PC only raise by other PC

[A normal snake]

I personally don't like torture RP, unless a larger event leads that way. Torture RP comes off as being like non-sexual cybering, and it's a nuisance to deal with afterwards. I mean, if you didn't want the scene to happen and someone stronger than you subdued you and began emoting cutting your eyes out, what do you do with that? It's not fun for the victim. Although torture does have its place in larger events and stories, I'm not saying it shouldn't be done at all. I just think for casual encounters it's sort of a cheap way out, for shock value.

[Syl]

I was just using it as an example. While i have done it before and been subject to it.. Its not one I plan to do offten because let me tell you it's a LOT of work carrying a person through the night out of people's sight.

[Merry Munchkin]

I personally don't like torture RP, unless a larger event leads that way. Torture RP comes off as being like non-sexual cybering, and it's a nuisance to deal with afterwards. I mean, if you didn't want the scene to happen and someone stronger than you subdued you and began emoting cutting your eyes out, what do you do with that? It's not fun for the victim. Although torture does have its place in larger events and stories, I'm not saying it shouldn't be done at all. I just think for casual encounters it's sort of a cheap way out, for shock value.

Fear, at its basic biochemical level, is a purely autonomic response.  You perceive a stressful stimulus (whatever is stressful to you) and your brain release of chemicals that cause a racing heart, fast breathing, pumps blood to the muscles, and triggers the classic fight-or-flight response.  These things happen without your conscious mind playing any part -- you don't think about fear, you simply experience it until it is over.   For example, you hear a strange sound at night, and experience momentary fear until you realize it is just the wind.

Thus, fear is all about sensory experience and unconscious anticipation.  In contrast, a conscious focus on something stressful may create worry and anxiety, but not true fear.  You might worry about crime in your neighborhood, but you don't experience fear until you are confronted by the mugger.

Moreover, the reaction to fear can be flight OR fight.  Therefore, a paladin's "immunity" to fear can be thought of not as a lack of feeling or experiencing of fear, but of the sublimation of the flight response.  Paladins feel fear, but don't run away.

Having a strong stomach and enduring the sight of blood and gore is not an aspect of fear either.  Fear involves unconscious anticipation -- i.e. what might happen -- rather than what has happened or is occurring.  You don't feel fear because someone ELSE is getting eaten by a monster, or has been eaten; you feel fear because YOU might be eaten by the monster next.

This is one of the reasons why I don't think depictions of torture, gore, or "slasher" stuff is particularly fear inducing.  They may be nauseating, but not necessarily fear inducing.   

[McNastea]

I think that if you take what you've just explained as fact, which I'm not disputing, then my perception at least of gothic horror has a lot more to it than just fear. You say you can't feel fear for what is happening to others... okay, well let's say that's true for the sake of arguement. You sure as hell can feel dread when confronted with the idea of something horrible happening to someone else. You can feel despair when hearing about or witnessing something horrible happen to someone else. You can feel helpless and small when you're faced with something you're unable to stop from happening to someone else.

All these things can of course be felt for yourself as well. But -if- *fear* can't be felt for someone else, there's still all these other things which can that tie in to what creates a truly horrifying setting, I think.

I don't think a person who is entirely involved in themselves can feel the full range of emotions necessary to experience the depth of true horror. That's just my opinion, I'm sure people would beg to differ. But as far as I'm concerned, without a reason other than yourself to live for, you don't get any joy in life and have no real hopes or dreams. Even if the atmosphere is supposed to be bleak here, I don't see how a person could -really- be afraid of losing their life if they had nothing to live for, could feel dread if there was nohting they truly valued and could therefore care about losing, had no one they loved and could therefore not experience the despair of losing them. You need good things, no matter how small or big, for the bad to truly matter-well, at least that would magnify the bad. I guess I'm talking a lot without saying anything at this point, what I mean is we talk a lot about fear-and if we break it down like you did then I think we're actually talking about a more than just fear itself when we talk about horror inducing aspects of rp.

And I think your analysis of a paladins immunity to fear is pretty interesting.

[A normal snake]

That's a good post. There's a lot more to something being scary than just big bad monsters. It's things like the threat of loss and tragedy that add to it.

