Death is no different than any other facet of storytelling. It can be done poorly or well, with great gravity or levity, to ill or grand effect.

There is an inevitable Human tendency to romanticize or otherwise aggrandize the death of particular individuals. This inevitably invites inspiration to aggrandize lesser entities to victory (Martyrdom), to illustrate the particular tragedy of a struggle, to construct a poetic moral, or simply to bring a final close to an individual arc.

On the other hand, there can be the more logical depiction of death meaning absolutely nothing beyond mere practical concerns, with people dropping dead at random like flies regardless of who they are and their importance. This can invite the inception of a higher cause, or create a web of rippling effects that converge at a central point, or might even in fact be truly random.

The thing to keep in mind is that death is a character condition. Its occurrence, at least in metafictional terms, is no different from any other kind of development that might occur or be imposed. Even in a nonfiction setting, the condition of death imposed upon a character is not necessarily their final end (the obvious if played out example being Hamlet).

The question I like to ask myself when contemplating the death of characters, for that last reason, is not what might come of or else be achieved by a death. It is all the same, after a fashion. I would like to think the character being contemplated is nuanced enough, and the contextual reality of the roleplay developed enough, that any particular death might be equal - at the right time, place, and fashion. I like to think that if given freedom, the reality of a roleplay will create its own meaning and atmosphere without writers having to impose their own thoughts forcefully.

The question I ask is whether they would die or would kill. To permit the spirit of the roleplay, as a narrator who does not impose upon the wills of the characters or the order of the world - a being who merely conveys occurrence to a third party - the only question I should be asking is whether I am interpreting events correctly. Thus, the only real question to ask is whether or not a particular individual dying or else killing another makes sense and does not contradict the contextual reality of the roleplay.

As an extension of that, a death is always precisely as grisly, as awful, as silent, as traumatic as it needs to be at the moment it occurs. The same is true of other actions such as torture, rape, etcetera. Concern yourself not with the singular action. If it troubles you, turn instead to the world that created the problem - and then get better at worldbuilding to accommodate your distaste.

Optimally that would be how it is done, except not many writers are of a like mind with me. So occasionally go and talk to the other roleplayers instead to see what it is they are trying to do, and attempt to reconcile your perceptions.