The Difficulty in RPGs thread

[Fuchs]

I didn't comment on something I should have in the last reply but I'll comment on this and this now. You basically admit you are able and willing to handle DRASTIC and MAJOR changes in plotline, character build, and even character PRESENCE whether it be for long or short term. You're able to ignore the highly likely chance that a character will have to drop out completely and may or may not come back. However, despite your ability to handle each and every one of those things you are simply unwilling to do much work for a character that may~ die in the future and assume anyone who wants 'death' to be a state they can have and possibly keep if it can't be reversed is not worth planning for because, while your railroad can handle all kinds of sudden twists and turns based on what the player(s) want, it cannot handle players that want the random chance of death. Am I understanding all of that right?

Stop talking about "may die". A character who can randomly die will die randomly. A player who wants such will get the chance to die randomly each battle, and the odds will catch up to him. Also, stop taking about "highly likely to drop out" - I've been playing with some players for 10 to 20 years now.

I play long term campaigns. Years long. My current weekly D&D campaign started back before 3E came out. I do spend the time on new characters, just not more time than on the other characters. Which means that a new character compared to a character that has had years to build up in game ties and background, will be lacking in involvment for quite some time since I'll add to both at the same pace. If I spend 20 minutes per week on character specific stuff, that means the new character has 20 minutes after week one, the old one has had... a couple thousands minutes spent on it. I will not neglect the older characters just so the new character can get up to speed faster. So, yeah, compared to a character from a meat grinder pick up game a permadead character in my game will still have plenty of background, but compared to characters who stay around longer? Not so much.

I can handle a lot of twists and turns, but random permadead characters are the worst, wrecking too much prep work. I also am not fond of having to randomly and out of the blue committ time to integrating a new character. Some may like it, I don't like to hear "I rolled a 1, now you have to free up 4 hours this weekend so I can play a new character next week". Lengthy player absences are usually not random, but planned and so I can compensate. Also, even drastic changes don't mean I lose much work. I take the long view. Even if the campaign will take place in another location for the next 6 months of real time, odds are we will return to the location we were after that. It's not as if we haven't had planned trips happen for such a time (or longer in some arcs).

I don't really know why people raise raise dead. If people talk about random character death I assume it's permadeath followed by a new character. Otherwise I'd ask them why they want random time outs from the game coupled with level loss. Time outs are bad since it means the player is not engaged in the game anymore if it goes on for too long, and level loss plays havoc with game balance in some cases.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I don't really know why people raise raise dead. If people talk about random character death I assume it's permadeath followed by a new character.

Because you're speaking a different language.

When you say that a character, "dies," in the context of D&D or other games with, "resurrection," people will generally not assume you only mean, "irreversible death," and will generally assume you mean, "death as in stabbed until no number of Cure Light Wounds spells will fix it."

[angelfromanotherpin]

Stop talking about "may die". A character who can randomly die will die randomly.

You have just failed the Elennsar Tautology Test™.

[Mistborn]

Stop talking about "may die". A character who can randomly die will die randomly.

You have just failed the Elennsar Tautology Test™.

We should have an image macro for this some kind of you_just_went_full_Elennsar.jpg

Edit: Fuchs should acknowledge that the D&D he plays at his table is radically different than almost everyone's else's game. Also jeez dude I don't mean to be judgemental but I think you may be a terrible DM, if there's one thing I've learned about DMing it's that unanticipated shit happen and no amount of planning survives first contact with the PCs. If the idea that something you didn't plan for could happen in your game rustles your jimmies that much I'm at a loss for why you PCs stick with you. (except possibly because you're their friend)

[Username17]

Stop talking about "may die". A character who can randomly die will die randomly.

You have just failed the Elennsar Tautology Test™.

Basically this. The fact that something can happen doesn't mean that it will. I can win the lottery, but I probably won't.

I really have no idea whether Fuchs actually believes that people who would kindly like the DM to not cheat on their behalf if the dice comes up with a death result are doomed by iterative probability to have their characters actually die. That's really not how iterative probability works, and he would be committing the Gambler's Fallacy if he believed that was the case. But I do know that he uses the Gambler's Fallacy to justify being a douchebag to players whose playstyle he doesn't approve of, whether he actually believes it or not.

The fact that the playstyle he disapproves of is not only incredibly common but indeed literally the default assumption of almost all games just makes that particular brand of assholishness all the more obvious and strange.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

What random chance to die do you actually want? If it's the same chance as to win the lottery, then you are a damn liar if you actually claim there's random death in an average campaign. If it's common then of course it will happen in any lengthy campaign.

