You can see mine in my signature below. He died during the first session, during our first encounter, on the first round of combat from a freaking fireball. That's right. My 6 HP Mystic succeeded on his save from a Fireball, and was reduced to ashes anyway. The worst part about this is he was not even taking an active part in the battle.
We were asked to investigate this abandoned church a few miles out of town that villagers had reported weird sounds and a foul odor emanating from it. When we got close, we could see the graveyard clearly, and a bunch of the graves seemed to be dug out and empty. It did not take a genius to know what was going on. We get up to the main building without any issues. There was no one outside, and we couldn't see anyone in the windows as we approached. The main door was covered in mud and dried blood. My character, Magnus, was worried about being overwhelmed if they tried to enter because he has counted about 30 something excavated graves. The rest of the party of course wanted to run in their and get the jump on them. They proceeded to do so, while Magnus stayed behind and hid behind the door, guarding the rear in case of a trap. Well they enter to find a necromancer in the process of raising the 30 corpses. We rolled initiative. I rolled low and went second to last, and the necromancer rolled even lower and went dead last. The other players engaged immediately and did considerable damage. We definitely thought we would kill him in one round. Then it got to my turn. I shot him with my light crossbow and did a pitiful 4 points of damage. Then it came to the necromancer. Well, he let off a Fireball. But he did not aim it at the 4 other players group immediately in front of him. He aimed it at the one in the back. Me. I was the only one caught in the radius of it. Of course I was killed instantly, and a large chunk of the building was blown out as well.
My DM was very pleased. He pulled out a board and revealed it to the rest of the group. It was an on going tally he had of all of his player kills in every game he ran.
It became clear that he was more interested in killing players than providing a fun experience.
My very first session, I joined a group already in progress, although the other players were levels 2-4, so my level 1 sorcerer wasn't that far behind. We started in a room which they had apparently cleared out in the previous session and opened the door for the next room and the DM gave us a brief description of what we saw through the doorway, which sounded to me like an empty room. And for about 20 seconds, none of the other players said or did anything. So I announced I was going to ease slowly into the next room, at which point I was surprise attacked by two goblins who were hiding in the room and they knocked my HP down to 0.
That was about 5 minutes into my very first game, and announcing I was going into the room was the very first thing I did in the game.
Fortunately, I successfully rolled a death save and the party had a Paladin who restored some of my health, so my character either didn't actually die or didn't stay dead, I'm not entirely sure how that works. Plus, I don't think anyone at the table, including the DM, wanted me to die immediately. But certainly any NPC in my shoes would have been dead.
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=========================== Laugh at life or life will laugh at you.
Current D&D Characters: Kromen Flintfist, Hill Dwarf Order of the Scribes Wizard/Armorer Artificer Eiphrok, Half-Orc Oath of Glory Paladin/Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer
My very first D&D character lasted less time than it took to make him. I was around 10 or 11 during the back half of the 2nd Edition era. I had gotten some compendium books about D&D magic items for Christmas from an aunt who had confused my want for "Magic Cards" for something book-like with a magic-ish sounding title. I had spent all summer pouring over the book during long car rides, outfitting unnamed characters with strange collections of magical items.
The local game store in my area had D&D gaming and I asked if I could play. A few of the guys sat around and helped me put together a character in about 30 minutes. I had recently watched Kull the Conqueror and wanted to play some Fighter-type guy with an axe. They helped me toss together a Dwarven Fighter and I sat down to play the game with them. Five minutes in my character triggered some sort of trap that knocked me out and separated me from the party. When next I came to, my character was suspended by a chain over a lake of acid. The party found me shortly after when they entered the area I was in. I begged them to help get me down. The party leader, a bit of a dick, did exactly that. He used some magic extending staff to break the chain, plunging my dwarf into the lake of acid where I then died. They tore my sheet in half.
Luckily, there was another gaming table playing that night at the store as well. They let me sit in and gave me an old fighter character that some other player had abandoned weeks ago. I erased the weapon that fighter had and replaced it with an axe. I played that fighter for years afterward.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
I joined a long running campaign and my first character died on his first roll. The characters in the campaign were soldiers in a mercenary company inspired by the Black Company books by Glen Cook. It had a lot of homebrew in it and elements pulled from several different games so I wouldn’t call it D&D exactly. I was given a premade fighter character.
