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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7853064" data-attributes="member: 996">While this is true in every edition, the mechanics presented by the system can have an effect on how deadly or risky it seems.  Save-or-die effects were well-known to players back in the day, as were player-side counters to them.  Very low-"level" (not that there was CR back then) monsters, often included in low-level modules, forced poison saves with death a consequence (though some noted that the DM might choose not to go through with that), and a 2nd level spell to stave off that effect was right in the PH.  Put together with a lot of other things in 1e presentation, that could create an aura of danger, and a player-side 'style' of paranoia - to the extent of partially inspiring the game of the same name - which could end up pretty far from the usual tropes of 'heroic' fantasy.  While 5e can break plenty deadly at first level, there's nothing about the presentation & mechanics that encourage outright paranoia, a DM would have to work at achieving that same feel with wildly overpowered encounters (relative to the guidelines), very high-damage dangers, arbitrarily narrating not only failure but fatality, and the like.  It's not that such is impossible nor even difficult under 5e, but players might not be so inclined to accept it, when the game, itself, isn't priming them to expect it, and the demonstrations they may have seen of play don't generally tend that way.</blockquote>

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