If you don't want death to stick then why call it character death if it's just a time out and possible level loss?

[Whipstitch]

It depends, particularly on the setting and what behavior you're trying to inspire. I love Shadowrun and I love Paranoia, but I don't want to mix the two. So while I like having the option to HoG in various circumstances I also think it demonstrably harms the setting if largely unaugmented people start deciding to routinely facetank grenades.

[Wrathzog]

I can win the lottery, but I probably won't.

Comparing the odds of something that has less than a .0000001% chance of happening with something with at least a 5% chance of happening seems kind of unfair.

[wotmaniac]

I'm sure that this has already been said (possibly across multiple threads); but apparently it bears repeating:

As far as I can tell, the falsely-characterized "team hardcorz-permadeath-foreva" are actually just insisting on fidelity to whatever particular system is in play.
If everybody in a given group agrees to play a game that happens to have at its base assumption that character death absolutely does not exist, then you'd be hard-pressed to find a single sane individual that is going to complain that their character didn't die in the course of that game -- not even members of "team hardcorz-permadeath-foreva", because all they really want is fidelity to the system in play.

Conversely, if the particular game is covered in death and has a heaping pile of rules involving death, then those who simply insist on fidelity to the system in play will find it a bit immersion-shattering when death conditions have been met and no one dies.

That is the whole of "team hardcorz-permadeath-foreva" position. Trying to infer any more than that is just pure folly.

[Kaelik]

I can win the lottery, but I probably won't.

Comparing the odds of something that has less than a .0000001% chance of happening with something with at least a 5% chance of happening seems kind of unfair.

There is a much less than 5% chance of death in D&D 3.5, to say nothing of perma death.

[Wrathzog]

Are you being purposefully ignorant?

[Kaelik]

Are you being purposefully ignorant?

Are you? There is a tremendous wealth of experiential proof that the death rate per encounter is less than 5%. I could explain why that is, but it sure the fuck isn't my fault that you don't know how probability works, and don't know how D&D works, so you think the existence of Finger of Death somehow equates to a 5% chance of death per encounter.

[Pulsewidth]

As has been laid out by the 'prodeath' crowd, each one of us assumes you're playing actual DnD where being raised is not only an option but a staple of the game.

Permadeath works just as well in Shadowrun, at least in "black trenchcoat" style games. There's no resurrection, but also no XP for combat victories, so if you're ever in a fair fight something has already gone horribly wrong. Real consequences for failure encourage a thematically appropriate paranoid attitude.

Even for the cartoonish "pink mohawk" style you don't need to rely on ignoring dice rolls. Characters can burn Edge to cheat death within the rules, and there are plenty of powerful non-lethal combat options.

[PhoneLobster]

The whole "we were never talking about permadeath!" is a dishonest back down and everyone knows it.

It holds no consistency whatsoever with the "I need REAL HARDCORE CONSEQUENCES UNLIKE YOU WUSSES!" arguments made.

It has no consistency with the problems of the actual D&D 3.x as written due to the severe problems with actual permadeath for a large portion of game play (at the most commonly played low levels no less).

It has no consistency with their "problems" with "bringing people back" supposedly ruining campaigns.

It has no consistency with their awesomely stupid "It generates more interesting stories for retelling, and D&D is a game about retelling, not about experiencing!" argument.

Most of all it has no consistency with attacks on the people outlining positions against permadeath, who have been VERY clear that their arguments have been about throwing away fucking character sheets and ENDING CAMPAIGNS. I think it's pretty clear that we have been talking about permadeath so all the very vocal attacks AGAINST that position kinda clearly have been in favor of permadeath based on that alone.

We have had people on here claiming how they think it was awesome that every other player in their ongoing campaign had multiple PC permadeaths and how that gave them such an erection.

We have had people on here claiming that SOMEHOW permanently losing every starting PC in the game was not a big deal for continuity and player investment. WTF do you think they were talking about? What about when they shrugged off permanently losing a character multiple times on the same player in a similar manner? WTF was that about other than fucking permadeath?

Now each of you fuckers who wants to back down and take all that shit back, admit that 3.5 D&D has a real permadeath problem at early levels, admit that permadeath is a bad thing and admit they actually once pressured agree pretty much entirely with the anti-permadeath crowd and agree everything that can be done should and that actually as soft core no-consequences raise supporters that is what you already do, SURE. Go ahead. Back down, your welcome, we LIKE winning the argument. We like people agreeing with us.

