An approach to resurrection (not the power, not a rules issue)

[zornwil]

First, let me say, this is not like my other recent threads, this is not a theoretical issue or a rules exploration. This is just my approach to how we might resurrect characters in my own game. I just thought others might find it useful - and it even takes advantage of a construct out of Transformation.

As background, we have a dimensional mage/scientist (essentially a "metascientist" if you will). He's one of the two massive INT characters I've mentioned, and his specialties include biochemistry and medicine and the like - he's an expert on the human body and mutation.

In theory, in terms of SFX and the abilities the characters has, there's really no reason he shouldn't be able to "brain tape" beings and install those brain backups into bodies. We've talked about this, but both the player and I have been keenly aware as to the serious game balance issues doing so creates. So we've really just skirted the whole issue in the game, for the most part, doing a few little related things that add flavor or were in and of themselves reasonable, but not quite tackling the real interesting possibility here.

We had another discussion today via e-mail regarding a situation revolving around an NPC his character had killed back when his character was a much darker figure with barely-controlled rage. This NPC had killed his mother, btw, so it wasn't a casual killing, but it certainly wasn't in the least heroic - the NPC was a normal and the disturbed vigilante rended him limb from limb, devouring him in part in the process. Essentially, the PC is now facing justice for this crime (by confession, willingly, turning over a new leaf after a very dramatic series of events), and wants to atone.

So the PC has all sorts of tools to "fix" this but it all begs huge game and campaign issues. Then I figured out a method that we think will work...from an e-mail to the player (it's Lamrok, btw)...

While I have no use for making Transform hostage to a Body, Mind, Soul artifice, that artifice does have some value in terms of "thinking space" for the game. What if resurrection required gathering all three elements? The "soul' (we'll call it life energy, a special signature that by all means Eliot would start to understand by now) may go anywhere, but the important thing is that the soul is the unique "thing" which seems to be an important energy form inhabiting beings. Life energy, however, appears to be itself transdimensional in nature and obeys rather different metaphysical laws. It seems that life energies, upon release from the mortal coil, are influenced in destination by the mind prior to death, but not always in a straightforward way - heaven, hell, Dreamlands, Asgard, Faerie, and so on are all potential destinations.

The mind can be brain-taped. The body can be cloned. But the life energy must be "found". In newly dead bodies, it often hasn't moved on yet, so long as Eliot gets to them fast enough.

And while this has enormous gaming implications, those are more contained and ones I'm willing to deal with and I think can be maintained. But I'll admit this is kind of a sudden idea, it occurred to me when thinking what would make resurrection "balanced", interesting, and a maintainable SFX that doesn't become the old 'why don't they just do that all the time' thing, as with the ST:TNG teleporter cure (i.e., in that series, if you didn't see this, they had an episode where the teleporter could be made to splice genes and de-age people and cure any disease; shortly after the writers/producers had to forbid that notion and realized what a pandora's box they opened with their rabid fan base).

I think this is an interesting approach and we've agreed to try it out. It "feels right". I am NOT at all suggesting a rule here, I'm simply saying how I intend to address this thorny issue in my campaign and offering it up to anyone so interested. Of course any commentary/input is also welcome.

[Spectrum]

An intresting approach indeed. For some reason I'm reminded of the anime Fullmetal Alchemist when the two brothers try to resurrect thier dead mother and everything goes wrong.

A couple of questions though. The character obviously has the tech and know-how to essentally copy the mind and the body (I've seen enought sci-fi to get a good idea has to how that can be handled) but how does he intend to contain the "life energy" and have you set some kind of time limit as to how long he has till it moves on? I'm just curious.

[OddHat]

Well, it is an OK melding of the "find the soul and heal the body" idea (Buffy, Lex, many many books) and Hero mechanics. If that's the way that you want your campaign metaphysics to run, go for it.

Myself, in my default campaign I say that biologcaly rooted self-awareness spawns an Astral Body, which can survive after death, and which can go on to an afterlife or pour itself into the body of a pre-self-aware infant, merging with his developing astral self and thus re-incarnating. If you were to brain-tape someone and then feed that tape into a clone body, the new creature would have an Astral Self, but it would be a new and unique Self created by the now conscious mind. You could suck the original's Astral Self into the clone, but that would mean merging the new and old "selves".

