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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 2918383" data-attributes="member: 32740">Apologies.  I failed to adequately elaborate on my perspective regarding alignment.  My own insistence [I like that phrase.  MOI.  From the French for, "What?  Me worry?" <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />] is that alignment, too, exists in the game for quite purely meta-game reasons even though it has so many in-game manifestations of rules.  It exists as a tool to assist players in deciding upon (not dictating) the actions of their characters such that the characters behavior will be reasonable and consistent.  It can't dictate your characters actions, only suggest what is appropriate.  For the DM as well it serves as a tool to quickly and easily categorize a wide array of related elements into a shorthand reference for behavior.  That these meta-game purposes are supplemented with in-game effects should not be allowed to fool you.  Alignment is a PLAYER tool.  Take as support of this assertion the fact that it is easily demonstrated that alignment can (and often is, by those who misunderstand its purpose and thus reflexively dislike it) be removed entirely with only a few residual in-game effects like spells and detection abilities needing to be also eliminated or altered.A fairly simple indication might be to have your character ask another, "Say Gandalf, do you have enough gold pieces to afford to create that ring?" and then have him ask, "Say Gandalf, do you have enough experience points to make it too?"  XP, while it has concrete, measureable rules for its use in item creation by characters, is not any less intended to be a purely meta-game mechanic, not an in-game, measureable resource that characters deal with as a manifest part of their reality.It's not nonsense and your quote above provides the very language that can be used to argue for it.  "I'm not claiming it's common, but it doesn't HAVE to be."  [Emphasis mine]  "The fact that it CAN be routinely done..."  doesn't imply in the least that it MUST be routinely done.  "It's possible that they are wrong..." and if they are...  "Anyone sufficiently interested in investigating death CAN [...] die and be brought back."  But that doesn't mean that anyone ever HAS, or that if they have that they DID come back.By letting go of the assumption that because Raise Dead is listed in the PH with all attendant rules that it MUST have ALWAYS been available, is NOW available, and always will be, you open yourself up to intriguing possiblities that you may not have even considered.  Why NOT have a PC be the first individual EVER to conceive of, research, and use a spell to raise the dead?  Doesn't affect the existence of UNdead in the game world at all except that you now have a means of bringing someone back from the horrible fate of undeath rather than only sending them on to a peaceful death.  The fact that it is listed in PH tables of spells doesn't mean that any spell ever has to have its history established to justify that listing.?  What?  How can it NOT matter?  The generic world of the RAW being discussed is ALWAYS subject to my own interpretation and the interpretation of every individual DM and player out there.  The RAW is the STARTING point for a game of D&D.  It is not the ending point.  Check me if I'm wrong but this thread wasn't started to explain to everyone what the generic world of the RAW dictates/what it IS.  I think its purpose is to elicit commentary on what it could be, what it has been, what it should be if you want effect X, what it shouldn't if you want effect Y.Okay.Death IS the end for the vast majority.  Although spells like Raise Dead and Resurrection exist, may be easy to obtain, perhaps even freely given whenever possible, because the DM gets to decide ALL the choices of NPC's, I as the DM choose to have my NPC's prefer the afterlife EVERY time.  They may live their entire lives convinced of their own will to live, but when they actually die they choose NOT to return to life when the choice is afforded them.  The spell may be cast on every dead man, woman and child but the exceptions to the permanency of death are rare even though everyone knows that they CAN choose life over death/the afterlife.  In those exceptional cases the individual will often die and willingly return time after time, and whether it is genuinely related or not it is curious to note that those exceptions often live a lifestyle that puts them in a position to repeatedly face brutal, agonizing deaths.  Yet professional soldiers, generals, assassins, life-lusting barbarians, as well as the man who has died mere moments away from achieving the salvation of his family, his nation; all will remain dead when a Raise Dead is cast.  Many of the exceptions are adventurers.  Strangely, many are exactly the sort of people that adventurers die trying to oppose like brutal tyrants and wicked criminals.That is correct by the RAW because the RAW has nothing to say on who must return, who should return, how often, and why - only that it is possible.  The inhabitants of the world are not morons.  They know all about Resurrection and what happens afterward but because it is demonstrated that so very few return from death it does not significantly affect their thinking.It's a trite phrase, but I encourage you to think outside the box.</blockquote>

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