Insight Fail Forward

Written By John WS Marvin
Insight Fail Forward.jpg

When playtesting the 5th Edition DnD version of Pirates of Atlantis, I ran into a number of Insight* checks that were just not interesting or fun if the player rolled bad. And we got a lot of 3s. So I started brainstorming: how can an Insight check fail forward**?

RPG Jargon

*Insight is basically a detect lie skill. My favorite name is from GUMSHOE: bullshit detector. Of course, GUMSHOE being GUMSHOE, bullshit detector can’t fail if the information would be a core clue.

**Failing forward is when a bad role doesn’t mean the attempt failed. The attempt succeeded in a way that complicates the PC’s life.

John WS Marvin

Into RPGs since the 1970s, John started Dread Unicorn Games to bring to market the kinds of games he would want to play.

http://dreadunicorngames.com
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