The Yo-Yo Afterlife

[Dust Raven]

I was just thinking about the phemenon of how major characters (and even some minor ones) in comics (and soap operas) tend to die, then come back to life somehow. Either they really weren't dead, someone else everyone thought was them died instead, it was really their twin or the parallel version of them, or perhaps they were honest to goodness ressurected. It doesn't matter, everyone thought they had died and now they are obviously living.

 

So I was wondering how everyone here deals with this (if at all) in their own games.

[Kirby]

Re: The Yo-Yo Afterlife

 

So I was wondering how everyone here deals with this (if at all) in their own games.

With the exceptions of 'purposely vague' up front, I don't do this; I find it extreemely cheezey.

 

I was in a game where the final conflict was coming up with a villain who had plagued our game for about three (real life) years. The GM let us know ahead of time that he had no further plans for the character and regardless of what happened (villain killed or captured) he wasn't going to bring the character back. Ever. We had our big, climactic fight (where my character shot the villain in the head, but he survived it ) and eventually knocked the guy out and put him away in prison. About three months later, the character was back. While his offensive capabilities were toned down, his defenses had gone up a bit. I was not amused. My character (channelling me) kept making comments that unless we killed him, he'd keep coming back and back and back and killing over and over and over, because it was obvious the prison wasn't going to hold him. My character (again channelling me) would always say to the team leader (who advocated torture to get information, but had a CvK) with a huge touch of irony things like "well, good thing we didn't kill him, otherwise that family'd still be alive today," and "how many days do you think before he escapes and kills the orderlies that replaced the ones he killed last time?" It did start up a bit of tension.

[teh bunneh]

Re: The Yo-Yo Afterlife

 

In my current Champs game, dead is dead.

 

Except when it isn't. Scorpia was killed by an UNTIL squad about five years ago, her body taken into custody, a complete autopsy performed, and the corpse was cremated. Then the team spotted her (or someone who looked like her) while on a mission. Everyone chalked it up to a battlefield hallucination, or even a woman in a similar costume, but it wasn't long before they learned that Scorpia was, indeed, back. It really freaked out my players.

 

But I really do hate the "Jean Grey comes back to life before grass has a chance to grow on her grave" syndrome so common in comics today. It takes a lot of the mystery and fear out of death.

 

Bill.

[Dust Raven]

Re: The Yo-Yo Afterlife

 

But I really do hate the "Jean Grey comes back to life before grass has a chance to grow on her grave" syndrome so common in comics today. It takes a lot of the mystery and fear out of death.

 

Heh... I loved that lil' bit o' animation.

 

Anyways...

 

I hadn't thought it came up at all in my games, where hardly anyone gets killed (at least, anyone who has a name). I was just mentioning this to one of my players when she then asked "well, what about Kora Blue?" I said she didn't really die... just almost died, and it all happened in the same session... you were at the hospital and everything. No one even implied she died. "Well, there was Blaze..." Blaze was different, the player wanted to play something else and said it was okay if I killed her... not my fault if she wanted to change back after a few years. "And did Whisper just die... he's a ninja right?" Now that was prearranged and part of the character's write up!

 

So... I'm now wondering if my games are becoming that riddled with cliches, or just more like the source material.

[Kirby]

Re: The Yo-Yo Afterlife

 

So... I'm now wondering if my games are becoming that riddled with cliches' date=' or just more like the source material.[/quote']

It seems like they are at least being perceived as such. I would try for at least a year to make sure no one had an "apparent death" scenario related with them. Do you have any heroes or villains in your campaign that you just don't care for? Perhaps you could have them killed off since you wouldn't be wanting to use them any way? Just at thought. YMMV.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: The Yo-Yo Afterlife

 

in the low fantasy game i play in, we assume dead is dead. finito end of game. In fact if enough of us die (like one or two) we'll have to discuss where we want to go, becase the game is heavily player motivated, and if enough of the party dies, it will be hard to figure out where to go.

[Kirby]

Re: The Yo-Yo Afterlife

 

In fact if enough of us die (like one or two)....

[ZootSoot]

Re: The Yo-Yo Afterlife

 

In my superhero games the less maniacal master villains often have one (or more) back-up plans involving faking their deaths. If the PCs do not figure it out then, yes, such a character can return from the "dead."

In one campaign several characters were involved in the murder of a mystical villain who became more powerful than ever as spirit in limbo. We discovered this was an effect of her nature combined with death and my character who had a mystical background, whose origin involved tying the soul of her predecessor to her own upon his/her death (and thus meaning that over the last 12 centuries many souls had been linked together in this way), who had not been involved in the murder, killed herself in order to defeat the villain and was saved; but this was the result of many precautions we had taken in advance and was not a certainty.

I would never allow a Green Arrow type resurrection. If a character really dies (that doesn't mean we necessarily see the corpse {and seeing the corpse is no guarantee if this was planned in advance} but rather that the character had no way out of a situation that should have killed her/him) the character is dead.

[Kirby]

Re: The Yo-Yo Afterlife

 

As an aside, with the title of "Yo-Yo" afterlife, yesterday I was thinking that there was some Asian character with this name who had died and come back that comic or anime fans would be aware of.

 

Today when I logged on, I realized the "yo-yo" was in reference to the toy.

[Dust Raven]

Re: The Yo-Yo Afterlife

 

It seems like they are at least being perceived as such. I would try for at least a year to make sure no one had an "apparent death" scenario related with them. Do you have any heroes or villains in your campaign that you just don't care for? Perhaps you could have them killed off since you wouldn't be wanting to use them any way? Just at thought. YMMV.

 

Not really, actually... this is a recent observation, and one only made between myself and one of my players. For the most part, dead is dead, but dead rarely happens in the first place, and the only case of dead not being dead happened once (soon to be twice, but it hasn't actually happened yet).

 

As for characters I just don't care for, I tend to just not use them any more. They get phased out and forgotten. It's how I handles players who've left the game for whatever reason, and should they come back, they have a character floating out in limbo waiting for them.