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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 8476927" data-attributes="member: 20564">In D&D, I absolutely want death on the table, both as player and as DM.  When I run, that's part of what I present.  Death can happen, and I design hard - but at the table I'm the player's biggest cheerleader.  Last completed camapign (4.5 years), we had no character deaths in combat.  We had one character act as a martyr to save another character during a challenge, but that character had recently completed a big arc and the player was looking to retire him anyway.  That said, there were plenty of times where the characters through bad planning or bad luck got very close to dying, and knew they could die.That said, D&D 5e has plenty of ways to bring people back.  Death is a speed bumb past a certain level, not a show stopper.Now, sure there are local differences.  I'm doing a teaching game with kids.  You know what, they have plot armor vs. actual death, unless they have a character with revivify (they don't) and that would be to just allow that character to show off their awesome ability.Only time in the last decade of running I had a player disconnect in terms of lethalness as a DM is someone playing a Beastmaster Ranger who would send her pet (from Tasha's, so easy to bring back) into melee all the time, but then got upset when it got killed.  Triggered "pet death" vibes, which wasn't good.I've had disconnects several times as a player - if I feel that why actions are effectively immaterial because we can't lose, I don't see a point in playing.  At that point we're just going to accomplish what the DM feeds us.  In Death House early in CoS I had a character bleeding out at the bottom of a pit and the others were just arguing something that started about how to get me out but devolved into some other discussion.  I had failed two death saves (whispered to the DM on Roll20 when he asked me to make them).  I whispered to the DM that if my character died I was fine with it (it was our 2nd session) and it would really push home how deadly Barvaria is.  He replied "don't worry, I won't let you die" and didn't call for any more death saves for the remainder of the other PC's conversation or coming down to get me.I've also told DMs that they were throwing easy encounters at us and there wasn't really any tension, asked them to throttle it up some.  Last time that went over well, the DM took it constructively and ramped up for more tension but without going too far, and others in the group noticed and enjoyed, not knowing it was requested.There are plenty of systems out there.  I don't expect character death to be on the table for say a superhero game except in the most dire circumstances, and probably as an intentional martyr by the player.  If it's not on the table several times a session in Paranoia I'd be disappointed.  If I wanted no character death, I would avoid game systems like D&D where lethal combat is a common solution to the types of challenges presented.  It really seems like the wrong system to pick if you want your characters to be immune from death because of that.</blockquote>

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