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Denamort
2012-03-21, 10:40 AM
So, two days ago in a campaing I'm playing, we were facing a group of Beholders and I died during the battle. And it felt completely trivial. I didn't thing it was dramatic or important, I tough it was inconvinient. The Cleric already has the diamonds to bring me back to life, they just have to wait two hours (until the Anti-Magic field around my corpse weares off). This is the first time one of my characters has died and I hoped it would be more meaningful or have more serious consecuences.
So, what do you think, playground? How can a DM give more meaning to Death? A simple solution is to remove all the resurrection spells from the game, but that seems a little too harsh for me. Or maybe after you reach a certain level, death shouldn't be a danger anymore and new things (like, I don't know, permanent level drain, perhaps?) should take the role of death as the ever present threat in the players mind.

Knaight
2012-03-21, 11:01 AM
It depends on the game. Outside of D&D, resurrection is really uncommon, so death is a big deal. I'd probably just strip out the resurrection spells as you noted, bu also make it harder to actually kill someone (Basically, everything that would normally kill someone just incapacitates them with horrible wounds, which require non-combat healing, possibly a reworked Raise Dead spell. Then to actually kill someone, they need to get hit with a coup de grace after being horribly wounded).

Lord Il Palazzo
2012-03-21, 11:07 AM
I personally really dislike how easy resurrection is. In my current campaign, it's an established fact that such spells are taboo in the country where the majority of the campaign's action is taking place (with those brought back by Raise Dead or Reurrection being seen as undead abominations by most people). If the players really wanted to, they could probably track down somebody who would cast such spells for them, but such a person would almost definitely be very shady and getting them to cast the spell for you would cost you much more than the standard price in the PHB.

None of the party is capable of casting resurrection spells, so the question of how to deal with that hasn't come up. Off the top of my head, I feel like any player casting such spells would have to be very careful to keep it secret as they'd be run out of town as a necromancer if anyone found out.

Dr Bwaa
2012-03-21, 11:13 AM
Rather than taking resurrections out of the game, just make it hard to come by--require that the PCs actually have the diamonds, not just their gold equivalent. Make it taboo. Give the PCs reasons to make a good old-fashioned Faustian Deal, so when they die, there's no coming back (but not because you told them "no resurrections"; it was a conscious choice they made on their own). Also remember that Resurrection does come with Level Drain. Getting in the habit of dying is costly on the XP side of things.

some guy
2012-03-21, 11:25 AM
Make resurrection come with side effects. Here is a fast d10 table of effects ( Brackets indicate worsened effect if one is raised twice and same effect comes up.)

1. Hair turns white. [loss of all hair]
2. Color blind. [blindness]
3. Loss of taste. [lose sense of hunger]
4. Skin turns pale. [skin turns translucent and must be moistened every hour]
5. Unable to laugh. [unable to feel joy]
6. All music sounds horrible. [music makes ears bleed]
7. Can see far realm creatures. [far realm creatures can interact with resurrectee]
8. Unable to dream. [unable to create art]
9. Sees dead people. [dead people see resurrectee]
10. Can't enter houses uninvited. [can't cross streaming water]

Reluctance
2012-03-21, 11:32 AM
What attack actually killed you? I'm guessing Finger of Death.

I get that the first reaction to this sort of thing is to ban resurrections. Reflecting for a moment shows that it's not the coming back that cheapens character death. It's the fact that there are so many attacks that can kill your character with one unlucky roll. Save or Die is generally unpopular for this reason. It tends towards anticlimax no matter how it resolves.

Unfortunately, 3.5 carries a lot of legacy flaws. Either have everybody agree to ignore them, learn what abilities are in place as counters, or find another game that suits you better.

Tengu_temp
2012-03-21, 11:46 AM
Get rid of all raising spells, and to compensate make dying in a fight much harder. Most of the time, when you're reduced to negative HP, you're just knocked out instead.

That's how it works for most RPGs these days, actually - even in DND 4e it's very hard to die. Either that or they're very gritty settings where you have to think twice about starting a fight, because there's a fair chance you will go down.

Denamort
2012-03-21, 11:57 AM
Actually, I got killed by the 20 attacks of two Kiss of Death (an alternative beholder from Forgotten Realms). I think what made it so anti-climatic is that I actually planned for that. The enemies where 1 Beholder Mage (A Beholder that removes his central eye and gains Wizard levels), 2 Kiss of Death (They only have the central eye and replace the other eyes with 20f. long tentacles that can grapple you and suck your blood, healing them) and 2 Regular ones. I knwe the regular ones would make me useless if they caught me in their Anti-Magic Eye. So, I simply buff my party to embaracing levels and use AMF to protect myself from their rays. I had nothing to in that battle, besides watch. I knew that if the Kiss of Death reach me I was doomed, because in the AMF I had no defenses (later I realised I could have use a Tower shield or Extraordinary Spell Aim to protect myself). They did reach me, but the only thing they acomplished was killing the one guy that wouldn't do anything during the battle. With their increase SR, touch armor and Greater Invisibility my allies only had make three saves in the entire battle (wich they passed).

I like some guy's idea. I think rather than restricting the use of resurrection it should have more penalties. Especially since, as Reluctance pointed out, there are so many SoD effects that resurrection is there probably to balance that. Adding roleplaying restrictions is also good, but I think there needs to be a mechanical extra. Losing a level doesn't seem like the right answer. The character that dies more often (or at least should die more often) is the tank, since he is in the front lines taking the blunt of the damage. A figther who looses a level gets behind in everything he needs (HP, BAB, Feats). A wizard, like me, not only has many ways to avoid death (Teleport, Invisibility, Fly, Gaseous Form, Planar Travel, etc.), even when he gets killed he looses what? A spell level in the worst case scenario. He doesn't even looses the spells he gained that level (and he gains two extra when he levels up again). And being a main caster, being a level behind from the rest of the party doesn't really weakens you in power level (if anything, it makes it more balanced).

navar100
2012-03-21, 12:15 PM
How often are PCs killed in the campaign? How happy is the DM when a PC is killed? How does the new character compare to the party - level, magic items, power strength, etc.?

These questions matter very much to how cheap or meaningful character death is and the appropriateness of resurrection. Ban-hammering resurrection is a knee-jerk reaction. Not having resurrection in a campaign does not automatically mean the DM is a donkey cavity, but a DM who boasts about it is muttering a hee haw.

PCs are the only thing players get to control. They are the only things in the game world they play, create, and develop. Players spend real world time and effort into the character. It has a value. For such players, character death should not be taken lightly. Put the hammer away. You can keep it under the table but don't have it in your hand as the first thing players see.

milothethief
2012-03-21, 12:25 PM
Make diamonds (of the quality necessary for Resurrection) difficult to find.

Add a small likelihood that the character will not come back from the fade. After all, who is to say he or she doesn't like it there? 10-20% chance should make a character think twice...

TheCountAlucard
2012-03-21, 12:27 PM
Again, part of it is system-specific - there's more than a few systems that don't permit take-backsies at all.

I'd say if you want death/resurrection to be more meaningful, having the PCs quest for it rather than letting a simple spell solve everything seems to be a better solution.

Slipperychicken
2012-03-21, 01:21 PM
Relevant thread is relevant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=235690). Lots of good suggestions in there. Be sure to consider the effect of permadeath on your enjoyment of the game (what if a character you really like dies?). If you're making resurrection harder to do, consider the implications on the game (Will the PCs actually ration resurrections? Or will they simply be jumping through more hoops to revive their friends? How long will the dead PC's player be twiddling his thumbs?).

kieza
2012-03-21, 01:41 PM
My setting has resurrection highly regulated. The only copies of "True Resurrection" rituals are in the possession of churches, and they don't waste them on nonbelievers as a course of habit. Even if they decide to raise you, they almost always request a tithe as compensation, and a lot of churches require that you become one of their champions after you come back--sort of along the lines of "we brought you back, and now we own you." Also, even if you get resurrected, you're still considered to have legally died: your heirs inherit, your marriage is dissolved, you lose any noble titles, etc.

There are alternatives: you can go to someone with an incomplete or imperfect ritual, in which case there are side effects (a common one is that your max HP decrease by the amount of the damage which killed you, as that wound can never be healed), or you can talk to a mad scientist and let him test his revivification engine on your dead friend (same side effects, and more of them).

Basically, the idea is that there are consequences beyond "spend 5000 gold."

Jay R
2012-03-21, 01:43 PM
If there is anything in your campaign that cannot be undone, then this is the actual death-equivalent in your game.

If there is no action in the game that can't be undone, then all things that happen are meaningless as threats - they are merely annoyances to get past.

So I strongly urge the inclusion of a threat that includes finality. This is the actual death-equivalent in your game. And if you're going to have a death-equivalent at all, why not just make it death? Eliminate Resurrection spells and poof death is meaningful.

I'm currently playing in such a game. I have my next character half-designed already. One player names his first character Primus, just to be ready to produce "Secundus", Tertius", etc.

RangerStranger
2012-03-21, 01:47 PM
I'm assuming you're playing 3.5 or possibly 4th here. Years ago my gaming group played AD&D 2nd edition which had some pretty interesting penalties for death. The biggest one I remember is the draining of 1 point of constitution for dying, so basically there are a limited amount of times that you could die. Also there was something called a system shock roll and a ressurection survival roll if I remember correctly. Basically the higher you constition the better chance you had of being ressurected. I don't think these tables could be directly translated over to 3.5 or 4th but could be brought over in some sort of fashion.

Also if I remember correctly there were some penalties for even casting ressurection or raise dead spells. I know haste aged the caster and for some reason I beleive raise dead did as well, I could be wrong though. There was also a requirement for the caster to take an entire day of bed rest directly after casting the spell.

Kuma Kode
2012-03-21, 04:05 PM
Eliminate Resurrection spells and poof death is meaningful.

I don't think the tedium of character death springs from the fact that the character can easily come back; lots of novels have some pretty unsatisfying and pointless deaths that just leave the reader feeling cheated, despite the fact that death is permanent in those settings, too. If the problem lies elsewhere, if it's not that death is easily fixed, doesn't making the problem permanent make it worse?

Making death meaningful in a literary way, where it causes a satisfying story, usually requires that it be in some dramatic circumstances or that it achieve something. Dying in battle with a monster to distract it so your allies can flee is meaningful. Dying in combat because the monster looked at you and you failed a single die roll is simply not. Or cliffs, for example; Aragorn riding off the side of the cliff with his opponent was meaningful, while failing a climb check by 5 or more while trying to climb to the entrance of the dungeon is not.

If the death is caused by a tedious, meaningless occurence, Resurrection offers a safety net so you don't lose your entire character and all that time, effort, and emotional investment because the dice decided to be on the low end of the probability distribution.

I am somewhat reminded of an earlier thread about DMs fudging die rolls. Some people seriously opposed it, even agressively. If you're one of those people, if you don't want the DM to fudge die rolls for or against you, you're simply going to have to put up with pointless deaths caused by bad die rolls. Not every death is going to be meaningful and satisfying in a literary sense, just like in real life. Sometimes, people die in unnecessary ways for no good reason.

If you would rather dissolve some of the illusion of danger in combat in exchange for meaningful deaths, talk to your group about it. I've had a few pointless deaths in my games and its simply not satisfying, so I've adopted a rule that in high fantasy, at least, I won't let dice murder characters unless the character did something stupid or if we agree it would be appropriate. This does remove the illusion of danger, but only in the context of players. Death is not the only way an adventure can fail.

Andorax
2012-03-21, 04:42 PM
Borrowing off of what Kuma Kode said, what if you:

1) Employ some sort of version of the "make resurrections much harder/rarer"...put it into the bargain/quest/special deal category instead of a regularly-memorized 5th level spell.

2) Employ some version of the "most things that kill you just knock you out" rule. Reduce the number of possible fatalities dramatically, and particularly nerf anything that leads to an ignomous death. Death by stupidity becomes nigh unto impossible, but serious maiming and massive inconvenience (and perhaps even more use for the Regeneration spell) isn't.

3) Introduce a "dramatically significant" tag or notation into your campaign. Denote the places, situations, boss monsters, and the like where there's an actual impact and significance to it. Then, under those circumstances only, you pull away the safety net, and death can be a real, painful consequence.



An example of this (quickly thought out, don't nitpick...just use it as a general sketch).

