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Old 08-13-2014, 04:09 AM   #11
Michael Cule
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Default Re: #RPGaday Topic 13: Most Memorable Character Death

I like a good death, me: I'm often offended by GMs who want to keep me alive when I've set myself up for a good death scene.

My best ever was probably a little unusual: it was a LARP where I was asked to take part by the writer/GM Jaine Fenn and couldn't because I was booked to do something else halfway through (run the con's auction as it happens). So she said: "OK, could you play the victim for me?"

We were a bunch of people trapped in the waiting room of a snowbound Scottish airport. I was playing an obnoxious 'debunking' journalist and someone had poisoned me. I got to go engagingly bonkers and then Jaine whispered in my ear "Do you know Puck's speech? From the end of the DREAM? Do it then die."

So I did. It was (if I say so who shouldn't) quite glorious. "If these spirits have offended think but this and all is mended that you have but slumbered here while these spirits did appear... And as I am an honest.... Oh ****..."

And I slumped to the floor muttering what will probably be my actual last words ("Not yet, you bastards! Not yet!") the chap who had poisoned me took photos of my demise in a gloating fashion.

The best tabletop death I had... Well actually it was the most memorable not because of anything I did so much as because it was so appropriate to the character, who I mentioned in the Favourite Character thread, Leela.

She was a promoted NPC, a primitive warrior/hunter type who I started playing when my previous character in Jenny Southern's RQ game died. She was the daughter of her tribe's chief which allowed her to give herself airs something rotten, and was out in the world seeking a more suitable husband than her father's choice. She believed she was at least good enough to marry a prince and had found a prince who agreed with her. It was her last mission before going off to marry him. (Yes, yes, I should have known better than to throw that in the face of narritivium.)

She was stubborn and opinionated and I wish I could find on my computer the rant she gave out when faced with the explanation that the peculiar and pointless encounter the party had just faced had 'probably been some sort of allegory'. It boiled down to: "If you meet an allegory on the road Kill It!"

And it was her stubborn and opinionated nature that killed her in the end. When the mysterious lady in the veil asked if she could join their group and get an escort out of the dungeon, Leela said:

"Well, I'm sorry but I just don't trust you! I mean, you could be some sort of monster under that veil!"

And after the Medusa had lifted her veil the rest of the party just left the statue of Leela there and went back home to write a sorrowful letter to her Prince.
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Old 08-13-2014, 05:05 AM   #12
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Default Re: #RPGaday Topic 13: Most Memorable Character Death

I ran one cyberpunk campaign that was based on the US TV archetypal crime show where you know the main characters (criminals) cannot win. The players started badly and began to dig. . . .

At the start of the last scenario the PC's had a list of enemies as long as your arm. Had the police looking for them and had actually gone backwards in their goal of revenge (they had started unknowingly working for the opposition). Money was getting short as their protection racket was down to one not very successful pimp.

One of the PC's had tried to bluff a military supply corporation's "Mr Johnson" and had failed. Several heavily armed goons had pursued him to a abandoned and dilapidated office block and to get them off his tail he made a few calls and got the police to send a Cyber-SWAT unit to the building. Another call was made to the other PC to get him on the scene.

However a roll on police response time resulted in the other PC turning up before SWAT. The Goons noticed him and knowing the relationship set off in pursuit. The first PC (the wanted one that phoned the police) ran down through the lobby to get behind the goons. . . and ran straight into the very heavily armed and enhanced SWAT members leaving their military spec VTOL. For quite a while the player looked at his sheet and did the arithmetic and thought really hard. "I can take them". He got his gun about halfway out before the VTOL's weapons turned him into a smoking stain. While this was happening the second PC had gone into a dead end alley and prepared to ambush the goons. He was then left completely cornered. The goons just waited until the police had finished their clean up (in a cafe across the street) then strolled over and beat the character into a coma and cut every valuable piece of cyberware off him and left him for the scavengers.
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Old 08-13-2014, 12:11 PM   #13
johndallman
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Default Re: #RPGaday Topic 13: Most Memorable Character Death