[Blight]

You know, something I've always felt is that gold might not be the right cost for a raise. Money is nothing in potm. You can gain 2k in an hour farming rats in the sewers. Gold is a limitless quantity on a server with virtually no significant gold sinks. It all ends up in the vardo pockets, eventually.

It costs experience points  for a person to resurrect themselves through the Mists. What if the cost for raising a corpse wasn't gold, but your own experience points? How many raises would occur by a stranger? Just how important is that person to you? How much xp are you willing to sacrifice?

It doesn't have to be necessarily as much xp as it would cost for a person to raise themselves. It could be much less and still work. the point of it I'd that xp points is the most sacred thing on potm because it's damn hard to get and so easy to lose it all.  People would need actually be CAREFUL when dungeoning because if you're not, the trip could cost just as much xp as you earned. And when people come back from the dead, those characters KNOW just how much of a sacrifice that pc made to bring them back. They raised them from the dead through actual personal loss to themselves.

I don't think that this would be too  extreme of consequence because you could always use Mist orbs but it would definitely add a level of hesitation that we should but don't have when dungeoning.

[respawnaholic]

You know, something I've always felt is that gold might not be the right cost for a raise. Money is nothing in potm. You can gain 2k in an hour farming rats in the sewers. Gold is a limitless quantity on a server with virtually no significant gold sinks. It all ends up in the vardo pockets, eventually.

It costs experience points  for a person to resurrect themselves through the Mists. What if the cost for raising a corpse wasn't gold, but your own experience points? How many raises would occur by a stranger? Just how important is that person to you? How much xp are you willing to sacrifice?

It doesn't have to be necessarily as much xp as it would cost for a person to raise themselves. It could be much less and still work. the point of it I'd that xp points is the most sacred thing on potm because it's damn hard to get and so easy to lose it all.  People would need actually be CAREFUL when dungeoning because if you're not, the trip could cost just as much xp as you earned. And when people come back from the dead, those characters KNOW just how much of a sacrifice that pc made to bring them back. They raised them from the dead through actual personal loss to themselves.

I don't think that this would be too  extreme of consequence because you could always use Mist orbs but it would definitely add a level of hesitation that we should but don't have when dungeoning.

I kind of like this idea, but like you pointed out players can still use the mist orbs or the potions and at mid to higher levels their fairly common. Much more so than finding a cleric, but maybe in a similar vein rather than use exp to spread around the joy make it so BOTH parties suffer Resurrection sickness. Like most examples here I unfortunately see using exp to raise people only really hurting newbies and low level characters.  They also tend to INCREASE ooc behavior since people spend even more time in tell looking to get a raise from a friendly log in account.

[Syl]

Well can't it be possible to say characters under level [Blah] when raised only costs gold.... However if they are over [Blah] It costs exp?

[Lovable-Weremink]

I like the idea of costing XP for raises rather than gold too.
Perhaps the following formula of XP cost to the one doing the Raise/Rez:
Raise by NPC- 100 xp per level of dead PC
Resurrection- 300xp per level of dead PC

Raise by Elixir of life Potion- 50 XP per level of dead PC

Raise by Mist Orb- 75 XP per level of dead PC

Raise by PC cleric- 25 xp per level of dead PC

Resurrection by PC Cleric 150 XP per level of dead PC

I think the chance for a undead character to come back should be increased to everywhere in the server, by however the raise/rez happens. (NPC, PC, Potion, or Orb)

[BahamutZ3RO]

I like the idea of costing XP for raises rather than gold too.
Perhaps the following formula of XP cost to the one doing the Raise/Rez:
Raise by NPC- 100 xp per level of dead PC
Resurrection- 300xp per level of dead PC

Raise by Elixir of life Potion- 50 XP per level of dead PC

Raise by Mist Orb- 75 XP per level of dead PC

Raise by PC cleric- 25 xp per level of dead PC

Resurrection by PC Cleric 150 XP per level of dead PC

I think the chance for a undead character to come back should be increased to everywhere in the server, by however the raise/rez happens. (NPC, PC, Potion, or Orb)

Terrible idea and it'll just lead to players refusing to rez anyone who isn't a part of their clique IC or their good friend OOC. Think of the NCW pile of bodies, now imagine that all the time.

