Why are so many RPG players, D&D and otherwise, so scared of death or permanent change...

Why are so many RPG players, D&D and otherwise, so scared of death or permanent change? I'm not even speaking in an OSR mindset where players are fragile, but in a communal narrative mindset where a character's death (or disfigurement) can add a lot to the campaign and group's collective story. But it seems like every discussion forum (including Veeky Forums) is full of people agonizing over a single death in their party. In particular, D&D 3.pf players seem to be the worst at this, expecting their special snowflakes to last forever.

Creating bloodbaths is bad DMing (unless everyone wants that). Creating no-win scenarios that would doom the entire party is usually bad DMing. Keeping the party near invincible with retconning and limitless resurrections, where nothing really matters, is horrible DMing.

Is it possible to introduce danger to a party without them running off because they're afraid of death?

Probably partially encouraged by character build mechanics, partially because people become attached to characters over time, but also the people it happens to who are okay with character death don't complain. Its part of their game/isn't a problem for them, so they don't reee about it here.

Different people have different preferences but, in general, systems these days are based around the assumption you'll make a character you really like and it will tend to survive.

The threat of death is just there to make your victories sweeter, really.

That's kind of the problem, the threat of death is minimized and victories are hollow.

Far as I'm concerned, if a player dies and the party doesn't lead a crusade to kick hell's ass and bust him out, you're playing with fucking losers.

That's a matter of opinion. You want more death, some people want less.

There is no objective minimum quantity that is required for victories to feel right.

I think this is system-specific. Some games get pretty in-depth with character builds and stuff, and you wind up with characters with insanely specialized ways of being effective. Character abilities focused around certain weapons, certain maneuvers, and stuff like that are fun ways to build a character into an effective niche, but if you--say--lose your arm and are built around a two-handed weapon, your character loses a huge amount of effectiveness.

Compare that to a (relatively) simple game, wherein a missing arm might still be a detriment, but perhaps it's more like a flat penalty on attacks or some other low-impact affect on the character. Losing an arm in this system still hurts, but it doesn't effectively boot your character out of the niche you've built for them.

The point I'm trying to make is that there are systems out there where being maimed in some way *totally fucks* your character, and--especially if these are combat encounter oriented games or campaigns--that can go a long way towards making the game less fun. Yeah, we're all roleplayers here and mechanical effectiveness is irrelevant and yadda yadda yadda, but ultimately there's not a huge subset of people that have fun sucking.

The result? Games that are more complex rules for this or that punish players more effectively make these things a less "fun" option. Simpler games that hand-wave them encourage people at the table (both players and GMs) to be more open to maiming as a potential result of combat.

Death, again, super system specific. Like really really system specific. Most games agree that it should be an option, but you'll find a whole bunch of different advice on it in the GM chapter depending on what kind of game you're playing. You've got narrative games that do everything in their power to make capture or incapacitation the go-to for losing a fight, and you've got those OSR dungeon-crawlers where if a player didn't die this session you need to up the difficulty.

Because death is literally how you lose the game. And even if you don't lose you are still punished somehow.

And even if it's just 'roll a new one', you still feel like a dumbass.

Because for most players it's not about the story or the party. It's about the wish fulfillment and self gratification they get from their character triumphing over perceived obstacles.

Depends on how long your campaign goes.

I'd be less likely to follow a story in which only 1/4 characters from the original party were present at the end, with the others being replaced (perhaps multiple times) along the way. It would feel like a late season series on its last legs.

But I think death within defined arcs, provided they're short enough, can be done with grace and respect for a game's narrative integrity.

Wish my players would think like this, that'd be awesome.

When one of my fellow PCs died, a noble paladin who had been with us from the very beginning over multiple years and two editions of gameplay, all the others took it like it was nothing, with the player immediately opening the handbook to stat out a new character. My character was the only one who wanted to even try to bring him back, while the others wanted to keep trotting along with the DM's adventure of the week.

My character ended up leaving the party to try to resurrect the character on his own, leaving the party with even less of its original members. I felt bad for depriving the team of another member, but it just seemed so out of character not to even try to get our guy back.

>Is it possible to introduce danger to a party without them running off because they're afraid of death?
I would say you need to give them something dear to protect.

>if you-say- lose your arm and are built around a two-handed weapon,
My current Paladin had this happen to him in the 3rd session. If anything it has actually helped the roleplay side of things, even with my ability to hit shit being horrendous.

Fear of death is dependent upon the characters played.

Barbarians should have little to no real fear of death in combat, and in fact should ultimately seek it, as dying any other way is fucking gay.

You should try to get a metal arm.

>Why are so many RPG players, D&D and otherwise, so scared of death or permanent change?

Because they were never allowed to "lose" as children.

After all, we're talking about a generation who played "No score" baseball and soccer games lest their "feelings" get hurt.

That is indeed my current plan, though I'm not sure as to how I will manage it.
Funny story though, when I lost the arm my gm got me to roll a d100, which thanks to a great roll I got gifted a spectral arm from my god. Which I immediately lost due to being burnt alive by a Magmin after it exploded.

>people become attached to characters over time
That's weird.

You're weird.

