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Reincarnation in RPGs


A couple of  decades ago I became interested in how one could introduce reincarnation as what happens when a character dies.  I even tried fiddling with a new system for measuring the passage of time just to have a way of minimizing the downtime while waiting for a newly born character to grow up and go adventuring.  I realize now I was too tied to RPG as simulation; that every week, month and minute had to be accounted for and most of it in-play.
Today I thought of it in a different way.  Imagine instead how it would impact the rest of the party to have their characters age 20 years.  Of course they would have to describe what they had been doing during that time -- manning an outpost on the border, running their own tavern, contemplating the meaning of the universe in some isolated monastery-- something that could be described in a sentence or two.  As well as what encouraged them to come out of retirement-- a new menace, a new apprentice, a promise to a fallen comrade that they would find and protect their child, bankruptcy or maybe just boredom.
Bonus: you'd finally be able to employ some of those aging mechanics from AD&D. ;-)
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