Topic: In your game world, how easy is it to be resurrected?

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

In the dice fudging thread, the statement that "in fantasy games death does not have to be terminal" was made, making me wondered how often that actually happens.

In my game world, resurrection is both incredibly easy and impossibly hard. Life&Death, the power ruling over, well, life and death, doesn't care at all about who and what is alive or dead: he only cares about how many creatures are alive, thus how many should die to meet his quota. As such, his servants regularly either kill off or resurrect creatures in order to meet the quota that they were given (the regularity of the act depends pretty much of the whim of the highest ranked servant for a given location: some let it be and adjust the figures every week, other every month, other every hour, etc.) Because of that, one may merely buy at his temples scrolls to kill or resurrect people, as Life&Death doesn't care about how much people use them, and who gets to die or be resurrected: he will adjust the number of the living when necessary.
OTOH, Fatality&Fortune, the power to be ruling over how the world should progress, does care about who lives and how dies, at least when it comes to the people he had written to do important things. As such, he discusses with Life&Death to try to persuade him either to keep an important being for his plans to remain alive, or to kill someone who was planned to die.
The result of this is that Life&Death adjusts the price of his death or life scrolls depending on... whatever reasons he has (usually, how important the death or life of the being is to Fatality&Fortune) but anyone rich enough may still kill or resurrect a given being. That being said, Life&Death sometimes gives a price so high no one in the world would ever be able to pay his price. :p
More details at my world page for anyone interested, but that's pretty much it.

[JohnK]

No ressurection in my game in Middle Earth. Death is death . But we use fate points .

[Hurin]

Death is pretty much death; that keeps things interesting. Resurrection exists for some exalted, high-level NPCs (like levels 20+), but the characters never get high enough to cast those spells. The fact that death is permanent means characters never take battles lightly and the adrenaline always flows.

[vector]

After many, many years of play in the same campaign world there has been only one resurrection.

We had a player who was a priest of Neesis, my world's goddess of Wine, Love, and Luck. Needless to say, when you travel with a priest of Neesis life can be like one long and dangerous party.

An adventuring priest of Neesis must always take the craziest chances to prove their piety. This would often lead to a short career, but this player was very lucky in real life. His dice were hot! It was as if Neesis watched over this player. Until, I kid you not, his character reached 13th level.

It appeared that the priest's luck had begun to run out, and the climax was a battle with a Marilith demon. The player rolled a series of absolute and spectacular Stun Maneuvering and SCSM failures while being constricted in the demon's tail. Fate points and breath expended, the priest expired. After the battle the party buries him in a strange land and soldiers onward.

Everyone loved the character, and so did I. The player never did really connect with the next character he rolled up and everyone regretted the priest's absence. Since he was a priest of Neesis and had died with a high Grace level (see Channeling Companion) I decided that the goddess had not abandoned him!

It all turned out to be a case of premature burial. He never had really died, just appeared to be dead. He had awoken and clawed his way out of a shallow grave and found himself abandoned in a far off land. The priest eventually caught up with the rest of the party and had many more adventures.

Until he taunted the sorcerer queen Draquess Drakona and had his face "Dark Channeled" right off.

[Hurin]

Until he taunted the sorcerer queen Draquess Drakona and had his face "Dark Channeled" right off.

An appropriately Rolemaster ending!

[jdale]

In the game I am running, you could restore a body that is very recently dead but once it reaches a certain unrecoverable point, forget it. We are talking minutes under most circumstances.

In the game I am playing, no PC deaths yet, but magic on the level of resurrection is very rare. I presume it is possible but don't know for sure.

In a different game in a different system, I once had a character killed and resurrected three times. At that point I told the GM to stop resurrecting me, I felt it was making things ridiculous.

[Peter R]

I made the 'not terminal comment' and I am running several games.

In the first the party are sponsored by a church so access to life giving is certainly possible. The cleric in the party actually possesses one life giving rune. the party also have a single dose of a life giving herb. There have been no deaths in the party so far.

In a second game the setting is high magic and in a massive city. The only person at present with any life giving is a solo PC who has a single dose of a herb but of course could not bring themselves back. This would fit the second option above, if you can afford it then you can buy it.

In a third game the only magic in the PC's experience is mentalism so there is no life giving. This single player game and when that character dies then the game ends so there will be no resurrection of any sort. This fits the last option of no resurrection.

[vector]

In a different game in a different system, I once had a character killed and resurrected three times. At that point I told the GM to stop resurrecting me, I felt it was making things ridiculous.

This makes me think about the real reason resurrection is so rare in my game. Even in the one example I gave, it technically wasn't a magical resurrection.

If resurrections are common, then how would that change the society? Most campaign worlds are based on a pseudo medieval European social structure (mine's a bit more Romanesque/Byzantine) were resurrections  of a sort were promised, but never literally fulfilled.

I'm not sure in what exact ways a society would change, but I'm pretty certain that if John the blacksmith could be resurrected by the local church after that anvil accident then things would be much different. Even if it was just for the rich (a whole other level of church indulgences), imagine the resentment a commoner would feel as he cradles his pox doomed child with the full knowledge that the local lord's son is scheduled to be returned to life at the chapel that evening. Talk about class warfare.

I can suspend my disbelief that there are dragons and magic, but ignoring human nature too much causes me to lose faith in a fantasy world very quickly. Thoughts?

[Peter R]

It is interesting that a lot of European folk lore like the grimm tales are littered with people returning to life. A lot of early Christian saint legends involve surviving death like St.Dennis who survived beheading, Elijah and John the Baptist survived being burned alive.

It is possible that the commoner does not feel resentment but rather hope that possibly, just possibly a miracle will happen and a way will be found to save his poxed child?

