Have you ever refused to come back from the dead?

[DreadArchon]

Title. If so, why?

Personally, I've had a Sorcerer who refused a Ressurrection because I wanted to play something more durable.

 

[Henry]

A few times, yes. More often in the old days (1E and 2E), it wasn't refused so much as it was never offered in the first place.

 

[Doug McCrae]

There's a player in our game who has a 'no resurrections' policy - ie he always refuses them for his PCs - which I find somewhat implausible. Most living things want to go on living. It's effectively the same as choosing to commit suicide.

 

[el-remmen]

I had a dwarven character who refused to come back a second time.

And to give counterpoint to Doug's post, you can also argue (depending on cosmology) that the dead person is basking in the glory of their god and would not want to be wrenched from that).

In Aquerra, those who are raised occasionally suffer from dreams where they see Anubis silently staring at them, as if to say, "you belong back within my gates." The more you are raised, the more often those dreams happen.

 

[el-remmen]

Oh also, one of my players has a no rez policy for his current character. His last two in games I ran were raised one time each (and went on to die again and then be replaced by a new character, or temporarily dropped the game).

 

[Decado]

In my current campaign no players have refused to come back from the dead. I did however run and NPC that was the trusted bodyguard to the PC mage of the group. He was killed in battle against some giants and later brought back. I played his personality differently after he came back and the party and players could tell he had changed. He eventually told the mage that if he was to be killed again he did not want to be brought back.

Decado

 

[MarkB]

I've occasionally refused a resurrection for a character, if it didn't make sense for that PC, or I wanted to play something different.

On the other hand, we recently went ahead with the Raising of a character whose player was going to bring in a new PC, because in-character we would have made the attempt if at all possible. She became a background NPC and occasional ally in the end.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Not a single character I've played has ever been raised or ressed. Not because I didn't want them to be, but because it's never been available when I needed it. :\ Then again, I havn't needed it that many times either. Mostly because I'm the DM 99% of the time.

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

I would have. I had a paladin of the death deity who believed that once you died it was time to continue on to your next journey. He never died, though. His default was to not have someone raised unless they had expressed a serious desire to be. He did ferry a few souls back across the Moors to return to life.

What I found funny was he was the leader of his clan (and thus the PC group). The heir fully intended to drag my character's corpse down to the church for a Res, should he kick it, simply because they didn't want to be in charge.

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Now, I've also had a character that very much wanted to return to life, but the group never even considered ressurecting him. They just took his stuff back to his family and went on their merry way. It was a croos between half the group not knowing you could ressurect someone who had been turned into undead and the other half not wanting to cough up the cash to do so. 5,000 for a raise was okay, but 10,000 for a res was too much to them.

 

[Mouseferatu]

There's a player in our game who has a 'no resurrections' policy - ie he always refuses them for his PCs - which I find somewhat implausible. Most living things want to go on living. It's effectively the same as choosing to commit suicide.

In a setting with a concrete, 100% real afterlife--and assuming the character in question winds up in one of the better planes, as opposed to Hell or the Abyss--I don't think it's impausible at all.