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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9257044" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Doesn't knowing that the characters of a novel aren't going to die without the author getting a good story out of it reduce any sense of verisimilitude and satisfaction from reading a story?So, no, it really doesn't. Failure is so much more than death--death is, in fact, one of the most boring and trivial forms of failure. I much prefer when failure actually stings, and death doesn't sting.I want good story, good roleplay, emotional and personal experiences worth the time I invest into the game. Doesn't matter whether character creation takes five hours or five minutes. I want good story. The focus character dying pointlessly isn't good story. Thus, I'm not interested in seeing that. A non-pointless death--a death that has value, a death that achieves something, a death that was in some way "earned" whether by valor or stupidity or narrative impact or whatever else--is something I'm very, very much here for. Hence I am opposed, as I said, to deaths that are all three of random, permanent, and irrevocable. Remove any one of those three elements, and I'm almost certainly on board--because that actually USES the death to fuel the story, rather than unceremoniously crushing the story like an untasted fruit in a hydraulic press.And death is literally the one and only way to have randomness? Even if I did value randomness that highly (which I don't), that would be simply false. There are plenty of other ways spontaneity and randomness can manifest in a game.More importantly? I don't value randomness that highly. What I do value highly is the dilemma. The decision-point, where a player agonizes over what the right choice is. The slow, creping realization that you've become something you hate--or that you've grown a heart when you thought all you had was a stone. The thrill of dark temptation. The rage of being manipulated...and how easy it is to lash out, even when you know lashing out is probably what your manipulator expects. Those are the moments which make roleplaying (whether freeform or as part of a roleplaying game) enjoyable. That's why I enjoy both computer roleplaying games and TTRPGs; the latter is rarer and sweeter, but the former is still good, even though I have the capacity to reload a save.That's what I come to the table for. Well, that and the gameplay challenge, solving the puzzle presented to us--or recognizing when the best choice is to flee. Death as a source of tension is almost never relevant to me--because there IS no tension in it to me. As soon as the character is dead, what do I have left to care about? My investment in the story has just been deleted!It's like asking someone why they use save files in a 4x strategy game. "Don't you want the tension of potentially losing everything?" No! I don't! That would make the last three hours of play a completely pointless waste of time!</blockquote>

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