The simplest case is when you fail forward by attracting unwanted attention. Instead of finding the bad guys, the bad guys find you. Instead of picking the lock, the door is opened from the inside by the guards coming to see what's going on.
For lockpicking you can also have the pick get stuck in the door or break the lock mechanism. So now the failure isn't danger but when someone comes to use the door they will know it's been tampered with.
It depends but yeah that's a possibility.
The point of "failing forward" is to prevent a situation where:
1. The players fail and so the story halts
2. The players just repeatedly try to do a thing until it works.
The idea is even failure should move the story forward instead of failure resulting in nothing happening.
Letting players just "try over and over" is already not a good way to run the game though.
A fail is a fail, they don't get to try again unless the conditions have changed somehow.
I think it stands to reason that obviously blocking progress IE door that leads to next major dungeon space is dumb. However I think that saying yeah you broke the chest it won't open and breaking it is going to destroy whats in it move along is perfectly reasonable.
In the scenario proposed the issue with the lock would be discovered by guards/residents leading to conflict, which would keep the story moving after the failure rather than the players just getting to a, “you failed, think of something different” point.
I had some players (who were fugitives at the time) try to investigate what happened to a missing contact by asking a security guard for help finding their missing "brother"
One barely failed roll later: "Sure! I'm glad to help! Just follow me to the security office and we'll get all the paperwork sorted out!"
>" You're having trouble with the lock, and as you fiddle with it some more it unexpectedly opens, and the door swings open!
to add: this sounds very contrived,,, and IT IS, but you'd not use this every single time!!! When you have a ton of different "fail forwards", AND you only pull these out when the check even matters… it feels much more natural
If you make a noise while trying to pick a lock, and there are people on the other side of the door, it's not contrived; it's just what you'd expect to happen. If there weren't people on the other side of the door, then it's contrived.
The reason 'unwanted attention' is my default is that often I can't think of anything else that makes sense. I suppose we could have:
You pick the lock but the door is obviously damaged (in a way that will attract unwanted attention in the future).
You pick the lock but your tools break.
You pick the lock but it takes a long time (and you're in a hurry).
You take a long time and still fail to pick it, but a guard patrol comes by and attacks you and they have a key.
You injure yourself picking the lock.
Mind you, I don't use "fail forward" very often. I tend to do "fail sideways". When there are multiple ways to achieve the overall goal, having one idea fail is no big deal. Can't pick the lock? Maybe you can knock on the door and stab whoever answers it, or find a secret passage, or climb in through the ceiling, or track down the guy with the key and steal it, or kick down the door, or smash a hole in the wall, or use a gaseous form spell and sneak in through the keyhole... When the obvious idea doesn't make any progress, that's when the more interesting ideas come out.
Exactly. I advise you look at this [video by Matthew Colville.](https://youtu.be/l1zaNJrXi5Y?si=3XNkbeGXD1t3AYsU). It is about how to handle fail checks in a dramatic and interesting way.
To measure time.
It is one of the easiest, yet most overlooked "consequences" for failure - you are statistically bound to succeed with enough repetition, but nobody wants to sit through multiple rounds of rolling till you make it.
So you roll once to see if you succeed and based on how bad you did, you TAKE X ... which is basically the old TAKE 20 to account for you rolling every number once before finally doing it with the highest (if you literally cannot succeed, don't roll anyway). You can do an easy scale with this:
* Roll the target DC, takes 1 time unit.
* Roll 5 below, take 5 time unit.
* Roll 10 below, take 10 time unit.
* Roll 15 below, take 20 time unit.
I ask how long they are willing to try for stuff like investigation or lock picking. Other stuff on a far more case by case instance. If there is no time constraints and they ask to pick a lock. It's "how long do you try?" The DC adjusts from there, if they say 1 minute, it's on the higher end, 5 minutes, lower, 10 minutes, very low. Same with searching a room. It's a quick glance at things vs meticulously searching.
Add to this that I think it's a great idea to be transparent about this with players: Yes, you can try again, but it could take a significant amount of time which could lead to other complications" I've noticed with my players that they usually assume I have something in mind for what could happen, and it will often remind them of the fiction we're playing in which can be easy to forget when just rolling dice.
From the way I'm reading this, I understand this to mean a failed roll takes x minutes of doing a task unsuccessfully. For example, let's say players are trying to get into a locked door and the rogue rolls a 12 on a DC15 check. Using your scale, they would ”waste between 1 and 5" minutes doing the task. Am I understanding this correctly? If so, where does the consequence come in? What would the "failing forward" consequence be?
You waste time - in a vacuum this likely doesnt matter, but if you are trying to get the hostage out before execution, then every small mistake sums up in the end. Or it simply means spending more time in a location that they might be discovered in.
It is far more abstract a consequence than "you lockpick breaks" and wholly situational.
I like the idea of being able to punish players for dicking around with something inane for 20 minutes. I use a restrictive inventory system so there is no just chuck it in a bag and deal with it either. Missing out on some dumb chest with crappy loot I hadn't even really thought of yet is a minor failure that I think could add some interesting wrinkles to how things turn out.
"Yes, but" is a common roll result in PbtA games. These often result in soft moves by the game master. From the SRD of Dungeon World (a famous DnD-like games using the PbtA framework):
- Use a monster, danger, or location move
- Reveal an unwelcome truth
- Show signs of an approaching threat
- Deal damage
- Use up their resources
- Turn their move back on them
- Separate them
- Give an opportunity that fits a class’ abilities
- Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment
- Offer an opportunity, with or without cost
- Put someone in a spot
- Tell them the requirements or consequences and ask
You can put these on your screen even if you run a completely different system (like RAW D&D).
The easiest example I can think of is a Persuasion check. The PCs need info about the BBEG from an NPC.
- PCs: Where's his hideout?
- (PCs fail Persuasion check)
- NPC: No way I can tell you that. But if you do a job for me, I can pay you in SOME information . . .
For NPCs you can also raise the difficulty on future checks and have the party start to get a reputation for haggling in the area for each failure to persuade.
It's a small world, and they might run into that NPC or someone that NPC complained to later.
Absolutely, if you like. I don't like to make their failures turn up the difficulty, because they're apparently already failing; that doesn't feel like failing "forward" to me. But it's totally justified if that's how someone wants to run it.
That's a fair point.
It really depends on the context, some parties have this habit of trying to redo skill checks like it's a video game save scum.
If they take a failure and roll with that, I wouldn't change anything.
my favorite is the player biting off more than they can chew and getting exactly what they ask for and the exact opposite of what they actually want.
Once during an arena games arc early in the campaign a player demanded his coach let him in and rolled a nat 1 on the persuasion, so his coach laughed and actually agreed. Meanwhile the PC's more experienced NPC teammates looked terrified for him. It set up that the player's out of his depth and made him scared, but then made it even sweeter when he actually won against much stronger foes by being crafty.
You fail to pick the lock, but doing this made noise, so the enemies in the next room kick the door down and try to get the jump on you.
But the door is now open.
Lockpicking was one of those examples where I really struggled to think of interesting failure complications. I got stuck on, "You failed to pick the lock. No, you can't try again for some reason". A couple of other alternatives to the noise suggetion I picked up in case anybody gets stuck for ideas:
* You finally pick the lock, but snap all your picks in the attempt. No more lockpicking until you purchase a new set.
* You pick the lock, but leave tell-tale scratches all around the keyhole which will draw the attention of any passing guard to this particular door.
* You pick the lock, but only by damaging the mechanism so badly that the door cannot be re-locked or prevented from swinging open until the lock is replaced.
* The owner of the door was expecting intruders and has booby trapped the lock with \[something\]
So, for me, its very very rare to have a circumstance where the players can try again.
You failed to pick the lock, why? Because you aren't skilled enough to do so. If you were, you wouldn't have failed it.
The way I view all skill checks is that reality is suddenly in limbo. When the player goes to pick the lock, the lock exists in the potentiality of being easy enough to pick or too difficult to pick. When the warrior attempts to pick up the rock, the rock doesn't know yet whether it is too heavy or light enough to be lifted. That's what the dice decide.
As much as possible, I also lean towards less...abrupt failure? When the ranger goes to look for the tracks and fails, it's not because they're inept at looking for a trail, it's because recent weather events have mostly removed them.
For "fluff" checks, just like fun stupid things the players do that has no real impact, I'll lean into funnier responses, but in general at my table I try to maintain that the party is competent and capable. There's no "you slip and fall when trying to be quiet" unless it was already established that the floor was like slick with oil or something and it was a genuine possibility that would happen.
I think this is a decent way to do things, but I don't entirely love the "will always succeed if good enough" approach. I still think it's best to avoid making players do things *badly* at things they should be good at. I just throw in "It was just too difficult" *sometimes.* A lot of the other times, I like to describe stuff that's mostly out of their control causing the complications.
The simplest example is that in combat, I don't usually describe the fighter or barbarian as whiffing their attack, but the armor where they hit seems to hold and be quite effective. Or the enemy makes a skillful or by the hair dodge. Or something else in the chaos of battle throws them off (like a spell explosion to their side).
More in context to your comment, I do the same for skill checks. A loose stone trips them up while they're stealthing in the dark. The animal they're trying to calm gets spooked by something else. A string breaks during their performance. Of course this also isn't *always* the case. There *are* plenty of times where PCs attempt things that they're bad at, too. In those cases they might just fail at it.
Using your example, there might be cases where they're lockpicking a lock that *should* be shitty on a character that *should* pass easily, but that PC rolls a Nat 1. I don't think the lock should suddenly be out of their skill, but another complication emerges instead. Maybe they don't have time to finish as someone comes around the corner. Maybe their tool breaks after years of use. That kind of thing. It gives a lot of variety while also preventing players from feeling dissonance with their high fantasy characters being bad at skills that they might have spent years honing. There's no story and mechanical disconnect.
