PC Death = Campaign Death?

[DnDChick]

Hey DMs, has this ever happened to you?

Ive had more than one campaign end because a player threw a hissy fit over losing a character and ruined it for everyone else.

 

[BluWolf]

Actually, no.

I have had campaigns slowly grind to a halt after several charcter deaths but not from one guy throwing a hissy fit.

We had a guy throw a fit about 2 years ago and annouce he was quitting. I think he was of the opinion that the game would fall apart without him.

Well two years later the game is going strong and has been much better since he left.

 

[SonOfLilith]

The only way we've stoped a campain is if we all die. Now, that really sucks!

 

[Piratecat]

I've really tried to design adventures and campaigns so that they don't revolve around only one character. That way, if they die, there will be other sub-plots to run with.

I think if someone really threw an unwarranted hissy fit, I'd question whether they should be there in the first place.

True story from my early, early days of 1e DMing, 20 years ago(!):

Me: "You see a room with a bunch of blood and shredded rubble on the floor. There are two dead bodies in there, and both look like they've gone through the wringer. They still have all their gear, though."

Ken: "Cool! I go in!"

Me: "You sure?"

Ken: "Yeah!"

Me: "Okay, the ceiling sprouts spikes and falls on you. You're dead. It does like 40 something points of damage. Splat."

Ken: "I didn't go in there!"

Me (echoed by other players at the table): "What?"

Ken: "I didn't go in there! You misheard me!"

Me: "But you said...."

Ken: "No I didn't! I never went in there! I'm not dead; no you *can't* have my character sheet!"

Other player: "Dude, you suck. You're dead. Deal with it."

Ken: "No I'm not! I'm not!"

Ric: "Can I loot his corpse?"

He still denies it, too.

- Piratecat

 

[Ravellion]

Player: "I jump out of the window"
DM: "Well, you just ascended three stairs, and you jump out of the window. You take 3d6 damage... *rolls* 9. How many hit points does your 1st level mage have?
Player: "No, I have changed my mind, I don't jump out of the window."

Well, I did have an NPC death causing the end of the campaign, does that count?

Rav

 

[Dalenthas]

Players see a room with a huge decorative door. One of my players guesses (correctly) that the big-bad-guy must be behind the door because at the time all my dungeons did that... so, instead of sending the damage spounge in, the player, who's character was a cleric, steps into the doorway to parlay with the baddie. The badguy (who's a green dragon) talks with the character for a little while, decides that the character is more boring than he should have to deal with, and breaths on him (suprise round since the player wasn't expecting combat). Well, after the cleric miserably failed his reflex save he immeadiatly complained that I'm a horrible DM and his character should never have been disintigrated by acid breath. This, of course, I interpreted as a "You suck, I can do better!" so I quit DMing and made him DM for a while. He sucked.

 

[Hejdun]

Nope

I just got back from my game, and we had a character die. It was a new player (been playing about 3 months), but he was really cool with it. He was making jokes about it and started making a new character. We almost had a catostrophic entire party killed event, but my wizard came up with a BEAUTIFULLY timed critical hit, that killed the last orc, who was also the orc leader of the entire clan. In the end, we had one dead dwarven fighter, one elven fighter at -4, the dwarven cleric at 9 (no spells at all), and me unhurt (but NO spells).

Overall, most fun we've had in a LONG time. The character death kind of halted the fun for a bit, but due to the player's great handling of it, we pulled through fine.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If they're really attatched...

If a PC throws a big hissy-fit, bring thm back as an Undead, and kill them again.

Naw...hissy-fits shouldn't happen...if it's a big problem, you may want to try a "you are the only hope!" campaign, and then the fate of the world really is entwined with your own.

 

[birdboy2000]

Everyone tolerates losing their character. Most PC deaths barely effect me anymore though a few characters close to my own do. We do poke fun at certain stupid mistakes resulting in deaths.

 

[Brother Laszlo]

Well...

A Raise Dead scroll is, what, 1600 gp?

Make 'em pay for the scroll, don't given 'em xp for the encounter they died in, and move on. Not too much to whine about.

Of course, if they're low level and can't afford something like that, they shouldn't be crying to begin with.