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If not death, then what?
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<blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8711348" data-attributes="member: 6801228"><p>I understand you are having a discussion, and I apologize if I'm coming across as hostile, but this is something that I feel needs to be at least partially addressed. Because the narrative of "it is almost always the player's decision that led to their death" then doesn't understand the reasoning many of us remove or mitigate death in our games. This is what leads to ridiculous statements like what Micah Sweet declared of "if I know I can't die, nothing matters, because my choices don't matter". Because the death is always seen as "well, because you as the player did X" with seeming little regard to other factors.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Take this for example. You have determined that the Druid should have more health. Do you know their Con score? No. Do you know if they roll for hp and are therefore below average? No. </p><p></p><p>You then state that since they should have more health, they must have entered the fight injured which is a "tactical error" unless they had no choice. Well, do you know how many fights they had that day? No. Do you know what healing options that they had available to them? No. You may assume the druid had spell slots left and could have maybe healed them... but you don't know if the druid has healing spells prepared. You may say that was a tactical error, but maybe they had a stock of healing potions and simply burnt through them before the fight. </p><p></p><p>You don't acknowledge that maybe before the druid cast Heat Metal and hid, that they may have been injured by an earlier spell or attack. That would also account for their hp, and in which case they didn't make a tactical error, they went in to the fight fully prepared. </p><p></p><p>You don't know, and cannot know, so many factors of this fight. But at every turn in your responses you have put forth theory after theory of how Sabathius misplayed his druid and that led to the death.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And here is another factor I've never seen you even touch. There is one more tactical decision that could have saved the Druid's life. </p><p></p><p>What if the DM didn't cast Sunburst? What if the DM had cut the Giant Zombie's hp by half? What if the DM had drawn the map differently? All of these decisions could also have saved the player's character. We can only speculate, but it is awfully strange that "your decisions as the player led to your death" is such a common refrain, while unless the DM is egregiously out of line like in Oofta's example, they aren't even part of the discussion. </p><p></p><p>I don't mean this as blaming DMs, I don't want to blame anyone, because I know that there are so many factors involved that it is frankly impossible to decide why it happened. But that's why this idea that it happened because the player made the wrong decision drives me nuts.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So, they should have known that their plan would fail, because 95% of the time their plan would succeed. Do you bring an umbrella with you on days with a 5% chance of rain?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Chaosmancer, post: 8711348, member: 6801228"] I understand you are having a discussion, and I apologize if I'm coming across as hostile, but this is something that I feel needs to be at least partially addressed. Because the narrative of "it is almost always the player's decision that led to their death" then doesn't understand the reasoning many of us remove or mitigate death in our games. This is what leads to ridiculous statements like what Micah Sweet declared of "if I know I can't die, nothing matters, because my choices don't matter". Because the death is always seen as "well, because you as the player did X" with seeming little regard to other factors. Take this for example. You have determined that the Druid should have more health. Do you know their Con score? No. Do you know if they roll for hp and are therefore below average? No. You then state that since they should have more health, they must have entered the fight injured which is a "tactical error" unless they had no choice. Well, do you know how many fights they had that day? No. Do you know what healing options that they had available to them? No. You may assume the druid had spell slots left and could have maybe healed them... but you don't know if the druid has healing spells prepared. You may say that was a tactical error, but maybe they had a stock of healing potions and simply burnt through them before the fight. You don't acknowledge that maybe before the druid cast Heat Metal and hid, that they may have been injured by an earlier spell or attack. That would also account for their hp, and in which case they didn't make a tactical error, they went in to the fight fully prepared. You don't know, and cannot know, so many factors of this fight. But at every turn in your responses you have put forth theory after theory of how Sabathius misplayed his druid and that led to the death. And here is another factor I've never seen you even touch. There is one more tactical decision that could have saved the Druid's life. What if the DM didn't cast Sunburst? What if the DM had cut the Giant Zombie's hp by half? What if the DM had drawn the map differently? All of these decisions could also have saved the player's character. We can only speculate, but it is awfully strange that "your decisions as the player led to your death" is such a common refrain, while unless the DM is egregiously out of line like in Oofta's example, they aren't even part of the discussion. I don't mean this as blaming DMs, I don't want to blame anyone, because I know that there are so many factors involved that it is frankly impossible to decide why it happened. But that's why this idea that it happened because the player made the wrong decision drives me nuts. So, they should have known that their plan would fail, because 95% of the time their plan would succeed. Do you bring an umbrella with you on days with a 5% chance of rain? [/QUOTE]
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