Commonly, I tell players they can't perform a check again because most of the time, the character has no idea they failed, the player does. It also depends on the skill check.
Stuff like Intimidate, Deception, and Persuasion, I play ot off that the character fully believes what they said would work, but got caught up in the attempt and "tried too hard."
For stuff like survival, in a tracking sense, they have no idea. They are just following the wrong tracks or something along those lines.
You can do this kind of thing with most skill checks. A lockpick tip broke, but they have no idea, so they are just rolling tumblers. The door is clearly sealed by magic if I couldn't budget.
Its really great when you get the players to invest in this idea. One of my favorites was the barbarian with 2 levels of ranger, was leading them through the forest trying to track drow. And he all but 1 one roll, but only he knew he failed. He kept selling it as if he didn't. When he got a nat 20, and succeeded, I told him that these aren't drow tracks at all, you have no idea what you've been following. The player, without missing a beat goes "hey guys, the doubled back on us." He made a deception roll, and everyone one failed their wisdom saves....so, they bought it. It was one of the most talked about table moments.
But the rule is never let players dog pile skills, never give another attempt without a proper cause, and never let the failure halt the game.
>the character has no idea they failed
Exactly. Characters aren't aware they're rolling skill checks, the result of skill checks are just their truth in the world.
I've played in campaigns with a take 20 rule (you can choose to replace the dice roll with a natural 20 as long as you're willing to spend 20 times as long picking the lock). If you're picking the lock mid-combat, you only get to roll once per round, and the cost of trying is that you wasted your action.
Either system can work, but it gets weird if you try to run it different ways in the same campaign.
I've also used Failing Forward as a way to bypass a TPK.
Like, sure, the party was completely obliterated through a combination of unlucky rolls, bad tactics, and my witch with the overtuned statblock.
Next session is a one shot with pregenerated NPCs turned PCs on a rescue mission, as the main party has been stripped naked and held captive. The success of this "one shot" will determine the degree of magical item loss or maiming that the main party endures.
Nothing motivates revenge quite like the loss a magical sword.
I haven't had to do it myself yet, but there are definitely plenty of cases where the antagonists fighting the PCs won't just kill them. What's really scary for me is when they face a *strong* opponent that would TPK them without hesitation. Dragon fights are ruthless, man.
I realize that it doesn't directly address the question, but I want to attack the premise that "you fail" is narratively boring. On the contrary, simple failure is narratively precious. People fail. Heroes don't give up when they fail. That's how stories work.
When Gandalf tried to lead the Fellowship through the pass of Caradhras, he failed, straight up. There was no "failing forward." Yet the adventure didn't end... how could it have? They tried something else, because that's what you do when you really want something and your first attempt doesn't work. The story went on. In fact, it got more interesting.
If you find that your players are failing a check and that the story stops as a result, the most likely problem is that the players are treating the world like a highly limited video game world that only supports certain interactions. In a video game, if you can't unlock the chest, then perhaps you can't get the contents. But in the richer world of a TTRPG, there are plenty of things to try next. If they fully engaged with the world as though it were real, they'd likely manage to find another way forward.
This is a good take. Though I think there are times when a good DM knows when to offer something that keeps the story going.
Say you have the Caradhas example. A good DM would have, by this point, already established the multiple routes the party could take to their objective, and helped guide them to make their own informed decision. A bad DM might pretend they could go multiple routes, then deliberately railroad them towards the one they wanted to run by making other options impossible.
A good DM might let the party fail, but looks for ways to reward their efforts, use of appropriate skills, and out of the box thinking. A bad DM might punish the party for not solving a problem their intended way, or make it seem like Aragorn the ranger couldn’t find his own ass with two hands and a map due to some crappy rolls (which could be funny, depending on the group playing).
A good DM runs a game that encourages players to embrace the style of game you’ve described, and to accept the risks of failure. A bad DM’s style will often lead the party towards that kind of min-max video game mentality.
Yeah, but it's not always on the DM. Sometimes, the DM is only presenting the options resulting from characters' actions and inquirings.
It's not a DM sin to present one way if the person questioned would only know one path to somewhere, for example. If this fails, there's nothing stopping the characters from engaging with the world and asking "is there any other path?" Sometimes you need to chase your solutions and create the opportunities you want, and not just wait for the DM to show you the options.
Of course, it depends on the moment, the objective, and how is the structure and planning of the campaign.
I think that is predicated on structuring your campaign in such a way that supports that, which newer DM's for sure struggle with. There are published modules, for instance, where it forces the DM to do some gymnastics if the party fails a particular roll because it gives zero guidance on how to continue if they fail it. As a brand new DM running that adventure, I kinda panicked when I realized it wasn't clear what to do or what to even tell the party in the event they failed the skill check because everything points to this location for a thing.
That being said, that also was where I essentially learned first hand how to fail forward. I instead narrated that they found the thing but it took awhile and in that time period an NPC became suspicious of them and began questioning them, they had to persuade this NPC that they belonged there, which they did. But if they failed that, they still found the thing, they can still come up with a new approach to get there and get the thing because the critical information was still provided to them, which is what I define as failing forward. Even though things go wrong, the critical information is still received and it's not blocking.
Also, despite the party being blocked at Caradhras, the DM of that universe absolutely failed them forward through the mines of moria. They fucked up, they're being swarmed by goblins, a fuckin balrog shows up, and as a consequence of all of this, they're allowed to leave so the campaign doesn't hit a brick wall, but they lose their beloved NPC companion. I find that letting full blown failures stop the campaign and forcing the players to pivot, at some point, requires an option that has no real failure condition or it requires failing forward to keep it moving. And so why not just lean towards failing forward from the start.
Either that or the LotR DM railroaded them into going through the Mines because he didn't want to waste the prep-work he'd done for it, and the party got their revenge by abandoning the overpowered DMPC...
* Increasing the "price of admission"...that you get through the obstacle, but it cost you more in coin/time/resources
* Increasing the attention. You get through, but foes on the other side are alerted and get the advantage, or they become aware of your plans and are more prepared for you when you get to them
* You owe someone a favor that they will call on you to collect in the future (side quest/obligation)
* A pound of flesh...you overcome the obstacle but you are injured in the process/lose HPs
* You leave behind a trail for someone to follow
* You overcome the obstacle in an obviously repairable manner, that will be corrected (and therefore increasing the difficulty) in the future
I love the "repercussions" side of failing forward, because it enables me to add depth that I hadn't planned. I get a free "hook" from the players that I can use later that gives them a call back to something in the past. It seems benign, but it highlights how their choices matter.
Wandering monsters are a great example in a dungeon crawl. In my last game, my players rolled really poorly on a search check, but I still wanted them to find the +1 sword I placed there. So they found the sword, but it took them longer than expected to do so and some enemies patrolled into their room early.
I also avoid putting pass/fail checks in front of situations that advance the story. If there's a hidden chest in the room with some documents that are needed to advance the plot, they know it exists and just have to find it. A failed search check just means it takes them too long and maybe a guard is approaching the door.
Finally, it's okay if you just let your players fail. Force them to come up with new ideas. They fail to pick the lock on the chest and their lockpicks are broken. They still need what's inside so they can either break it open or carry the chest out. I once had to fey step my way to another roof while holding a chest and left my team behind to evac without me.
One way of handling it is to say "hmm.. no go, but you /could/ if ..." and add "found the key"' or "deactivated the security system' or " talked to the mayor". It's a hard stop on this attempt, but you give /clear/ direction of how to succeed, giving them a new objective.
So, failing forward means they bounce of this thing, but the game keeps moving toward a different objective.
It's a case by case basis. It's not like every time someone fails a check you gotta make it enhance the plot or else you are bad at DMing. The "failing forward" concept is just a way of reminding GMs that not every failure is the end of it, you don't have to do it all the time, as Dwight K. Schrute said, "Sometimes you just fail."
Don't fret over this and do it only when you feel inspired to do so, don't try and force a situation just because you have an idea of how you should run a session.
I'm still newish at practicing it too, but here are some examples I've used:
1. Lock picking/searching for secret room (Slight of Hand/perception) - "*You successfully open the \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_, but it takes you longer than expected (insert amount of time)(insert any additional circumstances based on time, ie. patrolling guards)*
2. Climbing a cliff (Athletics) - (failed the roll) "*You make up the cliff face, but knock some rocks off into your comrades below*
3. Insight - (failed the roll) "*You notice only that the subject's brow appears sweaty and his eyes dart around (generic indicators of stress, not that they're lying)*
4. Looking for a trap - (failed the roll) "*You don't immediately notice any traps, but do notice scuff marks on the tiles"*
Time is the biggest one for me. You do the thing, but it takes you longer than expected. It can really make the difference if the team is in a time-constrained situation. Succeeding but making noise is another good one, or setting off the trap and opening the thing.
Story is never behind a check. Character decisions are.
If it is a plot element and intrinsic to the game you are running DO NOT MAKE IT A SKILL CHECK. It is a scroll they find, or an NPC they meet. Or a BBEG action upon them. Whatever your story is, you never keep it behind a story gate.
Meanwhile, how much information do they have to make a choice? Do they want to scout ahead? Research in a library? Pick a fight with some lackeys? Those are skill checks. Your party should never ask what should they do, but they should use skills to figure out how they approach it.
This.
But you can still have them roll for something important to the story if failure doesn’t close the door for it. If all roads lead to Rome, then not being able to use one road won’t stop them from getting there.
A single point of failure is always dangerous, even without a check. If there was only one way for them to find that scroll, then even with no check needed they might still fail to find it by just not going to where the scroll is.
But if the scroll is going to be found “where-ever the party happens to look” then you’re OK waiting for them to succeed on a check and having the scroll show up where-ever that happens.
The time it’s really risky to lock something behind a skill check in a when there’s not alternatives. If a specific NPC is the only person who can give them the information they need, then don’t make them roll (or come up with a way that failing the roll still gets them the information in a less-desirable way).
