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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 9535667" data-attributes="member: 93670">It was well phrased <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/how-often-should-a-pc-die-in-d-d-5e.708316/post-9534801" target="_blank">earlier</a>, PC's aren't some kind of "unique mutant" chosen one with powers nobody else could attain  & they definitely aren't considered the strongest individuals in the world to me (both as a player and a GM).... Changing that creates problems with worldbuilding & requires the plausibility of death to function.  The PCs being treated as a result of their behavior is a big part of my games, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBCnvSsjHwY" target="_blank">but that goes both ways for me</a>★, they just don't get an auto pass granted by virtue of being the chosen hero or the most powerful individuals. Take FR as an example of how it works, folks like drizzt eleminster & so on could trivially handle basically anything that most parties of PCs go off to handle... but they are busy doing other stuff  the PCs have no involvement with & would never get anything done if they had to be the one true chosen hero of Toril.There may be (and often are) times where the PCs might very well be the most powerful individuals in an area (that they know of)... But that comes with an awful lot of power.  Both as a player and a GM  I feel that it hurts the immersion & believability of the world to know without doubt that no NPC is capable of stomping an unruly PC making threats even if it's done at a cost or by proxy. Someone brought up Buffy  in another thread & that provided a perfect example in warren kicking off the dark willow thing by killing tara totally by mistake while acting like  an almost stereotypical murderhobo[spoiler="tara dark willow warren chain"][MEDIA=youtube]01NxsKojYyM:68[/MEDIA][MEDIA=youtube]scMKCM7U7zA[/MEDIA][MEDIA=youtube]wBzEK82nGuI:237[/MEDIA][/spoiler]Sometimes it's important for players to know that they don't have plot armor just because they didn't split the party & said please to an angry NPC pushed to the point of saying "bored now".  Other times it means that the every member of the proverbial city guard doesn't need to be able to summon <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8tYE4daL54" target="_blank">npc guard powers</a> to ensure that players don't act like conquering bandits after a bad low stakes persuade/deception check, the players just need to believe that such guards exist or that the guard as a whole can hire someone to keep the peace even if that involves finding someone to stop the PCs.★ fold to my demands <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="💀" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f480.png" title="Skull    :skull:" data-shortname=":skull:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" />or else <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="💀" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f480.png" title="Skull    :skull:" data-shortname=":skull:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" />(direct or implied) is such a common threat for players to make to what they think are commoner & other low CR statblock NPCs that it doesn't even raise eyebrows a lot of the time. That only needs to be swatted down once or twice before <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AuthorityEqualsAsskicking" target="_blank">authority equals asskicking</a> isn't needed to make threats from NPCs plausibly credible</blockquote>

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