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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9481636" data-attributes="member: 7006">And that's fine.&nbsp; But at least I know for me that there really isn't any &quot;tension&quot; involving &quot;death&quot; in D&amp;D, for a number of reasons:1) If we are talking strictly about the mechanics of the D&amp;D combat system, &quot;death&quot; can ostensibly be taken off the table at 5th level once Revivify comes into play.&nbsp; Because most tables that are centered around the combat system will have learned that having healing classes at the table greatly increases the amount of success they can have, and thus magic that can raise the so-called &quot;dead&quot; become commonplace-- provided the DM hasn't restricted its availability.&nbsp; Thus having individual characters truly die becomes exceedingly rare starting at 5th level.&nbsp; So there's not much &quot;tension&quot; there from a mechanics point-of-view (as far as I can see.)&nbsp; You &quot;die&quot; mechanically... you get &quot;brought back&quot; mechanically shortly thereafter.2) Like it or not... Dungeons &amp; Dragons is a game that involves story.&nbsp; Every mechanic in the game has a story element layered on top of it... so that a narrative comes out of its use.&nbsp; So for me (and probably a whole host of thousands across the globe)... the &quot;tension&quot; is from the story we are playing out-- none of which requires the use of mechanics, much less the threat of &quot;death&quot;.&nbsp; We want our &quot;characters&quot;-- the story bits and bobs we have layered upon a bunch of numbers on our sheet-- to interact with the narrative world and accomplish things within the narrative world.&nbsp; And it is our success or failure at accomplishing that which wish our &quot;characters&quot; to do that is where we find the &quot;tension&quot;... and that more often than not does not involve our characters potentially &quot;dying&quot;.&nbsp; If we were hired in the story to &quot;protect a wagon on its journey a hundred miles to a neighboring town&quot; and would get paid &quot;500 gold pieces upon its safe arrival&quot;... the tension is whether or not we are going to do the job and get paid, NOT whether or not we're going die.&nbsp; And that's true with most things we interact with inside the story... it's completing the task or not, not &quot;surviving&quot; or not.&nbsp; Which again means that &quot;death&quot; is not actually much of a tension in the game in my view.&nbsp; After all... if &quot;not dying&quot; was the central thesis of every single thing our &quot;characters&quot; were asked to do in-game... no one would actually do anything.Now some people may indeed play D&amp;D to &quot;just survive as long as they can&quot;.&nbsp; And if that's the case, then obviously the tension in their games is regarding &quot;death&quot;.&nbsp; But for myself and many others, death is much further from our mind as something to be tense about, when what we are really trying to do is succeed in the story tasks we have chosen to do.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 9481636, member: 7006"] And that's fine. But at least I know for me that there really isn't any "tension" involving "death" in D&D, for a number of reasons: 1) If we are talking strictly about the mechanics of the D&D combat system, "death" can ostensibly be taken off the table at 5th level once [I]Revivify[/I] comes into play. Because most tables that are centered around the combat system will have learned that having healing classes at the table greatly increases the amount of success they can have, and thus magic that can raise the so-called "dead" become commonplace-- provided the DM hasn't restricted its availability. Thus having individual characters truly die becomes exceedingly rare starting at 5th level. So there's not much "tension" there from a mechanics point-of-view (as far as I can see.) You "die" mechanically... you get "brought back" mechanically shortly thereafter. 2) Like it or not... Dungeons & Dragons is a game that involves story. Every mechanic in the game has a story element layered on top of it... so that a narrative comes out of its use. So for me (and probably a whole host of thousands across the globe)... the "tension" is from the story we are playing out-- none of which requires the use of mechanics, much less the threat of "death". We want our "characters"-- the story bits and bobs we have layered upon a bunch of numbers on our sheet-- to interact with the narrative world and accomplish things within the narrative world. And it is our success or failure at accomplishing that which wish our "characters" to do that is where we find the "tension"... and that more often than not does not involve our characters potentially "dying". If we were hired in the story to "protect a wagon on its journey a hundred miles to a neighboring town" and would get paid "500 gold pieces upon its safe arrival"... the tension is whether or not we are going to do the job and get paid, NOT whether or not we're going die. And that's true with most things we interact with inside the story... it's completing the task or not, not "surviving" or not. Which again means that "death" is not actually much of a tension in the game in my view. After all... if "not dying" was the central thesis of every single thing our "characters" were asked to do in-game... no one would actually do anything. Now some people may indeed play D&D to "just survive as long as they can". And if that's the case, then obviously the tension in their games is regarding "death". But for myself and many others, death is much further from our mind as something to be tense about, when what we are really trying to do is succeed in the story tasks we have chosen to do. [/QUOTE]

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