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elliott20
2009-07-27, 03:26 AM
Anyone here ever play a character that you already know is going to die, whether in a specific fashion or just in general?

I don't mean die as in get knocked to -10, and then have someone hit you up with a true res. I mean you play a character whose story will explicitly end at a certain point in the game as an inevitable fate.

I have never done so myself but I always found such characters to be very fascinating.

SethFahad
2009-07-27, 03:49 AM
Well, as a DM I'm NPCing one. I think it's not the thrill of death, but the mistery that covers the true fate of the character, from the eyes of the others.

KillianHawkeye
2009-07-27, 04:48 AM
The first Evil character I ever played was doomed from the start, although I didn't have any specific death planned out.

The tragic deaths of his parents in an arsonist's fire when he was very young had driven him to brutally hunt down and sadistically murder other criminals. His goal (and ego) eventually grew to the point where he was determined to kill off every criminal in the world before finally allowing himself to die, which of course was impossible to actually accomplish.

Since I knew he could never accomplish his goal, I eventually realized that he would just keep going on and on until getting killed himself. So by then I figured that if he was gonna die, it might as well happen while the campaign was still going on. I started working on a backup character and let my DM know what was up.

The best part was the fact that he was killed by a phantasmal killer spell, which tricked him into thinking he was burned to death by a giant fire elemental, since fire was his greatest fear ever since childhood.

Gaiyamato
2009-07-27, 06:02 AM
Anyone here ever play a character that you already know is going to die, whether in a specific fashion or just in general?

I don't mean die as in get knocked to -10, and then have someone hit you up with a true res. I mean you play a character whose story will explicitly end at a certain point in the game as an inevitable fate.

I have never done so myself but I always found such characters to be very fascinating.

I did that once in W-W:tA as a Garou who had a level 6 Bane hunting him down.
My character was so tough that I coyuld have at least inflicted great pain on the Bane though. Kalindo up the wazoo and other funky stuff. lol.

Delaney Gale
2009-07-27, 10:45 AM
Our party greyguard's stated goal was to perform a ritual for the cult of Kas (this cult believed he was a sexay-awesome paladin corrupted by Vecna). This ritual involved committing suicide with the Sword of Kas while wearing the Hand, Eye, and Heart of Vecna.

He succeeded, by the way. Unfortunately for our party, he came back as a risen martyr/divine crusader/qualified for the Saint template from Book of Exalted Deeds, so even death didn't get rid of him.

jmbrown
2009-07-27, 10:49 AM
GURPS has a flaw that basically marks a character for death. It's flaw that gives you a lot of points so ultimately the GM is in charge of how you meet your end. It's kind of exciting getting into danger but never truly knowing when the end is around the corner.

Glyde
2009-07-27, 11:08 AM
Our party greyguard's stated goal was to perform a ritual for the cult of Kas (this cult believed he was a sexay-awesome paladin corrupted by Vecna). This ritual involved committing suicide with the Sword of Kas while wearing the Hand, Eye, and Heart of Vecna.

He succeeded, by the way. Unfortunately for our party, he came back as a risen martyr/divine crusader/qualified for the Saint template from Book of Exalted Deeds, so even death didn't get rid of him.

Is it possible to be exalted and a greyguard at the same time? I've never played one, so I don't know if there's an alignment restriction (Or if committing suicide for a cult qualifies as heroic sacrifice.)



Anywho, I have a character who was destined to die and knew it. She knew that she wasn't capable of stopping the party's enemies, but promised to help them no matter what. She ended up turning herself to stone to save the party from a wall-crush trap. Pretty good end, if you ask me. Course the DM has hinted that she'll be back (Maybe as the aforementioned saint.)

And of course, there's always the character who is doomed by prophecy. They find out they're some demon-child and the only way to bring about true peace is by having him killed. He tries to fight the powers that be with the party and kills the BBEG - Only to find out he's soul linked to him and dies anyway. Damn prophecies.

Tengu_temp
2009-07-27, 11:12 AM
Is it possible to be exalted and a greyguard at the same time? I've never played one, so I don't know if there's an alignment restriction (Or if committing suicide for a cult qualifies as heroic sacrifice.)


Well, just because Greyguard lets you to be a bigger jerk than a paladin should doesn't mean it requires you to be.

Delaney Gale
2009-07-27, 11:13 AM
Is it possible to be exalted and a greyguard at the same time? I've never played one, so I don't know if there's an alignment restriction (Or if committing suicide for a cult qualifies as heroic sacrifice.)


The DM let him trade in his greyguard levels for divine crusader levels as a story element.

