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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9711268" data-attributes="member: 6877472">I can't recall the name of it, but when AL finally decided to have a higher level adventure for the first time, it apparently involved things that could destroy hard-earned magic items.  The few players who went on it were decidedly annoyed.And of course, let's not forget the Tomb of Annihilation season, where characters who went on it were at risk of permanent death, no being raised from the dead!  Boy did I hear a lot of complaints about that!Wanting a game to have more lethality and surprise deaths isn't a bad thing in isolation.  It comes down to the expectations of your group.  I know a lot of people who like death being on the table in D&D who won't touch something like DCC with a 11' pole- we went to Games Plus in Mount Prospect Illinois last Saturday, and there was a group running a DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) character funnel. My gaming friends were curious and observed the goings on.*in case you don't know, you're given a bunch of random Joes who go on a super lethal starting adventure- you get to play one of the survivors.  The odds of keeping the character you want instead of some worthless slob is pretty slim, lol.One of my friends even compared it to the ludicrous scenario presented in The Gamers II where one player pre-generated a stack of Bard characters so he could instantly replace any that died in the game with an new character, without the downtime of having to make a new character. This led to the party taking cover behind a pile of dead Bards in a fight.I'm using this as an example of how people have different things they like in games, not an indictment against DCC players- if that's your jam and it's fun for you, game on!My personal style is that I would vastly prefer players die as a result of their own actions- but not in the "oh you decided to fight a creature of appropriate CR" sort of thing.  A 1st level character deciding to throw down with a Pit Fiend?  Yeah, you earned that death.I prefer D&D being a strategic game where you can make informed choices, but this runs into two issues- one, a lot of game revolves around hidden information.  And the second, information overload can lead to analysis paralysis or worse.Let me explain that a bit better.  3e, 4e, and Pathfinder 1e all had provisions for using various skills to acquire monster knowledge.  I thought this was a great idea, and for a long time, in games I ran, I would let players make these checks.In 4e, this was fine, as stat blocks were generally not that complex, but a 3e or Pathfinder 1e stat block can get fairly bloated.  When I would let players make checks, suddenly the game action stopped cold while I explained what they were dealing with (based on the successes gained).Then we'd get back into the action, and to my horror, players would, after a round or two, forget some of the information they just gained!So I've taken to a more relaxed approach to this.  If I know a player is about to do something they'll regret, I offer them a last minute ability check (or sometimes I just say "please don't do that").This doesn't always work out- in one game, I had a Bard player try to use Command on some Gnolls.  I asked him to make a check.  He failed it.  I asked him what language he was speaking.  He said Common.  I told him it didn't work, he got very upset.So I explained.  "Command requires that the targets understand you.  Gnolls only speak Gnoll. The player was incredulous- apparently he though everyone spoke Common, and I had to show him the Monster Manual entry before he would accept that I wasn't just being a jackass.  Even then, he was pissy about it for the rest of the session, refusing to cast any spells (apparently believing I would make "rulings" to ruin his fun or something, I don't know).Or something that actually happened recently.  They were up against an enemy Cleric using Spirit Guardians.  I should note that my entire previous game featured many battles that were trivialized by the PC's using that spell, lol, so I thought it would be great fun to use it against them for once.I was wrong.  Very wrong.  I won't make that mistake again.Anyways, the Sorcerer, desperate to disrupt the NPC's concentration, said "I'll cast Magic Missile and..."I stopped, looked at the NPC, then said.  "Please don't.""What?" Player blinking.  "But if I don't, we'll die!""No, it's not that.  I really suggest you don't do that."He frowned, looking super annoyed.  "Fine, I guess I fire at the other monsters then."After the battle, they loot the NPC and find...a Brooch of Shielding."But that just makes you resistant to force!  My magic missiles do cold damage!""It also makes you immune to the Magic Missile spell."  "...oh."Some DM's would probably have let the players suffer the consequences of their actions, but there's enough uncertainty in the game as it is, IMO.</blockquote>

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