, players being players, they're liable to hold on to a lost cause beyond all reason or enjoyment (and then blame the DM/the game for not being enjoyable).


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## Morrus

Saelorn said:


> I think that it makes for a silly world, if outright failure is never a possibility.




It doesn't create a world where failure is never a possibility. It creates one where a specific group of heroes played by some players continue forward in the narrative rather than stopping dead. Like in a movie. It doesn't apply to every task, or even to anybody but PCs.



Umbran said:


> I generally like fail forward, though I'm not sure if you're describing what I'm used to considering "fail forward".
> 
> Specifically, "fail forward" is not, as I understand it, "Succeed, but at cost," as FATE games often put it.  It is "Fail, but there is a pretty clear path to try something else."  And, as such it isn't so much a mechanic, as a bit of advice for the GM to not have all progress in an adventure blocked by a failure.




Yeah, that's a much better description than mine



Balesir said:


> I think part of good "failing forward" is picking out what mustn't be failed at. To take the original example, must the lock picking succeed, or must the party just get past that door? If it's the former then maybe some deus ex machina might be required, but if it's the latter then maybe the door has a mishap  ("you were only supposed to blow the bloody door off!"...)




Well, I did say it was a terrible example!


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## Bedrockgames

Morrus said:


> It doesn't create a world where failure is never a possibility. It creates one where a specific group of heroes played by some players continue forward in the narrative rather than stopping dead. Like in a movie. It doesn't apply to every task, or even to anybody but PCs.
> !





I think if your going for something that feels more like the flow of a movie that makes a lot of sense. My play style is a little different so I am curious if this is something you feel needs to be tied to the task resolution system itself or if you are okay with it simply being more on the GM end of things. So I guess if its part of the task resolution system something like attempting to find a particular book in a library on a skill roll might not result in the actual book but maybe a lead to another location where more information can be found. But if it isn't tied to the roll itself, the players fail the roll, but after further questioning of people in the area or after a successful roll looking for a lead, they might find out about the other location. Both would largely lead to the same place, but one isn't as baked into the system.


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## Morrus

Bedrockgames said:


> so I am curious if this is something you feel needs to be tied to the task resolution system itself or if you are okay with it simply being more on the GM end of things.




I don't think the word "needs" goes anywhere near my thoughts on the subject. I think it's a useful tool with different implementations and I'n curious about folks' opinions on it. I can see both of those two suggested implementations.


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## Bedrockgames

Morrus said:


> I don't think the word "needs" goes anywhere near my thoughts on the subject. I think it's a useful tool with different implementations and I'n curious about folks' opinions on it. I can see both of those two suggested implementations.




I see. I do find things like this tend to trip me up, but increasingly I am becoming aware that people manage the flow of a game very differently and that it seems like a good tool if having that thread continue is important. Even though I don't use it though, I think there is an aspect to it in the way I play, in that i'm always open to solutions that ought to work, even if I didn't think of them in advance, and I assume most situations will have multiple solutions available. But I think that may be slightly different from proper fail forward.


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## Umbran

Jhaelen said:


> All right, that changes just about everything I was going to write.








> As outlined by Morrus, 'fail forward' seems to be a concept to solve a problem that a well designed adventure presented by an experienced GM should never have.




"Never" is such a strong word!  For example, you are probably considering an "adventure" to be pre-planned, with the really relevant monsters and encounters all planned out ahead of time, so that all possible failure points can be identified before play begins*.    But, as we all should know - not everyone prepares adventures that way.  That situation is not even a given expectation for all game systems, much less all GMs.

The "succeed, but at a cost" form of Fail Forward that Morrus originally posted comes (as I understand the history) from a game or two where significant parts of the adventure content and/or difficulty is determined during play, rather than in design before play.  When working in a more improvisational mode, you can't predict when you'll have a die roll that grinds things to a halt.  Success-at-a-cost then plays a neat double-duty of avoiding the grinding halt while also generating some of the improvisational content through those costs.



*This kind of assumes a sort of perfection in the designer that I'm a little skeptical about, to be honest, but let's accept it for now.


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## Reinhart

I like fail forward mechanics, but obviously you don't need special mechanics to embrace the fail forward philosophy. Any pass/fail mechanic can be interpreted as just whether or not plot progress comes at a significant cost or not. 

I see a few people arguing against the Fail Forward philosophy that mistakenly believe it makes failure impossible. Fail is in the very name! The point is not that failure is impossible but that failure should still lead to interesting plot results and not cause the story to slow to a grind. Making failure engaging instead of disengaging can be challenging for a GM to manage on the fly. However, like most GM skills, you get better at it through practice and planning.


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## Mercule

Umbran said:


> For example - Say the PCs are exploring a tomb, hunting the BBEG, who is in his secret lair, behind a super-secret door.  The players go through the dungeon, search for for secret doors, but they botch the roll, and fail to find it.



This actually sparks an example from a game several years back. I'd consider it acceptable, in terms of "failing forward", but would be interested in what others thought.

The PCs needed to retrieve some widget from a dead sage/artificer's lair. I don't remember what it was, but let's say a sword. The sword was well guarded (think Tomb of Horrors lite), but quite within the PCs ability to reach. They were under a time constraint and dangerous things occasionally spawned. They managed to get the sword but discovered that the sage also had a journal that revealed things about the campaign's BBEG and said journal was still on premises. They tried, but could not find it in a reasonable amount of time -- need to use sword to stop bad thing.

A couple months thereafter, the Warlock went back to the lair to search. Why did he go alone? 1) He's a CN Warlock. 2) He was uniquely equipped to deal with some of the dangers, so long as other PCs weren't standing in the danger zone.

Based on #2, all he needs is time and a bit of OCD. Eventually, he finds the secret door in the ceiling that led to the secret lab, gets the journal, and the group has an advantage in the next act.

I think that's within bounds because 1) the journal wasn't important to the PCs' immediate goals, 2) it made their long-term goals easier, but wasn't a "blocker" to the campaign, and 3) it was obvious to at least one player how to work around it and what the cost was. Even #3 wasn't critical to the "fail forward" concept.


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## Celebrim

Umbran seems to have gotten in ahead of me and said most of the things I would have wanted to say.

I generally dislike 'Fail Forward', but I believe it is appropriate and even necessary in certain situations.  The basic idea of 'Fail Forward' is that after a failure, the game not only needs to go on but needs to remain exciting or interesting.  

However, the method for implementing 'the game must go on' is going to very between game styles and even between specific situations.   Encoding fail forward and especially encoding it mechanically tends to very much limit the range of styles and means of continuing the story that are available to the GM.  

I prefer as a GM to keep my options open, and I've experienced situations both as a GM and a player were failure was earned and you just had to accept it.  Those situations have helped me learn better and less brittle design techniques, which tend to mitigate against the need for a mechanically enforced solution to failure.  Avoiding chokepoints and having back up plans in the event of a choke point are just necessary parts of good DMing.  It also helps to have a mindset where you don't see chokepoints as chokepoints because you aren't committed to single outcomes, so that no NPC is so critical to the plot that the timing of their death has to have plot protection, or no scenario is dependent on player actions to resolve in some particular way you are committed to.   

As a GM, you have to be willing to have the Rebels either lose or win the Battle of Hoth.  Your idea of what the story should be shouldn't preclude that the party doesn't split up, and Han and Leia end up on Dagobah with him, or are instead destroyed by Vadar in the asteroid field, and so forth.   This means you as a story teller sometimes have to relinquish what you think is the perfect literary outline for 'the story' and instead be willing to have the story be different things and go in different directions.  

But in a game, 'defeat' - real defeat - I think needs to be an option on the table.  I've seen 'fail forward' defined in ways that argue for failure to be succeeding at a cost, such that real failure is removed as an option.  The cost is always turns out to be what the player can bear, so that failure always turns out to be the difference between a Marginal Victory and an Decisive Victory (at most).  In my opinion, you can't really savor a character surviving if death never really was a meaningful possibility.


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## AaronOfBarbaria

I'd figured out other ways to avoid the situations in which the game comes to a halt if a die roll goes the wrong way before I'd ever heard the phrase "fail forward" or ever come to the conclusion on my own that a roll might be determining success without consequence vs. success with consequence, rather than success vs. consequence.

As such, by the time I actually heard the phrase and came upon to corresponding idea behind it, I didn't have nearly as much use for it as I would have years prior - so I just tucked it away in my DM "tool belt" as a safety net to use whenever I haven't had the time to re-write poorly designed sections of published adventures (you know, those ones that are overall really cool ideas and fun scenarios, but the author thought it best to put anything actually important behind a secret door with no context clues to its location nor hints that it even exists, so to fail to find it on the first try is to fail to complete the adventure).


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## The Crimson Binome

Morrus said:


> It doesn't create a world where failure is never a possibility. It creates one where a specific group of heroes played by some players continue forward in the narrative rather than stopping dead. Like in a movie. It doesn't apply to every task, or even to anybody but PCs.



It is a silly world where events _within_ the game world depend on factors _outside_ of the game. It cannot possibly matter whether a character is played by a Player or the GM.

The ability of an individual to open a lock can depend on factors inherent to the character (such as skill and familiarity), or factors inherent to the lock (such as complexity and integrity), or factors in the environment (such as lighting and tectonic stability). It can't possibly depend on whether this character is a _PC_ or the _protagonist_, because those are just labels you've attached from outside of the game; they don't _mean_ anything.


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## Morrus

Saelorn said:


> It is a silly world where events _within_ the game world depend on factors _outside_ of the game. It cannot possibly matter whether a character is played by a Player or the GM.
> 
> The ability of an individual to open a lock can depend on factors inherent to the character (such as skill and familiarity), or factors inherent to the lock (such as complexity and integrity), or factors in the environment (such as lighting and tectonic stability). It can't possibly depend on whether this character is a _PC_ or the _protagonist_, because those are just labels you've attached from outside of the game; they don't _mean_ anything.




Sure they do. It's a game.


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## Bedrockgames

Saelorn said:


> It is a silly world where events _within_ the game world depend on factors _outside_ of the game. It cannot possibly matter whether a character is played by a Player or the GM.
> 
> The ability of an individual to open a lock can depend on factors inherent to the character (such as skill and familiarity), or factors inherent to the lock (such as complexity and integrity), or factors in the environment (such as lighting and tectonic stability). It can't possibly depend on whether this character is a _PC_ or the _protagonist_, because those are just labels you've attached from outside of the game; they don't _mean_ anything.




I personally don't play that way, but I do think people can bring whatever 'physics' they want to the game world. For me, stuff like believability matter, with a little bit of genre physics. At the end of the day it is important to me that world have a consistent reality to it. But I don't see why someone can't decide they want the reality they are experiencing to feel more like a story or a movie. For their hero to be protected bit from stormtrooper blasters or something. 

I think both sides often get caught up in this false choice, that it has to 100% represent reality, or 100% represent the content of film and literature. I doubt most groups cleanly fall on the far side of either end of that spectrum, and many probably have a mix of players who clustered in different spots. 

I know what I like, so I run games that way. That doesn't mean others can't run things differently or use different rationale for making rulings. 

One thing I discuss with my players when we start a game is what 'physics' are being used. We don't have stuff like protagonist protection but there are still a lot of gray areas even in a campaign that on first glance seems vaguely realistic. For example is gunpowder behaving realistically or cinematically. If you are more strict regarding gunpowder use and trying to keep it realistic, that is going to mean the players really need to pay attention to the details of their plan. If it is more cinematic and hand wavy (i.e. sure that's enough to blow up a ship and lighting the fuse is a breeze with that fork and stone) things are different. I've actually seen disconnect between people mid-game and caught it as it was occurring. It was really helpful hashing out that detail because then everyone knew how the world was meant to behave.


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## Lanefan

Failure is failure.

Now, depending on what they do next the PCs can turn a failure into a fail-forward, a fail-sideways, or a fail-backward...but it's down to them.  The lock example, while not great, gives each option: fail-forward may be to remove the hinges (or demolish the door, whatever) and get through; fail-sideways may be to search for another access so as to get to what's behind the door from another direction, and fail-backward may be to abandon the door entirely and go elsewhere.  All I need to do as DM is react, in this case; and I've seen all three outcomes many times each.

A better example is the missed secret door with the BBEG behind it.  Here the failure is on both a greater scale and a less-obvious scale - the door above is an obvious fail-or-succeed situation, the missing boss is not - and the party may not even realize it has failed at all.  A very plausible outcome is the PCs clean out the parts of the dungeon they can find then go back to town and report the BBEG isn't there and the information saying he was is in error; a big win for the BBEG.  It's not down to me as DM to lead them by the nose to the secret door; again, all I have to do is react to the PCs, and maybe change my plot line slightly to account for the BBEG lasting a bit longer than I'd expected. 

Lan-"a pleasant side effect of a missed BBEG is that I'll be able to squeeze at least one more adventure out of him later"-efan


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## The Crimson Binome

Morrus said:


> Sure they do. It's a game.



And that might be fine, from a game standpoint, or even from a story standpoint. I'm not talking about the game or the story, though. I say it's a silly _world_ where those things happen, because they don't make sense from an _in-setting_ perspective. 

A world powered by narrative causality, where things happen _because_ it's just a game or a story, is not a believable world. It's a silly world.


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## Lanefan

Saelorn said:


> And that might be fine, from a game standpoint, or even from a story standpoint. I'm not talking about the game or the story, though. I say it's a silly _world_ where those things happen, because they don't make sense from an _in-setting_ perspective.
> 
> A world powered by narrative causality, where things happen _because_ it's just a game or a story, is not a believable world. It's a silly world.



Agreed.

That said, let's face it: sometimes silly has its place, and sometimes things *do* happen in my world just for gits and shiggles such as a random birthday cake floating by in midair because it happens to be one of the players' birthday; all involved accept that it's outside of the game-world norm (wild magic or capricious deities and all that) and just move on.

Lanefan


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## Umbran

Celebrim said:


> But in a game, 'defeat' - real defeat - I think needs to be an option on the table.  I've seen 'fail forward' defined in ways that argue for failure to be succeeding at a cost, such that real failure is removed as an option.




I am not sure the fact that someone, somewhere, argues for something extreme, really is a basis for something we should worry about.

As a counter to that argument, let us look at actual implementations. I expect the most commonly used version of "succeed at cost" is probably found in FATE.  And in that game, the implementation is that there are several levels of success, which we can usually paraphrase as failure, succeed at cost, success, and great success.  Basically, the things that in other games are considered just barely failures, in FATE, tend to become "succeed at cost".  Outright failure is actually still a possibility.

So, really, all you who are griping about failure being on the table - it usually still is.  Don't get in a twist over it.



> But in a game, 'defeat' - real defeat - I think needs to be an option on the table.




Note that "fail forward" is typically applied to *individual actions* - in most game terms, single die rolls.  It does not generally apply to overall efforts.  We are talking about having a way to progress in the middle of the story, not a way to ensure success at the end.



> In my opinion, you can't really savor a character surviving if death never really was a meaningful possibility.




To continue my example, the Success at cost mechanic there will not save you from death.  In most FATE variants, the mechanics take you to the point of being "taken out" and "success at cost" can't forestall that forever.  At that point the character's continued existence (PC or NPC) is up to the person who took them out of the fight.  If you want 'em dead, they're dead.  If you want to incapacitate them, you incapacitate them.


----------



## kalil

I like the concept of "fail foward" and I use it all the time. But, I disagree with the definition in the OP. "Succeed at a cost" is only one way to "fail forward" and it is often the least imaginative and fun way to do it. Failing spectacularly in such a way that it drives the story onwards in a new and unexpected direction is a lot more fun of players and GM alike.


----------



## dd.stevenson

As far as fail forward D&D DM advice goes, I just stick the old standby: if you intend for the PCs to not fail, then don't roll dice.



Umbran said:


> I expect the most commonly used version of "succeed at cost" is probably found in FATE.  And in that game, the implementation is that there are several levels of success, which we can usually paraphrase as failure, succeed at cost, success, and great success.  Basically, the things that in other games are considered just barely failures, in FATE, tend to become "succeed at cost".  Outright failure is actually still a possibility.




I'm really unclear on what a fail forward mechanic would look like, other than a degrees of success/failure style rule. Are there other forms it can take? Are we classifying GUMSHOE's skill system as fail forward?


----------



## kalil

dd.stevenson said:


> I'm really unclear on what a fail forward mechanic would look like, other than a degrees of success/failure style rule. Are there other forms it can take? Are we classifying GUMSHOE's skill system as fail forward?




IMHO "fail forward" is not a game mechanic, it is a GMing practice.


----------



## delericho

dd.stevenson said:


> I'm really unclear on what a fail forward mechanic would look like, other than a degrees of success/failure style rule. Are there other forms it can take? Are we classifying GUMSHOE's skill system as fail forward?




The Alexandrian has recently discussed this, and may be worth a read.


----------



## Reinhart

kalil said:


> IMHO "fail forward" is not a game mechanic, it is a GMing practice.




Basically, it is a philosophy and practice for GM's. But that doesn't mean it can't be integrated into system as well. I think Gumshoe actually is a good example of a Fail Forward system because random dice and resources only decide the consequences of obtaining a clue, not whether the necessary clue becomes available.


----------



## Reinhart

delericho said:


> The Alexandrian has recently discussed this, and may be worth a read.




As usual, I would caution to take his writings with a grain of salt. Unfortunately for the way the web is structured, it's easier to find more articles misrepresenting Fail Forward and criticizing it for what it isn't than the sites that clearly explain what it is and how to use it. I know, I just tried to find one. Perhaps someone here should get on that problem and actually write a how-to guide.


----------



## delericho

Reinhart said:


> As usual, I would caution to take his writings with a grain of salt.




To be honest, I advise taking _everyone's_ writings with a pinch of salt.


----------



## ExploderWizard

I am not a fan of the concept because it specifically supports game play that is supposed to lead to expected outcomes. 

As a DM, when players do the unexpected, or improvise to mitigate failures, it takes the game in interesting directions that would never have been possible if I was using a mechanic to ensure that the adventure "stayed on track". 

An adventure directed by the imagination of the participants can _never_ come to a grinding halt unless they want it to. I think some groups get too invested in pre-written plots that they think are cool to remember this. The only adventure that matters is the one created together by the group, not what is prepped prior to play. 

Finding out what happens next and what the players do in response to setbacks or failures is part of the fun of being a DM. 

I am also not all that fond of narrative style games compared to traditional rpgs, but lets assume that I planned on running one. If the purpose of this game is to create a collaborative story with the players, isn't using a mechanic to channel their input towards the narrative that I want to tell depriving the players the chance to shape the story on their own? If it is truly OUR story created together I shouldn't be nudging them down any particular path.


----------



## GMMichael

darjr said:


> if I've been good I've provided for other ways or can think of them on the fly. Even within an unchanged fiction.



This.  To put it another way: Fail Forward is the tool of the Railroading Game Master.  Obviously, the entire game will grind to a halt if there's nowhere else to go but forward on the railroad.  Sandboxes don't have this problem.  Neither do games that don't have a success/failure dichotomy.


----------



## Reinhart

Fail Forward != Railroading

And because so people think that the two are related it shows how few people actually understand the concept. Let's boil it down to three bullet points:


Actions should have consequences.
Failure should be interesting.
When one door closes another should open.

I'm pretty sure you don't need those explained further. But no-where does this mean that failure should just be the same narrative result reskinned to sound bad. The original term comes from business, for goodness sakes. It's about allowing teams to fail early and learn from their mistakes.


----------



## ExploderWizard

Reinhart said:


> Fail Forward != Railroading
> 
> And because so people think that the two are related it shows how few people actually understand the concept. Let's boil it down to three bullet points:
> Actions should have consequences.




Why do think that fail forward is the only concept that makes this true? If the party cannot manage to get a door open then the consequence is that they have to think of something else. 


Reinhart said:


> Failure should be interesting.




It is because it forces players to actually consider alternative courses of action. 


Reinhart said:


> When one door closes another should open.




It might, or the players might have to think a bit to find that next door. In no way is being spoon fed alternative options a requirement for imaginative play. 



Reinhart said:


> I'm pretty sure you don't need those explained further. But no-where does this mean that failure should just be the same narrative result reskinned to sound bad. The original term comes from business, for goodness sakes. It's about allowing teams to fail early and learn from their mistakes.




Why does a failure have to be the result of a mistake? You can make all the correct decisions then flub the execution of a plan. There might have have been no mistakes made, the dice just flipped you the bird. Sometimes your best effort just doesn't do the trick. Time to try something else, perhaps you will have better luck with that.


----------



## Celebrim

Morrus said:


> Sure they do. It's a game.




Yes, but it is a very different sort of game.  Eventually, as this idea becomes more and more important to the mechanics of the game, it creates a game experience so at odds with the way RPGs were (mostly) played for the first 20 years or so, that some people don't even recognize it as an RPG.

Saelorn is saying that he understands the purpose and design of an RPG is to create stories within a simulated world and not merely to create stories.  The more you move away from that simulated reality, the more you move the RPG away from the war gaming side of its roots and the more you move it toward the theater game side of roleplaying.   The recognition that many sorts of stories aren't created from first principles about the imagined world, but in fact are governed by logic that creates a specific narrative is an important one, but we are still I think grappling as designers with how to incorporate those ideas into an RPG without deprecating the 'game' part of it most people are familiar with.

In particular, even in the field of literature, it is jarring for the reader to recognize or believe that what has just happened depended principally on the power of plot and not on the internal logic of the story.   Many readers will regard such moments where the author's hand on the story is obvious as diminishing the story, or popularly 'breaking the suspension of disbelief'.   Within an RPG breaking this suspension of disbelief can be even more jarring and is even harder to hide from the player, because they are themselves an author of the story.  Likewise, most players don't want to have the feeling that something came about in the story merely because they wished it to, but because they overcame some challenge in a way that was believable within the framework of the story.


----------



## Reinhart

ExploderWizard said:


> Why do think that fail forward is the only concept that makes this true?



Do I think that fail forward is the only concept that makes this true? Why do you think that I think that? That's a weird thing for you to think.



> If the party cannot manage to get a door open then the consequence is that they have to think of something else.
> It is because it forces players to actually consider alternative courses of action.



I trust you know when and how failure is interesting in your game. I hope that you can share a similar trust to other GM's.



> It might, or the players might have to think a bit to find that next door. In no way is being spoon fed alternative options a requirement for imaginative play.



Why are you assuming that I'm advocating spoon feeding players? 



> Why does a failure have to be the result of a mistake? You can make all the correct decisions then flub the execution of a plan. There might have have been no mistakes made, the dice just flipped you the bird. Sometimes your best effort just doesn't do the trick. Time to try something else, perhaps you will have better luck with that.




I'm referring to the business concept there. Calm down. When someone tells you that there are common misconceptions about a concept and explains the concept, why do you feel the need to just repeat all the misconceptions again as if you didn't listen or understand a single word? You assume a tool is flawed because you're using it wrong. "Doctor, it hurts when I do this." "Well, then don't do that." Heck, sometimes it's like you're holding a completely different tool and calling it by the wrong name. Your criticisms aren't going to make sense or be much use until you establish a common basis.

If I had more time and less honesty I'd introduce an article criticizing Fail Forward as something that mandates railroading and player coddling. Then I'd introduce an alternative concept named something like "Momentous Consequences." The new concept would be the exact same thing as what I've explained Fail Forward really is, but since it's presented as the alternative for what people think Fail Forward is, it'll be readily adopted by the opposition. Plus, it will frustrate the people who actually know and care about Fail Forward. Those who adopt the new term will see that frustration as vindication that their concept is superior to Failing Forward and defend it all the more vehemently. But everyone would just keep doing what they're already doing: allowing failure to help drive the story events in interesting ways.


----------



## Celebrim

Umbran said:


> Note that "fail forward" is typically applied to *individual actions* - in most game terms, single die rolls.  It does not generally apply to overall efforts.  We are talking about having a way to progress in the middle of the story, not a way to ensure success at the end.




I disagree with this statement.  Typically I see fail forward being applied in a game at the level of a scene, usually in games with explicit bangs and scene framing, and as such doesn't apply to single die rolls but to the overall outcome of the scene.  Fail forward requires that regardless of whether the player wins the stakes of the scene, the consequence of failure is another scene.  Regardless of success or failure, the story always advances forward and it never gets stuck.

This can work if we don't know what the experience is going to be at the end and we aren't invested in it.  You can create one or more episodes where the character has highs and lows but life continues on.  I just don't think that sort of slice of life story is actually the genera normally people are trying to replicate in an RPG.

In my opinion, most attempts at this technique applied to a traditional RPG narrative invariably hit situations where failure tends to be mere color, because they are invested in the outcome.  Mystery novels end with the mystery solved.  Heroic stories end with the villain defeated.   Ironically, fail forward tends to be implemented by people who want to have heroic story telling, but in my opinion undermines this goal by delivering a story that has the transcript of a heroic story but not the experience of being in one.  Indeed, I'd say that too many Indy games have falling in the trap of focusing on transcript production over experience of play.  If your game is significant time discussing the transcript you want to create, you are probably doing something wrong.  To put it a different way, most players want the experience of cribbing in the choices their character makes on the pages of an infinite choose your own adventure book.  They don't want the experience of writing those pages.  The more the game starts to resemble the process of writing a choose your own adventure book, the more it starts to resemble the process of collaborative script production and the less it captures the experience of actually reading the book or watching the movie.  Whether that is fun or not is a matter of taste, but I don't think it is the experience people - often even the RPG designer themselves - set out to create.


----------



## Janx

I generally agree with Umbran and Celebrim on this.

If somebody thinks Fail Forward is a "PCs can't ever  lose" mechanic, they are likely doing it wrong.

FF is a reasonable solution to a design/adhoc GMing mistake of boxing the good content in such a way that the players are stuck.

The GM certainly has a choice, in the case of the unfound secret door to the BBEG, to let it stand and have the PCs go home early.  After a 6 hour game of dungeon crawling, this could be acceptable.  

The GM might interpret FF as the PCs go home, and at the end of the session, an NPC steps up and mentions "hey, did you guys find the secret door on the back wall?"  Or it turns out the BBEG really wasn't home, because he was in town smashing it.  The PCs have failed, and the plot moves forward.

Or he can come up with some way to revealing some new info, having the bad guys make a move that enables a new attempt, or something.

I think the point is, the GM finds a way to salvage game material, fun, and time.  It would be a darn shame if the PCs get stuck by a stupid dice roll in a boring search scene early on in the session and he let's the PCs go home and nothing new happens, so they call it a night.


----------



## Umbran

Celebrim said:


> I disagree with this statement.  Typically I see fail forward being applied in a game at the level of a scene, usually in games with explicit bangs and scene setting, and as such doesn't apply to single die rolls but to the overall outcome of the scene.




Well note the first - I was talking about mechanics implementing fail forward.  Surely, individual GMs may choose to do just about anything any time they please, and we cannot speak to frequency of such without some major data-gathering efforts, if at all.  So, I turned to the game with such mechanics that I expect is most commonly played.

Second - "scene" is not "overall effort", in general.  A scene is typically one chunk of an overall effort - the overall effort will, in the end, be a chain of scenes, and the point of fail forward is to make sure that one crappy die roll does not mean the players have to give up and go home.

This will, in general, come to your awareness on the scene-level, because the result of not failing forward is the failure to move on to another scene.  That can become a confounding bias when you're looking at the result and trying to suss out the implementation.  You may become aware of it on the scene level, because you notice it on the die roll that would otherwise bring things to a crashing halt, and miss it on all the other times because it either doesn't apply or doesn't call for anything drastic on the less-important die rolls.  Can you actually find a mechanical implementation of it on the scene level? I can't think of any at the moment.

Take, for example, FATE.  It does have some notion of "scene".  And there's a thing that allows fail forward on that level - if a PC is "taken out" in a fight, the GM has a choice as to what to do with that character.  The character may die (which we can consider failing, I expect) or the character may live, and be captured, or otherwise discomfited (which we might consider failing forward).

However, this decision *isn't mechanical*.  There is an affordance for failing forward, but not an actual mechanic that enacts it.  It gives an explicit moment where a human choice is to be made, not a mechanical resolution.



> Fail forward requires that regardless of whether the player wins the stakes of the scene, the consequence of failure is another scene. Regardless of success or failure, the story always advances forward and it never gets stuck.




We might quibble a bit on wording of this later, but for sake of argument, I'll leave it be for the moment.



> This can work if we don't know what the experience is going to be at the end and we aren't invested in it.




I think it is quite the opposite - if you (the player) have a notion of how you want this to end, and are invested in it, not failing forward leads to breakign from expectations, which is a good way to leave you with a dissatisfied player.  In short, the player kind of expects to get a shot at the BBEG eventually.  DO you frustrate that expectation?



> You can create one or more episodes where the character has highs and lows but life continues on.  I just don't think that sort of slice of life story is actually the genera normally people are trying to replicate in an RPG.




They aren't?  I'm not so sure.  I would be completely unsurprised if, on the whole, when you look back at the history of most campaigns, that's basically what it looks like - a series of highs and lows, but life continues on from one adventure to another (until it stops, either abruptly and violently, or at the end of the campaign).  The only difference is that in a game that isn't using fail forward, some of the lows can be of the "stuck unable to move forward on the player's intended goal" variety, where those particular are going to be less frequent with fail forward in place. 

Ultimately, that's the basic difference - does the player experience those points of frustration that come with having hit a brick wall due to dumb luck, or not?  The idea of fail forward is an entirely metagame, pragmatic one - don't subject the player to such moments when you can easily avoid it.



> To put it a different way, most players want the experience of cribbing in the choices their character makes on the pages of an infinite choose your own adventure book.  They don't want the experience of writing those pages.




That's fine.  So, where in this whole discussion have we had it be that the *player* gets to choose how the fail forward occurs?  Hm?  I believe the answer is *never*.  This is not a mechanic in which the player writes the pages.  The GM is still doing that - creating a new setup where the player gets to make more choices, and avoiding the times when the player has no meaningful choices to make.


----------



## Balesir

ExploderWizard said:


> It is because it forces players to actually consider alternative courses of action.



Well, I think rather that failure is interesting if it involves meaningful stakes. Sure, those stakes can involve the narrowing down of the characters' options - and this can even be beneficial in that cutting off the simpler options can get the players thinking about the more interesting ones. But, generally, I find that simply narrowing down options is a pretty poor basis for stakes - particularly if it is applied to most or all of the actions in the game.

And I think what Fail Forward is really saying, at its best, is "consider the stakes of any conflict carefully, and don't make them a (boring or repetitive) narrowing down of PC options". Make failure interesting by making it *diverse*.


----------



## ExploderWizard

Balesir said:


> Well, I think rather that failure is interesting if it involves meaningful stakes. Sure, those stakes can involve the narrowing down of the characters' options - and this can even be beneficial in that cutting off the simpler options can get the players thinking about the more interesting ones. But, generally, I find that simply narrowing down options is a pretty poor basis for stakes - particularly if it is applied to most or all of the actions in the game.
> 
> And I think what Fail Forward is really saying, at its best, is "consider the stakes of any conflict carefully, and don't make them a (boring or repetitive) narrowing down of PC options". Make failure interesting by making it *diverse*.




Not every action is a contest. Sometimes there are no stakes. Not every game style uses complications as "story currency". Sometimes there are straightforward applications of knowledge or ability, and one can either complete them or not.


----------



## The Human Target

Last session the Paladin wanted to kick open a door.

He rolled a 1.

I could have said "Nope, you bounce off the door and look like an idiot. The door is fine. Try again."

Instead, I ruled that the Paladin blasted through the door like the Kool-Aid Man and knocked out cold the little boy who was listening with his ear pressed to the door.

The little boy being the son of the Duke they were trying to rescue from a kidnapping they had stumbled upon.

Oops!

Failing forward is great.


----------



## Lanefan

Janx said:


> The GM certainly has a choice, in the case of the unfound secret door to the BBEG, to let it stand and have the PCs go home early.  After a 6 hour game of dungeon crawling, this could be acceptable.



It's always acceptable regardless of the situation, unless the DM has somehow married the campaign's continuance to the finding of said BBEG (in which case sticking said BBEG behind a hard-to-find secret door might not have been the best option).



> The GM might interpret FF as the PCs go home, and at the end of the session, an NPC steps up and mentions "hey, did you guys find the secret door on the back wall?"  Or it turns out the BBEG really wasn't home, because he was in town smashing it.  The PCs have failed, and the plot moves forward.
> 
> Or he can come up with some way to revealing some new info, having the bad guys make a move that enables a new attempt, or something.



Yes, and this can be done immediately, or at some later time such as while the party's away on its next adventure, or never...all depending on enough variables that there's no overarching right answer.



> I think the point is, the GM finds a way to salvage game material, fun, and time.



It's important that someone find a way to salvage these things but why does it have to be the DM?


> It would be a darn shame if the PCs get stuck by a stupid dice roll in a boring search scene early on in the session and he let's the PCs go home and nothing new happens, so they call it a night.



Why on earth would they call it a night?  The players via their PCs can be proactive in seeking out a new adventure (at which point the DM can and reasonably should step up and provide something), or they can engage in some downtime activities including dividing such treasure as they managed to find (at which point the DM has the option of having some sort of adventure come calling), etc.

Lan-"mentioning [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] here to get his eyes on this thread, as he's often gone on about fail-forward in the past"-efan


----------



## McNabb Games

I've seen this type of mechanic referred to as the "yes, then" method. I find it to be a good improvisational skill for a host or gm to have as part of their toolbox but I haven't actually made mechanics that heavily relied on it. I think it's a great way to ensure that gms are able to improvise to better account for the creative answers players inevitably come up with.


----------



## GX.Sigma

I still don't understand what "fail forward" means. The example everyone always gives is that the players need to find a secret door to advance the plot, and all I can say to that is, the GM shouldn't have put the plot behind a secret door. That is a failure of adventure design. Why do we need a whole category of mechanics to deal with that?


----------



## Morrus

GX.Sigma said:


> I still don't understand what "fail forward" means. The example everyone always gives is that the players need to find a secret door to advance the plot, and all I can say to that is, the GM shouldn't have put the plot behind a secret door. That is a failure of adventure design. Why do we need a whole category of mechanics to deal with that?




Because sometimes they're fun, and because Tolkien did it. And fail-forward is an easy way to do that, so why not do it?

That particular example, though, like my locked door, is kinda weak. I feel that long distance travel benefits from it -- the dice determine the condition you arrive in, not *whether* you arrive.

That's kinda like saying "Having a monster which kills PCs is a failure of game design.  Why do we need a whole category of mechanics [i.e. combat rules] to deal with that?"


----------



## ExploderWizard

The Human Target said:


> Last session the Paladin wanted to kick open a door.
> 
> He rolled a 1.
> 
> I could have said "Nope, you bounce off the door and look like an idiot. The door is fine. Try again."
> 
> Instead, I ruled that the Paladin blasted through the door like the Kool-Aid Man and knocked out cold the little boy who was listening with his ear pressed to the door.
> 
> The little boy being the son of the Duke they were trying to rescue from a kidnapping they had stumbled upon.
> 
> Oops!
> 
> Failing forward is great.




Let me guess. If someone didn't kick in that door then the game would come to a standstill? 

That is pretty funny. It reminds me of that scene in the movie _Ed Wood_ when they were filming Bride of the Monster. Tor Johnson was struggling with a stuck door on the set and kept knocking the fake door frame around. Ed kept calling out direction " Remember your motivation. Your upset. Not THAT upset. You have to get through that door." 

So IMHO fail forward is only applicable when the DM decides that something HAS to happen in a specific way. If this is the case then just tell the story to the players because the dice are just inconvenient clutter that interfere with the perfect plot.


----------



## Nagol

ExploderWizard said:


> Let me guess. If someone didn't kick in that door then the game would come to a standstill?
> 
> That is pretty funny. It reminds me of that scene in the movie _Ed Wood_ when they were filming Bride of the Monster. Tor Johnson was struggling with a stuck door on the set and kept knocking the fake door frame around. Ed kept calling out direction " Remember your motivation. Your upset. Not THAT upset. You have to get through that door."
> 
> So IMHO fail forward is only applicable when the DM decides that something HAS to happen in a specific way. If this is the case then just tell the story to the players because the dice are just inconvenient clutter that interfere with the perfect plot.




There are genres where the fail-forward is effectively expected: superheroes and serials to name a couple.  Fail-forward doesn't maintain the group on rails; those failures can and generally should have consequence in campaign play.  What it maintains is group momentum.  The heroes may not manage to save the train from crashing off the broken bridge -- and that wreck may have long-term consequences in the game -- but they do manage to extricate themselves and take note of <fill in a clue> the character can react against.

It sees the most use at my table in genres/campaigns where the PCs are expected to be a more reactive force -- superheroes, procedurals, pulp noir, etc.


----------



## dd.stevenson

GX.Sigma said:


> I still don't understand what "fail forward" means. The example everyone always gives is that the players need to find a secret door to advance the plot, and all I can say to that is, the GM shouldn't have put the plot behind a secret door. That is a failure of adventure design. Why do we need a whole category of mechanics to deal with that?




As best as I can see, fail forward is actually two completely different things that are being (unfortunately) associated by sharing the same name.

fail forward (adj)
1. (of game mechanics) having or exhibiting graduated degrees of success or failure

fail forward (verb)
1. planned or ad hoc alteration of stakes by the DM in order to push the game toward an intended goal


----------



## Nagol

dd.stevenson said:


> As best as I can see, fail forward is actually two completely different things that are being (unfortunately) associated by sharing the same name.
> 
> fail forward (adj)
> 1. (of game mechanics) having or exhibiting graduated degrees of success or failure
> 
> fail forward (verb)
> 1. planned or ad hoc alteration of stakes by the DM in order to push the game toward an intended goal




I'd suggest an alteration to the second proposal:


fail forward (verb)
1. planned or ad hoc alteration of stakes by the DM in order to push the game away from an undesirable outcome


----------



## Janx

Lanefan said:


> It's always acceptable regardless of the situation, unless the DM has somehow married the campaign's continuance to the finding of said BBEG (in which case sticking said BBEG behind a hard-to-find secret door might not have been the best option).
> 
> Yes, and this can be done immediately, or at some later time such as while the party's away on its next adventure, or never...all depending on enough variables that there's no overarching right answer.
> 
> It's important that someone find a way to salvage these things but why does it have to be the DM?
> Why on earth would they call it a night?  The players via their PCs can be proactive in seeking out a new adventure (at which point the DM can and reasonably should step up and provide something), or they can engage in some downtime activities including dividing such treasure as they managed to find (at which point the DM has the option of having some sort of adventure come calling), etc.
> 
> Lan-"mentioning [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] here to get his eyes on this thread, as he's often gone on about fail-forward in the past"-efan




To your last question, the answer is: Because not everybody runs their game that way.

My group tends to have the GM make a custom adventure based on the last session and player feedback on what their PC was going to next.  The players tacitly agree to pursue the plothook for that session.  Which following the example, means this session was "hunt the BBEG down in his lair and kill him"  because it's obviously based on what we wanted to do last week, and we know there's no material for going to the Southlands just for the heck of it.

If the GM makes a mistake in planning that out, and the whole thing hinges on a search check that fails, the party may get stumped for what to do next.

In my version of the example, the GM has some culpability.  And it's easy enough once he realizes it has actually happened, to make an adjustment.

If the players are still working through alternative solutions, there's no need for the GM to apply an FF, the PCs are already doing their own.


----------



## ExploderWizard

Nagol said:


> I'd suggest an alteration to the second proposal:
> 
> 
> fail forward (verb)
> 1. planned or ad hoc alteration of stakes by the DM in order to push the game away from an undesirable outcome




I would say that if you are playing a game then the desired outcome is whatever outcome arises from actual play. 

If there is a desired outcome apart from that then you have no need to play a game, it simply is what you want it to be.


----------



## Umbran

Lanefan said:


> It's important that someone find a way to salvage these things but why does it have to be the DM?




The absolute statement's a bit too strong, but... For one thing, the GM will typically know that there's a problem before the players.  The GM also knows better what's available to work with to move forward.



> Why on earth would they call it a night?  The players via their PCs can be proactive in seeking out a new adventure (at which point the DM can and reasonably should step up and provide something)




Where is that "something" coming from?  How many times have people talked (and complained) about how long it takes to prepare adventures?  If the PCs seek a new adventure in the middle of a session, is the GM likely to just have something that matches on hand, already prepped and ready to go?  Not all GMs are magicians with, *poof* an adventure right out of their hat!

And, if the GM is going to improvise a whole new adventure on the spot, why not just improvise a way for the PCs to continue on the current adventure?




> or they can engage in some downtime activities including dividing such treasure as they managed to find (at which point the DM has the option of having some sort of adventure come calling), etc.




Picture this:

"Well, gee, we know the BBEG was going to smuggle 500 people into slavery to the orcs.  But, I guess we'll just go shopping instead!"
"Nah, I don't wanna go shopping!  I wanna quibble over who gets what magic item!"
"Okay, that sounds like a fun use of the next three hours of our time..."

Sound realistic?


----------



## Manbearcat

My best attempt at an abridged breakdown of Fail Forward, an example, its use, systemitizing it, and why it is problematic for certain RPGers.

Break action resolution out into two parts:

a)  *Intent *component of action (required scene context and stakes).

_Example:  I'm chasing this guy across the rooftops so I can catch him and finger him for crime n and/or uncover his his co-conspirators/sponsors and indict them._

b)  *The physical manifestation of the Task* component of action within the shared fiction (stakes-neutral).

_Example:  I pursue, free-running across the slippery, rain-soaked rooftops and leap from this building to the next!  (Roll Athletics, Body + Heart, Strength - whatever)._

Assume whatever fortune resolution method the game uses indicates the action is a failure.  Using the Fail Forward technique, the GM will render the fallout of this action resolution in such a way that (a) is not attained/complicated/attainable at a steep cost (that the player can buy into if they're wiling to accept said cost and its attendant fallout) while (b) is successful.  Essential, of course is that this is not rendered in a way such that the action stops in a dead end.  For instance:

_GM:  The rain-shrouded night does little to foil your dextrous, devil-may-care parkour!  You easily step on the elevated ledge and fly through the air toward the next building as your prey attempts to put some distance between you.  When you land, he smiles at you from across the way and discorporates into a swarm of bats and flies away...something (relevant - maybe smithy tongs or an inkwell or something) clangs on the ground where once your prey stood._

That is one option.  There are several others that introduce mere complications (perhaps rotten joists of the building you and the perp land on cannot manage the load and it collapses, leaving you both diminished - resource-wise - and in the debris on the next floor down).



This can be somewhat systematized (such as joker dice in a pool that dictates some sort of complication even on successes or some sort of boon even on failures...or the 7-9 success with complications - soft move - or the 6- result that is rendered as a soft move rather than an outright failure), but it is always, in part at the least, technique/principle driven.



Why is it problematic for some RPGers.  For some folks, they don't want intent (a) to have primacy in action resolution (neither within the mechanics nor in the GMing principles that guide the rendering of the evolved fiction), such as it does above.  For other folks, forget about primacy, they don't want intent to have *any role at all *in the action resolution mechanics.  They want or have always played (therefore internalized the paradigm as legitimate RPGing) with the assumption that the resolution mechanics hew very closely to a physics engine for the imaginary world where the action takes place.  Others still have play priorities that require the mechanics and GM directives put success and failure in binary, opposing (and as transparent as possible) positions such that some iteration of "score" (as a proxy for skillfulness during play) can be tallied.  

For those three groups, Fail Forward fails hard for them because of this.



Finally, Fail Forward has absolutely 0 to do with railroading.  It is pretty much universally found in low-to-no prep systems whereby player agency and dynamic, "play to find out what happens" narrative (eg - the opposite of the removal of agency and an "All Roads Lead to Rome" table dynamic) is the paramount play priority.


----------



## Nagol

ExploderWizard said:


> I would say that if you are playing a game then the desired outcome is whatever outcome arises from actual play.
> 
> If there is a desired outcome apart from that then you have no need to play a game, it simply is what you want it to be.




Knowing one thing is undesirable does not mean you have a specific outcome in mind.  Imagine a large sports field with a fenced off hole.  The players can go anywhere on the field except into the hole.  Why?  Because falling in the hole is a problem for play.


----------



## Umbran

ExploderWizard said:


> So IMHO fail forward is only applicable when the DM decides that something HAS to happen in a specific way.




Well, your HO is incomplete.  It is also applicable when events have unfolded in such a way as to build up a brick wall.  

"Okay, so you just intimidated the crap out of the minions.  The BBEG, chooses the better part of valor, flees..."
"Oh, and you just dumped the last minion (the one with the magical key) into the lava-filled moat...."
"And your wizard is spelled out for the day, so you can't get through the door..."

Brick walls can appear not only by design failure, or failure to follow GM-intended plot, but through that very unpredictable nature of player action.  The fact that we *DON'T* have a pre-arranged plot means that there can be issues that arise that the GM can't have a plan for ahead of time.



> If this is the case then just tell the story to the players because the dice are just inconvenient clutter that interfere with the perfect plot.




The first words of the post claimed your opinion was humble.  However, that seems belied by the tone here, which is pretty judgemental.  Humble people don't judge others, EW. 

All theoretical desire for player-choice and consequences are nice, but there is the entirely real practical issue that you have a bunch of people around a table trying to play a game, and those people can paint themselves into a corner.  It is okay to make the PCs pay a bit for mistakes made, but the game should go on, and the player experience shouldn't grind to a halt over them.


----------



## ExploderWizard

Umbran said:


> Well, your HO is incomplete.  It is also applicable when events have unfolded in such a way as to build up a brick wall.
> 
> "Okay, so you just intimidated the crap out of the minions.  The BBEG, chooses the better part of valor, flees..."
> "Oh, and you just dumped the last minion (the one with the magical key) into the lava-filled moat...."
> "And your wizard is spelled out for the day, so you can't get through the door..."
> 
> Brick walls can appear not only by design failure, or failure to follow GM-intended plot, but through that very unpredictable nature of player action.  The fact that we *DON'T* have a pre-arranged plot means that there can be issues that arise that the GM can't have a plan for ahead of time.




To each of these situations it is perfectly acceptable to say " OK what do you do now?" 

"The BBEG flees? Great! He actually fears us and knows that he can indeed be defeated." [The party doesn't know that the minion had a magical key or else would have taken it so they wouldn't react to that.]

" Hmm... he seems to have fled through that door that we can't open. We aren't in the best shape to chase him right now anyhow being very low on magic. Lets go back to town and hit the library at the mages guild. There may be a map of this place there somewhere. Perhaps we can figure out where that door leads and if there is another way to reach that area from the other side." 


Here the players hit what looked like a literal brick wall. Instead of banging their heads against it until it gave way, they thought of pursuing options that kept them focused on their goal. The important part was that they did it on their own without the DM pushing them through that wall. 

If the party really was that out of magic then this "failure" was actually a blessing in disguise. They would likely not be in good enough shape to face BBEG right here and now anyway. The only reason fail forward would make any sense to use here is if the DM had decided that he/she wanted the big boss fight here and now, and darn it, it was GOING to happen no matter how bad the PCs goofed. 

This would then lead to the inevitable showdown that the PCs might likely lose, being out of magic. What then? Have them keep failing forward and somehow manage to beat the BBEG at some sort of cost? 

How long do the marionette strings stretch? When do the players get a voice in the outcome of of their own choices? 

The dark side failing forward is. The more you use it, the more that you have to KEEP using it. 








Umbran said:


> The first words of the post claimed your opinion was humble.  However, that seems belied by the tone here, which is pretty judgemental.  Humble people don't judge others, EW.




It was not my intent to judge what others find to be fun. If listening to stories is the desired goal and everyone is enjoying themselves then have at it. 



Umbran said:


> All theoretical desire for player-choice and consequences are nice, but there is the entirely real practical issue that you have a bunch of people around a table trying to play a game, and those people can paint themselves into a corner.  It is okay to make the PCs pay a bit for mistakes made, but the game should go on, and the player experience shouldn't grind to a halt over them.




In a game powered by the imagination there are no corners, and the game can always go on until the participants desire to stop. Even death can't stop the game. New PCs are rolled up and play continues. 

It is only when you have a predetermined course of events and/or ending in mind prior to play can these corners bring the game to a standstill.


----------



## Cody C. Lewis

Honestly I didn't read all 7 pages...

But I feel like this is best used as a tool, not a rule. And I'm sure no one would use this as an actual rule, just it shouldn't be a crutch for the GM.


----------



## Nagol

ExploderWizard said:


> To each of these situations it is perfectly acceptable to say " OK what do you do now?"




The last time I used fail-forward was in my Conspiracy-X campaign.  The PCs managed to walk into an active faerie circle (hard to find, hard to activate especially accidentally, and all the PCs went in) and were transported to a dark wintry demi-plane whose inhabitants had all escaped into the PCs world (thus instigating their investigation).  After 20 minutes of the PCs bumbling around unable to figure out how to exit (dig a hole), they experienced a fail-forward.  

Asking them "What do you do now?" hadn't been fruitful for the first 20 minutes there was no expectation the next iteration would go some place different.


----------



## billd91

Manbearcat said:


> Finally, Fail Forward has absolutely 0 to do with railroading.  It is pretty much universally found in low-to-no prep systems whereby player agency and dynamic, "play to find out what happens" narrative (eg - the opposite of the removal of agency and an "All Roads Lead to Rome" table dynamic) is the paramount play priority.




Fail Forward's presence in those player agency games doesn't exclude it from usage as a railroading tool. It could certainly facilitate keeping PCs on a particular, GM-envisioned path through particular conflicts in the plot.


----------



## ExploderWizard

Nagol said:


> Knowing one thing is undesirable does not mean you have a specific outcome in mind.  Imagine a large sports field with a fenced off hole.  The players can go anywhere on the field except into the hole.  Why?  Because falling in the hole is a problem for play.




If the hole is a problem for play, why did you play in a field with a hole in it? 

If an adventure is designed so that it works out unless the players do one specific thing to muck it up, then you can count on the players doing that specific thing.

*EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.*

No one knows why, or how this happens exactly, but despite the astronomical odds it just does. This is assuming of course that the players have no idea that the thing that they just did was "off limits". 

If they DO know of any such limitations then just not might _likely_ happen, they will STAMPEDE towards it. 

Play a little mini game when designing adventures. If you can easily identify pitfalls such that they resemble fenced in holes on a field, address them directly before players can discover them. 

Identify each of these holes and run a session of PHA ( plot holes anonymous) for them. Let each of them share with the group. 

" Hello everyone. I'm Bob, the super duper hidden secret door on level 6b, and I'm a plot hole"

_Hi Bob_

" So I'm really important and behind me is the only clue to finding the smugglers. If the players don't find me with my ridiculously high DC then they will have no idea where to go next. " 

_Why are you the only clue Bob_ 

" I dunno. The DM really wants me to be a challenge but he also wants the campaign to keep moving forward. I suppose the only thing to do is make sure I get found SOMEHOW."

_There is a better way we can do this Bob. Why don't we move the vital clue needed to continue to a spot that is hard to miss. Behind you, we will conceal maps, charts, and other writings that will offer valuable insight into the smugglers immediate plans. Without this cache, the players can continue but it will be more difficult without finding you. _

" Wow! Thanks. Now I'm still really important and not not a plot hole!" 

If you can identify them well enough to build a fence then you can fix them.


----------



## Umbran

ExploderWizard said:


> To each of these situations it is perfectly acceptable to say " OK what do you do now?"




Yes.  And for the first two, that works.  But when you get to the final point in the series, they have stacked up to be a failure.  That's the point.



> Here the players hit what looked like a literal brick wall. Instead of banging their heads against it until it gave way, they thought of pursuing options that kept them focused on their goal.




That presupposes there *are* options that keep them focused on their goal.  The situation, as presented, may not have any such options.  They can be stuck.  

Fail forward is the practice of presenting new options, when the scenario has otherwise dead-ended.  



> If the party really was that out of magic then this "failure" was actually a blessing in disguise.




Don't nitpick too much on the details of the example, please.  It denotes a general logic, not a fine-detailed example.



> The dark side failing forward is. The more you use it, the more that you have to KEEP using it.




First off, how the heck would you know?  Certainly, the way you talk, you don't actually *use* the technique, do you?  Nor do you stick around in games in which is it used, right?  So, your experience with it should be minimal, and your stance theoretical, is that not correct?  

Second off, it was already stated that some of the typical rule implementations of it are *supposed* to be things you keep using, as they are *intended* to help generate a significant amount of the content for play - having these generate content is a feature, not a bug.



> It was not my intent to judge what others find to be fun.




My response to this is coming in PM.


----------



## billd91

My primary take on Fail Forward is that we've got another currently in-vogue buzzword for something people have been doing for decades. Just take a look at Wormy back in Dragon #62. Fred's character has a high strength, low dex and tries to break down a door. He fails - because he misses the door - but he breaks through the wall and is knocked unconscious in the effort. Success with complications to be sure, his adventuring companion has access to the chamber beyond, but there was a consequence.

There may be some value in naming this as a "thing" and recognizing its value as a gaming tool, but I do get tired of the faddishness of the current buzz.


----------



## Nagol

ExploderWizard said:


> If the hole is a problem for play, why did you play in a field with a hole in it?




Because the rules systems suits the game I am trying to play.  Other systems offer differing problems even if this situation is covered.  



> If an adventure is designed so that it works out unless the players do one specific thing to muck it up, then you can count on the players doing that specific thing.
> 
> *EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.*
> 
> No one knows why, or how this happens exactly, but despite the astronomical odds it just does. This is assuming of course that the players have no idea that the thing that they just did was "off limits".
> 
> If they DO know of any such limitations then just not might _likely_ happen, they will STAMPEDE towards it.
> 
> Play a little mini game when designing adventures. If you can easily identify pitfalls such that they resemble fenced in holes on a field, address them directly before players can discover them.
> 
> Identify each of these holes and run a session of PHA ( plot holes anonymous) for them. Let each of them share with the group.
> 
> " Hello everyone. I'm Bob, the super duper hidden secret door on level 6b, and I'm a plot hole"
> 
> _Hi Bob_
> 
> " So I'm really important and behind me is the only clue to finding the smugglers. If the players don't find me with my ridiculously high DC then they will have no idea where to go next. "
> 
> _Why are you the only clue Bob_
> 
> " I dunno. The DM really wants me to be a challenge but he also wants the campaign to keep moving forward. I suppose the only thing to do is make sure I get found SOMEHOW."
> 
> _There is a better way we can do this Bob. Why don't we move the vital clue needed to continue to a spot that is hard to miss. Behind you, we will conceal maps, charts, and other writings that will offer valuable insight into the smugglers immediate plans. Without this cache, the players can continue but it will be more difficult without finding you. _
> 
> " Wow! Thanks. Now I'm still really important and not not a plot hole!"
> 
> If you can identify them well enough to build a fence then you can fix them.




As an aside, Bob is not a plot hole.  Bob is a required key made less required by the scenario alteration.  "Gee, they didn't find the secret door AND set fire to the library by accident?  Gee Bob, I guess you're still a problem!"

Only if you have a completely fleshed out, no-escape-to-elsewhere situation, and the PCs are the ONLY driving force in the scenario can this work consistently.  Otherwise  the GM is forced to provide some improvisation and/or plausibly extend the situation in ways previously unanticipated.  These extensions can have emergent effects including but certainly not limited to lost keys, brick walls, and holes.

Some systems provide the players with tools to escape those (and other types of) situations.  Some systems don't.  Some game styles work better with some more or less fail-forward intervention than others.


----------



## Reinhart

[MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] wins the prize! Fail Forward is nothing new. People just didn't always have a clever term for it. Every competent GM uses fail forward in some way at some time. If you think that you don't then you likely are thinking of the term in a narrow and loaded manner.

The usefulness of naming and defining a concept like Fail Forward is that you can communicate more effectively about it. New GM's don't have to learn about these things through trial and error, and game designers can consider how they fit into systems involving task resolution and dramatic tension.


----------



## Nagol

billd91 said:


> My primary take on Fail Forward is that we've got another currently in-vogue buzzword for something people have been doing for decades. Just take a look at Wormy back in Dragon #62. Fred's character has a high strength, low dex and tries to break down a door. He fails - because he misses the door - but he breaks through the wall and is knocked unconscious in the effort. Success with complications to be sure, his adventuring companion has access to the chamber beyond, but there was a consequence.
> 
> There may be some value in naming this as a "thing" and recognizing its value as a gaming tool, but I do get tired of the faddishness of the current buzz.




Well, of course it's been used for ages -- probably since RPGing became a "thing".  It reflects an underlying trope in the source material and frankly, a lot of fiction.


----------



## Morrus

Reinhart said:


> [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] wins the prize! Fail Forward is nothing new.




Who said it was?



> People just didn't always have a clever term for it.




The term isn't particularly new, either.

Just to clarify to folks, when I started the thread, there isn't a silent "new" in front of "fail forward" in my thread title.


----------



## The Human Target

ExploderWizard said:


> Let me guess. If someone didn't kick in that door then the game would come to a standstill?
> 
> That is pretty funny. It reminds me of that scene in the movie _Ed Wood_ when they were filming Bride of the Monster. Tor Johnson was struggling with a stuck door on the set and kept knocking the fake door frame around. Ed kept calling out direction " Remember your motivation. Your upset. Not THAT upset. You have to get through that door."
> 
> So IMHO fail forward is only applicable when the DM decides that something HAS to happen in a specific way. If this is the case then just tell the story to the players because the dice are just inconvenient clutter that interfere with the perfect plot.




Nope, sorry to disappoint you.

Rescuing the kid and his mother were optional. It only even came up because one player decided to go snooping on his own.

The idea that  FF is only useful in a Railroad is total crap.


----------



## DEFCON 1

I agree a good number of players who use various story-forwarding techniques might be those of us who are of the improvisational or "lazy DM" types. This was mentioned earlier by someone about the game philosophy differences between the wargaming-leaning type of player, and improv/roleplaying type of player.  Us in the latter camp... more often than not I don't have situations where the "failure" is actually defined ahead of time.  I'm improvising as things come up.  

So for example, if a door is locked... I have not necessarily determined what the "failure" is when dealing with this lock.  Is not opening the door a potential "failure"?  Sure.  Is alerting someone on the other side a potential "failure"?  Absolutely.  Is the door actually a mimic in disguise?  Who knows!  Maybe!  In all of these cases... if the potential player tries to pick the lock and does not reach the DC I arbitrarily create for it at that time... more often than not i'll just improvise whatever results I can think of based upon the roll, where the players are at in the story, what's still to come.

They are "failing forward" per se, because while their die roll was lower than the DC I set, what happened as a result of that keeps the players advancing their story.  But I'm also not "railroading" them, because I'm making up the successes, failures, and consequences on the fly.

I freely admit this type of DMing flies in the face of a good number of other styles of DMs.  But I'm okay with that.  And which also explains how I can have absolutely no real bother or concern for when someone like DMMike says with authority and passion that failing forward is the hallmark of the railroading DM.  I'm sure for his particular style of gaming, he's absolutely right.  But as I have absolutely no conception of what his style is, I can't get bent out of shape that he has no concept of mine (wherein failing forward does not equal it.)


----------



## Janx

Nagol said:


> As an aside, Bob is not a plot hole.  Bob is a required key made less required by the scenario alteration.  "Gee, they didn't find the secret door AND set fire to the library by accident?  Gee Bob, I guess you're still a problem!"
> 
> Only if you have a completely fleshed out, no-escape-to-elsewhere situation, and the PCs are the ONLY driving force in the scenario can this work consistently.  Otherwise  the GM is forced to provide some improvisation and/or plausibly extend the situation in ways previously unanticipated.  These extensions can have emergent effects including but certainly not limited to lost keys, brick walls, and holes.
> 
> Some systems provide the players with tools to escape those (and other types of) situations.  Some systems don't.  Some game styles work better with some more or less fail-forward intervention than others.




I concur.  I do not design my adventures with precision or perfect.  They are often 1-6 pages of material to cover 4-6 hours of gaming.  I do not comb over them or test them, I have no time for that.

Therefore, having a few tools to improvise my way out of a jam that comes up is sufficient for me.

I don't know that I've had to specifically do a Fail Forward.  But it's good to have a reminder that it's a way out of a mental rut.

As somebody noted before, it's really just an improv theatre tool similar to "Yes, and..."  though I see it more as "that doesn't work, but in doing so, you lose/break something and now a new pathway out of the scene is revealed"


----------



## The Crimson Binome

McNabb Games said:


> I've seen this type of mechanic referred to as the "yes, then" method. I find it to be a good improvisational skill for a host or gm to have as part of their toolbox but I haven't actually made mechanics that heavily relied on it.



It's similar, but distinct. "Yes, then" or "Yes, and" are primarily concerned with player _ideas_, and Fail Forward is primarily concerned with action resolution. 

The former exists because you want players to feel creative in what they want to do, even if they have to invent new aspects of the world in order to do so. _"Yes, there is a haberdasher in town, and it's currently on fire - better hop to it!"_

The latter exists so you don't paint yourself into a corner, in situations where creativity isn't sufficient. _"You can't find any secret passages in the cave, even though you have strong reason to believe that there is one, but you do see a big burly warrior who you might be able to interrogate." _

Both ideas exist to encourage creativity and prevent railroading, and both require compromising the integrity of the story in order to do so, but they vary in the degree to which players can shape the outcome. Some people might be okay with the latter, in extreme circumstances to prevent everything grinding to a halt, even if the former is too distasteful to consider.


----------



## Janx

The Human Target said:


> Nope, sorry to disappoint you.
> 
> Rescuing the kid and his mother were optional. It only even came up because one player decided to go snooping on his own.
> 
> The idea that  FF is only useful in a Railroad is total crap.




Indeed.  For one thing, who is to say that FF means that the door that was failed to be found or opened, actually gets found and opened.

As one of my examples, the party fails to find the door, goes home, and finds the BBEG there, destroying home.

Consider what way is North, when you are standing at the North Pole.  What way is Forward, when you are standing at the North Pole.  As it turns out, every direction is forward and South at the same time, yet any heading you take clearly leads you someplace different.

Thus, FF could be said to be used when the scene is stuck and no movement is happening.  The party is at the North Pole.  They can't seem to get going on their own.  So turn that failure into a consequence and make something happen that gets them moving again.

In some ways, the Consequence is a means of resolving a Deus Ex Machina moment so it doesn't feel like "and then the GM solved the problem for us anyway"  Instead, the player "paid" for their way out of the scene.  Given that a player rolling 15+ all night is just coasting through the same content, it's not like he's earning his success either.  It's just dice rolls, not quality of player.

Bear in mind, I also consider a GM putting a super-powerful monster in the encounter a form of rail roading by exclusion.  If the party can't beat it in combat (and they know it), I as a GM have railroaded them out of fighting their way past it.  Any time I hear a player tell how they beat a big dragon at 1st level, I smell bullcrap.  The GM let them win.  There is no way a high level monster can't win, unless the GM makes the monster make mistakes on purpose.

The result of my mindset is, that none of this crap matters.  You are not testing your skill as a person or player.  We are here to have fun, maybe think a little, solve a problem or too.  Nobody is actually winning or losing.


----------



## Janx

Saelorn said:


> It's similar, but distinct. "Yes, then" or "Yes, and" are primarily concerned with player _ideas_, and Fail Forward is primarily concerned with action resolution.
> 
> The former exists because you want players to feel creative in what they want to do, even if they have to invent new aspects of the world in order to do so. _"Yes, there is a haberdasher in town, and it's currently on fire - better hop to it!"_
> 
> The latter exists so you don't paint yourself into a corner, in situations where creativity isn't sufficient. _"You can't find any secret passages in the cave, even though you have strong reason to believe that there is one, but you do see a big burly warrior who you might be able to interrogate." _
> 
> Both ideas exist to encourage creativity and prevent railroading, and both require compromising the integrity of the story in order to do so, but they vary in the degree to which players can shape the outcome. Some people might be okay with the latter, in extreme circumstances to prevent everything grinding to a halt, even if the former is too distasteful to consider.




Nice explanations.

I would say, that you're only compromising the integrity of the story or game material if you have a rigid definition of that story/game material in the first place.

If as a GM, I have every shop and NPC defined on paper, then I suppose we have compromised the integrity if the town has no haberdashers (due to oversight, deliberately or random generator fluke) and I then change it so the shop on the corner is a hat shop.

This should only a problem if it is somehow a violation of my honor as a GM to change things during the game.

Who gives a rat's arse if I change something on my paper that you as player's can't see anyway?

Given that for another GM, he didn't write anything down, and is just making things up as they go, which means there's no stated content to be contradicting, because until he said it, nobody knew if that corner existed, let alone had a shop on it.


----------



## JeffB

Haven't read through the 9 pages of arguing, but wanted to say I *LOVE* it.

I do find a system with mechanics that encourage it ,like Dungeon World, helps alot. As does the player group.  Certain player styles I can see it being a real problem.  Luckily it's not an issue for me or my group.


----------



## Jacob Marley

Reinhart said:


> [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] wins the prize! Fail Forward is nothing new. People just didn't always have a clever term for it. Every competent GM uses fail forward in some way at some time. If you think that you don't then you likely are thinking of the term in a narrow and loaded manner.
> 
> The usefulness of naming and defining a concept like Fail Forward is that you can communicate more effectively about it. *New GM's don't have to learn about these things through trial and error,* and game designers can consider how they fit into systems involving task resolution and dramatic tension.




Jargon is only valuable if all participants in the conversation are aware of its meaning; jargon is a barrier to communication for those unaware of its meaning. I think most new GMs would be unaware of its meaning. Using the phrase "Fail Forward" with new GMs is more likely to hinder communication than aid it.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Janx said:


> This should only a problem if it is somehow a violation of my honor as a GM to change things during the game.
> 
> Who gives a rat's arse if I change something on my paper that you as player's can't see anyway?
> 
> Given that for another GM, he didn't write anything down, and is just making things up as they go, which means there's no stated content to be contradicting, because until he said it, nobody knew if that corner existed, let alone had a shop on it.



At least if you're playing a traditional RPG - D&D, Rifts, Shadowrun, etc - one of the highest responsibilities of the GM is to be _fair_. That means being a neutral arbiter of conflicts, but it also means not changing the world based on GM knowledge that the NPCs don't have.

Just as it isn't _fair_ to block a player - _"You want there to be a haberdasher, which means you must be up to something, so no there isn't a haberdasher,"_ - it's equally not fair to intentionally contrive the world to _enable_ the player - _"You want there to be a haberdasher, which means you have something awesome in mind, so there's totally a haberdasher there for you."_ Those are both demonstrating bias, and it doesn't really matter whether it's working for or against the player, because either way is a violation of the GM's duty. 

As a player, I might _want_ there to be a haberdasher, but I don't want it to exist _only because_ I want it to be there. That's inauthentic, and it's pandering, and I don't see any point in playing that game. Of course, the GM _could_ lie and change the reality to block or enable my idea anyway (and it would be super easy, if nothing is written down), but that's why it's so important that the player can _trust_ the GM to play fairly. Without trust, the whole game falls apart.


----------



## Janx

Saelorn said:


> At least if you're playing a traditional RPG - D&D, Rifts, Shadowrun, etc - one of the highest responsibilities of the GM is to be _fair_. That means being a neutral arbiter of conflicts, but it also means not changing the world based on GM knowledge that the NPCs don't have.
> 
> Just as it isn't _fair_ to block a player - _"You want there to be a haberdasher, which means you must be up to something, so no there isn't a haberdasher,"_ - it's equally not fair to intentionally contrive the world to _enable_ the player - _"You want there to be a haberdasher, which means you have something awesome in mind, so there's totally a haberdasher there for you."_ Those are both demonstrating bias, and it doesn't really matter whether it's working for or against the player, because either way is a violation of the GM's duty.
> 
> As a player, I might _want_ there to be a haberdasher, but I don't want there to be a haberdasher _only because_ I want it to be there. That's inauthentic, and it's pandering, and I don't see any point in playing that game. Of course, the GM _could_ lie and change the reality to block or enable my idea anyway (and it would be super easy, if nothing it written down), but that's why it's so important that the player can _trust_ the GM to play fairly. Without trust, the whole game falls apart.




I won't say that trust is a given, but if you lack trust in your GM, you have a problem larger than the scope of FF, rail roading, etc.  You'd basically have a GM you can't/shouldn't play with.

Therefore, let's bound the discussion to a GM you like and trust.  He's trying to be fair and you trust him to do his job within the style he runs his game.

In your hat shop example.  You've given a "no the GM shouldn't let there be a hat shop" and a "yes he should let there be a hat shop" reason.

That's pretty much a road block.  The GM needs to answer the question of "is there a hat shop" or not, so in the presence of two conflicting arguments of relatively equal merit, he still has to make a decision for which those reasons don't resolve it for him  one way or the other.

If the GM has truly mapped the entire town, he can simply defer to the map.  It's not his decision at all, other than the choice he made earlier during the map making process to put one in there or not.  But then, that might have been an oversight, as he made a mistake and didn't think of hat shops as a possibility.  So now we're second guessing his prior decision making skills, which might have been a random town generator that simply lacked the option for a hat shop, in which case, no town in his world has a hat shop, despite it being a reasonable possibility.

I would say this, from what I can tell online,  [MENTION=2]Piratecat[/MENTION] is a famously excellent GM who improvises a lot.  Thus the quote "You want there to be a haberdasher, which means you have something awesome in mind, so there's totally a haberdasher there for you." would not be a violation of his duty, because it is exactly what his players should expect from him to make his game excellent (for those who enjoy his style of game).*

Thus, a value judgement of "saying Yes to enable awesome is Wrong" as per your examples can be invalidated as being subjective, based on the kind of GM/game style being run.

I do think that "being fair" is generally valued across all players, so the argument for saying "no" with the intention to always block the players is generally a bad thing because it violates the fairness (and thus Trust) guideline.

So what's GM to do?

I suspect the guidance for a GM to the question of "Is there a haberdasher nearby" is to answer Maybe, or Yes in most cases.

Yes is for GMs who favor an Improv style where there rule in improv is to say "yes, and..."

The Maybe response is to systematize the answer.  Either let the map decide, if you assert the map was fairly generated (allowed for the possibility of reasonable town contents like hat shops), or to roll a dice (50:50 chance for yes/no). and go with that.  You'd be removing the GM as a human from the equation within reason for purposes of deciding the answer.

*I have never met or played with PirateCat, nor do I wish to put words in his mouth, but I have seen enough of his posts to know he seems to have an improvisational style and he is well regarded on EN World for his GMing skills, among other abilities.  Hopefully my mention of him will drag him over here from the GumShoe  thread to lend his wisdom to the discussion.


----------



## Reinhart

Jacob Marley said:


> Jargon is only valuable if all participants in the conversation are aware of its meaning; jargon is a barrier to communication for those unaware of its meaning. I think most new GMs would be unaware of its meaning. Using the phrase "Fail Forward" with new GMs is more likely to hinder communication than aid it.




You'll get no disagreement from me on that point. The fact that the term Fail Forward is taken from business actually makes it all the more unfriendly for people to learn about it. Trying to google it will just bring up a combination of business management articles and occasionally rants from gamers about rail-roading. That's why I was joking earlier about how rather than teach people what Fail Forward really means, it's almost easier to just reinvent the concept under a new name.


----------



## Manbearcat

billd91 said:


> Fail Forward's presence in those player agency games doesn't exclude it from usage as a railroading tool. It could certainly facilitate keeping PCs on a particular, GM-envisioned path through particular conflicts in the plot.




Well, my point was that (a) its intent as a technique, (b) its proper execution by a proficient GM, and (c) its intersection with the rest of the machinery (overall table agenda, GMing principles, and resolution mechanics which also serve a low-prep, high-improv, "play to find out what happens" experience) of systems that typically leverage/incorporate work to create a gaming environment that is adversarial to metaplot and railroading.

Does it render either of them outright impossible?  I'm not sure anything short the Jedi Mind Trick can 100 % protect against the prospects of railroading and/or turning players into metaplot/metasetting tourists.  Especially so if the players are looking for passive consumption of a metaplot/metasetting (and therefore participants in their own railroaded experience!).


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Janx said:


> In your hat shop example.  You've given a "no the GM shouldn't let there be a hat shop" and a "yes he should let there be a hat shop" reason.
> 
> That's pretty much a road block.  The GM needs to answer the question of "is there a hat shop" or not, so in the presence of two conflicting arguments of relatively equal merit, he still has to make a decision for which those reasons don't resolve it for him  one way or the other.



Generally speaking, no, I would not give a reason to support either side. I don't know the world nearly as well as the GM does, so I wouldn't be able to offer any insight more complex than that large cities tend to have a wide variety of shops. The GM is on their own to make that decision, based on everything they know about the world they've created.



Janx said:


> I suspect the guidance for a GM to the question of "Is there a haberdasher nearby" is to answer Maybe, or Yes in most cases.



Unless it's a fairly large settlement, I would expect the answer to be No more often than it is Yes, but dice are always welcome where the GM hasn't determined everything in advance. It probably wouldn't be a 50/50 split, but if the GM estimates that there's a 20% chance of it being there, then I'm certainly in no place to argue with that.


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## Lanefan

Umbran said:


> The absolute statement's a bit too strong, but... For one thing, the GM will typically know that there's a problem before the players.  The GM also knows better what's available to work with to move forward.



Sometimes these are true; other times the DM doesn't see the "problem" coming until it hits; and I put the word 'problem' in quotes as this sort of thing is only a problem if the group as a whole lets it be a problem.  Players are (usually) creative people.  Adventuring parties are surprisingly resilient things.



> Where is that "something" coming from?  How many times have people talked (and complained) about how long it takes to prepare adventures?  If the PCs seek a new adventure in the middle of a session, is the GM likely to just have something that matches on hand, already prepped and ready to go?  Not all GMs are magicians with, *poof* an adventure right out of their hat!



I guess I'm lucky, then, as pretty much every DM I've ever had was/is usually able to fly blind for long enough to keep the session going for the night no matter what we-as-players do, and tidy things up afterwards if need be.  For my own part as a DM, I've almost always got at least one or two adventures or mini-adventures or ideas sitting in reserve in case the main adventure goes off the rails (many times the party is on its current adventure having had a choice of more than one adventure to do anyway, it's easy enough to fall back to plan B); failing that I can always wing something...and if I'm really stuck (which happens now and then despite my best intentions) wandering monsters can be a very good friend.  (on at least one occasion in the past said wandering monsters have in fact become their own adventure)



> And, if the GM is going to improvise a whole new adventure on the spot, why not just improvise a way for the PCs to continue on the current adventure?



Depends.  If the party in fact has the means to continue either within its own resources or by finding a plan B such as another access already present in the adventure and for whatever reason they don't do it, I'm not going to hold their hands.  If the party's screwed due to no fault of their own e.g. the only key to the door got melted by a fireball last night and they've absolutely no other way through then I'll put something in.



> Picture this:
> 
> "Well, gee, we know the BBEG was going to smuggle 500 people into slavery to the orcs.  But, I guess we'll just go shopping instead!"
> "Nah, I don't wanna go shopping!  I wanna quibble over who gets what magic item!"
> "Okay, that sounds like a fun use of the next three hours of our time..."
> 
> Sound realistic?



Sigh...those are players without any concept of a plan B.

Let's see...just from the tiny snippet of an example you give above the players could try sending the party to:

Plan B: Find and intercept and take out the orcs to whom the slaves were to be sold (then set up an ambush to take out the slavers on arrival)
Plan C: Find where the slaves-to-be are being held right now and bust 'em out
Plan D: Determine what route the slavers and slaves will be taking to get to the orcs and set up an intercept
Plan E: Find out where the orcs will be taking the slaves after purchase and either intercept en route or rescue once they're on site

Note however that all these options require some proactive information gathering by the characters, something that IME seems to be anathaema to some players.

Lan-"there's always a plan B"-efan


----------



## Morrus

Personally I feel that any response which boils down to "you're just an inferior GM to me" can be dismissed out of hand. Let's not do that, folks. We're a niche hobby at its best; having our own little sub-version of playground bullying is just sad.


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## The Crimson Binome

Lanefan said:


> failing that I can always wing something...and if I'm really stuck (which happens now and then despite my best intentions) wandering monsters can be a very good friend.



One minor inconvenience which I have experienced, in moving from Pathfinder to 5E, is that I can no longer rely on a random encounter to buy me an hour to plan when something unexpected happens. 

It's a minor complaint, really, but stalling tactics are always useful whether or not you're Failing Forward.


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## GX.Sigma

Morrus said:


> Because sometimes they're fun, and because Tolkien did it. And fail-forward is an easy way to do that, so why not do it?



What would "fail-forward" mean in this example, though? In my opinion, if the GM needs you to find the secret door, the GM should not make you roll for it. Because rolling has the possibility of failure, and the GM is not prepared for this failure. So the PCs are going to succeed no matter what. So there's no need to roll dice at all. Because the only time you roll dice is if the action can succeed, can fail, and has some cost or consequence to failure. Right?

If the dramatic question of the encounter is "can you find the secret door" and the GM knows the players will find it regardless of what they do, that's obviously a bogus encounter. 

On the other hand, if the GM ensures that the players find the secret door, and the actual encounter is about "can you open it the right way" (it gets opened regardless, but on a failed DEX check it alerts the guards or whatever), that would be totally fine. I guess that's an example of a "fail forward?" But that's just basic application of adventure design fundamentals. 

My issue is, the following encounter could also be called a fail forward: the encounter is "can you find the secret door." The GM asks for perception checks, and the players whiff. The GM suddenly realizes that the adventure can't begin unless they find the secret door. So the GM says you find the secret door by stubbing your toe on it; you can progress, but you lose 5 hp and drop to half speed for the next minute. That's a fail forward too, right? Except this ends up being a bogus encounter, just like my first example. Props to the GM for making the most of a bad job (a railroad is better than a train wreck), but GMs should aspire to never get into that sort of pickle in the first place.

I think using the term "fail forward" conflates these two very different maneuvers, and wrapping them up into a piece of jargon actually distracts from and obfuscates the important point here:

A good adventure is designed with bottlenecks in mind. The designer should consider the consequences for success and failure of each encounter (as much as possible, of course). Perhaps with some sort of flowchart--possibly a very special type of flowchart known as a dungeon map. If failing a given encounter leads to failing the overall adventure, the designer can either accept it or change it; whichever works best for the given situation.

So, to answer the question, "Do I like Fail Forward?" Sure. I like it about as much as swarm rules, stealth checks, and initiative order. By which I mean, use it when it makes sense, don't when it doesn't; the important thing is how it fits into the overall experience.


----------



## billd91

Saelorn said:


> At least if you're playing a traditional RPG - D&D, Rifts, Shadowrun, etc - one of the highest responsibilities of the GM is to be _fair_. That means being a neutral arbiter of conflicts, but it also means not changing the world based on GM knowledge that the NPCs don't have.




Uh, why? To be fair, I *would* change the world if a player brought something up that I had forgotten. Fancy haberdashers may not be super common, but cobblers were. Now, if I had arranged the whole town and forgotten cobblers and PCs started looking for one, I think I had better add one because sticking to a mistake I made... wouldn't be fair.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

billd91 said:


> Uh, why? To be fair, I *would* change the world if a player brought something up that I had forgotten. Fancy haberdashers may not be super common, but cobblers were. Now, if I had arranged the whole town and forgotten cobblers and PCs started looking for one, I think I had better add one because sticking to a mistake I made... wouldn't be fair.



Yeah, nothing wrong with that, if you made an honest mistake. As long as you add the shop because it really _should_ be there, and not because the player does or does not _want _it to be there.


----------



## Balesir

Saelorn said:


> Yeah, nothing wrong with that, if you made an honest mistake. As long as you add the shop because it really _should_ be there, and not because the player does or does not _want _it to be there.



This nicely encapsulates, for me, where I have real problems with the "GM's world" paradigm. The shop "should" be there according to what metric? It seems to me to be the GM's opinion, based on the usual human-brain cocktail of heuristic and bias, world model and belief. So the cobbler is there and the haberdasher isn't, and the player looking for the former is successful for thinking of something the GM likes whereas the one looking for the latter is SOL because they are looking for something the GM doesn't like. That just doesn't comport with my conception of "fair". Or of "fun". Maybe for others it does - but for me it fails.

This is why I would prefer a systematic or perhaps customary "fail forward". The stakes stop being "will you (the player) be able to pursue this plan and see if it works", and become "what number of difficulties will you have to overcome to succeed?" This requires breaking down what the character really needs, and ensure it is available - at a cost to be determined by events and die rolls.

In looking for a haberdasher it's likely that you are actually in need of a hat. So roll Streetwise to see if you find a haberdasher. If the roll fails you don't find a haberdasher*, but you do find a hat of just the sort you're looking for. It's being worn by a richly dressed and important-looking man with a fine-looking servant and a bodyguard in tow... What do you do now?

Is this a matter of taste? Absolutely. But I hope you can see that mine isn't either kooky or unreasonable. I work from the assumption that yours isn't, either, from your point of view.

*: Note that this sidesteps the issue of whether there is a haberdasher in town or not. Apart from the practical gaming advantages of leaving that fluid, how would the character(s) know?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Balesir said:


> This nicely encapsulates, for me, where I have real problems with the "GM's world" paradigm. The shop "should" be there according to what metric? It seems to me to be the GM's opinion, based on the usual human-brain cocktail of heuristic and bias, world model and belief. So the cobbler is there and the haberdasher isn't, and the player looking for the former is successful for thinking of something the GM likes whereas the one looking for the latter is SOL because they are looking for something the GM doesn't like. That just doesn't comport with my conception of "fair". Or of "fun". Maybe for others it does - but for me it fails.




I can certainly respect not enjoying an approach rooted more in "the GM's world" approach but I think this kind of sets up a bit of a straw man. I like the world to feel real around my character, and I think the metric here is the GM tries to answer questions like "is there a cobbler" or "is there a magic guild in town" as logically as he or she can based on what has been established about the world and what seems reasonable. That is subjective to a degree, and every GM will have biases, but just because we have biases doesn't make us total slaves to them or require that we throw our hands up in despair and say "GM's world is impossible!". In my experience if the GM strives for impartiality, honesty and fairness in pursuit of running the world around the PCs, it will feel consistent and real. There will be imperfections, there will occasionally be bad GMs, but most GMs I've played under can manage this well with minimal issues. It takes the GM checking him or herself from time to time and asking "am I making this ruling because it goes somewhere that is convenient for me, or because its what the NPC would do, or what would be the case in this world." It isn't the only approach, but it is an entirely valid one. If the GM makes a serious error in judgment, like one thing exists in town, but something else that should be there isn't, if it is really glaring, probably warrants a reversal or explanation. But again it depends on how nitpick the players are about levels of realism there. Every group is different and part of the GM's responsibility here is to respond to the group's concerns about details. For me, I am honestly not going to worry or notice if the GM says there is a cobbler but no haberdasher. Some groups might be concerned about that kind of detail, but it probably wouldn't warrant a second glance in my current group (I have been in groups where that sort of thing matters though and when you are running for those kinds of players, the GM has to step up those kinds of details). I'll probably just assume articles for sewing are just made at home or something by most people or some other arrangement is in place. If you were playing in a campaign I was running though, and any time that sort of thing came up, it clearly bothered you (or attracted your interest) I would make a point of reading up on that aspect of culture and make sure it was as believable as I could make it. This is actually something I really enjoy as a GM. I'm a history buff, but I have my own areas of interest (I've never been too into things like textiles for example, and am much more interested in history of knowledge and social history). But I've had players who really want a ground level explanation of how things like Carp farming work in the setting. When that happens it gives me something to research that I might not normally take an interest in (and almost always expands my sense of the world). 

But that doesn't mean a carp farm is going to exist in a particular place just because a player expresses an interest in them. My feeling as a player is when things exist simply because I suggest an interest in them....it feels like the world around me is too malleable and not a solid, external thing. 

Again, none of this is about achieving a 100% perfect representation of reality in the setting. It is about believability and maintaining the illusion that the world is a real place external to my character.


----------



## Balesir

Bedrockgames said:


> I can certainly respect not enjoying an approach rooted more in "the GM's world" approach but I think this kind of sets up a bit of a straw man. I like the world to feel real around my character, and I think the metric here is the GM tries to answer questions like "is there a cobbler" or "is there a magic guild in town" as logically as he or she can based on what has been established about the world and what seems reasonable. That is subjective to a degree, and every GM will have biases, but just because we have biases doesn't make us total slaves to them or require that we throw our hands up in despair and say "GM's world is impossible!".



I should say further, here, that I am generally the GM, and this taste I have developed is quite heavily framed from there. If I am building a world based purely off of my own predilictions it doesn't feel valid or alive to me - and I assume (another inbuilt bias!) that if it seems that way to me it's likely to strike (some) players that way, too.

I would also say, though, that the current state of research shows pretty clearly that we *are* slaves to several of our biases, because the most "dangerous" ones are the ones we don't even realise we have. I thoroughly recommend listening to Dan Kahneman, Timothy Nisbett and Elizabeth Loftus (either their TED talks or the University of Queensland MOOC "Thinking 101"). People who have been studying the workings of the mind their whole lives have discovered that biases and assumptions they don't even realise they have are so ubiquitous that they know they will never escape them. The trick is to learn how to (consciously) live with them.

Finally, I like world building as much as anyone. But these days I much prefer to do it as a collaborative thing. Partly this is to get a mix of viewpoints, a blend of particular biases and heuristics involved to make the world actually richer. But it's also because, as a social activity, I find it can be quite fun.

Mechanical systems, on the other hand, I find are usually best formulated by one mind, and then tested on others - over and over again, if you want a really strong system...


----------



## Janx

GX.Sigma said:


> What would "fail-forward" mean in this example, though? In my opinion, if the GM needs you to find the secret door, the GM should not make you roll for it. Because rolling has the possibility of failure, and the GM is not prepared for this failure. So the PCs are going to succeed no matter what. So there's no need to roll dice at all. Because the only time you roll dice is if the action can succeed, can fail, and has some cost or consequence to failure. Right?
> 
> If the dramatic question of the encounter is "can you find the secret door" and the GM knows the players will find it regardless of what they do, that's obviously a bogus encounter.
> 
> On the other hand, if the GM ensures that the players find the secret door, and the actual encounter is about "can you open it the right way" (it gets opened regardless, but on a failed DEX check it alerts the guards or whatever), that would be totally fine. I guess that's an example of a "fail forward?" But that's just basic application of adventure design fundamentals.
> 
> My issue is, the following encounter could also be called a fail forward: the encounter is "can you find the secret door." The GM asks for perception checks, and the players whiff. The GM suddenly realizes that the adventure can't begin unless they find the secret door. So the GM says you find the secret door by stubbing your toe on it; you can progress, but you lose 5 hp and drop to half speed for the next minute. That's a fail forward too, right? Except this ends up being a bogus encounter, just like my first example. Props to the GM for making the most of a bad job (a railroad is better than a train wreck), but GMs should aspire to never get into that sort of pickle in the first place.
> 
> I think using the term "fail forward" conflates these two very different maneuvers, and wrapping them up into a piece of jargon actually distracts from and obfuscates the important point here:
> 
> A good adventure is designed with bottlenecks in mind. The designer should consider the consequences for success and failure of each encounter (as much as possible, of course). Perhaps with some sort of flowchart--possibly a very special type of flowchart known as a dungeon map. If failing a given encounter leads to failing the overall adventure, the designer can either accept it or change it; whichever works best for the given situation.
> 
> So, to answer the question, "Do I like Fail Forward?" Sure. I like it about as much as swarm rules, stealth checks, and initiative order. By which I mean, use it when it makes sense, don't when it doesn't; the important thing is how it fits into the overall experience.




Taking your explanation here, Fail Forward is the GM correcting the die roll that roadblocked to find the secret door into a roll to see if you have a problem while finding the door (the finding of the door being the guaranteed part, the problem part being that which your skill check is trying to avoid).

Let's say the GM should have built the encounter that way in the first place.  But as Morrus indicated, we're not here to chastise a GM for making mistakes. Fail Forward is simply how a GM transforms that little oversight into how the encounter "should" have been built in the first place.

Knowing there's a work-around for in-game situations like this that come up due to imperfect preparation is useful.  A GM who goes strictly by the text, and refuses to budge when the text is wrong/causing a problem, is likely going to get classified as a bad GM by his players.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Balesir said:


> I
> .
> 
> I would also say, though, that the current state of research shows pretty clearly that we *are* slaves to several of our biases, because the most "dangerous" ones are the ones we don't even realise we have. I thoroughly recommend listening to Dan Kahneman, Timothy Nisbett and Elizabeth Loftus (either their TED talks or the University of Queensland MOOC "Thinking 101"). People who have been studying the workings of the mind their whole lives have discovered that biases and assumptions they don't even realise they have are so ubiquitous that they know they will never escape them. The trick is to learn how to (consciously) live with them.
> 
> .






I am no expert in psychology or bias so I will leave the current state of research to the experts but I have listened to those Ted talks and this strikes me as an unusual application of what they were talking about as well as an overstatement of their positions. They were talking about serious stuff like the criminal justice system where even a single instance of bias resulting in a wrongful conviction is a huge deal. We're talking about games, where the stakes are low. But in those talks I remember them saying that, for the most part our mental short hand for getting through the day works in most situations and its when those short cuts don't align with reality or logic that bias becomes an issue. For the purpose of running a game or even referring a sporting match, the aim is to get it right enough that all or most participating feel things have been handled as fairly and objectively as possible. A ref who constantly favors one player or makes judgments to suit the outcomes he wants is a slave to his biases. One that can keep those in check, isn't. Now if the biases are so deep and unconscious that no one notices and it doesn't have a discernible impact on people's enjoyment or immersion, then it really isn't an issue. I mean I suppose if you planted a team of psychologists in my game they'd notice little biased that would make a good paper and give some insight into how the human mind works. I think if it isn't affecting play, it isn't an issue and operating at too small a level for us to worry about. For the purposes of play, it is quite possible to be self aware enough that people feel you are as fair and impartial as possible. Also, this is why communication is important. Most GMs have to learn this skill over time by paying attention to how players are responding and seriously listening to concerns they raise. But this isn't really the sort of thing people are worried about when they talk about bias. When it comes to creating a believable world the aim is not a true model of reality, but one that feels real to the players. As long as my biases about how the world operates aligns with what the players feel it will work. Even more, I think as long as the GMs biases are consistent it will create a world that feels Internet sound and real (even if the players have different assumption about how our world operates in reality).


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Balesir said:


> This nicely encapsulates, for me, where I have real problems with the "GM's world" paradigm. The shop "should" be there according to what metric? It seems to me to be the GM's opinion, based on the usual human-brain cocktail of heuristic and bias, world model and belief. So the cobbler is there and the haberdasher isn't, and the player looking for the former is successful for thinking of something the GM likes whereas the one looking for the latter is SOL because they are looking for something the GM doesn't like. That just doesn't comport with my conception of "fair". Or of "fun". Maybe for others it does - but for me it fails.



The GM builds the world, and the players explore that world via their characters. Maybe the world isn't terribly "realistic", due to those biases you mention, but it is the world that the GM has created based on their personal beliefs and wishes about what would make for an interesting and fun world.

It's kind of like reading a book, or watching a movie, (although obviously much more detailed and interactive). You choose to accept the world, because you want to see what the author puts forth. If you don't like it, then you find some other world from some other author who bothers your sensibilities less. 

You can't explore the world if you're the one creating it, though. You can't _role-play_ as a character who makes the best of the world as it is, if you're also the author deciding what's in the world. 

We need to have trust that the world is what it is, regardless of what we want it to be, or else there's no way to make any decision about _anything_. The fundamentals of decision-making all assume that our thought process, itself, cannot change the facts of the world about which we are making our decision!



Balesir said:


> This is why I would prefer a systematic or perhaps customary "fail forward". The stakes stop being "will you (the player) be able to pursue this plan and see if it works", and become "what number of difficulties will you have to overcome to succeed?" This requires breaking down what the character really needs, and ensure it is available - at a cost to be determined by events and die rolls.



Now you're getting into over-analyzed artificial narrative constructs. "Fail forward" and "what the character really needs" are just labels that you can apply to describe some events, based on how you choose to look at them. How you _define_ a "plan" or a "success" or a "goal" cannot possibly change what you are _capable_ of accomplishing within the world. That's not how an _objective simulation_ works. That's how a _story-telling system_ works.


----------



## Umbran

Balesir said:


> I would also say, though, that the current state of research shows pretty clearly that we *are* slaves to several of our biases, because the most "dangerous" ones are the ones we don't even realise we have. I thoroughly recommend listening to Dan Kahneman, Timothy Nisbett and Elizabeth Loftus (either their TED talks or the University of Queensland MOOC "Thinking 101"). People who have been studying the workings of the mind their whole lives have discovered that biases and assumptions they don't even realise they have are so ubiquitous that they know they will never escape them. The trick is to learn how to (consciously) live with them.




With respect, this is a particularly... tortured application of the concept of cognitive bias.  Cognitive biases are things that influence how we accept and process data.  The concept is really useful in dealing with how we process information that conflicts with our preconceptions, how we make decisions, and how those decisions may not be as based on real data and reason as we may think.

But we shouldn't be invoking cognitive bias on how the GM answers the question, "Is there a florist's shop on the block?"  This is not an issue of how the GM accepts, rejects or processes real data - it is ultimately a creative decision, not a failure to process real-world information rationally.  It is a fictional world, there is no particular rational process that will tell us what "should" be there.


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## Janx

Saelorn said:


> The GM builds the world, and the players explore that world via their characters. Maybe the world isn't terribly "realistic", due to those biases you mention, but it is the world that the GM has created based on their personal beliefs and wishes about what would make for an interesting and fun world.
> 
> It's kind of like reading a book, or watching a movie, (although obviously much more detailed and interactive). You choose to accept the world, because you want to see what the author puts forth. If you don't like it, then you find some other world from some other author who bothers your sensibilities less.
> 
> You can't explore the world if you're the one creating it, though. You can't _role-play_ as a character who makes the best of the world as it is, if you're also the author deciding what's in the world.
> 
> We need to have trust that the world is what it is, regardless of what we want it to be, or else there's no way to make any decision about _anything_. The fundamentals of decision-making all assume that our thought process, itself, cannot change the facts of the world about which we are making our decision!
> 
> Now you're getting into over-analyzed artificial narrative constructs. "Fail forward" and "what the character really needs" are just labels that you can apply to describe some events, based on how you choose to look at them. How you _define_ a "plan" or a "success" or a "goal" cannot possibly change what you are _capable_ of accomplishing within the world. That's not how an _objective simulation_ works. That's how a _story-telling system_ works.




Let's clarify some things here.  You said "We need to have trust that the world is what it is, regardless of what we want it to be"

It is more precise to say "Saelorn needs to have trust that the world is what it is, regardless of what Saelorn wants it to be"

What you are espousing as fact is opinion.  As a player, I wholly accept that the game world is made up crap based on what my GM thought of and what I might have influenced.  And I am always influencing my GM, before, during and after the game and outside of the game.

Your last comment nails it.  You are decrying what is and is not an objective simulation vs a story-telling system, as if one is the goal and the other is to be avoided.

Fact is, you and I can both be running D&D 5e games, and for you, it is run as an objective simulation.  And for me, I am running a story-telling system.  Same game, same rules.  Difference is the human making the decisions on what happens next.

I suspect, in such extremes, D&D runs best as a middle-ground.  Sometimes it's about objective simulation, sometimes it's about story-telling.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Janx said:


> You are decrying what is and is not an objective simulation vs a story-telling system, as if one is the goal and the other is to be avoided.



Yes, this is exactly what I am saying. Traditional role-playing games are objective simulations. Role-playing is the act of making decisions _as_ your character, not telling stories _about_ your character. 

It's fine if you want to collectively tell a story, and if you want some sort of rule-set to guide you, but that should never be mistaken for role-playing. The two are as different as night and day.


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## Balesir

Bedrockgames said:


> I am no expert in psychology or bias so I will leave the current state of research to the experts but I have listened to those Ted talks and this strikes me as an unusual application of what they were talking about as well as an overstatement of their positions. They were talking about serious stuff like the criminal justice system where even a single instance of bias resulting in a wrongful conviction is a huge deal. We're talking about games, where the stakes are low.



The cases where the stakes are high naturally have more impact. But the models being formed don't apply based on impact - they apply to certain types of decision or judgement. And judgements about how "realistic" things in a fantasy world are fit smack in the centre of the area they draw doubts over.



Umbran said:


> With respect, this is a particularly... tortured application of the concept of cognitive bias.  Cognitive biases are things that influence how we accept and process data.  The concept is really useful in dealing with how we process information that conflicts with our preconceptions, how we make decisions, and how those decisions may not be as based on real data and reason as we may think.



That was the way they were initially slanted, yes, but I am thinking specifically of the way that what Dan Kahneman has dubbed "System 1 thinking" works - which is arguably the root of many types of cognitive bias. It'll take more time than I really have, but I'll try to explain what I mean a bit, below.



Umbran said:


> But we shouldn't be invoking cognitive bias on how the GM answers the question, "Is there a florist's shop on the block?"  This is not an issue of how the GM accepts, rejects or processes real data - it is ultimately a creative decision, not a failure to process real-world information rationally.  It is a fictional world, there is no particular rational process that will tell us what "should" be there.



I should start by saying that it may be a creative decision, but it's not a completely arbitrary one. The choices are not generally expected to be completely uncorrelated or surreal - there is expected to be some sort of unifying pattern to the selections, because there are others involved. The players would have no game to play - no basis for decisions of their own - if the choices were purely arbitrary. Rather than "is there a haberdasher in town?" you might as well ask "is there a gun shop?" or "is there a vacc suit supplier?"

So the model underlying the choices has to be at least to an extent shared or understood by the players. And the general concept of a fantasy-adapted pseudo-medieval society frequently forms the basis of that shared base of assumptions. So, yes, it is a creative decision, but it is formed based on an assumption of some underlying model society, the outline of which is understood, we hope, by all involved.

Making decisions based on such a model requires judgement, or "instinct", both common terms for the operation of "system 1 thinking". This system is exceptionally good at making snap judgements related to survival - threat assessments, fight or flight decisions, mating choices, body movement decisions and a host of others. It is exceptionally poor at estimates of risk or probability, complex assessments involving multiple factors and anything involving any sort of maths (including adding two small numbers together).

As an exercise, here is an easy question:

If Barrack Obama were as tall as he is intelligent, how tall would he be?

Now, I don't need to know your answer - they will likely be very diverse and their implications too political for this venue - but the point I am trying to make is not a political one at all. It is that, even as you finished reading the question, I would be amazed if you didn't already have an answer in mind _despite the fact that the question makes no objective sense whatsoever_.

Assuming you had an answer, this is a nice example of system 1 thinking. It works by assigning intensities to things (like "intelligence" and "height") and it constantly monitors and assesses the world around us in these terms. The intensity scale it uses is the same for everything, and it translates those intensities (fluent language is another thing system 1 handles) into whatever model is appropriate for the topic at hand. Hence, if crimes are colours, homicide is a deeper red than theft and failing to pay a parking ticket is rose pink, maybe. Note that what is remarkable here is that you have an idea what I am saying.

So, system 1 will use intensities to swiftly, effortlessly and often involuntarily come up with an answer to any question you pose it. Going back to the "is there a haberdasher in town?", it will likely compare <intensity> size of town with <intensity> number of haberdashers in (pseudo-)medieval europe - which is higher? Scale with respect to <intensity> number of cobblers in (pseudo-)medieval europe. Maybe also set an intensity required for the omission of such an establishment from town qualifying as a "mistake"...

Hmm - we begin to see a problem. The question is too complex for an easy, instant answer. How does system 1 cope with this? Actually, it has a very well tried and tested trick. It cheats. If it can't answer a complex, hard question, it finds a simple question that it can answer that is superficially related to the complex question - this is called "substitution" and is implicated in many biases. It crops up all the time. "Which of those cars do you think is faster?" is a question that requires extensive technical knowledge and a consideration of the conditions of various potential tests to fully answer - but we don't have time for that! "Which car is more sporty looking?" is much easier to answer and close enough to form a heuristic for the car's speed if we don't think too hard about it. Voila! Instant answer. Of course, system 2 - the rational, logical part of the brain - could veto this substitution. System 2 has universal veto power. But it's trying to prioritise and resolve a whole load of problems and questions (if you are a typical GM running a game, say) and, besides, it takes way more time and effort than system 1, and it's lazy, so it very often gives heuristics a pass without too much consideration.

So, how does this relate to the haberdasher? Well, the question "what is the probability distribution of the number of haberdashers in a (pseudo-)medieval town of this size and how does that relate to my threshold level for reconsidering my (lack of) placing one here?" is way too hard a question for system 1. It will substitute another, heuristic, question. "How much do I like hats?", maybe. Or - using a very common substitution technique, especially where probabilities are concerned - "how many examples of haberdashers in fairy tales/fantasy novels/history books can I think of off the top of my head?"

Thinking about my own (involuntary) assessment of the question when I first read it, I think "I can think of fairy tales about cobblers, but none about haberdashers" figured in my instinctual, "gut feel" answer to the question. But, there is a problem with this type of heuristic very specifically; it is susceptible to another source of bias, often called "anchoring", or "framing".

Consider for a moment the original question:

"Is there a haberdasher in the town?"

Now consider this one:

"The town's merchants and aldermen must get their fancy, draped hats from somewhere - is there a hatmaker or clothier who deals in hats in town?"

Objectively, these are the same question. But my guess is that the second will garner many more positive responses than the first, because it guides the GM's system 1 to a specific availability heuristic - "how many fancy hats with cloth hanging down beside the face can you think of in (pseudo-)medieval stories, texts and (especially) picture books?" - that is likely to return a lot more hits than tales about haberdashers.

This is how the two key features of system 1 thinking - intensity mapping and substitution - lead to decisions about what is "likely" or "correct" in a fantasy world that are both non-objective and manipulable. But, of course, if the GM sticks rigidly to "how much do I like hats?" as a heuristic, the would-be manipulator is probably still out of luck 



Janx said:


> I suspect, in such extremes, D&D runs best as a middle-ground.  Sometimes it's about objective simulation, sometimes it's about story-telling.



Good response, in general - but I am far from sure that "objective simulation" is even possible, for the reasons just outlined...


----------



## Bedrockgames

Balesir said:


> The cases where the stakes are high naturally have more impact. But the models being formed don't apply based on impact - they apply to certain types of decision or judgement. And judgements about how "realistic" things in a fantasy world are fit smack in the centre of the area they draw doubts over.
> ...




Again, impact mattered in what they were saying. Because if I recall the Ted talks correctly, one of the key points was most of the time, these mental shortcuts work just fine. They didn't put a number on it, but let's say that is 80 or 90 percent. It is was the remaining 10-20 percent of the times that it was an issue. If the stakes are high, that impact matters a lot and you would want to pay attention to bias because people might enjoy fewer advantages than others, go to jail or even die, as a result of bias. But this is a game, where the GM is trying to make the players feel like they are in a real place. No one is going to go to jail if his biases lead to a slightly inaccurate description of the number of haberdashers in town. All that matters is that the tools he uses to make those judgments, yield results that produce a world that feels real to the players. Impact is immensely important here. What matters is that the players assessment of the GM is he or she is fair and objective. That is what I meant when I said he doesn't have to be a slave to his biases (the comment that initially got us off on this tangent). 

And for me this modeling is a lot more about consistency. As long as the GM is consistent in how he or she is making these kinds of calls (whether those judgements are biased or not) the result is a fairly consistent game world. 

I don't know I feel like sometimes when you tell people that you like the world in a setting to feel real, you immediately get presented with this straw man that holds up the impossibility of a genuine actual simulation. I guess you could throw your hands up at that, or feel like you have to master the field of cognitive bias before getting behind the GM seat. Personally I think it is usually enough to strive for fairness, objectivity and to try to be self aware enough that you don't make decisions on thing like where you want the adventure to go or the story you are interested in emerging. You can tell us it is impossible, but the fact is many of us have experienced exactly the kind of game we describe. We're not lying about it. 

Again, I am not at all familiar with this field of research and I am very, very wary of bringing that kind of research into my game design. If I understood it well enough, perhaps I'd feel differently but I make games, I am not a scientist. The ted talks were interesting to listen to. But they condensed a lot into a short period of time and were generally expressing a particular point of view from one researcher in each instance.


----------



## Reinhart

Saelorn said:


> The two are as different as night and day.




That seems extremely partisan. And an obviously false-dichotomy for those of us that do both.


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## The Crimson Binome

Reinhart said:


> That seems extremely partisan. And an obviously false-dichotomy for those of us that do both.



I'm not saying that you can't do both, or that you can't enjoy each for what it is, but you can't do both _at the same time_. Any time you're making a decision _about_ the world, or about what happens _to_ your character, is an instance where you're not making a decision _as_ your character. You also need to worry that your authorial control doesn't change how the character makes decisions, because that would be meta-gaming, but that's something you could probably figure out with sufficient practice.

I am also saying that _I_ cannot enjoy story-telling, and _I_ find it highly disruptive to an RPG. That's why I'm not saying that everyone should avoid playing FATE - for all I know, they might actually enjoy it - I'm just saying that it's primarily a story-telling game rather than an RPG. Conflating the two does a disservice to both.


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## Reinhart

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]: I get what you're saying. And I agree that actor and author-stance aren't something that comfortably intermix. But when you essentially suggest that the games that Pelgrane and Evil Hat publish aren't RPG's then I think you've got way too narrow a definition of role-playing. This is a point I think I can respectfully disagree about and move on with though.


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## ExploderWizard

Reinhart said:


> That seems extremely partisan. And an obviously false-dichotomy for those of us that do both.






Saelorn said:


> I'm not saying that you can't do both, or that you can't enjoy each for what it is, but you can't do both _at the same time_.




This is really the heart of the matter. At times the the DM needs to narrate things. While doing so the DM is not playing a role unless it is the role of an NPC who actually performing the narration in the game world. 

The role of player character requires no narration. If you find yourself narrating something then your role has become story teller instead of Hrolf the Bloody, the fighter you were supposedly playing. 

The group simply needs to decide if they have more fun playing story tellers crafting a narrative or fictional characters exploring a fictional world. 5E is flexible enough for a group to do either one as they wish.


----------



## Umbran

Saelorn said:


> I am also saying that _I_ cannot enjoy story-telling, and _I_ find it highly disruptive to an RPG. That's why I'm not saying that everyone should avoid playing FATE - for all I know, they might actually enjoy it - I'm just saying that it's primarily a story-telling game rather than an RPG. Conflating the two does a disservice to both.




The issue here is simple - your personal preferences, and what disrupts *you*, does not really define what a game is or isn't, in general.  It defines whether a game works well for you, or not.


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## The Crimson Binome

Umbran said:


> The issue here is simple - your personal preferences, and what disrupts *you*, does not really define what a game is or isn't, in general.  It defines whether a game works well for you, or not.



I like RPGs, and I don't like story-telling games (STGs). I don't like Fate, but Fate isn't an STG (rather than an RPG) _because_ I dislike it; I dislike it _because_ it's an STG (rather than an RPG).

And those aren't just labels, either. Labels are convenient, but even if you wanted to categorize them as two equal sub-groups of RPG (say, Traditional RPG vs Story-based RPG), then the real thematic and mechanical differences between the two would still be as flagrant. I would still enjoy the former and eschew the latter.

Some games can be played either way, and don't necessarily fall one way  or the other. In such a case, I could probably enjoy it if it was played  as an RPG, even if I wouldn't enjoy it as an STG.


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## Bluenose

Saelorn said:


> Yes, this is exactly what I am saying. Traditional role-playing games are objective simulations. Role-playing is the act of making decisions _as_ your character, not telling stories _about_ your character.
> 
> It's fine if you want to collectively tell a story, and if you want some sort of rule-set to guide you, but that should never be mistaken for role-playing. The two are as different as night and day.




People have different reasons for playing RPGs and character immersion is not only just one of them but it isn't one that makes it more or less of a simulation. And I'm not sure what you mean by 'objective' in this context, but I'm doubtful that it's particularly a notable quality of early D&D.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Bluenose said:


> People have different reasons for playing RPGs and character immersion is not only just one of them but it isn't one that makes it more or less of a simulation. And I'm not sure what you mean by 'objective' in this context, but I'm doubtful that it's particularly a notable quality of early D&D.



An objective reality, in this context, is just one which is defined without input from external sources. It doesn't matter how you look at it, or what you want it to be, because your opinions and preferences aren't going to change anything. It is what it is, and the in-game reality is that every aspect of its existence was defined long before you arrived on the scene.  

Early RPGs, in the name of fairness, placed a strong emphasis on the GM writing down lots of details about the environment. By saying that it didn't exist if it wasn't written down beforehand, it prevented the GM from cheating (either for or against the players). The most extreme example of this can probably be found in Synnibarr, which features an actual rule allowing any player to challenge the GM about any point, and proving a variation from the notes would cause the entire adventure to be thrown out as invalid.

In time, this stance softened somewhat, to allow greater flexibility for things that the GM may have not thought about beforehand. Instead of the pre-game dungeon notes being the final arbiter, the GM was given that power directly, and great effort was made to emphasize fairness so that the players could trust the GM on such matters.


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## Umbran

Saelorn said:


> And those aren't just labels, either. Labels are convenient, but even if you wanted to categorize them as two equal sub-groups of RPG (say, Traditional RPG vs Story-based RPG), then the real thematic and mechanical differences between the two would still be as flagrant. I would still enjoy the former and eschew the latter.




I think there may be some arbitrary distinctions being made - it sounds like some things you don't like are being put in one box, and things you like in another, and that is an issue in discussion with people who don't care about your personal boxes.  

However, let us say for a moment that those aren't just labels.  There is no widely accepted, objective definition of either "role playing game" or "storytelling game".   These are at best genre definitions, which are vague, and generally *inclusive*, not exclusive.  You don't get to show that a novel has a detective in it, and therefore claim that it is a detective story, and *not* a western.  And having a horse in it doesn't mean it *isn't* a detective novel.  These things are not mutually exclusive, as you yourself seem to admit.

You have not done nearly enough to show that FATE, for example, is *not* a role-playing game.  You're perfectly fine if you say, "this has enough elements that break my immersion/concentration/etc., that I don't like it."  Nobody can argue with that.  But as soon as you toss it over the wall and say, "that's a storytelling game, not a role-playing game" you're in the same territory as claiming one edition is, "not D&D".  

Given that you have also said you don't like what you call storytelling games, it is very, very difficult for readers to believe you're not making a major value judgement on something they may happen to like.  If your preference really isn't involved in the distinction, your preference shouldn't have entered the discussion.  But, as it sits, you sound more like you are sitting in judgement and attempting to dismiss games, rather than discuss them with an open mind.


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## The Crimson Binome

Umbran said:


> There is no widely accepted, objective definition of either "role playing game" or "storytelling game".



A "role-playing game" is "a game where you primarily play a role"; "role-playing" is defined as "making decisions, from the perspective of the character". A "story-telling game" is "a game where you primarily tell a story"; "story-telling" is defined as "telling a story, as an author would". These definitions are descriptive, based on the meaning of words which are commonly understood. If you don't like them, then substitute in the sentence fragment wherever I've used the specific term, and it gets to the same point.

There might be some ambiguity, in many circumstances, but no sane individual could read the FATE Core rules and come away thinking that it puts immersion and role-playing ahead of telling a story. I could spend hours quoting the rule book on that point, but it would be a waste of time, because this is not in dispute.

The only dispute is whether FATE counts as an RPG, in spite of its obvious focus on story-telling rather than role-playing. That's just semantics, though, and doesn't change any of the underlying facts. FATE and other games with a strong focus on story-telling rather than role-playing are objectively distinct from traditional role-playing games. If meaningful discussion is to be had on the topic, then we need some sort of label to distinguish between them. 

Once we have established a spectrum between role-playing and story-telling (or however you want to label them), then we can discuss _why_ I don't like Fail Forward, and we could further discuss how it might still be preferable given a suitably-distasteful alternative (even though Fail Forward is bad, it's not as bad as the players sitting around frustrated for four hours because they can't find a door). Or someone else could mention how they _do_ like Fail Forward, because their preference is more toward a collaborative story-telling experience rather than immersive role-playing. At that point, it comes down to a simple matter of preference. Evading the topic, by dismissing useful labels, doesn't get us anywhere.


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## Psikerlord#

I voted good in certain circumstances. I think there is often a place for failure. In some situations however, where the game cannot really continue, then I agree with success at a cost/setback. 

I believe ideally however you should very rarely have situations where the game cant continue, based on a single failed dice roll. In situations like critical info on a knowledge check, I prefer the shadowrun idea where you get increasing better/bonus info the higher you roll. So there is no prospect of the game not moving forward, it will, but the players may not have all the info that might otherwise have been available to them.


----------



## ExploderWizard

Saelorn said:


> An objective reality, in this context, is just one which is defined without input from external sources. It doesn't matter how you look at it, or what you want it to be, because your opinions and preferences aren't going to change anything. It is what it is, and the in-game reality is that every aspect of its existence was defined long before you arrived on the scene.
> 
> Early RPGs, in the name of fairness, placed a strong emphasis on the GM writing down lots of details about the environment. By saying that it didn't exist if it wasn't written down beforehand, it prevented the GM from cheating (either for or against the players). The most extreme example of this can probably be found in Synnibarr, which features an actual rule allowing any player to challenge the GM about any point, and proving a variation from the notes would cause the entire adventure to be thrown out as invalid.
> 
> In time, this stance softened somewhat, to allow greater flexibility for things that the GM may have not thought about beforehand. Instead of the pre-game dungeon notes being the final arbiter, the GM was given that power directly, and great effort was made to emphasize fairness so that the players could trust the GM on such matters.




I'm not familiar with Synnibarr at all but original D&D promoted DM flexibility from the beginning. The game was designed primarily around exploration. There wasn't any plot that could go wrong so there wasn't a way for the players to get off track. The track was wherever the players happen to be at the moment. DMs were encouraged to be flexible and fair. There was no brick wall that brought the game to a screeching halt. If a secret door wasn't discovered then the players explored somewhere else. A failure simply meant choosing another path, of which there were many, so the concept of failing forward wasn't needed. 

This is because failing forward has one requirement that the original game didn't feature, which is defining what "forward" means. 



Saelorn said:


> A "role-playing game" is "a game where you primarily play a role"; "role-playing" is defined as "making decisions, from the perspective of the character". A "story-telling game" is "a game where you primarily tell a story"; "story-telling" is defined as "telling a story, as an author would". These definitions are descriptive, based on the meaning of words which are commonly understood. If you don't like them, then substitute in the sentence fragment wherever I've used the specific term, and it gets to the same point.




Not exactly. A character isn't a requirement to role play. You could play a role playing game in which the participants play themselves in an imagined scenario. All you really need to role play is to approach the imagined scenario or game from within your defined role. That may be, and most commonly ends up being, a fictitious character created for the game. 

The rest is simply defining the nature of that role. FATE is a role playing game. The participants adopt the roles of story tellers from various perspectives. It is the nature of the role that defines the type of game since both traditional rpgs and story focused rpgs feature roles for the players. 

Stories have a flow, which _can_be disrupted by failure points, thus there is a need for fail forward mechanics on occasion. The story has a direction and thus a reference point for fail forward.


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## Neonchameleon

Failing forward is a patch over a design flaw - what happens when someone fails a roll? In far, far too many RPGs the answer is "Nothing happens" or failing that "You cross one option off - try another skill?" Which fundamentally isn't interesting.

oD&D has no need for Failing Forward - it's a timed game. Faff around too long and there's another wandering monster check. But most games aren't in so artificial an environment as the dungeon. This means that games that work on a simple pass/fail metric (and there are loads) can easily devolve into dice-fests as people take it in turns to see who can pick the lock. A clearly tedious and irritating form of play.

Fail Forward is using the DMing advice to fix the system - borderline Oberoni Fallacy. It's vastly better than nothing. But this doesn't make it actually good. I'd far rather use something with consequences for failure like Apocalypse World/Dungeon World (hard moves). Cortex Plus (risking complications), oD&D (timer with wandering monster checks) or 4e (skill challenges being a "Three strikes and you're out" system) than I would simple Fail Forward. Fixing the game is better than giving the GM advice as to how to patch things - which is itself better than not raising this as an issue.


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## Neonchameleon

Saelorn said:


> A "role-playing game" is "a game where you primarily play a role"; "role-playing" is defined as "making decisions, from the perspective of the character". A "story-telling game" is "a game where you primarily tell a story"; "story-telling" is defined as "telling a story, as an author would". These definitions are descriptive, based on the meaning of words which are commonly understood. If you don't like them, then substitute in the sentence fragment wherever I've used the specific term, and it gets to the same point.
> 
> There might be some ambiguity, in many circumstances, but no sane individual could read the FATE Core rules and come away thinking that it puts immersion and role-playing ahead of telling a story. I could spend hours quoting the rule book on that point, but it would be a waste of time, because this is not in dispute.
> 
> The only dispute is whether FATE counts as an RPG, in spite of its obvious focus on story-telling rather than role-playing. That's just semantics, though, and doesn't change any of the underlying facts. FATE and other games with a strong focus on story-telling rather than role-playing are objectively distinct from traditional role-playing games. If meaningful discussion is to be had on the topic, then we need some sort of label to distinguish between them.




OK. So we want to talk about immersion.

Original D&D was played using Pawn Play. Where players didn't try to inhabit their characters - and treated them dying about as seriously as I would losing a game of chess. It was a hacked tabletop wargame. AD&D 1e is not noticably different. And this isn't ambiguous either.

If you want to define Fate as not-a-RPG then we need to continue this conversation by taking into account that D&D is not an RPG either as the focus is on tactics and skill rather than roleplaying and immersion.

Are you prepared to do this? (To me they are both RPGs - and FATE is the more character-immersive of the two).


----------



## Umbran

Saelorn said:


> A "role-playing game" is "a game where you primarily play a role"; "role-playing" is defined as "making decisions, from the perspective of the character". A "story-telling game" is "a game where you primarily tell a story"; "story-telling" is defined as "telling a story, as an author would". These definitions are descriptive, based on the meaning of words which are commonly understood. If you don't like them, then substitute in the sentence fragment wherever I've used the specific term, and it gets to the same point.




The issue is in the "primarily".  That's still entirely a subjective thing.  You noted above that some things break you out of the role-playing mindset, but that is *you*, not all people. That leads to a bias in perception - people will generally weigh the things that jar them more heavily than other things.  The activity that leads you to feel you are "primarily" telling a story may still leave another person feeling they are "primarily" role-playing.   So, it is still boxing things by what you like and don't like.



> There might be some ambiguity, in many circumstances, but no sane individual could read the FATE Core rules and come away thinking that it puts immersion and role-playing ahead of telling a story.




Statements of the form, "You must have a flaw in mental capacity or character to disagree with me," have no place in this discussion.  It is, honestly, a sly form of _ad hominem_ - ascribing a fault to the speaker before they've even spoken so as to dismiss them.  It is also hyperbolic, and you have no factual basis for it - if anyone had doubts that this was about passing judgement, you have probably dispelled those doubts with this characterization.  



> I could spend hours quoting the rule book on that point, but it would be a waste of time, because this is not in dispute.




I dispute it.  The rulebook must spend some extra effort on it, because the relevant mechanics are rather different from those of other games.  If we measure by page counts, most of the time spent in a D&D game is spent casting spells, specifically, because they take up the bulk of the PHB.  But, tell that to the person playing a Fighter!  There may be an objective measure of how much attention the rulebooks pays to it, but that's not the same as an objective measure of how much *play* focuses on it.  So, it still looks like a subjective issue at the root.




			
				Saelorn said:
			
		

> The only dispute is whether FATE counts as an RPG, in spite of its obvious focus on story-telling rather than role-playing.






			
				ExploderWizard said:
			
		

> FATE is a role playing game. The participants adopt the roles of story tellers from various perspectives.




I have to wonder how much time you two have spent reading the rulebooks, as opposed to actually giving the game a fair shake in play.  Because, from my experience, you are *VASTLY* overstating the weight of the storytelling and player's author-stance of the game in practice.  If the player has defined their Aspects along the lines of their character's experience or abilities (things like, "Championship Boxer") they don't generally have to shift into author-stance to make decisions.  The character knows they are a trained boxer, and so will tend to use boxing techniques.  When they want to hit someone extra-hard, they spend a Fate point to try to do so.  No author-stance needed.  No more dissociative than any other game that has resources to spend that aren't in-world resources.

You generally only have to switch to author stance when you've defined your aspects in terms of role in the story, as opposed to role in the fictional world.  But, players who don't want to take such a stance generally won't take such Aspects anyway, so this isn't much of an issue.

The player does have a non-character-mind choice when offered a compel.  However, unless you're in an adversarial relationship with your GM, there isn't much of a decision - just take the compel, because the Fate point is valuable, and the result is likely interesting.  It isn't something one needs to agonize over most of the time.



			
				Saleorn said:
			
		

> That's just semantics, though, and doesn't change any of the underlying facts. FATE and other games with a strong focus on story-telling rather than role-playing are objectively distinct from traditional role-playing games.




As previously noted - it seems that what qualifies for one or the other is still subjective, for reasons already stated.

And, let's remember that your "traditional" role playing game icon is... D&D.  That came from *wargaming* - where the primary decisions are not made from the individual unit's point of view, but from a commander's and game-player's points of view.  D&D, a game in which hordes of people make decisions based not on a character's mindset, but based on game statistics on a sheet that don't exist in-game in any concrete way - still a commander's stance, not an immersed one. So, the "traditional" game does not seem to be an icon of immersion to begin with.

So, I will still accept, "I don't like it."  However, I reject the attempt to draw lines of genre between things that *just happen* to be the same as the lines between things you like and don't like.  The coincidence seems rather suspicious.


----------



## ExploderWizard

Neonchameleon said:


> OK. So we want to talk about immersion.
> 
> Original D&D was played using Pawn Play. Where players didn't try to inhabit their characters - and treated them dying about as seriously as I would losing a game of chess. It was a hacked tabletop wargame. AD&D 1e is not noticably different. And this isn't ambiguous either.




Heck yeah! There is no requirement to perform as an actor in order to role play. Immersion in this sense is simply reacting to the imagined game space from the POV of the character. Being just a game it doesn't need to be attached to emotional investment. So I roll up a fighter and go into the dungeon in search of gold and glory. The important part of game play is making decisions as that fighter based on the environment. The details of that environment exist independent of my fighter who may or may not get a name before attaining level two. If he dies in a patch of green slime in room 5, oh well time to roll up fighter number two. 

I still treat lost characters this way. There is little point in getting too invested in a game construct that could die and be replaced at any time.


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## Neonchameleon

Umbran said:


> The issue is in the "primarily".  That's still entirely a subjective thing.  You noted above that some things break you out of the role-playing mindset, but that is *you*, not all people. That leads to a bias in perception - people will generally weigh the things that jar them more heavily than other things.




I'm going to expand on that.

To me, based on the evidence I've seen from a range of groups, there is one single barrier to immersion. "Has the player internalised the rules to the point where they no longer need to think about them?" It doesn't matter what the rules are - that is the sole condition required. The player can act within the game without having to think about the mechanical structure of the ruleset. It's possible to be immersed in Fate or D&D (I've done both) - but if you start off with the D&D design assumptions (like the siliness of hit points and the weirdness of vancian casting) internalised and the Fate ones (like aspect use) not then D&D is going to be much easier to immerse in. If on the other hand you start from the other direction the immersion in Fate is going to be much much easier than D&D. (And few start as equals).

One point of Rules Light games is that with few rules to get in the way you can internalise the ruleset more easily (and nothing to me shatters immersion like spending ten minutes flipping through a rulebook to find the exact rule you need).

And one reason I love Vincent Baker's game design (although have no wish to play Poison'd or some of his other games) is that he intentionally designs round the way freeform gamers play, putting the mechanical resolution at the least intrusive points possible for freeform gaming. Which means that his games are designed to be as immersive as possible for people who aren't already tabletop roleplayers, making them excellent bridge games into tabletop RP from the creative side.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Neonchameleon said:


> If you want to define Fate as not-a-RPG then we need to continue this conversation by taking into account that D&D is not an RPG either as the focus is on tactics and skill rather than roleplaying and immersion.



I didn't play D&D before 2E, and from what I can tell, you are spot-on about earlier editions being a wargame. The presentation matters, like, a lot. I'm fine if you want to say that FATE is as-much of an RPG as old D&D is.

The difference is that D&D had later editions where they changed their message, where it went from being _just_ a wargame into something that was very character-immersion focused. The late eighties and early nineties were the heyday of the anti-meta-gaming movement.

Given time and sufficient motivation, I could see FATE moving in that same direction. The core mechanic (funny dice + skills) is fairly solid, from a math standpoint. For now, though, it's not really there - it's still very focused on telling a story _about_ a character rather than living _as_ the character.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

ExploderWizard said:


> The rest is simply defining the nature of that role. FATE is a role playing game. The participants adopt the roles of story tellers from various perspectives. It is the nature of the role that defines the type of game since both traditional rpgs and story focused rpgs feature roles for the players.



That is kind of my point, but it's also confusing the terms. Much as you could say that a very Narrative-focused game is a Simulation because you're Simulating a Narrative-based world, you could say that a Story-based game is Role-based because you're playing the Role of a Storyteller. In more common parlance, Simulation means you _don't_ have Narrative influence, and Role-playing means you're playing the _character_ rather than the _author_.

It's been said before, but the Dresden Files game is a great game if you want to be Jim Butcher, but not so much if you want to be Harry Dresden.


----------



## Balesir

Bedrockgames said:


> Again, impact mattered in what they were saying. Because if I recall the Ted talks correctly, one of the key points was most of the time, these mental shortcuts work just fine. They didn't put a number on it, but let's say that is 80 or 90 percent. It is was the remaining 10-20 percent of the times that it was an issue.



Well, the incidence of mistakes is quite high, but the more "serious" and important the decision, the more likely "system 2" is to scrutinise and veto dubious answers, so instances of high impact errors are relatively rare (as one would hope!) Instances of low-impact errors are high, however - high enough to affect economic systems (and hence my interest in studying the area).

If you feel you need to refute the model, however, please instead read it through again, because I think it shows also how just the structure you espouse _can_ work, and work well. I'm going to talk about it in the context of this next paragraph, because it caused me to think more deeply - always a good thing, and much more fun than what I should have been doing! 



Bedrockgames said:


> I don't know I feel like sometimes when you tell people that you like the world in a setting to feel real, you immediately get presented with this straw man that holds up the impossibility of a genuine actual simulation. I guess you could throw your hands up at that, or feel like you have to master the field of cognitive bias before getting behind the GM seat. Personally I think it is usually enough to strive for fairness, objectivity and to try to be self aware enough that you don't make decisions on thing like where you want the adventure to go or the story you are interested in emerging. You can tell us it is impossible, but the fact is many of us have experienced exactly the kind of game we describe. We're not lying about it.



Note that system 1, when it uses an availability heuristic to judge an intensity, often looks for easily recalled instances in life or art. In the case of RPGs, often it looks in genre books, movies, TV series and so on. It follows, then, that if you share a common culture and common tastes in genre reading and watching, it would be quite possible to cultivate a group of people who are all using similar bases for their availability heuristics when judging things about the game world, provided that the genre and sources were clear enough. This would give the players and the GM enough of a common notion of the game world to have it feel coherent and "familiar" to play in. In other words, what you describe happening in your games fits well with the theory.

So, what's my beef? Well, thinking about it, I don't have any objection to the "GM makes a world for the players to explore" from the point of view of feeling "real", or permitting exploration. My problem is that it prevents any real bite of the "game" part of "roleplaying games", because the players have no firm base of understanding upon which to make strategic decisions. Or, rather, as my earlier post shows, if they do persist in "gaming" their one avenue is to game the GM, by trying to anchor and frame his decisions.

Now, it occurs to me that, from your perspective, this may very well be no real problem - in fact, it makes perfect sense for it to be a positive advantage. The paragraph I quoted above gives me the impression that exploration and experiencing the game world and situation are more important in your gaming style than either story provokation or strategising. My experience suggests that, if either of these two features are allowed, they rapidly become a primary focus of play. It makes good sense to me, therefore, that you would want to discourage them if you wanted to positively promote the experiencing/exploring aspect of roleplaying.

Both (collaborative) story provokation and gaming/strategising require hard-and-fast rules to work well. Without a solid rule foundation, gamers cannot make sound tactical or strategic plans and decisions and collaborative story-play will devolve into one person dominating the "story"*.

So, if you want to steer clear of either gamist or narrativist play, I think that GM judgement calls could be just the ticket. This will still be susceptible to "disruptive" players who want to play in either "storytelling" or "gaming" mode, but that is an issue of communication. It should be made clear that, while there are (perfectly good) games aimed at promoting just those agendas, those playing this game are interested in avoiding them in order to promote the simple joy of exploring and experiencing the wonders of the game world.

If you want a game with significant strategising or collaborative story provokation, though, GM judgement calls are best avoided. This is because they allow players only a hazy concept of what the "rules" are and, worse, once they realise what the rules _really_ are they are susceptible to abuse, if you game them. GM decisions can be "anchored" and "framed" with a view to either dominating the story or "winning" the game - and neither is good for the health of play.

An interesting insight, I think, into the place of GM judgement calls in roleplaying rules - thanks!

*: Another aside - the existence of firm rules such as FATE point rules is why I think  [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] is quite wrong about not being able to explore a world/story you have had a role in authoring. The point of such rules in games designed for collaborative storytelling is to ensure that the story is _collaborative_ - that *everyone* gets input into the authorship. This can indeed result in stories that surprise everyone who is playing! In FATE, you can do a pretty good job of directing the story just as you want... right up until you run out of FATE points! Then it's someone else's go. If you want a simple and quick way to try this out, try the card game "Once Upon a Time". It does something similar by giving rules for narratorship to move around the table and an objective (play all your cards). It's quite short and very simple, but I challenge anyone to predict the story that will come out of a game!


----------



## Balesir

Neonchameleon said:


> To me, based on the evidence I've seen from a range of groups, there is one single barrier to immersion. "Has the player internalised the rules to the point where they no longer need to think about them?" It doesn't matter what the rules are - that is the sole condition required. The player can act within the game without having to think about the mechanical structure of the ruleset.



Oooh - this is interesting. So, tying rules to Dan Kahneman's "system 1 thinking" would aid immersion. How did I miss that so far??

Make rules that work on intensities (die sizes?), use no maths (intensities grow or shrink in aliquots) and do not demand additive or probability judgements (for the rules - such judgements _about the game world_ are quite permissible). Link up the intensities to good availability heuristic fodder (books and films, preferably in great number) and you're set. Hmm.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Saelorn said:


> The difference is that D&D had later editions where they changed their message, where it went from being _just_ a wargame into something that was very character-immersion focused. The late eighties and early nineties were the heyday of the anti-meta-gaming movement.




The anti-meta-gaming movement/the roleplaying not rollplaying movement is to me hostile to actual roleplaying. This is because what it says is "You must play characters who know very little about the world they are in and you must use a bit of your brain to metagame to intentionally keep them in the dark."

Now me, I know quite a bit about the world I live in. And I expect my characters to do likewise - and more than can actually be put into mechanics as they can see and even smell details I'd miss, and know the local customs. When I spend a plot point in Fate to create something in a scene I'm not. What I'm doing is saying "This is how I understand the world to work (and possibly why I'm doing what I am) - for the world to work otherwise is something I'd find immensely jarring". And I can of course only do this where there is an established aspect meaning I have to work it with how everyone else understands the scene; what I'm working with/for might be a surprise but it shouldn't jar their immersion. And I find not having a hand in the worldbuilding actually spoils my immersion in any except the most fish-out-of-water scenarios.

That said, Dresden Files makes two major mistakes that have been fixed in Fate Core/Fate Accelerated (and I'm looking forward to Dresden Files Accelerated). The first is _too many aspects_. Ten is far, far too many. No one can keep ten aspects in their head at a time - and that's before you add in scene aspects (and pity the poor GM). Fate Core/Accelarated/Atomic Robo use five aspects each - with one "High Concept" aspect, one Weakness, and three other aspects. Much easier. And second is to massively streamline the stunts (I miss the old SotC Master of Disguise, but it's still makeable in Fate Core). No trees - and far fewer stunts per character. So a current generation Fate character fits comfortably on an index card and possibly a post-it note.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Balesir said:


> Oooh - this is interesting. So, tying rules to Dan Kahneman's "system 1 thinking" would aid immersion. How did I miss that so far??
> 
> Make rules that work on intensities (die sizes?), use no maths (intensities grow or shrink in aliquots) and do not demand additive or probability judgements (for the rules - such judgements _about the game world_ are quite permissible). Link up the intensities to good availability heuristic fodder (books and films, preferably in great number) and you're set. Hmm.




If you're prepared to compromise _slightly_ on the no maths condition (no maths that's non-additive and no maths that can't be done on your fingers) and you add the condition "Any character sheet must be able to be put neatly onto one side of an index card and not require looking in the manual any non-basic rules" you've just described both Dogs in the Vineyard and two of the four main Cortex+ Games (Marvel Heroic and Leverage) - and probably Firefly as well* although you might need neat handwriting. If you add the condition "6 sided dice only" but because of that you have a small static modifier to the die rolls you've now added in Fate Core/Accelerated and Apocalypse World and most of its derivatives.

And I don't think it's a coincidence I've just named some of my favourite RPGs.

* The new Firefly RPG is not the old Serenity RPG. This can confuse people.


----------



## dd.stevenson

Balesir said:


> So, if you want to steer clear of either gamist or narrativist play, I think that GM judgement calls could be just the ticket. This will still be susceptible to "disruptive" players who want to play in either "storytelling" or "gaming" mode, but that is an issue of communication. It should be made clear that, while there are (perfectly good) games aimed at promoting just those agendas, those playing this game are interested in avoiding them in order to promote the simple joy of exploring and experiencing the wonders of the game world.
> 
> *If you want a game with significant strategising* or collaborative story provokation, though, GM judgement calls are best avoided. This is because they allow players only a hazy concept of what the "rules" are and, worse, once they realise what the rules really are they are susceptible to abuse, if you game them. GM decisions can be "anchored" and "framed" with a view to either dominating the story or "winning" the game - and neither is good for the health of play.




Maybe you could elaborate a bit on what you mean by "significant strategising" here? From what I have seen/experienced, it's well possible for players to strategize--in the sense that they can plan to get their foes where they want them, before combat even starts--as long as they are able to bounce their ideas off the DM first to get some notion about how the ruling would go.

Great post, btw.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Neonchameleon said:


> The anti-meta-gaming movement/the roleplaying not rollplaying movement is to me hostile to actual roleplaying. This is because what it says is "You must play characters who know very little about the world they are in and you must use a bit of your brain to metagame to intentionally keep them in the dark."



I can see how it might be a contributing factor, but it also seems like it could be solved if your GM was better about describing the world, and/or if you spent more time learning the setting. 

Part of that is just the reason why fantasy remains popular - because we've all seen enough of it that we can fill in the gaps about how the world works, without having the GM spell everything out all the time. Tropes are super useful here. For anything less standard, you really need to spend more effort to get on the same page as the GM before the game. Letting the player come up with details would certainly lessen the homework load, although it could be difficult to keep the positions separate if you're constantly switching back and forth between character-role and author-role.



Neonchameleon said:


> Now me, I know quite a bit about the world I live in. And I expect my characters to do likewise - and more than can actually be put into mechanics as they can see and even smell details I'd miss, and know the local customs. When I spend a plot point in Fate to create something in a scene I'm not. What I'm doing is saying "This is how I understand the world to work (and possibly why I'm doing what I am) - for the world to work otherwise is something I'd find immensely jarring". And I can of course only do this where there is an established aspect meaning I have to work it with how everyone else understands the scene; what I'm working with/for might be a surprise but it shouldn't jar their immersion. And I find not having a hand in the worldbuilding actually spoils my immersion in any except the most fish-out-of-water scenarios.



Yeah, it really sounds like you just need the GM to do a better job of describing the world, and including all of the sorts of details that you would otherwise want to add. How could it be easier to reconcile your view of the world with that of everyone else at the table, rather than everyone reconciling their own view with just the GM?

I can definitely see the merit in cooperative world-building, but probably as an out-of-game thing that you do before the campaign starts. There's a lot that can go wrong if the GM is trying to have NPCs interact off-screen, but they don't know some of the societal rules that the player introduces at a later point. 

And there's definitely an issue with spending Fate points for establishing a detail about the world, especially if that detail is both immensely important to your immersion _and_ irrelevant toward success in whatever your goal happens to be. It really seems like you should just be able to talk over those details, without bringing some sort of meta-game currency into the equation, but I guess they needed some way to keep that in check and that's the only limiter they had.


----------



## Maxperson

Neonchameleon said:


> The anti-meta-gaming movement/the roleplaying not rollplaying movement is to me hostile to actual roleplaying. This is because what it says is "You must play characters who know very little about the world they are in and you must use a bit of your brain to metagame to intentionally keep them in the dark."




It doesn't say that at all.  If you want a knowledgeable PC, create one.  Also, it's not metagaming to play the PC accurately.  Metagaming is bringing knowledge into the game world from outside the game world that the PC would  have no way of knowing. It isn't failing to give the PC knowledge it shouldn't have.



> Now me, I know quite a bit about the world I live in. And I expect my characters to do likewise - and more than can actually be put into mechanics as they can see and even smell details I'd miss, and know the local customs. When I spend a plot point in Fate to create something in a scene I'm not. What I'm doing is saying "This is how I understand the world to work (and possibly why I'm doing what I am) - for the world to work otherwise is something I'd find immensely jarring". And I can of course only do this where there is an established aspect meaning I have to work it with how everyone else understands the scene; what I'm working with/for might be a surprise but it shouldn't jar their immersion. And I find not having a hand in the worldbuilding actually spoils my immersion in any except the most fish-out-of-water scenarios.




You understand as much as you do about the world you live in because you live in the information age.  Go back 100 years and people were far, far more ignorant.  Go back 200 and it's worse still.  The D&D world doesn't have the internet, newspapers, T.V. and cable, radio and so on to spread knowledge.  At least not unless the DM creates it.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Saelorn said:


> I can see how it might be a contributing factor, but it also seems like it could be solved if your GM was better about describing the world, and/or if you spent more time learning the setting.




Yes, my GM could read a _massive_ list of details about the world out every time we enter a new area - or I could spend a lot of time playing 20 Questions. On the other hand both of these take a lot of time, and time is a precious resource. Also knowing what the players are going to ask is a challenge.

I know what you are advocating - but it is far from the only way to run things, and is a way I find extremely slow and clunky. Either by burying the players in the GM's wall of text or by asking lots of questions about things the character would be able to see at a glance, massively weakening immersion. As such I find this a _vastly_ inferior way of doing things, one which makes for a less rich world from both sides of the table, and effectively leads to the experience of playing a blindfolded character being lead around by a guide (i.e. the GM) rather than having the PC actually inhabit the world. And I mean that literally - you can never get more description of the world by your way of doing things than a blind person with a guide (shared with multiple other people) would.



> For anything less standard, you really need to spend more effort to get on the same page as the GM before the game. Letting the player come up with details would certainly lessen the homework load, although it could be difficult to keep the positions separate if you're constantly switching back and forth between character-role and author-role.




This "Constantly switching back and forth between character-role and author-role" is something I only recall _ever_ hearing from players whose major experience is with 90s RPGs or D&D 3.X. The reason I believe it breaks immersion for you is that you have been trained to believe that the players should not step on the DM's toes by actually trying to understand how the world works and sharing their vision as authoritative.



> Yeah, it really sounds like you just need the GM to do a better job of describing the world, and including all of the sorts of details that you would otherwise want to add. How could it be easier to reconcile your view of the world with that of everyone else at the table, rather than everyone reconciling their own view with just the GM?




I'm going to assume from this you've never done improv drama. And don't understand what @_*pemerton*_ would call the "No Myth" style of worldbuilding. Putting it simply, when the worldbuilding is solely up to the GM it is tightly held - and there is always a lot behind the scenes. Which means it's very easy to cross the lines because they are there but you can't see them. When handling cooperative worldbuilding if it hasn't been declared and someone contradicts it then you re-write it (which doesn't take that much). Even if you're the GM. (And no, this doesn't lead to people subverting the entire premise of the adventure unless you are playing with jerks). It's different rules of ettiquette - but both much easier for the GM and IME more immersive for any players who aren't vastly experienced with either D&D or WoD to the near-exclusion of other games.



Maxperson said:


> It doesn't say that at all. If you want a knowledgeable PC, create one. Also, it's not metagaming to play the PC accurately. Metagaming is bringing knowledge into the game world from outside the game world that the PC would have no way of knowing. It isn't failing to give the PC knowledge it shouldn't have.




It is, however, almost always in my experience, used as a club to beat players who are playing smart characters. Rather than players who are e.g. trying to have their characters make gunpowder (which is, I agree, metagaming). Knowing how badly hurt you are isn't metagaming. Nor is knowing monster behaviour patterns. And any game that says smart and successful play is opposed to the play desired is badly designed.


----------



## Maxperson

Neonchameleon said:


> It is, however, almost always in my experience, used as a club to beat players who are playing smart characters. Rather than players who are e.g. trying to have their characters make gunpowder (which is, I agree, metagaming). Knowing how badly hurt you are isn't metagaming. Nor is knowing monster behaviour patterns. And any game that says smart and successful play is opposed to the play desired is badly designed.




Knowing monster behavior patters is metagaming if your PC has no in game reason to know them.  If you have some sort of in game reason to know it, then more power to you.  Also, knowing monster behaviors is not "playing smart", it's metagaming.  Playing smart is using strategies and tactics.  Taking time in game to research what you might encounter and thereby learn those patterns.  That's smart play.


----------



## dd.stevenson

Neonchameleon said:


> I know what you are advocating - but it is far from the only way to run things




Although you quoted me, I believe you were responding to Saelorn as I'm not advocating, and I sure as heck didn't say anything about only one way to run things.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Balesir said:


> Well, the incidence of mistakes is quite high, but the more "serious" and important the decision, the more likely "system 2" is to scrutinise and veto dubious answers, so instances of high impact errors are relatively rare (as one would hope!) Instances of low-impact errors are high, however - high enough to affect economic systems (and hence my interest in studying the area).
> 
> If you feel you need to refute the model, however, please instead read it through again, because I think it shows also how just the structure you espouse _can_ work, and work well. I'm going to talk about it in the context of this next paragraph, because it caused me to think more deeply - always a good thing, and much more fun than what I should have been doing!
> !




I was just talking about the ted talks; I haven't read the book by Kahneman. As I recall in the talks, one of the speakers, can't remember who as I listened to it when it first aired, said that the mental short cuts we use are usually quite effective, they evolved to be. The problem is those times they are not because they are based on making snap judgments, often using superficial information. But I wasn't arguing against applying reason and logic to vet a decision. In my view better GMs have the ability to reflect on their decisions and to evaluate their past choices to help them make better ones in the future. I am all for deliberation and logic being applied to these things. 

I just want to be clear here though, I have no interest in reading his book and I am not interested in critiquing the model. It is well outside my expertise and not a subject I have particular interest in incorporating into my gaming. The model may well be sound. I am not refuting or supporting it. As I said before, I am very dubious of this sort of researching being applied to discussions of style and play in roleplaying games. Particularly by people who are not psychologists.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Balesir said:


> So, what's my beef? Well, thinking about it, I don't have any objection to the "GM makes a world for the players to explore" from the point of view of feeling "real", or permitting exploration. My problem is that it prevents any real bite of the "game" part of "roleplaying games", because the players have no firm base of understanding upon which to make strategic decisions. Or, rather, as my earlier post shows, if they do persist in "gaming" their one avenue is to game the GM, by trying to anchor and frame his decisions.
> 
> Now, it occurs to me that, from your perspective, this may very well be no real problem - in fact, it makes perfect sense for it to be a positive advantage. The paragraph I quoted above gives me the impression that exploration and experiencing the game world and situation are more important in your gaming style than either story provokation or strategising. My experience suggests that, if either of these two features are allowed, they rapidly become a primary focus of play. It makes good sense to me, therefore, that you would want to discourage them if you wanted to positively promote the experiencing/exploring aspect of roleplaying.




We've discussed this before, but I am not particularly persuaded by GNS theory and you seem to be steering this toward that model. No real desire to get into that discussion again. That said, I don't see any reason why anything I said would prevent someone from engaging strategy or story. The GM can still abide by the rules of the game, and story can still emerge and be part of the experience. It is just that the GM is trying to be fair, objective and truthful to his or her sense of what would happen when making choices and decisions. A GM deciding that an NPC should be angry at the party for stealing his livestock, or that there in fact ought to be 2 haberdashers in town given the population size, won't have any impact on their ability to strategize or experience a story. Personally I find strategizing easier when the GM is careful in presenting a believable world.

In terms of my play style, while experiencing the world is important, I also like a fair amount of strategizing and puzzles. Generally I'd prefer the strategy occur through the lens of the game world (so I am not playing a mini-game or something on top of the RPG). But sometimes you have to break out the miniatures and think in terms of where the pieces are when forces are large enough. 

In terms of story provocation, it really depends on what you mean by that. My games have plenty of drama, conflict and excitement. I don't know if any of that equates to story provocation or not, but isn't just about walking around and not having stuff happen.


----------



## Umbran

Neonchameleon said:


> Yes, my GM could read a _massive_ list of details about the world out every time we enter a new area - or I could spend a lot of time playing 20 Questions. On the other hand both of these take a lot of time, and time is a precious resource. Also knowing what the players are going to ask is a challenge.




Somewhere a couple of days ago, I saw someone mentioning how RPGs are unique in part because of the high level of detail in the game world.  I had to laugh.

RPGs are generally limited to verbal communication speeds - you can only give as much detail as you can describe to the players.  Since, as you note, time is precious, as a practical matter, we leave *tons* of detail out, and allow convention and genre expectations to fill in most of those details.   The GM *can't* do a really full description of all things that might possibly matter to players in reasonable time - players are devious, and may need details down to whether floors and walls are held together with wood pegs or iron nails, and other minutiae.  And, to be honest, the players likely wouldn't remember the barrage of all the details you could give them anyway.  It'd become useless noise they would ignore.

It is far more efficient to allow many details to be fuzzy, and really determine them only when it is found to matter.  We don't need to stipulate what the tabletop is made of until the player is considering setting it on fire.  We don't need to be sure if there's a chandelier until someone might want to swing from one.  Paying a resource to stipulate a detail is just a way of eliminating a "mother, may I?" loop of GM judgement call of whether they want to allow the player to try something.

Some RPGs (like GUMSHOE) have other mechanics (like the Preparedness ability), that allow the player to make a check to see if they thought to bring along something they didn't stipulate at start.  Again, this gets around the waste of stipulating large amounts of detail that turn out not to matter, and instead allow the player to initiate a quick resolution for only the details that do matter to them.


----------



## Neonchameleon

dd.stevenson said:


> Although you quoted me, I believe you were responding to Saelorn as I'm not advocating, and I sure as heck didn't say anything about only one way to run things.




Sorry. I quoted multiple people in that post - and for some reason didn't respond to your comment. Post edited.



Bedrockgames said:


> We've discussed this before, but I am not particularly persuaded by GNS theory and you seem to be steering this toward that model.




GNS theory was a useful tool in the early 00s for talking about why games like V:tM and the Storyteller System did not deliver on what people wanted from them. But it's IMO outlived its usefulness by a large margin. About all that should be left from it IMO is "People play RPGs for different goals. And that's cool, and you can design to those people. Some of those goals are G, N, S but there are others."


----------



## Bedrockgames

Umbran said:


> It is far more efficient to allow many details to be fuzzy, and really determine them only when it is found to matter.  We don't need to stipulate what the tabletop is made of until the player is considering setting it on fire.  We don't need to be sure if there's a chandelier until someone might want to swing from one.  Paying a resource to stipulate a detail is just a way of eliminating a "mother, may I?" loop of GM judgement call of whether they want to allow the player to try something.
> .




I think there is a reasonable complaint about this sort of technique though. There are plenty of gamers who really enjoy the sense of being there in their character's shoes and giving them world editing abilities like this can both take them out of their character's headspace and blur the line between the character and the setting. For these kinds of players, the GMs role in saying "yes there is a chandelier" or "no there isn't" is pretty crucial and if you shift that to the player it becomes an issue. Not saying these kinds of points are bad. But there is a play style and player type where they are not the ideal choice.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> I think there is a reasonable complaint about this sort of technique though. There are plenty of gamers who really enjoy the sense of being there in their character's shoes and giving them world editing abilities like this can both take them out of their character's headspace and blur the line between the character and the setting. For these kinds of players, the GMs role in saying "yes there is a chandelier" or "no there isn't" is pretty crucial and if you shift that to the player it becomes an issue. Not saying these kinds of points are bad. But there is a play style and player type where they are not the ideal choice.




In my experience this is true - but I have never seen this type of behaviour out of anyone who wasn't a veteran D&D or WoD player. I therefore believe it's learned from those games.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> In my experience this is true - but I have never seen this type of behaviour out of anyone who wasn't a veteran D&D or WoD player. I therefore believe it's learned from those games.




I don't know. I've met plenty of non-D&D/WOD gamers who feel this way.


----------



## Umbran

Bedrockgames said:


> I think there is a reasonable complaint about this sort of technique though.




Nothing in this world is perfect.



> There are plenty of gamers who really enjoy the sense of being there in their character's shoes and giving them world editing abilities like this can both take them out of their character's headspace and blur the line between the character and the setting.




I'm sure there are.  But, as Neonchameleon notes - how much of this is learned behavior, an expectation set by previous play?  

That which is learned, can be unlearned, or at least so Yoda tells us.  So, if possible, it may behoove a player to learn to be more flexible - inflexibility is a virtue in steel beams, but not so much in players.



> For these kinds of players, the GMs role in saying "yes there is a chandelier" or "no there isn't" is pretty crucial and if you shift that to the player it becomes an issue.




Here's an interesting bit - nobody is saying you can't ask the GM first!  It isn't like the FATE mechanic requires *all* small details to be in the player's hands.  Fate points are valuable enough for other things that players who don't use them in this particular way probably won't ever notice the lack.

And, in Gumshoe, if you don't want to ever want to pull an in-deterministic rabbit out of your hat, just don't put points into Preparedness.  You can buy other skills instead.  Just be ready to always have to list out Every. Piece. Of. Equipment. All. The. Time.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Umbran said:


> Nothing in this world is perfect.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sure there are.  But, as Neonchameleon notes - how much of this is learned behavior, an expectation set by previous play?
> 
> That which is learned, can be unlearned, or at least so Yoda tells us.  So, if possible, it may behoove a player to learn to be more flexible - inflexibility is a virtue in steel beams, but not so much in players.
> .




I am not convinced it is a learned behavior any more than other tastes and preferences are. 

I'm inclined to see it as a preference thing. I had a player who really, really hated bennies, no matter how often he played savage worlds (a system he otherwise enjoyed). I could have told him he was wrong, misguided, close-minded, etc; but that wouldn't have been very productive. Rather I listened to reasons. Something about "well maybe that is a learned behavior you should change" seems just as rude to me as saying "FATE isn't an RPG". I mean we are just talking about preferences. The whole "I don't like having the ability to alter the setting through points" has come up often enough I think it is a legitimate style issue. Some systems may have it, and it is small enough that people won't notice. But when it is obvious, it is clearly a problem for some people. 

I'm not saying such systems are bad. I'm just saying they are not for everyone (just like horror movies are not for everyone, and just like not all people like movies that break the fourth wall). It is easy to see why these points would disrupt suspension of disbelief for some folks.

In terms of people being flexible and open minded. I think it is good to try new things, and be open to new experiences. I think pretending you like something you don't isn't a virtue. I can be as open minded about dark chocolate all I want, it won't change my dislike of it. Same goes for Jazz. I've been a musician most of my life, always tried to listen to Jazz because it is one of those things you are supposed to enjoy if you are really into music but with a handful of exceptions it just never worked for me. I go nuts if I listen to more than a few minutes of jazz. I think the same thing applies here. Me and my group are always trying new games. Some of them are cool with stuff like bennies and fate points, some really have a problem with them. They'll play games with them, but they will let me know what they think of the system afterwards. Some tastes can be acquired, but not all. 

Also as someone who isn't too into the point thing myself, I've played plenty of games like this and been open to  the mechanics. No amount of playing has changed my reaction when it does come up. I am not as bothered by it as some folks. I'll still play but such mechanics tend to irk me. So I don't think it is a simple question of unlearning it. What I will say is perhaps my rationale is off. I noticed the irking before I had an explanation, so it is entirely possible there is something else at work beneath he surface here in terms of why. But the  mechanic is definitely the source of the issue. 

Now if you like the mechanic, that is cool. I am not asking you to justify your enjoyment of it, or calling into question its legitimacy. I'm just saying people who don't like it probably have a valid reason the centers on preference.


----------



## Imaro

Umbran said:


> I'm sure there are.  But, as Neonchameleon notes - how much of this is learned behavior, an expectation set by previous play?
> 
> That which is learned, can be unlearned, or at least so Yoda tells us.  So, if possible, it may behoove a player to learn to be more flexible - inflexibility is a virtue in steel beams, but not so much in players..






Neonchameleon said:


> In my experience this is true - but I have never seen this type of behaviour out of anyone who wasn't a veteran D&D or WoD player. I therefore believe it's learned from those games.




For me these quotes seem uncomfortably close to the D&D players have been "brain damaged" rhetoric of Ron Edwards back in the day??  I've seen plenty of people who weren't veteran D&D or WoD players who just enjoyed a less narrative/player-authorial style.   

Personally I can enjoy either... depending on the mood and experience I am looking for and I am a veteran D&D and WoD player, but... It's a preference, not some brain washing or learned behavior that had to be shed from those games... Seriously, this is a leisure activity and when doing an activity for fun most people will gravitate to what they enjoy... to pre-suppose that they need to be more flexible or unlearn their preferences is kind of insulting.  I don't suggest someone who likes playing basketball but doesn't like boxing needs to unlearn his preferences or be more flexible since they are both sports, I assume he's an adult and knows what is and isn't an enjoyable experience for himself.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Neonchameleon said:


> I know what you are advocating - but it is far from the only way to run things, and is a way I find extremely slow and clunky. Either by burying the players in the GM's wall of text or by asking lots of questions about things the character would be able to see at a glance, massively weakening immersion. As such I find this a vastly inferior way of doing things, one which makes for a less rich world from both sides of the table, and effectively leads to the experience of playing a blindfolded character being lead around by a guide (i.e. the GM) rather than having the PC actually inhabit the world. And I mean that literally - you can never get more description of the world by your way of doing things than a blind person with a guide (shared with multiple other people) would.



What you are advocating would be the equivalent of five guides, each describing things to each other in the order that they become relevant. Without a central authority, there is no way to maintain consistency in anything. If you make up a detail and declare it, and it contradicts a detail believed (but not yet declared) by another player, then you've just stomped on their immersion as well as if the GM had done it, but you don't have a unified vision to back it up.



Neonchameleon said:


> This "Constantly switching back and forth between character-role and author-role" is something I only recall _ever_ hearing from players whose major experience is with 90s RPGs or D&D 3.X. The reason I believe it breaks immersion for you is that you have been trained to believe that the players should not step on the DM's toes by actually trying to understand how the world works and sharing their vision as authoritative.



There can be only one final authority. The players should try to understand how the world works, but they'll never understand it as well as the one who actually designed everything and knows how it fits together in the background. If a player tries to share their own vision, as though it was authoritative, then they're likely to contradict some other things within the world - which would put a huge burden on the GM, who is in charge of running _everything_ else in the world that isn't on-screen right now.

Between the nineties and 3.X, that's a hugely influential piece of RPG history. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that the whole school of thought, codified during that era, is the Establishment against which other games distinguish themselves. Which isn't to say that you can't do your collaborative improv thing, if that's what you enjoy, but don't expect many others to buy into it. People who like RPGs, by and large, like them for what they are rather than for what you want them to be.

Edit: Sorry, that came out sounding way more hostile than I'd intended. You raise a valid point, and it makes sense how collaborative improv could increase immersion at the table. The single-author style definitely experiences a bottle-neck of information, when the GM needs to divide their attention multiple ways, and splitting up the responsibility for world-building (and detail-building) seems like a sufficient way of addressing that issue. At worst, it's just a trade-off in priorities.


----------



## Balesir

dd.stevenson said:


> Maybe you could elaborate a bit on what you mean by "significant strategising" here? From what I have seen/experienced, it's well possible for players to strategize--in the sense that they can plan to get their foes where they want them, before combat even starts--as long as they are able to bounce their ideas off the DM first to get some notion about how the ruling would go.



Sure. No less a chap than Dwight Eisenhower once said "I have always found plans to be mostly useless. Plan_ning_, on the other hand, is utterly essential!"

In the way I strategise when I approach games, and when I tackle big issues at work, I find that I can agree with this assessment pretty thoroughly. I don't have "a plan". I have lots of plans all mutating and developing in parallel. Some are preferred scenarios, some are more of a contingency, others are speculative but it turns out the conditions for them never really emerge. I know from conversations we have had that several of my gaming friends experience much the same sort of state of mind.

To enable this sort of "ongoing foment", I need to have a few things. Firstly, I need a clear idea of my objectives. In a board game or a war game this will tend to be given, but in a roleplaying game it will come at least partly from the character I'm playing (whether this be my PC or an NPC). This I break down into sub-objectives, and this is where the main requirement arises - I need to know my character's capabilities. Note: this is very different from needing to know what my character knows, which is usually completely impractical in any case. I am personally incapable of picking out the spoor of wild animals and recognising its import in natural surroundings, and it would take far too long to even learn about it to play a game, but all I need to know is that my character can do it either reliably, or not-so-reliably. I need an accurate model in my head of what my character can do, because the character will almost certainly have an accurate model of what they can do - even though their model may take a very different form than mine.

Here is where rules really help and relying on what the GM thinks my character's capabilities are doesn't suffice. It comes down a little bit like [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] is describing; my character knows far more about the world in which they live than I ever will - my brain is pretty fully engaged getting and maintaining all _I_ know, never mind all some other guy knows! So I need a proxy, a substitute model, if I am to strategise in a way that feels adequate to me from the character's point of view.

This will necessarily involve also having some clear model of how the world outside the character works. To know my capabilities in dealing with the environment, I will need to know something about how the environment will respond.

Given these elements of a world model - which is not identical to the character's world model (because getting to that is impossible in less than a lifetime), but is a proxy sufficient for evaluating and moulding plans about the objectives that are relevant to the play in which we are engaging - I can start up the engine to build plans, evaluate possibilities, identify contingencies and so on. If I have to ask the GM for constant clarifications and guidance, this ability simply fails. It becomes a stunted husk of what I think of as true "strategising", where a bare minimum of options and contingencies are evaluated. In the "system thinking" terminology I was using above, much of the evaluation is being done by my "system 1" brain after I have translated the rules into its terms, but it is being guided by the "system 2" brain concerning constraints and objectives, with additional input for any maths required. This is quite hard work, but also fun as I reach a sort of state of buzzing consciousness that's hard to explain, with plans and possibilities forming and reforming as the situation in the game changes.

Does that cover the ground you had in mind?



dd.stevenson said:


> Great post, btw.



Thanks!


----------



## Umbran

Bedrockgames said:


> I am not convinced it is a learned behavior any more than other tastes and preferences are.




This is not necessarily much of an argument against it.  Many preferences - in food, in literature, in movies and TV, color of clothes to wear, in all sorts of things, are likely learned behaviors.



> I'm just saying people who don't like it probably have a valid reason the centers on preference.




Yeah.  So, an andecdote:  I have a friend who sometimes plays in my games.  He, like everyone, has food preferences.  For one, he hates cheese.  He doesn't have an allergy, nor is he lactose intolerant, or any similar biological issue with it.  He simply dislikes it, in any form.  There is no flavor or texture of cheese that appeals to him.  When he's been over over to my house for dinner, more than once, he's taken from a dish, eaten it, and said it was wonderful, complimenting the dish.  And then been told that it contains a considerable amount of cheese - and his opinion of the dish has retroactive changed to him not liking it much at all.

This is common in humans.  Many of our "reasons" are just rationalizations for emotional reactions, not actually root causes.  My friend has an emotional reaction to the idea of cheese.  If the idea of cheese, however, is not in his mind, he has no issue with the actuality of cheese.  

So, I'm just saying that preferences need not be written in stone for all time, and that occasionally challenging the supremacy of accepted preferences is a good thing.  We should challenge assumptions - INCLUDING OUR OWN.  



Imaro said:


> For me these quotes seem uncomfortably close to the D&D players have been "brain damaged" rhetoric of Ron Edwards back in the day??




That seems more a statement than a question.

I'm saying nothing about brain damage, at least no more than afflicts humans in general (myself included).  We are very good at misleading ourselves, and holding onto positions long after rational issues have been addressed.  I do not know it is happening with anyone in this thread, of course.  But when we start considering unnamed masses collectively, these effects should also be considered.


----------



## Balesir

Saelorn said:


> What you are advocating would be the equivalent of five guides, each describing things to each other in the order that they become relevant. Without a central authority, there is no way to maintain consistency in anything. If you make up a detail and declare it, and it contradicts a detail believed (but not yet declared) by another player, then you've just stomped on their immersion as well as if the GM had done it, but you don't have a unified vision to back it up.



That's one of the things that the rules are for. The players should at all times consider what the rules say when formulating what they believe, but within that they can believe what they like. In this paradigm, only the rules dictate what _can_ happen; what the players (including the GM) say, moderated or constrained by the rules procedures and the dice, determines what _does_ happen. If you believe that something _has_ happened that has not been declared, you have only yourself to blame.



Saelorn said:


> There can be only one final authority.



Actually, several experiences have shown me that this isn't so. True, there has to be a way of settling disputes (as contrasted with conflicts, which term we tend to use for in-game differences of views, rather than about-the-game disagreements). But that can be a rule or a procedure just as well as it can be a person.


----------



## Imaro

Umbran said:


> That seems more a statement than a question.




I didn't make it clear but it was both, a statement from me but I was also wondering if you see the similarity in you and @_*Neonchameleon*_'s arguments with said rhetoric...



Umbran said:


> I'm saying nothing about brain damage, at least no more than afflicts humans in general (myself included).  We are very good at misleading ourselves, and holding onto positions long after rational issues have been addressed.  I do not know it is happening with anyone in this thread, of course.  But when we start considering unnamed masses collectively, these effects should also be considered.





The issue is that on the one hand you talk about flexibility and being more open... yet your line of thinking seems inflexible and totally closed off to the possibility that one can have a rational preference for not liking something... it could be as simple as I don't find it fun (which when dealing with leisure activities is probably the most rational explanation one can give for preference). 

Both @_*Neonchameleon*_ and your posts ring of a..."You just don't know any better" or "You've been taught wrong" mentality and pre-supposes that one cannot be both conscious of their dislikes and have a rational reason for them... instead one is either being irrational or one is being inflexible when it comes to playstyles... @_*Neonchameleon*_ goes even further in insinuating that somehow experiencing a game/games that use a particular playstyle (of course the one he doesn't particularly like) is the only cause he's witnessed for not accepting the playstyle he himself enjoys...  It all just seems a little presumptuous IMO... as opposed to looking at all possible causes and/or giving people the benefit of the doubt in knowing what they do or don't enjoy...


----------



## Bedrockgames

Umbran said:


> This is not necessarily much of an argument against it.  Many preferences - in food, in literature, in movies and TV, color of clothes to wear, in all sorts of things, are likely learned behaviors.




I wasn't trying to make an argument. I was just expressing that I wasn't convinced by the poster's assertion that this is a learned behavior from D&D and WOD. 

In terms of tastes. I am not saying I think tastes are purely innate. It is obvious that someone who grows up in a society where cheese is common would be more inclined to like it than someone who grows up in a society where diary products are not consumed. And we can cultivate tastes over time. Still I don't know that D&D caused people to want to stay in character. I'm curious where the causality is supposed to be there. My first experience with RPGs wasn't with D&D at all and my immediate reaction to play was how I loved being a character in another world, I loved feeling like I was in my character's head, seeing the world through his eyes. 

My point is once someone has gone through the effort of trying things, once they've been open minded and given things a shot on multiple occasions, it is a bit snobbish to suggest they are just not open minded enough or they are merely operating on a learned response (one could just as easily hurl that back at someone who likes Fate points or any other mechanic). 

I play games with these mechanics. I like Doctor Who: Adventures in Space and Time and I like Savage Worlds, both feature this sort of point system. I still enjoy both games, but I do have trouble not noticing when points are used for those sorts of things (particularly in doctor who). 




> Yeah.  So, an andecdote:  I have a friend who sometimes plays in my games.  He, like everyone, has food preferences.  For one, he hates cheese.  He doesn't have an allergy, nor is he lactose intolerant, or any similar biological issue with it.  He simply dislikes it, in any form.  There is no flavor or texture of cheese that appeals to him.  When he's been over over to my house for dinner, more than once, he's taken from a dish, eaten it, and said it was wonderful, complimenting the dish.  And then been told that it contains a considerable amount of cheese - and his opinion of the dish has retroactive changed to him not liking it much at all.
> 
> This is common in humans.  Many of our "reasons" are just rationalizations for emotional reactions, not actually root causes.  My friend has an emotional reaction to the idea of cheese.  If the idea of cheese, however, is not in his mind, he has no issue with the actuality of cheese.
> 
> So, I'm just saying that preferences need not be written in stone for all time, and that occasionally challenging the supremacy of accepted preferences is a good thing.  We should challenge assumptions - INCLUDING OUR OWN.




There is a difference between someone refusing to try something, or changing their opinion simply because something is present in a dish, and a person trying something again and again and finding they don't like it much. I'm all for gamers giving things a try and not letting a single mechanic dissuade them from playing a game they may well enjoy. I also understand the challenge of getting players to try something that contains an element they are resistant to. But I do think we also have to respect peoples' preferences and accept that sometimes people don't like things we do, and that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with them (even if you are talking about learned tastes). I mean if someone came to my house from a country where they don't eat dairy, I wouldn't get pushy about pressuring them to try pizza or grilled cheese. And I certainly wouldn't dismiss their complaints that it smells bad to them or is too pungent by saying "oh that is just because you of how you were taught to eat". 

Some of that seems to be going on here. People are saying they are not into Fate Points, which is a fair opinion to have, and it is kind of being dismissed as a learned response from playing too much D&D or wold of darkness. Even though plenty of the folks here have played other games (I don't even really play D&D these days, or world of darkness).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Umbran said:


> I'm saying nothing about brain damage, at least no more than afflicts humans in general (myself included).  We are very good at misleading ourselves, and holding onto positions long after rational issues have been addressed.  I do not know it is happening with anyone in this thread, of course.  But when we start considering unnamed masses collectively, these effects should also be considered.




Fair enough, but if you want to examine it on a large scale, it should be with a lot more than mere speculation that this is a learned response from D&D and WOD.


----------



## dd.stevenson

Balesir said:


> Here is where rules really help and relying on what the GM thinks my character's capabilities are doesn't suffice. It comes down a little bit like @Neonchameleon is describing; my character knows far more about the world in which they live than I ever will - my brain is pretty fully engaged getting and maintaining all I know, never mind all some other guy knows! So I need a proxy, a substitute model, if I am to strategise in a way that feels adequate to me from the character's point of view.
> 
> This will necessarily involve also having some clear model of how the world outside the character works. To know my capabilities in dealing with the environment, I will need to know something about how the environment will respond.
> 
> Given these elements of a world model - which is not identical to the character's world model (because getting to that is impossible in less than a lifetime), but is a proxy sufficient for evaluating and moulding plans about the objectives that are relevant to the play in which we are engaging - I can start up the engine to build plans, evaluate possibilities, identify contingencies and so on. *If I have to ask the GM for constant clarifications and guidance, this ability simply fails. It becomes a stunted husk of what I think of as true "strategising", where a bare minimum of options and contingencies are evaluated.* In the "system thinking" terminology I was using above, much of the evaluation is being done by my "system 1" brain after I have translated the rules into its terms, but it is being guided by the "system 2" brain concerning constraints and objectives, with additional input for any maths required. This is quite hard work, but also fun as I reach a sort of state of buzzing consciousness that's hard to explain, with plans and possibilities forming and reforming as the situation in the game changes.
> 
> Does that cover the ground you had in mind?




Yes; absolutely. 

I have a response, but feel I first ought to clarify what kind of D&D players I'm talking about. I've DMed 2E, 3E/Pathfinder and 5E, and the players I've encountered over the years have overwhelmingly been of the same sort: surprisingly unaware of the game rules beyond (1) what character abilities they're really excited about, and (2) whatever character rules they've enjoyed interacting with in the past. Most of the time, for most of the players I've met*, the difference between a rule and a ruling is completely opaque.

Are these players incapable of the kind of strategizing you describe? I would answer, absolutely not: judging by the kind of ideas they bounce around when confronted with an evolving problem, they are at any time fomenting seven or eight different plans each, balancing their own goals with their character's goals, demonstrating a strong awareness of what the likely consequences of their actions might be.

I understand that there's a different "mouth feel" to this kind of strategizing, and the kind that happens when interacting directly with a rules system, but I'm asserting based on my experience with both that this is a difference of qualities, not degree.

*Of course I'm sensible to the fact that this is a self-selected subset of players who can't be taken to represent even D&D as a whole, but that's where my biases lie and anyhow their representativeness isn't germane to my point.



Neonchameleon said:


> Sorry. I quoted multiple people in that post - and for some reason didn't respond to your comment. Post edited.



Many thanks. I consider myself a playstyle pragmatist--different tools for different jobs, intellectual purity be damned--and I find it frustrating to get painted with other views.


----------



## Bluenose

Bedrockgames said:


> I think there is a reasonable complaint about this sort of technique though. There are plenty of gamers who really enjoy the sense of being there in their character's shoes and giving them world editing abilities like this can both take them out of their character's headspace and blur the line between the character and the setting. For these kinds of players, the GMs role in saying "yes there is a chandelier" or "no there isn't" is pretty crucial and if you shift that to the player it becomes an issue. Not saying these kinds of points are bad. But there is a play style and player type where they are not the ideal choice.




Assuredly there are also people who find regularly asking someone else (the GM) whether things that their characters would certainly notice (such as the presence of a chandelier) are actually present will affect their immersion in their character. 

Perhaps we should coin a term for that to go with "Story Game". And then we can declare that because they don't allow immersion in your character for some players then they're not Real RPGs.


----------



## pemerton

A couple of people have mentioned me ( [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION]).

I haven't read the thread, other than their posts, but here is a post on "fail forward".

As I understand it (from designers like Luke Crane, Ron Edwards, Robin Laws and Jonathan Tweet), "fail forward" is a technique for (i) ensuring the game has a story-like progression without (ii) GM railroading.

The basic idea is that, when a player fails a roll/check, instead of the GM narrating that no progress is made, the GM narrates an adverse but still dynamic consequence happening. What the adverse consequence is should be made up on the spot, weaving in considerations that have been made relevant by the play of the game to that point, the various signals that the players have sent via the build and play of their PCs, etc.

In classic D&D play, there are GMs who are good at designing interesting dungeons, and GMs whose dungeons suck. In "fail forward"-type play, a good GM is one who can narrate failures that keep driving events forward and the fully engage the players (and their PCs) even though the PCs aren't getting what they want.

In the first session of my current Burning Wheel game, one of the PCs tried to read the aura on a feather for sale at a bazaar. He was looking for an item to use as part of a fire-proofing enchantment; the peddler was proclaiming the feather to be an angel feather recovered from the Bright Desert. The aura reading check failed. So I narrated that the feather was indeed an angel feather, but was also cursed. The idea of a cursed angel feather I made up on the spot; the story around the curse played an important role in driving events for the next few sessions (eg the peddler received bad news from his home town and took to a ship, which the PCs also sailed on; the ship ended up being assaulted and sunk by a ghost ship; the PCs were evicted/rejected by multiple NPCs because of their ill omened character, and the curse on the feather was one aspect of this; etc).

In the most recent session of this campaign, one of the PCs went into the caves in the hills above the keep on the borderlands, hoping to recover a mace that had been dropped there an enemy dark elf. The PC (and the PC's player) knew that another PC was wanting to recover the mace, and wanted to get the mace as leverage against that other PC.

The attempt failed. So I narrated the mace (which had fallen in a stream) being dislodged and falling down through a cleft in the rocks. In the end (and throwing the player of the other PC a bone, as he had had a fairly rough couple of sessions) I had the mace washed up (probably not just by the rush of the mountain stream, but by the activities of spirits) in the stream below the keep, which enabled a third PC, who had promised the second PC to help him recover the mace, to obtain it and hand it over to that second PC.

 [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] has linked "fail forward" to "no myth" or shared worldbuilding. Narrating failures in a "fail forward" way requires there to be a degree of fluidity in backstory, so that new events or agents or motivations can be introduced (eg like curses on a feather, or spirits in the mountain stream) to keep things moving forward. If all of the GM's "secret backstory" is meant to have been determined in advance, and a principle goal of play is for the players to uncover that secret backstory, then "fail forward" probably isn't going to be a useful technique.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> A couple of people have mentioned me ( @_*Lanefan*_, @_*Neonchameleon*_).
> 
> I haven't read the thread, other than their posts, but here is a post on "fail forward".
> 
> As I understand it (from designers like Luke Crane, Ron Edwards, Robin Laws and Jonathan Tweet), "fail forward" is a technique for (i) ensuring the game has a story-like progression without (ii) GM railroading.
> 
> The basic idea is that, when a player fails a roll/check, instead of the GM narrating that no progress is made, the GM narrates an adverse but still dynamic consequence happening. What the adverse consequence is should be made up on the spot, weaving in considerations that have been made relevant by the play of the game to that point, the various signals that the players have sent via the build and play of their PCs, etc.
> 
> In classic D&D play, there are GMs who are good at designing interesting dungeons, and GMs whose dungeons suck. In "fail forward"-type play, a good GM is one who can narrate failures that keep driving events forward and the fully engage the players (and their PCs) even though the PCs aren't getting what they want.
> 
> In the first session of my current Burning Wheel game, one of the PCs tried to read the aura on a feather for sale at a bazaar. He was looking for an item to use as part of a fire-proofing enchantment; the peddler was proclaiming the feather to be an angel feather recovered from the Bright Desert. The aura reading check failed. So I narrated that the feather was indeed an angel feather, but was also cursed. The idea of a cursed angel feather I made up on the spot; the story around the curse played an important role in driving events for the next few sessions (eg the peddler received bad news from his home town and took to a ship, which the PCs also sailed on; the ship ended up being assaulted and sunk by a ghost ship; the PCs were evicted/rejected by multiple NPCs because of their ill omened character, and the curse on the feather was one aspect of this; etc).
> 
> In the most recent session of this campaign, one of the PCs went into the caves in the hills above the keep on the borderlands, hoping to recover a mace that had been dropped there an enemy dark elf. The PC (and the PC's player) knew that another PC was wanting to recover the mace, and wanted to get the mace as leverage against that other PC.
> 
> The attempt failed. So I narrated the mace (which had fallen in a stream) being dislodged and falling down through a cleft in the rocks. In the end (and throwing the player of the other PC a bone, as he had had a fairly rough couple of sessions) I had the mace washed up (probably not just by the rush of the mountain stream, but by the activities of spirits) in the stream below the keep, which enabled a third PC, who had promised the second PC to help him recover the mace, to obtain it and hand it over to that second PC.
> 
> @_*Neonchameleon*_ has linked "fail forward" to "no myth" or shared worldbuilding. Narrating failures in a "fail forward" way requires there to be a degree of fluidity in backstory, so that new events or agents or motivations can be introduced (eg like curses on a feather, or spirits in the mountain stream) to keep things moving forward. If all of the GM's "secret backstory" is meant to have been determined in advance, and a principle goal of play is for the players to uncover that secret backstory, then "fail forward" probably isn't going to be a useful technique.




First let me say nice and pretty unbiased post... Thanks.

I'm curious as to your thoughts on whether the same effect as "fail forward" can be achieved by a DM who sets levels of success/failure ahead of time (this is suggested in the 5e DMG)?  In other words you set different thresholds for various failure results and/or success results that have different results as opposed to a binary success/fail result.  The net effect seems to be the same result as "fail forward" but instead of the DM having to make something up on the fly he is able to keep the "secret backstory" necessary to exploration and discovery play both relevant and attainable when necessary.  Not sure if this is considered a separate technique from "fail forward" but it is something I use much more often in my games.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Bluenose said:


> Assuredly there are also people who find regularly asking someone else (the GM) whether things that their characters would certainly notice (such as the presence of a chandelier) are actually present will affect their immersion in their character.
> 
> Perhaps we should coin a term for that to go with "Story Game". And then we can declare that because they don't allow immersion in your character for some players then they're not Real RPGs.




Yeah, I am not saying these approaches are not RPGs, and I am sure there are people for whom asking GMs questions presents a very real immersion issue (in which case, a game that has these sorts of points may be ideal). I have noticed that among players who state immersion is important to them, at least presently, they seem to lean more toward asking the GM and away from things like FATE points. That could change.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I'm curious as to your thoughts on whether the same effect as "fail forward" can be achieved by a DM who sets levels of success/failure ahead of time (this is suggested in the 5e DMG)?  In other words you set different thresholds for various failure results and/or success results that have different results as opposed to a binary success/fail result.  The net effect seems to be the same result as "fail forward" but instead of the DM having to make something up on the fly he is able to keep the "secret backstory" necessary to exploration and discovery play both relevant and attainable when necessary.  Not sure if this is considered a separate technique from "fail forward" but it is something I use much more often in my games.



I would think of it as a different technique. I think that, as you say, it is oriented toward exploration/discovery-type play.

Two examples of the "degree of success" approach that I think of straight away are:

* Degrees of success on a Search (or Research or Library Use, etc) roll - the more the success, the more info the GM gives the player (reflecting the greater degree of success achieved by the PC);

* Degree of success on a reaction/interaction roll - the more success, the friendlier the NPC and the more help or information s/he provides.​
These seem like methods for regulating the communication of backstory and the degree of challenge - eg the more success _now_, then generally the less the degree of challenge to be confronted down the track.

That seems like a different purpose from the sort of "narrative dynamism" that I think "fail forward" is aiming at.

Though both approaches might have, as one practical outcome, that a less-than-maximally-successful check doesn't bring play to a grinding halt.


----------



## Umbran

Imaro said:


> The issue is that on the one hand you talk about flexibility and being more open... yet your line of thinking seems inflexible and totally closed off to the possibility that one can have a rational preference for not liking something...




I'm not at all closed to that possibility.  However, if I am presented with a supposedly rational preference, and the rational basis seems full of holes, I am, by my curious nature, going to poke at them.  In humans (again, myself included) this process often reveals that the preference isn't nearly so rational as one previously believed.

And I'm good with that too!  People do actually have emotional lives, and it is fine to live them, and have those irrational preferences.  I have, for example, an irrational preference for my wife!  I love her with the fire of a thousand suns, and no rational argument can tell you why.  But, we should admit and recognize when something is an irrational preference.  When we instead try to wrap irrational preferences in the cloak of rational justifications, then we run into (at least) two problems:

1) We dismiss the value of the emotional in our lives.  The only real reason to wrap an emotional preference in rationalizations is that we devalue the emotional, which isn't healthy.

2) We take actions based on those reasons that are actually contrary to reality.  Admittedly, in the gaming context this isn't a huge real hazard, but it isn't a good habit to be in, and does lead folks to misrepresent what's actually going on.



> it could be as simple as I don't find it fun (which when dealing with leisure activities is probably the most rational explanation one can give for preference).




And you will note how I have not pursued a single person who has said, "I just don't like it"? 



> Both @_*Neonchameleon*_ and your posts ring of a..."You just don't know any better" or "You've been taught wrong" mentality and pre-supposes that one cannot be both conscious of their dislikes and have a rational reason for them...




I pre-suppose that *everyone* myself included, has illogical biases that we don't typically perceive.  Humans, on the whole, make a large number of their decisions on a snap-decision, emotional basis, and layer plausible-sounding rationalizations on after the fact.  This is a known, prominent, psychological phenomenon.  

It then behooves us to *question* those stated reasons, to see if they are actually true.  

And, let us be frank - this is a *discussion* board.  If you put an idea out there, it is open for *discussion*.  This isn't a, "Confirm my personal position and don't question me," board.


----------



## Imaro

Umbran said:


> And, let us be frank - this is a *discussion* board.  If you put an idea out there, it is open for *discussion*.  This isn't a, "Confirm my personal position and don't question me," board.




Then wouldn't it be worthwhile to also consider the other side of this discussion (rational reasons, preferences, non-D&D/WoD games, etc.) and the possibility one or more of these could also be the reason... as opposed to assuming the reason(s) (irrational biases/ being a veteran D&D/WoD player) you've latched onto have to be the cause??  From where I stand you (and @_*Neonchameleon*_) aren't really discussing anything just stating/re-stating what you believe the cause is, without any real evidence to back your assertions up and summarily dismissing any viewpoint that is different from your forgone conclusion.  All you've done is show that irrational biases exist in people (well yeah no one is arguing they don't)... but you've yet to show how this fact in any concrete way accounts for the dislike of fail forward in some people...  You're speaking of addressing holes in arguments in a vague way, well what are these holes and in whose arguments?


----------



## Janx

Bedrockgames said:


> I think there is a reasonable complaint about this sort of technique though. There are plenty of gamers who really enjoy the sense of being there in their character's shoes and giving them world editing abilities like this can both take them out of their character's headspace and blur the line between the character and the setting. For these kinds of players, the GMs role in saying "yes there is a chandelier" or "no there isn't" is pretty crucial and if you shift that to the player it becomes an issue. Not saying these kinds of points are bad. But there is a play style and player type where they are not the ideal choice.




I think part of the problem I have with this camp is the whole embiggening of the significance of FailForward.

It is not "World Editing" or "authorial stance".  

The player just asked a question.  Is there a hat shop?

Or the player failed to find the secret door that it turned out to be a chokepoint to the rest of the evening's fun.

What the GM decides to do and how they decide it is a mystery to the player.  It really just isn't their business if they trust the GM.  The player need not know if the paper said there was a hat shop or not.  He only knows the GM said "yes."

If a player loses their immersion because they asked the freaking question and they have to stop and ponder how the answer was derived, that's for the player's shrink to help them resolve.

Let's not make a mountain out of a small resolution tool for GMs to decide things.  The player is not stopping the game and reworking the entire dungeon to be to his preference and making the GM run it that way instead.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Janx said:


> I think part of the problem I have with this camp is the whole embiggening of the significance of FailForward.
> 
> It is not "World Editing" or "authorial stance".
> 
> The player just asked a question.  Is there a hat shop?
> 
> Or the player failed to find the secret door that it turned out to be a chokepoint to the rest of the evening's fun.
> 
> What the GM decides to do and how they decide it is a mystery to the player.  It really just isn't their business if they trust the GM.  The player need not know if the paper said there was a hat shop or not.  He only knows the GM said "yes."
> 
> If a player loses their immersion because they asked the freaking question and they have to stop and ponder how the answer was derived, that's for the player's shrink to help them resolve.
> 
> Let's not make a mountain out of a small resolution tool for GMs to decide things.  The player is not stopping the game and reworking the entire dungeon to be to his preference and making the GM run it that way instead.




I wasn't talking about failing forward, Umbran mentioned players spending resource points to edit the setting and that is what I was responding to.

Still if someone noticing failing forward finds it disrupts their immersion, that is hardly crazy. It is just a preference on their part.


----------



## Nagol

Bedrockgames said:


> I wasn't talking about failing forward, Umbran mentioned players spending resource points to edit the setting and that is what I was responding to.
> 
> Still if someone noticing failing forward finds it disrupts their immersion, that is hardly crazy. It is just a preference on their part.




Well, yes and no.  Fail forward _shouldn't_ be particularly immersion-breaking since hopefully the resolution leads to continued scenes that are plausible.  There is no stance change on the part of the player; he simply needs to react to the changed circumstances resulting from partial success/sudden complication.  

It may lead to player frustration in the sense that they would prefer to simply stop and move on from this situation -- something a simple fail accomplishes more readily.


----------



## Umbran

Bedrockgames said:


> I wasn't trying to make an argument. I was just expressing that I wasn't convinced by the poster's assertion that this is a learned behavior from D&D and WOD.




I don't think we need to point to particular games, either.  



> Still I don't know that D&D caused people to want to stay in character.




Oh, I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding here.  My suggestion isn't that D&D made people want to stay in character.  It is that D&D players will find D&D-like mechanisms less disruptive to staying in character.  Basically, folks who have engaged with a particular type of mechanic a lot will be used to it, and be able to smoothly elide over it without disruption to their concentration.  We ignore it when we are familiar with it.  Put a notably different mechanic in front of them, and they will find it disruptive.

So, it isn't that any particular mechanic is necessarily more or less disruptive, in any objective (or even statistical) sense.  It is more that anything different from what you're used to will seem more disruptive. 

Now, this is where we can run into issues of failing to find a real root cause properly.  You can play a given system a couple or a few times, and find some mechanic in it disruptive, and then say that it is the mechanic's fault, or you just prefer other mechanics.  But a game or two really isn't enough to become fully inured to the mechanic.  It is still pretty new to you, so you have not removed a significant potential cause of the disruption.  This is why I wondered, publicly and aloud, about how much time had been spent looking at the rules, as opposed to playing with them.  Personal experience is what we'd call a "confounding factor", which gets in the way of more objective comparison.

At this point, it would be perfectly reasonable to say, "I still find this mechanic disruptive, and I don't have the time to invest to get it to where it isn't disruptive, so I'm going to avoid it."  Time is precious, after all.  But if you're going to do that, you probably shouldn't argue against using the mechanic, as you're admitting insufficient experience to really know what it can do.



> My point is once someone has gone through the effort of trying things, once they've been open minded and given things a shot on multiple occasions, it is a bit snobbish to suggest they are just not open minded enough or they are merely operating on a learned response




We should expect any mechanic to be disruptive to immersion until such time as it becomes second nature, or until you find a GM that engages you so much in other ways that mechanics are a secondary concern to play.  That's going to generally be a considerable amount of play.  



> (one could just as easily hurl that back at someone who likes Fate points or any other mechanic).




Hurling it back doesn't work if the person you're hurling it at claims to like *lots* of systems and mechanics.


----------



## Janx

Umbran said:


> I'm not at all closed to that possibility.  However, if I am presented with a supposedly rational preference, and the rational basis seems full of holes, I am, by my curious nature, going to poke at them.  In humans (again, myself included) this process often reveals that the preference isn't nearly so rational as one previously believed.
> 
> And I'm good with that too!  People do actually have emotional lives, and it is fine to live them, and have those irrational preferences.  I have, for example, an irrational preference for my wife!  I love her with the fire of a thousand suns, and no rational argument can tell you why.  But, we should admit and recognize when something is an irrational preference.  When we instead try to wrap irrational preferences in the cloak of rational justifications, then we run into (at least) two problems:
> 
> 1) We dismiss the value of the emotional in our lives.  The only real reason to wrap an emotional preference in rationalizations is that we devalue the emotional, which isn't healthy.
> 
> 2) We take actions based on those reasons that are actually contrary to reality.  Admittedly, in the gaming context this isn't a huge real hazard, but it isn't a good habit to be in, and does lead folks to misrepresent what's actually going on.
> 
> 
> 
> And you will note how I have not pursued a single person who has said, "I just don't like it"?




Along this line, it's what I didn't like about Saelorn's earlier answer about how an RPG is supposed to be a certain way that FailForward and other "adaptive" GMing strategies weren't RPGs.

It's too absolutist to rationalize his preference.  I don't like that.  John Wick is wrong. D&D is an RPG.  We can play it many different ways for many different reasons.  Many of us play it in varying styles within the same game session even.

This means that there are moments where FailForward is an acceptable GM solution, and moments when it is not, all within the same adventure, possibly even the same scene.

It's a tool.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Janx said:


> Along this line, it's what I didn't like about Saelorn's earlier answer about how an RPG is supposed to be a certain way that FailForward and other "adaptive" GMing strategies weren't RPGs.
> 
> It's too absolutist to rationalize his preference.  I don't like that.  John Wick is wrong. D&D is an RPG.  We can play it many different ways for many different reasons.  Many of us play it in varying styles within the same game session even.
> 
> This means that there are moments where FailForward is an acceptable GM solution, and moments when it is not, all within the same adventure, possibly even the same scene.
> 
> It's a tool.




I think fail forward doesn't make something a non-RPG. But it is a style issue that isn't going to be useful for all groups or all games. It is a tool like you say. I just think sometimes people get too excited about the tools they happen to like and think they are equally good for everyone. That is where I disagree. I'm not terribly fond of this technique myself, though I can see why some people like it and why its of use to them. I don't discourage it in those cases, but I don't keep it as a tool in my belt when I am running a game (and I don't think my sessions suffer as a result).


----------



## pemerton

Saelorn said:


> You can't _role-play_ as a character who makes the best of the world as it is, if you're also the author deciding what's in the world.





Saelorn said:


> Any time you're making a decision _about_ the world, or about what happens _to_ your character, is an instance where you're not making a decision _as_ your character.



These are empirical claims. I have personal play experience that refutes them.

I'll retell a story I've told before on these boards:

* An NPC hexer had turned the PC paladin of the Raven Queen into a frog. As per the rules of the game, the effect had a duration of "until end of next turn".

* After the end of the next turn, the paladin turned back into himself. He charged the hexer.

* The hexer taunted the paladin: "I'm not scared of your or your god. After all, I turned you into a frog."

* The paladin replied, "But the Raven Queen turned me back."​
At that moment of play, the player was stipulating something about the gameworld - namely, that the end of the baleful polymorph effect (as stipulated by the rules), was due to the intervention of a deity. And the player was also playing his PC, and in particular giving voice to his PC's faith in that deity.

Other more banal examples could be given - such as when a player, in character, describes his/her PC's family background, making it up as s/he goes along. But I've given the example above because the moment of play, and of player-PC immersion, was far more visceral.

Also - this has very little to do with "fail forward".


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Umbran said:


> At this point, it would be perfectly reasonable to say, "I still find this mechanic disruptive, and I don't have the time to invest to get it to where it isn't disruptive, so I'm going to avoid it."  Time is precious, after all.  But if you're going to do that, you probably shouldn't argue against using the mechanic, as you're admitting insufficient experience to really know what it can do.



There are some games - not RPGs, or even story-based games, but games none-the-less - which require the consumption of alcohol as an integral aspect of the game. Some people aren't going to want to play those games, and aren't going to want to get to the point where they _would_ want to play those games, because alcohol is just that distasteful to them. Those people just won't play those games, regardless of what other merits they might have. Or there's something like chess-boxing, which is also going to put a lot of players off of it because they just really dis-like boxing (or chess) _so much_ that you couldn't even convince them to try it once.

I am like that with story games. As soon as a game suggests that I'm telling a story _about_ a character, rather than making my decisions _as_ the character, then that instantly puts me off from wanting to play the game. I'll keep reading the book, sure, because I bought the book and there might be some otherwise-useful information in there, but I'm not going to want to play it _unless_ I can figure out how to do so without treating it as a story (which can be difficult, but might be possible for certain games). I don't _want_ to play FATE, any more than I _want_ to drink alcohol or get pummeled repeatedly; I have nothing against people who do enjoy those things, but there's no reason for them to assume that _I_ would enjoy them, just because I like games and role-playing.


----------



## Reinhart

pemerton said:


> Also - this has very little to do with "fail forward".




Yeah, it's why I've pretty much ducked out of this conversation. I get why people's acceptance of fail forward can be related to play-style preferences, but there's not much point to heavily scrutinizing those preferences. We're extremely unlikely to convince Saelorn, or anyone else, to be less absolutist about actor-stance play, but it seems harmless to leave them to their own play. Better to either end the conversation of refocus it to something more productive.


----------



## pemerton

I've had a read through the thread and a few posts stood out.



Mercule said:


> I'm generally in favor of it, in theory, even if I don't always remember to practice it as a GM.
> 
> My only issue with it is that, sometimes, failure really is part of the deal.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I just find success to be unfulfilling when it's guaranteed.



"Fail forward" isn't an _alternative_ to failure, and moreso, therefore, isn't a way of guaranteeing success. It's a particular method of narrating the result of a failed check. It's a way of giving effect to failure.



dd.stevenson said:


> As far as fail forward D&D DM advice goes, I just stick the old standby: if you intend for the PCs to not fail, then don't roll dice.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I'm really unclear on what a fail forward mechanic would look like, other than a degrees of success/failure style rule. Are there other forms it can take? Are we classifying GUMSHOE's skill system as fail forward?



I think [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] gave a good example of a "fail forward" mechanic that is not degrees of success/failure: namely, task succeeds but intent fails.

Degrees of success/failure seems to me to be more closely aligned to a _causal_ interpretation of the resolution system: the degree of numerical success correlates to the degree of causal effectiveness of the character's effort.

Whereas "fail forward", at least as I'm familiar with it from designers like Luke Crane, is about narrating consequences, not interpreting ingame causal processes.

In the example of the cursed angel feather I mentioned upthread, for instance, the task (aura reading) succeeds - but the answer is not the one the player (and PC) was hoping for. Task succeeds, intent fails.

The example of the mace is a bit different - the PC's task fails under the most narrow description (he doesn't pick up the mace) but it succeeds under a broader description (the party recovers the mace) but the mode of success thwarts the player (and PC's) intent (because the PC doesn't have the mace to use as leverage against the other PC).




ExploderWizard said:


> I am not a fan of the concept because it specifically supports game play that is supposed to lead to expected outcomes.
> 
> As a DM, when players do the unexpected, or improvise to mitigate failures, it takes the game in interesting directions that would never have been possible if I was using a mechanic to ensure that the adventure "stayed on track".
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I am also not all that fond of narrative style games compared to traditional rpgs, but lets assume that I planned on running one. If the purpose of this game is to create a collaborative story with the players, isn't using a mechanic to channel their input towards the narrative that I want to tell depriving the players the chance to shape the story on their own?





ExploderWizard said:


> IMHO fail forward is only applicable when the DM decides that something HAS to happen in a specific way.





DMMike said:


> Fail Forward is the tool of the Railroading Game Master.  Obviously, the entire game will grind to a halt if there's nowhere else to go but forward on the railroad.  Sandboxes don't have this problem.  Neither do games that don't have a success/failure dichotomy.



I think these posts evince a fairly fundamental misunderstanding of "fail forward" as a technique. It has nothing to do with keeping the game "on track" or the GM deciding that something "HAS to happen in a specific way".

It's about a certain sort of narrative dynamism - something has to happen, but it is not "in a specific way". It's about responding to the particularities of the situation and the ongoing game and the players' signals.

In the example of the cursed angel feather, it never occurred to me until the player declared that his PC approached the peddler in the bazaar to see if any magical trinkets were for sale, and I decided to have the peddler offer to sell an angel feather.

In the example of the mace, having the mace flow down the stream didn't even make sense as "failing forward" except for the fact that, due to other events that had happened in the session, a couple of the PCs were following some servants who were washing a priest's vestments in the stream below the keep.

These aren't predetermined outcomes. They're more-or-less spontaneous responses to, and riffs on, the evolving in-game situation.

There is a connection here between "fail forward" and the (mostly but not completely tangential) discussion about player vs GM world-building. "Fail forward" is a GM-side technique. It's about the GM maintaining control over scene-framing and narration, because the player - in failing to succeed on a check - did not acquire the authority to stipulate the content of the ingame situation. But GM control over narration and backstory isn't - under any definition I'm familiar with - equivalent to railroading. It's just the GM doing his/her job within a fairly traditional assignment of RPG responsibilities.



GX.Sigma said:


> I still don't understand what "fail forward" means. The example everyone always gives is that the players need to find a secret door to advance the plot, and all I can say to that is, the GM shouldn't have put the plot behind a secret door. That is a failure of adventure design. Why do we need a whole category of mechanics to deal with that?



I've given a couple of examples upthread and elaborated on them in this post.

"Fail forward", at least as I understand it, is not about putting "the plot" behind a secret door. It's a technique generally associated with games in which there is no "plot" and no "adventure design" in the sense that you use that phrase.

It's a technique for maintaining narrative dynamism in the face of failed checks. It depends upon a certain fluidity of backstory that is pretty much the opposite of "the plot" or "adventure design".



GX.Sigma said:


> if the GM needs you to find the secret door, the GM should not make you roll for it. Because rolling has the possibility of failure, and the GM is not prepared for this failure. So the PCs are going to succeed no matter what. So there's no need to roll dice at all. Because the only time you roll dice is if the action can succeed, can fail, and has some cost or consequence to failure. Right?
> 
> If the dramatic question of the encounter is "can you find the secret door" and the GM knows the players will find it regardless of what they do, that's obviously a bogus encounter.



I don't see this as very relevant to "fail forward". For a start, how do the players even know there is a secret door to find? Assuming that they don't - this is written in the GM's secret notes - then, from their point of view, the dramatic question of the encounter is not "Can you find the secret door"?

Fail forward is about narrative dynamism. So it is concerned with the narrative as the players experience it, not with the narrative as understood only by reference to the GM's secret backstory.

From this point of view, the dramatic question is more likely to be "Can we proceed through this apparently blocked passageway?" The players then declare some sort of check aimed at some sort of goal - in Burning Wheel this could be anything from Ditch Digging (to hack their way through the walls) to Secret Passage-wise (to recollect knowledge about secret door methods and locations); in 4e it would most likely be a Dungeoneering check (similar to Secret Passage-wise) or Perception check (to spot a secret door) or STR check (to hack through).

If the check succeeds, the PCs succeed in their task and in their intent - so they spot a secret door, or successfully dig through the wall, or recollect some relevant fact about secret passages, or whatever else follows from the way the check was framed.

If the check fails, then the GM narrates some dynamic failure instead. The PCs spot a secret door, but also a trip wire. (This is somewhat analogous to the cursed feather.) The PCs recollect that the secret doors in this area can only be opened via speaking the right magical phrase following a blood sacrifice. The PCs make a hole in the wall, but break their tools in the process. Or whatever else seems appropriate to the task and intent declared, plus the broader context of player and PC goals, what makes for a meaningful consequence (tools are more important in Burning Wheel than 4e, for instance), etc.

The contrast with "adventure design" should be fairly clear: adventure design is about establishing a secret backstory; whereas "fail forward" depends upon a readiness to create new backstory in order to narrate meaningful consequences for failure that maintain narrative dynamism - such as the curse on the angel feather, or the trip wire on the secret door.

But to again draw the link to the world-building discussion in this thread - this is not the _players_ building the world. It is the GM building the world, in response to players' declared actions and the results of player dice rolls.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

pemerton said:


> At that moment of play, the player was stipulating something about the gameworld - namely, that the end of the baleful polymorph effect (as stipulated by the rules), was due to the intervention of a deity. And the player was also playing his PC, and in particular giving voice to his PC's faith in that deity.



There are so many things wrong with this statement that I hardly know where to begin. Let it suffice to say that it was not the _character_ who decided that the world worked this way, and in the instant of deciding that this was true, whoever made that decision was not acting as the character. The character was merely providing color commentary based on personal opinion, and that part was role-playing, even though it was probably untrue (in light of the game rules).

But yes, this is getting off-topic. There's no need to continue that discussion here.


----------



## pemerton

Reinhart said:


> We're extremely unlikely to convince Saelorn, or anyone else, to be less absolutist about actor-stance play, but it seems harmless to leave them to their own play.



I'm not bothered by anyone else's play. I only get a bit frustrated when they deny that my play is happening, or is even possible.

The claim that you can't have _both_ player narration _and_ in-character immersion simultaneously isn't just a statement of play preferences. It's a claim about what is possible for others to do in RPGing.

That's why I posted an anecdote that refuted the claim. (It's an anecdote I've posted many times before, because I keep seeing this claim about what is and isn't possible by way of immersion being made.)

EDIT: [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] has also, many times, refuted this claim. Even in this thread he has made the point that player narration can be a key technique for _maintaining_ in-character immersion, because it ensures that the character is able to act as someone who actually inhabits the gameworld rather than being a stranger in it.


----------



## Balesir

dd.stevenson said:


> Are these players incapable of the kind of strategizing you describe? I would answer, absolutely not: judging by the kind of ideas they bounce around when confronted with an evolving problem, they are at any time fomenting seven or eight different plans each, balancing their own goals with their character's goals, demonstrating a strong awareness of what the likely consequences of their actions might be.



That's an interesting observation and brings to mind a couple of thoughts:

1) I note that you talk about the characters being "confronted with an evolving problem", when the times we get "seriously strategising" tends to be more proactive on the characters' part; they are not faced with a problem so much as trying to create opportunities. If there is a problem to focus on, I can see that this might allow a more focussed channel of communication concerning its salient details.

2) I wonder whether the styles that players like are affected by their Myers-Briggs type, maybe? Specifically this bit about whether you Judge or Perceive extrovertedly? This is nothing more than speculation, obviously, but it feels as if it might have some bearing - would be interesting to test it empirically. My own tendency is to Perceive Introvertedly and Judge Extrovertedly; this might explain wanting the world model inside my head rather than coming from the GM, but being happy to find out what happens collaboratively. If you were of the opposite tendency, I'm guessing the collaborative establishment of the situational parameters would feel more natural, but the democratisation of the outcome would feel less so, maybe?



dd.stevenson said:


> I understand that there's a different "mouth feel" to this kind of strategizing, and the kind that happens when interacting directly with a rules system, but I'm asserting based on my experience with both that this is a difference of qualities, not degree.



"Mouth feel" is a nice way to put it - as an enjoyer of wine I can relate to that! It also relates to taste, which seems appropriate, and I can say that, for me, GM-fed world model seems like a rather crude, un-nuanced sense of taste (and sight, and hearing...)



Saelorn said:


> There are so many things wrong with this statement that I hardly know where to begin. Let it suffice to say that it was not the _character_ who decided that the world worked this way, and in the instant of deciding that this was true, whoever made that decision was not acting as the character. The character was merely providing color commentary based on personal opinion, and that part was role-playing, even though it was probably untrue (in light of the game rules).



I agree with you that the character is simply expressing their belief - but that is almost always the way the situation is understood as I have experienced FATE and several other "player story resource" games.

A key difference, perhaps, is with what the GM does with these assertions of belief internally.

I do find that some players expect me, as GM, to decide if something like the Paladin's assertion here is "true" or not in the game world. From my perspective, this is the very *last* thing I should do! Ambiguity is a GREAT story tool! That gap between game rules and character assertion of belief gives some lovely scope for joint exploration and conflict - or, to put it another way, immense scope for a good story!

Did the Raven Queen really turn the Paladin back? Well, if I have identified the spell correctly, it can last longer than a round, depending on dice rolls. Were the rolls the way they were because of the goddess? Or because of something else? We assume that there was a game-world reason - but having either the rules or the GM stipulate what that reason was immediately would just spoil the fun! We know what the rules say happened - but we don't know the in-game "why?" Maybe we'll find out. Maybe we won't. That sounds pretty verisimilitudinous, to me...


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Balesir said:


> I do find that some players expect me, as GM, to decide if something like the Paladin's assertion here is "true" or not in the game world. From my perspective, this is the very *last* thing I should do! Ambiguity is a GREAT story tool! That gap between game rules and character assertion of belief gives some lovely scope for joint exploration and conflict - or, to put it another way, immense scope for a good story!



It's the difference between trying to tell a story, and trying to adjudicate an impartially-biased world. If your goal is the former, then obviously you're going to use far different tools than if your goal is the latter.

One of my favorite rules, in the 5E DMG, comes from the section on Inspiration. To paraphrase, it says that some DMs prefer to focus on their role as neutral arbiter rather than story-guide, and these DMs are encouraged to ignore the Inspiration mechanic entirely.


----------



## Morrus

Saelorn said:


> It's the difference between trying to tell a story, and trying to adjudicate an impartially-biased world. If your goal is the former, then obviously you're going to use far different tools than if your goal is the latter.




An RPG is neither of those things.


----------



## Balesir

Saelorn said:


> It's the difference between trying to tell a story, and trying to adjudicate an impartially-biased world. If your goal is the former, then obviously you're going to use far different tools than if your goal is the latter.



This I don't understand. Given that you are trying to adjudicate impartially a pre-set world, why would you need to know whether something like this was "true" or not? Apart from some sort of deep background reason, like "the gods do not actually exist, and the power of priests comes purely from the strength of their belief", of course - such that he assertion _could not_ be true. But, apart from something like that, why would you need to know?


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I'm not bothered by anyone else's play. I only get a bit frustrated when they deny that my play is happening, or is even possible.
> 
> The claim that you can't have _both_ player narration _and_ in-character immersion simultaneously isn't just a statement of play preferences. It's a claim about what is possible for others to do in RPGing.
> 
> t.




I am sure plenty of people can experience this. I am not denying experiences other people have had, or suggesting that their preference are wrong/bad/worse, etc. I do think there is a definite difference though between a game that gives players narrative control and one that doesn't (and it is easy to see how lots of people might find the narrative control disrupts their in character immersion). To me it isn't that different from a writer choosing third person limited point of view (or even first person) in order to help reinforce the reader identifying with and immersing in that character. Readers can be immersed with third person omniscient, but it is easy to see why some writers on principle might feel third person limited is a better way of bringing the reader closer to the character. It is also easy to see why a writer who really wants to drive the point home, might go with first person. 

To me, mechanics where you are controlling things outside your character with means your character has no awareness of or access to (so Fate points instead of a magic spell that literally warps reality) tend to create this issue for me, where I feel like I am immersed in my character and more like I am watching my character from the third person. I can ignore that in small doses, but I find the more obvious, the more heavy handed it is, the more I tend to notice. I will still play the game. I won't be rude to a friend running something that uses these mechanics (and a lot of time games that I really like have one or two features I'm not too into.....I can overlook that). But it does change the quality of the experience for me. I don't see why this wouldn't be a problem for some peoples' immersion in the same way that too much metagaming can break it for some folks.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Morrus said:


> An RPG is neither of those things.



No, those are the two common goals of a Game-Master, which can often come into conflict.

An RPG is a game where the players each take on the role of a character, and make decisions from that perspective. Traditionally, there is also another player who, instead of taking on the role of one character, is responsible for controlling all characters not controlled by the other players and for describing the world to the players and adjudicating the outcomes of their actions.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Balesir said:


> This I don't understand. Given that you are trying to adjudicate impartially a pre-set world, why would you need to know whether something like this was "true" or not? Apart from some sort of deep background reason, like "the gods do not actually exist, and the power of priests comes purely from the strength of their belief", of course - such that he assertion _could not_ be true. But, apart from something like that, why would you need to know?



I didn't say that it was particularly relevant to the action at hand, what the truth of the situation actually was. What the character believes about the situation is far more relevant in determining what anyone says or does, on the scene, barring extreme circumstances.

It's just that, in a general sense, the GM owes it to the players to know what's going on in the background. The GM needs to be able to answer those sorts of questions, should they arise, in order to maintain consistency; if the players suspect that the GM doesn't actually know anything, then they are likely to lose confidence that everything _is_ consistent, and that can really undermine enjoyment of the game as a whole. That comes down to expectations and social contract, though. If the players don't _expect_ you to have all of the answers, then they wouldn't really _lose_ anything by supplying their own details.


----------



## Jabborwacky

It should be a standard entry in almost any modern tabletop RPG, the only exception being something like the Gumshoe system that eliminates the need for it almost entirely.


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## Balesir

Saelorn said:


> It's just that, in a general sense, the GM owes it to the players to know what's going on in the background. The GM needs to be able to answer those sorts of questions, should they arise, in order to maintain consistency; if the players suspect that the GM doesn't actually know anything, then they are likely to lose confidence that everything _is_ consistent, and that can really undermine enjoyment of the game as a whole.




Well, if you feel the GM needs to assign a "truth value" to all that kind of thing, go right ahead - but it's certainly not required in order to maintain consistency. Universalis has rules to maintain consistency, and that doesn't even have a GM.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Balesir said:


> Well, if you feel the GM needs to assign a "truth value" to all that kind of thing, go right ahead - but it's certainly not required in order to maintain consistency. Universalis has rules to maintain consistency, and that doesn't even have a GM.



It seems intuitive to me that you would need a singular authority - that actually knows everything going on behind the scenes - to avoid contradiction. Of course, that could just be one of those personal biases talking.

I'd be interested in seeing how Universalis handles this sort of thing. Oddly, I have never even heard of the game.


----------



## Umbran

Jabborwacky said:


> It should be a standard entry in almost any modern tabletop RPG, the only exception being something like the Gumshoe system that eliminates the need for it almost entirely.




Gumshoe eliminates it only for gathering information relevant to the mystery/problem at hand.  You still have failure with active skill use.  No guarantees there.


----------



## Janx

Saelorn said:


> It seems intuitive to me that you would need a singular authority - that actually knows everything going on behind the scenes - to avoid contradiction. Of course, that could just be one of those personal biases talking.
> 
> I'd be interested in seeing how Universalis handles this sort of thing. Oddly, I have never even heard of the game.




It is impossible to know everything going behind the scenes.  Heisenberg didn't just make meth, he also compensated for transporters and established that there's too much wiggly stuff to track.

therefore, that singular authority operates on a mix of what's been documented and Shroedinger's cat fills in the rest when it comes up.

You don't actually have to know everything to avoid contradictions.  You simply have to remember every fact that has been exposed thus far and not contradict those.  Which is a far smaller dataset to remember than trying to document and define everything absolutely and remember where to find it to use it.  You can't prevent contradicting the bible if you can't remember every single page in it.  Which for most people is impossible.

So for some people, only defining the data they are sure they need, and winging the rest may be sufficiently "realistic".  Given that parts of our own reality may work in the same fashion, who's to argue with science.


----------



## Janx

Morrus said:


> An RPG is neither of those things.




