Have you ever roleplayed so hard that it got your charcter killed?

[Shnigda]

Hi guys,

After an incident last week, I have been thinking about whether anyone else has been roleplaying so hard and been so faithful to the character that it has actually killed the character. So if you have ever done this (or someone in your group has), please post the story here! (I'm not 100% sure this post should go here, but I'm sure many other responses could be 3rd edition related)


So, on to my story:

A curious incident (neither with a dog nor in the night-time) occurred last week. I have been playing a game of Stars Without Number and, after seeing the stat rolls while in character creation, came up with a character idea that seemed fun to me at the time.
He was basically a barbarian-type guy from a Tech Level 1 planet, but had been abducted to work as 'muscle' (basically a slave) for for an organisation on another planet. This came from his high Str, Dex and Con rolls.
However, his major flaw was his very poor Int, Wis and Cha rolls (seriously, his int was at the level where most interactions were single-words)... Because of this, he didn't know what was right or wrong in social situations and normally couldn't see danger unless it was actually a direct threat or had already hurt him.

So jump forward to the session in question - We had just completed a quest on a TL4 planet and had been asked to transport some goods to a TL1 planet in a nearby star-system. My character, Aphinadrion, having seen people trading things in the past decided to pick up some things to sell off when the party reached the new planet.
So everyone leaves the planet, we get into some hijinks on the way, but eventually land on the planet.
While the rest of the party are talking to the port supervisor about payment for the delivery of goods to the planet (we never found out what the goods were), Aphinadrion wandered off to the nearby town to sell the goods he had earlier acquired.

It is important to note at this point that the planet at which we had arrived had strict laws prohibiting the display, sale or use of objects higher than the native tech level of the planet (TL1).
However, when these warnings were given, I realised that Aphinadrion would not have listened/remembered/cared about these laws. Because of this, he walked straight into town wearing TL4 battle armour, wielding an energy blade and then proceeded to attempt to sell the goods from the TL4 planet at the nearest market.
The vendor asked Aphinadrion to go into the back room if he wanted to make this transaction as he knew these goods were illegal. Another point to note is that Aphinadrion had been stuck in small rooms his whole life and had received a lot of pain and discomfort from the slavers in rooms such as this, so naturally he refused.

At this point a town guard walked in and saw a huge man (Aphinadrion) wearing contraband and trying to sell other illegal goods. Naturally, the guard arrested Aphinadrion and took him to jail.
As a player I expected the DM to let me pay a fine and return to the ship and fly away off-planet at this point. However, the DM instead got the guards to remove all of Aphinadrion's belongings and confiscate them (about 4000 credits-worth of items, which was a huge amount in the game at this point).
Aphinadrion was then walked slowly towards the jail cell and he reacted as you would expect. He lashed out at the guards, taking two down before he was shot dead.

The DM just stopped, shocked and eventually said that a temporal shift could occur to take time back to just before Aphinadrion entered the market, should I want to continue playing the character. Naturally I wanted to continue playing the character as he was one of the most fun characters I have ever played. However, I could not think of a way of avoiding his death without doing something completely out of character for him, so Aphinadrion died, but I will always remember him as one of my favourite characters.

(As yet another side-note, I was not intending to kill him at any point during the session, the only reason that it happened is because I could not think of anything else he would have done in those situations)

(I also realise that this may not paint a complete picture, but I like to think that this is the most faithful to a character I have ever been. So in my eyes, I roleplayed my character so hard that it got him killed)

[endur]

Sure.

We had a suicide mission that needed someone to fly it. While several characters argued over who was going to do it, my character went and did it.

