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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9678563" data-attributes="member: 6790260">But it is a cost directly caused by the failure. If you had successfully overcome the difficulty of the cliff, your friend would be alive (albeit perhaps on death's door, if you got a partial success; that'd depend on what the roll was and how the GM adjudicated it). Because you failed, your friend is dead when they very easily could have survived.It's like a Superman story. Superman is not interesting if you ask, &quot;Can he complete this single task?&quot; Whatever the task is, the answer is almost surely &quot;yes&quot;, unless there's Kryptonite involved, in which case it's almost surely &quot;no&quot;. But when you introduce collateral damage and bystander complications, suddenly he becomes fascinating. Can he save everyone from this burning building? Maybe, maybe not! That's a lot of variables and a tight timetable. Can he stop the volcano, or at least delay it enough to permit and evacuation? Unclear! That's putting him up against a threat that he can't just punch into submission.Overly simple, hard-binary failure/success is much more limited as a mechanical structure than you (or indeed many!) recognize.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9678563, member: 6790260"] But it is a cost directly caused by the failure. If you had successfully overcome the difficulty of the cliff, your friend would be alive (albeit perhaps on death's door, if you got a partial success; that'd depend on what the roll was and how the GM adjudicated it). Because you failed, your friend is dead when they very easily [I]could[/I] have survived. It's like a Superman story. Superman is not interesting if you ask, "Can he complete this single task?" Whatever the task is, the answer is almost surely "yes", unless there's Kryptonite involved, in which case it's almost surely "no". But when you introduce collateral damage and bystander complications, suddenly he becomes fascinating. Can he save [I]everyone[/I] from this burning building? Maybe, maybe not! That's a lot of variables and a tight timetable. Can he stop the volcano, or at least delay it enough to permit and evacuation? Unclear! That's putting him up against a threat that he can't just punch into submission. Overly simple, hard-binary failure/success is much more limited as a mechanical structure than you (or indeed many!) recognize. [/QUOTE]

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