I've noticed in a few of the pre-written adventures (for example, Lessons of the Past, F&D p439) that certain tasks require skill checks where there is nothing else really to be done when they've failed but to try again. Am I meant to fill these failures with something that forces them away so they can try again later? While I see the tension increase for needing skill checks on crucial tasks, I'm not sure how to deal with the failures.

In that specific instance you could use it as a time sink and say they found some kind of hint or clue that what they're looking for is somewhere else. You could also have another attack occur while searching as an explanation why it failed and that once completed they can try and finish searching. You could have things found even on a success but perhaps they're broken, or some kind of auto destruct begins.

The point is to try and not make rolls simply linear pass/fail, and try to create layers of success and failure based on results. I always use the picking the locked door example. You aren't making a Skulduggery check to pick the lock, you're making the check to ultimately get past the door. Failure doesn't mean you don't gain entry, it just means the alarm sounds, you suffer strain from a feedback shock, a patrol happens to be standing there just as you open it, etc.

5 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

You aren't making a Skulduggery check to pick the lock, you're making the check to ultimately get past the door. Failure doesn't mean you don't gain entry, it just means the alarm sounds, you suffer strain from a feedback shock, a patrol happens to be standing there just as you open it, etc.

My understanding was that the check would actually be for whether the door opens or not, disadvantage/despair would control alternative conditions like alarms, feedback, etc.

27 minutes ago, RogueJedi said:

My understanding was that the check would actually be for whether the door opens or not, disadvantage/despair would control alternative conditions like alarms, feedback, etc.

That's how I do it. I also allow for failures, and I never script my adventures with the assumptions that the PCs will be successful in any portion of it. If a dice roll is involved, don't be afraid to let them fail.

44 minutes ago, RogueJedi said:

My understanding was that the check would actually be for whether the door opens or not, disadvantage/despair would control alternative conditions like alarms, feedback, etc.

I think if you insert pass/fail checks as absolutes you insert plot choke points and that leads to where everyone sits looking at one another and says "now what". Invariably that leads to trying again somewhere else, or in the same place, and I am of the mind if you're just going to keep rolling till you succeed why roll at all?

11 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

I think if you insert pass/fail checks as absolutes you insert plot choke points and that leads to where everyone sits looking at one another and says "now what". Invariably that leads to trying again somewhere else, or in the same place, and I am of the mind if you're just going to keep rolling till you succeed why roll at all?

In a game about imagination, I would hope that failure doesn't "invariably" lead to just trying again. If one door closes, another one is just asking to be kicked-in.

4 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

In a game about imagination, I would hope that failure doesn't "invariably" lead to just trying again. If one door closes, another one is just asking to be kicked-in.

Totally agreed, but--and I say this with love for the F&D pre-written adventure, which my players loved--the GM does need to be reminded of this as often as possible.

9 hours ago, RogueJedi said:

I've noticed in a few of the pre-written adventures (for example, Lessons of the Past, F&D p439) that certain tasks require skill checks where there is nothing else really to be done when they've failed but to try again.

When you see these things, sometimes it's because it's poorly written, but usually it's only because a pre-written module only has so much space, so they are really presenting the "happy path". It's always on the GM to modify and make the story move forward, accommodating player decisions as the tale unfolds.

One of the key elements of adventure design is to not place binary obstacles in the way of PCs. If a roll must succeed for the PCs to continue, I like to consider that the roll isn't to determine the success or failure, but rather the time and complications. A story cannot grind to a halt because of one failed roll.

19 minutes ago, themensch said:

One of the key elements of adventure design is to not place binary obstacles in the way of PCs. If a roll must succeed for the PCs to continue, I like to consider that the roll isn't to determine the success or failure, but rather the time and complications. A story cannot grind to a halt because of one failed roll.

This. Whenever I have a situation like this one with the locked door I like to think of it not as "whether or not the door opens", but maybe "whether or not the door opens before the next patrol comes wandering by", or "whether the door opens in 3 rounds or in 1 round".

3 hours ago, themensch said:

One of the key elements of adventure design is to not place binary obstacles in the way of PCs. If a roll must succeed for the PCs to continue, I like to consider that the roll isn't to determine the success or failure, but rather the time and complications. A story cannot grind to a halt because of one failed roll.

3 hours ago, Krieger22 said:

This. Whenever I have a situation like this one with the locked door I like to think of it not as "whether or not the door opens", but maybe "whether or not the door opens before the next patrol comes wandering by", or "whether the door opens in 3 rounds or in 1 round".

I agree strongly with both of you; and good GM's have been doing this for decades. The problem with this system, however; is that in addition to framing the success / failure axis as you describe, you also have to come up with what to do with any advantages or threats. This is by no means insurmountable (and I enjoy the system overall in spite of it); but outside of combat, I find it to be an annoying and unnecessary complication.

52 minutes ago, Vorzakk said:

The problem with this system, however; is that in addition to framing the success / failure axis as you describe, you also have to come up with what to do with any advantages or threats. This is by no means insurmountable (and I enjoy the system overall in spite of it); but outside of combat, I find it to be an annoying and unnecessary complication.

