Question in reference to Public Slayings

[Script Wrecked]

I thought this was simply because the priests of the Dark Elf gods simply used Raise Dead and Resurrection.    In fact, as I recall, I accounted for that in Darthirâe's origin story.

In general, you would expect a good sized temple to be able to bring back just about everyone killed in a typical PC raid within the 3 day timeframe, unless specific measures were made to prevent that from happening.

...

The same should be true of most places in the world.   Why should a royal risk dying by failing the stonebinding ritual, when they have dozens of priests of various friendly gods willing to resurrect them at a moment's notice?

I understood you have to be bound to be raised/resurrected.

[Gulnyr]

That contradicts a lot of quest events, though, eh?  If you look about half way down [post=983872]this post by Ed[/post], you'll see that Raise Dead and Resurrection don't only work on bound characters.  The last part of the post could be read as a counter to that from an unusual angle, but it's clearly a "no do-overs" call, really, not an "unbound can't be raised" ruling.

[Acacea]

About three thousand quest events, and makes the spells kind of weird, too.

What I had understood was just that usual "some people don't want to come back." The rule was always that one cannot call back an unwilling soul, so if you have already proceeded onward, then there really is nothing anyone can do.

For an even longer time, the spells followed the D&D rules. So we raised not only non-bound NPCs, but NPCs that had been dead for ages, depending on the ability of the cleric. That was cut to three days across the board - ability of cleric has nothing to do with it. Both gain and loss there, in a sense. Even then, there were still, "Sorry, nothing we can do," cases...

As far as I know it has not been restricted again.

[Hellblazer]

I understood you have to be bound to be raised/resurrected.

not necessarily. I have seen npc being raised on quests, without them being bound.

[Dorganath]

I thought this was simply because the priests of the Dark Elf gods simply used Raise Dead and Resurrection.    In fact, as I recall, I accounted for that in Darthirâe's origin story.

In general, you would expect a good sized temple to be able to bring back just about everyone killed in a typical PC raid within the 3 day timeframe, unless specific measures were made to prevent that from happening.

And I doubt those measures would be easy to pull off on a shaky raid of the Deep.   (While Kurn is entertaining in saying he drags hundreds of dark elf heads out of the deep, I'm not all that sure that's believable.)

The same should be true of most places in the world.   Why should a royal risk dying by failing the stonebinding ritual, when they have dozens of priests of various friendly gods willing to resurrect them at a moment's notice?

Well keep in mind that any sentient creature has 10 Soul Strands, so eventually, there will be attrition. Elves, dark or otherwise, do not reproduce or mature very quickly, so maintaining a population becomes tricky, even with raises/resurrections...which also assumes roving bands of Dark Elf priests who only look for the fallen and bring them back.

There's also a question of whether or not they would do such a thing.  Aeridinites...Az'attans...sure!  Ca'duzites and Vierdri'iranites? Well...there's a value put on strength and if the same dark elves keep getting cut down by random adventurer raids probably aren't very strong.  Remember, this is the culture that gives everyone a Test and if they fail, they're killed or transformed to serve in a different way.  Clearly, they're less concerned about raw numbers.

In any case, whether this happens or not, the truth of it all is that the constant supply of creatures of any strike is a necessity of the game, and just requires a suspension of disbelief (though, as always, one's character is free to make up their own theories). Some prominent creatures (i.e. dragons) likely have their own bindstones, hidden away somewhere safe, as do possibly some number of clever villains, but resurrection in any form, whether by priests or bindstones, is still a pretty rare thing.

I understood you have to be bound to be raised/resurrected.

Incorrect.  Anyone can potentially be resurrected, special circumstances excepted, of course (i.e. plot hooks and such).

About three thousand quest events, and makes the spells kind of weird, too.

What I had understood was just that usual "some people don't want to come back." The rule was always that one cannot call back an unwilling soul, so if you have already proceeded onward, then there really is nothing anyone can do.

For an even longer time, the spells followed the D&D rules. So we raised not only non-bound NPCs, but NPCs that had been dead for ages, depending on the ability of the cleric. That was cut to three days across the board - ability of cleric has nothing to do with it. Both gain and loss there, in a sense. Even then, there were still, "Sorry, nothing we can do," cases...

As far as I know it has not been restricted again.

Absolutely correct!

[Carillon]

Warning: This is a long post, as you can see. This really is how much thought went into the decisions behind Steel's execution, and generally goes into other public slayings as well. If you would like to understand that thought process, read on. If not, no hard feelings if you skip this post.

As the nefarious GM who ran Steel's CDQ and thought up his punishment for his in character actions, I am probably uniquely suited to answer why the decisions made about his sentencing were made the way they were. So let me invite you behind the veil for a moment, onto the GM's side of things, and into my thought process.

