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MonkeySage
2017-09-15, 07:46 PM
Playing an immortal character, and playing a character seeking immortality?

I've been trying to find a good way to explain this to one of my GMs.

In his setting, there is an item that makes the user temporarily immortal, for as long as they wear it.

My character is looking for a more permanent option. He's considered lichdom, but once he realizes what he'd have to do to get it, he will want to take a different path. I made him to be a character who seeks immortality, he is on a journey to become an immortal... But I do not think actually playing an immortal character would be very fun or interesting.

Darth Ultron
2017-09-15, 08:12 PM
Really any character can be fun if you want it to be fun.

And there is no reason an immortal character can't be fun. The Doctor is a great example of a fun immortal character, for example.

In general ''seeking something'' is very often more exciting and interesting then other things....this is why you see a lot of fiction with this idea. But it is not like once a character ''finds whatever'' it is all ways the end of the story.

But even ''immortal'' does not mean ''is super all powerful and can do anything''....it can mean ''just not die of old age'' too.

TheYell
2017-09-16, 04:41 AM
Please explain your conflict here.

Is the GM saying you can never have true immortality, but you might obtain the Thing of Immortality instead?

I've played characters who want something the GM will never provide, it's basically having a minor delusion that guides their choices. I find it interesting.

Would your character spurn the Thing of Immortality? Would he wear it while he tries for something better? What do you think is the proper path to true immortality that he should follow?

Guizonde
2017-09-16, 08:04 AM
there can be a lot of fun in both:

example one: the dude can't die. be it like the doctor (who kinda sorta reincarnates in a new body), and can change personnality, it can be awesome. on the flip side, one can be like harkness, who dies repeatedly in gruesome manners and comes back to life. then there's intemporality, someone who doesn't age. according to some fluff, that's basically elves in dnd. unless you're talking about "mary sue immortality", which i find is closer to "god-mode" in practice (can't hurt, get sick, die, grow old, or change), then having an immortal character can be a lot of fun and provide a lot of rp opportunities.

example two: the delusion. for reasons, your character wants to be immortal. be it lichification, canonization, rousseau-style legacy immortality, they're seeking immortality. i'll explain it with a character of mine.

brutehilde the rose paladin. she was a halfling paladin of pelor fighting the forces of iuz in greyhawk (return to the temple of elemental evil). my psycho dm hated her for reasons, and killed her off-screen. so after much "dude, what the hell" from all people who saw him gloat about that, he turned her into a necropolitan, gave me the sheet and told me she was blasted as far from greyhawk as possible. a friend was starting a pathfinder campaign (gestalt of all things), and integrated her. she's got few memories, can't age (dead), can't become sick (dead), feel fatigue (you get the idea)... she can be destroyed. her motivations are to go to dorakka (capital of iuz's empire in greyhawk) and give a god a wedgie. functionnally, she's an immortal. yes, she can be destroyed, but that's about all the bad things that can happen. she doesn't realize she got blasted through the fourth wall and is mentally stuck in greyhawk and not golarion. she got routinely pinned to trees, dismembered, shot, set on fire, squished, disembowelled... it was as hilariously off color as it was tragic. i don't think she ever realized she was dead during that campaign, for her it was normal to use your own intestines to hoist your teammates up a cliff face. pain or breathing was secondary to her mission to get back to dorakka for vengeance.

unless you fall into the trap of an omnipotent immortal, the status is a great tool. may i also recommend sainthood, godhood (demi-god with divinity points counts too), and timelessness for ways to achieve immortality? brutehilde got necropolitanized, but unless you're playing 3.x, that's not an option. it is a ritual that has to be done by evil people, but it leaves you neutral. it's an added template that has its inconvenients, but is extremely useful as a boost to skills and resistance.

dps
2017-09-16, 12:23 PM
Playing an immortal character, and playing a character seeking immortality?

I've been trying to find a good way to explain this to one of my GMs.

In his setting, there is an item that makes the user temporarily immortal, for as long as they wear it.

My character is looking for a more permanent option. He's considered lichdom, but once he realizes what he'd have to do to get it, he will want to take a different path. I made him to be a character who seeks immortality, he is on a journey to become an immortal... But I do not think actually playing an immortal character would be very fun or interesting.

What does "temporarily immortal" mean in this setting? Does the character wearing the item not age? Or do they age, but can't die of old age? Or does it mean "invulnerable" more than "immortal"; that is to say, the character can still age and even die of old age, but can't be harmed by weapons, diseases, etc.?

Similarly, what would a more permanent solution grant? No aging, so no dying of old age? Or would the character age, but never die of old age (which would suck in reality, but might be fun to play in a game)? Would the character also be invulnerable? Or would the character be invulnerable, but still age and die of old age (again, this wouldn't actually be immortality, but invulnerability)?

The answers to these questions, and how you fell about the implications of the answers, will determine how much fun such a character would be to play. IMO, an invulnerable character, whether or not they can age and/or die of old age, would get boring to play after a while (but having an item that makes you temporarily invulnerable could be a good things at times). OTOH, a character who doesn't age or die of old age but is vulnerable should be just as much fun as any similar character who does eventually have to face aging.

Algeh
2017-09-16, 01:51 PM
Playing an immortal character, and playing a character seeking immortality?

I've been trying to find a good way to explain this to one of my GMs.

In his setting, there is an item that makes the user temporarily immortal, for as long as they wear it.

My character is looking for a more permanent option. He's considered lichdom, but once he realizes what he'd have to do to get it, he will want to take a different path. I made him to be a character who seeks immortality, he is on a journey to become an immortal... But I do not think actually playing an immortal character would be very fun or interesting.

