Yea just sharing my anecdote since not a lot on google about it. My thought is it’s probably some combo of the CPU and Mobo not liking the level of cold. There was a Linus tech tips video on overclocking with liquid nitrogen and one of the quirks is computer won’t boot till you warm it up again.

My tinfoil hat theory is something in the mobo/cpu self shorts/disconnects when too cold and just depends on the silicone quality you get for that number of cold before it needs the hairdryer treatment.

I had a similar issue until I bought a different PSU that was slightly higher capacity. Not sure if it was some cold start GPU power draw quirk but that’s the only thing I changed and haven’t had a problem since.

Adjusting the game to fit your table is the hardest challenge of all unfortunately. There are some players who don’t fit certain tables and DM styles and it’s your job to either make it work or tell them to find another table.

I think in your case you can make it work, but you’ve got a lot of work to do since you’re trying to accommodate a carebear happy fun time player at a table you want to run more and more as “hardcore-lite” experience.

I think two ideas I would have for you are to present your hardcore challenges as optional / non lethal challenges in a arena type colosseum. This lets you design difficult encounters but sandboxes them from consequences. If you want there to be consequences you’re going to make the carebear sad.

Another option is to come up with a McGuffin for the carebear that acts as protection for their character. E.g they fail there death saves and they turn into a rampaging monster due to some story reason. Lots of bad things happen to the party, but carebear wakes up the next day fine. You can use this to change the dynamic of “carebear” go frontline while we hit badguy. The big problem here is protecting the carebear leads to possible resentment from the other players so doing something like this is dangerous overall, but it can work depending on your players and how you do it.

For a TLDR I think you want to run more hard core games and your “carebear” player no longer fits at the table you want to run. In short you have to accommodate the “carebear”, change their mindset, or create a table of people ok with a more hardcore game.