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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ptolemy18" data-source="post: 3957080" data-attributes="member: 24970">Two things:(1) This is something I've been wanting to ask someone who plays in a death-free (or death-light) campaign. And I mean this seriously... how do you do it in practice? The 1e-3e rules as written include Random Death. Even the 4e rules will certainly include Random Death, albeit through HP loss, in the form of an accumulation of lucky monster hit-and-damage rolls, rather than in Save-or-Dies. So in your games, do you make sure to have a low threat level so that no player can ever be taken below -11 HP, or do you change the rules so that -10 HP doesn't mean death, or do you fudge these rolls? When the monster rolls high and the player drops down to -11 HP, do you say to the player "Ah ha ha... nope! You're at -4! Don't worry, you won't lose your character!" This sounds rather undramatic, and every time I've been in such a situation as a player, I've felt rather cheated and disappointed. Sure, it's nice not having your character die, but I also feel "Oh, this game isn't 'serious.' There's no real risk here. The DM's just trying to be nice to us because he's afraid that if he kills our characters we'll get mad and leave the campaign."I'm not saying I don't understand the urge to keep the characters alive. Right now I'm running a death-light game myself... I'm running a 3.5 game using the "cinematic" rules in "Skull & Bones", so that each PC starts with x number of "lives", and you don't permanently die until you lose all of your "lives." But when you lose a "life", you have a chance of getting a scar, losing your arm or leg, etc. etc. It helps make death have meaning, but it means that the characters have a few chances to mess up and "die", without dying permanently and leaving dangling plot threads. I can appreciate the desire to keep the same characters around throughout the entire campaign to have plot continuity if you have a tightly written plot. But I cannot appreciate the desire to keep the same characters around "just because it's not fun to lose your character," because in fact I would argue that it actually can be fun.(2) I've never been so attached to a D&D character that I didn't have an idea for another, different, (arguably) better character which I could make when that character died.</blockquote>

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