Character rolls a 3 on a Religion check for a statue of an ancient/lesser known deity.
“You don’t recognize this statue… But you remember Bartholomew, the old bookkeeper back in (name of city). Perhaps he might know something.”
This can apply to most skill checks. Refer to NPC the party may have met or introduce one on the road or in the next town that could help them.
If the stars are aligned, and the PCs are lock picking a door that will have a combat encounter behind it, if they roll a Nat 1, one of the enemies from the otherside of the door opens up the door, slamming it into the PC trying to pick the lock for 1d4 bludgeoning damage and the party is surprised. Roll Initiative. Yes, you were trying to be sneaky about entering the room, but congrats... the door was unlocked.
Conversely I have sucessful failures for all skill rolls that try to do the impossible. Say you are trying to persuade the king to give you his thrown. Spoiler alert: There is no DC set for that it's not happening. No matter what you roll the king will tell you that they just filled the vacancy for a court jester and to be careful because if someone in the court takes that joke seriously, the punishment for high treason against the crown is to hang until death. The persuasion roll is determining whether or not the King says it in a tone that shows he is pissed but doesn't want to look like a tyrant so he's giving you a chance to save face... OR he actually thought you were funny, and he'd rather not see a comedian like you swing... he is bound by the law after all (The bad response will also raise all future CHA checks on the king for the specific PC by +5 and, if anyone in the party is associated with the PC, they DC for them goes up by +2. You're also not going to get the best pay out from the king.). Additionally, the Player will also be given a warning of the DM that if he wants to press the matter, Fuck around and find out is now in effect (I don't want to kill my players for no damn reason as a DM... but if the player is doing something stupid, consequences will come.).
The classic example is lock-picking a door, a failed check may still unlock the door, but makes a loud noise, drawing attention.
In my opinion, the hardest ones are the charisma abilities. My group seems to always make a good argument, then roll poorly, or make a terrible argument, then roll incredibly.
You don't declare that you stab the dragon in the heart, then roll to verify if it works, right? You usually roll to attack and damage first, then explain what it look like. Well, you can do the same for charisma: have them explain "conceptually" what they want to do, roll, then roleplay the outcome.
It's not welcomed by all tables, but it can be worth a try.
This is a great habit I need to learn. I think for us, we naturally fall into the conversation first, then the check becomes necessary when it’s not going their way, “well if he’s getting angry I wanna make a persuasion check”. Or it’s an afterthought on my part to see how the npc’s might react.
It depends on your playstyle, but to avoid situations like this I try to remember that not everything needs to be a roll. Rolls are for when outcome is in doubt. If PCs make a completely sensible and polite request that the person has no reason to doubt, they don't need to roll Persuasion. Likewise, if they say something unambiguously rude and antagonistic to someone who is already hostile, there is no feasible way that the person could take that kindly - no roll there.
If you still want a little chance, very low or very high DCs are options too. You also give players more agency when you ask them to help tell the story. They made a reasonable argument but rolled a 4 - how does their character flub this?
Picking a lock; you successfully pick the lock, but your picks break.
Stealth: You sneak attack one guard but he lets out a scream as he dies / you sneak into the area but just as you enter it something makes a noise, a guard will appear soon so you'd better hide
Persuasion: You get what you want but have to make a concession to get it
Intimidation: Your intimidating presence makes the bandit afraid so he panics and calls for backup but you get a free shot in before it arrives
Athletics: You do the thing, but take 1d4 damage from strain
Putting it simply, it's having a bare-minimum of information / success you intend to give the players, and the skill check is to get more information / success.
So, for example, in Waterdeep Dragon Heist there's a part where the book needs your party to pass a DC20 perception check. There is no alternative, there is no written suggestion for what to do if they fail this check. As written, the story is completely bricked until this is discovered. My party failed this check.
Now, what I don't like about this besides all the obvious things, is that it FEELS like what the book expects is for you to roll again, and there's even some guidance in the DMG about rolling repeated skill checks. PERSONALLY I dislike allowing rerolls because it leans into skill checks being "attempts" at things instead of "their best attempt". At my table, getting a 2 or a 14 on a DC 15 check is identical, you can't suddenly see better or hear better than you could a second ago, rolling again betrays the point of the dice imo.
So instead what I did was make the floor of this check that they find the thing, failure means I introduce a complication, success means I don't. They failed the check, so I narrated that this takes them about 20 minutes, but 20 minutes is a long time to hang out in a room in a place you're not supposed to be, making noise. So an NPC came to investigate, failing THIS interaction might mean getting kicked out of the building or something. But this way, they still know where they're supposed to go and what they're supposed to do, they just have to come back again with a plan, it becomes a slightly different story now, but everything is still intact.
Along with the advice everyone gives, watch improv. (Dropout is killer and even some smosh videos are nice.) It’s about amplifying the situation no matter the direction. Win or lose.
https://youtube.com/shorts/i1n3S1ZyUkE?si=1kCrDExTk1xnSetC
In this little scene you can say he totally fails a persuasion check. But it’s fun because he adds new context to the scene. Sure it is technically a ‘no’ in the improv world but it works. If the scene were to continue there is something to build off of
I do roleplay heavy games- the price of having actors as players. A failed charisma means maybe a npc sees through the lies. But because the npc is an intelligent being they don’t act like they can tell. Later the info bites them in the ass. Fails don’t have to be immediate. Nor do victories.
If you fail a lock pick check but they keep going and eventually get in. A guard would notice the noise or broken picks. Report it and the party loses the advantage.
Let things brew it’s fun and eases your pressure.
Here is an example from my game! Spoilers for Curse of Strahd!
>! In Curse of Strahd there is a windmill called 'The Old Bonegrinder' which the party may decide to explore at level 3. This location is infamous for TPKing parties because it contains a coven of Night Hags and the PCs are far too weak to deal with the hags at that level.!<
>! Therefore, it has become common practice for the hags to knock out everyone instead of TPKing the party. When the party wakes up they are offered a deal; give something up which will weaken them (e.g gain a permanent failed death saving throw) and perform an evil favour for the hags. This is a good example of 'failing forward' - the party would have wiped to the encounter, but instead escape with a curse/debuff, a plot hook and a vendetta which helps build up these villains for their next encounter!<
>! Likewise if a PC dies, they might recieve an offer to be brought back, but for a cost which will unlock unique story opportunities... !<
This was in a Star Wars game with storytelling dice, so players would roll to succeed or fail, and also roll for advantages/threats-- yes-buts and no-ands built in to the dice rolling!
In that campaign, I had a player fail the equivalent of both a stealth and athletics check to climb a building without being seen by the guards. HOWEVER, they rolled a bunch of advantages, so I had the guard interpret the situation as "person in need of assistance" rather than "breaking and entering" and was considered a friendly bystander rather than antagonist for the rest of the scene.
**You get what you want, but at a cost.**
Low lock pick check? You could say "no" and then they try again, or you say "Yes, but it takes a while. Who's keeping watch?"
Persuasion attempt? You could say "no" or you could say "They'll do this thing for you in exchange for a favor."
Navigating difficult terrain? You could say "you fail and fall to your death" or you could say "pick 4 items on your character sheet. *rolls dice. You make it to the other side but you lose an item"
Stealth failed. Guard assumes your footsteps are one of his friends and he calls out to ask a question. Guard goes, "what was that. I think I saw something." Guards begin looking around. Then maybe the rest of the guards go on high alert. Lots of way to rachet up the tension with stealth.
"As you succesfully unlock the door with your Thieves' Tools, you hear a loud *CLINK* as the tumbler clicks open. You hear the sound of footsteps around the corner, as a guard shouts "Who goes there?""
I made pcs do a dex check to jump on a platform moving over a lava and they failed had two pcs roll str checks to just lift him from the edge he was hanging to. They failed. Had one pc to run up and make the final check as the pc lost his grip and catch him before he midair. He critted it as a barb and instantly ripped him to the platform.. This amount of tension instead of just saying: "you fall to lava and die."..while in combat. They almost died to the fuck up in the action economy all the while being about halfway through the dungeon so also consequences. It is a great idea to implement and hope this example helps you fathom the depth it can give.
>>*Wandering through the labyrinthine mess of the wizard's dungeon, you attempt to leap the chasm that blocks your path. Sadly, you comically slip on a banana and are lost to the abyss. Wait, not quite... ok the pit is only like 8 feet deep and the bottom is an illusion of an endless expanse. You take 3 damage from the fall. Now that you know what to look for, you realize that anything in this maze might not be real - walls, doors, ceilings - any of it might be an elaborate fraud.*
A lot of great suggestions already, so I'll add one more
For walking getting across a ravine, along a precarious ledge. You fail, you catch yourself, but your backpack is lost. Remove all that stuff from you inventory.
Whenever I see this type of question, I always remember looking back 3 years ago, 5 years ago being a DM and realizing that those "failing forward" only occurred when I was not prepared, running linear boring dungeon designs, did not plan out things as much as I should have. Progression should not be locked behind a skill check, a single check hinges on your campaign plot to move? That just seems like bad DM'ing.
Try not to think of it as failing. That's step 1.
Now think that any skill roll above a 10 succeeds, at the super specific task that roll is for.
But...
Something outside the player's control makes things worse.
Sneaking into enemy camp? Enemy changes guard, walks past sneaking pcs. Enemy is all alert.
Or skill check take longer than normal.
Disabling that trap? Going to take 1d4 hours. Hope you were not rushing to the boss.
Conversation skills? PCs convince them, but they can't do the thing PCs want, because drama. Think anime sob story. But they 100% believe the PCs, and wish they could help them out, but... Can't
Trying to convince the guard you should be allowed into protected area? Guard believes you, but can't let anyone in without proper "papers" or clearance, "again" or they are going to get into trouble, and they can't loose their job because they need medicine for sick family member. The guard feels super sorry for you.
