Wednesday, April 04, 2012  Why Do Players Avoid Killing
Characters?   I’ve covered character death on two other
occasions. It can be a difficult subject to talk about because
for some people a character dying is no big deal, and for others
it’s a total anathema. Today, I’m going to tackle the question
of why people avoid killing characters even in games that have
character death built in as a design feature. I believe there
are two types of causes for this phenomenon: Player Causes and
Design Causes.  Player Causes:  The first big reason I think
players avoid killing a character is because of social pressure.
Players can sometimes get really invested in their character and
the other participants feel that if the characters did die, the
player who was using him would rather quit than deal with the
consequences. This could be communicated overtly, “Hey, you
better not kill my guy…” or covertly, “This is the best
character I’ve ever had! I’m having actual fun for the first
time…” This can also be communicated th