I once did a Star-Trek Horror Game, based on the idea that each use of the teleporter released the soul of the user; the duplicate created on the other end would eventually form a new soul. Meanwhile, all space stations and other locations where teleporters were heavilly used ended up hotbeds of poltergeist and other supernatural activity, while those who regularly used teleporters risked "Transport Psychosis" due to the problem of a new soul in an adult body.
Fun mini-campaign.

[David Blue]

As background, we have a dimensional mage/scientist (essentially a "metascientist" if you will). He's one of the two massive INT characters I've mentioned, and his specialties include biochemistry and medicine and the like - he's an expert on the human body and mutation.

I'm interested by this phrase "the human body and mutation," because human bodies are not identical to mutant bodies, particularly in comics.

How well does the dimensional mage/scientist understand mutant bodies, such as functioning brains made of solid steel, concrete or tap-water?

Can he create them, given resources?

Can he brain-tape from them?

Can he brain-tape to them?

Can he brain-tape from one to another, say from flesh that seems human but regenerates like Wolverine's to normal human flesh, and vice versa?

This could become quite a useful branch of the applied sciences.

Well worth experimentation. Worth any price actually. It's your immortality, and that's just for starters.

Here's a very relevant recent ruling by Steve Long.

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30255

Wanderer: "5ER tells that a completely (below -10 STUN) KOed character can be atumatically killed with a Full Phase Killing Attack (or powerful normal ones) that succeds. While this is reasonable for normal humans, in superheroic campaigns there are many (if not most) characters that have persistent resistant defenses. So common sense tells there must exist some kind of threshold for a Killing Attack to be successful (all-day shooting a .45 at an unconscious Superman won't have any effect). What gives ?"

Steve Long: "The rule is as stated. It doesn't vary by campaign type, though the GM's free to alter it if he thinks that would best reflect the type of setting and characters he wants."

In this case I think the rule as stated is beautifully appropriate for the genre you are entering. As I remember, Herbert West, reanimator, finished most of his experiments with a revolver.

[David Blue]

The character obviously has the tech and know-how to essentally copy the mind and the body (I've seen enought sci-fi to get a good idea has to how that can be handled) but how does he intend to contain the "life energy" and have you set some kind of time limit as to how long he has till it moves on? I'm just curious.

Time limit?

I don't see the problem. You already have the perfect "container" - a live body.

I see an ultra-secure room, with a row of identical bodies, strapped down and rendered helpless with infinite thoroughness. Those to your left are - um - used? And finished with a revolver shot to the temple. Those to your right are yet to be used, still intact and breathing. Behind you, just a little out of your sight, a clock ticks.

Time limit?

[Hyper-Man]

Well, it is an OK melding of the "find the soul and heal the body" idea (Buffy, Lex, many many books) and Hero mechanics. If that's the way that you want your campaign metaphysics to run, go for it.

Myself, in my default campaign I say that biologcaly rooted self-awareness spawns an Astral Body, which can survive after death, and which can go on to an afterlife or pour itself into the body of a pre-self-aware infant, merging with his developing astral self and thus re-incarnating. If you were to brain-tape someone and then feed that tape into a clone body, the new creature would have an Astral Self, but it would be a new and unique Self created by the now conscious mind. You could suck the original's Astral Self into the clone, but that would mean merging the new and old "selves".
..snip..

This sounds a lot like what Orson Scott Card did in the Ender Game followup books Xenocide and Children of the Mind.

[Lamrok]

As I remember, Herbert West, reanimator, finished most of his experiments with a revolver.

Herbert West was one of the inspirations for the original "scientist" part of the character. He started out as a medical researcher with a special interest in mutant physiology. Since then, he's mastered a sort of dimensional physics (gleaned largely from the Necronomicon). He also has a good understanding of several schools of "conventional" magic, and computer sciences. I think most of his intelligence-based skills are around 47- (due to an "intelligence war" with another character). There's no question as to whether or not he has the skills to cover the mechanical aspects of this procedure. He also has a couple of dead-on skills to cover the "spiritual aspect." The main issues here, as Zornwil alluded, are game balance and fun.