I believe there is a thread where I lost the definition of "game"  so yup.

the word game itself is so nebulous that it basically means an activity that is meant for recreation.  playing house, with toy cars, make believe, etc all qualify as games despite a total lack of rules or structure.

so anybody defining RPG better keep it loose


----------



## dd.stevenson

Balesir said:


> 2) I wonder whether the styles that players like are affected by their Myers-Briggs type, maybe? Specifically this bit about whether you Judge or Perceive extrovertedly? This is nothing more than speculation, obviously, but it feels as if it might have some bearing - would be interesting to test it empirically. My own tendency is to Perceive Introvertedly and Judge Extrovertedly; this might explain wanting the world model inside my head rather than coming from the GM, but being happy to find out what happens collaboratively. If you were of the opposite tendency, I'm guessing the collaborative establishment of the situational parameters would feel more natural, but the democratisation of the outcome would feel less so, maybe?



Good thought, and it wouldn't shock me if you were more than somewhat correct; but I would caution against over-generalizing. In my experience, the best indicator of which playstyle a person wants is how well they internalize the rules of the game (besides the ones that get them excited about their specific characters.) Bearing in mind that there IS a personal cost for internalizing these rules, i.e. the amount of time spent out of game thoughtfully reading about relatively dry system maths, I would say that for most players this is a simple cost/benefit exercise: is the benefit of interacting directly with the rules system worth the effort of learning the rules?

Of course, any player's answer to this question will depend on how much their current gaming group leverages the system--but that just reinforces the point that most players I've encountered see system awareness as a cost that must be justified, rather than an absolute, personality-based preference.



Balesir said:


> "Mouth feel" is a nice way to put it - as an enjoyer of wine I can relate to that! It also relates to taste, which seems appropriate, and I can say that, for me, GM-fed world model seems like a rather crude, un-nuanced sense of taste (and sight, and hearing...)



It seemed apt to me; glad you agree! 

It's by the by, but in my game prep I distinguish between "hard scenes" which are solely DM-provided, and "soft scenes," over which everyone has (or is encouraged to have) some authorship. At the end of the day, my DM motto is "You Can Tell a Craftsman by His Tools," and I do take some amount of pride in my role as facilitator when I'm able to deploy the right technique in the right situation.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> "Fail forward" isn't an _alternative_ to failure, and moreso, therefore, isn't a way of guaranteeing success. It's a particular method of narrating the result of a failed check. It's a way of giving effect to failure.



True, but the term "Fail Forward" rather strongly implies the narration has to be somehow beneficial to the PCs; which is untrue.  Hence my use of the added terms "Fail Sideways" and "Fail Backward".  Your example with the mace is an interesting conflation of two of these: it's fail-backward for PC #1 and ultimately fail-forward for PC #2.



> I think [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] gave a good example of a "fail forward" mechanic that is not degrees of success/failure: namely, task succeeds but intent fails.



Wouldn't that be "Succeed Backward"?  The task in question succeeded, thus there is no failure; but with poor results.



> I think these posts evince a fairly fundamental misunderstanding of "fail forward" as a technique. It has nothing to do with keeping the game "on track" or the GM deciding that something "HAS to happen in a specific way".



Again it comes down to the use of the word "forward", and some DMs taking it to mean "continuing on track".



> These aren't predetermined outcomes. They're more-or-less spontaneous responses to, and riffs on, the evolving in-game situation.
> 
> There is a connection here between "fail forward" and the (mostly but not completely tangential) discussion about player vs GM world-building. "Fail forward" is a GM-side technique. It's about the GM maintaining control over scene-framing and narration, because the player - in failing to succeed on a check - did not acquire the authority to stipulate the content of the ingame situation. But GM control over narration and backstory isn't - under any definition I'm familiar with - equivalent to railroading. It's just the GM doing his/her job within a fairly traditional assignment of RPG responsibilities.



All quite true.



> The contrast with "adventure design" should be fairly clear: adventure design is about establishing a secret backstory; whereas "fail forward" depends upon a readiness to create new backstory in order to narrate meaningful consequences for failure that maintain narrative dynamism - such as the curse on the angel feather, or the trip wire on the secret door.
> 
> But to again draw the link to the world-building discussion in this thread - this is not the _players_ building the world. It is the GM building the world, in response to players' declared actions and the results of player dice rolls.



That depends on the DM, of course.  Some have their worlds (or specific parts of them) more fleshed out than others.  If for example I've already drawn out a map of Town X and determined what is in each building, and there isn't a hat shop, I'm not going to put one in just because it'd be handy for someone at the time.  But if the party goes to Town Y that I haven't done much more than give a name to I'll just dream up the odds of a) there being a hat shop, and b) of the PCs being able to easily find it, and roll some dice.

It's much trickier changing actual adventures on the fly.  If the PCs fail to get past a significant door and there's no other way in I'm not going to add another way in just so they can get there; they're out of luck and have to go to one of a near-infinite number of plans-B...which could even include going back to town and hiring a better lock-picker! 



> @Neonchameleon has also, many times, refuted this claim. Even in this thread he has made the point that player narration can be a key technique for maintaining in-character immersion, because it ensures that the character is able to act as someone who actually inhabits the gameworld rather than being a stranger in it.



Now here I agree, as long as all involved keep in mind that the DM can veto anything the player dreams up if it clashes with her own ideas for how things work in her world.

I make stuff up about my characters all the time.  Some of it even sees the light of play - I'll usually run the basics by the DM first to make sure he's cool with it but sometimes the run of play needs something *now* and away we go.

An example: a PC I'm currently playing is a Magic-User from that world's equivalent to the Roman Empire.  Once she'd stuck around long enough for me to care I made up her life's story; including getting some field experience in the Legions (this is where she gets her somewhat unyielding sense of order and discipline from) before beginning her adventuring career.  Up until then Hestia (the empire) hadn't ever had formal Legions...but it does now, with the DM's approval.  And ever since I've been boring people with my "back when I was in the Legions..." stories! 

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> True, but the term "Fail Forward" rather strongly implies the narration has to be somehow beneficial to the PCs; which is untrue.



The "forward" isn't about beneficial to the PC. It's about maintaining dynamism or momentum. (Which, given some reasonable assumptions about the preferences of players and GM playing in a game using this technique) is beneficial to the players at the table.



Lanefan said:


> That depends on the DM, of course.  Some have their worlds (or specific parts of them) more fleshed out than others.  If for example I've already drawn out a map of Town X and determined what is in each building, and there isn't a hat shop, I'm not going to put one in just because it'd be handy for someone at the time.



This sort of GMing approach is not really consistent with "fail forward". If you want to use "fail forward" techniques, you have to be ready to spontaneously invent new elements of backstory (new magical effects - eg curses and spirits of mountain streams; new NPCs, or new NPC motivations; new tripwires; new haberdashers; etc).

A fully pre-built world looks to me like it's better suited for exploration/discovery play. For that sort of approach, degrees of success, the Alexandrian's "Three Clue Rule", advice about not putting "the plot" behind a single secret door, etc, all seem better adapted than "fail forward".


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Now here I agree, as long as all involved keep in mind that the DM can veto anything the player dreams up if it clashes with her own ideas for how things work in her world.
> 
> I make stuff up about my characters all the time.  Some of it even sees the light of play - I'll usually run the basics by the DM first to make sure he's cool with it but sometimes the run of play needs something *now* and away we go.
> 
> An example: a PC I'm currently playing is a Magic-User from that world's equivalent to the Roman Empire.  Once she'd stuck around long enough for me to care I made up her life's story; including getting some field experience in the Legions (this is where she gets her somewhat unyielding sense of order and discipline from) before beginning her adventuring career.  Up until then Hestia (the empire) hadn't ever had formal Legions...but it does now, with the DM's approval.  And ever since I've been boring people with my "back when I was in the Legions..." stories!



Yep, I think this sort of simultaneous playing of character and invention of campaign backstory is very common in RPGing. In my experience, for a lot of players it's part and parcel of _increasing_ their immersion in and involvement with their PC - not an _obstacle_ to that at all.


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> Yep, I think this sort of simultaneous playing of character and invention of campaign backstory is very common in RPGing. In my experience, for a lot of players it's part and parcel of _increasing_ their immersion in and involvement with their PC - not an _obstacle_ to that at all.




It's pretty explicit in Ashen Stars.  The game gives you qualitative writups of playable alien species, and then says that the details of culture or history can be made up by player and GM as you go along. It is like ST:TNG, where we didn't know much about klingons when we first see Worf, and Klingon history is only made canon as it is revealed through that character.


----------



## GMMichael

Morrus said:


> Essentially, it's a mechanic, fairly common these days, which ensures that the game doesn't grind to a halt on a failed skill check.  Instead of the task at hand failing and stopping the game, the task is successful but with an attached disadvantage.




This is, for the record, the definition that started the conversation.  Have we slipped from it?  Because this thread is starting to look an awful lot like an alignment thread.

I will use this definition to stand by my assertion - fail forward is an essential rule when you're on a railroad.

EDIT: From another angle: it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs with tunnel vision.


----------



## pemerton

DMMike said:


> fail forward is an essential rule when you're on a railroad.
> 
> EDIT: From another angle: it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs with tunnel vision.



From yet another angle, how about actually engaging with posters describing their use of the technique, and its purpose - in some cases giving actual play examples.

"Fail forward" is about preserving momentum in play. It is part of a broader approach to RPGing in which the GM is expected to frame the PCs into challenging and/or confronting scenes (challenging and confronting both to the PCs and the players), and when the GM stopping to ask "What do you do now?" is a rare pause in the dynamics of play, rather than the norm.

This has nothing to do with railroading or "tunnel vision".


----------



## DEFCON 1

DMMike said:


> EDIT: From another angle: it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs with tunnel vision.




Or from another angle:  it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs who aren't so precious about the "reality" of their little made-up game worlds.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Saelorn said:


> Edit: Sorry, that came out sounding way more hostile than I'd intended. You raise a valid point, and it makes sense how collaborative improv could increase immersion at the table. The single-author style definitely experiences a bottle-neck of information, when the GM needs to divide their attention multiple ways, and splitting up the responsibility for world-building (and detail-building) seems like a sufficient way of addressing that issue. At worst, it's just a trade-off in priorities.




And, dealing with [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]'s complaint, there are two times it's really not a good technique.

The first is oD&D style skill/challenge based play as in Tomb of Horrors or White Plume Mountain. Acecerak plotted everything out meticulously - and having the challenges solved through declarations would weaken the game. Puzzles and traps based games are utterly destroyed by the players changing the puzzles.

The second is exploration-based play as in Caverns of Thracia or even Feast of Goblyns or other "You've just wound up in Ravenloft you poor suckers" games. Part of the point about Caverns of Thracia is that there is a rich, intricate setting, and the PCs are explorers in a strange land with the multiple layers of backstory adding to the strangeness. If the game is about explorers or archaeologists or as fish out of water exploring strange new worlds and boldly going where no one has gone before then making the PCs more in tune with their environment is precisely what you _don't_ want to do.

And it isn't a coincidence that oD&D has the DM/Player split being as harsh as it is. It works well for oD&D to do what oD&D was normally trying to do. Challenge and exploration with the PCs being taken far away from their home setting most of the time.


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## Umbran

Neonchameleon said:


> If the game is about explorers or archaeologists or as fish out of water exploring strange new worlds and boldly going where no one has gone before then making the PCs more in tune with their environment is precisely what you _don't_ want to do.




Well, that can be mitigated somewhat - see the Ashen Stars / Star Trek example.  If only one player's got a Klingon character, and you're exploring Klingon stuff, having one PC in tune with their environment, and the others off-balance, is totally cool, and even enhances the spotlight that should be on at that time.


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## Umbran

DMMike said:


> EDIT: From another angle: it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs with tunnel vision.






DEFCON 1 said:


> Or from another angle:  it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs who aren't so precious about the "reality" of their little made-up game worlds.





And, here we see the problems with a particular rhetorical form in action.  When you ascribe use of a tool to a flaw, you will cheese folks off.  

Ascribing use of a tool to a flaw on the part of the user is, remember, *insulting*.  We expect folks to show respect for each other on these boards.  Expect... and require.

So, at this point, I think some cooling down and reconsidering of approaches is in order.  Play nice, please and thanks.


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## Imaro

DMMike said:


> This is, for the record, the definition that started the conversation.  Have we slipped from it?  Because this thread is starting to look an awful lot like an alignment thread.
> 
> I will use this definition to stand by my assertion - fail forward is an essential rule when you're on a railroad.
> 
> EDIT: From another angle: it's an indispensable GM aid for GMs with tunnel vision.




I'm going to disagree here... I think the key words in Morrus's definition that you might be missing are... "failing and stopping the game..." so it's not that the PC's don't fail, it's that they don't both fail and said failure stops the game (so they can actually fail... it just shouldn't stop the game), personally I would rather design my adventures with multiple paths for the goals of the PC's... but since I am not omniscient and my players can throw me for a loop at times I am not adverse to using fail forward as a tool in my DM toolbox... with the caveat of it being a last resort unless we are playing a game that encourages or has rules for it.  I also think that yes, it has the potential to be a railroad but it doesn't inherently create one... no more that pre-planning inherently forces a railroad along what has been pre-planned.


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## iserith

I see "fail-forward" (or D&D 5e's "progress combined with a setback"  or "success at a cost") to be just another form of stake-setting. On a successful check, you succeed at your goal. On a failed check, you succeed at your goal with a cost or complication. I use it when outright failure wouldn't be particularly interesting or when the a binary pass/fail would result in a disconnect between player and character knowledge.

For example, many people suggest rolling ability checks secretly when players try to search for traps, knowing that if a player sees a low result on the die and hears the DM saying "There are no traps," "You believe there are no traps," or "You find no traps," the player may be tempted to repeat the task or have another character make a pass at it. (Cue the cries of "Filthy metagamer!" Not that I give even a single flumph when players "metagame.") By using progress combined with a setback, I can narrate a failed check as being, for instance, "You find the trap - and your foot is on the pressure plate! There is a continuous, disconcerting clicking noise coming from the walls around you. What do you do?!" I thus avoid that disconnect and don't have to take the dice from the players as others DMs do.


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## Imaro

Jabborwacky said:


> It should be a standard entry in almost any modern tabletop RPG, the only exception being something like the Gumshoe system that eliminates the need for it almost entirely.




Why?


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## Imaro

iserith said:


> I see "fail-forward" (or D&D 5e's "progress combined with a setback"  or "success at a cost") to be just another form of stake-setting. On a successful check, you succeed at your goal. On a failed check, you succeed at your goal with a cost or complication. I use it when outright failure wouldn't be particularly interesting or when the a binary pass/fail would result in a disconnect between player and character knowledge.
> 
> For example, many people suggest rolling ability checks secretly when players try to search for traps, knowing that if a player sees a low result on the die and hears the DM saying "There are no traps," "You believe there are no traps," or "You find no traps," the player may be tempted to repeat the task or have another character make a pass at it. (Cue the cries of "Filthy metagamer!" Not that I give even a single flumph when players "metagame.") By using progress combined with a setback, I can narrate a failed check as being, for instance, "You find the trap - and your foot is on the pressure plate! There is a continuous, disconcerting clicking noise coming from the walls around you. What do you do?!" I thus avoid that disconnect and don't have to take the dice from the players as others DMs do.




So question... in a situation like the above... when has the trap actually been sprung (when do I suffer it's effects??).  It seems like just in looking for the trap and failing you've now put my character into a situation where he's (partially??) sprung the trap just by looking for it.  Not sure this would be cool with me as a rogue since it would mean when I fail at searching for a trap (not necessarily doing anything to spring it) I then end up guaranteed to suffer it's ill effects... if I fail to disarm it... well, and since I'm the rogue I'll be searching (and failing) at a higher rate than other characters.


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## iserith

Imaro said:


> So question... in a situation like the above... when has the trap actually been sprung (when do I suffer it's effects??).  It seems like just in looking for the trap and failing you've now put my character into a situation where he's (partially??) sprung the trap just by looking for it.  Not sure this would be cool with me as a rogue since it would mean when I fail at searching for a trap (not necessarily doing anything to spring it) I then end up guaranteed to suffer it's ill effects... if I fail to disarm it... well, and since I'm the rogue I'll be searching (and failing) at a higher rate than other characters.




You would suffer the effects when it made sense in the fiction. In the case of the example, which is missing a lot of context, I've used progress combined with a setback to avoid the issues I've described and put your character in a spot where your decisions as a player will help determine an outcome. Your foot is on the landmine. What do you do now?

As with anything in the game, when the DM narrates the result of the adventurer's action, it must follow from the fiction established up to that point. If yousaid your character was, say, standing stock still and just looking around, then a result that you stepped on a pressure plate would not be appropriate as it establishes your character as doing something without your say so. But I could also say such an approach to the goal of finding traps isn't sufficient and say that you do not find any traps at all by standing stock still and looking around - no roll.


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## ExploderWizard

pemerton said:


> "Fail forward" is about preserving momentum in play. It is part of a broader approach to RPGing in which the GM is expected to frame the PCs into challenging and/or confronting scenes (challenging and confronting both to the PCs and the players), and when the GM stopping to ask "What do you do now?" is a rare pause in the dynamics of play, rather than the norm.
> 
> This has nothing to do with railroading or "tunnel vision".




If there is one thing that I would lament if it became a rare thing then " what do you do now?" would probably be it. That most basic of questions drives a game of meaningful player choice. Failing forward facilitates players who never have to really think of anything significant. No matter how much they screw up, a clear path forward (with more or less punitive bumps depending on how much they screwed up) will always open up allowing access to the next scene or hoop the DM wants them to jump. 

It is a good thing to hit "game stopping" failures once in a while. Allowing players to create their own path from there to whatever comes next. That path might not be forward at all. It might be in a random direction taking the game to a place never before imagined by the players or the DM. Most importantly, the choice, wherever it may lead, belongs to the players.


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## Neonchameleon

ExploderWizard said:


> If there is one thing that I would lament if it became a rare thing then " what do you do now?" would probably be it. That most basic of questions drives a game of meaningful player choice.




And here I'm with you. It's also part of the basic GM advice in Apocalypse World and many of the legion of derivative games - to ask after almost every GM action "What do you do now?"



> Failing forward facilitates players who never have to really think of anything significant. No matter how much they screw up, a clear path forward (with more or less punitive bumps depending on how much they screwed up) will always open up allowing access to the next scene or hoop the DM wants them to jump.




Where forward can mean "Falling head first down the bottom of a well."



> It might be in a random direction taking the game to a place never before imagined by the players or the DM. Most importantly, the choice, wherever it may lead, belongs to the players.




Fail forward does both those nicely.


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## Imaro

iserith said:


> You would suffer the effects when it made sense in the fiction. In the case of the example, which is missing a lot of context, I've used progress combined with a setback to avoid the issues I've described and put your character in a spot where your decisions as a player will help determine an outcome. Your foot is on the landmine. What do you do now?




But who decided it made sense in the fiction?  For me at least, and maybe this is some of my disconnect with the fluid environment/narrative... I don't necessarily follow that in failing to find or see a trap... I then proceeded to spring said trap.  There is nothing in my action, even if we pre-suppose I move around the room in some fashion to search it, that from the roll to locate a trap failing it then follows that I have sprung it... I have a much larger disconnect with this than the secret roll and, in all honesty, it does feel a bit like taking away player agency.



iserith said:


> As with anything in the game, when the DM narrates the result of the adventurer's action, it must follow from the fiction established up to that point. If you said your character was, say, standing stock still and just looking around, then a result that you stepped on a pressure plate would not be appropriate as it establishes your character as doing something without your say so. But I could also say such an approach to the goal of finding traps isn't sufficient and say that you do not find any traps at all by standing stock still and looking around - no roll.




Yes but the fiction I see when "searching" the room may be different from the fiction you see.  I could be creeping along the edges of the wall, prodding the floor with items ahead of me, only searching certain areas and so on... while you assume I'm at some point walking across the exact spot that the trap is laid.  What if I'd rather just fail at finding it as opposed to failing forward here so that the tough guy in the group can go first in case there is a trap?


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## iserith

Imaro said:


> But who decided it made sense in the fiction?  For me at least, and maybe this is some of my disconnect with the fluid environment/narrative... I don't necessarily follow that in failing to find or see a trap... I then proceeded to spring said trap.  There is nothing in my action, even if we pre-suppose I move around the room in some fashion to search it, that from the roll to locate a trap failing it then follows that I have sprung it... I have a much larger disconnect with this than the secret roll and, in all honesty, it does feel a bit like taking away player agency.




The DM decides, at least in D&D. (I know this is a general RPG forum.) The player describes what he or she wants to do and the DM narrates the results of the adventurer's actions. You describe that you want to try to find traps (goal) by searching around (approach). Provided you have established that your searching around includes moving around the area, then the DM's narration that you stepped on a pressure plate is reasonable, right? There is no agency lost here. You did what you wanted to do. You even found the trap. It's just you found it at a cost due to the failed check. That's just stake-setting. As opposed to "Yes/No" stakes, we have "Yes/Yes, but..." stakes.



Imaro said:


> Yes but the fiction I see when "searching" the room may be different from the fiction you see.  I could be creeping along the edges of the wall, prodding the floor with items ahead of me, only searching certain areas and so on... while you assume I'm at some point walking across the exact spot that the trap is laid.  What if I'd rather just fail at finding it as opposed to failing forward here so that the tough guy in the group can go first in case there is a trap?




Reasonable specificity as to what the character is doing (the approach) and hopes to accomplish (the goal) is a good idea to ensure that the DM and player are on the same page. I think that applies to any interaction in an RPG. Sometimes it's beneficial to discuss and agree on the stakes prior to the roll, though some don't like that level of transparency.

In any case, you do not want to risk setting off the trap while searching for it, you can adjust your goal and approach accordingly when describing what you want to do to the DM.


----------



## Balesir

dd.stevenson said:


> Good thought, and it wouldn't shock me if you were more than somewhat correct; but I would caution against over-generalizing.



Oh, heck, yes - this is really no more than idle noodling, but it all helps form ideas that are compared to ongoing reality. I play the long game, on that score 



dd.stevenson said:


> In my experience, the best indicator of which playstyle a person wants is how well they internalize the rules of the game (besides the ones that get them excited about their specific characters.) Bearing in mind that there IS a personal cost for internalizing these rules, i.e. the amount of time spent out of game thoughtfully reading about relatively dry system maths, I would say that for most players this is a simple cost/benefit exercise: is the benefit of interacting directly with the rules system worth the effort of learning the rules?



Quite possible, but then I am probably atypical in that I quite enjoy reading (good) text books...



dd.stevenson said:


> Of course, any player's answer to this question will depend on how much their current gaming group leverages the system--but that just reinforces the point that most players I've encountered see system awareness as a cost that must be justified, rather than an absolute, personality-based preference.



In a current D&D gaming group of 8, I would say four of us avidly read and digest the rules. The others read bits where they must, but those four get to know the core mechanisms at least well enough to be able to parse them "live", with no looking up except in real corner cases.

Maybe this is related to them being keen board gamers and engineers/programmers/mathematicians? I don't know.



dd.stevenson said:


> It's by the by, but in my game prep I distinguish between "hard scenes" which are solely DM-provided, and "soft scenes," over which everyone has (or is encouraged to have) some authorship. At the end of the day, my DM motto is "You Can Tell a Craftsman by His Tools," and I do take some amount of pride in my role as facilitator when I'm able to deploy the right technique in the right situation.



My guess would be that most GMs do, to some extent, but it's good to be aware of it and vary it deliberately, rather than by "feel".

I tend to slant particular games toward a specific style and feel. Part of that comes out in the selection of game system for the specific purpose. At a convention dedicated to the Hârn world this year I ran scenarios in three different systems, and got three gratifyingly different "flavours" of play, all within the one game world.


----------



## Balesir

Saelorn said:


> It seems intuitive to me that you would need a singular authority - that actually knows everything going on behind the scenes - to avoid contradiction. Of course, that could just be one of those personal biases talking.



It's actually easy to avoid contradiction without a single authority. You just undertake (as a *rule*) not to contradict anything that has been stated as true in the game. You also, by implication, agree not to assume that anything that has _not_ been said is necessarily true.



Saelorn said:


> I'd be interested in seeing how Universalis handles this sort of thing. Oddly, I have never even heard of the game.



Universalis is a bit of an extreme case (and is probably a good example of a game you would hate - just as a warning  ). It is a roleplaying game (in that you play the roles of characters - possibly more than one in a single scene) that has what are normally GM tasks handled by the players. Resources ("coins") are spent to add "facts" into the story and game world. One coin creates a character with a function; a second coin adds a name... and so on. One coin lets you take control of any introduced character and play them as you would a PC (until someone else takes them off you - which you can resist with coins).

The mechanism for consistency fits into the resolution of contests (which occur between players, as opposed to conflicts, which involve characters), which is done by simple bidding of coins (anyone may bid on either side). Consistency is encouraged in that bids supported by pre-existing "facts" are doubled in the contest. If enough players either support or are not bothered about the break with earlier "truth" it can pass, but if it's a "truth" players care about it's generally impossible to overturn it.

Edited to add: here is a review of Universalis on Boardgame Geek, of all places...


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## dd.stevenson

Balesir said:


> Quite possible, but then I am probably atypical in that I quite enjoy reading (good) text books...
> 
> Maybe this is related to them being keen board gamers and engineers/programmers/mathematicians? I don't know.



It would be really, really interesting to know the present-day segmentation of D&D fandom. Were I to fumble about for a starting hypothesis, I'd say that there were three important clusters of home games happening: a blue-collar segment, a campus segment, and a white-collar technician segment. At least, those are the demographics I've played with in the past; there maybe are others (such as active military) that I'm just unaware of. Interestingly, I don't see much intermixing between the two--a student isn't all that likely to show up at a non-campus game, and I've never seen a plumber in a white-collar or campus game. For the most part, this pattern has carried over to my online gaming as well.

Supposing the above is more or less correct, it's well possible that each segment tends toward divergent playstyles, since people IME learn "the right way" to play D&D from whomever they first play with, and tend to feel that other playstyles are "doing it wrong." 

How's that for noodling? I'm not all that comfortable with the idea that playstyle is related to social class, but looking back over the groups I've played with, it's hard to deny that this is a hypothesis that correlates well with the facts of my experience.



Balesir said:


> In a current D&D gaming group of 8, I would say four of us avidly read and digest the rules. The others read bits where they must, but those four get to know the core mechanisms at least well enough to be able to parse them "live", with no looking up except in real corner cases.



Right now I play 5E online with two four-player groups--one I'd describe as Australian blue collar, and the other as expat English teachers with strong white-collar tendencies. In the first group, one player knows the rules well, and two are pretty competent about their own character rules but not super keen on the rest, and a fourth is all about the fiction and doesn't even know his own character's rules very well. In the second group two know the rules well (but they both actively DM themselves, so I tend to discard these cases as outliers,) one competent at his own class, and a fourth is new to wotc D&D and hasn't learned the rules much at all yet.


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## GMMichael

Whoops.  The Internet wins again at being a less-than-ideal communication medium.  I wasn't trying to cheese anyone off.



pemerton said:


> From yet another angle, how about actually engaging with posters describing their use of the technique, and its purpose - in some cases giving actual play examples.
> 
> "Fail forward" is about preserving momentum in play. It is part of a broader approach to RPGing in which the GM is expected to frame the PCs into challenging and/or confronting scenes (challenging and confronting both to the PCs and the players), and when the GM stopping to ask "What do you do now?" is a rare pause in the dynamics of play, rather than the norm.



I was enjoying your FF definitions on an earlier page, but that was when I realized that several posters were using their own definitions of FF.  Which means we're not all talking about the same thing.  If you want me to engage with you on your use of FF, just say so.  I was hoping that reminding the group about where the thread started would help us to all engage together.

I think preserving momentum is great.  It boils down to a style preference, though.  I see it like music: some artists, especially some techno artists, keep the exact same beat throughout the whole piece.  Others see tempo as a tool for adding variety.



Umbran said:


> Ascribing use of a tool to a flaw on the part of the user is, remember, *insulting*.  We expect folks to show respect for each other on these boards.  Expect... and require.



Noted.  I would, though, like to point out that what I said isn't intentionally insulting.  I could have said:



> Cars are an indispensable tool for GMs with broken ankles.




That would be saying neither that cars are designed for GMs with broken ankles, nor that you must have a broken ankle to use a car.  See what I mean?


Imaro said:


> I think the key words in Morrus's definition that you might be missing are... "failing and stopping the game..." so it's not that the PC's don't fail, it's that they don't both fail and said failure stops the game (so they can actually fail... it just shouldn't stop the game), personally I would rather design my adventures with multiple paths for the goals of the PC's... but since I am not omniscient and my players can throw me for a loop at times I am not adverse to using fail forward as a tool in my DM toolbox...



Valid point...but we might be disagreeing on an important point here: "stopping the game."  I, personally, have never seen this happen.  It could mean at least two things:
- The GM's one-and-only plotline caught a snag, so there's no further plot until the PCs get past that snag.
or
- Something in the game happened, evidently a roll of some sort, that caused all players and the GM to have no idea what comes next.

If we can agree on these, we can continue to discuss their significance in Morrus's definition.  If we can't, then there's an alignment thread somewhere that I promised I'd get back to...


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Balesir said:


> It's actually easy to avoid contradiction without a single authority. You just undertake (as a *rule*) not to contradict anything that has been stated as true in the game. You also, by implication, agree not to assume that anything that has _not_ been said is necessarily true.



I can see how that would be a matter of custom and preference, then. The strong GM model would say that one person is in charge of all details, because that way you just need to check any new detail against what that person knows. Your distributed model (also mentioned in a previous post, which I failed to respond to) has you only need to check against that which has been officially declared.

I still think my preferred model would work better for me, since the GM is free to spend any amount of time working out the background details between sessions, but I could see how the alternative would work well if you don't have a GM or if the GM doesn't want to spend out-of-game time in figuring that stuff out. I honestly think that I would have difficulty, as a GM, remembering whether or not something has been declared - when I act as the sole oversight authority for the entire game setting, I know that whatever I have decided is true regardless of whether the players know about it, so I don't need to track whether any of it has been declared yet as long as it's consistent with my underlying model.


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> "Fail forward" is about preserving momentum in play. It is part of a broader approach to RPGing in which the GM is expected to frame the PCs into challenging and/or confronting scenes (challenging and confronting both to the PCs and the players), and when the GM stopping to ask "What do you do now?" is a rare pause in the dynamics of play, rather than the norm.
> 
> This has nothing to do with railroading or "tunnel vision".



We-e-ell, in some ways, yes it does.

The DM asking "What do you do now?" is in fact the DM handing the momentum to the players and saying "Here, you drive the bus...or at least decide where it's going."  If the DM is expected to frame every scene as opposed to the characters putting themselves into situations of their own choosing now and then I'd say there's a very real temptation on everyone's part to get on the railroad (which of course for some groups may be just fine) and thus it can't be discounted for the purposes of this discussion.

Lan-"what do you do now?"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> The DM asking "What do you do now?" is in fact the DM handing the momentum to the players and saying "Here, you drive the bus...or at least decide where it's going."  If the DM is expected to frame every scene as opposed to the characters putting themselves into situations of their own choosing now and then I'd say there's a very real temptation on everyone's part to get on the railroad (which of course for some groups may be just fine) and thus it can't be discounted for the purposes of this discussion.





ExploderWizard said:


> If there is one thing that I would lament if it became a rare thing then " what do you do now?" would probably be it. That most basic of questions drives a game of meaningful player choice. Failing forward facilitates players who never have to really think of anything significant.





Neonchameleon said:


> And here I'm with you. It's also part of the basic GM advice in Apocalypse World and many of the legion of derivative games - to ask after almost every GM action "What do you do now?"



I think this is a case where some familiarity with the technique in actual play can help.

There are two ways of asking "What do you do now?" They are illustrated nicely in this excellent post by  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]:

As someone who does a lot of scene-framing, I'll start by saying this: it concerns things like intent and game procedure and these are things which are a lot easier to do, or see in action, than to write about. . . .

In my view, the fundamental cornerstone of scene-framing is character. . . . things that talk directly about personality, goals, flaws, relationships, dependencies, desires, problems. . . .

Written down it looks easy. At the table it is not. If you play a FATE game, where 5 players each have 10 Aspects, you may have 50 goals and flaws and problems competing for time and if you've got 2 ideas for each of those then you've got 100 possible scenes before play even begins. Then people start interacting with each other and NPCs and before you know it you've got thousands of potential directions to take play.

At which point feeling out the players becomes necessary. So if someone threatens an NPC like this - 'Drop the gun or I'll burn your damn house down' you might say 'That would be a cool scene...'. If you get a good vibe back from the table, well if it's still appropriate by the end of this scene then as the spotlight comes back to that player you could say 'Okay, so you're outside Jed's ranch with torches and oil somewhere just after midnight. You're starting forward when suddenly you hear the tail of the rattler as it rears up right in front of you'. Previously stated goal - burn house down. New complication - rattlesnake. . . .

When I cut into Jed's ranch and a rattlesnake, I'm not asking 'Are you good enough to deal with a rattlesnake?' I'm asking 'How much are you willing to risk in order to make good on your threat?' The scene is not there to process the outcome of success or failure, it is there to reveal more character to be used for future scenes. 

This is why games written to this style (Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World and it's spin offs like Dungeon World and Monsterhearts, FATE to some extent, Dogs in the Vineyard for sure) don't tend to penalise failure particularly hard. Failure simply imforms the next scene. . . .

Finally, one tell-tale sign for this style is to watch your own GM-ing. Starting scenes is easy. But how are you ending them? And how are you moving on to something else? If you say 'What do you do now?' you are not playing using scene-framing. If you cut to a place where nothing is happening right now you are not playing using scene-framing. Scene-framing in the most aggressive sense means going 'bang!' - straight into the conflict, straight into the action. And again. And again. When it hums like this, as each scene unfolds everyone at the table is alive with ideas as to what the next scene will be be.​
"Fail forward" is a technique best-suited to scene-framing play, that is, play in which narrative dynamism is front-and-centre, and momentum is only rarely lost. 

Of course, in scene-framing play, the GM needs to listen to player action declarations: when the GM tells the player that the rattlesnake rears up in front of the PC, the player is expected to declare some action in response - ie they declare what it is that the PC does now.

But in scene-framing play, the GM shouldn't be asking the players "What do you do now" as part of the process for transition between scenes. The GM should be framing the PCs (and therefore players) into the next confrontation.

And flipping it around: if you're playing exploration/discovery/GM-world-building style, rather than scene-framing, then you don't need "fail forward", because it is completely fine for the game to come to a halt, for momentum to be lost, and for the GM to look to the players to kickstart things again. This is the sort of play that  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=66434]ExploderWizard[/MENTION] are familiar with and prefer. It has very little in common with the Apocalypse World sort of play that  [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] is mentioning in. And as I've tried to explain, the question "What do you do now?" is playing very different roles in the two approaches.

Finally, anyone who thinks that scene-framing play is about railroading is suffering a fundamental misunderstanding. "Railroading' is about pre-determined events where choices don't matter. Scene-framing is about leaving everything open - events, the presence or absence of rattlensakes (or curses or tripwires or . . .) - until a new fictional situation is narrated by the GM in response to the events, context etc generated by the previous scene.

Here are two links, to reports of my first and my most recent Burning Wheel session. Both involved use of "fail forward", as I've mentioned in more detail upthread. Read them and you'll see that neither was anything like a railroad. How can it be a railroad, for instance, to have the mace carried down the mountain stream from one PC to another when, until the various action delcarations were made, I didn't even know that one PC would be in the cave looking for the mace, or that another PC would be near the stream at the foot of the keep following servants doing laundry - this being the result of earlier action by the PCs which resulted in an NPC priest's vestments being dirtied and hence needing laundering? Where is the predetermining, or the stifling of player initiative/creativity?


----------



## pemerton

Neonchameleon said:


> Puzzles and traps based games are utterly destroyed by the players changing the puzzles.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If the game is about explorers or archaeologists or as fish out of water exploring strange new worlds and boldly going where no one has gone before then making the PCs more in tune with their environment is precisely what you _don't_ want to do.



However, it is possible to have successful play in which the _PCs_ are exploring the gameworld and solving puzzles, without the GM having predetermined everything.

This won't be the sort of exploration/discovery play that [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] and other posters in this thread prefer, because at the metagame level there is no exploration of a pre-established setting.

But in the fiction exploration and discovery are taking place, and at the table the players are still acquiring information about the backstory that is being generated by the GM, and are piecing it together to develop their overall picture of the relevant backstory.

Here's a link to an actual play example from my 4e game.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> So question... in a situation like the above... when has the trap actually been sprung (when do I suffer it's effects??).  It seems like just in looking for the trap and failing you've now put my character into a situation where he's (partially??) sprung the trap just by looking for it.  Not sure this would be cool with me as a rogue since it would mean when I fail at searching for a trap (not necessarily doing anything to spring it) I then end up guaranteed to suffer it's ill effects... if I fail to disarm it... well, and since I'm the rogue I'll be searching (and failing) at a higher rate than other characters.



This seems to be something of an artefact of D&D's action resolution system: wizards and clerics use spells, which rarely fail; fighters use combat, which has its own resolution method (and to the extent that it embodies "fail forward", that is via the hit point and related mechanics); and rogues use the skill system, which is where "fail forward" in the paradigmatic sense is most likely to see application.

That said - if you think my characterisation of fighters is too narrow (either in general, or relative to your own play experience with D&D), and if you think that I'm being too sanguine about spell-casting and that it often _does_ fail, then the concern should go away. The rogue's failures to find traps see him/her framed into a difficult new situation; but equally the casters failed attempt to charm the chamberlain sees him/her framed into a difficult new situation.

I think there is another issue here that is distinct from fairness between classes, which is about the extent to which the GM is at liberty to frame the PC into a situation which presupposes activity (like walking around a room) that the player hasn't expressly declared.

 [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] has already discussed this in some detail.

I think that, for various mostly historical reasons, D&D players are especially cautious about this. One time, in my 4e game, discussion with a coven of hags was being resolved as a skill challenge. At a certain point the Pact Hag said something to one of the PCs, and I deemed her to be using one of her command-type abilities and told the player that his PC had stepped from A to B, where B happened to be a trapdoor that the hag then operated by pulling on a rope. The player didn't contest the issue, and from my point of view that is legitimate fictional framing in the context of a negotation with a Pact Hag - in the end, after all, the players succeeded at the challenge (in part by dealing with the spiders in the pits below the trapdoor) and got what they wanted from the hags.

But I think a lot of D&D players, including many who post on this forum, would think that that was unreasonable GMing.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This seems to be something of an artefact of D&D's action resolution system: wizards and clerics use spells, which rarely fail; fighters use combat, which has its own resolution method (and to the extent that it embodies "fail forward", that is via the hit point and related mechanics); and rogues use the skill system, which is where "fail forward" in the paradigmatic sense is most likely to see application.
> 
> That said - if you think my characterisation of fighters is too narrow (either in general, or relative to your own play experience with D&D), and if you think that I'm being too sanguine about spell-casting and that it often _does_ fail, then the concern should go away.



Spells fail (or don't do quite as intended) in my game quite often, as I have harsh interruption rules and frequently require casters to aim.



> I think there is another issue here that is distinct from fairness between classes, which is about the extent to which the GM is at liberty to frame the PC into a situation which presupposes activity (like walking around a room) that the player hasn't expressly declared.



Yep.  In fact your DMing style and mine might be almost opposites: I want to be reacting to what the players (as characters) proactively do, while you want the players (as characters) to be reacting to what you proactively frame them into.

Put another way, if I'm reading you right you want to jump from the end of one encounter pretty much straight into the start of another; where I want to know what happens in between and how (and why) they get from one encounter to the next.



> I think that, for various mostly historical reasons, D&D players are especially cautious about this. One time, in my 4e game, discussion with a coven of hags was being resolved as a skill challenge. At a certain point the Pact Hag said something to one of the PCs, and I deemed her to be using one of her command-type abilities and told the player that his PC had stepped from A to B, where B happened to be a trapdoor that the hag then operated by pulling on a rope. The player didn't contest the issue, and from my point of view that is legitimate fictional framing in the context of a negotation with a Pact Hag - in the end, after all, the players succeeded at the challenge (in part by dealing with the spiders in the pits below the trapdoor) and got what they wanted from the hags.
> 
> But I think a lot of D&D players, including many who post on this forum, would think that that was unreasonable GMing.



I'd certainly ask what the hell happened to my saving throw against her command ability were I the player, as it doesn't sound like this character got one...

Lan-"but if I'd got a save and failed it, what you did is perfectly fair game"-efan


----------



## Manbearcat

Play example (sblocked for space).  I believe I've used it before so it may be familiar to some folks.

[sblock]







> Otthor's player:
> 
> He turns to Saerie so she can see his lips. "We have little time before that comes in. Find the dog and bring him back to us. Even if your theory is correct and he is deaf, perhaps its just age. Maybe you can still speak to and understand him as you do with other wild beasts." He points toward the common building. "I'm going there. With that storm, surely we're going to lose the tracks out of this place and to wherever the refugees went. Maybe I can find information on their path there. Besides, we're running low on supplies <he points to her waning quiver> and perhaps I can salvage something there." He pulls the remaining bundle of arrows from his quiver and places them Saerie's own quiver. "We can investigate that cellar in the morning."
> 
> He grabs his gear from a nearby table and turns to her again before he sets out. "Don't be alarmed when you see a fire. After I'm done there, I'm going to put the bodies of the poor settlers to rest...and my own mind."






> Saerie's player:
> 
> I thank Otthor for the help in getting my injured bear-friend settled in and for the quiver-replenishing bundle of arrows. Before he leaves with his ominous last words regarding the fire, I relay my agreement with the plan. I will do everything I can to find the dog and bring her back with me.
> 
> I move to the last known spot where I saw the dog; the crest of the hill which overlooks the drop into the settlement. Somewhere beyond the now-open gates is where the the old canine currently lies. Depending on how terrified she was, which may be very, she would be either quite near or quite far. The snow is thick enough here that finding the spot where I last lost sight of her is a triviality. But to track the old girl down may be another thing entirely. The wind is already steadily picking up in the exposed tundra up here. I wrap my scarf over my face and pull my hood up over my head.
> 
> Hunt and Track (Wis)
> 
> 5, 3 + 2 = 10
> 
> I follow the creature’s trail until there’s a significant change in its direction or mode of travel. I also determine what caused the trail to end.






> GM (Me):
> 
> The wind dries your eyes to the point of pain. Your training ensures that you easily pick up the odd lope of the dog, its gait clearly weary, hobbled by age and its recent torment. It must know the territory well as it appears to have made a go for a line of snowdrifts that it could dig into and hide behind as the gusts pick up speed.
> 
> When you spot her, she has dug into the side of the drift facing away from the wind. Laboring over the effort, her tongue is out as she is in full pant. She doesn't notice your presence and as you watch her, you can see the fear in her eyes and the hunger betrayed by her gaunt form.






> Saerie's player:
> 
> I slowly get into her line of sight so as not to startle her. When she sees me, I'll carefully pull out some dried meat from my pack. I'll get down on all fours, assume a non-threatening posture, and entreat her to a free meal, given in good faith.
> 
> Parley (Cha)
> 
> My leverage is food for the starving dog.
> 
> 5, 1 - 1 = 5.  Fails.
> 
> Mark 1 xp






> GM (Me):
> 
> Her ears perk up. The dog looks interested in your offering. However, if she is deaf she doesn't need ears to perceive the thundering herd of reindeer bearing down on you. She, like you, can feel it in the ground. Your mind is ushered back to the Winter Wolf's words regarding a maddened realm near the two great bodies of water in the highlands where "...herds of reindeer would stampede each other and tear each other, and themselves, to pieces." Whether they're simply running from the fury of the storm that is hot on their tails or deranged creatures intent on your harm is impossible to say at this distance (far, 10 creatures).
> 
> The scared dog abruptly bounds out of her carved hole and rushes to your position where she might see the obscured threat. When she sees what is on its way, she tucks her tail between her legs and runs in a circle behind you, looking to you with uncertain eyes.
> 
> The reindeer are closing fast.






> Saerie's player:
> 
> I spend the shortest of moments evaluating the situation. I want to know if this herd is behaving normally or if they look like they're intent on harming us. Also, is the snowdrift a reasonable location to obscure is from the herd if we have to hide.
> 
> Discern Realities (Wis)
> 6, 2 + 2 = 10
> 
> 3 questions and + 1 forward when acting on the answers.
> 
> * What is about to happen?
> * What should I be on the lookout for?
> * What here is useful or valuable to me?






> GM (Me):
> 
> 1) The herd are bearing down precisely on your position. Its so tringulated that they either want the cover of the drifts, which would be odd, or they're coming after you specifically.
> 
> 2) A predator behind them that they're running from or absolutely no fear when they near you. If they're of their right minds, these creatures are typically unnerved by humanoids.
> 
> 3) The drift may just provide you enough cover to hide. The hole she carved out is really your only shot as you don't have enough time to fully carve out your own.






> Saerie's player:
> 
> Knowing that making a stand out here against that herd would likely be foolhardy, I pick her up and rush to the drift. I widen the hole she made and we both get into it. When we're in, I collapse the roof of the hole, hoping the reindeer didn't spot our escape.
> 
> Defy Danger (Dex)
> 2, 4 + 2 (+1 forward from DR) = 9
> 
> Success but hard bargain, worse outcome, or ugly choice.






> GM (Me):
> 
> In your efforts to hold the struggling dog to get her in the hole, she kicks your quiver which spills the majority of your arrows (leaving you with 1 Ammo remaining). You can gather them and make a stand before the beasts set upon you, or you can sacrifice them and get in your "hidey-hole." Your choice.






> Saerie's player:
> 
> No question. Get in the hidey-hole with the dog and let the threat pass us by. I cringe when I hear the tell-tale snapping of arrow shafts as the herd tramples them underfoot. We get out when the herd passes fully.






> GM (Me):
> You've won the trust of the dog. She follows you back to the settlement. Your interactions with her reveal, quite clearly, that she is indeed deaf.



[/sblock]

This is, of course, Dungeon World. 

There are lots and lots of dangers that the player is aware of when setting out on this harrowing excursion for the dog:

1)  Waning daylight.
2)  Frozen wasteland.
3)  Looming blizzard on the periphery that could change direction at a moment's notice.
4)  A quiver (though recently modestly refreshed) that isn't rich enough in arrows for a protracted skirmish.
5)  Saerie is without her injured bear companion.
6)  Saerie is down some HPs.
7)  A land filled with dangerous creatures that are inexplicably going mad with murderous bloodlust.
8)  The dog is terrified and starving...an unpredictable and desperate creatures makes for a dangerous creature.
9)  We're already aware of creatures morphing and the PCs have just had an encounter where the ruined town they were seeking is bereft of all life but one dog.  The common house was a house of horrors akin to the final scene in Aliens; a gestating abomination hatchery where many/most (?) of the former inhabitants were in pods and changing into something unfathomable...connected to each other and guarded by a sentient mass of tentacles and teeth.  They've seen signs of this before in the open tundra (a burst cocoon suspended in a glacial moraine, gore leading off into the wilderness).  Abominations obviously lurk in this place.

But the PC in question (Saerie) feels bound (literally - by 2 of her 4 bonds) to track down this terrified, starving, old dog that sprinted out of the common (horror) house when Otthor and Rawr (the other PC and the bear companion) approached and the tentacle mass smashed the front doors into splinters and attacked them.  The formerly trapped, now free, dog ran straight out of the settlement.  

The PCs knew (a) that deranged, psyche-assailing sounds and images flooded this place, (b) every living thing here is gone or changed...save for this lone dog.  So, bound by her duties and yearning for clues, the PC decides to defy all of these potential dangers and set off headlong into the arctic tundra in search of the dog.

Getting into the nuts and bolts of the above sblocked instance of play, there is a specific moment where the conflict is escalated.  From there stems a snowballing situation that turns into impactful decision-points.  The PC's Parley move with the dog is an outright failure (which, of course, earns her xp).  There are many dangers I could have made manifest from this.  I could have had the starving dog attack her (Turn the Move Back on Them).  I could have had the blizzard suddenly and violently change course, cutting her off from the settlement so that she must find shelter or likely perish from exposure in this frozen wasteland (Reveal an Unwelcome Truth).  I could have had a monster (perhaps a hidden tundra yeti) ambush her or a false snow floor swallow her up into a crevasse (Use a Monster, Danger, or Location Move).  I could have done any number of things that made sense given all the dangers that lurk in this place.

I chose to introduce the ominous thundering of the maddened reindeer herd (Show Signs of An Approaching Threat).  Why?  Because it escalates things dramatically and creates an interesting decision-point for the character.  Things could snowball very, very badly for the player from this point depending on what they do and how they roll.  It also realizes the foreshadowing a did in a prior encounter with a Winter Wolf and his Dire Wolf pack when I made this threat a latent one.  

It fails the situation forward.  Her intent in this scene is to befriend the dog, get it back to safety, confirm her suspicions (the dog is deaf therefore invulnerable to the psyche-assailing affect happening at World's End Bluff), and attempt to communicate with the dog to find out what happened in the now-ruined settlement (she can speak with animals).  If I just kill the dog with a monster or if I make the dog unreachable (either because it fights her to the death because it wants to eat her), then that is a hard failure that makes her intent unrealizable.  So I complicate the realization of her intentions with major problems that can quickly turn into mortal ones.

How badly does she want to rescue this dog?  She could have made an action declaration that she frightens the dog off in the direction of the herd (creating interference with a death sentence for the dog) and melted into her surroundings (she has a Camouflage move that would have made this trivial for her), evading the oncoming threat of the maddened herd.  Nope, she looks for sufficient cover for she and the terrified animal, grabs it, and takes cover in a nearby snow drift.  In the desperate scramble, the protesting dog upends her quiver, spilling 2 of her 3 Ammo onto the snow.  

Another choice.  How much does she want that 2 Ammo?  An archer Ranger transiting a deadly frozen wilderness with only 1 Ammo (with no confirmed means nearby to Resupply) is a recipe for disaster in Dungeon World.  She can save the arrows but face the herd (and whatever shakes out of that...which would almost surely be a chase scene...with an old, starving dog as a liability...).  Or...she can secure the dog and her safety and just deal with the unfortunate ammo deficiency.

- There is no railroad here.

- The player has agency going in to the conflict (awareness of the dangers and the stakes) and agency during the conflict to affect the trajectory of the scene.  Increased specificity in action declarations (or my own increased demands for specificity on those action declarations) and intensified, discrete resolution of micro-component-parts of each action declaration (requiring several more rolls rather than effectively abstracting things by saying "yes" because we aren't focusing on non-thematic, conflict-neutral, minor actions whose resolution might lead to tedium and pace-atrophy), and process-sim rendering of fallout by the GM (the dog hates/attacks you is the only possible outcome of a failed Parley with Leverage as food for the starving canine) wouldn't have increased player agency.  

- Narrative momentum never stalls and a dynamic scene which could have borne itself in any number of ways depending on differing Player Moves, resolution of those Moves, and corresponding GM Moves.  This scene could have ended with:

a)  PC death
b)  dog death or at least the resource/asset being lost to the PC
c)  player getting lost in the frozen wilderness with or without the dog
d)  player being stuck out in the blizzard with or without the dog
e)  player's resources (HPs, Ammo, Adventuring Gear, Rations, general gear/weapons including her cold weather gear which protects her from having to Defy Danger from the elements) becoming utterly diminished (instead of just partially) for the future adventure/journey
f)  discovering something interesting or terrible about the highlands setting/mysteries.

The dog could have met an unceremonious end out on the frozen tundra.  Or it could have become Rations for the PCs in a barren wilderness where foraging is an impossibility.  Or it could have been just another dog (not a point of interest for the PCs).  Instead, this dog became a dear, hobbit-like companion for the PCs and a linchpin for the game's future.  

That is how proficient use of the Fail Forward technique and (coherent, high-utility but low complexity) system work together to achieve their intended result - snowballing, "play to find out what happens" emergent story and player agency dynamically affecting the trajectory.


----------



## Balesir

Saelorn said:


> I still think my preferred model would work better for me, since the GM is free to spend any amount of time working out the background details between sessions, but I could see how the alternative would work well if you don't have a GM or if the GM doesn't want to spend out-of-game time in figuring that stuff out.



Sure - you should use what works for you. I would add to the times the alternative would work well "when you want to deliberately leave the background flexible to accommodate stuff the players indicate they want in the game". This can be a major aim when working with things like 13th Age's backgrounds and "one unique thing".



Saelorn said:


> I honestly think that I would have difficulty, as a GM, remembering whether or not something has been declared - when I act as the sole oversight authority for the entire game setting, I know that whatever I have decided is true regardless of whether the players know about it, so I don't need to track whether any of it has been declared yet as long as it's consistent with my underlying model.



Could be, but, on the other hand, if no-one remembers a detail you contradict, does it matter? That is part of the philosophy behind the Universalis mechanism for "consistency" - if no-one is bothered about the erstwhile "fact" turning out not to have been a fact at all, there isn't really any need to make it so. Maybe the characters misremembered? Maybe it was misunderstood? Maybe it was all a dream... (!)


----------



## ExploderWizard

pemerton said:


> This is why games written to this style (Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World and it's spin offs like Dungeon World and Monsterhearts, FATE to some extent, Dogs in the Vineyard for sure) don't tend to penalise failure particularly hard. Failure simply imforms the next scene. . . .
> 
> Finally, one tell-tale sign for this style is to watch your own GM-ing. Starting scenes is easy. But how are you ending them? And how are you moving on to something else? If you say 'What do you do now?' you are not playing using scene-framing. If you cut to a place where nothing is happening right now you are not playing using scene-framing. Scene-framing in the most aggressive sense means going 'bang!' - straight into the conflict, straight into the action. And again. And again. When it hums like this, as each scene unfolds everyone at the table is alive with ideas as to what the next scene will be be.[/indent]
> 
> "Fail forward" is a technique best-suited to scene-framing play, that is, play in which narrative dynamism is front-and-centre, and momentum is only rarely lost.




Ah. That clears things up quite a bit, thank you. 

Machete don't frame scenes.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> "Fail forward" is a technique best-suited to scene-framing play, that is, play in which narrative dynamism is front-and-centre, and momentum is only rarely lost.
> 
> Of course, in scene-framing play, the GM needs to listen to player action declarations: when the GM tells the player that the rattlesnake rears up in front of the PC, the player is expected to declare some action in response - ie they declare what it is that the PC does now.




I think this explains much of my confusion here. I have been struggling to understand Fail Forward (every time I think I have it, it slips away with new information). I definitely seem to take a much different approach to GMing from scene framing, so that is probably why I am struggling to see how Fail Forward would fit into one of my sessions.


----------



## Janx

Bedrockgames said:


> I think this explains much of my confusion here. I have been struggling to understand Fail Forward (every time I think I have it, it slips away with new information). I definitely seem to take a much different approach to GMing from scene framing, so that is probably why I am struggling to see how Fail Forward would fit into one of my sessions.




I like your phrasing here.  It's really about what version of the concept you understand, and whether it could be useful to you.

It's OK if you don't have the same idea of it as me.  It's OK if your idea of it doesn't come into value in your game.

What is handy, is figuring out how your idea of it differs from say Pemertons, and whether there's anything useful there to consider for your own GMing.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Janx said:


> I like your phrasing here.  It's really about what version of the concept you understand, and whether it could be useful to you.
> 
> It's OK if you don't have the same idea of it as me.  It's OK if your idea of it doesn't come into value in your game.
> 
> What is handy, is figuring out how your idea of it differs from say Pemertons, and whether there's anything useful there to consider for your own GMing.




Loss of momentum or story flow seems to be the common denominator here (at least that is how it appears to me). If so, I believe Failing Forward offers a solution to a problem I don't really have (just due to the way I run games and the dynamic at my table, preserving momentum isn't much of a concern for us). I suppose the way to look at it, is in our games, a failed roll could produce all kinds of results depending on the circumstances, but it isn't necessary going to lead to a plot complication or development. When I ask for a roll it is generally to see if the person succeeds on an action. Maybe I am not getting it still though.


----------



## Umbran

Bedrockgames said:


> When I ask for a roll it is generally to see if the person succeeds on an action. Maybe I am not getting it still though.




Well, we all call for rolls to see if someone succeeds on an action.  That's not really at issue.  What is at issue is, what happens if they fail?  Not what happens to the characters.  What happens to the *players*? Say the players have, for the past hour and a half of play, been going full bore at a path to some goal they choose, they're engaged, they're excited.  And that failure effectively runs the ship aground.  

What, as the GM, do you do here?  Have them sit for the next hour fumbling around trying to figure out another plan?  Lose that excitement, and make them go all the way back to square one?  Or do something that doesn't make it a clean success, but keeps the team rolling along, engaged and excited?  Think of it, for the moment, as a question of dramatic tension management, and that might make it more clear.  While your table isn't making a movie following a script, there is still a natural flow of highs and lows that can be killed by a bad die roll.  That is the "momentum" that's under consideration here - the group is in the groove.  Do you let that fall apart for a bad die roll?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Umbran said:


> Well, we all call for rolls to see if someone succeeds on an action.  That's not really at issue.  What is at issue is, what happens if they fail?  Not what happens to the characters.  What happens to the *players*? Say the players have, for the past hour and a half of play, been going full bore at a path to some goal they choose, they're engaged, they're excited.  And that failure effectively runs the ship aground.
> 
> What, as the GM, do you do here?  Have them sit for the next hour fumbling around trying to figure out another plan?  Lose that excitement, and make them go all the way back to square one?  Or do something that doesn't make it a clean success, but keeps the team rolling along, engaged and excited?  Think of it, for the moment, as a question of dramatic tension management, and that might make it more clear.  While your table isn't making a movie following a script, there is still a natural flow of highs and lows that can be killed by a bad die roll.  That is the "momentum" that's under consideration here - the group is in the groove.  Do you let that fall apart for a bad die roll?




I don't really worry about dramatic tension. But the session never grinds to a halt over a failed roll. My style and approach very much much eschews pacing concerns, so that might be part of why this just isn't clicking for me. If the dice produce an undramatic or anticlimactic result, we're all on board with that. I've never seen group completely run aground due to a bad roll, but I have seen a group thwarted and they have to regroup and figure out another way around the problem. I am always open to different solutions if they are feasible. But a big failure could certainly send them back to the drawing board for a bit. 

We are speaking abstractly though, so maybe we are just talking past each other due to vagueness and a lack of concrete examples.


----------



## pemerton

This blog post from Eero Tuovinen gives another take on the approach to consequences and pacing/drama management that "fail forward" is generally associated with as a technique:

The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end. . . .

The GM . . . needs to be able to reference the backstory, determine complications to introduce into the game, and figure out consequences. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges, and in addition the GM might have methodical tools outside the rules, such as pre-prepared relationship maps (helps with backstory), bangs (helps with provoking thematic choice) and pure experience (helps with determining consequences).​
To given an example of a rules system that is intended to help with figuring out consdequences, Burning Wheel requires action declarations to be expressed in terms of _intent_ and _task_. If the check succeeds, the task succeeds and the intent is realised. (This is important: there are no successful rolls that nevertheless fail to realise intent because the GM calls for a further check, or introduces additional secret backstory into the mix.)

If the check fails, the GM gets to narrate what happens. Failure can be a failure of task, or a failure of intent - in the latter case, the GM is _expected_ to introduce additional hitherto-secret backstory into the mix. The GM advice encourages the GM to focus on intent rather than task in narrating failure, because of the way this will tend to support narrative dynanism (what Tuovinen calls "choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices"). The GM is expected to draw and develop the hitherto-secret backstory out of the already-established context of play and backstory (which the players will have had an important role in establishing) - not to just make stuff up arbitrarily out of whole cloth. Other parts of the rules systems come into play here - eg the rules whereby player establish Beliefs and Instincts for their PCs, the rules whereby the table as a whole votes on traits for characters, the relationship rules, etc. These all contribute context and content for determining new backstory that fits in terms of both theme and content.

Another important rule in BW action resolution is "Let it Ride" ie once a check has been made and a consequence determined, it stands. For successes, this is a limit on GM power. For failures, it does two things: (i) it prevents players engaging in retries, and forces them to rethink their approach to the situation; (ii) it creates a further incentive for the GM to narrate failures in such a way as to open up opportunities for new approaches to be deployed.

There are versions of D&D which, in my view, lend themselves more towards a similar sort of approach than others. Original Oriental Adventures, for instance, has fairly elaborate relationship rules, plus a thematically rich backstory to which many PCs (eg shukenja, monks, kensai, samurai) will be connected. The hit point rules for combat create a sort-of "Let it Ride" in that domain; although the actual rule book has only limited advice on how non-combat proficiencies are meant to work, the BW approaches of intent-and-task and let-it-ride could probably be applied.

4e also has a thematically rich backstory to which many races and classes are connected, which helps with the backstory stuff. Skill challenges provide a framework within which intent-and-task can be readily applied. Stephen Radney-MacFarland had a Save My Game column for 4e advocating let-it-ride as an appropriate approach to the game.

To give a contrasting version of D&D: Moldvay Basic, at least as set out in the rulebook, doesn't lend itself especially well to this sort of approach. There is little or no emphasis on PC backstory, which means that the material for narrating consequences other than as spun out of whole cloth is not there. There is no general action resolution system to which intent-and-task can be applied. And rather than let-it-ride, the issue of retries and pacing is meant to be managed through a system of GM timekeeping combined with wandering monster rolls. (Upthread, [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] pointed to the similar features of original D&D.)

Unlike OA or 4e, I don't think this is a game system in which "fail forward" can be straightforwardly applied.

I'll leave it for others with more experience to reflect on 3E and 5e in this context.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Loss of momentum or story flow seems to be the common denominator here (at least that is how it appears to me). If so, I believe Failing Forward offers a solution to a problem I don't really have (just due to the way I run games and the dynamic at my table, preserving momentum isn't much of a concern for us).





Bedrockgames said:


> I don't really worry about dramatic tension.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> My style and approach very much much eschews pacing concerns



If pacing concerns, and dramatic momentum/tension, aren't of concern to a group, then I think "fail forward" as a technique has little or no relevance to them.

Sometime in the early-to-mid-80s issues of pacing and dramatic tension/momentum clearly became a big deal for many RPGers, as is shown by discussions at the time, by the design of various adventure modules, by GMing advice found in various RPG books, etc. The "solution" to the problem that became very prominent especially in the 90s was GM-forced railroading.

"Fail forward" has become popularised as a technique by designers who share the concerns about pacing and dramatic tension/momentum, but loathe the railroading. It's an alternative to GM pre-scripting, which preserves the significance to play - both the mechancial procedures of play and the fictional content generated by play - of player choices.

Some posters in this thread have linked "fail forward" to railroading, as if the GM - by narrating consequences of failure a certain way - is pushing things towards a pre-determined outcome. I notice that there is an implicit assumption here, namely, that the GM got to choose what the players' action declarations would be, and got to set the stakes for them.

But in games that emphasise "fail forward", the _players_ get to choose action declarations, and have a key role in setting the stakes for them. Which is yet another reason why "fail forward" has nothing to do with GM pre-scripting.


----------



## Manbearcat

Bedrockgames said:


> We are speaking abstractly though, so maybe we are just talking past each other due to vagueness and a lack of concrete examples.




My TLDR post on the prior page has the concrete example (and subsequent analysis) below:



> GM (Me):
> 
> The wind dries your eyes to the point of pain. Your training ensures that you easily pick up the odd lope of the dog, its gait clearly weary, hobbled by age and its recent torment. It must know the territory well as it appears to have made a go for a line of snowdrifts that it could dig into and hide behind as the gusts pick up speed.
> 
> When you spot her, she has dug into the side of the drift facing away from the wind. Laboring over the effort, her tongue is out as she is in full pant. She doesn't notice your presence and as you watch her, you can see the fear in her eyes and the hunger betrayed by her gaunt form.





> Saerie's player:
> 
> I slowly get into her line of sight so as not to startle her. When she sees me, I'll carefully pull out some dried meat from my pack. I'll get down on all fours, assume a non-threatening posture, and entreat her to a free meal, given in good faith.
> 
> Parley (Cha)
> 
> My leverage is food for the starving dog.
> 
> 5, 1 - 1 = 5. Fails.
> 
> Mark 1 xp





> GM (Me):
> 
> Her ears perk up. The dog looks interested in your offering. However, if she is deaf she doesn't need ears to perceive the thundering herd of reindeer bearing down on you. She, like you, can feel it in the ground. Your mind is ushered back to the Winter Wolf's words regarding a maddened realm near the two great bodies of water in the highlands where "...herds of reindeer would stampede each other and tear each other, and themselves, to pieces." Whether they're simply running from the fury of the storm that is hot on their tails or deranged creatures intent on your harm is impossible to say at this distance (far, 10 creatures).
> 
> The scared dog abruptly bounds out of her carved hole and rushes to your position where she might see the obscured threat. When she sees what is on its way, she tucks her tail between her legs and runs in a circle behind you, looking to you with uncertain eyes.
> 
> The reindeer are closing fast.




If a player in your game wants to develop a rapport with a _sentient thing_ because they have a *greater intent of sating motivation x*, which _sentient thing_ can fulfill, do you think a failed Parley/Diplomacy/Reaction/Rapport (etc) should *only and always *result in:

- locking out the prospects of an immediate NPCC relationship

or

- outright hostility/attack by the NPC upon the PC

or

- some other form of unfriendliness or adversarielness by NPC made manifest _right now_?

OR...

...do you think addressing *greater intent of sating motivation x* with some other sort of immediate and interesting problem that complicates its realization, that could snowball into something disastrous, is on the table?

If you answer the former, you don't use/like Fail Forward.  If you answer the latter, you do.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> If a player in your game wants to develop a rapport with a _sentient thing_ because they have a *greater intent of sating motivation x*, which _sentient thing_ can fulfill, do you think a failed Parley/Diplomacy/Reaction/Rapport (etc) should *only and always *result in:
> 
> - locking out the prospects of an immediate NPCC relationship
> 
> or
> 
> - outright hostility/attack by the NPC upon the PC
> 
> or
> 
> - some other form of unfriendliness or adversarielness by NPC made manifest _right now_?
> 
> OR...
> 
> ...do you think addressing *greater intent of sating motivation x* with some other sort of immediate and interesting problem that complicates its realization, that could snowball into something disastrous, is on the table?
> 
> If you answer the former, you don't use/like Fail Forward.  If you answer the latter, you do.




Just based on the language and flow of your example, I believe my play style is quite different from the one presented (it have to admit, I had some trouble following the details for some reason). When you say "greater intent of sating motivation X" I am not 100% sure I know what you mean. But social rolls are probably not the best example for me, as I place a lot more emphasis on what the player character is saying and doing than on a roll for that (for me, social rolls are things I invoke when there is just a lack of clarity on how the NPC might react). But that said, let's say a player character meets a scholar-official on the road and has some interest in becoming that scholar officials student (I am assuming this would be his "greater intent of sating motivation X"). And he tried to present himself as a well educated man, with a thorough training in the classics in order to impress the scholar official (and let's say this isn't true, the character has only a passing knowledge of the classics). I'll let the player say what he is going to so, but then I might make him make a Deception roll to see if he observes all the correct formalities and subtle expectations. If he fails, this scholar official is not going to buy his story. 

However, whether combat ensures, whether the NPC remains open to a relationship down the road, whether they become adversaries, that is all going to be a product of the NPCs motives, goals and how those interact with the actions of the player character. The failed deception roll would be a factor, because the player just lied to him and that might not paint the character in the best light. But rarely would such a roll tell me how their relationship is going to pan out for the rest of the session or the rest of the campaign, it only tells me what happened in that one instance and that feeds the bigger picture of things. I'm not going to have the scholar official respond in some way that meets the players desire for a particular motivation though. It is going to be dependent on what seems like an appropriate reaction based on what happens.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> If pacing concerns, and dramatic momentum/tension, aren't of concern to a group, then I think "fail forward" as a technique has little or no relevance to them.
> 
> Sometime in the early-to-mid-80s issues of pacing and dramatic tension/momentum clearly became a big deal for many RPGers, as is shown by discussions at the time, by the design of various adventure modules, by GMing advice found in various RPG books, etc. The "solution" to the problem that became very prominent especially in the 90s was GM-forced railroading.
> 
> "Fail forward" has become popularised as a technique by designers who share the concerns about pacing and dramatic tension/momentum, but loathe the railroading. It's an alternative to GM pre-scripting, which preserves the significance to play - both the mechancial procedures of play and the fictional content generated by play - of player choices.
> 
> Some posters in this thread have linked "fail forward" to railroading, as if the GM - by narrating consequences of failure a certain way - is pushing things towards a pre-determined outcome. I notice that there is an implicit assumption here, namely, that the GM got to choose what the players' action declarations would be, and got to set the stakes for them.
> 
> But in games that emphasise "fail forward", the _players_ get to choose action declarations, and have a key role in setting the stakes for them. Which is yet another reason why "fail forward" has nothing to do with GM pre-scripting.




Okay. That background is really helpful for clarifying (and I think maybe what is going on is a lot of us have diverging assumptions about what the point of play is when we are running or playing a game). So just to fill that in here, my own experience may shed light on my preferences. 

Having grown up in the 80s and 90s and experienced what you are referring to, I believe I follow (and at the very least, I am pretty sure I have a concrete sense of how you are using this term and definitely think it isn't something that I would use, or have an easy time implementing, in one of my sessions). I played those kinds of campaigns, pretty much bought into a lot of the GM advice up through 3E. Around the time 3E was at its height, I really started to experience frustration with the very pre-planned, path-driven type of adventure (the focus seemed to shift a bit from story to encounters, but it amounted to something similar in my experience, where a lot of adventures were designed around a flow of encounter sequences that each hit particular increments). I kind of felt like these two choices were mainly what was being offered and I didn't like it. Maybe that wasn't actually the case, but that is how it felt to me at the time. Basically as a player I felt like I was being walked through what the GM had planned, and as a GM I felt that I might as well just hand my players my GM notes and call it a night. I think I must have found an old hex crawl adventure or they reprinted one somewhere, and that got me thinking. I had also been experimenting now and again with much more open style and freeform GMIing approaches (where I prepped very, very little and just responded to things as they came up). I think for me, the turning point was picking up the 1E DMG again and reading through it. I honestly kind of did it for a laugh at first, because I remembered old school play from my early days being a bit hokey (mainly because my group was so young and we were applying it without much thought). But it actually answered a lot of my frustrations. I had learned to GM from the 2E PHB, and anyone familiar with that, knows a lot of the advice from the 1E book simply isn't in there (there is just less emphasis on exploration procedures). I wasn't that I read the 1E book and game away a Gygaxian GM who ran things exactly as described there, but those tools and guidelines really got me thinking in a much more back to basics approach that I built up on. What I found excites me as a GM and as a player is a sense that: 

1) I don't know where things are going to go; there isn't a pre-planned sense of an adventure that has to pan out a particular way

2) A sense that the world is separate from the Players and they are exploring it. Whether it is a dungeon, a mystery or a royal court, the experience from the player side is that of really being there and dealign with characters and places that have weight and feel real. 

3) Things are not progressing to satisfy the GMs desire to tell a story or the player's desire to be in a story. That doesn't mean I avoid excitement, twists, etc. But it does mean I try to avoid patterns that make the players feel like they are heroes in a movie or book. So I don't fudge rolls out of pacing concerns, spotlight, etc. If I ever fudge, which is incredibly rare, it is only because the dice produce a result I strongly feel would be unrealistic.  

Based on this, I am assuming fail forward would be an awkward fit for someone like me. But I have someone in my group runs games differently than I do, with a little more focus on things like spotlight and the cinematic, so I suspect he'd probably have more use for it than I would.

You mention the players setting the stakes. Can you elaborate on this? That may be another major point of divergence. One of my big gripes with skills like Diplomacy in 3E was that players sometimes used them to set the stakes or direct the outcomes (i.e. "I use Diplomacy to get to the princess to marry me" where the player is framing the consequences of a successful roll rather than allowing the GM to do so....the wording can lead the GM to believe that a successful roll must result in the princess saying yes to marriage, even if the character in question simply wouldn't' or couldn't do that). It took me a while to figure out why this bothered me, but eventually that seemed like the cause.


----------



## mfc

I like Fail Forward


----------



## Manbearcat

Bedrockgames said:


> Just based on the language and flow of your example, I believe my play style is quite different from the one presented (it have to admit, I had some trouble following the details for some reason). When you say "greater intent of sating motivation X" I am not 100% sure I know what you mean. But social rolls are probably not the best example for me, as I place a lot more emphasis on what the player character is saying and doing than on a roll for that (for me, social rolls are things I invoke when there is just a lack of clarity on how the NPC might react). But that said, let's say a player character meets a scholar-official on the road and has some interest in becoming that scholar officials student (I am assuming this would be his "greater intent of sating motivation X"). And he tried to present himself as a well educated man, with a thorough training in the classics in order to impress the scholar official (and let's say this isn't true, the character has only a passing knowledge of the classics). I'll let the player say what he is going to so, but then I might make him make a Deception roll to see if he observes all the correct formalities and subtle expectations. If he fails, this scholar official is not going to buy his story.
> 
> However, whether combat ensures, whether the NPC remains open to a relationship down the road, whether they become adversaries, that is all going to be a product of the NPCs motives, goals and how those interact with the actions of the player character. The failed deception roll would be a factor, because the player just lied to him and that might not paint the character in the best light. But rarely would such a roll tell me how their relationship is going to pan out for the rest of the session or the rest of the campaign, it only tells me what happened in that one instance and that feeds the bigger picture of things. I'm not going to have the scholar official respond in some way that meets the players desire for a particular motivation though. It is going to be dependent on what seems like an appropriate reaction based on what happens.




I think we're in the same general orbit of "being on the same page" at this point.  And I'm fairly confident (given the above post and your posting history) that you are not someone who would be inclined to either (a) use Fail Forward as a general technique for determining how the situation changes, post-action-resolution, or (b) run games that systematize its usage.

Since you've expressed that you're still uncertain, I'm going to create a truly bare bones example (to remove any potentially obfuscating details and because of your take on social mechanics):

- Bob (PC) wants pudding.

- Mount Pudding has pudding at its peak.

- Bob therefore *summits Mount Pudding* (action) *to retrieve said pudding* (intent).

A game where the technique of Fail Forward is deployed puts the retrieval of the pudding as the reference-point by which the fictional results of action-resolution are anchored/contextually framed.  As Bob attempts to summit Mount Pudding, whenever Bob's player fails a roll involved with the physical effort to summit Mount Pudding, the GM changes the situation.  However, the GM does not do so by* solely referencing the causal logic chain of the action undertaken*, say, a failed hazard navigation check:
_
Bob, you fall into the crevice (with whatever mechanical result)!_

They may do that if it is sufficient to create an interesting setback to the retrieval of said pudding.  However, the GM may also change the situation by *tying the setback directly to the retrieval of said pudding.*  Failed hazard navigation?  Crap:
_
Bob, you barely escape disaster by grabbing the edge of the crevice before you fall down into the deep dark (!)...but the leather strap holding your Pudding Divining Rod to your belt tears free and you hear the awful sound of it clanging off the rock as it cascades down...down...down (oh no!).  You going down after it or do you think you can find that dastardly evasive pudding without it?_

The latter is Fail Forward.  Action succeeds (Bob evades the hazard) while intent is compromised/complicated (retrieval of said pudding).


----------



## Manbearcat

Bedrockgames said:


> 1) I don't know where things are going to go; there isn't a pre-planned sense of an adventure that has to pan out a particular way
> 
> 3) Things are not progressing to satisfy the GMs desire to tell a story...




Just for clarity, the above two aspects of play agenda are utterly central to games that systematize Fail Forward.  In fact, they are engineered pretty explicitly to satisfy them both.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> Just for clarity, the above two aspects of play agenda are utterly central to games that systematize Fail Forward.  In fact, they are engineered pretty explicitly to satisfy them both.




If we agree on one or two key points, but diverge on others that may explain some of the tension that arises in these discusses (when there is 80% agreement but the remaining 20% is extremely contentious, that seems to be a recipe for misunderstanding). Would you say my other points conflict with Fail Forward in any way: 2) A sense of the world being separate form the players they are exploring and 3B) the players desire to be in a story*

*Not in the sense of a pre-planned tale, but in the sense that what they are experiencing is very much in line with being the stars of an action movie, fantasy novel, or other type of plot.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> I think we're in the same general orbit of "being on the same page" at this point.  And I'm fairly confident (given the above post and your posting history) that you are not someone who would be inclined to either (a) use Fail Forward as a general technique for determining how the situation changes, post-action-resolution, or (b) run games that systematize its usage.
> 
> Since you've expressed that you're still uncertain, I'm going to create a truly bare bones example (to remove any potentially obfuscating details and because of your take on social mechanics):
> 
> - Bob (PC) wants pudding.
> 
> - Mount Pudding has pudding at its peak.
> 
> - Bob therefore *summits Mount Pudding* (action) *to retrieve said pudding* (intent).
> 
> A game where the technique of Fail Forward is deployed puts the retrieval of the pudding as the reference-point by which the fictional results of action-resolution are anchored/contextually framed.  As Bob attempts to summit Mount Pudding, whenever Bob's player fails a roll involved with the physical effort to summit Mount Pudding, the GM changes the situation.  However, the GM does not do so by* solely referencing the causal logic chain of the action undertaken*, say, a failed hazard navigation check:
> _
> Bob, you fall into the crevice (with whatever mechanical result)!_
> 
> They may do that if it is sufficient to create an interesting setback to the retrieval of said pudding.  However, the GM may also change the situation by *tying the setback directly to the retrieval of said pudding.*  Failed hazard navigation?  Crap:
> _
> Bob, you barely escape disaster by grabbing the edge of the crevice before you fall down into the deep dark (!)...but the leather strap holding your Pudding Divining Rod to your belt tears free and you hear the awful sound of it clanging off the rock as it cascades down...down...down (oh no!).  You going down after it or do you think you can find that dastardly evasive pudding without it?_
> 
> The latter is Fail Forward.  Action succeeds (Bob evades the hazard) while intent is compromised/complicated (retrieval of said pudding).




Thanks for the bare bones example, that actually helps a lot here. Yes, this is how I am picturing fail forward. The failure is converted into a less than stellar success with some kind of complication that makes things interesting. Is that correct? 

For me, if you fail your Climb or you Jump roll or whatever it is, you are going to experience the full effects of failure. Now that doesn't mean your trek up the mountain is at end. You could fall into a ravine and make your way up the mountain. It also doesn't mean something interesting won't arise because of the failure. For example it is possible there is something cool at the bottom of the ravine. But I am not assisting the player forward in his pursuit of the pudding. He may fall, decide the damage he took was too much and finding the pudding at this point too risky, at which point he returns to the party at base camp and assesses the situation. Failure to 'complete the adventure' is always a possibility in the game I run. Though failure isn't always things like 'you don't get the pudding' it could be interesting things too, like 'the demons of the infinite mirror pavilion are unleashed upon the kingdom'. But the stakes of failure are always pretty dependent on what is going on.


----------



## iserith

Bedrockgames said:


> If we agree on one or two key points, but diverge on others that may explain some of the tension that arises in these discusses (when there is 80% agreement but the remaining 20% is extremely contentious, that seems to be a recipe for misunderstanding). Would you say my other points conflict with Fail Forward in any way: 2) A sense of the world being separate form the players they are exploring and 3B) the players desire to be in a story*
> 
> *Not in the sense of a pre-planned tale, but in the sense that what they are experiencing is very much in line with being the stars of an action movie, fantasy novel, or other type of plot.




For my part, I don't think so. With regard to (2), and referencing [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s last example, there is nothing about losing one's pudding divining rod down a ravine instead of falling in that contributes to a sense that the world isn't separate from the players. As to (3B), the characters are in a story no matter what our approach to the game, the story being a tale of what the PCs have done during the course of a session. Some DMs try to make it where the story that emerges from play is a little more like fantasy novels or action movies in terms of presentation, but that's just a matter of style really. I find the emergent story just comes out a little more polished in such a game.


----------



## iserith

Bedrockgames said:


> For me, if you fail your Climb or you Jump roll or whatever it is, you are going to experience the full effects of failure.




I think this is where the disconnect may be. Falling into the ravine or losing your divining rod down the ravine are both "the full effects of failure." It's just a matter of what stakes were set before the task/conflict resolution.


----------



## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> For my part, I don't think so. With regard to (2), and referencing [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s last example, there is nothing about losing one's pudding divining rod down a ravine instead of falling in that contributes to a sense that the world isn't separate from the players. As to (3B), the characters are in a story no matter what our approach to the game, the story being a tale of what the PCs have done during the course of a session. Some DMs try to make it where the story that emerges from play is a little more like fantasy novels or action movies in terms of presentation, but that's just a matter of style really. I find the emergent story just comes out a little more polished in such a game.




That isn't what I mean by story here though. I understand that story can mean something that broad in an RPG (and just came off of a discussion elsewhere about this subject). But if story happens no matter what we do, then it is so broad in meaning, that it doesn't really matter here (because whether the players sit there and twiddle there thumbs, or whether I throw anything at them at all, it all amounts to story no matter what). By story I mean a sense that you are a character in something that feels similar to a story unfolding in a book or novel. Not necessarily a story being told by the GM, not a linear path, but a sense that collectively a story is being told (and therefore some outcome will be better for the story than others). When I am playing I don't worry about outcomes contributing to that sense of story.


----------



## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> I think this is where the disconnect may be. Falling into the ravine or losing your divining rod down the ravine are both "the full effects of failure." It's just a matter of what stakes were set before the task/conflict resolution.




Now this is muddying things for me, because if it is just a matter of setting the stakes, I don't really see what fail forward is. If it is a matter of taking a failure and turning it into something more productive for the adventure or storyline, that I can grasp. But in any game, the GM is setting the stakes for failure. To me fail forward sounds like it is meant to sidestep the initially set stakes (i.e. stake seems to be you tumble to your death or fall down the side of the mountain, but in actuality  once the failed roll occurs, it is about losing a vital piece of equipment or not----so falling down the ravine was never really a potential outcome in hindsight).


----------



## iserith

Bedrockgames said:


> That isn't what I mean by story here though. I understand that story can mean something that broad in an RPG (and just came off of a discussion elsewhere about this subject). But if story happens no matter what we do, then it is so broad in meaning, that it doesn't really matter here (because whether the players sit there and twiddle there thumbs, or whether I throw anything at them at all, it all amounts to story no matter what). By story I mean a sense that you are a character in something that feels similar to a story unfolding in a book or novel. Not necessarily a story being told by the GM, not a linear path, but a sense that collectively a story is being told (and therefore some outcome will be better for the story than others). When I am playing I don't worry about outcomes contributing to that sense of story.




Depending on the RPG, a goal of play might be an exciting, memorable story emerging as a result of what happens at the table. D&D 5e, for example. Achieving that goal of play might require some attention to actually making it exciting and memorable. Some might put more attention into it than others, but I would go so far as to say that we all worry about it to some extent, be that how we adjudicate tasks and conflicts or what kind of content we include for players to experience.



Bedrockgames said:


> Now this is muddying things for me, because if it is just a matter of setting the stakes, I don't really see what fail forward is. If it is a matter of taking a failure and turning it into something more productive for the adventure or storyline, that I can grasp. But in any game, the GM is setting the stakes for failure. To me fail forward sounds like it is meant to sidestep the initially set stakes (i.e. stake seems to be you tumble to your death or fall down the side of the mountain, but in actuality  once the failed roll occurs, it is about losing a vital piece of equipment or not----so falling down the ravine was never really a potential outcome in hindsight).




If the GM sets the stakes, as you say, then nothing is being sidestepped, right?. There are no "initial stakes." There are only ever the stakes the GM sets which are then tested by the mechanics and/or dice.


----------



## Maxperson

iserith said:


> I think this is where the disconnect may be. Falling into the ravine or losing your divining rod down the ravine are both "the full effects of failure." It's just a matter of what stakes were set before the task/conflict resolution.




Failing a climb roll involves the person climbing failing to climb.  It can be no progress or a fall.  Dropping a divining rod is failing to hold on to it, not failing to climb.  Falling into the ravine and dropping the rods are full effects for failure, but they are full effects of failure for two completely different things.


----------



## iserith

Maxperson said:


> Failing a climb roll involves the person climbing failing to climb.  It can be no progress or a fall.  Dropping a divining rod is failing to hold on to it, not failing to climb.  Falling into the ravine and dropping the rods are full effects for failure, but they are full effects of failure for two completely different things.




It depends entirely on the player's stated goal and approach for the character and the context of the situation described at that time. In some cases, the mechanics make be invoked to test whether the character falls into the ravine; in other cases, they may be invoked to test some other stakes.


----------



## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> Depending on the RPG, a goal of play might be an exciting, memorable story emerging as a result of what happens at the table. D&D 5e, for example. Achieving that goal of play might require some attention to actually making it exciting and memorable. Some might put more attention into it than others, but I would go so far as to say that we all worry about it to some extent, be that how we adjudicate tasks and conflicts or what kind of content we include for players to experience.




I think we have a fundamental disagreement here, but it is a secondary issue, and not going to be fruitful to debate. I don't share this view. If you feel differently that is totally fine. This is something people disagree about a lot but not a subject I have a lot of interest in discussing these days. Generally it isn't all that important what people believe on this front, it only matters when the concept of story is being used to advance a particular mode of play over others (i.e. you should do X instead of Y because its is better for the story). Subject for another thread I think. 



> If the GM sets the stakes, as you say, then nothing is being sidestepped, right?. There are no "initial stakes." There are only ever the stakes the GM sets which are then tested by the mechanics and/or dice.




Again, if all fail forward is is setting the stakes, or setting them a particular way, I'm not really sure I grasp what it is. But by manbearcat's example, there is clearly an implied apparent stake to the failed roll (you fall down the ravine). That is the threat everyone discerns going into the roll. What seems to be happening is the actual stake (the side step) is that falling down the ravine was never really a potential outcome because what is really on the table is losing your divining rod. To me that reads like, the GM is altering the stakes to suit the drama of the situation and keep things going forward, when a more standard reading of a failed roll would be falling. True, he may have set those stakes in advance, but it is still a bit of a sidestep because he is circumventing the obvious outcome of the failed roll for a more dramatically appropriate one or one that leads to advancement in the adventure or goal (not saying this is bad, I am just genuinely trying to wrap my head around what failed forward is because as soon as i seem to have it pinned down, someone throws a curve ball). I'm not saying failed forward is a bad technique either. I am just saying what I see here, doesn't seem suited to my table and I am trying to figure out why.


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## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> It depends entirely on the player's stated goal and approach for the character and the context of the situation described at that time. In some cases, the mechanics make be invoked to test whether the character falls into the ravine; in other cases, they may be invoked to test some other stakes.




That is what I would just call a ruling based on what the player's stated aim is and what the situation is. The GM always has the ability to determine what failure means in the context of play. But that doesn't really feel like Fail Forward as Pemerton and others are describing it.


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## iserith

Bedrockgames said:


> Again, if all fail forward is is setting the stakes, or setting them a particular way, I'm not really sure I grasp what it is. But by manbearcat's example, there is clearly an implied apparent stake to the failed roll (you fall down the ravine). That is the threat everyone discerns going into the roll. What seems to be happening is the actual stake (the side step) is that falling down the ravine was never really a potential outcome because what is really on the table is losing your divining rod. To me that reads like, the GM is altering the stakes to suit the drama of the situation and keep things going forward, when a more standard reading of a failed roll would be falling. True, he may have set those stakes in advance, but it is still a bit of a sidestep because he is circumventing the obvious outcome of the failed roll for a more dramatically appropriate one or one that leads to advancement in the adventure or goal (not saying this is bad, I am just genuinely trying to wrap my head around what failed forward is because as soon as i seem to have it pinned down, someone throws a curve ball). I'm not saying failed forward is a bad technique either. I am just saying what I see here, doesn't seem suited to my table and I am trying to figure out why.




My guess would be that you appear to view things as Maxperson seems to do, which is that there are "actual" or "obvious" stakes that "everyone discerns," which is really just a subjective statement of what _you _think the stakes should be for a given situation. I can see a lot of different stakes and outcomes for the situation described, depending on the details up to that point, and I would choose whichever one will help me achieve the goals of play. You see "Climb or Fall." Does that seem accurate to you?


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## iserith

Bedrockgames said:


> That is what I would just call a ruling based on what the player's stated aim is and what the situation is. The GM always has the ability to determine what failure means in the context of play.




Right, and thus it would seem you could stomach Fail Forward.



Bedrockgames said:


> But that doesn't really feel like Fail Forward as Pemerton and others are describing it.




I'm explaining how I see it; I'll leave it to Pemerton and others to explain how they see it. 13th Age SRD defines it as:

"Outside of battle, when failure would tend to slow action down rather than move the action along, instead interpret it as a near-success or event that happens to carry unwanted consequences or side effects. *The character probably still fails to achieve the desired goal*, but that's because something happens on the way to the goal rather than because nothing happens. In any case, the story and action still keep moving."

I bolded the key part in my view where I find many objections to the approach come from. If I want my character to climb the ravine unscathed and I botch a roll the GM calls for, then losing my divining rod means I failed to achieve my desired goal.


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## Maxperson

iserith said:


> It depends entirely on the player's stated goal and approach for the character and the context of the situation described at that time. In some cases, the mechanics make be invoked to test whether the character falls into the ravine; in other cases, they may be invoked to test some other stakes.




In my opinion, mechanics should almost always test what they are intended to test.  Climbing should test you climbing.  Failure should involve that test.  Failing to climb or falling.  I'm not big on mixing mechanics with goals.  If the goal of my PC is to climb the cliff and then activate the pylon on top to summon an angel, a failed climb check has nothing to do with that pylon.  It has to do with climbing.  When I get to the top, failing to activate that pylon has nothing to do with climbing.  It's dependent on knowledge or engineering or something applicable.  

Now, that doesn't mean that there can't be any connection at all.  If you have to hold the key to the pylon while you climb, you could incur a penalty to your climbing ability.  If you fall, you could drop the key.  However, to me a failed climb check shouldn't result in just dropping that key.

Now I'm going to confuse things a bit.  I could see this happening.  

DM: Climbing up the cliff is tough.  It will be a DC 17 climb and holding the key will be a -3 circumstance penalty as you climb.

Player: (rolls a 19) 16 after the penalty.  

DM:  That's very close.  You feel yourself slipping and you know that you are about to fall.  However, if you drop the key you can grab an outcropping of stone and save yourself.

In that example, dropping the key is not the result of the failed climb check.  Falling is.  Dropping it could remove the penalty and stop the failed check, though.


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## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> My guess would be that you appear to view things as Maxperson seems to do, which is that there are "actual" or "obvious" stakes that "everyone discerns," which is really just a subjective statement of what _you _think the stakes should be for a given situation. I can see a lot of different stakes and outcomes for the situation described, depending on the details up to that point, and I would choose whichever one will help me achieve the goals of play. You see "Climb or Fall." Does that seem accurate to you?




What I am saying is every situation is going to have some obvious outcomes for particular rolls. If I am a player and trying to climb a wall, and the GM asks for a Climb Skill (or whatever skill or ability in the game covers that action) I am going to assume the stakes have something to do with not climbing the wall. If I fail and the GM says "You make it over the wall but drop your swiss army knife in the process" that is going to feel a bit odd to me, just given how my group tends to run things. Certainly the GM is free to set loss of the army knife as a stake, but I don't think that is at all an apparent stake given what the player knows of the situation going in. I am not saying dropping the knife is a bad stake to set if you want the game to advance forward toward a particular goal or if you find that the most exciting option. For my style of play, I don't see it adding anything except confusion. 

But even with your point conceded, that just leads me to ask how failing forward is different stake setting. We can certainly have a discussion over appropriate setting of stakes. I can clearly see what Pemerton and others are talking about when they describe fail forward. But I am genuinely having difficulty understanding what it is as you describe it. Not saying your wrong, I just can't really see the distinction between failing forward and the GM setting stakes in your post.


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## Janx

Bedrockgames said:


> Now this is muddying things for me, because if it is just a matter of setting the stakes, I don't really see what fail forward is. If it is a matter of taking a failure and turning it into something more productive for the adventure or storyline, that I can grasp. But in any game, the GM is setting the stakes for failure. To me fail forward sounds like it is meant to sidestep the initially set stakes (i.e. stake seems to be you tumble to your death or fall down the side of the mountain, but in actuality  once the failed roll occurs, it is about losing a vital piece of equipment or not----so falling down the ravine was never really a potential outcome in hindsight).




I don't have a problem with that interpretation.

Bob is climbing Mount Pudding
Bob has to make a Jump to cross a chasm
Bob fails the die roll.  Rolled an 8, needed a 10.
What does Failure mean (stakes?)?

A GM thinking simply, could assume that it's succeed and end up on the other side, fail and end up just short of the other side and fall into the chasm (taking falling damage).

Another GM could assume that there's variations of failure.  What if you tripped on the run up to the ledge and haven't actually jumped yet?

Still another GM could be thinking "holy crap, this is the first challenge, we're 5 minutes into our gaming tonight and Bob just died."

FailForward could be viewed as a mind expanding tool for GM's 1 and 3 who need to consider that not everything has to be binary.

Personally, I see that sometimes, it's OK for Bob to fall, take damage and see what happens next.  Other times, maybe I'd like to not kill him off in the first 5 minutes.  Maybe he'll turn back if it's a near death experience.  Or I can just yank his chain by making it harder now instead of killing him (which pretty much shuts down any fun).

I am pretty sure, that at some point, if Bob keeps jumping and failing, he needs to take damage.  And eventually die.  But that kind of game play is frustrating in video games (why I don't play platformers), and if falling and taking damage are the only possible outcomes of failing a jump, then that's jarring and damaging to immersion as well because of the lack of variance.  Real failure is organic and variable.

So, depending on the situation, I'll throw Bob a bone and give him a setback instead of more boring damage.  Heck, making him choose between fetching his wand that he thinks he needs or going on without it might stimulate better activity than my original boring material for 23 chasm jumps to reach the top...


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## iserith

Maxperson said:


> In my opinion, mechanics should almost always test what they are intended to test.  Climbing should test you climbing.  Failure should involve that test.  Failing to climb or falling.  I'm not big on mixing mechanics with goals.  If the goal of my PC is to climb the cliff and then activate the pylon on top to summon an angel, a failed climb check has nothing to do with that pylon.  It has to do with climbing.  When I get to the top, failing to activate that pylon has nothing to do with climbing.  It's dependent on knowledge or engineering or something applicable.
> 
> Now, that doesn't mean that there can't be any connection at all.  If you have to hold the key to the pylon while you climb, you could incur a penalty to your climbing ability.  If you fall, you could drop the key.  However, to me a failed climb check shouldn't result in just dropping that key.
> 
> Now I'm going to confuse things a bit.  I could see this happening.
> 
> DM: Climbing up the cliff is tough.  It will be a DC 17 climb and holding the key will be a -3 circumstance penalty as you climb.
> 
> Player: (rolls a 19) 16 after the penalty.
> 
> DM:  That's very close.  You feel yourself slipping and you know that you are about to fall.  However, if you drop the key you can grab an outcropping of stone and save yourself.
> 
> In that example, dropping the key is not the result of the failed climb check.  Falling is.  Dropping it could remove the penalty and stop the failed check, though.




I think this goes to show that the context of the fictional situation that is unfolding relative to the player's stated goal and approach will determine whether and which mechanics apply and what those stakes may be. Which is my point as to the use of techniques like Fail Forward. In some cases, "Yes" or "No" are fine stakes. In other cases, "Yes" or "Yes, but..." are more interesting. I see no value in limiting myself to one or the other.


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## iserith

Bedrockgames said:


> What I am saying is every situation is going to have some obvious outcomes for particular rolls. If I am a player and trying to climb a wall, and the GM asks for a Climb Skill (or whatever skill or ability in the game covers that action) I am going to assume the stakes have something to do with not climbing the wall. If I fail and the GM says "You make it over the wall but drop your swiss army knife in the process" that is going to feel a bit odd to me, just given how my group tends to run things. Certainly the GM is free to set loss of the army knife as a stake, but I don't think that is at all an apparent stake given what the player knows of the situation going in. I am not saying dropping the knife is a bad stake to set if you want the game to advance forward toward a particular goal or if you find that the most exciting option. For my style of play, I don't see it adding anything except confusion.




I recommend the GM discuss the stakes prior to the roll. You can see examples of this in my thread on adjudication in D&D 5e.



Bedrockgames said:


> But even with your point conceded, that just leads me to ask how failing forward is different stake setting.




I don't think it is any different as I indicated in my first post in this thread. And when one thinks about it this way, it becomes a lot more palatable, right?


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## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> I think this goes to show that the context of the fictional situation that is unfolding relative to the player's stated goal and approach will determine whether and which mechanics apply and what those stakes may be. Which is my point as to the use of techniques like Fail Forward. In some cases, "Yes" or "No" are fine stakes. In other cases, "Yes" or "Yes, but..." are more interesting. I see no value in limiting myself to one or the other.




I think most GMs would say "Yes but..." is perfectly fine depending on the context (because stake setting is very situation dependent). But I guess fail forward seems to be saying more than that to me. If it is just about taking a bigger more complex look at potential stakes for a given situation, that doesn't sound all that different from what goes on at any number of tables (but I don't understand why its called failing forward in that case). Maybe I am getting hung up on forward, but it appears not to simply be a tool for getting the GM to think more broadly about stakes, but rather has a focus on momentum and maintain that sense of things progressing. Put another way, it seems to be either about 1) not allowing a failed roll to interfere with the flow of the story or 2) turning a failed roll into a plot point that advances the story in a new or exciting direction. Is this correct?


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## iserith

Bedrockgames said:


> I think most GMs would say "Yes but..." is perfectly fine depending on the context (because stake setting is very situation dependent). But I guess fail forward seems to be saying more than that to me. If it is just about taking a bigger more complex look at potential stakes for a given situation, that doesn't sound all that different from what goes on at any number of tables (but I don't understand why its called failing forward in that case). Maybe I am getting hung up on forward, but it appears not to simply be a tool for getting the GM to think more broadly about stakes, but rather has a focus on momentum and maintain that sense of things progressing. Put another way, it seems to be either about 1) not allowing a failed roll to interfere with the flow of the story or 2) turning a failed roll into a plot point that advances the story in a new or exciting direction. Is this correct?




My personal read on it is that the GM is encouraged to set the stakes in the most interesting way that follows from the fiction up to that point. If falling down the ravine is an interesting failure in that situation, then that's the cost of failure. If losing the divining rod is more interesting, do that instead.


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## Primitive Screwhead

iserith said:


> 13th Age SRD defines it as:
> 
> "Outside of battle, when failure would tend to slow action down rather than move the action along, instead interpret it as a near-success or event that happens to carry unwanted consequences or side effects. The character probably still fails to achieve the desired goal, but that's because something happens on the way to the goal rather than because nothing happens. *In any case, the story and action still keep moving.*"
> 
> I bolded the key part in my view where I find many objections to the approach come from.




I didn't vote in the poll because the concept of 'fail forward' is not a clear-cut deal. In my mind, the critical piece of the concept is highlighted in bold in the above quote, but I will repeat here anyway.

"The story and action keeps moving."

The PCs fail at something, lets say finding a secret door. The GM should have a plan to keep the story alive, even if it means the original goal is no longer achievable. 
 Maybe that means having a minion appear in the previously secured area, encouraging the PCs to retrace their steps. Maybe that means having an alternate pathway to get into the BBEG's lair.  Maybe that means the PCs leave the dungeon and return to find the BBEG has retaliated and taken over the town.

I believe the most important aspect of 'fail forward' is reminding the GM to plan contingencies. There is an excellent article somewhere around regarding how to run mystery games and the core concept is the rule of three. Always have three clues, leads, paths, etc.. from one set-piece to the next... because it is very likely your players will miss at least two of them.


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## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> I don't think it is any different as I indicated in my first post in this thread. And when one thinks about it this way, it becomes a lot more palatable, right?




It isn't about palatability. It is about suitability for what I want at the table (if your a friend and you run a fail forward type game, I will play and I won't act like it is making me sick or something). But as a GM I have a way of running things I've developed that works for me. Any tool I bring in, I do so because it adds to the game and helps me in my goal of having an ongoing sustainable campaign. This tool, as people are describing it, sounds like it would present some issues for me. For instance your definition in the post, is the player succeeds but with a complication. That is where I think it breaks down being useful for me. That doesn't mean some failed rolls in the game won't trigger complications, but I don't need failed forward to tell me that (I just need to know that the players are doing something that naturally comes with the risk of causing X to happen). But if the players are trying to do something concrete like pick a lock with their Trade: Mechanical skill (which is the skill that would be used in the system I run) then failure is going to mean they don't pick the lock, not that they manage to pick it, but a monster catches up to them before they open the door, or they pick it but their picking tools warp in the key hole. I can see why some GMs might choose to take that route, for me that wouldn't enhance gameplay; it simply wouldn't be a good fit.


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## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> My personal read on it is that the GM is encouraged to set the stakes in the most interesting way that follows from the fiction up to that point. If falling down the ravine is an interesting failure in that situation, then that's the cost of failure. If losing the divining rod is more interesting, do that instead.




If that is the case, it isn't how I would want to do things. I would prefer the stakes be set by what feels most likely and appropriate given what the player is attempting to do.


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## iserith

Bedrockgames said:


> But if the players are trying to do something concrete like pick a lock with their Trade: Mechanical skill (which is the skill that would be used in the system I run) then failure is going to mean they don't pick the lock, not that they manage to pick it, but a monster catches up to them before they open the door, or they pick it but their picking tools warp in the key hole. I can see why some GMs might choose to take that route, for me that wouldn't enhance gameplay; it simply wouldn't be a good fit.




I would find any of those failure conditions to be suitable and interesting, given the right fictional circumstances up to that point.



Bedrockgames said:


> I would prefer the stakes be set by what feels most likely and appropriate given what the player is attempting to do.




I wonder if you think I'm advocating something other than what you just said here.


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## iserith

Bedrockgames said:


> For instance your definition in the post, is the player succeeds but with a complication. That is where I think it breaks down being useful for me.




"Success with a complication" can be a little misleading, so let me rephrase: "achieves the intended goal but with a complication." The character failed to achieve the goal scot-free, which is what the player (and character, likely) desired. D&D 5e calls it "progress combined with a setback."


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## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> I wonder if you think I'm advocating something other than what you just said here.




I guess what I am saying is I see falling as the most likely and appropriate outcome. Whether it is interesting or not isn't really a factor for me. If I was giving 'most interesting' primacy I might choose another outcome. But the outcome I want is the one that seems most plausible given the situation, the roll result, etc. If this method works for you, that is great. I just think as you are presenting it to me, it either doesn't add anything (because I can already determine what the most plausible stakes are without it) or it complicates the stakes in a way that potentially pulls us from my other goals and interests at the table.


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## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> "Success with a complication" can be a little misleading, so let me rephrase: "achieves the intended goal but with a complication." The character failed to achieve the goal scot-free, which is what the player (and character, likely) desired. D&D 5e calls it "progress combined with a setback."




That is fine. You can rephrase it. I think I get what you are saying. And it seems like an entirely worthy approach to play. It just doesn't resonate with me.


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## iserith

Bedrockgames said:


> I guess what I am saying is I see falling as the most likely and appropriate outcome. Whether it is interesting or not isn't really a factor for me. If I was giving 'most interesting' primacy I might choose another outcome. But the outcome I want is the one that seems most plausible given the situation, the roll result, etc. If this method works for you, that is great. I just think as you are presenting it to me, it either doesn't add anything (because I can already determine what the most plausible stakes are without it) or it complicates the stakes in a way that potentially pulls us from my other goals and interests at the table.




Plausible and interesting aren't mutually exclusive though. Given the right circumstances, it is both plausible and interesting to either fall into the ravine or drop one's divining rod in instead of falling. I certainly wouldn't choose to make a failure condition _im_plausible and interesting. No more than I would choose to make a failure condition plausible and _un_interesting.


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## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> Plausible and interesting aren't mutually exclusive though. Given the right circumstances, it is both plausible and interesting to either fall into the ravine or drop one's divining rod in instead of falling. I certainly wouldn't choose to make a failure condition _im_plausible and interesting. No more than I would choose to make a failure condition plausible and _un_interesting.




Certainly they are not. But they can be, and often are. More importantly though, if your stakes are always Interesting and Plausible, that does establish a pattern people pick up on (just as if your stakes are always Dramatic and Entertaining, players will notice over time). I want the pattern I establish to be one that is focused on making the world feel concrete. Again I don't avoid interesting or entertaining things, but I don't want to affix that to my stake setting process. 

Again, if it works for you, that is great. I certainly encourage you do use this tool. It doesn't sound like a tool that would be all that useful to me based on what you are saying.


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## iserith

Bedrockgames said:


> Certainly they are not. But they can be, and often are. More importantly though, if your stakes are always Interesting and Plausible, that does establish a pattern people pick up on (just as if your stakes are always Dramatic and Entertaining, players will notice over time). I want the pattern I establish to be one that is focused on making the world feel concrete. Again I don't avoid interesting or entertaining things, but I don't want to affix that to my stake setting process.




I value outcomes always being interesting (even if it sucks for the characters) because it's a game we're playing and I find that uninteresting things is not a good use of my free time. Thus I endeavor to maximize interesting things occurring during the game. I strive to make sure they are plausible too and follow the fiction.



Bedrockgames said:


> Again, if it works for you, that is great. I certainly encourage you do use this tool. It doesn't sound like a tool that would be all that useful to me based on what you are saying.




As it appears there is no convincing you, will you indulge me with a couple of questions as an aside? I find there is often a correlation between rejecting particular approaches and embracing others. I'm curious if that's the case here.

1. Do you tend to ask for a lot of checks in your game? In other words, if something a player says sounds like it could be a "skill check," do you ask for it? Or do you consider whether a check is required given the fictional situation?

2. Do you ever make rolls for the players to try and minimize the chances of them "metagaming" by seeing a low die result and hearing a questionable narration by the DM then asking to repeat the task? If you don't do this, do you employ a kludge such as not allowing retries?

Edit: 3. Do your players ask to make "skill checks" in your game?

4. Which is the game you play the most?


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> if all fail forward is is setting the stakes, or setting them a particular way, I'm not really sure I grasp what it is. But by manbearcat's example, there is clearly an implied apparent stake to the failed roll (you fall down the ravine). That is the threat everyone discerns going into the roll. What seems to be happening is the actual stake (the side step) is that falling down the ravine was never really a potential outcome because what is really on the table is losing your divining rod. To me that reads like, the GM is altering the stakes to suit the drama of the situation and keep things going forward, when a more standard reading of a failed roll would be falling. True, he may have set those stakes in advance, but it is still a bit of a sidestep because he is circumventing the obvious outcome of the failed roll for a more dramatically appropriate one



I've started with this passage in my response to some of the recent posts, because I think it is key.

In a "fail forward" game, the table understands that the result of a failed climb check need not be falling. So it is not the case that "the threat everyone discerns going into the roll" is that the PC will fall; it may well be that the threat everyone perceives is that the PC will lose his/her diving rod.

In Burning Wheel, the official rules state that the GM must clearly set the stakes in advance of the player rolling the dice. In the GM's advice, Luke Crane notes that in his own game he often doesn't do this, and establishes failure consequences only if required to by a failed roll. He goes on to say that this is OK at his table, because his players trust him and he has a good rapport with them and they tend to have a shared sense of what is really at issue in the fiction. But he reiterates that the official rule is a good rule.

At my table, I tend to play more like Luke Crane does, than in accordance with what he says. Which is to say, I often leave the consequences of failure unstated but implicit in the shared sense of what is going on in the ingame situation. Like Luke's players, my players trust me and we have a good shared rapport based on many, many years of RPGing together. When my players are contemplating some course of action for their PCs, and putting together suites of abilities to build dice pools (in BW) or get bonuses (in 4e) they will often speculate about the evil consequences I might inflict on them for a failed roll. They don't generally assume that it will simply be falling down the ravine, if the Climb check is failed.



Maxperson said:


> Failing a climb roll involves the person climbing failing to climb.  It can be no progress or a fall.  Dropping a divining rod is failing to hold on to it, not failing to climb.  Falling into the ravine and dropping the rods are full effects for failure, but they are full effects of failure for two completely different things.





Maxperson said:


> In my opinion, mechanics should almost always test what they are intended to test.  Climbing should test you climbing.  Failure should involve that test.  Failing to climb or falling.



Well, this relates to the issue I posted about not too far upthread (maybe a page or two). Different games have different rules.

In AD&D, for instance, as in Moldvay Basic, there are clear rules for what a failed climb check by a thief PC amounts to: namely, falling.

But in 4e, there is no pre-defined consequence for a failed Athletics check in the context of a skill challenge.

And in Burning Wheel, the rules expressly provide that, when a check is failed, the GM is able to ascertain the failure by reference either to intent, or to task, and is encouraged to place the emphasis on intent.

In Burning Wheel, and even moreso in "free descriptor" type games like Marvel Heroic RP, HeroWars/Quest, and the like, having a good Climb score doesn't just mean that your PC is a good climber. It means that, when you declare actions for your PC that involve climbing, you are more likely to get what you want. The flipside is that, when you fail such an action, you don't get what you want and the GM instead narrates you failing to get what you want. This may or may not involve failing to climb, depending how important the climbing, per se, was to what you wanted. However exactly the failure is narrated by the GM, the mechanics are testing what they were intended to test: namely, by declaring an action involving climbing, you are testing the chances of the PC getting what s/he wants with a higher likelihood than if the action involved (say) fighting (on the assumption that your PC is a better climber than warrior).

In  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s Mt Pudding example, climbing is just a means to the end of getting pudding, and so narrating a loss of the divining rod - which makes the prospects of getting pudding very bleak - is more significant than simply narrating a failure to climb (= a fall down the ravine).



Bedrockgames said:


> Would you say my other points conflict with Fail Forward in any way: 2) A sense of the world being separate form the players they are exploring and 3B) the players desire to be in a story



On 3B: if the players really are indifferent to issues of pacing, dramatic tension/momentum, etc, then "fail forward" seems less likely to be useful as a technique. If the players delight in Gygaxian dungeon crawling, with all its puzzle solving and mapping and beating the wandering monster clock, then I'm not sure "fail forward" has anything to offer at all.

On 2: as I've posted upthread, I think there is no particular connection between "fail forward" and shared narration of backstory between players and GM. However, "fail forward" clearly implies that the GM will establish stakes and narrate consequences having regard to the dramatic and thematic concerns of the players (as evinced by their play of their PCs). Thus, if the player chooses to have his/her PC scale Mt Pudding in quest of pudding, narration of failures will likely be framed in some sort of relation to that goal. (Eg as losing the pudding diving rod.)

If the players truly want the GM to narrate the gameworld, and consequences, without regard to these sorts of dramatic concerns, then "fail forward" would seem in appropriate.

My personal view is that _without any regard at all_ is actually a very stringent condition which I think few RPG games satisfy - look, for instance, at Gygax's city encounter tables in his DMG and I think you will see they are constructed with a very high degree of regard for likely dramatic concerns (eg that PCs should encounter interesting adversaries). But there are matters of degree here, and "fail forward" is a technique in which the GM makes it blatant that the gameworld is being narrated having regard to dramatic concerns.

For instance - to go back to one of my actual play examples - when I narrate the mace as being carried down the stream out of the cave and to the base of the keep, where the servants doing the laundry find it, no one at the table is under any illusion that I rolled for that result on the "maces dropped into cavern streams" table. They know that I narrated this because (i) it gave effect to the failure of the PC who tried to fish the mace out of the stream, and (ii) it increased the stakes for the other two PCs who were dealing with the servants, because one of them was the PC who wanted the mace and the other was the PC who had promised to help him get the mace.

If players don't like having that sort of knowledge about how the GM decided to introduce content into the gameworld, then "fail forward" won't work for them.



Bedrockgames said:


> You mention the players setting the stakes. Can you elaborate on this? That may be another major point of divergence. One of my big gripes with skills like Diplomacy in 3E was that players sometimes used them to set the stakes or direct the outcomes (i.e. "I use Diplomacy to get to the princess to marry me" where the player is framing the consequences of a successful roll rather than allowing the GM to do so....the wording can lead the GM to believe that a successful roll must result in the princess saying yes to marriage, even if the character in question simply wouldn't' or couldn't do that). It took me a while to figure out why this bothered me, but eventually that seemed like the cause.



In the games that use "fail forward" that I've been referencing - eg BW, some approaches to 4e, HW/Q, MHRP - the GM has ultimate authority when it comes to framing a check.

But the players contribute to setting the stakes in various ways. Eg in choice of skill to roll - Climbing vs Navigation when climbing Mt Pudding will likely involve different fictional contexts for failure, which results in different outcomes (diving rod down the ravine vs . . . ?  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] is better than me at wilderness stuff). In BW there are other aspects to building dice pools eg players can augment by bringing in related skills, or by helping one another, but this changes the fiction and so changes the stakes. And by stating an intent for the roll ("I want to get that pudding at the top of Mt Pudding!) the player also helps establish the stakes.

With your princess example, I think there are at least two issues: (i) the overall fictional context doesn't make it sufficiently clear whether or not this is a valid action declaration (eg is it too much like "I flap my arms and fly to the moon", which for most contexts will not be a permissible action declaration), especially because D&D tends not to like a single check governing months or years of activity, which is a more typical time it takes to woo someone for marriage than a single roguish wink; (ii) D&D doesn't really provide much context or support for adjudicating the consequences of a successful marriage proposal to a princess. (There are some obvious exceptions: eg OA, or 4e as part of the paragon tier. I'm sure name level AD&D could handle it too.)

The latter tends to make GMs worry that marrying the princess will somehow break the game. In games with more robust mechanics for handling social and political elements, marrying the princess is more likely to be just another ingame event like acquiring a Heward's Handy Haversack, which can be accommodated and built on without breaking the game.


----------



## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> I value outcomes always being interesting (even if it sucks for the characters) because it's a game we're playing and I find that uninteresting things is not a good use of my free time. Thus I endeavor to maximize interesting things occurring during the game. I strive to make sure they are plausible too and follow the fiction.




That seems totally reasonable to me. If that is what you like, then that is what you ought to do. 





> As it appears there is no convincing you, will you indulge me with a couple of questions as an aside? I find there is often a correlation between rejecting particular approaches and embracing others. I'm curious if that's the case here.




I don't think we are here to convince each other of anything (I am not trying to persuade you toward my style of play for example). I am just trying to understand what Failing Forward means and give a clear reply based on that to the OP. 

I will happily answer your questions but I am prepping for a session tonight so I have to be quick and may not put as much thought into them as I'd like; 



> 1. Do you tend to ask for a lot of checks in your game? In other words, if something a player says sounds like it could be a "skill check," do you ask for it? Or do you consider whether a check is required given the fictional situation?




I wouldn't use the language "fictional situation" but I don't honestly know what "a lot" means to you in this situation. I ask for Skill rolls when they seem relevant and the outcome seems uncertain. So if the player wants to make a cup of coffee, I'd hold off asking for a roll and just allow it. If he was making a cup of coffee while bandits were attacking his house, then I'd probably ask for a roll. The biggest factors when I decide if a character needs to roll for something is probably the character's skill level, the difficulty of the task (at a certain point of routineness it can be silly to ask for rolls) and the particular conditions in the situation. 



> 2. Do you ever make rolls for the players to try and minimize the chances of them "metagaming" by seeing a low die result and hearing a questionable narration by the DM then asking to repeat the task? If you don't do this, do you employ a kludge such as not allowing retries?




Metagaming I usually handle as a separate issue, but as a matter of preserving their experience of the world, I may in fact roll certain things secretly (for example when they use the Divination, I make that secret (because if if they know whether they succeeded or not, they know the reliability of their divination reading). 



> Edit: 3. Do your players ask to make "skill checks" in your game?




I am sure they do from time to time, but mostly they just say what they are trying to do and I tell them if a skill roll is required. 



> 4. Which is the game you play the most?




I design my own games, so I play those the most (just as a matter of principle I don't want to put out games I am not actually playing). Skill based game with dice pools. When I have time for other games, I am open to most any system. Most recently I played Shadows over Esteren. Before that it was Savage Worlds. I played a bit of GURPS not too long ago and ran a 3E campaign as well. I also mixed it up pretty regularly trying a one shot sunday a month (we played Gumshoe, Dragon Age, etc). I play 2E when I can get enough people to be on board, and had a pretty good 1E campaign (where I was a player) fairly recently. Been interested in getting into a 5E game when I have the opportunity. I would say, when I am not playing my own system, it often comes down to who is GMing, but we'll play whatever the person running it is most excited about (in my experience the GM being interested in the system is a big factor in a game's success at the table).


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> My personal view is that _without any regard at all_ is actually a very stringent condition which I think few RPG games satisfy - look, for instance, at Gygax's city encounter tables in his DMG and I think you will see they are constructed with a very high degree of regard for likely dramatic concerns (eg that PCs should encounter interesting adversaries). But there are matters of degree here, and "fail forward" is a technique in which the GM makes it blatant that the gameworld is being narrated having regard to dramatic concerns.




It is the blatancy of it that I am keying in on. Definitely all things in games are a matter of degree and at which point you notice them. I would agree that you can stack encounter tables with some hope that interesting things arise from them (they are not purely meant as reality simulators). I use Grudge tables largely for this reason. So I am not talking about a game where it is meant to feel barren of excitement. But what excitement and drama we do experience i want to feel as organic and natural as possible without it interfering with that sense that the world is solid, concrete and not bending to accommodate a sense of momentum or purpose. So what I do want is for plenty of rolls to just be able to whiff and produce a flat effect in terms of 'momentum/progress'. Basically I think I want to feel like if I solved a mystery or chased down a bandit, it was due to a combination of my skill puzzling through things, my characters abilities and circumstances. I wouldn't want to feel like I was always going to be able succeed simply because my character had set it as an important goal.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> With your princess example, I think there are at least two issues: (i) the overall fictional context doesn't make it sufficiently clear whether or not this is a valid action declaration (eg is it too much like "I flap my arms and fly to the moon", which for most contexts will not be a permissible action declaration), especially because D&D tends not to like a single check governing months or years of activity, which is a more typical time it takes to woo someone for marriage than a single roguish wink; (ii) D&D doesn't really provide much context or support for adjudicating the consequences of a successful marriage proposal to a princess. (There are some obvious exceptions: eg OA, or 4e as part of the paragon tier. I'm sure name level AD&D could handle it too.)
> .




I mentioned marrying the princess because we've had marriages in two of my recent campaigns. I was picturing more of a scenario where the player character asks the princess to marry him out of the blue and my point was I would certainly not the player to be able to use the skill to set that sort of outcome when there is no logical in game reason for her to say yes. I'd much rather the player tell me he asks the princess to marry him and I decide if a roll is warranted or not based on what is going on. 

I should say, I am not at all worried about the princess marriage breaking the game. I could see that playing out just fine in my campaign. My only concern is whether she would plausibly say yes (and for that to be the case, I'd expect there to be some prior relationship or connection, something that makes the PC a suitable husband for a princess,etc). I wouldn't want it to come down to a skill roll on its own. But I would be happy to go that direction if she would have reason to say yes.


----------



## iserith

And, just for funsies, failing in the way some would advocate versus failing forward (as I would present it) might look like this:

*PC: *"Would you do me the honor of being my wife?"
*GM (believing the outcome to be uncertain): *Let's see a Persuasion check.
*PC:* *rolls* Only an 8.
*GM: *"I shall not do you this honor," she says coldly. What do you do?

versus

*PC:* "Would you do me the honor of being my wife?"
*GM (believing the outcome to be uncertain): *Let's see a DC 20 Persuasion check. If you succeed, she will accept your proposal. If you fail, she will accept your proposal, but with a cost.
*PC:* *rolls* Only an 8.
*GM:* "I would take you as my husband," she says genuinely, "But only if you can prove your bravery by slaying the dragon that plagues our realm." What do you do?


----------



## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> And, just for funsies, failing in the way some would advocate versus failing forward (as I would present it) might look like this:
> 
> *PC: *"Would you do me the honor of being my wife?"
> *GM (believing the outcome to be uncertain): *Let's see a Persuasion check.
> *PC:* *rolls* Only an 8.
> *GM: *"I shall not do you this honor," she says coldly. What do you do?
> 
> versus
> 
> *PC:* "Would you do me the honor of being my wife?"
> *GM (believing the outcome to be uncertain): *Let's see a DC 20 Persuasion check. If you succeed, she will accept your proposal. If you fail, she will accept your proposal, but with a cost.
> *PC:* *rolls* Only an 8.
> *GM:* "I would take you as my husband," she says genuinely, "But only if you can prove your bravery by slaying the dragon that plagues our realm." What do you do?




This is clarifying for me. I would much rather base the outcome on the princess' personality and motives. Asking for some additional task is probably something she would have thought of before hand and just been part of the package from the beginning. The only time I'd ask for a roll in that situation is if it is unclear to me whether she'd say yes or no to that particular character. A character who just walks up to a princess and asks for her hand, isn't going to get a persuasion check, he's probably going to get detained if he isn't careful. 

Provided the player character is suitable for the princess, she would have an interest, and I am clear on all those things, I would not ask for a roll and just give her answer based on her personality. If there were some question (the player character has something in his background that raises doubts or he has an ugly mug), then I'd ask for the roll mainly to see how she reacts. Now I might well have there be a catch. But it isn't going to be a product of a skill roll. It is going to be tied to the characters. That would be a separate thing. Unless she were scheming and saw an opportunity there (i.e. he failed the roll and she wasnt persuaded, but this is clearly an idiot she can manipulate for her own purposes). 

For example I had the prospective father in law ask for the character to prove his worth. He left it somewhat open for the character to decide how he would do that; just wanting to test the young man to see if he was worthy of his daughter. However that guy was somewhat unorthodox and wild (for him he enjoyed toying with the PC as well). I had one father in law "test" the character's kung fu, and even one potential bride who insisted on fighting the PC. Another more grounded potential father in law, might just ask some probing questions about the player character's background, aspirations and family. He would likely also check any of the details the player presented.


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## iserith

Bedrockgames said:


> This is clarifying for me. I would much rather base the outcome on the princess' personality and motives. Asking for some additional task is probably something she would have thought of before hand and just been part of the package from the beginning. The only time I'd ask for a roll in that situation is if it is unclear to me whether she'd say yes or no to that particular character. A character who just walks up to a princess and asks for her hand, isn't going to get a persuasion check, he's probably going to get detained if he isn't careful.
> 
> Provided the player character is suitable for the princess, she would have an interest, and I am clear on all those things, I would not ask for a roll and just give her answer based on her personality. If there were some question (the player character has something in his background that raises doubts or he has an ugly mug), then I'd ask for the roll mainly to see how she reacts. Now I might well have there be a catch. But it isn't going to be a product of a skill roll. It is going to be tied to the characters. That would be a separate thing. Unless she were scheming and saw an opportunity there (i.e. he failed the roll and she wasnt persuaded, but this is clearly an idiot she can manipulate for her own purposes).
> 
> For example I had the prospective father in law ask for the character to prove his worth. He left it somewhat open for the character to decide how he would do that; just wanting to test the young man to see if he was worthy of his daughter. However that guy was somewhat unorthodox and wild (for him he enjoyed toying with the PC as well). I had one father in law "test" the character's kung fu, and even one potential bride who insisted on fighting the PC. Another more grounded potential father in law, might just ask some probing questions about the player character's background, aspirations and family. He would likely also check any of the details the player presented.




You will note that the GM in the example has determined that the outcome is uncertain, meaning that the player's stated goal and approach for the character does not succeed outright, nor does it fail outright, based on all the fictional circumstances unmentioned in the example. If the roll is good, the character achieves the goal. If the roll is bad, the character achieves the goal, but...


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## Bedrockgames

iserith said:


> You will note that the GM in the example has determined that the outcome is uncertain, meaning that the player's stated goal and approach for the character does not succeed outright, nor does it fail outright, based on all the fictional circumstances unmentioned in the example. If the roll is good, the character achieves the goal. If the roll is bad, the character achieves the goal, but...




I was just going by the text provided, which looked like the princess hadn't given it much thought ("what do you do?") and it was just a product of the roll. If that isn't the case and this stuff is part of a bigger context where the player has been wooing her and it isn't this out of the blue proposal, I'd certainly go more with the first approach. Though again, I wouldn't rule out there being conditions (they just wouldn't be tied to that roll if they were to exist).


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> In  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s Mt Pudding example, climbing is just a means to the end of getting pudding, and so narrating a loss of the divining rod - which makes the prospects of getting pudding very bleak - is more significant than simply narrating a failure to climb (= a fall down the ravine).




Yup.



pemerton said:


> On 2: as I've posted upthread, I think there is no particular connection between "fail forward" and shared narration of backstory between players and GM. However, "fail forward" clearly implies that the GM will establish stakes and narrate consequences having regard to the dramatic and thematic concerns of the players (as evinced by their play of their PCs). Thus, if the player chooses to have his/her PC scale Mt Pudding in quest of pudding, narration of failures will likely be framed in some sort of relation to that goal. (Eg as losing the pudding divining rod.)




Yup.




pemerton said:


> If the players truly want the GM to narrate the gameworld, and consequences, without regard to these sorts of dramatic concerns, then "fail forward" would seem in appropriate.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> They know that I narrated this because (i) it gave effect to the failure of the PC who tried to fish the mace out of the stream, and (ii) it increased the stakes for the other two PCs who were dealing with the servants, because one of them was the PC who wanted the mace and the other was the PC who had promised to help him get the mace.
> 
> If players don't like having that sort of knowledge about how the GM decided to introduce content into the gameworld, then "fail forward" won't work for them.




Yup and yup.



pemerton said:


> But the players contribute to setting the stakes in various ways. Eg in choice of skill to roll - Climbing vs Navigation when climbing Mt Pudding will likely involve different fictional contexts for failure, which results in different outcomes (divining rod down the ravine vs . . . ?  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]




Why Schrodinger's Gorge of course!

Here is a good opportunity for a plug of an absolutely fantastic product for folks who want to run wilderness challenges.  It is a Dungeon World supplement, The Perilous Wilds, but its advice is applicable to all games.  

Generic Soft Moves (minor complications) for Navigation Moves (when Undertaking a Perilous Journey) include things like:

- the weather worsens (maybe The Pie doesn't want to be found...)
- the PCs are being followed (by The Acolytes of the Fabled Pie who are trying to keep it a secret - eg Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
- the PCs must backtrack losing valuable time (perhaps like Lonely Mountain's keyhole, the fabled pudding of Mt Pudding is only revealed at a specific prophesied moment!)

Hard Moves (major complications) are stuff like:

- someone sustains an injury (a turned ankle from a slip or something) that hobbles/nags the effort going forward
- the PCs stumble into a major topographical impediment or outright danger (eg the narrow switchback trail abruptly ends or a sudden collapse sinkhole swallows either swallows something/one up or spits something out!)
- the PCs get separated
- the PCs get hopelessly lost

Whatever the complication, wilderness challenges are always best when the PCs are presented a couple (2-3) of (equaly-ish bad) implied options from which the adventure/challenge will branch off of based on how they approach their "turn for the worse."  This gives the players just enough information to help them (a) understand the immediate situation better so they can occupy the head-space of their character and make strategic decisions w/in the shared imaginary space and (b) the small menu should focus their thoughts on the fiction, perhaps provoking a quick veto of those options while stimulating a creative deviation with an action declaration of their own devising!



iserith said:


> *GM:* "I would take you as my husband," she says genuinely, "But only if you can prove your bravery by slaying the dragon that plagues our realm." What do you do?




*PC*:  Err...dragon?  Does your hot sister come as part of the deal?



All the time I have for now!


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## iserith

Manbearcat said:


> *PC*:  Err...dragon?  Does your hot sister come as part of the deal?




Haha!

A small quibble with your take on soft and hard moves as minor and major complications. As I understand moves, a soft move is something to which the players (and characters) can react to and do something about before a hard move sets in. A hard move is immediate and irrevocable in that moment, something the PCs can only do something about after the fact. Soft moves are thus more desirable and hard moves only something that follows a soft move the PCs failed to do anything about.


----------



## Manbearcat

iserith said:


> Haha!
> 
> A small quibble with your take on soft and hard moves as minor and major complications. As I understand moves, a soft move is something to which the players (and characters) can react to and do something about before a hard move sets in. A hard move is immediate and irrevocable in that moment, something the PCs can only do something about after the fact. Soft moves are thus more desirable and hard moves only something that follows a soft move the PCs failed to do anything about.




Pretty close to the mark there.  I think I've used that exact descriptor of hard moves on these very boards actually!  

Soft moves (such as Show Signs of An Approaching Threat or Reveal An Unwelcome Truth) are triggered (a) every time a scene opens (every scene needs to be framed around conflict/danger/adventure), (b) when a player rolls a 7-9, or (c) whenever something needs to/should happen to move the action forward (where a hard move wasn't triggered).  Hard moves (Use a Monster/Danger/Location Move, Use Up Their Resources, Deal Damage) are triggered (a) when a soft move isn't dealt with by the PCs (thus the danger of something like Show Signs of An Approaching Threat becomes manifest), or (b) when a player rolls a 6- and marks XP (but the GM can go with a soft move in the stead of a hard move if they wish).

Quick play example of an Undertake a Perilous Journey (a wilderness conflict) going very south due to a 6- on the Scout's roll, hence I Used a Danger Move for the scout failing to ferret out a topographical hazard before it could trigger a calamity.  The PCs were transiting the frozen, highland wasteland between the ruins of World's End Bluff to the hobgoblin outpost of Earthmaw:

[sblock]







> Saerie's player:
> Alright. We're right up against our ration allotment, so we can't afford something to happen there. So no goblins on Quartermaster. I'll have Otthor take care of managing our provisions and overseeing setting up and breaking down camp, etc. With his 8 on his QM check, we'll consume the right amount of rations. I'll take Trailblazer. My 10+ will get us there quicker and cut down on some rations used. That leaves Scout. The goblins know this territory best. They know the signs of dangerous geographical hazards, the wind fields in case storms blow in suddenly, and they should know where dangerous avian predators lair. They can take the Scout role. Here we go for them:
> 
> Scout (Goblins)
> 2, 3 + 0 = 5
> 
> Here comes trouble!
> 
> During camp along the way, I want to speak with the dog and find out what the old boy knows about what happened in this settlement.
> 
> I'll also talk to Otthor about, upon our return, picking up the corpse of the poor young man that was changed. The old Remorhaz tunnel where I mercilessly slew him will be easy to find. Hopefully we can locate the two refugee families and they can give him a fitting burial in their cemetary. Surely they know the family. They might even be his kin.






> GM (Me):
> 
> Regarding the dog:
> 
> Despite his deafness, you're able to communicate with the dog somewhat. This is what he is able to relay:
> 
> Some time ago, people started going crazy and killing each other. One man gouged another man's eyes out, for no reason, in the middle of broad daylight and bashed his head in with a rock. The dog actually discovered him. He was found just sitting there, with the body, babbling incoherently. When he developed strange symptoms, the townsfolk executed him and burned the body. People became terrified that there was a sickness and folks weren't leaving their houses much. But more of the same followed not long after. The murdered were buried in the cemetery. The "sick" were executed and burned.
> 
> Things got really, really bad shortly thereafter when the goats started all going mad, stampeding and killing people and each other. More people died but several of the goats were put down. All bodies were burned. The men who were outside fighting the goats began to lose their minds and change. It seemed like people did better if they stayed inside so the whole town banded together, fought off the afflicted, and barricaded themselves in the common building, thinking that they could wait it out and that there would be safety in numbers. When tempers erupted later that night, two families fled the settlement together, sure the place was cursed. They tried to convince everyone else to leave with them. No one else would go. The dog's master stayed so he stayed with him.
> 
> By the next morning, everyone had killed each other or began changing and then cocooning. The dog hid for days and then tried to escape when everything was still. That is when you guys showed up and everything happened.
> 
> Regarding the Perilous Journey:
> 
> You cut off a significant amount of travel via a handy shortcut you discover (2 rations off of your total used, so you spend 8 instead of 10). You locate some elevation on the icy tundra and use the prolonged downslope to lessen the wolves burden and sustain momentum on the ice. For a good 4 hours, the wolves expend no real energy and they're able to take turns resting on the front of the sleds.
> 
> The land starts to rise and fall and is fraught with boulders and sharp rocks on the final approach. The elevating earth ascends angrily toward the White Dragon's domain and the entrance to the Coldlands beyond. In the distance, you can see the great open cavern, cut naturally into the bottom of the mountainside's face. Earthmaw.
> 
> The small goblin stands up and points, beginning to celebrate. The moment that he does so, a terrible sound begins beneath you. To date, the goblins have guided you away from the lairs of nesting Wyverns, Perytons, and navigated around the dangerous terrain of false-floors. However, when the sound of cracking ice begins and a jagged, zig-zagging line accelerates in front of the sleds (the cowardly, but useful, goblin was able to tie/rig together both sleds, creating something of a master sled with a larger platform (1) that could be pulled by all 8 wolves and (2) that he could drive as neither of the other goblins are proficient enough), terror turns his celebrations into a shriek. Almost immediately thereafter, the false layer of thin ice gives way and the crevasse reveals itself with a terrible noise. The cracking, gravelly yawn of the glacier threatens to swallow you all as the back end of the sled goes in first.
> 
> The goblin driver leaps for safety above and barely finds it.
> 
> One of the two armored goblin brothers is almost immediately claimed by the deadly darkness below. His brother dives for him and grabs hold of his arm...both of them hanging dangerously by a hand meagerly grasping the sled.
> 
> Saerie's bear-friend Rawr is easily able to use his claws to hang onto the sled but the dog is going to go over if he isn't saved. And you two are going to need to defy some danger as well and figure this thing out.
> 
> The wolves are up top, howling and growling...trying desperately to pull the precarious sled out. But it is far, far too much weight for them and, despite their efforts, they are slowly sliding backward toward the indifferent chasm...






> Otthor's player:
> The first thing I'm going to do is position my body so that when the dog falls, she falls into me. I'll accept the blow and try to hang on so she doesn't fall.
> 
> Defy Danger (Con)
> 4, 2 + 1 = 7
> 
> Success with a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.






> GM (Me):
> The dog's mouth loses its grip on the rope tying the two sleds together. She falls hard into your body and lets out a terrified howl that resounds in the darkness below. You're able to intercept her such that her paws and mouth are able to hang onto the many ropes that bind the sleds.
> 
> However, in doing so, your own grip is compromised and you lose it. You fall to the end of the sled with the two goblins, barely hanging on to the last bit of rope and wood. There are no handholds to climb here. If you're going to get out of it, you'll need to find another way.






> Saerie's player:
> As Otthor rescues the dog, I'm going to shout to Rawr. "Get up top, Rawr! Now!" I'm thinking that if he can get his weight off of the sleds and the two of us can get top-side, we can probably anchor things and keep the wolves from going over the precipice. He must weigh 350 to 400 lbs, if not more, so just getting that much weight off of things should help immensely. My weight, plus his, plus the two of us pulling the sled out might do the trick!
> 
> Is his bum paw (hobbled tag) still a problem enough that he can't climb?






> GM (Me):
> He is pretty close to healed. Besides, the situation is so dire that adrenaline alone would allow him to make the climb if nothing else. He'll be able to make it no problem. You go ahead and Defy Danger.






> Saerie's player:
> Alright, given that the dog is stably holding onto the ropes of the sled, I'm going to use his furry body as hand-holds and to pull myself up top and over the edge.
> 
> So + 1 to Defy Danger but I can't get a 10 +.
> 
> Defy Danger (Str)
> 2, 4 + 0 (+ 1 dog) = 7
> 
> Whew. Good thing I went with the dog's Intervene!
> 
> Success with a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.






> GM (Me):
> As you're cresting the top, your climbing over the dog loosens the grip of his muzzle on the rope. Further, in your efforts, the ties to your cornpurse that hold it tautly in place have been severed. You see them both begin to drop to the chasm below.
> 
> You can grab only one.






> Saerie's player:
> I reach down and grab the dog by the scruff of his neck, pull him back to the rope that he had his muzzled wrapped around. When he is secure, I crest the top, listening closely for the sound of the coin purse hitting the bottom so that I might be able to discern how far down the drop is.






> GM (Me):
> Within about 3-4 seconds, you hear the sound of a sploosh as the coin purse meets a watery grave in a subterranean (freezing no doubt...but flowing) body of water.  Your only means to replenish your waning rations in this barren wasteland and your borderline empty quiver at the trading outpost of Earthmaw...gone.






> Saerie's player:
> I flinch at the sound of the splash but I have no time to ponder it...
> 
> When I get to the top, I'm grabbing the harness and putting it firmly in Rawr's muzzle so that he can keep it from fully going over and maybe help pull the huge weight of the two wooden sleds and my companions. "Everything you have Rawr! PULL!"
> 
> I'm looking for a thick spot in the ice that I can drive a piton into it to anchor a rope in.




GM (Me):
Sounds good.  We'll get to that in a minute.

Otthor, both yourself and the goblins are in grave danger and at risk of dropping. What are you going to do about it?[/quote]



> Otthor's player:
> When I see Rawr and Saerie make it to the top and I feel the downward slide of the sleds end, I know deliverance is on its way. As we begin to slowly rise I can hear the grunts and gasps for breath. A look next to me reveals the goblin holding the sled by one hand and his brother in the other is struggling mightily. His mental and physical fortitude to hang on are failing. I let go with one hand knowing that it will likely cost me. Having a much longer reach than the goblin, I can grab his brother's furs. With my physical strength waning, I rely on my spirit and tenacity, hoping to inspire not only the goblin but myself. "Hang on! MMMMRPH! You're going to make it!"
> 
> Defy Danger (Cha)
> 4, 3 + 1 = 8
> 
> Success with a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.






> GM (Me):
> The load off the goblin brother immediately invigorates him as his other hand firmly grasps the sled. Your heroic efforts and seeing his brother have to firm hand-holds on the sled instills further strength in him to survive.
> 
> The sled very, very slowly rises as the weight is still immense. But unfortunately for you, your fingers are growing so very weary. There is little chance that you can just hold on like this for the time it will take for the sled to rise to the top...



[/sblock]

That is a sufficient enough portion of a play anecdote to show a wilderness conflict (like Bob and his noble effort to summit Mount Pudding) and how a hard move triggered by a 6- (hard failure) and success at a cost/complication to the overall intent of the effort (with a soft move triggered by a 7-9) propels play, and snowballs, in Dungeon World.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> Schrodinger's Gorge of course!



FTW!

In my BW game, the PCs had to spend a week crossing the Bright Desert, from an oasis protected by a good naga to the ruined tower that had once been the redoubt of the PC mage, in the foothills of the Abor-Alz.

I used the standard Fort checks to avoid tax to Fort, and when the Orientation check failed they (i) had to make an extra Fort check, and (ii) found the first pool at the edge of the desert already fouled by a dark elven adversary. A subsequent failed attempt to track down the elf meant that, when they got to the tower, he had also had time to dump rocks into its well.

I always seem to move towards NPC adversaries rather than nature as an adversary.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I would much rather base the outcome on the princess' personality and motives.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I would not ask for a roll and just give her answer based on her personality.



As I mentioned upthread, I think that "fail forward" relies upon leaving elements of backstory loose and flexible, so that they can be narrated as appropriate in order to maintain the narrative momentum.

This includes such things as NPC personalities and motives. One of my favourite comments on this particular issue comes from Paul Czege:

I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.​


Bedrockgames said:


> II want to feel like if I solved a mystery or chased down a bandit, it was due to a combination of my skill puzzling through things, my characters abilities and circumstances. I wouldn't want to feel like I was always going to be able succeed simply because my character had set it as an important goal.



I thought we were generally on the same page, but I don't get why you say "I will always succeed simply because my character set it as an important goal".

To go back to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s toy example, if I lose my diving rod then there is a good chance I will not succeed in finding the pudding at the top of Mt Pudding.

Or, to refer to the actual play examples I've mentioned and linked to upthread:

* Just because the mace washes up in the stream where the servants are doing the laundry doesn't mean the PC is guaranteed to get it. As it happens, he did, but only because the other PC who had promised to help followed the servants to the loft where they hid the mace, and then stole it.

* Just because the feather is an angel feather doesn't mean that the PC is guaranteed to be able to turn it into a fire-protection item. First he might have to find a way to lift the curse.

* I mentioned the PCs travelling on a ship that sank. They didn't want the ship to sink. They wanted to be able to defeat the ghost ship. But because, rather than holding the crew together as a cohesive team, they had played a role in sowing fear and disunity, they failed in this.​
Relating the last of those dot points to "fail forward" as a technique: keeping the ship's crew together was an important goal for at least one of the PCs, but they failed and the ship sank. In this context, "fail forward" means that rather than make rolls to see if they drown, the next situation I narrate (as GM) has the PCs floating in the water clinging to wreckage, much of their equipment (and loot) lost, hoping that they get rescued. And as it happens, the elven princess PC has a very good bonus for Circles (the BW attribute that is checked when the player wants his/her PC to encounter a helpful NPC) and so an elven ship out searching for the missing princess came by and rescued them. Which then triggered a new series of challenges - as the captain of the elven ship discovered that two of the PCs are ill-omened sorcerers - leading, ultimately, to the PCs being dumped on the shore of the Bright Desert.

Where a new series of challenges then unfolded. Etc.

If you asked my players, I think they would say that this BW game is one of the hardest, grittiest and most failure-ridden they've ever played in - that's BW's main schtick. Much moreso than the 4e campaign we're in, or then previous RM or 3E campaigns that various members of the group have played in.

But they're never at a loss as to what the situation is that's confronting them, nor as to why it matters to them. _That's_ what "fail forward" is for.


----------



## Lanefan

iserith said:


> "Success with a complication" can be a little misleading, so let me rephrase: "achieves the intended goal but with a complication." The character failed to achieve the goal scot-free, which is what the player (and character, likely) desired. D&D 5e calls it "progress combined with a setback."



But the character still achieved the goal - which is by definition a success, not a failure.  Failure means the goal was not achieved; this seems pretty black-and-white to me.

Now obviously there can be different degrees of failure - failing to climb a mountain could mean you get to a certain point and just can't find a way to go further, or the cold gets to you and forces you to turn back, or you slip and fall a bit but your gear holds you so no harm done, or you fall to your death.  But in no case do you succeed in making it to the top.

What you're defining as "fail" is instead better termed as just a different degree of success...which is not what a failed skill check roll is telling you.  The failed skill check is telling all involved that the character did not achieve whatever the particular goal was, and it's then up to the DM and-or players to come up with a narration to that effect; and this narration is where fail-forward (or sideways, or backwards) comes in as that's where the potential for a different direction lies.

Lanefan


----------



## iserith

Lanefan said:


> But the character still achieved the goal - which is by definition a success, not a failure.  Failure means the goal was not achieved; this seems pretty black-and-white to me.
> 
> Now obviously there can be different degrees of failure - failing to climb a mountain could mean you get to a certain point and just can't find a way to go further, or the cold gets to you and forces you to turn back, or you slip and fall a bit but your gear holds you so no harm done, or you fall to your death.  But in no case do you succeed in making it to the top.
> 
> What you're defining as "fail" is instead better termed as just a different degree of success...which is not what a failed skill check roll is telling you.  The failed skill check is telling all involved that the character did not achieve whatever the particular goal was, and it's then up to the DM and-or players to come up with a narration to that effect; and this narration is where fail-forward (or sideways, or backwards) comes in as that's where the potential for a different direction lies.
> 
> Lanefan




If my goal is to climb the mountain unscathed and I arrive at the top of said mountain having lost something, then I've failed to achieve my goal.

As well, a failed check doesn't necessarily mean outright failure of the goal. It depends entirely on the game system. In D&D 5e, for example, the Basic Rules tell us that rolling below the given DC for an ability check is "...a failure, which means the character or monster makes no progress toward the objective or makes progress combined with a setback determined by the DM." This is D&D 5e's "fail forward," and it's right in the Basic Rules (page 58). Thus "a failed skill check roll is telling you" that climbing the mountain but losing one's divining rod is perfectly fine according to the rules of the game.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> As I mentioned upthread, I think that "fail forward" relies upon leaving elements of backstory loose and flexible, so that they can be narrated as appropriate in order to maintain the narrative momentum.
> 
> This includes such things as NPC personalities and motives. One of my favourite comments on this particular issue comes from Paul Czege:
> 
> I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.​




That makes sense. I can certainly see why this approach would employ such a method. This would absolutely throw a wrench in how I tend to run things, because one of my main areas of interest is creating fairly concrete NPCs whose motives and goals I understand (which helps me to decide how they react to things the PCs do). My campaigns are very much driven by the interaction between PC, NPCs and the various groups they belong to. Obviously, I do sometimes have to come up with details o the fly, but I try to base that off the information I have established in my notes. 




> I thought we were generally on the same page, but I don't get why you say "I will always succeed simply because my character set it as an important goal".
> 
> To go back to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s toy example, if I lose my diving rod then there is a good chance I will not succeed in finding the pudding at the top of Mt Pudding.




Okay. I may have misunderstood. I thought you were saying, eventually he gets the pudding, but along the way, if he fails rolls, rather than have results that could stop him in his tracks or send him going back home, he has set-backs that are engaging and keep him going forward to the pudding.


----------



## Umbran

Bedrockgames said:


> Okay. I may have misunderstood. I thought you were saying, eventually he gets the pudding, but along the way, if he fails rolls, rather than have results that could stop him in his tracks or send him going back home, he has set-backs that are engaging and keep him going forward to the pudding.




Well, no, they don't stop him in his tracks, or send him back home outright.  Fail Forward is supposed to leave him with meaningful choices - and "stopped in his tracks" or "nothing to do but go home," are not places of meaningful choice.

Consider it this way - as he goes up Mt. Pudding with his divining rod, the only thing in his way are the physical challenges, as locating the pudding is pretty much assured.  After failing at climbing, we haven't killed him in a crevasse*, but we have left him in a state where he has to meet the remaining physical challenges *and* has no automatic way to locate the pudding.  His chances of overall success have definitely decreased, and he has to wonder if going on is what he wants to do.



*We don't kill him in the crevasse because, "Ahhhhhhhh_*splat!*_" is a really boring way to die, and would likely leave the player feeling pretty crappy and frustrated about the whole thing.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Umbran said:


> Well, no, they don't stop him in his tracks, or send him back home outright.  Fail Forward is supposed to leave him with meaningful choices - and "stopped in his tracks" or "nothing to do but go home," are not places of meaningful choice.
> 
> Consider it this way - as he goes up Mt. Pudding with his divining rod, the only thing in his way are the physical challenges, as locating the pudding is pretty much assured.  After failing at climbing, we haven't killed him in a crevasse*, but we have left him in a state where he has to meet the remaining physical challenges *and* has no automatic way to locate the pudding.  His chances of overall success have definitely decreased, and he has to wonder if going on is what he wants to do.
> 
> *We don't kill him in the crevasse because, "Ahhhhhhhh_*splat!*_" is a really boring way to die, and would likely leave the player feeling pretty crappy and frustrated about the whole thing.




Okay. That makes sense. It is definitely a different style of play than i enjoy (I'd happily let the character splat at the bottom of the Ravine----though I'd certainly give some kind of athletics roll or something as a last ditch save to be fair). I can see why it is useful in some games though.


----------



## Umbran

Bedrockgames said:


> Okay. That makes sense. It is definitely a different style of play than i enjoy (I'd happily let the character splat at the bottom of the Ravine----though I'd certainly give some kind of athletics roll or something as a last ditch save to be fair). I can see why it is useful in some games though.




So, here's a question the answer to which might be relevant.  How often do you get to play, and how long are your sessions?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Umbran said:


> So, here's a question the answer to which might be relevant.  How often do you get to play, and how long are your sessions?




Once every week for one group and once every two for another. Sessions last anywhere from 3-6 hours. These tend to be long campaigns as well. 

I don't think this has had much impact on the lethality in my sessions though. There have been times (when I was in college for example or when some people in another group of mine moved) where I was playing less frequently or for shorter sessions. I dealt with character deaths the same in those (actually we might have had more character deaths because people seemed to be more reckless in those sessions). But the only major difference really has been campaign length. When you meet every week or every other week, a longterm campaign is much easier to pull off. If you are meeting with less regularity, that seems to be better suited for tighter campaigns. 

It isn't a grind with one death after another. I don't use a system where characters will tend to drop like flies; but character deaths do happen and I am not worried as a GM when or where they occur (if it is down a chasm on your way to retrieve some pudding, so be it). In the present campaigns, characters have been fairly lucky but also fairly cautious. There were about 3-4 chasm-like moments where they made their last ditch rolls to avoid certain death. But we do have some players characters missing body parts and permanently drained of core abilities in the current campaigns. In the last campaign, right before these ones (mostly same groups) we had a lot more character death (again largely due to luck and recklessness). My aim isn't to kill the players, but I don't protect them from bad die rolls either.

Either way though, I am not here to advocate for campaigns where characters die or failure happens (if you don't like that, that is cool). I was just making the point that, personally that is what I like. I have had my own characters die falling off cliffs and I consider that one of the more exciting things that can happen in a campaign (Because from then on, any time you climb a wall, cliff or mountain, the stakes are clearly life or death). For me that adds to the excitement of play (though it can suck in the moment when you splatter on the ground).

I should add, I haven't always run things this way. There was a time when I did more to protect PCs (and I bought into the idea that characters should only die for doing really stupid or reckless things). But I changed my mind on that, and I find my games are a lot more fun this way.


----------



## Umbran

Bedrockgames said:


> Once every week for one group and once every two for another. Sessions last anywhere from 3-6 hours. These tend to be long campaigns as well.
> 
> I don't think this has had much impact on the lethality in my sessions though.




The issue at hand isn't really lethality, in and of itself.  Death is only one form of failure.

It has been my observation that player tolerance of certain forms of stumbling blocks (those that don't lead to interesting decisions or actions, or have particular emotional payoffs) drops with shorter and less frequent sessions.  Just like their tolerance of talking through characters going through mundane shopping for equipment drops under similar circumstances.  If you don't have a lot of time to play, you have to pack the fun of play in a smaller space.

I have a group that plays twice a month, and the playtime each session is short - maybe three hours.  They really don't have time to muddle about with stuff that isn't exciting.  Sessions must be kept in motion, without a lot of muddling about with things that don't really engage the players.  That's one of the reasons for my choice of Ashen Stars - it gets rid of some stuff that these players don't care about, and has a system that's well-build for simply resolved, but cinematic, action.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Umbran said:


> The issue at hand isn't really lethality, in and of itself.  Death is only one form of failure.
> 
> It has been my observation that player tolerance of certain forms of stumbling blocks (those that don't lead to interesting decisions or actions, or have particular emotional payoffs) drops with shorter and less frequent sessions.  Just like their tolerance of talking through characters going through mundane shopping for equipment drops under similar circumstances.  If you don't have a lot of time to play, you have to pack the fun of play in a smaller space.
> 
> I have a group that plays twice a month, and the playtime each session is short - maybe three hours.  They really don't have time to muddle about with stuff that isn't exciting.  Sessions must be kept in motion, without a lot of muddling about with things that don't really engage the players.  That's one of the reasons for my choice of Ashen Stars - it gets rid of some stuff that these players don't care about, and has a system that's well-build for simply resolved, but cinematic, action.




I can understand that. And again, I am not saying others should play the way I do. I certainly think playing for your group's preferences is important. So if this works for you, that is what you ought to be doing. 

I suppose your group is closer to my every other week group. We usually play for more than three hours but sessions start at one and can potentially end at 5 (some days we go to 6 or even 7). Typically though we end closer to five. Part of why I might be able to get away with this approach is probably less to do with time constraints and more to do with the fact that I am a very impatient GM. So even though I don't worry about obstacles putting an end to their pudding or random character death, I don't waste a lot of time. My descriptions are very brief, I prompt players if no one is saying anything, I try keep things engaged socially. I am just not interested in making sure each session hits all the right notes or that we come away from an adventure with a sense that we achieved some kind of story objective. I suppose my approach two fold, I strive to respect the free will of the player characters and try to provide a world that feels very big, very responsive in a real way and filled with real people. Realism isn't the aim, I just want things to feel real. 

Does this mean some sessions are less exciting than others? Absolutely yes. You will have lulls in action and excitement. Over the long haul though, I think that works. At least for me. When things crank up, the stakes feel very real and the emotions at the table can be quite palpable. Part of this, I think, stems from things occasionally falling into 'daily routine' where players feel like they live in a safe world because they have that down time and tend to regular matters. It also means at the start of each session the players can kind of re-evaluate and say "wait do we really need to be doing this? maybe we should go back to the city and deal with Fred's lost sword instead". That is something I am fine with. 

At the end of the day though people should do whatever helps them keep a campaign going. Right now, this is what works for me (8 years ago, i wasn't). If my campaign were to stumble due to this approach in a few years, I'd re-evaluate and consider using other tools. For me the primary aim is longevity of the campaign and gaming group.


----------



## Umbran

Bedrockgames said:


> I suppose your group is closer to my every other week group. We usually play for more than three hours but sessions start at one and can potentially end at 5 (some days we go to 6 or even 7).




The group in question sits down for dinner at 7 PM, and folks are leaving between 10 and 11 PM, typically.  So, roughly three hours of actual play.  Weeknight evenings stink for gaming because of this, but it is what I can get for this particular bunch.



> Typically though we end closer to five. Part of why I might be able to get away with this approach is probably less to do with time constraints and more to do with the fact that I am a very impatient GM. So even though I don't worry about obstacles putting an end to their pudding or random character death, I don't waste a lot of time. My descriptions are very brief, I prompt players if no one is saying anything, I try keep things engaged socially.




I don't know if Fail Forward is for you, but scene framing can be used to keep things moving.



> I am just not interested in making sure each session hits all the right notes or that we come away from an adventure with a sense that we achieved some kind of story objective. I suppose my approach two fold, I strive to respect the free will of the player characters and try to provide a world that feels very big, very responsive in a real way and filled with real people. Realism isn't the aim, I just want things to feel real.




Well, it isn't like I'm working towards a *specific* story objective, or hitting a specific set of notes.  That's the boogeyman of railroading again, I suspect.  But, the result should be entertaining.  It doesn't mater to me what form of entertaining it is, but it should be *some* form of entertaining.  And, just having a set adventure and world and adjudicating rules doesn't do enough to that end.  Fail forward is one form of throttle control at the GM's command - don't want things to slow down?  Fail Forward!


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> But the character still achieved the goal - which is by definition a success, not a failure.



Have a look at the last page of posts between me,  [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION]. I think you are conflating means and ends here, whereas - in play which makes extensive use of "fail forward" - the difference between means and ends (or what BW calls _task_ and _intent_) is pretty crucial.

Returning again to  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s Mt Pudding example: the goal is to get to the top of Mt Pudding and find the pudding. Without the divining rod, that goal is no longer automatically achieved simply by getting to the top of the mountain. So when the failed climbing check is adjudicated as "You lose your diving rod down the crevasse as you narrowly avoid going into it yourself," the character has not achieved his/her goal, and in fact has become less likely to achieve it.

To give another example from my BW game:

The PCs were in the Bright Desert, south of the Abor-Alz. The party had become separated: the elven princess had been captured by orcs, the sorcerer assassin had run away from the same orcs, and the princess's retainer and the mage were still at camp waiting for the others to return.

The sorcerer resolves: to rescue the princess from the orcs I need an army of tribesman, and (to quote the player) in these parts Ancient Suel tribesmen are as thick as fleas on a dog! So the player checks his circles, adding in his relevant bonus dice derived from his reputation as a minor illusionist among the outcasts and wanderers of the wastelands. The check is a failure, and so one of the tribesmen he once knew - Wassal - captures him and the retainer as they trek through the desert sending out calls to the tribesmen. Wassal is hostile to the mage, because he blames him for bringing orcs into the desert. (In my mind, this was very loosely inspired by Conan's unanticipated reunion with the tribesmen in "The People of the Black Circle", except with less warmth and more hostility.)

Additional complications ensue, as the mage tries to explain that it his brother Joachim, possessed by a balrog, who is responsible for orcs coming into the desert (the relationship between the mage PC and Joachim, and the mage's quest to end the threat that his brother poses to the world, is one of the key driving elements in the campaign). Further complications ensue when Wassal discovers that the mage is carrying a spellbook inscribed by Joachim, and the PCs are kicked out of the tribesmen's camp into the desert.

The PCs eventually do catch up to the orcs and rescue the princess (I think with a successful Tracking check from someone), but without any help from the tribesmen this takes longer than it otherwise would, meaning that the princess suffers a relatively serious injury with lasting debilitating consequences, and her retainer is shot in the chest by an orc and barely survives.

Being injured in the course of fighting the orcs, the PCs are also unable to push on into the desert to find the pyramid the orcs (whose party included a serious siege engineer) were heading towards. Instead they have to rest for three months until the retainer is well enough to be moved, and then head to the ruined tower in the Abor-Alz.​
That's just an example of the sort of play that "fail forward" tends to generate. The PCs aren't guaranteed to achieve their goal (and, in this case, they ultimately didn't). But there is a guarantee of narrative momentum.


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] - apropos of the role of NPCs in "fail forward" play, have a look at my post just above this one. The NPC's anger at the mage for bringing orcs into the desert was a motivation made up by me on the spot, in order to explain why the tribesmen would be hostile to the PC. I also built in some other backstory too - the PC mage had been looking for an old contact "The Desert Fox", and it turned out - as Wassal the hostile tribesman explained (and as I, the GM, decided on the spot) - that the Desert Fox was actually Jabal the Red, now a leading figure in the sorcerous cabal to which the PC mage belongs. And Wassal had been bonded to the Desert Fox for many years before achieving his freedom and coming to lead his own band of warriors.

That's the sort of way in which "fail forward" leads to the creation of backstory, but as much, or even more, as part of the output of action resolution rather than as an input to action resolution.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] - apropos of the role of NPCs in "fail forward" play, have a look at my post just above this one. The NPC's anger at the mage for bringing orcs into the desert was a motivation made up by me on the spot, in order to explain why the tribesmen would be hostile to the PC. I also built in some other backstory too - the PC mage had been looking for an old contact "The Desert Fox", and it turned out - as Wassal the hostile tribesman explained (and as I, the GM, decided on the spot) - that the Desert Fox was actually Jabal the Red, now a leading figure in the sorcerous cabal to which the PC mage belongs. And Wassal had been bonded to the Desert Fox for many years before achieving his freedom and coming to lead his own band of warriors.
> 
> That's the sort of way in which "fail forward" leads to the creation of backstory, but as much, or even more, as part of the output of action resolution rather than as an input to action resolution.




That example may explain a big difference in approach, but you also just might be condensing a lot into a paragraph. When the PC failed his "check circles" roll, was that something where he basically said "I am going to check my circles", made a roll, then you narrated that he was captured, or was the capture something that was played out at the ground level.


----------



## chaochou

I'm a fan and non-stop user of fail forward but still, I realise its very playstyle dependent.

If I'm running Apocalypse World or Burning Wheel its almost baked into the conflict resolution that things keep going.

On the other hand, if I'm running Tunnels and Trolls failing just means failing. And laughing and pointing, obviously.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Returning again to  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s Mt Pudding example: the goal is to get to the top of Mt Pudding and find the pudding. Without the divining rod, that goal is no longer automatically achieved simply by getting to the top of the mountain. So when the failed climbing check is adjudicated as "You lose your diving rod down the crevasse as you narrowly avoid going into it yourself," the character has not achieved his/her goal, and in fact has become less likely to achieve it.
> 
> To give another example from my BW game:
> 
> The PCs were in the Bright Desert, south of the Abor-Alz. The party had become separated: the elven princess had been captured by orcs, the sorcerer assassin had run away from the same orcs, and the princess's retainer and the mage were still at camp waiting for the others to return.
> 
> The sorcerer resolves: to rescue the princess from the orcs I need an army of tribesman, and (to quote the player) in these parts Ancient Suel tribesmen are as thick as fleas on a dog! So the player checks his circles, adding in his relevant bonus dice derived from his reputation as a minor illusionist among the outcasts and wanderers of the wastelands. The check is a failure, and so one of the tribesmen he once knew - Wassal - captures him and the retainer as they trek through the desert sending out calls to the tribesmen. Wassal is hostile to the mage, because he blames him for bringing orcs into the desert. (In my mind, this was very loosely inspired by Conan's unanticipated reunion with the tribesmen in "The People of the Black Circle", except with less warmth and more hostility.)
> 
> Additional complications ensue, as the mage tries to explain that it his brother Joachim, possessed by a balrog, who is responsible for orcs coming into the desert (the relationship between the mage PC and Joachim, and the mage's quest to end the threat that his brother poses to the world, is one of the key driving elements in the campaign). Further complications ensue when Wassal discovers that the mage is carrying a spellbook inscribed by Joachim, and the PCs are kicked out of the tribesmen's camp into the desert.
> 
> The PCs eventually do catch up to the orcs and rescue the princess (I think with a successful Tracking check from someone), but without any help from the tribesmen this takes longer than it otherwise would, meaning that the princess suffers a relatively serious injury with lasting debilitating consequences, and her retainer is shot in the chest by an orc and barely survives.
> 
> Being injured in the course of fighting the orcs, the PCs are also unable to push on into the desert to find the pyramid the orcs (whose party included a serious siege engineer) were heading towards. Instead they have to rest for three months until the retainer is well enough to be moved, and then head to the ruined tower in the Abor-Alz.​
> That's just an example of the sort of play that "fail forward" tends to generate. The PCs aren't guaranteed to achieve their goal (and, in this case, they ultimately didn't). But there is a guarantee of narrative momentum.





Looking at this example, something like this could certainly arise in one of my games. But it wouldn't be the result of a roll so much as a result of me thinking through the NPCs and events that are ongoing. In my game, Wassal's disposition on this matter (and whether he is angry about orcs and blaming the PCs) would be something I establish for myself before the PC even attempts to deal with him (if I do have to create that sort of detail on the fly, it is going to stem from what I know of events going on in the setting nearby and Wassal's personality). If there is good reason for him to be cross and want to capture the player, that could occur. It is unlikely though if there isn't any reason for him to do so. It sounds like your approach is almost opposite of mine (not in a bad way, just procedurally you seem to be taking the roll results to help establish that sort of thing). So it sounds almost like a gift wrapped scenario. Neither you nor the players have any clear sense of what is going on with Wassal until that roll, and then the roll determines some of the contents. So it isn't just about generating a result (i.e. he finds Wassan). It is about generating some fiction around Wassan as well. Is this correct?


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Looking at this example, something like this could certainly arise in one of my games. But it wouldn't be the result of a roll so much as a result of me thinking through the NPCs and events that are ongoing. In my game, Wassal's disposition on this matter (and whether he is angry about orcs and blaming the PCs) would be something I establish for myself before the PC even attempts to deal with him
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It sounds like your approach is almost opposite of mine (not in a bad way, just procedurally you seem to be taking the roll results to help establish that sort of thing). So it sounds almost like a gift wrapped scenario. Neither you nor the players have any clear sense of what is going on with Wassal until that roll, and then the roll determines some of the contents. So it isn't just about generating a result (i.e. he finds Wassan). It is about generating some fiction around Wassan as well. Is this correct?



This is correct. The fiction around Wassal is generated in response to the roll.

One way to look at it is this: by making a Circles check, the player is taking a gamble. If the player wins, he gets to make it true that the local captain of the tribesmen is a friendly former associate who will help the PCs out. If the player loses, I get to narrate something instead. "No one turns up" is a legitimate narration, but flagged in the GM advice as also the most boring option. "The enmity clause" is the more interesting option permitted to the GM - you meet the NPC you wanted to, but s/he is not disposed to help but rather to hinder. The GM has to narrate the fiction around that, but I hope you can see from my example that this fiction is not just spun out of nowhere but built around prior backstory and events of play.



Bedrockgames said:


> When the PC failed his "check circles" roll, was that something where he basically said "I am going to check my circles", made a roll, then you narrated that he was captured, or was the capture something that was played out at the ground level.



The capture plays out at ground level - I narrate that the PCs are surrounded by evidently hostile tribesmen, and then there is a bit of back-and-forth between the PC mage and Wassal, in which some of the relevant backstory (eg the identity of the Desert Fox, Wassal's anger at orcs being brought into the desert) comes out. The capture is then a formality, in the sense that the players can tell that their PCs are no match for the tribesmen, and so when Wassal commands them to come with him back to his oasis camp, they comply.

Moving to a higher level of metagame, one reason the players are relatively happy to allow themselves to be captured is because they know that in this system, capture isn't the end of things but just another springboard to something or other. Upthread I quoted  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] (hi, chaochou!) saying that failure is not penalised that heavily in these "fail forward"-type games. This is an instance of that truth being manifested in play. The failure is a real failure, but the players know that it won't be a block to their PCs doing stuff - it's just that the stuff they do (in this case, try to bargain with Wassal and persuade him of the truth about the orcs) is not the stuff they hoped to be doing (leading the tribesmen on a desert rescue mission somewhat in the spirit of Lawrence of Arabia).


----------



## pemerton

chaochou said:


> if I'm running Tunnels and Trolls failing just means failing. And laughing and pointing, obviously.



T&T is a game which, even moreso than Moldvay Basic, is not built around "fail forward" techniques.

Of other games from that general period, I think RQ and Traveller are interesting. In many ways the sort of large scale operatic grandeur they seem to want to generate would benefit from fail forward narration, but that would undermine the ruthless austerity and integrity of their ultra-sim resolution systems.

This is part of my issue with those systems, and also with Rolemaster - the promise of grandeur too often becomes a practicality that verges on the tedious. Though in the case of RM, because I spent so many years GMing it, I developed various workarounds. These days, I find that BW gives the same sort of grit and detail in PC building and resolution as RM, but without the need for the workarounds.


----------



## I'm A Banana

Umbran said:


> I generally like fail forward, though I'm not sure if you're describing what I'm used to considering "fail forward".
> 
> Specifically, "fail forward" is not, as I understand it, "Succeed, but at cost," as FATE games often put it.  It is "Fail, but there is a pretty clear path to try something else."  And, as such it isn't so much a mechanic, as a bit of advice for the GM to not have all progress in an adventure blocked by a failure.
> 
> For example - Say the PCs are exploring a tomb, hunting the BBEG, who is in his secret lair, behind a super-secret door.  The players go through the dungeon, search for for secret doors, but they botch the roll, and fail to find it.
> 
> In "standard" play, this is basically a blocking issue.  The PCs cannot continue forward unless they find that door.  There's no clear path to moving forward.  The PCs don't even really know where they failed, as they don't know for sure there was a door to begin with.  All they know is they were told the BBEG was here, and they didn't find him.  Oh, well...
> 
> In "fail forward" the PCs fail to find the secret door.  Oops!  So, shortly, a minion comes up from the area of the dungeon they have cleared, that should be empty.  If they are smart enough to not kill the minion outright, the minion may be a source of information on where the BBEG is.  The PCs still have a chance to find the enemy, even though they failed the basic way.  Perhaps this will be a bit harder, or more complicated, as their guide is untrustworthy, or perhaps not.
> 
> In "succeed, but at cost," you find the door alright - just as the hairy troll steps out through it!  In order to use that door, roll for initiative!
> 
> We might say that, "Succeed, but at cost" is one way to get a fail forward, but it is not the only way.




By this description, my only significant issue with "fail forward" (maybe aside from how jargon-y it is) is that it is ultimately a way through a bottleneck. 

A well-designed game session should strive to avoid the bottleneck in the first place.

Like, your example presupposes that the inevitable end state is to fight the BBEG. But it should be OK in D&D game to *not have to fight the BBEG.* If you fail to find the secret door, maybe you DON'T fight the BBEG, maybe you DON'T thwart his plans, maybe you go back to town in defeat and tomorrow have to deal with his invading forces. 

Utter and complete failure, or ignoring the path entirely, should be an option, and it should be enjoyable, too. 

Or to use a D&D metaphor: if an adventure is a dungeon, it should have multiple entries, multiple exits, and it should never be the only dungeon you can reach from town. Fighting a particular encounter should never be something that is assumed to happen.


----------



## pemerton

I'm A Banana said:


> my only significant issue with "fail forward" (maybe aside from how jargon-y it is) is that it is ultimately a way through a bottleneck.
> 
> A well-designed game session should strive to avoid the bottleneck in the first place.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Utter and complete failure, or ignoring the path entirely, should be an option, and it should be enjoyable, too.



"Fail forward" is not primarily a way through a bottleneck. The whole idea of a "bottleneck", or of a session designed to avoid bottlenecks, suggests the type of prescripting of adventures that "fail forward" is an alternative to.

The discussion over the past half-dozen or so pages, dealing with some actual play examples as well as [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s toy example of the pudding quest should give you a sense of what "fail forward" is for. Primarily, it is about maintaining narrative momentum.


----------



## Umbran

I'm A Banana said:


> A well-designed game session should strive to avoid the bottleneck in the first place.




This has already been discussed some, but to remind folks:

1) The GM's best laid plans do not survive contact with players.  You can't account for everything they may try beforehand, and you can't keep them from painting themselves into a corner.

2) Any plan that requires perfection on the GM's part is a bad plan.  GM's are human, and make mistakes.  There *will* be flaws in your adventure designs.  The GM should have tools to deal with design flaws in situ.

3) As I mentioned upthread - this is often used in systems where what a D&D-only player would call a "well designed session" does not exist.  There may be no detailed map down to the 5' square level, with every secret door labelled and every trap with a well-known CR and method of deactivation, monster and NPC detailed out in full stat blocks, and powers and spells carefully chosen, and placed on aforementioned map.  Rules engines like FATE and Cortex+ take as a base posit that some of the content of the adventure will be built out of these complication bits.  In a more improvisational adventure, you can't design out bottlenecks before play - instead, you use rules systems that disperse bottlenecks as they develop.  And we are talkign about bottlenecks to *action*, not necessarily to a prescripted goal.



> Like, your example presupposes that the inevitable end state is to fight the BBEG. But it should be OK in D&D game to *not have to fight the BBEG.* If you fail to find the secret door, maybe you DON'T fight the BBEG, maybe you DON'T thwart his plans, maybe you go back to town in defeat and tomorrow have to deal with his invading forces.




You have missed the several times over where we have mentioned that it isn't really a predestined end we are aiming at in general.  You're resurrecting a boogeyman.  The *players* have a goal.  



> Utter and complete failure, or ignoring the path entirely, should be an option, and it should be enjoyable, too.




You see, that last bit, about it being enjoyable, isn't generally true, or in any way ensured by the D&D rules, or many other systems.  The issue at hand isn't even the failure, it is the result of failure - stalling without meaningful choices to make.  Failing forward is, in essence, making sure the player has meaningful choices after failing.  



> Or to use a D&D metaphor: if an adventure is a dungeon, it should have multiple entries, multiple exits, and it should never be the only dungeon you can reach from town. Fighting a particular encounter should never be something that is assumed to happen.




Nobody is assuming that a particular encounter should happen.  Get the railroad boogeyman out of your head, *please*.  

Also note that, if your party has Inigo Montoya in it, going off to another dungeon instead of chasing Count Rugen is *not* going to be an option.  Sorry, just not happening.  

So, as a GM, are you going to leave Inigo frustrated that he can't get through the locked door, or are you going to make it that Fezzik is just near enough to hear Inigo's calls for aid - and let Rugen set up an ambush as the complication?


----------



## I'm A Banana

pemerton said:


> "Fail forward" is not primarily a way through a bottleneck. The whole idea of a "bottleneck", or of a session designed to avoid bottlenecks, suggests the type of prescripting of adventures that "fail forward" is an alternative to.
> 
> The discussion over the past half-dozen or so pages, dealing with some actual play examples as well as [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s toy example of the pudding quest should give you a sense of what "fail forward" is for. Primarily, it is about maintaining narrative momentum.



Yeah, the jargon-y problem is being difficult to lock down what it is or what it is for.  

But the Mt. Pudding example doesn't really dispel my concerns over the idea as a player or as a DM. That example posits that the intent of retrieving the pudding is something that is not really changing. Thus, it is related to my description of Umbran's "finding the secret door to fight the BBEG" - a "bottleneck" in that play can functionally proceed in only one direction (or be bereft of interesting choices/stop while we wait for someone to make a check/etc.). Though events happen on the way, the action is driven inexorably toward the pudding/BBEG, and this is accepted by all players as basically the ride you're on.  

For my enjoyment, it is better to be able to be able to raise the question: what happens if I don't get the pudding/fight the BBEG? What possible actions are capable of potentially changing my intent, to use Manbearcat's verbiage? What would make Bob not want the Pudding, or make the Pudding forever unavailable to Bob, and how would Bob react? 

I like these questions because they produce interesting gameplay scenarios about character motivations - what do I want, what am I willing to do to get it, what happens if I can't get it - and leave the ultimate arc of the narrative in question (is this going to be a story where the hero does something heroic or a story where the hero fails to do something heroic?). Every challenge becomes a decision point - do I undertake this risk, or do I do something else? Do I want the pudding _that_ badly? Less "How do I get the pudding?" and more "Do I even _want_ to get the pudding?"

It's an old acting trick - what is your motivation and how is this scene building to it? The pudding isn't important, but the reason my character wants the pudding is *critical*. "Fail forward" seems a bit more concerned with the Adventure to Get The Pudding or the Quest to Slay the Evil Thing than it is with The Story of Bob (who might like pudding and hate evil), which weakens it as a role-playing tool, IMXP. At least if Umbran and Manbearcat present it fairly. 



			
				Umbran said:
			
		

> You're resurrecting a boogeyman



I might be using the term "bottleneck" in a slightly different way than you may be fearing. I've no fear of Fail Forward, no crusade against it. There's no value judgement placed on "bottleneck", it's simply an attempt to describe a player's meaningful options in a given scene.

If the scene can lead in only one real direction (toward the pudding, toward the BBEG), that's a bottleneck/story funnel/railroad/arrow/directional movement/queue/roller coaster/flowing to the sea/waterfall/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. The end of the scene is: Bob is making progress toward the pudding. The end of the scene is never: Bob makes healthier choices about his diet. 

From your description and Manbearcat's description, that seems to be a core feature of Fail Forward - Bob is never just UNABLE to move toward the pudding (which would kind of paralyze play). Instead, Bob needs to decide HOW to move toward the pudding. 

I see the same problem - Bob's unable to move toward the pudding - and rather than solving it by allowing Bob to move toward the pudding (and deciding how), I'd prefer to solve it by making Bob's other options (to move toward the broccoli, to search for a secret door, to hang out at the inn, etc.) as equally appealing as the pudding. Even to the extent of having many other options, and no possible way to actually perform them all in the time allotted. 

Because to me, it's an interesting decision when your character has to question their goals, often more interesting than a character who just has hurdles in place of achieving their goals. 

I'm a big nerd, so my go-to is a project management metaphor. Fail Forward seems to be analogous to a waterfall model: a cascade of cause and effect that all leads to the ultimate goal of Your Character's Goal (the end product). The crevasse scene hands off to the ridge scene which transitions into the peak scene. I prefer a bit more of a spiral model or an agile model, with flexible goals (Do I really want the pudding?), risk assessment (what could go wrong in pursuit of pudding? What if I never get the pudding?), and iteration (can I get the pudding this way? Maybe that way? How did my last approach fail?). The end product here might not entirely be what we set out to create, but it is the product that arose from that creative process. The crevasse and the ridge and the peak are all there to charge into if you're ready, but you might fail any or all of them and have to go back and contemplate your pudding. 

The latter choice allows my character to achieve discrete goals, but also lets them shift goals or abandon goals or realize that a certain goal just isn't going to work for them due to the limitations of the campaign as it plays out. It also keeps the interesting decisions focused around which goals you pursue, which helps display a character's personality and motivation - what's really important? 

Those tend to be more interesting questions to me than "How do you get to the big bad?" or "How do you get the pudding?", by and large.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> In my BW game, the PCs had to spend a week crossing the Bright Desert, from an oasis protected by a good naga to the ruined tower that had once been the redoubt of the PC mage, in the foothills of the Abor-Alz.
> 
> I used the standard Fort checks to avoid tax to Fort, and when the Orientation check failed they (i) had to make an extra Fort check, and (ii) found the first pool at the edge of the desert already fouled by a dark elven adversary. A subsequent failed attempt to track down the elf meant that, when they got to the tower, he had also had time to dump rocks into its well.
> 
> I always seem to move towards NPC adversaries rather than nature as an adversary.




I've read through all of your recaps of your BW sessions (I believe).  If you were able to keep an ocean voyage and a perilous journey across a desert interesting enough for your players to enjoy the time at the table, I suspect you're not giving yourself enough credit!

Nonetheless, given your attraction to romantic themes and your background/career in philosophy, it seems pretty intuitive to me that arid deserts and angry seas would inevitably give way to NPCs as primary antagonists!


----------



## Lanefan

iserith said:


> If my goal is to climb the mountain unscathed and I arrive at the top of said mountain having lost something, then I've failed to achieve my goal.



Who said anything about unscathed?  The goal is to climb the mountain.  Scathed or not is merely a degree of success or a degree of failure depending which way the dice go.



> As well, a failed check doesn't necessarily mean outright failure of the goal. It depends entirely on the game system. In D&D 5e, for example, the Basic Rules tell us that rolling below the given DC for an ability check is "...a failure, which means the character or monster makes no progress toward the objective or makes progress combined with a setback determined by the DM." This is D&D 5e's "fail forward," and it's right in the Basic Rules (page 58). Thus "a failed skill check roll is telling you" that climbing the mountain but losing one's divining rod is perfectly fine according to the rules of the game.



"Makes progress" does not equal succeed.  So you initally fail at the climb, and the DM determines that halfway up you lost your divining rod...so far this is just fine.  But you're *still only halfway up*, at the point you lost the rod (in my view the action stops here to give the player-as-character a chance to choose what to do next) meaning you have not succeeded in the climb and thus the narrative agrees with the dice.  If the player-as-character chooses to continue the climb this would prompt another check to see if she makes it the rest of the way up; and if she instead chooses to climb back down and try to recover the rod you're into a different check, and so on.

Lan-"mmmm...pudding"-efan


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> This is correct. The fiction around Wassal is generated in response to the roll.
> 
> One way to look at it is this: by making a Circles check, the player is taking a gamble. If the player wins, he gets to make it true that the local captain of the tribesmen is a friendly former associate who will help the PCs out. If the player loses, I get to narrate something instead. "No one turns up" is a legitimate narration, but flagged in the GM advice as also the most boring option. "The enmity clause" is the more interesting option permitted to the GM - you meet the NPC you wanted to, but s/he is not disposed to help but rather to hinder. The GM has to narrate the fiction around that, but I hope you can see from my example that this fiction is not just spun out of nowhere but built around prior backstory and events of play.
> 
> The capture plays out at ground level - I narrate that the PCs are surrounded by evidently hostile tribesmen, and then there is a bit of back-and-forth between the PC mage and Wassal, in which some of the relevant backstory (eg the identity of the Desert Fox, Wassal's anger at orcs being brought into the desert) comes out. The capture is then a formality, in the sense that the players can tell that their PCs are no match for the tribesmen, and so when Wassal commands them to come with him back to his oasis camp, they comply.
> 
> Moving to a higher level of metagame, one reason the players are relatively happy to allow themselves to be captured is because they know that in this system, capture isn't the end of things but just another springboard to something or other. Upthread I quoted  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] (hi, chaochou!) saying that failure is not penalised that heavily in these "fail forward"-type games. This is an instance of that truth being manifested in play. The failure is a real failure, but the players know that it won't be a block to their PCs doing stuff - it's just that the stuff they do (in this case, try to bargain with Wassal and persuade him of the truth about the orcs) is not the stuff they hoped to be doing (leading the tribesmen on a desert rescue mission somewhat in the spirit of Lawrence of Arabia).




Okay I think I am much clearer on how things work in your games and how Fail Forward functions in them. Thanks for sharing the campaign info. It is a different style but the Lawrence of Arabia vibe is something I like (I did a whole middle east campaign at one point). 

This may be too long for your tastes, but I have logs of my most recent campaigns here if you are interested getting a sense of how I run things. They are not play by play, more just me getting the info down so I have it preserved (and I often gloss over individual rolls in the retelling). Still you may get a sense of what kinds of developments are likely to crop up when I am running; as well as a sense of the flow. This is the weekly game and on the right side bar I have the sessions listed under The Demon Moon Cult and the Secret of Je Valley respectively: http://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com


----------



## Manbearcat

Just a quick post.   [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION], there is a place for falls, death, and loss in games that feature/systematize Fail Forward is a/the primary technique for play propulsion.  Just upthread I sblocked the majority portion of a conflict (you can reference it for context if you need/care to).  Here is the (not sblocked) end of that conflict:



> GM (Me):
> The load off the goblin brother immediately invigorates him as his other hand firmly grasps the sled. Your heroic efforts and seeing his brother have to firm hand-holds on the sled instills further strength in him to survive.
> 
> The sled very, very slowly rises as the weight is still immense. Your fingers are growing so very weary. There is little chance that you can just hold on like this for the time it will take for the sled to rise to the top.






> Otthor's player:
> With my extra weight off the sled, I know it will rise more quickly. If I fall, so be it.
> 
> Defy Danger (Str)
> 1, 1 - 1 = 1
> 
> Mark 1 xp
> 
> My strength is gone. Before my hands let go of their own volition, I shout to Saerie in elven. "Fear not for me. Carry on. I will find you. May gentle breezes guide you and sweet waters comfort you, my friend."
> 
> I let go.






> GM (Me):
> As you descend into the darkness, Saerie appears in the crack of light above with a dangling rope for the goblins. The dog crests the top and the whole of the sleds begin to ascend rapidly.
> 
> You plunge into icy water and are carried in a hard current over unforgiving rocks.
> 
> -  You take b[2d8] from the freezing cold and the rocks, no armor applies.






> Otthor's player:
> 8, 3. I take 8 damage.






> GM (Me):
> Somewhere in the freezing darkness, amidst the endless tumbling, consciousness was lost. When you open your eyes, you're immediately greeted by utter darkness, the sounds of running water and a heavy, intermittent drip on your face. You seem to have washed up on a shore and your arms have clung to a rock without your commanding them to do so. Your legs are aching as they are still in the cold waters. Despite the darkness, your innate, warrior-honed sense of spatial perception tells you that you are in a place with an exceedingly high ceiling. There is a distinct lack of air circulation and the temperature in this place is much warmer than the surface, especially without the biting wind. Nonetheless, you are cold...freezing to death, in fact. You know that if you do not find warmth soon, you will freeze to death...
> 
> What are you doing?




I'll stop there.  The players Undertook a Perilous Journey to transit the frozen tundra between the ruins of World's End Bluff and Earthmaw, a hobgoblin redoubt that serves as the primary trading outpost in the highlands territories.  There are several reasons that they wanted to go to Earthmaw:

1)  To find the refugee families (if any) from World's End Bluff.
2)  To Resupply...they were perilously low on Rations (with many followers/companions mouths to feed!), Adventuring Gear [a catch-all, abstract resource that gives bonuses/grants an outright "yes" when you expend a use], and Ammo.
3)  To Parley with the hobgoblin king and hopefully gain audience with his Blizzard Dragon patron (who is the alpha of the entire highland realm).

Otthor's fall through the crevasse into the icy underground river would have outright killed most mere mortal men and women.  But he is a PC with a level of plot immunity (PC HPs).  So he survives...and washes up in Earthmaw's basement garbage dump where a Darkmantle and a Roper skulk in the deep frozen dark to guard the back entrance if the hobgoblin redoubt and serve double duty as sanitation workers.  If you read the sblocked text in the post above, you'll note Saerie lost her coinpurse in the desperation of trying to get herself, her companions, and her sled out of the mess of falling through collapse of the thin ice over the crevasse.  

So, they arrive at Earthmaw...just in a fashion that diminishes their resources and their capacity to get what they want (2 and 3 are made much more difficult because of the failures accrued in that scene.).  The whole of it is the kind of thing that is spontaneously generated during play.  In the same way that a Spout Lore check (like a Wise in BW) spontaneously generated facts about Earthmaw and the hobgoblin's Blizzard Dragon patron.


----------



## Manbearcat

As an aside...I have a small confession to make.  Part of the reason I enjoy coming up with absurd play examples has nothing to do with elucidation...it is because I get to watch grown men (myself included) then carry on totally serious conversation about Pudding Mountain and Mommy Kissing Booboos Away for the next several days!


----------



## iserith

Lanefan said:


> Who said anything about unscathed?




Have you ever known a player to ask that they accomplish something and be harmed or setback in the process? Or is it safe to assume, at least for the purposes of this discussion, that the player seeking to have his character scale Mt. Pudding is seeking the best possible outcome which is that they get there without harm or setback?



Lanefan said:


> "Makes progress" does not equal succeed.  So you initally fail at the climb, and the DM determines that halfway up you lost your divining rod...so far this is just fine.  But you're *still only halfway up*, at the point you lost the rod (in my view the action stops here to give the player-as-character a chance to choose what to do next) meaning you have not succeeded in the climb and thus the narrative agrees with the dice.  If the player-as-character chooses to continue the climb this would prompt another check to see if she makes it the rest of the way up; and if she instead chooses to climb back down and try to recover the rod you're into a different check, and so on.
> 
> Lan-"mmmm...pudding"-efan




Sure, you can play semantic games all you want here to justify the call you want to make at your table. I don't think it furthers the discussion though or anyone's understanding of what fail forward is about.

I'll say again: If my goal is to get to the top of Mt. Pudding unscathed then botch the ability check, getting to the top of Mt. Pudding having lost my divining rod is still a failure, not a success.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Have a look at the last page of posts between me,  [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION]. I think you are conflating means and ends here, whereas - in play which makes extensive use of "fail forward" - the difference between means and ends (or what BW calls _task_ and _intent_) is pretty crucial.
> 
> Returning again to  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s Mt Pudding example: the goal is to get to the top of Mt Pudding and find the pudding. Without the divining rod, that goal is no longer automatically achieved simply by getting to the top of the mountain. So when the failed climbing check is adjudicated as "You lose your diving rod down the crevasse as you narrowly avoid going into it yourself," the character has not achieved his/her goal, and in fact has become less likely to achieve it.



Of course.  But as I said in my post just above this one the action should *stop at the point where she loses the rod*, not once she's got to the top without it; because it's at the time of loss where she has to make a choice: to go back down and try to recover the rod (climb check required), or continue on up (climb check required*) and if she makes it then try to find the pudding without the rod to help (search check required, I suppose).

* - unless she loses the rod when she's already at the top of the mountain, but that to me is granting success where a failure was rolled.

You're rolling checks for tasks, not intent.  You state your intent, sure: "I'm going to climb Mt Pudding and get me some yummy pudding!" - but then you roll for the tasks involved - a climb check to get there; a search check to find the pudding if its location isn't immediately obvious, and then probably another climb check to get back down.  A failure on any of these rolls can be either an end point (you fall and die, all the pudding is gone, etc,) or a decision point (partway up you lose your divining rod, what do you do now?).  And note specifically there I ask "what do you do now?", as what happens next is up to the player; not me.



> "Fail forward" is not primarily a way through a bottleneck. The whole idea of a "bottleneck", or of a session designed to avoid bottlenecks, suggests the type of prescripting of adventures that "fail forward" is an alternative to.



It's not a one-or-the-other situation here.  Failures happen in pre-scripted adventures too; the question is how to deal with them, and how to present and narrate different forms of failure that can potentially keep things moving and-or provide more options and choices for the PCs.  And as [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION] says, outright failure *should* always be a possible (but certainly not the only possible) outcome from a roll of "fail".

I guess what it comes down to for me is that fail-forward for me still has to be a fail.  If the goal which you rolled the check for was to climb the mountain and you rolled a fail, that tells me that no matter what else has happened you are not now at the top of the mountain. (in fact, that's the *only* thing it tells me!)  If the DM narrates this failure as you reach the top but lose the divining rod in the process, that's not a failure narration at all; instead she's narrated some sort of succeed-backward and in fact given you more than the roll warranted.



			
				Umbran said:
			
		

> You have missed the several times over where we have mentioned that it isn't really a predestined end we are aiming at in general. You're resurrecting a boogeyman. The *players* have a goal.



It doesn't matter whose flippin' goal it is - the DM's, the players', or the characters' - it's still a goal and there realistically will (or should) still be times when said goal turns out via dice rolls to be unattainable for whatever reason.  A short-term goal might be to find the pudding at the top of Mt Pudding; a longer-term goal might be to slay the kidnappers, rescue the sleeping Prince and spoon a bit of this magical pudding into his mouth to wake him up.  This goal might have been dreamed up by the DM, or by the players, or simply come about as an outgrowth of the run of play...but sometimes things just don't work out right.  Maybe nobody can climb Mt Pudding and Princey-boy has to wait until someone gains the power of flight and can bypass the hazardous bits; meanwhile the PCs go off and do enough adventuring that their wizard can cast 3rd-level spells.  Maybe nobody can find where the Prince has been hidden once the pudding has been obtained.  And so on.

Lan-"the individual sessions might be short but the overall game is endless; so no matter how many times you fail there's always time to try again"-efan


----------



## I'm A Banana

iserith said:


> I'll say again: If my goal is to get to the top of Mt. Pudding unscathed then botch the ability check, getting to the top of Mt. Pudding having lost my divining rod is still a failure, not a success.




Do you lose anything in that failure? Do you have to re-evaluate anything? What happens as a consequence of that failure, and it is markedly different from what would happen had you had a success? Do you have to try again? 

I feel like, if you do a speedrun of Super Mario Brothers, than any time you waste time means that you've failed. You're not completing the game in the fastest possible time. You lose one life, you've failed to do the speedrun. Start over.

But if all you want to do is _beat_ Super Mario Brothers, then the time you waste isn't of critical importance. So you ended with 120 on the clock instead of 140 - it doesn't matter. Spend all the lives, up to your last one, it's fine. Important, even - they're resources. 

If the goal of Mt. Pudding is just to get pudding, the setbacks you suffer on the way there aren't meaningful. So you had to backtrack a bit - it doesn't matter, you still have the pudding.

If the goal of Mt. Pudding is to find the pudding with the divining rod, the setback of missing your divining rod is meaningful, but it's not clear what that failure means - are you unable to put the pudding to use? Is someone going to punish you for missing the divining rod? Do your enemies now have the divining rod and can use it to find the Other Pudding? 

These are pretty different goals, and will fundamentally alter the approach to Mt. Pudding and what is considered meaningful failure in ascending it.


----------



## iserith

I'm A Banana said:


> Do you lose anything in that failure? Do you have to re-evaluate anything? What happens as a consequence of that failure, and it is markedly different from what would happen had you had a success? Do you have to try again?
> 
> I feel like, if you do a speedrun of Super Mario Brothers, than any time you waste time means that you've failed. You're not completing the game in the fastest possible time. You lose one life, you've failed to do the speedrun. Start over.
> 
> But if all you want to do is _beat_ Super Mario Brothers, then the time you waste isn't of critical importance. So you ended with 120 on the clock instead of 140 - it doesn't matter. Spend all the lives, up to your last one, it's fine. Important, even - they're resources.
> 
> If the goal of Mt. Pudding is just to get pudding, the setbacks you suffer on the way there aren't meaningful. So you had to backtrack a bit - it doesn't matter, you still have the pudding.
> 
> If the goal of Mt. Pudding is to find the pudding with the divining rod, the setback of missing your divining rod is meaningful, but it's not clear what that failure means - are you unable to put the pudding to use? Is someone going to punish you for missing the divining rod? Do your enemies now have the divining rod and can use it to find the Other Pudding?
> 
> These are pretty different goals, and will fundamentally alter the approach to Mt. Pudding and what is considered meaningful failure in ascending it.




I think this was covered several times by other posters quite well, including @_*pemerton*_.

I'll add that I may have muddied the example. We were talking about failing to climb a ravine and dropping a rod down it upon failing a check, not making it to the top of Mt. Pudding without a rod as a result of the check. Just want to bring that back into focus. Apologies.


----------



## Neonchameleon

I'm A Banana said:


> Do you lose anything in that failure? Do you have to re-evaluate anything? What happens as a consequence of that failure, and it is markedly different from what would happen had you had a success? Do you have to try again?
> 
> I feel like, if you do a speedrun of Super Mario Brothers, than any time you waste time means that you've failed. You're not completing the game in the fastest possible time. You lose one life, you've failed to do the speedrun. Start over.
> 
> But if all you want to do is _beat_ Super Mario Brothers, then the time you waste isn't of critical importance. So you ended with 120 on the clock instead of 140 - it doesn't matter. Spend all the lives, up to your last one, it's fine. Important, even - they're resources.
> 
> If the goal of Mt. Pudding is just to get pudding, the setbacks you suffer on the way there aren't meaningful. So you had to backtrack a bit - it doesn't matter, you still have the pudding.
> 
> If the goal of Mt. Pudding is to find the pudding with the divining rod, the setback of missing your divining rod is meaningful, but it's not clear what that failure means - are you unable to put the pudding to use? Is someone going to punish you for missing the divining rod? Do your enemies now have the divining rod and can use it to find the Other Pudding?
> 
> These are pretty different goals, and will fundamentally alter the approach to Mt. Pudding and what is considered meaningful failure in ascending it.




OK.

If you're going up Mount Pudding with a divining rod it's probably because someone hid either a giant gold sovereign or a giant silver dollar in the pudding and for whatever reason you want that. The divining rod is to help you find it. Not getting that is a serious setback - and not having your divining rod makes it a lot harder. You could get the actual pudding from the bottom of the mountain.

What are the consequences of not having that giant coin? You probably want it as something other than a bat-cave prop. Which means you either need something else to pay the giants, or you need to fight them (which is going to be rough).  So you want that coin or things get rougher.

But you can keep going without the divining rod. And instead go diving into the pudding, wading through it, and trying to eat your way out. Not a good option either. You can do it but it's not going to be quick - and you need to avoid the Brandy Butter - or worse yet the rum-and-light. The divining rod would have saved you time - and time is really important. It keeps you safe andm means there's les to go wrong when you are gone.


----------



## Imaro

Eh, I'm staring to see where I have issues with this approach as well... mainly with causality and narrative control.  

So because I didn't succeed at climbing... the DM now gets to create consequences which, while they may follow from the fiction can be unrelated to the fact that I failed at a climbing check...  Looking at this from the perspective of a player... I want my consequences to flow organically from what I did or did not accomplish with my rolls.  Why? Because that's the character I built... either I'm a great climber and this is one of those rare mishaps everyone suffers at some point... or I'm not that good at climbing and I knew that when I tried this, either way my character messed up climbing.  What my character isn't known for are his fumbling fingers,  so why am I suddenly a butterfingers or so incompetent I didn't tie down my divining rod?  This approach also makes it difficult for consistency in knowing (at least in general) what the results of failing at something will be.   

As a player I'd also wonder just how far these consequences can go, which was part of my objection to the earlier example where failing to find a trap while searching for it suddenly put me in the position of having activated the trap itself... I'm loosing agency here both in my character's actions and in the narrative of my character itself.

As a DM... for me it does feel kinda railroady since I am inventing what I want to happen on the fly...  How do I guarantee that I not push towards the outcome I want and/or what I find fun, interesting, etc?  The other side of that question being, how do I know what I find interesting or entertaining for other people's characters is what they also find entertaining or enjoyable at that moment?  In the climbing example, what if a player would have preferred falling into the crevice below and taking his chances with whatever denizen was down there... if he survived?  It also seems like in failing forward, regardless of the scenery of the path... the path still leads to the top of the mountain, which also feels kind of railroady... I won't go so far as to say it leads to a railroad... but I will say I can see where one can get that impression from.


----------



## Imaro

Neonchameleon said:


> OK.
> 
> If you're going up Mount Pudding with a divining rod it's probably because someone hid either a giant gold sovereign or a giant silver dollar in the pudding and for whatever reason you want that. The divining rod is to help you find it. Not getting that is a serious setback - and not having your divining rod makes it a lot harder. You could get the actual pudding from the bottom of the mountain.
> 
> What are the consequences of not having that giant coin? You probably want it as something other than a bat-cave prop. Which means you either need something else to pay the giants, or you need to fight them (which is going to be rough).  So you want that coin or things get rougher.
> 
> But you can keep going without the divining rod. And instead go diving into the pudding, wading through it, and trying to eat your way out. Not a good option either. You can do it but it's not going to be quick - and you need to avoid the Brandy Butter - or worse yet the rum-and-light. The divining rod would have saved you time - and time is really important. It keeps you safe andm means there's les to go wrong when you are gone.




This seems like you've created an entirely different goal so that the failure is an actual setback??  That seems... I don't know not a good argument for why that was a failure in the original situation.


----------



## Maxperson

iserith said:


> Sure, you can play semantic games all you want here to justify the call you want to make at your table. I don't think it furthers the discussion though or anyone's understanding of what fail forward is about.
> 
> I'll say again: If my goal is to get to the top of Mt. Pudding unscathed then botch the ability check, getting to the top of Mt. Pudding having lost my divining rod is still a failure, not a success.




I've never seen someone state to me the goal is to climb the wall, mountain, rope, etc. unscathed.  They say they want to climb the whatever, get to the top, etc.  Getting to the top is success and not getting there is failure.  Adding in unscathed so that you can then fail them forward to the top through the loss of the rod seems like a justification to me.


----------



## iserith

Maxperson said:


> I've never seen someone state to me the goal is to climb the wall, mountain, rope, etc. unscathed.  They say they want to climb the whatever, get to the top, etc.  Getting to the top is success and not getting there is failure.  Adding in unscathed so that you can then fail them forward to the top through the loss of the rod seems like a justification to me.




I present to you the same thing I already said upthread with slightly different words: Is it a safe assumption that a player, stating a goal and approach to climbing a wall, seeks to do so without cost or complication? Or must he or she state that outright to satisfy you? If it is indeed a safe assumption that this is the full if unstated expression of a player's stated goal and approach, does it not then follow that getting up that wall with a cost or complication is, in fact, a failure of the goal?

I would say that it is.


----------



## Nagol

Imaro said:


> Eh, I'm staring to see where I have issues with this approach as well... mainly with causality and narrative control.
> 
> So because I didn't succeed at climbing... the DM now gets to create consequences which, while they may follow from the fiction can be unrelated to the fact that I failed at a climbing check...  Looking at this from the perspective of a player... I want my consequences to flow organically from what I did or did not accomplish with my rolls.  Why? Because that's the character I built... either I'm a great climber and this is one of those rare mishaps everyone suffers at some point... or I'm not that good at climbing and I knew that when I tried this, either way my character messed up climbing.  What my character isn't known for are his fumbling fingers,  so why am I suddenly a butterfingers or so incompetent I didn't tie down my divining rod?  This approach also makes it difficult for consistency in knowing (at least in general) what the results of failing at something will be.
> 
> As a player I'd also wonder just how far these consequences can go, which was part of my objection to the earlier example where failing to find a trap while searching for it suddenly put me in the position of having activated the trap itself... I'm loosing agency here both in my character's actions and in the narrative of my character itself.
> 
> As a DM... for me it does feel kinda railroady since I am inventing what I want to happen on the fly...  How do I guarantee that I not push towards the outcome I want and/or what I find fun, interesting, etc?  The other side of that question being, how do I know what I find interesting or entertaining for other people's characters is what they also find entertaining or enjoyable at that moment?  In the climbing example, what if a player would have preferred falling into the crevice below and taking his chances with whatever denizen was down there... if he survived?  It also seems like in failing forward, regardless of the scenery of the path... the path still leads to the top of the mountain, which also feels kind of railroady... I won't go so far as to say it leads to a railroad... but I will say I can see where one can get that impression from.




Depends on the style used.  I am not a fan of utilising consequence that does not follow from the failure since that can muddy in-character thought processes in ways I find disconcerting as a player.  More typically in my case, the failure will in addition trigger an event / effect in the environment that is already plausibly present, but presently undetected or apparently inconsequential.  If there is an option to introduce a new stake (such as dropping a valuable item), I'll present that to the table as a choice in advance --> the player fails a climb check* sufficiently badly that a fall is a normal consequence and the player is presented with the option to accept the fall or drop the item as he desperately grabs for holds.

Can the technique be used to railroad?  Sure.  Any technique that relies on GM force can be used to railroad.  The GM needs to guard against (or at least be honest with himself and the table) as he would with any other technique.

* this is a poor example for the way I typically use fail-forward which is more about when the players have painted themselves into a corner and the situation is threatening to enter stasis and/or the table is furiously pursuing a self-created red herring out to sea.


----------



## iserith

Imaro said:


> Eh, I'm staring to see where I have issues with this approach as well... mainly with causality and narrative control.
> 
> So because I didn't succeed at climbing... the DM now gets to create consequences which, *while they may follow from the fiction* can be unrelated to the fact that I failed at a climbing check...  Looking at this from the perspective of a player... I want my consequences to flow organically from what I did or did not accomplish with my rolls.  Why? Because that's the character I built... either I'm a great climber and this is one of those rare mishaps everyone suffers at some point... or I'm not that good at climbing and I knew that when I tried this, either way my character messed up climbing.  What my character isn't known for are his fumbling fingers,  so why am I suddenly a butterfingers or so incompetent I didn't tie down my divining rod?  This approach also makes it difficult for consistency in knowing (at least in general) what the results of failing at something will be.




If your character is not known for his fumbling fingers or to be an "incompetent butterfingers," as you say, then it may not follow from the fiction that you drop your divining rod and thus would not be a good choice of narration for the GM. You're arguing against something nobody is stating even though you seem to understand that the GM's narration must follow from the fiction (bolded in your quote).



Imaro said:


> As a player I'd also wonder just how far these consequences can go, which was part of my objection to the earlier example where failing to find a trap while searching for it suddenly put me in the position of having activated the trap itself... I'm loosing agency here both in my character's actions and in the narrative of my character itself.




The consequences are a part of the stakes which are set prior to the check and based on the fiction up to that point. No agency is lost here. You are still acting freely and impacting the fictional world by your action. I explained this clearly upthread. If you are moving around searching for a trap and you fail the appropriate check, then it is reasonable that you step on a pressure plate. (You found the trap, but...") If your stated goal and approach clearly did not include moving about to search, then stepping on the pressure plate after a failed check would not follow in the fiction and would be thus unreasonable.



Imaro said:


> As a DM... for me it does feel kinda railroady since I am inventing what I want to happen on the fly...




It's not railroading or "railroady" by any definition of the term as I understand it.



Imaro said:


> How do I guarantee that I not push towards the outcome I want and/or what I find fun, interesting, etc?




Depending on the goals of play of the game being played, perhaps you should be - and what the players find fun and interesting, too. Or what contributes to the creation of an exciting, memorable story. Or whatever.



Imaro said:


> The other side of that question being, how do I know what I find interesting or entertaining for other people's characters is what they also find entertaining or enjoyable at that moment?




If you don't know, you can ask. As I've mentioned, offering the stakes prior to the roll makes sure everyone is on the same page and allows for the occasional renegotiation from a player such as in the case of:



Imaro said:


> In the climbing example, what if a player would have preferred falling into the crevice below and taking his chances with whatever denizen was down there... if he survived?




Whereupon you could say, "Sure, that's sounds good. Roll for it."


----------



## Maxperson

iserith said:


> I present to you the same thing I already said upthread with slightly different words: Is it a safe assumption that a player, stating a goal and approach to climbing a wall, seeks to do so without cost or complication? Or must he or she state that outright to satisfy you? If it is indeed a safe assumption that this is the full if unstated expression of a player's stated goal and approach, does it not then follow that getting up that wall with a cost or complication is, in fact, a failure of the goal?
> 
> I would say that it is.




Sure, it's a safe assumption that there is risk that the player is aware of and doesn't want to happen.  It's just as safe to assume that they will expect the failure to be tied to the actual act of climbing and be an unrelated loss.  I stated one way that losing the rod could be directly related to climbing, but it's extremely rare for a PC to try to climb with a hand that is full.  Instead, the rod will be secured away in a pack or something, so it doesn't make sense to tie the failed climbing roll to the loss of the rod.


----------



## iserith

Maxperson said:


> Sure, it's a safe assumption that there is risk that the player is aware of and doesn't want to happen.  It's just as safe to assume that they will expect the failure to be tied to the actual act of climbing and be an unrelated loss.  I stated one way that losing the rod could be directly related to climbing, but it's extremely rare for a PC to try to climb with a hand that is full.  Instead, the rod will be secured away in a pack or something, so it doesn't make sense to tie the failed climbing roll to the loss of the rod.




You're falling into the same thinking that Imaro is above - positing that the rod falling from the pack (or whatever) doesn't follow in the fiction up to that point. To understand what is being discussed, we're asked to be charitable and assume that it does follow for whatever reason you'd like to imagine - the pack is not well secured or damaged or what have you.

The mechanic just resolves the uncertainty that exists with regard to the player's goal and approach for the character. In this case, the uncertainty of climbing the ravine without a cost or complication of some kind. A cost or complication that follows in the fiction. Make sense?


----------



## I'm A Banana

Neonchameleon said:


> OK.
> 
> If you're going up Mount Pudding with a divining rod it's probably because someone hid either a giant gold sovereign or a giant silver dollar in the pudding and for whatever reason you want that. The divining rod is to help you find it. Not getting that is a serious setback - and not having your divining rod makes it a lot harder. You could get the actual pudding from the bottom of the mountain.
> 
> What are the consequences of not having that giant coin? You probably want it as something other than a bat-cave prop. Which means you either need something else to pay the giants, or you need to fight them (which is going to be rough).  So you want that coin or things get rougher.
> 
> But you can keep going without the divining rod. And instead go diving into the pudding, wading through it, and trying to eat your way out. Not a good option either. You can do it but it's not going to be quick - and you need to avoid the Brandy Butter - or worse yet the rum-and-light. The divining rod would have saved you time - and time is really important. It keeps you safe andm means there's les to go wrong when you are gone.




If the goal of Mt. Pudding is to get the coin hidden there, then any result that still provides me an option of getting the coin doesn't feel like a very meaningful failure to me. If what is happening is still INPUT("I want the coin")->STUFF HAPPENS->OUTPUT("I get the coin."), in broad strokes, the STUFF that HAPPENS doesn't affect the end result much (though it could flavor the getting there - maybe it's miserable and barely eked out, maybe its easy and it's triumphant, but no matter how miserable it gets it'll always be possible). That can make me feel powerless as a player - like my struggles, rather than helping to define my story, are rather meaningless (making my successes also rather meaningless - there's no challenge when there's no fail state). 

If there is a potential for it to be "I want the coin"-> STUFF HAPPENS -> "I don't get the coin and can't try again", then the STUFF that HAPPENS is meaningful, meaning my struggles and my successes within that STUFF are meaningful, too. 

My impression, from Manbearcat's example and Umbran's example, is that "I don't get the coin and can't try again" isn't a potential outcome of STUFF HAPPENS using Fail Forward. Specifically because me not getting the coin is "stopping the action." I fail to find the secret door and I can't fight the BBEG or I fall down a ravine and die and I can't get to the top of Mt. Pudding or I drop the divining rod which is the only way to find the coin...these are not possible outcomes of the STUFF that HAPPENS, however grim that STUFF may be, because those outcomes mean I will not be pursuing the goal of "Slay the BBEG" or "Get the Coin" or "Climb the Mountain." 

That option not being there is what I describe as a "bottleneck," or what might be called the waterfall or the flow to the sea: the goal doesn't change. 

Meaning that it's not really as interesting for me to play through.

Oh! AND:


			
				iserith said:
			
		

> I present to you the same thing I already said upthread with slightly different words: Is it a safe assumption that a player, stating a goal and approach to climbing a wall, seeks to do so without cost or complication? Or must he or she state that outright to satisfy you? If it is indeed a safe assumption that this is the full if unstated expression of a player's stated goal and approach, does it not then follow that getting up that wall with a cost or complication is, in fact, a failure of the goal?
> 
> I would say that it is.



I might argue that it isn't, actually. At least not from a player's perspective. The _character_ probably seeks that, in-character, but the _player_ seeks complications and difficulties that they can then overcome (or fail to overcome) to show off the personality traits and fantastic abilities of their character. The player wants to roll dice and do math to defeat challenges. An easy climb to the top, while it might be what the character has in mind, probably isn't satisfying for a player (too easy, too uninteresting). 

The old example of failing a social interaction so that it degenerates into combat is handy here - when the incentive is toward combat (either directly, through things like XP, or indirectly, through robust systems that allow the player to control dynamic interactions), degenerating into combat isn't a punishment, it's _more fun_ for the player (even though the character might've sought to avoid that). 

Difficulty itself isn't a disincentive, it's something you WANT as a player. 

At least until it becomes so difficult that your goal can't be realized.

But the examples of Fail Forward so far don't seem to comfortably accommodate a goal that can't be realized, so that level of difficulty would also seem to be off the table, if you're applying the design logic of Fail Forward.


----------



## Neonchameleon

I'm A Banana said:


> If the goal of Mt. Pudding is to get the coin hidden there, then any result that still provides me an option of getting the coin doesn't feel like a very meaningful failure to me.




Well, yes. If you are as single minded as Captain Ahab in catching your white wale and don't care what happens to your friends and comrades and the crew of your ship or how many of them die, then yes the prize is the only thing that matters. And the very lives of your friends and comrades don't.

I would suggest that this level of solipsism is either an issue with the character or with the player. For most people the question "How much are you willing to sacrifice in the quest for what isn't even your ultimate objective" is a meaningful one.

I would further suggest that most people have a terrible understanding of compound probability. And don't realise how unlikely you are to succeed when you require multiple checks.


