To those who have not played Gauntlet or Gauntlet II multiplayer, phrases like "Elf needs food badly" and "Elf is about to die" may seem pretty awful. Your character is low on health! You might die! However, that's not so bad at all. Those messages mean you're going to die - in the game. However, once you got this a message like this:
"Red wizard shot the food"
You weren't worried about your character anymore, because depending on how far you were into the game and how your comrades' characters were doing, there would be a strong chance that you'd be taking some damage in real life. Gauntlet is a game that induces rage, because of wonderful features like monster generators and Death, and when one of your own companions screws the whole party over, the rage has to go somewhere, because yelling at the Sorcerers doesn't do anything.
Similar effects could be seen whenever the goddamn elf took the speed potion again! Or when the wizard took the magic potion, etc.