Hello reader.

Yes, you who’s been slowly forgetting the existence of this blog, you who’s been unconsciously devastated by my absence, but mostly, you who’s never even heard my name and maybe, just maybe, could find something of interest on this most humble website.

I’m back.

As a first post, to celebrate my return to the wonderful world of not being dead (maybe inspired by the recent revival of Roy) I present you a short post about the fine art of handling resurrection.

Admittedly, I don’t deal with death often in my gaming, I’ve been known to prefer a more heroic feel where one would not die from a stray dice roll. But a little part of me really badly wants to run an old-school megadungeon game, more on that tomorrow.

So for your reading pleasure, have a few ways to murder your players and bring them back to, possibly, murder them once more.

The Risk

One of the problems of resurrection, especially in DnD 4E (but also present in 3rd edition, not so much in the earlier ones) is that resurrection is not that big a deal anymore. Get a shiny gem, sacrifice it to whatever guy in the sky (or other elevated area) you pray to and have your buddy be back in an instant, ready to kick some ass.

Dying isn’t risky anymore. At least not passed a certain level. Me, I say bring the pain.

Resurrection should, I believe, have a hefty price on the newly alive character, whether by reincarnation in a new and alien body (or a sex-change, or something equally hillarious and filled with interesting roleplay situations) or by the classic “Something got in there with him…”

This, in my opinion, should not have repercussion on the character on paper, for that would make the player sad, perhaps make him feel useless. Always remember that happy players make happy DMs, so for your own sake, give them a good time!

The Quest

Resurection is a complicated objective to achieve, and it requires being performed at a place of power, or necessitates an item well beyond the party’s budget. The party must thus go on a quest to fetch the Revival JuJu item to help the recently deceased adventurer.

“But Kimyou, won’t my player want me dead if I ever tell him to kick back and watch the group game for a session or 2 until they get the MacGuffin?”

Yes, they will. Thus we need a solution, don’t we? I have two.

First solution, this one is quite classic, give the deceased character’s player either the monsters, or a guest star character until the old character is reborn after much questing.

The other idea I’ve been toying with is to have the player create a quest, mess with your setting and take position has a DM for a few session (taking the role of an hireling or a guest-PC yourself). In practice, have the whole thing be has hard or easy has the player desires and watch him make his own death has entertaining as possible.

Tell me what you think about character death in games, and resurection. I love you all!