Lungworth

On the other hand, he needs to plan things out so that all actions of the players within reasonable limits do not lead to a critical failure.

In fact, it is not so much the ability to think through everything regarding the actions of the players that is important here, although this is also important and useful, but rather the ability to adapt to the circumstances and improvise. Because players will always find some way to deviate from the plan and surprise the GM – they will argue with an important NPC (or even get into a fight), skip an important plot point, side with a faction that was originally intended to be their opponents in a side quest, or do something else. There is a long-standing joke that players can ignore a well-thought-out NPC with a backstory or turn them into a combat encounter, while a randomly created character that was not in the original plans will become their favorite and may ultimately gain some plot significance. The main thing is not to tie any important plot points (and not a hidden alternative path or bonus content) to potentially obscure and specific triggers, assuming that everything may not go exactly as planned. I myself have had problems with this.

Here, you have to sacrifice something. Nebok sacrifices first and feels great. Revan – second.

It's scary to even imagine what I sacrifice in those rare moments when I decide to GM.

Here, by the way, we see this very attempt to use a crutch – an unkillable killer, a GM's character appearing out of nowhere, off-screen battles, and a change of mechanics. Honestly, I can't thank you for that. We count the builds, Mold sweats in tactics, Ment tries to carry the game solo with his charm, Nebok dies just to look cool, it's a massacre, everyone is upset, and then – it's all a joke. A red-haired deus ex machina has already appeared from the bushes to play the final chord of the comedy.

In fact, I personally assumed that Air would come to the rescue in case of a wipe, although I was not entirely sure. To be honest, I don't think such a deus ex machina is too far-fetched or ruins the world, given what Revan described earlier. Failures like this happen, and it is sometimes important for GMs to adapt to the situation, so I even consider such moments to be a good thing – in this situation, I felt sorry not so much for the time or effort invested in the battle, but for the loss of Gulveig in such an absurd way. In the case of a simple wipe, where everything is serious, it would be much sadder. A critical failure devalues the battle and the efforts invested much more than an attempt to mitigate the consequences of this failure, if it comes to that.

Mold sweats in tactics.

For the sake of fairness, I discussed some actions with Ment in private, in case I missed or overlooked something. So I can't say that I was the only one sweating.