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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8711705" data-attributes="member: 7023887">I'm sorry, but this seems highly disingenuous to me. Obviously suicidal actions are very different from the DM having them go up against a monster stronger than they can handle. What if the 3hp PC jumps off a cliff to help someone, they cast Feather Fall, and the DM counterspells it? The DM absolutely killed that PC. Your stance of "I never kill the players, the dice and the player's actions do" seems like trying to avoid the blame for when a character dies. Yeah. And if they fail to parley, and the monsters killed them, you allowed the dice to kill the PCs by having their survival rely on a single dice roll. I think you know. I just don't think you're connecting the points. The DM chooses if the PCs die, therefore the DM is always responsible when the characters die. If instead of killing a PC a monster just knocks them unconscious and takes them captive, that proves that the DM is in charge of when the PCs die, not the dice or the players. . . . You make the circumstances. You choose to roll the dice to see if the rest is interrupted. Therefore, you control if/when the PCs get to rest. I am a forever DM. I have not played a PC in 3 years. I cannot distrust my DM, because I do not have one. Yes and yes. Thus proving that the DM controls if the PCs die. And that is only/always punishable by death? When my players do that, I almost never kill them for it. More often, I have a piece of their important equipment break, or they lose something else valuable to them, or they're heavily injured. But you designed the adventure, so you know when the deadly encounters are. And you also know the general strengths of the party, so if you design a deadly encounter . . . you're the reason a PC might die. <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You choose the DC for finding/disabling the trap. You choose if the trap is magical or not. You chose to have their possible deaths be up to the dice, so you're liable for their deaths. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You choose whether or not to have monsters that are too strong for the PCs to handle in the adventure. If you put in a CR 20 demon in a level 7 adventure, it's not the PCs fault if they don't "handle it" and die, it's your fault. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You chose to roll for the weather. The DM chooses the environment. Choosing to leave it up to a die roll still makes the weather your choice. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">And if they can't handle it? If you put them at the bottom of an active volcano that's going to erupt in 3 rounds and they don't have the ability to handle it at the level they are, it's not their fault for failing to find a solution to the environmental hazard, it's your fault for making that environment. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">And you choose the monster that fights the party, so you at least decided on a method of their tactics before they fight the monster. If you choose to have the villain be a mage, you know generally how they're going to play, because you know their spells ahead of time and what options are most optimal. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Same as #5. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">In accordance to the adventure you designed. And do your monsters never choose to engage the PCs? You never have surprise ambushes? Because it's not always the PCs choice to engage, sometimes they're forced to engage by the encounter you designed. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You already said that you design the adventures. Sure, the PCs might get some say in the type of adventure you run and the setting, but you still choose all of the specifics that could lead to the PCs dying. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">. . . Yes you do. You do choose if the monsters do nonlethal damage. The option to do nonlethal is the choice of the creature (or the person that runs it), so if you run the monsters . . . you choose if they do nonlethal damage. (And, yes, in 5e nonlethal damage only works on melee attacks, but you choose if the monsters attack at range or melee.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Deus Ex Machina is a tool. An often overused and cliche one, but it's a tool nonetheless. It can be used well, it can be used poorly. That's up to the DM. </li> </ol>The circumstances that you design. So, therefore, you choose when the PCs die. Or at least have a big say in it, unless your PCs for some reason are always choosing obviously suicidal actions, like jumping off cliffs at low levels without Feather Fall or deciding to stab themselves with their own weapons for no reason.</blockquote>

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