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Just a thought that's been overlooked so far. Just because the characters are "destined" to die, doesn't mean they have to stay that way.
If you really want/need to surprise your players with a destined end, you can always do an epilogue or transition that gives them options after their death. Or create new characters or a campaign around their resurecction. Harry Potter, Buffy season 5 to 6, and Supernatural all come to mind.
See but this is really hard to do well, is the problem.
If you let players think there is a chance their characters wont die, they will fill cheated if they do.
And as the GM how do you decide if they've done enough to change fate? What's fair?
As the GM you have literally infinite power in the game, if you want the player characters to die they're dead. It doesn't matter how strong the characters are, your NPCs are stronger, or at least they can be.
I realize many people like the "you can change your destiny story lines". But to be honest I think they're overdone, and it has made the ideas of fate and destiny cheap and not impactful. They lose their meaning if it's just "a really difficult challenge to overcome".
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Death need not be the end.
The party is destined to die, but then you raise them as undead.
Keep in mind, your players are destined to die too. Don't neglect to raise them as undead as well!
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Also, death can be permanent, but not necessarily the end.
The characters are destined to die, and do. But Pharasma (or insert other deity) likes their zeal so much that they have raised the characters from Petitioners to low levels outsiders of the appropriate alignment and is employing them in even larger multi-planar issues. The have some memory of their past lives, and their past has shaped their current existence, but they are not the "same person" but can be very similar.
This is like death, but also unlike it at the same time. It's new beginning.
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Also, death can be permanent, but not necessarily the end.
The characters are destined to die, and do. But Pharasma (or insert other deity) likes their zeal so much that they have raised the characters from Petitioners to low levels outsiders of the appropriate alignment and is employing them in even larger multi-planar issues. The have some memory of their past lives, and their past has shaped their current existence, but they are not the "same person" but can be very similar.
This is like death, but also unlike it at the same time. It's new beginning.
So like undeath, but worse in every way?
Necromancy is better.
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Don't get me wrong, I like alls you Undead chaps, but you're really just afraid of what comes next.
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Don't get me wrong, I like alls you Undead chaps, but you're really just afraid of what comes next.
Probably avoiding a justly deserved fate. They are just prolonging the inevitable and making it worse for themselves.
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Your players must really trust you... I would've stopped caring about the GMs stories after the second campaign appeared to have been abandoned and I would've offered to run something for the group instead of being being a player in another campaign that I didn't think would reach a conclusion.All of the people complaining about loss of player agency... what about the agency of the GM to give the players an experience that they DON'T ANTICIPATE?
I've run a campaign where I took the characters to 6th level and then left them all at a huge cliff hangar. I then switched to another campaign in the same world and led them to a huge cliff hangar and 'abandoned' that one as well. My players were starting to get really irritated that I kept bringing in new things without finishing anything.
The third campaign also got to 6th level. They all started guessing that I would again abandon everything. Instead I allowed them to use all 3 sets of characters to resolve all 3 cliff hangars and unite the campaigns. The three parties then got combined and re-organized to go after three separate pieces of the campaign's goal.
That was MY agency, not theirs.
That was MY creative goal for the story telling, not theirs.
If I had let them have their way, none of that epic campaign would have ever happened.The player's FUN is important, so is the GM's.
'Player Agency' is making decisions that affect the immediate, making decisions in the moment. GM Agency is the reality that they have (get) to deal with. GM Agency IS the adventure.
if there isn't this level of trust in your group, you should probably find a new group...or question why you have such terrible trust issues.
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Also, death can be permanent, but not necessarily the end.
The characters are destined to die, and do. But Pharasma (or insert other deity) likes their zeal so much that they have raised the characters from Petitioners to low levels outsiders of the appropriate alignment and is employing them in even larger multi-planar issues. The have some memory of their past lives, and their past has shaped their current existence, but they are not the "same person" but can be very similar.
This is like death, but also unlike it at the same time. It's new beginning.
