NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8246739" data-attributes="member: 6790260">If you-as-player are intentionally violating the spirit of my campaign, it won't be hard to figure out, and I will tell you to stop. If you are going to be sufficiently petulant that you then return my gesture of respect and positivity with "haha, now I can break the game!", I'm probably going to ask you to leave. Like...are you GENUINELY saying that the ONLY thing that keeps most players behaving like rational adults who like each other is that the DM can permanently kill their characters at any time, for any arbitrary reason? Seriously?I can and will tell someone who's being an ass that they're being an ass. It's exactly the same as telling someone, "Sorry dude, being a Paladin doesn't excuse you being a jerk, I don't care if it's 'what your character would do,' behave better, retire the character, or leave. It's your choice."If your character continually acts suicidally stupidly, I won't get in the way of your obvious intent. Is that enough for you? Have I cleared the hurdles you invented because basic rationality and respect for your DM and fellow players are apparently not baseline assumptions of your gaming experience?Um...no, you won't. The stuff I talked about is definitely outside the scope of even a dozen wishes to fix (if you're even playing a game where wish exists and is repeatedly usable, which is not true of my game because wish is a stupid spell) and and the amount if resources required to cast that many wishes would take literal years of IRL time, which is almost certainly not going to happen for the vast majority of groups. And that's to solve just one major catastrophe.Also...why on earth can you assume not only that you WILL befriend gods (who says the gods even make friends...?), but that once you have, you'll definitely always be able to get them to do whatever you want whenever you want with no requirements or expectations? Like...for real, do you actually play games where the gods are so easily controlled and never expect anything from their adherents or allies? How can even death be a problem when resurrection magic exists and you can pretty clearly earn divine favors? This would seem to apply to YOUR games nearly as much, man!As an aside: There are also campaign-specific reasons why there's only one being in my setting that might be a god, or rather THE only god, but said being is distant and obscure, and emphatically does not intercede beyond the range of, say, the number of people you could fit into a small church/chapel. I recognize that this objection IS campaign specific, hence the aside, but...again, it shows how you're making HUGE SWEEPING assumptions about what powers are available for infinite reuse by the players.So...why are you allowed to assume that (a) you WILL get the gratitude of a deity, it's just a matter of time, (b) the deity in question WILL have the interest, power, and compatible moral beliefs to do whatever you want, AND (c) there could never ever be additional costs or requirements that you as a player might not be willing to fulfill?I am genuinely flabbergasted, Max. The amount of power, influence, and inevitable success you ascribe to max-level characters is...frankly disturbing. There is no guarantee gods MAKE friends. Even if they do, there is no guarantee that you'll succeed at doing so, because you don't have infinite re-tries to become someone's friend. Even if you do become a god's friend, there's no guarantee that having a god's friendship means they'll throw whatever miracles you want at you, whether because that isn't their personality/nature, or because they aren't allowed to (god politics, cosmological restrictions, insufficient sway, being preoccupied with a threat they consider greater, etc.)Max-level adventurers are quite powerful. They aren't infinitely powerful, and they don't have infinite chances to do whatever the hell they want. Eventually, you hit a wall; eventually, there's just no more possible paths to success. I won't spring that on someone unless it's very, very clear they've exhausted every possible approach (or, as stated previously, if I as DM know that what they want is just flat impossible even for max-level characters with god friends and powerful artifacts etc.)Why are you allowed to assume an artifact WILL, always and without doubt, be capable of doing what you want to do?Aha. Here we have a key point of contention. I flatly, and strenuously, disagree with this statement. Like, I don't think it's physically possible for me to disagree with it more than I do.I will absolutely support my players in damn near anything they want to attempt (well other than becoming outright horrible evil; I don't believe I can run evil games). I have been specifically thanked by my players for being open to considering damn near any idea they throw at me, because it meant a great deal to them that they felt they had the freedom to explore what they want to do, and that I treat them as an equal participant in the creation of a game we can all enjoy.But I have also said "no."You may wonder, how on earth could my players feel as they do, feel that I support their ideas and desires, if I sometimes tell them that what they want to do simply won't work? It's because (a) I always explain my reasoning and give them (individually and collectively) a chance to respond, which I earnestly listen to because I know quite well how fallible I can be, and (b) nearly anytime they ask for something I'm really not on board for, I do my best to drill down to whatever their core desire behind the request/goal/suggestion is, and suggest alternatives that I can unequivocally support, so that we all walk away happy.Even so? I have straight-up told players that certain things they want to do are not possible. Sometimes, it's because of cosmological things (which they may or may not have discovered yet), sometimes it's a limit of irreplaceable resources or finite attempts or exhausted alternatives, sometimes it's just that the idea doesn't make sense to me nor the group overall and the player isn't able to sell us on it. (That last is pretty rare, I strive to be very open-minded and I adore the Rule of Cool.)It is simply NOT true that the only alternatives are "bad-faith rejection" or "anything goes." That's a false dichotomy. It is absolutely possible to reject player proposals in a good-faith way.Okay, um...do you really play games that last that long?The campaign is only gonna last a finite amount of IRL time. I'm not going to run this game forever. I'm honestly shocked I've gotten three years out of it as it stands. I don't, at all, expect to get three more. Real life changes, shifting interests, the potential for future scheduling conflicts...the game WILL end at some point. We don't have the luxury of infinite time. Assuming we do is GOING to lead to illogical and spurious conclusions; you're talking spherical cows in vacuum.Okay so...what is it that makes death AND ONLY DEATH a "true permanent setback"? Because you keep saying that's what is, and I keep saying it's not, and we just keep dancing round and round. I would appreciate if you could spell out, as precisely as possible with minimal assumptions made, why this is supposed to be true. Otherwise, I fear we're just falling back into "yes it is"/"no it isn't"/"YES, it IS"/"NO, it ISN'T" territory. I will, of course, be happy to specify as precisely as I can in return why I hold that other setbacks can be "true permanent" ones.</blockquote>

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