Managing High-Leathlity Games

[Mr. Mask]

There were a few threads about lethality, recently. Putting aside the questions of why and whether they should exist, why don't we discuss how to run a high-lethality game. This thread may, but probably won't apply to games like Kobolds Ate My Baby, as I think they already have good rules and guidelines for replacing the regular deaths.


First thoughts:

You have to decide how much the narrative is focused on a few heroes on an epic quest. If you're framing it heavily in that direction, things may be quite tricky, unless you have very skilled players and give them options. The more your players need to replace major characters, the more it'll go against the theme and narrative.

Injuries take a while to heal in most realistic/high lethality games, so make sure your players have the option of waiting a month after a really rough fight. Alternatively, you can have each player keep several characters, shuffling between them when injury and death occurs.

For any given situation, the harder it is the more options your players should have. If you have them constantly fight DnD style encounters, their deaths are only a matter of time. Engaging threats strategically should be rewarded and encouraged.

[LibraryOgre]

With a high-lethality game, you pretty much have to be willing to dispose of "chosen ones", because chances are, the chosen one is gonna die. You can have a few heroes on an epic quest, but you have to have those roles flexible enough to accommodate new characters coming in to replace the dead. Consider, for example, Game of Thrones. There's a lot of protagonists and major characters... but those major characters die and go out of the story. The story grinds on without them... different than it might have gone if they'd survived, but the story doesn't end just because one character or another bites the dust... it's bigger than that.

[Geddy2112]

If your running a really lethal game, you can run it as a 1 shot each week with an extended plot. It is great for players who like to try out different mechanics and builds without requiring long backstories or heavy roleplay.


Call of Cthulu is a system that has high mortality but is a lot of fun. If the DM and all players go in accepting that the game is gonna have a high turnover that means they can build a lot of characters and test mechanics/personalities without having to commit to a long campaign.

I agree about rewarding players for creativity, but not about rotating characters for long healing. If you want death and horror, make it. Rotating characters basically eliminates high mortality.

[Yora]

There is quite a difference between "high risk" and "high casualties". A game in which combat is best avoided, and should always be done with a big advantage for your side, is very different from a game where players are regularly starting new characters.

[Kane0]

With a high-lethality game, you pretty much have to be willing to dispose of "chosen ones", because chances are, the chosen one is gonna die.

But that can still work just fine

Just make sure your players are okay with dying. If they are, let them have it.

[Mr. Mask]

I agree about rewarding players for creativity, but not about rotating characters for long healing. If you want death and horror, make it. Rotating characters basically eliminates high mortality.

Well, that's how I would logically approach the situation. If someone is busy recovering from pneumonia, and I needed to run a bank heist, I'd pick up their cousin or someone else available.

There is quite a difference between "high risk" and "high casualties". A game in which combat is best avoided, and should always be done with a big advantage for your side, is very different from a game where players are regularly starting new characters.

Yeah. If you regularly force your players into combat without an advantage, or even sizeable disadvantages, the combat has to be pretty non-deadly for it to not result in death. Lethal games should make combat rare and dramatic.


Mark: Theoretically, if you wanted to do a chosen one game you could make all the player character high-powered to give that epic hero feel, while the deadliness of the system would still make them feel at risk. Then if one character dies, that player could play as a weaker underling. Every so often the players would meet another epic hero of destiny at sort of check-points. That could be interesting.

[goto124]

Firstly, is it high-risk low-combat kind, or die-every-5-seconds kind?

Which systems support which kind? I imagine DnD isn't one of them.

[Yora]

There are plenty of D&Ds. Older editions in particular favor and encourage avoiding fights by giving XP for finding and keeping treasure, which can often be done without having to defeat the current owners.

[hifidelity2]

There is quite a difference between "high risk" and "high casualties". A game in which combat is best avoided, and should always be done with a big advantage for your side, is very different from a game where players are regularly starting new characters.

