The Importance of Stakes in TTRPGs

The Duel

What's so Special with Roleplaying Games Anyway?

Personally, I like, and play, most types of games in one form or another. 

Computer games, board games, miniature games and card games have all given me countless hours of joy over the years, but tabletop roleplaying games have a special place in my heart. Those are the ones I long for, and always come back to play.

When done right they are for me the most immersive, emotional and engaging games, but why is that?

There are of course many answers to this question.

One is that tabletop roleplaying games employ a human game master that allows for almost any action imaginable to be attempted and, at least in an ideal situation, creates unique and unpredictable stories. With a good GM you will never hit any invisible walls in your game.

Another answer is that roleplaying games to a large degree employ "theatre of the mind" and therefore make use of the full power of the players' imaginations to create worlds with unparalleled "realism" and depth.

But there is another aspect of TTRPGs that makes them stand out from most if not all, other games, and that is the unusually high stakes. In a computer game, the player can attempt even the most insane things, well aware that a new attempt is only a loading action away. Even games that do not have a save system, such as board and miniature games can still be replayed with relatively small consequences. This encourages exploration and experimentation, but it also creates a carefree, almost disposable attitude towards the games.

In most tabletop roleplaying games this is not at all the case. The characters only have one life and if it is lost, they are gone forever. This can be bad enough in a one-shot adventure, but in a campaign, it is often devastating, especially if it has been going on for a long time. Many games try to mitigate these high stakes by giving players fate points, death save mechanics or magical/technological abilities to resurrect the dead, but despite this, the risk of irreversible death is always there. Even generous resurrection magic often requires parts or the body to be preserved, and usually some extraordinary sacrifices to at all work, and in any case there is always the risk of a "total party kill" where there will be no one left to save the day.

Such stakes are scary, but they are also part of the thrill! A battle in a roleplaying game is rarely without risk, and therefore the players will always feel a bit uneasy when the dice start rolling. Everyone knows that a couple of mistakes or a string of bad luck can be the end of a beloved character. 

There are of course other possible stakes than death. Some unfortunate players have seen NPCs and animal companions they had a strong connection to die, and characters have permanently lost arms, legs and eyes in battle. Such stakes all work in similar ways as the threat of the character dying, and provide gravitas to the game. 

Stakes are so important that many computer games actively try to raise them. They either punish the player with lost progression (this is true for roguelikes and games with limited saving mechanics such as Dark Soul) or by permanently taking your gear away when you die (such as Escape from Tarkov), but even then the main character is still there after a fatal mistake or an unlucky firefight. 

Gone forever…

It is true that if you lose a character in a roleplaying game, you are allowed to create a new one, but it will not be the same exact person. All progression is lost, but even worse are all the stories, background lore and emotional investment, especially if the character has been part of a campaign for months or years. The game does not have to stop, but the character is no longer part of it.

The Necessity of Risk

While I as a GM never enjoy killing off player characters, and of course really hate it as a player when my own character dies, it is a part of the game that I think is important. In truth, the death of a well-established character can often be a monumental event worthy of songs. In other cases, it might be stupid, but even then it is probably still memorable.

Only a handful of characters with long campaigns behind them have actually died while I was the GM, and I remember every single one of them. A few of them were truly heroic, one was stupid, another one strange and yet another quite tragic, but they all enhanced the story in their own ways and made the players appreciate the risks and consequences of their actions.

There are of course games and campaigns where the threat of death or injury is not relevant, but in those cases, the stakes take other forms that can be just as devastating for the player. In a political drama, the disgrace of a character can end in retirement or banishment, but the practical consequences of this in the game would be virtually the same as death.

So to summarise, most roleplaying games have higher stakes than any other games and even if you dislike when player characters are maimed or killed, this very real threat provides weight and a hint of realism that other games usually lack.