If I were running a campaign, I'd probably ask a player whose character died what Death looks like to their character. Death appears in front of them. What do they look like to them? To a Ranger or Barbarian, Death may look like a great hunter, who congratulates the character for giving him such a good hunt. To a Cleric, it might look like a messenger from their god, there to carry them to the god's side. To a character who fears Death, it might look like the terrible, bony visage of the Reaper, come to claim the character. To the Fiend Warlock or the Infernalist, or simply to the wicked, Death looks like a judge, there with chains and grasping hands, ready to drag the character down to the nine hells. To a character who has lived a long life, Death may come as an old friend, ready to bring them to their rest. To the child, meanwhile, Death is like a motherly figure, ready to pick them up in her arms and hug them and carry them away, to a place where they'll never be hurt again. And to an old warrior who died of old age, or from some disease or ignoble end, Death comes as a knight in black armor, there to give the fighter one last battle. One last, good fight.
Quite simple: Death-As-Warrior would not appear to such a person. The way I see it, the Death one sees when they die is the Death they want to see. I mean "Want" in the sense that it matches their expectations. An Infernalist most certainly doesn't _want_ Death to come and drag them to hell, but that's what they expect Death to be. In some cases, though, "Want" _IS_ used in the sense of the deceased's _desired_ Reaper. When I say that Death would appear as a warrior to another warrior, it would only happen if a Warrior is what the deceased most wanted to see, or most expected to see. If Death appears in this guise as an armor-clad knight with a big sword, challenging the deceased to one last epic fight, it's because, on some level, that's what the deceased person really wanted. I like to think of Death as kind. It has a job to do, yes, which often means dragging people to their final reward or punishment, but Death is ultimately kind. It wants people to be satisfied, so they will accept their demise and move on. For warriors who lived long enough to grow old and die of natural causes, not having anyone to fight may have made them restless, or left them longing for the excitement of battle. For most, war is terrible and should be avoided; for some, though, having been a career fighter may lead them to miss their beloved battlefield. Or perhaps a death by natural causes just seems too...disappointing. So when Death comes as a Warrior, it is as a response to the deceased's unspoken desire to return to their beloved battlefield. To their beloved war. To fight a worthy opponent, one last time. THAT is Death being kind.
Bluecho4 my Paladin would likely see Death as a bureaucrat that he'd argue with, because no matter what the rules say, he's not dying while there's still work to be done.
I know this is an old comment, but it really inspired me, and I would love to share my idea. Maybe a grave cleric would see no one, knowing that their final task is to take theirself to their final resting place.
I have a campaign built upon this. A paladin who is now a hero of much of the world of the campaign died in battle, but the villain he was fighting died from his wounds shortly after, he just didn't know it. When he was resurrected after his body is brought back to a temple in the kingdom, he came back ready to fight, but it turns out they wanted for him to return for a celebration of his achievements. Yet he declined, instead insisting that the people be told he was dead and gave his life in service of a higher cause, and he ventured out on his own to better the world. The PCs were raised to look up to him some two hundred years later. He was a hero, near idolized by the populace, something they should all aspire to be. Every chance I could I gave a mention of him, and soon into the first few sessions even the players were using idioms that used his name and title, even coming up with a few of their own that I blended into the NPCs. So when the PCs investigate a series of villages slaughtered, each one having nothing taken, nothing burned, most wounds given clean and quick deaths, and sometimes accounts and evidence of missing youths, the PCs gave pursuit because that's what HE would do. When they faced monsters intending to hinder them, they slay them and press forward because it was what he would do. They pushed through conditions, bringing upon themselves levels of exhaustion, because that's what HE would do. When they found a chance where the leader of the band of murderers was alone and charged because that's what HE would do. And then in battle, the leader acknowledged their skill and devotion to good, taking off his dirtied and battered helm to reveal him, the paladin they all looked up to. They stood in stunned silence as he explained that his time, though short, in the higher planes had filled him with an ecstasy he had never known before or since, and he eventually came to the conclusion that it was for the betterment of all peoples if he could send them there sooner. The living world was a hell compared to the joyous wonder beyond the gate of death. And the PCs cried as they refuted his words and attacked again and again, trying to pretend that this wasn't the man whom they looked up to, yet they each knew, however he managed to survive the passing of time, this was him. After slaying him and convincing the majority of the young men he recruited from the villages to either turn themselves in or attempt to return to a normal life, three of the four adventurers, feeling betrayed and never wanting to turn down this path, retired, while the fourth, his world view grayed, turned to a darker path, but not before they all agreed--and forced the recruits to adhere to--that none should ever know the identity of the leader of the marauders.
One of my players was planning on leaving, so I crafted an elaborate and epic death for him, but when the player told me before the session that he had changed his mind, I had his goddess offer the deceased character the choice of afterlife in paradise with his slain family, reincarnation, and resurrection. He chose resurrection in a scene which had all of us sobbing like children.