But seriously stop backing down FOR everyone ELSE and pretending that everyone who has expressed a pro-death position has actually been expressing a soft core no-consequences opinion. That is NOT what they have been doing, and all bar a few middle road centrist concern troll fuckers have actually NOT said that. Stop pretending that Frank, Lago, Mistborn and everyone OF COURSE wants free no-consequence raises all the time. That is NOT what they argued, that is not consistent with what they have argued, that is NOT "the default assumption" of D&D as is, that IS putting words in their mouth.

I'm sure if they want to back down on the permadeath thing they can do it themselves.

[Kaelik]

the "I need REAL HARDCORE CONSEQUENCES UNLIKE YOU WUSSES!" arguments made.

It has no consistency with their "problems" with "bringing people back" supposedly ruining campaigns.

It has no consistency with their awesomely stupid "It generates more interesting stories for retelling, and D&D is a game about retelling, not about experiencing!" argument.

We have had people on here claiming how they think it was awesome that every other player in their ongoing campaign had multiple PC permadeaths and how that gave them such an erection.

I don't suppose you can point to anyone actually saying any of these things? Maybe Mistborn said some of that, but surprise, most people on this forum are not Mistborn.

But sure PL, just keep lying about what other people said, it is your MO.

Now each of you fuckers who wants to back down and take all that shit back, admit that 3.5 D&D has a real permadeath problem at early levels, admit that permadeath is a bad thing and admit they actually once pressured agree pretty much entirely with the anti-permadeath crowd and agree everything that can be done should and that actually as soft core no-consequences raise supporters that is what you already do, SURE. Go ahead. Back down, your welcome, we LIKE winning the argument. We like people agreeing with us.

Except we don't agree with your stupid anti-death arguments that were in fact totally against death, not against perma death. Nor are we even against permadeath, we just recognize that in most cases permadeath should be less often than regular death.

Stop pretending that Frank, Lago, Mistborn and everyone OF COURSE wants free no-consequence raises all the time. That is NOT what they argued, that is not consistent with what they have argued, that is NOT the default assumption of D&D as is, that IS putting words in their mouth.

Yes it fucking is. The default position of D&D is basically no consequence Raises. That is the default of D&D. And it is consistent with Frank, Lago, and even Mistborn.

Mistborn believes in the "objective difficulty" of the game, which includes the shit actually in the game, including Raise Dead.

Lago made a huge fucking point about how you can't change the fucking rules when you don't like something in the specific case, so he clearly fucking thinks you should use the actual rules, which include Raise Dead.

And Frank's point is substantially similar to that I think.

The entire fucking point is that you use the rules that exist, and that is generally fine, and you don't have to drastically change the rules to remove death. That includes the rules that actually exist about raising, and also the part where sometimes people don't get raised.

Most of all it has no consistency with attacks on the people outlining positions against permadeath, who have been VERY clear that their arguments have been about throwing away fucking character sheets and ENDING CAMPAIGNS. I think it's pretty clear that we have been talking about permadeath so all the very vocal attacks AGAINST that position kinda clearly have been in favor of permadeath based on that alone.

Except for the part where that is you tremendously lying. Fuchs was very clear that he punishes players who ever even think of possibly dying, regardless of if they can be raised. You were very explicit that players can never even lose ever for you, much less die.

[Fuchs]

Suddenly, the whole thing is about how it's evil to remove death by one variant (you don't die, but can get defeated/k.o.ed etc.), but it's a-ok to remove death by another way (raise dead, resurrection etc.)? LOL. From People who created Tome I'd expect a more honest Argument.

I said I won't spend tons of additional time making sure the latest new character from the die-hard Player is brought up to par with regards to background and plots with the non-redshirt characters. If anyone said "I want to die, but get raised" I'd have no real problem with that, though I might ask him, for the sake of playability, to agree to "mostly dead, got better after the fight" to avoid too many trips to the temple and resulting time outs.

When I spend the same amount of prep time on each character that means that replacement characters fall behind with each replacement due to loss of previous work and time spent integrating them both background-wise and mechanically/game balance-wise. That's simple math, something Frank and Kaelik usually are good at, when they are not lieing through their teeth.

Frank still hasn't said how I supposedly cheat and ask my Players to cheat. I start to think he really has lost either his marbles, or what shred of honesty and integrity he has had left.

[tussock]

I don't suppose you can point to anyone actually saying any of these things?

