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Message: <blockquote data-quote="uzirath" data-source="post: 8137815" data-attributes="member: 8495">This is more-or-less how I've run most campaigns since the mid-1980s. I've used systems other than D&D sometimes (mostly GURPS), but stay pretty close to D&D-style. PC death isn't usually entirely off-the-table, but I avoid it unless the drama supports it. So, yeah, maybe if you make a daring maneuver in the culminating encounter, but you're not going to fall into a pit of lava and die. I encourage players to invest a fair amount of effort in their characters and they get tied tightly into the game world. Random death, in my experience, incentivizes a different sort of playing than I'm interested in. (Not bad-wrong-fun, mind you, just not my preferred type of fun.)Like many others have said, the key is having stakes that matter to the players. (Often, these are also stakes that matter to the characters.) The most common stakes relate to NPCs or PC connections in the world. They want to succeed in the quest because failure means bad things for someone that they care about. Or it allows someone they despise to get the glory (or the kingdom or the magic thing or whatever). Sometimes the stakes relate to an animal companion. Sometimes an heirloom or object. Sometimes a political event. Sometimes real-estate or inheritance or rank in an organization. I've seen clerics and paladins excommunicated, wizards thrown out of their guild, thieves arrested and imprisoned, etc. You know, the usual stuff: loyalty, love, betrayal, etc. I also often play with players who enjoy playing flawed characters. Whether it's through the loose Ideal/Bond/Flaw framework of 5e or the more formal Disadvantage system of GURPS, it can be immensely satisfying just to see whether a flawed character can succeed in overcoming their baser instincts to achieve some measure of heroism or if they fail and spiral into darkness. None of this requires death to be a prominent potential consequence.</blockquote>

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