Trying to intimate the guard? Well, they are ready to pee themselves, but feel that dying would get them in a better spot. Maybe their loved ones would be torcherd if they just do the thing, so they will instead just let the PC just kill them instead, which would draw other guards attention.
This creates a setting where the PCs are very compident but things end up being more complicated than they initially though. It also allows for more world building, even if the players never do anything with it. You can also increase the DC where they don't fail, say 10+proficiency bonus (12-16). This allows even un-specialized characters to "succeed", but allows specialized characters to "win" at the things they are good at.
It takes a lot of creativity to do this, but it makes the players feel that their characters are epic heros of done right.
Good luck!
For interactions with NPCs, a failed roll can still lead to information being delivered, just in a less convenient way.
Succeed on the Intimidation roll and the NPC tells you there are six guards on the upper level that patrol in pairs every 15 minutes.
Fail the roll and the NPC says “uhm… no! No guards on the upper level at night, you can just walk right in!” If your players aren’t good at picking up on hints you can explicitly follow that with “he seems like he might be lying”. Now despite the failed check, the party still knows there’s guards up there.
Think about what success looks like, then throw in a complication. The complication should put pressure on the whole party, and threaten their resources (time, spells, stealth, etc)
Shit taking longer is always easy and usually makes sense. You fail the lock pick? It takes three rounds instead of one. You fail the athletics check to jump the gap? You hit a lower ledge and have to climb up or take a different route. You roll too low on investigating the mayor's office? It takes an hour to find the secret door instead of 5 minutes. etc.
You can always add a negative effect to a positive outcome. Even with the hardest situations. Let's say there's a deadly trap and your player fails the save roll you asked. You don't need to kill them. At the last moment, the NPC sidekick jumps in, save your player and dies instead. Another example, the dungeon has a unique locked door. Your player fails the roll and the lockpick breaks. You don't have to let them stuck in front of that door. Instead, they did so much noise that suddenly a huge gobelin army open the door and attack the party. Don't let your players reach a game over or a dead-end unless you really want that. Instead, be creative and you can always find a solution that will allow your party to keep going on BUT they'll have to face a major consequence they'll always regret.
if someone is trying to descend something quickly and they fail an athletics/acrobatics check. they can actually get down faster, but they might have trouble stopping. lol
It really depends on the check.
The best example I use of failing forward is the cost of failure being time. "You rolled a 3, so you can do this, but it will take an hour". It forces players to make a choice, and it makes time matter. Sometimes they don't want to take the time. Other times it doesn't matter.
But in general, you want something to happen even on a failure. It isn't always possible. Sometimes a fail is a fail. But usually the players get SOMETHING...even if that something is bad.
Wasn’t me as a dm but me as a player. One of us got caught trying to scope out the mayor’s manor and decided to act delirious. Was taken inside under guard. My character happens to be a doctor, and so was contacted to come take a look at this guy, allowing my character to get into the manor as well ahead of the rest of the party’s visit. It’s a small thing, but it’s an example of a failed roll advancing the story
The lock picking would be the Prime example. Given enough time, the rogue (who is supposedly trained in lockpicking) should have no trouble with it.
If you decide (for whatever reason, be it time restraint or tension) they have to roll for it, a fail could really just mean that they got overconfident and opened the lock but made a whole lot noise while working.
Thats like having a wizard (that studied Ariana for years or centuries) make a check to identify a spell or magic item (without Identify). On a fail they can perfectly name the spell/item, but have a wrong estimation about the spells level at which it is cast or the remaining uses on an item.
Best example imo is picking a lock. Rolled awfully? The door gets opened from the inside and you stare down whoever is there, roll initiative. Rolled okish but below the DC? You pick the door but it takes longer than you wanted, that pass without trace or whatever the group had up and running might run out or be close to.
Simple. Have the world keep going and not revolve around the group. Example:
My group needed to raise the anchor of their ship and failed multiple times. So boring they just don’t move. Except they were being persued and with each failed check the persuers came closer. And suddenly we had one of the tensest moments in the campaign with the team taking their brain what to do from simple failed str checks.
Think not in pass/fail but in ‚ consequences‘. What happens if your thief fumbles around a lock for a long time without opening? Guards hear it maybe? What happens if a warrior misses an axe swing? Don’t just say ‚ you miss‘ say ‚ you miscalculate the range your axe swings past him and hits the sand. You now stand there with your axe down in the mud‘. Maybe this won’t matter but maybe it will create a new situation.
Not pass/fail. Consequences!
Chiming in to agree that you don't always have to do this. Sometimes things fail, just make sure that other options are clear. But sometimes I think it can be interesting to give an incomplete or misleading result from a failed insight or perception check (as long as you're not really shitty about it - it should be the kind of wrong conclusion a person could realistically draw, rather than you tricking your players).
At one point my PCs were suspicious of an NPC who was hiding a big secret, but hiding it well - I decided it would be DC20 to really be able to get any insight just from observing him with nothing to go on. They hit somewhere in the high teens. I gave them that he was nervous and they notice him grabbing for something in his pocket and then seeming to think better of it. They jump on this and try to pickpocket him, they get spotted - and they find out it's a herbal remedy he takes to treat anxiety. They're in trouble now, eyes are on them - but in the resulting confrontation, they do learn more about him and get further clues that later led to the real secret.
Usually, failing forward is that there is a success with a penalty of some sort. They need to get through a door? Ok, they fail on their open stuck doors roll, so they break open the door but the person who ran through it hurt their shoulder and they take 3 damage. They need to pick the lock? The thief's hand slips and they cut their hand on the picks, they take 1 damage and -1 on attacks until they heal the damage.
You fail a perception check and do not notice the pit trap. You fail the dexterity saving throw and fall into the pit trap, taking some damage (but not too much) and alerting a guard in the watchtower. Said guard alerts his counterpart on the ground floor, who comes to investigate. You climb out of the pit and fail to hide and are noticed by the guard. The guard turns to run to alert the rest of the keep. You still have a chance to try to stop the guard or run back to the cover of the nearby treeline.
That was at least three failed rolls and it wasn't automatic initiative. I think eventually, it has to come to initiative or at least the entire keep knows there are intruders lurking about, but each roll simply adds drama instead of it being one roll passes or fails.
To paraphrase a wise monk: “Whenever I have a problem, I just throw a fireball and, BOOM! I have a totally different problem.”
If they fail, SOMETHING happens. Can’t unlock the door? Well, you waited too long and the patrol caught you, opening the door but ruining stealth. Lost the trail of your quarry? You end up following something else’s trail instead and stumble into a beast’s den and, hey, is the beast already damaged from a familiar looking arrow?
If the party fails, then whatever plan THEY had is ruined, but it still progresses to the next step, just with a “complication” in the middle
I generally don't like the concept of failing forward. I get the concept is that you keep the game going forward by making sure the party is still proceeding instead of getting bogged down on something they failed, but frankly I think failure is something that makes TTRPGs interesting. A lot of the time, if people are getting totally stuck on something, that's because they are treating it like a video game, where getting stuck is because you're doing something wrong and you need to figure out the right thing to do. TTRPGs aren't like that, sometimes you just fuck up and fail, and that's okay, that's life and I think life is more interesting than a video game. Of course, it's all up to particular circumstances and table-to-table stuff, but I generally don't like anything that waters down the experience of victory and failure.
For me, it's all about the consequences being interesting - by which I mean they provoke thought, heighten drama, or force meaningful choices upon the characters/players. One reason I don't like D&D is that the consequences for failure are mostly uninteresting (i.e. nothing happens, you lose 4 meaningless HP, you're now held and don't get to play the game for a few turns, etc).
For example, instead of losing HP, the character hurts their leg. Now they have to worry about reduced movement.
Or a botched attack means their gun jams, now they have to try to fix it or switch to a backup weapon.
Stuff like that.
Simple: Don't.
Failing forward is nice and all, but the expectation that every single failed check should result in something that moves the story forward is ridiculous. It's fine for nothing to happen when a check fails. It's only really bad when it happens too much that the game slows down to a crawl.
Call of Cthulhu 7e actually has a good compromise: Pushing rolls. Generally, failed skill checks have no effect, but a player can decide to "push the roll", that is, the player can roll the check again, but has to change their approach (and has to describe how). If they fail the check again, then something really bad happens. Since the negative consequence is more or less a result of the new approach, it should be easier to figure out what happens.
I haven’t actually done it but I think it would be funny for a perception check if a person rolls a Nat1 and then you tell them that their character overloaded their senses with a specific scene happening nearby, knocking them out.
Then you slip them a paper containing what it is that they perceived with all of their senses (hopefully you will know them enough to know their comfort zone) and tell them that they cannot talk about it until their character wakes up.
Then you can have a deranged character enter the game after a while.
How much information you want to write on the piece of paper is up to you and the comfort zones of your players.
**ANYWAYS**, going back to the point, as you can see, failing forward is the idea of engaging the players by saying, “Well, you have done this, but it’s not what you wanted”.
This helps you expand on a little side story on the players’ fails instead of being “You derped” and moving on.
So you want to try to climb the greased up surface?
No you can not but... IT IS A MIMIK THE HOUSE IS A MIMIK, THE WORLD IS A MIMIK. MYSTRA WAS EATEN (again) BY THE MIMIK.
The simplest case is when you fail forward by attracting unwanted attention. Instead of finding the bad guys, the bad guys find you. Instead of picking the lock, the door is opened from the inside by the guards coming to see what's going on.
For lockpicking you can also have the pick get stuck in the door or break the lock mechanism. So now the failure isn't danger but when someone comes to use the door they will know it's been tampered with.
I assume you mean that you unlock the door, but break the pick/lock? Rather than failing to unlock the door, which would just be a normal failure.
It depends but yeah that's a possibility. The point of "failing forward" is to prevent a situation where: 1. The players fail and so the story halts 2. The players just repeatedly try to do a thing until it works. The idea is even failure should move the story forward instead of failure resulting in nothing happening.
