Topic: Can failure be a good thing?

[Marc R]

Depends on the situation, and how your crew works, some players would go nuclear to lose a character to a no RR, no attack roll "yer dead, now roll a new character" result.

Not that I haven't done it, but it's not an ideal choice in all situations.

You make very good points.  My very first gaming exp was Dec of 1980, right before xmas break.  I was in 6th grade.  The game was Tunnels and trolls, a mini course taught by the 7th grade science teacher (Mrs Plakke, one cool adult/chick).  Our first day of class (mini courses were tues-fri for two weeks, then start a new one, etc, throughout the school year, 7th hour) we formed groups and made characters after picking who would be the GM at each table.

A group of DnD kids formed in the corner, but the rest of us were gamer virgins.  I made a dwarf warrior, Thorid Zad (the first of MANY incarnations, ending in Thorid the VI, killed by xbow bolt...ALL my thorids died).  Next day, gear bought, weapons in hand, our group entered THE DUNGEON OF THE BEAR.

After haggling down the door guard to 5gp just to get in, we started down a slopeing floor.  CLICK, and a bolder, ala Raiders of the lost ark (but BEFORE that movie had come out, thank you Bear Peters), started rolling down the slope towards us.  I wasn't sophisticated enough to be angry over the elves high dex, or the fairies ability to fly versus thorid low speed stat...splat!  Thorid was dead before he ever lived.  Let me tell ya...I WAS INSTANTLY HOOKED.  No B.S.  No monopoly esque long painful death ending in bankruptcy, just FINALITY.

I took a book home, learned the game, ran it like mad for about a year, until that summer I found othetr games, but it was RQ that would suck me in.  Them RM.  Each a game with finality written right into the rules.

That is how I like it.

I've always liked adversity, the harder it is to get something done often the more satisfying the result it (not always, but to a point).

But considering your post above, I realize that a lot of the stories we tell now, 10+ years later, are stories of in game failure.

While there are some "Remember when you killed that lich?" there are a lot of "Remember when your character broke both his arms, then tried to extract the glowing magic crystal from the wall sconce using his mouth, you slipped and ended up hung from the wall like a gigged fish?"

Sometimes failing ends up being the best stuff, though some people just hate failing ever (those kinds of people tend not to be a lot of fun to be around IMO).

[intothatdarkness]

I tend to agree. One of my players was razzed for years about a series of failed perception rolls that led his Dwarf to insist that the party was being followed by a bear which turned out to be nothing more than a scared possum. The same character later misidentified a rock outcropping as obsidian and refused to be persuaded otherwise. And then there was the guy who foiled a perfect ambush by peeking through the door to the hotel swimming pool area and then ducking back down. No...nothing at all suspicious about that when the party's target was a paranoid drug trafficker...

[yammahoper]

I tend to agree also.  It is the failures that flavor the success, making it so satisfying.

Epic battle between party and giants in very early RM (we converted from MERP to RM1).  Rohirim fighter Solon is climbing cliff face, fumbles climbing roll, falls 60' and breaks a leg badly.  Now, Solon had a Giant Slaying Sword that he NEVER had a chance to use against giants.  He climbs back up the 60' cliff and fights the giants at a -90 to activity, killing one (leaving one because the other giant had snatched up the nightblade and ran back to the cave, rolled the rock shut, scewerd the nightblade and started to roast him).  Alashieve and comes out of long stun no parry, the mage fee was badly hurt from a thrown horse that smacked the bejesus out of him...by the time Solon and Al drop the last giant (he turned and ran but was forced to fight before the bolder), the party was forced to listen to the last screams of the nightblade as his sweet elven flesh was roasted alive...the group COULD NOT MOVE THE BOLDER.  Once healed they did move the bolder...the giant never got a swing off.  The players, when we manage to get together, still talk about that encounter (the other two PC's, a wose and a numenorean, never got in a swing as the giants took em out with rocks as the group rushed up the cliff face).  It was their first encounter ever with giants and they learned some respect that day.