[sideswipe]

2 spring to mind.

the first was actually a failed attempt at self sacrifice in 4th edition.
there was a portal to some realm of orcus that needed a sacrifice to be closed. so my half elf cleric instantly jumped into the portal screaming in bahamut's name with morning star drawn to save the kingdom.

it was an epic moment. and the favourite end to any character i have ever had.
problem was that if someone volunteered to sacrifice themselves the story said they didn't die. but if it was a draw the short straw moment then the do die.

i was actually upset i survived.


the second is where i was a chaotic evil warlock and we were trying to solve a problem in a city. we found a commoner with an intelligent item that "pseudo cursed him" killing all evil things in the city. this was a problem. after about 20 mins of the party trying to free the man from the curse and help him as he was innocent i got bored. i eldritch blasted him into oblivion.

the reason this was in character is that i was a very devout follower of a homebrewed god of madness that required its followers to do things like that randomly.

one of my companions became personally upset with me and essentially wished, using a artifact level item, for me to be imprisoned forever.

[PsyBomb]

I was DMing for this one. Had a 13-year-old one-armed Rogue Bull Rush a Fire Elemental. Yes, really, it was either that or let his contracted mission fail, and he REFUSED to do that.

On my own characters, I have had a couple of characters go down in heroic last-stands, but that's mostly due to my propensity for making LG or NG guys. One memorable one was a Changeling Rogue voluntarily contracting mummy rot around level 6, because of a 4-horseman themed dungeon requiring someone have a disease to pass Pestilence and I stood the best chance of getting in and out unnoticed. Finished the mission, but got out too slow to survive.

[Afgncaap5]

Sadly, a lot of DM Ex Machinas have prevented me from having such stories.

Though a couple of players have RPed their way into killing me. It was in a WoD game (sort of a Hunter: The Vigil crossed over with a Mage game) where we were trying to fight a mage who'd been imprisoned by the other mages, and who had a penchant for accessing and using his magic through 80s music. I chased the mage to the top of a skyscraper where I thought he'd be, and then for character reasons one of the other players closed the door to the roof and locked it behind me, refusing to open it.

Then the mage rose up from the side of the building, holding a boom box over his head and standing on a flying DeLorean. The boom box started playing "Rock You Like A Hurricane." I don't think I need to spell out what happened next, apart from confirming your suspicion that yes, it was by far my most epic death ever.

Hey, if the prize we get for playing these games is awesome war stories to tell later, I say I came out of that one a winner. ...a dead winner, admittedly.

[Krobar]

one sentence "hi, I'm Iuz... I'm a big stupidpants..."

my bard said that very mockingly to Iuz's face.

[IZ42]

We were playing a campaign and had to defend a city from a horde of Hobgoblins and got to the final fight between us (Oracle, Alchemist, Bard, Druid, and Monk [me]) and a giant hobgoblin and his buddies. The oracle and his animal companion (nature domain) were tanking pretty heavily and finally got knocked out and were gonna get finished off, so I decide to step inside his range to distract the Hobgoblin. You know what happens when you are low level in skyrim and get hit by a giant? That happened. Critical Hit and 120 damage versus my 80 HP. I got revived though.

[Frenzik123]

We were playing a mission to destroy the king of the Leech army and we were about to kill him but he had an artifact that could be used once per person and the wish was to erase my charCter from existence (I was a high level cleric and had true resurrection) so my character died but it was a great ending because when they killed him they wished for all victims to come back. But since I was erased from existence, I couldn't come back. But my character is known around the whole country. :) best death ever

[torrasque666]

I've had a Crusader who refused to back down. Didn't work out so well against a literal army of undead and demons. But, he bought his team time to escape.

[Kid Jake]

It wasn't me, but a player in my Pathfinder campaign was playing his character as ridiculously blind to his own nature. I mean this guy was a literal monster in every sense of the word; he was an inhuman abomination that lived off the stolen life force of prisoners, had desecrated his body to the point that he wasn't even recognizable as a person anymore and may or may not have ended the world; we aren't sure yet...

HOWEVER, in HIS eyes he was the selfless knight in shining armor that kept sweeping in to save the day. His unholy semblance of life? Him refusing to abandon his duty for something as trivial as death. The willing deformations he inflicted on himself? They were to give him the edge so he could better protect the innocent. The murder/cannibalism he regularly engaged in? Weeding out the undesirables before they could harm his precious citizens.

