Greetings, all. I'm writing an article on death in RPGs and would love to know the following from any/all of you: What has been your best and/or worst experience of an in-game PC death? How did you and your companions react -- both as their characters in the game and in real life as friends playing a game and addressing/grieving the loss. Would love to hear any and all stories.
Grieving the loss of a character. I can see anger or frustration, but grief. How do my companions, or players in my game react? Typically with hoots and howls and some good natured jaw jacking. Though I try hard as DM to make deaths dramatic and colorful so the player goes out with a smile.
I was a water gensai, circle of the moon druid. LOVE water. I show up early to the session, my good friend the dm says he has nothing prepared so we'll have to do more role-playing. Okay I can do that. We were on a quest way up north by the purple rocks, investigating spooky shit. Into the session, the party is going to find food. Being a water gensai that loves animals, I'm vegan. So I say I'm going to go on my own and get some sea kelp. In my head I picture ubereats, but instead I'll use a seal. Genius I thought. I use locate animal, find 2 seals on a nat 20. Dm says they're about a mile or 2 out. So I start swimming. I'm thinking to myself how hilarious this little bit of me interacting with a seal for kelp was going to be. Dm says make a death saving throw. My heart drops. "What the hell for?" I had forgotten we were up north, and the many times he reminded the party how it was deathly cold. I roll a nat 1. This was the 2nd session with my character so he let's me live. I turn around in the water panicking. (This is my friends and I first time playing and my first character I created.) Make another roll. Fails. I turn into an octopus thinking that will be better for the cold. Nope, one more roll, one more nat 1. My water gensai druid, died freezing in water, later realizing shaping into an artic owl and flying back would've saved me.
Death by blood explosion, killing the anceint gold shadow dragon we where fighting.It was however somewhat undercut when they (kinda, sorta, in a stilted sort of way) got resurrected.
They mounred my character for about 2-3 sessions, except this one dude who just ignored that I died.
Then I came back to life as a forgotten.Which have somewhat convaluted lore, and made a good twist character.
I was a water gensai, circle of the moon druid. LOVE water. I show up early to the session, my good friend the dm says he has nothing prepared so we'll have to do more role-playing. Okay I can do that. We were on a quest way up north by the purple rocks, investigating spooky shit. Into the session, the party is going to find food. Being a water gensai that loves animals, I'm vegan. So I say I'm going to go on my own and get some sea kelp. In my head I picture ubereats, but instead I'll use a seal. Genius I thought. I use locate animal, find 2 seals on a nat 20. Dm says they're about a mile or 2 out. So I start swimming. I'm thinking to myself how hilarious this little bit of me interacting with a seal for kelp was going to be. Dm says make a death saving throw. My heart drops. "What the hell for?" I had forgotten we were up north, and the many times he reminded the party how it was deathly cold. I roll a nat 1. This was the 2nd session with my character so he let's me live. I turn around in the water panicking. (This is my friends and I first time playing and my first character I created.) Make another roll. Fails. I turn into an octopus thinking that will be better for the cold. Nope, one more roll, one more nat 1. My water gensai druid, died freezing in water, later realizing shaping into an artic owl and flying back would've saved me.
R.I.P. Hydronius Seawalker aka The Liquid Reaper.
Really?? This is just cruel of your DM. You, the player in your cozy, heated home, may have forgotten it’s the arctic and you are in danger of freezing, but your character, who is in the arctic and cold all the time, would never forget such a thing. The second you hit the water, you should have been reminded by the DM of the cold. What a jerk thing to do to you and the first character you created on the first day that you played!
It sounds like you didn’t flip the table and walk away from the game as prolly tons of other people would have…props to you. I hope you find a better DM or your current DM stops playing “gotcha” with you. The game is so much more fun when the player-DM relationship is cooperative rather than adversarial.
My favourite death story is from a Pathfinder game many years ago. Our party was after a McGuffin in a location guarded by Yeth hounds. When the Yeth hounds bay, it causes a fear effect. Everyone fails and fleas as per the fear effect except for one guy. He is dog-piled (teehee) and killed in pretty short order. This is right at the end of the session so we call it for the night and he comes back the next week with a new character. We are still trying to get the McGuffin so we try our luck with the Yeth hounds again. Once again everyone but that same guy fails and flees as per the fear effect. He is killed again. I love this story because the guy that was killed twice was “that guy” in the group who always rolls suspiciously well so it feels kind of karmic. Dude is also the only person I can recall playing with who died due to rolling successful savings throws.
