Mixed Success and No-Fail Rolls in Fate

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Sep 132011
 

Here’s another idea banging around in my head about Fate that I’m not sure is ready for FateRPG.com.

So to generalize, in Apocalypse World, players roll 2d6 for various things, which the results usually reading like:

2-6: Failure (you don’t get what you’re after, and things may well get worse)
7-9: Mixed/minimal success (success with complications)
10+: Solid success (you get what you’re after pretty comprehensively)

I dig this idea of mixed success — of a gradient between success and failure — and I think it’s going to be one of those “hot technologies” in gaming over the next few years. Success with complications is “yes, but” in action. Yes, you crack the safe, but not as fast as you wanted — the guards will be here any second. Yes, you sneak over the wall and make your escape, but you were caught on camera. It’s good stuff.

This idea is translated over into Fate pretty easily. First, frame this idea in your head: the target difficulty for a skill roll is the roll necessary to get a mixed success.  The target is Fair; you roll Good; you succeed, but….

To really blow the target out of the water, to succeed comprehensively, you gotta get spin on your success. Spin is an idea that’s shown up in Spirit of the Century as well as a few other builds of Fate, and it’s simple short-hand for getting 3 or more shifts on your roll — beating the target difficulty by 3 or more.  (Why 3? An aspect bump can get you a +2. Spin is a way to recognize a win that wasn’t built simply by one invocation. It’s a good roll, a multi-invoke, high-rated skill, a combo of all that, that sort of thing.)

So to rate the above using shifts, we’d say:

<0: Failure
0-2: Mixed success
3+: Solid success

Now you’ve got some flavor going in a simple, quick roll — that gradient between failure and success that I was talking about earlier. And because “yes, but” can produce a decent amount of story fun, fitting it in the middle, where the results are usually more likely to fall all things being equal, you’re going to see that a lot.

Now let’s talk GUMSHOE (as seen in Esoterrorists, Trail of Cthulhu, etc).  One of the things in GUMSHOE is the idea that investigative abilities straight up can’t fail, because you never want to see an investigative path that prevents the story from moving forward. Now, that’s a principle that dovetails with a piece of advice we’ve given out in Fate before: if failure isn’t interesting, you shouldn’t roll. In essence, GUMSHOE is putting forward the idea that failure on investigative rolls is uninteresting.

I think investigation isn’t the only place where that concept has some traction, though: traversing terrain obstacles, for example (“climb over that wall, jump over that ravine”) also apply. Regardless, the point is that there are some situations that characters will encounter where they have skills that apply, but which aren’t particularly interesting to roll, because failing on them produces an outcome that’s unattractive for the story (fail to jump the ravine, you die; fail to crack the safe, the secret remains unavailable). So even if the player were to roll the dice on his skill, the result is no failure.

These sorts of no-fail rolls are where mixed success can come into the picture again. So let’s do this: ditch the “failure” tier on the result table, and slide the remaining ones into the gap. That leaves us with a new gap at 3+ that we need to fill, something beyond a solid success: an awesome success.

<0: Mixed success
0-2: Solid success
3+: Awesome success

If mixed success is “yes, but”, and solid success is simply “yes”, then an awesome success is “yes, and”, right? You could simply leave it at that and resolve the “yes, and” in the fiction if you like. “Yes, you leap over the chasm, AND you manage to do it while your sidekick clings screaming to your head.” But we know that Fate likes a good temporary aspect every once in a while, so consider the notion that an awesome success means you get to create a temporary aspect — like the result of a successful maneuver or declaration — to support how awesome you just were. “I leap over the chasm! That means I’ve got a Great Head Start. I’ll be tagging that one later…”

So that’s the core of the idea. Like it? Tweak it? Ditch it? Speak up.

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 Posted by Fred Hicks at 8:44 pm  Add comments  Tagged with:
  • http://spiritoftheblank.blogspot.com Mike Olson

    That’s how I run a lot of investigative stuff in FATE, when I’m smart enough to remember to do it. Fail or succeed, you’re getting some baseline data just for asking about it. For ever, say, two shifts on the roll (often against a target of Mediocre), I give you another detail — or, more likely, I tell you to give me another detail, because you’re asking about something I hadn’t considered, or I just think it’d be more interesting for the story for you to throw me a few curves.

