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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8280831" data-attributes="member: 6785785">By what criteria are they risking their credibility? I mean, I get what you're saying, and I think I would likely view things similarly....but my personal preference aside, I don't think that this kind of stuff is counter to what's offered in the books.Sure, I honestly don't think that honoring skilled play and trying for the most exciting version of events here happen to be at odds. I think we've all acknowledged that these two play priorities aren't always at odds, just that they may be at times.My recounting of this scenario (prompted by the mention of Strahd) was largely about the fact that in my mind, no matter what they did, this was going to be a difficult encounter. There was a dial, and I was willing and able to adjust it, and do so invisibly.For example, they had the Sunsword. So Strahd had minions on hand not susceptible to the Sunsword's power, and they swarmed the fighter who wielded it, and tried to take it away from him. I did this to make the encounter more difficult. However, would I have added those minions if the players had not managed to find the Sunsword? Probably not.Is that kind of encounter design consideration contradictory to anything suggested by the books?I don't think it does. I think many folks are answering out of a reflex to not undo player achievement. I think that was a large part of my initial answer. But now that the conversation has gone on and I've given it some thought....I think that was a kind of knee-jerk response.I think honoring their successes is important. But is it more important than having a fun and immersive experience? I don't know.If you looked at threads about running Curse of Strahd, you'll see lots of complaints that he's a pushover. Especially if the PCs are armed with some of the artifacts that they set out to use to beat him. I know for a fact in those threads, most of the advice was "if you really want him to be challenging, you need to do X" more so than "if that's the way things go, then you should honor it", although those sentiments were present, as well.I know that any part I took in those discussions was to offer suggestions on how to play Strahd more effectively. Does this qualify as a focus on "do what's most exciting"?What rules would be broken by "doing what sees like it will be most exciting"? I mean, if we take the rules in their entirety, the DM can basically override any of them.....so this doesn't seem to be about rules so much as about an individual group's preferences and play priorities.</blockquote>

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