[LoD]

My experience has been that everyone is mortal to the same degree, and that the only factors that contribute to the longevity of one character are those that apply to them all. Some of those factors would be:
These are just a few ways to affect the longevity of a given character, but sometimes there are just unknown variables that you cannot control. I've played many many characters over my time, and I've had characters that lived for 3 RL years, 2 RL years, 1 RL year -- but none of them were ever spared or immune to dangers. Each of them had encountered and survived at least one life threatening experience (some of them had experienced many) during their tenure and it was sometimes just the roll of the dice that saved you that day.

I rarely player kill with my character concepts, but I did have a character for whom it made sense and he was involved in the killings of more PC's than all of my previous and current characters combined. While moving through his motions, I never felt that the Imm Staff were assisting or protecting any of the PC's that I hunted or attacked -- including several that were high-profile and long-lived characters. I also never felt as if I was personally discouraged or disuaded from pursuing those events by the Imm Staff.

Ultimately, based on the death of my own long-lived characters -- I don't really think that it much matters how long your character has survived when it comes to death. Mine were always as mortal as everyone else's when their number was finally up. I've just been lucky and learned from my years of playing how to avoid risky situations. I've also matured a bit as a player and don't subscribe to idiotic choices born out of boredom that would likely increase my chances of dying.

My guess is that most long-lived players have learned enough about the environment and their position within it to avoid "silly" or "stupid" deaths. However, no matter how good you are, you can't avoid the dynamic gameplay of other players forever -- no more than a marble glued to a bowl can avoid being struck by loose marbles rolling around. It happens, and while there are factors every player can control on how easy or difficult it is for them to die -- I've never really considered the Staff as a part of that equation.

-LoD