D&D 5E An additional component for Resurrection

[mellored]

You could simply have all diamonds held by the raven queen, or Orcas, or whom ever. They will only give you one if you perform some service for her.

I.e. do a quest.

 

[Sunseeker]

How do you deal with the player of dead character during those sessions? Do they sit idle? Are they play an NPC that they will discard?

How do you deal with a player wanting their character brought back but not all of the other players are on-board with derailing what they are doing? In other words, which players do you penalize to do the bidding of the others.

This sounds great for a book, but I don't see how this works out to be consistently fun in game. At best it would either happen once with everyone on board, have no deaths where the player wants to continue playing the same character, or the DM never kills a character so it never comes up. Just about every other combination penalizes players, and often ones that are not the player of the character that died.

I'm curious to know the answer too. Regardless of how a player gets back into a game, dealing with downtime has always been...tricky. It's one thing if Bob wants to go grab a burger for an hour while the rest of the party goes on a quick adventure....but still, emphasis on quick.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

How do you deal with the player of dead character during those sessions? Do they sit idle? Are they play an NPC that they will discard?

How do you deal with a player wanting their character brought back but not all of the other players are on-board with derailing what they are doing? In other words, which players do you penalize to do the bidding of the others.

This sounds great for a book, but I don't see how this works out to be consistently fun in game. At best it would either happen once with everyone on board, have no deaths where the player wants to continue playing the same character, or the DM never kills a character so it never comes up. Just about every other combination penalizes players, and often ones that are not the player of the character that died.

That's up for the players whose characters are still alive to decide. I create the world and manage the mechanics of the game in accordance to that world. What the character do and how they organize themselves is up to the players.

 

[5ekyu]

I'm curious to know the answer too. Regardless of how a player gets back into a game, dealing with downtime has always been...tricky. It's one thing if Bob wants to go grab a burger for an hour while the rest of the party goes on a quick adventure....but still, emphasis on quick.

Thats part ofcthe readon behind my after death scenes being played out online one-on-one and typically done before the start of the next session. Avoids any player downtime or need for sudden add-in new temp PC etc. Any major quest follows as a duty to be performed, a reason to return the character, not as a burden for others that leaves the other player in the lurch (or force some new change-up even to pre-existing character.) Focus is on going forward, not back.

Its definitely something IMO a GM should consider carefully when deciding on post death mechanics in their setting. Not something i would ever wash my hands of.

Sent from my VS995 using EN World mobile app

 

[Charlaquin]

You could simply have all diamonds held by the raven queen, or Orcas, or whom ever. They will only give you one if you perform some service for her.

I.e. do a quest.

This is how I restrict resurrection in my games. The church of the Raven Queen has a tight hold on the diamond trade, so you can probably get one from a Raven Priest, but they will likely demand a favor (quest) in return. Or you could try to find one on the black market, but that’s probably a quest of its own. One way or another, bringing someone back to life is either going to require a sidequest, set you up for a sidequest, or consume the reward you got from a previous sidequest.

 

[Blue]

That's up for the players whose characters are still alive to decide. I create the world and manage the mechanics of the game in accordance to that world. What the character do and how they organize themselves is up to the players.

What I am hearing is:

I set up a situation where players can be locked out of action for sessions on end, but it's not my fault because it's their choice to continue their character.

I also set up so that players can get be at severe odds with other players about what happens in the game, but even though I set up the possibility with my hosue rules, I take no responsibility for it either.

Sorry, neither flies. Take responsibility for your actions.

So, again:

When YOUR HOUSE RULES require a player who wishes to ressurrect their character to sit out for one or more sessions, how do you handle it?

When YOUR HOUSE RULES pit player vs. player (as opposed to character vs. character) and there is no full-group agreement, which players do you favor and which do you penalize?

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

What I am hearing is:

I set up a situation where players can be locked out of action for sessions on end, but it's not my fault because it's their choice to continue their character.

I also set up so that players can get be at severe odds with other players about what happens in the game, but even though I set up the possibility with my hosue rules, I take no responsibility for it either.

Sorry, neither flies. Take responsibility for your actions.

So, again:

When YOUR HOUSE RULES require a player who wishes to ressurrect their character to sit out for one or more sessions, how do you handle it?

When YOUR HOUSE RULES pit player vs. player (as opposed to character vs. character) and there is no full-group agreement, which players do you favor and which do you penalize?

