>>5685984Interestingly for videogames I find I enjoy the proclivity towards the other game design direction (ie merciless brutal instadeath with no warning). I think the high difficulty instadeath formula is becoming more popular and successful among hardcore gamers, beginning with Demons Souls Dark Souls Bloodborne, PUBG (no respawn 1 life vs 99 etc) and now also the trend with looter shooters / extraction shooters like Escape From Tarkov, Arena Breakout, the upcoming Bungie Marathon remake etc. The extraction shooters are far more brutal (death with no warning, lose all items permanently etc) and makes for far more thrilling gameplay.
In the absence of the objective reality of a videogame rendering engine and the perfect information of the physics and game mechanics, roleplaying games rely on the dungeonmaster as the reality interpreter. There is a paradox because you simultaneously try to help and hinder the players, unlike a videogame with perfect information, where all the logic is preprogrammed beforehand, the world and interaction is heavily constrained, and scenarios encounters scenes cannot be established beyond the known parameters. So most players will feel it is unfair if you unleash sudden instadeath even if you gave them some clever (in your mind) imperceptible foreshadowing beforehand, because the players use you to perceive the world. Therefore this is why you need some "pain buffer" of punishment that stops short of sudden death etc.
