Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 8327952" data-attributes="member: 20323">&quot;Things go wrong&quot; is never as compelling as how things go wrong.That's why &quot;hard counters&quot; deployed against player character (e.g. counterspell, an area of dead magic, Turn Immunity) are usually less interesting than &quot;soft counters&quot; which tend to follow a &quot;yes, but...&quot; formula. My experience is that &quot;hard counters&quot; really need to be used judiciously to preserve the player's fun; in other words, they can easily be overdone.Of course, with different GM styles and different players YMMV, but I see that as a weakness in the play loop you're describing. &quot;Your fireball fizzles, nothing happens&quot; might be interesting as a novelty... once... maaaybe twice if you're clever with it. But it's kind of...it kind of sucks, right? Why exactly is this happening? Where was the foreshadowing? Could it have at least gone out with a bang rather than a whimper?As a player, when you tell me something goes wrong with my fireball spell... I'm leaning in and kind of perversely excited to find out how it goes wrong. I think the other (related) issue you might encounter is that &quot;nothing happens&quot; is something players really don't want to hear – unless you're in an investigation play loop where they're trying a bunch of things to see what sticks. But generally not in combat or high-conflict scenes. Too much &quot;nothing happens&quot; really kills the pacing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 8327952, member: 20323"] "Things go wrong" is never as compelling as [I]how [/I]things go wrong. That's why "hard counters" deployed against player character (e.g. [I]counterspell, [/I]an area of dead magic, Turn Immunity) are usually less interesting than "soft counters" which tend to follow a "yes, but..." formula. My experience is that "hard counters" really need to be used judiciously to preserve the player's fun; in other words, they can easily be overdone. Of course, with different GM styles and different players YMMV, but I see that as a weakness in the play loop you're describing. "Your fireball fizzles, nothing happens" might be interesting as a novelty... once... maaaybe twice if you're clever with it. But it's kind of...it kind of sucks, right? Why exactly is this happening? Where was the foreshadowing? Could it have at least gone out with a bang rather than a whimper? As a player, when you tell me something goes wrong with my [I]fireball [/I]spell... I'm leaning in and kind of perversely excited to find out [I]how[/I] it goes wrong. I think the other (related) issue you might encounter is that "nothing happens" is something players really don't want to hear – unless you're in an investigation play loop where they're trying a bunch of things to see what sticks. But generally not in combat or high-conflict scenes. Too much "nothing happens" really kills the pacing. [/QUOTE]

Verification