Discussion: Deaths and Resurrections

Argent Dawn
1

Sup you lil plebs.

It is with great shame that I cannot bring you the voted topic you wanted (ERP) for obvious reasons and instead bring you the other two most voted topics that being character deaths and resurrections. I thought I’d combine both as they’re both fit in the same catagories. Anyways this is the second of weekly Discussions threads, this time being deaths and resurrections of characters in RP. Tell me your thoughts about em’. Is character resurrection redundant? Should players accept death when against immeasurable odds?

Vote on Next Topic: https://www.strawpoll.me/18168376

2

Technically canon, with all sorts of ways it can be done according the lore. But no matter the excuse, it’ll never not feel cheap. Death’s meant to have some finality and some weight to it. Escaping a death that takes place off-screen is fine, but actually dying and just coming back without any real consequences just feels awful, no matter how it’s justified, in any setting.

Can you think of any character, in any medium, that you were happy and excited about the resurrection of, and thought ‘wow, what a great twist this is?’ Escaping death off-screen or being brought back in an unpleasant way such as becoming undead doesn’t count.

10 Likes
3

People Die when they are killed.

6 Likes
4

Well, no sh*t.

What have we got here, a f**king comedian, PVT Joker?

1 Like
5

No more resurrections this time.

2 Likes
6

I can’t say I’ve ever thought it’s a great twist (because most of the time you know it’ll happen long beforehand), but I can think of several comics where resurrection has been handled excellently. Most notably (and off the top of my head): the death of Captain America in Civil War and later resurrection. The aftermath of this death was truly felt throughout comics at the time, and his return was handled equally great. The same can be said for the death of Superman from the 90s.

To take a less niche example and one that isn’t from a comic book: Gandalf. You’ll probably be hard-pressed to find someone claiming that his return somehow cheapened his sacrifice, when Tolkien set up his character in such a way that it’s totally believable he’d be able to come back even from death. It’s all in the writing.

10 Likes
7

I say if you have put you self in a tight spot be it surrounded or ended up fighting another roleplayer and loosing, then you probably should accept the consequences and take what is comming at you.

I’ve never liked when people decide to cheat and make an absurb escape just to avoid being killed. Stand proud and accept your fate if you’ve put youself in the danger, if not than whats the point?

8

Alright, controversial post time.

Ressurection (either from dead dead or only mostly dead) is good BUT ONLY if its done well. Its one thing to have it be great RP, another to hand wave it and go ‘yay im back!’

I once had someone come to me several years ago wanting to rez an old character. K, cool. It turned into a HUGE plotline that required questing for the right reasons, journeying to find missong soul fragments, finding the body, finding someone who KNEW how to rez a person. Then came the question if it was even worth it, as the ritual was so dangerous it could put others at risk. It was honestly one of the top 5 plots I’ve ever been a part of.

Then there have been a lot of ‘rushjobs.’ Either it just HAPPENS (and isn’t impactful), or its over so quickly that there was really no need for it. I’ve seen a few situations where its HAD to happen this way (ie. A guild needed an officer and no one was ready IC) but its mostly just HAPPENED BECUZ.

My opinion? Do it, but make getting alive again just as good a story as actually BEING alive.

3 Likes
9

When I remember it correctly is a Resurrection only from powerful beings casted and even then it´s not quite sure it will work (Light won´t give the blessing or whatnot).
While dying to a random murder somewhere in Elwynn or Durotar won´t be so easy for a resurrection to be casted compared to a meaningful task where someone is killed.

Actions should have consequences and that a character can die is a consequence (and some would say the salt in the RP soup).

10

I find character death to be a concept that needs to be forced into RP a bit more than it currently is. Now, I don’t mean going on a killing spree of trying to kill characters. Let me explain;

Character death should be a real threat. If Person X holds a gun to Person Y’s head, person Y shouldn’t downplay the situation because he doesn’t accept character death.

That’s a life or death situation, your character’s future is in the hands of someone else now, and if they decide to pull the trigger then oh well.

People die in real life. Sometimes horribly. But more often than not they didn’t deserve to die. Good people die for :poop: reasons. There’s no shame in your character being one of these.

