It's Okay For The Characters To Fail
It's Okay For The Characters To Fail
Characters always run the risk of failure in their adventures. Most gamemasters assume that failure in an adventure automatically equates with the death of some or all of the characters. In fact, there are many alternatives to death that you can use.
It is a good idea, when the characters begin an encounter, for you to consider what is at stake in this situation. Is it a situation that could dramatically justify the death of a character? Or could it only justify injury or a loss of property?
Set a limit on what can be lost in this situation, and—unless the characters do something really stupid—don't allow them to suffer beyond that limit, no matter what the dice say.
Of course, stupidity can and should be punished. If the characters aren't thinking, or if they insist on entering into dangerous situations that don't advance the story, then you are under no obligation to protect them. Let the dice fall where they may.
Don't let the players get cautious—or bored. If you follow the letter of the rules in every encounter, then the odds are that characters who act heroically are going to die in a very undramatic fashion. If the players find that their characters die every time they try something heroically dangerous, then they will become cautious, and cautious players make for a boring story.
One of your main jobs is to ensure that the game doesn't become dull, and one way to do this is to show the players that, although their characters will come close to death, there is always a chance for survival.
Making the Most of Failure
Most players—and gamemasters—assume that failure is an end. They think that the story is "over" because the player characters couldn't save the senator in time, or they were defeated by the pirates, or they made a wrong turn and parked their landspeeder in the middle of an Imperial complex. But this is far from the truth. In a good adventure, failure is only the beginning.
Redemption
Characters who fail to fulfill their goals in an adventure can often be given a chance to redeem themselves. This doesn't mean that you should allow the players to run through the adventure again, correcting the mistakes that they made the first time. Instead, you should take all the unresolved plot points from the original adventure and restructure them into an entirely new adventure.
For example, Rebel Commander Zeke Rondel orders the characters to Kailor V to search for information about a secret Imperial installation. Despite all their efforts, they cannot find the information and are forced to return to Commander Rondel empty-handed.
A follow-up adventure, which allows the characters to regain their stature, could be something like this:
Example: The characters, as punishment, are assigned to a supply freighter. While loading the freighter in one of the outer systems, the characters capture an Imperial spy who carries information about the secret Imperial installation. The characters then decide to hijack the supply freighter and go directly to the secret installation to collect the information needed by the Rebellion.
Capture
Any event that ends in the capture of the characters could be followed by a sequence of encounters that offers a chance for escape. The process of escaping—as seen in the capture and rescue of Han Solo—could easily be as long, complicated, and exciting as was the adventure which led to the capture.
Damaged or Lost Equipment
In some encounters, failure could result in a loss of valuable equipment. This loss could then lead to an adventure in which the characters attempt to repair or replace the equipment. This procedure wouldn't be as simple as going down to the corner starship repair shop. Maybe the characters will have to travel to a distant system in order to locate the necessary materials. Or perhaps they will have to work their way through a complex planetary bureaucracy to gain permission to have the repairs performed.
Example: The freighter carrying the characters is damaged and forced to land on the surface of a barren, uninhabited planet. The characters then have to determine what is wrong with the ship, how to fix it, and how to acquire the necessary materials on this empty planet.
Injury
Injuries are no real worry when you've got plenty of medpacs or if you're minutes away from a bacta tank. But what happens when an injury occurs in the middle of nowhere or on the surface of a low-technology planet?
The attempt to get a character to a location where proper medical care could be provided can become a very exciting interlude in an adventure—particularly when the character has only a limited amount of time to live.
Complications
The idea of using a failure as a basis for further adventure should be kept in mind whenever you use the complications aspect of the Wild Die. A complication is not a simple failure. Rather, it is a failure that has repercussions that extend beyond the current skill use.
Whenever you are determining a complication, you should consider the ways in which it might expand the scope of the adventure; that is, instead of curtailing the actions of the characters, it should ultimately extend them.
Source: REUP:193