I feel like people have been talking about this a lot and it’s great. I feel like death as a consequence is important, you just have to approach it in the right way.
I find it would be interesting to introduce complications into the result of the resurrection like a wizard losing their magic and they have to go on a quest to restore it or make some kind of pact. Makes it more fun and it's interesting to see how your players react and attempt to solve the problem
My elf rogue was thrown face-to-face with the Raven Queen, who offered them a second chance as payment for killing an ancient vampire - with the side-effect of a slow feeling of slipping into the Shadowfell, and the pressing knowledge that if the job wasn't done soon they'd slowly be transformed into a Shadar-Kai, to spend the remainder of eternity as a servant of the Raven Queen in the Shadowfell.
What an amazing video, in 10 minutes I went from wanting to remove resurrection from my game to embracing it as a powerful narrative opportunity by having them presented with their version of heaven and choosing if they want to return or not.
I like my excuse for why people don't remember death. The soul remembers but the mind does not. And also gives a chance for down the line that they can tap into their soul's memory for a brief and cryptic glimpse into what it experienced on the other side if it coincides with the needs of the game.
I will start using the Mogworld (Book by Yathzee Corshaw) where you float upwards (which for you feel rather quick) you then get surrounded by these undescribably beautiful angelic beings with golden like faces shining with a fantastical light. And then when he gets revived he suddenly feels like he is falling. Then when he reaches his body he startles awake. On a souls upwards journey then can see the landscape under them. And above them they see this light which they feel like they have to reach.
In a horror game I had a player die. They went and awoke on the astral plane and taken by the Ferryman, were they reviewed their life, and see all the possible out comes of their life, but ultimately the went to heaven, but it wasn't real they saw things that weren't heavenly, and they realized that in Ravenloft they are just bond eternally
Off topic question: Did you purposefully change the cameras focus sometimes? Because it enhances the feeling, fits the theme of "afterlife" and "coming back" strangely.
Like everything else in D&D, as long as it adds to the game and doesn't take away from the game, it's great. If resurrection simply takes away from the gravity of the encounter, I'm not a fan. But if it starts a new adventure to recover a diamond for the spell or to recover the soul, or to fight back from the dead, or if it has a substantial impact on a character, that's good for the game.
Another fantastic video. I've found the topic to be more sidelined than it should be and it can be an extraordinary character development catalyst. Keep up the great work!
A couple of afterlife experiences from other genres/venues: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy gets pulled back and resurrected (apparently only possible with the intercession of a god (Osiris in this case) and only for supernatural deaths) by her friends, who assume she was in a hellish dimension. It turns out she was in a place of perfect bliss and contentment that she thinks was Heaven, and she finds the normal world a hellish, grey, rough, tormenting place in comparison. At the same time she feels she can never tell her friends, because they'd feel the horrible guilt of pulling her out of Heaven (she's later compelled to by an enemy that forces people to reveal their emotions through song until it literally burns them out . . . musical episode . . . you had to be there). Conversely, Spock in Star Trek IV tells Dr. McCoy that he can't explain what it was like to be dead and to be brought back because he and McCoy didn't have the shared context needed for him to communicate the ideas. In other words, if you haven't died and been resurrected, you don't have any experiences that would allow you to translate what the experience is like into intelligible terms. The need for consent of the resurrected would tend to negate the first example, unless it was unforeseen. Imagine a resurrected paladin who chose to return to fulfill a duty, but now has a kind of reverse-PTSD, where they're having to deal with how un-Celestia-like everything is. The second example might be a good way to keep the mystery alive. A third option might be the memories quickly fading, at least in the details, like a person waking up from a dream. Some books of religious lore or theology in that setting might have been people who were brought back desperately trying to get it all set to paper (or clay tablet or vellum) before they lost it. Imagine a priest performing Resurrection or True Resurrection for a party, with part of the fee being the presence of a church scribe and the requirement that the resurrected agree to be questioned with truth-compelling magics for as long as they can recall their experience, so it can be added to the church's lore.
I REMember everything prior to coming back. And I am familiar with the incomparable joy … the result is a deep melancholy that I experience often. Having a huge impact upon the overall campaign is a side effect. This power to shape narrative is not one I wanted. I feel much more comfortable with figuring a way for the power to be disseminated to all people. ❤️🔥🌹 Excellent content. Im aware that I am commenting 4 years after it was published, but time is non-linear.
So that would be fun, but I raise you this: Imagine playing in that game with the worst “Rules Lawyer” ever and watching them trying to argue with Jeremy Crawford. :)
I am experimenting with this house rule , I altered the death saves. It still requires three successes in five , but I start with 12 for the first success , 11 for the second success , and 10 for the third and finial success. Further if magic is used to resurrect it becomes harder to save for each time they do , I give each a -1 penalty to this check. It becomes quickly apparent that death is not a trivial thing , and if you are resurrected it is but a limited reprieve from a final ending.
