One thing a Game Master needs to do is keep the Players happy. When a major component of the game is a random elelment like rolling dice, you know that there will be times when things will not go the way the Players want. It is important to keep these types of failures from slowing down the story, or let the other Players berate the roller for something which they could not control.
There are a number of ways to keep bad dice from stopping story development. Failing Forward is a term used to describe a failed die roll still allowing the Players to succeed in their endevour, just not in the method they had planned. This article will discuss a number of ways a Game Master can keep a night of bad dice from ruining an evening’s Game.
A simple example would be to have the Player’s main objective fail, but their action still have a beneficial effect. As an example, take a Wild West Shootout. A Player shoots at the Bad Guys and misses. Instead of hitting the Villain, the bullet hits the rope causing the chandelier to fall against the door, preventing enemy reinforcements from arriving. It can also be used to add unexpected elements to the plot.
This is not to say that failure shouldn’t have consequences. If the Players set themselves up for a total party extermination, there is only so much you should be willing to do about it. Having a novice team attempt to disable an armed thermonuclear device when they don’t have the skills will not end well.
Another way to soften the blow would be to assign degrees of success/failure to the success of the roll. Many games allow you to determine how good the success or bad the failure was. A failure by a very narrow margin might only imply extra time taken before final success, or involve only a minor setback, rather than total failure.
The point is to make the failure of the dice not be something the Player feels bad about. The point is for everyone to have fun.