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[Torchkas]

Aside from rogue games, which don't have respawn because there's no buildup to a story that requires pacing. Are challenges in paced games that are action-focused connected to having respawn checkpoints?

I've been thinking a lot about player deaths and how they're usually very weightless because of paced storytelling that require them. The story can't be that the player died in a battle against space marines, so they simply punish you for dying by respawning you. Rogue games don't have this issue because of their procedurally generated nature. One of the issues that arise with dying being decisive is that you'll have to play the exact same game over again if there's a predetermined story connected to it. Having a mechanic like this will not be fun to most players.

So are there ways to implement action that's challenging without having to introduce deaths?

[The Translocator]

Not if you use knockback instead of damage.

What I mean by that is it would be fully possible to have an FPS where weapons never deal damage, instead it's about moving enemies out of your way so they can't prevent you from going forward. But the knockback would have to be powerful and the levels would have to be designed so that either there are pits you or the enemies can be pushed into that DON'T kill you and the knockback goes directly against getting to the objective and while being shot it is difficult to shoot back (aiming accuracy decreased or it just plain pushes you out of areas where you could shoot them).

It would be interesting, at least.

[s0]

I've been thinking a lot about player deaths and how they're usually very weightless because of paced storytelling that require them. The story can't be that the player died in a battle against space marines, so they simply punish you for dying by respawning you. Rogue games don't have this issue because of their procedurally generated nature. One of the issues that arise with dying being decisive is that you'll have to play the exact same game over again if there's a predetermined story connected to it. Having a mechanic like this will not be fun to most players.

you can be "selective" about which parts of the game you reset upon player death. dark souls and shiren the wanderer are 2 examples.

[Torchkas]

But what if you want to kill the player in your story?
Wouldn't it be impossible to have action in your game without completely disrupting the ludology then?
Should I just not want to kill my player if there's action?

[Schoq]

Aliens Infestation did a thing where there's multiple characters that represent extra lives

[valrus]

So are there ways to implement action that's challenging without having to introduce deaths?

"Deaths" are pretty much just themed setbacks; it's the setback that's the thing.  So consider the challenge that's often one of the first challenges in a platform game:


If you filled the pit with spikes, and took away the stairs, and put a checkpoint at the left, it'd be basically the same challenge, you'd just be theming it different.  But there are some benefits to the "death" theme: it gives you a bit more variety in setback types, more flexibility in terms of bigger setbacks (like if you have "lives" you define a bigger setback for when the player runs out of them) and some more flexibility in terms of level design.  (It'd be tricky and tedious for the designer to work out a path back to a previous spot from every challenge-point on a screen.  "Death" lets you essentially warp the player back to a previous spot when they fail a challenge.)  It also has a psychological effect, of course, but not necessarily a better or worse effect, just different. 

Anyway, so whatever "progress" is in the game (whether that's distance towards a goal, or wealth, or EXP, or whatever) you could always have setbacks give a direct hit to progress (being knocked off platforms or sent backwards, losing money, losing EXP) rather than treating those setbacks as "dying" and being sent back to an earlier game state.