[zornwil]

An intresting approach indeed. For some reason I'm reminded of the anime Fullmetal Alchemist when the two brothers try to resurrect thier dead mother and everything goes wrong.

A couple of questions though. The character obviously has the tech and know-how to essentally copy the mind and the body (I've seen enought sci-fi to get a good idea has to how that can be handled) but how does he intend to contain the "life energy" and have you set some kind of time limit as to how long he has till it moves on? I'm just curious.

For immediate resuscitation, which is really more of a semi-standard heroic thing, I have no special requirement, just truly immediate treatment and skill checks as appropriate. The nearby energy simply returns to its accustomed form as it senses that it is suddenly available and "not really" dead.

My feeling is after the life energy moves on, the containment of it will depend a lot on what new form it has taken! In many planes - such as what people believe to be heaven and hell - the actual forms in those planes are physical and can be bound and taken back more or less normally. For other planes, where the being has bound to a new physical form in the same manner it did on this one, it's essentially a very interesting conundrum as essentially the life energy has to be "removed", which could be done in a number of ways, I think, from simply killing the being and trapping the energy (I will address this as well in a bit) immediately to some sort of Drain to a surgical approach in a lab, extracting the energy in a specialized environment. To a large degree it will be very SFX-based (i.e., a bit of GM work), and depend on the form it is.

As to capturing the pure energy, we do have to hash it out a bit, but essentially appropriate Affects Desol powers could affect and arrest it. This character has some Variable Advantage that could be applied to this with some spells he has in a Multipower. We do need to work out a bit more, and that's why my answers are still a bit fudgey. But I will say I don't want to try to anticipate too much, because I do think that this will be a good area to play with the SFX and be willing to experiment.

As to the time limit, yes and no - I addressed the immediacy issue above, but once the energy goes to its destination, I typically think it will stay there fairly often, given the common human preconceptions on death as a final resting state. But if the plane is, say, Lovecraft's Dreamlands, the energy may be manifest in a new form and simply be wandering about who-knows-where. But other options are possible. To answer part of OddHat's post, reincarnation is definitely an option, so for those energies they would enter some sort of plane/dimension that holds and shuttles or allows them to shuttle to a new body somewhere. I think the places and times will depend on each life energy and how it was influenced by its human existence.

[lemming]

Well with containing the "life force" or spirit, I think Spectrum has an ideal skill set. Just need to figure out how to control it a bit better. She's already brought three formally dead people to life without even the benefit of bodies.

[zornwil]

I'm interested by this phrase "the human body and mutation," because human bodies are not identical to mutant bodies, particularly in comics.

How well does the dimensional mage/scientist understand mutant bodies, such as functioning brains made of solid steel, concrete or tap-water?

Can he create them, given resources?

Can he brain-tape from them?

Can he brain-tape to them?

Can he brain-tape from one to another, say from flesh that seems human but regenerates like Wolverine's to normal human flesh, and vice versa?

I think Lamrok, the player, answered your questions in his post, but just to be clear in case, essentially, a more-or-less yes to all your answers - he has a freaking 47- INT roll and the appropriate skills and background from his medical and mutant studies. Before everyone gasps, as I stated, we've mainly just skirted the edges of these capabilities, though we had a fascinating and amusing storyline where one NPC's brain was transplanted with a dog's along the above lines to get the NPC (well, his brain anyway!) out of serving a prison sentence. Mainly we want to balance the fun part of this with the "realism" of this (as welll as another PC's) uber-INT. So we've been extremely reserved with these processes, although the whole notion of people of such massive keen-mindedness that it makes humans seem like bacteria begs for more exploration in these sorts of abilities.

For me this INT war has been a really good study. It's raised issues like this about hyper-INT and ethics and ramifications that are rather fascinating, because, while fantastic, it still echoes capabilities probably not too terribly far in humans' future. It's also been a really good challenge as to applying extreme abilities/skills.