Mein Gott, why on Earth would you play this system, then?

I'm genuinely curious. There are lots of ways to modify the system, as you're no doubt aware, and I'm not much interested in converting or naysaying you, but over 600 posts and you dislike the Major Selling Point (TM) of the FFG system? That I find interesting.

50 minutes ago, BrickSteelhead said:

Mein Gott, why on Earth would you play this system, then?

That is indeed a very valid question, which was precisely why I answered it in my post. I could go into specifics, but they would be completely irrelevant to the topic of this thread.

I'm just wondering, but is there ever a situation in the movies where a check "must" succeed? I can't think of one, but maybe that's because my brain is wired to think of alternatives in the event of failure.

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

I'm just wondering, but is there ever a situation in the movies where a check "must" succeed? I can't think of one, but maybe that's because my brain is wired to think of alternatives in the event of failure.

It's hard to say as the results are prescripted. But there are any number of moments that could end badly for the protagonists. When they're trapped in the trash compactor for example. If R2 failed his slicing check then perhaps they would have become goo?

1 hour ago, robus said:

It's hard to say as the results are prescripted. But there are any number of moments that could end badly for the protagonists. When they're trapped in the trash compactor for example. If R2 failed his slicing check then perhaps they would have become goo?

That's when you find out that they were not the real heroes of the story. Good thing there was still a Jedi Master and a pair of droids aboard to carry on the mission. There might have even been other prisoners that could have been freed at the same time as Leia (but took a different escape route), or maybe an Imperial defector joins Team Heroes.

I like to add the success/failure option in three different ways:

1. you fail the check to (let's say) open the door, well now you won't get the special item that is stored in that room that would helped your course. Those checks are mend only for sideways in MY stories like treasures, shortcuts, powerups [insert any bonus you may think of that isn't nesseccary to carrie out the mission.

2. you may fail this check but then you may try again kind - BUT if you fail it will putt you under somekind of pressure because now the inquisitor, gouverner, pirate lord, a.s.o. has got a little bit more time to ether increase his defenses, or doing harm to the people, planet ect. your trying to help right now. (my players learned to fear this kind of failures... )

3. the ultimate do it or don't do it: the player knows he has just X rounds to get X successes before something game changing happens. e.g. "the alarm sounded when the Inquisitor deactivated the athmospheric shield of the hangarbay where all the townspeople of Zrataket were herded like nerfs. In three rounds the vaccuum of space will start to take effect when the shild is completly down and the people will die a horroble and painfull death right in front of your eyes. Quickly you try to reroute the energy of the shield via the console your standing at. not the easiest task... since it is for the weapon control... but it should be possible for a slicer like you... good luck and may the force be with you." and yes if he fails after the counted rounds those people are plain death, and all thats left is may be taking revenge on that sidiuos Inquisitor (hello conflict ^^)

On 13/08/2017 at 8:43 AM, 2P51 said:

I think if you insert pass/fail checks as absolutes you insert plot choke points and that leads to where everyone sits looking at one another and says "now what". Invariably that leads to trying again somewhere else, or in the same place, and I am of the mind if you're just going to keep rolling till you succeed why roll at all?

While I agree with the "why bother if you're just going to keep re-rolling" attitude in general, this system has actually made re-rolls more interesting with the Advantage/Threat axis. If, to take your lockpicking example, a character comes up against a particularly fiendish lock, failing and then retrying can lead to the threats really stacking up as more setback and/or challenge dice are added to the pool, pulling the player towards that inevitable Despair result...!

17 hours ago, whafrog said:

When you see these things, sometimes it's because it's poorly written, but usually it's only because a pre-written module only has so much space, so they are really presenting the "happy path". It's always on the GM to modify and make the story move forward, accommodating player decisions as the tale unfolds.

1

I find that the published adventures, while fine in terms of "plot", are very hit-and-miss with the prescribed checks. They're good for inspiration, but a bit of a pain to actually run.

14 hours ago, themensch said:

One of the key elements of adventure design is to not place binary obstacles in the way of PCs. If a roll must succeed for the PCs to continue, I like to consider that the roll isn't to determine the success or failure, but rather the time and complications. A story cannot grind to a halt because of one failed roll.

I guess it depends on your definition of "binary". If there is genuinely just one route "forward" and a single dice roll will determine success or failure, then sure, those can cause problems (although in certain circumstances they may be dramatically appropriate). However, absolute pass/fail checks are fine provided there are genuinely alternative options available should the PCs fail . In fact, I would advocate that these checks should exist - if the PCs cannot fail at something, there's no point in rolling: there's no inherent risk in the check.

