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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9166893" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Because you do not see what can be done mechanically with these consequences.For a simple example: something which changes a character's race. BG3 spoilers: [ISPOILER]If Wyll chooses not to kill Karlach or fails to hunt her down, his Warlock patron punishes him by transforming him into a very obviously fiendish-looking tiefling. This is permanent and nothing you do to or with him can reverse it. This is a tailored consequence with mechanical bite that in fact comes from NOT choosing death.[/ISPOILER]Yes, we can: if we give them the teaching they need to do well. This isn't some insanely difficult, rare skill. It ain't that deep, chief. Good guidance goes a long way.I guess. It's still a pretty weak consequence if you ask me. Even weaker than death is, since it's effects are trivially reversed in a wide variety of circumstances, even without the dump truck of anti-attrition magic in D&D. (Ironically, something 4e was actually better about; both healing surges and the OG version of ritual magic are much more compatible with attrition gameplay.)To be clear, as with death, I am not and have never been saying that this should be excised. Just that relying so heavily on fundamentally punitive measures is ineffective. Same as the problem with most inventory management rules. They're boring, and people will constantly seek to circumvent them rather than embracing the challenge as fun in and of itself, because the negative feelings of doing things "wrong" are not and generally cannot be counterbalanced by positive feelings from doing things "right" if the latter is simply "the status quo remains."Now, if you can find a structure that DOES do that, that both punishes failure and also truly rewards success, not simply "nothing bad happens," that would be huge.Think of it the way dice rolling advice goes. Don't roll if there aren't interesting consequences for both success and failure. Suffering complications is an interesting consequence for failure. Preserving the status quo is not an interesting consequence of success. This is the mirror image of the "absolutely required secret door" problem. Progressing the game is an interesting consequence of success. Halting the game completely is not an interesting consequence of failure. Game mechanics that are exclusively interesting in one direction should be used sparingly. Even things that could be interesting only one way, like attack rolls (since misses often do nothing), are usually given extra spice in various ways, beyond the obvious "this contributes to us possibly losing/needing to run away."</blockquote>

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