>Why are so many RPG players, D&D and otherwise, so scared of death or permanent change?
Mostly because they invested so much in characters they can easily lose. That, and storytellingwise it doesn't make much sense for a character's arc to suddenly end with his death and a new character was introduced. Imagine a fantasy novel being like that, imagine everyone in the Fellowship of the Ring dying to the point where the group that arrives at Mordor (either to confront Sauron or destroy the Ring) didn't include any of the original travelers. Wouldn't make much sense, would it?
>You are a special group of individuals, representing all major races of the free peoples. Only you can destroy the r-
>Nah just kidding, you're easily replaced

It depends on how they die, for me. In glorious battle, yeah that's cool.

>Is it possible to introduce danger to a party without them running off because they're afraid of death?

The players were originally some sort of great "whatever" (adventurer, warrior, scholar, etc) thousands of years ago. Eventually they met their end.

When they died, the gods or whatever decided that their actions were admirable, and thus grant them the great boon of continuous reincarnation.

However, if they once again die by the method they originally died by - say, for instance, the character was burned at the stake, and in his thirtieth life he is caught in a burning building and his goose is cooked - they are permanently dead. No resurrection, no reincarnation, no afterlife - nothing. You don't get to a roll a new character, he's toasted, that's it.

Stop the autism please. No one is talking about minimum quantity of deaths. What the OP is on about is the possibility of death having to be an actual possibility and not just pretense.

Personally I have no difficulty getting slaughtered.

It is when the guys who can turn you into sentient vegetables show up that I get scared.

Yeah if you make death fun or epic your players will love every moment of it.

Because it requires them to cede an enormous amount of narrative control over their characters and because it usually gets treated by the rules as an opportunity to punish them mechanically

If you want to have more death in games, do it in a way that engages the player and don't use it as an excuse to fuck with them and don't do it in a way that sucks shit. That's my advice.

Yeah, it's mostly a preference thing. I'm playing Star Wars Saga Edition right now, and my other two party members are utterly terrified of losing their characters.

Mine, on the other hand, I am entirely prepared for losing. I'll be sad-- she's got a lot of my own family history and stuff built into her background, and I quite enjoy playing her-- but I already have a backup. Nothing lasts forever, and combat's only fun for me if there's consequences.

I know somenone whose honeymoon was ruined when they told him that his wizard character had been level drained from 20 to 12. They lended the character to noob player and he screwed up fighting vampires, a lich or something.

What about Borimir?

Ressurection spells are the bane of storytelling. We have banned them.

Fuck Boromir.

He isn't replaced.

A strong narrative and good substitutes can help, especially if they are buld up to inherit the role. I like how in Romance of the Three kingdoms NONE of the original characters lives to see the end.

I agree, but I think they're fine in something like 3.5 and up D&D.

It's a resource game. Per-encounter abilities are managed on a small scale. Spells/day and healing items are managed on a dungeon/outing scale. The name of the game is players trying to hang on to their shit and the encounters they face depleting their resources, making future encounters more difficult. Resurrection is the same thing. Dump 9k gold into the bucket and get your character back. That's money that isn't going into magic items and whatnot. Insert another coin to continue. It works. Just another level of resource management.

I mean, you're not wrong, it makes for cheap storytelling. But some systems weren't exactly made with robust storytelling in mind.

I think the "storytelling" expectation you note here is a big part of it, and it's definitely where D&D has experienced great drift in expectations over time. The game was developed from a wargaming background, where casualties are expected, but found a lot of fans from the literature side.

In wargames, the narrative is emergent - when you plot a "campaign", the story emerges from both your victories and losses. Originally an RPG "campaign" followed the same idea - the story emerges from the actions of a shifting cast of PCs (some who die and are remembered/forgotten, and others who achieve glory). On the other hand a book-style narrative is far more scripted like you note.

That depends on the game's tone, really. Nowadays, I more often than not grab a handful of "template" sheets that outline a very basic character that's perhaps a cut above the DM's NPC book who I intend to develop dynamically with the narrative of the campaign. If they die early on, no big as they were essentially a PCNPC, so simply shift to the next template of the lot. Its those that manage to survive and earn their characterization that become interesting, but ultimately even then they're still operating on the assumption that they're semi-expendable.

Obviously, this is largely limited to martial types. Losing a wizard or caster usually is sort of a big deal as they number in the thousands at best and a dead wizard is one less magical subject for whatever land he happens to call home.

Cue that character embarking on a quest to destroy the concept of fire. That sounds more like the backstory of an antagonist, DESU.

How about using fate points/luck mechanics? Eventually you run out of it and it helps you build up your doom.

That requires people wanting to play bros instead of snarky know-it-alls.

>t. Dude who left four campaigns with the same group each time thinking they'd be different this time.

There's two kinds of fucked up in this post. First that someone lets that ruin his fucking honeymoon. Second that they lended out his character and actually counted the events as canonical for it.

The second would piss me off more, because it'd mean I was playing with assholes.

My personal experience indicates a vidya related origin.

People start playing vidya rpg and come into tabletop not even considering that death and disfigurement are a thing. They're used to save&reload to undo everything they dislike, and change only happens by their design. It may even border on escapism. So naturally, if the game "forces" upon them a permanent change, that's basically disrespecting their plan and depowering the player.