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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DonTadow" data-source="post: 3141784" data-attributes="member: 22622">I wouldn't associate the DM's rules for the campaign with telling a player how to play the character, no matter what the circumstances. The DM controls the world, however, he can't arbitrarily make up rules. That will lead to vast inconsistencies and eventual player anger. THe DM has far too many tools (he controls just about everything in that house) that he needs to control the PC in that situation. Once the DM starts telling aplayer what he must do, he is dangerously over exceeding a DM's power. Even in a situation like this (especially in situations like) , where it effects the party negatively, I agree with the DM that if there are no previous rules against this, he should let the characters play the game the way they want to. I have a similiar situation in my game. I have a player whom plays the biggest, beefiest fighter I've ever seen built. Has great hit points, great abilities and great defense. In combat, she does nothing for rounds on end. Now keep in mind this is not the characteristic of the PC as far as what the player has told me. The player has told me that this fighter is a master of all arts, and takes on all challenges. He's trained at the toughest warcollege in the world.  But you couldnt tell this from watching the pc. Every initiative, the player will hold her action or delay. Obviously in a party that only consists of a ranger, a cleric, a sorceror and a thief, this ca nbe bad. One time, her inaction nearly got the mages and hte thief killed (the ranger couldnt make it that game). This is how I handled that situation.The party reaches the layer of a dracolich, and must complete a puzzle in four different rooms to activate the warding that will trap it again. The fighter however, instead of confronting the dracolich decides to run 100 ft. outside, for a reason that has never ever been explained. (again her playing her character, didnt ask). The mages were in front of the party ??? and were essentially trapped in the lair with the dracolich. If I played it out logically it would have been a tpk. The fighter was still headed outside while the dracolich was dropping the mages. Obviously this was going to end bad, not for the party, but for the group as I could see them all blaming them for their pc deaths. I could have easily said ,no your player would fight the dracolich, not go outside. But I knew that would cross the DM boundaries. So I used some DM power to even out the situation. I brought down one of the NPCs whom had traveled with the pcs but stayed behind. I fudged some spot rolls by the dracolich and had him believe the mages was dead and used the NPC as a buffer. The mages managed to complete the puzzle while the npc was getting toasted. 7 rounds later, after the fighter had tourhoughly searched outside (still don't know what for) she came back (2 rounds after the dracolich was taken care of). This made the encounter fair without taking away the challenge for those whom wanted it.After session I addressed the bigger issue without having it come out in session. IF that battle would have continued the way it did, I don't think the group would have survived if she was in it. Moral of my long drawn out story and how it relates to the above. IT's always better to maximize your DM power, keep the player's in control of their character, and prevent and incident that is best handled with discussion out of game.</blockquote>

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