Dark Sun: The Dwarf died! How do I resurrect him?

[D'karr]

As for the why, I'll just answer that I like the DS setting and I see no reason why I shouldn't change the game to suit my needs if I think it benefits me, the players, and the gameplay... In that order

Very well said, and a very classy response after so much guff you've received for simply wanting to play the game your way. Kudos.

BTW one more thing, you could have the party fighting the spirits of the dead that are trying to take the dwarf's soul, and at the same time the dwarf spirit could be fighting the same spirits to return to his body.

 

[Sunseeker]

Very well said, and a very classy response after so much guff you've received for simply wanting to play the game your way. Kudos.

BTW one more thing, you could have the party fighting the spirits of the dead that are trying to take the dwarf's soul, and at the same time the dwarf spirit could be fighting the same spirits to return to his body.

That is actually such a cool idea i think I'll start using it in my games, even if theyre not DS setting. Just as a creative alternative to "find a high level cleric and pay them lots of money.

 

[Herobizkit]

... Or a Mummy. Dark Sun + Mummies = creeeeeepy.

 

[Cherno]

Very well said, and a very classy response after so much guff you've received for simply wanting to play the game your way. Kudos.

BTW one more thing, you could have the party fighting the spirits of the dead that are trying to take the dwarf's soul, and at the same time the dwarf spirit could be fighting the same spirits to return to his body.

I'm actually planning to make two small encounters out of this ritual situation at the burial mount: first, spirits will come and try to take the remaining soul or whatever that still exists in traces in the dwarf's corpse and the rest of the party have to make a series of Willpower saves or similar to ward them off, so no straight combat but rather a skill challenge. This mirrors the scene from Conan where we see Valeria holding on the the mortally wounded Conan with the evil spirits trying to get him. The second encounter will take place after the Dwarf has been successfully resurrected, but of course things go horribly right and a small army of skeletons rise as well. These will be all level 1 minions but each round there's gonna be 1d6 new ones rising until 10 have risen total. Depending on the dice rolls, the party may be swamped or manage to cut down enough so that they retain some breathing space. I imagine the wizard will be very important in this scene with his area spells, taking out multiple enemies at once.

Maybe I'll let the dwarf make Willpower saves too in the first encounter to simulate his own sould fighting to stay in the realm of the living.

Your idea of combining the two is very good, I will definitely consider it. Thanks!

Here's the map for the burial mount.

 

[pemerton]

when you do not want the dwarf to dies why did you kill him in the first place?

I got the impression that the GM didn't choose to kill the PC, but rather applied the action resolution mechanics, which in turn produced that result.

Whats the point of playing when you can't fail?

I think it can be helpful to distinguish between player and PC perspective. The players succeed provided they have a good time at the table - given that RPGing is (typically) meant to be a recreational, entertaining activity.

Whether or not player success depends on the PCs succeeding within the fiction depends on group taste. And how PC death fits into PC success within the fiction depends heavily on the details of that fiction, which the OP hasn't really said much about.

From my own personal experience, I've never died yet my life has not been unvarnished success. So I know that their is no particular equivalence between "being alive" and "being unable to fail".

Since the time when everything else nearly always just results into more adventuring for the party which makes them stronger and gets them loot.

See the OPs suggestion for example. Character dies? 1 1/2 Encounters worth of XP for everybody!

I don't understand this analysis. The players are still alive, and (presumably) friends who want to get together to play an RPG. So why wouldn't the game go on? And when the game goes on, PCs will garner treasure and XP (that's the nature of D&D play, especially 4e). But because a PC died, the game that goes on is about something different from what it otherwise would be - namely, it is about the attempts to bring that PC back from the dead.

WHY you want to play Dark Sun if you wanted no fear of death and to disregard the whole premise of the intention of the campaign setting? I'm curious on why you wish to play what was obviously intended as a deadly setting.

<snip>

Why not play your own desert setting where divine magic comes in handy?

I've toyed with the idea of running a Dark Sun game - it's a nice D&D-flavoured version of sand-and-slavery tropes - but if I ever did I wouldn't feel any need to increase the likelihood that the PCs die. I don't really see the point of that, or what it would add to my game (other than disrupting the narrative continuity). And if a PC ever did die, I would probably be stealing the ideas from this thread, which I like quite a bit.

 

[Derren]

I got the impression that the GM didn't choose to kill the PC, but rather applied the action resolution mechanics, which in turn produced that result.

