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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9026492" data-attributes="member: 7035894">This criticism is not directed at you, but at those plot suggestions from WotC. I think they are absurdly terrible story advice. Story stakes do not have to be significant on a national, global, or even universal scale to be hugely impactful at a character level. Like, how many adventures involving the fate of an entire plane of existence can you do before the stakes become essentially meaningless (c.f. the Marvel Cinematic Universe)?When I am discussing the importance of narrative stakes with my writing class, I often show them a clip from the film 8th Grade. Specifically, when the protagonist is trying to get up her nerve to leave the bathroom and reveal her thirteen year old body to her peers wearing only a bathing suit (it's a pool party). To anyone else, these stakes are trivial, but in the context of her story arc they seem as consequential than anything in a Marvel movie (and I like Marvel movies). More so, even. When she finally opens the door, you want to stand up and cheer for her courage.And you know what? I didn't know how that was going to turn out. She had struggled and failed many times in the film, so my anxiety on her behalf was real. I loved End Game, but not for one second did I think our heroes were going to lose. It's the same if you run stakes like that in a D&D campaign - unless ending the entire campaign and setting is really on the table, at a fundamental level there is actually nothing at stake because the heroes can't lose. We might willingly suspend our disbelief, but underneath, we know it's BS, just like we knew that ultimately Thanos was a paper tiger.Raising the stakes by just invoking ever more apocalyptic threats is not only cliched and lazy, it also falls quickly to the law of diminishing returns. You've seen one world-threatening apocalypse, you've seen 'em all. Real stakes are personal and have the potential for actual consequences.</blockquote>

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