----------



## Janx

Manbearcat said:


> As an aside...I have a small confession to make.  Part of the reason I enjoy coming up with absurd play examples has nothing to do with elucidation...it is because I get to watch grown men (myself included) then carry on totally serious conversation about Pudding Mountain and Mommy Kissing Booboos Away for the next several days!




yes.  I got that.  I also liked it for divorcing the discussion from people's specific campaigns into something we could chuckle about while explaining our point in reference to getting pudding from Mount Pudding.


----------



## Maxperson

iserith said:


> You're falling into the same thinking that Imaro is above - positing that the rod falling from the pack (or whatever) doesn't follow in the fiction up to that point. To understand what is being discussed, we're asked to be charitable and assume that it does follow for whatever reason you'd like to imagine - the pack is not well secured or damaged or what have you.




I've given the one way that I can see that the rod could be a part of the climb check.  A pack that isn't secured well or damaged is something else entirely.  It could break and the rod is lost due to bad luck, and it could even happen as a result of the failed climb check, but there would still be the failed climb check to contend with.  The loss would be a separate result that was triggered by the climbing failure, not the actual climbing failure.  The climbing failure would be a failure to advance in the climb, a loss of progress, or even falling.



> The mechanic just resolves the uncertainty that exists with regard to the player's goal and approach for the character. In this case, the uncertainty of climbing the ravine without a cost or complication of some kind. A cost or complication that follows in the fiction. Make sense?




I understand what you are saying, but I don't agree with it.  A failure to climb is a failure to climb in some way and nothing else.  The violence of that failure could result in the loss of items, including the rod, but that loss is a separate cost that is only indirectly tied to the failed climb check.


----------



## Janx

I'm A Banana said:


> If the goal of Mt. Pudding is to get the coin hidden there, then any result that still provides me an option of getting the coin doesn't feel like a very meaningful failure to me.




this part here doesn't map to reality.  Thomas Edison once quipped that he had found a 1000 ways to not make a light bulb.  Implying he had failed a lot.

Now from the scope of standing in a cocktail party with Thomas Edison, he clearly invented the lightbulb as we are all now toasting his accomplishment.

But in listening to his actual story about it, it wasn't "I got up, baked some thread and made a bulb and tried it, and it worked"

The stuff in the middle was really, "I started 3 years ago, tried this, then that, then this other thing.  Got sidetracked by a hernia..."

As no plan survives contact with the enemy, no success is actually without failures along the way.  If it doesn't kill you, you're still likely to keep going.  Or not.



I'm A Banana said:


> If what is happening is still INPUT("I want the coin")->STUFF HAPPENS->OUTPUT("I get the coin."), in broad strokes, the STUFF that HAPPENS doesn't affect the end result much (though it could flavor the getting there - maybe it's miserable and barely eked out, maybe its easy and it's triumphant, but no matter how miserable it gets it'll always be possible). That can make me feel powerless as a player - like my struggles, rather than helping to define my story, are rather meaningless (making my successes also rather meaningless - there's no challenge when there's no fail state).




A GM likely has to decide when to use a FailForward to make it interesting, from just letting you take damage as you fail your 3rd climb roll.  I'd posit that some climb failures should be a slip, with a chance to catch yourself.  Some should be straight falls.  Others should be some other result (like the dropped wand).  

To get up Mount Pudmore, there might be 20 sections to climb (as defined by the GM originally).  Do you really want to play through 20 Climb rolls, where as you get higher, the only difference is that you'll take more falling damage if fail?  

Sure, it simulates escalating stakes, but statistically, you are going to fail a roll at least once, and murphy's law says it won't be the first one for 1d6 damage.  Let alone, it doesn't make for an interesting story or any variance in the situation.  Bad design of the challenge to be sure.  But FailForward hands us a tool to consider shaking things up.


----------



## Maxperson

Janx said:


> this part here doesn't map to reality.  Thomas Edison once quipped that he had found a 1000 ways to not make a light bulb.  Implying he had failed a lot.
> 
> Now from the scope of standing in a cocktail party with Thomas Edison, he clearly invented the lightbulb as we are all now toasting his accomplishment.
> 
> But in listening to his actual story about it, it wasn't "I got up, baked some thread and made a bulb and tried it, and it worked"
> 
> The stuff in the middle was really, "I started 3 years ago, tried this, then that, then this other thing.  Got sidetracked by a hernia..."
> 
> As no plan survives contact with the enemy, no success is actually without failures along the way.  If it doesn't kill you, you're still likely to keep going.  Or not.




Right, but when light bulb #1 blew out, Edison had no chance of completing the light bulb with that failed check.  He failed.  The same goes for the climb check.  If you fail, you should have no chance to succeed in the climb with that failed check.  Like Edison, you have to try again in a different way.  Failure for #2 at making a light bulb wasn't his screwdriver falling out of his pocket and the light bulb working.


----------



## iserith

I'm A Banana said:


> I might argue that it isn't, actually. At least not from a player's perspective. The _character_ probably seeks that, in-character, but the _player_ seeks complications and difficulties that they can then overcome (or fail to overcome) to show off the personality traits and fantastic abilities of their character.




Climbing the ravine on the way up Mt. Pudding _is _the complication and difficulty to overcome in this example.



I'm A Banana said:


> The player wants to roll dice and do math to defeat challenges. An easy climb to the top, while it might be what the character has in mind, probably isn't satisfying for a player (too easy, too uninteresting).




Let's not confuse the example again as I did upthread. The ravine is likely one of a number of challenges on the way to the peak of Mt. Pudding. I would add that rolling dice isn't typically to the player's benefit in a game where the GM decides on success, failure, or uncertainty. (The latter case is when we roll dice or otherwise resolve with some mechanic.) Hoping to get lucky with the dice isn't a good plan. Striving for outright success is better.



I'm A Banana said:


> The old example of failing a social interaction so that it degenerates into combat is handy here - when the incentive is toward combat (either directly, through things like XP, or indirectly, through robust systems that allow the player to control dynamic interactions), degenerating into combat isn't a punishment, it's _more fun_ for the player (even though the character might've sought to avoid that).
> 
> Difficulty itself isn't a disincentive, it's something you WANT as a player.
> 
> At least until it becomes so difficult that your goal can't be realized.
> 
> But the examples of Fail Forward so far don't seem to comfortably accommodate a goal that can't be realized, so that level of difficulty would also seem to be off the table, if you're applying the design logic of Fail Forward.




I think some more issues are getting muddled here. Of course difficulty is desirable - it's part of what makes a challenge satisfying. And being desirous of interesting success and failure conditions is good and I share that (again, that's just stake-setting which is all fail-forward is!), but as some have stated, they don't care if sometimes things turn out not to be so fun as long as the net fun over the long haul is positive.


----------



## iserith

Maxperson said:


> I've given the one way that I can see that the rod could be a part of the climb check.  A pack that isn't secured well or damaged is something else entirely.  It could break and the rod is lost due to bad luck, and it could even happen as a result of the failed climb check, but there would still be the failed climb check to contend with.  The loss would be a separate result that was triggered by the climbing failure, not the actual climbing failure.  The climbing failure would be a failure to advance in the climb, a loss of progress, or even falling.






Maxperson said:


> I understand what you are saying, but I don't agree with it.  A failure to climb is a failure to climb in some way and nothing else.  The violence of that failure could result in the loss of items, including the rod, but that loss is a separate cost that is only indirectly tied to the failed climb check.




What you appear to be saying is as another poster essentially said upthread: The stakes can only be this one thing. But again, that's a subjective call by you or possibly by the game system being utilized. Those that employ fail-forward can choose to either have the character fall into the ravine as a result of the failed check or drop the divining rod (or lots of other reasonable outcomes). We use whichever one is most interesting at the time. I see no value in limiting myself to a single set of stakes as it might not always lead to fun.


----------



## Maxperson

iserith said:


> What you appear to be saying is as another poster essentially said upthread: The stakes can only be this one thing. But again, that's a subjective call by you or possibly by the game system being utilized. Those that employ fail-forward can choose to either have the character fall into the ravine as a result of the failed check or drop the divining rod (or lots of other reasonable outcomes). We use whichever one is most interesting at the time. I see no value in limiting myself to a single set of stakes as it might not always lead to fun.




I totally agree that you can change the stakes from climbing to something else.  You should absolutely do what is best for your game.  For my game, though, a climb check is going to check climbing and not a rod in a pack.  A roll checking whether a rod stays in a pack is not a roll that is checking climbing.  Circumstances around the failed climb check may also cause the loss of the rod, but it will be caused directly by the failed climb check.


----------



## iserith

Maxperson said:


> I totally agree that you can change the stakes from climbing to something else.  You should absolutely do what is best for your game.  For my game, though, a climb check is going to check climbing and not a rod in a pack.  A roll checking whether a rod stays in a pack is not a roll that is checking climbing.  Circumstances around the failed climb check may also cause the loss of the rod, but it will be caused directly by the failed climb check.




May I ask which game you play the most?


----------



## Janx

Maxperson said:


> I totally agree that you can change the stakes from climbing to something else.  You should absolutely do what is best for your game.  For my game, though, a climb check is going to check climbing and not a rod in a pack.  A roll checking whether a rod stays in a pack is not a roll that is checking climbing.  Circumstances around the failed climb check may also cause the loss of the rod, but it will be caused directly by the failed climb check.




what would ever trigger a roll checking whether a rod stays in a pack then while climbing another 10' section then?

Because as worded, in your game, nothing interesting outside of the strict parameters of a check could trigger something unexpected like that.


----------



## Janx

Maxperson said:


> Right, but when light bulb #1 blew out, Edison had no chance of completing the light bulb with that failed check.  He failed.  The same goes for the climb check.  If you fail, you should have no chance to succeed in the climb with that failed check.  Like Edison, you have to try again in a different way.  Failure for #2 at making a light bulb wasn't his screwdriver falling out of his pocket and the light bulb working.




I think there's part of your misunderstanding.  Fail Forward most likely does not mean on attempt #2, he fails the roll and the light bulb works anyway.

It more likely means that the GM has something interesting happen that makes it possible for attempt #3 to be attempted (note my wording does not imply guaranteed success, only the opportunity to try again or try something else). 


I made a sword rack this weekend.  Quick project, it had some failures, but we worked around them.  Used a nailgun.  Had 3 nails go awry.  We snipped them off as it was easier than backing them out.  Planned out the top rails at the wrong spot, and to move and renail them once we realized I designed it wrong.  I succeeded in my goal, despite individual failures.

Now as this was real life, there was no GM.  I simply worked around the failures as I encountered them.  A GM with a situation where the players are still "working the problem" and moving forward (forward being any direction from the North Pole) doesn't need FF.  FF is likely a better tool for when the game is going to stall out or get boring (those 20 climb checks on Mount PudMore...).


----------



## Imaro

iserith said:


> If your character is not known for his fumbling fingers or to be an "incompetent butterfingers," as you say, then it may not follow from the fiction that you drop your divining rod and thus would not be a good choice of narration for the GM. You're arguing against something nobody is stating even though you seem to understand that the GM's narration must follow from the fiction (bolded in your quote).




But anything not defined prior is up for grabs in the fiction...correct?  If so I'm not arguing against "something nobody is stating"... especially since you made no reference to the character being a klutz before trying to climb a mountain peak.  My issue is that as the DM you've taken the liberty to create a narrative (whatever that narrative may be) that may not gel with the image I have of my character based on a roll that had nothing to do with the consequences you narrated.



iserith said:


> The consequences are a part of the stakes which are set prior to the check and based on the fiction up to that point. No agency is lost here. You are still acting freely and impacting the fictional world by your action. I explained this clearly upthread. If you are moving around searching for a trap and you fail the appropriate check, then it is reasonable that you step on a pressure plate. (You found the trap, but...") If your stated goal and approach clearly did not include moving about to search, then stepping on the pressure plate after a failed check would not follow in the fiction and would be thus unreasonable.




So you tell the players what the fail forward consequences will be before every check? [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] said he depended on the trust of his players and I can understand that but this seems kind of clunky...  Also, if so... how does this gel with the "on the fly decision making" that characterizes fail forward? which was referenced earlier in the discussion?  

As to whether you throwing me into a trap because I failed a search check for it or not is "reasonable"... well that's a matter of opinion.  I don't think it's reasonable unless I take *specific* actions that warrant me springing it... what if the reason I missed it was because I was nowhere near it while searching the room?  You as DM have eliminated that possibility and chosen the one you want...based on what exactly?  Because you wish for the story to progress in a certain direction or way that you find interesting?



iserith said:


> It's not railroading or "railroady" by any definition of the term as I understand it.




What's the definition of the term as you understand it?




iserith said:


> Depending on the goals of play of the game being played, perhaps you should be - and what the players find fun and interesting, too. Or what contributes to the creation of an exciting, memorable story. Or whatever.




It's the "whatever" that bothers me.



iserith said:


> If you don't know, you can ask. As I've mentioned, offering the stakes prior to the roll makes sure everyone is on the same page and allows for the occasional renegotiation from a player such as in the case of:
> 
> 
> Whereupon you could say, "Sure, that's sounds good. Roll for it."




So now we're having debates and negotiations around every failed roll because we don't want the game to slow down or be stalled... that seems kind of counter-productive to the overall goal... all IMO of course.


----------



## iserith

Imaro said:


> But anything not defined prior is up for grabs in the fiction...correct?




Correct.



Imaro said:


> If so I'm not arguing against "something nobody is stating"...




You are, if you are arguing that anyone advocating fail forward as a technique is suggesting that the GM narrate a result that doesn't follow in the fiction. It seems like you did exactly that.



Imaro said:


> ...especially since you made no reference to the character being a klutz before trying to climb a mountain peak.  My issue is that as the DM you've taken the liberty to create a narrative (whatever that narrative may be) that may not gel with the image I have of my character based on a roll that had nothing to do with the consequences you narrated.




You don't have to be a klutz or an incompetent butterfingers, as you say, to drop something. What I'm saying is that if it has been established that your character is specifically not those things - perhaps you're a rogue that can juggle daggers and is fastidious about securing his gear - then dropping the rod may not follow in the fiction. Some other cost or complication might apply better.



Imaro said:


> So you tell the players what the fail forward consequences will be before every check?




More often than not, but not always. Sometimes the stakes are self-evident based on the context up to that point.



Imaro said:


> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] said he depended on the trust of his players and I can understand that but this seems kind of clunky...  Also, if so... how does this gel with the "on the fly decision making" that characterizes fail forward? which was referenced earlier in the discussion?




I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the "on-the-fly decision making." The GM is making a decision on the spot as to the uncertainty of the player's goal and approach and coming up with the stakes (ideally in my view) prior to the roll. Is that what you mean?



Imaro said:


> As to whether you throwing me into a trap because I failed a search check for it or not is "reasonable"... well that's a matter of opinion.  I don't think it's reasonable unless I take *specific* actions that warrant me springing it...




Which is my position. I believe reasonable specificity should be garnered by the GM from the players when it comes to stating a goal and approach. "I search for traps" isn't adequate. By what means? Where? How much time do you spend on it? etc.



Imaro said:


> What if the reason I missed it was because I was nowhere near it while searching the room?




If you're nowhere near the thing you're searching for, you likely fail outright, no roll. The outcome is not uncertain.



Imaro said:


> You as DM have eliminated that possibility and chosen the one you want...based on what exactly?  Because you wish for the story to progress in a certain direction or way that you find interesting?




You, the player, have eliminated the possibility of finding the trap because you were not in the fictional position to find it.



Imaro said:


> What's the definition of the term as you understand it?




Control of a player's decisions by someone other than the player (typically the GM) in a way that violates the social contract. You decided to search for the trap or climb the ravine. The GM gets to say how that turns out, sometimes using mechanics and dice to determine an outcome. The GM didn't decide that you searched for traps or climbed the ravine.



Imaro said:


> It's the "whatever" that bothers me.




It shouldn't because "whatever" is "whatever the goals of play for that game are."



Imaro said:


> So now we're having debates and negotiations around every failed roll because we don't want the game to slow down or be stalled... that seems kind of counter-productive to the overall goal... all IMO of course.




I think you're conflating slowing down the unfolding narrative with slowing down gameplay. Which is not to say it slows down the game play at all. It's not a matter of debate when people are acting in good faith, just simple page-setting.


----------



## innerdude

To me, the concept of "fail forward" could be more easily summarized as, "The GM should act in good faith on behalf of his players and his players' characters." 

I use fail forward concepts regularly simply because it more approximates "real life" scenarios than not. There's very, very few scenarios in real life that have exactly ONE path, ONE solution, or ONE understood outcome. We are constantly making decisions that incorporate a variety of variables, with information that we both explicitly and implicitly know. This is in line with the idea that characters in an RPG know much, much more about their implied game world than the players do. 

The question becomes, at what point does "fail forward" stop, and the final outcome of an attempted action, or set of actions, become a binary pass/fail? Because I also agree that when failure is not a possible outcome, that it lowers the tension, stakes, and drama in a game.

First, I generally tend to shut off "fail forward" when opposed checks/rolls are being made. If what a character is doing directly affects another character in the game world, I'm generally apt to have the consequence simply be what it is. 

I also generally turn off "fail forward" when the stakes are either very low or very high. When the characters have multiple other options available to them, a failed lockpick check is just a straight failure---the party simply has to bash the door down instead of going around. The consequence of having failed to pick means they have to draw attention to themselves by bashing down the door, or find some other means. 

The "high stakes" disabling of "fail forward" is pretty obvious --- when the stakes are high enough, I don't want to devalue the decisions that have been made leading up to that point. This might be stuff like heroic self-sacrifice of a character, a high-stakes negotiation with far-reaching consequences, or combat. 

In all of this, however, the real idea is to act in good faith with your players. In most cases in RPGs, success is more interesting than failure---but it's the failures that make the successes rewarding.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Maxperson said:


> Right, but when light bulb #1 blew out, Edison had no chance of completing the light bulb with that failed check. He failed. The same goes for the climb check. If you fail, you should have no chance to succeed in the climb with that failed check. Like Edison, you have to try again in a different way.




Except that a lot of those tries will have been iterative. Bulb #67 has failed. Try again. Exactly the same design but using slightly thicker glass. Or even Bulb #650 actually provides light. It's just not going to be economical. Exactly the same design using a different metal for the filament.

And then there was "Dropped bulb 77. Same again for bulb 78." And "Dropped bulb 112. Same again for bulb 113." Repeat every 50 to 100 bulbs where you were trying the same thing exactly the same way. Plus "Glassmaker screwed up this batch. Bulbs 161-180 all cancelled. Same again for 181-200."

You normally try to change one single factor at a time. And even a failed check to invent the light bulb will have brought Edison ever so slightly closer. So "Can't try again the same way" is an artificial gamist limitation that makes for a much better game (dozens of tiny iterations is boring) but doesn't match real life.


----------



## Manbearcat

> - Bob (PC) wants pudding.
> 
> - Mount Pudding has pudding at its peak.
> 
> - Bob therefore summits Mount Pudding (action) to retrieve said pudding (intent).
> 
> A game where the technique of Fail Forward is deployed puts the retrieval of the pudding as the reference-point by which the fictional results of action-resolution are anchored/contextually framed. As Bob attempts to summit Mount Pudding, whenever Bob's player fails a roll involved with the physical effort to summit Mount Pudding, the GM changes the situation. However, the GM does not do so by solely referencing the causal logic chain of the action undertaken, say, a failed hazard navigation check:
> 
> Bob, you fall into the crevice (with whatever mechanical result)!
> 
> They may do that if it is sufficient to create an interesting setback to the retrieval of said pudding. However, the GM may also change the situation by tying the setback directly to the retrieval of said pudding. Failed hazard navigation? Crap:
> 
> Bob, you barely escape disaster by grabbing the edge of the crevice before you fall down into the deep dark (!)...but the leather strap holding your Pudding Divining Rod to your belt tears free and you hear the awful sound of it clanging off the rock as it cascades down...down...down (oh no!). You going down after it or do you think you can find that dastardly evasive pudding without it?
> 
> The latter is Fail Forward. Action succeeds (Bob evades the hazard) while intent is compromised/complicated (retrieval of said pudding).




Quoting the original example as a refresher as things seem to be going wobbly.  

Further, as is usual in these conversations, people bring in facets of their own internalizations (typically regarding system and technique and how the two combined impact player agency) but we don't get down to the bare essentials of those internalizations (and how they create a complete divergence of mental frameworks between one person and another).  Getting to the roots of these internalizations through play anecdote examination seems so much more helpful.  

Along those lines, I'm going to again point out this play example which entailed failed hazard navigation and defying danger to avoid falling into a glacial crevasse that I posted above.  The navigation of the wintry wasteland could easily be Mount Pudding.  Saerie could easily be Bob.  Her coin purse could easily be the Pudding Diving Rod and the dog could be Bob's dog or something else Bob cares about/needs (such as taking HP damage but not outright falling).

Also along these lines, I'm going to ramble about the level of discrete resolution and process simulation required to promote adequate (subjective) player agency while simultaneously not brutally bogging down play with tedious rolls where nothing of consequence happens OR the odds of simulating the actual event is virtually impossible (due to compound probability).

Let us say I'm making an RPG about playing the game of basketball.  How many abilities/attributes/skills (what have you) do I need?  Consider the following anecdote of play...

- I'm at the three point line, right elbow, halfway between the baseline and the top of the key.
- I have a teammate in the low right block, a teammate on the opposite elbow and teammates on both baselines.
- The defense is playing man to man so I have a guy heads-up on me and someone is guarding everyone above.

What do I need (from a PC build perspective) to give myself adequate agency here at this moment of time on the court?  

1 - Basketball IQ/funadentals?
2 - Left hand handle (proficiency to navigate traffic while dribbling)
3 - Right hand handle (oftentimes one is dominant and this affects many things)
4 - A discrete jumpshot stat for both range and where I am on the floor (eg deep vs mid-range, top-of-key vs elbow vs baseline)?
5 - First step?
6 - Lateral quickness/change of direction?
7 - Leap?
8 - Stop and pop (the ability to take a few hard dribbles and immediately stop, elevate and shoot)?
9 - Draw and dish (the ability to break down the defense, draw a double team, find the open man, and accurately pass it)?

The component parts are frigging limitless (and rather discrete).  This doesn't even get into other areas of play...just this one particular anecdote.

Further, what does the system need (from a resolution mechanics and GM technique/principal perspective) in order to (a) synthesize with my agency from PC build while (b) creating (interesting/fun/dynamic) outcomes that make sense within the game of basketball.  

If I pump fake to get the defender off balance, do I roll basketball IQ/fundamentals? vs his (whatever).  If I win do I get to choose whether I go left or right?  If I lose what then?  A turnover of some kind...maybe I travel or he steals the ball?  What if its a tweener roll?  Does the GM get to change the situation and narrow my options?  GM:  He plays the jump shot, but keeps his defensive poise enough to play your left hand...if you shoot or dribble left, you take _n _penalty.

Then what?  Do I make a dribbling roll?  Say I win and I've beaten my man...how is it determined if a help defender leaves their man to come and double team me.  What if I want to cross-over and split the double team?  Another check?  Etc, etc.

At what point is the agency adequate?  We abstract an absurd amount of combat information to expedite play.  Martial actors in a physical combat would be effecting a half a dozen (if not more) discrete contents in one exchange.  But we "roll to hit", "hack and slash", "combat", etc.  Why isn't it enough to frame the scene, build a dice pool/roll a d20 + mod that sensibly leverages resources that would be in play, "roll basketball", and resolve the micro-conflict (a turn I suppose) of "do I make a successful basketball play here?"

And why shouldn't there be all sorts of dynamic results that come out of that exchange?  If I'm driving to the rim to break down the defense, dozens of outcomes could happen.  Among the outcomes required to dynamically represent the game of basketball include equipment failures or court issues.  I might literally "blow a tire" (I've torn through the side of my shoe on more than one occasion when making a dynamic cut), or I could slip on a bad spot in the court (either wet or the floor wasn't treated properly in this location), or I could knock knees with the defender due to incidental contact (or clumsiness by the defender) and suddenly I've lost the ball (and am on the floor in pain).  This kind of stuff happens to proficient basketball players.  The same stuff happens to world-class proficient climbers.  They loose their equipment for all kinds of reasons (and they certainly aren't trying to!)...even in moments when crisis isn't up in their face and they're trying to navigate a fissure that has just suddenly opened in their immediate vicinity!  

Is it mandatory that every system have a discrete procedure for systematizing the content generation of  equipment-related or entropy-related snafus lest they never, ever arise during play (they arise all the time in real life and I don't feel that my agency is inhibited or outright rendered null!)?  This can't be handled as part of the basic resolution mechanics + GMing principles (a la Dungeon World)?


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> Is it mandatory that every system have a discrete procedure for systematizing the content generation of  equipment-related or entropy-related snafus lest they never, ever arise during play (they arise all the time in real life and I don't feel that my agency is inhibited or outright rendered null!)?  This can't be handled as part of the basic resolution mechanics + GMing principles (a la Dungeon World)?




I'm not sure I'm understanding the question... is it "mandatory" in what sense?


----------



## innerdude

Manbearcat said:


> Quoting the original example as a refresher as things seem to be going wobbly.
> Also along these lines, I'm going to ramble about the level of discrete resolution and process simulation required to promote adequate (subjective) player agency while simultaneously not brutally bogging down play with tedious rolls where nothing of consequence happens OR the odds of simulating the actual event is virtually impossible (due to compound probability).
> 
> Let us say I'm making an RPG about playing the game of basketball.  How many abilities/attributes/skills (what have you) do I need?  Consider the following anecdote of play...
> 
> ..snip..




These are both very relevant examples for a couple of reasons. Consider in the climbing scenario, why would a GM specifically put a key element/plot hook/space for player interaction at the top of a mountain . . . then purposefully BLOCK the players from reaching that area because, well, "The dice just said you aren't making it to the top, sorry." 

It's the same thing with the basketball scenario --- suppose we've agreed on a fantastic, easy-to-resolve set of mechanics on how to intricately play out a fun basketball game using pen and paper. I've seen it happen where a GM sets up the basketball game, but then the PCs somehow end up being unable to even make it to the gym.

"Waddaya mean our car broke down, and we failed our 'check the GPS' roll, and have no idea how to navigate to the YMCA now? Well, crap, screw this. Is there a pool or a lake nearby? Because now I'm gonna go play water polo instead......" 

These are the kinds of situations that "fail forward" is meant to alleviate. It should never be in doubt that your basketball team makes it to the YMCA to play the game. The question is, what condition are they in when they get there? If they failed their 'GPS Nav' roll, do they get there late, leaving little time to warm up? Are they harried and anxious, and thus unable to perform at a high level? Does somebody lose a shoe along the way, and has to improvise with somebody's 1955 Converse Chuck Taylor basketball shoes instead of their $250 Nikes?

If the stakes are high enough that "missing the basketball game" is an absolutely core, key component of your gaming session, then it needs to be FRAMED THAT WAY. Again, the idea is that as a GM, you need to have a level of transparency with the players about what's at stake. Remember that the characters would know more about the "hidden world" of the fiction than the players do, and as such the characters would act accordingly.


----------



## Maxperson

iserith said:


> May I ask which game you play the most?




D&D almost exclusively.  Seriously debating an 80's rules Marvel Superheroes game, though.


----------



## iserith

Maxperson said:


> D&D almost exclusively.  Seriously debating an 80's rules Marvel Superheroes game, though.




Which version of D&D do you play the most or most enjoy?


----------



## Maxperson

Janx said:


> what would ever trigger a roll checking whether a rod stays in a pack then while climbing another 10' section then?
> 
> Because as worded, in your game, nothing interesting outside of the strict parameters of a check could trigger something unexpected like that.




You shouldn't assume things about me as you will generally be wrong.  In this thread and others I have stated that I house rule things frequently, including skill checks.  I have a fumble rule for skills.  A 1 is a fumble and something has gone wrong beyond a simple fail.  When a 1 is rolled, a second 20 is called for and if it is a 1, then things are even worse.  It continues until no 1's are rolled.  20's get treated the same way.  It's very possible for all kinds of interesting and applicable things to happen outside the normal success/failure dynamic of skill checks.


----------



## Maxperson

Janx said:


> I think there's part of your misunderstanding.  Fail Forward most likely does not mean on attempt #2, he fails the roll and the light bulb works anyway.
> 
> It more likely means that the GM has something interesting happen that makes it possible for attempt #3 to be attempted (note my wording does not imply guaranteed success, only the opportunity to try again or try something else).
> 
> 
> I made a sword rack this weekend.  Quick project, it had some failures, but we worked around them.  Used a nailgun.  Had 3 nails go awry.  We snipped them off as it was easier than backing them out.  Planned out the top rails at the wrong spot, and to move and renail them once we realized I designed it wrong.  I succeeded in my goal, despite individual failures.
> 
> Now as this was real life, there was no GM.  I simply worked around the failures as I encountered them.  A GM with a situation where the players are still "working the problem" and moving forward (forward being any direction from the North Pole) doesn't need FF.  FF is likely a better tool for when the game is going to stall out or get boring (those 20 climb checks on Mount PudMore...).




Sort of.  There are two fail forwards being used here in this thread.  Number 1 is as you describe.  Where different avenues open up that could lead to success.  Number 2 is where you succeed anyway and there is a cost, such as dropping the rod on the way up to the top of the mountain and failure does not mean you were unable to succeed in the climb.


----------



## Maxperson

iserith said:


> Which version of D&D do you play the most or most enjoy?




3e primarily.  5e is gaining ground, though.  Just got to keep convincing friends to make the switch.


----------



## Lanefan

iserith said:


> If you're nowhere near the thing you're searching for, you likely fail outright, no roll. The outcome is not uncertain.
> 
> You, the player, have eliminated the possibility of finding the trap because you were not in the fictional position to find it.



OK, but I-as-player have no way of knowing that; and nor should I.  To me there should always be a question hovering over something like this...did I not find it because it isn't there to find, or because it's there and I missed it?

And as a side note: this is why these rolls should ALWAYS be made by the DM and kept hidden.  And even when a roll will auto-fail because the trap is 30 feet away the DM should still go through the motions of making one, to preserve the mystery.

Then again, trap-searching probably isn't the best example for a fail-anywhere discussion as it's pretty binary - you find it, or you don't; with the only other question being if you don't find it by search do you find it the hard way?



			
				Manbearcat said:
			
		

> Also along these lines, I'm going to ramble about the level of discrete resolution and process simulation required to promote adequate (subjective) player agency while simultaneously not brutally bogging down play with tedious rolls where nothing of consequence happens OR the odds of simulating the actual event is virtually impossible (due to compound probability). ...



Which all means you're probably best off just reacting to what the players give you.  If they give you more detail than is really needed, resolve at that level of detail as it's probably what they want.  If they give less than is needed, ask for more until the detail level is enough to give a resolution.

After you describe an ornate bedchamber to the players "I search the room." is most of the time not enough detail; you're quite justified in asking "How much time are you giving it?  And what are you searching for?" to give you a basis for resolving how successful the search might be (assuming there's anything there to find); the "what are you searching for?" question gives you a focus, as someone who is specifically searching for valuables is less likely to notice a secret door than someone specifically searching for secret doors.

The flip side would be a player's response to your description being "I search the bed first for valuables, including underneath it; I then move to the credenza and after checking it for traps I search it completely looking for anything either valuable or with writing on it, after which I check under the rug and behind (and in) the picture frames for papers; I'll also check the walls behind the pictures for hidden compartments.  I then check over any other furniture, after which I search the walls for secret doors.  If I've so far found nothing, I pull up the rug and check the floor carefully for any hidden compartments or exits."  This is probably a bit more detail than you really need, but it's sure easier to resolve! 

Lan-"does fail-forward mean you get to skip a grade in school?"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Umbran said:


> this is often used in systems where what a D&D-only player would call a "well designed session" does not exist.  There may be no detailed map down to the 5' square level, with every secret door labelled and every trap with a well-known CR and method of deactivation, monster and NPC detailed out in full stat blocks, and powers and spells carefully chosen, and placed on aforementioned map.  Rules engines like FATE and Cortex+ take as a base posit that some of the content of the adventure will be built out of these complication bits.  In a more improvisational adventure, you can't design out bottlenecks before play - instead, you use rules systems that disperse bottlenecks as they develop.  And we are talkign about bottlenecks to *action*, not necessarily to a prescripted goal.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> You have missed the several times over where we have mentioned that it isn't really a predestined end we are aiming at in general.  You're resurrecting a boogeyman.  The *players* have a goal.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Nobody is assuming that a particular encounter should happen.



This is absolutely spot on.

Of course plenty of RPGers may not care for the sorts of game you describe. That's why "fail forward", like any other RPGing technique, is not the be-all-and-end-all for everyone.

But for those who want to play a game where the players have strongly-held and defined goals, and in which there is a high degree of narrative momentum in relation to those goals - the *action* that you refer to - then "fail forward" is a very useful and important technique.




Imaro said:


> So because I didn't succeed at climbing... the DM now gets to create consequences which, while they may follow from the fiction can be unrelated to the fact that I failed at a climbing check...  Looking at this from the perspective of a player... I want my consequences to flow organically from what I did or did not accomplish with my rolls.  Why? Because that's the character I built... either I'm a great climber and this is one of those rare mishaps everyone suffers at some point... or I'm not that good at climbing and I knew that when I tried this, either way my character messed up climbing.  What my character isn't known for are his fumbling fingers
> 
> <snip>
> 
> it does feel kinda railroady since I am inventing what I want to happen on the fly...  How do I guarantee that I not push towards the outcome I want and/or what I find fun, interesting, etc?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In the climbing example, what if a player would have preferred falling into the crevice below and taking his chances with whatever denizen was down there





Imaro said:


> But anything not defined prior is up for grabs in the fiction...correct?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> as the DM you've taken the liberty to create a narrative (whatever that narrative may be) that may not gel with the image I have of my character based on a roll that had nothing to do with the consequences you narrated.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So you tell the players what the fail forward consequences will be before every check? pemerton said he depended on the trust of his players and I can understand that but this seems kind of clunky...  Also, if so... how does this gel with the "on the fly decision making" that characterizes fail forward? which was referenced earlier in the discussion?



Of course the GM is narrating consequences that s/he thinks are fun and interesting! What else would s/he do - narrate consequences that s/he thinks are frustrating and boring?

Upthread, I noted that GM skill is important here. In Gygaxian play, some GMs are known for building interesting dungeons and others for building dungeons that suck. Likewise in scene-framing, "fail forward" play - a good GM is able to build trust that s/he will narrate interesting and engaging consequences. Of course, these games also tend to use lots of devices for players to send signals to the GM as to what is interesting to them, which the GM is then expected to have regard to in narrating consequences. This is part of what I was gesturing at when, upthread, I mentioned that the consequences are not just spun from whole cloth.

As to whether or not the consequences of failure are spelled out, and perhaps negotiated, before each check - as I also mentioned upthread, with reference to both the rules and GMing advice for BW, this is an issue of table practice, GM/player rappor, the vibe of the moment, etc. But even in your example - if the player would have preferred his/her PC to fall down the ravine, then nothing is stopping an action declaration to that effect: "I jump down the ravine after my divining rod, hoping to catch it like Gandalf does Glamdring in the opening sequences of The Two Towers film."



I'm A Banana said:


> the Mt. Pudding example doesn't really dispel my concerns over the idea as a player or as a DM. That example posits that the intent of retrieving the pudding is something that is not really changing.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> For my enjoyment, it is better to be able to be able to raise the question: what happens if I don't get the pudding/fight the BBEG? What possible actions are capable of potentially changing my intent, to use Manbearcat's verbiage? What would make Bob not want the Pudding, or make the Pudding forever unavailable to Bob, and how would Bob react?
> 
> I like these questions because they produce interesting gameplay scenarios about character motivations - what do I want, what am I willing to do to get it, what happens if I can't get it - and leave the ultimate arc of the narrative in question
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If the scene can lead in only one real direction (toward the pudding, toward the BBEG), that's a bottleneck
> 
> <snip>
> 
> to me, it's an interesting decision when your character has to question their goals, often more interesting than a character who just has hurdles in place of achieving their goals.





I'm A Banana said:


> Do you lose anything in that failure? Do you have to re-evaluate anything? What happens as a consequence of that failure, and it is markedly different from what would happen had you had a success? Do you have to try again?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If the goal of Mt. Pudding is just to get pudding, the setbacks you suffer on the way there aren't meaningful.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If the goal of Mt. Pudding is to find the pudding with the divining rod, the setback of missing your divining rod is meaningful, but it's not clear what that failure means - are you unable to put the pudding to use? Is someone going to punish you for missing the divining rod? Do your enemies now have the divining rod and can use it to find the Other Pudding?





I'm A Banana said:


> If the goal of Mt. Pudding is to get the coin hidden there, then any result that still provides me an option of getting the coin doesn't feel like a very meaningful failure to me. If what is happening is still INPUT("I want the coin")->STUFF HAPPENS->OUTPUT("I get the coin."), in broad strokes, the STUFF that HAPPENS doesn't affect the end result much (though it could flavor the getting there - maybe it's miserable and barely eked out, maybe its easy and it's triumphant, but no matter how miserable it gets it'll always be possible).



A lot of this I don't think I fully follow. But there seem to be some assumptions that don't quite make sense to me.

First, on goals and failure: in 4e, the odds of failing a given check are typically between 10% and 50% (depending on details of difficulty, build, etc). And a given session has many checks. In BW, I feel from play experience that the odds of failure are generally higher than this (though the maths of dice pools, and the extreme variability in PC builds, makes it harder to calculate typical odds of failure). And again, a given session involves many checks.

If each check raises a serious prospect of failure, and each failure raises a serious prospect of changing goals, I don't see that dramatic arcs are going to arise. Dramatic arcs, especially in adventure fiction, tend to be generated by failures that are incurred while resolutely sticking to a goal. For my own RPGing, major dramatic arcs tend to unfold over many sessions - perhaps a year or two of play. Having the goal of attaining the pudding on Mt Pudding be abandoned because of a single failed Climb check doesn't strike me as very conducive to the sort of play I'm interested in.

Second, on goals and success: there is no guarantee that the PC will attain the pudding on Mt Pudding. "Fail forward" is a guarantee of *action* that is oriented towards or arises out of the dramatic themes and framing. It is not a guarantee that any paticular goal will be achieved. I posted some actual play examples upthread: the PCs in my BW game, instead of escaping the orcs unscathed and getting to explore the pyramid the orcs were heading towards, had to regroup to a tower in the Abor-Alz so that there injured party members (following a scathing by the orcs) could rest and recuperate.

Third, on INPUT > STUFF HAPPENS > OUTPUT: doesn't that describe every episode of RPG play ever? Maybe you are assuming that there is no connection between the OUTPUT and the STUFF THAT HAPPENS? But why would you assume that?

Fourth, on meaningful failure: losing the diving rod is meaningful. It makes it harder to get the pudding. If, at the end of the campaign, the PC nevertheless got the pudding then we might say, in retrospect, that losing the diving rod didn't matter. Just as, at the end of LotR, we can see (as can Frodo himself) that losing the mithril coat didn't matter. But that doesn't mean that, at the moment of loss, it's not meaningful. After all, how do we know there won't be another troll with a spear, just as there was in Moria?

The reason, in [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example, for narrating a loss of the divining rod rather than a fall into the chasm is because, at the table Manbearcat is inviting us to imagine, being dead at the bottom of the ravine is likely to bring an end to the arc that no one would really enjoy, whereas losing the rod is a failure - the PC no longer has the apparatus for easily obtaining the pudding, even should s/he make it to the summit - which pushes into new interesting play.

As for the questions you ask - the fate of the diving rod, the actions of enemies, etc - they are for play to determine. The loss of the rod creates new (and dramatically salient) fiction to be incorporated into new narrations, not unlike the example of the mace from my BW game, that I've mentioned upthread.



Lanefan said:


> The goal is to climb the mountain.  Scathed or not is merely a degree of success or a degree of failure depending which way the dice go.





Lanefan said:


> You're rolling checks for tasks, not intent.  You state your intent, sure: "I'm going to climb Mt Pudding and get me some yummy pudding!" - but then you roll for the tasks involved
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I guess what it comes down to for me is that fail-forward for me still has to be a fail.  If the goal which you rolled the check for was to climb the mountain and you rolled a fail, that tells me that no matter what else has happened you are not now at the top of the mountain.



The goal is to climb the mountain and _get the pudding._ Losing the divining rod is an impediment to this goal, just as falling down the ravine would be. It is a failure.

If you focus _only_ on task and not intent, then you may not see it as a failure. But in "fail forward" games, intent is as important as task. I've already mentioned the BW rules and advice on this several times upthread.



Lanefan said:


> the action should *stop at the point where she loses the rod*, not once she's got to the top without it





Lanefan said:


> If the player-as-character chooses to continue the climb this would prompt another check to see if she makes it the rest of the way up; and if she instead chooses to climb back down and try to recover the rod you're into a different check, and so on.



The action does stop when the rod is lost, in the sense that that is the narrated consequence for the failed check, and now the player has to declare a new action for his/her PC. Maybe s/he dives into the ravine after the rod (or tries to climb down in search of it). Maybe s/he keeps going to the top without it.

In the latter case, the GM may well not call for a roll, if there is no sense of any more interesting consequences resulting from the climb, and the real action is in trying to recover the pudding without the rod. That would be an instance of "say yes or roll the dice", which is another technique fairly common in scene-framing, "fail forward"-type play.



Maxperson said:


> I've given the one way that I can see that the rod could be a part of the climb check.  A pack that isn't secured well or damaged is something else entirely.  It could break and the rod is lost due to bad luck, and it could even happen as a result of the failed climb check, but there would still be the failed climb check to contend with.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I understand what you are saying, but I don't agree with it.  A failure to climb is a failure to climb in some way and nothing else.





Maxperson said:


> I have a fumble rule for skills.  A 1 is a fumble and something has gone wrong beyond a simple fail.  When a 1 is rolled, a second 20 is called for and if it is a 1, then things are even worse.  It continues until no 1's are rolled.  20's get treated the same way.  It's very possible for all kinds of interesting and applicable things to happen outside the normal success/failure dynamic of skill checks.



To me, this implies that a rod can be lost _when a character falls due to a failed climb_, but a rod can't be lost without the character also falling, because there is (in D&D) no separate mechanic for determining whether or not gear is lost on a climb.

In any event, reiterating that, for you, the only stakes to a Climb roll are "Do I climb or do I fall" is a clear reiteration that you don't like "fail forward"-type techniques. Key to "fail forward" is that the stakes are governed by intent as well as by task.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> If each check raises a serious prospect of failure, and each failure raises a serious prospect of changing goals, I don't see that dramatic arcs are going to arise. Dramatic arcs, especially in adventure fiction, tend to be generated by failures that are incurred while resolutely sticking to a goal. For my own RPGing, major dramatic arcs tend to unfold over many sessions - perhaps a year or two of play. Having the goal of attaining the pudding on Mt Pudding be abandoned because of a single failed Climb check doesn't strike me as very conducive to the sort of play I'm interested in.



But if that's what the players / characters decide to do, well...so be it.  That said, most players / characters are a bit more persistent than that; and if they can't climb Mt Pudding they'll haul out the axes and chop it down!



> The goal is to climb the mountain and _get the pudding._ Losing the divining rod is an impediment to this goal, just as falling down the ravine would be. It is a failure.



Getting the pudding is the goal, yes.  Climbing the mountain is but one step towards said goal, but a significant enough step to call for its own check independent of any check required to actually find the pudding once at the top.



> If you focus _only_ on task and not intent, then you may not see it as a failure. But in "fail forward" games, intent is as important as task. I've already mentioned the BW rules and advice on this several times upthread.



The mere failure of the task (climb the mountain) leaves the overall success-failure status of the intent (get the pudding) still unresolved as there may still be other avenues allowing access to the pudding.  Only once the character decides there's no way she's getting any pudding and thus abandons it for something else can the intent also be declared a fail.



> The action does stop when the rod is lost, in the sense that that is the narrated consequence for the failed check, and now the player has to declare a new action for his/her PC. Maybe s/he dives into the ravine after the rod (or tries to climb down in search of it). Maybe s/he keeps going to the top without it.



OK, we seem to agree completely on this bit.



> In the latter case, the GM may well not call for a roll, if there is no sense of any more interesting consequences resulting from the climb,



I'd say another roll is called for no matter what; as the character can still fall or find some other way to mess it up...or not.

One thing not yet really mentioned but worth considering: were this my game I'd have either myself or the player roll to see how far up she'd got before the failure occurred; and depending on why she failed this might affect the second climb roll - if she was 3/4 of the way up and lost some gear she'd get advantage on the second roll to reach the top, for example; but if the fail was caused by the mountain simply being too difficult to climb beyond that point she'd be at some sort of penalty were she to try and keep going anyway.



> and the real action is in trying to recover the pudding without the rod. That would be an instance of "say yes or roll the dice", which is another technique fairly common in scene-framing, "fail forward"-type play.



The loss of the rod adds another challenge but doesn't negate the first one.  It just adds more "real action", to use your term.



> To me, this implies that a rod can be lost _when a character falls due to a failed climb_, but a rod can't be lost without the character also falling, because there is (in D&D) no separate mechanic for determining whether or not gear is lost on a climb.
> 
> In any event, reiterating that, for you, the only stakes to a Climb roll are "Do I climb or do I fall" is a clear reiteration that you don't like "fail forward"-type techniques. Key to "fail forward" is that the stakes are governed by intent as well as by task.



Intent or task notwithstanding, I think we agree there's more ways to fail than just falling.  A loose foothold might give out leaving her stuck in place, for example, unable to keep going or to descend without falling but still safe as long as she can hang on; which she'll have to do until someone can come to her aid.  Or she might find herself unable to progress further but safely able to return to ground.  Or she might get her foot stuck in a crack in the rock.  None of these have anything to do with losing any gear, they're just things that can go wrong while climbing.

Lan-"or she might just fall and die; that also happens sometimes"-efan


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> To me, this implies that a rod can be lost _when a character falls due to a failed climb_, but a rod can't be lost without the character also falling, because there is (in D&D) no separate mechanic for determining whether or not gear is lost on a climb.
> 
> In any event, reiterating that, for you, the only stakes to a Climb roll are "Do I climb or do I fall" is a clear reiteration that you don't like "fail forward"-type techniques. Key to "fail forward" is that the stakes are governed by intent as well as by task.




There are two fail forward techniques that are being discussed here.  I like the one where if you fail, there are still other options available to you that can lead to success.  With a few exceptions, I do not like the one where you succeed anyway, but with a cost.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> Of course the GM is narrating consequences that s/he thinks are fun and interesting! What else would s/he do - narrate consequences that s/he thinks are frustrating and boring?




First let me say I'm having a hard time understanding what this is addressing in the post you quoted from me... nowhere in that quoted post do I say anything about a GM narrating consequences that are frustrating and boring... now that said I'll comment on it anyway.

Let's try to keep from being disingenuous here... there are a multitude of possibilities between... narrating consequences s/he thinks are fun and interesting (I'm assuming that also successfully engage the players) vs. narrating consequences s/he thinks are frustrating and boring (which I'm assuming do not engage the players.)...

 From the GM narrating what he/she finds personally fun/interesting (that does not gel with or engage the players) to what the players think is fun and interesting (but is never considered or not deemed so by the GM).  In other words, and I think you knew this, my point was that this gives an immense amount of power to the GM in pushing, shaping and creating the direction (not just challenges but the actual direction and shape) that the narrative takes... even when it has little to do with the mechanics the players themselves are engaging with... Loose an item because you failed to climb.  Spring a trap because you failed to locate it.  I am asking what checks are there to stop this from becoming a railroad and or stepping all over player agency?  It's very easy for a GM using this method either consciously or not to push the "story" in the direction and shape they desire.  Thus why I can see it being viewed as railroady... even though it doesn't have to be if done well...



pemerton said:


> As to whether or not the consequences of failure are spelled out, and perhaps negotiated, before each check - as I also mentioned upthread, with reference to both the rules and GMing advice for BW, this is an issue of table practice, GM/player rappor, the vibe of the moment, etc. But even in your example - if the player would have preferred his/her PC to fall down the ravine, then nothing is stopping an action declaration to that effect: "I jump down the ravine after my divining rod, hoping to catch it like Gandalf does Glamdring in the opening sequences of The Two Towers film."




But this isn't what I'm asking for.  What if I believed I could grab an outcropping or survive the fall and thus would rather fall then loose my rod?  Why do you the GM get to decide that is the consequence when the mechanics I was engaging with are the mechanics for climbing... not for dropping or loosing items...


----------



## iserith

Lanefan said:


> OK, but I-as-player have no way of knowing that; and nor should I.  To me there should always be a question hovering over something like this...did I not find it because it isn't there to find, or because it's there and I missed it?
> 
> And as a side note: this is why these rolls should ALWAYS be made by the DM and kept hidden.  And even when a roll will auto-fail because the trap is 30 feet away the DM should still go through the motions of making one, to preserve the mystery.




I use the dice for _resolving_ uncertainty - not for _creating_ it.



Lanefan said:


> Then again, trap-searching probably isn't the best example for a fail-anywhere discussion as it's pretty binary - you find it, or you don't; with the only other question being if you don't find it by search do you find it the hard way?




It's only "binary" in the way you suggest if you make it that way. I've already provided an example upthread of a PC searching around and stepping on a pressure plate after a failed check. The character has found the trap suspected to be in the area, but now his or her foot is on a landmine as the trap whirs into fell motion. I've narrated the result of the adventurer's actions as putting him or her in a spot and now more decisions need to be made to get out of the predicament safely.

In the doing, I didn't need to take the dice from the players or keep them guessing. I resolved the uncertainty of the player's stated goal and approach and framed a new challenge as a result of a failed check.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> I'm not sure I'm understanding the question... is it "mandatory" in what sense?




To satisfy your "agency-o-meter", let us call it.  If you can, could you take a look at the example I composed above and maybe comment on the necessary PC build components and resolution mechanics to satisfy your "agency-o-meter" in a Basketball RPG?



Lanefan said:


> Which all means you're probably best off just reacting to what the players give you.  If they give you more detail than is really needed, resolve at that level of detail as it's probably what they want.  If they give less than is needed, ask for more until the detail level is enough to give a resolution.




The issue for me is that a lot of this is contingent upon stuff that isn't malleable...stuff that is codified into system; the level of abstraction built into PC build and the resolution mechanics, the genre expectations, the the overall play agenda/priorities, and the GMing principles that all serve to drive play.

As has been mentioned by  @_*pemerton*_ and chaochou, Moldvay Basic, Tunnels and Trolls, and Torchbearer are very different games than Burning Wheel, Dungeon World, and D&D 4e.

A game that puts at its centerpiece the solving of long-term logistical puzzles (getting as much stuff out of this dungeon before you have to turn back because of depleted resources or before you're squished) is going to be very different from a game that puts at its centerpiece dealing with thematically compelling (meaning the PCs have buy-in) conflicts RIGHT NOW.

A game that requires <--> level of zoom for each player action declaration is going to be different from a game that requires <-----------> level of zoom for each player action declaration.  The first might require 5 steps of task resolution to get from one point of play to another.  The latter might require 2.  The first has granular PC build resources and resolution mechanics while the second has abstract.  The first might tightly constrain individual outcomes of resolved action declarations to outcome _a _or _b _(and possibly _c_) with little to no advice to the GM on moving the fiction from action declaration to outcome/fallout (because all of that overhead is already performed/constrained by the task resolution system).  Contrast with the second, where outcomes are not auto-performed/constrained by a bounded task resolution system, but rather by robust GMing advice/principles and the top-down agenda of the game.

There is some overlap in play priorities and in GMing advice, but it is not considerable (and that overlap is subordinate to other dominant play/GMing imperatives).


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> A game that requires <--> level of zoom for each player action declaration is going to be different from a game that requires <-----------> level of zoom for each player action declaration.  The first might require 5 steps of task resolution to get from one point of play to another.  The latter might require 2.  The first has granular PC build resources and resolution mechanics while the second has abstract.  The first might tightly constrain individual outcomes of resolved action declarations to outcome _a _or _b _(and possibly _c_) with little to no advice to the GM on moving the fiction from action declaration to outcome/fallout (because all of that overhead is already performed/constrained by the task resolution system).  Contrast with the second, where outcomes are not auto-performed/constrained by a bounded task resolution system, but rather by robust GMing advice/principles and the top-down agenda of the game.



Just to add to this with a concrete example. Let's compare opening a stuck door in classic D&D vs in Burning Wheel. ( [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION], may be interested in this. Or not, as appropriate!)

In D&D (think OD&D, or 1st ed AD&D, or Moldvay Basic as the paradigms here) there is a chance to open doors that is determined by the STR stat. Each roll of that chance represents, in the fiction, one concrete attempt to bust down the door. A second attempt requires a second roll. (For some sorts of doors, like Wizard Locked ones or when attempting to bend bars/lift gates, there is no reroll permitted. This is an interesting early instance of Let it Ride, though I think more for game-balance purposes than narrative momentum purposes.)

Each attempt is likely to trigger a wandering monster check by the GM (due to the noise), and a failure will alert any inhabitants who are behind the door. While there is no in-principle limit on retries (subject to the exceptions noted above), in practice the passage of time (say, 1 round for each attempt) which depletes torches or Light spells, as well as the risk of wandering monsters or alerting inhabitants on the other side of the door, means that the players are likely to apply their own limits.

In BW, opening a stuck door would generally be a STR check. (In BW the STR stat is actually called Power, but that's a mere detail in this context.) Only one check is permitted (ie Let it Ride applies). That check represents the PC making his/her best efforts. There is an explicit rule (called Working Carefully) that permits the player to stipulate that the check takes 50% more time than usual, and which then grants a bonus die in the dice pool, but that gives the GM licence, if the check fails, to introduce a significant time-based complication. So a player could declare that his/her PC is opening the door "carefully" - which in this case probably means having more tries, with a longer run-up - but if the check fails despite the bonus then the GM can narrate a nasty time-based failure (eg "The inhabitants on the other side have heard your first attempt, and have readied themselves in an ambush and then pull the door open on you just as you hit it for your second try, so that you stumble into the room and find yourself at their mercy").

Those are different resolution systems which, in their application, generate different consequences. The D&D system, in its very application, tells you how many physical, concrete attempts were made to break down the door and what the consequence of each one was, whether success or failure. The BW system, as an equally inevitable consequence of its design and application, leaves this stuff unspecified until the dice are rolled and, in the case of a failure, the GM narrates the consequences of that failure.

Within classic D&D there is another resolution system which is noticeably less concrete and more abstracted than the one for opening doors. That is the one for thieves climbing. In the application of the climbing mechanics, there is no scope for taking account of considerations like finger strength vs balance vs facility with any equipment being used, etc. These are all just bundled up into an undifferentiated mass called the Climb Walls chance.

And if the roll to climb is a failure, nothing in the resolution determines whether the thief fell because his/her foot slipped, or his/her fingers gave way, or s/he reached up into the darkness hoping to find a handhold but the surface was smooth, or . . . If any sort of detail of that nature is to be introduced, it will have to be by the GM's narration of the failure ("Schroedinger's handholds"). If a player _wants_ to have regard to particular details of handholds, of finger strength vs balance, etc, the system has no way as written to accommodate that. Either the GM would have to design a new, more detailed climbing system - and then, perhaps, "map out" the details of each wall that might be climbed - or else the player's description of how his/her thief PC uses the handholds and balances on this leg so as to be able to reach up to that small crack, etc, will all just be colour that is irrelevant to resolution.

It's in the nature of "fail forward" mechanics to work at a level of abstraction at least equal to that of classic D&D climb walls, and in most cases probably even more abstract than that.


----------



## innerdude

pemerton said:


> It's in the nature of "fail forward" mechanics to work at a level of abstraction at least equal to that of classic D&D climb walls, and in most cases probably even more abstract than that.




This is interesting, because this seems to go along with my general "off the cuff" times when I turn off "fail forward," based on stakes and opposed rolls. 

In most cases, opposed rolls operate at a very low level of abstraction --- there's typically a very direct interplay between two opposing mechanics, or checks based on those mechanics. Thus, "fail forward" isn't generally appropriate, because the level of abstraction is low. 

For very "high stakes" actions, this is also generally the case --- If something absolutely critical is at stake, the nature of a given check is generally highly specific. The stakes at hand and the consequences of success and failure are generally quite clear to the player. As such, "fail forward" in these instances often plays against what's happening "in frame" in the game world. 

In thinking about it, though, I'm not sure that even "very high stakes" actions can't have elements of "fail forward" in them. This would be something interesting to discuss; I might posit a hypothetical around this in another post to see what people think. 

I'm also re-thinking somewhat what I said earlier about "low stakes" checks. In hindsight, I don't know that it's a good idea to include "low stakes" mechanical checks very often as a GM. In context, it's not that a given check is ever totally "low stakes," it's that there's a strong clarity from the viewpoint of the players that there are other viable options should failure occur. It's "low stakes" in the sense that progress is not halted outright, it's only stalled temporarily. From a player and character viewpoint, though, a check is always at least "medium stakes" in the sense that any course of action represents an investment, and failure always represents to some degree a loss of resources (even if it's just time).


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## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> To satisfy your "agency-o-meter", let us call it.  If you can, could you take a look at the example I composed above and maybe comment on the necessary PC build components and resolution mechanics to satisfy your "agency-o-meter" in a Basketball RPG?




There is no specific level for me... it very much depends on the abstraction level of the game I have agreed to play.  If your basketball game has a simple mechanic in which the entire success or failure of the game is decided by a coin toss and I have agreed to play... well that is all I need.  However if your system has the granularity of attribute/skill scores & checks and through an unrelated skill check you have decided I was not smart enough (Int) to remember to tie my bag down properly, or too clumsy (Dex) to hold onto my divining rod, or so weak (Str) that it was pulled from my grasp without us finding that out through the mechanics then yes I feel like you are treading on my agency in that particular game.  Same with a trap that says I must step in a specific space to activate it (and movement is tracked on a granular enough level to determine if I did) but because I failed a search check (regardless of whether I specifically moved into said area or not)... I must have stepped right on it.


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## chaochou

pemerton said:


> Those are different resolution systems which, in their application, generate different consequences. The D&D system, in its very application, tells you how many physical, concrete attempts were made to break down the door and what the consequence of each one was, whether success or failure. The BW system, as an equally inevitable consequence of its design and application, leaves this stuff unspecified until the dice are rolled and, in the case of a failure, the GM narrates the consequences of that failure.




I go all the way back to my scene-framing post and reiterate that the difference I see between the two systems is between Character vs Competence where 'character' means beliefs, flaws, dependencies, relationships, threats, hopes and fears.

Character forms the building blocks of BW. Stats and resources (competence) are the building blocks of D&D.


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Just to add to this with a concrete example. Let's compare opening a stuck door in classic D&D vs in Burning Wheel.
> 
> In D&D (think OD&D, or 1st ed AD&D, or Moldvay Basic as the paradigms here) there is a chance to open doors that is determined by the STR stat. Each roll of that chance represents, in the fiction, one concrete attempt to bust down the door. A second attempt requires a second roll. (For some sorts of doors, like Wizard Locked ones or when attempting to bend bars/lift gates, there is no reroll permitted. This is an interesting early instance of Let it Ride, though I think more for game-balance purposes than narrative momentum purposes.)
> 
> Each attempt is likely to trigger a wandering monster check by the GM (due to the noise), and a failure will alert any inhabitants who are behind the door. While there is no in-principle limit on retries (subject to the exceptions noted above), in practice the passage of time (say, 1 round for each attempt) which depletes torches or Light spells, as well as the risk of wandering monsters or alerting inhabitants on the other side of the door, means that the players are likely to apply their own limits.
> 
> In BW, opening a stuck door would generally be a STR check. (In BW the STR stat is actually called Power, but that's a mere detail in this context.) Only one check is permitted (ie Let it Ride applies). That check represents the PC making his/her best efforts. There is an explicit rule (called Working Carefully) that permits the player to stipulate that the check takes 50% more time than usual, and which then grants a bonus die in the dice pool, but that gives the GM licence, if the check fails, to introduce a significant time-based complication. So a player could declare that his/her PC is opening the door "carefully" - which in this case probably means having more tries, with a longer run-up - but if the check fails despite the bonus then the GM can narrate a nasty time-based failure (eg "The inhabitants on the other side have heard your first attempt, and have readied themselves in an ambush and then pull the door open on you just as you hit it for your second try, so that you stumble into the room and find yourself at their mercy").
> 
> Those are different resolution systems which, in their application, generate different consequences. The D&D system, in its very application, tells you how many physical, concrete attempts were made to break down the door and what the consequence of each one was, whether success or failure. The BW system, as an equally inevitable consequence of its design and application, leaves this stuff unspecified until the dice are rolled and, in the case of a failure, the GM narrates the consequences of that failure.



There's no great difference, in the end.

The D&D system doesn't know what will happen until the dice are rolled any more than the BW system does.  And if a failure (or success) generates consequences in either system then the DM will (I hope!) narrate such.

I tend to prefer what you call "Let It Ride" in D&D as well; if a second attempt is to be made at a stuck door I insist there be something materially different about it e.g. getting an ally to help, as you've already given plan A your best shot.  And there's no reason at all why a failed attempt might not attract unwanted attention in BW the same as it does in D&D.  And even though it seems BW kinda forces consequences to occur there's no reason a GM can't override this and simply say "The door remains resolutely closed but nothing else seems to have changed."; just like a D&D DM is always able to narrate a set pull-the-door-open-at-the-right-moment ambush if she wants to.



> Within classic D&D there is another resolution system which is noticeably less concrete and more abstracted than the one for opening doors. That is the one for thieves climbing. In the application of the climbing mechanics, there is no scope for taking account of considerations like finger strength vs balance vs facility with any equipment being used, etc. These are all just bundled up into an undifferentiated mass called the Climb Walls chance.



True, just some modifiers for the type of surface being climbed.  Balance is kind of in there as part of Dex, which does modify your climb chance.  I can't offhand remember whether Str affects climbing in RAW 1e, it does to a small extent in my game but that might be a local tweak.  Equipment is variable enough that it's almost up to the DM to modify the chance each time based on what's being used and by whom.



> And if the roll to climb is a failure, nothing in the resolution determines whether the thief fell because his/her foot slipped, or his/her fingers gave way, or s/he reached up into the darkness hoping to find a handhold but the surface was smooth, or . . . If any sort of detail of that nature is to be introduced, it will have to be by the GM's narration of the failure ("Schroedinger's handholds"). If a player _wants_ to have regard to particular details of handholds, of finger strength vs balance, etc, the system has no way as written to accommodate that. Either the GM would have to design a new, more detailed climbing system - and then, perhaps, "map out" the details of each wall that might be climbed - or else the player's description of how his/her thief PC uses the handholds and balances on this leg so as to be able to reach up to that small crack, etc, will all just be colour that is irrelevant to resolution.
> 
> It's in the nature of "fail forward" mechanics to work at a level of abstraction at least equal to that of classic D&D climb walls, and in most cases probably even more abstract than that.



A DM is always free to narrate whatever makes sense at the time; a player also could in this case, in character.

But here we get back to the same argument as with Mt Pudding: can you in any way reach the top (i.e. succeed) on a failed roll in either system?  If yes, then "fail" is probably the wrong word to be using.

Lanefan


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## iserith

Lanefan said:


> But here we get back to the same argument as with Mt Pudding: can you in any way reach the top (i.e. succeed) on a failed roll in either system?  If yes, then "fail" is probably the wrong word to be using.




The player failed the check. The character failed to achieve the goal in the manner intended. 

I'd say "fail" is an appropriate word to use.


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## Maxperson

iserith said:


> The player failed the check. The character failed to achieve the goal in the manner intended.
> 
> I'd say "fail" is an appropriate word to use.




The problem is that success is also an appropriate word to use.  When both fail and success are both appropriate to use for the same thing, something has probably gone wrong somewhere.

The die is rolled to see whether your succeed *or* fail, not both at the same time.


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## iserith

Maxperson said:


> The problem is that success is also an appropriate word to use.  When both fail and success are both appropriate to use for the same thing, something has probably gone wrong somewhere.
> 
> The die is rolled to see whether your succeed *or* fail, not both at the same time.




But neither the player or character did succeed as was intended. If I want to achieve X, but instead achieve X plus it costs me Y or tacks on Z complication, that's a failure to get what I wanted. I didn't want Y or Z. Y and Z suck (for the character).


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## grendel111111

Why not just roll for the thing that is in question? As DM you have decided that the characters must get to the top of the mountain/ basket ball game/ get through the door.

Top of the mountain. - if you fail a climbing check you get to the top but drop an item on the way......vs......It takes a while to get to the top but you struggle through and finally reach the top, However there is a chance you dropped an item out of your pack on the way (make a not losing stuff/ Did I pack real good?) roll. Cedric you are OCD so you have advantage on the Int (survival) roll, as you would have packed real good.

Rolling for picking a lock; it's an old lock but very pickable, you will pick it if you have the tools and time, so you are really rolling to see how long it will take (and thus how many wandering monster rolls will be made, or how quietly you manage to open it if this is the goal you stated (open it quietly) or stealth at disadvantage if they didn't specify being quite or they were in a hurry. We know you will pick the lock so either roll lock picking to determine how much time it takes (degrees of success) or roll stealth to see if you can do it without drawing attention. Rolling lock picking to see if a trap will suddenly appear in the lock doesn't make so much sense

 You can then take factors that would really affect what you are rolling for into account. Instead of your proficiency in climbing determining how well you packed your bags in the morning, it's your survival (packing skills) that are in question.

But what it really come down to is where are you placing the focus of the game (more narrative, more simulation, clear goal, wandering dungeon bashes, cause and effect rolls vs, more story driven interpretations of rolls). The key thing being of cause that different styles use different tools and none are really right or wrong.


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## Maxperson

iserith said:


> But neither the player or character did succeed as was intended. If I want to achieve X, but instead achieve X plus it costs me Y or tacks on Z complication, that's a failure to get what I wanted. I didn't want Y or Z. Y and Z suck (for the character).




But they did succeed at getting to the top of the mountain.  It may be a lesser success, but it's still a success.  

5e has two RAW possibilities when a roll is failed.  Total failure, or not at all a success, but you still make some progress.  Getting to the top of the hill without the rod isn't just "some progress."  The climb has ended and you have succeeded.  The rules don't allow you to succeed with a cost, they only allow some progress with a cost.


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## iserith

grendel111111 said:


> Why not just roll for the thing that is in question?




That is what's happening. As I said, it's just stake-setting.



Maxperson said:


> But they did succeed at getting to the top of the mountain.  It may be a lesser success, but it's still a success.
> 
> 5e has two RAW possibilities when a roll is failed.  Total failure, or not at all a success, but you still make some progress.  Getting to the top of the hill without the rod isn't just "some progress."  The climb has ended and you have succeeded.  The rules don't allow you to succeed with a cost, they only allow some progress with a cost.




Wanting X and getting X plus Y or Z is a failure to get X as intended.

If the Cult of RAW doesn't recognize the validity of "progress combined with a setback" as allowing a character to achieve X with a undesirable cost or complication attached (undesirable to the character if not the player), then you can always just reference the DMG, "Success at a Cost" or "Degrees of Failure" rules. But I still see this as semantic quibbling when the intent of the Basic Rules is clear. And in the case of D&D, the DM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions. The rules also serve the DM, not the other way around. Those two things are rules, too. I can play the RAW game to justify what I advocate, but do we really need to?


----------



## Maxperson

iserith said:


> If the Cult of RAW doesn't recognize the validity of "progress combined with a setback" as allowing a character to achieve X with a undesirable cost or complication attached (undesirable to the character if not the player), then you can always just reference the DMG, "Success at a Cost" or "Degrees of Failure" rules. But I still see this as semantic quibbling when the intent of the Basic Rules is clear. And in the case of D&D, the DM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions. The rules also serve the DM, not the other way around. Those two things are rules, too. I can play the RAW game to justify what I advocate, but do we really need to?



If someone is trying to climb to the top of the mountain with the rod and they fail the roll and end up at the top without the roll, what progress is being made?  The trip is done.  There's nothing left to do regarding the climb, so you haven't progressed towards your goal.  The goal is over.  You've succeeded in getting to the top.

Edit: I also think you're looking at the goal incorrectly.  The goal of getting to the top safely is a two part goal.  Get to the top AND safely.  Failing at one part of that goal doesn't mean that getting to the top still isn't a success at the other part.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> There is no specific level for me... it very much depends on the abstraction level of the game I have agreed to play.  If your basketball game has a simple mechanic in which the entire success or failure of the game is decided by a coin toss and I have agreed to play... well that is all I need.  However if your system has the granularity of attribute/skill scores & checks and through an unrelated skill check you have decided I was not smart enough (Int) to remember to tie my bag down properly, or too clumsy (Dex) to hold onto my divining rod, or so weak (Str) that it was pulled from my grasp without us finding that out through the mechanics then yes I feel like you are treading on my agency in that particular game.  Same with a trap that says I must step in a specific space to activate it (and movement is tracked on a granular enough level to determine if I did) but because I failed a search check (regardless of whether I specifically moved into said area or not)... I must have stepped right on it.




This is easily the most headway you and I have ever made in understanding our disagreements.  I'm surprised this isn't getting more traction.  To clarify a bit further, let us start with 13th Age:

1)  PC Build includes attributes, but no granular, codified skills.

2)  PC Build includes story-based, abstract backgrounds that can be applied (pending whatever credibility test the table established and subject to GM veto) to a relevant action declaration during non-combat conflict resolution. 

3)  *Explicit GM direction* in the rules text to:

3a)  Have players telegraph their intent to the GM

3b)  GMs use (i) that player intent and (ii) the fictional positioning (context of the established, tangible and intangible elements in the shared imaginary space with respect to one another) to generate fictional outcomes and change the present situation (post resolution), using "Fail Forward" based on (i) and (ii) should that outcome arise from the dice.

You're good with 13th Age (insofar as you're "good" with it), because of these aspects of the RPG.  Is that correct?


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## iserith

Maxperson said:


> If someone is trying to climb to the top of the mountain with the rod and they fail the roll and end up at the top without the roll, what progress is being made?  The trip is done.  There's nothing left to do regarding the climb, so you haven't progressed towards your goal.  The goal is over.  You've succeeded in getting to the top.




Progress toward what you wanted to achieve. You fell short because it cost you something you (or the character) did not intend to pay. I would say you're reading "progress" too literally in what appears to be an effort to undermine the legitimacy of the approach in D&D 5e. If that's what you're doing, why? If that's not what you're doing, why are we playing word games?


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## Maxperson

iserith said:


> Progress toward what you wanted to achieve. You fell short because it cost you something you (or the character) did not intend to pay. I would say you're reading "progress" too literally in what appears to be an effort to undermine the legitimacy of the approach in D&D 5e. If that's what you're doing, why? If that's not what you're doing, why are we playing word games?




I just edited this in to the last post.  Dang it for timing 

I also think you're looking at the goal incorrectly. The goal of getting to the top safely is a two part goal. Get to the top AND safely. Failing at one part of that goal doesn't mean that getting to the top still isn't a success at the other part.

I'm not reading progress too literally.  I'm reading progress for what it means.  Moving towards your goal, but not getting there.  If you have moved all the way, it's not progress.  That's completion.


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## iserith

Maxperson said:


> I just edited this in to the last post.  Dang it for timing
> 
> I also think you're looking at the goal incorrectly. The goal of getting to the top safely is a two part goal. Get to the top AND safely. Failing at one part of that goal doesn't mean that getting to the top still isn't a success at the other part.
> 
> I'm not reading progress too literally.  I'm reading progress for what it means.  Moving towards your goal, but not getting there.  If you have moved all the way, it's not progress.  That's completion.




Again, if my goal is to get X and I end up getting X plus an unwanted Y or Z, then I've made progress in getting X, but Y or Z is the setback and failure. I didn't get to the goal I wanted, but made progress toward it. And since we've gone back and forth on this point several times already to no avail, it's safe to say we won't come to agreement and can move on.


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## grendel111111

iserith said:


> That is what's happening. As I said, it's just stake-setting.




Really it is a question of where you are setting the stakes. In the climbing example you are setting the stakes as get to the top and have all your gear and ready to get going right away and having no other set backs. Anything less than they you would view as being a failure. And so you group all that under one "heading". Am I correct in this reading of what you are saying?

Having set those stakes you decide what failure will look like (in this case they make it but the lose an important item). All this is then put down to a climb roll because that was the "action" that was being taken by the character.

For me in the same situation it might well go the same most of the way. I "need" them to get to the top of the mountain and it seems climbing is the only possible way, so they have to succeed at climbing. So what are they risking to make a roll worth taking and not just state that they make it to the top? The thing that is at risk is that they might lose an important item. OK, that works fine. How do I know if they lose an important item during the climb? (For me) This is the point where the applicable skill or ability is determined. What are the stakes (Clearly not the climbing, but rather the not dropping anything) and what skill or abilities best reflect this stake?  So I would come up with a skill roll reflective of the actual thing that is going to change between a success or a fail. Did you properly secure everything before setting off seems like it would give a better indication of if you would lose something, rather than a climbing roll (given that the climb part will succeed independent of what he player rolls). So a survival roll (Int or Wis) modified by if the characters had taken time to secure their packs, any character traits that would effect the roll etc. As securing packs and preparedness are all part of survival. 
I think this would give a more accurate skill to consequence connection.
Why do you feel that a climb check would better reflect if someone drops something or not?


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## iserith

grendel111111 said:


> Really it is a question of where you are setting the stakes. In the climbing example you are setting the stakes as get to the top and have all your gear and ready to get going right away and having no other set backs. Anything less than they you would view as being a failure. And so you group all that under one "heading". Am I correct in this reading of what you are saying?
> 
> Having set those stakes you decide what failure will look like (in this case they make it but the lose an important item). All this is then put down to a climb roll because that was the "action" that was being taken by the character.
> 
> For me in the same situation it might well go the same most of the way. I "need" them to get to the top of the mountain and it seems climbing is the only possible way, so they have to succeed at climbing. So what are they risking to make a roll worth taking and not just state that they make it to the top? The thing that is at risk is that they might lose an important item. OK, that works fine. How do I know if they lose an important item during the climb? (For me) This is the point where the applicable skill or ability is determined. What are the stakes (Clearly not the climbing, but rather the not dropping anything) and what skill or abilities best reflect this stake?  So I would come up with a skill roll reflective of the actual thing that is going to change between a success or a fail. Did you properly secure everything before setting off seems like it would give a better indication of if you would lose something, rather than a climbing roll (given that the climb part will succeed independent of what he player rolls). So a survival roll (Int or Wis) modified by if the characters had taken time to secure their packs, any character traits that would effect the roll etc. As securing packs and preparedness are all part of survival.
> I think this would give a more accurate skill to consequence connection.
> Why do you feel that a climb check would better reflect if someone drops something or not?




I don't have any strong preference as to what check is used to resolve the uncertainty.


----------



## grendel111111

iserith said:


> I don't have any strong preference as to what check is used to resolve the uncertainty.





So you would be happy if we used (Cha) intimidation to scare the mountain into letting us climb without dropping anything?


----------



## iserith

grendel111111 said:


> So you would be happy if we used (Cha) intimidation to scare the mountain into letting us climb without dropping anything?




Assuming a regular old mountain, the approach (scare the mountain via intimidation) to this goal (climb the mountain without dropping anything) does not have an uncertain outcome, thus there would be no check.


----------



## grendel111111

iserith said:


> Assuming a regular old mountain, the approach (scare the mountain via intimidation) to this goal (climb the mountain without dropping anything) does not have an uncertain outcome, thus there would be no check.




So the check does matter and for you at least there needs to be some connection between the thing being affected and the check used. 
Can you see that for some people, they might like more of that connection than you prefer?
They might like the consequence to relate more directly to the skill being used than you like? 
(Both approaches being totally valid) 
Can you see why for some people the disconnect between a climb roll leading to dropping something is a leap too far for them?  
And why they might prefer a consequence that for them more meshed with failing to use the skill they were trying to use?


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## iserith

grendel111111 said:


> So the check does matter




The goal and approach offered by the player in the context of the fictional situation matters more to me. That is what the GM is judging. If I call for a "climb check" and the player says that it sounds more like a "survival check," I go with what the player wants, (edit: provided the player is acting in good faith). I'm determining whether there is uncertainty and what the stakes for success and failure are. The check just resolves that uncertainty and allows me to narrate the result. It's not important enough to me to debate which skill applies better.


----------



## innerdude

Lanefan said:


> But here we get back to the same argument as with Mt Pudding: can you in any way reach the top (i.e. succeed) on a failed roll in either system?  If yes, then "fail" is probably the wrong word to be using.




Just a thought on this, hopefully not too far off on a tangent --- A game's mechanics can definitely lean one way or the other to point out to players and GMs how binary or fluid "failure" should be.  

For example, I don't recall anywhere in the D&D 3.5 PHB or DMG there being references to non-binary failure. As in, "One failed check may not mean 'total failure,' it may merely mean a complication has arisen," etc. etc. 

Well, as a consequence, one of the things that happens when binary pass/fail is the default mode of resolution is _players start looking for ways to guarantee sucess_ when making checks. When hard failure is _failure_, you tend to find ways to alleviate that problem. 

As a result, in 3.x the only reliable indicator to a player that a character will succeed at a task is the bonus number associated to the relevant skill or check---the natural result being that players power-gamed the heck out of the skill system to increase the bonus numbers (further exacerbated by the fact that D&D has never really supported a "bell curve" model for probability).

To lead away from this kind of circular "system building," your system either needs to incorporate broader levels of competence across skills (this is Savage Worlds' approach, and I think 4e's as well), directly incorporate more granular levels of success/failure in resolution (Savage Worlds also does this to a small degree), or influence GMs to build granular success and failure into scene frames with codified scene-resolution mechanics (the obvious example being skill challenges in 4e).

Anyway, my real point is that "fail forward" mechanics are a "looped in" process that may have a number of general side effects on system development.

To @_*Lanefan*_'s point, how binary is that "failure" to climb the mountain?

Interestingly, 4e seems to at least unconsciously address this with skill challenges ---- Reading between the lines, the 4e skill challenge mechanics seem to be a clue to GMs that they should be very careful about using binary pass/fail situations for framed scenes, and do something more nuanced.


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## Maxperson

iserith said:


> Again, if my goal is to get X and I end up getting X plus an unwanted Y or Z, then I've made progress in getting X, but Y or Z is the setback and failure. I didn't get to the goal I wanted, but made progress toward it. And since we've gone back and forth on this point several times already to no avail, it's safe to say we won't come to agreement and can move on.




There are two goals in climbing.  The primary goal of getting to the top, and the secondary goal of avoiding bad things.  It's not one unified goal.  I'm okay with moving on, though


----------



## Lanefan

innerdude said:


> Just a thought on this, hopefully not too far off on a tangent --- A game's mechanics can definitely lean one way or the other to point out to players and GMs how binary or fluid "failure" should be.
> 
> For example, I don't recall anywhere in the D&D 3.5 PHB or DMG there being references to non-binary failure. As in, "One failed check may not mean 'total failure,' it may merely mean a complication has arisen," etc. etc.



It's not in 1e either that I know of.  Can't speak for 2e.



> Well, as a consequence, one of the things that happens when binary pass/fail is the default mode of resolution is _players start looking for ways to guarantee sucess_ when making checks. When hard failure is _failure_, you tend to find ways to alleviate that problem.
> 
> As a result, in 3.x the only reliable indicator to a player that a character will succeed at a task is the bonus number associated to the relevant skill or check---the natural result being that players power-gamed the heck out of the skill system to increase the bonus numbers (further exacerbated by the fact that D&D has never really supported a "bell curve" model for probability).



Interesting point, and quite right I think.  That said, a DM always has or had the ability to narrate the failure in myriad different ways, not all of which involve bad things happening to the PC but none of which involve actually succeeding...which is what I'm trying to preserve here.



> To lead away from this kind of circular "system building," your system either needs to incorporate broader levels of competence across skills (this is Savage Worlds' approach, and I think 4e's as well), directly incorporate more granular levels of success/failure in resolution (Savage Worlds also does this to a small degree), or influence GMs to build granular success and failure into scene frames with codified scene-resolution mechanics (the obvious example being skill challenges in 4e).
> 
> Anyway, my real point is that "fail forward" mechanics are a "looped in" process that may have a number of general side effects on system development.
> 
> To @_*Lanefan*_'s point, how binary is that "failure" to climb the mountain?
> 
> Interestingly, 4e seems to at least unconsciously address this with skill challenges ---- Reading between the lines, the 4e skill challenge mechanics seem to be a clue to GMs that they should be very careful about using binary pass/fail situations for framed scenes, and do something more nuanced.



To me the only "binary" bit is that a fail means you don't get to the top.  Everything else that may have happened as a result of the fail can be determined either by DM narration, dice rolls, player narration, or some combination of all those things and others.

Let's use another example, one where something like 4e's skill challenge mechanic would seem to work quite well: finding your way through a trackless forest.  Here, a binary pass-fail would give two possible results: you get where you're going, or you're lost.  A more flexible pass-fail (where "pass" still means you get where you're going) could have a fail mean one or more of:
 - you find something else of interest instead which diverts your attention
 - you don't reach your intended destination but have found a hilltop with a view and can see which way you need to go
 - you encounter someone or something in the forest that you maybe didn't want to
 - you encounter someone or something in the forest that you ultimately did want to
 - your party somehow got split up and now can't find each other, never mind the destination
 - you're going the right way but you took too long and darkness fell

All of these except the last one provide either more story options or a new challenge for the party, or both; and advising DMs to keep this sort of thing in mind is very worthwhile.  That said, none of them sees you get where you were originally going...which is my point.

Another way of looking at it is that in the Mt Pudding example the DM moves the goalposts when narrating the failure: the roll is to succeed at the goal of climbing the mountain but the narration says you failed at holding on to your gear; and these ain't the same thing.  

Lanefan


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## Umbran

grendel111111 said:


> So you would be happy if we used (Cha) intimidation to scare the mountain into letting us climb without dropping anything?




_Reductio ad absurdum_ has the tendency of backfiring when you look more like you are trying to be difficult than you are trying to get at something substantive.  Wriggling your way into a corner case of absolute logic that a casual discussion didn't deal with explicitly does not mean the opponent needs to throw their hands in the air and accept you are correct.

Which is to say - in a discussion of good faith, trying to be reasonable is preferable to 'gotchas'.  Leave room for colloquial use of language, please and thanks.


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## grendel111111

Umbran said:


> _Reductio ad absurdum_ has the tendency of backfiring when you look more like you are trying to be difficult than you are trying to get at something substantive.  Wriggling your way into a corner case of absolute logic that a casual discussion didn't deal with explicitly does not mean the opponent needs to throw their hands in the air and accept you are correct.
> 
> Which is to say - in a discussion of good faith, trying to be reasonable is preferable to 'gotchas'.  Leave room for colloquial use of language, please and thanks.




Where I was going with it (before I got distracted and forgot to get back to it) was that I could see someone deciding to use Cha for a climbing check if it was described right and this is due to using the right ability for what is being described as the stakes. 
So the characters are going up the mountain. If the goal is to get to the top - climbing check. 
If the goal is to get to the top without losing an important item (getting to the top is not in question) - survival check (packing skills). 
If the goal it to get to the top quickly before your objective gets beyond your grasp - so they decide to hire a guide (getting to the top is not in question, just time). The quality of the guide you track down and persuade to take you is the thing that is being checked (Cha)Persuasion, modified by local contacts etc. 
The point was that Cha could be a valid thing to roll for a climb check if it matched what was at risk for failure of the roll.

For me matching the ability to the outcome or results of the action is far more important than to matching it to the action being done.

For example: if the characters are crossing a river and the DM decides that a failed swim roll Str(Athletics) results in being attacked by a crocodile. 
The disconnect of failure to swim = attacked I find irritating. 
If there is a chance that anyone swimming might be attacked by a crocodile, then someone who is stronger shouldn't have less chance of being attacked by the crocodile. 
However a survival roll before going would alert them to the danger, and they might choose a different course of action.

What I could see in this situation would be a failed swim roll causes you to be in the water for longer. increasing the chance of being attacked. 
Those who make their swim check are attacked on 1-2 on a d20. those who failed will be attacked on a 1-4.
While the difference is subtle in the first example the failed swim "causes" the crocodile to attack. In the second the swim check means they are in the water longer thus increasing the danger.

It is a similar situation when someone is picking a lock and the "fail forward" it that they open the lock but a wandering monster comes along. I am much happier with it taking a long time and so more checks for wandering monsters are made, as the failed roll result in it taking longer, not in making a monster appear.

It wasn't trying to gottcha anyone, I was trying to show that different people need different levels of connectedness between the rolls being made and the results in generates. I like a high level of connectedness, other like less. Neither is wrong (just preference).


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## Umbran

grendel111111 said:


> Where I was going with it (before I got distracted and forgot to get back to it) was that I could see someone deciding to use Cha for a climbing check if it was described right and this is due to using the right ability for what is being described as the stakes.
> So the characters are going up the mountain. If the goal is to get to the top - climbing check.
> If the goal is to get to the top without losing an important item (getting to the top is not in question) - survival check (packing skills).
> If the goal it to get to the top quickly before your objective gets beyond your grasp - so they decide to hire a guide (getting to the top is not in question, just time). The quality of the guide you track down and persuade to take you is the thing that is being checked (Cha)Persuasion, modified by local contacts etc.
> The point was that Cha could be a valid thing to roll for a climb check if it matched what was at risk for failure of the roll.




Ah.  I'd instead say that Cha is a valid thing to roll to find a guide who could help you get to the top, not that Cha was appropriate for a climbing check.  Remember that there are systems that allow you to do odd pairings of skill and stat (so, you might use INT + Climbing when asked what you know about the technical aspects of climbing).  If you are making a Persuasion roll, you aren't using Climbing skill, so it isn't a Climbing check, you see.

Unless, of course, you're playing in a game in which spirits of the land/mountain may be invoked, in which case Cha may well be right for a climbing check


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## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> Ah.  I'd instead say that Cha is a valid thing to roll to find a guide who could help you get to the top, not that Cha was appropriate for a climbing check.  Remember that there are systems that allow you to do odd pairings of skill and stat (so, you might use INT + Climbing when asked what you know about the technical aspects of climbing).  If you are making a Persuasion roll, you aren't using Climbing skill, so it isn't a Climbing check, you see.
> 
> Unless, of course, you're playing in a game in which spirits of the land/mountain may be invoked, in which case Cha may well be right for a climbing check




I agree.  I had a thought along the Cha check lines and I'm not sure of how I'd handle it, so I thought I'd ask.  What if you were climbing the mountain and there were onlookers and you wanted to climb with flair and with the goal of impressing the onlookers.  Would Cha be appropriate then?


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## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> I agree.  I had a thought along the Cha check lines and I'm not sure of how I'd handle it, so I thought I'd ask.  What if you were climbing the mountain and there were onlookers and you wanted to climb with flair and with the goal of impressing the onlookers.  Would Cha be appropriate then?




I think we need to be careful of compound goals: of the form get to the top *AND* thisotherthing.   Usually, I think one should only be able to accomplish one major goal for one check.  If you want to achieve multiple goals, that probably means multiple checks.

If the character wants to climb a technically easy stretch of mountain, in view of onlookers, and impress them, sure, Charisma could be important then - because what they want is a performance.  If the character wants to get to the top of K2 or Everest - a climb that will kill people who are not entirely focused on the technical aspects of the climb - then I don't think it would be appropriate.  

Which is to say, I suppose, the player doesn't necessarily get to set all the stakes all the time.  It is okay if the GM says that for certain goals, some stakes are not avoidable.


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## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> I think we need to be careful of compound goals:  get to the top *AND* thisotherthing.   Usually, I think one should only be able to accomplish one major goal for one check.
> 
> If the character wants to climb a technically easy stretch of mountain, in view of onlookers, and impress them, sure, Charisma could be important then - because what they want is a performance.  If the character wants to get to the top of K2 or Everest - a climb that will kill people who are not entirely focused on the technical aspects of the climb - then I don't think it would be appropriate.
> 
> Which is to say, I suppose, the player doesn't necessarily get to set all the stakes all the time.  It is okay if the GM says that for certain goals, some stakes are not avoidable.




Okay.  People can be reckless, though, and we read about them dying all the time.  However, sometimes they succeed at their foolish endeavors.  

I have been giving this some thought while waiting for your reply.  A PC wants to make a hard climb like Everest and look flashy doing it.  What if we did something like this?  The PC has a Dex bonus of 4 and a climb proficiency bonus of 2.  He has a cha bonus of 2.  I was thinking we could add them together and divide by 2, rounding down.  So this PC would go from +6 to +4 and take a hit on skill, but look good making the climb if successful.

What do you think?


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## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> I have been giving this some thought while waiting for your reply.  A PC wants to make a hard climb like Everest and look flashy doing it.  What if we did something like this?  The PC has a Dex bonus of 4 and a climb proficiency bonus of 2.  He has a cha bonus of 2.  I was thinking we could add them together and divide by 2, rounding down.  So this PC would go from +6 to +4 and take a hit on skill, but look good making the climb if successful.
> 
> What do you think?




I think I want to ask - who the heck is watching up at the top of the climb, that we need to use this construction?  Not to mean that we need to dig into this particular example, but that the devil is in the details, and sometimes exploring the details will give us a better answer.

I suppose that your construction is as good as most others we'd find for the situation.  Fine for a quick and dirty way to keep things moving.  But it does have an edge-case flaw if made into a general table-rule policy.  Consider the following:

A PC wants to make a hard climb like Everest.  The PC has a Dex bonus of 0 and a climb proficiency bonus of 2.  He has a Cha bonus of 4.  The player then realizes that they are better at "get to the top flashy" than they are at "just get to the top", which doesn't make a whole lot of sense - taking showy risks for the folks in the penny seats should not make the tough climb more likely to succeed!  The construction allows the player to substitute Charisma (or whatever happens to be a high stat for them) into just about anything to improve their chances, which isn't appropriate.  A clever player now tries to find ways for their fighter to apply Strength to crossword puzzles?  Probably not where this was intended to go.

This is why I say the GM should also have some say in the stakes - editorial or veto power, if you will, to keep the efforts sensible.  

In the Fail Forward scenario that spawned this... it is kind of overkill to go to such lengths.  If the player really doesn't want certain consequences, I'd just allow them to make a check.  Don't want to lose the Wand of Pudding Location on the way up?  Make a Survival check before you start.  If you make that check then, on the way up, if you fail a climb, I won't impose a "dropped the wand" consequence.  I'll think of something else, instead, that is consistent with the preparations the players took.  Because, really, the players won't be able to think of *everything* - there's always a consequence the GM can add.


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## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> I think I want to ask - who the heck is watching up at the top of the climb, that we need to use this construction?  Not to mean that we need to dig into this particular example, but that the devil is in the details, and sometimes exploring the details will give us a better answer.
> 
> I suppose that your construction is as good as most others we'd find for the situation.  Fine for a quick and dirty way to keep things moving.  But it does have an edge-case flaw if made into a general table-rule policy.  Consider the following:




I can see corner case situations where this would come up.  Trying to get the "Sherpa" type tribe to lead you to their holy place so you can accomplish part of the quest, but first you have to prove yourself in a climb while the tribal elders watch and judge you, or a contest as part of a winter festival where everyone from the local town and the surrounding 5 villages come out to watch the climbers race for the gold at the top.  In those situations, a PC might want to look cool while climbing.



> A PC wants to make a hard climb like Everest.  The PC has a Dex bonus of 0 and a climb proficiency bonus of 2.  He has a Cha bonus of 4.  The player then realizes that they are better at "get to the top flashy" than they are at "just get to the top", which doesn't make a whole lot of sense - taking showy risks for the folks in the penny seats should not make the tough climb more likely to succeed!  The construction allows the player to substitute Charisma (or whatever happens to be a high stat for them) into just about anything to improve their chances, which isn't appropriate.  A clever player now tries to find ways for their fighter to apply Strength to crossword puzzles?  Probably not where this was intended to go.
> 
> This is why I say the GM should also have some say in the stakes - editorial or veto power, if you will, to keep the efforts sensible.




I absolutely agree that the DM should have editorial and/or veto power in cases such as that.  Also, the method I came up with on the fly also punishes the skilled.  Someone with 4 climb and 4 charisma will still climb at 4, while someone with a 6 climb and 4 charisma will be penalized.  Given what you said and that scenario, I think that using the amount of charisma used as a negative modifier makes more sense.  

If the 4 climb PC wants to use 4 charisma, he's going to look REALLY good with that 0 climb bonus.  However, he could decide to only use 2 points of charisma and be climbing with a +2, but not look as flashy doing so.  



> In the Fail Forward scenario that spawned this... it is kind of overkill to go to such lengths.  If the player really doesn't want certain consequences, I'd just allow them to make a check.  Don't want to lose the Wand of Pudding Location on the way up?  Make a Survival check before you start.  If you make that check then, on the way up, if you fail a climb, I won't impose a "dropped the wand" consequence.  I'll think of something else, instead, that is consistent with the preparations the players took.  Because, really, the players won't be able to think of *everything* - there's always a consequence the GM can add.




I agree that there is always a consequence that can be added, though I still don't think that the result should also include success at getting to the top of the mountain.


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## Manbearcat

I don't have time for my own personal commentary or to address specific facets of specific posts that I would like.  However, here is a link to a blog post on Dungeon World's failure that is apropos.  I'm going to include some of the relevant bits below.



> I read an article about emergency treatment that totally changed how I look at failure from a narrative point of view. *Serious complications are unavoidable* in a hospital situation, but some hospitals keep more patients alive despite this. The key to their success is in how they quickly rescue patents when things go wrong. As the author put it the only failure is a failure to rescue.
> 
> This concept is great for gaming because it *allows for bad things that aren’t direct “action failure” (ie. nullifying what you were trying to do), and brings a “raising the stakes” mentality to the table*. Things are going to go wrong. If they don’t, the story we’re telling will sound like a boring Mary Sue fan fiction about how our awesome characters are all awesome and waltz in and win while everything is perfect.
> 
> *When things go wrong, they’re not always predictable, preventable, or even directly related to what you were attempting.* You may have stabbed the dire lion exactly how you wanted to, but in the process you also stumbled on her den so now she’s enraged because you’re between her and her cubs!
> 
> *Acknowledging that tactical complications can be tangential means a “bad” result doesn’t need to block your original actions. *This gives you more interesting ways to interact and engage with the in-game world, while leaving the system free to make more nuanced decisions about how success and failure work.


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## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> I agree that there is always a consequence that can be added, though I still don't think that the result should also include success at getting to the top of the mountain.




Well, then don't do it, and avoid systems that have 'success, but at a cost' in their mechanics.


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## nomotog

I love the idea of fail forward systems. They help the story flow forward. The annoying bit is that your can't always match up logical disadvantages with the action. You often have to make up your own on the spot and that can feel a little random if handled poorly. Like I recall one zombie game that had a system were the environment could get more or less deadly based on your actions. Like if you made a lot of noise the danger level would go up and that could attract more zombies to you. It made sense you know zombies are drawn to noise, but high danger level could also do things like summon bad weather or make your missions take place at night. Trying to logic out that didn't make as much sense, but the trade off was you had a lot more verity in danger results. (I am still conflicted on if it's a fair trade.)


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## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> Well, then don't do it, and avoid systems that have 'success, but at a cost' in their mechanics.




Nah.  No need to avoid systems like that.  It's an easy change to make.  If I avoided RPGs that have systems that I don't like, I'd never be able to play an RPG.


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## grendel111111

Umbran said:


> Ah.  I'd instead say that Cha is a valid thing to roll to find a guide who could help you get to the top, not that Cha was appropriate for a climbing check.  Remember that there are systems that allow you to do odd pairings of skill and stat (so, you might use INT + Climbing when asked what you know about the technical aspects of climbing).  If you are making a Persuasion roll, you aren't using Climbing skill, so it isn't a Climbing check, you see.
> 
> Unless, of course, you're playing in a game in which spirits of the land/mountain may be invoked, in which case Cha may well be right for a climbing check





That is true, but if the climbing part is not in anyway involved (No matter what you roll you will get to the top) Is climbing skill in anyway needed? Shouldn't you roll on a skill that matches what the failure might be?


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## grendel111111

Manbearcat said:


> I don't have time for my own personal commentary or to address specific facets of specific posts that I would like.  However, here is a link to a blog post on Dungeon World's failure that is apropos.  I'm going to include some of the relevant bits below.




(for some reason this part did not copy:
I read an article about emergency treatment that totally changed how I look at failure from a narrative point of view. *Serious complications are unavoidable in a hospital situation, but some hospitals keep more patients alive despite this. The key to their success is in how they quickly rescue patents when things go wrong. As the author put it the only failure is a failure to rescue.
*

And this works well in Dungeon world or similar games. It matches the degree of focus that they are trying to achieve with their system. If you want to try and mimic similar in D and D you can, but the more you do the better off you are just using dungeon world because it is a better match.

I voted for I like it but only in certain situations because many of the Fail forward results don't follow.

We are partly limited by the degree of focus that the game puts on each action.
In the above hospital situation they are talking about medical complications..... the surgeon encountered something unexpected that hadn't shown up on a scan, a cut was made too deeply, etc. All of those things are included in the 1 medicine check in D and D. And they are all related to your medical skill. Other wise you would need to do the operation step by step. (Oh you cut an vein, roll medical to clamp it. His heart stopped, roll Str (medical) to keep his heart pumping while you finish the operation). Instead it is all put into 1 roll for the operation.

So if the DM decides that it is essential the operation is successful for the "story" so why roll for it? 
(For me) The fail forward should be something medical if you are rolling medicine. Maybe a sponge was left in the patient, so they later develop a fever, etc.

But if you decide that on a failed medicine roll, then the patients family turns up and demands that the operation stop for religious reasons there is no link between the skill and the result. The family would turn up independent of the doctor skill. They would turn up if a good doctor was working on the patient or if an OK doctor was working on the patient. The doctors skills in no way affect the chances of the family turning up. So either it is so interesting that it happens anyway, or assign a random chance of it happening independent of what is happening in the operation.


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## grendel111111

nomotog said:


> I love the idea of fail forward systems. They help the story flow forward. The annoying bit is that your can't always match up logical disadvantages with the action. You often have to make up your own on the spot and that can feel a little random if handled poorly. Like I recall one zombie game that had a system were the environment could get more or less deadly based on your actions. Like if you made a lot of noise the danger level would go up and that could attract more zombies to you. It made sense you know zombies are drawn to noise, but high danger level could also do things like summon bad weather or make your missions take place at night. Trying to logic out that didn't make as much sense, but the trade off was you had a lot more verity in danger results. (I am still conflicted on if it's a fair trade.)




I agree with this. Tying unrelated events to a skill makes it too disjointed for me. 
In picking a lock a fail resulting in broken tools or alerting the rooms occupants is a logical follow on from failing to pick a lock (you used too much force, dropped you tools, etc.) but a failure that let you "open the door, but it starts raining" (somehow if you were better at picking locks you could have controlled the weather) is a step to far for me.


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## Janx

grendel111111 said:


> I agree with this. Tying unrelated events to a skill makes it too disjointed for me.
> In picking a lock a fail resulting in broken tools or alerting the rooms occupants is a logical follow on from failing to pick a lock (you used too much force, dropped you tools, etc.) but a failure that let you "open the door, but it starts raining" (somehow if you were better at picking locks you could have controlled the weather) is a step to far for me.




That's probably a GMing issue.  Initially, I cannot imagine deciding that because you failed the lock pick roll, it starts raining and the door opens.  I would suspect my first choices of what the failure would mean, would relate to the act of lock picking and your equipment, body, etc.  Perhaps the pick breaks, jamming your finger for 1 HP.  Which causes you to yelp, which a monster on the other side hears and opens the door to investigate (thereby solving the locked door problem, but destroying the element of surprise for the PC.


----------



## nomotog

grendel111111 said:


> I agree with this. Tying unrelated events to a skill makes it too disjointed for me.
> In picking a lock a fail resulting in broken tools or alerting the rooms occupants is a logical follow on from failing to pick a lock (you used too much force, dropped you tools, etc.) but a failure that let you "open the door, but it starts raining" (somehow if you were better at picking locks you could have controlled the weather) is a step to far for me.




I am not 100% sure about either version. I mean if you think about it, then you can kind of justify the logic. "It took you longer then you expected and the rain started." (You could also foreshadow something like that letting the players know a storm is coming and that they need to move fast to avoid it.) It also gives you a lot more wrenches you can throw. If all you can do is brake tools and alert guards, then that is going to get old faster then you think. Rain is a more interesting wrinkle then a broken lock-pick.


----------



## grendel111111

nomotog said:


> I am not 100% sure about either version. I mean if you think about it, then you can kind of justify the logic. "It took you longer then you expected and the rain started." (You could also foreshadow something like that letting the players know a storm is coming and that they need to move fast to avoid it.) It also gives you a lot more wrenches you can throw. If all you can do is brake tools and alert guards, then that is going to get old faster then you think. Rain is a more interesting wrinkle then a broken lock-pick.




But it rains on the skilled and unskilled alike. If it is going to rain then your lack of skill isn't going to cause it to happen. then it becomes to different things unrelated to you picking the lock (that has been decided already that yes you do). Does it rain? not in any way affected by your lock picking (but maybe due to time). 
So I could see the rain approaching and you feel drops on your face, make a lock picking roll, If you make the roll you get through the door just before the down pour begins and have slightly damp clothes. Fail and you are caught in the down pour and are drenched (torches go out, supplies are ruined, maybe a light acid effect). The difference then is did you get inside before the rain hit (the rain is still falling irrespective of if you are inside or outside). Rather than if you make your roll you get through the door and it isn't raining but if you fail you get through the door but it starts raining. 
I know it is subtle and I suspect it is partly dependent on if you see the narrative being the most important force in the game or having a consistent world being more important.


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## billd91

nomotog said:


> Rain is a more interesting wrinkle then a broken lock-pick.




Depends on your definition of interesting. Personally, I don't consider a vexed, WTF feeling to be interesting.


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## nomotog

billd91 said:


> Depends on your definition of interesting. Personally, I don't consider a vexed, WTF feeling to be interesting.



Well I mean rain introduces a more diverse set of changes. If your picking a lock and brake your pick, well you can't pick other locks. Meanwhile rain dose a lot. You have all kinds of penalties in it, some bonuses attached to it.

Though the general idea wasn't bad lockpicks cause rain, it more that the failure penalty doesn't have to be instant and directly related to the action. That opens up a lot of options to the GM to use.

Actually you can make things more nebulous. Like if we jump back to the zombie game. Making noise didn't summon zombies. It raised the danger level. It didn't have any concrete and direct results. You knew was going to lead to something bad, but you didn't know how it would come around to bite you. It was like a chaos theory or karma thing.

Now this thought is kind of unrelated to the idea of direct connecting. With fail forward, you want to take care to make sure that things move forward. You need to add choices not just take them away. (One of the reason broken tools doesn't work as well.) Jumping back to the zombie game. I toyed with a scavenging system were you always found what you were looking for. (If it was possible.) If you failed, you had to roll an extra 1d6 and that added buts to what you found. Like you found what you wanted, but someone else already looted it, you found what you wanted but it's inside a safe, you found what you needed, but it's not exactly what you wanted (like you were looking for a gun and found a spear gun.) That last one was extra common because it fed into my crazy crafting idea.


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## grendel111111

nomotog said:


> Well I mean rain introduces a more diverse set of changes. If your picking a lock and brake your pick, well you can't pick other locks. Meanwhile rain dose a lot. You have all kinds of penalties in it, some bonuses attached to it.
> 
> Though the general idea wasn't bad lockpicks cause rain, it more that the failure penalty doesn't have to be instant and directly related to the action. That opens up a lot of options to the GM to use.
> 
> Actually you can make things more nebulous. Like if we jump back to the zombie game. Making noise didn't summon zombies. It raised the danger level. It didn't have any concrete and direct results. You knew was going to lead to something bad, but you didn't know how it would come around to bite you. It was like a chaos theory or karma thing.
> 
> Now this thought is kind of unrelated to the idea of direct connecting. With fail forward, you want to take care to make sure that things move forward. You need to add choices not just take them away. (One of the reason broken tools doesn't work as well.) Jumping back to the zombie game. I toyed with a scavenging system were you always found what you were looking for. (If it was possible.) If you failed, you had to roll an extra 1d6 and that added buts to what you found. Like you found what you wanted, but someone else already looted it, you found what you wanted but it's inside a safe, you found what you needed, but it's not exactly what you wanted (like you were looking for a gun and found a spear gun.) That last one was extra common because it fed into my crazy crafting idea.




Some games work well like this. I like the idea of a karma where failure gives the DM a chance to do something bad to you later. But it very much depends on the players buying into that style of game. Leverage works on that basis and does it very well, but the focus isn't on individual actions in the same way it is with D and D.

For me the failing point with the rain, isn't that the rain isn't interesting, because it clearly is... but it would be interesting if you lock pick successfully or not. 
I don't see the advantage of tying the chance of rain to the lock picking attempt. If the lock picking will happen anyway then the lock pick roll is not determining anything to do with the lock. So why would there be less chance of it raining if the rogue picks the lock rather than the barbarian. If you need a chance of the raining happening just pick a chance and roll.

nomotog what rule system were you using for the zombie game? (I'm looking for a system for an up coming game)


----------



## I'm A Banana

Neonchameleon said:
			
		

> If you are as single minded as Captain Ahab in catching your white wale and don't care what happens to your friends and comrades and the crew of your ship or how many of them die, then yes the prize is the only thing that matters. And the very lives of your friends and comrades don't.



We're moving the goalposts a bit, but since this better reflects actual play than "this mountain with one goal" or "this dungeon with one goal", I'll totally play with the field.  

Here, you've introduced multiple competing goals that cannot all be accomplished. Your character has a goal to protect their friends and comrades, and ALSO to get the coin at the top of Mt. Pudding. Choosing between competing goals is AWESOME. That wasn't an element of Mt. Pudding or the Dungeon with the BBEG and the Secret Door. But if Fail Forward means that you cannot do both A and B (get the coin at the top of Mt. Pudding and preserve the lives of your friends and comrades), my issues with it mostly evaporate, because there's still interesting choices about whether or not you want to do this. Fail the check, you can still get the coin, but some other goal you have is destroyed. 

What would be interesting for me is some advice on how to get PC's to declare goals like this (as explicitly as possible!), and how to mix them together into plots where they can't be accomplished at the same time. I don't know if that's Fail Forward, but it sounds meaty!  

The only issue there is that there's a lot of simplistic single-minded characters out there (most D&D characters I've seen, at least at the first few levels, only have a goal of "do this first adventure," and are still in the process of fleshing out their character motivations in more detail) - when the character IS Ahab, and their only goal IS the coin at the top of Mt. Pudding, there would seem to be no interesting choices to make. But I can see a lot to be gained from solving that problem by encouraging more varied and nuanced character goals. 



			
				Janx said:
			
		

> this part here doesn't map to reality. Thomas Edison once quipped that he had found a 1000 ways to not make a light bulb. Implying he had failed a lot.
> 
> Now from the scope of standing in a cocktail party with Thomas Edison, he clearly invented the lightbulb as we are all now toasting his accomplishment.
> 
> But in listening to his actual story about it, it wasn't "I got up, baked some thread and made a bulb and tried it, and it worked"
> 
> The stuff in the middle was really, "I started 3 years ago, tried this, then that, then this other thing. Got sidetracked by a hernia..."
> 
> As no plan survives contact with the enemy, no success is actually without failures along the way. If it doesn't kill you, you're still likely to keep going. Or not.



Edison was a notorious huckster, so it often pays to fact-check him. And like with Mt. Pudding, this depends on what one's goals are. Do we say Edison failed because he failed to make neon lights? Why do we say that James Bowman Lindsay was a "failure" in inventing the light bulb when he set out to do all he intended to do? 

To blow through the layers of analogy here, the ultimate point is that it requires some *resource* to be persistent, something you spend and that you can run out of. In Edison's case, this was money. In D&D's case, this is usually hit points. In the case of Fail Forward, it doesn't appear that the repeat attempt costs you anything of note (unless it requires the use of multiple competing goals as I point out above). 



			
				Janx said:
			
		

> To get up Mount Pudmore, there might be 20 sections to climb (as defined by the GM originally). Do you really want to play through 20 Climb rolls, where as you get higher, the only difference is that you'll take more falling damage if fail?
> 
> Sure, it simulates escalating stakes, but statistically, you are going to fail a roll at least once, and murphy's law says it won't be the first one for 1d6 damage. Let alone, it doesn't make for an interesting story or any variance in the situation. Bad design of the challenge to be sure. But FailForward hands us a tool to consider shaking things up.



There's no simulation goal here. It's fun to make interesting decisions, and if there's no true cost to failure, then there's no real decision to be made in the face of failure, which removes one of the interesting decisions I could make as a player. That's...not something I typically embrace. 



iserith said:


> Climbing the ravine on the way up Mt. Pudding _is _the complication and difficulty to overcome in this example.



Speaking from a player's perspective - I WANT complications and difficulty. So the incentives here seems screwy - if as a player I want complications and difficulty then...I want to fail checks? And make a broadly incompetent character? Because success isn't interesting? I don't think I've got that right...



> Let's not confuse the example again as I did upthread. The ravine is likely one of a number of challenges on the way to the peak of Mt. Pudding. I would add that rolling dice isn't typically to the player's benefit in a game where the GM decides on success, failure, or uncertainty. (The latter case is when we roll dice or otherwise resolve with some mechanic.) Hoping to get lucky with the dice isn't a good plan. Striving for outright success is better.



I'd continue to dispute that. It is _fun_ to roll the dice. Outright success is not inherently better in terms of the player's play experience, because not very interactive. There's no interesting decisions to make, no tension, no uncertainty, no release... That can introduce those screwy incentives - I can achieve outright success, but why would I WANT to, if my goal in play is to overcome challenges? Speaking in concrete terms, this is why "roll to hit with advantage" can be more fun than "you automatically hit" , and why it's fun to roll _fireball_ damage. To make the automatic success as fun to play through than dice rolling would essentially mean introducing puzzles, which is a very different kind of fun. 

...though now that I think of it, I wonder if "puzzle fun" (AKA: achievement) isn't the fun that advocates of Fail Forward tend to slightly prefer, over "dice fun" (AKA: excitement). In which case we may have a good ol' fashioned goal misalignment when it comes to using Fail Forward as a tool. 



> I think some more issues are getting muddled here. Of course difficulty is desirable - it's part of what makes a challenge satisfying. And being desirous of interesting success and failure conditions is good and I share that (again, that's just stake-setting which is all fail-forward is!), but as some have stated, they don't care if sometimes things turn out not to be so fun as long as the net fun over the long haul is positive.



My impression is that Fail Forward removes a potentially interesting failure condition ("you can't") intentionally, so that a momentum toward a goal is maintained. My preference is instead for that momentum to be questioned at every point, making that failure condition rather important to actually use, BECAUSE it disrupts that momentum. Which is why I can't say I'm a fan of Fail Forward as described by Mt. Pudding or the BBEG and the Secret Door (though as elaborated by the "Captain Ahab and the Coin at the Top of Mt. Pudding," with the addition of competing goals, it seems to develop a certain significant quality that turns the momentum itself into something that is costing you a limited resource).


----------



## nomotog

grendel111111 said:


> Some games work well like this. I like the idea of a karma where failure gives the DM a chance to do something bad to you later. But it very much depends on the players buying into that style of game. Leverage works on that basis and does it very well, but the focus isn't on individual actions in the same way it is with D and D.
> 
> For me the failing point with the rain, isn't that the rain isn't interesting, because it clearly is... but it would be interesting if you lock pick successfully or not.
> I don't see the advantage of tying the chance of rain to the lock picking attempt. If the lock picking will happen anyway then the lock pick roll is not determining anything to do with the lock. So why would there be less chance of it raining if the rogue picks the lock rather than the barbarian. If you need a chance of the raining happening just pick a chance and roll.




The thing about picking a lock is if you pass you progress, if you fail, then... Well most of the time nothing happens and you just try picking it again. Failing to pick a lock just stalls the game out. The idea with a fail forward system is to pull out these stall moments. The idea is to let a failure progress the game.

The rouge picks the lock faster. I mean odds are you have less chance of rain to start in one minute then in 12. You can make up reasons why this or that results in rain, but you are basically doing it after the fact. The real reason rain happens is because your pushing the players for not passing the skill check.

I kind of like the karma idea too because it's very broad. You don't need to think up new fail states for every action. You can use one fail state (losing karma) and have everything trigger that. An alternate version would be a stress system were every time you fail, you build up stress in kind of a inverse hp thing. Then you can make the "healing" of stress a narrative element.


----------



## iserith

I'm A Banana said:


> Speaking from a player's perspective - I WANT complications and difficulty. So the incentives here seems screwy - if as a player I want complications and difficulty then...I want to fail checks? And make a broadly incompetent character? Because success isn't interesting? I don't think I've got that right...




Again, climbing the ravine _is _the complication/difficulty along the way to your goal of finding the coin in the pudding or whatever.



I'm A Banana said:


> I'd continue to dispute that. It is _fun_ to roll the dice. Outright success is not inherently better in terms of the player's play experience, because not very interactive. There's no interesting decisions to make, no tension, no uncertainty, no release... That can introduce those screwy incentives - I can achieve outright success, but why would I WANT to, if my goal in play is to overcome challenges? Speaking in concrete terms, this is why "roll to hit with advantage" can be more fun than "you automatically hit" , and why it's fun to roll _fireball_ damage. To make the automatic success as fun to play through than dice rolling would essentially mean introducing puzzles, which is a very different kind of fun.
> 
> ...though now that I think of it, I wonder if "puzzle fun" (AKA: achievement) isn't the fun that advocates of Fail Forward tend to slightly prefer, over "dice fun" (AKA: excitement). In which case we may have a good ol' fashioned goal misalignment when it comes to using Fail Forward as a tool.




It may be fun to roll the dice, but it is not to the benefit of you achieving your characters' goals, generally speaking, because you are leaving your fate up to fickle dice. I'm not sure what you mean by "no interesting decisions to make," because the decisions you make during play either precede or obviate the dice. The dice just resolve the outcome of your decision when the outcome is uncertain. But again, if you can avoid leaving your fate to dice, that is the way to go in my view. I'd much rather automatically succeed in climbing that ravine because I made some solid decisions rather than roll.



I'm A Banana said:


> My impression is that Fail Forward removes a potentially interesting failure condition ("you can't") intentionally, so that a momentum toward a goal is maintained. My preference is instead for that momentum to be questioned at every point, making that failure condition rather important to actually use, BECAUSE it disrupts that momentum. Which is why I can't say I'm a fan of Fail Forward as described by Mt. Pudding or the BBEG and the Secret Door (though as elaborated by the "Captain Ahab and the Coin at the Top of Mt. Pudding," with the addition of competing goals, it seems to develop a certain significant quality that turns the momentum itself into something that is costing you a limited resource).




The ultimate goal is to find the coin in the pudding at the top of Mt. Pudding. Your achievement of that goal is made harder if not impossible by the fail-forward of "you lose your divining rod" upon failing to climb the ravine unscathed. So I would say that momentum toward your goal is in fact called into question. It also opens up a new decision point: Do I go commit resources to going down into the ravine to recover the rod or do I press on and have a harder time finding the coin when I summit the mountain?


----------



## Umbran

I'm A Banana said:


> What would be interesting for me is some advice on how to get PC's to declare goals like this (as explicitly as possible!), and how to mix them together into plots where they can't be accomplished at the same time. I don't know if that's Fail Forward, but it sounds meaty!




This is kind of separate from Fail Forward - might call for a separate thread.




> To blow through the layers of analogy here, the ultimate point is that it requires some *resource* to be persistent, something you spend and that you can run out of. In Edison's case, this was money. In D&D's case, this is usually hit points. In the case of Fail Forward, it doesn't appear that the repeat attempt costs you anything of note (unless it requires the use of multiple competing goals as I point out above).




Fail Forward only really comes into play when you'd be stalled on the failure.  If you can just try again, and trying again is not tedious for the player, there's no need for failing forward.  So, picking a lock is not a great example. 

We should not simply conflate Fail Forward with Success With Complications.  The former is a policy or mechanic designed to avoid stalling out play.  The latter can help achieve the former, but it also has other uses - the most prominent SWC mechanics I know of are in FATE and Cortex+.  And there, they do help Fail Forward.  But they *also* help create adventure content.  It allows the GM to start the game with only a small amount of preparation, because the act of playing will inject more content as matters progress.



> Speaking from a player's perspective - I WANT complications and difficulty. So the incentives here seems screwy - if as a player I want complications and difficulty then...I want to fail checks? And make a broadly incompetent character? Because success isn't interesting? I don't think I've got that right...




As a player, *you* may want complications and difficulty.  Not all players want them.  In addition, even you only want a few complication and difficulties.  The complications, done properly, make things harder, and/or add risk.  If you are broadly incompetent, there's a point where this becomes deadly.



> My impression is that Fail Forward removes a potentially interesting failure condition ("you can't") intentionally




No.  As noted above - Fail Forward is called for when the failure is *uninteresting*, and is apt to lead to a stall in play.



> so that a momentum toward a goal is maintained.




The, "toward a goal," is common, but not actually a requirement.  

Let's state it simply, because after so many pages of highfalutin lingo, we can lose sight of the point - for the player (not the character), playtime is limited, and spending hours of it sitting on your thumbs because you cannot figure out what to do next, or everything you do try brickwalls with flat "No," and, "You can't," is typically frustrating, not fun, and not a good use of player time.  Fail forward is intended to keep activity flowing so that frustration doesn't develop.

In improvisational theater, there's a technique often called, "Yes, and..."  The idea is that improv actors do not reject material their fellows introduce into the scenario.  

Fail Forward can be seen as a variation on that theme - "No, but..."  The GM avoids saying only "No," because that doesn't give the player anything to work with.  "No," is flat, uninteresting, and in and of itself adds nothing to the action.  "No," doesn't itself give players any choices or decisions to make.  If the GM says, "No," they can also hand the player something else to interact with.

There's actually a good reason for this - most GMs overestimate how many options they make clear to players.  GMs *think* they give plentiful, useful descriptions with lots of material for the players to pick up on, or that other options for action are obvious*.  Fail Forward admits this isn't the case - and makes sure the player has an explicit handle, here and now, on something that can be dealt with in a way that *something* happens, even if it isn't motion directly toward their intended goal.



> My preference is instead for that momentum to be questioned at every point , making that failure condition rather important to actually use, BECAUSE it disrupts that momentum.




If the momentum is questioned at every point, then it is at risk at every point.  The more points of risk you have, the less important any one of them is.  The more points of risk you have, the more certain it is that momentum will be lost.  How certain do you want  it to be?  

Note that momentum for the character and momentum for the player are not equivalent.  Fail Forward is about player momentum and engagement, not character momentum.






*GMs also tend to overestimate how much players will venture based on incomplete information.  Players typically like to have some sense that the action the intend is plausible.  There is one thing worse than having plausible actions fail on the die roll - having them shot down before the die roll because the GM and player didn't have a shared understanding of the situation.  Fail Forwards makes sure the GM hands them an element they can understand, here and now....


----------



## Cristian Andreu

I first read the title as "Falling Forward", and then wondered what could be so interesting -or contentious- about a PC tripping over as to warrant 40 pages of discussion.

Then I remembered we are in EN World and this is how we roll.

As for the topic, I like the concept in the manner Umbran describes it, working as a DM advice on how to deal with PC failure, rather than a specific mechanic.

I think it works well with a philosophy of _"Instead of putting the party inside a puzzle they have to solve, put them in a room full of stuff and watch them create the puzzle for you"_.


----------



## Balesir

Warning - long and rambling post trying to address far too much since I last caught up...



grendel111111 said:


> Tying unrelated events to a skill makes it too disjointed for me.
> In picking a lock a fail resulting in broken tools or alerting the rooms occupants is a logical follow on from failing to pick a lock (you used too much force, dropped you tools, etc.) but a failure that let you "open the door, but it starts raining" (somehow if you were better at picking locks you could have controlled the weather) is a step to far for me.



I understand this concern, but these days I tend to look at it a slightly different way.

Why might someone fail to pick a lock? The potential reasons are legion. They include failures of equipment, environmental factors, tiredness, lack of experience (a difficulty arises, for example, which they have never encountered before and have no plan for) or manual dexterity (simple klutzing), lack of time, don't happen to have the right tool, the lock is actually jammed and can't even be opened with a key, a disguise or illusion has misled them about the nature of the lock - the list goes on. Some of these reasons can be avoided with expertise and experience; with some the situation can be recovered with sufficient skill and experience - but with some it's just not a lack of skill that causes the failure.

In a typical roleplaying game system, *all* of these myriad possibilities are represented, if they are represented at all, by the roll of the dice. Particularly in a system like d20, all that a level of skill is doing - even quite a significant level of skill - is swaying the odds. A skill of 6 indicates that 30% of the time a circumstance that would cause an unskilled lockpicker to fail to pick the lock has either been avoided or the situation has been rescued by the skilled practitioner. That leaves 70% of the time when the outcome is essentially as it would have been for someone with no skill.

If the odd circumstances that either cause failure or accompany success are not incorporated in that die roll, where are they? What represents the guard coming round at the wrong moment? The slickness caused by rain causing the risk that the lockpick will slip out of your fingers? The probe snapping as it is used to turn over the tumbler? Picking interesting ones seems to me like a good alternative to havung a myriad rather dodgy tables.



I'm A Banana said:


> But the Mt. Pudding example doesn't really dispel my concerns over the idea as a player or as a DM. That example posits that the intent of retrieving the pudding is something that is not really changing. Thus, it is related to my description of Umbran's "finding the secret door to fight the BBEG" - a "bottleneck" in that play can functionally proceed in only one direction (or be bereft of interesting choices/stop while we wait for someone to make a check/etc.). Though events happen on the way, the action is driven inexorably toward the pudding/BBEG, and this is accepted by all players as basically the ride you're on.
> 
> For my enjoyment, it is better to be able to be able to raise the question: what happens if I don't get the pudding/fight the BBEG? What possible actions are capable of potentially changing my intent, to use Manbearcat's verbiage? What would make Bob not want the Pudding, or make the Pudding forever unavailable to Bob, and how would Bob react?
> 
> I like these questions because they produce interesting gameplay scenarios about character motivations - what do I want, what am I willing to do to get it, what happens if I can't get it - and leave the ultimate arc of the narrative in question (is this going to be a story where the hero does something heroic or a story where the hero fails to do something heroic?). Every challenge becomes a decision point - do I undertake this risk, or do I do something else? Do I want the pudding _that_ badly? Less "How do I get the pudding?" and more "Do I even _want_ to get the pudding?"



I think there may be two quite distinct cases being confused, here - and I am not sure which is being raised any more than Mr. Banana seems to.

Case 1: the goal - gaining the pudding, or whatever - is the character's current Dramatic Need, which is to say their reason for adventuring, their motivation for risking anything at this "hero" lark.

Case 2: the goal is a step that is the current easiest way to achieve progress towards the character's Dramatic Need, but is not the Need itself or essential to it.

 [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION] seems to identify this, with this bit:


I'm A Banana said:


> It's an old acting trick - what is your motivation and how is this scene building to it? The pudding isn't important, but the reason my character wants the pudding is *critical*. "Fail forward" seems a bit more concerned with the Adventure to Get The Pudding or the Quest to Slay the Evil Thing than it is with The Story of Bob (who might like pudding and hate evil), which weakens it as a role-playing tool, IMXP. At least if Umbran and Manbearcat present it fairly.



But I think the aim of Failing Forward is (for me, at least) misidentified, here.

If it's case 2 (just a step in the Story of Bob), then utter failure is not really a problem. There may still be some excitement in doing some stake escalation before ultimate success or failure is decided, which I think FF can handle just fine, but failure itself isn't really a big deal _*as long as another route to the Dramatic Need is clear to the player*_. I think [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] hit the nail, here. For there to be a story there must be an alternate way to the Dramatic Need available. The role of FF in this case is to provide that alternate if none otherwise exists.

Taking the example of the pudding; my initial conception of it was as follows:

- If Bob successfully climbs the mountain with the divining rod, finding the pudding will be automatic. The failure means that success _in the plan originally envisaged_ is no longer possible. Either going back down to retreive the rod (requiring another roll to climb) or continuing without the rod (and needing a roll to find the pudding) would be open as ways forward - but failure in either might mean final failure. These rolls might very well be harder than the original climb (due to time pressure, closing darkness, weather worsening or whatever). The tension is escalated and excitement in play increased, but ultimate failure is still possible.

If getting the pudding were the ONLY way for Bob's motivational need/reason for adventuring to be fulfilled, however, then I think the function of FF becomes quite different. In this case (case 1), the function of Fail Forward is *to make sure that there are alternatives visible to the player(s)*.

Now, maybe this has been taken care of beforehand. Maybe getting the dragon slaying sword is essential to slaying the dragon that threatens your family and all you love, but you fail to get it after learning that it was forged by the Dwarven smith Kalakul who was supposed to have retired to the Halls of Dvalinn on the Demiplane of Plothooktwo... But adding in the alternative before the initial option is failed can take away some of the tension from Option 1.

Depending crucially on the character's motivation, there may also be other obvious options. If the character's aim is actually to keep their loved ones safe, then maybe rescuing them before the dragon strikes is an obvious next step*. What I definitely want to avoid, however, is for the players to be casting around desperately for some half-arsed scheme, based on insufficient information, that they hope the GM will let them get away with out of sheer pity because they are, frankly, out of ideas.

*: You might say that some of the best parts of a story come when a character changes their dramatic need. Indeed, the case of switching from trying to kill the dragon to trying to rescue loved ones may look a bit like a case of this. My thoughts on this are twofold: (1) generally such plot twists are not really a change of motivation at all, simply that a means to achieve the real motivation was previously mistaken for the dramatic need itself, and (2) even in the extremely rare cases where there is a genuine change of dramatic need, it occurs no more than once in a story - and it is the crux of the tale if it happens at all. Mostly, though, it's (1); you may be trying to slay the dragon or get the pudding, but that's really just a means to the end of your ultimate goal. If you really do fail at your ultimate goal, it's generally Game Over (apart from a possible heroic death, possibly leading to a new story - cf. Darth Vader, although even there Anakin succeeded in saving his children, so maybe didn't ultimately fail at all?)

Which reminds me - creating a new villain out of a failure strikes me as a _great_ way to Fail Forward!


----------



## aramis erak

Morrus said:


> I was curious how folks felt about this concept?  I'm a fan.
> [snip]
> So what do you think?




Most of the people I see who dislike it also call it "using the wrong skill".

I like it plenty well. It solves the whole plot dead end. I don't always use it, because sometimes, you want a dead end...


----------



## grendel111111

aramis erak said:


> Most of the people I see who dislike it also call it "using the wrong skill".
> 
> I like it plenty well. It solves the whole plot dead end. I don't always use it, because sometimes, you want a dead end...




Likewise many people who like failing forward see everyone who dislikes it as not understanding it. "If they could just understand it they would love it like I do." And so they try and explain the way it works, missing the fact that some people may well understand it and still dislike it for a variety of reasons.

I like alternative fail conditions, but I also like a close match between mechanics and outcomes *in D and D* in other games it is less important. If the thing that is in doubt has nothing to do with the skill check being used, and there is a better skill or ability to check the outcome on, then yes I do think that the wrong skill has been chosen to model the situation.

But this is because I generally decide what the outcomes that will result from the dice are before rolling. If I call for a roll as a DM then I know what the pass and fail are going to roughly look like. If I call for a lock pick roll and then if they fail suddenly go "damn I wanted them to pass, what the hell should I do" Then I most likely wasn't ready for them to make that roll.
Instead I decide what the likely outcome of a fail is. If it is "that the door is is picked but it takes a long time or I damage something" that is still a lockpick roll. But if it's "was it quiet enough" then it is a stealth roll? 
I only call it using the wrong check if there is a better check to model the situation (and especially the possible outcomes).


----------



## aramis erak

grendel111111 said:


> Likewise many people who like failing forward see everyone who dislikes it as not understanding it. "If they could just understand it they would love it like I do." And so they try and explain the way it works, missing the fact that some people may well understand it and still dislike it for a variety of reasons.
> 
> I like alternative fail conditions, but I also like a close match between mechanics and outcomes *in D and D* in other games it is less important. If the thing that is in doubt has nothing to do with the skill check being used, and there is a better skill or ability to check the outcome on, then yes I do think that the wrong skill has been chosen to model the situation.
> 
> But this is because I generally decide what the outcomes that will result from the dice are before rolling. If I call for a roll as a DM then I know what the pass and fail are going to roughly look like. If I call for a lock pick roll and then if they fail suddenly go "damn I wanted them to pass, what the hell should I do" Then I most likely wasn't ready for them to make that roll.
> Instead I decide what the likely outcome of a fail is. If it is "that the door is is picked but it takes a long time or I damage something" that is still a lockpick roll. But if it's "was it quiet enough" then it is a stealth roll?
> I only call it using the wrong check if there is a better check to model the situation (and especially the possible outcomes).




The game from which I learned fail forward makes the failure known before rolling... Burning Empires.

BE's process:

Player states the goal, the method, and intended skill(s):
GM states difficulty and failure outcome:
Player can back out, or can assemble the dice pool.
Player rolls. GM and player narrate the outcome based upon the goal or failure.

I've used fail forward with D&D in limited cases. Mostly social situations.
Usually using 

DC made: get desired outcome
DC missed by ≤5: either increased demand for compensation or part of demands met
DC missed by >5: failed.
I've also used cases where failure merely wastes time and resources as:

DC Made: accomplish task
DC failed by ≤5: resources spent, next try gets DC-5
DC failed by >5: resources spent, project blown

Those are both types of fail forward that fit nicely in D&D (and are based upon tasks stated in HotDQ).


----------



## grendel111111

aramis erak said:


> The game from which I learned fail forward makes the failure known before rolling... Burning Empires.
> 
> BE's process:
> 
> Player states the goal, the method, and intended skill(s):
> GM states difficulty and failure outcome:
> Player can back out, or can assemble the dice pool.
> Player rolls. GM and player narrate the outcome based upon the goal or failure.
> 
> I've used fail forward with D&D in limited cases. Mostly social situations.
> Usually using
> 
> DC made: get desired outcome
> DC missed by ≤5: either increased demand for compensation or part of demands met
> DC missed by >5: failed.
> I've also used cases where failure merely wastes time and resources as:
> 
> DC Made: accomplish task
> DC failed by ≤5: resources spent, next try gets DC-5
> DC failed by >5: resources spent, project blown
> 
> Those are both types of fail forward that fit nicely in D&D (and are based upon tasks stated in HotDQ).





My original post didn't get posted it some how got lost in the sending and when I refreshed it was gone. So I wrote the post above. Unfortunately I missed a couple of things out in the repost. One was that I use it in D and D almost the same as you. I also gave  example of the lock picking fail forward. 
Instead of you pick the lock and fail: rather than you get through the door but now it is raining - "picking the lock is taking longer than you expected, you start to feel drops of rain on your face as you work. You're sure you can get this lock open in another minute, but the rain is quickly picking up".

Likewise for a patrol the lock is taking a long time and you hear footsteps coming your way. 

It gives the players the chance to choose "I'll accept the fail and find another way past the obstruction", "I abandon picking the lock and get the barbarian to kick the door in", or "I'll take the fail forward with the risks involved". 

I think this takes it away from being a DM decision and puts in back in the hand of the players to decide if the risk is worth it.

I also think it is important to only use it sometimes so the players don't end up expecting or relying on always having a fail forward.


----------



## pemerton

I'm A Banana said:


> What would be interesting for me is some advice on how to get PC's to declare goals like this (as explicitly as possible!), and how to mix them together into plots where they can't be accomplished at the same time. I don't know if that's Fail Forward, but it sounds meaty!



Most of Burning Wheel's GMing advice - for action resolution, for scene-framing, for backstory and campaign design - is aimed at this. It interacts with a PC build system that requires players to provide clear signals about goals for their PCs.

"Fail forward" is a fairly important element in this, because it is the narration of failure by the GM that introduces the additional content into the fictional situation that establishes the conflicts between a player's goals for his/her PC.

To give an actual play example, again from BW:

* The mage PC has three relevant goals: to _align with the other PCs_ so as _to free his brother from Balrog possession_, and also _to recover a nickel-silver mace from the ruins of his former tower_;

* The sorcerer/assassin/ranger PC has a goal to flay her former master and send his soul to Hell, in revenge for what he did to her - her former master happens to be the brother;

* The elven ronin PC has a goal to confront evil whether it resides in the hearts of orcs or humanity, and (as part of his backstory) wears a broken black arrow about his neck, the cursed arrow that slew his (former) master and mentor.​
The PCs arrive at the ruined tower in the Abor-Alz which, some 14 years ago, was the home of the PC mage and his brother, and which they abandoned when it was attacked by orcs and his brother became possessed by the Balrog when an attempt to cast a might combat spell failed. (This was backstory already established by the player of the mage, more-or-less from the beginning of the campaign.)

As already noted, the player of the mage wants to find the mace that he once forged but never successfully enchanted (further backstory established by the player a session or so beforehand, when he decided that a mace would be a good melee weapon for his PC.) So the PC encourages the elven ronin to search through the tower looking for the mace (the ronin being the only PC with Scavenging skill, which is the relevant skill in BW for this sort of thing).

The check is made, and fails. So I tell the players that the ronin searches through the ruins of the tower, but the only interesting thing that he finds is a stand of black arrows sitting in the ruins of what was, 14 years ago, the brother's workroom to which the PC mage was never admitted. When the PC mage uses Aura Reading to ascertain the nature of the arrows, I don't ask for a roll but simply tell him: the arrows are cursed with a penalty to recovery rolls from the injuries they cause which (for various system mechanical reasons) will be particularly harsh on elves.

The mace, of course, can't be found. Someone else must have already taken it. (In the next session it turned out that it had been taken by the dark elf who was trying to thwart the PCs.)

In narrating that failure for the Scavenging check, I achieve several things: I generated a very strong implication that the brother was evil _before_ being possessed by the Balrog; I established a clear connection between the elven ronin's backstory and the backstory of the other two PCs; and I made it hard if not impossible for the mage PC to ally with the other PCs to _save_ his brother. (In a subsequent session, there was in fact a Duel of Wits between the mage PC on one side and the sorcerer-assassin and elf PCs on the other side, in which the mage was persuaded to ally with them in tracking down his brother, but so that he could be killed - because he was clearly irredeemably evil.)

To say that, in this example, the failure at Scavenging wasn't really a failure because the PCs nevertheless recovered some potentially valuable magical items (four black arrows) would, I think, be completely misunderstanding the dynamics of play. To allude to the distinction that  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] drew in a post not too far upthread, it would be to focus entirely on _capabilities_ (in this case, how well equipped are the PCs) and not on _characters_ and their motivations and dramatic circumstances.



I'm A Banana said:


> IMy impression is that Fail Forward removes a potentially interesting failure condition ("you can't") intentionally, so that a momentum toward a goal is maintained.



Then you are under a false impression. What is maintained is not "momentum towards a goal". What is maintained is _momentum_, pure and simple.

Dropping the rod down the ravine doesn't maintain momentum towards the goal of recovering the pudding from the top of Mt Pudding. It impedes that goal, by making finding the pudding harder. But dropping the rod does maintain momentum, because it forces the player to make a choice for his/her PC which is - on the assumption that there is player buy-in in the first place - dramatically engaging. Namely, do I keep going up and try to secure the pudding without the benefit of a diving rod, or do I go and hunt for my rod but thereby delay my summiting of the mountain.

In my actual play example, finding black arrows rather than the mace doesn't maintain momentum towards the goal of recovering the mace. It significantly reduces that momentum. But it generates momentum in another direction, namely, bringing the potentially conflicting beliefs and goals of the PCs closer to a crisis point.



grendel111111 said:


> I also think it is important to only use it sometimes so the players don't end up expecting or relying on always having a fail forward.



My response to this is the same as to the previous quote from IAB. The only thing that "fail forward" allows players to rely on is that their PCs will always be confronted by interesting and engaging challenges. And that is something that I _do_ want the players in my game to expect. If I'm not delivering this, then I'm failing as a GM. (More on this below in this post.)


I'm A Banana said:


> In the case of Fail Forward, it doesn't appear that the repeat attempt costs you anything of note (unless it requires the use of multiple competing goals as I point out above).



This I don't follow. Putting to one side what exactly "repeat attempts" actually mean (given that systems which emphasis "fail forward" are also likely to use some version of Let It Ride, or scene-based resolution, which means that repeats aren't possible), every failure is costing something vital to the PC and his/her goals. (Eg - in  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example, the PC loses his/her pudding divining rod; in my actual play example, the PC loses not only the prospect of finding the mace in the tower, but also loses any immediate prospect of allying with the other PCs so as to save his brother from the Balrog. These are all costs of rather great note for that PC and that player.)

Note that this does not depend upon multiple competing goals, because the goals are only competing _as a result of the failure_. I think that that is clear in my actual play example. It's also clear in Manbearcat's example: the goals of finding the pudding, and of getting to the top of the mountain, only come into conflict _once the rod has been dropped_, which makes it the case that finding the pudding (by way of the rod) might require not going up the mountain (which, at least if it's to be done expeditiously, requires abandoning the rod down the ravine).

If the PCs are as motivationally thin as the traditional 1st level AD&D PC that you describe - _all they want_ is treasure and renown - then losing the rod may not bother them, as they will just go on to some other adventure. For "fail forward" to be interesting as a technique, the players have to be sufficiently vested in their PCs' goals and commitments that compelling failures of intention are available for the GM to narrate.



I'm A Banana said:


> Speaking from a player's perspective - I WANT complications and difficulty. So the incentives here seems screwy - if as a player I want complications and difficulty then...I want to fail checks?



"Fail forward" techniques tend to be associated with "scene framing", character-driven play - as has been discussed and elaborated upthread.

If the mage PC in my game had been successful in finding the mace in the tower, he would still have had complications and difficulties. Just different ones, related to whatever goal the player authored for the PC to replace the "get a mace" goal. (In BW all PCs have three Beliefs at all times, and a player is free to change any Belief at (almost) any time.) The difference between success and failure isn't about whether or not the PCs have challenges in front of them, but whether the unfolding path of those challenges is broadly reflecting the PCs' desires and goals, or thwarting them. A dramatically satisfying story tends to need a bit of each - constant failure can generate bathos, just as constant success can generate Mary Sue-ism.



I'm A Banana said:


> I wonder if "puzzle fun" (AKA: achievement) isn't the fun that advocates of Fail Forward tend to slightly prefer, over "dice fun" (AKA: excitement). In which case we may have a good ol' fashioned goal misalignment when it comes to using Fail Forward as a tool.



I think the "puzzle" thing is entirely a red herring - the paradigm of puzzle-type play is classic D&D (ToH, White Plume Mountain etc) which has nothing to do with "fail forward".

The fun of "fail forward" play is the creation of dramatic narrative by way of RPGing. Eero Tuovinen puts it well:

The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design, this is exactly the thing that was promised to me in 1992 in the MERP rulebook.​
I would hope that my actual play examples also illustrate that this is what the fun consists in. (Of course "amazing story" is a matter of degree - but B fiction is much more aesthetically engaging when you are spontaneously generating it as a participant with your friends.)



Imaro said:


> there are a multitude of possibilities between... narrating consequences s/he thinks are fun and interesting (I'm assuming that also successfully engage the players) vs. narrating consequences s/he thinks are frustrating and boring (which I'm assuming do not engage the players.)...
> 
> From the GM narrating what he/she finds personally fun/interesting (that does not gel with or engage the players) to what the players think is fun and interesting (but is never considered or not deemed so by the GM).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> What if I believed I could grab an outcropping or survive the fall and thus would rather fall then loose my rod?  Why do you the GM get to decide that is the consequence when the mechanics I was engaging with are the mechanics for climbing... not for dropping or loosing items...



This is all about stakes setting. You are asking, in effect, What happens if, from the point of view of the players, the GM sets the wrong stakes? The answer is, if this happens repeatedly then the game will suck. That's why, as Eero Tuovinen points out in the same blog I already linked to in this post,

The GM . . . needs to be able to . . . figure out consequences. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges, and in addition the GM might have methodical tools outside the rules . . . and pure experience (helps with determining consequences).​
Ron Edwards also addressed the issue in a post about scene-framing techniques:

It's not the distributed or not-distributed aspect of situational authority )ie who gets to frame scenes and set stakes] you're concerned with, it's your trust at the table, as a group, that your situations in the S[hared ]I[maginary ]S[pace] are worth anyone's time. Bluntly, you guys ought to work on that.​
To pick up on your particular example: if the player clearly prefers the stake of the failed check to be falling down the ravine rather than losing the rod, then the GM should be having regard to that in framing stakes.

Similarly, if the player has already established in the fiction that his/her rod is well-secured (eg via a successful backpack-packing check) then the GM should be having regard to that settled backstory in framing consequences. (As far as grabbing an outcropping, etc, that may already have been resolved as part of the Climbing check - that will itself depend upon how the stakes have been framed.)

As I noted upthread, there are also some GMs around who build boring dungeons. But that's not an objection to classic D&D in general. All games that are based around a GM require that GM to have the appropriate skills. (In my own case I think I'm not especially good at dungeon design, but am not too bad at narrating "fail forward"-style consequences that keep the game moving in a manner that engages my players.)



Umbran said:


> the GM should also have some say in the stakes - editorial or veto power, if you will, to keep the efforts sensible.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If the player really doesn't want certain consequences, I'd just allow them to make a check.  Don't want to lose the Wand of Pudding Location on the way up?  Make a Survival check before you start.  If you make that check then, on the way up, if you fail a climb, I won't impose a "dropped the wand" consequence.  I'll think of something else, instead, that is consistent with the preparations the players took.  Because, really, the players won't be able to think of *everything* - there's always a consequence the GM can add.



Agreed. Ultimately it is the GM who sets the stakes in this sort of game, because otherwise the player is forced to manage both sides of the conflict while trying to play a character located on one side of the conflict - which can be a difficult conflict of interest to resolve.

But of course the GM is having regard to player concerns and interests - that's the whole point of this sort of play - and players who want to lock down the fiction in certain ways can use the game systems to do so - that's what skill checks, fate points etc are for.

And flexibility with respect to backstory, in combination with the general frailties of human preparations and anticipation, mean that there are absolutely always consequences that can be imposed without contradicting the established backstory.



grendel111111 said:


> Tying unrelated events to a skill makes it too disjointed for me.
> In picking a lock a fail resulting in broken tools or alerting the rooms occupants is a logical follow on from failing to pick a lock (you used too much force, dropped you tools, etc.) but a failure that let you "open the door, but it starts raining" (somehow if you were better at picking locks you could have controlled the weather) is a step to far for me.





grendel111111 said:


> it rains on the skilled and unskilled alike. If it is going to rain then your lack of skill isn't going to cause it to happen.





grendel111111 said:


> For me the failing point with the rain, isn't that the rain isn't interesting, because it clearly is... but it would be interesting if you lock pick successfully or not.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If you need a chance of the raining happening just pick a chance and roll.



Again, this is about how the stakes are set.

The language of "causation" is mistaken, though. The attempt by the elven ronin in my BW game to find the mace in the tower didn't _cause_ the mace, or the black arrows, to be there or not there. Rather, the mechanical action declaration - an event at the table - caused me, as GM, to establish one or the other as true within the fiction.

You might say that finding the black arrows would have been interesting whether or not the PCs found the mace. True. But part of the point of an RPG is that the players and GM share authority in determining what is true in the fiction. The player of the mage, who was the one who actually set up the Scavenging check (even though it was attempted by another PC), did not want to find black arrows, and thereby learn (in character) that his brother was doing wicked things prior to being possessed by a Balrog. And if the check had been successful. then as GM the rules of the game oblige me to respect the player's desire.

The point of failure, in a "fail forward" game, is to shift authority to the GM rather than the player to introduce interesting stuff, which thereby allows the GM to introduce stuff that thwards rather than conforms with the players' desires for their PCs.

So, just as I narrated black arrows in lieu of a mace on a failed Scavenging check, I could imagine that there might be a situation where it is appropriate to narrate opening the door into a rainstorm for a failed Lockpicking check.



grendel111111 said:


> if you decide that on a failed medicine roll, then the patients family turns up and demands that the operation stop for religious reasons there is no link between the skill and the result. The family would turn up independent of the doctor skill. They would turn up if a good doctor was working on the patient or if an OK doctor was working on the patient. The doctors skills in no way affect the chances of the family turning up. So either it is so interesting that it happens anyway, or assign a random chance of it happening independent of what is happening in the operation.



My response to this is the same as for the rain example: you are assuming a type of correlation between the resolution of the action declaration at the table, and the causal processes that unfold in the gameworld, which _does not hold_ in a game being played "fail forward"-style.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Getting the pudding is the goal, yes.  Climbing the mountain is but one step towards said goal, but a significant enough step to call for its own check independent of any check required to actually find the pudding once at the top.
> 
> The mere failure of the task (climb the mountain) leaves the overall success-failure status of the intent (get the pudding) still unresolved as there may still be other avenues allowing access to the pudding.  Only once the character decides there's no way she's getting any pudding and thus abandons it for something else can the intent also be declared a fail.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The loss of the rod adds another challenge but doesn't negate the first one.  It just adds more "real action", to use your term.
> 
> Intent or task notwithstanding, I think we agree there's more ways to fail than just falling.  A loose foothold might give out leaving her stuck in place, for example, unable to keep going or to descend without falling but still safe as long as she can hang on; which she'll have to do until someone can come to her aid.  Or she might find herself unable to progress further but safely able to return to ground.  Or she might get her foot stuck in a crack in the rock.  None of these have anything to do with losing any gear, they're just things that can go wrong while climbing.





Maxperson said:


> If someone is trying to climb to the top of the mountain with the rod and they fail the roll and end up at the top without the roll, what progress is being made?  The trip is done.  There's nothing left to do regarding the climb, so you haven't progressed towards your goal.  The goal is over.  You've succeeded in getting to the top.
> 
> Edit: I also think you're looking at the goal incorrectly.  The goal of getting to the top safely is a two part goal.  Get to the top AND safely.  Failing at one part of that goal doesn't mean that getting to the top still isn't a success at the other part.



I'm not really sure of the point is of all this parsing of goals, sub-goals, overall failures, sub-failures, etc.

In the example being discussed, the player's action declaration for his her PCs is that s/he climbs the mountain, motivated by the desire to get the pudding at the top, and carrying his/her trusty divining rod for the purpose of finding the pudding once the mountain has been summited.

If the PC gets to the top but in no condition to easily find the pudding (due to loss of the rod, or some damage to her senses, or because pudding thieves have got their first and taken the pudding), then things are not unfolding for the PC as the player (both in the real world, and in character) desired them to. I think this is the fundamental point that [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] has been reiterating.

That is the sort of _failure_ that is salient in games that emphasise "fail forward" as a technique. That there another sense in which the PC succeeded ("You lost your rod, and you're half-blind and freezing, but at least you're at the top!") is really neither here-nor-there.

If, for whatever reason (eg a desire to correlate action resolution methods with ingame causal processes, as evinced by [MENTION=6803870]grendel111111[/MENTION] in discussing the lock-picking and rain example), a group does not want the GM's narration of failure to focus on these sorts of goal/motivation-oriented consequences, and instead wants stakes to be set rather tightly simply in virtue of the skill or ability made, perhaps even as part of the skill definition (see eg the traditional D&D thief abilities), then that's fine for them.

But that doesn't mean that there is no sense of _failure_, _goal_, etc which is not readily identifiable and serviceable for use in "fail forward"-style games. The player (and his/her PC) wanted the PC to be in situation X. The check failed. So the GM narrates the PC into situation Y instead. That's failure, a failure of the PC (and player) to get what was wanted. The fact that situations X and Y share some elements in common doesn't change that.

(In classic D&D player situations X and Y share some elements in common too: the thief might have fallen down the ravine, but s/he won't have dropped his/her stuff.)


----------



## Neonchameleon

I'm A Banana said:


> We're moving the goalposts a bit, but since this better reflects actual play than "this mountain with one goal" or "this dungeon with one goal", I'll totally play with the field.




Fair enough - and that's why I expanded the metaphor.



> Here, you've introduced multiple competing goals that cannot all be accomplished. Your character has a goal to protect their friends and comrades, and ALSO to get the coin at the top of Mt. Pudding. Choosing between competing goals is AWESOME. That wasn't an element of Mt. Pudding or the Dungeon with the BBEG and the Secret Door. But if Fail Forward means that you cannot do both A and B (get the coin at the top of Mt. Pudding and preserve the lives of your friends and comrades), my issues with it mostly evaporate, because there's still interesting choices about whether or not you want to do this. Fail the check, you can still get the coin, but some other goal you have is destroyed.
> 
> What would be interesting for me is some advice on how to get PC's to declare goals like this (as explicitly as possible!), and how to mix them together into plots where they can't be accomplished at the same time. I don't know if that's Fail Forward, but it sounds meaty!
> 
> The only issue there is that there's a lot of simplistic single-minded characters out there (most D&D characters I've seen, at least at the first few levels, only have a goal of "do this first adventure," and are still in the process of fleshing out their character motivations in more detail) - when the character IS Ahab, and their only goal IS the coin at the top of Mt. Pudding, there would seem to be no interesting choices to make. But I can see a lot to be gained from solving that problem by encouraging more varied and nuanced character goals.




A big part of this IMO is that D&D took a _massive_ step back post DL-1 and with 2e. And never really recovered. In oD&D, 1E, and B/X, BECMI, and the RC you have the following goals you need to balance in character.

Stay Alive, and keep your hit points up.
Get Treasure (1GP = 1XP - and for wizards treasure is the main way of getting new spells)
Move Fast - every ten minutes spent in the dungeon or hour in the wilderness is a wandering monster check. And wandering monsters don't carry treasure. The clock is ticking.
Preserve resources including spells, equipment, and hirelings. You might need them later, and your hirelings might quit on you if you lose too many. And as you won't clean out the dungeon in one go preserving spells means you can go deeper and get more treasure.

That's four distinct goals that are frequently in tension arising just from the rules of the game. And that's before you take characterisation into account.

On an adventure path like Dragonlance you lose most of these goals - you seldom have to worry about wandering monster checks, treasure is nowhere near as important, and you don't have hirelings to look after. Meaning that the goals on an adventure path boil down to "Stay Alive" and "Make the check points" - a far less interesting set of choices especially because making check points follows on almost automatically from staying alive. (The Dragonlance Obscure Death Rule takes away even the need to stay alive, but I digress).

This means that even the most one dimensional murderhobo in a dungeon crawl under classic rules has more interesting RP choices than any but the most well defined PCs being pitched to directly by a good GM in most modern RPGs. Even just adding very simple pressures or conflicts within motivations adds dimensions to a character.

(On a tangent, one of my many problems with 3.X wands of Cure Light Wounds and 4e played without pressuring extended rests is that it turns hit points from a strategic resource where the loss of each hit point is something that might come back to bite you to a tactical resource where only the hit points in the specific fight matter, making that question a lot less pressing for staying alive; being put into a position in 4e when your Invoker is tanking because no one else has healing surges is awesome and doesn't happen enough).

Modern and Indy games have tried to add back these goals-beyond-staying-alive and lend them mechanical weight; there's a gaming equivalent to Gresham's Law that says if there's a fun way and a way that wins people will pick the way that wins (I forget who I'm paraphrasing). This means that if the mechanical model of success boils down to "Do you stay alive?" and nothing else gives them extra mechanical effectiveness, that's what people will prioritise. Even nice ones trying to play the game you're offering them - because that's what the game actually is. In order to get most groups to play for other motivations you need to give mechanical weight to them (possibly including the Tenra Bansho Zero reverse-death-spiral where PCs can't be killed unless they've declared they can, but when they declare "This is something I'm willing to die for" they get pretty big bonusses as the music swells).

The MSH abstract karma point to spend on things you care about. The Fate freeform aspect to indicate what you care about in the world - and give you a bonus for invoking it and a reason to want it invoked on you (and a lot of variations on this theme from the Cortex+ distinctions onwards). Hard coded morality systems (MSH, WoD) have given way to aspect based ones. Characters starting with a relationship map (Smallville) which has been thinned down to Hx or Bonds so that you actually have defined starting relationships, indicating how you want to treat your fellow PCs. Get that number of motivations up to four and you have a three dimensional character, although a crude one. (Get it up to ten separate aspects and you're left with a mess).


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I'm not really sure of the point is of all this parsing of goals, sub-goals, overall failures, sub-failures, etc.
> 
> In the example being discussed, the player's action declaration for his her PCs is that s/he climbs the mountain, motivated by the desire to get the pudding at the top, and carrying his/her trusty divining rod for the purpose of finding the pudding once the mountain has been summited.




Because we're talking about a climb check, so climbing is what is being tested as the primary goal.  Getting there safely is not part of the primary goal, except as applies directly to the primary climb test, such as falling or failing to climb.  Other forms of safety like not dropping things or being attacks, which are not part of that primary goal are a part of the secondary goal suffering these other types of setbacks is not a failure of the climbing goal in the slightest.



> If the PC gets to the top but in no condition to easily find the pudding (due to loss of the rod, or some damage to her senses, or because pudding thieves have got their first and taken the pudding), then things are not unfolding for the PC as the player (both in the real world, and in character) desired them to. I think this is the fundamental point that [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] has been reiterating.



Which, while it makes for good story, is not a part of a climb check.



> That is the sort of _failure_ that is salient in games that emphasise "fail forward" as a technique. That there another sense in which the PC succeeded ("You lost your rod, and you're half-blind and freezing, but at least you're at the top!") is really neither here-nor-there.




I disagree.  When discussing the pros and cons of fail forward vs. standard checks, the cons of fail forward are very relevant.  The disconnect between the action and the result of that one type of fail forward is key.



> If, for whatever reason (eg a desire to correlate action resolution methods with ingame causal processes, as evinced by [MENTION=6803870]grendel111111[/MENTION] in discussing the lock-picking and rain example), a group does not want the GM's narration of failure to focus on these sorts of goal/motivation-oriented consequences, and instead wants stakes to be set rather tightly simply in virtue of the skill or ability made, perhaps even as part of the skill definition (see eg the traditional D&D thief abilities), then that's fine for them.




Even 5e (without invoking optional rules outside of the PHB) doesn't let the climber get to the top with a failed roll.  It can be a traditional failure, or it can be progress (not success) with a cost.  Climbing progress doesn't mean success at reaching the top.  Progress =/= success.  You could lose your rod and make it a portion of the way up, though.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Because we're talking about a climb check, so climbing is what is being tested as the primary goal.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Which, while it makes for good story, is not a part of a climb check.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> When discussing the pros and cons of fail forward vs. standard checks, the cons of fail forward are very relevant.  The disconnect between the action and the result of that one type of fail forward is key.



But these are all just statements of preference - or rather, of a lack of preference for "fail forward"-type play.

In a "fail forward" game, that it makes for a good story absolutely _is_ part of adjudicating the consequences of a failed climb check. And what you call the "disconnect" between action and result is not a con, because - for those who like "fail forward", and are playing those sorts of game - there _is_ no disconnect. Because there is no assumption that a failed check means a failed task. It means _the PC is not in the situation that the PC (and his/her player) were hoping for_, and that this is because of some consequences that has unfolded from undertaking the declared task. (But it need not have been caused by the task. As with the lockpicking example, undertaking the task might make the consequence salient - eg unlocking the door makes it salient that it is raining on the other side.)

As I've already mentioned multiple times upthread, the Burning Wheel rulebook makes this quite clear for that game; and the 4e DMG and DMG2 aren't quite as clear, but (as [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] noted upthread) make a similar point in relation to skill challenges.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Maxperson said:


> Because we're talking about a climb check, so climbing is what is being tested as the primary goal.  Getting there safely is not part of the primary goal, except as applies directly to the primary climb test, such as falling or failing to climb.  Other forms of safety like not dropping things or being attacks, which are not part of that primary goal are a part of the secondary goal suffering these other types of setbacks is not a failure of the climbing goal in the slightest.




Does this mean that you think that the Climb skill shouldn't be used for mountaineering? Because learning what you can take and managing logistics is a major part of mountaineering. In which case I agree that the climb skill as you have defined it is the wrong skill for the job. And you should instead 

Me, I prefer a climb skill that covers almost all aspects of climbing including mountaineering - I don't have the patience for GURPS hundreds of skills. And I especially don't have the patience to make rolls for everything that I can think of that _might_ go wrong (especially with the compound effects of multiple checks doing nasty things to probabilities). Instead I'd rather roll it all up into one check that covers the skill of climbing things like mountains.



> I disagree.  When discussing the pros and cons of fail forward vs. standard checks, the cons of fail forward are very relevant.  The disconnect between the action and the result of that one type of fail forward is key.




On the other hand the assumption of utter infallibility in the course of subsidiary skills is something that you accept doesn't make for a good story, and it doesn't make for a good simulation of a world. So why do you favour it? Pure gamism? Or because it reduces the complexity and richness of the world to something that fits inside a model?


----------



## nomotog

Neonchameleon said:


> Fair enough - and that's why I expanded the metaphor.
> 
> 
> 
> A big part of this IMO is that D&D took a _massive_ step back post DL-1 and with 2e. And never really recovered. In oD&D, 1E, and B/X, BECMI, and the RC you have the following goals you need to balance in character.
> 
> Stay Alive, and keep your hit points up.
> Get Treasure (1GP = 1XP - and for wizards treasure is the main way of getting new spells)
> Move Fast - every ten minutes spent in the dungeon or hour in the wilderness is a wandering monster check. And wandering monsters don't carry treasure. The clock is ticking.
> Preserve resources including spells, equipment, and hirelings. You might need them later, and your hirelings might quit on you if you lose too many. And as you won't clean out the dungeon in one go preserving spells means you can go deeper and get more treasure.
> 
> That's four distinct goals that are frequently in tension arising just from the rules of the game. And that's before you take characterisation into account.
> 
> On an adventure path like Dragonlance you lose most of these goals - you seldom have to worry about wandering monster checks, treasure is nowhere near as important, and you don't have hirelings to look after. Meaning that the goals on an adventure path boil down to "Stay Alive" and "Make the check points" - a far less interesting set of choices especially because making check points follows on almost automatically from staying alive. (The Dragonlance Obscure Death Rule takes away even the need to stay alive, but I digress).
> 
> This means that even the most one dimensional murderhobo in a dungeon crawl under classic rules has more interesting RP choices than any but the most well defined PCs being pitched to directly by a good GM in most modern RPGs. Even just adding very simple pressures or conflicts within motivations adds dimensions to a character.
> 
> (On a tangent, one of my many problems with 3.X wands of Cure Light Wounds and 4e played without pressuring extended rests is that it turns hit points from a strategic resource where the loss of each hit point is something that might come back to bite you to a tactical resource where only the hit points in the specific fight matter, making that question a lot less pressing for staying alive; being put into a position in 4e when your Invoker is tanking because no one else has healing surges is awesome and doesn't happen enough).
> 
> Modern and Indy games have tried to add back these goals-beyond-staying-alive and lend them mechanical weight; there's a gaming equivalent to Gresham's Law that says if there's a fun way and a way that wins people will pick the way that wins (I forget who I'm paraphrasing). This means that if the mechanical model of success boils down to "Do you stay alive?" and nothing else gives them extra mechanical effectiveness, that's what people will prioritise. Even nice ones trying to play the game you're offering them - because that's what the game actually is. In order to get most groups to play for other motivations you need to give mechanical weight to them (possibly including the Tenra Bansho Zero reverse-death-spiral where PCs can't be killed unless they've declared they can, but when they declare "This is something I'm willing to die for" they get pretty big bonusses as the music swells).
> 
> The MSH abstract karma point to spend on things you care about. The Fate freeform aspect to indicate what you care about in the world - and give you a bonus for invoking it and a reason to want it invoked on you (and a lot of variations on this theme from the Cortex+ distinctions onwards). Hard coded morality systems (MSH, WoD) have given way to aspect based ones. Characters starting with a relationship map (Smallville) which has been thinned down to Hx or Bonds so that you actually have defined starting relationships, indicating how you want to treat your fellow PCs. Get that number of motivations up to four and you have a three dimensional character, although a crude one. (Get it up to ten separate aspects and you're left with a mess).




I really like this idea of classic D&D. Everything you do matters. If you pick a lock and fail, that is time spent to buy more enemies to kill you. That is a fail-forward system in theory I think. Because even failing a check changes the board. I imagine it's kind of hard to actually maintain that system because it requires a lot of tracking.

Over arching interconnected systems are things I like to see in games, but they always seem doomed to be broken in a tabletop game. They are hard to keep track of and the incentive to cheat for a good story is so high.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> But these are all just statements of preference - or rather, of a lack of preference for "fail forward"-type play.
> 
> In a "fail forward" game, that it makes for a good story absolutely _is_ part of adjudicating the consequences of a failed climb check. And what you call the "disconnect" between action and result is not a con, because - for those who like "fail forward", and are playing those sorts of game - there _is_ no disconnect. Because there is no assumption that a failed check means a failed task. It means _the PC is not in the situation that the PC (and his/her player) were hoping for_, and that this is because of some consequences that has unfolded from undertaking the declared task. (But it need not have been caused by the task. As with the lockpicking example, undertaking the task might make the consequence salient - eg unlocking the door makes it salient that it is raining on the other side.)
> 
> As I've already mentioned multiple times upthread, the Burning Wheel rulebook makes this quite clear for that game; and the 4e DMG and DMG2 aren't quite as clear, but (as [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] noted upthread) make a similar point in relation to skill challenges.




I'm not sure it is really a preference against anything. But this is all about peoples preferences for their style of play and kind of game they like. I think the truly great thing about 5E as opposed to dungeon world/ gurps/ Merps/ burning wheel, it that it doesn't push the game into only 1 style of game. Fail forward works fantastically in a fail forward style game and if that is the style you want then D and D can accommodate that. If you want a more simulation/objective game D and D can work with that too. If you want to go middle of the road and use limited fail forward then D and D fits the bill too. It's flexibility is it's strength. 

One of the effects of preferences though is that it also makes what is a good thing in one game feel like a negative in another game. And so we get style clashes. I think fail forward is a great mechanic, but doesn't fit the way some people want to play D and D. What I think it more important than a "right way" to play D and D is to have many DM's running many games in many different styles, so that people playing D and D are able to find a game that matches their preferences.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> But these are all just statements of preference - or rather, of a lack of preference for "fail forward"-type play.
> 
> In a "fail forward" game, that it makes for a good story absolutely _is_ part of adjudicating the consequences of a failed climb check. And what you call the "disconnect" between action and result is not a con, because - for those who like "fail forward", and are playing those sorts of game - there _is_ no disconnect. Because there is no assumption that a failed check means a failed task. It means _the PC is not in the situation that the PC (and his/her player) were hoping for_, and that this is because of some consequences that has unfolded from undertaking the declared task. (But it need not have been caused by the task. As with the lockpicking example, undertaking the task might make the consequence salient - eg unlocking the door makes it salient that it is raining on the other side.)
> 
> As I've already mentioned multiple times upthread, the Burning Wheel rulebook makes this quite clear for that game; and the 4e DMG and DMG2 aren't quite as clear, but (as [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] noted upthread) make a similar point in relation to skill challenges.




You're making the same mistake as others here and acting like there is only one type of fail forward.  I dislike the type that involves the disconnect and only ever use it when the disconnect can be connected.  I gave an example earlier in the thread.  The second sort of fail forward I use all the time.  That's the type where when the party fails at something, the action doesn't end.  Instead there are other avenues to try in order to continue forward.  I love that sort.  Fail is only really fail if it ends the action.


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## grendel111111

nomotog said:


> I really like this idea of classic D&D. Everything you do matters. If you pick a lock and fail, that is time spent to buy more enemies to kill you. That is a fail-forward system in theory I think. Because even failing a check changes the board. I imagine it's kind of hard to actually maintain that system because it requires a lot of tracking.
> 
> Over arching interconnected systems are things I like to see in games, but they always seem doomed to be broken in a tabletop game. They are hard to keep track of and the incentive to cheat for a good story is so high.




I think cheating for the "good story" is actually part of using tables. They give you a start point in creating things happening around the players that are not dependent on the players and even early D and D rule sets, that had lots of tables, suggested using them as sparking of points, and ignoring results that don't fit.
The idea that it can't ever be a truly objective and totally impartial, isn't really a problem for people who enjoy that style of game. The attempt is still worth it, for them. 
It would be just like saying that in D and D we will never tell the perfect story so we should just abandon trying to have story in our games. If being impartial is a key enjoyment part of the game for you, then it is worth pursuing, even if you won't fully realize that objective.


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## grendel111111

Neonchameleon said:


> Does this mean that you think that the Climb skill shouldn't be used for mountaineering? Because learning what you can take and managing logistics is a major part of mountaineering. In which case I agree that the climb skill as you have defined it is the wrong skill for the job. And you should instead
> 
> Me, I prefer a climb skill that covers almost all aspects of climbing including mountaineering - I don't have the patience for GURPS hundreds of skills. And I especially don't have the patience to make rolls for everything that I can think of that _might_ go wrong (especially with the compound effects of multiple checks doing nasty things to probabilities). Instead I'd rather roll it all up into one check that covers the skill of climbing things like mountains.




As you have said you don't have the patience for GURPS. Surprisingly some people do, and even enjoy it (I'm not really one of them). 
So we have a continuum of how to deal with skills:
1. Roll for each little thing. (I hide in the shadows (roll), I sneak up to the cliff (roll), I check for hostile creatures (roll PER), I secure my pack (survival) etc.
2.
3.Roll for the skills that are directly reflected in the outcomes that can come up. (The main risk is getting lost on the way up so roll survival rather than climb)
4.
5.Look at the big skill that is being used and roll all the factors and outcomes into that (Climb for mountaineering, and any mountaineering outcome could be the result (loss of item, hypothermia, bats attack)) 
6.
7.Look at the current objective (get safely to the top of the mountain)  roll on the big skill and anything can get in the way. (rain, meteor strike, getting lost, breaking a magic staff)
8.
9.Look at the over all objective (get to the wizards chamber at the top of tower at the top of the cliff) roll dice to get there and subtract resources... (fail con roll - lose 2 HD, failed climb roll lose a weapon)
10.
11.Look at the overall objective choose the main skill roll once include any outcome in the one roll (Main problem is getting to the top roll climb and every point you miss by you lose 1 resource) 

The gaps are for the many approaches I haven't mentioned
Where you sit on this continuum will shape the kind of game you have and different choices will suit different people.




Neonchameleon said:


> On the other hand the assumption of utter infallibility in the course of subsidiary skills is something that you accept doesn't make for a good story, and it doesn't make for a good simulation of a world. So why do you favour it? Pure gamism? Or because it reduces the complexity and richness of the world to something that fits inside a model?




Because it is a preference. That is what it really comes down to. A preference no more or less valid than your own. 
You have chosen your preferences because it creates the kind of game you enjoy, just as those who have chosen a different preference have done so because it creates the kind of game they want to play in.
And the more variance in style of games we have the more likely people will find a game that fits their preferences


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## Maxperson

Neonchameleon said:


> Does this mean that you think that the Climb skill shouldn't be used for mountaineering? Because learning what you can take and managing logistics is a major part of mountaineering. In which case I agree that the climb skill as you have defined it is the wrong skill for the job. And you should instead
> 
> Me, I prefer a climb skill that covers almost all aspects of climbing including mountaineering - I don't have the patience for GURPS hundreds of skills. And I especially don't have the patience to make rolls for everything that I can think of that _might_ go wrong (especially with the compound effects of multiple checks doing nasty things to probabilities). Instead I'd rather roll it all up into one check that covers the skill of climbing things like mountains.




You're overthinking it.  Mountaineering is a form of climbing, so climb is the skill.  I might give circumstance bonuses for appropriate gear, though.



> On the other hand the assumption of utter infallibility in the course of subsidiary skills is something that you accept doesn't make for a good story, and it doesn't make for a good simulation of a world. So why do you favour it? Pure gamism? Or because it reduces the complexity and richness of the world to something that fits inside a model?




Infallibility?  No skill is infallible.


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## Manbearcat

Maxperson said:


> You're overthinking it.  Mountaineering is a form of climbing, so climb is the skill.  I might give circumstance bonuses for appropriate gear, though.




Still don't have enough time to address several of the posts that I'd wish to, but this is an opportunity to briefly get at a point that I've been aiming at with prior posts.

I'm fairly certain that what  [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] is getting at is that Mountaineering (which is subsumed under Athletics or Climbing), involves gear management.  Further, it doesn't just involve the expedition-preceding, logistical planning of gear, but it also involves the the deployment and management of ropes and belaying equipment (even when free climbing and just using cleats/crampons and pegs/pins) and all the rest of the gear that you're carrying (be it your pack, your cloak, your weapon belt, what-have-you).  Why would the successful deployment and management of your gear not be in play within the scope of a Mountaineering/Climbing/Athletics/Scaled Every Mountain From Here to the Horizon/Defy Danger (whatever the system involves) effort?  Because it is, indisputably, that case in real life.

And this dovetails back into my post upthread (with the proposed "Basketball Game" resolution mechanics) where I'm trying to pin down the reasoning and "agency thresholds" for folks being ok with abstracting certain things (significantly) into a check (eg a combat to-hit vs armor class) but being inclined toward seriously zoomed-in process simulation.  For instance, being unwilling to abstract gear deployment and management within a mountaineering/climbing action declaration/resolution/fallout play procedure (especially odd considering the primary rulesets being invoked don't have a discrete "gear deployment/management" resolution mechanic...and that is even if you consider such a thing to not be needlessly invasive or tedious...which I certainly do!).

Quick aside.  Folks are seemingly wanting to dig down much, much deeper into the resolution mechanics of the Bob > Pudding Mountain scenario and pick apart things that were not initially involved in the uber generic example.  That starts moving away from the generic conversation of the very general application of Fail Forward as a technique and starts to drive down into how it interfaces with system.  If you want to do that, then people are going to need to start interacting with play examples that go into system.  I've posted a few, very relevant, ones from my current Dungeon World game above.  Conversation about those or about  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s play examples would be helpful if folks want to start "in-filling" system details about Bobs Pudding Mountain expedition (which was rendered solely for the generic understanding of the system-neutral application of Fail Forward).  If this was Dungeon World, Bob's situation might have been (a) failed *Navigation *on *Undertake a Perilous Journey* triggering (b) the manifestation of a the crevice and (c) a 7-9 Defy Danger (✴On a 10+, you do what you set out to, the threat doesn’t come to bear. ✴On a 7–9, you stumble, hesitate, or flinch: the GM will offer you a *worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.*) by Bob's player leading to the choice we've been mulling for dear old Bob and his player.

All the time I have for now.  Happy New Years folks.


----------



## Maxperson

Manbearcat said:


> Still don't have enough time to address several of the posts that I'd wish to, but this is an opportunity to briefly get at a point that I've been aiming at with prior posts.
> 
> I'm fairly certain that what   [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] is getting at is that Mountaineering (which is subsumed under Athletics or Climbing), involves gear management.  Further, it doesn't just involve the expedition-preceding, logistical planning of gear, but it also involves the the deployment and management of ropes and belaying equipment (even when free climbing and just using cleats/crampons and pegs/pins) and all the rest of the gear that you're carrying (be it your pack, your cloak, your weapon belt, what-have-you).  Why would the successful deployment and management of your gear not be in play within the scope of a Mountaineering/Climbing/Athletics/Scaled Every Mountain From Here to the Horizon/Defy Danger (whatever the system involves) effort?  Because it is, indisputably, that case in real life.




You can climb a mountain without gear, though.  Gear management makes it much easier and is better represented by circumstance bonuses in my opinion.  



> And this dovetails back into my post upthread (with the proposed "Basketball Game" resolution mechanics) where I'm trying to pin down the reasoning and "agency thresholds" for folks being ok with abstracting certain things (significantly) into a check (eg a combat to-hit vs armor class) but being inclined toward seriously zoomed-in process simulation.  For instance, being unwilling to abstract gear deployment and management within a mountaineering/climbing action declaration/resolution/fallout play procedure (especially odd considering the primary rulesets being invoked don't have a discrete "gear deployment/management" resolution mechanic...and that is even if you consider such a thing to not be needlessly invasive or tedious...which I certainly do!).




I don't abstract gear management.  If the PCs don't go buy the gear and then let me that they use it to aid their mountain climb, they don't have or use gear.  If they do, then the gear is a direct part of the climb and bad stuff can happen to it while climbing.  

As for why combat is different.  Combat happens much more frequently and already involves more rolling.  Certain things must be accepted in order for the game to play smoothly and not bog down.  A bogged down game is not fun for most people in my experience.  It's why I accept that my character is effectively frozen in time while 50 goblins can all move and attack before my character can move so much as an inch due to losing initiative.



> All the time I have for now.  Happy New Years folks.




Happy New Year!


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## grendel111111

Manbearcat said:


> And this dovetails back into my post upthread (with the proposed "Basketball Game" resolution mechanics) where I'm trying to pin down the reasoning and "agency thresholds" for folks being ok with abstracting certain things (significantly) into a check (eg a combat to-hit vs armor class) but being inclined toward seriously zoomed-in process simulation.  For instance, being unwilling to abstract gear deployment and management within a mountaineering/climbing action declaration/resolution/fallout play procedure (especially odd considering the primary rulesets being invoked don't have a discrete "gear deployment/management" resolution mechanic...and that is even if you consider such a thing to not be needlessly invasive or tedious...which I certainly do!).



I am a little confused as to why it is important for you that everyone  has the same level of abstraction for all action, but I will accept that for you this is very important.
Accepting that I think your example misses the mark. If you want all parts of the game to have the same level of abstraction, and you want all factors involved in mountaineering to be covered by 1 check and the DM narrates any outcomes that come from the roll. Why do you not do the same for combat? Player rolls opposed skill check based on weapon being used. The DM the just narrated how they won the fight, but broke their sword (if they failed their check). Resolved in the same "zoom" scale as your mountaineering example.

But the fact is different actions can be addressed in different scales and we do it all the time. And the level of zoom one person likes for an action can be different to what another likes. Hence the reason I'm not saying my approach is they way the game is "supposed" to be played, or that anyone else should play the game with my preferred style unless they like that style.



Manbearcat said:


> Quick aside.  Folks are seemingly wanting to dig down much, much deeper into the resolution mechanics of the Bob > Pudding Mountain scenario and pick apart things that were not initially involved in the uber generic example.  That starts moving away from the generic conversation of the very general application of Fail Forward as a technique and starts to drive down into how it interfaces with system.  If you want to do that, then people are going to need to start interacting with play examples that go into system.  I've posted a few, very relevant, ones from my current Dungeon World game above.  Conversation about those or about  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s play examples would be helpful if folks want to start "in-filling" system details about Bobs Pudding Mountain expedition (which was rendered solely for the generic understanding of the system-neutral application of Fail Forward).  If this was Dungeon World, Bob's situation might have been (a) failed *Navigation *on *Undertake a Perilous Journey* triggering (b) the manifestation of a the crevice and (c) a 7-9 Defy Danger (✴On a 10+, you do what you set out to, the threat doesn’t come to bear. ✴On a 7–9, you stumble, hesitate, or flinch: the GM will offer you a *worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.*) by Bob's player leading to the choice we've been mulling for dear old Bob and his player.
> 
> All the time I have for now.  Happy New Years folks.




Part of the reason that how it interacts with the system is so very important is because it changes the system. They interact with each other. And if I don't like the dungeon world approach to role playing how is pushing D and D more towards that style of game going to make me like it  more? A big part of running D and D games is deciding which techniques will create the kind of game that you and your players will enjoy, and employing those that support the experience you want to have. As a result fail forward in  all it's forms forms could be moving you towards the style of game  (and system) that you want or moving you away from it.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

I'm not a fan of Fail Forward mechanics because I feel it's only necessary following poor design of the scenario.

If there's something that must be done to continue, then it shouldn't hinge on a single die roll where a failed check means the adventure grinds to a halt. There are very few situations where I can think of no other alternatives.

But part of why it's not an issue for me, is that I handle skill checks a little differently. 

First, my assumption is that if a character is capable of succeeding, then they eventually will given enough time and chances. So if you fail a skill check that is within your capabilities, it just takes you longer to succeed. If there are potential dangerous consequences (such as setting off a trap), then failure by more than 5 triggers the event.

One important point is that if something is hard (DC20 or higher) you must have proficiency.

Example:

DC 17 lock and the PC has a +3. They'll need to roll a 14 or higher. They roll a modified 10. So the lock will take the 4 rounds to open. They don't know exactly how long, just that they didn't succeed immediately. This is much more effective if there is a time crunch.

If they rolled a 9 or less, then something would happen, like they jammed the lock, broke their lock picks, etc. but as a result they can't pick the lock.

When climbing, for example, they will slip, and it takes time to get back up to where they can continue.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Combat happens much more frequently and already involves more rolling.





grendel111111 said:


> If you want all parts of the game to have the same level of abstraction, and you want all factors involved in mountaineering to be covered by 1 check and the DM narrates any outcomes that come from the roll. Why do you not do the same for combat? Player rolls opposed skill check based on weapon being used. The DM the just narrated how they won the fight, but broke their sword (if they failed their check). Resolved in the same "zoom" scale as your mountaineering example.



Plenty of RPGs allow just this. In BW, opposed-check resolution for combat is a key element of the system.

In HeroWars/Quest, the same mechanic is present.

And in 4e D&D, a rather similar result can be achieved by using minions, who are either up or down depending on the player's attack roll.



Maxperson said:


> You're making the same mistake as others here and acting like there is only one type of fail forward.  I dislike the type that involves the disconnect and only ever use it when the disconnect can be connected.  I gave an example earlier in the thread.  The second sort of fail forward I use all the time.  That's the type where when the party fails at something, the action doesn't end.  Instead there are other avenues to try in order to continue forward.  I love that sort.  Fail is only really fail if it ends the action.



I don't know that I fully understand what you are calling "the second type".

As I understand it, "fail forward" is a technique which was first explicitly called out by Luke Crane and Ron Edwards, and has more recently been referenced (under that label) by Jonathan Tweet in the 20th anniversary edition of Over the Edge, and in 13th Age. And this technique is one which involves what you call "the disconnect": narrating failure as a failure of intent rather than necessarily a failure of task (to use the intent/task distinction that is an explicit element in Burning Wheel action resolution), the upshot being that failure at a check leaves the PC in a situation in which an unwanted and difficult choice is required. In this way, the action at the table doesn't stop, even though the PC (and the player) has not got what s/he wanted out of the situation.

Your "second type" seems to be something closer to GM backstory authorship (or "scenario design"): if the PC fails a check, the GM authors (or perhaps has already authored) some backstory which, if the players learn it, will permit them another way "forward" - though what _forward_ means here I'm not sure. Forward through the GM's story?



Ilbranteloth said:


> I'm not a fan of Fail Forward mechanics because I feel it's only necessary following poor design of the scenario.
> 
> If there's something that must be done to continue, then it shouldn't hinge on a single die roll where a failed check means the adventure grinds to a halt. There are very few situations where I can think of no other alternatives.



In games that use "fail forward" techniques, generally there is no such thing as "the scenario". Nor is there generally anything which "must be done to continue". Fail forward as a technique - at least as I understand it from the games and designers that explicitly call it out and use that label - is not about the way in which the GM authors the backstory. It is about how the GM adjudicates action resolution.

In these "fail forward"-using RPGs, generally, the whole idea is that the adjudication of action resolution takes the place of authoring backstory in advance ("scenario design"). This is part of the radical anti-railroading agenda of these RPGs. Previously unrevealed backstory is authored by the GM in response to action resolution; secret backstory is not generally used as an input into action resolution.

To refer to an actual play example I set out in more detail upthread: it's not the case that, had I done better design of the "PCs retreat across the desert to the ruined tower" scenario, I would have not needed "fail forward" to adjudicate the attempt to find the mace in the tower. (Eg because I would have already decided whether or not it was there to be found.) Rather, the whole point of the resolution of the Scavenging check is to see whether or not the player (and the PC) gets his wish, that the mace is there to be found. When the check fails, then - per the rules of the game - it is my prerogative as GM to introduce some other situation which does not give the PC (and player) his wish. Thus, instead of a mace the PCs find the black arrows. And the mace turns up instead, in the following session, in the hands of the dark elf who has been harassing the PCs.

This is a concrete example of how "fail forward" is a device used to manage the introduction of backstory by the GM, and to maintain narrative momentum, as an _alternative_ to "scenario design" or making sure that there are multiple ways to do what "must be done".



grendel111111 said:


> if I don't like the dungeon world approach to role playing how is pushing D and D more towards that style of game going to make me like it  more?



I don't think anyone has said that it will, have they?

But this isn't a thread about how D&D should be designed. It's a thread in the General forum about whether or not people like "fail forward" as a technique, and why.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> As I understand it, "fail forward" is a technique which was first explicitly called out by Luke Crane and Ron Edwards, and has more recently been referenced (under that label) by Jonathan Tweet in the 20th anniversary edition of Over the Edge, and in 13th Age. And this technique is one which involves what you call "the disconnect": narrating failure as a failure of intent rather than necessarily a failure of task (to use the intent/task distinction that is an explicit element in Burning Wheel action resolution), the upshot being that failure at a check leaves the PC in a situation in which an unwanted and difficult choice is required. In this way, the action at the table doesn't stop, even though the PC (and the player) has not got what s/he wanted out of the situation.
> 
> Your "second type" seems to be something closer to GM backstory authorship (or "scenario design"): if the PC fails a check, the GM authors (or perhaps has already authored) some backstory which, if the players learn it, will permit them another way "forward" - though what _forward_ means here I'm not sure. Forward through the GM's story?
> 
> In games that use "fail forward" techniques, generally there is no such thing as "the scenario". Nor is there generally anything which "must be done to continue". Fail forward as a technique - at least as I understand it from the games and designers that explicitly call it out and use that label - is not about the way in which the GM authors the backstory. It is about how the GM adjudicates action resolution.
> 
> In these "fail forward"-using RPGs, generally, the whole idea is that the adjudication of action resolution takes the place of authoring backstory in advance ("scenario design"). This is part of the radical anti-railroading agenda of these RPGs. Previously unrevealed backstory is authored by the GM in response to action resolution; secret backstory is not generally used as an input into action resolution.
> 
> To refer to an actual play example I set out in more detail upthread: it's not the case that, had I done better design of the "PCs retreat across the desert to the ruined tower" scenario, I would have not needed "fail forward" to adjudicate the attempt to find the mace in the tower. (Eg because I would have already decided whether or not it was there to be found.) Rather, the whole point of the resolution of the Scavenging check is to see whether or not the player (and the PC) gets his wish, that the mace is there to be found. When the check fails, then - per the rules of the game - it is my prerogative as GM to introduce some other situation which does not give the PC (and player) his wish. Thus, instead of a mace the PCs find the black arrows. And the mace turns up instead, in the following session, in the hands of the dark elf who has been harassing the PCs.
> 
> This is a concrete example of how "fail forward" is a device used to manage the introduction of backstory by the GM, and to maintain narrative momentum, as an _alternative_ to "scenario design" or making sure that there are multiple ways to do what "must be done".
> 
> I don't think anyone has said that it will, have they?
> 
> But this isn't a thread about how D&D should be designed. It's a thread in the General forum about whether or not people like "fail forward" as a technique, and why.




OK, I'm not familiar with the sources you quote, but I read through some of your earlier examples. The one opening the door between OD&D and Burning Wheel, all I really see is a simplification of the skill check (quite similar to how I'm handling it in D&D 5e now).

It recognizes that for most tasks that is within a character's capability, it's just a matter of time before success and that there are often consequences as a result. In OD&D it was just keep rolling until you succeed, and each time you fail there's a chance of consequences (wandering monster). It doesn't take into account the amount of time, or that a chance for a wandering monster likely increases the longer you have to take.

Burning Wheel (and my approach) simply says that it will take some time. Burning Wheel uses a similar system to D&D's Take 10 and Take 20 rules and assigns a fixed amount of time. In my case I've randomized it. To keep it simple I've put a cutoff for absolute failure, and when I determine the results for something taking time, I take into account the various factors (noise, location, current situation in the dungeon like guards actively searching for them, and the amount of time) when determining whether anything happens in that time and what. Many times it's obvious - the opening scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark are fantastic examples of how to adjudicate failures.

I'm totally onboard with all of this, and if that's how 'Failing Forward' is defined, that great.

But on everything I've read online, 'Failing Forward' is related to 'Always Say Yes' and other methods that are recommended to keep things moving. Failing Forward in these cases simply mean that the failed skill check ends in a state that the DM finds unacceptable, and thus must provide a different non-failure result.

These most commonly occur in scenarios where the only way forward is 'blocked' by a skill check in an attempt to create an exciting situation. It might be a published adventure or not. Regardless, the adventure is now stuck at a point where it cannot continue without the DM providing some method to do so.

DM's are being encouraged to use techniques like this on a regular basis. I agree that if you find yourself in that situation, as a DM you have to fix the mistake somehow. But by developing a DMing methodology around these concepts, I think we're creating lazy DMs. It's a good starting place. But whether running a published campaign, running one on your own, or even via random generation, using them to keep giving the PCs a way out drastically changes the nature of RPG games. 

Based on the many responses to this thread I'd have to say that the term 'Failing Forward' is poorly chosen if it's supposed to mean what you're describing, and at this point means something very different to many others.

I'd love to see the original source material you mention to see what the original intent of the concept was. 

Ilbranteloth


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] - the BW rules for "intent and task" can be downloaded for free from DriveThruRPG here. It is elaborated in the Adventure Burner, which is the closest thing BW has to a GM's guide - at the moment I don't have that ready-to-hand to quote, but it elaborates on the relationship between intent and task in failure narration. The key passage on p 31 of BW Gold is this:

When the dice are rolled and don’t produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass.​
Page 32 continues:

When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication.

“You can try to pick the lock, but you don’t have much time. It is highly likely that the guards will return before you finish.”​
Try not to present flat negative results - "You don’t pick the lock.” Strive to introduce complications through failure as much as possible.​
This has nothing to do with things that "the DM finds unacceptable". It certainly has nothing to do with "lazy DMs". As per the passage I've quoted upthread from Eero Tuivonen, narrating complications that are appropriate to the player's specified intent and task, and that deploy and build on existing backstory, and that challenge the player (and thereby the PC) in an engaging way, is a GM skill that is not trivial to master.

The reason is does not relate to things that are "unacceptable", or to "blocking", is because in these games there is no "scenario." The GM does not prepare that sort of backstory in advance. The backstory is narrated in response to the failures, in the forms of the complications and consequences that result from the PCs trying things but not realising their intents.

Whether or not, in the course of this, the PCs do or don't succeed at the _tasks_ in question is secondary.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] - the BW rules for "intent and task" can be downloaded for free from DriveThruRPG here. It is elaborated in the Adventure Burner, which is the closest thing BW has to a GM's guide - at the moment I don't have that ready-to-hand to quote, but it elaborates on the relationship between intent and task in failure narration. The key passage on p 31 of BW Gold is this:
> 
> When the dice are rolled and don’t produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass.​
> Page 32 continues:
> 
> When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication.
> 
> “You can try to pick the lock, but you don’t have much time. It is highly likely that the guards will return before you finish.”​
> Try not to present flat negative results - "You don’t pick the lock.” Strive to introduce complications through failure as much as possible.​
> This has nothing to do with things that "the DM finds unacceptable". It certainly has nothing to do with "lazy DMs". As per the passage I've quoted upthread from Eero Tuivonen, narrating complications that are appropriate to the player's specified intent and task, and that deploy and build on existing backstory, and that challenge the player (and thereby the PC) in an engaging way, is a GM skill that is not trivial to master.
> 
> The reason is does not relate to things that are "unacceptable", or to "blocking", is because in these games there is no "scenario." The GM does not prepare that sort of backstory in advance. The backstory is narrated in response to the failures, in the forms of the complications and consequences that result from the PCs trying things but not realising their intents.
> 
> Whether or not, in the course of this, the PCs do or don't succeed at the _tasks_ in question is secondary.




Based on your examples, as I said, I think that you're talking about an entirely different understanding of the term 'failing forward.' My interpretation is based solely on how I've seen the term used and/or discussed elsewhere, which is directly related to 'unacceptable results.'

What you're describing makes perfect sense, whether there is a predetermined scenario or not. Essentially there are alternative options to failure aside from just outright failure. I just don't understand how the term 'failing forward' came to be used to describe that process. There usually are (but not always) alternatives to outright failure. 

If this is how 'failing forward' is defined, I'm all for it. Although eventually, there is always the possibility of just failure. Sometimes you slip and fall.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Neonchameleon

Ilbranteloth said:


> If this is how 'failing forward' is defined, I'm all for it. Although eventually, there is always the possibility of just failure. Sometimes you slip and fall.




Slipping and falling is quite literally failing forward. Forward in this case being straight down because that is the direction the PCs are going. It would not be failing forward to climb two feet and then slip and fall and end up unharmed at the bottom of the wall the PC is trying to climb up.

What Failing Forward means is that after a roll the PCs never find themselves in (a) the same place they found themselves before the roll or (b) the same place they were before the roll - just with one fewer option. (Or even bouncing between two bad positions).

To repeat the "Forward" in Failing Forward doesn't mean that the PC must get closer to their objective. It's not a vector. It means that they must move with each roll - it's a scalar. Even if they get further from the objective by their failure they've gone somewhere and can come from a different angle and so they've failed forward.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Neonchameleon said:


> Slipping and falling is quite literally failing forward. Forward in this case being straight down because that is the direction the PCs are going. It would not be failing forward to climb two feet and then slip and fall and end up unharmed at the bottom of the wall the PC is trying to climb up.
> 
> What Failing Forward means is that after a roll the PCs never find themselves in (a) the same place they found themselves before the roll or (b) the same place they were before the roll - just with one fewer option. (Or even bouncing between two bad positions).
> 
> To repeat the "Forward" in Failing Forward doesn't mean that the PC must get closer to their objective. It's not a vector. It means that they must move with each roll - it's a scalar. Even if they get further from the objective by their failure they've gone somewhere and can come from a different angle and so they've failed forward.




It's a lot fewer options if you fall and die. But a good clarification.

Just to make sure I didn't miss something (after being involved in the discussion for some time), the description of failing forward at the beginning of this thread was exactly what I've seen elsewhere. 

From the initial post:


Morrus said:


> I was curious how folks felt about this concept?  I'm a fan.
> 
> Essentially, it's a mechanic, fairly common these days, which ensures that the game doesn't grind to a halt on a failed skill check.  Instead of the task at hand failing and stopping the game, the task is successful but with an attached disadvantage.
> 
> So, if the way into a dungeon is to pick the lock, and failing to do so would mean the party could not continue, the lock gets picked but a trap is set off.  Or something.  That was a _terrible_ example; don't use it as a basis for judging the concept!
> 
> Some people love this; some games adopt it whole-heartedly. Other people dislike it, saying that the players should just think their way around to another solution and that the GM should be able to handle that. I'm in the former group; I think it's very useful, and use it for travel in my own RPG design.
> So what do you think?




And the first post by Saelorn in this thread:


Saelorn said:


> I think that it makes for a silly world, if outright failure is never a possibility. If you're testing whether someone can pick a lock, and there is no chance of failing to pick that lock, then the game mechanic is not providing a reasonable model of the activity.
> 
> A further consideration is that defining one direction as "forward" would imply that the GM is trying to direct the course of action of the player characters, which violates the GM's role as neutral arbiter. As the GM, I should not become attached to the outcome of any action. Whether they succeed or fail in opening that lock, either path is equally valid.
> 
> If you insist on meddling with the PCs and enforcing certain outcomes, there are subtler ways to do it. You could have the NPCs decide to use a cheaper lock, or a type of lock which one of the PCs is so familiar that no roll is necessary.




So I think it's pretty clear that the definition of 'failing forward' is not universally accepted or understood. I still think that if the actual intended definition is what you and Pemerton have described, then it's a poor term to use, simply because without any clarifying definition the term really sounds like it means something closer to what the initial post, Saelorn, and many others (myself included), thought, in which failure still puts you closer (moving forward) to your actual intended goal.

Which means, unfortunately, that this poll isn't very helpful. I voted 'No' but based on what you (and Pemerton) have described I would vote yes. The discussion has been helpful, though.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## pemerton

I think that [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] and I are on the same page when it comes to understanding "fail forward".



Ilbranteloth said:


> It's a lot fewer options if you fall and die. But a good clarification.



In the same part of the BW core rules that I was quoting from above, there is a discussion of when "fail and you die" should be on the table. The short version is "not often".



Ilbranteloth said:


> the description of failing forward at the beginning of this thread was exactly what I've seen elsewhere.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So I think it's pretty clear that the definition of 'failing forward' is not universally accepted or understood.



Fair enough. I'm familiar with the term from the sources I mentioned above, where I think it's fairly clear that it has the meaning I've been putting forward in this thread.

I guess if it's combined with the idea of "the scenario", then the alternative notion you have been working with might emerge - it would be an adaptation of an anti-railroading technique to be helpful in more GM-pre-authored play.


----------



## Manbearcat

Maxperson said:


> You can climb a mountain without gear, though.  Gear management makes it much easier and is better represented by circumstance bonuses in my opinion.
> 
> I don't abstract gear management.  If the PCs don't go buy the gear and then let me that they use it to aid their mountain climb, they don't have or use gear.  If they do, then the gear is a direct part of the climb and bad stuff can happen to it while climbing.




I'm not sure I made clear what I was after as your response answers "a question" (about your preferences) but it doesn't address what I was trying to dig down into.  I'll try another angle:

1)  Gear deployment and management in climbing/mountaineering (not just belaying equipment or hand climbing equipment, but also your pack, your garb, etc) is a component of competency in these endeavors.  Consequently, from a sheer causal logic perspective, it makes sense (within the fiction) to have catastrophic gear failure or gear loss be "in play" for a GM to use as a failure-driven complication when a player misses a target number.

If players aren't using belaying equipment, hammers/pitons, or pegs/crampons during a climb, then whatever other gear they are carrying (be it a divining rod/pouch of coins/weapon/healing potion on your belt, your cold-weather-cloak, or your backpack) could be "in play."

Latches/leather/wool/ties fail, tear, or come free/break (of their own volition, due to impact, or getting catastrophically snagged).

2)  If (1) is true, I don't see how it hinders player agency for a GM to evolve the post-resolution fiction to "gear a, b, or c, falls down the crevice...what are you going to do about it (if anything)" vs "you fall x feet."

The reason why "you fall x feet or you fail to climb" was effective (and used solely) in AD&D isn't an aspect of player agency driven by causal logic.  It is a "gamist system artifact" because it interfaces directly with (a) the HP mechanics, and (b) the wandering monster mechanics (which drive the system as much as the battle for daily resource recharges and xp for gold). 



grendel111111 said:


> I am a little confused as to why it is important for you that everyone  has the same level of abstraction for all action, but I will accept that for you this is very important.




I'm not sure where it is in my prior post (or any other post) where you see that I put forward this position.  I presume that you're mistaking my personal preferences for my ruminating upon (and asking clarifying questions) why it is that people will have varying needs for degrees of abstraction in varying component parts of resolution mechanics.  I then wonder about how this comports with (supports with coherency) peoples' varying "agency thresholds".

 [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] answers my question in the way that I expected (and I agree with):



Maxperson said:


> As for why combat is different.  Combat happens much more frequently and already involves more rolling.  Certain things must be accepted in order for the game to play smoothly and not bog down.  A bogged down game is not fun for most people in my experience.  It's why I accept that my character is effectively frozen in time while 50 goblins can all move and attack before my character can move so much as an inch due to losing initiative.




This is what I was looking for.  However, I'd like to extend the question further into "how does extremely abstract resolution mechanics for the majority of the game's conflicts interact with" the "I don't have requisite agency in climbing/mountaineering (et al) if I cannot make causal-logic-driven, OODA Loop inhabiting decisions where play outcomes are a natural outgrowth of process simulating resolution mechanics" paradigm?  I have several natural questions that stem forth from the maintenance of those two, at-tension positions.  If the answer to all of them is just "because my mental model is what it is due to internalizing this paradigm for decades +", then so be it.  But let us just say that.  

If it is something else, then clarity and enlightenment would be appreciated!



grendel111111 said:


> Hence the reason I'm not saying my approach is they way the game is "supposed" to be played, or that anyone else should play the game with my preferred style unless they like that style.




Neither am I.  I'm not sure why you are putting that forth.  Merely discussing a technique, what dynamics it perpetuates, what system infrastructure does it interface well with is not telling you that you should use it.  This is a thread about understanding the technique of "Failing Forward."  My efforts are intended to forward that end.

Or this:



pemerton said:


> I don't think anyone has said that it will, have they?
> 
> But this isn't a thread about how D&D should be designed. It's a thread in the General forum about whether or not people like "fail forward" as a technique, and why.






grendel111111 said:


> Part of the reason that how it interacts with the system is so very important is because it changes the system. They interact with each other.




Agreed.  Very much.  Which is why I, directly above, asked people to start interacting with specific play examples if they were interested in having nuanced conversation about "Failing Forward" rather than the generic conversation driven by the generic example of Bob, Mount Pudding, the failed Navigation check leading to an interaction with a hazard (crevice), and the Pudding Divining Rod (which was meant to triangulate a starting point).

By all means, (anyone) engage (specifically) with the detailed play posts for a detailed conversation about how the technique supports, and is supported by, system.



grendel111111 said:


> And if I don't like the dungeon world approach to role playing how is pushing D and D more towards that style of game going to make me like it more?




Dungeon World is D&D.  As is 13th Age.  As is D&D 4e.  As is D&D 5e.  All of them feature "Failing Forward" as a component of their conflict resolution mechanics.



grendel111111 said:


> A big part of running D and D games is deciding which techniques will create the kind of game that you and your players will enjoy, and employing those that support the experience you want to have. As a result fail forward in  all it's forms forms could be moving you towards the style of game  (and system) that you want or moving you away from it.




No disagreement there.


----------



## Emerikol

This is the classic debate between playing styles.  I want a game that represents "realistic" choices given the fantasy mileu that my characters have to face.  So I am generally anti-metagaming.   There are many ways past a lock but locks are not always openable.  So that kind of "meta-planning" outside the game by DM or players is not desirable.   I consider the environment and the monsters as challenges the players have to overcome in a variety of ways.   The DM's job is to accurately create and simulate that environment.   Obviously the creation of the environment is a skill and something worth putting effort into to ensure quality.


----------



## Emerikol

I also am a believer that your equipment is your equipment.  You have it or you don't.  As a DM though, I very much will advise the player about the things his character might know that he as a player does not know.   So I might ask the player if he intends on buying climbing equipment because his skill as a climber indicates that is a good idea.


----------



## Reinhart

Remember how I said someone should write a guide on what Fail Forward is and how to use it? Well here you go, thanks to Jon Lemich:
http://www.runagame.net/2015/12/fail-forward.html

More to the point is the mantra that follows it:

"Nothing" is not a consequence of failure.  

It's literally what happens when the GM isn't doing their job.  

If you want to make "nothing" happen, just sit there and play on your phone.  

Your job is to make the world react to the players' actions.  

"Nothing" is not a reaction.  

Do your job!


----------



## iserith

Reinhart said:


> Remember how I said someone should write a guide on what Fail Forward is and how to use it? Well here you go, thanks to Jon Lemich:
> http://www.runagame.net/2015/12/fail-forward.html
> 
> More to the point is the mantra that follows it:
> 
> "Nothing" is not a consequence of failure.
> 
> It's literally what happens when the GM isn't doing their job.
> 
> If you want to make "nothing" happen, just sit there and play on your phone.
> 
> Your job is to make the world react to the players' actions.
> 
> "Nothing" is not a reaction.
> 
> Do your job!




Completely agree. When I sit down to play in a pickup group and I see a DM use "fail forward" type stuff, I immediately know the DM is on the top of his or her game. Anything less and I prepare for the worst.


----------



## grendel111111

Reinhart said:


> Remember how I said someone should write a guide on what Fail Forward is and how to use it? Well here you go, thanks to Jon Lemich:
> http://www.runagame.net/2015/12/fail-forward.html
> 
> More to the point is the mantra that follows it:
> 
> "Nothing" is not a consequence of failure.
> 
> It's literally what happens when the GM isn't doing their job.
> 
> If you want to make "nothing" happen, just sit there and play on your phone.
> 
> Your job is to make the world react to the players' actions.
> 
> "Nothing" is not a reaction.
> 
> Do your job!




This is an excellent article, it gives clear examples and clears up some misunderstandings right up until the last paragraph. Then suddenly it turns into "if you don't play the game my way you are wrong." 
Honestly when presenting a style of play it is important to see that it is just that. A way to play the game, not THE way to play the game. It is not "not doing your job", if you use a different style to failing forward. 

Also if he is worried about the DM doing his job why did he put the entire nights game behind a hidden door with a DC of 20 to find it? That is an idiot move to start with.

For me the biggest "fail" (Note that I use " " because it is a style difference)  in the examples, is how they are presented to the players. If you roll x this will happen, if you roll y that will happen... now roll.

Here is an example of 2 ways of presenting the same situation to the players (both using fail forward):

Situation: The characters want to get to the other end of a corridor, It has collapsed in the middle and is blocked by rubble. The characters decide to dig out the corridor so they can get to the other side.

Approach 1: The corridor is filled with rubble and the roof is clearly unstable. You need to make a Str (Athletics roll) to clear the rubble. The DC is 15 and you can have 1 person help you. On a successful roll you clear the rubble but on a fail you clear the rubble but some of the roof falls and hits you so you will lose a healing surge (or what ever penalty).

Approach 2: The corridor is filled with rubble and the roof is clearly unstable. You need to make a Str (Athletics roll) to clear the rubble. The DC is 15 and you can have 1 person help you. (at this point the characters my decide to prop up the corridor as they go, using mining skills to aid in their clearing of the rubble, but we assume that they don't for this example) On making the roll they will find out the out come. Will they make it through? Will rubble fall and injure someone? Will the whole corridor fall in forever blocking their way? Will one of them get trapped under falling beams? (The DM knows that on a failed roll they will clear the rubble but some of the roof falls and hits them so they will lose a healing surge (or what ever penalty).

Approach 1 kills the tention. As soon as it is announces they know they will make it through, but might lose a resource. Approach 2 keeps the tension high. They don't know the outcome until the action is completed. As a player I far prefer this way.


----------



## Reinhart

grendel111111 said:


> Approach 1 kills the tention. As soon as it is announces they know they will make it through, but might lose a resource. Approach 2 keeps the tension high. They don't know the outcome until the action is completed. As a player I far prefer this way.




Nothing about what the author wrote actually indicates he believes what you're saying he believes. And I know him, so I can safely say you're completely misconstruing his intent. In fact, what you've written above is both irrelevant and incorrect. Knowing the possible outcomes is not contradictory to tension. When Dirty Harry points his revolver at the punk's head and pulls his trigger he either has a bullet or he doesn't. And assuming he's telling the truth, no one there knows if he does or doesn't. It's a binary event with two very well defined outcomes, but there is still a palpable tension. So you don't need "anything can happen" levels uncertainty to create tension.

That's because tension isn't just established by uncertainty; it also requires a sense of stakes. Of course you can set the stakes either in mechanical or narrative terms as you prefer, based on your play-style. Regardless, it's vital that the players believe that there are interesting consequences to their actions; Otherwise, you have no tension. What's wrong with Approach 1 isn't that the different outcomes are known, it's that the stakes aren't relevant and interesting to the events and characters at hand.

But again, this is all besides the point so let's not waste further words on it.


----------



## Maxperson

Manbearcat said:


> I'm not sure I made clear what I was after as your response answers "a question" (about your preferences) but it doesn't address what I was trying to dig down into.  I'll try another angle:
> 
> 1)  Gear deployment and management in climbing/mountaineering (not just belaying equipment or hand climbing equipment, but also your pack, your garb, etc) is a component of competency in these endeavors.  Consequently, from a sheer causal logic perspective, it makes sense (within the fiction) to have catastrophic gear failure or gear loss be "in play" for a GM to use as a failure-driven complication when a player misses a target number.




Okay.  That's clearer and I agree.  Equipment being used logically can be lost or broken during a climb.  I used a similar example where the rod was being carried in hand while climbing as one of the few ways I could see the rod lost as a result of a failed climb check.  A rod in a pack?  Nope.  Not connected.



> If players aren't using belaying equipment, hammers/pitons, or pegs/crampons during a climb, then whatever other gear they are carrying (be it a divining rod/pouch of coins/weapon/healing potion on your belt, your cold-weather-cloak, or your backpack) could be "in play."




Not and be directly connected to a climb check they can't.  There is a disconnect there and that's what throws it off.  Only things directly being used for the climb check itself have a direct connection to the check.


----------



## grendel111111

Reinhart said:


> Nothing about what the author wrote actually indicates he believes what you're saying he believes. And I know him, so I can safely say you're completely misconstruing his intent. In fact, what you've written above is both irrelevant and incorrect. Knowing the possible outcomes is not contradictory to tension. When Dirty Harry points his revolver at the punk's head and pulls his trigger he either has a bullet or he doesn't. And assuming he's telling the truth, no one there knows if he does or doesn't. It's a binary event with two very well defined outcomes, but there is still a palpable tension. So you don't need "anything can happen" levels uncertainty to create tension.
> 
> That's because tension isn't just established by uncertainty; it also requires a sense of stakes. Of course you can set the stakes either in mechanical or narrative terms as you prefer, based on your play-style. Regardless, it's vital that the players believe that there are interesting consequences to their actions; Otherwise, you have no tension. What's wrong with Approach 1 isn't that the different outcomes are known, it's that the stakes aren't relevant and interesting to the events and characters at hand.
> 
> But again, this is all besides the point so let's not waste further words on it.




What I have written above is my experience and about my preference, so in a thread about "Do you like fail forward? and why or why not?" it is relevant.
This is a thread about what you like about fail forward correct? and there is more than one way to run fail forward, correct?
It wasn't until reading what You linked to that it became really clear what it is that I find dissatisfying about some applications of fail forward other than the simple disconnect that some of us feel. 
The knowing of the possible outcomes is a tension killer "for me". It isn't a tension killer "for you". Again neither right or wrong, just different. 
I think "for me" it is the difference between feeling like I am in a script writing room deciding that Indi is going over the cliff and "how are we going to save him" and feeling like you are Indi going over that cliff, and not knowing how this is going to end. 
So again "for me" as "a player" I like fail forward when used as the DM decides the outcomes before the dice are rolled, but I don't know them until after the dice are rolled (And I only know the one that takes affect).

In each of his examples you could have removed the point where the DM explains the 2 possible outcomes, still used fail forward with the same results and it would "to me" have felt like it was a more in character experience. It would also have the advantage for me of hiding some of the more blatant disconnects (If you fail the lock pick roll it will start raining).

However I should have separated it from my reply to you. But as it was connected to the piece you linked to so I didn't, Sorry.
Clearly I misunderstood the end of the artical when he was saying "In each example, there's a bad way to handle failure that is quick, simple, obvious...   and wrong:" I misinterpreted that if you don't use the suggest approach you are "Wrong".


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Equipment being used logically can be lost or broken during a climb.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Manbearcat said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If players aren't using belaying equipment, hammers/pitons, or pegs/crampons during a climb, then whatever other gear they are carrying (be it a divining rod/pouch of coins/weapon/healing potion on your belt, your cold-weather-cloak, or your backpack) could be "in play."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not and be directly connected to a climb check they can't.  There is a disconnect there and that's what throws it off.  Only things directly being used for the climb check itself have a direct connection to the check.
Click to expand...




Emerikol said:


> I also am a believer that your equipment is your equipment.  You have it or you don't.



I am going to push  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s point a little harder.

Clearly, when climbing a mountain while wearing a cold-weather cloak and while carrying a backpack there is a chance that the cloak or pack can get snagged, or that it can come loose and fall. Avoiding such things is part of the skill of being a mountaineer.

One way to represent the connection between skill, and such potential consequences, is for the loss of equipment to be "in play" as a possible outcome for a failed Climbing check.

But if you don't do it that way - and I believe, from your posts, that neither of you does - then how do you do it? To the best of my knowledge no edition of D&D has ever had a "Chance of equipment snag while mountain climbing" table - and in any event, a purely random table wouldn't factor in the crucial dimension of mountaineering skill.



Emerikol said:


> I want a game that represents "realistic" choices given the fantasy mileu that my characters have to face.  So I am generally anti-metagaming.



I think that realism is a red herring. There is nothing unrealistic about dropping one's pudding divining rod while climbing. If anything, the classic D&D approach where climbers sometimes fall (failed climbing check) but never lose their gear (there is no systematic mechanic, in classic D&D, for losing gear via drop or break or snag) is quite unrealistic.

Nor is there anything unrealistic about the various actual play examples that I have given upthread. There is nothing unrealistic about searching a tower for a lost mace and discovering that it is not there, but rather has been looted by a dark elf adversary, and instead discovering that one's balrog-possessed brother may have been evil all along - as be-tokened by the black arrows in his (formerly) private workroom.

The issue is not about realism. It's about the ways in which backstory is authored and brought into play as part of action resolution. _At the table_, is it primarily an input or an output?


----------



## pemerton

Having a quick look at the article that  [MENTION=13080]Reinhart[/MENTION] linked to upthread, I don't agree with this:

When people talk about Fail Forward in RPGs, they mean that failure should not stop the action, and failure should always have interesting consequences.

 I suggest that we stop saying "fail forward" now, because it's confusing, it's business jargon, and googling it finds all the wrong links.  I don't need to make up yet another term to replace it.  Instead, I suggest we just start using the term for it from Fate Core, "succeed at a cost."​
"Succeed at a cost" is only one way of ensuring that failure has interesting consequences, and often not the most interesting or most appropriate. Most of the actual play examples I've given upthread don't involve succeeding at a cost. Nor does  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example of losing the rod while climbing Mt Pudding.

