Rabbitbait
Adventurer
Yes. Death always has to be on the table to give that tension. I've had entire campaign threads derailed because the character at the centre of that thread died. That's just the way things go sometimes and I will try and bring aspects of what I had planned back in, or use the consequences of failure to create whole new story lines (one of which was all the dead in the world becoming animated - all corpses and skeletons. Society collapsed).So, for those of you who prioritize role playing and story continuity over participating in the action and decision making for the group during the session, would you even allow allow a character to die? (permanently)?
Most of my character deaths occur when the group needs to flee a situation and not everyone gets away.
I had one game where a TPK ended up hinging on whether the only character remaining concious was able to defeat the last remaining enemy. It came down to one dice roll. Everyone was very pleased that he succeeded.