While ressurection spells in general tend to have a rather big impact on issues of immersion, i find Reincarnation the most problematic of all.
We just had a near TPK. 3/4 dead. Two characters reincarnate, the third one is on-hold because he might make a new character. However the reincarnation aspect means that, well, the characters now look and become completely different characters...
This doesn't just affect the players themselves, it impacts other players and it impacts the behavior of NPCs. I mean, one character who reincarnated has already been reincarnated once before, and he's the "ruler" in this kingmaker campaign.
It creates a rather bizarre situation. All people have to form entirely new diplomatic relations with this person because, quite frankly, they have no idea who he is.
How do other groups deal with this?
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My groups have always gone the resurrection route, rather than reincarnation, but I'm not sure why you think they're completely different people. I'd think they'd be more like the exact same people, only in different bodies...
There's a lot of material for roleplaying, actually. If the ruler character has been reincarnated, is he still technically the ruler, or does the authority pass to his heir? If he has enemies, they could certainly argue that he isn't their beloved ruler, but an imposter trying to seize the throne with a preposterous reincarnation story. etc. etc.
This isn't a DM problem. It's a DM gift.
Use share thoughts to prove you are who you were?
Oh I'm sorry about being rather vague in the OP. I don't necessarily need advice in this particular scenario. I'm asking more about how other groups generally deal with this roleplaying aspect of reincarnation.
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When I got reincarnated, I played up a general body dysphoria of not being in my own body. My dwarf cleric got turned into an elf and he went through a tough crisis of faith that had him ostracized from his own family, but found a form of acceptance amongst some elven slaves he had freed (which caused the death and need of reincarnation in the first place). He has some animosity towards them, as well as the party, but after a while he accepted who he was and even found a way to change back.
That's how I roleplayed it. I feel that there are very few things that break roleplaying. Instead, you have to really think outside of the box and go with the flow of things. It takes some thought, but it's worth it.
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My better half's character in the horror campaign I'm about to run has an auto-reincarnation attached to her character.
The problem is, her character won't remember her previous life like the Doctor does, and has to roll a different class since she's a different person...
Her metaplot will be her trying to figure out who she is and why she can't die. There are broken memories, deja vu's, and lost reflections of her former (six) lives, but she's never actually *died* in front of anyone, so no one's ever been around to tell her "hey! you were a different person a moment ago!"
Desna is guiding her in this life - maybe this one will be her "leap home" :)
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If it's me, playing a reincarnated King in Kingmaker, I'm a freakin' GOD! Well, not really, of course, but I'm sure going to try to play that out, especially if at least one PC survived all my deaths (or I can convince an NPC I am who I say I was). He/she is my Immortal Adviser, ooh the intrigue... Surviving NPCs/memories/Pcs can create a link to the reincarnated ruler, creating a really powerful platform for adventure.
I'd build myself up as The Unkillable King, capable of cheating death, so join my banner and reap the fruits of my unshakable leadership; Warriors will see my stature and flock to my mantel of strength and power, casters will want to study the secrets of my realm, clerics to build temples to their gods beneath my unwavering vitality, together we can become a bastion of stability in a land of tumultuous change, etc etc."
Sorry for the tangent- to the OP, never have gone the reincarnation route; saved by Hero Points house rules, resurrection, timely clerical assistance... or straight up died. I don't see resurrection as an immersion issue- the party has to lay a ton of gold down for one of their own or an NPC to cast the spell; it can be a very in-game circumstance if you want to play up the scene. I mean, how well do you know the NPC casting the spell? Can they really cast it, do they have alternate or nefarious designs on the body, or the party for that matter?
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Man, we've had some amazingly great Role Playing elements due to Reincarnation.
While I can understand your point and your view, it really hasn't worked out that way in our games.
Point in fact, I love reincarnation so much that I used to have different charts based off of different creature body type (in a very general sort of way). I haven't been able to find those charts for some time, but it's been a tremendous boon to all of us for quite some time in many of our games.
In our own Kingmaker games, reincarnation is used heavily to help the redemption of villains. By placing them into a new body and utilizing persuasive techniques (including giving them new names), they literally (we hope) become new people, and are slowly integrated into society as a whole.
On the other hand, in a Forgotten Realms game, we had a mage who eventually got stuck in a reincarnation cycle (after twelve deaths, and randomly rolling the exact same creature types in a row, I - the GM - just ruled that it happened automatically, though he still had to deal with the negative levels). It eventually became part of his character.
Similarly, we had an elf that was reincarnated as a drow and had to come to terms with that. She successfully did so, eventually, but it was difficult in the extreme for her. It was a point of great character growth.
In another game, a character of mine is seeking reincarnation for a large number of individuals (innocents who were killed in a war) in order to help raise them, and the tribe, although temporarily hesitant, eventually embraced the idea and are "currently" working to gather the funds with us (although that game is on hiatus).
In all those cases, we've had interesting role playing experiences that were enhanced instead of harmed by Reincarnation. There were difficulties for the characters to overcome, but the players had a blast... usually.
The two exceptions to this were 1) a player who wanted to be a Red Wizard (and, in fact, was) who was reincarnated as a Half-Orc; and 2) an elf who was reincarnated as a kobold.
The first one was tough because, "You broke the character!" as the player said to me as GM (though he was the one who accepted the Reincarnation for free, and I'd already explained that he still had the ability to cast Polymorph Any Object and restore himself to "normal"). The player dropped the character despite assurances that within one session, at most, he'd be back to normal. However, in this case the player was constantly changing characters (the Red Wizard was his third). Whenever the GM (me) successfully prevented him from doing anything (such as not allowing his earlier fourth level dwarf cleric character to defeat an army), he switched characters. So I'm not too surprised he did so here. (Point in fact, this player never believed that there was anything the PCs could not do successfully. He didn't understand, even when I told him, that when I say, "There's a lake of lava." the correct response isn't, "There must be something valuable inside! Let's do something obscure so we can look!")
