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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 5870921" data-attributes="member: 32740">I think he's asking the wrong questions (or at least not asking the right ones.) Firstly, I believe resurrection magic exists in the game for one purpose and one purpose only - to allow PLAYER characters to return to life.  It really was never intended that NON-player characters have any sort of routine access to it.  The logic bomb of death being a minor or non-issue as long as you have money is proof enough of that.  Yeah, there's lots of ways to work around it but... you're working AROUND it. Second, there's the question of WHY exactly DM's so often take issue with resurrection magic.  One is because of how its open availabilty blows the game world to smithereens (see above).  Another is how it affects the tone of gameplay (dare I say "videogamey"?) when players just put another quarter in the slot to gain another life and pick up right where they left off.  My own experience has been the infuriatingly casual attitude that players held towards death when it was so easy to obtain and use resurrection magic. I think the reaction of DM's has always been understandable but has never addressed the underlying issues.  Players just want to be able to keep playing their favorite PC's.  If they didn't, they'd just shrug their shoulders upon the death of a PC and say, "Well, so much for him.  What would I like to roll up now?"  DM's want the PC's to just continue to face the game world IN CHARACTER and not treat it as the PLAYER treats it - as a completely meta-game issue (which it really, mostly is.) The issue then is not so much resurrection magic in and of itself but the interruption of continuity of a player characters existence.  Does the DM want to allow a PC to overcome death to resume play?  Due to the nature of the game PC deaths are overwhelmingly from random, dice-driven causes (which sucks for everyone) and almost never from the story/roleplaying-driven self-sacrifice, blaze-of-glory, or other far more desireable end (if you gotta go, it's far more desirable to go out by facing the dragon and not the dire rat.) So, of course, few DM's are going to want to penalize a player for unlucky dice rolls.  But, in giving that resurrection break to the unlucky player you open the door to the player who just wants to keep pumping coins into the slot and being freed of the ultimate consequences of his poor play.  So then DM's throw the baby out with the bathwater - they make resurrection excessively rare, outrageously expensive, and/or so debilitating to the revived character while trying to keep the latter type of player in line, they make resurrection an undesireable option for the former type of player. My own handling of it revolves around firstly treating it as what it is - a META-GAME issue for the PLAYERS.  I had been thinking about what ANY character, PC or NPC, experiences upon dying and entering the afterlife.  If a character finds themselves in whatever passes for paradise - why would they ever choose to leave it and resume a mortal life?  Well, we know why PC's will do so - because the PLAYER has things for their character to continue to do.  But the DM very seldom has such motivations for NPC's.  Therefore, I reasoned, there is never cause for an NPC to leave the afterlife for mortality - unless I, the DM, want there to be a cause.  That's almost never.  Meanwhile, NPC's who know that PC's have died and returned will view them VERY differently.  They will also view death as a grievous and solemn event - ALWAYS.  Any PC (and thus any player) who treats it casually and irreverently will face appropriate reactions from ALL NPC's.  If the DM never ALLOWS it to be approached cavalierly then players will be far more likely to willingly fall into line and handle the whole affair in a manner that the DM doesn't need to fight against. Roleplaying consequences of resurrection are FAR more useful (IMO) than mechanical consequences for eliminating all the unwanted associated fallout from its existence.  IMC, resurrection is not horribly expensive, though it isn't to be found all THAT easily either (simple demographics of appropriate level casters at work there).  It gets cast quite routinely for those of "middle income" and the costs are largely waived for the devout (so it matters WHERE you get your resurrections from) but it does not FORCE anyone back from the grave and those in paradise (as they see it according to their religion) will simply NEVER choose to return unless I, as DM, need them to for some reason.  Resurrection magic is thus where it belongs - affecting only the PC's, and for the appropriate motivations.</blockquote>

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