Author Topic: Deathless Campaign  (Read 2383 times)

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Deathless Campaign
« on: April 08, 2016, 12:50:42 PM »
Thinking out loud here. What if you were to set up a campaign where every time your PC died you were automatically reborn. Maybe a curse? Maybe a Ravenloft type overlord brings all the PCs back. Maybe a demi-plane that does not allow anyone to leave, even by dying. Maybe a beneficent artifact forces everyone back. 

What would be the implications of such a world? Any suggestions on rules, mechanisms, thoughts in general? 

EDIT: The campaign I was envisioning would only bring back the PCs not everyone in the world. Something like:
Quote
The New-U Station
I ran a campaign in which the PCs were bound to a magical artifact and could not die. If they died, they were resurrected, naked and screaming, at a magical artifact in a hidden location. It took 1d3 days for their body to regrow. Obviously, this whole thing was tied up in the story of the game. Part of the campaign was about unraveling the mystery of WHY the PCs kept coming back to life and why they sometimes came back in different bodies (if the player wanted to change characters). The rest of the campaign was about protecting the secret of their immortality and the magical artifact from evildoers who would have claimed it for themselves or destroyed it to destroy the PCs.

In that game, the players learned to use their immortality as a tool. Which is exactly how I intended it. But they could never get complacent about it either. Disappearing from the world for three days, being shunted into a dangerous location, and having to reconnect was tricky enough. But their enemies became suspicious about their continued survival, especially after seeing them die, and they had to do some pretty nasty stuff to keep their secret.

Ultimately, one of the players exclaimed “I wish we could just DIE when we die. That would be easier.” See, death sucks, but if you run your game right, immortality is worse.

Source: http://theangrygm.com/death-sucks/


Cheers,
Necro
« Last Edit: October 29, 2016, 11:15:36 AM by Necrosnoop110 »

Offline ketaro

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Re: Deathless Campaign
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2016, 02:23:11 PM »
Lazy bums and rampant crime and zero risk adventuring but every foe slain is another recurring villain with a grudge to settle and his loot to steal back from ya.

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Deathless Campaign
« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2016, 04:42:41 PM »
Reborn? Or Ressurected? There is a big difference...
I don't pee messages into the snow often , but when I do , it's in Cyrillic with Fake Viagra.  Stay frosty my friends.

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: Deathless Campaign
« Reply #3 on: April 30, 2016, 11:15:36 AM »
Ran across this:

Quote
The New-U Station
I ran a campaign in which the PCs were bound to a magical artifact and could not die. If they died, they were resurrected, naked and screaming, at a magical artifact in a hidden location. It took 1d3 days for their body to regrow. Obviously, this whole thing was tied up in the story of the game. Part of the campaign was about unraveling the mystery of WHY the PCs kept coming back to life and why they sometimes came back in different bodies (if the player wanted to change characters). The rest of the campaign was about protecting the secret of their immortality and the magical artifact from evildoers who would have claimed it for themselves or destroyed it to destroy the PCs.

In that game, the players learned to use their immortality as a tool. Which is exactly how I intended it. But they could never get complacent about it either. Disappearing from the world for three days, being shunted into a dangerous location, and having to reconnect was tricky enough. But their enemies became suspicious about their continued survival, especially after seeing them die, and they had to do some pretty nasty stuff to keep their secret.

Ultimately, one of the players exclaimed “I wish we could just DIE when we die. That would be easier.” See, death sucks, but if you run your game right, immortality is worse.

Source: http://theangrygm.com/death-sucks/

Thoughts?


« Last Edit: October 29, 2016, 11:14:42 AM by Necrosnoop110 »

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: Deathless Campaign
« Reply #4 on: October 29, 2016, 11:12:22 AM »
More thoughts?

Offline TheGeometer

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Re: Deathless Campaign
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2016, 01:57:34 PM »
I find it hilarious that you brought this up right after you posted about the exact opposite: a much more lethal campaign.

In my opinion, the most important thing to do is define how this works as consistently as you can. You have to figure out who gets resurrected, if not everyone, and how they get resurrected (where, with which changes, if any, and with which objects still in their possession). My thoughts:

  • You don't want this thing to bring back everyone, since you don't want every villain of the campaign to be recurring, especially if the respawn rate isn't very long (which it shouldn't be, so that characters get back into the action quickly). The easiest way I can think of is that the artifact only brings good-aligned beings back from the dead. Depending on interpretation, this could make the artifact incredibly evil (since it prevents the afterlife which, in most D&D settings, indisputably exists), or incredibly good (because it denies immortality only to evil), so the party may have to either defend it, destroy it, or choose a side (since, like I said, the merits of the artifact are ambiguous).
  • Another way this might work is that, instead of there being some kind of artifact, someone in the campaign works out a ritual that prevents death. The party is privy to it, but it's secret, and keeping it that way could be an interesting way to keep the story moving forward. Random encounters won't respawn, but perhaps a recurring villain gets her hands on the secret, and now the party has to figure out how to stop an immortal adversary. Perhaps the fact that only the party (and maybe a few others) are immortal will cause society to turn against them and try to force the secret out of them.
  • As for the respawn point, rather than have it be random each time, I'd suggest it always be the same place, but unique to each person. This keeps there from being conflicts at a single respawn point, and also keeps the party from having to track down their fallen member after every death. I just feel like stopping the plot for the sake of finding the missing party member after every death just slows things down. This method also gives a definite way of stopping the recurring villain from the previous bullet: find her respawn point and fill it with lava or something.
  • You have to work out how harsh you want this mechanic to be. At its easiest, it's infinite lives, which is nice in a laid-back, story-driven campaign. I'm in a campaign right now where all that happens when we die is we lose some 5,000 gp, because some smart Cleric found a way to bring us back for that much, and that's tons of fun and doesn't ruin the drama of the campaign or anything. At its hardest, this mechanic can be a serious curse. Rather than the relative ease of bringing in new characters, this can condemn characters to change their plans in response to every character death, just like in the quote you posted. I could see either one working well, though I think that the first option is a bit easier to make fun.

I dunno, those are just my first reactions.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2016, 02:05:50 PM by TheGeometer »

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: Deathless Campaign
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2016, 07:31:40 PM »
I find it hilarious that you brought this up right after you posted about the exact opposite: a much more lethal campaign.
....
I dunno, those are just my first reactions.
Lol. Thanks for the feedback. This would all make much more sense if you had access to my campaign details. There are lots of campaign conceits that address some of the major problems you mention (a single resurrection location, campaign is set in a single small kingdom, etc.) The short of it is I'm adjusting both the lethal nature (i.e. PC's death) at the encounter level and the non-lethal nature (i.e. raising PC's from the dead) at the campaign level.

Possible Combinations
(1) Lethal Encounters; Lethal Campaign
Form: PCs killed (more) often in encounters; PCs cannot easily be resurrected

(2) Lethal Encounters; Non-Lethal Campaign
Form: PCs killed (more) often in encounters; PCs can easily be resurrected

(3) Non-Lethal Encounters; Lethal Campaign
Form: PCs not killed (often) in encounters; PCs cannot easily be resurrected

(4) Non-Lethal Encounters; Non-Lethal Campaign
Form: PCs not killed (often) in encounters; PCs can easily be resurrected

I'm shooting for some version of 2.   
« Last Edit: October 30, 2016, 07:50:17 PM by Necrosnoop110 »