Raise Dead: A nice big bone to the simulationists

[billd91]

Why wouldn't the peasants rise up en masse to take over those diamond deposits?

If you think this is likely, you overestimate the unity and effectiveness of peasants and their revolts. Historically, peasants couldn't often rebel to take something as ubiquitous as arable land much less diamond mines without being slaughtered.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I think though when they know it could mean potentially bringing loved one's who are on the death-bed from working in the mines back to life. A revolt could get quite united.

 

[Will]

FS:
Peasants have fought quite specifically for the lives and security of their children and themselves.

I don't know how much more motivated you can get than that. They still got slaughtered.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Yeah, but when you combine that with the ability to come back from the dead... Now that is strong motivation. I imagine too, that the peasants if they managed to take control of a diamond could put a choke-hold on the Kingdom (I imagine with a over-abundance of raise dead, nobility and higher-class would get addicted to it. Which would cause them to be desperate giving peasants a better position).

 

[Derren]

Yeah, but when you combine that with the ability to come back from the dead... Now that is strong motivation. I imagine too, that the peasants if they managed to take control of a diamond could put a choke-hold on the Kingdom (I imagine with a over-abundance of raise dead, nobility and higher-class would get addicted to it. Which would cause them to be desperate giving peasants a better position).

Why would the control of a single diamond change something? You still need a caster to ressurect someone. No the nobles would send in the army, slaughter all the peasants and repopulate the area with people from elsewhere. They certainly won't be addicted to ressurection in a way that they are careless. They can still die permanently when no one ressurects them or their bodies become more damaged than what the lower spells can handle. Also they are still weakened by the spell and it is quite costly.

The chance that the peasants actually capture the mine is very slim as it will be guarded. And even if they do it wouldn't do them any good. Before they all die they might be able to collapse the mine but the nobles will have their own private reserve of diamonds and wouldn't be affected by this temporary disruption unless its a war or something.
No, ressurection wouldn't change that much for a peasant directly.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Well actually know that I think about it, that is a good thing with the new concept.

Resurrection can mean something for the peasantry, just imagine that through the act of resurrection a peasant comes to find he/she goes on to change things, become something more.

Also another reason, why I dislike having resurrection the old-way is what do you do, if you want to play poor-characters. Most of my games/players we play as if we can barely make by; sleeping in barns, stealing food, etc. Going to a cleric and paying for raise dead is well beyond our means.

 

[Derren]

Also another reason, why I dislike having resurrection the old-way is what do you do, if you want to play poor-characters. Most of my games/players we play as if we can barely make by; sleeping in barns, stealing food, etc. Going to a cleric and paying for raise dead is well beyond our means.

If you want to play a poor character then you have to accept the disadvantages of being poor which includes no magical gear, bad equipment in general, less social standing and options (no bribes, etc.) and no raise dead.

I am always perplexed by people who want to play a character with a disadvantage (poor, blind, ...) but don't really want that this disadvantage affects the character (the poor can afford everything the normal adventurers have, the blind one can see like normal because of blindsight, etc.) If you want to play a poor character then play a poor character and not a wealthy character with the word "poor" written on the character sheet.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

If you want to play a poor character then you have to accept the disadvantages of being poor which includes no magical gear, bad equipment in general, less social standing and options (no bribes, etc.) and no raise dead.

Or I can use the new concept, and actually make the characters seem more special and unique beyond their wealth.

 

[Derren]

Or I can use the new concept, and actually make the characters seem more special and unique beyond their wealth.

And why can't you do that with the old concept? Because you are actually disadvantaged by having a disadvantage? How can a poor character be special and unique when he has the same options than everyone else?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Since it is based less around disadvantages and more about the stories and characters.

I don't want my players who are going to fundamentally alter the whole campaign-world feel like, "oh yes... Well you see, since your dead thats it. But oh yes, that rich noble snob there, yeah he has a fetish for being killed and brought back to life by his high-payed clerics."

Yes my characters(players) are going to face more hardships then someone with money, but why should something like death and resurrection which really has no relation to money, wealth or power and is much more a mystical and life-altering thing be left to paying a cleric tons of money at a temple to be brought back.

I guess it comes down to different strokes for different folk, and this new concept is my kind of stroke.