I’m working towards a new DW arc building on our previous one, and I’m looking at the rules changes I plan to make.
First up: resurrection
DW treats resurrection of major characters as the norm, much like D&D does – it’s a 3rd level spell, and failing that the GM is briefed to support it anyway (given some time and effort).
I hate that. I hate resurrection generally – it robs death of its emotional sting, it would totally change the generational dynamic of a society, and it doesn’t fit with any metaphysics I can think of that’s doesn’t make every game a horror game.
(I mean, seriously – if souls can be recalled and put back into bodies, where are they? What are they doing? Hanging around somewhere until the end of time, with the possibility you could be recalled to the mortal world at any point? Sounds like hell to me…)
My instinct is to drop the spell, and replace the instructions to the GM with “The (quiet) dead are gone. They cannot be recalled.”
So, any thoughts? Anyone think this is particularly bad idea for DW?
It will totally work out like that.
I never play resurrection in DW for exactly those reasons. In Pathfinder I am getting tempted because I am spending my whole life in level 1-4 characters…
What the players say about this?
You could use the death moves from Grim World and make it a player choice. Either they trigger their death move or they trigger the meet Death at the Black Gates move.
Unless you mean that they are resurrecting major NPCs. In that event, the fiction trumps. If they made the choice to stay and plunder more of the dungeon while the orc horde razed the village then they certainly shouldn’t be able to just resurrect the mayor. Unless there is a major story arc that can come out of it. Maybe resurrection requires some rare component (phoenix feather) or requires that another take the place of the deceased; trading one life for another.
Tim Franzke what do you mean?
Alessandro Gianni I’ll run it past them before making it final.
Matthew Aaron I’ll have a look at the Grim World moves, thanks.
WRT to resurrecting NPCs – what do you mean by “the fiction trumps”? Do you mean “the fiction” in terms of “what’s best for the story” (that’s not the usual meaning of “the fiction” in *World games).
WRT “the fiction” in the accepted *World sense, my plan here is to establish a baseline metaphysics that makes resurrection-as-such impossible. So it will never follow from the fiction that resurrection should be possible in any case (the best you’ll be able to do is bind a ghost/unquiet spirit/demon into a body, which may or may not have once belonged to it).
Rob Alexander That’s exactly what I had meant with respect to fiction. If resurrection is impossible, then resurrection is impossible. If resurrection requires a quest/sacrifice, then it has that requirement. If resurrection is possible for anyone not slain by jade, then that’s true as well.
You simply want to make sure the players are aware as to what is true.
Of course, heroes do the impossible. Not everyone walks into the underworld and comes back out, but Orpheus did.