Hey all, I wasn’t really a contributor over at r/dndmemes, but I was there at the end. Yikes. Anyway, here’s a small contribution to help this place grow.
Context (possible spoilers for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist):
Our party was trying to get information out of a locksmith about the installation locations of some extremely elaborate locks and generally not getting anywhere. Locksmith says something to the effect of making locks that “his type” (gestures to my Rogue) can’t get past.
I’m an introvert at a table with multiple extroverts that normally dominate the role play. I’m generally okay with it, but this is my moment and I’m taking it!
“Wanna bet?” I ask.
Locksmith looks at me.
“Bring me your best lock. If I can pick it, you tell us what we want to know. If I can’t, I’ll give you 10 gold”.
Challenge accepted! My Rogue has 20 DEX and proficiency in Thieves’ Tools, so I’m sitting at a comfy +8 to lockpicking challenges.
Natural. 1. FML.
Failure should lead to something interesting or fun when possible instead of just "you can not do it". Like you fumble the picking so bad the lock jams. And it is expensive, so now you not only owe the locksmith the bet, but he is also angry and you need to do something to deal with the situation.
Failure shouldn't be a stop in the story, only a twist.
In essence I agree with you, but I think it gets complicated when playing an actual game. On the one hand, it can kind of suck to be told "You gave it your best shot but no. Now let's move on."
On the other hand, you're putting your GM on the spot by allowing the roll in the first place. They're responsible for improv now, but even if they're good at that it can still not be worth coming up with some new challenge to resolve the failure. It takes some imagination, but a lot of effort and even more time. Even as a player, I often want to just move along the story and would rather just fail a roll and try something else. The roleplay will take time, performing a new favor takes time, etc., only to end up back where we started.
I think it's fine to just have a player fail and that be it so long as they still have access to options to progress the story. If the player is not a very confident roleplayer and I recognize that they tried, maybe I'd give them inspiration after the attempt to use on a later roll, but I'm hesitant to tie up a session with a lot of extra flavor or improv.
Honestly? This take feels buck wild. He rolled a 1. Failure has to be part of the game. The DM allowed the group and the player to fail forward. If as DMs we need to pull even more punches than are already mechanically built into 5th edition (which are already ridiculous imo) why even roll dice? Let’s just all play story time.