Well, it does depend on the type of game as well, I think. Imagine Police Quest without the risk of death.
Death is such an easy way out. When you avoid death, you'll have to think about things as how to make a believable villain (even in comedy games) that the player is afraid of, even though he won't kill you. Monkey Island pulled this off great, I think. You'll have to think about alternative consequences when the player interacts with 'dangerous' items the wrong way. Or making the wrong decisions in situations.
I remember playing a certain scene in Ace Ventura (don't ask...) where you have to pass a series of pipes that are bursting fire in a certain pattern. It would be easy to let the player die after making a mistake but instead, you're presented with a cutscene of Ace running out with his ass on fire, cooling it in the snow outside. After that, you can try again. -- This solution requires some thought, creativity, and ultimately even the production of extra assets.
With this example I'm trying to say that it's not impossible to avoid death, but it can be quite difficult because you have to come up with alternative solutions, while keeping in mind how these are going to affect your time (creating extra assets, more programming, etc...) I found that to be quite a challenge in a game that's probably already too complex as a debut project
--Erwin