High Casualty
Obviously something like Paranoia where you expect to lose characters as indeed thats half the fun


High Risk
This could be (and I am in a game with this) modern day GURPS. Weapons are lethal, armour is minimal and healing is very slow but unless you charge in you have a good chance of surviving. In the game I am in we have a number of characters as “back-up” we can use if our main one is out for R&R

So long as the Players know what the game "type" is then there are no issues

[Beta Centauri]

The problem with character death or disablement, as I think you picked up on, is that it can remove a player's ability to contribute meaningfully. That condition has to be considered carefully, because it can result in a waste of the player's time, which is one of the worst offenses a game can be guilty of. D&D itself understands this, and has taken numerous steps to push that possibility back, many of which are disabled by people who want death.

So, it depends what you're trying to accomplish with the high lethality.

If your goal is to get the players to be strategic and think things through, you don't need high lethality, you just some kind of stakes that the players are willing to play for. Failure doesn't have to mean death.

If your goal is not to have to worry about balancing encounters or fudging things, then apart from using different stakes, just make sure there are quick replacements for them to use. Competent henchmen, fellow guild members, lost adventurers, friendly natives, remorseful prisoners, etc. Give the player the new sheet (or have them pull out a new one) and carry on. They may not get attached to their characters but attachment was not your goal.

If your goal is realism, I cannot and will not help you. On your own head be any problems you encounter in trying to make a fictional game meet your particular idea of realism.

[dream]

I always thought the GM managed combat with the rules. I've never heard of PCs waiting a month to recover before continuing a mission. A few days maybe. Usually there's an element of time attached to an adventure, forcing the PCs to press forward, rather than relaxing. That always maintains the tension.

My experience is: most PC deaths have less to do with system lethality & more to do with poor player decisions. Some situations you run from. Most of the coolest & most capable heroes throughout fiction have run away at one point of another (Lord of the Rings has a series of scenes depicting the main characters being chased). But, I've seen players essentially "suicide" their PCs, fighting when they were over-matched. It takes experience playing I imagine to really get a feel for how dangerous a situation is. What's funny is even when I've warned players, some have still charged to their PC's destruction.

Managing the lethality is letting players know that, based on the rules/setting, their PCs can die, and if they play foolishly, will die. After that, it's on them, not the Gamemaster. But when a GM creates a safety-net for players, so that no matter what they do, their PCs will be okay, that GM effectively eliminates any sense of danger or risk from the "narrative".

At that point, might as well write a childrens' book, right?

[kaoskonfety]

I always thought the GM managed combat with the rules. I've never heard of PCs waiting a month to recover before continuing a mission. A few days maybe. Usually there's an element of time attached to an adventure, forcing the PCs to press forward, rather than relaxing. That always maintains the tension.

Old D&D without a healer weeks at least.
World of Darkness games with high levels of Lethal or Aggravated damage are in months
Nearly any "realistic combat" system with bones and organ damage being a thing - you are looking at weeks minimum before you are "adventure ready"
Heck in Ars Magica I found mid-combat wounds killing you is only slightly more frequent than dying of them in bed, months afterwards - but that's a game playing the LONG game with decades passing with ease and old age being a serious concern over time.

Some times the combat, even in victory ans survival, means you failed the goal as you can no longer physically do the task. And that can still make a cool story - the heroes don't always win

[veti]

With a high-lethality game, you pretty much have to be willing to dispose of "chosen ones", because chances are, the chosen one is gonna die.

Suits me. If your story hinges on a PC who's a "Chosen One", you're already guilty of significant railroading. Any "Chosen One" needs to be an NPC, and one who stays well out of sight of the PCs for 90% of the time.

When I design a campaign, it's not a story about the PCs: it's a story about something happening in a world that the PCs are in. It's up to the players, how and to what extent they actually want to get involved in that story.

