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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steverooo" data-source="post: 1430639" data-attributes="member: 9410">I don't believe that character deaths is a necessity, at all...  only the possibility of them!  Even The Gygax has said that PC deaths are bad for character development.  (Think about that one, for a minute!)Yes, PCs who do ridiculous things (like setting a ship on fire, and then staying on it while it burns) should die... but PCs who fail a swim check, or get criticalled by an Orc?Dieing because you fall overboard is no fun, for anyone.  Not even most GMs.  Why not simply remove the PC from play, and have a passing Mermaid take pity on his poor, unconscious, drowning character?  Or, for the less pitying GM (or less deserving PC/Player), passing Locathah, or Kuo-Toa... or even Sahuagin!  The Player is still out of the game, for a while, at least, and there may be other consequences, but it isn't necessary to kill the PC.In the case of the Orc getting lucky and cutting down the PC with a critical, is it really necessary that they die?  Isn't being unconscious and hors de combat bad enough?  Maybe after the battle, when the PCs return for the body, they discover that it is gone!  Later, the "dead" PC can wake up, and discover that they have been dragged away by a/n (insert appropriate critter here), and healed, recovering and regaining consciousness days later...  Again, their friends are gone, and the player was out of the game, for a while, and there may be other consequences...  The PC may now be a slave of the Orcs, for example.So, the PCs fight the evil mage, and he starts lobbing spells...  Why does it always hafta be Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Magic Missile?  Can't he do something else?  Maybe he could Baleful Polymorph one of the PCs into an ant, scoop them up, and Teleport away.  Now the PC can have four of their legs cut off, have their antannae pulled out, maybe have their wings pulled off, and IF the other PCs can recover him, he can be an ant (with no Speak With Vermin spell)!Now I don't know about you, but I think that's plenty penalty enough, without having to die!  Being carried around in the mage's pocket, shaken around inside a matchbox (and occasionally gloated over and tortured) is worse than an easily fixed death... and being threatened with becoming dinner for his Imp Familiar (in spider form) probably even worse...One of the many problems I see with modern roleplaying is the attitude of "Well, if the players do something wrong, just kill their PCs off and make them roll new ones...  They'll learn!"  Maybe... IF they bother to roll up new ones...  If they don't quit playing, or at least go find a new group...  It bugs me how most RPGs describe the PCs as "Heroes!", then proceed to treat them as inept, incompetent, stupic stumble-bums...  D&D, for instance, should describe first level PCs as "Foolish young Hero-wannabes".  It would be more appropriate.Getting killed for doing something "stupid" is pretty awfully... subjective... (to say the least), too!  What is "stupid"?  To face down 20 Gnome Ninjas, at first level, instead of doing whatever they tell you to do?  Been there, done that, survived it without a scratch...  Should I have died?  I didn't think so.  Apparently the GM agreed.  Your mileage may vary.Since I never play the magically powerful types, my PCs are always too easy to kill, anyway.  I always do whatever I can to avoid that.  I always go out of my way to keep my PCs (and other players' PCs) alive.  Usually, I fail.When my poor PC does, it usually tends to sour me on the campaign.  If I have to roll up a new PC, and wave goodbye to all the hopes and dreams of my old one, I won't be doing it, that night.  I'll sit out the rest of that game, and just watch.  Maybe later on in the week, I'll start thinking about whether or not I want to go back and rejoin the group, and how I'll introduce another PC.  In any case, I don't feet excited about creating a new PC, choosing skills and equipment, and re-entering the fight.  Sometimes, it's just better to write it off as a loss.I'll go against the general concensus (again - surprise, surprise!) and say that, as far as I'm concerned, character death adds nothing to my enjoyment of the game.  There ARE other ways to handle it, you know!I can't recall the name of the game, offhand, but I recall seeing a game, once, where the PCs are the dream selves.  When they die, they wake up, and lose (not loose, Zar!) any experience for the whole adventure...  The other PCs struggle on without them, until they succeed, or everyone dies.  Survival equals experience, but death equals stagnation, and the inability to participate.  These are penalty enough.  Success is tough, and still something to strive for!Furthermore, in MY humble experience, Raise Dead and Resurrection are *NOT* right around every corner.  I have yet to play in a campaign where they were easily available.  So those who talk about how easy it is to recover from death... well...Nope, I'll go with Malk on this one.  What death adds to the game depends upon YOU.  Most of the posters arguing for it are probably GMs, more than players.  Some players seem to like the idea, too, but...  There's no accounting for taste!To me, death is an all-too-present danger, and adds no "thrill" to the game.  It just gets old.  Or maybe I did...  I'm just tired of almost dieing.  And dieing!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />There oughta be a better way!  Maybe I should just go junk D&D and be playing Highlander.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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