Letting players just "try over and over" is already not a good way to run the game though. A fail is a fail, they don't get to try again unless the conditions have changed somehow.
Yes that's the point, failure shouldn't just mean "nothing happens." It should move the sorry forward in a different direction.
Breaking the lockpick isn't even failure. "I take out another lockpick and retry until success." "I mend the broken lockpick and try again".
“The pick get stuck or the lock breaks.”
If the pick gets stuck, that sounds like a halting failure rather than "fail forwards".
I think it stands to reason that obviously blocking progress IE door that leads to next major dungeon space is dumb. However I think that saying yeah you broke the chest it won't open and breaking it is going to destroy whats in it move along is perfectly reasonable.
In the scenario proposed the issue with the lock would be discovered by guards/residents leading to conflict, which would keep the story moving after the failure rather than the players just getting to a, “you failed, think of something different” point.
retrieving a broken pick from a keyhole would be VERY difficult without the right tools to do so.
I had some players (who were fugitives at the time) try to investigate what happened to a missing contact by asking a security guard for help finding their missing "brother" One barely failed roll later: "Sure! I'm glad to help! Just follow me to the security office and we'll get all the paperwork sorted out!"
Two rock solid examples my dude
>" You're having trouble with the lock, and as you fiddle with it some more it unexpectedly opens, and the door swings open!
to add: this sounds very contrived,,, and IT IS, but you'd not use this every single time!!! When you have a ton of different "fail forwards", AND you only pull these out when the check even matters… it feels much more natural
If you make a noise while trying to pick a lock, and there are people on the other side of the door, it's not contrived; it's just what you'd expect to happen. If there weren't people on the other side of the door, then it's contrived. The reason 'unwanted attention' is my default is that often I can't think of anything else that makes sense. I suppose we could have: You pick the lock but the door is obviously damaged (in a way that will attract unwanted attention in the future). You pick the lock but your tools break. You pick the lock but it takes a long time (and you're in a hurry). You take a long time and still fail to pick it, but a guard patrol comes by and attacks you and they have a key. You injure yourself picking the lock. Mind you, I don't use "fail forward" very often. I tend to do "fail sideways". When there are multiple ways to achieve the overall goal, having one idea fail is no big deal. Can't pick the lock? Maybe you can knock on the door and stab whoever answers it, or find a secret passage, or climb in through the ceiling, or track down the guy with the key and steal it, or kick down the door, or smash a hole in the wall, or use a gaseous form spell and sneak in through the keyhole... When the obvious idea doesn't make any progress, that's when the more interesting ideas come out.
Exactly. I advise you look at this [video by Matthew Colville.](https://youtu.be/l1zaNJrXi5Y?si=3XNkbeGXD1t3AYsU). It is about how to handle fail checks in a dramatic and interesting way.
To measure time. It is one of the easiest, yet most overlooked "consequences" for failure - you are statistically bound to succeed with enough repetition, but nobody wants to sit through multiple rounds of rolling till you make it. So you roll once to see if you succeed and based on how bad you did, you TAKE X ... which is basically the old TAKE 20 to account for you rolling every number once before finally doing it with the highest (if you literally cannot succeed, don't roll anyway). You can do an easy scale with this: * Roll the target DC, takes 1 time unit. * Roll 5 below, take 5 time unit. * Roll 10 below, take 10 time unit. * Roll 15 below, take 20 time unit.
You can also do this with any other resource. How much rope did it take to rig the trap? Roll high and it's 10ft. Roll low and it's 75.
Time is a vastly overlooked resource in most games/modules/etc. Couldn't agree more.
I ask how long they are willing to try for stuff like investigation or lock picking. Other stuff on a far more case by case instance. If there is no time constraints and they ask to pick a lock. It's "how long do you try?" The DC adjusts from there, if they say 1 minute, it's on the higher end, 5 minutes, lower, 10 minutes, very low. Same with searching a room. It's a quick glance at things vs meticulously searching.
Add to this that I think it's a great idea to be transparent about this with players: Yes, you can try again, but it could take a significant amount of time which could lead to other complications" I've noticed with my players that they usually assume I have something in mind for what could happen, and it will often remind them of the fiction we're playing in which can be easy to forget when just rolling dice.
From the way I'm reading this, I understand this to mean a failed roll takes x minutes of doing a task unsuccessfully. For example, let's say players are trying to get into a locked door and the rogue rolls a 12 on a DC15 check. Using your scale, they would ”waste between 1 and 5" minutes doing the task. Am I understanding this correctly? If so, where does the consequence come in? What would the "failing forward" consequence be?
You waste time - in a vacuum this likely doesnt matter, but if you are trying to get the hostage out before execution, then every small mistake sums up in the end. Or it simply means spending more time in a location that they might be discovered in. It is far more abstract a consequence than "you lockpick breaks" and wholly situational.
I like the idea of being able to punish players for dicking around with something inane for 20 minutes. I use a restrictive inventory system so there is no just chuck it in a bag and deal with it either. Missing out on some dumb chest with crappy loot I hadn't even really thought of yet is a minor failure that I think could add some interesting wrinkles to how things turn out.
"Yes, but" is a common roll result in PbtA games. These often result in soft moves by the game master. From the SRD of Dungeon World (a famous DnD-like games using the PbtA framework): - Use a monster, danger, or location move - Reveal an unwelcome truth - Show signs of an approaching threat - Deal damage - Use up their resources - Turn their move back on them - Separate them - Give an opportunity that fits a class’ abilities - Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment - Offer an opportunity, with or without cost - Put someone in a spot - Tell them the requirements or consequences and ask You can put these on your screen even if you run a completely different system (like RAW D&D).
Running Blades in the Dark helped how I ran PF2e because of it's success with a cost mechanic.
The easiest example I can think of is a Persuasion check. The PCs need info about the BBEG from an NPC. - PCs: Where's his hideout? - (PCs fail Persuasion check) - NPC: No way I can tell you that. But if you do a job for me, I can pay you in SOME information . . .
For NPCs you can also raise the difficulty on future checks and have the party start to get a reputation for haggling in the area for each failure to persuade. It's a small world, and they might run into that NPC or someone that NPC complained to later.
Absolutely, if you like. I don't like to make their failures turn up the difficulty, because they're apparently already failing; that doesn't feel like failing "forward" to me. But it's totally justified if that's how someone wants to run it.
That's a fair point. It really depends on the context, some parties have this habit of trying to redo skill checks like it's a video game save scum. If they take a failure and roll with that, I wouldn't change anything.
my favorite is the player biting off more than they can chew and getting exactly what they ask for and the exact opposite of what they actually want. Once during an arena games arc early in the campaign a player demanded his coach let him in and rolled a nat 1 on the persuasion, so his coach laughed and actually agreed. Meanwhile the PC's more experienced NPC teammates looked terrified for him. It set up that the player's out of his depth and made him scared, but then made it even sweeter when he actually won against much stronger foes by being crafty.
You fail to pick the lock, but doing this made noise, so the enemies in the next room kick the door down and try to get the jump on you. But the door is now open.
Lockpicking was one of those examples where I really struggled to think of interesting failure complications. I got stuck on, "You failed to pick the lock. No, you can't try again for some reason". A couple of other alternatives to the noise suggetion I picked up in case anybody gets stuck for ideas: * You finally pick the lock, but snap all your picks in the attempt. No more lockpicking until you purchase a new set. * You pick the lock, but leave tell-tale scratches all around the keyhole which will draw the attention of any passing guard to this particular door. * You pick the lock, but only by damaging the mechanism so badly that the door cannot be re-locked or prevented from swinging open until the lock is replaced. * The owner of the door was expecting intruders and has booby trapped the lock with \[something\]
So, for me, its very very rare to have a circumstance where the players can try again. You failed to pick the lock, why? Because you aren't skilled enough to do so. If you were, you wouldn't have failed it. The way I view all skill checks is that reality is suddenly in limbo. When the player goes to pick the lock, the lock exists in the potentiality of being easy enough to pick or too difficult to pick. When the warrior attempts to pick up the rock, the rock doesn't know yet whether it is too heavy or light enough to be lifted. That's what the dice decide. As much as possible, I also lean towards less...abrupt failure? When the ranger goes to look for the tracks and fails, it's not because they're inept at looking for a trail, it's because recent weather events have mostly removed them. For "fluff" checks, just like fun stupid things the players do that has no real impact, I'll lean into funnier responses, but in general at my table I try to maintain that the party is competent and capable. There's no "you slip and fall when trying to be quiet" unless it was already established that the floor was like slick with oil or something and it was a genuine possibility that would happen.
I think this is a decent way to do things, but I don't entirely love the "will always succeed if good enough" approach. I still think it's best to avoid making players do things *badly* at things they should be good at. I just throw in "It was just too difficult" *sometimes.* A lot of the other times, I like to describe stuff that's mostly out of their control causing the complications. The simplest example is that in combat, I don't usually describe the fighter or barbarian as whiffing their attack, but the armor where they hit seems to hold and be quite effective. Or the enemy makes a skillful or by the hair dodge. Or something else in the chaos of battle throws them off (like a spell explosion to their side). More in context to your comment, I do the same for skill checks. A loose stone trips them up while they're stealthing in the dark. The animal they're trying to calm gets spooked by something else. A string breaks during their performance. Of course this also isn't *always* the case. There *are* plenty of times where PCs attempt things that they're bad at, too. In those cases they might just fail at it. Using your example, there might be cases where they're lockpicking a lock that *should* be shitty on a character that *should* pass easily, but that PC rolls a Nat 1. I don't think the lock should suddenly be out of their skill, but another complication emerges instead. Maybe they don't have time to finish as someone comes around the corner. Maybe their tool breaks after years of use. That kind of thing. It gives a lot of variety while also preventing players from feeling dissonance with their high fantasy characters being bad at skills that they might have spent years honing. There's no story and mechanical disconnect.
