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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 4004722" data-attributes="member: 18280">If your preferred playstyle is "PCs take incredible risks without fear or expectation of failure", then getting saved by DM fiat is a method of achieving this goal.  However, it otherwise has nothing to do with what I said.The paladin who stands against the hordes of darkness is heroic because of the context of his struggle.  The NPC mother and daughter are not fundamentally the same as the Elder Thing.  The NPCs are worth protecting, and worth dying for to protect.Making this scenario work with good effect in a game requires that the players are capable of making certain assumptions about the world....and informed assumptions are better in this context than uniformed ones.  It requires that the players can believe that the NPCs in question are worth protecting, that the Elder Thing is worth stopping, and that their actions take place in a larger context that retains its meaning despite the paladin's (or party's) death.If it is routinely true that the Elder Thing is a demon trying to prevent another pair of demons disguised as mother and daughter from escaping the Abysss, and the party's sacrifice has vastly increased the evil and suffering in the region, you will soon see a drop in players willing to play paladins, or to sacrifice themselves for what might seem to be "the greater good".  They will learn that the "greater good" is mythological in that world....and they will learn it with surprising quickness and depth of feeling.RC</blockquote>

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