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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9257556" data-attributes="member: 6790260">No. I had no idea the character intended to do this. It caught me completely by surprise.That--explicitly--is not how the player saw it. He explicitly told me otherwise. I cannot really respond to any other discussion on that front, because you have assumed I did something the player explicitly said I did not do. (He was, in fact, delighted to see the story play out as it did, and after his temporary return, he explicitly thanked me for providing the opportunity for real closure.)I agree. That's why I cited the (numerous) examples of established options I could use, if a player character just randomly bit the dust. Numerous powerful allies with direct or proxy access to resurrection magic, and other resources/knowledge they could draw upon to undertake the process themselves if they prefer to do so. I do my homework.In fact, both this player and, separately, another player (the tiefling Bard) have privately complimented my ability to include twists and surprises that could have been foreseen, if the players had put the pieces together in the right sequence, but it just happened to be the case that they didn't do so. More than once, my players have in fact put together the pieces in advance and short-circuited something that could have played out differently, and every time they have done so, I embraced it. (One of those times with, I admit, a moment of weakness where I considered saying no--this being the time they completely obviated a set-piece "boss fight" with basic tactics because I was a fool, and they outsmarted me--but thankfully the better angels of my nature won out and I went along with it. The players still occasionally reference that "fight," going on five years later.)Baked into your analysis is, still, consistently, the idea that if there's an opportunity to revive a dead character or the like, it must be a bungled intrusion from the GM which totally overrides and dismisses the players' interests and preferences. I keep telling you, that is the precise assumption I disagree with. It doesn't have to be that way. There are a zillion ways it can be otherwise. It would be much more interesting to discuss those things, than to discuss "obviously bad DMing: is it obviously bad?" Because the answer to that question is, "Yes, it is obviously bad by definition, because you set it up to be so."I'm sorry that you've had to deal with ham-fisted DMs engaging in unfortunate, obviously bad DM behavior. That sucks, and in a better world, nobody would have to deal with that. But just because you've experienced bad DM behavior does not mean that that behavior is representative--and even if it is, it doesn't mean that things cannot ever be done better. Isn't it more productive to discuss...y'know...ways to do things better, rather than to dwell on how an obviously bad thing is obviously bad?The player said nothing about it to me in advance. It was sprung out of the blue. It is possible that the player meant to hint at it, but I missed any hints or foreshadowing they intended. I only knew that the player intended this to be an actual death, and not a hiatus, after the fact. We discussed it afterwards.Except that it wasn't. Because the player explicitly said that the way it actually played out was better. That's why I gave the example. The player explicitly--both at the time and later, during his temporary return--preferred how this played out, and both before and after explicitly said he appreciates that, when the characters make choices, I respect those choices. How does that square with your analysis?</blockquote>

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