When a character commits a crime on a quest or CDQ, when they break the law of the land (and get caught, or make no secret of their identity), or when they otherwise take an action that is going to have repercussions, the GM is placed in a tricky position. We are asked to provide both realism and a tangible consequence for those actions, so that such things matter, and also to not completely spoil the fun of the player behind that character. Trust me, finding a punishment that fulfills both can be a challenge! Often, these things are directly in opposition.

I am not a fun spoiler, or at least I don't try to be. When I log in, as player or GM, I am very aware that this is a game that people play to unwind, destress, relax, or just to entertain themselves. It's why I play it too! That said, I am a firm believer that actions have consequences, and that they should have consequences. If you knew your character could run around doing whatever they wanted and there was no risk to those actions, would you be able to RP appropriately? Would your heart flutter with adrenaline at that tense moment in the quest, not knowing what would happen? Would you plot so carefully when you schemed? I don't think so, which is why any time there is an opportunity for reward with me, there is also a real risk. I try to balance these two things, so the bigger the prize you are trying to grasp, the greater the potential consequences of failure. And I warn people in advance--I tell them that their actions will have consequences and reactions, either good or bad! Calem's Law is always in effect.

That's pretty general, though, and I bet you want specifics. This thread is about public slayings after all, and Steel's was used as a recent example. So what do you do when the character you are DMing for commits murder and makes no secret of his identity? Well, there will be consequences for that. Oh yes, there will be consequences.

One of the first consequences in this case was that NPCs went looking for the character. Houses were searched, watches posted, extra guards brought in, and changes made. The heat was on. The OOC consequence of this was that the player couldn't log his character into the area where he was being searched for without a GM present to mediate--we didn't draw this out over a long period of time and tried to move things along, but this is roughly analogous to walking your monstrous race into Hempstead. Just because a DM isn't there to catch you doesn't mean you can do it, and the fairest thing to do was to enforce the same consequence in this case.

After the character turned himself into the authorities, there were more decisions to make. Open trial or closed trial? I weighed how much other characters could contribute to a trial (there were no PC witnesses to the crimes, nor had any PCs other than the one been involved in the CDQ) against expediency and time and scheduling, and decided a closed trial was best, as it would speed along the resolution and let the player once again start RPing his character. (And by "closed trial" I am referring to the RP, not to a closed event you weren't invited to! The trial was handled in PMs, since it was a pretty open-and-shut case and this was the quickest, most efficient way.) However, I made sure that the lore of the region was followed, which was that Leringard ostensibly follows the Rofireinite laws and the Divine Courts, so Steel was afforded all of his rights as expressed in those laws. Characters had a chance to speak to Steel, with limitations, and I gave players a chance to contact me with additional actions if they desired.

With regards to the actual execution, I know this is a big question. Why bother to execute a player that is bound to the stones? What is the risk? Yes, they will just respawn, but there is tangible risk to an execution too. Dying by execution is no different than dying any other way, and there is no reason that a Soul Mother roll should not be made, especially if it was player choices and actions that led to that executions. (If any of you were wondering what that big fuss was about the NPC and the runaway axe at the IG event, that was it. If a GM is possessing a creature, no SM roll is made .. and for some reason AI breaks down around Steel! He has an anti-AI aura I think. Even the mechanics are always on his side! After a couple attempts to get a creature to kill him we just gave up and had him make his roll after the event. In some ways this is more realistic too, since others do not actually know whether a character has lost a SS on any given death.)

So that's one reason for an execution. The other reason has to do with that GM job of balancing realism, lore and player fun. Given the lore on Leringard and the laws of Layonara, any judge handling Steel's case for his crime had two options, as Dorg pointed out earlier in the thread: death or life long imprisonment. Life long imprisonment sure makes it hard for a player to enjoy their character! I don't want to lock a well-loved character away forever if I have another option that works. So death it was. Remember, while other punishments are certainly available, Rofi is a letter-of-the-law type guy. Murder = punishment by death, whether the guy was just going to pop back up again or not. Had there been a greater risk that Steel would just immediately continue on a killing rampage, unchecked and madly dispensing out death until he was finally stopped, that very CE series of actions would have essentially bumped him into a CE (unplayable) alignment and he'd just be serving out life-long imprisonment as an NPC.

And yet as others have pointed out, death is not so much of a deterrent for strandbound characters! Rest assured, your friendly Layonara judges know this too. That is why there were other punishments handed out as well. Death may not be a deterrent to continuing a murder spree against the Blackwatch, but being exiled from Leringard sure makes it a lot harder, and considering that Steel's home was in Leringard this punishment does certainly "sting" a bit, as it should. Again, as a GM, I had to balance realism and fun--how long an exile? Forever? Well that would pretty much kill any plans Steel had for Leringard, unless he could get himself a pardon, so instead I chose a length of time that was appropriately long enough to be a consequence but not forever. Seven years was, by the way, six months for every citizen of Leringard Steel killed.