EDIT: The language of "succeed at a cost" also produces comments like this one to the linked article, which echoes things that have been posted in this thread:

_t's important that it's not always 'failing forward' or whatever we decide to call it. Sometimes it's just outright failing.
_​_

In fact there is nothing wrong with failure always producing interesting consequences which drive the action on - which is what game designers like Luke Crane, Robin Laws, Ron Edwards, Jonathan Tweet, Vincent Baker etc have in mind in advocating "fail forward" as a technique. This is completely orthogonal to whether the PCs always, frequently or only sometimes get what they want. In 4e, which is a very heroic game, the tendency is towards "frequently". In BW, which tends towards grittiness, it is more like "sometimes". Others who know the Apocalypse engine better than me can comment on the sort of frequency of success it tends to produce. But all these systems deploy "fail forward" in the sense of "the consequences of failure should be a challenging new situation that drives the action onward."_


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I am going to push  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s point a little harder.
> 
> Clearly, when climbing a mountain while wearing a cold-weather cloak and while carrying a backpack there is a chance that the cloak or pack can get snagged, or that it can come loose and fall. Avoiding such things is part of the skill of being a mountaineer.




Sure.  That's bad luck, though.  It's also possible to get frostbite while climbing a mountain, and it's possible to start an avalanche while climbing a mountain, sprain an ankle while climbing a mountain and so on.  A failed climb check involves climbing or the failure to do so.  I occasionally call for a fate roll in my game, and sometimes bad luck or good luck happens in addition the results of whatever else is going on.  If the PC fumbles that fate roll while climbing, bad luck happens.  What doesn't happen is for it to happen instead of a failed climb check.  The PCs don't get to continue on their merry way is if they had succeeded at the check and just lose a piece of equipment.



> One way to represent the connection between skill, and such potential consequences, is for the loss of equipment to be "in play" as a possible outcome for a failed Climbing check.




When directly connected, sure.



> But if you don't do it that way - and I believe, from your posts, that neither of you does - then how do you do it? To the best of my knowledge no edition of D&D has ever had a "Chance of equipment snag while mountain climbing" table - and in any event, a purely random table wouldn't factor in the crucial dimension of mountaineering skill.




As I said, I have fate rolls that can alter things for better or for worse.  I also have skill fumbles, and if you roll multiple 1's in a row, bad things directly connected to the event at hand start to happen.



> I think that realism is a red herring. There is nothing unrealistic about dropping one's pudding divining rod while climbing. If anything, the classic D&D approach where climbers sometimes fall (failed climbing check) but never lose their gear (there is no systematic mechanic, in classic D&D, for losing gear via drop or break or snag) is quite unrealistic.




It isn't that it's unrealistic to drop a rod while climbing.  It's that it's not realistic for the climb check to be the reason.  Climb checks check climbing and that's it.  They don't check rods falling out of your pocket.  Something else has to come into play before that happens.



> Nor is there anything unrealistic about the various actual play examples that I have given upthread. There is nothing unrealistic about searching a tower for a lost mace and discovering that it is not there, but rather has been looted by a dark elf adversary, and instead discovering that one's balrog-possessed brother may have been evil all along - as be-tokened by the black arrows in his (formerly) private workroom.




In and of themselves, no.  They aren't unrealistic.  What makes it unrealistic or not is how those things are brought into play.  I failed a climb check so it started raining and slowed my climb down is not a realistic result of a climb check, even though rain is realistic.  Rain has nothing to do with a climb check.


----------



## Mecheon

Maxperson said:


> It isn't that it's unrealistic to drop a rod while climbing.  It's that it's not realistic for the climb check to be the reason.  Climb checks check climbing and that's it.  They don't check rods falling out of your pocket.  Something else has to come into play before that happens.




No there doesn't? It could be failing to keep your things in order, so you're being sloppy with it. Or you failed to grab an edge, slipped, and it fell out from the jolt. It doesn't need to be tied to just climbing, nothing else needs to come into play.



Maxperson said:


> In and of themselves, no. They aren't unrealistic. What makes it unrealistic or not is how those things are brought into play. I failed a climb check so it started raining and slowed my climb down is not a realistic result of a climb check, even though rain is realistic. Rain has nothing to do with a climb check.




We're talking about a fantasy RPG game where giant flying lizards breathe fire, acid, chlorine or other things, and elves and dwarves are everywhere. "Realism" is hardly appropriate, and rain could have everything to do with it as far as the GM wills. However, there's just one point I want to pick on...



Maxperson said:


> What doesn't happen is for it to happen instead of a failed climb check. The PCs don't get to continue on their merry way is if they had succeeded at the check and just lose a piece of equipment.



What would you prefer in this scenario? That they instead keep rolling until they succeed?

Because that is *horrible* DMing and is dragging down the game, and everyone's enjoyment. The entire point of failing forward is to avoid those scenarios so you keep the game at a solid pace, rather than slowing down to keep doing the same skill check they've already failed. The worst example of this remains that one 5E session where they just kept rolling to unlock a door


----------



## grendel111111

Mecheon said:


> No there doesn't? It could be failing to keep your things in order, so you're being sloppy with it. Or you failed to grab an edge, slipped, and it fell out from the jolt. It doesn't need to be tied to just climbing, nothing else needs to come into play.
> 
> 
> 
> We're talking about a fantasy RPG game where giant flying lizards breathe fire, acid, chlorine or other things, and elves and dwarves are everywhere. "Realism" is hardly appropriate, and rain could have everything to do with it as far as the GM wills. However, there's just one point I want to pick on...
> 
> 
> What would you prefer in this scenario? That they instead keep rolling until they succeed?
> 
> Because that is *horrible* DMing and is dragging down the game, and everyone's enjoyment. The entire point of failing forward is to avoid those scenarios so you keep the game at a solid pace, rather than slowing down to keep doing the same skill check they've already failed. The worst example of this remains that one 5E session where they just kept rolling to unlock a door




If a single failed climb roll is thwarting your quest then the DM may not be your problem. It may just be that you are a bad player.
How about coming up with other solutions? Can't get over the mountain, we may be forced to brave the mines of Moria. Of cause LotR just stopped when they couldn't get over the mountains because Tolkin let them actually fail a check. He was such a terrible DM.


----------



## Mecheon

grendel111111 said:


> If a single failed climb roll is thwarting your quest then the DM may not be your problem. It may just be that you are a bad player.
> How about coming up with other solutions? Can't get over the mountain, we may be forced to brave the mines of Moria. Of cause LotR just stopped when they couldn't get over the mountains because Tolkin let them actually fail a check. He was such a terrible DM.




But if the GM is demanding you have to climb this mountain or else nothing, then that's the problem

I hate to point out "That one 5E session with the PA people where they spent a while constantly rolling to unlock a door", but, well, that's it as an example


----------



## Maxperson

Mecheon said:


> No there doesn't? It could be failing to keep your things in order, so you're being sloppy with it. Or you failed to grab an edge, slipped, and it fell out from the jolt. It doesn't need to be tied to just climbing, nothing else needs to come into play.




Failing to keep things in order and/or being sloppy has nothing directly to do with a climb check.  It's bad luck that would cause it to fall.



> We're talking about a fantasy RPG game where giant flying lizards breathe fire, acid, chlorine or other things, and elves and dwarves are everywhere. "Realism" is hardly appropriate, and rain could have everything to do with it as far as the GM wills. However, there's just one point I want to pick on...




This failed argument again?  It's getting old.  Fantasy realism changes some things and allows things like dragons to be realistic through the altered game universe reality, while walking off a cliff and not falling is NOT realistic.  Unless there is something like the fantasy realism magic to cause you not to fall.  Realism exists in D&D and every other fantasy RPG I've ever heard of, and is in fact appropriate.  

That fantasy realism creates situations where things work "realistically" in the game universe that are not realistic outside of it in the real world does not mean that NOTHING REALISTIC EVUR!!!!!!  Hur hur!



> What would you prefer in this scenario? That they instead keep rolling until they succeed?
> 
> Because that is *horrible* DMing and is dragging down the game, and everyone's enjoyment. The entire point of failing forward is to avoid those scenarios so you keep the game at a solid pace, rather than slowing down to keep doing the same skill check they've already failed. The worst example of this remains that one 5E session where they just kept rolling to unlock a door




False Dichotomy.  It's not auto succeed with a penalty or sit there and keep rolling until they make the climb.  

I prefer it the way I do it.  There is a type of fail forward where if you fail and one avenue is closed, you switch to one of the other avenues that exist and proceed forward.  Maybe you pull out the scroll of flying and use it.  Maybe you go back down and get some equipment for mountain climbing to enable success.  There are lots of ways to succeed other than constantly rolling for climb checks until you succeed or being unable to fail to make the climb.


----------



## Maxperson

Mecheon said:


> But if the GM is demanding you have to climb this mountain or else nothing, then that's the problem




Yes.  It's a problem which has nothing whatsoever to do with using or not using fail forward.  Bad DMs are bad.  



> I hate to point out "That one 5E session with the PA people where they spent a while constantly rolling to unlock a door", but, well, that's it as an example




Bad DMs are bad.  Get a new one.


----------



## grendel111111

Maxperson said:


> Yes.  It's a problem which has nothing whatsoever to do with using or not using fail forward.  Bad DMs are bad.
> 
> 
> 
> Bad DMs are bad.  Get a new one.




Exactly If you have a DM that is causing these problems that need to be fixed, either get a new DM or work with them to improve.

That fix might include fail forward, or it might include helping them set clearer goals, non-linear objectives, having more open plans for the session (or to not hold so tightly to plans). 
Fail forward is not a magic pill that will fix a bad DM, and a bad DM will still be a bad DM, just using a different technique. 

I suspect that a DM that needs to hold so tightly to the story, so as to insist there is only one way to do things, is either a very new DM or wouldn't be comfortable giving up so much control to be willing to try fail forward anyway.

Another reason some of us don't see the same need for fail forward is because we are not having these "problems" that it is trying to fix. We don't have one roll that can disable a whole nights play. As a result the negatives of adding the disconnectedness that we dislike is not balanced by "fixing a problem".


----------



## Reinhart

pemerton said:


> In fact there is nothing wrong with failure always producing interesting consequences which drive the action on - which is what game designers like Luke Crane, Robin Laws, Ron Edwards, Jonathan Tweet, Vincent Baker etc have in mind in advocating "fail forward" as a technique. This is completely orthogonal to whether the PCs always, frequently or only sometimes get what they want. In 4e, which is a very heroic game, the tendency is towards "frequently". In BW, which tends towards grittiness, it is more like "sometimes". Others who know the Apocalypse engine better than me can comment on the sort of frequency of success it tends to produce. But all these systems deploy "fail forward" in the sense of "the consequences of failure should be a challenging new situation that drives the action onward."




No disagreement from me on that point. I'm not sold on the term "Succeed at a Cost" like Jon is, but I am frustrated by how muddied the original Fail Forward term has become. I agree that using only Success at a Cost instead causes people to suspect that failure is no longer a possible outcome, even when that failure would be interesting to the story and characters.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Maxperson said:


> Sure.  That's bad luck, though.  It's also possible to get frostbite while climbing a mountain, and it's possible to start an avalanche while climbing a mountain, sprain an ankle while climbing a mountain and so on.  A failed climb check involves climbing or the failure to do so.  I occasionally call for a fate roll in my game, and sometimes bad luck or good luck happens in addition the results of whatever else is going on.  If the PC fumbles that fate roll while climbing, bad luck happens.  What doesn't happen is for it to happen instead of a failed climb check.  The PCs don't get to continue on their merry way is if they had succeeded at the check and just lose a piece of equipment.
> ...
> 
> As I said, I have fate rolls that can alter things for better or for worse.  I also have skill fumbles, and if you roll multiple 1's in a row, bad things directly connected to the event at hand start to happen.
> 
> It isn't that it's unrealistic to drop a rod while climbing.  It's that it's not realistic for the climb check to be the reason.  Climb checks check climbing and that's it.  They don't check rods falling out of your pocket.  Something else has to come into play before that happens.
> 
> In and of themselves, no.  They aren't unrealistic.  What makes it unrealistic or not is how those things are brought into play.  I failed a climb check so it started raining and slowed my climb down is not a realistic result of a climb check, even though rain is realistic.  Rain has nothing to do with a climb check.




What Pemerton and Manbearcat are saying is that a skill check doesn't have to be so narrowly defined, and shouldn't be. 

The idea that it's not 'realistic' for the climb check to trigger any of those options, that a failed climb check means you fall, and you must make a separate fate check to see if something else happens _is_ realistic makes no sense.

Rolling dice to see what happens to you is unrealistic period. Rolling dice is a game mechanic. Game mechanics are just that, part of the game. A mechanic cannot be realistic or otherwise, it's just a tool to provide a random chance of success, failure, or to determine some other option.

To me, the job of the rules is to provide a framework to allow me as DM adjudicate actions or events important to the story that have multiple possible outcomes. The rules should not interfere with the story, and they should allow me to handle any scene that arises. When to make a check of any sort is dependent upon these points in time, and the purpose of the check is to help determine the next point in the story.

So yes, a strict adjudication of a climb check helps determine a point in the story. You move forward, or you fall. But it's also limiting the story to two outcomes. But when performing a skill, such as climbing, there are a great many possible outcomes. Why limit yourself to two? 

You've added a fate check (or maybe it's part of the game system, don't know what you're playing). This handles the meat of the story affecting points outside of combat, the role-playing of the players and your own input as DM.

How often do you make fate checks? If you only do it every time they fail a skill check, it's redundant.

If it's a random amount of time, then most of your story time is relegated to simple yes/no options, at least as the result of a die roll.

If you make fate checks every time there is a skill check, then you'll run into situations where they succeed, but fate intervenes and they fail anyway. Not entirely unrealistic, but probably not the result you're looking for.

In other words, if the possibility that fate intervenes occurs only when they fail a check, then you might as well expand your failure degrees and possibilities and save yourself a check. If you aren't checking for fate that often, I'd recommend it.

Incidentally, my crew would get a good laugh if one of them rolled a one on a climb check and it started raining. I may just have to use that!

Ilbranteloth


----------



## LostSoul

Ilbranteloth said:


> So yes, a strict adjudication of a climb check helps determine a point in the story. You move forward, or you fall. But it's also limiting the story to two outcomes. But when performing a skill, such as climbing, there are a great many possible outcomes. Why limit yourself to two?




One possible reason is that the failure condition is communicated more easily to the player.  In a risk/reward type of game it's important for the players to know what the typical outcomes of a failed check may be.  It gets complicated because in these types of games there is often a good deal of hidden content, so there typically isn't communication of specific outcomes due to failure.  Because of that, it's important for the players to be able to make general assumptions about what the outcome might be due to failure.

e.g. The DM's notes specify: The kobolds rigged up some loose stone/false foot and handholds as a trap for anyone climbing, making it more likely that they'll fall.  The DC to climb the wall is increased by 2.  Any failure to climb the wall results in a 50% chance that the kobolds in area 6 will come to see what made the noise.  Spotting the trap: if the wall is searched closely for five minutes; on a successful find traps check; or on any climb check that beats the DC by 5.

In this case (and for that kind of risk/reward play style) the DM isn't going to come right out and say that failing the climb check may alert the kobolds in area 6, though that is the failure condition.  Since the play style doesn't allow for the DM to communicate this, the players need to make assumptions on their own.  The most obvious one should be the default, if not worked directly into the rules themselves (as it is in 3E I believe).


----------



## grendel111111

Ilbranteloth said:


> What Pemerton and Manbearcat are saying is that a skill check doesn't have to be so narrowly defined,




I totally agree.



Ilbranteloth said:


> and shouldn't be.




I totally disagree.

The first is clearly stating that you have a choice in how you define skills working. People like different levels of connectedness. Playing the way that they want to play is in no way wrong and is a good way to play. I play that way in Leverage and Champions (when we used to play it). But the second part suggests that not chosing to play it one way isn't OK. The "and you shouldn't" is the problem that I am having.



Ilbranteloth said:


> The idea that it's not 'realistic' for the climb check to trigger any of those options, that a failed climb check means you fall, and you must make a separate fate check to see if something else happens _is_ realistic makes no sense.
> 
> Rolling dice to see what happens to you is unrealistic period. Rolling dice is a game mechanic. Game mechanics are just that, part of the game. A mechanic cannot be realistic or otherwise, it's just a tool to provide a random chance of success, failure, or to determine some other option.
> 
> To me, the job of the rules is to provide a framework to allow me as DM adjudicate actions or events important to the story that have multiple possible outcomes. The rules should not interfere with the story, and they should allow me to handle any scene that arises. When to make a check of any sort is dependent upon these points in time, and the purpose of the check is to help determine the next point in the story.




For me rolling dice represents "probability", not "fate". Fate has it's own probability, and it isn't tied to the players ability scores. (and may not even need a roll if it is interesting).



Ilbranteloth said:


> So yes, a strict adjudication of a climb check helps determine a point in the story. You move forward, or you fall. But it's also limiting the story to two outcomes. But when performing a skill, such as climbing, there are a great many possible outcomes. Why limit yourself to two?
> 
> You've added a fate check (or maybe it's part of the game system, don't know what you're playing). This handles the meat of the story affecting points outside of combat, the role-playing of the players and your own input as DM.
> 
> How often do you make fate checks? If you only do it every time they fail a skill check, it's redundant.
> 
> If it's a random amount of time, then most of your story time is relegated to simple yes/no options, at least as the result of a die roll.
> 
> If you make fate checks every time there is a skill check, then you'll run into situations where they succeed, but fate intervenes and they fail anyway. Not entirely unrealistic, but probably not the result you're looking for.
> 
> In other words, if the possibility that fate intervenes occurs only when they fail a check, then you might as well expand your failure degrees and possibilities and save yourself a check. If you aren't checking for fate that often, I'd recommend it.
> 
> Incidentally, my crew would get a good laugh if one of them rolled a one on a climb check and it started raining. I may just have to use that!
> 
> Ilbranteloth




Yes, fate effects both the skilled and the unskilled. Your skills determine how you deal with that fate. If you were using a fate mechanic to avoid tying it to skills, why on earth would you then only roll it when they failed a skill check?

If I use a fate system I tend towards an accumulated fate, where the DM or players "bank" fate to use at a later time due to very good or bad rolls.


----------



## Emerikol

pemerton said:


> The issue is not about realism. It's about the ways in which backstory is authored and brought into play as part of action resolution. _At the table_, is it primarily an input or an output?




Perhaps realism is a loaded word.  Obviously it is a fantasy game.  What is modeled is not anything approaching reality.  

When i say realism, I am really just saying the player knows what his character knows and acts on that knowledge and nothing else.   There has been a trend in modern gaming where players invent the world along with the DM.   Basically do players have input powers on the world or not.   In my campaigns they do not.   I recognize other styles exist though of course.   Just not my preference.   


As for the DM using his judgment to have something happen on a failure instead of just failure,  I'd only say i'd want it codified.   On a failed climbing roll, follow it up with a roll on another table to determine other aspects.   That would be fine. It would then become part of the physics of the world.   I'm not even sure a DM who is really consistent couldn't make it up as he goes though I'd be very nervous to play with the DM.   99% of the time he wouldn't end up providing a campaign I'd like.  I leave open the theoretical possibility for that 1%.


I prefer detailed DMs with really deep campaign worlds that I can discover.  I want those worlds to be built like a clock so that the interconnections are already there and are not waiting for me a player to invent them.

It's nothing more than a matter of taste.  I'm not saying your way isn't a valid way to play.  It just doesn't satisfy me either as a player or DM.


----------



## Emerikol

pemerton said:


> Nor is there anything unrealistic about the various actual play examples that I have given upthread. There is nothing unrealistic about searching a tower for a lost mace and discovering that it is not there, but rather has been looted by a dark elf adversary, and instead discovering that one's balrog-possessed brother may have been evil all along - as be-tokened by the black arrows in his (formerly) private workroom.




Just for additional clarity.  I want to emphasize that my use of realistic is in regards to how the player controls the character.  The player by roleplaying the character in the way I prefer is limiting his decisions and actions to what that character is capable of doing.   Anything the character can realistically do, the player can realistically consider.   The player though shouldn't be a metagamer who weaves the story around the character.  (for my style of course).   

For me its the tension between story writing and gaming.  I want a game where the players as their characters confront challenges presented to them by the DM.  They do everything in their power to achieve their goals in the most efficient way possible unless their characters personality really didn't work that way which in the world of successful adventurers would be rare.

I realize there are the story writer gamers who want to work as a team with their DM to create interesting stories where their characters are pawns in the grand scheme of things.  They will gleefully complicate matters for their characters because that makes the story more interesting.   It's all about story and actually "winning" the game is not a consideration other than just having fun of course.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

grendel111111 said:


> I totally disagree.
> 
> The first is clearly stating that you have a choice in how you define skills working. People like different levels of connectedness. Playing the way that they want to play is in no way wrong and is a good way to play. I play that way in Leverage and Champions (when we used to play it). But the second part suggests that not chosing to play it one way isn't OK. The "and you shouldn't" is the problem that I am having.




I agree with your disagreement. I should have worded it slightly differently.

A skill check doesn't have to be so narrowly defined, and it shouldn't be presented as if that's the only option.

What I was really getting at is that a lot of people present rules like skill checks as being an either/or scenario, and claim that the rules restrict them to only that interpretation. Then I've seen newbie DMs (including a few threads ongoing right now), adhering to an interpretation of the rules that is limiting at best, and killing the game at worst. So I feel it's important for people, especially those new to the game, to understand that the DM always has the option to consider more than just an either/or scenario.

Now the proponents of so-called fail forward mechanics will still argue that it's a better approach. I an inclined to agree, recognizing that game design is always evolving, and that many things that seem obvious and make sense to us now, were new and controversial a decade or two ago. As a result, there will be a lot of people who don't agree with the approach.

I will also point out that the concept is still a relatively new one, at least in terms of being laid out as an over-arching rule concept. And I think there are still some general flaws in the usual presentation of the concept that keeps it from being a more universal approach to rules systems.

Other than the terminology, the descriptions lean heavily on the idea that they are used in certain types of games - usually sandbox, anti-railroading, anti-prewritten scenario, and similar terms. They also lean heavily on the 'always say yes' methodology.

First, I'd argue that for it to evolve into a universal technique, it needs to be recognized that it is a universal concept, and works equally well in published scenarios, pre-written home scenarios, random scenarios, etc. 

It's actually very simple: A skill check is about more than just a single task at a single point in a time. A skill check can be used based on a broader context, looking at the circumstance, not just the skill in question. This is something that has been part of the game since the beginning.

'I kick in the door.' Makes a Strength check, and fails.
'The door is stronger than you think, and doesn't budge.' DM also makes a check to see if the orcs down the hall hear the attempt.

The reality is that the second check isn't necessarily needed. As a DM, you have a pretty good idea how far the sound of a strong kick on a door will travel, and you know what the orcs are doing and how attentive they are. Failure to kick in the door is enough to warrant considering whether they hear it or not, and you can use the amount of the failure to help determine that. I get that the two are only indirectly connected, and that more checks could give you potentially more possibilities.

The orcs may be alerted even upon successfully kicking in the door. That the orcs are alerted shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone, because kicking in a door isn't a very stealthy way to get in.

If they were trying to pick a lock and enter stealthily, you could save some steps by indicating that a minor failure is a success in picking the lock, but the door squeaks loudly as they open it, alerting the orcs. A major failure indicates that picking the lock didn't work, you can continue to try (in which case I'd just use my time-based option), or you can try an alternative way to enter. Yes, this could be a series of checks (failure, success, stealth, perception), but it doesn't need to be that complicated. The action moves forward, and an interesting scene is set through the use of a single check which is determining 'did they successfully bypass the lock and enter the room without detection' rather than 'you failed, try again, OK the lock is open, what do you do? Enter stealthily, etc. Also, do you make a Stealth/Perception check on the failed check, successful check, opening the door, all three, or two of the three, etc.? 

Neither approach is inherently better or worse. But the first option streamlines it and moves the game forward without extraneous checks that as a whole don't add any more value to the game and the story than the first option. 

But you're writing a story, and part of a good story is, well, a good story. If you make a check for the orcs, and they fail, then there's no additional story, no additional complication. But if you go with the (aargh!) fail forward approach, then the story evolves based around that single roll. This is simpler, streamlined, and also allows the DM to go with what makes sense rather than just more die rolls.

Second, proponents of the technique, and the very description of the technique, needs to retain the original possibilities and expand upon them. Most of the discussions tend to either ignore, or specifically advise against outright failure. I think that is a mistake. I think that failure is an option, and although sometimes that option isn't the most interesting option, it still must be an option - provided it serves a purpose. This speaks in part about good design in where an obstacle must serve a purpose. My opinion on what serves a purpose, though, often goes against what is usually recommended.

One example is a locked door that serves as the entrance to a dungeon. Outright failure is not an option, they must get through the door. But if the rogue fails to pick the lock there are still other options. A _knock_ spell. Kicking in the door. Finding an alternative entrance, etc. Fail forward proponents would probably recommend not having an outright fail option.

Second, current design concepts recommend placing things like locked doors unless there's a purpose for them. This also seems to be a common recommendation regarding random-based adventures. But people lock doors. It might just be their bedroom, with little of value, and doesn't further the story as well. But it does further the goal of building a believable and immersive world.

As for fate. If you are using fate to avoid tying it to skill checks, then no, you wouldn't want to tie it only to failed skill checks. But, if you're using the 'failed forward' concept, then one option you have as a DM is to describe a failure that is foiled by fate. This usually feels a bit more fair to the players, than when one of them succeeds, and finds that their success is suddenly negated due to fate. As I said, this could potentially be viewed as 'more realistic' and if that's what you want, then that's fine.

I'm not a fan of disassociated mechanics in general, so I haven't implemented a fate mechanic, and certainly am not interested in a banked fate system for my game. YMMV of course.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## grendel111111

Ilbranteloth said:


> I agree with your disagreement. I should have worded it slightly differently.
> 
> A skill check doesn't have to be so narrowly defined, and it shouldn't be presented as if that's the only option.
> 
> What I was really getting at is that a lot of people present rules like skill checks as being an either/or scenario, and claim that the rules restrict them to only that interpretation. Then I've seen newbie DMs (including a few threads ongoing right now), adhering to an interpretation of the rules that is limiting at best, and killing the game at worst. So I feel it's important for people, especially those new to the game, to understand that the DM always has the option to consider more than just an either/or scenario.




I think this is partly due to many of these options being in the DMG and so people don't give them a fair shake. WTC needed to choose a default settings and these are the choices they presented in the Players Handbook. But people have become so hung up on "official" rules that they don't look at the optional rules in the DMG which can shift the came significantly in one or other direction.




Ilbranteloth said:


> Now the proponents of so-called fail forward mechanics will still argue that it's a better approach. I an inclined to agree, recognizing that game design is always evolving, and that many things that seem obvious and make sense to us now, were new and controversial a decade or two ago. As a result, there will be a lot of people who don't agree with the approach.
> 
> I will also point out that the concept is still a relatively new one, at least in terms of being laid out as an over-arching rule concept. And I think there are still some general flaws in the usual presentation of the concept that keeps it from being a more universal approach to rules systems.
> 
> Other than the terminology, the descriptions lean heavily on the idea that they are used in certain types of games - usually sandbox, anti-railroading, anti-prewritten scenario, and similar terms. They also lean heavily on the 'always say yes' methodology.
> 
> First, I'd argue that for it to evolve into a universal technique, it needs to be recognized that it is a universal concept, and works equally well in published scenarios, pre-written home scenarios, random scenarios, etc.




Those who like not using fail forward will also argue that is the better approach, and it is for them.

The key here is that being accepted as a universal option is different to being accepted as the universal right way to play. And I think you see the difference. I certainly see it as a very valid and enjoyable way to play. For me it suits some games better than other and different forms of failing forward work in different game experiences. 




Ilbranteloth said:


> It's actually very simple: A skill check is about more than just a single task at a single point in a time. A skill check can be used based on a broader context, looking at the circumstance, not just the skill in question. This is something that has been part of the game since the beginning.
> 
> 'I kick in the door.' Makes a Strength check, and fails.
> 'The door is stronger than you think, and doesn't budge.' DM also makes a check to see if the orcs down the hall hear the attempt.
> 
> The reality is that the second check isn't necessarily needed. As a DM, you have a pretty good idea how far the sound of a strong kick on a door will travel, and you know what the orcs are doing and how attentive they are. Failure to kick in the door is enough to warrant considering whether they hear it or not, and you can use the amount of the failure to help determine that. I get that the two are only indirectly connected, and that more checks could give you potentially more possibilities.
> 
> The orcs may be alerted even upon successfully kicking in the door. That the orcs are alerted shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone, because kicking in a door isn't a very stealthy way to get in.




And I think everyone agrees on this. Those who want a consistent world (because we can't use realism we need a new phrase), would also have kicking down a door attracting the attention of near by creatures. But I for example would not have the person who successfully kick down the door be some how quieter than those who failed. Success and failure generate about the same amount of volume in this situation. People who suggest that success at a cost is good here could also look at the option of: just saying that yes the door is kicked down and assess if there were any creatures near by that heard that happen. I don't see a reason to even roll a die and assign a failure to it, if they are automatically successful knocking down the door anyway and the orcs hearing you is because of the kicking being done not the success of the opening.
In the same way that if a person proficient with lock picks is opening a lock - you want it to succeed so no matter the roll it will open, What is important is "did someone hear you?" the I would go with a stealth roll, and if they announced they were doing it as quietly as possible give them advantage on the roll.




Ilbranteloth said:


> If they were trying to pick a lock and enter stealthily, you could save some steps by indicating that a minor failure is a success in picking the lock, but the door squeaks loudly as they open it, alerting the orcs. A major failure indicates that picking the lock didn't work, you can continue to try (in which case I'd just use my time-based option), or you can try an alternative way to enter. Yes, this could be a series of checks (failure, success, stealth, perception), but it doesn't need to be that complicated. The action moves forward, and an interesting scene is set through the use of a single check which is determining 'did they successfully bypass the lock and enter the room without detection' rather than 'you failed, try again, OK the lock is open, what do you do? Enter stealthily, etc. Also, do you make a Stealth/Perception check on the failed check, successful check, opening the door, all three, or two of the three, etc.?
> 
> Neither approach is inherently better or worse. But the first option streamlines it and moves the game forward without extraneous checks that as a whole don't add any more value to the game and the story than the first option.
> 
> But you're writing a story, and part of a good story is, well, a good story. If you make a check for the orcs, and they fail, then there's no additional story, no additional complication. But if you go with the (aargh!) fail forward approach, then the story evolves based around that single roll. This is simpler, streamlined, and also allows the DM to go with what makes sense rather than just more die rolls.
> 
> Second, proponents of the technique, and the very description of the technique, needs to retain the original possibilities and expand upon them. Most of the discussions tend to either ignore, or specifically advise against outright failure. I think that is a mistake. I think that failure is an option, and although sometimes that option isn't the most interesting option, it still must be an option - provided it serves a purpose. This speaks in part about good design in where an obstacle must serve a purpose. My opinion on what serves a purpose, though, often goes against what is usually recommended.



I really like the levels of success mechanic and use it a lot, especially for anything knowledge based.
I definitely agree about building games and game elements with purpose not only as they fit being a game component, but also as the fit in the world as it is presented.

You may find that some people disagree about "you're writing a story" and rather that you are experiencing a world, and that makes a difference. 
What you are setting out to do in your game does effect choices that you make. Writing a story implies that the key result is the story that happens, Things should be chosen based on what would make a good story (but from whose perspective, the players, the DM, an outside observer? it could be all 3). Then story elements are key, build to a climax, a certain level of script immunity is needed, keep the story moving to a resolution, "Random" events happen not randomly, but because they add to and enhance the story.

On the other hand if your goal is to experience a world through the game, then different choices can be made. Random things happen because in life random things happen. Hitting a dead end and having to find another way to achieve you goals or even needing to change your goals, is perfectly fine if you're not tied to "story".  Characters don't have to die in a story satisfying way, because it is a game and the mechanics have given the result you got. "Time for a new clone". I had a DM ask after one game where my character died if I wanted him to save my character as my story wasn't "finished". But to me his story was finished, he didn't reach all his goals, but that is part of life.

People who have a preference for one style of game over the other will see elements of the other approach as a failing and unsatisfying because it's not meeting their gaming needs.



Ilbranteloth said:


> One example is a locked door that serves as the entrance to a dungeon. Outright failure is not an option, they must get through the door. But if the rogue fails to pick the lock there are still other options. A _knock_ spell. Kicking in the door. Finding an alternative entrance, etc. Fail forward proponents would probably recommend not having an outright fail option.
> 
> Second, current design concepts recommend placing things like locked doors unless there's a purpose for them. This also seems to be a common recommendation regarding random-based adventures. But people lock doors. It might just be their bedroom, with little of value, and doesn't further the story as well. But it does further the goal of building a believable and immersive world.




I see a 3 way pull on design:
1 story
2 experiencing a world (or building a believable and immersive world)
3 game elements

Sometimes they all pull in the same direction and sometimes they pull against each other. When they pull against each other you need to make a choice as to which you prioritize and it may not be the same decision every time.

so in the locked door example 
number 1 says the door is locked and must be passed for good story.
number 2 says the door is locked if it makes sense, who locked it, why did they lock it, does it result in an impossible situation (such as a person being in the room with no key, so no chance of leaving, but has been here for months clearly with no food or water, waiting for someone to stumble up and open the door for them.)
Number 3 says if something is essential don't put it behind a locked or secret door.

One of my favorite openings to an adventure is B4. It's in a pyramid with only a secret door for access. but the door is wedged open by a corpse with a crossbow bolt in it. The door is automatically found and the trap that killed the interloper is triggered and empty. The "secret door isn't a blockage and it makes it clear the party are heading into a heavily trapped area.



Ilbranteloth said:


> As for fate. If you are using fate to avoid tying it to skill checks, then no, you wouldn't want to tie it only to failed skill checks. But, if you're using the 'failed forward' concept, then one option you have as a DM is to describe a failure that is foiled by fate. This usually feels a bit more fair to the players, than when one of them succeeds, and finds that their success is suddenly negated due to fate. As I said, this could potentially be viewed as 'more realistic' and if that's what you want, then that's fine.
> 
> I'm not a fan of disassociated mechanics in general, so I haven't implemented a fate mechanic, and certainly am not interested in a banked fate system for my game. YMMV of course.
> 
> Ilbranteloth




I use a fate mechanic in leverage and other games I play not so much in D and D, but again people should see it as a possible mechanic they can use to create the game they are looking for.

PS I am really enjoying this discussion.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

I like the concept. 


Bedrockgames said:


> Now this is muddying things for me, because if it is just a matter of setting the stakes, I don't really see what fail forward is. If it is a matter of taking a failure and turning it into something more productive for the adventure or storyline, that I can grasp. But in any game, the GM is setting the stakes for failure. To me fail forward sounds like it is meant to sidestep the initially set stakes (i.e. stake seems to be you tumble to your death or fall down the side of the mountain, but in actuality  once the failed roll occurs, it is about losing a vital piece of equipment or not----so falling down the ravine was never really a potential outcome in hindsight).




The interesting aspect of this - if your character falls down, he has no choice but to pick himself up. But if his pudding detector is falling, he can try to go without it, or continue. The fail forward aproach here has created more possible outcomes of the scenario.


----------



## Maxperson

Ilbranteloth said:


> I agree with your disagreement. I should have worded it slightly differently.
> 
> A skill check doesn't have to be so narrowly defined, and it shouldn't be presented as if that's the only option.
> 
> What I was really getting at is that a lot of people present rules like skill checks as being an either/or scenario, and claim that the rules restrict them to only that interpretation. Then I've seen newbie DMs (including a few threads ongoing right now), adhering to an interpretation of the rules that is limiting at best, and killing the game at worst. So I feel it's important for people, especially those new to the game, to understand that the DM always has the option to consider more than just an either/or scenario.




I agree with his disagreement and your agreement with it.   

I'm coming at this from my perspective, not trying to say that it's the only way to do things.



> 'I kick in the door.' Makes a Strength check, and fails.
> 'The door is stronger than you think, and doesn't budge.' DM also makes a check to see if the orcs down the hall hear the attempt.
> 
> The reality is that the second check isn't necessarily needed. As a DM, you have a pretty good idea how far the sound of a strong kick on a door will travel, and you know what the orcs are doing and how attentive they are. Failure to kick in the door is enough to warrant considering whether they hear it or not, and you can use the amount of the failure to help determine that. I get that the two are only indirectly connected, and that more checks could give you potentially more possibilities.
> 
> The orcs may be alerted even upon successfully kicking in the door. That the orcs are alerted shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone, because kicking in a door isn't a very stealthy way to get in.




Right.  It's not success with a cost or fail with a cost.  That particular cost is there no matter what.  All that remains is whether the attempt was successful or not, and neither I nor my players want to always succeed.  Failure and reassessment should be an option.



> If they were trying to pick a lock and enter stealthily, you could save some steps by indicating that a minor failure is a success in picking the lock, but the door squeaks loudly as they open it, alerting the orcs. A major failure indicates that picking the lock didn't work, you can continue to try (in which case I'd just use my time-based option), or you can try an alternative way to enter. Yes, this could be a series of checks (failure, success, stealth, perception), but it doesn't need to be that complicated. The action moves forward, and an interesting scene is set through the use of a single check which is determining 'did they successfully bypass the lock and enter the room without detection' rather than 'you failed, try again, OK the lock is open, what do you do? Enter stealthily, etc. Also, do you make a Stealth/Perception check on the failed check, successful check, opening the door, all three, or two of the three, etc.?




See, we would rather the failure be a failure and then perhaps decide to have Grok kick down the door.  The action still moves forward with that failure, but the failure didn't equal a success. 



> Neither approach is inherently better or worse. But the first option streamlines it and moves the game forward without extraneous checks that as a whole don't add any more value to the game and the story than the first option.




Value is added.  The ability to fail is an added value.  As is the added worry that comes over having to now kick open the door, which is something the PCs KNOW makes a lot of noise. The drama shifts.



> But you're writing a story, and part of a good story is, well, a good story. If you make a check for the orcs, and they fail, then there's no additional story, no additional complication. But if you go with the (aargh!) fail forward approach, then the story evolves based around that single roll. This is simpler, streamlined, and also allows the DM to go with what makes sense rather than just more die rolls.




I disagree.  Later on when in the tavern, the PCs can tell the story of the deaf orcs who were so drunk (or whatever_ that they couldn't hear a door being kicked in right down the hall.  It is all part of the story, not just action.



> Second, proponents of the technique, and the very description of the technique, needs to retain the original possibilities and expand upon them. Most of the discussions tend to either ignore, or specifically advise against outright failure. I think that is a mistake. I think that failure is an option, and although sometimes that option isn't the most interesting option, it still must be an option - provided it serves a purpose. This speaks in part about good design in where an obstacle must serve a purpose. My opinion on what serves a purpose, though, often goes against what is usually recommended.




I think realism is interesting and fun.  The most interesting option is not always going to be the best one.  Which option is best depends on circumstances, the players, and realism (realism is not mirroring reality).



> One example is a locked door that serves as the entrance to a dungeon. Outright failure is not an option, they must get through the door. But if the rogue fails to pick the lock there are still other options. A _knock_ spell. Kicking in the door. Finding an alternative entrance, etc. Fail forward proponents would probably recommend not having an outright fail option.




Other options = fail forward, though.  Just not in the same way as failing and picking the lock anyway.  I haven't seen a DM just have an outright failure with no other way to succeed since I was in high school and shortly after and we just didn't know better.  That's why I say that there are two types of fail forward.  The type where if you fail, the action moves forward down another path, and the type where if you fail you succeed anyway and add in a cost.  I love the former and use it constantly, but rarely use the latter.



> Second, current design concepts recommend placing things like locked doors unless there's a purpose for them. This also seems to be a common recommendation regarding random-based adventures. But people lock doors. It might just be their bedroom, with little of value, and doesn't further the story as well. But it does further the goal of building a believable and immersive world.




Right, and for a bunch of us, that believable and immersive world is a necessary part of the story, so it does further it well.

Your post was very good by the way.


----------



## Emerikol

grendel111111 said:


> What you are setting out to do in your game does effect choices that you make. Writing a story implies that the key result is the story that happens, Things should be chosen based on what would make a good story (but from whose perspective, the players, the DM, an outside observer? it could be all 3). Then story elements are key, build to a climax, a certain level of script immunity is needed, keep the story moving to a resolution, "Random" events happen not randomly, but because they add to and enhance the story.
> 
> On the other hand if your goal is to experience a world through the game, then different choices can be made. Random things happen because in life random things happen. Hitting a dead end and having to find another way to achieve you goals or even needing to change your goals, is perfectly fine if you're not tied to "story".  Characters don't have to die in a story satisfying way, because it is a game and the mechanics have given the result you got. "Time for a new clone". I had a DM ask after one game where my character died if I wanted him to save my character as my story wasn't "finished". But to me his story was finished, he didn't reach all his goals, but that is part of life.
> 
> People who have a preference for one style of game over the other will see elements of the other approach as a failing and unsatisfying because it's not meeting their gaming needs.




This is a pretty good explanation.  It really is a two totally different styles.   Fail forward is an "of course!" idea in the story driven approach and it is not in the game approach.

When I play I want no forgone conclusions.  I like sandbox worlds.  I want the players to literally do whatever they want within those limitations.  Life and death is determined by the dice and by good play.  Victory is achieving character goals that the player as the character has set.   The player never intrudes on the game except through his character.  The DM spends a lot of time building a really complex and interesting sandbox that his players can explore and enjoy.   

That is basically my style learned at the knee of Gygax.  I'm not claiming any superiority for this style other than that it is what I enjoy.  I believe it was the original roleplaying style because when coming from a world of no roleplaying the game approach is the obvious first step.   I also realize the story approach has evolved out of the game approach with people wanting to play differently and in their minds better and likely for them it is better.

I don't think there is any solution to our debate.  I enjoy the discussion.  I just think matters of taste are hard to debate.  I like X and someone else likes Y.   What more is there to say?   

What I do dislike is WOTC presenting ANY style as a given.  I think the DMG needs to spend some time explaining to DMs how to run a great game in the style they prefer.  I do think a lot of this stuff is very much a DM/player decision and maybe only needs some guidance on how to use the rules.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

grendel111111 said:


> You may find that some people disagree about "you're writing a story" and rather that you are experiencing a world, and that makes a difference.
> What you are setting out to do in your game does effect choices that you make. Writing a story implies that the key result is the story that happens, Things should be chosen based on what would make a good story (but from whose perspective, the players, the DM, an outside observer? it could be all 3). Then story elements are key, build to a climax, a certain level of script immunity is needed, keep the story moving to a resolution, "Random" events happen not randomly, but because they add to and enhance the story.
> 
> On the other hand if your goal is to experience a world through the game, then different choices can be made. Random things happen because in life random things happen. Hitting a dead end and having to find another way to achieve you goals or even needing to change your goals, is perfectly fine if you're not tied to "story".  Characters don't have to die in a story satisfying way, because it is a game and the mechanics have given the result you got. "Time for a new clone". I had a DM ask after one game where my character died if I wanted him to save my character as my story wasn't "finished". But to me his story was finished, he didn't reach all his goals, but that is part of life.
> 
> People who have a preference for one style of game over the other will see elements of the other approach as a failing and unsatisfying because it's not meeting their gaming needs.




I guess I view writing a story as a bit different. Even if you're 'experiencing the world' you're still writing a story. The whole point of a role-playing game to me is that you are writing a shared 'story', perhaps we call it a 'shared experience.' 

You don't need a pre-written story arc. But even if you are simply experiencing the world, the people in the world have 'stories' of their own. There are groups of people that have shared goals. 

I've come to really like the approach of looking at RPGs as a TV show. Some shows have an underlying story that drives the entire show. Others are just the day-to-day events surrounding an individual or group of individuals with no greater story tying them together other than a job, for example. Many try to do both. Most of the time I find the ones that do both to be rather annoying. For example, I enjoyed The Mentalist, but really didn't like the Red John story. It wasn't necessary, and eventually killed the show, because once they finished their story, and screwed up all of the dynamics of the characters and what they did, they didn't have a show anymore.

My home campaign right now is more of what I'd call a heroic story. Like something along the lines of Lord of the Rings. They are part of something bigger that's happening and they are among the only people that might be able to do something. Like the first couple of 5th ed D&D adventure paths, a lot of what happens is due to working with others, and organizations like the Lord's Alliance and Harpers. They want to know what's going on, so they remain engaged. They are, however, free to go whatever direction they like. And the things they stumble upon aren't all related to this epic story, and they can choose not to engage with it any time they'd like.

The campaign I'm starting at a store, however, is more of the experience the world type. I'm modeling it after the early Gygax home adventures, as well as what I envision Ed Greenwood's Shadowdale campaign was like. Each player will have multiple characters prepared, and they are all starting from the same 'home base'. Because I anticipate that there may be different players from one session to the next I'm making sure that each week we can switch up which characters are in play, while the others are involved in downtime activities until the next time they are active.

I see this as a more typical tv show where there's an ensemble cast of characters, with probably a few that are the 'main' characters in most every episode (since they are the ones that will show up every session), and the 'story' is self contained in that episode. The story is one of shared experiences, and doesn't need to go beyond that, although the options are always there to do so, since there are always things going on in the background.

Regardless, the unique thing about a role-playing game is this shared experience. The story. 

That's one of the reasons why I think it's important for those promoting 'fail forward' write about how it will function well in any play style. It's another reason why I think 'success at a cost' and 'fail forward' are both bad terms since them imply you aren't failing, but that you always move 'forward'. I get the originally the idea was that the story moves forward, but it's too easily misunderstood.

I guess it's really an idea of moving beyond a binary skill check to a degree of success/failure check that also pays attention to the context and possibilities. So what, a 'possibility check?' I don't really like that either, though. But to me the concept should remind people that, unlike a video game, there are an endless number of variables and possible outcomes whenever an interesting situation arises that have a possibility for failure, or to alter the direction of the story or experience. 

As I'm thinking this through, I guess there's a question of what the benefit of this technique, whatever it's called, is trying to accomplish.

So here are some thoughts to outline what I think are goals, or maybe pros and cons. Coming in part from a process design background, here's one way to look at it.

You can look at an entire game session as one process. Within that are multiple sub-processes. The most well defined sub-process in most games is combat.

So we're looking for a process to handle the non-combat events where a character's skills are tested, and a certain outcome is not guaranteed. 

I'll go back to the simple scenario of a locked door leading into a room of orcs.

Depending on the PCs, the goal of this particular event is variable. I'll give a few possibilities.

They want to sneak into the room to steal something, preferably remaining undetected.
They want to burst into the room to surprise their enemies so they can eliminate them quickly, more easily, and without casualties or being injured.
They want to sneak through the room to another exit.

There are other possibilities, but these are good enough to start.

Now at it's most basic, you could have the party state their goal (pick one of the above), make a check and determine whether they succeed or fail. You can narrate a dramatic encounter based on that check, and the check can return degrees of success and failure.

But this is really boring. Yes, the success and failure may be determined by that skills of the PCs, but ultimately it's largely just the DM narrating a story.

So then we can go with the opposite. Everything is determined through the rules system with a series of checks. Going with option 1.

Stealth check for each character to get to the door, with a perception check for each of the orcs.
Listen at the door check, with another round of stealth and perception (assume there's a stealth and perception check in every round that a PC does something that might make noise).
If not successful, they spend another round of checks to listen again to make sure.
They hear that there is something in the room, now check to see if they determine: what, how many, make out any conversation, etc.
Pick locks check, with the usual stealth/perception.
If failed, repeat.
Success, stealth, perception, and check to see if the door sticks or squeaks.
Door opened, OK, stealth, perception, perception on the part of the PCs to see what they can spot through the partially opened door, etc.
Oh, I forgot to add a check to see if the dusty conditions caused one of the characters to sneeze or cough.

Anyway, I think we get the point. There's a stage where we have too many checks, and not enough story. Actually, let's call it narrative.

Combat in game systems is mechanically very mature, and there are a lot of choices for the style and approach to combat across game systems. 

Non-combat action resolution is not nearly as mature. I like the idea of trying to do something better, but I think the approaches described have been partial solutions, often concepts, that are not quantified in an easy to explain way. I think before we get to that, we need to verify what we're trying to accomplish. 

So what I think we're really trying to accomplish is:
A 'better' way to determine the outcome of a non-combat activity/event/decision point in the game.
It must take into account the skill level/abilities of the PCs to the degree that a PC with a higher skill level should be more likely to succeed.
It must be granular enough to feel like the PCs are accomplishing something, provide results on a character by character basis (one continues to listen at the door while the other picks the lock), but not generate an 'excessive' number of checks.
We need a way to account for many variables, including the environment (squeaky door), fate (sneeze), skills of others (perception), etc.
We want a method that adds to the narrative in a productive way. It can add to the narrative in a direct or indirect way (failed to pick the lock, squeaky door, sneeze), but should not preclude any possibilities - it can't guarantee success on a failed check, nor preclude total failure.
The check should take into account the outcome of other related checks or events. (a failed pick lock check might impact the stealth check, or the amount of time, such as 3 or 4 rounds to pick the lock might impact the stealth check).
It should include as many of the players as possible, but also allow the key individuals be the focus.

It should be universal (not tied to any specific rule set, skill set, etc.) but scalable, to allow different play styles to modify the granularity easily. Ultimately it should enable the DM to adjudicate the game in their style, with their goals in mind, and provide the framework for an exciting and fun game for the players.

What would you add/remove or change in this list. It's just a brainstorm essentially, and I've got a thick skin, so let's see what we can come up with. Part of that process should be to come up with a proper and appropriate name for it.

Ilbranteloth


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## Emerikol

I think the distinction between the two styles is this:

1.  One style actively involves the DM and players teaming at the metagame level to ensure that the story outcome is interesting and exciting.   So players will happily throw their characters into trouble spots via some metagame construct even if the character would never want such a thing.

2.  The second style involves the DM creating a world full of challenges.   The players as their characters work as a team to overcome those challenges.  The primary objective is winning as a team.  Overcoming the obstacles successfully.  You do this by knowing your abilities and using them effectively in game.   The DM's job is not to defeat the players but to accurately play the npc/monsters as if they were also part of the world.   This style is very gamist.   Traps exist to stop the characters from achieving their goals.  


I prefer #2.  Now I believe in both instances interesting stories can happen.  Many of my friends and I reminisce about past adventures and the fun had.  We never though at the time were seeking an interesting story.   The story was presumed in the challenge.  Overcoming the challenges were what focused the party goals.

In a game like I prefer selecting the right equipment for an adventure is a big deal.  What you have is what you have.  Preparation is part of the challenge.  Choosing spells is also important.  It's very much like preparing for war.  Failure is absolutely a possibility.  Characters die and die permanently sometimes.   Because games are losable.  It's a cooperative game.  The DM is not going to save you from a silly death.   Be prepared and play well.


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## innerdude

Ilbranteloth said:


> So what I think we're really trying to accomplish is:
> A 'better' way to determine the outcome of a non-combat activity/event/decision point in the game.
> It must take into account the skill level/abilities of the PCs to the degree that a PC with a higher skill level should be more likely to succeed.
> It must be granular enough to feel like the PCs are accomplishing something, provide results on a character by character basis (one continues to listen at the door while the other picks the lock), but not generate an 'excessive' number of checks.
> We need a way to account for many variables, including the environment (squeaky door), fate (sneeze), skills of others (perception), etc.
> We want a method that adds to the narrative in a productive way. It can add to the narrative in a direct or indirect way (failed to pick the lock, squeaky door, sneeze), but should not preclude any possibilities - it can't guarantee success on a failed check, nor preclude total failure.
> The check should take into account the outcome of other related checks or events. (a failed pick lock check might impact the stealth check, or the amount of time, such as 3 or 4 rounds to pick the lock might impact the stealth check).
> It should include as many of the players as possible, but also allow the key individuals be the focus.
> 
> It should be universal (not tied to any specific rule set, skill set, etc.) but scalable, to allow different play styles to modify the granularity easily. Ultimately it should enable the DM to adjudicate the game in their style, with their goals in mind, and provide the framework for an exciting and fun game for the players.




First off, really good description of elements. I think you've identified most of the core, relevant goals for "action resolution paradigm X" (since we don't want to call it "fail forward" or "success at a cost"). 

Interestingly, your list sounds very much like a conversation the people at Fantasy Flight had when they made the new Star Wars/Warhammer Fantasy RPG games, because it seems like the action dice mechanic those systems use is based on this kind paradigm. 

As I recall, the Fantasy Flight "resolution system" assumes that the following basic outcomes are possible for a given check:


Overwhelming success -- Success at the described task, plus a situational boon/bonus/something cool that improves the party/player's position. 
Basic success -- You succeeded at the described task at hand, without any additional boon or hindrance. 
Success with a hindrance -- You succeeded at the task at hand, but something negative occurs which may affect future outcomes/decisions. I haven't played the game, but it's my impression that the defined hindrance should typically be applied to the immediate situation (as opposed to say, some situation that happens a week later).
Failure with a potential benefit --- You failed at the described task, but something happened that may situationally help the player/party. 
Basic failure --- You failed at the task, with no other situational boon or hindrance.
Catastrophic failure --- You failed at the task, and something situationally negative further hinders the player/party beyond the described task resolution. 

These are hard coded into the dice mechanics and skill system. But in looking at it, the only difference between this and what I do with Savage Worlds is the middle two tiers. Savage Worlds already has overwhelming success, basic success, failure, and catastrophic failure built into its dice mechanics as well. 

Thus, the middle two segments are likely the ones that are most relevant to the idea of "fail forward"/"success at cost"/Unnamed Resolution Paradigm X. 

In the case of the Fantasy Flight mechanic, though, one of the key points is that by hard coding it into the dice it removes some of the judgement call from the GM. Yes, the GM and player ultimately have to agree on the nature of a boon/hindrance when it happens, but the GM isn't deciding when one should be present --- it's the dice deciding that. The GM doesn't get to arbitrarily decide BOTH that a boon/hindrance happen AND the nature of that boon/hindrance.

I think this approach also assumes some player collaboration and input to avoid abuse. If a GM's hindrances are things like, "You catastrophically failed your attack. So let's see, you drop your sword on your foot, take 20 hp damage and suffer a penalty to movement," the players are going to rebel pretty quickly. 

The simplest way to apply this same kind of result without having to use the Fantasy Flight system is to first houserule a degree of success / degree of failure to dice throws. In D&D, set a range (say, +2 / -2 from the DC of the check) that is either standard success or failure, and then move up and down the scale to assign the appropriate degree thresholds. 

The second thing to do would be to add a single Fudge / Fate die to your roll --- A blank means no boon or hindrance, a + means a boon, a - means a hindrance. The other way to do it would be to add a simple d6 "fate die" roll to every check. A 6 on your "fate" die means a boon; a 1 means a hindrance.


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## Manbearcat

Emerikol said:


> I think the distinction between the two styles is this:
> 
> 1.  One style actively involves the DM and players teaming at the metagame level to ensure that the story outcome is interesting and exciting.   So players will happily throw their characters into trouble spots via some metagame construct even if the character would never want such a thing.
> 
> 2.  The second style involves the DM creating a world full of challenges.   The players as their characters work as a team to overcome those challenges.  The primary objective is winning as a team.  Overcoming the obstacles successfully.  You do this by knowing your abilities and using them effectively in game.   The DM's job is not to defeat the players but to accurately play the npc/monsters as if they were also part of the world.   This style is very gamist.   Traps exist to stop the characters from achieving their goals.
> 
> I prefer #2.  Now I believe in both instances interesting stories can happen.  Many of my friends and I reminisce about past adventures and the fun had.  We never though at the time were seeking an interesting story.   The story was presumed in the challenge.  Overcoming the challenges were what focused the party goals.
> 
> In a game like I prefer selecting the right equipment for an adventure is a big deal.  What you have is what you have.  Preparation is part of the challenge.  Choosing spells is also important.  It's very much like preparing for war.  Failure is absolutely a possibility.  Characters die and die permanently sometimes.   Because games are losable.  It's a cooperative game.  The DM is not going to save you from a silly death.   Be prepared and play well.




Unfortunately this is a something of a false dichotomy.  Since I've been using Dungeon World primarily to discuss things in this thread, I'm going to answer  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s invocation of the Powered By the Apocalypse engine games below while addressing this contention directly above.



pemerton said:


> In fact there is nothing wrong with failure always producing interesting consequences which drive the action on - which is what game designers like Luke Crane, Robin Laws, Ron Edwards, Jonathan Tweet, Vincent Baker etc have in mind in advocating "fail forward" as a technique. This is completely orthogonal to whether the PCs always, frequently or only sometimes get what they want. In 4e, which is a very heroic game, the tendency is towards "frequently". In BW, which tends towards grittiness, it is more like "sometimes". Others who know the Apocalypse engine better than me can comment on the sort of frequency of success it tends to produce. But all these systems deploy "fail forward" in the sense of "the consequences of failure should be a challenging new situation that drives the action onward."




I would have to assume you place Dungeon World in your 1 above.  Its system (GMing advice, player incentives, rules & resolution mechanics including its normal distribution of outcomes) pushes play coherently (and very tightly) toward an inevitable and endless snowballing of adventure and danger (which may very lead to death...legitimate death driven by player autonomy...not GM "allowing it to happen").  It achieves this snowballing of adventure and danger in no small part due to the bell curve of outcomes that the system's math was engineered to achieve.  It puts the preponderance of outcomes in the 7-9 range.  This is the "best" outcome because it sustains the tension/momentum of danger/action/adventure and uncertainty as it yields success but with a worse outcome than you'd like, resulting in a hard bargain where you're giving up something you'd rather not, or an ugly choice between imperfect results. 

The prospect of GM force (subordination/suspension of the action resolution mechanics/game rules in order to create outcomes that the GM is inclined toward) is as completely muted as can be in TTRPGs.  This is because:

A)  the "How to GM" explicitly calls for "Follow the rules" as one of its four tenets.  These rules are simple, utterly clear, coherent, and transparent.

B)  "Play to find out what happens" is one of the three facets of the GM's top-down agenda.  

Combined, these two basically serve as the antithesis of GM Force as, effectively, the rallying cry for GM Force is White Wolf's Golden Rule (which AD&D 2e then nabbed in its rule 0):  The GM may ignore or change any rule at any time for the sake of the story (which means a prescripted metaplot or backstory reveal...which you means you aren't "playing to find out what happens"...as its already happened!).

So let us examine the contention in 1 above in greater detail:



> 1.  One style actively involves the DM and players teaming at the metagame level to ensure that the story outcome is interesting and exciting.




You may be using "teaming" here in a nuanced way.  If so, I'd need to know more, but at a glance, this likely isn't accurate in the way you're meaning it.  The only "teaming at the metagame level" that takes place would likely be:

- pre-play during the map-drawing process.  The GM might solicit player's input for adventuring sites.

- pre-play during character building.  The GM might make suggestion for interesting Bonds to resolve during play (this is another of the "adventure/danger feedback loop" drivers that sustains the momentum of play and incentivizes players, through their PCs, to do so).

- in making the map, the GMing Principles direct the GM to "Draw maps, leave blanks" and to "Ask questions and use the answers".  This is to (i) help support "playing to find out what happens" while (ii) ensuring that you have (a) only what you absolutely need (this is what your prep is for...functional prep is very much detailed in the GMing section) to "Portray a Fantastic World" and "Fill the Characters’ Lives With Adventure" (the other two components of the game's GMing Agenda)...and nothing more.  The rest will emerge through play and be established "on-screen" as you need it to fulfill your responsibilities as GM (a pliable backstory is essential for these types of games to work).



> So players will happily throw their characters into trouble spots via some metagame construct even if the character would never want such a thing.




It seems to me that you're likely invoking games with a plot point economy here;  Aspects/Fate Points in Fate here or Distinctions (et al)/Plot Points in Cortex+.  I don't agree with your interpretation of the PC build components ("characters would never want such a thing") of Aspects/Dinstinctions here (they can easily be, and most often are, tied to things in life that the PC is aware of and deeply invested in...so when they come up in play, the character responding to them in the way the player declares is entirely coherent).  However, I'm not using those games as an example so I won't go deeper into it.

The Dungeon World Rewards Cycle incentivizes players to play their PC based off:

* Their Alignment statement (the fulfillment of which during a session provides End of Session xp) and their Bonds (the resolution of which during a session provides End of Session xp).

* The understanding that failure and curiosity/discovery are the greatest teachers of all.  Every outright failure earns you a mess that you have to get yourself out of, but also earns you xp.  Discovery also earns you 1 End of Session XP.

The *only *aspect of the Rewards Cycle that is metagame referential is the classic D&D component of Rewards Cycle of which no one seems to have a problem.  Slaying a notable monster and looting a notable treasure earns you 1 xp for either of those that you can cross off your list.  

Now let us examine 2 above and see how nicely Dungeon World plays with it:



> 2.  The second style involves the DM creating a world full of challenges.




The Dungeon World GMing advice instructs to do this in both prep and during play.



> The players as their characters work as a team to overcome those challenges.




The basic conversation of play, the PC build mechanics, the GMing advice, and the focus on the fiction (which triggers "moves" and the resolution mechanics) put players in the emotional state and OODA loop of their characters.  The game talks about "danger" and "adventure".  Insofar as those are "challenges", the game that spills out of play definitely promotes the above.



> The primary objective is winning as a team.  Overcoming the obstacles successfully.  You do this by knowing your abilities and using them effectively in game.




Dungeon World is a resource-intensive game that requires players make functional use of (a) HPs (which don't grow from level 1 onward - unless you raise Con by 1 when you level...which improves HPs by 1), (b) several types of broad/open-descriptor item types (including uses of Adventuring Gear, Rations, Ammo), (c) coin (for Resupplying and purchasing hirelings/services), (d) management of a comparatively paltry number of spell slots for primary casters (who also have to roll dice just to properly "Cast a Spell"!) to survive a life imperiled by endless danger and adventure.

This is definitely central to play.



> The DM's job is not to defeat the players but to accurately play the npc/monsters as if they were also part of the world.  <snip>  Traps exist to stop the characters from achieving their goals.




The GMs job, as noted above is to:

General:

* Describe the situation
* Follow the rules
* Make moves
* (Prep and) Exploit your prep

Agenda:  

* Portray a fantastic world
* Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
* Play to find out what happens

Principles:

* Begin and end with the fiction
* Draw maps, leave blanks
* Address the characters, not the players
* Embrace the fantastic
* Make a move that follows (from the fiction that immediately preceded it)
* Never speak the name of your move
* Give every monster life
* Name every person
* Ask questions and use the answers
* Be a fan of the characters (in your disposition with your players...not in your GMing of conflicts)
* Think dangerous
* Think offscreen, too

As I posted upthread, This and this is an example of play.  It exhibits Failing Forward in a way that can be entirely lethal at the end.  At the end, Otthor's strength fails him and he falls into the darkness of the glacial crevasse, splashing down into the hypothermia-inducing underground river.  That river spills him out at the PC's ultimate destination!  

That fall could have killed Otthor.  The 2nd order effect of hypothermia could have killed him (it was a danger in the following scenes that had to be dealt with).  The Roper and the Darkmantle that were the Hobgoblin Dragon Sorcerer King's pets and he had put in the basement of his stronghold to (a) serve as garbage removal and (b) protect the underground access?...they definitely could have killed him!  The fact that he was forced into a position to have to "deal with them" (he slew them, thus wrong-footing their future Parlay with the King to petition him and his Dragon overlord to assist them against the Aboleth intrusion from the Far Realm?) could have killed him (and his companions, by-proxy!).  

That is what Fail Forward does.  It doesn't mean that danger and death are removed from the equation of play.  Not at all.  It means player goals are compromised (sometimes into a death spiral!) and they have to rebound/rally, be resilient to setbacks, and figure out a way forward.  It means that narrative momentum/tension & excitement at the table is maintained and play is always propelled by "something interesting/dangerous" happens.


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## Ilbranteloth

Emerikol said:


> I think the distinction between the two styles is this:
> 
> 1.  One style actively involves the DM and players teaming at the metagame level to ensure that the story outcome is interesting and exciting.   So players will happily throw their characters into trouble spots via some metagame construct even if the character would never want such a thing.
> 
> 2.  The second style involves the DM creating a world full of challenges.   The players as their characters work as a team to overcome those challenges.  The primary objective is winning as a team.  Overcoming the obstacles successfully.  You do this by knowing your abilities and using them effectively in game.   The DM's job is not to defeat the players but to accurately play the npc/monsters as if they were also part of the world.   This style is very gamist.   Traps exist to stop the characters from achieving their goals.
> 
> 
> I prefer #2.  Now I believe in both instances interesting stories can happen.  Many of my friends and I reminisce about past adventures and the fun had.  We never though at the time were seeking an interesting story.   The story was presumed in the challenge.  Overcoming the challenges were what focused the party goals.
> 
> In a game like I prefer selecting the right equipment for an adventure is a big deal.  What you have is what you have.  Preparation is part of the challenge.  Choosing spells is also important.  It's very much like preparing for war.  Failure is absolutely a possibility.  Characters die and die permanently sometimes.   Because games are losable.  It's a cooperative game.  The DM is not going to save you from a silly death.   Be prepared and play well.




I get #2, but #1 doesn't fit any type of game I've run, although I think you're trying to describe what others would consider a story-driven campaign.

I have two basic types of campaigns I run, and what seems to differentiate them at one level is the amount of commitment the players have toward their characters. This is not definitive, and doesn't always happen this way, but it seems to be more common than not.

Campaign type #1, which my home campaigns tend to be, have a story arc running through them that's typically on a larger scale. I don't typically have 'save the world' type stories, but something similar and on a smaller scale, such as a region. Sometimes it's not related to a geographical conflict, but it has the same sense of scale.

In these campaigns, the 'main' story is sometimes the focus, sometimes not. I play off the backgrounds of the characters, as well as things the players say, to flesh out the story, so the characters have direct and indirect links to the actual story. There are a great many other events going on, because the world as a whole is fleshed out. Some groups, mysteries, and plots are related to the main story, some not. Those that have activities related to the ongoing main plot also have other things that aren't related going on too. The campaigns typically take us years to get through the major stories, and could be compared to the published adventure paths in that it follows a group of people as they increase in power (levels) from novice to hero (1st to 10th+).

I would characterize these as 'heroic' stories, and while there will be characters, and players that come and go, the core group typically remains consistent and the characters are integral to the story. So they tend not to die as much, or if they do it's notable, and they may be raised.

Campaign type #2, which my public campaigns tend to be, are what I characterize as Gygaxian, or Greenwood Shadowdale types. The players have multiple characters, and the group of players may change from week to week. Most adventurers are short, single-session scenarios in which the PCs leave and return to their home base (usually a town or city) at the end of the session. During the next session it's probably a different group from the pool of characters. The non-active characters are involved in downtime activities and such. 

These are what I would characterize as more sandbox oriented. I still have all sorts of plots and activities going on, and I still tie the characters into the campaign. But most of them don't have the same investment in their characters. If somebody dies, they aren't often as concerned about raising them. 

These aren't textbook cases of 'story' vs 'sandbox' play, but I think they are pretty close. And the biggest differentiator in the groups I've played is the investment they make in their characters. Since they might play a different one of their characters each week, and they aren't the protagonists in some heroic or epic quest, they are much less concerned about the death of their characters.

We do keep track of stuff like equipment, ammunition, encumbrance, resource management, etc. People who have played in both don't see a meaningful difference in how I handle things. The world is the same, the events happening in the background are the same (in fact they are usually both running at during the same 'game time' and their characters may even be in the same place at the same time. In fact, I currently have three separate ongoing campaign stories going on right now.

But the group in the heroic campaign handle encounters a bit differently. They are more cautious, and have the tendency to skip things that they don't think are important to their overall goals. They don't go through a dungeon to clean it out, the look for the fastest route in and out to get what they are looking for. 

I guess the major difference is the players themselves. In the heroic campaign they've picked up on an interesting hidden agenda by a group or groups and decided that's what they wanted to follow up on. The public campaigns tend not to follow up on the hidden agendas, although it's not uncommon for some of them to be interested in that, in which case they often get spun off into a home campaign.

So I don't know, I guess it's a sandbox with elaborate subplots waiting to be discovered and followed?

Ilbranteloth


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## Emerikol

Well it's clear I'm not good at describing these styles.   I definitely am not denigrating either approach.  I obviously like one style more but that is something I recognize as taste.   

When I say the DM and players team at the metagame level, I mean that interaction occurs outside of what the character knows.   For example, in Numenera, the GM can offer an XP in exchange for having something happen to the PC.  The PC can accept the XP and if he does then the thing happens.  It's usually bad in some way but it furthers the storyline.   This is the GM and the Player having a transaction at a level outside the characters mind.   

A popular example is falling through a trap door.   No character is going to want to fall unexpectedly through a trap door.  No sane character anyway.  The player though is willing to accept an XP in exchange for letting that happen.   XP though is not something real in game.  Characters don't know about XP.   

A PC will later use an XP to make some roll more favorable based on something about that PC.   Kind of like an aspect in Fate.  This again is bending the reality of the game.  The player is intruding where his character has no knowledge.   XP, Fate Points, etc.. are not real things IN GAME.

Now.  I don't like that style of play for myself.  There is an objective chance that something can happen based upon situation and established probabilities in my games.   Players can't influence anything except through their character.  If they get some bonus for background knowledge they get it everytime the given situation IN GAME exists. 

I hope that clears up what I mean by Player control versus Character control.   I like the latter.   There is nothing wrong with the former.  It is a really different sort of game.   Obviously you can use Player Control to any degree you like from mildly to all the time.

Failing forward that was instituted in advance using well defined charts would likely become the physics of the world.  I'd be okay with a critical failure role forcing a role on another table.  Any of those sorts of things can be made to work without leaving behind the character focused style.  You just have to handle it right.   I do though think that Fail Forward was promoted originally as a story driven style element.   Many at WOTC seem to lack any understanding about how different these styles are and why people prefer one or the other.


----------



## Emerikol

Ilbranteloth said:


> I guess the major difference is the players themselves. In the heroic campaign they've picked up on an interesting hidden agenda by a group or groups and decided that's what they wanted to follow up on. The public campaigns tend not to follow up on the hidden agendas, although it's not uncommon for some of them to be interested in that, in which case they often get spun off into a home campaign.
> 
> So I don't know, I guess it's a sandbox with elaborate subplots waiting to be discovered and followed?
> Ilbranteloth




I don't agree.  I think the level of heroism in the game is independent of playstyle.  I definitely think that Dungeonworld though is a game devoted to the storyteller style more than it is to the hard gamist style.

I'm not saying that DM's don't create adventures and worlds in both cases.  It really is about player vs character intrusion into the game.   When I say character, of course I mean the player acting solely as the character.   

And I'm not saying with some work that Dungeonworld couldn't be more to my style either.  Just saying it doesn't go out of it's way to support my style.    Just like Fate, which is definitely a player intrusion game, I could hack it and remove a lot of the player intrusion elements but it wouldn't really be the same game.

In fact, I haven't played Dungeon world.  I only attended a seminar once.  So perhaps I don't understand all of angles on that game.  I don't really want to debate a particular game.   I'm just saying that there is one very big axis that gamers fall along.  That axis is how much they want to intrude on the game outside of their characters.   Some like me will say "not at all!" whereas others will say "All the time!"    It is a matter of taste.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I like the concept.
> 
> 
> The interesting aspect of this - if your character falls down, he has no choice but to pick himself up. But if his pudding detector is falling, he can try to go without it, or continue. The fail forward aproach here has created more possible outcomes of the scenario.




Both basically boil down to continue or turn back though. Falling down the chasm could open up several other possibilities depending on what is down there. But for me, what I think I dislike about the failing forward approach, just as a matter of preference, is that death by falling down the chasm and taking enough damage to die doesn't seem to be on the table. To me that is the big stake of jumping over a gap in the terrain like that. I wouldn't mind if there was a tiered success system and on a failure you fall, on a partial success you risk having a set back like a lost item or something, and on a full success you make it across. I use something like that myself. It is the lack of a real total failure that I think kind of bothers me.


----------



## Nagol

Bedrockgames said:


> Both basically boil down to continue or turn back though. Falling down the chasm could open up several other possibilities depending on what is down there. But for me, what I think I dislike about the failing forward approach, just as a matter of preference, is that death by falling down the chasm and taking enough damage to die doesn't seem to be on the table. To me that is the big stake of jumping over a gap in the terrain like that. I wouldn't mind if there was a tiered success system and on a failure you fall, on a partial success you risk having a set back like a lost item or something, and on a full success you make it across. I use something like that myself. It is the lack of a real total failure that I think kind of bothers me.




It depends on frequency and circumstance of the technique's use.

As an alternative example, consider the case of a solo character cautiously exploring a small dungeon.  The character falls into an empty covered pit trap 20' deep that resets over him.  The character tries to climb up, but the DC (20) for the wall is beyond anything the player can roll (Dex 8; skill not trained) under the best of circumstance.  Even if the character somehow makes the 10-15 foot climb, he probably has no way of triggering the pit cover.

Now the table can leave the situation in stasis and wait for the character to die of thirst or starvation or even fast-forward to that point.

Alternatively, the DM can fail-forward and say the noise of the PC makes whilst failing to climb attracts a nearby denizen of the dungeon that the PC can attempt to lever to get out of the pit.  Or perhaps the PC will detect one wall is damp and more cool than the rest and if the PC can breach it, a stream or water will begin to flood the pit and the PC can try to swim up at the pit fills.


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## grendel111111

Ilbranteloth said:


> I guess I view writing a story as a bit different. Even if you're 'experiencing the world' you're still writing a story. The whole point of a role-playing game to me is that you are writing a shared 'story', perhaps we call it a 'shared experience.'
> 
> You don't need a pre-written story arc. But even if you are simply experiencing the world, the people in the world have 'stories' of their own. There are groups of people that have shared goals.
> 
> I've come to really like the approach of looking at RPGs as a TV show. Some shows have an underlying story that drives the entire show. Others are just the day-to-day events surrounding an individual or group of individuals with no greater story tying them together other than a job, for example. Many try to do both. Most of the time I find the ones that do both to be rather annoying. For example, I enjoyed The Mentalist, but really didn't like the Red John story. It wasn't necessary, and eventually killed the show, because once they finished their story, and screwed up all of the dynamics of the characters and what they did, they didn't have a show anymore.
> 
> My home campaign right now is more of what I'd call a heroic story. Like something along the lines of Lord of the Rings. They are part of something bigger that's happening and they are among the only people that might be able to do something. Like the first couple of 5th ed D&D adventure paths, a lot of what happens is due to working with others, and organizations like the Lord's Alliance and Harpers. They want to know what's going on, so they remain engaged. They are, however, free to go whatever direction they like. And the things they stumble upon aren't all related to this epic story, and they can choose not to engage with it any time they'd like.
> 
> The campaign I'm starting at a store, however, is more of the experience the world type. I'm modeling it after the early Gygax home adventures, as well as what I envision Ed Greenwood's Shadowdale campaign was like. Each player will have multiple characters prepared, and they are all starting from the same 'home base'. Because I anticipate that there may be different players from one session to the next I'm making sure that each week we can switch up which characters are in play, while the others are involved in downtime activities until the next time they are active.
> 
> I see this as a more typical tv show where there's an ensemble cast of characters, with probably a few that are the 'main' characters in most every episode (since they are the ones that will show up every session), and the 'story' is self contained in that episode. The story is one of shared experiences, and doesn't need to go beyond that, although the options are always there to do so, since there are always things going on in the background.
> 
> Regardless, the unique thing about a role-playing game is this shared experience. The story.
> 
> That's one of the reasons why I think it's important for those promoting 'fail forward' write about how it will function well in any play style. It's another reason why I think 'success at a cost' and 'fail forward' are both bad terms since them imply you aren't failing, but that you always move 'forward'. I get the originally the idea was that the story moves forward, but it's too easily misunderstood.
> 
> I guess it's really an idea of moving beyond a binary skill check to a degree of success/failure check that also pays attention to the context and possibilities. So what, a 'possibility check?' I don't really like that either, though. But to me the concept should remind people that, unlike a video game, there are an endless number of variables and possible outcomes whenever an interesting situation arises that have a possibility for failure, or to alter the direction of the story or experience.
> 
> As I'm thinking this through, I guess there's a question of what the benefit of this technique, whatever it's called, is trying to accomplish.
> 
> So here are some thoughts to outline what I think are goals, or maybe pros and cons. Coming in part from a process design background, here's one way to look at it.
> 
> You can look at an entire game session as one process. Within that are multiple sub-processes. The most well defined sub-process in most games is combat.
> 
> So we're looking for a process to handle the non-combat events where a character's skills are tested, and a certain outcome is not guaranteed.
> 
> I'll go back to the simple scenario of a locked door leading into a room of orcs.
> 
> Depending on the PCs, the goal of this particular event is variable. I'll give a few possibilities.
> 
> They want to sneak into the room to steal something, preferably remaining undetected.
> They want to burst into the room to surprise their enemies so they can eliminate them quickly, more easily, and without casualties or being injured.
> They want to sneak through the room to another exit.
> 
> There are other possibilities, but these are good enough to start.
> 
> Now at it's most basic, you could have the party state their goal (pick one of the above), make a check and determine whether they succeed or fail. You can narrate a dramatic encounter based on that check, and the check can return degrees of success and failure.
> 
> But this is really boring. Yes, the success and failure may be determined by that skills of the PCs, but ultimately it's largely just the DM narrating a story.
> 
> So then we can go with the opposite. Everything is determined through the rules system with a series of checks. Going with option 1.
> 
> Stealth check for each character to get to the door, with a perception check for each of the orcs.
> Listen at the door check, with another round of stealth and perception (assume there's a stealth and perception check in every round that a PC does something that might make noise).
> If not successful, they spend another round of checks to listen again to make sure.
> They hear that there is something in the room, now check to see if they determine: what, how many, make out any conversation, etc.
> Pick locks check, with the usual stealth/perception.
> If failed, repeat.
> Success, stealth, perception, and check to see if the door sticks or squeaks.
> Door opened, OK, stealth, perception, perception on the part of the PCs to see what they can spot through the partially opened door, etc.
> Oh, I forgot to add a check to see if the dusty conditions caused one of the characters to sneeze or cough.
> 
> Anyway, I think we get the point. There's a stage where we have too many checks, and not enough story. Actually, let's call it narrative.
> 
> Combat in game systems is mechanically very mature, and there are a lot of choices for the style and approach to combat across game systems.
> 
> Non-combat action resolution is not nearly as mature. I like the idea of trying to do something better, but I think the approaches described have been partial solutions, often concepts, that are not quantified in an easy to explain way. I think before we get to that, we need to verify what we're trying to accomplish.
> 
> So what I think we're really trying to accomplish is:
> A 'better' way to determine the outcome of a non-combat activity/event/decision point in the game.
> It must take into account the skill level/abilities of the PCs to the degree that a PC with a higher skill level should be more likely to succeed.
> It must be granular enough to feel like the PCs are accomplishing something, provide results on a character by character basis (one continues to listen at the door while the other picks the lock), but not generate an 'excessive' number of checks.
> We need a way to account for many variables, including the environment (squeaky door), fate (sneeze), skills of others (perception), etc.
> We want a method that adds to the narrative in a productive way. It can add to the narrative in a direct or indirect way (failed to pick the lock, squeaky door, sneeze), but should not preclude any possibilities - it can't guarantee success on a failed check, nor preclude total failure.
> The check should take into account the outcome of other related checks or events. (a failed pick lock check might impact the stealth check, or the amount of time, such as 3 or 4 rounds to pick the lock might impact the stealth check).
> It should include as many of the players as possible, but also allow the key individuals be the focus.
> 
> It should be universal (not tied to any specific rule set, skill set, etc.) but scalable, to allow different play styles to modify the granularity easily. Ultimately it should enable the DM to adjudicate the game in their style, with their goals in mind, and provide the framework for an exciting and fun game for the players.
> 
> What would you add/remove or change in this list. It's just a brainstorm essentially, and I've got a thick skin, so let's see what we can come up with. Part of that process should be to come up with a proper and appropriate name for it.
> 
> Ilbranteloth




I agree that all games tell a story. The difference for me is in how you get to the story. Are you actively making choices that will result in the best "story" or is the story arising out of what happens during the game. It can be a mixture of both. and there is always a story.

One area that this does come through clearly is in character death.
Tell some people that your character died and you will be greeted with, You have a terrible DM you should find a DM who won't kill your characters, because you put time into making them.

So for some people a character dying will stop the "story". For others the dying is just part of the story of their characters life. For others it's only OK if it is a story significant or meaningful death. 

So here are some options: 
Death is just part of life... you died. (Not story focused, but tells a story)

Death is only on the line if an omen is in play (as suggested further up this thread). (Very story focused approach.) 

If the player might die we fail forward so that does not happen. (again a story focused option)

Use a fate or luck point to avoid the outcome the dice gave you. (you have x fate or luck points per session) (This uses a game mechanic to put a safely net behind the players, making them more willing to take risks)  

You are marked for death. You somehow survive the ignoble death (the goblins dagger glanced off your grandmothers locket) but you will die this day. By the end of the session you character will die (just not this second) so go and make a heroic last stand or do something significant with you characters last breath. An example of this might be if Boromir in the LotR  was running towards the 2 halflings and he is hit in the chest by an arrow as he comes over the hill, killing him with a critical. The DM marks him for death and so Boromir swats aside the arrow just before it hits him. he charges into the horde of orks and makes a valiant last stand. cutting down orks, but at the same time taking arrow after arrow, until he finally fall to the ground exhausted and is killed by the ork leader. (Makes a much better story).

The player and tell a flash back or how he had at the last minute before leaving the shire he had picked up a loaf of bread off the table and stuffed it in his pocket, so when it looked like he had been stabbed it had actually just skewered the bread and he was left with a flesh wound instead. (Leverage uses flash backs a lot to explain things in that game).

So in all those options a story is told. The tone of the game sets which option or approach is best to use. The first option tells a story as much as the others, but for some people does not tell a satisfying story. At the same time for others it tells a story that for them it "truer" to the game they want to play.

I agree that we are looking for something but I am not sure it is a universal approach that is needed. That is the reason we have so much conflict between gaming styles and "approaches". I think 5E made a good attempt to give a range of ways  to deal with things (But I don't think included enough breadth to their options), but presented it badly due to peoples desire to be told the "right" way to play. In fact I think codifying any one way will do more damage than good and is the reason there are so many D and D clones that cater to each possible.

I think a good place to start is to find out all the different versions of how people approach skill checks and dealing with the exploration pillar of games, but avoiding overly broad terms like fail forward which clearly encompasses a variety of actual ways of dealing with the same thing.


----------



## grendel111111

Nagol said:


> It depends on frequency and circumstance of the technique's use.
> 
> As an alternative example, consider the case of a solo character cautiously exploring a small dungeon.  The character falls into an empty covered pit trap 20' deep that resets over him.  The character tries to climb up, but the DC (20) for the wall is beyond anything the player can roll (Dex 8; skill not trained) under the best of circumstance.  Even if the character somehow makes the 10-15 foot climb, he probably has no way of triggering the pit cover.
> 
> Now the table can leave the situation in stasis and wait for the character to die of thirst or starvation or even fast-forward to that point.
> 
> Alternatively, the DM can fail-forward and say the noise of the PC makes whilst failing to climb attracts a nearby denizen of the dungeon that the PC can attempt to lever to get out of the pit.  Or perhaps the PC will detect one wall is damp and more cool than the rest and if the PC can breach it, a stream or water will begin to flood the pit and the PC can try to swim up at the pit fills.




I don't even see this as failing forward. If it is then is it such a generalized term to almost being meaningless. Failing forward becomes just "don't let the game have a dead end". You don't need failing forward to realize that people who make traps will check traps, or that dungeons with monsters wandering around it will have monsters wandering around it, or that if you are playing a a game with just a DM and 1 player then adjustments need to be made to the game to keep it running smoothly. There is also the danger that you jump in too quickly with a solution, not giving them a chance to actually problem solve themselves.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

grendel111111 said:


> I agree that all games tell a story. The difference for me is in how you get to the story. Are you actively making choices that will result in the best "story" or is the story arising out of what happens during the game. It can be a mixture of both. and there is always a story.
> 
> One area that this does come through clearly is in character death.
> Tell some people that your character died and you will be greeted with, You have a terrible DM you should find a DM who won't kill your characters, because you put time into making them.
> 
> So for some people a character dying will stop the "story". For others the dying is just part of the story of their characters life. For others it's only OK if it is a story significant or meaningful death.
> 
> So here are some options:
> Death is just part of life... you died. (Not story focused, but tells a story)
> 
> Death is only on the line if an omen is in play (as suggested further up this thread). (Very story focused approach.)
> 
> If the player might die we fail forward so that does not happen. (again a story focused option)
> 
> Use a fate or luck point to avoid the outcome the dice gave you. (you have x fate or luck points per session) (This uses a game mechanic to put a safely net behind the players, making them more willing to take risks)
> 
> You are marked for death. You somehow survive the ignoble death (the goblins dagger glanced off your grandmothers locket) but you will die this day. By the end of the session you character will die (just not this second) so go and make a heroic last stand or do something significant with you characters last breath. An example of this might be if Boromir in the LotR  was running towards the 2 halflings and he is hit in the chest by an arrow as he comes over the hill, killing him with a critical. The DM marks him for death and so Boromir swats aside the arrow just before it hits him. he charges into the horde of orks and makes a valiant last stand. cutting down orks, but at the same time taking arrow after arrow, until he finally fall to the ground exhausted and is killed by the ork leader. (Makes a much better story).
> 
> The player and tell a flash back or how he had at the last minute before leaving the shire he had picked up a loaf of bread off the table and stuffed it in his pocket, so when it looked like he had been stabbed it had actually just skewered the bread and he was left with a flesh wound instead. (Leverage uses flash backs a lot to explain things in that game).
> 
> So in all those options a story is told. The tone of the game sets which option or approach is best to use. The first option tells a story as much as the others, but for some people does not tell a satisfying story. At the same time for others it tells a story that for them it "truer" to the game they want to play.
> 
> I agree that we are looking for something but I am not sure it is a universal approach that is needed. That is the reason we have so much conflict between gaming styles and "approaches". I think 5E made a good attempt to give a range of ways  to deal with things (But I don't think included enough breadth to their options), but presented it badly due to peoples desire to be told the "right" way to play. In fact I think codifying any one way will do more damage than good and is the reason there are so many D and D clones that cater to each possible.
> 
> I think a good place to start is to find out all the different versions of how people approach skill checks and dealing with the exploration pillar of games, but avoiding overly broad terms like fail forward which clearly encompasses a variety of actual ways of dealing with the same thing.




I'm in the option #1 camp here. Having said that, I do make character death a little more difficult. In addition, I've got other options in play (injuries for example) that have a very meaningful impact, and for an extended period of time - as in at least days. This is all handled mechanically. 

But that's also because the combat system is mature enough that it makes death and injuries easy to work with. It's up to us (the players and myself) to wrap that event in the story.

As for a universal approach, I don't know if it's possible or not. I didn't think of tying this to the Exploration Pillar, but that's spot on. 

I don't think there will be a single mechanic that will satisfy everybody, But that's not my point. My point is that we can codify what the process is for an exploration event. Combat would be a good example, I guess.

Contact - to have a combat you have to have at least two creatures come into contact.
Surprise - one or more of the creatures may be surprised by this contact.
Declare hostility - at least one of the creatures has to take a hostile position in regards to others.
Initiation - not in the sense as to who goes when, but that somebody initiates a hostile action.
Engagement - This is the active combat itself, which will typically have it's own detailed process.
Disengagement - Again, not an ability, but an act to remove oneself from the hostilities. One way to disengage is to die.
Cessation - The hostilities end, for whatever reason, and the game shifts back to a normal state.

This is a high level look at a combat - and I'd guess a significant number of people would start with surprise (and then skip declare hostility). The fact is, you can have contact, and surprise, without declaring hostility. In fact, without declaring hostility (and sometimes with), it would become an interaction event. The main difference between the two is the method of engagement.

The engagement process details how to resolve the actions within the combat or interaction, and would probably be quite different between the two.

So what does an exploration event look like? What is the difference? I guess both an interaction and a combat event are with creatures. The main difference between the two being the engagement itself. So an exploration event is an interaction with a place or thing.

In other words, walking through a dungeon is exploration, but not an exploration event. Although non-events can be helpful and tell you something about the place (this passage is safe, because it is free of traps and monsters). In the game there will be a transition in and out of the event, and it's the engagement with the event that would be the focus. The event encompasses the actions, skills, and intent of the characters, and also the environment, the hand of fate, etc. The specific mechanics would differ between one game system or another, but a complete process would include all of these elements.

Contact/Detection - something presents itself as an obstacle or something of interest?
Surprise -  could happen (pit trap).
Declare intent? - if you opt not to engage with the obstacle, then there is no event (which can be a viable option, but not always).
Initiation
Engagement
Disengagement
Cessation

I don't know if I'm missing something, but that's sort of a start. It's probably the engagement subprocess where the fail forward or lack thereof will occur. That's where we'd need to really work through the process on the next level. 

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Nagol

grendel111111 said:


> I don't even see this as failing forward. If it is then is it such a generalized term to almost being meaningless. Failing forward becomes just "don't let the game have a dead end". You don't need failing forward to realize that people who make traps will check traps, or that dungeons with monsters wandering around it will have monsters wandering around it, or that if you are playing a a game with just a DM and 1 player then adjustments need to be made to the game to keep it running smoothly. There is also the danger that you jump in too quickly with a solution, not giving them a chance to actually problem solve themselves.




Trap-makers only check for traps when they are still present; there may be no wandering monsters in the environment or they may habitually avoid the trapped sections.  There can be more than one player; put all the PCs in the pit with no way to get out.

At its base Failing Forward is just "don't let the game have a dead end".  That is the purpose of not returning the situation to the same state it had prior to the failure.  Introduce through action or reaction something new the players can interact with to increase the probability the stasis will break.

How frequently you apply the tool depends on the game system and personal preference.  Some games urge a change for every attempt checked like Dungeon World*.  Others, like D&D, do not. 

Unless running a  game where change is expected, I tend to use Fail Forward either on a clock as part of a scenario "X happens at 6 PM unless Y has occurred" or as a referee tool when the players are getting frustrated with the current situation .  If the players are happily trying different approaches to adjust the situation then they are adapting, learning, and innovating -- key concepts of fail-forward as business jargon as opposed to RPG jargon.


* A slight exaggeration


----------



## Maxperson

Nagol said:


> At its base Failing Forward is just "don't let the game have a dead end".
> 
> That is the purpose of not returning the situation to the same state it had prior to the failure.




Those are not the same thing.  You can return the game to the same state it had prior to failure AND not let the game have a dead end.



> Introduce through action or reaction something new the players can interact with to increase the probability the stasis will break.



Unless the DM has created a situation where there is only one way to a goal, the stasis is going to break no matter what.  There is nothing he can add that will increase the probability since it's already 100%.



> Unless running a  game where change is expected, I tend to use Fail Forward either on a clock as part of a scenario "X happens at 6 PM unless Y has occurred" or as a referee tool when the players are getting frustrated with the current situation .  If the players are happily trying different approaches to adjust the situation then they are adapting, learning, and innovating -- key concepts of fail-forward as business jargon as opposed to RPG jargon.




One of the things I do when the players are having some trouble coming up with ideas is call for rolls.  I know the behind the scenes information and I know their characters.  The DC of that roll will vary from PC to PC depending on skills and background, but almost always someone will make it.  Based on the roll and which skill, stat, background is applicable, I will give a piece of applicable helpful information to that character.  

Doing that moves the action forward in a manner that is connected to the what is going on, and rewards the PC based on his skill choices and/or background.  That makes the players happy as they created their characters to have those things.


----------



## Nagol

Maxperson said:


> Those are not the same thing.  You can return the game to the same state it had prior to failure AND not let the game have a dead end.




Sometimes, sure.  Other times not so much.  



> Unless the DM has created a situation where there is only one way to a goal, the stasis is going to break no matter what.  There is nothing he can add that will increase the probability since it's already 100%.




Untrue.  The situation can develop during play -- see my lone PC falling into a pit, above.  Additionally, there could be a dozen ways out of the situation, but the PCs do not have the capability for half, consumed their resources for another third, and can't think of the 2 remaining methods. 



> One of the things I do when the players are having some trouble coming up with ideas is call for rolls.  I know the behind the scenes information and I know their characters.  The DC of that roll will vary from PC to PC depending on skills and background, but almost always someone will make it.  Based on the roll and which skill, stat, background is applicable, I will give a piece of applicable helpful information to that character.




Which is an equivalent to failing-forward.  You are introducing new information to the players that the PCs can take advantage of.  The only difference is the change is internal to the PC as opposed to coming from the environment surrounding them.  It is another technique I use.



> Doing that moves the action forward in a manner that is connected to the what is going on, and rewards the PC based on his skill choices and/or background.  That makes the players happy as they created their characters to have those things.




Failing-forward is also connected to what is going on -- just it is connected to what is going on in the environment the PCs find themselves within.  A well-done fail-forward also can provide additional implications about the situation from which the players can draw inferences.  

As for what makes players happy, that is too varied to generalise.  I do make an effort to develop situations where the PCs can utilise all purchased abilities, but in some systems that also means I get to use their contacts, favours, and other environmental perks as a failing forward lever.


----------



## Umbran

Bedrockgames said:


> I wouldn't mind if there was a tiered success system and on a failure you fall, on a partial success you risk having a set back like a lost item or something, and on a full success you make it across. I use something like that myself. It is the lack of a real total failure that I think kind of bothers me.




Well, perhaps you missed how it was mentioned much earlier in the thread that the systems (like FATE) have Succeed at a Cost as part of a tiered success system?  That outright failure *is* still on the table?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Umbran said:


> Well, perhaps you missed how it was mentioned much earlier in the thread that the systems (like FATE) have Succeed at a Cost as part of a tiered success system?  That outright failure *is* still on the table?




I am fine with that. But my only issue there is then that doesn't sound like failing forward as people have been describing it. It sounds more like a degrees of success system (which is cool, but it isn't what people seem to want when they talk about failing forward). Failing forward appears to be a solution to the problem that hard failure can present to story flow. If hard failure is still a possibility, then it isn't getting around that problem. By the way, I was not knocking failing forward in my post. I was just trying to explain what I believe I don't like about it (I've actually been enjoying having it explained from people like Pemerton here, as they seem to have a strong handle on what it is meant to do and I think I understand why people like it).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Nagol said:


> It depends on frequency and circumstance of the technique's use.
> 
> As an alternative example, consider the case of a solo character cautiously exploring a small dungeon.  The character falls into an empty covered pit trap 20' deep that resets over him.  The character tries to climb up, but the DC (20) for the wall is beyond anything the player can roll (Dex 8; skill not trained) under the best of circumstance.  Even if the character somehow makes the 10-15 foot climb, he probably has no way of triggering the pit cover.
> 
> Now the table can leave the situation in stasis and wait for the character to die of thirst or starvation or even fast-forward to that point.
> 
> Alternatively, the DM can fail-forward and say the noise of the PC makes whilst failing to climb attracts a nearby denizen of the dungeon that the PC can attempt to lever to get out of the pit.  Or perhaps the PC will detect one wall is damp and more cool than the rest and if the PC can breach it, a stream or water will begin to flood the pit and the PC can try to swim up at the pit fills.




I think my only issue with that example is it is a solo adventure (which is very unique circumstance). But I suppose it still works because even in a regular campaign, you could have players separated by hundreds of miles in different locations and one goes off on his or her own into a dungeon and falls into the pit. 

My first thought is this might actually be a system issue, because presumably they can keep trying to climb that pit wall. I wouldn't treat that as a one roll or else we accelerate time by two months and you die. But that said, all the things you mention saving the PC, those are things the GM is always free to introduce for any reason. That has nothing to do with him failing the roll on the pit. I am fine with a GM who wants to, deciding that there are locals who hear his cries or denizens of the dungeon who take notice. Those things to me are more about the circumstances surrounding the pit than the roll to climb it or to avoid falling down. What I want from a game is there to be a possibility of falling and taking the full damage from the fall (which in some cases could be lethal) and the possibility of trying to climb a wall and not being able to do so (doesn't mean you can't try again, but for that attempt you don't succeed). Adding in plot complications due to a skill roll, just for me, feels a little odd. I can see why some people do that. I don't think it is bad on its own. It just isn't really how I like to manage these things, unless I can see a clear line from the failure to the development. This is why Pemertons posts are making a lot of sense to me on the subject, because I can really wrap my head around what he is saying Failing Forward brings to the table. It seems to be very well suited for groups that are concerned with the plot or story moving forward in an exciting direction. I can totally see how it does that, and I think it is a good tool if that if is what you want. For me, it feels like the wrong tool in my own campaign.

That said, under the right circumstances, I do want there to be a possibility of a character falling into a hole and starving if that is what it seems like ought to be the outcome. I wouldn't sit there and torture the player about it, and I would probably roll randomly to determine if someone happens by to rescue, but I'd certainly consider it a plausible outcome if the player character were sufficiently isolated and trapped.


----------



## Nagol

Bedrockgames said:


> I think my only issue with that example is it is a solo adventure (which is very unique circumstance). But I suppose it still works because even in a regular campaign, you could have players separated by hundreds of miles in different locations and one goes off on his or her own into a dungeon and falls into the pit.
> 
> My first thought is this might actually be a system issue, because presumably they can keep trying to climb that pit wall.




Except in the example, it is impossible for the player to roll high enough to succeed --  DC 20 vs. max roll of 19; it is an auto-failure.



> I wouldn't treat that as a one roll or else we accelerate time by two months and you die. But that said, all the things you mention saving the PC, those are things the GM is always free to introduce for any reason. That has nothing to do with him failing the roll on the pit. I am fine with a GM who wants to, deciding that there are locals who hear his cries or denizens of the dungeon who take notice. Those things to me are more about the circumstances surrounding the pit than the roll to climb it or to avoid falling down.




Those introductions are forms of fail-forward when used to re-energise the situation after PC failure.  



> What I want from a game is there to be a possibility of falling and taking the full damage from the fall (which in some cases could be lethal) and the possibility of trying to climb a wall and not being able to do so (doesn't mean you can't try again, but for that attempt you don't succeed). Adding in plot complications due to a skill roll, just for me, feels a little odd.




It doesn't need to be in response to a skill roll (or any die roll for that matter).  The complication introduction takes place after an effort to change the situation fails.  That could be an auto-failure like the pit situation above, a failed conversation, or any other situation where the PCs and players are flailing and the risk of stasis is rising. 

Some game engines and player preferences do lean on constant change quite heavily.



> I can see why some people do that. I don't think it is bad on its own. It just isn't really how I like to manage these things, unless I can see a clear line from the failure to the development. This is why Pemertons posts are making a lot of sense to me on the subject, because I can really wrap my head around what he is saying Failing Forward brings to the table. It seems to be very well suited for groups that are concerned with the plot or story moving forward in an exciting direction. I can totally see how it does that, and I think it is a good tool if that if is what you want. For me, it feels like the wrong tool in my own campaign.




I also appreciate a clear line from failure to complication in the case of skill checks; it minimises the discordance of the player thought process and the character thought process to which arbitrary complications can lead.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Nagol said:


> Except in the example, it is impossible for the player to roll high enough to succeed --  DC 20 vs. max roll of 19; it is an auto-failure.




I don't play 5E and haven't played 3E in ages, so not sure how much that would align with the situation as described. But if it is completely impossible to succeed and that doesn't seem to match what should be the case in the situation, I'd call it a problem with the system or something the GM needs to step in an rule on. 






> Those introductions are forms of fail-forward when used to re-energise the situation after PC failure.




I don't think the GM introducing something dungeon like that is fail forward. That is a technique GMs have been using long before Fail forward was a thing and it has almost no direct relationship to the roll itself. I feel like there are two kinds of fail forward being discussed here. On, the one pemerton is describing, is very easy to grasp and clear. This other one is something I am having a lot of trouble distinguishing between other common GM tactics. 





> It doesn't need to be in response to a skill roll (or any die roll for that matter).  The complication introduction takes place after an effort to change the situation fails.  That could be an auto-failure like the pit situation above, a failed conversation, or any other situation where the PCs and players are flailing and the risk of stasis is rising.




But then that isn't anything all that unusual. GMs do that all the time without it being called fail forward. By that logic, any time I introduce any element to the setting that helps the players in any way, I potentially using fail forward. To me, a GM who takes pity on a PC trapped in a pit and has someone walk by so they don't die, isn't really doing anything to advance the plot or adventure, he is just saving the PC.


----------



## Nagol

Bedrockgames said:


> <snip>
> 
> But then that isn't anything all that unusual. GMs do that all the time without it being called fail forward. By that logic, any time I introduce any element to the setting that helps the players in any way, I potentially using fail forward. To me, a GM who takes pity on a PC trapped in a pit and has someone walk by so they don't die, isn't really doing anything to advance the plot or adventure, he is just saving the PC.




Well, yes GMs have been doing it for a long time -- it is a common enough trope in the source fiction.  You are using fail-forward any time you introduce an element that (1) the PCs can or are forced to react to that (2) helps destabilise the current status quo that was (3) introduced as a (usually unexpected) consequence of failure of a PC gambit. 

Once upon a time, a PC enters dungeon, falls in pit, and starves to death. The end.

vs.

Once upon a time, a PC enters dungeon, falls in pit, manages to get out with lateral thinking/unexpected allies/tricking enemies/?.  The PC goes on to ????.  The end?

Which plot is more advanced?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Nagol said:


> Well, yes GMs have been doing it for a long time -- it is a common enough trope in the source fiction.  You are using fail-forward any time you introduce an element that (1) the PCs can or are forced to react to that (2) helps destabilise the current status quo.
> 
> Once upon a time, a PC enters dungeon, falls in pit, and starves to death. The end.
> 
> vs.
> 
> Once upon a time, a PC enters dungeon, falls in pit, manages to get out with lateral thinking/unexpected allies/tricking enemies/?.  The PC goes on to ????.  The end?
> 
> Which plot is more advanced?




Again, it is about the utility of the concept. If Fail Forward is just making sure stuff happens, I am frankly not sure how it is any different from things like Situational Adventures or Bangs. As a concept, I don't find it terribly clear if all it is is the GM stepping in to keep things moving at a given moment (that could also apply to railroading). If on the other hand, it is a reaction to a failure when a player attempts something, that I can get. That is clear. But I feel like people are both saying it avoids complete failure by making story advancement occur while at the same time also keeps complete failure on the table as a possibility. This is the part that is really giving me trouble. I also feel like it is being confused with gradient success systems (where you have Success, Failure, Partial Failure, etc). It just seems to be getting overly broad usage in this discussion. 

Your above definition could apply to any number of techniques. I introduce elements all the time that force players to respond in some way. I would not at all consider that fail forward. I would probably call it situational GMing. Again, random encounter table introduce elements that 1) force players to react and 2) help destabilize the status quo. I don't think anyone would honestly regard them as an example of failing forward.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Nagol said:


> Well, yes GMs have been doing it for a long time -- it is a common enough trope in the source fiction.  You are using fail-forward any time you introduce an element that (1) the PCs can or are forced to react to that (2) helps destabilise the current status quo that was (3) introduced as a (usually unexpected) consequence of failure of a PC gambit.
> 
> Once upon a time, a PC enters dungeon, falls in pit, and starves to death. The end.
> 
> vs.
> 
> Once upon a time, a PC enters dungeon, falls in pit, manages to get out with lateral thinking/unexpected allies/tricking enemies/?.  The PC goes on to ????.  The end?
> 
> Which plot is more advanced?




Well, one might argue that the first is more advanced, or more mature anyway, in light of the current trend to avoid character death at all costs (of which I am often guilty of as well). Wander into a dangerous, unexplored location alone and (apparently) unprepared? As my daughter learned in kindergarten - you get what you get and you don't get upset.

It might be a very, very interesting prelude to an adventure where the next group finds the body of that individual. It's also along the lines of the sports star that falls out of his boat and drowns while fishing which has happened.

Having said that, at least in D&D, a natural 20 is generally assumed to be success. It's not RAW, but it's a lot like Free Parking in Monopoly. In addition, unless the DM intended for that to be a possible consequence (even if it was by accident), I suspect that most would work for a way out. Perhaps they didn't realize that the character would have a -1 to their check. Of course, I've seen creative players figure out far more complicated situations than this as well. If it was not intended, you simply come up with a way out. Sure, you can call it failing forward. And this is what I think a lot of people consider that term to be (as I did). I just see it as fixing a mistake. It's a limited, or (hopefully) one-time occurrence rather than a DM/gameplay philosophy.

And now to contradict myself - in my campaign, traps exist for a reason. It's not uncommon for those traps to exist to kill. Particularly if it's in a sealed tomb that the PC has just violated. There aren't patrols. There aren't wandering monsters. The trap exists solely to keep anybody entering to go any further. Period. I generally hint (through lore) that entering something like a sealed tomb or crypt is among the most dangerous things around. You are isolated and potentially entering a death trap. I'm the DM and you violated my tomb. Prepare to die.

If it's a pit with a disarm mechanism or a way to avoid it as protection to a lair for something, then yes, there will be patrols or wandering monsters. Maybe it's built by something long ago, and has been forgotten, but the location is occupied by something else now. 

As for what I think you were actually asking - which is more interesting? Well, the second if the character gets out with lateral thinking. Absolutely the most interesting.

Unexpected allies/enemies that suddenly appear because I screwed up? If the possibility existed (it was a living dungeon, not an abandoned crypt), then it's better. Interesting for the players, but less interesting for me. Essentially what it comes down to in terms of what's interesting is partially dependent on how much of the solution I have to write. Not that writing an interesting solution can't be fun too. But part of the fun of an RPG is not knowing what's going to happen, on both sides of the table.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## grendel111111

Ilbranteloth said:


> Well, one might argue that the first is more advanced, or more mature anyway, in light of the current trend to avoid character death at all costs (of which I am often guilty of as well). Wander into a dangerous, unexplored location alone and (apparently) unprepared? As my daughter learned in kindergarten - you get what you get and you don't get upset.




Here is a very clear example of story first vs. gamist approach to RPG's. The characters death due to being trapped at the bottom of a pit is less satifying or heroic than being killed in a dramatic stand off over a lava pit. So if your focus is primarily on having a good story then this kind of ending to the story is not OK.
But if it OK for you that a story ends like this then it is just how it ends. You lost this time around, lets start a new game.
In terms of time at the table saying "you die from the large sword that the sneaky goblin thrust into your side." takes no more time than "you slip into unconsciousness and slowly die from dehydration." But it feels less heroic. So in a heroic action focused game this would not be desirable, in a "realism" game then dying at the bottom of a pit because you feel and broke your leg is an acceptable end to the story.



Ilbranteloth said:


> It might be a very, very interesting prelude to an adventure where the next group finds the body of that individual. It's also along the lines of the sports star that falls out of his boat and drowns while fishing which has happened.




There are so many different ways to get out of the situation.
One of my favorites would be "as you slip into unconsciousness you think back to the day you left the town and the note you had written to your young apprentice (or insert other NPC the player knows) saying you will return in 4 days, but that if you didn't he was to organize a search party and come looking for you.......... then hand over the NPC who becomes their new PC till they have completed the rescue.
They are then on a timer to find their original character before he or she dies at the bottom of the pit. (Players get bonus points if they end up with the rescuer trapped in the same pit as the person they try to rescue and die together).




Ilbranteloth said:


> Having said that, at least in D&D, a natural 20 is generally assumed to be success. It's not RAW, but it's a lot like Free Parking in Monopoly. In addition, unless the DM intended for that to be a possible consequence (even if it was by accident), I suspect that most would work for a way out. Perhaps they didn't realize that the character would have a -1 to their check. Of course, I've seen creative players figure out far more complicated situations than this as well. If it was not intended, you simply come up with a way out. Sure, you can call it failing forward. And this is what I think a lot of people consider that term to be (as I did). I just see it as fixing a mistake. It's a limited, or (hopefully) one-time occurrence rather than a DM/gameplay philosophy.
> 
> And now to contradict myself - in my campaign, traps exist for a reason. It's not uncommon for those traps to exist to kill. Particularly if it's in a sealed tomb that the PC has just violated. There aren't patrols. There aren't wandering monsters. The trap exists solely to keep anybody entering to go any further. Period. I generally hint (through lore) that entering something like a sealed tomb or crypt is among the most dangerous things around. You are isolated and potentially entering a death trap. I'm the DM and you violated my tomb. Prepare to die.
> 
> If it's a pit with a disarm mechanism or a way to avoid it as protection to a lair for something, then yes, there will be patrols or wandering monsters. Maybe it's built by something long ago, and has been forgotten, but the location is occupied by something else now.
> 
> As for what I think you were actually asking - which is more interesting? Well, the second if the character gets out with lateral thinking. Absolutely the most interesting.
> 
> Unexpected allies/enemies that suddenly appear because I screwed up? If the possibility existed (it was a living dungeon, not an abandoned crypt), then it's better. Interesting for the players, but less interesting for me. Essentially what it comes down to in terms of what's interesting is partially dependent on how much of the solution I have to write. Not that writing an interesting solution can't be fun too. But part of the fun of an RPG is not knowing what's going to happen, on both sides of the table.
> 
> Ilbranteloth




It almost feels like "fail forward" is trying to take credit for anything a DM does. Which makes it a fairly meaningless idea to discuss. I suspect that not everyone would view it as all encompassing as this, but it is clearly more than "succeed at a cost". I'm just unclear where the line gets drawn. Is levels of success and failure part of fail forward? As far as I know it has been around long before this term was used (even critical success and critical failure are a form of this).


----------



## GMMichael

Nagol said:


> Once upon a time, a PC enters dungeon, falls in pit, and starves to death. The end.




This has a nice ring to it.  But it's also missing:

1) the PC learns that he should have brought allies.
2) the other PCs learn that there are real (enough) stakes involved.  Excitement increases.

Now, a problem with this plot is that it's horribly written - it's super linear, and offers all the action-options of a 1980s video game.  Maybe that's why it sounds so much like a 1980s RPG plot?


----------



## Balesir

DMMike said:


> This has a nice ring to it.  But it's also missing:
> 
> 1) the PC learns that he should have brought allies.
> 2) the other PCs learn that there are real (enough) stakes involved.  Excitement increases.
> 
> Now, a problem with this plot is that it's horribly written - it's super linear, and offers all the action-options of a 1980s video game.  Maybe that's why it sounds so much like a 1980s RPG plot?



I think you mean "the player(s)" rather than "the PC(s)". The PC is dead, so anything  (s)he might have learned is pretty much moot...

The effects thus described are pretty meta, though, and I wonder how that fits with the "character immersion" agendas?


----------



## Maxperson

Nagol said:


> Sometimes, sure.  Other times not so much.
> 
> Untrue.  The situation can develop during play -- see my lone PC falling into a pit, above.  Additionally, there could be a dozen ways out of the situation, but the PCs do not have the capability for half, consumed their resources for another third, and can't think of the 2 remaining methods.




The DM knows the capabilities of the party (and players).  If he created a situation where the PCs only have one way in or out of something, that's his fault.



> Which is an equivalent to failing-forward.  You are introducing new information to the players that the PCs can take advantage of.  The only difference is the change is internal to the PC as opposed to coming from the environment surrounding them.  It is another technique I use.




It's similar, but different.  There is no disconnect with my method.



> Failing-forward is also connected to what is going on -- just it is connected to what is going on in the environment the PCs find themselves within.  A well-done fail-forward also can provide additional implications about the situation from which the players can draw inferences.




If you've read the thread, fail forward can have nothing directly to do with the roll at hand.  Like the rod falling out of the backpack as the result of a failed *climb* check.



> As for what makes players happy, that is too varied to generalise.  I do make an effort to develop situations where the PCs can utilise all purchased abilities, but in some systems that also means I get to use their contacts, favours, and other environmental perks as a failing forward lever.



Whereas unless it is directly related to the task at hand, those things will not be used as part of a roll.  I can and do use them elsewhere, though.


----------



## Umbran

Balesir said:


> The effects thus described are pretty meta, though, and I wonder how that fits with the "character immersion" agendas?




Put water in the bottom of the pit, and the character will be immersed.


----------



## GMMichael

Balesir said:


> I think you mean "the player(s)" rather than "the PC(s)". The PC is dead, so anything  (s)he might have learned is pretty much moot...
> 
> The effects thus described are pretty meta, though, and I wonder how that fits with the "character immersion" agendas?




I'll take half-credit.  At least I didn't say "the player is dead."

Effect #2 isn't so meta: the surviving characters have good reason to learn from their dead comrade's mistakes.  Immersion is usually better served by having more options instead of fewer - but it's also sort of hokey to discover that no matter what situation you're in, you can just fail your way forward.


----------



## Nagol

Maxperson said:


> The DM knows the capabilities of the party (and players).  If he created a situation where the PCs only have one way in or out of something, that's his fault.




It's a combination of style, player strategy, and luck, actually.  If the DM is running a prepared adventure or has a style where the adventures are created blind to PC abilities, it can happen more frequently.  Even in tailored adventures it can happen.  The adventure might expect to act as a spotlight for a often-prepared but under utilised ability that the player arbitrarily decides to drop causing the situation to develop or the PCs may decide to blow all of a particular type of ability (commonly movement or detection, occasionally some form of special combat ability) early in the day and press on into an area where those abilities are required.  That's assuming of course the DM is perfectly effective at tracking the abilities of multiple characters and juggling that against all situations that develop organically at the table at all times.

<snip>



> If you've read the thread, fail forward can have nothing directly to do with the roll at hand.  Like the rod falling out of the backpack as the result of a failed *climb* check.




Just because some use a tool in a particular way we don't like doesn't make the tool bad.



> Whereas unless it is directly related to the task at hand, those things will not be used as part of a roll.  I can and do use them elsewhere, though.




I'll use the failure as a starting point for introducing new elements into the environment if I am going to fail-forward out of a situation "Your latest climb got up only about half a foot before losing grip of the slick rock surface.  The pit covering groans slightly as it collapses inward.  There are heads in silhouette in reflected torchlight over the opening.  What do you do?"


----------



## Manbearcat

Just a real quick aside (I should get some kind of medal for this brevity):

Failure = for *player *to meet or exceed resolution mechanic target (eg difficulty class, # of dice needing a 3+) and for *character *to realize their intent, sometimes at all and sometimes merely in the way they hoped to.

Forward = referencing narrative momentum and the pace of play.

Upthread I posted a play example of my own game where the PCs were undergoing a perilous journey across a glacial wasteland to reach a hobgoblin stronghold (to resupply, gather intel, and parlay).  Failed scout check led to a scene where the dogsled fell partially through the false floor of a glacial crevasse.  One of the PCs ended up falling into an underground river.  Play was transitioned to two separate scenes:

1)  The PCs that made it out made it to Earthmaw's front door.

2)  The PC at the bottom of the drink was emptied out in the utter darkness of Earthmaw's basement garbage chute.  He was down some HPs, soaked to the bone/freezing to death, and being stalked by two predators (which were the hobgoblin dragon-sorcerer king's pets) in the pitch black.  But he is at Earthmaw!

That is fail forward.


----------



## Balesir

Maxperson said:


> If you've read the thread, fail forward can have nothing directly to do with the roll at hand.  Like the rod falling out of the backpack as the result of a failed *climb* check.



I think if you read the original post you may find that it wasn't a climb check. I am reasonably confident of this because the system noted was Dungeon World, and that doesn't have climb checks, as such.


----------



## Balesir

Umbran said:


> Put water in the bottom of the pit, and the character will be immersed.



Along with the "Laugh at this post" button, we really could do with a "Groan at this post" button...


----------



## Maxperson

Balesir said:


> I think if you read the original post you may find that it wasn't a climb check. I am reasonably confident of this because the system noted was Dungeon World, and that doesn't have climb checks, as such.




Utterly irrelevant.  Threads evolve and OP has no control over where the thread goes.  Climb checks entered this thread a loooooooong time ago.  What's your point?


----------



## Balesir

Maxperson said:


> Utterly irrelevant.  Threads evolve and OP has no control over where the thread goes.  Climb checks entered this thread a loooooooong time ago.  What's your point?



My "point", to the extent that I have one, is that you have expounded at great length concerning how you don't see that dropping a piece of equipment is connected with "climbing", when:

a) in the original scenario the roll was not a "climb" roll, but rather a "navigate obstacle" roll, making the objection "dropping equipment has nothing to do with skill at climbing" somewhat irrelevant, and

b) the fact that, when one is in a difficult spot while climbing, it is sometimes necessary to squirm and slide one's body against the rock in just such a way as is quite plausibly going to lead to gear being pulled out of loops and belts, packs being ripped and similar "equipment or wardrobe malfunction" failure scenarios means that it was never a particularly implausible result of the roll in the first place, as I see it, even assuming that the roll _*was*_ a "climb" roll.

Essentially, your objection to the loss of a bit of kit as a climbing failure seemed weak (at best) to me from the outset. The fact that you have repeatedly brought it up eventually incentivised me to post an objection. If you don't like the idea of failed climbing leading to a climber forcing a move and losing gear as a result, fine - but please realise that it is really just a particular quirk of your world model that makes it a non-sequitur.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Maxperson said:


> If you've read the thread, fail forward can have nothing directly to do with the roll at hand.  Like the rod falling out of the backpack as the result of a failed *climb* check.




This is where a number of us disagree. It all depends on what you're considering in play for the climb check. The extreme narrow view is that the climb check determines solely whether you succeed and move forward up the wall/cliff, and failure means you fall. In other words, the roll is specifically about a task during that situation, and nothing else. The reality is this doesn't allow even a simple you didn't fall but you also didn't move forward. 

Others feel that it can encompass more than that. Using a degrees of success/failure allows other things to happen, such as pulling some loose rocks free that starts a small rockslide and causes minor damage. You don't fall, but still suffer consequences and don't move forward. Or your piton pulls loose, and again you don't fall, but don't move forward. Or your pack gets caught on rocks and roots and you must free yourself.

The rod falling out of your pack _is_ a step beyond that in general concept in that it's looking at the situation rather than the specific skill or task. So instead of failing to simply move up the wall/cliff, or falling, you have a setback that may require some action on your part to resolve.

In a non fail forward approach, many DMs might have had something like the rod fall out of the pack if they rolled a 1 on their climb check. Or maybe it falls out as you tumble down the mountainside, and it's stuck up on a ledge and you must retrieve it before you can continue.

The point is that it's a widening of what the check covers. The wider net the check throws, the more options you have as a DM, and the fewer additional checks you'll need. 

It's largely about mechanical economics, and how many possibilities do you want to cover, and how many different checks do you need to do it with? By tying the events to the successes and failures of a skill check, you are creating a hybrid of DM fiat and letting the dice decide. The dice say whether it's good or bad, and by how much, but the DM leverages the fact that he's a human and not a table with 'x' number of choices to tell you specifically what it is.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Manbearcat said:


> Just a real quick aside (I should get some kind of medal for this brevity):
> 
> Failure = for *player *to meet or exceed resolution mechanic target (eg difficulty class, # of dice needing a 3+) and for *character *to realize their intent, sometimes at all and sometimes merely in the way they hoped to.
> 
> Forward = referencing narrative momentum and the pace of play.
> 
> Upthread I posted a play example of my own game where the PCs were undergoing a perilous journey across a glacial wasteland to reach a hobgoblin stronghold (to resupply, gather intel, and parlay).  Failed scout check led to a scene where the dogsled fell partially through the false floor of a glacial crevasse.  One of the PCs ended up falling into an underground river.  Play was transitioned to two separate scenes:
> 
> 1)  The PCs that made it out made it to Earthmaw's front door.
> 
> 2)  The PC at the bottom of the drink was emptied out in the utter darkness of Earthmaw's basement garbage chute.  He was down some HPs, soaked to the bone/freezing to death, and being stalked by two predators (which were the hobgoblin dragon-sorcerer king's pets) in the pitch black.  But he is at Earthmaw!
> 
> That is fail forward.




Which is exactly why fail forward is the worst description of the concept.

'It's going to take a little longer to get to the top, make another climb check.'

'Check fails.'

'You fall to the bottom and die.'

The player failed, and the narrative moved forward. In fact so far forward he made it to the end.

No matter what the result is, it's always moving the narrative forward. Even the guy stuck in the pit moved the narrative forward. In fact, I don't think it's actually possible to move a narrative backwards. I guess you could retcon, or say 'oops, I forgot about something so, do-over.'

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Umbran

Ilbranteloth said:


> The player failed, and the narrative moved forward. In fact so far forward he made it to the end.




With respect, I find this to be a reductionist, non-constructive way to engage with the topic.

Yes, if you are being a super-duper-stickler on the absolute meaning of words, you can view "the narrative moves forward to its immediate end" as being a *technically* accurate statement.

But how about looking at language as people actually use it?  If the character is dead, the narrative no longer moves forward, really.  To claim that is still "forwards" is kind of silly.


----------



## Maxperson

Ilbranteloth said:


> This is where a number of us disagree. It all depends on what you're considering in play for the climb check. The extreme narrow view is that the climb check determines solely whether you succeed and move forward up the wall/cliff, and failure means you fall. In other words, the roll is specifically about a task during that situation, and nothing else. The reality is this doesn't allow even a simple you didn't fall but you also didn't move forward.
> 
> Others feel that it can encompass more than that. Using a degrees of success/failure allows other things to happen, such as pulling some loose rocks free that starts a small rockslide and causes minor damage. You don't fall, but still suffer consequences and don't move forward. Or your piton pulls loose, and again you don't fall, but don't move forward. Or your pack gets caught on rocks and roots and you must free yourself.




Failing a climb roll doesn't mean that you have to fall.  It can also mean you just fail to climb.  My view isn't climb or fall, but simply that any result should directly relate to the actual climb.  A rod falling out of the pack is an addition to the actual climb, so it's indirectly related and can happen in my game, but only as a result of a different roll or someone rolling a couple of 1's in a row.  Two 1's causes things to happen in addition to the task at hand that are still related, even if indirectly.



> The rod falling out of your pack _is_ a step beyond that in general concept in that it's looking at the situation rather than the specific skill or task. So instead of failing to simply move up the wall/cliff, or falling, you have a setback that may require some action on your part to resolve.
> 
> In a non fail forward approach, many DMs might have had something like the rod fall out of the pack if they rolled a 1 on their climb check. Or maybe it falls out as you tumble down the mountainside, and it's stuck up on a ledge and you must retrieve it before you can continue.
> 
> The point is that it's a widening of what the check covers. The wider net the check throws, the more options you have as a DM, and the fewer additional checks you'll need.




I get it.  The type of fail forward that involves things not directly related to the check just doesn't work for me or my group.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Umbran said:


> With respect, I find this to be a reductionist, non-constructive way to engage with the topic.
> 
> Yes, if you are being a super-duper-stickler on the absolute meaning of words, you can view "the narrative moves forward to its immediate end" as being a *technically* accurate statement.
> 
> But how about looking at language as people actually use it?  If the character is dead, the narrative no longer moves forward, really.  To claim that is still "forwards" is kind of silly.




I was just being facetious. But the intended meaning of the term is not obvious, and a good number of people think that it means 'instead of failing outright, they still move closer to their goal' or in other words, that failure isn't an option any more.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Maxperson said:


> Failing a climb roll doesn't mean that you have to fall.  It can also mean you just fail to climb.  My view isn't climb or fall, but simply that any result should directly relate to the actual climb.




Which I did mention as well. It's just a lot of GMs don't recognize that option.




Maxperson said:


> A rod falling out of the pack is an addition to the actual climb, so it's indirectly related and can happen in my game, but only as a result of a different roll or someone rolling a couple of 1's in a row.  Two 1's causes things to happen in addition to the task at hand that are still related, even if indirectly.
> 
> I get it.  The type of fail forward that involves things not directly related to the check just doesn't work for me or my group.




Yep, and I think that's perfectly valid. And frankly, my actual preference is closer to yours.

The bottom line, is that I think there is a continuum of possible rulings. From a very strict binary resolution, to a very broad approach encompassing the entire circumstance.

While I don't feel that 'fail forward' is the right term, I do think that quantifying a general approach that highlights what makes good exploration encounters/events, but not tying it to a specific system that also identifies the sort of 'degrees' of that continuum so a GM can find what approach they like.

You like incorporating the Fate system in your game. I'm not a fan of that myself, but I'm not sure I'd go all the way to a climb check where you drop the rod. Instead, if the possibility of dropping the rod is a bit beyond what I would consider in the climb check myself. But I would consider the possibility that they might lose it if they fail their climb check severely enough, but not enough to fall, although they'd probably have to make a Dexterity save or something. 

This discussion is all very helpful to me, because it is helping identify the boundaries I have.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## GMMichael

Is this thread failing forward?

More often than "fail forward," I like to use something like "auto-success," which means there's no need to make a Climb check if the PC has a decent chance of pulling it off.  Unless, as GM, I've planned for something interesting to happen on or near the cliff, the climbing happens without fail.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

DMMike said:


> Is this thread failing forward?
> 
> More often than "fail forward," I like to use something like "auto-success," which means there's no need to make a Climb check if the PC has a decent chance of pulling it off.  Unless, as GM, I've planned for something interesting to happen on or near the cliff, the climbing happens without fail.




That's a good point, and I think it's actually part of the discussion. As is the take 10/take 20 concept, or variations like what I use. If something is within their ability, then 'failure' is often an indicator of time. My go to example is trying to pick a lock before the guards arrive. If they have a high enough skill, then they'll eventually succeed. So the difference between the roll and the DC is how many rounds it take (they don't know how many), and they have to deal with the potentially returning guards while they are working on the lock.

The reality is, knowing when auto-success, vs take-x, vs 'fail forward' vs multiple checks is all related and all valid at different times.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## nomotog

One idea I have thought about would be to include a stress system as a fail forward system. It's tricky to think of a punishment for every failed action, even trickier if you want the two to be related. The idea is that failing a roll generates stress and when stress gets to much, ... well some kind of bad thing happens. It's an idea I took from maid RPG. It's nice because stress is so vague. It can be logically attached to any action.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Sure.  That's bad luck, though.  It's also possible to get frostbite while climbing a mountain, and it's possible to start an avalanche while climbing a mountain, sprain an ankle while climbing a mountain and so on.  A failed climb check involves climbing or the failure to do so.  I occasionally call for a fate roll in my game, and sometimes bad luck or good luck happens in addition the results of whatever else is going on.  If the PC fumbles that fate roll while climbing, bad luck happens.  What doesn't happen is for it to happen instead of a failed climb check.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I also have skill fumbles, and if you roll multiple 1's in a row, bad things directly connected to the event at hand start to happen.





Maxperson said:


> Failing to keep things in order and/or being sloppy has nothing directly to do with a climb check.  It's bad luck that would cause it to fall.





Maxperson said:


> It isn't that it's unrealistic to drop a rod while climbing.  It's that it's not realistic for the climb check to be the reason.  Climb checks check climbing and that's it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In and of themselves, no.  They aren't unrealistic.  What makes it unrealistic or not is how those things are brought into play.  I failed a climb check so it started raining and slowed my climb down is not a realistic result of a climb check, even though rain is realistic.  Rain has nothing to do with a climb check.



To my mind, the distinctions being drawn here have nothing to do with _realism_. They are about preferred stakes for certain game checks.

In the real world, a skilled climber is:

* Less likely to drop/lose things (better packing, more careful in avoiding snags, etc);

* Less likely to have handholds break under his/her weight (better judgment, better/more careful testing of holds, etc);

* Less likely to get frostbite (better at wearing protective gear, better at judging when fingers are getting too cold, etc).\;

* Etc​
Of course suffering any of these things is bad luck, but skilled climbers make their own luck. Putting it all into a non-skill-dependent "fate roll" or skill fumble system does not seem, to me at least, to encourage or reflect realism about skill with climbing.

What it _does _do is confine the stakes of a climbing check to one very narrow question: does the character go up or down? Personally I don't think that's the only interesting question (or, always or even often, the _most _interesting question) to ask about a fiction in which a character is trying to achieve his/her goal by climbing up a mountain.



Maxperson said:


> If you've read the thread, fail forward can have nothing directly to do with the roll at hand.  Like the rod falling out of the backpack as the result of a failed *climb* check.





grendel111111 said:


> People like different levels of connectedness.



I'm not 100% sure what "connectedness" means here, but if it's a reiteration of "realism" then it's out of place as far as the ascent of Mt Pudding is concerned. There is no more or less "connection" between climbing skill and not falling, climbing skill and not having a handhold break, climbing skill and not dropping or snagging some gear, climbing skill and not suffering frostbite. All these things are connected to how skilled one is as a climber.

Examples of "non-connection" have been given upthread - eg there's no connection between skill in Scavenging and a PC's brother having been evil even before possession by a balrog - but Maxperson's complaints aren't directed at those examples.



grendel111111 said:


> I suspect that a DM that needs to hold so tightly to the story, so as to insist there is only one way to do things, is either a very new DM or wouldn't be comfortable giving up so much control to be willing to try fail forward anyway.



"Holding tight to the story" is a red herring. In    [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example, no one is holding tight to a story. The question is about what can be at stake when a check is declared and resolved. One might even say that insisting it must always and only be one thing - does the character go up or go down - is a form of _holding tight to the story_!



grendel111111 said:


> Another reason some of us don't see the same need for fail forward is because we are not having these "problems" that it is trying to fix.



As I've posted repeatedly upthread, the "problem" for which "fail forward" is a fix is that of achieving a dramatic story via RPGing without the GM preauthoring a story.

If you don't have that problem - either because dramatic story isn't a high priority for you in RPGing or because you don't mind GM pre-authorship (and historically, D&D play has tended to fall into one or the other of these camps) - then you probably won't be interested in "fail forward" as a technique.

But this has _nothing_ to do with what is or isn't "realistic" as stakes for a Climbing check.


----------



## pemerton

Emerikol said:


> I prefer detailed DMs with really deep campaign worlds that I can discover.  I want those worlds to be built like a clock so that the interconnections are already there and are not waiting for me a player to invent them.



In the games that first overtly talked about "fail forward" techniques - eg  Burning Wheel, HeroWars, etc - the player doesn't invent the world either. Control over backstory - and particularly over consequences of failure - is in the hands of the GM. But the backstory in "fail forward" games is not authored primarily in advance.

Having the backstory already authored, so that the players discover it like the workings of a clock, would be one example of the pre-authorship that "fail forward" as a technique is intended to avoid.

I would also add: worlds that are authored in response to player action declarations can also be very deep. If you look back at the actual play examples I have given above, I don't think they imply a "shallow" campaign world.



Emerikol said:


> I want a game where the players as their characters confront challenges presented to them by the DM.  They do everything in their power to achieve their goals



This is also true of the games I run. The GM authors the challenges. The players, via their PCs, confront them and do everything in their power to achieve those goals. Sometimes they succeed; sometimes they fail.

When they fail, new challenges result. (See some actual play examples upthread.)

For a good general discussion of this aspect of "fail forward" play, see the Eero Tuovinen blog I've linked to already upthread.

In a "fail forward" game, however, the parameters of the challenges - ie what backstory is constraining the possibility of success - is not spelled out in advance. So the players can't, for instance, reduce the chance of failure to (near-)zero by exploiting the fiction. In this sort of play, the drama of confronting challenges is prioritised over the logistics of overcoming them. (Contrast Gygaxian D&D, which reverses those priorities.)



grendel111111 said:


> Those who want a consistent world



Who doesn't?

The idea that "fail forward" undermines consistency is another red herring. To go back to Mt Pudding, there is nothing inconsistent about a world in which climbers sometimes lose important gear down ravines.



Emerikol said:


> One style actively involves the DM and players teaming at the metagame level to ensure that the story outcome is interesting and exciting.   So players will happily throw their characters into trouble spots via some metagame construct even if the character would never want such a thing.



I agree with  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] that you are drawing a false dichotomy here.

I really think it would be helpful if you engaged with some of the actual play examples that have been posted upthread, Then you could talk about how actual games are actually being played rather than how you imagine them being played.

In my game where the PCs searched the ruined tower for the nickel-silver mace, and instead found black arrows apparently forged by the mage PC's brother _before_ his possession by a balrog, there was no "teaming at the metagame level". The players were just playing their PCs. What is different from the style that you seem to prefer is that I, the GM, authored some new campaign backstory as a result of the failed Scavenging check, so as to put the fiction into a situation which (i) was not what the PCs (and players) had wanted it to be, and (ii) forced the players to make new, hard choices.

That is "fail forward" in action.



Maxperson said:


> The DM knows the capabilities of the party (and players).



That's not generally true for me as a GM, both in the sense that I don't memorise the players' character sheets - so they might have skills, equipment etc I don't know about or have forgotten about - and in the sense that I certainly can't extrapolate from everything on those sheets to every feasible action declaration the players might make for their PCs.

What I do know is the PCs' goals. (Which, in [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION]'s  terms, have been "meta" authored by the players so as to lead to _action_ - a bit like Gygaxian D&D depending on the PCs being hungry for wealth and fame.) These are what I refer to in framing challenges. It's up to the players to work out what their PCs can, and want to, do in response to them. (In 4e I also know the PCs' levels. BW, though, doesn't have the same sort of scaling system that 4e has.)


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Maxperson said:


> If you've read the thread, fail forward can have nothing directly to do with the roll at hand.  Like the rod falling out of the backpack as the result of a failed *climb* check.



That is also an important aspect to me.

What does a failed climb check mean? Sure, you could have listed in the ksill description: "A failure always means you fall back x feet" or whatever. But it's not usually a good idea to try to be that precise in  a rulebook if you cover a lot of different situations. Maybe falling during a climb is not actually the problem you are trying to avoid, for example. It might also be considerably too narrow - if you're carrying something or someone with you, you might want to know if you keep it, for example.

So interpreting a failed climb check as recieving a complication could be falling down on a lower level, or it could be losing something you were carrying, like the pick you used or some other important item you need.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> To my mind, the distinctions being drawn here have nothing to do with _realism_. They are about preferred stakes for certain game checks.
> 
> In the real world, a skilled climber is:
> 
> * Less likely to drop/lose things (better packing, more careful in avoiding snags, etc);
> 
> * Less likely to have handholds break under his/her weight (better judgment, better/more careful testing of holds, etc);
> 
> * Less likely to get frostbite (better at wearing protective gear, better at judging when fingers are getting too cold, etc).\;
> 
> * Etc​
> Of course suffering any of these things is bad luck, but skilled climbers make their own luck. Putting it all into a non-skill-dependent "fate roll" or skill fumble system does not seem, to me at least, to encourage or reflect realism about skill with climbing.
> 
> What it _does _do is confine the stakes of a climbing check to one very narrow question: does the character go up or down? Personally I don't think that's the only interesting question (or, always or even often, the _most _interesting question) to ask about a fiction in which a character is trying to achieve his/her goal by climbing up a mountain.
> 
> 
> I'm not 100% sure what "connectedness" means here, but if it's a reiteration of "realism" then it's out of place as far as the ascent of Mt Pudding is concerned. There is no more or less "connection" between climbing skill and not falling, climbing skill and not having a handhold break, climbing skill and not dropping or snagging some gear, climbing skill and not suffering frostbite. All these things are connected to how skilled one is as a climber.
> 
> Examples of "non-connection" have been given upthread - eg there's no connection between skill in Scavenging and a PC's brother having been evil even before possession by a balrog - but Maxperson's complaints aren't directed at those examples.
> 
> "Holding tight to the story" is a red herring. In    [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example, no one is holding tight to a story. The question is about what can be at stake when a check is declared and resolved. One might even say that insisting it must always and only be one thing - does the character go up or go down - is a form of _holding tight to the story_!
> 
> As I've posted repeatedly upthread, the "problem" for which "fail forward" is a fix is that of achieving a dramatic story via RPGing without the GM preauthoring a story.
> 
> If you don't have that problem - either because dramatic story isn't a high priority for you in RPGing or because you don't mind GM pre-authorship (and historically, D&D play has tended to fall into one or the other of these camps) - then you probably won't be interested in "fail forward" as a technique.
> 
> But this has _nothing_ to do with what is or isn't "realistic" as stakes for a Climbing check.




It is all about realism.  There is climb skill.  The skill with climbing.  And then there is experience with the event in general, which would include pack preparation and cold weather gear to prevent frostbite.  Experienced climbers will be prepared.  Their skill in climbing, however, doesn't come into play until they are actually climbing.  A failed climb check determines that they fall or fail to climb farther along.  A broken handhold could be a reason that they fall or fail to climb further.  Picking the route is a part of the climb, so that example is not of something unrelated to the climb skill.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> That's not generally true for me as a GM, both in the sense that I don't memorise the players' character sheets - so they might have skills, equipment etc I don't know about or have forgotten about - and in the sense that I certainly can't extrapolate from everything on those sheets to every feasible action declaration the players might make for their PCs.
> 
> What I do know is the PCs' goals. (Which, in [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION]'s  terms, have been "meta" authored by the players so as to lead to _action_ - a bit like Gygaxian D&D depending on the PCs being hungry for wealth and fame.) These are what I refer to in framing challenges. It's up to the players to work out what their PCs can, and want to, do in response to them. (In 4e I also know the PCs' levels. BW, though, doesn't have the same sort of scaling system that 4e has.)




I know the capabilities of the PCs and players, not necessarily what they will choose to do.  I have a sheet where the players write down their PCs skills, notable items, class, level, AC, hit points, etc in short form so I can refer to it if needed.  I base my encounters around those capabilities.  I have also played with my players for years, so I have a know them very well.  It's much  harder to gauge a new player.


----------



## pemerton

DMMike said:


> it's also sort of hokey to discover that no matter what situation you're in, you can just fail your way forward.



The players are real people who have turned up to have a fun time playing a game. In those circumstances, it's not particularly hokey for the GM to make sure that, whatever happens, there is a game for them to play.

In Gygaxian D&D, this means the GM has a dungeon ready.

In "fail forward" style games, this means the PCs (and therefore the players) being confronted with challenging situations that reflect, and in their resolution will one way or another develop, the narrative momentum of the game.



grendel111111 said:


> It almost feels like "fail forward" is trying to take credit for anything a DM does. Which makes it a fairly meaningless idea to discuss. I suspect that not everyone would view it as all encompassing as this, but it is clearly more than "succeed at a cost". I'm just unclear where the line gets drawn.



The term is not a name for an invention. It's a label for a technique which has been in use for a long time, but has not necessarily been identified and deployed systematically. In this respect it belongs to the same lexicographic family as "scene framing".

As far as techniques are concerned, [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION]'s example of having a jailer turn up to taunt (or otherwise interact with) the trapped PC is a standard example of how "fail forward" adjudication might work. Failing the "avoid pits" roll leads to a complication - trapped and taunted - which was not desired by the player or PC (and hence is a failure) and which opens up a difficult choice for the player and PC (eg what is the PC prepared to offer the jailer in return for freedom?).


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> It is all about realism.  There is climb skill.  The skill with climbing.  And then there is experience with the event in general, which would include pack preparation and cold weather gear to prevent frostbite.  Experienced climbers will be prepared.  Their skill in climbing, however, doesn't come into play until they are actually climbing.  A failed climb check determines that they fall or fail to climb farther along.  A broken handhold could be a reason that they fall or fail to climb further.  Picking the route is a part of the climb, so that example is not of something unrelated to the climb skill.



How is avoiding one's gear getting snagged; or hanging one-handed so as to be able to catch a falling item with the other hand; not a part of one's skill at climbing?

You seem to me to be using a very narrow, artificial demarcation of what is or isn't climbing skill which has no basis in natural language, but seems closely related to early D&D's discussion of a thief's Climb Walls ability.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> How is avoiding one's gear getting snagged; or hanging one-handed so as to be able to catch a falling item with the other hand; not a part of one's skill at climbing?




It's a part of the climbing preparation.  Tightening straps, etc.  It's done prior to the climb even beginning.  Even if you did apply it to the actual climb, like a strap being loose enough to snag on something, a rod inside a pack still wouldn't be a part of that scenario.  The straps that would be snagging would be the ones on the front or side of the body, not the back of the body where the pack opens.  A climber would be far more likely to lose the entire pack than to lose the rod out of it, and it's highly unlikely that a snag will cut through a leather strap, so any snags would just prevent climbing further.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> How is avoiding one's gear getting snagged; or hanging one-handed so as to be able to catch a falling item with the other hand; not a part of one's skill at climbing?
> 
> You seem to me to be using a very narrow, artificial demarcation of what is or isn't climbing skill which has no basis in natural language, but seems closely related to early D&D's discussion of a thief's Climb Walls ability.




Each person or group will put that cut off point at a different place. Some like a very tight definition of skills and abilities. Others like it to be more loose. Some systems are clear about how they  want you to run the game giving clear boundaries,  others state the boundaries must be very wide. My personal favorite is when the rules let the table decide. That does mean in those systems 2 tables will play differently, but it also means it can adapt to a wider range of play styles. I think this is where 5th has aimed to be and one of the reasons I think it is doing well.

And just to be clear your demarcation of what skills include is just as artificial as anyone else's.  It's just the one you are most happy with.


----------



## Balesir

Maxperson said:


> It is all about realism.  There is climb skill.  The skill with climbing.  And then there is experience with the event in general, which would include pack preparation and cold weather gear to prevent frostbite.  Experienced climbers will be prepared.  Their skill in climbing, however, doesn't come into play until they are actually climbing.  A failed climb check determines that they fall or fail to climb farther along.  A broken handhold could be a reason that they fall or fail to climb further.  Picking the route is a part of the climb, so that example is not of something unrelated to the climb skill.



I don't know where to start with this. It's self contradictory ("experienced climbers will be prepared" and yet this has nothing to do with "skill with climbing"???!?!) and fails to account for a myriad of mishaps and failures that can occur when climbing that don't have the effect of either preventing climbing or leading to a fall.

On the first, preparation is an utterly vital part of many skills, such that to teach the skill without covering the preparatory aspects of it would be negligent, that to not count it as part of the skill seems, well, bizarre.

On the second, if "failure" during a climb only ever meant falling I'm not sure there would be any "successful" climbers! Delay is certainly a valid failure mode - but so is loss of equipment (a particularly common one, actually), minor injury (scrapes and twists, particularly), hazard to those below (due to falling rock caused by a crumbling hold) and equipment damage.

It would be possible, I guess, to roll for each individual aspect and step individually - but then (a) it gets fiddly and boring (analogous to "pixel bitching" when it comes to searching) and (b) the chances of actual success go way down (because the chances of rolling even a 3+ on a d20 is good, but the chance of rolling 3+ six times in a row is only just over 50%). This way are flawed systems made, IME.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> To my mind, the distinctions being drawn here have nothing to do with _realism_. They are about preferred stakes for certain game checks.
> 
> In the real world, a skilled climber is:
> 
> * Less likely to drop/lose things (better packing, more careful in avoiding snags, etc);
> 
> * Less likely to have handholds break under his/her weight (better judgment, better/more careful testing of holds, etc);
> 
> * Less likely to get frostbite (better at wearing protective gear, better at judging when fingers are getting too cold, etc).\;
> 
> * Etc​
> Of course suffering any of these things is bad luck, but skilled climbers make their own luck. Putting it all into a non-skill-dependent "fate roll" or skill fumble system does not seem, to me at least, to encourage or reflect realism about skill with climbing.
> 
> What it _does _do is confine the stakes of a climbing check to one very narrow question: does the character go up or down? Personally I don't think that's the only interesting question (or, always or even often, the _most _interesting question) to ask about a fiction in which a character is trying to achieve his/her goal by climbing up a mountain.
> 
> 
> I'm not 100% sure what "connectedness" means here, but if it's a reiteration of "realism" then it's out of place as far as the ascent of Mt Pudding is concerned. There is no more or less "connection" between climbing skill and not falling, climbing skill and not having a handhold break, climbing skill and not dropping or snagging some gear, climbing skill and not suffering frostbite. All these things are connected to how skilled one is as a climber.
> 
> Examples of "non-connection" have been given upthread - eg there's no connection between skill in Scavenging and a PC's brother having been evil even before possession by a balrog - but Maxperson's complaints aren't directed at those examples.
> 
> "Holding tight to the story" is a red herring. In    [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example, no one is holding tight to a story. The question is about what can be at stake when a check is declared and resolved. One might even say that insisting it must always and only be one thing - does the character go up or go down - is a form of _holding tight to the story_!
> 
> As I've posted repeatedly upthread, the "problem" for which "fail forward" is a fix is that of achieving a dramatic story via RPGing without the GM preauthoring a story.
> 
> If you don't have that problem - either because dramatic story isn't a high priority for you in RPGing or because you don't mind GM pre-authorship (and historically, D&D play has tended to fall into one or the other of these camps) - then you probably won't be interested in "fail forward" as a technique.
> 
> But this has _nothing_ to do with what is or isn't "realistic" as stakes for a Climbing check.




So lets replace realistic with the phrase narrowness of skills. Some people like a "narrowness" of skills others like a "wideness" of skills. When some people are using the word realism (which you think is misplaced) you would prefer that they say: For me, you use to skills is too wide and I prefer a more narrow definition of skills... hence why I feel uncomfortable with this part of the technique. Each persons narrowness of skills preference will of cause be different.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> I really think it would be helpful if you engaged with some of the actual play examples that have been posted upthread, Then you could talk about how actual games are actually being played rather than how you imagine them being played.
> 
> In my game where the PCs searched the ruined tower for the nickel-silver mace, and instead found black arrows apparently forged by the mage PC's brother _before_ his possession by a balrog, there was no "teaming at the metagame level". The players were just playing their PCs. What is different from the style that you seem to prefer is that I, the GM, authored some new campaign backstory as a result of the failed Scavenging check, so as to put the fiction into a situation which (i) was not what the PCs (and players) had wanted it to be, and (ii) forced the players to make new, hard choices.
> 
> That is "fail forward" in action.




OK so lets engage with this example.

Narratively it work fine. It does what you want it to do.
For me the issue is Schrödinger's nickel-silver mace. Until the players search, it is both there and not there. Only when they search do you discover if it is or is not there. The roll you are doing here does not determine if the player "finds" the mace, but rather it determines if the mace is there. If it is there they will find it, but if they are bad at searching they won't just not find it but it will not be there.
For me using a players search skill to determine if something is there or not is a jump to far.
So I prefer "pre-authoring" which at it's most basic level means that the DM will know the state of play before the roll is made, either the mace is there or it is not there. If a searching roll is needed it could determine how long it takes to find or how long it take the players to assure themselves that it is not in this location, and instead find the black arrows. 
At this level of pre-authoring we are not talking about pre-planning whole sand boxes or worlds. Just that the the facts of the world "as they are at the time" do not get changed by players skill rolls. The DM know the current situation and and the players discover the current situation.


----------



## Maxperson

Balesir said:


> I don't know where to start with this. It's self contradictory ("experienced climbers will be prepared" and yet this has nothing to do with "skill with climbing"???!?!) and fails to account for a myriad of mishaps and failures that can occur when climbing that don't have the effect of either preventing climbing or leading to a fall.




There is no contradiction at all.  It has to do with climbing, but not the climb skill.  If I am skilled at putting models together, that doesn't mean that the same skill is used when selecting and knowing which models are best to build



> On the first, preparation is an utterly vital part of many skills, such that to teach the skill without covering the preparatory aspects of it would be negligent, that to not count it as part of the skill seems, well, bizarre.




Right.  You teach the knowledge of what to do and also the skill itself.  They are different.  One is a knowledge and the other is a skill.



> On the second, if "failure" during a climb only ever meant falling I'm not sure there would be any "successful" climbers! Delay is certainly a valid failure mode - but so is loss of equipment (a particularly common one, actually), minor injury (scrapes and twists, particularly), hazard to those below (due to falling rock caused by a crumbling hold) and equipment damage.




I don't know why you people keep persisting with this strawman.  I never said failure only results in falling.  It's just a failure to successfully climb.


----------



## pemerton

grendel111111 said:


> For me the issue is Schrödinger's nickel-silver mace. Until the players search, it is both there and not there. Only when they search do you discover if it is or is not there. The roll you are doing here does not determine if the player "finds" the mace, but rather it determines if the mace is there. If it is there they will find it, but if they are bad at searching they won't just not find it but it will not be there.



It's not the players who search and do or don't find the mace - it's the PCs.

The reason I emphasise that distinction is because it relates to the other distinction I've been making - between the ingame consistency or "reality" of the gameworld, and the real-world activity of authoring the gameworld. Within the gameworld - from the ingame perspective -  it is not "Schroedinger's mace". It was never there, as it had been taken from the ruins by the dark elf.

But at the table, the authorship is in response to the check.

This also illustrates an aspect of "fail forward" that has been discussed upthread, that what is at stake is not just (or even primarily) whether or not the PCs succeed in their task, but whether things turn out as they wanted.



grendel111111 said:


> I prefer "pre-authoring" which at it's most basic level means that the DM will know the state of play before the roll is made, either the mace is there or it is not there.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The DM know the current situation and and the players discover the current situation.



This difference from "fail forward" highlights what, to me, is key - that "fail forward" is a technique that is intended to drive dramatic and narrative momentum without GM pre-authorship. (At least as it has been systematised in those games which make a point of calling it out as a technique.)

Once the GM knows what the answer is to the location of the mace in advance, and that is taken as fixed regardless of the dynamics of play when (if at all) the search actually occurs, then the focus of play has moved away from dramatic momentum to something else. (Eg exploring the GM's world/mystery/etc).

In the discussion of the trapdoor begun by [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] upthread, the possibility of a jailer turning up to taunt (and perhaps free) the trapped PC was discussed. If that jailer is authored by the GM not in advance, but because it is a useful element of the fiction for maintaining narrative momentum, then the logic is no different from "fail forward" as illustrated in the example of the mace.

But whereas in some approaches to GMing needing to introduce the jailer post hoc is seen as a failing that, ideally at least, would be avoided, in "fail forward" games that sort of approach is made integral to the running of the game.



grendel111111 said:


> For me using a players search skill to determine if something is there or not is a jump to far.



Too far in respect of . . . ?


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> It's not the players who search and do or don't find the mace - it's the PCs.
> 
> The reason I emphasise that distinction is because it relates to the other distinction I've been making - between the ingame consistency or "reality" of the gameworld, and the real-world activity of authoring the gameworld. Within the gameworld - from the ingame perspective -  it is not "Schroedinger's mace". It was never there, as it had been taken from the ruins by the dark elf.
> 
> But at the table, the authorship is in response to the check.
> 
> This also illustrates an aspect of "fail forward" that has been discussed upthread, that what is at stake is not just (or even primarily) whether or not the PCs succeed in their task, but whether things turn out as they wanted.
> 
> This difference from "fail forward" highlights what, to me, is key - that "fail forward" is a technique that is intended to drive dramatic and narrative momentum without GM pre-authorship. (At least as it has been systematised in those games which make a point of calling it out as a technique.)




I see your distinction between the two, but for me I like there to be less of a distinction between What the character does and what is authored at the table. As a player I want to "look through" the PC's eyes. I want to decide what to do based on what he or she would do, not based on what would make a "better story". 

I see why you like the avoiding of "pre-authorship", as it is something you dislike in your games (possibly as strongly as others like having it). For you it is a negative, for others a positive. I like the style of game that results from this kind of play and the benefits of the more "advanced" fail forward techniques don't really add enough to the game for me to compensate for what I feel they take away.
As a player I like to have as similar perspective as my character as is possible. That is why I like checks to align closer to what is being checked for.
I can see why in you example of the mace you are happy with the mace never having been there. I see how it works for your game and your style.
For me the check has a real concrete meaning (I know it doesn't for you). It means they are searching for something. The check determines if they find it or not. but that is where the 2 approaches differ. I explained my preference above, and I see why you like your preference. The reason it grinds against me is because the roll is being modified by characters abilities, to determine something totally unrelated to the character.   Why does bill the bumbling idiot trying to search result in a 80% chance that the mace is on the other side to the continent, but if Omar the Observant looks there is 20% chance. 
For me that is not a fair use of probability.  
I would much rather know the DM was playing "fair", and knew where the mace was, and the search result told me how good my searching was. 



pemerton said:


> Once the GM knows what the answer is to the location of the mace in advance, and that is taken as fixed regardless of the dynamics of play when (if at all) the search actually occurs, then the focus of play has moved away from dramatic momentum to something else. (Eg exploring the GM's world/mystery/etc).



How does exploring the DM's world not have "dramatic momentum"? How is the DM knowing where something is supposedly detracting from the game? My games have a lot of dramatic momentum even without using more extreme versions of fail forward. The DM could well know that the mace is there or not there, so the same possible outcomes are still all there. The difference being only did the players roll determine the location and the finding or just the finding?


pemerton said:


> In the discussion of the trapdoor begun by @_*Nagol*_ upthread, the possibility of a jailer turning up to taunt (and perhaps free) the trapped PC was discussed. If that jailer is authored by the GM not in advance, but because it is a useful element of the fiction for maintaining narrative momentum, then the logic is no different from "fail forward" as illustrated in the example of the mace.
> 
> But whereas in some approaches to GMing needing to introduce the jailer post hoc is seen as a failing that, ideally at least, would be avoided, in "fail forward" games that sort of approach is made integral to the running of the game.
> 
> Too far in respect of . . . ?




The adding of a jailer is an interesting question. I have no problem with the DM adding a jailer to what is happening, it is interesting and keeps the game moving forward. I don't see a point in adding a jailer only if you roll low on an ability or skill check. If it is interesting to add a jailer then add a jailer. adding a jailer only if they roll low on an unrelated skill doesn't add anything to the game as far as I can see. If the DM sees that the action is slowing or the narrative is not moving and so decides to add something to the what is happening, why tie it to any skill roll?
My preference is that complications get added and characters use their skills to deal with those complications, rather than skills are assumed to work and failure adds complications. After all complications will happen to both good and bad doctors, but the good doctor use their skills to deal with the complication. ( I realise it is a different way to look at skills than you are used to).


If fail forward is seen as a series of approaches (many of which I use) this is going to far from how I want the game to run. I am happy using grades of success and failure, alternative fail conditions such as time or creating too much noise, letting rolls stand, etc.  
For me the cut off point is when the PC view and the player view separate so much and when skill checks determine unrelated effects. (starting of rain, Schrödinger's situations.) I clearly see why they are not a problem for you and that they can enhance the game for you and others. For me they don't work for the games of D and D that I want to have. (ironically I think they work fantastically for  leverage, and think it is a good fit).


----------



## Nagol

grendel111111 said:


> <snip>
> 
> The adding of a jailer is an interesting question. I have no problem with the DM adding a jailer to what is happening, it is interesting and keeps the game moving forward. I don't see a point in adding a jailer only if you roll low on an ability or skill check. If it is interesting to add a jailer then add a jailer. adding a jailer only if they roll low on an unrelated skill doesn't add anything to the game as far as I can see. If the DM sees that the action is slowing or the narrative is not moving and so decides to add something to the what is happening, why tie it to any skill roll?
> My preference is that complications get added and characters use their skills to deal with those complications, rather than skills are assumed to work and failure adds complications. After all complications will happen to both good and bad doctors, but the good doctor use their skills to deal with the complication. ( I realise it is a different way to look at skills than you are used to).





I don't tie it to a skill roll; I tie it to *failure*.  It the situation is losing momentum / entering stasis  or _ko_ to borrow a term from Go then a something new enters the environment changing the opportunities present for the PCs.  Typically, there is a specific roll or attempt that I use as a segue.

Why tie it to failure?  Because almost everyone wants to be the active agent and advance the situation on his own.  If the PCs are able to maintain their own momentum, it is best they be allowed to do so.  That doesn't mean complications don't rear up while the PCs are succeeding; it means those forms of complication aren't fail-forward examples.



> If fail forward is seen as a series of approaches (many of which I use) this is going to far from how I want the game to run. I am happy using grades of success and failure, alternative fail conditions such as time or creating too much noise, letting rolls stand, etc.
> For me the cut off point is when the PC view and the player view separate so much and when skill checks determine unrelated effects. (starting of rain, Schrödinger's situations.) I clearly see why they are not a problem for you and that they can enhance the game for you and others. For me they don't work for the games of D and D that I want to have. (ironically I think they work fantastically for  leverage, and think it is a good fit).


----------



## innerdude

pemerton said:


> At the table, the authorship is in response to the check.
> 
> This also illustrates an aspect of "fail forward" that has been discussed upthread, that what is at stake is not just (or even primarily) whether or not the PCs succeed in their task, but whether things turn out as they wanted.
> 
> This difference from "fail forward" highlights what, to me, is key - that "fail forward" is a technique that is intended to drive dramatic and narrative momentum without GM pre-authorship. (At least as it has been systematised in those games which make a point of calling it out as a technique.)
> 
> Once the GM knows what the answer is to the location of the mace in advance, and that is taken as fixed regardless of the dynamics of play when (if at all) the search actually occurs, then the focus of play has moved away from dramatic momentum to something else. (Eg exploring the GM's world/mystery/etc).
> 
> In the discussion of the trapdoor begun by @_*Nagol*_ upthread, the possibility of a jailer turning up to taunt (and perhaps free) the trapped PC was discussed. If that jailer is authored by the GM not in advance, but because it is a useful element of the fiction for maintaining narrative momentum, then the logic is no different from "fail forward" as illustrated in the example of the mace.
> 
> But whereas in some approaches to GMing needing to introduce the jailer post hoc is seen as a failing that, ideally at least, would be avoided, in "fail forward" games that sort of approach is made integral to the running of the game.




The longer I GM, the less enamored I become with "pre-authoring." Sure, there are certain, specific (and altogether rare) situations where _absolutely nothing_ the PCs do in a given scene has any real effect . . . but I've repeatedly found that more often than not, taking a hardline "pre-authoring" approach kills a game's momentum. 

PC: "I look for X!" 

GM: "You find nothing." 

PC: "Okay, I look more closely at Item Z in Room Y....."

GM: "You find nothing." 

PC: "What about--"

GM: "You find nothing."

PC: "I ask the clerk about X." 

GM: "He tells you nothing you don't already know."

If I wanted to play a game that works like this, I'd cut out the middle man and just fire up a game of Zork or King's Quest and be done with it. 

I regularly change what I've previously "pre-authored" in a scene based on a check a player just made, because I've found it's more interesting to give the player/character what they want . . . because THEN they have to make an interesting decision afterwards. Savage Worlds supports this as well with the concept of degree of success. "Getting a raise" on a search check, for example, opens up an opportunity as a GM to say, "Well normally you wouldn't have noticed this, but you were particularly perceptive and found this...."

One technique I've had great success with is to provide clues that reinforce a player's current line of thought/action. A search check, a persuasion/diplomacy check, or whatever, reveals a nugget that confirms or hints at something the player/PC already discovered previously. And there may have been absolutely nothing there before the player rolled the dice. 

I'll also use this technique If I absolutely HAVE to use some "pre-authoring" in a particular scene. Even if the PCs don't  get anything tangible out of their failure, if it's at all possible I'll try to frame it in such a way that it logically supports a conclusion that will help them move forward. Sometimes, helping PCs eliminate a course of action can be helpful in directing their focus. 

I used to think that doing this sort of thing would "weaken" the "story," or "make things too easy," or somehow diminish players' sense of accomplishment, but in fact the opposite is true. My players remained far more engaged because it builds a sense of momentum.

The other thing that starts happening when the players get the right "feel" for it is they'll start doing their own pre-authoring . . . and then all I have to do is confirm it. "Oh yep, that thing you were talking about what the guards were probably doing? Well, you see X [which supports their supposition]."


----------



## Manbearcat

These conversations inevitably always break down on the fault line of having differing needs for granularity and simulation of process within a system's resolution mechanics.  The questions then become:

1)  How burdensome (descriptive, not pejorative) on table handling time and overall pacing does the micro-resolution of tasks become.  

2)  Is the burden brought about by that granularity a net gain to the play (eg in player agency or immersion of the character's OODA Loop or emotional quality) or a net loss (the compound probability math damaging the model's output so genre emulation becomes an impossibility)?

3)  Are we accurately simulating discrete processes (inputs and outputs) in the first place?

4)  Are our litmus tests for various levels of granularity within a system's own conflict resolution mechanics arbitrary or reasoned, coherent, and sensible?

For my money, the answers to these are never in favor of granular process simulation.

- The people systemitizing these discrete processes don't do so accurately and coherently, thus damaging the OODA Loop experience/agency of the people they're supposed to be catering to in the first place (their point for existing in the first place).

- There is a continuum of granularity within varying conflict resolution mechanics which, upon evaluation, is often arbitrary and odd when you consider the goals (immersion, OODA Loop/emotion habitation) of systemitizing it in the first place.

- The discrete processes overburden play with pace/momentum-jarring tedium and don't routinely (or anything near it) lead to interesting outcomes as an outgrowth of merely playing the game correctly.

- Compound probability math wonkifies expectant outcomes thus rendering archetype emulation and overall genre emulation a losing affair (leading to the inevitable "well it is its own genre!" - now - proclamations...because the model that it spits out is so wobbly and ineffectual at producing the tropes it was designed to).

Hence, my advocacy for the systems and techniques that I advocate for (after running a ridiculous amount of process sim with multiple systems over the span of 32 years).


----------



## Manbearcat

innerdude said:


> The longer I GM, the less enamored I become with "pre-authoring." Sure, there are certain, specific (and altogether rare) situations where _absolutely nothing_ the PCs do in a given scene has any real effect . . . but I've repeatedly found that more often than not, taking a hardline "pre-authoring" approach kills a game's momentum.




Over the course of the many decades I've run games, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the game needs:  

1)  A clear and focused vision/goal/premise (this includes genre)
2)  PC build mechanics and a coherent rewards cycle for the players that aligns with their character's interests/motivations
3)  Transparent, user-friendly (with respect to intuitiveness, table handling time, and mental overhead) resolution mechanics and a coherent and abundantly clear GMing approach/ethos that perpetuates the robust testing of 2 which in turn yields 1 as the inevitable output of play.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> These conversations inevitably always break down on the fault line of having differing needs for granularity and simulation of process within a system's resolution mechanics.  The questions then become:
> 
> 1)  How burdensome (descriptive, not pejorative) on table handling time and overall pacing does the micro-resolution of tasks become.
> 
> 2)  Is the burden brought about by that granularity a net gain to the play (eg in player agency or immersion of the character's OODA Loop or emotional quality) or a net loss (the compound probability math damaging the model's output so genre emulation becomes an impossibility)?
> 
> 3)  Are we accurately simulating discrete processes (inputs and outputs) in the first place?
> 
> 4)  Are our litmus tests for various levels of granularity within a system's own conflict resolution mechanics arbitrary or reasoned, coherent, and sensible?
> 
> For my money, the answers to these are never in favor of granular process simulation.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Hence, my advocacy for the systems and techniques that I advocate for (after running a ridiculous amount of process sim with multiple systems over the span of 32 years).



I don't think our preferences fully overlap in respect of this particular issue. I think that BW manages to present quite a granular system (at least on the PC build side, and that inevitably bleeds over to the action resolution side) but avoids or overcomes many of the traditional problems that RM, RQ, Classic Traveller etc didn't manage to solve.

For me, the litmus test is not so much granularity as process sim (which may or may not be granular) and pre-authorship of the fiction.


----------



## innerdude

Manbearcat said:


> These conversations inevitably always break down on the fault line of having differing needs for granularity and simulation of process within a system's resolution mechanics.




Interestingly, though, for purposes of this thread, highly granular process sim doesn't preclude a GM from using "fail forward" techniques if they so choose. Such an approach would seem to cut against the purpose of using a granular process in the first place, obviously, but you can still use "fail forward" regardless. 

But to your real point --- I think the vast majority of conflicts that arise over a particular action or scene resolution probably occur because the GM and players disagreed on what was at stake---not because the resolution mechanics "failed them." No RPG resolution mechanic is ever going to satisfy participants if the player and GM have differing ideas about what particular actions/consequences "mean" in context of the scene. 

From this perspective it's easy to see why combat traditionally gets so much focus in RPGs---because the GM doesn't have to do ANYTHING to set the stakes; death is always an assumed stake. 



Manbearcat said:


> - The discrete processes overburden play with pace/momentum-jarring tedium and don't routinely (or anything near it) lead to interesting outcomes as an outgrowth of merely playing the game correctly.




This has always been my problem with GURPS, frankly. Playing GURPS rules-as-written never seems to result in the "payoff" promised in the presentation of the rules. To really get what the players want out of it, they either have to A) powergame the crap out of it to get their characters to even remotely resemble what they see "in their head", B) drastically reduce the level of granularity (the whole idea of BANG! skills from GURPS 4e comes to mind)---but then why are you playing GURPS in the first place?, and/or C) make liberal use of "fail forward" techniques / GM fiat to simply keep things running . . . and then once again, why are you using GURPS in the first place, when there's so many other systems that do this so much better?

*Edit -- I just read [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s follow-up reply, and now I'm wondering --- is "fail forward" inherently antithetical to process sim? Is there any "coherent" way the two can reasonably co-exist?


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> I don't think our preferences fully overlap in respect of this particular issue.




It suspect so as well!



pemerton said:


> I think that BW manages to present quite a granular system (at least on the PC build side, and that inevitably bleeds over to the action resolution side) but avoids or overcomes many of the traditional problems that RM, RQ, Classic Traveller etc didn't manage to solve.




I think Burning Wheel manages to do this because it stoutly fulfills 1, 2 and 3 (in my post above yours) so robustly.  Its theme/premise is clear and the PC build mechanics, resolution mechanics, GMing advice/ethos, and reward cycle are all tightly integrated with that "point of play" as fulcrum.  Because it works toward a specific model (Test PC Beliefs > generate new content based on outcome coupled with  "the constant demands of play" coupled with already established fiction > repeat) such that the entirety of the system is tightly wound around producing it (outcome based design), it avoids the issues that stem from typical engines that are conceived toward the goal of achieving (yettypically failing) objective simulation of process (which eschew a focused premise, a tight rewards cycle, integrated PC build mechanics + transparent/strident GMing protocol).  

"The constant demands of play" is key.  If this priority is central to play procedures, then you're never merely simulating causal logic (as if anyone had the computing means to do so anyway!).  Whenever generating conflict coherent with an established theme is central to play, you're inevitably eschewing conflict-neutral outcomes.  This is why people get hung up in these conversations so often.  Having pace-atrophying, conflict-neutral outcomes and moments of play that follow those outcomes is important to ardent process-sim inclined players, even though they seem disinclined toward framing it in those terms.  This is because they feel it better simulates causal process, rounding out the experience of an adventurer's life, and therefore they find it more "immersive" (I find it an abject waste of time to focus any portion of play on this, hence its removal as addition by subtraction).  I think this is why they find systems where outcomes are implacably "premise/principle-guided" and tethered to conservation of narrative momentum/conflict/coherency "railroady."  Being coherently "premise/principle-guided" obviously isn't "railroady" (which is about GM Force subverting player authority and the resolution mechanics by dictating outcomes to keep play on a preconceived metaplot), but they don't have a better term for it so they use that.  

It is certainly much more granular with more moving parts than PBtA, Dogs, or Cortex + (or even Mouseguard), but at its core, it has much more in common with those games than it does Classic Traveler!


----------



## Manbearcat

innerdude said:


> *Edit -- I just read @_*pemerton*_'s follow-up reply, and now I'm wondering --- is "fail forward" inherently antithetical to process sim? Is there any "coherent" way the two can reasonably co-exist?






Manbearcat said:


> "The constant demands of play" is key.  If this priority is central to play procedures, then you're never merely simulating causal logic (as if anyone had the computing means to do so anyway!).  Whenever generating conflict coherent with an established theme is central to play, you're inevitably eschewing conflict-neutral outcomes.  This is why people get hung up in these conversations so often.  Having pace-atrophying, conflict-neutral outcomes and moments of play that follow those outcomes is important to ardent process-sim inclined players, even though they seem disinclined toward framing it in those terms.  This is because they feel it better simulates causal process, rounding out the experience of an adventurer's life, and therefore they find it more "immersive" (I find it an abject waste of time to focus any portion of play on this, hence its removal as addition by subtraction).  I think this is why they find systems where outcomes are implacably "premise/principle-guided" and tethered to conservation of narrative momentum/conflict/coherency "railroady."  Being coherently "premise/principle-guided" obviously isn't "railroady" (which is about GM Force subverting player authority and the resolution mechanics by dictating outcomes to keep play on a preconceived metaplot), but they don't have a better term for it so they use that.




I answered your query with my reply to pemerton from directly above.  I don't think "fail forward" is antithetical to process simulation.  I still hold (firmly due to both empirical and theoretical backing) that losing gear (or something on your person) as a result of defying climbing related dangers or navigating hazards is entirely coherent with a process-sim mindset.  However, some folks have (a) different mental models for the world than my own and (b) have internalized an RPG paradigm as orthodox which I roundly contest.

What is central to failing forward is that "the demands of play" be prioritized in the outcomes they produce.  This will inevitably mean that the resolution of player action declarations will not include outcomes that do not comport with that premise/theme.  Burning Wheel has a process-sim chassis in its conflict resolution mechanics.  Nonetheless, a good BW GM will always eschew outcomes that don't propel play inexorably toward further "Belief Testing."  Some folks will decry that as "inorganic".  Presumably, "organic outcomes" means the GM has 0 game-defined directives that does away with certain outcomes of which they deem important for an "immersive experience" (eg - premise-neutral outcomes that don't snowball directly back into the games defining conflicts).


----------



## innerdude

Manbearcat said:


> Over the course of the many decades I've run games, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the game needs:
> 
> 1)  A clear and focused vision/goal/premise (this includes genre)
> 2)  PC build mechanics and a coherent rewards cycle for the players that aligns with their character's interests/motivations
> 3)  Transparent, user-friendly (with respect to intuitiveness, table handling time, and mental overhead) resolution mechanics and a coherent and abundantly clear GMing approach/ethos that perpetuates the robust testing of 2 which in turn yields 1 as the inevitable output of play.




This is interesting, because for me, now having 5 years of experience with it, Savage Worlds solidly checks all three boxes:

1. "Savage Worlds seeks to provide fast-paced, pulp action adventures, where the protagonists are cast as strong, capable, yet imperfect heroes. While the rules contain very few mechanics that give full narrative control to the players, mechanical choices in player build allow the PCs tight control over over their fictional positioning. The action focuses on heroics that could be categorized as 'real life plus', where heroes are certainly more capable than the average citizen, but still vulnerable."

2. "PCs have total flexibility to build PCs as they see fit through an open-ended, skill-based character design. Character choices, both combat and non-combat, have defined resolution mechanics to ensure PCs can contribute in a broad variety of areas and scene frames. Choosing to follow characters' designed strengths leads to positive feedback/reinforcement of their roles, while the system's focus on maintaining broad cross-area competencies allows everyone opportunity to contribute in nearly all cases." 

3. "The fast, easy-to-grasp, largely intuitive resolution mechanics make it easy for players to map external metagame mechanics to in-character decisions. Playing to a character's defined strengths/role almost always leads to satisfying play. In the majority of cases, following the mechanics leads to results that accentuate the 'feel' put forward as the system's best traits. The mechanics are designed to dramatically mitigate encounter design prep, and adjusting encounters on the fly is ridiculously easy while remaining largely transparent to the players."


----------



## pemerton

innerdude said:


> is "fail forward" inherently antithetical to process sim?



I think so - though [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] doesn't agree (maybe we have different dimensions of the technique in mind?).

What I have in mind is that "fail forward" requires adjudicating outcomes of action resolution, and extrapolating the fiction, by reference to dramatic necessity rather than ingame causal logic. Which tends to leave process sim behind.

Relating that to BW and granularity: I think "fail forward" can take process sim as an _input_, in framing action declarations. (BW does this; Marvel Heroic RP, by contrast, does so much less - eg many Distinctions, or Affiliation dice, don't have a causal logic behind their inclusion in the pool.)

It's when we look at _outputs_ that we see the lack of process sim.



grendel111111 said:


> I see your distinction between the two, but for me I like there to be less of a distinction between What the character does and what is authored at the table. As a player I want to "look through" the PC's eyes. I want to decide what to do based on what he or she would do, not based on what would make a "better story".
> 
> <snip>
> 
> As a player I like to have as similar perspective as my character as is possible.



Nowhere in the actual play examples I've given is the player deciding what his/her PC does other than by looking through the PC's eyes. In the mace example, the PC last saw the mace in the tower, when it had to be abandoned to the onrushing orcs. Now, 14 years later, the PC returns and wants to look for the mace.

Backstory authorship is primarily in the hands of the GM, not the players, in the examples I've given. (And in the Mt Pudding example also.)

From the players' point of view, though, how does it disrupt immersion to have the GM decide the relevant backstory _as part of adjudicating action resolution_? How is that not seeing the world through a PC's eyes?



grendel111111 said:


> For me the check has a real concrete meaning (I know it doesn't for you). It means they are searching for something. The check determines if they find it or not. but that is where the 2 approaches differ. I explained my preference above, and I see why you like your preference. The reason it grinds against me is because the roll is being modified by characters abilities, to determine something totally unrelated to the character.   Why does bill the bumbling idiot trying to search result in a 80% chance that the mace is on the other side to the continent, but if Omar the Observant looks there is 20% chance.
> For me that is not a fair use of probability.
> I would much rather know the DM was playing "fair", and knew where the mace was, and the search result told me how good my searching was.



For me the check also has real concrete meaning - the PCs are searching for something, and the check determines if they find it or not.

The difference seems to be in the range of permitted explanations for why they don't find it - which in your approach includes that the GM decided it's not there even if the check is successful. (Is that "fair" or not? Opinions may differ.)

Here is a Paul Czege quote perhaps relevant to "fairness":

By god, when I'm framing scenes, and I'm in the zone, I'm turning a freakin' firehose of adversity and situation on the character. It is not an objective outgrowth of prior events. It's intentional as all get out. . . ._t [is] my job to find out what the player finds interesting about the character. And I know what I find interesting. I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player._​_

I doubt my games are as intense as Czege's, but the basic principle is the same: I am not a neutral arbiter. My job is to confront the PC (and thereby the player) with adversity. When the player succeeds at a check, the PC overcomes the adversity - there is no GM's secret backstory (like having already decided that the mace is not there) to thwart him/her. When the player fails, the ball is in my court - so of course the mace is in the hands of their enemy, who after all has had 14 leisurely years to loot the tower.

But as I said, this seems to me to be orthogonal to character immersion or seeing the gameworld through the PC's eyes.



grendel111111 said:



			How does exploring the DM's world not have "dramatic momentum"?
		
Click to expand...


Some examples were given by [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION]. In the particular example, if as a GM I've decided that the mace is not there, then you can have the players devote a lot of table time + resources (eg fate points, treasure finding potions, whatever else) to looking for the mace, get an excellent roll, and still be told they don't find it.



grendel111111 said:



			The adding of a jailer is an interesting question. I have no problem with the DM adding a jailer to what is happening, it is interesting and keeps the game moving forward. I don't see a point in adding a jailer only if you roll low on an ability or skill check. If it is interesting to add a jailer then add a jailer.
		
Click to expand...


The jailer is interesting only if the narrative context makes it so. In this example, it is the PC being trapped that makes the arrival of the jailer interesting. (I think that what I have just said is pretty consistent with [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION]'s reply on the same point.)_


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> I think so - though [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] doesn't agree (maybe we have different dimensions of the technique in mind?).




The disagreement is very subtle due to precisely what you reference.  We have different dimensions of the technique and its place in play priorities and overall play aesthetic in mind.  

For instance, I entirely agree with the below:



pemerton said:


> What I have in mind is that "fail forward" requires adjudicating outcomes of action resolution, and extrapolating the fiction, by reference to dramatic necessity rather than ingame causal logic. Which tends to leave process sim behind.
> 
> Relating that to BW and granularity: I think "fail forward" can take process sim as an _input_, in framing action declarations. (BW does this; Marvel Heroic RP, by contrast, does so much less - eg many Distinctions, or Affiliation dice, don't have a causal logic behind their inclusion in the pool.)
> 
> It's when we look at _outputs_ that we see the lack of process sim.




The play priorities of "fail forward" (and Narrativist play in general) do prioritize dramatic need and premise/theme as paramount.  However, this doesn't render inevitable a play aesthetic of disjointed causal logic underpinning the world the PCs occupy (as some have contested in our past conversations of Schrodinger's Gorge, warlords and mommies kissing boo boos away, and here with Bob, his defying crevice-related danger, and his loss of his pudding divining rod).  It is entirely logical for a failed navigation check to cause you to be unable to escape pursuit due to an encounter with a nigh-impassable gorge or to cause you to miss a crevice and nearly fall to your death (losing precious gear in the death defying effort instead).  Rather than discovering nothing, it is entirely possible to discover something terribly regrettable when seeking out something precious (black arrows instead of a nickel-silver mace).  

The agenda of process sim is all about the aesthetic of OODA Loop inhabitation (which is really the only thing that matters for process sim...it is a means to the end of that aesthetic) for immersion and agency.  If, while playing a PC in your Burning Wheel game or your 4e game, I found out a horrible reality about my brother while seeking something precious relevant to him, or weather's turn for the worse dashed the fragile hopes of parley...I certainly would have neither my immersion nor agency budged by those prospects.  Those things are entirely plausible outcomes of my intentions.  Life worth living is about taking a series of "Geronimos" off cliffs (certainly the adventurer's life!) where reality oft intervenes in unexpected ways to dash hopes on rocks.  

Now if you have internalized an RPG model whereby content generation in the shared imaginary space can solely be a process of discrete checks of extremely fine granularity and extremely narrow constraints (find handhold/foothold > climb 10 feet/fail to climb/fall > roll on a table if failed roll is odd to see if foothold fails > roll on another table to determine consequences of failed handhold > if gear then roll vs your inventory > make gear saving throw to retain or lose specified gear)...then you're going to have an issue with the aesthetic that "fail forward" engenders.  

Hope that makes sense.


----------



## Manbearcat

innerdude said:


> This is interesting, because for me, now having 5 years of experience with it, Savage Worlds solidly checks all three boxes:




One of my best pals adores the system and uses it exclusively for post-apoc and zombie horror, so I hear nothing but good things about it!  I've never run it, but my familiarity with it puts me in no position to dispute either you or him!


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> The jailer is interesting only if the narrative context makes it so. In this example, it is the PC being trapped that makes the arrival of the jailer interesting. (I think that what I have just said is pretty consistent with [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION]'s reply on the same point.)




Narrative context really doesn't make it interesting, either.  What makes it interesting or not are the subjective interpretations of the DM and the players.  Your narrative context might make it interesting for you and 2 players, but not for the other 3 players at the table.  A different narrative context might make it interested for one of those first 2 players, 2 of the second three, but not everyone else.

How the narrative is constructed also is important, since the players are aware of how you get to where you get and can be influenced by the method.  For myself, if that guard shows up because I failed a check, I'm going to be bothered by that and I'm not going to find it interesting.  However, if the guard shows up because I made a loud noise, I will find it interesting, because that makes sense.


----------



## iserith

Maxperson said:


> How the narrative is constructed also is important, since the players are aware of how you get to where you get and can be influenced by the method.  For myself, if that guard shows up because I failed a check, I'm going to be bothered by that and I'm not going to find it interesting.  However, if the guard shows up because I made a loud noise, I will find it interesting, because that makes sense.




I suggest reading @Nagol 's example again. The player failed the check, the character therefore failed to climb and during the attempt made a noise which attracted the dungeon denizen. All perfectly reasonable if you ask me. The check isn't actually a thing in the fictional world, as you know, so the failed check can't be something that causes a dungeon denizen to turn up. It turns up because the DM narrated that particular complication which reasonably followed in the fiction.


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## innerdude

Manbearcat said:


> One of my best pals adores the system and uses it exclusively for post-apoc and zombie horror, so I hear nothing but good things about it!  I've never run it, but my familiarity with it puts me in no position to dispute either you or him!




I brought it up because I found your criteria for a coherent system feedback loop interesting, and I wanted to see how my current system of choice held up against it. In looking at it, my high level of satisfaction with Savage Worlds as rule system seems to tie directly to what you posited. Savage naturally seems to "feed into" the premise it presents. Mechanical resolution naturally drives character positioning toward that premise. For both players and GM it's also intuitive and fast to adjudicate, and makes it very easy to build encounters. 

And this has been a new experience relative to my "RPG Life" prior. By the time I finished up my last Pathfinder campaign in 2011, I was _ready_ to move on to something else. I've never really liked Vancian casting to begin with, and the overall character building and encounter balancing aspects as a GM were just burdensome. I just finally realized that the RPG experience I really wanted wasn't going to come from D&D. Oh sure, it was an adequate substitute most of the time, and I could certainly work around a lot of it, but it wasn't every going to be really what I wanted. 

Based on your criteria, the problem that 3.x and Pathfinder have (I can't really comment on 5e, having never played it) is that they're not attempting to emulate a genre, or provide a specific "experience" with mechanics that support a particular style, they're simply trying to replicate "D&D as its own genre." There's no real thought to whether "D&D as genre" is ITSELF coherent or particularly workable, but that's ultimately beside the point as far as the rules are concerned. (4e is the obvious outlier, because it had a very specific, codified, and structured "play experience" that its mechanics were specifically designed to implement.)

When I picked up Fantasy Craft shortly after my Pathfinder campaign ended, the difference in feel and texture in its gameplay compared to 3.x was obviously and vastly more coherent. Why? Because despite using the d20 chassis, Fantasy Craft wasn't trying to "be D&D," it was simply trying to be a great fantasy RPG that happened to bear some reasonable semblance to its genetic predecessors. Honestly I'm still a bit baffled why FC didn't become more popular among the "I don't really like 3.x, but don't want to move to 4e" crowd.

But back to the topic of fail forward: 

 @_*pemerton*_ I discussed in a thread a few months ago comparing 4e's and Savage Worlds' approaches to character fictional positioning. One of the commonalities was that both 4e and Savage Worlds assume broad levels of character competency. And I think this adds a strong supporting dimension for a system that wants to support "fail forward." 

Assumed broad competency makes it easier to tell players, "Hmmm, you've suffered a setback here, but other avenues appear to be open here, here, and here." When your characters feel competent to tackle problems across a broader swath of available options, it's easier as a GM to frame those options into the fiction. The problem with the 3.x fighter is that he's qualified to do exactly nothing that doesn't involve swinging a sword. When that's the case, telling the group that it will be easier to influence the local Bandit King to aid you in your cause against the local tyrant instead of simply invading the castle, the fighter's not got much to add.

Burning Wheel, interestingly, seems to take an opposite approach --- your characters are broadly _not competent_, but are expected to attempt to do things in which they are not competent because they are compelled to by their beliefs and instincts. In this case, I think "fail forward" is a downright necessary component. 

And D&D 3.x is mechanically not structured to support either the Savage/4e style "fail forward," or Burning Wheel's.


----------



## innerdude

One final thing ---- 

It may just be semantics, but I'm wondering if recasting this concept as "action forward" rather than "fail forward" works better. In my mind, "action forward" accounts for the "fail forward" use cases we've already discussed, but also tackles the added dimension of "pre-authoring" versus "mutable fiction." 

For example, think of this use case ---- using an entirely process sim resolution system, a party uses their skills to sneak into a fortress, defeat several encounters, and overcome several deadly traps in hunt of Macguffin XYZ. Absolutely no use of fail forward techniques; the party has "succeeded" in every mechanical sense of the word. 

Yet due to the GM's pre-authoring stance, the artifact isn't there, has never been there, and in fact has been taken out of the fortress by the BBEG years earlier. Or perhaps the party watches as the BBEG runs away with the artifact, and the party has no potentially successful course of action other than to chase after it once again. 

In fact, didn't we just see a major meltdown from [MENTION=67338]GMforPowergamers[/MENTION] group over something similar? 

The "action forward" stance would change this --- of course the Macguffin is there, and there would be a valid in-fiction reason that the BBEG recently brought it back.


----------



## Nagol

innerdude said:


> One final thing ----
> 
> It may just be semantics, but I'm wondering if recasting this concept as "action forward" rather than "fail forward" works better. In my mind, "action forward" accounts for the "fail forward" use cases we've already discussed, but also tackles the added dimension of "pre-authoring" versus "mutable fiction."
> 
> For example, think of this use case ---- using an entirely process sim resolution system, a party uses their skills to sneak into a fortress, defeat several encounters, and overcome several deadly traps in hunt of Macguffin XYZ. Absolutely no use of fail forward techniques; the party has "succeeded" in every mechanical sense of the word.
> 
> Yet due to the GM's pre-authoring stance, the artifact isn't there, has never been there, and in fact has been taken out of the fortress by the BBEG years earlier. Or perhaps the party watches as the BBEG runs away with the artifact, and the party has no potentially successful course of action other than to chase after it once again.
> 
> In fact, didn't we just see a major meltdown from [MENTION=67338]GMforPowergamers[/MENTION] group over something similar?
> 
> The "action forward" stance would change this --- of course the Macguffin is there, and there would be a valid in-fiction reason that the BBEG recently brought it back.





To my mind, Fail-forward is isolated from pre-authoring or mutable fiction.  Quite often, my notes contain quick recommendations for what resources are available in the setting that I can plausibly use as part of a fail-forward.

The situation you describe doesn't sound like it has hit a wall and stopped so much as the current dramatic need has been frustrated and it is time for the group to figure how why or how and what their response is going to be so it probably wouldn't warrant a fail-forward.

If I did feel that need (the next steps/location is completely unknown/ or wrongly believed to be inaccessible to the group), I would probably take the form of additional potential information or more probably something to bring previously provided information back to the players' attention.


----------



## Imaro

iserith said:


> I suggest reading @Nagol 's example again. The player failed the check, the character therefore failed to climb and during the attempt made a noise which attracted the dungeon denizen. All perfectly reasonable if you ask me. The check isn't actually a thing in the fictional world, as you know, so the failed check can't be something that causes a dungeon denizen to turn up. It turns up because the DM narrated that particular complication which reasonably followed in the fiction.




I think he might be saying that for him the outcome doesn't feel like it "reasonably" follows from the established fiction and/or the mechanics he's using to interface with said fiction.  The problem I see is that whether something feels reasonable or not is a totally subjective call.


----------



## iserith

Imaro said:


> I think he might be saying that for him the outcome doesn't feel like it "reasonably" follows from the established fiction and/or the mechanics he's using to interface with said fiction.  The problem I see is that whether something feels reasonable or not is a totally subjective call.




Sure it's subjective, but if we can't agree it's reasonable that somebody tries and fails to climb a thing, makes noise in the process, and draws unwanted attention, then I would say we're in a very strange place in this discussion.


----------



## Imaro

iserith said:


> Sure it's subjective, but if we can't agree it's reasonable that somebody tries and fails to climb a thing, makes noise in the process, and draws unwanted attention, then I would say we're in a very strange place in this discussion.




Of course this is where it gets kind of weird if there is a mechanic that is used to determine whether someone is quiet or not in the fiction (Say a stealth skill)...  If making noise is a possible outcome shouldn't I be using that mechanic to interface with the fiction instead?


----------



## iserith

Imaro said:


> Of course this is where it gets kind of weird if there is a mechanic that is used to determine whether someone is quiet or not in the fiction (Say a stealth skill)...  If making noise is a possible outcome shouldn't I be using that mechanic to interface with the fiction instead?




Depends on the stated goal and approach described by the player. There was nothing in the example to suggest the player was having his or her character try to act in a stealthy fashion. He or she was established simply as trying to climb out of the closed pit.


----------



## Imaro

iserith said:


> Depends on the stated goal and approach described by the player. There was nothing in the example to suggest the player was having his or her character try to act in a stealthy fashion. He or she was established simply as trying to climb out of the closed pit.




I would assume in a dangerous environment where someone who means to do you harm could be alerted by the sound of your actions trying to do something as quietly as possible would be a given... but I guess it has to be specifically called out...


----------



## iserith

Imaro said:


> I would assume in a dangerous environment where someone who means to do you harm could be alerted by the sound of your actions trying to do something as quietly as possible would be a given... but I guess it has to be specifically called out...




There is not enough context in the example to say one way or another. All we know is that a character tried to climb and failed with reasonable results ensuing. Can you imagine a character failing to climb and being noisy about it, consequently drawing unwanted attention? If so, then it's reasonable.


----------



## Imaro

iserith said:


> There is not enough context in the example to say one way or another. All we know is that a character tried to climb and failed with reasonable results ensuing. Can you imagine a character failing to climb and being noisy about it, consequently drawing unwanted attention? If so, then it's reasonable.




I guess... if you say so.  I can also imagine a character failing to climb, slipping and cracking his skull open on the side of the wall... so I guess that's "reasonable" as well.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I can also imagine a character failing to climb, slipping and cracking his skull open on the side of the wall... so I guess that's "reasonable" as well.



In 4e, this issue of stakes-setting while climbing is handled in a slightly convoluted way: first, there is a somewhat process-sim "dice of damage per 10' fallen" rule (d10, rather than D&D's more traditional d6); second, there is GM advice on what height of precipice to use to achieve a given danger level for a given level of PC. Within this 4e context, it is reasonable for 1st level PCs to fight goblins on the edge of a 20' cliff - though the GM should be factoring this into his/her overall intentions around the deadliness of the encounter - but it is probably not reasonable for the PCs to fight goblins on the edge of a 200' cliff, where any fall will almost certainly be deadly for a 1st level PC.

In Burning Wheel, there are no general falling rules. The GM is given some advice (I can't remember whether it's in the core rules or the Adventure Burner) on what sorts of damage to stake as a consequence for various sorts of failed checks. In a recent session in my game, in which one of the PCs was trapped in a cave behind a deadfall and wriggled out through a small gap being led by his pet snakes, I imposed a Midi wound as the consequence for a failed check (described as the PC not being able to glide down slopes as easily as his snakes, and slipping and falling and bumping his head). A Midi wound imposes a 2D penalty - perhaps analogous to -5 or a bit more in 4e - and generally takes a month or two of rest to heal.

In general, judging a reasonable consequence requires skill as a GM. (As I and other posters have been noting for much of this thread.)  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] has expressed a concern that:

narrative context might make it interesting for you and 2 players, but not for the other 3 players at the table. A different narrative context might make it interested for one of those first 2 players, 2 of the second three, but not everyone else.​
Personally I don't tend to find this to be an issue - most of the time, most of the table is pretty interested in what is going on even if not all the PCs are involved; and if all the PCs are involved then the consequence that is narrated can be one that engages all the players via their PCs (eg the discovery of the black arrows).

Maxperson, is there some particular instance of this that you have in mind? Do you think there are many players who would not be curious about what happens when the jailer turns up to taunt (and perhaps free, if things work out right) the PC trapped in a pit?


----------



## pemerton

innerdude said:


> Based on your criteria, the problem that 3.x and Pathfinder have (I can't really comment on 5e, having never played it) is that they're not attempting to emulate a genre, or provide a specific "experience" with mechanics that support a particular style, they're simply trying to replicate "D&D as its own genre." There's no real thought to whether "D&D as genre" is ITSELF coherent or particularly workable, but that's ultimately beside the point as far as the rules are concerned.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> D&D 3.x is mechanically not structured to support either the Savage/4e style "fail forward," or Burning Wheel's.



I don't have a lot of experience with 3E/PF, but what you say here strikes me as plausible. It seems to build on a certain tendency in later AD&D. (Whereas I think earlier D&D, including the earlier period of AD&D, did have a particular experience in mind as a goal of play - such that, for instance, particular rules could be critiqued on the basis that they did or did not contribute to that experience.)



innerdude said:


> 4e is the obvious outlier, because it had a very specific, codified, and structured "play experience" that its mechanics were specifically designed to implement.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> One of the commonalities was that both 4e and Savage Worlds assume broad levels of character competency. And I think this adds a strong supporting dimension for a system that wants to support "fail forward."
> 
> <snip>
> 
> When your characters feel competent to tackle problems across a broader swath of available options, it's easier as a GM to frame those options into the fiction.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Burning Wheel, interestingly, seems to take an opposite approach --- your characters are broadly _not competent_, but are expected to attempt to do things in which they are not competent because they are compelled to by their beliefs and instincts. In this case, I think "fail forward" is a downright necessary component.



I agree that 4e both posits and actually delivers PCs who are broadly competent (though some still find the fighter a little narrow, that hasn't been an issue in my own 4e campaign), and that this facilitates a loose, "opening one door as another closes"-style of GMing. Upthread [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] talked about designing encounters around PC competencies, but in 4e I haven't tended to worry too much about this - and often the PCs have capabilities that I don't know about or have forgotten about (4e PC sheets are very long and complicated). Generally the players, via their PCs, have the resources to make a decent fist of taking on just about any challenge in any of a range of ways (combat, social, subterfuge, etc).

In my BW game we started with 5 Lifepath humans (but only 4 Lifepaths for the mechanically stronger elves). These PCs are pretty competent in their areas of specialisation - direct comparisons to D&D are tricky but I'd say comparable to 5th level or so AD&D PCs - but the game takes for granted that some, even many, challenges will arise that fall outside these areas of specialisation, and so the PCs will fail a lot of the time.

I agree with you that, in that sort of game, "fail forward" is a must. Otherwise the game would just grind to a halt as some sort of baroque parody of someone's bad RQ or RM campaign from 30-odd years ago.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> In 4e, this issue of stakes-setting while climbing is handled in a slightly convoluted way: first, there is a somewhat process-sim "dice of damage per 10' fallen" rule (d10, rather than D&D's more traditional d6); second, there is GM advice on what height of precipice to use to achieve a given danger level for a given level of PC. Within this 4e context, it is reasonable for 1st level PCs to fight goblins on the edge of a 20' cliff - though the GM should be factoring this into his/her overall intentions around the deadliness of the encounter - but it is probably not reasonable for the PCs to fight goblins on the edge of a 200' cliff, where any fall will almost certainly be deadly for a 1st level PC.
> 
> In Burning Wheel, there are no general falling rules. The GM is given some advice (I can't remember whether it's in the core rules or the Adventure Burner) on what sorts of damage to stake as a consequence for various sorts of failed checks. In a recent session in my game, in which one of the PCs was trapped in a cave behind a deadfall and wriggled out through a small gap being led by his pet snakes, I imposed a Midi wound as the consequence for a failed check (described as the PC not being able to glide down slopes as easily as his snakes, and slipping and falling and bumping his head). A Midi wound imposes a 2D penalty - perhaps analogous to -5 or a bit more in 4e - and generally takes a month or two of rest to heal.
> 
> In general, judging a reasonable consequence requires skill as a GM. (As I and other posters have been noting for much of this thread.)  @_*Maxperson*_ has expressed a concern that:
> narrative context might make it interesting for you and 2 players, but not for the other 3 players at the table. A different narrative context might make it interested for one of those first 2 players, 2 of the second three, but not everyone else.​
> Personally I don't tend to find this to be an issue - most of the time, most of the table is pretty interested in what is going on even if not all the PCs are involved; and if all the PCs are involved then the consequence that is narrated can be one that engages all the players via their PCs (eg the discovery of the black arrows).
> 
> Maxperson, is there some particular instance of this that you have in mind? Do you think there are many players who would not be curious about what happens when the jailer turns up to taunt (and perhaps free, if things work out right) the PC trapped in a pit?




Quick question... so 4e sets the stakes for the consequences of a failed climb check, correct?  If so, how does fail forward work here?  If I as a player have read the rules and know that damage is the consequence of a failed check, do you as DM still reserve the right to create additional/other consequences... such as the alerting of the guards?  If so as DM should you let me as a player know about these added consequences or should any and all "reasonable" consequences be expected... or, and this just occurred to me, is this type of thing best established before the game starts... perhaps in pre-discussion around DM/Player responsibility.

Honestly I have no problem with the concept of FF and believe one of my favorite games right now, Numenera,  uses it very well.  Why?  Because in Numenera the DM has the option to create an intrusion (basically a complication he made up) but must in exchange offer the player XP... additionally the player can choose to spend XP in order to cancel the intrusion if he feels he doesn't want whatever complication is offered up happening to his character.  I like this design because it gives the player a say so in whether this complication is something he wants to experience with his character (no guessing games on the part of the GM), but at the same time uses a limited resource (so you don't run into a situation where every complication is avoided by a particular player) to create a real decision point for the player around what is or isn't the type of complications he/she wants their character to experience.  See for me this type of mechanic preserves player agency, avoids the problem of the DM's idea on what is exciting or cool being dominant while still allowing the GM to utilize the fail forward mechanic creatively.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I
> In general, judging a reasonable consequence requires skill as a GM. (As I and other posters have been noting for much of this thread.)  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] has expressed a concern that:
> 
> narrative context might make it interesting for you and 2 players, but not for the other 3 players at the table. A different narrative context might make it interested for one of those first 2 players, 2 of the second three, but not everyone else.​
> Personally I don't tend to find this to be an issue - most of the time, most of the table is pretty interested in what is going on even if not all the PCs are involved; and if all the PCs are involved then the consequence that is narrated can be one that engages all the players via their PCs (eg the discovery of the black arrows).
> 
> Maxperson, is there some particular instance of this that you have in mind? Do you think there are many players who would not be curious about what happens when the jailer turns up to taunt (and perhaps free, if things work out right) the PC trapped in a pit?




I'm going to speak in generalities since I'm fairly bad at remembering specific examples.  I tend to lose arguments with my wife badly as a result.  I KNOW something happened, but can't give specific examples.  Doh!

Okay.  I had a group in the past where some of them have been very combat focused and that is what held their primary interest, and others have been more political/roleplaying oriented and combat held little interest for them.  Fast forward to the scene where the narrative brings the jailer in.  Briefly, they would all have interest.  However, if narrative called for verbal roleplaying, the combat oriented players would lose interest.  If it called for a fight, the roleplaying oriented people would lose interest.  It was difficult for any specific narrative to hold the interest of all of them at once.

With my current group, since we are all longtime friends, ANY narrative will hold interest as even if the narrative itself is not directly interesting, we all want to see everyone else enjoying themselves, so even when a scene is a solo scene, everyone else watches to see how it turns out.  That's not always a direct interest in the narrative, though.


----------



## BryonD

pemerton said:


> Within this 4e context, it is reasonable for 1st level PCs to fight goblins on the edge of a 20' cliff - though the GM should be factoring this into his/her overall intentions around the deadliness of the encounter - but it is probably not reasonable for the PCs to fight goblins on the edge of a 200' cliff, where any fall will almost certainly be deadly for a 1st level PC.



If I may threadjack for a moment, Not long ago I was given quite a hard time for claiming that this approach was common and endorsed by the 4E approach.  [/threadjack]

On topic, this point ties closely to the debate at hand.  I think there are larger issues than how to handle bad rolls which are mudding the water for this conversation.

As has been discussed many times before, the willingness to change the world to fit the mechanics is a big deal.  Some people, myself included, feel strongly that the mechanics should serve the narrative structure.  A few pages back the concept of Schrodinger's mace was offered and is a good example here.  
Failing a search can be a set back and a true meta problem for game play.  The "may or may not be there" approach solves that problem.  But if a problem is solved by a solution that does more harm to the fun than the problem itself, then it is a bad solution.  
I make no claim whatsoever that the "harm to fun" is remotely the same for every group.  But there is a presentation of debate as if these issues may be taken for granted when they can't be.  

For me, the mace is either there or it is not there.  There are much better solutions, such as simply having some other sideplot arise which presents hazards which were avoidable but will lead to a new chance to find the mace (anything from having it handed out with no roll to return to Go and try again, probably something in between).

I think the key point is that solving the "failing" issue, or even having a productive conversation on it, requires some openness to different tastes and preferences on numerous contextual assumptions.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> Quick question... so 4e sets the stakes for the consequences of a failed climb check, correct?  If so, how does fail forward work here?  If I as a player have read the rules and know that damage is the consequence of a failed check, do you as DM still reserve the right to create additional/other consequences... such as the alerting of the guards?  If so as DM should you let me as a player know about these added consequences or should any and all "reasonable" consequences be expected



I would say that the answer to this is "yes" - a 4e GM who imposes the sort of consequence you describe is not imposing any consequence that goes outside the rules or seeming intent of the system.

The most natural way to handle the whole thing, if it was meant to carry significant weight during play, would be as a skill challenge. The alerting of the guards would be a narrated consequence of failure but, assuming that that failure does not also bring the skill challenge to an end, the players get to declare further skill checks to try and alter the situation in their favour.



Imaro said:


> I like this design because it gives the player a say so in whether this complication is something he wants to experience with his character (no guessing games on the part of the GM), but at the same time uses a limited resource (so you don't run into a situation where every complication is avoided by a particular player) to create a real decision point for the player around what is or isn't the type of complications he/she wants their character to experience.



This seems to have some similarities to a Fate "compel".

Personally I prefer slightly tighter GM control over the narration of consequences, because of the conflict-of-interest issues that can arise on the part of players. Avoiding "guessing games" can then be handled in other ways (eg conversation).


----------



## pemerton

BryonD said:


> If I may threadjack for a moment, Not long ago I was given quite a hard time for claiming that this approach was common and endorsed by the 4E approach.



I believe you are referring to the "Why does 5e SUCK?" thread.

You were not given a hard time for suggesting that 4e has level-appropriate numbers. You were criticised, by some posters, for seeming not to follow the relevant techniques for narrating the fiction in 4e. Eg you appeared to assert, or at least imply, that the height of a given cliff, within the fiction, would be described differently depending on the level of the PCs adjacent to it. Whereas nothing in the 4e books suggests such an absurd approach to the gameworld, and I have never heard of any GM actually running the game that way.

  [/threadjack]

On topic, this point ties closely to the debate at hand.  I think there are larger issues than how to handle bad rolls which are mudding the water for this conversation.



BryonD said:


> Schrodinger's mace was offered and is a good example here.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> For me, the mace is either there or it is not there.



Of course, in the fiction, the mace is either there or is not. The relevant question is when that authorship decision is taken. 



BryonD said:


> There are much better solutions, such as simply having some other sideplot arise



In games that deploy "fail forward" in a systematic fashion there is no such thing as a "sideplot". The notion of a "sideplot" only has meaning in the context of there being a principal, non-"side" plot - one that (presumably) has been pre-authored by the GM.

In the sorts of games that deploy "fail forward" in a systematic fashion, "the plot" is whatever results from adjudicating the players' action declarations for their PCs. If a PC has finding the mace as a goal, and the player declares that the PC searches for it, then the location of the mace has become a central part of "the plot". If the search check succeeds, "the plot" is what the player (and PC) wanted - namely, the PC finds the mace. If the search check fails, then the GM is at liberty to introduce a complicating or vexing "plot" (ie "fail forward) - such as, in this case, the discovery of black arrows in the ruins of the (formerly) private workshop of the (now) balrog-possessed brother.

Something which I don't think anyone has raised yet is this: if, as a GM, I had no interesting idea about where else the mace might be other than in the ruined tower, it would have been just as reasonable for me to decide that, on the failed Scavenging check, the PCs find the mace _and_ the black arrows. (This would be similar to the example that I mentioned some way ago upthread of the feather the peddler was offering for sale truly being an angel feather, as claimed, but having a curse on it.)

But I didn't do that because I did have an interesting idea about where else the mace might be, namely, in the hands of the dark elf.

This is a modest illustration of the general principle that - in "fail forward" play - consequences should be narrated in a way that maintains narrative and dramatic momentum.


----------



## BryonD

pemerton said:


> I believe you are referring to the "Why does 5e SUCK?" thread.
> 
> You were not given a hard time for suggesting that 4e has level-appropriate numbers. You were criticised, by some posters, for seeming not to follow the relevant techniques for narrating the fiction in 4e. Eg you appeared to assert, or at least imply, that the height of a given cliff, within the fiction, would be described differently depending on the level of the PCs adjacent to it. Whereas nothing in the 4e books suggests such an absurd approach to the gameworld, and I have never heard of any GM actually running the game that way.
> 
> [/threadjack]



I was asserting that the height of the cliff would be based on the level of the PCs, exactly as you described here.   We could argue wording all day, but I was asserting what you said here.
You have advocated here the EXACT thing that I was bothered by.



> On topic, this point ties closely to the debate at hand.  I think there are larger issues than how to handle bad rolls which are mudding the water for this conversation.
> 
> Of course, in the fiction, the mace is either there or is not. The relevant question is when that authorship decision is taken.
> 
> In games that deploy "fail forward" in a systematic fashion there is no such thing as a "sideplot". The notion of a "sideplot" only has meaning in the context of there being a principal, non-"side" plot - one that (presumably) has been pre-authored by the GM.
> 
> In the sorts of games that deploy "fail forward" in a systematic fashion, "the plot" is whatever results from adjudicating the players' action declarations for their PCs. If a PC has finding the mace as a goal, and the player declares that the PC searches for it, then the location of the mace has become a central part of "the plot". If the search check succeeds, "the plot" is what the player (and PC) wanted - namely, the PC finds the mace. If the search check fails, then the GM is at liberty to introduce a complicating or vexing "plot" (ie "fail forward) - such as, in this case, the discovery of black arrows in the ruins of the (formerly) private workshop of the (now) balrog-possessed brother.
> 
> Something which I don't think anyone has raised yet is this: if, as a GM, I had no interesting idea about where else the mace might be other than in the ruined tower, it would have been just as reasonable for me to decide that, on the failed Scavenging check, the PCs find the mace _and_ the black arrows. (This would be similar to the example that I mentioned some way ago upthread of the feather the peddler was offering for sale truly being an angel feather, as claimed, but having a curse on it.)
> 
> But I didn't do that because I did have an interesting idea about where else the mace might be, namely, in the hands of the dark elf.
> 
> This is a modest illustration of the general principle that - in "fail forward" play - consequences should be narrated in a way that maintains narrative and dramatic momentum.



I think you are simply playing word games with "side plot" and then going on to reestablish the point that the different playstyles have huge implications.

If you are talking about football, then my thoughts on the designated hitter rule will not be helpful.
People seem to look at all conversations about "D&D" as being about the same sport, but they really aren't.     They may all be "sports" but they can be as different as football and baseball.
Which is not intended to be non constructive, but rather to point out that looking at the other perspective is really highly important.

If you were to simply ask me if I use the concept of "fail forward" I would say that it is absolutely an important part of what I keep in my quiver of options.
But in the context of how you are constraining it, I would be rather strongly opposed to it.
This is an important distinction.


----------



## iserith

Imaro said:


> Quick question... so 4e sets the stakes for the consequences of a failed climb check, correct? If so, how does fail forward work here? If I as a player have read the rules and know that damage is the consequence of a failed check, do you as DM still reserve the right to create additional/other consequences... such as the alerting of the guards? If so as DM should you let me as a player know about these added consequences or should any and all "reasonable" consequences be expected... or, and this just occurred to me, is this type of thing best established before the game starts... perhaps in pre-discussion around DM/Player responsibility.




Yes, an Athletics check for climbing has some suggested outcomes for failed checks. But this is D&D and players in such a game should be aware the DM is not beholden to the rules _at all_. Therefore, I think it is a good idea for the DM to always clarify the stakes prior to the roll. Some games have specific procedures that the GM must follow - Dungeon World, for example. D&D is not one of those games. Therefore, it would be perfectly reasonable for outcomes other than falling to occur after a player botches an Athletics check. The test is whether what happens follows in the fiction. Does it make sense that while climbing an equipment malfunction happens? Yes, it does. Does that require a specific "Equipment Malfunction Check?" No, I don't think so.


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> Of course, in the fiction, the mace is either there or is not. The relevant question is when that authorship decision is taken.




This question is related to a valuable precept of GMing and adventure design:  Don't stipulate details before you have to.  

For those who are so worried about the dreaded "DM's Pre-Written Story" one utility of this is obvious - the players cannot be following a predetermined story if we don't actually pre-write the story!  On the other hand, if I pre-write that, to get the pudding, they need the Rod of Pudding Detection (found in the ancient cave lair of the hermit-wizard Jell'O), and the Mace is in the River and they need that to beat the Abominable Sno-Cone Man guarding the dessert on the top of Mount Pudding... that's starting to look like a pre-written story - locations to visit in turn, with McGuffins required to reach the stated goal.


----------



## Balesir

BryonD said:


> I was asserting that the height of the cliff would be based on the level of the PCs, exactly as you described here.   We could argue wording all day, but I was asserting what you said here.
> You have advocated here the EXACT thing that I was bothered by.



I think the subtle distinction, here - which what you say here does nothing to dispel the ambiguity about - is the idea that the _same cliff_ appears at differing heights depending on nearby PCs. This is not what 4E involves in any instance of it I have experienced.

The actual case is much more akin to the "timed authorship" point that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has explained and [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] has expanded on. If the "combat situation" includes a cliff, and the first party to encounter this combat happen to be first level, then the cliff may be authored at that point to be 20' tall. If the party were 20th level, the cliff might be 160' tall. Once "authored in", however, the cliff is the height it is. If a 1st level party somehow engineer a fight beside that cliff once it is established at 160', then they may very well die as a result.

On the distinction about "fail forward" meaning different things in different playing (or, I think more to the point, GMing) styles, I think you have a good point. "Fail forward" may very well be a cluster of techniques, some of which are useful for any given style. On the other hand, I am pretty sceptical about any "purist" approach to pre-authoring. I think most likely every GM has _some_ things s/he authors on the fly - NPC intentions regarding the characters and dispositions being particularly common ones; details of the "small furnishings" in a room being another. I think it's more a matter of degrees than pure approaches.

I think a useful question as regards pre-authoring might be "what things are most usefully pre-authored, and what things are better authored in response to game situations as they develop?", rather than "what type of authoring is best*, pre-authoring or authoring-in-the-moment?"

(*: or even "do you prefer").


