Quote from: Willie the Duck;1043966The primary reason for death in non-story games is that it is a convenient (and usually realistic, given the genres most represented) way of adjudicating failure, which is the real goal. You have to be able to win or lose based on your actions, decisions, and occasionally luck. All the rest is just details. If you can come up with other forms of losing/setbacks (those 'other consequences' you mentioned), then you have accomplished the same goal.

Ghostbusters is an excellent TT RPG where death is really not on the table. There are plenty of other genres that one could explore where death is really not the normal consequence of the happenings (perhaps you are playing a game vaguely like En Guarde, but with boxing, and call it Rocky, in which case the one and only death in the campaign is a pretty damn big deal). You could also make a game where the world works on A-team/4-color comics physics and people do absolutely fight with lethal weapons, but only ever succeed in knocking each other out.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1043955Can't there be RPGs where the stakes remove death as an option? Imagine D&D where everything is the same except you just never finish off the players and enforce other consequences instead. Or is that storygame?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1044731Well, I meant that others could die, just not the PCs. Kind of like emulating Conan as Conan.