The punishment is you go back to your previous save. This isn't an MMO, if you don't like it, RP a punishment or play DiD.

I do this. Any TES/FO game my first character is a very basic smashy/guns&armor character for learning the game and if they die I reload last save. Then I make the character I REALLY want.

If they die I don't start a new game, but I do load save 001. You might think you never make progress, but what really happens is that you learn to survive. You carry around those extra health potions because you know you will NEED them one day. You keep those paralyze and invisibility potions because you will need to hit and escape one day. Those powers/shouts you forgot about. One day, you will look through them with desperation hoping there is something to save your life. You will be more careful instead of running in like a madman. It makes the game a lot more interesting.

In Oblivion my character ended up being a god nothing could touch... I took down the final badguy(no spoilers) in less than 10 seconds (if that), and keeping others alive was the hardest thing I ever did(that I did load for, I was not losing my level 30 mage because the heir charged a dremora lord).

In fallout games I take it even more hardcoe than that. Stimpacks cure way to fast to be realistic so I don't use them. I will only use 'food&water' to heal myself, desert salads in vegas are a god send.

Would love to see a mod that implements some of the ideas in this thread but in the meantime I'm going to try roleplaying some of them. My idea is to fast travel to the nearest town or village to recover. I'll also drop loot based on the type of character that "killed me".

Animal - drop food
Bandit/thief - drop gold and valuables such as rings, amulet, etc
Mage - scrolls, books, potions
Warrior - weapons/armor if better than theirs

Only thing I couldn't come up with an idea for is what to drop when killed by undead enemies. Any thoughts?

Undead.... drop your brains, and proceed to play the game as if you were a zombie. You should contract vampirism and let it progress for the 100% weakness to fire and so everyone hates you.

Just my 2 cents.......

I have some sympathy with the thought, but it doesn't quite make sense. As others have said, when you're dead, you're dead. The game automatically reloads your last save, because it assumes that's what you'll want to do, but that doesn't represent some sort of in-game resurrection: you've just reset to an earlier time, and the events which led to your death never happened. It's like the game doesn't penalise you for shooting your companion in the back and then reloading, or getting arrested and then reloading. Some of the comments here sound like they just want the reload not to be automatic: you might see 'sorry, you're dead' screen, then revert to the main menu, and have to reload manually. I suppose that might make it feel more like you actually died, but mostly it would just be pointless extra hassle, because, let's face it, the vast majority of players *will* want to revert to their last save when they die.

Of course there *could* be some sort of in game resurrection. I don't know: you could store your soul in a soul stone which you kept in a save place, and when you died you'd be resurrected there, but without the gear you were carrying. That way, there'd be some value to storing spare gear in your houses. The idea that you might get dragged back to town by a friendly soul makes some sense if you get mauled by wolves, but not if you died deep inside a catacomb which no mortal has entered for centuries, and surrounded by fiendish enemies. But of course you'd still have the option to reload, and in a way being unable to actually die would make death *less* meaningful.

I suppose the underlying question is whether the game makes it too easy to reload when you mess things up (when you die, or when your companion dies, or even when you break a lockpick!). There certainly have been games which only allow you to have one save file, and which delete it when you die. There's certainly something bracingly hard-core about that approach, but really it's not much fun to lose a character you spent hours building up to something completely random. ("You fall into a pit. You land on a set of sharp iron spikes. The spikes were poisoned. The poison was deadly.") And even though Skyrim doesn't spawn random undetectable and instantly deadly traps (as far as I know), it does do things like spawn a dragon which attacks you from behind while you're fighting a bear. And the sandboxy nature of the game is such that it feels like you should be able to try things out to see what happens, without having to start over if it turns out to be a disaster.

I suppose the only thing is, perhaps the game shouldn't allow such frequent saves? Because in clearing a dungeon, you can save after killing each opponent, which somewhat removes any sense of danger. If you had to reload at the entrance to the dungeon, that might strike a balance between making the final confrontation meaningful and not being horribly frustrating. And you might decide it was better to skip that dungeon for now, if you felt you'd been hopelessly outgunned, rather than repeating the fight a dozen times until you finally win (whether by luck or cunning). But then again, clearing your way to the boss would get old pretty quickly. And of course, you do have the option of only saving at certain points if that's what you want.

