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I only play with my friends. I don't kill my friends' characters for "fun", but I want them to know the dice fall where they may because, like ABC Sports motto went: "The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat". Without losing, there's no winning.
The real fun of the game is when you can say: "Wow, that was close. We almost got slaughtered, but we did it, and everybody's OK." It's a fine line in DMing to get that Indiana Jones grabbing his hat under the crushing stone door thrill, without crushing too many archeologists . . . very tough to do without fudging dice rolls, but I'm trying to run a "clean" no safety protocol campaign now.
I guess that's the real generational difference. Me and my friends grew up before the era of "everybody gets a trophy for playing". No risk feels like no achievements to me.
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