As far as people coming back after death in a TTRPG, don't overlook the benefits of bait and switch.

For an RCR campaign set in the Dark Times, I had my PCs facing a recurring nemesis in the form of a humanoid crime lord (not too unlike Dryden Vos in mannerisms) that no matter how the PCs thought they put an end to the guy, he kept coming back; it got to the point that the PCs were convinced the guy's middle name was Kenny. They had all sorts of speculations as to how the guy was doing it, especially after a few instances of them seeing the body.

His trick? Vat-grown clones that were in effect remotely controlled by a Columi in a sort of double-blind. The PCs never twigged in because they always made sure the crime lord's head was so thoroughly destroyed that any electronic/metallic bits were just written off as being cybernetic implants, which never aroused suspicion as the guy had an obvious implant that from all they could tell operated much like a hands-free comlink that allowed him to download/upload data into his brain.

Another instance was a d6 teen Jedi campaign set a few decades after RotJ and largely ignoring the EU published after the Thrawn Trilogy apart from a few choice bits, with the nemesis being a powerful Dark Jedi from the days of the Empire who after each dramatic fight would come back from the dead. Rather than it being Palps' trick from Dark Empire of shuffling his spirit into new imperfect clones that rapidly withered away, it was clones, but the BBEG's personality was essentially downloaded into the new body, which accounted for gaps in memory that the PCs just wrote off as being a side effect of denying death and forcibly keeping his spirit in the physical realm, especially as the guy merely shrugged off such gaps as no big deal.

I've always loathed villains like Darkseid, Brainiac, Ultron, or Thanos, and that goes double for Superman. I hate things that can't be killed (or at least don't stay dead), and that was one of the things that drew me to Star Wars. There was always that sense of mortality. With the exception of what has been discussed with clones (see Donovan's comment above), I generally dislike the "You killed him, but he came back!" stories. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but that is my general take on it. Partly because it seems sort of like cheating a lot of the time.

Mandalorian did it right with Moff Gideon in that they didn't hide the ball (haha, TIE cockpit. Moving on) at all, they showed that he survived (insert general rant at both TRoS and Mandalorian for having the pilots survive crashing a TIE fighter with not so much as a bruise) rather than midway through season 2 revealing "Oh look! 'stache is back!" with a brief monologue about "Let me explain to you how I survived being thrown into an exploding volcano just before the Death Star XVI vaporized the planet, and didn't even lose my eyebrows."

As for what I think about the concept in the Sequel Trilogy? I enjoyed TRoS, even though it did a multitude of things I didn't want it to do (Rey "I am Skywalker," Palpatine "I am alive," Ben "I love you Rey," etc.) it just did them in a way I could accept. With just how much I hated TLJ, I'd pretty much written it off by that point, so I was pleased with it. I'm not very bothered by any of the "issues" with TRoS, because my headcanon is pretty loosely defined, and I can just ignore the Sequel Trilogy without yelling that it isn't canon or doesn't exist in my universe. I can just be happy with the other movies and media and simply not base any stories in that time period.

If I were to write the Sequel Trilogy from TFA onward, I would not have had Palpatine come back. I prefer the story of Vader giving his life to (permanently) rid the galaxy of Palpatine.

15 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I prefer the story of Vader giving his life to (permanently) rid the galaxy of Palpatine.

Much as I would have steered clear of having Palps back, I am not sure if that was what Vader gave his life for.
Now as you hate TLJ you might not agree but Anakin’s redemption wasn’t because he destroyed what he hated it was because he protected what he loved. His redemption/culmination of his story was not killing the Emperor. It was saving his son.

I don't think there's anything wrong with cross examining this. Having a villain be alive could be an amazing plot twist, but who and how you do it is usually pretty important otherwise it would diminish the impact. There's a reason a lot of prescribed adventures end in a tidy manner that ends with the BBEG being dead; because the players want benchmarks to measure themselves against. Denying it too regularly, or bringing back the wrong villain can break the verisimilitude of the setting, and once the players stop believing in that other world it can be difficult to get that faith back. I think these movies are a pretty good example of that; don't get me wrong, despite my complants about them I still found some good entertainment value, just as a story meant to close out a 70 year epic? Nah. Which is a little sad because I really enjoyed the core premise.

Much of my group wasn't satisfied either, feeling that this was a blunt turma way to ensure sales didn't tank, so I know to be careful in deploying that tool in my campaign otherwise I will get the same response. That being said; given that resurrections are a thing in D&D, there is more longevity in most villains then in most settings so that's going to be a interesting playground to mess around with. How far can I push the suspension of disbelief before the PC's break? That is a fasinating experiment that I will likely spend a lifetime researching. I mean, my campaign will be based in a Norse setting where Hel is a physical place and a person who in principle can be bargained with, how hard can it be to leave? XD

There is plenty of good ideas that I might have to selectively steal for when I give the GMing lark a proper go. Usually people die when we kill then in ours, with one exception; a Sith Lord in our campaign was killed but has the ability to imbue himselves in objects. He started off in a lightsaber, then took over a person, and after that person was killed managed to imprint himself into a *world* as a side effect of being killed in Mortsis. He was so obbcessed with clinging on that he was only really doing all this because it was simply what Sith did. That confrontation ended when we had a battle of will's trying to compel the spirit to let go; he had done many great things in life persisting for thousands of years, but it was time he considered another perspective and let go of the hate that had sustained him for so long. That proved to be satisfying.

4 hours ago, DanteRotterdam said:

Much as I would have steered clear of having Palps back, I am not sure if that was what Vader gave his life for.
Now as you hate TLJ you might not agree but Anakin’s redemption wasn’t because he destroyed what he hated it was because he protected what he loved. His redemption/culmination of his story was not killing the Emperor. It was saving his son.