Again, to take the locked door example: let's say the PCs fail their Skulduggery check, and the GM determines that they therefore cannot pick the lock at all (not a ruling I would generally make, but let's leave that to one side for the moment). That's a binary obstacle - you either pick the lock or you don't. But the story doesn't have to grind to a halt - the PCs now have a host of options available to them. They could try to break the door down (Athletics) or, if it's more substantial, attempt to blow it up (Mechanics). They could attempt to find another way in (Perception) or find someone in town (Streetwise) who has a key that they can steal (Skulduggery), buy (Negotiation), clone (Computers), acquire through convincing argument (Charm, Coercion, Deception), or acquire through violence.

2 hours ago, edwardavern said:

I find that the published adventures, while fine in terms of "plot", are very hit-and-miss with the prescribed checks. They're good for inspiration, but a bit of a pain to actually run.

Agreed. Except for the beginner box, I've never run a module as-is. They are idea mines, and that's about it. I'd go so far as to say if you try to run them as written, you'll create more headaches for yourself than if you heavily adapt it to your own campaign.

On 8/13/2017 at 6:21 PM, HappyDaze said:

I'm just wondering, but is there ever a situation in the movies where a check "must" succeed? I can't think of one, but maybe that's because my brain is wired to think of alternatives in the event of failure.

I can think of one case where a check must succeed (at least without massive consequence).

Torpedo in thermal exhaust port. Fail and the Rebellion dies. Although I guess they had a couple shots at it. But ultimately, it was a chokepoint.

Generally, any case where if you don't succeed the bad guy kills everyone you are trying to save.

Looking at the series as a GM, he learned his mistake by ROTJ, and rather than have the demolition roll to destroy the Shield Bunker be a pass/fail, when it failed, they were ambushed by additional troops, but got a second chance. Followed by needing to hack into the bunker, Han rolls fail and despair on Skullduggery (sealing a shield door), but also a triumph to get bonuses to bluff his way in instead.

3 hours ago, Edgookin said:

I can think of one case where a check must succeed (at least without massive consequence).

Torpedo in thermal exhaust port. Fail and the Rebellion dies. Although I guess they had a couple shots at it. But ultimately, it was a chokepoint.

The Rebellion was more than that one base. It's possible that the destruction of Yavin's moon and the continued threat of the Death Star may have created even more interesting adventures. It's only a chokepoint if you've predetermined that a certain story must play out, and I don't choose to play in games like that.

On 8/13/2017 at 2:36 AM, RogueJedi said:

I've noticed in a few of the pre-written adventures (for example, Lessons of the Past, F&D p439) that certain tasks require skill checks where there is nothing else really to be done when they've failed but to try again. Am I meant to fill these failures with something that forces them away so they can try again later? While I see the tension increase for needing skill checks on crucial tasks, I'm not sure how to deal with the failures.

My own approach in these cases is to take a page from the 7th Sea 2nd edition RPG and FATE Core.

Once the players pick up the dice, they are going to "succeed" in that they complete the task and the story moves forward. However, if they are unable to generate an uncancelled successes on their check, they instead "fail forward," essentially succeeding at a cost, something that makes the scene interesting without totally derailing the plot, with the potential to use any advantages generated able to be used to offset some (but not all!) of that cost of success.

It's worked out pretty well, and some of players have come to eagerly anticipate the other shoe dropping, while others await with dread what could possibly have gone wrong, and in some cases coming up with ideas (before someone else tells them to shush) that are far more sinister (or amusing) than what I've come up with.

Keeps the story moving (important!), keeps the players on their toes (also important but also fun), and avoids constant re-rolls until they succeed (boring!)

On 15.8.2017 at 11:45 PM, Donovan Morningfire said:

Once the players pick up the dice, they are going to "succeed" in that they complete the task and the story moves forward. However, if they are unable to generate an uncancelled successes on their check, they instead "fail forward," essentially succeeding at a cost, something that makes the scene interesting without totally derailing the plot, with the potential to use any advantages generated able to be used to offset some (but not all!) of that cost of success.

I'm using very similar approach. I hate checks in which the failure stalls the game. They are boring, and break the flow of the game. Often, I also add alternative solutions (allow creativity with triumps and advantages), based on PC rolls.

Funny things is that favourite result for PC in our group is success with despair, or failure with triumph, or anything with despair AND triumph. And as wafrog I never run modules as-is. Even beginner boxes. Our worst session ever was when I run AoR beginner box as-is. Different groups and play styles require some modifications.

49 minutes ago, kkuja said:

I hate checks in which the failure stalls the game. They are boring, and break the flow of the game. Often, I also add alternative solutions (allow creativity with triumps and advantages), based on PC rolls.

My players usually have multiple ideas rolling around so that a failure in one path is quickly forgotten as they dedicate themselves to a new approach. The flow of the game is hardly an issue here, although at times they do overplan during the downtimes. It helps that my players generally seem interested in finding novel solutions to problems rather than just brute forcing their way through (the approach that most often ends up stymied by opponents).

I'm with Donovan and the Frog...

There's no question that they're going to get past the door. They have to get past the door for the story to continue, and let's be real... that's why we're *all* at the table.

The question is *how* they get past the door - how quickly, with what effects, what's on the other side, etc... and in my games, that's what the dice are for.