Low-Level Immortal Character campaign ideas

[Meijin]

I am going to be starting a campaign soon, as the DM, of a level 2 party of rather low optimization. There is a bard, a Goliath barbarian (1st level), a paladin, a cleric and a multi classed rogue/psion.
The setting is going to be very much gothic themed, a little bit of a Ravenloft flavor. Think werewolves, undead, demon cults, etc. Reasonably combat heavy, but by no means entirely combat.
The players don't know this yet, but they are chosen immortal heroes. Whenever one of them dies, they awaken, without any of their gear, some amount of time later, in a new body. However, in their place, there is a chance that someone in the world they care about will die, or that they will suffer some penalty.
I am looking for advice on the most interesting ways to flesh out these mechanics and then use them. Ideally, I want to make death a challenge to be approached creatively, especially since there may be a fair bit of it in a world of gothic horror. I'm not terribly worried about lost gear, as the rest of the party can bring it back to them, and if there is a TPK, recovering gear seems like an OK quest to go on. So,
-Should there be a particular "base" where they always re-spawn? Say, a certain hidden cave? Or should it be a type of area, say, the nearest place of worship?
-How long a regeneration period would be most fun?
-How would you want to first introduce this concept?
-Any particular plots/uses/challenges/fun things/things to be careful with you can think of? If it's important, the group is immersive enough to avoid saying "screw this world, let's just die a lot and power through a bunch of fights!"
-Any other twists on this idea you think might be cool or worthwhile?

Thanks for the input.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Meijn
Should there be a particular "base" where they always re-spawn? Say, a certain hidden cave? Or should it be a type of area, say, the nearest place of worship?

Nearest place of worship is a good start, perhaps near a specific type of shrine that’s reasonably common throughout the region. Otherwise you’ll be spending a lot of time on the travel and logistics of getting the reborn hero back to the main party. Definitely not a single location, because that will become more and more difficult to reach as the party moves further through the storyline.

And a naked second-level character, alone on the road in a world of mad Gothic horror, might run into the occasional speedbump on the way back to his friends, i.e. the aforementioned werewolves, cultists, abominations, etc. Might want the shrines to be fairly close to the party’s location if at all possible.


Originally Posted by Meijn
How long a regeneration period would be most fun?

Most players would say “instant.” Certainly you don’t want someone forced to sit out a whole gaming session just because there’s a traffic jam on the spiritual turnpike. It’s frustrating enough to watch the game go on around you while you’re sleeping off a drow poison dart, or waiting to overcome some exotic illness; being dead just encourages people to check out completely.

In-world, different logic applies, but I’d say that twenty-four hours is a reasonable compromise. I also wouldn’t overdo it; if you want character death to be meaningful, it needs to be rare and excruciating for the character—but not for the player.


Originally Posted by Meijn
How would you want to first introduce this concept?

…when someone dies? Not sure what you mean.

The real question is how the characters will work out that they’re The Chosen OnesTM, and I would personally present it as a mystery that’s woven into the storyline, that they gradually unravel as they’re pursuing their main objectives. Perhaps the first time a character dies, the rest of the party finds the reborn character during their next entanglement with the minions of evil, and they’re forced to question whether the reborn character really is their friend or a vile falsehood given flesh. That could make for some fun roleplaying.

You might also consider allowing the minions of evil the same knowledge of this chosen state, and so every time a character dies, it’s a race to see who can find the reborn character first. That would need to wait until the characters have worked out what’s going on, so they'll know to seek out the nearest shrine or other site of rebirth.

To make it more interesting, give Team Evil a set of chosen ones as well; this allows for running villains to return even after being killed, and it gives you the entertainment value of watching the party debate endlessly over how to permanently kill the villains. Make sure the same rules apply to the characters and their opponents alike, to intensify the feeling of being pawns in some great game.

Depending on the roleplaying and individual players’ preferences, you might even allow a player to take over a reborn chosen one from Team Evil, if the party is able to reach him first and somehow convince him to join them. There are endless possibilities, and with the right group it could be a great campaign.

[Darrin]

-Should there be a particular "base" where they always re-spawn? Say, a certain hidden cave? Or should it be a type of area, say, the nearest place of worship?