The dragon's cave is 100' up a cliff. Wizard A loses his grip and falls, then fails the 'catch himself' climb check on the way down as well. Splat. D6s are rolled, and yes...it's more than his hps+10. Wizard A is unconscious, bleeding, mangled...roll on your favorite disfigurment chart for something inconvenient until major healing can cure it. In this case...his leg is broken and remains so until he is healed to full hps.

Eventually, they get to the cave (yes, even gimpy Wizard A), and make their way into the dragon's lair. Here comes the hired orc guardians. Battle ensues, and someone gets a lucky greataxe crit (curse you, you nasty greataxe crits). Fighter B will hereafter be known as "lefty" until such time as Cleric C can memorize the now-5th-level Regenration spell, but he's not completely out of the picture. The mishap with the Orcs remains signficant, but neither a total letdown nor a 'cheapened' death.

Then comes the fight with the dragon. This battle is marked as "plot significant, death-eligible" in the DM's notes, and our hapless party once again suffers a serious misfortune. Sorry Rogue D, but you don't get a reflex save when the dragon breaths with you in his mouth. Not only are you seriously incinerated, but you're also genuinely...dead. It'll take a great deal of bargainng, and a quest on behalf of the Church of Mask, to get them to even consider using their carefully-horded, rarely-utilized power to raise the dead.




Please note...this does come with drawbacks. One of the reasons resurrection is cheap and easy in D&D is because it sucks to sit out while your character is dead. To draw the MMO analogy, imagine if you had to sit around staring at your corpse for half an hour until someone came around to use up a good sized chunk of their resources to bring you back.

Now think of "half an hour" instead as "a couple of full sessions" at the pace that D&D operates. Being dead is 'unfun'...and the group as a whole has to value the importance of dramatic death over the cost of suffering from 'unfun' situations.

Kaun
2012-03-21, 05:20 PM
So, two days ago in a campaing I'm playing, we were facing a group of Beholders and I died during the battle. And it felt completely trivial.

If you don't want trivial and pointless deaths don't fight trivial and pointless fights.

Denamort
2012-03-21, 08:09 PM
If you don't want trivial and pointless deaths don't fight trivial and pointless fights.

Maybe is just me or I'm missing some Irony/sarcasm, but your comment sounds rather rude. That battle wasn't pointless or trivial. If we had failed the enemy would have obtain very valuable information. Our victory delayed our enemy's plan and it had the added bonus of killing five of his most powerfull agents.
My individual death was trivial, because I had accounted for the possibility in my plan. If along side me, the group's cleric had died I would be screwed, since there are few high level caster in the world. But thanks to the plan we had, the changes of the cleric deing were very slim. Another character, the rogue, is a Quore. If she dies, it's very permanent, her death is final.
For me it felt cheap that my character was in a spot were he could treat his own death as something trivial. For my character, "Life" is just another spell. It causes the enemies to waste turns and resources on me, wich gives extra time to my allies. Is like Time Stop, except that gives 1 full round to each memeber of the party, for a cost of 500 gp and some XP.

Andorax and Kuma Kode, very good ideas. I particulary like Andorax system. Character don't die unless is aproppiate, they just recibe a huge penalty if they reach -10.

nedz
2012-03-21, 08:26 PM
In certain games, at high level, death is meerly an occupational hazard leading to a temporary inconvenience.
One trick I used for many years in 1E and 2E AD&D was to make Druidic Reincarnation cheap and easy. The players seemed to like it, they had a kind of reliving will; and whilst a few of them chose Raise Dead etc., many others choose Reincarnation. YMMV with this one of course, and I was creative with the tables.

Kaun
2012-03-21, 08:29 PM
Maybe is just me or I'm missing some Irony/sarcasm, but your comment sounds rather rude.

Sorry not meant to be rude, but i can see how it might be taken that way so i apologies. With out the additional description you provided regarding the fight i thought you might have died to a random encounter or something.


That battle wasn't pointless or trivial. If we had failed the enemy would have obtain very valuable information. Our victory delayed our enemy's plan and it had the added bonus of killing five of his most powerfull agents.
My individual death was trivial, because I had accounted for the possibility in my plan. If along side me, the group's cleric had died I would be screwed, since there are few high level caster in the world. But thanks to the plan we had, the changes of the cleric deing were very slim. Another character, the rogue, is a Quore. If she dies, it's very permanent, her death is final.
For me it felt cheap that my character was in a spot were he could treat his own death as something trivial. For my character, "Life" is just another spell. It causes the enemies to waste turns and resources on me, wich gives extra time to my allies. Is like Time Stop, except that gives 1 full round to each memeber of the party, for a cost of 500 gp and some XP.


Ehh i wouldn't look at it as a true death then. The battle was successful with only a minor set back (loss of resources getting you alive again).

I guess it just comes down to how death is perceived in the situation.

In worlds were resurrection is possible death isn't as black and white as it is in RL. A death like what you described is probably closer to having your car or phone stolen in RL, in that its annoying and costly but not the end of the world. Where as a true death like what the Quore would suffer if your fates had been swapped would sit on the same level as a RL death.

Kuma Kode
2012-03-21, 08:44 PM
Andorax and Kuma Kode, very good ideas. I particulary like Andorax system. Character don't die unless is aproppiate, they just recibe a huge penalty if they reach -10.

Yeah, Andorax hit the nail on the head. That's a fairly clean and concise system that could easily be turned into an actual rules module. Homebrew anyone?

Slipperychicken
2012-03-21, 09:54 PM
Also, even if you get resurrected, you're still considered to have legally died: your heirs inherit, your marriage is dissolved, you lose any noble titles, etc.


In a world where resurrection exists, and is known of, that is ridiculous. The first head of state (or high noble, even) who planned on being resurrected would find whoever wrote that law and put his head on a pike. Or cast Trap the Soul, for a truly fitting punishment.

Kuma Kode
2012-03-22, 12:38 AM
In a world where resurrection exists, and is known of, that is ridiculous. The first head of state (or high noble, even) who planned on being resurrected would find whoever wrote that law and put his head on a pike. Or cast Trap the Soul, for a truly fitting punishment. I disagree. There would likely be some sort of grace period, but having a guy finally get resurrected three years after the fact and suddenly coming and reclaiming his house, wife, and miscellaneous other things is going to cause a headache. Either there would be no such thing as legal death (which is more ridiculous because a dead guy's property would remain in limbo on the off chance he comes back) or some sort of grace period would be allowed for you to keep your stuff. Eventually, though, people are going to have to move on, and you'll just have to rejoin the flow.

Knaight
2012-03-22, 12:48 AM
In a world where resurrection exists, and is known of, that is ridiculous. The first head of state (or high noble, even) who planned on being resurrected would find whoever wrote that law and put his head on a pike. Or cast Trap the Soul, for a truly fitting punishment.

You assume that the law is applied consistently, at all levels of society. That's a relatively recent development at a conceptual level, and still hasn't actually happened - these heads of states may not care, because they are above the law anyways. The same applies to high nobles.

Need_A_Life
2012-03-22, 06:35 AM
In most D&D campaigns I've been in, once we reach a level where Raise Dead (etc.) is a valid option, we bring up the subject.
Do people want to return? Who reimburses the diamond dust (collective or on a "on-use" basis)?

Of course, we also tend to make (semi-)formal agreements within the party in general. We've had groups where people would set aside some gold and write a letter for their body and belongings to be sent to their family and we've had (possibly my favourite), The Unit:

Upon joining, everything you own is now property of The Unit.
Upon death, The Unit will take whatever it can use from your body. The rest will be buried with you or sent home to your family, as decided at the time.
If you return from beyond the grave, great. If we suspect undeadness, get ready to be skewered.

prufock
2012-03-22, 06:57 AM
One more idea that I didn't see suggested here yet:
Remove True Resurrection. Remove from Raise Dead, Resurrection, and Reincarnate the clause that returning costs you a level or 2 points of Constitution if you were first level. Instead, add a clause that returning from the dead costs you 2 points of Constitution, period. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. This Con loss can not be restored in any way (though you still can, of course, increase your con as normal with tomes, items, level bonuses, etc).

This has 2 mechanical effects: it makes you more vulnerable (less HPs, lower Fort save) AND you can only be brought back from the dead a limited number of times. It makes a flavourful kind of sense as well, in one way; in another way, though, it can feel too much like a video game in that you get X "lives."

If you want less death, increase the Con loss. You can make it a flat 4, for instance, or roll a d4 or d6. If you want it really harsh, you could do 2d6, which means there's a possibility of a low-level or low-con character getting NO second chances. Personally I think some sort of die roll increases the suspense - if you roll high on that d6, you might not come back, so you'd better be darn careful with your reckless behaviour.

Note that this only reflects the mechanical meaninglessness of death in D&D. Level loss is not such a big deal, since your XP gains increase and you will eventually catch up to the party. Con loss, however, is serious business.

As for the literary significance, that's something that can't really be addressed by mechanics. It's a story thing, and as such is going to differ from game to game. The mechanical change DOES make death a real sacrifice, though.

Sucrose
2012-03-22, 07:20 AM
One more idea that I didn't see suggested here yet:
Remove True Resurrection. Remove from Raise Dead, Resurrection, and Reincarnate the clause that returning costs you a level or 2 points of Constitution if you were first level. Instead, add a clause that returning from the dead costs you 2 points of Constitution, period. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. This Con loss can not be restored in any way (though you still can, of course, increase your con as normal with tomes, items, level bonuses, etc).

This has 2 mechanical effects: it makes you more vulnerable (less HPs, lower Fort save) AND you can only be brought back from the dead a limited number of times. It makes a flavourful kind of sense as well, in one way; in another way, though, it can feel too much like a video game in that you get X "lives."

If you want less death, increase the Con loss. You can make it a flat 4, for instance, or roll a d4 or d6. If you want it really harsh, you could do 2d6, which means there's a possibility of a low-level or low-con character getting NO second chances. Personally I think some sort of die roll increases the suspense - if you roll high on that d6, you might not come back, so you'd better be darn careful with your reckless behaviour.

Note that this only reflects the mechanical meaninglessness of death in D&D. Level loss is not such a big deal, since your XP gains increase and you will eventually catch up to the party. Con loss, however, is serious business.

As for the literary significance, that's something that can't really be addressed by mechanics. It's a story thing, and as such is going to differ from game to game. The mechanical change DOES make death a real sacrifice, though.
That rule will increase deaths, not decrease them. Less HP means that fair challenges will have a considerably greater chance of killing people outright, through no fault of their own.

Jay R
2012-03-22, 10:14 AM
I don't think the tedium of character death springs from the fact that the character can easily come back; lots of novels have some pretty unsatisfying and pointless deaths that just leave the reader feeling cheated, despite the fact that death is permanent in those settings, too. If the problem lies elsewhere, if it's not that death is easily fixed, doesn't making the problem permanent make it worse?

That's a very interesting discussion about a topic unrelated to the OP's question. He's talking about the fact that his character died in combat and neither the character nor the player cared, because two and a half hours later, everything was back to normal.

That tedium does in fact spring from the fact that the character can easily come back.

Slipperychicken
2012-03-22, 10:18 AM
You assume that the law is applied consistently, at all levels of society. That's a relatively recent development at a conceptual level, and still hasn't actually happened - these heads of states may not care, because they are above the law anyways. The same applies to high nobles.

Silly me, assuming universal application of laws :smalltongue:. Since those guys most likely make the laws, and presumably enjoy living, you'd think they'd want an exception (written or otherwise) for both themselves and people they really want around. I'd also say that wills would contain resurrection clauses, including how long to wait, when to do the raising (if ever), etc.

Dr Bwaa
2012-03-22, 10:32 AM
Another option would be to do an oots-like thing, but maybe even more extreme--when you die, you go to an afterlife. Time in the afterlife may move dramatically faster than it does on the material plane, so even if you're resurrected right after combat, that ten minute casting time feels like six months, or ten years. By the time your cleric is done casting, you may have forgotten all about your quest, or certainly stopped caring. In this sort of case, resurrection magic in the world would end up extra-rare, since it would fail so frequently just from people not wanting to return to their stressful lives (of course, resurrecting Evil people would presumably be more effective).

shimmercat
2012-03-22, 02:08 PM
To build off what lordhenry said, perhaps a better solution is RP-based rather than mechanics-based.

