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<blockquote data-quote="Rotipher" data-source="post: 7319410" data-attributes="member: 56531">(Sorry to be responding so late, didn't see this thread before.)One method I've experimented with, that might work if your players aren't too &quot;hack &amp; slash&quot;, is to treat any attempt to resurrect someone as a role-play challenge.&nbsp; Rather than just chanting over a corpse or whatever, the character who's performing the resurrection rite would psychically visit the Land of the Dead, where they would serve as an advocate for the dead person in a confrontation with my campaign-setting's embodiment of Death (the Hound).&nbsp; The challenge would be for the priest's player and the player of the dead character to come up with a reason why the deceased's death wasn't an appropriate closure to their particular life - not pragmatic reasons like &quot;the adventure's not over&quot; or &quot;the party needs them&quot;, but something personal and consistent with their personality - by which to justify their being granted another chance to get their death &quot;right&quot;.&nbsp; In-character, it's an appeal to the Hound's sense of aesthetics, that people should die in keeping with their principles or lack thereof; out-of-character, it's a reward to players who've gone deeply enough into their characters' personalities to come up with a good argument. It's not exactly making resurrection any harder - the Hound is a reasonable sort, if spooky, and I never actually refused anyone's restoration so long as they at least made an effort to argue their case - but it'll make the players take a character's death more seriously if they know they'll have to essentially win a debate in order to get their PC back.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Rotipher, post: 7319410, member: 56531"] (Sorry to be responding so late, didn't see this thread before.) One method I've experimented with, that might work if your players aren't too "hack & slash", is to treat any attempt to resurrect someone as a role-play challenge. Rather than just chanting over a corpse or whatever, the character who's performing the resurrection rite would psychically visit the Land of the Dead, where they would serve as an advocate for the dead person in a confrontation with my campaign-setting's embodiment of Death (the Hound). The challenge would be for the priest's player and the player of the dead character to come up with a reason why the deceased's death wasn't an appropriate closure to their particular life - not pragmatic reasons like "the adventure's not over" or "the party needs them", but something [I]personal[/I] and consistent with their personality - by which to justify their being granted another chance to get their death "right". In-character, it's an appeal to the Hound's sense of aesthetics, that people should die in keeping with their principles or lack thereof; out-of-character, it's a reward to players who've gone deeply enough into their characters' personalities to come up with a good argument. It's not exactly making resurrection any harder - the Hound is a reasonable sort, if spooky, and I never actually refused anyone's restoration so long as they at least made an effort to argue their case - but it'll make the players take a character's death more seriously if they know they'll have to essentially [I]win a debate[/I] in order to get their PC back. [/QUOTE]

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