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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9397240" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Actually, I've only had one moderately bad experience with a DM. I just have extremely strong convictions on this front.My favored solution is threefold.1. Better game design, which almost always means "more testing," but it also means better data collection, actually doing statistical analysis, and having actually well-made surveys, all things that WotC could easily do, but chooses not to. Obviously, this one isn't in my hands personally, but it's part of all the best solutions to these problems.2. Preparation, as noted above. For my own games, I don't really want random, irrevocable, permanent deaths. I've built in a few mechanisms in advance that would give me an explanation for how someone could be revived or the like, e.g. powerful allies, rituals, spirit effects, etc. It would be very easy to spin up something in the event I need it.3. Being diegetic. Even if all else fails, even if in the moment you have no idea why the Mob Boss Orc hulks out and stays alive when the players got three lucky crits, or the PC somehow stayed alive when they got hit by three unlucky crits...you can turn "aw crap this isn't going the way I wanted" into "excellent story hook" purely through making a mystery of it. Come up with something later, between sessions. Just by having the characters know THAT the Mob Boss Orc (or the PC!) hulked out and stayed alive when they SHOULD have died, they'll almost surely want to know why, even if only to find out how to use that power themselves. No invested player would let such a strange mystery pass them by--and the adventure that results will be far more entertaining as a result. If these issues are as rare as people say, you should need to do this so infrequently it won't require that much improvisation.Better game design, better preparation, and following Bob Ross' policy of turning mistakes/bad results into happy accidents. That's how you address these issues, from the DM side.From the player side, you work to be cooperative and respectful, but not a meek doormat, nor a mere sounding board.</blockquote>

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