Do you roll with failures or do you load and try for your "expected" outcome?

I used to always try for the best outcome but with this have it seems like half of the time a failure also leads to an amazing consequence and story.

Like this from act one in the Underdark:

spoilerI had to find a hidden gnome that could supply me with gunpowder, but she was so much on edge that she lit up the barrel of gunpowder and blew up the whole room, leaving half of my party dead. A suicide gnome bomber. I couldn’t convince her that I was not an enemy. Reloaded just to see if I could successfully do it, but much preferred the first outcome of the dice roll, so had to reload and try 6 times until I failed again. What a game!

HawlSera,

It depends on how serious the failure is, if it’s just a conversation with some guy about whether or not he should enjoy a healthy breakfast option, I’m going with don’t reload. If it is whether or not I can remove us from the skull, I’m going to keep reloading until my little brain Kitty is following me.

UnverifiedAPK,

I’m coming from more FO:NV where I’m used to skill checks, not random chance… So I’m scumming like crazy on my single player save.

On my multiplayer save we’re aiming for Chaotic Evil so we’re rolling with the punches.

forvirreth,

Play in a party of 3 and we’ve just rolled with the consequences for everything so far!

chemsed, (edited )

I mostly roll with my failure and my biggest one in Act one is

divulgâchewhen I let Halsin die while fighting the goblins, so Kagha can lead the grove and expulse the tieflings and now I cannot help Karlach with her heart. In an another coop campaign, despite my disagreement, my buddy decided to kill Kagha because of his paladin principles. We are screwed isn’t it?

I don’t regret it, because it’s so fun to see my decisions have such an impact on the story. It makes the campaign replayable.

AsimovsRobot,

Your spoiler tag doesn’t work.

chemsed,

I see. The spoiler tag on lemmy is way more complicated on lemmy and the lemmy sync app showed me wrong.

thewildnaylor,

I tend to only reload when something buggy or unintended happens(misclick) or if it’s a really risky/story related thing I feel my character would be good at but got a nat 1.

But this has been one of the few games I’ve totally rolled with most of my dialogue/skill failures just because they still feel decent narratively. I’ll save finding out what the successful/alternate outcomes are for next playthrough!

Morgikan,

I scum only high risk big decisions. Even then I will try to just roll with what I get. Lots of unintended fights. Some of which are very challenging, but the story feels much better than if it’s done "perfectly’.

AphoticDev,

I often save scum when I try out new things. This game is so complex, I often have no idea if an idea I have is even possible, so I set it up and try it out before reloading and playing for real.

popemichael,
@popemichael@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

To save myself time, I use a trainer that always gives you a nat 20.

If it’s something super important that I know that I’ll spend hours save scumming till I get it right, I just pop the option to get a nat 20 on my next roll.

fusio,

what’s a trainer?

popemichael,
@popemichael@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I highly recommend the one from Cheat Happens. I’ve been using the service for over a decade at this point with the lifetime membership.

Phantom3805,

A tool used to manipulate the game in order to cheat: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trainer_(games)

AnarchistArtificer,

In theory, I only reload when there’s been an issue that’s somehow mechanical in nature, like when I was first learning how stealth worked, or when a misclick sends characters running into stupid stuff. In theory, I roll with my failures, especially narratively interesting ones.

In practice, I need to work on playing this game less anxiously. I’m reloading more than I would like and part of why this game is so good is (I’m told) how fun and interesting failure is — that’s where great depth comes from. I feel like by being too persnickety with outcomes, I’m nerfing my own experience

Worst comes to worst, there’s always inspiration, which I’m never short on. I appreciate having the inspiration, it feels like a small endorsement of the instinct within me that makes me want to get the perfect outcome. It’s like saying “a little retcon, as a treat”, because all good things in moderation.

bouh,

Sometimes I do the opposite: I plan on savescuming to try a stupid thing, but it ends up being nice or unconsequential so I keep it.

shrugal,

Mostly stupid mistakes and the big decisions, like accidentally starting a fight with an entire faction or a misclick causing something really bad. I try to keep it to a minimum though, because half the fun is being surprised and going with the flow. But I do have a general “theme” in mind, and the dialog options make following it a bit difficult sometimes.

NathanielThomas,

In the first town, whatever it’s called, some snot nosed kid called the guard on me because I discovered his little secret hideout.

The guard asked me to go to jail or fight. They’re literally thieves so I said, uh, no. The guard, 4 NPCs, including the shopkeeper and Wyll a potential companion, all attacked me.

At first I started retreating from the fight but they kept chasing me so I said fuck it. I murdered the lot of them. When it was all over I kept my save.

I was disappointed the kid who created this chaos is Bethesda levels of immortal. I was very willing to wipe out that whole thieves ring.

swordsmanluke,

I will roll with failures if they’re narratively interesting. Failed to open a door and used my last set of lock picks? Reload.

Failed a roll and pissed off the NPC I was trying to charm? Them’s the breaks! 😜

AphoticDev,

My latest toon is a monk with no charisma, so I’m constantly failing skill checks. I could just go the violence way right off and succeed all the time, but often the failures are funny to watch.

ryven,
@ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I don’t reload dialogue failures, but honestly between Enhance Ability and Guidance I rarely fail, and when I do I usually have 4 Inspiration saved up for rerolls.

I’ve reloaded during fights to test interactions (“does throwing an unconscious person deal damage to them?”) but not to, for example, undo a bad turn that led to an NPC death.

AsimovsRobot,

How do you actually throw a NPC? Most are too heavy for my barbarian.

ryven,
@ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I dunno, I just had Karlach right click them and choose “throw” (throwing them at the ground deals one damage, btw). Since they were unconscious I had already looted their equipment, which may have reduced their weight.

AsimovsRobot,

Thanks, I’ll have to experiment as I’ve never managed to throw anybody so far. Just chests outside of combat and several axes.

zone,

I’ve been able to throw most halflings so far.

bouh,

Cast enlarge on your character. Size matters a lot. They are a lot easier to through if they are a size smaller than you. It works very well with goblins.

Ashtear,

Failure had a massive impact on my story. I wasn’t planning on going for an evil run, but I couldn’t stop someone from doing something very bad and it changed everything, from characters, to main story, to even gameplay since a character’s kit changed. People died, and probably the personality of the character changed, too (I’ll find that out next run).

I hated it in the moment, but I’m glad I did it because it’s made the run so memorable.

I’ve still been loading when dumb gameplay happens, like how Tav just walked into a room to cast a spell I thought she had range on, or I forget to bring the rest of the party into combat after I broke a party member off to ambush.

As for who did the thing, it was a late Act 2 spoiler:It was Shadowheart, in that moment

mothersprotege,

:: spoiler As for who did the thing, it was a late Act 2 spoiler: It was Shadowheart, in that moment

I think I know what you’re talking about, and I save-scummed to avoid it, because I needed redacted at the time. Was pretty dramatic and surprising!

Hillock,

I too ended up with an more evil run than intended due to "failure" or maybe more underestimating the consequences of my (in)action which led to the death of a companion. In almost every other recent game I played I would have reloaded at that point. But it coincidentally aligned with me finding the Ancient Tome so I changed my Conjurer Wizard to a Necromancer and dipped into the evil side. I don't regret it at all. So now I go with whatever happens.

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