    It’s worth noting that Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space has a very similar “Yes, but”/”Yes”/”Yes, and” set-up, as well as a “No, but”/”No”/”No, and” end of the scale. The thing that AW adds to that that I love is a discrete list of questions or options for the player or MC to choose from to answer those “ands” and “buts.”

  • http://www.mithriltabby.com/ Max Kaehn

    In some cases, I represent challenges as defending against an attack, and if you fail, you take stress. I got the idea from the Resources track in Strands of Fate, where you defend against the price of an item, then adapted it for a steeplechase: you pick your speed (number of shifts you will traverse this round) and are attacked by that, and defend with Athletics/Drive/Pilot (possibly taking physical stress).

  • Derik Malenda

    It’s also fairly similar to the 2d6 system used in Traveller (or at least the Mongoose version of Traveller). If you succeed by just hitting the difficulty number you get success, but with a catch. If you fail by just one, then you don’t succeed per se, but dont’ completely fail either (the classic example being: leaping across a chasm, you fail by 1, you don’t make the far edge, but catch a tree root a few feet down and are left hanging there precariously).

    I agree with you that the days of strictly binary success: Pass/Fail are probably going to go away as more and more gamers (and game designers) seem to be all jumping on board the “Failure is Pretty Boring” bandwagon.

  • MAK

    Great idea! Not having played AW, though, I cannot immediately see how the mixed success plays out in a combat situation. Any examples? Or is this purely for non-combat rolls?

  • Palmer

    Mixed success is a very tricky road to go down and balance.
    In opposed contests, you can’t really have it, period.
    For fixed difficulties, if you keep the same targets, what you’re effectively doing is downgrading the power level of EVERYONE. What this means is that an effort that used to suffice (Good), now merely “gets by” and suffers some drawback as well. The “but” examples you give are great drama, for sure, but the drawbacks almost sound like mild consequences, or worse. I’d rather take a mild (gone in a scene) than have the guards arrive (they’ll take at least 1 scene to deal with AND I risk taking stress or consequences from that). Having your pic on camera can easily be a Severe Consequence (“Recognized By Everyone”), especially for a sneaky character.
    That’s harsh.

    Now, it’s inherently self-balancing in that antagonists are ALSO suffering from the same level of reduced competence. However, it still doesn’t feel that way, because protagonists make a lot more rolls, and antagonists have all their background “rolls” handwaved.

    OPTION: Especially good for groups who are mixed on whether they like the idea or not.
    “Before rolling, a player may choose to Push Their Luck. This gives them a +1 on the roll, but they now roll against the Mixed Success target instead of the regular target.”
    This makes it optional, and in control of the players who are more comfortable with the idea
    This splits the difference on the table, helping balance some of the competence “loss” by flat out increasing the chance for any kind of success.
    It also gives everyone a “desperation option”. If you REALLY need to make the roll, you can gamble an unforeseen outcome to increase your odds of making it.
    This doesn’t generate as much drama as having it “always on”, but BOY will it ratchet up the tension in moments when you really need that +1.

    Alternate version: Declare before roll for +2. Side effects not as common (only need 1 extra shift to avoid them). OR, if a roll is missed by 1, a player can choose AFTER the roll, to take a “Yes But” and take the +1 to succeed. If using +2, consider setting the Solid Success line at 4 shifts instead of 3. I really like the idea of people paying with Yes Buts to just make that roll they barely missed. Interesting decision point added if nothing else.

    - – -

    Now for the record, there IS a mixed-success option you already have in your toolbox. It’s an awesome one, though I really don’t know how you could integrate it into FATE.
    All I can say is, nothing makes the table groan like “Yes, and Pain dominates”

  • Fnorder

    Great idea!

    But why stop with the temporary aspects just with pure awesome success? Make complications due to a “failed” success hand out interesting aspects as wel!

  • http://www.critical-hits.com Dave T. Game

    So, I really like systems that have a “yes, but…” and other degrees of variation beyond binary results, but I think it’s more interesting when they’re not tied to actual degree of success. The highly trained guy might open the safe with ease, but there’s always a chance that there will be some degree of fallout.

    In FATE, I might take the Cortex approach and make rich dice. Any roll that has – and no + generates a complication of some kind, regardless of success or failure. This does mean that the success is likely more due to skill, and luck happened to cast an unfortunate spin on it (it also skews these kinds of complexities towards low rolls).

    • http://spiritoftheblank.blogspot.com Mike Olson

      Or have 1dF be a different color from the other three. If that die rolls a -, there’s a complication.

