So... one of my players ran out of the room crying today when I killed her character

[Wonton]

I didn't think she had that much emotional investment in her character, considering she did next to zero RP and barely even had a personality or appearance for her character ("mercenary fighter" was the closest we ever got to a description).

The death wasn't sudden or unfair - it was in the middle of the climactic battle the adventure had been leading up to the whole time. At one point, her Power Attack Fighter dealt over half the BBEG's hit points in one round, so she was clearly a threat to the Barbarian chieftain. It wasn't even a Coup de Grace - actually just a crit on her immediately after she got healed to consciousness.

Aside from fudging the actual die roll, I don't see how I could have been any "nicer" about it. Characters die sometimes, and boss battles is where it happens the most.

Not really sure what to say... :|

[BRC]

Crit Happens, that's really all that can be said.

Assuming you did not grab her character sheet, spit on it, crumple it up, then throw it at her while laughing (or similar behavior, up to and including a personalized "You Died Because You Suck" song and dance routine with a chorus line of backup dancers dressed like Orcs, Bandits, and Demon Cultists), just let her calm down about it.


If she was really attached to her character, there is always a spirit quest to retrieve her soul from the afterlife, or the ever-popular "Your spirit possesses a weapon that your next character gets to wield"

[Wonton]

Crit Happens, that's really all that can be said.

Assuming you did not grab her character sheet, spit on it, crumple it up, then throw it at her while laughing (or similar behavior, up to and including a personalized "You Died Because You Suck" song and dance routine with a chorus line of backup dancers dressed like Orcs, Bandits, and Demon Cultists), just let her calm down about it.

Yeah, I dunno. They'd been near-death before and on the whole our sessions were fairly light-hearted and I figured everyone in the group was good at separating in-game stuff from real life. Because when you put it as "your fictional character killed my fictional character", it really doesn't make sense to get upset about it.

Needless to say, it killed the mood of the session. And I wouldn't be surprised if it kills the campaign. I'm just... confused.

[HMS Invincible]

I didn't think she had that much emotional investment in her character, considering she did next to zero RP and barely even had a personality or appearance for her character ("mercenary fighter" was the closest we ever got to a description).

The death wasn't sudden or unfair - it was in the middle of the climactic battle the adventure had been leading up to the whole time. At one point, her Power Attack Fighter dealt over half the BBEG's hit points in one round, so she was clearly a threat to the Barbarian chieftain. It wasn't even a Coup de Grace - actually just a crit on her immediately after she got healed to consciousness.

Aside from fudging the actual die roll, I don't see how I could have been any "nicer" about it. Characters die sometimes, and boss battles is where it happens the most.

Not really sure what to say... :|

Does she not know about resurrection? I mean, if she does know, then she's upset about the level loss, which sounds unlikely. Look, nobody likes being killed, but it's hard to be upset about some lost xp, unless you're a power gamer like me. You haven't posted enough information, so just do what normal human beings do: Talk to her/him w/e.

[ArcturusV]

Well, you never really know what is going to happen or what people think. It might have had less to do with the character and more to do with some percieved OOC thing. "You're picking on me" being the classic quote that I get from players if they are upset about their character dying. Particularly if it wasn't a TPK. Sometimes even IF it was a TPK.

[Jack of Spades]

Well, talk to her about it. There might be something else going on that caused the outburst. Also, make sure you give the party some sort of chance to bring the character back. If they're low-level, a higher-level NPC should be able to help (for some sort of price, probably a favor AKA their next quest).

For future, similar situations:

Her character was knocked out at some point, right? So, for your part, houserule some grogginess after a character gets healed from 0 or negative HP to prevent them charging back in. Alternatively, have your villain assume that a character who's been put down and then healed a bit is weakened sufficiently that they won't be a major threat (of course, this isn't the case in the game's rules, but to the villain there is no game). Or build your villains in such a way that they prefer to do something other than kill their enemies outright (gloating Bond-villain stuff, essentially).

In the end, remember that you're dealing with the emotions of a person here. We don't (generally) control our emotions, and we don't control what we get attached to. Try to empathize. If you can't do that, try to understand. Ignore your perceptions of her emotions-- the "Well, I don't see how she was so attached" bit you've got going there is toxic to this sort of situation. Just accept the emotions for what they are, and deal with this like you would any other time someone gets upset.

