# RPG a Day 2026 - 12: Loss tags: #thoughts #thoughts/RPGaDay/2026 ![[RPG a Day 2026 (illo).jpg]] The subject of loss in the context of RPGs is interesting because it's so multifaceted. On the one hand, you have the issue of asking whether or not setting up a losable situation is good for scenario design, or whether it's better to architect a sandbox, a starting situation, and let the players take their characters through it and find their own problems to solve. There's also the question of whether or not character death is something that is desirable in the context of play, or whether it should be off the table. Thirdly, you might ask, how does one actually use the sensation of loss to motivate players at the table, whether you are the only one or you've got a table full of twenty. It's that last one I'd like to touch on right now because I don't think we talk about it nearly enough. We talk about how to motivate characters sometimes, and we talk about how to motivate players a lot. If you're talking to an OSR guy, he'll tell you at great length about how the threat of character death is the biggest stick you've got in your caddy, and you should use it as often as possible as your primary threat. I don't believe that. I think it's a bad idea. I've written about how death is the most boring thing that can happen to a character before, and I'm sure I will do it again, but I won't do it here.[^1] I will say that you can only carry through on that threat once and have it remain meaningful. Either you bring in some sort of resurrection, which cheapens the threat, or you've taken all your incentives off the table — and if it sticks, all the time, effort, and, more importantly, interest that the player had in that character is gone in an instant. So what then of loss? How do you create a sensation of loss? What even is loss? In order for someone to feel loss, they must have had something that they cared about and that went away. This critical problem bites us because decades of treating characters like pawns to be pushed around a dungeon — with no contextual life beyond it or personal existence — have trained players not to get attached. Anytime I hear someone lamenting how little the players care about what's going on at the table, I ask myself, what do you think they did in order to connect the characters to the world? I know the answer is nothing. It's always nothing. When I hear people constantly playing single one-shots of a high lethality horror game, and then they wonder why things start feeling the same all the time, I ask myself, what do you think they did to try and connect the characters beyond the scope of this single problem that they are facing? The answer is, as always, nothing, which would be fine if they would just stop bitching about it and realize they are causing their own problems. In order to create a feeling of loss, someone has to have something they care about. They have to have a connection to someone or something or some idea beyond both themselves and the immediate scope of concern. It's one thing to have your sword broken. Sure, it means that you can't deal with the current situation if the current situation is something trying to stab you senseless — which, to be fair, you'd rather be doing to *them* — but it doesn't create a feeling of loss. For that, you need an heirloom sword passed down to you from your grandfather's grandfather's grandfather with a name — Bloodleech. Even if it doesn't have any particular powers of its own, it has a connection to history, a place in the world beyond the immediate context. If Bloodleech gets broken, you feel a sensation of loss. Something has been removed from the world that is difficult to replace. Moreover, it has caused a discontinuity in the narrative of your life. You can just as easily imagine that it's your sister, your mother, your uncle, your nephew, your child, the best friend that you grew up with and went to school with and who always had your back, the hated rival who's always been against you on the council and has undercut you at every turn. When your rival dies, you can feel a sense of loss too — spiced with gratitude and pleasure. Of course, the flip side of loss is victory. You can't really have a sensation of victory without a connection to the world beyond yourself either. The sensation of victory, however, is something that RPGs have been very good at creating. Someone sends you on a mission. You discover a great wrong has been done. It's easy to find things you care about, want to come to fruition, and can then *make happen*. You kill the dragon, you get the treasure, you save the princess, you steal the blueprints, you topple the government. Do you create an opportunity for those things to fail? Is there a way for the characters to fail and remain in the world? There's a good source of loss if you're looking for one: let the characters lose and live with their failure. It has to mean something. It has to carry on. The characters must continue to exist within the context that they themselves have created. In the long run, it's better to have a series of smaller losses along the way than it is to have a great failure at the end. Consider the literary influences that have gone into our understanding of role-playing games as a form of media, from [the Elric Saga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elric_of_Melnibon%C3%A9) to **[Soda Pop Soldier](https://www.amazon.com/Soda-Pop-Soldier-Nick-Cole/dp/006221022X)**. The protagonists often get beaten down repeatedly until they begin to rise. First comes a position of weakness. They exert effort. Their successes become more frequent than their losses, though not entirely without threat until the denouement. The key is caring about what happens along the way. If you can get your players to care about the things along the way, whatever happens at the end will have real significance. If you can't, then what happens at the end is just you having them read a script with an ending that was preordained the whole time. If they get to the end and the dice fall against them — they run out of resources, the cards fall where they may, they fail, they feel an actual sense of loss — then all the better. It's poignant. It's meaningful. They know they've earned it. If, however, they haven't cared about anything along the way, why should they care about the ending? If they haven't protected their friends and family, if they haven't cared anything about their community, the small village near the dungeon where they've been buying and selling, if they don't care about the ship they've been taking from planet to planet, other than the fact that it takes them there, then they don't care and they won't care. As a GM or even a game facilitator for GM-less games, you need to figure out how to get the players to care. If they don't want to care, you can't make them care. You can only provide them the opportunity to care. You need to let them know they can and should care. If you're a player, you have the more important role. It's your job to care about things. It's your job to make a character who has connections to the world. It's your job to play the game in a way that actually connects to the world rather than playing a character that is simply pushed through it. Many games of a modern design bake things that you can care about directly into character generation. It is one of the best things about modern game design, in fact, and one of the key indicators. Don't begrudge it; use it. Loss is one of the most compelling emotional sensations that you can find and have during a game. If you've been trained to avoid it like the plague, try and break that habit. Loss will happen if you let it. I don't mean failure. That's a different issue. Failure will happen regardless. Care about your failures enough for them to be a loss. [^1]: See where I've said this before: [[RPGaDay 2026 - 04 - Charm|RPG a Day 2026 - 04: Charm]]; the footnote in [[The Uses of Terrifying Freedom and the Map to the Subtle]]; the "Death is Dull as Dishwater" section of [[Castle Ravenloft - A Cleanup|Castle Ravenloft: A Cleanup]]; [[Infaernum Is Nearly Ready to Fund - The End of the World is Nigh|Infaernum Is Nearly Ready to Fund - The End of the World is Nigh!]]; "Death is boring. Don't do that." in [[Clint Warren-Davey on the 5 Player Psychology Insights For Game Design]]; and baked into the design of [[Running Breathless]].