What if when you die, you gets to chat with your god, for free! :D (Description of how we personally utilize this feature behind the spoiler.)

In our world, there is the concept of First Claim -- basically, every sentient creature gives off this faith-energy called Claim. The higher-powered the creature is, the more Claim they give off. The gods subsist on Claim and wish to collect as many high-level followers as possible in order to get the most Claim, and they will compete for desirable subjects. The god who gets your Claim has First Claim over you. You must have sponsorship of your First Claim god in order to be rezzed.

When you die, you meet the god who has First Claim over you. You get a one-on-one conversation with your god. This can be HUGE for religious types. And for non-religious types... lets say you've never really cared about religion and now you're dead. Your actions in life determine which god has your Claim. You may not be happy at ALL with the god who you meet. You can barter with the god in order to switch your Claim, or in order to get that god to sponsor your rez. If you're really on the fence religiously, then you may have more than one god fighting over you, especially if you're powerful.

This gives a positive aspect to death -- you get a powerful RP scene that can drastically affect your character. I had a cleric who after he met his god, wasn't terrible impressed and started becoming more irreverent. (The god didn't make my cleric fall because the god NEEDED my character's Claim.) When the rogue in the party died, he had to make a decision between several gods who were fighting over him. And when the druid's father Ascended to godhood, he ASKED her to kill herself so that he could talk to her in private.

In order to keep players from abusing the mechanic in order to get god-time, the DM put a limit on how many times a particular god can rez a particular character: once for Raise Dead, once for Resurrection, and once for True Rez. So rezzes get more expensive and more difficult. If you die a fourth time... then you need to start making deals with other gods. ;)

I'm not terribly fond of making rezzes more difficult to perform, as you're going to make the dead character's player sit out longer. As the cleric AND teleporter, I had to sit out sessions while the party got back to the base to pick up the items needed to rez me. (We kept some diamonds and scrolls that the UMD-heavy rogue could use, just in case.) By making diamonds hard to get, you're asking the dead character to stay dead LONGER, and thus disrupting the flow of the game even more. I'm not saying that a group couldn't make rare diamonds, etc, work... just that it's really not a catch-all solution.

navar100
2012-03-22, 08:33 PM
In our world, there is the concept of First Claim -- basically, every sentient creature gives off this faith-energy called Claim. The higher-powered the creature is, the more Claim they give off. The gods subsist on Claim and wish to collect as many high-level followers as possible in order to get the most Claim, and they will compete for desirable subjects. The god who gets your Claim has First Claim over you. You must have sponsorship of your First Claim god in order to be rezzed.

When you die, you meet the god who has First Claim over you. You get a one-on-one conversation with your god. This can be HUGE for religious types. And for non-religious types... lets say you've never really cared about religion and now you're dead. Your actions in life determine which god has your Claim. You may not be happy at ALL with the god who you meet. You can barter with the god in order to switch your Claim, or in order to get that god to sponsor your rez. If you're really on the fence religiously, then you may have more than one god fighting over you, especially if you're powerful.

This gives a positive aspect to death -- you get a powerful RP scene that can drastically affect your character. I had a cleric who after he met his god, wasn't terrible impressed and started becoming more irreverent. (The god didn't make my cleric fall because the god NEEDED my character's Claim.) When the rogue in the party died, he had to make a decision between several gods who were fighting over him. And when the druid's father Ascended to godhood, he ASKED her to kill herself so that he could talk to her in private.

In order to keep players from abusing the mechanic in order to get god-time, the DM put a limit on how many times a particular god can rez a particular character: once for Raise Dead, once for Resurrection, and once for True Rez. So rezzes get more expensive and more difficult. If you die a fourth time... then you need to start making deals with other gods. ;)



I like this! I really, really like this! I even like can only be affected once by each return from the dead spell as a compromise between the extremes of No Resurrection, Ever, You're Dead Jim, Tough Noogies and I died again? Oh brother. Alright, mark off another 5,000 gp. Next adventure please.

DrewID
2012-03-22, 09:36 PM
What if dead can only be raised on consecrated ground, like a temple or shrine. The Player now faces a RP cost, in that their character is out of action until the party can return to some base of operations. The party faces an OOTS like challenge, as they have to carry a potentially decaying dead body with them for some length of time. Of course, just like the OP's party had diamonds prepared in advance, some party's will similarly stock up on +5 Air Fresheners of Pineness.

DrewID

Kadzar
2012-03-22, 10:59 PM
I like this! I really, really like this! I even like can only be affected once by each return from the dead spell as a compromise between the extremes of No Resurrection, Ever, You're Dead Jim, Tough Noogies and I died again? Oh brother. Alright, mark off another 5,000 gp. Next adventure please.I agree. I like how it doesn't tack on penalties that just makes it more likely that you'll die again, yet still makes death something you'll very much want to avoid in the future.

Jeraa
2012-03-22, 11:05 PM
What if dead can only be raised on consecrated ground, like a temple or shrine. The Player now faces a RP cost, in that their character is out of action until the party can return to some base of operations. The party faces an OOTS like challenge, as they have to carry a potentially decaying dead body with them for some length of time. Of course, just like the OP's party had diamonds prepared in advance, some party's will similarly stock up on +5 Air Fresheners of Pineness.

DrewID

Then they just cast Consecrate. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/consecrate.htm) An extra standard action, and 25gp of silver dust.

Unless you meant something more like Hallow. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/hallow.htm) Still, only 24 hours, and 1,000gp.

Any cleric capable of raising the deal is also capable of creating holy ground.

LibraryOgre
2012-03-22, 11:05 PM
Alternatively, embrace it. It is easy to bring people back from the dead, once you reach a certain level of power. What impact does that have on the world?

Jerthanis
2012-03-23, 02:42 AM
Alternatively, embrace it. It is easy to bring people back from the dead, once you reach a certain level of power. What impact does that have on the world?

^My personal favorite in high magic campaigns.

Personally, I think that a few things are really good ways to do things that make death more meaningful and a few bad ways to do it. The good: (IMHO)

Being raised means the PC in question must accomplish something for the god who does the deed, the church who performs the service, or the people who supplied the diamonds. When sent back to the realm of the living, some purpose must be accomplished. This hooks the PCs into an adventure and the story can be furthered by giving them greater perspective on the world from the view of the gods, church, or financially powerful individuals.

Being Raised leaves you weaker in one way, but stronger in another. Some ability like constant "Detect Undead" or "Necromancy spells are cast at +1 CL" or "You wake up with 1 temporary HP for each HD you have every day" to represent your brush with death, but in exchange you take -1 regular HP per HD, or you take more damage from some element, or you become exhausted whenever you would be merely fatigued... some more dynamic and interesting permanent scar since it's not all bad, but not something you particularly like either.

Death is not DEATH for PCs, they get knocked unconscious, clinging to life almost no matter what the situation. They require days of bedrest to wake from their coma-like state if they aren't treated with appropriate magic (which just happens to be the same level as Raise Dead)... PCs can die for realzies from extenuating circumstances such as falling into lava, or being left behind in the stomach of a dragon. Plot deaths can happen against serious boss characters advertised as being capable of real death, and otherwise characters are just 'mostly dead'. Mostly dead carrying some sort of permanent scar optional adjunct to this system.

The Bad: (IMHO)

Mandatory personality changes. Forgetting important plot details or your own backstory... being forced to become a listless, depressed, or melodramatic. If you have to roleplay a different character anyway, you might as well roll a new one up and get the chance to try something new on your own terms.

Overly bad negative effects of being raised. Horrible penalties and inabilities which would impact a character in every day situations, much less further adventuring. Blindness, inability to speak, unable to gain restful sleep due to nightmares, excessive stat penalties...

Making the ressurection process take a long time or be excessively expensive or difficult, necessitating the player sit and wait patiently as the players go through a whole quest without them, or argue endlessly over whether it was going to be worth it. Death is already going to be a blow to the ego, and almost no matter what it means the player will sit with nothing to do for a while... exacerbating this isn't going to make death more meaningful, just prolong their boredom and actually make it less meaningful.

Permanent death with no possibility of ressurection when roles being filled are important, "Damn, I liked Suzie the wizard, well, better start rolling another wizard or sorcerer or maybe Psion if I'm feeling REALLY creative, since we need an arcanist... alright, here's Suzie 2 the Wizard" or when intraparty dynamics and character specific plotlines are vital to the story of the game. "Well, the deposed princess died and nothing will bring her back... I guess this isn't about her reascendingt to the throne anymore." or "Welp, my character's sister died, I no longer had a reason to adventure (protecting my sister was my purpose before) and since I'm retiring, the party member trying to make me fall in love with her might as well follow me into retirement and HER swordsmaster teacher PC might as well follow her into retirement too... well, I guess that means the game is over... too bad because we were enjoying it." Permanent death in a game with a looser premise or party dynamic can work, since a lot of players have more character ideas than games they get to use them in.

Morithias
2012-03-23, 05:06 AM
In my campaign setting death is by and large...easy to get out of to adventurers. You can buy Raise dead scrolls in 50% of the cities on the planet and there are clerics so high of level they could true rez someone who died 300 years ago running around.

But...death is far from meaningless. When you die you go to hell, and which point your case is looked over, and you are given a very strict talking to, very similar to what happened to Roy in OOTS.

Here's the difference between my setting and Rich's...getting into heaven right away when you die is RARE. You can't just be "farmer john gives 5 gp to charity every month" and claim to be worthy of the heavens. No, in order to get into heaven when you die, you better be a true hero.

Put it bluntly, when 90% of people who are going to get raised die and come back, they come back having just spent 10 minutes of a harvester devil going over their case file, pointing out all their characters flaws and basically telling them "You're going to limbo unless you do something truly good and exalted with your life".

And if you're evil and you die....sorry no second chances, if you want to raise from the dead someone who is going to be sent to the abyssal prison system, yeah.. You need to plane shift to Baator and win a court case first. Also it is VERY easy to be sent to the Abyss in World 1. A single case of stealing gold without an significant good deeds will get you a good five years. Murder, which a LOT of PC's do without talking or asking? 100 years.

A lot of your favorite anti-heroes, wouldn't get second chances in my setting. Death is not something that gets brushed off, it is easy to come back if you're nothing short of exalted, but if you are in any way flawed, expect a long "the reason you suck speech" from your case worker.

I find tearing a PC's arrogant, jerkass, character apart and destroying their pride is much more damaging to them then the level loss. The problem here isn't making the punishment damaging to the character, it's making it damaging to the player.

prufock
2012-03-23, 08:40 AM
That rule will increase deaths, not decrease them. Less HP means that fair challenges will have a considerably greater chance of killing people outright, through no fault of their own.

The goal was not "decrease deaths." The goal was "increase meaningfulness of deaths." Having a permanent, significant, noticeable negative impact on your character should make you value death more highly, and thus take more care to avoid it. If that negative impact has a random variable, this should be even more true.

I'm not quite sure your assessment is true, though. Ignoring True Resurrection for the moment.

Current rule
Death = -1 level
Max HP loss: 12+con+1/new level ~ 12 + 12 + 19 = 43 (L 20 barbarian who increased his con at level 20 to +13).
Min HP loss: 1 (level 1 anything)

New -2 Con loss rule
Max HP loss: 1*level
Min HP loss: 1*level

Of course it's different in other ways. Losing a level makes you less effective, not just less durable. You lose base attack, saves, skill points, spells, class features.... With this loss, fair challenges for the party are more deadly to you anyway, so I'm not sure your statement that this change would increase deaths is accurate.

shimmercat
2012-03-23, 09:34 AM
Oh, I'm glad that people like the Claim idea. :smallbiggrin: All credit goes to my husband, who came up with that mechanic in the first place.

If anyone is curious about some of the more mechanical aspects, we've got a Churion wiki page here (http://churion.wikidot.com/claim) that describes more. Claim affects more than just rezzes, it also affects how the gods work (especially Ascension of new gods), casting of certain types of spells, Leadership, and we've got a spell called "Detect Claim." (Detect Claim can create some interesting situations....)

shimmercat
2012-03-23, 11:11 AM
Oh, and a different unrelated thought.

