Spells that "ruin" your campaign setting

[GnomeWorks]

You also seem to be continually forgetting what you originally argued for that prompts my comments, so what's the point.

... good luck with the paper.

Wait how did you know I was writing a paper? Did I mention that?

I am apparently significantly more distracted than I even thought I was.

 

[Jack99]

Actually, the idea that important people would be raised from the dead threatens my versimlitude. In fact, by law in most of my world it's illegal to raise an 'important person' from the dead in most cases. Once you are dead, threatening the natural order of the world by bringing you back tends to cause way too many problems.

For example, suppose you have a situation where a King is killed. At that point, his 40 year old son is now the lawful king after having waited to obtain the throne for many years. If you raise the king back to life, does his son cease to be king and must he now keep waiting? Is it possible to have reverse succession? Can a king be uncrowned? Can you have two lawful kings? Will now the son resent the father, or if resentment is already present, will it be increased? Will the father even want to be returned to life, seeing as he must now supplant his son? Suppose the son and the king were not of like mind and desired to follow very different policies, and to place very different advisors in high station? Won't there be immediate conflict between the son and the father, and between the supporters of the two administrations?

In the history of my world, there have been way too many feuds and civil wars that came about in centuries past because someone decided to ressurect a dead prince. Brother vs. brother, father vs. son, even in cases that before the death the two had held a loving and respectful relationship. Brothers have agreed to have their older sibling raised and restored to the successsion, only to become resentful when they see the policies the brothers put in place and regret it. Thousands of people have died just so someone could have a few more years of mortal life. At some point, society said, "It's not worth it." In general, it's illegal by law and custom to raise a person from the dead if they have an adult heir unless the adult heir is the one guilty of the murder. And in general, everyone has to want the dead person back before the priests will attempt it. Family members are interviewed privately before a decision is made, consultations are made with the divine, and only then is raise the dead person considered.

Further to that, there are lots of reasons why a dead person might not want to come back to life. In general, most NPCs don't have a mortal destiny that they will deem worth it to come back for. PCs are among the most common sorts that are actually raised because they usually have destinies to fulfill and no heirs or other entanglements complicating things.

I really like this. Gonna steal that approach for my campaign world. Thanks.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I've come to look at resurrection as a sort of analogue for healthcare disparities. Rich people hoard diamonds not just for necklaces, but so they can assure their return to life if something happens to them. People still die of old age either way.

 

[Lanefan]

I have a permanent ban on every spell that brings people back from the dead. Sometimes I want to run a lighter game, and I allow clerics to cast them when this is the case, but on homebrew settings where I have put any effort, death is always death.

As long as you have the lethality dial turned way down (or off) in your game, no problem. But if I didn't have revival magic in my game I'd need a program every week to tell me who's in the party.

Ah yes. The ol' raise dead conundrum. I control npc's. Npc's always choose NOT to be resurrected. Players may choose whatever they like. Npc choice is "justified" as preferring afterlife (not that I need to justify that choice to anyone but me.)

Adventuring NPCs in my game function - and think - just like PCs. Some want to be revived, others don't; just like PCs.

Lan-"I've been dead so often my coffin should have a revolving door on it"-efan

 

[Mishihari Lord]

There's no question in my mind that fully accounting for all of the RPG mechanics would make for a really, really weird campaign world. Great if that's your thing, but I find that the further divorced a campaign world is from reality the less I enjoy it. When a world get weird my intuition doesn't work well in game and I have to think in terms of mechanics rather than game fiction, which sucks all of the fun out of the game. I also find that I care less about the game since the consequences of actions feel less real to me.

The way I mostly deal with this is to keep character levels low throughout the world. If very few people can cast teleport, raise dead, etc, the effect on the overall world sill be minimal.