Re-thinking PC death and storytelling

[Fanaelialae]

This is certainly one way to go, though it can add additional complexity for both DM and player, particularly in the case of multiple characters.

I think the most important point is not to make the campaign excessively lethal. It's fine to kill characters. As has been mentioned, character deaths can be important moments in a campaign. However, once a campaign approaches a certain level of lethality (that measure of a "meatgrinder" being admittedly subjective) players will tend to lose a degree of attachment to their characters (IMO), and the campaign will be poorer for it.

Personally, I think making "throw away" fights either nonexistent or unlikely to kill the party is a good approach in that regard.

 

[Desdichado]

Hrm... our benchmark since switching to Traveller has been ~1 combat per 4-6 hour session, due in part to breaking out of the levelgrind cycle. We spend a lot more time exploring and RPing than we used to; it's pretty nice. When you change the incentives, you change the game.

I quite agree. I run d20 derivative systems--either significantly houseruled 3.5, or better yet, using one of the d20 Modern campaign models as my system. By changing the XP chart to make it considerably slower and making XP rewards be automatic and time-bound (i.e., each session, everyone gets XP no matter what happens) I find that the notion of feeling like you "have" to fight all the time goes away completely.

In general, I'd say my players are more RP focused than not anyway--even without the rewards being in place--but a lot of that kind of stuff is unconsciously done. Making it explicit really cuts whatever remaining tethers there are that might hold them back.

That said, I'm a fan of action and suspense stories. If there's not quite a bit of action in my games regardless of the rewards, then I believe I'm doing something wrong.