Ghostwalk is a very interesting book that is really underrated imo. Maybe after you die, you may want to stay dead for a bit. :smallwink:

charcoalninja
2012-03-23, 11:35 AM
So, two days ago in a campaing I'm playing, we were facing a group of Beholders and I died during the battle. And it felt completely trivial. I didn't thing it was dramatic or important, I tough it was inconvinient. The Cleric already has the diamonds to bring me back to life, they just have to wait two hours (until the Anti-Magic field around my corpse weares off). This is the first time one of my characters has died and I hoped it would be more meaningful or have more serious consecuences.
So, what do you think, playground? How can a DM give more meaning to Death? A simple solution is to remove all the resurrection spells from the game, but that seems a little too harsh for me. Or maybe after you reach a certain level, death shouldn't be a danger anymore and new things (like, I don't know, permanent level drain, perhaps?) should take the role of death as the ever present threat in the players mind.

By the time you're capable of casting resurrection, a 7th level spell I believe, you're already capable of traversing the multiverse, magically summoning your own timeshare on the irridescent plains of heaven itself and summoning an army of celestial superbeings to do your bidding and wage war with entities crafted of shadowstuff, living magma, or death itself.

The scope of existence for these characters is such that mundane mortal death is not a dramatic event and a time for grief. It is a speedbump on the way to saving an entire world. They have reached a scope beyond the labours of heracles and can literally converse with the gods themselves. I think the issues a lot of people have with the impermenace of death in D&D is that they don't adjust their expectations to the tier of play they've moved into.

Mid to high level play in D&D is the realm of superheroes and icons of fantastic power. You're people capable of killing fire breathing monstrocities the size of a Greyhound coach with a 6 inch knife and a lot of angst.

I personally believe that the importance and severity of death should play an ever shifting role in the game from being a terror to being merely an obsticle to be overcome. Those who would contend with gods themselves shouldn't be all that concerned with their mortal coil.

navar100
2012-03-23, 12:53 PM
I find tearing a PC's arrogant, jerkass, character apart and destroying their pride is much more damaging to them then the level loss. The problem here isn't making the punishment damaging to the character, it's making it damaging to the player.

In other words, you are a DM who hates his players. I agree, that is worse than no resurrection at all.

lt_murgen
2012-03-23, 01:03 PM
Here is an idea:

By bringing them back to life, you attract the attention of a denizen of the outer planes. The denizen's job is to recover the soul.

It could be a good guy, or a bad guy, but either way it has it in for the character, and the rest of the party if they get in the way.

Morithias
2012-03-23, 01:17 PM
In other words, you are a DM who hates his players. I agree, that is worse than no resurrection at all.

Oh hell no. I don't hate my players, but the fact remains is that if you play a chaotic stupid psychopath while claiming to be chaotic good, I'm going to bloody call you out on it.

A writer gets more ticked off at someone pointing out a plot hole then someone saying they don't like the book after all.

eepop
2012-03-23, 02:04 PM
I like the "death-eligible fight" concept, but I kind of wish there was some way to bring player choice into the equation. Some way for a character to say "this fight is important enough to me, that if I die, I stay dead".

The hard part is you have to
a) Make the players want to do it, so there has to be some upside
b) Make the upside from a, either be irrelevant or not enticing in trivial encounters where even if they invoke it they do not risk death.

navar100
2012-03-23, 02:05 PM
Oh hell no. I don't hate my players, but the fact remains is that if you play a chaotic stupid psychopath while claiming to be chaotic good, I'm going to bloody call you out on it.

A writer gets more ticked off at someone pointing out a plot hole then someone saying they don't like the book after all.

In another thread you wrote you purposely created and DMed a campaign for the purpose of TPKing the party. That is being a DM who hates his players that you feel you need to teach them a lesson.

That is Il Duce style of DMing, a fancy way of me saying Killer DM being Godwin without directly being Godwin. It is not your job as the DM to punish players for the audacity of playing the game.

Morithias
2012-03-23, 04:00 PM
In another thread you wrote you purposely created and DMed a campaign for the purpose of TPKing the party. That is being a DM who hates his players that you feel you need to teach them a lesson.

That is Il Duce style of DMing, a fancy way of me saying Killer DM being Godwin without directly being Godwin. It is not your job as the DM to punish players for the audacity of playing the game.

That campaign was to show that the heroes don't always win in my setting. Why is it okay for WOTC to write a "Rocks fall everyone dies" into their Neverwinter nights 2 game, yet as soon as I write a campaign where 2/3 of the party dies (And ends up working under a fricken vampire half-nymph in a brothel) I'm considered the bad guy.

News flash people, it's that way in real life too, sometimes the murderer gets off, sometimes the dictator wins the war, and sometimes bad stuff happens. It's called realism. You can have your settings where the hero always wins, the villain always loses, and there's black and white morality everywhere, but in my setting that's not the way things work, and my players needed to be shown that.

They enjoyed that campaign even though it ended with them as vampires, I see no reason why you have any right to judge me. Maybe I'm just a better DM who can write a TPK that the players actually enjoyed, who knows.

navar100
2012-03-23, 05:50 PM
That campaign was to show that the heroes don't always win in my setting. Why is it okay for WOTC to write a "Rocks fall everyone dies" into their Neverwinter nights 2 game, yet as soon as I write a campaign where 2/3 of the party dies (And ends up working under a fricken vampire half-nymph in a brothel) I'm considered the bad guy.

News flash people, it's that way in real life too, sometimes the murderer gets off, sometimes the dictator wins the war, and sometimes bad stuff happens. It's called realism. You can have your settings where the hero always wins, the villain always loses, and there's black and white morality everywhere, but in my setting that's not the way things work, and my players needed to be shown that.

They enjoyed that campaign even though it ended with them as vampires, I see no reason why you have any right to judge me. Maybe I'm just a better DM who can write a TPK that the players actually enjoyed, who knows.

The problem is you premade the campaign to purposely end in a TPK as opposed to the freedom of players to make honest mistakes or they do everything right but the dice hate them and that's part of the game too. You wanted to teach them a lesson of sometimes the bad guys win. It's not your job as a DM to put players in their place.

Morithias
2012-03-23, 07:55 PM
The problem is you premade the campaign to purposely end in a TPK as opposed to the freedom of players to make honest mistakes or they do everything right but the dice hate them and that's part of the game too. You wanted to teach them a lesson of sometimes the bad guys win. It's not your job as a DM to put players in their place.

Funny thing about that. One player actually did have an out when the half-nymph drugged him to sleep with her, but he decided not to use it.

Good thing too, a conjour versus a vampire with no spellcasting levels. Geeze, I might have actually lost the fight.

If they had out thought me and actually managed to kill the half-nymph, and escape the brothel, yes. I would've let them live, but the fact remains is that I out played them. Hell before he even drank the wine the nymph flat out told him that they had aprodesiacts in it.

Again, my players aren't complaining, I don't see why you are. Sometimes you're just against an impossible opponent. I don't care what kind of D&D player you are, if you take a level 11 party to Baator to attempt to kill Asmodeus I'm going to TPK you. I'm not going have my villains "play stupid" so that you actually have a chance of winning. Intelligence and wisdom scores in the mid 30's don't play that way.

Zale
2012-03-23, 09:50 PM
News flash people, it's that way in real life too, sometimes the murderer gets off, sometimes the dictator wins the war, and sometimes bad stuff happens. It's called realism. You can have your settings where the hero always wins, the villain always loses, and there's black and white morality everywhere, but in my setting that's not the way things work, and my players needed to be shown that.

Not everyone plays for realism.

I play because it's a fun amusement that allows me to indulge in escapist tendencies.

If I wanted realism, I'd step outside. I want to throw fireballs, defeat evil overlords and save the world.

navar100
2012-03-23, 10:41 PM
Funny thing about that. One player actually did have an out when the half-nymph drugged him to sleep with her, but he decided not to use it.

Good thing too, a conjour versus a vampire with no spellcasting levels. Geeze, I might have actually lost the fight.

If they had out thought me and actually managed to kill the half-nymph, and escape the brothel, yes. I would've let them live, but the fact remains is that I out played them. Hell before he even drank the wine the nymph flat out told him that they had aprodesiacts in it.

Again, my players aren't complaining, I don't see why you are. Sometimes you're just against an impossible opponent. I don't care what kind of D&D player you are, if you take a level 11 party to Baator to attempt to kill Asmodeus I'm going to TPK you. I'm not going have my villains "play stupid" so that you actually have a chance of winning. Intelligence and wisdom scores in the mid 30's don't play that way.

No kidding, but that is not what you originally said. You said you created the campaign purposely to have a TPK to teach them a lesson. It was written before the players did anything. You also advocated in this thread as DM you want to hurt the player to make character death meaningful. You're targeting the player. That's being an adversarial DM.

Morithias
2012-03-23, 11:07 PM
No kidding, but that is not what you originally said. You said you created the campaign purposely to have a TPK to teach them a lesson. It was written before the players did anything. You also advocated in this thread as DM you want to hurt the player to make character death meaningful. You're targeting the player. That's being an adversarial DM.

Two CR 15 opponents for a Level 12 party of three is likely going to end in TPK. Hell they actually managed to kill the first one without taking a single hit (seriously don't ask me how they did it, my players are mad optimizers).

Yes I wrote it with the full intent to kill the players...but that's how I write ALL of my campaigns because that is what villains bloody do.

Think back to let's say Star Wars. Do you think in Darth Vader's mind when he was fighting Obi-wan on that lava planet he was thinking "Okay, I'm a bad guy so what I need to do is jump, get brutally mangled and lose the fight." No. He was thinking "I need to jump over Obi-wans head and do a downwards slash to take his head off."

No Villain PLANS to lose, and if your villains plan to lose, to put it bluntly, your villains SUCK. Villains should be well thought out within their powers and abilities, if they have high intelligence and wisdom scores they should have backup plans, alarm systems, and all kinds of tactics and ideas. Now if your villain is a bloody idiot whose whole plan is "Smash good guys with club" yes, I can see that villain getting into a fight that he's more than likely going to lose, but I'm sorry, when you're facing a villain who is smart enough to out think and out plan the PC's they shouldn't be able to just kick down his front door and cave in his skull with a mace. And most of all, if a villain is down to 1/4 hp and he has that teleport spell prepared, he should bloody use it.

You want to solve the meaninglessness of death? Stop giving the PC's plot armor.

Jerthanis
2012-03-24, 05:22 AM
Oh hell no. I don't hate my players, but the fact remains is that if you play a chaotic stupid psychopath while claiming to be chaotic good, I'm going to bloody call you out on it.

A writer gets more ticked off at someone pointing out a plot hole then someone saying they don't like the book after all.

Weeeeellll... it sounds like you use it as an opportunity to soapbox about the things the PCs do that you don't approve of. Perhaps this isn't what you meant, but that's how it comes off. D&D involves a lot of casual murder by default, and applying real world standards to the actions of characters is often inappropriate.

As a general rule, if you're having arguments over the morality of actions of characters in your games and it's causing your players to be upset or insulted, unless the players are repenting and admitting they've gotten out of hand... if they are insisting they were being Good, and you are declaring yourself the winner of this argument by the strength of your authority as the DM, then my impression is that you are probably abusing your power as DM to some extent.

I would NOT suggest a reading of the percieved sins of the PC out as a means of instilling death with significance. Players who suffer a character's death have been dealt a blow to their ego, and claiming their characters were jerks is really just rubbing salt in the wound. I can't imagine this not resulting in the player being defensive, their new character not being made with some resentment, or the players repeating this story to others as if it were a positive, fun aspect of the game.

However, this has made me think of another idea...

What if, in order to be ressurected, the character must be mourned and buried... meaning the PCs must host a funeral, complete with eulogies spoken in-character, sharing stories with one another and with NPCs recounting their favorite moments of their friend's life... and in this universe the spirit of the deceased witnesses their own funeral, and it gives them the strength to resist the pull of lethe, or whatever it is called in this world. It's not, "Ressurection! Ressurection! RESSURECTION!!!" and he's on his feet again, but "I remember when we first met... " and so on.

Morithias
2012-03-24, 12:50 PM
D&D involves a lot of casual murder by default, and applying real world standards to the actions of characters is often inappropriate.

As a general rule, if you're having arguments over the morality of actions of characters in your games and it's causing your players to be upset or insulted, unless the players are repenting and admitting they've gotten out of hand.

