Death is meaningless in real life too, why should it be different at the table?
Provided that the DM isn't out to get the PCs, then they died because of their own actions and choices. I'm definitely in the group of people who think that removing perma death removes any tension and feeling of danger and consequences. I'd be bored to tears playing a campaign where I didn't fear for my character's life.
It seems to me that the lessons learned through perma death are far more valuable than any setting-rules learned through resurrection. Besides, if dying isn't even an option, then why have the game element? Just tell a story together.
Well, see that is where my group is different.
my players are very worried and very engaged in whether or not their character's achieve the goals they are pursuing. Their main concerns are more often about all sorts of things and "character death" is just one of them. Consequences include failure and that may mean losing the ship they have worked so long to get, losing NPCs they have come to be invested in, seeing their rivals take greater power and control but in general the result of loss more often manifests itself in one thing that mostly i have seen players hate the most - loss of control.
Most often, on the big picture level - Winning = making the decisions of what happens... Losing = losing that control.
Death (temporary) can be another impediment to that exertion of control/influence.
Death (perma) is the opposite - a removal of participation until the next character comes along with new backgrounds and such.
When i have had players who came from games with the mindset of perma death being the only source for feelings of
tension,
danger and
consequences I try and show them that they can play in my game in a way that says "there is more to value in this game than my survival" and IMX (not necessarily yours) that increases their fun, their eagerness to engage in the story and so on.
But, yes, we do agree on that last part. its what i tried to get across in my earlier response... there needs to be two different decisions not just a perma death yay or nay in most campaigns.
For setting purposes - what are the effects of death and return - how does it happen, who can do it etc all of which affect the world in major major ways. For this in my game it is done with the soulcatchers approach which creates a lot of roleplaying opportunities, leaves permadeath as a possibility and as a common man thing for most people, etc. it essentially turns the ability to be revived into a reward.
For PC/player purposes - how can we die? How common will it be? As you referred to it, how will that play out as a game mechanic. Can it happen just off a bad die roll? For my games, that answer is essentially it cannot occur from bad dice but can occur from either player choice (including obviously suicidal acts which will prompt cautions from the Gm) or from neglect (others not moving to take actions to save them.) this highlights the drama involved in the "dying" parts. As such, things like "massive damage you dead" disintegrate and power word kill get significant changes or they get removed.
Disintigrate for example replaces the at zero body poof with:
If you are reduced to zero the body begins to disintegrate. Death saves are made with several adjustments. Each failed death save accumulates to the three AND the loss of one item of exceptional value plus 1d6 items of mundane value. A successful death save, stabilization efforts and even active healing only prevents the gaining of a failure for that round and they do not accumulate positive saves. the effect continues until the character gains three fails and dies and the body disintigrates OR ranks of healing spells equal to the rank of the spell slot used have been expended. At that point the character is at zero HP and stable.
that leaves disintegrate as a very dramatic difference from say other normal "zeroes", adds a more serious path to cure, restricts what can be done to save etc... without the IMO tension killing "poof gone one bad roll, over now, nothing to see here, move along."
by making "unusual zeroes" creates different dynamics for the "three way dance to death" that turns each of those "more serious" ways to get zeroed into much more extreme cases that play out while the combat, scene win/loss is still "en prise" so to speak.
But that is me and that is what my players find more enjoyable. I am sure others can have different preferences.
