So I know there are quite a number of other posts regarding this topic, but I'd like to share my own idea, as see what people think about my opinion. So, in my opinion, I think death should mean death, not respawning with a few items lost, and then continuing on the roleplay ignorant to the fact that you died. On the other hand, for this to be viable there would have to be an inheritance system in place so  your new character can get the old characters property back, such as houses they bought, possibly gun they bought (legally), and clothes and stuff (however weird the concept of having a dead guys clothes may be :P), and then maybe the monetary value of certain items, and maybe the lease of a rented house could be transferred as well, and possibly the ownership of a business, but probably not a rank in a gang or a police force, although that could be debatable. The reason I think this work, is because it still keeps the importance of dying there, which would probably make people be more careful with their lives, and create some good roleplay situations, such as mourning the loss of a close friend/gang member, re-structuring the gang after the leader/other important roles die, and let people move up the ladder in gangs rather than just sitting at the bottom, with the more popular or experienced players sitting immortally at the top of the ladder until they either choose to retire the character or die. It would also make it more satisfying to kill an 'enemy' character, such as the leader of another gang, an opposing drug dealer, or even a political figure you who you disagree with, or getting revenge on a judge that locked up some of your gang members. Overall, I think it would create a richer role-playing experience, with a real element of fear, not daring to go into bad neighbourhoods alone and unarmed, and for important people being careful where they go, to keep out of harms way. This could also have a positive effect on having hostages, as if the police do not negotiate right, they will know that someone is actually going to die, and lose their life, for 'real'. On top of this, It's not like you would just die straight away after being downed, and if it was my decision if there was permanent death, depending on the injury I would suggest about a 5 minute bleed count for the ambulance to get to you and for the paramedics to stabilise you, before you die, although this time limit should really depend on how many paramedics there are, and how fast they can get to people, which can only really be found out through the test of time. Of course, in the eyes of many, this system has its issues. I Have heard people raise the issue of people basically not wanting to die, and one example used was being run over by a 13-year-old in a stolen car and dying from it, especially when they were the leader of a gang or something would be stupid and ruin the fun, or being randomly shot in the back of the head in the middle of the night by some Psyco. To me, this is all part of the fun, and is part of the roleplaying situation, and I can't really think of a way someone could kill you which wouldn't be feasible in real life, I mean in real life anybody could go out and murder someone, and this would work in game because I'm sure there's going to be a very good justice and law system, which would discourage people from doing these things, and would probably stop the type of people who would go on murdering sprees in their tracks relatively quickly. The death penalty, or long sentences, or even in extreme cases a life sentence would also, in my opinion, be a good way to counter this, as people would probably not want to risk this. It's also unlikely that people will just keep making new characters and murdering people, as guns are meant to be relatively hard to get because of the price, although I'll admit there is a slight chance for abuse here, although to be fair not much more than if there was a re-spawn system, which I think would only increase abuse I'm sorry for rambling on a bit, this is way longer than I expected it to be, but oh well  . I'd love to hear what you think about my ideas in the comments, some of your ideas, and if you really can't be bothered to read it all, I can make a TL;DR version   edit - Jesus christ I had a look on word and this is 800 words 0_0.