Is he a new DM? Are the affected players new? If the answer is yes to either, I think its a rather cruel encounter. Aging 30 years does not kill your character, but it can certainly kill your character concept. If your DM has some experience, and wasn't just throwing a random monster at you, he hopefully has an adventure hook for you to reverse the effect before your 24 hour window is up. I'd be upset if he didn't, but the players could also take it as an opportunity to explore their characters' personalities. What would you do if you were in the prime of your life, and had those glory years stolen from you? Become embittered, succomb to despair and commit suicide? Try to make the best of the years left to you? Keep adventuring, figure you can at least go out in a blaze of glory?
I don't understand why they included ghost "aging" in the game, and did not include level drain. Both can be offensive to a character concept. It is definitely is a nod to nostalgia without any serious consideration on how to deal with it.
TheTokon wrote:
TheTokon wrote:
They could always stumble upon rumors of a fountain deep in a wild wood said to restore youth and vigor to any who bathe in its waters. It's a fantastic hook for another adventure. As long as the DM didn't railroad the characters by lying about saves and forcing them to age instead of leaving it to chance, this seems like a great example of the living story growing just as it should be.
In 4e, they made a move against any long-term consequences because long-term consequences supposedly aren't "fun." Real rust monsters were determined to be badwrongfun, at best. Some people think the risk of real consequences can be fun. Aging from ghosts is in that category.
Some have said that aging destroys a character "concept." I think that aging can make a character "concept." If your "concept" for your character's future is so rigid that you want to know what that character will become without respect to the process that will take the character there, what's the point of that process? Just write a novel about your superhero/PC.
Still, all that said, if you don't want to play in a game where you don't have absolute control over you character's development, you definitely should talk to your DM about the kinds of challenge you find fun or unfun.
TheTokon wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
abs1nth wrote:
Uchawi wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
paulstrait wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Aging may be thematically appropriate for ghosts, but I never liked it because it affects different races so differently. An elf aged 40 years? They'd barely notice. A human? In game terms there may be little or no difference or possibly some strength and/or con drop depending on their age before the artificial aging. But from an RP perspective it's pretty huge.
If I ran a ghost like that I would make it more of a curse that could be reversed if you solve whatever unfinished business the ghost has.
paulstrait wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
I think that ghost aging is based on the story of being so frightened by a ghost that your hair turns white, so I'd be more inclined to go that route.
However, I do think that the ghost's aging mechanic could stand to have multipliers based on the longevity of the race of the afflicted character. I mean, it's not like the ghost actually creates a pocket of space where time moves more quickly. If that was so, then I could see having the same number of years of aging for all races.
I do like the idea of a multiplier based on race, or even the aging being completely cosmetic and let the player decide if it's a long term affect or not.
As written, multiple ghosts + human = 
OoftaMeg wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
paulstrait wrote: