A commentator on my Rule of Cool post kindly suggested that I take a look at ‘Failing forward’ next.
Here we go.
Do We Need This Rule?
Whereas I concluded with The Rule of Cool that codifying ‘cool’ is not worth the effort for me, I would not say the same about Failing Forward. Gary Gygax and the boys did not make the perfect RPG, they made (one of) the first one(s). The resolution of actions has always been a point of contention from the start.
Playing YEG, we’ve all had this interchange:
DM: There’s a lock on the door.
Thief player: I pick the lock.
DM: Roll it!
Thief player: Oops, I failed.
DM: It stays locked.
Thief player: I’ll try again.
DM: You can’t.
Thief player: Why not?
DM: You have to, um, get a level first.
It is even worse in BRP, which adds in criticals and fumbles. Does a critical mean all locks in the room open? Does a fumble mean the locks explode? Considering their opposing interests, what if the GM has one interpretation and players another?
(Note that seasoned players and GMs may chuckle at these examples, but I have heard these and worse from new players. And I surmise that the Rule of Cool and Failing Forward is made precisely for the younger generation, who have neither the time nor interest in playing pathetic zeros who have to fight every step of the way to hero, and rarely make it that far.)
So, we have from D&D the problem of stark pass or fail mechanics that can easily derail the game if an important check is failed. Add in the granularity of criticals and fumbles in d100 systems, and you have a huge burden on the GM to interpret the results in a way acceptable to players, and which also makes the game flow.
In this light, it is natural that RPGers would conceive of a houserule to address this issue. Just as in any academic research, we’ve defined the problem. The next step is to define our terms.
What exactly is Failing Forward?
Gnome Stew describes it thus,
…the idea of “failing forward.”... is, creating a partial failure that moves the plot, or at minimum makes things more interesting. This is an idea that’s been around for a while, but PbtA turned this idea into systems, primarily by saying that players may succeed even with a failed roll, but at a cost. This is a sea change for games that had for decades operated practically under the maxim that “failure means nothing happens,” and I want to be clear that this rocked my gaming world.
I agree wholeheartedly with this take. Ideally, Failing forward should have at least the following:
1 a system
2 a cost
3 an interesting result
4 an alternative to pass / fail of older systems
Next, Gnome Stew gives some excellent options for GMs to implement:
Figure out options
Remove resources
Create challenges / complications with choice
Add conditions
Drive towards doom
Sometimes failure is failure
Finally, at the end of the article, Gnome Stew turns these options into tables not unlike my own tables about substituting PC death with a story hook (HERE).
Yet this isn’t the only method to ensure PCs fail forward. The entire Gumshoe system is predicated on the belief that a flubbed roll should never derail an investigation, with Investigative Abilities that always cough up a clue, or can be used for Story Effects.
So What’s The Problem Tedankhamen?
First, the Goblin Stew random table implies that GMs have time to prepare all the outcomes for a ‘Failing forward’ situation. In reality, many fail forward situations are impromptu or unforeseen, and thus GMs don’t have the luxury of making a random table. In these cases, if the action is tangential to the plot, the GM should just adjudicate them simply, ie the lock is open, closed, or stuck. If players insist on robbing stores or charming NPCs with no relation to the storyline, they should not be overwhelmed by the results and the GM’s role is to nudge or just point them back towards the storyline.
(Note that I do realize what fun can be had going off the rails and letting PCs do their thing for an adventure, but in my experience all too often it is hard to get back to the scenario or mission at hand)
Another larger problem, as I see it, is the expectation that EVERY failure has to allow falling forward. Just as I critiqued the expectation with The Rule of Cool that the GM has to guarantee that players should be able to do something awesome EVERY session (instead of proactively taking enough risks for awesome results to naturally arise), I take issue with the expectation that every failure has to have an option to succeed in some fashion. As noted above, mundane actions should be resolved simply so that the game can keep moving.
On the other end of the scale, for pivotal actions, “Failure is not an option” may be a pithy phrase from action movies, but without the option to fail, there is no dramatic tension in the game. If you’re fighting the big bad or doing a heist, removing the option to fail also lessens the stakes of those endeavours. If players are so afraid of failing that they need training wheels for every challenge, or the GM so afraid of the adventure fizzling he nerfs it, then there are other serious problems. During my last disastrous D&D playing experience, a fight with the Big Bad was a total slog with no stakes because everytime we took some damage we ‘luckily’ fell forward into something contrived that helped us turn the tide. Honestly, I barely recall what the adventure or fight was about.
Contrast that to my first D&D experience, 30 years ago now. We spent a year gaming weekly real time to clear out some homebrew gnomish mines. We died several times and paid a dollar into the pizza jar to resurrect our characters.
We ate LOADS of pizza.
Then, at the end of the saga, we finally got our hands on the mystical Bow of Light that would save the world. As soon as our Ranger touched it, POOF, it was gone. The player explained that he had picked ‘Next Magic Item is Destroyed’ in a Deck of Many Things we had encountered previously.
The campaign ended then and there, no regrets, no attempts to resuscitate. And we felt good about it. Failing Forward in this situation would have needlessly extended the campaign that ended on an unforeseen beat, and would probably have fizzled out soon after.
Failing Forward is thus NOT a panacea for a dull adventure, player lassitude, or GM inability to plan or improvise EVERY interaction. Failing Forward is not be a Get Out of Jail card or bandaid for non compelling play.
Then, when and how should it be used in actual play?
How I Do It
One way I did this was to ask players what would be the best and worst outcomes of a roll, especially one that is risky or central to the narrative action. Surprisingly, players are very honest and engaged when you put things this way, instead of falling back on the old paradigm of the GM who controls failure opposed to the player who is gunning for success.
In my last Call of Cthulhu game, a player suggested doing some fancy swordsmanship on the ceiling itself to hold off a Nazi ghoul troop chasing the PCs through a cave system. I asked her about success and failure, she suggested that she either successfully bring down the cave on her pursuers, or take falling rock damage herself. I quickly outlined what I thought were the options:
Critical - Pursuers are trapped and injured
Success - Pursuers are cut off, allowing the PCs to escape
Failure - The action fails, battle ensues
Fumble - The cave comes down on EVERYONE
The player agreed wholeheartedly to these options, and bones were rolled.
Success!
The cave cut off the pursuers, the players even had a dramatic “Until we meet again!” moment with the antagonist on the other side of the rockfall, and the adventure rolled on successfully.
Conclusion
To be able to resolve necessary Failing Forward situations on the fly, more than anything else, involve the players in determining what the stakes are. Outline them clearly, get assent, then get rolling with the anticipation that real stakes and the exciting possibilities of success AND failure they bring.
Sources
Gnome Stew
https://gnomestew.com/failing-forward-how-to-make-failure-interesting-in-rpgs/
No comments:
Post a Comment