Funny thing. My players love the setting and what I've done. They like the fact that causal murder doesn't exist anymore, and due to the removal of the "always chaotic evil" thing, they can now play races like drow and demons without having to be hunted down and murdered by smite happy paladins.

They also like the fact that my setting actually does have moral and ethical debates in it. They like the fact that the setting is constantly evolving, the rules constantly changing to adapt to new moral standards and arguments, and that it ultimately works similar to the real world.

That isn't to say there isn't stuff to kill or people that need to be hunted down and captured and put on trial. There is still a TON of adventurer work that needs to be done. Ultimately what it means is that in this setting if you don't want that taint on your record, you need to take the -4 penalty and tie the thief up instead of murdering him. In other words, you need to ARREST him.

If a robber in the real world runs up to you and tries to grab your wallet, and you managed to outfit and pin him, you don't snap his bloody neck and then tell the cops "He tried to rob me he deserved it". You subdue him, pin him down, and let the authorities take him to jail.

To be blunt, I think my setting actually has LESS moral and ethical debate )(or at least less debate that is likely to break up a party) than many other settings. My setting doesn't have a punishment for non-believers, It doesn't have a "baby kobold/goblin/drow" problem, since your alignment is NEVER determined at birth, which means ultimately my players can focus on making the world a better place and preventing the cause of the problems instead of just murdering everyone and declaring the job done. Due to the fact that you are never born evil in this setting, my players have to think and ask "Why is the Drow Queen going on an insane war mongering through the underdark?" "Why did Olivia create the wight plague and attempt to conqour the world?" And ultimately, they're going to have to ask "Why did the first Archdevil fall from grace?" In the latest campaign.

My setting is a study on realism and motivation, WHY do the villains want to do their plans, and due to the way the setting works "Because they're evil" is no longer a be all and end all answer, the same way real life works. No one is just "born" a tyrant in real life, no one is just "born" a mafia drug smuggler, and so on. There is no black and white morality anymore, which in both mine and my player's opinions makes it far deeper, far more complex, and far more interesting than Faerun will EVER be.

Zale
2012-03-24, 01:00 PM
If a robber in the real world runs up to you and tries to grab your wallet, and you managed to outfit and pin him, you don't snap his bloody neck and then tell the cops "He tried to rob me he deserved it". You subdue him, pin him down, and let the authorities take him to jail.

One problem: This is not the real world. This is a fantasy world.

But if your players like it, then awesome. Keep at it.

Jerthanis
2012-03-24, 04:19 PM
Yeah, you're not even close to unique in any of these changes. You've described every D&D campaign I've been in since high school (with a few exceptions designed as comedy games). What you ARE unique in is the stated desire to hurt people's pride when their characters are killed because they didn't live up to your moral standards.

So my comments are on your system relating to your stated goals of rubbing it in the players' faces for their transgressions.

What I meant when I said D&D had institutionalized casual murder was that 95+% of class abilities have to do with killing things. So if you're punishing the PCs for making use of any of their class abilities by making them ineligible for ressurection is as good as saying that ressurection is impossible and also that you get to laugh in peoples' faces to make death even MORE memorable.



I find tearing a PC's arrogant, jerkass, character apart and destroying their pride is much more damaging to them then the level loss. The problem here isn't making the punishment damaging to the character, it's making it damaging to the player.

With a statement like this, do you understand why we have ample reason to make the assumptions that we have? It seems like: 'Oh no, my players love it, I swear' is pretty direct backpedaling compared to your earlier, 'My intention is to hurt peoples' feelings.'

Let me just say, Dying in an RPG sucks. It's never expected, you can always look back on your actions and think of what you might have done differently, and it's often random and purposeless. In cases where you're emotionally invested in the character and are trying to figure out what he roleplays as his experiences might remind you of your own frail mortality, and the fear and uncertainty you are sure to face at some point.

And now someone is telling you all the reasons your character was an *******, and told "the reason you suck..." as a barrier to getting the character brought back. And arguing is worthless because it's the DM, and he's sitting there intentionally trying to get you upset.

Just seems like a poisonous environment from everything you describe. Again, you might be overselling it, or using misleading phrasing, but it's really hard to imagine how I'm misinterpreting you when hurting people's feelings is your stated goal.

Notreallyhere77
2012-03-24, 06:22 PM
I decided, in my newest campaign world, that ressurection magic is an incantation rather than a spell, and only works once. So, die once and there's a way out. Die twice and you're gone, unless you come back as undead or the party starts adventuring exclusively on other planes with you.

So far no one's died because they're 1) being careful, and 2) don't like the idea of using up a limited resource if they don't have to.

Morithias
2012-03-25, 01:35 AM
Just seems like a poisonous environment from everything you describe. Again, you might be overselling it, or using misleading phrasing, but it's really hard to imagine how I'm misinterpreting you when hurting people's feelings is your stated goal.

I'd take a stern talking to and a court case over having my soul torn in two and tortured for 100 years any day. If you are really have an ego so big you'ld take the latter, congratulations you have officially committed the sin of pride! Take your seat right next to old Lucy!

And don't tell me the seven sins don't play in D&D. Dragon Magazine had a whole bloody article on the matter called redemption and temptation, and I'd seriously like to see a campaign where I couldn't take practically any PC, whip open the fiendish codex 2 and calculate 9 corruption points to send them to the netherworlds.

So what you're saying is instead of trying to tell the PC's IN CHARACTER, that they shouldn't be jerks and try to be better people, the creator should've created a world where the gods are worshiped via threat of torture, and 90% of all adventurers due to the gods making a dumb contract end up as lemures and promotion fuel?

Wow, I think we have a case of setting stockholm syndrome.

Thorcrest
2012-03-25, 01:41 AM
The problem is you premade the campaign to purposely end in a TPK as opposed to the freedom of players to make honest mistakes or they do everything right but the dice hate them and that's part of the game too. You wanted to teach them a lesson of sometimes the bad guys win. It's not your job as a DM to put players in their place.

Going to step in and play Devil's Advocate a minute. (Let's forget the "hurting feelings" bit and the changes to the morality system )You are both simply advocating for a different type of game. Navar100 is advocating for a Sandbox style game where the players get to do whatever they wish and the story evolves around that. Morithias appears to be playing a story based campaign with a pre-determined ending and a plot progression that is light on the railroads but gets to the end eventually (See the player had an out). Sandbox games, by definition, can have no end until the characters all die or the players decide to end the game as players can then choose to go into a different plot arc. Story games can end when specific conditions are met. Stories are often used to teach morals. In this particular case, the moral was: Sometimes the Good Guys don't win. This could be shown in two ways: They fail their objectives, or they die. (If they did win their objectives but still died, then the moral would be: Sometimes even victory has a price.) The DM chose to go with the second option (Note: I know nothing of this campaign other than what was mentioned here). Therefore, the players reach their climax and are defeated by the superior adversaries. Depending on the specifics, this might be a tragic end, a bittersweet end, a surprising end, etcetera, but it does not mean it was not an enjoyable/effective end. A good story CAN still be told by having the bad guys win and the players can still enjoy the game. This also teaches the moral of the story to the players. They players might also not be happy, saddened by the loss of their characters, but recognize that it was still a good end for the STORY. They might then find this interesting and realise it was fun while it lasted and do better and be more careful next time. Everyone has fun, the lesson is learned, and a good story is told.

Moving on to the next article of business:



I find tearing a PC's arrogant, jerkass, character apart and destroying their pride is much more damaging to them then the level loss. The problem here isn't making the punishment damaging to the character, it's making it damaging to the player.

This is horribly wording the intent of what he is trying to say which is lost in the insulting words (if I am getting this wrong, please correct me). What he is trying to say appears to be: If a Player does not care about the character dying, his character taking penalties as a result of this will have no effect on the player as Death removes the character and does not prevent the player from simply rolling up a new character to avoid any detrimental effects of resurrection. If this is the case with a player, the only way to have a character's death mean something is to have it harm the player. The meaning of character death is found, for these players, in the harm it causes to them, not the character.

As to the houseruled morality. I won't judge anything on that system as they are houserules and if it works for the house then have fun.

Those are the major points I wanted to discuss before this turned into an escalating explosion of conflict and got the thread locked and turned into a great attack on playstyles.

The idea of "Plot Armour" (not killing PC's until it is story appropriate) should be adressed. Making the PCs immune to death, simply unconscious, unless it is deemed story appropriate, but that only solves the one sense of the word meaningless, the story sense (as in: that was meaningless to the story). It does not solve the issue of the threat of death. If death is not a threat, then it is meaningless EVERYWHERE that is not crucial to plot. If characters cannot die in any situation, then death ceases to be a penalty and loses its meaning outside of cruical moments. Story games work well with this "Plot Armour" as they will not see the story end shortly, etc. It is against the nature of the sandbox game to disallow death, for the game does not have "one plot" as it is more of a "player's are free to do as they wish" type of game. As there is no one crucial plot, it falls to reason that characters will never die here as there will not be one overarching story that all of the characters are equally interested in. There may be death in specific character arcs, but that would apply to each character individually.

There are, of course, more types of games than these two, but these have been the prevalent two types in the "jerkass" debate, and I have now gone on long enough.

Morithias
2012-03-25, 02:39 AM
Snip.

Thank you VERY much. I knew I should have put more ranks in diplomacy, but, I blew them all on knowledge (video games).

Yeah, listen to this guy. He gets my point across WAY better than I do.

Thorcrest
2012-03-25, 03:28 AM
Thank you VERY much. I knew I should have put more ranks in diplomacy, but, I blew them all on knowledge (video games).

Yeah, listen to this guy. He gets my point across WAY better than I do.

You are very welcome! I was just tired of seeing the actual argument rejected because of some strong wording.

Now, back to the Original Question: How to Solve the Meaningless of Death?

The answer all depends on the type of game you are running, I should think, and the people you are playing with. I have had characters die due to dice rolls going against me, and, I'll admit, I did not take it well. There was much cursing involved and I made an ass out of myself which I then needed to apologise for (I'm getting better as I get older). But I did that because I do get attached to characters and take death seriously (and I hate extremly bad die rolls. Like the session where I never rolled more than a 6 on a D20... Anyways...).

To get a player to care about his character, the first step would be to have him actually play a character. More than just a set of numbers. Make it mandatory to have some kind of background or personality quirk or something. It doesn't need to be much, just a few sentences will do, but then they might start to think of the character as a person and care about what happens to them.

Now, if you have a player that is incapable of relating to characters, where they only play various builds and have fun with combat mechanics, skill challenges, etcetera, you have to find another way to make death meaningful. The only means to do that would have to be a penalty to the player as a character penalty would only make him decide whether the penalty of starting a new character is greater than that of resurrection and go from there. This could be something as simple as not having him play until they have a logical place to revive/replace him which may take the rest of the session or more. He then has the punishment of not playing and instead sitting and watching/doing something else. If the player is there to game then that would be a punishment that makes character death meaningful to the player.

Of course, getting a player to start caring about characters takes time, and removing a player from play for time due to his not caring about death will reduce that players fun. Therefore, these two options should be taken with some consideration, if at all.

You also have the reckless player/character that gets into dangerous situations all the time. Now, that might be in character for some of them, but others might be testing the DMs boundaries. This second group should be taken on fairly and live with the consequences of their action. The plot relevant death method should NOT apply to these people as they want to see if the DM will pull his punches and then they WILL get killed when he doesn't. Then they will claim it is unfair because they got away with it earlier but not this time. These people need to have the boundaries (i.e. you can die) established early on by the DM. How you do this is up to you, they need not necessarily die if they are significantly set back by their own follies.

Now, there is the mechanical "meaningless deaths" issues to adress. At low level, characters tend to be rather fragile and death is a rather difficult problem to solve (at least relative to high level characters). In mid and high level games, the characters have far more resources at their disposal and death become less significant as one can simply be brought back later. Personally, I think Death should be final unless a Deity steps in, but that is dependent on taste. If one is going to tamper with the rules to some extent, the players should be notified at the beginning of the game. These can be simple rule changes like death is permanent/more expensive/has X penalty feel free to come up with your own changes if you so desire.

One way to come to some form of middle ground between no resurrection and the revolving-door afterlife, would be to make resurrection difficult to obtain. Maybe it requires a quest or some specific material components or anything else you can think up. The dead character's player can then control the monsters or a cohort or some such so that they still play, just not to the same extent as their character, and that is how they will find their character's death to be meaningful if they do not have an attachment while still making it possible for players to have access to resurrection consistently.