I give my characters specific OOC names, like Dogthing, Sneakydog, Furydog etc. The reason is, any character with dog in the OOC name is an expendable character, and I won’t be glued to the previous name if my character ever dies.

As for ressurections, my Priest was ressurected after using his body to shield his friend and colleague from a bomb. He’s also capable of ressurecting someone else if he truly believes in it despite being a backwater Reverend from bumfck nowhere.

2 Likes
11

Considering how rare it is for someone to have well established characters die in the first place, I personally rate resurrections a solid “Ugh” out of 10. Death can be a super rewarding narrative tool for the ones left behind, and just about all of that is undermined if a character is then magically returned to life.

Undeath is different for a number of reasons, so that works for me.

12

Feel like pure :poop: just want Loki back :crying_cat_face:

13

Nothing wrong with resurrection imo as long as you back it up with drawbacks for the character and include some backstory as to why or how. There’s a difference between: cheap ressing because you told a guy with a gun to your head to shoot - and “This champion died fighting a great evil, we should seek his restoration” doing an elaborate story to gather everything then bring him back only to find the process left his mind a bit :crazy_face:

All of it is redundant though when most people turn their nose up at resurrection RP despite the numerous cases of NPC’s doing it pretty casually (looks at Krasarang Wilds priests ressing out of mass graves)

14

As others said, it’s actually not impossible to do it well.

If handled gracefully and it promotes genuine RP between people I don’t see much of an issue.

15

Never hurt to have a warlock “friend” and with some forbidden and dark pact, store your precious little soul in a cute Soulstone :angel:

1 Like
16

The difference between good and bad resurrection of characters all lie in the writing. There are great examples of good ones, like previously mentioned, Cap America, Superman and Gandalf all had resurrections that were well made, and well written.

1 Like
17

One word, nine letters. Soulstone.

18

Only acceptable if it’s known in advance, in my opinion. Otherwise, when you suddenly come back out of nowhere, there might be some outrage from the people who killed your character and lots of accusations of trying to escape consequences.

And if it is known in advance, then it takes away any impact from the death and makes it feel about as climactic as forcing the character to flee.

I can only see it working in a more competitive sort of community, where players are expected to use their brains and it’s their own fault if they didn’t consider the possibility that a warlock might be using a soulstone.

1 Like
19

Supernatural… Is all im going to say

20

Scarlet Monastery has scarlet priests ressing people.
Krasarang has priest resurrecting people.

I say it in every of these threads.

Stuff like this just means “Oh no, I am betting everything on the death of this character as the only writing tool to make it interesting. Resurrection destroys this and I am not able to use the resurrection to my advantage.”
I play a priest and a paladin and I am tired of having to pretend “Oh yeah resurrections are ABSOLUTELY HARD, nevermind the Krasarang Forest NPC or the Scarlet Crusaders in the dungeon resurrecting people from corpse piles really easily.”.
If you can’t deal with someone resurrecting, maybe you shouldn’t blame the resurrection but instead re-evaluate how much of a crutch the ‘danger’ and ‘consequence’ is to your roleplay.
If my priest sees a character die, you can bet she is going to resurrect that character right then and there.

Now that I got the rant out of the way, the ways to make resurrection work are simple.
We know that they used to require reagents back in classic WoW and the like.
Was it candles and stuff? Doesn’t need that anymore now, which can both be OOC and IC.
I know that in a mage-quest, someone mentions that years ago, some magic (like portals) needed the runes because better spells and casting techniques were not yet discovered.
One can explain why now a priest no longer requires to collect the reagents as well.
Secondly: Time of death. This one is a good balancing factor, the longer a character is dead, the harder to resurrect.
Third: How did they die? Might be harder if a Death Knight or Warlock killed them.
Fourth: Does the character’s soul agree to the resurrection? Resurrection is always consensual. That’s what sets it apart from necromancy, other than the dark magic.

Also soulstones, as mentioned above. My warlock usually has a soulstone active, for example, and thus has one free death.
How do you RP your soulstone, other warlocks?

3 Likes