"Natch!" Scott shouts as he gazes on his d20 and he leaps to his feet. "Take that, Black Knight!" Around him the other Players chortle with joy, expecting to see the armor-clad villain collapse in a pool of blood. A round of high-fives and shouts adds to the already chaotic fever of the room. Rolling his damage dice, Scott smiles "take nine and nine" (translation: subtract 9 from the Knight's Hit Points and 9 from its Armor Points).

"By my count, that's 31 Hit Points of damage", Mike says doing the arithmetic. "No one's surviving that."

"Yeah, and it's my kill", Loraine interjects, smiling an impish grin. "My wizard did the majority of the damage."

"What? I just did the fatal blow. How can you claim that?"

"Remember the Pyrotechnics spell?"

While the players begin to argue, I stare down at the Black Knight's character sheet and examine the Hit Points column mournfully. This is the villain that I had crafted as the basis of the scenario. The ultimate evil designed to harass and disparage the Players' characters for weeks to come. I did not expect them to confront him. Who would have suspected the Players of starting a melee combat in the middle of the Princess' wedding? But as I do the math I know that he is dead and I feel a sense of loss. Then, from somewhere in the back of my impartial mind, I hear a voice whisper, "Let's cheat. They won't know", and I find myself in quiet contemplation.

Well, in my youth, I would have cheated. Yes, I would have broken the Referee's code of neutrality and saved the life of my NPC. Why? Because I could convince myself that the campaign would be far more enjoyable if it followed my original plan. And because I really liked the NPC. But I have come to realize that one must remain impartial at all times. One infraction, no matter how minute, can lead to a slippery-slope of unfair decisions. This also holds true for Referees who lower a monster's damage to allow a Player's character to live. Regardless of who you favor (monsters or Players), once your Players feel that you are no longer being impartial, the game loses all enjoyment.

So, the Black Knight was killed, the Players were arrested and charged with murder, and the campaign took on a new direction as the Player's characters were forced to role-play the trial. Did they serve a prison term or were they exonerated of the charges? Well, that's a tale for another time.

Written by Mark Kibbe of Basement Games, Co-Creator of the Forge: Out of Chaos RPG and World of Juravia, http://www.basementgames.com