Quote:
Originally Posted by RogerBW View Post
Quazar [sic] Dragon, Dragon #96 p. 53, where it was designed to de-power overpowered games:
Quote:
This is a sure indicator that the Quazar Dragon has opened its 28,260 km wide mouth and is about to swallow the planet whole. The only possible way to save oneself in such a situation is to immediately throw all the magical items one can get hold of into a sphere of annihilation.
<shakes head sadly>If munchkins on that level don't have several other planets to decamp to, or a way of moving their own one, they deserve everything they get.
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Old 08-14-2014, 11:42 AM   #14
Gorkamorka
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Default Re: #RPGaday Topic 13: Most Memorable Character Death

I wrote this up ages ago for something else:


Story Title: Consumed by power

This all happened a quite a few years ago. I had just started playing GURPS after playing other roleplaying systems for a few years. This particular game was in the GURPS Banestorm fantasy setting. I was playing a paladin-ish character who took a crossbow to the head. Not the arrow, but the actual crossbow. The character was running down a corridor and I was mentally getting ready to having him quickly finishing of a mook that had missed his one shot at the character. Melee ensured and the mook, with terror in his eyes, tried to club my character with the crossbow. The GM rolled the dice out in the open. 1-1-2, Critical hit! Then location 1-1-1, Brain! Effect, triple damage! One dead paladin coming up. GURPS is fun this way.

So I cried a bit and then made another character. That on was a magic using Spanish Inquisitor/Mage who felt that doo to events in his past his soul was doomed hell. So he was willing to do anything at all for what he saw as the greater good, since he was going to hell anyway. “The end justifies the means” was very much his motto and the end was the will of the church. He went on to do such things as clubbing an elderly man to death because the old man was working as a butler to someone who might be a vampire.

This character along with his merry men (Read: Other PCs) then went of to do adventurous things, as one does. In this case trying to find out who stole the body of my earlier character out of the family crypt. We didn’t find the body but instead ended up on the trail of the Big Bad Evil Guy (BBEG) who had stolen it. But more importantly the BBEG was also trying to acquire a pair of artefacts. The Orbs of Life and Death! (The exclamation mark is not optional). Long story slightly shorter, we thwarted the BBEG by getting our hands on the Orb of Death!

We never dared to use it. The orb had both DEATH and an exclamation mark in its name…Think about it. We knew it could cast almost any necromantic spell, but would push the user towards evil and selfishness. My character needed that like he needed a hole in the head.

So on with the story. Having gotten our grubby little hands on one orb we, the party, were trying to get to the second orb before the BBEG did. This lead us on some merry chase around the world and finally into the tent of a fortune teller. As well as telling us were the other orb was the GM also had her prophesise about my character. It was as follows

“Beware not to be consumed by power!“

At this point I think that my GM decided to ambush my character

So now that we new were the orb was there was a big race with the BBEG into a desert to some ruins to get the Orb of Life! Really long story slightly shorter we eventually found said ruins. And meet Jesus... OK probably not Jesus, but someone very much like him. I guess using the Orb of life! to much pushes you towards altruism and goodness. Soon after that the Jesus lookalike passes away quietly in his sleep. There were no characters involve in that death, incredible I know. We therefore got our grubby little hands on the Orb of Life! Just to realise that while we slept the Orb of Death! had been stolen from us.

While the party is running around trying to figure out what happened to the evil orb someone shows up in our camp. It’s my ex-character, the paladin from the start of this story. Except now he is now an undead abomination. Guess the BBEG tried out the Orb of Death! The Undead paladin is also wearing a full plate mail. The rest of us were wearing robes or loincloth only. This is the deep desert, remember?

So now the party was in a bit of trouble.

The fight starts and right away the undead paladin proceeded to deck our tank character in one blow. Broke his leg. GURPS is fun that way.

The party is now in a heap of trouble.

The undead paladin then started advancing on the remaining two characters. We start screaming like little girls and run. But as you might recall we are in some ruins in the desert. There is nowhere to go but to a hot thirsty death in the wasteland of the desert.

So I decide that this is the time for the inquisitor to use the Orb of Life! Now The Orb of Life! does not really have any offensive capabilities. That’s what the other orb is for. So I go over the list of spell and finally come up on one to use. I look at my GM and say:

“The Inquisitors uses the orb to cast Resurrection on the Undead Paladin.”