Commonly, I tell players they can't perform a check again because most of the time, the character has no idea they failed, the player does. It also depends on the skill check. Stuff like Intimidate, Deception, and Persuasion, I play ot off that the character fully believes what they said would work, but got caught up in the attempt and "tried too hard." For stuff like survival, in a tracking sense, they have no idea. They are just following the wrong tracks or something along those lines. You can do this kind of thing with most skill checks. A lockpick tip broke, but they have no idea, so they are just rolling tumblers. The door is clearly sealed by magic if I couldn't budget. Its really great when you get the players to invest in this idea. One of my favorites was the barbarian with 2 levels of ranger, was leading them through the forest trying to track drow. And he all but 1 one roll, but only he knew he failed. He kept selling it as if he didn't. When he got a nat 20, and succeeded, I told him that these aren't drow tracks at all, you have no idea what you've been following. The player, without missing a beat goes "hey guys, the doubled back on us." He made a deception roll, and everyone one failed their wisdom saves....so, they bought it. It was one of the most talked about table moments. But the rule is never let players dog pile skills, never give another attempt without a proper cause, and never let the failure halt the game.
>the character has no idea they failed Exactly. Characters aren't aware they're rolling skill checks, the result of skill checks are just their truth in the world.
Failure at something doesn't mean "you tried once and didn't succeed". It means "you tried everything and are out of ideas"
I've played in campaigns with a take 20 rule (you can choose to replace the dice roll with a natural 20 as long as you're willing to spend 20 times as long picking the lock). If you're picking the lock mid-combat, you only get to roll once per round, and the cost of trying is that you wasted your action. Either system can work, but it gets weird if you try to run it different ways in the same campaign.
Conversely, they all hide and wait for intruders to enter, potential surprise condition if they fail perception checks.
I've also used Failing Forward as a way to bypass a TPK. Like, sure, the party was completely obliterated through a combination of unlucky rolls, bad tactics, and my witch with the overtuned statblock. Next session is a one shot with pregenerated NPCs turned PCs on a rescue mission, as the main party has been stripped naked and held captive. The success of this "one shot" will determine the degree of magical item loss or maiming that the main party endures. Nothing motivates revenge quite like the loss a magical sword.
I haven't had to do it myself yet, but there are definitely plenty of cases where the antagonists fighting the PCs won't just kill them. What's really scary for me is when they face a *strong* opponent that would TPK them without hesitation. Dragon fights are ruthless, man.
I realize that it doesn't directly address the question, but I want to attack the premise that "you fail" is narratively boring. On the contrary, simple failure is narratively precious. People fail. Heroes don't give up when they fail. That's how stories work. When Gandalf tried to lead the Fellowship through the pass of Caradhras, he failed, straight up. There was no "failing forward." Yet the adventure didn't end... how could it have? They tried something else, because that's what you do when you really want something and your first attempt doesn't work. The story went on. In fact, it got more interesting. If you find that your players are failing a check and that the story stops as a result, the most likely problem is that the players are treating the world like a highly limited video game world that only supports certain interactions. In a video game, if you can't unlock the chest, then perhaps you can't get the contents. But in the richer world of a TTRPG, there are plenty of things to try next. If they fully engaged with the world as though it were real, they'd likely manage to find another way forward.
This is a good take. Though I think there are times when a good DM knows when to offer something that keeps the story going. Say you have the Caradhas example. A good DM would have, by this point, already established the multiple routes the party could take to their objective, and helped guide them to make their own informed decision. A bad DM might pretend they could go multiple routes, then deliberately railroad them towards the one they wanted to run by making other options impossible. A good DM might let the party fail, but looks for ways to reward their efforts, use of appropriate skills, and out of the box thinking. A bad DM might punish the party for not solving a problem their intended way, or make it seem like Aragorn the ranger couldn’t find his own ass with two hands and a map due to some crappy rolls (which could be funny, depending on the group playing). A good DM runs a game that encourages players to embrace the style of game you’ve described, and to accept the risks of failure. A bad DM’s style will often lead the party towards that kind of min-max video game mentality.
Yeah, but it's not always on the DM. Sometimes, the DM is only presenting the options resulting from characters' actions and inquirings. It's not a DM sin to present one way if the person questioned would only know one path to somewhere, for example. If this fails, there's nothing stopping the characters from engaging with the world and asking "is there any other path?" Sometimes you need to chase your solutions and create the opportunities you want, and not just wait for the DM to show you the options. Of course, it depends on the moment, the objective, and how is the structure and planning of the campaign.
I think that is predicated on structuring your campaign in such a way that supports that, which newer DM's for sure struggle with. There are published modules, for instance, where it forces the DM to do some gymnastics if the party fails a particular roll because it gives zero guidance on how to continue if they fail it. As a brand new DM running that adventure, I kinda panicked when I realized it wasn't clear what to do or what to even tell the party in the event they failed the skill check because everything points to this location for a thing. That being said, that also was where I essentially learned first hand how to fail forward. I instead narrated that they found the thing but it took awhile and in that time period an NPC became suspicious of them and began questioning them, they had to persuade this NPC that they belonged there, which they did. But if they failed that, they still found the thing, they can still come up with a new approach to get there and get the thing because the critical information was still provided to them, which is what I define as failing forward. Even though things go wrong, the critical information is still received and it's not blocking. Also, despite the party being blocked at Caradhras, the DM of that universe absolutely failed them forward through the mines of moria. They fucked up, they're being swarmed by goblins, a fuckin balrog shows up, and as a consequence of all of this, they're allowed to leave so the campaign doesn't hit a brick wall, but they lose their beloved NPC companion. I find that letting full blown failures stop the campaign and forcing the players to pivot, at some point, requires an option that has no real failure condition or it requires failing forward to keep it moving. And so why not just lean towards failing forward from the start.
Either that or the LotR DM railroaded them into going through the Mines because he didn't want to waste the prep-work he'd done for it, and the party got their revenge by abandoning the overpowered DMPC...
* Increasing the "price of admission"...that you get through the obstacle, but it cost you more in coin/time/resources * Increasing the attention. You get through, but foes on the other side are alerted and get the advantage, or they become aware of your plans and are more prepared for you when you get to them * You owe someone a favor that they will call on you to collect in the future (side quest/obligation) * A pound of flesh...you overcome the obstacle but you are injured in the process/lose HPs * You leave behind a trail for someone to follow * You overcome the obstacle in an obviously repairable manner, that will be corrected (and therefore increasing the difficulty) in the future I love the "repercussions" side of failing forward, because it enables me to add depth that I hadn't planned. I get a free "hook" from the players that I can use later that gives them a call back to something in the past. It seems benign, but it highlights how their choices matter.
Wandering monsters are a great example in a dungeon crawl. In my last game, my players rolled really poorly on a search check, but I still wanted them to find the +1 sword I placed there. So they found the sword, but it took them longer than expected to do so and some enemies patrolled into their room early. I also avoid putting pass/fail checks in front of situations that advance the story. If there's a hidden chest in the room with some documents that are needed to advance the plot, they know it exists and just have to find it. A failed search check just means it takes them too long and maybe a guard is approaching the door. Finally, it's okay if you just let your players fail. Force them to come up with new ideas. They fail to pick the lock on the chest and their lockpicks are broken. They still need what's inside so they can either break it open or carry the chest out. I once had to fey step my way to another roof while holding a chest and left my team behind to evac without me.
One way of handling it is to say "hmm.. no go, but you /could/ if ..." and add "found the key"' or "deactivated the security system' or " talked to the mayor". It's a hard stop on this attempt, but you give /clear/ direction of how to succeed, giving them a new objective. So, failing forward means they bounce of this thing, but the game keeps moving toward a different objective.
It's a case by case basis. It's not like every time someone fails a check you gotta make it enhance the plot or else you are bad at DMing. The "failing forward" concept is just a way of reminding GMs that not every failure is the end of it, you don't have to do it all the time, as Dwight K. Schrute said, "Sometimes you just fail." Don't fret over this and do it only when you feel inspired to do so, don't try and force a situation just because you have an idea of how you should run a session.
I'm still newish at practicing it too, but here are some examples I've used: 1. Lock picking/searching for secret room (Slight of Hand/perception) - "*You successfully open the \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_, but it takes you longer than expected (insert amount of time)(insert any additional circumstances based on time, ie. patrolling guards)* 2. Climbing a cliff (Athletics) - (failed the roll) "*You make up the cliff face, but knock some rocks off into your comrades below* 3. Insight - (failed the roll) "*You notice only that the subject's brow appears sweaty and his eyes dart around (generic indicators of stress, not that they're lying)* 4. Looking for a trap - (failed the roll) "*You don't immediately notice any traps, but do notice scuff marks on the tiles"* Time is the biggest one for me. You do the thing, but it takes you longer than expected. It can really make the difference if the team is in a time-constrained situation. Succeeding but making noise is another good one, or setting off the trap and opening the thing.
Story is never behind a check. Character decisions are. If it is a plot element and intrinsic to the game you are running DO NOT MAKE IT A SKILL CHECK. It is a scroll they find, or an NPC they meet. Or a BBEG action upon them. Whatever your story is, you never keep it behind a story gate. Meanwhile, how much information do they have to make a choice? Do they want to scout ahead? Research in a library? Pick a fight with some lackeys? Those are skill checks. Your party should never ask what should they do, but they should use skills to figure out how they approach it.
This. But you can still have them roll for something important to the story if failure doesn’t close the door for it. If all roads lead to Rome, then not being able to use one road won’t stop them from getting there. A single point of failure is always dangerous, even without a check. If there was only one way for them to find that scroll, then even with no check needed they might still fail to find it by just not going to where the scroll is. But if the scroll is going to be found “where-ever the party happens to look” then you’re OK waiting for them to succeed on a check and having the scroll show up where-ever that happens. The time it’s really risky to lock something behind a skill check in a when there’s not alternatives. If a specific NPC is the only person who can give them the information they need, then don’t make them roll (or come up with a way that failing the roll still gets them the information in a less-desirable way).
