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Atcote
2011-04-26, 04:06 AM
Is it kosher for people to have adventures after they've wandered off this mortal coil - and come back better for it?

I ask this in the sense that, after a player character's body has died, is it possible for them to achieve something in the afterlife and bring it back with them - perhaps skills (think Roy from OotS's feat that he learned from his grandfather, which he'll presumably spend a feat on later) or experience? Usually, there is a penalty when coming back from the dead, presumably to teach you a lesson that dying was a very silly thing to do, but would it be so bad if it were possible, in some cases, to come back better for it? What if the entire party was wiped out and went on a spiritual adventure before being brought back to life by a third party (I'll considering the 'Second party' was the one that killed them)? Or is this all meaningless, silly gooble-dee-blaugh streaming from my mouth?

Ravens_cry
2011-04-26, 04:45 AM
What system are you using? I am assuming 3.5, but if so, this belongs in the 3.5/D20 sub-forum.
And to answer your question, RAW, probably no. But really, why the hell not? It could be an interesting way to prevent a TPK from being the end of the fun. Heck, it could be an intriguing adventure in its own right.

hamishspence
2011-04-26, 04:48 AM
Ghostwalk (3.0 but has 3.5 update) seems designed around "adventuring after you are dead"- but it's in the material world rather than the afterlife.

In 3.0/3.5, characters could start over as Petitioners, using the Manual of the Planes rules- for an afterlife adventure.

Atcote
2011-04-26, 05:06 AM
I didn't put it in the 3.5 category (and at the moment I play 4E anyway) because I want a more objective roleplaying/GMing response to this. Does it work? Does it not?

Any feats, skills and game features, from any game, that helps or hinders with this is more than welcome.

CodeRed
2011-04-26, 05:13 AM
As long as it serves a narrative purpose to the story I don't see why not. It shouldn't happen for no reason at all and it also needs to not be a common occurrence or death loses it's sting. With just about every other narrative device, if used judiciously and with sound reasoning, I'm sure it would be fun and interesting.

hamishspence
2011-04-26, 06:12 AM
4E has a rather "adventuring-flavoured" afterlife for some- in the supplement The Plane Above- it discusses Outsiders (souls admitted to the Astral Sea- but not into the domains of their deity) as well as ordinary petitioners- and the implication is a lot of both groups, roam the plane fighting against various adversaries.

And it's not for eternity- after a few hundred years or so, such characters do "pass on".

Eldan
2011-04-26, 09:25 AM
Depending on the setting and edition, a rather large point is that petitioners, that is souls that have died and moved on to the afterlife, do not really progress anymore. They start losing their memories, their behaviours become more stereotyped, they get outright boring to talk to, until they either become outsiders or merge with the plane they are on.

The Rose Dragon
2011-04-27, 12:39 AM
It is entirely possible if there are no hard mechanics for resurrection and dead people. For example, in God of War games, in each game, you die, go to the Underworld, and come back with more red orbs than before. And even if there is no resurrection, the dead can always walk the earth post mortem (for whatever reasons) and keep going on adventures without ever worrying about coming back to life.

However, in the three systems I know have resurrection mechanics (namely D&D, AD&D and M&M), it wouldn't really work.

Bang!
2011-04-27, 01:30 AM
It's possible, but it's not easy to do well.

If one character dies and the rest are alive, you've automatically split the group. If there's a group wipe that you're trying to cover up, it feels cheap and unrewarding (this is the one I've had new D&D DMs try often).

I think you'd need to develop the afterlife as a theme in game before the event arises. If it's established that somebody in-game has to die to do something (anything, really) in an early session -- even if the point isn't stressed -- I think you could make this work in a much less unsatisfying manner than it's typically used.

John Campbell
2011-04-27, 01:56 AM
Gandalf did it, so, sure, why not?

Killer Angel
2011-04-27, 02:12 AM
As a DM, I've done it.
Hell, I've even planned it, doing a (temporary) TPK so the PCs have been able to do a mission for the Gods, in a realm not accessible to living creatures.

Tengu_temp
2011-04-27, 04:24 PM
Nothing wrong with gaining experience when you're dead - in fact, that's preferable to punishing dying with losing experience if you ask me, which does nothing but annoy the players whose characters died. Although I prefer when dying is hard, but death is permanent.

