Topic: Can failure be a good thing?

[bpowell]

Musn't of had evasion.

A 1 is a 1.  And the roll for damage was NASTY

[arakish]

Durn.  Miss a couple of days and miss an excellent discussion on Negative XP.  Here is my opinions...

Negative Experience:
RMFRP pg 74.
RMSS pg 126.
The examples in the book are when someone finds a trap, forgets and then stumbles into it anyway. The GM docks them 100xp!

Glad I'm not the only one who just skipped over that part.

I didn't skip over this part, I just ignored it.

Negative XP would only seem to apply if you're forgetting something, not being stupid. . .it seems a poor lever to fix stupid, since the cure for stupid in RM is quite evidently built into the critical and fumble results.

Instead of Negative XP, I just explain to the player that his/her character has forgotten...  If the player is a good player, s/he will play accordingly.  If not, then I impose something appropriately nasty, if necessary.

So it is docking the character because the player messed up?!? Doesn't sound like a good idea to me. As Marc R said, the game already has the punishment built in to it. (At most, I would just increase the effects of the trap - or whatever - to encourage the player to pay more attention.)

<Emphasis mine.>  My method also.  If necessary, I will advise the player that the character "knows" this.

My objection to negative XP is the sheer illogicality of it. You dock the character XP for the player's foolish decision, which makes it take longer for the character to level up and learn more skills... while the only real person involved, the player, probably learned more about how to play his character from that foolish decision than he has from his successes. Even if it wasn't more, it's extremely unlikely that he learned less.

<Emphasis mine.>  Absolute concurence.

I might award negative EXP for the PC above who jumped off the tower just to EXP from the crit.
MDC

I wouldn't.

Nah - leaving him with two broken legs for three game sessions taught him more

But I would do this...

IMHO, there is no such thing as Negative XP.  If anything, I turn it into amnesia, senility, a fugue, etc.  Even a person with the fugue can find themselves capable of performing a skill, just can't remember how they learned it.  I even had one player whose character took an exceptionally bad blow to his head.  Even though he had a helm, the player began playing the character as if he had suffered severe traumatic amnesia through no suggestion of mine.  I thought it was such excellent role playing that I even gave her character an XP bonus as she played the character slowly recovering his memories.  (I know this may seem confusing, but the player was a she and the character was a he.)

And if necessary, I just award the PC no XP if s/he repeats something stupid and do as Cormac Doyle's quote above.

rmfr

[Marc R]

I have done negative XP for brain damage, but in that case, it literally does mean you forgot something. Same for the nasty erosion spells and coming back from the dead after decomposing for a few weeks. I have no problem with loss due to brain damage. . .which is also a good example of "learning from failure". . .

I have had a few amusing incidents where something was "forgotten" due to such, then after a restoration spell, had one PC kill the other PC who'd been tampering with their mind. . .a failure that evil mentalist's player learned from too. (i.e. keep your tampered lackeys away from high level clerics).

[intothatdarkness]

Again, negative XPs are optional, at least in RM2/RMC (Character Law, RMC, p. 121, says that "Negative points can [my italics] be awarded if the GM feels that the actions of a character demonstrate a regression in the learning process" and further states that "ICE feels that these cases should be rare, if they exist at all.") Sure, they give an example, but everything before that example makes it very clear that it's just an option and not a requirement. That's why I never got excited about it.

[Nortti]

I like it hard. Adventures should be challenging. Sometimes even if you do your utmost you still cannot win. IMO even if you die you are still a hero as you tried your best. The games in which I have been playing recently have been too soft on players, but that´s how others like it. I´m joining a new game and I have hopes that its not too easy on players.

[Cory Magel]

The thing is, even if you had just as many "Mission accomplished!" stories, the ones resulting in failure are usually more humorous.

My very first official roll of the dice playing Rolemaster (technically MERP): Pinned my foot to the floor with a heavy crossbow.  Damage, bleeding, stunned for six rounds...

Facing Nazgul (Ring Wraiths) was always fun too.  There was never any question we were going to get killed by it... rather it was if we could accomplish what we were trying to accomplish and still get away with our lives by running like hell.  Have one mildly funny story about them, but it's a little longer.

D&D one of our famous phrases "Taste plate mail!" came from us facing bad odds, me climbing out of harms way, and attacking with various ranged attacks... all of which missed horribly.  The character wasn't a bad shot, I just kept rolling REALLY badly.  In the end I was left with nothing but my shield and we needed to save a party members butt... so as a last resort I jumped on top of my foe while standing on my shield... and fumbled.

Then there was the time when a certain party member who could summon demons decided to use the spell that had less than a 5% chance (he had to roll on the higher side of open ended) of summoning one he couldn't control (a 'named' demon).  When he rolled and calmly said "Uh oh" with a slight grin on his face the entire party immediately dove for the nearest exit (doors, windows, whatever) of the tavern we were fighting in, leaving the enemy party (essentially a NPC adventure party hired to kill us) wondering what the hell we were doing since we were getting the best of them at the moment.  We fled the town as a storm developed over it and didn't look back.  Some days later we heard a story about a nearby town that had been leveled by a demon.  (Ironically this campaign centered around a "plague of demons" that was causing trouble in the desert).

[dutch206]

Mythbusters motto:  "Failure is always an option".
 

[RandalThor]

(I know this may seem confusing, but the player was a she and the character was a he.)

*shrug* That's just the nature of the hobby.

I can totally see taking a character back a couple of levels due to amnesia, but sometimes it isn't as "neat" as that; they may miss certain things during the time forgotten, but remember and/or still be able to do other things from that time.

Of course, that is not what the question was about, it was about a Player continuing to do the "wrong" thing even when confronted with information/evidence that they are doing the "wrong" thing. (Wrong is in quotes because it can be a nebulous term in RP-ing.) To me, that is just poor role-playing and something to be discouraged, both in-game and out of game. Talking to them first is best, then if they still don't get it, have in-game repercussions, which seem to be the only way some Players learn.