Re: Re: Mythic Russia, and Pyrrhic Victories

From: L.Castellucci <lightcastle_at_...>
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:25:05 -0400

On July 27, 2007 06:47 am, Rob wrote:
> well, here is a thought, maybe he suffered a complete defeat, which
> is why he died. Not all failures on die rolls have to mean 'failure
> to complete a task'. Its like the classic 'Library Use Roll'. The
> character has to find the right reference in the library to progress
> the story, so failing is not a dramatic option. Thus when he fails
> his roll something bad (ie interesting) happens, like they get
> attacked by cultists, get trapped by fire, etc etc.

Oh, absolutely. I use that all the time. The contest framing points out that failure isn't "get the book", it's something else. "Get it on time." "Get it without the bad guys finding out." etc.)

Now I probably would have framed Marathon as a "get the message there on time" contest - so defeat would have failed at that objective and I would WANT a "succeed at the contest, die anyway" option.

> And given how common failure is Heroquest, having interesting
> consequences at hand but allowing the task to succeed will mean that
> players will not always groan collectively when they see yet another
> key roll fail....I've beeen there, believe me. Recently played a game
> where we as a group failed 5 or 6 contests straight. Just bad die
> rolling on our part.

Oh, absolutely. I frame it that way all the time.

LC