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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5277947" data-attributes="member: 18280">Yes.No.No.No.Not by itself, no.Agreed!Also agreed!  Hope you enjoyed your XP!  Your analysis was excellent!And I agree with you about the RAW, too.  Simply put, the "Top-notch DM" in MrMyth's scenario is following the RAW.  The bad DM is not.  IMHO, anyway.But, no matter how many choices you add, it always comes down to you either die or you don't.It is important to note, though, that increased risk =/= increased challenge.  Without context, there is no challenge.  "Roll 1d6 each round; on a 1 you die" certainly increases risk, but there is no challenge to go with it, and no chance to ameleorate that risk.Bodaks jumping out of closets is kind of the same.  I don't think anyone is advocating throwing bodaks jumping out of random closets.In 3e terms, a CR 20 monster can certainly insta-kill 1st level characters.  They will not get much of a chance to make decisions once the encounter has started.  Should this mean that we rid the game of CR 20 monsters, or does it mean rather that we should be a bit wiser about how we use them?Um.You are misreading what I wrote.I didn't say hit teams automatically have SoD effects; I said that, in my system, assassins have attacks that can inflict enough damage that they may as well be.And I didn't say that a demon lord would automatically send bodaks; I said that, as a player, I would certainly consider the possibility in a 3e game.  (in 1e bodaks were something different.)  This is no different, IMHO, than assuming I might run into paralysis or level drain in the old catacombs.  It isn't because it MUST happen, but because the venue increases the odds of encountering specific creatures with those abilities.But, if you refer to the Savage Tide bodak encounter, I believe we have discussed it in the past, and I believe I have already agreed with you that the encounter in question could have been better written.  As a player, I would not have found it unfair, but as a DM, I would have rewritten it.Then again, I think that 3e is a lousy game after mid-levels, anyway.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />No.  There is an obvious difference.  SSSSSSS.  Just as SSSSSSSSSoD perforce includes SoD, it also includes SSSSSSSSS.Exactly correct.  But a very little thought will demonstrate that you do not wish to remove all creatures that could cause HoD, either.  Sometimes you want a creature that cannot simply be dealt with using combat.  The challenge here is to figure out how to avoid combat, just as (in the SoD case) the challenge is to figure out how to avoid having to make the save.It is of interest that, should you choose to eliminate any creature that can cause HoD, as the PCs' hp drop, more and more monsters must be eliminated.  Eventually, they cannot be killed through combat, because the final hit that kills them always comes from a monster that can kill them with that hit.Consider this now:  "the player can react to each attack, choose tactics, get help from his friends, whatever" vs "With the one hit death monster, he can't do anything" is very much about "narrative control" vs. "what happens".  Narrative control is the ability to influence what happens.With no narrative control, you might as well flip a coin.  There is no game, because there are no choices being made.  There is all consequence, but no context.With no "what happens" beyond that narrative control, you might as well write a story.  There is no game, because the outcome is not in question, and perhaps even foreordained.  There is all context, but no consequences.Where we differ (I believe) is not that one of us wants context, and the other consequences, but rather in where we find the optimal balance of context and consequences to be.(It might be easier if we considered this in terms of SoF, and HoF, where F stands for Fail.  Some people do, indeed, remove "die" from the game, substituting other forms of failure in its place.  The tension between Conflict and Consequence still remains, however, and finding ones' personal "optimal balance" between the two still remains a worthy goal.)That is very interesting to note, although "There are two kinds of statistics:  Lies and Damned Lies" is doubly true on dah InterWeb!If one is running (or playing in) a narrative-focused game, it makes sense to dislike any game mechanic that harms that narrative.  As I said upthread.  If I was running a narrative-focused game, I would certainly include factors that allow the players (and myself) to reign in randomness where it damages the narrative.  That is just common sense.Frex, Hussar has described narrative-focused games in many threads, but he also ran WLD, which is not narrative-focused.  In WLD, he allowed characters to be killed without any problems.  Quite often, though, he has said that he finds character death to break the narrative flow of his other games.  (Hussar can correct me if I am wrong in this.)  That would seem to indicate that he has at least an instinctive grasp of how random elements can damage narrative-focused games, but can enhance exploration-focused (or non-narrative-focused) games.He may not think of it in the same terms as I do.  He may even disagree vehemently with the terminology that I use.  But his actions demonstrate that, beyond the terminology, we are acting on understanding of the same basic principles.Indeed, I believe this so much to be true that I once PMed Hussar for advice on running the more narratively-focused Cubicle 7 Doctor Who.There is nothing wrong with prefering a greater degree of narrative control (or a lesser degree, for that matter), either in all games, or in specific gaming genres.  IMHO, anyway.RC</blockquote>

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