Basically, the distinction is between playing a character who has a (possibly unrealistic) goal they are pursuing, that probably drives them to go get in all kinds of trouble, and playing a character who has achieved their goal and thus is either happy with their goal-achieved status and stops going out and getting into goal-pursuit trouble, or discovers that goal wasn't enough/wasn't right somehow and is now getting into trouble pursuing some other goal.

The fact that your character's goal is something that other people would want as a feature in an active PC may be making it harder for your GM to see that distinction. Some people would have a character with a goal of becoming immortal because the player wants an immortal PC and was told they couldn't start with one. This is often the kind of character "goal" that is destructive to the intended tone or direction of the campaign, since you're basically trying to turn the GM's "no" into "not yet, but keep asking me every five minutes".

You GM may be reluctant to have a permanently immortal PC in their game. If you make it clear that you, the player, don't want an immortal PC, you just think having a PC that wants immortality will drive that PC to make interesting choices on their (probably not fulfilled during the game) journey, they may be more receptive. It's like having a PC that wants to buy a farm and retire. You, the player, probably aren't trying to get the GM to run Elaborate Farming Simulator: The RPG, you're trying to give your PC a reason to go on adventures.

Thrudd
2017-09-17, 02:59 AM
In practical terms there is no difference. No matter what your character's goals are and what you achieve, the game is going to go on as long as it goes on, and then it will end, whether or not your character was immortal. When the game ends, your immortal is gone, too. It's not like you will really be playing the same character forever.

So just play the character how you want to, have the goals you want to have and pursue them in whatever way makes sense for the game. Enjoy the character while it lasts. You can't control what the GM will do, and you shouldn't try. As long as the game goes on, you need to give your character a goal that lets them continue participating in the adventures. You can decide to change that any time you want - if you reach one goal you can start having other motives for adventuring. nobody is forcing you to play that character that way. If you really think the character shouldn't want to adventure any more, then tell the GM you want to retire the character and start a new one.

I'm not sure what you're trying to explain to the GM. You're telling them that you don't want them to let the character become immortal, even though your character is always trying to become immortal? I mean, you might not need to tell them that at all. If I were GM, I wouldn't be letting anybody become immortal unless it was the end of the game, or it was going to become an "immortals" game, with everyone plane-hopping or becoming gods or whatever.

Of course, elves are already functionally immortal, with lifespans of 1000 years - I doubt any game is ever going to see that much time pass. And Dwarves, for that matter, as well. And paladins and monks that are immune to diseases. They aren't going anywhere, unless the game goes on past their natural lifespan. Really, most games don't even span a single human lifetime. So what are you worried about?

Herobizkit
2017-09-17, 05:30 AM
There's a difference between being immortal and being indestructible.

Living forever is nice but only if the GM actually tracks the passage of time.

There are some perks to being immortal, such as not needing to eat or drink. You still need to be able to breathe. And you need your head attached to your body to live.

ZamielVanWeber
2017-09-17, 05:38 AM
There's a difference between being immortal and being indestructible.
True. Immortality is rarely an issue as there are ways to deal with immortals without killing them (heck Lost Odyssey goes into this) but dealing with someone who is legitimately invulnerable can get annoying.


There are some perks to being immortal, such as not needing to eat or drink. You still need to be able to breathe. And you need your head attached to your body to live.

Those are DND outsiders, not immortals. Someone possessing true in violate life cannot be killed by suffocation or decapitation, but they would possibly enter some form of torpor if struck by one or the other. That just depends entirely on exactly how your immortality works.

Vogie
2017-09-18, 08:35 AM
The first question is the type of immortality. There's just "elvish" immortality (You can't age to death), Complete Physical Immortality (Jack Harkness/Dorian Gray), Mental Immortality (You continue to age, but not die), Regenerative Immortality (Deadpool, starfish), ascension to a new plane of existence, et cetera. You would have to define what immortality really means... but note since you're a player, the DM may be less than forthcoming. Know your character may be surprised if they expect Complete Physical Immortality, and actually receive Elvish immortality.

The second question is what the downside is. If the DM has crafted this McGuffin properly, there's going to be some downside. When I think of a temporary immortality-granting item, for example, I think of:

the Invincibility Device from Stargate Atlantis, which made him completely immune to any damage... but would also prevent the wielder from eating or drinking.
That Which Was Taken, from the Kamigawa storyline of MTG, a stone disc which would grant immortality and supernatural foresight, but would cause a massive war between the real world and the spirit world, as it was the king of the gods' daughter imprisoned inside the disc.
The Denarians, from the Dresden Files. These 30 silver coins grant immortality, among other things, as they are contracts with fallen angels.
The One Ring, from the Lord of the Rings. In addition to the more famous powers, this gives the Mental Immortality to both Bilbo and Gollum, allowing them to live significantly longer than the oldest hobbit. In Gollum's case, it isn't pretty.

wumpus
2017-09-18, 09:32 AM
I'd have to assume that an unkillable character would "win" and be declared an NPC. If you simply avoided any aging (while seeking immortality) said character would almost certainly retire on the spot (why go to all the trouble of gaining immortality and then get yourself killed adventuring?).

Having an invulnerable character barging around would simply be a campaign problem. The whole idea of an adventure is to risk great danger for great rewards. If a character could simply stroll in and grab the rewards without the danger, the game implodes. Still, the character may face threats to loved ones and the dangers of imprisonment (such as on Xykon's astral fortress).

I'd expect the gods to simply declare such a character divine, an NPC, and subject to prime material plane meddling rules. Note that for something like [A]D&D, a cleric worshipping said NPC would have trouble getting spells over level 4 or so (this wasn't included in later editions [but appears present in OOTS], but is great for showing the difference between a cleric and wizard).