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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nellisir" data-source="post: 5835069" data-attributes="member: 70">I'll say what others haven't.  He's right.  You're wrong.  You STOPPED the game.But let's back up.The DM's role is not binary.  You are not either "adversarial" or "permissive".  What you should be is "challenging" and "supportive".Players have two jobs to do: 1) to control their characters in a manner consistent with their perception of the character, and 2) to control their characters in a manner consistent with the nature of the game (which postulates a certain level of group activity & cooperation between the characters).The DM's job is to present the players with scenarios that don't bring the two into conflict.  You didn't do that.You say he had options " - trying to bribe them, perhaps talking them off with a Diplomacy  check, escaping on foot and hiding until he could investigate on his own", but seem reluctant to make the character aware of these before he made a choice.  Essentially, you gave him a clear field, and then penalized him for taking a track you didn't forsee.  A mercenary newcomer to town is accused of rape by a local citizen, and then approached to be arrested by characters "none of whom were inclined to believe he was innocent"?  I would have run too.  There are other towns, and the player had no way of knowing that the entire campaign hinged on his (mercenary, brigand) character quietly handing over his weapons and walking to what might be his death.Frankly, it is railroadish.  He deviated from your storyline, and you "killed" his character.  I imagine he felt frustrated; that he was supposed to read your mind; and that it wasn't much use making decisions in character, because your storyline overrode his sense of his character.I think you can put parameters on characters before the game starts*, but when the dice start rolling, the player is in charge of their character.  They might make suboptimal choices, but they aren't the "wrong" choice.  Your job is to figure out how to work those choices into the storyline.  Sometimes the character does die.  Sometimes the character does leave the game.  But that should be a clear and conscious decision on the part of the player, not the result of choosing to run by horse instead of choosing to run on foot.So what should you have done?  Let him ride.  You're the DM, you control the entire world, he gets one lousy character.  You can have the horse trip when it jumps a ditch, or the gates close, without forcing him to break character.  Maybe a wild boar attacks just then, or the zombie rise up, or a group of children suddenly run out into the street (does the character ride down them down to save his skin, or stop and get captured?  Defining moment!).The goal is for everyone to have fun.  Support their character concept.  Help them develop it in game.  Give them opportunities to shine.*I have two rules for new characters.  No evil characters, and characters must be willing to work in a group with other characters.  Good luck!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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