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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 6701212" data-attributes="member: 2011">Nope. There are other reasons to kill an ex-PC beyond just statement of finality. Like I posted earlier in the thread, I once killed a PC whose player left in order to further the story. The PC was killed in a brutal way that got the rest of the players emotionally attached to finding the killer. It had nothing to do with finality and if the player would have come back, the PC could have come back (and the players would have been emotionally glad she did).There are a lot of reasons one might kill off a PC whose player left, but some of them are probably just to tie up loose ends, a rather convenient and easy way for DMs to seal off the story as opposed to expanding upon it.Not in fiction we don't. Fictional characters (Gandalf, Spock, Superman, Sherlock Holmes, etc.) come back all of the time.It's a staple of the various fantasy, sci fi, super hero genres. Beloved characters make their way back into the fiction.Neither is any more or less restricting than the other.It's a game. Made to be fun.The DM says in both cases "Fred walks back into camp.". In one case (the DM killed the PC), the PCs start the conversation off with "What the heck, are you a ghost? You died." and in the other (the DM did not kill the PC), they start the conversation off with "Hey, where have you been?". And the campaign continues in either case.The only person in this conversation restricting anything is you. You are making a lot of assumptions about how people treat returning players (as if they have no right to play their killed PC anymore) and how restrictive this really is.It's not restrictive at all. You are making it that way.See, now here you are spinning what I said. I never said that there should not be continuity. I said that the person coming to play is a human being with emotions and feelings. That person might have spent hours and hours on his or her original PC. Why should the DM give a rats rearend about this when in two seconds, he can seamlessly adjust the continuity and add in a reason for the PC to be alive and add in a reason why the PC is in the vicinity of the rest of the PCs?DM: "Hey, I don't like Raise Dead, you'll have to roll up a new PC cause we killed your PC."Returning Player: (thinks) *What a d__k! He cannot take out a minute to come up with a reasonable reason for my PC to return. He's known that I've been coming back for a month.* (and says sarcastically) "He wasn't dead when I left." to laughter around the table as he rolls up some smuck PC he is not emotionally attached to and now has to play.You really would treat a returning player this way? A friend? Seriously? Whose PC you killed to further a storyline (or to conveniently tie up loose ends).You wouldn't take out 5 minutes to make the story continuity work? This really is an issue about how DMs treat their fellow players and not continuity. You are spinning it as continuity, but continuity is simple to maintain.Death is not final in fiction.Btw, I do think that death should be a consequence that is hard to overcome as part of the player playing his or her PC, but not if it is done offscreen like this (or at least offscreen to the original player, maybe not to the other players).</blockquote>

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