We had just started the session when an experienced player had his character bring up some crystals they had found in a previous session. As he talked in character to the GM, he acted out pulling the crystals out a pouch and tossing them on the table. Turned out it was something very dangerous, I’m not sure we ever knew exactly what it was or how dangerous it was. The GM says “everyone roll a save”. I rolled a natural 1. The GM describes the crystals turning into a mist and tentacles of mist reaching out. My character was caught by the tentacles and was transformed into mist.
I was given another premade character and he rolled a natural 20 on his first roll. He survived about a session and a half. I rolled up a third character and named him Vita Brevis, latin for Life is Short. He survived many sessions until I had to retire him when I moved.
The campaign was very deadly but it was by far the best campaign I’ve ever played.
I joined a campaign that had been running a long time. Tarrasque one-shotted my level 7 dwarf as soon as I joined
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they/her Always open to chat. Just send me a PM
Looking in the mirror of my mind Turning the pages of my life Walking the path so many paced a million times Drown out the voices in the air Leaving the ones that never cared Picking the pieces up and building to the sky
Then don’t ask about my arena experience if you thought that was bad
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they/her Always open to chat. Just send me a PM
Looking in the mirror of my mind Turning the pages of my life Walking the path so many paced a million times Drown out the voices in the air Leaving the ones that never cared Picking the pieces up and building to the sky
In all, I think I've been pretty lucky with my characters not dying a quick death. However, for one of my friends, he kept making somewhat reckless decisions on the basis that his back story rested on him being a local hero on the quest for fame with an appetite for justice and heroic deed. First, he punched an old woman in the face at level 1 (he thought she was kidnapping a child - turned out to be true) and she was a night hag. He died pretty quickly, but since we just started, our DM showed mercy and allowed us access to a potion to revive him. We go approach the house, and there are zombies! I thunder wave and none of them are affected...at all. I book it out and he rushes in, sword in hand yelling something about the "undead shall not roam". Well, before I could go back in and pull him out, the horde swarmed him and devoured his flesh. Again, we sought out a powerful wizard and had him revived. Next, we are searching this old mansion of a house and at the top of the stairs is an old suite of armor. Josh starts thinking himself wise at this point and hangs back knowing I'll end up tripping its defensive mechanism. Which, did end up happening. But, what he didn't see was another animated suit coming up the stairs and attacked him from behind. Two impalements and he was down. I ended up dying in this fight as well, but our sole survivor member sought out the aid of another and had us all revived. This was all in one session and was session number 1 for Curse of Strahd. And, after that we have been on our own and the wizard we got help from and the seller of potions are neither available for assistance.
First time playing AD&D after having played Basic/Expert for a year or so. My friend and I were the only ones playing. We each made up five (!) characters, or 10 total for the party (basically, one of every possible class). And then he DMed and I played them all (!!). Obviously there was no real RP here (with myself) but mostly just "gaming" the experience. First room we entered had closed, not-locked, chest. The thief checked for traps, and failed his roll. We had this rule, that the party takes turns opening potentially trapped chests. We went alphabetically by character name. It was my friend's Druid character's turn first. The first, and last, in-game action he ever took: He opened the chest, was pricked by a poison needle, failed the save, and died.
I felt really bad about that, since it was not even my character. But it was far from the only death in that first adventure of AD&D. If I recall, 6 of the original 10 survived, and that was after a ring of 3 wishes and a couple of rez scrolls (i.e., the entire party would have died without those things, just not all at once).
When I was a kid (I'm in college now), I'd run games with my mom's old Red Box set, and my brother and I created a party, including his Chaotic [Evil] wizard named Oldie, who hid like a coward during a kobold fight. Rough justice occurred. Oldie lived about 10 minutes.
It probably didn't help that he started with 1 hit point. Back in the day, Constitution could be as low as -3, you had a d4 for your hit points, and you rolled it! I miss that edition honestly...makes me kind of chuckle when people who got their intro from Critical Role get angry with their characters dying.
