[Burning Wheel] I failed? No, _I_ failed.

[Luke]

Task failure in the BW system has been brought up here before. It's pretty cut and dried: A player states his intent and then rolls the dice. He either gets success=obstacle and passes the test and his intent is carried through, or he gets less successes than the obstacle and fails to achieve his stated intent.

Usually, this isn't a problem, it's a fact of life in the gritty and consequence-ridden life of Burning Wheel. Every so often though, failure just stops a game cold. The players want something really bad, they state their intent and they usually even dump artha  into the test, only to be faced with hoards of intractable traitorous dice. Despite the "odds", they fail.

As I said, this can stop a game cold. Now what? Players have stated their intent and were essentially assured victory. The room goes cold, faces go long, and the muttering and cursing begins.

We had this happen twice in two weeks in our games here. And I could not fail to notice how it nearly broke the flow of the game at the table. No one liked it (including me), and no one knew what to do with it. It was like we were sprinting at full steam and someone snapped our reins too hard.

I'm a firm believer in my system, and its conceit that there must be room for failure. There's got to be a chance.

But how to deal with it in game, when everyone at the table wants the "other" result to come up? We can not break the game and fudge the dice and pass the test. Can't do it. We cease to be playing BW then.

In the first case of abject failure I mentioned, the player's character looked a bit like an clown, but soon recovered and reassumed his bad-assedness. Being a buffoon is a bit in his character, but still no one laughed when he tripped and fell, they felt terrible for him...

In the second case, four of the players' characters were building a bomb (to be used in an assassination attempt). When the roll was failed, I foolishly narrated that the main bomb-maker failed to complete his project in time for the appointed "meet."


This is where I failed. Damn it. And the rules in BW fail here, too. They sit smugly and say, "Yah failed, dumb-ass! Now what?" What they should say is, "Players will fail tests, it's a fact of BW life. NEVER EVER let this interrupt the flow of the players' stated intent. If the players state they are planning an assassination and plan on using a hidden bomb, and the munitions expert fails his test, then proceed with the attempt (the first part of the player's stated attempt), but the bomb now complicates the intent, rather than aiding it. In other words, they set up the hit, but the bomb detonates too early, too late or not at all."

I know this must seem like common sense to many of you, but I am having the damndest time with this and I think it is really because of the way the failure rules are written (but not necessarily because of the failure rules).

whaddya think?

-L

[Kaare Berg]

No worries Luke,

IMO you failed and not the rules. ;)

We have brain snafus, its a fact of life. And you are being too hard on your self, so here's a pep talk:

The one roll you make it or you don't aspect of BW is much loved by my players and me. The consequences of a failed roll is just that they didn't make it. Fate didn't love them at that moment. Get over it.

Just look at the BW reports of the Tarshish game (I know you read them too) where the one player fails a roll and despite being offered a second chance lets it stand. Because it fitted.

Your system works. It aids in the narrative.

The players want something really bad, they state their intent and they usually even dump artha into the test

In one of my games, BW-Troll winter, in this forum one of my players dumps what we thought was a lot of Artha into a roll, hoping to kill an ice-troll with one shot to the eye from a hunting bow. We had the same feeling. The "damn that would be cool but alas . . ." feeling. I even posted my lament here.

You pointed out to me that is not the way BW works.

You are also the author of the appendix where you begin by saying:
"Do not use this system".

Not to mention the actual play game report (reported so far back that I can't find it) where you state that the one roll mechanic lets you narrate up to the point where the failed roll has an effect and then you let the players deal with it.
If they sneak up a creek and fail the roll, well you narrate until they reach the point when they are caught. The see if they can salvage the situation by scrounging a paddle.

More specifically;
You assasin build a bomb and fails the roll. Oh dear. Its all planted and they are ready, the target is fast approaching, then the fuse goes out due to faulty construction. Now what do you do?

but I am having the damndest time with this and I think it is really because of the way the failure rules are written

This isn't such a big deal Luke, your game rocks and your prose and style is wonderfull. Have some faith in your fellow GMs, that we from time to time have brain snafus is a sad fact of life. It is not your fault, nor the way you have written the rules.