If your character dies - well, there are generally plenty of NPCs knocking about. Pick one. It's only difficult to engineer when the party is in the middle of nowhere, and even then there are often miscellaneous hangers-on who can be played on a temporary basis (e.g. the wizard's familiar).

[Beta Centauri]

My experience is: most PC deaths have less to do with system lethality & more to do with poor player decisions. Some situations you run from. Most of the coolest & most capable heroes throughout fiction have run away at one point of another (Lord of the Rings has a series of scenes depicting the main characters being chased). But, I've seen players essentially "suicide" their PCs, fighting when they were over-matched. It takes experience playing I imagine to really get a feel for how dangerous a situation is. What's funny is even when I've warned players, some have still charged to their PC's destruction.

And then what happened. Was the game over? Did everyone just sit around for the rest of the session? Did the players get new characters and start over?

Running away is boring and not heroic. That's fine in a story, but not as fine in a game. If my choice is between fighting and dying or running away and having to backtrack, I might very well fight and die. The only reason I wouldn't is if the consequence for character death was worse boredom than retreat. But why would I play a game where the consequences of my decisions had a good chance of resulting in boredom, and the only way to avoid it was to make marginal

Managing the lethality is letting players know that, based on the rules/setting, their PCs can die, and if they play foolishly, will die. After that, it's on them, not the Gamemaster. But when a GM creates a safety-net for players, so that no matter what they do, their PCs will be okay, that GM effectively eliminates any sense of danger or risk from the "narrative".

That's not the only alternative. Another alternative is that the PCs are not "okay," but are still alive. There are other stakes that don't have to result in player ejection from the group activity or a grinding halt to everyone's fun. Oops, the villain was able to kill the king due to my bad decisions, but at least my character is still alive to deal with the interesting aftermath.

Sure, have a lethal game if you want, but don't do it because you think that's the only way to threaten the characters. Frankly, loss of a character is a very poor threat, because you can always make another one. But you can't make another Alderaan after you drop the ball and it gets vaporized.

[BootStrapTommy]

That's not the only alternative. Another alternative is that the PCs are not "okay," but are still alive. There are other stakes that don't have to result in player ejection from the group activity or a grinding halt to everyone's fun.

Roleplaying games got their start with high lethality. I feel like if dying ruins a player's fun, the player is the problem not the death. While I understand your argument, those kind of consequences still put very little skin in the game.

If Alderaan blows up, my character has skin in the game. I, as a player, do not. When the guy whose a little short for a stormtrooper rescues my character, the campaign goes on with no consequence to me personally. From my point of view, no real consequence has be incurred.

But if my character dies? All that effort, equipment, and roleplaying goes to waste.

See the difference? Death incurs an incentive personal to the player, not the character. That's why you can die in video games.

[Mr. Mask]

Firstly, is it high-risk low-combat kind, or die-every-5-seconds kind?

Which systems support which kind? I imagine DnD isn't one of them.

Old DnD certainly can fall into it. Low level 3.5 DnD arguably falls into it. Though whether a game is high risk low combat or die every 5 seconds is less dependant on the system and more dependant on the game's structure. If you play a deadly combat system like high level DnD, people will die.

If your goal is realism, I cannot and will not help you. On your own head be any problems you encounter in trying to make a fictional game meet your particular idea of realism.

I'm sensing some hostility.

My experience is: most PC deaths have less to do with system lethality & more to do with poor player decisions. Some situations you run from. Most of the coolest & most capable heroes throughout fiction have run away at one point of another (Lord of the Rings has a series of scenes depicting the main characters being chased). But, I've seen players essentially "suicide" their PCs, fighting when they were over-matched. It takes experience playing I imagine to really get a feel for how dangerous a situation is. What's funny is even when I've warned players, some have still charged to their PC's destruction.

Managing the lethality is letting players know that, based on the rules/setting, their PCs can die, and if they play foolishly, will die. After that, it's on them, not the Gamemaster. But when a GM creates a safety-net for players, so that no matter what they do, their PCs will be okay, that GM effectively eliminates any sense of danger or risk from the "narrative".