I like where my characters die if I stop paying attention and do suicidal things. I find it deeply disempowering if the monsters are all carrying nerf bats and are actually quite reasonable (but only for stupid PCs).

Random perma-death? That becomes a matter of carefully avoiding the dice. I got good at that playing Bloodbowl, it's just a mindset where fights are bad things. Helps if the whole game doesn't piss on your advancement track for avoiding fights and stuff.

3e/PF and 4e where fights are XP and dodging fights uses crappy skill mechanics, you actually need to not kill PCs in fights. Not fighting isn't something which the game supports well. But add heaps of XP for goals and treasure recovery; then fights and traps become things "stupid people" fall into and it's totally fair that they kill you. Overkill and one-round walkovers not only make sense for PCs, they're a fine part of playing optimally and not wasting time on low-XP tasks.

[Username17]

I can win the lottery, but I probably won't.

Comparing the odds of something that has less than a .0000001% chance of happening with something with at least a 5% chance of happening seems kind of unfair.

But... it is not unfair at all. Those are functionally identical in this case, because if something happens one in ten million times or one in twenty times, you are still a fucking idiot if you treat it as a one hundred percent chance. The Gambler's fallacy is still a fallacy even for events that a very likely, Gygax ran campaigns with a death rate north of ninety percent, but Robilar still survived to the end. But if you are treating rare events as inevitable just because they could happen, that is well beyond being merely theoretically invalid.

Now, it does not actually matter that death is nothing like inevitable in Dungeons and Dragons for the purpose of this conversation. Fuchs presumably accepts the fact that people quitting the game actually is inevitable. People do not live forever, so even if they do not move to Frankfurt or get a job on Saturday night, they will stop playing the game at some point. Unlike Fuchs' tirade about the inevitability of character death, that one is actually true. So Fuchs being a flaming douche to people who might retire their character due to being disintegrated by a Beholder beam makes no more or less sense than being a flaming douche to players who are not independently wealthy and might have to miss sessions or quit the game for work related issues.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Now each of you fuckers who wants to back down and take all that shit back, admit that 3.5 D&D has a real permadeath problem at early levels, admit that permadeath is a bad thing and admit they actually once pressured agree pretty much entirely with the anti-permadeath crowd and agree everything that can be done should and that actually as soft core no-consequences raise supporters that is what you already do, SURE.

Actually, rather than say D&D has a permadeath problem at early levels, I'd say it has a naturally self correcting permadeath curve. The chance of dying in any encounter in D&D is pretty small if you stick to the DMG guidelines. An average encounter for a party of level 4 characters is one level 4 character! The odds are stacked significantly in the PC's favour. In addition, you have the -10hp buffer which at low levels is enough to mean you can usually get to someone who goes down before they cop it. Even with these in place though, low levels are the most lethal by design.

At lower levels players haven't had as long to get invested in their character, they haven't had as much integration into the campaign, and from a world perspective they are the fresh faced newbies that are expected to have a higher death rate. As characters advance they gain more hp, better protection, and access to raise dead and other effects that decrease the chance of permanent death. It's already set up so that the greatest chance of death is where it is most appropriate in and out of the game, and it naturally tapers off from there.

In our recent games we've had one campaign where one character died at level 6 and another died in the climactic end fight, and one campaign where 2 characters died at level 1. Having permadeath be a thing doesn't mean 'everyone dies all the time'. And even the players who had characters die said later that they wouldn't want death to be taken out as it would make things less heroic for the characters that did survive. When a character dies it brings into sharp relief that the characters are risking life and limb and death is something that could happen to any one of them. And that makes their actions more heroic and the victories all the sweeter.

[PhoneLobster]

Actually, rather than say D&D has a permadeath problem at early levels, I'd say it has a naturally self correcting permadeath curve.

It's not self correcting if it screws the campaign before "correcting". Self correcting requires actual correction of a problem. Not just not having the problem any more IF you were lucky enough not to encounter it already for a long enough period of time.

The chance of dying in any encounter in D&D is pretty small if you stick to the DMG guidelines. An average encounter for a party of level 4 characters is one level 4 character!

About half your encounters apparently. And... up to 15% of them can be pretty much equivalent flat out mirror matches with a presumably 50% failure rate and 5% of them are supposed to be harder than that.

Not that it matters because at low levels a single solid hit or turn from a same level opponent could readily kill at least one PC often enough to be a major issue.

...you have the -10hp buffer which at low levels is enough to mean you can usually get to someone who goes down before they cop it.

