How should Death and Resurrection be handled in RPGs?

[NecroLord]

Greetings.

Let's talk about dying and resurrection in RPGs. How would you handle it? Should resurrection even be possible? Would the soul of a deceased companion refuse to reincarnate? From the perspective of D&D cosmology if your companion was of a good alignment he would more than likely end up in a better place,the Upper Planes,in a state of utter bliss and joy. Why would he ever come back and leave that veritable paradise? If he was evil,he would probably end up becoming the plaything of a demon or devil from the Lower Planes,and be no better than a slave serving its cruel master.
In Arcanum,if you resurrect one of your followers they will even thank you and like you even better. In Fallout if you die,game over,time to sleep. No resurrection. System Shock 2 has Quantum Bio-Reconstruction Chambers,though they have to be activated in advance.
Anyway,what do YOU think? What game handles Death and Resurrection in a mature way?

 

[Darth Canoli]

I like the games introducing the dying condition, particularly if you can increase the treshold (-10hp isn't enough for a 100-200 hp character) like in KotC 2.
So a dying character either gets back to 1 hp after a fight or better, should require a healing check to get back on his feet and if it fails, some healing spells.

Beyond this, I don't mind resurrection spells handled by the party but this kind of divine intervention should be limited and/or require some rare ingredients or offerings to the gods.

Although, getting back an important character from a different plane after his death would be a nice side quest as well.

Then again, it depends on the structure of the game, what I just said would work well for a sandbox or open-world adventure and not at all for a claustrophobic, linear dungeon crawler.

 

[JarlFrank]

Resurrection should not be possible because it opens a whole can of worms about the metaphysics of the setting and how to deal with death of everyone living in the world.

Some great general died? Not a big tragedy, just resurrect him.
All questions about what happens after death could be answered simply by resurrecting someone and having a chat with him.
Death should be final. If you die, that's it. Reload your last save or create a new character.

That said, death doesn't always have to be the only outcome of every fight. You can surrender to bandits and give them their gold, they'll let you go (even if the fight is already in progress). If a party member gets downed, they can just be in a state of bleeding out. Enemies will ignore him because targets that can still fight back are the priority. Using bandages or magic to stabilize the downed character helps to make sure he pulls through.

 

[Ismaul]

A truly NecroLord thread.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

There should be no resurrection. When a character dies, that should be it.

Some great general died? Not a big tragedy, just resurrect him.

And then you get "ludonarrative dissonance" when the dev wants to write a tragic story where someone dies right after you spent the last year and a half using resurrection to bring back your companions after fights. Surely you could have brought him back too.

 

[luj1]

would love a soul reaver rpg where death is only the beginning

 

[NecroLord]

would love a soul reaver rpg where death is only the beginning

Damn.
I completely forgot about the Legacy of Kain games. Awesome,awesome series.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

The way the first Wizardry games did it: Fail one or two resurrection rolls and your character's lost forever. It's exciting and makes the Constitution stat actually useful.

 

[NecroLord]

Planescape Torment,despite its issues,does indeed delve into the mysteries and even tragic ramifications of death and perpetual resurrection as a result of the Nameless One's immortality. His past lives,struggling to remember loved ones,allies,enemies and so on.

 

[lukaszek]

why bother when you can just reload

 

[Denim Destroyer]

Resurrection methods should reduce the characters overall constitution score with each use (ala Wizardry 7) but there also needs to be a limit on saving for this to be effective.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

you guys are just going to cheat so it doesn't matter any--

why bother when you can just reload

 

[smaug]

The way the first Wizardry games did it: Fail one or two resurrection rolls and your character's lost forever. It's exciting and makes the Constitution stat actually useful.

I resurrected at a temple with max constitution and failed multiple times. That shit was broken and badly designed, spells is fair game though.

 

[Brancaleone]

Let's talk about dying and resurrection in RPGs. How would you handle it?

You die in the game, you also die in real life.
Afterwards, you can get resurrected in the game (for a steep price), but not in real life.

