First encounter with this con artist goblin artificer. She steps up, uses Faerie Fire to light up a bunch of trolls (keep in mind, this is a party of like, 8 people).

First troll's turn. it decides to go after the loud yappy goblin.

all of the multiattack hits.

2 of them crit.

On the first enemy turn, I'm dead due to catastrophic damage.

I was laughing my ass off, and the rest of the party were like "wtf?! save her!" and I'm just telling them to let her die because that was AMAZING.

I've played 2 characters, none of them have died. I've DM'ed 2 games, and throughout them, 3 characters have died.

The first was my cousin's character, a Goliath Fighter. He tried breaking the gate to their prison cell, and of course the guards went to stop him and the other PC's from escaping. They quickly knocked out the Goliath since he had no weaponry, and he went to death saves. First was a 5. Then a 1. He's dead. The other PC's submit after that.

Few hours later (in game and real life), the PC's including my cousin's new character (a Dragonborn Paladin) encounter a dragon after they are freed from the prison. The dragon manages to kill most of the soldiers who free them, but while it was doing that, the PC's brought it down to nearly 50 hp. Dragon tries to reason with them to save itself. Eventually, one of the characters (a Half-Elf Fighter) gets antsy and fires his crossbow, instigating more combat. Dragon hits them with a big breath attack, and the Half-Elf takes enough damage to die instantly.

The last character to die (technically) was the Dragonborn Paladin. Several times he has died. First was when they were fighting trolls. He was brought back to the Dragon Priest and revived, and the second time, they were helping in an assassination gone wrong and he died, resulting in him having to be revived and find a powerful ring.

10 evil flumphs. Not even my stat monster of a level 2 barbarian made it out

My first character, a level 4 ranger, died rebelling against the CE lvl. 14 DMPC.

My group was playing tomb of annihilation, and as we were in the lost city of [redacted], we stumbled upon 4 zombie girallions. Feel free to Google it, but our level 5 group would be ground to a pulp if we stayed. Anyways, I, the rogue, rushed in to attack, and dealt barley any damage. Massive confusion ensued, and the rest of our party (a warlock, barbarian, and ranger) all ran away, making it out safely. By the end of the confusion, I was prone (I must've rolled a nat 1?) and it was the girallion's turn. My poor poor rogue was smashed to a pulp as the rest of the party licked their wounds.

I've never had any of my characters get killed but while DMing, I have killed quite a few characters. When I was running Tomb of Horrors, I almost killed my whole party with a demilich and when I was running Curse of Strahd, the Cleric got killed during the 1st session.

have only just seen this thread and now rubbing my hands in glee. The story of when I ran the first episode of the Age of Worms campaign, "The Whispering Cairn", features an absolute string of idiot player deaths, almost all of them attributable to Nathan, our long-standing play companion. Several of the players in this party were quite inexperienced, but that was not his excuse, having played since he was a schoolboy and now being in his late 30s.  

(Spoilers)

So, a big part of the first episode is the eponymous dungeon , part of which features a high, almost concealed ledge in a corridor which leads to an upper corridor ending in a door. the door features a wind trap, which triggered as Nathan's dwarf marched boldly towards it, blowing him prone and, over a couple of rounds, out of the end of the tunnel over a sheer drop. Another player character, who had made her saving throw, bravely attempted to seize a nearby chain, and the dwarf simultaneously, in order to save him. The dice were not kind. Both characters went over the edge and rolled above average falling damage. Splat.  Worse, the falling dwarf landed on the paladin's war dog which had been left for some reason right at the base of the shaft, killing it also and providing the GM with a hat-trick. (Life at first level is tough).

Nathan's response was to roll up a replacement character, same class, cleric, also a dwarf, which he rather unimaginatively chose to make the identical twin brother of his first character. When the reconstituted party, having searched around a bit in other areas, went back to the same point in the dungeon, Dwarf 2 climbed laboriously to the top of the shaft and, despite the fevered protests of the other players, announced that he "was going to see if the trap was still operating". Incredible. Not unreasonably, it was still working just fine, and the second brother was accordingly killed in just the same way.  20 minutes of in-game time later, and Nathan's new character, a half orc ranger with a wolf companion, wandered into the Whispering Cairn, just as the party had discovered a couple of ancient lifts apparently descending to a floor below. "Perhaps I can help you explore", he foolishly offered?  One of the lifts was jammed up, but interfering with it caused it to drop down revealing a shaft which could be explored.  The second appeared operable but the whole floor of the lift was covered in what looked like ancient mouldering flesh and crushed bones.  I believe the scenario writer probably intended that this would act as a glaringly obvious warning, but the newly arrived half orc, eager to prove himself to his companions, was having none of this.  into the lift he sprang!  the doors closed.  His wolf began whining in distress as he was crushed to paste as the lift descended.

Nathan was, admittedly, not guilty of the party's subsequent dumbass character losses. Given the task of investigating a farm, just outside their home base of Diamond Lake, which they expected to pose no threat, only three characters initially went to see the place, leaving the other two in the pub. Unexpectedly, there were signs of something suspicious going on.  Would the party announce their return, a total of 10 minutes of walking, to retrieve their companions before proceeding?  Of course not - that would be spoiling the fun.  Alas, the farmstead harboured a wounded owl bear, which ripped two of the characters limb from limb and put the other to flight.  first episode of the 12 episode campaign: five dead player characters, 2 NPCs.  Fortunately, the wolf got away.

i have just recently had a rogue character (who is my first rogue and my first character death) die whilst trying to save/protect an 8yearold halfling girl who and snuck into a cave following us from our village/caravan troupe camp and managed to get caught up in a battle! 

he grew up a thief but died a hero!

Oh, man, I have so many death stories. I'll start with one I DMed. It's pretty short and simple, but still funny.

