In your campaign, can the PCs "lose"

[Henry]

PCs can lose, but fortunately they haven't in a long while.

In our Epic-level Forgotten Realms game, the end result was left in doubt (we ended in a disagreement), but I'm still convinced that the Big Bad pretty much had a lock on the win. He gave it everything we had, and due to resources and bad dice luck, I think he had the edge. It was still a pretty gripping experience!

 

[Aust Diamondew]

...or a different world (dark lord reigns). Either way, the game is over, just as if they succeeded. The only thing to avoid is spending time on their hopeless struggles, I think. Realism be damned, it just isn't fun enough.

Actually if the dark lord reigns the game just continues if the PCs are still alive.


I think PCs loosing is fine. I think PCs dying is fine, even a very rare TPK is fine. Heroes who don't struggle to obtain victory aren't really that heroic.

Always remember though that no matter how carefully you might lay out a story line or plot that players can find a way to screw it up, and in this case not loose.

 

[Darklone]

Let them lose. All they have to do is to continue undercover and look for the prophesized hero, raise and protect him and watch him slay the tyrant in 20 years. Brom anyone?

This is a very nice possibility if only some of the PCs survive to introduce new characters.

 

[hong]

The most memorable session I've ever DMed ended with the PCs losing:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=121800

The campaign ended after that, though....

 

[Raven Crowking]

In my game, PCs can, and do, lose.

It doesn't happen all that often, and it makes victory sweeter.

RC

 

[wayne62682]

Yes, the PCs can lose. When I DM (rare as it is) I hate to have the PCs die because I firmly believe that it's the goal of the DM to craft the illusion of failure but never let it happen; make the PCs think they can die but they won't unless it's for a good reason (heroic sacrifice, for example).

"Fail" however, as in the bad guys win and things change? Definitely. The goal changes, but the PCs are still the heroes and the stars of the show.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

If there's no possibility that the players can lose, then in what sense are you playing a game?

-- Honest question, not trying to be smart here.

 

[Black_Swan]

Next character: orphaned at birth.

Just sayin.. don't over do it.

"Luke I am your Father..."

OH COME ON!!

 

[DonTadow]

So I was brainstorming my next campaign, and I realised that I might mess a little bit with the PCs. Basicly take a loved ones for an artifact they're holding. I realise there is a distinct possibility that, due to the fact that they are amazing players and roleplay quite alot, that they might just decide to give up the artifact (after all one of the characters hates the attention the artifact brought to them). Anyway, if they give up the artifact and it ends up falling in the wrong hands, there is a pretty distinct possibility that the BBEG will prevail. So, that being said... does any DM in here have similar experience.

I have a hard time killing PCs, haha. The idea of them losing, I don't know if it's right.

I know there would be always a way to recover, or me fudging things up a tad. But all in all, I'd like to stick to the timeline/story arc I've established... for realism stakes.

People play the game for the risks. The players have to be able to lose. Now as the DM, you decide how bad they lose and how realistic that loss is.

Take my last campaign 3 years, and the pcs won and loss. SUre, many died along the way, but no TPKs. The god invading their world was not only repealed by through several 20 rolls in a row killed. However, several of the pcs other major enemies made along the way took advantage of the situation and the pcs were unable to stop or unaware of these guys machinations. The campaign ended with a planar explosion. Now the pcs are playing level 1 characters in this war torn new world trying to rebuild their land.

 

[kigmatzomat]

My players both lose and die, not always at the same time. A lot of times they redefine "lost" as "incomplete victory" though.

For instance, a goblin horde led by demon-worshiping priests invade a region. The party warns several nearby manors, prevents at least two manors from being overrun, and stops a plague the goblins had infected the survivors with. The goblins loot much of the countryside, inflict serious wounds on many of the defenders, and manage to utterly plunder one estate.

Who won? The goblins got less loot than they would have without the players but they still got a great haul, far more than any past attempts. The players stopped the goblin invasion. There was a lot of property damage, hundreds of peasants were taken as slaves (some sacrificed to the demons), and several score of guards were cut down in the defense. Hard to say you "won" that, even if you didn't "lose."

They refuse to acknowledge their responsibility in a godling getting loose from his prison causing a massive influx of undead across the planet. That, in my book, is a "lose." When an entire country comes under the control of liches & vampires, that's a lose. When martial law is declared planet wide for nearly two years while the militias deal with the 10,000-strong mobs of zombies, skeletons, and ghouls, that qualifies as a "lose." When necropoli literally become "cities of the dead" requiring military cordons, you've got a "lose."