But do not backpedal or anything like that, game- or plot-wise. Just find alternatives for the path forward. We play this game for fun, and as the DM it's your job to make sure that the fun occurs. For everyone.

[GolemsVoice]

Yeah, what the others said. Tell her you're sorry, it wasn't a personal attack, and it happens. Be reasonable and calm about it, I'm sure she'll understand.

She wouldn't happen to have a thief named Em Blackleaf?

[Acanous]

Yeah, what the others said. Tell her you're sorry, it wasn't a personal attack, and it happens. Be reasonable and calm about it, I'm sure she'll understand.

She wouldn't happen to have a thief named Em Blackleaf?

Blackleaf, NOOoooo!

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[Wonton]

Okay, here's precisely what happened:

Her character was in melee with the chieftain (who was several levels higher so she would have been hard-pressed to win a 1v1). A spellcaster in the back cast Cause Fear on her, which caused her to run away and provoke an AoO. The AoO caused her to drop, which she and the party were actually happy about - because the alternative was being out of the fight for 4 rounds (2 running away, 2 running back). 2 rounds later, she was healed. The chieftain was at that point in melee with her and one other character - a Tengu who was still up but hadn't dealt too much damage. I said that the chieftain saw her open her eyes and decided she was the more dangerous enemy.

This is where **** went south, because apparently the group thought he should go for the Tengu in front of him. I stood by my decision, stating that she dealt over half his health in one attack and therefore was the bigger threat to him. 1 hit + 1 crit later, she was dead. At this point the player said something bitter like "well have fun playing without me, guys" and left for a solid 10 minutes.

At first, like you, I thought that maybe she was just upset for some other reason (we've all had those outbursts that we immediately regretted 5 minutes later) so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. However, she continued giving me the cold shoulder the rest of the session, basically ignoring me while starting up her laptop to play Guild Wars. Mind you, each player had 2 characters for this combat (I gave each one an NPC at the start), so it's not like she was out of the fight completely. Each time I asked her "So what does Pezock do?", she basically went "Moves and attacks, I don't care."

I just don't know. I've seen people less upset over the death of a family member than she was over the death of her D&D character. The strangest thing is that this behaviour came out of nowhere.

[Matticussama]

Any game with a heavy combat element has a risk of character death. Removing that threat removes the reward for winning. If a player gets that upset about a character death from an otherwise fair fight, that seems like an immature moment to me. It is one thing to be upset for a few minutes but then to later get over it; it is quite another to hold a grudge about it.

Try and work something out with them if you can (Resurrection, new characters tied to the deceased seeking vengeance, etc) but if the player cannot accept that their character might die without throwing a fit then you might want to consider asking them to leave your group. Just my 2 cents.

[Grinner]

@Wonton: Sounds like she thought you were biased against her. Assuming you were playing fairly low level D&D 3.5 (or even 4e), that last blow might have been a killing blow anyway.

I agree that, for the sake of coherence, you made the right call. I'd have gone for the barbarian over the overgrown crow any day.

[endoperez]

To me, it sounds like she is used to the way AI works in video games and MMOs. The enemies can usually be "aggroed" to target a character chosen by the players, so the damage dealers wouldn't have been in the danger in a situation like that.

[icefractal]

That later description sounds less like "overcome with emotion" and more like "pissed off about the GM's call". Which is understandable - while attacking the near-death character may be an entirely logical action by the chieftan, it's still a decision by the GM, and one that was likely to (and did) result in killing that character. It could very easily feel like the GM was gunning for that character intentionally.

Incidentally, a lot of people are talking about Resurrection like it's trivial, but depending on the level, wealth, and location of the characters, that's a lot to assume. Which is not to say that PCs should never die, just that it's entirely possible for a player to be unhappy with that outcome.


Edit: And seriously, video gamer accusations already? Feels like an over-used meme by this point. Honestly, if she was really "playing it like an MMO", then death would be no big deal because she'd just respawn.

[Jack of Spades]

Sounds like a sloppy call on your part, to me. Who turns their back on an active combatant to kill someone who (although they dealt a large amount of damage earlier on) is still down and nearly out? At least, that's how you've described it. Remember, your big bad doesn't realize that his health was halved by this barbarian. He knows she landed a solid, painful hit, but he also knows that she is damn close to death. Also, he 'knows' her resistance to disabling spells like Cause Fear is minimal. He doesn't know how hurt the Tengu with whom he is actively engaged is, and he doesn't know what tricks the primary opponent may have up his sleeve. The opponent with more unknown variables is generally easy to rationalize as the more dangerous one.