      Or 2dF — if they roll the same result (two blanks, two minues, two pluses), there’s a complication.

    • Danni

      My take would be if the total of minus’s > greater than the total number of pluses

    • http://www.deadlyfredly.com/ Fred Hicks

      It’s a decent idea, though it’d require some examination. It’d be independent of skill level — so you’d have an equal chance of getting complicated success whether you had a Superb or an Average skill — and would kick in only when the roll tallies up to a penalty against that skill. That might be a tricky sell.

  • http://gameday.buzzmo.com buzz

    I love the idea, but I am seeing the same issue that Palmer notes above. To me, the simplest option is to adjust the ladder, i.e., ask for lower target numbers overall. (No offense, but I would hate to add more pre-roll decisions.)

    But… don’t aspects already handle this stuff? Can’t a GM simply offer a “Yes, but..” compel if a failed roll is within 2 shifts? That, or a temporary aspect: “You succeed in evading the ninjas by jumping in the dumpster, but you now have the aspect Covered In Grease.”

  • Jonathan Lang

    If “yes, and” can be treated as giving the player an opportunity to create a temporary aspect, then perhaps “yes, but” could be treated as a success that gives your character a consequence. If you’re using concepts from your “Consequences as Positive Currency” post over at FateRPG, “yes, but” doesn’t come up naturally on the roll. Instead, the player can convert a “no” into a “yes, but” by spending a consequence. In cases where the GM decides that failure is not an option, he should say something like “roll, but don’t fail.” When he says this, it’s code for “if the dice say that you fail, you must spend a consequence to succeed.” (Unless, of course, the player decides to spend Fate Point instead.) Or, more generally, it means “failure on this roll could potentially ruin the game. Do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.”

  • Mick Bradley

    This notion is a definite keeper! Absolutely.

  • buzz

    You can have “Yes, but” results in any game that is explicit about intent, too. Burning Wheel, iirc, has the “pick the lock before the guards come” example in the rules book, and “You pick the lock, but not before the guards see you do it” is one of the possible outcomes. Since the focus is on intent, rather than just the task, you can do that sort of thing. Mouse Guard is all about this, too.

  • Strangething

    This flows naturally out of SotC’s idea that success and failure need to be interesting. The “yes, but” response turns a boring failure into an amusing complication. Save the out-and-out failures for situations where it would be inherently interesting.

  • Stephen

    I think the only time “Yes-But” results should be used are when the plot cannot move forward otherwise (and that is a tricky thing… even character death in a vehicle chase can move the overall plot forward for the group as a whole)
    But if you take away the idea of failure, Will that not make a characters success feel hollow?
    Can you really drum up the drama when the characters know, one way or the other, that they will succeed?
    I thought that FATE points where what let the characters succeed against all odds… That success was (wait for it…) FATEd! (See what I just did there? Clever, huh?)
    Now, I think the “Yes-But” is an AWESOME tool to have in the GM’s arsenal, but one that the players should never “see”. Or if they do see it, add a lot of “Hemming” and “Hawing” to make them feel like it’s a “Tough call”. Also, Use it sparingly.
    The Point is, never…NEVER let the players think that the decisions they made, and what went down on their characters sheet wasn’t what made the difference. They have to think, always, that is was there character that was the bad ass. If they think they were going to be bad-ass any way then it loses all that “Did you just see what I Efing did?!” factor that players love.
    And why is that important? Because at the end of a day it’s why we all play and keep playing.
    I have two simple guidelines to tell if I’m doing a good job as a GM
    1) If I shut up and sit back for a moment and just look at the players behind my screen… do they notice? Are they so engrossed in their own conversations about the plot, and what to do, and making plans, and are just so plain exited that I have yet to have to say anything and they have not noticed, IF THE GAME IS FUNCTIONING FINE WITH OUT ME..Then that’s a win for the GM.

    2) If, after the game night is over (that night, or two years from that night) and players are still talking about the awesome things that happened, NPC’s they didn’t just hate (Most players Hate the “God NPC”) But LOVED to hate. Still talking about awesome events, and plot, and everything else. If they came away with feeling not only that they participated in a pre-written story, but lived -for even just a few hours at a time- in the world they helped craft… that’s a win for the GM.

    And really, something to be proud of.

