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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3313652" data-attributes="member: 2067">Heck naw. You've just gotta be comfortable with "letting the dice fall where they may" yeilding non-fatal results most of the time.I mean, in FFZ, the relevant rule is called "swooning." When you reach -10+ hp, you don't die. Instead, you're KO'd. Unless the whole party is wiped out, you can be revived at the nearest temple of the gods of life (for a nominal fee). If the whole party is wiped out, or if your corpse is destroyed, things get even less realistic, but you can effectively re-start at that nearest temple of the gods of life (for a bigger fee). This doesn't mean characters can't fail and that death can't happen (especially when thematically appropriate) and that there aren't consequences for the actions they take. It just means that you have to expect them to come back from those setbacks as stronger, better-equipped, better-prepared characters, rather than as new characters. Deaths aren't final, they're learning lessons, and perhaps a hint that a new approach is needed.I, and most of the videogame world, agree with you, which is why permenant character death doesn't exist much outside of the PnP world. Even if FFZ's method doesn't agree with you, something like WoW's respawning/area graveyards, or XP deficits, or something along those lines, might.It does require a pretty significant change, from all I've seen, to how the characters (and the world) think of life and death. It's not the same as it is IRL: you can and will come back most of the time, unless something happens to your soul in transit (something like necromancy). It requires some re-jiggering of the rules and some re-thinking of "what happens when you die," but it's entirely possible to have horrible, permenant consequences to your actions without having to bite the dust and make a brand new character, or having the DM fudge it. You just have to get a new way of dying.I am a big fan of both letting the dice fall where they may and of keeping PC's alive *in*the*rules*. Which is why a change to the rules is kind of nessecary. Not a fudge, you're not cheating for the players, but a true rules change that makes death as a consequence less final. Yeah, death, less final? I never said it was *realistic*, just that it facilitates the kind of character-focused campaign I like while allowing me to still adhere to the (new) rules of the game.So, recommendations:#1: Make clerics ready and willing to res a staple in the campaign.#2: When a PC dies, some gold and some XP penalties are their main price to pay, not their entire character sheet#3: To keep fatality something feared, make sure that horrible things can happen to even the rich and powerful's souls (necromancy comes to mind at first). Even if you can afford GP and XP debt, at a high-level, rich character (or NPC), the world has mechanics to make it more permenant than it usually is.</blockquote>

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