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<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 9194851" data-attributes="member: 6690965">I'm still somewhat unclear on what sets the consequences to begin with though. Presumably tasks will need to have big and small consequences determined for them, and those consequences have to be created by the GM. Or is there a list of possible consequences, drawn up from perhaps some combination of the skills used in the attempt, and/or some traits of the situation? I do think it is much clearer to the player what's happening if those consequences are laid out before they roll, and being able to turn them into a universal outcome via stress is interesting. As a player, you're essentially doing valuations on each proposed consequence, and seeing if they're more or less expensive than the base cost, and trying to take underpriced ones.Honestly, even though it's somewhat just slight of hand, it's occurs to me that I might personally find it more palatable if &quot;success&quot; was only ever presented as an absolute. Recasting &quot;mixed success&quot; as &quot;minor failure&quot; feels fundamentally more accurate to me.In your example of jumping across lava, falling in can only be a &quot;big consequence&quot; but the space for smaller consequences feels pretty open. I can imagine losing equipment, taking some damage, getting an injury that causes more problems later, grabbing a friend and dragging them down in a panic, and so on.The problem I have is that those aren't all equal. In the case where &quot;getting across the river of lava&quot; is a necessary next step, maybe you can't avoid taking on that set of risks, but if there's any other reasonable action to try, you're doing a lot of analysis to go and see if you can get a cheaper set of consequences there. That might be avoidable in some situations where you can fix consequences to the goal and then allow the players to try different approaches, but then the approach just becomes a calculation if it's not going to adjust the outcome.This part all makes sense to me, and I agree completely with the design direction. I think the setting of difficulties should arise entirely from the description of a situation and be completely transparent. Making risk assessments between different courses of action is, in my opinion, a core part of the play loop of TTRPGs.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 9194851, member: 6690965"] I'm still somewhat unclear on what sets the consequences to begin with though. Presumably tasks will need to have big and small consequences determined for them, and those consequences have to be created by the GM. Or is there a list of possible consequences, drawn up from perhaps some combination of the skills used in the attempt, and/or some traits of the situation? I do think it is much clearer to the player what's happening if those consequences are laid out before they roll, and being able to turn them into a universal outcome via stress is interesting. As a player, you're essentially doing valuations on each proposed consequence, and seeing if they're more or less expensive than the base cost, and trying to take underpriced ones. Honestly, even though it's somewhat just slight of hand, it's occurs to me that I might personally find it more palatable if "success" was only ever presented as an absolute. Recasting "mixed success" as "minor failure" feels fundamentally more accurate to me. In your example of jumping across lava, falling in can only be a "big consequence" but the space for smaller consequences feels pretty open. I can imagine losing equipment, taking some damage, getting an injury that causes more problems later, grabbing a friend and dragging them down in a panic, and so on. The problem I have is that those aren't all equal. In the case where "getting across the river of lava" is a necessary next step, maybe you can't avoid taking on that set of risks, but if there's any other reasonable action to try, you're doing a lot of analysis to go and see if you can get a cheaper set of consequences there. That might be avoidable in some situations where you can fix consequences to the goal and then allow the players to try different approaches, but then the approach just becomes a calculation if it's not going to adjust the outcome. This part all makes sense to me, and I agree completely with the design direction. I think the setting of difficulties should arise entirely from the description of a situation and be completely transparent. Making risk assessments between different courses of action is, in my opinion, a core part of the play loop of TTRPGs. [/QUOTE]

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