----------



## innerdude

BryonD said:


> I was asserting that the height of the cliff would be based on the level of the PCs, exactly as you described here.   We could argue wording all day, but I was asserting what you said here. You have advocated here the EXACT thing that I was bothered by.




I think you're slightly misreading @_*pemerton*_'s point. If narrative momentum is more important than "playing out" climbing a cliff, then the only reason to introduce a cliff as part of a scene frame is if _the challenge is large enough and the stakes of failure are high enough that the challenge should be mechanically resolved in play. _

It's not that level 20 PCs never encounter cliffs less challenging than the Cliffs of Insanity (tm). It's that cliffs that AREN'T the Cliffs of Insanity (tm) _don't need to be resolved mechanically, because they're absolutely not important to the momentum of the narrative. _You handwave those suckers and be done with it. In fact, if you want to apply some "fail forward" techniques to it, or want to make it more interesting, you tell the players, "You absolutely won't fail this climb, but depending on your level of success, it might introduce some complications." 

I do this ALL THE TIME with my group, and Savage Worlds makes it easy to do with its gradated levels of success (standard / raise). 

If you ascribe to narrative- and scene-frame based playstyle, if you're still forcing level 20 PCs to make Climb checks every time they run across a piddly 40-foot cliff, as a GM you're doing it wrong.


----------



## Umbran

BryonD said:


> I was asserting that the height of the cliff would be based on the level of the PCs, exactly as you described here.   We could argue wording all day, but I was asserting what you said here.
> You have advocated here the EXACT thing that I was bothered by.




Yeah, you know, I find this a tad disingenuous.  GMs have been choosing the level of challenges by character level since the game was first published - even Basic D&D modules had recommended levels on them!  The game rules dictate that the level of risk presented by the cliff is going to be determined largely by its height (the basic stakes being falling damage, which is height dependent).  Choosing a 20 foot cliff for 1st level characters, and a 160 foot cliff for higher level characters is no different than choosing "The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" or "Queen of the Demonweb Pits" depending on what level the characters are.  This bothers you?

As has been mentioned, nobody has suggested that, in the same instance of play, different characters will see the cliff to be different heights, or that the cliff, once encountered in play, will grow over time to remain the same challenge as the character goes up in level.


----------



## BryonD

Umbran said:


> Yeah, you know, I find this a tad disingenuous.  GMs have been choosing the level of challenges by character level since the game was first published - even Basic D&D modules had recommended levels on them!  The game rules dictate that the level of risk presented by the cliff is going to be determined largely by its height (the basic stakes being falling damage, which is height dependent).  Choosing a 20 foot cliff for 1st level characters, and a 160 foot cliff for higher level characters is no different than choosing "The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" or "Queen of the Demonweb Pits" depending on what level the characters are.  This bothers you?
> 
> As has been mentioned, nobody has suggested that, in the same instance of play, different characters will see the cliff to be different heights, or that the cliff, once encountered in play, will grow over time to remain the same challenge as the character goes up in level.




I'm not looking to rehash the battle.  I'm simply pointing out that this is a perfect example of what I was talking about at the time.


----------



## grendel111111

Balesir said:


> On the distinction about "fail forward" meaning different things in different playing (or, I think more to the point, GMing) styles, I think you have a good point. "Fail forward" may very well be a cluster of techniques, some of which are useful for any given style. On the other hand, I am pretty sceptical about any "purist" approach to pre-authoring. I think most likely every GM has _some_ things s/he authors on the fly - NPC intentions regarding the characters and dispositions being particularly common ones; details of the "small furnishings" in a room being another. I think it's more a matter of degrees than pure approaches.
> 
> I think a useful question as regards pre-authoring might be "what things are most usefully pre-authored, and what things are better authored in response to game situations as they develop?", rather than "what type of authoring is best*, pre-authoring or authoring-in-the-moment?"
> 
> (*: or even "do you prefer").




I agree with both of these statements, about fail forward being a cluster of ideas (and some being better for some styles than others), and that pre-authoring is a continuum.
I have a very strong preference for pre-authoring when I am a player (not so much when I am a DM).
Every game has a level of "non-pre-authoring" in terms of unexpected things happen. 
Where I diverge from fail forward (and this may be just because of my love of math and probability and how it interacts, and how I view it in the game, etc.)  is that I dislike the tying of abstract thing to characters abilities.

In the example of the mace here is the way I see it playing out.
The DM does not know if the mace in the tower. With the fail forward example they will find it if it is there, and if it isn't there they will find the alternative path. So the difference between the 2 is not "did they search good enough" but is the thing they are looking for there.

My preference is (if you need to decide and the DM can't) just roll a die not tied to a skill (50/50).

One response to this was "we are tying it to "failure" not to the skill" but mathematically that is utter rubbish. You might mean that you don't care if it's tied to the skill, but it is easy to show that it is inversely proportional to your skill.
Skill will succeed on (p) so chance of failure is (1-p) so chance of mace not being there is (1-p)
As p goes up the chance of the mace being there goes down.

As soon as a DM says to me "If you pass the roll you will find the mace, but if you fail the mace is not here and I will give you a clue to it's location" the "Schrodingerness" of the situation is staring me straight in the face.

I do not see why tying the location of the mace to your search skill is any better than tying it to just to a random roll. Or just deciding which result would be more interesting and just going with that. (Having a chase here would be fun, lets go with that)

I do understand those who have a strong narrative approach most likely won't have the issue (I am not trying to make them start having the issue), and won't see the issue (because it doesn't come up for them), but it is an issue for some people. However it doesn't stop us from finding good things in fail forward that we can use in our games. I have already found serveral new things and approaches from discussions like this that I have added to my game.


----------



## grendel111111

Umbran said:


> This question is related to a valuable precept of GMing and adventure design:  Don't stipulate details before you have to.
> 
> For those who are so worried about the dreaded "DM's Pre-Written Story" one utility of this is obvious - the players cannot be following a predetermined story if we don't actually pre-write the story!  On the other hand, if I pre-write that, to get the pudding, they need the Rod of Pudding Detection (found in the ancient cave lair of the hermit-wizard Jell'O), and the Mace is in the River and they need that to beat the Abominable Sno-Cone Man guarding the dessert on the top of Mount Pudding... that's starting to look like a pre-written story - locations to visit in turn, with McGuffins required to reach the stated goal.




It is a "valuable precept of GMing and adventure design" in some gaming approaches, it is not however universally true.

I personally like a well designed, pre-authored, detailed world.

It's not the only games I play in but it is a style I enjoy.

People who are worried about "the dreaded "DM's Pre-Written Story"" may be going it because they like that style of play and want to see what they can add from failing forward with out losing the style they like.


----------



## Nagol

grendel111111 said:


> I agree with both of these statements, about fail forward being a cluster of ideas (and some being better for some styles than others), and that pre-authoring is a continuum.
> I have a very strong preference for pre-authoring when I am a player (not so much when I am a DM).
> Every game has a level of "non-pre-authoring" in terms of unexpected things happen.
> Where I diverge from fail forward (and this may be just because of my love of math and probability and how it interacts, and how I view it in the game, etc.)  is that I dislike the tying of abstract thing to characters abilities.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> One response to this was "we are tying it to "failure" not to the skill" but mathematically that is utter rubbish. You might mean that you don't care if it's tied to the skill, but it is easy to show that it is inversely proportional to your skill.
> 
> <snip>




Urm, no it is not.  You can fail without rolling a die regardless of skill level.  Heck, the group can fail whilst only rolling successes!


----------



## Umbran

BryonD said:


> I'm not looking to rehash the battle.  I'm simply pointing out that this is a perfect example of what I was talking about at the time.




Then, I suspect that you were given a hard time because it really isn't specific to 4e (for reasons I noted, among others), and thus calling out as a 4e thing is illogical and not even-handed.  Coupled with your stated dislike, it would likely have come across as unreasonable edition warring.


----------



## grendel111111

Nagol said:


> Urm, no it is not.  You can fail without rolling a die regardless of skill level.  Heck, the group can fail whilst only rolling successes!




Yes I can see both of those. I am referring (and it seems I didn't make it clear) to examples such as the "mace of Schrodinger" where a skill roll is made and the result is that the location of the mace is determined at that point. Or a lock pick roll fails so it starts raining.
Other examples I have no problem with (And it mainly becomes a problem when the DM "explains" it before making the roll. (If you make the roll you will get through the door, but if you fail you get through the door, but it is raining and your equipment is now wet.)


----------



## pemerton

grendel111111 said:


> In the example of the mace here is the way I see it playing out.
> The DM does not know if the mace in the tower. With the fail forward example they will find it if it is there, and if it isn't there they will find the alternative path. So the difference between the 2 is not "did they search good enough" but is the thing they are looking for there.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> As soon as a DM says to me "If you pass the roll you will find the mace, but if you fail the mace is not here and I will give you a clue to it's location" the "Schrodingerness" of the situation is staring me straight in the face.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I do not see why tying the location of the mace to your search skill is any better than tying it to just to a random roll. Or just deciding which result would be more interesting and just going with that.



I just wanted to note that this is not a discussion of the actual play example that I posted upthread, but of some hypothetical example.

In the actual play example, the failed Scavenging check did not produce a clue to the mace's location, nor any "alternative path". It led to the discovery of an undesired thing (namely, black arrows which constituted evidence that the PC mage's brother was evil _before_ being possessed by a balrog).

The reason for tying these results to skill checks is that the player, by investing resources in the skill check (PC build, bonuses at the time, etc), can increase the chances of getting what s/he (and his/her PC) wants and avoiding what is not wanted.


----------



## Neonchameleon

innerdude said:


> *Edit -- I just read @_*pemerton*_'s follow-up reply, and now I'm wondering --- is "fail forward" inherently antithetical to process sim? Is there any "coherent" way the two can reasonably co-exist?




I've never seen a description of process-sim RPGs that didn't make me think "This person actually wants the sort of play lampooned in Order of the Stick" where the entire physics and social model for the world is thin enough to slip into a hardback book. 



Umbran said:


> This question is related to a valuable precept of GMing and adventure design: Don't stipulate details before you have to.
> 
> For those who are so worried about the dreaded "DM's Pre-Written Story" one utility of this is obvious - the players cannot be following a predetermined story if we don't actually pre-write the story! On the other hand, if I pre-write that, to get the pudding, they need the Rod of Pudding Detection (found in the ancient cave lair of the hermit-wizard Jell'O), and the Mace is in the River and they need that to beat the Abominable Sno-Cone Man guarding the dessert on the top of Mount Pudding... that's starting to look like a pre-written story - locations to visit in turn, with McGuffins required to reach the stated goal.




On the other hand Pathfinder's adventure paths seem to do the opposite of this, and they sell extremely well.



innerdude said:


> Based on your criteria, the problem that 3.x and Pathfinder have (I can't really comment on 5e, having never played it) is that they're not attempting to emulate a genre, or provide a specific "experience" with mechanics that support a particular style, they're simply trying to replicate "D&D as its own genre." There's no real thought to whether "D&D as genre" is ITSELF coherent or particularly workable, but that's ultimately beside the point as far as the rules are concerned.




5e's design notes were about "uniting the editions" - which is almost explicitly setting out to replicate D&D as its own genre. And this IME is what it tries to do. (It fails miserably at that as far as I'm concerned because my favourite two editions are 4e and the Rules Cyclopaedia, which are editions that set out to do what they intended to, but even 2e isn't using rules to replicate a style).



> I'm still a bit baffled why FC didn't become more popular among the "I don't really like 3.x, but don't want to move to 4e" crowd.




Too much crunch was a big part of it I think - and too little marketing.



> @_*pemerton*_ I discussed in a thread a few months ago comparing 4e's and Savage Worlds' approaches to character fictional positioning. One of the commonalities was that both 4e and Savage Worlds assume broad levels of character competency. And I think this adds a strong supporting dimension for a system that wants to support "fail forward."
> ...
> Burning Wheel, interestingly, seems to take an opposite approach --- your characters are broadly _not competent_, but are expected to attempt to do things in which they are not competent because they are compelled to by their beliefs and instincts. In this case, I think "fail forward" is a downright necessary component.




Very interesting thoughts, thank you  I've been playing PBTA games recently (far simpler than Burning Wheel) - and Fail Forward is so baked into those rules it doesn't need calling out at all.



BryonD said:


> I was asserting that the height of the cliff would be based on the level of the PCs, exactly as you described here. We could argue wording all day, but I was asserting what you said here.




You were putting the cart before horse. You wouldn't send first level PCs to 200 foot cliff land any more than you'd send them to the Demonweb Pits or to the lairs of elder dragons.



BryonD said:


> I'm not looking to rehash the battle. I'm simply pointing out that this is a perfect example of what I was talking about at the time.




That 4e has (a) a level system _just like every other version of D&D_ and that you no more pitch 2000 foot cliffs at first level PCs than you pitch elder dragons at them and (b) in 4e if there is a cliff, due to the more kinaesthetic action the odds are greater that someone is going over it?

So if you're saying you're bothered by a level and CR system you should just give up on D&D entirely. If you're bothered that in 4e terrain matters more, I suppose reducing terrain to background colour can be some peoples' thing.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> The reason for tying these results to skill checks is that the player, by investing resources in the skill check (PC build, bonuses at the time, etc), can increase the chances of getting what s/he (and his/her PC) wants and avoiding what is not wanted.




I find that players will invest those resources anyway, because they want to be good at those skills and increase their chances of success at what the skills really do.  I think story should be left as story and skills left as skills.  Mixing them causes disconnects for a lot of people.


----------



## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> This question is related to a valuable precept of GMing and adventure design:  Don't stipulate details before you have to.
> 
> For those who are so worried about the dreaded "DM's Pre-Written Story" one utility of this is obvious - the players cannot be following a predetermined story if we don't actually pre-write the story!  On the other hand, if I pre-write that, to get the pudding, they need the Rod of Pudding Detection (found in the ancient cave lair of the hermit-wizard Jell'O), and the Mace is in the River and they need that to beat the Abominable Sno-Cone Man guarding the dessert on the top of Mount Pudding... that's starting to look like a pre-written story - locations to visit in turn, with McGuffins required to reach the stated goal.




The way I do things is to pre-write some of the story, but not all of it.  I will create major events and the players will encounter those.  Often, those major events will be things like they need the Rod of Pudding Detection found in Jell'O's cave.  Do they actually NEED that rod?  No.  The rod is just the way I have provided to get to what they desire and is usually the easiest way to get there.  If the PC's come up with a creative way to find the pudding, their method might just work.  Usually it will be more difficult than if they got the rod, but not always.  Sometimes what they come up with makes it easier or even successful without a roll.


----------



## BryonD

Neonchameleon said:


> You were putting the cart before horse. You wouldn't send first level PCs to 200 foot cliff land any more than you'd send them to the Demonweb Pits or to the lairs of elder dragons.
> 
> That 4e has (a) a level system _just like every other version of D&D_ and that you no more pitch 2000 foot cliffs at first level PCs than you pitch elder dragons at them and (b) in 4e if there is a cliff, due to the more kinaesthetic action the odds are greater that someone is going over it?
> 
> So if you're saying you're bothered by a level and CR system you should just give up on D&D entirely. If you're bothered that in 4e terrain matters more, I suppose reducing terrain to background colour can be some peoples' thing.




You are "winning" a battle that is not being fought.  All I'm saying is that *IS* an example of what I claimed and was told I was wrong for claiming.

The deeper issues with the distinctions of 4E's approach have been debated to death (somewhat literally).  The concept of "CR" and EL are part of 3E and PF.  Obviously I'm not arguing the idea.
But there is a lot more to the old debates.

And, just for the record, I wouldn't hesitate to put 1st level characters on a 200 ft cliff.  They would be fighting giants, but if a kobold pushed them off or they would die.  There also might be giants there and if they picked a fight with them, they would die.

I expose PCs to things they can't beat with swords or absorb with sufficient HP all the time.  Lots of fun is had.


----------



## BryonD

Umbran said:


> Then, I suspect that you were given a hard time because it really isn't specific to 4e (for reasons I noted, among others), and thus calling out as a 4e thing is illogical and not even-handed.  Coupled with your stated dislike, it would likely have come across as unreasonable edition warring.




OK, We disagree.


----------



## Neonchameleon

BryonD said:


> You are "winning" a battle that is not being fought. All I'm saying is that *IS* an example of what I claimed and was told I was wrong for claiming.




And what's being pointed out is that there are two ways to read your claim. Either you've completely misunderstood 4e or you detest the way D&D has done things back to the days of Gygax and Arneson. (Or there's option C - that you are making a strawman).



> I expose PCs to things they can't beat with swords or absorb with sufficient HP all the time. Lots of fun is had.




Indeed. This is true in 4E as well. The point is that you wouldn't expect them to _fight_ such things. (And that pushes are far, far more common in 4e than in other editions).


----------



## BryonD

Neonchameleon said:


> And what's being pointed out is that there are two ways to read your claim. Either you've completely misunderstood 4e or you detest the way D&D has done things back to the days of Gygax and Arneson. (Or there's option C - that you are making a strawman).



Or option D, which has been discussed and ignored forever.
I get accused of "edition warring" and baited with false arguments which can only be rebutted by rehashing edition wars.

You are missing the point.  This was true for a lot of people throughout the 4E era and claims that opposition was simply ignorance and "hate" didn't go well for the proponents.

So be it.



> Indeed. This is true in 4E as well. The point is that you wouldn't expect them to _fight_ such things. (And that pushes are far, far more common in 4e than in other editions).




You said "You were putting the cart before horse. You wouldn't send first level PCs to 200 foot cliff land any more than you'd send them to the Demonweb Pits or to the lairs of elder dragons."

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?473785-Failing-Forward/page56#ixzz3xKZMYd30
Now you are saying that you WOULD send them there.

I honestly believe you WOULD.  But it isn't my fault you said otherwise.   The mechanics of 4E are built to favor the pure balance side and, IMO, in your obsessive tunnel vision to defend the 4E mechanical construct you vastly misrepresented yourself.  But you are the one who did that.


----------



## Imaro

I'm getting a little confused by this side tangent... is the claim that scaling DC's have always been in D&D (which are not the same thing as EL or CR)??  Because that seems to be what @_*BryonD*_ is talking about... I might be mis-remembering and I certainly haven't played every edition of D&D but for the ones I have played (outside of 4th) I don't remember this being the case...

Now advice along the lines of matching challenge to your PC's (which could vary vastly depending upon the skill level of players, rules used, etc ) was definitely a thing but a system set up with hard and fast numbers for actual scaling of non-combat challenges is not something I remember.  But @_*Umbran*_ and @_*Neonchameleon*_ I admit I could be mistaken... were these present in other editions?  And if so why was pg. 42 lauded as so innovative and great by 4e fans if that type of system has always been a part of D&D?


----------



## Neonchameleon

BryonD said:


> Or option D, which has been discussed and ignored forever.
> I get accused of "edition warring" and baited with false arguments which can only be rebutted by rehashing edition wars.




Let me recap the course of events.

You decided to explicitly threadjack this thread. You decided to make this thread that had nothing to do with editions into an attack on an edition. You turned this thread into an edition war and are shocked, shocked that you get accused of edition warring. Not only could you not let something go within the thread (something I've been guilty of), you couldn't even leave another thread alone but instead had to embroil it in the edition wars.

You then not only decided to drag in a gratuitous slam on an edition, you made it a slam based on your own misunderstandings. Compounding dragging the edition war in with dragging standard anti-4e misrepresentations in. 

If you genuinely don't want to be accused of edition warring forget you have ever heard of 4e. It's obvious you don't like it - and don't want to let other people do so. 



> You are missing the point. This was true for a lot of people throughout the 4E era and claims that opposition was simply ignorance and "hate" didn't go well for the proponents.




You were using your edition warring threadjack to present a standard edition warrior's PRATT. And it was based on ignorance. 



> You said "You were putting the cart before horse. You wouldn't send first level PCs to 200 foot cliff land any more than you'd send them to the Demonweb Pits or to the lairs of elder dragons."
> 
> Now you are saying that you WOULD send them there.




No. I'm saying that "I'd expose the PCs to things they couldn't beat with swords". I wouldn't send them to 200ft cliff land. But I would have them deal with active things they wouldn't kill.

With a 200ft cliff and 1st level PCs you have two basic possibilities - falling (instagib territory) and not (little damage). And you might lose stuff as a side effect. This is not terribly interesting - the cliff can barely be interacted with at all.

Things that can't be fought on the other hand that are sentient _can_ frequently be negotiated with, tricked, hidden from, or even allied with. Which means they can produce much more interesting situations and taking swords off the table encourages the more interesting situations.



> I honestly believe you WOULD. But it isn't my fault you said otherwise.




It is however your fault that you equate "things they can't beat with swords" to 200ft cliffs and thereby create a strawman.



> The mechanics of 4E are built to favor the pure balance side




You're confusing mechanics with guidance. The mechanics of e.g. jump checks is almost exactly the same as that of 3.X. The world is objective and there is nothing saying the GM _must_ follow the encounter balancing rules. Merely that that's where things normally work the best.



> and, IMO, in your obsessive tunnel vision to defend the 4E mechanical construct you vastly misrepresented yourself. But you are the one who did that.




You have demonstrably vastly misrepresented me, and demonstrated that if there is tunnel vision about 4e on this thread it isn't mine.

But this long after the launch of 4e refuting the same old misrepresentations gets tiresome.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Imaro said:


> I'm getting a little confused by this side tangent... is the claim that scaling DC's have always been in D&D (which are not the same thing as EL or CR)??  Because that seems to be what @_*BryonD*_ is talking about... I might be mis-remembering and I certainly haven't played every edition of D&D but for the ones I have played (outside of 4th) I don't remember this being the case...
> 
> Now advice along the lines of matching challenge to your PC's (which could vary vastly depending upon the skill level of players, rules used, etc ) was definitely a thing but a system set up with hard and fast numbers for actual scaling of non-combat challenges is not something I remember.  But @_*Umbran*_ and @_*Neonchameleon*_ I admit I could be mistaken... were these present in other editions?  And if so why was pg. 42 lauded as so innovative and great by 4e fans if that type of system has always been a part of D&D?




There are nowhere near as many hardcoded DCs in 4e as there are in 3.X - but that's because 3.X is at the extreme end of the scale (second only to GURPS IME). There are however a fair number of them. It's the same DC to jump the same hole, no matter what level the PCs are.

What skill challenges and page 42 both are is a useful Improv tool. When the PCs come up with something off the wall that you hadn't previously predicted page 42 will give you a number that will feel about right so you can get back to the business of running the game. I don't want to have to work out how hot this mix of saltpeter and oil actually burns or to have a trivial 1d6/round damage. I want a number that feels that it fits with the rest of the world and then to get back to running the game.

And when the PCs come up with a Patented PC Plan (of the sort that normally ends in fire and screaming) a skill challente will let you handle the mechanics of the entire plan using "Three strikes and you're out" as a rule of thumb, the PCs trying to hold their off the wall plan together, and the whole thing playing at a decent pace and with enough difficulty that they will have to work to succeed but probably can do so if they haven't overreached.  Skill Challenges used on the fly are an excellent improv tool. (Skill challenges written down in a module are generally the equivalent of trying to fit someone else's improv dialogue into your improv).


----------



## Imaro

Neonchameleon said:


> There are nowhere near as many hardcoded DCs in 4e as there are in 3.X - but that's because 3.X is at the extreme end of the scale (second only to GURPS IME). There are however a fair number of them. It's the same DC to jump the same hole, no matter what level the PCs are.
> 
> What skill challenges and page 42 both are is a useful Improv tool. When the PCs come up with something off the wall that you hadn't previously predicted page 42 will give you a number that will feel about right so you can get back to the business of running the game. I don't want to have to work out how hot this mix of saltpeter and oil actually burns or to have a trivial 1d6/round damage. I want a number that feels that it fits with the rest of the world and then to get back to running the game.
> 
> And when the PCs come up with a Patented PC Plan (of the sort that normally ends in fire and screaming) a skill challente will let you handle the mechanics of the entire plan using "Three strikes and you're out" as a rule of thumb, the PCs trying to hold their off the wall plan together, and the whole thing playing at a decent pace and with enough difficulty that they will have to work to succeed but probably can do so if they haven't overreached.  Skill Challenges used on the fly are an excellent improv tool. (Skill challenges written down in a module are generally the equivalent of trying to fit someone else's improv dialogue into your improv).




You didn't answer my question...  I didn't ask what pg. 42 or what SC's were (which by RAW use scaling DC's and were very much not presented as just improv tools but as a framework to run extended/complicated social and exploration encounters, irregardless of whether one was improvising or not). I asked if every edition (not just 3.x) of D&D uses scaling DC's (Which also encompasses SC's) which seemed to be what you were stating earlier in the thread.  If not then 4e is different in it's approach.


----------



## Umbran

Imaro said:


> Now advice along the lines of matching challenge to your PC's (which could vary vastly depending upon the skill level of players, rules used, etc ) was definitely a thing but a system set up with hard and fast numbers for actual scaling of non-combat challenges is not something I remember.




The line of discussion I was engaged in was based, specifically on: 



			
				pemerton said:
			
		

> Within this 4e context, it is reasonable for 1st level PCs to fight goblins on the edge of a 20' cliff - though the GM should be factoring this into his/her overall intentions around the deadliness of the encounter - but it is probably not reasonable for the PCs to fight goblins on the edge of a 200' cliff, where any fall will almost certainly be deadly for a 1st level PC.




Repetition of the word "fight" makes it seem like a combat encounter thing to me. 

But, if you want to talk about the approach to on-combat stuff....

Now, certainly, past editions didn't have hard and fast numbers for scaling of non-combat challenges - but that's a bit misleading, because "challenges" were not a thing until 3e.  Non-combat skills, as we think of them today, didn't exist in 1e.  Design philosophy of how to present a given type of challenge was not consistent - sometimes there'd be a saving throw, sometimes an ability check, sometimes a mechanic created specifically for that obstacle.  Without a hard-and-fast mechanical design, you can't give solid guidelines on the use of mechanics, now can you?  There were *overall* fewer recommendations on what to put in front of your players.  Some will call that a feature, others call it a lack of understanding of good design principles present in the time.  

So, saying "their approach was different" based on presence or absence of specific mechanics is not telling.  The real question is, did earlier games scale challenges to the level of the PCs, whatever the specific mechanical implementation might be?  Say you scaled down or removed the combat elements of an early published adventure designed for 15th level characters - could a 1st level character get through?  I think the general answer is no, they couldn't.  The lock that the 15th level thief as intended to pick couldn't be managed by a 1st level thief.  The poison trap intended for a high-level character would impose a major negative modifier on the saving throw, and would have impacts such that it would stop low level character in their tracks, and so on.   Whether or not the books explicitly gave you guidelines, the *intent* that things should get tougher as you went up in levels was clearly present.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> is the claim that scaling DC's have always been in D&D



This was discussed at great length in the Why does 5e SUCK? thread, which you posted in.

AD&D has very few DCs - you could treat location/detection checks in that way if you want, and loyalty/reaction checks - but they are mostly level-independent. Thief skill and saving throw chances of success increase with level. The closest thing I can think of to 4e-style level scaling is the use of magic item and DEX bonuses to give the drow in the D-series ACs that are actually a challenge to high-level PCs. (The fact that the drow items auto-disintegrate is an additional marker that their game function is not to be magic item treasure, but rather to make the ACs of the enemies meaningful.)

3E has DCs, but the scaling rules for skill DCs are based on in-fiction descriptors ("very well made lock", "steep cliff with overhangs", etc) rather than correlated with level. Save DCs are more obviously level-correlated.

4e gives tables that explicitly correlate DCs to levels, which - as was discussed at length in that thread - some GMs find makes life easier when it comes to adventure and encounter design in a system where _PC_ capabilities scale extensively. (The trigger for the whole discussion was the comment by one poster that the lack of such advice or tables in 5e is a reason why it "sucks", as that lack makes it harder for the GM to assign DCs in a manner that will generate desired success rates - the more profitable outcome of that post was some discussion of the way in which "bounded accuracy" works and the extent to which it succeeds in making the issue a non-issue.)

Some posters in the thread asserted that level-scaling in 4e means that the DC for _the very same ingame phenomenon_ may vary based on level, but I have never actually heard of a 4e GM running the game that way, and nothing in the rulebooks suggests that the game is intended to be run that way.

Here is a re-post of post 1261 in that thread:



pemerton said:


> BryonD said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm thrilled that you have come around.
> Again, back when 4E was in print you, and Hussar, and many other highly PRAISED this innovation of mathematically purity and were highly critical of me and others for promoting the approach you have described here.
> 
> You described in detail how it was the duty of the DM to always make sure that the SAME WALL was harder to climb if and when the party came back later, the lock would always be better, etc, etc.  You made it clear that this applied to anything and everything.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] can speak for himself, but as far as I'm concerned this is absolute nonsense. Of course you have no quotes, because I never said it.
> 
> It is possible that I said that, if the PCs return to the same lock or wall having gained levels then it would be more interesting for the game if the DC was higher, but that change in DC would not be divorced from the fiction - you make the wall harder to climb by narrating bad weather; you make the lock harder to pick by narrating bad lighting; etc. It's obvious that DCs and fiction correlate. (Though there can be looseness of fit - I have a lengthy post not very far upthread discussing this with [MENTION=29013]bert1000[/MENTION].)
> 
> To relink to a thread I've already linked to upthreadWhat do you think I was doing three years ago when the paragon characters in my game encountered (and defeated) a hobgoblin phalanx? I was changing the fiction so as to support the assignment of DCs in a way that would generate a mechanically, and hence narratively, satisfying experience (the "hence" is the result of the fact that 4e's mechanics are aimed at ensuring dramatically pleasing pacing when used in accordance with the DMG guidelines).
> 
> The "level-appropriate" hobgobling being a single soldier at 5th level, and being a phalanx at 15th level, is precisely an instance of the fiction changing as the DCs change.
> 
> 
> 
> BryonD said:
> 
> 
> 
> I've been told on these boards (sometimes by the very same people) as well as in meatspace that the sliding DCs tied to PC level (and the entirety of "the math works") was a revolutionary breakthrough that made 3E a backwards, obsolete system.
> But, abracadabra, now its just a matter of perspective.
> 
> I'm glad to hear from 4E fans that reverting to 3E style turns out to not be going backwards.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I feel that your tendency to frame every discussion as a contest, or as a point for vindication in respect of some past slight, is not helping clear analysis.
> 
> In this particular case, you seem to be confusing two completely different things: fiction whose mechanical specification is only loosely pinned down prior to the PCs encountering it, which then enable the GM to set the DCs at something level-appropriate (drawing upon the system's support for doing so); and fiction which remains constant from the ingame perspective yet changes its mechanical DC. The second thing is the thing that all the 4e posters in this thread are agreed is nonsensical.
> 
> Thus, when people talk about "sliding DCs" being something helpful, they are talking about things from the point of view of GMing, just as [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] did some hundreds of posts upthread when he triggered this discussion about DCs.
> 
> The point is that if I, as a GM, want to introduce an element into the shared fiction that will be a challenge for the PCs my players are playing (and hence a challenge for my players), it is useful for the system (i) to tell me what to set the DC at, and (ii) to be robust and reliable enough that what the system tells me is probably true.
> 
> 4e satisfies (i) in the ways I've described in this post: it has a DC-by-level chart, a list of monsters and traps/hazards arranged by level, etc. It mostly satisfies (ii), although there are some break points (eg the Sage of Ages, which gets a +6 to all knowledge skills, definitely pushes the system limits - as I've learned from experience).
> 
> This is what is meant by _the maths works_. It has nothing at all to do with _the very same lock, in the very same circumstances_, having a different DC depending on the level the PCs happen to be. It has nothing to do with whether or not _the ingame "reality"_ is mutable in the face of the PCs.
> 
> Of course, if you think of the ingame "reality" as already being authored prior to any particular player turning up to the table with any particular PC, then you might think that the only way to implement level-appropriate DCs is to make the reality mutable. But that is not the only way to approach the GMing task - which takes us back to [MENTION=29013]bert1000[/MENTION]'s sand-box/scene-framing contrast.
> 
> I'm sure there are some 3E/PF GMs out there somewhere who have run scene-framing 3E/PF, though I don't think the system is very well suited to it in part because it mostly lacks (i), and where it does have (i)  - eg the CR system - it tends to rather weak on (ii).
> 
> Burning Wheel uses scene-framing although it lacks (i) also (and hence (ii) doesn't even come into play), but BW has many other mechanical devices to support scene-framing play within the context of "objective" DCs that 3E, and prior versions of D&D, lack.
> 
> You (BryonD) to the best of my knowledge do not make actual play posts, and so my sense of how you run your game is primarily conjecture based on more general comments you make about techniques, systems etc. I nevertheless believe that my sense of how you run your game is relatively accurate. I think you use a relatively high degree of GM control over the introduction of elements into the shared fiction (eg relatively little contribution of such material from the players, either via PC-build or via action resolution) and that you use a relatively high degree of GM control over the general direction of the game (eg in general my sense is that it is you, not the players, who decides who the "BBEG" will be - and this is fairly closely linked to the issue of content-introduction). I also think that you use a fair bit of GM control over action resolution, especially outside combat, in order to keep the game moving.
> 
> I would summarise the above as the sort of play emphasised and encouraged by the 2nd ed AD&D core rulebooks.
> 
> It is completely undisputed that 4e is not a system aimed at that sort of play - it encourages greater player authority over both content-introduction, over PC goals and (via transparent mecanics) over the outcome of action resolution. It favours scene-framing over "plot arcs". It works best when the fiction with which the players are not directly engaged, via their PCs, is treated in a rather loose way without being mechanically pinned down (as [MENTION=20998]tyrlaan[/MENTION] described not far upthread). In some posts from early 2011 I described this a "just in time" GMing. (You were quoted in these posts, so may have read them already.)
> 
> Not pinning down the mechanics of the fiction until the players engage with it via their PCs has nothing in common with your posited "the DC changes to level _with no corresponding change in fiction_, however. What it does mean is a departure from a certain sort of approach to world-building that you would probably not enjoy making.
Click to expand...


Those last few paragraphs actually make some points about GMing techniques and mechanical support for them that are relevant to thinking about how "fail forward"-style games work, and how they differ from games in which the fiction, and its mechanical expression, is all pre-authored by the GM.



Imaro said:


> advice along the lines of matching challenge to your PC's (which could vary vastly depending upon the skill level of players, rules used, etc ) was definitely a thing but a system set up with hard and fast numbers for actual scaling of non-combat challenges is not something I remember.



See above for the discussion of out-of-combat. Within combat scaling of opponents was mostly in terms of hit points able to be taken, hit points of damage delivered, and magical effects that could be inflicted. As the D-series shows, though, Gygax was aware that scaling ACs was an important tool that could raise some tricky issues. (3E didn't really solve this problem for NPCs, who are notorious for dropping too much magical loot because it is necessary to get there numbers into some sort of balance, but doesn't disintegrate like Gygax's drow loot. For non-NPCs it invented the "natural armour class" bonus, something completely spurious in my view and ungrounded in any robust fictional sense - eg what does it mean to say that a great red dragon has "natural armour" granting a bonus more than twice as good as is provided by the very best magical plate armour?)



Maxperson said:


> I think story should be left as story and skills left as skills.  Mixing them causes disconnects for a lot of people.



I don't think I understand this point. "Story" in an RPG is primarily a series of events resulting from the resolution of players' action declarations for their PCs. And those action declarations are resolved via checks.



Maxperson said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The reason for tying these results to skill checks is that the player, by investing resources in the skill check (PC build, bonuses at the time, etc), can increase the chances of getting what s/he (and his/her PC) wants and avoiding what is not wanted.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I find that players will invest those resources anyway, because they want to be good at those skills and increase their chances of success at what the skills really do.
Click to expand...


In my experience, if investing resources in succeeding at checks has little or no effect on the direction of the "story" - ie does not tend to increase the likelihood of the player (and his/her PC) getting what s/he wants, then the players get frustrated.

This has certainly been my experience in campaigns and gaming groups where heavy GM control, typically taking the form of imposing a pre-written plot, is the norm. In D&D a particular form that this takes is building PCs who very heavily emphasise combat capability, because even the most railroad-y D&D GMs tend to use the combat resolution rules, which means that building combat capable PCs is one way building PCs who will be able to shape the campaign (admittedly in a rather limited sort of way ie by killing things) via deployment of the action resolution mechanics.


----------



## pemerton

Neonchameleon said:


> I've never seen a description of process-sim RPGs that didn't make me think "This person actually wants the sort of play lampooned in Order of the Stick" where the entire physics and social model for the world is thin enough to slip into a hardback book.



I think that's a little harsh. I've GMed a _lot_ of Rolemaster, and have more than passing experience with RQ and its cousins (Stormbringer etc) and Classic Traveller.

These systems have their challenges, as I'm the first to admit, but also their elegant beauty. (Especially RQ.) They're not _intended_ to be OOtS-style lampoons, and I think at their best are not. (I've seen many argue for OOtS-lampoon-style 3E, especially when it comes to hit points, but the classic process-sim games avoid many of the mechanical elements, especially D&D-style level-based scaling, that underpin the OOtS's jokes.)



Neonchameleon said:


> I've been playing PBTA games recently (far simpler than Burning Wheel) - and Fail Forward is so baked into those rules it doesn't need calling out at all.



BW is in many respects quite baroque, although - like 4e - its core engine is quite simple.

I think Dan Davenport got BW right in the tagline to his RPG.net review of it:

If you've ever wanted to combine the powerful emotions and epic grandeur of Lord of the Rings with the brutally detailed combat of RuneQuest, then boy, do I have the game for you!​
He closes the review with a similar remark:

If you want Tolkien-style fantasy with hyper-detailed combat that emulates the implied brutality at Helm’s Deep while leaving room for individual heroes to survive and excel, you really can’t do better.​
I'd add that I also think it's not bad for swords-and-sorcery. It can model practically every ripple of your barbarian's might thews, while preserving the aggressive protagonism that is at the heart of REH's Conan stories.


----------



## pemerton

Umbran said:


> This question is related to a valuable precept of GMing and adventure design:  Don't stipulate details before you have to.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> if I pre-write that, to get the pudding, they need the Rod of Pudding Detection (found in the ancient cave lair of the hermit-wizard Jell'O), and the Mace is in the River and they need that to beat the Abominable Sno-Cone Man guarding the dessert on the top of Mount Pudding... that's starting to look like a pre-written story - locations to visit in turn, with McGuffins required to reach the stated goal.





Neonchameleon said:


> On the other hand Pathfinder's adventure paths seem to do the opposite of this, and they sell extremely well.



I personally don't feel the attraction of APs, but I agree they seem to be very popular.

There is certainly a widespread view about what being a good GM involves, and what scenario/session-prep looks like, which puts a high premium on pre-writing an adventure (complete with fetch quests, McGuffins, BBEGs, etc as Umbran describes). I happen not to share neither that view, nor the approach it advocates, but I think I'm in a minority of GMs.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Quick question... so 4e sets the stakes for the consequences of a failed climb check, correct?  If so, how does fail forward work here?  If I as a player have read the rules and know that damage is the consequence of a failed check, do you as DM still reserve the right to create additional/other consequences... such as the alerting of the guards?  If so as DM should you let me as a player know about these added consequences or should any and all "reasonable" consequences be expected... or, and this just occurred to me, is this type of thing best established before the game starts... perhaps in pre-discussion around DM/Player responsibility.




 [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] already answered this one but I'm just going to add a bit.

4e's noncombat resolution mechanics have three discrete functions in the game:

1)  To interface coherently with the combat engine to facilitate precise and balanced adjudication of movement within the square-based paradigm.

2)  To facilitate the resolution of player action declarations related to Stunting/Terrain Powers and Countermeasures (within the Trap/Hazard system).  

3)  To facilitate the abstract conflict resolution system of Skill Challenges.

Pulling this kind of triple duty means that the system and its attendant instruction needs to be robust such that the table can pivot/toggle intuitively and somewhat nimbly.  There is disagreement on how well the designers accomplished this.  I think there is room for some "_fair _grumbling" on this in the core books (I would have written them a bit differently or at least I wouldn't have had different people writing different chapters or I would have had a unified editorial influence to confirm the message coheres and is utterly transparent throughout - consider the difference between the 13th Age book with Heinsoo and Tweet.  Further consider how easy writing "every moment of play should be about conflict and action" vs "skip the guards and get to the fun" is.).  However, once we get into the extremely informative and "on-message" Dungeon articles, DMG2, Dark Sun, Neverwinter Campaign Setting, that "fair grumbling" vanishes fairly quickly.

On "fail forward", 3 is where you will find it in 4e.  4e Skills/deployable resources (as inputs to resolution) are extremely broad (by design intent).  PC action declarations are meant to follow suit.  In 3 (Skill Challenges), those inputs are meant to broaden further still (like 13th Age Backgrounds) with the outcomes (outputs to resolution) broadening in lockstep.  If I'm facing several different varying levels of adversity (visual field issues, dealing with incoming artillery, riding horseback in a high-speed chase) concurrent with a primary PC action declaration that is about navigation (Nature), we're going to "say yes" to the PCs handling those secondary issues (unless the GM demands the players make a preemptive Group Check as part of the challenge...which s/he may very well do) and focus on the question of navigation.  If successful, then the PCs get what they want and the fiction moves forward in a way as if they had earned the insurance of a Burning Wheel Instinct (I can't reframe the situation to bring about new adversity based on a navigation gaffe).  If they fail, then my job is to change the situation dynamically (forward unless this is the final failure of the challenge).  I may hone in on the 1st order input of navigation and create a like 1st order complication/cost/hard choice output for the PCs to deal with/endure; missing the trail "turn-off" and being cornered by Schrodinger's Gorge.  Or I may nab a 2nd order complication due to the intensive focus on navigation (yielding an issue with one of the things we're "saying yes" on).  Perhaps they find their way but a horse is lamed due to artillery finding home.  How do they manage to evade the fast-charging pursuit now?

I've written it many times; Skill Challenges fundamentally do not work without deft GMing of the technique of "fail forward" and interesting/dynamic change to the situation on a micro-success.  *Every micro-failure* must be *forward *while every micro-success must come with a new avenue of adversity that interposes itself between the PCs and their macro goal.  This must continue until hard success or hard failure is ultimately cemented (which the system's framework does).  When deft GMing is applied (assuming the players understand their role and the stakes) the abstract conflict resolution system of SCs is robust, coherent, and versatile.  When it is not applied, or it is applied clumsily, things don't go well and the table is frustrated and/or bored.  When it is not, you get a stagnant, unchanging fiction that yields PC action declarations in-kind ("he doesn't believe/like you"..."well then I Bluff/Diplomance MOAR/HARDER!").


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> I personally don't feel the attraction of APs, but I agree they seem to be very popular.




I can see the point, for something like D&D.

In something like FATE, I can "wing it" for a combat encounter with ease - how many levels of stress and consequences?  A couple thematically appropriate Aspects, and I'm probably good to go.  I can throw in a Stunt or two to covver a weird effect the thing can produce, maybe, if I want.  It fits on a 3x5 handwritten index card.  D&D traditionally has so many tactical fiddly bits (the equivalent D&D critter is an 8" tall column of small typeface print) that this approach doesn't work well.  The GM must prepare beforehand.  And that preparation is costly.  It pays to have someone else do it.  And, soon enough, you've got an Adventure Path that provides pre-prepped stuff that will cover *months* of gaming.  For the modern adult player, this can be a godsend.


----------



## Bluenose

Imaro said:


> You didn't answer my question...  I didn't ask what pg. 42 or what SC's were (which by RAW use scaling DC's and were very much not presented as just improv tools but as a framework to run extended/complicated social and exploration encounters, irregardless of whether one was improvising or not). I asked if every edition (not just 3.x) of D&D uses scaling DC's (Which also encompasses SC's) which seemed to be what you were stating earlier in the thread.  If not then 4e is different in it's approach.




The Rules Cyclopedia, which I have immediately to hand, recommends that DMs should modify the percentages on the thief special ability table for actions which are harder than usually (though not, interestingly, for easier ones) and also apply positive or negative modifiers for use of skills (the BECM version of Non-weapon proficiencies). There is a similar rule with regard to NWPs (the DM can apply modifiers) in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. The Holmes Basic set rules do not mention modifiers for thief abilities, and I don't have a 1e PHB readily available to check whether it does (and that might anyway need a DMG). But while it's not conclusive, there's clear evidence that a form of "scaling DC" with modifiers for tasks that would be easier or harder appears quite early in D&D.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Umbran said:


> This question is related to a valuable precept of GMing and adventure design:  Don't stipulate details before you have to.
> 
> For those who are so worried about the dreaded "DM's Pre-Written Story" one utility of this is obvious - the players cannot be following a predetermined story if we don't actually pre-write the story!  On the other hand, if I pre-write that, to get the pudding, they need the Rod of Pudding Detection (found in the ancient cave lair of the hermit-wizard Jell'O), and the Mace is in the River and they need that to beat the Abominable Sno-Cone Man guarding the dessert on the top of Mount Pudding... that's starting to look like a pre-written story - locations to visit in turn, with McGuffins required to reach the stated goal.




You've already stipulated that to get to the pudding they need the rod and the mace. Whether you place them in a specific place or randomly is irrelevant, you've already pre-written the story, just with fewer details. They are still going to visit locations in turn, and, based on the concept that the mace may or may not be where they think it is, they may have to go to another location. 

The only thing you have accomplished is that the DM didn't know where they were going to find them either. Is that a benefit? 

I like the idea of something related to the skill or activity being tied to the check. I'm even OK with the rod falling out on a particularly poor check. You drop the rod instead of fall and die, for example. It could even be, 'you slip and slide down the cliff, with the strap of your pack catching on a protruding rock, suddenly halting your fall. You take 2d6 damage, and the sudden jolt dislodged the rod which bounces off the cliff with a loud clang before disappearing into the dark chasm.'

But whether the mace is there or not is not related to the skill in play at all. It might _seem_ like it's related, but it's not. Either the mace is there, in which case the party finds it or not, or the mace is not there, in which case they don't find it.



Balesir said:


> On the distinction about "fail forward" meaning different things in different playing (or, I think more to the point, GMing) styles, I think you have a good point. "Fail forward" may very well be a cluster of techniques, some of which are useful for any given style. On the other hand, I am pretty sceptical about any "purist" approach to pre-authoring. I think most likely every GM has some things s/he authors on the fly - NPC intentions regarding the characters and dispositions being particularly common ones; details of the "small furnishings" in a room being another. I think it's more a matter of degrees than pure approaches.
> 
> I think a useful question as regards pre-authoring might be "what things are most usefully pre-authored, and what things are better authored in response to game situations as they develop?", rather than "what type of authoring is best*, pre-authoring or authoring-in-the-moment?"
> 
> (*: or even "do you prefer").




Agreed. In a good scenario I think there is a mix of both. In a completely random design, it would be extremely difficult to have a consistent believable world. The framework needs to be there to some degree or another. 



pemerton said:


> Of course, in the fiction, the mace is either there or is not. The relevant question is when that authorship decision is taken.
> 
> In games that deploy "fail forward" in a systematic fashion there is no such thing as a "sideplot". The notion of a "sideplot" only has meaning in the context of there being a principal, non-"side" plot - one that (presumably) has been pre-authored by the GM.
> 
> In the sorts of games that deploy "fail forward" in a systematic fashion, "the plot" is whatever results from adjudicating the players' action declarations for their PCs. If a PC has finding the mace as a goal, and the player declares that the PC searches for it, then the location of the mace has become a central part of "the plot". If the search check succeeds, "the plot" is what the player (and PC) wanted - namely, the PC finds the mace. If the search check fails, then the GM is at liberty to introduce a complicating or vexing "plot" (ie "fail forward) - such as, in this case, the discovery of black arrows in the ruins of the (formerly) private workshop of the (now) balrog-possessed brother.
> 
> Something which I don't think anyone has raised yet is this: if, as a GM, I had no interesting idea about where else the mace might be other than in the ruined tower, it would have been just as reasonable for me to decide that, on the failed Scavenging check, the PCs find the mace _and_ the black arrows. (This would be similar to the example that I mentioned some way ago upthread of the feather the peddler was offering for sale truly being an angel feather, as claimed, but having a curse on it.)
> 
> But I didn't do that because I did have an interesting idea about where else the mace might be, namely, in the hands of the dark elf.
> 
> This is a modest illustration of the general principle that - in "fail forward" play - consequences should be narrated in a way that maintains narrative and dramatic momentum.




Of course there are side plots. Or at least there should be. Unless you are implying that the result of every check always moves them on a shorter or longer path towards their goal. In which case it's a railroad.

Although this is a potential pitfall of this technique as it's being described as a tool to help write the plot. They should run across things that have nothing to do with the current goal. And if they choose to follow that path for a short period of time and come back, it's a side-plot. If they choose to follow that path and not come back, it's the new plot. 

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Imaro

Bluenose said:


> The Rules Cyclopedia, which I have immediately to hand, recommends that DMs should modify the percentages on the thief special ability table for actions which are harder than usually (though not, interestingly, for easier ones) and also apply positive or negative modifiers for use of skills (the BECM version of Non-weapon proficiencies). There is a similar rule with regard to NWPs (the DM can apply modifiers) in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. The Holmes Basic set rules do not mention modifiers for thief abilities, and I don't have a 1e PHB readily available to check whether it does (and that might anyway need a DMG). But while it's not conclusive, there's clear evidence that a form of "scaling DC" with modifiers for tasks that would be easier or harder appears quite early in D&D.




No what you've shown is that D&D has recommended/provided modification of task difficulty based on the in game fiction... not that D&D has always used a certain range of DC's, modifiers, etc. for a particular level or range of levels and the fiction then created to fit said range.  They aren't the same thing and it's why I don't think @_*Umbran*_'s claim about details not being important is valid.  It's like claiming D&D has always had 4e's powers... because in combat you always rolled a d20 and made choices... again it's not the same thing and details, process, etc. are all important.


----------



## Balesir

grendel111111 said:


> Where I diverge from fail forward (and this may be just because of my love of math and probability and how it interacts, and how I view it in the game, etc.)  is that I dislike the tying of abstract thing to characters abilities.
> 
> In the example of the mace here is the way I see it playing out.
> The DM does not know if the mace in the tower. With the fail forward example they will find it if it is there, and if it isn't there they will find the alternative path. So the difference between the 2 is not "did they search good enough" but is the thing they are looking for there.
> 
> My preference is (if you need to decide and the DM can't) just roll a die not tied to a skill (50/50).
> 
> One response to this was "we are tying it to "failure" not to the skill" but mathematically that is utter rubbish. You might mean that you don't care if it's tied to the skill, but it is easy to show that it is inversely proportional to your skill.
> Skill will succeed on (p) so chance of failure is (1-p) so chance of mace not being there is (1-p)
> As p goes up the chance of the mace being there goes down.



Amusingly (to me, at any rate), close acquaintance with probability and stochastic outcomes is a major reason why I see things quite differently in this respect. I'll see if I can illustrate why:

Consider a situation like the "finding the mace" case you cite. Imagine that we have a system akin to that you suggest, with one die roll - on a d10 modified by character skill - determining the thoroughness of the search carried out, and another roll - also on a d10 but unmodified - determining whether or not the mace is present to be found.

Now, consider further that we could devise quite easily a system that is *exactly mathematically equivalent* to the system above, using a single percentile roll.

In this percentile system, the character skill has an influence on the outcome, but - considering where the original system to which our percentile system is exactly equivalent - the chance of the mace being present to be found is clearly not connected to the character's skill level.

In most cases in D&D, skill level is not so overwhelmingly important that it is determinative of success or failure. It has an influence on the outcome, but does not (usually) make it a foregone conclusion. In this circumstance, I see nothing whatever wrong with viewing skill rolls as being analogous to the above "percentile roll". In other words, it judges ("resolves") success or failure at reacing a desired end-point based on a constellation of potential failure modes or reasons. In fact, given the general ways in which feats of skill work in real life, I see this view of skill rolls as far more plausible from a "verisimilitude" point of view than the "you either bungled or you didn't" perspective.



grendel111111 said:


> As soon as a DM says to me "If you pass the roll you will find the mace, but if you fail the mace is not here and I will give you a clue to it's location" the "Schrodingerness" of the situation is staring me straight in the face.



I think you are vastly overstating the sharpness of the divide, here. Not every failure will be taken to indicate that the mace is not there to be found; all it means is that the characters' best shot at finding it has failed to uncover it. Given how destructively thorough most players can be in their imaginations when "pixel bitching" a room, I will grant that the chances that the mace is there and still undiscovered by a balls-out search is slim, but strictly it's just "unknown".

As an aside, this is one of the things I'm liking a great deal about Dungeon World, so far (still reading and digesting - not run it, yet). Part of the GM's Agenda given in DW is "Play to find out what happens". This discussion has made me realise some of the dimensions of this; it is really talking about the "author only what you have to" that  [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] mentioned upthread. If the PCs fail to find the mace (that might or might not have been there), what do you as GM take as "known"? Simply that they failed to find the mace - no more than that. It might now plausibly turn up somewhere else, or it might not (whereas, had the PCs found it, it obviously could not turn up elsewhere unless they either took it there or lost it again). Each resolution in play sets the parameters within which future resolutions happen, and as a GM you can be as surprised by what happens as the players. Looking back, there have been elements of this in my GMing previously, but I had not consciously singled them out as something "fun" I wanted to increase and develop. That may be changing.


----------



## innerdude

pemerton said:


> I personally don't feel the attraction of APs, but I agree they seem to be very popular.
> 
> There is certainly a widespread view about what being a good GM involves, and what scenario/session-prep looks like, which puts a high premium on pre-writing an adventure (complete with fetch quests, McGuffins, BBEGs, etc as Umbran describes). I happen not to share neither that view, nor the approach it advocates, but I think I'm in a minority of GMs.




It's not that there's any preconceived notion about what session prep should like.....it's that D&D gives you very little leeway to prep any other way _because it's so stinkin' hard to prep encounters_. Either you've got to pre-plan those encounters, or someone else has to, but for the most part "winging it" all the time probably isn't going to cut it. 

When the bulk of your prep time is spent deciding _what can my enemies do in combat_ (i.e., building their stat sheet), there's far less time to care about _what the enemies are doing in the game world_, and build natural/realistic/coherent/sensible intentions and interplays between the NPCs and the game world.

Typical prep for my Savage Worlds games now is 20 minutes, 30 minutes tops. 

"What happened last time?" (Decide how the NPCs and world react and frame the scenes forward accordingly)
"Is there anyone or any place they're likely to interact with? (Build a short, 2-3 paragraph sketch of what those things are). 

That's it. If I'm absolutely certain that they're going to have a combat with an NPC, I may take 5 minutes and sketch out their basic stats. But in Savage Worlds, _that's literally all it takes---5 minutes_.

If there's an easier system to prep encounters for on the fly than Savage Worlds, I've yet to see it. 

The end result of all of this is that you can keep almost everything else fluid. There's no need to railroad, or plan out 15 sessions in advance. Set up the current scene, adjudicate what happens, do some quick calculating what the "spin off" effects are, and send the party forward to the next scene, and just see what happens. Your "grand plot" is little more than a vague set of basic ideas, tied to NPC motivations.

This is the greatest thing in the world, because you can apply "just in time" pre-authoring to nearly any situation, and to the players it feels like a natural outreach of what they've already done. And in my experience, this keeps everyone at the table highly engaged.



Umbran said:


> I can see the point, for something like D&D.
> 
> In something like FATE, I can "wing it" for a combat encounter with ease - how many levels of stress and consequences? A couple thematically appropriate Aspects, and I'm probably good to go. I can throw in a Stunt or two to covver a weird effect the thing can produce, maybe, if I want. It fits on a 3x5 handwritten index card. D&D traditionally has so many tactical fiddly bits (the equivalent D&D critter is an 8" tall column of small typeface print) that this approach doesn't work well. The GM must prepare beforehand. And that preparation is costly. It pays to have someone else do it. And, soon enough, you've got an Adventure Path that provides pre-prepped stuff that will cover *months* of gaming. For the modern adult player, this can be a godsend.




Pretty much this.





Ilbranteloth said:


> Of course there are side plots. Or at least there should be. Unless you are implying that the result of every check always moves them on a shorter or longer path towards their goal. In which case it's a railroad.
> 
> Although this is a potential pitfall of this technique as it's being described as a tool to help write the plot. They should run across things that have nothing to do with the current goal. And if they choose to follow that path for a short period of time and come back, it's a side-plot. If they choose to follow that path and not come back, it's the new plot.




To me this line of thinking is very much tied to the entire notion of "pre-authoring" to begin with. "Where's the plot? How are the PCs supposed to follow it? And if they get off of it, are they supposed to get back on it or not?_"
_
Scene framing approaches don't really follow this line of thinking at all. Scene framing approaches say, "You're this character, framed in the fiction this way, with these goals/responsibilities/obligations. Here's what you understand is going on around you. Where do you want to go, and what do you want to accomplish when you get there?" Lather, rinse, repeat. 

When I'm running a campaign, I literally have NO IDEA what's going to happen, or how it will end. NONE. For all I know the BBEG's might actually win . . . or maybe the PCs decide after killing the BBEG that they kind of liked the cut of his jib, and decide to finish what he started. Who knows?


----------



## innerdude

In response to, "I'm still a bit baffled why Fantasy Craft didn't become more popular among the 'I don't really like 3.x, but don't want to move to 4e' crowd."



Neonchameleon said:


> Too much crunch was a big part of it I think - and too little marketing.




See, this is what's weird to me. A majority of 3.x adherents migrated to Pathfinder. I've played Pathfinder. I've GM'd Pathfinder. And Pathfinder isn't any less crunchy than Fantasy Craft. 

In fact, from a player/GM perspective, Fantasy Craft is _better_, because it changes the ratios of the crunch. The bulk of the "additional" crunch is player-side, while the crunch from the GM's side is radically reduced due to FC's encounter template design. 

The marketing part, on the other hand, makes sense. That, and I think Crafty Games missed the peak window to capture the broadest audience. If FC had been on the market in late 2008 / early 2009, before the "full drop" of Pathfinder Core Rulebook, it could have made a bigger impression. As it was, by the time FC made it on to shelves in early 2010, the Pathfinder core rules had already been around 4-6 months and stolen the thunder. 

But ---- even then, it seems in retrospect people weren't ready to jump away from 3.x. And if the goal was to maintain 3.x compatibility, FC certainly didn't go that direction. In my opinion Fantasy Craft is an objectively better game than anything in the 3.x line, Pathfinder included, but it seems like most people actually WANTED 3.x.


----------



## Manbearcat

Balesir said:


> As an aside, this is one of the things I'm liking a great deal about Dungeon World, so far (still reading and digesting - not run it, yet). Part of the GM's Agenda given in DW is "Play to find out what happens". This discussion has made me realise some of the dimensions of this; it is really talking about the "author only what you have to" that  @_*Umbran*_ mentioned upthread. If the PCs fail to find the mace (that might or might not have been there), what do you as GM take as "known"? Simply that they failed to find the mace - no more than that. It might now plausibly turn up somewhere else, or it might not (whereas, had the PCs found it, it obviously could not turn up elsewhere unless they either took it there or lost it again). Each resolution in play sets the parameters within which future resolutions happen, and as a GM you can be as surprised by what happens as the players. Looking back, there have been elements of this in my GMing previously, but I had not consciously singled them out as something "fun" I wanted to increase and develop. That may be changing.




I'll aside to your aside!

I've been GMing like this for literally as long as I can remember.  I've never run APs or modules.  The very first thing I knew about my preferences as a GM was "I want to be in on the wild-eyed wonder (as much as possible) of what emerges from play, same as my players!"  Then I thought "how do I accomplish this?"  Prep what is only *utterly *necessary for a session (shockingly little to many GMs who have played in my games in real life).  Develop a few guiding principles, techniques, and mental-overhead-management strategies which center around how to best evolve post-resolution fiction (to maintain continuity, genre constrains, pacing, and dynamism).  Develop the in-situ clerical side (high utility short-hand and make flash-cards my friend).  Mature to mastering adlib/improv skills.

When I first read Dogs in the Vineyard, my mind said "holy crap!...this is it!"  Then I read Apocalypse World and finally Dungeon World.  Then my mind said "holy crap!...this is it-ER!"

EDIT - for the below



innerdude said:


> It's not that there's any preconceived notion about what session prep should like.....it's that D&D gives you very little leeway to prep any other way _because it's so stinkin' hard to prep encounters_. Either you've got to pre-plan those encounters, or someone else has to, but for the most part "winging it" all the time probably isn't going to cut it.




Xp for a good post except wanted to comment on this bit.  

Winging it is entirely possible.  You just have to (a) master the ruleset, (b) be really good at improv/math/tactics, (c) and the ruleset needs to be replete with (1) precise challenge math (monsters/traps/hazards and overall encounter budgeting), (2) easy and robust monster/trap/hazard/terrain creation, (3) all things interfacing nicely to create dynamism within the combat engine and a foreseeable (GM-side) narrative.  

I have probably pre-built (only when I was assured they would take place) perhaps 20 (ish?) encounters in 4e since the end of 2008 (in probably 60 levels of play).


----------



## Nagol

Manbearcat said:


> I'll aside to your aside!
> 
> I've been GMing like this for literally as long as I can remember.  I've never run APs or modules.  The very first thing I knew about my preferences as a GM was "I want to be in on the wild-eyed wonder (as much as possible) of what emerges from play, same as my players!"  Then I thought "how do I accomplish this?"  Prep what is only *utterly *necessary for a session (shockingly little to many GMs who have played in my games in real life).  Develop a few guiding principles, techniques, and mental-overhead-management strategies which center around how to best evolve post-resolution fiction (to maintain continuity, genre constrains, pacing, and dynamism).  Develop the in-situ clerical side (high utility short-hand and make flash-cards my friend).  Mature to mastering adlib/improv skills.
> 
> When I first read Dogs in the Vineyard, my mind said "holy crap!...this is it!"  Then I read Apocalypse World and finally Dungeon World.  Then my mind said "holy crap!...this is it-ER!"




I use this technique with some games: _Teenagers from Outer Space_ pretty much only runs this way.  Other game styles like my current Conspiracy-X procedural are more focused on the players exploring the secret world and more needs to be known in advance to keep their glimpses of the jigsaw puzzle appropriate.  There I generate the initial scene completely and improve secondary scenes and locations that mechanically and plausibly extend from the well understood start.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

innerdude said:


> To me this line of thinking is very much tied to the entire notion of "pre-authoring" to begin with. "Where's the plot? How are the PCs supposed to follow it? And if they get off of it, are they supposed to get back on it or not?"
> Scene framing approaches don't really follow this line of thinking at all. Scene framing approaches say, "You're this character, framed in the fiction this way, with these goals/responsibilities/obligations. Here's what you understand is going on around you. Where do you want to go, and what do you want to accomplish when you get there?" Lather, rinse, repeat.
> 
> When I'm running a campaign, I literally have NO IDEA what's going to happen, or how it will end. NONE. For all I know the BBEG's might actually win . . . or maybe the PCs decide after killing the BBEG that they kind of liked the cut of his jib, and decide to finish what he started. Who knows? [/COLOR]




OK, I get that. But there's still a plot. There are still side-plots, sub-plots, whatever you want. You just don't know which was which until after the fact.

What I don't understand is how do you handle NPCs, NPC organizations, the stuff that's going on behind the scenes that drives the world whether the PCs do something or not?

Ilbranteloth


----------



## BryonD

Neonchameleon said:


> Let me recap the course of events.



I'm going to skip the massive change of subject.



> No. I'm saying that "I'd expose the PCs to things they couldn't beat with swords". I wouldn't send them to 200ft cliff land. But I would have them deal with active things they wouldn't kill.



False.
You said:  "You wouldn't send first level PCs to 200 foot cliff land any more than you'd send them to the Demonweb Pits or to the lairs of elder dragons."

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?473785-Failing-Forward/page56#ixzz3xPpwOZxf
You equated sending them to the cliff with sending them to the Demonweb pits or lairs of elder dragons.
There is zero room for ambiguity between this and the idea that you would send them there, just not to fight.

And, as I already offered, I get that you don't MEAN what you said.  But you said what you said.  Just as other have said things and then insisted they never said it.



> It is however your fault that you equate "things they can't beat with swords" to 200ft cliffs and thereby create a strawman.



It is a direct quote.  And I ALREADY said you probably didn't mean it.



> You're confusing mechanics with guidance. The mechanics of e.g. jump checks is almost exactly the same as that of 3.X. The world is objective and there is nothing saying the GM _must_ follow the encounter balancing rules. Merely that that's where things normally work the best.



No, I quite get the difference between mechanics and guidance.
But first, in the case of 4E the guidance is baked into the mechanics.  Yes, you can ignore that, but as you have so clearly stated, 4e provides a system for telling a DM what height the cliff "should" be.  There is a much tighter connection between mechanics and guidance (aka "the math works") in 4E.  I make no claim whatsoever that a good DM can't ignore that connection.  

And second, when 4E proponents say things like "You wouldn't send first level PCs to 200 foot cliff land any more than you'd send them to the Demonweb Pits or to the lairs of elder dragons." it is only fair to respond in that context.


> But this long after the launch of 4e refuting the same old misrepresentations gets tiresome.



It is long after the end of 4E of the misrepresentations of the complaints also gets tiresome.  Particularly when they still take the form of denying the exact word you used two posts earlier.


----------



## BryonD

Imaro said:


> I'm getting a little confused by this side tangent... is the claim that scaling DC's have always been in D&D (which are not the same thing as EL or CR)??  Because that seems to be what @_*BryonD*_ is talking about... I might be mis-remembering and I certainly haven't played every edition of D&D but for the ones I have played (outside of 4th) I don't remember this being the case...
> 
> Now advice along the lines of matching challenge to your PC's (which could vary vastly depending upon the skill level of players, rules used, etc ) was definitely a thing but a system set up with hard and fast numbers for actual scaling of non-combat challenges is not something I remember.  But @_*Umbran*_ and @_*Neonchameleon*_ I admit I could be mistaken... were these present in other editions?  And if so why was pg. 42 lauded as so innovative and great by 4e fans if that type of system has always been a part of D&D?



I don't think anyone would dispute that the idea of level appropriate challenges has always been around in one form or another.
Certainly in 3E and PF, for which I make no secret of my admiration, CR and EL are front and center.  So it would be really stupid to argue that.

But you are very much on the right track with the whole "page 42" point and as I just stated the mixing of "guidance" and mechanics in 4E.  There is a double standard of how awesome and innovative these elements of 4E are, until someone points out a flaw and then you get slammed for claiming anyone ever actually used them in 4E games.


P flat out said he looked at party level to evaluate the cliff and NC has said he would not send 1st level PCs to a 200 ft cliff any more than he would the Demonwebs.  Not long ago I was honestly feeling chagrined.  I was quite confident that these kind of statements had been made but I was unanimously assured it never happened.  so I conceded.  Now I see it happening here.  I'm *really* not edition warring, I'm being petty over the fact that it turns out I was right all along.  

I have no illusion that certain people are going to suddenly open their eyes to different perspectives.  An open-minded 3rd party could come along and read the words and see that the things I claim were said, were in fact said.  That is good enough for me.  So I'll drop it there.


Back on topic, I again find "failing forward" to be a highly valuable option for a DM to maintain in their back pocket.   I think that if you start letting the nature of the world be a slave to the mechanics, you are creating a serious negative impact on the fun *for me*.  But there are other ways to work this concept which don't require that.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I don't think I understand this point. "Story" in an RPG is primarily a series of events resulting from the resolution of players' action declarations for their PCs. And those action declarations are resolved via checks.



I'm talking about the reasons behind what the DM is doing.  If the DM is causing it to rain because of a failed climb check, the reason he is doing it is to make the "story" more interesting, not because the skill was checked.  The skill only deals with climbing.  

Story aspects should remain story only. If the DM thinks it will make for a more interesting story to have it rain while the climb is going on, it's fine for the DM to make it rain, but it should be due to an independent DM reason.  It should not be because of a failed climb check.



> In my experience, if investing resources in succeeding at checks has little or no effect on the direction of the "story" - ie does not tend to increase the likelihood of the player (and his/her PC) getting what s/he wants, then the players get frustrated.




Why would players become frustrated that being more successful at checks makes them more successful at checks?  They are in fact getting what they want or they wouldn't have invested the resources to be good at those skills in the first place.  



> This has certainly been my experience in campaigns and gaming groups where heavy GM control, typically taking the form of imposing a pre-written plot, is the norm. In D&D a particular form that this takes is building PCs who very heavily emphasise combat capability, because even the most railroad-y D&D GMs tend to use the combat resolution rules, which means that building combat capable PCs is one way building PCs who will be able to shape the campaign (admittedly in a rather limited sort of way ie by killing things) via deployment of the action resolution mechanics.




Right.  I guess I wasn't clear in my last post.  Yes, success or failure at a skill adds to the story and affects both the story and the game world.  That success or failure, though, is through how the actual use of the skill works out, not because something unrelated happened to make the story different.  Failure to negotiate with the king isn't going to cause an earthquake that the party doesn't want to happen to become part of the story.  Failure to negotiate with the king is going to cause the continued war with their country that the party doesn't want to happen to continue to be a part of the story.  Similarly, success would likely cause the war to end and give the players/PCs what they want as a result.


----------



## Maxperson

BryonD said:


> I don't think anyone would dispute that the idea of level appropriate challenges has always been around in one form or another.
> Certainly in 3E and PF, for which I make no secret of my admiration, CR and EL are front and center.  So it would be really stupid to argue that.




I haven't played Pathfinder, but CR and EL in 3e was so borked that they were almost entirely useless.  I had to ditch them completely and just gauge PC abilities vs. monster abilities.  5 creatures of identical CR would range from pitifully easy to nearly impossible for one group of 4 PCs, but all of that would change for a different group of 4 PCs composed of different classes.

I loved 3e, but CR was one of the worst things in there.


----------



## grendel111111

Sorry this was in response to post number 582. but the quote didn't seem to work.



Ilbranteloth said:


> OK, I get that. But there's still a plot. There are still side-plots, sub-plots, whatever you want. You just don't know which was which until after the fact.
> 
> 
> What I don't understand is how do you handle NPCs, NPC organizations, the stuff that's going on behind the scenes that drives the world whether the PCs do something or not?
> 
> 
> Ilbranteloth






In this style of play there is no outside forces driving the world or anything else outside the field of what has been spoken in game. So if the characters hear that there is a town over the hill called Longford, then Longford now exists. If the characters catch a thief then he is just a thief, until they interrogate him and discover he is working for the assassins guild which has a contract on the players (Until this point no assassins guild has been mentioned so it doesn't exist till this point (or did exist out of sight). So they know know there is an assassins guild but not who bought the contract. It floats for everyone (DM included) until everyone finds out as the game progresses. 
The key is that the fiction is written both backwards and forwards. Now that the assassins guild is in the world it must have always been there so what they were doing can be worked into the plot to explain things from earlier in the game (They later find a note that instructed a group of thugs to kill the characters, so the initial encounter they had when the first set out suddenly is tied to everything else). The only condition is do not contradict any that was said before (or more practically anything anyone remembers being said).

It's much like in lost when the pacing dropped they would add stuff to get them out of a corner they wrote themselves into, or something crazy happens with no reason other than to push the story forward, that later they try and tie back to make sense. Until the smoke monster is explained it could be anything, the others almost certainly did not end up anything like what the original idea of them was.
It gives a great illusion of the characters having figured things out and discovered things.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Umbran said:


> I can see the point, for something like D&D.
> 
> In something like FATE, I can "wing it" for a combat encounter with ease - how many levels of stress and consequences?  A couple thematically appropriate Aspects, and I'm probably good to go.  I can throw in a Stunt or two to covver a weird effect the thing can produce, maybe, if I want.  It fits on a 3x5 handwritten index card.  D&D traditionally has so many tactical fiddly bits (the equivalent D&D critter is an 8" tall column of small typeface print) that this approach doesn't work well.  The GM must prepare beforehand.  And that preparation is costly.  It pays to have someone else do it.  And, soon enough, you've got an Adventure Path that provides pre-prepped stuff that will cover *months* of gaming.  For the modern adult player, this can be a godsend.




You've a very good point about the major edition that sells adventure paths here (3.x) - but it's far from traditional. Indeed I'd say from experience all TSR editions and 4e are almost as easy to wing as Fate (although 4e tries to hide it). You need a business card worth of materials in each case.

For TSR era your business card needs the fighter saving throws and attack bonuses by hit dice (unless you've memorised them) and possibly some weapon damages if you care. And then to create monsters you need hit dice, AC, attacks, and to look up the values on the card unless you want to create a spell caster (where you need to look things up)

For 4e you need the MM3 on a Business Card on one side and the skill challenge DCs on the other. Creating a non-solo requires a level, a combat role, a size, (minion, standard, elite - handcraft your solos) and a schtick or two (4e powers and Fate stunts are basically the same thing).

In both cases this is all you need for RAW-legal monsters and you can create them in the time it takes to sort out initiative (I speak from experience).  So it's hardly true to say that D&D traditionally does it one way.


----------



## grendel111111

Balesir said:


> Amusingly (to me, at any rate), close acquaintance with probability and stochastic outcomes is a major reason why I see things quite differently in this respect. I'll see if I can illustrate why:
> 
> Consider a situation like the "finding the mace" case you cite. Imagine that we have a system akin to that you suggest, with one die roll - on a d10 modified by character skill - determining the thoroughness of the search carried out, and another roll - also on a d10 but unmodified - determining whether or not the mace is present to be found.
> 
> Now, consider further that we could devise quite easily a system that is *exactly mathematically equivalent* to the system above, using a single percentile roll.
> 
> In this percentile system, the character skill has an influence on the outcome, but - considering where the original system to which our percentile system is exactly equivalent - the chance of the mace being present to be found is clearly not connected to the character's skill level.
> 
> In most cases in D&D, skill level is not so overwhelmingly important that it is determinative of success or failure. It has an influence on the outcome, but does not (usually) make it a foregone conclusion. In this circumstance, I see nothing whatever wrong with viewing skill rolls as being analogous to the above "percentile roll". In other words, it judges ("resolves") success or failure at reacing a desired end-point based on a constellation of potential failure modes or reasons. In fact, given the general ways in which feats of skill work in real life, I see this view of skill rolls as far more plausible from a "verisimilitude" point of view than the "you either bungled or you didn't" perspective.




An exact mathematical percentile would be doing the following:
Take the roll needed, divide the chance of success in half, if you roll under half the mace is there and you find it, over half the mace is there and you find the arrows as well as the mace, then if you fail you need to divide that in half too, a bad fail the location of the mace, a "good" fail you find the location of the mace and the arrows.

My preference would be DM rolls d6 to see if it is there:
If yes:
Success: find the mace and the arrows hinting at the brothers predisposition to evil.
Fail: find the mace 

If no:
Success: find the clues as to where the mace is and the arrows
Fail: find only the clues to the mace.






Balesir said:


> I think you are vastly overstating the sharpness of the divide, here. Not every failure will be taken to indicate that the mace is not there to be found; all it means is that the characters' best shot at finding it has failed to uncover it. Given how destructively thorough most players can be in their imaginations when "pixel bitching" a room, I will grant that the chances that the mace is there and still undiscovered by a balls-out search is slim, but strictly it's just "unknown".
> 
> As an aside, this is one of the things I'm liking a great deal about Dungeon World, so far (still reading and digesting - not run it, yet). Part of the GM's Agenda given in DW is "Play to find out what happens". This discussion has made me realise some of the dimensions of this; it is really talking about the "author only what you have to" that  @_*Umbran*_ mentioned upthread. If the PCs fail to find the mace (that might or might not have been there), what do you as GM take as "known"? Simply that they failed to find the mace - no more than that. It might now plausibly turn up somewhere else, or it might not (whereas, had the PCs found it, it obviously could not turn up elsewhere unless they either took it there or lost it again). Each resolution in play sets the parameters within which future resolutions happen, and as a GM you can be as surprised by what happens as the players. Looking back, there have been elements of this in my GMing previously, but I had not consciously singled them out as something "fun" I wanted to increase and develop. That may be changing.




I'm not assuming every example will be like this, As I have said many examples of fail forward I am fine with. It's only when it goes to this extreme that it doesn't work for me.


This works well if you like the dungeon world approach, Leverage has a similar approach and I enjoy that. But it is not the style of game I want to play all the time.
If they "fail" the check it could indicate that it took a long time to find the mace, or you didn't find additional clues beyond the essential mace.
If the mace isn't there then a success is quickly find evidence of where it has been taken and maybe other information, failure could be that it takes longer to find the clues to it actual location, or that other information is not found.


----------



## Nagol

Neonchameleon said:


> You've a very good point about the major edition that sells adventure paths here (3.x) - but it's far from traditional. Indeed I'd say from experience all TSR editions and 4e are almost as easy to wing as Fate (although 4e tries to hide it). You need a business card worth of materials in each case.
> 
> For TSR era your business card needs the fighter saving throws and attack bonuses by hit dice (unless you've memorised them) and possibly some weapon damages if you care. And then to create monsters you need hit dice, AC, attacks, and to look up the values on the card unless you want to create a spell caster (where you need to look things up)
> 
> For 4e you need the MM3 on a Business Card on one side and the skill challenge DCs on the other. Creating a non-solo requires a level, a combat role, a size, (minion, standard, elite - handcraft your solos) and a schtick or two (4e powers and Fate stunts are basically the same thing).
> 
> In both cases this is all you need for RAW-legal monsters and you can create them in the time it takes to sort out initiative (I speak from experience).  So it's hardly true to say that D&D traditionally does it one way.




To be fair, earlier editions of D&D would also require a sheet showing expected treasure allocation.


----------



## Balesir

Ilbranteloth said:


> What I don't understand is how do you handle NPCs, NPC organizations, the stuff that's going on behind the scenes that drives the world whether the PCs do something or not?



Pretty easily, I think. When the situation/game rules call for the GM to make a move like "reveal an unwelcome truth", "impending trouble" or "offer an opportunity", then any previously established (or even newly invented) NPCs or organisations can be used to shape the revealed "truth". Such organisations or characters can come from PC backgrounds, GM world briefings or previous adventures; they then form a "pallette" of possible causes of events and complications until the particular PC relation to the "background element" is resolved. This is the sort of role that Icons are intended to serve in when playing 13th Age - and each PC will have relationships to 1-3 of them defined at game start.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> I just wanted to note that this is not a discussion of the actual play example that I posted upthread, but of some hypothetical example.
> 
> In the actual play example, the failed Scavenging check did not produce a clue to the mace's location, nor any "alternative path". It led to the discovery of an undesired thing (namely, black arrows which constituted evidence that the PC mage's brother was evil _before_ being possessed by a balrog).
> 
> The reason for tying these results to skill checks is that the player, by investing resources in the skill check (PC build, bonuses at the time, etc), can increase the chances of getting what s/he (and his/her PC) wants and avoiding what is not wanted.





I have a question about this. 
If they pass the search test does that mean they get the mace and the PC's brother was not evil till possessed?
And if they fail they get the mace and the black arrows which constituted evidence that the PC mage's brother was evil _before_ being possessed by a balrog?

Or is a pass they find the mace and no additional information (Brother could still be good or evil before possession)?


----------



## Balesir

grendel111111 said:


> An exact mathematical percentile would be doing the following:
> Take the roll needed, divide the chance of success in half, if you roll under half the mace is there and you find it, over half the mace is there and you find the arrows as well as the mace, then if you fail you need to divide that in half too, a bad fail the location of the mace, a "good" fail you find the location of the mace and the arrows.



Um, did you miss the reason I was using a d10 for both rolls? That is why the conversion to a percentile system is trivial.

Suppose that the "chance the mace is there" is 50% (as you appear to have assumed) - so roll 2 is a 6+ for the mace to be present. Further suppose that the roll to search successfully is 8+ on a d10 roll with your skill (graded 0-6) added.

For a skill 0 character this breaks down as a 15% chance to find the mace and 85% to not find the mace. If you don't find the mace, there is a roughly 59% chance (50/85) that the mace is actually not there, but since this is not germane to immediate play there is really no compelling reason to check this at the time. Each level of character skill increases the chance of finding the mace by 5%, so that a skill 6 character has a 45% chance to find the mace (and, if _this_ character fails to find the mace, there is about a 91% chance (50/55) that it is not there to be found, but there is similarly no real reason why anyone needs to know whether it actually is there or not at the time the roll is made).

So, two systems:

1) Roll a d10 + character skill for 8+ and roll a separate d10 for 6+ to see if the mace is there to be found; success on both rolls mean the mace is found, otherwise it is not found

2) Roll d% plus 5 times character skill; 85+ means the mace is found, otherwise it isn't.

These are mathematically exactly equivalent. The only difference would seem to be that in (1) the GM will always end up knowing whether the mace is there or not. I actively do not want this to be a feature of the system; I am further a bit baffled why any style of play would require it or even be advantaged by it.


----------



## grendel111111

Balesir said:


> Um, did you miss the reason I was using a d10 for both rolls? That is why the conversion to a percentile system is trivial.
> 
> Suppose that the "chance the mace is there" is 50% (as you appear to have assumed) - so roll 2 is a 6+ for the mace to be present. Further suppose that the roll to search successfully is 8+ on a d10 roll with your skill (graded 0-6) added.
> 
> For a skill 0 character this breaks down as a 15% chance to find the mace and 85% to not find the mace. If you don't find the mace, there is a roughly 59% chance (50/85) that the mace is actually not there, but since this is not germane to immediate play there is really no compelling reason to check this at the time. Each level of character skill increases the chance of finding the mace by 5%, so that a skill 6 character has a 45% chance to find the mace (and, if _this_ character fails to find the mace, there is about a 91% chance (50/55) that it is not there to be found, but there is similarly no real reason why anyone needs to know whether it actually is there or not at the time the roll is made).
> 
> So, two systems:
> 
> 1) Roll a d10 + character skill for 8+ and roll a separate d10 for 6+ to see if the mace is there to be found; success on both rolls mean the mace is found, otherwise it is not found
> 
> 2) Roll d% plus 5 times character skill; 85+ means the mace is found, otherwise it isn't.
> 
> These are mathematically exactly equivalent. The only difference would seem to be that in (1) the GM will always end up knowing whether the mace is there or not. I actively do not want this to be a feature of the system; I am further a bit baffled why any style of play would require it or even be advantaged by it.




I'm actually not sure the reason for the roll in the first place. I personally want to know if the mace is there or not. If it is there and is essential then they will find it. If not they will find the clues instead. The only reason for the roll for me would be to find out how quickly they find this information or if they find additional information.

As for what style would use this style is one that doesn't want probabilities of abstract things to be dependent on characters skills.
That it isn't relevant to you, or that you don't see the point of it is basically unimportant.
What is more important is can you accept that it is important for some people.

I can see that using the full on fail forward approach is enjoyable and fun for many people. It is a great way for them to play the game and accept that it is because they assure me it is, even if it doesn't always work for me.

Can you see that having a game where the skills of the players do not influence the probabilities of unrelated things might be important for some people just because they assure you that this is the case, even if it doesn't work for you?

And yes "for me" the DM knowing is a massive advantage.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> But whether the mace is there or not is not related to the skill in play at all. It might _seem_ like it's related, but it's not. Either the mace is there, in which case the party finds it or not, or the mace is not there, in which case they don't find it.





Balesir said:


> Not every failure will be taken to indicate that the mace is not there to be found; all it means is that the characters' best shot at finding it has failed to uncover it. Given how destructively thorough most players can be in their imaginations when "pixel bitching" a room, I will grant that the chances that the mace is there and still undiscovered by a balls-out search is slim, but strictly it's just "unknown".
> 
> As an aside, this is one of the things I'm liking a great deal about Dungeon World, so far (still reading and digesting - not run it, yet). Part of the GM's Agenda given in DW is "Play to find out what happens". This discussion has made me realise some of the dimensions of this; it is really talking about the "author only what you have to" that  [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] mentioned upthread. If the PCs fail to find the mace (that might or might not have been there), what do you as GM take as "known"? Simply that they failed to find the mace - no more than that. It might now plausibly turn up somewhere else, or it might not (whereas, had the PCs found it, it obviously could not turn up elsewhere unless they either took it there or lost it again). Each resolution in play sets the parameters within which future resolutions happen, and as a GM you can be as surprised by what happens as the players.





Balesir said:


> two systems:
> 
> 1) Roll a d10 + character skill for 8+ and roll a separate d10 for 6+ to see if the mace is there to be found; success on both rolls mean the mace is found, otherwise it is not found
> 
> 2) Roll d% plus 5 times character skill; 85+ means the mace is found, otherwise it isn't.
> 
> These are mathematically exactly equivalent. The only difference would seem to be that in (1) the GM will always end up knowing whether the mace is there or not. I actively do not want this to be a feature of the system; I am further a bit baffled why any style of play would require it or even be advantaged by it.



In the fiction, either the mace is there or it is not. But at the table, why does anyone need to know until a player declares that his/her PC looks for it?

In "fail forward"-style play, the point of having (say) a high Scavenging skill is that, when you declare actions for your PC that involve scavenging for gear (like lost maces in ruined towers), you are more likely to have things turn out as you want (eg you are more likely to find said lost mace). In this way, having a high skill bonus is a player-side resource. It shifts control over the shared fiction from the GM to the player.

That is the connection between the skill check and the presence or otherwise of the mace.



grendel111111 said:


> I'm actually not sure the reason for the roll in the first place. I personally want to know if the mace is there or not. If it is there and is essential then they will find it. If not they will find the clues instead. The only reason for the roll for me would be to find out how quickly they find this information or if they find additional information.



The reason for the check is fairly straightforward: the PCs want to find the mace in the ruined tower, and the check determines whether or not they do.

I'm not sure what you mean by the mace being "essential". Essential for what? From the point of view of the PC mage, it is essential that he find it because (i) he wants to learn to fight with a mace, and (ii) he wants to enchant it. For the other PCs its more peripheral (though after this event one of the other PCs promised to help recover the mace in return for something-or-other that I can't recall). But there is no pre-authored plot in respect of which finding the mace is an essential component.



grendel111111 said:


> As for what style would use this style is one that doesn't want probabilities of abstract things to be dependent on characters skills.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Can you see that having a game where the skills of the players do not influence the probabilities of unrelated things might be important for some people just because they assure you that this is the case, even if it doesn't work for you?
> 
> And yes "for me" the DM knowing is a massive advantage.



Are you able to articulate the nature of the advantage?

The main difference I can see is that if the GM knows (and knows because s/he decides in advance, rather than allowing the decision to be shaped by player-side checks and resource expenditure) then the GM can control the plot.



Maxperson said:


> If the DM is causing it to rain because of a failed climb check, the reason he is doing it is to make the "story" more interesting, not because the skill was checked.  The skill only deals with climbing.



What mechanical system are you talking about here? What you say is not true for "fail forward" systems, where a check deals with _intent _as well as _task_.



Maxperson said:


> Failure to negotiate with the king isn't going to cause an earthquake that the party doesn't want to happen to become part of the story.



Within a system based around "fail forward", a failed check made to resolve negotiations with the king might lead the GM to narrate an earthquake, if that made sense within the narrative and dramatic context. Why not?



Maxperson said:


> Story aspects should remain story only. If the DM thinks it will make for a more interesting story to have it rain while the climb is going on, it's fine for the DM to make it rain, but it should be due to an independent DM reason.  It should not be because of a failed climb check.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Why would players become frustrated that being more successful at checks makes them more successful at checks?  They are in fact getting what they want or they wouldn't have invested the resources to be good at those skills in the first place.



These first of these two passages answers the second.

If the GM is going to introduce complications that muck up the plans of, or thwart the desires of, players who make successful checks, then (from the player's point of view) what is the point of devoting resources to making successful checks?


----------



## pemerton

Umbran said:


> In something like FATE, I can "wing it" for a combat encounter with ease
> 
> <snip>
> 
> D&D traditionally has so many tactical fiddly bits (the equivalent D&D critter is an 8" tall column of small typeface print) that this approach doesn't work well.  The GM must prepare beforehand.





innerdude said:


> D&D gives you very little leeway to prep any other way _because it's so stinkin' hard to prep encounters_. Either you've got to pre-plan those encounters, or someone else has to, but for the most part "winging it" all the time probably isn't going to cut it.



This has already attracted responses from  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION]. Here's my go at it.

In my 4e game, I typically have antagonist stat blocks written up. But when/how they appear, or even whether they appear, is something that I decide during the course of play. For non-combat challenges, an advance write-up is not normally necessary.

About half the combat encounters involve maps drawn up in advance, based on knowledge that the PCs are heading to (or are in) a certain place; the others involve maps drawn up impromptu.

Back when I was running RM and before that AD&D, similar principles applied. (In both games stat blocks tend to be simpler than 4e.)

As far as selling me prep is concerned, I am happy to pay for statblocks, good maps and good encounters. I'll also pay for good "general" backstory (eg the stuff about Lolth and Torog in 4e's Underdark book; the campaign background in the original OA book; etc). But intricately pre-authored plot of the AP type is of no use to me. Likewise fetch quests, McGuffins and all the other "filler"-type stuff that makes up an AP.



Ilbranteloth said:


> You've already stipulated that to get to the pudding they need the rod and the mace.



Who has stipulated that?



Ilbranteloth said:


> Of course there are side plots. Or at least there should be. Unless you are implying that the result of every check always moves them on a shorter or longer path towards their goal. In which case it's a railroad.
> 
> <ship>
> 
> They should run across things that have nothing to do with the current goal. And if they choose to follow that path for a short period of time and come back, it's a side-plot. If they choose to follow that path and not come back, it's the new plot.





innerdude said:


> To me this line of thinking is very much tied to the entire notion of "pre-authoring" to begin with. "Where's the plot? How are the PCs supposed to follow it? And if they get off of it, are they supposed to get back on it or not?"
> Scene framing approaches don't really follow this line of thinking at all. Scene framing approaches say, "You're this character, framed in the fiction this way, with these goals/responsibilities/obligations. Here's what you understand is going on around you. Where do you want to go, and what do you want to accomplish when you get there?" Lather, rinse, repeat.
> 
> When I'm running a campaign, I literally have NO IDEA what's going to happen, or how it will end. NONE. For all I know the BBEG's might actually win . . . or maybe the PCs decide after killing the BBEG that they kind of liked the cut of his jib, and decide to finish what he started. Who knows?



What innerdude says here resonates strongly with me. There is no "side plot" because there is no "main plot" to which it forms an aside. The mace became relevant to play at all only because one of the players (i) decided that, some 14 years before the campaign started, at the point at which his PC had to abandon the tower that is now ruined due to an orc attack, his PC had forged but then left behind a nickel-silver mace, and (ii) decided that one of his PC's goals now was to recover that mace.

And I certainly don't see why the PCs should run across things that have nothing to do with their current goals. I'm not a great believer in filler.



Ilbranteloth said:


> there's still a plot. There are still side-plots, sub-plots, whatever you want. You just don't know which was which until after the fact.



If you don't know that it's a side plot til after the fact, then no GMing decisions can be made on the basis of the side plot/main plot distinction. Which is to say that the notion of _side plot_ has no work to do from the point of view of GMing techniques.

The same goes for BBEG, McGuffin etc.



Ilbranteloth said:


> What I don't understand is how do you handle NPCs, NPC organizations, the stuff that's going on behind the scenes that drives the world whether the PCs do something or not?



Like anything else - you make it up as is needed, and/or as seems appropriate, as the game unfolds.

And apropos of this:



grendel111111 said:


> I have a question about this.
> If they pass the search test does that mean they get the mace and the PC's brother was not evil till possessed?
> And if they fail they get the mace and the black arrows which constituted evidence that the PC mage's brother was evil _before_ being possessed by a balrog?
> 
> Or is a pass they find the mace and no additional information (Brother could still be good or evil before possession)?



If the check had succeeded, the PCs would have found the mace they were looking for.

The backstory about the brother would still have been up for grabs: you can't establish an ingame fact about the brother via a successful Scavenging check. It would require a successful Balrog-wise or Great Masters-wise or Brothers-wise check, or something along those lines.

EDIT: Another example of NPC backstory authoring from my BW game.

As I set out in this post, the PCs in my BW game think they have uncovered a death cult priest. And as far as my pre-prep is concerned, I am inclined to think that they have also. (I had written up the death cult priest one day catching the train to work.)

But nothing definitive about the status of the priest has been established in play, and so the whole thing is still up for grabs. If the accused priest's champion wins the trial by combat, I might even decide that her story is true!

These things don't need to be decided in advance.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> What mechanical system are you talking about here? What you say is not true for "fail forward" systems, where a check deals with _intent _as well as _task_.




It's a safe assumption that unless I specify otherwise, I'm talking D&D 



> If the GM is going to introduce complications that muck up the plans of, or thwart the desires of, players who make successful checks, then (from the player's point of view) what is the point of devoting resources to making successful checks?




You'll need to explain further.  I'm not sure what you mean.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> This has already attracted responses from  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION]. Here's my go at it.
> 
> In my 4e game, I typically have antagonist stat blocks written up. But when/how they appear, or even whether they appear, is something that I decide during the course of play. For non-combat challenges, an advance write-up is not normally necessary.
> 
> About half the combat encounters involve maps drawn up in advance, based on knowledge that the PCs are heading to (or are in) a certain place; the others involve maps drawn up impromptu.
> 
> Back when I was running RM and before that AD&D, similar principles applied. (In both games stat blocks tend to be simpler than 4e.)
> 
> As far as selling me prep is concerned, I am happy to pay for statblocks, good maps and good encounters. I'll also pay for good "general" backstory (eg the stuff about Lolth and Torog in 4e's Underdark book; the campaign background in the original OA book; etc). But intricately pre-authored plot of the AP type is of no use to me. Likewise fetch quests, McGuffins and all the other "filler"-type stuff that makes up an AP.
> 
> Who has stipulated that?




In an earlier post you (or whoever first) outlined that they had to get the rod to find the pudding, and the mace to kill the monster (Jell-o? I don't remember which dessert was involved).



pemerton said:


> What innerdude says here resonates strongly with me. There is no "side plot" because there is no "main plot" to which it forms an aside. The mace became relevant to play at all only because one of the players (i) decided that, some 14 years before the campaign started, at the point at which his PC had to abandon the tower that is now ruined due to an orc attack, his PC had forged but then left behind a nickel-silver mace, and (ii) decided that one of his PC's goals now was to recover that mace.
> 
> And I certainly don't see why the PCs should run across things that have nothing to do with their current goals. I'm not a great believer in filler.
> 
> If you don't know that it's a side plot til after the fact, then no GMing decisions can be made on the basis of the side plot/main plot distinction. Which is to say that the notion of _side plot_ has no work to do from the point of view of GMing techniques.




I don't believe in filler either (well, it exists, but I don't like it...). My point is that the group might have a specific goal - get the pudding. In the process of searching for the mace in the tower, they learn of a potential cookie in another location. They can decide to ignore it and continue to search for the pudding, they can opt to look for the cookie now, and if so they can return to looking for the pudding or not later, or they can look for the cookie after they find the pudding, etc. Heck, they could even decide that the pudding and cookie just aren't worth the trouble and go someplace else.

But when exploring a world, you'll come across all sorts of things, any of which might be more interesting than what you're currently doing, or worth checking out now the the opportunity presents itself. It could just be a secret passage in the tower that they find after they've located the mace. It doesn't have anything to do with the pudding at all. 

If everything that the PCs do lead eventually lead them to the pudding, and you don't introduce any elements that would give them alternative options for their adventuring fun for the day, then it's just a railroad. No matter what you do today, you will be heading toward the pudding. It's the details that are unknown and we'll be filling those in. I'm not saying that's bad, it all depends on what the group wants. I just don't see that as realistic. 

I tend not to prep story at all. The PCs make their decisions based on what they find, etc. But there are lots of potential plot threads for them to develop. Since I DM D&D in the Forgotten Realms I have lots of world material to work with, which I have added to extensively over the last 30 years, mostly through playing. Actually, it's we, because the players have added a lot to it themselves. So if they are in Daggerford, there are a good number of people that I (and often they) already know about, they know what they do, what they like, and if they are involved in anything beyond just a craft or something in the city. There are all sorts of adventure locales, some with maps and other details, others without. Rumors, secret organizations, etc. abound. The story is written as the PCs intersect with this complex world. All they have to do is wander around a bit, start asking questions, eavesdropping, or if they are somewhat renowned, somebody might search them out. A monster might attack, a storm might cause some destruction, or disease breaks out. They can choose what they decide to follow or investigate.

What I don't understand is, if everything was randomly determined, and particularly if the location of a given object, person, etc. is partially dependent upon the success or failure of a roll, how can you develop a campaign world with depth and consistency if you as the DM don't know stuff about it beforehand? I have potential antagonists going about their plans whether the PCs intervene or not. Even if they don't directly engage with them, their actions can still have an impact.



pemerton said:


> The same goes for BBEG, McGuffin etc.
> 
> Like anything else - you make it up as is needed, and/or as seems appropriate, as the game unfolds.
> 
> And apropos of this:
> 
> If the check had succeeded, the PCs would have found the mace they were looking for.
> 
> The backstory about the brother would still have been up for grabs: you can't establish an ingame fact about the brother via a successful Scavenging check. It would require a successful Balrog-wise or Great Masters-wise or Brothers-wise check, or something along those lines.
> 
> EDIT: Another example of NPC backstory authoring from my BW game.
> 
> As I set out in this post, the PCs in my BW game think they have uncovered a death cult priest. And as far as my pre-prep is concerned, I am inclined to think that they have also. (I had written up the death cult priest one day catching the train to work.)
> 
> But nothing definitive about the status of the priest has been established in play, and so the whole thing is still up for grabs. If the accused priest's champion wins the trial by combat, I might even decide that her story is true!
> 
> These things don't need to be decided in advance.




So I guess this is where it starts to lose me. Depending on the circumstance, I'd agree, not everything is determined ahead of time. There are some random events, encounters, NPCs, etc. I'm OK with that as part of the basic framework of the world. But I also view it as a living, breathing world that needs consistency. When you start with a clean slate, never adventured in the world before. Fair enough. But once those NPCs have been met, they exist. If they run into them again, there needs to be consistency. I guess if you're just keeping track of things as you build it you'll end up in the same place, but I get the feeling that more involved, deeper plots are difficult to pull together in that approach. 

I guess you could say my approach is to write a background story - there is a rough timeline of 'planned' events typically in a given region. I might have other things in play on a larger scale. They don't have to be heavily details, and the timeline can easily change, especially based on what the PCs do. Based on your description, you have some of this already, a few maps, some stat blocks, etc. I guess the major difference is that I also have some active stories. If you're familiar with FR publications, this would be the 'current clack' section. Other rumors and activities may be developed on the fly.

I guess that the reality is that there is a continuum of prepared and random/on-the-fly things all of the time. A published adventure tends to lean heavily on the pre-planned. At the very least there's an intended end-game. I'm comfortable more in the middle. I like to think through things a bit more (duh) so I have a lot of semi-pre-planned activities going on in my head, and sometimes on (digital) paper to give me a head start in the event that the PCs intersect that story. After each session I typically have a bunch of ideas in reaction to the session. As that percolates over the week it tends to coalesce into a sort of 'prep' for the upcoming session, although it may never end up written down.

But I always have a pretty good idea of the various directions things can go if they stick with the current goal. If they change their goal (which they have done quite frequently), then it gets interesting. But that's also why I have a good idea of most of what's going on in the background so I can react quickly and consistently.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> If the GM is going to introduce complications that muck up the plans of, or thwart the desires of, players who make successful checks, then (from the player's point of view) what is the point of devoting resources to making successful checks?




Isn't that kind of the job of the DM? I mean, after they survive a combat, there's something else presenting a challenge, twist, or something, unless they've actually made it to their goal?

For example, let's say this scene isn't prewritten...

A PC is climbing a very high cliff, using pitons and rope. It's nearly impossible to be quiet, the hope is that there is nobody within earshot. He works his way up the cliff, mostly successful skill checks, an occasionally not-life-threatening failure (although they didn't know that at the time), and he reaches the top of the rocky cliff, that had a significant overhang, and is now working on climbing up the steep incline to a stone wall.

Just as he looks over the wall, a guard patrol is coming by and sees him. A fight immediately breaks out between our hero and the two guards. He manages to throw one of them off the side, but the other one successfully pushes him off. The rope holds, but he's hanging hundreds of feet above the ground, unable to reach the wall because of the overhang, so starts climbing back up the rope. 

At the same time, the guard that didn't fall is hammering out the pitons. Causing our hero to fall a back a bit of the way he has climbed back up...

You know the rest.

He made successful skill checks, and successfully climbed the cliff, but didn't succeed in the goal of getting to the top undiscovered.

So there were a bunch of skill checks involved. They could have involved climb and stealth checks, with a passive perception, or active perception checks by the guards, etc. One option would have been that on one of the climb checks, it failed, but not by much.

Instead of having different stealth/perception checks, the DM decided that the hero was able to continue climbing, but the guard heard the hammering.

Why do it this way? Well, there are a lot of potential checks that could be made. A climb check when hammering in each piton, then a climb check to move the next 30' or so, and another for the next piton. In addition, checking against the passive perception each time a piton is hammered in, although there is no DC to check passive perception against, so it's either an active check, or the hero must roll a stealth check. He also may need to roll a stealth check while climbing to the next location where he'll hammer in a piton. 

There are a lot of potential checks. Oh, yeah, and a bunch of fate checks to see if he pulls loose some rocks, or disturbs a nest full of birds, or a piton breaks free, or the rope gets snagged, etc.

So somewhere in here there is a sort of sweet spot where the right number and the right types of skill and event checks occur, combined with the right amount of narrative developed from the results of the skill checks.

Climbing several hundred feet 30' skill check at a time would get very, very long. But a single check isn't sufficient either. 

A failed skill check could indicate he couldn't find a clear path to climb, a piton pulled loose, he drops a piton or the hammer, the rope gets snagged, the birds, loose rocks, etc. All of those seem to fit within the purview of the climb checks. 

Some sort of perception check is needed by the guards. Probably the easiest is to use passive perception (they don't really think anybody is likely to be trying to climb up), and assign a penalty to the stealth checks for using a hammer. Or a flat DC can be set, saying anybody within 300 ft can hear it, up to 500' is a DC 12, 1000' is a DC 15, etc. 

How many checks? That's the tricky one. That's where I like using the degrees of success/failure. If a moderate failure indicates an amount of time to recover, then a success over the amount needed can be used the same way. So, if the hero beats the DC by 7, then the next 7 rounds (210 feet) are traversed successfully, with little incident. A single stealth check covers the period, and continue on.

With fail forward, you can make some assumptions, and fill in the narrative blanks with fewer checks, and the end result of those checks potentially have a wider variety of results.

Now in this situation, I think what Pemerton is asking, is what if the hero made it all the way to the top, undetected, and a separate fate check indicated something very bad happened, and the slate of the final rock face came loose and slid off the clifftop, causing our hero to fall (and maybe the rope catches him). That just doesn't seem fair that he succeeded, and yet is still knocked back down.

The reality is that it's the same thing. In the end he's hanging by the rope and has to climb back up. Whether it's by design (the rock was designated as loose before he even climbed it), randomly (the fate roll declared it), a failed skill check (the DM picked the narrative based on the failed skill check), or because he failed against the perception of the guards and was knocked back off. The only real difference with the final one is that it would enter a combat phase and the PCs skills and design choices would come into play. But it's easy enough to add a Dexterity save when the rock starts sliding off.

The point is, any one of these mechanics will allow you to get to the same end result. But ultimately I think what is bugging Pemerton is that it removes the player's choices and the PCs actions from the equation, making it unfair. It's not unlike the save or die (or no save and die) of the AD&D 1st edition days. The sphere of annihilation trap in Tomb of Horrors is like that. No matter what you do, or how much time you put into your character development, they are suddenly gone, irrevocably, just because they decided to look into the dark hole.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Nagol

Ilbranteloth said:


> Isn't that kind of the job of the DM? I mean, after they survive a combat, there's something else presenting a challenge, twist, or something, unless they've actually made it to their goal?




Sure, but having the complication trigger off of a success means the player who invested resources in something so as to not have problems accomplishing something only to have problems accomplishing something too well (or whatever).




> For example, let's say this scene isn't prewritten...
> 
> A PC is climbing a very high cliff, using pitons and rope. It's nearly impossible to be quiet, the hope is that there is nobody within earshot. He works his way up the cliff, mostly successful skill checks, an occasionally not-life-threatening failure (although they didn't know that at the time), and he reaches the top of the rocky cliff, that had a significant overhang, and is now working on climbing up the steep incline to a stone wall.
> 
> Just as he looks over the wall, a guard patrol is coming by and sees him. A fight immediately breaks out between our hero and the two guards. He manages to throw one of them off the side, but the other one successfully pushes him off. The rope holds, but he's hanging hundreds of feet above the ground, unable to reach the wall because of the overhang, so starts climbing back up the rope.
> 
> At the same time, the guard that didn't fall is hammering out the pitons. Causing our hero to fall a back a bit of the way he has climbed back up...
> 
> You know the rest.
> 
> He made successful skill checks, and successfully climbed the cliff, but didn't succeed in the goal of getting to the top undiscovered.
> 
> So there were a bunch of skill checks involved. They could have involved climb and stealth checks, with a passive perception, or active perception checks by the guards, etc. One option would have been that on one of the climb checks, it failed, but not by much.
> 
> Instead of having different stealth/perception checks, the DM decided that the hero was able to continue climbing, but the guard heard the hammering.
> 
> Why do it this way? Well, there are a lot of potential checks that could be made. A climb check when hammering in each piton, then a climb check to move the next 30' or so, and another for the next piton. In addition, checking against the passive perception each time a piton is hammered in, although there is no DC to check passive perception against, so it's either an active check, or the hero must roll a stealth check. He also may need to roll a stealth check while climbing to the next location where he'll hammer in a piton.
> 
> There are a lot of potential checks. Oh, yeah, and a bunch of fate checks to see if he pulls loose some rocks, or disturbs a nest full of birds, or a piton breaks free, or the rope gets snagged, etc.
> 
> So somewhere in here there is a sort of sweet spot where the right number and the right types of skill and event checks occur, combined with the right amount of narrative developed from the results of the skill checks.
> 
> Climbing several hundred feet 30' skill check at a time would get very, very long. But a single check isn't sufficient either.
> 
> A failed skill check could indicate he couldn't find a clear path to climb, a piton pulled loose, he drops a piton or the hammer, the rope gets snagged, the birds, loose rocks, etc. All of those seem to fit within the purview of the climb checks.
> 
> Some sort of perception check is needed by the guards. Probably the easiest is to use passive perception (they don't really think anybody is likely to be trying to climb up), and assign a penalty to the stealth checks for using a hammer. Or a flat DC can be set, saying anybody within 300 ft can hear it, up to 500' is a DC 12, 1000' is a DC 15, etc.
> 
> How many checks? That's the tricky one. That's where I like using the degrees of success/failure. If a moderate failure indicates an amount of time to recover, then a success over the amount needed can be used the same way. So, if the hero beats the DC by 7, then the next 7 rounds (210 feet) are traversed successfully, with little incident. A single stealth check covers the period, and continue on.
> 
> With fail forward, you can make some assumptions, and fill in the narrative blanks with fewer checks, and the end result of those checks potentially have a wider variety of results.
> 
> Now in this situation, I think what Pemerton is asking, is what if the hero made it all the way to the top, undetected, and a separate fate check indicated something very bad happened, and the slate of the final rock face came loose and slid off the clifftop, causing our hero to fall (and maybe the rope catches him). That just doesn't seem fair that he succeeded, and yet is still knocked back down.




I think that is fair (if annoying) so long as the mechanic is normally in play.  What I wouldn't consider fair is because the climber did so well at climbing, he forgot to stop and pulled a Daffy Duck -- climbing to the top and then continuing the climb down or because the climbed so well he made it all the way onto the back of a patrol horse and now has to figure out how to get off without alerting the very close guards.  In other words, a complication directly attributable to over-success.  



> The reality is that it's the same thing. In the end he's hanging by the rope and has to climb back up.
> 
> <snip>




Although in your example the PC finds himself in the same circumstance, it is no the same thing.  In one recounting, the PC fared well at his task to be blindsided by sheer bad luck that can strike any time anywhere in that game.  In the other recounting, the PC was spotted because insufficient care was given to making noise (if everyone can clearly hear it within 300', he must be using a jackhammer on those pitons!).


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Nagol said:


> Although in your example the PC finds himself in the same circumstance, it is no the same thing.  In one recounting, the PC fared well at his task to be blindsided by sheer bad luck that can strike any time anywhere in that game.  In the other recounting, the PC was spotted because insufficient care was given to making noise (if everyone can clearly hear it within 300', he must be using a jackhammer on those pitons!).




But if you don't know how the DM came to that conclusion, it is irrelevant.

Having said that, I think one of the concerns that people have is how much control they want the DM to have in those decisions. Regardless of whether the end result is the same, and the story is equally exciting, something about human nature doesn't want the bad stuff to be the result of a conscious decision by another human being, even the DM. If the dice say it's so, they are OK with it. But for whatever reason, a lot of us have difficulty accepting the same bad stuff from a person.

So a part of this continuum is the comfort and level of trust that the players have in their DM.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> In an earlier post you (or whoever first) outlined that they had to get the rod to find the pudding, and the mace to kill the monster (Jell-o? I don't remember which dessert was involved).



No.

 [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] introduced the example with the pudding and the rod. In his (and others') discussion of that example it has been clear that losing the rod creates a choice: go on without it but have a less certain means of finding the pudding; or try to recover the rod from the ravine into which it has fallen.

The mace example is mine. It is from an episode of actual play. I have described it several times upthread, including in a very recent post, so I won't reiterate it. But the mace is not needed to kill any monster.



Ilbranteloth said:


> the group might have a specific goal - get the pudding. In the process of searching for the mace in the tower, they learn of a potential cookie in another location.



This is not how the scene-framing style of play generally associated with paradigmatic "fail forward" techniques works. The players don't follow the GM's cookies. Rather, the players - via the build and play of their PCs - set "cookies" for the GM. Eg the mace became relevant in my BW game because one of the players added backstory and a goal to his PC.



Ilbranteloth said:


> when exploring a world, you'll come across all sorts of things



"Fail forward" is a technique that is generally an alternative to "exploring a world". The GM authors backstory in response to adjudicating checks, not as an input into that adjudication.



Ilbranteloth said:


> If everything that the PCs do lead eventually lead them to the pudding, and you don't introduce any elements that would give them alternative options for their adventuring fun for the day, then it's just a railroad.



This makes me feel that you are not really following the discussion of how "fail forward" techniques work. If everything the PCs do is _aimed_ at getting the pudding, it does not follow that they will find it. Because they may fail. (As the PCs in my BW game initially failed to find the mace.)

If the PCs decide to pursue something else, that is there prerogative. (The 5 PCs in my BW game each have 3 Beliefs, although some of those beliefs overlap in content so that is not literally 15 possible goals in play, but its certainly more than 1.) But that is up to the players, not the GM. If the PCs pursue something else, then the GM has to adjudicate those new action resolutions. (That is actually how the mace became relevant in my BW game - as I've explained, that "alternative option" was introduced by the players, not by the GM.)



Ilbranteloth said:


> if everything was randomly determined, and particularly if the location of a given object, person, etc. is partially dependent upon the success or failure of a roll, how can you develop a campaign world with depth and consistency if you as the DM don't know stuff about it beforehand?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> once those NPCs have been met, they exist. If they run into them again, there needs to be consistency. I guess if you're just keeping track of things as you build it you'll end up in the same place, but I get the feeling that more involved, deeper plots are difficult to pull together in that approach.



Through a combination of note-taking and memory. Writing everything in advance doesn't per se increase its depth, nor ensure consistency.

I've got plenty of actual play threads, some of which I've linked to upthread. Here's another. They illustrate how the technique works.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Isn't that kind of the job of the DM? I mean, after they survive a combat, there's something else presenting a challenge, twist, or something, unless they've actually made it to their goal?



If the check succeeds, then the goal/intention that motivated the check has been achieved. If the new challenge/complication invalidates or reverses that particular achievement, I regard that as rendering the players' resource expenditure pointless.



Ilbranteloth said:


> there are a lot of potential checks that could be made. A climb check when hammering in each piton, then a climb check to move the next 30' or so, and another for the next piton. In addition, checking against the passive perception each time a piton is hammered in, although there is no DC to check passive perception against, so it's either an active check, or the hero must roll a stealth check. He also may need to roll a stealth check while climbing to the next location where he'll hammer in a piton.
> 
> There are a lot of potential checks. Oh, yeah, and a bunch of fate checks to see if he pulls loose some rocks, or disturbs a nest full of birds, or a piton breaks free, or the rope gets snagged, etc.
> 
> So somewhere in here there is a sort of sweet spot where the right number and the right types of skill and event checks occur, combined with the right amount of narrative developed from the results of the skill checks.
> 
> Climbing several hundred feet 30' skill check at a time would get very, very long. But a single check isn't sufficient either.



Why not?


----------



## Balesir

grendel111111 said:


> Can you see that having a game where the skills of the players do not influence the probabilities of unrelated things might be important for some people just because they assure you that this is the case, even if it doesn't work for you?



Yes, I can absolutely see that, and I even share the outlook, but you appear to have missed my point completely.

The point I was trying to make is that these two systems are exactly equivalent, and *the chance of the mace being there to be found is affected by the character skill in neither of them*.

If character skill added onto the chance of the mace being in the tower to be found in system 1, then the rolls become (1) d10+skill for 8+ for a thorough search, as before, and (2) d10+skill for 6+ for the mace to be there - not as before. The percentile system this equates to is not the same as in my original example - it is now a complex scheme like this:

- PC skill = 0, chance to find = 15% (same as before).
- PC skill = 1, chance to find = 24% (compared with 20% before).
- PC skill = 2, chance to find = 35% (compared to 25% before).
- PC skill = 3, chance to find = 48% (compared to 30% before).
- PC skill = 4, chance to find = 63% (compared to 35% before).
- PC skill = 5, chance to find = 80% (compared to 40% before).

The chance to find the mace now follows a squared relation to the character's skill, instead of a linear one. The linear realtion between the character's skill and the chance to find the mace actually implies that the PC's skill *does not* affect the chance that the mace is there to be found - quite the opposite of what you seem to be claiming.

In other words, I am not saying that you should find "system 2" to be unobjectionable _despite_ it having a feature you (understandably) don't like - I am saying that you should find it unobjectionable precisely because *it does not have that feature*.

I am not arguing with your _tastes_ - which are incontestable in any case - I am arguing with your _maths_.



grendel111111 said:


> And yes "for me" the DM knowing is a massive advantage.



OK - that is a very different issue. Do you have any practical advantage that you see for the GM knowing, or do you just prefer to know, as a GM?


----------



## innerdude

Ilbranteloth said:


> I guess you could say my approach is to write a background story - there is a rough timeline of 'planned' events typically in a given region. I might have other things in play on a larger scale. They don't have to be heavily details, and the timeline can easily change, especially based on what the PCs do. Based on your description, you have some of this already, a few maps, some stat blocks, etc. I guess the major difference is that I also have some active stories. If you're familiar with FR publications, this would be the 'current clack' section. Other rumors and activities may be developed on the fly.
> 
> I guess that the reality is that there is a continuum of prepared and random/on-the-fly things all of the time. A published adventure tends to lean heavily on the pre-planned. At the very least there's an intended end-game. I'm comfortable more in the middle. I like to think through things a bit more (duh) so I have a lot of semi-pre-planned activities going on in my head, and sometimes on (digital) paper to give me a head start in the event that the PCs intersect that story. After each session I typically have a bunch of ideas in reaction to the session. As that percolates over the week it tends to coalesce into a sort of 'prep' for the upcoming session, although it may never end up written down.
> 
> But I always have a pretty good idea of the various directions things can go if they stick with the current goal. If they change their goal (which they have done quite frequently), then it gets interesting. But that's also why I have a good idea of most of what's going on in the background so I can react quickly and consistently.
> 
> Ilbranteloth




First off, the way you've described your pre-campaign setup is similar to mine. I think it's important for the characters to have a reasonably clear picture of how their characters are "framed" in the fiction at the get go. Some people advocate a 100% "No Myth" approach (meaning the absolute bare minimum of backstory), but I've found that to frame relevant conflicts and scenes, I have to have a reasonably good grasp of what's happening in the game world. 

I agree that it's important to have a "semi-breathing" world, where there are NPCs, organizations, nations, etc. that have agendas and will be taking actions in the background whether the PCs adapt to them or not. What shouldn't happen (at least in my opinion), is there shouldn't be some final encounter, some end game or plot development that WILL INEVITABLY HAPPEN, no matter what.

My GM-ing took a dramatic leap forward when my focus became about engaging the PCs with what was interesting to the players. To that end, scene frames, situations and NPC motivations have to remain adaptable and fluid. It was about shifting gears and changing directions based on what you see at the table.



Ilbranteloth said:


> What I don't understand is, if everything was randomly determined, and particularly if the location of a given object, person, etc. is partially dependent upon the success or failure of a roll, how can you develop a campaign world with depth and consistency if you as the DM don't know stuff about it beforehand? I have potential antagonists going about their plans whether the PCs intervene or not. Even if they don't directly engage with them, their actions can still have an impact.
> 
> So I guess this is where it starts to lose me. Depending on the circumstance, I'd agree, not everything is determined ahead of time. There are some random events, encounters, NPCs, etc. I'm OK with that as part of the basic framework of the world. But I also view it as a living, breathing world that needs consistency. When you start with a clean slate, never adventured in the world before. Fair enough. But once those NPCs have been met, they exist. If they run into them again, there needs to be consistency. I guess if you're just keeping track of things as you build it you'll end up in the same place, but I get the feeling that more involved, deeper plots are difficult to pull together in that approach.




I think I understand why you're getting hung up on this point, but the trick to remember is, as a GM you're not authoring "in the moment" all the time. There are absolutely moments where your pre-authored fiction can and should hold true. Sometimes the mace isn't there, and it doesn't matter what the PCs do, or say, or roll on the dice, they ain't gettin' that mace in Location X. 

BUT --- and this is the big "but" --- as a GM, you should always be asking yourself, "Is that REALLY the case? Does the game get any better (or worse) if I decide right now, in the moment, that in fact the mace is there? And that the PCs will find it?"

If that's the case, don't even make them roll for it. There's no roll to be made. Assuming the PCs declare that they make any kind of reasonable search of the area to find the mace, they find it. This is classic "Say yes or roll the dice." Well, we just said yes --- the mace is there. Now what happens?

Or if they do roll for it, decide right then and there that they will find SOMETHING, even if the check result says "failure." This is the idea behind "fail forward." Sometimes, the PC's success is guaranteed, but I still make them roll the check to see how long it takes, the degree of success (which can lead to more interesting findings), and whether anything in the scene around them reacts to it. 

To me the whole "Climbing Mount Pudding" example is a classic case of process sim run amok. If it's so dang important for the PCs to make it to the top of Mount Pudding, then scene frame it such that the PCs make it to Mount Pudding, but use the climb checks to represent some other variable other than the success of the climb.   

Oh sure, if you change your pre-authored fiction, you're probably going to have to change other stuff in the fiction too, and maybe even do a mild ret-con (though in my experience, even if it's a semi-obvious ret-con to the players, most of the time they don't care and just roll with it). But if changing your pre-authored fiction increases the dramatic tension, pushes narrative momentum, and gives the PCs a chance to really dig in further to their character goals.......isn't that BETTER? 

(Obviously the hardcore "simulationists" will disagree, but frankly I don't care. In my experience the only time "simulationism" works in the first place is if the players are heavily invested in their PCs with goals, motivations, and back stories . . . in which case, why would I purposefully use heavy process sim / pre-authoring to stunt their ability to engage with what they want?)


----------



## innerdude

Balesir said:


> Do you have any practical advantage that you see for the GM knowing, or do you just prefer to know, as a GM?




The practical advantage is that it makes it easier for the GM to project the fiction backwards and forwards. The GM doesn't have to do the mental "hurdling" to figure out what happens if the fiction changes in the moment. 

I think GMs get scared that "changing the fiction in the moment" somehow lessens the scene or impact for the players, or cheapens the value of play. 

95+ percent of the time this has NEVER been the case in my experience.


----------



## grendel111111

Balesir said:


> Yes, I can absolutely see that, and I even share the outlook, but you appear to have missed my point completely.
> 
> The point I was trying to make is that these two systems are exactly equivalent, and *the chance of the mace being there to be found is affected by the character skill in neither of them*.
> 
> If character skill added onto the chance of the mace being in the tower to be found in system 1, then the rolls become (1) d10+skill for 8+ for a thorough search, as before, and (2) d10+skill for 6+ for the mace to be there - not as before. The percentile system this equates to is not the same as in my original example - it is now a complex scheme like this:
> 
> - PC skill = 0, chance to find = 15% (same as before).
> - PC skill = 1, chance to find = 24% (compared with 20% before).
> - PC skill = 2, chance to find = 35% (compared to 25% before).
> - PC skill = 3, chance to find = 48% (compared to 30% before).
> - PC skill = 4, chance to find = 63% (compared to 35% before).
> - PC skill = 5, chance to find = 80% (compared to 40% before).
> 
> The chance to find the mace now follows a squared relation to the character's skill, instead of a linear one. The linear realtion between the character's skill and the chance to find the mace actually implies that the PC's skill *does not* affect the chance that the mace is there to be found - quite the opposite of what you seem to be claiming.
> 
> In other words, I am not saying that you should find "system 2" to be unobjectionable _despite_ it having a feature you (understandably) don't like - I am saying that you should find it unobjectionable precisely because *it does not have that feature*.
> 
> I am not arguing with your _tastes_ - which are incontestable in any case - I am arguing with your _maths_.




The thing I have a problem with is the single roll that is tied to the characters stats or skills and decides if the mace is there in the first place.
Pass is mace is found.
fail is mace is not found and mace is not there.  
I honestly prefer is the mace there (yes or no). search roll informs how long it takes to determine this. 



Balesir said:


> OK - that is a very different issue. Do you have any practical advantage that you see for the GM knowing, or do you just prefer to know, as a GM?




Actually I prefer the DM to know "when I am a player". The focus on "telling a story" for me needs to be balanced with playing a game. 
I'm not so interested in telling the story of how how my character solved the mystery of the haunted castle, as I am of solving the mystery as both a player and a character.
I want there to be mysteries that involve thinking and problem solving to resolve. When the target is continually shifting to always be in your cross hairs, it's just not as challenging.
It's like you are shooting 5 arrows at the wall and then the DM goes up and draws circles around the arrows and says "Well done you hit every target". 

I will try and explain this by using an example.

Players hunting down his brother who is possessed.

Players are looking for item - fail forward discover brother has always been evil and invited possession. (for some reason failing at an unrelated skill has turned the brother bad)

My preferred way is that the DM knows that the brother invited the possession, but the players and the characters do not. Over the coarse of the adventure they discover this information slowly, 1 hint at a time, as they come to find more clues. When they track down the brother they may or may not know the truth. They may have not found enough information and think they are trying to "save" the brother, not realising he is beyond saving.

Additionally Discovering the truth about the brother is not a fail, finding out the clues and information is a reward for doing well.

This preference of mine is just that. If I go to a game club and there is a game, I will play what is on offer. If there are 2 games I will go with the one closer to my preferences. So if one game is high improve/fail forward, and the other is a preset world (not an AP) then I am more likely to go with the preset world.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> The same goes for BBEG, McGuffin etc.
> 
> Like anything else - you make it up as is needed, and/or as seems appropriate, as the game unfolds.
> 
> And apropos of this:
> 
> If the check had succeeded, the PCs would have found the mace they were looking for.
> 
> The backstory about the brother would still have been up for grabs: you can't establish an ingame fact about the brother via a successful Scavenging check. It would require a successful Balrog-wise or Great Masters-wise or Brothers-wise check, or something along those lines.
> 
> EDIT: Another example of NPC backstory authoring from my BW game.
> 
> As I set out in this post, the PCs in my BW game think they have uncovered a death cult priest. And as far as my pre-prep is concerned, I am inclined to think that they have also. (I had written up the death cult priest one day catching the train to work.)
> 
> But nothing definitive about the status of the priest has been established in play, and so the whole thing is still up for grabs. If the accused priest's champion wins the trial by combat, I might even decide that her story is true!
> 
> These things don't need to be decided in advance.




I understand how this works in this style of games then, thanks.


----------



## Maxperson

grendel111111 said:


> Players are looking for item - fail forward discover brother has always been evil and invited possession. (for some reason failing at an unrelated skill has turned the brother bad)




From what has been posted, I gathered that the brother was evil all along.  I think the fail forward was the information that was unrelated to the skill roll showing up.


----------



## grendel111111

Nagol said:


> Sure, but having the complication trigger off of a success means the player who invested resources in something so as to not have problems accomplishing something only to have problems accomplishing something too well (or whatever).




You have complications trigger off failure, but I don't think anyone is saying that success will trigger complications, but complications will happen.
There will be guards at the top of the wall independent of if you succeed or fail, so if you successfully climb the next thing in your way will be that there are guards on the wall. If you fail to climb the guard will still be there and when you do get to the top of the wall you will still need to deal with them, it just that you will have other things in the way before getting to the guards.

It really depends on how much you include in a skill check.
1 only include the act of climbing (yes or no did you get to the top)
2 include how long it takes to get to the top/equipment failure.
3 include time/equipment/ guards noticing/ does it rain.
4 includes leaving you house buying all the equipment needed climbing the wall and over powering the guards at the top.
5 includes all of the above and climbing the inner wall of the fort as well.
6 includes all of the about and over powering the guard to get to the target of the assassin (move to final boss battle).


you and Ilbranteloth are at different points on the "how much to include in one check" scale.


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## grendel111111

Maxperson said:


> From what has been posted, I gathered that the brother was evil all along.  I think the fail forward was the information that was unrelated to the skill roll showing up.




No, the brother was possessed, that he had been evil before the possession was only determined by the fail forward (and the finding of the black arrows). 
If the arrows hadn't been found then the brother being just possessed, or possessed and evil before that happened, or any thing else is up for grabs.

From pemerton post 596.

If the check had succeeded, the PCs would have found the mace they were looking for.

The backstory about the brother would still have been up for grabs: you can't establish an ingame fact about the brother via a successful Scavenging check. It would require a successful Balrog-wise or Great Masters-wise or Brothers-wise check, or something along those lines.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?473785-Failing-Forward/page60#ixzz3xYP5Fwel


----------



## Maxperson

grendel111111 said:


> No, the brother was possessed, that he had been evil before the possession was only determined by the fail forward (and the finding of the black arrows).
> If the arrows hadn't been found then the brother being just possessed, or possessed and evil before that happened, or any thing else is up for grabs.
> 
> From pemerton post 596.
> 
> If the check had succeeded, the PCs would have found the mace they were looking for.
> 
> The backstory about the brother would still have been up for grabs: you can't establish an ingame fact about the brother via a successful Scavenging check. It would require a successful Balrog-wise or Great Masters-wise or Brothers-wise check, or something along those lines.
> 
> Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?473785-Failing-Forward/page60#ixzz3xYP5Fwel



Gotcha.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> Are you able to articulate the nature of the advantage?
> 
> The main difference I can see is that if the GM knows (and knows because s/he decides in advance, rather than allowing the decision to be shaped by player-side checks and resource expenditure) then the GM can control the plot.




It isn't about plot control. My games very rarely have a "plot" but are more "setting" that can be explored with many factions, events and "happenings" The players choose what they do within the world, not the DM. But there are some truths that the players may not know and have not been articulated yet. 
I have run games where there has been a "plot" the players were unaware of. My "next" game was like that. The characters were in a bubble world that had been created to protect the last of "humanity" from a demon incursion that had destroyed the world, but so much time had passed no one had any knowledge of what happened in the old times, or why boats never came to the ports because they had fallen into disrepair from generations of not being used.
The game for the players was not just telling the story of the characters, there was real mystery to solve. Why did things not behave the way they expected them to? Why did the time mage lock them in? Why is the bubble collapsing? Is there a way to the outside world? How could they restore the outside world

Now clearly this is not the style of game for everyone and I got the buy in that this was the kind of game I would be running. I thought it would be a fun interlude for 2-3 sessions, and it ended up running for 6 months. The game was really engaging for the players that I had at the table, because that extra layer of players solving a mystery as well as telling the characters stories.  Other players may not have got it at all.



pemerton said:


> What mechanical system are you talking about here? What you say is not true for "fail forward" systems, where a check deals with _intent _as well as _task_.
> 
> If the GM is going to introduce complications that muck up the plans of, or thwart the desires of, players who make successful checks, then (from the player's point of view) what is the point of devoting resources to making successful checks?




I think this is a key difference between the styles of games. Are the checks about what the characters want or what the players want. For me discovering the characters brother was always evil is good for the characters (now they have more info to fight the demon) but bad for the player (my characters brother is lost). I would tend to see it as a good thing and so the discovery would happen on a strong success, or more likely spread over many smaller successes. 

Fail forward games work because they are built to account for it in the way the skill systems work, bringing it into something like 5e involves adapting the skill system to be closer to how Fail forward focused games see skills. But that doesn't mean that there aren't thing in fail forward games that other games won't benefit from (which is what I am looking for)

For me complications don't come from failed skill checks, complications happen to everyone, your skills/abilities/powers are how you deal with the complications when they happen.


----------



## BryonD

innerdude said:


> I agree that it's important to have a "semi-breathing" world, where there are NPCs, organizations, nations, etc. that have agendas and will be taking actions in the background whether the PCs adapt to them or not. What shouldn't happen (at least in my opinion), is there shouldn't be some final encounter, some end game or plot development that WILL INEVITABLY HAPPEN, no matter what.
> 
> My GM-ing took a dramatic leap forward when my focus became about engaging the PCs with what was interesting to the players. To that end, scene frames, situations and NPC motivations have to remain adaptable and fluid. It was about shifting gears and changing directions based on what you see at the table.
> 
> 
> 
> I think I understand why you're getting hung up on this point, but the trick to remember is, as a GM you're not authoring "in the moment" all the time. There are absolutely moments where your pre-authored fiction can and should hold true. Sometimes the mace isn't there, and it doesn't matter what the PCs do, or say, or roll on the dice, they ain't gettin' that mace in Location X.
> 
> BUT --- and this is the big "but" --- as a GM, you should always be asking yourself, "Is that REALLY the case? Does the game get any better (or worse) if I decide right now, in the moment, that in fact the mace is there? And that the PCs will find it?"
> 
> If that's the case, don't even make them roll for it. There's no roll to be made. Assuming the PCs declare that they make any kind of reasonable search of the area to find the mace, they find it. This is classic "Say yes or roll the dice." Well, we just said yes --- the mace is there. Now what happens?
> 
> Or if they do roll for it, decide right then and there that they will find SOMETHING, even if the check result says "failure." This is the idea behind "fail forward." Sometimes, the PC's success is guaranteed, but I still make them roll the check to see how long it takes, the degree of success (which can lead to more interesting findings), and whether anything in the scene around them reacts to it.
> 
> To me the whole "Climbing Mount Pudding" example is a classic case of process sim run amok. If it's so dang important for the PCs to make it to the top of Mount Pudding, then scene frame it such that the PCs make it to Mount Pudding, but use the climb checks to represent some other variable other than the success of the climb.
> 
> Oh sure, if you change your pre-authored fiction, you're probably going to have to change other stuff in the fiction too, and maybe even do a mild ret-con (though in my experience, even if it's a semi-obvious ret-con to the players, most of the time they don't care and just roll with it). But if changing your pre-authored fiction increases the dramatic tension, pushes narrative momentum, and gives the PCs a chance to really dig in further to their character goals.......isn't that BETTER?
> 
> (Obviously the hardcore "simulationists" will disagree, but frankly I don't care. In my experience the only time "simulationism" works in the first place is if the players are heavily invested in their PCs with goals, motivations, and back stories . . . in which case, why would I purposefully use heavy process sim / pre-authoring to stunt their ability to engage with what they want?)



I think this is very good.
I'd tend to call myself a fairly "hardcore simulationist", but to me the joy of the experience when that hardcore simulation baseline crashed into the player's ideas (and luck) with wildly unexpected results.
Maybe that disqualifies me from your definition, but I suspect you know what I'm saying.

I am very very unlikely to decide that "the mace *IS* here.  Never say never, because fun is paramount, but the cost of that switch would betray a lot of fun to me, so the reward would have to be spectacular.  So let's add a third "very" and keep "never just a fingertip away.

It is possible I might have an obstacle that is mandatory to achieving a goal, but in that case achieving the goal is simply not mandatory to continuing a fun campaign.
And it is also possible that there is an obstacle which is more of a complication, meaning there is no real chance of failure, but it could make things more difficult.  This is probably functionally the exact same thing as your alternative to failure, but I just don't frame it that way in my mind.  I have had a recent instance in which the characters needed to climb a wall and one was allowed to forego the roll, two rolled for how quickly they could do it and another two rolled to see if they could do it at all.  Same ideas can happen at the group level.  It just seems quite natural to me.


----------



## pemerton

innerdude said:


> as a GM you're not authoring "in the moment" all the time. There are absolutely moments where your pre-authored fiction can and should hold true. Sometimes the mace isn't there, and it doesn't matter what the PCs do, or say, or roll on the dice, they ain't gettin' that mace in Location X.
> 
> BUT --- and this is the big "but" --- as a GM, you should always be asking yourself, "Is that REALLY the case? Does the game get any better (or worse) if I decide right now, in the moment, that in fact the mace is there? And that the PCs will find it?"
> 
> If that's the case, don't even make them roll for it. There's no roll to be made. Assuming the PCs declare that they make any kind of reasonable search of the area to find the mace, they find it. This is classic "Say yes or roll the dice." Well, we just said yes --- the mace is there. Now what happens?



The flip side (in "fail forward" play) is that, if the mace is not there, then the players don't make a check. You just tell them that, after scouring the ruins of the tower, their PCs do not find the mace.

Once the check is framed, and the goal of the check is "find the mace", then if the check succeeds the PCs find the mace. In BW terminology, that's "intent and task" at work.



grendel111111 said:


> I'm not so interested in telling the story of how how my character solved the mystery of the haunted castle, as I am of solving the mystery as both a player and a character.
> I want there to be mysteries that involve thinking and problem solving to resolve.





grendel111111 said:


> It isn't about plot control. My games very rarely have a "plot" but are more "setting" that can be explored with many factions, events and "happenings" The players choose what they do within the world, not the DM. But there are some truths that the players may not know and have not been articulated yet.



I think this is a case where different RPGers think of "plot"/"story" and "railroading" in different terms.

The sort of game you describe strikes me as similar to what the Alexandrian discusses in his posts on the "three clue" rule. To me, those sorts of games are very GM-directed: the GM is establishing all the key scenes/transitions in advance, and the players' choices determine the precise pathway through them. I don't mind this sort of game for a convention-style one-shot, but do not particularly like it for campaign play.



grendel111111 said:


> Players hunting down his brother who is possessed.
> 
> Players are looking for item - fail forward discover brother has always been evil and invited possession. (for some reason failing at an unrelated skill has turned the brother bad)
> 
> My preferred way is that the DM knows that the brother invited the possession, but the players and the characters do not. Over the coarse of the adventure they discover this information slowly, 1 hint at a time, as they come to find more clues. When they track down the brother they may or may not know the truth. They may have not found enough information and think they are trying to "save" the brother, not realising he is beyond saving.
> 
> Additionally Discovering the truth about the brother is not a fail, finding out the clues and information is a reward for doing well.





grendel111111 said:


> For me discovering the characters brother was always evil is good for the characters (now they have more info to fight the demon) but bad for the player (my characters brother is lost).



Two things.

First, discovering that the brother was always evil is _terrible_ for the character. He was hoping to save his brother from possession, but now learns that his brother is beyond redemption. Imagine learning that a loved one was in fact a vicious killer. That is not a good thing for anyone!

Second, it is by no means guaranteed that the brother was always evil. There is evidence for this: the black arrows. And the PCs currently believe this. But the campaign is not over, and so new revelations (triggered by new checks) are possible. (These would most likely result from successes for the brother PC, or from failures for the assassin/sorcerer PC who hates the brother - her former master, who treated her abominably - and who intends to flay him and send him to hell.)

Think about the various revelations around Gollum/Sméagol in LotR, and the ways in which he appears first as a villain, then as a victim, and then as a villain again. The real-time generation of that sort of story is (part of) what scene-framied/"fail forward" play is aimed at.



grendel111111 said:


> When the target is continually shifting to always be in your cross hairs, it's just not as challenging.
> It's like you are shooting 5 arrows at the wall and then the DM goes up and draws circles around the arrows and says "Well done you hit every target".



I don't see how this relates to any of the play examples being given by the "fail forward" RPGers in this thread.

In the case of my BW game, if - in the end - the balrog kills all the PCs, then they will never learn whether or not the brother was evil, or capable of redemption.

As was being discussed a _long_ way upthread, the "fail" in "fail forward" refers to _failure_. It's not a euphemism for getting what you want.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> The flip side (in "fail forward" play) is that, if the mace is not there, then the players don't make a check. You just tell them that, after scouring the ruins of the tower, their PCs do not find the mace.
> 
> Once the check is framed, and the goal of the check is "find the mace", then if the check succeeds the PCs find the mace. In BW terminology, that's "intent and task" at work.




That isn't a flip side. If the mace isn't there and I am not using "fail forward" I still don't get them to  players to roll a search roll. This is an example of a bunch of other techniques being attributed to 
to fail forward. They are 2 different things. Even in blue box Basic D and D 30+ years ago we were doing this. "We search for secret door", "You search long enough to assure your self there are no secret doors" No dice roll needed.
If the DM has decided that the mace is not there no roll anyway. The key for me is that the presence or not of the mace is not dependent on the skill of the searcher. 


pemerton said:


> I think this is a case where different RPGers think of "plot"/"story" and "railroading" in different terms.
> 
> The sort of game you describe strikes me as similar to what the Alexandrian discusses in his posts on the "three clue" rule. To me, those sorts of games are very GM-directed: the GM is establishing all the key scenes/transitions in advance, and the players' choices determine the precise pathway through them. I don't mind this sort of game for a convention-style one-shot, but do not particularly like it for campaign play.




Yes I agree it is a different view of several terms. But for me there is no path of scenes for them to go through. (I don't even arrange my games by "scenes"). It more that lots of things are happening and they choose what they are interested in following. 
Ironicly I feel hte same about fail forward. I don't mind it so much in one off or very short champaines, but dislike it for long term play.



pemerton said:


> Two things.
> 
> First, discovering that the brother was always evil is _terrible_ for the character. He was hoping to save his brother from possession, but now learns that his brother is beyond redemption. Imagine learning that a loved one was in fact a vicious killer. That is not a good thing for anyone!
> 
> Second, it is by no means guaranteed that the brother was always evil. There is evidence for this: the black arrows. And the PCs currently believe this. But the campaign is not over, and so new revelations (triggered by new checks) are possible. (These would most likely result from successes for the brother PC, or from failures for the assassin/sorcerer PC who hates the brother - her former master, who treated her abominably - and who intends to flay him and send him to hell.)
> 
> Think about the various revelations around Gollum/Sméagol in LotR, and the ways in which he appears first as a villain, then as a victim, and then as a villain again. The real-time generation of that sort of story is (part of) what scene-framied/"fail forward" play is aimed at.



For me more information is always a good thing even if it is bad news. In your game I would most likely want to fail most of my checks to see the story develop more.


I do see how it works and why it appeals to you. I just prefer that it ends up with a "thruth" that has been consistant and there from the start.



pemerton said:


> I don't see how this relates to any of the play examples being given by the "fail forward" RPGers in this thread.
> 
> In the case of my BW game, if - in the end - the balrog kills all the PCs, then they will never learn whether or not the brother was evil, or capable of redemption.
> 
> As was being discussed a _long_ way upthread, the "fail" in "fail forward" refers to _failure_. It's not a euphemism for getting what you want.




(this was the original bit) 
When the target is continually shifting to always be in your cross hairs, it's just not as challenging.
It's like you are shooting 5 arrows at the wall and then the DM goes up and draws circles around the arrows and says "Well done you hit every target".


What I was trying to explain is that if there is no objective truth that you are solving then you are not really solving anything.

In your BW game if the balrog kills them then they not only don't find out if he was evil or redeamable but he never was either evil or redeamable. The "clues" to find that out were meaningless. They didn't lead to any actual truth of the situation (And I understand that is why more information isn't always good in your games), but is in mine. We really are playing different games with very different goals we are trying to achieve.


----------



## pemerton

grendel111111 said:


> That isn't a flip side. If the mace isn't there and I am not using "fail forward" I still don't get them to  players to roll a search roll. This is an example of a bunch of other techniques being attributed to
> to fail forward. They are 2 different things. Even in blue box Basic D and D 30+ years ago we were doing this. "We search for secret door", "You search long enough to assure your self there are no secret doors" No dice roll needed.



There is a well-known approach to search checks where the GM rolls the dice behind the screen whether or not there is something to find, so that the players don't know whether a failure to find something indicates that there is nothing there to be found, or that there is something there to be found but they missed it.

The most recent time I read discussion of this technique was yesterday, on a current "fudging" thread on the ENworld 5e board.

I can't remember if Moldvay advocates this technique in his Basic rules. I'm pretty sure that it is recommended in GMing advice from that era, though.

_Not_ using that technique is an application of the techniques that are typical of RPGing that uses "fail forward" - it travels with "say yes or roll the dice", "let it ride", etc.



grendel111111 said:


> In your game I would most likely want to fail most of my checks to see the story develop more.



I don't follow. If you succeed you find the mace, and can enchant it. That is also the story developing. Just differently.

I do see how it works and why it appeals to you. I just prefer that it ends up with a "thruth" that has been consistant and there from the start.



grendel111111 said:


> What I was trying to explain is that if there is no objective truth that you are solving then you are not really solving anything.
> 
> In your BW game if the balrog kills them then they not only don't find out if he was evil or redeamable but he never was either evil or redeamable. The "clues" to find that out were meaningless. They didn't lead to any actual truth of the situation



I don't agree with this.

Was Frodo courteous at the dining table? The LotR books don't tell us (as best I recall), but they contain information from which this can be extrapolated.

Or, more significantly, was Faramir a good husband to Eowyn and father to their children? The books don't tell us this either, but we can extrapolate this also. Different readers might reasonably form somewhat different views, based on different readings of what has been written, but it doesn't follow that these views are arbitrary, or that the information from which they are extrapolated is "meaningless".

Not everything in a fictional work needs to be written down in concrete terms in order to be a tenable object of reasoned conjecture.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> There is a well-known approach to search checks where the GM rolls the dice behind the screen whether or not there is something to find, so that the players don't know whether a failure to find something indicates that there is nothing there to be found, or that there is something there to be found but they missed it.
> 
> The most recent time I read discussion of this technique was yesterday, on a current "fudging" thread on the ENworld 5e board.
> 
> I can't remember if Moldvay advocates this technique in his Basic rules. I'm pretty sure that it is recommended in GMing advice from that era, though.
> 
> _Not_ using that technique is an application of the techniques that are typical of RPGing that uses "fail forward" - it travels with "say yes or roll the dice", "let it ride", etc.




You are assuming an either or option. The choice of only the extremes. Yes they often travel together but they are not joined to the point that using one means you must use them all. Just like "fail forward" is a group of techniques and if you use some of it you don't have to use all of it.

Personally, I use a lot from fail forward (as you see it). 
Varient levels of success.
Don't roll if you know the answer already.
Letting the roll ride.
Never letting the game stall.
Alternative outcomes than pass or fail.
Even success at a cost works if the outcomes match the skill being checked.
etc.

So there is a very small fraction of fail forward (matching unrelated outcomes to the roll being made) that I am not comfortable with. For some reason disliking this one thing means people assume that I hide all my rolls, act like a jerk to my players and go on power trips when I DM (even though the thing that bothers me, bothers me most when I am a player not a DM).
Not everyone who does not 100% embrace FF style of play is a bad player, they just have different preferences.


----------



## Balesir

grendel111111 said:


> The thing I have a problem with is the single roll that is tied to the characters stats or skills and decides if the mace is there in the first place.



OK, so it's a sort of "rule of contagion" thing?



grendel111111 said:


> Pass is mace is found.
> fail is mace is not found and mace is not there.



Well, no - as both     [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and I have said, fail = mace is not found. Whether it is there or not remains ambiguous, which is a very good thing for story (and pretty neutral for "game" or "simulation", as far as I can see).



grendel111111 said:


> I honestly prefer is the mace there (yes or no). search roll informs how long it takes to determine this.



So success or failure is decided before the dice are ever rolled? Isn't that what has been argued against for X pages?



grendel111111 said:


> Actually I prefer the DM to know "when I am a player". The focus on "telling a story" for me needs to be balanced with playing a game.
> I'm not so interested in telling the story of how how my character solved the mystery of the haunted castle, as I am of solving the mystery as both a player and a character.
> I want there to be mysteries that involve thinking and problem solving to resolve.



There can be mysteries, thinking and problem solving without any of the players (including the GM) knowing the "absolute truth". For proof of this in general, _vide_ science...

What I take from this is that you want someone to have made a firm decision and not told you what it was. How you can even know that this has happened, let alone have it make any difference to you, is rather a mystery to me, and it's one that I don't think any amount of rational problem solving is going to unravel...



grendel111111 said:


> When the target is continually shifting to always be in your cross hairs, it's just not as challenging.
> It's like you are shooting 5 arrows at the wall and then the DM goes up and draws circles around the arrows and says "Well done you hit every target".



Again, you have completely mischaracterised what has been described. The character hits only when the die roll succeeds - as in pretty much any style of play I have seen.



grendel111111 said:


> I will try and explain this by using an example.



OK



grendel111111 said:


> Players hunting down his brother who is possessed.
> 
> Players are looking for item - fail forward discover brother has always been evil and invited possession. (for some reason failing at an unrelated skill has turned the brother bad)



Well, no. They have one piece of evidence. Now, they might jump to conclusions based on that one piece - which might make a good story - but if the players are serious about playing the game instead of pure storytelling they should realise that one piece of suggestive evidence does not a conviction secure.

The rational approach at this point would be to think what other evidence of the brother's pre-possession disposition there might be, and go look for it. Both scientific enquiry and modern detective work might be good inspirations, here.



grendel111111 said:


> My preferred way is that the DM knows that the brother invited the possession, but the players and the characters do not. Over the coarse of the adventure they discover this information slowly, 1 hint at a time, as they come to find more clues. When they track down the brother they may or may not know the truth. They may have not found enough information and think they are trying to "save" the brother, not realising he is beyond saving.



What stops "discovery by play" doing the same thing? The characters seek out more evidence, other clues, and accumulate it roll-by-roll. Ambiguity is whittled away until a firm body of evidence exists one way or the other. Even beating the demon and "saving" the brother will produce evidence - one way or the other. Only the characters either dying or giving up is likely to leave the ambiguity unresolved, in the end.

So, what benefit was gained by having someone decide what the plot was ("save the innocent brother" or "salvage what we could despite the black sheep of the family going rogue") in advance? What is gained by having one character out of the brother (who thinks his brother is a possessed innocent) and the sorcerer (who believes that his master is a monster to be killed) being known to be wrong from the outset?



grendel111111 said:


> Additionally Discovering the truth about the brother is not a fail, finding out the clues and information is a reward for doing well.



What does that leave as possible results of failure? Doesn't this paint the situation as "success = coming to the conclusions the GM says are correct, failure = coming to any other conclusions"? That would seem to suggest a very one-dimensional world model, don't you think?


----------



## Balesir

grendel111111 said:


> What I was trying to explain is that if there is no objective truth that you are solving then you are not really solving anything.



I think this may be a key concept/quote.

In the "find out by playing the game" style, there *IS* (taken to be) an objective truth.

It's just that nobody knows what it is except by playing the game.

If you were roleplaying omniscient gods, you might find out the "objective truth" by making one roll; 1-3 = the brother was innocent, 4-6 = the brother was evil before he was possessed.

But we are generally roleplaying characters who are closer to "normal folks", and normal folks (such as scientists in the real world) are not able to ask whatever questions they like. They must carefully parse questions to ask of reality such that they can get an answer that might reveal hints at the ultimate "objective truth" behind the mask of the game universe. Really clever questions might come up with a working theory, but just like Newton's wonderful schema in the real world, the theory is always and forever susceptible to being shown to be not quite right...


----------



## pemerton

Balesir said:


> what benefit was gained by having someone decide what the plot was ("save the innocent brother" or "salvage what we could despite the black sheep of the family going rogue") in advance? What is gained by having one character out of the brother (who thinks his brother is a possessed innocent) and the sorcerer (who believes that his master is a monster to be killed) being known to be wrong from the outset?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Doesn't this paint the situation as "success = coming to the conclusions the GM says is correct, failure = coming to any other conclusion"? That would seem to suggest a very one-dimensional world model.



You have honed in on what it is that I dislike about GM pre-authorship: it means that, if the PCs (as played by their players) disagree over something of importance to them, it's already predetermined that one is right and the other wrong.

This can be appropriate for certain sorts of mystery/puzzle-solving games, where the emphasis is on the procedural challenges of learning the truth rather than on the dramatic/evaluative challenges of coming to grips with the truth. But I don't think it makes for very good character-driven drama. (This distinction, in turn, goes back to one that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] drew way upthread between play that focuses on _competence_ and play that focuses on _character_.)

That, for me, is the railroading aspect of it: the GM has already decided that there is only one appropriate view of the possessed brother, and has determined what that view is. (There is some resemblance here to GM-adjudicated alignment, which I also dislike.)


----------



## Balesir

pemerton said:


> You have honed in on what it is that I dislike about GM pre-authorship: it means that, if the PCs (as played by their players) disagree over something of importance to them, it's already predetermined that one is right and the other wrong.



Yes, I can see that being subject to strong overtones of taste, but at this point I'm more interested in what the nature of pre-authorship is and what benefits it might be seen to have. I'm currently struggling to see any, but it's entirely possible that I'm missing quite a bit.


----------



## BryonD

pemerton said:


> You have honed in on what it is that I dislike about GM pre-authorship: it means that, if the PCs (as played by their players) disagree over something of importance to them, it's already predetermined that one is right and the other wrong.
> 
> This can be appropriate for certain sorts of mystery/puzzle-solving games, where the emphasis is on the procedural challenges of learning the truth rather than on the dramatic/evaluative challenges of coming to grips with the truth. But I don't think it makes for very good character-driven drama. (This distinction, in turn, goes back to one that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] drew way upthread between play that focuses on _competence_ and play that focuses on _character_.)
> 
> That, for me, is the railroading aspect of it: the GM has already decided that there is only one appropriate view of the possessed brother, and has determined what that view is. (There is some resemblance here to GM-adjudicated alignment, which I also dislike.)



This presumes that the DM's expectations become set as a "Success / Failure" standard.

If however the conflicts are established an valid and fun resolutions are possible regardless of what the players do with their (potentially asymmetrical) knowledge then a lot of doors are opened.

I would say that the issue you describe is a more complex version of DM "read my mind" syndrome and most every DM has crashed a session through some form of it in the process of learning to be a better DM.  So it is certainly a real hazard and threat.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> No.
> 
> [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] introduced the example with the pudding and the rod. In his (and others') discussion of that example it has been clear that losing the rod creates a choice: go on without it but have a less certain means of finding the pudding; or try to recover the rod from the ravine into which it has fallen.
> 
> The mace example is mine. It is from an episode of actual play. I have described it several times upthread, including in a very recent post, so I won't reiterate it. But the mace is not needed to kill any monster.
> 
> This is not how the scene-framing style of play generally associated with paradigmatic "fail forward" techniques works. The players don't follow the GM's cookies. Rather, the players - via the build and play of their PCs - set "cookies" for the GM. Eg the mace became relevant in my BW game because one of the players added backstory and a goal to his PC.
> 
> "Fail forward" is a technique that is generally an alternative to "exploring a world". The GM authors backstory in response to adjudicating checks, not as an input into that adjudication.
> 
> This makes me feel that you are not really following the discussion of how "fail forward" techniques work. If everything the PCs do is _aimed_ at getting the pudding, it does not follow that they will find it. Because they may fail. (As the PCs in my BW game initially failed to find the mace.)
> 
> If the PCs decide to pursue something else, that is there prerogative. (The 5 PCs in my BW game each have 3 Beliefs, although some of those beliefs overlap in content so that is not literally 15 possible goals in play, but its certainly more than 1.) But that is up to the players, not the GM. If the PCs pursue something else, then the GM has to adjudicate those new action resolutions. (That is actually how the mace became relevant in my BW game - as I've explained, that "alternative option" was introduced by the players, not by the GM.)
> 
> Through a combination of note-taking and memory. Writing everything in advance doesn't per se increase its depth, nor ensure consistency.
> 
> I've got plenty of actual play threads, some of which I've linked to upthread. Here's another. They illustrate how the technique works.
> 
> If the check succeeds, then the goal/intention that motivated the check has been achieved. If the new challenge/complication invalidates or reverses that particular achievement, I regard that as rendering the players' resource expenditure pointless.
> 
> Why not?




OK, part of my problem is just following this thread...well, threads, there are several semi-related discussions about some related and some not related techniques and it's getting difficult to parse through it all in what spare time I've got...

Having said that, I think I'm getting it (really!).

I'll start backwards - one skill check is fine for everything if that's OK with your group. Most seem to want a bit more granularity where the skills of the PCs make a difference. Something not as complicated as combat, but more than a single check.

Now, for the greater discussion, when you (I) start thinking through the discussion, there are two distinct points of view here - the DM and the players. The techniques in play by the DM in many cases should be largely invisible to the players. They players have no idea whether the mace is there or not, so if the DM decides to either make that decision on the fly, or change his decision on the fly, or if it's written on a page of paper makes no practical difference to the player's experience.

There is always a mix of improvising, changing, retconning, and following a predetermined (if not written) idea on the part of the DM. The mix is really a question of what the DM is comfortable with, and falls within their skill set. In theory, the players shouldn't care one way or the other.

First, the players may have a preference for the crunchiness of the game. So the number and types of checks will come into play in part based on that. Then there is the matter of trust. The game is dependent on the trust of the DM by the players. Now in my opinion, if the players can't trust the DM to make rolls in secret, then it's probably the wrong group of players with that DM. On the other hand, there are players that aren't comfortable with any DM rolling in secret, that's a different issue outside of the scope here.

As long as the players trust the DM and feel that the world is consistent and 'fair' (another loaded term), then how the DM goes about generating that world and story is ultimately irrelevant as well.

Since there has finally been a term noted that _does_ apply to this technique, my recommendation (which won't get anywhere, it's OK, I understand), is 'Just In Time' storytelling or DMing, GMing. It's a technique where the DM determines the details of the plot, story, world, situation, whatever on the fly and in the moment. The framework of the world is in place, there are a mix of knowns and unknowns in the world, as there always are, and the results of an event or situation are determined in the moment.

I ran another session last night, and I have to admit it didn't go as well as I'd like. I think it was a mix of the players (all essentially new), and to some degree a lack of planning on my part. I had a good idea of what would happen, due to the particular circumstances, but my brain just wasn't working through potential options quickly enough. So I would have benefitted with more 'pre-planned' stuff to drop in. This is part of the skill side of making these techniques work - I didn't have enough stuff percolating in my brain, and the players/characters weren't providing much in the way of inspiration.

So now I think I really understand what you specifically are calling 'fail forward' and I also see the, um, legitimacy of the concept of deciding if the mace is there/not there at a given point of time. I guess the benefits are that if you're good at it you probably don't need as much prep time, and also allows more possibilities since you're writing the story in a combination of a reactive/proactive approach.

I've been doing this for years since I think it plants the characters more firmly in the world, although not always at the table, a lot of it has been in the planning and thinking between sessions.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Balesir

I like the way you have summarised (what you understand by) the discussion so far. I will just make a comment on this bit:


Ilbranteloth said:


> I'll start backwards - one skill check is fine for everything if that's OK with your group. Most seem to want a bit more granularity where the skills of the PCs make a difference. Something not as complicated as combat, but more than a single check.



Multiple rolls (or randomiser resolutions, to make it properly general) can be combined together as long as they are independent. Even dependent determinations can be combined if you are careful about how much the factors that you want to allow for (like PC skill) affect the probabilities if they affect more than one aspect of the determination. Two considerations might cause you to separate randomised resolutions into multiple steps:

1) Decision points. A random determination cannot take account of a player decision, so the "end points" of the resolution should come when a player has an opportunity to take a decision. This is a player decision, not a character one, because many character decisions are subsumed in the use of a skill. The idea is not to substitute a player's (and gamemaster's) probably hokey or at best partial understanding of medieval fantasy crafts for the character's, but to allow the player to make in-character decisions for their character where they are not purely skill-based.

2) Psychological connectedness. Apparently, some players and GMs are made uncomfortable by the association of multiple random determinations if the randomisations for them are combined together. If this is so for your group, you might want to make several rolls (or draws, or whatever) instead of combining them into one, even if the overall probabilities are the same for the two approaches.

P.S. I will add that I think a bit you missed about "Just In Time" adjudication is that it is (arguably) best done in response to the declared PC actions and the success/failure determinations that result from those actions (by die roll, card draw or whatever).


----------



## TwoSix

pemerton said:


> This can be appropriate for certain sorts of mystery/puzzle-solving games, where the emphasis is on the procedural challenges of learning the truth rather than on the dramatic/evaluative challenges of coming to grips with the truth. But I don't think it makes for very good character-driven drama. (This distinction, in turn, goes back to one that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] drew way upthread between play that focuses on _competence_ and play that focuses on _character_.



It makes me think of [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] 's assertions of the hidden map of the dungeon that the DM kept behind the screen that the players were trying to puzzle out.  It feels like as the game's scope expanded beyond a dungeon crawl, the "hidden map" simply became the DM's understanding of the moving parts of his campaign scenario, and the puzzle was for the players to figure out how the secret plot was unfolding.


----------



## chaochou

Ilbranteloth said:


> Since there has finally been a term noted that _does_ apply to this technique, my recommendation (which won't get anywhere, it's OK, I understand), is 'Just In Time' storytelling or DMing, GMing.




As an aside, this is why 'Story Now' is a more appropriate name for a particular gaming style than Narrativism. It's not just 'story' or 'narrative' that are important, it's also 'now-ness.'



Ilbranteloth said:


> It's a technique where the DM determines the details of the plot, story, world, situation, whatever on the fly and in the moment.




The other key point, is that the DMs determination happens because of an action or statement or belief expressed by a player. In this way the players are the shapers the game, and the GM reacts, instead of the other way around.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

chaochou said:


> The other key point, is that the DMs determination happens because of an action or statement or belief expressed by a player. In this way the players are the shapers the game, and the GM reacts, instead of the other way around.




I agree with this, and have always used the players/characters as an input into the story line. However, I can also see that there's a danger in allowing it to control things 'in the moment' too much, in that it should not ever appear to the players that they are writing any part of the story other than their (character's) own.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Umbran

Balesir said:


> Yes, I can see that being subject to strong overtones of taste, but at this point I'm more interested in what the nature of pre-authorship is and what benefits it might be seen to have. I'm currently struggling to see any, but it's entirely possible that I'm missing quite a bit.




Pardon if I have missed this somewhere in the mix...

One major benefit of pre-authorship is pre-design.  Sometimes, you actually want to make sure what you are presenting is really thought through before players encounter it.

Games that are tactically deep typically need fairly carefully considered design of the tactical challenges, resource depletion rates, and the like, to keep them challenging, but not overwhelming.   But, you can't pre-design the tactical challenges without knowing what's going to come up - that means you need pre-authorship of much of the material.  IMHO, nobody should be "winging it" for mid to upper level D&D 3.x play focusing on combat, for example.  Meanwhile, a game like FATE, or Cortex+, that isn't so tactically detailed, can be authored on the fly easily, because the number of tactical bits needed to make a worthy challenge are far fewer. 

Cogent mysteries also need a fair bit of pre-authoring.  If the goal is for the players to use reasoning to figure out what amounts to a big logic puzzle, you have to pre-author that puzzle, or you are likely to become either inconsistent, or not put in enough information for the players to work out the puzzle, both of which will lead to highly frustrating play experiences.

Note how both of these are situations where play has a significant center around use of logic.


----------



## pemerton

BryonD said:


> This presumes that the DM's expectations become set as a "Success / Failure" standard.



Not particularly.

Player A, in character, hopes that his brother is a victim. Player B, in character, believes that the brother is a villain and wants to be revenged against him.

If the GM decides, secretly, in advance, whether the brother is victim (of balrog possession) or villain (who invited possession), then the GM had decided that either A is right and B wrong, or B right and A wrong. The standard here has not been set by GM expectations - it is the GM secretly choosing against a standard (of victimhood vs villainy) that is common between players A and B.

That's (part of) what I don't like about pre-authorship.


----------



## BryonD

pemerton said:


> Not particularly.
> 
> Player A, in character, hopes that his brother is a victim. Player B, in character, believes that the brother is a villain and wants to be revenged against him.
> 
> If the GM decides, secretly, in advance, whether the brother is victim (of balrog possession) or villain (who invited possession), then the GM had decided that either A is right and B wrong, or B right and A wrong. The standard here has not been set by GM expectations - it is the GM secretly choosing against a standard (of victimhood vs villainy) that is common between players A and B.
> 
> That's (part of) what I don't like about pre-authorship.



I was referring to the general statement you made.    But even in your specific case one being right and the other being wrong does not lock down the success/failure options.

But this just comes back to the role-playing vs. being a author conversation.

Gandalf had no say in whether or not Bilbo found the one ring.  When he showed up at the beginning of Fellowship and threw the ring into the fire, he was inside a story controlled by facts outside of himself.  If he had suddenly starting talking to the reader and announced that he decided it was not the one ring, that would be a very unsatisfying development.  
Same thing for whether or not the brother was possessed willingly.

Obviously a DM and players may plan outside of a game to agree to certain truths.  At a macro level this happens when the group decides to play D&D over Mutants and Masterminds.  If a player wants part of the plot to be that his brother was possessed against his will but this truth is not generally accepted, then this is fine.  But ultimately a great deal of pre-authorship is still mandatory for the experience to model "being that guy in these circumstances".  If the player can keep changing the rules in media res, then the resolution is completely divorced from the character's capabilities.  

There is a great deal of merit to the idea of experiencing a story exclusively as an individual inside that story. The demand for significant pre-authorship in no way prevents players from contributing to the "pre" part of that.  

But if the brother may or may not be possessed willingly and the mace may or may not be there, then this is a scenario that is distinctly different than what many people are looking for.
I don't think it is reasonable to call having this extra-character powers "role playing" by any reasonable definition of role playing.
That doesn't mean you can't flip back and forth from moment to moment between truly role playing and using forth wall powers.  But, to me, the experience of the role playing is contaminated if it can be by-passed.
If Gandalf decides in the second that the ring is flipping into the fire that it is not the One Ring, then this does nothing to prevent the group from role playing an evening of dinner party at Bilbo's, or going off to explore Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains.  But the whole thing is tainted by the fact that everything is in the shadow of a change which Gandalf had no power to impose.

To be clear, I make no claim that my way is better.  You may be having a thousand time more fun than I am and I have no idea what my limited capacity to appreciate your view is costing me.

But I am saying it is important distinction and again results in people talking past each other.

Being very highly pro "pre-authorship" is not in contrast to player input.  As stated, the players and DM coudl easily agree about the brother in advance ("pre-") or a group could easily decide "Hey, what if it WASN'T the One Ring?  Let's play that.".  But once the story is moving at the table the players are either in the role of characters within a set of circumstances or they are not.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Not particularly.
> 
> Player A, in character, hopes that his brother is a victim. Player B, in character, believes that the brother is a villain and wants to be revenged against him.
> 
> If the GM decides, secretly, in advance, whether the brother is victim (of balrog possession) or villain (who invited possession), then the GM had decided that either A is right and B wrong, or B right and A wrong. The standard here has not been set by GM expectations - it is the GM secretly choosing against a standard (of victimhood vs villainy) that is common between players A and B.
> 
> That's (part of) what I don't like about pre-authorship.




I don't see that.  The DM just chose at the beginning that the brother was, say, a villain.  Player A hopes that his character is innocent, but is wrong in that hope.  Player B is correct in his belief.  They have simply guessed correctly or incorrectly as the case may be.  The DM hasn't chosen for or against A or B in an way.  Neither of them played into his decision.

Now, this is different if the DM has not chosen in advance and has waited and seen the guesses by players A and B.  Then, and only then, would he choosing for or against A or B


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> I don't see that.  The DM just chose at the beginning that the brother was, say, a villain.  Player A hopes that his character is innocent, but is wrong in that hope.  Player B is correct in his belief.  They have simply guessed correctly or incorrectly as the case may be.  The DM hasn't chosen for or against A or B in an way.  Neither of them played into his decision.
> 
> Now, this is different if the DM has not chosen in advance and has waited and seen the guesses by players A and B.  Then, and only then, would he choosing for or against A or B



My point is that I dislike this sort of guessing game. I personally don't find that it makes for very rewarding dramatic play.


----------



## BryonD

pemerton said:


> My point is that I dislike this sort of guessing game. I personally don't find that it makes for very rewarding dramatic play.



If it was simply a guessing game as stated there, I would not like that either.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> My point is that I dislike this sort of guessing game. I personally don't find that it makes for very rewarding dramatic play.




I can tell! 

However, lots of people do enjoy that sort of game.  One day I'd like to try your type of game and think I'd enjoy it in small doses, but going off my experience with my type and what I have read, I don't think I'd like an entire campaign of it.


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> My point is that I dislike this sort of guessing game. I personally don't find that it makes for very rewarding dramatic play.




Well, how do you feel about mysteries?  That's not a "guessing game" - it is a "gather evidence and figure it out" game.


----------



## Umbran

BryonD said:


> Being very highly pro "pre-authorship" is not in contrast to player input.




Tonight is my first session of a new Ashen Stars campaign.  The game has a system (I wouldn't want to call it a mechanic - it is more a proposed best practice for the group), in which the players suggest personal arcs for their characters, in the form of three or so events that could happen in game relevant to that arc*.  This is done beforehand, so that the GM can plan it out, and work them into the sessions - a clear admixture of player input and pre-authorship!


*The intent is that these come up kind of like "B-plots" in television shows.  The GM picks a couple of characters each adventure, and works one of their arc events into the mix.  While the team as a whole is trying to figure out of the Baron was actually eaten by a ravenous bugblatter beast, Commander S'toll tries to work his love of Jazz trombone into his love life, and a mysterious message arrives for the ship's cook...  That sort of thing.


----------



## pemerton

BryonD said:


> Obviously a DM and players may plan outside of a game to agree to certain truths.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't think it is reasonable to call having this extra-character powers "role playing" by any reasonable definition of role playing.
> That doesn't mean you can't flip back and forth from moment to moment between truly role playing and using forth wall powers.



This strikes me as confused about the techniques under discussion.

The players in the examples discussed in this thread (eg the mace episode from my BW game) are not authoring anything. The GM is determining the relevant backstory, including the presence of the black arrows in the ruins of the brother's private workshop.

But, as [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] indicated not far upthread, this is done _in the moment of resolution_ (hence the _now_ in "story now"), and is done by the GM responding to player signals, Beliefs/Instincts (in BW), etc.

There are player authorship mechanics in BW (eg Wises, Circles) but (i) they have not been very much discussed in this thread, and (ii) they don't require the player to do anything other than play his/her PC - in this case, either playing his/her PCs learning or playing his/her PCs history of friends, acquaintances, relatives etc.



Umbran said:


> Well, how do you feel about mysteries?  That's not a "guessing game" - it is a "gather evidence and figure it out" game.



I don't run them very well as a GM, and as a player I prefer them for one-shots (eg convention-style play) rather than ongoing.

I think mysteries emphasises the procedural ("Can we deploy our skills adequately here to work out what is going on?") rather than the dramatic.

Here is a link to an actual play report of the last session I ran that was close to a mystery (five years ago!); but even it did not use very much pre-authorship, and I'm not sure those who really get into mystery-solving RPGing would like the way the session was run.


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## Umbran

pemerton said:


> I don't run them very well as a GM




That's as I expected, given what I've seen of you speak about, and what I've read of your play reports.  While I am sure someone out there can do a good mystery without pre-authoring, I expect those GMs are rare indeed.  For most mortals, it calls for some significant pre-authoring.  Otherwise, it comes out rather like a few TV shows that were based on being mysterious, but for which the authors didn't actually start out with a plan for where it was going to go - it begins to wander and become inconsistent, and there can be a tendency to put off the end.



> I think mysteries emphasises the procedural ("Can we deploy our skills adequately here to work out what is going on?") rather than the dramatic.




Have you looked at GUMSHOE?

This game is all about the procedural, but for the most part gets around the 'can we deploy our skills' question.  Of course you can deploy your skills!  You're a competent expert!  If there's a clue to be found in place or situation, you have the skill, and you think to look, you get the clue.  You don't need to jump through hoops and guess exactly where the clue is hidden, or exactly which question to ask of the NPC, no die roll required.

It then becomes the logic puzzle for the players (rather than the characters) to put the clues together and come to a conclusion.  And then the question of what you *do* about it...


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## innerdude

BryonD said:


> But this just comes back to the role-playing vs. being a author conversation.
> 
> Gandalf had no say in whether or not Bilbo found the one ring.  When he showed up at the beginning of Fellowship and threw the ring into the fire, he was inside a story controlled by facts outside of himself.  If he had suddenly starting talking to the reader and announced that he decided it was not the one ring, that would be a very unsatisfying development.
> Same thing for whether or not the brother was possessed willingly.
> 
> Obviously a DM and players may plan outside of a game to agree to certain truths.  At a macro level this happens when the group decides to play D&D over Mutants and Masterminds.  If a player wants part of the plot to be that his brother was possessed against his will but this truth is not generally accepted, then this is fine.  But ultimately a great deal of pre-authorship is still mandatory for the experience to model "being that guy in these circumstances".  If the player can keep changing the rules in media res, then the resolution is completely divorced from the character's capabilities.
> 
> There is a great deal of merit to the idea of experiencing a story exclusively as an individual inside that story. The demand for significant pre-authorship in no way prevents players from contributing to the "pre" part of that.
> 
> ...snip...
> 
> Once the story is moving at the table the players are either in the role of characters within a set of circumstances or they are not.




First of all, any opportunity to bring in DM of the Rings to the conversation should be celebrated heartily. 

The question of pre-authoring versus Story Now / Just-in-time GM-ing / mutable fiction is obviously not a binary. In fact, I'm a strong believer that diligent, coherent pre-authoring is a necessary precursor to running a successful campaign. To me it's much easier for the GM to later break that pre-authoring when needed if they have a strong grasp on how a given "break" will spill out into following frames. 

The shift to "Just-in-time GM-ing" happens more directly in play. It's a reaction on my part to trying to be more open and flexible to player desires. And I know for me it has worked wonders in building the types of campaigns that I enjoy. My 14-month long Savage Worlds fantasy campaign was a direct result of a dedicated commitment to not having any "end game" in mind, but to "scene frame" based on what the players were giving me, with _just the right amount_ of pre-authoring to make the frames coherent. 

To follow up on the hypothetical Lord of the Rings example: 

If I was the GM, the nature of the One Ring would be set in stone. But let's say the player running the "Frodo" character came to me and said, "What if I'm not entirely sure my uncle Bilbo is telling me the truth?" Maybe it's because he wants wants to explore something different in his character than "tragic heroism," so he imagines up that his uncle Bilbo isn't a good guy, but is in fact manipulating him.

The Ring is still the Ring, but now the Frodo character is exploring an entirely different set of fictional circumstances to react to / play against. 

Would I as a GM be willing to change the fiction to potentially give the player what he wanted? Prior to 2010 or so, the answer would be a definite "No. That's not how the story is set up." Now? I'd strongly consider it.


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## pemerton

Umbran said:


> Have you looked at GUMSHOE?



I've had ToC (in PDF) for some years, but have never run it. It's on my "to try" list for a rainy day when our numbers aren't fully quorate and there's nothing else waiting in the wings, but that rainy day could be a long time coming.

ADDENDUM:

When I talk about procedural play involving the adequate deployment of skills, I'm not talking (just) about the mechanics of skill checks. The sort of play that GUMSHOE emphasises - visiting the right places, declaring the right action/skill use, collecting the information and solving the puzzle - I would count as an example of _procedural_ play.

The question of what we _do_ once the puzzle is solved has potentially more _dramatic_/_character-driven_ dimensions to it, but if the GM has determined the answer to the puzzle in advance of play, then the dramatic elements are not likely to be adapted to and expressive of the dynamics of actual play in the sort of manner that I prefer.


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## Umbran

pemerton said:


> When I talk about procedural play involving the adequate deployment of skills, I'm not talking (just) about the mechanics of skill checks. The sort of play that GUMSHOE emphasises - visiting the right places, declaring the right action/skill use, collecting the information and solving the puzzle - I would count as an example of _procedural_ play.




Fair enough.  The game is certainly procedural, in the sense that TV shows are procedural.  

To note, however, GUMSHOE doesn't require that the players actually figure out what the *real* procedure would be - the player doesn't have to know police evidence gathering procedures to succeed.  The game calls for the characters to be in the right place, and have the right skill to use.   In, for example, old school D&D play, we relied on player expertise, and if the player didn't explicitly state the character was searching, say, the legs of the bedstead, a secret compartment in one of them would never be found, but that's not required here.

In GUMSHOE, if the character with Forensic Anthropology says, "I examine the body," that's enough.  They don't even really have to specify which skill they are using - so long as they have an applicable skill, and what they narrate is reasonable to include a particular skill, we can assume it is applied, and they get the appropriate information.



> The question of what we _do_ once the puzzle is solved has potentially more _dramatic_/_character-driven_ dimensions to it, but if the GM has determined the answer to the puzzle in advance of play, then the dramatic elements are not likely to be adapted to and expressive of the dynamics of actual play in the sort of manner that I prefer.




Again, fair enough.  A person's preferences are what they are.  I wonder, though if much of what you are labeling as character-driven is really _player_-driven, which is not the same thing.  

When I hear the phrase "character driven", I think of the literary sense, in which the piece is focused on in internal changes and conflicts in the character.  It is *not* character driven in the sense that the events are dominated and controlled by the character's choices, nor that the characters are in charge of their own destinies - you can have a character-driven story in which the characters are tossed upon the seas of fate, so long as the focus is on the internal life of the character, and how they feel and react to events.

This is in contrast to the plot-driven story, in which the details of events are the focus of the piece.

You can thus have a _player_-driven game, that focuses on the directions the player wants things to do, that is overall plot-driven... if the player is interested in making things external to his or her character happen.  Meanwhile, I can have a significantly pre-authored piece, that as fiction is character-driven, in that the pre-authoring is designed to yank the character's emotional chains, and produce conundrums the player reacts to.

This latter, I find (definitely in my own, anecdotal experience) is true for those players who want to reach emotional immersion in characters.  The meta-level of thought required for player-driven play tends to keep them non-immersed.  So, the GM has to know where the PCs in coming from, and put things into play that resonate with their known issues.  A great deal of human drama and emotion arises from the fact that the universe is often unyielding and intractable, and that is hard to model with something that is highly player-driven, and thus yielding and tractable.

I find the example of the spectrum of playstyles seen in this discussion interesting.

A great many folks come down on the side that things like Fail Forward, or dice fudging, or other narrative influencing techniques are badwrongfun, for a variety of reasons generally amounting to, "a form of objectiveness to the game reality must exist down to the individual task resolution."  I often find myself in alignment with you in these discussions - play of the moment, to me, is generally pretty open to manipulation.

But here, we find we part ways - you seem to take it to the other extreme.   While you don't call it badwrongfun for others, even having objective reality exist on the larger, longer scale is detrimental to your play experience, while I find the presence of a significant number of pre-determined facts to be useful.

I think I know of an analogy I see in character creation...

I know a great many people who, in character creation, want to be given a "blue sky" situation, where they GM says, "Make anything you want, the sky's the limit!" without any direction on where the campaign will go, themes, or the like.   I, personally, don't work well in blue sky mode.  When i am force to make a character in such situations, the results are... uninspired.  However, give me a framework, a few restrictions, and it is an entirely different story.  If creating a character were writing poetry, some folks are best in free verse (which I often really don't understand), but I am a master of the more structured haiku and sonnet forms that most folks find too restraining.


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## Balesir

Umbran said:


> One major benefit of pre-authorship is pre-design.  Sometimes, you actually want to make sure what you are presenting is really thought through before players encounter it.



This is (collectively) a good point, and I think it has some degree of merit, but I don't think it is particularly clear cut. For example...



Umbran said:


> Games that are tactically deep typically need fairly carefully considered design of the tactical challenges, resource depletion rates, and the like, to keep them challenging, but not overwhelming.   But, you can't pre-design the tactical challenges without knowing what's going to come up - that means you need pre-authorship of much of the material.  IMHO, nobody should be "winging it" for mid to upper level D&D 3.x play focusing on combat, for example.  Meanwhile, a game like FATE, or Cortex+, that isn't so tactically detailed, can be authored on the fly easily, because the number of tactical bits needed to make a worthy challenge are far fewer.



While really full-on tactical challenges might need some careful design, I think more modern tactical rule sets, both RPG and wargaming, can be made pretty tactically rich with very little setup or using setup tools designed to work quickly with the rules they are attached to. Several folk have said they can run encounters on the fly with 4E, 13th Age is certainly pretty well set up for it and, on the wargames side, the "De Bellis Antiquitatis" series can be played with very short setup times and quick action. So, a qualified "pre-authoring/pre-design useful" but not, I think, necessary - at least not for the whole game.



Umbran said:


> Cogent mysteries also need a fair bit of pre-authoring.  If the goal is for the players to use reasoning to figure out what amounts to a big logic puzzle, you have to pre-author that puzzle, or you are likely to become either inconsistent, or not put in enough information for the players to work out the puzzle, both of which will lead to highly frustrating play experiences.



I can see that if you want to use "clever" clues as beloved by mystery writers that pre-design of the "truth" behind the mystery could be useful, but, again, I don't think that mystery and discovery are impossible with a "no myth" approach. I think Dungeon World stories and Universalis show this most clearly, to me. The approach is actually similar to the scientific method, except that repeats of the same test are generally assumed (rather than "happen to have") the same outcome.

In other words, a "rule" has to be that, once some "observation" is made, that observation is assumed to be "the truth", and any repeat of the same essential experiment will yield the same result. Investigation proceeds by a process of identifying untested possibilities, working out an in-game way to test them, and then resolving the (randomised) outcome of those tests and considering what the outcome of the test means for the revealed "truth". When you have eliminated that which the dice say is untrue, whatever remains must be the truth.

Note that this method is not without the benefits (and I agree that there are some) of constraint and limitation. It's just that, instead of being set at the beginning (and not revealed to all participants), the constraints are built up gradually as "facts" are established in the fiction.



Umbran said:


> Note how both of these are situations where play has a significant center around use of logic.



Yes, I see that, but I don't think that "discover as you play" style play need be in the slightest bit removed from the application of logic.

Further, I wonder whether an analogous case might be made that more effective emotional or aesthetic impact can be achieved through the use of prepared material than via pure improvisation? I guess the question I would narrow down on is "at what point does an increasing focus on individual design and preparation make the whole thing an entertainment rather than a collective creative activity?" The "in the moment" end of the spectrum has, if nothing else, the benefit of being more of the latter than the former.

As almost an aside, I have generally found that the use of "clever clues" in RPGs has a nasty tendency to fall flat. I think the trick is that mystery writers have the singular advantage of both controlling the main investigators and creating the "clever" clues; they can thus be assured that the "truth" revealed by the "clever clue" will, at some point, become evident to the stalwart detective...


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## Balesir

BryonD said:


> Gandalf had no say in whether or not Bilbo found the one ring.  When he showed up at the beginning of Fellowship and threw the ring into the fire, he was inside a story controlled by facts outside of himself.  If he had suddenly starting talking to the reader and announced that he decided it was not the one ring, that would be a very unsatisfying development.



I think you set up a false comparison, here. Let me draw another picture of the "DM of the Rings" as it might play out:

- Either following previously played-out investigations or because the GM agreed with the player of Gandalf as part of character creation that Gandalf had strong suspicions that the "ring of invisibility" that Bilbo had found was, in fact, the One, Gandalf has such strong suspicions. Strong enough suspicions, in fact, that to risk damaging a run of the mill "invisibility ring" to find out the truth once and for all.

- Gandalf throws the ring in the fire. Dice are rolled to see what happens. Because of the evidence gained beforehand and/or because of the steer given to Gandalf's player at game start, the odds are stacked pretty well to the "One Ring" side, but it's not a foregone conclusion.

- Either the ring _is_ the One, and the players must decide where to go from there, or it isn't - which raises more questions about why the Great Darkness is once more stirring. Sauron is still seeking the One with all his power, after all...

Not only does this strike me as a perfectly good way to go with the play, it also seems to me to be much, much closer in immersive feel to the fictional scene that we might imagine in Bag End that evening. After all, Gandalf, though he had strong suspicions and good reasons to think that the ring Bilbo found was the One Ring, he didn't know it for certain. Without the real risk of an contrary result, the tension that we imagine being felt by the characters on that night evaporates. We already know, where they did not, what the outcome will be.


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## Umbran

Balesir said:


> I can see that if you want to use "clever" clues as beloved by mystery writers that pre-design of the "truth" behind the mystery could be useful, but, again, I don't think that mystery and discovery are impossible with a "no myth" approach. I think Dungeon World stories and Universalis show this most clearly, to me. The approach is actually similar to the scientific method, except that repeats of the same test are generally assumed (rather than "happen to have") the same outcome.




I think you miss my meaning.  The issue at hand isn't about it being "clever".  Merely that the clues are logically consistent and actually eliminate all but one possibility.  

In Atomic Robo, a FATE-based game, there's an excellent procedure for the PCs to figure out what is causing a particular weird science phenomenon, and in the process generate an Aspect they may tag to help deal with it.  The players determine a series of "facts" (usually, but not necessarily, based on things they've witnessed about the phenomenon), and then come to a "conclusion" that is consistent with those facts.  The GM does not need to decide how the phenomenon works, as the players will generate the reason it works for the GM.

So, for example, in a recent arc of that game I ran, I put forth a swarm of giant bees the PCs had to deal with.  They used the fact that they had apparently escaped during a lightning storm, a completely made up piece BS about how bees navigate that is patently not true in the real world, and something else I cannot recall, to come to the conclusion that the bees were vulnerable to strong electromagnetic fields.  They then sacrificed an electric car to kit-bash it into an electromagnetic beacon to attract and capture the bees.  As weird science creativity, it worked just great, and generated a solution to the problem I would not have considered.  It even told me how the bees had escaped their confinement, which I hadn't determined that before play began.

This functions just so long as the final result can be *anything*, unconstrained.  For a murder mystery, for example, so long as you can generate a suspect the PCs have never actually met to be the ultimate bad guy, this will function - if you can always claim there's a Mr. Whithers that has not been seen before the PCs unmask him, you are fine.  However, if they try to pin it on a specific person they've already seen, unless they are *very* careful (as in, are taking care at a level I simply don't expect is practical) the facts they may generate may not be consistent - the butler will have been in the study, and the kitchen at the same time, with the candlestick and the pipe wrench, respectively.  Or, those "facts" will not actually converge and narrow the field to any particular conclusion at all!

Moreover, this sort of procedure does *not* give the players the satisfaction of solving a logic puzzle!  The mental act of creation is not the same as the mental act of deduction, and the players can tell the difference!



> Further, I wonder whether an analogous case might be made that more effective emotional or aesthetic impact can be achieved through the use of prepared material than via pure improvisation?




I don't think we can generalize.  I think some people will find the emotional or aesthetic impact of prepared materials greater, and others will find improvisation more effective.  I don't even think we can state it clearly for a single person, as we cannot really separate the impact of the source of the material from the impact of the content of the material, from the impact of the presentation of the material - it could be more a question of the GM's theatrical skill and/pr understanding of the players than the source of the material.

I might go further to say that while Pemerton has found what works supremely well for himself and his group, his group's tastes are likely in the minority.  Likewise the folks who argue against his positions from the polar opposite point similarly have groups that have been selected for those particular tastes, but are likewise in the minority.  The "truth", such as it may be, may thus lie in the middle - the most generally effective approaches are apt to be hybrids, not purebreds.  Individuals may like something specific, but mutts are pretty broadly beloved 

Or, we might posit that generation of material is like my generation of characters - maybe one GM is most inspired by improvisation, another GM is inspired by the process of authoring beforehand, and that is what generates the impact.



> As almost an aside, I have generally found that the use of "clever clues" in RPGs has a nasty tendency to fall flat.




If I am getting what you mean by "clever clues", that's not what Ashen Stars operates on.  They do not recommend you find one key point that's arcane or obscure in order to solve the case.  In the adventure I'm currently running, there are no fewer than four different ways to discover the source of the trouble the PCs are contending with.  It is by no means hidden in some particularly clever minor tidbit.


----------



## pemerton

Balesir said:


> a "rule" has to be that, once some "observation" is made, that observation is assumed to be "the truth", and any repeat of the same essential experiment will yield the same result. Investigation proceeds by a process of identifying untested possibilities, working out an in-game way to test them, and then resolving the (randomised) outcome of those tests and considering what the outcome of the test means for the revealed "truth". When you have eliminated that which the dice say is untrue, whatever remains must be the truth.
> 
> Note that this method is not without the benefits (and I agree that there are some) of constraint and limitation. It's just that, instead of being set at the beginning (and not revealed to all participants), the constraints are built up gradually as "facts" are established in the fiction.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't think that "discover as you play" style play need be in the slightest bit removed from the application of logic.



I see this as analogous to the point I made upthread about extrapolating to fictional facts that have never been authored, by working within the context and constraints provided by what _has_ been authored.



Umbran said:


> I wonder, though if much of what you are labeling as character-driven is really _player_-driven, which is not the same thing.
> 
> When I hear the phrase "character driven", I think of the literary sense, in which the piece is focused on in internal changes and conflicts in the character.  It is *not* character driven in the sense that the events are dominated and controlled by the character's choices, nor that the characters are in charge of their own destinies - you can have a character-driven story in which the characters are tossed upon the seas of fate, so long as the focus is on the internal life of the character, and how they feel and react to events.
> 
> This is in contrast to the plot-driven story, in which the details of events are the focus of the piece.
> 
> You can thus have a _player_-driven game, that focuses on the directions the player wants things to do, that is overall plot-driven... if the player is interested in making things external to his or her character happen.  Meanwhile, I can have a significantly pre-authored piece, that as fiction is character-driven, in that the pre-authoring is designed to yank the character's emotional chains, and produce conundrums the player reacts to.
> 
> This latter, I find (definitely in my own, anecdotal experience) is true for those players who want to reach emotional immersion in characters.  The meta-level of thought required for player-driven play tends to keep them non-immersed.  So, the GM has to know where the PCs in coming from, and put things into play that resonate with their known issues.  A great deal of human drama and emotion arises from the fact that the universe is often unyielding and intractable, and that is hard to model with something that is highly player-driven, and thus yielding and tractable.



In your description of the pre-authored character-driven game you still talk about the player _reacting_ to the challenges into which the GM frames his/her PC.

Unless those reactions are what I would call _mere colour_ - the player emotes his/her PC, but doesn't actually declare action resolutions that both express that emoting (and so would be different were the emotions different) and shape the direction of ingame events - then we have something that is, to at least some extent, player driven.

In the "pure emoting"/"mere colour" variant, I see two issues. One is a matter of taste, and so maybe not of any consequence to anyone but me: generally I don't find play where the players' emoting of their PCs makes no difference to events very satisfying. An exception is a well-run Cthulhu one-shot, where the emoting is fun (as you play out your PC's baltherings to Nyarlathotep, or whatever it is) and the play of the game is significantly _about_ generating that colour. And even in these, often one's final choice for a PC might change the way in which the world comes crashing down as a finale.

The second issue is more practical: if the player's choices for his/her PC don't shape events in a significant way, then unless the GM is an incredibly engaging author there areincreasing prospects of a gap opening up between what the GM has in store for the PC, and what will actually move the player who wants to be immersed in his/her PC. I have seen this happen more than once in highly GM-driven, pre-authored campaigns.

Turning these concerns into a positive statement about RPGing: the scope for the player to choose (by way of immersion or inhabitation of the character) _how_ a protagonist responds to the challenges s/he is confronted with, and then have those choices both reinforced and put under the microscope by the framing of new challenges, is something that RPGs have that seems fairly unique to me. Turning the RPG into just another device for the players to hear someone else's story seems not to engage with that distinctive feature of RPGing.

I know the above has been framed in strongly contrasting/absolute terms, and as you say actual play in many if not most cases will involve mixes of approaches and techniques. That's even true for my BW game: I am using my GH maps (I think I have all of them from the early 80s through to the 3E Gazetteer), without worrying too much about minor variations across eras. So when one of the PCs has, as part of his backstory, knowledge of a ruined tower in the desert foothills we (the player and I) are committed to locating that tower somewhere on the Abor-Alz map.

So I'm not intending to advocate for a technique in any sort of purist or absolutist fashion. It's more that I'm trying to explain how a certain approach actually works in practice, why it has some merit, and (most importantly) why the frequent identification of a "real, living, breathing campaign world" with a very heavy dose of GM pre-authorship is a fallacious one. You can have the former without the latter.


----------



## Balesir

Umbran said:


> I think you miss my meaning.  The issue at hand isn't about it being "clever".  Merely that the clues are logically consistent and actually eliminate all but one possibility.



I don't _think_ I miss your meaning, but I need perhaps to explain my own a little more completely to make that clearer (one way or the other).

When I talk about "clever" clues what I have in mind are clues that, when looked at a particular way or together with other available information, are supposed to point unambiguously to one specific perpetrator. I almost never come across this in real life - the usual sort of "clue" is one that eliminates one suspect from the list of possible suspects or adds a suspect to the said list. As a result I think of specifically incriminating clues that are found in combination as rather contrived or "clever"; I don't really think they feature in real investigations at all often, but that does not mean that they could or should not be explored in the context of an RPG. Their usual abode is logic puzzles and murder mystery books, so the desire to achieve their extension to RPGs seems quite natural, in fact.

Now, the reason I think this sort of "clue" structure tends to fall flat is that players either don't notice the clues (because they are not as evident as their author imagines them to be), or that they are not as unambiguous as their author believes them to be (or, at least, are not seen as unambiguous by the players). This can either lead to baffled and frustrated players (and characters!) in the first case - avoided by mystery writers by simply having the "genius" investigator notice the clues which they themselves have planted - or by the players/characters reaching the wrong conclusion in the second case - avoided by the mystery writer by having their primary character just as blind to the ambiguity as they are, which is kind of hard to avoid doing...

Getting the right answer is satisfying, of course, but getting a "wrong" answer can be not only "un-fun" but also intensely frustrating if you can see ambiguity that the author is apparently blind to*. I think it is also unrealistic, in the sense that what is generally left at the end of an investigation is some element of ambiguity. You might be wrong, but you will probably never know - although some investigations are "proved" wrong years or even decades after the fact.

So, do I think there is a type of game here that can only be done with pre-authoring? Yes - but it's only a subset of the "investigation" genre, and I think it's chancy at best to get "right". For some, the effort required to get it "right" may very well be worthwhile - good luck to them. To me, it seems like too much effort/risk for too little gain.

*: Edit to add - I take it as given that one key feature of this sort of pre-authored mystery is that you can know absolutely at the end of play whether or not you were "right". If this is not a desired feature, then I see much less benefit from the pre-authoring.


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## Umbran

pemerton said:


> In your description of the pre-authored character-driven game you still talk about the player _reacting_ to the challenges into which the GM frames his/her PC.
> 
> Unless those reactions are what I would call _mere colour_ - the player emotes his/her PC, but doesn't actually declare action resolutions that both express that emoting (and so would be different were the emotions different) and shape the direction of ingame events - then we have something that is, to at least some extent, player driven.




This is part of why I noted definitions of "character driven" vs "plot driven".  These terms come from media - there is no "player driven" novel or movie out there.  

But, the fact that we have a "player driven" option, in which the character drives the action, and the player has an avatar of a character, that "character driven" means "character drives events".  It is a drift in language use I was trying to elucidate here.  "Character driven" has little to do with how events unfold.  Character driven stories are rather the opposite - they are less about how events unfold, and more about how *character* unfolds.  

Which is to say that, in the terms I'm using, "character driven" and "player driven" are more orthogonal than we might at first think.



> The second issue is more practical: if the player's choices for his/her PC don't shape events in a significant way, then unless the GM is an incredibly engaging author there areincreasing prospects of a gap opening up between what the GM has in store for the PC, and what will actually move the player who wants to be immersed in his/her PC. I have seen this happen more than once in highly GM-driven, pre-authored campaigns.




Yes, that is a possibility.  But nothing is perfect.  It is also a possibility that the players choices shape events, and the result is still unsatisfying, however.  When you were a kid did you ever think, "Gee, I'd love to have that toy!" only to find that the toy, once gained, really wasn't all that fun?  Or, it is also a possibility that you have a group of players who choose things that wind up in great conflict, and they aren't good at negotiating among themselves how to go, leading to an unsatisfying experience, and so on.  

Ultimately, "I get to author things," is not a guarantee of anything, including player engagement.  Even Stephen King writes stinkers, kinda frequently, even!  Robert Jordan, given his head with little editing (I suspect because he *married* his editor, leaving her in a position with major conflict of interests) ended up with the quality of his work degrading rapidly, with lots of meaningless filler and very little action or development of character - entire novels of mostly stasis.

So, there are pitfalls on all sides.  Nothing guaranteed.  



> Turning these concerns into a positive statement about RPGing: the scope for the player to choose (by way of immersion or inhabitation of the character) _how_ a protagonist responds to the challenges s/he is confronted with, and then have those choices both reinforced and put under the microscope by the framing of new challenges, is something that RPGs have that seems fairly unique to me. Turning the RPG into just another device for the players to hear someone else's story seems not to engage with that distinctive feature of RPGing.




Yes.  But you know what?  I find the concern to be largely a boogeyman.  Rare, indeed (IME) is the GM who, while pre-authoring, isn't also taking player thoughts into account.  Having, for example, a pre-authored mystery (past events in which the PCs took no part are fixed, but resolution of the remaining conflicts of the situation not fixed) doesn't seem like it is at great risk of missing out on this particular distinctive feature.  It is only the past which is pre-authored, after all, not the future.  Other than having some expectation that the players may well figure out what's going on, there's not much preventing having the player choices given spotlight.  And the pre-authoring in this example is only on a case-by-case basis, not pre-authored for an entire campaign.



> So I'm not intending to advocate for a technique in any sort of purist or absolutist fashion. It's more that I'm trying to explain how a certain approach actually works in practice, why it has some merit, and (most importantly) why the frequent identification of a "real, living, breathing campaign world" with a very heavy dose of GM pre-authorship is a fallacious one. You can have the former without the latter.




Being someone advocating mixed-approaches, you don't really need to convince me.  All things are useful, when applied thoughtfully.


----------



## BryonD

Balesir said:


> I think you set up a false comparison, here. Let me draw another picture of the "DM of the Rings" as it might play out:
> 
> - Either following previously played-out investigations or because the GM agreed with the player of Gandalf as part of character creation that Gandalf had strong suspicions that the "ring of invisibility" that Bilbo had found was, in fact, the One, Gandalf has such strong suspicions. Strong enough suspicions, in fact, that to risk damaging a run of the mill "invisibility ring" to find out the truth once and for all.
> 
> - Gandalf throws the ring in the fire. Dice are rolled to see what happens. Because of the evidence gained beforehand and/or because of the steer given to Gandalf's player at game start, the odds are stacked pretty well to the "One Ring" side, but it's not a foregone conclusion.
> 
> - Either the ring _is_ the One, and the players must decide where to go from there, or it isn't - which raises more questions about why the Great Darkness is once more stirring. Sauron is still seeking the One with all his power, after all...
> 
> Not only does this strike me as a perfectly good way to go with the play, it also seems to me to be much, much closer in immersive feel to the fictional scene that we might imagine in Bag End that evening. After all, Gandalf, though he had strong suspicions and good reasons to think that the ring Bilbo found was the One Ring, he didn't know it for certain. Without the real risk of an contrary result, the tension that we imagine being felt by the characters on that night evaporates. We already know, where they did not, what the outcome will be.




This is all cool.

I would hate it.

There is zero perception on my part that this Schrodinger's aspect of whether it was or was not the one ring was ever in play.  I have never discussed the books or movies with anyone and received the slightest indication that they felt that a character not knowing a truth within the fiction made that truth in doubt to the larger story.  
I want the experience of being in the story that way.

Again, importantly different goals and tastes with massive implications.

I'm not saying yours is in any way flawed.  I never have.
But I think rejecting alternatives is a bad approach for discussing ideas and finding common ground.


----------



## BryonD

pemerton said:


> This strikes me as confused about the techniques under discussion.
> 
> The players in the examples discussed in this thread (eg the mace episode from my BW game) are not authoring anything. The GM is determining the relevant backstory, including the presence of the black arrows in the ruins of the brother's private workshop.



No, I understand quite well and you seem to be simply obfuscating the point.

Whether the DM or players make the changes is completely beside the point.

Again, to me this jarring inability to get what I'm saying points to the preconceived notions and inability to look at it differently, which results in this "talking past other people".


----------



## BryonD

innerdude said:


> First of all, any opportunity to bring in DM of the Rings to the conversation should be celebrated heartily.
> 
> The question of pre-authoring versus Story Now / Just-in-time GM-ing / mutable fiction is obviously not a binary. In fact, I'm a strong believer that diligent, coherent pre-authoring is a necessary precursor to running a successful campaign. To me it's much easier for the GM to later break that pre-authoring when needed if they have a strong grasp on how a given "break" will spill out into following frames.
> 
> The shift to "Just-in-time GM-ing" happens more directly in play. It's a reaction on my part to trying to be more open and flexible to player desires. And I know for me it has worked wonders in building the types of campaigns that I enjoy. My 14-month long Savage Worlds fantasy campaign was a direct result of a dedicated commitment to not having any "end game" in mind, but to "scene frame" based on what the players were giving me, with _just the right amount_ of pre-authoring to make the frames coherent.
> 
> To follow up on the hypothetical Lord of the Rings example:
> 
> If I was the GM, the nature of the One Ring would be set in stone. But let's say the player running the "Frodo" character came to me and said, "What if I'm not entirely sure my uncle Bilbo is telling me the truth?" Maybe it's because he wants wants to explore something different in his character than "tragic heroism," so he imagines up that his uncle Bilbo isn't a good guy, but is in fact manipulating him.
> 
> The Ring is still the Ring, but now the Frodo character is exploring an entirely different set of fictional circumstances to react to / play against.
> 
> Would I as a GM be willing to change the fiction to potentially give the player what he wanted? Prior to 2010 or so, the answer would be a definite "No. That's not how the story is set up." Now? I'd strongly consider it.



Certainly, and I don't dispute this.
But I don't see you saying anything I didn't already agree with anyway.

As you said, the One Ring *is* the One Ring.  The players choices may have HUGE impacts on what happens with that fact and how the story proceeds.  And numerous new facts may come to be as a result.  But the "pre-authored" facts remain set.

I already offered that a group could elect beforehand to play in a world where the one ring was *not* the one ring.  The game canon can be as broken away from foundational literary canon as the groups wants.

And, obviously, if you go back and review a game after the fact, the number of "facts" that were "pre-authored" will be very small compared to the number of facts which were resolved "just in time".  So again I strongly agree with you.  It is certainly not at all the case that being strongly pro-preauthorship shuts out "just in time" as the main part of the game.


----------



## pemerton

BryonD said:


> Whether the DM or players make the changes is completely beside the point.



What changes? There are no changes. Authoring is not _changing_ the fiction - it is bringing it into being.



BryonD said:


> There is zero perception on my part that this Schrodinger's aspect of whether it was or was not the one ring was ever in play.  I have never discussed the books or movies with anyone and received the slightest indication that they felt that a character not knowing a truth within the fiction made that truth in doubt to the larger story.
> I want the experience of being in the story that way.



To me this seems to miss [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]'s point about immersion.

For Gandalf and Frodo, sitting in Bag End, the truth is not known. There is doubt - and the possibility that the ring is not the One.

So experiencing being in the story would mean experiencing that doubt - which, mechanically, means not knowing how the dice will roll.

To me (and, in light of his post, I think also [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]), learning the GM's pre-authored fictional truths is not experiencing being in the story at all, but rather having the meta-experience of learning the content of an already-written story.

Relating this back to the example that you described as _changing_: the players in my BW game, both for themselves and in character, are wondering and debating the nature of the mage PC's brother. Was he evil before he was possessed?

Unexpectedly, when looking for something quite different (the mace), they find the black arrows in his (now ruined) private workroom. This is a new, and hitherto unexpected, sign which suggests (i) that he was evil before being possessed, and (ii) that he had some connection to the killing of the elven ronin PC's master. It is new to the characters. And it is new to the players - so, for instance, they don't have to _play_ at being shocked, because they are shocked.

The revelation wouldn't be _more _shocking if I (as GM) had decided it in advance.

I think this is the sot of thing that Balesir was intending to get at in his reference to immersion and discovery.



Umbran said:


> the fact that we have a "player driven" option, in which the character drives the action, and the player has an avatar of a character, that "character driven" means "character drives events".  It is a drift in language use I was trying to elucidate here.  "Character driven" has little to do with how events unfold.  Character driven stories are rather the opposite - they are less about how events unfold, and more about how *character* unfolds.
> 
> Which is to say that, in the terms I'm using, "character driven" and "player driven" are more orthogonal than we might at first think.
> 
> <SNIP>
> 
> Ultimately, "I get to author things," is not a guarantee of anything, including player engagement.



In the "player driven" game that uses scene framing, "fail forward" etc, the events are also reflective/expressive of "character driven" action in your sense of that term - the unfolding events also reflect the unfolding of the PC.

It's true that, in fiction generally, there can be character-driven stories where the events are not driven by the character, but I think that has to be harder to pull off in RPGing (doesn't it?) because of the place of player action declarations in RPG play. If players _are_ declaring actions for their PCs, then player and hence PC choices drive events (but, in scene-framing, "fail forward" play are also expressive of the character in the "character driven" sense). But if events are not driven by character choices, then it becomes much harder for the game to be character driven, because of the divorce between the authorship of events (the GM) and the authorship of the character's inner responses (the player).

On "authoring" in general, I'm not advocating for player authorship in this thread. (Though it can have a place, I think.) In all the examples of play I've given and linked to, the framing of challenges and the authorship of the backstory is primarily with the GM. I see the discussion in this thread as not being primarily about the identity of the author, but the timing of the authorship.


----------



## Zak S

It's impossible to not fail forward in a properly run game.

You only call for a die roll when there are consequences to failure.

You didn't open the door? One more wandering monster check. Tension ratchets up.

The game just went forward.

Fail to climb? You got hurt. You are more vulnerable. Tension ratchets up.

The game just went forward.

It's like people have never seen a horror movie.


----------



## pemerton

Zak S said:


> It's impossible to not fail forward in a properly run game.
> 
> You only call for a die roll when there are consequences to failure.
> 
> You didn't open the door? One more wandering monster check. Tension ratchets up.
> 
> The game just went forward.
> 
> Fail to climb? You got hurt. You are more vulnerable. Tension ratchets up.
> 
> The game just went forward.
> 
> It's like people have never seen a horror movie.



I'm pretty confident that D&D games have been run where climb checks were made, any damage taken was healed with clerical spells, and nothing else happened during the ingame day (and _that_ nothing else would happen was quite predictable to the players). So the climb check, the taking of damage, the use of memorised spells, etc was all just record keeping but didn't lead to any ratcheting-up of tension.

I think this would be especially common in 2nd ed AD&D and 3E games, which maintain many of the resolution mechanics from AD&D but don't use the dungeon, "horror movie" framing that connects those mechanics to the ratcheting up of tension.

I would see the self-conscious exposition and development of "fail forward" techniques as a way of trying to further develop RPGs into these non-dungeon, non-"horror movie" fictional contexts while also ensuring some sort of forward momentum or development (whether that's the ratcheting up of tension or some other sort of emotional pressure).


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> What changes? There are no changes. Authoring is not _changing_ the fiction - it is bringing it into being.
> 
> To me this seems to miss @_*Balesir*_'s point about immersion.
> 
> For Gandalf and Frodo, sitting in Bag End, the truth is not known. There is doubt - and the possibility that the ring is not the One.
> 
> So experiencing being in the story would mean experiencing that doubt - which, mechanically, means not knowing how the dice will roll.




Or not knowing whether the DM had pre-authored that ring being or not being "The Ring"... right?  Effectively for everyone but the DM, regardless of what approach is taken, it seems the same uncertainty exists...



pemerton said:


> To me (and, in light of his post, I think also @_*Balesir*_), learning the GM's pre-authored fictional truths is not experiencing being in the story at all, but rather having the meta-experience of learning the content of an already-written story.




Either way the GM is authoring... not seeing the difference (except again in the DM himself not knowing) in whether he author's ahead of time or not, either way the DM decides what the truth is whether pre-authored or authored in the moment. 



pemerton said:


> Relating this back to the example that you described as _changing_: the players in my BW game, both for themselves and in character, are wondering and debating the nature of the mage PC's brother. Was he evil before he was possessed?
> 
> Unexpectedly, when looking for something quite different (the mace), they find the black arrows in his (now ruined) private workroom. This is a new, and hitherto unexpected, sign which suggests (i) that he was evil before being possessed, and (ii) that he had some connection to the killing of the elven ronin PC's master. It is new to the characters. And it is new to the players - so, for instance, they don't have to _play_ at being shocked, because they are shocked.
> 
> The revelation wouldn't be _more _shocking if I (as GM) had decided it in advance.
> 
> I think this is the sot of thing that Balesir was intending to get at in his reference to immersion and discovery.




Would it have somehow been less shocking?  I guess again on a fundamental level I'm not seeing what the gain is outside of a DM getting to be surprised as well... but for the players, unless you're announcing that you just determined these things what is the practical difference?  Personally I think a DM who knows his players and their character's well enough can pre-author large aspects of the game while still having a character/player driven game... do you agree?  If not, why not?


----------



## BryonD

pemerton said:


> What changes? There are no changes. Authoring is not _changing_ the fiction - it is bringing it into being.



The One Ring was the One Ring.  Gandulf did not make that true by throwing it into the fire.  He brought nothing into being.  He discovered a pre-authored truth.
There is appeal to this paradigm.



> To me this seems to miss [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]'s point about immersion.



keyword: seems



> For Gandalf and Frodo, sitting in Bag End, the truth is not known. There is doubt - and the possibility that the ring is not the One.



Right, they are characters.  The truth exists.  They don't know what it is.



> So experiencing being in the story would mean experiencing that doubt - which, mechanically, means not knowing how the dice will roll.



For a great many aspects of the game this is true.  Will I hit the orc with this swing of my sword?




> To me (and, in light of his post, I think also [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]), learning the GM's pre-authored fictional truths is not experiencing being in the story at all, but rather having the meta-experience of learning the content of an already-written story.



Sounds like bad DMing.
As has been stated numerous times now, the bulk of the story is undetermined and many highly unexpected changes happen along the way.
You keep forcing everything into 0% or 100% absolutes and missing the great value in between.  You say you don't like preauthorship and you make that as a baseline statement.
I present examples of preauthorship and you leap all the way to "not experiencing" anything more than "an already-written story".  I honestly find the presentation of this dichotomy to be a shame.





> Unexpectedly, when looking for something quite different (the mace), they find the black arrows in his (now ruined) private workroom. This is a new, and hitherto unexpected, sign which suggests (i) that he was evil before being possessed, and (ii) that he had some connection to the killing of the elven ronin PC's master. It is new to the characters. And it is new to the players - so, for instance, they don't have to _play_ at being shocked, because they are shocked.
> 
> The revelation wouldn't be _more _shocking if I (as GM) had decided it in advance.



I'm not sure that shocking is a relevant obligation.

Again, as I feel compelled to keep repeating, I get that you way is fun to you and I get why.  I am not rejecting the fun of you approach.
But if nothing is preauthored then there is no opportunity for the players to truly be in the shoes of the characters discovering truths which are completely beyond their control and then having an interesting story which plays off of that.   I am NOT trying to convince you that this is a more insightful or better truth.  But it is a great truth for a lot of people.  You keep arguing against it as if you feel a need to beat in down in order to validate your own taste.

Which brings us back to talking past each other.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> Or not knowing whether the DM had pre-authored that ring being or not being "The Ring"... right?  Effectively for everyone but the DM, regardless of what approach is taken, it seems the same uncertainty exists...
> 
> Either way the GM is authoring... not seeing the difference (except again in the DM himself not knowing) in whether he author's ahead of time or not, either way the DM decides what the truth is whether pre-authored or authored in the moment.
> 
> Would it have somehow been less shocking?  I guess again on a fundamental level I'm not seeing what the gain is outside of a DM getting to be surprised as well... but for the players, unless you're announcing that you just determined these things what is the practical difference?  Personally I think a DM who knows his players and their character's well enough can pre-author large aspects of the game while still having a character/player driven game... do you agree?  If not, why not?



For me, there are two aspects to this.

One aspect is player contribution - when the GM is authoring in response to, and as part of the adjudication of, players' action declarations for their PCs, then the players are contributing to the content of the shared fiction in a fundamental way. They are driving it (to use that nebulous term) even though the GM is the one who is actually authoring it.

The second aspect is more practical, but not unconnected. It was an element in my recent discussion with [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] upthread. I think that when the GM authors material in this player-driven context, it is more likely to actually engage the players, and the dramatic concerns they are expressing for, and via the play of, their PCs.