Awesome video. I'm currently running a campaign in which a resurrection is just a spell, and I've never delved any deeper. I think I need to start and expand this area of my DMing. One comment: I think the focus of the camera went in and out quite a bit. May want to do some adjusting :)
So in my current world, resurrection is available (though not readily). The downside is the same for my npc's as well as the PC's: if you are revived, roll 2 d6, the first is which stat, the second is how much of that stat is lost on resurrection. This helps give my players another rp option through their character losing parts of themselves, and allows me to have them meet people who've been through near-literal hell and brought back.
Death should always be consequential and resurrection magic should be rarer than unicorns. Trivialize death and you drain all sense of fear and tension from even the most dangerous of encounters. It's the potential for permanent character death that forces players to make meaningful decisions.
Perhaps after several times of this the god of death is fed up with it and so he traps the dead adventurers souls, so the living ones now have to either persuade the annoyed god to let them go or somehow defeat or trick the god of death
i think it would be interesting if a pc that has died has to undergo some kind of extreme trial before they could be resurrected regardless of what the rest of their group might try to do. pretty much to determine whether or not they are worthy to return, and the trial itself might have its own impact on the individual after they come back like intense nightmares that persist or similar, depending on where they went when they died.
I feel like death could be a more integral part of the campaign stories if the Revenant subrace were official and modified to be available as a subrace for any race. It could be a compromise between the overuse of Revivify and no resurrections at all. For example, Revivify could bring back the PC as a Revenant. The PC would return to their original race/subrace after True Resurrection is used.
Death is always interesting in D&D. I really like the idea of the limbo place that players can interact with and talk to and figure out where they are going next that's cool totally stealing that! I also really like Matt Mercer's rules on resurrection he has this whole ritual where players have to offer up a skill to basically convince the dead character that life is worth returning to which makes for some awesome roleplaying!
The question that has come up recently in our games is when a creature or player dies do spells that were affecting them go away. For instance the Bard casts bane on three creatures and then they died and they were then brought back in the time frame of the duration. Is the spell still working on them?
I like the idea of a character dying and coming back being a traumatic experience taking its toll on the pc being wrenched back into the body again. Without impacting much of the core of the pc, I take the poorest stat they have and reduce it by 2 permanently. So there is a limit to the times they can come back but only affecting their worst stat it won’t greatly interfere with what they can do..but adds some good rp flavor..being more frail mentally or physically as the case may be.
Nicholas Squires Chaotic +30 Honestly? I can see it’s purpose. If worship and belief is the origin of a god’s powers/existence. Someone who actively opposes that would theoretically harm a god... so there needs to be punishment.
I played NWN2:MOB and I understand the gravity and importance of the Wall, but I've also played and watched enough to see the gods as just a higher level of politics. So I also want to smash the Wall of the Faithless. You shouldn't be penalized for not conforming to the gods and their petty schemes and machinations. As to why there are Faithless in the world, I agree its stupid to be a straight up atheist (don't believe they exist). But to rebel against having to pick a god, to not believe in any one specifically, to think that the Powers aren't worthy of worship, there are myriad reasons to rebel against gods you know exist... And the False make sense too.
I need more! I'm stil not sure how I will handle this when it happens, I want to give my players the chance to come back but I want it to be meaningful, to make them understand that not anyone has this possibility...
Maybe after all the trials to bring them to life you could make and use a Trauma table, something that will have a lasting aspect (like a nervous twitch or violent mood swings, etc.) To add on that it is not a natural occurence maybe haha
Problem I always have is that coming back to life is never simple process, so, if one of my players die, and the others want to bring them back, sure it can spawn a whole adventure, but what dos my dead player do while the others go on this quest? Just sit there and wait? If they make a new character to join in on this mission, by the time they succeed they typically don't want that character now xD
0:30 Yeah I think I will limit acess to resurrection spells in my first campaign, sure I will keep revivify, treating it as a strong healing spell, restoring the body before the soul crosses over but the ability to bring back someone who is well and truly dead should require some effort.
What if higher powers are not happy with resurrection? If a character is hellbound, maybe a devil or demon lord then puts the character in their sights because they were cheated that soul, which now has time to repent. Maybe a good-aligned character rescued from a heaven has to deal with celestial beings who likewise think the character's time was due, and they deserve everlasting reward without further chances to corrupt their soul on the mortal plain. Death and resurrection are great ways to branch out your story and allow players to further develop their characters.
It probably takes an extremely long time for that to happen, assuming the soul isn't taken or judged to be sent to one of the other planes, but if it happens then their soul would no longer be free to return outside of a wish spell.
Character death sucks, resurrection is a useful tool to keep the narrative going and is basically nessisary to have a long term game. Playing for 8 months with a group and then suddenly not being in the game anymore cause of a couple of dice rolls is upsetting...
