Topic: Can failure be a good thing?

[yammahoper]

On weird xp...I was a guest at a 2e campaign.  As usual I was a fighter (Paladins and cavaliers were my fav, but the GM stated I would want a Chaotic AL).

Anyway, long fight, the gust NPC tough guy was badly hurt.  The cleric ask how many HP left, to which the GM responded two.  The cleric went to heal him but cast wounding instead, killing him..for the xp!  This was a 12th level druid after all.  So then the cleric RAISES THE DRUID NPC and convinces him all is in balance, cuz while he did kill him, he also raised him.  That stupid GM gave full xp AND a bonus for raising him (the cleric was NE I believe).

There ARE so many reasons to hate alignments.

[Marc R]

The half truth, half crazy is what made it all funny.

[Usdrothek]

After a character death, the party (needing an in game reason to find a new member) was recruiting potential replacements. The new character steps up and after being asked, "so what can you do well?", he replies "I'm an expert archer."

New PC fronts up to a makeshift archery target and readies his bow, fumbles and breaks his bow and stuns himself badly. The party give each other concerned looks, but giving him the benefit of the doubt, allow another shot. New character readies his restrung bow....and fumbles again. The GM was nice and said there were no other applicants, so the new guy was hired.....but on a very low wage.

Later party was out on a mission and was welcomed by the local chief and offered hospitality and some beer. Knowing that we could be called to action with short notice, the charcter drank moderately, with the exception of the 'new guy'. The party's leader cautioned him about drinking too much but was told in a rather surly way that 'I can handle it.' Soon we heard of local raiders and mounted our horses to ride off. 'New Guy' fumbled his ride roll, fell off the horse and broke his arm.

He was resoundingly admonished for his drinking and fined a weeks pay. Any further claims of ability this character had were looked on with a strong degree of skeptisicm.

[TerryTee]

Well, the attack roll was successful, but the tactic had some flaws:
MK 5 Extended Range Plasma grenade in a (smaller than he thought) underground bunker.
Only half the party died, so it was not a complete failure;-)
-Terry

[bpowell]

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.

A group formed up and the person playing the thief dropped out.  The module the GM was running was very trap heavy.  We were having issues.  Since we were first level payers we could not just have someone pick up the ability to detect traps.  We came on a long hall and just "knew" there were traps in the hall.  My half-orc Paladin (yeah, that kind of campaign) had a brilliant idea.  He went back grabbed the corpse of the Dire Rat they just defeated.  He slid it down the hall and set off a trap.  The Dire Rat became the "Trap Detector" until my wife (then fiance) joined the game and ran the Thief.  (A hobbit thief who had two ponies, Apple and Cake, one to ride and one for Tasty Rations).  We ended up naming the Dire Rat corpse "Stumpy".  That character is now 20th Level and still carries "Stumpy IV".

The only down thing is we all go to gaming conventions together.  The bad thing is there are only 5 of us, so some poor soul fills out the table.  Invariably,  one of the girls will use the phrase, "Man, I could use a Stumpy now!"  Boy, do we get strange looks!

[arakish]

For my answer to the question, I'll state something my father always told me.

"It is only from our mistakes and failures that we actually learn something.  And only fools do not learn from their mistakes and failures."

I have found that is true, even with the wild stories posted.

rmfr

[GrumpyOldFart]

Or for that matter, a good answer to the posted topic is something I have heard as one of "Murphy's Laws of Combat":

Experience is something you get just after you need it. 

[bpowell]

Or for that matter, a good answer to the posted topic is something I have heard as one of "Murphy's Laws of Combat":

Experience is something you get just after you need it. 

Unfortunately, I find that is SOOOO true in RL also

[Marc R]

The one variance here is that it's a game, so you learn from the mistakes you don't survive also.

That and it's for fun, so sometimes learning or not, failure can be hysterical.

Like, a fighter I know dove off a ledge, flying toward a major demon with a Fly I ring. . . .put put put put. . .Fly one doesn't really let you swoop in, so it was sort of like he allowed the demon to play slow motion softball with him . . .the fact he had four 1-quart glass jugs of super acid in his backpack just meant he got immolated by it's fire aura, swatted into a wall, where he slowly dissolved from the backpack out.

He learned from that mistake, but we still laugh about it.

[yammahoper]

Not an rpg moment but...LANing Ghost Recon.  Five of us in crouch mode sneaking through the office up to the door..  Crack it open and see lots of badies.  "I'll throw a grenade, fall back..."  Except we all forgot we were in crouch mode.  TPK.  It took a few minutes before resuming play we were laughing so hard.

