[terhardp]

I think that dying in adventure games adds to the realism of the game; so if there is some dangerous situations during gameplay, its only logical that the character could die. On the other hand, most of the adventure players don't like "action" during the game, and "ability to die" may qualify as one of the "action elements".

In the end, I would say that it depends on the context: which type of the story is in question. There are some games and gameplays where simply there isn't much place for "dying", because they don't feature any of the "life and death" situations at all. On the other hand, there are also lot of sinister and dark themes, that would seem incomplete if the character couldn't die.