He wore a Hat of Disguise to avoid distressing people and was always willing to regale people with stories of his heroism, especially children. He was Chaotic Evil and as ruthless as they come if he felt the least bit threatened, but in his mind he was a Paladin that just had to make the hard choices.

For the most part, his partner in crime (a scheming cleric of Asmodeous) would just point him in a direction and wait for him to work the murder out of his system; so his delusions weren't a big deal. That is, until he started interfering with the 'adult decisions'.

At first it was fairly minor; he objected to basic human rights violations and they tried to work something out. He was so vocal and stabby however that he drove one of their only allies away when they needed him the most. His partner was pissed, but what's done is done; so they moved on.

Several sessions later however they discover that things aren't quite what they seem and he becomes convinced that there are enemies everywhere as a result. He comes to blows with a few of their longtime allies and outright attempts to strangle their most powerful ally just to send a message.

His partner, and longtime friend, steps in and seizes control of him long enough to lock him in a jail cell. With just the two of them there, the cleric tries to talk some sense into him and he responds by tearing the bars off the cell (he was pretty damned scary) and dealing something like 3/4ths of the cleric's total health in a single attack. The cleric just BARELY managed to seize control of him once more and took more extensive precautions before releasing him again; basically strapping him down until he can't even wiggle.

The cleric tries to reason with him but just gets insane rambling about how their allies are monsters that will betray them at the first opportunity. The cleric tries to point out that THEY'RE the bad guys in this situation and that the people he claims are monsters have been watching over this town long before they ever arrived. He's struck stupid, unable to accept that he could ever be the villain. With tears in his eyes, he accuses the cleric of selling him out and betraying their cause.

The cleric PLEADS for him to see reason, points out that they've been friends for 20 years and that they've had each other's backs every day since they met. He just shakes his head and tells the cleric that he's seen through this charade. That he will save this town...even if it means purging it first.

All peaceful avenues having been explored, and rejected, the cleric resigns himself to the only option he sees left. The cleric can't bring himself to kill the madman, because he really does consider him a friend; so he does the next best thing: renders him harmless. Using saw and scalpel, the cleric has his former friend's augmentations removed...which include both arms and the majority of his face; leaving little more than a torso with a pair of accusing eyes that are smuggled into the cleric's basement and chained to a wall for safekeeping.




I talked with the player that lost his character afterwards and he said that he always knew things were going to end badly (http://youtu.be/y8v2hvtM9_c?t=2m10s) with him playing a delusional person, he was actually pretty pleased that it became such a moment of characterization for the other guy.

[Sheogoroth]

Two come to mind.
The first was a Pathfinder updated version of Tomb of Horrors, my DM had thrown a handful of his own devices in there.
The first was that the tomb was buried, above it we found a locked box that because emitting a sizzling sound as we attempted to open it and began shaking. My character, some kind of giant-offspring 3rd party core class with an intelligence of somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 smashed the box much to the horror of my companions.
The tomb was to be opened by the box blowing up, which was sitting on several tons of explosives. We had to roll 100 d6 to survive the blast, tpk before we even got inside.

The next was Rat Boy, a goblin in one of my DM's custom campaigns who was obsessed with shiny things. At some point a powerful character tossed a powerful ring down a hole so deep that you couldn't see the bottom so that we wouldn't be able to get it. Rat Boy lunged without a moments hesitation.
Bonus points for him describing Rat Boy grasping the ring just before impact.
Probably my fault for trying to optimize characters with low intelligence.

[OldTrees1]

I once played a healer/caretaker character in a party. I fully intended the character to die saving the party at some point when my healing was not sufficient and they needed to flee. Unfortunately that campaign ended early.


I also played a Lich that had a plan to bid his time for a century if slain. I fully expected that to happen sometime during the campaign.


During that second campaign there was a roguish PC that I revived on the condition that the revival be temporary(rest of the mission only). When the time came our characters had a conversation where I had to convince (via RP) the rogue to go to his afterlife. Both of us(the players) were surprised that worked.

