Someone posted recently in
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roleplayers to gripe about games where the players feel entitled because the DM has an aversion to having monsters and traps kill them in game. If characters don't die in the game, the game loses its meaning by that reasoning.
That kind of reduces each dungeon delve, each WoD story, to simple survival. Fight, survive or die. Fight, survive or die. Level up. Fight a worse monster, survive or die. Level up. Die anyway from a rat bite.
That doesn't even happen in a bloody war story.
My response to this original post sums up the reason why I ST / DM / referee in the first place.
"When the stakes are black and white, life or death, just keeping your score above 0 HP, you have a problem in a game. A character gets killed, the player just chargens a new one and inserts him into his predecessor's shoes. Carry on as normal. It doesn't matter if the character dies. There's no investment in the game, any more than I can invest emotionally in a Tamagotchi ("Let's see, there's the grave for Beldar the First, Belder the Second, Beldar the Third ... oh, here we are. Beldar the Seventeenth. We've got it all marked out for you in Heroes' Graveyard. We do seem to be going through an awful lot of Beldars. Maybe you should become an actuarian, or perhaps a gardener? Something less risky...?")
"But what if the game doesn't rely upon just killing the characters as ameans of judging whether or not the players succeed or fail? What if the DM decides to set them a goal that they have to establish, or face - literally - fates worse than death?
"Suppose that the consequence of failure was low XP awards, even lower player morale, characters going broke, maybe losing magic items, and certainly facing great humiliation and NPCs who'll only hire them because "they feel sorry for the characters?"
"Suppose that the goal of the delve was not to retrieve a treasure object, but to rescue a loved one? The characters may be fated to save the world, yes; but there's nothing to say that they won't experience a little tragedy and loss along the way. Failure can exact many prices, not merely death.
"Running a delve shouldn't be like a video game, where you get a string of mook, mook, mook, boss, mook, mook, mook, boss, mook, mook, mook, boss, level boss FIGHT ...
"And the adventure should not be about what kind of treasure, and how much, they can get a hold of; nor about the expected XP awards, and what feats they can expect when they level up.
"Stop playing your characters as if you're running them on a Wii. Consider tham as people, interacting with other people in the game. Stats fall away, and you're left with character and motivation.
"And when you get motivation, you get player immersion - and then watch your game take off, because every little dent and nick will provoke a strong emotional reaction, as will every victory and triumph.
"Compare and contrast:-
"(1) The characters enter a dungeon. None of the party die. They gain loads of XP, level up, come out with treasure. Oh, but they failed to retrieve the Sacred Chalice of Boing.
"But hey, they leveled up. That's got to count for something.
"(2) The characters enter a dungeon. None of the party die. They gain loads of XP, level up, come out with treasure. Oh, but they failed to retrieve the lead character's little sister from a gang of depraved orc cultists.
"But hey, they leveled up. That counts for ... nothing. The guy still lost his sister. (And if your players don't seem to care either way, ask them how they'd feel if it happened in real life to relatives of theirs, and the cops came out of the crack house saying "Sorry, we couldn't save young Susanna. But hey, we levelled up and we got some really good treasure. Sergeant Remick got a new Feat. And none of us died, so that's a plus."
"The DM should be able to create a compelling world, where when the characters come back bearing the orc bandit Grukk's head on a platter, they should be able to dine on the stories for months in town. Until the next problem comes along for them to solve, requiring another dungeon delve that is ...
"Creating flawed and wicked NPCs and making their faults and flaws (which the PCs have the power and responsibility to correct) visible is the tool the DM uses to get the characters involved, right from the outset.
"Make it matter to the characters. Make success and failure mean something beyond who lives, or who dies. Make the players understand that death is not the only form of failure in the game, and that a fated character can still lose
everything he holds dear to him before he comes anywhere near fulfilling his destiny - or even knowing what it is."
See what you think.
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