Unwinnable Situations
Games, in my opinion, provide three things.
Win conditions
Lose conditions
Choice that inevitably leads to one or the other
In general, if you haven’t lost, there’s still a chance you could win. But we’ve all experienced that moment of realization when the game is lost yet we are still playing.
I was reminded of this recently because I was re-playing Divinity Original Sin 2 with Lohse in the party. If you have not played this particular CRPG, I think it’s my personal favorite (even above BG3 due to the combat system—which is a joy 95% of the time). I digress. Anyway, SPOILER (for a game that’s now almost 10 years old?): Lohse is possessed by a demon. At some point you get the opportunity to weaken the demon that is inhabiting her, but doing so comes at a terrible (albeit off-stage) cost. During the moment of choice, you have no way of knowing the future consequences but you are warned that Lohse will be “lost” unless you proceed.
It’s a moral quandary with uncertainty. Players are bound to disbelieve the warning. Players expect that there is always a way around a thing. And players (and people in general) want their cake and to eat it too.
Surely if I do the right thing, I will be rewarded [or] even if the path is more difficult, I’ll still be able to “win.” That’s a trade-off I’m willing to make and I expect it’ll likely be true.
Well, as it turns out, if you don’t do the bad thing to weaken the demon, then your odds of losing Lohse skyrocket to more than 98%. This is because in the battle with the demon you have two turns to kill it before it takes permanent control of Lohse and simultaneously becomes invulnerable to damage. Remember however that this is a side quest. Not the main point of the game. Even so, if you are playing AS Lohse, your ENTIRE PLAYTHROUGH will end right there as the demon possesses you. GG.
If you kill her, she can’t be resurrected because the demon now has her soul. Like. It’s well and truly over.
You can feel yourself heating up, right?
You throw fingers at the screen. And yet…you were warned.
Now, to be fair, you CAN kill the demon at full strength and save Lohse IF you have a character build specifically designed to do so. It’s on Youtube. So technically, the win condition is still there. But for 99.99% of players it’s the end or reload.
To be human is to scoff at the notion of “impossible”. When people die in the pursuit of difficult achievements, humanity mourns them…and then keeps right on trying. Like microbes forever attacking the boundaries…killed off by the antibiotic sure, but that’ll wear off. Keep trying. Keep trying. That could be one definition of life, in fact. It just keeps testing the limits no matter what.
A game’s parameter’s, however, are generally baked. So unless you cheat you can recognize when things have gone pear-shaped and quickly come to a decision. Keep playing (often to be polite). Rage quit. Disengage. Etc.
With a CRPG you might reload and make the choice you now know leads to a better ending. Many of us would. What does that mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe it means that winning is ultimately more important to us that choosing the right thing?—even though we just told ourselves prior to making that choice that we could deal with the consequences.
Some of us would matter-of-factly abide by the choice and let it stand as correct, saddened to see Lohse dead and our playthrough over but convinced it was still the right thing to do. I marvel at those people. They always seem above the emotional attachment and welded to the higher principle. Kind of makes you want to knock their blocks over, but you know they won’t get upset so…
We were playing D&D the other night and my players related to me a situation they had faced in a game from their younger days (because they had grown up together). In the situation, one of the player characters got some phantom HP and was otherwise running on empty. At the end of the battle, the party was victorious but it dawned on everyone that when the phantom HP wore off in a couple rounds, the character would die. They did not have a work-around. So they spent the time role playing that end. Expressing gratitude to the PC for their sacrifice and what the PC meant to each of them.
Captain Kirk did not believe in the unwinnable situation, but we know deep down they are real. Maybe not in the long run. Maybe not forever. But certainly in the short-term, for the individual. Games are wonderful and frustrating for the same reasons life is wonderful and frustrating. Should a game have this kind of unwinnable state?
I don’t have an answer for that to be honest. I think this comes down to the individual who’s playing.
When I was faced with Lohse’s loss, I got angry at first. And then it sank in the same way a good horror story sinks in. And then I started to contemplate more deeply what I could learn about myself from my reaction to that event. Now, I don’t have a list of lessons for you. And I’m not going to say what’s right or wrong when faced with such situations. But I will tell you that introspection is generally good and it was powerful enough that I decided to blog about it.
That seems to represent value.