At that point, might as well write a childrens' book, right?

Indeed. I've heard of players who hated strategy, or even argued with their GM that addressing every threat head on was how special forces handle threats in real life. It does seem they do want a linear tale of success, so they're probably not the right audience for grittier games.

Old D&D without a healer weeks at least.
World of Darkness games with high levels of Lethal or Aggravated damage are in months
Nearly any "realistic combat" system with bones and organ damage being a thing - you are looking at weeks minimum before you are "adventure ready"
Heck in Ars Magica I found mid-combat wounds killing you is only slightly more frequent than dying of them in bed, months afterwards - but that's a game playing the LONG game with decades passing with ease and old age being a serious concern over time.

Some times the combat, even in victory ans survival, means you failed the goal as you can no longer physically do the task. And that can still make a cool story - the heroes don't always win

With games like Darkest Dungeon and the like, I feel this is a pretty good system. It gives you a variety of characters to play, and you feel so much relief when your favourite character survived with an injury they'll recover from.

You potentially don't even need to switch players. If it's a game about bank heists, there tends to be a reasonable space of time planning the next one rather than having a fight every week.

Roleplaying games got their start with high lethality. I feel like if dying ruins a player's fun, the player is the problem not the the death. While I understand your argument, those kind of consequences still put very little skin in the game.

If Alderaan blows up, my character has skin in the game. I, as a player, do not. The campaign goes on with no consequence personally. From my point of view, no real consequence has be incurred.

But if my character dies? All that effort, equipment, and roleplaying goes to waste.

See the difference? Death incurs an incentive personal to the player, not character. That's why you can die in video games.

Yeah, it gives players an incentive to care about their actions, and tends to lead to a more interesting game. There is the potential of loss, which makes victory sweeter. Necessity is also the mother of invention, so players can become pretty sneaky when the situation is tough, with some practice.

[Metahuman1]

Actually, no, no it doesn't. If anything, it will very, very, Very rapidly, kill all incentive to care.

Why the hell am I gonna get invested enough in my character to bother making effort for role playing or worth reading backstory's or personality, or bothering to care about who they are or what they have done or will do or are doing, or them as a person, or there story or setting, when I know full well they are gonna die and die very soon, no if's and's or but's about it?

Answer: I won't. At all.


And it doesn't matter how much you assure me that the next character won't have that happen, unless your increasing the space of time before death markedly each time, I'm gonna rapidly catch on, and that's just gonna mean you stalled the problem, and made me not trust you as the GM as the trade off for that.





And of course some people want to just charge in head long. It's a power fantasy. You can't walk into work, walk up to your incompetent boss or that one piece of work co-worker who's purpose in life seems to be to make your life harder and worse then it has to be, let them have it, verbally or even physically, and then go about life with impunity or better still positive consequences to this 99.9999999% of the time. Your playing the game cause that's were your suppose to be able to do those sorts of things. Trying to make the game Realistic ruins that instantly on principle. (and depending on the system might well be a fools erred anyway and as such will only compound irritation for the players.)

[Mr. Mask]

This is a good example of attitudes. If you want to treat the game as a power fantasy, it will go very poorly. You will do something that gets you killed, when you could have addressed the problem more cautiously. Then, because your expectation was thwarted, you will be angry and care less, leading you to continue to do risky things with the next character. This is a vicious cycle, that tends to lead to cannonfodder characters, or eventually the player gives up and makes a cautious character, but they have demoralized themselves too much to be inventive and creative, believing the game will kill them no matter what, so they lose the proactivity that would prevent such.

In the end: Know what you're playing. False expectations will only make it an unenjoyable experience.

[Metahuman1]

Except that you specifically said you wanted a high lethality game, which by definition would be high lethality. And if characters aren't dieing constantly, it stops being a high lethality game, so no matter what, the characters must be getting killed off constantly barring and style/genera/tone shift. A considerable one at that.

