I've written a lot about role-playing games and the role of death as part of the narrative over the last couple of decades, and I'm going to sum up the high points of that right here.

Death sucks. In most traditional systems, having a character die means that you are done for the rest of the session. You are no longer playing the game. At best you might be helping out the GM, or running errands, or playing extras – but you are no longer playing the game you came to play.

Why would you want to do that? Why would anybody who invited you to play with the group want to do that?

Part of this problem comes from the idea of "GM as adversary" as the default mode of play. The idea that "playing to win" exists within the context of interactions at the table. In some contexts, that's good – boardgames, quite a number of wargames, that sort of thing. But in the context of a game in which you sit down with your friends to experience a story with your friends – anything that gets in the way of that experience is a bad idea.

Besides, it's a lot more fun to take things from the characters that they care about. Injure them. Impair their ability to do things. Keep them from the things that they want. Frustrate them. Antagonize them (as the word "antagonist") implies some characters should do.

Death is literally the most boring thing you can do to a character.

These days, I generally don't play role-playing games which have death is an option. If they do, character generation is quick, easy, and you're expected to shift between multiple characters in an evening whether somebody dies or not. This changes the entire experience at the table.

For my purposes, this is a superior mode of play.

Other people may differ.