The players were trying to infiltrate the lair of a cult of demon-worshipers who were in the middle of preparing for some sort of major ritual…and they were not doing so hot. They had managed to get captured, then engineered an escape and recover their arms and equipment. They decided to try and mess up the cult’s ritual, but (long story short) luck was not with them, and the cult succeed in its ritual. The result was one character dead, the other at the mercy of the surviving cultists, and the other two wound up fleeing for their lives.

This was midway between “medium” failure and “catastrophic,” as the cult’s goal was horrible, but not earth-shattering, so I went with what the article calls the “Not as big as you think” option. The tone of the game changed, and this period became akin to our campaign’s version of “The Empire Strikes Back,” with the heroes on the ropes for a while afterward. It worked out fairly well in the long run.

Swordgleam: I’m glad you and Fang worked out most of the issue. I like your sidequest suggestion– you’re right, it’s a good solution and gets things rolling again. [In fact, I edited it into the post above.]

Thanks for responding!
Fang
Scattershot Role-Playing Game

I do think that there are reasons other than wanting to keep a certain plot on track for trying to prevent a failure. I’m not of the opinion that players need to win all the time for the game to be fun, but some failures aren’t worth it in terms of payoff.

I said that when one has a plot that can be stopped by a failure, it meant that one was railroading. If there isn’t a plot to be foiled, there is no railroading.

Don’t get me wrong; handled well, railroading is actually a very enjoyable game. It takes a lot of work and a great judge of people’s reactions, but it is more than doable.

The idea I’m floating is that ‘recovering’ from a failure means it isn’t a failure. You might call it a setback, but I call it a complication.

If they fail to defend the village, sure they’ll feel like it’s a failure, but its a trivial to change the threat…the complication…from defending one village to defending them all. Ta-da! Instant villain. The game simply becomes more complicationed, nothing is failed.

Fang

They can fail at defending the village. Maybe it’s okay in your world for the village to get demolished, but if it’s a site-based adventure where everyone has a lot invested in the village, then that’s going to suck. It could lead to some great storytelling as the PCs seek to rebuild the village/redeem themselves/get vengeance, but it’s still a failure. Of course, you could just make it clearly impossible for the village to be destroyed, but suspending disbelief over that is harder than suspending disbelief over a one-time deus ex to turn the tide of the battle.

The question is, are you more concerned with recovering from failures (turning it into a good plot point) or preventing them (keeping the village intact)?

I’m not going to argue about whether or not the former option is a more “mature” perspective, but even if it is, I don’t think that invalidates the latter. Sometimes GMs or groups would rather not have certain failures happen, and options for avoiding such failures are not a bad thing.

On a more productive note, the only option I can think of that you might be missing, especially for medium failures, is sidequest. The villain has the PCs at his mercy.. and says, “I was going to have to expend some minions fetching the Orb of Pain from the Dread Caverns, but now that you’re here, you can do it. Bring it back for me, or I’ll kill [the PC whose player is gone this week/NPC you like].” The villain didn’t really take the last ship – there’s a swift pirate cruiser hidden behind an asteroid nearby, but if the players want to borrow that ship, they’ll have to make it worth the pirates’ while. They didn’t create the vaccine, but they hear about a scientist who was working on a parallel project, and only needs a certain very rare serum to transform his forumula into the vaccine they need.

Cole: Thanks; though plot holes and failure abound in modules… you really have to watch out for them, be ready to improvise, or proofread it for unexpected weaknesses.

I think the examples listed by Scott are valid examples on how to make the necessary changes to the plot.

@Scott Martin: Thanks!

Fang

Fang: No surprise; a lot of the “good advice” is paraphrased from reading you and many others. I agree with much of the rest of your advice for many games and circumstances… it was where I started my response. It didn’t answer the question as directly as the above, so I moved it to a followup post.

Kurt: Your risk/reward is similar to my view that character struggle and suffering make the opposition impressive. If every fight is a cakewalk, it’s not terribly heroic when you finally win. Of course, reading the Fionovar Trilogy recently skews my viewpoint; self sacrifice is a huge theme.

Rafe: I think my mention of the successor campaign came directly from you talking about your experiences. It’s a cool concept… but I’d have to like the way we lost or it would feel like months of rubbing my nose in it. (Unless the world was cooler than the character I was playing; while rare, it has happened.)

@Kurt: I think failure for this article almost needs to be better explained. In the sense of TPK, yeah, that’s failure. Bang, you’re dead! Maybe give the party one more unlikely chance in the death trap as Scott mentions, but it should be horrific. I once had a TPK and decided that instead of killing them, the party woke up naked and strung up by their feet in the forest. Talk about an adventure worth remembering. They lost all their valueables and now where out for revenge (side note: a previous article suggested trying to evoke players emotions, especially hate, and that is a good way to do it). As for non-TPK, continue below.

@Fang: I believe what you are trying to say is that the game should revolve around a setting presented by the GM and effectively be action/reaction — with failure leading to complications. Short of TPK, failure to complete the quest usually does not end the world/story/campaign — it just makes it different and potentially harder.

Instead of helping, I’ll add a complication (sorry, can’t resist). What does one do with parties that have characters killing each other and causing huge problems to the existing plot line (usually in the form of lost information and opportunities, i.e., the leader of the party gets assassinated by a party member)?