I'm running out of the abyss. During a recent session, the party was ambushed by a Drow party trying to recapture them. Clearly outmatched, the party continues to fight on with half of them down. The warlock collapses the tunnel on top of himself so that the remainder of the party can escape. Most dramatic and self-sacrificing move I've seen in a long time.
He felt really bad, but he was kind of generous up till that point, (I had a premade character for the first 4 sessions.) I was also kind of an example for the rest of the party since none of us but him have played and it's his first time as DM. The worst part is I designed a miniature that my dm hadn't printed yet. I didn't flip the table but I did rip my character sheet up. 😢
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Greetings, all. I'm writing an article on death in RPGs and would love to know the following from any/all of you: What has been your best and/or worst experience of an in-game PC death? How did you and your companions react -- both as their characters in the game and in real life as friends playing a game and addressing/grieving the loss. Would love to hear any and all stories.
Grieving the loss of a character. I can see anger or frustration, but grief. How do my companions, or players in my game react? Typically with hoots and howls and some good natured jaw jacking. Though I try hard as DM to make deaths dramatic and colorful so the player goes out with a smile.
I was a water gensai, circle of the moon druid. LOVE water. I show up early to the session, my good friend the dm says he has nothing prepared so we'll have to do more role-playing. Okay I can do that. We were on a quest way up north by the purple rocks, investigating spooky shit. Into the session, the party is going to find food. Being a water gensai that loves animals, I'm vegan. So I say I'm going to go on my own and get some sea kelp. In my head I picture ubereats, but instead I'll use a seal. Genius I thought. I use locate animal, find 2 seals on a nat 20. Dm says they're about a mile or 2 out. So I start swimming. I'm thinking to myself how hilarious this little bit of me interacting with a seal for kelp was going to be. Dm says make a death saving throw. My heart drops. "What the hell for?" I had forgotten we were up north, and the many times he reminded the party how it was deathly cold. I roll a nat 1. This was the 2nd session with my character so he let's me live. I turn around in the water panicking. (This is my friends and I first time playing and my first character I created.) Make another roll. Fails. I turn into an octopus thinking that will be better for the cold. Nope, one more roll, one more nat 1. My water gensai druid, died freezing in water, later realizing shaping into an artic owl and flying back would've saved me.
R.I.P. Hydronius Seawalker aka The Liquid Reaper.
Death by blood explosion, killing the anceint gold shadow dragon we where fighting.It was however somewhat undercut when they (kinda, sorta, in a stilted sort of way) got resurrected.
They mounred my character for about 2-3 sessions, except this one dude who just ignored that I died.
Then I came back to life as a forgotten.Which have somewhat convaluted lore, and made a good twist character.
My homebrew content: Monsters, subclasses, Magic items, Feats, spells, races, backgrounds
Really?? This is just cruel of your DM. You, the player in your cozy, heated home, may have forgotten it’s the arctic and you are in danger of freezing, but your character, who is in the arctic and cold all the time, would never forget such a thing. The second you hit the water, you should have been reminded by the DM of the cold. What a jerk thing to do to you and the first character you created on the first day that you played!
It sounds like you didn’t flip the table and walk away from the game as prolly tons of other people would have…props to you. I hope you find a better DM or your current DM stops playing “gotcha” with you. The game is so much more fun when the player-DM relationship is cooperative rather than adversarial.
My favourite death story is from a Pathfinder game many years ago. Our party was after a McGuffin in a location guarded by Yeth hounds. When the Yeth hounds bay, it causes a fear effect. Everyone fails and fleas as per the fear effect except for one guy. He is dog-piled (teehee) and killed in pretty short order. This is right at the end of the session so we call it for the night and he comes back the next week with a new character. We are still trying to get the McGuffin so we try our luck with the Yeth hounds again. Once again everyone but that same guy fails and flees as per the fear effect. He is killed again. I love this story because the guy that was killed twice was “that guy” in the group who always rolls suspiciously well so it feels kind of karmic. Dude is also the only person I can recall playing with who died due to rolling successful savings throws.
I'm running out of the abyss. During a recent session, the party was ambushed by a Drow party trying to recapture them. Clearly outmatched, the party continues to fight on with half of them down. The warlock collapses the tunnel on top of himself so that the remainder of the party can escape. Most dramatic and self-sacrificing move I've seen in a long time.
He felt really bad, but he was kind of generous up till that point, (I had a premade character for the first 4 sessions.) I was also kind of an example for the rest of the party since none of us but him have played and it's his first time as DM. The worst part is I designed a miniature that my dm hadn't printed yet. I didn't flip the table but I did rip my character sheet up. 😢