The short answer
Yes. Outcome asks whether the Story Goal is achieved. Judgment assesses the story’s efforts to resolve its inequity. Those answers can point in different directions.
Achieving a goal can leave something deeply wrong, while failing can accompany a meaningful resolution. The Main Character’s personal resolution is often the easiest way to see Judgment, but Judgment belongs to the whole story. Decide what your ending communicates beyond whether the goal was reached. A character feeling happy or sad is not, by itself, the complete definition.
An imagined example
A loss that resolves something
Imagine a runner whose shared goal is winning a relay. The team loses. Yet the story brings an end to the destructive need to prove their worth through victory. That could express Failure with Good Judgment—if the whole narrative supports that resolution, not merely because the runner smiles at the finish.
Try it in your story
Separate two questions: was the Goal achieved, and what does the whole ending communicate about resolving the inequity?
Where this answer comes from
An editorial synthesis of these discussions. The example above was written for this answer.
- Story judgement and the main character solution element
Chris Huntley, February 3, 2015, post 5.
- Good or Bad Judgement?
Jim Hull, March 30, 2018, post 8.
- The Good, the Bad and the Handoff
Jim Hull, August 16, 2025, posts 2 and 4.
A note on older terminology
Older discussions may say Overall Story for Objective Story, Obstacle or Impact Character for Influence Character, and Subjective Story for Relationship Story. Source titles retain their original wording. Historical software instructions describe the tools of their time.