DSMatticus wrote:Here's the actual argument form:
1) If there are no compelling reasons for a mechanic to exclude players from the game, it is objectively inferior to a mechanic which does not exclude players.
Stipulated, although this is a simplification.
2) Death in D&D is a mechanic which excludes players from the game.
No. Death in D&D is a mechanic which
can exclude players from the game. There is a significant demographic of players who become more involved when their characters die, because they enjoy rerolling and fitting their new character background into the campaign's story in an innovative way. Research indicates that the enjoyment drop-off for repetition of this circumstance is pretty high (in other words, it's only fun every once in a while), but the fact is that players have ways to remain involved with the game even if their characters are incapacitated or dead. However, not all players will derive the same amount of enjoyment from these methods of play.
3) No compelling reasons exist for death in D&D to exclude players.
There are a number of compelling reasons, but the most obvious of them is the risk/reward paradigm. I'd like to illustrate the difference between two different approaches using personal anecdotes instead of rhetoric.
On the one extreme, I play in a Dresden Files RPG campaign as a player currently. Generally speaking, my character is highly unlikely to die regardless of what sorts of circumstances I put myself into - the FATE system grants players a lot of outs from its mechanics, and the style of the MC is heavily geared towards turning undesirable outcomes into new story hooks. Therefore, when I play my character in this game, I never feel any sense of risk or threat beyond that of the immediate situation. And, because the focus of the game is on collaboration and cooperative storytelling, that's fine. I understand very clearly what I give up in this arrangement and what I gain in return.
On the other extreme, I used to play in a high-level 3.0 D&D campaign in which the threat of permanent character death was nigh-ubiquitous. We had no fewer than four permanent character deaths over the course of an 18-month campaign (one of which was me). One of the things that I remember extremely vividly about this game was the thrill of "real risk" when we fought monsters who had attack types that prevented resurrection, such as a Phane with its aging attacks. On top of that, temporary character death was extremely common, with a party member or two dying and requiring a resurrection nearly every third combat. On top of
that, our MC ported over the "limited resurrections" mechanic from 2E, which made us increasingly nervous every time our characters were brought back that we might be getting close to our limit. The overall tone of the campaign was very gritty and tense, and it was by far one of the most enjoyable TTRPG campaigns I've ever participated in. The everpresent spectre of death lent urgency and excitement to every interaction, and removing that would have meant removing the keystone of a campaign I remember more fondly than any other even more than ten years later.
4) Therefore, death is an inferior mechanic.
As I've said before, there are situations and games in which permanent character death (which we need to distinguish here from temporary death such as that correctable by an ability or circumstance) is undesirable. In some situations, the player of the character has insufficient maturity to be able to handle the death of his or her character in a constructive way, or lacks emotional investment in the game beyond the scope of their character (meaning they might lose interest in the game entirely if that character died). Any robust TTRPG system needs to provide a way to avoid permanent character death when it isn't desirable without excluding it entirely for circumstances in which it is desirable (and there is a significant portion of the demographic for which random, unpredictable permanent character death is desirable).
There are also a significant number of game systems and settings in which permanent character death is inappropriate or inconsistent with the setting. However, by the same token, there are a number of game systems and settings in which the
lack of permanent character death is inappropriate or inconsistent. The key factor, which I'd really like to emphasize, is that a robust system should provide
choice to its players (including the GM) as to how they wish to handle death and its attendant consequences while still remaining fully covered by the rules.
I understand that people want to streamline, but folks need to understand that when you streamline past a certain point, you start removing choices and options that other people want and degrading their experience (irretrievably, in some cases).
echo
