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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 3031210" data-attributes="member: 7240">I know what the situation involved. But I felt it was important to raise the thing that much more commonly leave you with no character to play for a significant portion of the evening. The argument that were being made about D&D as a game of "me me me now now now" sound a whole lot more silly when you realize that demanding D&D function like this also turns characters into de facto immortals.The party getting separated is part of playing D&D. Your character being incapacitated: part of D&D. Your character dying: part of D&D. You have a funny idea about what D&D is if it doesn't include these possibilities.I'm not a big fan of doing all my socializing outside of domestic space. I and my gaming friends invest quite a bit in making our homes social spaces. We include dinner with our games, a few bottles of wine; we sit on comfortable furniture because we don't see a big distinction between gaming time and social time, even though we stay pretty on-task compared to a lot of groups.It's not a spectator sport. It's sometimes an elimination game, though. (See below.)No. The GM should alternate between members of a party if it splits up.The world is full of elimination games. Some of us find them fun. The potential for elimination is a feature of a lot of games. Part of what makes a game like Shogun, Diplomacy, Axis & Allies, etc. fun is the risk of elimination. In fact, these games don't work unless people get eliminated along the way. Would you show up at someone's house for one of these games and then complain because you were eliminated? Of course not! D&D is no different; character injury, death, capture, etc. create possibilities for you to be excluded from active play for a significant portion of a session.Some of us have trouble having fun in games where our choices are taken away from us, our characters' abilities debased and rules suspended just to "include everybody." Lots of people have trouble enjoying RPGs where their choices have no consequences. When I am in a game where my choices have no consequences or where my characters' abilities are debased, I tune out; I stop having fun because I cease to feel like I'm playing a game -- I turn into a spectator, the very thing you are trying to avoid.If I'm in a combat and my character is killed, I want him to really die. If the GM fudges things so that I live no matter what I do, I'm a spectator all game; if my character dies, I have, at least, been an actor and decision-maker up to the moment the fatal blow is struck.Of course you shouldn't plan on a player being excluded beforehand. But if things shake down in such a way that he is, I don't see why being eliminated early in a session is any more problematic in D&D than it is in Diplomacy.Fair enough. How fortunate that there are all kinds of groups out there.</blockquote>

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