That, and that was the second time you had taken the character down in the same combat-- NPC or no NPC, her actual character just got taken down, healed to stability/consciousness, and then killed in rapid succession. How would you feel, as a player? Not saying she had the most mature response, just appealing for empathy.

[Wonton]

a) Maybe if you play with hit points being very abstract, someone wouldn't know exactly how "hard" they were hit or how "healthy" an enemy is. But in my game, people know whether an attack hit someone for 1/4 ("he takes the hit in stride"), 1/2 ("it's a solid blow and your opponent staggers") or 3/4 ("he looks like he's barely standing") of their health. He knew the Fighter had done 2 really hard hits on him while the Tengu had barely scratched him. He did not "turn his back" on an enemy (stop reading into my comments), they were both adjacent to him and to each other and if they were an equal threat I would have just done a 50/50 roll.

b) I do feel empathic - I would be okay if my character died in an epic fight but I understand that some people feel differently. Once again, I was just surprised at how strongly she reacted. I dunno, maybe I have toughened skin from internet and online gaming but I would never let in-game and out-of-game feelings affect each other. I can have a heated in-character argument with another player and then brush it off and laugh about it as friends later.

[Rakmakallan]

Okay, here's precisely what happened:

Her character was in melee with the chieftain (who was several levels higher so she would have been hard-pressed to win a 1v1). A spellcaster in the back cast Cause Fear on her, which caused her to run away and provoke an AoO. The AoO caused her to drop, which she and the party were actually happy about - because the alternative was being out of the fight for 4 rounds (2 running away, 2 running back). 2 rounds later, she was healed. The chieftain was at that point in melee with her and one other character - a Tengu who was still up but hadn't dealt too much damage. I said that the chieftain saw her open her eyes and decided she was the more dangerous enemy.

This is where **** went south, because apparently the group thought he should go for the Tengu in front of him. I stood by my decision, stating that she dealt over half his health in one attack and therefore was the bigger threat to him. 1 hit + 1 crit later, she was dead. At this point the player said something bitter like "well have fun playing without me, guys" and left for a solid 10 minutes.

At first, like you, I thought that maybe she was just upset for some other reason (we've all had those outbursts that we immediately regretted 5 minutes later) so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. However, she continued giving me the cold shoulder the rest of the session, basically ignoring me while starting up her laptop to play Guild Wars. Mind you, each player had 2 characters for this combat (I gave each one an NPC at the start), so it's not like she was out of the fight completely. Each time I asked her "So what does Pezock do?", she basically went "Moves and attacks, I don't care."

I just don't know. I've seen people less upset over the death of a family member than she was over the death of her D&D character. The strangest thing is that this behaviour came out of nowhere.

I played for many years with a group in which everyone would react this way upon character death, sometimes even quitting the game for a few weeks (to flog a dead horse, they were all mainly mmo players). Even I would probably have a similar reaction, pelting the GM with dice. Since then I have learnt two important things:

1) Ask everyone beforehand how they feel about character death and whether you are allowed to kill their characters. If anyone wants to play with the konami code on, let them do so. Matters of life and death are within the boundaries of character ownership and control of the players.

2) Death should me meaningful. Barring D&D which is little more than a glorified wargame, every other RPG revolves around a story. Characters should die, after consensus is given by their respective player ooc, only when it serves to advance the story and increase the dramatic effect. Dice and random elements are there only as narrative aids and should have absolute control over an outcome.

[Averis Vol]

How old is she? this is ludicrous behavior for an adult. Now, I'm not one for kicking someone from a group, but you should seriously consider asking her if this behavior is going to continue. If she wants to stay mad, tell her not to play, if she is just upset over a character death and needs a few days to shake it off and make a new character, good for her.

Regardless, do not let it just fester and create tension, that will only lead to ruin.

[Rhynn]

Aside from fudging the actual die roll, I don't see how I could have been any "nicer" about it. Characters die sometimes, and boss battles is where it happens the most.

This is so. Players who get upset over this are "playing wrong", basically. (Unless you are, in fact, unfairly picking on someone, but that hardly seems the case.)

