People don't like to fail. Fuck, I hate failing. In games it can be alright. But if you can align your mind right it can actually be fun.

A reason I loved Forged in the Dark and other dice pool systems is that they never guarantee success. You can raise your odds to the moon, but I've seen rolls of 6d+ have nothing over three. It is possible to roll twenty dice and get all ones, not likely, but possible in our reality. This is in contrast to other systems where you get modifiers to rolls and can wind up guaranteeing your success.

I bring this up because I've seen players do this time and again where they build these mighty actions and describe the anime ass shit they are about to do- then fail and just crumple. They stop wanting to describe things and act like a kid who wants to take the ball home. Namely, they take it personally. This didn't go through way I wanted. And that is valid.

But the trick to having fun with failures is to sell them. This is a term from wrestling where one side successfully communicates the impact their opponent's hit had. (The term no-sell is when someone doesn't budge when taking a hit.) And if you can think of this in the frame of how to tell a really cool fight or scene you are in instead of just being in your characters head, then you can start telling more interesting stories.

You roll a massive pool of dice and fail anyway? Work with your GM in describing how your confidence in that moment leads to you getting thrashed. Paint a picture of your despair. How do you feel in that moment?

Because it sucks to have someone fail and go "this is bullshit. Okay what happens" it's another to collaborate on the story and go "alright he hits me yeah? And I fucking blast through the door into the next room and smash into the office. We see me out a hand on the shattered desk and it looks like I'm gonna get up and keep fighting before my leg gives out beneath me and I look and see it's twisted the wrong way."

Because if you allow your opponents hits to connect. If you sell their impact and make them feel powerful. You will feel like a goddamn hero when you finally overcome them.

This goes for non combat scenes too. Players don't want their characters to ever look stupid. I see so many tiny arguments and retcons about "well I wouldn't have done that" when an NPC gets one over on them. Just, let your characters be the fool in that moment. Let them lose and be upset and vow revenge. Don't try and fucking save scum your way back because you don't like the way this played out.

And here's the other secret to this kids. If you give them you shall receive. Storytellers love to match energy. If you show you are willing to take the hits then so will your GM and you will both become the more creative in how you express those failures.