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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zappo" data-source="post: 1408808" data-attributes="member: 633">Ok. The argument about threat of death versus actual death makes a certain amount of sense. It takes skill, but when you can make the players think they are going to get killed very soon without actually kill them, you can have a very good game. The adventure I'm writing *points at his signature* is designed to look a lot more lethal than it really is, because I want the players to be scared and once you're dead, nothing can scare you.  However, I strongly disagree that 3E's system is less suited than previous editions to this end. Quite the opposite. The threat of death is only scary when the players have some degree of control. When they know that they will survive if they do the right thing, provided that they can figure out what it is, and that they will die if they do something stupid. This way, they'll be scared and tense in the good way that makes for real excitement. With the deadly 3E combat depending much more on smart tactics and less on luck than previous editions, the current D&D is best suited for this.  OTOH, knowing that every hour there is a 2% chance of meeting a horde of demons who will slaughter the party with ease is not particularly dramatic. There's nothing I can do about it. I can't predict from where the fiends will come, I can't know in advance where they'll go, I can't avoid them or prevent their arrival, because they are only a random encounter table, they don't actually exist until rolled. The only thing I can do is get out quickly, if I am a good player, and even then I could very well be unlucky and still die. So why getting worried?  The threat of random death doesn't really work. The real deal is simply the threat of death, normal death that makes sense and has a reason, because the player knows that staying alive is the reward for smart playing.  As for JRRNeiklot's list - that probably describes the 1E feeling to him. But my eyes on that list can only see either flaws that I am glad to have left behind (combat reduced to "I attack"), or concepts that really have no feeling at all, good or bad (no stats in the 40? Ftr20 with 100 hit points? They are just numbers, it's only a matter of scale). Or objections to 3E that just don't apply to 3E - in what game that isn't ultra-high level, or where the DM isn't going wild with treasure, death becomes "a delay"? In the totality of my 3E games, I count exactly one true resurrection out of dozens of deaths.</blockquote>

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