When I'm the GM, I don't intentionally make obstacles that are too powerful for the PCs. There should be some risk of failure, but failure shouldn't be fatal unless the players' dice rolls are really bad AND the opposition actually wants to kill them.
I go out of my way to avoid situations where "correctly roleplaying the character" is likely ending with a dead PC. If the players are actively seeking out such situations, I remind them of the danger, pointing to the risky disadvantages. I'm inclined to disallow disadvantages that I know can be fatal. I think it's cruel to put the players in situations where "correctly roleplaying the character" will get them killed (unless they're trying to have the PCs commit suicide-by-cop or something similar).
It must be said that I generally lead light-hearted campaigns.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pestigor
On the other hand, If I spent a half an hour painstakingly creating a character from scratch and while pouring over optional rules only to have it die from dumb luck or random chance...I'd be pretty put out and not very likely to make another character with that amount of care again.
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Half an hour??!? That's impressive. I can make a minor (but fully statted) NPC in that time, two if I hurry, but for a major NPC or a PC, I'd use at least an hour, and that's not counting time spent on backstory and other untangibles. For a PC, I would also spend an hour or two on tweaking (including poring over optional rules). But then again, I'm the type who can write dozens of pages worth of backstory for a PC.