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[Harry Baldman]

For atheists, aren't they supposed to end up on the godplane that closest matches their philosophy? Also, it's kinda hard being an atheist in a setting where gods verifiably exist. Agnostic, probably. But actual denial of the existence of deities is a bit of a stretch.

It's not atheists, technically, who go to the Wall of the Faithless, it's people who haven't pledged themselves to and dutifully worshiped a god in their lives. So apatheists, atheists and agnostics alike get to experience the joy of having their soul ground to nothingness over thousands of years to serve as an example to the rest.

If they did pledge themselves to a god, but didn't follow through with corresponding sincerity of faith, they're called False and instead have to pull a few thousand years of guard duty in the City of Judgment, fighting off planar invaders, liberators of souls or other troublemakers in the domain of the god of death. All within sight of the aforementioned Wall of the Faithless, mind you, so as to get a good sense of what they barely lucked out of.

On reflection, if the size of the Wall and the army required to man it is any indication, it's probably much easier to land your apathetic ass in either of them than a flippant assessment of the prerequisites would indicate.

Not that any of this is necessarily canon at this point what with edition change cosmology bullshit, but it's such a neato piece of lore overall that it'd be a shame to not include it in a setting that includes the Fugue Plane and the City of Judgment.

EDIT: on the topic of healing magic, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 both had instances where if you had healing magic, you could help somebody overcome their wounds much faster. They'd usually be pretty chuffed about it, too. Usually at the start of the game, though (you know, before crunch time when designers can afford to put in nice touches that feel cool into their overall area design).

Final Fantasy V also had a pretty cool scene where the party tries and fails to use a Fenix Down on a guy after he got super-rekt in a fight.

There's also an issue of scale, where while most clerics and white mages and what have you tend to have vastly powerful gifts of healing, they tend to be single-target oriented, which, while helpful, doesn't tend to be extremely useful for an army of wounded (not to mention that most murderhobos consider their droves of allied NPCs completely expendable most of the time).

[Teneb]

I suppose in regards to the D&D settings, you could suggest that it is up to the gods whether someone comes back or not. Upon death, the persons soul goes to the deity they worshipped who decides what to do with it or whether they are willing to return it if the person has resurrection cast on them. Overarching game played with mortal lives, inscrutable goals, unknowable reasons and all that.

Though, that does leave the question about atheists. I know they end up with their souls absorbed into a wall in one of the nine hells or something but I suppose in a world with such overt interaction and physical proof of the existence of gods atheists are much rarer.

Yeah the whole 'Wall of the Dead' thing torqued me off in Mask of the Betrayer. About the only time I didn't take the 'good' route, because 'good' was leaving that abomination to stand.

Just FYI: It's Wall of the Faithless, it's on the plane where the dead are sort of processed and sent off wherever they have to go, and in none of the endings of Mask of the Betrayer it can be destroyed. But Harry Baldman just went and ninja'd me.

Anyway, I'm surprised Dark Souls hasn't been mentioned yet, considering it deals with the consequences of a world where humans suddenly start to just get up after dying, and the consequences it has on their psyche (losing their mind, going hollow). Though it is a bit weird in that some undead npcs will stay dead after they die in specific circumstances, and the games don't really explain that.

[Hanzoku]

Oh yes, I know. But many of the neutral/'evil' endings has you continuing to resist and try to bring it down, occasionally managing a small victory.

[mainiac]

(not to mention that most murderhobos consider their droves of allied NPCs completely expendable most of the time).

Honestly I'm just glad when the murderhobos dont kill the allied NPCs.

[Parsely]

Though it is a bit weird in that some undead npcs will stay dead after they die in specific circumstances, and the games don't really explain that.

"The flow of time in Lordran is convoluted" is the contrived explanation that I often hear cited.

[Egan_BW]

Though it is a bit weird in that some undead npcs will stay dead after they die in specific circumstances, and the games don't really explain that.

"The flow of time in Lordran is convoluted" is the contrived explanation that I often hear cited.

I also kinda like the implication that all the corpses that you loot items from (in various amusing positions) aren't really dead, just so hopeless that they stopped moving entirely.

[Culise]

From the RPGs I know, Baldur's Gate your characters do die and are resurrected when their health gets to 0. Usually, in the books I think I've seen it, sometimes people can't be resurrected because "it's their time" but that's not a defined moment really. I think the body also has to be mostly intact, as in Baldur's Gate II one character can't be resurrected having been dissected, and if a character gets gibbed by a critical hit deathblow, the meaty chunks can't be resurrected. It returns the spirit to the body rather than recreates a new body and I don't think many healing spells can restore a destroyed/mutilated body.

I think that most people have brought up D&D resurrection in conjunction with this, so I won't elaborate on this further, but I think there's one interesting note on Baldur's Gate and its sequels specifically.  While most characters can be resurrected as long as they aren't "gibbed," the main player is alone in that their death is a game over; they aren't resurrected by the rest of the party.  While this could sometimes be explained by your party mates being jerks, it makes less sense with some other characters that may be working with you, who may include childhood friends, friends of your mentor, or even (in BG2 or BG1:EE) a romantic interest.  I believe it is common fanon that there is an actual reason for this related to the plot.  Specifically...

Spoiler: *BIG* Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 spoilers (click to show/hide)

...this may be because your death canonically releases the essence of Bhaal carried in your soul, meaning (fanon) there's nothing left to call back with a resurrection spell.  This also, however, introduces a bit of a plot hole with Imoen, who you can resurrect normally in both games in spite of her also being another Bhaal-spawn, not to mention...err, another resurrectable Bhaal-spawn who appears in the BG2 expansion.

The implementation here thus falls a bit into one of those "shrug and don't think about it too hard" game mechanics for the main player, I suspect.