What the hell? Not even slightly. With criticals and closet trolls and characters being viable targets at 1 HP remaining it isn't even CLOSE to adequate. It's of questionable adequacy at level 1 it is rendered into deep inadequacy before you get anything like an appropriately cheap raise dead.

Even with these in place though, low levels are the most lethal by design.

Its a poor design. It means you actually cannot tell a story about a "gutter rat come good" because actually your gutter rat died at level 1, was replaced by a level 2 chump who died at level 4 and then MAYBE that guy survived to "come good". That's really kinda shit actually. It renders the entire low level period of game play potentially (and potentially frequently) utterly irrelevant to the rest of the campaign. Your campaign stories would always be "some low level chumps died a lot as the game grew to higher levels, and then eventually these guys survived and the story finally started".

It's already set up so that the greatest chance of death is where it is most appropriate in and out of the game, and it naturally tapers off from there.

What? In the part of the game where players have the least resources to control and avoid the worst and most random of bullshit permadeaths?

In the part of the game where beginners have to decide if they like it?

In the part of the game where most new campaigns need to prove themselves fun and interesting and hook people into continuing to play? The part that actually needs to CREATE that player investment and START continuity? THAT is the most appropriate part in which to repeatedly sabotage player investment and continuity? That bit? Really?

In our recent games we've had one campaign where one character died at level 6 and another died in the climactic end fight, and one campaign where 2 characters died at level 1.

I'm sorry, but either you have some notable house rules or your DM is softballing even lower than core CR/EL guidelines. If you were playing like a genuine hard core objective/optimal difficulty freak like Mistborn claims your fatality rate is TOO LOW.

But that aside... Hey look. Exactly what I described. A specifically pro permadeath argument. And one utterly consistent with earlier ones. Gee NO ONE is arguing for permadeath hey? Hah.

[Mistborn]

In our recent games we've had one campaign where one character died at level 6 and another died in the climactic end fight, and one campaign where 2 characters died at level 1.

I'm sorry, but either you have some notable house rules or your DM is softballing even lower than core CR/EL guidelines. If you were playing like a genuine hard core objective/optimal difficulty freak like Mistborn claims your fatality rate is TOO LOW.

Not really, I don't know what the desired difficulty was for his game. IMHO a "hardcore" game results in about one death every four levels. The death rate in a game isn't just a function of the objective difficulty of encounters it's also a function of the parties optimization level (obviously).

[Red_Rob]

I'm sorry, but either you have some notable house rules or your DM is softballing even lower than core CR/EL guidelines. If you were playing like a genuine hard core objective/optimal difficulty freak like Mistborn claims your fatality rate is TOO LOW.

I'm sorry, I thought the discussion here was on permadeath being a thing at all across any game system? So why does any of that matter?

I agree that the setups posited by people here of characters being killed every few sessions and every campaign ending with a completely different cast to the ones that started do sound unsatisfying to me. But people are using that strawman to argue against character death being a thing that happens at all. And I'm pointing out that having a low enough chance of permanent death that it happens once or twice per campaign is still having it happen.

The point of permanent death is more that the threat of it creates tension and excitement, and like all threats at some point you have to follow through, or the threat loses it's efficacy. The point is you don't have to have it happen often just at all for people to know it could happen to them. I would be fine playing a campaign where no-one died, but in a game about fighting monsters and risking life and limb for great reward, I would find it a little disappointing to play in a campaign where no-one could die.

[Fuchs]

I can win the lottery, but I probably won't.

Comparing the odds of something that has less than a .0000001% chance of happening with something with at least a 5% chance of happening seems kind of unfair.

But... it is not unfair at all. Those are functionally identical in this case, because if something happens one in ten million times or one in twenty times, you are still a fucking idiot if you treat it as a one hundred percent chance. The Gambler's fallacy is still a fallacy even for events that a very likely, Gygax ran campaigns with a death rate north of ninety percent, but Robilar still survived to the end. But if you are treating rare events as inevitable just because they could happen, that is well beyond being merely theoretically invalid.

Now, it does not actually matter that death is nothing like inevitable in Dungeons and Dragons for the purpose of this conversation. Fuchs presumably accepts the fact that people quitting the game actually is inevitable. People do not live forever, so even if they do not move to Frankfurt or get a job on Saturday night, they will stop playing the game at some point. Unlike Fuchs' tirade about the inevitability of character death, that one is actually true. So Fuchs being a flaming douche to people who might retire their character due to being disintegrated by a Beholder beam makes no more or less sense than being a flaming douche to players who are not independently wealthy and might have to miss sessions or quit the game for work related issues.

