Test Consequences Disincentivizing Heroes
Curious if anyone else has run into this.
Player in my current group, game has been amazing, but the previous session, we all (including Director) noticed a slight issue with the direct way consequences on tests can be treated.
Very tense situation, all Heroes are down to 2-1 recoveries, but we want to press on with our 5 victories. Director loves it. As we are trying to find any advantage we can, many Heroes want to make tests to: See if we can hear how many foes there are, see if we can stealthily open the ritual chamber's door to count the victims, check to see if a particular victim is present, etc.
After the first Hero was prompted to roll and got a tier 2 on a Medium test, the consequence was that the director gained 2 malice. We all realized that oh wait...we shouldn't risk the malice gain for the upcoming encounter as it could very well mean the life of a Hero. So it felt kind of bad that we were incentivized to NOT try anything creative with anything that might prompt a test. Not saying the Director was even wrong to choose this consequence, it felt very thematic in the danger the Heroes are facing, but it definitely stopped all attempts to make tests.
So the question is: Should the Malice-gain consequence be used sparingly by the director? Should it be avoided once the heroes are below a certain amount of recoveries? I've heard the "Hero loses a recovery" consequence feels even worse, but in some situations it definitely feels like the Malice gain consequence might prompt counterproductive play.
EDIT: It was a tier 2 on a Medium test, not tier 1. I believe it was to sneak to the door, which was successful but then the Director gained 2 Malice. Some of the comments do have me inclined to agree, this is just the risk in trying to make a test. It just felt like a lot of Malice piling on following a group test to sneak into the location before all of this. That group test had a lot of tier 2 results on Medium Agility tests.