299vas - Resurrection & Longevity In Rpgs

Armpit-Farts #3

being the muddled & mischievous musings of a maladjusted mind Jim Vassilakos ([email protected]), San Bernardino, California http://members.aol.com/jimvassila

Live Long & Prosper: Resurrection & Longevity in RPGs Like many gamemasters, I've seen how resurrection magic can be abused to create rather bizarre situations. This is particularly true when you monkey with the rules as much as I do, and, more to the point, when you allow your players to do the same. One recent AD&D campaign witnessed a particular player character visiting a local slave city in order to purchase (or in some cases capture) live bodies into which he could place the souls of his recently departed companions. Giving a player that sort of power (never mind that he's a 20th level Necromancer), places him in the position of being able to recruit some very loyal henchmen. "If you have any questions about how dearly I value my employees, why don't you go talk to Lyngar. I brought him back to life just last week... and that was after visiting the demon realms to find his soul." Yes, I made things more difficult and dangerous than the simple casting of some heinous spells, but all fun aside, what would be the social ramifications of this sort of magic? The most obvious one, I think, is immortality for those who can afford it. And this is a big deal. It means that rather than succumb to old age, King Phoobar can have the college of royal wizards transfer his soul into the body of that dashing young bandit, Robin whatshisname, who's about to be sentenced to death. Sure, you can make an adventure of the merry men coming to save Robin, but the end result is that if you want to kill the King, you'd better kidnap him, take him somewhere remote, incinerate him w/ something hot and deadly, and then scatter his ashes to the four winds. Takes all the fun out of poison if you ask me. So what are we to do about this sordid state of affairs? Using the rpg magazine index program that I've been writing, I ran a quick search and found three articles which are useful to varying degrees:

Dragon #263 (1999) Rather than review these articles, however, or quote from them at length (which I've been told would be a bad thing), I'll instead put forward some generic rules on limiting the reliability of raise dead, reincarnation, resurrection, and similar soul-manipulatory magics. Before I delve right into the muck, however, I need to illustrate the concept of the luck roll. In my game, a great many results are decided by the roll of a d6 (or luck die). Whenever the players have a question about some aspect of the scenario which I did not previously devise, or say on a spell effect as to which I'd rather not make a snap-ruling, I'll say, "Take a luck roll," keeping in my mind some number which they have to meet or beat in order to arrive to a favorable circumstance. On the pro-side of things, it helps circumvent a lot of potential arguments and keeps the players from feeling like I'm nursing a grudge. This, in turn, keeps the game moving quickly. On the con-side, the luck roll can be overused and should often be rolled in secret by the gamemaster for determining the answers to questions before they get raised. In any case, here's the new rules I promised: New Rule #1: Law of Skulls. Generally speaking, if you want to cast a resurrection magic, you need the skull of your dearly departed. Otherwise, your odds of summoning the right spirit are next to zero. The only time this can be avoided, again speaking generally, is when you already have the soul inside a soul-gem (in which case, forget about question #1 below).

• Dead or Alive? (Michael Satran), Dragon #210 (1994)

New Rule #2: Law of Chaos (a.k.a. Murphy's Law). Even if the spell is cast correctly and is successful (i.e. spell failure has been avoided), there is still a degree of chance involved due to the inherent complexity of calling a soul from the realms of the dead and joining it to a living host. A number of misadventures could potentially occur purely by chance. Consult the following questions:

• New Life for Resurrections (Rod Meek),

Question #1: Do we have the right soul?

• Ashes to Ashes (Graeme Drysdale), White Dwarf #78 (1986)

Luck roll: 1: Nope, you've got yourself a demon. He's a cunning SOB and will likely fake amnesia unless he's already done a thorough interrogation (via ESP) of the dead soul in question. 2: Nope, you've got yourself the wrong guy. He's no demon, but he's not your friend either. Last thing he remembers, he was getting bonked on the head by some orc. Go figure... 3-5: No problem. You've got your man. And boy is he happy to be home... except for one thing. He wants his experience points and his share of the loot! Now, damnit! 6: Not only do you have your guy, but he's brought a friend! There's now a second consciousness inside his brain which is able to feed him all sorts of information as well as the ability to use skills he didn't even know he had. Possible downside: the other consciousness can take control of the body while the initial one is sleeping. Can you say split-personality? Question #2: What is the state of her memory? Luck roll: 1: Amnesia. Will need some powerful magic to restore the bits in her brain. Until then, she's back at zero-level without a clue in the world. 2: Temporary amnesia. At first she doesn't remember much, but over d20 days, everything will come back, albeit slowly: "Hey, wait-a-minute... if we're really married, where's my ring?!" 3-5: No problem. She remembers who you are. That's why she's crying: "Wah... not you guys again... I thought I'd finally gotten away from you idiots!" 6: Not only does she remember who she is, but she has some memories from the other side, memories of conversations with the dead or with powers beyond those of the mortal realms: "And then I saw Zeus, and he said 'frag off ya lousy sod!'" Question #3: What is the state of his connection between body and soul? Luck roll: 1: Not so good, unless you like having a vampire in the party. 2: Everything seems to be fine, until he starts seeing ghosts, the souls of past enemies who like to come along every now

