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Message: <blockquote data-quote="swrushing" data-source="post: 1358220" data-attributes="member: 14140">A few comments...My 3e game just conclided a three year run from levels 2-15. neither I, nor AFAIK my players, found it flavorless, video gameish, too easy, or saw any lack of hardships at higher levels. it was enjoyable and some of my players referred to it as the best campaign they had been in.So, i have to reject a number of the assertions about the things and styles the system has to lead to.I think, from my own experience, that in any game in any system a lot of the flavor comes from the GM (in the way he brings his stories to the table and brings life and personal interest to his player's characters) and the players (by how willing they are to run interesting characters and give them "real" personalities.) Some specifics..."Ease of ressuraction" or lack of punishment for PC death or even lack of permanence in PC death has never been a problem for me. I know some GMs believe that players should expect to lose characters and start new ones and they often coddle that reasoning in "well, if the risk of pc death isn't real, they wont have any fun" but i never bought it. A "really dead" PC is typically the end of a story and many of the storylines it has been developing. I like things that produce more story over things that produce less. In my recent campaign, one of the things i did to make death more than just a temporary impairment, the 6 seconds of downtime being bandied about here, was to make it an experience and show some long term differences. For example:1. Everyone had their afterlife scene. This involved interacting with spirits and the like and always dealt with a very intimately personal aspect of their character and a choice of direction. In each case, while chosing between life and death (whether to answer the raise dead call or not) it also forced them to deal with the question of "why are you going back" and get them to focus in very clearly on what they wanted to do. The answer to "why not continue on to your eternal reward" is significant. Sometimes the answers they came up with were surprising even to them and led to new directions of character development. Sometimes, information was gained which spawned entire campaign arcs. (getting key info from a trip to the land of the dead is fairly tarditional mythic fodder after all.) The scenes were so enjoyable and such good roleplaying (on their part) that those who avoided PC death lamented the fact after the campaign because they missed out on their afterlife scenes.2. i introduced people within the world for whom death and back again was not trivial. one cult believed that those who came back were an affront to the goddess of death and went after those who they saw to be returned dead. If you did not meet their standards, and no one ever did, they were going to "right the wrong" and that meant sending you back to the other side. A second cult (of the same goddess) believed that anyone who had come back from the dead were sacred having been "cradled in the goddess' arms" and that the brief contact gave them insight. They sought those people out to recruit them and train them in harnessing their "mystic abilities". (Think of a PRC with "been dead, got better" as a prereq. and gradual access to powers like speak with dead and so forth.)So, with a little storyline stuff and without a bunch of penalties and long term whammys, death and ressurection were not just flavorless "accounting attacks" but which were significant events which spawned interest, character development and spurred story.Now, that all said, our game did end at 15th level so perhaps things change drastically when access to 9th level spells kicks in. I cannot say one way or the other. maybe miracle and wish do horrible nasty things to campaigns or perhaps they are just convenient boogetmen scapegoats for campaigns which fail due to other factors.But, if indeed they are real trouble for some types of campaigns, my advice would be simple... don't run those campaigns at those levels. At 5th-15th level, wishes and miracles by PCs are not a problem typically. The type of challenge and type of threat you wish to put to your PCs in the story DICTATES where the levels should be. A chasm over a lake of acid tells you to put this encounter at lower levels, because after the PCs have ready access to fly spells its not that big of a deal. Thats all for now.</blockquote>

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