Feel free to accept or reject these suggestions as they are all just that, suggestions, and what may work for you may not for someone else. As I said, I like death to be final. The game can still continue at this point however in someform of afterlife for that character that they can play as a solo quest. Note: this adds meaning to death, but not in the sense of loss necessarily. In this solo quest, they might find their own way to resurrect themselves or become adventurers in the afterlife. In a sandbox game, one could even say the afterlife would be like starting a campaign in a new world. The players now get to explore the afterlife and find adventure there rather than making death a finality. Furthermore, if they can find a way to return to the living in the afterlife, this might help solve the problem of accidental TPK.

I realise a lot of this is just elaboration on ideas already mentionned, but I felt I should just get my thoughts down while I was here. Comments?

Jerthanis
2012-03-25, 12:45 PM
I'd take a stern talking to and a court case over having my soul torn in two and tortured for 100 years any day. If you are really have an ego so big you'ld take the latter, congratulations you have officially committed the sin of pride! Take your seat right next to old Lucy!

Whoa whoa whoa, you think the alternative to this stern talking to is to rip your player's soul apart and torture them for 100 years? Because you were specifically trying to address the issue of being damaging to the player in your solution. Obviously I'd rather be told how I suck instead of being tortured, but this isn't the dichotomy that we're dealing with.



And don't tell me the seven sins don't play in D&D. Dragon Magazine had a whole bloody article on the matter called redemption and temptation, and I'd seriously like to see a campaign where I couldn't take practically any PC, whip open the fiendish codex 2 and calculate 9 corruption points to send them to the netherworlds.

What the heck? What do the seven deadly sins have to do with anything? We're discussing a game and I never mentioned the specific sins of a specific faith in any way. I'm merely saying that to take PC death as an opportunity to hurt a player's feelings is not an appropriate way to treat people who you are friends with, and it has massive potential to cause resentment toward the game.



So what you're saying is instead of trying to tell the PC's IN CHARACTER, that they shouldn't be jerks and try to be better people, the creator should've created a world where the gods are worshiped via threat of torture, and 90% of all adventurers due to the gods making a dumb contract end up as lemures and promotion fuel?

Wow, I think we have a case of setting stockholm syndrome.

I never said any of that and cannot even figure out what you mean by most of it. I will assume this is just a failure to understand on my part and respond to the other poster whose explanation you endorsed.



This is horribly wording the intent of what he is trying to say which is lost in the insulting words (if I am getting this wrong, please correct me). What he is trying to say appears to be: If a Player does not care about the character dying, his character taking penalties as a result of this will have no effect on the player as Death removes the character and does not prevent the player from simply rolling up a new character to avoid any detrimental effects of resurrection. If this is the case with a player, the only way to have a character's death mean something is to have it harm the player. The meaning of character death is found, for these players, in the harm it causes to them, not the character.

This can be an issue, yes, where penalties to ressurection can get bad enough that no one wants to do it and so they roll a new character each time. This brings up a good point. The penalties associated with ressurection are a good way to control the degree to which there is character cycling. In one Pathfinder game a friend of mine ran that I wasn't a part of, there were no penalties to ressurection except the cost in gold/diamonds. He did this because he wanted to run an extremely difficult game, and didn't want to hold back if it looked like someone was going to die, and didn't want one person rolling a new character every single session. So I think every PC died at least once, and many died two or three times.

In another game I'm in right now, the prevalent religion thinks any ressurection whatsoever is a blasphemy and so if you buy into the local culture and belief system, you're going to refuse ressurection, and it comes with Con penalties, level loss, and a roll to see if it even takes. So in this game, if you die you're almost guaranteed to be rolling up something new. We did it this way because difficulty wasn't as much of a factor in the goals of this game and because... well, I'm not the DM, so I don't know for sure.

My big contention is that intentionally hurting someone's feelings is just not an appropriate social strategem in almost any situation, least of all when playing a game with friends. If that isn't what he meant, then there really isn't anything for me to object to, but I hope everyone involved can see why it seems like that was the idea being proposed.

Anyway, another idea I had to make death more meaningful:

All ressurection is temporary... you can get ressurected in order to fulfill one last task or quest before you can rest. This gives the DM and the Player time to introduce a new character for that player to take over, it lets them arrive at some sort of closure for the character, and does something to solve the problem of a new character introduced with suspiciously similar motives... but is just as final in the end.

tahu88810
2012-03-25, 12:53 PM
In 3.5, regardless of setting, I almost always house rule it that you need special diamonds or some equivalent which will require a quest. Of course, there are other ways to bring someone back other than the spell (Travel into the plane they're in and fight off whatever prevents dead people from leaving a la Orpheus, make a pact with the devil, etc.).

I do like the suggestion someone made about a negative consequences table. I'll have to appropriate that. When you die and come back, it's only fitting if you leave something behind.

navar100
2012-03-25, 01:48 PM
Though I'm not against the concept, I'm not really advocating for plot armor either. Sad as it is, I don't have an objection to TPK as long as it was honestly accomplished - the players chose poorly, the dice hate the players that day, the DM Honestly True miscalculated the strength of the bad guys too late to fix for the combat but will have an Out for the situation next game session which can include new characters for the players and nothing more than an apology, etc.

What I object to is having a predetermined ending of a TPK to teach the players a lesson that sometimes the bad guys win and purposely hurting the player's feelings to have his character die, as was originally stated and now trying to be changed to Oceania always being at war with Eastasia.

The DM's job is ensure everyone has fun. Of course the bad guys are to be a threat, and the party risks death to face them. Without the risk there is no fun in the victory. The problem is for the DM to want the party killed. The CR system's goal is that the party does win with using up 20%-25% of their resources. Character death is possible but unlikely - the so called plot armor to be cynical. For the combats that "count", i.e. BBEG fights, BBEG's main Lieutenant is the BBEG of the fight, etc., everyone goes nova, party members will knock on Death's Door, and it is possible the door will open. The DM should play fair with the bad guys doing their best, but it should not be the DM's desire to "win" - kill the party - to teach them a lesson, to fear death, or whatever to put players in their place.

Thorcrest
2012-03-25, 04:07 PM
My big contention is that intentionally hurting someone's feelings is just not an appropriate social strategem in almost any situation, least of all when playing a game with friends. If that isn't what he meant, then there really isn't anything for me to object to, but I hope everyone involved can see why it seems like that was the idea being proposed.

I can see how you have reached the conclusion, but I do not believe that it is necessary to harm the player's feelings, based on his text (yes, the wording is not the most... delicate, but if we can disregard some of it to look at the arguments made, it takes the form that I mentionned earlier). If death is to be meaningful, yet the player is incapable of feeling attached to his character, then the meaning must come from a loss to the player. Whatever form that may take: hurt feelings, sitting out of the rest of the session, mechanical disadvantages, etc. As I mentionned earlier, this is a serious way to impose meaning to character death, which then brings up the question: Is there meaning to character death? The answer to this depends on the group. The RP heavy group will always say yes and the group that plays builds will say no.


Anyway, another idea I had to make death more meaningful:

All ressurection is temporary... you can get ressurected in order to fulfill one last task or quest before you can rest. This gives the DM and the Player time to introduce a new character for that player to take over, it lets them arrive at some sort of closure for the character, and does something to solve the problem of a new character introduced with suspiciously similar motives... but is just as final in the end.

Interesting... but, I can see players taking advantage of this by saying they will complete quest X as their last task and instead to quests A, B, C first. Of course, this would be controlled by the DM and the specifics of the rule would clarify whether or not this is permissible as per this house rule.

To navar100.
Sometimes a story has a moral, and if the moral is the good guys do not always win then the predetermined ending will be a TPK. If this is not the type of game you wish to play, then I would advise against this, but I can see some appeal to a story driven game where the players drive hard to overcome against impossible odds and still fail. The Good Guys don't always win, and a predetermined TPK does not mean the players have no chance of victory, just not survival. They might have to sacrifice themselves to buy someone else time for example and then the next campaign would be the next group trying to overthrow the Evil and so on until one group is successful.

Morithias
2012-03-26, 01:51 AM
I can see how you have reached the conclusion, but I do not believe that it is necessary to harm the player's feelings, based on his text (yes, the wording is not the most... delicate, but if we can disregard some of it to look at the arguments made, it takes the form that I mentionned earlier). If death is to be meaningful, yet the player is incapable of feeling attached to his character, then the meaning must come from a loss to the player. Whatever form that may take: hurt feelings, sitting out of the rest of the session, mechanical disadvantages, etc. As I mentionned earlier, this is a serious way to impose meaning to character death, which then brings up the question: Is there meaning to character death? The answer to this depends on the group. The RP heavy group will always say yes and the group that plays builds will say no.

Let me try to put my intentions into play as much as I can. Anti-heroes do not have a place in World 1 in a large way. World 1 is not a setting where you can walk into an orc encampment, gleefully slaughter everyone in it, and expect to go to heaven, or even limbo when you die. A lot of people do not get this, and ultimately this is my problem with death in general in a lot of settings like Faerun. You are a "heroic fighter" who is Chaotic good, but has a fricken body count on your record that is in the thousands over your career, and many of those were to be blunt Van Hellsing Hate Crimes. Killing an orc because it was an orc, or killing a drow because it had black skin instead of the high elf's white skin.

The complete destruction of this tendency and ripping apart the concept of the anti-hero is what the creator was going for. It is NOT okay to kill someone because they just happened to be in the same tribe, it is NOT okay to just go "it's too much work to tie him and take him to the nearest jail let's just hack his head off."

Imagine if you were reading a comic book about say..the Wolverine, and he died, and instead of him getting some kind of happy afterlife just because he was a anti-hero (and I use the term "hero" VERY loosely here), it doesn't change the fact that he kills recklessly and is basically a total jerkass to many people.

Now think for a second. Heaven once you get there is basically forever eventually. Eventually you die of old age and you stay dead. Would you want to spend forever in heaven with a chain smoking, jackass drunk jerk jock, who basically only got in cause his enemies were more evil than he was?

This is what I mean when I say you go to hell and serve your time if you're a jerk. You serve your time to reflect on your mistakes, so when you finally pass through limbo and into heaven you're the type of person people WANT to spend eternity around, a nice, fun loving, compassionate person.

I don't know about you, but although I would be happy the hero saved my village, I'm not sure I would want to spend eternity with the barbarian who thinks punching someone in the face is a greeting.

This ultimately makes death meaningful. When you die it isn't some glory bound ending to your life. You still have a large adventure ahead of you, the quest of true redemption and earning your place among the heavens.

Frozen_Feet
2012-03-26, 06:53 AM
I've always played my games with resurrection being unavailable and characters succumbing to random disasters. It hasn't made death "meaningless". Anti-climactic, sometimes, yes, but not meaningless.

When the other PCs have to abort an adventure when the thief dies? Or when they can't get out of a deserted island because their captain died? Or can't cure a curse because their priest fell off-board? Or when other characters have easier time continuing when the PC in debt commits suicide and frees them of the burden for having to pay for him? That's meaningful death right there.

It's meaningful, because it impacts the flow of the game and the ability of other characters to do things. That's all there is to it. "Plot" doesn't need to enter the picture at any point. In fact, I advocate scrapping the concept of plot-as-script, and replacing it with plot-as-emergent-story. Ergo, during the game, there is no plot - just action and reactions, deeds and consequences. The plot only exists after the game.

navar100
2012-03-26, 11:56 AM
To navar100.
Sometimes a story has a moral, and if the moral is the good guys do not always win then the predetermined ending will be a TPK. If this is not the type of game you wish to play, then I would advise against this, but I can see some appeal to a story driven game where the players drive hard to overcome against impossible odds and still fail. The Good Guys don't always win, and a predetermined TPK does not mean the players have no chance of victory, just not survival. They might have to sacrifice themselves to buy someone else time for example and then the next campaign would be the next group trying to overthrow the Evil and so on until one group is successful.

Predetermined outcome choo-choos should be frowned upon. Instead of wasting the players' time, the DM should write the novel he wants already.

Thorcrest
2012-03-26, 01:01 PM
Predetermined outcome choo-choos should be frowned upon. Instead of wasting the players' time, the DM should write the novel he wants already.

