DFRPG adopted several of the items from your list in the interests of making things feel more dangerous. You're certainly on the right track. :) 

Shorter stress tracks and less potent consequences are an interesting space to play in for sure. The Conditions hack from the Toolkit is also interesting because it makes things run a little faster (you don't have to sort out what to name your consequences) AND it sets explicit standards for what KINDS of effects are available and supported by the various levels of consequences. 

+Fred Hicks do people use Conditions in place of or along with Consequences? And if the former, how do skills expand those tracks (or don't they)?

In place of. Answers, if they're to be had, are in the Toolkit, man. :)

Yeah I was just looking at the Toolkit; it wasn't entirely clear to me from there. But I also realized after my comment that I may have been looking at it and reading it as a stress track and not as a replacement for consequences

Actually, I don't frame the question in terms of character death at all. Character death is only interesting to me if it is dramatic. What I am looking for in a gritty setting is consequences: brutal, varied, coming swiftly, and carried throughout the story.  I say varied because if the consequence is always the same then it's no different from just having, say, a -1 or -2 penalty per wound.  Since Fred mentioned DFRPG, think how banged up Harry Dresden and his Scooby friends are at the end of an average novel! Death of main characters is not that frequent, but going through the meat grinder is.

When the3 characters die, I can't hurt them anymore. I don't like that. Also if they are dead it leads to a lot of fumbling around for reasons why this new character is suddenly a part of the narrative. I prefer to avoid that.

+Sophie Lagace:  That's kind of why I wanted to analyze what people mean by "deadly" in the first place.  It's one of those terms, like "gritty" that's thrown around without people really digging into what it means.  Putting a counter like 'how often should a PC die' is, in my experience, a good way to make people really think about what they mean by 'deadly'.

I totally agree on "gritty = consequences".  That's a slightly different post, but I really think that for me, gritty = humanity + suffering.  Gritty characters are human, not superheroes.  They're flawed and realistic.  And they can suffer.  That's what makes gritty heroes heroic - the cost that they pay to overcome.

+Jacob Poss:  Oh, agreed.  The thought experiment isn't really about "should it be deadly?", more along the lines of "what does deadly mean, and how would you do it?"

And, in my typical fashion, I come to the conclusion of "you don't need to muck with the rules much".

Well I think there's a basic philosophical difference between games like Fate and games that have more of a level system where PCs start very weak and vulnerable. I think the latter can be very democratic in the very basic sense that none of us are born with superpowers. (It's not surprising that D&D originated before the significant bifurcation of wealth that began in the United States in the mid-70s, and which began to accelerate right around the time games like Vampire: the Masquerade became popular.)

But Fate is designed to work more like HeroQuest: you're a very competent character who is able to take significant risks. The question then becomes: is one of those risks death? And what things are worth risking death for? It seems like that question might make a good a campaign aspect in the game that's going to wrestle with the risk of death.

While in agreement with others, I will also note that unexpected (less dramatic) deaths do appeal to some players. This style of play is completely doable.

I come at it from a FAE perspective and immediately note that the ease and speed of character creation makes a PC-blender work.

Using Create An Advantage to take PCs "out of commission" (even if only temporarily), also makes them easier to actually kill.

Using stacking advantages to good effect will definitely up the ante when it comes to taking out PCs quickly.

Old-school, killer traps should definitely be constructed with the goal of stacking advantages and then attack as a fractal.

All-in-all, if the table wants old-school style killer dungeon gaming, I would feel very comfortable providing it using FAE.

The important thing is that the table is on the same page, regardless of the style game being played.

I completely "get" wanting low-powered settings, adversity, dark drama, and grittiness.  Frequent and easy character death? not so much, unless we're playing something like Paranoia, Toons, or a game where death is not the end like WoD or Feng Shui. In these cases then yeah, make death a major consequence!  I like the idea of compelling "Dead Again..."

I approach it as a mental exercise, Sophie, rather than trying to rationalize why one would enjoy such a style. In a similar vein as when we looked at gritty FAE, this is also doable, even if it isn't for everyone.

I actually enjoy such exercises... I think I may just be weird.

And in spite of everything I wrote above what got me to quit role playing for about 20 years was when every single first level character I had was immediately killed in the first session

I think if you make taken out mean death the you will have death more often. I personally would remove the stress tracks so that every roll has a consequence for SOMEBODY. And assuming everyone is on board, descriptions of success and failure can go a long way towards making the game gritty (like describing success as someone still getting hurt or screwed, just not the winner of the conflict, and failure meaning someone certainly is ruined for good).

Possibly halve the consequence values so they absorb less stress, making extreme consequences come up more often. Oh and a big one to making the players feel like they have less control, don't allow fate point bidding, the opposition doesn't roll until the opponent has stated his final result, possibly with making the defender roll first in conflicts!

Drop the stress track and use only consequences. Every single hit suddenly becomes a life and death situation - very much like real life.  If you want your players more beaten than dead, add a Mild and Moderate consequence to prolong the pain. This way, they can suffer from consequences more and more often - for longer. You can also make it that if a Consequence is invoked against you, you suffer its full effect (the stress absorbed becomes a penalty rather than just the usual 2 Aspect penalty). Having a bad consequence would be truly bad then, even for a Fate Point, getting a -4 or -6 to your roll is quite bad.

For armour, you can have it add +1, +2 and maybe +3 to the consequence values to help absorb damage. You still take consequences, but the severity is much less because of the armour. For example, light armour +1 would be Mild (3), Moderate (5), Severe (7). It absorbs damage, but if you get hit, you still get hit and it matters.

The best part about Fate is that you can twiddle within the confines of the system and without stepping outside it and get an infinite number of permutations.

Sub