What do you do when your character dies? RPG Gaming

The Game Room
1

I recently had a character die. I wont’ go into how, as it’s not that impotrant, so suffice it to say it was largely because I was stuffed into an unwinnable situation alone with a really, really nasty opponent by another PC. It wasn’t exactly the other player’s fault, because she is rather too dim to recognize the consequences of her actions. This is only the latest in a long string of similar issues.

I can’t even recall how long tihs game has gone on. It may as much as three years. I have had an utter blast with this character. He was funny, reckless, brave, and loyal. Everywhere he went he made legends and then dwarfed them with greater legends. He is the only character to die aside from two insane characters who suicided (not surprisingly, played by the same dude).

It’s now perhaps a hop, skip, and a jump to the end of the campaign. There are, I guess, NPC’s I could pick up and play, but… I just don’t want to. I’ve tried making other characters, but they all fall flat. My character had a history, goals, long ties and complicated relationships, and social standing. He was killed because he actually went out to extend the very lifespan of the universe itself. He probably failed, but he did at least get rid of the Big Bad. The GM revealed later a complex strong of logic which meant that me killing the Big Bad meant I died instantly. It was a huge noodle construct which makes sense but for which there was no practical way for me to discover it absent decades of scientific analysis.

In his entire campaign history, he did all of this with people willing to offer huge rewards and buy him off… but never thank him (which is, naturally, what he really wanted and what the GM refused to give him).

All my goals go undone. The character died miserable and alone, and his only friends were madmen and actual demons (they’re mostly much nicer than advertsied). Shortly thereafter, the rest of the party left his corpse in the burning-wasteland-of-misery-hell and then told everyone he was a corrupted psycho leading an army of demons on a suicidal quest for revenge. I finally got the major artifact my character always wanted to create but since it’s appeared on my corpse after I died, it comes off as the GM taunting me.

He apparently thinks he’s being generous. Or something. Technically, they could bring me back to life. They’re toomlazy or uninterested or narrowminded to even think they could.

Gah. Should I bother to make another character? Should I just hang around and play video games? I don’t even really care, and every other character I could make just falls flat. I can’t stop thinking about it (for two weeks I haven’t been able to sleep well because I keep thinking this whole post over and over until it’s pratically dawn). What the fuck is this? I’ll tell you: I was my character for years and now he’s dead. Fuck this.

:mad::mad::mad::mad: FFffFUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKCKCKCKCKKKKK!!!1111111oneoneone

2

I’m sorry that you’re feeling so bad.

But you’ve made several posts like this which state that you’re playing with a bunch of unhelpful players and a DM who makes life difficult.
And each time I have to ask: why on earth are you in this group?

I’ve been with the same players for 30 years. We take it in turn to DM and have an extensive rules supplement agreed by all.
We’ve played Forgotten Realms, Krynn, Ravenloft and Al-Qadim. We’ve written our own Worlds and even used retired characters as NPCs.

Along the way there have been deaths. The party always makes an effort to Raise them, but if not, then their names are remembered and their deeds cherished.
For example, “Welcome to the Doralis club!” is a well-used phrase. Whenever a character reaches 1hp, we remember the Elf Fighter/Magic-User Doralis, who so often achieved this state before finally perishing.
One retired Fighter began life as Bert Guttersnipe. He passed through Bertram Guttersnipe / Bertram de Guttersnipe / Sir Bertram de Guttersnipe / Lord Bertram de Guttersnipe / Count Bertram de Guttersnipe before establishing his own Duchy (and retiring in a blaze of glory).

3

I’m 26, and I feel old.

4

Group’s changed.

5

Fuck, I just realized I’ve been method acting for three years. No wonder I’m feeling messed up.

6

Well, after Black Leaf died, I couldn’t face my life alone…

7

Dude, just use a Phoenix Down. Problem solved.

8

Dunno. Sounds like you crafted a good story, and while it may have ended in tragedy, it sounds memorable.

Why do you need to do anything if the game is ending a few weeks? Either accept that your new characters aren’t going to be your old character (which it sounds like you’re having trouble with) or don’t play. You’re certainly not obligated.

How many other characters have you had that “all fell flat” if this only happened recently?

9

Nah, I was trying to make a new one… and I just couldn’t.

10

I think you need some time away from the game then, if the campaign is ending anyway.

I think you -also- need to have a serious person-to-person talk with your GM.

11

Eh, I’ve tried. He’s pretty passive-aggressive and refuses to acknowledge that he likes to dick me about from time to time. He mostly refuses to actually discuss anything and simply ignores the issue. If I’m unsatisfied with something, he gently explains some chain of logic which is sensible but not satisfying. That is, it makes sense on tis own terms but there is no practical way for me to have discerned it.

I’ve learned to live with it. We used to be business partners, and he usually got his way by simply ignoring me until I caved. of course, it was all in how much I cared about the issue and if I could counter that by emtionally engaging him in something, or figuring out how to ignore him even more back, I could win him over. He’s damn honest, but just as controlling as I am.

12

Luckily for you a one Mr. Jack T Chick has written out a handy manual for you use use in the event of your character’s untimely death: Dark Dungeons

13

Remind the rest of the class why you’re still playing with this group at all?

14

Any chance of coming back as a voice from the deat haunting your compatriots’ dreams?

15

I have definitely gone through grieving processes for beloved characters, it’s normal, as long as you aren’t TOO attached.

The group sounds kind of dumb though.

16

DTMFA. Game time is too precious to be wasted on the idiots in that group.

17

Well, let me put it this way: the onyl reason it bothers me so much is because we are very close. I think of him as possibly the only true friend I’ve ever had in my life - the kind that really rare. If we were strangers, I’d never notice his flaws. It’s only because I’ve become emotionally invested in our friendship. Everything he does and is interested in also interests me because I . We talk a great deal about the various things we think about, discover, and so forth. He’s willing to listen if I want to bring up philosophy, economics, or any obscure ubject.

Before I met him, I never really understood some of the great literature written about friendships and (nonsexual) relationships.

18

I’m sorry, but that’s messed up. Friends don’t treat friends like that, game or no.

19

Heh, I severed a relationship with a friend like that a while back because it got to be to a point where it was starting to degenerate due to familiarity. We are back on speaking terms, nowhere near as close as we were but when we get back together there is still that closeness that can’t be removed.

20

What I generally do is make a new character and keep on playing. In the last D&D campaign I participated in we used Pathfinder’s “Rise of the Runelords” and I went through four characters. Of course your problem is that you lost a character it’s the manner in which it happened.