Sad twists in your games - Yay or Nay?

Hey everyone!

I have had an idea for a oneshot which is a slightly different way to present the dreaded False-Hydra, and I realised that the ending of the module has capacity to be very sad - if the party succeeds, the ending might have a sad twist. If the party fails, it will also be sad. And due to the nature of the beast, it would require a Macguffin for me to add in order to give them a chance to remove the sad.

The short explanation is that one of the victims of the False Hydra has come back as a ghost, and her husband doesn't remember her. The party may reunite them, only to discover that he doesn't know who she is. Or, they will fail, and she will wait for him forever.

This got me wondering - whilst I love reading heart-wrenching twists in books (they get me something fierce, especially when they're unexpected!), I imagine that some people would not enjoy an ending where you don't get to save the day entirely. A lot of the stories and oneshots I've seen, ran, and played in tend to avoid long-term repercussions of this sort of nature.

So, I ask you all - do you like sad twists in your games?

I like sad. But sad is a dagger. You need to twist it. Like, ok, you have your mcguffin - say it's a heart shaped locket with her picture, and it reminds her husband. But he isn't moved. It really meant nothing to him. The end.

He remembers. He just doesn't care.

I'd say that sad twists are an essential consequence to a good D&D campaign - assuming that it's story centred.

D&D is about agency and choice. That's why I play D&D rather than, say, Star Wars Battlefront (actually, I play both, but you get my drift). And what's choice without consequence? In my campaign there are bitter choices coming up for some of the characters. Some already know, and are stewing over what they should do. Others have had the jigsaw pieces laid out before them - I'm not sure if they've quite pieced them all together, but it's all there for them to realise hard choices are ahead, and what those choices are.

I could have just let them fight the BBEG. And for dungeon crawly type adventures, that's good. A tough fight that hopefully they win. But that's heading towards just playing those arcade games where you just end fighting baddies. Which is cool if you enjoy them.

In my game though? Every player has a good reason to hate the BBEG...but also a very good reason to side with him. They each have a choice to make - do they take one for the team to kill him, or do they follow their own interests and defend him? It's been fascinating watching them deliberate - I expected those complexities to simply provide a bit of emotional depth to the final confrontation. However, they're actually debating what they're going to do. Some I'm confident will fight...but there are others who I'm actually not sure on whose side they'll ultimately come down on. Neither are they.

Choices need to have multiple valid options, and that generally means having negative (sad) sides to every option.

I like sad twists when they feel earned. If the players had meaningful choices and the tragedy comes from the consequences of those choices, it can be incredibly memorable. The only time it falls flat for me is when the sadness feels unavoidable no matter what the party does.

I like all manner of twist in storytelling, sad to thrilling. 

I like a sad twist, but I prefer when it’s because of the actions of the PCs. If it were done side quest of minor NPC, then sure, I can throw it in. Sad things happen every day and it makes the world feel more lived in if the characters witness it. 

But what the OP is describing is, where it seems like the main quest will be sad no matter what, I don’t like. I’d prefer there to be some way the PCs can get a happy ending. I even more prefer the characters to have to make a choice. Like a good ol’ sacrifice type thing. Like the NPCs get a happy ending, but the PCs need to give something up for it to happen. Now we’ve got sadness with a character-driven point to it.

Quote from linoVectorx >>

I like sad twists when they feel earned. If the players had meaningful choices and the tragedy comes from the consequences of those choices, it can be incredibly memorable. The only time it falls flat for me is when the sadness feels unavoidable no matter what the party does.

 This is why I am considering adding a macguffin to recover the memories - that way the sad endings will be if the party fails to save him and goes back to find the ghost unsure who they are talking about, or if they do save him but don't restore his memories. The happy ending option should, I think, be there, so that the players have the agency to make it happen!

It really depends. 
Some sad twists feel cheap, and some feel poignant and it depends on execution. 

I didn't get to run a one shot, so i just told one of the perspective players the twist and they burst into tears and said "it is beautiful, you monster."  It was one of those "reverse false hydra" scenarios.

