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<blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 9622940" data-attributes="member: 3400">There are going to be a variety of levels of goals, some immediate, some longer term and there should be challenges, some immediate, some cumulative, that should be capable of foiling those goals and leading to a fail state. Exactly how they do so is going to be complex, and what exactly constitutes a fail state could vary.Suppose the goal is to beat the BBEG at the end of the dungeon - the challenge of getting to that BBEG and defeat them should be one that ends in some kind of failure state - mainly that they failed at that goal. But it wouldn't need to be a single trial with a binary result. Intermediate challenges along the way might setback or otherwise divert, but the cumulative effect of those intermediates and the final challenge probably should be a failure state - TPK, BBEG escape, party capture/imprisonment, whatever.If the challenge is just sneaking past a sentry, then yeah, I would think the failure to overcome the challenge means being spotted by the sentry - a failure state. Exactly what happens then... would still vary. Ultimately, I'm not sure that a setback isn't also some kind of failure state. It's just not what I would consider a critical failure state in which all forward progress toward the bigger end goal, of which this current challenge was a component, is thwarted.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="billd91, post: 9622940, member: 3400"] There are going to be a variety of levels of goals, some immediate, some longer term and there should be challenges, some immediate, some cumulative, that should be capable of foiling those goals and leading to a fail state. Exactly how they do so is going to be complex, and what exactly constitutes a fail state could vary. Suppose the goal is to beat the BBEG at the end of the dungeon - the challenge of getting to that BBEG and defeat them should be one that ends in [B]some kind of failure state[/B] - mainly that they failed at that goal. But it wouldn't need to be a single trial with a binary result. Intermediate challenges along the way might setback or otherwise divert, but the cumulative effect of those intermediates and the final challenge probably should be a failure state - TPK, BBEG escape, party capture/imprisonment, whatever. If the challenge is just sneaking past a sentry, then yeah, I would think the failure to overcome the challenge means being spotted by the sentry - [B]a failure state[/B]. Exactly what happens then... would still vary. Ultimately, I'm not sure that a setback isn't also some kind of failure state. It's just not what I would consider a critical failure state in which all forward progress toward the bigger end goal, of which this current challenge was a component, is thwarted. [/QUOTE]

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