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Narrator Advice

Failure is Always An Option: Character Defeat is Player Victory Too

by Mike Holmes

Introduction

RPG players have long noted that, while RPGs aren't films or books and shouldn't always be treated as such, that often the rules of drama do apply well to decisions made in RPG play. I mean it'd be a dull film if Indiana Jones got out of the snake pit and didn't find that the ark was just then being moved, but instead that it had been shipped a while back with no trace as to where it had gone. Character failure in drama is never used to cause the plot to cease in the middle of the interesting stuff; instead it moves the plot along. Writers use the principle below constantly.

Basically what this essay intends to show is how to ensure that character defeats are fun for players. Because characters are going to fail in Hero Quest - perhaps at an even greater rate than they do in other RPGs. To make the game really fun, players have to enjoy failures as much - or even more - than they do the victories. This is not as hard as people think.

Rule #1: Failure Doesn't Mean the Character Looks Bad

Goal statements are never 100% airtight as to what a player can expect from a contest. The narrator has the rights to affect the outcome in several ways. For example, he certainly has the right to add whatever sort of color he likes. That is, beating the other character up the wall, the narrator would be within his rights to narrate either of the following results for a failure:

"Your character slips a lot, and generally looks like a klutz, making several stupid mistakes along the way, practically handing his opponent the victory on a silver platter."

Or:

"Your character climbs skillfully, and with great vigor. And it looks like he's going to win, when suddenly the wind throws dust into his eyes, and his opponent manages to just squeak by him to win the race as your character pauses."

So here we can see that the narrator has substantial control over the stakes in that he can make a character look good or bad, at the very least. This is a powerful form of control over the stakes, and leads us to the first rule of making failure fun.

To some extent, the content of the above narration could be said to simply be color. There's not necessarily and mechanical effect. Though in HeroQuest, it's possible that the narrator could pass on a penalty, in addition to the loss condition, representing embarrassment or something. He doesn't have to do so, but it's his prerogative to do so.

But even if it's solely relegated to color, the player may feel that his character simply isn't cool any more. For most "Player Heroes," this sort of narration less than heroic. So, generally speaking you want to make the character look cool in resolution. There are several ways to do this, but one technique that always works is to assume that the loss was the fault of fate, not the character's abilities. That's the difference in the examples above. The first example assumes that the character's skills failed him completely somehow, and that it was entirely his fault for the failure due to terrible performance. The second example has fate conspire to cause the failure.

In fact, it can be argued that it's more "realistic" to have the dice represent the minutia of fate - after all, the character's skill doesn't actually change at the moment of a bad roll, does it? If he's "Agile" he doesn't suddenly become clumsy because he had a bad roll. Something happened that made him look bad. You don't really need a rationalization for this rule, but if you want one, here it is.

Now, that said, sometimes the character is clumsy, or the character may be the comic relief. Or it may simply happen that now would be a good time to show how human the character is, meaning how inconsistent we can be. The point is that you shouldn't follow this rule 100% of the time. But that's not the same thing as saying that you shouldn't be working to make failure fun. What it means is that you have to decide when a clumsy or funny failure is better than one that leaves the character smelling like a rose.

When in doubt, make the character look cool. You really can't go wrong.

Rule #2: Failure Means Conflict

Failure Means Failure

Many scenarios, published or not, suffer from a problem in their design. At some point there's some contest that's slated to occur upon which the entire success of the scenario hinges. Now, sometimes when this is the climax of the scenario, this isn't that problematic - the scenario is due to end anyhow.

But it's long been understood that when you come across such a scenario situation, and failure occurs that you have one of two choices: either end the scenario, or create some way on the spot to allow the scenario to continue. Yes, we've all become good at figuring out tricky ways to get around these points when they happen. But why should we have to do so? Often these tricks don't work, in fact. While they might put the scenario back on track, they may do so at the expense of the feeling that contests are risking anything. That is, if your character fails, and then is given the award that was supposedly at stake anyhow, one begins to feel that the resolution system is pointless.

In fact, HeroQuest is so dedicated to the idea that you have to feel the stakes, that it has the "No Repeat Contests" rule. If you fail to get the door open, you fail to get the door open, and you may not try again until you get it right. A roll in HeroQuest goes directly to whether or not you get the goal of the contest.

Don't let failures be meaningless, make them count each and every time.

Failure Means New Options

So how can one avoid the problem of characters dead-ending when they fail? By complicating their lives when failure occurs. Instead of failure simply being a resolution to an open conflict, it should be an opportunity for the narrator to create a new conflict.

So, looking at another example that's often used to illustrate this concept, a character wants to pick a lock on a door. Now the narrator could say that failure means that the character tries for hours, and finally just gives up. In addition to violating rule #1, here, this leaves the player with no options. If, in fact there are other options - say breaking a window, then the new conflict becomes whether or not to break the window.