Now at this point a little explanation of GURPS magic is needed. In GURPS a spell has a power cost. That power cost comes out of the casters fatigue and when the spell caster runs out of fatigue he starts to burn hit points. The cost of the Resurrection spell is about 360 points. My Inquisitor had about 20 fatigue points at that time and would start having a chance of dying at around 20 hit points of damage. You do the math.

Being new to GURPS at the time I had no idea what the power cost of the Resurrection spell was. I also didn’t know that the Orbs! did not supply their own power.

So when I told the GM I would cast the resurrection spell the GM looked me with a grin on his face and said:

“The Inquisitor is consumed by power. There is a big flash and then nothing left of him expect the smoking sandals and his robes.”

But at least it did manage to resurrect the paladin.

Last edited by Gorkamorka; 08-14-2014 at 11:51 AM.
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Old 08-14-2014, 03:25 PM   #15
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Default Re: #RPGaday Topic 13: Most Memorable Character Death

My most memorable death is, sadly, not so much fun.

So some of my high school friends had gotten back together for a D&D campaign, and they invited me to join them for a big D&D weekend like we used to do. I asked if I could bring a buddy, which was fine with them. They told us to come up with 8th level characters for Al-Qadim. We got there and (after I caught up with everyone) our characters signed up with the party as extra hands. This is when we found out that the rest of the party was much higher level, and that didn't bode well for us.

As the story goes, one character's holy axe had been stolen by a recurring villain, and we were chasing them back to the bad guy's stronghold. There was some fighting on the way; we couldn't do much, but we tried. We eventually got to the fortress and in the first room we were hit by the enemy's first volley of spells and died.

That was enough for us; we got up and left, even though they were offering to resurrect us. We just didn't see any point in dying over and over again.

I know this isn't the most compelling story I've written; it's hard to fit in the nuances of having your friends ask you to sit in on their campaign, not put you somewhat even with their characters, and poke fun at you besides. It's also been a long time since it happened. But it's easily the most memorable character death I've had.
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Old 08-15-2014, 11:33 AM   #16
derendel
 
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Default Re: #RPGaday Topic 13: Most Memorable Character Death

My characters had, for a long time, a habit of not dying (or at least not permanently). I chalk it up to playing D&D with very liberal use of resurrection spells.

One character, a half elven fighter/mage/thief by the name of Celewritor had a long string of temporary deaths. Most escape me at the moment but three stand out:

* Killed by mistaking black powder for pepper while cooking dinner.
* Shrunk down to the size of a brownie (a long nonsensical story) and crushed in the hand of a large knight.
* Resurrected by a demigod while still in the knight's hand and then crushed again.

The GM wanted to see what would happen if he brought a character down to 1 Constitution. Turns out what happens is that you write yourself in a corner when said character has become an integral part of the prophecy that forms the game's story line. Celewritor stopped dying after that point as miraculous events saved him.
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Old 08-15-2014, 10:30 PM   #17
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Default Re: #RPGaday Topic 13: Most Memorable Character Death

Top on my list was playing a manic depressive in a one shot Cthulhu game.. His on the edge was perfect to have him jump through this chaos aging barrier to collapse the gate to the evil horde dimension, protecting the daughter he had failed so many years, and getting to tell her he lived her and wish her a long life and apologize he wouldn't be at her wedding..
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Old 08-19-2014, 08:56 AM   #18
johndallman
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Default Re: #RPGaday Topic 13: Most Memorable Character Death

Not a death of a character of mine, but of a fellow-player. GURPS Weird War II, a skirmish on the steppe, a few tens of miles to the west of Stalingrad. We'd run into one of the German Waffen-SS low-end supers, and Ola had been shot once; he was on negative HP, but not quite enough for a death check. He'd also hit the German, wounding him through his considerable DR, which nobody else had managed so far.

Both sides are in cover, and thinking about tactics. Ola is Impulsive, and shows himself to Aim. The German is willing to shoot without aiming, and hits him again. Ola is mortally wounded. We manage to mind-control the German and capture him, but Ola dies before we can get him anywhere there might be help; he was our magical healer. and First Aid isn't enough to stabilise him. He died mostly of his own impulsiveness. He's still around as a ghost, but losing a character you've played with over five years still hurts.
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