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<blockquote data-quote="Kurotowa" data-source="post: 8136452" data-attributes="member: 27957">Well, I don't know that perma-death has ever been a game feature. Even if someone died at low enough level we couldn't cast Raise Dead ourselves, the DM made one available at a plot cost instead of a gold on. But if you're going to make it an explicit house rule and not just a de facto DM style, then you need to have a brief sidebar in Session Zero to explain the stakes and narrative consequences you're going to be playing for. If I were doing it it would go something like this.&quot;Think of it like a TV series. The PCs are the main characters and they only get written out when the player decides they want to retire the PC. Defeat means you narrowly escape with some distinctive new scars, or perhaps are captured and have to ransom your freedom from your captor. Failure means the rampaging dragon burns the village to the ground, along with many of the NPCs you'd grown attached to, and the next adventure is leading the survivors to a place of safety. If you prefer a video game metaphor, we're not playing on iron man where one mistake means your character gets erased, but you don't have manual saves so there's no takebacks when things don't go as planned.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Kurotowa, post: 8136452, member: 27957"] Well, I don't know that perma-death has ever been a game feature. Even if someone died at low enough level we couldn't cast Raise Dead ourselves, the DM made one available at a plot cost instead of a gold on. But if you're going to make it an explicit house rule and not just a de facto DM style, then you need to have a brief sidebar in Session Zero to explain the stakes and narrative consequences you're going to be playing for. If I were doing it it would go something like this. "Think of it like a TV series. The PCs are the main characters and they only get written out when the player decides they want to retire the PC. Defeat means you narrowly escape with some distinctive new scars, or perhaps are captured and have to ransom your freedom from your captor. Failure means the rampaging dragon burns the village to the ground, along with many of the NPCs you'd grown attached to, and the next adventure is leading the survivors to a place of safety. If you prefer a video game metaphor, we're not playing on iron man where one mistake means your character gets erased, but you don't have manual saves so there's no takebacks when things don't go as planned." [/QUOTE]

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