In my experience, these two aspects interact, each generating positive feedback that strengthens the other.

Now you (as does Umbran also upthread) conjecture that a good GM who knows his/her players can achieve the dramatic engagement by deft pre-authoring. In my own experience this hasn't tended to be so - the pre-authoring tends to become an anchor that weighs the game down, dragging effort and attention away from the players' central concerns onto things that matter only because the GM decided, in advance, that they should matter.

I'm pretty sure - from talking to other RPGers, and reading their posts - that I'm not the only person ever to have had this sort of experience (which at least in its stronger form tends to get labelled as railroading). That's not to say that everyone has had it. But I think it was a desire to avoid this sort of thing, while still achieving dramatically engaging play, that led to designers like Crane, Edwards et al consciously emphasising "fail forward" (and related devices, like scene-framed play) as a technique.


----------



## pemerton

BryonD said:


> The One Ring was the One Ring.  Gandulf did not make that true by throwing it into the fire.  He brought nothing into being.  He discovered a pre-authored truth.
> 
> <SNIP>
> 
> if nothing is preauthored then there is no opportunity for the players to truly be in the shoes of the characters discovering truths which are completely beyond their control and then having an interesting story which plays off of that.



This is not true.

First, Gandalf didn't discover a "pre-authored" truth. Putting to one side JRRT's conceit that divine creation of the world is akin to authorship, Gandalf was not living in a book. He was living in a world like ours. He discovered a truth, but it was not an "authored" truth.

The analogue to this in an RPG is, as a player playing one's PC, learning a new fact about the gameworld.

Let's stick with the LotR example. Gandalf's player declares in character "I believe this is the One Ring - what else would explain the Dark Lord's increasing interest in the Wilds west of the Misty Mountains? If I'm right, it won't grow hot in the fire, and Black Speech runes will appear when it's hot," and then says "I throw the ring into the fire!"

In BW, this would be resolved as a Rings-wise check, with an augment from Dark Lord-wise or some similar knowledge skill reflecting the conjectured link between the identity of the ring and the movements of evil forces.

When the check is made and resolved - if successful, the ring is the One and behaves as predicted, if not then it is not the One and the GM narrates something else appropriate ("fail forward") - the players, in character, learn something new about the gameworld. They didn't choose it - the dice did that. It was not under the players' control.

It's true that Gandalf's skill in ring lore made him more likely to be right than would otherwise be the case, but that is entirely appropriate - when a person skilled in ring lore sincerely conjectures that a particular ring is the One, it _should_ be more likely that s/he is right than when an unskilled person does so. In this respect the non-pre-authorship approach deftly solves the problem of how to reflect knowledge skills in play other than by playing 20 questions with the GM. (I think [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] already made this point upthread.)

What _is_ under the player's control is _forcing a determination of a particular issue_. By declaring that the ring is thrown into the fire, Gandalf's player forces the table to address the question of whether this ring is the One, and forces the generation of some answer within the fiction. But forcing things to be authored is not the same as authoring them.

To give a parallel example: the key for a classic D&D dungeon might have one room labelled as the orcs' barracks, with a notation that 30% of the time the orcs are sleeping and so make no noise, but 70% of the time are carousing and so can be heard via listening at the door, with a +10% bonus to the chance of success. A player, by declaring that his/her PC listens at the door, forces the GM to roll the % dice and find out whether the orcs are sleeping or carousing. But no one back in 1977 ever thought that this meant the player was authoring the gameworld and hence not learning a truth beyond the PC's control.



BryonD said:


> You keep arguing against it as if you feel a need to beat in down in order to validate your own taste.



What I am arguing against is one particular contention, namely, that GM pre-authorship is a necessary condition of an objective, consistent, etc gameworld (different posters use slightly different terminology) which the players, as their characters, learn about rather than create.

That claim is not true. And it is an attempt to present what ispurely an aesthetic preference (for pre-authorship) as if it rested on a fundamental truth about the metaphysics of fictions and their creation.


----------



## Zak S

pemerton said:


> I'm pretty confident that D&D games have been run where climb checks were made, any damage taken was healed with clerical spells, and nothing else happened during the ingame day (and _that_ nothing else would happen was quite predictable to the players). So the climb check, the taking of damage, the use of memorised spells, etc was all just record keeping but didn't lead to any ratcheting-up of tension.




That is why I included the phrase "properly run".

See:


> It's impossible to not fail forward in a properly run game.





If you can climb, fail, and nothing happens then the GM either should not have made you roll (there was no time pressure, you had hours to set up ropes, etc) or the GM should have set up something that activated if the players didn't act fast enough.


----------



## pemerton

Zak S said:


> That is why I included the phrase "properly run".



I thought that might be your response!

But I think you're being a little harsh on GMs and tables who follow the game rules and procedures as written, but who end up with games that lack the time pressure/dynamics/ratcheting up that you mention because those rules and procedures don't relate the making of rolls to those pacing/pressure concerns.

There's even a whole school of play, some of whose exponents have posted in this thread, who think that "proper play" requires making those rolls even in the absence of serious pressure, because the function of the rolls isn't to generate a particular dynamic at the table, but rather is to determine outcomes within the fiction as part of a simulation process, whether or not those outcomes will relate to any sort of pressure/tension/etc.

For the adherents of that school, I'm inclined to think that "fail forward" is not a concept/technique that they need to worry about. I'm less inclined to say that their games are not being properly run!


----------



## Zak S

pemerton said:


> There's even a whole school of play, some of whose exponents have posted in this thread, who think that "proper play" requires making those rolls even in the absence of serious pressure, because the function of the rolls isn't to generate a particular dynamic at the table, but rather is to determine outcomes within the fiction as part of a simulation process, whether or not those outcomes will relate to any sort of pressure/tension/etc.
> 
> For the adherents of that school, I'm inclined to think that "fail forward" is not a concept/technique that they need to worry about. I'm less inclined to say that their games are not being properly run!




Then it's a moot point.

As you say: If you want a game that's purely simulatory then they don't need "fail forward" mechanics.

If you aren't bound by the simulatory urge then you can just set up scenarios such that you aren't having people roll unless failure would have a consequence. (i.e. "properly run" the game)




> But I think you're being a little harsh on GMs and tables who follow the game rules and procedures as written, but who end up with games that lack the time pressure/dynamics/ratcheting up that you mention because those rules and procedures don't relate the making of rolls to those pacing/pressure concerns.




This is straight up what I'd call "a GMing mistake". It's like taking 20 minutes to look up a spell or talking over your players so much they can't get anything done--you have, at that point, failed in one of the absolutely necessary skills that no mechanical reinforcement can cure.

A partial answer to borderline cases (i.e. 13-17 year olds who can be excused for not knowing better but will still read the book and take its advice) is to put the words "Do not ever have a player roll unless you at least want to create the impression there would be a consequence to failure" in the DMG and next time there's an edition and they hire me to work on it.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> This is not true.
> 
> First, Gandalf didn't discover a "pre-authored" truth. Putting to one side JRRT's conceit that divine creation of the world is akin to authorship, Gandalf was not living in a book. He was living in a world like ours. He discovered a truth, but it was not an "authored" truth.
> 
> The analogue to this in an RPG is, as a player playing one's PC, learning a new fact about the gameworld.
> 
> Let's stick with the LotR example. Gandalf's player declares in character "I believe this is the One Ring - what else would explain the Dark Lord's increasing interest in the Wilds west of the Misty Mountains? If I'm right, it won't grow hot in the fire, and Black Speech runes will appear when it's hot," and then says "I throw the ring into the fire!"
> 
> In BW, this would be resolved as a Rings-wise check, with an augment from Dark Lord-wise or some similar knowledge skill reflecting the conjectured link between the identity of the ring and the movements of evil forces.
> 
> When the check is made and resolved - if successful, the ring is the One and behaves as predicted, if not then it is not the One and the GM narrates something else appropriate ("fail forward") - the players, in character, learn something new about the gameworld. They didn't choose it - the dice did that. It was not under the players' control.
> 
> It's true that Gandalf's skill in ring lore made him more likely to be right than would otherwise be the case, but that is entirely appropriate - when a person skilled in ring lore sincerely conjectures that a particular ring is the One, it _should_ be more likely that s/he is right than when an unskilled person does so. In this respect the non-pre-authorship approach deftly solves the problem of how to reflect knowledge skills in play other than by playing 20 questions with the GM. (I think [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] already made this point upthread.)
> 
> What _is_ under the player's control is _forcing a determination of a particular issue_. By declaring that the ring is thrown into the fire, Gandalf's player forces the table to address the question of whether this ring is the One, and forces the generation of some answer within the fiction. But forcing things to be authored is not the same as authoring them.
> 
> To give a parallel example: the key for a classic D&D dungeon might have one room labelled as the orcs' barracks, with a notation that 30% of the time the orcs are sleeping and so make no noise, but 70% of the time are carousing and so can be heard via listening at the door, with a +10% bonus to the chance of success. A player, by declaring that his/her PC listens at the door, forces the GM to roll the % dice and find out whether the orcs are sleeping or carousing. But no one back in 1977 ever thought that this meant the player was authoring the gameworld and hence not learning a truth beyond the PC's control.
> 
> What I am arguing against is one particular contention, namely, that GM pre-authorship is a necessary condition of an objective, consistent, etc gameworld (different posters use slightly different terminology) which the players, as their characters, learn about rather than create.
> 
> That claim is not true. And it is an attempt to present what ispurely an aesthetic preference (for pre-authorship) as if it rested on a fundamental truth about the metaphysics of fictions and their creation.




Let me start by saying... very valid approach, I see how it goes in your games.

So lets look at an alternative:

1) DM knows if it is the ring or not but players have no idea. (This could be preauthored long before during world creation, decided when the ring was found, or rolled for when the player said they wanted to investigate the ring).
2) Gandalf suspects it is the ring and so uses knowledge (evil ring things) to get information. 
3) If successful he discovers that the ring might be the one ring and you should throw it in the fire to check. He does it and the one ringness of it is discovered or disproved (continue as your example above of it either being or not being the ring.).
4) If unsuccessful he does not know how to determine if it is the one ring and so must now go and research or quest to find the answer. (this is what happened in LOR). 
5) Having gone on a quest and discovered that you need to throw it in the fire he returns and does just that (but now time has passed and the dark lords power has increased). (note this could take a very small amount of table time, but might shift in game time forward a large amount of time). Proceed as above in your example of it either being or not being the ring.

Going from the premise that both approaches are fine and valid here are the differences I can see.

In Pemerton's example: 
Gandalfs player determines the way to check the one ringness of the ring.
If it is the ring or not is determined by Gandalfs skill in Rings-wise check. If he is good at knowledge then it is the ring. (If his knowledge roll is bad it is either not the ring or is not determined).

There is no room for "you are knowledgeable and so know it is not the ring". I realise that from your point of view that would be an undesirable outcome, but it's one I like to have there.

In the second example the players are just as in the dark about if it is the true ring, The difference is that the DM knows. But the DM knowing does not reduce the dramatic tension of the game for me. Just like the DM knowing how to circumvent a trap without triggering does it, does not diminish the tension of the trap for the players (who need to discover it for themselves).

I think that the key to doing either approach well is that "it's the way you enjoy playing".


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> What changes? There are no changes. Authoring is not _changing_ the fiction - it is bringing it into being.
> 
> To me this seems to miss [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]'s point about immersion.
> 
> For Gandalf and Frodo, sitting in Bag End, the truth is not known. There is doubt - and the possibility that the ring is not the One.
> 
> So experiencing being in the story would mean experiencing that doubt - which, mechanically, means not knowing how the dice will roll.
> 
> To me (and, in light of his post, I think also [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]), learning the GM's pre-authored fictional truths is not experiencing being in the story at all, but rather having the meta-experience of learning the content of an already-written story.
> 
> Relating this back to the example that you described as _changing_: the players in my BW game, both for themselves and in character, are wondering and debating the nature of the mage PC's brother. Was he evil before he was possessed?
> 
> Unexpectedly, when looking for something quite different (the mace), they find the black arrows in his (now ruined) private workroom. This is a new, and hitherto unexpected, sign which suggests (i) that he was evil before being possessed, and (ii) that he had some connection to the killing of the elven ronin PC's master. It is new to the characters. And it is new to the players - so, for instance, they don't have to _play_ at being shocked, because they are shocked.
> 
> The revelation wouldn't be _more _shocking if I (as GM) had decided it in advance.
> 
> I think this is the sot of thing that Balesir was intending to get at in his reference to immersion and discovery.




I don't think it would be _more_ shocking, but I do not see why the DM knowing before hand would be _less_ shocking for the players (Unless the DM just can't not give everything away).

When the players discover about the brother they won't think, "Well that's no surprise, the DM knew already".



pemerton said:


> On "authoring" in general, I'm not advocating for player authorship in this thread. (Though it can have a place, I think.) In all the examples of play I've given and linked to, the framing of challenges and the authorship of the backstory is primarily with the GM. I see the discussion in this thread as not being primarily about the identity of the author, but the timing of the authorship.




The timing of the authorship is not really an issue for me. The DM can decide 1 second before the dice is rolled, or even roll himself to find out the outcome seconds before or at the same time  as the players do. My preference is for things like knowledge checks to reveal information, rather than decide the truth, and for rolls to match the outcomes rather than the action.


----------



## Balesir

BryonD said:


> The One Ring was the One Ring.  Gandulf did not make that true by throwing it into the fire.  He brought nothing into being.  He discovered a pre-authored truth.
> There is appeal to this paradigm.



Gandalf does not make anything true by throwing the ring in the fire in either scenario, here. The truth was simply unknown. If I roll a die - assuming I do so fairly - the result is going to be what it will be. I have no say in it. I simply find out what it is when I roll the die. This is absolutely no different from my frame of reference than if some entity had decided in advance what the die was going to roll.

Likewise, when we discover something in the world, we can have no proof that what we discover was true before we discovered it. We just assume that it was, based on our previous experience of the world. In the same way, we can have no absolute proof that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Years of previous sunrises do not constitute proof, they merely indicate a persistent habit. 



grendel111111 said:


> There is no room for "you are knowledgeable and so know it is not the ring". I realise that from your point of view that would be an undesirable outcome, but it's one I like to have there.



That possibility is easily done in the paradigm [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is describing. The player just needs to ask a different question: "given the knowledge I have, is there any reason that this _cannot_ be the One Ring?" Roll the dice, add the skill, success = "Yes, there is a reason you know why this cannot be the One Ring"; failure = "No, there is no reason you know of why this could not be the One Ring." Simple.



grendel111111 said:


> In the second example the players are just as in the dark about if it is the true ring, The difference is that the DM knows. But the DM knowing does not reduce the dramatic tension of the game for me. Just like the DM knowing how to circumvent a trap without triggering does it, does not diminish the tension of the trap for the players (who need to discover it for themselves).



I agree with this completely. From the players' point of view, I don't see that the techniques differ much at all. The difference is all on the GM side, which is why I was wondering about _advantages_ of pre-authoring, from the GM's point of view (the obvious disadvantage being all the prep work required). At the moment I am thinking it has to do with a sort of safety net, or a comfort for when one is uncomfortable with improvising in a complex context. In any case, I'm not sure that prep that is useful for improvisation is significantly less voluminous, although less of it may be actually required.

I think there may also be something about "a thing doesn't really exist/isn't really true until the GM knows it" out there - but I would count that as just a cognitive trap, and an unhelpful belief.


----------



## Balesir

grendel111111 said:


> My preference is for things like knowledge checks to reveal information, rather than decide the truth, and for rolls to match the outcomes rather than the action.



Checks modified by character skills or knowledge do reveal information - or rather, they _might_ reveal information. The information was, in the game world, there all along. Remember that skill *checks* involve a die roll, they are not simply decided by whether or not the character has the skill. If there were no unknown factors in play, then making the check would be redundant. Randomness, whether in the real world or in the game, only ever amounts to unknown factors. Sometimes they will even be unknowable.


----------



## pemerton

grendel111111 said:


> In Pemerton's example:
> Gandalfs player determines the way to check the one ringness of the ring.
> If it is the ring or not is determined by Gandalfs skill in Rings-wise check. If he is good at knowledge then it is the ring. (If his knowledge roll is bad it is either not the ring or is not determined).
> 
> There is no room for "you are knowledgeable and so know it is not the ring".



In my post I deliberately left it open how Gandalf's player knows, in character, how to test the ring. There are multiple ways to work that out, from player fiat to a linked test using Rings-wise to GM pre-authorship which the player learns via a test. In the context of BW, Luke Crane discusses various options and approaches in the Adventure Burner.

As I said to [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] upthread, I use some pre-authorship in my BW game (eg maps, very general GH historical background, the existence of a pyramid in the Bright Desert that orcs wanted to break into, etc). My point is simply that an absence of pre-authorship doesn't vitiate engaging with an "objective" world.


----------



## Manbearcat

Balesir said:


> The difference is all on the GM side, which is why I was wondering about _advantages_ of pre-authoring, from the GM's point of view (the obvious disadvantage being all the prep work required). At the moment I am thinking it has to do with a sort of safety net, or a comfort for when one is uncomfortable with improvising in a complex context. In any case, I'm not sure that prep that is useful for improvisation is significantly less voluminous, although less of it may be actually required.




I agree with you (obviously).   Advantages for the GM:

1)  Less prep work.

2)  The improvisational paradigm of play allows for the GM to "play to find out what happens", thus being surprised by the trajectory of the narrative.

3)  The lack of temptation to subvert player action declarations + the authentic outcomes of the resolution mechanics (typically covertly) which shoehorns play toward your heavily prepped material (of which you will inevitably be invested in its manifestation during play).

This 3 is also an advantage for the players as it is insurance that their agency is maximized with respect to dictating outcomes (the aggregation of which becomes "story").



Balesir said:


> I think there may also be something about "a thing doesn't really exist/isn't really true until the GM knows it" out there - but I would count that as just a cognitive trap, and an unhelpful belief.




Agreed.  100 % a cognitive trap.  Your mental framework may predispose you toward believing that game content exists external to actual play, but it isn't true.  GM's prep is not establishing content.  Nothing exists in an RPG until it is introduced into our shared imaginary space via conversation at the table (which can take place during player orientation, character creation, or actual play).  Every single element of setting and situation is "Schrodingers" until it is declared/confirmed via that conversation or play procedures.


----------



## TwoSix

Manbearcat said:


> Agreed.  100 % a cognitive trap.  Your mental framework may predispose you toward believing that game content exists external to actual play, but it isn't true.  GM's prep is not establishing content.  Nothing exists in an RPG until it is introduced into our shared imaginary space via conversation at the table (which can take place during player orientation, character creation, or actual play).  Every single element of setting and situation is "Schrodingers" until it is declared/confirmed via that conversation or play procedures.



I foresee absolutely no chance that you get pushback on this idea from the other players in this thread.  No chance at all.


----------



## Zak S

Manbearcat said:


> Agreed.  100 % a cognitive trap.  Your mental framework may predispose you toward believing that game content exists external to actual play, but it isn't true.  GM's prep is not establishing content.  Nothing exists in an RPG until it is introduced into our shared imaginary space via conversation at the table (which can take place during player orientation, character creation, or actual play).  Every single element of setting and situation is "Schrodingers" until it is declared/confirmed via that conversation or play procedures.




Well there is an important hair to split:

If you want something to have the character of a _puzzle_ (this includes actual puzzles as well as encounters and mapping challenges and other complex kinds of multi-step secrets) then it helps to have a thing prepped.

It doesn't "have its own reality" but it sure as hell makes it easier to create a puzzle-style challenge and the kinds of challenges related to that.


----------



## Manbearcat

Zak S said:


> Well there is an important hair to split:
> 
> If you want something to have the character of a _puzzle_ (this includes actual puzzles as well as encounters and mapping challenges and other complex kinds of multi-step secrets) then it helps to have a thing prepped.
> 
> It doesn't "have its own reality" but it sure as hell makes it easier to create a puzzle-style challenge and the kinds of challenges related to that.




Oh yeah.  You'll get no disagreement from me on this split hair.  I only prep what is absolutely assured to see immediate play time and is essential in alleviating (undesirable) mental overhead and play-bogging table handling time concerns (which dovetails with continuity/interesting content concerns on something such as a complex, mentally engaging puzzle style challenge that will see play time).    

But even those elements (as you agree with) are effectively in a state of superposition until they are confirmed during play.


----------



## Zak S

Manbearcat said:


> But even those elements (as you agree with) are effectively in a state of superposition until they are confirmed during play.




Yes. That's how I do it: It isn't a thing until the players interact with it (even if they don't know they're interacting with it).

However, I do know other people who are pretty serious about the world being a work of imagination with its own integrity (in some creative way or for some creative reason I don't really get, but whatever creativity is weird) that you should never violate once written down. Like that's the advice Raggi gives in the LOTFP Grindhouse Edition. I don't see much point in arguing with him about it.


----------



## pemerton

Zak S said:


> Well there is an important hair to split:
> 
> If you want something to have the character of a _puzzle_ (this includes actual puzzles as well as encounters and mapping challenges and other complex kinds of multi-step secrets) then it helps to have a thing prepped.
> 
> It doesn't "have its own reality" but it sure as hell makes it easier to create a puzzle-style challenge and the kinds of challenges related to that.



I want to split the hair one micron further:

I think in some puzzle-oriented play (eg classic dungeon exploration in the sort of mould that Gygax sets out in the closing pages of his PHB, that Lewis Pulsipher used to articulate in late-70s White Dwarf, etc), there is an implicit commitment by the GM to have the puzzle elements authored in advance so that the players can then deploy resources (eg ingame time, detection magic, etc) to work out those elements and unravel the puzzle.

This isn't necessarily related to "objective reality" - eg in this style I think it's completely fair to have rooms with an A% of thing X or (100-A)% of thing Y (eg the ogre is in their torturing the kobold, or is down the hall having a nap). And that "reality" won't become a thing until the game is actually played and that door listened at or opened.

But the GM shouldn't be toying with those percentages during play. In his DMG, Gygax sets out this sort of idea of GM's notes as a pre-play commitment in the rules for evasion of dungeon encounters: if the GM's notes say that the monster does or doesn't pursue, then that takes precedence over everything else.

Only if the GM promises to hold the parameters of the puzzle constant can players solve it using the resources that the game gives to them (via their PCs). It's about fairness and the necessary conditions of a certain sort of puzzle-solving. (It's certainly not about creative integrity, at least as far as I can see.)


----------



## Zak S

pemerton said:


> I want to split the hair one micron further:
> 
> I think in some puzzle-oriented play (eg classic dungeon exploration in the sort of mould that Gygax sets out in the closing pages of his PHB, that Lewis Pulsipher used to articulate in late-70s White Dwarf, etc), there is an implicit commitment by the GM to have the puzzle elements authored in advance so that the players can then deploy resources (eg ingame time, detection magic, etc) to work out those elements and unravel the puzzle.
> 
> This isn't necessarily related to "objective reality" - eg in this style I think it's completely fair to have rooms with an A% of thing X or (100-A)% of thing Y (eg the ogre is in their torturing the kobold, or is down the hall having a nap). And that "reality" won't become a thing until the game is actually played and that door listened at or opened.
> 
> But the GM shouldn't be toying with those percentages during play. In his DMG, Gygax sets out this sort of idea of GM's notes as a pre-play commitment in the rules for evasion of dungeon encounters: if the GM's notes say that the monster does or doesn't pursue, then that takes precedence over everything else.
> 
> Only if the GM promises to hold the parameters of the puzzle constant can players solve it using the resources that the game gives to them (via their PCs). It's about fairness and the necessary conditions of a certain sort of puzzle-solving. (It's certainly not about creative integrity, at least as far as I can see.)




Yeah and I think that stuff is important when the players announce a desire to try a challenge according to some specific parameters or the game operates under those assumptions.

Like "I wanna see if we can beat Tomb of Horrors rules-as-written", etc.

This is a borderline case since a lot of times the idea of (for example) how the reaction table works might be assumed to be the kind of thing the GM has house-ruled. The most important thing to keep in mind is: 

What experience do the players (and GM) feel they signed up for?


----------



## grendel111111

Manbearcat said:


> I agree with you (obviously).   Advantages for the GM:
> 
> 1)  Less prep work.
> 
> 2)  The improvisational paradigm of play allows for the GM to "play to find out what happens", thus being surprised by the trajectory of the narrative.
> 
> 3)  The lack of temptation to subvert player action declarations + the authentic outcomes of the resolution mechanics (typically covertly) which shoehorns play toward your heavily prepped material (of which you will inevitably be invested in its manifestation during play).
> 
> This 3 is also an advantage for the players as it is insurance that their agency is maximized with respect to dictating outcomes (the aggregation of which becomes "story").



I agree with number 1 and 2, but those might not be important to all GM's (I for example do not see the DM's role as to be surprised by story, as much as to be surprised by the players).

Number 3 makes a few assumptions about the DM that you are playing with. You are assuming a closed prep style DM with a linear story. There are also open prep DM's who do have not story except that which emerges. The big stuff is in motion (Who is behind the kidnappings, why are the ogres moving into this area...etc.). Their prep focus isn't on "story" but on "world". 

Pre-planning can also ensure that the DM doesn't screw over the players. If the DM has a set location for things it prevents the situation of "it doesn't matter if you go North or East you will still get to the same place with the same encounter in it."



Manbearcat said:


> Agreed.  100 % a cognitive trap.  Your mental framework may predispose you toward believing that game content exists external to actual play, but it isn't true.  GM's prep is not establishing content.  Nothing exists in an RPG until it is introduced into our shared imaginary space via conversation at the table (which can take place during player orientation, character creation, or actual play).  Every single element of setting and situation is "Schrodingers" until it is declared/confirmed via that conversation or play procedures.




This is completely true for your game. But you are putting your desires and preferences onto other peoples games. In your game "every single element of setting and situation is "Schrodingers" until it is declared/confirmed via that conversation or play procedures." 

Other people who want to reduce or remove the "Schrodingers" element will have different preferences. You can't see it because you like the "Schrodingers-ness" of your game, and can't see why someone else might think that it is a negative not a positive.

I personally like both styles of games and am aware that they produce different kinds of gaming experience. It's important to match your approach to the experience you and your players want to have.

Personal story:
I am in the 40+ age group, I have been gaming for 30+ years (on and off). I currently live in Taiwan and so our group has both English and Chinese speaking gamers and now and then a Ukrainian or two. It's a flexible group as to who will turn up and how often. but there are 2 players with amazing memories. If I improve something and don't write it down, because I'm having too much fun or it's an unimportant throw away comment then 2 months later they they will have remembered that small detail about a town they visited for 20 minutes 2 months ago. By having the world prepped (Not story prepped) I reduce the chances of bringing them out of their characters in that way. .


----------



## grendel111111

Zak S said:


> Yeah and I think that stuff is important when the players announce a desire to try a challenge according to some specific parameters or the game operates under those assumptions.
> 
> Like "I wanna see if we can beat Tomb of Horrors rules-as-written", etc.
> 
> This is a borderline case since a lot of times the idea of (for example) how the reaction table works might be assumed to be the kind of thing the GM has house-ruled. The most important thing to keep in mind is:
> 
> What experience do the players (and GM) feel they signed up for?




I think this is really important, that you are clear about what experiences you are in the game for. This is why doing a session 0 can really helps set up expectations for the game rather than just going in blind (unless that is one of the expectations). 
If you are wanting a character driven narrative built around characters backgrounds and the DM does a pre-written Adventure path, you are likely to be disappointed. 
If you want to explore a pre-designed world and it is clear that things are getting made up on the spot you will be equally disappointed. 
If you want a game with a tactical combat focus and combat is sidelined in favor of character/plot development then you will feel bored and un-satisfied.  
If you want to solve complex situations, but everything is resolved with just a couple of dice rolls, then you're not getting what you are looking for.
If you want a long story arc like the Dragon Lance modules then you will be not be happy with an purely episodic game ( Like the current adventures league). 
Add in that it is a group activity then you have to balance it for many people.

As a player I am happy to give up some "nowness" if it results in deeper richer combats and more complex interconnectedness in the setting.
Others would rather have the "nowness" even if it means that after a fight the DM looks at it and thinks he could have done a dozen things to improve it if he had the time to think it through before the players got to it.


----------



## pemerton

grendel111111 said:


> You are assuming a closed prep style DM with a linear story. There are also open prep DM's who do have not story except that which emerges. The big stuff is in motion (Who is behind the kidnappings, why are the ogres moving into this area...etc.). Their prep focus isn't on "story" but on "world".
> 
> Pre-planning can also ensure that the DM doesn't screw over the players. If the DM has a set location for things it prevents the situation of "it doesn't matter if you go North or East you will still get to the same place with the same encounter in it."



I think that the connection between pre-authoring a world and pre-authoring a story can be tighter than you suggest.

If the GM has a world pre-authored, then it is likely that the "secret backstory" - ie those elements of the fiction known to the GM (in virtue of his/her authorship) but not the players - will be drawn upon by the GM to adjudicate action declarations. But in these circumstances, the players are then - at least to some extent - firing blind when they make action declarations for their PCs. As well as the overtly-framed scene there are these other unknown elements that the GM will draw upon to help determine outcomes.

This is a type of burden on the agency of the players as contributors to the shared fiction.

There is an interesting question as to what counts as secret backstory. In classic dungeoneering D&D, the location of monsters, treasures etc starts secret but is knowable to the players by use of scouting, divination etc. In the 4e DMG's example of a skill challenge, the Duke is unable to be intimidated by the PCs, but this is learnable by the players if they declare Insight checks for their PCs.

But sometimes the GM's secret backstory isn't discoerable by the players (via their PCs) at all: eg on such-and-such a day the Duke will be assassinated by political enemies whom the players (and their PCs) have never even heard of, let alone displayed any interest in.

The thing of going N or E is interesting - if there is no reason for the players to choose one over the other, and nothing turns on that choice (eg it's not the case that fireball spells are more powerful when cast travelling to the E rather than the N) - then it's not entirely clear to me _how_ the GM is screwing over the players by treating the choice of direction as mere colour that makes no practical difference to what the PCs meet.

Which also goes back to stake-setting: if the GM has set no stakes for the choice of direction of travel, or there are not even in-principle stakes (eg the players have no reason to think that casting Augury as to which way to go would help), then why should the GM care about which direction the PCs choose?


----------



## Neonchameleon

Zak S said:


> If you can climb, fail, and nothing happens then the GM either should not have made you roll (there was no time pressure, you had hours to set up ropes, etc) or the GM should have set up something that activated if the players didn't act fast enough.




Here I'm going to half agree with you. This is the way oD&D, B/X, BECMI, 1E, 4E, the OSR, and The Forge/Storygames would have you do things. Most games outside these groupings IME do not poitn you in that direction.



Umbran said:


> Pardon if I have missed this somewhere in the mix...
> 
> One major benefit of pre-authorship is pre-design. Sometimes, you actually want to make sure what you are presenting is really thought through before players encounter it.
> 
> Games that are tactically deep typically need fairly carefully considered design of the tactical challenges, resource depletion rates, and the like, to keep them challenging, but not overwhelming.




I'm going to add two caveats here. Games that are deep _with no way of backing down_ need carefully considered design of the challenges. Old school megadungeons aren't as alert to the challenges - they are more based on a "test your skill/luck" basis. How far into the dungeon can/dare you go on the trip? There is no expectation that the PCs complete the thing in one run, so there just has to be an ascending difficulty curve and it's up to the PCS to decide when to pull out with enough resources left to make it back. The second is that if you're not leaving ways of backing down then balance is _vital_ - balance is information, nothing more and nothing less. And in a decently balanced game like 4e I can drop complex challenges on the fly which will challenge the party probably without killing them.



grendel111111 said:


> As a player I am happy to give up some "nowness" if it results in deeper richer combats and more complex interconnectedness in the setting.
> Others would rather have the "nowness" even if it means that after a fight the DM looks at it and thinks he could have done a dozen things to improve it if he had the time to think it through before the players got to it.




As a player I see the richer interconenctedness as not even slightly in tension with nowness. When you've a table full of people making connections, even on the fly, connections end up richer than they do with one person however much prep time they put in.

I don't find mono-vision "consistent" worlds to be immersive. People themselves aren't consistent and neither is the world we live in to the degree a "consistent" world normally tries to be.


----------



## Zak S

pemerton said:


> The thing of going N or E is interesting - if there is no reason for the players to choose one over the other, and nothing turns on that choice (eg it's not the case that fireball spells are more powerful when cast travelling to the E rather than the N) - then it's not entirely clear to me _how_ the GM is screwing over the players by treating the choice of direction as mere colour that makes no practical difference to what the PCs meet.




In only one (potentially minor) way: you're basically inserting (perhaps merely a second of) thinking that doesn't matter into the middle of play.

Each time the players' choice matters they are that much more sharing authorship author of the story. Each time it doesn't they are that much less.

If you have a lot of choices that do not matter (whether because of the world's geography, the number of GM-planned-but-unpredictable-to-players events timeline or the number of powerful NPCs) you lessen the degree to which players share authorship.

This is by degrees--not all at once. As soon as you have a single NPC act on their own or meteor shower or room with two adjacent mysterious entrances, you have lessened player authorship a little--that's not a disaster and isn't railroading. It's necessary to take up some space and set some limits to have a normal D&D game at all.

Railroading occurs at the precise moment where there are so many of these limiters the players bump up against the limits of their authorship and announce they don't like it--these limits are making it less fun. It's subjective--but the more limiters you put, the harder you push in that direction.


----------



## Zak S

Neonchameleon said:


> Here I'm going to half agree with you. This is the way oD&D, B/X, BECMI, 1E, 4E, the OSR, and The Forge/Storygames would have you do things. Most games outside these groupings IME do not poitn you in that direction.




The question isn't whether the games "point" you in that direction, the question's whether it's a good idea and fun.

I can't think of a reason it'd be fun (even in the long term) to roll success/fail for a thing where failure and time-consumption has no consequence and success is assured if you just keep rolling.

If a game tells you to do that either:
-it sucks
or
-it has some secret fun reason to do that I don't know about


----------



## Neonchameleon

Zak S said:


> The question isn't whether the games "point" you in that direction, the question's whether it's a good idea and fun.
> 
> I can't think of a reason it'd be fun (even in the long term) to roll success/fail for a thing where failure and time-consumption has no consequence and success is assured if you just keep rolling.
> 
> If a game tells you to do that either:
> -it sucks
> or
> -it has some secret fun reason to do that I don't know about




Part of it is the baseline assumption "Why are the PCs trying something risky if there's no pressure to succeed?" But I for one have never understood the appeal of process-sim games as an intentional approach (and if I wanted them no human can match a computer) - so I can't say why people think it's a good idea (or indeed whether it was simply an anti-4e edition war claim that it was a good idea).


----------



## Zak S

Neonchameleon said:


> Part of it is the baseline assumption "Why are the PCs trying something risky if there's no pressure to succeed?" But I for one have never understood the appeal of process-sim games as an intentional approach (and if I wanted them no human can match a computer) - so I can't say why people think it's a good idea (or indeed whether it was simply an anti-4e edition war claim that it was a good idea).




Confused: if it's risky then by definition there ARE consequences to failure.


----------



## Sadras

Neonchameleon said:


> As a player I see the richer interconenctedness as not even slightly in tension with nowness. When you've a table full of people making connections, even on the fly, connections end up richer than they do with one person however much prep time they put in.




What is the point of a DM at that table? You could use flash cards for story direction and a level-based setting specific random encounter table for combat and draw your own on the fly rich interconnectedness.


----------



## Zak S

Neonchameleon said:


> I'm going to add two caveats here. Games that are deep _with no way of backing down_ need carefully considered design of the challenges. Old school megadungeons aren't as alert to the challenges - they are more based on a "test your skill/luck" basis. How far into the dungeon can/dare you go on the trip? There is no expectation that the PCs complete the thing in one run, so there just has to be an ascending difficulty curve and it's up to the PCS to decide when to pull out with enough resources left to make it back. The second is that if you're not leaving ways of backing down then balance is _vital_ - balance is information, nothing more and nothing less. And in a decently balanced game like 4e I can drop complex challenges on the fly which will challenge the party probably without killing them.
> 
> 
> 
> As a player I see the richer interconenctedness as not even slightly in tension with nowness. When you've a table full of people making connections, even on the fly, connections end up richer than they do with one person however much prep time they put in.
> 
> I don't find mono-vision "consistent" worlds to be immersive. People themselves aren't consistent and neither is the world we live in to the degree a "consistent" world normally tries to be.




Again: you can't do puzzley things very well with fully shared authorship. YOu can do some kinds, but here are a ton of kinds you can't.


----------



## Manbearcat

grendel111111 said:


> Number 3 makes a few assumptions about the DM that you are playing with. You are assuming a closed prep style DM with a linear story.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> This is completely true for your game. But you are putting your desires and preferences onto other peoples games. In your game "every single element of setting and situation is "Schrodingers" until it is declared/confirmed via that conversation or play procedures."




Don't have considerable time to post much at the moment, but just a couple of things:

1)  My post was merely using Balesir's post as a springboard to speak to the advantages of not prepping high resolution information regarding to setting and situation.  I wasn't 

2)  Of course there is utility to prepping high resolution information regarding setting and situation.  This isn't in dispute.  

However, coinciding with that heavy prep and creative effort is the very natural human inclination to share it.  Social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) are predicated upon this impulse and its tight feedback loop.  It is not some anomalous behavior that strikes a few.  It is pervasive within humanity.  That some (many?) GMs are able to restrain themselves from this impulse (of forcing content upon players despite actions they may declare or despite the dictates of the system's resolution mechanics) is interesting biographical information about them.  But that biographical information does not undo the reality that hardwired into humanity is the impulse to be emotionally invested in their creative efforts.  This subsequently leads to the indulgence of that impulse (with a massive industry predicated upon its existence and potency).  In RPGs, this means brunt-forcing content (despite what authentic play has to say about that matter).

3)  My preferences are all over the map.  I very much enjoy prepping and running dungeon crawls in RC and 1e (depending on the players familiarity).  In this sort of play, it is utterly essential that setting and situation are intensely fleshed out (so the sought play experience is achieved).


----------



## grendel111111

Here are some examples of a pre-authored world - forgotten realms, spinward marches, ravenloft.
There is no magic story that the players must follow, but if you go to x city then there are truths about that place.. this is the level of preauthorship I am talking about, not railroading as you present as the other option to your games.

Yes sometimes things happen "off stage" and may or may not effect the game, it doesn't mean the DM forces those events into center stage. They may never learn about it, or may discover months later that their mentor was killed by a group of orcs that attacked his village. (If they never returned home they may never learn his fate).

If directions are just eye candy to you that's fine, especially when there is no meaning to the map anyway. It not a way that I enjoy playing as much. And sometime players have to make sub-optimal choices with a lack of information. this could be because they didn't plan, research, get organised, or it might be that there is too much time pressure and they just need to take a choice. If there is no difference between the paths (like in your game) then it doesn't matter. If the choice will have an effect (East they will go through the swamps, but if they go north they will pass close to a necromancers domain), then yes the choice can matter.


----------



## pemerton

Zak S said:


> In only one (potentially minor) way: you're basically inserting (perhaps merely a second of) thinking that doesn't matter into the middle of play.





Zak S said:


> I can't think of a reason it'd be fun (even in the long term) to roll success/fail for a thing where failure and time-consumption has no consequence and success is assured if you just keep rolling.
> 
> If a game tells you to do that either:
> -it sucks
> or
> -it has some secret fun reason to do that I don't know about



Good point about time-wasting. But personally I find a lot of the techniques associated with the "living, breathing world" school to involve time-wasting, eg encounters which don't contribute to pacing or to risk/reward choices but simply serve to remind the players that the gameworld exists outside their protagonistic concerns for their PCs.



Neonchameleon said:


> As a player I see the richer interconenctedness as not even slightly in tension with nowness. When you've a table full of people making connections, even on the fly, connections end up richer than they do with one person however much prep time they put in.
> 
> I don't find mono-vision "consistent" worlds to be immersive. People themselves aren't consistent and neither is the world we live in to the degree a "consistent" world normally tries to be.



This is what I gave XP for.



Sadras said:


> What is the point of a DM at that table? You could use flash cards for story direction and a level-based setting specific random encounter table for combat and draw your own on the fly rich interconnectedness.



Obviously [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] can answer for himself, but in my case I can say: the GM does at least two important things. First, as GM I adjudicate the situation and decide eg can the PC have a bonus die for being on higher ground? Someone has to make these calls, to manage the nitty-gritty of the fictional positioning, and that is what the GM does. (Related to this can be a role for the GM in maintaining consistency of the fiction, but at least in my experience other players help a lot with that also.)

The second important thing the GM does is to narrate consequences of failure. (Consequences of _success_ are the result of player action declarations for their PCs.) I'm not sure what sort of flash-cards you have in mind, but I don't know of any other technique of content generation that is going to deliver outcomes such as occurred in some of the episodes of play discussed in this thread.

None of this has any inherent connection to pre-authorship.


----------



## pemerton

grendel111111 said:


> If directions are just eye candy to you that's fine, especially when there is no meaning to the map anyway. It not a way that I enjoy playing as much. And sometime players have to make sub-optimal choices with a lack of information. this could be because they didn't plan, research, get organised, or it might be that there is too much time pressure and they just need to take a choice. If there is no difference between the paths (like in your game) then it doesn't matter. If the choice will have an effect (East they will go through the swamps, but if they go north they will pass close to a necromancers domain), then yes the choice can matter.



The choice _mattering_ is not synonymous with _player agency_, though, which was the notion I was engaging with.

Simple example: suppose the GM has decided that, in land X of the campaign world, holding out one's hand out to another upon meeting them is a grave insult. And suppose that the players (i) do not know, and (ii) inadvertently teleport the PCs to land X (say via teleport mishap, or a Well of Many Worlds, or whatever). The GM tells the players that the PCs appear not far from some NPCs. One of the players then says of his PC, "I walk up to the NPCs, arm extended as if to shake their hands in greeting".

Now the player's choice here matters to the outcome - the GM describes the NPCs as grossly offended and commencing to attack the ill-mannered outlanders - but it was not any sort of exercise of _agency_ by the player (was it?). The relationship between the action declaration and the outcome is mere dumb luck. Like the players choosing to have the PCs go east (and therefore encounter trolls and hydras in the swamp) rather than north (where they will meet the necromancer). If the players don't know these geographical facts, then it's just dumb luck.

In a Gygaxian dungeon, there are a range of resources available to the players to eliminate dumb luck in this sense - divination magic in particular. But once you get to campaign worlds on the scale of some of those you mention (eg FR), then divination magic ceases to be very relevant. It's just luck.

Also: why do you say that in my game direction doesn't matter? If the players (in character) want to find the pyramid the orcs were heading towards, they have to head further east into the Bright Desert. If they want to recuperate in the ruined tower (which they did) then they have to head north to the foothills of the Abor-Alz.

But these choices were not made blind. The players chose to prioritise recupration over exploration, and therefore headed north.

In contrast: when the PCs were drifting through the ocean, hoping to be rescued, we didn't worry about which direction they were drifting in, as there was nothing that turned on them trying to drift one way rather than another.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> The choice _mattering_ is not synonymous with _player agency_, though, which was the notion I was engaging with.
> 
> Simple example: suppose the GM has decided that, in land X of the campaign world, holding out one's hand out to another upon meeting them is a grave insult. And suppose that the players (i) do not know, and (ii) inadvertently teleport the PCs to land X (say via teleport mishap, or a Well of Many Worlds, or whatever). The GM tells the players that the PCs appear not far from some NPCs. One of the players then says of his PC, "I walk up to the NPCs, arm extended as if to shake their hands in greeting".
> 
> Now the player's choice here matters to the outcome - the GM describes the NPCs as grossly offended and commencing to attack the ill-mannered outlanders - but it was not any sort of exercise of _agency_ by the player (was it?). The relationship between the action declaration and the outcome is mere dumb luck. Like the players choosing to have the PCs go east (and therefore encounter trolls and hydras in the swamp) rather than north (where they will meet the necromancer). If the players don't know these geographical facts, then it's just dumb luck.




As a player playing a PC that goes to a strange land, I (and my PC) am aware that they may have strange customs that I don't know and I can use that knowledge to try and avoid insult by learning the local customs.  The PC could have chosen not to go with his customs and learn the new ones before sticking out his hand.  He or one of the other PCs might also have some sort of knowledge or background that could deal with foreign customs.  Sailor for example.  Player agency is still present in a game where the PCs confront the unknown.



> In a Gygaxian dungeon, there are a range of resources available to the players to eliminate dumb luck in this sense - divination magic in particular. But once you get to campaign worlds on the scale of some of those you mention (eg FR), then divination magic ceases to be very relevant. It's just luck.




Divination magic deals in revealing the unknown.  How does it cease to be relevant in a world that contains the unknown?  It has more relevance in a pre-authored world that is rich in things to divine.



> In contrast: when the PCs were drifting through the ocean, hoping to be rescued, we didn't worry about which direction they were drifting in, as there was nothing that turned on them trying to drift one way rather than another.




Many people enjoy a world where their choices matter.  While it may be dumb luck if nobody is a sailor or the like, picking a direction in the Realms gives choice meaning.  You will end up in a different place depending on the direction chosen.  Choice has no real meaning when no matter which direction you choose, it's all going to end up the same.


----------



## Neonchameleon

pemerton said:


> Obviously @_*Neonchameleon*_ can answer for himself, but in my case I can say: the GM does at least two important things. First, as GM I adjudicate the situation and decide eg can the PC have a bonus die for being on higher ground? Someone has to make these calls, to manage the nitty-gritty of the fictional positioning, and that is what the GM does. (Related to this can be a role for the GM in maintaining consistency of the fiction, but at least in my experience other players help a lot with that also.)
> 
> The second important thing the GM does is to narrate consequences of failure. (Consequences of _success_ are the result of player action declarations for their PCs.) I'm not sure what sort of flash-cards you have in mind, but I don't know of any other technique of content generation that is going to deliver outcomes such as occurred in some of the episodes of play discussed in this thread.
> 
> None of this has any inherent connection to pre-authorship.




I'd gladly accept those two and add two more.

1: To speak for the NPCs, thus allowing all the players to focus on their PC and not have to step outside the bounds of what the PC could reasonably know.

2: To provide the active opposition. This is a practical matter - but the only types of games that normally work GMless are intentional tragedies and farces where the PCs are not actually expected to overcome their obstacles. It always makes for a poor game where the same people responsible for providing the obstacles are responsible for overcoming them.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> Good point about time-wasting. But personally I find a lot of the techniques associated with the "living, breathing world" school to involve time-wasting, eg encounters which don't contribute to pacing or to risk/reward choices but simply serve to remind the players that the gameworld exists outside their protagonistic concerns for their PCs.




In a "living breathing world" exploring and experiencing the world is not time wasting (it only seem like it because from your point of view you want to get on with "story"). The "story" might be as simple as take a message to Medrack the wizard who lives on a different continent. The message isn't the story, what happens on the way (or the "time wasting") is the story. Who they meet, the alliances they make if they choose to go through the desert, risk the swamps with ROUS, head north and travel through the mountains or navigate by sea with all the risks that come from that.



pemerton said:


> Obviously [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] can answer for himself, but in my case I can say: the GM does at least two important things. First, as GM I adjudicate the situation and decide eg can the PC have a bonus die for being on higher ground? Someone has to make these calls, to manage the nitty-gritty of the fictional positioning, and that is what the GM does. (Related to this can be a role for the GM in maintaining consistency of the fiction, but at least in my experience other players help a lot with that also.)
> 
> The second important thing the GM does is to narrate consequences of failure. (Consequences of _success_ are the result of player action declarations for their PCs.) I'm not sure what sort of flash-cards you have in mind, but I don't know of any other technique of content generation that is going to deliver outcomes such as occurred in some of the episodes of play discussed in this thread.
> 
> None of this has any inherent connection to pre-authorship.




I'm not sure if this is what was being talked about with flash cards but it reminded me of a improve D and D game we had last year.

There is a game called the forbidden island. It is a board game where an island is sinking (not important) but it has a set of about 45 cards/tiles with locations, each with a name and picture. The DM used the cards to decide possible paths. each time we finished a location he would turn over 3 cards to allow use to choose where to go next. So to get to the watch tower which was our goal we had to go through several "choices". So the first 3 cards were "Cliffs of Abandon", "the Mist Marches" or "the Black Gate". The one you chose determined the what you had to face (marshes had a hydra, cliffs might have been a climbing challenge, each of the different gates had a guardian)


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> However, coinciding with that heavy prep and creative effort is the very natural human inclination to share it.  Social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) are predicated upon this impulse and its tight feedback loop.  It is not some anomalous behavior that strikes a few.  It is pervasive within humanity.  That some (many?) GMs are able to restrain themselves from this impulse (of forcing content upon players despite actions they may declare or despite the dictates of the system's resolution mechanics) is interesting biographical information about them.  But that biographical information does not undo the reality that hardwired into humanity is the impulse to be emotionally invested in their creative efforts.  This subsequently leads to the indulgence of that impulse (with a massive industry predicated upon its existence and potency).  In RPGs, this means brunt-forcing content (despite what authentic play has to say about that matter)..




Just a quick question/comment around this... How is this any different when you are making things up on the fly.  Unless you can guarantee you don't in any way think about the game, it's characters, consequences, what may happen, etc. outside of in the moment play... I'm not sure how you guarantee that your particular "vision" of the game (What you would prefer to improvise around/explore) isn't what you are pushing for, even if it's subconsciously?  

As an example, in the previous mountain climbing example, there are an almost unlimited number of outcomes that could take place on a failure (especially since the relationship of skill/task resolution has no bearing on what the failed roll could lead to as an outcome, only what could "logically" arise in the fiction... and yet you as DM have a preference since you are making a specific choice out of all those possibilities... and by the fact that dying and not reaching the mountain top was taken off the table (at least for this particular failure) it seems that you are pushing towards exploration of the content that has already been established... the mountain top and the MacGuffin as opposed to say improvising around another part of the mountain the character could have discovered in his fall...  So I'm not seeing how improv protects against this particular problem.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> The choice _mattering_ is not synonymous with _player agency_, though, which was the notion I was engaging with.
> 
> Simple example: suppose the GM has decided that, in land X of the campaign world, holding out one's hand out to another upon meeting them is a grave insult. And suppose that the players (i) do not know, and (ii) inadvertently teleport the PCs to land X (say via teleport mishap, or a Well of Many Worlds, or whatever). The GM tells the players that the PCs appear not far from some NPCs. One of the players then says of his PC, "I walk up to the NPCs, arm extended as if to shake their hands in greeting".
> 
> Now the player's choice here matters to the outcome - the GM describes the NPCs as grossly offended and commencing to attack the ill-mannered outlanders - but it was not any sort of exercise of _agency_ by the player (was it?). The relationship between the action declaration and the outcome is mere dumb luck. Like the players choosing to have the PCs go east (and therefore encounter trolls and hydras in the swamp) rather than north (where they will meet the necromancer). If the players don't know these geographical facts, then it's just dumb luck.
> 
> In a Gygaxian dungeon, there are a range of resources available to the players to eliminate dumb luck in this sense - divination magic in particular. But once you get to campaign worlds on the scale of some of those you mention (eg FR), then divination magic ceases to be very relevant. It's just luck.
> 
> Also: why do you say that in my game direction doesn't matter? If the players (in character) want to find the pyramid the orcs were heading towards, they have to head further east into the Bright Desert. If they want to recuperate in the ruined tower (which they did) then they have to head north to the foothills of the Abor-Alz.
> 
> But these choices were not made blind. The players chose to prioritise recupration over exploration, and therefore headed north.
> 
> In contrast: when the PCs were drifting through the ocean, hoping to be rescued, we didn't worry about which direction they were drifting in, as there was nothing that turned on them trying to drift one way rather than another.




I used _if_ and it wasn't specifically your game. But in many games where you just "jump" to the next "scene" in the "narrative", direction is largely unimportant. Games such as Leverage you just jump to the targets building, where it is, beyond "somewhere in the city", isn't really important. It is playing the game in a different scale. You jump to the next interesting point.

For me I see the kind of game I like as having lots of "dumb luck" as you put it. As a player if I accept the dumb luck then it is my own stupid fault. Player agency is the players making their own agency (this means the DM has to not shut them down when they make their own agency). They make choices of how much they are going to find out about the surrounding area, what research they do, who they talk to or hire as a guide.
When people talk about player agency it so often sounds like if the DM doesn't give the players all the facts up front then the players are suddenly robbed of all agency, as if they are not capable of using their skills to gather information and make informed decisions. And there are times when it comes down to just blind luck and I am OK with that, too. If I am going to school and I can decide to go with my car on the motorway or take my motorbike on the back roads. It takes about the same amount of time. There is no agency for me because I don't know what might happen on either route. If I go on the motor way and there is a pile up of cars so I am late for school, that is dumb luck. If, before I leave for school, I check the weather conditions and listen to the traffic report then I have given myself agency, I can choose which way is best because I have more information. 
Now if I just go and there is a delay I can get angry at (God/ fate/ the GM) because he didn't give me my agency. but it's my responsibility to make my own agency as well.


----------



## grendel111111

Imaro said:


> Just a quick question/comment around this... How is this any different when you are making things up on the fly.  Unless you can guarantee you don't in any way think about the game, it's characters, consequences, what may happen, etc. outside of in the moment play... I'm not sure how you guarantee that your particular "vision" of the game (What you would prefer to improvise around/explore) isn't what you are pushing for, even if it's subconsciously?
> 
> As an example, in the previous mountain climbing example, there are an almost unlimited number of outcomes that could take place on a failure (especially since the relationship of skill/task resolution has no bearing on what the failed roll could lead to as an outcome, only what could "logically" arise in the fiction... and yet you as DM have a preference since you are making a specific choice out of all those possibilities... and by the fact that dying and not reaching the mountain top was taken off the table (at least for this particular failure) it seems that you are pushing towards exploration of the content that has already been established... the mountain top and the MacGuffin as opposed to say improvising around another part of the mountain the character could have discovered in his fall...  So I'm not seeing how improv protects against this particular problem.




This is something that interests me. If a fail condition is unrelated to the skill being used....you discover an uncomfortable truth for example (your father was not a man of the cloth but a con artist). Once it is used as a fail forward once, but doesn't come about (they passed the test so it is "still up for grabs"). then it is in the DM's head, it's likely to come up as a fail condition of subsequent tests until something else rules it out or it proves to be true. 
We know that when you make players roll many dice they will eventually fail (thus we try to limit how many skill rolls they need to make to achieve one objective) So if this uncomfortable truth is used as a fail condition in more than one test eventually it will make it true (because eventually the characters will fail a test). How do you prevent this from happening, other than to say that a passed test also disproves the failed condition?


----------



## Neonchameleon

grendel111111 said:


> This is something that interests me. If a fail condition is unrelated to the skill being used....you discover an uncomfortable truth for example (your father was not a man of the cloth but a con artist). Once it is used as a fail forward once, but doesn't come about (they passed the test so it is "still up for grabs"). then it is in the DM's head, it's likely to come up as a fail condition of subsequent tests until something else rules it out or it proves to be true.
> We know that when you make players roll many dice they will eventually fail (thus we try to limit how many skill rolls they need to make to achieve one objective) So if this uncomfortable truth is used as a fail condition in more than one test eventually it will make it true (because eventually the characters will fail a test). How do you prevent this from happening, other than to say that a passed test also disproves the failed condition?




Mu.

Normally failing forward and discovering an uncomfortable truth means finding something that would be thematically appropriate (or funny) based on the exact position then and there. So discovering an uncomfortable truth after a climb check might involve climbing in through the wrong window and finding your husband/wife having it off. On another check it won't be anything like as relevant.


----------



## Imaro

Neonchameleon said:


> Mu.
> 
> Normally failing forward and discovering an uncomfortable truth means finding something that would be thematically atppropriate (or funny) based on the exact position then and there. So discovering an uncomfortable truth after a climb check might involve climbing in through the wrong window and finding your husband/wife having it off. On another check it won't be anything like as relevant.




Yes but the temptation to steer failure outcomes towards your own predisposed interests as DM is just as likely as a pre-authoring DM steering outcomes towards the creations he wants to explore... in other words how can the later be a concern when pre-authoring but in improv there is no concern around the DM steering the direction of the "story" being created towards what he is most interested in improv'ing around?


----------



## Balesir

Zak S said:


> Yeah and I think that stuff is important when the players announce a desire to try a challenge according to some specific parameters or the game operates under those assumptions.
> 
> Like "I wanna see if we can beat Tomb of Horrors rules-as-written", etc.



D'oh - here's (part of) my answer about the advantage of pre-authoring, and it's one I should have spotted long since. It's basic Forgeite Gamism - the will to take on a challenge, be it a challenge of skill or of "dumb" luck. If the GM improvises here, it's "cheating". It's not even the situation being a "puzzle" that's important; it's just that the challenge must be set beforehand and administered as written.



Zak S said:


> What experience do the players (and GM) feel they signed up for?



Yes - always and foremost. Everyone should have a clear idea of what they are expected to get, and that's why all the discussion about potential styles and vocabulary to describe them is useful.


----------



## chaochou

Imaro said:


> Yes but the temptation to steer failure outcomes towards your own predisposed interests as DM is just as likely as a pre-authoring DM steering outcomes towards the creations he wants to explore.




Prove it.


----------



## Zak S

chaochou said:


> Yes but the temptation to steer failure outcomes towards your own predisposed interests as DM is just as likely as a pre-authoring DM steering outcomes towards the creations he wants to explore.




This isn't true.

In pre-authoring world location content, you decide subjects, but the players still-in the moment--decide their reactions to those subjects (and one of the cool things about that is you can actually enable situations with more options if you pre-author rather than just go "Uhhh....there's one door!")  .

So if we presume the GM wants the players not to be railroaded, (ie you CARE about giving the players their say), pre-authoring content is often the best way to do that because it means you aren't just leaning on your (often repetitive or uni-valent) instincts.

Like in the moment you might go (as a GM) "There's a Frog Temple!"--if you have time to prep you can go "Ok there are eight temples and the order and number you choose to visit them will determine your experience in ways I can't predict".


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Just a quick question/comment around this... How is this any different when you are making things up on the fly.  Unless you can guarantee you don't in any way think about the game, it's characters, consequences, what may happen, etc. outside of in the moment play... I'm not sure how you guarantee that your particular "vision" of the game (What you would prefer to improvise around/explore) isn't what you are pushing for, even if it's subconsciously?




There is a brief, less involved answer to this and a much more complex (and correspondingly less brief) answer to this.  Let us start at the brief, less involved one and move to the more complex as we need to.

First, a caveat:

There can be no guarantee that a game is 100 % safeguarded against GM Force.  Therefore, I certainly don't offer it.  There are only means to mitigate against it.  These means come in the form of GM incentives, streamlined/intuitive resolution mechanics (which works to ensure that unwanted mental overhead which distracts a GM from excelling at free-form/improv is minimized), and a clear/transparent/coherent top-down agenda of play and principles for the GM to follow.  Games that are meant to be improv/freeform-friendly have the guidance, incentives, and system means in play to support it (we can do examples here if need be).

On with the brief, less involved answer:

The premise I'm working from is that humans are inclined to want to share a creation in proportion to their own investment in it.  This investment might be  emotional.  It might be blood, sweat, and tears.  It might be pride/vanity.

The investment (any or all of the above) of pre-game prepped setting and situation (specifically of the granular, high resolution variety) is going to be significant when compared to a game where GM prep is considerably less (typically setting and situation are of much lower granularity/resolution and are firmed up during play with improved content being generated as required; "just in time" or "story now").  Consequently, the seductive forces of "human investment" are less potent.  Less potent means less likely to be given sway as the primary motivation for future content introduced into the shared imaginary space during play (rather than content introduction via player decision-points, the output of the resolution mechanics, and following the game's agenda and GMing principles).



Imaro said:


> As an example, in the previous mountain climbing example, there are an almost unlimited number of outcomes that could take place on a failure (especially since the relationship of skill/task resolution has no bearing on what the failed roll could lead to as an outcome, only what could "logically" arise in the fiction... and yet you as DM have a preference since you are making a specific choice out of all those possibilities... and by the fact that dying and not reaching the mountain top was taken off the table (at least for this particular failure) it seems that you are pushing towards exploration of the content that has already been established... the mountain top and the MacGuffin as opposed to say improvising around another part of the mountain the character could have discovered in his fall...  So I'm not seeing how improv protects against this particular problem.




I'm going to forgo getting into this for the time being.  However, a polite request.  Because Bob (I think I named him?) and his pudding quest were meant for one very narrow purpose (to exhibit a system-neutral depiction of vanilla Fail Forward in action), could we maybe use the play example from my Dungeon World game that I posted upthread (where someone actually does fall down a glacial crevasse).  That is an extended example with both play and system context so it would be many times more productive when attempting to use play examples to further conversation.

For now, lets focus on the above (and find common ground or further divergence).


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> As a player playing a PC that goes to a strange land, I (and my PC) am aware that they may have strange customs that I don't know and I can use that knowledge to try and avoid insult by learning the local customs.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Divination magic deals in revealing the unknown.  How does it cease to be relevant in a world that contains the unknown?  It has more relevance in a pre-authored world that is rich in things to divine.





grendel111111 said:


> When people talk about player agency it so often sounds like if the DM doesn't give the players all the facts up front then the players are suddenly robbed of all agency, as if they are not capable of using their skills to gather information and make informed decisions. And there are times when it comes down to just blind luck and I am OK with that, too.



AD&D has no magic for learning local customs, nor any skill system for that either.

The divination magic in AD&D is overwhelming short-range (ie for dungeon use) and aimed at geographical exploration (Secret Door Detection, Clairvoynace etc), or finding treasure (Locate Object, Treasure Finding, etc) or detecting hostile beings (Enemy Detection, ESP, etc). This reflects the game's origin in dungeon exploration and looting.

In my post I talked about instances where players have the resources to learn the relevant backstory. But the example I gave is one where this is not the case. It's an example involving dumb/blind luck.



Maxperson said:


> Many people enjoy a world where their choices matter.  While it may be dumb luck if nobody is a sailor or the like, picking a direction in the Realms gives choice meaning.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Choice has no real meaning when no matter which direction you choose, it's all going to end up the same.



The last sentence is not in dispute. That's why, in my BW game, when nothing turned on which way the PCs were drifting on the ocean we didn't both worrying about which way they were drifting.

But I prefer a game in which choices matter _and the players know that and why they matter_. Choosing blind - sticking your hand into the GM's bag and seeing what colour ball you pull out - doesn't give the choice very much meaning, in my view.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> Just a quick question/comment around this... How is this any different when you are making things up on the fly.  Unless you can guarantee you don't in any way think about the game, it's characters, consequences, what may happen, etc. outside of in the moment play... I'm not sure how you guarantee that your particular "vision" of the game (What you would prefer to improvise around/explore) isn't what you are pushing for, even if it's subconsciously?





Imaro said:


> the temptation to steer failure outcomes towards your own predisposed interests as DM is just as likely as a pre-authoring DM steering outcomes towards the creations he wants to explore



What's your threshold for, or measure of, _GM force_?

In my own case, I can tell you absolutely that I spend a lot of time thinking about the game, the characters and what may happen in the game, for both my 4e and my BW campaign. I come up with ideas for antagonists, possible locations, situations etc.

To give a concrete example from my BW game:

After the session in which the PCs escaped the orcs in the desert and took shelter at an oasis with a friendly naga guardian, I thought that I wanted to use a dark elf in the game. (Looking at the chapter on Maeglin in the Silmarillion even led to me re-reading the whole of that book!)

In the next session, when the PCs travelled to the ruined tower, I used the dark elf as a failure result for two checks: a failed orientation check led the PCs to a waterhole which had been recently fouled. Investigation of the excrement suggested that it was elvish. Pursuing the perpetrator led to a brief encounter with the dark elf, who escaped (but lost his knife when he through it and the PCs kept it). Another failed check (I can't remember what, now - maybe the failed attempt to track the dark elf) meant that when they got to the tower the dark elf had also got there first, and hence had had a chance to fill the well with rubble.

In the session when the PCs left the tower, I also used the elf - he dropped a deadfall on the PCs as they were walking through a defile in the Abor-Alz. And this was when it was revealed that he was wielding the nickel-silver mace.

That the dark elf would have the mace had already been anticipated, though, by the player of the mage: in an email following the session where the mace wasn't found, that player conjectured that the mace would be in the hands of the dark elf.

To me, this seems to be a GM doing his/her job. It's my job to manage the fiction and, of particular relevance to this particular matter, to come up with consequences for failure and to frame the PCs into challenging situations.

With this concrete example in mind, can you explain the relationship you see to pre-authoring? To me, it makes a difference that the initial encounters with the dark elf and his filthy deeds were triggered by failed checks; that the mace only came into play at all because a player wrote it into his PC's backstory and Beliefs; that the ruined tower came into play at all only because the same player had it written into his PC's backstory; that the dark elf was intended to (and, in play, did) provide material for the elven ronin PC to play off his Belief that he "will always keep the Elven ways"; etc.

I'm not sure how this would all have been pre-authored, though. If the checks to move through the desert had succeeded, for instance, then there would have been no occasion to introduce the dark elf into play in the way that I did. I might still have used the dark elf as an antagonist with the deadfall - but that itself was triggered by the players deciding to have their PCs leave the tower.

I'm very unclear in what respect you are suggesting that pre-authorship vs "just in time"/"story now" made no difference here, in respect of the balance of GM and player agency.


----------



## Sadras

Manbearcat said:


> First, a caveat:
> 
> There can be no guarantee that a game is 100 % safeguarded against GM Force.  Therefore, I certainly don't offer it.  There are only means to mitigate against it.  These means come in the form of GM incentives, streamlined/intuitive resolution mechanics (which works to ensure that unwanted mental overhead which distracts a GM from excelling at free-form/improv is minimized), and a clear/transparent/coherent top-down agenda of play and principles for the GM to follow.  Games that are meant to be improv/freeform-friendly have the guidance, incentives, and system means in play to support it (we can do examples here if need be).
> 
> On with the brief, less involved answer:
> 
> The premise I'm working from is that humans are inclined to want to share a creation in proportion to their own investment in it.  This investment might be  emotional.  It might be blood, sweat, and tears.  It might be pride/vanity.
> 
> The investment (any or all of the above) of pre-game prepped setting and situation (specifically of the granular, high resolution variety) is going to be significant when compared to a game where GM prep is considerably less (typically setting and situation are of much lower granularity/resolution and are firmed up during play with improved content being generated as required; "just in time" or "story now").  Consequently, the seductive forces of "human investment" are less potent.  Less potent means less likely to be given sway as the primary motivation for future content introduced into the shared imaginary space during play (rather than content introduction via player decision-points, the output of the resolution mechanics, and following the game's agenda and GMing principles).




In the common tongue, what you're saying is pre-authorship dming, due to our natural human tendencies, attracts railroaded decision points by players  due to GM Force to realise the "human investment", whereas in "story now" dming this natural human tendency detracts from this "human investment" and thus the GM Force?

What I think is happening in this debate is that people are arguing from exclusive points, I think many DMs are combination of both. I would consider myself more in the pre-authorship camp, not because I believe it to be better, but because I have less confidence in my own storytelling ability and instant DMing if I have not invested enough prep time.

In my prep time, I'm able to determine NPC motivations/reactions, create connections, note important details and identify possible scenarios allowing me to better prepare for the session. Without that prep time, I'm running everything on the fly and the richness of the details may be lost and holes in the storyline may be revealed.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> AD&D has no magic for learning local customs, nor any skill system for that either.




Ask them.  Explaining you are from far away and want to learn works wonders.  If language is a barrier, charades is pretty much universal and gets across that you are from far away.  Once they know you aren't from around these parts, you will get much more latitude on etiquette. 



> In my post I talked about instances where players have the resources to learn the relevant backstory. But the example I gave is one where this is not the case. It's an example involving dumb/blind luck.




There are very, very few instances here you are truly "blind" and dependent on blind luck.  However, it occasionally happens and realism like that is welcome as far as I'm concerned.  It's rare and adds to the game experience by putting the party in a situation that reflects how life works.  Life isn't perfect and you won't always have information at your fingertips to make the best of the situation you are in.



> The last sentence is not in dispute. That's why, in my BW game, when nothing turned on which way the PCs were drifting on the ocean we didn't both worrying about which way they were drifting.




To me, there's something wrong when choices don't matter.  If my PC is lost on a raft in the middle of the ocean, I want the decision to go north or south to have different consequences, even if I have no idea what those consequences are until discovered.



> But I prefer a game in which choices matter _and the players know that and why they matter_. Choosing blind - sticking your hand into the GM's bag and seeing what colour ball you pull out - doesn't give the choice very much meaning, in my view.



It gives great meaning.  Discovery of the unknown and uncontrolled is a blessedly wonderful thing.  Choosing to go south when lost in the ocean and encountering the jungles of Chult adds to the game immensely.  There's no way to achieve the same kind of surprise and discovery when you are the one creating or helping to create what is happening.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Sadras said:


> What I think is happening in this debate is that people are arguing from exclusive points, I think many DMs are combination of both. I would consider myself more in the pre-authorship camp, not because I believe it to be better, but because I have less confidence in my own storytelling ability and instant DMing if I have not invested enough prep time.




I agree, I think most people fall closer to the middle of this continuum. But there is merit in discussing the extremes.

I'm like you, I tend to pre-prep quite a bit, although it becomes less and less as a campaign continues. That's partially because the campaign itself becomes a sort of pre-prep. You've already identified the motivations and such of the major NPCs, you just don't necessarily know what they've been up to.

And you don't need to, unless/until the PCs encounter them again, or they do something that has an impact greater than the world immediately around them. That's where the just-in-time approach comes into play. 

So I get the sense that as things progress, you'll shift from one technique towards another, and at times it will go the other way. The real key, is not to be so fixated on one approach that you can't use another. The reality is that most of us use some degree of both already, whether we realize it or not.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Imaro

Zak S said:


> This isn't true.
> 
> In pre-authoring world location content, you decide subjects, but the players still-in the moment--decide their reactions to those subjects (and one of the cool things about that is you can actually enable situations with more options if you pre-author rather than just go "Uhhh....there's one door!")  .
> 
> So if we presume the GM wants the players not to be railroaded, (ie you CARE about giving the players their say), pre-authoring content is often the best way to do that because it means you aren't just leaning on your (often repetitive or uni-valent) instincts.
> 
> Like in the moment you might go (as a GM) "There's a Frog Temple!"--if you have time to prep you can go "Ok there are eight temples and the order and number you choose to visit them will determine your experience in ways I can't predict".




This was sort of what I was getting at... I don't believe either has a tendency towards "railroading" when done by a DM who is adept at the particular playstyle they have chosen.  @_*Manbearcat*_ (as well as @_*pemerton*_ I believe)  makes the argument that pre-authoring and human nature pushes towards railroading... but that is totally ignoring certain styles of pre-authoring.  One, which you mention above, being the pre-authoring of multiple choice points... another being the pre-authoring after a decision point has been decided upon by the players (the players make plans and let the DM know at the end of a session what direction/decision they have made, ie... the players decide to make an excursion into the Caves of Doom vs. the Forsaken Tower).  My post was more to show that in either case a DM can succumb to railroading the PC's but that is more a function of the DM than either of the actual playstyles.


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> On with the brief, less involved answer:
> 
> The premise I'm working from is that humans are inclined to want to share a creation in proportion to their own investment in it.  This investment might be  emotional.  It might be blood, sweat, and tears.  It might be pride/vanity.
> 
> The investment (any or all of the above) of pre-game prepped setting and situation (specifically of the granular, high resolution variety) is going to be significant when compared to a game where GM prep is considerably less (typically setting and situation are of much lower granularity/resolution and are firmed up during play with improved content being generated as required; "just in time" or "story now").  Consequently, the seductive forces of "human investment" are less potent.  Less potent means less likely to be given sway as the primary motivation for future content introduced into the shared imaginary space during play (rather than content introduction via player decision-points, the output of the resolution mechanics, and following the game's agenda and GMing principles).




Yes and what I'm saying is that even in improvisation the DM can have biases, desires for a campaign outcome or even specific character outcomes he has mentally invested himself in, even a predisposition to forcing a structure of story onto the game... that can shape how he/she directs the outcomes of created material and failed outcomes.  The very fact that the type of "story" you and @_*pemerton*_ seem concerned with creating has rules of pacing, tension, etc. is mental incentive to use DM force (railroading) if the PC's actions/decisions are not generating this template for "story".  In other words I don't see one style as more susceptible to railroading than the other, it boils down to how the DM implements the particular tools of his chosen style and whether he can keep his own interests from overriding the agency of his players.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Imaro said:


> Yes but the temptation to steer failure outcomes towards your own predisposed interests as DM is just as likely as a pre-authoring DM steering outcomes towards the creations he wants to explore... in other words how can the later be a concern when pre-authoring but in improv there is no concern around the DM steering the direction of the "story" being created towards what he is most interested in improv'ing around?






chaochou said:


> Prove it.




I don't really see this as a helpful response.

It's absolutely steered towards a DMs predisposed interests. They can be very broad interests, but a DM can only present the options that are in their head. That doesn't mean that it will necessarily steer the story in a certain direction, but it will have an impact. Is that bad? Well, it's pretty much a given. The DM will run a game that caters in part to their own interests. How much is a variable, and whether that bothers the players is another variable. 

In a prepped adventure, the temptation may be to keep the party within those predisposed interests. In a non-prepped scenario, there may not be a predetermined 'end-game' or even direction. And in theory, the actions of the players/characters can/will have an impact on the story and direction that is taken. But in practice I highly doubt that every DM is willing and capable to allow 'anything' to happen. The DM will have an influence on the direction of the story, even if they are determining the majority of things via random tables. 

But if people didn't want the DM to have an impact on the story, they wouldn't play the game with a DM. There are enough resources to run a campaign entirely with random encounters and no DM. They aren't very enjoyable, even those that have a set story line like the Catacombs books did, because the input of the DM is crucial to an interesting game. 

Not all DMs that prep railroad, just like not all that don't prep don't. 

The tools are the tools. Just-in-time DMing is one of those tools. Prepping, which includes the use of published materials even as simple as a Monster Manual, are tools as well. The ideal to me seems to be that prep is focused on people, places, monsters, things, NPC motivations, plots and schemes, and such and a pool of available resources, and that the game play itself be one of more of a just-in-time approach. How much is dependent upon the individual DM and their skill at improv in the moment. Part of the purpose of good prep is also to help out when the DM is having an off night.

There will be a blend. I know that I don't usually predetermine where a specific treasure will be found, nor which monster, if any, will be guarding it. The players are in a dungeon right now, and the map, and certain fixtures, including some monsters are predetermined in their location, although for me that usually means undead, constructs, or bound guardians in a specific location. If they are intelligent creatures, the overall number and type might be known, but their exact location at a given point in time is not. The creature in the crypt is known, and the traps, puzzles, and such are often predetermined as well. The state of a given trap (has it been triggered), possibly not.

I might have pulled or randomly rolled some magic items that will potentially be found in the near future, but I don't know where. When possible I prefer for them to be in the hands of a creature that will use them. But I might not assign them until I randomly roll a given encounter. It also doesn't mean that I won't go to the sourcebooks and pull something else out.

But it is all shaped by my predisposed interests in that the stuff that's happening in the world around them is what I decided would be happening. If, how and when the PCs interact with these elements is a variable, much like a wandering monster. Sometimes I will roll randomly, sometimes the situation will seem like a good opportunity and I'll decide that it occurs there.

The results of those events might also be determined randomly or by me. Some as a result of character action, some not. 

When I stop looking at the extreme arguments, and start looking at the tools and techniques themselves, I realize I've been doing a lot of this for years, just not acknowledging it as a specific approach. Getting a better feel for them, and utilizing them more efficiently is a good thing.

Ironically, how much I direct the actual story also varies from time-to-time, and usually has to do with being unprepared. Not in the sense of preparing specific locales, events and such, but having a pool of resources, which includes my own head, being ready when needed when following the story and where the PCs decide to go with it. I really like going deep with the research and prep. It's fun. But I can do that in areas where it makes the most sense, and will be applicable in many possible scenarios. Colorful NPCs, interesting plots and schemes and ways that things tie together in the world, waiting to be discovered, or not. Detailing a dungeon room by room, outside of basic descriptions and a map, or planning out the expected course of the night's game is not. Without control of the players, it may be a lot of effort for something that doesn't benefit the session at all. 

The specific situation is important as well. If they are in a dungeon, then you can get more into the nitty-gritty of the next several areas they might explore. Their options are limited by the nature of the dungeon, although they don't have to follow any particular path, the number of paths to consider is limited. But most of the time, the best approach seems to be prepared for anything, by having NPCs, monsters, treasures, and potential plot points (rumors and motivations) available.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> What's your threshold for, or measure of, _GM force_?
> 
> In my own case, I can tell you absolutely that I spend a lot of time thinking about the game, the characters and what may happen in the game, for both my 4e and my BW campaign. I come up with ideas for antagonists, possible locations, situations etc.
> 
> To give a concrete example from my BW game:
> 
> After the session in which the PCs escaped the orcs in the desert and took shelter at an oasis with a friendly naga guardian, I thought that I wanted to use a dark elf in the game. (Looking at the chapter on Maeglin in the Silmarillion even led to me re-reading the whole of that book!)
> 
> In the next session, when the PCs travelled to the ruined tower, I used the dark elf as a failure result for two checks: a failed orientation check led the PCs to a waterhole which had been recently fouled. Investigation of the excrement suggested that it was elvish. Pursuing the perpetrator led to a brief encounter with the dark elf, who escaped (but lost his knife when he through it and the PCs kept it). Another failed check (I can't remember what, now - maybe the failed attempt to track the dark elf) meant that when they got to the tower the dark elf had also got there first, and hence had had a chance to fill the well with rubble.
> 
> In the session when the PCs left the tower, I also used the elf - he dropped a deadfall on the PCs as they were walking through a defile in the Abor-Alz. And this was when it was revealed that he was wielding the nickel-silver mace.
> 
> That the dark elf would have the mace had already been anticipated, though, by the player of the mage: in an email following the session where the mace wasn't found, that player conjectured that the mace would be in the hands of the dark elf.
> 
> To me, this seems to be a GM doing his/her job. It's my job to manage the fiction and, of particular relevance to this particular matter, to come up with consequences for failure and to frame the PCs into challenging situations.
> 
> With this concrete example in mind, can you explain the relationship you see to pre-authoring? To me, it makes a difference that the initial encounters with the dark elf and his filthy deeds were triggered by failed checks; that the mace only came into play at all because a player wrote it into his PC's backstory and Beliefs; that the ruined tower came into play at all only because the same player had it written into his PC's backstory; that the dark elf was intended to (and, in play, did) provide material for the elven ronin PC to play off his Belief that he "will always keep the Elven ways"; etc.
> 
> I'm not sure how this would all have been pre-authored, though. If the checks to move through the desert had succeeded, for instance, then there would have been no occasion to introduce the dark elf into play in the way that I did. I might still have used the dark elf as an antagonist with the deadfall - but that itself was triggered by the players deciding to have their PCs leave the tower.
> 
> I'm very unclear in what respect you are suggesting that pre-authorship vs "just in time"/"story now" made no difference here, in respect of the balance of GM and player agency.




I think there's a few misconceptions about pre-authoring in your post above... 

First, in no way does pre-authoring necessarily force the Dark Elf to appear or not appear (this seems to be the biggest misconception about pre-authoring in this thread)... all pre-authoring has to do is establish him as a potential antagonist (which seems to be exactly what you did).  Some examples of ways pre-authoring can do this... there could have been a percentage chance he appeared (independent of success or failure of a skill check) in the dessert... there could have been a trigger action that caused the PC's to be noticed  the Dark Elf... there could have been a timeframe set out by the DM that determined when or even if the Dark Elf was present at the tower when the PC's get lost/fail their orientation check, and so on....  

So if all the failure/success of the skills do (insofar as the chance of the Dark Elf showing up) is make it a go/no go decision then there are plenty of randomizers a pre-authored campaign could use to produce the same uncertainty.

As to PC backstory being a part of a pre-authored campaign... I'm unclear how these two things are at odds??(unless we are speaking strictly about pre-made adventures, and even those can have selectable PC backgrounds that tie into the overall campaign).  In a pre-authored campaign a good DM is going to author things that tie into the PC's backgrounds into his campaign world... so I'm unclear on why there couldn't have been a mace or the tower... or is this more about how you chose to have it come into play (due to a failed check)??  Because if that's the crux of this "big" difference I have to say I don't see it as all that important (it's just a different randomizer... a percentage chance based on what skill is used vs. what the DM thinks the objective chances should be in the world.)

Now what I do find interesting in the difference between procedures is that in the pre-authored method challenges can arise irregardless of success or failure of a skill check, thus tension can ramp up and new challenges can appear at anytime... while in your methodology it seems tension, new challenges, etc. only appear upon failure.  That's the biggest difference that I see...


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> AD&D has no magic for learning local customs, nor any skill system for that either.
> 
> The divination magic in AD&D is overwhelming short-range (ie for dungeon use) and aimed at geographical exploration (Secret Door Detection, Clairvoynace etc), or finding treasure (Locate Object, Treasure Finding, etc) or detecting hostile beings (Enemy Detection, ESP, etc). This reflects the game's origin in dungeon exploration and looting.




And yet even with out a "skill set" we were still able to talk to people and interact with them, discover information and rumors and make informed decisions? The concept of being limited to the options on a character sheet was a phase that some RPG's went through and has hopefully been left well behind.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Imaro said:


> I think there's a few misconceptions about pre-authoring in your post above...
> 
> First, in no way does pre-authoring necessarily force the Dark Elf to appear or not appear (this seems to be the biggest misconception about pre-authoring in this thread)... all pre-authoring has to do is establish him as a potential antagonist (which seems to be exactly what you did).  Some examples of ways pre-authoring can do this... there could have been a percentage chance he appeared (independent of success or failure of a skill check) in the dessert... there could have been a trigger action that caused the PC's to be noticed  the Dark Elf... there could have been a timeframe set out by the DM that determined when or even if the Dark Elf was present at the tower when the PC's get lost/fail their orientation check, and so on....
> 
> So if all the failure/success of the skills do (insofar as the chance of the Dark Elf showing up) is make it a go/no go decision then there are plenty of randomizers a pre-authored campaign could use to produce the same uncertainty.
> 
> As to PC backstory being a part of a pre-authored campaign... I'm unclear how these two things are at odds??(unless we are speaking strictly about pre-made adventures, and even those can have selectable PC backgrounds that tie into the overall campaign).  In a pre-authored campaign a good DM is going to author things that tie into the PC's backgrounds into his campaign world... so I'm unclear on why there couldn't have been a mace or the tower... or is this more about how you chose to have it come into play (due to a failed check)??  Because if that's the crux of this "big" difference I have to say I don't see it as all that important (it's just a different randomizer... a percentage chance based on what skill is used vs. what the DM thinks the objective chances should be in the world.)
> 
> Now what I do find interesting in the difference between procedures is that in the pre-authored method challenges can arise irregardless of success or failure of a skill check, thus tension can ramp up and new challenges can appear at anytime... while in your methodology it seems tension, new challenges, etc. only appear upon failure.  That's the biggest difference that I see...




As I've been working on things, it dawned on me that pre-authoring is much like you describe, and that it's a tool that can be leveraged by in-the-moment authoring. 

The way I'm looking at it now (and really, how I've been doing it in part, now that I've taken time to study it), is that in-the-moment authoring, or even what I might call 'reactive DMing' is dependent upon the skill of the DM combined with the resources they have available. 

What resources? Well monsters, spells, magic items, etc. which are all provided in the core books in most systems (although you can always add/modify), campaign settings and supplements, etc. These are all more or less presumed. 

But part of those resources is the prep work of the DM. Building a roster of interesting NPCs, with their own motivations and potential secrets. Ties to secret villainous organizations, and the motives and current operations of those organizations. What are they doing and why? Independent villains in the area, what are they doing and why? Maps for general types of dungeons - natural caves, towers, ruined keeps, crypts, etc. that are not assigned to anything in particular, until they are 'discovered' in the course of an adventure, at which point they now have a place on the map.

Basically, prepping can be an extremely helpful process for in-the-moment authoring, you have the NPCs, interesting locations, secrets and rumors, you just don't actually know where they are located. In the case of mobile things like NPCs and creatures, they could be in different places in different sessions. Physical locations, even 'known but forgotten ones' have at most a general location until the actual physical location is determined. If you want something to be in a specific physical location, that's fine too. But most of what's around it is still mutable.

Basically you pre-author a wide variety of building blocks to have available at a moment's notice as needed.

In addition, I think that the concept in the in-the-moment authoring that is often missed (particularly if we use the term 'fail forward') is that it's not reliant upon the failure of a skill check. New story elements, drawn from the resources prepared, or entirely improvised based on the situation, can occur at any time. It really has nothing to do with a skill check.

Having said that, some people advocate that a failed skill check and present one of these moments in time where a new story element can be introduced. It doesn't have to be, it can be. It's specifically allowing a skill check to be more than a skill check - it's a plot point. Whether that occurs because of the skill check, or a separate fate check, or the DM just adds it in is also irrelevant. It's recognizing that a skill check is a point in time where a result is determined - it's often already a logical point in the flow of the game for the players to discover something new, for an event to occur, or a setback. 

However, by this definition, it doesn't have to be tied to failure, and as I said to an actual skill check either (yet another reason why 'fail forward' is not a great term). If we look at it from a broader perspective, it's looking at the exploration event from a wider angle and determining what more can be added that is more than just a simple check. 

For example, during the course of a combat, there is great potential for a lot of things to occur besides just life and death. Capturing and interrogating an opponent, they can unwittingly divulge information, they can be carrying important documents, keys, or other objects, they could retreat and/escape leading the PCs to something important, etc.

Well, the same things apply to an exploration encounter. They can find documents, information, objects, or even creatures or NPCs depending on the circumstance. The point is that the DM is always reacting to what's going on, and that reaction can be the introduction of something new.

It really has nothing to do with skill checks at all. It's more about being prepared with enough material (or improv chops) to be able to react to the actions of the PCs. A well prepared DM will find it much easier to support this type of play.


Ilbranteloth


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Imaro said:


> This was sort of what I was getting at... I don't believe either has a tendency towards "railroading" when done by a DM who is adept at the particular playstyle they have chosen.  @_*Manbearcat*_ (as well as @_*pemerton*_ I believe)  makes the argument that pre-authoring and human nature pushes towards railroading... but that is totally ignoring certain styles of pre-authoring.  One, which you mention above, being the pre-authoring of multiple choice points... another being the pre-authoring after a decision point has been decided upon by the players (the players make plans and let the DM know at the end of a session what direction/decision they have made, ie... the players decide to make an excursion into the Caves of Doom vs. the Forsaken Tower).  My post was more to show that in either case a DM can succumb to railroading the PC's but that is more a function of the DM than either of the actual playstyles.




Yes. I think DM skill and DM disposition is what drives railroading. A DM who railroads will do so regardless of the tools in play.

But a published adventure, or a DM pre-authored adventure certainly encourages that type of play to stay within the bounds of what's been authored.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## innerdude

Sadras said:


> In my prep time, I'm able to determine NPC motivations/reactions, create connections, note important details and identify possible scenarios allowing me to better prepare for the session. Without that prep time, I'm running everything on the fly and the richness of the details may be lost and holes in the storyline may be revealed.




And I'll be the first to admit, keeping the richness and details while maintaining consistency across scenes and NPC motivations is HARD without pre-authoring.

I can think of several points during sessions where I specifically wanted to keep the narrative open to player input, but as that input was coming was feeling a slow rise of panic --- "How am I going to integrate this? How do I keep this consistent? This basically contradicts this event that happened two sessions ago; how do I retcon that without it being clunky?"

To make that work, I ended up basically doing two things: Trusting my players, and staying true to the motivations of the NPCs. And I can honestly say, my players and I were far more satisfied with the outcomes than if I had just pre-authored the majority of it.

It's a difficult balance at times, but vastly more rewarding, at least in my experience.


----------



## chaochou

Ilbranteloth said:


> I don't really see this as a helpful response.
> 
> It's absolutely steered towards a DMs predisposed interests.




In my most recent game a player took their followers out into the junkyard and then got them to weld two massive metal statues. And then she drove her cult into a tribal frenzy and called upon the crowd to carry them to the gates so their dreadful visage would drive away their enemies...

...and failed her roll and the crowd agreed to sacrifice her inside them in a Wicker-man style so their dreadful visage would drive away their enemies.

I didn't create the city, the junkyard, the followers, or initiate actions building statues or driving crowds into a tribal frenzy. They were all player authored. Please explain how this episode was steered by my 'pre-disposed interests'.


----------



## Imaro

chaochou said:


> In my most recent game a player took their followers out into the junkyard and then got them to weld two massive metal statues. And then she drove her cult into a tribal frenzy and called upon the crowd to carry them to the gates so their dreadful visage would drive away their enemies...
> 
> ...and failed her roll and the crowd agreed to sacrifice her inside them in a Wicker-man style so their dreadful visage would drive away their enemies.
> 
> I didn't create the city, the junkyard, the followers, or initiate actions building statues or driving crowds into a tribal frenzy. They were all player authored. Please explain how this episode was steered by my 'pre-disposed interests'.




There really isn't enough context here to answer the question posed... but I am curious, who decided since she failed her roll that the game suddenly went "Wicker Man" as opposed to "Mad Max"??


----------



## innerdude

Ilbranteloth said:


> As I've been working on things, it dawned on me that pre-authoring is much like you describe, and that it's a tool that can be leveraged by in-the-moment authoring.
> 
> The way I'm looking at it now (and really, how I've been doing it in part, now that I've taken time to study it), is that in-the-moment authoring, or even what I might call 'reactive DMing' is dependent upon the skill of the DM combined with the resources they have available.
> 
> What resources? Well monsters, spells, magic items, etc. which are all provided in the core books in most systems (although you can always add/modify), campaign settings and supplements, etc. These are all more or less presumed.
> 
> But part of those resources is the prep work of the DM. Building a roster of interesting NPCs, with their own motivations and potential secrets. Ties to secret villainous organizations, and the motives and current operations of those organizations. What are they doing and why? Independent villains in the area, what are they doing and why? Maps for general types of dungeons - natural caves, towers, ruined keeps, crypts, etc. that are not assigned to anything in particular, until they are 'discovered' in the course of an adventure, at which point they now have a place on the map.
> 
> Basically, prepping can be an extremely helpful process for in-the-moment authoring, you have the NPCs, interesting locations, secrets and rumors, you just don't actually know where they are located. In the case of mobile things like NPCs and creatures, they could be in different places in different sessions. Physical locations, even 'known but forgotten ones' have at most a general location until the actual physical location is determined. If you want something to be in a specific physical location, that's fine too. But most of what's around it is still mutable.
> 
> Basically you pre-author a wide variety of building blocks to have available at a moment's notice as needed.
> 
> In addition, I think that the concept in the in-the-moment authoring that is often missed (particularly if we use the term 'fail forward') is that it's not reliant upon the failure of a skill check. New story elements, drawn from the resources prepared, or entirely improvised based on the situation, can occur at any time. It really has nothing to do with a skill check.
> 
> Having said that, some people advocate that a failed skill check and present one of these moments in time where a new story element can be introduced. It doesn't have to be, it can be. It's specifically allowing a skill check to be more than a skill check - it's a plot point. Whether that occurs because of the skill check, or a separate fate check, or the DM just adds it in is also irrelevant. It's recognizing that a skill check is a point in time where a result is determined - it's often already a logical point in the flow of the game for the players to discover something new, for an event to occur, or a setback.
> 
> However, by this definition, it doesn't have to be tied to failure, and as I said to an actual skill check either (yet another reason why 'fail forward' is not a great term). If we look at it from a broader perspective, it's looking at the exploration event from a wider angle and determining what more can be added that is more than just a simple check.
> 
> For example, during the course of a combat, there is great potential for a lot of things to occur besides just life and death. Capturing and interrogating an opponent, they can unwittingly divulge information, they can be carrying important documents, keys, or other objects, they could retreat and/escape leading the PCs to something important, etc.
> 
> Well, the same things apply to an exploration encounter. They can find documents, information, objects, or even creatures or NPCs depending on the circumstance. The point is that the DM is always reacting to what's going on, and that reaction can be the introduction of something new.
> 
> It's more about being prepared with enough material (or improv chops) to be able to react to the actions of the PCs. A well prepared DM will find it much easier to support this type of play.




Fantastic post. You've captured the spirit of how I approach the pre-authoring / "in the moment" GM-ing continuum better than I could have. I think one of the other ingredients to this, and one of the reasons why I'm now such a big fan of "in the moment" GM-ing, is I've found a system that supports it so robustly (Savage Worlds). I'm guessing one of the reasons the 4e supporters are such a fan of it as well, is that 4e seems to support "on the fly" encounter prep easily, which is a somewhat radical departure from other versions of D&D (if I'm speaking out of hand, @_*pemerton*_, @_*Manbearcat*_, et. al., let me know). 




Ilbranteloth said:


> It really has nothing to do with skill checks at all.




I think you covered this in the main body, saying it "can, but doesn't have to." I agree generally with that, but have found, like @_*pemerton*_ , that _the very act of a player calling for a roll_ can, and occasionally SHOULD be a call to introduce something new to the fiction that perhaps the GM hadn't considered before. The common motivation for me to do so is that adding a "just in time" element based on a check is a great way of reinforcing the player's decision to play their character as designed, and to reward the player for using their PC skills and resources in interesting ways.


----------



## chaochou

Imaro said:


> There really isn't enough context here to answer the question posed... but I am curious, who decided since she failed her roll that the game suddenly went "Wicker Man" as opposed to "Mad Max"??




I already told you, she decided to create the effigies and work the crowd into a frenzy. Whether that is Wicker Man or Mad Max or neither or both is therefore moot. Whatever you call it, it wasn't me.

Try again.


----------



## Imaro

chaochou said:


> I already told you, she decided to create the effigies and work the crowd into a frenzy. Whether that is Wicker Man or Mad Max or neither or both is therefore moot. Whatever you call it, it wasn't me.
> 
> Try again.




Who decided she should be burned in them... even though honestly it's not exactly clear from your statement what the outcome of the failed roll exactly was.  Either way who decided it.  

I also find it hard to believe that you as DM didn't author anything (the junkyard, the city, the followers, etc.) unless this is a co-authored game as opposed to an improv game, in which case it's not exactly what is being discussed.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> Manbearcat (as well as pemerton I believe)  makes the argument that pre-authoring and human nature pushes towards railroading





Imaro said:


> even in improvisation the DM can have biases, desires for a campaign outcome or even specific character outcomes he has mentally invested himself in, even a predisposition to forcing a structure of story onto the game... that can shape how he/she directs the outcomes of created material and failed outcomes.
> 
> 
> I don't see one style as more susceptible to railroading than the other, it boils down to how the DM implements the particular tools of his chosen style and whether he can keep his own interests from overriding the agency of his players.



For me it's fairly straightforward. In pre-authorship, the events, personalities, focus etc of the fiction are created, in advance, by the GM. The players engage with those things or the pre-authored game doesn't happen.

In scene-framed, "fail forward" play, the events, personalities, focus etc of the fiction are created, in play, by the interaction of player action declarations and GM responses.

Those are different things. They give a different weight and place to the GM's preferences as to the fiction.



Imaro said:


> I also find it hard to believe that you as DM didn't author anything (the junkyard, the city, the followers, etc.) unless this is a co-authored game as opposed to an improv game, in which case it's not exactly what is being discussed.



I don't find it hard to believe at all. In my BW game the mace and the ruined tower were authored by one of the players, as part of PC backstory.



Ilbranteloth said:


> It's absolutely steered towards a DMs predisposed interests. They can be very broad interests, but a DM can only present the options that are in their head.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> in practice I highly doubt that every DM is willing and capable to allow 'anything' to happen. The DM will have an influence on the direction of the story, even if they are determining the majority of things via random tables.



If the players are driving the game, then "options" will be presented that aren't in the GM's head. [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] has posted an example of this. So have I.

I set out in some detail how the dark elf antics happened in my BW game. That's an instance of how "fail forward" works. I don't even know what it would mean to say that a pre-authored game might work the same way. Can someone explain, with reference to the actual example (or chaochou's?)



Imaro said:


> First, in no way does pre-authoring necessarily force the Dark Elf to appear or not appear (this seems to be the biggest misconception about pre-authoring in this thread)... all pre-authoring has to do is establish him as a potential antagonist (which seems to be exactly what you did).  Some examples of ways pre-authoring can do this... there could have been a percentage chance he appeared (independent of success or failure of a skill check) in the dessert... there could have been a trigger action that caused the PC's to be noticed  the Dark Elf... there could have been a timeframe set out by the DM that determined when or even if the Dark Elf was present at the tower when the PC's get lost/fail their orientation check, and so on....
> 
> So if all the failure/success of the skills do (insofar as the chance of the Dark Elf showing up) is make it a go/no go decision then there are plenty of randomizers a pre-authored campaign could use to produce the same uncertainty.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> if that's the crux of this "big" difference I have to say I don't see it as all that important (it's just a different randomizer... a percentage chance based on what skill is used vs. what the DM thinks the objective chances should be in the world.)
> 
> Now what I do find interesting in the difference between procedures is that in the pre-authored method challenges can arise irregardless of success or failure of a skill check, thus tension can ramp up and new challenges can appear at anytime... while in your methodology it seems tension, new challenges, etc. only appear upon failure.  That's the biggest difference that I see...



Having antagonists appear, and flourish or fail, independently of the players' action declarations and the success/failure of those checks (whether via random rolls, or pre-prepared timelines, or whatever), seems pretty significant to me. That is the GM deciding the course of things rather than having that determined by the players' action declarations.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> For me it's fairly straightforward. In pre-authorship, the events, personalities, focus etc of the fiction are created, in advance, by the GM. The players engage with those things or the pre-authored game doesn't happen.
> 
> In scene-framed, "fail forward" play, the events, personalities, focus etc of the fiction are created, in play, by the interaction of player action declarations and GM responses.
> 
> Those are different things. They give a different weight and place to the GM's preferences as to the fiction.




Yet you created the Dark Elf outside of play and then waited for an opportunity to introduce him through a failed check... or am I misunderstanding  what you posted earlier?



pemerton said:


> I don't find it hard to believe at all. In my BW game the mace and the ruined tower were authored by one of the players, as part of PC backstory.




So you believe that the player created the entirety of the city that he/she interacted with down to the personalities of NPC's?  The personality of everyone he interacted with in the tribe and so on... Again I find that very hard to believe... unless we are talking about a co-authored game...




pemerton said:


> Having antagonists appear, and flourish or fail, independently of the players' action declarations and the success/failure of those checks (whether via random rolls, or pre-prepared timelines, or whatever), seems pretty significant to me. That is the GM deciding the course of things rather than having that determined by the players' action declarations.




You do realize you are still deciding things as the DM... you decided the Dark Elf would appear, you decided he would drop rocks on your PC's, you decided he had the mace and so on...


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> For me it's fairly straightforward. In pre-authorship, the events, personalities, focus etc of the fiction are created, in advance, by the GM. The players engage with those things or the pre-authored game doesn't happen.
> 
> In scene-framed, "fail forward" play, the events, personalities, focus etc of the fiction are created, in play, by the interaction of player action declarations and GM responses.
> 
> Those are different things. They give a different weight and place to the GM's preferences as to the fiction.
> 
> I don't find it hard to believe at all. In my BW game the mace and the ruined tower were authored by one of the players, as part of PC backstory.
> 
> If the players are driving the game, then "options" will be presented that aren't in the GM's head. [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] has posted an example of this. So have I.




Yes, I pointed out that there are other inputs as well, and the advantage of the in-the-moment authoring is that player input to the story. But the input from the DM will still be within the DM's own interests, just like the players' input will be based on their interests, although they will probably be quite different than what he would come up with on his own.

But this falls under a growing category of things that I ask, "why is that bad?" I don't think it is. If the DM has crappy ideas, then he won't be a DM very long. The chances of interesting things happening are probably increased by more people being involved in the writing. 

The game as a whole, and the story as a whole will be very different than if there is a sole, single author. Those two examples also give a lot more leeway to the players in determining and writing plot points. I'm not sure I'm prepared to go that far, or how that fits within my long-running Forgotten Realms campaign. Which is fine, we all have areas that are important to us, and to me, making the world make sense (at least to me) is one of them. Maybe as I experiment, it will make more sense to me.

I also get what you're talking about in terms of pre-authorship or not. But it's not an all or nothing thing. The Monster Manual is pre-authored. Those monsters within are pre-authored. Magic items, spells, etc. as well. Pre-authoring additional NPCs, monsters, treasures, whatever, to have them at your disposal makes a lot of sense to me. No, they won't all be used. They might not even be complete. It could be an outline of 20 or so commoners, 20 guards, etc., just to have names, basic stats, backgrounds and motivations ready if needed. It could be years before a specific one is used. Possibly never. The players may not engage with them at all, and yet the game continues.

That's very different than a pre-authored adventure, where a general plot is implied if not outright declared. For me, this is the best of both worlds. I know that there are things going on behind the scenes. That certain groups interact with each other in different ways - allies, enemies, indifferent. These create deeper webs of motivations and activities of some of the NPCs that the characters meet. They provide launching points should the players opt to follow them. At the same time, new material can still be written on the spot, with the DM reacting to the PCs actions. 

Without documenting what's happened, some pre-authoring, and such, I don't know how I'd keep everything straight and consistent over the course of years, as my campaigns tend to run. 

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Ilbranteloth

chaochou said:


> I already told you, she decided to create the effigies and work the crowd into a frenzy. Whether that is Wicker Man or Mad Max or neither or both is therefore moot. Whatever you call it, it wasn't me.
> 
> Try again.




So how about an example that _had_ your input. If you as a DM aren't contributing anything, then what are you doing?

You took a single sentence of my response out of context. Here was the whole paragraph:



Ilbranteloth said:


> It's absolutely steered towards a DMs predisposed interests. They can be very broad interests, but a DM can only present the options that are in their head. That doesn't mean that it will necessarily steer the story in a certain direction, but it will have an impact. Is that bad? Well, it's pretty much a given. The DM will run a game that caters in part to their own interests. How much is a variable, and whether that bothers the players is another variable.




My point is that the DM can only provide input based on what they know. Just like the players can do the same. That's not good or bad, it just is. If I'm part of writing a story, my input can only be what's in my head. Even if it's from an outside source, once I've read it and brought it in, it's in my head. I suppose you could sit there with a stack of books you've never read and point to random sentences in a random book, and they it would be from outside you, but what's the point. And as I said, it won't necessarily steer the direction, but it will have an impact. 

The exciting thing about sharing authorship, to whatever degree, is that other people will think of different stuff.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## innerdude

I'm very sympathetic to your view, @_*Imaro*_, and I like your most recent post, @_*Ilbranteloth*_. 

There's absolutely a level of degree involved with how far on the sliding scale of pre-authoring / "just in time" GM-ing I go. 

And to a point, I think @_*pemerton*_ is purposefully trying to describe the far end of the "just in time" spectrum to highlight how different it is compared to what we might call a "classic" pre-authored story of the kind prevalent in the 2e era. 

I haven't played Burning Wheel (yet), but much of what @_*pemerton*_ is describing is very much tied to Burning Wheel's ethos, where it goes out of its way to tell GM's not to impose some pre-defined set of encounters, or plot, or whatever on the players. Character progression is tied to a very, very different set of action resolution constraints than D&D is. Characters _literally_ cannot progress unless they forced to encounter things that intersect with their stated goals and beliefs. A GM trying to send characters through a mostly linear "pre-authored" story in Burning Wheel is a recipe for disaster.

Some of the difference is related to the "scale" of the pre-authoring. At the "30,000 foot view of world building" level, it's likely going to be heavily pre-authored, but even now I'm more open to getting player input at that level. 

At the "10,000 foot view" of "What are my players likely to care about and interact with in a general goal sense?" view, the GM should be getting regular input. It wouldn't be unusual for my players to suggest NPCs they know, and I would incorporate them into the fiction. They might suggest a place they've visited, or an organization they align with, and I would incorporate that into the fiction. If they meet one goal or objective and need a new one, I would definitely be taking input from them, and trying to frame scenes around what they give me. 

At the "500 foot view" of, "I'm trying to frame a set of 4-5 scenes for this session and next," it should all be very tightly wound around what the players have been doing, saying, and asking. GM's should keep things very fluid from a pre-authoring standpoint. Anything a player suggests that relates to their goals and intent should be seriously considered. 

As an aside, I will say that I could never have GM'd this way with Pathfinder. No way. It was an impossibility. I was prepping 3+ hours a week for my Pathfinder sessions. Only after I switched to Savage Worlds was I even willing to try this style. Now I prep maybe 90 minutes, total, in an entire month.

Now, at some point in my games, the "30,000 foot view" pre-authored stuff may come into view. There's definitely things going on in the background that may have far-reaching impacts on the world at large, or regionally / locally on the PCs. But almost never would I allow a "30,000 foot view" pre-authored state of fiction to interrupt or contradict the 10,000 foot, or 500 foot views. And if I did allow the "30,000 foot view" to creep in to the lower "elevations," it would be transparent to the players, would have been widely foreshadowed and framed to the characters, and the resulting consequences would be obvious and consistent. And even then, I would seriously consider changing it if I felt that it was going to cause problems with the player's goals. 

Now, to @_*pemerton*_, he might think what I've described still gives too much pre-authorship control to the GM. And for his group it may be true. For my group, this seems to create a very healthy balance. By the same token, at some point there is a line that shouldn't be crossed where the players are fully setting up the scene frames. It's a pretty well accepted maxim that letting players set up both the challenge AND the solution is pretty dissatisfying in play.


----------



## Manbearcat

chaochou said:


> In my most recent game a player took their followers out into the junkyard and then got them to weld two massive metal statues. And then she drove her cult into a tribal frenzy and called upon the crowd to carry them to the gates so their dreadful visage would drive away their enemies...
> 
> ...and failed her roll and the crowd agreed to sacrifice her inside them in a Wicker-man style so their dreadful visage would drive away their enemies.
> 
> I didn't create the city, the junkyard, the followers, or initiate actions building statues or driving crowds into a tribal frenzy. They were all player authored. Please explain how this episode was steered by my 'pre-disposed interests'.






Imaro said:


> Who decided she should be burned in them... even though honestly it's not exactly clear from your statement what the outcome of the failed roll exactly was.  Either way who decided it.
> 
> I also find it hard to believe that you as DM didn't author anything (the junkyard, the city, the followers, etc.) unless this is a co-authored game as opposed to an improv game, in which case it's not exactly what is being discussed.




Just a quick commentary on the above.  I'm fairly certain chaochou is GMing Apocalypse World and the player in question is likely a Hardholder (gang-leader/warlord).  They probably made a Leadership move and then had a failure (and marked XP) on a Seize By Force of Go Aggro move (I'm thinking the former, but I'm missing elements of the fiction that triggered the move).  That failure would trigger the GM to make an appropriate hard move that follows from the fiction and observes the game's rules, agenda, and principles (which are explicit).  It looks like chaochou chose to *Turn Their Move Back On Them*...which makes sense.

If I'm right (or anywhere near it), he absolutely followed the system's explicit rules, agenda, and principles to T.  If that is true, then, by definition, he cannot be subverting the game's intended player agency by suspending the resolution mechanics so that he can generate content which moves play in a trajectory he (as GM) is in favor of (GM Force).  He's doing the job (and doing it well) that the game demands of him.  And that game is a dynamic, free-form game where you're expected to minimally prep the setting, the bad guys/movers and shakers/angles of conflict (Fronts), use the players PC build flags, always observe the rules/your agenda & principles, throw it all into a meat-grinder and improv your ass off as all kinds of weirdness (and player action declarations) will shake out.


----------



## Manbearcat

innerdude said:


> Fantastic post. You've captured the spirit of how I approach the pre-authoring / "in the moment" GM-ing continuum better than I could have. I think one of the other ingredients to this, and one of the reasons why I'm now such a big fan of "in the moment" GM-ing, is I've found a system that supports it so robustly (Savage Worlds). I'm guessing one of the reasons the 4e supporters are such a fan of it as well, is that 4e seems to support "on the fly" encounter prep easily, which is a somewhat radical departure from other versions of D&D (if I'm speaking out of hand, @_*pemerton*_, @_*Manbearcat*_, et. al., let me know).




That is exactly right.  4e's math is transparent, its tiers have independent genre conceits that synergize with PC build and the Quest feedback, its encounter budgeting is tight while its antagonists are trivially built, its noncombat conflict resolution mechanics aim at and deliver Indiana Jones, and its combat engine aims at and delivers "The Rocky/John McClain Rally", "X-Men", and "The Pirates of the Caribbean Swashbuckling" narratives.  The system is weighty but streamlined, evocative, and well-oiled (with its outcome based design yielding predictable, GM side, outputs).  A proficient GM can run a game with minimal prep, lots of improv and expect good results.


----------



## Manbearcat

Sadras said:


> In the common tongue, what you're saying is pre-authorship dming, due to our natural human tendencies, attracts railroaded decision points by players  due to GM Force to realise the "human investment", whereas in "story now" dming this natural human tendency detracts from this "human investment" and thus the GM Force?




Pretty close, but I think you lost me toward the end there a little bit.

The first part is dead on.  I would change your second part to:
_
whereas in "make continuity-observing, coherent/challenging/conflict-ridden crap up" "just in time" for "story now" dming this natural human tendency to impose your own vision (of which you are invested in) is mitigated because (a) *fun and interesting* (to you as well as the players) *games emerge when you don't do that*, (b) *you don't have to prep so intensively *(thus removing that investment in the first place), and (c) *the system helps you to not need to do that *(as merely following the orthodox play procedures and guidance produces a fun game and obliges the players their system-inherited agency to affect the trajectory of play..._



Sadras said:


> What I think is happening in this debate is that people are arguing from exclusive points, I think many DMs are combination of both. I would consider myself more in the pre-authorship camp, not because I believe it to be better, but because I have less confidence in my own storytelling ability and instant DMing if I have not invested enough prep time.
> 
> In my prep time, I'm able to determine NPC motivations/reactions, create connections, note important details and identify possible scenarios allowing me to better prepare for the session. Without that prep time, I'm running everything on the fly and the richness of the details may be lost and holes in the storyline may be revealed.




I'm not sure if that is happening across the board.  I tried to make it clear that my points where clearly under the rubric of "advantages to low-prep, high-improv GMing and systems" and how that sort of play doesn't inexorably lead to "non-living, non-breathing, flat and uninteresting worlds".  Its just that the only part of those settings that are relevant to play is (1) what makes this on-screen situation interesting/compelling/at conflict with a (or all of the) PC's agenda RIGHT NOW and (2) what immediately relevant off-screen material will produce interesting stuff to follow up with.

I'll use your post to quickly round out the GMing style with its disadvantages (of which you canvass):

1 - Maintaining Continuity
2 - Consistently Generating Interesting and Relevant Content That Challenges and Produces Dynamic Decision-Points

Low-prep, high-improv games that prioritize a focus on situation are demanding mentally on GMs in different ways than high-prep, low-improv games that prioritize a focus on setting.  A hefty portion of you're cognitive workload while running such a game is very asymmetric ("how do I challenge this particular thing while providing insurance for this other thing while maintaining fidelity to this third thing and make the whole thing interesting and sensical?").  This is why I'm always evaluating system components/games from a "mental overhead" perspective.  The more balls a GM has in the air at once (from a system perspective), the more difficult it is to perform well in the two potential problem areas above.


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> Just a quick commentary on the above.  I'm fairly certain chaochou is GMing Apocalypse World and the player in question is likely a Hardholder (gang-leader/warlord).  They probably made a Leadership move and then had a failure (and marked XP) on a Seize By Force of Go Aggro move (I'm thinking the former, but I'm missing elements of the fiction that triggered the move).  That failure would trigger the GM to make an appropriate hard move that follows from the fiction and observes the game's rules, agenda, and principles (which are explicit).  It looks like chaochou chose to *Turn Their Move Back On Them*...which makes sense.
> 
> If I'm right (or anywhere near it), he absolutely followed the system's explicit rules, agenda, and principles to T.  If that is true, then, by definition, he cannot be subverting the game's intended player agency by suspending the resolution mechanics so that he can generate content which moves play in a trajectory he (as GM) is in favor of (GM Force).  He's doing the job (and doing it well) that the game demands of him.  And that game is a dynamic, free-form game where you're expected to minimally prep the setting, the bad guys/movers and shakers/angles of conflict (Fronts), use the players PC build flags, always observe the rules/your agenda & principles, throw it all into a meat-grinder and improv your ass off as all kinds of weirdness (and player action declarations) will shake out.




The question isn't whether he followed the system's rules, agenda or principles... it's whether DM biases, preferences, etc. steer the game (and there was no qualifier of them having to suspend the resolution mechanics, in fact the point is that even in following the mechanics your biases and preferences can't help but show through).  Now if I understand the paragraph above... even in choosing the "Turn their move back on them"  @_*chaochou*_ could have chosen numerous other outcomes such as his leadership being challenged by someone else in the tribe or perhaps the tribe fell to infighting among themselves but he didn't he chose to have the followers put the player in the burning effigy as his "move" because of his own preferences and desires.  I mean this whole tangent started because you wanted to bring the effect of human psychology/preference into it when making your case for a pre-authoring DM being pre-disposed to railroading... are you now saying that it's possible or even likely for a DM to first be totally aware and of his conscious and subconscious preferences, interests, biases, etc. and also be capable of total impartiality when improv 'ing in the game?  If not then the DM is exerting force that isn't necessarily directed at creating the best story but also in guiding the "story" in a direction in line with his own wants... he can't help but do so since these things (biases, preferences, etc.), whether we acknowledge them or not, affect everything we do.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Manbearcat said:


> Just a quick commentary on the above.  I'm fairly certain chaochou is GMing Apocalypse World ...




OK, I watched some Youtube stuff, Dungeon World, Apocalypse World, I'll check out Burning Wheel when I get a chance. Now I get it a bit more, and yes, the DM has a lot less influence, depending on the players, although they still have influence, and can have quite a bit depending.

More importantly, I've also discovered what I'm not interested in. While I can see the appeal of a shared world-building game, as I'll describe it, although it's probably not the best description, it doesn't really hold much interest for me. I like my world to be much, much more involved. That's why I love the Forgotten Realms.

And frankly, while some might object to the secret history and background plots interfering with the player agency, I also find that more realistic, and more the way I'd like it. If you're playing a modern day cop story, and trying to work your way into the city's underworld, there's a lot of things that are going to act upon you. I don't see that any different than a world where magic exists, and there are all sorts of people, good and evil, vying for power in the world. Races and cultures, etc.

People make choices every day, and they have some control over their little part of the world, but the world is in control an awful lot of the time.

Ultimately, while there may be some very, very gifted role-players, and there might even be a group of those people playing together, that's definitely not the case here. Starting with me. I'm great at building layers upon layers of plots, events, organizations, and such. I love doing it, even if it doesn't make it into play. But a lot of these techniques are very helpful in running a good game.

Apocalypse World seems like it would be a better fit for this style of play, in the Mad Max genre, because the world is a simpler, more brutal place. But I can't imaging a game system like that generating the Realms, for example. 

It reminds me of the story-telling genre, which a number of us tried at the time. The 'newest thing' that brought 'real role-playing' to the genre, etc. Interesting, and somewhat cool, but ultimately more a niche product within an already niche hobby.

Cool stuff, and there are certainly a lot of innovations, that in some fashion would work really well in what I'm doing, and others like me. But ultimately not my cup of tea.

Ilbranteloth


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## pemerton

Imaro said:


> You do realize you are still deciding things as the DM... you decided the Dark Elf would appear, you decided he would drop rocks on your PC's, you decided he had the mace and so on...



I didn't know that that was in dispute.

What I'm not deciding is what the PCs want (eg no fetch quests, no "adventure hooks", etc), nor whether or not they get it (no pre-authoring that the mace is not in the tower, etc).



Ilbranteloth said:


> the DM can only provide input based on what they know



But what the GM knows when pre-authoring is different from what the GM knows when using scene-framing and "fail forward".

In [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s example, the GM knew that some giant statues had been created by the PC _because the player introduced that into the fiction_, via action declaration.

In my example, I (as GM) knew that a mace existed because a player introduced it into the fiction via backstory authorship and Belief authorship. And I knew that the mace was not in the tower, or at least not evidently so, because the players declared a Scavenging check which then failed.

This is the difference that I am interested in: the players' choices and contributions establish both constraints within which, and material by reference to which, the GM authors things. It is very different from pre-authoring.



Imaro said:


> Yet you created the Dark Elf outside of play and then waited for an opportunity to introduce him through a failed check... or am I misunderstanding  what you posted earlier?



I created the Dark Elf as an NPC who might be introduced, yes. But the circumstances of his appearance, whether he was to be friend or foe, whether or not he had the mace - none of those things were pre-authored.

He became a foe in virtue of being introduced as part of the narration of a failed check. And because he was thereby established as a foe, he seemed an apt person to have the mace in his possession, when it turned out that the PCs could not find the mace in the tower.

Given my preferences and priorities, this is very different from writing down, in advance of play: "Dark elf antagonist, wields the nickel-silver mace which he has looted from the ruined tower, will try to interfere with the PCs' water supplies and will attack them if they leave the tower via the defile."



Ilbranteloth said:


> But the input from the DM will still be within the DM's own interests, just like the players' input will be based on their interests, although they will probably be quite different than what he would come up with on his own.
> 
> But this falls under a growing category of things that I ask, "why is that bad?" I don't think it is.



Well, obviously not everyone thinks that pre-authorship is bad. I don't think that pre-authorhsip, per se, is bad: as I've already said, my BW game uses the pre-authored GH maps and some general GH backstory. (I wouldn't be surprised if that's more pre-authorship than [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] is using in the game he has referred to.)

But I'm not a big fan of pre-authorship of key antagonists, plot foci, etc, because that tends to render the player's choices more-or-less irrelevant, or reduce them to choices concerning mere colour or marginal considerations ("Do we travel by horse or by wagon?"). Suppose, for instance, that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] had just decided that the PC's followers try to sacrifice here Wicker Man-style: what would be the point, then, of the player making the roll to rouse her followers into a frenzy and urge them to use the effigies to drive away their enemies? Suppose, in my own case, that I had just decided that the mace was in the hands of the dark elf and hence not in the tower - what would have been the point of the players making a check to try and find it?

I'm not denying that my contributions reflect what I think is interesting. I've already quoted Paul Czege upthread:

It's intentional as all get out. . . . I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.​
But, as I said, the players' choices and contributions establish both constraints within which, and material by reference to which, the GM authors things.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> Apocalypse World seems like it would be a better fit for this style of play, in the Mad Max genre, because the world is a simpler, more brutal place. But I can't imaging a game system like that generating the Realms, for example.



Slightly tangential, but not completely so - this reminded me of the following from Ron Edwards, discussing Tweet's Over the Edge:

Karaoke. This is a serious problem that arises from the need to sell thick books rather than to teach and develop powerful role-playing. Let's say you have a game that consists of some Premise-heavy characters and a few notes about Situation, and through play, the group generates a hellacious cool Setting as well as theme(s) regarding those characters. Then, publishing your great game, you present that very setting and theme in the text, in detail.

From _Over the Edge_ (Atlas Games, 1994; author is Jonathan Tweet):

*How to Use the Setting*

When I first played OTE, it was on about ten minutes' notice. I had some notes on major background conspiracies, a few images of various scenes, and a primitive version of the current mechanics. No map, no descriptions of businesses, people, places, or any of the other useful tidbits that are crammed into the previous two chapters. [_He ain't kidding, and actually it's the previous four chapters, 152 pages total, in the second edition - RE_] Naturally I winged it.

That night were born Total Taxi, Giovanni's Cab's [sic], Cesar's Hotel, and Sad Mary's, all now landmarks in the Edge. Things just happened. I faked it. Since there's nothing that couldn't happen, anything I dreamt up was OK.

Now, however, you have a background explaining who, what, where, and when. You're in a completely different situation from where I was back on that first manic evening.

[_The rest of the section concerns converting the reader-GM's in-play mistakes about the canonical setting into opportunities, as well as altering it to taste; the suggestion that he may instead put himself directly into Tweet's improvisational shoes at the outset is, to my eyes, vividly absent - RE_]

[_several pages later_] *Could vs. Should*

... The first time I played OTE, I had a few pages of notes on the background and nothing on the specifics. I made it all up on the spot. Not having anything written as a guide (or crutch), I let my imagination loose. You have the mixed blessing of having many pages of background prepared for you. If you use the information in this book as a springboard for your own wild dreams, then it is a blessing. If you limit yourself to what I've dreamed up, it's a curse.​
All I see, I'm afraid, is the curse. The isolated phrases "mixed blessing" and "(or crutch)" don't hold a lot of water compared to the preceding 152 extraordinarily detailed pages of canonical setting. I'm not saying that improvisation is better or more Narrativist than non-improvisational play. I am saying, however, that if playing this particular game worked so wonderfully to free the participants into wildly successful brainstorming during play ... and since the players were a core source during this event, as evident in the game's Dedication and in various examples of play ... then why present the _results_ of the play-experience as the _material_ for another person's experience?​
In my experience, it is possible to build up a pretty rich gameworld on the basis of material lightly prepped in advance (eg a few maps, the names of a few gods, kingdoms, etc) and then seeing what happens to it in play. The demands of play will force authorship: and conversely, if something isn't authored because not needed in play, then what would its existence have added to the game experience?


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> What I'm not deciding is what the PCs want (eg no fetch quests, no "adventure hooks", etc), nor whether or not they get it (no pre-authoring that the mace is not in the tower, etc).
> 
> But what the GM knows when pre-authoring is different from what the GM knows when using scene-framing and "fail forward".
> 
> But I'm not a big fan of pre-authorship of key antagonists, plot foci, etc, because that tends to render the player's choices more-or-less irrelevant, or reduce them to choices concerning mere colour or marginal considerations ("Do we travel by horse or by wagon?").




How would you run the 4e module Cairn of the Winter King? I guessing you are familiar with the module as sometime ago you mentioned you were to run a blend of it with another adventure.

 There are set key antagonists, with items ("mace"..etc) already predetermined in the various rooms of the cairn and there are a few fetch quests. How is your running of it different from mine with your "story-now" approach?  



> In my experience, it is possible to build up a pretty rich gameworld on the basis of material lightly prepped in advance (eg a few maps, the names of a few gods, kingdoms, etc) and then seeing what happens to it in play. The demands of play will force authorship: and conversely, if something isn't authored because not needed in play, then what would its existence have added to the game experience?




A player asks me which kingdoms host training centres for wizards? Which kingdoms are at war? Which is the deity of agriculture? What is a particular deity's emblem?...etc. With pre-authorship I have those details out the way already instead of having to think on the spot. In fact having those details already thought out allows me to improve on "story-now" instances.


----------



## LostSoul

Imaro said:


> Who decided she should be burned in them... even though honestly it's not exactly clear from your statement what the outcome of the failed roll exactly was.  Either way who decided it.
> 
> I also find it hard to believe that you as DM didn't author anything (the junkyard, the city, the followers, etc.) unless this is a co-authored game as opposed to an improv game, in which case it's not exactly what is being discussed.




Here's the thing:

You play with certain people because you like their ideas.  This means that, for a pre-authored game, you like the content that the DM pre-authored.  It also means that, for a no-myth game (or whatever - pemertonian-scene-framing, fail-forward, etc.), you like the content the DM authors as the scene plays out.

No one wants to get rid of bias.


----------



## LostSoul

Sadras said:


> A player asks me which kingdoms host training centres for wizards? Which kingdoms are at war? Which is the deity of agriculture? What is a particular deity's emblem?...etc. With pre-authorship I have those details out the way already instead of having to think on the spot. In fact having those details already thought out allows me to improve on "story-now" instances.




The issue is that your pre-authored content may not reflect the themes that the players have focused on in their story.  You don't know where the story is going to go, so your pre-authored content may simply fall flat and fail to be emotionally engaging.  Like a great Cthulu-ish city in the midst of an Arthurian tale.


----------



## Sadras

LostSoul said:


> The issue is that your pre-authored content may not reflect the themes that the players have focused on in their story.  You don't know where the story is going to go, so your pre-authored content may simply fall flat and fail to be emotionally engaging.  Like a great Cthulu-ish city in the midst of an Arthurian tale.




Ok so in the instance of the Realms, me providing the emblem of Chauntea is like a Cthulu-ish city in an Arthurian tale? 

In our group's last session the characters activated a teleportation circle to find themselves within a room with each wall decorated by a  mosaic of a blooming rose upon a wreath of golden grain...the room was part of the basement of a temple. The temple was filled with a frightened local populace as the town was under attack.
How did my pre-authorship of the emblem of Chauntea, the design of the temple, the mood of the populace and the situation of the town create a less engaging experience?

Just to add, the characters are not native to the Forgotten Realms...


----------



## chaochou

Ilbranteloth said:


> I like my world to be much, much more involved. That's why I love the Forgotten Realms.




I can guarantee you that your thousands of pages of Realms notes do not make it more 'involved' than my Apocalypse World, which features a map which we can all see, with notes that anyone can add to and a list of names of all the NPCs we've met.

Because involvement comes at the table. And only at the table. The lonely fun of reading bad fanfic dressed up as 'background' and dreaming how much fun it's going to be to surprise the players with it, is often presented as a 'living breathing world'. But that's nonsense.

A living breathing world only happens at the table, and only if the players care. And if you've let them build it, given them a stake, they care. Put me or any of my players in 'The Realms' and none of us could give a monkeys. Unless I can have my own bar in a town called Bad Fanficville.



Ilbranteloth said:


> If you're playing a modern day cop story, and trying to work your way into the city's underworld, there's a lot of things that are going to act upon you.




And if you read a game like The Dresden Files you'll see how to build a multi-layered, complex and dynamic setting filled with interesting characters in conflict with each other and how everyone knowing about it enhances the game. Because when everyone knows - that's part of the game. Secrets are not gameplay.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I'm great at building layers upon layers of plots, events, organizations, and such. I love doing it, even if it doesn't make it into play. But a lot of these techniques are very helpful in running a good game.




I think this is the real point. And a lot of D&D players, especially GMs, are the same. They love the prep. They love the reading. They love the imagining. All that is great. None of it is the game. The game is what is shared at the table.

 [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] was making exactly these points about 'living breathing worlds' not aligning with pre-authorship. They can be created in the moment, and be beautiful, poignant, deep and complex. It's okay to not believe me, but it's true.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> I didn't know that that was in dispute.
> 
> What I'm not deciding is what the PCs want (eg no fetch quests, no "adventure hooks", etc), nor whether or not they get it (no pre-authoring that the mace is not in the tower, etc).




Pre-authoring doesn't force the DM to decide what the PC's want either...




pemerton said:


> I created the Dark Elf as an NPC who might be introduced, yes. But the circumstances of his appearance, whether he was to be friend or foe, whether or not he had the mace - none of those things were pre-authored.
> 
> He became a foe in virtue of being introduced as part of the narration of a failed check. And because he was thereby established as a foe, he seemed an apt person to have the mace in his possession, when it turned out that the PCs could not find the mace in the tower.
> 
> Given my preferences and priorities, this is very different from writing down, in advance of play: "Dark elf antagonist, wields the nickel-silver mace which he has looted from the ruined tower, will try to interfere with the PCs' water supplies and will attack them if they leave the tower via the defile."




Ok so you...
1. Decided ahead of time there would be a Dark Elf....
2. Decided ahead of time he would be an antagonist... (I consider this pre-authoring at least some of his personality, otherwise whether he was an antagonist or not would be decided in play)
3. Decided ahead of time he would appear on a failed roll...
4. Decided in the moment he would have the mace...

A pre-authored campaign could...
1. Decide ahead of time there would be Dark Elf
2. Decide ahead of time he will be an antagonist
3. Decide ahead of time there is a 60% chance he appears if the PC's get lost in the dessert
4. Decide ahead of time he has a 50% chance to have the mace

So the only difference I see is that the subject of the mace would be decided definitely in the moment by you, everything else you've done seems to fall under (at least partially) pre-prep as opposed to in the moment decisions... and could easily be the result of a pre-prep campaign.


----------



## Sadras

chaochou said:


> I I think this is the real point. And a lot of D&D players, especially GMs, are the same. They love the prep. They love the reading. They love the imagining. All that is great. None of it is the game. The game is what is shared at the table.




I don't believe @_*Ilbranteloth*_ was questioning what is the game. His post you quoted reflected that the prep work assists (him) in running a good game.


----------



## Imaro

LostSoul said:


> Here's the thing:
> 
> You play with certain people because you like their ideas.  This means that, for a pre-authored game, you like the content that the DM pre-authored.  It also means that, for a no-myth game (or whatever - pemertonian-scene-framing, fail-forward, etc.), you like the content the DM authors as the scene plays out.
> 
> No one wants to get rid of bias.




Hey [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] I think you might be a little confused as to why this tangent sprung up... I'm not saying the bias should be gotten rid of or even that it's a bad thing, but if you can argue that pre-prepping + human nature will make me more likely to "railroad" towards what I have created... I in turn believe having free reign to improv anything within the realm of it fitting the fiction coupled with human nature will lead to one being more likely to "railroad" towards the story I want or envision.  If you look back at my previous posts I don't believe either of these to be a result of the particular tools of the respective playstyles but more based in the DM running the game.  The reason I am bringing up the biases, preferences, etc. in relation to the story now playstyle is to provide a counterpoint to the assumptions around pre-prep railroading.


----------



## Imaro

LostSoul said:


> The issue is that your pre-authored content may not reflect the themes that the players have focused on in their story.  You don't know where the story is going to go, so your pre-authored content may simply fall flat and fail to be emotionally engaging.  Like a great Cthulu-ish city in the midst of an Arthurian tale.




Why are you assuming pre-prep can't be done as the campaign progresses?  Say game session to game session?  When done like that it is very easy to take into account the themes your players are focusing on and where the "story" is going...


----------



## Imaro

Okay now I'm convinced [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] is speaking to a co-authored campaign, as opposed to a pre-prepped or DM improv'd campaign... which is a whole different beast from what others have been discussing up to this point.


----------



## Maxperson

LostSoul said:


> The issue is that your pre-authored content may not reflect the themes that the players have focused on in their story.  You don't know where the story is going to go, so your pre-authored content may simply fall flat and fail to be emotionally engaging.  Like a great Cthulu-ish city in the midst of an Arthurian tale.




The reality is that pre-authored content is very, very rarely that far off.  Your fear of pre-authorship on those gounds is not very reasonable.


----------



## Janx

Imaro said:


> Why are you assuming pre-prep can't be done as the campaign progresses?  Say game session to game session?  When done like that it is very easy to take into account the themes your players are focusing on and where the "story" is going...




To me, that is in fact, the very point of prepping between sessions.  To account for the interests and changes of the players so you have content that is relevant to them.

Personally, I only build content for the session I am about to run.  And I build it based on knowing my players, how they tend to react and what they are interested in.

As a result, I don't have a problem usually with a mismatch of what I prepped to what I need for the game.  And I'm usually spot on for how the players will react and what direction they will choose


----------



## sheadunne

My conflict between the two styles revolves around this.

Scene
After searching the tower I find a teleportation portal but I don't know where it leads, nor was I searching to find it to begin with.

Pre-Authored Game
I feel I have to go through the portal even if I don't particularly want to because I feel that the DM has prepped the game based on going through the Portal. If I don't go through it then the game will come to a stop or the DM will need to improvise a new adventure (which may or may not be in their wheel house). It doesn't feel like a decision point to me, just another path to the pre-authored adventure. If the DM improvises (and the game is still fun) then I have to ask the question, why prep to begin with? 

Improve Game (Story Now, Fail Forward, etc)
The portal is simply another decision point. Do i go through the portal and see where it leads and explore somewhere different or do I continue on with other agendas that are important to the character? The decision is important but neither one will force the DM to make any decisions. It is all on me and where I want to go.


I enjoy both games, but when I play a pre-authored game (either a structured module or a DM created one) I have to tell myself not to wander off the path. I accept that I don't get to make important decisions on the direction of the game. This isn't a bad thing and I can have a lot of fun with that type of game. Sometimes I don't particularly want to make important decisions and I just want to be along for the ride, roll some dice, have some fun. The only negative is, I'm not particularly invested in the game or what happens in it. 

On the other side, an Improve Game requires much more of my investment and depending on my mood, might be too much investment for me. I don't always want to make decisions or help to create the world. I don't want to have to author my backstory as we play or determine the direction my character wants to travel. 

When I run games, I either run an AP (to avoid prep work) or it's entirely improved. I just don't want to invest that much of my free time in prep for a game. That's my preference and I find that if I do it well, players have a good time. If I don't, the game stalls in much the same way as if I had prepped but the characters went off the path.


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> The question isn't whether he followed the system's rules, agenda or principles... it's whether DM biases, preferences, etc. steer the game (and there was no qualifier of them having to suspend the resolution mechanics, in fact the point is that even in following the mechanics your biases and preferences can't help but show through).  Now if I understand the paragraph above... even in choosing the "Turn their move back on them"  @_*chaochou*_ could have chosen numerous other outcomes such as his leadership being challenged by someone else in the tribe or perhaps the tribe fell to infighting among themselves but he didn't he chose to have the followers put the player in the burning effigy as his "move" because of his own preferences and desires.  I mean this whole tangent started because you wanted to bring the effect of human psychology/preference into it when making your case for a pre-authoring DM being pre-disposed to railroading... are you now saying that it's possible or even likely for a DM to first be totally aware and of his conscious and subconscious preferences, interests, biases, etc. and also be capable of total impartiality when improv 'ing in the game?  If not then the DM is exerting force that isn't necessarily directed at creating the best story but also in guiding the "story" in a direction in line with his own wants... he can't help but do so since these things (biases, preferences, etc.), whether we acknowledge them or not, affect everything we do.



If you define pre-authoring as "having an idea", then sure, everybody pre-authors.  No pre-authoring doesn't mean that the DM doesn't also have an authorial role; she just shouldn't come in with implicit expectations of where any of her ideas might fit into play, and always assume that any idea might be modified by the intent of the players.

I think there's a difference in viewpoint between the relation of pre-created pieces of the game and how it relates to pre-authoring.  To make a pointless, easily torn down metaphor, I kind of see pemerton's and Manbearcat's vision as dumping out a box of Legos and throwing out the instructions.  The players and DM sit down and snap the pieces together and see what they can construct together.  Your critique, Imaro, seems to be that the existence (and/or absence) of various types of Lego blocks has already done a fair bit of the creative work for them, thus being its own implicit pre-authoring.  (Hopefully that Lego blocks are things like genre tropes and game systems and designed encounters are obvious so my metaphor works.  Man, why did I go the metaphor route?)


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> If you define pre-authoring as "having an idea", then sure, everybody pre-authors.  No pre-authoring doesn't mean that the DM doesn't also have an authorial role; she just shouldn't come in with implicit expectations of where any of her ideas might fit into play, and always assume that any idea might be modified by the intent of the players.
> 
> I think there's a difference in viewpoint between the relation of pre-created pieces of the game and how it relates to pre-authoring.  To make a pointless, easily torn down metaphor, I kind of see pemerton's and Manbearcat's vision as dumping out a box of Legos and throwing out the instructions.  The players and DM sit down and snap the pieces together and see what they can construct together.  Your critique, Imaro, seems to be that the existence (and/or absence) of various types of Lego blocks has already done a fair bit of the creative work for them, thus being its own implicit pre-authoring.  (Hopefully that Lego blocks are things like genre tropes and game systems and designed encounters are obvious so my metaphor works.  Man, why did I go the metaphor route?)




I think creating an antagonist (thus we know he will not befriend or even be neutral towards the PC's) of a specific race and deciding his "entrance" criteria into the game beforehand is a little more than an "idea"... but then let me turn this around for you, [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] @_*pemerton*_ and @_*Manbearcat*_ ... where do you three draw the line?  how fleshed out must something be before it moves from "idea" to prepped.  

Now I'll be transparent here, I don't like either approach in the extreme.  If I could cite a product that is close to my preferred style it would be the adventures for Shadows of the Demon Lord.  I've bought two of the low level adventures... "Slavers Lash" (4pgs long) &  "Survival of the Fittest" (8pgs long).  These adventures fall into what I consider pre-prep... but they are outline/template like in structure... leaving plenty of room to customize which I have done both beforehand and during actual game play.  This is the style I prefer to use when creating my own campaign/adventure prep... more outline/template than a string of encounters that can't be avoided (which sadly seems to be how many on the side of improv seem to think all pre-prepped campaigns must be)  Now unless I change it beforehand I tend not to change major things in the adventure/campaign in the heat of the moment, but smaller details, motivations of minor NPC's, appearances of monsters/NPC's and so on are up for grabs...


----------



## Imaro

sheadunne said:


> My conflict between the two styles revolves around this.
> 
> Scene
> After searching the tower I find a teleportation portal but I don't know where it leads, nor was I searching to find it to begin with.
> 
> Pre-Authored Game
> I feel I have to go through the portal even if I don't particularly want to because I feel that the DM has prepped the game based on going through the Portal. If I don't go through it then the game will come to a stop or the DM will need to improvise a new adventure (which may or may not be in their wheel house). It doesn't feel like a decision point to me, just another path to the pre-authored adventure. If the DM improvises (and the game is still fun) then I have to ask the question, why prep to begin with?




Why do you assume this?  Do you believe only one choice/decision path can be pre-prepped?  The sandbox playstyle is usually pre-prepped and it provides a variety of decision paths... there's also pre-prep as session progresses.  I guess I'm just trying to understand why you assume you have to go through the portal and that all paths lead to the same destination?

As to why prep as opposed to improvise... there are a couple reasons with the first being some DM's are better with prep.  Another is that many may find it hard to keep track of details being created in the spur of the moment... (this is something I wonder about the high improv games... is someone continuously jotting down notes to safeguard campaign consistency, and if so who?  As a DM I would hate to have to steadily take notes while also running the game, or keep a ton of info in my head without a reference to rely upon...).  Some games aren't built for alot of improv, and so on.


----------



## Emerikol

First let me say that Fail Forward at it's most limited form is just a tiny step in the direction of the style of play I'm trying to avoid.  I realize that a restrained use of said approach would not necessarily ruin my game.  



pemerton said:


> In the games that first overtly talked about "fail forward" techniques - eg  Burning Wheel, HeroWars, etc - the player doesn't invent the world either. Control over backstory - and particularly over consequences of failure - is in the hands of the GM. But the backstory in "fail forward" games is not authored primarily in advance.



While I can see the desire to flesh out minor details, I'm generally not desirous off adding significant background.  To me that is creating the world on the fly which is something I want to avoid.   To each his own though.  Not condemning your approach.



pemerton said:


> Having the backstory already authored, so that the players discover it like the workings of a clock, would be one example of the pre-authorship that "fail forward" as a technique is intended to avoid.



To the degree that a detailed backstory could be developed I would want it developed.  Now I realize that this is never a case of 0% or 100%.  It's not the end of the world to add a minor detail that fits the existing story.  I just dislike wholesale reinvention/addition on the fly.



pemerton said:


> I would also add: worlds that are authored in response to player action declarations can also be very deep. If you look back at the actual play examples I have given above, I don't think they imply a "shallow" campaign world.



I struggle for the right word to use here.  Perhaps deepness is not the best.  I know it when I see it.  For me, worlds done adhoc and on the fly come across as shallow.  They seem to lack what I see as depth.   I realize complexity wise it can be achieved different ways.   I just find myself bored and wanting the game to be over once I realize the DM is ad hoc'ing it.  And to date I've not met one that could really fool me.



pemerton said:


> This is also true of the games I run. The GM authors the challenges. The players, via their PCs, confront them and do everything in their power to achieve those goals. Sometimes they succeed; sometimes they fail.
> 
> When they fail, new challenges result. (See some actual play examples upthread.)
> 
> For a good general discussion of this aspect of "fail forward" play, see the Eero Tuovinen blog I've linked to already upthread.
> 
> In a "fail forward" game, however, the parameters of the challenges - ie what backstory is constraining the possibility of success - is not spelled out in advance. So the players can't, for instance, reduce the chance of failure to (near-)zero by exploiting the fiction. In this sort of play, the drama of confronting challenges is prioritised over the logistics of overcoming them. (Contrast Gygaxian D&D, which reverses those priorities.)



This is a good point.  I am very Gygaxian in my viewpoint.  My players are very much about planning up front to make the actual battle easy.   They sometimes succeed and it gives them a great deal of satisfaction at having played the game "well" or "skillfully" when they do.   Of course,  things don't always go according to plan because their enemies are playing to win as well.  As DM, I try very hard to play the monsters very accurately.  My job is to provide a working simulation of a world that my players can then be their characters.   I work very hard to not be biased or to use "metagame" knowledge that the monsters would not have.   I often write down close order action drills for my monsters based on careful thought about what they would actually know versus what I know as DM.  So winning is not MY objective.  MY objective is to provide a consistent world that follows set rules and contains interesting puzzles and challenge to be overcome.   My players sole goal is to win.




pemerton said:


> Who doesn't?
> 
> The idea that "fail forward" undermines consistency is another red herring. To go back to Mt Pudding, there is nothing inconsistent about a world in which climbers sometimes lose important gear down ravines.
> 
> I agree with  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] that you are drawing a false dichotomy here.
> 
> I really think it would be helpful if you engaged with some of the actual play examples that have been posted upthread, Then you could talk about how actual games are actually being played rather than how you imagine them being played.
> 
> In my game where the PCs searched the ruined tower for the nickel-silver mace, and instead found black arrows apparently forged by the mage PC's brother _before_ his possession by a balrog, there was no "teaming at the metagame level". The players were just playing their PCs. What is different from the style that you seem to prefer is that I, the GM, authored some new campaign backstory as a result of the failed Scavenging check, so as to put the fiction into a situation which (i) was not what the PCs (and players) had wanted it to be, and (ii) forced the players to make new, hard choices.
> 
> That is "fail forward" in action.




It is a perhaps a failure of communication.  I'm not sure how to solve that problem.  I'm not against a DM allow for realistic possibilities.  If the adventure involved a mountain trek though I'd have developed a table with various possible outcomes in advance.  I never choose something to make the story interesting.  I am a neutral as DM.


----------



## Emerikol

sheadunne said:


> My conflict between the two styles revolves around this.
> 
> Scene
> After searching the tower I find a teleportation portal but I don't know where it leads, nor was I searching to find it to begin with.
> 
> Pre-Authored Game
> I feel I have to go through the portal even if I don't particularly want to because I feel that the DM has prepped the game based on going through the Portal. If I don't go through it then the game will come to a stop or the DM will need to improvise a new adventure (which may or may not be in their wheel house). It doesn't feel like a decision point to me, just another path to the pre-authored adventure. If the DM improvises (and the game is still fun) then I have to ask the question, why prep to begin with?
> 
> Improve Game (Story Now, Fail Forward, etc)
> The portal is simply another decision point. Do i go through the portal and see where it leads and explore somewhere different or do I continue on with other agendas that are important to the character? The decision is important but neither one will force the DM to make any decisions. It is all on me and where I want to go.




I think a Pre-Authored game is not necessarily a tightly scripted one.   The biggest proponents of sandbox style games are those who prefer the pre-authored approach.   As a DM, I prep for some time before I start a campaign.  I do a lot less during the actual running campaign.   I build a fairly decent sized sandbox.   Now I admit you could try really hard to get out of the sandbox but I believe you can have a very character driven game and stay in my fairly expansive sandbox.

Usually at some point, I group will migrate to another sandbox.   So you may start with a low level sandbox and then move somewhere at a higher level that is another often bigger sandbox.   So while running the low level campaign, I'm often prepping the next sandbox.   

I realize some people of my persuasion are just running a series of module like adventures that is fairly linear.  Kind of like the Pathfinder Adventure paths.   That is fine.  I don't prefer these types of games as much personally.  I like the freedom of character choice but I want it limited to character only.


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## grendel111111

Emerikol said:


> I think a Pre-Authored game is not necessarily a tightly scripted one.   The biggest proponents of sandbox style games are those who prefer the pre-authored approach.   As a DM, I prep for some time before I start a campaign.  I do a lot less during the actual running campaign.   I build a fairly decent sized sandbox.   Now I admit you could try really hard to get out of the sandbox but I believe you can have a very character driven game and stay in my fairly expansive sandbox.
> 
> Usually at some point, I group will migrate to another sandbox.   So you may start with a low level sandbox and then move somewhere at a higher level that is another often bigger sandbox.   So while running the low level campaign, I'm often prepping the next sandbox.
> 
> I realize some people of my persuasion are just running a series of module like adventures that is fairly linear.  Kind of like the Pathfinder Adventure paths.   That is fine.  I don't prefer these types of games as much personally.  I like the freedom of character choice but I want it limited to character only.




Yes, there seems to be a lot of confusion that if it is not improv then it must be scripted. I think this partly comes from the uses of these terms in theatre.


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## sheadunne

Emerikol said:


> I think a Pre-Authored game is not necessarily a tightly scripted one.   The biggest proponents of sandbox style games are those who prefer the pre-authored approach.   As a DM, I prep for some time before I start a campaign.  I do a lot less during the actual running campaign.   I build a fairly decent sized sandbox.   Now I admit you could try really hard to get out of the sandbox but I believe you can have a very character driven game and stay in my fairly expansive sandbox.
> 
> Usually at some point, I group will migrate to another sandbox.   So you may start with a low level sandbox and then move somewhere at a higher level that is another often bigger sandbox.   So while running the low level campaign, I'm often prepping the next sandbox.
> 
> I realize some people of my persuasion are just running a series of module like adventures that is fairly linear.  Kind of like the Pathfinder Adventure paths.   That is fine.  I don't prefer these types of games as much personally.  I like the freedom of character choice but I want it limited to character only.




I like to call the sandbox approach the pinball style. The characters bounce around from one unconnected pre-authored point to another, hoping to get somewhere that doesn't exist, all the while trying to stay alive. It's fine, but I never feel I have any decision points to make that actually matter. Neither X or Y has been created and adjusted to my character's action declarations. I'm perfectly content gaming that way, but I'm not going to pretend that I'm at all invested in its outcomes.


----------



## Imaro

sheadunne said:


> I like to call the sandbox approach the pinball style. The characters bounce around from one unconnected pre-authored point to another, hoping to get somewhere that doesn't exist, all the while trying to stay alive. It's fine, but I never feel I have any decision points to make that actually matter. Neither X or Y has been created and adjusted to my character's action declarations. I'm perfectly content gaming that way, but I'm not going to pretend that I'm at all invested in its outcomes.




Wow... I'm starting to think you've really had some bad DM's when it comes to sandbox and pre-planned play... Because what you've described in both instances in no way encompasses all those playstyles have to offer...


----------



## sheadunne

Imaro said:


> Why do you assume this?  Do you believe only one choice/decision path can be pre-prepped?  The sandbox playstyle is usually pre-prepped and it provides a variety of decision paths... there's also pre-prep as session progresses.  I guess I'm just trying to understand why you assume you have to go through the portal and that all paths lead to the same destination?
> 
> As to why prep as opposed to improvise... there are a couple reasons with the first being some DM's are better with prep.  Another is that many may find it hard to keep track of details being created in the spur of the moment... (this is something I wonder about the high improv games... is someone continuously jotting down notes to safeguard campaign consistency, and if so who?  As a DM I would hate to have to steadily take notes while also running the game, or keep a ton of info in my head without a reference to rely upon...).  Some games aren't built for alot of improv, and so on.




I don't assume this, I "feel" this from my experience, which is why I used that word specifically in my post. I'm not stating fact, I'm stating my opinion and the way I feel about it, based on my experience that every time a portal comes up, it's the direction the game is heading. I've never had a game where that wasn't the case. But again, it's just one example and getting bogged down by examples doesn't really accomplish much. 

I'm not trying to figure people play the way they do, I struggle with my own interests not other people's. As I mentioned, I'm content playing in a pre-authored game (mostly without investment) as I am with playing in an Improv game (mostly without the energy that's constantly required). I struggle with picking one that's consistently of interest to me, although at this point in my life I'm certainly leaning more for a story-now approach, at least in my running of games.

When I run games, I don't take any notes, I rely on the players to do it. If they're invested in the consistency of the world, then they're required to contribute to it. We also do a "previously on" chat at the beginning of the game to refresh our minds around the game. It also gives the players who might have missed the session a chance to review what they missed. I like to keep details as vague and underdeveloped as possible so that I can establish them as we play, I expect the same from the players. We can explore the character and what makes them tick during play. 

Overall I think prep suffers from the investment of the DM in its existance. I know a few DMs that have no trouble creating something and then throwing it away, but from my experience, that's not the norm, but the exception. I do the same thing and work at it. If I think of something cool to put into the game, then I want it in the game, but it's never as cool for everyone else as it is for me. And as a player I'm never impressed in what the DM created, unless it was the result of my characters actions.

Certainly some games are better at it than others. The 3x/PF D20 system isn't particularly good at it, especially when it involves combative challenges and skill usage (skills in the game have very clear success results). I enjoy playing the system, but won't run it again. It's too difficult to do without prep. 5e certainly lends itself more to improv style of play, but when I play D&D I want to be playing D&D and it just feel like it to me. D&D is not improve. I've accepted that.


----------



## sheadunne

Imaro said:


> Wow... I'm starting to think you've really had some bad DM's when it comes to sandbox and pre-planned play... Because what you've described in both instances in no way encompasses all those playstyles have to offer...




Or I've had some really good DMs in bad styles of play lol who knows. 

I'm fully aware of what they offer, as well as what they don't, which is why I play them and don't tend to run them.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

chaochou said:


> I can guarantee you that your thousands of pages of Realms notes do not make it more 'involved' than my Apocalypse World, which features a map which we can all see, with notes that anyone can add to and a list of names of all the NPCs we've met.
> 
> Because involvement comes at the table. And only at the table. The lonely fun of reading bad fanfic dressed up as 'background' and dreaming how much fun it's going to be to surprise the players with it, is often presented as a 'living breathing world'. But that's nonsense.
> 
> A living breathing world only happens at the table, and only if the players care. And if you've let them build it, given them a stake, they care. Put me or any of my players in 'The Realms' and none of us could give a monkeys. Unless I can have my own bar in a town called Bad Fanficville.
> 
> And if you read a game like The Dresden Files you'll see how to build a multi-layered, complex and dynamic setting filled with interesting characters in conflict with each other and how everyone knowing about it enhances the game. Because when everyone knows - that's part of the game. Secrets are not gameplay.
> 
> I think this is the real point. And a lot of D&D players, especially GMs, are the same. They love the prep. They love the reading. They love the imagining. All that is great. None of it is the game. The game is what is shared at the table.
> 
> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] was making exactly these points about 'living breathing worlds' not aligning with pre-authorship. They can be created in the moment, and be beautiful, poignant, deep and complex. It's okay to not believe me, but it's true.




OK, first I will say that my experience in games like you are referring to is very, very limited. I'm also well aware that some youtube play-throughs are not representative of most sessions of any game.

And I also won't say you're entirely wrong. My bad fanfic that's a combination of published bad fanfic and home-made bad fanfic probably isn't better or worse than the bad fanfic developed by committee in the course of gameplay in the games that you are referring to. I have no illusions that I am anymore than an amateur hack stealing liberally and putting together stories and campaigns for my own enjoyment as much as the players. 

There is a ton of stuff that I think of or write that will never go any farther than the screen I'm currently typing. But part of what I like, that I don't see how it would ever come together in a game like that is the multi-layered depth of the world I'm working with. I'm not saying it's better, it's just different. Details and things that admittedly the majority of my players don't even care about, but it's those very details that make the world seem alive to me. Many of those details we probably could put together in a game like Dungeon World.

My last major campaign ran for over 8 years with the same core characters, with ever more complex threads of stories that intertwined over years of the character's lives. Each local they visited (and I followed them as the DM, I didn't lead them), had a flavor and feel of their own. Largely due to the work of others, with me layering on top. After a while, by mentioning a name, description, etc. they knew where they were, even if they just stepped through a portal to an unknown destination.

And I did say that I'm sure it's possible to do something similar in the games you're playing, but I don't think it would be possible with the way my brain works, and the speed my brain works, along with the group(s) I've played with. A large number of the people I play with are new to the game, and it takes a while to get them to be comfortable with really fleshing out a character, much less a world.

I also think it's easier to maintain consistency of a sort in this manner, not to mention I'm the only one that's really OCD enough to spend many hours between sessions thinking, and often writing. 

You're right, a lot of what I do is not the game, it's another hobby related to the game. But it comes alive in the game, and because of the way my brain works, that works well for me. I also love tweaking the rules, theorizing about the game. I've only met one or two people over the years that share the same excitement in all levels of the game and RPGs in general. There are certainly a lot of really interesting people here and on the net, and I would love if some of them lived nearby. Well, maybe, I really don't have the time for that!

Secrets are not gameplay. Discovering secrets, and unraveling them at the table is gameplay, and often very exciting gameplay. Sure it's not the only one, but it is a component that we really like. I like to be surprised by my players (and I am frequently), and they like to be surprised by me. I don't write the plots, I don't write the adventures, they do that. 

There are multiple ways to make the players care, and I do work to ensure that they have a stake in the story, they write more of it than they realize, and I think it's very important for them to feel like they are part of that world. They have a direct hand in writing how they fit into the world, with my help to tie it into the greater world. The bad (published) fanfic gives us all a common element so we are on the same page. Just like if you play in Middle Earth, or the Star Wars or Star Trek universes. We all know certain things about the world that makes it feel more real.

They meet a merchant from Baldur's Gate, and that means something to them. Not because I tell them there's a city named Baldur's Gate and all of their characters know about it, and they go along with it because I said they all know about it, but because they actually know about it. When one of the player's character says that they are a cleric of Ilmater, they don't have to explain what that means, or how it fits into the pantheon, or how others in the world react to that or feel about it. They already know. The bard tells us that she's particularly fond of zzar and a hunk of Elturian gray, we're all on the same page. That's the sort of depth that I'm talking about. 

And you're absolutely right, a lot of D&D players and DMs are the same. We learned from the same sources, with the same concept. And I don't pretend to be more than I am. I'm sure that in the arc of RPGs I'm in a pretty save, relatively conservative place. It's certainly not cutting edge, but I also think it's a place where there is still a lot of great gaming to be had. That the art form, as it is, has yet to be perfected and that it's a worthy pursuit within the realm of RPGs. Perhaps as I incorporate more of what I learn from places like here, and maybe meeting new people by running public games, that I'll grow into something more complex, or more abstract, or more of a shared-world approach, or whatever. I just don't know, and won't know until I get there. But for the moment I think that what I'm most interested in is learning more about how to do better at what I already love to do. And have loved for 30+ years. The thing that makes me want to spend crazy-stupid amounts of time thinking about it, writing about it, talking about it, and so on.

And this is not even my 'primary hobby' and competes with family, a job, and two businesses along with my primary hobby, which is also one of my businesses. I can also say that over the years I have played many, many different RPGs. Now the newer crop have some great innovations and new approaches, but regardless of what I've tried, I always keep coming back to the Forgotten Realms in D&D. It's what most excites me, and I'm happy to share my enthusiasm within that framework with whomever wants to come along with me. I'm not really concerned about whether my Realms is more involved than somebody else's game, or anything of that nature. I just don't see how I can arrive at what I love with those systems with the people I know and have access to.

I guess more importantly is that if I started a Dungeon World campaign, I'd spend most of the time trying to make it feel like the D&D that I know and love. Which is kind of pointless.

Ilbranteloth


----------



## grendel111111

sheadunne said:


> Or I've had some really good DMs in bad styles of play lol who knows.
> 
> I'm fully aware of what they offer, as well as what they don't, which is why I play them and don't tend to run them.




Possible you mean good DM's mismatched with a play style that doesn't suit their skills and approach?


I can and have GMed with full improv and it never goes as well or is as satisfying for those at the table. I'm sure others have had exactly the opposite experience. 

Matching DM's players and play styles is I think the missing piece of this puzzle.


----------



## sheadunne

grendel111111 said:


> Possible you mean good DM's mismatched with a play style that doesn't suit their skills and approach?
> 
> 
> I can and have GMed with full improv and it never goes as well or is as satisfying for those at the table. I'm sure others have had exactly the opposite experience.
> 
> Matching DM's players and play styles is I think the missing piece of this puzzle.




You are correct. It's even more difficult, when your playing style doesn't match your running style. You either need multiple groups or find a group that is the opposite of your tastes. Thus the struggle.


----------



## Imaro

sheadunne said:


> Or I've had some really good DMs in bad styles of play lol who knows.
> 
> I'm fully aware of what they offer, as well as what they don't, which is why I play them and don't tend to run them.




When you define them in the manner which you chose to, it makes me highly doubt you are *fully* aware of what they have to offer...  It seems more likely you are fully aware of a small and very narrow subset of the particular styles...


----------



## Ilbranteloth

sheadunne said:


> I like to call the sandbox approach the pinball style. The characters bounce around from one unconnected pre-authored point to another, hoping to get somewhere that doesn't exist, all the while trying to stay alive. It's fine, but I never feel I have any decision points to make that actually matter. Neither X or Y has been created and adjusted to my character's action declarations. I'm perfectly content gaming that way, but I'm not going to pretend that I'm at all invested in its outcomes.




See, that's why I don't "get" the sandbox style that many describe as the "ideal." I guess my campaigns are somewhat of a sandbox, in that the players can go anyplace they want. But, there are also "plots" or maybe "schemes" going on all the time in the background. They might stumble across one and follow where it leads. They don't have to, but they might. Usually they come across a number of options of that type in addition to many things unrelated.

My general concept is that of a TV series. Some episodes end up as self-contained stories (though with the plot written as it happens), others tie into a larger arc, which is also written as it happens, but part of the story is written by the NPCs (DM). Most sessions end up being a bit of both, because once they start digging deeper into what else is happening in the world around them, they are usually investigating some of those intrigues.

The last couple of months has been in an ruined temple, with a huge catacombs beneath it. They do actually have an agenda, they are trying to locate a scepter that was rumored to have last been seen here over a century ago. They are attempting to prevent that scepter from being located by the wrong people. Sort of like the Nazi's looking for the Ark of the Covenant. Except the Banites (priests of the evil god Bane) haven't set up a camp like in Raiders just yet. They aren't that far along yet.

But the sessions, while searching for that, have also been one of simple exploration. They have found more information related to the scepter, and they decided to follow up on one in particular which is to locate the crypt of the last known owner, largely because it seemed like the easiest starting point. They know that she was buried within the catacombs beneath this temple.

To that end, they have explored quite a bit, first finding a level where the Banites used to imprison and torture their enemies. After a brief look and they found some information, they moved on. There wasn't the need to explore every corridor and defeat every monster. They determined that they found what they were looking for, or more specifically, that what they were looking for wouldn't likely be found here.

The catacombs have taken a long time simply because I've modeled them after the actual catacombs in Rome and Paris. They are enormous, but they decided it would be easier and ultimately faster to continue to explore, rather than try to research them or find a map somewhere. So it has taken a while. The catacombs themselves I developed randomly, with a few planned rooms central to the concept, but their placement was also random. Encounters and treasures as well, either rolled, or I would just decide that something is here.

Once they've succeeded in finding the scepter (if successful), who knows where they will go, or what they'll do. All the while they are looking for it, they know that groups of the Banites are also looking for it. So it's quite possible that they will fail to find it, or fail to find it before the Banites. I know where the scepter is, at least for now. But many other things, like the groups of Banites, monsters, treasures, and to a large degree the map, are determined as we go. And is often based on what the players/PCs do and say.

A recent puzzle required them finding a certain key, but the bard recently selected the knock spell. In this case, the door was unique in that it was a blank wall, and an inter-dimensional passage phased in with the use of the key. She wanted to try the knock spell, and I said why not? There's no reason there's not an alternate solution, so I go with it.

Some of the background plots and such are more direct, like those that involve family members, others are completely unrelated to them. Many of the plots intertwine, although that's not always evident to begin. The majority of the plots are in part, and often significantly, written by the PCs, but not in the same manner as Dungeon World where they take an active role. Instead, I take and weave what they describe, talk about, theorize, etc, and work those sorts of things into the plots and schemes that are more closely tied to them. They do have a lot of ability to write their personal and local history. If they happen to be in a locale they grew up in, (like Daggerford for the Ranger), then they have almost all of the information that I already have about the location, plus they make up a majority of what's going on there as well. It's their home-town and they know more about it than anybody, including me. But because I'm using locations that have a lot of published material, they can take that home and read whatever they want. So they instantly have a depth of knowledge, and there's a richness to the setting. To the character from Waterdeep, I can say that somebody has recently seen Duragorn in the vicinity of Thentavva's Boots, and she knows where that is. Even if she doesn't she has access to the books so she can look it up because it's local lore that she's privy to.

This approach also means that when they are in a location where one or more of them have this familiarity, they feel like they know the location, the people, etc. When they are in a new city or town, they feel like they are out-of-towners. This is what I mean by depth, or perhaps richness of setting. What's even more amazing is when we're in a location that two or more of them know well, because they can just have conversations, just like when I talk to somebody from my town. 

Ilbranteloth


----------



## Balesir

Ilbranteloth said:


> But because I'm using locations that have a lot of published material, they can take that home and read whatever they want. So they instantly have a depth of knowledge, and there's a richness to the setting. To the character from Waterdeep, I can say that somebody has recently seen Duragorn in the vicinity of Thentavva's Boots, and she knows where that is. Even if she doesn't she has access to the books so she can look it up because it's local lore that she's privy to.



Aha! Another very palpable advantage to (written) pre-authoring, be it published or home-grown: it can be shared with the (other) players in "downtime" and provide bandwidth for player knowledge of the game world.

I feel that we are teasing out some genuine and objective advantages for both methods, here, which might form a good grounding in why and when to use which - I hope!


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> How would you run the 4e module Cairn of the Winter King? I guessing you are familiar with the module as sometime ago you mentioned you were to run a blend of it with another adventure.



I haven't run it. I think I might have been going to mix some of it with Heathen, or perhaps G2, but didn't. The only thing I remember adapting from it is the mechanic for having Intimidate checks do hit point damage to the main antagonist - I used a version of that in the concluding combat in Heathen.

As to how I would run it - I don't remember it very well now, as I haven't looked at it since I got it (in 2010? whenever Monster Vault came out). But getting rid of the fetch quests would have to be a part of it.



Sadras said:


> A player asks me which kingdoms host training centres for wizards? Which kingdoms are at war? Which is the deity of agriculture? What is a particular deity's emblem?...etc. With pre-authorship I have those details out the way already instead of having to think on the spot. In fact having those details already thought out allows me to improve on "story-now" instances.



This might be analogous to me having pre-drawn maps (GH) in my BW game. Or not. Without context it's hard to tell.

In my group deity emblems aren't a bit deal. But which nations are at war is a bigger deal. I wouldn't normally decide which nations are at war without having some degree of regard to PC backgrounds and manifested player interests in loyalties/connections etc to various countries, reasons for warring, etc.



LostSoul said:


> The issue is that your pre-authored content may not reflect the themes that the players have focused on in their story.  You don't know where the story is going to go, so your pre-authored content may simply fall flat and fail to be emotionally engaging.  Like a great Cthulu-ish city in the midst of an Arthurian tale.



This is a big part of it, yes. For my group, the deity emblem thing wouldn't matter because that's not part of what we focus on in play (it might be different if we had some visual artists in the group, but we don't). Whereas war and politics are things that matter to at least some of the players, and so determining who is at war with whom is something that _would_ matter, and is something that (as GM) I wouldn't want to fall flat. So it would be something authored in response to player input and action declarations, rather than in advance of them.



Sadras said:


> In our group's last session the characters activated a teleportation circle to find themselves within a room with each wall decorated by a  mosaic of a blooming rose upon a wreath of golden grain...the room was part of the basement of a temple. The temple was filled with a frightened local populace as the town was under attack.
> How did my pre-authorship of the emblem of Chauntea, the design of the temple, the mood of the populace and the situation of the town create a less engaging experience?



I don't know. Maybe it didn't!

In my case, I wouldn't choose religiously-oriented content for the game without having regard to the current dynamics of play, manifested interests of PCs/players, etc, because religious stuff, cosmological enmities/alliances, etc, tend to be a big deal in our games. In the session discussed in this post, for instance, the PCs found themselves learning about the religious convictions of a particular sect, but this was made up by me in the course of play as part of the back-and-forth with the players as they played their PCs, all of whom had important religious convictions.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I'm not saying the bias should be gotten rid of or even that it's a bad thing, but if you can argue that pre-prepping + human nature will make me more likely to "railroad" towards what I have created... I in turn believe having free reign to improv anything within the realm of it fitting the fiction coupled with human nature will lead to one being more likely to "railroad" towards the story I want or envision.



You haven't explained how this will happen, though. If the question of whether or not the mace is in the tower; or, of how the cult followers will respond to the building of the effigies; _doesn't even arise_ until the player establishes a certain backstory for his/her PC and then makes an action declaration, then how is the GM railroading towards a pre-determined story? The GM doesn't have the requisite authority over either content or situation.



Imaro said:


> Ok so you...
> 1. Decided ahead of time there would be a Dark Elf....



No. Ahead of time I decided that I liked the idea of a dark elf. As I posted, and as you quoted, _I created the Dark Elf as an NPC who might be introduced_.

The dark elf was introduced in response to a failed check to navigate through the desert to the ruined tower in the Abor-Alz. Had the PCs been going to the pyramid the orcs were hoping to assault, there would have been no dark elf. (Dark elves don't live in the desert.)



Imaro said:


> 2. Decided ahead of time he would be an antagonist... (I consider this pre-authoring at least some of his personality, otherwise whether he was an antagonist or not would be decided in play)



I brought him in as an antagonist in response to a failed check. (As you quoted me saying upthread, _He became a foe in virtue of being introduced as part of the narration of a failed check._

And naturally, in a party where one of the PCs has as a Belief to "always maintain the elven ways", a dark elf is likely to be an antagonist. And given that BW dark elves are driven by Spite (an emotional attribute that is part-way between elven Grief and orcish Hatred) the NPC was never going to be terribly friendly.

But had the players decided to have their PCs try and negotiate or befriend of course that was feasible.



Imaro said:


> 3. Decided ahead of time he would appear on a failed roll



I don't think so. It's a while ago now, but I think the idea of the dark elf having fouled a waterhole was something I came up with when the check failed and I had to narrate some content for the failure.



Imaro said:


> 4. Decided in the moment he would have the mace...
> 
> A pre-authored campaign could...
> 1. Decide ahead of time there would be Dark Elf
> 2. Decide ahead of time he will be an antagonist
> 3. Decide ahead of time there is a 60% chance he appears if the PC's get lost in the dessert
> 4. Decide ahead of time he has a 50% chance to have the mace
> 
> So the only difference I see is that the subject of the mace would be decided definitely in the moment by you, everything else you've done seems to fall under (at least partially) pre-prep as opposed to in the moment decisions



I think you have misdescribed what I posted (and what you quoted), and what happened in play.



Imaro said:


> Pre-authoring doesn't force the DM to decide what the PC's want



The post from [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] captures what I have in mind.

If the PCs don't follow the GM's pre-authored hooks, then in effect it's not a pre-authored game! The GM is making stuff up in response to player action declarations.


----------



## pemerton

Emerikol said:


> I think a Pre-Authored game is not necessarily a tightly scripted one.   The biggest proponents of sandbox style games are those who prefer the pre-authored approach.   As a DM, I prep for some time before I start a campaign.  I do a lot less during the actual running campaign.   I build a fairly decent sized sandbox.   Now I admit you could try really hard to get out of the sandbox but I believe you can have a very character driven game and stay in my fairly expansive sandbox.
> 
> Usually at some point, I group will migrate to another sandbox.   So you may start with a low level sandbox and then move somewhere at a higher level that is another often bigger sandbox.   So while running the low level campaign, I'm often prepping the next sandbox.
> 
> I realize some people of my persuasion are just running a series of module like adventures that is fairly linear.  Kind of like the Pathfinder Adventure paths.   That is fine.  I don't prefer these types of games as much personally.  I like the freedom of character choice but I want it limited to character only.





grendel111111 said:


> Yes, there seems to be a lot of confusion that if it is not improv then it must be scripted. I think this partly comes from the uses of these terms in theatre.



I don't think there is confusion. I think there are different views around what counts as significant player contribution.

In the sort of game that Emerikol describes, the key story elements (people, places, things) are authored by the GM and plonked into the sandbox. As he describes it, this is done "neutrally" without regard to what makes for an interesting game.

That is different from a game where the backstory and the unfolding plot arises as a result of adjudicating player action declarations, and is responsive to the priorities signalled and introduced into play by the players.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> I don't think there is confusion. I think there are different views around what counts as significant player contribution.
> 
> In the sort of game that Emerikol describes, the key story elements (people, places, things) are authored by the GM and plonked into the sandbox. As he describes it, this is done "neutrally" without regard to what makes for an interesting game.
> 
> That is different from a game where the backstory and the unfolding plot arises as a result of adjudicating player action declarations, and is responsive to the priorities signalled and introduced into play by the players.




The confusion I am referring too is that a non improv games must be tightly scripted and linear (Emerikol's games is an example of preauthored, but not having a linear plot). The PC's decide where that go and what they do in the sand box. They might fight for or against any of the occupants in the world. There is no scripting of plot, but there is scripting of places and people. Plot comes from the characters immersing themselves in the world and deciding what they want to do. Contrast this with the original Dragon-lance adventures or an Adventure path, where the plot is decided before the characters are introduced to the world. These are very different things but seem to be being portrayed as "not improv" and the failings of 1 are being applied to both.

The plot in these games arise from the characters interacting with and making choices about the world around them. 
Yes, this is different from the plot is molded to directly respond to players choices, but that does not make it predetermined or linear as some people seem to misunderstand it.

 Emerikol have I understood this correctly?


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> You haven't explained how this will happen, though. If the question of whether or not the mace is in the tower; or, of how the cult followers will respond to the building of the effigies; _doesn't even arise_ until the player establishes a certain backstory for his/her PC and then makes an action declaration, then how is the GM railroading towards a pre-determined story? The GM doesn't have the requisite authority over either content or situation.




I have explained it numeorus times... either my answer doesn't satisfy you in some way, which I'd be open to discussing further... or you're just choosing not to accept the answer... especially since other posters have at least gotten the main gist around this point of contention (even if they don't agree).  Anytime the DM can decide the outcome of a failed roll with no restrictions outside... it must follow logically from the fiction (where he/she also decides what follows logically)... there is a higher probability that he will subvert the result (as opposed to a result that is clear cut, like you fail a climb check ... you fall) to go in the direction he wants the story to go in.

Look at the effigy example... the player created a tribe to lead and once the DM gets his hands on it (even though he had countless options that wouldn't have removed control of the player's created fiction from the players hands) The DM decides that what would logically follow from the fiction ... is that the very tribe that was player created and character driven/led is now subverted so that it is trying to kill the character...  How is that not having the power to railroad the story in the direction you want to take it?   



pemerton said:


> No. Ahead of time I decided that I liked the idea of a dark elf. As I posted, and as you quoted, _I created the Dark Elf as an NPC who might be introduced_.




"No" to what exactly??... you pre-prepped a Dark Elf NPC... I mean you're stating it in the italics part of this very quote...



pemerton said:


> The dark elf was introduced in response to a failed check to navigate through the desert to the ruined tower in the Abor-Alz. Had the PCs been going to the pyramid the orcs were hoping to assault, there would have been no dark elf. (Dark elves don't live in the desert.)




You gave him a percentage chance (based on the Skill score of the PC) for the Dark Elf to appear in the terrain of the Abor-Alz... In a pre-prep campaign this is done all the time, though it is more likely to be based on independent variables as opposed to a skill check... for practical play purposes from the view of the players it serves the same purpose... creating a chance for the Dark Elf NPC the DM created to to appear.




pemerton said:


> I brought him in as an antagonist in response to a failed check. (As you quoted me saying upthread, _He became a foe in virtue of being introduced as part of the narration of a failed check._




Just a note it was not at all clear that the failed check was what defined him as an antagonist... though I find this interesting since you state the Dark Elf only appears because of failed checks... so at what point can he appear and not be an antagonist?



pemerton said:


> And naturally, in a party where one of the PCs has as a Belief to "always maintain the elven ways", a dark elf is likely to be an antagonist. And given that BW dark elves are driven by Spite (an emotional attribute that is part-way between elven Grief and orcish Hatred) the NPC was never going to be terribly friendly.
> 
> But had the players decided to have their PCs try and negotiate or befriend of course that was feasible.




So wait was it the failed check that made him an antagonist, your choice to make him an antagonist, the nature of Dark Elves (which is pre-written), or was it feasible for them to interact with the Dark Elf... all of these can't be true at the same time, so which one(s) determined the NPC's attitudes towards the PC's? 



pemerton said:


> I don't think so. It's a while ago now, but I think the idea of the dark elf having fouled a waterhole was something I came up with when the check failed and I had to narrate some content for the failure.




Wait in your original post you stated that you had decided you wanted to use a Dark Elf NPC... so had you decided beforehand you wanted to use a Dark Elf NPC or not?  If so, then how did you also create the Dark Elf NPC as content off the cuff due to a failure?  



pemerton said:


> I think you have misdescribed what I posted (and what you quoted), and what happened in play.




I think your play example and the methods/thoughts/etc. you used aren't terribly clear at certain points in your original post, which is usually the case when relaying information from the past to others (one of the reasons I dislike dissecting play examples in discussions as it leads to unclear back and forth as more and more clarification needs to be added).



pemerton said:


> The post from @_*sheadunne*_ captures what I have in mind.
> 
> If the PCs don't follow the GM's pre-authored hooks, then in effect it's not a pre-authored game! The GM is making stuff up in response to player action declarations.




You're defining a pre-authored game too narrowly, again a pre-authored game can be prepped between sessions in response to the PC's actions in the previous games.  Correct me if I'm wrong but that's still pre-prep not improvisation.  In fact I would argue, for me at least, the best sandboxes (and how I've always run them) are updated, changed and respond to the actions of the PC's (among other things).


----------



## pemerton

grendel111111 said:


> The confusion I am referring too is that a non improv games must be tightly scripted and linear (Emerikol's games is an example of preauthored, but not having a linear plot). The PC's decide where that go and what they do in the sand box.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The plot in these games arise from the characters interacting with and making choices about the world around them.



As I said, there is no confusion. The players in a sandbox of the sort you describe don't choose the key plot elements, nor are those elements authored and/or introduced into play in response to the signals sent by the players in the build/play of their PCs. They are chosen in advance by the GM and laid out as possibilities for the players to interact with (via their PCs).

 [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] expresses this using his "pinball" phraseology. That's new terminology for me, but it makes it clear that there is no confusion about how the game works.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> As I said, there is no confusion. The players in a sandbox of the sort you describe don't choose the key plot elements, nor are those elements authored and/or introduced into play in response to the signals sent by the players in the build/play of their PCs. They are chosen in advance by the GM and laid out as possibilities for the players to interact with (via their PCs).
> 
> @_*sheadunne*_ expresses this using his "pinball" phraseology. That's new terminology for me, but it makes it clear that there is no confusion about how the game works.




As I said... you're defining a sandbox too narrowly... If you're really trying to understand the play styles of others, you might want to leave those pre-conceived notions and actually try reading/understanding  the counter points others are presenting to your assumptions.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I have explained it numeorus times... either my answer doesn't satisfy you in some way, which I'd be open to discussing further... or you're just choosing not to accept the answer... especially since other posters have at least gotten the main gist around this point of contention (even if they don't agree).  Anytime the DM can decide the outcome of a failed roll with no restrictions outside... it must follow logically from the fiction (where he/she also decides what follows logically)... there is a higher probability that he will subvert the result (as opposed to a result that is clear cut, like you fail a climb check ... you fall) to go in the direction he wants the story to go in.



I don't understand what you mean by the word "subvert". How does this relate to the word "author"? What is being subverted?

I reiterate my point: if the material the GM has to work with (the mace, the effigies, whatever it might be) only comes into the game as a result of player action declarations and backstory authorship; and if the fictional context of the GM's narration, which constrains and shapes that narration, is the result of player action declarations; then how is this the same as GM pre-authorship?

Obviously, for any given set of events in a "fail forward"-style game, it is conceivable that a pre-authored game might produce the same set of results. At the extreme, for any given book that is deliberately written it is conceivable that the same text might be authored just by cutting up and arranging words from newspapers and magazines! But the process is different, and the experience of playing the game is different.



Imaro said:


> Look at the effigy example... the player created a tribe to lead and once the DM gets his hands on it (even though he had countless options that wouldn't have removed control of the player's created fiction from the players hands) The DM decides that what would logically follow from the fiction ... is that the very tribe that was player created and character driven/led is now subverted so that it is trying to kill the character...  How is that not having the power to railroad the story in the direction you want to take it?



Who has been railroaded? What choice has been denied to the player?

It's not the GM who is forcing the player to engage with the tribe/cult - the _player_ chose to make the tribe/cult the focus of play. It's true that the tribe/cult is not behaving as the player (and PC) hoped - but that's because the check to influence the tribe/cult was _failed_. (Which brings us back to the point from way upthread, that the word "fail" in "fail forward" is not a euphamism for _success_.)



Imaro said:


> "No" to what exactly??... you pre-prepped a Dark Elf NPC... I mean you're stating it in the italics part of this very quote...
> 
> <snip>
> 
> You gave him a percentage chance (based on the Skill score of the PC) for the Dark Elf to appear in the terrain of the Abor-Alz... In a pre-prep campaign this is done all the time, though it is more likely to be based on independent variables as opposed to a skill check... for practical play purposes from the view of the players it serves the same purpose... creating a chance for the Dark Elf NPC the DM created to to appear.



I didn't decide in advance to introduce a dark elf. I wrote up a dark elf NPC, and had it in the folder with the dozens of other BW NPCs I have statted up. When a navigation check was failed I needed to narrate some adverse consequences for the PCs, and narrated a fouled waterhole which - upon examination - had been fouled by an elf. That point - during the course of actual play, in narrating the consequences within the fiction of a failed skill check - was when I decided that the dark elf was part of the fiction.



Imaro said:


> Just a note it was not at all clear that the failed check was what defined him as an antagonist... though I find this interesting since you state the Dark Elf only appears because of failed checks... so at what point can he appear and not be an antagonist?



There are any number of ways in which an NPC might appear. In the last session of the campaign that we played, an NPC knight ("Dame Katerina of Urnst") was introduced into play initially to rub into the players that their PCs had spent the night sleeping on the filthy streets of the Keep on the Borderlands; and then she reappeared to defend her confessor against accusations that he is an evil priest of a death cult.

If there had been no failed check I might have introduced the dark elf in some other way. Or not. We'll never know, because that alternative possible world never came to pass!



Imaro said:


> So wait was it the failed check that made him an antagonist, your choice to make him an antagonist, the nature of Dark Elves (which is pre-written), or was it feasible for them to interact with the Dark Elf... all of these can't be true at the same time, so which one(s) determined the NPC's attitudes towards the PC's?



Of course they can all be true. Dark Elves make good antagonists (because of their Spite), especially for the elf PC in my game. That means that, if I want an NPC antagonist to figure as part of the narration of a failed check, a dark elf is a good candidate. And the fact that the dark elf appears as an antagonist doesn't mean that the PCs can't try and interact with him. They saw him escaping through the darkness, when he threw a knife at one of them. They could have called out and tried to speak: between them they have Intimidation, Persuasion and other social skills, any of which they might have tried to deploy. (Although, as it turns out, they didn't.)



Imaro said:


> Wait in your original post you stated that you had decided you wanted to use a Dark Elf NPC... so had you decided beforehand you wanted to use a Dark Elf NPC or not?  If so, then how did you also create the Dark Elf NPC as content off the cuff due to a failure?



I have a lot of ideas about what I would like to use in my game. In my folder of notes I also have multiple hermit NPCs statted up, various monks and inquisitors, some heretic priests, some evil wizards, etc.

Some of them might get used; some won't.

This was [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION]'s point, upthread - having ideas about what might make for fun elements of the fiction isn't the same as preauthoring the fiction.


----------



## TwoSix

Balesir said:


> Aha! Another very palpable advantage to (written) pre-authoring, be it published or home-grown: it can be shared with the (other) players in "downtime" and provide bandwidth for player knowledge of the game world.
> 
> I feel that we are teasing out some genuine and objective advantages for both methods, here, which might form a good grounding in why and when to use which - I hope!



That's the exact reason I have a love/hate relationship with published campaign settings.  *IF* the players and DM are both familiar with the setting, they provide an excellent way for the DMs and players to share a common narrative experience that provides some novel avenues for play.  If it's only the DM that's familiar with the setting, though, all the setting does is to encourage constant exposition dumps by the DM and giving tour-guide scenarios to the players.  ("And over to your right, we have the Screaming Tower of Infinite Pain, built on a foundation of damned souls.  Coming up, the glorious city of Phanfool, a city of a million drow in the middle of a vast desert!")


----------



## grendel111111

Sorry can't figure out how to deleate the post.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> As I said, there is no confusion. The players in a sandbox of the sort you describe don't choose the key plot elements, nor are those elements authored and/or introduced into play in response to the signals sent by the players in the build/play of their PCs. They are chosen in advance by the GM and laid out as possibilities for the players to interact with (via their PCs).
> 
> [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] expresses this using his "pinball" phraseology. That's new terminology for me, but it makes it clear that there is no confusion about how the game works.




And yet as people have pointed out the pinball explanation misses the point.

I think you are confusing background, character, elements with "plot".

The dark elf city and it's hatred of the surface dwelling races is background and geography. The queen of the dark elves is character.
Plot is how the PC's interact with these. The DM does not make plot.
They may go to the dark elf city and decide to over throw it. They might decide to side with the dark elves and free them from their bonds of darkness by aiding them in assaulting the surface dwellers kingdom above, the might decide to depose the queen and take over rulership of the under realms, they might decide that it's just a stopping point on the way to the planes, they might do a million other things. That is the "plot" what happens in the story.

The "pinball" phraseology said that players can't make any meaningful headway because the DM hasn't decided the "plot" for them, so they basically bounce around because the DM isn't telling them the pre-made plot.

If the players need that much hand holding then sandbox is not the game for them, then AP or pre-scripted might be what they are looking for. If they need that much hand holding I suspect that full improv may also be a leap too far for them. 


For example in mad max, he didn't create any of the places he went to but once he got there how he interacted with the settlement/gangs/environment is the plot of the movie.
So in a mad max game those elements are all there. They could be there because the DM put them there, or because they are "play now" created. Both are fine. They will however create different gaming experiences. So the question just comes down to which experience do you prefer.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?473785-Failing-Forward/page77#ixzz3yeIpxeAs


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> I don't understand what you mean by the word "subvert". How does this relate to the word "author"? What is being subverted?
> 
> I reiterate my point: if the material the GM has to work with (the mace, the effigies, whatever it might be) only comes into the game as a result of player action declarations and backstory authorship; and if the fictional context of the GM's narration, which constrains and shapes that narration, is the result of player action declarations; then how is this the same as GM pre-authorship?




I never claimed it was the *same* as GM pre-authorship... I claimed the results, a campaign world that revolves around the PC's backstory and changes/responds to the player's decisions and actions can be attained in a pre- prepped (you started using pre-authored) campaign...



pemerton said:


> Obviously, for any given set of events in a "fail forward"-style game, it is conceivable that a pre-authored game might produce the same set of results. At the extreme, for any given book that is deliberately written it is conceivable that the same text might be authored just by cutting up and arranging words from newspapers and magazines! But the process is different, and the experience of playing the game is different.




The process is definitely different, but there were claims earlier in this discussion (and that you are still making abut sandbox play) that the pre-prepped game couldn't produce the result I am claiming it can.  And your comparison is off... I am not saying that through pure luck and random chance one can produce these results, I am saying by applying repeatable principles and a specific structure of pre-prep one can attain the same things an improv game can...



pemerton said:


> Who has been railroaded? What choice has been denied to the player?
> 
> It's not the GM who is forcing the player to engage with the tribe/cult - the _player_ chose to make the tribe/cult the focus of play. It's true that the tribe/cult is not behaving as the player (and PC) hoped - but that's because the check to influence the tribe/cult was _failed_. (Which brings us back to the point from way upthread, that the word "fail" in "fail forward" is not a euphamism for _success_.)




Well they are still attacking the city... so yeah success is still on the table, it's just the PC will be burned while they do it.  The point you're missing is that the tribe is behaving how the DM wants (and this is actually one of the differences I see in the two approaches) there is no objectivity here such as when using NPC reaction rules from D&D.  I haven't made claims about "railroading"... what I've made the claim is that the DM will be pre-disposed towards and have the power to shape the outcome of the game to produce the story he/she wants.  You're example of the Dark Elf... clearly shows that a Dm pre-disposed towards including an element will put it into the "story" and [MENTION=6682826]CH[/MENTION]achou has shown the DM has the power to totally reverse a situation when improving so I'm not sure what else I need to "prove"? 



pemerton said:


> I didn't decide in advance to introduce a dark elf. I wrote up a dark elf NPC, and had it in the folder with the dozens of other BW NPCs I have statted up. When a navigation check was failed I needed to narrate some adverse consequences for the PCs, and narrated a fouled waterhole which - upon examination - had been fouled by an elf. That point - during the course of actual play, in narrating the consequences within the fiction of a failed skill check - was when I decided that the dark elf was part of the fiction.




Again... why I don't like play examples for discussion... it seems like nothing is ever fully explained in the example until you start questioning it... So...
1. You pre-prep all the time.
2. It's not actually about pre-prepping for a campaign it's about how/when you introduce the pre-prepped material.

Does the above about sum it up?

Now I thought one of the benefits to improv play was to cut down on the out of game work... you know that work that's not really part of the game.  But here it seems as if you are doing just as much or more work, prepping material with the added disadvantage that it may or may not be used...   



pemerton said:


> There are any number of ways in which an NPC might appear. In the last session of the campaign that we played, an NPC knight ("Dame Katerina of Urnst") was introduced into play initially to rub into the players that their PCs had spent the night sleeping on the filthy streets of the Keep on the Borderlands; and then she reappeared to defend her confessor against accusations that he is an evil priest of a death cult.
> 
> If there had been no failed check I might have introduced the dark elf in some other way. Or not. We'll never know, because that alternative possible world never came to pass!




So again a demonstration that you really have no limitations beyond a logical tie to fiction (again where you as DM decide the line that can't be crossed) in controlling and manipulating the story in the spur of the moment... and yet you don't see how a DM's biases, preferences, etc. have just as great if not a greater chance as a DM who pre-preps ending up railroading at improv 'ing the game towards the outcome he as DM wants (whether consciously or subconsciously)...



pemerton said:


> Of course they can all be true. Dark Elves make good antagonists (because of their Spite), especially for the elf PC in my game. That means that, if I want an NPC antagonist to figure as part of the narration of a failed check, a dark elf is a good candidate. And the fact that the dark elf appears as an antagonist doesn't mean that the PCs can't try and interact with him. They saw him escaping through the darkness, when he threw a knife at one of them. They could have called out and tried to speak: between them they have Intimidation, Persuasion and other social skills, any of which they might have tried to deploy. (Although, as it turns out, they didn't.)




I meant they can't all be true in this particular instance/example...



pemerton said:


> I have a lot of ideas about what I would like to use in my game. In my folder of notes I also have multiple hermit NPCs statted up, various monks and inquisitors, some heretic priests, some evil wizards, etc.
> 
> Some of them might get used; some won't.
> 
> This was [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION]'s point, upthread - having ideas about what might make for fun elements of the fiction isn't the same as preauthoring the fiction.




Ideas aren't fully statted up NPC's... the whole point of improv is that you don't have to do all that non-play, pointless work... yet here you are doing it and even less efficiently that many that pre-prep for their games.  As to pre-authoring "fiction"... I'm not sure where you're drawing s distinction here, could you explain?


----------



## chaochou

Imaro said:


> When you define them in the manner which you chose to, it makes me highly doubt you are *fully* aware of what they have to offer...  It seems more likely you are fully aware of a small and very narrow subset of the particular styles...




It's funny - I get the exact same impression with you with regard to improvisation and narrative styles. 

I'd like you to give actual game examples of improvised sessions you've run where you felt yourself to be railroading the players so we can see how you managed it, since that is something you've claimed happens.


----------



## Imaro

chaochou said:


> It's funny - I get the exact same impression with you with regard to improvisation and narrative styles.
> 
> I'd like you to give actual game examples of improvised sessions you've run where you felt yourself to be railroading the players so we can see how you managed it, since that is something you've claimed happens.




Oh, I understand and even enjoy narrative and improv styles with the right games... 13th Age, FATE (Gods & Monsters, Kerberos Club), Numenera, etc.  So please don't assume... However when I see one playstyle (or set of tools) that I also use being blatantly mis-represented by people who have admitted to not liking/using them... well I tend to argue for the other side. 

Speaking of mis-representing...Where did I claim railroading happens due to improv in sessions?  In fact here's my actual stance as I posted it much earlier in the thread while addressing @_*LostSoul*_...



Imaro said:


> Hey @_*LostSoul*_ I think you might be a little confused as to why this tangent sprung up... I'm not saying the bias should be gotten rid of or even that it's a bad thing, but if you can argue that pre-prepping + human nature will make me more likely to "railroad" towards what I have created... I in turn believe having free reign to improv anything within the realm of it fitting the fiction coupled with human nature will lead to one being more likely to "railroad" towards the story I want or envision. If you look back at my previous posts I don't believe either of these to be a result of the particular tools of the respective playstyles but more based in the DM running the game. The reason I am bringing up the biases, preferences, etc. in relation to the story now playstyle is to provide a counterpoint to the assumptions around pre-prep railroading.




Which was in response to this tidbit originally posted by @_*Manbearcat*_...


Manbearcat said:


> 3)  The lack of temptation to subvert player action declarations + the authentic outcomes of the resolution mechanics (typically covertly) which shoehorns play toward your heavily prepped material (of which you will inevitably be invested in its manifestation during play).
> 
> This 3 is also an advantage for the players as it is insurance that their agency is maximized with respect to dictating outcomes (the aggregation of which becomes "story").




Where he basically states that pre-prepped games are more disposed towards railroading (which I disagree with, just as I disagree with improv/narrative being more or less pre-disposed to railroading)... I believe there are DM's who will railroad and it doesn't matter what style they will use because both empower the DM to the point where he can do it if he wants.  

But please don't let what I've actually posted stop you form continuing to tell me what I've claimed and what I need to prove...


----------



## Manbearcat

Right quick (no time to post anything of consequence).  I've sped read some posts and I just want to clarify something.  I'll try to post something more meaty this weekend (assuming the time).

1)  There is a *vast, sweeping chasm between* my claim of "heavy prepped setting and metaplot creates temptation (proportionate to investment) to introduce this content into play regardless of play outcomes" and "heavily prepped games invariably lead to railroads."

2)  I've GMed tons of established settings.  I'm extremely familiar with FR, Planescape, Dark Sun and have run games in all of these settings.  I very, very much agree with  [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION].  If there is not a level of symmetry within the players of understanding and appreciation for the setting, one or two players (with keen understanding of and advocacy for the setting) have a grand ole time where the other players are basically tourists whereby our play conversation (between they and I or they and the other "in the know" players) consists of far too much "expository dialogue/setting dumps" in order for them to access the necessary backstory which is a prerequisite for the excited immersion of the enlightened few.

I don't have antipathy for them.  It is just that, while quite proficient, I do not particularly enjoy running them (but will, and even have in the last few years) because of this dynamic.  Running an FR game for a few fans who are in the know (whereby metaplot/setting dumps aren't necessary) is much less tedious, so long as that knowledge is pretty symmetrical.

3)  I've run hundreds and hundreds of hours of prep-heavy hexcrawls and theme-neutral sandbox games where "pushing play toward conflict" is anathema.

4)  Outside of low-prep, high-improv "story now" play, my other primary gaming is one-off dungeon crawls (with RC or houseruled AD&D depending on the group) where I heavily prep the dungeon setting.

These games are different in their GM latitude and in the focus and clarity of their play directives.  GM guidance stridently saying things like "Follow the Rules" and "Draw Maps, Leave Blanks" and "Play to Find Out What Happens and "Push Play Toward Conflict" and "Fill Their Lives With Danger" and "Challenge Their Beliefs/Relationships" (among other things) and the system (resolution mechanics and PC build components) interfacing directly with these transparent GM dictates such that play snowballs precisely along the sought paradigm is a very different dynamic than GM guidance saying muted or inverted forms of the above and the system designed to "generate objective/binary outcomes" while players move about in a heavily established, granular setting (with or without prolific metaplots at the forefront as the primary driver of play).

 [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION], I'll try to post this weekend and address your question about the line of demarcation between loose prep and heavy prep.


----------



## innerdude

Imaro said:


> So...
> 1. You pre-prep all the time.
> 2. It's not actually about pre-prepping for a campaign it's about how/when you introduce the pre-prepped material.
> 
> Does the above about sum it up?
> 
> Now I thought one of the benefits to improv play was to cut down on the out of game work... you know that work that's not really part of the game.  But here it seems as if you are doing just as much or more work, prepping material with the added disadvantage that it may or may not be used...




Just a few thoughts --- 

I don't know that the point of "just-in-time" GM-ing is to save prep time per se. The benefit of "just-in-time" GM-ing is that it empowers players and fosters engagement toward things that matter to the players within the fiction. 

Preparation time goes down when you have a game system that allows you to prepare quickly, and/or generate usable elements that require mechanical resolution "just in time" within the game. I welcome player input to the fiction and allow high levels of freedom for my players to choose what they do and where they go, because I know that if there's ever a situation where I need to generate an element of the fiction "on the fly," with Savage Worlds I can say, "Give me 30 to 60 seconds to jot down some ideas." And whatever it is they want to interact with, I can almost always conceivably make a viable, fun encounter.

Sometimes there are things in the fiction that I'm not sure about, but I don't necessarily just say "yes" to the players right off the cuff (though this is becoming more rare as I've discovered that most of the time it's just easier and more fun to say "yes"). In these cases I'll do a simple percentile roll and ask the player, "High or low?" If the player's particularly invested in it, I'll even let them negotiate with me how probable they think it should be. The players seem to find this a reasonable compromise when I don't just say yes outright, because then once we've set what's at stake in the fiction, I'm no longer the arbiter or not; it's the dice that tell the tale.

I get where @_*Imaro*_ is going with the idea that it doesn't matter whether something is pre-prepped a week in advance or thrown on the table spur-of-the-moment, there is potential for a GM's biases to affect what is presented. If the GM's interested in having the PCs fight pirates, it doesn't matter if the GM has meticulously planned out a pirate crew weeks before, or the first time the players set foot in a seaport and make a failed check to gather information and the pirates just "magically appear" right then. If the GM wants pirates, the PCs get pirates. 

And I think the idea behind this, if a GM's biases are going to become evident in play, why not have the GM go through the necessary prep so that the pirate encounter---when presented---is more fully fleshed out, potentially balanced, and meaningful?

In terms of when to introduce a pre-planned/pre-prepped element, I do think the timing matters. In @_*pemerton*_'s example, if I had an in-fiction element of the well, and in my head had initially thought that the well was just dry, but the player says, "Someone's poisoned the well, haven't they?" Well now guess what --- the well is poisoned, and not just dried up. And now they've potentially expressed interest in WHO poisoned the well . . . so maybe it's a good time to introduce a new fictional element of the NPC well poisoner.

"Fail forward" / low prep / "just-in-time" GM-ing is also highly, HIGHLY contingent on the players being willing to have characters that express beliefs and have motivations in play, and the system needs to correctly position the characters in the fiction when played towards type.

There's a definite balance between pre-prepping and "just in time" GM-ing, but I've found the more you can push yourself into the "just in time" GM-ing spectrum, the better your game ends up.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> As I said, there is no confusion. The players in a sandbox of the sort you describe don't choose the key plot elements, nor are those elements authored and/or introduced into play in response to the signals sent by the players in the build/play of their PCs. They are chosen in advance by the GM and laid out as possibilities for the players to interact with (via their PCs).




Of course they choose the key plot elements, or at least they can.  I ran a game a few years ago where the party decided to go to Calimport and steal a ship and become pirates.  They gave me the plot and goal and I ran with it.  Yes, I pre-authored a bunch of stuff based on *their* key plot elements, but a lot of how I run is also improv.  I run a mix of both.  The world, however, is the Forgotten Realms and they love coming up with plots for me to run in that pre-authored environment.


----------



## grendel111111

innerdude said:


> Just a few thoughts ---
> 
> I don't know that the point of "just-in-time" GM-ing is to save prep time per se. The benefit of "just-in-time" GM-ing is that it empowers players and fosters engagement toward things that matter to the players within the fiction.
> 
> Preparation time goes down when you have a game system that allows you to prepare quickly, and/or generate usable elements that require mechanical resolution "just in time" within the game. I welcome player input to the fiction and allow high levels of freedom for my players to choose what they do and where they go, because I know that if there's ever a situation where I need to generate an element of the fiction "on the fly," with Savage Worlds I can say, "Give me 30 to 60 seconds to jot down some ideas." And whatever it is they want to interact with, I can almost always conceivably make a viable, fun encounter.
> 
> Sometimes there are things in the fiction that I'm not sure about, but I don't necessarily just say "yes" to the players right off the cuff (though this is becoming more rare as I've discovered that most of the time it's just easier and more fun to say "yes"). In these cases I'll do a simple percentile roll and ask the player, "High or low?" If the player's particularly invested in it, I'll even let them negotiate with me how probable they think it should be. The players seem to find this a reasonable compromise when I don't just say yes outright, because then once we've set what's at stake in the fiction, I'm no longer the arbiter or not; it's the dice that tell the tale.
> 
> I get where @_*Imaro*_ is going with the idea that it doesn't matter whether something is pre-prepped a week in advance or thrown on the table spur-of-the-moment, there is potential for a GM's biases to affect what is presented. If the GM's interested in having the PCs fight pirates, it doesn't matter if the GM has meticulously planned out a pirate crew weeks before, or the first time the players set foot in a seaport and make a failed check to gather information and the pirates just "magically appear" right then. If the GM wants pirates, the PCs get pirates.
> 
> And I think the idea behind this, if a GM's biases are going to become evident in play, why not have the GM go through the necessary prep so that the pirate encounter---when presented---is more fully fleshed out, potentially balanced, and meaningful?
> 
> In terms of when to introduce a pre-planned/pre-prepped element, I do think the timing matters. In @_*pemerton*_'s example, if I had an in-fiction element of the well, and in my head had initially thought that the well was just dry, but the player says, "Someone's poisoned the well, haven't they?" Well now guess what --- the well is poisoned, and not just dried up. And now they've potentially expressed interest in WHO poisoned the well . . . so maybe it's a good time to introduce a new fictional element of the NPC well poisoner.
> 
> "Fail forward" / low prep / "just-in-time" GM-ing is also highly, HIGHLY contingent on the players being willing to have characters that express beliefs and have motivations in play, and the system needs to correctly position the characters in the fiction when played towards type.
> 
> There's a definite balance between pre-prepping and "just in time" GM-ing, but I've found the more you can push yourself into the "just in time" GM-ing spectrum, the better your game ends up.




I think there are really good points here. Unless the DM is just saying no every time that the player does anything slightly unexpected then everyone is using a balance of the two styles. some people sit heavily on one side of the spectrum or the other and some sit in the middle using tools from both. 

Your last point I would like to discuss.... I think people do have a "tipping point" and if they move over that tipping point too fast or too far in either direction they can crash their game.
All the examples of just in time have shown it being used masterfully, the DM and players smoothly interacting and seemlessly coming up with a tight narrative. But that often doesn't happen (and most likely won't) when you first start out. 
I sat through one game where the DM wanted to try it but did not have the improve skills to pull it off. Every action the players took resulted in 15-20 minutes of the DM saying "just wait a minute while I figure out what happens next". Some people do not do improv well (and some people do not know they don't do it well). Even after that time every battle ended up being the equivalent of a wandering monster encounter with no thought going into terrain, environment, objectives, etc. Yet when he pre-planned games he was running great set pieces that were really fun. His "tipping point" was closer to the pre-prepped side of the scale. (This can of coarse change over time, too.)
However when you move in the direction of "story-now"and add tools from improv to your gaming tool box it can be of benefit even if you don't go all in on "story-now" style. Just like if you add some pre prepped elements to a purely story now  game it can improve how those games run.

I suspect it will go the other way too. if someone is very comfortable in story-now and try to go too pre-prep then they will feel it doesn't work for them, maybe it will feel "flat".


----------



## pemerton

grendel111111 said:


> And yet as people have pointed out the pinball explanation misses the point.
> 
> I think you are confusing background, character, elements with "plot".



I'm not _confusing_ them. I'm asserting that, in a sandbox or some other pre-authored game, the story elements (people, places, things, perhaps even some events like a room in which an ogre is torturing a kobold, or a city that is under siege) are authored by the GM independently of the players' play of their PCs.

The reason  [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] used the "pinball" characterisation is because, in this sort of game, he feels no deep connection between his PC and these pre-authored elements of the shared fiction.



Imaro said:


> I never claimed it was the *same* as GM pre-authorship... I claimed the results, a campaign world that revolves around the PC's backstory and changes/responds to the player's decisions and actions can be attained in a pre- prepped (you started using pre-authored) campaign...



But you haven't explained how, except by saying that a pre-authored game can approximate a non-preauthored one by bringing the authorship as close as possible in time to player decision-making and action resolution (eg by doing it all between sessions). To me, that just seems to show that if you approximate a technique you'll get approximately similar results.

Upthread, you've said that introducing some fictional element in response to a failed check is just like randomising the introduction of that element. And other posters (eg  [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION], I think  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]) have talked about randomly determining whether or not an object is dropped while climbing, rather than narrating that as a consequence of failure. To me, these suggestions are like saying that introducing some event (say, PC death) in relation to a failed check (say, in combat) is no different from just rolling a die to see if a PC dies. I think most RPGers would think there's a big difference between actually playing through a combat, in which the players get to make and resolve action declarations for their PCs, and the GM just saying "There's a 30% chance your PC dies in this fight" and rolling the percentile dice. Introducing adverse fictional elements by way of "fail forward" narration is extending this common RPGer intuition to a greater range of story elements and consequences.



Imaro said:


> the tribe is behaving how the DM wants (and this is actually one of the differences I see in the two approaches) there is no objectivity here such as when using NPC reaction rules from D&D.



But that's the whole point of using "fail forward" - on a success, the fictional situation becomes as the player (and PC) desired, as reflected in the terms of the action declaration; on a failure, the fictional situation becomes in some way contrary to that, as authored by the GM. The player's failure gives the GM licence to introduce some complication.



Imaro said:


> what I've made the claim is that the DM will be pre-disposed towards and have the power to shape the outcome of the game to produce the story he/she wants.  You're example of the Dark Elf... clearly shows that a Dm pre-disposed towards including an element will put it into the "story" and chaochou has shown the DM has the power to totally reverse a situation when improving so I'm not sure what else I need to "prove"?



The reason I was able to introduce the dark elf as I did, or have the mace be with the dark elf; and the reason that  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] was able to have the tribe/cult turn on the PC in his game; was because the players declared checks and then failed them! Had those checks succeeded, the players (and PCs) would have got what they wanted: in my game, the PCs would have made it to the ruined tower without any of the waterholes being fouled, and they would have found the mace when they searched for it; in chaochou's game, had the check succeeded the tribe would have done as the PC wanted (and not instead tried to burn her).

Hence the whole idea - as discussed by designers like Robin Laws (in various HeroWars/Quest books), Luke Crane (in BW books), etc - that the game unfolds as a back and forth between success and failure.

But the GM is not producing _the story s/he wants_. S/he is not in charge of action declaration; and s/he doesn't decide the outcome of the dice when they are rolled. S/he _is_ generally in charge of scene-framing, but the basic principle of these games is that scenes should be framed with reference to player signals (expressed via build and play of PCs, and sometimes involving special mechanics like BW Beliefs and Instincts) - which is quite different from the pre-authorship that causes the "pinball" experience  [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] referred to upthread.

The story of the dark elf in my game ended with the dark elf being taken prisoner, then tortured and interrogated, then dying as a result of that torture. The dark elf being taken prisoner was a result of a successful player check. The dark elf dying under torture was a result of a failed player check (or maybe more than one - I can't remember the details now). As for the mace, as I recounted already upthread it ended up washing down the stream (a failed check by a player whose PC was trying to recover it from the dark elf's cave) and being recovered by the two PCs who were wanting it (a series of successful checks to intimidate and then burgle some Keep servants).

I didn't _want_ that story. Nor did I not want it. It hadn't occurred to me that things would unfold like that until they did.



Imaro said:


> So again a demonstration that you really have no limitations beyond a logical tie to fiction (again where you as DM decide the line that can't be crossed) in controlling and manipulating the story in the spur of the moment... and yet you don't see how a DM's biases, preferences, etc. have just as great if not a greater chance as a DM who pre-preps ending up railroading at improv 'ing the game towards the outcome he as DM wants (whether consciously or subconsciously)



What is the outcome that I pushed the game towards?

I think this is the third, maybe fourth, time that I've cited this Paul Czege passage in this thread:

There are two points to a scene - Point A, where the PCs start the scene, and Point B, where they end up. . . . Good narrativism [= story now, "fail forward", etc] will . . . [let] the GM create a compelling Point A, and let the players dictate what Point B is (ie, there is no Point B prior to the scene beginning).​
. . . [A]lthough roleplaying games typically feature scene transition, by "scene framing" we're talking about a subset of scene transition that features a different kind of intentionality. My personal inclination is to call the traditional method "scene extrapolation," because the details of the Point A of scenes initiated using the method are typically arrived at primarily by considering the physics of the game world, what has happened prior to the scene, and the unrevealed actions and aspirations of characters that only the GM knows about.

"Scene framing" is a very different mental process for me. Tim asked if scene transitions were delicate. They aren't. Delicacy is a trait I'd attach to "scene extrapolation," the idea being to make scene initiation seem an outgrowth of prior events, objective, unintentional, non-threatening, but not to the way I've come to frame scenes in games I've run recently. . . . I'm having trouble capturing in dispassionate words what it's like, so I'm going to have to dispense with dispassionate words. By god, when I'm framing scenes, and I'm in the zone, I'm turning a freakin' firehose of adversity and situation on the character. It is not an objective outgrowth of prior events. It's intentional as all get out. We've had a group character session, during which it was my job to find out what the player finds interesting about the character. And I know what I find interesting. I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this. And like Scott's "Point A to Point B" model says, the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.​
The introduction of complications is not _meant_ to be independent of the GM's inclinations. As  [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] said, you play with someone because you like their ideas, and they way they deploy them. But the GM has no capacity to control _outcomes_, for the reasons I already stated in this post.

(Notice also that Czege contrasts the use of "secret backstory" with scene-framing/story now/"fail forward"-type techniques.)



Imaro said:


> 1. You pre-prep all the time.
> 2. It's not actually about pre-prepping for a campaign it's about how/when you introduce the pre-prepped material.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Ideas aren't fully statted up NPC's... the whole point of improv is that you don't have to do all that non-play, pointless work



The phrase I have consistently used is "pre-authorship". I have contrasted play based on pre-authorship - and attendent techniques in play like adjudicating consequences by reference to secret backstory, and the players, by the play of their PCs, discovering or exploring the fiction that the GM has pre-authored - with play based on authorship in response to player action declarations.

Writing up stats for an NPC, or drawing a map for an inn or a castle or a cave, or even writing up a possible backstory for an NPC, is not pre-authorship. It does not establish any fictional content. You think there is some contrast between having an idea for an NPC, and writing that NPC up mechanically - I don't feel the force of the contrast myself, especially for a mechanically heavy game like 4e or BW where an idea isn't really fleshed out until it's given mechanical content.

(In 4e, of course, a whole lot of pre-statted stuff is available via the Monster Manuals, the trap/hazard stats in a range of books, etc. BW has less of that, and so I have to build more of my own.)

Someone a _long_ way upthread - I think  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] - already made the point that "fail forward"/scene-framing play isn't about never preparing material, but is about when the fiction is authored. What is of interest to me is when and how the fiction is authored, and how this is related to adjudication of action declarations (very broadly speaking - is it an input, via "secret backstory", or is it an output, via "fail forward?).



Imaro said:


> Now I thought one of the benefits to improv play was to cut down on the out of game work
> 
> <snip>
> 
> yet here you are doing it and even less efficiently that many that pre-prep for their games.



That advantage has been cited by  [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION]. I haven't referred to it, because I don't have a strong view. Building a campaign world takes time; so does writing up NPC or monster stats. 25 or 30 years ago I had more time available, and so spent more time. Now I have a bit over half-an-hour a day of train rides going to and from work, and often spend that time writing up an NPC or thinking about a monster design, or coming up with possible motivations or backstories for NPCs that might fit into the game given its current state. I don't know whether or not I could write up a campaign world in that time, because I've never tried.

The issue of "efficiency" isn't a big deal for me. Writing these things up improves my knowledge of the system and its moving parts; that in itself, plus the inherent pleasure I get in manipulating RPG build elements, is sufficient justification for doing it. (You could think of it as an alternative to doing crosswords, which is another way I sometimes pass the time on the train.)


----------



## pemerton

grendel111111 said:


> I think there are really good points here. Unless the DM is just saying no every time that the player does anything slightly unexpected then everyone is using a balance of the two styles. some people sit heavily on one side of the spectrum or the other and some sit in the middle using tools from both.



