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<blockquote data-quote="Gradine" data-source="post: 7109564" data-attributes="member: 57112"><p>Wow, that's a flimsy-looking strawman you've built yourself there. </p><p></p><p>Character death is honestly the least interesting stake I can possibly think of in an RPG. There are certainly types of games that that probably works well for, dungeon crawls and episodic merc-type campaigns (though even in the latter case there should be other interesting things at stake, likely with plenty of fail conditions beyond TPK).</p><p></p><p>But if I'm playing with players who've invested a great deal in their characters and the stories they've built and created around them, I'm not willing to remove that from my campaign if my player isn't. There are a plethora of more interesting complications and consequences for failure and "death" that I can think of then simply telling the player to reroll a new "toon", or whatever the kids call it these days. Permanent, serious consequences, not just temporary "setbacks". It's not a JRPG "Game over - Restart from last battle?" </p><p></p><p>This of course obviously makes more sense in a narrative-focused campaign than a challenge-and-combat-focused episodic campaign. If combat challenges are the focus of the campaign than death and dying should of course be real consequences. It's just that that's not every campaign.</p><p></p><p>But yes, even if death-averse campaigns, PCs still need things like "HPs" and, you know, "consciousness", in order to accomplish their goals or stave off disaster or other negative consequences. And while I can't speak for everyone, I can say that even if my strictest "no death" campaigns, the gloves come off for the final battle. If the good guys fail and the Big Bad kills the world, that's game over.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Gradine, post: 7109564, member: 57112"] Wow, that's a flimsy-looking strawman you've built yourself there. Character death is honestly the least interesting stake I can possibly think of in an RPG. There are certainly types of games that that probably works well for, dungeon crawls and episodic merc-type campaigns (though even in the latter case there should be other interesting things at stake, likely with plenty of fail conditions beyond TPK). But if I'm playing with players who've invested a great deal in their characters and the stories they've built and created around them, I'm not willing to remove that from my campaign if my player isn't. There are a plethora of more interesting complications and consequences for failure and "death" that I can think of then simply telling the player to reroll a new "toon", or whatever the kids call it these days. Permanent, serious consequences, not just temporary "setbacks". It's not a JRPG "Game over - Restart from last battle?" This of course obviously makes more sense in a narrative-focused campaign than a challenge-and-combat-focused episodic campaign. If combat challenges are the focus of the campaign than death and dying should of course be real consequences. It's just that that's not every campaign. But yes, even if death-averse campaigns, PCs still need things like "HPs" and, you know, "consciousness", in order to accomplish their goals or stave off disaster or other negative consequences. And while I can't speak for everyone, I can say that even if my strictest "no death" campaigns, the gloves come off for the final battle. If the good guys fail and the Big Bad kills the world, that's game over. [/QUOTE]
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