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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9720998" data-attributes="member: 4937">Reasonable, but the alternative that I would accept is what you describe - a GM using "kid gloves" to minimize the number of deaths by avoiding doing the sort of things that kill PCs in 1e AD&D.  If you do carefully select foes so that the maximum damage of an attack will generally be below the hit points of party members, and if you avoid saving throws that are or amount to save or die, then hit points do become great ablative protection allowing a party to disengage to rest if things go bad with little worry of losing what is effectively "plot protection" at that point.  This is especially true if you allow the PCs generous methods of attribute creation (Method III is my favorite for this) and you do things like the common house rules of death at -10 and maximum hit points at 1st level (both of which were made standard in 3e).  I only had one get that far and that was also not in published modules.  As you imply, most published modules set a standard for what was normal that was nothing like what I described above.  An example that I consider really telling is "Sinister Secret of Salt Marsh" where the upper part of the dungeon is filled with weak but lethally poisonous creatures.  Ran straight up, this is character death that depends only on luck.  In practice, most GMs were probably slow rolling the scene by de facto granting initiative to the PC in order to give them the first action, ensuring the appearance of a threat without actually delivering on the danger.This works if and only if you don't introduce poison either in monsters or traps until around 6th level and avoid save or die monsters like basilisks and bodaks, generally avoid all but the smaller sorts of dragons, avoid high level spellcasters as foes, and don't regularly use things like packs of ghouls.  There is a level of lethality where even caution won't save you from bad luck.My friends were huge fans of critical hits from the 'critical hits and bad misses' Dragon article.  And that article is very much a mixed bag in that it does require a confirmation roll (good) but also it has random death as a result (bad).  But they loved the thrill of getting lucky and doing the big dramatic thing.  As you probably realize, critical hits always favor the NPCs in the long run.  However, even RAW AD&D is still extraordinarily lethal because of the saving throw mechanic and the fact that it almost always bypasses hit points.  Even in cases where it doesn't, a 20HD fireball or an ancient dragon's breath weapon is effectively save or die for anyone who isn't a high CON high level fighter.From elementary school to the present day I've never had a group where I didn't suspect (or know) at least one player of fudging his saving throw rolls.  Fudging ability score rolls occurred regularly when using restrictive methods either by actual cheating or by the simple expediency of creating 20 characters and picking the one you wanted to play.  Fudging attack rolls is rarer but I've always known the sort of players willing to regularly fudge saving throws to fudge attack rolls when they feel pressured in a battle.</blockquote>

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