Favorite PC death

[vaultdweller]

Obviously I'm a student of the Sierra style of Gaming (where finding ways to die is more fun that actually finishing the game) but I like hearing about PC deaths.

Here's one that amused me.

I had a character named Loki, a halfling rogue with delusions of grandeur, who was impossible to kill. While the players were defeated by traps, monsters, and such I kept rolling well enough to live (if not succeed). Unfortunately, I got drunk one night, and promptly drowned in an ale barrel I 'dove into'. Like someone said in the forums, tough-to-kill characters usually have the most rediculous deaths.

[nobara]

My favorite PC death happend to a friend, he was triying to save us from drowning because our boat was falling into some river rapids, when one of the guys falled from the boat, he rushed to save him, he had wings so he tried to fly and catch him, unfortunately for him (a roll of 1) he crashed into a narrow space that was the begining of a waterfall where we where going to go down. He looked really heroic that day.

[Montalve]

Two deaths come to my mind... both of them as i was being DMs... The first one is more recent, the second was in my first campaign i dms and he was my first player to trully die.

The first one was a young warrior/rogue, the group was trying to install an outpost/castle in the northern frontier of Cormyr where they were to defend the lands agains future invasions... they had just a pallisade and some wooden buildengs and less of them in rock. They were surronded by enemies... lieutenants of a greater evil... but competing against themselves, giving the players with that some chance of survivial and winning. Once they attacked a group of gnolls that worked for their enemies and took their weapons to their armory... what they didn't know was that they were carrying a lesser artifact that would gave impresive combat prowress and controlf over other gnolls to a worthy gnolls (HD 6+). So when they learned of it 2 contrary gnolls tribbes attacked the outpowast trying to get the artifact first. The combat was terrible, more than half of the gnolls falled, and several guards (who were not well hidden at the moment of the attack) and most players were almost dying at the moment reinforced arrived (they were killing from 2 to 3 gnolls by round thanks to cambat reflexes and cinematics) most of them falled to the terrible rival leaders of the gnolls... one in particular deserves especial mention... in the middle of the battle the 2 gnolls leaders (a barbarian and corrupt druid) could sense the axe-artifact so they went directly after it in the armory which also served to keep beer.... and the young warrior seeing that the horrible monster were going after his beer (which gave a good income and entertainment to the outpost lords, aka players) he put himself in the path of the barbarina gnoll and 2 of his lieutenants, he screamed in defiance in defense of the beer and killed a lesser foe... then the lieutenants attacked hurting him baddly and the leather finished him (critical in a war axe, with max damage). The blow would have just cut him in half, but for his heroism i gave him a reflex save to receive half damage. And he got it so we left his character bleeding and dying in the floor while the gnoll elathers killed themselves for an artifact the didn't menat to protect. It was fun to see him following that idea, he didn't even know that so much enemies where going toward his place, he just wanted to defend the beer.

Montalve

[Montalve]

The other PC was Duncan D'Gives Paladin and Knight... he was in a crusade to destroy the evil sorceress (aka that damned witch) who destroyed his family and fief. In his path he joined a group of adventuress... and fall in love with their guide (which falled in love with a templar who abandoned his vows to marry her).

The paladin frustrated by his group, his faillure to take the witch to justice, his broken hearth and seeing a man of honor and conviction as the Templar to abandon his vows for a woman was too much for him.

So he got as much money as he could by whatever methods (mostly he didn't damaged no one) even he sold himself to women. at the end with the money he amassed he got a lot of experimental chinese and italian powder (as i and the player were inexperienced he got as much as megaton explosion), and with stealth and care put it all in the castle of the witch (in middle italy)...

He get into the castle, anounced himself, and insulted the sourceress Artemisa, which at the end blowed him with a firewall as he desired... exploting the castle itself, and with the combined strenghr of the explosion the hundreds and maybe thousands of deads created by the explosion... and the magical energy released by the awakening of a demon who was sleeping in the sorceress body... the energy created an greenhouse effect of epic proportions around the world within a month. Basically the Paladin has brought the end of the known world and an age of darkness... he was praised by his effort by the demoness and became her servant in the end. Obviusly the player didn't knew this until meeting his brother (he made the renegade brother of the paladin).

In the end was a great and climatic death, which we remember quiet well... just don't ask why in the same campaing one of my female players still remember to this day (almost 9 years ago was this campaign) how her character died and repeats to me "she gives you a kiss, and you die." (i was trully hated that time).

Montalve

[Montalve]

Originally Posted by Montalve

The other PC was Duncan D'Gives Paladin and Knight... he was in a crusade to destroy the evil sorceress (aka that damned witch) who destroyed his family and fief. In his path he joined a group of adventuress... and fall in love with their guide (which falled in love with a templar who abandoned his vows to marry her).

cof cof.. ok after being critized by the player of this char i make an amend to myself, the pladin was Dante De Geevei, his half renegade fighter brother was Duncan :P

Montalve

[UncleDave]

I think that a creative or well-crafted PC death can be just as much fun as completing an adventure. I once had a Cthulhu character who died while trying to infiltrate a cult - he never even saw a cthulhu mythos creature, but there were hints that the cult was related somehow. The fact that I died investigating, and the GM never did tell me what the cult were doing, fitted extremely well into the Lovecraft ideal, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Cheers!

[UncleDave]

Similarly, I once GM'ed a campaign in SLA Industries. IN this game you get missions called "BPNs", ranging from blue (menial work), to red (emergency), to black (suicide missions). The players themselves chose two black ops in a row, and by the end of the second one there were just three PCs left alive out of over a dozen. But everyone loved the game, even those who died. (except for one player who got annoyed at having his head accidentally blown off by another player during the melee)

Cheers!

[BigBunny]

I have had a few pc's in Cthulhu disappear without a trace.

I the games i ran we had P. vs P. events every now and then coz i have never discouraged them.

Had some nice duels to death there. Also poisonous snakes to sleeping bags, poisoning people's food, then eating teh poisoned person and self dying too...

Oh those days.

[josiewolf81]

I was in a White Wolf game, Mage one; sorta high-action. The PCs were attempting to catch a small chartered plane in which a rival Mage was taking off with a book of great importance/danger (typical ya know?). Well the Mage had mind-tricked the airport guards to take us down before we could get there so they were firing at us. Most of us were making minor magic rolls and so on.

Once we reached the plane, due to misfortune one of the PCs had accrued a few points of Paradox from some messed up magic rolls in the firefight. So to play it safe he tried a standard Athletics task to jump up into the open cabin of the door. He had 6 dice...he rolled all 1s. He jumped directly into the rapidly spinning propeller of the plane.

Fortunately this wasn't MY character.

[Aglaranna]

I suppose the most memorial character death I have had was in an AD&D 2nd Edition Campaign, I was playing a first level Wild Mage when we were exploring a cave system where strange creatures had been seen, we explored the cave network an eventually we found one of the creatures. It was a Flumph (though we had no idea at the time), and my mage panicked and cast Magic Missile at it when it was floting above his head. Due to a failed dice roll earlier I hadn't realised I was in a wild Magic Zone, as the spell was cast a wild surge occured and the spell was transformed into flesh to stone, which promptly caused the flumph to crash out of the air killing my mage instantly. At this point the rest of the party fled and refused to enter the caves again.

After the game the DM said that was the first time he had ever seen a character killed by a flumph, and the last time I saw him at a Convention about a year ago, he still hasn't seen another