Fun With Failure
By The Warden
There’s an inevitability in every RPG we play, though we never want to talk about it. Failure. For every possibility of success, there’s a chance of failure and while our goal is to succeed on our actions and dice rolls, we have to accept there are still odds we’ll roll poorly and end the turn on a low note.
It amazes me how foul a topic this is to many gamers and how much trouble we go through to ensure it never happens. Yet isn’t that one of the aspects of gaming which makes it great? The risk needed to obtain the reward? If our success was always guaranteed, why bother rolling dice in the first place?
The strange thing about failure is that while it’s an essential element to every game, roleplaying games barely touch on the subject as a tool for storytelling, character development, and action. Aside from the critical failure rule common in many games (typically presented as rolling the lowest number on the action die), the emphasis of every game is placed on the benefits of succeeding. Rolling a natural 20 on a d20 and not only do you hit your target, but you do so with such ferocity to split its head open down the middle and cause extraordinary damage. While there have been some optional rules for interesting consequences to failure, these are voluntary ideas taken on by more experienced groups looking for something fun to break the monotony of their ongoing campaign. The core rules of most roleplaying games pretty much ignore the role of failure.
Skills are perhaps the closest design element in a RPG accounting for failure. Many skills provide various difficulty number, modifiers, and/or circumstances in which a skill roll or action is required in an attempt to complete successfully, such as jumping from one rooftop to another. In this case, the result of failure is clearly listed and it never looks good for the PC and almost always resulting in a punishment involving damage. Well, no wonder no one likes failure. It’s human nature to learn not to try something if it causes pain. That’s not to say such consequences are not appropriate – they definitely make sense to the attempted objective – but they’re the standard result across the board. What I’m talking about today is making failure an enjoyable feature of the game, not an enemy.
(As always, there are exceptions to the rules, which are what I love about working on this column and roleplaying games in general. Off the top of my head, the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game allows players to gain Plot Points if you roll multiple 1s on any of your dice and the Watcher decides to step up a single Doom Dice. From there, you can use the Plot Point to take greater control of a scene, boost your powers, and more.)
From a mechanical standpoint, it seems like a goldmine for new RPGs to branch away from other long-standing systems and create a fluid game of ups and downs working in tandem with the roll of the dice. When games treat failed results as nothing more than failure – an embarrassment, or a waste of a turn made against the highly successful, high damaging rolls of your allies – it’s no wonder players despise failure. It’s equivalent of showing up to football practice and having the ball slip out of your hands when attempting to throw it to another player. It seems to some players the concept of their powerful heroes failing at something in which they excel to be a legion of humiliation and I’ve often wondered if that’s why some of the more mathematical players obsess over probability in their favorite games – to ensure they stand a good chance of succeeding. I’ve played at the table with some people who never bothered to even attempt certain actions because the odds of failure were slightly greater than succeeding and, to me, that seems to defeat the object of any game or being the noble, valiant protector of the people they’re making themselves out to be.
GAMEMASTER OPPORTUNITIES
While players may cringe at the thought of failure (and there may be no going around it), perhaps our focus should instead fall on those who call the shots on the rules and the world in which those players interact. It makes sense, really, because it is the Gamemaster who is the icon of a game’s success at the table as much as it is the rulebook from which everything arises. You could have the greatest script, but a horrible director destroys the film… Michael Bay! (Ahem) Sorry.
If anyone sits in the best position to take advantage of failure and use it as a tool to enhance the game, it’s definitely the Gamemaster. Even if such advantages are nothing more than unexpected alterations to typical outcomes without any mechanical benefits, it demonstrates a willingness and ability to adapt to any situation, good or bad. From there, maybe the players can learn to follow suit and not fear the dreaded natural 1 quite so much.