I'd suggest they reappear in a ruined temple or shrine dedicated to an obscure deity that isn't necessarily well-known. The exact temple or shrine changes location, so it's difficult to tell exactly where you'll wind up. This gives the PCs some uncertainty about whether they'll be able to pick up from where they left off, and also gives the DM some flexibility to "nudge" the PCs in a particular direction or to move the plot along.

You can add a cryptic inscription or leave clues in the temple/shrine to give the PC another "nudge" as far as what is going on. I like the idea that there is a mysterious patron (either the obscure deity or one of the deity's servants) who has prepped for this event, but doesn't want to be revealed quite yet.



-How long a regeneration period would be most fun?


1d12 hours. The dodecahedron needs some love.



-How would you want to first introduce this concept?


I'm not sure I like the idea of springing this on the PCs without any warning. In most RPGs, there's an understanding between the players and DM about fairness and what sorts of challenges they can expect. This generally involves a game where PC death is rare, and the players can assume that the DM is not going to deliberately sandbag them by throwing encounters at them that have a significant chance of PC death or TPK unless he has a very good reason. To pull this off, you have to undermine this "fairness" assumption early on. Ideally, you want to give the players a heads-up about this, but you also want to surprise them. I can see two different methods to do this:

1) Lampshade Method. Inform the players beforehand that this campaign is going to involve a *lot* of PC death. However, there's going to be some curveballs involved, but you'd much rather they discover this through play. When a big fight scene comes along, address the players out-of-character and tell them explicitly that you expect some if not all PCs to die here. Tell them it's something like a scripted event, so they are *expected* to fail this encounter. Tell them you are deliberately subverting their "player agency" by dictating that this event has to go a particular way, but once the scene is over, they'll have an opportunity to regain agency and continue to move the story forward. Then say, "So if you know you're going to die, then make sure it's a glorious death!"

2) Show them how it works with an NPC first. The PCs witness a "hero" get undeniably killed. A few days later, they encounter him again, and he's decidedly not dead. He explains what happened, gives them a rough idea of the mechanics of showing up naked in a ruined temple, etc., and then suggests that due to a cryptic prophecy, mysterious tattoo, or some unexplainable event, the PCs may also be part of the Chosen Ones. You can telegraph this harder if the PCs are reluctant to test it out, but it at least gets the idea into their head that death may not be permanent, so they can at least consider a "dramatic death" as a tactical option to leverage a lopsided combat into a Pyrrhic victory. Once the PCs figure out the mechanic, the NPC can be an ally, he can mysteriously disappear, get captured, or somehow gets perma-dead via a ritual/artifact that ups the stakes for the rest of the PCs.



-Any particular plots/uses/challenges/fun things/things to be careful with you can think of? If it's important, the group is immersive enough to avoid saying "screw this world, let's just die a lot and power through a bunch of fights!"


Once the "death isn't permanent" thing sinks in, they may try to zerg their way through their opponents, but I suspect the threat of losing their equipment will deter them from using this too often. If they do start abusing this mechanic, you can slow them down a bit by reducing how much of their previous equipment they recover or making it increasingly more difficult to get all their stuff back. Villains taunting them with their looted magic items is way too tempting, though... that could get old and annoying really quick.

You also mentioned that there's some other negative consequence in the world... someone close to them dies instead, or something like that. I'm not sure that will be effective... standard murderhobo doctrine is not to have any close familial or social relationships that the PC cares much about. So informing a PC that his sister just died in a freak carriage collision isn't likely to carry much weight if he didn't really care about his sister or didn't even know he had one in his backstory. Finding something the PCs care about can be extremely difficult, so I'm not sure how exactly you'd go about taking that something away as a penalty.

The consequence doesn't necessarily have to involve the PCs directly, though. There could be a religious order that has to go through a complex ritual or willingly sacrifice a member of the order to allow the resurrection to happen. The PCs may discover this as the campaign progresses, and thus realize that every time they die, an innocent cleric has to "take their place". They may not particularly care about this, but the religious order certainly will, and may demand the PCs do certain things to adhere to the "prophecy" or to placate their deity... with the threat that if the PCs don't toe the line, an angry deity could decide to take a more direct role in their lives.



