Raise Dead: A nice big bone to the simulationists

[DM_Blake]

Let's use a different piece of logic: if all you needed was a sword and armor, and you could go out and make fantastic amounts of money, why isn't everyone doing that? Why doesn't the entire population just get up and go treasure hunting?

Oh, now you've opened a can of bees...

Why isn't everyone taking a sword and armor and going out to make fantastic amounts of money?

1. It's very dangerous. Most such people are never seen or heard from again. Monster treasure hoards are full of loot from dead adventurers. Ergo, many people choose to be merchants, farmers, inn keepers, etc. They make less money, but probably live long and die of old age.
2. The best adventurers are not special because they have a mystical destiny. They're unusually strong, or brilliant, or dextrous. They have unusual physical and mental aptitudes that make them elite compared to John Q. Average. Sure, Fred the Farmer might sire a child who grows up to have an 18 STR, 16 CON, 16 DEX, and this child might be cut out to be an adventurer. But this is rare. Much more common is the farmer's son with ability scores of all 10, or close to it - not adventurer material.
3. It takes training. Just grabbing a sword and some armor doesn't make you a fighter. Grabbing a staff and pointy hat won't make you a wizard. Most adventurers come from somoene who was connected, or just lucky enough, so that they were able to receive the necessary training early in life to become an adventuring class.
4. It takes a certain mindset to trapse off into uncharted wilderness, suffering hardships and danger at every turn, facing the unknown, risking your life daily, for the hope of wealth and glory. Not everyone values wealth and glory enough to choose that way of life. Some will place family values over weath and glory. Others will become militia or watch commanders, finding a decent paycheck and occasional chances to prove themselves to be adequate adventure. Still others find loyalty to their king, country, city, religion, etc., to be sufficient reason to stay home and apply themselves locally.

Put that all together, and rephrase your question:
If all you needed was a sword and armor, elite physical and mental abilities, the right circumstance and training, and the kind of mindset to risk it all for weath and glory, and you could go out and make fantastic amounts of money, why isn't everyone doing that?

Answer: Most people who fit that bill are doing exactly that.

Why don't governments tax or seize discovered caches of treasure?

Good question.

My governments do.

You head out of your city, slay a dragon, come back and start flashing your wealth, you will get a visit from the tax collectors. And you'll get a visit from the ruling class who have assignments for you. Assignments that come with titles (sir, lord, maybe even baron) - these titles don't do much for you but pile on obligations to king and country (at least at first).

Why don't dragons establish multinational corporations to multiply their assets?

Another good question.

My dragons, and other monsters and bad guys, do.

Many good guys do this, and neutral guys, so why not evil guys or monstrous guys?

Dragons are fond of polymorphing and visiting society. And smart enough to know the value of concepts like diversification and compound interest.

Many of my wealthy monsters become "power behind the throne" kind of manipulators - not always literally behind the king's throne, but sometimes referring to "silent partnerships" or "anonymous investors" for merchants, guilds, other powerful organizations, some of which are secretly financed and operated, or manipulated, by the kinds of monsters who get into this sort of thing. Fiends, illithids, dragons, beholders, vampires, liches, etc.

These kinds of monsters are more than willing to invest the coin in their lair to build an organization of business and other enterprises that accrue more wealth for the monster's coffers.

And some businessmen and organization leaders are corrupt and wicked enough to join forces with the vilest and most despicable monsters, as long as it benefits their organzation.

Answer: That's not a fun game.

I think it is.

I don't see why monsters have to be hidden in their lairs out in the trackless wastes. Well, not all monsters, anyway.

This kind of stuff lets the PCs use some of their skills in city environments from time to time, without having to make it about another romp to find the thieves in the sewers.

 

[Clawhound]

I never do this, but...QFT.

However, I'll caveat that by geeking out: "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."

And on that I can honestly say truer words were never spoken. So if you disagree, it's because you have a different point of view.

This really gets to the question, "What is D&D?" Aye, that's a hard question. It's a VERY hard question.