Many of these suggestions come from numerous sources gained from Twitter (as the discussion came up recently and many excellent ideas were tossed about) or personal experience from my own games and while they may not be mechanical in nature, their need or introduction does comes from technical aspects of the game. Meaning that the only reason we’re talking about it is because of a gap in the mechanical design of most RPGs requiring a random resolution system such as dice rolling. As with everything else ever discussed about any topic involving any RPG, you may not find these three pieces of advice useful, but they may provide you with inspiration to try something of your own creation.
FAILURE DOES NOT ALWAYS EQUAL SCREWING UP
The biggest non-combat example is climbing a wall. If you fail the roll, you fall. Some RPGs require you to fail by a certain amount (5 or more), otherwise, you simply cannot climb any further, but either case insinuates the fault lies with the character for being unable to complete the task. Why shouldn’t it be? It does make sense, climbing a wall is generally a solitary task, but there are numerous factors involved than just the climber.
Perhaps a brick is loose and gives way when the climber puts weight on it, sending him tumbling downwards and struggling to avoid going splat on the pavement 50’ below. Or perhaps just as the climber is about to ascend, a figure opens a window directly above and begins fanning out dusty sheets or lights up a cigarette, making it ill advised for the climber to continue. This last option is always a favorite of mine because it forces the climber to deal with a situation outside of their climbing ability and provides opportunity for those non-climbers forced to climb a wall to help out their allies in some other way. More importantly, it allows Gamemasters a chance to stretch their minds and think up events outside of the box without falling (pun intended) back on the same consequences every time.
WEAPON MALFUNCTION
Old-school games delighted in having a weapon break on a natural 1 (my entire high school gaming career was built off the premise that you couldn’t find a decent weaponsmith anywhere who could forge a weapon capable of surviving at least 3 fights) and while this rule may have drifted to the wayside over the last decade or so, there’s no reason why it can’t make a return with a few modifications.
Melee weapons can slip out of your hand, firearms jam, arrows are knocked out of the quiver, and a quick jab to the elbow can cause your arm to temporarily go limp. Any of these are unfortunate situations that can be quickly resolved or last only until the end of the fight. Or, at the very least, they force characters to handle the situation differently than they have been for the last four sessions (something I’m sure many Gamemasters can appreciate). As great as it is to push with your best foot forward, great characters can win regardless of what they wield. Ask yourself, is it my character or my weapon that makes them formidable?
PLAYER CONTROLLED FAILURE
Do you let your players describe their action when they succeed? How about when they fail? How bad could a failed roll be if you get to choose your own fate? It’s like the saying goes, “How do you know you’re afraid of heights unless you climb?”
Many recent roleplaying games – particular story games – relish in handing over temporary control of the game’s outcome to the players as an extension of the power given to random dice rolls. While such control is typically assigned to players to provide details of exactly how awesome they are, the same can work just as well when they fail. The first reaction I’ve often heard to this suggestion is that players will never allow their precious characters to truly “fail” in this format, only miss their objective by a fraction of an inch and remain heroic in doing so. But they still fail, right?
If the biggest dread of failure in RPGs is the lack of control players have over the outcome in failure, handing over that control removes that stigma and allows players to maintain the vision of their character in the same way as they conquer. Certain conditions may be enforced on player controlled failures (for example, rolling a natural 1 requires the player to incorporate suffering a condition of their choice or the elimination of a particular weapon/tool/device used in the failed roll), but this delivery can be an effective means of players learning to embrace those dreaded failures.
THERE IS NO FAILURE, ONLY CHALLENGES
If there’s one thing about the quests, missions, and jobs our characters undertake in our roleplaying campaigns, it’s that we’ll always have another chance to do better than before. Failure in any game is what makes it such an interesting challenge and to fear the risk of failure is to fear the unexpected and find yourself unprepared for it. Would you enjoy playing these games if your success was guaranteed? Likely not. By accepting the role failure plays in every game and learning to embrace it as part of the roleplaying experience, we can make these moments opportunities to stretch our imagination just a bit further to create some of the best sessions we’ve ever played.