And apparently because his god was real and the ritual DID bring him back... well, the god got to make the call on what a heroic sacrifice was. He'd already cut out his heart two or three times, chopped off his dominant hand and replaced it with a creepy-ass mummy hand that he couldn't touch people with because it would kill them, and gouged out his eye, BEFORE he killed himself to bring back the god. (Also he killed Vecna.)

Mongoose87
2009-07-27, 11:31 AM
I played a LE Changeling Rogue as my first character, with my current group. The fighter tried to throw him off of an airship twice in the first session. It was amazing how long it took for the party to drive that guy off.

JellyPooga
2009-07-27, 12:02 PM
I've always wanted to play a marine who ends up trying fight his way through hell...

13_CBS
2009-07-27, 12:03 PM
Does being driven to complete and utter madness count? If so, I'm playing such a character right now.

Voldecanter
2009-07-27, 12:30 PM
I am currently Playing a character I know is doomed to die . I don't know how , but I know that it is inevitable .

You see , there is this society which is rooted in a permanent dead magic zone in a very magic saturated world . These people have hated magick since the 'Wars of the Northlands : Celestial and Arcane Titans Clash' type wars , and by living in this area for sooo long , the race of humans there have grown completely unable to use any form of magick , be it an item , spell or power . However , there is a catch those that were great magi in a past life that are reborn within one of these humans can Replicate 0 Level Spells 5/day/15 level of class until level 20 when the character gets to replicate charm person 1/day , oh and they also can detect eldritch gemstones and herbs to use for healing 1/day/level and use those energies 2/day/+1 level (Great Class) . However , the society is at a constant war against 'the bewitchments' of the world , in which they mercilessly kill any and all magic users they can get their hands on . Unfortunately mostly innocent people die , you know academics that use herbal lore for medicimal perposes (non-magickal) and non-magickal alchemy . My Character is one of these 'witches' that will one day be found out , or atleast that's what I see happening anyways . My character's best friends since childhood are my adventuring party , but I am beggining to suspect that one of them is going to go to the local inquisitors any time now , so When I have to make a desicion to kill or be killed , I'll kill . But if that ever happens I will only assume that my personal enemies will find out eventually and screw me over that way as-well .

Piedmon_Sama
2009-07-27, 12:52 PM
I'm playing my Neanderthal Barbarian as Charleton Heston in the first Planet of the Apes---he fell out of his own world, and has woken up to find humans covering the place, and everything he knew disappeared. He's not only extremely chauvanastic towards humans (assumes they're all slightly retarded and helpless outside of their "anthills") but somewhat suicidal out of despair. He charges into battle recklessly, often unarmored, often against things far beyond his CR. I expect nothing for this character except death or glory.

And if he buys it, the reserve character I have in mind is literally delusional. Once part of a troupe of traveling actors, he snapped when the love his life died and confused reality for a play they had performed. The common girl of his dreams became a Princess, not dead but kidnapped by an evil sorcerer and spirited to the ends of the earth. Everything this character does pertains to finding and reclaiming his lost love, even if he has to cross oceans and fight armies--and his delusion feeds him "clues," always bringing him "closer" to finding both Princess and Sorcerer. I don't think a character this obsessive has a much better chance of surviving than my barbarian, frankly, but it's much more fun to play a memorable character than a safe one!

JMobius
2009-07-27, 12:56 PM
I had a Noble that was doomed. He had lived as a member of a rather distopian chancel all his life, before being borrowed by a visting Imperator for enNobelization. Eyes revealed to the nature of his once home, and that it was deliberately maintained in its wretched state by its Imperator, openly declared a vendetta against his former master. He was informed by his own Lord (whose Estates included Time, and was a powerful oracle) that such a challenge would ultimately end in a conflict that he did not possess the power to win. But, he bore the Virtue of Pride, and no prophecy could sway him to see the folly he pursued...

Tharivol123
2009-07-27, 01:15 PM
I had a character that was doomed from day one. The BBEG was, essentially, an evil clone of my character (but a couple levels ahead and with some cheese) and the only way for one of us to die and not be rezzed was for the other one to die as well. As such, my character ended up developing an uber-spell that acted in almost the exact same fashion as finger of death, but instead of dealing a die roll for damage it dealt my current HP + 11 damage to both the target and caster. Nice long fight where everyone chipped away at him until we were confident he was below my HP total and off goes "The Double Deuce of Death." I'm sure you can fill in the blanks for the verbal and somatic components of the spell.

Cyrion
2009-07-27, 02:02 PM
A cleric/mage character I played for a while had love issues and had a tendency to murder the man in couples he saw; he believed that with less competition he'd be more likely to get the girl. He wasn't a very popular cleric for weddings...

I moved before the campaign got very far along, but his insanity (which had some other interesting features) was bound to come back to bite him at some point.