Maybe they should incorporate like a Super Mario Bros. punishment; you die, you lose a life. You run out of lives, you get a "Game Over" screen.

Hella old school.

I recall one of the Baldur's Gate games had a funny bit with making fun of their own qucksave/load gameplay where you had a random encounter with a part of adventures that attacked you. After you beat them, a fake loading screen comes up, and the adventures are alive again, but this time they just walk away.

There are dead is dead threads. For everyone else? it is a single player game. You could always punish yourself?

When the CK is released you can make yourself mods that will punish you. You kinky man you.

Wouldn't you still be able to reload your previous save and avoid having to lose gold?

In the end it really depends on your play style. I've seen videos of some folks who have the integrity to play hardcoe, starting over when they die. I could never do that but to each their own. You are somewhat penalized with death depending on how frequent you save. Being charged for death, in my opinion, takes away from the game as it enforces your immortality, whereas a death technically never happened once you load that save.

Play the game through the main quest once if you want to learn it/see the story then play dead is dead. It definately forces you to play much smarter and increases the immersion and gameplay knowing you will die if you die.

I've always considered my character dying the doom of one thread of reality. When I reload a save, I consider myself to just be following a different branch of reality where I'll hopefully make different decisions or get luckier. I generally try to avoid dooming reality, though.

Nah, saves are great....kind of like ESP.

Besides, I thought everyone was just spamming out a godlike smith/enchanter/alchemist and walking all over everything until bored.

I guess you will never "beat" the game if you keep dying.

*unhelpful sarcasm*

I liked the way Neverwinter Nights handled it. Sure, it wasn't extremely subtle, but it kind of fit with the story and was still better than just reloading IMO. Basically an automatic recall or intervention type effect when you're close to death, for a cost.

I wouldn't want this to affect my game. I like playing the way I play. But if you want to play like that, go ahead. Your choices don't affect mine. And that is why I love Skyrim and Fallout 3/NV (haven't played the older games). I play how I want to, you play how you want to. Just like fast travel, its an option. You don't have to use it. Just like you don't have to reload when you die, you could, delete the save, and start a new character.

i see my characters death as just his foresight and intuition. Almost like an unspoken gift he has because of his destiny. Kinda like a video game Jason bourne

Does a broken controller count?

on a side note, i would love to see what my perfect run looks like. in his reality, my current character has NEVER died. Hes always been one step ahead no matter what the challenge. damn, that makes him pretty bad ass!!

Still don't see a need for some sort of punishment. When you die, it's not like the game "gives" you anything you'd have to pay for, for instance respawning and keeping the loot or anything. You must do everything again you've lost. The game beat you and you can try again, why would I feel better if it also took away 500 septim or make me lose a level or something. I already know I failed and the idea of failing in a game should be to learn and make it better next time, that's where the fun comes in for me, not some virtual "punishment". Of course, you could "abuse" the system by saving all the time, but personally, I think that'd be more annoying than having to repeat a bit of a dungeon when I die. (Am on PS3, so no quicksave/-load.) Even then, it's up to the player.

I'm also not sure I would like being taken back to some hospital, I mean, all this would eventually lead to, really, is more and more loading screens and repition.

I think I'm glad you had nothing at all to do with the development of this game. Because I completely disagree with this.

You could load the save with any penalty. Besides, nothing stops you from droping certain amoutn of gold form your inventory if you feel death is too harsh.

Now that you mention it, has there ever been a single player RPG that punished you for dying? I know MMOs like to do this with experience losses or recovering your corpse and resurrecting yourself. Can't think of a single player RPG, though. Maybe there was on the PC? I've been a console gamer for most of my days, so I may have missed it.

I have a punishment for dying. I have to take the time to reload my game. Thats punishment enough for me.

OP should play Dead is Dead - problem solved