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Message: <blockquote data-quote="firesnakearies" data-source="post: 4554570" data-attributes="member: 71334">Yeah, I see that I didn't communicate well.I didn't mean that I wouldn't allow the players to retire/abandon their character and bring in a different one, if that's what they wanted.  And of course I'd work with them on the narrative manner in which their character left the story, so yeah, if the player really wanted his or her character to die permanently in battle, or whatever, I'd let that happen.What I'm saying is that I never want to force a player to lose their character, especially not just because the dice happened to fall that way.What I'm also saying is that I don't want to have to come up with some deus ex machina, contrived bail-out idea, on the fly, any time a character does die.So I'm just trying to come up with a set system which can be in place from day one, before anyone dies.  Something similar to, but better than, the kind of thing you might see in a computer game, where, due to some nifty in-game reality, the characters have a kind of automatic out if they aren't Raised for a certain amount of time, where they can essentially come back to life (or, forgive me for using this term, respawn), but having suffered some loss as a result.I was thinking of using a sort of cursed artifact which the party had become bound to, couldn't get rid of, and which was a mixed blessing.  Finding a way to destroy the thing could be one of the main goals of the campaign.  But while they had it, it would always resurrect them a day or a week after they died, but at an increasing cost.  One narrative, such as the idea that every time it raised one of them, it killed one or two innocent people somewhere in the nearby region.  And one mechanical, like the idea that every time it raised one of them, each party member lost some XP, like an amount equivalent to one minor quest reward, or one balanced encounter for their level.That way, no one character gets behind the others, and no permanent detriment is accrued, merely a slowing down of progression.  Plus, there would be an even greater built-in motivation for the PCs to try to keep each other from dying.  And the penalties could get worse each time, both in the number of innocents who are slain to fuel the PCs' rebirth, and the amount of XP loss.  So, again, a big incentive to really try to keep deaths to a minimum.Effectively, the artifact is the thing which empowers them to actually go out and be heroes, and fight the good fight, because it basically makes them immortal.  But at the same time, it's this very evil thing which is enacting a terrible price whenever they fail.  They'd know that eventually, if they died enough times, they'd be killing vast swaths of the populace by dying again, so presuming that they were basically good characters, the aversion to taking all of those innocent lives might make them even more careful with their own lives than they would be normally.Plus, the XP dock means that they have to work even harder, and take more risks, in order to make up for their failures, but they aren't actually permanently weakened in their ability to fight on.  I wouldn't make them lose any levels, but they could go into "XP debt" I suppose.Being bound to this artifact would also serve as a means of keeping them together, and give them a common ground goal to work on, despite any differences between them.  A bit railroady, potentially, but I'd try hard to give them as much freedom as I could, outside of the basic fact of the artifact's power itself, to do whatever they want.Of course, I wouldn't just force this thing on them from the moment the game started.  I'd put it in their path during the first session, and trick them into taking it upon themselves of their own free will.  (I mean, the artifact would be tricking them, by offering them some actual benefit or boon which they would actually want at the time.)There'd be roleplaying effects, too.  The more they died, the more the artifact would get inside their heads, giving them vivid and horrific nightmares, whispering in their minds, causing people to fear them, essentially trying to wear away their humanity over time.Of course, I'd have to put SOME limit on it.  They'd have to come to find out, fairly soon, that this wouldn't be an endless situation, that eventually, if they died enough times, the artifact would simply permanently kill them, along with a lot of other people, and then disappear, to be found by some other group, like the artifacts in the DMG do.I'd want them to really come to hate this cursed thing, and want to destroy it, so they wouldn't feel like, "Hey, the DM just gave us this cool item which resurrects us automatically!  This is awesome!"  I mean, if I was running a game for a bunch of powergamers, or people playing evil characters, then it wouldn't work.  But my players will be really trying to roleplay heroes, or at least characters who are mostly trying to do the right thing.I can see interesting ethical choices coming up with this, trying to balance the need to take risks in order to defeat evil, save lives, or protect the lands, with the need to keep themselves alive, if for no other reason than to prevent the artifact from killing the children at the farm down the road due to the PCs' hubris.Of course, this idea as I've stated it just now still seems pretty weak.  I want to refine this so that it's actually cool, and doesn't make the players think, "Ugh, this is lame."  I kind of want it to have a sort of Moorcockian feel to it, like Elric's Stormbringer, or even like the One Ring in LOTR.  This really sinister, ultimately deadly item, more of a curse than a blessing, a sort of ever-present enemy, yet something which can be used, cautiously and sparingly, to bolster them in their cause.Is this an absolutely worthless idea, or can this be polished up into something decent?  I need to come up with a really rich story behind it, of course, and then nail down the mechanical specifics.  I think it has potential, though, to accomplish the things that I want without trivializing death or making the players feel like I'm just "giving" them something.I'm worried that it might feel too heavy-handed or railroady, though, so I want to try to figure out how to counterbalance that.  I mean, the PCs will be able to destroy the thing, but presumably that's going to be a campaign-long effort.  So how do I burden them with this, without it being too restrictive or forced-feeling?I'm thinking of something like a chalice (maybe golden and bejewelled, or maybe just a hollowed-out skull) perpetually filled with blood, and in the beginning, in order to do something good, they have to drink from this, or perhaps I can get just one character to pour some of it into the mouths of the others, or whatever . . . and this binds them to it.  (Using either the greed of the morally-weakest party member, or the idealistic zeal of the most noble-hearted one, this should be easy to accomplish, while still making it look like it was their idea.)When they die, if they're not Raised within 24 hours, the blood begins to overflow from the chalice, pouring out into a pool on the ground, and this pool then reforms itself into a new body, which comes back to life as the slain character.  At the same moment, whoever is being killed to fuel the process suddenly shrivels away into a dried-up husk.I can imagine, after several deaths, a scene where a few (or all) of the characters die, and as they come back to life, an entire village full of people drops dead.  The characters come back to town after their latest adventure to find a town full of dessicated corpses, victims of the very power which restored the heroes' lives.  (Not to mention the fact that the party ended up only gaining a pittance of XP from their victory, instead of achieving a new level as they would have if they hadn't died.)Is that too vicious?  Would most players hate a game like this?  I, personally, would really like it, as a player.  But I like a lot of duality and dark anti-hero kind of stuff.  I like stories where the line between the heroes and the monsters is extremely thin, but ultimately the inner moral fire of the protagonists makes the difference and allows them to succeed and achieve a greater good, despite leaving a trail of suffering in their wake.And maybe they'll just kick butt and won't even die much, or at all.  Then it wouldn't matter, anyway.I dunno.  Just a thought.  Criticism or refinement advice would be great.</blockquote>

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