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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PapersAndPaychecks" data-source="post: 4519940" data-attributes="member: 28854">Re the options given--my reaction is, "huh?" and it sounds like I'm not the only one.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I find the subsequent discussion interesting.From my point of view, the simpler the game, the faster it is to generate a new character and get straight back into playing.  And therefore the simpler the game, the less painful it is to lose a character.So if you lose a basic D&D/Labyrinth Lord character, you've lost an archetype.  One dwarf is much like another, so if your dwarf dies, you're looking at five minutes to reroll and you're straight back into the game.  A TPW might take the whole group ten minutes to reroll.But if you're playing 3.5 with a lot of third party enhancements, then character creation and optimisation is so complex that it's virtually a separate subgame.  People spend whole sessions on character-rolling.  So if your toon dies, you've lost many hours of work and you understandably get cross.In other words, the PITA factor of dying in later editions tends to be greater, so pplayers naturally take death more seriously.Also, there's the speed of play to take into account.  If you're playing Basic D&D or Labyrinth Lord, and you lose a character every thirty battles or so, then death will be quite frequent and a lot of sessions will include someone rerolling.  But if you're playing 4e, how long does it take to play through thirty battles?The mortality rates might even be similar, adjusted for playing speed.</blockquote>

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