Them’s The Stakes
Why do we fight? Is it for fortune and glory? Perhaps it’s to right wrongs, bringing peace and justice to the land. Maybe it’s to save our own skins, and devil take the hindmost. No doubt you and your favorite PCs have your own answers. But no matter what it is you swing that sword, it’s important that the rest of the table knows about it. After all, it’s awfully hard to build tension into your epic confrontations when nobody knows the stakes are.
You’ll see this business in movies all the time. A group of protagonists gather around the table. They’re poring over the battle plan / heist / gizmo blueprints, and everyone (including the audience) is clear on what’s about to happen. Then the music cuts out. Somebody turns to camera.
“What happens if it doesn’t work?”
That’s when you’ll get a badass one-liner. Usually it’s something on the order of, “No more planet Earth,” or , “We spend the next 20 in Sing Sing,” or something about dogs and cats living together.
You can also go the opposite direction: carrot instead of stick. This time somebody turns to cameras and asks, “What if we actually pull this off?”
Enter the badass one-liners once again. This time we can see that glorious future we’re fighting for: “I’m gonna retire to my own private island in the Maldives,” or, “We ascend to the friggin’ pantheon!” or something about getting reelected mayor of New York.
The point is that everyone in your narrative knows why it’s important to succeed. And that’s something that we can accidentally skip over in RPGs. It’s so easy to assume that “we succeed or we die” is the default. Of course everyone wants to get epic loot. Of course everyone wants to live to level up! But if you really want to grab you players by the sense of adventure, I think it pays to paint a picture. Remind them of the villages that will be destroyed. Ask them what the intend to do with their share of the spoils. Show them the horrible fates and glorious triumphs that await them. That’s when a table hangs on the throw of a die.
So for today’s discussion, what say we talk about the stakes in our own games? What happens if your PCs succeed? What if they fail? And have you actually given it any thought? Give us all your best answers to, “What happens if it doesn’t work?” down in the comments!
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….Well then. I suppose this is a…
*first*
Most of my campaigns have either been homebrews that stalled out (each and every time because the GM got too ambitious and/or put something together that took the wind out of the players’ sails) or were APs with defined consequences. Funnily enough my two PF2e campaigns- one of which finished last week- are an AP and a homebrew.
Both involve cults trying to bring back dead gods that would ultimately plunge the world into darkness and death. So… pretty clear stakes there.
What is it with dead gods, anyway? Where did this trope even come from?
I guess it’s just a straightforward implementation of Sealed Evil in a Can. They’re sealed because they’re dead, and they’re powerful because they’re gods.
I’ve always thought the oxymoronic nature of it draws people’s imagination. Gods in most belief structures are beings so staggeringly powerful that they define what the natural order is. A lot of religions, especially European-descended ones, make it so that a fundamental part of their gods’ nature is to be immortal. What does it mean for something so powerful, unkillable and encompassing to be dead?
There’s also several mythological precedents for how a dead god can be handled. Jesus just came back to life for a few days, then peaced out (depending on how canonical you want to get, he also speedran Hell and Purgatory while he was dead), Ymir’s death was used to create the mortal world, as were Tiamat’s and a Chinese deity whose name I forget. Izanami and Osiris were transformed into new deities with portfolios based around their experience. The Norse Aesir just died if they got stabbed hard enough, although the popular version of the myths (ie the only one I’m familiar with) has some of them able to be resurrected under certain circumstances. I think the Aztec gods could be made into corpses, but were still capable of siring children to avenge them in that state. (citation needed)
The point is, there’s a lot mythological precedent to the question ‘How dead can a god be?’ even before you get to things like Cthulu (currently dead, will be alive again later) Terry Pratchett, (they live as long as they’re believed in enough) and the dozens of fantasy novels about Zarglethrox the spud-eater under the carrot hill or whatever.
With a great question and a herd of easily customisable answers, it’s not really a surprise that it’s such a recurring trope!
My favorite was from Darths & Droids (great webcomic, for those not in the know), in the first session of the campaign.
“Oh, well then, I guess we die and your campaign ends.”
https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0009.html
The only stakes that matter: Do we keep playing?
Failure? Depends, in the warhammer fantasy when we olayed norscan marauders failure would have ment few burning cities less in the southlands. The DnD campaing I ran would have ment alliance of sea creatures wiping out a port town. Paranoia, succeed or fail nothing matters in the end as long as Friend computer isn’t displeased and you are alive. Only War… oh you failed no worries here’s your replacement, now ypu hear the commissar blow in his whistle signifying second wave.
