I’m listening to Fear of a Black Dragon and I’m on the Qelong episode. Jason and Tom said something super interesting in reference to letting bad stuff happen to the PCs that I think I’ll carry with me for a while.
Tom: “It’s the threat that matters more than the likelihood of it happening.”
Jason: “That’s precisely right. Player’s don’t know the difference, and I don’t think it matters,”
I took away that you want to threaten the players with failure and bad stuff to make the situation tense and exciting for them, but make the dice fair (or even advantageous) for them so they don’t get discouraged by a lot of failures or bad stuff. Absolutely follow through when the bad stuff happens (it needs to have teeth or it’s not threatening) but the threat itself is what actually matters and the outcome can be weighted in the PCs favor a little to ensure game longevity.
I like that idea a lot.