Raise Dead: A nice big bone to the simulationists

[Stalker0]

How is this any different from 3.x's DM fiat "he does not want to come back"?

Because it provides something that 4e haters have been saying the system provides little of....good flavor for the mechanics.

Heroes come back because they are heroes, because they gods have decreed they have unfinished work to do. Most people are simply dead. If a dm doesn't want raise in his game, he simply says the pcs don't have that unfinished destiny.

 

[robertliguori]

The DM controls that force in my games.

Well, yes. The DM can control every force in the game. Declaring that will-of-the-DM destiny can randomly trump any of them means you're no longer actually playing a game with meaningful rules, and not declaring so means that destiny can be casually overridden by unanticipated outcomes. So, since you run destiny as a blind force, if a character chooses to take an action that voids destiny, what happens?

 

[HeinorNY]

So, since you run destiny as a blind force, if a character chooses to take an action that voids destiny, what happens?

Give me an example to toy with.

 

[Irda Ranger]

And for that, I am overflowing with gratitude.

Eh. This is DM fiat I don't need or want. I realize that I'm expressing a person bias, but some things (like "beat AC to hit NPC with sword") should be clear, consistent and fiat-free. I think that spells oft used by PCs should be in that category.

Consider example #1:
You're character is Bob, he's a Cleric. He can cast Raise Dead. One week your adventuring companion Mirt the Stinky dies. You don't like him much (particularly how he smells), but out of fellowship and duty you case Raise Dead. Because "he has a Destiny", it works. The next week a band of orc raiders sweeps through your home town and (mercifully) kill Bob's sister. You rush home to "save" her, but your spell fizzles. You cast it exactly the same as last week, but she just doesn't "have a destiny." Too bad.

This, to my mind, is a bad result. The PC should either be able to raise the dead or he can't. I guess I'd be fine with it either way, but this "only if the DM feels like it" rule just doesn't work for me.

Now consider example #2:
Your character is Bob. It doesn't matter what class he is. What matters is that he has spent the last two years (in campaign) tracking down the sorcerer that killed his family. He tracks him down to his lair and kills him.

Too bad! That NPC has a Destiny! No matter how many times you kill him, Clerics of the Raven Queen can just keep bringing him back.

********

Both of those examples may be examples of "Bad DM-ing", and to an extent the rules can never protect you from that. But encouraging it in this manner isn't good either (IMO).

 

[Nahat Anoj]

As I understand it (from various GNS arguments in days of yore), the term "simulationist" can involve simulating the physics of a genre in addition to simulating the physics of the real world. So by saying Raise Dead only works for people with unfulfilled destinies, we have established an element of the D&D genre. The mechanics, then, are such that they simulate this genre element. So therefore it's simulationist.

 

[Wolfspider]

Interesting.

But how does this change the use of raise dead in a practical sense?

 

[Derren]

I just repeat what Kraydak said.
"Rules enshrined DM-Fiat of the worst sort" (the last part was added by me).

 

[pukunui]

Eh. This is DM fiat I don't need or want. I realize that I'm expressing a person bias, but some things (like "beat AC to hit NPC with sword") should be clear, consistent and fiat-free. I think that spells oft used by PCs should be in that category.

Consider example #1:
You're character is Bob, he's a Cleric. He can cast Raise Dead. One week your adventuring companion Mirt the Stinky dies. You don't like him much (particularly how he smells), but out of fellowship and duty you case Raise Dead. Because "he has a Destiny", it works. The next week a band of orc raiders sweeps through your home town and (mercifully) kill Bob's sister. You rush home to "save" her, but your spell fizzles. You cast it exactly the same as last week, but she just doesn't "have a destiny." Too bad.

This, to my mind, is a bad result. The PC should either be able to raise the dead or he can't. I guess I'd be fine with it either way, but this "only if the DM feels like it" rule just doesn't work for me.

Now consider example #2:
Your character is Bob. It doesn't matter what class he is. What matters is that he has spent the last two years (in campaign) tracking down the sorcerer that killed his family. He tracks him down to his lair and kills him.

Too bad! That NPC has a Destiny! No matter how many times you kill him, Clerics of the Raven Queen can just keep bringing him back.

Bad DMing or not, neither of your examples is impossible under the 3.5 Raise Dead rules either ...

Example #1: PC cleric casts raise dead on NPC ally. DM, possibly arbitrarily (and possibly even out of spite considering that the PCs/players don't seem to like the NPC much), decides that the spell works because the NPC "wants to come back". The PC then tries this later on the NPC's sister but the spell doesn't work because the DM has, again possibly arbitrarily, decided that she doesn't want to come back.

Example #2: PC hunts down BBEG killer of family and slays him. His evil cleric cronies raise him. PC kills him again. Evil cleric cronies raise him again. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseum.

Both of those examples may be examples of "Bad DM-ing", and to an extent the rules can never protect you from that. But encouraging it in this manner isn't good either (IMO).

Keep in mind that we're arguing on the basis of what a freelancer has told us about how he finds the new rules to work for him. We don't actually have the rules text itself so we can't really know what sort of meta-behavior it encourages.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Doesn't this statement contradict everything else you've said?

No. Read it closer.

 

[Wormwood]

Interesting.

But how does this change the use of raise dead in a practical sense?

Mechanically? Not much. Maybe it's cheaper?

However, the Fluff is vastly improved.

As for DM fiat, nothing really changes except I no longer have to come up with a BS reason why raise dead isn't as common as liposuction.