[mythmonster2]

A rather stupider example than most on here, and it's from 2nd edition. Playing a Paladin, we're having a fun time going through a Halloween session based on the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. For Death's section, it's just a straight up boss fight against an undead beastie of some sort yelling and raving about hunger. We defeat him, and then out pops a skull-faced guy dressed in robes, holding a scythe... who immediately basically starts going, "Oh, goddammit, did I leave him unchained again? I'm so sorry about that, guys, he's a real pain to handle." Unfortunately, my Paladin had a particular dislike of undead that goes even beyond most. So, immediate halberd attack. The skeleton emits a red glow from his eyes and warns the rest to back up, then fires a 20d6 fireball. Did I mention we were about 5th level? Yeah, that was a crispy Paladin really quickly.

[RolandDeschain]

one sentence "hi, I'm Iuz... I'm a big stupidpants..."

my bard said that very mockingly to Iuz's face.

Yep, good ol' Iuz. I had a human ranger who attacked Iuz for killing his animal companion. He actually landed the blow, but it was the last thing he ever did...

[atemu1234]

Halfling Fighter tried to tackle a demon lord. Didn't end well.

[chainer1216]

I was playing in a ravenloft(DND horror setting) as a somewhat obsessive VanHelsing-type monster hunter, in a group with an extremely lawful and slightly evil cleric and a halfling thief who was chaotic neutral, and by that I mean bat**** crazy and evil as all hell.

Things are going fine for about an hour and then the rogue starts to torture a survivor from a fight, for fun, I stand there in shock and the cleric critiques his form, eventually I get them to stop and we move on, days pass and the rogue does your standard dickish rogue things, I complain but don't really try to stop him. A few days later, after a fight the halfling sits down next to a corpse and begins eating its eyes. Just right there in the middle of the tunnel we were at, with both me and the cleric in sight. The sheer evil of this act transformed him into a large sized demon looking thing, he went from halfling to hellboy. Being a demon hunter, I freak out and want to kill him immediately but the cleric stops me, tells me we can help him. We lured the giant rage beast to an abandoned church where the cleric will try to "reeducate" it, it seems to be going well until it gets bored and breaks out and runs into town to kill people, I chase after it, tracking it down to the local cemetery.

Because of his transformation the halfling had gotten massive stat boosts to star and con and I knew I was completely outclassed, but I couldn't let this human flesh eating rage demon go free. The cleric refused to aid me so I fought it alone, it was my first and last(so far) act of PvP. I died quickly and unceremoniously.

On the bright side it caused the cleric to rethink his life.

[LoyalPaladin]

I actually did this a few sessions ago. I was playing my LG Paladin and we heard a scream from someone saying to leave a woman alone. We had been crashing the same dungeon for a couple of weeks and we were looking for prisoners.

When we came around the corner there was a dire tiger, a basilisk, an orc cheiftain, and a shaman of sorts. They cast a wall of flames that half-healthed our sword sage and an NPC we had at the time, which lead my party to want to take a long way around, so they could avoid the flames. Unfortunately, we had seen the orc stabbing a prisoner in some cages that were in that same room. My whole team left, but my Paladin wouldn't have ever went the long way. So I burst through the flames (taking full damage) and proceeded to 1v5. I was able to buy just enough time until my party made it to the room. Unfortunately, Sir Gallant Holyshield was killed.

I was sad, but I was also proud of my PC. Just as it was winding down to the end of the round, my phone started buzzing. My DM had shot me a really cool text message as Torm, telling me to get up and that it wasn't my time. He still had work for me to do. It was a really cool scene and my table was shell shocked when their Paladin stood up to continue fighting.

