Normally, I don't get into discussions like this, and I apologize if someone has already brought this up ... but it's a big deal to me. I don't have a regular in person group I game with. I do almost all of my gaming at cons, or online either play by post or IRC. I often start a game with a list of houserules, if one is avaliable, since no two DMs run a game exactly the same. So, lets say you have a nifty campaign in mind, and you set it about 15th level. I make a cleric, because I like a clerics. You set it in the forgotten realms, which is nifty, because I like the forgotten realms. We're in a small kingdom, lets just call it Cormyr, because it's representative. It could be anywhere though, in any setting. Our patron has been sending us on missions, etc, and arriving back from a mission, we find him dead with a rictus grin on his face, poisoned to death, with only a cryptic couple of lines scribbled on a piece of paper for clues. So far, it's great, it's awesome, maybe slightly cliched, but it's interesting, it's D&D.
But now I have a problem. Why don't I cast raise dead? Or ressurection? Is speak with dead okay? All of this is something that's /tone/. Even if a DM has provided me with a list of houserules, something that's tone, like this, is probably not in them. (I've just checked. I have five lists of houserules, for seven games. This is not mentioned in four of them. In the other, it's not mentioned as tone, but there are house rules to make ressurections more expensive, and as such I can at least infer that the DM isn't fond of 'casual' ressurection) The problem is when I have to drop out of the story, to have fifteen minute discussions with the DM (or maybe a couple days, in a play by post) to figure out what I should do, to stay in character.
You might be surprised how often this comes up. I remember at Gencon, a couple years ago (right before it moved to Milwaukee) I broke the D&D open* this way. My druid prepared reincarnation (which was not on the list of disallowed spells) and brought someone back that I wasn't supposed to. Not only did it throw the DM for a loop, and disrupt play while he tried to figure out what to do, but if affected my team's scores, as well as causing a long period of out of character discussion and rulebook flipping.
What this represents, to me, this little snippet, is that the new edition is focusing on things like this in the play experience. On making common assumptions and houserules into things that everyone can see and know, and reference. I don't really /care/ what the rule is. I'd be perfectly happy playing in Dragera, which is awesome. But it certainly doesn't have the same feel, especially concerning death and ressurection that my houseruled Eberron game does (which is remarkably close to this rule, actually. Anyone without action points can't be ressurected). Especially with things like the digital intiative, along with old fashioned IRDC gaming, and convention play, it's important to me that everyone starts in the same place. I find this /attention/ to be the important thing about this announcement, as I know DM will houserule it anyway. The difference is, this rule provides clear guidance for the 'default' setting, before a DM messes with it, and allows me a reasonable expectation, as a player, of how to react. Will I try to ressurect the patron in 4e? It would depend of course, on the specifics, but unless he is heroic in his own right, I probably won't.
3.5 is littered with these kind of OOCbombs, as I've taken to calling them. When I'm creating a character, I have to take a step back from my concept, and make sure the level of optimization I intend matches that of other players. (A well built gish, for instance, might be fine in a game where someone is playing a leap attack PA monster, someone else is playing a master thrower/fighter/rogue, and a third player is using the Mark of Storms to full battlefield control potential. It's probably less of a good idea in a game where someone is playing a straight fighter, with multiple multiple weapon focuses, and someone sle is playing a bard/druid multiclass) Then, once I've done that, there are the rules on ressurection, the rules on the avaliability of magic items, and NPC spellcasters, the avaliability of prestige classes, the way people act towards NPCs, if all 'monstrous' races are evil, etc.
My gaming time is precious, especially when I play online, which has a slow pace, or when I play a convention, where time is eaten up by introductions and chargen/character choice. Anything that helps me and the DM start on the same page, and has as few things to drag me 'out' of the experience is a good thing, in my experience.
So yes, I'm glad to see this. Excited? no. But it gives me a nice feeling, to know that in all the mechanics buzz, other issues, even if they aren't huge ones, are being taken care of.
*To be quite honest, this was my first experience with convention play, and I was, shall we say, not at all impressed. This was back in the days of 3.0, and the wizard had martial weapon proficiency shortsword (WHY?) and the druid elf was given a longbow, which would have completely negated her druid abilities to use. If I hadn't been forcibly dragged into a 'Living' game the next day, after a night of drinking with some hardcore convention gamers, I might have given up on it altogether. Fortunately, that experience convinced me to give it another shot, and my organized play experiences since have been much better. Who knows, I might even try the 'Open' again ... someday.
