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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alan Shutko" data-source="post: 5803379" data-attributes="member: 23694">I recently started playing in a ToEE game in 1e. Average character lifespan was 2 sessions. For me, that's definitely too much. I'm for interesting consequences for failure, but the frequency of failure has to be balanced.  I've played in a 4e game where about half the time you tried to jump over a barrel to attack someone, you ended up prone with the monsters slaughtering you. Our group went through adventures and managed to make the world worse in each one.  When your character's viewpoint is "if I try this quest, I'll only make the problem worse" that's also too much for me.So, for me, if the frequency of failure is low, there can be higher consequences for failure. If the frequency of failure is high, there should be low or minimal consequences.Examples: In combat, if I miss an attack the only consequence is an action that didn't do anything. I wouldn't increase the consequences here, because it would suck if every time you missed, you took 5 damage.Failing a task or part of an adventure should be less common than missing in combat, so it can have bigger consequences. Failing to surprise the guards means the alarm goes off and you have to come up with some alternate plans. I'd call these more "complications" than failures. Complications are often the meat of the game.Failing an adventure can happen, but it shouldn't happen a lot. I'd be down if I failed half the adventures I tried.  But it depend on the consequences.  Failing to get all the way to the Tomb of Horrors and the party manages to escape with their lives?  Failing to rescue the mayor's daughter in time?  Failing to reach the treasure island before rival adventurers get there and snatch the loot?  I could see that happening to a party a few times in their career. Enough to sting, but not enough to make them feel like total failures.Failing with earth-shattering consequences shouldn't happen more than once in a campaign.  It shouldn't even happen every campaign, although it can be a possibility.  That's because it can get really ridiculous.  "First, we tried to kill the rats in the cellar, but accidentally opened a portal to the abyss and demons took over the county. Then we ran away and tried to rob a tomb to get cash to travel south, but we unleashed a lich who has laid waste to the farmlands with an undead army. We thought we might have helped things out when failing the puzzle in the mountaintop temple sank the continent into the ocean, but strangely neither the demons nor undead were affected, and now we've ruined fishing for half the world."Character death... This has a pretty big impact on the player, so I wouldn't want it to happen a lot.  The impact is lower if resurrection is available.  I'm not sure how frequent it should be, but I find I prefer the possibility of death to the actuality of it.TPKs have a huge tendency to kill campaigns dead, so I'd try to keep them rare.</blockquote>

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