I had two fairly new players, and they were arguing about which cave to go into. One of the characters was a wizard; the other was a fighter. I thought it was a good combo at the time, but in retrospect, it was a bad idea. At one point in the debate, the fighter's player said, "I chop him with my axe." Oh, boy. "Make an attack roll," I said. He had +5 to hit, and the wizard's AC was 12. Guess what the fighter rolled? A seven.

"Roll for damage," I said. The fighter's player clearly regretted his decision, but there was no going back. The wizard had seven HP, and the fighter would do 1d6 + 3 slashing damage with the handaxe. HE ROLLED A SIX. The wizard failed three death saves in a row.

I still remember my description: "You cleave your axe directly into your friend. He goes splat on the ground. What do you do now?"

The fighter ended up going back to the village and asking to get the wizard revived by some cleric. When the wizard was resurrected, the fighter cheered loudly. Then the wizard critted him with Fire Bolt for 12 damage, reducing the fighter exactly to 0 HP. The cleric dove for cover as the wizard proceeded to Eldritch Blast the fighter's corpse into oblivion.

The cleric revived the fighter after that, who was completely enraged and turned murder hobo, killing his friend with a handaxe again, then beheading the gathered commoners. Then the town guards came and threw him in prison. The cleric survived and revived the wizard, who grinded for a bit, then fireballed the prison, killing his friend.

Okay, I now realize that that is the story of four character deaths, not one, but whatever. (The wizard went on to be immolated in his own wall of fire several sessions later. The cleric from the first adventure had been killed before then, so that was the end of that campaign.)

"BOOM! I wake up. Groggy. Confused. Hungover. It's the same for us all, so that initial shock's nothing new. Sundance is in my face, and I'm freaking out. My brain works, but I don't remember a thing 'cept that I seem to be a functioning life form—I'm human, I'm a man. And then my mind starts reeling a thousand miles a minute. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM. Like I'm downloading the 'Idiot's Guide to Basic Human Existence.' Cool. Great. Still can't remember anything. And I sure can't wrap my head around the talking, floating magic robot orb-thing jabbering in my face. I'm freaked. So, I freaked. Smacked her to the ground. Hard… And I ran.

"I'm runnin'. She's runnin'… Or, ya know, whatever she's doin' since she doesn't have any legs… She's right behind me, going, 'Wrong way! Wrong way!' She's screaming. I'm screaming. Whatever she's yelling, I just keep running. It's night. Did I mention that? It's nighttime and my eyes are still adjusting. So, I'm runnin', I'm runnin'. Can't see. Can't remember. Scared to death. Confused as all get-out. And then—

"I fall. I'm straight up falling. Just like that, I ran… Right. Off. A. Cliff. It wasn't a short drop. I bounced… so many times. Felt each and every one. Till I didn't. Till it all went black again. And then…

"BOOM! I'm back! She got me right up on my feet. Just like she always does. And that, my dudes, was the start of a beautiful friendship."

- Cayde-6 retelling his first death as a Guardian

Not really a death story, more of a post-death story, but man this one was embarrassing.

So my character dies right at the start of our campaign, and I put a lot of work into them, so I really wanted them back. My DM told me we needed to get to this far off village to resurrect them and so we spend a decent amount of time getting there (it was part of the campaign’s plot anyway). We finally arrive, and find out that the guy who can resurrect me is missing, so we spend another session looking for him. We finally find him and my DM reminds us that we completely forgot to bring the body. So now my old character is just lying outside a cave rotting, with no way of being saved. Oh, and the necromancer’s evil now, and kills a few more of us.

My dwarf cleric died cutting the bridge out from under bowser with his spiritual axe. 

okay so being British I immediately interpreted "best character deaths" as "most ill-judged or otherwise amusing character deaths", hence previous post.

Whilst it is absolutely not my story, I recommend looking online for Kenzer & Co's classic, apparently true story of 'The Head of Vecna'.  This is a truly heroic story, not because of the actions of the characters upon discovering what they believed to be the head of the great ArchLich, but because the DM managed to keep his shit together and not collapse laughing during what must be at least 15 minutes of player imbecility. Plenty of deaths here.

Brief scene;

Fighting a Demi-Lich in Myth Drannor during the Time of Troubles while the cities Mythal was still wonky. Our bard, Thorne Windwalker, had a penchant for wands and carried many of them strapped across his chest like dynamite. These were old wands, somewhat fragile and no match for the Fireball that the Demi-Lich hurled at his chest. Wild magic surged everywhere, wild Mythal surges blasted everywhere and all of Thornes wands failed their saves. There was a crater left afterwards. An empty, shallow crater 50 feet wide and a pile of ashes.

When we woke up everything was silent and a fine rain of dust swirled in the breeze. Thorne had been reduces to ashes from a wild disintegrate ray , the Demi-Lich and it's phylactery were vaporized and the rest of the party continued on to fight various things in the city for years. Come to think of it, everyone that died was to disintegration. Entropy, that rascal must have been working her mojo again.

I just had a character death last Sunday for my Tiefling fighter, Iarut Alwyn.  I only used him for a couple sessions but even so, I did a little memorial sheet, which is below.  Also the lines of the poem at the end isn't original, see if you know where it came from.  NO GOOGLING!

I had a Spores Druid Loxodon named Muk. He has suffered a sever head injury and the only thing he could remember was his name, or at the very least that is what was tattooed onto his arm and what he assumed his name was. As we explored he began to see the same symbol on his arm carved into trees around in the swamp land. When he made it to what he assumed was his clan, he got a natural 1 perception against the black dragon hiding in the swamp which proceeded to kill and eat Muk the same way he had the rest of Muks clan. It was my first character death and was frankly hilarious. 

Also ended up being the first TPK I was apart of, but was a good time all around.