Raise Dead: A nice big bone to the simulationists

[DM_Blake]

Welcome to the other side of the fence; the side where the game doesn't cater to your every whim and you might have to houserule something, or several somethings. We've lived with the Immortal Oligarchy rez-rule for multiple editions, and we've had to tweak it/throw it out wholesale to make the game work for us.

You'll get used to it; we did.

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.

Creating an arbitrary "Coming back to life requires a "destiny" that you need to fulfill" rule is like telling that carpenter he can build the house, but he is not allowed to use any nails.

Put another way, one approach adds options for us to use or not use as we see fit. The other approach restricts our ability to use the options that we have.

My take on gaming, and on life, is that more options is preferable to more restrictions.

 

[Derren]

Love it. Why leave the afterlife unless you have a job to do?

Have you seen how the 4E afterlife looks?

 

[Steely Dan]

Have you seen how the 4E afterlife looks?

Yeah, I suggest bringing a magazine.

 

[MichaelK]

I agree that this is a "bone to simulationism". Not necessarily a great one, but it's a valiant try and at least they made the effort. Still it's not to my liking.

Anyway I've never had a problem with raise dead and I'm more simulationist than anything else.

 

[Clawhound]

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.

Creating an arbitrary "Coming back to life requires a "destiny" that you need to fulfill" rule is like telling that carpenter he can build the house, but he is not allowed to use any nails.

Put another way, one approach adds options for us to use or not use as we see fit. The other approach restricts our ability to use the options that we have.

My take on gaming, and on life, is that more options is preferable to more restrictions.

The game restricts nothing. What the game has done is expand your toolchest by placing the tools where you need them: in the negative hit point rules. Now you have a much better toolchest for having characters be down and unable to fight without them idly dying by mischance.

I threw out the negative hit point rules last year. I went with a system that encourage my character to act like heroes and rewarded them for extreme bravery in helping a downed comrad. I found that this worked far better in the game than killing the character. A dead character left the table in a black haze, while a good rescue left the rescuer feeling like his character just did something cool.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is cute, and it's "simulationist" in the sense that it vaguely resembles something from a Sword & Sorcery fantasy tale or the like (as opposed to High Fantasy, wierdly enough, where Fate is rarely in play in this sense), but I think it's little "over-specific" in the way a lot of the 4E stuff is, in that it specifically suggests that there are such things as Fates and Destinies (which is new to D&D as a solid background element, I'd suggest, and doesn't fit into some campaign settings at all) and that they're "real" and "actual", and that "the peasants" don't have them.

I mean, it adds a whole other twist, really, in the if raise dead only works on people with "unfulfilled destinies", then every peasant ever is going to want raise dead to be TRIED on their dead husband who has left them with three children (let alone the dead kids who "obviously" had unfulfilled destines, I mean, didn't they?). When it doesn't work, then they're forced to see that they're apparently unimportant. Indeed this "little change" dictates the entire structure of the cosmos and religion, into a rather "Ancient Greek" mode, where Heroes are big, important people (not necessarily "heroic" in any modern sense) who have destinies, and every else? Well they're just guys.

Do I hate that? No, I kind of like it. But I think Mr WotC in the interview is really understating or underestimating how much this matters. It's a huge deal, and dictates a very specific kind of world/cosmos (unless people are just dumb and "don't get it", attributing "failure to res" to random whims of the gods/useless clerics, which seems unlikely).

 

[Hellcow]

That's the simulationists' problem with this new Raise Dead rule. It basically says that "Raise Dead works for world-people relevant to the current story arc, but not for anyone else." That "doesn't work" because to a simulationist everyone has their own story arc. From within the game there shouldn't be any way to tell the difference between an NPC and a PC. Now there is.

First, I would like to point out (again) that far too much is being made of my comment. What I said was not a direct quote of the rules. The word "destiny" is not, in fact, used in the description of raise dead - and it's not my place to give the actual description. Raise dead was used as an example of a greater point as to why I think 4E works well for Eberron.

And part of that reason is because, quite simply, in Eberron there IS a difference between an NPC and a PC. There always has been, and one clearly enshrined by the rules: Action points. One of the basic principles of Eberron is that there is something remarkable about the PCs - something that DOES set them apart from the common masses. To me, I compare the Fellowship of the Ring to the Rohirrim. In the Rohirrim, you have soldiers who have spent their entire lives hunting orcs every day. And yet, somehow, they aren't as tough or amazing as Legolas, Gimli, or Aragorn. They're good at what they do - but they aren't the heroes. Eberron has always been based on the assumption that if the story was a novel or a movie, you'd be the main character. As some others have said, in a way it's more mythological than anything else; you're Hercules or Perseus, someone who will do remarkable things... whether you're changing the fate of the world, or simply solving crimes in the depths of Sharn. You may decide to be Sam Spade instead of Batman, but in time, you'll still end up being one of the best inquisitives of the age.

