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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lurker37" data-source="post: 4114853" data-attributes="member: 9522">Here's how I interpret the statements from the designers and what I've read in the previews:The point of this rule is to prevent the DM from having to fudge the rules every time the question arises why <NPC> hasn't been raised from the dead. The goal is to have an in-game reason why only some people can be resurrected.The mechanism chosen for this is destiny. The souls of those whose destinies are fulfilled move on, beyond the ability of any magic to retrieve.Every sentient mortal entity in the game world has a destiny. This destiny confers no game advantage while the entity lives. (At least, there is no mention of such in anything I've read). This destiny is either 'fulfilled' or 'unfulfilled'.If anyone, PC or NPC, dies with their destiny fulfilled, then they cannot be raised from the dead.So, the trick seems to be working out when a destiny is fulfilled. We have seen no rules for this so far, so on that we can only speculate.Here is my speculation - everything from here on is completely unfounded on any official announcements.It is safe to assume, in my opinion, that many background NPCs will have relatively mundane destinies, which they have already fulfilled: Have children. Provide food for the village. Sell bread to that messenger who went on to warn the kingdom of an attack. Shoot that rabbit that would have otherwise startled the horse the baron's daughter was riding, causing her to fall and suffer a scar that would have prevented her marrying.... well, you get the idea. Not all these destinies are boring, but they do not require surviving to old age to fulfil. Furthermore, I assume that there is no in-game 'DING' that tells a character they have just fulfilled their destiny - that would be silly, in my opinion. So most people, especially those whose lives do not involve high drama and high adventure,  are unaware if their destiny is fulfilled.There might, however, be a ritual you can perform to determine if resurrection is possible. That makes sense to me.So, how are destinies assigned?If Destiny is a random force in the game, then rolling on charts makes sense, I guess. If however a sentient force such as the gods choose destinies, then the DM, as the only person at the table who roleplays all the gods and the only one who knows enough about the major plotlines to simulate the gods' precognitive abilities when determining destiny,  must make a judgement call,  possibly according to some criteria or guidelines in the rules.From the point of view of gameplay, assigning such destinies randomly could lead to plot problems such as those already discussed. Furthermore, it does not simulate mythic fantasy very well at all.In most mythical settings suitable for use as inspiration for the standard D&D game, Destiny is not an impersonal force - it is controlled by one or more gods. Who roleplays the Gods? The DM.So if Destiny is a decision made at each mortal's birth by the gods, then since DM plays the gods, the DM determines which major NPCs have unfulfilled destinies.This all souinds great, until you remember one designer's comment that characters of level 1-10 tend to stay dead - if they die you roll up a new character.So either a destiny can change during someone's lifetime ("Bulberan made a decision that would change the course of his destiny - forever!") or else there is some metagaming built into the rules along the lines of only PCs who survive to higher levels are proven to have noteworthy destinies.As I hope this meandering tangle of rampant speculation illustrates, I think it's far too soon to be jumping to conclusions about how simulationist or gamist the actual rules are. We just don't know enough yet, and it's clearly going to be strongly influenced by whether 4E assumes a strong connection between the wills of the gods and mortals' destinies.</blockquote>

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