“Investing in Failure” in Fate

Question

There's one passage of the Fate Core book / SRD that I'm having trouble getting my head around.

The worst, worst thing you can do is have a failed roll that means nothing happens—no new knowledge, no new course of action to take, and no change in the situation. That is totally boring, and it discourages players from investing in failure—something you absolutely want them to do, given how important compels and the concession mechanic are. Do not do this.

The first part of this I understand. It's a new concept to me, coming from an old-school D&D background with some Savage Worlds thrown in, but I really like the idea of failure having to have some narrative effect rather than just drawing a blank. The idea of "making failure awesome" is new to me, but it is explained very clearly and helpfully in the following paragraphs (Blame the Circumstances, Succeed at a Cost, Let the Players do the Work).

I've come across the idea of "investing in failure" elsewhere, for example in this D&D related discussion of "making losing awesome", but I don't really understand what it means. And I really don't understand the connection how "investing in failure" links to compels and the concession mechanic. As I understand it, compels are either situational or decisional modifications to the narrative based on PCs /NPCs aspects (often their Trouble), and concession is where a PC or NPC decides to back out of combat before a particular attack and so make a getaway. But how on earth are these linked to failing a dice roll?

Short version:

• What does "investing in failure" mean here, and in general?
• How is this linked to "compels and the concession mechanic"?

I'd be grateful for answers which can illustrate the principles with examples from real play. I'm only 3 sessions into my first FAE game as a GM, and about to start playing a Fate Core game soon.

Answer 1

When one is invested in failure, one takes the position that the goals of the player and the goals of the character are not always the same. Your character wants to succeed at everything they try, while you as a player want them to fail now and again -- not just because it makes things more interesting, but because doing so earns you Fate Points to guarantee success at other, possibly more important things.

In this way, accepting compels and making concessions are "investments"; you control the circumstances under which bad things happen--although not the details of how--and they pay dividends later.

However, the other payoff from failure is, as @SevenSidedDie observes, that the story does become more intricate, more involved, and more engaging. (As a Fate fan, I would also say "more fun," but that's subjective.)

Answer 2

"Investing in failure," used in this passage, is not about the rolls discussed earlier in the passage. It's about how failing to invest in failure has a negative impact on other parts of the game's rules. The passage is warning that, if failed rolls aren't a positive play experience, players will not invest in failure as a story-telling feature and will resist other parts of the game that rely on everyone being invested in failure as a story-telling feature. Basically, paraphrased:

Don't make failing at rolls boring. That just teaches players to resist failure in all ways, which will break other failure-related mechanics.

As for what investing in failure means, I implied it a bit above: Investing in failure means valuing failure as a part of how stories work and unfold.

In most games, failure isn't the job of the players so they don't need to invest in failure in those games. But in Fate, failure is part of the players' jobs and they have to not only accept that failure happens, but also invest in making it happen, in order for the game to work.