How to avoid killing your player characters as GM

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I gotta note that a fair fight means you're 50% likely to lose it. (A fight that would be fair except you have superior manipulation of events and the battlefield is not a fair fight.)

I haven't seen anybody who wants that at a tabletop.

It's kind of fun for professional gladiatorial combats and the like, where "losing" is not necessarily synonymous with "dying" even if it does always involve lesser pay and a potential loss of face/status (like losing the Super Bowl vs winning it).

I've run gameworlds where single combat between champions was the normal response to meeting foreigners (with a monetary prize called "kresim" at stake to buy the life of the loser). I used this to explain why e.g. drow and githyanki hadn't wiped each other out--it was mostly just their low-ranked warriors fighting each other, one at a time, mostly to claim kresim and not a life; not escalating to group battles unless the chosen champion from one side was so unimpressive that the other side felt confident about curbstomping them with no casualties.

This also happens to be the perfect setup for PCs to find adventure in. I should reuse this concept...