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<blockquote data-quote="Vyvyan Basterd" data-source="post: 4807432" data-attributes="member: 4892">To some people (myself and my players included), the threat of death makes the game challenging and - geuss what? - fun. In regards to feeling &quot;picked on&quot; - if a player has that attitude it is either because they are oversensitive or the DM doesn't have their trust. I don't want oversensitive players at my table, whether I'm the DM or not, it is too divergent from my play style. My players do trust me to be fair. They have all had great successes with their PCs and have experienced PC death. Even in the dreaded &quot;DM's Girlfriend&quot; situation (although replace gf with wife) my players know that she gains no special treatment. Her characters live and die equally with everyone else. [sblock][At an ENWorld Gameday where I was running a high-level Bo9S one-shot one player took a brutal beating, dying in the first round. Everyone was laughing about it and enjoying themselves (even the guy who's PC just died). They called over to my wife who was at another nearby table and asked her to tell me to 'be nice' to them. She informed them that I wasn't afraid to kill off her PCs just as fast, one of her characters didn't survive the first round of its first combat.][/sblock]That would be a great personality for an individual NPC Balor in your campaign. And if said Balor were in a combat in my game he would react differently than I would play the &quot;average&quot; balor.The problem with not meta-gaming with a spell like Power Word: Stun is that the spell has built-in meta-gaming aspects. You should know the capabilities of the spells you cast. That spell's capability is based off hit points. I'm not saying the NPC would know any PC's hit point total when making his choice, but he should be able to work off in-game clues that would make someone look like they have less hit points. Whether it's low Con, already injured, or looking and acting like a bookworm spellcaster.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Vyvyan Basterd, post: 4807432, member: 4892"] To some people (myself and my players included), the threat of death makes the game challenging and - geuss what? - [B]fun[/B]. In regards to feeling "picked on" - if a player has that attitude it is either because they are oversensitive or the DM doesn't have their trust. I don't want oversensitive players at my table, whether I'm the DM or not, it is too divergent from my play style. My players do trust me to be fair. They have all had great successes with their PCs and have experienced PC death. Even in the dreaded "DM's Girlfriend" situation (although replace gf with wife) my players know that she gains no special treatment. Her characters live and die equally with everyone else. [sblock][At an ENWorld Gameday where I was running a high-level Bo9S one-shot one player took a brutal beating, dying in the first round. Everyone was laughing about it and enjoying themselves (even the guy who's PC just died). They called over to my wife who was at another nearby table and asked her to tell me to 'be nice' to them. She informed them that I wasn't afraid to kill off her PCs just as fast, one of her characters didn't survive the first round of its first combat.][/sblock] That would be a great personality for an individual NPC Balor in your campaign. And if said Balor were in a combat in my game he would react differently than I would play the "average" balor. The problem with not meta-gaming with a spell like Power Word: Stun is that the spell has built-in meta-gaming aspects. You should know the capabilities of the spells you cast. That spell's capability is based off hit points. I'm not saying the NPC would know any PC's hit point total when making his choice, but he should be able to work off in-game clues that would make someone look like they have less hit points. Whether it's low Con, already injured, or looking and acting like a bookworm spellcaster. [/QUOTE]

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