Also my chosen “elite” strike team: Paladin and Cleric for the holy power, Barbarian for enough strength bonuses to punch through damage reductions and sorceror for the plan B Fireball
But how’s that Plan B Fireball gonna work against fiends? They live in a lake of friggin’ lava!
It’s not the fire, but force of explosion, hence plan B and not the usual Plan A or “only plan” casters have. But I’m not sure, did they cone with immunity against fire magic? If ao plan B is to,literally, throw the sorceror at the fiends while the rest fight BBEG.
In our two campaigns so far:
In Masks of Nylartothep, if they fail, the world gets invaded by monsters and humanity becomes a chew toy.
In my homebrew game, if they succeed, they will find out:
1. Where the oceans went
2. Why we have gods
2a. What the gods are so scared of
3. Why the archfey are so pissed off
4. What Grandpa has been trying to say
5. How to save their families (what’s left of them)
5a. How to avenge their families
6. How to kill the gods
6a. How to become the gods
Are they aware of these consequences? I mean… How much of this have you actually communicated to your players?
Funnily enough, all of it! To be fair though, it has taken all campaign to provide them with these questions. But now we’re in the “answers falling down like rain” phase of the game.
Then godspeed, you crazy GM you. 😀
I’ve got a Chronicles of Darkness/Mortals oneshot in the works, with the party of soon-to-be college roommates moving into an (unknown to them at the time) extremely haunted house. Stakes were pretty easy to figure; failure means homelessness, death, or some combination amongst the party. Success depends on their methods, really, but it usually means they get to keep (and live in) their ridiculously cheap Victorian house that’s been brought up to code.
Mortals always get the best one-shot premises. Love it to pieces. 😀
in our last campaign we had actual plans for what happens if we failed to final the finale because what would happen if we didn’t win is a goddess of evil would have taken over the world…
plan A: was that we would play a new team of heroes that were similar to our previous heroes in levels, and we would “take two” the attempt in another few weeks or months after a general regroup of forces (and probably some slight leveling up since if we couldn’t do it before, we would probably need the extra power before trying again).
plan B: was to just “take the loss” and start the next campaign with new characters at level 1 and deal with the consequences of having failed in the last campaign with all the ramifications of what that might mean to these new heroes and the world at large (this was the one we had decided on before we eventually won the day anyway, but it still would have been a neat outcome to try out!)
plan C: was to scrap that world entirely and “start over” in a new setting, but none of us really liked that idea overall.
It was fun to plan for the eventuality of loss and how it might affect everyone in the world, but also it was nice to win too XD
I imagine that “take the loss” gives everyone a chance to think seriously about stakes. Playing in a “world of evil” type campaign is its own flavor of fun, and getting to imagine a familiar campaign world turning into that makes it clear to players exactly what they’re trying to prevent.
I avoid “the world will be destroyed” plots, even in my “cosmic event” plot lines. “This world could get totally f’ed up” is well within
#1 – find & restore the broken McGuffin that keeps the planes aligned…..or else magic will go wonky and the gods will get involved …..personally. Many of them will not bother to look where they step and expect a few squabbles at krakatoa volumes.
#2 – expose the true* reason for Raistlin’s ascension to divinity, and several millenia-old secrets about multiple kinds of divinities, before Paladine loses hope and goes back to his old ways…..when he was Sargonnas. Last time that happened, the ogre-mage civilization was obliterated and most of them were cursed…. *(non canon but fits all the history presented in the original DLA)
Are your players aware of these consequences? I mean… How much of this have you actually communicated to them? And perhaps more a more interesting question: What mechanism do you use to communicate these stakes?
Sometimes.
#1 was clear from session 1. They found a dying high level cleric surrounded by the dissolving corpses of two dozen fiends. The PCs weren’t high enough level to remove the diseases/curses/etc killing him.
“Take this amulet, it will lead you to the relics. Reassemble the Continuity that keepsmthr planes aligned. If not, the outer planes will drift farther away and eventually there will be no more magic or gods in the mortal realms .
This was my mission, now it is yours. If mortals cannot restore Continuity, the Gods will do it themselves. The dark gods will shatter mountains or decimate kingdoms on a whim as they pass by. The greater fear is that gods meet and old rivalries result in divine warfare in the mortal realms.
#2 was a plot revealed and evolved over time (and as 3e supplements came out I could leverage). They could have dodged the plot hooks for a while as various events unfolded without meddling PCs, but at some point the mayhem would have caught up to them.
It would have certainly been different mayhem than what they experienced given the number of unthwarted (or differently thwarted) villains,, unallied allies, undiscovered secrets not to mention the handful of “that was supposed to be a villain but they accidentally said exactly the right thing so now the BBEG is just powerfully grouchy”
My no. 1 player has a list of PCs that have no end game in mind. They keep doing what they do, having an adventure and then returning, Cincinnatus-like, to their literal or metaphorical plow. One has aspirations of learning every spell. All seek personal fulfillment and financial security.