And that means, you guessed it, that even if your cautious and careful and smart and realistic as all crap and even paranoid with enough contingency plans to make batman blush, you will die, and not very many sessions into the game. Period.

Meaning the supposed actions to prevent this are an illusion, because by definition, they cannot be allowed to work for any meaningful length of time.


Which means, it's all pointless, and there's no reason to invest and bother, even if the game's foundation wasn't being a power fantasy, there's no success to be had that's worth even bothering to try for, and certainly no reason to bother role playing or backstory writing or the like. And when there's no reason to invest and bother, why play at all?

And no, having a game were charging in head long isn't always/is seldom the correct tactic for the situation and can get you killed more then other tactics will in that same situation isn't a high lethality game. That's just a game geared to not favor one particular tactic. THAT is fine because as soon as you build that sniper or that ambush fighter instead, you'll have success as a thing that can happen, and survival for long enough to bother with character or personality or back story to be worth while.





Oh, and I meant to post this earlier, but, yeah, once upon a time, D&D was a very high lethality game. It also took a fraction the time and energy to make the mechanical side of the character at the time. Further, once upon a time, you progressed your character via gold earned. Multyclassing either wasn't a think to turned you into a Multy-stalt character depending on how many classes you were in. Gaming has advanced and changed quite a bit since then.

[Mr. Mask]

I'm afraid I don't understand. If a group of players gets through the tomb of horrors with no deaths, does it stop being high lethality?

[BootStrapTommy]

Actually, no, no it doesn't. If anything, it will very, very, Very rapidly, kill all incentive to care.

Why the hell am I gonna get invested enough in my character to bother making effort for role playing or worth reading backstory's or personality, or bothering to care about who they are or what they have done or will do or are doing, or them as a person, or there story or setting, when I know full well they are gonna die and die very soon, no if's and's or but's about it?

Answer: I won't. At all.

If you make that argument, welcome fellow existentialist! Note the same thing applies IRL. Now feel sad, and embrace the nihilism! We all die, no ifs ands or buts about it. Making all our actions meaningless! So who cares what we all do, right?


Here's why you're wrong. You see, if a character is run intelligently, thet won't die. They'll only die if they make a poor choice. Which is the point. If a 1st level charges against the Dragon, they've made a poor choice. That character would die. If the GM saves them, all the GM's done is reward poor decision making. The player paid no consequence. Why does the player even have HP then?

HP exist for a reason. To let you know when characters are dead. Because character's die.

And most of the time, characters die because of the decisions their player made. And the only things to blame are the players and the dice.

[Metahuman1]

Did they die? No? Then where's the lethality part? Nothing ended up being lethal, there all alive. It wasn't a high lethality game, no one died. A Hard game? Sure, give you that, but Hard and Lethal are two entirely different things.



Granted I find the idea of ANY party getting through Tome of Horror's with no deaths utterly preposterous unless there coming at it as WAY higher level casters then ToH was intended for with exhaustive use to Divination and Conjuration and Transmutations first. But if there doing that there not charging in head long, there using a different plan which suits the game better.


Edit: Freaking ninja's.


Yes, that's exactly the philosophy such a game style relys on by default.


And why was that first level character fighting a dragon to begin with? Because someone wanted him dead, and didn't want to risk and enemy he had any chance of beating. And at the advancement level a dragon has to be to be 100% beat proof to a first level character, there also gonna be 100% escape proof, cause your never gonna out stealth it, never gonna legitimately persuade it of anything barring blatant DM fiat, Never gonna be able to out run or maneuver it, and it can beat any magic you have with out even blinking, and track you by magic besides.

There are no options that don't lead to "Your dead, roll a new character."

Thank you for proving my point about High Lethality games.

