Deathless RPGs

RPGs where nobody dies really irk me, because they have rules for dying. If you want an RPG where nobody ever dies (or runs out of food, or whatever), then I won't complain...until the rulebook states 'these are the conditions for death'.

We have two problems.

Problem 1: Fudging GMs

Everyone writes up some dramatic backstory, in a loopy font in MS word, and about the 0.5 Megabytes mark hands it to them GM. The GM then feels that killing the character wouldn't fair, and I can understand that, given the investment.

However, at this point, the game has not supported what people really want - a deathless narrative, like in Star Trek, or the 90's show Hercules.

Problem 2: Dead-but-not-really rules

D&D version [something] brought in the notion of three saving throws to avoid death. Now death wouldn't come so quickly. Tensions would rise as the dice rolled!

...but then if a death-roll happens every couple of sessions, and you get three rolls, the tensions aren't really that high. Tensions are high when anything can happen, and on the first roll, anything cannot happen - the character cannot die until roll number 3.

This is a way of cheating the players, including the GM. Nobody thinks they will die, and death occurs so rarely that the game has no proper way of dealing with it.

Solution 1: Just Die Already

Scrap the three-page backstory. Never mind the death-rolls. Make sure character creation takes less than 20 minutes.

Let them die, and pull up another character.

Solution 2: Make Rules for a Deathless Narrative

Combat does not have to end in death.

• Losing HP may mean losing XP too.
• Characters might flee at 0 HP, and get captured if they cannot escape.
• They might start with a series of personal goals, tied to adventures, and fail in those goals if they lose too many battles while on the mission.

The possibilities for the system to provide good and bad results are endless, so if anyone wants a deathless game, they should have one.