Yeah, I know. I wasn't covering the full story, but here's how I saw it before the Sequel Trilogy came out and muddled things:

Vader's love for his son redeemed him, and he completed his original job of bringing balance to the force by killing Palpatine and saving his son. It wasn't an either or. Sometimes you save what you love by killing what you hate. Killing Palpatine was not irrelevant.

I understand but that act was never the reason for his redemption.

7 hours ago, DanteRotterdam said:

destroyed what he hated it was because he protected what he loved.

2 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Sometimes you save what you love by killing what you hate.

You guys are going to make me puke in my mouth. That quote makes my skin crawl xD

2 hours ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

You guys are going to make me puke in my mouth. That quote makes my skin crawl xD

Good.

Every time I see a topic complaining about Palpy being back in TRoS I'm just struck with "Have they never read Dark Empire?"

Then, every time I see comments about how the films didn't explain something I'm like "Did they not notice that's what how we got most of the original EU?"

If the last trilogy explained everything,.....then we'd be completely done with it at the end of TRoS. Every little bit not covered, every little character not fleshed out, is a spark to fire a story. Either within an EU book or show,.....or your own game session.

Ok....back to hibernating

13 minutes ago, WarlockHCP said:

Every time I see a topic complaining about Palpy being back in TRoS I'm just struck with "Have they never read Dark Empire?"

No, but I know the story and have always hated it.

13 minutes ago, WarlockHCP said:

Then, every time I see comments about how the films didn't explain something I'm like "Did they not notice that's what how we got most of the original EU?"

Didn't explain something is different than didn't explain everything. If they didn't explain how the rebels knew how to blow up the Death Star, it would be kinda a major plot hole. It's really a case-by-case basis, there isn't a way to blanket say "you don't need stuff explained" or "you need everything explained."

15 minutes ago, WarlockHCP said:

If the last trilogy explained everything,.....then we'd be completely done with it at the end of TRoS. Every little bit not covered, every little character not fleshed out, is a spark to fire a story. Either within an EU book or show,.....or your own game session.

Well, I'm kinda already done with it.

3 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Didn't explain something is different than didn't explain everything. If they didn't explain how the rebels knew how to blow up the Death Star, it would be kinda a major plot hole. It's really a case-by-case basis, there isn't a way to blanket say "you don't need stuff explained" or "you need everything explained."

My point is those holes tend to get handled via EU novels, comics, etc.

3 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Well, I'm kinda already done with it.

Well that's sad but your call. I'm kind of looking forward to how the story progresses with Rey and the rest. Could be great, could be crap. Be interesting either way.

7 hours ago, WarlockHCP said:

Every time I see a topic complaining about Palpy being back in TRoS I'm just struck with "Have they never read Dark Empire?"

Then, every time I see comments about how the films didn't explain something I'm like "Did they not notice that's what how we got most of the original EU?"

Some that have read Dark Empire tried to forget about it as much as possible, especially with regards to the sequels.

And you're right, in that a great deal of what modern day fans accepted as "gospel explanations" with regards to the original trilogy came from the Expanded Universe. Standing on their own with zero supplemental material, just the films and only the films, the original trilogy explain just enough to make for a generally cohesive story while explaining next to nothing about the background or even how the galaxy came to be in the shape it's in when ANH kicks off, to say nothing of the "unrealistic" fairy-tale ending of RotJ where the death of one old wizard suddenly means the entire galaxy is liberated from a tyrannical military force.

But, rose-tinted glasses and all, as back when the films came out and most of us who saw them in the theaters were kids, we didn't really care about all that background nonsense that the EU fleshed out in the years after RotJ was released.

On 2/2/2020 at 9:00 AM, WarlockHCP said:

Every time I see a topic complaining about Palpy being back in TRoS I'm just struck with "Have they never read Dark Empire?"

Sadly, yes. If they were going to start strip-mining the EU, why did they pick the worst story from the EU to adapt?

Quote

Then, every time I see comments about how the films didn't explain something I'm like "Did they not notice that's what how we got most of the original EU?"

The thing is, there's a difference between minor background color that goes unexplained (save for a 40 page entry on Wookiepedia) and major plot holes. Why Ice Cream Maker Guy is fleeing Bespin with his beloved Ice Cream Maker is unimportant to the overall plot. How a dude who was thrown down a shaft, blown up, blown up again and then crashed from orbit and came back alive and well in the final act is kind of a detail that needs more than just " A Wizard did it ".

1 minute ago, Desslok said:

Sadly, yes. If they were going to start strip-mining the EU, why did they pick the worst story from the EU to adapt?

When did they adapt The Crystal Star ? 😜

6 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

When did they adapt The Crystal Star ? 😜

Damnit! Forgot about that one. Okay, second worst . . . . *remembers Jedi Academy Trilogy* . . .third worst EU story.

3 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Damnit! Forgot about that one. Okay, second worst . . . . *remembers Jedi Academy Trilogy* . . .third worst EU story.

Three words:

Planet of Twilight

But seriously, I give Dark Empire credit for going big in the brand new sandbox of what would become the Star Wars EU. It had some...vaguely entertaining ideas, but could/should have been left alone and done at the end of #6. No need for the two sequels. Personally, whether Star Wars or other comics, I’ve found Tom Vietch to be full of grand ideas, but self indulgent in their execution. For instance, Brat Pack was cutting satire on the idea of kid sidekicks, but by the time it got to the end, was a mess...and even had a different ending in the collected edition. And the follow up - Maximortal - was just...uh...yeah.