The iron heart affair previously mentioned began with the Druid, who would eventually read the scroll (and be the only survivor) broke his leg/hip trying to climb over a fence.  When the party had killed the bad guys and freed the prisoners, they dragged everything out of the stuffy nasty smelling basement into the front yard...were the druid killed everybody, even those just rescued.  The druid reported back to town, and that character took a vow to NEVER use a scroll again.  The vow was kept, and became on of Alonzos most successful character ever (certainly our most successful druid ever).  I recall hearing a few times how the new group never would have joined the druids quest if had told the truth about the cursed scroll and how he killed all his team mates.

TPK failures are drastic.  Yet failure makes success so much sweeter.  Still, pointless death is only acceptable if its REALLY pointless; then its funny and unforgettable.

[jdale]

Without believing failure is possible, success is meaningless. Your success just depends on how generous the GM is feeling.

Without actual failures, the belief in the possibility of failure will be lost.

I don't know that the failure itself is that interesting. I think it's more what you do after the failure. The reaction and, perhaps, the recovery.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Yeah, that. If failure carries no price, victory has no savor.

...was razzed for years about a series of failed perception rolls that led his Dwarf to insist that the party was being followed by a bear which turned out to be nothing more than a scared possum.

Which reminds me of the failed perception roll where one of the Privates in the squad sees a large, reptilian looking footprint 15 or 20 feet away and thinks, "Hah! Mr. know it all spellcaster Corporal thinks these guys didn't have any heavy backup. Wait til I show him this wyvern or young dragon or whatever it is footprint. I'm gonna razz him about it for weeks!"

He had just enough time to make a bit of a fool of himself before the Corporal showed up and said, "It's a fossil, Private. It's probably been there a million years."

 

[bpowell]

One game a few years back I was rolling for random encounters at night.  I came up with nothing.  I mentioned a shadow passed over the camp, and was about to tell then it was a cloud passing overhead and blocking the moon.  But the party member thought it might be a flying beast.  They spend the next 4 game hours tracking it.

I, of course, let The Shadow lead them to the next major encounter.  To this day my wife swears here is a semi transparent flying creature that haunts the nights of my world.  Some day I need to create the monster so she can kill it.

The thing is all of the bad rolls (they were not over a 10, and the worse was in the -50 range), cause then to believe that there was something there.  This turned into fear as I kept insisting that they found nothing.  Then another poor roll and my smile and shaking my head, "No nothing is there.  But over there is that a Shadow?"  They all were and still are convinced they missed something that day and have spend many a game-week crossing and crisscrossing the area looking for the beast.

Because they have done things like researching this in the library of every city they have come to it has produced experience.  So in effect failure has taught them something.

Of course, as I have found out racing motorcycle....pain is the best teacher.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Well I will admit that sometimes they never, ever seem to get it. There was a kid (teenager) who played in one of my games for maybe 2 years, and got to where any time it was foggy he was sure we were about to be attacked. He was absolutely certain that fog was theatrics, with no real purpose in the game other than to provide cover for monsters.

The idea that we were in mountains in a temperate climate, that fog and rain in late spring is common as dirt... that one just never occurred to him. The idea that for an intelligent monster looking for an opportunity to raid would know that and use it to his advantage, to fail to do so would be out of character.... that idea never seemed to make it into his head.

Over 2 years (real world time, perhaps 8-10 years game time), he seemed completely unable to work the logic backwards, to consider the idea that instead of the monster being a given and me using fog to give it an advantage, the fog was a given in a particular area at a particular time of year, and the monster would use it to his advantage.

He never seemed to notice all the times it was foggy and no one got attacked... even after one night when the mage face-planted into a tower because he was flying in the fog.

[markc]

 IMHO yes failure is a great thing ... if someone can learn from it.
MDC 

[GrumpyOldFart]

IMO, even if they don't learn anything from it, I stand by my original statement:

If failure carries no price, victory has no savor.

[bpowell]

Players can learn.  point in question.  I was running a game in "The System That Shall Not Be Named (tm)" and I was looking to give them a reason to run from a monster.  The average level of the party was 15, I then saw a CR32 creature...the Flesh Jelly.  Think of a disgusting jellyfish type creature made of rotting flesh.  The party attacked, as I knew they would.  They were pushed back by the stench and the like.

