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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StupidSmurf" data-source="post: 2527307" data-attributes="member: 35893">Well, granted, I was using a bit of hyperbole there.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />  My point is that I've always believed that, as a DM, I should not take any heroic measures to shield PCs from death, but that also I shouldn't "gun" after PCs either, and set them up with a Kobiyashi Maru situation.Those who've played in my campaigns over the years (and have paid attention) notice certain characteristics common to all of my games. One of them is, "there's always a back door, if you can find it." And that means, hey, there may be a way to avoid death, even if it's as simple as "run like Hell!" (an art that surprisingly few players seemed to have mastered). But obviously, you don't want to have too many adventures where the best solution is to run away screaming, because then you'll be adventuring in the world of the D&D cartoon!Sometimes, in certain special situations, death can be avoided (which I assume is where 'fates worse than death', mentioned earlier, come into play). As a for instance, just this past weekend, my campaign's party was being led into what could have been considred a death trap. See, a few sessions ago, my group managed to defeat a band of Cyricists. Well, eventually the Cyricist cell noticed that some of their number were missing, and sent out scouts and spies to make inquiries as to their fate. Their efforts were rewarded when they discovered that "my" group was responsible. Sooooo....a Cyricist Ranger/Assassin passed himself off as a Paladin of Kelemvor (fitting, dontcha think?), befriended and recruited the party to help "finish off" the rest of the Cyricists that he had discovered. And I came SO close to getting them into an ambush, but they caught on at the last possible moment and took the guy down then...um...ran like Hell. Point is, the ambush, had it happened, wasn't going to be lethal. Nossir, the Cyricists were going to capture as many of them alive as possible, render them unconscious, keep them drugged up, and send them off to a small, out-of-the-way fortress run by yet other Cyricists for the purposes of torture, interrogation, and possible selling as slaves.But, as you pointed out, KB, having a 3rd level party charge a dragon because the DM is a no-kill DM is meta-gaming at its worst. So, I guess, once again, the answer to this thing is, "all things in moderation."  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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