Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Jan 10, 2006 16:32:10	ok, things were going good. i was dm'ing a party of 2nd level characters. two of them were rationalists from high CuL worlds who didn't even believe in the supernatural or most magical phenomenon. great roleplaying all around, etc. etc. then... disaster. a series of critical save failures in the outpost of some falkovnian arms smugglers landed the entire party at the bottom of a dark pit (used as a body disposal site or trash dump) with an assasin bug below. they all died. i don't necessarily think this is my fault as a dm. the encounter wasn't illogical or overwhelming, and they didn't have to investigate the pit (they were warned not to by a prisoner), and they really were just really unlucky. they only faced one major encouter that day before the pit, so i also don't think it was my fault that they may have been too worn out. but they're all ghosts now. and right before i was going to put an adventure in front of them that was all about body-switching and being trapped on the ethereal plane, too. a plan: the party was based in southern borca and invidia. as mostly lawful and good individuals, i was setting the campaign up to face them off against the growing influence of malocchio aderre's anti-vistani campaign. i wanted to have a mid-level adventure that would involve tricking and trapping mallochio in his own domain, preventing him from rupturing the core with his nasty excursions and exceptionalism. so, in an alternate timeline in my game wherein the party dies, it seems to reason that mallochio would be free to wander around and kill gypsies 3 years later... strahd the XI has seemingly been assassinated without a clear heir to his throne. in reality, the vampire believes he has located tatanya's reincarnation, and is scheming full-time to trap her, paying less attention to ruling his barovia (the idea is that somehow being disguised as a peasant or free merchant, or even sergei's incarnation, may make it easier to win over tatanya). i'm using something from a kargatane web book where duke gundarak is still alive as a non-darklord, and he's roaming around creating chaos and what not. mallochio aderre, perceiving no political force behind the barovian throne, is no longer scared to just overrun villages across the border looking for vistani and generally being unpleasant. this threatens the only semi-stationary vistani group, the encampment at tser falls. the zarovan. the ones who can travel through time. madam eva learned of a conditional prophecy describing the old player characters (at least, the ones who want a second shot at that game), and the vistani learn that they're dead. they send new player characters from barovia -- around either immol or village of barovia -- back in time to stop the old players from dying, or to resurrect them. how does that sound? does anyone have any tips i could use to make this more logically consistant, fun, and not-too-terribly-cheesy?
#2 gonzoron Jan 11, 2006 12:07:09	Don't have much to add at the moment, but I just wanted to say I really like this idea. I will add it to my list of "how to ressurect characters without ressurecting them"