Consequences

Generally, when players are looking at you to find out what happens you assign a consequence. There are two types:

Soft consequences

A soft consequence is one without immediate, irrevocable consequences. That usually means it’s something not all that bad, like revealing that there’s more treasure if they can just find a way past the golem (offer an opportunity with cost). It can also mean that it’s something bad, but they have time to avoid it, like having the goblin archers loose their arrows (show signs of an approaching threat) with a chance for them to dodge out of danger.

A soft consequence ignored becomes a golden opportunity for a hard consequence. If the players do nothing about the hail of arrows flying towards them it’s a golden opportunity to use the deal damage consequence.

Hard consequences

Hard consequences, on the other hand, have an immediate effect. Dealing damage is almost always a hard consequence, since it means an increase in disadvantage that won’t be reduced without some action from the players.

When you have a chance to assign a hard consequence, you can opt for a soft one instead if it better fits the situation and game fiction.Consequences are a way of fulfilling your goals, part of which is to fill the characters’ lives with adventure.

Choosing a consequence

Consequences are not randomly diced for! In fact, as a game master you will very rarely roll dice. Instead you will be interpreting the cliché rolls of the players and carefully deciding upon consequences that make sense in the context of the story and respect the game fiction.

Successful cliché rolls

No additional consequences are assigned. The player's response to the GMs description is exactly what happens next.

Partially sucessful cliché rolls

The player's response to the GM's description is mostly what happens next but there will be an added consequence that is either known or unknown to the player.

Failed cliché roll

The player's response to the GM's description most likely is not what happens. Instead, what follows next will be a direct consequence of the failed cliché roll.

Keep your principles in mind. In particular, never speak the name of the consequence and address the characters, not the players. Consequences are not mechanical actions happening around the table. They are concrete events happening to the characters in the fictional world you are describing.

Build on the success or failure of the characters’ actions and on your own previously assigned consequences. If your first instinct is that this won’t hurt them now, but it’ll come back to bite them later, great! Make a note and reveal it when the time is right.

For example, when a character is partially successful in dodging an oger’s attack and you choose to “use up their resources” and “put them in a spot” then you might say:

“Sol, as you dodge the hulking ogre’s club, you slip and land hard. Your sword goes sliding away into the darkness. You think you saw where it went but the ogre is lumbering your way. What do you do?

Consequences

Each consequence is something that occurs in the fiction of the game. They aren’t code words or special terms. “Use up their resources” literally means to expend the resources of the character. Here are some common consequences:

Use a villain, danger, or location

This is just a description of what that villain or location does. Mountain Trolls “hurl someone away”. It's a long drop to the bottom of the warp core. The Nadazian Nexus devours souls. If a player’s action has left them exposed, add a villain, danger, or location consequence. 

Reveal an unwelcome truth

An unwelcome truth is a fact the players wish wasn’t true; the room has been trapped, or the helpful goblin is actually a spy. Reveal to the players just how much trouble they’re really in.

Show signs of an approaching threat

This is a very versatile consequence. “Threat” means anything bad that’s on the way. You just show them that something’s going to happen unless they do something about it.

Deal damage (disadvantage)

When you deal damage, choose one source of damage that’s threatening a character and apply it. In a knife fight with a lizard man? It stabs you. Triggered a trap? Rocks fall on you.The amount of damage is decided by the GM and is dealt as points of disadvantage.

Use up their resources

Surviving in a dungeon, or anywhere dangerous, often comes down to supplies. With this consequence, something happens to use up some resources: weapons, armor, healing, ongoing spells. You don’t always have to use it up permanently. A sword might just be flung to the other side of the room, not shattered.

Turn Their Action Back On Them

Think about the benefits an action might grant a character and turn it around in a negative way. Alternately, grant the same advantage to someone who has it out for the characters. If Ivy has learned of Duke Horst’s men approaching from the east, maybe a scout has spotted her, too.

Separate them

Separating the characters can mean anything from being pushed apart in the heat of battle to being teleported miles away. Whichever way it happens, it’s bound to cause problems.

Give an opportunity

The thief disables traps, sneaks, and picks locks. The cleric deals with the divine and the dead. Every cliché has things that they shine at so tempt them with an opportunity to shine.

Show a downside

This is where the building blocks of a character or even their actions can be turned against them:

Hooks

What happens when someone calls Marty McFly chicken or makes White Goodman bleed his own blood?

Race / Species

Do orcs have a special thirst for elven blood? 

