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"Hot Take": Fear is a bad motivator
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<blockquote data-quote="HJFudge" data-source="post: 8245383" data-attributes="member: 6997593"><p>To put simply: no death is not the only form of permanent loss. As I mentioned in my previous post, a negative campaign end state also represents a permanent loss and this does not have to equal the characters die. The characters can fail in such a way that for the campaign and there quest there is no recovery.</p><p></p><p>An actual play example. The heroes caught wind of the big bads plan to steal a powerful artifact. So they went to stop his forces. No one died but they did not end up getting to the place in time. They failed and the plot moved forward. A couple adventures later they found out the big bad was going to use that artifact to create the world engine, a horrific device that would put the world under a cloud of darkness and allow him to raise the dead as his slaves. The characters attempted to stop this creation but ended up choosing to abandon the task when word their home kingdom was under attack. They reasoned they'd stop it before it was activated. No one died but that quest failed. </p><p></p><p>They stopped the invasion of their home kingdom and then went back to stop the big bad from deploying the world engine. A couple died this time, a series of tough battles leading to a climactic duel with the big bad. They had x rounds to somehow stop the big bad from activating the world engine. They failed. </p><p></p><p>Thus was the world covered in darkness. The heroes were dead or captured and the land suffered for an age. </p><p></p><p>Campaign loss. But a gripping tale. Death happened but the loss was not due to that but the repeated failures to stop the big bads plans. If they had chosen differently at several points they would have had different outcomes and may have stopped the evil at several points but alas.</p><p></p><p>In this example it was the choices made that led to loss, ultimately. Later we had a follow on campaign in that same world called "from the ashes" with different characters set in the future, mankind was on the edge of extinction and this party's quest was to find a mythical portal to a new world, one free of darkness.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="HJFudge, post: 8245383, member: 6997593"] To put simply: no death is not the only form of permanent loss. As I mentioned in my previous post, a negative campaign end state also represents a permanent loss and this does not have to equal the characters die. The characters can fail in such a way that for the campaign and there quest there is no recovery. An actual play example. The heroes caught wind of the big bads plan to steal a powerful artifact. So they went to stop his forces. No one died but they did not end up getting to the place in time. They failed and the plot moved forward. A couple adventures later they found out the big bad was going to use that artifact to create the world engine, a horrific device that would put the world under a cloud of darkness and allow him to raise the dead as his slaves. The characters attempted to stop this creation but ended up choosing to abandon the task when word their home kingdom was under attack. They reasoned they'd stop it before it was activated. No one died but that quest failed. They stopped the invasion of their home kingdom and then went back to stop the big bad from deploying the world engine. A couple died this time, a series of tough battles leading to a climactic duel with the big bad. They had x rounds to somehow stop the big bad from activating the world engine. They failed. Thus was the world covered in darkness. The heroes were dead or captured and the land suffered for an age. Campaign loss. But a gripping tale. Death happened but the loss was not due to that but the repeated failures to stop the big bads plans. If they had chosen differently at several points they would have had different outcomes and may have stopped the evil at several points but alas. In this example it was the choices made that led to loss, ultimately. Later we had a follow on campaign in that same world called "from the ashes" with different characters set in the future, mankind was on the edge of extinction and this party's quest was to find a mythical portal to a new world, one free of darkness. [/QUOTE]
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