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<blockquote data-quote="Al" data-source="post: 1505730" data-attributes="member: 2486">Well, in my experience if a PC dies in battle, the DM invariably gets the blame.&nbsp; For example, if you decide to coup de grace a held PC, the player could justifiably argue that 'you killed my PC'.&nbsp; Ironically, of course, the new Hold Person makes this much more likely, since in the old HP you could just leave them there for X number of rounds then finish them off later (by which time, the theory goes, the PCs have won the battle so it doesn't matter).&nbsp; Likewise, if the evil wizard casts Finger of Death and the PC flunks the save, the player could argue that you'd killed his character.&nbsp; Action points might aggravate the situation, but not to any great extent.What is possible, and is roughly outlined in the GURPS system, is to have, in addition to the DM, the 'Adversary'.&nbsp; The Adversary is a player who takes control of all hostile NPCs, with the specific mandate to try to kill the PCs.&nbsp; This not only enables the DM to be more impartial, but also prevents 'DM-metagaming' (i.e. the DM using knowledge of the PCs against them).&nbsp; However, it does require another player, and sidelines the DM to an extent (we get our jollies from playing the baddies&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ) so this should only be used if this turns into a major problem.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Al, post: 1505730, member: 2486"] Well, in my experience if a PC dies in battle, the DM invariably gets the blame. For example, if you decide to coup de grace a held PC, the player could justifiably argue that 'you killed my PC'. Ironically, of course, the new Hold Person makes this much more likely, since in the old HP you could just leave them there for X number of rounds then finish them off later (by which time, the theory goes, the PCs have won the battle so it doesn't matter). Likewise, if the evil wizard casts Finger of Death and the PC flunks the save, the player could argue that you'd killed his character. Action points might aggravate the situation, but not to any great extent. What is possible, and is roughly outlined in the GURPS system, is to have, in addition to the DM, the 'Adversary'. The Adversary is a player who takes control of all hostile NPCs, with the specific mandate to try to kill the PCs. This not only enables the DM to be more impartial, but also prevents 'DM-metagaming' (i.e. the DM using knowledge of the PCs against them). However, it does require another player, and sidelines the DM to an extent (we get our jollies from playing the baddies :D ) so this should only be used if this turns into a major problem. [/QUOTE]

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