Talk to your player, but don't get pushed around. PCs will continue to die sometimes. That's the game. Without a risk, there's on real fun.

Don't make new rules on account of this. Completely unnecessary, and they won't address the issue, whatever it was. (Some sort of entitlement deal, probably.)

Even if you were "wrong" to attack her character over the tengu, the reaction is disproportionate. (Personally, I tend to dice off for this sort of thing - "okay, the black dragon flies overhead and breaths on... d6, you're 1, it goes around the table clockwise... you!")

How old is she? this is ludicrous behavior for an adult. Now, I'm not one for kicking someone from a group, but you should seriously consider asking her if this behavior is going to continue. If she wants to stay mad, tell her not to play, if she is just upset over a character death and needs a few days to shake it off and make a new character, good for her.

Regardless, do not let it just fester and create tension, that will only lead to ruin.

Wise words. Follow this advice.

[Giggling Ghast]

Her character's name wasn't Blackleaf, was it? If so, she's probably upset she won't get to learn real magic now.

You might want to put her on suicide watch.

[Daer]

Seems kind odd behavior, you sure there isn't something else behind it? Maybe bad day or other reasons that then just happened to cause it when character died? You should ask her if she is ok and what happened there.

and just in case ask if you did something wrong.

[Sith_Happens]

Since it sounds like you're playing 3.X, are they high enough level and/or capable of scrounging up the cash for a Raise Dead*? If so, her reaction is even more overblown. If not, then that's nothing an appropriate quest can't fix.

As for the circumstances of the death, while it could easily look to a player like you're picking on them, I agree that the chieftan's logic was fairly sound. My only quibble is that rather than actually choosing to attack her over the Tengu, he could have just AoO'd her when she inevitably tried to stand up (and if she tried to attack from prone instead then she wouldn't have been repeating her earlier Power Attack any time soon anyways).


* For a much cheaper and slightly lower-level option, a Movanic Deva (Fiend Folio p56) has Raise Dead as a 1/day SLA, is callable with Lesser Planar Ally, and will generally charge 300 gp to use the above (as a non-hazardous task taking up to 1 minute per caster level). If you don't want it to be quite that easy, the Deva may ask for payment in the form of some action that furthers the cause of Good, in which case you have your res-quest (albeit a very minor one, since the action the party is asked to perform should still equate to ~300 gp in value).

[GnomeFighter]

Ok, since we only know one side of the story I just want to bring in another perspective.

I used to have a realy annoying GM. He would always go after the most "logical" target. The one who was able to deal the highest damage or the healer, even to the point in 4e of ignoring marking, and even if that player had not done anything yet. You would find without casting a single heal every bad guy would charge across the room at your casters. It can be extreamly frustrating for a player when a GM seems to meta game like that, where he knows the whole partys strenths, weeknesses, powers and HP.

I'm not saying this is what happend here, but from what has been said it seems there is a possibility that this is how it might have come across. She felt like she had landed one big hit, and probably had no idea how much damage it had done (as a % of the bosses HP). Like others have said this boss turned his back on someone he was in combat with to attack someone who he thought was down and was just standing up.

However it may also be that the player completly over reacted, or did have allot of attachment to the charicter. Just because the player dose not RP dose not mean they don't have an attachement to there PC.

Personaly I would make the party aware of rezing, the costs and benefits. Make it possible to find an NPC that will rez her, but let her and the party decide if that is something they want to do.

[Wonton]

Since it sounds like you're playing 3.X, are they high enough level and/or capable of scrounging up the cash for a Raise Dead*? If so, her reaction is even more overblown. If not, then that's nothing an appropriate quest can't fix.

They're level 2 and if they blow all their gold they might have 5000, but the problem is they're on an island that they can't leave for a while yet. There's no one to buy a scroll from, and they might not even be able to reach the mainland in 9 days (at which point it would need to be Resurrection).

Ok, since we only know one side of the story I just want to bring in another perspective.

I used to have a realy annoying GM. He would always go after the most "logical" target.

Thanks for the input, but that's not what happened here. If I was that kind of DM I would not have had the enemies waste like 6 attacks on the start on illusions, for one. They never went for the healer, and mostly just hit the target that was in melee and was the biggest threat at the time. And as I mentioned before, he did not "turn his back" on an enemy to attack her.

. X X
. O .
. . .

