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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 4005725" data-attributes="member: 3424">I thought the distinction between bad things happening to the character and bad (or boring) things happening to the player has already been made.But at least the player got to make the attack rolls. In addition, even though he missed, he might have been able to contribute to the fight in other ways - by providing flanking (or combat advantage) to the rogue player, for example. I would also distinguish between missing ten times in a row because the player never rolled higher than an 8, and missing ten times in a row because the player needs to roll an 18 to hit. One seems like a extraordinary run of bad luck, while the other seems to be an extraordinarily tough challenge. Most people I know would not get upset at the former - it could happen to anyone, after all. How people react to the latter can be rather complex and dependent on playstyle assumptions, so I won't go into it here.The more I think about it, the more I think the issue is one of participation. Bad consequences are acceptable, no participation is not. PC death at the end of a ten-round combat in which the player (not necessarily the character) did something every round is fine. Relegating the player to being an observer with no input into the resolution (successful or otherwise) of a game scenario is not.However, if you frame "fun" as 100% participation instead of 100% success, you never get on that slope, any more than being able to participate in every round of a game of chess, or Hearts, or Monopoly guarantees success.Not necessarily. If death or unconsciousness occurs at or near the end of an encounter, you still reach your objective if the player was an active participant for most of it. And even the player of an unconscious character may have something to do each round, such as stabilization or recover rolls.I think the basic proposition is that the potential for a player to have absolutely nothing to do in a round is a pretty bad thing, and it gets worse if it can happen at or near the start of an encounter, and will last for pretty much the rest of it. Allowing other characters to offset or negate the inactive character's condition does help, but it relies on the other players being willing and the other characters being able to do so (this is not necessarily a bad thing, though, as it could reward group play and co-ordination).</blockquote>

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