[Knas]

I don't think making death and dying harsher is the way to go at all, not for adding fear, not for adding difficulty. The current system is unforgiving enough as it is.

[Ehver]

Yeah... I really don't care much for the ideas brought up in this thread. The only thing that I can see being feasible would be the 'revival sickness'... a penalty to ability scores and such that won't subside until a few IG hours have passed. But even then, I don't know that it would have any really noticeable effect.

I think a lot of the nay-sayers in this thread have made really good points. If someone doesn't want to RP being afraid, they won't. It doesn't matter how many systems you put in place, how many people you tax and punish... If someone simply doesn't want to RP it, no matter what you do, it won't happen. And in the worst case scenario, you'd simply be driving people away.

I don't think the revival system as it is now is a bad one.

[EO]

Yeah... I really don't care much for the ideas brought up in this thread. The only thing that I can see being feasible would be the 'revival sickness'... a penalty to ability scores and such that won't subside until a few IG hours have passed. But even then, I don't know that it would have any really noticeable effect.

Don't we already have Raise sickness? Unless this changed I thought players already had penalties after being raised.

[Syl]

yes but most the time unless they are in a dungen, they can just move to the nearest inn room of tent rest and poof all better.

Now if that could stay active and just fade off on it's own that would be interesting.

[Theorem Of Neutrality]

yes but most the time unless they are in a dungen, they can just move to the nearest inn room of tent rest and poof all better.

They have to wait two in-game hours before resting.

[herkles]

yes but most the time unless they are in a dungen, they can just move to the nearest inn room of tent rest and poof all better.

They have to wait two in-game hours before resting.

or 3 or 4 >_>

[Syl]

yes but most the time unless they are in a dungen, they can just move to the nearest inn room of tent rest and poof all better.

They have to wait two in-game hours before resting.

or 3 or 4 >_>

techincally its 3 hrs under a certain level... but the res sickness only matters and effects people in a dungen since there is no place for them to just rest and are forced to wait the time. .. however if your raised in the mist camp or ML temple or a city... just need ot go to a inn room rest and poof its gone.

[Merry Munchkin]

Rather than making raises more difficult, you might consider the alternative of having semi-permanent after-effects of a raise or ressurection.  The server currently uses a temporary raise sickness, but this is essentially just a minor inconvenience.  What if a person getting raised were affected by a curse?  The basic Bestow Curse spell drops all your stats by 2, and can't be gotten rid of except by a greater restoration or a remove curse spell.

It would seem to make some sense to have some serious negative baggage come along for the ride when you are called back from the realm of the dead -- after all, everything else in this world is tainted by the Dark Powers, so why not a raise?  You could vary the curses to something creative, but not so severe as to render the character unplayable, so there is additional disincentive to a reckless death but not something that is unrecoverable from.  Moreover, if you varied the effects of the curses, you could make them random AND cumulative if you suffer multiple deaths (i.e. if you die, you get curse A, and if you die again before removing curse A, you get curse B to go with it, etc.).  You could probably script a wide variety of supernatural effects, if you are creative enough.

You could even set up places in the module where curses could be lifted, but make them distant and hard to get to -- that would be make for a good excuse for a quest.

Just a thought.

[McNastea]

I don't think that's a good idea.

You'd in effect be giving people the same option as needing to find a high level priest to raise them in the first place, if NPC's couldn't raise, because you'd need a high lvl priest to fix the fact that you'd died.

Guess who suffers from that? Only low lvls. Anyone who is a high enough lvl character doesn't go to the toughest dungeons without a high lvl priest, meaning even if they die-all they have to do is wait x amount of time, rest, and have the priest that raised them fix their stats-and that priest had enough time to change spells and rest in the interim of them waiting to rest off the res sickeness.

It's an intersting idea, but it only punishes low lvl characters effectively and I don't see how that is an effective solution to anything, since death effects low lvls characters the most already

[DM Nocturne]

I'd rather see efforts from players to reduce their perchance for trying to be a badass. Show vulnerability. Be mortal. But that's just me.

