According to some nice rando, a Player Character dying is always the product of a bad Game Master. Always. Also, people who enjoy RPGs where character death is a high possibility (Cyberpunk, CoC, Delta Green, etc.) are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. They don't actually like those games.
(Laughs in Fiasco)
I feel like this is how some people internalize "character death isn't fun". I don't feel like character death is a requirement for all games, and I'm totally down with the idea that it can feel bad. But I will absolutely play a game where my character can die—and even it's certain they will.
By contrast, games with a high possibly of player death have trouble catching on
In Dread, the horror game that uses a Jenga tower for resolution, a player can specifically choose to knock the tower over to produce a self-sacrificial success that will help the other characters, but kill their own character. And the GM has NOTHING to do with it. Different games are different.
I had to leave my cyberpunk group because i was becoming a DM for my college's ttrpg club. We had gone the entire semester without a character dying (though we had some incredibly close calls). I gave my DM full permission to kill my character as cruelly as possible, so long as it was cool. 1/
Honestly I'm of the opinion that there needs to be risk for it to be. A game. If there is no risk of failure it's no longer a game it's just a story. To what extent the risk is can vary but I do think pc failure/death is a bare minimum
Surely people who have Stockholm Syndrome would be bigger fans of their characters getting captured rather than killed. Silly rando. 🙃
Expectations around lethality is something to cover during session 0 with safety tools. I get anxiety around unexpected death, so I always ask that the group signal when a situation might kill a PC. I also have a line against casual murder.
Well, glad to know I am a bad GM. After 45 years of play, I appreciate the diagnosis and can now happily just stop playing. Salvation from nice rando. 🙌
How dare we have fun wrong.