The Beauty Of The Failed Roll
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 9:39AM Lately, as time and other responsibilities have permitted (which hasn’t been much...), I’ve been working on an adventure proposal for Pelgrane Press’s excellent Pulp-era RPG Trail Of Cthulhu. “ToC” uses the Gumshoe system, a mystery/investigation-oriented set of rules created by Robin Laws. Like pretty much everything Robin creates, Gumshoe is well-written, well-designed, and fun.
Among other things, Gumshoe is designed to make planning and running investigation-based adventures easier and more fun. Robin’s observation is that standard RPG rules, which make the finding of clues depending on successful “skill rolls” or similar mechanics, often short-circuit mystery scenarios. A failed roll means the characters overlook a vital clue — something that would never happen in a mystery novel or film.
So, to better simulate the genre and make the game flow more smoothly, in Gumshoe characters can’t fail to find clues. If any character in Place Y has Skill X, he automatically finds the clue associated with Place Y. (And there are ways to find even more clues, or more significant ones, built into the rules.) The catch is that just finding a clue isn’t what matters — the players still have to properly interpret the clue they find, which can make all the difference in how they solve the mystery. Gumshoe is a great RPG, just the sort of quality work I’ve come to expect from Robin.
I certainly can’t dispute the central idea of wanting to avoid having a failed roll derail a scenario. Every gamer’s been grievously victimized by them a time or twenty, and I’m no exception. Hell, I’ve seen them derail entire campaigns and ruin entire characters, and I bet many of you reading this have too. In some respects the failed roll is one of the most annoying things about RPGs.
And yet, I wonder if maybe our dislike of failed rolls overlooks something fundamental. I think there’s a case to be made that the failed roll and its consequences are at the heart of the RPG experience despite how frustrating they can be.
When I read a novel or watch a movie, to some extent there’s no real dramatic tension because I know the hero’s going to triumph in the end. He’ll solve the mystery. He’ll kill the bad guys and save the victims. He’ll get past the corrupt cops somehow and make it to Atlanta with the beer on time. Whatever. The best stories can overcome this predictability (to some extent) with high-quality writing. Serial media (TV and comics) can do the same by victimizing minor characters. But ultimately we still know the protagonists are gonna end up in the winner’s circle.
What makes roleplaying games so great is that the dramatic tension is real. There is no guarantee that the heroes — the PCs — will succeed. And in many cases the chief obstacle that gets in the way of their ultimate success is the possibility of a failed roll. Thus, when I go into an RPG session, I feel actual dramatic tension, because I can’t know if I’ll succeed. Sure, it’s incredibly annoying when a little thing like a failed dice roll short circuits my march to victory — but the fact is that the specter of the failed roll is what makes the successful rolls, and hopefully my eventual triumph, truly sweet. When I succeed in an RPG scenario, I feel like I’ve actually earned the success because I actually risked failure.
Furthermore, if we want to accept the common conceit that RPGs are a form of “group interactive storytelling,” the failed roll has an equally important role to play: it introduces an element of uncertainty that both player and GM have to deal with that helps shape the collective tale. Having to react to the failed roll improves a GM’s skills, and provides players with an opportunity to roleplay. It’s easy to know how a character will act when he triumphs; it tells you a lot more about a character to figure out how he reacts to failure and unexpected calamity.
So as much as I hate being affected by failed rolls on a personal level, as an RPG designer I have to step back and say that I believe they have a lot of objective value. I think RPGs are a distinct art/storytelling form from fiction, movies, and the like. Maybe we game designers should pay more attention to what makes them distinct and fun, rather than focusing entirely on the Holy Grail of “genre simulation” (or whatever you want to call it). Failed rolls are an aspect of that distinctiveness, so the next time your die comes up with a “1,” celebrate the qualities that failure brings to the table rather than simply cursing your bad luck.
Reader Comments (6)
Great thoughts, Steve. I've definitely seen this phenomenon at work (play?) in RPGs as well. Some of the most memorable adventures I can recall, were so memorable largely due to unexpected directions they took as a result of needing to overcome failed rolls.
I do wonder, though, whether failures we might call dramatic failures (such as valiantly trying-but-failing to hit the flying dragon in its one missing scale) and what we might call foolish failures (such as failing to hit the sleeping dragon in its enormous head because you tripped over a rock) should be handled differently. It's one thing to not have things go your way when the outcome is truly in doubt, and quite another to blow some routine task. I might argue that while the first is a vital part of the dramatic tension you're talking about, the second is just annoying... ;-)
Granted, good GMing can reduce or eliminate the second kind, by simply not requiring die rolls in any situation where there's nothing dramatic to be gained by introducing a chance of failure. But it might be interesting to see how an RPG might mechanically tackle reducing or eliminating the foolish failures, while leaving the dramatic failures intact...
Generally speaking I agree with you, Derek. There are instances in which the story can turn on success/failure... and instances when no character in fiction or movies would ever fail (outside of spoofs and parodies). Part of good GMing is learning to distinguish those moments and ignore the latter when necessary. Part of good design is having the rules explain to the GM that a roll often isn't necessary unless it's a "crucial success/failure" point.
Then again, I suppose even failure at a mundane task could steer a story in some interesting ways. I think back to a time I was playing Champions and failed *five* blatantly obvious PER Rolls in a row. Annoying as hell at the time... but in retrospect it forced the GM (the inimitable John Grigni) to take the scenario in directions that he had never intended, and that turned out to be hellafun. Fortunately, John's darn good when it comes to thinkin' on his feet. ;)
I'm just excited to hear that you will be working on something with Pelgrane. I think I have everything in their Gumshow line since Darren tipped me off to Esoterrorists which is just great. My next campaign, which may start in a month or so, if TOC and Armitage Files. ;)
Can you tell us anything more about the adventure you are doing? Is it 1930? Please! :D
John, all I can say is that I'm working on a proposal for an adventure for them that would be part of a larger collection of adventures (I think). I don't feel at liberty to say more. For that matter, they may not even like/accept the proposal.
But at least I'm having some fun doing the research... as time allows. ;)
I think you hit the nail on the head here. A horrible and unexpected roll has more than once changed the course of our games. A series of horrible rolls has killed more than one player :(
However a great and unexpected roll has more than once changed the direction of a game in the other direction. I have seen a single player with a couple lucky rolls take out villains meant to challenge a whole group. And the anxiety of those rolls makes the players feel great. I have seen character live and die based on die rolls on the outside of the curve and I think this is so essential to the fun.
If we were to remove all the characters failure to try and make them like reading a novel, then we may as well just be reading or writing a novel.
1. failed rolls can lead to ostracisim, the campaign hinged on a roll and the player(s dice) failed.
2. OTOH failed rolls makes a character more interesting.
Most of my characters are well known around the table, one of my fellow gamers who never fails are rarely mentioned if ever.
For example I know She was Playing a Nun and I was playing a catholic her Nun is never mentioned while barely a month goes by when my character isn't mentioned, admittedly it always involves the time he flash banged a cancer ward (bad grenade roll, with ugly scatter result but it could have been much worse) and that was over a decade and at least five campaigns ago.
Another character that is easily remembered from my stable is Doc Random from an even earlier campaign most famous for jumping off of the roof of a burning building (he had the daredevil Knack) aiming for his car seat.... and he missed.
The moral of these anecdotes is their failures, not successes made them memorable.