Should characters be ordinary or extraordinary? Should they have open futures or fates? Should death be temporary or eternal? Should a fantasy reality be something that we recognize or be very different because magic changes so many baseline assumptions? Should it be high or low fantasy? Do the rules simulate reality or provide a special mechanism for the special? At what point do we write rules and at what point do we toss fluff?

I can't answer that question. The trick here is that a writer and a publisher MUST answer these questions. They can not keep the system entirely open-ended. Any system, and certainly any setting, must choose an answer to these questions.

Keith chose for Eberron because that choice reflects all the other choices that were made to produce Eberron. He really could not have chosen different.

In order for a setting to work, your social logic must work, but your genre logic must also work. If your social logic contradicts your genre logic, then you need to go back and reexamine the logic for each until they match. In the end, that usually means choosing which is more important to you.

 

[JohnSnow]

[tolkien pedant]If they've been fighting as long as the 87 year old Aragorn, or half as long as 139 year old Gimli. or a 10th as long as Legolas, who refers to the other two as children and considers 500 years as but a little while, then, as mere ordinary Men with sensible lifespans, they're likely in pretty poor shape to be fighting Orcs.[/tolkien pedant]

[even-more tolkien pedant]One could just as easily make the same argument by comparing the exploits of Éomer, Éowyn, Boromir, or Faramir with those of the Rohirrim and the men of Gondor. Or by comparing Aragorn to the other members of the Grey Company (who are all Dúnedain - his kinsmen). Faramir's men are valiant enough, but Faramir is Faramir. Likewise, Éomer's men are valiant enough, but Éomer is different. And so on.

Even if you compare people of similar lifespans, there's definitely an important distinction to be made between the "heroes" (i.e. central figures) of the story and their supporting cast, which I believe was Keith's point.[/even-more tolkien pedant]

 

[Hamburger Mary]

[tolkien pedant]If they've been fighting as long as the 87 year old Aragorn, or half as long as 139 year old Gimli. or a 10th as long as Legolas, who refers to the other two as children and considers 500 years as but a little while, then, as mere ordinary Men with sensible lifespans, they're likely in pretty poor shape to be fighting Orcs.[/tolkien pedant]

But this argument is completely ludicrous when translated into D&D.

On the subject of age, a 1st level elf fighter is at least 116 years old. A first level human fighter is at least 16 years old. And yet, they begin the game with the exact same level of skill.

Beyond starting age, both of these fighters won't go up in level when they live for a decade; they will go up in level when they gain 1,000 experience points, which they could easily do in the course of two days of adventuring.

If time is the key, why is it that the elf - who's presumably been training in martial arts since before the human was even born - isn't already tougher? How can two days suddently make him significantly better than those decades of early training? And are you suggesting that it would be impossible for any human to reach the same level of skill as Legolas in D&D terms? Because in all the games I've been in, it's never taken the PCs a century to reach epic level.

The experience system of D&D simply doesn't make any realistic sense. Eberron just runs with this. The PC can in a week become a tougher fighter than the grizzled NPC war veteran because the PC is a hero. He's a Mozart or an Einstein - someone with gifts others don't have. The Force is strong in Luke; it's just plain not so strong in Uncle Owen, and if Ben had sent him to blow up the Death Star, things wouldn't have gone so well for the Rebellion.

It's not realistic, because D&D isn't realistic. The idea of the blacksmith's best path to becoming a better blacksmith being combat is silly. You CAN play it that way, if that's how you want to play it - JohnSnow's comment is dead on here - but from my perspective, 3E is not a realistic simulation to begin with. Eberron just takes that ball and runs a little farther with it.

 

[Hamburger Mary]

[even-more tolkien pedant]One could just as easily make the same argument by comparing the exploits of Éomer, Éowyn, Boromir, or Faramir with those of the Rohirrim and the men of Gondor. Or by comparing Aragorn to the other members of the Grey Company (who are all Dúnedain - his kinsmen). Faramir's men are valiant enough, but Faramir is Faramir... Even if you compare people of similar lifespans, there's definitely an important distinction to be made between the "heroes" (i.e. central figures) of the story and their supporting cast, which I believe was Keith's point.[/even-more tolkien pedant]

Um... what he said. Except for the part where he said it better.

