Death. Not so bad?
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Tl;dr - What's a good balance between roleplaying with the aspect of death on CoA?
I apologize if I have a hard time getting my point across.
So, death. The end of the line. Something that usually absolutely cripples many people, yet in a magical fantasy world like CoA, it's rarely the last stop. I got to thinking today how different we perceive the lost of someone compared to how we do it in a world like the forgotten realms where magic exists to bring someone back, or even a respawn option.
How does one roleplay such an experience well, without over-doing it? What are some things you've done? For example, you make a great friend in your PCs lifetime, and one day on a quest they die. Realistically speaking, your pc should be disheartened, probably cry even if they're a steel-faced badass, and mournful over their death. But..instead, most of the time, everyone just stands there in silence waiting for the person to either come back to life, or stay perma dead so the others can move on with their work. I mean, yeah..adventuring is dangerous, and things like this are expected to happen, but come on! It's not natural for you to do nothing when someone you're suppose to care about goes away.
On the flip side, in a world where coming back from the dead is a generally known practice, does such knowledge dull that mournful feeling? I mean, yeah…roleplaying your PC crying their eyes out after someone dies is great and all, but after their third, fourth dead and revive, it sort of loses it's feeling.
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Adventuring is a dangerous profession. People die, it shouldn't be a surprise when they do, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to be indignant about it all the time.
What it really comes down to is your own personal experiences and character motivations. Every character is different and there's no one way to answer this question. If your character was good friends with the deceased, they might vow revenge or mourn for weeks. It's really in the end up to your character how they feel about losing someone.
As for standing over a corpse, 99% of the time someone respawns it's roleplayed as them waking up miraculously from a particularly vicious beating (Whether that's what happen IC or not, neither your character or the 'deceased' would truly know what had happened.)
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Really, I think there are two different scenarios to consider.
The first is respawnable death. Meaning anything that you are okay to just talk respawn yourself from the fugue for. Death on quests, random spawns, etc. For this, I almost never treat it as a "death". More like what HellzYeah described where someone just got beaten to an unconscious pulp and managed to stabilize themselves. I know this isn't exactly true, but respawning is such an OOC thing that is only there because of balanced game design that there is really no other way to handle it. Drawn out scenes of companions grieving over someone who got crit by an orc who is just going to wait 2 minutes then respawn, with the only noticeable difference their sudden lack of HP, AB, and the ability to make wands is kind of silly to me and pointless to me.
The second is "real" death. Things like your character was executed, you died on a non-respawnable DM event, in your final battle with your nemesis you die, etc. Things like this I think should be played out more. There should be some sort of reaction from those close to the character. Grief, anger, revenge, whatever is suitable for your specific concept. I think that these can be excellent motivators and key plot points for people and should hold some significance.
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I know this isn't exactly true, but respawning is such an OOC thing that is only there because of balanced game design that there is really no other way to handle it.
Respawning is a 100% in character thing. Your character died. That's what happened, what the Servant of Kelemvor tells you in the fugue is what happens to you. But since you don't remember any of it IC, your character seems to just have woken up from an injury. Both from his own perception and others.
Edit: This is kinda nitpicky, but it is relevant in some minor cases. When you're bending down to check a person's corpse for instance. They're not breathing. They're very dead. This will warrant a response- Until they wake up. Then you'll just mostly be relieved. Or disappointed, depending.
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The event itself is forced to be IC, but the system was only added due to OOC reasons. Which is what makes it difficult to handle. Honestly, I have little interest in RPing out extended death scenes with people that died on scripted events like quests and random encounters. All that ever comes of it is them standing up, acting like everything is okay and finishing the quest. Nevermind the fact that they were just gored to death, burnt alive, or drowned. Personally I think the whole respawning system is absolutely ridiculous from an IC standpoint, which is why it so awkward and clunky to play out in game.
That being said, there is no better alternative. I don't think anyone, myself included, wants to retire a character due to an unlucky death on a quest, but that doesn't change the fact it isn't good to begin with.
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Re-spawning is 100% exactly like getting a raise except rather than a PC dragging your body around to have either another PC or an NPC cast the spell you have the Servant of Kelemvor use a less efficient means that takes more of your Memories (XPs) so you forget the Fugue and all events that lead you there or away from there.
You even ask "Is this like a raise" and he tells you clearly it is in some ways.
Now how you handle this is completely up to the individual… Bending down and and checking a "corpse" and finding they are not breathing does not mean "They are very dead." Lets compare this to real life for a second. I have had people bend over my body and found me not breathing, I didn't even have a heartbeat... There are various stages of being incapacitated that are similar to the state of death, but as I am still here to post this obviously those symptoms did not mean I was very dead, I was just very incapacitated for a time. //I won't go into how it happened on the open forum, if you want details PM me//
Even backing away from my own experience, there are many cases in the real world where some or many thought someone dead only to find out it was not true. Now lets re-enter the mystical world of CoA. I hate to wave the "it's magic" wand, but guess what? It is magic.
I see respawning very much the same with magical means to recover versus scientific. I was taken to the ER and a team of doctors managed to restore my pulse, on CoA the Servant of Kelemvor jolts you back to life, basically kicking you back outside of deaths doorway nearly dead and at a heavy cost.
//I don't remember being moved or "worked on" so I guess I lost a few XP :P and woke up in pain very confused. Holy crap, I've respawed in the real world!
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I would like to make it so that you are knocked out when you die and respawn, but the problem with that comes here!
How do you know if your knocked out? When does that get decided? Someone might have a res scroll, but you already OOC pmed people saying your knocked out, as your going to respawn, so people were just roleplaying you being knocked out, but now you were actually dead, but then they can't find the ressurection scroll because, they forgot they sold it, so then your dead again so we need to roleplay that, but then an ally priest comes along and says they can raise you (even though your knocked out….) so now your dead again, then a pickpocket steals his small diamond just before he casts the spell and....
Yeah...
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I have handled non pc deaths differently depending on the situation, how close I was to the character who died, etc.
quest fuging is almost always a knock out, will recover type of thing,, checking for breathing and sending a (safe to respawn tell) to find out if the person is respawning or not. Artio performed CPR on Jent Fearshall, and used a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, Jent walked with a limp the rest of his life because of that tourniquet.Quest fuge permadeath has gotten my characters to eulogize a pc or two, some times in party chat other times just for my own personal closure at the loss of a friend.
PD situations always affect my characters IG. Read Caylee Halles Diary to see how one character dealt with the death of freinds.
Caylee also had a major Crying Jag, in Anna's arms, When Briee was killed, because Caylee was also in love with her, while being in love with Cuthanielle Rookes, while having an affair with Anna, to at least be warm at night. ( sunite looking for love in all the wrong places :-))
In the end, all that death drove her into Despair and falling to the Shadow in Tilverton.The death of Lyssette at the Hands of Thalden Menas, with Lark as his accomplice, led to quite a bit of conflict with Lark and Lillianna Smith.
I guess what im saying here is that if my friends PD, My characters respond, and it affects the rest of who and what they are.