Cliché

Is the wild magic of the Self taught sorcerer (3)  disturbing dangerous forces? 

Actions

The torch that lights the way also draws attention from eyes in the dark.

Offer an opportunity, with or without cost

Show them something they want: riches, power, glory. If you want, you can associate some cost. Remember to lead with the fiction. You don’t say, “This area isn’t dangerous so you can make camp here, if you’re willing to take the time.” You make it a solid fictional thing and say, “Helferth’s blessings still hang around the shattered altar. It’s a nice safe spot, but the chanting from the ritual chamber is getting louder. What do you do?”

Put someone in a spot

A spot is someplace where a character needs to make tough choices. Put them, or something they care about, in the path of destruction. The harder the choice, the tougher the spot.

Tell them the requirements or consequence

Sure they can do it, but there will be consequences. Maybe they can swim across the moat but they will need some kind of distraction to avoid being devoured by the sharks that are in a starved frenzy.

Dungeon Consequences

Dungeon consequences are a special subset that are used to make or alter a dungeon on the fly. Use these if your players are exploring a hostile area that you haven't mapped out. Most of them will require you to add a new room or element to your map:

Change the environment

The environment is the general feel of the area the players are in: carved tunnels, warped trees, safe trails, or whatever else. This is your opportunity to introduce them to a new environment: the tunnels gradually become naturally carved, the trees are dead and strange, or the trails are lost and the wilderness takes over. Use this consequence to vary the types of areas and creatures the players will face.

Point to a looming threat

If you know that something is lurking and waiting for the players to stumble upon it, this consequence shows them the signs and clues; a dragon’s footprints in the mud or the slimy trail of a gelatinous cube.

Introduce a new faction or type of creature

A type of villain is a broad grouping: orcs, goblins, lizardmen, the undead, etc. A faction is a group of villains united by a similar goal. Once you introduce them you can begin to add consequences and cause trouble for the players with those villains.

Introducing means giving some clear sensory evidence or substantiated information. Don’t be coy; the players should have some idea what you’re showing the presence of. You can, however, be subtle in your approach. No need to have the cultist overlord waving a placard and screaming in the infernal tongue every single time. A hard application of this consequence will snowball directly into a combat scene or ambush.

Use a threat from an existing faction or type of creature

Once the characters have been introduced to the presence of a faction or type of villain you can use the consequences of villains of that type. Use the factions and types broadly. Orcs are accompanied with their hunting worgs. A mad cult probably has some undead servants or maybe a few beasts summoned from the abyssal pits. This is a consequence that, often, you’ll be adding subconsciously. It’s just implementing the tools you’ve set out for yourself in a clear and effective manner.

Make them backtrack

Look back at the spaces you’ve added to the map. Is there anything useful there as yet undiscovered? Can you add a new obstacle that can only be overcome by going back there? Is there a locked door here and now whose key lies in an earlier room?

When backtracking, show the effect that time has had on the areas they’ve left behind. What new threats have sprung up in their wake? What didn’t they take care of that’s waiting for their return?

Use this consequence to make the dungeon a living, breathing place. There is no stasis in the wake of the characters’ passing. Add reinforcements, cave in walls, cause chaos. The dungeon evolves in the wake of the characters’ actions.

Present riches at a price

What do the players want? What would they sacrifice for it? Put some desirable item just out of reach. Find something they’re short on: time, gear, whatever. Find a way to make what they want available if they give up what they have.

The simplest way to use this consequence is the promise of gold out of the way of the main objective. Will they stop to pry the ruby eyes from the idol when they know that the sacrifice looms closer and closer? Use this consequence and you can find out.

Present a challenge to one of the characters

Challenge a character by looking at what they’re good at. Give the thief a lock to pick, show the cleric servants of an enemy god to battle against. Give the wizard magical mysteries to investigate. Show the fighter some skulls to crack. Give someone a chance to shine.

As an alternative, challenge a character by looking at what they’re bad at or what they’ve left unresolved. If the bard has a complicated lie on his conscience, what steps will he take to cover it up when someone figures him out? If the wizard has been summoning demons, what happens when word gets out?

This consequence can give a character the spotlight even if just for a moment. Try to give everyone a chance to be the focus of play using this consequence from session to session.

Make use of these consequences when everyone looks to you to say something, when the players present you an opportunity, or when the players miss a roll. They’re particularly well-suited for when the characters enter a new room or hallway and want to know what they find there.