Besides

Now you have an exuse to publish BW 2nd edition. :)

[Luke]

thanks for the kind words, I do appreciate it. But I have to say, if the rules don't support the behavior we expect/play with then they aren't doing their job.

You're correct when you say they're not completely broken, but I have to admit that they are problematic. We'll clear 'em up soon enough! ;)

[Valamir]

Hmmmm......

Failure...as a way of complicating player events rather than resulting in just outright "no it didn't work"....

Hmmmm.....that sounds familiar...like maybe I've heard it somewhere before....

<walking away with a carefully contrived look of innocence on his face>

;-)

[Luke]

::shakes fist ruefully at Always Right Ralph::
I'll get you one day!

Complication, yes. I hated the example given to me originally: the assassin doesn't miss. Instead of hitting his intended target, he shoots another target of opportunity instead (that the GM magically created in order not to have to say the words, "Uh, you missed.") Bleh.

In the case above, the player failed the roll, the character missed. The nuance is we ask the player to continue on as if he'd succeeded, thereby willingly further complicating his life.

It's really the same as what we talked about last summer, I know. But the color of it really bugged me. I don't think characters should always be allowed to stay in idiom, i think they need their bubbles burst every so often. I think it adds to the drama and increases their faith in game when they recover from such bungles and go on to bigger and better things.

having a hard time crystalizing my thoughts on this. I'll post more after I think on it a bit.

-L

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Luke,

You might be interested in reading Martian eyes strike again, The Wiff Factor, Donjon Krawl (and an unrelated concern), Trollbabe 3rd re-roll question and It never fails. Lots of good thoughts in all of these.

More personally speaking (this prompted by my re-reads, not by you, Luke), I hope my comments on these threads can overcome the misperception that I am somehow opposed to characters ever failing. I'm a big fan of failure; one of several things that Sorcerer and The Burning Wheel share in common is that, although you can invest in the increased chance of success prior to rolling, the dice do speak.

Best,
Ron

[C. Edwards]

Hey Luke,

I'm a big fan of character failure, but I'm not a fan of breaking the flow of the game.

Now, I haven't played or even read BW but I think it most likely that the mechanics are just fine and that the thought you presented in the first post will go most of the way to handling the situation in a satisfactory manner.

<snip>"Players will fail tests, it's a fact of BW life. NEVER EVER let this interrupt the flow of the players' stated intent.<snip>

That advice on narration, elaborated upon with examples, should greatly help maintain game flow. It's certainly not a guarantee, everybody's narrative prowess varies and we all have bad days.

That's how I'm handling it in Doomchaser though, any failures should be ammended with a "you fail, but <this happens>" sort of statement that knocks the game ball back up into the air. Complicate the situation or have the player's goal achieved through indirect means.

I guess you could look at it as throwing a "bang" at the player whenever their character fails.

-Chris

[Valamir]

From my perspective a roll consists of 2 parts.

1) what are you trying to accomplish, and
2) what are the methods you are using to accomplish it.

For me the idea of failure can address both of these, or either of them seperately.

Different games can put different emphasis on each part, but I think the only "wrong" way to do it (where "wrong" is the situation Luke described above that he found unsatisfying) is to fail to realize that they are seperate at all.

For instance in the assassin example that Luke didn't care for almost all of the emphasis was on #1.  The situation was for character X to kill target A.  The roll failed.  This meant nothing more than character X failed to kill target A.  The associated narrative had character X hit and kill Target B (a hither to unknown target) instead.  

For all intents and purposes #1 failed.  Target A lived.  But #2 succeeded.  The process of aiming a gun, pulling a trigger, and hitting a target succeeded.



I'm using a similiar example for my Robots and Rapiers game.  In it, the hero is attempting to jump off a balcony, swing from a banner, and land in the saddle of his horse.  He fails.

All of the suggested interpretations of this, however, irrefutably agree that #1 failed.  No matter what the hero did not wind up on his horse.  But the examples include the possibility of several different reasons for why he failed, including...as he was getting ready to leap, guards appeared in the garden below, siezed the horse and began shooting up at the balcony forcing the hero to duck back inside.