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

When it comes to gameplay alone ressurection shouldn't be a thing, if characters die they stay dead, otherwise why even bother saying that they died instead of just saying they fainted or were critically wounded?

 

[Chippy]

AFAIK you were supposed to lose a point of constitution in 2nd edition. THey should have implemented that in the IE games. But just do an ironman mode for the game and con/hp loss on death. Easy.

 

[Artyoan]

Do away with manual saving/loading and have Dark Souls style death systems. I'm willing to scrap realism concerns for a much more satisfying death system that allows for the developer to make punishing content and make a number of systems meaningful by not allowing quick loading. The beauty is that death does not erase all progress between the last save and point of death. You may lose currency or experience, but you keep what you found and some things stay dead. In the case of crpg's allow for a deceased party member's 'slot' to be filled by special summoned creatures until you can revive them. That way the player can have spare tires and maintain some difficulty balance when down a party member.

 

[octavius]

It shouldn't be handled any specific way. In some games you can resurrect party members in mid combat, in others they are gone forever and it yet others you need to pay dearly for it at temples. It all depends on the game, and wether it makes the game fun or frustrating.
But of course, the more involved it is, the more in encourages reloading.

"Realism" should not be much of a consideration, though, unless it's a game that specifically aims to be historically and factually correct (instead of politically correct).

 

[somerandomdude]

I like how Wizardry handles it, if you fail a resurrection roll, your character gets turned into magical jew dust.

 

[c u in da ballpit ashren]

The way the first Wizardry games did it: Fail one or two resurrection rolls and your character's lost forever. It's exciting and makes the Constitution stat actually useful.

This one's not a bad idea. Game could up being like a daytime television surgeon simulator at a few points because of that, with all the anticipation and sitting at the edge of your seat. Then your absolute gigachad of a PC revives the party thief or something, wipes his brow, takes his mask off, and the cute cleric gf he's got runs into his arms like "You did it, doctor"

 

[Norfleet]

People die when they are killed. That's the way it should be.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

game focused on one character: death isn't game over, character doesn't die permanently but there are harsh penalties for dying
game focused on a party: death isn't game over, but characters can die permanently and be replaced with rare exceptions

resurrection magic that isn't extremely hard to acquire and use should have extreme drawbacks including the recipient coming back wrong

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

you guys are just going to cheat so it doesn't matter any--

why bother when you can just reload

Reloading should be prohibited, but instead the player-character should simply resurrect on defeat as in the Demon's/Dark Souls series or the Codex's #1 CRPG of all time.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I’ve been on record as a proponent of fail-forward systems (like most roguelites, and some immersive sims), but I think in party based cRPGs death should be very close to permanent and require a difficult quest/battle or a large investment of rare materials.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

you guys are just going to cheat so it doesn't matter any--

why bother when you can just reload

Reloading should be prohibited, but instead the player-character should simply resurrect on defeat as in the Demon's/Dark Souls series or the Codex's #1 CRPG of all time.

Strange as it is, PST barely ever gets any praise for it using death as a game mechanic.

I don't think it's something that should be straight up copied though, as it's too unique to PST. Online games tend to have persistence baked in and therefore more likely to provide a reason as to why the player is effectively immortal if you wanted to do a survey of what's available. e.g.,

• Fallen Earth, iirc you're basically a clone who has his mind kept in a database and is recloned upon death. The fact that your data is being corrupted is a major plot point of the main story.
• Destiny, you're basically a zombie reanimated by alien technology and know nothing of your past life. When you die, you get reanimated again.
• Rift, player characters are basically some type of angel that go through a traumatic, excruciatingly painful process upon death to be reborn.
• Elder Scrolls Online, player characters have no soul. Or something. I don't really remember.
• Secret World, you're a magical bee or something? Yea I don't really remember that too well either.
• RuneScape, iirc the canon reason is that if you die and your destiny has not yet been fulfilled you get returned to the world.
• Borderlands, New-U stations.
• EVE Online, you get cloned

Wonder how many people have ever noticed elder scrolls basically has no resurrection magic? Most of the stories in TES games would be a lot shittier if it had.