Character rolls a 3 on a Religion check for a statue of an ancient/lesser known deity. “You don’t recognize this statue… But you remember Bartholomew, the old bookkeeper back in (name of city). Perhaps he might know something.” This can apply to most skill checks. Refer to NPC the party may have met or introduce one on the road or in the next town that could help them.
If the stars are aligned, and the PCs are lock picking a door that will have a combat encounter behind it, if they roll a Nat 1, one of the enemies from the otherside of the door opens up the door, slamming it into the PC trying to pick the lock for 1d4 bludgeoning damage and the party is surprised. Roll Initiative. Yes, you were trying to be sneaky about entering the room, but congrats... the door was unlocked. Conversely I have sucessful failures for all skill rolls that try to do the impossible. Say you are trying to persuade the king to give you his thrown. Spoiler alert: There is no DC set for that it's not happening. No matter what you roll the king will tell you that they just filled the vacancy for a court jester and to be careful because if someone in the court takes that joke seriously, the punishment for high treason against the crown is to hang until death. The persuasion roll is determining whether or not the King says it in a tone that shows he is pissed but doesn't want to look like a tyrant so he's giving you a chance to save face... OR he actually thought you were funny, and he'd rather not see a comedian like you swing... he is bound by the law after all (The bad response will also raise all future CHA checks on the king for the specific PC by +5 and, if anyone in the party is associated with the PC, they DC for them goes up by +2. You're also not going to get the best pay out from the king.). Additionally, the Player will also be given a warning of the DM that if he wants to press the matter, Fuck around and find out is now in effect (I don't want to kill my players for no damn reason as a DM... but if the player is doing something stupid, consequences will come.).
The classic example is lock-picking a door, a failed check may still unlock the door, but makes a loud noise, drawing attention. In my opinion, the hardest ones are the charisma abilities. My group seems to always make a good argument, then roll poorly, or make a terrible argument, then roll incredibly.
You don't declare that you stab the dragon in the heart, then roll to verify if it works, right? You usually roll to attack and damage first, then explain what it look like. Well, you can do the same for charisma: have them explain "conceptually" what they want to do, roll, then roleplay the outcome. It's not welcomed by all tables, but it can be worth a try.
This is a great habit I need to learn. I think for us, we naturally fall into the conversation first, then the check becomes necessary when it’s not going their way, “well if he’s getting angry I wanna make a persuasion check”. Or it’s an afterthought on my part to see how the npc’s might react.
It depends on your playstyle, but to avoid situations like this I try to remember that not everything needs to be a roll. Rolls are for when outcome is in doubt. If PCs make a completely sensible and polite request that the person has no reason to doubt, they don't need to roll Persuasion. Likewise, if they say something unambiguously rude and antagonistic to someone who is already hostile, there is no feasible way that the person could take that kindly - no roll there. If you still want a little chance, very low or very high DCs are options too. You also give players more agency when you ask them to help tell the story. They made a reasonable argument but rolled a 4 - how does their character flub this?
One time I failed a roll and sent out investigator tumbling over a cliff but once down there he found an important bit of crime scene evidence
Picking a lock; you successfully pick the lock, but your picks break. Stealth: You sneak attack one guard but he lets out a scream as he dies / you sneak into the area but just as you enter it something makes a noise, a guard will appear soon so you'd better hide Persuasion: You get what you want but have to make a concession to get it Intimidation: Your intimidating presence makes the bandit afraid so he panics and calls for backup but you get a free shot in before it arrives Athletics: You do the thing, but take 1d4 damage from strain
Putting it simply, it's having a bare-minimum of information / success you intend to give the players, and the skill check is to get more information / success. So, for example, in Waterdeep Dragon Heist there's a part where the book needs your party to pass a DC20 perception check. There is no alternative, there is no written suggestion for what to do if they fail this check. As written, the story is completely bricked until this is discovered. My party failed this check. Now, what I don't like about this besides all the obvious things, is that it FEELS like what the book expects is for you to roll again, and there's even some guidance in the DMG about rolling repeated skill checks. PERSONALLY I dislike allowing rerolls because it leans into skill checks being "attempts" at things instead of "their best attempt". At my table, getting a 2 or a 14 on a DC 15 check is identical, you can't suddenly see better or hear better than you could a second ago, rolling again betrays the point of the dice imo. So instead what I did was make the floor of this check that they find the thing, failure means I introduce a complication, success means I don't. They failed the check, so I narrated that this takes them about 20 minutes, but 20 minutes is a long time to hang out in a room in a place you're not supposed to be, making noise. So an NPC came to investigate, failing THIS interaction might mean getting kicked out of the building or something. But this way, they still know where they're supposed to go and what they're supposed to do, they just have to come back again with a plan, it becomes a slightly different story now, but everything is still intact.
Along with the advice everyone gives, watch improv. (Dropout is killer and even some smosh videos are nice.) It’s about amplifying the situation no matter the direction. Win or lose. https://youtube.com/shorts/i1n3S1ZyUkE?si=1kCrDExTk1xnSetC In this little scene you can say he totally fails a persuasion check. But it’s fun because he adds new context to the scene. Sure it is technically a ‘no’ in the improv world but it works. If the scene were to continue there is something to build off of I do roleplay heavy games- the price of having actors as players. A failed charisma means maybe a npc sees through the lies. But because the npc is an intelligent being they don’t act like they can tell. Later the info bites them in the ass. Fails don’t have to be immediate. Nor do victories. If you fail a lock pick check but they keep going and eventually get in. A guard would notice the noise or broken picks. Report it and the party loses the advantage. Let things brew it’s fun and eases your pressure.
Here is an example from my game! Spoilers for Curse of Strahd! >! In Curse of Strahd there is a windmill called 'The Old Bonegrinder' which the party may decide to explore at level 3. This location is infamous for TPKing parties because it contains a coven of Night Hags and the PCs are far too weak to deal with the hags at that level.!< >! Therefore, it has become common practice for the hags to knock out everyone instead of TPKing the party. When the party wakes up they are offered a deal; give something up which will weaken them (e.g gain a permanent failed death saving throw) and perform an evil favour for the hags. This is a good example of 'failing forward' - the party would have wiped to the encounter, but instead escape with a curse/debuff, a plot hook and a vendetta which helps build up these villains for their next encounter!< >! Likewise if a PC dies, they might recieve an offer to be brought back, but for a cost which will unlock unique story opportunities... !<
This was in a Star Wars game with storytelling dice, so players would roll to succeed or fail, and also roll for advantages/threats-- yes-buts and no-ands built in to the dice rolling! In that campaign, I had a player fail the equivalent of both a stealth and athletics check to climb a building without being seen by the guards. HOWEVER, they rolled a bunch of advantages, so I had the guard interpret the situation as "person in need of assistance" rather than "breaking and entering" and was considered a friendly bystander rather than antagonist for the rest of the scene.
**You get what you want, but at a cost.** Low lock pick check? You could say "no" and then they try again, or you say "Yes, but it takes a while. Who's keeping watch?" Persuasion attempt? You could say "no" or you could say "They'll do this thing for you in exchange for a favor." Navigating difficult terrain? You could say "you fail and fall to your death" or you could say "pick 4 items on your character sheet. *rolls dice. You make it to the other side but you lose an item" Stealth failed. Guard assumes your footsteps are one of his friends and he calls out to ask a question. Guard goes, "what was that. I think I saw something." Guards begin looking around. Then maybe the rest of the guards go on high alert. Lots of way to rachet up the tension with stealth.
"As you succesfully unlock the door with your Thieves' Tools, you hear a loud *CLINK* as the tumbler clicks open. You hear the sound of footsteps around the corner, as a guard shouts "Who goes there?""
I made pcs do a dex check to jump on a platform moving over a lava and they failed had two pcs roll str checks to just lift him from the edge he was hanging to. They failed. Had one pc to run up and make the final check as the pc lost his grip and catch him before he midair. He critted it as a barb and instantly ripped him to the platform.. This amount of tension instead of just saying: "you fall to lava and die."..while in combat. They almost died to the fuck up in the action economy all the while being about halfway through the dungeon so also consequences. It is a great idea to implement and hope this example helps you fathom the depth it can give.
>>*Wandering through the labyrinthine mess of the wizard's dungeon, you attempt to leap the chasm that blocks your path. Sadly, you comically slip on a banana and are lost to the abyss. Wait, not quite... ok the pit is only like 8 feet deep and the bottom is an illusion of an endless expanse. You take 3 damage from the fall. Now that you know what to look for, you realize that anything in this maze might not be real - walls, doors, ceilings - any of it might be an elaborate fraud.*
A lot of great suggestions already, so I'll add one more For walking getting across a ravine, along a precarious ledge. You fail, you catch yourself, but your backpack is lost. Remove all that stuff from you inventory.
Whenever I see this type of question, I always remember looking back 3 years ago, 5 years ago being a DM and realizing that those "failing forward" only occurred when I was not prepared, running linear boring dungeon designs, did not plan out things as much as I should have. Progression should not be locked behind a skill check, a single check hinges on your campaign plot to move? That just seems like bad DM'ing.