I'm also a little surprised no one mentioned Planescape: Torment, yet, given that both Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity came up.  There, you're told more or less from the get-go that you're immortal.  Pursuant to this, if you "die" in any location, you simply end up waking up a while later on a slab in the morgue, just like you did at the start of the game.  Your companions, on the other hand, are rather more mortal, and thus subject to the usual D&D restrictions on resurrection through spell.  Well, for the most part, but that's spoilers.

[Mech#4]

I always took that as the explanation for the main character dying in Baldur's Gate. The accompanying cinematic upon death also highlights that as being the case to my mind.

Spoiler: Continuation of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 plot spoilers. (click to show/hide)

I can't remember if Imoen being a Bhaalspawn as well was something that was broached in Baldur's Gate 1 or if it was thought up only in Baldur's Gate 2. There's also the resurrection of Sarevok in Throne of Bhaal who comes back even though he was a bhaalspawn, but he's described as not having the essence of Bhaal anymore and thus being out of the running for the Bhaalspawn prophesy.

Sarevok was more, I think, a special case where the main character was utilising their fledgling god powers to bend the rules somewhat as you could ask to bring people connected to you back from death. Yoshimo was one you couldn't due to... the Geas he was under at the time or something. It only worked on people who were tied to you destiny wise.


Thinking on Imoen: For most of Baldur's Gate 2 she actually didn't have her soul, having it taken from her by Irenicus and given to Bodhi. The same ends up happening to the protagonist as well with the side effects of turning into the Slayer avatar of Bhaal because the protagonist was more in tune/aware of their Bhaalspawn nature than Imoen was.

[uber pye]

In DnD magic is expensive!

at minimum the price for a cure minor wounds (the cheapest healing spell) is 5gp in a world where that is like, a months work! the cheapest resurection is 1000gp, witch is more than most people see in a life time. I like to think that nobles keep regular jewelry as life insurance.

[Leyic]

There's a supplement for DnD 3E called Ghostwalk which gives dead characters a way to continue as a ghost, complete with an afterlife setting. IIRC there's also a supplement to the supplement in one of the magazines which ties Ghostwalk into existing settings like Forgotten Realms.

[Wysthric]

It might not be an RPG in the same sense as the others listed here, but in classic Fire Emblem, when someone dies, they die, and you can't use them again unless you restart.

An interesting feature but in practice it just means when you lose a single character you restart the mission.

[Damiac]

I appreciate it when games at least acknowledge that healing and resurrection spells exist, and address why they can't be used in plot important deaths.  In FF7, if the party discussed exactly why they couldn't just use a pheonix down on Aerith(That was her name, right?) I would have felt a whole lot better about it.  As it was, the characters are just like "Well she's dead, that sucks".  How am I supposed to suspend my disbelief when just 5 minutes ago I resurrected another character 3 times in one fight?

Same thing with injured people and healing spells.  Like, if it works on members in my party after they get blown up, shot, hacked with a 10 foot long, 2 foot wide sword, etc, I would think it should work on ordinary townsfolk injuries!

An army with access to healing magic would be at a huge advantage, not just for the fact that they could cure injuries that happened in battle, but because they could keep their skilled fighters fighting, meaning they get even more skilled.  Your elite fighting forces would just keep getting more and more elite.

And even with the cost arguments, it also costs a lot of money to train someone to fight.  How many hours of training does a peasant bowman need to be of any use in a battle?  Maybe that's worth a few GP.

[Akura]

Spoiler: WMG for FF7 (click to show/hide)

I think Aerith intended to die. She needed to enter the Lifestream to control Holy. Holy's function was only given as "destroy anything that poses a threat to the Planet". The heroes had a genuine concern that definition included humanity, as humanity had been terrible stewards for the Planet(after all they created Sephiroth, the guy trying to kill the Planet, and that's just the tip of the iceberg) so far. I guess Aerith intended to make sure at least that didn't happen. She also knew that Cloud was being controlled by Sephiroth, so that might explain why she didn't bother to tell anyone her plan.

Also on that note, it's made pretty specific that when someone dies in the FF7 'verse, their soul leaves the body and is recycled. That would explain why you can't just resurrect everyone. More WMG, but maybe the heroes can have an immediate revival from battle death because of all the materia(which is literally frozen soul-stuff) they're carrying keeping their soul in their body long enough to be revived.

[ZebioLizard2]

Considering that the effect is.

Revives a KO'ed (knocked out) ally at 25% max hp. It's more likely that you aren't actually physically dying in battle, but just getting a boost to wake you back up after you've basically been knocked from consciousness.

Or at least it'd be more effective if it didn't instantly kill undead things, but hey, can't explain it all.

[Damiac]

That explanation is all well and good, but why couldn't they have had a 10 second conversation to that effect when they knew it was going to drive the player crazy?

This is how that scene should have played out in FF7.  Clearly I'll never gain access to a time machine, or this is the conversation that would have happened.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Cloud "Oh noes! Aerith is dead! ANGST!"
Barret "Uh... let's just use a pheonix down boss. We've got like, 50 of them."
Tika "No, you stupid Mr. T knock off, everyone knows you can't do that because that would cross the phlebotenum streams!  And also REASONS! REASONS!!!"
Barret "My archetype may be lame, but it's better than yours! GUN ARMS ARE BETTER THAN SLOT MACHINES!  But I see your point about reasons."
Cloud "Both of those are better than spiky hair dude with 10 foot long sword, but there's a dude with even spikier hair, so let's get him!"
Cait Sith "I don't think I've been introduced to the plot yet, but I just wanted to remind you that I'm totally not a played out anime character like the rest of you idiots.  Geez, have some originality like me, a giant cat... thing..."
/scene