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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerakSpielman" data-source="post: 1313552" data-attributes="member: 7464">I guess the reason my group likes having the threat of death hanging over our characters heads is just the sense of challange. If we already know we're going to win and survive, why bother rolling the dice? For the "randomness" of combat to mean anything, you have to have a chance of failure.  This atmosphere has led to a rather paranoid group of players. They avoid combats whenever they can, are ready to run away if things turn sour, and take the city guards very seriously. They focus on information gathering and only enter combat if they are reasonably certain the odds are in their favor. I think this kind of behavior adds to the level of immersiveness of the game - they're role playing what real people with those abilities and personalities would actually do in those circumstances. How can we role play a characer whose thought processes don't make sense? How can our characters make sense if their situation/environment don't make sense? How do our characters fit into the world in any sort of plausible way?  The constant threat of death has caused us to really get into role-playing our character's concerns and motivations. Combat is something entered into reluctantly, when all other avenues (generally role-playing, diplomacy, stealth, outright avoidance) have failed. We'll spend sessions without a fight, even avoiding ones the DM tossed in because he was worried we were getting bored, all for legitimate, in-character reasons.  So, anyway, for my group at least, death-fear isn't something bred out of boardgame/wargame mentality, but is something that adds exciting layers to role-playing and character-NPC interaction.</blockquote>

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