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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6606605" data-attributes="member: 85870">Hmmm, your point about murderhoboing is well taken; a level 6 murderhobo is certainly a more effective murderhobo than a level 1 one.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />I don't think I was trying to say there wasn't a stake in character death. I think players always have a stake in their character dying.I suppose what I was trying to get at is that the stake that's most difficult to repair, or duplicate, or re-insert into the game world is the character's dramatic stakes. Yeah, losing the functional component can suck, especially if you start characters at a lower level. And this may be felt more keenly if your particular interest is gamist/Gygaxian skilled play. But that's by far the easiest hurdle to cross to get back into the scope of play---"Don't start my new character at a lower level, and give me equivalent magic items." The player with the most invested in the fiction surrounding the character has the most to lose. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Death means a less effective mechanical character.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Death means the loss of time / sunk cost of improving the mechanical effectiveness of the character.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">AND death means loss of fictional positioning, based on the time spent playing the character.</li> </ul>Ultimately, there's really only 3 possible outcomes for any conflict scene in an RPG for any given player----<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Success, and the ability to continue to act in the current character role</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Failure, and the ability to continue to act in the current character role</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Failure, with no ability to act in the current role.</li> </ol>There's usually only two ways to invoke Outcome #3 --- death, or an agreement between player and GM that the former PC is now an NPC. (Technically there is a fourth option, "Success with no ability to continue to act in the current role," but that's generally reserved solely for the "end" of a campaign.)I guess I'm trying to sort out in my head what you're really getting at here, Zak.</blockquote>

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