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Combat without Consequences
In many games, combat has no consequences short of character death. Imagine a generic hack fantasy game - let's call it AB&C. This is the sort of thing that happens in AB&C:

A character enters a dungeon at full Hit Points. He battles various monsters, and loses Hit Points as he's injured. Yet his fighting abilities don't change - as long as he's got one Hit Point left he fights at full strength. And between fights he can sip his flask of Healing Potion to restore himself. There's no chance that he's ever going to lose an arm or something like that, because damage in AB&C is just Hit Points. With rest he recovers Hit Points, and when they're all back he's as good as new.

And of course, in AB&C, even if he does die that's not a problem. He can always be ressurrected to fight another day. So there are no consequences at all!

This is all really really shit. I just can't understand why people want to play a game like that. It's terribly dull. Where's the excitement if nothing bad can happen to your character? You're not taking any real risk with your character, so it ceases to be an exciting adventure.

I say that a character who keeps getting into fights with deadly weapons runs a serious risk of being crippled - he has to face the occupational hazard of losing limbs or being blinded or paralysed. When this isn't possible in the game, it takes the sting out of it.

This is discussed in much more detail in Vulnerability to Injury.