 

[Wulfram]

[even-more tolkien pedant]One could just as easily make the same argument by comparing the exploits of Éomer, Éowyn, Boromir, or Faramir with those of the Rohirrim and the men of Gondor. Or by comparing Aragorn to the other members of the Grey Company (who are all Dúnedain - his kinsmen). Faramir's men are valiant enough, but Faramir is Faramir. Likewise, Éomer's men are valiant enough, but Éomer is different. And so on.

Even if you compare people of similar lifespans, there's definitely an important distinction to be made between the "heroes" (i.e. central figures) of the story and their supporting cast, which I believe was Keith's point.[/even-more tolkien pedant]

Sure there's a difference. They're stronger, wiser and/or braver, and they spend their time doing heroic things, which, if you don't end up dead, bring more XP than having a normal career - even a normal military career. Just like in real life, some people are better at stuff than other people.

Doesn't mean they should cheat. That just undermines their heroism. Even I could be a hero if I got a special licence to be unkilled.

 

[Dausuul]

That's not the same thing at all.

Adding Raise Dead (et. al.) is like putting extra saws and hammers in a toolbox. It is then up to the carpenter which tools he will use, and how he will use them. Don't want that particular hammer, then don't use it.

You ever try running a high-level (14+) game without resurrection magic?

In 3E, raise dead was not optional unless you were prepared to either stick to low-level play, do some serious house-ruling, or tolerate one to two PC deaths per session. Resurrection magic was very much hardwired into the game, and the game broke down without it.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Destiny? Bah. In my games, pcs and npcs alike have free will. They make their own damn Destiny. Either raise dead is available or it isn't.

 

[JohnSnow]

Sure there's a difference. They're stronger, wiser and/or braver, and they spend their time doing heroic things, which, if you don't end up dead, bring more XP than having a normal career - even a normal military career. Just like in real life, some people are better at stuff than other people.

Doesn't mean they should cheat. That just undermines their heroism. Even I could be a hero if I got a special licence to be unkilled.

See, I guess I just prefer the defaults as laid out in Worlds and Monsters. Even heroes can die, and only the mightiest of them (Paragon or Epic) ever "come back" from beyond.

An ordinary person can't be resurrected because the "cost" of coming back (not "financial cost," but "cost" in terms of heroic deeds) is just beyond them.

I like this set-up because I like death to be meaningful. "Woe is us, the king is dead!" should get more of a reaction from the PCs than "So? Just have someone cast raise dead."

Miraculous healing is fine. But coming back from the dead more often than a comic-book superhero bugs me.

Obviously, this is just my "genre preference."

 

[Hellcow]

I like this set-up because I like death to be meaningful. "Woe is us, the king is dead!" should get more of a reaction from the PCs than "So? Just have someone cast raise dead."

I feel the same way - and it's something made trickier in Eberron by the very fact that magic IS an industry. For me, the principle of Eberron has always been "wide magic" versus "high magic". Low level magic is common and seen all over the place, from the continual flame used in street lamps to the prestidigtation the innkeeper uses to chill the wine and clean the inn. House Jorasco can cure disease for a fee, resulting in a world that has fewer poxes and plagues than you might otherwise expect. But high-level magic - teleportation, raise dead, and the like - is still supposed to impress people. Perhaps in a hundred years everyone will use sending to communicate, but right now they're still using the whispering wind-based speaking stones. If you compare it to Stephen Brust's Dragaera books, it's closer to The Phoenix Guards than to Vlad's era.

And yet, as Dausuul points out, in D&D players generally need raise dead. It's a gamer's tool, a way to deal with a bad roll of the dice or a simply unavoidable sacrifice. My personal desire to make raising extremely rare because that's what fits the setting was at odds with the needs of PCs, who live ridiculously dangerous lives.

All I'm saying is that the current interpretation (which again, does not actually use the word "destiny" anywhere) addresses these concerns, making it something that works for PCs while still having death be a weighty thing in the world - not "Damn, someone assassinated Joe again... drag him over to the Jorasco House on 30th. And don't forget to get your Frequent Die-er card punched!"

Both the problem and my satisfaction with the solution are specific to Eberron, and to my personal tastes. Outside of Eberron, your mileage will certainly vary.