Basically, if there is no situation that existed previously that would constitute other options, always be sure that the failure gives new options, and ones that aren't as savory as the previous ones. You can do this up front by negotiating more interesting stakes with the character. In the lock-picking example, you can make the goal to pick the lock before anyone comes along and sees the character at it. Because failure then means that the character has to deal with this new individual, a new conflict.

In fact, instead of allowing a player to try other options, make failure mean that he has to abandon the previous contest, and deal with an entirely new problem. This creates more action, and means that failures have a lot of bite. It also often means that it's dramatically allowable for the player to come back to the original contest if he takes care of the new one. For instance, if the character defeats a guard who caught him picking the lock, then you can allow him another shot at it, with new stakes. Perhaps this time it's to open the lock in enough time to get back to somebody he's supposed to meet. Make sure to escalate the consequences here, however, else you risk this becoming just another case of allowing multiple stabs at the goal.

When in doubt, make the failure stick, but give the player a whole new set of circumstances to deal with, rather than allowing him to come back to a previous contest. But do make sure that this new set of circumstances is at least as dramatically compelling as those that were lost with the failure.

Quite simply, never allow failure to be a dead end to player options.

NPCs

One particular case often comprises such a wall, and that's failure to get critical information from somebody. GMs in many games are fond of making contests out of these situations to see if the character can get the NPCs with information to talk. The first thing to consider is that these often aren't all that interesting as contests, and that if you can find a way to have the NPC spill the beans, that you should do so. Being a good narrator means getting information to players as fast as possible, while maintaining drama. So don't stonewall with NPCs too often.

If you feel that you have to make a contest out of such a situation - sometimes a player will demand such - then be creative with the stakes so that failure either leads to the case where the player has some new problem to deal with. That is, often it's just as dramatically appropriate to have the contest be about making a deal for the information. Maybe the character has to give something up to get it if he loses the negotiation (maybe it's a contest over the amount of payment). Maybe the contest is really about how nasty a character has to get in order to force the information out, and, therefore, how much of an enemy he makes with the character in question.

Rule #3: Fiddling After the Fact

All of the above assumes that you've made these stakes clear ahead of time. If the player says, "I want to get the info from Fast Eddie" then you respond, "Well, I'm sure it's just a matter of time...if you fail that'll mean that it's taking forever to get the information and you'll miss your scheduled meeting to get it." The player, once he understands what the potential failure conditions are, will be satisfied with them if they come up, because he's tacitly agreed to them (or, for some groups, even negotiated for them explicitly).

However, it's possible to skillfully alter the failure conditions after the fact. That is, the player didn't say that the negative outcome of his contest had to be not ever getting the information. In fact, in most cases, it's hard to imagine that a character would fail at something like this given time and persistence. There has to be something else at stake that's not stated that indicated the end of the contest.

So occasionally it's OK to play around with the obvious negative outcome, and make it something else. In the Fast Eddie example, instead of clearing the stakes with the player up front, you simply announce that Fast Eddie is talking forever, and that it's dragging on. If you know your players fairly well, they usually will appreciate this. Especially if the downside that you create is at least as harsh as what would happen if the simple failure condition of failing to meet the goal occurs.

Some people see this as letting the player off the hook, or messing with their intentions. If you think that you're doing either, then go back to the simple obvious failure declaration. Don't risk it. But if you have the trust of your players, and think you know what would be cool in a particular situation, then changing the outcome here is really just the same sort of narrator prerogative that is employed when creating color like making a character look cool (from Rule #1 above). You're tweaking the outcome to be more appealing to the player.

And it will be more appealing if this tweaked outcome leaves more options open than less. Especially if there are now harder decisions to be made.

This rule has one other advantage. If the narrator keeps for himself the right to modify the negative stakes somewhat after the fact, the player can never be sure exactly what's coming. This is suspenseful. Could death be around the corner - would the narrator do that now?

Rule #4: A Fate Worse than Death

Players often see death as the "Ultimate" penalty, and so they should, since it's actually the only real player penalty. That is, you lose the ability to play your character (usually), if he dies. This can be a very powerful thing in play, actually... if and only if the conflict from which the death occurs is worthy of it, however. Somebody once called Rolemaster "The game where butch veteran warriors are accidentally killed by backhand slaps from frail barmaids." What he's commenting on is that there are times when physical confrontation should not be about whether or not somebody dies. Because there are more interesting things to put at stake with relation to these sorts of conflicts.

