As a relative novice to the DnD multiverse, I've been a little confused about what the general rule is on character deaths in DnD games.

I've had one character die on me (in a dndbeyond pbp, no less!) and I still keep him around in my characters tab, hoping one day for that unlikely resurrection (still a low level game, but I still hope), but have in the mean time already made a new character for the same campaign. I think I keep him around because I love the character and his personality - a gregarious, 6ft 10, 300 pound slightly Ruski human fighter whose name is play on russian words meaning "comrade fuzzy hat".

In my limited experience as a DM I've avoided inflicting player deaths as much as possible, and the few times I have done so have left a bad taste in my players mouths. I ran a one shot at one point dedicated to an Oni (and a few of his minions) hunting some reasonably leveled characters through a village, changing faces and attacking from sneaky positions and so on. Resulted in a tpk since they allowed themselves to be split up by the Oni's traps and bait. The game still ended up being fun, but a few people got annoyed when they walked into traps head first (I did leave big hints, so it wasn't a "rocks fall" situation) and had to deal with the consequences. 

Another time, I put my party in a low level encounter that actually almost ended up wiping them (two players making death saves while I nerfed the damage of the goblin chief). Still, I had planned for this eventuality by providing a magic item that was entirely inert unless worn by a character who died. The item would then activate, auto-resurrect the wearer, and then provide further benefits. The key there is that the player had to die first (and fortunately, no one in my game thought to bring identify). Didn't work out like I had planned, unfortunately, but it was still an interesting way to deal with the eventuality of character death.

So yeah, any stories of characters returning from one afterlife or another, and shenanigans thereafter? Any tips on what to do with dead characters, whether yours or in your game?

No... but... if it's with a different group, there's no shame in reskinning or reusing a dead character.

My favorite character is a Dwarf Monk who gave up drinking (and has super low charisma but loves talking to people and is pretty much oblivious). The version of him in a Pathfinder game I play every couple months is alive, but the version in my DnD group is dead. However, I'll use him again when I eventually play with another group one day as people move and all.

As a player, I hang on to all my old characters - both those who survived their adventures and those who don't. Most of them I hang on to just for the nostalgia factor, but occasionally I'll pick an old character to "reboot" for a new game. The main criteria are that several years have passed since I last played the character, and no one from the character's original game are present in the new game. I did that with my half-elf druid, Gwydion, who was the very first character I ever created all the way back in high school for a 3E game; though he never technically died (the game just fizzled out) I rebooted him for a 5E game two years ago and had tons of fun. I also rebooted my human paladin, Chiemeka, who died at a pretty low level in a Pathfinder game; when I moved to a new state and joined a new Pathfinder group, I decided to give her a second chance, and she became one of my favorite characters.

As a DM, the only PC deaths I've dealt out were in the Legend of the Five Rings game system, which is notoriously fatal, so I didn't feel to bad about it. The whole point of that setting is that life is fleeting and death can strike at any time, so I simply had the players roll new characters and we moved on with the plot. The dead characters would be mentioned by NPCs at times, but I don't think I ever worked them into the plot in a major way. However, I have seen other DMs bring back dead PCs in interesting ways:

1. A PC decided to commit seppuku in an L5R game after he'd been tempted by the Dark Side and temporarily forsaken his honor and duty to his lord. The DM had that PC return as an evil, corrupted spirit under thrall of the big bad (who had originally tempted the PC) in the final battle. That was particularly emotionally poignant for me because my character had served as the PC's second for his seppuku, so I felt particularly responsible for destroying the evil ghost.
2. Another PC died at the end of one DnD 5E arc when he attempted to harness the power of a magical hive mind and failed. At the end of the second arc, when we were trying to destroy this hive mind once and for all, we discovered that the PC's consciousness (or some shattered remnant of it) was still in there, which was QUITE horrifying and redoubled our resolve to destroy the hive mind.

Many years ago I had a player that kept a display folder for all their deceased characters (some having died of old age outside of play, being retired characters).  They had finely decorated the folder and even given it a name that was very fitting to a graveyard or mausoleum.

It was far more decorative piece than even their usual character folders.

As to character death in general, it can be a sad time though even occasionally a great and fitting end to the character.  All in all I've found that a random death is often less fulfilling (occasionally disappointing) to players than one that has some reasoning or gives meaning to the character's death itself.  Though I have found over the years that even random deaths are often taken with much more enjoyment overall than knowledge creeping in that a character simply cant or is exceptionally unlikely to die.

DnD Beyond needs a feature that locks out the player and then "virtual shreds" the character at the next week's session while using the device camera to capture the players tears!!!!

Wait, this is the DM only thread, right?  😎😙