Anyway, while technically the character (Nexus, Master of Dimensions) can do what you listed above, he's much more careful and cautious than he was in his earlier days of experimenting, when his dark side had the better of him. With the experiences he went through he's become a very "do-gooder" sort now and so much of the restraint against these capabilities makes sense from that perspective. But we are developing slowly approaches to incorporate these into the game in a sensible and "balanced" way as situations arise.

This could become quite a useful branch of the applied sciences.

Well worth experimentation. Worth any price actually. It's your immortality, and that's just for starters.

Here's a very relevant recent ruling by Steve Long.

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30255

Wanderer: "5ER tells that a completely (below -10 STUN) KOed character can be atumatically killed with a Full Phase Killing Attack (or powerful normal ones) that succeds. While this is reasonable for normal humans, in superheroic campaigns there are many (if not most) characters that have persistent resistant defenses. So common sense tells there must exist some kind of threshold for a Killing Attack to be successful (all-day shooting a .45 at an unconscious Superman won't have any effect). What gives ?"

Steve Long: "The rule is as stated. It doesn't vary by campaign type, though the GM's free to alter it if he thinks that would best reflect the type of setting and characters he wants."

In this case I think the rule as stated is beautifully appropriate for the genre you are entering. As I remember, Herbert West, reanimator, finished most of his experiments with a revolver.

Thanks much for the reference, appreciated!

[zornwil]

Well with containing the "life force" or spirit, I think Spectrum has an ideal skill set. Just need to figure out how to control it a bit better. She's already brought three formally dead people to life without even the benefit of bodies.

Heh, that's true on all counts!

(For the unaware, lemming's character, Spectrum, a mentalist who began studying magic with Giles and Willow, was possessed after buying a haunted house - and possessed by three women who had lived in the house and were each murderers, all influenced by a more malevolent spirit in the house during their time. Spectrum and Willow "fixed" the possession, but in true Buffy style, the three women's spirits didn't actually just leave, they manifested back in live human bodies!)

[WhammeWhamme]

Here's a very relevant recent ruling by Steve Long.

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30255

Wanderer: "5ER tells that a completely (below -10 STUN) KOed character can be atumatically killed with a Full Phase Killing Attack (or powerful normal ones) that succeds. While this is reasonable for normal humans, in superheroic campaigns there are many (if not most) characters that have persistent resistant defenses. So common sense tells there must exist some kind of threshold for a Killing Attack to be successful (all-day shooting a .45 at an unconscious Superman won't have any effect). What gives ?"

Steve Long: "The rule is as stated. It doesn't vary by campaign type, though the GM's free to alter it if he thinks that would best reflect the type of setting and characters he wants."

In this case I think the rule as stated is beautifully appropriate for the genre you are entering. As I remember, Herbert West, reanimator, finished most of his experiments with a revolver.

Okay, that does it. I'm abandoning any thoughts of using Hero 5th where I have any other choice. At least 4th Edition is fixed in it's flaws.

[OddHat]

This sounds a lot like what Orson Scott Card did in the Ender Game followup books Xenocide and Children of the Mind.

Never read Card. I got it from Spiritualist/New Age theology. One challenge of Spiritualism has always been reconciling what we know about the body and brain with what we wish to believe about the Soul. I don't believe the answers they come up with, but they make for great gaming material.

[zornwil]

Okay, that does it. I'm abandoning any thoughts of using Hero 5th where I have any other choice. At least 4th Edition is fixed in it's flaws.

Still, I think even if you want to retain a 4th edition game, 5ER is well worthwhile as an inspiration source for execution of the rules.

[zornwil]

Never read Card. I got it from Spiritualist/New Age theology. One challenge of Spiritualism has always been reconciling what we know about the body and brain with what we wish to believe about the Soul. I don't believe the answers they come up with, but they make for great gaming material.

By the way, I do like your take on it. Personally, for my campaign, in the scenario of a revived body and brain I'm going to say that it's essentially in-between a zombie and someone with a lobotomy. As to a trade/switch, I'm porting the life energy with the brain, just for ease of execution, though now, given this new paradigm, I'm going to have some open room for issues with escaping life energies and such. Opens up a nice window in my game, and skirts religious issues in an acceptable way, I think, for our group.