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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8833904" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Why? Is your own life meaningless because you aren't at constant risk of death because of smallpox or whatever? Do your achievements lose their significance because you live in an era where most people expect to reach age 70+ where you live?Further, why do you keep turning this into something WAY more extreme than I've said? I never once said (in this thread) that death should be totally removed. You can go back and check if you like. I have consistently spoken of ADDING stakes other than death. Of making it so at least SOME of the time, death isn't the focus or is even not very relevant. That doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't appear. It just means it isn't the exclusive focus like you and others have advocated.And I don't understand why "we lost everyone we loved, so now we live only for revenge" is invalidated by not dying when the Dark Lady destroys your home city.Except the problem is, folks like you and others in this thread demand that death be universal, ever present, and often lurking behind literally every single challenge to an extreme degree; if every single combat doesn't have a major risk of permanent, irrevocable, and (generally) random death, it's apparently enough to completely destroy your experience, so therefore everyone has to put up with that.Overgeeked, this is a bad-faith argument, and also deeply insulting to anyone disagreeing with your position. Given you have recently shown frustration with such behavior, it is in turn frustrating to see you say this. I would like to respond to any actually serious and respectful argument in this direction you might have, but I would need to know what that argument is first, because right now all I'm seeing is a naked insult.The latter. Which is why it's so frustrating that the people who advocate for death to be constant, ever present, random, permanent, and irrevocable act like their toolbox is the one with dozens of tools in it. It isn't. It has one tool, a blunt hammer. Suggesting that we add any other tools to the box gets instant accusations you might be familiar withLike, "So what's left? No challenge at all?"This is, again, openly insulting. I find it difficult to engage with your point when you are explicitly mocking me and others who don't share your perspective.Well, it would help if people who prefer ever present character death allowed for the possibility of real, serious, meaningful challenges that don't involve death.Because it is a social activity. This should be obvious.Then why are you assuming the DM has not discussed the tone, theme, and overall style of play in advance as well? It is of vital importance that you tell your players the kind of game you're interested in running.They may disagree all they like. It is a performance, not a sport. No more than Cirque du Soleil is a sport (despite being performance gymnastics, and gymnastics is a sport.)Then you are using the word "pre-determined" to mean things that aren't actually determined in advance, which I find frustrating and difficult to respond to. If the word can be extended to include things that aren't actually determined in advance, but simply have a likelihood of ending up in an expected way, then the only things that could possibly be "fun" to you are ones where it's totally impossible to know what would happen in advance, at which point we would have deleted the rules entirely and left everything up to a bloody coin flip.Unless, of course, what you really mean is that you like having a good idea but not a perfect one...which no system, not even 4e, has ever offered. Which makes it difficult to see what point you're making, when either all systems or no systems actually meet the standard you've set.Firstly, your second statement is flawed. It should be, "Winning is fun, punishment is not." Failure does not need to mean punishment, hence why people talk about "challenging" vs "punitive." Secondly, there are other forms of failure than character death, and they can be more impactful than character death. Failure does not need to be punitive to still sting, and death does not need to be the only form of failure that ultimately matters. There are some things more valuable than the question of survival.Death is not the only form of losing, and (PC) death is often less interesting than other forms of loss. "Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender." The Book of G'Quan, Babylon 5.If you are punished, it's no fun. Punishment is one form of loss. There are others.You have to never be punished for it to be fun. That is perfectly doable while still offering challenge. Humans do it every single day.Sure. But if you break the two implicit assumptions here, namely "loss must result in punishment" and "the only loss with any meaning is character death," a whole world of additional possibilities arises.</blockquote>

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