Looking in the mirror of my mind Turning the pages of my life Walking the path so many paced a million times Drown out the voices in the air Leaving the ones that never cared Picking the pieces up and building to the sky
A DM, who wanted to tell his story, had put killboxes in any place that wasn't in his gameplan. The party didn't make it to the end.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
My first character ever. I built him to use a longbow. His very first (and last) in-game action was to stick his right hand into a pouch he had found to take out the platinum piece that was inside. Turned out it was a Bag of Devouring....
First time playing AD&D after having played Basic/Expert for a year or so. My friend and I were the only ones playing. We each made up five (!) characters, or 10 total for the party (basically, one of every possible class). And then he DMed and I played them all (!!). Obviously there was no real RP here (with myself) but mostly just "gaming" the experience. First room we entered had closed, not-locked, chest. The thief checked for traps, and failed his roll. We had this rule, that the party takes turns opening potentially trapped chests. We went alphabetically by character name. It was my friend's Druid character's turn first. The first, and last, in-game action he ever took: He opened the chest, was pricked by a poison needle, failed the save, and died.
I felt really bad about that, since it was not even my character. But it was far from the only death in that first adventure of AD&D. If I recall, 6 of the original 10 survived, and that was after a ring of 3 wishes and a couple of rez scrolls (i.e., the entire party would have died without those things, just not all at once).
You opened chests with your hands?! We would always open things when we were as far away as possible. Isn’t that what 10 feet poles were for? Lol
I think I played in a very paranoid group. One time the creatures we killed got back up and we had to cut their hearts out to stop them. We always cut the hearts out of everything we killed from then on, just to be sure.
Yes, was a rough time and I was getting frustrated for you guys. But you've pushed on and finally landed on your feet. Started making some wise decisions like not being the only person to run into a house with six Strahd zombies while you're level 1 (facepalm) DM's famous "Are you sure?" Or my favorite decision so far, instead of using the key he had just found to safely unlock the chest he uses the thief's tools and unlocks it but sets off the trap and fails the save so he was poisoned for an hour.
Yes, was a rough time and I was getting frustrated for you guys. But you've pushed on and finally landed on your feet. Started making some wise decisions like not being the only person to run into a house with six Strahd zombies while you're level 1 (facepalm) DM's famous "Are you sure?" Or my favorite decision so far, instead of using the key he had just found to safely unlock the chest he uses the thief's tools and unlocks it but sets off the trap and fails the save so he was poisoned for an hour.
Okay this was supposed to be connected to ManofValor's post.
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You can see mine in my signature below. He died during the first session, during our first encounter, on the first round of combat from a freaking fireball. That's right. My 6 HP Mystic succeeded on his save from a Fireball, and was reduced to ashes anyway. The worst part about this is he was not even taking an active part in the battle.
We were asked to investigate this abandoned church a few miles out of town that villagers had reported weird sounds and a foul odor emanating from it. When we got close, we could see the graveyard clearly, and a bunch of the graves seemed to be dug out and empty. It did not take a genius to know what was going on. We get up to the main building without any issues. There was no one outside, and we couldn't see anyone in the windows as we approached. The main door was covered in mud and dried blood. My character, Magnus, was worried about being overwhelmed if they tried to enter because he has counted about 30 something excavated graves. The rest of the party of course wanted to run in their and get the jump on them. They proceeded to do so, while Magnus stayed behind and hid behind the door, guarding the rear in case of a trap. Well they enter to find a necromancer in the process of raising the 30 corpses. We rolled initiative. I rolled low and went second to last, and the necromancer rolled even lower and went dead last. The other players engaged immediately and did considerable damage. We definitely thought we would kill him in one round. Then it got to my turn. I shot him with my light crossbow and did a pitiful 4 points of damage. Then it came to the necromancer. Well, he let off a Fireball. But he did not aim it at the 4 other players group immediately in front of him. He aimed it at the one in the back. Me. I was the only one caught in the radius of it. Of course I was killed instantly, and a large chunk of the building was blown out as well.
My DM was very pleased. He pulled out a board and revealed it to the rest of the group. It was an on going tally he had of all of his player kills in every game he ran.
It became clear that he was more interested in killing players than providing a fun experience.
Check out my Homebrew Magic Items
I can top you... sorta.
