As I see it character death is something that is always a possibility. How we treat it is a function of party dynamics. The traditional approach in RPGs is for the party to loot the body of all valuables and leave it where it fell. Some gamers will go to great lengths to raise the dead or provide for the families. Since about 70% of character backgrounds paint them as orphans from the massacre of some institution, and they have ridden a tortured path of revenge to this point, providing for the families seems less than significant. Here is my take on C.D.: 1. The party takes any valuables and cremates or buries the body in an appropriate manner. 2. The player rolls up new stats and creates a character with the following restrictions/advantages. a. The new character can not be an exact copy of the old character, optimally a different race, class, and alignment. b. The new character is not related to the old character by blood or other association. c. The new character may not avenge the death of the old character, especially if the death was at the hands of a party member. 3. The new character would start with 1/2 of the X.P. of the old character, in some cases this will give the new character a higher level. 4. The starting money for the new character will be the class base times the level of the character, in some cases the character will be wealthy. 5. Maximum HP for the first three levels and HP to be rolled for additional levels. 6. Upon receiving a background story a handful of significant rumors/clues will be sent to the player, as it is impossible to "un-know" things from the game they will have the information they learned up to that point. And as Plato said when presented with a flat metal plate, discuss.
