RPGs with cool failure states

[Broseph]

I don't know if this counts, but wandering into the mutant base early on, in Fallout, you'll get thrown in a cell and have a really difficult time escaping.

This blew my mind when it happened to me, one of the best moments in RPG history.

Fallout is like twenty hours of consecutive best moments in RPG history.

OT, although I can't point to a lot of specific examples I like when a game punishes me for trying to rush through things. And basically I like when you can really screw yourself over in a game by inadvertently wandering into a high level area and suffering the consequences, but if you play your cards right you can get epic loot, etc. I like that kind of thing. And I like games that provide ways of getting past high level stuff early on for the attentive and analytic player. The prime example of this would be, well, Might and Magic. In MM3 there are fountains that will temporarily boost your party's levels by 20, so you can use that and then cast Lloyd's Beacon to return to a really hard dungeon and kick some ass. At the same time, it automatically saves over your one slot so if you save when you're in a jam you can find yourself in an unwinnable situation, and although you can use Mr. Wizard to get out you still have to suffer the experience penalty, so that could be considered a failure state.

 

[Whisky]

Wish there were more failure states. I mean, it's one thing to be a complete badass, it's another to be knocked to rock bottom and badass your way out. I could see these being abused in games, resulting in no possible failure though.

Aside from the games mentioned in this topic, especially Dark Lands, I can't think of too many.

 

[JarlFrank]

But you want to give a noticeable benefit to weapon mastery. And since the only way to measure it after some point is to pitch you against enemies who also mastered the weapon, then a low-leveled skill is best represented in you missing under most circumstances. If you can still cut up fools regularly with a pitiful 10 in Long Blades, why would you invest in it?

Nah, I'm not talking about not hitting things, I'm talking about critical misses that result in such spectacular failures as poking your own eye out with a dagger or shooting your own foot with a pistol.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Well, that's kinda the definition of critical failure - you fail so hard, it's almost unbelievable. And if you're a low-level n00bster like those guys, it's more likely to happen.

 

[Gozma]

Critical failures are pretty stupid as anything but easter eggs lulz in most designs. Under what conditions do you as a player make decisions to try things that have some low but real % chance of being a total disaster? The only way would be if you have absolutely no other choice; what design doesn't give you something better to work with?

 

[Excidium]

Well in most RPGs critical failures are always a possibility so you don't have much choice.

But they are also generally rare occurences, not something like Arcanum where you can hurt yourself then drop your weapon then knock yourself out all in the same battle.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

I played Dragon Wars when I was fairly young, but I remember getting thrown into slave pens and having to fight my way out unarmed. Something similar happens in one of the Dragon Quest games, too... 5 maybe?

 

[Lilura]

Play a solo Jinxed Chosen in Fallout 2 offset by 10 LK. Laugh as your enemies critically miss all over the place. Goodtimes!

 

[agentorange]

Play a solo Jinxed Chosen in Fallout 2 offset by 10 LK. Laugh as your enemies critically miss all over the place. Goodtimes!

Not really a fail state, though. Unless you are talking about the failed state of the enemies, huehuehuehuehe.

 

[sea]

I think that non-death failure states work best in open-world games with freeform gameplay. The problem is that the scripting and programming of all the needed open-world logic and rules to manage an ever-changing world is extremely complex, to the point where people just do not try anymore. I think Fallout, Fallout 2 and Arcanum are great examples that do it in a more story-driven and pre-scripted way, but I honestly can't think of any games that do it dynamically based on some underlying logic. Din's Curse, maybe?

 

[Azarkon]

I do think 'failure states' have a place in games, but not in the naive implementation of an 'ur bad' fail, which leads to reloads / meta gaming of failure states.

I think they work best when the 'failure' is 'forced' by decisions made earlier in the game, such as choice of class, race, combat skills, allies, etc., which are not easily undone. Not only do you get C&C out of this, but players are better able to accept the 'failure' when it is the product of their agency rather than an involuntary 'ur bad.' In a way, I don't even think of such 'failures' as failure, but simply C&C whereby the player choosing one path has consequences for another.

 

[Vibalist]

Play a solo Jinxed Chosen in Fallout 2 offset by 10 LK. Laugh as your enemies critically miss all over the place. Goodtimes!

This actually makes me want to play F1 and 2 again. Sounds hilarious.

 

[tuluse]

In F2 you also get more of the easter eggs the higher your luck is.

 

[Horus]

Also, there's no reload.

I love it already

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Well in most RPGs critical failures are always a possibility so you don't have much choice.

But they are also generally rare occurences, not something like Arcanum where you can hurt yourself then drop your weapon then knock yourself out all in the same battle.

I remember this post describing how the Worthless Mutt critically failed so hard it managed to bite its own head off.

 

[JarlFrank]

Hammer and Sickle, a tactics/RPG hybrid running on the Silent Storm engine, should be mentioned here. You're playing as a Soviet agent in 1949, going on a mission into West Germany. You're explicitly warned at the beginning of the game that if you screw shit up, you might cause WW3. And if you do screw shit up, like attack a British military base while wearing your uniform rather than civilian clothes, you will cause WW3. But the game doesn't end. You might not even know that your actions did lead to war - until it starts and you actually get to fight some larger-scale battles.

It's awesome how the game just lets you play on even if you fucked your mission up royally.

 

[Ebonsword]

It's awesome how the game just lets you play on even if you fucked your mission up royally.

I love stuff like that, too.

Unfortunately, most developers seem to think "Why would we bother creating content that most players will never see?" so they go off and work on adding more bloom effects to their graphics instead.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

Yeah, but who in his right mind stoped playing after the WW3 sequence? I tried it out, it was clear i fucked up, so i reloaded. Smart players will see and value the content.

 

[JarlFrank]

Well, that's kinda the definition of critical failure - you fail so hard, it's almost unbelievable. And if you're a low-level n00bster like those guys, it's more likely to happen.

The problem with all three of these is that they don't just try to conventionally use their weapons but want to do cool moves that fail because they're not skilled enough to actually pull them off. In a real combat situation, normal people use their weapons normally without trying to show off, which leads to much less chance of critical failures like these.

 

[granit]

A cool failure state of sorts in Morrowind is that if you somehow obtain and wear an armor piece worn by the Ordinators and talk to one you will be marked for death and hunted down by every Ordinator for the rest of the game.

Also the fact that in Morrowind you can kill any NPCs including quest givers for the Main Quest is cool.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Dying in Planescape: Torment...

 

[Clockwork Knight]

A cool failure state of sorts in Morrowind is that if you somehow obtain and wear an armor piece worn by the Ordinators and talk to one you will be marked for death and hunted down by every Ordinator for the rest of the game.

That's less of a cool failure state and more of a "fucking annoying state". Or "if an ordinator sees you wearing that piece of armor you get a hefty penalty to the ordinator faction and they are all telepathic so it'll last forever unless you dump it somewhere" state, but that's a bit too long.

 

[Ranselknulf]

If you have ever watched an inexperienced person use a brush axe or machete you can understand how easy it is for a person to accidentally hit themself.

Swing it wrong and miss the branches you are trying to cut and you probably are going to jam it in your leg. I'd imagine it would be similar to swinging at an opponent and missing their body/sword/armor etc.

 

[Mastermind]

Well, that's kinda the definition of critical failure - you fail so hard, it's almost unbelievable. And if you're a low-level n00bster like those guys, it's more likely to happen.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan has an awesome episode where you can be captured by orcs/trolls/whatever and find yourself down in the mines stripped of your equipment. I seem to remember it can be pretty hard (but still possible) to get out of there.

I can't recall if that's optional or required to beat the game though.