My very first session, I joined a group already in progress, although the other players were levels 2-4, so my level 1 sorcerer wasn't that far behind. We started in a room which they had apparently cleared out in the previous session and opened the door for the next room and the DM gave us a brief description of what we saw through the doorway, which sounded to me like an empty room. And for about 20 seconds, none of the other players said or did anything. So I announced I was going to ease slowly into the next room, at which point I was surprise attacked by two goblins who were hiding in the room and they knocked my HP down to 0.
That was about 5 minutes into my very first game, and announcing I was going into the room was the very first thing I did in the game.
Fortunately, I successfully rolled a death save and the party had a Paladin who restored some of my health, so my character either didn't actually die or didn't stay dead, I'm not entirely sure how that works. Plus, I don't think anyone at the table, including the DM, wanted me to die immediately. But certainly any NPC in my shoes would have been dead.
===========================
Laugh at life or life will laugh at you.
Current D&D Characters:
Kromen Flintfist, Hill Dwarf Order of the Scribes Wizard/Armorer Artificer
Eiphrok, Half-Orc Oath of Glory Paladin/Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer
My very first D&D character lasted less time than it took to make him. I was around 10 or 11 during the back half of the 2nd Edition era. I had gotten some compendium books about D&D magic items for Christmas from an aunt who had confused my want for "Magic Cards" for something book-like with a magic-ish sounding title. I had spent all summer pouring over the book during long car rides, outfitting unnamed characters with strange collections of magical items.
The local game store in my area had D&D gaming and I asked if I could play. A few of the guys sat around and helped me put together a character in about 30 minutes. I had recently watched Kull the Conqueror and wanted to play some Fighter-type guy with an axe. They helped me toss together a Dwarven Fighter and I sat down to play the game with them. Five minutes in my character triggered some sort of trap that knocked me out and separated me from the party. When next I came to, my character was suspended by a chain over a lake of acid. The party found me shortly after when they entered the area I was in. I begged them to help get me down. The party leader, a bit of a dick, did exactly that. He used some magic extending staff to break the chain, plunging my dwarf into the lake of acid where I then died. They tore my sheet in half.
Luckily, there was another gaming table playing that night at the store as well. They let me sit in and gave me an old fighter character that some other player had abandoned weeks ago. I erased the weapon that fighter had and replaced it with an axe. I played that fighter for years afterward.
I joined a long running campaign and my first character died on his first roll. The characters in the campaign were soldiers in a mercenary company inspired by the Black Company books by Glen Cook. It had a lot of homebrew in it and elements pulled from several different games so I wouldn’t call it D&D exactly. I was given a premade fighter character.
We had just started the session when an experienced player had his character bring up some crystals they had found in a previous session. As he talked in character to the GM, he acted out pulling the crystals out a pouch and tossing them on the table. Turned out it was something very dangerous, I’m not sure we ever knew exactly what it was or how dangerous it was. The GM says “everyone roll a save”. I rolled a natural 1. The GM describes the crystals turning into a mist and tentacles of mist reaching out. My character was caught by the tentacles and was transformed into mist.
I was given another premade character and he rolled a natural 20 on his first roll. He survived about a session and a half. I rolled up a third character and named him Vita Brevis, latin for Life is Short. He survived many sessions until I had to retire him when I moved.
The campaign was very deadly but it was by far the best campaign I’ve ever played.
I joined a campaign that had been running a long time. Tarrasque one-shotted my level 7 dwarf as soon as I joined
they/her Always open to chat. Just send me a PM
Looking in the mirror of my mind
Turning the pages of my life
Walking the path so many paced a million times
Drown out the voices in the air
Leaving the ones that never cared
Picking the pieces up and building to the sky
Jeez guys, I thought I had it bad.
A Tarrasque at level 7 just seems like pure spite though.
