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<blockquote data-quote="toucanbuzz" data-source="post: 8137341" data-attributes="member: 19270">Contrived.For me, the best part of D&amp;D is how the story writes itself. Week in and week out, I have no idea what we're going to script next. If I remove the threat of death, I'm not letting the story unfold. Some of the most memorable stories I've ever had came from character deaths, even group deaths. For example, at the end of a Red Hand of Doom campaign, the players were outmatched and outdone by an avatar of Tiamat. They weren't going to win. Through sheer luck and circumstance involving a magic item squirreled away from level 1, the earth under the worked stone of the avatar's base was exposed. Knowing what would happen next, the party's druid lured the avatar into a well where the rest of the party lay, dying, and cast a spell to move the earth. Millions of tons of earth and stone buried the avatar and 3 party members permanently. In the epilogue created by the players, the druid shapeshifted away and was never seen again. The party's names became legend. Statues were erected. People named their kids after them. That's one of a dozen wonderful stories surrounding player death, and even campaign wipes. Absolutely none of this would occur if I, the DM, had decided in advance to fudge rolls because I needed the PCs to survive, perhaps to fulfill a prophecy I wrote in advance or whatever railroad design you want to imagine. It is no different if the players were collaborating on this effort to fudge away anything lethal so you could make the story you intended to make.That, to me, would be the ultimate insult to the game: to predetermine how it should turn out.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="toucanbuzz, post: 8137341, member: 19270"] [B][SIZE=5]Contrived.[/SIZE][/B] For me, the best part of D&D is how the story writes itself. Week in and week out, [U]I have no idea what we're going to script next[/U]. If I remove the threat of death, I'm not letting the story unfold. Some of the most memorable stories I've ever had came from character deaths, even group deaths. [I]For example, at the end of a Red Hand of Doom campaign, the players were outmatched and outdone by an avatar of Tiamat. They weren't going to win. Through sheer luck and circumstance involving a magic item squirreled away from level 1, the earth under the worked stone of the avatar's base was exposed. Knowing what would happen next, the party's druid lured the avatar into a well where the rest of the party lay, dying, and cast a spell to move the earth. Millions of tons of earth and stone buried the avatar and 3 party members permanently. In the epilogue created by the players, the druid shapeshifted away and was never seen again. The party's names became legend. Statues were erected. People named their kids after them. [/I] That's one of a dozen wonderful stories surrounding player death, and even campaign wipes. Absolutely none of this would occur if I, the DM, had decided in advance to fudge rolls because I [I]needed [/I]the PCs to survive, perhaps to fulfill a prophecy I wrote in advance or whatever railroad design you want to imagine. It is no different if the players were collaborating on this effort to fudge away anything lethal so you could make the story you intended to make. That, to me, would be the ultimate insult to the game: to predetermine how it should turn out. [/QUOTE]

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