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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7731411" data-attributes="member: 42582">It's easily able to be explained in game.Back in AD&D days, most divine beings had CHA scores that generated Awe (or Horror) effects. In 4e, (i) the GM describes things (an aura, a being's armour and weapons, its bearing and demeanour (contrast a +2 Diplomacy bonus with a +20 Diplomacy bonus), etc) that make it clear (more-or-less) who the being is; and (ii) the players can declare skill checks to learn about the backstory of beings they meet (which, in the context of demigods, might mean recognising them, and knowing their legendary exploits).The PCs didn't get the loot. One PC got the loot. The other PCs got nothing.XP in MHRP are earned by meeting character milestones. The loot-gaining PC earned XP for that (as he hit a milestone), but the other PCs didn't (especially the one whose milestones tie in directly to achieving their quest).And a higher doom pool makes things harder in mechanical terms (which became clear in that following session, as the PCs failed to save a village from a priest of the Ragnarok and his marauding horde).If your criterion for a loss in an RPG is the players don't get to play again, then I refer you to my first post upthread. That's an unrealistic expectation in a social game where participants purchase the materials that will let them engage in an ongoing recreational activity. (Similarly, a person who buys a fishing rod, and then doesn't catch any fish his/her first time trying, isn't going to never use that gear again.)Once you allow that the players are going to continue RPGing, then either they can start a new capmaign with new PCs, or they can continue this campaign and see if the PCs can try and recover from their failures so far. The first is not more "loss"-y than the second; both involve RPGing, but the second also involves engaging with a fiction in which the PCs failures (to date) loom relatively large.Eventually, if the PCs don't succeed the Ragnarok will come. In mechanical terms, that will probably involve (i) spending 2d12 from the doom pool to end a scene in which the PCs are on the ropes, (ii) in a context where the stakes of the scene are that the Ragnarok arrives.The larger the doom pool at the start of a scene, the more likely it is to escalate, more quickly, to 2d12.</blockquote>

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