Many role-playing game players, myself included, habitually reload saves after any failed action, turning potential narrative detours into mere inconveniences. This tendency has led developers to question why failure is so often viewed as a negative outcome in digital RPGs, contrasting sharply with the often memorable and character-defining failures experienced in tabletop role-playing games.
Colin McComb, whose credits include Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment, observes that players are conditioned to see failed rolls as personal screw-ups, often reinforced by in-game penalties like lost items or experience. "If we want to actually make player failure interesting and worthwhile in a computer game, we need to teach our players early on that the game will react to their failure, and it will change and branch and show them something cool and different and interesting," he explains.
George Ziets, lead designer on Wasteland 3, recalls Planescape: Torment as an early example of success in this area. Instead of a game over screen upon death, players would wake up in the mortuary, leading to unique narrative sequences and motivating players to continue rather than reload. "You got to experience narrative moments you never would have seen if you'd just reloaded after a failure, so you learn not to," Ziets states.
This phenomenon is partly attributed to differing player motivations. While tabletop RPGs often foster a collaborative storytelling goal, digital RPGs can prime players to focus on overcoming challenges and achieving victory. Gareth Damian Martin, creator of the Citizen Sleeper games, notes that this can lead to a player fantasy of omnipotence, where every situation is surmountable. "My favorite RPGs are the ones that really complicate that," he says, advocating for games that challenge this notion of the player as an all-powerful figure.
Ziets further suggests moving away from the 'murder-hobo' fantasy of simply defeating enemies. "We have to deliver some other kind of player fantasy, something other than the murder-hobo," he argues. "I think doing that will make players feel less 'I need to win' and more 'this is a fun interaction with the game'."
However, the financial realities of game development can foster a risk-averse approach. McComb mentions that producers often push for the fantasy of the powerful sorcerer or barbarian, rather than exploring more nuanced player fantasies. "I wish more of us had the chance to develop the kind of game that wasn't so beholden to questionable marketing data and that we could make the kinds of games that we actually wanted to make," he states.
Christoffer Bodegård, creator of Esoteric Ebb, views the standard RPG experience as potentially