[BootStrapTommy]

Granted I find the idea of ANY party getting through Tome of Horror's with no deaths utterly preposterous unless there coming at it as WAY higher level casters then ToH was intended for with exhaustive use to Divination and Conjuration and Transmutations first. But if there doing that there not charging in head long, there using a different plan which suits the game better.

Cleared it with a three player party. A artificer, a sorceror, and a dread necromancer.

You'd be surprised how many of its dangers can be remedied by equipment and using summons as cannon fodder.

[Metahuman1]

Cleared it with a three player party. A artificer, a sorceror, and a necromancy wizard.

You'd be surprised how many of its dangers can be remedied by equipment and using summons as cannon fodder.

So, you used 2 Teir 1 Game shatterers and a Teir 2 Casual Game Buster to maximum potential and accomplished the goal.



I rest my case until you can come in and tell me it was a 4 person party of Warblade, Wild-shape Ranger, Beguiler and Binder or something similarly reasonably teired.

[LibraryOgre]

I always thought the GM managed combat with the rules. I've never heard of PCs waiting a month to recover before continuing a mission. A few days maybe. Usually there's an element of time attached to an adventure, forcing the PCs to press forward, rather than relaxing. That always maintains the tension.

In Hackmaster, a wound from a longsword could easily take 140 days or more to heal... a longsword does 2d8p plus bonuses. Assuming it does 16 points of damage, it would take 136 days to completely heal, without magical or medical assistance (16 days to get from 16 to 15, 15 days from 15 to 14, etc.). Conversely, you could heal entirely in only a day or two, if you took several small wounds instead of one massive one.

Even a little bit of magical or medical attention can save you months of downtime... even if all that happens is someone with First Aid provides 10 minutes of "critical care" within an hour of you being hurt, and you're saved 16 days.

[BootStrapTommy]

And why was that first level character fighting a dragon to begin with? Because someone wanted him dead, and didn't want to risk and enemy he had any chance of beating. And at the advancement level a dragon has to be to be 100% beat proof to a first level character, there also gonna be 100% escape proof, cause your never gonna out stealth it, never gonna legitimately persuade it of anything barring blatant DM fiat, Never gonna be able to out run or maneuver it, and it can beat any magic you have with out even blinking, and track you by magic besides.

If there's an ant in my room, I don't care about it. Until it bites me. I'll concede your point. When you explain to me how a colossal dragon fits down a 8ft by 5ft corridor.

The problem is, you assume that every encounter has to be a contest. Instead of assuming that random events can place players into unwinnable circumstances and that players should be smart enough to recognize that. Low level characters don't live in a high level vacuum, you know.

The logistical issue of a high lethality campaign is simple to enforce action and consequence. Push the players to play smart. If they make a bad decision, they live (or die) with it. And you let the dice stay where they lay.

So, you used 2 Teir 1 Game shatterers and a Teir 2 Casual Game Buster to maximum potential and accomplished the goal.

I rest my case until you can come in and tell me it was a 4 person party of Warblade, Wild-shape Ranger, Beguiler and Binder or something similarly reasonably teired.

The Sorc did next to nothing. We could have cleared it without him.

A 9th level pure classed tier 1 isn't exactly over powered there, man.

[Beta Centauri]

Roleplaying games got their start with high lethality.

Irrelevant at this point so long after their start, particularly since that high lethality wasn't concurrent with other aspects of the game that are present today. The idea of "story" in a game really only came about with Dragonlance.

I feel like if dying ruins a player's fun, the player is the problem not the death. While I understand your argument, those kind of consequences still put very little skin in the game.

I didn't use the phrase "ruins their fun." That's your phrase. And you're missing the point.

If the death of a character removes the player's ability to participate in the game, then the player isn't actually a player anymore. That's fine for a game in which the elimination of a player means the game is over and it's either time to do other things or to play again. But if the death means that the player is essentially stuck sitting at the table and not participating, then it's hard to see how that's good game design, or good GMing. Most games don't eject players from the ongoing action due to their skill level, as long as they're abiding by the rules.