Check out my Homebrew Magic Items
Then don’t ask about my arena experience if you thought that was bad
they/her Always open to chat. Just send me a PM
Looking in the mirror of my mind
Turning the pages of my life
Walking the path so many paced a million times
Drown out the voices in the air
Leaving the ones that never cared
Picking the pieces up and building to the sky
In all, I think I've been pretty lucky with my characters not dying a quick death. However, for one of my friends, he kept making somewhat reckless decisions on the basis that his back story rested on him being a local hero on the quest for fame with an appetite for justice and heroic deed. First, he punched an old woman in the face at level 1 (he thought she was kidnapping a child - turned out to be true) and she was a night hag. He died pretty quickly, but since we just started, our DM showed mercy and allowed us access to a potion to revive him. We go approach the house, and there are zombies! I thunder wave and none of them are affected...at all. I book it out and he rushes in, sword in hand yelling something about the "undead shall not roam". Well, before I could go back in and pull him out, the horde swarmed him and devoured his flesh. Again, we sought out a powerful wizard and had him revived. Next, we are searching this old mansion of a house and at the top of the stairs is an old suite of armor. Josh starts thinking himself wise at this point and hangs back knowing I'll end up tripping its defensive mechanism. Which, did end up happening. But, what he didn't see was another animated suit coming up the stairs and attacked him from behind. Two impalements and he was down. I ended up dying in this fight as well, but our sole survivor member sought out the aid of another and had us all revived. This was all in one session and was session number 1 for Curse of Strahd. And, after that we have been on our own and the wizard we got help from and the seller of potions are neither available for assistance.
First time playing AD&D after having played Basic/Expert for a year or so. My friend and I were the only ones playing. We each made up five (!) characters, or 10 total for the party (basically, one of every possible class). And then he DMed and I played them all (!!). Obviously there was no real RP here (with myself) but mostly just "gaming" the experience. First room we entered had closed, not-locked, chest. The thief checked for traps, and failed his roll. We had this rule, that the party takes turns opening potentially trapped chests. We went alphabetically by character name. It was my friend's Druid character's turn first. The first, and last, in-game action he ever took: He opened the chest, was pricked by a poison needle, failed the save, and died.
I felt really bad about that, since it was not even my character. But it was far from the only death in that first adventure of AD&D. If I recall, 6 of the original 10 survived, and that was after a ring of 3 wishes and a couple of rez scrolls (i.e., the entire party would have died without those things, just not all at once).
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
When I was a kid (I'm in college now), I'd run games with my mom's old Red Box set, and my brother and I created a party, including his Chaotic [Evil] wizard named Oldie, who hid like a coward during a kobold fight. Rough justice occurred. Oldie lived about 10 minutes.
It probably didn't help that he started with 1 hit point. Back in the day, Constitution could be as low as -3, you had a d4 for your hit points, and you rolled it! I miss that edition honestly...makes me kind of chuckle when people who got their intro from Critical Role get angry with their characters dying.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Oof
they/her Always open to chat. Just send me a PM
Looking in the mirror of my mind
Turning the pages of my life
Walking the path so many paced a million times
Drown out the voices in the air
Leaving the ones that never cared
Picking the pieces up and building to the sky
A DM, who wanted to tell his story, had put killboxes in any place that wasn't in his gameplan. The party didn't make it to the end.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
My first character ever. I built him to use a longbow. His very first (and last) in-game action was to stick his right hand into a pouch he had found to take out the platinum piece that was inside. Turned out it was a Bag of Devouring....
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
You opened chests with your hands?! We would always open things when we were as far away as possible. Isn’t that what 10 feet poles were for? Lol
I think I played in a very paranoid group. One time the creatures we killed got back up and we had to cut their hearts out to stop them. We always cut the hearts out of everything we killed from then on, just to be sure.
I'm not sure it occurred to me then, or really ever, to lever open chests with a 10' pole. But I was a lot more careful later on about opening chests.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I’m not even sure it’s possible to open a chest with a 10 foot pole. Of course now we have Mage Hand. Solves all your paranoid character’s problems.
the pc's in the first game l DM'ed. l gave them plenty of ways to avoid death,but nope,they had to attack the dragon.
Well it is called Dungeons and Dragons, right? Why wouldn't you attack the dragon?
Wait, levels? Hit points? What are those?
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yes, was a rough time and I was getting frustrated for you guys. But you've pushed on and finally landed on your feet. Started making some wise decisions like not being the only person to run into a house with six Strahd zombies while you're level 1 (facepalm) DM's famous "Are you sure?" Or my favorite decision so far, instead of using the key he had just found to safely unlock the chest he uses the thief's tools and unlocks it but sets off the trap and fails the save so he was poisoned for an hour.
Okay this was supposed to be connected to ManofValor's post.