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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6529581" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I do think that group perspective on the matter is vitally important. That said, I definitely think the &quot;punitive&quot; approach comes from the gaming culture that D&amp;D sprouted from--but, as others have said, it wasn't seen punitive at the time.Perhaps another way of putting it: Early on, &quot;attachment&quot; was something a character gained after a lot of adventuring. You became attached to what you'd done with a character--what you'd survived. Character creation was the opening of a fresh book you'd never seen before, and death closed it. But the library of characters is infinite; a character you've spent enough time with to grow attached to is one you've explored pretty thoroughly, so it was often high time to move on to something else.With time, a different idea of the nature of attachment started to spread. Attachment to the story of what a character was, what story they were already part of. Attachment, for this group, wasn't particularly &quot;gained&quot; through adventuring; instead, attachment was the &quot;investment,&quot; and successful adventuring is the &quot;payoff.&quot; For this philosophy, &quot;senseless&quot; deaths (esp. due to the vagaries of luck) become punitive, because then there is no &quot;payoff.&quot; The investment is lost, and without anything you could have done differently.Both are valid--and there may be even more ideas on the matter. However, game design and gamer culture have largely moved toward the latter and away from the former. It's not a 100% shift--much of the OSR and sympathetic groups like Fourthcore very much hew closer to the first philosophy--but it's fairly strong nonetheless.So...I guess you could say the &quot;punitive&quot; approach didn't quite &quot;come from&quot; anywhere. The game didn't really change--we, the players, did. And then when some of the changed players became the new crop of designers, those changes became part of the game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 6529581, member: 6790260"] I do think that group perspective on the matter is vitally important. That said, I definitely think the "punitive" approach comes from the gaming culture that D&D sprouted from--but, as others have said, it wasn't [I]seen[/I] punitive at the time. Perhaps another way of putting it: Early on, "attachment" was something a character [I]gained[/I] after a lot of adventuring. You became attached to what you'd [I]done[/I] with a character--what you'd [I]survived[/I]. Character creation was the opening of a fresh book you'd never seen before, and death closed it. But the library of characters is infinite; a character you've spent enough time with to grow attached to is one you've explored pretty thoroughly, so it was often high time to move on to something else. With time, a different idea of the nature of attachment started to spread. Attachment to the story of what a character was, what story they were [I]already[/I] part of. Attachment, for this group, wasn't particularly "gained" through adventuring; instead, attachment was the "investment," and [I]successful[/I] adventuring is the "payoff." For this philosophy, "senseless" deaths (esp. due to the vagaries of luck) become punitive, because then there is no "payoff." The investment is lost, and without anything you could have done differently. Both are valid--and there may be even more ideas on the matter. However, game design and gamer culture have largely moved toward the latter and away from the former. It's not a 100% shift--much of the OSR and sympathetic groups like Fourthcore very much hew closer to the first philosophy--but it's fairly strong nonetheless. So...I guess you could say the "punitive" approach didn't quite "come from" anywhere. The game didn't really change--[I]we[/I], the players, did. And then when some of the changed players became the new crop of designers, those changes became part of the game. [/QUOTE]

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