[@FacePunch] Again, I see your point. It matters IN THE UNIVERSE. 

The problem is, just because the players MAKE the universe, doesn't mean that events in the universe directly affect them without some way of directly causing them to feel distress.

Let me draw from a roleplay of my own back in my chatroom days.

I played a Hero named Captain Explosion. 

Captain Explosion was the greatest hero of the chatroom, until he met The Golden God. 

The Golden God was the source of his powers, canonically, and the two of them saw eachother as equals. This was a horrible mistake. 

The Golden God was far greater than Captain Explosion.

When the two duked it out, Captain explosion was crushed beneath a giant golden idol of a lion that was formed out of magical fire. 

This idol of fire burnt away half of his face, tore off his left arm, left him horribly burnt on his entire left side, and popped his left eye. It also caused severe brain damage to him, causing him to overproduce stress hormones and adrenaline. This turned him into the raging beast that became known as The Splatterer. 

The Splatterer used all of his explosive powers to kill people because he had been driven insane by his inability to ever calm down, and his inability to ever sleep. Nor could the wounds on the left half of his body heal.

This made him crazy, it made him violent, and it broke the once great hero.

It didn't kill him, but it killed who he was.

It had impact because it hurt him personally, it also made for better story telling. You don't have to kill them, but you do have to hurt them.

[u][b]Note: I did not play both Captain Explosion and Golden God. Golden God was the GM character.[/b][/u]