As I've just posted, the question I'm interested in is _when is fiction authored?_ - in advance of and independently of play? or as part of the framing of scenes and the narration of the outcomes of action resolution? And the related issue of the role of secret backstory in adjudicating action declarations.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> As I've just posted, the question I'm interested in is _when is fiction authored?_ - in advance of and independently of play? or as part of the framing of scenes and the narration of the outcomes of action resolution? And the related issue of the role of secret backstory in adjudicating action declarations.




I don't see why the answer cannot be both.  If I am creating things in advance of play, that stuff is fiction that the PCs can encounter, so it was authored then.  However, there is also the fiction that is authored by the interaction between the game world and the PCs, and that fiction is authored as part of play.  

Basically, the DM pre-authored fiction mixes with DM live fiction and player live fiction to create something greater.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> As I've just posted, the question I'm interested in is _when is fiction authored?_ - in advance of and independently of play? or as part of the framing of scenes and the narration of the outcomes of action resolution? And the related issue of the role of secret backstory in adjudicating action declarations.





OK, but other people are involved in the conversation too, so if you are interested in only 1 part of the conversation then just focus on that. For you, you want the fiction authored at the time play. I think it results in a less enjoyable game. But that is just preferences in how the game is played.
But I disagree that pre-authored fiction is linked to independent of players.
There are 2 different scales and they are not inseperably linked.
you could have:
1) Pre-authored with no player input.
2) Pre-authored taking into account characters, goals desired, what the players want, etc.
3) In the moment taking into account characters, goals desired, what the players want, etc.
4)In the moment with no player input.

You have a clear preference for number 3 but seems to be insisting if everyone doesn't do it that way they must be playing by method 1. (additionally there are far more than just those 4 options which combine different levels of each).
It is possible for other people to be happy with any of these options (even if you don't like them) and each brings it's own feel to the game.


----------



## chaochou

Imaro said:


> Where did I claim railroading happens due to improv in sessions?...
> 
> I in turn believe having free reign to improv anything within the realm of it fitting the fiction coupled with human nature will lead to one being more likely to "railroad" towards the story I want or envision.




It's not rocket science. I simply asked for examples from your own play which justify this belief. Very simple.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> I don't see why the answer cannot be both.



It can be. But the more that fiction is authored in advance, and then used - as secret backstory - to determine consequences of players' action declarations for their PCs, then the more the play dynamic moves away from that which I prefer.



grendel111111 said:


> 1) Pre-authored with no player input.
> 2) Pre-authored taking into account characters, goals desired, what the players want, etc.
> 3) In the moment taking into account characters, goals desired, what the players want, etc.
> 4)In the moment with no player input.
> 
> You have a clear preference for number 3 but seems to be insisting if everyone doesn't do it that way they must be playing by method 1.



I don't think that (4) is a particularly large or common category, although some of the suggested random rolls to see if climbing PCs drop gear would be an example. The only person in this thread who has mentioned the version of (4) that consists in a room's occupant being rolled for randomly (eg 70% chance the orcs are sleeping, 30% chance they are down the hall brawling with the kobolds) is me, so I assume that that sort of design is not all that common these days.

I don't think any actual examples of (2) have been given in this thread, have they? And are we talking about (a) pre-authoring for purposes of scene-framing, or (b) pre-authoring for purposes of narrating consequences?

(a) is something that I do myself - I will think, in advance, about the way I want to open a session. But (a) is not really feasible for later events in the session, because they have to reflect what has come before, and so can't be written in advance of that actual play.

(b) is what I take to have been the main focus of discussion in a thread on "fail forward". This is one way of negating player agency - for instance, if the GM has already decided that if the PCs look for the mace they won't find it, then (in my view, and given my preferences) action declarations of searching for the mace have been rendered somewhat futile. Or if the GM has already decided that the waterhole near the foothills has been fouled by a dark elf, then - in effect - the players can't fully succeed on a navigation/survival check. Again, by my lights this is a limit on player agency.

A lot of instances of (b) will be the result of pre-authoring secret backstory which is then used as part of the process of adjudicating action resolution. The mace not being in the tower, for example, is an instance of secret backstory that leads to an instance of (b). Another common example might be deciding that an NPC can't be persuaded of XYZ, so that attempts at social interaction by the PCs have a pre-determined outcome (of non-cooperation).

Of course, if the GM changes the notionally pre-authored consequences to reflect player action declarations for their PCs, and whether or not those checks succeed, then we don't have an instance of (2) at all. We have a version of (3).


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> It can be. But the more that fiction is authored in advance, and then used - as secret backstory - to determine consequences of players' action declarations for their PCs, then the more the play dynamic moves away from that which I prefer.




I disagree.  It doesn't move away at all.  It just moves differently.  A pre-authored reason for a consequence in the player driven plot is equal to a the DM authored reason for the same consequence that the DM authored in the moment.  The story neither cares, nor is any way lessened by pre-authoring.

Pre-authoring does not take away from stuff authored in the moment.  It's in addition to it and provides reasons that the DM and players can both draw upon for their in the moment story telling.


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## Imaro

chaochou said:


> It's not rocket science. I simply asked for examples from your own play which justify this belief. Very simple.




What purpose would that serve?  Especially since judging by your tone and inability to address what I actually posted, I don't believe you're interested in discussion.


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## grendel111111

Quote Originally Posted by pemerton  View Post
It can be. But the more that fiction is authored in advance, and then used - as secret backstory - to determine consequences of players' action declarations for their PCs, then the more the play dynamic moves away from that which I prefer.


Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?473785-Failing-Forward/page79#ixzz3yjxVjvtQ



Maxperson said:


> I disagree.  It doesn't move away at all.  It just moves differently.  A pre-authored reason for a consequence in the player driven plot is equal to a the DM authored reason for the same consequence that the DM authored in the moment.  The story neither cares, nor is any way lessened by pre-authoring.
> 
> Pre-authoring does not take away from stuff authored in the moment.  It's in addition to it and provides reasons that the DM and players can both draw upon for their in the moment story telling.




It moves it away from the style that *he* likes. (even if it moves it more towards what I prefer).


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I don't think any actual examples of (2) have been given in this thread, have they? And are we talking about (a) pre-authoring for purposes of scene-framing, or (b) pre-authoring for purposes of narrating consequences?




I gave an example of it with my player given pirate plot.  Others have also mentioned in general that they do this.


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## Maxperson

grendel111111 said:


> Quote Originally Posted by pemerton  View Post
> It can be. But the more that fiction is authored in advance, and then used - as secret backstory - to determine consequences of players' action declarations for their PCs, then the more the play dynamic moves away from that which I prefer.
> 
> 
> Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?473785-Failing-Forward/page79#ixzz3yjxVjvtQ
> 
> 
> 
> It moves it away from the style that *he* likes. (even if it moves it more towards what I prefer).




Hmm.  Given the question I was answering, I thought he was talking about authoring in the moment rather than just him preferring authoring in the moment. 

In a game with pre-authoring, there is as much authoring in the moment as there is without any pre-authoring.  You just have pre-authored sources for both the player and DM to draw upon.  That's why I said it doesn't move away, but just differently.


----------



## grendel111111

pemerton said:


> It can be. But the more that fiction is authored in advance, and then used - as secret backstory - to determine consequences of players' action declarations for their PCs, then the more the play dynamic moves away from that which I prefer.
> 
> I don't think that (4) is a particularly large or common category, although some of the suggested random rolls to see if climbing PCs drop gear would be an example. The only person in this thread who has mentioned the version of (4) that consists in a room's occupant being rolled for randomly (eg 70% chance the orcs are sleeping, 30% chance they are down the hall brawling with the kobolds) is me, so I assume that that sort of design is not all that common these days.
> 
> I don't think any actual examples of (2) have been given in this thread, have they? And are we talking about (a) pre-authoring for purposes of scene-framing, or (b) pre-authoring for purposes of narrating consequences?
> 
> (a) is something that I do myself - I will think, in advance, about the way I want to open a session. But (a) is not really feasible for later events in the session, because they have to reflect what has come before, and so can't be written in advance of that actual play.
> 
> (b) is what I take to have been the main focus of discussion in a thread on "fail forward". This is one way of negating player agency - for instance, if the GM has already decided that if the PCs look for the mace they won't find it, then (in my view, and given my preferences) action declarations of searching for the mace have been rendered somewhat futile. Or if the GM has already decided that the waterhole near the foothills has been fouled by a dark elf, then - in effect - the players can't fully succeed on a navigation/survival check. Again, by my lights this is a limit on player agency.
> 
> A lot of instances of (b) will be the result of pre-authoring secret backstory which is then used as part of the process of adjudicating action resolution. The mace not being in the tower, for example, is an instance of secret backstory that leads to an instance of (b). Another common example might be deciding that an NPC can't be persuaded of XYZ, so that attempts at social interaction by the PCs have a pre-determined outcome (of non-cooperation).
> 
> Of course, if the GM changes the notionally pre-authored consequences to reflect player action declarations for their PCs, and whether or not those checks succeed, then we don't have an instance of (2) at all. We have a version of (3).




Examples of the 4.

1) Pre-authored with no player input.
Playing in a world adventure that has no care for the players (forgotten Realms was not made with your character in mind) most pre-made adventures will be of this kind as they don't know which characters are in the party. Characters find their own place in the world and forge out their own goals etc. If they go to city x then there will be thing happening in the city independent of the characters that they can choose to or not to get involved with.

2) Pre-authored taking into account characters, goals desired, what the players want, etc.
Pre-authored, DM adds details that fit the player into the world, where they come from, family. The game is fleshed out based on the interests that the characters exhibit. DO they decide to take up piracy, are they helping the down trodden etc. There may not even be a main "plot" or "story". The world is theirs to do with. Authoring occurs between adventures as well as during.
If they go to city x then there will be thing happening in the city independent of the characters that they can choose to or not to get involved with. But if you have a thief in the party you will make sure the thieves guild is a big part of the city. If they are a cleric of a church then either their church will be in the city or a rival church. The characters interests will be more fully fleshed out in these area. Their family member might be in danger, or need help. Just because this doesn't happen in the way that you want it to doesn't mean that characters interests aren't being taken into account.


3) In the moment taking into account characters, goals desired, what the players want, etc.
The way you like playing.

4) In the moment with no player input.
This is perhaps more common that you think. There is the "random encounter" effect, but also from what you have described anything the DM comes up with that is not directly involving the PC's will come under this. Anytime you don't have a pre-drawn location map and make it up on the spot. If you need to decide if x is in a location and don't tie it to a characters skill. Deciding the weather, the name of the elven princess or barkeep. I have even been in some games where it is clear the DM is just pulling things out of his arse, and yet it in no way related to any of the characters. Any time something happens that isn't part of the "main plots" (if you have them) is in this catagory.

I personally prefer when not everything is so tightly connected to the PC's that it ends up looking like a bad soap opera, with all the co-incidences. 

As for scene framing vs deciding outcomes, I don't see things the way you do.
I don't frame in a narrative sense the way you seem to do (if I understand from other threads). I present the situation to the characters as information (no goal presented). They decide how they want to interact with the situation. I decide outcome based on players declared actions (success, failure, unsure). To decide this I know the NPC's temperament, what they want from life, etc. Sometimes that means what the players want to do is impossible (I try to persuade the king to commit suicide, I look for a mace (that isn't there)). But something will happen. 
If it is unknown then I will decide the outcomes, choose the skill/skills or probabilities that best reflect the outcomes and roll/have the player roll.

The Pre-authored back ground gives context to inform the nowness of the decisions.

Your option B:
(b) is what I take to have been the main focus of discussion in a thread on "fail forward". This is one way of negating player agency - for instance, if the GM has already decided that if the PCs look for the mace they won't find it, then (in my view, and given my preferences) action declarations of searching for the mace have been rendered somewhat futile. Or if the GM has already decided that the waterhole near the foothills has been fouled by a dark elf, then - in effect - the players can't fully succeed on a navigation/survival check. Again, by my lights this is a limit on player agency.

I do not consider player agency the same as you then. If the player says their character goes into his bedroom to get look for his lost keys, then that is what he is doing. He is trying to discover if his keys are in his room. I lost my keys the other day (my flatmate had borrowed them to get something from the car and put them in the kitchen instead of my room where I thought I had left them) I searched the hell out of my room. I did not find my keys (I did find $1000 that had fallen behind my bed though). They was a successful search, I established that the keys were not there.

If I understand what you are saying you consider any deviation from option 1 to just be a version of option 3? It really makes option 3 so broad so as to be basically meaningless


----------



## grendel111111

Maxperson said:


> Hmm.  Given the question I was answering, I thought he was talking about authoring in the moment rather than just him preferring authoring in the moment.
> 
> In a game with pre-authoring, there is as much authoring in the moment as there is without any pre-authoring.  You just have pre-authored sources for both the player and DM to draw upon.  That's why I said it doesn't move away, but just differently.




Sorry, yes I can see it read that way. I agree that there in a lot of in the moment authoring in all styles. The pre-authoring informing the in the moment authoring is the way I like to play too.


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## Imaro

pemerton said:


> But you haven't explained how, except by saying that a pre-authored game can approximate a non-preauthored one by bringing the authorship as close as possible in time to player decision-making and action resolution (eg by doing it all between sessions). To me, that just seems to show that if you approximate a technique you'll get approximately similar results.




I have explained how.  The problem is you, as well as some other posters have this very narrowly defined defintion of what a pre-prep campaign has to be.  When others who use the techniques or play in the style then try to show/tell/demonstate that it is a much bigger tent than you seem to realize your response seems to ignore it or claim it's not "real" pre-prep or it's approximating improv (even though material is being created outside of play)...  Once you're willing to actually listen to those who use these tools in a different way you'l be able to better understand the flexibiltiy of the playstyle, but until then this is the adult equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going... "nuh uhn that's cheating!!"



pemerton said:


> Upthread, you've said that introducing some fictional element in response to a failed check is just like randomising the introduction of that element. And other posters (eg  @_*Emerikol*_, I think  @_*Maxperson*_) have talked about randomly determining whether or not an object is dropped while climbing, rather than narrating that as a consequence of failure. To me, these suggestions are like saying that introducing some event (say, PC death) in relation to a failed check (say, in combat) is no different from just rolling a die to see if a PC dies. I think most RPGers would think there's a big difference between actually playing through a combat, in which the players get to make and resolve action declarations for their PCs, and the GM just saying "There's a 30% chance your PC dies in this fight" and rolling the percentile dice. Introducing adverse fictional elements by way of "fail forward" narration is extending this common RPGer intuition to a greater range of story elements and consequences.




No it's not equivalent.  In my comparison it is a single roll compared to a single roll (Skill check vs. percentage).  Your example compares a single roll (which lacks the variation, chance for real-time decision making, chances for extremes, etc. that the multiple rolls and rounds in a combat allow for) to an entire combat... of course there were posters on this very forum who did this (to a lesser extent) in 4e when they substituted SC's for actual combats so it may not be as improbable as you make it sound.



pemerton said:


> But that's the whole point of using "fail forward" - on a success, the fictional situation becomes as the player (and PC) desired, as reflected in the terms of the action declaration; on a failure, the fictional situation becomes in some way contrary to that, as authored by the GM. The player's failure gives the GM licence to introduce some complication.
> 
> The reason I was able to introduce the dark elf as I did, or have the mace be with the dark elf; and the reason that  @_*chaochou*_ was able to have the tribe/cult turn on the PC in his game; was because the players declared checks and then failed them! Had those checks succeeded, the players (and PCs) would have got what they wanted: in my game, the PCs would have made it to the ruined tower without any of the waterholes being fouled, and they would have found the mace when they searched for it; in chaochou's game, had the check succeeded the tribe would have done as the PC wanted (and not instead tried to burn her).
> 
> Hence the whole idea - as discussed by designers like Robin Laws (in various HeroWars/Quest books), Luke Crane (in BW books), etc - that the game unfolds as a back and forth between success and failure.




Yes but the power is totally skewed towards the DM... the player must declare their stakes upfront, locking them into a rigid success state while the DM can choose any outcome he wants as long as it generates logically from the fiction.  I also disagree (at least going by the examples that have been posted in this thread) that the situation has to become contrary to the declared success state in some way.  In the earlier mountain example, dropping the rod is in no way "contrary" to climbing the mountain... or was this example incorrect?



pemerton said:


> But the GM is not producing _the story s/he wants_. S/he is not in charge of action declaration; and s/he doesn't decide the outcome of the dice when they are rolled. S/he _is_ generally in charge of scene-framing, but the basic principle of these games is that scenes should be framed with reference to player signals (expressed via build and play of PCs, and sometimes involving special mechanics like BW Beliefs and Instincts) - which is quite different from the pre-authorship that causes the "pinball" experience  @_*sheadunne*_ referred to upthread.




First I never said the DM is creating the story he wants... I said he has greater power to push the story in the direction he wants it to go... which I honestly think is kind of self evident, as I stated above the DM doesn't have to declare his fail state (but the player has to declare his success state ahead of time) and thus has way more ability to exert force on the direction of the "story".

 @_*pemerton*_... all pre-prepped games (as explained and shown by various posters who actually utilize the tools) do not cause a pinball experience... and that's all I'll say (again) on that matter.  



pemerton said:


> The story of the dark elf in my game ended with the dark elf being taken prisoner, then tortured and interrogated, then dying as a result of that torture. The dark elf being taken prisoner was a result of a successful player check. The dark elf dying under torture was a result of a failed player check (or maybe more than one - I can't remember the details now). As for the mace, as I recounted already upthread it ended up washing down the stream (a failed check by a player whose PC was trying to recover it from the dark elf's cave) and being recovered by the two PCs who were wanting it (a series of successful checks to intimidate and then burgle some Keep servants).
> 
> I didn't _want_ that story. Nor did I not want it. It hadn't occurred to me that things would unfold like that until they did.
> 
> What is the outcome that I pushed the game towards?




You wanted a story around a Dark Elf and you got it.  Again I never said you write the story or control the story (I'm starting to see a patern here with the 100% or 0% classification you tend to use with everything)...but you used the failed check to push the story towards something *YOU* had been thinking about and prepping beforehand.  There may have been some signal from the players that they wanted to deal with a Dark Elf, but if there was it's  not apparent from your example (again why I feel play examples can at times muddy the water since they are often incomplete in the information they convey)



pemerton said:


> I think this is the third, maybe fourth, time that I've cited this Paul Czege passage in this thread:
> There are two points to a scene - Point A, where the PCs start the scene, and Point B, where they end up. . . . Good narrativism [= story now, "fail forward", etc] will . . . [let] the GM create a compelling Point A, and let the players dictate what Point B is (ie, there is no Point B prior to the scene beginning).​
> . . . [A]lthough roleplaying games typically feature scene transition, by "scene framing" we're talking about a subset of scene transition that features a different kind of intentionality. My personal inclination is to call the traditional method "scene extrapolation," because the details of the Point A of scenes initiated using the method are typically arrived at primarily by considering the physics of the game world, what has happened prior to the scene, and the unrevealed actions and aspirations of characters that only the GM knows about.
> 
> "Scene framing" is a very different mental process for me. Tim asked if scene transitions were delicate. They aren't. Delicacy is a trait I'd attach to "scene extrapolation," the idea being to make scene initiation seem an outgrowth of prior events, objective, unintentional, non-threatening, but not to the way I've come to frame scenes in games I've run recently. . . . I'm having trouble capturing in dispassionate words what it's like, so I'm going to have to dispense with dispassionate words. By god, when I'm framing scenes, and I'm in the zone, I'm turning a freakin' firehose of adversity and situation on the character. It is not an objective outgrowth of prior events. It's intentional as all get out. We've had a group character session, during which it was my job to find out what the player finds interesting about the character. And I know what I find interesting. I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this. And like Scott's "Point A to Point B" model says, the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.​




So the DM creates point A... and upon failure controls point B... so the players only control point B in succeeding... is that correct? 



pemerton said:


> The introduction of complications is not _meant_ to be independent of the GM's inclinations. As   @_*LostSoul*_ said, you play with someone because you like their ideas, and they way they deploy them. But the GM has no capacity to control _outcomes_, for the reasons I already stated in this post.
> 
> (Notice also that Czege contrasts the use of "secret backstory" with scene-framing/story now/"fail forward"-type techniques.)




Youu haven't shown at all what (outside of the logic of the surrounding fiction) constrains the DM in forcing the story to go the way he wants to.  Even @_*Manbearcat*_ concedes that there are no rules that totally safeguard against this.  As to @_*LostSoul*_ 's comment... I totally agreed with him.  I suggest you might want to go back and se how this tangetn started and what my actual stance is before continuing to argue against the position you think I hold.



pemerton said:


> The phrase I have consistently used is "pre-authorship". I have contrasted play based on pre-authorship - and attendent techniques in play like adjudicating consequences by reference to secret backstory, and the players, by the play of their PCs, discovering or exploring the fiction that the GM has pre-authored - with play based on authorship in response to player action declarations.




EDIT: Fine we can use the term pre-authored...



pemerton said:


> Writing up stats for an NPC, or drawing a map for an inn or a castle or a cave, or even writing up a possible backstory for an NPC, is not pre-authorship. It does not establish any fictional content. You think there is some contrast between having an idea for an NPC, and writing that NPC up mechanically - I don't feel the force of the contrast myself, especially for a mechanically heavy game like 4e or BW where an idea isn't really fleshed out until it's given mechanical content.




I don't think it falls into the ralm of improv either... especially not on the spot improv.



pemerton said:


> (In 4e, of course, a whole lot of pre-statted stuff is available via the Monster Manuals, the trap/hazard stats in a range of books, etc. BW has less of that, and so I have to build more of my own.)




Yet what you claim to pre-prep exceeds generic stats for monsters...



pemerton said:


> Someone a _long_ way upthread - I think  @_*Campbell*_ - already made the point that "fail forward"/scene-framing play isn't about never preparing material, but is about when the fiction is authored. What is of interest to me is when and how the fiction is authored, and how this is related to adjudication of action declarations (very broadly speaking - is it an input, via "secret backstory", or is it an output, via "fail forward?).




Perhaps you should refocus your posts to zero in on this because right now we are discussing multiple facets of the different playstyles...


----------



## Manbearcat

Fair warning.  I'm not sure how long this is going to be, but I'm feeling a TLDR coming on.  First, I'm going to throw out some key terminology to differentiate what I'm talking about (and have been talking about).



*Situation*:  This is a singular conflict/scene whereby the PC, or PCs, must deal with adversarial elements/antagonists that interpose themselves between PC(s) and goal.  In Story Now systems, the game engine will have PC flags that serve as identity/ethos/relationship markers.  The GM mandate is to invoke/develop adversarial elements/antagonists that directly oppose this "flagged thematic material" such that they serve to test the PC's willingness/capability to actualize it or not (*).  That is the entire point of play.

In every Situation, players will play their PC's interests to the hilt while the GM plays the opposition.  The player inhabiting their PC fighting for their interests (emotional, ideological, utility, et al) against opposition is necessary for players who immerse in a certain way.  The player will declare actions, they will be resolved per the system's machinery, and eventually this will settle all disputed matters in the immediate Situation.  This will serve to propel the fiction such that it snowballs from Situation to Situation.  

In Freytag's Dramatic Structure, this would be Exposition and the beginning stages of the Rising Action ("scene-framing").  The context of the Rising Action will be (a) the point of play (* above) and (b) the relevance of prior established fiction.  Up for grabs for resolution in a Situation would be the Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement.

*Metaplot*:  This is when there is pre-authored material that extrapolates into the fiction's future beyond mere Situation (possibly all the way up to the end stages of Falling Action where the finality of the metaplot is up for grabs).  This material is most often "PC flag neutral".  The point of the material being "PC flag neutral" is to exhibit the evolution of independent offscreen happenings within the fiction.  The reason for this is because folks who immerse in a certain way feel that it is necessary for "a living, breathing, world" and therefore PC habitation.  

*Railroad*:  The imposition of Metaplot whereby players have little to no say in outcomes (most or all of Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement) during a string of Situations which represent the consequential aspects of play.  There is pre-authored material to play through in order to get to a moment in the pre-authored fiction whereby the players have access to dictate outcomes (this is typically the big showdown of the Falling Action, right before Denouement occurs).

*GM Force*:  Subversion of player agency (as expected by social contract, system, or both) by the GM.  It is an instance of imposition whereby the GM dictates the outcome of any of the Rising Action, Climax, or Falling Action which is supposed to be up for grabs for the players.  Even if only to move the Rising Action to the Climax, this still means that the integrity of player agency has been compromised because the trajectory of play forward has been propelled by the GM's whim/interests.

Finally, if the Denouement is propelled toward pre-authored material AND its evolution toward that path is incoherent (with respect to violating PC build flags - such as Burning Wheel Instincts, the present Situation and/or the prior established fiction), this would be another instance of GM Force.

*Illusionism*:  This is GM Force covertly deployed (typically manifesting as the manipulation of mechanical resolution toward a GM sought end).  



I'll post later on this.  I have somewhere to be.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> the more that fiction is authored in advance, and then used - as secret backstory - to determine consequences of players' action declarations for their PCs, then the more the play dynamic moves away from that which I prefer.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I disagree.  It doesn't move away at all.  It just moves differently. A pre-authored reason for a consequence in the player driven plot is equal to a the DM authored reason for the same consequence that the DM authored in the moment.  The story neither cares, nor is any way lessened by pre-authoring.
Click to expand...


I'm not sure what you mean by saying "the story doesn't care". Stories are abstract objects - they don't have emotional or affective responses.

But I care. Secret backstory used as an input into the adjudication of declared actions moves the play dynamic away from what I prefer, from player-driven to GM driven. I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "GM-authored reason for a consequence that the GM authored in the moment", but I think you mean _some new piece of fiction introduced to explain and elaborate a failed check_. That is very different. The new fiction isn't an _input_ into the adjudication. It is an output of it. The players' control over the fiction wasn't thwarted by something the GM had already (secretly) made up. Rather, the player(s) made a check, and failed, which hence licensed the GM to introduce new fiction giving effect to that failure (eg the absence of the mace from the tower; the dropping of the divining rod down the ravine; the turning of the tribe/cult upon the PC; etc).


----------



## sheadunne

pemerton said:


> The reason  [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] used the "pinball" characterisation is because, in this sort of game, he feels no deep connection between his PC and these pre-authored elements of the shared fiction.




Yep. It's not even a bad thing. It's relaxing sometimes. But if I want to get invested in my PC, I want there to be little pre-authored elements (remove all those secret backstory elements that make my decision-making meaningless) and as little prep time as necessary (be responsive to my character's actions). I don't even run pre-authored games anymore. It was a difficult transition to make, but it's been satisfactory so far in meeting my own needs when I run a game. It's harder though, to find games to play in that aren't pre-authored or that use heavy prep systems.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by saying "the story doesn't care". Stories are abstract objects - they don't have emotional or affective responses.




What I mean by that is that an equally riveting story will happen whether you pre-author or not.  The story just doesn't "care" what method you use.



> But I care. Secret backstory used as an input into the adjudication of declared actions moves the play dynamic away from what I prefer, from player-driven to GM driven.




It doesn't.  It's a shared story driven by both the DM and the players together, as all games are.  It's not driven by the DM unless the DM decides to drive it, which he can do whether he pre-authors or not.  



> I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "GM-authored reason for a consequence that the GM authored in the moment", but I think you mean _some new piece of fiction introduced to explain and elaborate a failed check_. That is very different. The new fiction isn't an _input_ into the adjudication. It is an output of it. The players' control over the fiction wasn't thwarted by something the GM had already (secretly) made up. Rather, the player(s) made a check, and failed, which hence licensed the GM to introduce new fiction giving effect to that failure (eg the absence of the mace from the tower; the dropping of the divining rod down the ravine; the turning of the tribe/cult upon the PC; etc).




What I am saying is that with your playstyle the reasons for why the DM authors the consequence comes up in the moment, rather than how my playstyle does it, which can involve a reason from the moment OR a pre-authored reason.  The players and I have pre-authored additions to the game to draw upon, which in my opinion is a huge advantage.


----------



## Balesir

grendel111111 said:


> I think you are confusing background, character, elements with "plot".



I don't think that's a confusion; I think it's a classic identity.

Plot is the collision of protagonist with antagonist(s) - which are characters and background elements (including organisations and "nature"). To the extent that those are set out beforehand, the plot is predetermined. This is, I think, what is meant by "player-driven plot" - if the players indicate what antagonists their (protagonist) PCs want to clash with, they get to control (or at least significantly influence) the direction of the plot. If they generate characters with one set of intended antagonistic themes and then have to "force-fit" them to other (supplied) antagonists, it _can be_ an unsatisfying experience.



Maxperson said:


> The players and I have pre-authored additions to the game to draw upon, which in my opinion is a huge advantage.



It can be an advantage, but I think it can also be a straitjacket. The trick, it seems to me, is to figure out - for your group(s) - what pre-configured background elements are useful, and which are unhelpfully constraining.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I have explained how.  The problem is you, as well as some other posters have this very narrowly defined defintion of what a pre-prep campaign has to be.  When others who use the techniques or play in the style then try to show/tell/demonstate that it is a much bigger tent than you seem to realize your response seems to ignore it or claim it's not "real" pre-prep or it's approximating improv (even though material is being created outside of play)...  Once you're willing to actually listen to those who use these tools in a different way you'l be able to better understand the flexibiltiy of the playstyle, but until then this is the adult equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going... "nuh uhn that's cheating!!"



I think you're missing my point(s):

(1) If the GM is not authoring the fiction until the action resolution check has been made, then we are in the general territory of "fail forward".

(2) If the GM is authoring fiction in advance - whether 1 year, 1 week or even 1 minute in advance - and using that "secret backstory" as part of the adjudication process, then we are out of "fail forward" territory and into "players exploring the GM's pre-authored material" territory.

The GM's pre-authored material might be very interesting. It might even have been written to be especially interesting to the players! But the way it is being used, as a constraint on the outcomes of action declaration that the players aren't aware of, is moving away from the sort of play that I prefer. Pointing to the various ways in which material might be pre-authored doesn't really change that.



Imaro said:


> I don't think it falls into the ralm of improv either... especially not on the spot improv.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Yet what you claim to pre-prep exceeds generic stats for monsters



I don't care about whether anyone labels how I play "improv". It's not a label I've used in this thread. I also don't know what you think is the difference between an NPC's stats and "generic stats for monsters". I don't use many "generic" monsters, either in 4e or BW. Stats are stats, and mechanically heavy games tend to need them.



Imaro said:


> In my comparison it is a single roll compared to a single roll (Skill check vs. percentage).  Your example compares a single roll (which lacks the variation, chance for real-time decision making, chances for extremes, etc. that the multiple rolls and rounds in a combat allow for) to an entire combat... of course there were posters on this very forum who did this (to a lesser extent) in 4e when they substituted SC's for actual combats so it may not be as improbable as you make it sound.



But substituting a skill challenge for normal combat mechanics _isn't _taking it out of the hands of the players! They get to make checks, expend their resources, etc to try and influence the outcome in the way that they (and their PCs) want it to be.

The issue of one roll vs multi-rolls is a red-herring. A number of RPGs (BW, HeroWars/Quest, I think FATE?) allow actions to be resolved as simple checks or via more complex action resolution systems. Substituting a flat % chance for a player's check is replacing something the player can influence (by choices at PC build, and by choices during actual play - eg whether to use some sort of ingame or metagame buff) with something the player cannot influence.



Imaro said:


> In the earlier mountain example, dropping the rod is in no way "contrary" to climbing the mountain... or was this example incorrect?



The player's desire (both in the real world, and in character) was to arrive at the top of Mt Pudding equipped with a divining rod - dropping the rod is a contrary result, in that if the PC continues to climb to the top s/he will get there sans rod. And if s/he stops to try and recover the rod then s/he is not at the top of the mountain.



Imaro said:


> You wanted a story around a Dark Elf and you got it.[/quoet]And my player wanted a story around a mace. And got it. Where is the railroad? Are you saying that anytime a GM authors something that s/he chooses rather than rolls randomly (on a table that _someone_ authored - there could be a vicious regress here . . .) that s/he is railroading?
> 
> 
> 
> Imaro said:
> 
> 
> 
> First I never said the DM is creating the story he wants... I said he has greater power to push the story in the direction he wants it to go
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This seems a distinction without a difference to me. If you are talking about railroading - which you were - then aren't you talking about pushing the story to some particular desired outcome? If all you're saying is that the GM gets to introduce elements into the fiction that are pleasing or amusing (or whatever) to him/her, then yes, that's obvious. As I've said way upthread, and have quoted Paul Czege on multiple times, the GM will introduce stuff that s/he thinks is interesting. What else would you expect him/her to do?
> 
> 
> 
> Imaro said:
> 
> 
> 
> you used the failed check to push the story towards something *YOU* had been thinking about and prepping beforehand.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> What event did I push it towards?
> 
> 
> 
> Imaro said:
> 
> 
> 
> So the DM creates point A... and upon failure controls point B... so the players only control point B in succeeding... is that correct?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Point B is narrated by the GM in response to the player's action declaration for his/her PC. Look at [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s example again. A big part of point B in that example is the effigies - the player controlled that, not the GM.
Click to expand...


----------



## chaochou

Imaro said:


> What purpose would that serve?




It might give your 'belief' a shred of credibility, since at the moment you're just hot-airing without any grounding of anything you say in actual play.



Imaro said:


> Especially since judging by your tone and inability to address what I actually posted, I don't believe you're interested in discussion.




Hello pot, have I introduced you to kettle?


----------



## Imaro

chaochou said:


> It might give your 'belief' a shred of credibility, since at the moment you're just hot-airing without any grounding of anything you say in actual play.
> 
> 
> 
> Hello pot, have I introduced you to kettle?




How about we just agree to disagree... Honestly, there are others here actually engaging with what I have posted and creating a back and forth... your purpose seems to have devolved into snippy one liners, which I'm not really interested in addressing.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Youu haven't shown at all what (outside of the logic of the surrounding fiction) constrains the DM in forcing the story to go the way he wants to.  Even @_*Manbearcat*_ concedes that there are no rules that totally safeguard against this.




Alright, I've got a few moments, here.

Just to be as clear as I can on this.  I haven't made any conscessions about anything.  My premise was that with heavy prep (which presumes granular setting and metaplot material, either created by the GM or digested via purchased module) comes greater investment in the material that has been prepped seeing table time.  Due to this temptation, there is a greater chance of the imposition of metaplot and "setting tourism" (the focus of play moving fundamentally from the PCs relationships/ethos/themes to experiencing the setting in motion - which immediately or eventually mutes the dynamic of the PCs as protagonists) than there is with light/minimal prep (even if this prep is focused and has high utility).

What I stated prior is that sytem (play agenda and play procedures) and social contract do the heavy lifting when it comes to mitigating the prospects of that imposition of metaplot and that dynamic of "setting tourism."  Can they reduce it to zero?  What I mean by that is "is it possible to have the imposition of metaplot and/or 'setting tourism' emerge regardless of system and social contract?"  My answer would be, "while it might be extremely remote, it is feasible."

For instance:

Take the Powered By the Apocalypse systems that  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] and I have been using for our play anecdotes (Apocalypse World and Dungeon World respectively).  These systems are at the far end of the "congenial/adversarial to metaplot and pre-authored, granular setting" continuum.  How does it accomplish this:

1)  The players roll ALL dice.

2)   The resolution mechanics are unified, simplified/streamlined, and completely transparent (I call that "elegant"). 

3)  The GM has explicit, non-negotiable instruction to:

a)  Follow the Rules.  Contrast this with White Wolf's Golden Rule or AD&D 2e's "Rule 0" whereby the GM is instructed to break rules, ignore rules, or subvert the resolution mechanics when their deployment leads to outcomes the GM doesn't want.

b)  Fill the Character's Lives with Danger/Adventure.  The system goes into great detail about how the guiding principles for play interface with reward cycle and resolution mechanics.  This is Baker's "push play toward conflict" and "escalate, escalate, escalate" from Dogs in the Vineyard.  * World games are designed to naturally do this.

c)  Play to Find Out What Happens.  This is literally anti-metaplot.  The outcomes of play procedures naturally lead to a snow-balling narrative filled with danger and adventure.  The system will actively fight you if you attempt to impose metaplot.  It is easier, and more profitable, to let plot emerge naturally through the course of play.

d)  Draw Maps, Leave Blanks.  Completely adversarial to granular, pre-authored setting.  "When you draw a map don’t try to make it complete. Leave room for the unknown. As you play you’ll get more ideas and the players will give you inspiration to work with. Let the maps expand and change."


So how would it be possible for a GM to impose metaplot and/or granular, pre-authored setting in a * World game?  By somehow overcoming 1 and obfuscating 2 (so the techniques of GM Force and/or Illusionism can be leveraged) while simultaneously ignoring some or all of 3a-d (with c actively fighting you and making your job harder).

In essence, they would be eschewing the game's agenda, breaking the rules, breaking the social contract (unless the players are actually complicit or utterly apathetic), and making their life more miserable than it would otherwise be (because the game is fighting them)...for no good reason.  So, one question would be "why the hell are you playing a * World game in the first place when you could be playing something more amenable to your play goals?"  Another question would be "if your players are complicit, why again are you running a * World game rather than a game that is amenable to the table's social contact?"

Possible in theory?  Yes.  If you're comfortable with the contention that you're actually still legitimately playing the game (rather than Calvinball) after you've willfully broken it to pieces and turned it into an abomination of itself.

Accepting the immediately above contention as true, then we're on to;  feasible in the real world?  Masochists exist...so, I guess?


----------



## Umbran

Sorry, I was away on vacation for a week, so I am far behind. There's one point I'd like to follow up on.



pemerton said:


> In the "player driven" game that uses scene framing, "fail forward" etc, the events are also reflective/expressive of "character driven" action in your sense of that term - the unfolding events also reflect the unfolding of the PC.




I am not convinced this is true.  At least, it is no more or less true of pre-authoring than improvisational authoring.  

To remind folks, I was using "character-driven" in the literary sense - being about the internal and emotional conflicts of the character (this contrasted wit plot-driven - being focused on the physical actions, or player-driven, in which it is mostly about what the player wants to do.  

Fail-forward, however, is primarily about pacing of game actions, not about setting the themes of play for a session.  It seems to me that if you are using fail forward to *change* the emotional themes under consideration, you're stepping rather beyond what the technique was really intended to do.  I am not sure why you aren't at least pushing this to the scene-framing level.

But, let's say you attempt to do so.  You need to have a pretty solid understanding of the character's buttons to press and chains to pull to make this work.  But, of course, the fact that you *need* to change themes means you hadn't correctly picked the right buttons to press or chains to pull earlier (whether pre-authored or improvised).  So, I'm not so sure this is the greatest idea.  

Of course, pre-authoring also requires this same understanding of the characters.  One *always* needs to have this understanding to do character-driven stories. Once you have that understanding, I think the implementation is six-of-one, half a dozen of the other, to be honest.



> It was an element in my recent discussion with [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] upthread. I think that when the GM authors material in this player-driven context, it is more likely to actually engage the players, and the dramatic concerns they are expressing for, and via the play of, their PCs.




The issue however, is that this risks the game devolving into, "everything is about them".  As if every element of the Universe revolves around them and what makes the PCs tick.  It is healthy, I think, to be presented with material that isn't chosen entirely based upon the PC's or player's desires.  And, on top of this - not every GM is good at improvisation!

I think, however, that not all pre-authoring is created equal.  Some of it is a helpful too, some is benign, and some is harmful to player engagement.  I find your presentation here a bit dogmatic on the point, to be honest.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> I think you're missing my point(s):
> 
> (1) If the GM is not authoring the fiction until the action resolution check has been made, then we are in the general territory of "fail forward".
> 
> (2) If the GM is authoring fiction in advance - whether 1 year, 1 week or even 1 minute in advance - and using that "secret backstory" as part of the adjudication process, then we are out of "fail forward" territory and into "players exploring the GM's pre-authored material" territory.
> 
> The GM's pre-authored material might be very interesting. It might even have been written to be especially interesting to the players! But the way it is being used, as a constraint on the outcomes of action declaration that the players aren't aware of, is moving away from the sort of play that I prefer. Pointing to the various ways in which material might be pre-authored doesn't really change that.




I think one of the biggest blockers to this conversation going further is the inability to have an agreed upon distinction between what material constitutes pre-authored "fiction" and what is in the moment authoring... I asked you as well as @_*Manbearcat*_... and someone else I believe what exactly are the boundaries between... fiction being pre-authored vs. pre-prepped vs. notes/ideas vs. in the moment authoring... could you take a minute to answer this as I think it will make our discussions more productive.



pemerton said:


> I don't care about whether anyone labels how I play "improv". It's not a label I've used in this thread. I also don't know what you think is the difference between an NPC's stats and "generic stats for monsters". I don't use many "generic" monsters, either in 4e or BW. Stats are stats, and mechanically heavy games tend to need them.




You haven't used improv... but you've continuously pointed to authoring in the moment of resolution, which IMO is the same as improv... otherwise like you said it doesn't matter if the fiction you present was authored a year ago, a month ago or a minute before... it's pre-authored  



pemerton said:


> But substituting a skill challenge for normal combat mechanics _isn't _taking it out of the hands of the players! They get to make checks, expend their resources, etc to try and influence the outcome in the way that they (and their PCs) want it to be.




Having a percentage chance to encounter something doesn't take it out of the hands of the players either... unless I forced the PC's to go into the area where this challenge has a chance to appear it was still their choices and actions that lead to the outcome where this roll takes place... correct?  And if it's "secret backstory" that's only because the players have failed or chosen not to find out about the area they are currently traversing.  



pemerton said:


> The issue of one roll vs multi-rolls is a red-herring. A number of RPGs (BW, HeroWars/Quest, I think FATE?) allow actions to be resolved as simple checks or via more complex action resolution systems. Substituting a flat % chance for a player's check is replacing something the player can influence (by choices at PC build, and by choices during actual play - eg whether to use some sort of ingame or metagame buff) with something the player cannot influence.




It's not a red herring... it's a very real difference with one roll.  certain things such as multiple resources, specific combat powers, etc. can or cannot be brought to bear depending on how the encounter is structured.  

As to your second point...Again as I stated unless you are forcing the players to take the actions that lead up to them being in the area (for a long enough time) for the chance that this encounter takes place... you're not replacing something the player can influence... you've let them influence themselves all the way into this situation.  The only difference is that you'rs depends on one final (pre-set) roll and mine depends on a different roll.  Also note at no point did I say they couldn't through actions, spells, etc. alter whether their chance to encounter the Dark Elf goes up or down... 



pemerton said:


> The player's desire (both in the real world, and in character) was to arrive at the top of Mt Pudding equipped with a divining rod - dropping the rod is a contrary result, in that if the PC continues to climb to the top s/he will get there sans rod. And if s/he stops to try and recover the rod then s/he is not at the top of the mountain.




No the stated goal was just to arrive at the top of Mt. Pudding... there was no mention of the rod in setting the goal.



Imaro said:


> You wanted a story around a Dark Elf and you got it.





pemerton said:


> IAnd my player wanted a story around a mace. And got it. Where is the railroad? Are you saying that anytime a GM authors something that s/he chooses rather than rolls randomly (on a table that _someone_ authored - there could be a vicious regress here . . .) that s/he is railroading?
> 
> This seems a distinction without a difference to me. If you are talking about railroading - which you were - then aren't you talking about pushing the story to some particular desired outcome? If all you're saying is that the GM gets to introduce elements into the fiction that are pleasing or amusing (or whatever) to him/her, then yes, that's obvious. As I've said way upthread, and have quoted Paul Czege on multiple times, the GM will introduce stuff that s/he thinks is interesting. What else would you expect him/her to do?




One could claim you used DM force to push them into an encounter with the Dark Elf, probably because you had a desire to use the NPC you created beforehand... you decided arbitrarily what their failure would mean (encountering the Dark Elf NPC you had pre-authored outside of play)...   And to be totally honest, I'm not sure how "Dark Elf appears" is contrary to "Successfully navigated your way"...



pemerton said:


> What event did I push it towards?




An encounter with the Dark Elf NPC you created outside of play.



pemerton said:


> Point B is narrated by the GM in response to the player's action declaration for his/her PC. Look at @_*chaochou*_'s example again. A big part of point B in that example is the effigies - the player controlled that, not the GM.




The GM controlled the tribe's reactions, and the player being placed in the effigies... the player created the effigies but ultimately exerted no control over anything he created after one bad roll. That one roll allowed the DM to decide where the player would end up, what would happen to the effigies and what the tribe would do...

EDIT: IMO all you've actually done is  changed rule zero from being available to the GM at all times to only making it available when a player fails a roll... or needs a consequence... but ultimately you're still using rule zero.


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> Alright, I've got a few moments, here.
> 
> Just to be as clear as I can on this.  I haven't made any conscessions about anything.  My premise was that with heavy prep (which presumes granular setting and metaplot material, either created by the GM or digested via purchased module) comes greater investment in the material that has been prepped seeing table time.  Due to this temptation, there is a greater chance of the imposition of metaplot and "setting tourism" (the focus of play moving fundamentally from the PCs relationships/ethos/themes to experiencing the setting in motion - which immediately or eventually mutes the dynamic of the PCs as protagonists) than there is with light/minimal prep (even if this prep is focused and has high utility).




So you're just stating your belief... with no actual proof or play examples where you pre-authored and then it caused you to railroad your players... okay got it, just wanted to make sure @_*chaochou*_ was aware that were just stating what we believe without a shred of evidence...



Manbearcat said:


> What I stated prior is that sytem (play agenda and play procedures) and social contract do the heavy lifting when it comes to mitigating the prospects of that imposition of metaplot and that dynamic of "setting tourism."  Can they reduce it to zero?  What I mean by that is "is it possible to have the imposition of metaplot and/or 'setting tourism' emerge regardless of system and social contract?"  My answer would be, "while it might be extremely remote, it is feasible."




So then you do concede that no system can eliminate it in all DM's 100% of the time... which is exactly what I stated above and you made it a point to say you didn't concede anything...



Manbearcat said:


> For instance:
> 
> Take the Powered By the Apocalypse systems that   @_*chaochou*_ and I have been using for our play anecdotes (Apocalypse World and Dungeon World respectively).  These systems are at the far end of the "congenial/adversarial to metaplot and pre-authored, granular setting" continuum.  How does it accomplish this:
> 
> 1)  The players roll ALL dice.
> 
> 2)   The resolution mechanics are unified, simplified/streamlined, and completely transparent (I call that "elegant").
> 
> 3)  The GM has explicit, non-negotiable instruction to:
> 
> a)  Follow the Rules.  Contrast this with White Wolf's Golden Rule or AD&D 2e's "Rule 0" whereby the GM is instructed to break rules, ignore rules, or subvert the resolution mechanics when their deployment leads to outcomes the GM doesn't want.
> 
> b)  Fill the Character's Lives with Danger/Adventure.  The system goes into great detail about how the guiding principles for play interface with reward cycle and resolution mechanics.  This is Baker's "push play toward conflict" and "escalate, escalate, escalate" from Dogs in the Vineyard.  * World games are designed to naturally do this.
> 
> c)  Play to Find Out What Happens.  This is literally anti-metaplot.  The outcomes of play procedures naturally lead to a snow-balling narrative filled with danger and adventure.  The system will actively fight you if you attempt to impose metaplot.  It is easier, and more profitable, to let plot emerge naturally through the course of play.
> 
> d)  Draw Maps, Leave Blanks.  Completely adversarial to granular, pre-authored setting.  "When you draw a map don’t try to make it complete. Leave room for the unknown. As you play you’ll get more ideas and the players will give you inspiration to work with. Let the maps expand and change."
> 
> 
> So how would it be possible for a GM to impose metaplot and/or granular, pre-authored setting in a * World game?  By somehow overcoming 1 and obfuscating 2 (so the techniques of GM Force and/or Illusionism can be leveraged) while simultaneously ignoring some or all of 3a-d (with c actively fighting you and making your job harder).
> 
> In essence, they would be eschewing the game's agenda, breaking the rules, breaking the social contract (unless the players are actually complicit or utterly apathetic), and making their life more miserable than it would otherwise be (because the game is fighting them)...for no good reason.  So, one question would be "why the hell are you playing a * World game in the first place when you could be playing something more amenable to your play goals?"  Another question would be "if your players are complicit, why again are you running a * World game rather than a game that is amenable to the table's social contact?"
> 
> Possible in theory?  Yes.  If you're comfortable with the contention that you're actually still legitimately playing the game (rather than Calvinball) after you've willfully broken it to pieces and turned it into an abomination of itself.
> 
> Accepting the immediately above contention as true, then we're on to;  feasible in the real world?  Masochists exist...so, I guess?




While in general I agree one should choose a system that doesn't actively go against ones preferred playstyle... I will say that all GM's aren't even aware they have a preferred playstyle, much less analyze themselves and their games to the point where they can become self-aware of what they prefer... and even if you are involved in the hobby enough to hash all of this out, you still may want to experiment with games to see if they are for you or work with how you want to run them (irregardless of the games mechanics or agenda).  On top of that house rules are (at least to the majority of gamers) an accepted part of the hobby so you also have to have an understanding of how the pieces of the game work to enforce agenda or risk changing something (knowingly or unknowingly) that can change how play turns out.  

If I am creating the outcomes of failures from pre-authored material am I breaking any of the rules you stated above?? 

)  The players roll ALL dice.... sure since I'll be deciding the difficulty, or deciding outcomes if they fail... why not.

2)   The resolution mechanics are unified, simplified/streamlined, and completely transparent (I call that "elegant").... cool... sounds like many OSR games. 

3)  The GM has explicit, non-negotiable instruction to:

a)  Follow the Rules... not breaking any rules (especially those that allow me to decide the outcomes of failures)

b)  Fill the Character's Lives with Danger/Adventure... can definitely do this with pre-authored content...

c)  Play to Find Out What Happens... Here we go, of course even if I use pre-authored content I'm still playing to see what happens since 

1.  I only decide the outcomes for failures

2.  It's the trip to the outcome that will vary, thus me knowing the destination (the dragon's lair) or even the path to get there (At the top of Fire Mountain)  does not in and of itself invalidate playing to see what happens...   

d)  Draw Maps, Leave Blanks... Most maps are incomplete at some level...

Which is to say IMO (as I said earlier) shows that true railroading is GM/DM dependent, not a result of chosen playstyle.  Masochist or not, no game can guarantee a GM who wants the PC's to end up somewhere, do a specific thing, experience a particular event etc. can't make it happen.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> I think one of the biggest blockers to this conversation going further is the inability to have an agreed upon distinction between what material constitutes pre-authored "fiction" and what is in the moment authoring... I asked you as well as @_*Manbearcat*_... and someone else I believe what exactly are the boundaries between... fiction being pre-authored vs. pre-prepped vs. notes/ideas vs. in the moment authoring... could you take a minute to answer this as I think it will make our discussions more productive.




I think there is a lot of nuance in where items reside on the "improvisation" continuum and why they reside there.  This makes it a bit difficult to communicate things conceptually.  I'm going to take quick shot at it.

In my recent Dungeon World game, here are a few elements that are relevant to the fiction:

1)  On the far end of the spectrum toward pre-authored lies the general locale and the general nature of the threat to be confronted.  This is (a) an isolated sister settlement in frozen highland country that is cut off from the lowland civilization due to harsh conditions and blocking terrain making the primary route not traversable by normal travelers.  (b) The looming threat is Far Realm in nature.  

However, the framing of the two scenes that established these was authored by each player (a Bang - a player authored kicker that gets us into the action).  Their backstory scenes firmly established this prior to play.  

2)  In the middle of the spectrum lies something like Schrodinger's Glacial Crevasse.  While I authored this completely off the cuff as a result of a failed Scout roll during an Undertake a Perilous Journey (group) move, failing to properly scout while traversing a glacial wasteland would naturally lead to an encounter with a topographical hazard or some other more malignant threat.  If this were a game where consequences were derived by a pre-authored table and then rolled upon, a crevasse would definitely be on that table.  Further, I think such a table would move things further toward pre-authored and away from improvised.

3)  Finally we arrive at completely improvised material.  Examples of this would be a locale (Earthmaw, a hobgoblin trading outpost/kingdom) and a denizen (Averandox the Ancient White/Blizzard Dragon that claims the highlands as his territory).  Both of these were authored entirely in the moment as a result of successful (10+) player action declarations where I'm obliged (or I allow them to) to introduce something both (i) interesting and (ii) useful into the established setting/backstory/continuity.

There is my first pass (totally improvised!).


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> if I use pre-authored content I'm still playing to see what happens since
> 
> 1.  I only decide the outcomes for failures



Pre-authoring means that some failures are dictated in advance. Eg if I've decided that the mace is not in the ruined tower, then the check to find it will fail _regardless of what the players roll, or how many resources they devote to making the check succeed_.

It also means that some other aspects of outcomes are dictated in advance. If the GM has pre-authored that (for instance) the dark elf has fouled the waterhole, then the PCs will have trouble with water regardless of their navigation/survival checks.

Those are not insignificant differences between pre-authoring and scene-framing/"fail forward" play.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> Pre-authoring means that some failures are dictated in advance. Eg if I've decided that the mace is not in the ruined tower, then the check to find it will fail _regardless of what the players roll, or how many resources they devote to making the check succeed_.
> 
> It also means that some other aspects of outcomes are dictated in advance. If the GM has pre-authored that (for instance) the dark elf has fouled the waterhole, then the PCs will have trouble with water regardless of their navigation/survival checks.
> 
> Those are not insignificant differences between pre-authoring and scene-framing/"fail forward" play.




Isn't this unavoidable?  It's just a question of where the scale & granularity falls... as you yourself said in an earlier post... there are no Dark Elves in the dessert, thus any skill check to search for a Dark Elf in the dessert will fail regardless of resources or rolls.

I am curious about something... could a PC search for that mace anywhere in your campaign world and if the check was successful find it?  If so... I can see why some would feel this style has a greater chance for incoherent outcomes...  if not then you have already decided certain failures are pre-authored.


EDIT: To address your second point about the water being fouled... that is not true.  A survivalist could in theory find a way to purify the water... a spellcaster might be able t purify the water... and so on.  See IMO this is the difference between railroading vs pre-authoring.  Pre-authoring does not suppose a solution can or cannot be found... it just is.


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> I think there is a lot of nuance in where items reside on the "improvisation" continuum and why they reside there.  This makes it a bit difficult to communicate things conceptually.  I'm going to take quick shot at it.
> 
> In my recent Dungeon World game, here are a few elements that are relevant to the fiction:
> 
> 1)  On the far end of the spectrum toward pre-authored lies the general locale and the general nature of the threat to be confronted.  This is (a) an isolated sister settlement in frozen highland country that is cut off from the lowland civilization due to harsh conditions and blocking terrain making the primary route not traversable by normal travelers.  (b) The looming threat is Far Realm in nature.
> 
> However, the framing of the two scenes that established these was authored by each player (a Bang - a player authored kicker that gets us into the action).  Their backstory scenes firmly established this prior to play.
> 
> 2)  In the middle of the spectrum lies something like Schrodinger's Glacial Crevasse.  While I authored this completely off the cuff as a result of a failed Scout roll during an Undertake a Perilous Journey (group) move, failing to properly scout while traversing a glacial wasteland would naturally lead to an encounter with a topographical hazard or some other more malignant threat.  If this were a game where consequences were derived by a pre-authored table and then rolled upon, a crevasse would definitely be on that table.  Further, I think such a table would move things further toward pre-authored and away from improvised.
> 
> 3)  Finally we arrive at completely improvised material.  Examples of this would be a locale (Earthmaw, a hobgoblin trading outpost/kingdom) and a denizen (Averandox the Ancient White/Blizzard Dragon that claims the highlands as his territory).  Both of these were authored entirely in the moment as a result of successful (10+) player action declarations where I'm obliged (or I allow them to) to introduce something both (i) interesting and (ii) useful into the established setting/backstory/continuity.
> 
> There is my first pass (totally improvised!).




I don't have time now but I'll come back and address this once I think on it some more.  Thanks for taking the time to type this up.


----------



## Balesir

Balesir said:


> Plot is the collision of protagonist with antagonist(s) - which are characters and background elements (including organisations and "nature"). To the extent that those are set out beforehand, the plot is predetermined. This is, I think, what is meant by "player-driven plot" - if the players indicate what antagonists their (protagonist) PCs want to clash with, they get to control (or at least significantly influence) the direction of the plot. If they generate characters with one set of intended antagonistic themes and then have to "force-fit" them to other (supplied) antagonists, it _can be_ an unsatisfying experience.



Sorry to be replying to my own post, but I had some further thoughts from this that I think relate to both [MENTION=6803870]grendel111111[/MENTION]'s post this was replying to and [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION]'s post about plot/character driven narratives.

If I take a very generic and well established description of "Story", a story is formed as follows:

- Start with a protagonist. This is, in a sense, an artificial position, in that a protagonist from one point of view might be an antagonist from another, but from the point of view of the storyteller - and, I think, the roleplayer - there will always be one protagonist. This is simply the character who will take up our next element; the Dramatic Need

- The Dramatic Need is the motivation or impulse that drives the protagonist to act. It is the thing they need to get - be it a maguffin, an emotional state, a social position or whatever - in order to be Satisfied. The protagonist seeking after the Dramatic Need is what is going to kick the Story into motion.

- Finally, add an Antagonist. This is anyone and anything that acts to prevent the Protagonist having the Dramatic Need. It might be a character, it might be a force of nature, it might even be within the Protagonist's own mind. Its job is to create difficulties and conflict.

Now, in just about any roleplaying game, the "story" is told from the perspective of the player characters. This applies even if "stroytelling" is not the primary (or even a major) focus of play, because even as we live our own lives, we naturally fill the role of "Protagonist" in our own (auto)biographies. It's just the point of view we are born with.

Now let's consider how pre-authoring and "scenario design" fits with this.

If we take a typical "Adventure Path", what we frequently find is that NPCs - typically villains - have already seized a role in the nature of "Protagonist". Professor Evil is engaged in a scheme that, should he bring it to completion, will fill the world with Bad... The "initiating protagonist" has already manifested a "dramatic need" to seize power and destroy all that is peaceful and good (or whatever). The PCs enter this story by becoming "Protagonists via antagonism", in a sense, in that their Dramatic Need is expected to be "stop Professor Evil". Even in variant cases of this sort of adventure, such as when the baddies have already seized a centre of learning and goodness (such as Gardmore Abbey or the Keep on the Borderlands), the Dramatic Need is presented to the players and they are expected to have their characters adopt it.

So much for the "AP extreme". What about sandboxes and the like?

It seems to me that a sandbox campaign is in essence a smorgasbord of Dramatic Needs, each similar to those commonly used in adventure paths or involving treasure seeking and the like, for the players to pick from for their character. "Story" in this case will rely on the players picking up one of these Dramatic Needs for their character(s).

Even what I'll call "reactive sandboxes" seem to me to rely on the GM guessing or inferring Dramatic Needs that the players will be interested in and adding them to the sandbox smorgasbord.

What I begin to see as distinctive in what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] are talking about is that it is the _players_ that are expected to provide the Dramatic Needs. Their range of options in this respect is not limited to those placed on the table by the GM; they are bounded only by the Social Contract that surrounds play. By having rules that explicitly say:

Success = success in progressing towards your chosen Dramatic Need
Failure = an obstacle or roadblock in the path toward your chosen Dramatic Need

...I see the players as being able to set not only the Protagonist (which is pretty universal in RPGs) but also the Dramatic Need (which is controlled by the GM when pre-authoring is happening) and thereby something about the nature of the Antagonist(s).

This, I think, might be the nub of what the mustard-keen "fail forwardites" are expressing. I think it is not a panacea, personally. Sometimes players do not _want_ to have control over Dramatic Needs; sometimes they find it preferable to pick from a smorgasbord (or even have the Dramatic Need handed to them) rather than have to create something from whole cloth. Nevertheless, I cannot but agree that the freedom of (self) expression given by the ability to set the Dramatic Need (and thus substantially determine the theme of the plot) is fundamentally different in play than any of the "provided Dramatic Need" alternatives that form the bulk of "mainstream roleplaying".


----------



## grendel111111

Balesir said:


> Sorry to be replying to my own post, but I had some further thoughts from this that I think relate to both [MENTION=6803870]grendel111111[/MENTION]'s post this was replying to and [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION]'s post about plot/character driven narratives.
> 
> If I take a very generic and well established description of "Story", a story is formed as follows:
> 
> - Start with a protagonist. This is, in a sense, an artificial position, in that a protagonist from one point of view might be an antagonist from another, but from the point of view of the storyteller - and, I think, the roleplayer - there will always be one protagonist. This is simply the character who will take up our next element; the Dramatic Need
> 
> - The Dramatic Need is the motivation or impulse that drives the protagonist to act. It is the thing they need to get - be it a maguffin, an emotional state, a social position or whatever - in order to be Satisfied. The protagonist seeking after the Dramatic Need is what is going to kick the Story into motion.
> 
> - Finally, add an Antagonist. This is anyone and anything that acts to prevent the Protagonist having the Dramatic Need. It might be a character, it might be a force of nature, it might even be within the Protagonist's own mind. Its job is to create difficulties and conflict.
> 
> Now, in just about any roleplaying game, the "story" is told from the perspective of the player characters. This applies even if "stroytelling" is not the primary (or even a major) focus of play, because even as we live our own lives, we naturally fill the role of "Protagonist" in our own (auto)biographies. It's just the point of view we are born with.
> 
> Now let's consider how pre-authoring and "scenario design" fits with this.
> 
> If we take a typical "Adventure Path", what we frequently find is that NPCs - typically villains - have already seized a role in the nature of "Protagonist". Professor Evil is engaged in a scheme that, should he bring it to completion, will fill the world with Bad... The "initiating protagonist" has already manifested a "dramatic need" to seize power and destroy all that is peaceful and good (or whatever). The PCs enter this story by becoming "Protagonists via antagonism", in a sense, in that their Dramatic Need is expected to be "stop Professor Evil". Even in variant cases of this sort of adventure, such as when the baddies have already seized a centre of learning and goodness (such as Gardmore Abbey or the Keep on the Borderlands), the Dramatic Need is presented to the players and they are expected to have their characters adopt it.
> 
> So much for the "AP extreme". What about sandboxes and the like?
> 
> It seems to me that a sandbox campaign is in essence a smorgasbord of Dramatic Needs, each similar to those commonly used in adventure paths or involving treasure seeking and the like, for the players to pick from for their character. "Story" in this case will rely on the players picking up one of these Dramatic Needs for their character(s).
> 
> Even what I'll call "reactive sandboxes" seem to me to rely on the GM guessing or inferring Dramatic Needs that the players will be interested in and adding them to the sandbox smorgasbord.
> 
> What I begin to see as distinctive in what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] are talking about is that it is the _players_ that are expected to provide the Dramatic Needs. Their range of options in this respect is not limited to those placed on the table by the GM; they are bounded only by the Social Contract that surrounds play. By having rules that explicitly say:
> 
> Success = success in progressing towards your chosen Dramatic Need
> Failure = an obstacle or roadblock in the path toward your chosen Dramatic Need
> 
> ...I see the players as being able to set not only the Protagonist (which is pretty universal in RPGs) but also the Dramatic Need (which is controlled by the GM when pre-authoring is happening) and thereby something about the nature of the Antagonist(s).
> 
> This, I think, might be the nub of what the mustard-keen "fail forwardites" are expressing. I think it is not a panacea, personally. Sometimes players do not _want_ to have control over Dramatic Needs; sometimes they find it preferable to pick from a smorgasbord (or even have the Dramatic Need handed to them) rather than have to create something from whole cloth. Nevertheless, I cannot but agree that the freedom of (self) expression given by the ability to set the Dramatic Need (and thus substantially determine the theme of the plot) is fundamentally different in play than any of the "provided Dramatic Need" alternatives that form the bulk of "mainstream roleplaying".




The problem that I have is that it is being portrayed as only 2 choices. Story now = player involvement, pre-authored = player just along for the ride.

In an AP it is made generic due to the need to put any PC's into those, and to have the widest appeal. While I do not use AP's except to pull out maps/ interesting encounters/ concepts, if I did I would adapt them to the party that was running through it.

Sand boxes are being portrayed the same way... everything done in isolation and then the players are added later. They can be done that way but it is not the only way to do it.

But you can build a sand box with the characters molded into it. You have a lose shell (major cities, map with key geography, etc.) and as the characters are made their background fleshes out the world. "Where were you being a thief?", "What enemies did you form while working for the king?", "Who are you wanting revenge against?". The characters interests become part of the world (but not the only thing in the world). So the idea that pre-authored must mean the PC's are just bouncing around with no interest or connection to the world is seeing a limit of AP's and applying it to all pre-authored content.

It is definitely a different experience when you are playing. (one that as player I prefer). There gets to a point where coincidences pile up too much, where everything just neatly fits around a character too well. Sometimes a couple of drunk thugs are just a couple of drunk thugs. 

There is also that I dislike the idea of rolling for the character to "get what he wants/something happens that he doesn't like". For some games it works fine (super hero games/ leverage/ Heist games). but the style of game I want to play isn't always at that removed scale. And that come down to choosing the system and approach that gives the game you want.


----------



## grendel111111

Manbearcat said:


> Alright, I've got a few moments, here.
> 
> Just to be as clear as I can on this.  I haven't made any conscessions about anything.  My premise was that with heavy prep (which presumes granular setting and metaplot material, either created by the GM or digested via purchased module) comes greater investment in the material that has been prepped seeing table time.  Due to this temptation, there is a greater chance of the imposition of metaplot and "setting tourism" (the focus of play moving fundamentally from the PCs relationships/ethos/themes to experiencing the setting in motion - which immediately or eventually mutes the dynamic of the PCs as protagonists) than there is with light/minimal prep (even if this prep is focused and has high utility).
> 
> What I stated prior is that sytem (play agenda and play procedures) and social contract do the heavy lifting when it comes to mitigating the prospects of that imposition of metaplot and that dynamic of "setting tourism."  Can they reduce it to zero?  What I mean by that is "is it possible to have the imposition of metaplot and/or 'setting tourism' emerge regardless of system and social contract?"  My answer would be, "while it might be extremely remote, it is feasible."
> 
> For instance:
> 
> Take the Powered By the Apocalypse systems that  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] and I have been using for our play anecdotes (Apocalypse World and Dungeon World respectively).  These systems are at the far end of the "congenial/adversarial to metaplot and pre-authored, granular setting" continuum.  How does it accomplish this:
> 
> 1)  The players roll ALL dice.
> 
> 2)   The resolution mechanics are unified, simplified/streamlined, and completely transparent (I call that "elegant").
> 
> 3)  The GM has explicit, non-negotiable instruction to:
> 
> a)  Follow the Rules.  Contrast this with White Wolf's Golden Rule or AD&D 2e's "Rule 0" whereby the GM is instructed to break rules, ignore rules, or subvert the resolution mechanics when their deployment leads to outcomes the GM doesn't want.
> 
> b)  Fill the Character's Lives with Danger/Adventure.  The system goes into great detail about how the guiding principles for play interface with reward cycle and resolution mechanics.  This is Baker's "push play toward conflict" and "escalate, escalate, escalate" from Dogs in the Vineyard.  * World games are designed to naturally do this.
> 
> c)  Play to Find Out What Happens.  This is literally anti-metaplot.  The outcomes of play procedures naturally lead to a snow-balling narrative filled with danger and adventure.  The system will actively fight you if you attempt to impose metaplot.  It is easier, and more profitable, to let plot emerge naturally through the course of play.
> 
> d)  Draw Maps, Leave Blanks.  Completely adversarial to granular, pre-authored setting.  "When you draw a map don’t try to make it complete. Leave room for the unknown. As you play you’ll get more ideas and the players will give you inspiration to work with. Let the maps expand and change."
> 
> 
> So how would it be possible for a GM to impose metaplot and/or granular, pre-authored setting in a * World game?  By somehow overcoming 1 and obfuscating 2 (so the techniques of GM Force and/or Illusionism can be leveraged) while simultaneously ignoring some or all of 3a-d (with c actively fighting you and making your job harder).
> 
> In essence, they would be eschewing the game's agenda, breaking the rules, breaking the social contract (unless the players are actually complicit or utterly apathetic), and making their life more miserable than it would otherwise be (because the game is fighting them)...for no good reason.  So, one question would be "why the hell are you playing a * World game in the first place when you could be playing something more amenable to your play goals?"  Another question would be "if your players are complicit, why again are you running a * World game rather than a game that is amenable to the table's social contact?"
> 
> Possible in theory?  Yes.  If you're comfortable with the contention that you're actually still legitimately playing the game (rather than Calvinball) after you've willfully broken it to pieces and turned it into an abomination of itself.
> 
> Accepting the immediately above contention as true, then we're on to;  feasible in the real world?  Masochists exist...so, I guess?




I agree it would seem strange to choose a * world game and ignore it's strengths and goals.

What I am interested in is using the style in other games. For example using it in 5e. What is 5e bringing to the table that makes you want to use 5e with this style rather than going to a game which has what you want implicitly built into the system. It seems that if the experience you are wanting is in the realms of * world style, why try and force another system to change to fit that. (I can see using some of the tools, but I don't understand wanting to change the underlying assumptions of the game to such a great extent).


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Pre-authoring means that some failures are dictated in advance. Eg if I've decided that the mace is not in the ruined tower, then the check to find it will fail _regardless of what the players roll, or how many resources they devote to making the check succeed_.




True, but it also adds depth to the scene that is not able to be there if everything is authored in the moment.  A few limitations are also not a bad thing, especially when those limitations enhance a scene past where it could be without them being there.  

This game is all about reasonable limitations adding to the game.  You are limited in race choices.  You are limited in class choices.  You are limited in what abilities you get once you choose a class.  All of those limitations enhance the game.



> It also means that some other aspects of outcomes are dictated in advance. If the GM has pre-authored that (for instance) the dark elf has fouled the waterhole, then the PCs will have trouble with water regardless of their navigation/survival checks.




Why would that be true?  Why couldn't the survival roll include the possible outcome of making the water drinkable?


----------



## pemerton

Umbran said:


> I am not convinced this is true.  At least, it is no more or less true of pre-authoring than improvisational authoring.
> 
> To remind folks, I was using "character-driven" in the literary sense - being about the internal and emotional conflicts of the character (this contrasted wit plot-driven - being focused on the physical actions, or player-driven, in which it is mostly about what the player wants to do.
> 
> Fail-forward, however, is primarily about pacing of game actions, not about setting the themes of play for a session.  It seems to me that if you are using fail forward to *change* the emotional themes under consideration, you're stepping rather beyond what the technique was really intended to do.  I am not sure why you aren't at least pushing this to the scene-framing level.



When I think "fail forward", I think foremost of Burning Wheel. In 13th Age and his new intro to the 20th anniversary edition of Over the Edge, Tweet attributes the self-conscious terminology and exposition of "fail forward" to Luke Crane (BW) and Ron Edwards. I don't know Sorcerer very well, which is probably why for me it is Luke Crane and BW that is foremost in my mind on "fail forward".

The way that Luke Crane explains "fail forward" in the BW rules is that, in narrating failure, the GM should focus on _intent_ rather than _task_. That is to say, the player (and PC) intent for the declared action is not realised, and something undesired arises instead. Whether or not this is due to a failed _task_ then becomes a secondary consideration - the GM is encouraged to narrate as seems likely to drive the game forward, given what has come before and given the dramatic orientation of the PC (which, in BW, is partly expressed through Beliefs and Instincts as PC build elements).

This is why I think there is a non-accidental connection between "fail forward" as a technique and character-driven story. The GM, in focusing on _intent_ to narrate failure, is focusing on what the character wanted, and why s/he didn't get it. And does so in a way that engaged with the dramatic orientation of that PC, so as to continue to provoke action declarations which will be resolved and generate unfolding consequences using the same methodology.



Maxperson said:


> What I mean by that is that an equally riveting story will happen whether you pre-author or not.



This can be true. Some railroads can be good stories. But for me, in RPGing, the riveting quality of the story is not all that matters. Authorship - including how authorship and influence over authorship is distributed among players and GM - also matters to me.



grendel111111 said:


> I decide outcome based on players declared actions (success, failure, unsure). To decide this I know the NPC's temperament, what they want from life, etc. Sometimes that means what the players want to do is impossible (I try to persuade the king to commit suicide, I look for a mace (that isn't there)).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If the player says their character goes into his bedroom to get look for his lost keys, then that is what he is doing. He is trying to discover if his keys are in his room. I lost my keys the other day (my flatmate had borrowed them to get something from the car and put them in the kitchen instead of my room where I thought I had left them) I searched the hell out of my room. I did not find my keys (I did find $1000 that had fallen behind my bed though). They was a successful search, I established that the keys were not there.



Real life, though, isn't primarily about trying to influence the content of a shared fiction.

Whereas, for me at least, that's what playing an RPG involves. So the action declaration "I look for the . . ." isn't (primarily) about seeking information or evidence of some already-given truth. It's about participating in the shared creation of a fiction about a character looking for such-and-such.

If something is _really_ impossible, then (in my preferred approach) no action declaration takes place. I just tell the player that it's not possible for his/her PC to do that thing.



Imaro said:


> Isn't this unavoidable?  It's just a question of where the scale & granularity falls... as you yourself said in an earlier post... there are no Dark Elves in the dessert, thus any skill check to search for a Dark Elf in the dessert will fail regardless of resources or rolls.



In that context I was talking about my narrations of failure.

A player can have his/her PC hope to meet a Dark Elf in the desert, though. In BW that is via the Circles mechanic; in 4e it would most likely be a Streetwise check. There are rules for setting the DC, and the unlikeliness of the location is part of those rules. But it can be done: the PCs in my game were rescued from the ocean because the player of the elven princess made a successful Circles check to meet an elven sea-captain (in the fiction, the sea-captain new that the princess was missing, and was searching for her at sea).



Imaro said:


> I am curious about something... could a PC search for that mace anywhere in your campaign world and if the check was successful find it?  If so... I can see why some would feel this style has a greater chance for incoherent outcomes...  if not then you have already decided certain failures are pre-authored.



As with Circles, Scavenging has DCs associated with it. In my session on Sunday the mage PC used his Second Sight to look for magic items in the chambers of an (allegedly) evil priest. We discussed the situation a bit, and then I set a DC (including setting the stakes - because using Second Sight makes it harder for the character to operate on the mundane physical plane, I made it clear that a failed check would mean that the priest was able to get the drop on the PC and knock him out with a blow from behind). The roll was made, and succeeded, and the character found a magic item (that I had to make up on the spot, given I had given this no prior thought).



grendel111111 said:


> If they go to city x then there will be thing happening in the city independent of the characters that they can choose to or not to get involved with. But if you have a thief in the party you will make sure the thieves guild is a big part of the city. If they are a cleric of a church then either their church will be in the city or a rival church. The characters interests will be more fully fleshed out in these area. Their family member might be in danger, or need help. Just because this doesn't happen in the way that you want it to doesn't mean that characters interests aren't being taken into account.



As you describe this, this sounds like fairly orthodox scene-framing: the GM frames the PC into some sort of conflict or challenge where the stakes of the situation are something in which the player (and the PC, as built/played by the player) are emotionally/thematically invested.

Whether the GM comes up with the idea for the scene during the session, in the shower a week before the session, or from reading a module, is (in my view) not a big deal. Actually _framing_ the scene in the course of play can require some deftness - eg if it comes from nowhere, relative to the preceding fiction, it can look pretty heavy-handed. And if the players are on a roll in respect of X, a GM might want to be careful about suddenly veering the focus of play onto Y.

The big question for me, in the context of this thread, is: once the GM frames the scene, how is its resolution handled? In my experience (play experience, observing other groups playing, experience of reading others' account of their games) plenty of GMs have a pre-authored destination for the scene, at least in a rough-and-ready sense. (Eg the cleric PC will join with his/her fellow brethren in defending the temple against attack, and the defenders will win that fight). If the choices of the player(s), or the roll of the dice, send things in a different direction then things become unstuck.

Related to this: I believe that many GMs hold back from framing scenes that are as "full-blooded" as they might be, precisely because they don't want to run the risk of things unfolding in a way that departs too far from their pre-authored version of how the situation unfolds.



grendel111111 said:


> I personally prefer when not everything is so tightly connected to the PC's that it ends up looking like a bad soap opera, with all the co-incidences.



I would like to think that my game is good melodrama!



Umbran said:


> this risks the game devolving into, "everything is about them".  As if every element of the Universe revolves around them and what makes the PCs tick.  It is healthy, I think, to be presented with material that isn't chosen entirely based upon the PC's or player's desires.



Elaborating on my response to  [MENTION=6803870]grendel111111[/MENTION]: my ambition for my game is to have a multi-person/team-based story that mixes physical adventure with a degree of emotional drama that is comparable to classic Marvel comics. My touchstone for this is Claremont X-Men, but of course compared to me Claremont is a genius.

Another model/inspiration for me is the heroic fantasy film of the sort exemplied by Excalibur, Hero, Crouching Tiger, Tai Chi Master, etc. LotR is also an influence here. REH Conan provides me with tropes, but no so much with drama/conflict/theme.

In these sorts of stories, everything that occurs matters somehow to the protagonists, or speaks to their dramatic situation. I'm sure I don't handle it as deftly in my game as these serious authors do, but I think these works show that a fictional work doesn't have to degenerate into bad soap opera despite the narrated events having a clear focus upon/orbit about certain key protagonists.



Balesir said:


> What I begin to see as distinctive in what [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] are talking about is that it is the _players_ that are expected to provide the Dramatic Needs. Their range of options in this respect is not limited to those placed on the table by the GM; they are bounded only by the Social Contract that surrounds play.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> This, I think, might be the nub of what the mustard-keen "fail forwardites" are expressing. I think it is not a panacea, personally.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Nevertheless, I cannot but agree that the freedom of (self) expression given by the ability to set the Dramatic Need (and thus substantially determine the theme of the plot) is fundamentally different in play than any of the "provided Dramatic Need" alternatives that form the bulk of "mainstream roleplaying".



I'm not sure what it would be a panacea for! But it's something that I like in my game, and it differs from what you call "mainstream roleplaying".

But the players supplying dramatic need is not all I care about. Related to that is the ability of the players, by declaring actions for their PCs and then being successful in resolution of those actions, to _realise_ dramatic need. Hence my obsession with "secret backstory", which is essentially a method whereby the GM puts obstacles in the way of dramatic need that the players don't know about, and hence can be thwarted by despite their best efforts at declaring actions for their PCs that will realise their dramatic needs.



Maxperson said:


> True, but it also adds depth to the scene that is not able to be there if everything is authored in the moment.  A few limitations are also not a bad thing, especially when those limitations enhance a scene past where it could be without them being there.
> 
> This game is all about reasonable limitations adding to the game.  You are limited in race choices.  You are limited in class choices.  You are limited in what abilities you get once you choose a class.  All of those limitations enhance the game.



I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "depth" here, but personally I don't find that secret backstory that prevents success despite the player's declaration of an action and expenditure of resources does add much to the game.

Which brings us back to fail forward - narrating the backstory that led to failure _after_ the event introduces the fictional depth and context without (in advance) robbing the player of the power to contribute to the shared fiction.



Imaro said:


> Having a percentage chance to encounter something doesn't take it out of the hands of the players either... unless I forced the PC's to go into the area where this challenge has a chance to appear it was still their choices and actions that lead to the outcome where this roll takes place... correct?  And if it's "secret backstory" that's only because the players have failed or chosen not to find out about the area they are currently traversing.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> unless you are forcing the players to take the actions that lead up to them being in the area (for a long enough time) for the chance that this encounter takes place... you're not replacing something the player can influence... you've let them influence themselves all the way into this situation.  The only difference is that you'rs depends on one final (pre-set) roll and mine depends on a different roll.



This takes us back to the earlier discussion of what counts as choosing "blind" and relying on dumb luck, as opposed to what counts as _agency_ in my preferred (relatively strong) sense.

In a classic Gygax-style dungeon crawl, the players should have the capability to uncover the secret backstory. They still don't exercise full agency in my sense, because they don't establish the dramatic need, and they encounter obstacles that have been authored without any regard to dramatic need.

In a more contemporary style of play, I think that in practice most of the secret backstory is not available to the players. And even if it is, in my experience what arises is a playstyle very heavily focused on the players declaring actions for their PC that can give access to the secret backstory, which again pushes the focus of play away from dramatic need and onto exploration of the GM's pre-authored material.

That's not the sort of player agency that I prefer.


----------



## Sadras

Balesir said:


> What I begin to see as distinctive in what  @_*pemerton*_ and  @_*Manbearcat*_ are talking about is that it is the _players_ that are expected to provide the Dramatic Needs. Their range of options in this respect is not limited to those placed on the table by the GM; they are bounded only by the Social Contract that surrounds play. By having rules that explicitly say:
> 
> Success = success in progressing towards your chosen Dramatic Need
> Failure = an obstacle or roadblock in the path toward your chosen Dramatic Need
> 
> ...I see the players as being able to set not only the Protagonist (which is pretty universal in RPGs) but also the Dramatic Need (which is controlled by the GM when pre-authoring is happening) and thereby something about the nature of the Antagonist(s).




I don't believe I'm understanding this correctly. 

What exactly are the Antagonists doing in the above version of the roleplaying. Do they not have Dramatic Needs? Are the the BBEG's completely 'reactive' beings with no agenda's of their own? So how does an adventure start, with PCs declaring their Dramatic Needs? i.e. I want to traverse the Plains of Dust; I want to open a College for Bards; I want to hunt a Vampire Lord...and the DM takes it from there?

It appears you are saying adventures like Gardmore Abbey have no place in @_*pemerton*_'s and @_*Manbearcat*_'s tables.


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> So how does an adventure start, with PCs declaring their Dramatic Needs? i.e. I want to traverse the Plains of Dust; I want to open a College for Bards; I want to hunt a Vampire Lord...and the DM takes it from there?



Well, here's a link to an actual play report of the first session of my BW campaign. The mage PC had the Belief "I'm not leaving Hardby without gaining some magical item to use against my brother", so I framed the opening scene as being at a bazaar in Hardby where a peddler claimed to have an angel feather for sale. Nearly everything unfolded from there (the feather being cursed, a failed Circles check leading to an encounter with Jabal the Red who kicked the PCs out of the city for being curse-bearers, the peddler taking ship because of receiving bad news about his family); the exception was the mysterious wizard and the spellbook, which sprang from engaging the backstory about the brother, plus its intersection with the sorcerer-assassin's Belief that she would flay her former master and send his soul to Hell.

I'm not sure if your question was rhetorical or not, but if not then the post I've linked to might provide some sort of answer.


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> Well, here's a link to an actual play report of the first session of my BW campaign. The mage PC had the Belief "I'm not leaving Hardby without gaining some magical item to use against my brother", so I framed the opening scene as being at a bazaar in Hardby where a peddler claimed to have an angel feather for sale. Nearly everything unfolded from there (the feather being cursed, a failed Circles check leading to an encounter with Jabal the Red who kicked the PCs out of the city for being curse-bearers, the peddler taking ship because of receiving bad news about his family); the exception was the mysterious wizard and the spellbook, which sprang from engaging the backstory about the brother, plus its intersection with the sorcerer-assassin's Belief that she would flay her former master and send his soul to Hell.




Thank you for that. What happens when these beliefs are concluded? Does the campaign end or does the PC keep generating new beliefs (goals)? What if you couldn't marry the two beliefs or the PCs didn't prefer it, how would the session play out? It would feel that you would have to contrive the goals for both to link up for that city. Now throw in 2 more PC to get a group of 5, how does a GM manage 5 beliefs all intermingling and having to satisfy the unique Dramatic Needs of 5 PCs in one 4-hour setting?

How do you translate this into 4e? How do your 4e story-arcs start?
And can Gardmore Abbey be played at your table? I don't think so unless you blend it as part of the PC background/belief and then only fractionally.


----------



## Sadras

None of what I have written is anything new, @_*Imaro*_ I believe has addressed it, but for what its worth let me see if I can make some headway.
Using the below quote as the primary quote which I intend to analyse. 



			
				pemerton said:
			
		

> To me, it makes a difference that the initial encounters with the dark elf and his filthy deeds were triggered by failed checks; that the mace only came into play at all because a player wrote it into his PC's backstory and Beliefs; that the ruined tower came into play at all only because the same player had it written into his PC's backstory; that the dark elf was intended to (and, in play, did) provide material for the elven ronin PC to play off his Belief that he "will always keep the Elven ways"; etc.




Let us now examine the Mace and the Tower.  



pemerton said:


> In the session when the PCs left the tower, I also used the elf - he dropped a deadfall on the PCs as they were walking through a defile in the Abor-Alz. And this was when it was revealed that he was wielding the nickel-silver mace.
> 
> That the dark elf would have the mace had already been anticipated, though, by the player of the mage: in an email following the session where the mace wasn't found, that player conjectured that the mace would be in the hands of the dark elf.






> ...(snip)... that the mace only came into play at all because a player wrote it into his PC's backstory and Beliefs;that the ruined tower came into play at all only because the same player had it written into his PC's backstory;




This reads that the PCs were looking for the mace from before. The player guessed the dark elf had it. You wrote it into the story because it suited your purpose. Same with the ruined tower. From play reports I have read on Enworld and my experience as DM, there are plenty of DMs who pilfer ideas from their player's ramblings and guesswork because sometimes it makes for a better story. Even with pre-authorship there is plenty that is determined at the table.

That is why in my very first post on this thread, I mused that certain people are arguing extremes here when most DMs fall somewhere in the middle leaning to one or the other, but certainly possess a blend of "in the moment" and "pre-authorship"  

Now with regards to your Dark Elf. From your own words he was always going to be an antagonist similar to how I "pre-author" my Bad Guys in my adventures.



> If the checks to move through the desert had succeeded, for instance, then there would have been no occasion to introduce the dark elf into play in the way that I did. I might still have used the dark elf as an antagonist with the deadfall - but that itself was triggered by the players deciding to have their PCs leave the tower.




So if they fail the desert - Dark Elf is an Antagonist.
So if they succeeded in the desert = No Dark Elf
If PCs leave tower (1 - and they were travelling to it) (2- No Skill Check required to leave) & (3 - I'm guessing at one point they have to leave) = Dark Elf Antagonist. 

That is a pure rail road to a Dark Elf Antagonist.

How is this different to pre-authorship adventures where I include a monsters/encounter at X location. Like @_*Imaro*_ has been stating the same bias / GM Force exists - you wanted to use the Dark Elf as an antagonist. You didn't plan the terrain but you certainly planned the antagonist. It wasn't that random you just had to pick the appropriate moment during the story to create the most dramatic play. I believe many DMs do that.

Since YOU created the Dark Elf, you brought the below into play through "pre-authorship" of the Dark Elf antagonist



> that the dark elf was intended to (and, in play, did) provide material for the elven ronin PC to play off his Belief that he "will always keep the Elven ways";




What is left is 



> the initial encounters with the dark elf and his filthy deeds were triggered by failed checks ...(snip)...




you determined to 'colour' the failed skilled check with the motives of a pre-determined (pre-authored) Antagonist. I don't believe that is at all alien to "pre-authorship" styled adventures. There is nothing unique about this. So if the characters succeeded on their checks, they would have found a usable well, upon a failed skill check undrinkable well.   

So when you write



> I'm not sure how this would all have been pre-authored, though.




I have to strongly disagree with you. Most of what you have described above is a result of pre-authoring and using your own DM bias for the NPC antagonist you created to use at some point in play and to colour failed skill checks.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "depth" here, but personally I don't find that secret backstory that prevents success despite the player's declaration of an action and expenditure of resources does add much to the game.
> 
> Which brings us back to fail forward - narrating the backstory that led to failure _after_ the event introduces the fictional depth and context without (in advance) robbing the player of the power to contribute to the shared fiction.




What I'm talking about is that with your method, if I as the DM announce in the moment that the body on the floor wears a breastplate with the symbol of the Order of Manbearpigs on his chest, nobody is going to know what I'm talking about.  They might get a roll, the might author some details themselves, but it's not going to be that deep.  However, if this is the forgotten realms and I say it's the symbol of a Purple Dragon Knight, everyone is going to understand what that means in a way that your method just can't convey.  The pre-authoring of the Purple Dragons of Cormyr is going to add depth to that scene that goes beyond what your method accomplishes.  

Pre-authoring hardly constrains at all, and it adds so much more to the game that what little constraint is there just pales in comparison.


----------



## Umbran

Balesir said:


> If I take a very generic and well established description of "Story", a story is formed as follows:
> 
> - Start with a protagonist. This is, in a sense, an artificial position, in that a protagonist from one point of view might be an antagonist from another, but from the point of view of the storyteller - and, I think, the roleplayer - there will always be one protagonist. This is simply the character who will take up our next element; the Dramatic Need
> 
> - The Dramatic Need is the motivation or impulse that drives the protagonist to act. It is the thing they need to get - be it a maguffin, an emotional state, a social position or whatever - in order to be Satisfied. The protagonist seeking after the Dramatic Need is what is going to kick the Story into motion.
> 
> - Finally, add an Antagonist. This is anyone and anything that acts to prevent the Protagonist having the Dramatic Need. It might be a character, it might be a force of nature, it might even be within the Protagonist's own mind. Its job is to create difficulties and conflict.





That's one established description of story, unfortunately, it is only one, and misses a great swath of storytelling out there, and I submit that APs actually fit a different model:

Start with the Protagonist.  Each player is their own protagonist, and this is, as you said, a character who is going to take up the Dramatic Need.  However, at the start of the story, the Protagonist doesn't really have much of a Dramatic Need.  Their life is going on basically okay, until you...

Add the Antagonist.  This is the character(s) that provide the Dramatic Need - something the Antagonist is doing changes the world in a way that creates a Dramatic Need the Protagonist takes up.

I submit that this is actually how much heroic fiction is structured.  Heroes don't fix what isn't broken - that's actually the villain's role, seeking an end and being willing to tromp over anyone to get there.  Heroes are typically *reactive*.  The antagonist must first break things before there the heroic Protagonist needs to act.  Luke Skywalker's stated Dramatic Need was "get off this podunk backwater desert planet".  His need to "become a Jedi like my father" only came up *after* Vader and the Emperor created a crisis via building the Death Star, backing Luke (and many other moral people) into a corner such that they need to act.  In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain American warns us that, "Every time someone tries to end a war before it starts, innocent people die. Every time." The need is a result of action in such cases.   

Now, we could of course use a meta-structure to manage this, using a level of abstraction - we state that Luke's *real* dramatic need is to become a Jedi, but stipulate that the character doesn't actually know that at the start of the story.  That works fine if you are a sole author, I suppose.  But for role playing, this seems an artificial construction, stuffing a square peg into a round hole - you can do it, but the player then has an internal conflict over having to deny his actual need for a significant period of time.  Things that set the player's actual agenda against the agenda stated in the narrative tend to be immersion-breaking constructions.



> Now let's consider how pre-authoring and "scenario design" fits with this.




With my construction, how pre-authoring and scenario design fit in becomes obvious - it is providing a series of large and small scale dramatic needs.

Now, again, the GM needs to have pretty solid grasp of the characters to provide such a series, or conversely, the player needs to be not terribly picky about what will provide a satisfying need.  We do need to remember that not all players are even very good at creating their own Dramataic Needs out of whole cloth.  I know several who, when told they can do *anything they want*, suffer from option paralysis.

So, take Ashen Stars (which is on my mind, as I'm running it) has a two-pronged approach that goes a long way in assuring the Dramatic Needs presented will be interesting to the players.  One is to ensure a common understanding of the genre - the players are informed that they are the crew of a ship, a group of "lasers", licensed contractors that get hired to solve crimes and problems.  Picking up a variety of unconnected cases to solve, rather than having a consistent and relentless pursuit of one's own agenda, is understood.  It is like saying, "You're the bridge crew of a Federation Starship" - This provides a host of implied, pre-defined Dramatic Needs, and the player is expected to be on-board with this.

Moreover, the player is asked to submit specific encounters and events that are relevant to their character's personal desires - a "personal arc".   The *player* engages in some pre-authoring.  

Consider that a moment, as we consider pre-authoring.  We have been speaking as if it is only a GM-thing, but that's an over-generalization, and we ought to consider the implications of player pre-authoring as well.  Are we going to contend that player pre-authoring will lead to not meeting player dramatic needs?


----------



## Balesir

grendel111111 said:


> The problem that I have is that it is being portrayed as only 2 choices. Story now = player involvement, pre-authored = player just along for the ride.



I agree that there is sometimes an element of that. But there is also an element of "pre-authored campaigns are rich, many-layered worlds bursting with life whereas develop-in-play worlds are thin, cardboard cutouts". I don't think either of these characterisations is either true or helpful.



grendel111111 said:


> Sand boxes are being portrayed the same way... everything done in isolation and then the players are added later. They can be done that way but it is not the only way to do it.
> 
> But you can build a sand box with the characters molded into it. You have a lose shell (major cities, map with key geography, etc.) and as the characters are made their background fleshes out the world. "Where were you being a thief?", "What enemies did you form while working for the king?", "Who are you wanting revenge against?". The characters interests become part of the world (but not the only thing in the world). So the idea that pre-authored must mean the PC's are just bouncing around with no interest or connection to the world is seeing a limit of AP's and applying it to all pre-authored content.



Of course you can do all that - but the fact remains that the GM is putting forth a (limited) selection of Dramatic Needs for the players to select from. They might be ones that the GM has chosen to be of potential interest to the players - but they are still provided by the GM, not evolved through player actions as the game is actually played.

NOTE: I'm not saying that either of these is better - I'm just saying they are different. This is what makes a nonsense of the statements arguing that one method or another is the "best way to do it". There is no "it" - there are at least two "its". It therefore follows that there may be more than one "best way", since all the "its" are not the same.



grendel111111 said:


> It is definitely a different experience when you are playing. (one that as player I prefer). There gets to a point where coincidences pile up too much, where everything just neatly fits around a character too well. Sometimes a couple of drunk thugs are just a couple of drunk thugs.



Sure. But sometimes we have to take a break to recover from the hiccoughs, go to the "rest room" or think about what to get for dinner. Fiction is formed mainly while ignoring these things. It's not that stuff irrelevant to the story doesn't happen, it's just that time spent on it is time wasted (unless it has some particular purpose - red herring, contemplation break, chance to meet an interesting NPC or whatever).



grendel111111 said:


> There is also that I dislike the idea of rolling for the character to "get what he wants/something happens that he doesn't like". For some games it works fine (super hero games/ leverage/ Heist games). but the style of game I want to play isn't always at that removed scale. And that come down to choosing the system and approach that gives the game you want.



Yeah, I understand that, but it is instrumental in allowing the player free reign to define their own Dramatic Need. Without it the Dramatic Need will tend to be set by the world (and thus the GM), not the player. If you don't feel a need to freely define your own Dramatic Need, then this really isn't an issue.



Sadras said:


> What exactly are the Antagonists doing in the above version of the roleplaying. Do they not have Dramatic Needs? Are the the BBEG's completely 'reactive' beings with no agenda's of their own?



In a "traditional" adventure? The original Protagonist is the BBG, as I said. They have some ambition that they pursue that gets in the PCs grills - or at least, that's the idea. The players are expected to react.



Sadras said:


> So how does an adventure start, with PCs declaring their Dramatic Needs? i.e. I want to traverse the Plains of Dust; I want to open a College for Bards; I want to hunt a Vampire Lord...and the DM takes it from there?



More or less, yes. I can't speak for others, but as I see it the players just have their characters set out to achieve their Dramatic Need in the simplest way available to them. The GM then creates consistent, plausible antagonists as required to stop (or at least challenge) them doing so. In this type of play the antagonists are shaped by their interaction with the protagonist's dramatic need, but in order to stay plausible and consistent they may need to gain more facets if they are "in contact" with the PCs for any length of time.



Umbran said:


> That's one established description of story, unfortunately, it is only one, and misses a great swath of storytelling out there, and I submit that APs actually fit a different model:
> 
> Start with the Protagonist.  Each player is their own protagonist, and this is, as you said, a character who is going to take up the Dramatic Need.  However, at the start of the story, the Protagonist doesn't really have much of a Dramatic Need.  Their life is going on basically okay, until you...
> 
> Add the Antagonist.  This is the character(s) that provide the Dramatic Need - something the Antagonist is doing changes the world in a way that creates a Dramatic Need the Protagonist takes up.



The antagonist can also be created as a reaction to the dramatic need, but otherwise, yeah, this is pretty much what I meant when I spoke about the "villain being the initial protagonist". The GM, via the BBG, presents the players with a dramatic need (or several) by having villains act. The dramatic need becomes the essentially antagonistic business of stopping the BBG from achieving _their_ dramatic need. 



Umbran said:


> I submit that this is actually how much heroic fiction is structured.  Heroes don't fix what isn't broken - that's actually the villain's role, seeking an end and being willing to tromp over anyone to get there.  Heroes are typically *reactive*.  The antagonist must first break things before there the heroic Protagonist needs to act.  Luke Skywalker's stated Dramatic Need was "get off this podunk backwater desert planet".  His need to "become a Jedi like my father" only came up *after* Vader and the Emperor created a crisis via building the Death Star, backing Luke (and many other moral people) into a corner such that they need to act.  In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain American warns us that, "Every time someone tries to end a war before it starts, innocent people die. Every time." The need is a result of action in such cases.
> 
> Now, we could of course use a meta-structure to manage this, using a level of abstraction - we state that Luke's *real* dramatic need is to become a Jedi, but stipulate that the character doesn't actually know that at the start of the story.  That works fine if you are a sole author, I suppose.  But for role playing, this seems an artificial construction, stuffing a square peg into a round hole - you can do it, but the player then has an internal conflict over having to deny his actual need for a significant period of time.  Things that set the player's actual agenda against the agenda stated in the narrative tend to be immersion-breaking constructions.



I'm not sure if you are trying to reinforce my post, here, or you think I'm saying something contrary to this? Sure, many narratives work this way. Pre-authored "plot lines" can also work this way - as I specifically said. But it's different from players creating their own characters' dramatic needs. Not "worse" or "inferior", just different.



Umbran said:


> With my construction, how pre-authoring and scenario design fit in becomes obvious - it is providing a series of large and small scale dramatic needs.
> 
> Now, again, the GM needs to have pretty solid grasp of the characters to provide such a series, or conversely, the player needs to be not terribly picky about what will provide a satisfying need.  We do need to remember that not all players are even very good at creating their own Dramataic Needs out of whole cloth.  I know several who, when told they can do *anything they want*, suffer from option paralysis.



Agreed; I touched on this, too. Some players are much happier picking from a selection presented to them than with complete invention - for a whole range of reasons. I wouldn't limit the explanation to option paralysis or lack of imagination or boredom or tiredness or anything else. There are plenty of reasons to want to be tempted by alternatives rather than have to "make your own fun".



Umbran said:


> Moreover, the player is asked to submit specific encounters and events that are relevant to their character's personal desires - a "personal arc".   The *player* engages in some pre-authoring.
> 
> Consider that a moment, as we consider pre-authoring.  We have been speaking as if it is only a GM-thing, but that's an over-generalization, and we ought to consider the implications of player pre-authoring as well.  Are we going to contend that player pre-authoring will lead to not meeting player dramatic needs?



This is a good point, and I think it brings up the way in which this perhaps relates to the "DIP/DAS" dichotomy that was discussed at great length on the old RGFA boards.

"DIP" stands for "Develop In Play", and represents a style of play where players start out with charaters that are little or nothing more than a set of bare-bones stats and develop their characters and detailed histories and capabilities as play happens.

"DAS", on the other hand, stands for "Develop At Start" and represents a style wherin players think about and create a great deal about their character's history, desires and outlook before play begins. Players in this style of play might go so far as to author extensive character histories and describe networks of contacts in agreement with the GM.

In the end it was agreed (pretty much) that neither of these approaches is "better" - they are just different.

With "DAS" players I have no doubt that player-generated dramatic needs might be married with pre-designed setting and situation elements, if you are prepared to work at it and if the needs don't shift in play (as they can be prone to do). With DIP players, however, they will simply tend to get frustrated with pre-authored setting and situation if they wish to develop their own dramatic needs.

I don't think there is anything essential or naturalistic about players freely creating their own dramatic needs. In our own lives, dramatic needs frequently seem to be presented to us as a set of limited choices or as inescapable necessities. But it does seem that a very attractive vein of escapism might be available through the pursuit of an imagined world in which we _do_ have such freedom - even if it is only for one story out of the many that interweave to make up our lives. And the contention that free selection of a character's dramatic need somehow goes against the ethos that "a player should have no control over anything outside their own character" seems to me to be quite flawed - bizarre, even. I can think of vanishingly little _*more*_ integral and internal to a character than the adoption of a dramatic need.


----------



## sheadunne

Maxperson said:


> What I'm talking about is that with your method, if I as the DM announce in the moment that the body on the floor wears a breastplate with the symbol of the Order of Manbearpigs on his chest, nobody is going to know what I'm talking about.  They might get a roll, the might author some details themselves, but it's not going to be that deep.  However, if this is the forgotten realms and I say it's the symbol of a Purple Dragon Knight, everyone is going to understand what that means in a way that your method just can't convey.  The pre-authoring of the Purple Dragons of Cormyr is going to add depth to that scene that goes beyond what your method accomplishes.
> 
> Pre-authoring hardly constrains at all, and it adds so much more to the game that what little constraint is there just pales in comparison.




None of that means anything to me, even if it did, it wouldn't add anything to my investment in the game. For me it's mere color, no depth. 

Now if I decided as a player that my character will tap into his concept that he's out for revenge (for what I still haven't decided) and I decide that this might be a good opportunity to connect my revenge motif to the body on the floor, now we're getting somewhere. Maybe as a result of a successful knowledge check I decide to announce that I recognize the symbol on the breast plate as a something my character saw as a child when his sister was killed (now I've developed what I want revenge for). All of this being created in the moment during the scene. As we continue through play, it might come to pass, through action declaration, that it wasn't that order that killed my sister, but rather they were there trying to defend her. All good stuff that shouldn't be decided until the moment it is necessary to decide, usually the result of an action. Depth is created when there's a connection between the scene and the character. That connection can only be made via the player and not the GM. If the GM told me that the symbol was the same as I saw when my character was a child, I'd probably tell him no thanks because I'm not interested in being forced to connect to pre-authored materials. It's just not that interesting to me. I'd rather nothing than that sort of thing. And as I've mentioned before, I'm perfectly fine playing in a game where that connection isn't there, but there's nothing worse than trying to force it into the game. Not my cup of tea.


----------



## Umbran

Balesir said:


> I'm not sure if you are trying to reinforce my post, here, or you think I'm saying something contrary to this?




In the context of this discussion, yes, I am saying something contrary, and, in fact, essential.  Basically, it is Poe Dameron's question to Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens:  "Do I talk first or you talk first? I talk first?"

In one school (which is often typified by sandbox play) the GM requires that the PCs choose a direction and take an action before anything of interest will happen.  In the other, (often typified by AP or published module play) the GM will present at least an initial default antagonist for the players to oppose.

You can say that these are the same, if you twist around the roles and put "quotes" around them, and to a certain extent for single-author fiction you'd have some point.  But, in an RPG, there's an outright physical difference - which person is driving the primary action at the table, GM or player?  Given that the player and GM are different roles, I don't think it serves us in the discussion to try to sweep the difference under the carpet of "quotes".

I personally am generally a proponent of moderation in all things - that the functional best for a given group will be found in some admixture. But then we should note the differences, and choose actively, rather than wave hands and say that really, they are the same thing, when they aren't (imho).


----------



## Manbearcat

grendel111111 said:


> I agree it would seem strange to choose a * world game and ignore it's strengths and goals.




Definitely.



grendel111111 said:


> What I am interested in is using the style in other games. For example using it in 5e. What is 5e bringing to the table that makes you want to use 5e with this style rather than going to a game which has what you want implicitly built into the system. It seems that if the experience you are wanting is in the realms of * world style, why try and force another system to change to fit that. (I can see using some of the tools, but I don't understand wanting to change the underlying assumptions of the game to such a great extent).




Not really sure where this fits into things?  Perhaps you are confusing me with  [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]?  I seem to randomly get confused with other people with whom I share a great deal of overlap in TTRPG preferences or prose style now and again.  I don't GM 5e but he does and he is an advocate of "progress combined with a setback" (as per the Basic PDF p58) as well as "success at a cost" (per DMG module p242).


----------



## Maxperson

sheadunne said:


> None of that means anything to me, even if it did, it wouldn't add anything to my investment in the game. For me it's mere color, no depth.
> 
> Now if I decided as a player that my character will tap into his concept that he's out for revenge (for what I still haven't decided) and I decide that this might be a good opportunity to connect my revenge motif to the body on the floor, now we're getting somewhere. Maybe as a result of a successful knowledge check I decide to announce that I recognize the symbol on the breast plate as a something my character saw as a child when his sister was killed (now I've developed what I want revenge for). All of this being created in the moment during the scene. As we continue through play, it might come to pass, through action declaration, that it wasn't that order that killed my sister, but rather they were there trying to defend her. All good stuff that shouldn't be decided until the moment it is necessary to decide, usually the result of an action. Depth is created when there's a connection between the scene and the character. That connection can only be made via the player and not the GM. If the GM told me that the symbol was the same as I saw when my character was a child, I'd probably tell him no thanks because I'm not interested in being forced to connect to pre-authored materials. It's just not that interesting to me. I'd rather nothing than that sort of thing. And as I've mentioned before, I'm perfectly fine playing in a game where that connection isn't there, but there's nothing worse than trying to force it into the game. Not my cup of tea.




You do realize that almost everything you just said involved no depth whatsoever, right?  It was about stuff authored in the moment.  The one thing that offered any kind of depth, was you connecting the symbol to your pre-authored concept of being out for revenge.


----------



## Manbearcat

Sadras said:


> I don't believe I'm understanding this correctly.
> 
> What exactly are the Antagonists doing in the above version of the roleplaying. Do they not have Dramatic Needs? Are the the BBEG's completely 'reactive' beings with no agenda's of their own? So how does an adventure start, with PCs declaring their Dramatic Needs? i.e. I want to traverse the Plains of Dust; I want to open a College for Bards; I want to hunt a Vampire Lord...and the DM takes it from there?
> 
> It appears you are saying adventures like Gardmore Abbey have no place in @_*pemerton*_'s and @_*Manbearcat*_'s tables.




I'm not familiar with Madness at Gardmore Abbey, unfortunately, so I can't really comment.  While I'm familiar with a few classics (due to curiosity), my knowledge of most modules is extremely lacking so I don't have a lot of commentary on any specific module's utility or depth (and I tend to stay away from conversations about them due to my ignorance).  I've never run a campaign that was module-leveraged or even module-inspired.  I learned GMing probably very different than most and module study and usage weren't a part of that process.  Consequently, my mental framework when it comes to "theme calibration for the table" and organizing my own overhead and workload (before and during play) may very well be askew from the mainstream.



Sadras said:


> Thank you for that. What happens when these beliefs are concluded? Does the campaign end or does the PC keep generating new beliefs (goals)? What if you couldn't marry the two beliefs or the PCs didn't prefer it, how would the session play out? It would feel that you would have to contrive the goals for both to link up for that city. Now throw in 2 more PC to get a group of 5, how does a GM manage 5 beliefs all intermingling and having to satisfy the unique Dramatic Needs of 5 PCs in one 4-hour setting?
> 
> How do you translate this into 4e? How do your 4e story-arcs start?
> And can Gardmore Abbey be played at your table? I don't think so unless you blend it as part of the PC background/belief and then only fractionally.




Here  and here are a few threads that you could take a look at to get a sense of how most of my games get going.

In Burning Wheel, Beliefs (and growth through failure) are the primary locus of play.  At the outset of play, the GM, the table agrees on the big picture of play and builds characters together.  Each characters' Beliefs will interact with these elements so that they can be tested by the process of GM framing scenes which challenge those Beliefs, which in turn requires you to take action.  As the game evolves, some beliefs will be resolved/fulfilled by the play that emerges.  Others will evolve to reflect the changing perspective of your character and the changing circumstances of play.  Now and again, a stray Belief might be left behind if the game has moved past it.  If so, change it to something relevant.  

Dungeon World's Bonds and Alignment were inspired by Burning Wheel's Beliefs.  4e's Quests, Themes, Paragon Paths, and Epic Destinies (which naturally commingle/interface) are that system's analog.  Does it become more difficult to integrate/maintain coherency/relevance as more players get in the mix?  Potentially.  It puts more pressure on overall table communication/calibration and player malleability I'd say (hence one reason why I only run games for 3 people anymore!).



Sadras said:


> I have to strongly disagree with you. Most of what you have described above is a result of pre-authoring and using your own DM bias for the NPC antagonist you created to use at some point in play and to colour failed skill checks.




The disconnect I think I see in a lot of these conversations comes from this:

That "DM bias" you're detecting?  That is the game's "bias" that your attributing to the person running the game.  That is "running the game by the prescribed GMing directives/ethos and addressing the focused premise of play itself."  

 [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]'s post above talks about play that focuses like a laser beam on protagonism, Dramatic Need, and antagonism interposing itself between the two.  I think that is as good a way as any to put it.  That Dark Elf that  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] was pondering outside of play?  That could have come in many shapes or forms.  The play wasn't about the Dark Elf.  He became a part of the setting mosaic when he was introduced into the fiction, yes, but it wasn't about him.  Play turns on the Situation (a) challenging a Belief (or multiples) and (b) forcing the players to address the What (do I want out of this Situation) and How (am I going to resolve it).  The Dark Elf is just the means for pemerton to facilitate that proper GMing (which isn't his bias).  It isn't a story about his Dark Elf.  It is a story about his players' Beliefs being tested in the crucible of high/dark fantasy conflict (over and over and over) and seeing what shakes out of it (character progression/evolution and story emergence).  In this case, the introduction of the Dark Elf complication was just another system-coherent (and genre-coherent) means of doing that.


----------



## sheadunne

Maxperson said:


> You do realize that almost everything you just said involved no depth whatsoever, right?  It was about stuff authored in the moment.  The one thing that offered any kind of depth, was you connecting the symbol to your pre-authored concept of being out for revenge.




Couple things

1) The symbol has no depth and can never have any depth unless the viewer chooses to relate it to their character's experiences. Otherwise it's the same as saying the sky is blue. Who cares, it's not interesting or relevant to the game. 
2) Let's not confuse exposition with action. Relating information is not playing the game.
3) Revenge is a stat on the character sheet, not a pre-authored background. It is leveraged in play like any other character resource.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I think one of the biggest blockers to this conversation going further is the inability to have an agreed upon distinction between what material constitutes pre-authored "fiction" and what is in the moment authoring... I asked you as well as @_*Manbearcat*_... and someone else I believe what exactly are the boundaries between... fiction being pre-authored vs. pre-prepped vs. notes/ideas vs. in the moment authoring... could you take a minute to answer this as I think it will make our discussions more productive.



The terminology isn't that important to me except as a way to get at certain techniques and approaches to play.

I hope I've been fairly clear about these. On the positive side, the main thing I want is for the player's, via action declarations, to be able to render the fiction in accordance with their desires - which means, within the fiction, that their PCs achieve things that they want.

On the negative side, the main thing I don't want is a GM's secret backstory to be a block or constraint on action resolution that the players can't overcome, which dooms their action declarations to a futility that isn't known in advance, and perhaps is not even known after the event (if the players don't know that the secret backstory explains why they failed).

These are what I describe as a game that is not grounded in pre-authoring. I regard that as quite different from GM prep - generating ideas, statting up NPCs or monsters, etc. The latter isn't any sort of block or constraint on action declaration and action resolution.

Because in my games geography tends not to be at the heart of play - it's just a means to an end - it doesn't impede my goals (described above) to use pre-drawn maps. Though there will always be flexibility in the details (eg I need to be able to drop an oasis or a pyramid into the Bright Desert without fussing exactly over where it is in relation to exactly how many miles the PCs travelled in exactly what direction). At a table which, in general, shared my outlook, but did put geography more at the centre of things, my use of pre-drawn maps might be too much pre-authoring.

On the other hand, in my game NPCs, gods, politics, and other socio-cosmological matters do tend to be at the heart of play, and so I use less pre-authored material in this respect. I might come up with an idea for an NPC, or a god, and even write up a candidate backstory, but this will not be a constraint on adjudication in the form of secret backstory, and is not a determinate part of the fiction until revealed in play either via scene framing or action resolution.

For instance, in my BW game what are the precise motivations and allegiances of Dame Katerina of Urnst, who is travelling in the company of her confessor Father Simon, who in turn is very reasonably suspected by the PCs of being a death cultist? It's clear that she is loyal to her confessor - that has been established in play, as part of my narration around the episode in which the PCs accused him of being a cultist - but is that because she's also a death cultist, or rather she has been duped by him? I have some ideas on how this could play out, and where it might lead, but they're not part of the fiction and certainly not something that I would use to adjudicate action resolution involving her.

In my 4e game, the precise motivations and desires of the Raven Queen are in a similar state - very important to the PCs (and the players) but not yet entirely known, though there are strong (and differing) views from various PCs. This is likely to come to a head soon, perhaps in our next session of that campaign.

For me, part of the skill of GMing is teasing out these details via play, in a way which feeds on the players' suspicions and inclinations, and allows them to engage (via their PCs) and test their (potentially conflicting) views, without (i) bringing things to a climax too early, or (ii) letting things drag on beyond their ability to sustain dramatic weight.

With the dark elf in my BW game, I feel that I could have done a better job in this respect - as is shown, in part, by the fact that one of the players, during our Sunday session, predicted that the dark elf would return in some form or other, perhaps re-animated as an undead. I'm not sure about that - BW tends to treat undeath as a purely human condition - but I am thinking about ways to somehow bring the dark elf back into focus even though he's dead - for instance, if the elven ronin tried a Circles check and then failed, the failure could take the form of the appearance of an NPC who knew both the ronin and the dark elf before their respective (thought somewhat different) falls from being honourable soldiers of the White Tower.

I would think that certainly counts as having an idea, and by some measures must count as preparing for the game, but it's not any sort of pre-authoring of anything. No fiction is being established by me having that idea.



Sadras said:


> This reads that the PCs were looking for the mace from before. The player guessed the dark elf had it. You wrote it into the story because it suited your purpose. Same with the ruined tower.



The ruined tower existed in the fiction because it was part of the backstory of a PC, written by that PC's player. To elaborate: in BW PC generation is via Lifepaths, and this particular PC has a lifepath as a Sorcerer than two Rogue Sorcerer LPs (which is 7 years a pop). In the backstory of the PC, 14 years ago the tower where he was living as a mage with his brother Joachim was attacked by orcs. In order to try and defeat the orcs Joachim tried to summon a Lighting Storm (AoE attack spell) but failed and was possessed by a balrog. The PC escaped - living for the next 14 years as a rogue wizard - but the orcs sacked the tower.

The mace existed in the fiction because the same player wrote that into his PC's backstory, wrote a Belief for his PC in relation to it (along the lines of "I will recover the Falcon's Claw, the nickel-silver mace that I had forged and was in the process of enchanting when the orcs sacked the tower"), and then - once the PCs arrived at the tower - declared as an action an attempt to find the mace in the tower.

So in neither case did I write these story elements into the fiction. The player did that.

When the attempt to find the mace failed (from memory, an Ob 5 check made with 6 dice, so needing five of six d6 to come up 4 or better - never very likely to succeed), the player knew that finding it would involve overcoming some more difficult obstacle. (The whole focus of BW play is on making the players work hard (via their PCs) for their PCs' Beliefs.) Given that the dark elf had already, at that point, been established as existing within the fiction, the player conjectured that the elf would have it. Because that would be a difficult obstacle.



Sadras said:


> there are plenty of DMs who pilfer ideas from their player's ramblings and guesswork because sometimes it makes for a better story. Even with pre-authorship there is plenty that is determined at the table.



But if the GM is authoring the fiction at the table, perhaps drivin by player ramblings, then it is _not_ pre-authorship. Is it? So saying that stuff that's not pre-authored resembles the sort of non-pre-authored stuff that I like seems true, but not a point of disagreement with anything I'm saying.



Imaro said:


> You haven't used improv... but you've continuously pointed to authoring in the moment of resolution, which IMO is the same as improv... otherwise like you said it doesn't matter if the fiction you present was authored a year ago, a month ago or a minute before... it's pre-authored



An idea, on its own, is not part of the fiction. Nor is a page of stats. Its raw material that might or might not be incorporated into the fiction, in some form or other or not at all.

In the case of the dark elf, for instance, it was only at the last minute that I crossed out the entry for sword skill on the stat sheet I'd written up and wrote in "mace" - so that when he turned up wielding the nickel-silver mace he would be able to attack the PCs with it.

That sheet also has some notes on it about backstory for the dark elf, but none of that conjectured backstory actually came out in play. So from my point of view the backstory remains highly open (and in this post I've set out some ideas I have for working it out in play) though it will have to include some seminal moment in which the elf was turned from Grief to Spite (which is the crux of being a Dark Elf in BW - hence the relevance of Eol and Maeglin from the Silmarillion).



Maxperson said:


> What I'm talking about is that with your method, if I as the DM announce in the moment that the body on the floor wears a breastplate with the symbol of the Order of Manbearpigs on his chest, nobody is going to know what I'm talking about.



But what you describe here is not part of my method. In fact it's almost contrary to it.

My method would more likely be to announce that the body on the floor wears a breastplate with the symbol of Orcus - whom the PCs (at least those who serve the Raven Queen) are sworn to oppose - or that it bears a symbol of the Order of the Bat - a secret society among the drow, invented by one of my players, that is dedicated to the worship of Corellon and to undoing the sundering of the elves.

In my BW game something quite similar to the scenario you posit came up in our second-to-most-recent session. One of the PCs - the elven princess - was dining with a priest, who evinced a more than healthy interest in elven immortality, and deathlessness in general. The player, and the PC, pegged him for some sort of death cultist. When, later on, the PCs had a chance to search his room one found his death cult book, bound in human skin. (On the stat sheet that I'd written up a holy book was noted. The decision that it would be a death cult book was made by me on the spur of the moment.) I described it being bound in human skin.

This mattered to the players because one of their PCs - the elven ronin - is sworn to oppose evil whether it resides in orcs or in humanity, while another - the sorcerer-assassin who discovered the book - is seeking revenge on her former master, the balrog-possessed brother of the mage PC, who is also the sort of chap to use books bound in human skin.

When in due course I told the players, as their PCs were looking through the book, that it is a tome of the cult of Chemosh, this didn't have the result that nobody knew what I was talking about. Rather, the significance of Chemosh and Chemosh-worship - that it involves the worship of a dark god and the quest for immortality through undeath - had already been established and grounded in relation to the PCs. Between sessions, the player of the mage PC even wrote a new Belief for his PC, to learn what the cult of Chemosh knows about the coming apocalypse. (That there _is_ a coming apocalypse is something of an article of faith for this PC.)

Upthread, [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] and [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] have talked about establishing depth in relation to story elements introduced during the actual course of play. I don't know how the example I've just given strikes them, but for me it is illustrative of how I like to establish depth and player engagement: not by evoking or referring back to some piece of fiction that they've already read (like Ed Greenwood's stories about Purple Dragon Knights), but by establishing the significance of the story element in relation to the dramatic needs of the PCs.

(Of course the name "Chemosh" is taken from Dragonlance. So is the motif of skull masks, which came up in the last session when the mage PC detected a magical skull mask in the priest's apartment. I don't think any of my players have ever read Dragonlance - certainly no one has commented that they recognise the name. And I don't know anything more about Chemosh in Dragonlance than the entry in the old Dragonlance Adventures book, which I last read probably 20-odd years ago.)



Sadras said:


> Now with regards to your Dark Elf. From your own words he was always going to be an antagonist similar to how I "pre-author" my Bad Guys in my adventures.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So if they fail the desert - Dark Elf is an Antagonist.
> So if they succeeded in the desert = No Dark Elf
> If PCs leave tower (1 - and they were travelling to it) (2- No Skill Check required to leave) & (3 - I'm guessing at one point they have to leave) = Dark Elf Antagonist.
> 
> That is a pure rail road to a Dark Elf Antagonist.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It wasn't that random you just had to pick the appropriate moment during the story to create the most dramatic play.



What is the railroad? Are we using some notion of railroad where every time the GM makes a decision rather than rolls on a random table (that was randomly constructed?) that counts as railroad?



Sadras said:


> How is this different to pre-authorship adventures where I include a monsters/encounter at X location.



In this case, if the PCs never go to X they won't meet the monster. So the difference is that I am using a scene-framing style whereas what you describe - from the brief description - looks like a sandbox style.



Sadras said:


> Since YOU created the Dark Elf, you brought the below into play through "pre-authorship" of the Dark Elf antagonist
> 
> <snip>
> 
> you determined to 'colour' the failed skilled check with the motives of a pre-determined (pre-authored) Antagonist.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Most of what you have described above is a result of pre-authoring and using your own DM bias for the NPC antagonist you created to use at some point in play and to colour failed skill checks.





Imaro said:


> One could claim you used DM force to push them into an encounter with the Dark Elf, probably because you had a desire to use the NPC you created beforehand... you decided arbitrarily what their failure would mean (encountering the Dark Elf NPC you had pre-authored outside of play)



The dark elf had no established backstory until he appeared in play (and as I've noted above, that backstory itself is not very richly established - by the rules of the game, he underwent some experience that turned his Grief to Spite; and it's been established in play that he was serving a dark naga in trying to hurt the PCs; but that's it).

He had no location until he appeared in play - at which point he was established as living in the general vicinity of the ruined tower.

His most important possession (the mace) and his weapon skill (mace, not sword) were not established until _after_ he had appeared in play - and were established as responses to a failed check by a player, and concerned an item which wouldn't have been part of the fiction but for being built by one of the players into the backstory and aspirations of his PC.

What fiction, exactly, has been pre-authored here? All I can see is that there are dark elves in this world, who are spiteful people who might try and hurt others. Even the forms this spiteful hurt actually took in the fiction - fouling a waterhole, stealing a mace - weren't pre-authored.



Imaro said:


> I'm not sure how "Dark Elf appears" is contrary to "Successfully navigated your way"...





Imaro said:


> To address your second point about the water being fouled... that is not true.  A survivalist could in theory find a way to purify the water... a spellcaster might be able t purify the water...and so on.  See IMO this is the difference between railroading vs pre-authoring.  Pre-authoring does not suppose a solution can or cannot be found... it just is.





Maxperson said:


> Why would that be true?  Why couldn't the survival roll include the possible outcome of making the water drinkable?



Successful navigation through a desert includes finding water. When the check is failed, the intent is not realised. I decided that the task had succeeded (the PCs found the waterhole) but intent failed - the waterhole was fouled.

The dark elf that I had written up had the Filthy trait, but I hadn't given much prior thought to what that might mean. When I described the recently-fouled waterhole to my players they were suitably disgusted, and moreso when they worked out from the footprints that it was an elf. (Which I was glad of - I was worried that it might divert the game into schoolground humour.)

If the navigation check had succeeded but I nevertheless described the waterhole as fouled, and hence needing more effort to purify it (or find another, or whatever) then I would have been vitiating the basic rule of the game, which is that when a check succeeds the player (and PC) realises his/her intention - in this case, to navigate safely and successfully through the desert.

I'm not sure if Maxperson is suggesting that I might narrate a successful check as coming to the waterhole, finding it fouled, but then purifying it in some fashion - but that would, in my view, be contrary to the spirit of the game: introducing a complication of that sort only to narrate it away again seems not to add anything to play except GM verbiage.


----------



## Maxperson

sheadunne said:


> Couple things
> 
> 1) The symbol has no depth and can never have any depth unless the viewer chooses to relate it to their character's experiences. Otherwise it's the same as saying the sky is blue. Who cares, it's not interesting or relevant to the game.




Depth is there whether the player appreciates it or not.  It's jumping into a pool vs jumping into a puddle.  The depth is set even if you never jump into either one.



> 3) Revenge is a stat on the character sheet, not a pre-authored background. It is leveraged in play like any other character resource.




Anything authored prior to the moment of the game is pre-authored.  Every single time you establish something in the moment, it becomes pre-authored content when the moment passes.  Don't pretend you don't play with pre-authored content.  You do.  It's just pre-authored in a different manner.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Successful navigation through a desert includes finding water. When the check is failed, the intent is not realised. I decided that the task had succeeded (the PCs found the waterhole) but intent failed - the waterhole was fouled.




And if I pre-author a fouled waterhole, a successful navigation or survival roll could still find a different fresh waterhole and failure finds them at the fouled hole.  The scene plays out exactly the same as yours, except that the DM pre-authored a fouled waterhole.  What's so much better about you coming up with the fouled waterhole in the moment vs. my pre-authoring it?

The point I'm making is that pre-authorship doesn't mean you have to walk down a narrow pathway where things are highly limited.



> The dark elf that I had written up had the Filthy trait, but I hadn't given much prior thought to what that might mean. When I described the recently-fouled waterhole to my players they were suitably disgusted, and moreso when they worked out from the footprints that it was an elf. (Which I was glad of - I was worried that it might divert the game into schoolground humour.)




Filthy is pretty standard in meaning.  That trait was pre-authored, even if you didn't have all the details worked out.  You took that pre-authored trait and used it to enhance the game, just like I do with other pre-authored content.

When I use the Forgotten Realms, it's full of pre-authored content.  However, the vast majority of that content is vague enough that what that pre-authored content means for the scene can almost always go in multiple different directions.  Pre-authored content is not a straight jacket.  It's an addition that allows the DM options that add more depth to a scene.



> I'm not sure if Maxperson is suggesting that I might narrate a successful check as coming to the waterhole, finding it fouled, but then purifying it in some fashion - but that would, in my view, be contrary to the spirit of the game: introducing a complication of that sort only to narrate it away again seems not to add anything to play except GM verbiage.




Why would that be contrary to the spirit of the game?  A success is a success, regardless of how you get there.  They wanted a clean waterhole and they got one.  You could go either way and still be in the spirit of the game.  Also, GM verbiage itself is positive for the game.  As for what it would add, it adds information for the PCs.  It lets them know that there are fouled waterholes around and warns them that they can't count on the next one being fresh.  It alerts them to the presence of an enemy who is deliberately fouling drinking water.  And so on.


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> What happens when these beliefs are concluded? Does the campaign end or does the PC keep generating new beliefs (goals)?



In BW, the expectation is that some Beliefs will change over the course of play, but that certain core Beliefs (or, at least, Beliefs around certain core relationships or similar subject-matters) will emerge as the focus of play and that, when those are resolved, the campaign is done.

For instance, in my BW game it seems likely that, if some resolution is reached in respect of the possessed brother, the story of at least some of the PCs will be done. That said, there is always the possibility that, during play, some new focus will emerge which can sustain the dramatic participation of those PCs. Maybe something linking them in to the elves, perhaps.



Sadras said:


> What if you couldn't marry the two beliefs or the PCs didn't prefer it, how would the session play out?



Not as well as it should. Part of the skill of being a player in this sort of game is finding ways to hook your PC into others' PCs. FATE builds this into its PC generation system. In BW, it is not a formal part of the system but the books talk a lot about how to go about it.



Sadras said:


> how does a GM manage 5 beliefs all intermingling and having to satisfy the unique Dramatic Needs of 5 PCs in one 4-hour setting?



Well, that's part of the skill of GMing this sort of game. At this level of abstract description, it's no different from the skill that Monte Cook talks about in the 3E DMG, of being able to manage the consequences for exploratory-type play of high level D&D spells like Commune, Teleport etc. All GMing, whatever the approach, needs some skill if it's to be done well.

Getting more into the nitty-gritty, a given session might be more likely to focus on one PC rather than another. So in the second-to-last session, the elven princess got a lot of "screen time" as she dealt with the (alleged) death cultist priest. In our most recent session, the focus was more on all the other PCs, especially the mage and the sorcerer-assassin, while the princess got comparatively little "screen time". If I was running a one-off, or for strangers, I would put more effort into trying to even these things out, but I'm GMing for friends, who are in for the long haul and so are going to cut some slack in relation to session-by-session variation in whose PC is the focus of the action.

But it's also part of my job to frame situations in a way that create overlapping engagement from multiple angles. Eg the dark elf with the mace relates to both elven PCs, plus the mage PC; and by using a rockfall in the Abor-Alz, he creates an opportunity for the shaman PC (introduced in that session) who can summon spirits of the foothills. Or the (alleged) death cult priest who is carrying wedding gifts from Urnst to Hardby, for the marriage of Jabal the Red and the Gynarch of Hardby: this connects to the sorcerer-assassin (who wants to rob the wedding gifts, and who has a bad relationship with another evil mage who trades in suspicious tomes), to the elven ronin sworn to oppose evil, to the elven princess who wants to learn more about the forthcoming wedding (and who is also a natural point of focus for upper class NPCs), and to the mage PC, who has a prior history with Jabal (the intended recipient of the wedding gifts).

Sometimes it misfires - I imagine most GMs have had that experience at least on occasion. As I've posted just above this post, I'm not sure that the dark elf, or the dark naga, have quite worked out as I had hoped they might. Maybe they'll somehow become reinvigorated within the fiction, or maybe they'll just fade away - it's too early to tell.



Sadras said:


> How do you translate this into 4e? How do your 4e story-arcs start?



At the start of my 4e game I told the players that each PC had to have (i) at least one loyalty written into his/her backstory, and (ii) a reason to be ready to fight goblins. (ii) was because I wanted to use the module Night's Dark Terror, which opens with a goblin assault on a forest homestead. (i) produced a Corellon-worshipper, three Raven Queen devotees (one of whom was also one of the last surviving refugees from the (one-time) city of Entekash (an invention of that player), which had been sacked by evil humanoids) and a dwarven stalwart wanting to prove himself.

These loyalties have all remained central to the game. The dwarven PC went on to become the most powerful cleric of Moradin in the gameworld, and an Eternal Defender who has now (in our last 4e session) taken on the mantel of the god of pain and imprisonment (whom the PCs had earlier killed). The PCs - even those who don't profess to serve the Raven Queen - have mostly done her bidding very well, killing her enemies Lolth and Orcus and giving her a high degree of influence on the Feywild by bringing the Winter Fey under he sway. By killing Lolth the PCs also freed the drow, while by killing Torog they rendered the Underdark uninhabitable - so the drow have now returned to the surface and can be welcomed back to the fold of Corellon.



Sadras said:


> And can Gardmore Abbey be played at your table? I don't think so unless you blend it as part of the PC background/belief and then only fractionally.



I don't own it and haven't read it. But my suspicion is that it is not well-suited, which is one reason why I didn't buy it, despite my curiosity about the Deck of Many Things.

When I use a module I typically use (or adapt) maps and NPCs, and bits of general backstory, but otherwise treat is as a collection of ideas for situations or scenes to use in my game. I don't expect to play through the module systematically and entirely.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Filthy is pretty standard in meaning.



At least in Australian English, the most natural association with "filthy" involves dirt and a lack of cleanliness, rather than habits around defecation.



Maxperson said:


> That trait was pre-authored, even if you didn't have all the details worked out.  You took that pre-authored trait and used it to enhance the game, just like I do with other pre-authored content.



I don't see how, by pointing out that your pre-authorship is not total - that you work out details during play - you think you're showing some sort of disagreement with me.

My point is that I worked out the details of the fiction during play. That's what not pre-authoring means!



Maxperson said:


> Why would that be contrary to the spirit of the game?  A success is a success, regardless of how you get there.  They wanted a clean waterhole and they got one.  You could go either way and still be in the spirit of the game.  Also, GM verbiage itself is positive for the game.  As for what it would add, it adds information for the PCs.  It lets them know that there are fouled waterholes around and warns them that they can't count on the next one being fresh.  It alerts them to the presence of an enemy who is deliberately fouling drinking water.  And so on.



On the issue of information - this is predicated on an assumption that there is otherwise secret backstory (eg the presence of fouled waterholes) which the players get an advantage from knowing. That's not a factor in my game. The point of information is to drive the action in a dramatic and thematic sense - eg by learning that the priest might be a death-cultist, the players (as their PCs) now have a reason to oppose him - not to provide a tactial or logistical advantage.

On the issue of "spirit of the game" - have you read the BW books? I can tell you that the sort of narration you suggest would be contrary to the spirit of the game. On a successful check, the player gets what s/he wanted out of the action declaration. The GM isn't free to just add in additional narration. S/he might flesh something out that the player has left underspecified, where the fleshing out adds additional interesting colour or motivation; but s/he couldn't add in an additional complication plus a narration of the PC overcoming that. Any complication must have already been part of the framing of the scene, and hence of the check.

EDIT: Something of a meta-comment. From other threads, plus parts of this thread, it's clear that I don't approach GMing and RPGing in the same way that you do. We have different views on the role and importance of alignment, of GM backstory, of GM fudging, etc. So I'm a bit confused as to why you seem to be trying to show that the way I create and manage the shared fiction is no different from how you do it.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> At least in Australian English, the most natural association with "filthy" involves dirt and a lack of cleanliness, rather than habits around defecation.




Even if the most natural usage involved dirt and a lack of cleanliness, there are still other usages.



> I don't see how, by pointing out that your pre-authorship is not total - that you work out details during play - you think you're showing some sort of disagreement with me.
> 
> My point is that I worked out the details of the fiction during play. That's what not pre-authoring means!




Pre-authoring means authoring things before the scene.  If I pre-author the fouled waterhole, that doesn't limit me to one way to use it, or that I even know for sure how it will be used.  Pre-authorship does not have to be total in order for it to be pre-authorship.  That's my point.  You seem to be thinking that pre-authoring involves having a set advance plan that will happen no matter what in an exacting manner that isn't open to change.

I'm just pointing out that pre-authoring is not like that and that you can still run a game similar to how you run it AND use pre-authored content at the same time.



> On the issue of information - this is predicated on an assumption that there is otherwise secret backstory (eg the presence of fouled waterholes) which the players get an advantage from knowing. That's not a factor in my game. The point of information is to drive the action in a dramatic and thematic sense - eg by learning that the priest might be a death-cultist, the players (as their PCs) now have a reason to oppose him - not to provide a tactial or logistical advantage.




If the players cannot learn from a fouled waterhole that there are possibly enemies around that are fouling waterholes and/or that they might run across more fouled waterholes, then your method of gaming also has limitations.  You've just chosen different limitations than those provided by pre-authoring.



> On the issue of "spirit of the game" - have you read the BW books? I can tell you that the sort of narration you suggest would be contrary to the spirit of the game. On a successful check, the player gets what s/he wanted out of the action declaration. The GM isn't free to just add in additional narration. S/he might flesh something out that the player has left underspecified, where the fleshing out adds additional interesting colour or motivation; but s/he couldn't add in an additional complication plus a narration of the PC overcoming that. Any complication must have already been part of the framing of the scene, and hence of the check.




Since I don't know what BW stands for, I'm going to go with no 

However, your paragraph shows where the misunderstanding is coming from.  What you are describing has nothing to do with the spirit of the game.  The game is D&D and what I am saying is right in line with the game's spirit.  What you are describing is an issue dealing with the spirit of the playstyle.  You have chosen a playstyle to use in the game of D&D that would be violated by a DM narrating the scene like that.



> EDIT: Something of a meta-comment. From other threads, plus parts of this thread, it's clear that I don't approach GMing and RPGing in the same way that you do. We have different views on the role and importance of alignment, of GM backstory, of GM fudging, etc. So I'm a bit confused as to why you seem to be trying to show that the way I create and manage the shared fiction is no different from how you do it.




That's not what I'm trying to show.  I'm trying to show that the way I do it, in this case pre-authorship, is different from your portrayal of what I do.  Pre-authorship is not the bane you make it out to be.  Indeed, that I pre-author and you stated...

"I don't see how, by pointing out that your pre-authorship is not total - that you work out details during play - you think you're showing some sort of disagreement with me."

...seems to indicate that you realize that pre-authorship doesn't in and of itself doesn't run completely contrary to how you do things.


----------



## Imaro

EDIT: [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] ... moving forward can you not put multiple posters/answers in one post, it makes it extrememly hard to answer what is posted as a direct response to my own questions, thoughts, etc.  If not​I can respect that but it means our conversation will probably die off as it's too much work splicing out the necessary posts to reply.  Thanks.




pemerton said:


> The terminology isn't that important to me except as a way to get at certain techniques and approaches to play.




While terminology may not be important to you personally...I think the terminology is pretty important in correctly conveying your thoughts, and especially the difference in concepts to others.  In fact without an understanding of terminology I'm not sure how you even begin to have a discussion...



pemerton said:


> I hope I've been fairly clear about these. On the positive side, the main thing I want is for the player's, via action declarations, to be able to render the fiction in accordance with their desires - which means, within the fiction, that their PCs achieve things that they want.




I think most games strive to achieve this, whether those desires are authored by the players, part of an agreed upon premise or selected from those available in a sandbox.  In fact I'm trying to determine what type of game actively wants for players not to be able to render the fiction in accordance with their desires via action declarations...



pemerton said:


> On the negative side, the main thing I don't want is a GM's secret backstory to be a block or constraint on action resolution that the players can't overcome, which dooms their action declarations to a futility that isn't known in advance, and perhaps is not even known after the event (if the players don't know that the secret backstory explains why they failed).




Again... inevitable at a certain point if a campaign is to maintain a semblance of logical cohesion... it is only the scope/granularity/scale that is in question.



pemerton said:


> These are what I describe as a game that is not grounded in pre-authoring. I regard that as quite different from GM prep - generating ideas, statting up NPCs or monsters, etc. The latter isn't any sort of block or constraint on action declaration and action resolution.




I still don't get a clear understanding of the difference... and I disagree, the moment the GM gets it in his head he wants to use one of the things he's statted up outside of play... whether he acknowledges it or not he's putting constraints on action declaration... such as pre-determining an NPC will be an antagonist... or even that on the next failure he will find a way to use this particular idea, NPC, etc.  It's not in the moment at that point it's what I understand to be a pre-authoring of the fiction...  



pemerton said:


> Because in my games geography tends not to be at the heart of play - it's just a means to an end - it doesn't impede my goals (described above) to use pre-drawn maps. Though there will always be flexibility in the details (eg I need to be able to drop an oasis or a pyramid into the Bright Desert without fussing exactly over where it is in relation to exactly how many miles the PCs travelled in exactly what direction). At a table which, in general, shared my outlook, but did put geography more at the centre of things, my use of pre-drawn maps might be too much pre-authoring.




So a pre-drawn map is pre-authoring... even if certain areas of it haven't been used in the fiction yet?  Or is it only pre-authored once revealed?  Because it seems to be dancing on a razor thin line very similar to the prep you claimed before was no pre-authoring.  What do you see as the major differences between the two?



pemerton said:


> On the other hand, in my game NPCs, gods, politics, and other socio-cosmological matters do tend to be at the heart of play, and so I use less pre-authored material in this respect. I might come up with an idea for an NPC, or a god, and even write up a candidate backstory, but this will not be a constraint on adjudication in the form of secret backstory, and is not a determinate part of the fiction until revealed in play either via scene framing or action resolution.




If the backstory of an NPC has no effect in actual play... why write it up?  



pemerton said:


> For instance, in my BW game what are the precise motivations and allegiances of Dame Katerina of Urnst, who is travelling in the company of her confessor Father Simon, who in turn is very reasonably suspected by the PCs of being a death cultist? It's clear that she is loyal to her confessor - that has been established in play, as part of my narration around the episode in which the PCs accused him of being a cultist - but is that because she's also a death cultist, or rather she has been duped by him? I have some ideas on how this could play out, and where it might lead, but they're not part of the fiction and certainly not something that I would use to adjudicate action resolution involving her.
> 
> In my 4e game, the precise motivations and desires of the Raven Queen are in a similar state - very important to the PCs (and the players) but not yet entirely known, though there are strong (and differing) views from various PCs. This is likely to come to a head soon, perhaps in our next session of that campaign.




You keep using the word... "entirely" and I have to assume there is a reason for that.  Does this mean there are aspects of these NPC's and gods that are pre-authored.  As an example would it be possible for a player through action declaration to make the Raven Queen the goddess of daisies as opposed to death or is the fact that she is the godess of death a pre-authored fact?



pemerton said:


> For me, part of the skill of GMing is teasing out these details via play, in a way which feeds on the players' suspicions and inclinations, and allows them to engage (via their PCs) and test their (potentially conflicting) views, without (i) bringing things to a climax too early, or (ii) letting things drag on beyond their ability to sustain dramatic weight.




So in your game are the PC's ever surprised?  I don't mean one particular PC but the PC's as a whole... or does everything eventually work out to point to exactly what one of the PC's suspected... If that is the case I'm not sure I would enjoy a game like this.



pemerton said:


> With the dark elf in my BW game, I feel that I could have done a better job in this respect - as is shown, in part, by the fact that one of the players, during our Sunday session, predicted that the dark elf would return in some form or other, perhaps re-animated as an undead. I'm not sure about that - BW tends to treat undeath as a purely human condition - but I am thinking about ways to somehow bring the dark elf back into focus even though he's dead - for instance, if the elven ronin tried a Circles check and then failed, the failure could take the form of the appearance of an NPC who knew both the ronin and the dark elf before their respective (thought somewhat different) falls from being honourable soldiers of the White Tower.
> 
> I would think that certainly counts as having an idea, and by some measures must count as preparing for the game, but it's not any sort of pre-authoring of anything. No fiction is being established by me having that idea.




IMO You're pre-authoring a failure state to introduce this new form of the PC... just as a DM running a sandbox could state there's a 40% chance he comes back as an undead... but it's not pre-authoring anything because he didn't actually put him in the fiction or not yet...  




pemerton said:


> An idea, on its own, is not part of the fiction. Nor is a page of stats. Its raw material that might or might not be incorporated into the fiction, in some form or other or not at all.
> 
> In the case of the dark elf, for instance, it was only at the last minute that I crossed out the entry for sword skill on the stat sheet I'd written up and wrote in "mace" - so that when he turned up wielding the nickel-silver mace he would be able to attack the PCs with it.
> 
> That sheet also has some notes on it about backstory for the dark elf, but none of that conjectured backstory actually came out in play. So from my point of view the backstory remains highly open (and in this post I've set out some ideas I have for working it out in play) though it will have to include some seminal moment in which the elf was turned from Grief to Spite (which is the crux of being a Dark Elf in BW - hence the relevance of Eol and Maeglin from the Silmarillion).




I find the fact that you changed his weapon skill minor in the extreme (and him having the silver mace minor as well)... the fact that you statted him out, devised a way for him to enter the fiction, admitted you had a desire to use him as an antagonist outside of play, set his appearance up in an antagonistic manner, and so on... much more important than a minor change to a skill or the weapon he was carrying.    And again why write backstory except to use it?



pemerton said:


> The dark elf had no established backstory until he appeared in play (and as I've noted above, that backstory itself is not very richly established - by the rules of the game, he underwent some experience that turned his Grief to Spite; and it's been established in play that he was serving a dark naga in trying to hurt the PCs; but that's it).
> 
> He had no location until he appeared in play - at which point he was established as living in the general vicinity of the ruined tower.
> 
> His most important possession (the mace) and his weapon skill (mace, not sword) were not established until _after_ he had appeared in play - and were established as responses to a failed check by a player, and concerned an item which wouldn't have been part of the fiction but for being built by one of the players into the backstory and aspirations of his PC.
> 
> What fiction, exactly, has been pre-authored here? All I can see is that there are dark elves in this world, who are spiteful people who might try and hurt others. Even the forms this spiteful hurt actually took in the fiction - fouling a waterhole, stealing a mace - weren't pre-authored.




The fact that a Dark Elf... as opposed to a regular elf, a half-elf or whatever appeared... the fact that he was antagonistic... his backstory (which you said was not used but was still created, and as I asked before if you never use the stuff... why create it?) In other words you pre-authored this antagonist, it wasn't created by one of your players it was created by you...




pemerton said:


> Successful navigation through a desert includes finding water. When the check is failed, the intent is not realised. I decided that the task had succeeded (the PCs found the waterhole) but intent failed - the waterhole was fouled.
> 
> The dark elf that I had written up had the Filthy trait, but I hadn't given much prior thought to what that might mean. When I described the recently-fouled waterhole to my players they were suitably disgusted, and moreso when they worked out from the footprints that it was an elf. (Which I was glad of - I was worried that it might divert the game into schoolground humour.)
> 
> If the navigation check had succeeded but I nevertheless described the waterhole as fouled, and hence needing more effort to purify it (or find another, or whatever) then I would have been vitiating the basic rule of the game, which is that when a check succeeds the player (and PC) realises his/her intention - in this case, to navigate safely and successfully through the desert.
> 
> I'm not sure if Maxperson is suggesting that I might narrate a successful check as coming to the waterhole, finding it fouled, but then purifying it in some fashion - but that would, in my view, be contrary to the spirit of the game: introducing a complication of that sort only to narrate it away again seems not to add anything to play except GM verbiage.




But finding a fouled water hole does not equate to... "Did not navigate safely and successfully through the desert"... it equates to found a fouled waterhole in a desert.  So I don't see it as vitiating the basic rule (at least as you are presenting them here) of the game.   

I think you could narrate a successful check and still reinforce or reiterate on the dangers found in a desert.  It gives context, it gives color and it's actually pretty close to how most stories of heroic fantasy narrate such trips (as opposed to the hero not encontering any dangers whatsoever) and can provide consistency (and agency) for failure states that may happen if they traverse the dessert again... they've grown to know at least some of the dangers that lurk in a desert.  Personally I don't see it as GM verbiage... but then I also suspect this has alot to do with not just your DM style but the type of players you have as well.


----------



## Umbran

Maxperson said:


> Depth is there whether the player appreciates it or not.




But, depth that the player does not appreciate is effectively wasted effort.  The GM should spend time on things that the players do appreciate, when it is possible to know or guess that beforehand.  This is a large part of the drive of content created in the moment - not needing to make up a ton of content beforehand that nobody's actually going to care about.



> It's jumping into a pool vs jumping into a puddle.  The depth is set even if you never jump into either one.




And here is one of many keys to GMing - if you're treading water in a dark ocean, you *don't know* how deep the water is.  You only have to provide the suggestion of depth, until such time as a character chooses to dive, or is dragged down by a kraken 

In practice, that means that the GM shoud develop the depths around expected kraken, and around things they expect the players to find intriguing and dive into.  But developing depth *everywhere*, such that random elements will all have depth, is probably not the best use of a GMs time.


----------



## TwoSix

Maxperson said:


> Pre-authoring means authoring things before the scene.  If I pre-author the fouled waterhole, that doesn't limit me to one way to use it, or that I even know for sure how it will be used.  Pre-authorship does not have to be total in order for it to be pre-authorship.  That's my point.  You seem to be thinking that pre-authoring involves having a set advance plan that will happen no matter what in an exacting manner that isn't open to change.



I have trouble trusting your parsing of all of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s posts, if after 800+ posts you still don't know that BW = Burning Wheel.

Still, let's boil down this down even further.  No one is saying pre-authoring is bad, or that if you pre-author you're a lousy DM who loves to railroad his players.  Some people are simply saying that for their DM style, it's a net negative.  The gains in campaign consistency and depth of the world don't matter, because _their game isn't about exploring the world._  The game is about the characters, the setting is merely a frame to place their goals and drives into context.  

What does matter is that if you pre-author an uncrossable canyon in the middle of the desert, or that the all the waterholes have been fouled by a Dark Elf so that the characters have to turn back, you as a DM _have just c***blocked your players out of their protagonism._  You made their statement of intent to cross the desert NOT MATTER, because it was more important to you as a DM to make your world have a canyon in it, or to illustrate that the dark elf is a cunning tactician who's also totally gross.  

No one is saying that campaign world detail isn't a worthy goal for many styles of play, or the players and DMs who enjoy them.  But for a game focused on narrative play, all it does it create hassle that's in opposition to the heart of the play style.


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> I still don't get a clear understanding of the difference... and I disagree, the moment the GM gets it in his head he wants to use one of the things he's statted up outside of play... whether he acknowledges it or not he's putting constraints on action declaration... such as pre-determining an NPC will be an antagonist... or even that on the next failure he will find a way to use this particular idea, NPC, etc.  It's not in the moment at that point it's what I understand to be a pre-authoring of the fiction...



I'm really having trouble with what's so difficult to understand.  If there's a detail about the campaign world the DM knows, and the players don't, and that fact AFFECTS THE SUCCESS OR FAILURE of the intent the players state, that is pre-authoring.  Introducing a new element IN RESPONSE TO A ROLL is not pre-authoring.  Also, a story element is not pre-authored simply because it is also not improvised.  Bringing the Monster Manual to the game table is not pre-authoring simply because the stat blocks are already there.


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> I'm really having trouble with what's so difficult to understand.  If there's a detail about the campaign world the DM knows, and the player don't, and that fact AFFECTS THE SUCCESS OR FAILURE of the intent the players state, that is pre-authoring.  Introducing a new element IN RESPONSE TO A ROLL is not pre-authoring.  Also, a story element is not pre-authored simply because it is also not improvised.  Bringing the Monster Manual to the game table is not pre-authoring simply because the stat blocks are already there.




So pre-authoring has nothing to do with actually pre-authoring fiction... and is instead just another name for what @_*pemerton*_ has been referring to as "secret backstory" but only "secret backstory" that actually influences the chances for an action taken by the PC's to succeed or fail... Yeah real easy to follow and understand, how could I have ever gotten confused with the jargon... 


EDIT: Also try to tone down the snarkiness... no one is forcing you to reply to me.


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> So pre-authoring has nothing to do with actually pre-authoring fiction... and is instead just another name for what @_*pemerton*_ has been referring to as "secret backstory" but only "secret backstory" that actually influences the chances for an action taken by the PC's to succeed or fail... Yeah real easy to follow and understand, how could I have ever gotten confused with the jargon...
> 
> 
> EDIT: Also try to tone down the snarkiness... no one is forcing you to reply to me.



Considering that the past 400 posts or so have contained constant explanations of what is meant by pre-authoring *in this context*, and what is objectionable about it *in the context of a game focused on prioritizing character intent over setting*, somebody needs to ask "Ok, what exactly is being missed around here?"  A lot of this thread, which is quite useful in conversing about different styles of play and strengths and weaknesses of various approaches, is getting bogged down in semantics of "Well, this word means THIS, but 25 posts ago you used it to mean THAT."


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> I have trouble trusting your parsing of all of  @_*pemerton*_'s posts, if after 800+ posts you still don't know that BW = Burning Wheel.
> 
> Still, let's boil down this down even further.  No one is saying pre-authoring is bad, or that if you pre-author you're a lousy DM who loves to railroad his players.  Some people are simply saying that for their DM style, it's a net negative.  The gains in campaign consistency and depth of the world don't matter, because _their game isn't about exploring the world._  The game is about the characters, the setting is merely a frame to place their goals and drives into context.




Actually the insinuation was made earlier in this thread that pre-authored campaigns are more apt to fall into railroading... take that as you will.  The other issue I see is you seem to be drawing a false dichotomy... that for some reason a game cannot have a fleshed out setting and still be about characters or vice versa...  



TwoSix said:


> What does matter is that if you pre-author an uncrossable canyon in the middle of the desert, or that the all the waterholes have been fouled by a Dark Elf so that the characters have to turn back, you as a DM _have just c***blocked your players out of their protagonism._  You made their statement of intent to cross the desert NOT MATTER, because it was more important to you as a DM to make your world have a canyon in it, or to illustrate that the dark elf is a cunning tactician who's also totally gross.




But no one is talking about doing things this way in the thread... insurmountable cliffs and every single waterhole being fouled in a desert so the players have to turn back are extreme examples of railroading... not what I and many other posters are talking about when we use pre-authored.  I think alot of the confusion has been that the original use of pre-author in the context of this thread is not the same one you and @_*pemerton*_ are now using (and I have finally gotten a handle on) which as far as I understand it is a campaign with "secret backstory" that actively hinders (or stops??? still unclear around this) the PC's in their actions/protagonism.

  We are talking about said canyon being in the desert, and having a DC to cross and success or failure of that climb check determines whether you made it past the obstacle... A dark elf who is prowling the desert and there is a X% chance he has poisoned the particular waterhole you've stumbled upon (doesn't mean you can't attempt to purify it though)... of course if you are actively searching for fresh water then a successful skill check means you found it.  I'm not seeing where protagonism is being taken away.  If anything because we are at a more granular level... there are more opportunities for it... as opposed to a single survival check to cross and entire desert without encountering a single hazard or hardship.  



TwoSix said:


> No one is saying that campaign world detail isn't a worthy goal for many styles of play, or the players and DMs who enjoy them.  But for a game focused on narrative play, all it does it create hassle that's in opposition to the heart of the play style.




Again another false dichotomy... for those of us adept in using the tools... detail in a campaign world does not in and of itself create a hassle or opposition to narrative play.


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> Considering that the past 400 posts or so have contained constant explanations of what is meant by pre-authoring *in this context*, and what is objectionable about it *in the context of a game focused on prioritizing character intent over setting*, somebody needs to ask "Ok, what exactly is being missed around here?"  A lot of this thread, which is quite useful in conversing about different styles of play and strengths and weaknesses of various approaches, is getting bogged down in semantics of "Well, this word means THIS, but 25 posts ago you used it to mean THAT."




And I would say if what you really mean is "railroad" which isn't a playstyle anyone in this thread is advocating for... then use the term "railroad".  Don't co-opt the term for someone else's playstyle... re-define it without noting that and then act like there shouldn't be any confusion in the conversation.


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> And I would say if what you really mean is "railroad" which isn't a playstyle anyone in this thread is advocating for... then use the term "railroad".  Don't co-opt the term for someone else's playstyle... re-define it without noting that and then act like there shouldn't be any confusion in the conversation.



That's because railroad is most commonly accepted as a pejorative term, and is so loosely defined that its use is almost meaningless for discussion.  



Imaro said:


> Actually the insinuation was made earlier in this thread that pre-authored campaigns are more apt to fall into railroading... take that as you will.  The other issue I see is you seem to be drawing a false dichotomy... that for some reason a game cannot have a fleshed out setting and still be about characters or vice versa...



I'm pretty sure it was stated, not insinuated, that pre-authored games are more likely to slip into railroading.  It's a statement I agree with.  Games with no pre-authoring are also far more prone to inconsistencies, and can more easily fall flat if the players are not sufficiently invested or if the DM is not as adept at improv.  There are pluses and minuses to every approach, and the best approach is almost always specific to the combination of players, DMs, AND system in question.

And my statement wasn't that "pre-created setting" and "character focus" are in opposition, per se.  It's more that bandwidth at the table is highly limited, and session time devoted to setting information unfamiliar to the characters is by definiton time not spent on information focused on the character's intent.  Now, if you're skilled enough to always present pre-authored information in a way that both fleshes out the campaign setting and drives the characters' intents, than that's fantastic!  I just think it's more difficult, and if the players have little interest in the setting, the gain in the overall play experience is minimal.



Imaro said:


> But no one is talking about doing things this way in the thread... insurmountable cliffs and every single waterhole being fouled in a desert so the players have to turn back are extreme examples of railroading... not what I and many other posters are talking about when we use pre-authored.  I think alot of the confusion has been that the original use of pre-author in the context of this thread is not the same one you and @_*pemerton*_ are now using (and I have finally gotten a handle on) which as far as I understand it is a campaign with "secret backstory" that actively hinders (or stops??? still unclear around this) the PC's in their actions/protagonism.



Not exactly what I'm talking about.  If your campaign world has a mountain range between the desert and the city they're traveling to (that the players have not encountered yet), and they roll high on whatever skill roll is required to cross the desert, do you make them stop at the mountains?  If you do, then your pre-authored mountains impacted their intent.



Imaro said:


> We are talking about said canyon being in the desert, and having a DC to cross and success or failure of that climb check determines whether you made it past the obstacle... A dark elf who is prowling the desert and there is a X% chance he has poisoned the particular waterhole you've stumbled upon (doesn't mean you can't attempt to purify it though)... of course if you are actively searching for fresh water then a successful skill check means you found it.  I'm not seeing where protagonism is being taken away.  If anything because we are at a more granular level... there are more opportunities for it... as opposed to a single survival check to cross and entire desert without encountering a single hazard or hardship.



I'm not saying that approach doesn't work for you.  But what your pre-authoring did was say "Ok, you rolled a success on your desert crossing check, but now there's mountains, so you have to make a climbing check also."   You increased the odds of the players failing without telling them ahead of the first roll.


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> That's because railroad is most commonly accepted as a pejorative term, and is so loosely defined that its use is almost meaningless for discussion.




And yet it seems like it would convey what you and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] are talking about to a larger audience better than "pre-authored" has been able to.



TwoSix said:


> And my statement wasn't that "pre-created setting" and "character focus" are in opposition, per se.  It's more that bandwidth at the table is highly limited, and session time devoted to setting information unfamiliar to the characters is by definiton time not spent on information focused on the character's intent.  Now, if you're skilled enough to always present pre-authored information in a way that both fleshes out the campaign setting and drives the characters' intents, than that's fantastic!  I just think it's more difficult, and if the players have little interest in the setting, the gain in the overall play experience is minimal.




I think it's self-evident that if the players aren't interested in the setting then the gain in play experience is minimal... and vice versa.  Your assumptions are also predicated on the players not being informed about the world or campaign setting they are playing in and therre not being enough time to adequately explore both character and setting in game sessions... neither of which I've found to be true... except maybe in systems where combat took an inordinate amount of time... Otherwise the players will steer towards what they are interested in exploring for a particular session or part of a session.

What I'm saying is that for the right group of players (and mine are definitely like this) the combination of the two... a world that has pre-set conditions (providing some unknowns, the chance to discover things they may have been interested in as goals but didn't think of in the beginning, a reason to research things, exploration, etc...)  but that also allows their character's stories to take center stage (mainly in discovering how they achieve at realizing, fail at realizing, or change their character's goals) provides an even richer play experience... for me and my group.  And IME all it takes is some pre-play discussion 



TwoSix said:


> Not exactly what I'm talking about.  If your campaign world has a mountain range between the desert and the city they're traveling to (that the players have not encountered yet), and they roll high on whatever skill roll is required to cross the desert, do you make them stop at the mountains?  If you do, then your pre-authored mountains impacted their intent.




Personally I wouldn't have them make a single roll to cross an entire dessert if I had the precise locations of certain hazards pre-authored.  It's a question of granularity, which is something I believe I commented on before.  that initial survival check would have been the first step (knowing my players imparting knowledge of the deserts landscape so they could decide which way to go) of multiple skill checks.




TwoSix said:


> I'm not saying that approach doesn't work for you.  But what your pre-authoring did was say "Ok, you rolled a success on your desert crossing check, but now there's mountains, so you have to make a climbing check also."   You increased the odds of the players failing without telling them ahead of the first roll.




Of course information about the mountain could have easily been gleaned by some kind of knowledge check, or a geography check, or research... but then I guess in a game where success or failure dictates the world as opposed to the success of your character in the world (which IMO has very little to do with whether character goals, desires and needs are driving the story)... that's unnecessary. 

No because again if I have spent the time bringing the desert down to a level of granularity where I know the position of the mountains... (something I believe is impossible in you and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's style of play) then the resolution will be more granular.  Of course in my game there is a chance that the player's encounter the unknown... and said unknown is not directly related to them, and even in some way spawns it's own story... for us it creates a richer experience when interspersed with the purely character driven portions... it's actually a pretty common technique in literature, tv. etc.  

It kind of works out like this.... where "Plot" are those external things and "Character" are the internally driven goals of the PC's in my games...
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SlidingScaleOfPlotVersusCharacters


----------



## Umbran

TwoSix said:


> I'm not saying that approach doesn't work for you.  But what your pre-authoring did was say "Ok, you rolled a success on your desert crossing check, but now there's mountains, so you have to make a climbing check also."   You increased the odds of the players failing without telling them ahead of the first roll.




And?  How often does *anyone* get to know *everything* in their way before they begin?

How is, "You crossed half the desert, and found a canyon in the way" really different from, "You picked the lock, and find there's a monster on the other side of the door"?

Because I'm really pretty sure you're going to lose an argument that says that GMs can't spring monsters on players unaware.


----------



## JamesonCourage

TwoSix said:


> No one is saying pre-authoring is bad, or that if you pre-author you're a lousy DM who loves to railroad his players.





TwoSix said:


> I'm pretty sure it was stated, not insinuated, that pre-authored games are more likely to slip into railroading. It's a statement I agree with.



I'm getting mixed signals.

Also, I tend to disagree with that. My first games as GM (when I was much younger) tended to be all improv, because I hadn't developed world building skills. And yet, I railroaded way more back then. I made stuff up on the fly, and forced a lot of it on my players (not that they didn't have fun overall or anything).

I think that's natural for kids to do. Or for many new young adults, even. An idea strikes you on the fly, you pat yourself on the back for having such a cool idea on the fly, and you force it to happen on the fly.


----------



## TwoSix

JamesonCourage said:


> I'm getting mixed signals.
> 
> Also, I tend to disagree with that. My first games as GM (when I was much younger) tended to be all improv, because I hadn't developed world building skills. And yet, I railroaded way more back then. I made stuff up on the fly, and forced a lot of it on my players (not that they didn't have fun overall or anything).
> 
> I think that's natural for kids to do. Or for many new young adults, even. An idea strikes you on the fly, you pat yourself on the back for having such a cool idea on the fly, and you force it to happen on the fly.



Not seeing mixed signals there.  Pre-authoring makes you more likely to railroad because you want to show off your creation.  Doesn't mean you WILL, simply that it's easier to slip into than if you didn't have the material.  Every approach to RPG has pros and cons, that's the whole reason to discuss them in the first place!

I do agree with you, though, that improv improperly channeled into a structure can easily become a railroad.  Heck, one of my last campaigns was pretty much a choo-choo I improved the entire way, but that's what my particular group of players was looking for.


----------



## Umbran

TwoSix said:


> Not seeing mixed signals there.  Pre-authoring makes you more likely to railroad because you want to show off your creation.




One can equally say that pre-authoring helps you avoid railroading, because the design stands as an objective object that isn't altered after creation, so the GM has less temptation and opportunity to shove the characters around.  Meanwhile, creating on the fly means you can create obstacles to drive characters in given directions when they go off the "desired" path.

I think, in this discussion, railroading is a bugaboo, a phantom issue that folks claim is important, but is rather orthogonal to the matter at hand.


----------



## TwoSix

Umbran said:


> And?  How often does *anyone* get to know *everything* in their way before they begin?
> 
> How is, "You crossed half the desert, and found a canyon in the way" really different from, "You picked the lock, and find there's a monster on the other side of the door"?




Honestly, it sounds like a social contract issue around the limitations of statement of intent, which is something that needs to be discussed with players during the game.  I mean, one of the main roles of the DM in a more narratively driven game is specifically to arbitrate the limitations of a player's intent within the confines of their shared narrative.  

So, if the DM thinks crossing the desert is too arduous of a task to do in one roll, then it should be broken up into smaller, more manageable subtasks.  

And honestly, putting a monster behind a door in a dungeon makes sense as a complication of a pick locks roll, right?  That seems a solid way to "fail forward" to me!




Umbran said:


> Because I'm really pretty sure you're going to lose an argument that says that GMs can't spring monsters on players unaware.



Well yes, I would lose arguments I didn't make, even if you feel I'm making them by extrapolation.  

But seriously, you can go ahead and throw surprise monsters at the players whenever you want, you have my permission.  (You're welcome!)  But for certain kinds of games, that might be bad cricket.


----------



## TwoSix

Umbran said:


> One can equally say that pre-authoring helps you avoid railroading, because the design stands as an objective object that isn't altered after creation, so the GM has less temptation and opportunity to shove the characters around.  Meanwhile, creating on the fly means you can create obstacles to drive characters in given directions when they go off the "desired" path.
> 
> I think, in this discussion, railroading is a bugaboo, a phantom issue that folks claim is important, but is rather orthogonal to the matter at hand.



One can equally say a lot of things, but my own experience lends me to believe that a DM who has something they really want the players to see will often bend things so that they happen, whether that thing is a pre-written scenario or simply a cool encounter they have in their mind.  Where one gets on board the railroad is as soon as the DM decides that the players' intent or the results of the dice rolls are immaterial to the presentation of the next scene.


----------



## Balesir

Umbran said:


> In the context of this discussion, yes, I am saying something contrary, and, in fact, essential.  Basically, it is Poe Dameron's question to Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens:  "Do I talk first or you talk first? I talk first?"
> 
> In one school (which is often typified by sandbox play) the GM requires that the PCs choose a direction and take an action before anything of interest will happen.  In the other, (often typified by AP or published module play) the GM will present at least an initial default antagonist for the players to oppose.



Um, yes. I agree. If this is contrary, I wonder what point you thought I was trying to make? The AP approach and the sandbox approach differ, no question. In one the GM sets the dramatic need (by having the bad guys act first), whereas in the sandbox the GM presents a range - call it a smorgasbord or a menu - of dramatic needs that the players get to choose from among.

Now, you could argue that the sandbox players can pick another dramatic need that is not on the table, but since that hasn't been prepared for it wouldn't then be pre-authored, would it?



Umbran said:


> You can say that these are the same, if you twist around the roles and put "quotes" around them, and to a certain extent for single-author fiction you'd have some point.  But, in an RPG, there's an outright physical difference - which person is driving the primary action at the table, GM or player?  Given that the player and GM are different roles, I don't think it serves us in the discussion to try to sweep the difference under the carpet of "quotes".



First off I will say that "protagonist" and "antagonist" (the quotes here aren't to twist them around - just call them out as labels) are roles in stories that, by their nature, are labels used from a point of view in non-fiction, but tend to be defined by the storyteller in fiction (such as RPGs). In an RPG the player characters are (ideally) the protagonists because they are the ones from whose viewpoint the story is being witnessed.

The point of my origianl quotes was to describe how, in villain driven plots, the villain is the original protagonist - they "talk first". The heroes are, from a strict (ancient greek) perspective, antagonists. Once play begins, though, the perspective leads the PCs become protagonists as they take up the dramatic need to "stop the bad guy(s)".

Secondly I'll say that, although offering a menu of options to players in this regard is definitely qualitatively different from the "take it or leave it" approach of the fixed scenario, I personally consider the divide between GM authored and player authored dramatic needs a more profound divide. As to which of the three methodologies is "best", I don't think it's a meaningful question. Some of the best restaurants trim back their menu to a minimum of options or even a fixed succession of courses to ensure that everything is of the highest quality, but for some people no amount of a la carte choice can replace cooking something for yourself. These are different strokes...


----------



## Umbran

TwoSix said:


> Honestly, it sounds like a social contract issue around the limitations of statement of intent, which is something that needs to be discussed with players during the game.




And here, I have to say that, once again, some folks (like you and pemerton) take the discussion into forms I think are not normally taken at actual tables.  

Raise your hand if you've ever discussed, "limitations of statement of intent," with your players?   I'm going to guess maybe you and pemerton, and *virtually nobody else* uses that kind of language with their players.  You'd do well to bring it back down to Earth.

Now, allow me also to rephrase my question, such that it is more clear.  You said:

_"But what your pre-authoring did was say "Ok, you rolled a success on your desert crossing check, but now there's mountains, so you have to make a climbing check also." You increased the odds of the players failing without telling them ahead of the first roll."_

And I asked, "And?"  You didn't actually say why this was a point to raise.  It *reads* as an implication that the player should generally know the odds of failure for extended endeavors before they begin, and I don't think that's supported by the general RPG _oeuvre_.  Not knowing how hard things will be is pretty nominal.  We keep stats and maps secret from players *all the time*, so you're goig to have to do some explaining as to why here, it is worth pointing out.



> And honestly, putting a monster behind a door in a dungeon makes sense as a complication of a pick locks roll, right?  That seems a solid way to "fail forward" to me!




And so is, "You run into a chasm as you are crossing the desert".  So, in fail forward, these are okay, but they are somehow something to be pointed out in a pre-authored scenario?  



> Well yes, I would lose arguments I didn't make, even if you feel I'm making them by extrapolation.




Reductio ad absurdum does have its places - the chasm and the monster use the same logic.  So, I repeat - if the monster is okay, why does the chasm bear discussion?


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> If the players cannot learn from a fouled waterhole that there are possibly enemies around that are fouling waterholes and/or that they might run across more fouled waterholes, then your method of gaming also has limitations.



I'm sure my approach has limitations - or maybe _limits_ would be better. As I've already discussed with [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION], it's not really appropriate for mysteries of the sort that (I believe) he enjoys GMing and playing. And obviously it is not going to deliver a Gygaxian dungeon-exploration experience.

On fouled waterholes - with a failed check, the players (and PCs) can learn of the presence of enemies. This happened in my BW game, as I've explained upthread.

On a successful check, the players (and PCs) won't get that information. But having or not having that information isn't a tactical advantage. As I also said upthread, in my game knowledge of backstory is mostly about theme and drama, not getting the drop or getting a head start.



Maxperson said:


> However, your paragraph shows where the misunderstanding is coming from.  What you are describing has nothing to do with the spirit of the game.  The game is D&D
> 
> <snip>
> 
> You have chosen a playstyle to use in the game of D&D that would be violated by a DM narrating the scene like that.



This is not a D&D thread - it's in general. In the post I was talking about a Burning Wheel campaign, and referred to the spirit of that game (ie the spirit of BW). Though as it happens, I think that 4e is also best run in a similar spirit - I think the best GM's book for 4e is the BW Adventure Burner!


----------



## TwoSix

Umbran said:


> And here, I have to say that, once again, some folks (like you and pemerton) take the discussion into forms I think are not normally taken at actual tables.
> 
> Raise your hand if you've ever discussed, "limitations of statement of intent," with your players?   I'm going to guess maybe you and pemerton, and *virtually nobody else* uses that kind of language with their players.  You'd do well to bring it back down to Earth.



Well, duh.  Seriously, bro, I used the word "c***block" like twenty posts ago, and now I'm talkin' too fancy?  ROFLMAO.

Of course I don't talk like this in real life.  I don't normally type the same way I speak because *nobody does that*.  IRL, people also can't quote me word for word and make studied counterpoints to my arguments, so of course this method of discussion makes me (and most people, I imagine) more verbose.  You dig?



Umbran said:


> And I asked, "And?"



"Conjunction junction, what's your function?"



Umbran said:


> You didn't actually say why this was a point to raise.  It *reads* as an implication that the player should generally know the odds of failure for extended endeavors before they begin, and I don't think that's supported by the general RPG _oeuvre_.  Not knowing how hard things will be is pretty nominal.  We keep stats and maps secret from players *all the time*, so you're goig to have to do some explaining as to why here, it is worth pointing out.



I would say [COLOR=#A00000"FOR THIS TYPE OF GAME[/color] that yes, the player should know the odds (and the stakes), so they're able to make determinations as to what other sorts of resources might be expended.  Take this as *advice*, not as a prescription or judgment as to what you should do in your game.  





Umbran said:


> And so is, "You run into a chasm as you are crossing the desert".  So, in fail forward, these are okay, but they are somehow something to be pointed out in a pre-authored scenario?



It's pointed out because of the critical difference.  Did the chasm appear because the player failed his roll to cross the desert, or did the player fail his attempt BECAUSE the chasm was there?  And by fail, I mean the player said "I'm going to cross the desert," the DM says "OK, roll, you need a 15 or higher on the d20", the player rolls an 18, and the DM says "OK, you've crossed halfway across the desert when you reach the Chasm of Bloodied Unicorns, which none of you knew have heard of".



Umbran said:


> Reductio ad absurdum does have its places - the chasm and the monster use the same logic.  So, I repeat - if the monster is okay, why does the chasm bear discussion?



They're both either OK or not OK for the same reason:  Did the DM make something happen despite what the players and dice rolls told him?


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> In fact I'm trying to determine what type of game actively wants for players not to be able to render the fiction in accordance with their desires via action declarations...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On the negative side, the main thing I don't want is a GM's secret backstory to be a block or constraint on action resolution that the players can't overcome, which dooms their action declarations to a futility that isn't known in advance, and perhaps is not even known after the event (if the players don't know that the secret backstory explains why they failed).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Again... inevitable at a certain point if a campaign is to maintain a semblance of logical cohesion
Click to expand...


The second half of what you say is the answer to the question you ask in the first half.

That is: a game in which pre-authored fiction has been established by the GM but is not known to the players is one in which their action declarations are not able to render the fiction in accordance with their desires.  [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] has elaborated more on this in some recent posts upthread.

For instance: if the GM has _already decided_ that the waterhole at the edge of the desert, on the way to the ruined tower in the foothills, is fouled, then even if the players succeed in their check to navigate to the waterhole they will not have got what they wanted (ie safe journey through desert to tower), because they will have to do extra stuff to get the water they need.

This is what, in my game, I aim to avoid. If, in the interests of consistency in the fiction, something isn't possible - for instance, because the dark elf is dead, an attempt to meet the dark elf in the foothills can't succeed - then I will explain as much and no action declaration will occur.



Imaro said:


> the moment the GM gets it in his head he wants to use one of the things he's statted up outside of play... whether he acknowledges it or not he's putting constraints on action declaration... such as pre-determining an NPC will be an antagonist... or even that on the next failure he will find a way to use this particular idea, NPC, etc.



I don't see how this is a constraint on action resolution. What is being constrained? What action can the players not declare with some prospect of success?



Imaro said:


> So a pre-drawn map is pre-authoring... even if certain areas of it haven't been used in the fiction yet?



Well, in my game it is, because we answer general geographical questions via reference to the map rather than via action resolution. The relative locations of Hardby, Greyhawk, the Bright Desert, the Gnarley Forest, the elven realm of Celene, etc are all pre-authored elements of the fiction.

Contrast, say, the location of the mace. This was not pre-authored. There was no prior fiction by reference to which the attempt to find the mace was adjudicated. Rather, the location of the mace was determined as a _consequence_ of action resolution - namely because the check failed, the mace was not in the tower where the PCs were looking for it.



Imaro said:


> If the backstory of an NPC has no effect in actual play... why write it up?



Because fleshing out some ideas in advance can help with adjudication. Here is the backstory as it appears on the sheet:

He turned on his uncle, a Captain of the White Tower, when ordered not to flee from the attacking orcs. He was wounded, then exiled; he wanders the Cairn Hills and Abor-Alz.​
In the list of the NPC's life paths, there is also a note next to "Soldier-Protector" that this "overlaps with Alenihel [the elven ronin]". That is, there is a note that the timelines of the PC and NPC can intersect.

The only bit of this conjectured backstory that has actually become part of the shared fiction is the bit about wandering the Abor-Alz.



Imaro said:


> The fact that a Dark Elf... as opposed to a regular elf, a half-elf or whatever appeared... the fact that he was antagonistic... his backstory (which you said was not used but was still created, and as I asked before if you never use the stuff... why create it?) In other words you pre-authored this antagonist, it wasn't created by one of your players it was created by you...



The appearance of the dark elf was not pre-authored, though. It was narrated in response to a failed check, the occurrence of which wasn't known until it actually happened at the table.

As I said, the only bit of the fiction that was established in advance was the possibility of an antagonistic dark elf appearing in the world. To me, that seems pretty thin as far as shared fiction goes.



Imaro said:


> Does this mean there are aspects of these NPC's and gods that are pre-authored.  As an example would it be possible for a player through action declaration to make the Raven Queen the goddess of daisies as opposed to death or is the fact that she is the godess of death a pre-authored fact?



As I'm sure you've seen me post before in other threads, my 4e game uses the default setting and cosmology as presented in the 4e core books. The Raven Queen's status as a god of death is established by the entry in the PHB which everyone has read before the game starts.

On the other hand, whether the Raven Queen is a nice person or a nasty person is up for grabs. In WotC's published material (eg E1 Death's Reach) she is presented as essentially decent and well-meaning. In my campaign that's not really the case - the backstory for her that has emerged during play tends to imply that she is self-serving, manipulative and extremely power hungry.



Imaro said:


> So in your game are the PC's ever surprised?  I don't mean one particular PC but the PC's as a whole... or does everything eventually work out to point to exactly what one of the PC's suspected



Do you mean players or PCs?

The players can be surprised, yes. By small things - like the discovery of the skull mask in the priest's chamber in the last BW session - or by bigger things, like finding the Black Arrows in the (formerly, now ruined) private workroom of the mage PC's brother.



Imaro said:


> What I'm saying is that for the right group of players (and mine are definitely like this) the combination of the two... a world that has pre-set conditions (providing some unknowns, the chance to discover things they may have been interested in as goals but didn't think of in the beginning, a reason to research things, exploration, etc...)  but that also allows their character's stories to take center stage (mainly in discovering how they achieve at realizing, fail at realizing, or change their character's goals) provides an even richer play experience... for me and my group.



OK. But by drawing this distinction between your preferences and mine, I take it that you are agreeing that there is a difference in techniques.


----------



## pemerton

Umbran said:


> "But what your pre-authoring did was say "Ok, you rolled a success on your desert crossing check, but now there's mountains, so you have to make a climbing check also." You increased the odds of the players failing without telling them ahead of the first roll."
> 
> And I asked, "And?"  You didn't actually say why this was a point to raise.  It *reads* as an implication that the player should generally know the odds of failure for extended endeavors before they begin, and I don't think that's supported by the general RPG _oeuvre_.  Not knowing how hard things will be is pretty nominal.





Umbran said:


> How often does *anyone* get to know *everything* in their way before they begin?
> 
> How is, "You crossed half the desert, and found a canyon in the way" really different from, "You picked the lock, and find there's a monster on the other side of the door"?



To answer that last question: it may not be any different.

Part of the skill of GMing in a scene-framing/"fail forward" game is judging the boundary between resolution of one scene and opening of another. This is a matter of declared intents and stakes, implicit intents and stakes, and reading the table's  mood.

For instance: if the door is known to be the last barrier between the PC and freedom; and the player declares the lock pick attempt as a dramatic final attempt at escape; so that the stakes (implicit if not explicit) are "Successfully pick the lock and you'll be free; fail and you'll be caught before you get out"; then it _would_ be a GMing error to have the door open only to find a hostile monster on the other side.

Conversely, in my BW game last Sunday the sorcerer-assassin snuck into the wagon from Urnst and picked the lock of the chest in there, so as to steal the wedding gifts. It would have been unfair to tell the player, once the check succeeded, that there is no treasure in there. But it would have been fair game, I think, to have a monster as well (the classic snake or scorpion, perhaps), because that would not have contradicted the stakes (either implicit or explicit). Though as it happened I didn't do anything of that sort, because (in my view) it wouldn't have added anything to the game in terms of challenge, drama, pacing etc.



Imaro said:


> But finding a fouled water hole does not equate to... "Did not navigate safely and successfully through the desert"... it equates to found a fouled waterhole in a desert.



Well, if the intent of the check (implicit or explicit) was _we make it safely across the desert_, then finding the waterhole fouled _does_ contradict that intent, as the PCs _haven't_ made it safely across the desert. They have to do extra stuff to get the water they need.

In my game, as best I recall the shortage of water meant that another Fortitude check was required - which has implications for spell casters (BW limits casting by requiring a roll with each spell to see if Fort is lost), plus (I think) resulted in at least one PC falling unconscious due to exhaustion. Plus, by looking for the elf who had fouled the waterhole, they got exposed to more risks (a knife thrown in the dark). And then another check (Tracking, I think) which also failed, resulting in the well at the ruined tower having been filled with rubble by the dark elf.



Imaro said:


> I wouldn't have them make a single roll to cross an entire dessert if I had the precise locations of certain hazards pre-authored.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Of course information about the mountain could have easily been gleaned by some kind of knowledge check, or a geography check, or research... but then I guess in a game where success or failure dictates the world as opposed to the success of your character in the world (which IMO has very little to do with whether character goals, desires and needs are driving the story)... that's unnecessary.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Of course in my game there is a chance that the player's encounter the unknown... and said unknown is not directly related to them, and even in some way spawns it's own story... for us it creates a richer experience when interspersed with the purely character driven portions





Imaro said:


> I think you could narrate a successful check and still reinforce or reiterate on the dangers found in a desert.  It gives context, it gives color and it's actually pretty close to how most stories of heroic fantasy narrate such trips (as opposed to the hero not encontering any dangers whatsoever) and can provide consistency (and agency) for failure states that may happen if they traverse the dessert again... they've grown to know at least some of the dangers that lurk in a desert.  Personally I don't see it as GM verbiage... but then I also suspect this has alot to do with not just your DM style but the type of players you have as well.



The technique that scene-framing, "fail forward"-style games use to generate the unkown, the dynamic of dangers and successes, etc, is the back-and-forth between success and failure. (Part of what gives 4e fiction a more "glossy" veneer than BW is that it has a higher ratio of successes to failures.)

In HeroQuest revised, this is built right into the DC-setting mechanics, which raise the DC based on the number of prior consecutive successful checks.

BW uses "objective" DCs, but has other devices to ensure regular failures, namely, making reliable success dependent on expending limited meta-resources.

There is no need to introduce or narrate in new complications or unknown things as part of successful checks; failures are where this happens. Plus the framing of new scenes - as I said earlier in this thread, achieving an effective balance between resolving a declared action and framing a new scene is part of a GM's skill in this sort of game.


----------



## Maxperson

Umbran said:


> But, depth that the player does not appreciate is effectively wasted effort.  The GM should spend time on things that the players do appreciate, when it is possible to know or guess that beforehand.  This is a large part of the drive of content created in the moment - not needing to make up a ton of content beforehand that nobody's actually going to care about.
> 
> And here is one of many keys to GMing - if you're treading water in a dark ocean, you *don't know* how deep the water is.  You only have to provide the suggestion of depth, until such time as a character chooses to dive, or is dragged down by a kraken
> 
> In practice, that means that the GM shoud develop the depths around expected kraken, and around things they expect the players to find intriguing and dive into.  But developing depth *everywhere*, such that random elements will all have depth, is probably not the best use of a GMs time.




I agree.  The DM should make every effort to provide depth that the players like.  When we start a campaign, the players and I all sit around and brainstorm ideas.  Eventually one is selected and based on what is chosen, I will generally select an area in the Forgotten Realms for it to start in.  For instance, if they pick relic hunters as their base idea, I might pick Mulhorrand as their starting location due to the Egyptian theme and tombs.  I will then come up with adventure ideas based around their theme and let them pick and choose their direction, but I will draw on the pre-authored content from Mulhorrand as well as creating stuff in the moment with the players.  If they suddenly say, "You know, I heard about this place called Myth Drannor.  Let's go there and see what relics we can find.", they will go off in that direction based on pre-authored content and I will start prepping stuff also drawing on that pre-authored content for when they arrive.  At all times, though, I'm working hard to make sure that things are interesting and fun for the players.

What those on the other side of things here don't seem to understand is that they pre-author things and draw on pre-authored content all the time.  My games draw on pre-authored content and also create content in the moment, and so do theirs.  If they create Jimbo the Clown Dwarf in the moment and one of the players draws upon his pre-authored background desire for revenge to announce the Jimbo killed his PCs mothers and rode off on his father, right after that moment Jimbo and that connection now count as pre-authored.  Later when the PC confronts Jimbo and shouts, "This is for my parents you brightly dressed, face painted dwarf!", he is drawing on pre-authored content two ways.  Once for his desire for revenge, and once for the connection he pre-authored in that prior session.  

The only games that don't involve pre-authored content are ones where the PCs forget everything the do from session to session, have no backgrounds or character concepts, and where nothing encountered ever makes a re-appearance.  I've never even heard of a game run like that.  That means that it really can't be pre-authored things that turns them off.  It has to be the way those things are pre-authored.


----------



## Maxperson

TwoSix said:


> I have trouble trusting your parsing of all of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s posts, if after 800+ posts you still don't know that BW = Burning Wheel.
> 
> Still, let's boil down this down even further.  No one is saying pre-authoring is bad, or that if you pre-author you're a lousy DM who loves to railroad his players.  Some people are simply saying that for their DM style, it's a net negative.  The gains in campaign consistency and depth of the world don't matter, because _their game isn't about exploring the world._  The game is about the characters, the setting is merely a frame to place their goals and drives into context.
> 
> What does matter is that if you pre-author an uncrossable canyon in the middle of the desert, or that the all the waterholes have been fouled by a Dark Elf so that the characters have to turn back, you as a DM _have just c***blocked your players out of their protagonism._  You made their statement of intent to cross the desert NOT MATTER, because it was more important to you as a DM to make your world have a canyon in it, or to illustrate that the dark elf is a cunning tactician who's also totally gross.
> 
> No one is saying that campaign world detail isn't a worthy goal for many styles of play, or the players and DMs who enjoy them.  But for a game focused on narrative play, all it does it create hassle that's in opposition to the heart of the play style.




If you think that pre-authoring something to block the players is the fault of pre-authoring, you don't understand the tool.  A DM who does that is not only misusing the tool, but he's also a tool himself.  That sort of DM will also be bad at your style of gaming.  Bad DMs are bad.  The tools they misuse are not.


----------



## Maxperson

TwoSix said:


> I'm not saying that approach doesn't work for you.  But what your pre-authoring did was say "Ok, you rolled a success on your desert crossing check, but now there's mountains, so you have to make a climbing check also."   You increased the odds of the players failing without telling them ahead of the first roll.




Why does it have to cause them to fail?  Why couldn't there be a cave to go through if they can't climb over?  Why couldn't there be a pass in the mountains to find?  Why couldn't they go to the village down the way and use their griffons to fly over?  Why not a hundred other things?

Pre-authorship doesn't shut things down.  That's just your misconception of what pre-authoring is about.


----------



## pemerton

TwoSix said:


> The game is about the characters, the setting is merely a frame to place their goals and drives into context.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> if you pre-author an uncrossable canyon in the middle of the desert, or that the all the waterholes have been fouled by a Dark Elf so that the characters have to turn back, you as a DM _have just c***blocked your players out of their protagonism._  You made their statement of intent to cross the desert NOT MATTER, because it was more important to you as a DM to make your world have a canyon in it, or to illustrate that the dark elf is a cunning tactician who's also totally gross.
> 
> No one is saying that campaign world detail isn't a worthy goal for many styles of play, or the players and DMs who enjoy them.  But for a game focused on narrative play, all it does it create hassle that's in opposition to the heart of the play style.





Manbearcat said:


> That Dark Elf that pemerton was pondering outside of play?  That could have come in many shapes or forms.  The play wasn't about the Dark Elf.  He became a part of the setting mosaic when he was introduced into the fiction, yes, but it wasn't about him.  Play turns on the Situation (a) challenging a Belief (or multiples) and (b) forcing the players to address the What (do I want out of this Situation) and How (am I going to resolve it).  The Dark Elf is just the means for pemerton to facilitate that proper GMing (which isn't his bias).  It isn't a story about his Dark Elf.  It is a story about his players' Beliefs being tested in the crucible of high/dark fantasy conflict (over and over and over) and seeing what shakes out of it (character progression/evolution and story emergence).  In this case, the introduction of the Dark Elf complication was just another system-coherent (and genre-coherent) means of doing that.



I agree with both these posts. If you want the focus of the game to be on exploring the setting, then pre-authoring makes sense. So does adjudicating action resolution by reference to secret backstory.

But if the focus of the game is meant to be on the protagonism of the PCs (and their players), establishing and pursuing their dramatic needs, then pre-authored fiction can become a stumbling block - a _hassle_, as TwoSix puts it. The point of setting, in that sort of play, is to serve as a backdrop and context within which the character's dramas unfold.

Of course a given GM might use a bit of one and a bit of the other. I've already explained that I use pre-authored geography in my BW game, and pre-authored cosmology in my 4e game. But this pre-authored material isn't secret. And nor is it the main subject-matter of the PCs' dramatic needs.



Umbran said:


> Start with the Protagonist.  Each player is their own protagonist, and this is, as you said, a character who is going to take up the Dramatic Need.  However, at the start of the story, the Protagonist doesn't really have much of a Dramatic Need.  Their life is going on basically okay, until you...
> 
> Add the Antagonist.  This is the character(s) that provide the Dramatic Need - something the Antagonist is doing changes the world in a way that creates a Dramatic Need the Protagonist takes up.
> 
> I submit that this is actually how much heroic fiction is structured.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> With my construction, how pre-authoring and scenario design fit in becomes obvious - it is providing a series of large and small scale dramatic needs.
> 
> Now, again, the GM needs to have pretty solid grasp of the characters to provide such a series, or conversely, the player needs to be not terribly picky about what will provide a satisfying need.



I think this approach poses some challenges for RPGing. Which you recognise in the last sentence that I've quoted, I think, but which I want to explore a bit more.

In the approach to RPGing that [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION], upthread, called "mainstream", the second disjunct of the final quoted sentence comes into play. The GM - via the authoring of the backstory, the BBEG, etc - provides a menu (perhaps a very short menu) of possible dramatic needs, and the players (via their PCs) are expected, as part of the social contract of play, to engage with an item on that menu. I think this is the sort of approach that [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] has called "pinballing", because of - in his case - the lack of connection he as a player feels to the stuff that, in the fiction, his PC is meant to be engaged with and caring about.

What about the first disjunct? I'm not sure that the GM's solid grasp of the characters is enough, because - as per your Luke Skywalker example - the character may not be fully "given" or fully revealed when play begins. No matter how well the GM knows that Luke Skywalker's dramatic need is _to get off this podunk backwater desert planet_, that is not going to tell the GM that Luke's future dramatic need will be _to become a Jedi like my father_. So where does that change in need come from? Someone will have to deliberately choose it.

In the context of a film or novel, it is the (sole) author who makes that choice. But in the context of an RPG, who makes the choice? If the GM makes such a profound choice for a PC, that seems to interfere with the player's prerogative to play his/her PC. Suppose, then, that the player makes the choice. What happens then? If, in the campaign world, it is already established that Luke can't become a Jedi  - that there is no in-fiction possible pathway that takes Luke from his present situation to the state of being a Jedi - then in a sense the story is over before it has begun. I think part of the motivation behind the RPG designers who gave us games that are very self-conscious about "fail forward", scene-framing and the like is to come up with techniques that avoid this sort of impasse. At a certain point during the campaign, the player signals (via whaterver formal or informal method is appropriate to the table and the system) that his/her PC has a new goal, and the GM - in accordance with the basic GMing principles of the system - is obliged to frame the PC into situations which will put that goal under the spotlight and the PC's mettle to the test.

It's always a bit invidious to rewrite an established piece of fiction as an RPG, but here's one way I could see Luke evolving  in a BW version of Star Wars:

The player creates the PC. He has some lifepath and/or trait that indicates that he is an orphan/adoptee. His Beliefs include "I must get off this backwater planet" and "I will pursue my true heritage". Perhaps the third one is "I will do a good job on the moisture farm" - this engages him tightly into the opening situation, and provides fodder for conflicting Beliefs down the way.

The GM engages Beliefs 1 and 3 by framing Luke into the droid acquisition and cleaning situation. Luke wants to do a good job on the farm, by buying good droids and getting them cleaned up and working well. But the mysterious message from R2D2 is not only an obstacle to this - because it impedes R2D2's work - but also seems to offer a way off the planet.

Luke's player then tests Hermit-wise or Desert-wise or some similar appropriate skill to establish that Luke knows of a Ben Kenobi who lives not too far away. The actual check to get to Ben (Navigation, Survival, Driving/Piloting or whatever else seemed appropriate) fails, though, and instead Luke is caught by the Sand People. The GM plays the failure fairly soft, though: Luke is knocked unconscious and rescued by Ben Kenobi, so he gets what he wants - he finds the hermit - but he is at a disadvantage, not having the upper hand in the social encounter and also having lost some time, which then gives the GM licence to advance the timeline in other respects (eg have Stormtroopers come to the farm and shoot Luke's uncle and aunt).

The GM then decides that Ben tells Luke of his heritage, and presents him with his father's light sabre. This presents Luke's player with the choice of accepting Ben's version of events, and pursuing the Jedi path as his heritage; or contesting that  - maybe Ben is lying, or mistaken, or confused about Luke's identity (as with the Black Arrows in my BW game, the ultimate in-fiction truth is not pre-authored). In the game that follows the movie, the player accepts what Ben has to say, and starts to pursue this newly-revealed heritage.

Much later on in the story, though, Luke confronts Vader, whom - to date - he has believed is the killer of his Jedi father. Having Vader declare "_I_ am your father" must be the result of a failed check - it is moving the fiction in a direction that Luke (and Luke's player) did not want. Thinking about how that scene in The Empire Strikes Back might occur within the system framework of Burning Wheel, it looks like some sort of social/negotiation contest: having won the physical conflict, Vader is trying to persuade Luke to join with him and overthrow the Emperor, and Luke's player declares some sort of resistance or rebuttal action - "You killed him [and hence I can't join with you]" - and fails. If Luke's player had succeeded, the story would have moved in a different direction.​
Not entirely on point for Luke's personal development, but also helpful to think about in imagining Star Wars as an RPG (and relevant to pre-authorship of geography): that Alderaan has been destroyed would be another instance of failing forward - the PCs arrive at the right interstellar coordinates, but the planet they were hoping to arrive at has been destroyed.


----------



## TwoSix

Maxperson said:


> Why does it have to cause them to fail?  Why couldn't there be a cave to go through if they can't climb over?  Why couldn't there be a pass in the mountains to find?  Why couldn't they go to the village down the way and use their griffons to fly over?  Why not a hundred other things?
> 
> Pre-authorship doesn't shut things down.  That's just your misconception of what pre-authoring is about.



If there isn't any chance that something the players discover could cause them a change in their situation, then they didn't need to discover it.  Encounters introduced merely for the sake of background are "mere colour", as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has often described it.  

Again, no one is saying you CAN'T run a game with pre-authoring and have it run well, or even better than the style we're describing for certain very common play styles.  But please, just try to accept that these techniques make the game run better for other different play styles.  Not everyone cares about the game setting as a focus of play.


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> Again, no one is saying you CAN'T run a game with pre-authoring and have it run well, or even better than the style we're describing for certain very common play styles.  But please, just try to accept that these techniques make the game run better for other different play styles.  Not everyone cares about the game setting as a focus of play.




You mean in the same way your side of the discussion has accepted that pre-authored does not necessarily equate to a "railroad", or that a sandbox doesn't necessarily equate to a pinball-like game of directionless characters?

EDIT: Which is to say you can't expect people to be open to accepting/understand your views if you don't return the favor.


----------



## Maxperson

TwoSix said:


> If there isn't any chance that something the players discover could cause them a change in their situation, then they didn't need to discover it.  Encounters introduced merely for the sake of background are "mere colour", as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has often described it.




What does that have to do with what I said?  Every thing I suggested was a change in the situation.  None of it was stopping the PCs dead in their tracks.  Pre-authorship is not about stopping the PCs dead in their tracks and never has been.



> Again, no one is saying you CAN'T run a game with pre-authoring and have it run well, or even better than the style we're describing for certain very common play styles.  But please, just try to accept that these techniques make the game run better for other different play styles.  Not everyone cares about the game setting as a focus of play.




Sure.  Everyone has a playstyle preference.  I just reject the notion that my playstyle is more prone to railroading than yours or that it causes people to just stop dead in their tracks.  What you have been describing are bad DMs misusing a playstyle.  That's just as easy to have happen with yours as it is with mine.


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> You mean in the same way your side of the discussion has accepted that pre-authored does not necessarily equate to a "railroad", or that a sandbox doesn't necessarily equate to a pinball-like game of directionless characters?
> 
> EDIT: Which is to say you can't expect people to be open to accepting/understand your views if you don't return the favor.



Well, yes, pretty much like we do.  Frequently, with endless caveats that what we're talking about is based on OUR preferences and is a technique for a PARTICULAR style of game.  Seriously, the first three paragraphs of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s are nothing but caveats about how different techniques work for different goals of play.

Quite simply, if you're getting the vibe that this discussion is about anything else than advice and discussion about how different techniques can empower different kinds of games and play styles, you're reading it wrong.


----------



## TwoSix

Maxperson said:


> What does that have to do with what I said?  Every thing I suggested was a change in the situation.  None of it was stopping the PCs dead in their tracks.  Pre-authorship is not about stopping the PCs dead in their tracks and never has been.



But that's what I mean!  If you change the encounter from the stated stakes, you change the odds!  You've impacted the mechanics because of your pre-authoring.  If the PC says, "I want to cross the desert", and the DM says, "OK, that's difficult, you only have a 30% chance of that happening without complication", and they roll that 30%, and then you introduce a canyon in the middle because of your secret map, you've changed the stated stakes and odds, unless crossing the canyon has a 100% chance of success.  

Now, if the assumed way you play your game is more of the traditional type where the players don't state their intent specifically, and more of a "Well, let's start crossing the desert and see what happens," than *THIS DOESN"T APPLY TO YOU*.  In the type of game, the players are EXPECTING the DM to provide them with color encounters because the focus of the game is specifically about encountering those encounters.  In those games, worlds with detailed maps and NPCs acting based on hidden agendas is both expected and celebrated.  I am not judging you for playing this way.  *I OFTEN PLAY THIS WAY MYSELF*.  But it's a technique I use based on the game and players at hand.  If I was a player in your game, I'd play your way because I'm familiar with the technique.  If I was a player in [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s game, I would play his way, _because I'm familiar with the technique._  You see how the trick here is to be familiar with as many techniques as possible so you can play in, and more importantly _be comfortable with,_ as many play styles, games, and players as possible?


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> Well, yes, pretty much like we do.  Frequently, with endless caveats that what we're talking about is based on OUR preferences and is a technique for a PARTICULAR style of game.  Seriously, the first three paragraphs of  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s are nothing but caveats about how different techniques work for different goals of play.
> 
> Quite simply, if you're getting the vibe that this discussion is about anything else than advice and discussion about how different techniques can empower different kinds of games and play styles, you're reading it wrong.




Yes... you and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] also make some pretty big (wrong) assumptions about other playstyles you don't particularly like or use as well...  So no, I'm not reading it wrong and it's not us just exchanging info about our preferred styles and leaving it at that...


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> Yes... you and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] also make some pretty big (wrong) assumptions about other playstyles you don't particularly like or use as well...  So no, I'm not reading it wrong and it's not us just exchanging info about our preferred styles and leaving it at that...



Especially since I've stated several times I use pre-authoring myself, if you still conclude that after reading these 800+ posts, I'm afraid we're at an impasse.  So I will bid you good day, so as not to waste any more of either of our time.


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> Especially since I've stated several times I use pre-authoring myself, if you still conclude that after reading these 800+ posts, I'm afraid we're at an impasse.  So I will bid you good day, so as not to waste any more of either of our time.




You use pre-authoring or railroading??


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> You use pre-authoring or railroading??




From yesterday:


TwoSix said:


> Not seeing mixed signals there.  Pre-authoring makes you more likely to railroad because you want to show off your creation.  Doesn't mean you WILL, simply that it's easier to slip into than if you didn't have the material.  Every approach to RPG has pros and cons, that's the whole reason to discuss them in the first place!
> 
> I do agree with you, though, that improv improperly channeled into a structure can easily become a railroad.  Heck, one of my last campaigns was pretty much a choo-choo I improved the entire way, but that's what my particular group of players was looking for.


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> From yesterday:




Cool then I have no problem discussing things with you... of course I have to ask... why defend (might be slightly too strong a word) [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's use of pre-authored as a substitute for "railroad" if you know there's a difference?


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> Cool then I have no problem discussing things with you... of course I have to ask... why defend (might be slightly too strong a word)  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's use of pre-authored as a substitute for "railroad" if you know there's a difference?



Because I don't believe he conflates the two.  I don't want to speak for [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], as he's demonstrated numerous times he's more than capable of speaking on his own.   But my interpretation of what he has said is similar to my own view.  Primarily, that

1) Pre-authoring is work.
2) People don't like to waste their work.
3) It creates an opportunity to drive the players in the direction seeing your work, rather than going where their play might drive them.  

I'm not saying it will happen.  I'm saying it merely creates an opportunity.  I know I've fallen into it in the past, when I've created some really cool ideas for encounters that I wanted the players to experience.  Was it a bad experience for the game?  No, the players enjoyed what I showed them.  Did I deprotagonize my players to do it?  Yes, I did.  Is that a problem?  Totally depends on what the DMs and players want to get out of the game.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Everyone has a playstyle preference.  I just reject the notion that my playstyle is more prone to railroading than yours or that it causes people to just stop dead in their tracks.





Imaro said:


> Yes... you and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] also make some pretty big (wrong) assumptions about other playstyles you don't particularly like or use





Imaro said:


> You mean in the same way your side of the discussion has accepted that pre-authored does not necessarily equate to a "railroad", or that a sandbox doesn't necessarily equate to a pinball-like game of directionless characters?



If [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] says that he's find a pre-authored game a "pinball" experience, who are you (or I) to contradict him?

For that matter, if I say that I don't like a game with secret backstory used to adjudicate the outcomes of action declaration, because that shifts agency and control over the direction of play from the players (+ dice) to the GM (independently of the dice), who are you to contradict me?

To me, it's fairly simple: either the GM imposes outcomes on action declarations independetly of the players and their dice rolls, or doesn't. The example of the mace and of the waterhole have been used in this respect. Various posters (including both of you, I believe) have said that it is _good_ for a game to have consequences arise (the mace not in the tower, the waterhole fouled by a dark elf, whatever else) that were not part of the framing of the players' action declaration and that flow from the GM's already-established conception of the setting.

I don't share that preference. I don't find that sort of thing good for my game. I also, personally, don't find that it adds depth or "realism" to the gameworld. Neither of you may agree for your own part, but I don't see how you can contradict my own account of my own preferences.

As to railroading: different RPGers have different thresholds for GM vs player agency. A long way upthread, I said that "fail forward" was put forward self-consciously as a technique by game designer who wanted their RPG sessions to produce stories (in some non-trivial sense of that word) without pre-authorship by the GM. It is a way of introducing new fiction and new backstory as part of the _outcome _of adjudicating action resolution, rather than as an input into it.

If, as an RPGer, you _want_ the GM to use as-yet undisclosed elements of the fiction (geography, NPC motivations, etc) to adjudicate action resolution - eg because you feel that this is a way of increasing the vibrancy or depth of the setting, and that a game in which this never happens involves too much coincidence, or too much of the action revolving around the PCs - then those reasons for using "fail forward" _will not speak to you_.

But I don't want the GM to use as-yet undisclosed elements of the fiction to adjudicate action resolution. I want action resolution to involve stakes that are either explicitly or implicitly known, that are then used to set the DC, such that if the players succeed then the fiction changes _in the way that they wanted_. Conversely, if the check fails then the GM gets to narrate some way in which the fiction changes contrary to the desires of the player(s) (and the PC(s)). That's why I like "fail forward" as a technique.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> If @_*sheadunne*_ says that he's find a pre-authored game a "pinball" experience, who are you (or I) to contradict him?
> 
> For that matter, if I say that I don't like a game with secret backstory used to adjudicate the outcomes of action declaration, because that shifts agency and control over the direction of play from the players (+ dice) to the GM (independently of the dice), who are you to contradict me?
> 
> To me, it's fairly simple: either the GM imposes outcomes on action declarations independetly of the players and their dice rolls, or doesn't. The example of the mace and of the waterhole have been used in this respect. Various posters (including both of you, I believe) have said that it is _good_ for a game to have consequences arise (the mace not in the tower, the waterhole fouled by a dark elf, whatever else) that were not part of the framing of the players' action declaration and that flow from the GM's already-established conception of the setting.
> 
> I don't share that preference. I don't find that sort of thing good for my game. I also, personally, don't find that it adds depth or "realism" to the gameworld. Neither of you may agree for your own part, but I don't see how you can contradict my own account of my own preferences.
> 
> As to railroading: different RPGers have different thresholds for GM vs player agency. A long way upthread, I said that "fail forward" was put forward self-consciously as a technique by game designer who wanted their RPG sessions to produce stories (in some non-trivial sense of that word) without pre-authorship by the GM. It is a way of introducing new fiction and new backstory as part of the _outcome _of adjudicating action resolution, rather than as an input into it.
> 
> If, as an RPGer, you _want_ the GM to use as-yet undisclosed elements of the fiction (geography, NPC motivations, etc) to adjudicate action resolution - eg because you feel that this is a way of increasing the vibrancy or depth of the setting, and that a game in which this never happens involves too much coincidence, or too much of the action revolving around the PCs - then those reasons for using "fail forward" _will not speak to you_.
> 
> But I don't want the GM to use as-yet undisclosed elements of the fiction to adjudicate action resolution. I want action resolution to involve stakes that are either explicitly or implicitly known, that are then used to set the DC, such that if the players succeed then the fiction changes _in the way that they wanted_. Conversely, if the check fails then the GM gets to narrate some way in which the fiction changes contrary to the desires of the player(s) (and the PC(s)). That's why I like "fail forward" as a technique.




You're right and if I or anyone else feels your playstyle creates shallow, inconsistent fiction where the DM through free reign over failure outcomes tends to steer the story in the direction he wants... who are you to contradict?  Guess there's no need to discuss any further since apparently there's no way someone's  feelings about something can be wrong... and no one has the right to contradict those feelings.

NOTE: The above is sarcasm as I believe anything can and should be questioned... and I actually don't believe an improv or narrative style necessary leads to those things... I am also not arrogant enough to believe that my experiences alone with a playstyle should be enough for me to be comfortable in defining it without looking at the perspectives of others... especially if it's on a discussion board.

EDIT: I mean honestly if you don't want your preferences discussed or questioned why post on a "discussion board"... if you've got it all figured out about everyone else's playstyles as well... what exactly are you looking to discuss??


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> Because I don't believe he conflates the two.  I don't want to speak for @_*pemerton*_, as he's demonstrated numerous times he's more than capable of speaking on his own.   But my interpretation of what he has said is similar to my own view.  Primarily, that
> 
> 1) Pre-authoring is work.
> 2) People don't like to waste their work.
> 3) It creates an opportunity to drive the players in the direction seeing your work, rather than going where their play might drive them.
> 
> I'm not saying it will happen.  I'm saying it merely creates an opportunity.  I know I've fallen into it in the past, when I've created some really cool ideas for encounters that I wanted the players to experience.  Was it a bad experience for the game?  No, the players enjoyed what I showed them.  Did I deprotagonize my players to do it?  Yes, I did.  Is that a problem?  Totally depends on what the DMs and players want to get out of the game.




But doesn't this say more about what's important to you... as opposed to what a particular style of play steered you into.  I mean in improv/narrative play you could think of something really cool, want to use it and push outcomes towards bringing it into play irregardless of the choices of the player??

example... every failure pushes the PC's towards the Misty Lake where I've thought of a really cool encounter involving a hydra...


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## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> But doesn't this say more about what's important to you... as opposed to what a particular style of play steered you into.  I mean in improv/narrative play you could think of something really cool, want to use it and push outcomes towards bringing it into play irregardless of the choices of the player??
> 
> example... every failure pushes the PC's towards the Misty Lake where I've thought of a really cool encounter involving a hydra...



Could I?  Sure.  Do I think the system pushes me away from it, especially if I've embraced a mindset that I shouldn't be doing it?  Yes.  I mean, I know you CAN give players full agency if you're running an adventure path, but I sure think there's a better chance it could be a railroad than if I'm playing Fiasco.


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> Could I?  Sure.  Do I think the system pushes me away from it, especially if *I've embraced a mindset that I shouldn't be doing it*?  Yes.  I mean, I know you CAN give players full agency if you're running an adventure path, but I sure think there's a better chance it could be a railroad than if I'm playing Fiasco.




But an adventure path isn't the only pre-authored type of campaign... there's the sandbox, funnily enough an earlier poster described this pre-authored type of campaign as a pinball game where he bounced around almost aimlessly. Now I don't agree that describes all sandboxes (or even the majority of them, and mine are built after character creation so as to incorporate charcter needs into them) but don't you find it interesting that the same type of campaign (pre-authored) can invoke almost opposite "feelings" in people (railroad vs. aimless) depending on how it's run?  That IMO,  that makes me believe it's more about who is running it than using pre-authored techniques in and of themselves.

EDIT: Emphasis mine... What you stated there, IMO, is the key to it all and is independent of the tools used... a state of mind that must be embraced is exactly what I've been getting at.


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> But an adventure path isn't the only pre-authored type of campaign... there's the sandbox, funnily enough an earlier poster described this pre-authored type of campaign as a pinball game where he bounced around almost aimlessly. Now I don't agree that describes all sandboxes (or even the majority of them, and mine are built after character creation so as to incorporate charcter needs into them) but don't you find it interesting that the same type of campaign (pre-authored) can invoke almost opposite "feelings" in people (railroad vs. aimless) depending on how it's run?  That IMO,  that makes me believe it's more about who is running it than using pre-authored techniques in and of themselves.
> 
> EDIT: Emphasis mine... What you stated there, IMO, is the key to it all and is independent of the tools used... a state of mind that must be embraced is exactly what I've been getting at.



Well, sure.  Part of what I mean by using techniques are approaches that are system-independent, they are by necessity a mindset you can bring with you.  You simply have to align the techniques you choose to use both with the system and the needs of the players.  You can use certain approaches with lots of different systems, but that doesn't mean some systems aren't more aligned with some approaches than others.


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## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I mean honestly if you don't want your preferences discussed or questioned why post on a "discussion board"... if you've got it all figured out about everyone else's playstyles as well... what exactly are you looking to discuss??



Upthread, [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] asked you for play examples that illustrated your contention that "fail forward" leads to railroading. Can you give one?

 [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] has actually posted his own experience - of sandbox play feeling like "pinballing". I've posted my reasons for preferring my style, and given illustrations. Your response seems to be that choosing to introduce a dark elf in response to a failed check is a type of railroading,  which I don't really get.

What I'm interested in this: can you see why a reasonable person (eg me) might think that it reduces the influence on the fiction of player action declarations to have the player declare that such actions fail by reference to pre-authored fiction taking the form of secret backstory?


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> every failure pushes the PC's towards the Misty Lake where I've thought of a really cool encounter involving a hydra...



How would that work? For instance, how would a failed attempt to find a mace, or to read the magical aura of an angel feather, push the PCs towards the Misty Lake?



