If random, ignoble, unfitting character loss actually *Enhances* your game experience and makes the game *More* fun for you, that's cool. You're in an EXTREME minority of D&D players if that is the case. Most don't like it; many think it's a part of the game sometimes, but few, if any, genuinely think it's something that increases their fun or enhances their game experience. Character loss should be significant when it happens... SoD and OHK spells are, quite simply, the opposite of that.
Nonsense. You're the one in the extreme minority. Some players are a bit softer when it comes to certain challenges. If that's more fun for you, that's cool. But please remember, you are the one in the minority.
See how each of us can claim the other is in the minority with zero evidence? Yeah.
When character death is an option then the value of the character actually increases. The character is no longer a pet safety blanket. The character is a treasure. The character has travelled the gauntlet. This is part of what builds the connection.
Decisions get made based on the level of danger. Missions are researched. Perhaps if you learn that your mission would antagonize a powerful wizard who's known to have the disintegrate spell then you might decline the mission. Too dangerous you might think. Or maybe you would plan on a way to take out the wizard by stealth. Or maybe you would plan on having access to a death ward spell, either through another party member or by some other source.
The point is, you navigate the danger or avoid it the best way possible because you care about your character, not because your character is replaceable. Every close call, every scar revealed is a challenge overcome.
The challenge is important. It makes the triumph worthwhile. Yes, sometimes deaths are dirty. That's the way it is. But when you're actually playing a character, you're in the moment with the character, and death doesn't have to be monumental to carry meaning and be memorable.
You asked me to define soft. I think you know perfectly well what soft means, but I'll give you an example: thinking every death must be noble and carefully scripted to not occur simply because of dice rolls or thinking that every challenge should be within a tightly controlled framework that allows for a relatively easy victory or thinking it's "unfair" that you might not "win."
In my opinion, DnD is not a game you win or lose. It's a game you play. If there's no danger of your character dying, I'm not sure it's worth playing.
Just my opinion, of course.
