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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imban" data-source="post: 4034513" data-attributes="member: 29206">This is actually an interesting question. I'd say yes, in my games I would allow the PCs to attack with the knowledge that their patron will survive, but that if I wanted this situation to come up in my games I'd have the orc holding the unconscious body of their patron after she was knocked unconscious with Oil of Taggit or something. If they don't drop the orc before it takes initiative, the hostage gets CdG'd and that's bad mojo.And well, if the PCs seriously think they can shoot the orc in the face before it takes initiative, they can go ahead.Well, hm. Rule 0 allows for all events to be rules-possible in some ruleset, but I personally enjoy consistency in rules. If we're playing by houserules that you've implemented as a DM - and believe me, I'd cry as much as anyone should anyone suggest taking the powers of houseruling and making judgment calls when rules are unclear or incomplete away from DMs - then those are the actual rules of the game, and sometimes the rules of the game are unclear or incomplete or otherwise bad and need to have judgment calls made on the fly. I do not believe "authorial decisions" are necessary to good DMing - "the hit point rules are being ignored, the overlord falls from his horse and dies" - and choose to avoid them when possible. (I also don't think they're a flaw, though stupid authorial decisions are well-known manifestations of a terrible DM.)I do prefer DMs - and my personal DMing style lines up with this - who are "captive to the mechanics" such that they don't suspend the rules for specific situations simply to make a plot more convenient. I also tend to avoid games in which PCs and NPCs are treated differently - a simplified treatment of NPCs (for the most part, I don't count negative HP/bleeding for NPCs - -1 = no actions ever again = dead) is one thing but completely different rules don't jive with me.Well, if you're changing the rules, you're changing the rules. If you're writing a campaign setting that has different rules, you're changing the rules. I prefer it when the mechanics that you want to run differently when designing your world are actually changed, not just suspended during the design phase only - a game and world based on A Game of Thrones should have different rules, not the default rules that posit heroes with the durability of demigods attached to a setting positing gritty normal-human-level fantasy.</blockquote>

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