A druid will generally recite funeral rites: "Of earth, you were created, to earth you return." rather than seek to raise a fallen comrade. "Bring them back? Why? They are with the great spirit now. They won't want to come back. Their purpose is complete. Let us be off to fulfill ours."
+AdrenalineUnlimited There's nothing canonical in D&D. Rules and roleplaying methods (and indeed, even the lore) are as liquid as they have to be to allow for different GMing styles and preferences.
Adam Simpson The gist of it is that when you cast a ressurection-type spell, you have to succeed in a skill check where the DC starts at 10 and goes up for the next time each time you're resurrected successfully. It helps to mitigate the feeling of a lack of consequences that's often present in the game
Nice catch on the assumption of gods and souls being real in our world, lol (atheists and/or Buddhists both have issues with these assumptions, as would others perhaps)
Well, Buddhists at least have the principle of "souls" and even if the Buddhas aren´t gods per forma, they are still higher beings, ascended from the mortal realm. Some small twists here and there and you got a Buddhist-friendly, polytheistic campaign world - just that these gods aren´t "real" gods if you look behind the curtains (after reaching level 20 ofc - so, like, never?)
“The gods are known to be a real thing in the DND Multi-verse.” Except Eberron! AKA The only official D&D setting that doesn’t bore me to tears. I’m so tired of high fantasy, but dungeon punk?! That’s awesome.
Why don't the rules support such magnificent storytelling? Why create spell mechanics that feel so flat? Coming back from the dead, as written in the books, is so easy. Requirements are very low and consequences are entirely absent. I understand that part of this is up to the DM to invent, but the rules could have supported the creative process in some way. The game is meaningless if death means nothing.
If a PC is slain then the player has to sit and wait on the sidelines until whatever crisis that resulted in their demise is resolved. If it's a TPK then I need to come up with a new campaign because it's not an NES game where you just send people back to the first level and go through it again (well, if you're running Adventure League or Curse of Strahd or w/e I suppose you might but my campaign is all original content). The party is level 15, I've been running the game for a year and a half. I really don't want to start over.
It is understandable to try and avoid character death in the game, but doing so takes a lot away from the players and you as a DM. For, the players, they have no sense of tension, or threat that allows them to choose different solutions to a problem. So, when they face a challenge or monster, usually the first thought is "It's just a (monster name), so lets kill it and move on" because they know you won't put something in their way they can't just bash out of the way. As a DM, your losing the chance to challenge yourself and create a world where consequences are real. Where choices matter and the ability to ask your players the question of what if. In other words, by allowing the players to believe they can just smash their way through encounters, you limit the narrative and teach the players that only one solution always wins.
It's more like I use extraordinarily dangerous monsters sparingly and scale threats appropriately. It's a long way to 'Greater Restoration' from level 1. It's not like I threw cockatrices and basilisks at the party every other encounter, but they did encounter them before they had access to a solution to petrification. Likewise, they weren't going to 'unknowingly' get into extremely deadly situations before level 5 where they could get access to revivify. But there were situations of extreme risk and danger. The players chose to undertake challenges knowing the risks in hopes of acquiring a commensurate reward or achieving a goal. In a year and a half, there was a single casualty, remedied with revivify. Without turning this into a massive post detailing the encounters the party has faced let's just say they have been adequately challenged and then some.
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If I were running a campaign, I'd probably ask a player whose character died what Death looks like to their character. Death appears in front of them. What do they look like to them?
To a Ranger or Barbarian, Death may look like a great hunter, who congratulates the character for giving him such a good hunt. To a Cleric, it might look like a messenger from their god, there to carry them to the god's side. To a character who fears Death, it might look like the terrible, bony visage of the Reaper, come to claim the character. To the Fiend Warlock or the Infernalist, or simply to the wicked, Death looks like a judge, there with chains and grasping hands, ready to drag the character down to the nine hells. To a character who has lived a long life, Death may come as an old friend, ready to bring them to their rest. To the child, meanwhile, Death is like a motherly figure, ready to pick them up in her arms and hug them and carry them away, to a place where they'll never be hurt again.
And to an old warrior who died of old age, or from some disease or ignoble end, Death comes as a knight in black armor, there to give the fighter one last battle. One last, good fight.
Quite simple: Death-As-Warrior would not appear to such a person.
The way I see it, the Death one sees when they die is the Death they want to see. I mean "Want" in the sense that it matches their expectations. An Infernalist most certainly doesn't _want_ Death to come and drag them to hell, but that's what they expect Death to be. In some cases, though, "Want" _IS_ used in the sense of the deceased's _desired_ Reaper.
When I say that Death would appear as a warrior to another warrior, it would only happen if a Warrior is what the deceased most wanted to see, or most expected to see. If Death appears in this guise as an armor-clad knight with a big sword, challenging the deceased to one last epic fight, it's because, on some level, that's what the deceased person really wanted.