But ... how do we enforce such an exile? What is the consequence if Steel breaks it? Clearly death doesn't mean much to a strandbound character, indefinite imprisonment makes a character unplayable and should be avoided if possible, and exile didn't work. So what now? This is where the two additional parts to the sentencing come in: namely the tongue being cut out, and his hands being chopped off, and both healed in that way so that the bindstone or a simple restoration/regeneration/whatever can't just fix it.

Why did I choose these punishments? Well because they would really sting, and also because it is entirely within the character's (and player's) ability to avoid them. If he does not want to go there, he can choose not to break his exile and keep fighting the Blackwatch. If he does want to break his exile and keep fighting the Blackwatch, we're both on the same page as to what the consequence is going to be, and he knows the risk. And they are punishments that come with mechanical consequences as well. (I won't give the full list here--this post is already long enough. But suffice it to say verbal speech and verbal spell components are impossible without a tongue, and no hands sure makes it hard to wear rings or wield a lot of weapons.)

Hopefully if you read this far, you enjoyed this peek behind the veil, so to speak, and a glimpse into the GM side of the rationale behind public slayings, PC executions, and other consequences to unlawful actions. Like I said, it's a balancing act--but one that a lot of thought does get put into.

[Script Wrecked]

In some ways this is more realistic too, since others do not actually know whether a character has lost a SS on any given death.

Apart from the ear shattering wail and ephemeral spirit writhing above the fallen character?

[Carillon]

Apologies if this was unclear--I meant that others should not be able to detect whether a character has lost a SS on any given death, not that the player cannot usually detect such from the OOC visual effect coupled with it.

[Script Wrecked]

Where is this designated an OOC effect?

[lonnarin]

The number of dark elves killed and "regenerating" in the Deep could be due to several reasons, one being that there's just more of them than people suspect.  The other is that it's an obvious mechanical compromise to the need for adventurers to kill things, as is the case with most creatures.  Particularly powerful creatures like Fisteron probably have their own stones, but the whole goblin/dark elf/giant/kobold/kenku populations most assuredly do not, or at least only a small handful of their numbers even bother with binding.

Besides, wouldn't the dark elves be cruel enough to make their own children grab some stone at a young age to ensure they don't waste their prescious evil resources on pitiful waifish non-bound offspring?  Such a culture could have maybe 20 deaths for every one that reaches maturity.  More food for the spiders!  *evil cackle*

Sounds like a typical dark elven birthday party.

The others not weeded out specifically still die many times throughout the course of their bloodied childhood, perhaps.  Imagine how many teens would assassinate eachother over rank.  By the time you face the 100+ year old dark elf soldier, the likelihood that he's one of the soulbound few increases just having survived up to that point. Their brutal culture is more dangerous than any sheltered surfacer's farmland experience.

I would tend to expect that notoriously powerful or famous NPCs are soulbound, so assassinating a heavily decorated ex-general like Rael might be tricky business.  Being able to reform in the temple of Sulterio if fallen in battle makes for a great advantage over other unbound villains who need only turn their backs once and become history.  Then take the world's greatest villain, Bloodstone.  His biggest power was that he could cheat death with those Blood Pools, feed his power with death and live for millenia.

I like the RP implications of such a system, as it mirrors the events of many of my favorite comic books.  How many times did Green Goblin/Norman Osbourne "die" in Spiderman?  How many times do you see the entire building explode with the character left inside, to hold the memorial, only to find them turning up yet again in issue #132?

[Carillon]

Not to derail the thread, but there have been past discussions on whether the Soul Mother VFX was IC or OOC. Here are a few responses that were given at the time:

Historically speaking, the loss of a Soul Strand didn't always show the "wail" VFX.  It was added a while back to give you a better indication when Soul Strand loss occurs.  It is really an OOC indication there to give you, the player, a visual cue which you can use to RP the feeling of loss that came from that death.

But our characters do not see parts of souls, nor do they really perceive the Soul Mother in any way unless she wants to be perceived.

The soul scream is something that only the character who looses the strand should be feeling or experiencing and for all others it is OOC visual.

The visual effect is visible to all players...but it's not really a thing that our characters would see.  The same can be said about the white glow that characters have while recovering from death.  What our characters would see is a rather sickly pallor to indicate a less-than-healthy state, not a translucent white glow.  Again, we have limits in the engine and so to give some kind of easy-to-identify state, we have things like these.

Hope this helps!

[Acacea]

Oh man thank you, I was digging everywhere going, "what search terms am I not using? I know we've talked about this before!"