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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8688087" data-attributes="member: 6877472">I admit, my right eye twitched at the candyland comment, because I have seen people disparage the games of others with comments like that.  But after stopping to read DND Reborn's post, I felt he did make a good point- if my experiences have led me to think that player death can lead to a fail state for my session, or even my campaign, what is the alternative?I've never taken death off the table, for example.  Friends of mine have toyed with "permanent injury instead of death".  13th Age has a mechanic where you revive at the end of an encounter, and you can actually still get a turn in combat where you can support your allies in spirit.The Sentinels of the Multiverse card game gives you actions you can take even when your hero bites the dust in a similar vein.I've never adopted these kinds of strategies though, and I'm not sure why.  I guess because there reaches a point where it stops being the game called Dungeons and Dragons at a certain point (to me!).  So instead, I work hard to try and make falling to 0 or dying less likely through encounter design.  I try to have backup plans.  I avoid "time out" mechanics like stunning or petrifying the PC's unless I know they can handle it.Like, if I want to have an encounter with a Medusa, the players will find anti-petrification options long in advance.  If they sell, lose, or forget those options, then it's on them, and I don't mind cruelly describing the process of petrification to them, lol.And maybe I am trying too hard to slap an engine on a wagon and calling it a car, but if the game fails, I for damn sure want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say "it wasn't my fault".At the same time, though, if a player dies, I want to be able to say it was their fault, and a lot of times when it happens, I can't think of anything they really could have done differently with that character.The last player death I presided over, for example.  This was a Pathfinder 1e game, so how relevant this is to the topic is debatable, but I digress- my friend Andrew had decided to play a Fighter who employed reach and big damage to get the attention of enemies.  Unfortunately, this involved using a two handed weapon and being enlarged, as well as often using Cleave, all things which limited his AC.All three other players, on the other hand, were heavily focused on keeping their AC's high.  Two of which had healing, and one was a Swashbuckler who was psychotically adverse to taking damage, so they would limit their activities to one attack a turn with Spring Attack, or use ranged attacks.This made for a terrifying situation; when it was my turn, my monsters had two hard targets, one nonexistent target, and one giant guy with a big sword who did a lot of damage.So they targeted the Fighter.  And he would drop fairly often, because he was taking all the damage, and Pathfinder 1e healing spells are just as anemic as 5e ones.So when he finally did die, it was because he did the thing he said he was going to do, and everyone else was happy to let him.  And no one else was taking their "fair share" of hits.I didn't think this was his fault at all.  Nor did I see it as mine.  But it still felt unfair to me.</blockquote>

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