I like to think of Death as kind. It has a job to do, yes, which often means dragging people to their final reward or punishment, but Death is ultimately kind. It wants people to be satisfied, so they will accept their demise and move on. For warriors who lived long enough to grow old and die of natural causes, not having anyone to fight may have made them restless, or left them longing for the excitement of battle. For most, war is terrible and should be avoided; for some, though, having been a career fighter may lead them to miss their beloved battlefield. Or perhaps a death by natural causes just seems too...disappointing.
So when Death comes as a Warrior, it is as a response to the deceased's unspoken desire to return to their beloved battlefield. To their beloved war. To fight a worthy opponent, one last time. THAT is Death being kind.
Bluecho4 damn
Bluecho4 my Paladin would likely see Death as a bureaucrat that he'd argue with, because no matter what the rules say, he's not dying while there's still work to be done.
I know this is an old comment, but it really inspired me, and I would love to share my idea.
Maybe a grave cleric would see no one, knowing that their final task is to take theirself to their final resting place.
Bard: *Dies*
Death: *Appears as a harem of amorous succubi and incubi*
Bard: 🥲
I have a campaign built upon this. A paladin who is now a hero of much of the world of the campaign died in battle, but the villain he was fighting died from his wounds shortly after, he just didn't know it. When he was resurrected after his body is brought back to a temple in the kingdom, he came back ready to fight, but it turns out they wanted for him to return for a celebration of his achievements. Yet he declined, instead insisting that the people be told he was dead and gave his life in service of a higher cause, and he ventured out on his own to better the world.
The PCs were raised to look up to him some two hundred years later. He was a hero, near idolized by the populace, something they should all aspire to be. Every chance I could I gave a mention of him, and soon into the first few sessions even the players were using idioms that used his name and title, even coming up with a few of their own that I blended into the NPCs.
So when the PCs investigate a series of villages slaughtered, each one having nothing taken, nothing burned, most wounds given clean and quick deaths, and sometimes accounts and evidence of missing youths, the PCs gave pursuit because that's what HE would do. When they faced monsters intending to hinder them, they slay them and press forward because it was what he would do. They pushed through conditions, bringing upon themselves levels of exhaustion, because that's what HE would do. When they found a chance where the leader of the band of murderers was alone and charged because that's what HE would do. And then in battle, the leader acknowledged their skill and devotion to good, taking off his dirtied and battered helm to reveal him, the paladin they all looked up to. They stood in stunned silence as he explained that his time, though short, in the higher planes had filled him with an ecstasy he had never known before or since, and he eventually came to the conclusion that it was for the betterment of all peoples if he could send them there sooner. The living world was a hell compared to the joyous wonder beyond the gate of death. And the PCs cried as they refuted his words and attacked again and again, trying to pretend that this wasn't the man whom they looked up to, yet they each knew, however he managed to survive the passing of time, this was him. After slaying him and convincing the majority of the young men he recruited from the villages to either turn themselves in or attempt to return to a normal life, three of the four adventurers, feeling betrayed and never wanting to turn down this path, retired, while the fourth, his world view grayed, turned to a darker path, but not before they all agreed--and forced the recruits to adhere to--that none should ever know the identity of the leader of the marauders.
I applaud you for your brilliant story plan, and for getting the players to willingly run along with it and getting that emotionally involved.
this is awesome and i m definitively stealing it
I’m in awe of this. It’s absolutely brilliant, well done.
One of my players was planning on leaving, so I crafted an elaborate and epic death for him, but when the player told me before the session that he had changed his mind, I had his goddess offer the deceased character the choice of afterlife in paradise with his slain family, reincarnation, and resurrection. He chose resurrection in a scene which had all of us sobbing like children.
I feel like people have been talking about this a lot and it’s great. I feel like death as a consequence is important, you just have to approach it in the right way.
I find it would be interesting to introduce complications into the result of the resurrection like a wizard losing their magic and they have to go on a quest to restore it or make some kind of pact. Makes it more fun and it's interesting to see how your players react and attempt to solve the problem
My elf rogue was thrown face-to-face with the Raven Queen, who offered them a second chance as payment for killing an ancient vampire - with the side-effect of a slow feeling of slipping into the Shadowfell, and the pressing knowledge that if the job wasn't done soon they'd slowly be transformed into a Shadar-Kai, to spend the remainder of eternity as a servant of the Raven Queen in the Shadowfell.
What an amazing video, in 10 minutes I went from wanting to remove resurrection from my game to embracing it as a powerful narrative opportunity by having them presented with their version of heaven and choosing if they want to return or not.
I like death in d&d because the character creation process is so fun
It's funny because most players hate dying.
...You're the first person I've met that has actually enjoyed forging a character
me and my friends often just spend time making random characters for hours and sometimes my DM puts them into the campaign
...Like a damn sociopath
I like my excuse for why people don't remember death. The soul remembers but the mind does not. And also gives a chance for down the line that they can tap into their soul's memory for a brief and cryptic glimpse into what it experienced on the other side if it coincides with the needs of the game.