Oh, sure, it may seem like a NPC is trying to kill your hero, but that doesn't mean that the narrator has to assume that this is the downside stake. This is the most powerful example you can give of where the "standard" contest says that death should be the outcome of loss. But even then it's not necessarily true. For several reasons:

There are fates worse than death. What does Westly say in response to Humperdinck saying, "To the death?" He says, "To the pain!" And then explains what awaits Humperdinck should he fight - which does a better job of intimidating him than threatening death ever could. When in a situation where characters seem to be trying to kill each other, consider that the enemy may consider maiming as a better result than death.
Or incarceration. There are so many reasons you can come up with for characters to incarcerate each other. Including torture and deathtraps? Are deathtraps unrealistic? Well, no, they relate to...
Humans don't like to kill other humans. It's arguable that it's genetic. But at the very least it's certainly trained into us by every culture in the world. If the opponent isn't a sociopath, then he'll only kill in a moment of passion. And that's rare.
So, even in combat, humans go out of their way not to kill each other if they don't have to do so. Taking prisoners is horribly debilitating in terms of your ability to fight, but most societies do it anyhow as part of the "rules of war." Why? Because killing is the most ugly business, and they hope that the other side will feel the same if they're captured.
Even when one does want to kill, one wants this for some specific reason other than just the death of the opponent. That is, there's always something else on the line. Perhaps pride, or love, or justice. In any case, whatever this reason is, can be the actual goal of the contest.

Now, all this said, am I saying that death should never be on the line? No. There's always the sociopath villain who doesn't have time for a deathtrap, and who we all feel has gotten so fed up with the protagonist that he wants to kill him. The point, however, is that you'll know these moments when they happen, and the player will probably agree with your decision to put death on the line. This turns out to be the case in a remarkably small number of cases, as it turns out.

This all said, one can put death on the line more often than one might think in HQ, especially using simple contests, because the odds of a complete victory between somewhat equal opponents is only 1:400 on either side. And, as always, there's the "immediate rescue" escape clause in these cases. The fact that this is 1:400 means that if you do decide to use the escape clause, it won't get hackneyed.

Only put death on the line when it's dramatically very appropriate to do so. Otherwise, put something else more interesting at stake.

Rule #5: Handling Complete Defeats (A Fate Other than Death)

Now, for a more technically difficult topic: what to do when a complete defeat comes up in a contest where the goal is not death? To understand this, you have to understand what the penalty is with regards to Complete Victory. There's this escalating scale of penalties and then...death? Or vague notions of something similarly permanent?

Complete Victory means you alter the opponent permanently in a way that makes the opponent unable to compete at all in that arena of conflict. Death, in fact, means that the character can't compete in any arena. But, let's say that the goal is to get the grail out of the temple intact. What does this mean to a character that gets a -10% penalty? Well, he's injured, but he can take another stab at digging the grail out, right? Probably with the penalty applying unless he takes time to heal up.

What does failing to kill a character mean? Well, that he's probably wounded, but that he lives to be a source of potential conflict in the future. Only by Complete Victory do we eliminate him as a source of conflict in the combat arena by killing him.

So what does Complete Defeat mean in the case of the grail? It's destroyed, of course. No chance at recovering it, the temple collapse has crushed it flat, and the magic is gone. There can no longer be any contests regarding recovering the grail, that avenue is now closed completely.

Now, that sounds like it could be a rotten result. But it's just like selecting death as the negative stake - we assume we wouldn't have set up this contest unless it was the end of the movie, and it would be dramatically appropriate for it to be forever lost. So, again, we only choose this stake if/when the outcome would be cool. Otherwise we come up with a more interesting conflict, one that probably uses Rule #2 to lead to new contests.

For example, a complete defeat on climbing might leave the character get half way up, suddenly realizing that he has a paralyzing fear of heights, and unable to get down. Now he has to figure out how to get down (new conflict), and he can never, ever have a contest to climb anything high again.

Until, of course, he can. Note that "permanent" for a complete defeat doesn't mean that the situation can't be remedied. Climbers with acrophobia can be cured of it (just ask Jimmy Stewart). Holy Grails can be rebuilt from the crushed remains. In fact, the dead can be returned to life. There's nothing like being completely incapacitated in some way to create conflict about fixing that situation. Check the healing chart out, it's right there: Resistance only 20W.

Rule #6: When In Doubt, Ask The Player

Really this is self-explanatory. If you're not sure whether or not a player will like a particular form of failure for his character, there's one easy way to find out. Simply ask. Don't always do this - it takes time, and can drain a little of the suspense out of the results. But if you're at all uncertain, there's no reason why you can't have a quick discussion with the player to find out what he thinks the most interesting failure is.

In fact, the entire game group is a good source for inspiration here if and when you're out of creative ideas. Instead of going with something default, try getting somebody else to come up with a creative failure condition. The narrator has final say on what it is, but that's no reason not to tap your players for ideas.

Conclusion

There's nothing in HeroQuest that mandates that contests must be framed in one way or another, it's quite open about it. Narrators should feel free to be creative with how they construct the conflicts and interpret the results so that they can make them constantly entertaining to the players, even when the results of contests are failures. Work with the players, not as an adversary, to come up with results that are entertaining for all involved.

The biggest benefit of failure being entertaining for players, is that they can stop worrying about try to play to win, and instead concentrate on playing their characters in a way that's entertaining. This is how HeroQuest facilitates heroism - not with Hero Points there to save the character's bacon, that doesn't work a remarkable amount of the time. It's loving failure as much as victory that drives players to have their Heroes act, well, like heroes.

Latest revision: 19 Jun 2006, new