-Any other twists on this idea you think might be cool or worthwhile?


Every time they die, a mysterious tattoo appears burned into their flesh. Some research indicates it's the personal mark of a demon lord that they now owe a "favor" to... and when the demon lord shows up to see that favor repaid, that's when you can really twist the knife into the PCs to demand they do something really unpleasant, like kill a favorite NPC, assassinate a local lord, kidnap a baby, burn down an aggressive orphanage, that sort of thing. If the PCs refuse, then the tattoos turn out to be a geas, or the demon lord can activate the magic runes on them to bestow a negative level, permanent ability drain, unhealable wounds, etc.

The PCs stumble onto a wizard who claims he's been preparing their clone bodies for them, and he's really peeved about the rate they are going through them! These things aren't cheap, you know! He's only got a couple bodies left per PC, so if they want more they'd better start coughing up some GPs! He may or may not be completely lying.

[tstewt1921]

Most players when they die, just start and reroll a new character, I would let them do this normally, and incorporate them as you normally would. When they "reincarnate and go into another body" give that body some extra backstory. Like they have a family they left behind to adventure. Give the PC no knowledge of this. The past that the player comes up with for the character make those be fake memories to deal with the reincarnation. Then slowly start taking away those memories and replacing them with what they did as the original PC, they will slowly start making the connection and then the memories can start coming back quicker and quicker until it's instantaneous once they "reincarnate".

However, I would be the one picking their races, since they go into a completely different body. Or make a requirement that they have to pick a new race every time they would die.

[malloc]

-Should there be a particular "base" where they always re-spawn? Say, a certain hidden cave? Or should it be a type of area, say, the nearest place of worship?

Either a supernatural location that is thematic to the plot, or some sort of troped respawn spot. So to clarify, I like the idea of respawning at the nearest temple, if the world has a lot of gods interacting. Or potentially in an area related to how they died. If rocks fell on them, they might respawn at a quarry or a building made of stone. If they get eaten by wild beasts, maybe a butcher's shop. Left for Dead 2 always has players respawn in a closet. It gives the potential to spawn players into an interesting situation, potentially giving them a chance for a little bit (5-10 minutes, no more) of a 1 on 1 interaction with the DM in extracting themselves from that situation, to make up for the time they spent waiting dead.

Alternatively, pick a central location that is easily accessible and respawn the players there every time. That gives the option of having a quest to discover the secret behind the location and why it's magically attuned to the players. Maybe one day when they visit...the see someone else respawn. Friendly or foe!

-How long a regeneration period would be most fun?

With the rise of the new dawn, or some other setting-fitting time. Maybe the campaign revolves around a major town, and there are a lot of tall tales surrounding the belltower that keeps time. Players might respawn at the ring of the Witching Hour bell.

-How would you want to first introduce this concept?

A rumor in the tavern, or if your world is tied to deities closely, I'd introduce it as part of a passing sermon from a preacher who is telling like a maniac on the streetside every day in town until a player dies, then is mysteriously absent when they want to ask questions (offering a potential quest to find him and extract information).

-Any particular plots/uses/challenges/fun things/things to be careful with you can think of? If it's important, the group is immersive enough to avoid saying "screw this world, let's just die a lot and power through a bunch of fights!"

Take away opportunities on a teamwipe. I think fail forward has a place, but don't be afraid to remove options from the players if they start trying to grind. For example, if they go to fight a corrupt noble who has a specific sword they want to obtain, and they die, he's left town taking the sword with him.

I do like the concept of losing loved ones when you die, or killing important/favored NPCs, or in some other non-mechanical manner taxing the players for deaths to create an artificial threat. Maybe there is a disease going around town that starts as a minor pox, but as the players die more and more the disease gets worse and worse, killing the townsfolk. People who seem immune are considered witches and burned at the stake.

-Any other twists on this idea you think might be cool or worthwhile?

Give us an idea of the world/plot and we can give better feedback that will fit inside your game more swimmingly.

[Meijin]

Thank you all for your lovely advice. I think I now have enough to work with. Cheers!

[ATHATH]

Have you played Planescape: Torment?

Also, has your Rogue/Psion player considered playing a Psychic Rogue instead?