I used to always try for the best outcome but with this have it seems like half of the time a failure also leads to an amazing consequence and story.
Like this from act one in the Underdark:
spoiler
I had to find a hidden gnome that could supply me with gunpowder, but she was so much on edge that she lit up the barrel of gunpowder and blew up the whole room, leaving half of my party dead. A suicide gnome bomber. I couldn’t convince her that I was not an enemy. Reloaded just to see if I could successfully do it, but much preferred the first outcome of the dice roll, so had to reload and try 6 times until I failed again. What a game!
Failure had a massive impact on my story. I wasn’t planning on going for an evil run, but I couldn’t stop someone from doing something very bad and it changed everything, from characters, to main story, to even gameplay since a character’s kit changed. People died, and probably the personality of the character changed, too (I’ll find that out next run).
I hated it in the moment, but I’m glad I did it because it’s made the run so memorable.
I’ve still been loading when dumb gameplay happens, like how Tav just walked into a room to cast a spell I thought she had range on, or I forget to bring the rest of the party into combat after I broke a party member off to ambush.
As for who did the thing, it was a late Act 2 spoiler:
It was Shadowheart, in that moment
I too ended up with an more evil run than intended due to “failure” or maybe more underestimating the consequences of my (in)action which led to the death of a companion. In almost every other recent game I played I would have reloaded at that point. But it coincidentally aligned with me finding the Ancient Tome so I changed my Conjurer Wizard to a Necromancer and dipped into the evil side. I don’t regret it at all. So now I go with whatever happens.
I think I know what you’re talking about, and I save-scummed to avoid it, because I needed
redactedat the time. Was pretty dramatic and surprising!