When the consequences are playing a role, they are definitionally only temporary. This reduces their significance (as temporary is always better than permanent, all else being equal). How do you make sure they are suitably intense?
I came up with something good that ends up being temporary instead of permanent (i.e. not being homeless or not being crippled or having the love and respect of your family or the like), but is that the only way?
Thereâs no âone size fits allâ, really. It depends on the story. For a consequence of Being, what is actually temporary will feel like an eternity. Some examples of Being consequences:
Some Like It Hot: the guys will have to continue their ruse as Daphne and Josephine for a significant amount of time.
The Jungle Book: pretending to be okay living under Shere Khanâs rule (similar to Star Wars, where the consequence is pretending to be âproper citizensâ under the rule of the Empire)
Grave of the Fireflies: pretending that there arenât bodies everywhere; that people arenât dying.
All three examples have a temporary element, in that all three scenarios could (and likely will, at some point) theoretically end at any moment: the mob could stop hunting for the guys; Shere Khan could die of natural causes or just generally disappear; the war could end.
But in the context of those stories, the consequence feels more lasting. Every single one is about adopting a persona of some kind, but theyâre all bad. The guys donât even want to pose as women, especially when Marilyn turns up â so we know that keeping up that ruse for an extended period of time would be a bad outcome. Everyone in the kingdom is terrified of Shere Khan, and many hide from him â so we know that having to try and pretend everything is fine would be a bad outcome. I think everyone can agree that even the thought of surviving in a war is unthinkable, let alone trying to pretend it isnât happening â so this is a very bad outcome.
As long as the consequence is about adopting some kind of lifestyle or persona that your protagonist does not want, itâll be significant. Temporary is better than permanent, sure, but even something temporary (for example, a term in office by a leader one finds abhorrent or distasteful) can feel like a lifetime of misery if itâs something you donât want.
Donât think of âtemporaryâ as referring to how long one will play a role but as reinforcing the idea that one isnât achieving an identity with something.
Also - there are some stories in which the Consequence happens or is prevented at the climax, and others where itâs already in place at the beginning and continues through the story, and the Goal is to remove it.
I thought this had something to do with whether it was a Start or Stop story, but I might be mis-remembering that.
Great answers everyone. I feel like the âtemporaryâ part of the definition can be a bit misleading when you think of it in terms of time. Like Greg says, it has more to do with acting/being/existing a certain way that does not necessarily agree with oneâs core nature.
Nope, youâre totally right! 
See this:
Think of a story where the consequence of failing to achieve the goal means that the MC will have to pretend in front of his boss that a loved one is dead. This MC isnât stuck constantly pretending that a loved one is dead, only while the boss is around. So in one sense itâs temporary in that he can go back and forth depending on if the boss is around or not. In another sense itâs permanent in that he will have to do this in front of his boss presumably for the rest of his life.
I disagree with the starting assumptions that Being/Playing a Role is necessarily temporaryâthough based on the discussion, maybe âtemporaryâ isnât the word you mean. But as a counterexample, is being a father temporary? Is being Dictator for Life? These are still roles people play, and theyâre not necessarily bone deep, but that doesnât automatically mean thereâs a disconnect between persona and nature. To run with the parent example, what if a mother really truly loves her child, but this simply doesnât come out in her parenting style? She needs to learn how to Be a mother, how to express that love she feels but canât get across.
Fundamentally, Being/Playing a Role is about the ways in which we interact with the people around us. Succeeding at Being means having a place at the table; conversely, failing to Be, or Being something that doesnât fit into societyâs niches, means having to sit alone in the cold. Thereâs this story that I think really speaks to this concept, and the fact that Being isnât temporary; Iâll link to it here, but note that it does contain a use of the n-word (scholastically, not as an insult). No matter what you do, you have to Be something, one something or another.
Another way to have a permanent consequence of Being would be an actor being told theyâd never work in this town again! Meaning theyâre permanently banned from âtemporarily adopting a lifestyleâ
Especially if they now take on the role of âdisgraced actor.â
Apologies. This turned out longer than expected and might give you an existential crisis, but itâs an interesting thought.
Everything is dependent on the context of the story youâre telling. Theoretically, both of those things you mentioned are temporary because we will all die eventually (Yikes. Really brought the mood down there.). Itâs impossible to be a dictator for life, because everyoneâs life has a finite amount of time. (Sorry againâŚ) But it depends on the context of the story being told, because most stories (understandably) donât take place over the course of an entire millennia.
However, having undergone this whole âwatching every Dramatica-analysed movieâ challenge thing, Iâm not sure âtemporarilyâ is an entirely suitable word for this type, either. Iâm finding stories with OS Concerns of Being fit into two different contexts, and itâs that context that defines what kind of âbeingâ youâre actually looking at:
Here, you can see that both of your examples fit neatly into one of these types. âBeing a Dictator for Lifeâ is Type 1 (because a Dictator is a created persona), and âBeing a Fatherâ is Type 2 (because there are expectations to live up to). Itâs the context that provides the definition. Similarly, consequences of Being have two contexts of their own:
Obviously, it depends on the contexts of the stories in question, but there are two consistent definitions of this type in both goal and consequence which are either âtemporarily adopting a personaâ or âfitting into an environment of some kindâ. Stories of this type usually explore both in some regard, but one takes priority over the other. Just an interesting little thing I noticed.
I havenât looked at Being in terms of MC/IC/RS, but I imagine it will be something similar. Iâd be interested in seeing if other types have similar âcontextual subgenresâ.
Oh, sure! I have no problem with #2. That doesnât sound particularly âtemporaryâ to me. My point in the rebuttal was that Being doesnât have to be something you take on and off, or something you âpretendâ to be. Am I âpretendingâ to be male? Is my role-playing of masculinity something I take on and off depending on where I am? (âŚBad example. For most people, I assume the answer is âno.â 
A better example might be âan adult,â or âa citizen of the nation,â something you donât get to not Be.)
Your #2 for Consequences is acceptable as well. A Consequence of Being doesnât always mean youâre now stuck pretending to be something youâre not; sometimes it means taking on a role you didnât want to take, or the role youâve pretended to have all along crystallizing into something youâll do for the rest of your life.