If Alderaan blows up, my character has skin in the game. I, as a player, do not.

That sounds like a problem with the player.

When the guy whose a little short for a stormtrooper rescues my character, the campaign goes on with no consequence to me personally. From my point of view, no real consequence has be incurred.

But if my character dies? All that effort, equipment, and roleplaying goes to waste.

As opposed to going to what? Even if the character never dies, eventually you're going to stop playing it. Has it gone to waste then?

See the difference? Death incurs an incentive personal to the player, not the character.

No, I don't see the difference. Perhaps from my example, you're assuming the character has as much connection with Alderaan as the viewer of Star Wars does. We meet the planet for about five seconds before it's gone, and have only the movie to tell us (and not that well) how significant that is. Now, suppose the game involved your character growing up on Alderaan, and there developing as a leader, solving a number of important problems, forging wonderful relationships, and amassing vast personal property.

And now, it's gone.

Nearly all that effort, equipment and roleplaying has gone to waste. Almost all of what the character was is gone. It's not powerful anymore, it has no close family, no childhood friends, no real possessions.

So, no, I don't see the difference.

That's why you can die in video games.

Yeah, and then I just start over. No loss. No skin in the game.

Is what you're getting at that the game suddenly becomes boring or less entertaining for the player whose character died, because they have to start over? Is that the skin you're talking about? If so, I'm confused. The character died, but that shouldn't ruin the player's fun, right? So, exactly what impact should it have? As far as I can tell, they just pick up their next sheet and carry on. Heck, they might even be able to pick up the old character's equipment.

And, as others have said, the threat of effort, equipment and roleplaying going away is merely an incentive not to invest in those things. What we're eventually left with is that only people who want to feel the sting of death do so. Seems like there's not much left to manage, in that case.

[Mr. Mask]

Mark: At 116 days, it's probably a sign the wound is repeatedly getting infected or just not healing. Sorry, that interjection was off-topic, just thinking about it.



One thing we haven't talked about much is the structure of a high-lethality game. In old DnD, you would do it Diablo style, making trips into the dungeon then recuperating in town inbetween. Similarly, in Aces and Eights and some games like the Game of Thrones RPGs, Ars Magica etc., you have a town/house/clan/home-base you operate from, periodically dealing with threats on something like a monthly basis, or sometimes rotating characters to deal with several threats at once or a sequence of threats (namely Ars Magica). This is a different style than the typical 3.5 or 4e DnD one, where the game is generally expects you to get through the dungeon/adventure/session in one go, with GMs adding time limits so you can't keep resting to recharge spells.

One thing that does stay roughly the same, is the way you rotate in new characters.

[BootStrapTommy]

If a player can't die, what meaning do hit point rules even function? Why have them anyway?

If tomorrow, you woke up and you could never die, you want me to believe that it would not not change your decision making paradigm? You want me to believe you wouldn't be reckless? Without death's sting, life has no meaning. With a threat of death, players have the free rein to make horrible decision after horrible decision. At that point, what exactly is the GM supposed to do? He's suck cleaning up their messes until the somehow dig themselves out of the hole.

It'd be fun in football if you could kick off-sides. But you can't, because doing so radically alters the nature of the game. And not in a good way.

[LibraryOgre]

Mark: At 116 days, it's probably a sign the wound is repeatedly getting infected or just not healing. Sorry, that interjection was off-topic, just thinking about it.

Keep in mind that a 16 point wound is pretty massive... a 1st level human fighter will have only 38 HP at max. With an 18 Con, a 16 point wound is 55% likely to knock you out of the fight for 5 seconds to several minutes, and represents you being beaten half-way to death by a single swipe of a sword. That's 136 days to get up to perfect fighting trim, mind you... and as someone who broke his ankle about 6 months ago and STILL has some lingering problems, it doesn't seem too unreasonable.