[BowStreetRunner]

Almost...but the luck of the dice was with me that day. I was playing a low-level barbarian in a Forgotten Realms campaign and our party was dealing with a kidnapping. My character was fearless and headstrong and determined to rush into the ruins of Myth Drannor to save the victim. I said as much in character, waiting for one of the other party members or the DM to do something to try to discourage my character from going. No help there however. The other characters all replied "good luck, have fun" and let me go without one word of argument. The DM did nothing to discourage me either. :smallannoyed:

So, not being able to think of a rationale why my character wouldn't do this, off I went. The DM suggested the other player do something about dinner while he and I played out my foolish foray into the high-level area where the victim had been taken. "This shouldn't take long," he told us. I was already starting to think about what sort of replacement character to roll up. :smallfrown:

Anyway, to make a 3 hour adventure short, all the dice rolls seemed to go in my favor. We were both rolling in the middle of the table where everyone could see, and not one roll ever seemed to go against me. One harrowing near-miss after another, my character scraped his way out of danger again and again. The other players were at the edge of their seats, just waiting for the dice to turn and my character to bite it, but it never came. After verifying the victim had been killed, I got back out of the high-level area, and one of the BBEGs even managed to cop it himself due to a critical fumble.

So I should have been killed, by all rights. It just wasn't in the dice that day is all. :smallamused:

[Grim Reader]

It was Vampire: The Masquerade. Kindof set around the formation of the Camarilla. My character was a western Ravnos neonate, the sort that has a Sin rather than a general larceny compulsion. A scion of fallen Vandal nobility, his Sin was Pride, and he did not take well to the general disdain aimed at Ravnos in general. The Ventrue Hardestadt, however found his unshakable confidence in his own noble blood to be quite amusing in someone from such a Low Clan.

My character was immensely frustrated and on the verge of frenzy when Raphael deCorazon tried to reach out. I was in the zone though..."I will speak to Hardestadt and not his catamite!" deCorazon was NOT amused.

[Nibbens]

I was sad, but I was also proud of my PC. Just as it was winding down to the end of the round, my phone started buzzing. My DM had shot me a really cool text message as Torm, telling me to get up and that it wasn't my time. He still had work for me to do. It was a really cool scene and my table was shell shocked when their Paladin stood up to continue fighting.

This is an awesome way for a DM to reward a PC for rping their character into death. Props to him and you for doing such.

My story was a near miss. Unfortunately, I have no "RP so hard it got my character killed" stories. I was playing a 5ed halfling barbarian (seriously, that never roll a 1 business is just op) who was just as goofy as you'd expect (He was 3 feet tall but wearing an antlered helmet which they rose another three feet above his head). He refuses to take of his helmet ever, saying it gave him power and strength.

Nevertheless, we waded into a dungeon to "find out what was happening there and report back to the city when we find out" only to get into a hairy encounter with several kobolds. The fight turned sour quickly when I hit the commander-like "winged kobold" again and again and it wouldn't go down.

Our party (who was taking harass from the other kobold minions) eventually ran out of healing and spells when all of a sudden in walked 2 more winged kobolds. Our hearts all dropped. We were going to be TPW'd.

My Halfling reinstates his rage and screams for the Paladin to lead the others to safety while I hold off the rest of them - besides they had vital information about the dungeon that they needed to get back to the city with at this point.

Instead of doing so, the Paladin charged by my side and started hacking at the winged kobolds with me, stating he wouldn't leave an ally behind. So we continue to scream in the faces of our enemies as we were determined to fight to the death...

Except the rest of the party never left. They wouldn't run. Even the standard slicker-than-snot-on-the-doorknob-rogue-of-questionable-loyalty stayed by our side, determined to fight to the bitter end.

In character, my Halfling was screaming "What are you doing, I told you to run! Save yourselves," etc. Embarrassingly enough, my actions had inspired the morale of the whole group who decided to "die for the halfling who would die for them."

While a tactically stupid decision (I was playing an intelligent barbarian, not a dumb one... he was just quirky) Dink was actually honored and it made him bolder, starting to take greater and greater risks in the fight in order to take down these near impossible to kill winged kobolds.

Weirdly enough, we had all managed to survive - to the surprise of everyone. It was only after the fight with the winged kobolds that the DM realized that he confused the HP total of the winged kobolds, with wyvern (both in the W section of monster printout he was using)... We wanted to kill him. These kobolds, while having low attacks and damage, were also supposed to have 9 hp... not 130.