I subscribe to the rather poetic idea I saw on Reddit that writing a backstory is forging daggers for the DM to stab you with. Often the easiest way to get players invested in the game and the world is to use NPCs in emotional ways, in my experience players almost don’t care about their own characters but threaten Boblin the Goblin and they’ll follow your story wherever it leads 

There’s no single answer for if this is a good story beat or not. Some media have made their bones off bittersweet, messy, etc type endings, but that does tend to alienate certain segments of the potential audience, particularly in choice-based mediums where the audience can feel railroaded into being culpable for the unhappiness however things play out.

For this context, I would ask what narrative purpose locking the party into downer experiences serves. If it’s just because you feel like it or otherwise largely for its own sake, might steer away from it as a D&D beat. Coming off like you just wanted to make the party feel bad isn’t a good vibe, especially if it wasn’t previously established the session would have such a tone.

Every table is different, so I can only speak for myself and for the general vibe at my table.  Every D&D campaign is chock full of serious, gut wrenching, devastating stuff. Every other day somewhere in the campaign world there's a gnoll warband rampaging through the countryside killing people and eating their livestock. Or there's a necromancer robbing graves to raise an undead army. Or there's a plague, or a dragon, or pirates, or people going missing. It's a mess! To us they're just plot hooks and storyline beats and a chance to loot the bodies. But the people who live in our campaign worlds must be dealing with PTSD on a daily basis, the poor shlubs.

That being said, every time my players interact with an NPC and take a liking to that NPC, I start thinking of how that NPC might die in the most emotionally devastating way for the players. Granted, everyone at my table is an adult (early 30s to mid 50s), well educated, and fairly emotionally secure. So I know they can handle it. And when you've got a big campaign running, and the players sometimes get sidetracked and let the plot unravel ahead of them a bit, it's always nice to kill off a beloved NPC just so you can say, "If only you had been there to help, rather than horsing around", or something like that. It's a great way to remind the players that there's dangerous sh!t popping off and maybe it's time to get back to fighting that evil cult, or whatever. 

But yeah, it really depends on the table. For some tables,  "kill monsters, get loot, seduce barmaid",  is fine. But for the rest of us, bring on the sadness. It's part of life. 

Quote from AnzioFaro >>

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That being said, every time my players interact with an NPC and take a liking to that NPC, I start thinking of how that NPC might die in the most emotionally devastating way for the players. Granted, everyone at my table is an adult (early 30s to mid 50s), well educated, and fairly emotionally secure. So I know they can handle it. And when you've got a big campaign running, and the players sometimes get sidetracked and let the plot unravel ahead of them a bit, it's always nice to kill off a beloved NPC just so you can say, "If only you had been there to help, rather than horsing around", or something like that. It's a great way to remind the players that there's dangerous sh!t popping off and maybe it's time to get back to fighting that evil cult, or whatever. 

But yeah, it really depends on the table. For some tables,  "kill monsters, get loot, seduce barmaid",  is fine. But for the rest of us, bring on the sadness. It's part of life. 

Well, that's a fairly loaded way of presenting it. Don't know if it was your intent, but you're really reading like "anyone who doesn't do it my way must be a kid, emotionally insecure/immature, etc..."

Not everyone wants a GRRM narrative out of their D&D experience. Some people want a classic heroic fantasy narrative, especially if they like roleplay as a way to get away from the kind of things some people brush off as just "part of life". There's nothing wrong with it, and wanting it doesn't categorically establish them as some kind of "others" to be separated from "the rest of us".

Not at all.  I'm saying there are many different ways of playing this game and all of them are valid. But if you're going to bring deep emotional sadness elements into your game, you will have a better chance of being successful in that endeavor if your players are prepared for that level of emotional roleplay and have the emotional maturity to appreciate the depth of nuance in such a story. 

"Every table is different, so I can only speak for myself and for the general vibe at my table."