Scurvy_Platypus
Explorer
That deals with the random PC death where the PCs are the winning side. What happens if the PCs are overrun by ghouls? Killed by predator animals? Fall into the volcano? Do you fudge the likely result (PC eaten/disintegrated) to keep them alive? Is there a point at which you'd rule they're actually dead?
Well, once you get beyond the easily dealt with situation of there being at least 1 surviving member of a conflict, then it winds up being a judgment call; this isn't an especial problem for me, since I don't rely on the rules to be arbitrator and make sure that the group I'm with is on the same page as far as that's concerned as well.
So, pack of ghouls overran them? The first thing it tells me is that I screwed up; the point is to challenge the group not kill them. There might be an element of "bad luck" but I personally don't like cutting things so fine that one or two bad rolls results in a TPK.
2nd, yeah I'm probably going to "fudge" things from some people's perspective. Like I said, "dead" in combat means "out of the fight"; I don't rule this as meaning "unconscious" it means "unable to meaningfully contribute". So everyone can escape, but they're going to be suffering some lingering wounds. Or depending on the situation, the escape could wind up being a whole different sort of conflict; with 4E here now, escaping after the fight loss would probably be a Skill Challenge type thing.
Or, if it's a complete hash and has basically been an unfun waste of people's time, I just Fade-to-Black/cutscene/montage it... the group escapes battered and bloody, goes back to recover, and X amount of time has passed.
Predator animals are probably going to be a similar sort of deal. If it's some sort of bizarre creature, I dunno... it's possible that people will wake up in the lair and discover that they're being stored for food or part of the reproductive cycle.
Environmental hazards aren't especially different from combat as far as I'm concerned; it's a conflict, only it's Person-against-nature instead of Person-against-creature. So lingering wounds of one sort or another probably.
And I'm also not afraid to say, "Dude... it's not gonna happen. Your character would be committing suicide to [do whatever] and they know it." This sort of thing is usually more the province of someone wanting to push the limits of the characters-don't-die thing; in other words, it's been more a function of not-nice play.
I seem to be unusual in the D&D circles (these days at least), because I don't necessarily insist that game-fiction _must_ have mechanical consequences. Mechanical things often or usually have game-fiction influences, but it's not required.
So, take for example the bit about disintegration. Depending on the nature of the game, the players, as well as the nature of the game-world, it's distinctly possible that a portion of the PC gets disintegrated. Now, if it's a fight and the disintegration spell killed them, it's a logical enough outcome; having your entire left arm disintegrated off is going to put a crimp in your desire to keep swingin' a sword.
Afterwards? Well, they character is already suffering from lingering effects, which is being applied to them in the form of some easy to track penalties (like negative levels). So I don't feel a need to further penalise them. One of their friends can pick up the partially disintegrated arm that's lying on the ground, stuff it in a backpack and when they get back to town and heal up, the mechanical effect is the removal of the penalty and the in-game fiction is a healer being able to reattach the limb.
Ain't magic grand?
Would I be willing to actually go ahead and kill a character?
If the player is fine with it, sure. And if the player really _wants_ the risk for the character to die? That's their call too. My point is to avoid taking away a player's toys as punishment, not "don't kill a character".
And if the player is all, "Dude, it's a major fight and I think my character is gonna eat here. That being the case, just go ahead and let him die and I'm gonna make a new one." I'll work with them. I'll do my best to make sure it's a fight that _feels_ worthy of the character getting ganked.
If you've seen Watchmen, I'll tap that for an example. The scene where the Comedian gets killed? That felt like a pretty epic fight, even though it's just the first one and it's a one-on-one. Stuff breaking, chunks of marble kitchen being pulverised, being tossed across the room, it was big stuff. The collateral damage going on and the character dying by being tossed out a window, you _know_ that the attacker is Hardcore.
As the GM I can cheapen that character's death or I can make it big. I don't have to go over the top and have sobbing townspeople building statues, that's ridiculous in most case and inappropriate.
For better or worse, I take more of my cues about what happens in the game from media sources other than D&D. Books, movies, comics... these are what I'm going to think of in terms of what should or shouldn't happen. The rules of D&D provide a way for myself and the players to interact with and affect the game world in a (semi) consistent fashion. But when it comes to rules vs story, the rules are probably going to lose. It's a deliberate choice and players are aware of it. It also means that players need to have enough trust to accept that I _won't_ take away their toys.
For the metric of being an impartial judge, I'm a failure. I do my best to ensure that the rules are applied evenly to characters, so that a player doesn't feel like they're on the short end of the stick compared to another player. But I am involved and committed to the game and the stories that are being created. I think I run a pretty fun game but I know it's not for everyone. I'm not saying my way is _better_ than someone else's, merely that I've put a lot of thought into things and that it's what leads to games that are satisfying for me to participate in.
Does that answer your question? I know I'm not going to "convince" anyone to "change their mind", but I do hope I'm showing an internal consistency of process that demonstrates it works, even if it's not the sort of thing that others like or feel comfortable with.