Re: Tracking Multiple Actions within Extended Contests

From: Bryan <bethexton_at_...>
Date: Thu, 03 May 2007 13:24:06 -0000

> >
> >But do you as a player really think like that? I don't; I doubt
Mike does
> >when he's not narrating either.
>
> Probably; I know one of our players definitely does.
>
> I mean, your character may only have one chance to do something truly
> meaningful and dramatic in a session -- why take the chance of
> failing? (Cue Mike's lecture on the consequences of failure...)
> --
>

I get the feeling this may vary a lot with the style of campaign you are running. If I'm playing in a story where I'm the last defender of the gates of Whitewall, for sure as a player I'm going to use every tool at the disposal for my character to be succesful--because there is a larger story that I want to go a certain way. If I'm a farmer trying to get teh better of those snooty Black Oaks by stealing one of their bulls, well then failing might be just as interesting.

Or more broadly, the more heroic or super-heroic the game, the higher the consequences of failure are apt to be, so the more I'd probably be intolerant of losing. When it is "If we don't stop Galactus in the next fifteen seconds he's going to eat the entire Earth" well, you really don't want to fail.

I've come to appreciate defeats for the most part in the games I'm playing (I do sometimes still have a hard time making the mental shift when I was planning something and it falls apart on me, but I'm working on it), but they have not been heroic/super-heroic games.

I don't know if this would make a difference for others or not.

--Bryan

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