An easy way to handle this would be to reincarnate the party as Duskwalkers. Of course, some PCs would come through this process better than others.
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if there isn't this level of trust in your group, you should probably find a new group...or question why you have such terrible trust issues.
Two campaigns that appear to have been dropped at level 6 and the GM wanting to run another one?
Nah, I'm good.... I prefer it when a GM can actually finish something they start. And based off of marcryser's comment of "My players were starting to get really irritated that I kept bringing in new things without finishing anything" the players weren't aware of what the plan was."Players, I promise, we'll get back to this but I need to run these other two things first" would've made all the difference but there's no indication anything like that was told to the players.
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Don't get me wrong, I like alls you Undead chaps, but you're really just afraid of what comes next.
Oh, but you (and the Egregiously Misnomered One/soon-to-be plague zombie) have it exactly backwards.
We literally cannot feel fear - read a statblock. Why would we? While you whimper and cling to your false hopes of an afterlife that is nothing more than the obliteration of your identity and self to make planar building blocks (or in plague zombie's case, mortar) of some cosmic bully's play palace - we embrace eternity on our own terms.
You may prattle on about good and evil - no doubt plague zombie has puffed and pontificated about this to no end. But remember, the wheels of the multiuniverse turn on the annihilation of consciousness and individuality. Yet we are dastardly for daring fight against this cosmic injustice? You must be a paladin.
But no worries, my indoctrinated vitalists. We'll pick this conversation up again posthumously, which shall be sooner for some you than others...
PS: We like you chaps too. The more raw your flesh, the better.
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Don't get me wrong, I like alls you Undead chaps, but you're really just afraid of what comes next.Probably avoiding a justly deserved fate. They are just prolonging the inevitable and making it worse for themselves.
Again, while we appreciate your application to the PLAGUE ZOMBIE position, we've accepted numerous applicants at your level of qualification. Please try not damage your form too badly, or we may have to transfer to the FLESHCRAFTING Department.
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Ummmm. That's exacatly the point I made that you seemed to miss or disagree with in the post of mine you responded to above. I don't disagree with you. Just saying, death not being the end, was my whole point.Also, death can be permanent, but not necessarily the end.
The characters are destined to die, and do. But Pharasma (or insert other deity) likes their zeal so much that they have raised the characters from Petitioners to low levels outsiders of the appropriate alignment and is employing them in even larger multi-planar issues. The have some memory of their past lives, and their past has shaped their current existence, but they are not the "same person" but can be very similar.
This is like death, but also unlike it at the same time. It's new beginning.
I'm just throwing out lots of different ideas on the topic.
But I do see the idea I suggested above as different from yours, as it would be the end of the player's characters but their death can be the foundation for new lives (which are not necessarily player characters). The campaign can end, and you can have an epilogue where you explain what happens but not have the players play as those characters. Also, with the way Golarion cosmology works an outsider created from a soul, even if it possesses the memories of it's past incarnation, doesn't typical identify as that previous creature.
I stand by my earlier statement, which wasn't to contradict what you said, but rather that it's hard to do well without cheapening the event.
I think, if you want to have the death of all the characters be the culmination of the campaign you can't have the players keep on playing afterwards with new outsider characters that are treated as an upgrade. It degrades the meaning of death, in my opinion. If players are very attached to characters, you can mention in an epilogue the progress of their souls as I described. But I think letting the players play as those characters cheapens the whole act in the first place.
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Again, while we appreciate your application to the PLAGUE ZOMBIE position, we've accepted numerous applicants at your level of qualification. Please try not damage your form too badly, or we may have to transfer to the FLESHCRAFTING Department.
Laugh it up while you can. Nothing is eternal.
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Eventually even this multi-verse will end, and almost everyone (including the Lady of Graves herself) will end. The only survivors will be the appointed one who will start the next existence out of the nothingness that will be, and those who already exist outside this multi-verse (the outer gods, IIRC).