and then and beat the living tar out of him (see the movie Flatliners for an idea of how this could work). 3-5: No problem. He's alive and well. A bit groggy, of course, but that's to be expected, having been dearly departed and all that good stuff. 6: All appears well, except during the night when he sleeps. Then his soul has a tendency to go wandering out from his body, and when he wakes in the morning, he often finds that his dreams are more real than imagined: "Was yakkin' with Zeus again last night. He says we're screwed..." These rules may not prevent kings & queens from being resurrected, but they'll sure make it that much more difficult. In any event, if you plan on including resurrection in your campaign (along with elixirs of youth and so-forth), then you've really got to plan to have some long-lived rulers... leaders who have been in power since before the party leader's great-grandpappy was born. These leaders will likely be some tough mothers, at the very top of their respective classes. As for politics, instead of court intrigue revolving around the passing of the crown, it will revolve around the passing of favor, with all the resultant brown-nosing and status-building one might expect. Most likely, kings will be watchful of their subordinates, and many will likely seek to dispose of those who become too powerful, either personally or politically. In part, that's because their enemies can't just wait for them to die. On the flipside, if their enemies have access to the same magics, then the showdown will come eventually. Best to force it before their enemies grow too powerful. The particularly far-sighted ruler may decide to take care of a potential threat before his enemy even becomes his enemy: "I'm genuinely sorry to have to kill you. You were a good friend... are a good friend. But you must understand... in time you would have become weary of serving another. It is natural... it has happened before... and it is the reason you now must die." So, shifting gears, what about the sciencefiction front? Although resurrection is usually right out, longevity is most definitely not. Traveller is well known for making good use of anagathics (non-age drugs). • Anagathics, the Drug of the Ages (Joe D. Fugate Sr.), Travellers' Digest #10 (1987) In fact, such anti-aging treatments may not be so far from the realm of possibility. In recent years, some researches have proposed that telomeres (caps on the ends of DNA) are the mechanism by which aging occurs. If the cell splits enough times, the telomere grows shorter and

shorter until it finally disappears entirely, leaving the DNA exposed to a series of copy errors which render new cells increasingly useless. The solution, of course, is to find a drug which keeps the telomere from dwindling down to nothing. Suffice it to say that some promising experiments have been conducted, but there's still a great deal more work to be done (for more information on Telomeres, please visit the Telomere Club webpage at http://petunia.colorado.edu/ ~nakamut/telomere). We can only speculate as to the social effects of such medical advances. Much of these would likely depend on economics and population. Like most technologies, I'd imagine that immortality treatments would start out as being extremely expensive but become cheap over a relatively brief time due to the economic quantities of scale which are involved. Hence, during the first few years, there would be a great deal of anger and envy directed toward the most wealthy in the society. Those in public life would likely be reluctant to talk about their newfound immortality. However, within a few years or, at most, decades, the prices would likely come down such that nearly everyone would be able to acquire immortality, though those on the lowest levels would probably have to make its acquisition and maintenance their top consumer priority. As to the long-term effects of all this, I could foresee there being two social forces moving in opposite directions. On the one hand, life would become even cheaper than it is currently due to the increased pressures of overpopulation. We'd likely see some changes in the justice system with the disappearance of life terms and their replacement by capital punishment. Likewise, we should see the disappearance of working-class retirement as well as an increased hesitancy on the part of society to shoulder the burdens of welfare and burgeoning lower-class families. As for the gap between the haves and the have-nots, increasing population pressures would tend to push the two groups apart, and at the same time, the disappearance of estate (inheritance) tax revenue and the associated transfer payments to social programs would hit government budgets (and society) like a sledgehammer, separating the two groups still further. Assuming society can cope and survive,

we'd likely see two groups arise from the muck: the first being the leisure class, living in a state of perpetual retirement off its capital and land investments; the second being the working class, struggling to maintain the blissful existence of the former group while still maintaining a living wage for themselves. Ultimately, without some form of population control, the system would eventually disintegrate into something unseemly and quite unpleasant. On the other hand, even while all this is occurring, a second force would come into play, making life all the more precious because of the promise of immortality. I am reminded of the movie Cocoon in which the head alien (in human form, played by Brian Dennehy) breaks into tears when one of his comrades dies, one he had come to Earth in order to rescue. The human character (played by Steve Guttenberg) bows his head in respect and says that he's sorry for their loss, but the alien, frustrated by the gesture, explains to the human that he couldn't possibly understand the magnitude of the loss. His alien pal had been alive for a very long time. They'd apparently known each other for eons. To him, the death of a human (and, by association, the depth of human sorrow) is nothing in comparison. Why? Because watching a human die is like watching somebody spill beer from a leaky mug. Given a brief time, the mug will be empty regardless of whether or not the beer gets spilt. For the alien, however, the mug doesn’t leak. Hence, spilling it is a genuine tragedy… not merely the premature occurrence of an inescapable eventuality.

I imagine that if the society were to stabilize, somehow alleviating the pressures of overpopulation in a permanent and socially acceptable manner, that the negative effects would withdraw and only the positive ones would remain. It would be a utopia, a heaven on earth for all intents and purposes. Is it attainable? In the real world? Technologically/scientifically the answer is probably yes... in actuality, knowingly human nature and the state of our leadership... well, that's another question entirely. I don't know if you believe in old Chinese curses, but my gut tells me that we're in for some interesting times.