I will start using the Mogworld (Book by Yathzee Corshaw) where you float upwards (which for you feel rather quick) you then get surrounded by these undescribably beautiful angelic beings with golden like faces shining with a fantastical light. And then when he gets revived he suddenly feels like he is falling. Then when he reaches his body he startles awake. On a souls upwards journey then can see the landscape under them. And above them they see this light which they feel like they have to reach.
In a horror game I had a player die. They went and awoke on the astral plane and taken by the Ferryman, were they reviewed their life, and see all the possible out comes of their life, but ultimately the went to heaven, but it wasn't real they saw things that weren't heavenly, and they realized that in Ravenloft they are just bond eternally
Off topic question: Did you purposefully change the cameras focus sometimes? Because it enhances the feeling, fits the theme of "afterlife" and "coming back" strangely.
I love these videos so much, thanks @D&DBeyond
Like everything else in D&D, as long as it adds to the game and doesn't take away from the game, it's great. If resurrection simply takes away from the gravity of the encounter, I'm not a fan. But if it starts a new adventure to recover a diamond for the spell or to recover the soul, or to fight back from the dead, or if it has a substantial impact on a character, that's good for the game.
Another fantastic video. I've found the topic to be more sidelined than it should be and it can be an extraordinary character development catalyst. Keep up the great work!
A couple of afterlife experiences from other genres/venues:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy gets pulled back and resurrected (apparently only possible with the intercession of a god (Osiris in this case) and only for supernatural deaths) by her friends, who assume she was in a hellish dimension. It turns out she was in a place of perfect bliss and contentment that she thinks was Heaven, and she finds the normal world a hellish, grey, rough, tormenting place in comparison. At the same time she feels she can never tell her friends, because they'd feel the horrible guilt of pulling her out of Heaven (she's later compelled to by an enemy that forces people to reveal their emotions through song until it literally burns them out . . . musical episode . . . you had to be there).
Conversely, Spock in Star Trek IV tells Dr. McCoy that he can't explain what it was like to be dead and to be brought back because he and McCoy didn't have the shared context needed for him to communicate the ideas. In other words, if you haven't died and been resurrected, you don't have any experiences that would allow you to translate what the experience is like into intelligible terms.
The need for consent of the resurrected would tend to negate the first example, unless it was unforeseen. Imagine a resurrected paladin who chose to return to fulfill a duty, but now has a kind of reverse-PTSD, where they're having to deal with how un-Celestia-like everything is. The second example might be a good way to keep the mystery alive.
A third option might be the memories quickly fading, at least in the details, like a person waking up from a dream. Some books of religious lore or theology in that setting might have been people who were brought back desperately trying to get it all set to paper (or clay tablet or vellum) before they lost it. Imagine a priest performing Resurrection or True Resurrection for a party, with part of the fee being the presence of a church scribe and the requirement that the resurrected agree to be questioned with truth-compelling magics for as long as they can recall their experience, so it can be added to the church's lore.
I think death in D&D is best when there are severe consequences even if a character or characters come back to life.
I REMember everything prior to coming back. And I am familiar with the incomparable joy … the result is a deep melancholy that I experience often. Having a huge impact upon the overall campaign is a side effect. This power to shape narrative is not one I wanted. I feel much more comfortable with figuring a way for the power to be disseminated to all people. ❤️🔥🌹 Excellent content. Im aware that I am commenting 4 years after it was published, but time is non-linear.
Imagine having the opportunity to play a game of dnd that is DM'd by Jeremy Crawford.
So that would be fun, but I raise you this:
Imagine playing in that game with the worst “Rules Lawyer” ever and watching them trying to argue with Jeremy Crawford. :)
He's the DM for Acquisition Incorporated now.
I am experimenting with this house rule , I altered the death saves. It still requires three successes in five , but I start with 12 for the first success , 11 for the second success , and 10 for the third and finial success. Further if magic is used to resurrect it becomes harder to save for each time they do , I give each a -1 penalty to this check. It becomes quickly apparent that death is not a trivial thing , and if you are resurrected it is but a limited reprieve from a final ending.
Awesome video. I'm currently running a campaign in which a resurrection is just a spell, and I've never delved any deeper. I think I need to start and expand this area of my DMing. One comment: I think the focus of the camera went in and out quite a bit. May want to do some adjusting :)
always good to listen you.
Great video!
I want that D&D sweater vest
So in my current world, resurrection is available (though not readily). The downside is the same for my npc's as well as the PC's: if you are revived, roll 2 d6, the first is which stat, the second is how much of that stat is lost on resurrection. This helps give my players another rp option through their character losing parts of themselves, and allows me to have them meet people who've been through near-literal hell and brought back.