This is entirely a matter of opinion, some people enjoy being part of the story. As to predetermined endings, do your games not have an end? If you have ever played in a game or a dungeon where you fought a BBEG, you have now reached a predetermined end. Say you lose. Well, the BBEG wins and continues with his plan, as the DM has planned for him: predetermined. Say you win. well you have stopped the plan from happening and return to the king/wizard/innkeeper/quest-giver and collect the reward/save the world: predetermined. The DM has predetermined in advance for both eventualities of the predetermined fight that will take place. Congrats, you have now played something predetermined.

Now, as to the case of having predetermined which of the two options will occur (win/lose), the players still have to reach that option and the fight itself is still predetermined. They are still playing through your encouraged type of game to the ending (BBEG fight) that was chosen by the DM. The DM has also merely chosen the outcome of that ending. There is such a thing as a no-win scenario, and players can find themselves in them from time to time. If the DM has chosen a no-win scenario as the boss fight, then the only option is to lose. All of the parameters of the game are the same except that the final scene has a different set of conditions. Why does this make it a game we should avoid? Why should the DM not tell the story he wants to tell with his players?

Again, if everyone has a fun time playing the game and still lose (allowing the DM to tell his story) why is it a problem? In addition, if the players are never told they are predetermined to lose (they have the illusion of losing fairly), should they not have played the game as they were on the railroads? Would they have had more fun by not being on them and reaching the same conclusion?

As to the DM writing a novel comment. There are DMs that enjoy running games and telling stories, but they do not enjoy writing. Should this DM write a story? Is he not allowed to use a game as a creative outlet? Players can have fun even if they are on the railroads, it is simply a matter of taste.

If the players have fun, has their time been wasted?

Stating your opinions as absolute fact should be frowned upon (to use the wording of your own prescriptive statement).

navar100
2012-03-26, 02:01 PM
They're the players' characters. They get to decide what to do for their characters. If there's a predetermined outcome, then player choice is irrelevant. If player choice is irrelevant, there is no game.

LibraryOgre
2012-03-26, 02:23 PM
They're the players' characters. They get to decide what to do for their characters. If there's a predetermined outcome, then player choice is irrelevant. If player choice is irrelevant, there is no game.

To an extent, but their actions should have consequences. The problem with deadly games is when the consequences don't flow from the actions, but are predetermined.

erikun
2012-03-26, 02:48 PM
I'd recommend making killing less cheap. It is kind of hard to make death feel meaningful when a single action can kill a PC. Even removing resurrection would not really resolve much, because bringing in a new PC isn't much different from resurrecting an existing one regarding meaningful deaths.

This is probably rather hard with D&D3, given that so much of the game has insta-kill attacks.



Make resurrection come with side effects. Here is a fast d10 table of effects ( Brackets indicate worsened effect if one is raised twice and same effect comes up.)

1. Hair turns white. [loss of all hair]
2. Color blind. [blindness]
3. Loss of taste. [lose sense of hunger]
4. Skin turns pale. [skin turns translucent and must be moistened every hour]
5. Unable to laugh. [unable to feel joy]
6. All music sounds horrible. [music makes ears bleed]
7. Can see far realm creatures. [far realm creatures can interact with resurrectee]
8. Unable to dream. [unable to create art]
9. Sees dead people. [dead people see resurrectee]
10. Can't enter houses uninvited. [can't cross streaming water]
This sounds like an interesting idea. I just recently had a character reincarnated in my current game, from a dwarven cleric to a gnome. While we aren't roleplaying all that much in the game, the odd quirk has made the character more fun to play (despite the annoying faults).

Skaven
2012-03-27, 02:37 AM
To me the prevalence of save-or-dies are a part of this problem. If a dice roll is all that takes to kill your character then easy to come by raising is a tough necessity.

If you make raising off-limits I would personally take a hard look at reducing save-or-dies.

Frozen_Feet
2012-03-27, 02:58 AM
A GM already controls the opposition. You don't need to routinely include opposition with SoD abilities. A golden rule in gaming and firearm handling: don't point a gun at things you aren't ready to shoot.

Ergo, raising or no raising, when you put your characters up against something with SoD, prepare for some of them to die, and then play up the drama when it happens. Death by random chance is part of most RPGs and real-life combat. But "random" is not the same as "meaningless".

navar100
2012-03-27, 08:06 AM
Ideally, save or dies should come into play when the party can handle them, not necessarily only by Raise Dead. Death Ward, Stone to Flesh, high saving throws, high hit points against damage spells, etc. help to mitigate lethality. The dreaded Natural 1 can still happen, but by having save or die have a low chance of success it's still a threat while not insurmountable.

The party spellcasters using them is not an excuse. The bad guys are meant to be killed. Whether it's by save or die or stabbed with the sword is irrelevant in this case. They were going to die anyway. Call it plot armor if you want, and I'm not advocating no PC should die, ever, but a DM risks nothing for an NPC to die while for a player's character, it's game over. Obviously he can continue playing with a new character, but it's still a game over for the player's character.
A player should take his character's risk of life seriously, and the DM should also.

LibraryOgre
2012-03-27, 11:13 AM
To me the prevalence of save-or-dies are a part of this problem. If a dice roll is all that takes to kill your character then easy to come by raising is a tough necessity.

If you make raising off-limits I would personally take a hard look at reducing save-or-dies.

Read an interesting bit on the divide on save or dies, and why AD&D players tend to not mind them as much as 3.x players. Can't find it right now, but the short version is that 3.x saves suck... whereas saves for an AD&D character constantly improved, saves for 3.x players tend to get worse, relative to the required number to hit.

In AD&D, a high-level fighter could reasonably expect to be nearly immune to most save-or-dies. Not only were there frequently HP limitations on who you could kill with them, it was not unreasonable to only fail on a 1, between good save numbers and bonus items (ring or cloak of protection). In 3.x, however, save DCs climb faster than save bonuses, meaning your high-level character is far less likely to save... and far more likely to die.

Lord Torath
2012-03-27, 01:29 PM
Please read this essay. It specifically addresses the issue of death being meaningless: http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/resurrection.htm

The main point I'd like to emphasize is this:

The DM doesn't need to make Raise Dead/Resurrection expensive and impossible to get. He just needs to have NPC's treat it with great solemnity and respect. He needs to have the ceremony of it roleplayed out - every time. He needs to have NPC's treat raised characters differently than those who have never returned from the dead - even if there's no game-rule effects beyond simply losing a level (as if that alone isn't supposed to be enough of a deterrent). DM's are failing to lead by example. It's even worse if there is evident hypocrisy in how the DM thinks differently about resurrection for NPC's as for PC's.

PC's fight big nasty monsters in great hordes. It's dangerous to do that. It's also more fun if PC's are out on the edge of their survivability. PC's that never fear falling under 25% of their HTK are going to have bored players. PC's that routinely flirt with unconsciousness and death will have players who experience much more exciting and dangerous battles - and they will also have characters who quite probably, through no particular fault of their own, will die.
...
Be proactive about the issue. First, discuss it with the players rather than silently brood and fume. Don't just demand that they roleplay death and resurrection with seriousness and solemnity - explain to them how various cultures in your campaign world (which their PC's will know) handle death and resurrection issues. Talk about how those cultures view the afterlife. Explain what the exact process is when a PC dies - what happens to the soul, how it can/cannot be brought back to the body, etc. Second, accept the fact that RD/Res is not in the game for its campaign setting construction benefits. It's not in the game for the NPC's. It's in the game for the PC's, or even more precisely - for the benefit of the players.

My group is still way below this level, but when they begin to gain access to Raise Dead et. al., I plan to give the spell a 24-hour preparation time, including an elaborate ceremony. (I may require supporting priests to aid in the preparation, and perhaps have it take place in a chapel/shrine dedicated to the priest's deity, but I haven’t yet decided for certain). The point of this is not to make it harder to resurrect someone, but to impress upon the players and characters that this is Something Special. This doesn’t happen to everyone, and when it does, it’s something truly miraculous.

My two cents. Do with them as you will.

Morithias
2012-03-27, 09:20 PM
Predetermined outcome choo-choos should be frowned upon. Instead of wasting the players' time, the DM should write the novel he wants already.

Yeah, tell that to the millions of people who play Lair assault, buy modules, and play Encounters.

Those things were more choo-choos than anything I ever wrote. At least I gave them a REASON to go to the vampire brothel (They needed nymph's hair). The one Encounters and one Lair assault I played was railroaded FAR worse.

During Forge of the Dawn Titan.

"You're trying to stop Asmodeous from being summoned."
Me: "Um...why? I like that guy. My character sheet even says lawful evil."
Dm: "It's what the module says."

During Encounters

DM: "You need to go see the treathen Oak staff."
Me: Why? Seriously you haven't given my Paladin any reason to trust you Nymph.
DM: "The nymph says Oak staff will explain it to you."
Me: Yeah, that's what a harvester devil says before he stabs you and steals your soul.

So yeah. I say the official WOTC stuff is FAR more railroad then anything I ever wrote.

navar100
2012-03-27, 11:05 PM
Yeah, tell that to the millions of people who play Lair assault, buy modules, and play Encounters.

Those things were more choo-choos than anything I ever wrote. At least I gave them a REASON to go to the vampire brothel (They needed nymph's hair). The one Encounters and one Lair assault I played was railroaded FAR worse.

During Forge of the Dawn Titan.

"You're trying to stop Asmodeous from being summoned."
Me: "Um...why? I like that guy. My character sheet even says lawful evil."
Dm: "It's what the module says."

During Encounters

DM: "You need to go see the treathen Oak staff."
Me: Why? Seriously you haven't given my Paladin any reason to trust you Nymph.
DM: "The nymph says Oak staff will explain it to you."
Me: Yeah, that's what a harvester devil says before he stabs you and steals your soul.

So yeah. I say the official WOTC stuff is FAR more railroad then anything I ever wrote.

That's not a choo choo. That's presenting plot hooks. The choo choo is the predetermined outcome of a TPK to teach the players a lesson.

Morithias
2012-03-27, 11:19 PM
That's not a choo choo. That's presenting plot hooks. The choo choo is the predetermined outcome of a TPK to teach the players a lesson.

I dunno. If the Conjour hadn't let the nymph finish him off and used his 10 foot teleport he might have won. Level 13 conjour versus a CR 15 vampire battledancer...tough fight considering both are stark naked.

Hell, they killed off the shadowdancer easily enough. (seriously the Monster manual vampire didn't last 2 rounds).

I just out thought them. I even showed them the character sheet afterwards (No cheating here. I plan the encounter ahead of time).

Now if I had had them face like a Balor I could see you arguing that it was hopeless, but this is a player group that once took on a Solar Angel with level 15 characters and won in a straight up fight. (To this day I still have no idea how they pulled it off, although they did have the Ruby Rod at the time).

(Edit: Okay I better explain the Solar or I'm going to get in a ton of trouble. The Solar was the keeper of an artifact in a castle that they were looking to steal in order to resurrect Asmodous who had been killed a few years ago.(this takes place in Greyhawk not world 1)

I had INTENDED for them to go all Task Force X/Shadowrun and sneak in and steal it, but they instead decide to kick down the front door and try the brute force method....and somehow, do not ask me how...they won.)

Yes, I admit. I fully INTENDED it to end on a down note, but if they had managed to out think and out fight her (and therefore me), I would've let them live.

Nothing more satisfying then beating the DM at his own game. It's like when you beat a game of Civilization IV. Beating it on Settler when the game gives you plot armor and advantages means nothing.

Beat it on Deity where the computer knows how to actually play? Now THAT is a victory.

Gnome Alone
2012-03-27, 11:58 PM
Make resurrection come with side effects. Here is a fast d10 table of effects ( Brackets indicate worsened effect if one is raised twice and same effect comes up.)

1. Hair turns white. [loss of all hair]
2. Color blind. [blindness]
3. Loss of taste. [lose sense of hunger]
4. Skin turns pale. [skin turns translucent and must be moistened every hour]
5. Unable to laugh. [unable to feel joy]
6. All music sounds horrible. [music makes ears bleed]
7. Can see far realm creatures. [far realm creatures can interact with resurrectee]
8. Unable to dream. [unable to create art]
9. Sees dead people. [dead people see resurrectee]
10. Can't enter houses uninvited. [can't cross streaming water]

Ooh, this is such a cool idea. I'm totally gonna use this is my e6 campaign. (Planning to have Raise Dead available as a ritual cast by monkish necromancers or something.) Thanks, some guy.