Imaro said:


> But an adventure path isn't the only pre-authored type of campaign... there's the sandbox, funnily enough an earlier poster described this pre-authored type of campaign as a pinball game where he bounced around almost aimlessly. Now I don't agree that describes all sandboxes (or even the majority of them, and mine are built after character creation so as to incorporate charcter needs into them) but don't you find it interesting that the same type of campaign (pre-authored) can invoke almost opposite "feelings" in people (railroad vs. aimless) depending on how it's run?



The differences between APs and sandboxes are pretty well known.

But I'm also surprised that you can't see that a "sandbox" that is built _after_ PC creation is clearly getting closer to the sort of non-pre-authored approach that I prefer. It is deferring authoring until after the players have built their PCs and thereby, at least in certain ways, signalled their interests for play.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> What I'm interested in this: can you see why a reasonable person (eg me) might think that it reduces the influence on the fiction of player action declarations to have the player declare that such actions fail by reference to pre-authored fiction taking the form of secret backstory?




I never said I couldn't... in fact all I've done in this thread is question as well as compare/contrast the details of your playstyle (as you have presented it) with  the similarities I think might be there with certain styles of pre-authoring that I am aware of and have used... in other words discussion, I'm sorry if I in some way offended you or made you feel like I was attacking you but I honestly don't undersatnd the purpose of this thread if it's not for our techniques/playstyles/etc. to actually be discussed.

Now in all honesty I do find it telling that while I have asked, compared, and contrasted things about your playstyle, all you and a few other posters have done is define pre-authoring as opposed to trying to understand how it could work differently for others or why others don't view the tools and techniques in the same way as yourselves.  It is you and a few other posters who can't accept that we run pre-authored games that aren't railroads and (at least for us) the techniques and tools themselves don't influence us to railroad.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> How would that work? For instance, how would a failed attempt to find a mace, or to read the magical aura of an angel feather, push the PCs towards the Misty Lake?




On a failed roll to find the mace you instead find a small wooden box on the Dark Elf containing a map to the misty lake...

On a failed roll to read the angel feather aura... you feel nothing radiate from the feather but you do detect magic radiating from a rolled up parchment (map to Misty Lake) being pocketed by a thief in the market... he notices you and begins to hurried;ly push his way into the crowd...  



pemerton said:


> The differences between APs and sandboxes are pretty well known.




Yes and both fall under the pre-authored umbrella..



pemerton said:


> But I'm also surprised that you can't see that a "sandbox" that is built _after_ PC creation is clearly getting closer to the sort of non-pre-authored approach that I prefer. It is deferring authoring until after the players have built their PCs and thereby, at least in certain ways, signalled their interests for play.




And I'm surprised that you can't see it still falls firmly under "pre-authored" as in not "created in the moment".  See I get that it's a step closer to your style... the problem is that you refuse to acknowledge that it is still pre-authoring and by extension pre-authoring actually can be used for campaigns about character dramatic needs and character driven goals... because you're not trying to discuss or understand the other side, you've already made your mind up about it.


----------



## Aenghus

There are different sorts of pre-authoring and some types are more innocuous than others. Minutia of different cultures, day to day life, architectural styles, fashions, cooking, language, stories, ideals and taboos can really add to a game when used appropriately (a subjective judgement) and consistently. This is a very subjective topic, some referees, players and groups see this sort of detail as time-wasting nonsense preventing or delaying them from making progress (however they define "progress".

Every little piece of detail is also a potential point of failure - it's amazing how a player can seize on a tiny point of detail and construct an elaborate theory around it, becoming very emotionally invested in it, or point it out as evidence of unseen antagonists in the setting, or evidence of inconsistency in the portrayal of the world.  Players who see the detail merely as a smokescreen to hide deliberate pre-authored traps to invalidate the hopes and dreams of the players and/or PCs probably aren't going to appreciate it as the creator intended.

Then there are pre-authored elements which are created to be important or notable - mysteries to the solved, load-bearing plot elements to be protected or blown up, dark secrets to be discovered or kept secret, conspiracies to be exposed, opposed or aided, locations to be explored, wondrous artifacts to be found, etc. 

Such elements have a much higher chance to invalidate PC actions and goals than the incidental detail. There is no guarantee all the players will appreciate these elements as the author intended. Often the creator is emotionally invested in his creations, understandably, but I personally don't think the authenticity of the setting should be prioritised over everything else in a RPG. The more rigid and pre-authored the setting, the less freedom of action and proactivity it successfully allows. What matters it if PCs can do anything in a setting if the hidden backstory of that setting means it feels like 99% of all actions are irrelevant or futile.

I find most players are very sensitive to failure especially in risky endeavours. In some cases it takes only a few failures of tasks that seemed reasonable to the players to expect success at (but maybe not the the referee) to make the players turtle up and get defensive and paranoid, which can slow a game down to a crawl.  

Sometimes a plot element fails, for whatever reason, and can no longer serve the purpose for which it was originally intended. It seems tougher for pre-authored referees to adapt or let go of such a plot. I find this is a hard test for a referee - some stick to their guns, and go down with their leaky plot-ship, often accompanied by that campaign ending, or in worse cases the group breaking up.


----------



## Maxperson

TwoSix said:


> But that's what I mean!  If you change the encounter from the stated stakes, you change the odds!  You've impacted the mechanics because of your pre-authoring.  If the PC says, "I want to cross the desert", and the DM says, "OK, that's difficult, you only have a 30% chance of that happening without complication", and they roll that 30%, and then you introduce a canyon in the middle because of your secret map, you've changed the stated stakes and odds, unless crossing the canyon has a 100% chance of success.
> 
> Now, if the assumed way you play your game is more of the traditional type where the players don't state their intent specifically, and more of a "Well, let's start crossing the desert and see what happens," than *THIS DOESN"T APPLY TO YOU*.  In the type of game, the players are EXPECTING the DM to provide them with color encounters because the focus of the game is specifically about encountering those encounters.  In those games, worlds with detailed maps and NPCs acting based on hidden agendas is both expected and celebrated.  I am not judging you for playing this way.  *I OFTEN PLAY THIS WAY MYSELF*.  But it's a technique I use based on the game and players at hand.  If I was a player in your game, I'd play your way because I'm familiar with the technique.  If I was a player in [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s game, I would play his way, _because I'm familiar with the technique._  You see how the trick here is to be familiar with as many techniques as possible so you can play in, and more importantly _be comfortable with,_ as many play styles, games, and players as possible?




I've never seen a DM say, "One roll to cross a desert".  Crossing a desert is a journey the generally takes days to weeks.


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## pemerton

Imaro said:


> On a failed roll to find the mace you instead find a small wooden box on the Dark Elf containing a map to the misty lake...
> 
> On a failed roll to read the angel feather aura... you feel nothing radiate from the feather but you do detect magic radiating from a rolled up parchment (map to Misty Lake) being pocketed by a thief in the market... he notices you and begins to hurried;ly push his way into the crowd...



And has a player stated a Belief for his/her PC that s/he travel to the Misty Lake? Or has a player given any sort of informal or implicit signal that s/he is interested in the Misty Lake? Where is the Misty Lake coming from, in this imagined scenario?



Imaro said:


> And I'm surprised that you can't see it still falls firmly under "pre-authored" as in not "created in the moment".  See I get that it's a step closer to your style... the problem is that you refuse to acknowledge that it is still pre-authoring and by extension pre-authoring actually can be used for campaigns about character dramatic needs and character driven goals... because you're not trying to discuss or understand the other side, you've already made your mind up about it.



Let's focus on character-driven goals.

In this hypothetical sandbox, the GM has not authored in a Misty Lake (let's suppose); but one of the players authors for his/her PC the goal of travelling to the Misty Lake to speak with the spirit of said Lake, so as to learn such-and-such piece of backstory information - maybe to learn where the ancient vorpal sword Excelsior can now be found.

What does the GM do?

If the answer is that the GM introduces a Misty Lake into the sandbox - then how are you talking about some approach which is different from my preferred approach?

If the answer is that the GM does not introduce a Misty Lake into the sandbox - then the campaign is exhibiting the very feature that I, personally, dislike, namely, the use of GM's pre-authored secret backstory (the secret, in this case, being the absence of a Misty Like), to determine in advance that a certain player (and PC) goal must fail.

There is a third possibility, I guess, namely that the players will never come up with goals or orientations for their PCs that can't be satisfied within the pre-authored sandbox. One reason for this might be because, like [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION], the players are simply "pinballing". Another might be that the GM, knowing the players so well, has already answered all the character-driven goals that they might come up with in the initial design of the sandbox. This second reason seems improbable to me, based on my own practical experience both of campaign setting design and of the way that actual play drives player imagination and character development. What's your experience in these respects?


----------



## Maxperson

TwoSix said:


> 1) Pre-authoring is work.
> 2) People don't like to waste their work.
> 3) It creates an opportunity to drive the players in the direction seeing your work, rather than going where their play might drive them.




Here are my counters to that.

1) Pre-authoring is also fun.  If it isn't, the DM is using the wrong style of game for himself.
2) Nothing is wasted.  If something I create now isn't used because the party alters direction or goals, it becomes something to be used later.  I may have to alter it slightly, but it's not like I just toss it in the garbage.  Given that I haven't had a railroading DM since just after high school, this seems to apply to most DMs.  I suppose I could have gotten really lucky, though.
3) They will see it eventually if appropriate, if not, then not.  I have way too many ideas that are great to ever put them all into play, so losing some is no big deal.  This probably also applies to most DMs.  DMs tend to be the creative sort.



> I'm not saying it will happen.  I'm saying it merely creates an opportunity.  I know I've fallen into it in the past, when I've created some really cool ideas for encounters that I wanted the players to experience.  Was it a bad experience for the game?  No, the players enjoyed what I showed them.  Did I deprotagonize my players to do it?  Yes, I did.  Is that a problem?  Totally depends on what the DMs and players want to get out of the game.




And I'm not saying that it can't happen, but our playstyle is not prone to it.  Cool ideas to test out and show players can come up in your playstyle just as easily I think.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> I've never seen a DM say, "One roll to cross a desert".  Crossing a desert is a journey the generally takes days to weeks.



That's surprising to me. (Well, depending exactly on what you mean by "one roll".)

In my BW campaign, the PCs had to travel across the Bright Desert, from the oasis of the friendly naga to the ruined tower in the foothills of the Abor-Alz.

One initial skill check was required: a Songs of Paths and Ways check (which is an Orienteering check, but in the form of an elven Skill Song, meaning that it is very slightly buffed) from the elven ronin PC. I also required each player to make a Forte (=CON) check against a moderately high DC (Ob 4, from memory) to see how much temp Fort lose ("tax", in the terminology of BW) was suffered.

Had the Songs of Paths and Ways check succeeded, that would have been it. It failed, though, which led to the fouled waterhole and out of that the initial altercation with the dark elf. Another Forte check was then required before getting to the tower, plus the failure on a Tracking check against the dark elf meant that when the PCs got to the tower the well there had been filled with rubble by the dark elf (at least, that's as best I recall it - the well certainly was filled with rubble, and I think it was the failure at Tracking that was the trigger for that).

In my 4e game, when the PCs had to fly their Thundercloud Tower down the Obelisk of Ice and across the Elemental Chaos on their way to the Demonweb Pits, that was resolved as a Complexity 1 skill challenge (I think - looking at the date of that post I linked to it was over a year ago!, though it seems like just the other week) which is only a handful of rolls.

Also in my 4e game, the 41 day travel through dozens of layers of the Abyss, from Thanatos (300-ish?) to The Barrens (100, I think) was resolved in a couple of minutes of narration by me. I think there was some sort of check involved in the larger context of a skill challenge - again, my memory is a little hazy - but it may well have been an auto-success for the invoker/wizard PC, who can't fail an Arcana or Religion check except in very unusual circumstances (due to very big bonuses, including the +6 buff from being a Sage of Ages).

Going back to my BW game, we resolved 2 years of recuperation and study in the ruined tower in less than a session. (The main rolls required were upkeep rolls, which is a BW mechanic designed to force the players to make hard choices between doing the training or studying they would like, and doing fairly mundane work to maintain their standard of living - these rolls are generally one or two per season for each PC.)

In general, I don't find there to be any necessary correlation between the number of rolls required as part of resolution, and the ingame arduousness or time required for the task at hand.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> And has a player stated a Belief for his/her PC that s/he travel to the Misty Lake? Or has a player given any sort of informal or implicit signal that s/he is interested in the Misty Lake? Where is the Misty Lake coming from, in this imagined scenario?
> 
> Let's focus on character-driven goals.
> 
> In this hypothetical sandbox, the GM has not authored in a Misty Lake (let's suppose); but one of the players authors for his/her PC the goal of travelling to the Misty Lake to speak with the spirit of said Lake, so as to learn such-and-such piece of backstory information - maybe to learn where the ancient vorpal sword Excelsior can now be found.
> 
> What does the GM do?
> 
> If the answer is that the GM introduces a Misty Lake into the sandbox - then how are you talking about some approach which is different from my preferred approach?
> 
> If the answer is that the GM does not introduce a Misty Lake into the sandbox - then the campaign is exhibiting the very feature that I, personally, dislike, namely, the use of GM's pre-authored secret backstory (the secret, in this case, being the absence of a Misty Like), to determine in advance that a certain player (and PC) goal must fail.
> 
> There is a third possibility, I guess, namely that the players will never come up with goals or orientations for their PCs that can't be satisfied within the pre-authored sandbox. One reason for this might be because, like [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION], the players are simply "pinballing". Another might be that the GM, knowing the players so well, has already answered all the character-driven goals that they might come up with in the initial design of the sandbox. This second reason seems improbable to me, based on my own practical experience both of campaign setting design and of the way that actual play drives player imagination and character development. What's your experience in these respects?




Let me repeat... the sandbox is authored after the PC's create their characters... so it incorporates their goals beforehand not after the fact as you presented above or in the moment as is done in your playstyle, so I guess there is a 4th way.  

How I and my group usually prep for a campaign is a session zero that takes place near the end of whatever game we are currently playing...  this sesion zero serves a few purposes, among them being...

1. The DM presents a very high level overview of his game/world/setting (An African-inspired fantasy setting)
2. Brainstorm character concepts while making sure genre wise we are all on the same page...No ninjas if we are playing in an African-themed campaign world.
3. Actual character creation where backstory and goals are also established
4. Character connections/relationships are created including contacts, family, friends, etc.


Now once these things are created we go back to finish out the game we are currently playing and the person GM'ing the next game creates his sandbox which is built with the players goals, relationships, etc. in mind but (and this is where I think it differs from your approach the most) also with things from the GM's own creative process included as well... Since most of us have been gaming for over 15 years together (my son and nephew are more recent attendees) these are usually things the DM knows will speak to the interests of the players at his table and with the characters fleshed out beforehand he has much better insight into tying his own creations to the characters in a meaningful or at least intriguing way.  Of course since this is a sandbox the players can choose what they do or don't want to pursue.  Not sure if that helps clarify, and not even sure if you wanted to know about my own processes and tools for game prep since you didn't ask but I figure it couldn't hurt clarity any.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> If [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] says that he's find a pre-authored game a "pinball" experience, who are you (or I) to contradict him?




Maybe you're misrepresent what he said slightly, but as you just worded it, I'm someone who can factually call him wrong.  Pre-authored =/= pinball.  That's a fact.  Now, if he is really just saying that he has just experienced the pinball effect in the few pre-authored games that he has played in, and isn't extending that statement out to all pre-authored games, I have nothing to contradict.  



> To me, it's fairly simple: either the GM imposes outcomes on action declarations independetly of the players and their dice rolls, or doesn't. The example of the mace and of the waterhole have been used in this respect. Various posters (including both of you, I believe) have said that it is _good_ for a game to have consequences arise (the mace not in the tower, the waterhole fouled by a dark elf, whatever else) that were not part of the framing of the players' action declaration and that flow from the GM's already-established conception of the setting.




That's a False Dichotomy.  The DM could use both methods in any measurements of the two.  In fact, I think I've rarely seen a DM who does use outcomes of action independently of die rolls.  Even if something unknown to the players is involved, the result still takes the player die rolls into account.  The unknown (hidden backstory) doesn't determine the result of the actions, it just adds to what both the players and the DM can draw on for the narration.  If there is going to be a symbol on a shield, I can draw upon the pre-authored content and use the symbol of the Flaming Fists, rather than just having to come up with something on the fly.  The outcome of the roll is the same.



> I don't share that preference. I don't find that sort of thing good for my game. I also, personally, don't find that it adds depth or "realism" to the gameworld. Neither of you may agree for your own part, but I don't see how you can contradict my own account of my own preferences.




I haven't been trying to contradict you at any point in this discussion.  I've just been telling you that my method isn't as bad as you are making it out to be.  You may not like it, but it isn't what you have been saying.  I may be misunderstanding you, but as you are writing your responses, you seem to be misunderstanding/misstating things.



> As to railroading: different RPGers have different thresholds for GM vs player agency. A long way upthread, I said that "fail forward" was put forward self-consciously as a technique by game designer who wanted their RPG sessions to produce stories (in some non-trivial sense of that word) without pre-authorship by the GM. It is a way of introducing new fiction and new backstory as part of the _outcome _of adjudicating action resolution, rather than as an input into it.




Fail forward is independent of our playstyles.   You can use it, and I can use it.  Pre-authorship doesn't stop fail forward.  Even if it was invented for your playstyle, that doesn't preclude its use in other styles.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> That's surprising to me. (Well, depending exactly on what you mean by "one roll".)
> 
> In my BW campaign, the PCs had to travel across the Bright Desert, from the oasis of the friendly naga to the ruined tower in the foothills of the Abor-Alz.
> 
> One initial skill check was required: a Songs of Paths and Ways check (which is an Orienteering check, but in the form of an elven Skill Song, meaning that it is very slightly buffed) from the elven ronin PC. I also required each player to make a Forte (=CON) check against a moderately high DC (Ob 4, from memory) to see how much temp Fort lose ("tax", in the terminology of BW) was suffered.
> 
> Had the Songs of Paths and Ways check succeeded, that would have been it. It failed, though, which led to the fouled waterhole and out of that the initial altercation with the dark elf. Another Forte check was then required before getting to the tower, plus the failure on a Tracking check against the dark elf meant that when the PCs got to the tower the well there had been filled with rubble by the dark elf (at least, that's as best I recall it - the well certainly was filled with rubble, and I think it was the failure at Tracking that was the trigger for that).
> 
> In my 4e game, when the PCs had to fly their Thundercloud Tower down the Obelisk of Ice and across the Elemental Chaos on their way to the Demonweb Pits, that was resolved as a Complexity 1 skill challenge (I think - looking at the date of that post I linked to it was over a year ago!, though it seems like just the other week) which is only a handful of rolls.
> 
> Also in my 4e game, the 41 day travel through dozens of layers of the Abyss, from Thanatos (300-ish?) to The Barrens (100, I think) was resolved in a couple of minutes of narration by me. I think there was some sort of check involved in the larger context of a skill challenge - again, my memory is a little hazy - but it may well have been an auto-success for the invoker/wizard PC, who can't fail an Arcana or Religion check except in very unusual circumstances (due to very big bonuses, including the +6 buff from being a Sage of Ages).
> 
> Going back to my BW game, we resolved 2 years of recuperation and study in the ruined tower in less than a session. (The main rolls required were upkeep rolls, which is a BW mechanic designed to force the players to make hard choices between doing the training or studying they would like, and doing fairly mundane work to maintain their standard of living - these rolls are generally one or two per season for each PC.)
> 
> In general, I don't find there to be any necessary correlation between the number of rolls required as part of resolution, and the ingame arduousness or time required for the task at hand.




I think what he's getting at is if a DM is going to introduce the mountain as one of many hazzards in any playstyle... he wouldn't have you make a single roll to "cross the dessert safely"... that's not a playstyle thing it's a miscommunication or bad DM'ing thing.


----------



## Maxperson

TwoSix said:


> Do I think the system pushes me away from it, especially if I've embraced a mindset that I shouldn't be doing it?  Yes.




This also applies to our playstyle.  The mindset that you shouldn't railroad applies to every playstyle other than railroad, and a game with pre-authoring pushes you away from railroading by having different and interesting content in every direction.  No need to force any direction when all directions are fun and interesting.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] has actually posted his own experience - of sandbox play feeling like "pinballing".




That's his fault, though.  A sandbox game is going to feel aimless if the player isn't imaginative enough and/or doesn't have the drive to give the game aim.  While he's bouncing around feeling aimless, my barbarian has decided to unite the tribes of the north so that I can forge together a large enough horde to sack Cormyr, because what a tale that would make.  Same sandbox, but I have no pinball effect going on whatsoever.  A sandbox is what you the player make of it (the very essence of player agency), and he makes it aimless.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> How would that work? For instance, how would a failed attempt to find a mace, or to read the magical aura of an angel feather, push the PCs towards the Misty Lake?




DM: The mace is gone, and in its place is a note saying, "If you want the mace, come to Misty Lake."


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## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> And I'm surprised that you can't see it still falls firmly under "pre-authored" as in not "created in the moment".  See I get that it's a step closer to your style... the problem is that you refuse to acknowledge that it is still pre-authoring and by extension pre-authoring actually can be used for campaigns about character dramatic needs and character driven goals... because you're not trying to discuss or understand the other side, you've already made your mind up about it.



Honestly, I think the whole "pre-authored" idea is somewhat of a tangent to the larger sticking point, which is "hidden backstory."  It's about how often are things happening in the game world outside the influence of the PCs that can come up later and materially impact their odds of success.  I know a lot of gamers who view NPCs pursuing agendas separately from the actions of the PCs to be the height of verisimilitude, and I think it's that playstyle that some of us find most in opposition to our preferences with narrative focused games.


----------



## TwoSix

Maxperson said:


> And I'm not saying that it can't happen, but our playstyle is not prone to it.  Cool ideas to test out and show players can come up in your playstyle just as easily I think.



And I think you're incorrect about these tendencies, but manage to ameliorate the possible flaws through self-awareness and good DMing practices.  (And good for you to do so!)

Since our dueling anecdotes carry equal weight, it's not really something we can do anything about beyond agreeing to disagree.


----------



## TwoSix

Maxperson said:


> DM: The mace is gone, and in its place is a note saying, "If you want the mace, come to Misty Lake."




"I don't know about this Misty Lake, Scoob.  Sounds creeeeeepy!"


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> Honestly, I think the whole "pre-authored" idea is somewhat of a tangent to the larger sticking point, which is "hidden backstory."  It's about how often are things happening in the game world outside the influence of the PCs that can come up later and materially impact their odds of success.  I know a lot of gamers who view NPCs pursuing agendas separately from the actions of the PCs to be the height of verisimilitude, and I think it's that playstyle that some of us find most in opposition to our preferences with narrative focused games.




I thought it was about whether the PC's were aware of those factors... not whether they impacted or didn't impact the chance for success...


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> I thought it was about whether the PC's were aware of those factors... not whether they impacted or didn't impact the chance for success...



If they don't come up at the table and impact the mechanics in some way, (which could be impacting the dice roll odds, changing the allowable stakes, or causing a different scene to be framed than would have otherwise) than what does it matter?


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> If they don't come up at the table and impact the mechanics in some way, (which could be impacting the dice roll odds, changing the allowable stakes, or causing a different scene to be framed than would have otherwise) than what does it matter?




Yes but the key point is still whether they are aware of it or not.  Otherwise you're saying even if the PC's are aware of the effect it still robs agency, which it doesn't... at least as far as I understand [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's explanation


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> Yes but the key point is still whether they are aware of it or not.  Otherwise you're saying even if the PC's are aware of the effect it still robs agency, which it doesn't... at least as far as I understand [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's explanation



Oh sure.  I'm just saying if you pre-author something that A) the players don't know about; and B) never comes up at the table, than it's not hurting anything for anybody's agenda.


----------



## Aenghus

Imaro said:


> I thought it was about whether the PC's were aware of those factors... not whether they impacted or didn't impact the chance for success...




Answering for myself, hidden backstory can invalidate a PC concept  from  the very start of the game, but the player him or herself may not discover that for ages. Mainly I'm talking dealbreakers here, situations the player will find untenable and will lead to characters being killed off, retiring or players leaving. The referee may or may not notice this. If s/he doesn't play proceeds until the big reveal happens, and the consequences kick in. If they do notice, they need to decide whether they prioritise player enjoyment or keeping secrets more. Early on player concepts can be nudged to more appropriate or less doomed directions without letting on exactly why, though players may guess right. 

Lots of little obstacles do accumulate, and if the pro-activity of a player runs against the grain of a hidden backstory,  they can inadvertently be locked into a cycle of failure, where the referee is reluctant to explain why so many things the player does seemed to be doomed to failure or turn out irrelevant. Even when their is no single dealbreaker, a consistent string of failures of pro-activity will sap the morale of most players (unless they enjoy tragedies). Too much dangerous hidden backstory turns the game into a game of minesweeper, where the player is forced to make blind moves and any move could be his or her last.

 If and when the player finds out they can be very cross their playing time and character investment has been wasted by the referee (as they see it), who typically figures out before the player concerned that they will be displeased as to the turn of events, but may be reluctant to rock the boat and hope against hope that everything will work out right.

Hidden backstory is always a risk, a double risk as it's difficult to get prior feedback or buy-in from the players without blowing the secret. Tastes differ, and I've seen a high proportion of hidden backstory and plot twists blow up in the referee's face as a consequence. 

For me the nub of the issue is whether a referee prioritises player proactivity or hidden backstory and secrets.


----------



## Maxperson

TwoSix said:


> "I don't know about this Misty Lake, Scoob.  Sounds creeeeeepy!"




Yeah, but they always end up going anyway


----------



## Maxperson

Aenghus said:


> Answering for myself, hidden backstory can invalidate a PC concept  from  the very start of the game, but the player him or herself may not discover that for ages. Mainly I'm talking dealbreakers here, situations the player will find untenable and will lead to characters being killed off, retiring or players leaving. The referee may or may not notice this. If s/he doesn't play proceeds until the big reveal happens, and the consequences kick in. If they do notice, they need to decide whether they prioritise player enjoyment or keeping secrets more. Early on player concepts can be nudged to more appropriate or less doomed directions without letting on exactly why, though players may guess right.




This is not a problem with pre-authoring, though.  It's a DM/player problem.  The DM and players should be communicating what the PC concepts are, so things like that are avoided.



> Lots of little obstacles do accumulate, and if the pro-activity of a player runs against the grain of a hidden backstory,  they can inadvertently be locked into a cycle of failure, where the referee is reluctant to explain why so many things the player does seemed to be doomed to failure or turn out irrelevant. Even when their is no single dealbreaker, a consistent string of failures of pro-activity will sap the morale of most players (unless they enjoy tragedies). Too much dangerous hidden backstory turns the game into a game of minesweeper, where the player is forced to make blind moves and any move could be his or her last.




I think that happens to me about once or twice in a two year period.  Not the string of unexplained failures, but any unexplained failures.  I use the Forgotten Realms, so a bunch of pre-authored stuff there, and then when prepping the game I pre-author about 30-50% of the content and wing the rest, depending on circumstances.  What you are describing is rare outside of DMs prone to railroading, and that's a bad DM issue, not a pre-author issue.


----------



## Aenghus

Maxperson said:


> This is not a problem with pre-authoring, though.  It's a DM/player problem.  The DM and players should be communicating what the PC concepts are, so things like that are avoided.



I see it as a potential problem with hidden backstory, where the referee's concern about keeping secrets discourage them from revealing relevant information out of character to the player at character generation or early on when it could do some good. I think discouraging open communication and transparency counts as a potential downside. Whether it is or not depends on the particulars of the people involved and the game being played.

Myself, I am less and less enamoured of hidden twists and big campaign secrets. The big reveal is often much more important to the referee than any of the players, and sometimes it backfires badly. The price of such elements is secrecy and misdirection right now, that can affect play in unexpected ways even when everyone is making a honest effort to create a good game. 



> I think that happens to me about once or twice in a two year period.  Not the string of unexplained failures, but any unexplained failures.  I use the Forgotten Realms, so a bunch of pre-authored stuff there, and then when prepping the game I pre-author about 30-50% of the content and wing the rest, depending on circumstances.  What you are describing is rare outside of DMs prone to railroading, and that's a bad DM issue, not a pre-author issue.




Again,I this context I'm addressing hidden backstory, campaign secrets and the potential damage to open communication between referee and players, not pre-authoring in general.

Bad DMs render any discussion of techniques moot. I prefer to focus on average DMs who make mistakes but aspire to do better. An awareness of the risks inherent in certain techniques can inform their use and help avoid errors.


----------



## Maxperson

Aenghus said:


> I see it as a potential problem with hidden backstory, where the referee's concern about keeping secrets discourage them from revealing relevant information out of character to the player at character generation or early on when it could do some good. I think discouraging open communication and transparency counts as a potential downside. Whether it is or not depends on the particulars of the people involved and the game being played.




Open communication is not required.  Simple communication is.  I don't need to tell the player my hidden plans.  Once I know what the PC concept is, I will also know if and what the potential conflict is.  Then I can usually cure it purely on my side the the player will never know.  If it's problematic, I can discuss with the player the concept and see if the player is open to changes.  Usually, the player has a dozen awesome concepts he wants to try and my players know that if it was fixable on my side it would be, so they generally don't have an issue with tweaking the current concept or picking a new one.  The number of time this hasn't worked out requires me no fingers to count.  Transparency is not required to avoid these issues.



> Myself, I am less and less enamoured of hidden twists and big campaign secrets. The big reveal is often much more important to the referee than any of the players, and sometimes it backfires badly. The price of such elements is secrecy and misdirection right now, that can affect play in unexpected ways even when everyone is making a honest effort to create a good game.



That's a personality issue.  My wife also hates surprises, even to the point of often just telling me what she wants for holidays.  For myself, it would ruin most of the enjoyment to know in advance.  She reads TV show and movie spoilers.  I go out of my way to avoid any chance of coming across them.  

The key is to find like minded players and have a great time.  My players really enjoy the mystery behind not knowing everything.  You and those you play with likely don't enjoy things like that and want to know everything.  That's okay.  



> Again,I this context I'm addressing hidden backstory, campaign secrets and the potential damage to open communication between referee and players, not pre-authoring in general.
> 
> Bad DMs render any discussion of techniques moot. I prefer to focus on average DMs who make mistakes but aspire to do better. An awareness of the risks inherent in certain techniques can inform their use and help avoid errors.



I only reference bad DMs because good and average ones will take mistakes and learn from them, so their mistakes are an acceptable part of the game.


----------



## sheadunne

Maxperson said:


> Once I know what the PC concept is, I will also know if and what the potential conflict is.




This is where I have issue, not with you, but with the "PC concept." In a D&D sense (which I rarely play anymore), I wouldn't even have a concept in the works until level 5 or 6. I develop background during play not before play begins. I find it too restricting and want the freedom to develop the concept of character during play rather than before. I want the decisions made to influence and direct the PC's development. I don't come into play knowing any of that. I have a few personality traits, for example, grumpy dwarf, but not the why developed. Nor do I want it to be developed until I've been playing with the character a while. This is one of the reasons I don't find interest in pre-authored content. How can anything be pre-authored for my character when I don't know enough about the character yet. Frame him in a scene, see what emerges and what choices the character makes and move on from there. 

I find pre-authored sandbox play the most frustrating type of play. Choices are expected to be made when character hasn't even been developed yet. And so PCs head in a "random" direction and encounter a pre-authored situation which isn't connected to any of the characters. Since there's no connection to the character, because we haven't framed scenes to aid in that development, the pre-authored content doesn't force choices of consequence. Rescue the princess or not isn't a good choice when, am I good or evil hasn't even been tested yet. Am I moral character or not? Do I value gold or magic or ale? What's my motivation? I prefer choices that test those attributes of character before we even start talking about big plot points. Maybe we find out at the third session that one of the character's motivations is to buy and own a tavern because he just encounter an interesting barkeep. How could we have pre-authored that, when the player didn't know that was going to be of interest? Maybe another character is struggling with the killing of creatures and his desire for a life of luxury brought on by wealth? How do we answer the question with pre-authored content when the player didn't even know at the time of character creation, that it was going to be a complication with the character? \

Anyway, I like a different type of game and a different way of having it played. I'm okay with that. But in 30+ years of gaming I have moved away from pre-authored games and now stick with the type I enjoy. As should everyone.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> Let me repeat... the sandbox is authored after the PC's create their characters... so it incorporates their goals beforehand
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the person GM'ing the next game creates his sandbox which is built with the players goals, relationships, etc. in mind but (and this is where I think it differs from your approach the most) also with things from the GM's own creative process included as well



The GM's creative processes are part of my game - that's where the dark elf came from, after all. And the pyramid in the Bright Desert. (The desert itself was implicated in the mage PC's backstory, because the player found a photograph of the PC's ruined tower sitting in the hills overlooking pretty arid country - from memory, I think it is somewhere in India.)

A question: what happens if a character's goals change during the course of play (eg s/he decides s/he must find the Misty Lake so as to speak to its spirit and learn the location of the ancient vorpal sword Excelsior)?

Or is the idea that PCs' goals will not change, or at least not change in ways that goes beyond what has already been written into the world?

That could work for a one-shot/short campaign - and as I've posted a long way upthread, pre-authoring for a one-shot run by a good GM can be fun - but I"m not sure how it would work for a longer-running game.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> DM: The mace is gone, and in its place is a note saying, "If you want the mace, come to Misty Lake."



As I asked [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] - in this imagined episode of play, is the Misty Lake implicitly or explicitly flagged by the players as some sort of goal or some sort of concern for their PCs? If not, what is the GM doing?


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I thought it was about whether the PC's were aware of those factors... not whether they impacted or didn't impact the chance for success...



Somewhat pedantically, but still accurately: if the players are aware, then it's not secret backstory.

(If the PCs are aware in the fiction, but the players aren't aware at the table, _and it's important to resolution_, then that's a different thing again. Something has gone wrong with the PC/player interface.)

I think my concerns are fairly simple and straightforward: every time the GM draws upon pre-authored fiction to determine consequences within action resolution without that being part of the framing or the situation the players were engaging (via their PCs), it reduces the capacity of the players to push the fiction in the direction that they (playing their PCs) desire. And it increases the importance, to play, of the GM's pre-authored fiction.

The same things happens when the GM pre-authors a sandbox independently of the players and the players are then expected to engage that material: this increases the importance to play of the stuff the GM wrote, and reduces the capacity of the players to make the fiction what _they_ want it to be.

A secondary consequence of a large amount of GM pre-authored backstory is that more play time gets spent by the players trying to learn the backstory (via talking to NPCs, or using divination spells, or scouting out locations, or whatever it might be). Which shifts the focus of play from drama to exploration. In a mystery/puzzle-type game, this is obviously a feature and not a bug, but in a character-drama type game I think the opposite is true.

"Fail forward", on the other hand, in which the fiction is kept loose or under-specified until it is either crystallised in accordance with player (and PC) desires - if checks succeed - or crystallised by the GM as part of the narration of failure - if checks fail - allows the players a greater capacity to influence the content of the fiction, by reducing the influence of the GM's pre-authored content, while still giving rise to a rich fiction with dramatic scope.



Maxperson said:


> The mindset that you shouldn't railroad applies to every playstyle other than railroad, and a game with pre-authoring pushes you away from railroading by having different and interesting content in every direction.  No need to force any direction when all directions are fun and interesting.





Maxperson said:


> A sandbox game is going to feel aimless if the player isn't imaginative enough and/or doesn't have the drive to give the game aim.



I'm surprised that you can't see that this is Exhibit A for my point about player agency, and for the rationale behind techniques such as "fail forward" and scene-framing.

You are saying that a sandbox should be engaging _as long as the players engage with the stuff that the GM has offered them_.

The point of my preferred techniques is to generate an engaging story, by way of RPGing, but _without the GM being the one who introduces and offers all the stuff_. The players won't have to be "imaginative enough" to build the game out of the GM's stuff, because they and the GM will be conjointly building the game out of stuff injected by all of them.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I'm surprised that you can't see that this is Exhibit A for my point about player agency, and for the rationale behind techniques such as "fail forward" and scene-framing.
> 
> You are saying that a sandbox should be engaging _as long as the players engage with the stuff that the GM has offered them_.




No.  That's not what I'm saying at all.  I'm saying that the stuff exists and the players engage with what they choose.  In my example, the DM never offered me a barbarian PC.  Nor did he offer me the tribes to be united.  Nor Cormyr to be conquered.  I did that all myself.  I see no reason why it's somehow worse that those tribes and Cormyr are pre-authored, than if I authored up some tribes and a country to conquer myself.  The end result is essentially identical.



> The point of my preferred techniques is to generate an engaging story, by way of RPGing, but _without the GM being the one who introduces and offers all the stuff_. The players won't have to be "imaginative enough" to build the game out of the GM's stuff, because they and the GM will be conjointly building the game out of stuff injected by all of them.



After all I and others have said, I don't get how you can think it's "the GM being the one who introduces and offers all the stuff."  That's not what our playstyle is about and pre-authoring does not cause that.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> In my example, the DM never offered me a barbarian PC.  Nor did he offer me the tribes to be united.  Nor Cormyr to be conquered.  I did that all myself.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> After all I and others have said, I don't get how you can think it's "the GM being the one who introduces and offers all the stuff."



The option to build a barbarian PC came from the D&D rule book. But the tribes, and Cormyr, don't appear in that rulebook. Where did they come from? I assume a FR setting book, probably with Ed Greenwood's name on the cover. And how do they become available as story elements for you to engage with as a PC? Because the GM (or, perhaps, the group) chose that setting.

They weren't authored by you, the player.



Maxperson said:


> I see no reason why it's somehow worse that those tribes and Cormyr are pre-authored, than if I authored up some tribes and a country to conquer myself.  The end result is essentially identical.



Well this is a statement of preference, and perhaps of aesthetic imagination.

For me, there is a big difference between me, as GM, writing a setting and then putting it forward for the players to engage with, as the limits of what they can do with their PC; and me, as a GM, following the leads they provide through their own backstories and action declarations, and the upshot of all that constituting the campaign setting.

The difference is about authorship and agency, about creativity and self-expression.


----------



## Imaro

sheadunne said:


> This is where I have issue, not with you, but with the "PC concept." In a D&D sense (which I rarely play anymore), I wouldn't even have a concept in the works until level 5 or 6. I develop background during play not before play begins. I find it too restricting and want the freedom to develop the concept of character during play rather than before. I want the decisions made to influence and direct the PC's development. I don't come into play knowing any of that. I have a few personality traits, for example, grumpy dwarf, but not the why developed. Nor do I want it to be developed until I've been playing with the character a while. This is one of the reasons I don't find interest in pre-authored content. How can anything be pre-authored for my character when I don't know enough about the character yet. Frame him in a scene, see what emerges and what choices the character makes and move on from there.
> 
> I find pre-authored sandbox play the most frustrating type of play. Choices are expected to be made when character hasn't even been developed yet. And so PCs head in a "random" direction and encounter a pre-authored situation which isn't connected to any of the characters. Since there's no connection to the character, because we haven't framed scenes to aid in that development, the pre-authored content doesn't force choices of consequence. Rescue the princess or not isn't a good choice when, am I good or evil hasn't even been tested yet. Am I moral character or not? Do I value gold or magic or ale? What's my motivation? I prefer choices that test those attributes of character before we even start talking about big plot points. Maybe we find out at the third session that one of the character's motivations is to buy and own a tavern because he just encounter an interesting barkeep. How could we have pre-authored that, when the player didn't know that was going to be of interest? Maybe another character is struggling with the killing of creatures and his desire for a life of luxury brought on by wealth? How do we answer the question with pre-authored content when the player didn't even know at the time of character creation, that it was going to be a complication with the character? \
> 
> Anyway, I like a different type of game and a different way of having it played. I'm okay with that. But in 30+ years of gaming I have moved away from pre-authored games and now stick with the type I enjoy. As should everyone.




As a GM I would find this set up... awkward.  Even games heavily geared towards narrative like FATE have you create a concept and a couple of aspects to give the GM some direction.  How I read the above was... I don't want to have a concept, or goals or anything that defines my character... but I also don't want to have the first adventure be meaningful to my character (huh??)...  

Now honestly I don't see how whether you choose to rescue the princess (and it should be one of numerous choices in a sandbox) doesn't say something about your character?  Especially if they know about this princess, her background, and those who want them to rescue her (what are their motivations?), etc.  In fact unless it's a railroad I don't see how your choices in-game aren't defining these things?  Do you ask for more money to rescue her?  Do you donate your share to a monastery?  Do you trade in your gold for a magic weapon if it's found?  Perhaps I'm unclear on exactly how you test those things in a character that has given no background and no pre-set motivations/goals except to present the choice and see what happens... am I missing something here?


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> The GM's creative processes are part of my game - that's where the dark elf came from, after all. And the pyramid in the Bright Desert. (The desert itself was implicated in the mage PC's backstory, because the player found a photograph of the PC's ruined tower sitting in the hills overlooking pretty arid country - from memory, I think it is somewhere in India.)




You're zeroing in on only part of my statement... I didn't say the DM creative process wasn't part of your playstyle... the difference, at least IMO, is that as the DM I get to flex my creative processes from the get go as opposed to being restrained to using it only at points of faiure.



pemerton said:


> A question: what happens if a character's goals change during the course of play (eg s/he decides s/he must find the Misty Lake so as to speak to its spirit and learn the location of the ancient vorpal sword Excelsior)?
> 
> Or is the idea that PCs' goals will not change, or at least not change in ways that goes beyond what has already been written into the world?




Well, and again speaking only to how I create and run my sandboxes, since everything cannot possibly be created from day 1 (Both time and imagination are constraints) there are always things being added to the sandbox weekly.  My players and I have an understanding that if the character decides to go in a different direction whether motivation/goal wise, exploration wise, or even theme-wise... either in-game flags or out of game discussion should signal this and that will be factored into the sand box at a later time... though admittedly I try to have at least some if not all of the necessary pre-authored material for this change of direction ready by next play session.  

Now I'd like to go into some of the advantages I see of doing it my way as opposed to improv 'ing as we go, with three caveats... This is off the cuff and just my immediate thoughts as opposed to being deeply analyzed...  that I do implement some improvisaton in my game but try to keep it restricted to minor and/or easily remembered things... and that this works to my strengths and weaknesses as a DM and may not work as well or at all for another...

1. It dispenses with the need to keep track of large swaths of improvised setting/story information (My players don't mind jotting down notes but keeping track of a setting being built feels like too much work in the moment of actual play for us.)

2. It provides a consistent and deep setting that is ideal for both exploration and character driven play (this is important because I have a mix of players when it comes to which style they enjoy some enjoy character driven games while others just want to explore grab gold and fight beasties). 

3. It allows me as the DM to be reactive to my players and what they want to do while still playing to my strengths of evoking setting (description, sense of wonder, etc.).

4. Provides a feeling of versimilitude for I and my players... this is important because I've noticed in my players that if the world doesn't feel like it has a life of it's own, they are less likely to make connections with NPC's  and tend to care about things only at a very superficial level. 

5. Provides a certain level of objectivity for those players who value overcoming combat and non-combat challenges, either through skill use, clever thinking or even avoidance. 



pemerton said:


> That could work for a one-shot/short campaign - and as I've posted a long way upthread, pre-authoring for a one-shot run by a good GM can be fun - but I"m not sure how it would work for a longer-running game.




Well if anecdotes help I ran my Far North campaign for 5e in this manner from level 1 to level 12, and it only ended because the PC's actually achieved their goals at that point... though not necessarily in the manner they first believed they would.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> As I asked @_*Imaro*_ - in this imagined episode of play, is the Misty Lake implicitly or explicitly flagged by the players as some sort of goal or some sort of concern for their PCs? If not, what is the GM doing?




He's creating a challenge/setback to get the mace.... that just happens to lead somewhere he wants the PC's to go...  I thought the whole point was that the GM could introduce anything (within the confines of the fiction) as a result of failure...


----------



## sheadunne

Imaro said:


> As a GM I would find this set up... awkward.  Even games heavily geared towards narrative like FATE have you create a concept and a couple of aspects to give the GM some direction.  How I read the above was... I don't want to have a concept, or goals or anything that defines my character... but I also don't want to have the first adventure be meaningful to my character (huh??)...




Correct. Which is why I play my own system that focuses more specifically on what I want. If there was a system I found more accurate to my preference, I would be playing it. FATE is okay but it doesn't meet my needs, nor do other games like BW, Dungeon World, etc. They all have aspects I like but as a whole their play procedures don't meet my needs, which is more of a bookkeeping assessment than a feeling assessment. Those games are all still focused on "adventure" and getting right to it. I like a slower development than they provide. Most, if not all, of those types of game are designed to get right into the action, they still require the development of concept which I'm not ready for at the start of a game if I want to be invested in it. I can still have lots of fun, but it's not ideal, just as I can still have fun in an AP. Sandbox is another story, but that's just my personal preference. 



Imaro said:


> Now honestly I don't see how whether you choose to rescue the princess (and it should be one of numerous choices in a sandbox) doesn't say something about your character?  Especially if they know about this princess, her background, and those who want them to rescue her (what are their motivations?), etc.  In fact unless it's a railroad I don't see how your choices in-game aren't defining these things?  Do you ask for more money to rescue her?  Do you donate your share to a monastery?  Do you trade in your gold for a magic weapon if it's found?  Perhaps I'm unclear on exactly how you test those things in a character that has given no background and no pre-set motivations/goals except to present the choice and see what happens... am I missing something here?




What I'm saying, in probably an awkward way, is that those things shouldn't define the character, they should test and challenge what the character has already developed during play. At the start of the game, I'm not in a position to know those things, I can guess at them, but that's about it. There's nothing more frustrating for me than to have to change concept, belief, goals during play because I didn't have enough play time to make accurate decisions. Sandbox play tends to exaggerate this because the choices seem to get more locked in because of the pre-authored nature of the choices. Do you go left or right? Ummm, left looks interesting and fun. Nope, I made a mistake, it's not really interesting to my character after all, although it might be fun for the player. I'll just sit back and wait for it to be done (uninteresting), leave and derail everyone else's fun (Jerk), or alter my character to fit into the game and the direction it's heading (should have been unnecessary). Even in a game that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] would run, I might still find myself in this situation, but I have more confidence in the types of play, that by the nature of the system and the play style, would be able to find a way to make it more individually interesting to my character. That's just based on my experience and not anything else. 

What does play look like for me? Micro-choices. The types of choices we make every day in our lives that define who we are and our preferences. We all agree on the type of genre we want to emerge into (sci-fi, fantasy, modern, etc). I like to start my character off with what I'm in the mood for, physical, mental, or social play. Some thought into what the character looks like. Maybe a few personality quirks (winks a lot, is grumpy, likes to hug people, etc.). After a few sessions of character interactions and a few decisions where the players make micro-choices and help to define who they are, we'll slowly move into real choices. The GM's role at in the beginning is simply to react and provide opportunity for character exploration. The players need very little from the GM other than to begin to blend the choices into a coherent world (this is sometimes harder than I'd like but it's fun). These micro-choices and character interactions will start to develop into beliefs and goals. Maybe my character, through his interaction with another character, comes to view himself as a helpful person or maybe he realizes he's greedy and jealous. If I had chosen "likes to hug people" I'm now starting to see why he hugs people. If he's helpful, maybe he does it because it will make the other person feel better, and if he's greedy, maybe it's his way of determining what the other person has on him he can steal. I find it important for me, if I am to become invested in the character, if this opportunity is given a spot light at the beginning of the game, rather than throughout the game, when the choices are more significant and death is on the line. 

I find it's significantly more difficult for this type of play to work under pre-authoring for me, since the GM is purely reactive to the characters rather than pro-active. The backstory that emerges is not secret and remains in play throughout the game. I've certainly tried to do it taking a more pre-authoring stance, since I've had this preference for a very long time and when 99% of the games were pre-authored heavy, it was less gratifying. I found myself, when I ran these types of games, steering players toward pre-authored materials (as I was encouraged to do by the system), rather than react to the choices and needs the players had. They were still fun games, as most games with friends are, they were just lacking for me. I ran a 3 year champaign in a sandbox 10 or so years ago that was hugely successful, but I found that it wasn't the pre-authored bits that made it so, but rather the focus on the character and the improvisational nature of the way it was run. We had to fight against the system on many occasions and it made me question the reason we were still playing under it (d20), when we could use another system that supported that type of play as a focus was an option (we were already familiar with the d20 system at the time). 

End thoughts - find a system that supports your type of play and if one doesn't exist, make it so. It's your fun to be had. And continue talking about it in places like this. It's where I started to question my own needs and begin to find out what I really want out of a game. It's still a work in progress, but progress is being made.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> The option to build a barbarian PC came from the D&D rule book. But the tribes, and Cormyr, don't appear in that rulebook. Where did they come from? I assume a FR setting book, probably with Ed Greenwood's name on the cover. And how do they become available as story elements for you to engage with as a PC? Because the GM (or, perhaps, the group) chose that setting.
> 
> They weren't authored by you, the player.




Again, why does that matter?  A barbarian tribe is a barbarian tribe is a barbarian tribe.  There is no effective difference between one pre-authored or player authored.  What's more, since they are pre-authored and the group chose the setting, if I as a player want to go interact with the barbarian tribe, the DM really has no choice in the matter.  He can't deny me.  The DM isn't giving me that content or forcing it on me.  I'm forcing it on him by choosing to go and interact with it.

I don't see a barbarian tribe that comes into existence because I said so to be any better than one that came into existence because Ed Greenwood said so.  Both will suit my purposes exactly the same.  Neither can be denied by the DM without a bad DM railroading things.  Only one, though, has a bunch of stuff already built in to give me ideas and for me to build off of.  That makes pre-authoring much better in my opinion.



> Well this is a statement of preference, and perhaps of aesthetic imagination.
> 
> For me, there is a big difference between me, as GM, writing a setting and then putting it forward for the players to engage with, as the limits of what they can do with their PC; and me, as a GM, following the leads they provide through their own backstories and action declarations, and the upshot of all that constituting the campaign setting.
> 
> The difference is about authorship and agency, about creativity and self-expression.




I get that it makes that difference for you.  What I'm getting at, though, is that pre-authorship doesn't take any agency away from me as the player.  Within the rules my character does what I want, how I want it.  I have full agency over my PC to make choices.  What's more, those limits you talk about aren't really limiting.  If I don't like them I can find a way to leave the world and go somewhere else.


----------



## Maxperson

sheadunne said:


> What I'm saying, in probably an awkward way, is that those things shouldn't define the character, they should test and challenge what the character has already developed during play. At the start of the game, I'm not in a position to know those things, I can guess at them, but that's about it. There's nothing more frustrating for me than to have to change concept, belief, goals during play because I didn't have enough play time to make accurate decisions. Sandbox play tends to exaggerate this because the choices seem to get more locked in because of the pre-authored nature of the choices. Do you go left or right? Ummm, left looks interesting and fun. Nope, I made a mistake, it's not really interesting to my character after all, although it might be fun for the player. I'll just sit back and wait for it to be done (uninteresting), leave and derail everyone else's fun (Jerk), or alter my character to fit into the game and the direction it's heading (should have been unnecessary). Even in a game that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] would run, I might still find myself in this situation, but I have more confidence in the types of play, that by the nature of the system and the play style, would be able to find a way to make it more individually interesting to my character. That's just based on my experience and not anything else.




As someone who both runs and plays a sandbox game, I can tell you that nothing locks your character into anything unless you the player do so yourself, or a game mechanic forces something on you.  The sandbox word doesn't do it itself.  As a player, I come up with character concepts prior to game play, but countless times, how things developed during game play altered my concept to degrees ranging from minor to hey, this is nothing at all like the PC started.  PCs can grow and change according to how the PC is tested and challenged during game play.  



> I find it's significantly more difficult for this type of play to work under pre-authoring for me, since the GM is purely reactive to the characters rather than pro-active.




Pre-authoring does not require the DM to be purely reactive.  A mix can be, and often is done.



> I found myself, when I ran these types of games, steering players toward pre-authored materials (as I was encouraged to do by the system), rather than react to the choices and needs the players had.




Why?  I feel no need to steer the PCs towards anything.  I don't understand why you would feel as if you needed to steer the PCs towards pre-authored things.


----------



## sheadunne

Maxperson said:


> As someone who both runs and plays a sandbox game, I can tell you that nothing locks your character into anything unless you the player do so yourself, or a game mechanic forces something on you.  The sandbox word doesn't do it itself.  As a player, I come up with character concepts prior to game play, but countless times, how things developed during game play altered my concept to degrees ranging from minor to hey, this is nothing at all like the PC started.  PCs can grow and change according to how the PC is tested and challenged during game play




Unless what I want isn't provided by the game world. Then either the GM has to create it in response to my declaration or I don't get that option. If the GM creates it, then why bother creating the world to begin with instead of just creating things in response to the goals as they develop? If I don't get that option, then you can't really say it provides the same experience. 

When I play in a sandbox, which may be a pre-authored world like FR or Spelljammer or Westeros or some other setting, then there are exceptions that influence my character choices. That's an agreement made between players and the GM prior to the start of the game. It's a perfectly fine way of playing, but I'm not particularly interested in playing that way anymore. It doesn't accomplish what I want in a game. I have no investment in the world beyond my character. I don't care if there are barbarians in the north until I choose to interact with them, until then, they don't exist. Since they don't exist, I'd rather not have them developed or influenced prior to my engagement with them, because I want to know that they were created specifically for my interaction at the time of my interaction. For me it reinforces my connection to the game world and my character. Otherwise I'm a tourist, visiting someone else's barbarians. That's not a play style I get invested in. Sure I'll play with friends, but I'm not going to devote much of my time to caring about it. I'm certainly not going to run a game like that, it doesn't satisfy me.


----------



## Imaro

sheadunne said:


> Correct. Which is why I play my own system that focuses more specifically on what I want. If there was a system I found more accurate to my preference, I would be playing it. FATE is okay but it doesn't meet my needs, nor do other games like BW, Dungeon World, etc. They all have aspects I like but as a whole their play procedures don't meet my needs, which is more of a bookkeeping assessment than a feeling assessment. Those games are all still focused on "adventure" and getting right to it. I like a slower development than they provide. Most, if not all, of those types of game are designed to get right into the action, they still require the development of concept which I'm not ready for at the start of a game if I want to be invested in it. I can still have lots of fun, but it's not ideal, just as I can still have fun in an AP. Sandbox is another story, but that's just my personal preference.
> 
> 
> 
> What I'm saying, in probably an awkward way, is that those things shouldn't define the character, they should test and challenge what the character has already developed during play. At the start of the game, I'm not in a position to know those things, I can guess at them, but that's about it. There's nothing more frustrating for me than to have to change concept, belief, goals during play because I didn't have enough play time to make accurate decisions. Sandbox play tends to exaggerate this because the choices seem to get more locked in because of the pre-authored nature of the choices. Do you go left or right? Ummm, left looks interesting and fun. Nope, I made a mistake, it's not really interesting to my character after all, although it might be fun for the player. I'll just sit back and wait for it to be done (uninteresting), leave and derail everyone else's fun (Jerk), or alter my character to fit into the game and the direction it's heading (should have been unnecessary). Even in a game that @_*pemerton*_ would run, I might still find myself in this situation, but I have more confidence in the types of play, that by the nature of the system and the play style, would be able to find a way to make it more individually interesting to my character. That's just based on my experience and not anything else.
> 
> What does play look like for me? Micro-choices. The types of choices we make every day in our lives that define who we are and our preferences. We all agree on the type of genre we want to emerge into (sci-fi, fantasy, modern, etc). I like to start my character off with what I'm in the mood for, physical, mental, or social play. Some thought into what the character looks like. Maybe a few personality quirks (winks a lot, is grumpy, likes to hug people, etc.). After a few sessions of character interactions and a few decisions where the players make micro-choices and help to define who they are, we'll slowly move into real choices. The GM's role at in the beginning is simply to react and provide opportunity for character exploration. The players need very little from the GM other than to begin to blend the choices into a coherent world (this is sometimes harder than I'd like but it's fun). These micro-choices and character interactions will start to develop into beliefs and goals. Maybe my character, through his interaction with another character, comes to view himself as a helpful person or maybe he realizes he's greedy and jealous. If I had chosen "likes to hug people" I'm now starting to see why he hugs people. If he's helpful, maybe he does it because it will make the other person feel better, and if he's greedy, maybe it's his way of determining what the other person has on him he can steal. I find it important for me, if I am to become invested in the character, if this opportunity is given a spot light at the beginning of the game, rather than throughout the game, when the choices are more significant and death is on the line.
> 
> I find it's significantly more difficult for this type of play to work under pre-authoring for me, since the GM is purely reactive to the characters rather than pro-active. The backstory that emerges is not secret and remains in play throughout the game. I've certainly tried to do it taking a more pre-authoring stance, since I've had this preference for a very long time and when 99% of the games were pre-authored heavy, it was less gratifying. I found myself, when I ran these types of games, steering players toward pre-authored materials (as I was encouraged to do by the system), rather than react to the choices and needs the players had. They were still fun games, as most games with friends are, they were just lacking for me. I ran a 3 year champaign in a sandbox 10 or so years ago that was hugely successful, but I found that it wasn't the pre-authored bits that made it so, but rather the focus on the character and the improvisational nature of the way it was run. We had to fight against the system on many occasions and it made me question the reason we were still playing under it (d20), when we could use another system that supported that type of play as a focus was an option (we were already familiar with the d20 system at the time).
> 
> End thoughts - find a system that supports your type of play and if one doesn't exist, make it so. It's your fun to be had. And continue talking about it in places like this. It's where I started to question my own needs and begin to find out what I really want out of a game. It's still a work in progress, but progress is being made.




Thanks... I can honestly say I better understand your playsyle and preferences after this post and while they don't line up with me or my groups style... I can see why a more freeform (hope I'm using this correctly) style for both the players and GM would work better for you...


----------



## Maxperson

sheadunne said:


> *Unless what I want isn't provided by the game world*. Then either the GM has to create it in response to my declaration or I don't get that option. *If the GM creates it, then why bother creating the world to begin with *instead of just creating things in response to the goals as they develop? If I don't get that option, then you can't really say it provides the same experience.
> 
> When I play in a sandbox, which may be a pre-authored world like FR or Spelljammer or Westeros or some other setting, then there are exceptions that influence my character choices. That's an agreement made between players and the GM prior to the start of the game. It's a perfectly fine way of playing, but I'm not particularly interested in playing that way anymore. *It doesn't accomplish what I want in a game. I have no investment in the world beyond my character. I don't care if there are barbarians in the north until I choose to interact with them, until then, they don't exist. Since they don't exist, I'd rather not have them developed or influenced prior to my engagement with them, because I want to know that they were created specifically for my interaction at the time of my interaction. For me it reinforces my connection to the game world and my character. Otherwise I'm a tourist, visiting someone else's barbarians. That's not a play style I get invested in*. Sure I'll play with friends, but I'm not going to devote much of my time to caring about it. I'm certainly not going to run a game like that, it doesn't satisfy me.




That seems to be a very self-centered outlook.  When I play, I'm not playing only for myself.  I enjoy when the other players, including the DM have fun.  The game is about more than just me, so when things are created for and by the others, that's fine with me and a grand reason for them to exist.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> He's creating a challenge/setback to get the mace.... that just happens to lead somewhere he wants the PC's to go...  I thought the whole point was that the GM could introduce anything (within the confines of the fiction) as a result of failure...



Well, here are some extracts from the statement of the GM's and players' roles in BW (revised rulebook, pp 55-56, 268-69 - I think it's the same in BW Gold):

Beliefs are not arbitrarily chosen. Each one must relate to the situation at hand when the character joins your world. These tie him [sic] to events and thereby create drama as Beliefs cross and conflict with other Beliefs. . . . By openly and honestly setting down their top three priorities, players are helping the GM and the other players get the most out of the game. Now they all know what you're after, and they can help you get it. . . 

Beliefs are meant to be conflicted, challenged, betrayed and broken. Such emotional drama makes for a good game. . . .

[M]y priorites when I set down to GM Burning Wheel . . .

* To get across _my_ point/vision/idea (also known as the theme of the game).

* To challenge and engage the players. . . .​
_t is the GM's job to interpret all of the various intents of the players' actions and mesh them into a coherent whole that fits within the context of the game. . . . He [sic] can see the big picture - what the players are doing, as well as what the opposition is up to and plans to do. His perspective grants the power to hold off one action, while another player moves forward so that the two pieces intersect dramatically at the table. . . .

Most important, the GM is responsible for introducing complications to the story and consequences to the players' choices. . . .

Players in Burning Wheel must use their characters to drive the story forward - to resolve conflicts and create new ones. Players are supposed to push and risk the characters, as they grow and change in unforeseen ways._​_

In the case of my upthread examples, the cures on the angel feather, and the pyramid in the Bright Desert, all relate to the war between angels and devils which is part of Ancient History (one of the mage PC's skills) and may herald the coming Apocalypse (and Apocalypse-wise is another of the mage PC's skills). The Dark Elf, as I think I already mentioned upthread, engages the elven ronin PC's Belief that I will always keep the elven ways - and the geography of the dark elf engages the backstory of the mage PC (with his ruined tower in the foothills) as well as the newly-introduced shaman PC, who (among other abilities) summons spirits of the foothills.

If the GM is pushing play towards the Misty Lake, s/he must believe that doing so will somehow engage the players via their PCs' Beliefs - which, in turn, given the way that Beliefs are meant to be authored by the players, must mean that the Misty Lake somehow speaks to or relates to the current ingame situation.

And that ingame situation hasn't been shaped just by the GM - it's an outgrowth of the players action declarations and adjudication. Hence it's not about GM railroading - but is about GM contribution and creativity.



Imaro said:



			speaking only to how I create and run my sandboxes, since everything cannot possibly be created from day 1 (Both time and imagination are constraints) there are always things being added to the sandbox weekly.  My players and I have an understanding that if the character decides to go in a different direction whether motivation/goal wise, exploration wise, or even theme-wise... either in-game flags or out of game discussion should signal this and that will be factored into the sand box at a later time
		
Click to expand...


To me, this seems to be a description of a game that involves less pre-authorship and more authorship in response to player flags and even (perhaps) action declarations. (For the latter - depending a bit on how big a time is a later time.)



Maxperson said:



			Again, why does that matter?  A barbarian tribe is a barbarian tribe is a barbarian tribe.  There is no effective difference between one pre-authored or player authored. 

<snip>

I get that it makes that difference for you.  What I'm getting at, though, is that pre-authorship doesn't take any agency away from me as the player.
		
Click to expand...


I've never thought that it effects the agency that you desire as a player. I've been trying to explain the outlook of those designers (and the RPGers who play their game) who deliberately promoted "fail forward" as a technique. And this is related to a certain conception of what player agency amounts to. (Which is different from yours.)

As to why it matters - [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] gives a good explanation in a post not far upthread, to which you replied in the post above this one.

Part of the explanation is that simply raising a barbarian horde isn't likely to be the focus of play in the sort of game that I prefer. The horde will have some more intimate, dramatic/emotional connection to the PC. (A bit like how, in my BW game, it's not just that the world is threatened by a balrog, but that the balrog is possessing the brother of one PC who was also the evil master of another, who (it seems) made the black arrows that killed the beloved master of a third PC.)

If that sort of emotional drama is less important, and if the focus is more on the action/adventure and "external" aspects of events, then the difference between Ed Greenwood's NPCs and NPCs authored by the GM as part of the adjudication of play won't be such a big deal._


----------



## Balesir

Maxperson said:


> Again, why does that matter?  A barbarian tribe is a barbarian tribe is a barbarian tribe.  There is no effective difference between one pre-authored or player authored.  What's more, since they are pre-authored and the group chose the setting, if I as a player want to go interact with the barbarian tribe, the DM really has no choice in the matter.  He can't deny me.  The DM isn't giving me that content or forcing it on me.  I'm forcing it on him by choosing to go and interact with it.
> 
> I don't see a barbarian tribe that comes into existence because I said so to be any better than one that came into existence because Ed Greenwood said so.  Both will suit my purposes exactly the same.  Neither can be denied by the DM without a bad DM railroading things.  Only one, though, has a bunch of stuff already built in to give me ideas and for me to build off of.  That makes pre-authoring much better in my opinion.



Why does it matter to you that it matters to others? They are not trying to make it matter to you, as far as I can see, so why does it matter so much to you that they are not like you?

The only answer to the question "why is everyone not like me?" is "because they're not - deal with it".


----------



## Maxperson

Balesir said:


> Why does it matter to you that it matters to others? They are not trying to make it matter to you, as far as I can see, so why does it matter so much to you that they are not like you?
> 
> The only answer to the question "why is everyone not like me?" is "because they're not - deal with it".




Wow.   You're waaaaaaay off base here.  I don't care how they play.  I care when they get how I play wrong, so I explain it to them.  I also care that we are having a discussion and I'd like them to explain differences that I don't understand, so I ask questions.

If you don't like the discussion, deal with it.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I've never thought that it effects the agency that you desire as a player. I've been trying to explain the outlook of those designers (and the RPGers who play their game) who deliberately promoted "fail forward" as a technique. And this is related to a certain conception of what player agency amounts to. (Which is different from yours.)
> 
> As to why it matters - [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] gives a good explanation in a post not far upthread, to which you replied in the post above this one.
> 
> Part of the explanation is that simply raising a barbarian horde isn't likely to be the focus of play in the sort of game that I prefer. The horde will have some more intimate, dramatic/emotional connection to the PC. (A bit like how, in my BW game, it's not just that the world is threatened by a balrog, but that the balrog is possessing the brother of one PC who was also the evil master of another, who (it seems) made the black arrows that killed the beloved master of a third PC.)
> 
> If that sort of emotional drama is less important, and if the focus is more on the action/adventure and "external" aspects of events, then the difference between Ed Greenwood's NPCs and NPCs authored by the GM as part of the adjudication of play won't be such a big deal.




Emotional connection is important to us as well.  It's just not everything.  It would be present even in a campaign where I decided to bring together the tribes to conquer a nation.  Why is it not possible for you to form such a connection with an Ed Greenwood NPC?  As far as I can see, they can have siblings that are PCs, be possessed, and so on.  Very, very few of them are detailed to the point that all siblings are known.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> Well, here are some extracts from the statement of the GM's and players' roles in BW (revised rulebook, pp 55-56, 268-69 - I think it's the same in BW Gold):
> 
> Beliefs are not arbitrarily chosen. Each one must relate to the situation at hand when the character joins your world. These tie him [sic] to events and thereby create drama as Beliefs cross and conflict with other Beliefs. . . . By openly and honestly setting down their top three priorities, players are helping the GM and the other players get the most out of the game. Now they all know what you're after, and they can help you get it. . .
> 
> Beliefs are meant to be conflicted, challenged, betrayed and broken. Such emotional drama makes for a good game. . . .
> 
> [M]y priorites when I set down to GM Burning Wheel . . .
> 
> * To get across _my_ point/vision/idea (also known as the theme of the game).
> 
> * To challenge and engage the players. . . .​
> _t is the GM's job to interpret all of the various intents of the players' actions and mesh them into a coherent whole that fits within the context of the game. . . . He [sic] can see the big picture - what the players are doing, as well as what the opposition is up to and plans to do. His perspective grants the power to hold off one action, while another player moves forward so that the two pieces intersect dramatically at the table. . . .
> 
> Most important, the GM is responsible for introducing complications to the story and consequences to the players' choices. . . .
> 
> Players in Burning Wheel must use their characters to drive the story forward - to resolve conflicts and create new ones. Players are supposed to push and risk the characters, as they grow and change in unforeseen ways._​_
> 
> In the case of my upthread examples, the cures on the angel feather, and the pyramid in the Bright Desert, all relate to the war between angels and devils which is part of Ancient History (one of the mage PC's skills) and may herald the coming Apocalypse (and Apocalypse-wise is another of the mage PC's skills). The Dark Elf, as I think I already mentioned upthread, engages the elven ronin PC's Belief that I will always keep the elven ways - and the geography of the dark elf engages the backstory of the mage PC (with his ruined tower in the foothills) as well as the newly-introduced shaman PC, who (among other abilities) summons spirits of the foothills.
> 
> If the GM is pushing play towards the Misty Lake, s/he must believe that doing so will somehow engage the players via their PCs' Beliefs - which, in turn, given the way that Beliefs are meant to be authored by the players, must mean that the Misty Lake somehow speaks to or relates to the current ingame situation.
> 
> And that ingame situation hasn't been shaped just by the GM - it's an outgrowth of the players action declarations and adjudication. Hence it's not about GM railroading - but is about GM contribution and creativity._



_

I'm curious [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] ... why is it when discussing your playstyle it is always best case scenario with a GM who perfectly exemplifies the mentality to avoid a railroad and follow all play advice but when you discuss pre-authored campaigns they must be worse case scenario and run by a terrible DM who railroads his players?_


----------



## ExploderWizard

sheadunne said:


> I have no investment in the world beyond my character. I don't care if there are barbarians in the north until I choose to interact with them, until then, they don't exist. Since they don't exist, I'd rather not have them developed or influenced prior to my engagement with them, because I want to know that they were created specifically for my interaction at the time of my interaction. For me it reinforces my connection to the game world and my character.




What connection to the game world? You have just informed everyone that any part of the world that your character hasn't come into contact with may as well not exist. How on earth can there ever be a connection to such a world? What you are describing isn't a game world at all its a holodeck experience tailored especially for you. 

A world, to feel real and meaningful, needs to exist beyond the perspective of a single individual.


----------



## Aenghus

ExploderWizard said:


> What connection to the game world? You have just informed everyone that any part of the world that your character hasn't come into contact with may as well not exist. How on earth can there ever be a connection to such a world? What you are describing isn't a game world at all its a holodeck experience tailored especially for you.
> 
> A world, to feel real and meaningful, needs to exist beyond the perspective of a single individual.





Gameworlds are created, artificial, made up. The creators are responsible for making a setting that facilitates the goals of the game being aimed at over everything else. A common goal is worldbuilding as a pursuit in and of itself, which can create complex worlds suitable for exploration centred games. But worldbuilding isn't a goal of every game. 

Players seek a variety of different things from games, and sometimes there are tradeoffs. Players who are looking to emphasise the direct pursuit of evolving personal plotlines that are reflected in the gameworld around them may do it at the cost of not exploring a pre-existing setting. Yes, it may make the world feel more like a tragedy, melodrama or soap opera, but this may be appropriate to the goals of a particular game.

A lot of players nowadays have more limited playing time and may need to play "faster" to achieve what they want to achieve in a particular campaign given their time limitations.


----------



## pemerton

ExploderWizard said:


> A world, to feel real and meaningful, needs to exist beyond the perspective of a single individual.



What's your evidence for this?

Graham Greene is famous for (among other things) evoking the settings of his novels. But in novels like The Quiet American or The Human Factor, he does not indulge in setting for its own sake. It's part of the context for establishing the dramatic situation of the characters.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I'm curious [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] ... why is it when discussing your playstyle it is always best case scenario with a GM who perfectly exemplifies the mentality to avoid a railroad and follow all play advice but when you discuss pre-authored campaigns they must be worse case scenario and run by a terrible DM who railroads his players?



This question comes from left-field.

The examples of GMing in the post you quoted were from real life - my own BW game. It's flattering that you regard them as _best-case_. From my point of view, they are more like _best-effort_. They exemplify how I try to run my game.

As for pre-authoring: inherent in pre-authoring is that fictional content and constraints and consequences are established outside the context of play. That's the point of that technique. Various posters upthread (certainly [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], but he is not the only one) have talked about the importance, in this style, of the players learning about the setting eg via knowledge checks, divination spells, scouting, etc. That may or may not amount to railroading, depending on (i) how it is handled by the GM, and (ii) what the players' expectations are about how the game will unfold. But it is mostly different from what I am looking for in RPGing.



Maxperson said:


> Emotional connection is important to us as well.  It's just not everything.



Which is, perhaps, a key difference.

Upthread, for instance, you've talked about preferring to use FR because then your players know what you're talking about when you mention a Purple Dragon Knight. That suggests to me that shared enjoyment of a pre-authored fictional setting is part of your game that matters to you. That is something that is not a high priority for the playstyle and the RPGs which have self-consciously promoted "fail forward" as a technique.



Maxperson said:


> Why is it not possible for you to form such a connection with an Ed Greenwood NPC?  As far as I can see, they can have siblings that are PCs, be possessed, and so on.  Very, very few of them are detailed to the point that all siblings are known.



Maybe I can, maybe I can't. It depends on details that we don't have in this discussion.

Another way of coming at the question is, "Why would I bother?"

I've mentioned upthread that, in my BW game, I use the GH maps and the high-level GH backstory (country/region names, the Suel and Baklun empires, etc). There are two reasons why.

First, they give a handy, easily-shared device for dealing with geography in the game. The middle of the GH map has everything needed for classic fantasy RPGing: desert, sea, forest, cities, towns, wild lands with orc raiders, elven and dwarven kingdoms, etc. The low-level details can be filled in as needed as part of play.

Second, the high-level backstory gives the same sort of easily-shared flavour for bringing classic tropes into play. For instance, when the PCs were fighting orcs in the Bright Desert, the player of the mage PC is able to say "Suel tribesmen are thick as fleas on dogs in this desert - I Circle some up!" The Ancient Suel become a label for a trope, that provides colour to the game.

There are parts of GH that push against this - for instance, the idea that the setting's vikings (Frost, Ice and Snow Barbarians) and martial artist monks (the Scarlet Brotherhood) are descended from the Ancient Suel; and the idea that the Ancient Suel are pale, almost albino. I've always ignored these elements of GH lore, and continue to do so in my BW game.

If Ed Greenwood had got in before Gygax to give me a map with some vikings in the north and a trope-filled area like central GH, I'd happily use it. As it happens, though, I got GH first.

But at least in my experience, when someone talks about playing a game in FR, they are meaning more than just that they use a map and the high-level tropes.

I saw this just yesterday, in a thread on the Old D&D editions board about using other modules with module B10. Some people were advising that certain other modules are a good fit with B10 because they integrate the backstory of B10 with other elements of the "Know World" (Mystara) eg Specularum, Nithia, the Hutakaans etc. That's exactly the sort of prioritising of pre-authred setting that I don't enjoy. But obviously, to those posters, it is quite important.

**************

Here is an extract from my first post in this thread:



pemerton said:


> As I understand it (from designers like Luke Crane, Ron Edwards, Robin Laws and Jonathan Tweet), "fail forward" is a technique for (i) ensuring the game has a story-like progression without (ii) GM railroading.
> 
> The basic idea is that, when a player fails a roll/check, instead of the GM narrating that no progress is made, the GM narrates an adverse but still dynamic consequence happening. What the adverse consequence is should be made up on the spot, weaving in considerations that have been made relevant by the play of the game to that point, the various signals that the players have sent via the build and play of their PCs, etc.
> 
> <snip actual play examples>
> 
> Neonchameleon has linked "fail forward" to "no myth" or shared worldbuilding. Narrating failures in a "fail forward" way requires there to be a degree of fluidity in backstory, so that new events or agents or motivations can be introduced (eg like curses on a feather, or spirits in the mountain stream) to keep things moving forward. If all of the GM's "secret backstory" is meant to have been determined in advance, and a principle goal of play is for the players to uncover that secret backstory, then "fail forward" probably isn't going to be a useful technique.



If a GM or a group thinks that s/he can achieve story-like progression without railroading and while using GM pre-authored backstory as an important input into action resolution, go for it! Personally I have my doubts: examples that have been given in this thread seem to me to reinforce to the extent that there is a large amount of GM pre-authoring that then informs action resolution by setting constraints and possibilities, the more the game will move away from story-like progression with a high degree of player agency in respect of that story, and towards exploration/discovery.

Not far upthread, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] said that "those limits you talk about aren't really limiting. If I don't like them I can find a way to leave the world and go somewhere else." That's exploration-oriented play (_find a way to . . . go somewhere else_). And [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION], in discussing player-responsive sandbox design, said that "if the character decides to go in a different direction whether motivation/goal wise, exploration wise, or even theme-wise... either in-game flags or out of game discussion should signal this and that will be factored into the sand box at a later time". It's not clear to me what exactly _a later time_ means, but taken at face value it seems to imply a deferral (to some _later time_) of character drama to exploration of the sandbox that the GM has already prepared. Conjectured examples of waterholes being fouled independently of action resolution outcomes look the same to me - prioritising exploration over character-driven (and player-driven) drama.

That doesn't seem to me to be painting anyone into any sort of worst-case scenario. It just seems to be noting that there are different approaches to RPGing, which give different priorities to exploration of the setting, vs story-like progression focused on the characters as their players are presenting them right here and now.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> I agree with both these posts. If you want the focus of the game to be on exploring the setting, then pre-authoring makes sense. So does adjudicating action resolution by reference to secret backstory.
> 
> But if the focus of the game is meant to be on the protagonism of the PCs (and their players), establishing and pursuing their dramatic needs, then pre-authored fiction can become a stumbling block - a _hassle_, as TwoSix puts it. The point of setting, in that sort of play, is to serve as a backdrop and context within which the character's dramas unfold.




What I've tried to convey in my most recent posts is to disabuse the notion of GM bias in systems that have as their GMing centerpiece to "push play towards conflict."  Say I'm running Dogs in the Vineyard and one of my player's Dogs has a Trait of "I hate the sins of unfaithfulness and promiscuity most of all" and a Relationship of "My big brother is my hero".  The player characters are meting out justice in one town or another.  In the course of play, we * discover that the basement of a tannery doubles as a brothel.  Well that is bad enough, right?  The PC mentioned above finds a familiar, well-worn, ten gallon hat sitting on an end-table in the basement's foyer as he hears sounds from the interior indicating that a working lady is...well, hard at work.  Now we've got some real meat on that bone.

That is my job.  That is no more my bias than it is a first grade teacher's bias to include handwriting and reading in their "course work."  The system directs me to do this precisely, tells me why, and shows me how.

The more proficient I become at it, the better the table results.

* all of us; prepping a town involves nothing more than some key people and something wrong - typically an outbreak of sin, a gang, corruption, or maybe supernatural evil - which plug into PC build flags and the general theme of the game.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> What I've tried to convey in my most recent posts is to disabuse the notion of GM bias in systems that have as their GMing centerpiece to "push play towards conflict."
> 
> <snip>
> 
> That is my job.  That is no more my bias than it is a first grade teacher's bias to include handwriting and reading in their "course work."  The system directs me to do this precisely, tells me why, and shows me how.



Also relevant to this is my quote not too far upthread from the BW rulebook.

This is why I am a bit puzzled by the "Misty Lake" example being put forward by  [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] - where is this Misty Lake coming from as an element in the GM's narration of failed checks?


----------



## Aenghus

Manbearcat said:


> What I've tried to convey in my most recent posts is to disabuse the notion of GM bias in systems that have as their GMing centerpiece to "push play towards conflict."  Say I'm running Dogs in the Vineyard and one of my player's Dogs has a Trait of "I hate the sins of unfaithfulness and promiscuity most of all" and a Relationship of "My big brother is my hero".  The player characters are meting out justice in one town or another.  In the course of play, we * discover that the basement of a tannery doubles as a brothel.  Well that is bad enough, right?  The PC mentioned above finds a familiar, well-worn, ten gallon hat sitting on an end-table in the basement's foyer as he hears sounds from the interior indicating that a working lady is...well, hard at work.  Now we've got some real meat on that bone.
> 
> That is my job.  That is no more my bias than it is a first grade teacher's bias to include handwriting and reading in their "course work."  The system directs me to do this precisely, tells me why, and shows me how.
> 
> The more proficient I become at it, the better the table results.
> 
> * all of us; prepping a town involves nothing more than some key people and something wrong - typically an outbreak of sin, a gang, corruption, or maybe supernatural evil - which plug into PC build flags and the general theme of the game.




However, running a particular game well, following all the guidelines, still doesn't guarantee that all the players will like the result. Clear communication and acquiring prior well-informed buy-in massively improves the chances of a good game for all but can't guarantee it. Still, tastes are subjective and players can end up deciding they don't actually like a particular game, maybe due to features inherent in the game, maybe due to stuff they happen to associate with the game.

Campaigns often experience some player churn at the very start as people figure out whether they like the actual game or not. Sometimes it's stuff external to the game, such as personality clashes or real life personal drama.

I do think a game being run should be run on it's own merits and played to it's strengths, not its weaknesses. A game about intense personal drama should up the dramatude for all it's worth. A game about daring exploration in a persistent world should have lots of fascinating and dangerous locales to explore, possibly with traces of previous intrepid explorers and tales of their exploits.

I do think it's worth trying to run  a system as it's designers intended it to be run at least a few times to establish a baseline for expectations from that system, before attempting to fix or houserule it. This can be easier said than done, a bunch of RPGs don't explain their expected style of play very well, and in a lot of cases play style has been learned by osmosis, from the interpretations of previous referees, rather than what's actually laid down in the rulebooks.


----------



## Manbearcat

Aenghus said:


> However, running a particular game well, following all the guidelines, still doesn't guarantee that all the players will like the result. Clear communication and acquiring prior well-informed buy-in massively improves the chances of a good game for all but can't guarantee it. Still, tastes are subjective and players can end up deciding they don't actually like a particular game, maybe due to features inherent in the game, maybe due to stuff they happen to associate with the game.
> 
> Campaigns often experience some player churn at the very start as people figure out whether they like the actual game or not. Sometimes it's stuff external to the game, such as personality clashes or real life personal drama.




+1



Aenghus said:


> I do think a game being run should be run on it's own merits and played to it's strengths, not its weaknesses. A game about intense personal drama should up the dramatude for all it's worth. A game about daring exploration in a persistent world should have lots of fascinating and dangerous locales to explore, possibly with traces of previous intrepid explorers and tales of their exploits.
> 
> I do think it's worth trying to run  a system as it's designers intended it to be run at least a few times to establish a baseline for expectations from that system, before attempting to fix or houserule it.




+2



Aenghus said:


> This can be easier said than done, a bunch of RPGs don't explain their expected style of play very well...




Yup, very much so.  Alternatively, 

1)  they go to some length in attempts to do so, yet what comes out of play bears frustratingly little resemblance to expectations due to problematic aspects of design 

2)  people bring their own hard-earned cognitive biases into their readings of a well-put together TTRPG and they deem it ill-conceived due to various widgets or play procedures not fitting their mental framework



Aenghus said:


> ...and in a lot of cases play style has been learned by osmosis, from the interpretations of previous referees, rather than what's actually laid down in the rulebooks.




And a final alternative due to this being so embedded into TTRPGing culture.  The designers expect learned GM bias to bleed over into the reading and running of a system.  They expect GMs to perceive system deficiencies and accordingly to paste over them with their own ideas.  Therefore, they design around that premise and explicitly give them carte blanche to do so!


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> Also relevant to this is my quote not too far upthread from the BW rulebook.




Very relevant.  Perhaps even very, very (or maybe even very, very, very) relevant.



pemerton said:


> This is why I am a bit puzzled by the "Misty Lake" example being put forward by  [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] - where is this Misty Lake coming from as an element in the GM's narration of failed checks?




In a brief look at the exchange, it appears to be a go at showing various systems and techniques being vulnerable to GM bias.  Again, however, the difference between GM bias and system bias is glaringly obvious when the whole of it is evaluated through the prism of precise and transparent directives (such as your BW Gold quote).

Is low resolution/malleable setting and the technique of fail forward vulnerable to GM bias (and the attendant application of force) if a system's design and its intent is opaque, waffling, dissonant, or outright silent on key issues relevant to "what this game is about" and what "running it as intended should look/feel like?"  

Well, of course!  

But (a) not all (or even most) TTRPGs have Calvinball embedded in their core (which is THE "vulnerable to lead-participant bias" facet of any game) and (b) some go to great (both in quantity and quality) lengths to remove it!  

Finally, not all participants are apathetic about or complicit in their own railroading (via GM bias and system neutrality or outright support).  But if you take apathetic/willing players and put them in a game with a GM bent on force and a system that is conducive to it (by its opacity, dissonance, silence on key issues, or explicit support of GM force)...well, the introduction of that noise proves nothing about the inherent vulnerability of the signal of fail forward and no/low myth setting to GM bias.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> As for pre-authoring: inherent in pre-authoring is that fictional content and constraints and consequences are established outside the context of play. That's the point of that technique. Various posters upthread (certainly [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], but he is not the only one) have talked about the importance, in this style, of the players learning about the setting eg via knowledge checks, divination spells, scouting, etc. That may or may not amount to railroading, depending on (i) how it is handled by the GM, and (ii) what the players' expectations are about how the game will unfold. But it is mostly different from what I am looking for in RPGing.




There is no "may amount railroading" in the style at all.  Period.  Railroading only comes from bad DMs that railroad, and that's just as likely in your style as mine.



> Upthread, for instance, you've talked about preferring to use FR because then your players know what you're talking about when you mention a Purple Dragon Knight. That suggests to me that shared enjoyment of a pre-authored fictional setting is part of your game that matters to you. That is something that is not a high priority for the playstyle and the RPGs which have self-consciously promoted "fail forward" as a technique.




Fail forward works as well in my style of gaming as it does in yours.  I said pre-authoring adds depth, and it does.  Depth is impossible without pre-authoring.  Your style also relies on pre-authoring to provide depth.  It's just that the players and DM pre-author things as the game progresses, rather than than both prior to game play and as the game progresses, as my style does.  Fail forward has nothing to do with depth or pre-authoring.



> Maybe I can, maybe I can't. It depends on details that we don't have in this discussion.
> 
> Another way of coming at the question is, "Why would I bother?"




And the answer is as obvious as the answer to, "Will the sun rise?"  Since the answer is the same as when the question is applied to your style and NPCs, I'm surprised that you even asked the question.



> I've mentioned upthread that, in my BW game, I use the GH maps and the high-level GH backstory (country/region names, the Suel and Baklun empires, etc). There are two reasons why.
> 
> First, they give a handy, easily-shared device for dealing with geography in the game. The middle of the GH map has everything needed for classic fantasy RPGing: desert, sea, forest, cities, towns, wild lands with orc raiders, elven and dwarven kingdoms, etc. The low-level details can be filled in as needed as part of play.
> 
> Second, the high-level backstory gives the same sort of easily-shared flavour for bringing classic tropes into play. For instance, when the PCs were fighting orcs in the Bright Desert, the player of the mage PC is able to say "Suel tribesmen are thick as fleas on dogs in this desert - I Circle some up!" The Ancient Suel become a label for a trope, that provides colour to the game.
> 
> There are parts of GH that push against this - for instance, the idea that the setting's vikings (Frost, Ice and Snow Barbarians) and martial artist monks (the Scarlet Brotherhood) are descended from the Ancient Suel; and the idea that the Ancient Suel are pale, almost albino. I've always ignored these elements of GH lore, and continue to do so in my BW game.




So you do use pre-authored material, and for the same reasons.  I also ignore or change things I dislike about the pre-authored settings I use.



> If Ed Greenwood had got in before Gygax to give me a map with some vikings in the north and a trope-filled area like central GH, I'd happily use it. As it happens, though, I got GH first.
> 
> But at least in my experience, when someone talks about playing a game in FR, they are meaning more than just that they use a map and the high-level tropes.




FR is whatever you make of it, like GH.  How I use it has no bearing on how you use it and vise versa.  



> I saw this just yesterday, in a thread on the Old D&D editions board about using other modules with module B10. Some people were advising that certain other modules are a good fit with B10 because they integrate the backstory of B10 with other elements of the "Know World" (Mystara) eg Specularum, Nithia, the Hutakaans etc. That's exactly the sort of prioritising of pre-authred setting that I don't enjoy. But obviously, to those posters, it is quite important.




Sure, but I can easily throw B10 into GH, FR, Planescape, or any number of other settings and ignore those connections.  Juse because some people use a tool in a certain manner, does not mean that you have to avoid the tool or use it in the same manner.  Given your response above about GH, it seems that you don't have a problem with pre-authorship, but rather the level of pre-authorship.



> If a GM or a group thinks that s/he can achieve story-like progression without railroading and while using GM pre-authored backstory as an important input into action resolution, go for it! Personally I have my doubts: examples that have been given in this thread seem to me to reinforce to the extent that there is a large amount of GM pre-authoring that then informs action resolution by setting constraints and possibilities, the more the game will move away from story-like progression with a high degree of player agency in respect of that story, and towards exploration/discovery.




And this is just as insulting now as it was then.  It implies that my style contains railroading inherently and a DM has to go out of his way to avoid it, rather than the reality which is that like your style, railroading simply does not exist unless the DM puts it there.

The very few pre-authored constraints are no different than constraints the game places on character creation and upon game play.  If you have a PC whose only possession is a longsword, are you going to allow him to use a mace that doesn't exist when fighting skeletons?  If yes, why?  If no, big bad railroading limitation based on pre-authoring!!!!!  Except not.  Limitations have inherent connections to railroading.  Railroading goes beyond limitations and require DM desire in order for it to exist.



> Not far upthread, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] said that "those limits you talk about aren't really limiting. If I don't like them I can find a way to leave the world and go somewhere else." That's exploration-oriented play (_find a way to . . . go somewhere else_).




Every setting limitation that exists in a pre-authored setting can also come up as a limitation in your style of game play.  They just don't exist in advance.  A limitation is a limitation, so I don't see why a limitation that comes up in game play is better than one that is pre-authored.  Sheadunne's answer may have been self-centered as put forth, but at least it was honest.  He's into your style because he just doesn't care about anyone or anything else beyond his character and what affects his character right then.  There isn't a claim that a limitation is bad if pre-authored, but the same limitation is good if authored in the moment, even though that authored in the moment limitation becomes a pre-authored limitation the instant the moment is over.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Also relevant to this is my quote not too far upthread from the BW rulebook.
> 
> This is why I am a bit puzzled by the "Misty Lake" example being put forward by  [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] - where is this Misty Lake coming from as an element in the GM's narration of failed checks?




What we're trying to say is that DM bias (railroading) is just as likely in your style as ours.  The DM could have decided that the familiar 10 gallon hat was there due to unbiased reasons, or he could have put it there because at the beginning he had the idea that the brother would turn out to be a fallen hero and this was just his way of sticking it into the story.  

There is nothing about your style of play that leads it to be less railroad prone than my style.  Both styles inherently assume no railroading, and both styles can be the victim of a railroading DM.  It's exceedingly easy to railroad with both styles.  If anything, I would argue that it's easier to railroad with your style due to there not being an pre-authored content to contradict the DM.


----------



## Bluenose

ExploderWizard said:


> What connection to the game world? You have just informed everyone that any part of the world that your character hasn't come into contact with may as well not exist. How on earth can there ever be a connection to such a world? What you are describing isn't a game world at all its a holodeck experience tailored especially for you.
> 
> A world, to feel real and meaningful, needs to exist beyond the perspective of a single individual.




The connection, and this seems obvious to me, is that the barbarian tribe/dwarven city/sea elf culture is something that was made in the course of the game. It's got the little personal quirks that I/we added, that we thought made it more interesting, that let me/us add our personal stamp on the world. Whereas the pre-created one is something I got told about. And yes, that we can add quirks and little personal bits too, as long as they don't contradict the existing material, but past a certain point it's not the pre-created group any more but another one that we've made that has only a few pre-created bits left that we weren't interested enough in to change; or it's as stated, in which case it's far less something we feel any connection to. At least that's how it plays out with the people I play with.


----------



## innerdude

Let me give an example of the potential dangers of pre-authoring from a campaign I'm currently playing in: 

In our current Savage Worlds game set in the Shaintar campaign setting, my character is an escaped slave from the tyrannical empire "up north." I've set it up specifically with the GM that she (yes, my character is a she) has been totally shaped by her experience as a slave---she dislikes tyranny and authoritarian governments, and hates the empire and all it stands for. 

Yet for going on 5 sessions now, we've been dealing with an incredibly mundane, semi-railroad-y "hunt the bandits" scenario that I haven't found terribly interesting. Now don't get me wrong, I'm still having fun with the group (I'm very, very good friends with all of the other 4 members), and there's been some entertaining moments, but I'm frankly disengaged from the plot and the world so far --- because I'm not doing anything that's really RELEVANT to my character's beliefs and motivations.

Now I'll admit that part of the problem is that I don't think the GM did a very good job with the initial party/campaign setup. There wasn't any real connection made in the fiction for the characters, and the GM didn't employ any of the techniques you might use to create them.

None of us are particularly familiar with the Shaintar setting, so we're kind of still feeling our way through it, though I did buy PDF copies of both Legends Arise+ Legends Unleashed. But so far, we're just sort of muddling along with the GM's "hidden backstory" and it's really not doing much for me. 

The GM isn't taking cues from our characters (our hindrances and backgrounds), has done absolutely nothing to integrate the newest member of the group's backstory (he's also the newest to pen and paper gaming, and would probably benefit most from getting some "no myth" love / fictional control over his character).

The most interesting thing that's happened so far was a development that _arose in play_ of my character befriending a goblin NPC.

So, is this a fault of the pre-authored "hidden backstory," or the GM not recognizing that he's railroading? 

Right now it's a little of both. Do you know what would go a long way to getting off the railroad? Having the GM change the framing of the scenes to include items, people, references, ANYTHING that connects our characters to the world. There was a PRIME opportunity for him to "fail forward" an information gathering check in a bandit hideout that would have connected the characters to the world . . . and he chose not to. 

Now, am I being a bit, hmmm, demanding in expecting to engage what I want to with my character? Maybe. Is it less "simulationist" to expect that the scene frames would include things relevant to my character? Probably. Do I care in the least? Nope. Because that's what I'm interested in, and as a player I'm not going to apologize for it.


----------



## Nytmare

innerdude said:


> There was a PRIME opportunity for him to "fail forward" an information gathering check in a bandit hideout that would have connected the characters to the world . . . and he chose not to.




Was it that he _chose_ not to, or was he just not experienced enough/trained to recognize the opportunity?


----------



## innerdude

Nytmare said:


> Was it that he _chose_ not to, or was he just not experienced enough/trained to recognize the opportunity?




Good question. I suspect it's more the latter -- the idea of "just in time" authoring / fail forward is a concept that hasn't quite percolated up into his GM DNA yet.

At some point I'll probably approach him about it. "Hey, you're doing a good job so far, but I think it'd be cool if we could experience some more of what we've included in our character backgrounds . . . does that sound like something we could do together?" "Oh, and have you heard about this thing called 'fail forward'?"


----------



## Maxperson

innerdude said:


> Let me give an example of the potential dangers of pre-authoring from a campaign I'm currently playing in:
> 
> In our current Savage Worlds game set in the Shaintar campaign setting, my character is an escaped slave from the tyrannical empire "up north." I've set it up specifically with the GM that she (yes, my character is a she) has been totally shaped by her experience as a slave---she dislikes tyranny and authoritarian governments, and hates the empire and all it stands for.
> 
> Yet for going on 5 sessions now, we've been dealing with an incredibly mundane, semi-railroad-y "hunt the bandits" scenario that I haven't found terribly interesting. Now don't get me wrong, I'm still having fun with the group (I'm very, very good friends with all of the other 4 members), and there's been some entertaining moments, but I'm frankly disengaged from the plot and the world so far --- because I'm not doing anything that's really RELEVANT to my character's beliefs and motivations.




There is nothing about what you just said that is caused by pre-authoring.  It's caused by a DM who wants you to fight bandits, and that happens regardless of playstyle.  



> Now I'll admit that part of the problem is that I don't think the GM did a very good job with the initial party/campaign setup. There wasn't any real connection made in the fiction for the characters, and the GM didn't employ any of the techniques you might use to create them.




That is definitely an issue, but also not one that has anything to do with pre-authoring.



> None of us are particularly familiar with the Shaintar setting, so we're kind of still feeling our way through it, though I did buy PDF copies of both Legends Arise+ Legends Unleashed. But so far, we're just sort of muddling along with the GM's "hidden backstory" and it's really not doing much for me.




That makes it tougher for the players to draw on the pre-authored stuff, but you'll learn about it as you go and be able to draw on it.  Also, pre-authored content that you don't know about isn't back story, hidden or otherwise.  A hidden campaign plot can be hidden back story, though.  Perhaps you are meaning that as opposed to calling setting stuff that you don't know about hidden back story.



> The GM isn't taking cues from our characters (our hindrances and backgrounds), has done absolutely nothing to integrate the newest member of the group's backstory (he's also the newest to pen and paper gaming, and would probably benefit most from getting some "no myth" love / fictional control over his character).




Also not having anything to do with pre-authoring,



> The most interesting thing that's happened so far was a development that _arose in play_ of my character befriending a goblin NPC.




Cool.



> So, is this a fault of the pre-authored "hidden backstory," or the GM not recognizing that he's railroading?



As you presented it, there is nothing that has anything to do with hidden back story or pre-authoring.  As for railroading, there isn't really enough for me to be able to tell if that is happening or not.  If you try to avoid the bandits and go a different direction, what happens?


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> There is no "may amount railroading" in the style at all.  Period.  Railroading only comes from bad DMs that railroad, and that's just as likely in your style as mine.





Maxperson said:


> What we're trying to say is that DM bias (railroading) is just as likely in your style as ours.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> There is nothing about your style of play that leads it to be less railroad prone than my style.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If anything, I would argue that it's easier to railroad with your style due to there not being an pre-authored content to contradict the DM.



What's your evidence that there are Burning Wheel, or Dungeon World, campaigns out there that involve railroading? Where are they? How does the railroading work? If, when the players succeed on a check then the fiction is changed in the manner they declared, how is the railroading coming in? What device does the GM use to stop the fiction changing in that way?

There is no need for pre-authored content to contradict the GM! All the players have to do is succeed on their checks. For instance, in the instance of the mace: if the players had succeeded on the Scavenging check, they would have found the mace. In the instance of the waterhole, if the players had succeed on the orienteering (Song of Paths and Ways) check, the waterhole would have been filled with pure water. In other words, there is no need for pre-authored fiction to constrain the GM when the rules of the game establish that if the check succeeds then both intent and task are realised! The only reason you're even thinking about the need for pre-authorship as a constraint on the GM is because you're not thinking of success on checks as meaning intent, as well as task, succeeds; which is to say, you're not thinking in the mechanical framework that is typical of the games that make a self-conscious point of advocating "fail forward" as a technique.

Look at actual threads and discussions around railroading. (I've read and participated in plenty.) They involve GMs who already have a conception of what the shared fiction and the story will be, and who manipulate the action resolution mechanics to achieve that end.

There are certainly sandbox GMs who don't have a conception of what the story will be, and run primarily exploratory games in which players take their PCs through the sandbox. But these games don't have the mechanisms and structures to reliably generate story (in the strong, literary/dramatic sense of that word). That's why designers like Luke Crane, Ron Edwards etc tried to self-consciously articulate alternative techniques, of which "fail forward" is one aspect.



Maxperson said:


> this is just as insulting now as it was then.  It implies that my style contains railroading inherently and a DM has to go out of his way to avoid it, rather than the reality which is that like your style, railroading simply does not exist unless the DM puts it there.



No. It implies that a pre-authored game either contains railroading or lacks story (in the strong sense). In lieu of story, there is exploration and discovery. In lieu of the narrative dynamics generated by "fail forward" as a technique, there is the players exploring and unravelling the puzzle of the setting.

There's a reason that designers like Luke Crane, Robin Laws etc wrote the games that they wrote. It was because they found that "traditional" or "conventional" pre-authored RPG setting didn't produce story (in the strong sense) without railroading. That's why their techniques have got no relevance to those modes of play (eg Gygaxian dungeon-crawling; Runequest setting exploration; etc) in which story is not a goal of play (except perhaps as an after-the-event, emergent byproduct with participants' retellings of the events of play).

Thus, for instance, all the people who say that RPGing is different from novels and films, in that story is not achievable in the same way without railroading - they are rejecting "fail forward" and associated techniques, and advocating for setting exploration instead. The advocates of "fail forward" and associated techniques, on the other hand, are out to prove those people wrong by achieving story in their RPGs without railroading.

(By the way, in a recent fudging thread you yourself have posted that you manipulate dice rolls from time to time to ensure the preservation of narrative dynamics. To me, that seems kind of relevant to this discussion.)



Maxperson said:


> The DM could have decided that the familiar 10 gallon hat was there due to unbiased reasons, or he could have put it there because at the beginning he had the idea that the brother would turn out to be a fallen hero and this was just his way of sticking it into the story.



This is weird. As soon as the player writes down the conviction for his/her PC that "My brother is my hero", _of course_ the GM comes up with the idea that the brother might be a fallen hero. That's the whole point!

Just as, in my BW game, when one of the players writes down the Belief that for his PC that "I will redeem my brother who has been possessed by a balrog", I have in mind the possibility that the brother was fallen _before_ the balrog possessed him.

That was [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s point: having those ideas isn't GM bias against the player, it's a basic premise of this sort of game. That's how you ensure that the game will have story (in the strong sense, of a dramatic, character-driven narrative) rather than a focus on exploration and discovery.

But where's the railroad? What is the nature of the brother in the imaginary DitV scenario? We don't know, because no actions have been declared and resolved.

What is the nature of the brother in my (non-imaginary) BW game? We don't know. How did the black arrows get there? And supposing they _were_ made by the brother, why? And what does that tell us about him?

It's all up for grabs.

The story is not pre-written. No one knows how it is going to end. Certainly not me!



Maxperson said:


> The very few pre-authored constraints are no different than constraints the game places on character creation and upon game play.



No different how? For me, they're quite different. Rules are consensually chosen, and create the framework in which the shared fiction is established. Unilateral (and moreso secret) pre-auhtoring by the GM has a different character altogether.



Maxperson said:


> I also ignore or change things I dislike about the pre-authored settings I use.



At what point? In advance, and it's still pre-authoring (but home brew rather than pre-packaged). My point is that the details of GH, as it figures in my BW game, won't be known until the game is actually played, at the table.



Maxperson said:


> Fail forward works as well in my style of gaming as it does in yours.



You don't use "fail forward" in the sense that that term was coined by Crane, Edwards, Tweet etc. This became clear in the discussion around Mt Pudding.

There may be some other sense of "fail forward" in which you use the technique, but (i) I'm not 100% sure what that is - perhaps that you don't insist on just one solution to a problem with which you confront the PCs? - and (ii) that doesn't have much bearing on the nature or relevance of the technique that is promoted by designers like Crane, Edwards, Tweet, Robin Laws etc.



Maxperson said:


> I said pre-authoring adds depth, and it does.  Depth is impossible without pre-authoring.  Your style also relies on pre-authoring to provide depth.  It's just that the players and DM pre-author things as the game progresses



That last phrase is oxymoronic. You can't pre-author something in the moment. Either you pre-author it. Or you author it in the moment.



Maxperson said:


> Every setting limitation that exists in a pre-authored setting can also come up as a limitation in your style of game play.  They just don't exist in advance.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> There isn't a claim that a limitation is bad if pre-authored, but the same limitation is good if authored in the moment, even though that authored in the moment limitation becomes a pre-authored limitation the instant the moment is over.



The _not existing in advance_ is utterly key. That's the whole point! And I absolutely claim that the same limitation might be problematic if pre-authored but not problematic if authored in the moment. Again, that's the whole point! The issue is not about _content_ of the shared fiction; it's about the process and method of generating it.

To give a concrete example: it makes a huge difference to me that the absence of the mace from the ruined tower is the result of a failed check by the players, rather than something I stipulated in advance.



Maxperson said:


> Fail forward has nothing to do with depth or pre-authoring.



"Fail forward", in the sense in which the designers who coined the term and articulated the notion use it, has a lot to do with pre-authoring. It is about the GM narrating failure in a manner which preserves dramatic dynamism, while placing the PC in an undesired situation. That means having the fiction sufficiently loose or unspecified that the new, adverse circumstances can be narrated without contradicting what has gone before. That, in turn, means avoiding certain types of pre-authoring.

For instance, if every interesting property of the angel feather is pre-authored, then I don't have the scope to narrate the failed Aura Reading check as discovering that the feather is cursed. If every interesting property of the mace is pre-authored, then I don't have the scope to decide, after the attempt to find it fails, that it is in the hands of the dark elf. If everything about the waterhole is pre-authored, then I don't have the scope to say, if the orienteering check succeeds, that the PCs made it to the tower finding plenty of fresh water on the way, while if the check fails saying that the PCs arrive at the waterhole only to find it fouled.

These are all concrete, actual play illustrations of the centrality, to "fail forward" as a technique advocated by those designers, for their games, depends upon a certain lack of pre-authoring.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> pre-authored content that you don't know about isn't back story, hidden or otherwise.  A hidden campaign plot can be hidden back story, though.  Perhaps you are meaning that as opposed to calling setting stuff that you don't know about hidden back story.



I think that [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] is using "hidden backstory" in the same sense that I use "secret backstory" ie pre-authored elements of the fiction that only the GM knows about, which the GM uses to adjudicate action resolution, to determine how NPCs respond, to work out what happens next, etc.

This has a lot to do with pre-authoring, also - it's all about establishing the fiction in advance and extrapolating from that, rather than framing your scenes based on player cues and then extrapolating the fiction from the outcomes of the players' action declarations. The latter method does two things: it gives the modulation of success and setback that helps ensure a story; and it ensures that the players as well as the GM shape the key aspects of the fiction (namely, every time they succeed on a check).



Maxperson said:


> As for railroading, there isn't really enough for me to be able to tell if that is happening or not.  If you try to avoid the bandits and go a different direction, what happens?



That this question is even on the table, though, shows us that the game is not one that generates story in the strong, non-trivial, literary sense. At best, the game as described is an exploration game, where if the players take their PCs to another place in the setting they can find some different stuff to engage with.

That's not story-generating play.



innerdude said:


> am I being a bit, hmmm, demanding in expecting to engage what I want to with my character? Maybe.



I guess it depends what the promise was going into the campaign.

But your expectation isn't unreasonable in any apriori sense.

I see plenty of posters on these boards saying that RPGs can't deliver what you want. But my experience tells me that they're wrong.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> What's your evidence that there are Burning Wheel, or Dungeon World, campaigns out there that involve railroading? Where are they? How does the railroading work? If, when the players succeed on a check then the fiction is changed in the manner they declared, how is the railroading coming in? What device does the GM use to stop the fiction changing in that way?




Seriously?  You're claiming that that there are no bad DMs out there that railroad in those systems?  Somehow only other systems have those sorts of DMs?

How would it work?  Well, it doesn't have to happen on every check, so player successes are irrelevant.  If the DM inserts his desires into failed checks to drive the game down paths he wants them down, railroading has occurred.  If you seriously can't see that railroading can happen in those systems, then you're too blind to continue having this conversation with.

Are you that blind, or are you just being disingenuous with those questions?



> There is no need for pre-authored content to contradict the GM! All the players have to do is succeed on their checks. For instance, in the instance of the mace: if the players had succeeded on the Scavenging check, they would have found the mace. In the instance of the waterhole, if the players had succeed on the orienteering (Song of Paths and Ways) check, the waterhole would have been filled with pure water. In other words, there is no need for pre-authored fiction to constrain the GM when the rules of the game establish that if the check succeeds then both intent and task are realised! The only reason you're even thinking about the need for pre-authorship as a constraint on the GM is because you're not thinking of success on checks as meaning intent, as well as task, succeeds; which is to say, you're not thinking in the mechanical framework that is typical of the games that make a self-conscious point of advocating "fail forward" as a technique.




This is a lot of nothing.  Pre-authored content doesn't constrain the DM any more than a PC being an elf constrains him.  Such light "constraint" is irrelevant and meaningless.  It's still easier to railroad with your system.  Unless the players can't fail rolls anyway.  If they can, the DM can push them wherever he wants, however he wants with nothing and no one to say otherwise, except of course for you guys have pre-authored already through prior game play.  Pre-authorship helps prevent railroading.



> Look at actual threads and discussions around railroading. (I've read and participated in plenty.) They involve GMs who already have a conception of what the shared fiction and the story will be, and who manipulate the action resolution mechanics to achieve that end.




Your system allows that and makes it easier due to lack of pre-authored content.



> There are certainly sandbox GMs who don't have a conception of what the story will be, and run primarily exploratory games in which players take their PCs through the sandbox. But these games don't have the mechanisms and structures to reliably generate story (in the strong, literary/dramatic sense of that word). That's why designers like Luke Crane, Ron Edwards etc tried to self-consciously articulate alternative techniques, of which "fail forward" is one aspect.




Funny.  I run sandbox games and story is reliably generated all the time.  People claiming otherwise just can't run a proper sandbox game and/or don't have players that are up to playing in a sandbox game.  It's not a playstyle for everyone and those that are hyper critical of it are very likely incapable of playing it properly.  They're trying to drive a stick shift without knowing how and blaming failure on the car.



> No. It implies that a pre-authored game either contains railroading or lacks story (in the strong sense). In lieu of story, there is exploration and discovery. In lieu of the narrative dynamics generated by "fail forward" as a technique, there is the players exploring and unravelling the puzzle of the setting.




Neither "implication" is true.  That's just another of your False Dichotomies.  Just because the PCs can go in any direction, does not mean that exploration and discovery rule out over story, or story is lacking.  I run a sandbox.  Story is huge.  Railroading is non-existent.  I am proof of the falseness of that claim.



> There's a reason that designers like Luke Crane, Robin Laws etc wrote the games that they wrote. It was because they found that "traditional" or "conventional" pre-authored RPG setting didn't produce story (in the strong sense) without railroading. That's why their techniques have got no relevance to those modes of play (eg Gygaxian dungeon-crawling; Runequest setting exploration; etc) in which story is not a goal of play (except perhaps as an after-the-event, emergent byproduct with participants' retellings of the events of play).




More likely, they were incapable of running a sandbox properly and the failure of story without railroad was their personal problem.



> Thus, for instance, all the people who say that RPGing is different from novels and films, in that story is not achievable in the same way without railroading - they are rejecting "fail forward" and associated techniques, and advocating for setting exploration instead. The advocates of "fail forward" and associated techniques, on the other hand, are out to prove those people wrong by achieving story in their RPGs without railroading.




Have you changed the definition of Fail Forward again?  Last I heard, it was 1) not allowing failure to stop the PCs dead in their tracks by having other options, and 2) Success with a cost when they roll a failure.  Neither of those definitions has anything to do with railroading, and neither of them don't work very well in a pre-authored setting.



> This is weird. As soon as the player writes down the conviction for his/her PC that "My brother is my hero", _of course_ the GM comes up with the idea that the brother might be a fallen hero. That's the whole point!




So railroading is good?  Or are you saying that DM forcing his idea on the player and moving towards that goal at every opportunity isn't railroading?



> Just as, in my BW game, when one of the players writes down the Belief that for his PC that "I will redeem my brother who has been possessed by a balrog", I have in mind the possibility that the brother was fallen _before_ the balrog possessed him.




The possibility or the fact?  My example wasn't of a possibility, it was of a fact that the DM pre-authored and forced to happen.



> That was [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s point: having those ideas isn't GM bias against the player, it's a basic premise of this sort of game. That's how you ensure that the game will have story (in the strong sense, of a dramatic, character-driven narrative) rather than a focus on exploration and discovery.




Then you guys are for pre-authorship, because that's what you are doing when you do that.  



> But where's the railroad? What is the nature of the brother in the imaginary DitV scenario? We don't know, because no actions have been declared and resolved.




The DM knows.  That's the point.  He knew from the beginning before any actions were declared and resolved and then deliberately forced the resolution to that goal.  That's railroading.



> What is the nature of the brother in my (non-imaginary) BW game? We don't know. How did the black arrows get there? And supposing they _were_ made by the brother, why? And what does that tell us about him?
> 
> It's all up for grabs.
> 
> The story is not pre-written. No one knows how it is going to end. Certainly not me!




Unless you decided that you knew from the beginning and forced the issue.  That's the point.  I'm not saying that YOU railroad.  I'm saying that without pre-authorship, it's exceedingly easy to railroad in your system.  Easier even than in a pre-authored world.



> No different how? For me, they're quite different. Rules are consensually chosen, and create the framework in which the shared fiction is established. Unilateral (and moreso secret) pre-auhtoring by the GM has a different character altogether.




Unilateral?  Players and DMs pick campaign worlds together all the time.  Even if the DM picked it unilaterally, the players consent merely by agreeing to play in that world.  No consent = no play.  That makes the pre-authored content consensual.



> You don't use "fail forward" in the sense that that term was coined by Crane, Edwards, Tweet etc. This became clear in the discussion around Mt Pudding.




Actually, I do.  I just don't use it for everything.  There are times when it's appropriate.  That is also what I aid in the Mt. Pudding discussion.  Now, if I wanted, I could use it for everything and still pre-author without railroading.  How?  Because fail forward has nothing to do with those two things.  There is no connection between those ideas.



> That last phrase is oxymoronic. You can't pre-author something in the moment. Either you pre-author it. Or you author it in the moment.




You aren't understanding.  Unless everything you guys do has no bearing on the future, or it does.  If it does, then everything you author in the moment becomes pre-authored content a few seconds later as it was authored pre-that time.  You use that pre-authored content for your games.



> The _not existing in advance_ is utterly key. That's the whole point! And I absolutely claim that the same limitation might be problematic if pre-authored but not problematic if authored in the moment. Again, that's the whole point! The issue is not about _content_ of the shared fiction; it's about the process and method of generating it.




But it DOES exist in advance.  It exists in advance of everything that comes after it.  There is zero difference between my pre-authoring a dark elf antagonist at the beginning to appear at the water hole, and you authoring it in the moment of the water hole.  Both are a dark elf antagonist, and both are pre-authored for every single second after it appears at the water hole.  That you didn't know before hand is irrelevant to game play.  Game play is going to act on the dark elf being a pre-authored antagonist for both playstyles.



> To give a concrete example: it makes a huge difference to me that the absence of the mace from the ruined tower is the result of a failed check by the players, rather than something I stipulated in advance.




You say that, but you really haven't given any real reason for it other than you like it that way, and incorrect perceptions of pre-authorship and sandbox play.



> *"Fail forward", in the sense in which the designers who coined the term and articulated the notion use it, has a lot to do with pre-authoring.* It is about the GM narrating failure in a manner which preserves dramatic dynamism, while placing the PC in an undesired situation. That means having the fiction sufficiently loose or unspecified that the new, adverse circumstances can be narrated without contradicting what has gone before. That, in turn, means avoiding certain types of pre-authoring.




Since I can use fail forward in a sandbox, pre-authored setting with 0 difficulties and to great effect and with no railroad and with great story, you're going to have to prove that statement with something other than just claims.



> For instance, if every interesting property of the angel feather is pre-authored, then I don't have the scope to narrate the failed Aura Reading check as discovering that the feather is cursed. If every interesting property of the mace is pre-authored, then I don't have the scope to decide, after the attempt to find it fails, that it is in the hands of the dark elf. If everything about the waterhole is pre-authored, then I don't have the scope to say, if the orienteering check succeeds, that the PCs made it to the tower finding plenty of fresh water on the way, while if the check fails saying that the PCs arrive at the waterhole only to find it fouled.




And this just illustrates your ignorance of pre-authoring.  If the game pre-authors angel feathers by saying that, "Angel feathers have great holy power.", that isn't an exhaustive list.  Nor does it prevent exceptions from happening.  I am fully capable, without changing anything, of deciding an angel feather is cursed.  Nothing about that pre-authorship keeps that from happening.  Pre-authored settings don't give exhaustive lists of every possible property of things.


----------



## innerdude

I think some of the confusion that's arising, @_*Maxperson*_, is what the conception of "story" @_*pemerton*_ is referring to here. It's not just the general "something happens," i.e., the characters get to _do_ something, and _something else_ happens as a result. That's just general "scene framing" put into motion. 

He's talking about "story" in the Forge-ist sense---the idea that character's dramatic needs, the needs and goals generated through the act of player PC creation, are the PRIMARY force for action in the fiction. If the GM's "backstory" or "setting" or NPC motivations, or whatever, aren't purposefully molded around the PC's stated goals, it's not generating "story" in the manner in which @_*pemerton*_ is describing. 

What are the practical implications of actually trying to produce "story" in this sense? It means, as we've been discussing for 94 pages of forum threads now, that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the GM's conception of the "fiction" is 100% absolute. To really produce this kind of play, the GM has to be willing to do 180 degree turns on previously "pre-authored" elements _because that's what the story, as defined by the PCs dramatic needs, requires._

It requires, as a GM, that you CANNOT hold claim to ANYTHING as being "sacred" in terms of backstory. And a LOT of GMs have a problem with that when they've put a lot of work into generating a setting, a backstory, etc. 

This is the point on which "no myth" and "nothing in the fiction is real until it comes up in play and the PCs interact with it" hinges. If it becomes necessary to completely wipe the slate with a piece of the "fiction" as previously conceived and re-draw it _in that moment_ because that's what the PCs dramatic needs requires, then that's what happens.

It means being willing, as a GM, to completely re-write, on the fly, WHAT may be present in a scene frame, WHY it is there in the scene frame, and WHAT ELSE it interacted with to get there.

And there are assuredly risks in playing this way. The biggest one, which has already been identified, is that it creates muddy areas where keeping the fiction coherent/consistent can be problematic if the GM and players aren't on the same page. And it puts an awful lot of pressure on the GM to be creative and flexible. To meet this level of creativity and flexibility, it requires the GM to have either an absolute, comprehensive rules mastery if it's a heavy-crunch system, or it requires a system that alleviates these pressures. 

And as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is describing, it helps when the system itself (Burning Wheel) is mechanically designed to compel both GMs and players to adhere to this playstyle.


----------



## Imaro

Okay I'm a little confused are we speaking about specific systems or play styles?  They are two different, though admittedly connected, things...  The original discussion (as well as the railroad discussion) was around play styles but now it seems [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] are discussing specific systems... which really wasn't what was being discussed, and seems to be causing some confusion...


----------



## sheadunne

Imaro said:


> Okay I'm a little confused are we speaking about specific systems or play styles?  They are two different, though admittedly connected, things...  The original discussion (as well as the railroad discussion) was around play styles but now it seems [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] are discussing specific systems... which really wasn't what was being discussed, and seems to be causing some confusion...




I'm not sure we can discuss this without talking about systems, can we? Or at least reference to systems that either support or refute general play styles? Some systems just don't lend themselves well to particular approaches to gaming. If we want to focus only on Fail-Forward and D&D 3x, that's a pretty big difference than discussing Fail-Forward and FATE. We need examples of play too, which provide context. That's hard to do in a vacuum without a shared understanding of the context of the system. 

I think we also need to stop suggesting that the Railroad style is somehow a bad way of playing. I enjoy myself a good AP now and again (especially when I don't want to have to make decisions and just want to kill things and take their stuff! Despite my preferred play style, I still love the tactics of 3x/PF combat), and they're almost entirely railroads. It's just a matter of expectations. I would be a little turned off if someone pulled out rise of the rune lords and started using fail-forward and story-now with it. Talk about a disappointing night of gaming!


----------



## Aenghus

To me railroading is about constricting player choices. it's a potentially useful technique when used appropriately for the right players. Some RPG titles and campaigns expect certain types of railroading, and it's often expected and even appreciated as a pacing mechanic or way of moving quickly from scene to scene. It becomes objectionable when it takes away player decisions that players turn out to value.

I prefer this definition because exactly the same application of railroading may be liked by some players and disliked by others, depending on their varying goals of play. The interpretation of railroading is a subjective judgement, though I have seen some really terrible railroading that I hope the vast majority of players would identify as such.

I pre-author a lot of my game, though the proportion of improvisation has increased over the years. Nowadays I lack the energy and free time that I used to have. Also I don't worldbuild for fun as much any more, I found it lots of work and lead to too much rigidity in a game, as few players cared about the complexities of my settings. 

 RPG sessions are delicate things that need cooperation from everyone to stay viable, regardless of the style of game. IMO there are no perfect styles and every style has potential downsides.


----------



## Imaro

sheadunne said:


> I'm not sure we can discuss this without talking about systems, can we? Or at least reference to systems that either support or refute general play styles? Some systems just don't lend themselves well to particular approaches to gaming. If we want to focus only on Fail-Forward and D&D 3x, that's a pretty big difference than discussing Fail-Forward and FATE. We need examples of play too, which provide context. That's hard to do in a vacuum without a shared understanding of the context of the system.
> 
> I think we also need to stop suggesting that the Railroad style is somehow a bad way of playing. I enjoy myself a good AP now and again (especially when I don't want to have to make decisions and just want to kill things and take their stuff! Despite my preferred play style, I still love the tactics of 3x/PF combat), and they're almost entirely railroads. It's just a matter of expectations. I would be a little turned off if someone pulled out rise of the rune lords and started using fail-forward and story-now with it. Talk about a disappointing night of gaming!




I'm not seeing why system and playstyle can't be talked about separately... especially since there are systems that don't actively support a specific style... Like you said discussing Fail forward with D&D is different from fail forward with FATE... but those are system differences not playstyle differences.

Also I don't think anyone is attaching a negative connotation to railroading... we just don't agree that it's more prevalent in one style (not system) over another style... and all we're doing now with it is dueling anecdotes (which is why I find these calls for play experiences kinda pointless)


----------



## sheadunne

Imaro said:


> I'm not seeing why system and playstyle can't be talked about separately... especially since there are systems that don't actively support a specific style... Like you said discussing Fail forward with D&D is different from fail forward with FATE... but those are system differences not playstyle differences.
> 
> Also I don't think anyone is attaching a negative connotation to railroading... we just don't agree that it's more prevalent in one style (not system) over another style... and all we're doing now with it is dueling anecdotes (which is why I find these calls for play experiences kinda pointless)




Maybe, I'm not entire sure it can be divorced that easily, although I agree completely about the dueling anecdotes. 

For me though, the play experiences are the most valuable part (show don't tell). When we divorce the play antidotes from the discussion, we're left with examples that tend to move to the extreme sides of the spectrum. It does as well with antidotes, but I find if there are game systems included with them, I can see the play experience more clearly.

I do think that without lots of experience with a play style or system, the discussions aren't very productive. I can site lots of examples from my years playing Danger Patrol, but I'm not sure how many people have played it or even know about it. I've read DITV and BW but haven't played either. I have some short experiences with FATE, Savage Worlds, Dungeon World, but can't speak from a multi-year framework. About the only thing we probably all have in common is that we've played some version of D&D, but even that system differs between editions. So I agree that system can be a deterrent to a discussion of play style, I'm not sure how you go about it without it. Most of the discussion in this thread has steamed from examples provided (some system neutral but I think most people are assuming X system when they talk about it and it's causing confusion, at least for me).

Then there's the terminology issues, such as those using Forge language and those using everyday language. The forge language sounds very condescending, especially if you're not familiar with it. I think many posters here have been very patient with each other, but I'm also starting to see things breaking down. I think that for the most part you, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], among others have done a good job stating your opinions, fairly patiently, but others, probably myself included, have been less able. 

On a side note, but going back to the thread subject matter: I can't recall a play experience, where the intent has been no pre-authoring and the system is designed for it, that has railroaded anyone, although I have seen it grind to a halt in a second when the GM freezes (which happens a lot in my experience when either the GM isn't completely comfortable in the style, or the game has proceeded past the GM's point of creativity for the session). This is much less the case in pre-authored styles of play. I'm running an occasional CoC game that I haven't pre-authored anything for, but I still find myself nudging the players in the directions I want them to go, due to the nature of the genre and the system itself. Mysteries are harder for me to run in Improv but I think that's due to the genre and the exceptions of the game. I could be wrong and am just not very good at it. I might feel more successful using another system like Gumshoe, but I'm not overly familiar with it so I stuck with what I grew up on.


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## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Okay I'm a little confused are we speaking about specific systems or play styles?  They are two different, though admittedly connected, things...  The original discussion (as well as the railroad discussion) was around play styles but now it seems [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] are discussing specific systems... which really wasn't what was being discussed, and seems to be causing some confusion...




Below is the evolution of my approach and posting in this conversation.  2 and 4 are relevant to the quoted text above.

1)  Bring up a cogent, system-neutral, extremely vanilla example (Bob, his divining rod, and the ascent of mount pudding to find locate said pudding) of the technique of Fail Forward.  I did this in order to facilitate precisely the angle of conversation that you're referring to.

Despite my caveats as to the nature and useful limits of this example, several posters invariably attempted to dig deeper or extrapolate more than was there (sometimes assuming load-bearing elements of system) which extended the example beyond its useful limits.

Consequently...

2)  I posted multiple TLDR examples (with abridged portions and abridged commentary) of my own games in which usage of Fail Forward  is mandated and embedded within the system.  

I then broke down the system from which those examples stemmed in order to relate the "whys" and "hows".

Given the extrapolating and digging deeper ithat took place in 1 above, it seemed like folks wanted such things.  Unfortunately, those didn't get much traction.

3)  As no myth, or abstract/malleable setting/backstory was inevitably being invoked as part and parcel of the deployment of Fail Forward, rejoinders then abounded about the benefits of pre-authorship, heavy prep, and exploratory play that had granular meta-setting at its core.

As the benefits had been thoroughly canvassed, I posted the benefits of no myth, or abstract/malleable setting/backstory.  This included my thoughts on the inherent (but not inevitable and certainly not inevitably actualized) temptations (due to emotional/physical investment) that come with heavy-prep or granular meta-setting.

Conversation ensued from there about whether those temptations (and the likelihood of them being actualized) were just as inherent to low-prep, abstract/malleable setting/backstory, therefore rendering them "not a thing" inherent to one approach versus another.

Somewhere in the course of that conversation, I broke down the inherent dangers inherent to low-prep, abstract/malleable setting/backstory.

4)  Finally, we get to the contention that GM bias is the core component of the deployment of GM force.  There is a deep undercurrent of "system doesn't matter" which pervades the thinking of certain segments of TTRPG culture (especially with players who were bred on AD&D 2e primarily if not exclusively) due to White Wolf's Golden Rule and AD&D's "rule 0".  I don't agree with this premise and I think there is some conflation, confusion, or outright lack of understanding of the heavy role that system has to play (eg - "system bias") in this equation generally, but also specifically in games that work to constrain a GM's latitude, focus a GM's agenda, and minimize their overhead.

My next several posts speak to "system bias" vs "GM bias" (which invariably brings me back to specific system agendas, principles, and play procedures as I did in 2 above).


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## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> Below is the evolution of my approach and posting in this conversation.  2 and 4 are relevant to the quoted text above.
> 
> 1)  Bring up a cogent, system-neutral, extremely vanilla example (Bob, his divining rod, and the ascent of mount pudding to find locate said pudding) of the technique of Fail Forward.  I did this in order to facilitate precisely the angle of conversation that you're referring to.
> 
> Despite my caveats as to the nature and useful limits of this example, several posters invariably attempted to dig deeper or extrapolate more than was there (sometimes assuming load-bearing elements of system) which extended the example beyond its useful limits.
> 
> Consequently...
> 
> 2)  I posted multiple TLDR examples (with abridged portions and abridged commentary) of my own games in which usage of Fail Forward  is mandated and embedded within the system.
> 
> I then broke down the system from which those examples stemmed in order to relate the "whys" and "hows".
> 
> Given the extrapolating and digging deeper ithat took place in 1 above, it seemed like folks wanted such things.  Unfortunately, those didn't get much traction.
> 
> 3)  As no myth, or abstract/malleable setting/backstory was inevitably being invoked as part and parcel of the deployment of Fail Forward, rejoinders then abounded about the benefits of pre-authorship, heavy prep, and exploratory play that had granular meta-setting at its core.
> 
> As the benefits had been thoroughly canvassed, I posted the benefits of no myth, or abstract/malleable setting/backstory.  This included my thoughts on the inherent (but not inevitable and certainly not inevitably actualized) temptations (due to emotional/physical investment) that come with heavy-prep or granular meta-setting.
> 
> Conversation ensued from there about whether those temptations (and the likelihood of them being actualized) were just as inherent to low-prep, abstract/malleable setting/backstory, therefore rendering them "not a thing" inherent to one approach versus another.
> 
> Somewhere in the course of that conversation, I broke down the inherent dangers inherent to low-prep, abstract/malleable setting/backstory.
> 
> 4)  Finally, we get to the contention that GM bias is the core component of the deployment of GM force.  There is a deep undercurrent of "system doesn't matter" which pervades the thinking of certain segments of TTRPG culture (especially with players who were bred on AD&D 2e primarily if not exclusively) due to White Wolf's Golden Rule and AD&D's "rule 0".  I don't agree with this premise and I think there is some conflation, confusion, or outright lack of understanding of the heavy role that system has to play (eg - "system bias") in this equation generally, but also specifically in games that work to constrain a GM's latitude, focus a GM's agenda, and minimize their overhead.
> 
> My next several posts speak to "system bias" vs "GM bias" (which invariably brings me back to specific system agendas, principles, and play procedures as I did in 2 above).




Just a quick question... do you believe there is such a thing as a "neutral system" in that it neither hinders nor promotes any one particular playstyle?


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## Maxperson

Imaro said:


> Just a quick question... do you believe there is such a thing as a "neutral system" in that it neither hinders nor promotes any one particular playstyle?




Speaking for myself, I would say yes.  D&D can be run very well with many different styles of play.  It even goes out of its way to suggest a bunch of them.


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## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Just a quick question... do you believe there is such a thing as a "neutral system" in that it neither hinders nor promotes any one particular playstyle?




If there is one out there, I'm not aware of it.  

Consider the two most fundamental macro-issues alone:

1)  Player incentives or the nature of character progression.  Whatever model is chosen informs, if not outright dictates, player behavior.

2)  GM latitude/constraint.  Wherever this lies on the continuum while permeate all other facets of play.

That isn't even digging down into the other macro issues of genre expectations/coherence and GM agenda/principles nor the myriad micro issues of play procedures (things like PC build, resolution mechanics, content generation, resource scheduling/refresh paradigm).  There may be one out there, but having GMed so, so, so many games (including every version of D&D) and read so many more, I'm skeptical.


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## pemerton

Imaro said:


> Okay I'm a little confused are we speaking about specific systems or play styles?  They are two different, though admittedly connected, things





Imaro said:


> I'm not seeing why system and playstyle can't be talked about separately... especially since there are systems that don't actively support a specific style



Certain playstyles are associated with certain systems - as per the first of these two posts.

Given that the self-conscious advocacy for, and implementation of, "fail forward" and related techniques is associated with particular designers (eg Luke Crane, Ron Edwards, Robin Laws, Vincent Baker) and with their games (eg BW, DitV, *World games, etc) then I think actual examples from the play of those games is highly relevant to the discussion of those techniques.



Maxperson said:


> Have you changed the definition of Fail Forward again?  Last I heard, it was 1) not allowing failure to stop the PCs dead in their tracks by having other options, and 2) Success with a cost when they roll a failure.  Neither of those definitions has anything to do with railroading, and neither of them don't work very well in a pre-authored setting.



I explained what I understand "fail forward" to be, as a technique, in post 156 of this thread. I self-quoted that post not very far upthread.

The terms doesn't come from nowhere. It was introduced by particular RPG designers to describe a particular technique intended to achieve a particular RPGing experience.

Success with a cost is only one way of narrating "fail forward", and even then only if _success_ is understood as meaning _success at the task_ - by definition, if the check fails, the PC must fail to succeed in respect of his/her _intent_. (A classic example would be - you arrive at the top of Mt Pudding, but the pudding thieves got there first because you were too slow: task success, intent failure. Also a very well known trope from adventure fiction.)

And having other options may have nothing to do with "fail forward" at all. If those other options all exist in the GM's notes (eg as per the so-called "Three Clue" rule), then the existence of those "other options" may not prevent play stopping dead in its tracks, if the players don't think of or discover those other options.

"Fail forward", in the sense of the technique that actually brought that term into the RPG lexicon, is not about "other options". When the PCs in my BW game fail to find the mace by scouring the ruined tower, there are no "other options". Or when they fail to stop the ship they are on sinking, after being tethered to a ghost ship, there are no "other options". But in both cases I used the technique of "fail forward": the upshot of the failure was that the PCs found themselves in a new challenging situation, different from the one they had hoped to be in, in which hard decisions were called for ("You're floating in the waters of the Woolly Bay, clinging to the wreckage of The Albers. How are you going to save yourselves?"; "In what used to be your brothers private workroom, you find a rack of black arrows. Let me tell you what those are for . . .")



Maxperson said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To give a concrete example: it makes a huge difference to me that the absence of the mace from the ruined tower is the result of a failed check by the players, rather than something I stipulated in advance.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You say that, but you really haven't given any real reason for it other than you like it that way, and incorrect perceptions of pre-authorship and sandbox play.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> There is zero difference between my pre-authoring a dark elf antagonist at the beginning to appear at the water hole, and you authoring it in the moment of the water hole.  Both are a dark elf antagonist, and both are pre-authored for every single second after it appears at the water hole.  That you didn't know before hand is irrelevant to game play.  Game play is going to act on the dark elf being a pre-authored antagonist for both playstyles.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I am fully capable, without changing anything, of deciding an angel feather is cursed.  Nothing about that pre-authorship keeps that from happening.
Click to expand...


This is very strange, in the context of a discussion about techniques and railroading. You say I have "incorrect perceptions" about the nature of pre-authoring, but then say that you don't see any difference between something being the result of a failed check and something just being stipulated as true by the GM.

The significance of the waterhole being narrated as fouled, or the feather being narrated as cursed, because of a failed check, is exactly that: it's a _failure_. Had the players _succeeded_ on the check, the fiction would have turned out quite differently, namely, as they (and their PCs) wanted it. The GM didn't just stipulate the fiction.

That's the whole point of the scene-framing/"fail forward" style. The GM doesn't just stipulate the fiction; rather, key elements of the fiction unfold as part of the process of adjudicating action resolution, with responsibility distributed between players and GM (depending on success or failure), and with the system being designed to produce some sort of alternation between success vs failure which helps generate the dramatic dynamics of a story (in the strong, literary sense).

_Of course_ the GM might try to introduce that sort of pattern just by way of stipulation. But that's the sort of approach to play, and the use of GM force, that the alternative techniques are intended to avoid.



Imaro said:


> all we're doing now with it is dueling anecdotes (which is why I find these calls for play experiences kinda pointless)



Just to be clear - there are _no anecdotes_ of scene-framing/"fail forward" play being used to railroad. As far as I can tell, that is pure conjecture by you and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].

Whereas I can point to every railroad thread on these forums, plus examples that have been posted in this very thread, where pre-authoring of content by the GM and then using it as a constraint on the framing and outcome of situations in play has led to a railroad-y experience.

And it's not a coincidence that there are no anecdotes of the first sort: you can't run a game in the scene-framing/"fail forward" mode and railroad. The GM simply doesn't have the right sort of control over the fiction. The vice of that sort of game isn't railroading; it's GM paralysis, and/or failures in managing the backstory, and/or boredom because the GM can't frame interesting and engaging scenes. And unsurprisingly, there _are_ anecdotes that bear this out: [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] and (I think) [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] have both mentioned examples of this, and I've pointed to my own BW game, where I think the dark elf and his naga master didn't yield the full pay-off in play that I had been hoping for. I can add another one if you like: A long time ago (1997) I had a campaign come to an end when, in effect, the backstory collapsed under its own weight - even as the GM I couldn't keep track of what had been revealed in play, and couldn't maintain a coherent fiction (either in my head, or in play) that gave rational motivations for all the NPCs and factions and the like who had become active in the game after 8 years of play.

One of the reasons for this outcome is that, as GM, I wan't careful enough in linking scenes framed to player (and thereby PC) motivations, so there was too great a density of extraneous backstory, and too much of the burden of enthusiasm for it was falling on me as GM rather than on the players. In the three big campaigns that I have run since (another Rolemaster game, my 4e game, and now my BW game), an important consideration for me arising out of that experience has been to keep the backstory under control, in part by being sharper in my focus.

In this thread I think I've already cited Eero Tuovinen more than once. Here, again, is his comment on the challenges of GMing a non-exploration-focused, scene-framing/"fail forward"-style game:

The player’s task in these games is simple advocacy, which is not difficult once you have a firm character. . . . The GM might have more difficulty, as he [sic] needs to be able to reference the backstory, determine complications to introduce into the game, and figure out consequences. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges​
Instead of speculating about railroading, with (as far as I can see) no actual evidence, I think it would make for more fruitful discussion to focus on the actual things that can go wrong in GMing this sort of game. For instance, what are the techniques that a GM can use to integrate the dramatic storylines of 4 or 5 PCs into a coherent, on-going game? (FATE tries to tackle this through its PC-generation process, just as one example.)



Maxperson said:


> Seriously?  You're claiming that that there are no bad DMs out there that railroad in those systems?  Somehow only other systems have those sorts of DMs?
> 
> How would it work?  Well, it doesn't have to happen on every check, so player successes are irrelevant.  If the DM inserts his desires into failed checks to drive the game down paths he wants them down, railroading has occurred.  If you seriously can't see that railroading can happen in those systems, then you're too blind to continue having this conversation with.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Pre-authored content doesn't constrain the DM any more than a PC being an elf constrains him.  Such light "constraint" is irrelevant and meaningless.  It's still easier to railroad with your system.  Unless the players can't fail rolls anyway.  If they can, the DM can push them wherever he wants, however he wants with nothing and no one to say otherwise
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Or are you saying that DM forcing his idea on the player and moving towards that goal at every opportunity isn't railroading?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The possibility or the fact?  My example wasn't of a possibility, it was of a fact that the DM pre-authored and forced to happen.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Then you guys are for pre-authorship, because that's what you are doing when you do that.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The DM knows.  That's the point.  He knew from the beginning before any actions were declared and resolved and then deliberately forced the resolution to that goal.  That's railroading.



Have you ever played Dogs in the Vineyard? Any of the "Powered by Apocalypse World" games? HeroWars/Quest? Burning Wheel? FATE? Marvel Heroic RP? Even 13th Age?

Your posts in this thread are making me think that the answer to my question is "no". And that you are not very familiar with the dynamics of those systems.

If a player writes on his PC sheet, in one of those games, "My brother is my hero", then the player is asking - in fact, _telling_ - the GM to frame a scene in which that conviction is put under pressure. That's the point of those games; that's how they generate _story_ (in the strong, literary/dramatic sense of hat term).

This is not the _GM_ forcing his/her idea on the player - quite the opposite! It is the _player_ forcing his/her idea (namely, that the heroism of the PC's brother is an important topic of the story) onto the GM. Furthermore, there is no _railroad_ - there is no destination in which things end up. A question isn't the same thing as an answer. Finding black arrows in one's brother's workroom raises, in one's mind, the possibility that he was an evil enchanter even before he was possessed by a balrog; but it doesn't _settle_ that question.

Not only do I get the sense that you have no familiarity with these RPGs, or with the sort of playstyle that they are designed for, I also think that this is colouring the way you think about pre-authoring. By pre-authoring I don't mean coming up with ideas. I mean _establishing truths in the shared fiction_, which are then used by the GM to _adjudicate outcomes in play_. For instance, deciding that the mace is not in the tower _before the players roll the dice_ is an instance of pre-authoring (whether the decision is made a year, a week or a minute before). Thinking about what to do with the mace if the players fail the check, though, isn't pre-authoring in this sense (though it may be a type of GM prep, especially if done other then while playing at the table) - that doesn't determine the content of any fiction, or determine the outcomes of play. It doesn't pre-empt any dice rolls.

When you say that pre-authored material is no constraint, I don't know what you mean. If the GM is rewriting it on the fly, or inventing new material to counter-act the pre-authored material (eg s/he has pre-authored that, at such-and-such a place and time Oswald will shoot at Kennedy, but then only fly writes in an angel who blocks the bullet once it becomes clear that the PCs have botched the job of protecting the President), then it's still pre-authoring (ie establishing the fictional circumstances independent of action resolution), just pre-authoring on a shorter timeline.

Also, your equation of _established elements of the shared fiction_ with _pre-authored fiction_ is very strange to me. Elements of the shared fiction that are established in play aren't authored prior to, and as a constraint on, action resolution. They are outcomes of it! And when they are then used to help in the framing of subsequent scenes and subsequent action declarations, they are known quantities whose impact on the situation is determined before player resources are committed and the dice are rolled. This is not analogous to the GM deciding unilaterally that the mace is not in the tower, and hence that no matter how well the players roll on their Scavenging check they won't find the mace.

Because we don't have any actual play examples of railroading using scene-framing and "fail forward" techniques, and also because - at least in your case - I get the sense that you have basically no familiarity with those techniques in your own RPGing, I'm having a lot of trouble envisaging your conception of how it would work. You seem to be envisaging that whatever the player has written on his/her PC sheet about his/her PC's convictions and concerns, and whatever action declaration the player has declared for his/her PC, the GM - on a failure - narrates "You find yourself at the Misty Lake with your brother's hat at the top of the brothel stairs." I guess it's conceivable that a GM somewhere might run that game, but as I responded to [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] the problem with that game isn't railroading - no outcome has been determined or player action declaration thwarted. The problem with that game is that it's silly, boring and hence pointless.



Imaro said:


> Just a quick question... do you believe there is such a thing as a "neutral system" in that it neither hinders nor promotes any one particular playstyle?





Maxperson said:


> Speaking for myself, I would say yes.  D&D can be run very well with many different styles of play.  It even goes out of its way to suggest a bunch of them.



Which version of D&D?

To me, this answer suggests that you haven't tried to run a non-exploratory, scene-framed/"fail forward"-style game (perhaps at all, certainly not using most versions of D&D). AD&D and 3E will actively push back against this. 4e generally facilitates it, but has a few well-known problem areas (eg the interface between the very abstract, non-granular skill challenge system and the combat system, which is very granular when it comes to space and time while at the same time being quite abstract in other respects, such as damage and healing). By default, 5e's emphasis on the "adventuring day" as a unit of balance and its seeming use of objective DC seems to be less friendly to it than 4e.

Just to give one instance: how, in D&D, do you handle a player making a roll to see if his/her PC can meet up with an NPC that the character knows from his/her past associates (ie an NPC whom the PC has not actually met or engaged with in actual play at the table)? The default is that the _GM_ decides whether or not such an NPC exists, and then either sets a DC reflecting further aspects of the fiction or just makes a roll (perhaps a % check).

How does that "run very well" for a scene-framed/"fail forward"-style game? I don't think it does.

You can work around it, eg by allowing Streetwise to be used as an analogue to BW Circles or MHRP's resource rules. But that doesn't tell us much about the "neutrality" of D&D. It just shows that you can graft bits of other systems onto D&D. By the same token, I could introduce encumbrance rules into BW if I wanted, using the D&D rules as a model. But that doesn't count as evidence that BW is well-suited to exploration-oriented dungeon crawling. (Which is why Luke Crane wrote Torchbearer.)



Maxperson said:


> Just because the PCs can go in any direction, does not mean that exploration and discovery rule out over story, or story is lacking.  I run a sandbox.  Story is huge.
> 
> Funny.  I run sandbox games and story is reliably generated all the time.  People claiming otherwise just can't run a proper sandbox game and/or don't have players that are up to playing in a sandbox game.



I've never been GMed by Luke Crane or Vincent Baker, but I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt! I think they can run games pretty competently, and are playing with pretty high-quality players

I think that [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] is correct, and that you are using "story" to mean something a bit different from the sense in which these designers want their RPGs to produce _story_.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> There is a deep undercurrent of "system doesn't matter" which pervades the thinking of certain segments of TTRPG culture (especially with players who were bred on AD&D 2e primarily if not exclusively) due to White Wolf's Golden Rule and AD&D's "rule 0".  I don't agree with this premise and I think there is some conflation, confusion, or outright lack of understanding of the heavy role that system has to play (eg - "system bias") in this equation generally



Agreed.

I'm not sure that I agree with your psychological hypothesis as to why pre-authorship can lead to railroading, but I think there is a very clear system reason: the GM is _supposed_ to be using that pre-authored stuff (NPC motivations, metaplot, etc) to constrain the framing of scenes and the success of action declarations. That's what it's for. And multiple posters upthread have said that it's important that sometimes the PCs are thwarted by obstacles they didn't anticipate, because that's what makes the gameworld  "realistic" and not just "all about them".

What I often find a bit weird in these discussions, though, is how games with Schroedinger's hit points and Schroedinger's gorge are conjectured at one and the same time to have some flaws or weakness resulting from that (eg a lack of a "living, breathing" world) but in all other respects play out exactly the same (eg in the way that GM force in determining backstory won't work any differently, and so railroading is just as likely). So that these games aren't really different, and the use of the alternative techniques has no helpful consequences; they're just slightly inferior versions of what we would otherwise be doing if we knew how to run sandboxes properly!


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> Agreed.
> 
> I'm not sure that I agree with your psychological hypothesis as to why pre-authorship can lead to railroading, but I think there is a very clear system reason: the GM is _supposed_ to be using that pre-authored stuff (NPC motivations, metaplot, etc) to constrain the framing of scenes and the success of action declarations. That's what it's for. And multiple posters upthread have said that it's important that sometimes the PCs are thwarted by obstacles they didn't anticipate, because that's what makes the gameworld  "realistic" and not just "all about them".
> 
> What I often find a bit weird in these discussions, though, is how games with Schroedinger's hit points and Schroedinger's gorge are conjectured at one and the same time to have some flaws or weakness resulting from that (eg a lack of a "living, breathing" world) but in all other respects play out exactly the same (eg in the way that GM force in determining backstory won't work any differently, and so railroading is just as likely). So that these games aren't really different, and the use of the alternative techniques has no helpful consequences; they're just slightly inferior versions of what we would otherwise be doing if we knew how to run sandboxes properly!




I actually find your explanation above of why railroading might be more predominant in a pre-authored campaign to make more sense to me than [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] 's... "wants to show stuff off explanation".... since I feel DM's want to do that in both playstyles.  The reasoning above however is giving me pause since it seems makes more logical sense IMO... have to think on it some more.


----------



## Aenghus

I'm not sure if this post will make sense, I'm writing here to examine the topic. I'm using my own definition of railroading as constraining player choice, where some players approve of that particular railroad and see it as ok and others don't and see it as "bad railroading".

A player who wants a naturalistic sandbox game trapped in a high drama/fail-forward game. S/he's unhappy with all the bad railroading (as s/he sees it), as s/he's been shunted at accelerated speed from dramatic scene to dramatic scene and isn't getting the decision points s/he expects that he thinks would allow the "bad railroad" to be derailed, or get a feel for the world away from all the emotionally-wrought conflicts. S/he expects to see events not related to drama that s/he can interact with. The other players who want the game as it is would likely see such events as irrelevant time wasting.

A player who wants high drama/fail-forward trapped in a sandbox game will likely feel railroaded into lots of irrelevant scenes s/he feels have no relevance to their PC's personal agenda. Content they would find relevant may be out there somewhere, but even if they hijack the party and unilaterally decide it's direction of travel the vagaries of fate in a highly-detailed sandbox may mean they just happen not to stumble on the right encounter or rumour, or arrive in the right place just after it's been obliterated by the main baddie in the setting (whom the player doesn't care about). The path of conquest of the main baddie could have been pre-authored and mapped out from the very start of the game - the player could experience it as yet another obstacle to their personal goals or as a deliberate effort by the referee to make their goal impossible.

An adaptable player could probably enjoy both the dramatic railroad of the former game(railroad in that you can't get away from the drama) or exploring the unknown vistas of the sandbox game. The former game is better for exploring dramatic personal goals, the sandbox game has no guarantee that personal goals will ever be relevant. The latter game is better for exploration-focused players, or players who don't want an accelerated pace and/or constant personal drama. Sandbox games tend to be slower paced some of the time, and the players have some ability to choose a faster or slower pace depending on their decisions.


There's railroading by constraining player choice, removing decision points, and there's railroading by adding new unexpected decision points which delay them from arriving at their destination. Depending on one's investment in the destination, the latter can make the game seem vibrant and alive or slow and frustrating. 

Pacing is one of the main controls a referee has in a conventional game, what time steps are being used at any point in the game. While it's true a player can ask for a particular timestep at most points, a lot of referees instinctively have nothing happen in the game in response to the timestep change until the players get bored, to reinforce their personal control of pacing. This is a sort of railroading and simultaneously encourages the players to be reactive rather than proactive.


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## Imaro

Aenghus said:


> I'm not sure if this post will make sense, I'm writing here to examine the topic. I'm using my own definition of railroading as constraining player choice, where some players approve of that particular railroad and see it as ok and others don't and see it as "bad railroading".
> 
> A player who wants a naturalistic sandbox game trapped in a high drama/fail-forward game. S/he's unhappy with all the bad railroading (as he sees it), as s/he's been shunted at accelerated speed from dramatic scene to dramatic scene and isn't getting the decision points s/he expects that he thinks would allow the "bad railroad" to be derailed, or get a feel for the world away from all the emotionally-wrought conflicts. S/he expects to see events not related to drama that s/he can interact with. The other players who want the game as it is would likely see such events as irrelevant time wasting.
> 
> A player who wants high drama/fail-forward trapped in a sandbox game will likely feel railroaded into lots of irrelevant scenes s/he feels have no relevance to their PC's personal agenda. Content they would find relevant may be out there somewhere, but even if they hijack the party and unilaterally decide it's direction of travel the vagaries of fate in a highly-detailed sandbox may mean they just happen not to stumble on the right encounter or rumour, or arrive in the right place just after it's been obliterated by the main baddie in the setting (whom the player doesn't care about).
> 
> An adaptable player could probably enjoy both the dramatic railroad of the former game(railroad in that you can't get away from the drama) or exploring the unknown vistas of the sandbox game. The former game is better for exploring dramatic personal goals, the sandbox game has no guarantee that personal goals will ever be relevant. The latter game is better for exploration-focused players, or players who don't want an accelerated pace and/or constant personal drama. Sandbox games tend to be slower paced some of the time, and the players have some ability to choose a faster or slower pace depending on their decisions.
> 
> 
> There's railroading by constraining player choice, removing decision points, and there's railroading by adding new unexpected decision points which delay them from arriving at their destination. Depending on one's investment in the destination, the latter can make the game seem vibrant and alive or slow and frustrating.
> 
> Pacing is one of the main controls a referee has in a conventional game, what time steps are being used at any point in the game. While it's true a player can ask for a particular timestep at most points, a lot of referees instinctively have nothing happen in the game in response to the timestep change until the players get bored, to reinforce their personal control of pacing. This is a sort of railroading and simultaneously encourages the players to be reactive rather than proactive.




I think an interesting question is whether the fail forward/improv style is by (this) definition a railroad (whether the player enjoys it or not being irrelevant).  I mean it constrains choice and decision points in steadily and inexorably having everything encountered, created, improv'd, etc. lead to the character's goals or dramatic needs... doesn't it?  Isn't that railroading (again putting aside the question of whether the player enjoys it or doesn't) towards a specific or constrained set of outcomes?


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## Aenghus

Imaro said:


> I think an interesting question is whether the fail forward/improv style is by (this) definition a railroad (whether the player enjoys it or not being irrelevant).  I mean it constrains choice and decision points in steadily and inexorably having everything encountered, created, improv'd, etc. lead to the character's goals or dramatic needs... doesn't it?  Isn't that railroading (again putting aside the question of whether the player enjoys it or doesn't) towards a specific or constrained set of outcomes?




I think so. I disagree with the phrase "_towards a specific or constrained set of outcomes_" though, at least in the general case, for a particular game it may or may not be true. Fail forward games tend to have stake setting, and a lot of latitude in declaring outcomes, so at the ultimate decision point the player decides what happens if his or her quest succeeds, and the referee decides if s/he fails. The player likely doesn't know the full ramifications of failure, and the referee likely doesn't know the full ramifications of player success. The relevant game systems attempt to guarantee narrative closure at such decision points, so goals succeed (maybe with a cost) or fail (maybe with some consolation). There will be no stalemates, last-minute takebacks, revelations that the goal was futile, or that the goal was always going to succeed, and other possibilities that can crop up in more naturalistic games. The uncertainty is provided by distributing the game authority so that no-one knows what's going to happen in the end, or the exact details of that resolution.


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## Imaro

Aenghus said:


> I think so. I disagree with the phrase "_towards a specific or constrained set of outcomes_" though, at least in the general case, for a particular game it may or may not be true. Fail forward games tend to have stake setting, and a lot of latitude in declaring outcomes, so at the ultimate decision point the player decides what happens if his or her quest succeeds, and the referee decides if s/he fails. The player likely doesn't know the full ramifications of failure, and the referee likely doesn't know the full ramifications of player success. The relevant game systems attempt to guarantee narrative closure at such decision points, so goals succeed (maybe with a cost) or fail (maybe with some consolation). There will be no stalemates, last-minute takebacks, revelations that the goal was futile, or that the goal was always going to succeed, and other possibilities that can crop up in more naturalistic games. The uncertainty is provided by distributing the game authority so that no-one knows what's going to happen in the end, or the exact details of that resolution.




I was moreso talking about the outcome of this type of game in the described playstyle always leading towards some resolution of the character(s) needs, desires or goals...  There's no chance (at least as I understand the explanations presented in this thread) of offering an option, conclusion, outcome, etc. that doesn't tie into these things... at least not if one is running it properly...


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## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I think an interesting question is whether the fail forward/improv style is by (this) definition a railroad (whether the player enjoys it or not being irrelevant).  I mean it constrains choice and decision points in steadily and inexorably having everything encountered, created, improv'd, etc. lead to the character's goals or dramatic needs... doesn't it?  Isn't that railroading (again putting aside the question of whether the player enjoys it or doesn't) towards a specific or constrained set of outcomes?





Imaro said:


> There's no chance (at least as I understand the explanations presented in this thread) of offering an option, conclusion, outcome, etc. that doesn't tie into these things... at least not if one is running it properly...



Here is some evidence in favour of your conjecture, again arising from an actual play example.

First, the example:

In my 4e game, around 3rd level, the players suffered a TPK - in the sense that the PCs were in a combat, and all were dropped below zero hp, and one (the paladin of the Raven Queen) was dropped to negative bloodied, which in 4e is outright death. The fight was with a group of undead spirits who had been conjured by a goblin shaman.

This event marked the end of the session's play. I then asked the players who wanted to keep playing their PC - all but one, including the player of the paladin, said yes.

From my point of view, I therefore had to come up with a scenario in which three PCs who had been defeated in combat could come back into play; in which a dead paladin could come back to life; and in which a new PC could be introduced.

In the break between sessions the player who wanted a new PC - he had found his half-elven fey-pact warlock a bit mechanically challenging in play - decided that he was going to bring in a drow chaos sorcerer.

The next session began, then, with three PCs regaining consciousness in a barred cave. They can hear voices talking in Goblin. And they can smell the roasting flesh of a half-elf on a spit. Also in the goblin's prison is a strange drow. The player of the paladin I made wait a little while - but in due course, I told him that his character regained consciousness lying on a stone slab, with the goblin shaman speaking some sort of ritual. The precise details of how the next bit got narrated I can't remember (this happened nearly 7 years ago), but the basic story was this: earlier in the campaign the paladin had taken an enemy magic-user prisoner; he had tried to befriend her, but she had remained resentful of her capture, and ended up dying in a fight with undead (also conjured by goblins) when the PCs were 2nd level; the goblin shaman had now, successfully, summoned her dead spirit as a vengeful wraith, using the body of the dead paladin - the object of the dead spirit's anger - as a ritual focus; and the Raven Queen had sent the paladin's spirit back into his body to combat this vengeful spirit. (And on the metagame side, I allocated the notional cost of a Raise Dead ritual to the paladin's share of the treasure parcels.)

All these five PCs are still alive and active in the campaign at 30th level, although two have been rebuilt, one ingame (the human wizard with invoker multi-class died and came back to life revealing his true nature as a deva invoker with wizard multi-class) and one out of game (the ranger with cleric multi-class was rebuilt as a hybrid ranger-cleric around 6th level, in a process called _Operation Do Something With My Character Other Than Twin Strike_)​
In the past, when I have posted this example online in discussions of how to handle TPKing, I have been told that it was a railroad. I think the intuition is that, because I framed the PCs into a challenging situation (being imprisoned by goblins) that wasn't just a naturalistic extrapolation from prior events, it is a railroad.

Similarly, I've heard the start of Out of the Abyss described as a railroad because the PCs begin as prisoners.

The thought seems to be that any time the GM opens the narration by putting the PCs in a situation where some actual, high-stakes choice is forced, the GM is railroading. (Hence, presumably, why the stereotyped opening scene of a D&D campaign is a group of drifters in a tavern.)

For my part, I can't see the railroading. The players had the chance to control the fiction by making successful checks in the resolution of the combat, and failed (by way of TPK). I asked the players about which PCs they wanted to play. And I opened the next session in a situation in which they were playing those characters they had chosen confronted with a situation that spoke to the "dramatic needs" they had established for those PCs - including bringing back into the game the paladin's earlier "story arc" concerning the magic-user NPC.

This relates back to Paul Czege's endorsement of the notion that "There are two points to a scene - Point A, where the PCs start the scene, and Point B, where they end up. Most games let the players control some aspect of Point A, and then railroad the PCs to point B. Good narrativism will reverse that by letting the GM create a compelling Point A, and let the players dictate what Point B is (ie, there is no Point B prior to the scene beginning)."

In my example, Point A is the players need to choose how their PCs will escape from the goblins. Subsidiary choices at Point A are how the three PCs who know one another deal with the strange drow, and how the paladin deals with the vengeful wraith spirit of his dead magic-user would-be protege.

But there was no pre-determined Point B: no particular path to take, no set of options (like the "three clue rule"). I can't remember all the details anymore, but I think in the end the PCs escaped the lair after fighting some goblins, then launched a frontal assault on the lair, defeated the rest of the goblins, but let some who surrendered leave on the strength of promises to (i) stop their predations, and (ii) not return to the lair. No particular outcome or sequence of events was forced.

In the first of the two quoted posts, I think the sentence _everything encountered, created, improv'd, etc. lead to the character's goals or dramatic needs_ is not quite right. It doesn't _lead to_ those goals/needs. It _speaks to_ them or _engages_ them. There is no _leading_ or _path_ - they are already there, implicated in the situation that the GM has established.

For me, the preceding paragraph is not just word-play. I am trying to mark out a distinction of practical importance to RPGing (or, at least, to my RPGing). In a lot of "conventional" or "traditional" scenario design, the setting and the backstory set up hurdles that must be overcome, or hoops that must be jumped through, before the players can get to the dramatic meat. For instance, first the PCs have to find the map, and then once they have the map they can rescue the princess. Assuming that saving the princess is the goal or dramatic need of the PCs, in the scenario just outlined there is still a whole chunk of play - finding the map - that doesn't speak to or engage that need, except in terms of a promise of a payoff later. I think that makes for boring, uninspired play.

A published adventure that I've used that had exactly this problem is Heathen, an adventure in one of the Dungeon magazines that was free online in the early days of 4e. This adventure has a strong theme and a narratively compelling climax, as the PCs confront a fallen paladin. But it also has a lengthy bit of travel to the location where the climax takes place which is full of mostly uninspired, uninspiring encounters. (Obviously not all travel has to be uninspiring, but in a story like Apocalypse Now the encounters en route themselves speak to the dramatic situation; they are not just filler.) When I ran the adventure I cut out most of that stuff, and adapted what I retained to make it relate to the dramatic situation that was driving the PCs to confront this fallen paladin in the first place.

The word _railroad_ has connotations of a journey or a path. It fits with the verb _to lead_. But if every scene framed, and every complication that is narrated as part of "failing forward", _already_, in itself, speaks to the PC (and player) goals/needs, then there is no forced journeying or leading. There _is_ forcing of choices - the players, having chosen to play _these_ PCs with _these_ needs, are going to have to engage with that. But in making their choices, including especially their choices abut action declaration, _they_ are the ones who determine the general nature of the (narrative) paths their PCs will travel on. But if they fail their checks, then the GM has licence to turn those paths into unhappy rather than happy ones. (Eg as per the episode of the PC being shoved by her followers into a burning effigy; or as per the episode of the black arrows, rather than the mace, being the item recovered from the ruined tower.)


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## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I explained what I understand "fail forward" to be, as a technique, in post 156 of this thread. I self-quoted that post not very far upthread.
> 
> The terms doesn't come from nowhere. It was introduced by particular RPG designers to describe a particular technique intended to achieve a particular RPGing experience.
> 
> Success with a cost is only one way of narrating "fail forward", and even then only if _success_ is understood as meaning _success at the task_ - by definition, if the check fails, the PC must fail to succeed in respect of his/her _intent_. (A classic example would be - you arrive at the top of Mt Pudding, but the pudding thieves got there first because you were too slow: task success, intent failure. Also a very well known trope from adventure fiction.)
> 
> And having other options may have nothing to do with "fail forward" at all. If those other options all exist in the GM's notes (eg as per the so-called "Three Clue" rule), then the existence of those "other options" may not prevent play stopping dead in its tracks, if the players don't think of or discover those other options.
> 
> "Fail forward", in the sense of the technique that actually brought that term into the RPG lexicon, is not about "other options". When the PCs in my BW game fail to find the mace by scouring the ruined tower, there are no "other options". Or when they fail to stop the ship they are on sinking, after being tethered to a ghost ship, there are no "other options". But in both cases I used the technique of "fail forward": the upshot of the failure was that the PCs found themselves in a new challenging situation, different from the one they had hoped to be in, in which hard decisions were called for ("You're floating in the waters of the Woolly Bay, clinging to the wreckage of The Albers. How are you going to save yourselves?"; "In what used to be your brothers private workroom, you find a rack of black arrows. Let me tell you what those are for . . .")




Right.  That's why I said there were two definitions being used, not that you used both of them.  You use the second definition I provided as the examples in the above paragraphs show.  What I am saying is that fail forward as shown in your examples works perfectly in a pre-authored setting.  Schrodinger's mace can happen in a pre-authored setting with zero difficulty.  The climb outcome happening the way you just described is also doable with zero difficulty.  Fail forward is not system dependent.



> This is very strange, in the context of a discussion about techniques and railroading. You say I have "incorrect perceptions" about the nature of pre-authoring, but then say that you don't see any difference between something being the result of a failed check and something just being stipulated as true by the GM.




I'm talking about the outcome.  The result of "Dark elf as antagonist." is identical in both playstyles.  To the PCs there is no difference at all.  It's irrelevant to the outcome whether or not the dark elf was pre-authored.



> That's the whole point of the scene-framing/"fail forward" style. The GM doesn't just stipulate the fiction; rather, key elements of the fiction unfold as part of the process of adjudicating action resolution, with responsibility distributed between players and GM (depending on success or failure), and with the system being designed to produce some sort of alternation between success vs failure which helps generate the dramatic dynamics of a story (in the strong, literary sense).
> 
> _Of course_ the GM might try to introduce that sort of pattern just by way of stipulation. But that's the sort of approach to play, and the use of GM force, that the alternative techniques are intended to avoid.




I understand all of that.  I'm just saying that it's easier to railroad when nothing is pre-authored than when it is.  Nothing prevents the DM from bringing his pre-desired outcomes about whenever a player fails a roll.



> Just to be clear - there are _no anecdotes_ of scene-framing/"fail forward" play being used to railroad. As far as I can tell, that is pure conjecture by you and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].




No.  I'm 100% that it happens.  That nobody on your side has mentioned it here doesn't change that.  Also, while it's easier to do with your playstyle, it's also harder to prove, so the percentage of people who catch on to the railroad will be much smaller.



> Whereas I can point to every railroad thread on these forums, plus examples that have been posted in this very thread, where pre-authoring of content by the GM and then using it as a constraint on the framing and outcome of situations in play has led to a railroad-y experience.




Railroading is 100% a DM caused and 0% a system caused, though.  Pre-authoring was irrelevant to all of those examples.



> And it's not a coincidence that there are no anecdotes of the first sort: you can't run a game in the scene-framing/"fail forward" mode and railroad. The GM simply doesn't have the right sort of control over the fiction.




Yes you can.  I guarantee you that if I run that sort of game, I can cause failures to go the way I want them to go in a railroad type fashion.  You can't run that sort of game properly and railroad, but neither can you run a pre-authored content game properly and railroad.



> Have you ever played Dogs in the Vineyard? Any of the "Powered by Apocalypse World" games? HeroWars/Quest? Burning Wheel? FATE? Marvel Heroic RP? Even 13th Age?
> 
> Your posts in this thread are making me think that the answer to my question is "no". And that you are not very familiar with the dynamics of those systems.




No I haven't, but I am very familiar with fail forward at this point.  



> If a player writes on his PC sheet, in one of those games, "My brother is my hero", then the player is asking - in fact, _telling_ - the GM to frame a scene in which that conviction is put under pressure. That's the point of those games; that's how they generate _story_ (in the strong, literary/dramatic sense of hat term).
> 
> This is not the _GM_ forcing his/her idea on the player - quite the opposite! It is the _player_ forcing his/her idea (namely, that the heroism of the PC's brother is an important topic of the story) onto the GM. Furthermore, there is no _railroad_ - there is no destination in which things end up. A question isn't the same thing as an answer. Finding black arrows in one's brother's workroom raises, in one's mind, the possibility that he was an evil enchanter even before he was possessed by a balrog; but it doesn't _settle_ that question.




Does the player get to tell the DM how to challenge that conviction?  If the answer is no, then it's the DM's desire that is coming into play.  The DM can paint the brother in an iffy light, or he can outright destroy the brother in ways that would cause the PC to not be able to view him as a hero any longer.  Whatever the DM desires happens to the PC, regardless of what the player wants.



> Not only do I get the sense that you have no familiarity with these RPGs, or with the sort of playstyle that they are designed for, I also think that this is colouring the way you think about pre-authoring. By pre-authoring I don't mean coming up with ideas. I mean _establishing truths in the shared fiction_, which are then used by the GM to _adjudicate outcomes in play_. For instance, deciding that the mace is not in the tower _before the players roll the dice_ is an instance of pre-authoring (whether the decision is made a year, a week or a minute before). Thinking about what to do with the mace if the players fail the check, though, isn't pre-authoring in this sense (though it may be a type of GM prep, especially if done other then while playing at the table) - that doesn't determine the content of any fiction, or determine the outcomes of play. It doesn't pre-empt any dice rolls.




Pre-authoring is a established fact that can affect the game in the future.  It doesn't matter whether it was established unilaterally by the DM, or though shared game play like you use.  Once the fact is established, it becomes pre-authored content for future game play.



> When you say that pre-authored material is no constraint, I don't know what you mean. If the GM is rewriting it on the fly, or inventing new material to counter-act the pre-authored material (eg s/he has pre-authored that, at such-and-such a place and time Oswald will shoot at Kennedy, but then only fly writes in an angel who blocks the bullet once it becomes clear that the PCs have botched the job of protecting the President), then it's still pre-authoring (ie establishing the fictional circumstances independent of action resolution), just pre-authoring on a shorter timeline.




Well, I said light constraint, not no constraint.  What I mean by that is that it doesn't really limit you very much.  If I pre-author angel feathers to remove curses, that doesn't mean that I can't author them on the fly to do other things.  For that matter, nothing says that there can't be a special anger feather that does not remove curses.  There are exceptions to every rule, so pre-authorship does very little to actually constrain the DM.



> Also, your equation of _established elements of the shared fiction_ with _pre-authored fiction_ is very strange to me. Elements of the shared fiction that are established in play aren't authored prior to, and as a constraint on, action resolution. They are outcomes of it! And when they are then used to help in the framing of subsequent scenes and subsequent action declarations, they are known quantities whose impact on the situation is determined before player resources are committed and the dice are rolled. This is not analogous to the GM deciding unilaterally that the mace is not in the tower, and hence that no matter how well the players roll on their Scavenging check they won't find the mace.




Once you author in finding black arrows and no mace in the tower, those are now authored facts.  Those authored facts will affect future game play as pre-authored content.  Those facts happened and have the same limited constraint as any other pre-authored content.



> Because we don't have any actual play examples of railroading using scene-framing and "fail forward" techniques, and also because - at least in your case - I get the sense that you have basically no familiarity with those techniques in your own RPGing, I'm having a lot of trouble envisaging your conception of how it would work. You seem to be envisaging that whatever the player has written on his/her PC sheet about his/her PC's convictions and concerns, and whatever action declaration the player has declared for his/her PC, the GM - on a failure - narrates "You find yourself at the Misty Lake with your brother's hat at the top of the brothel stairs." I guess it's conceivable that a GM somewhere might run that game, but as I responded to [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] the problem with that game isn't railroading - no outcome has been determined or player action declaration thwarted. The problem with that game is that it's silly, boring and hence pointless.




If the players are trying to somewhere other than misty lake, then constantly moving towards it is railroading.  I also agree, railroading is silly and boring.  That applies to any style of game play that isn't built around railroading, though.




> Which version of D&D?




All of them can be run well with a variety of game styles.  



> To me, this answer suggests that you haven't tried to run a non-exploratory, scene-framed/"fail forward"-style game (perhaps at all, certainly not using most versions of D&D). AD&D and 3E will actively push back against this. 4e generally facilitates it, but has a few well-known problem areas (eg the interface between the very abstract, non-granular skill challenge system and the combat system, which is very granular when it comes to space and time while at the same time being quite abstract in other respects, such as damage and healing). By default, 5e's emphasis on the "adventuring day" as a unit of balance and its seeming use of objective DC seems to be less friendly to it than 4e.




Fail forward is success or success with a cost.  No edition of D&D actively pushes back against that.  5e, which you say is less friendly towards it, goes out of its way to suggest that people can use it.



> Just to give one instance: how, in D&D, do you handle a player making a roll to see if his/her PC can meet up with an NPC that the character knows from his/her past associates (ie an NPC whom the PC has not actually met or engaged with in actual play at the table)? The default is that the _GM_ decides whether or not such an NPC exists, and then either sets a DC reflecting further aspects of the fiction or just makes a roll (perhaps a % check).




Or else he doesn't and uses fail forward.  In every edition of D&D, the rules are just guidelines that the DM can add to, subtract from, or change as he desires.  That means that if the DM wants to use fail forward in D&D, it will work flawlessly as the DM just makes it work flawlessly.



> You can work around it, eg by allowing Streetwise to be used as an analogue to BW Circles or MHRP's resource rules. But that doesn't tell us much about the "neutrality" of D&D. It just shows that you can graft bits of other systems onto D&D. By the same token, I could introduce encumbrance rules into BW if I wanted, using the D&D rules as a model. But that doesn't count as evidence that BW is well-suited to exploration-oriented dungeon crawling. (Which is why Luke Crane wrote Torchbearer.)




D&D is designed to be malleable and for the DM to mold it to his playstyle.



> I've never been GMed by Luke Crane or Vincent Baker, but I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt! I think they can run games pretty competently, and are playing with pretty high-quality players




That's a Strawman.  I didn't say they couldn't run a game competently.  I said that if what you say is true about what they said, they don't know how to run a sandbox game properly.  Sandbox games when run properly don't have to work the way they say.  You can do sandbox AND story if you want to.


----------



## Aenghus

Imaro said:


> I was moreso talking about the outcome of this type of game in the described playstyle always leading towards some resolution of the character(s) needs, desires or goals...  There's no chance (at least as I understand the explanations presented in this thread) of offering an option, conclusion, outcome, etc. that doesn't tie into these things... at least not if one is running it properly...




However I think the failure modes of conventional RPGs and RPGs designed ground up with fail forward/stakes setting are different.

Old RPGs like D&D and World of Darkness are haunted by the spectre of the dictatorial GM, railroading his or her players through a pre-scripted nightmare of deprotagonisation and being deaf to player feedback and complaints, often excommunicating those who dare to question their decisions or authority. There was little recourse to player frustration except leaving the game and finding a better one. The advice in rulebooks tended to be terrible and seemed to be predicated on a flawless infallible and long suffering referee dragging his or her unruly teenage players through RPG boot camp.

GM advice has improved over the years, but conventional games tend to lack formal player feedback mechanisms, and so the boogeyman of players of conventional games continues to be terrible GM railroading.

I'm not saying conventional games are doomed to bad railroading here, my own game is fairly conventional, though I put a lot of effort into listening to my players and their evolving goals for their PCs and integrating them into my game.

Also a talented old style GM with players who wholeheartedly embrace the GM's style of play can have a very fun game, though it may lack certain sorts of player proactivity.

Fail forward/stakes setting games generally have a negotiation step where the referee and player must agree on the particulars of the current conflict and set the stakes of success and failure. I suspect that this often is the point where irreconcilable differences are discovered, and that the failure mode should no compromise be found is that the game stalls at that point, or one of the participants leaves. And because players in this mode of play have a certain amount of game authority, they are more used to using it and probably more willing to express their frustrations than passive players might be in a conventional game.


----------



## ExploderWizard

Aenghus said:


> Gameworlds are created, artificial, made up. The creators are responsible for making a setting that facilitates the goals of the game being aimed at over everything else. A common goal is worldbuilding as a pursuit in and of itself, which can create complex worlds suitable for exploration centred games. But worldbuilding isn't a goal of every game.
> 
> Players seek a variety of different things from games, and sometimes there are tradeoffs. Players who are looking to emphasise the direct pursuit of evolving personal plotlines that are reflected in the gameworld around them may do it at the cost of not exploring a pre-existing setting. Yes, it may make the world feel more like a tragedy, melodrama or soap opera, but this may be appropriate to the goals of a particular game.
> 
> A lot of players nowadays have more limited playing time and may need to play "faster" to achieve what they want to achieve in a particular campaign given their time limitations.




Playing "faster" to me has come to mean rapid leveling because the game isn't one of exploration, adventure or even plot resolution. Its a game of "what do I get next level?"  Speed of play to facilitate accumulating mechanical crap to add to your character doesn't appeal. 





pemerton said:


> What's your evidence for this?
> 
> Graham Greene is famous for (among other things) evoking the settings of his novels. But in novels like The Quiet American or The Human Factor, he does not indulge in setting for its own sake. It's part of the context for establishing the dramatic situation of the characters.




Check out the Truman Show. By all accounts Truman Burbank should have been happier than a pig in poop that the whole world revolved around him. That wasn't the case though. Pointless setting detail for its own sake can get boring but I enjoy playing in world that feels like it could exist with or without the PCs. 



Bluenose said:


> The connection, and this seems obvious to me, is that the barbarian tribe/dwarven city/sea elf culture is something that was made in the course of the game. It's got the little personal quirks that I/we added, that we thought made it more interesting, that let me/us add our personal stamp on the world. Whereas the pre-created one is something I got told about. And yes, that we can add quirks and little personal bits too, as long as they don't contradict the existing material, but past a certain point it's not the pre-created group any more but another one that we've made that has only a few pre-created bits left that we weren't interested enough in to change; or it's as stated, in which case it's far less something we feel any connection to. At least that's how it plays out with the people I play with.




The difference is that you enjoy playing as a co-author. Nothing wrong with that. I enjoy playing as an inhabitant of the game world and any changes I contribute to that world I prefer that they be done by the character in actual play. Perhaps an entire new culture might get formed because of the results of our adventures? That would be really cool. Just making it up and having it be so from a character perspective, not so much.


----------



## Aenghus

ExploderWizard said:


> Playing "faster" to me has come to mean rapid leveling because the game isn't one of exploration, adventure or even plot resolution. Its a game of "what do I get next level?"  Speed of play to facilitate accumulating mechanical crap to add to your character doesn't appeal.




No, that's not what I mean. I meant to refer to a game with an accelerated plot, where extraneous filler is left out, and slice of life and downtime content is omitted or summarised rather than played through at length. The game might not have levels, or even character progression. Play moves from one scene important to the personal goals of the players to another such scene as smoothly as possible. This style of play is specialised and not for everyone, but suits certain player goals.



> The difference is that you enjoy playing as a co-author. Nothing wrong with that. I enjoy playing as an inhabitant of the game world and any changes I contribute to that world I prefer that they be done by the character in actual play. Perhaps an entire new culture might get formed because of the results of our adventures? That would be really cool. Just making it up and having it be so from a character perspective, not so much.




Which is fine. Though appreciating the nuances and gradations of various ways of transferring some creative authority to players can help to avoid an all or nothing attitude, there's a lot of middle ground in there.


----------



## pemerton

Aenghus said:


> Old RPGs like D&D and World of Darkness are haunted by the spectre of the dictatorial GM, railroading his or her players through a pre-scripted nightmare of deprotagonisation and being deaf to player feedback and complaints, often excommunicating those who dare to question their decisions or authority.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The advice in rulebooks tended to be terrible and seemed to be predicated on a flawless infallible and long suffering referee dragging his or her unruly teenage players through RPG boot camp.



I think that 2nd ed AD&D is a high watermark for this (or low watermark, depending on how one wants to frame the metaphor).

From p 18 of the PHB:

Suppose you decide to name your character "Rath" and you rolled the following ability scores for him:

STR 8
DEX 14
CON 13
INT 13
WIS 7
CHA 6

Rath has strengths and weaknesses, but it up to you to interpret what the numbers mean . . .

Obviously, Rath's ability scores . . . are not the greatest in the world. Yet it is possible to turn these "disappointing" stats into a character who is both interesting and fun to play. Too often players become obsessed with "good" stats. . . .

In truth, Rath's survivability has a lot less to do with his ability scores that with your desire to role-play him. If you give up on him, of course he won't survive! But if you take an interest in the character and role-play him well, then even a character with the lowest possible scores can present a fun, challenging and all-around exciting time. Does he have a Charisma of 5? Why? Maybe he's got an ugly scar. His table manners could be atrocious. He might mean well but always manage to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. He could be bluntly honest to the point of rudeness . . . His Dexterity is 3? Why? Is he naturally clumsy or blind as a bat?

Don't give up on a character just because he [sic] has a low score. Instead view it as an opportunity to role-play, to create a unique and entertaining personality in the game. Not only will you have fun creating that personality, but other players and the DM will have fun reacting to him.​
To me, this is wrong in so many ways it's hard to set them all out.

First, we have the mandatory attack upon players who want good stats - as if there is something objectionable about players wanting to impact the shared fiction via action resolution (which is what stat bonuses let you do).

Following on from that, we have a depiction of "role-playing" which is entirely about the players passively providing colour ("My guy is rude", "My guy burps at the table", "My guy has a quirky accent and wears a funny hat") rather than the players actually providing goals for play and driving the narrative of the game.

There is a different manifestation of the same perspective on the players' role when the only success-condition flagged for play is that one's character _survives_. There is nothing to suggest that Rath's player might establish other goals for Rath in play, and try to achieve them by engaging the game's system.

And then there is the complete disregard of system in the suggested colouring of stats. For instance, if a character with DEX 3 is "blind as a bat", why does s/he not suffer a penalty to finding secret doors, or to climbing (neither of these mechanics is linked, in the rule book, to DEX).

In one of his reviews of so-called "fantasy heartbreakers", Ron Edwards made the following observation:

The key assumption throughout all these games is that if a gaming experience is to be intelligent (and all Fantasy Heartbreakers make this claim), then the most players can be relied upon to provide is kind of the "Id" of play - strategizing, killing, and conniving throughout the session. They are the raw energy, the driving "go," and the GM's role is to say, "You just scrap, strive, and kill, and I'll show ya, with this book, how it's all a brilliant evocative fantasy." 

It's not Illusionism - there's no illusion at all, just movement across the landscape and the willingness to fight as the baseline player things to do. At worst, the players are apparently slathering kill-counters using simple alignment systems to set the bar for a given group . . . sometimes, they are encouraged to give characters "personality" like "hates fish" or "likes fancy clothes"; and most of the time, they're just absent from the text, "Player who? Character who?" . . . The Explorative, imaginative pleasure experienced by a player - and most importantly, communicated among players - simply doesn't factor into play at all, even in the more Simulationist Fantasy Heartbreakers, which are universally centered on Setting. 

I think this is a serious problem for fantasy role-playing design. It's very, very hard to break out of D&D Fantasy assumptions for many people, and the first step, I think, is to generate the idea that protagonism . . . can mean more than energy and ego.​
The D&D assumptions that Edwards refers to have their roots more in 1st than 2nd ed AD&D - but the difference beween Edwards's characterisation and the passage from the 2nd ed PHB that I quoted is simply that the 2nd ed passage is trying to beat even the "id" out of the players - so all they are is "personality", with even the id of play generated by the GM. The beating out of the "id" is reinforced by the Combat chapter. This is the second-longest chapter in the book, after the chapter on classes and not counting the spell appendices; but it begins with an admonition that

As important as fighting is to the AD&D game, it isn't the be-all and end-all of play. It's just one way for characters to deal with situations. If characters could do nothing but fight, the game would quickly get boring - every encounter would be the same. Because there is more to the game than fighting, we'll cover much more than simple hack-and-slash combat in this chapter.​
(Reviewing the chapter, that last line is mostly an empty promise - unless it is meant to refer to the rules for unarmed combat, or the fact that the chapter also includes the rules for saving throws and turning undead. Though the example of play on p 93 does manage to reintroduce a bit of "id" by way of "personality", in the following line of the example: "Harry (playing Rath, a dwarf who hates orcs): "Orcs? - CHARGE!")

There is nothing to suggest that the way characters deal with "situations" might be shaped by goals that the players bring to the table; or that the relationship between the "situation" and those goals might mean that two fights are very different experiences in play, even if the base mechanics used to resolve them are the same.

In Part 3 of his Interactive Toolkit essays, Christopher Kubasik makes the following point:

Characters drive the narrative of all stories. However, many people mistake _character _for _characterization_.

Characterization is the look of a character, the description of his voice, the quirks of habit. Characterization creates the concrete detail of a character through the use of sensory detail and exposition. By "seeing" how a character looks, how he picks up his wine glass, by knowing he has a love of fine tobacco, the character becomes concrete to our imagination, even while remaining nothing more than black ink upon a white page.

But a person thus described is not a _character_. A character must do.

Character is action. That's a rule of thumb for plays and movies, and is valid as well for roleplaying games and story entertainments. This means that the best way to reveal your character is not through on an esoteric monologue about pipe and tobacco delivered by your character, but through your character's actions.

But what actions? Not every action is true to a character; it is not enough to haphazardly do things in the name of action. Instead, actions must grow from the roots of Goals. A characterization imbued with a Goal that leads to action is a character.​
I think that recognising this, and then integrating it into the system and the play of an RPG (whether formally or informally) is key to the move from "old" to "new" RPGs.


----------



## Maxperson

Aenghus said:


> Old RPGs like D&D and World of Darkness are haunted by the spectre of the dictatorial GM, railroading his or her players through a pre-scripted nightmare of deprotagonisation and being deaf to player feedback and complaints, often excommunicating those who dare to question their decisions or authority.




As is every other RPG ever created.  The dictatorial DM is something that happens to all RPGs equally.  It's a personal flaw, not a system flaw that causes dictatorial DMing and railroading.

I reject your biased mischaracterization of those systems.


----------



## Nytmare

Maxperson said:


> As is every other RPG ever created.  The dictatorial DM is something that happens to all RPGs equally.  It's a personal flaw, not a system flaw that causes dictatorial DMing and railroading.




I think that it maybe has less to do with it being something that happens to "all RPGs equally" right now and more about that style of DMing being the encouraged and expected way to play by so many of the early systems that existed, once upon a time.


----------



## ExploderWizard

pemerton said:


> From p 18 of the PHB:
> 
> Suppose you decide to name your character "Rath" and you rolled the following ability scores for him:
> 
> STR 8
> DEX 14
> CON 13
> INT 13
> WIS 7
> CHA 6
> 
> Rath has strengths and weaknesses, but it up to you to interpret what the numbers mean . . .
> 
> Obviously, Rath's ability scores . . . are not the greatest in the world. Yet it is possible to turn these "disappointing" stats into a character who is both interesting and fun to play. Too often players become obsessed with "good" stats. . . .
> 
> In truth, Rath's survivability has a lot less to do with his ability scores that with your desire to role-play him. If you give up on him, of course he won't survive! But if you take an interest in the character and role-play him well, then even a character with the lowest possible scores can present a fun, challenging and all-around exciting time. Does he have a Charisma of 5? Why? Maybe he's got an ugly scar. His table manners could be atrocious. He might mean well but always manage to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. He could be bluntly honest to the point of rudeness . . . His Dexterity is 3? Why? Is he naturally clumsy or blind as a bat?
> 
> Don't give up on a character just because he [sic] has a low score. Instead view it as an opportunity to role-play, to create a unique and entertaining personality in the game. Not only will you have fun creating that personality, but other players and the DM will have fun reacting to him.​
> To me, this is wrong in so many ways it's hard to set them all out.
> 
> First, we have the mandatory attack upon players who want good stats - as if there is something objectionable about players wanting to impact the shared fiction via action resolution (which is what stat bonuses let you do).




There is no such attack. There is simply advice there to point out that having less than optimal stats doesn't have to be the end of the world. If anything it is an attack on players who agree to play a game featuring random generation then cry like a baby when they don't the numbers that they were hoping for. 

Desiring great stats is perfectly natural. How you handle not getting them is a test of maturity. 




pemerton said:


> Following on from that, we have a depiction of "role-playing" which is entirely about the players passively providing colour ("My guy is rude", "My guy burps at the table", "My guy has a quirky accent and wears a funny hat") rather than the players actually providing goals for play and driving the narrative of the game.




The narrative of the game is simply life for the character. It goes on until it ends one way or another. 



pemerton said:


> There is a different manifestation of the same perspective on the players' role when the only success-condition flagged for play is that one's character _survives_. There is nothing to suggest that Rath's player might establish other goals for Rath in play, and try to achieve them by engaging the game's system.




If the player is playing Rath as a character then he or she plays by engaging the setting, not the system. Too much focus on system is really what has made rpgs suck so much. The system is meaningless to Rath. A system which assumes that everything not expressly permitted is disallowed instead of the opposite is a great way to stifle role playing including important goals and objectives of the players. Requiring minimum numerical values to accomplish anything of worth puts a choke collar on creativity and roleplaying opportunity. 

" You must be this tall to ride" syndrome has overtaken the hobby. System as the only measure of substance is the standard in most contemporary games.


----------



## Balesir

ExploderWizard said:


> The narrative of the game is simply life for the character. It goes on until it ends one way or another.



The character doesn't exist except in the imaginations of the players. Nothing is true "for the character", it can be true only for the players. For the players, the narrative is what happens to the characters while they are "on camera". It generally doesn't include many of the tedious but necessary parts of what constitutes a real life (like having a poo or trimming toe nails). To include everything would make the game literally unplayable - it would take a whole (real) day to roleplay a single (imaginary) day. Roleplaying as "a fantasy life" can never work - and even if it did it would be boring - so all roleplaying selects stories to tell that are subsets of those imaginary "lives".



ExploderWizard said:


> If the player is playing Rath as a character then he or she plays by engaging the setting, not the system. Too much focus on system is really what has made rpgs suck so much. The system is meaningless to Rath. A system which assumes that everything not expressly permitted is disallowed instead of the opposite is a great way to stifle role playing including important goals and objectives of the players. Requiring minimum numerical values to accomplish anything of worth puts a choke collar on creativity and roleplaying opportunity.
> 
> " You must be this tall to ride" syndrome has overtaken the hobby. System as the only measure of substance is the standard in most contemporary games.



There is always a system. For everything a character does, there is a system. It might not be written down, and it might not be available for the players to know and understand, but it will be there. And it will limit what the characters can do. Can my character fly? Can she lift that mountain?

If the players are allowed to know what the basis of the system is, and how it works, I think that is a good thing. That way, the system can take the place of what we as conscious creatures create and make use of every instant of our waking lives - a mental model of the world in which we exist.

Lack of a shared and explicit system is beyond simple laziness and I don't think it anywhere near compensates with flexibility for what it destroys by rendering player characters effectively blind, deluded and incompetent in their own environment.


----------



## Aenghus

Nytmare said:


> I think that it maybe has less to do with it being something that happens to "all RPGs equally" right now and more about that style of DMing being the encouraged and expected way to play by so many of the early systems that existed, once upon a time.




Exactly, it's the price of being first, players of the early RPGs had to figure things out piece by piece, and mistakes were part of the learning process. Things can go wrong at any RPG table, but in the early days there was a lack of precedent, good examples of play, internet and clear expectations, and there was no formal way for players to provide feedback. And as I said, a lot of the early advice was terrible or particular to a narrow style of play, excluding all other styles.


----------



## pemerton

ExploderWizard said:


> Too much focus on system is really what has made rpgs suck so much. The system is meaningless to Rath.



Rath doesn't exist. The players of the game do - and they engage the shared fiction via system.

I've frequently see you appeal to system in other posts in other threads - eg you post about the importance of not fudging dice rolls, or the importance of using wandering monsters to force players to manage their resources properly - so I'm not sure what you mean by _too much focus on system_.


----------



## pemerton

Balesir said:


> Lack of a shared and explicit system is beyond simple laziness and I don't think it anywhere near compensates with flexibility for what it destroys by rendering player characters effectively blind, deluded and incompetent in their own environment.



I think it's not a coincidence that D&D has its origins in dungeon play - where being blind and incompetent is verisimilitudinouos - and in army leadership play, where the original (wargaming) players used their prior knowledge of wargaming practices to fill in the environment.

Luke Crane has an intriguing comment that I think bears on this at least obliquely, in his blog about running Moldvay Basic:

I'm nervous about the transition to the wilderness style of adventure, since the beautiful economy of Moldvay's basic rules are rapidly undermined by the poorly implemented ideas of the Expert set.​
He doesn't elaborate, but extrapolation is possible from some of the things he says in praise of Moldvay, such as:

This slim red volume emerged before us as a brilliant piece of game design that not only changed our world with it's own bright light, but looking from the vantage of 1981, I can see that this game changed THE world. This world of dark dungeons and savage encounters slowly crept out into ours, from hobby shops to basements, to computer labs and movie screens.​
I'm inclined to link this back to my own comments, upthread, on _survival_ as the measure of success, and on the players as little more than the _id_ of play (if that): the notion of the RPG as showing us the "life" of the character, yet that life being so shallow, and characterised by such little emotional or even basic cognitive engagement with the world in which the character lives, produces a bizarre experience in which the GM's view of that world and that life becomes almost everything.

REH's Conan stories are meant to be an inspiration for D&D. But if one looks at the mechanics of the Expert set, or the similar mechanics of 1st ed AD&D, the play experience will almost never replicate anything like Conan. There is no device for the player recollecting facts as Conan does; for deliberately or by coincidence encountering past friends and enemies, as Conan does; for foreshadowing a character's destiny, as happens in the Conan stories; etc.

Another way of thinking about "fail forward", then, is that it is a way of avoiding this phenomenon in which the whole world is reduced to "dark dungeons and savage encounters" but without even the pacing and rational economy of the dungeon environment.


----------



## ExploderWizard

pemerton said:


> Rath doesn't exist. The players of the game do - and they engage the shared fiction via system.
> 
> I've frequently see you appeal to system in other posts in other threads - eg you post about the importance of not fudging dice rolls, or the importance of using wandering monsters to force players to manage their resources properly - so I'm not sure what you mean by _too much focus on system_.




My meaning is that in more complex systems with rules for just about everything the players tend to focus on what the characters are able to accomplish mechanically, to the point of fixation instead of what is happening in the setting. The system moves to the forefront instead of being in the background.


----------



## Balesir

ExploderWizard said:


> My meaning is that in more complex systems with rules for just about everything the players tend to focus on what the characters are able to accomplish mechanically, to the point of fixation instead of what is happening in the setting. The system moves to the forefront instead of being in the background.



I think I sympathise with the general phenomenon you are talking about, but I see a major problem with the way you put it. "The setting" does not exist. It is entirely imaginary. This is actually a fairly close analogy to the way we see, hear, smell, taste and touch in the real world (and the reason I sometimes put that "real" in quotes).

The world as we perceive it does not really exist. There is no such thing as "colour", most of what we perceive as solid (and liquid) is actually empty space and, when we "touch" things none of our matter is actually in contact with the actual matter of the thing we perceive ourselves as touching.

Everything that we see and hear, etc., is actually constructed in our heads from diverse sensory signals generated by our sensory organs. The world as we see it is not what is really there, it is a model of what is there created by our brains so that we are capable of quickly comprehending what is really there. Without this model, we would be lost - incapable of functioning from day to day. The case of Michael May (lost his sight at age 3, became a successful businessman and downhill skiier while blind, had sight returned by a novel medical procedure at age 46 and subsequently struggled with recognition and 3D perception) illustrates this quite well.

In a roleplaying game, the game system fills the role of this model. It tells us how to interpret the "sensory" information we receive about the game in a way that is comprehensible and usable. If the system is held exclusively by the GM rather than shared with the players, then the only way the players have to make sense of the game world is to guess what the GM is thinking. Some players can do this moderately well, some can't. None can do it consistently. Some find an alternative in using social manipulation to shape the GM's vision of the game world to better fit their own, or even just to give advantage to their character.

In my experience, "outside the box thinking" can take three forms:

1) Correctly guessing the system that the GM is using to adjudicate some aspect of the world for which the system is not shared (and using this to advantage)

2) Coming up with an idea that the GM likes (or presenting it in such a way that the GM is entertained by it) and finding success through the GM forming or altering the system by which the idea is resolved such that it gives advantage

3) Finding a new way to use the shared system of the game such as to give advantage

The first of these I find facile in play - at best it becomes "20 questions", at worst it's pure guessing game. The second I find frankly distasteful, as it privileges manipulativeness and cliquishness. The last actually requires that there _be_ a shared system, not that one is absent.


----------



## Maxperson

Nytmare said:


> I think that it maybe has less to do with it being something that happens to "all RPGs equally" right now and more about that style of DMing being the encouraged and expected way to play by so many of the early systems that existed, once upon a time.




My personal theory is that a great many of us started a long time ago and there were a number of things that were different then.  First, we were younger and at a young age is when DMs tend to be douche dictators and railroad.  Second, there were ONLY those types of RPGs around.  These newfangled modern RPGs were around then, so the young douche dictators didn't have those games to railroad in.  Combine that with the fact that it's harder to tell if a DM is railroading when nothing is set in stone and you have a situation where the older folk will rarely, if ever see that sort of activity in the newer type games.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> My personal theory is that a great many of us started a long time ago and there were a number of things that were different then.



I can only speak for myself.

When I started GMing I fairly quickly discovered that I didn't really enjoy, and wasn't particularly adept at, running Gygaxian-style dungeon-as-exploration-and-puzzle scenarios. I was looking for more story, and for a feel closer to fantasy fiction. I started using techniques - especially around scene-framing, "no myth", and the use of player "flags" - which, 15 or so years later, I discovered had been articulated and developed in a clear manner by designers like Edwards, Luke Crane etc.

I didn't develop "fail forward" on my own, however. I needed to learn that from reading about it in "modern" rulesets.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I can only speak for myself.
> 
> When I started GMing I fairly quickly discovered that I didn't really enjoy, and wasn't particularly adept at, running Gygaxian-style dungeon-as-exploration-and-puzzle scenarios. I was looking for more story, and for a feel closer to fantasy fiction. I started using techniques - especially around scene-framing, "no myth", and the use of player "flags" - which, 15 or so years later, I discovered had been articulated and developed in a clear manner by designers like Edwards, Luke Crane etc.
> 
> I didn't develop "fail forward" on my own, however. I needed to learn that from reading about it in "modern" rulesets.




Absolutely. I think we all started off doing things that we later figured out we didn't like and/or were not good and changed how we do things.  In high school I probably improvised 5% of the time and that was only NPC conversations, when there was conversation at all.  Now I probably improvise 60-70%, maybe even a bit more, and anything from encounters, to treasure, to NPCs, and on an on.  I'm still growing and changing from one campaign to the next.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> I think an interesting question is whether the fail forward/improv style is by (this) definition a railroad (whether the player enjoys it or not being irrelevant).  I mean it constrains choice and decision points in steadily and inexorably having everything encountered, created, improv'd, etc. lead to the character's goals or dramatic needs... doesn't it?  Isn't that railroading (again putting aside the question of whether the player enjoys it or doesn't) towards a specific or constrained set of outcomes?






Aenghus said:


> I think so. I disagree with the phrase "_towards a specific or constrained set of outcomes_" though, at least in the general case, for a particular game it may or may not be true. Fail forward games tend to have stake setting, and a lot of latitude in declaring outcomes, so at the ultimate decision point the player decides what happens if his or her quest succeeds, and the referee decides if s/he fails. The player likely doesn't know the full ramifications of failure, and the referee likely doesn't know the full ramifications of player success. The relevant game systems attempt to guarantee narrative closure at such decision points, so goals succeed (maybe with a cost) or fail (maybe with some consolation). There will be no stalemates, last-minute takebacks, revelations that the goal was futile, or that the goal was always going to succeed, and other possibilities that can crop up in more naturalistic games. The uncertainty is provided by distributing the game authority so that no-one knows what's going to happen in the end, or the exact details of that resolution.






Imaro said:


> I was moreso talking about the outcome of this type of game in the described playstyle always leading towards some resolution of the character(s) needs, desires or goals...  There's no chance (at least as I understand the explanations presented in this thread) of offering an option, conclusion, outcome, etc. that doesn't tie into these things... at least not if one is running it properly...




Throwing this spurt of the conversation together to comment on what you guys are discussing.  Below is what I think is relevant:

*Story Now*: Tight, thematic zoom where the exclusive locus of play is the conflict-charged in which the action is centered around what the players (through their characters PC build flags and their actions) have signaled as important content.  Typically this focuses on things like relationships, oaths/vows, emotion, redemption and the prioritization of values.  PC build + the game's reward/incentive cycle will integrate these components.

GM's job - Follow the rules and your principles.  Fast forward past mundane or innocuous goings-on.  PCs need to be relentlessly framed into "Action Scenes" whereby they're making decisions that they have signaled that they care about.  All table time should be spent exclusively on this.  Your "Exposition" and opening of the "Rising Action" should observe (a) the continuity of the prior fiction, (b) genre expectations, (c) PC build archetype (eg don't frame Master Pickpockets into scenes where they've been caught pilfering someone), (d) "Transition Scene" action declarations and resolution, (e) the thematic interests of the players.  Your "Denouement" and the fallout tha stems from it needs to be an outgrowth of your principles coupled with (a), (b), (e) above and obeyance to the course that the resolution mechanics has charted.

Player agency - The only thing that matters is that the GM is always following the rules, table time is exclusively spent on  stuff we have signaled we care about, and the GM does a proper job with Exposition, the opening of the Rising Action, Denouement, and lets us dictate the outcomes of the Rising Action, Climax, and Falling Action.



_*Sandbox Exploration*_ is quite different (obviously).  Play isn't separated into discrete "Action Scenes" and "Transition Scenes" as time spent and exploration of space are centered around a more granular, much more serial nature.  Consequently, the resolution mechanics need to enfold that granularity.  GMs and players need to observe that granularity, specificity/nuance in the conversation of play and action declarations (per parcel of time:space) will accordingly be more discrete, more concrete/less abstract, and consequently more numerous (obviously).   Player agency in these sorts of games demands as much.  

Finally, play needs to include material that is effectively conflict-neutral; not hooked directly into thematic components of PC build (if the system even has them in the first place).  Haggling with merchants, "state your business" conversations with gate guards, tavern-canoodling, caravan-guarding, random-thieves-guild-encountering, NPC001-escorting, "fetch quests" into Ye Old Crypt.  All of these sorts of things need to all be available to the players as menu options so they can effect their expectant agency in exploring the sandbox.  Players expect to engage (or not) in this "non-PC-centered" stuff and see how the setting/sandbox evolves as a result of their involvement (or not).  The sandbox/setting needs to evolve naturalistically both when the players involve themselves (through the course of engagement of the resolution mechanics and impartial/skillful refereeing) when they do not (via GM extrapolation).



Those are very different jobs for the GM to be doing and very different "agency expectations" by the players.  But so long as the GM does those jobs resolutely and the player's "agency expectations" are met, things are fine.


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## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> I'm not sure that I agree with your psychological hypothesis as to why pre-authorship can lead to railroading, but I think there is a very clear system reason: the GM is _supposed_ to be using that pre-authored stuff (NPC motivations, metaplot, etc) to constrain the framing of scenes and the success of action declarations. That's what it's for. And multiple posters upthread have said that it's important that sometimes the PCs are thwarted by obstacles they didn't anticipate, because that's what makes the gameworld  "realistic" and not just "all about them".




Just to for clarity's sake, my hypothesis was invoked as it relates to an advantage of low-prep (minimal pre-authorship with malleable setting and any off-screen metaplot exists solely to plug into and test the PCs' protagonism) over high-prep (maximal pre-authorship with granular setting and metaplot that exists of "its own volition" - eg GM's mental model replete with unique cognitive biases).  I certainly don't think the inherent investment in a creation that you've slaved over (be it building your own world, spending significant $, time, and mental overhead in learning the geography, politics, backstory, cosmology, and relevant orgs/NPCs of FR, or purchasing an expansive module/AP) is the _exclusive __why _a GM might funnel play down the prescribed path of a metaplot.  

Systems that are predicated upon significant GM latitude and/or that expressly condone the GM suspending the action resolution mechanics "to facilitate story" are telling the group that play should prioritize the GM's idea of "what's best" with respect to story and the buck stops there.  That is more than tacitly advocating railroading.  But the fact that it does so up front means that it isn't a violation of the social contract so players really shouldn't be claiming dysfunction because to play at all is an expression of buy-in of the prospects of a railroad!

I think the problem typically lies when a system is wishy-washy on this stuff and the social contract isn't made explicit/banged out prior to play.  I mean you can have an amazing amount of granular setting material and off-screen elements in motion (hidden backstory as you like to say).  Typically in those games, the GM (who has extreme or complete authority over setting) is going to be the one leveraging his/her own mental framework to parameterize and then perform the model run of the fantasy setting.  Hence, his/her own cognitive biases, understanding of genre expectations, and forensic knowledge base (which may be poor, average, or quite good) are going to be the machinery that parameterizes it and then extrapolates into the future.  They may be performing this parameterization and extrapolation as objectively as proficiently and objectively as they possibly can.  So this evolving setting and offscreen metaplot may feel quite objective and will naturally feel quite intuitive/logical to them.  However, embedded within this effort is an enormous amount of variables (at both the parameterization stage and the "model run" - extrapolation - stage).  Consequently, the GM's own sense of the fidelity of their work to the principles or objectivity, intuitiveness, and logic may not mesh with the sensibilities of any or all of Becky, Sue, Sam, or Bob.

In essence, the GM isn't railroading the players (constraining decision-points inexorably such that play funnels toward an inevitable outcome or subverting the authentic outcomes of the player action declarations + the resolution mechanics and inserting their own will in its stead).  However, the players don't feel that way.  The model feels subjectively paramaterized and the extrapolations seem counter-intuitive or illogical.  

Or they don't care about the disheveled, sullen, sailor, with four hungry mouths to feed at home, who just had his vessel foreclosed on because he couldn't meet the corrupt banking establishment's new egregious demands.  He drowns his sorrows every day starting at dawn's first light in Fishmongers and Fools, the shanty tavern on the docks.  

They don't care about him, his family, the corrupt banking establishment, the political structure that backs it, Fishmongers and Fools.  And they don't care about the gajillion other of setting elements just like it.

 [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] comes to mind as I write this.  Systems with extreme degrees of GM latitude, extreme degrees of GM authority, and wishy-washiness when it comes to social contract stuff and concrete play procedures are vulnerable to players "feeling" railroaded when, in point of fact, they effectively aren't being railroaded.  In those cases though, "feeling railroaded" may as well be "being railroaded."



pemerton said:


> What I often find a bit weird in these discussions, though, is how games with Schroedinger's hit points and Schroedinger's gorge are conjectured at one and the same time to have some flaws or weakness resulting from that (eg a lack of a "living, breathing" world) but in all other respects play out exactly the same (eg in the way that GM force in determining backstory won't work any differently, and so railroading is just as likely).




+1!


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## TwoSix

25 short of 1000.  I'm disappointed, this is no "Fighters vs Spellcasters".


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## sheadunne

TwoSix said:


> 25 short of 1000.  I'm disappointed, this is no "Fighters vs Spellcasters".




If we say "Warlord" we can get the whole thread moved.


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## innerdude

LOL @_*TwoSix*_, yes, we need more angst!  

Seriously though, it was really interesting when that article came out like a month ago detailing the first real description of a "fireball" in the pre-Chainmail historical wargame. 

I've never done a real tracing of D&D's roots. I know there's books, and articles, and whatever else all over the place that go into all of it, but I've never really gotten into it. 

But that article on pre-Chainmail battle rules opened my eyes, because there's so much about D&D that I always took for granted as just being "natural" or "the way it works," or that someone had thoroughly gone through and vetted the mechanics to work a certain way. 

And really that wasn't necessarily the case. A lot of what became the game I got under the Christmas tree in 1985 was handed down from wargames _and simply passed on because it was what they had_. For example, it totally blew my mind when it finally clicked for me (and this was maybe only 3 or 4 months ago) that "hit points" are a relic of wargames that are designed to measure _the ability continue remaining effective in combat. _They were never really intended or designed to be a measure of a single individual's personal health. They're not measuring wounds, or injuries, or any kind of "health scale"; they exist because in a war game, they represent a unit's ability to remain in the battle. That's it. Hitpoints in war games are at the very least modeling a level of abstraction at least two, possibly three levels above what they're attempting to model in an RPG. 

So what happens when you evolve combat and other tactical challenges around that basic paradigm to a single, individual character? You get a specific set of functions, or rules, that work within that basic assumption. 

And it's given me a glimpse of why "Story Now!" became a thing---because it's an attempt to go all the way back and say, "Wait wait wait . . . what if we DON'T start the basic assumptions of how an RPG operates from _here _and instead assume we should start _there_." Interestingly, even as much as I'm pushing into a more "fail forward," "No myth" style,  I don't know that I'll ever 100% completely embrace "Story Now!" either. For example, I've heard descriptions of stuff like Dogs in the Vineyard, Life With Master, Paranoia, etc., and I honestly can't say I'd have any interest in them. I bought a hardcover copy of Legends of Anglerre because I liked the art, but I don't know that I'll ever try Fate, or that my group would even want to either. 

I think one of the great things @_*pemerton*_ tries to do is to at least get people to look inside their own assumptions a bit about the ways RPG rules work. At the very least to be informed about what their own preferences are doing, the assumptions around them, etc. Even if you don't agree with or see how other people like to run their games, I think there's value in understanding what's happening within the context of your own games.


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## Neonchameleon

Maxperson said:


> Seriously?  You're claiming that that there are no bad DMs out there that railroad in those systems?  Somehow only other systems have those sorts of DMs?




I'd disagree with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] that there are no bad DMs out there that railroad in those systems - but only on a technicality. Railroading is a failure mode - but not all systems have the same failure modes.  If you picture the failure mode as the car ending up on the hard shoulder, railroading in one of the systems in question is like ending up on the hard shoulder _on the wrong side of the motorway_.

This doesn't mean that the techniques in question are without failure modes - simply that they are normally different ones. The most common failure mode is to end up with an indistinct mess of a game with no texture, aim, or driver because the GM isn't sadistic enough to want to see the players have their characters hurt. The second most common failure mode is to end up with a smudgy palimpsest where players have been using player side establishment to solve all their characters problems and too many people have retconned too much so no one knows about anything and no one's challenged.

Neither of those failure modes turn up much with pre-authoring just as railroading doesn't turn up much without pre-authoring.

But ultimately we've got some conversations going on at cross purposes here especially between you and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]. We've got no-myth, sandboxes, and adventure paths as three distinct modes of play (and groups of players in a horseshoe shape normally) and we've got Doylist and Watsonian confusion.

Adventure Paths are very popular - most of what Paizo puts out is adventure paths, as are the few WotC 5e adventures - and they hinge very much on actual pre-authorship. Most APs are over-sized mcguffin quests where in order to get module 3, the PCs must have done the events in module 2 otherwise it makes no sense. So module 2 is quite literally pre-authored in that the PCs will solve it using method X, set down in advance by an author. And in the worst case the PCs job is to bear witness to the NPCs solving the problems, written by some hack author (or some bad GM) before the PCs have even rolled up their characters.

Sandboxes and No-Myth are much closer together - and no-myth is very hard to do IME without rules that go beyond pass/fail (you can do it in 4e and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] does - but I really woudn't care to start there, or to do it in other D&D systems). Both of them utterly reject the idea of writing the ending in advance, and both of them are about challenging the PCs. In the case of sandboxes the challenges are mostly external and driven by the environment or NPCs with their own agendas, while in no-myth play the challenges are much more tailored to who the PCs are and driven by the PCs flaws. And neither of these modes of play produces much railroading as a failure mode (instead it's more aimlessness).



> Funny.  I run sandbox games and story is reliably generated all the time.  People claiming otherwise just can't run a proper sandbox game and/or don't have players that are up to playing in a sandbox game.




Absolutely. And that's hardly unique to sandboxes - no form of roleplaying will ever not create a story.



> You say that, but you really haven't given any real reason for it other than you like it that way, and incorrect perceptions of pre-authorship and sandbox play.




Your definition of pre-authoring is meaningless - hence me mentioning the Watsonian/Doylist distinction. John Watson is utterly unable to tell whether that gun mentioned by Sherlock Holmes was always there or whether Arthur Conan Doyle invented it at the last minute. It is only from outside the game perspective that it matters - and only when events _in the future_ (hence pre-authoring) are determined that it is truly pre-authoring.



Maxperson said:


> Speaking for myself, I would say yes.  D&D can be run very well with many different styles of play.  It even goes out of its way to suggest a bunch of them.




I'd also say that half of them I end up fighting the system (incluing every Paizo adventure path if there's a wizard along). The DM can overrule the system;s strengths - but I didn't sign up to fight the system that way.


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## pemerton

innerdude said:


> I think one of the great things @_*pemerton*_ tries to do is to at least get people to look inside their own assumptions a bit about the ways RPG rules work. At the very least to be informed about what their own preferences are doing, the assumptions around them, etc. Even if you don't agree with or see how other people like to run their games, I think there's value in understanding what's happening within the context of your own games.



Thank you! Very sincerely.


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