As they regrouped it was noted that the Barbarian was not affected by the smell.  The cleric then looked at him and asked if he would accept a spell by not resisting.  The Barbarian agreed and the cleric cast "Frenzy"  to bump up all kinds of physical attributes while lowered  mental ones.  (Like who cares with a Barbarian).  The downside was that the character would attack until he was able to control himself, but the mental faculties were impaired.

Needless to say the creature rolled right over him.  I move the time I was using as a marker of the creature on and left a small six sided elongated die behind it.  The players all asked what that was.  I then took the character sheet for the Barbarian and listed all of the non-digestible items on it.  Much laughter ensued.  But the Party learned to not attack everything in their path.

To this day the phrase "Do you resist?"  is used when the encounter looks too tough.

[markc]

IMO, even if they don't learn anything from it, I stand by my original statement:

If failure carries no price, victory has no savor.

 I agree fully.
MDC

[markc]

Players can learn.  point in question.  I was running a game in "The System That Shall Not Be Named (tm)" and I was looking to give them a reason to run from a monster.  The average level of the party was 15, I then saw a CR32 creature...the Flesh Jelly.  Think of a disgusting jellyfish type creature made of rotting flesh.  The party attacked, as I knew they would.  They were pushed back by the stench and the like.

As they regrouped it was noted that the Barbarian was not affected by the smell.  The cleric then looked at him and asked if he would accept a spell by not resisting.  The Barbarian agreed and the cleric cast "Frenzy"  to bump up all kinds of physical attributes while lowered  mental ones.  (Like who cares with a Barbarian).  The downside was that the character would attack until he was able to control himself, but the mental faculties were impaired.

Needless to say the creature rolled right over him.  I move the time I was using as a marker of the creature on and left a small six sided elongated die behind it.  The players all asked what that was.  I then took the character sheet for the Barbarian and listed all of the non-digestible items on it.  Much laughter ensued.  But the Party learned to not attack everything in their path.

To this day the phrase "Do you resist?"  is used when the encounter looks too tough.

 Great story!
MDC

[Marc R]

Heh "Do you resist" is asked every time someone casts a spell on a PC, to be consistent for when it really matters.

A more popular mockery of failure for us is usually "What are the odds?"

Great story BTW.

[yammahoper]

Fog and flesh monsters...great stuff.  laugh points around! 

More stories of failure please.  Fun reading.

[GrumpyOldFart]

That same teenager got razzed mercilessly for a failure to grasp the basics of roleplay as it applies to the GM. His thing about fog was really just a symptom of his failure to get the idea that I was trying to come up with an inherently logical scenario, and while the idea of challenging the PCs was built into it, it was entirely possible to bypass any given element. He was convinced that "no matter what we do, he's gonna get us anyway, so it doesn't really matter."

He got a lesson in how flawed that premise was in the session where the mage (warrior mage, actually) face-planted into the tower. After the guy got back to camp and healed up a bit, the next morning they went looking for that tower. It was attached to a larger building, and the corner tower was the only part of it more than one story high. They found the structure and started investigating, and the bottom floor was a typical dwelling, abandoned. The only thing out of the ordinary was the door in the corner which led to the tower. It had some sort of drawing on it, which unbeknownst to him was a lightning bolt trap, set to go off when anyone besides the caster who emplaced it turned the doorknob.

The warrior mage was all for going out into the woods and finding some small animal, wrapping a rope or belt or some such around the doorknob, and twisting the knob just as the small animal was tossed in front of it. Did the rogue listen to the guy who knew something about spells? No. Why not?

"If he wants to get us he's gonna get us, there's nothing we can do about it."

That may not be precisely verbatim (it's been nearly 20 years ago after all), but it's pretty close. So since "it doesn't matter, he's gonna get us anyway", he went to the door, grabbed the knob and twisted.

He lived... but he was pretty badly injured. The downrange part of the bolt missed the warrior mage, who was standing in the entry doorway to the dwelling, by under a foot.