Dizcorp
2009-07-27, 06:11 PM
As a DM, I had one a few years ago that I'd planned to kill from her introduction, and finally killed her off over 20 sessions later - a female human cleric of Hextor (unashamedly LN, but not a very nice person), who was murdered by her best friend (the Big Bad Evil Girl, a psychotic megalomaniac LE aasimar wizardess, yes you read aasimar right) for her betrayal of key information to the PCs.

To add a bit of Eastenders*-style plottage to it all, the BBEG's sword-mad boyfriend (NE two-weapon fighter/duellist type) was the brother of the cleric's former (ranger/scout) lover, who had died in some plot-critical backstory the PCs had discovered earlier on in the campaign.

Her last words (to the just-too-late PCs charging to her rescue) were the name of her lover, whose valiant memory she had been fighting to protect.

The scene wasn't that well acted out, but the campaign was an emotionally charged affair. I recall having at least two of the five players choking back tears.

So, you wanted a doomed character? Mine was responsible for the best scene I've ever DMed.

"Eastenders", a British soap opera set in the fictional London borough of Walford, famed for over-the-top plots and convoluted affairs galore. <Cockney>GERRAAHT A'MY PAAAAHHHB</Cockney>

FerhagoRosewood
2009-07-27, 06:42 PM
My best friend made a one shot campaign to take place in the Underdark. The mission? Go into a city full of Mind Flayers and kill them all.

I made a weird character, like I always do, who was a Drow female Knight. But the twist was that they were originally a male human. I did a backstory about how they attacked a female Drow in the middle of a spell and her concentration was broken, thus the spell inserted his mind into her body.

This campaign was made in mind that at least a few of us would die, and I knew it would be me. So the first encounter are a trio of monsters (forget the name) that can use a scream per round to basically break equipment. Half my magical gear was gone.

We reach the city and are swarmed with Hulks. Then after a huge assist from one of the 9 Hell lords, we ran into a lab. Before we entered, I explicitly said I'm at half life. And was ignored. More Hulks, one with a tentacle appears. First our Half-Red Dragon/Half Orc Barb (Yea...) falls. Then while trying to protect my Duskblade cohort and the Gnoll Warlock, I fall. Immediately, the party runs away and out of the city with their tails between their legs.

I was able to switch characters to the Duskblade, who basically had to make a deal with the Demon Binder of the party in order to be saved.

A little fun note, after dying my Knight appeared before Hextor that before sending them off to fight the armies of Heironeous. He looked at her in confusion and said... "You know you're not the knight... right?" In a funny twist, it turns out she just believed she was the male knight and was actually the Lolith Sorceress all along. I had her react with a stunned shrug then went off to war.

AstralFire
2009-07-27, 06:56 PM
Our party greyguard's stated goal was to perform a ritual for the cult of Kas (this cult believed he was a sexay-awesome paladin corrupted by Vecna). This ritual involved committing suicide with the Sword of Kas while wearing the Hand, Eye, and Heart of Vecna.

He succeeded, by the way. Unfortunately for our party, he came back as a risen martyr/divine crusader/qualified for the Saint template from Book of Exalted Deeds, so even death didn't get rid of him.

Annoying IC, or annoying OoC?

elliott20
2009-07-27, 10:01 PM
wow fellows. These are awesome!

Piedmon, your second character sounds like Don Quixote!

So how would you go about constructing a doomed character? It seems that most of you while know that your character is doomed, a number of you did not bother figuring out what that doomed fate actually is. and how do you work this out with your GMs to get to that point?

Ashtar
2009-07-28, 06:27 AM
In a campaign of L5R, our gamemaster asked us to create 2 characters, an Ancestor and a (grand-son/daughter) Descendant. We played both storylines concurrently, the ancestors being sent on a complicated quest to retrieve Jade artifacts. And the descendents being thrust into a clan power play.

As the game progressed, the descendents learned / discovered they were affected by a curse coming from their ancestors who failed in their quest. At the time, our ancestor characters had just managed to obtain the first statuette, were celebrating our initial victory and wondering where to stash it to keep it safe.

So as the game progressed, our descendents learned of our ancestors' failure in the quest before we played it out, effectively dooming our whole group of ancestors. Of course the DM left it vague enough to be able to fill in the holes as the story played out for the ancestors.

Finally, the advantages and disadvantages which we had chosen for our descendents were explained by the death / dishonour of our ancestors. It was also fun to discover how your Lion ancestor (born Matsu) ends up with a Dragon descendent and so on.

Finally, both ancestors and descendents met during a trip to the spirit world where the final chapter played out. That was an excellent campaign and it was very emotional for our characters to meet each other, which led to superb roleplaying scenes.



