I have a deep love of system-agnostic RPG designs.
In other short-form scenario building games, there is an interesting trend of using questions about a character's involvement with the game world to anchor events in a meaningful way.
I see a good use of 'still allowing success but at a cost' when a player's luck is limited. ie: permanent deafness and dizziness if a PC is diving back into (and out of) the pool.