Have you ever refused to come back from the dead?

[Slife]

So, if you're a paladin who has lived a hard life wrought with tragedy and heartbreak fighting back the forces of evil, you're going to turn down your reward of basking in the glory of your deity for all eternity in order to continue suffering?

So if you're a paladin who has devoted your soul and sacrificed your life to the service of your deity, and are now offered a chance to continue serving, why wouldn't you take it? The eternal glory of your deity isn't going anywhere. Are you going to wimp out just because of a little suffering? Besides, with an investment of only two spells, you can set up shop basking in the glory of your deity while you're still alive.

 

[rbingham2000]

If my characters come back, it will mainly be because they left some very important task unfinished, like stopping a world-threatening evil or saving someone they dearly love. Other than that, if my character dies, he's staying dead, especially if he sacrificed himself to fulfill the very important task in question or died in some other suitably badass fashion.

 

[Oryan77]

One of my players just refused a resurrection 2 sessions ago. I think he just wanted to play something new. But I kept it secret from the other players.

While they were travelling to a location that they could get someone to raise the dead PC, they met a planar guide on the way. The guide helped them get to the town they were looking for. Once the players spent 20 minutes figuring out what to trade for the cost of the spell and finally had it cast on the dead body, I announced that the character refuses the attempt and then I introduce the players new character....the planar guide that helped them find the town

Everyone turned to the player with the new PC and said, "Is that true, that's your new character?" heh

 

[DM-Rocco]

I never refused when offered, but I did have a NPC cleric ready to raise the party cleric and he decided to refuse claiming he wanted to embrase the loving bossum of his God. Almost made my sticky from the sap of that tale

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I wonder if people's ideas/considerations would change if their next character had to come into the game at 1st level, or 2+ levels below the previous character?

It wouldn't make much of a difference to me. If the PC would logically refuse the resurrection - as in my previous post, concerning Hong's Britannia campaign - then that's what I'll have them do.

On the other hand, I don't have much respect for GMs who impose level penalties on new characters - that's a "tradition" better honoured in the breach than in the observance.