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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Al" data-source="post: 256782" data-attributes="member: 2486">SableWyvern: Your point is subtly different.  Yes, the big guys came to rescue the PCs, but the rescuing of the PCs was a useful by-product of their action.  They intervened to save the world, not the PCs.  This is okay- it is realistic that uber-beings should intervene to save the world at large, but it is not so if they babysit the characters.To be fair, I made this mistake.  One campaign I ran, the PCs all worked for an elite organisation.  Since this organisation was fairly small, they took care of their members.  To whit, through most of the low- to mid-levels, they were scried on by friendly allies, and if they were in serious trouble, their allies called in the big guns: some serious battlemagi would teleport in and save them.  Unfortunately, they didn't appreciate it.Essentially, characters like to make their own way.  They prefer different levels of autonomy with regard to the plotline and such like, but no-one likes to be watch over with babysitters and stabilisers.  The deus ex machina is the tool of the desperate DM, one used perhaps once a campaign to circumvent a TPK- if used frequently, it screams that something is amiss.  Players don't like being babysitted.  It goes against logic (usually, it is hard to explain why this nice high-level NPC is travelling with them and not actually just doing the quest/fighting with them).  It removes the edge of danger (and hence excitement).  And most significantly, it dulls the edges of the PCs' successes: the PCs should be jubilant if they slay the vampire count; they tend to be disappointing if they were trounced and then a top-level NPC destroys their adversary for them.</blockquote>

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