Traab
2011-04-27, 04:57 PM
That could make for a clever idea for a campaign you know? Set the party up basically, give them a hopeless mission, without telling them its hopeless, then when they get killed, before they can gripe and moan too much you have them begin their after life adventure.

Jay R
2011-04-27, 05:39 PM
It don't mean a thing if you ain't paid for that swing. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0600.html)

Seb Wiers
2011-04-28, 08:46 AM
Happened to me (in a mini way) in the Encounters session last night. My dwarf slayer died literally on the steps of an alter of Mordrid. The DM ran a skill challenge for the party to do a ritual to bring me back, and I got to participate in the skill challenge from beyond the grave. The XPs from the challenge were just enough to put me (and one other character) into a new level, and I added "worshipper of Mordrid" to my character sheet.
Turned out we would have had more or less the same challenge if I hadn't died (healing ritual in the temple) but hey, it was very cool none-the-less.

Atcote
2011-04-28, 09:08 PM
That could make for a clever idea for a campaign you know? Set the party up basically, give them a hopeless mission, without telling them its hopeless, then when they get killed, before they can gripe and moan too much you have them begin their after life adventure.

Hello next campaign hook.

This was really just an idea to make TPK and silly dying less painful, but I do like the idea of it being a hook - even just temporary; they'd probably lose interest if they didn't think they were affecting the 'real' world (my campaign world develops according to previous campaign's actions - it's got them interested so far, but really, that afterlife could use some fleshing out...).

Traab
2011-04-28, 09:17 PM
That could be easily arranged. They are met by some being after they die and given a campaign quest line to do. Something like, "The afterlife is in a state of civil unrest! The souls of the departed are attempting to overthrow my control of the realm of death without realizing it will send the universe into chaos! Help me regain control and these rewards shall be yours, as well as a return to the living realm!" Their reward at the end is a return to life, plus various goodies as rewards depending on how well they did.

Stuff like say, as a best case scenario, they wake back up and beside them on the floor is a full suit of level appropriate gear, and they have the ability to keep whatever levels they gained as well as a one time chance to reassign feats and such they had to setup while dead. The worse they do, the less they get until its just barely scrapping a win and they dont get any items, its just the kept exp and redo on feats. Really though, the reward scheme would be up to you, im not a dm, just an idea guy.

NichG
2011-04-29, 07:43 PM
In the current campaign I'm running, the hook was 'You can play pretty much whatever you want as long as its got a soul. One constraint though: they died right before the campaign starts'.

Basically its an 'afterlife in disarray' kind of thing. Of course in this setting thats a lot worse since the world works by ancestor worship and the long-dead are basically the gods of the world. The party is very frightened of someone figuring out a way to force-resurrect an unwilling soul :smallsmile:

Dimers
2011-04-29, 10:04 PM
Odin hung himself for nine days so that he could come back stronger. Heracles/Hercules went through the underworld on an "adventure". I won't get into specifics, but there are modern-day religions whose champions similarly return to life more divine and magical than they died.

Sleep and death are likened to each other frequently, and many stories are told of people who wake holding an artistic vision or the solution to some problem. Meditation and shamanic trance are both techniques for empowering the soul while the body does nothing.

Neverwinter Nights had a sub-plot that required dying to move into a spirit world. Planescape: Torment was totally focused on a character adventuring after dying. In both, you can earn plenty of XP after dying. Actually, in Torment, you got to die for XP in several ways (infiltrating enemy headquarters, showing people the meaning of death, etc.), and dying repeatedly was necessary to the plot at one point.

The culmination of the light side of the Force is a disembodied existence after death, and it's clear that learning can continue in that state.

If you're interested in this idea, you might also want to check out the webcomic Guilded Age (http://guildedage.net/). The current series of events occurs just after the main characters have been called back from death, though only one seems to have been active during that downtime.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-04-29, 10:07 PM
In the current campaign I'm running, the hook was 'You can play pretty much whatever you want as long as its got a soul. One constraint though: they died right before the campaign starts'.

Basically its an 'afterlife in disarray' kind of thing. Of course in this setting thats a lot worse since the world works by ancestor worship and the long-dead are basically the gods of the world. The party is very frightened of someone figuring out a way to force-resurrect an unwilling soul :smallsmile:

In the 4e book "the plane above: secrets of the astral sea" there's actually a campaign idea that when they near 10th level, they go after this foe way too powerful for them to take on, and when they're dead, the rest of the campaign takes place in the astral sea.