He was O and had a choice of two Xs to attack. One was a Tengu Rogue who'd barely injured him. The other was a Human Fighter who'd severely injured him and had just regained consciousness through magical healing, but was not yet up and therefore an easy target.

In-character, it was 100% justified (in fact, a coup-de-grace when she was unconscious earlier was justified, but I'm not that mean). But I don't want to argue about whether it was justified or not anymore, I was more curious about the player perspective.

Honestly, people are being too harsh on her. I came here to vent a bit (after being a state of complete shock over what happened, basically) and maybe seek some different viewpoints. She's an adult like the rest of us. MMOs have nothing to do with it, like half of tabletop gamers have played one at some point.

Once again, I'm not saying that I don't see how losing a character can be sad, and I'm even willing to admit that I might have been a little harsher than usual (it was a climactic battle and not a random encounter, after all). But even if I accept that it could have been seen that I was "picking on her", I just can't believe the reaction. By comparison, the second most emotional situation I've ever had in a group was when we got slightly mad at a DM for railroading us. But even then, the situation blew over pretty quickly and did not feel nearly as awkward as today was.

[icefractal]

Once again, I was just surprised at how strongly she reacted. I dunno, maybe I have toughened skin from internet and online gaming but I would never let in-game and out-of-game feelings affect each other. I can have a heated in-character argument with another player and then brush it off and laugh about it as friends later.

Unless I'm misreading things from your description, this is where the disconnect is - she's not mad in-game at the chieftan, she's mad out-of-game at you, personally. For deciding on a course of events that killed her character.

That doesn't mean it's necessarily justified, and she may get over it by the next time you meet, but there's no in-game/out-of-game confusion going on here.

[Ashtagon]

I normally play it that, where enemies are choosing targets, the go for the strongest apparent target, not the "quickest weapon kill". That is, they demonstrate no genre savviness. They also dismiss casters as non-combatants unless and until those characters demonstrate spell-casting ability, or draw attention to themselves by wearing arcane robes. Finally, they will stay at the same melee opponent as long as that opponent continues to engage in melee.

If I break these rules, it'll be after I have telegraphed their greater tactical intelligence to the players.

[Blarmb]

If the story as you told it is true, you didn't do anything wrong and the player in question acted immaturely in response to a natural consequence of the game. You should stop feeling bad and she was acting like jerk.

[Ashtagon]

If the story as you told it is true, you didn't do anything wrong and the player in question acted immaturely in response to a natural consequence of the game. You should stop feeling bad and she was acting like jerk.

Clearly, Blackleaf was weak and deserved to die

[GnomeFighter]

Thanks for the input, but that's not what happened here. If I was that kind of DM I would not have had the enemies waste like 6 attacks on the start on illusions, for one. They never went for the healer, and mostly just hit the target that was in melee and was the biggest threat at the time. And as I mentioned before, he did not "turn his back" on an enemy to attack her.

Edit... Just re-read what happend. No, you chose to attack a prone PC that they monster would probably have had no idea was awake and the monster turned away from the imidiat threat. Ye, you totally meta gamed it to me and did a similar thing to what i was describing. You went for the "logical" target biased on knowledge of who would be a threat long term and the safety of ignoring blows. You also took away the players chance to get away. It sounds like she is annoyed not for the death, as she was already down, but the second kill.

[ReaderAt2046]

How smart was the boss supposed to be? Maybe she felt that you were making the boss too good of a strategist in having him target the nearly dead enemy instead of the healthy one who's in his face stabbing.

[PlusSixPelican]

Tengu Rogue...Fighters being useful...is this Pathfinder, by chance?

As long as she doesn't have to roll up at level one again, she's being ridiculous. PCs die. You gotta avoid death when doing things, since in tabletops there IS the risk of it, and that makes the whole thing fun. Her character could get revived, or she can take another PC. Ish a lesson in being cautious, or hopping out of a fight when you've been stabilized but not put at full. She's a fighter, did she stock up on throwing weapons or a bow to use at further range for when she couldn't comfortably take hits? And well, a crit isn't anyone's fault. Plus she still had an NPC to pilot, but bein' all dismissive? Uggh. It's probably been said, but was this her first campaign? Anyways, the only DM lapse was not informing them beforehand of how character revival works in the game, but at the same time, PCs would want to know that anyways.