Thread by @andreas_mwg, Something that's super interesting to think about as a designer of #ttrpg [...]

Andreas Walters

andreas_mwg

Something that's super interesting to think about as a designer of #ttrpg (as I re-listen to this conversation) is
"what does getting a failure in your game mean?" https://twitter.com/andreas_mwg/status/1273276767650803712

https://twitter.com/andreas_mwg/status/1273276767650803712

for D&D its pretty binary (esp in combat), but has slowly expanded into other outcomes:
-Failure of a skill roll,
- crit failing (botching), and
- partial success knowledge rolls (i think introduced in 4e)

For Drifter, I talked about failing forward, but when it came to combat, I was lazy and had the resulting outcome do minimal effect (reducing outcomes to one).

Honestly, this didnt feel very good, esp during the fortunate times @AjeyPandey and I just rolled terribly

This can be offset a little by distributing bad luck between party members, but at the end of the day, it still sucks to be the player that just has a terrible day rolling.

And at the end of the day, their bad rolling shouldn't diminish their contributions to the game

So, in Drifter, although I talk about failing forward (which still works out well in narrative style play), I wasn't representing it in Combat

So, part of the realization from this design session was that, we need to shift the metric of success over.
Fortune would bring a 'crit' effect
Temperance bringing a solid exchange, and
Judgment representing a losing exchange.

Even while failing, you should be able to implement your plans. Though if you fail, a lot of unexpected stuff will happen.

So, how does your game accommodate, punish or leverage failure?

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