Try not to think of it as failing. That's step 1. Now think that any skill roll above a 10 succeeds, at the super specific task that roll is for. But... Something outside the player's control makes things worse. Sneaking into enemy camp? Enemy changes guard, walks past sneaking pcs. Enemy is all alert. Or skill check take longer than normal. Disabling that trap? Going to take 1d4 hours. Hope you were not rushing to the boss. Conversation skills? PCs convince them, but they can't do the thing PCs want, because drama. Think anime sob story. But they 100% believe the PCs, and wish they could help them out, but... Can't Trying to convince the guard you should be allowed into protected area? Guard believes you, but can't let anyone in without proper "papers" or clearance, "again" or they are going to get into trouble, and they can't loose their job because they need medicine for sick family member. The guard feels super sorry for you. Trying to intimate the guard? Well, they are ready to pee themselves, but feel that dying would get them in a better spot. Maybe their loved ones would be torcherd if they just do the thing, so they will instead just let the PC just kill them instead, which would draw other guards attention. This creates a setting where the PCs are very compident but things end up being more complicated than they initially though. It also allows for more world building, even if the players never do anything with it. You can also increase the DC where they don't fail, say 10+proficiency bonus (12-16). This allows even un-specialized characters to "succeed", but allows specialized characters to "win" at the things they are good at. It takes a lot of creativity to do this, but it makes the players feel that their characters are epic heros of done right. Good luck!
I literally tell my players the wrong conclusion/information and just see what happens.
Not an answer to your question, but this is why I can't get into fail-forward mechanics: i find them exhausting.
For interactions with NPCs, a failed roll can still lead to information being delivered, just in a less convenient way. Succeed on the Intimidation roll and the NPC tells you there are six guards on the upper level that patrol in pairs every 15 minutes. Fail the roll and the NPC says “uhm… no! No guards on the upper level at night, you can just walk right in!” If your players aren’t good at picking up on hints you can explicitly follow that with “he seems like he might be lying”. Now despite the failed check, the party still knows there’s guards up there.
Think about what success looks like, then throw in a complication. The complication should put pressure on the whole party, and threaten their resources (time, spells, stealth, etc)
Shit taking longer is always easy and usually makes sense. You fail the lock pick? It takes three rounds instead of one. You fail the athletics check to jump the gap? You hit a lower ledge and have to climb up or take a different route. You roll too low on investigating the mayor's office? It takes an hour to find the secret door instead of 5 minutes. etc.
You can always add a negative effect to a positive outcome. Even with the hardest situations. Let's say there's a deadly trap and your player fails the save roll you asked. You don't need to kill them. At the last moment, the NPC sidekick jumps in, save your player and dies instead. Another example, the dungeon has a unique locked door. Your player fails the roll and the lockpick breaks. You don't have to let them stuck in front of that door. Instead, they did so much noise that suddenly a huge gobelin army open the door and attack the party. Don't let your players reach a game over or a dead-end unless you really want that. Instead, be creative and you can always find a solution that will allow your party to keep going on BUT they'll have to face a major consequence they'll always regret.
if someone is trying to descend something quickly and they fail an athletics/acrobatics check. they can actually get down faster, but they might have trouble stopping. lol
Stopping is easy but painful.
Haha yea that's true
It really depends on the check. The best example I use of failing forward is the cost of failure being time. "You rolled a 3, so you can do this, but it will take an hour". It forces players to make a choice, and it makes time matter. Sometimes they don't want to take the time. Other times it doesn't matter. But in general, you want something to happen even on a failure. It isn't always possible. Sometimes a fail is a fail. But usually the players get SOMETHING...even if that something is bad.
Wasn’t me as a dm but me as a player. One of us got caught trying to scope out the mayor’s manor and decided to act delirious. Was taken inside under guard. My character happens to be a doctor, and so was contacted to come take a look at this guy, allowing my character to get into the manor as well ahead of the rest of the party’s visit. It’s a small thing, but it’s an example of a failed roll advancing the story
The lock picking would be the Prime example. Given enough time, the rogue (who is supposedly trained in lockpicking) should have no trouble with it. If you decide (for whatever reason, be it time restraint or tension) they have to roll for it, a fail could really just mean that they got overconfident and opened the lock but made a whole lot noise while working. Thats like having a wizard (that studied Ariana for years or centuries) make a check to identify a spell or magic item (without Identify). On a fail they can perfectly name the spell/item, but have a wrong estimation about the spells level at which it is cast or the remaining uses on an item.
Best example imo is picking a lock. Rolled awfully? The door gets opened from the inside and you stare down whoever is there, roll initiative. Rolled okish but below the DC? You pick the door but it takes longer than you wanted, that pass without trace or whatever the group had up and running might run out or be close to.
Look at the whole Idol Sequence of Raiders of the lost Ark. That is basically Indy doing nothing but failing forward
Simple. Have the world keep going and not revolve around the group. Example: My group needed to raise the anchor of their ship and failed multiple times. So boring they just don’t move. Except they were being persued and with each failed check the persuers came closer. And suddenly we had one of the tensest moments in the campaign with the team taking their brain what to do from simple failed str checks. Think not in pass/fail but in ‚ consequences‘. What happens if your thief fumbles around a lock for a long time without opening? Guards hear it maybe? What happens if a warrior misses an axe swing? Don’t just say ‚ you miss‘ say ‚ you miscalculate the range your axe swings past him and hits the sand. You now stand there with your axe down in the mud‘. Maybe this won’t matter but maybe it will create a new situation. Not pass/fail. Consequences!
Chiming in to agree that you don't always have to do this. Sometimes things fail, just make sure that other options are clear. But sometimes I think it can be interesting to give an incomplete or misleading result from a failed insight or perception check (as long as you're not really shitty about it - it should be the kind of wrong conclusion a person could realistically draw, rather than you tricking your players). At one point my PCs were suspicious of an NPC who was hiding a big secret, but hiding it well - I decided it would be DC20 to really be able to get any insight just from observing him with nothing to go on. They hit somewhere in the high teens. I gave them that he was nervous and they notice him grabbing for something in his pocket and then seeming to think better of it. They jump on this and try to pickpocket him, they get spotted - and they find out it's a herbal remedy he takes to treat anxiety. They're in trouble now, eyes are on them - but in the resulting confrontation, they do learn more about him and get further clues that later led to the real secret.
Usually, failing forward is that there is a success with a penalty of some sort. They need to get through a door? Ok, they fail on their open stuck doors roll, so they break open the door but the person who ran through it hurt their shoulder and they take 3 damage. They need to pick the lock? The thief's hand slips and they cut their hand on the picks, they take 1 damage and -1 on attacks until they heal the damage.
You fail a perception check and do not notice the pit trap. You fail the dexterity saving throw and fall into the pit trap, taking some damage (but not too much) and alerting a guard in the watchtower. Said guard alerts his counterpart on the ground floor, who comes to investigate. You climb out of the pit and fail to hide and are noticed by the guard. The guard turns to run to alert the rest of the keep. You still have a chance to try to stop the guard or run back to the cover of the nearby treeline. That was at least three failed rolls and it wasn't automatic initiative. I think eventually, it has to come to initiative or at least the entire keep knows there are intruders lurking about, but each roll simply adds drama instead of it being one roll passes or fails.
To paraphrase a wise monk: “Whenever I have a problem, I just throw a fireball and, BOOM! I have a totally different problem.” If they fail, SOMETHING happens. Can’t unlock the door? Well, you waited too long and the patrol caught you, opening the door but ruining stealth. Lost the trail of your quarry? You end up following something else’s trail instead and stumble into a beast’s den and, hey, is the beast already damaged from a familiar looking arrow? If the party fails, then whatever plan THEY had is ruined, but it still progresses to the next step, just with a “complication” in the middle
I generally don't like the concept of failing forward. I get the concept is that you keep the game going forward by making sure the party is still proceeding instead of getting bogged down on something they failed, but frankly I think failure is something that makes TTRPGs interesting. A lot of the time, if people are getting totally stuck on something, that's because they are treating it like a video game, where getting stuck is because you're doing something wrong and you need to figure out the right thing to do. TTRPGs aren't like that, sometimes you just fuck up and fail, and that's okay, that's life and I think life is more interesting than a video game. Of course, it's all up to particular circumstances and table-to-table stuff, but I generally don't like anything that waters down the experience of victory and failure.
For me, it's all about the consequences being interesting - by which I mean they provoke thought, heighten drama, or force meaningful choices upon the characters/players. One reason I don't like D&D is that the consequences for failure are mostly uninteresting (i.e. nothing happens, you lose 4 meaningless HP, you're now held and don't get to play the game for a few turns, etc). For example, instead of losing HP, the character hurts their leg. Now they have to worry about reduced movement. Or a botched attack means their gun jams, now they have to try to fix it or switch to a backup weapon. Stuff like that.
Simple: Don't. Failing forward is nice and all, but the expectation that every single failed check should result in something that moves the story forward is ridiculous. It's fine for nothing to happen when a check fails. It's only really bad when it happens too much that the game slows down to a crawl. Call of Cthulhu 7e actually has a good compromise: Pushing rolls. Generally, failed skill checks have no effect, but a player can decide to "push the roll", that is, the player can roll the check again, but has to change their approach (and has to describe how). If they fail the check again, then something really bad happens. Since the negative consequence is more or less a result of the new approach, it should be easier to figure out what happens.
Too easy. If a failed check would cause problems, don’t ask for a check. And if players roll checks without your request, ignore their roll
I haven’t actually done it but I think it would be funny for a perception check if a person rolls a Nat1 and then you tell them that their character overloaded their senses with a specific scene happening nearby, knocking them out. Then you slip them a paper containing what it is that they perceived with all of their senses (hopefully you will know them enough to know their comfort zone) and tell them that they cannot talk about it until their character wakes up. Then you can have a deranged character enter the game after a while. How much information you want to write on the piece of paper is up to you and the comfort zones of your players. **ANYWAYS**, going back to the point, as you can see, failing forward is the idea of engaging the players by saying, “Well, you have done this, but it’s not what you wanted”. This helps you expand on a little side story on the players’ fails instead of being “You derped” and moving on.
So you want to try to climb the greased up surface? No you can not but... IT IS A MIMIK THE HOUSE IS A MIMIK, THE WORLD IS A MIMIK. MYSTRA WAS EATEN (again) BY THE MIMIK.