UserShadow7989
2012-03-28, 03:55 AM
On the discussion of implementing plot armor for non-major encounters barring severe stupidity (like, say, jumping into lava), I'm in full favor of such so long as you do something to ensure there's still tension and seriousness for the fight.

For starters, loss of limb has already been suggested. Breaking a leg or losing an arm are pretty painful. That can be expanded on to other serious drawbacks or penalties. Lose against some bandits? You wake up stripped of quite a bit of gear and your money, left for dead in hostile terrain, or you've captured to be sold as slaves (requiring escape), or any number of things.

Sure, you're not dead, but that dragon you were on the way to slay isn't getting any weaker or less lethal, or the evil necromancer has time to raise more skeletal minions for his army/shatter the front lines of the knightly order who would've been your allies, and now you're vastly less prepared for them. This can lead to a sub plot of dealing with the bandits first or finding some other means to reclaim/replace your gear, possibly giving the villain more time to wreck havoc. Especially bad news if you're in a race against time to stop whatever BBEG is out there.

Another option is that death CAN still happen in a random encounter, but only if the whole party wipes. This provides a better safety net; even if the dice go out of their way to screw them over or you miscalculate and send in something way out of their league, they still have a chance to pull victory from the jaws of defeat, without losing the tension.

To connect this to the topic at hand: It's not just Raise Dead and it's cousins that make death meaningless, it's dying in situations where it lacks purpose or drama, and doing so repeatedly. Dying to random bandits because of an improbable series of lucky/unlucky rolls is a boring and unsatisfying way to go.

Having penalties separate from death instead that makes it more likely further down the line increases the tension and prevents the impact from being lessened by 'pffft, I died twice this week already, what's a third time?'. Not only that, but if they pull out a victory anyways it becomes that much more satisfying. "I slayed a dragon with a +5 Vorpal Sword." is much less impressive than "I slayed a dragon with my masterwork sword and my wits despite missing an arm and an eye at the time." Even if they find a way to undo the penalty easily enough, that still reserves actual death as something of a big deal when it happens.

Edit: It can also help keep the group on edge if you don't tell them they have a semi-plot armor. :smalltongue:

Skaven
2012-03-29, 08:36 AM
Read an interesting bit on the divide on save or dies, and why AD&D players tend to not mind them as much as 3.x players. Can't find it right now, but the short version is that 3.x saves suck... whereas saves for an AD&D character constantly improved, saves for 3.x players tend to get worse, relative to the required number to hit.

In AD&D, a high-level fighter could reasonably expect to be nearly immune to most save-or-dies. Not only were there frequently HP limitations on who you could kill with them, it was not unreasonable to only fail on a 1, between good save numbers and bonus items (ring or cloak of protection). In 3.x, however, save DCs climb faster than save bonuses, meaning your high-level character is far less likely to save... and far more likely to die.

Until you mentioned this I hadn't realized how true this was. Reminds me about an old friends fighter who did invest in wisdom and iron will on his fighter who due to the nature of the 3 part high/low save system was at best looking at 50% chances to save vs die/lose on every encounter against a will save.

Honestly I think I would prefer that in 5e saves were independent of class. Who is to say that a fighter cannot have a disciplined strong mind?

It could perhaps better be represented by nerfing save or dies horribly (such as HP caps + save etc) and basing saving throws on your stats by level, as opposed to arbitrary class limitations.

Wardog
2012-04-12, 06:03 PM
Yes I wrote it with the full intent to kill the players...but that's how I write ALL of my campaigns because that is what villains bloody do.

Think back to let's say Star Wars. Do you think in Darth Vader's mind when he was fighting Obi-wan on that lava planet he was thinking "Okay, I'm a bad guy so what I need to do is jump, get brutally mangled and lose the fight." No. He was thinking "I need to jump over Obi-wans head and do a downwards slash to take his head off."


But surely as a DM you're not Darth Vader. You're George Lucas. (But hopefully with better dialogue-writing skills, and without the obsession for CGI).

There is a difference between designing a setting and villains that act realistically and doesn't cheat/play dumb to ensure the players win, and designing a setting for the purpose of killing off the characters. It's the difference between IC ("kill the heroes and conquer/destroy the world!" and OOC ("provide a fun challenge for the players") motivation.

Morithias
2012-04-12, 06:29 PM
But surely as a DM you're not Darth Vader. You're George Lucas. (But hopefully with better dialogue-writing skills, and without the obsession for CGI).

There is a difference between designing a setting and villains that act realistically and doesn't cheat/play dumb to ensure the players win, and designing a setting for the purpose of killing off the characters. It's the difference between IC ("kill the heroes and conquer/destroy the world!" and OOC ("provide a fun challenge for the players") motivation.

Okay, I admit maybe two CR 15 vampires against 3 level 13 characters might have been a bit unbalanced, but still as I have stated this was less about killing the PC's and more telling them "heroes lose, in fact heroes lose OFTEN"

Ask yourself this. Your villain in your campaign, are your PC's the first people to try and stop him? You established that this corrupt tyrant has been in charge for 30 years or so....are you seriously saying no other hero's tried?

This is what happens in my setting. Yes the villain will EVENTUALLY lose, but only because Hero party #17 got lucky after they slaughtered all the other parties.

Now what they were attempting to do was get the cures for the plague, which the one player that escaped had done. So there was no reason for another party to go check out the brothel, not helped by the fact that the one PC who survived wouldn't admit to what happened.

But if this had been something like a lich creating hordes of undead to attack somewhere, even if I did TPK them. It's easy and justified in-universe for me to go "well your first party failed, do you want to take over another party and try again? Cause the people who assigned you this assignment aren't exactly going to let the attacks go unanswered they're going to hire someone else."

So yes, the heroes will win eventually, but they won't win all the time, and that is ultimately makes it when they DO win mean more.

Hell if the party takes too long and ignores the mission for too long, I might even say someone else pulled it off before they did. The universe doesn't revolve around the PC's characters (although the cameraman does).

navar100
2012-04-12, 08:42 PM
Okay, I admit maybe two CR 15 vampires against 3 level 13 characters might have been a bit unbalanced, but still as I have stated this was less about killing the PC's and more telling them "heroes lose, in fact heroes lose OFTEN"

Ask yourself this. Your villain in your campaign, are your PC's the first people to try and stop him? You established that this corrupt tyrant has been in charge for 30 years or so....are you seriously saying no other hero's tried?

This is what happens in my setting. Yes the villain will EVENTUALLY lose, but only because Hero party #17 got lucky after they slaughtered all the other parties.

Now what they were attempting to do was get the cures for the plague, which the one player that escaped had done. So there was no reason for another party to go check out the brothel, not helped by the fact that the one PC who survived wouldn't admit to what happened.

But if this had been something like a lich creating hordes of undead to attack somewhere, even if I did TPK them. It's easy and justified in-universe for me to go "well your first party failed, do you want to take over another party and try again? Cause the people who assigned you this assignment aren't exactly going to let the attacks go unanswered they're going to hire someone else."

So yes, the heroes will win eventually, but they won't win all the time, and that is ultimately makes it when they DO win mean more.

Hell if the party takes too long and ignores the mission for too long, I might even say someone else pulled it off before they did. The universe doesn't revolve around the PC's characters (although the cameraman does).

You're still predetermining the outcome. You admit the villain wins except when he loses through luck. The party cannot succeed until some number of attempts above 1 when luck finally lands in their favor.

The universe does revolve around the PC's characters, more than just the camera. Without the party there is no game, just the novel you are writing and want the players to witness.

The word is "revolve", not "cater". Yes, sometimes the players will fail. Unfortunate dice rolls, honest true mistaken planning, poor planning will lead to failure. Failure is not the problem. It's your predetermining they must fail that's the problem. I repeat myself because that's what it is, and obviously you just disagree and think predetermined failure is all hunky dory.

Man on Fire
2012-04-12, 09:08 PM
So, two days ago in a campaing I'm playing, we were facing a group of Beholders and I died during the battle. And it felt completely trivial. I didn't thing it was dramatic or important, I tough it was inconvinient. The Cleric already has the diamonds to bring me back to life, they just have to wait two hours (until the Anti-Magic field around my corpse weares off). This is the first time one of my characters has died and I hoped it would be more meaningful or have more serious consecuences.
So, what do you think, playground? How can a DM give more meaning to Death? A simple solution is to remove all the resurrection spells from the game, but that seems a little too harsh for me. Or maybe after you reach a certain level, death shouldn't be a danger anymore and new things (like, I don't know, permanent level drain, perhaps?) should take the role of death as the ever present threat in the players mind.

I bolded the part where the problem lies and the underline show it's source.

Slipperychicken
2012-04-12, 10:07 PM
To navar100.
Sometimes a story has a moral, and if the moral is the good guys do not always win then the predetermined ending will be a TPK.

The bad guys can win while the PCs live. Maybe they were too late to stop the portal from opening, or maybe they pressed the Big Red Button, or the Big Bad succeeded ascending to godhood and ceased caring about the PCs, or maybe they missed some important hints and were manipulated all along to help the bad guy's plan. Even better, the PCs might be the bad guys (villain campaign).


The bad guy's victory doesn't always require the good guy's death, is what I'm trying to say. Plenty of literature has this (like Orwell's 1984, where the final struggle is actually the protagonist's "conversion" to the government's side)

JoshuaZ
2012-04-12, 10:29 PM
Heroes of Horror has a very detailed section about different ways of making death meaningful. There's a similar version to the table suggestion among others. Strongly recommend people read that section of the book.

Hyudra
2012-04-13, 05:20 PM
Just putting an idea out there:

The problem with PC deaths is that a meaningless death is pretty damn disappointing. One still wants a great sacrifice to mean something, however.

So what if resurrection, by way of altering one of the primal, incarnate forces of the universe, also affected other primal, incarnate forces? What if, in bringing someone back, you also unspooled the threads of fate that were tied to the event?

Die against a pack of dire wolves on the way to the BBEG's temple, your teammates slay them? Resurrect teammate, perhaps the wolves come back. Not a big deal.

But if you die in an attempt to deliver the final blow against the BBEG, and you get raised? Perhaps destiny is altered so that final blow never occurred. PCs are forced to weigh the benefits of having that teammate vs. the ramifications of raising them.

AgentofHellfire
2012-04-15, 11:10 AM
Just putting an idea out there:

The problem with PC deaths is that a meaningless death is pretty damn disappointing. One still wants a great sacrifice to mean something, however.

So what if resurrection, by way of altering one of the primal, incarnate forces of the universe, also affected other primal, incarnate forces? What if, in bringing someone back, you also unspooled the threads of fate that were tied to the event?

Die against a pack of dire wolves on the way to the BBEG's temple, your teammates slay them? Resurrect teammate, perhaps the wolves come back. Not a big deal.

But if you die in an attempt to deliver the final blow against the BBEG, and you get raised? Perhaps destiny is altered so that final blow never occurred. PCs are forced to weigh the benefits of having that teammate vs. the ramifications of raising them.

^I like this.

Also, I have a few ideas of my own...

1. Make resurrections only work a couple of rounds after death, and even then only with the body, meaning that there are still many, many ways you can be permanently killed, but still ways you can avoid meaningless deaths.
2. Make more things like Death Ward, Spell Immunity, etc.

TuggyNE
2012-04-15, 03:53 PM
Just putting an idea out there:

The problem with PC deaths is that a meaningless death is pretty damn disappointing. One still wants a great sacrifice to mean something, however.

So what if resurrection, by way of altering one of the primal, incarnate forces of the universe, also affected other primal, incarnate forces? What if, in bringing someone back, you also unspooled the threads of fate that were tied to the event?

Die against a pack of dire wolves on the way to the BBEG's temple, your teammates slay them? Resurrect teammate, perhaps the wolves come back. Not a big deal.

But if you die in an attempt to deliver the final blow against the BBEG, and you get raised? Perhaps destiny is altered so that final blow never occurred. PCs are forced to weigh the benefits of having that teammate vs. the ramifications of raising them.

That ... is an extremely awesome idea. Much food for thought here.