Sorry for the wall of text. In short: 2 parties, 1 following other. Followers learn first party failed before we played out the scenario.

Cyrion
2009-07-28, 09:06 AM
There are two pieces to the doomed character- you have to find a fatal (no, really, a FATAL) flaw, and you have to play that flaw. When you pick your fatal flaw, it can be something that's an automatic time bomb, or you can do what most of the posters so far did and leave it in the hands of a creative DM. If you give a good DM that kind of a plot hook, it WILL be used at some point. Once you've picked the flaw and it starts to come to a head, you have to make sure that any attempts to salvage the situation are in character. Thus what might solve the situation from a player's point of view may not be workable for the character and their terrible weird claims the doomed soul.

Delaney Gale
2009-07-28, 11:45 AM
Annoying IC, or annoying OoC?

He was actually pretty rad both in and out of character, but after the whole conversion of greyguard to divine crusader, things got a whole lot more complicated. It was all IC conflict, mostly because the two rogue-types in the party did a fair amount of thievery-for-hire on the side.

Oh, and the cleric blasted off a Holy Word in a tavern brawl and killed two passersby who happened to have an evil alignment. The rogues wanted to break him out, the paladin had to be all just and righteous and make him stand trial.

Comet
2009-07-28, 12:33 PM
There's only one thing more awesome than playing a character doomed from the beginning.
Playing a character doomed from the beginning who ends up being the only one surviving the story due to some freakish loophole or just sheer random epicness.

But yeah, I've played characters that I knew to die. Call of Cthulhu springs to mind, for some reason.

Narmoth
2009-07-28, 12:34 PM
Paladin:
Fell from St Cuhberts service - turned Blackguard
Believes that anyone attached to him in any way will die
Has death-wish
Killed in uneven duell
Went to the underworld
Pissed of 3 evil gods, including Hextor
Ressurected
Pissed royally of the good wizard king of the uthermost North, almost killed his queen, an evil sorceress that took shape of a dragon
Ran from the kingdoms inquisition - took lvls in Ordained Champion
Got teleported to the LN plane. Got attacked by devils there, rescued by angels.
Pissed of all the angels, went out of their fortress and killed the devils - took lvls in Soulguard
Declared war on the entire Vashar empire after failing to sleep with their dictator (female)
Offered to serve Pelor by Pelor himself
Declined

Still alive :roach:

Civil War Man
2009-07-28, 12:47 PM
I can't remember which system it was in (it may have been a houseruled/homebrewed system), but I know someone who ran a game that had a "Doomed" flaw.

It was one of those variable-point flaws. The more points you invested in Doomed, the bigger a penalty you got for certain actions.

The only effect of the highest level of Doomed is "Everyone, from major plot characters to the least important NPC, knows that you have the highest level of the Doomed flaw."

FMArthur
2009-07-28, 12:47 PM
I once played a venerable wizard whose constitution score was 4... does that count? :smallwink:

I did play him knowing he would die - he knew his end would come soon and he merely desired to die in glorious battle. I honestly expected to be killed by the first goblin to take more than a passing interest in my character. Abrupt Jaunt madness kept his 23-Int ass out of trouble for the majority of the game, fortunately. He died defending the party at 16th level from a Beholder Mage (which is among the most insane encounters that even a high-level party can face). After it killed a party member and was about to turn another to stone, he used his immediate action to cast Celerity, interrupting its auto-TPK casting barrage and killed the thing, but was killed by a single swing of a sword from another enemy while dazed from Celerity. I can't think of a better monster to sacrifice oneself to kill.

AstralFire
2009-07-28, 12:52 PM
That's very awesome, Arthur.

MissK
2009-07-28, 03:19 PM
My first character was doomed -- mainly through my own fault. She wasn't well designed for the campaign, and she got infected with lycanthropy to boot. The DM said I had permission to kill her off, and in the next session, a vampire attacked her. Wouldn't you know it -- while fighting back I got my first nat 20 of the campaign and staked the darned thing. I was surprised. She had to get kidnapped after that, but then I brought in her cooler brother to avenge her, and that was fun to roleplay.

Woodsman
2009-07-28, 03:24 PM
I've got an NPC in a current game doomed to a heroic sacrifice as a capstone.

It's not so much "Deus ex machina" as "Seeing as you're not powerful enough to kill it (he's a wizard), I'll sacrifice myself to and the threat once and for all."

They'll have technically defeated it, but it's "temporary" (meaning if I want to, I can do it again) unless the guy does it.

elliott20
2009-07-29, 12:50 AM
I just remembered that I think in Riddle of Steel, there's a thing called Destiny where anything you do to help fulfill the destiny nets you points. I guess that could be used in terms of mechanics to do this sort of thing.