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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8706606" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I intend to reply to the other thread as well, but there are things I can say faster or more simply here.Part of the problem is, death is a consequence of attempting to do something dangerous or risky. You mentioned that the "reward" for being heroic is clearly a punishment (implicitly anyway), for example. This is very relevant to my game, because I have put in work very specifically to make sure that heroism is NOT a sucker's game, that being a good person is effective or rewarding. As an example, showing mercy to a captured opponent will not come back to bite you in the ass, so long as that opponent isn't a diehard fanatic or crazy or otherwise incapable of considering reform. (This came up in the first session we played, and I have worked to keep it true: mercy and forgiveness work.)The problem is, the above two ideas necessarily conflict some of the time. If we desire for an action to be risky, it must entail the possibility of loss or detriment that cannot be simply brushed off. Conversely, if something is to be rewarding or effective, pursuing it cannot have a low (or even negative) expected value, because people will figure out that that's how things work and just start avoiding those actions. This is what I speak of when I say there are perverse incentives baked into many game systems and into the policies many DMs employ, where behavior the DM does not want to see (like murderhobo-ism) is rewarded and behavior they do want to see (like non-optimization) is punished. Yet we do desire that heroism be risky: if it were guaranteed to produce desirable results, everyone would choose to be heroic, which would be great for the world but terrible for making heroism feel valuable.Overall, this tends to result in death or impairment (which death may be transformed into via magic) as the fallback consequence of choice, because it is sort of the end of the line, the place where logically you have to fall to when hit points can always be restored (often quickly, via magic) and even the unusually nasty 5e exhaustion is removed after but a few days' rest. For the consequences to objectively and consistently sting, these are some of the only options in D&D.But that's not what I do, because I do not find these things exciting. Death, as you say, tends to be a fun-strangler. Permanent dismemberment tends to feel like a downer ending, a "and that's what you get for trying to do the right thing" result. I don't want that in my game. I want my players to see the risks, but know that the prize is clearly worth the price. This does not, technically, mean that I totally prevent death at my table. I tend to be a softie DM, so no player character has actually died in my game, but that's because I often underestimate my players' ability to overcome the odds, not because I'm actively trying to avoid PC deaths.The big problem for me is, death is so final. It ends stories. Usually, death leaves plots hanging, unresolved and unresolvable. I find that...well, boring. So, when a player makes a mistake, or intentionally does something unwise, I either won't kill their character but will do something that makes their PC's life unpleasant, or will do so but with the caveat that death is not the end for that PC unless the player wishes for it to be.It is that "making their PC's life unpleasant" that is the key, for me. These are consequences that can only work for THESE characters in THIS situation, not universal answers that can apply to every character in every game. As an example: we have a tiefling Bard in the group. Originally I was hesitant to allow tieflings because I wanted to make devils and demons special, but the player's earnest desire and carte blanche invitation to make the man's life complicated made it impossible for me to say no. We have since learned that his unbroken and unbranched(!) paternal bloodline is devilish in nature and connected to someone very powerful (either Baalzamon or Glasya herself!), while his maternal line is very specifically connected to his great-grandmother, a reformed succubus. Twice, now, I have in effect tempted the player with heroism: I have given him the choice between taking fiendish power into himself, changing what he is and making himself more like the Fiend-Prince, a semi-real, (formerly) semi-conscious subset of the Bard which represents his power and panache, his charm, his deceitfulness, and his adventure abilities, but also his selfishness (what little he has) and his capacity for cruelty and malice. (This contrasted with the "Librarian," the meek mild-mannered human who just wants to study his books and thinks adventure is scary and makes you late for dinner, but who represents the Bard's compassion, love, healing magic, and commitment to the truth whatever it may be; the character is truly both things, balanced against each other.)Twice now, I have put the player into an agonizing decision of whether to accept plausible corruption into himself, and in the process save others from an unfair fate, or walk the high road but leave others to face that darkness. Twice, after really struggling, he has settled on taking power, power he does not want, power he finds abhorrent in many ways, because it will let him save "his people." This has been a BEAUTIFUL consequence for heroic choices made. For almost any other player, this would never have worked. Someone else would almost surely have said something equivalent to "awesome, I get to be a hero AND get a fiendish power up? Sweet deal, where do I sign?" But for this person, in this game, these were incredibly difficult choices, and the player still to this day is not always 100% sure he made the right choice. That doesn't mean he hasn't used or enjoyed the fiendish powers he has received by becoming (in effect) a "double cambion" (half-human, half-devil, half-demon.) It just means that the consequences had their desired effect: long, long after the action was taken, its consequences continue to matter, continue to shape behavior and direct the story.So, when I look for consequences, that's the sort of thing I want. Consequences that build new story, not tear current story down. As Disney's Arabian Nights song (the version from Return of Jafar) goes: Arabian nightsLike Arabian daysThey tease and exciteTake off and take flightThey shock and amaze!I want consequences that do that. Ones that create intrigue and foster player investment, ones that enrich and entangle rather than impoverish and impair. Because the more invested and entangled my players become, the more eager they will be to play, and the better the payoff will be when they do succeed...and the more bitter the pill will be if they fail.This requires a lot. I have to judge what my players will value. I have to think, long and hard, about what they will pursue and why. Yet I must also be light on my feet, adapting to unexpected rolls or choices, flowing like water around the choices and story that unfold. I find this task utterly delightful, so it is not work but play, a vast and unfixed playground of difficulty and overcoming. This sparks joy. And my players have been coming back most weeks for over four years now, so I presume I've gotten at least a few things right along the way.</blockquote>

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