    I think (Just my opinion) that if they players know, or suspect, that “Yes, But” is the answer to all or even most out comes that the event runs the risk of being tarnished and loosing the magic of the game at all.
    So if you use it, use it sparingly and wisely. It’s why God made GM screens in the fist place.

  • buzz

    @Stephen: “Can you really drum up the drama when the characters know, one way or the other, that they will succeed?”

    It works for almost all movies, books, comics and TV.

    The question is “What is the success going to cost them?” That’s where stories get interesting. Games, too.

    • Stephen

      @Buzz
      I get that, And, I agree :)
      It works Great in other mediums, It Kind of has too. (Very hard to get a movie green lit where the Hero fails ;)
      BUT (and I know this is Meta as all get out) my point is the PLAYERS shouldn’t know that.
      The Best movies and comics and what not are when a character is in trouble, and the stakes feel high, like there are real consequences- like the show your watching has killed off a character before.
      Just as an example… on “True Blood” if they endanger Sooki, well the audience never once believes that she is any real trouble, and kind of roll their eyes waiting to see how it all plays out..
      BUT..
      If Lafayette (or any of the other back ground characters) are in trouble… well that’s a bit sticker… they do, have, and are willing to drop a side character at the drop of a hat. That can put the viewer on edge and have them more emotionally invested then they would otherwise be.

      Now, we can try that same trick with a RPG, have interesting and loveable side characters that the players like, and even if they don’t feel there characters are in trouble they might be anxious over an NPC.
      If you figure out how to have the Players feel this way over a large enough cast to make it work on a regular basis, YOU MUST TELL ME HOW! Seriously, I would love to do that to my players :)
      But, knowing that my players have jobs and families and lives- that my players can only play bi-weekly. Well, I’m happy with them remembering the plot, being attached to one or two NPC’s affectionately, And playing their characters consistently from game to game (I find fate the BEST for this… aspects sometimes act as a wonderful personality reminder :) but I digress.
      If my players don’t think that at any time, the Challenge I present to them is real- it starts to lose credibility…
      The subtitle line is.. Use the “Yes, But” but don’t tell them that. Ever.
      It’s a shell game, for sure. But one were they get the most benefit.
      Never tell them what they have to roll. Ask if they want to tag any aspect, or if they would like to apply some to the scene first to get a free tag on. Whatever you do, you can let them know… “Well, with the modifiers that was BARLY OK… looks like the guard down the hall noticed you on the camera, though” and ya know what, go ahead and slide them a fate point for putting up with “GM Shenanigans”
      But don’t let them know that you took there failed roll and had it work anyway. I just feel (and again, It could just be me…every one had opinions) that if they see they can move forward even without trying—then why bother?
      “Oh, we failed a challenge and now something else happens… what if we fail that too? Ok, a third thing…so Just like in the corporate world, you can fail your way to success… wait… what?”
      YES, but is an AWESOME tool… some time it’s the best thing tool to use!
      But if I need a hammer, I don’t want a screw driver. And I can build a whole house with a Saw.
      It’s like salt. Use it here and there- not all the time- too much is a bad thing.
      And defiantly not as a hard and fast rule.

      Maybe I’m wrong?

  • buzz

    Stephen, what you describe is one specific way to run an RPG. It’s also possible to run a game where everyone at the table is fully aware that their characters will never fail at anything… but the focus of play is to find out what all that success is going to *cost* their characters. I’ve played various games in this mode, and I find it very satisfying.

  • Lisa Padol

    In general, I’m for “If a failure would be a real problem, as in stopping the game dead in the water, then don’t roll.”

    Exception: Sometimes, you don’t realize that a failed roll will stop something dead in the water. It happens.

    So, yes, I’m all for not making Find the Clue roll, or making the roll be about something else — not leaving a trace of your search, finding something extra, finding something quickly, that sort of thing. The tricky spot is: Why am I buying investigative skills if I’m going to Find the Clue? Can I use these skills for other useful and cool things, or should I just put my points somewhere else?

    I’m twitchy about modifying Fate for Yes, But. I think I am probably being silly and reacting to something completely different. You know the games where you’re told, “Okay, so, you need to roll a certain number or higher. The higher you roll, the better, but as long as you make the basic success, your character succeeds” only to be told later, “Well, if you just roll the number you were told you needed, it’s not a real success, not really. It’s a teetering on the edge of failure kind of success, and you really need to roll higher. In fact, that stuff about target numbers we told you? Total crap. It’s all about how much you succeed by.” I hate that bait and switch, and my brain’s currently stuck looping about that.