The second one was a player who was a ton of trouble anyway. He introduced his character by flipping out and killing two fellow priests because they'd said "Please wait outside, for just a few minutes." about a meeting. He was killed, but the priests were successfully conned into Reincarnating him for free. He accepted and then committed suicide. When offered a party-recruited NPC to temporarily run, he gladly accepted and immediately worked at committing suicide (with the stated goal of getting a different party-recruited NPC, despite the fact that there wasn't any). After several more instances of similar shenanigans that were highly disruptive to the party, he was asked to leave the table and not come back.
But those are two exceptions in an otherwise long and interesting history of Reincarnation at our tables.
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Hey I like the comments here. There's some good inspirational stuff :D
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Show the players some regeneration episodes of Dr. Who.While ressurection spells in general tend to have a rather big impact on issues of immersion, i find Reincarnation the most problematic of all.
We just had a near TPK. 3/4 dead. Two characters reincarnate, the third one is on-hold because he might make a new character. However the reincarnation aspect means that, well, the characters now look and become completely different characters...
This doesn't just affect the players themselves, it impacts other players and it impacts the behavior of NPCs. I mean, one character who reincarnated has already been reincarnated once before, and he's the "ruler" in this kingmaker campaign.
It creates a rather bizarre situation. All people have to form entirely new diplomatic relations with this person because, quite frankly, they have no idea who he is.
How do other groups deal with this?
What's Dr. Who?
I understand that it can put a strain on the suspention of disbelief that we all want. But, since you could have chosen to not be reincarnated, you should look for a way to make this work. You wanted to be alive, and this was your opportunity. Now, you are in a different body and must deal with the consequences. Hopefully you role-playing group is up for being part of this transition. So much is glossed over in RPGS that its nice IMO to occasionally deal with something seriously, even for ten minutes.
Good luck!
What's Dr. Who?
Before rabid fans tear you apart:
It's a really, really long-running show from Britain about an alien who is something called a "Time Lord" who goes through different eras of history continually reincarnating into new bodies and collecting new companions as he goes.
It's got a single continuous (mostly) coherent plot that stretches from the 60s, even though the main character ("The Doctor" - he doesn't have a name other than that) has had a large number of different actors playing him (which is explained in-canon by way of his reincarnation into a different form).
There's more to it than that. A lot more. But, that's the most basic thing.
EDIT: the Wikipedia entry on Dr. Who.
Also, if you've ever heard your fellow nerds yelling, "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" or talking about "Weeping Angels" or "Daleks" being terrifying, or the TARDIS being super-cool... all of those are Dr. Who references. It's actually a really large cultural phenomenon.
EDIT 2: I am not saying that fans of the show will tear you apart. However, a few fans have torn me apart for not knowing what it was. Thus the precautionary post. :)
How its handled in my groups varies. Usually we ask the player if its okay, and then roll for it. NPCs don't get asked because well... they're dead and no real life person gets hurt if they get reincarnated into something they don't want. For the most part we play the same person but as a different race, so it doesn't kill roleplay but it creates the chance for some, depending on how they handle being reincarnated into whatever.
The only time I remember it in particular was reincarnating a dragon on the expanded list after killing him(because the party ranger felt sorry for him... yeah.), and he came back as a kobold. Said kobold was a plot hook later on, because revenge for his murder.
I think Reincarnate is a much better RP catalyst than Raise Dead or Resurrection as written (I know some people put a new spin on it, and play up the trauma of death and rebirth and all that, but unlike Reincarnate, it's not baked into the spell itself).
I played a goblin who was reincarnated as a dwarf, which was tough in a mechanical sense because he was an archer, but the RP for the few sessions until I was restored was highly amusing for my party, and that was rewarding.
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I think reincarnation is a fantastic spell. It only breaks immersion if you let it, just like anything, really drive home the points that it might bring up.
Odraude brought up a great example going dwarf to elf and the crisis of faith, I mean if a cleric of Torag just got turned into something other than a Dwarf, would Torag still grant him favor?
Think about how would you prove to people you are who you say you are? If you have family and they come to visit they might wonder what happened and if it is really you.
Especially if they become a more uncommon race like bugbear or Kobold. Most people might try to kill that player on sight simply for being what he is. And even after they trust that player is who they say they are they might ramp up the prices on items or drinks at the Tavern because they still hold mistrust for him.
Also it is MUCH cheaper than a resurrection spell. I feel bad anytime a character dies in the game. Most of the time it breaks the players investment in the game itself, and it can sometimes be hard to introduce a new character to a plot that has become very deep. Reincarnation solves this problem, and creates whole new problems for the players sense of who their character is, not just to themselves but to everyone around them.
Various recent player reincarnations (usually have about 2 per campaign/AP):
Gnome into gnoll into kobold. Partial memory loss and instinctive "universe abhors a vacuum" behaviors of the new race.
Gnome into Goblin. Happened during the wooing of a pretty elven lady. Extreme self-identity crisis, started developing a new identity just to let his gnome self "die and be buried".
Human (Taldan) male into Human (Chelish) female. Alchemist with extra arm and tumor familiar. Loose attachment to physical appearance became even looser.
Human (Taldan) female into human (Jadwigan) female. In the current Reign of Winter game. Massive roleplaying fiesta has been had and many long term plots made.