Character death is important. If you give people the freedom to allow and disallow death, it will have severe repercussions. It's also not thematically appropriate to be able to deny death. One should live vicariously through their character, after all. :D

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Also, as for the mandatory taking hits - if I can reasonably avoid a hit in character, I will. It makes no sense for a character to allow themselves to get hit if it's in their power to avoid it. In situations where it isn't in their power, there's no issue. :D