For months after that, the player of the warrior mage (his older brother) got endless mileage out of the phrase, "Grab the doorknob! Grab the doorknob!" Whether there actually was a doorknob was beside the point entirely.

GM: "You see a cave."

Warrior Mage (to the rogue): "Grab the doorknob! Grab the doorknob!"

 

[intothatdarkness]

We had one player who made a living out of picking off other people's kills. He'd hold back in a fight and then try to run in and deliver the killing blow. Sometimes this worked, but during one encounter the party ran into a group of chaos warriors led by a single chaos commander. In the ensuing melee this player held back until the moment the party's main fighter (a Dwarf) managed to disarm the chaos commander. Sensing a quick kill, our guy ran into the fight and attacked. For those of you who haven't seen the RMC I chaos commander, that NPC has a nasty OB in martial arts. So the chaos commander turns to the player rogue, smiles, and unleashes a snap kick that sends him back ten feet and into a coma! So much for the best-laid plans... After that, poor plans tended to be mocked by comments like "Yeah...let's just disarm that chaos commander. It'll be SOOOOO much easier."

In another encounter, we had a player who was brand-new to gaming. He'd developed a barbarian, read all my world's background stuff on his race, and was very proud of how he'd developed his name and all the other bits. The party was moving through an unexplored stretch of woods and came across an old keep in disrepair. Sensing an opportunity, they moved in and tried to determine how easy it would be to repair (stronghold, anyone?) without considering that someone else might have the same idea. When they were attacked by a party of Orcs, the barbarian grabs up his gear and rushes to the wall to do battle. Only then does he realize that he never developed a skill for the weapon his character used (axe). This kid was pretty quick on his feet, though, and he looked around and found some rubble. "Can I throw rocks?" he asked. "Sure," I said. "Use your AG as your OB." Not quite by the book, I know, but I didn't want to penalize him for coming up with a good idea. So he's up on the wall, this 6'4" red-haired barbarian, tossing chunks of rubble down at the Orcs and screaming at them in his native language. He even managed to hit one or two of them. After that, the party made sure he had a supply of rocks in his pack, and from time to time he'd use them in combat in preference to his normal weapon.

Not deadly failures, but still interesting situations that our party didn't forget.

[Cormac Doyle]

In our first run through the original Herubar Gular (the default adventure in the MERP box), there were a couple of players ... me (a rohirrim ranger), a dunedain fighter, a hobbit thief, and an elf mage.

We came to the top of the trapped stairs. The mage looked at the inscription (failed his Read Runes role) and said - "it's trapped ... but I need more time".
The hobbit thief says "I can't see any traps ..."
So the Dunedain picks him up and tosses him down the stairs.

As the GM, I ruled that he missed the trapped stair, and so told the Dunedain that he got to the bottom of the stairs without triggering anything ... but appeared to be stunned/unconscious from the fall (from what they could make out in the spluttering torch light). Grinning, the dunedain nonchalantly walks down the stairs (while the ranger fumbled in his pack for herbs), and is greatly surprised when he is hit with the fireball !!

(later, the same Dunedain decided that he needed to level up, but needed another 500 exp ... so he climbed to the top of the tower and jumped off ... figuring that the D fall/crush critical would level him up and heal the damage. I left him with a broken leg for three weeks in-game I also dumped the default RM experience system that day and never looked back!

[yammahoper]

So the Dunedain picks him up and tosses him down the stairs.

Bwahahahahaha.   

I think we have the same players at one time or another.

[Marc R]

Jumping off a tower for XP I'd never heard of before, though I have known people to be a bit rough in practice combat using that logic that Damage is XP, and the cleric is right over there watching us spar.

Which spawned the comment "If I don't break some of your bones sparring, you're never going to learn."

[GrumpyOldFart]

Which spawned the comment "If I don't break some of your bones sparring, you're never going to learn."

While that's definitely over the top, I was taught shield defense by someone who told me, "If I put a bruise in the same spot on that leg 3 times running, I bet I won't have to remind you to guard that leg anymore."

And in fairness, sure enough, he didn't.