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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 9010100" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Sure it is. The DM is the one who decides how it comes back to bite them. The DM is the one who decided how difficult it was to learn any more at the time. The DM is the one who communicates all this to the players. If they know nothing, then why go about it in a way that capitalizes on that? Why not work up any number of other scenarios that would work for the situation that still function as a game? I don't think that signaling danger in a more immediate way would be a strange way to proceed here. I'd say not doing so is a decision by the DM. So I'd wonder why does a DM decide to handle it this way? What's gained by handling it this way? I'd say you have to honor what's established in play. I'd go one step further and say, regardless of how you're playing... you could be playing as trad as anyone has ever tradded... you should honor what's happened in play ABOVE what's happened outside of play. If the PCs have spent time trying to reduce the enemy's numbers, and they succeed, then honor that. If there's some way for the necromancer to replenish those forces, then let the players know that. Communicate that he has access to the great necropolis under the city and no shortage of corpses or whatever. If this is the case, then it's better for it to be established before hand, so it doesn't seem like a DM simply narrating events that undo the PCs success. I don't know if DMs are rarely bad... I don't think we really have enough data to say, and the results would be very subjective anyway. But I don't think a DM needs to be bad to make a poor call. It's gonna happen to everyone at some point... you make a bad call. Better to own it and adjust rather than double down. The DM is responsible for so much of the game and of the players' understanding of the fiction, that all of the examples that were offered seem more about punishing players than trying to foster verisimilitude or reasonable consequences. In most cases, there are a number of ways to go... multiple interpretations that can be used in the fiction. So when a DM uses the most aggressive and least forgiving version, that's a choice they've made... and if it was me, I'd want to have a more solid reason than "well, that's what would happen" because really it's just "that's what I decided would happen".</blockquote>

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