    On the other hand — maybe I’m off target here, but I’ve played a couple of really cool Fate games (Dresden, Kerberos, more Dresden…) where the GM said, “Okay, whoa. You don’t have to keep tossing in Fate points and piling up the aspects because you’ve already passed Legendary by two.”

    Now, understand, the GM was not forbidding this, and was willing to let players continue. The point was that we didn’t have to, because, hey, Legendary! And then some!

    The problem is that the GM was wrong — not wrong about that particular game, not wrong to want us getting “I need more pluses” out of our head, but wrong to say that when you hit a level with a nifty name that implies your character’s just done the coolest thing that ever will be done with that skill, there’s never going to be a need to do better. Whatever you call the level, what counts is whether I have a bigger total in the end — and how much bigger that total is. I don’t know how skilled a given GM’s villains are or whether the GM is running any given scene as a tense, all-out climactic moment or not. It comes down to the numbers. And… I feel for the GM who doesn’t want us thinking that way. I don’t want to think that way.

    And, to a degree, I have to just shrug and recognize that this is how the game works. But, I’m concerned that more ways to dilute success in Fate lead to more focus on Having the Most Pluses and less on the fun and the awesome. I don’t know whether this is something that really is an issue, as I haven’t tried mixed success in play. I do see the use of mixed success, at least some of the time in some games. Heck, “You learn what’s going on, but you’re captured and beaten to a pulp” is a frequent result in the Dresden books. But… I’m still not sure about this.

  • buzz

    I think you can avoid any feeling of bait-and-switch by clearly stating consequences up-front. This is standard procedure in Burning Wheel: state intent, determine task, determine possible outcomes, roll, see if intent is achieved.

    I dunno. Complicated success is way more compelling to me than uninteresting failure. :)

    Again, I think an easy way to handle this w/o the Most Pluses issue is just allow a near-miss (failure by 1-2 shifts) to be turned into a “Yes, but…” in exchange for a compel of some sort.

  • Lisa Padol

    I could see that version of the “Yes, But” rule easily. Many problems are solvable by a judicious application of Fate points. It feels distinctly different to me from “Okay, a regular success isn’t really a success.” I’m not sure if it keeps folks from thinking about the most plusses, but that’s probably a separate issue.

  • Brian

    I’m late to the party, but wanted to give a thumbs-up to this idea.

    I’ve actually been doing this in my SotC campaign. As a rough rule-of-thumb if the character has a skill of 3 or better, and the roll isn’t opposed, they are told they’ll succeed, it’s only a question of how well. The essence of the idea is that the characters are supposed to be better-than-normal, and it gives them a chance to roll dice and see if something cool happens.

    Currently I tend to wing the interpretation. Depending on the circumstances they might find the data faster than expected, or get an additional piece of information, or not only persuade an NPC to help but convince him to grab his brother as well.

    The players seem to like it, although I haven’t actually questioned them about how they feel about the mechanic.

  • Darren

    I like the ideas presented here, but i think the discussion has missed what makes the AW system great. It isn’t that it uses mixed successes – it is that the *player* who made the roll chooses what that mixed success will be.
    You have a table of potential outcomes and drawbacks, and you choose which of them actually happens (or doesn’t happen) this time.
    I think that’s where the magic happens in AW, and it could be too for Fate – but with so many more types of rolls, it could be tricky quantifying the options.

  • Teo

    Reminiscent of In Nomine by SJG wherein one rolls 3d6 (2d6 of one color that determine success, and 1d6, dubbed the check die, of another to determine degree).

    I stole the idea, and implemented it in all subsequent GURPS games I ran, and had considered throwing a check die into the mix when I started running FUDGE. It’s easy enough to change out one dF to be a different color.

    My thinking was that a [ + ] would mean even on a fail something positive came of it (Sure you missed the bad guy, but it ricocheted, and hit his henchmen, right front tire, mother, etc.), [ ] meant the player simply passed, or failed (no big whoop), and a [ - ] meant something bad happened as a result of the action even if it was successful (You blow off the bad guy’s head… right as your parole officer drives by, his lifeless body falls onto the detonator you dropped, but your mom saw, and totally disapproves, etc).

    I like the idea Daren explains though. Regardless of how the mixed results occur it seems like a great idea to let the player who rolled pick their poison.

   
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