In this case while #1 failed, #2 was abandoned entirely.  The whole sequence of: jump, banner, horse was simply aborted in favor of some other resolution of the event.


The only real difference is how important depicting failure of #2 is to the view of character failure being important.  At one extreme is #1 is all that matters and #2 is entirely irrelevant and can be ignored completely.  At the other extreme is #2 is all that matters and success or failure in #1 follows rigidly in lockstep with success or failure in #2.

[Matt Wilson]

Ralph (and everyone):

Check out Universalis Meets the Pool for some ideas about interpretation of success and failure.

The cool thing about applying Uni rules to a more standard GM-player relationship is that even though the player may fail a roll, he or she can still potentially apply some of the narration.

In the R&R example, you as player could apply a "fact" that says, well, my guy failed, but not because he couldn't swing like a badass. You have to think of a different reason.

Like Donjon, except you can also apply facts if you fail. They're like CYA facts. I dig it.

BTW Ralph, every time I think I have a cool game idea, I realize it sounds a lot like Universalis. Damn you.

[John Kim]

As I said, this can stop a game cold. Now what? Players have stated their intent and were essentially assured victory. The room goes cold, faces go long, and the muttering and cursing begins.
...
In the second case, four of the players' characters were building a bomb (to be used in an assassination attempt). When the roll was failed, I foolishly narrated that the main bomb-maker failed to complete his project in time for the appointed "meet."

This is where I failed. Damn it. And the rules in BW fail here, too. They sit smugly and say, "Yah failed, dumb-ass! Now what?" What they should say is, "Players will fail tests, it's a fact of BW life. NEVER EVER let this interrupt the flow of the players' stated intent. If the players state they are planning an assassination and plan on using a hidden bomb, and the munitions expert fails his test, then proceed with the attempt (the first part of the player's stated attempt), but the bomb now complicates the intent, rather than aiding it. In other words, they set up the hit, but the bomb detonates too early, too late or not at all."  

OK, I'm trying to get why this stops the game cold.  Why couldn't the game continue without the bomb?  You say that this is a disappointment to the players, but I'm not sure how this is different from other failures.  Sometimes things don't go the way they wanted.  

So what makes the failure you describe more crucial?  I have some possibilities, but I can't tell offhand.  
1) The failure makes the PCs look too incompetant or foolish compared to how they are conceived by the players.  If so, it would presumably be worse for the bomb to, say, not go off at all.  As it was played, the PCs were at least competant enough to know in advance of their failure.  
2) There is an important dramatic scene as perceived by both the players and the GM.  i.e. The PCs should definitely be at the "meet" -- even if their bomb is going to malfunction.  As it was set up, it seems dramatically important that they should be there.  

If it is #2, then I think the problem isn't in failure mechanics per se so much as plotting.  But I'm interested to hear more about it.

[Luke]

Hi John,

As I said above, the actual mechanic works fine, but as written it simply sticks its tongue out and sneers, rather than recognizing the impact failure has at the game table and helping deal with it.

For example, in the game session described all of the players were involved in arranging this assassination attempt. It was "the night". Earlier in the night, play was foundering. It picked up once they all focused on this goal, its technicalities and its outcome. Everyone was involved -- some in planning, some on a social level, some on a technical level -- and it was going to be the event of the night.

The stated intent was to arrange matters thusly and then use the bomb to destroy their target. The failure came at the last moment, in the munitions department. By allowing the failure to be stated as "the bomb isn't finished, it won't work" -- essentially a hard failure: Intent Stated, GM responds NO -- play stopped cold. We had to fumble for an answer.

That's the moment I don't want in the games, and I think that the text of the rules (and some bad habits) are largely to blame.

Of course the game continued, and in fact the players did attempt an alternate version of the assassination attempt (and failed to kill their target, btw). But the situation was ugly before they recovered.  There was even an argument, I had to step in to moderate. Ugly. I feel this interruption of flow is preventable given the rules and structure of the game, not just the GM style.

