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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BryonD" data-source="post: 4042177" data-attributes="member: 957">I agree.I think the problem is that the question is set up as an either/or scenario and, frankly, that sucks.I am very strongly in the "rules model the physics" camp.  But I am also very strongly in the "don't let the rules use you camp."  But it appears I am in a minority of people who see how these need not be contradictory.  Expecting the rules to define the physics of the world does not require that every far flung unlikely event be explicitly covered.  There is nothing against the rules to simply state that the precise circumstances of the king's fall made his striking the ground become in effect a save or die trap and he failed to save.  And the DM can do the exact same thing to a player.  If he is a good DM he will make it fun and the players will be glad it happened.If you want you can roll 6d10 every time anyone goes more than 1/4 mile on horseback and every time it comes up all 0s you declare the trap is encountered and the character, PC or NPC, must make a ride check to not fall and, if they fall, a Fort save or die.  But it makes a whole lot more sense to forget the d10s and just state that when it works for the story the horse will stumble at this point.  That is no more unreasonable than simply declaring that a Troll has an ambush set at the bridge.  And it is completely within the rules.  There is nothing rules-implausible about it.For the drow apocalypse scenario, I'd let the PCs potentially be able to figure out the ritual.  But it may just turn out that the first step in completing the ritual is bathing in the blood of 100 virgins and then gaining the blessing of a major demon by selling your soul to it.  The players are permitted to proceed.  In my own game the characters would become npcs in this process, but nothing in the rules prevents the characters from doing something someone else could do.  And if some other DM wanted to let the characters continue as PCs right through the end, then cool, I hope they have fun.But everything that happens should be rules-plausible.  And in D&D, that isn't hard to achieve.</blockquote>

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