Yeah I think part of the issue is the TTRPG effect that Larian want to copy, the DM giving you a tense moment, drum roll, roll the dice and... kinda effect. The problem for me is that in TT that works, you have that suspense whilst you shake those dice in your hand, wondering what will happen, but you also know that as players you can dynamically try to react to the story and if your DM is not set on black and white, your story can shift, evolve and flow off of that one decision. So whilst the outcome cannot be reloaded and tried again, with a good DM you aren't cheated out of persuing the story further. If the girl dies, I want to plot to retrieve the body and get her ressurected, i am not going to rest until I have made this right or failed gallantly. What I am not doing is going out to her parents and saying "well I tried to say something, but you know, meh...".
That can't happen so easily in a PC game and that's fine, we all understand the limitations, however, the big die in your face with a black and white result = frustrations. It's slow and you have little influence over what failure of said roll even means. Even if the outcome isn't as bad as say a Tiefling child dying, if the outcome seems worse, you will reload. The way round that is to have positive negatives. What if out of that failure something else opens up to tempt us (good or bad alignment based).
So again, what if instead of a side quest to revive the Tiefling girl, Kagha overhears and bribes me with a different quest to retrieve an artifact that only she knows the location of? Maybe that doesn't fit thematically with the grove, but the point is that immediately after a perceived failure (at least for a good character), I am tempted with something positive for me. Hmm now I have to think, do I really reload the game? Or do I go with this new opportunity? Ideally both options are still open to me, revive or go for the Kagha bribe quest. Maybe I still re-load and that#s fine too, but I have done it from an RP perspective, knowing that I will miss out on a cool item or quest, but I am happy with my decision and feel as though that's an avenue I might explore on a subsequent playthrough because it sounds interesting.
Alas the downside here is it can take away from the dramatic moment I guess, but you ar relying here on players "accepting" bad luck and rolling with the punches. That can be fine, but nless you like a hardcore approach, that can get pretty tiresome if die rolls don't go your way.
Last edited by Riandor; 26/05/21 11:29 AM.