Did I reload and make the other choice? You bet I did. I off-stage snuffed a million souls to save Lohse and then I got the “happy” ending…which the game did not have to taint with traces of guilt. The game never judged me. I did that to myself. I was the one who experienced the happy ending but felt ever so slightly haunted by what I had done to get it.
I’m sure the devs and especially the writers of Divinity Original Sin 2 would be pleased to hear that. It is most certainly what they were shooting for. The trouble, of course, is that people are so wildly different in their reaction to this kind of material. Some will hate it for reasons I’ve already touched on. Other’s will hate it for even more nuanced reasons. Some won’t care. Some will like it. Some, like me, will turn it over and examine it. Etc.
So how do you handle the poisoned PC who has no access to a cure and three hours to live?
The answer is very carefully.
You have to understand the game you are running and the players at the table. It’s also situational. On a bad day, something small can break a person. The wise Dungeon Master abides by the rules most of the time but is never constrained by them. In ten years I think we’ve seen one true TPK and a few near-TPKs. Beloved characters have certainly been lost.
Games are complicated things. In the modern age I think sometimes, in the interest of sales (video games especially) can become overly indulgent tools for masturbation rather than true games that teach resource management, tactics, cooperation and other skills. But the happy medium is going to be different for every player.
One too many no-win situations and you will certainly lose your players. Within certain circles, even a single event might be too much.
There’s a reason why it’s named the “Dungeon Master’s GUIDE”. Guidance is all you can hope to acquire from external sources. General principles with an admonishment to always be checking the pulse. No one except you can know how to handle a tricky situation at your table within your group of friends. The beauty of this game is that it gives you that permission to decide for yourselves (collectively) how you want to conduct the campaign. The DM makes final calls. But the wise DM makes final calls with consensus.
In summation, I don’t think the unwinnable situation is always terrible but that’s accompanied by a slew of disclaimers. You need to telegraph the gravity of the choice. You need a work-around no matter how slim the chance. And you need a clear reason for doing it in the first place. It has to have story-critical gravitas. Did Larian Studios do us wrong with the Lohse thread? Some people would certainly say yes.
I’m less certain. I think it probably works for people like me and it doesn’t for others. My take on it, is that it pushed right up on the line you cannot cross. It took the unwinnable situation to the absolute limit without actually crossing the line.
I think games provide opportunities for us to learn hard lessons while staying safe—elevated above real world consequences. They provide opportunities for us to be challenged and (with the correct mindset) to challenge ourselves, to learn skills and to grow as humans. But, when a thing forces you to confront something you might not have been prepared to confront, or not been in the right mindset / state of preparedness to embrace…then it can have the opposite effect. So, you have to be careful with that stuff.
When in doubt, always offer a visible chance at escape and make that chance real.
Recently, some of my players ventured into a Drow-controlled undercity and, even though they sorta knew better, got assailed with poisoned weapons. One of the much-loved PCs failed his saving throw. There were no sure remedies at hand but the group had, I think, one antidote kit (which is detailed in my Castle of the Silver Prince campaign appendix). This kit provided diminishing chances of curing the poisoned status with each of its few uses. So at least there was a chance. And the player had a hero point as well. I could see it plainly in the face of the Player that the loss of the character was going to be a real blow if it came to pass.
Thankfully, the combination of hero point and antidote uses FINALLY generated a result that saved the character. But it could have gone the other way. What might I have done to resolve that, if it had?
I was gratified that after the successful roll, the Players chose to abandon the quest and return to town, realizing they were poorly equipped for the circumstances. This indicates a wizened choice. Returning to town from what is ostensibly a failed expedition, with very little treasure or loot to show is demoralizing in its own right. So, once they got back to town I knew I needed to laud the group for risking so much on behalf of the crown. They were praised for gathering critical intelligence and given a monetary reward. They also received information that promptly set them a new course on which they could then focus.
Now, I haven’t actually talked to them about this specific night, but I suspect that I don’t need to. What could have been a bummer of a night was averted, redirected and imbued with renewed energy. That’s something you have to manage, especially with regards to failures.
If it makes sense in ANY conceivable way, there needs to be a silver lining.
My final thoughts are that the unwinnable situation can be ok. It can be instructive and it can be that plot beat everyone remembers FOREVER. But man, you don’t want many of them
Peace,
and happy gaming.
