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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6154544" data-attributes="member: 17106">First off...whoa. I was just doing some reading on end-of-life care (i.e. the actual ethics of death, among other things). You totally threw me with that thread title. That said, I now can see what your question is.I think they have a really positive effect on the game, in general. It's one of the reasons I do vp/wp.The realistic possibility of character death just makes combat so much more immersive and tactically engaging. Resource management gets boring real fast. High stakes rolls alleviate boredom real fast. The longer you've played your character, the more you've invested in him, the higher the stakes.I also think that instant death puts wonderful pressure on the DM. If you play it straight as a DM (meaning no "DM cheating" to save characters), every time you throw in the possibility of instant death, you run the risk of derailing your campaign. Character death is arguably worse for the DM than the player! (Though I imagine my players feel differently). This incentivizes DMs away from frequent combat or "filler battles" and makes each battle that does happen carry more weight.I do think it's important that instant death should not be the sole province of magic or of high level characters or of monsters with special abilities (which is one of the reasons I use vp/wp, among other house rules to this effect). I also think that plot protection, either partial (such as action points) or total (no rules required) can be helpful in creating certain styles of game (such as "fated heroes"). But overall, I think that the positives of instant character death far outweigh the positives of invincible characters.</blockquote>

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