The first time I played D&D, I died before I exited the first dungeon. Since then I've been apprehensive about picking up the dice again.
Death should always be consequential and resurrection magic should be rarer than unicorns. Trivialize death and you drain all sense of fear and tension from even the most dangerous of encounters. It's the potential for permanent character death that forces players to make meaningful decisions.
Perhaps after several times of this the god of death is fed up with it and so he traps the dead adventurers souls, so the living ones now have to either persuade the annoyed god to let them go or somehow defeat or trick the god of death
+Noah Jones Yeah, maybe even play games with Death in order to win their freedom, like Battleship and Twister. :D
THIS!!!!!!!
You have no idea how common unicorns are in my campaign, sir!
i think it would be interesting if a pc that has died has to undergo some kind of extreme trial before they could be resurrected regardless of what the rest of their group might try to do. pretty much to determine whether or not they are worthy to return, and the trial itself might have its own impact on the individual after they come back like intense nightmares that persist or similar, depending on where they went when they died.
What if you had a combination "don't remember" with something that happened. What if you remember feelings and emotions but not details?
I feel like death could be a more integral part of the campaign stories if the Revenant subrace were official and modified to be available as a subrace for any race. It could be a compromise between the overuse of Revivify and no resurrections at all. For example, Revivify could bring back the PC as a Revenant. The PC would return to their original race/subrace after True Resurrection is used.
what about info on different gods and Pantheon's? Do you think we could get a video about those
Death is always interesting in D&D. I really like the idea of the limbo place that players can interact with and talk to and figure out where they are going next that's cool totally stealing that! I also really like Matt Mercer's rules on resurrection he has this whole ritual where players have to offer up a skill to basically convince the dead character that life is worth returning to which makes for some awesome roleplaying!
Great topic for discussion.
The question that has come up recently in our games is when a creature or player dies do spells that were affecting them go away. For instance the Bard casts bane on three creatures and then they died and they were then brought back in the time frame of the duration. Is the spell still working on them?
I like the idea of a character dying and coming back being a traumatic experience taking its toll on the pc being wrenched back into the body again. Without impacting much of the core of the pc, I take the poorest stat they have and reduce it by 2 permanently. So there is a limit to the times they can come back but only affecting their worst stat it won’t greatly interfere with what they can do..but adds some good rp flavor..being more frail mentally or physically as the case may be.
Anyone else want to smash the Wall of the Faithless?
Nicholas Squires
Chaotic +30
Honestly? I can see it’s purpose. If worship and belief is the origin of a god’s powers/existence. Someone who actively opposes that would theoretically harm a god... so there needs to be punishment.
How can faith exist in a world where imperical evidence exists all around as common as the stones the city roads are made of?
I played NWN2:MOB and I understand the gravity and importance of the Wall, but I've also played and watched enough to see the gods as just a higher level of politics. So I also want to smash the Wall of the Faithless. You shouldn't be penalized for not conforming to the gods and their petty schemes and machinations.
As to why there are Faithless in the world, I agree its stupid to be a straight up atheist (don't believe they exist). But to rebel against having to pick a god, to not believe in any one specifically, to think that the Powers aren't worthy of worship, there are myriad reasons to rebel against gods you know exist... And the False make sense too.
Death in D&D is best when you incorporate the afterlife into the gameplay and don't make diamonds grow on trees.
This is weirdly topical given out entire party died in the last section and we're trudging through limbo trying to get back out
We need a guide to Gods and Pantheons.
I need more! I'm stil not sure how I will handle this when it happens, I want to give my players the chance to come back but I want it to be meaningful, to make them understand that not anyone has this possibility...
You should check how resurrection is handled y the Critical Role show, its a very interesting way.
Maybe after all the trials to bring them to life you could make and use a Trauma table, something that will have a lasting aspect (like a nervous twitch or violent mood swings, etc.) To add on that it is not a natural occurence maybe haha
Anyone else wondering whats on Todd's shirt?
It is a Thor: Ragnarok shirt that says "The Battle Begins"
Okay, but what happens with the Soul Monger?
so Eddie is still alive
Problem I always have is that coming back to life is never simple process, so, if one of my players die, and the others want to bring them back, sure it can spawn a whole adventure, but what dos my dead player do while the others go on this quest? Just sit there and wait? If they make a new character to join in on this mission, by the time they succeed they typically don't want that character now xD
0:30 Yeah I think I will limit acess to resurrection spells in my first campaign, sure I will keep revivify, treating it as a strong healing spell, restoring the body before the soul crosses over but the ability to bring back someone who is well and truly dead should require some effort.
I had a DM make my character immortal. By the end, the only thing my character wanted was to die!
What if higher powers are not happy with resurrection? If a character is hellbound, maybe a devil or demon lord then puts the character in their sights because they were cheated that soul, which now has time to repent. Maybe a good-aligned character rescued from a heaven has to deal with celestial beings who likewise think the character's time was due, and they deserve everlasting reward without further chances to corrupt their soul on the mortal plain. Death and resurrection are great ways to branch out your story and allow players to further develop their characters.