[Hurin]

I can suspend my disbelief that there are dragons and magic, but ignoring human nature too much causes me to lose faith in a fantasy world very quickly. Thoughts?

I've had the exact same thought, and thus restricted resurrection spells in my game. If resurrection were really as easy as it is in Spell Law (for a Cleric it is a mere 6th level spell), then no king or even noble would ever die. The reigns of monarchs would last not years but centuries. Overpopulation would also likely be a real problem. There would be so many changes that I don't know how I would run that game.

[vector]

It is interesting that a lot of European folk lore like the grimm tales are littered with people returning to life. A lot of early Christian saint legends involve surviving death like St.Dennis who survived beheading, Elijah and John the Baptist survived being burned alive.

It is possible that the commoner does not feel resentment but rather hope that possibly, just possibly a miracle will happen and a way will be found to save his poxed child?

Sure, when the only examples of resurrections are far off impossible to prove stories. Let him see the baron's son walking around completely fine while he is burying his child and I think attitudes would be different.

[jdale]

I was going to say it would be easier to cure the child of pox than resurrect them, but the two effects are actually the same level in Channeling....     on the other hand, making someone non-infectious is only 2nd level, so stopping the spread of plague is relatively easy.

[Frabby]

In our setting death is permanent, which reflects back on our playing style and how our GMs (particularly myself) treat fatal injury to players - namely, we tend to "fudge" it towards maiming and permanent damage. Our current group has been playing for more than 16 years and so far we've had only four character deaths, plus two MIA and presumed dead (and one exiled from the party for treachery, with fine roleplaying all around). Six characters suffered permanent injury so far in what could have lethal injuries otherwise, from benevolent GM ruling. Three of these were subsequently retired or semi-retired by the players.

In at least two cases, clear-cut situations that should have killed a character were "fudged" by the GM simply because it would not have been possible to bring in a replacement character for the player for several playing sessions.

[vector]

I was going to say it would be easier to cure the child of pox than resurrect them, but the two effects are actually the same level in Channeling....     on the other hand, making someone non-infectious is only 2nd level, so stopping the spread of plague is relatively easy.

Well, that's a related issue. In my example I wanted to focus just on resurrection because I think that spell could have the most impact. Easy access to magical healing could lead to the same sort of issues.

At some point any given GM will have to decide where the analysis and "realistic" world building have to stop and the fun has to take over.

[Peter R]

If you really try to apply all the logical consequences of a magical society then the basic premise in FRPGs of the euro-centric culture simply breaks down.

This is a frequently recurring theme in the comments on my blog. Whole books gave been written about it.

Going back to the Lords son being resurrected above to guarantee success you need to cast the 50th level life giving true. All others have a failure chance built in over and above the spell casting roll.

The availability of 50th level casters, I imagine, is somewhat limited. The availability of disease prevention and cures would be much more prevalent.

How different would it be to the potential difference between the life saving medical care available to the wealthiest in society and the poorest members of society?

[vector]

If you really try to apply all the logical consequences of a magical society then the basic premise in FRPGs of the euro-centric culture simply breaks down.

This is a frequently recurring theme in the comments on my blog. Whole books gave been written about it.

Going back to the Lords son being resurrected above to guarantee success you need to cast the 50th level life giving true. All others have a failure chance built in over and above the spell casting roll.

The availability of 50th level casters, I imagine, is somewhat limited. The availability of disease prevention and cures would be much more prevalent.

How different would it be to the potential difference between the life saving medical care available to the wealthiest in society and the poorest members of society?

The first Lifegiving spell, Lifegiving I, is only 12th level. So sticking with medieval Europe as our example, perhaps the head of the local abbey would have to suffice and you could just take your chances if the archbishop wasn't available.

It's true that resurrections in Rolemaster have been considerably nerfed compared to D&D. I've seen some D&D campaigns were they were handed out like candy - making death meaningless.

[tbigness]

It is possible but first you must find a person or herb to do the resurrection which is rare and there has to be a good reason for this resurrection to make it worth while. The Gods may here the prayer but may delay to feat to a time of their choosing.

[Spectre771]

No ressurection in my game in Middle Earth. Death is death . But we use fate points .

Resurrection is near impossible in our gaming setting but we use Fate Points to offset that situation.  There are herbs and drugs that induce coma, and if they are administered in time, then perhaps the wounds can be tended to prior to actual death.  We still use the RM2 system and there is a stat for # of rounds to Soul Departure.  If a player is out in an adventure and receives a killing blow, the chances of getting back to a healer before soul departure occurs is pretty impossible.... unless the person is fighting in a church and is surrounded by healers.     So it is "possible" but really, it's near impossible.

It's true that resurrections in Rolemaster have been considerably nerfed compared to D&D. I've seen some D&D campaigns were they were handed out like candy - making death meaningless.

I was going to say that myself.  In D&D, the resurrections are so easy, I really don't put much thought into the combat.  I know if my PC dies, the group will get me to a healer to resurrect me.

[Peter R]

For those without resurrection how do you handle a PC cleric that reaches 12th level and can resurrect NPCs and fellow PCs? Admittedly at 12th level it would pretty well put a PC out of the game anyway as the recovery time is potentially massive but alive is alive at that point.

[vector]

For those without resurrection how do you handle a PC cleric that reaches 12th level and can resurrect NPCs and fellow PCs? Admittedly at 12th level it would pretty well put a PC out of the game anyway as the recovery time is potentially massive but alive is alive at that point.

I say, "let me look at that spell list...

*Takes out red pen - slashes through spell*

"Nope, nope, and not that one."

There are plenty of cool lists in the Channeling Companion I can give a Cleric to make up for the loss of those spells.

A spell's presence on a list in a book doesn't mean I have to allow it.