Do you think a character should be resurected or changed when it dies ?

[Hackenslash]

Hello All,

I have had an interesting conversation with a fellow player of DnD in our group and have spoken to other gamers elsewhere on other boards. I am of the opion that when a character dies then it should really be in the players best interest to try and get it raised as quickly as possible to promote the full gaming and fantasy experience(no need for ressurection type spells otherwise) and also to keep continuity in the party and help with game and party balance. Now I my friend thinks that every time, yes, every single time, he dies then it's got to be a new character, and that character can be anything he wants to play even if it does not fit in with the party and might even be unbalancing. I can understand if there is no way a character can get raised or they have playe it a while and geuninly got fed up with it but if there is a high mortality rate in the campaign and they are changing characters evry time they die then that really does effect the status quo, IMHO. I have had mixed feelings from other conversaitons I have had about his on other boards and face to face and would like to know what the ENWorld Community thinks of Player Character Death and what should happen next....So please vote on my Poll and also post what you think should happen vs what actually happens in your gaming group.
Thanks...

 

[Christian Walker]

Resurection and Raise Dead are banned in my games. If you take the dirt nap, then you are dead, dead, dead!

I will hold to this view until I see a thorough treatment of this miracle. Surely, there would be far reaching consequences, but for most folks the act of coming back from the dead is akin to dropping a new quarter into an arcade game.

 

[pogre]

Res IMC always costs xp. It is generally available for the faithful, but costs a quest for non-believers. The raised person must pay the church owe give them a service worth 10k. The church uses it as a tool for conversion to demonstrate the power of the deity.

As it always costs xps only non-first level pcs and npcs are raised.

 

[Wombat]

I am a great believer in a simple maxim:

DEAD IS DEAD.

My players know this and are good with this; when one character was actually raised from the dead, it was seen by most as a miracle and by a couple as an abomination.

Kobolds die. Goblins die. Orcs die. Bugbears die. Even dragons die.

Therefore PCs die.

 

[pogre]

Resurection and Raise Dead are banned in my games. If you take the dirt nap, then you are dead, dead, dead!

I will hold to this view until I see a thorough treatment of this miracle. Surely, there would be far reaching consequences, but for most folks the act of coming back from the dead is akin to dropping a new quarter into an arcade game.

I used to play this way, but it had one of two effects on players:

They were way too cautious and ignored their roles as heroes; or

They were fatalistic and would not invest themselves in their characters.

A penalty of some sort works great now. I do like the old WFRP fate point system though.

 

[Fenes 2]

I don't kill off PCs unless the player wants it, or risks it, so the question never turned up. If a player changes PCs, which did happen, I would not accept just any new PC, the new PC has to fit in the party and in the campaign. PC-concepts that are incompatible with existing PCs are out.

 

[Zogg]

Our group just follows the rules as presented in the books. If the party has enough time, money and can find someone to True Res., we do it. If a player really wants to keep that PC, we find a way to get him back. If a player hated the way that PC was developing, off he rolls.

Obviously we let the player playing the dead PC weigh in on whether or not he wants to come back - this is when his PC's body is at a temple and we use the "speak with dead" spell.

 

[Dinkeldog]

I'm a great believer in the philosophy that this is a game and should be fun.

Having said that, if the player wants to bring in a new character, let him bring in a new character. If the player still wants to play the old character, let him keep playing the old character.

When I play, I tend to want to explore a character race/class combo and concept for a significant period of time. This is even more true if I've been asked by the DM to write a significant (page or longer) background about the character. If I've invested the time and thought, I tend to want to be able to see things through for a little bit, at least. Now, if I've played the character even a couple levels, that's sometimes enough to know that I'm not really enjoying it and would like something else.

So, overall, I'd say that the option should be in the players' hands, and the DM needs to be flexible enough to let the players enjoy the game.

 

[Grishnak]

Being 1 of the players Hackenslash spoke to and the player that changes each time he dies then I think at the end of the day when a player dies he should stay dead but in game terms there's so many chars to try I want to work through them. Our current campaign has been running a year or so now and the previous was from day 1 until the current started, so if I'd stuck with 1 char in each I'd have seen a whole 2 chars unless I multiclassed but that is no good when our group only allows 1 prestige class unless there's a lot of background/reason to take a 2nd which I agree with but in realistic terms is still going to be a heavily penalised char in regards to xp. So as I stated I'll be sticking with the change of char each time to another class I wish to play. Yes a bit selfish but no point playing a char if you don't want to play it or you'll end up trying to get the char killed all the time, which I've done with a previous char.
Also one final point is the campaign we play in there is a high mortality rate so I'm losing out either way.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I voted for not bothered either way.

I personally tend to see death as, well, death. You die, you die. The game however, isn't built to support my opinion as it's fairly easy to die, especially at low levels, due to a lucky shot or something equally stupid.

In some cases, I've used Oathbound or Dungeonworld to make characters come back to life, and Dragon magazine not too long ago had an interesting article about coming back to life with some changes and even Necromancer's adventure, Raise the Dead, had some interesting potential uses. Of course, we've always got Ghostwalk where death is just part of the campaign.