The solution is not to play with people who would prefer to play a different type of game, whine my little children, and can't make and accept decisions like adults. So far, the only person whose complained are random nobodies on the internet. The flesh and blood players think it's a great idea and adds a great deal of believably to the world.

If the player really loves his/her character, he'll roll up a new 1st level PC (just like everyone else) or promote one of the party retainers to PC status. Then if the PCs successfully rescue the PC from the underworld, he'll take over playing his/her previous character.

Also, I don't favor specific players. They must come to a group consensus, or else divide their manpower. It's not a decision for the impartial DM.

 

[5ekyu]

The solution is not to play with people who would prefer to play a different type of game, whine my little children, and can't make and accept decisions like adults. So far, the only person whose complained are random nobodies on the internet. The flesh and blood players think it's a great idea and adds a great deal of believably to the world.

If the player really loves his/her character, he'll roll up a new 1st level PC (just like everyone else) or promote one of the party retainers to PC status. Then if the PCs successfully rescue the PC from the underworld, he'll take over playing his/her previous character.

Also, I don't favor specific players. They must come to a group consensus, or else divide their manpower. It's not a decision for the impartial DM.

"What dividing our forces? He dead? Lets bury him with honor and go find a new team member as powerful as we are?"

"Promote Junior? Why? He wasnt first team last week. He still aint now."

"Pick up raw rookie? Yeah right. We were not looking for one last week. Why babysit now?"

"Lets get somebody as sttong as he was"

"Yup, sounds good."



Sent from my VS995 using EN World mobile app

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

"What dividing our forces? He dead? Lets bury him with honor and go find a new team member as powerful as we are?"

"Promote Junior? Why? He wasnt first team last week. He still aint now."

"Pick up raw rookie? Yeah right. We were not looking for one last week. Why babysit now?"

"Lets get somebody as sttong as he was"

"Yup, sounds good."

Sent from my VS995 using EN World mobile app

If that happened, it would tell me that there is a disconnect between my players and me, in which case we would need to have an adult conversation. Oddly, enough. That hasn't happened, and we'll all having a great time. The possibility of meaningful death raises the stakes and makes life and death situations much more engaging.

They're much more focused on getting the good treasure from the dungeon before the other two rival groups playing in the same world do.

 

[Kurotowa]

I can see two completing concerns at play here, coming from different sources.

It's a thematic concern that death should have consequences and not be cheap or trivialized.

It's a gaming concern that players don't want to discard a PC they're heavily invested in due to an especially unlucky string of dice rolls, nor do they want to sit inactive for long periods of time without a way to participate in the game.

I'm reminded of the old line from business, "Fast, cheap, and good: pick two." Sometimes there are items on your want list that conflict in such a fundamental way that you simply have to pick which one matters more and give up on the other. Refusing to pick your priorities and trying to do it all can mean failing at everything and succeeding at nothing.

The baseline rules of 5e favor the gaming side. The death rules are forgiving enough that it's hard to be taken out of action for long. This is a deliberate design choice to keep the players engaged over any sort of verisimilitude or desire to make death "count". Now, is it possible to house rule and change that? Absolutely. But what people in this thread are trying to point out is that to do some comes with a cost, and it's a cost you need to be clearly aware of.

I've had DMs who ran what was effectively hardcore mode, with no resses and the dice being as they fall. I've had DMs who made an up front promise that the only permanent PC death would be when it was dramatically appropriate, and anything sort of that would be fudged as "temporarily knocked out of action" in some manner. Both styles were acceptable because the DM was clear and up front about what sort of game they were running. If you want to do something like that, I entirely encourage it.

What I'm less sure of is keeping the idea of resurrection magic while attaching progressive stat loss to it. That sort of "you're not gone you're just permanently less cool" penalty is not any sort of fun. Doubly so when the penalty puts you at greater risk of dying in the future and compounding the effects in a downward spiral. It's just forcing the players to choose how much they're willing to pay in medical bills for their favorite pet before they decide it's better to just put it down. How miserable is that.

So what I'm saying is, don't go for half measures. If you want death to count, say that death counts and let the players know they should invest in more defensive options. If you don't want to break their favorite toys when the dice go bad, don't scratch them up as a compromise. Decide what you want your game to be like and go all-in for that.