There is a way that doesn’t involve a 9th lvl spell to revive some one? I killed an npc and I regret deeply
How long does it take for someones soul to become a part of the wall of the faithless? I take it in such cases a person could never be brought back?
It probably takes an extremely long time for that to happen, assuming the soul isn't taken or judged to be sent to one of the other planes, but if it happens then their soul would no longer be free to return outside of a wish spell.
I love how there is no nihilism in DND
?
Character death sucks, resurrection is a useful tool to keep the narrative going and is basically nessisary to have a long term game. Playing for 8 months with a group and then suddenly not being in the game anymore cause of a couple of dice rolls is upsetting...
A druid will generally recite funeral rites: "Of earth, you were created, to earth you return." rather than seek to raise a fallen comrade.
"Bring them back? Why? They are with the great spirit now. They won't want to come back. Their purpose is complete. Let us be off to fulfill ours."
4:00 you've got to be willing to come back
Edit: darn it my blafmy
Matt Mercer's method seems ideal to me. Make it canon?
It's good but some groups are not that into roleplaying unfortunately
+AdrenalineUnlimited There's nothing canonical in D&D. Rules and roleplaying methods (and indeed, even the lore) are as liquid as they have to be to allow for different GMing styles and preferences.
AdrenalineUnlimited I'm just getting into the world of DnD and Critical Role. What's Matt's method?
Adam Simpson The gist of it is that when you cast a ressurection-type spell, you have to succeed in a skill check where the DC starts at 10 and goes up for the next time each time you're resurrected successfully. It helps to mitigate the feeling of a lack of consequences that's often present in the game
AdrenalineUnlimited ah okay that sounds pretty fair actually!
Nice catch on the assumption of gods and souls being real in our world, lol (atheists and/or Buddhists both have issues with these assumptions, as would others perhaps)
Well, Buddhists at least have the principle of "souls" and even if the Buddhas aren´t gods per forma, they are still higher beings, ascended from the mortal realm. Some small twists here and there and you got a Buddhist-friendly, polytheistic campaign world - just that these gods aren´t "real" gods if you look behind the curtains (after reaching level 20 ofc - so, like, never?)
“The gods are known to be a real thing in the DND Multi-verse.”
Except Eberron! AKA The only official D&D setting that doesn’t bore me to tears. I’m so tired of high fantasy, but dungeon punk?! That’s awesome.
Why don't the rules support such magnificent storytelling? Why create spell mechanics that feel so flat? Coming back from the dead, as written in the books, is so easy. Requirements are very low and consequences are entirely absent.
I understand that part of this is up to the DM to invent, but the rules could have supported the creative process in some way. The game is meaningless if death means nothing.
Here's hoping for early death in the Critical Role Campaign #2. *fingers crossed*
I found you. The culprit.
I don’t want it to become like dragon ball z where death is meaningless.
Characters will die in one episode and be brought back in the next
I find character death an inconvenience and as DM strive to avoid it where possible.
If a PC is slain then the player has to sit and wait on the sidelines until whatever crisis that resulted in their demise is resolved. If it's a TPK then I need to come up with a new campaign because it's not an NES game where you just send people back to the first level and go through it again (well, if you're running Adventure League or Curse of Strahd or w/e I suppose you might but my campaign is all original content). The party is level 15, I've been running the game for a year and a half. I really don't want to start over.
It is understandable to try and avoid character death in the game, but doing so takes a lot away from the players and you as a DM. For, the players, they have no sense of tension, or threat that allows them to choose different solutions to a problem. So, when they face a challenge or monster, usually the first thought is "It's just a (monster name), so lets kill it and move on" because they know you won't put something in their way they can't just bash out of the way. As a DM, your losing the chance to challenge yourself and create a world where consequences are real. Where choices matter and the ability to ask your players the question of what if. In other words, by allowing the players to believe they can just smash their way through encounters, you limit the narrative and teach the players that only one solution always wins.
It's more like I use extraordinarily dangerous monsters sparingly and scale threats appropriately. It's a long way to 'Greater Restoration' from level 1. It's not like I threw cockatrices and basilisks at the party every other encounter, but they did encounter them before they had access to a solution to petrification. Likewise, they weren't going to 'unknowingly' get into extremely deadly situations before level 5 where they could get access to revivify. But there were situations of extreme risk and danger. The players chose to undertake challenges knowing the risks in hopes of acquiring a commensurate reward or achieving a goal. In a year and a half, there was a single casualty, remedied with revivify. Without turning this into a massive post detailing the encounters the party has faced let's just say they have been adequately challenged and then some.
This is Satanic.
Why did you watch it?
what about info on different gods and Pantheon's? Do you think we could get a video about those?