So in THAT way, Eberron is entirely and intentionally unrealistic. It's right there in "Ten Things You Should Know About Eberron" - the PCs are heroes, and action points are one clear, mechanical sign of this. If you want a setting where Uncle Owen could have been just as cool as Luke Skywalker if HE'D gone with Ben instead of staying on the farm, Eberron isn't really the place for you - and hey, I respect that.

Beyond this, however, Eberron is a setting in which I want the impact of magic to be taken to its logical conclusion. So once you set the heroic PCs aside, we have tried to bring realism to the world. Which is why magical healing is an industry. And that comes to the problem. Early in this thread, someone said "As far as I'm concerned, resurrection is so rare that it's not a problem." But in Eberron, in theory, it's not - because of House Jorasco's altars of resurrection. It's a service, just like cure disease. However, in my opinion, the history and culture of the world does not accurately take the impact of such a service into account. It's there because PCs need it to be there, because they die alot - but we don't see its impact in the death of Aeren, of Jarot, even Erandis d'Vol. And in a world where the afterlife is bleak, the keys to immortality should make House Jorasco one of the most influential forces on the planet - far more so than we've shown so far. What king would dare challenge the keepers of life?

So: first and foremost, to those saying "Well, what's 'destiny' mean, anyway?" - 4E doesn't use that term. I used that term in saying that I like what 4E has done because it fits the fact that heroes in Eberron ARE supposed to be touched by destiny... however you want to read that. So that already is going to be something you'll hate if you want Uncle Owen and Luke, Aragorn and the random Rohirrim to all have the same potential; but it's part of Eberron, and if you hate it, I doubt you're playing Eberron. My point in that original post is that Eberron is a world in which heroes ARE special, and in which magic has a logical and institutionalized place in society - and the current version of raise dead does a better job of bridging the gap between those two things.

 

[Ilium]

I was about to reply in detail, but Hellcow beat me to it and (naturally) did a better job. I will mention one thing, though.

My take on this change is not that random peasants will be mad/depressed/outraged that they have no "special destiny." It's that most people would never even consider the possibility that their loved ones could come back from the dead. This is exactly how I've run things in my campaign already, where Raise Dead is available only to those who have been killed through the use of "blasphemous death magic." This is sufficiently nebulous to let me use it when I want, but not have anyone expect to come back from the dead.

 

[Hellcow]

But I think Mr WotC in the interview is really understating or underestimating how much this matters. It's a huge deal, and dictates a very specific kind of world/cosmos...

First, I'm not "Mr. WotC" - I'm a freelancer. Second, did you actually read the entire post, or simply the isolated and out of context quote posted on ENWorld? Because my post was actually about how this was good for a very specific type of world/cosmos... namely, Eberron.

In terms of "Would people try it, just to see if it worked"? Sure, they very well might. They'd know just how unlikely it was, that people successfully returning from the dead is a thing of near-legend, but I'm sure Jorasco would be happy to take their gold and give the wheel a spin. That doesn't bother me at all. My point is that I don't feel that Eberron as it stands is an accurate reflection of a society in which resurrection is a reliable service provided at the equivalent of any major hospital. Again, such a tool should give House Jorasco incredible political power, and furthermore have lessened the impact of the Last War, since many of the heroes that fell in battle would have been raised by their nations. I WANT a world in which there are fallen legends who can't be brought back, in which the PC cleric can't choose to raise the murder victim even if he's willing to spend the gold. I've got no problem with him trying, desperately hoping that this one might return - but I'm just as happy that if I say "He doesn't," I don't have to explain why not (yes, I can say "He's choosing not to come back", but that's not always going to make much sense - especially when you're choosing between life and Dolurrh, not life and Heaven). The PC knew the odds when he tried, and if he wants to get the ally back, he can always try to go to Dolurrh and pull him back - but at least now it's an adventure.

So I certainly understand that it's a huge deal, and one that favors a very specific sort of world... which is exactly what I was saying in that original post, in which raise dead was in fact a fairly trivial point.

 

[wgreen]

At the same time, I don't understand why this would have such dire consequences for so many people, if 4e did use a phrasing like Mr. Baker did. Probably has something to do with why everyone's inappropriately capitalizing words like "destiny," which, from what we've heard, affords the word much more importance than either the 4e rules or Mr. Baker would.

-Will!