Yet by seeking a way to negate the result the whole mechanics becomes irrelevant anyway. Not to mention that the DM is in final control of what happens in the game either by controlling the monsters they fight and by interpreting the rolls (aka fudging).
If the DM doesn't want PCs to die he should not kill them. That is a lot less hassle than to kill them and then search for ways to negate that result.
It doesn't really matter (at least in my eye) if PCs never die or die and are immediately resurrected with hardly any effort spend to do so. So just say than when you "die" you are just knocked out and miss out some XP for the fight like in a video game.

As for my analysis on what failure means, in my opinion whenever someone talks about alternative "failures" to PC death they actually mean speedbumps. The typical scenario is the "You are all captured and have to escape" scenario as alternative to a TPK. But is that really a failure? The game still goes on, the PCs have an adventure and in it earn XP and loot. And when they have escaped and recovered their stuff (required because of D&Ds insistence of having level appropriate magical gear) they continue like normal. Even "plot failures" are normally just speedbumps as "the story must go on". Hardly anyone will have the entire campaign become unsolvable when the PCs fail at one part of it. Instead the PCs just have to do some extra adventuring (not really a bad result as this is how they earn XP and loot anyway) or some parts become harder which, considering the PCs can't fail, isn't that much of an issue.

 

[S'mon]

Yet by seeking a way to negate the result the whole mechanics becomes irrelevant anyway. Not to mention that the DM is in final control of what happens in the game either by controlling the monsters they fight and by interpreting the rolls (aka fudging).
If the DM doesn't want PCs to die he should not kill them. That is a lot less hassle than to kill them and then search for ways to negate that result.

Good GMs don't force outcomes like this (kill, not kill, kill then raise, etc). That's terrible GMing.

 

[Sunseeker]

Yet by seeking a way to negate the result the whole mechanics becomes irrelevant anyway. Not to mention that the DM is in final control of what happens in the game either by controlling the monsters they fight and by interpreting the rolls (aka fudging).
If the DM doesn't want PCs to die he should not kill them. That is a lot less hassle than to kill them and then search for ways to negate that result.
It doesn't really matter (at least in my eye) if PCs never die or die and are immediately resurrected with hardly any effort spend to do so. So just say than when you "die" you are just knocked out and miss out some XP for the fight like in a video game.

As for my analysis on what failure means, in my opinion whenever someone talks about alternative "failures" to PC death they actually mean speedbumps. The typical scenario is the "You are all captured and have to escape" scenario as alternative to a TPK. But is that really a failure? The game still goes on, the PCs have an adventure and in it earn XP and loot. And when they have escaped and recovered their stuff (required because of D&Ds insistence of having level appropriate magical gear) they continue like normal. Even "plot failures" are normally just speedbumps as "the story must go on". Hardly anyone will have the entire campaign become unsolvable when the PCs fail at one part of it. Instead the PCs just have to do some extra adventuring (not really a bad result as this is how they earn XP and loot anyway) or some parts become harder which, considering the PCs can't fail, isn't that much of an issue.

Death means nothing in D&D unless you kick the PLAYER from the table. The PC is just a sheet of paper and numbers. Permanent character death means nothing other than Bob's gotta reroll.

 

[Obryn]

As for my analysis on what failure means, in my opinion whenever someone talks about alternative "failures" to PC death they actually mean speedbumps. The typical scenario is the "You are all captured and have to escape" scenario as alternative to a TPK. But is that really a failure? The game still goes on, the PCs have an adventure and in it earn XP and loot. And when they have escaped and recovered their stuff (required because of D&Ds insistence of having level appropriate magical gear) they continue like normal. Even "plot failures" are normally just speedbumps as "the story must go on". Hardly anyone will have the entire campaign become unsolvable when the PCs fail at one part of it. Instead the PCs just have to do some extra adventuring (not really a bad result as this is how they earn XP and loot anyway) or some parts become harder which, considering the PCs can't fail, isn't that much of an issue.

It sounds to me like the players aren't very invested in the campaign or setting, then.

And as [MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION] mentions, it's not like character death is that huge a deal, either.

-O

 

[D'karr]

Death means nothing in D&D unless you kick the PLAYER from the table. The PC is just a sheet of paper and numbers. Permanent character death means nothing other than Bob's gotta reroll.

If the players are intent on bringing the character back it provides a great opportunity to "fail forward". Death is but a speedbump in D&D - it has always been.

Imagine having an entire adventure in Hades, because the soul of your companion is trapped there, and you've decided that you're going to go get him. As a DM, I relish those moments that show that my players are in the moment.