[munchy]

Magician: "I cast a fire ball!"
GM: "You are in the middle of sewers of the city ... there is a lot of gas around ..."
Magician: "Can I centre the ball on the leader of the party?"
GM: "...ehm ... well ... yeah ..."
Magician: "I cast my fireball!"

The GM was nice and we all survived ... naked, however, all gear became victim to the flames ... except the boots which luckily were submerged in the sewers' liquids.
A fun moment we all liked to remember!

[GrumpyOldFart]

Brings a whole new skid to "up.... um, the creek."

[mocking bird]

These are too funny.  If you know you are a redneck if your last words are 'hey buddy watch this', does that make you a redneck geek if the last words your characters is is the GM going 'you do what?'

For example playing an AD&D module we are being attacked by a swarm of norkers.  Thief decides to hide behind a corner passage way to let them go by and attack them from the rear.  Unfortunately this is where the mountain giant would enter the room the next round.  Scratch one thief.  There is a trap door on the floor which the cleric says 'I stand on it to keep it down.' which gets lots of perplexing stares from the rest of the party.  Next round he is knocked flat as the trapdoor flies open as the norkers start coming up.  So the cleric gets the idea then to levitate up 20' or so before getting overrun and use spiritual hammer.  Which worked great for a round before the norker shaman dispelled the flight spell.  He was then on known as the falling cleric.

But my favorite happened to one annoying player with a real annoying character who decied a good place to be protected from a red dragon swooping in about to breathe was in his bag of holding - that is made of phase spider silk.

[GrumpyOldFart]

These are too funny.  If you know you are a redneck if your last words are 'hey buddy watch this', does that make you a redneck geek if the last words your characters is is the GM going 'you do what?'

I guess that makes me a redneck nerd then, since my sig line on another site is:

Aliquando et insanire iucundum est.

Yes, even in Caesar's time, people said,

"Hold my beer and watch this!"

I think the bottom line on the topic of failure is that not only is the occasional failure a good thing, indeed the occasional failure is vital.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Invariably,  one of the girls will use the phrase, "Man, I could use a Stumpy now!"  Boy, do we get strange looks!

A player of mine once had a rabbit he named Teebie.... short for "Trap Bait".

 

[RandalThor]

This thread has definitely turned to the funny.

I have wondered for a long time now how to institute the "learning while failing" concept - as apparently, it is how we learn best, but with no luck. Anyone else work on and figure this out?

[providence13]

I haven't figure it out, but I never liked the RM concept of negative experience.
You're already going to get penalized by screwing up, why hurt them again by -xp?

Players are in a huge cavern, home of a Drow city; pop ~9,000.
The natives have had over 1,000yrs to magically ward the place with major access to 20th lvl casters and some access to higher lvl magics.
  If you try to translocate (Teleport), you take an A Disruption crit. Sure you get an RR, but what you fail by is added to the crit.
With that much time an access to magic, the city is fairly protected from an army popping in, wreaking in and popping out.
Our friendly neighborhood Mage takes his chances and Teleports about 3 times before he gives up... Even the most stubborn players can learn.

[RandalThor]

I haven't figure it out, but I never liked the RM concept of negative experience.
You're already going to get penalized by screwing up, why hurt them again by -xp?

I don't think I have heard of "negative xp" outside of an undead's ability to suck the life out of you, and that was in D&D. I know I never had to deal with it as either a player or GM of Rolemaster. Oh, and the occasional resurrection/reincarnation causing level loss. But that was also in D&D.

[thirqual]

The very first time I GMed Rolemaster (which was also the very first time any of us where playing the game), the very first action taken by a player required a riding skill roll, which he fumbled. He thus fell from his horse, and ended up knocked out for several hours, because, lucky him, he had a helmet.

The player helped me with the table look-ups (and had some weird prophetic dreams during his coma while the rest of the group was talking about what to do next), and though it was great.

[yammahoper]

The very first time I GMed Rolemaster (which was also the very first time any of us where playing the game), the very first action taken by a player required a riding skill roll, which he fumbled. He thus fell from his horse, and ended up knocked out for several hours, because, lucky him, he had a helmet.

The player helped me with the table look-ups (and had some weird prophetic dreams during his coma while the rest of the group was talking about what to do next), and though it was great.

RM skill resolution and danage system has a nice way of often contributing to an organic story line.  Major props for throwing in a vision.  It not only advances the story but turns a bad situation into a cool situation, coma and all.