Then there’s his paladin and his samurai. The former was created expressly for (and is currently grinding away at) Curse of Strahd. Win conditions are clear.
The latter is on an inexorable path to becoming daimyo of a small province and joining the council of Important Clans as a coequal. He hopes to save everyone he comes across and usually seems genuinely surprised when his liege lords recognize him for exceptional service.
Of course, if either of them fail, Darkness reigns supreme and it falls to other heroes to stop the tide of evil.
Do the “no end game in mind” PCs ever feel lacking in motivation? Or is it a case of a Conan-like character where the life of adventure is enough to justify itself?
…sorry, I read the advice in today’s update and all I’m thinking of is a particularly questionable line delivery in Mega Man X4.
Meanwhile, I’m lucky my players have a JOB investigating things, which makes pushing them easier.
I’ma need a link to the Mega Man moment. Never played that one.
Assassin: “What is the most devastating moment for betrayal?”
Wizard: “That would be just at the moment I’m about to cast the…”
Fighter: “Ignore her. The most devastating moment would be right now, at this instant, while Divine Herald is standing five feet away from you.”
The problem with that scenario is that Fighter would need to be actually listening to the RP.
He took a feat to insert the earplugs as a reaction.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/heed-not-thy-band-aid
Yeah, the last character I played would have just shot him for asking that question. You can never be too careful, and he didn’t like assassins anyway.
The baddest assed line in the history of badass lines is from The Last Starfighter, and it’s a failure line, but it’s stuck with me ever since I saw that movie. I wanted to grow up to be that damn hardcore…
Lord Kril: Damage report!
Kodan Officer: Guidance system out. Axiliary steering out.
Lord Kril: DIVERT! DIVERT!
She won’t answer the helm! We’re locked into the moon’s gravitational pull. What do we do?
[dramatic pause]
Lord Kril’s helmet monocle swings over to cover his left eye.
Lord Kril: We die.
Man I loved that movie as a kid. Got that one from the ol’ Blockbuster a couple of times.
In my current campaign [Spelljammer-adjacent homebrew setting], the PCs are trying to get enough cash to pay someone with a ship to smuggle them offworld. I started them off as as escapees from a prison camp in not-quite-Australia – we spent the first few sessions just hexcrawling through the backcountry.
They’ve recently had some run-ins with a dangerous cult who are messing around with ancient technology – they came to blows while exploring a megadungeon.
Currently, the most likely failure state that isn’t just a TPK is the party getting sent back to prison (likely somewhere higher-security this time).
If they decide not to bother with the “stopping the cult” plotline, their leader will continue amassing power in the form of followers and weapons, becoming too large a threat for a single adventuring party to manage.
As a fan of Farscape, I approve of any sch-fi vehicle that tossesa bunch of escaped prisoners into adventure. Good show!
For my more recent campaigns, I’ve started planning out bad endings just in case things go wrong. They vary depending on the tone and scale of the game, with darker and more large-scale campaigns having worse consequences for failure.
For one campaign centred on recovering a lost pirate treasure, failure means the treasure ends up in the wrong hands or just unclaimed, with its exact fate depending on what the players did along the way (e.g. it might get taken by a rival treasure hunter or a dragon depending on which of them are still alive at that point). Furthermore, the ghost pirates who can’t pass on until someone worthy gets the treasure remain bound to it. In some ways, it’s a “back to square one” ending.
For a courtroom drama game, I came up with a wide range of fail states depending on how well the players defend their client. The ones I planned for are, in decreasing order of severity: The PCs’ client gets executed or otherwise harshly punished and they end up disgraced for helping a “criminal”; the PCs help their client escape and become fugitives; the PCs acquit their client legally, but not in the eyes of the people, and are shunned afterwards; or the PCs clear their client’s name, but the real culprit remains at large.
The grimmest one I’ve planned so far is a campaign involving an alien invasion. The bad endings have the invaders conquer the local area and establish a firm foothold, destroying multiple towns and turning the population into brainwashed cyborg minions, with no sign of them stopping in the future. There could potentially be follow-ups with new parties trying to defeat the now-entrenched alien forces, with the odds becoming more desperate after every failure.
Assassin reminds of Wenduag from Owlcat’s Wrath of the Righteous. Or I suppose anyone who suffers from Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
I suppose he can enjoy his fifteen minutes of low level mediocrity before he comes down with an unfortunate case of ‘fighting the entire party’ with a side of ‘player action economy is way more busted than mob action economy.’