Right from the first publication of the Dungeons & Dragon rules, there were spells to bring a dead character back to life. Clerics had the 5th level spell Raise Dead, which instantly raised a slain character, though they had to spend two weeks recovering from the ordeal. There was also the 6th level Magic-User spell Reincarnation, which brought back a dead character, though in a different form based on their alignment.
So bringing a dead character back to life has always been a part of D&D, and most of the games that followed.
I never liked it. Probably due to my preference for sword and sorcery, in which death was final. There were some very few exceptions, like Xaltotun the evil sorcerer in the only Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon. But this was not a good thing, of course, and in most other stories that bring characters back from the dead, it is pretty hideous. Those characters are changed for the worse.
Fiction and gaming are different, of course. D&D being a game, the inclusion of resurrection magic to continue the life of your dead character makes sense, in the context of being purely a game.
But I still don’t like it. Life is precious. Being able to resurrect a character makes death an inconvenience, and devalues how precious life is. Even, for me, in a gaming context.
I was recently reminded of this by my buddy Rick when he remarked, on the Lead Adventure Forum where I also post the Greywater Chronicles, that Greywater is a tough place with characters getting killed, this in particular reference to Stu the caprian. This was just an observation, he was not advocating anything.
It’s true: Greywater is brutal. Many of the characters who have appeared have died. But I think they have all shined the brighter for it. And the threat of death in every engagement adds tension – or at least, I like to think so!
There was a discussion I had with a guy on the old Necromancer Games forum in the late 2000s. I forgot what set him off, but he went on at length about the glory of last stands and sacrificing your character for a higher ideal. Which I agree with; that makes for dramatic gaming.
But then he continued by saying that you could just whip out the Raise Dead scroll and continue on. He did not see the irony. I pointed out it wasn’t really a sacrifice if you know that you will get raised a few moments later, and the act as a sacrifice becomes meaningless. He got rather angry, and accused me of not understanding valor and a bunch of other unhinged accusations. Gotta love internet chats.
I obviously left the conversation at that point, but it did illustrate to me, again, how resurrection magic devalues not just life itself, but the magnitude of a character’s actions done in the face of imminent death. If all you have to do is push a button to come back to life, you are not sacrificing yourself.
Gaming is a pretty big tent, room for all kinds of ideas. I understand losing a 10th level character hurts. It is just a game, after all, and the magic to bring the character back is as old as the game itself. I really don’t have a problem with other people including it in their campaigns.
But I’ll stick with my life is fragile and precious view, where there is no raising of the dead. Unless it is an utter abomination, like Xaltotun.
