Raise Dead: A nice big bone to the simulationists

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So, basically, you will penalize him for heroic efforts? If somebody dies because of stupidity, he can be ressed. If somebody plays a hero, he foregos his chance for ressurection ?

If someone says "no to ressourection", this is the best opportunity. You did something great - rescued your comrades, sacrificed yourself for the greater good. It wasn't just some Bodak looking at you the wrong way...

If I as a player was given the choice, this would probably where I'd consider not to get my character raised.
But - maybe it wasn't actually his destiny. Or it is his destiny to rescue his friends, but not this time?
It's only a penalty if the DM insists "this was your characters destiny" while the player disagrees.

 

[eleran]

You really have no clue what simulationist means.

or you have no clue what facetious means. Take your pick.

 

[eleran]

Where you are wrong:
Simulationist doesn't mean "like in the real world"


How to deal with Raise Dead (3E) in a simulationist way:

A) -- The creative approach
Craft a world where Raise Dead is simply part of the society. Nobles and wealthy individuals simply do not stay dead unless they are killed in a special way and they don't have a good standing with the local churches. Assassinations are more of a warning or temporary distraction, the possession of diamonds is heavily regulated by the nobles and diamond mines are among the most fought over places in the world.

B) -- The rule 0 way
Either the DM disallows Raise Dead (&Co) completely or makes it harder to pull of which means requiring hard to get spell components. But if the PCs use it to raise some NPC instead of sayving it for personal (group) use then it works and the plot progresses accordingly

C) -- The lazy way (not really simulationist)
Ignore it and hope that the PCs don't ask questions.

Not surprisingly I favor approach A.

For the record, the question was legitimate, the statement after was just me being sarcastic.

I would choose B out of your 3 choices.

 

[WayneLigon]

I'll be interested in seeing how this works when we see it in it's final form, but the concept is something I don't have much of a problem with. In most campaigns I've done, the PCs do make a mark on the world; they're important to it in a way few things or people are, so they have a destiny of a type.

 

[Revinor]

It's only a penalty if the DM insists "this was your characters destiny" while the player disagrees.

And this is exactly was suggested in original post. 3e had a rules for rejecting raise dead and it is good enough. 4e calls for DM to arbitrary reject raise dead, and while it might be ok, I don't think that doing it to players who played well is good idea.

 

[DandD]

I choose D) There is no ressurection/raise magic spell, safe for those found in books like the Necronomicon and other vile lore, and bringing back people with such spells make the ressurected feel emptier, more evil and otherwordly, and very, very estranged with life. And they all feel the urging need to serve malicious forces from beyond the veil of reality and sanity.
If you really want to bring back your slain sister or your fellow party member, go fight some giant three-headed muts who breath fire and chew on human bones guarding portals to the Everafter, and watch out for vengeful erynies who will harass you for breaking natural laws, like dead people who should stay dead, and other stuff.

 

[hong]

And this is exactly was suggested in original post. 3e had a rules for rejecting raise dead and it is good enough. 4e calls for DM to arbitrary reject raise dead, and while it might be ok, I don't think that doing it to players who played well is good idea.

Eh. 4E just puts into 9-point serif type what most people were probably doing already, whatever their in-game rationale was.

 

[DeusExMachina]

So, basically, you will penalize him for heroic efforts? If somebody dies because of stupidity, he can be raised. If somebody plays a hero, he forgoes his chance for resurrection ?

Always look at the rules not only from the point 'are they elegant' (anyway, this one is not), but also 'what kind of behaviors do they encourage'. In this case, if we assume that players like to play their characters (safe assumption I think if they have reached 15th level), you encourage not-fulfilling their destinies/being heroic.

It goes even further. Reasonable PC should let his lifetime villain escape, instead of killing him - by killing your archfoe, you give up chances for raise dead.

The point is that I never have problems if my character dies after a heroic stand. I like it, most people in my group like it and will happily make a new character and play on. They get pissed if their character dies because of a random 1 on a save or die roll from a random encounter (I'm glad save or die has gone too btw)...

And I don't think my players are such rules lawyers that they will not kill the bad guy just so their character will have a raise should they die. That would go against the whole point of doing a fantasy adventure roleplay. If they didn't want the chance of dying, they should have become farmers and not adventurers.
Also I reckon there will still be penalties associated with being raised, so playing stupid just os you can say "butit was not my destiny to die in such a stupid way" is in my opinion rather... ehm... stupid... It's still better not to die at all...

Of course, in the end it will still come down to player and DM actually wanting to bring the character back or not, no matter how he died. I just think this explanation works better in the whole world and gives heroic adventuring a good narrative for bringing people backf rom the dead...

 

[Knightlord]

The Raise Dead explaination is good enough for me. Heroes come and go, some live and some die. But those who survive long enough in a world of danger transcend (go above 10th level) from the lives of just heroes and move forward to complete a heroic goal. If a hero falters in his steps, then the gods make it just that, a faltering. Same goes for villains. I really don't see the problem, though I understand everyone has their own take on reality.

Just my 0.02.

 

[WayneLigon]

A) -- The creative approach
Craft a world where Raise Dead is simply part of the society. Nobles and wealthy individuals simply do not stay dead unless they are killed in a special way and they don't have a good standing with the local churches. Assassinations are more of a warning or temporary distraction, the possession of diamonds is heavily regulated by the nobles and diamond mines are among the most fought over places in the world.

I like the way that Brust deals with it in his Dragaera series. Killing someone is a good way of sending a message. They get ressurected provided they have the ten thousand or so gold it requires and life goes on.

Of course, this means that someone had to find a way to make it permanent. For a whole pile of gold you can purchase an assassination with a Morganti weapon which kills the soul, making ressurection impossible. People tend to take that a great deal more seriously.