[Bluebomber4evr]

Again, making the death system harder isn't going to change this mentality. Making it harder to raise people isn't going to fix this mentality.

This is a problem in tabletop Ravenloft as well, and the only way to solve it is if players are willing to roleplay fear and horror in their characters.

[McNastea]

Ideas like this and similar ones voiced don't create -fear- though, they'll simply make it impossible to continue a dungeon once someone dies. And I'd point out that a true res is not supposed to be associated with any sort of draw backs at all.

Fear isn't caused from mechanical penalties, I can't stress that enough. You're not creating fear in doing this-you can only do that through everyone agreeing ooc to play this in that manner, and you'll never get -everyone- to. Those people that don't rp fear the way you want? There are people like them not doing what lots of people want them to do one -every- server ever. The only person you can control is yourself. Set the example that you think she be set and hope it rubs off. This discussion is about rp, not whether death penalties are heavy enough.

Is it okay to quote yourself?

Again, making the death system harder isn't going to change this mentality. Making it harder to raise people isn't going to fix this mentality.

This is a problem in tabletop Ravenloft as well, and the only way to solve it is if players are willing to roleplay fear and horror in their characters.

Seriously, I understand people being worried over and wanting to figure out a solution to other players not playing in to the setting

That being said, there are servers out there with harsher death penalties-you lose a lvl for every death, you lose all your gold, all your equipped items

GUESS WHAT!
 
I'm referencing PVP servers. There is nothing about harsh death penalties that promote gothic horror. True horror is about so much more than that, rp congruent to that ideal can't be reconciled by mechanical aspects of NwN -or- DnD

see this post please http://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=39694.msg499184#msg499184

Death is hardly the only thing to create fear, so to base a system around making character death more annoying, because that's all it does in the end, doesn't create horror-it creates an annoying ooc mechanic for players to try to overcome

THE ONLY WAY to breed horror through rp is for each and every player who gives  shit about that to rp it themselves, to do it even when every other person surrounding them isn't, and do it until they create the atmosphere that they actual want to exist in this mod. Be the change you want to see in the world damn it. Stop telling other people what to do and just do it.

[--GlamRock--]

I am with DMs and Devs here. They know what they're doing, and I completely agree with Nocturne statement on trying not to be a badass in any circumstances. Honest, death can happen in several ways, and I'm also sure if it happens during a DM event some collateral effect will normally applied (some fear/horror/curse check etc). The aftermath of an IG death is always rather annoying, of course it'd be better (but not compulsory) if the just raised character didn't just go back fully alive to fight what had killed them (example, running from ML temple to the Lady's, renting a room, getting rid of post-death shock, and go back to the dungeon). When facing something "new" or "odd" or when the odds seem completely in disfavour of yourself, sometimes escaping is not shameful.

I really did not want to reply again to this topic, but the issue here is not in the game mechanics, it's in how we all are used to playing.

[Baium]

I have to agree with the ones against changing this.

The problem with this is that people think they're invincible, but what they don't seem to realize, and my flatmate who played Turelis found this out... a DM event at night can easily happen, he was killed and eaten by a wereboar right outside the temple.

The problem doesn't need to be changed in the game mechanics, it needs to be changed in how you roleplay. Most of us are thinking "It's just a game, I don't really care if I get knocked out", that's YOU causing the wrong effect on your Characters Profile... My character Krellian is afraid to death of the dark, after he saw werewolves one night. He now hides the moment he realizes it gets dark unless he's in the presence of those he knows can handle the werewolves with ease. Even then he tries to hide in the shadows, and close to his surrounding companions.

Bottom line, It's not mechanics that need to change, it's how you roleplay your character.

[DrXavierTColtrane]

I agree with Baium. My character tries to avoid death so much that he sometimes seems like a coward in comparison to others.  I'm pretty discontented with anything less than a full health bar for him, and I tend to avoid any activity that has led to his death before.

For example, when he was starting out, three wolves attacked and killed him in daylight in the Southern woods. From then on, he always used stealth mode when going through the woods and retreated / fled whenever he came near wolves. The other day, he encountered a pack again and felt more confident because of being with a group. He killed three himself while taking very little damage. But I still haven't reached the mental state where when I see wolves lurking I think "No problem."