We agreed to a permadeath run but not what counts as a fair death

Two friends and I started a shared permadeath run in a survival game. The idea was simple: if a character dies, that character is gone. We wanted ordinary decisions to matter again after years of casually reloading every mistake.

For the first few sessions, the rule created exactly the tension we wanted. We planned routes, carried backup supplies, and held a tiny memorial when Ben walked backward into a trap while explaining how careful he was. He made a new character and accepted the jokes.

Then my character died during a disconnect. On my screen, everything froze. When the game returned, I was standing at the title menu. The host said the world had continued for long enough that an enemy killed me. I argued that a network failure was not a meaningful in-game choice and asked to restore the previous backup.

Ben objected immediately. His trap death included a brief stutter, and he said we had not investigated whether that contributed. Our third player remembered losing supplies earlier when an item fell through the floor; we had accepted that too. Within minutes, every past inconvenience was evidence in a trial about my character.

The problem is that “fair” sounds obvious until someone cares about the result. Does a known game bug count? What about a power outage, a controller battery dying, or the host accidentally changing a setting? If we allow exceptions, we need proof we may not have. If we allow none, the most serious rule in our game can be enforced by the least interesting events.

I restored the backup only to a separate folder and did not continue playing. I do not want to keep the character by declaring myself innocent. I also do not want to delete it just because Ben’s earlier death makes consistency emotionally convenient.

How would you write the rule now? One emergency exception per player, a vote by the two unaffected players, automatic reversal for failures outside the game, or absolutely no restoration? I care less about winning the argument than preventing the next death from requiring oral history and forensic testimony. A harsh rule can be fun. A negotiable harsh rule is mostly politics.