Eladrin Death

[Unwise]

Then I accidentally asked her to roll for death save when it came time.

Player: But my she is dead.
GM: (Pause, realizing my mistake and an opportunity) Well some things are worse than death for creatures of the Feywild.
Player: Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Any ideas?

When did, "oops, didn't mean that" stop being an option? It sounds like you accidently asked for a roll, then have made up a cover story when you could simply have said "oops".

I guess I don't really see why she can't just be dead. She died valorously and by the sound of it rather cleanly, so there is no particular reason for her to become a banshee or anything.

Players are generally more ok with their character dying than changing into something they don't particularly want to play. They may not want to play an emo dark and broody cursed character when resurrected. If they liked that style they probably would have chosen a Revenant over and Eladrin to start with.

I guess in essence I am just curious about what needs to be achieved by any transformation or 'fate worse than death'.

 

[Arlough]

GM: (Pause, realizing my mistake and an opportunity) Well some things are worse than death for creatures of the Feywild.

When did, "oops, didn't mean that" stop being an option? It sounds like you accidently asked for a roll, then have made up a cover story when you could simply have said "oops".

I guess I don't really see why she can't just be dead. She died valorously and by the sound of it rather cleanly, so there is no particular reason for her to become a banshee or anything.

Players are generally more ok with their character dying than changing into something they don't particularly want to play. They may not want to play an emo dark and broody cursed character when resurrected. If they liked that style they probably would have chosen a Revenant over and Eladrin to start with.

I guess in essence I am just curious about what needs to be achieved by any transformation or 'fate worse than death'.

I dunno, could be some sort of story reason.

No one here is asking if it is okay for him to do what he did. In fact, I think the question asked was, and I will paraphrase here, "I have an opportunity to do something cool, what kind of narrative and/or mechanics could I make use of here." It's already done, so we can take it from there.

Also, why is the first assumption that someone will become a "emo dark and broody cursed character when resurrected"? What if the player wanted to play it as their character, having experienced death, no longer fears it. Or maybe the character now sees stopping Orcus and allowing death to transpire naturally as a moral imperative, and pursues this new goal with fervor and wrath. Or maybe the character is instead inspired to revel in being alive in this world even more, and finds joy and wonderment in every aspect of life as it is lived.

But to answer your question without any sarcasm, it never stopped being an option. In fact this exemplifies the fact that it is just that, an option.

And to answer you implied, but not phrased as a question, inquiry.
There is no need, there is just story. The reason I play, the reason the people I hang out with play, is to collaboratively tell a story. This is an option to expand that story, and the DM is asking us (EnWorlders) to collaborate with him to help make the story better. I'm pretty sure I can support that.

 

[SparqMan]

Thanks for the all the suggestions.

The summary of what I ran:

- A merchant ally of the group procured a Raise Dead scroll. The local cleric of Erathis performed it dutifully...to no result. The merchant sought out his supplier, a nearby druid, who scoffed at the gods and volunteered to perform the ritual (no scroll) to maintain his credibility. Of course he asked for the other party members to join hands in the ritual so that their spirits could provide a beacon...

- They all awaken. Oh look, we're alive. It's a dim room, light enough to see feet but no features. They call out to each other and their voices are strange. The Half-Orc is more gruff, the Gnome more scratchy, and the Eladrin resonant. A spell briefly lights the room: they have changed phyiscally too. The Half-Orc is a full Orc, the Gnome is a Goblin, and the beautiful Eladrin is a Bullywug, frog-lips and all.

- The Lich appears and mocks them. He's appeared a few times, described as a minion of the BBEG. He mentions that his master doesn't want them spoiling his plans. He means Orcus, not the BBEG. The Bard wisely asks who his master is but the Lich vanishes.

- They move through a nightmare skill challenge, based loosely on Walk Through Dreams. Unfortunately the Eladrin was the least into the idea of playing into her nightmares, while the other two took to it with gusto. Fun to see some of their PC backgrounds comingg out.

- They then moved into a few scenarios. I always presented them with a long road the vanished to the horizon that forked three ways. Their choices appeared to matter, but the encounters were already chosen...it just made it seem like it was their fault. =)
1. A replay of the Eladrin's death, with the Earth Titan breaking into several stone creatures to fight. It was a twisted version of the final battle on HS1, with the magic circles helping the stone creatures and the Shadowed Chain dwarves bound within torture devices on each.
2. They heard the cries of the first dead PC, a greedy dwarf who once came to blows with the Figher over gold. The Eladrin (who always liked the dwarf) rushed in and trigged a water-filling trap, but instead of water the room was filling with gold coins and greedlings (small water elementals) attacking. In addition to defeating it like a regular trap I had built in some options for them to swear off greed or something along those lines. They almost perished from drowning in gold coins -- for future ref, losing healing surges to drowning is BRUTAL.
3. Finally they faced the Lich and some skeletal minions in a chamber of shifting portals. I had to nerf him even after deleveling...I didn't realize how insanely powerful auto-dominating would be against a group of just 3 PCs. When he was defeated the Lich promised that He (Orcus) would be watching them...

They emerged from the dream and everyone was happy. "Yay, let's rest!" When the Eladrin returnd to the inn to rest, she realized that her hand was now black and skeletal with red energy coursing through. She'll learn next time that she's demonbound (the boon, of course). Mwahaha.

FWIW, the Eladrin player wrote me before the session saying that she was comfortable with her PC dying. At that point I was more excited about running the dream world than her rolling a new PC. That player is probably the most Slayer leaning of our group, so I was hoping to draw here into some RP. It didn't really work, but think folks had fun anyhow.