-Luke

[Kaare Berg]

I feel this interruption of flow is preventable given the rules and structure of the game, not just the GM style.

But you are saying :

When the roll was failed, I foolishly narrated that the main bomb-maker failed to complete his project in time for the appointed "meet."

No matter how great you word the RULES ultimatly it comes down to the screen-monkey and his take on the situation. As far as I can remember BW has no gradation on failure. Either you manage or you don't. And then it is up to the GM to adjucate and make a ruling.

Is this the mechanic you are thinking about changing?
My emphasis.

[Luke]

Hi Kaare,

Actually, there is a graded failure mechanic. (pp 41-43 of BW.)

As Ron said, in BW (and Sorcerer and ROS, I imagine), sometimes the dice speak. Sometimes the cosmic voices says, "Uh uh." But that doesn't mean play needs to grind to a halt as we all stare and think, "Now what?"

As I said above, I think it simply is a matter of restating the rule of failure as written in order to encourage the game to keep moving, but now in a different direction.

-L

ps No actual play happening in the frozen north?

[Eric Provost]

Hi everyone,

Well I've just recenlty picked up a copy of Burning Wheel, and while I've not had an opportunity to play it yet, overall I like it.

Now, I have a tendancy to miss the real point of some posts... but I really think I've got something here for you.  =)

There were two failures here as I see it.  The failure of the GM to be prepared for the result, and the failure of the BW book to tell the GM to be prepared.

As the GM you shouldn't have ever had to pause the game to think "Now what?"  The results of failure on the part of the players should allways be rattling around in the back of your head.  Especially when the Task at hand is a major dramatic point.  This is the situation where, in my opinion, a really good GM gets to shine.  Indeed, as a GM I often consider to myself "What can go wrong, even if everything goes right?"  I'm not talking about the dysfunctional play of 'screwing' the players, I'm talking about keeping it interesting.

In the bomb example.  Telling the PCs that it's just not ready in time is... well... ok, but not terrific.  That is to say, play should not have ground to a halt because of it.  You could have said:  "Despite your best efforts, the mechanics won't fit together right.  You can feel the time ticking away as the hour draws near, and you really just don't think you'll be able to get it working in time."  Now the PCs should be ready with a backup plan.

But that's not how I would have GMd the situation.  Building a bomb is one of those tasks where I don't like the PCs to know what the dice had to say, untill the scene actually comes up.  So, I'd roll for them and make my notes.  If they failed the construction, I'd probably give them some kind of 'warning', or, better yet, just not give them a good confirmation that the bomb was good.  That is, "Well, you did just manage to get the bomb together in time, and you're pretty sure it'll work, but you know you'll have to be -real- careful with it when you set it in place."  Then, once the appointed time came... fizzle.  "You detonate the bomb and brace yourself for the explosion... but... nothing.  Crickets chirp to mock your failure."

I was going to go on with examples, but I think that'll just clog up my intent here.  The GM must be prepared for the failure of his PCs.  He must be ready at all times to entertain and challenge his players, whether or not they succeed.

You failed to prepare, and the book failed to tell you that you should prepare.

-Eric

[Luke]

Hi Eric, thanks for taking time to chime in.

you said:

...Crickets chirp to mock your failure."

Exactly how is this different from what I did in my game? It's still a dead stall, "now what?" failure.

I've got a proposition --something that's been rattling round my head since this weekend: What if the players fail the roll and they know they've failed, however they've stated their intent and must still carry forward as if everything was ok.

Suddenly you have a situation where the "characters don't know" and are still acting according to the intent stated, but the players know and can then be prepared to react to the scene and drive it in a new direction.

It's a mix of Hitchcockian tension -- he often showed the audience what was going on behind the scenes, but the characters never knew -- and a little bit of rpg scene framing; suddenly the players know that in the next scene, the bomb won't go off. What will they do?

This also avoids the inevitable "You screwed me!" from the players when the GM narrates a failure with no mechanical results visible. And avoids the crushing weight of disappointment that is bound to stall the game at that point.

-Luke