DM fail. lol. But it was a memorable moment.

[LoyalPaladin]

This is an awesome way for a DM to reward a PC for rping their character into death. Props to him and you for doing such.
I was happy I could continue to play him, because he is hands down my favorite character I have ever made. But I was also willing to be content that he died fulfilling his duty.

[weckar]

A few months ago, we were playing Ptolus.
The provided first adventure series expects a lot from the players. Mostly that they are willing to go along with anything, and not ask questions.
My character was not like that.

For a while, the 'lords' of castle Shard had sent us out to do errands for them. They paid okay, but were never too clear in their intentions. Very much a 'just do it' mentality.
It came to a point where we had discovered a solid golden statue that we got as a reward from another questgiver.
They claimed it. It was approximately worth 50000GP, so my character did not agree. They did not care.
They said - without proof - that it was a friend of theirs who was cursed. Now, we had checked with all divinations we had and previously concluded there was nothing magical about it.
The rest of my party went along with it though, and the transaction happened while I was elsewhere occupied. I was pissed.

Now, a while later we get summoned again. This time some mage has offered them to restore their friend, in trade for their protection. They refused.
They concluded that if this mage has a way to restore the statue, they'd may as well send us to steal it.
So we did.
We went into his lair - losing a man in the process - and barely got away with a very strong magical artifact: And Idol.
So, we took it back to the castle. The lady of the castle took it... and dropped it - shattering it.
She claimed it was full of evil and had to be destroyed.
We brought back the wrong thing, they wouldn't pay us for it and kindly requested us to leave them be.
Now, they never actually told us what we were looking for in there. So this is what made my character cross the line into crazytown.

He decided to occupy the castle. Just live there. Haunt them, as it were. Unfortunately, the sentient castle did not approve.
Effectively, it locked me in a room and had me starve to death.


The DM later told me that she played the Lords exactly as written, and that they honestly were meant to be the real good guys. But, she saw my point in that they - from an in-world perspective - were absolutely complete *******s. The moral of the story? 'What the hell, Monte Cook!?'

[Hobosub]

I've had two low-level druids that both died a horrible death from preferring wild empathy over fighting; nothing says "thank you for saving me from your murderous friends" like a good old fashioned pounce charge...

[illyahr]

Not me, but a player in my campaign when encountering a 6'6" Amazon woman with a heavily enchanted greataxe. Keep in mind, this is an E6 game.

Bard: Holy crap! You are huge! What do you eat? Are you a mountain?
Amazon: ... *walks away*
Bard: Whoa, guys look! The mountain can move!
Amazon: Are we going to have a problem?
Bard: Guys! The mountain can talk! Did you eat a farm? Old McDonald had a farm! E-I-E-I-Oh My God, you ate McDonalds Farm!
Amazon: *proceeds to bash bard for 1d12+13 damage*

[Karl Aegis]

I rolled up a character who, due to a noodle incident, was seeking death. Does that count?

I had heard a group of people were going into the woods to figure out exactly what the monster in the woods was and how we could defeat it. The problem was nobody could identify it without it going into its One-Winged Angel form. They needed a skilled combatant to go toe-to-toe with the thing long enough for it to transform into its super-mode, so I volunteered. I had to go in without spell-caster support because the thing had a scream that randomized the effects of spells, rendering casters more of a liability than an asset. It screamed a lot, too.

When we did track it down, I yelled out, "Solo kill!" and rushed at it. I was supposed to get some sort of ranged support, but I got into melee before they could bring down some heavy fire. Good thing, too, because after blendering through its first forme and barely scraping through its second forme, it went into its final forme and threw so many attacks at me if it had noticed the rest of the party I was sure it was going to be a total party kill. So many it would have torn open a mech if it had a chance.

Having gotten a good look at the thing, the group consulted the holy scriptures, found out exactly who it was and what its weaknesses were, and convinced the daughter of the local lord to mobilize her mech and bring some heavy firepower to the fight. They figured out how to negate its scream attack and more powerful transformations using the information I got for them.