NO SAVE MARATHON GAME. GOOD OR BAD IDEA?

Just do the simple 'get a password at the end/start of each level. So you can always type it in and go back, but, maybe try to make it were there are 10 to 20 different sets of passwords for each level, so it changes each time you play. So, use the standard saves, to somehow be able to only save the passwords and not the character, which could auto load and see which password you used and change accordingly. Then they can still return, but fear death as they cannot use the same password they firstly got, every-single-time.

or you could just, you know... use saves

I think a "marathon" game in RPGs, or any game that is 10+ hours long for that matter, is really hard to pull off. Using saves and stuff is kind of necessary. Keeping my attention span for 10 hours is hard enough for an indie game WITH saves. Keeping my attention fixed on a game that forces me to replay it every time I die is going to be impossible. It's not fun, it's just unnecessarily frustrating.

Best to give the option to save. Though, for those who love the die-hard challenges, it might be interesting to offer rewards and such for not saving very often, or not saving at all.

why punish somebody to redo something they already completed successfully

author=PsychoFreaX
It's not exactly saving I'm worried about. It's loading 50 times after dying against a boss. Save scumming actually subtracts a lot of the fun you could have had in an RPG experience.

So you're saying starting all over again after dying against a boss is fun? As if.
If you actually have to load 50 times after dying against a boss, it means the boss has bad design.

Tell me having to read and go through the same story text 50 times in a row is fun. Yeah, right...

EDIT: http://michaelpenman.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/in-defense-of-roguelikes-save-scumming/
and https://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.misc/browse_thread/thread/242e965543c3f206?hl=en
would be good reads.

Final Fantasy games may be 50 hours, but they also allow saving. You gotta realize the cost of the decisions you're making.

If you really want to make a game with no saving/retries/extra lives:

1) DO allow soft-saving, so the player can put down the controller and come back later.
2) DO try and make it at least a little shorter, so that the player doesn't get to the final boss after 40 hours and then never finish because he died. Honestly, making it longer than 5 hours is probably not fair or fun.
3) DON'T be a dick and pull dick moves, including but not limited to: surprise instant-kill fights, massive loss of gold, easy-to-access areas with high-level monsters, severe limits on restoring HP/MP, etc. This kind of game requires the player to learn from his surroundings before they kill him, so surprises must be balanced and must be hinted at or warned or taught to the player, or else he will quit and never come back, and your game will be regarded as unfair and shitty.

As a fair warning, you may want to build up some design experience with simpler games before you go biting off more than you can chew with a game like this one.

EDIT: I just thought about it some more, and in the defense of a true roguelike, you'd make the game a lot more fun if you allowed the player multiple ways to play through the game - for example, Diablo II had multiple classes you could choose from, each with talent trees, and there were many different but equally viable options to choose from for your character's fighting style. That way, if your character died in Hardcore Mode (and was lost forever) you could try again, but this time with a different playstyle, class, focus, whatever. That way, it would prevent the player from repeating the same dungeon 100 times with the exact same skills the exact same way. Just a thought.

I have a saving phobia - If I don't see that damn save point after 10-15 minutes, well...

we are going to have a problem

author=Max McGee
IIRC (and I very well may not be recalling correctly) an amateur game that handled this fairly well was The Blue Contestant.

Roguelikes were the other thing I was going to mention, but I see they've already been discussed.

Anyway, 10 hours is way too long for a no-save game. More like one or two is more like it, and two is probably pushing it.

Played blue contestant myself, but I can't remember if it has no save points..?

Well, yes, 10 hours of no saving is straight up agony I'd say - that's beyond normal people's tolerance and some just don't have the luxury to play RM games for 10 hours straight.

So I am pretty sure he doesn't mean 10 hours game.