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<blockquote data-quote="Maxperson" data-source="post: 8711720" data-attributes="member: 23751">I thought it was you that mentioned as an example, being crit killed in 4e and dying instantly.&nbsp; It may have been someone else, though. If so, I apologize for the mix-up. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I disagree with the notion that the system punishes.&nbsp; It does encourage certain things and actively rewards some of them, like killing monsters by attaching the vast majority of the XP and treasure gained to that activity.&nbsp; Those are intentional rewards granted for taking the risk of PC death and fighting them.The death of a PC in a fight, even one that is a random encounter, isn't a punishment.&nbsp; That death is not meant to discourage anything.&nbsp; the game also discourages the playing of evil alignments by setting up most of the enemies as evil, with very few of the examples of game play and DMing as non-heroic or evil centric.&nbsp; I don't see any punishments, though.I disagree with you on that as well.&nbsp; It encourages system mastery for certain. The &quot;trap&quot; choices still work plenty well for the baseline of the game, though.&nbsp; Those choices only ended up being true traps if the DM required system mastery as the baseline, rather than system mastery rewarding players by making the game challenges easier to overcome.It was a DM created problem, usually because the DM entered into an arms race against the players who showed mastery.&nbsp; The players did better with character creation and the DM ramped up the challenges, then the players got better, and the DM ramped them up some more.&nbsp; At that point anyone without mastery was screwed.That poster is both right and wrong.&nbsp; The choices probably contributed, but so did random bad luck.&nbsp; I say probably contributed, because I have been in situations where wraiths or insert other creature able to go through walls here came out of nowhere, cut off my PC and killed me.&nbsp; No chance to run.&nbsp; No chance to detect ahead of time. I guess my choice to go into an empty room could be called, if you stretch it really hard, a contributor to the death, but I don't think so.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Maxperson, post: 8711720, member: 23751"] I thought it was you that mentioned as an example, being crit killed in 4e and dying instantly. It may have been someone else, though. If so, I apologize for the mix-up. :) I disagree with the notion that the system punishes. It does encourage certain things and actively rewards some of them, like killing monsters by attaching the vast majority of the XP and treasure gained to that activity. Those are intentional rewards granted for taking the risk of PC death and fighting them. The death of a PC in a fight, even one that is a random encounter, isn't a punishment. That death is not meant to discourage anything. the game also discourages the playing of evil alignments by setting up most of the enemies as evil, with very few of the examples of game play and DMing as non-heroic or evil centric. I don't see any punishments, though. I disagree with you on that as well. It encourages system mastery for certain. The "trap" choices still work plenty well for the baseline of the game, though. Those choices only ended up being true traps if the DM required system mastery as the baseline, rather than system mastery rewarding players by making the game challenges easier to overcome. It was a DM created problem, usually because the DM entered into an arms race against the players who showed mastery. The players did better with character creation and the DM ramped up the challenges, then the players got better, and the DM ramped them up some more. At that point anyone without mastery was screwed. That poster is both right and wrong. The choices probably contributed, but so did random bad luck. I say probably contributed, because I have been in situations where wraiths or insert other creature able to go through walls here came out of nowhere, cut off my PC and killed me. No chance to run. No chance to detect ahead of time. I guess my choice to go into an empty room could be called, if you stretch it really hard, a contributor to the death, but I don't think so. [/QUOTE]

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