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Message: <blockquote data-quote="swrushing" data-source="post: 2524222" data-attributes="member: 14140">they had already been engagingn these ghouls and killed most of them. Whether they had encountered other ghouls before or not, they have at least this encounter to draw on. I am assuming he runs intelligent adversaries noticeably different than unintelligent ones, so there are clues for the characters to pick up on. I could of course be mistaken, but he did go to pains to give us spoecific mention of the critters int and the rational reasons it did the things he had it do, so I think i am somewhat safe in assuming the ghouls played intelligently before that too.But, as reasonable Gming (possible reasonable storytelling) when you want to put a life or death drama into your scene, it does well to make sure they know its there. I know my players would not expect suicidal "take-you-down-with-me" choices as a standard thing. When i decide to add that degree of fanaticism to an enemy, i show them before it is a PC life or death surprise. There are, as described earlier, lots of good, established STing techniques to do so.If the players knew the take-then-down-with-me was a part of this story, the scene would have, as described earlier, turned into everyone trying to stop the ghoul. A paralyzed teammate becomes everyone's immediate focus and a lot of great heroic drama ensues. If the guy dies anyway, its "we did not save him" as opposed to "uhh, huh, wny would it do that?" The focus of everyone's attention is "what we did" and "what our character's tried" and not "why did the GM do that".It sounds like the players left that scene thinking about "the GM" and not the scene or the bad guy and so forth. By not setting the stage before hand, by not putting the "paralyze-CDG whammy" suicidal ghoul thingy "on the mantlepiece ahead of time, the Gm made the dramatic point of the scene about HIM, the GM, and not about the in character stuff.When i used priests with the death touch ability in my games as a dedicated foe, I had several scenes and info gathering moments before the PCs came into "they are after us!" conflicts so the PCs knew what it meant when those hands started glowing black and the priest moved towards you. twice they got thru and did the Dt thing only to have it LUCKILY not succeed. I literally saw a player sweat over his roll, knowing if it failed, his character was dead and done. But, since it was already established and "set on the mantlepiece" that this was what they did and how things happened, i didn't get a single "would they do that" or "why did they do that" or "why did steve try to kill me" kind of thing.</blockquote>

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