-Username17

Again, only some socially challenged guy like you would equate "not favoring one Player" with "punishing that player", or as you so eloquently state "being a flaming douche".

As far as math goes: The chance to keep making all saves and avoiding all crits all the time, over months and years, is so small that only stupid people who fail at math would not plan for such a failure. The sort of people who plan on winning the lottery. Like you, I suspect.

You sound like Ellensar, actually, wanting a death risk of 10% per fight, yet expecting an epic campaign out of it.

Then stop with the insanity that we have to give PCs a 85% chance of success in order for them to even survive a campaign that lasts more than a couple sessions

This is not "insanity" this is a
Mathematically proven fucking fact!

Your willful ignorance when it comes to how probabilities actually function is jaw dropping. An 85% success rate isn't even good enough, since that's basically the same as "roll a d6, on a 1 you die" - and as even you fucking know, if you roll a lot of dice you roll a lot of 1s. What you are advocating is equivalent to buying lottery tickets. Or playing Russian Roulette.

If you give people an 85% chance to succeed six times in a row, the average number of failures is one. But more importantly, it means that only a third of the groups will actually succeed. If you define "success" as "get to keep playing the game" then you haven't made a campaign game at all.

Campaign games that have even a noticeable chance of ending and have to take that chance over and over again, end. If the game ends as soon as a crit or fumble comes up, the game doesn't last very long. If the game stops more often than that (as you keep foolishly advocating), then your game is basically one session long. Fine for a board game like HeroQuest or Runebound, but totally completely unacceptable for any role playing game that is supposed to tell stories with the same characters week after week for any amount of time at all.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

The point of permanent death is more that the threat of it creates tension and excitement, and like all threats at some point you have to follow through, or the threat loses it's efficacy. The point is you don't have to have it happen often just at all for people to know it could happen to them. I would be fine playing a campaign where no-one died, but in a game about fighting monsters and risking life and limb for great reward, I would find it a little disappointing to play in a campaign where no-one could die.

But why should death be the consequence to add tension? Why can't defeat suffice? Or, would adding more of a punishment for failure add more tension and make for a better game? Like, lose a character and pay a fine? What about having the NPCs die at times to show how dangerous it is supposed to?

[Kaelik]

Again, only some socially challenged guy like you would equate "not favoring one Player" with "punishing that player", or as you so eloquently state "being a flaming douche".

Except that isn't what you fucking said you liar. You fucking said:

if a player wants the dice to fall where they may and risk his character dieing in every combat I will do that for his character - for his character only. I'll also tell him though that I'll not invest much in his character either

You specifically and explicitly said you will not invest much in his character just because he wants to be able to die. Not after he dies he will behind, before he dies. You made very fucking clear you lying asshole that you will personally invest less in his character before it has ever died.

So stop lying by pretending that you treat him equally and he only falls behind in investment after death, because that is fucking bullshit lying.

You start by investing less before, so he falls behind without ever dying. This is an important distinction because current rate of plots is far more important than past plots to gameplay fun.

As far as math goes: The chance to keep making all saves and avoiding all crits all the time, over months and years, is so small that only stupid people who fail at math would not plan for such a failure. The sort of people who plan on winning the lottery. Like you, I suspect.

Hey Fuchs, you are an idiot. You just got critted by an Ice Devil. You take 21 damage. Also, you are level 13. Did you die? No. Oh no, you failed a save. Against the Ice Devil's slow. Are you dead? Oh no, you failed another save! But it was against Wall of Ice, so you are just one one side of a Wall of Ice.

Completely different fight, you fail a save against a big bad Wizard. He cast baleful Polymorph, are you dead? No, you are a small creature until someone casts Dispel Magic. But hey, if he had cast Finger of Death, you would have not given a shit because Deathward exists and you cast it.

People fail saves all the time, people get critted all the time, the vast majority of the time, they fucking live anyway, because not everything kills you.

You sound like Ellensar, actually, wanting a death risk of 10% per fight, yet expecting an epic campaign out of it.

Here, let me quote you again, but this time bold the parts of that sentence that are full of shit:

You sound like Ellensar, actually, wanting a death risk of 10% per fight, yet expecting an epic campaign out of it.

Do you see anyone insisting on a 10% chance of death per fight? I sure as fuck don't. I see people advocating for the actual D&D standard, which is something less than 1%.

You shit bag liar. Tell us how you won't invest in peoples characters if they want the dice to fall as they are again.[/b]