The ripping of character sheets

He'd have to rip my laptop in half!

Galeros said:

Okay, in the games that I am playing in the DM will rip up your character sheet if you die(we almost always make new PCs instead of being ressurected). Nobody seems to really care much about it, I actually dont think I have ever been a victim of this myself, though I did do it once when I DMed. But nobody seems to care really. How would you react to this? I realize that this would upset some people, especially those who liked their character a lot. If you were in a game where this happened, would you make a copy of your character sheet everytime you leveled and keep it in secret and snicker at the stupidity of your DM every time you take it out to look at it?

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Wow, that is so despicably evil. How could you all do such a thing?

Though, maybe you all don't take the game as seriously as some. In my games, everyone puts a lot of work into a character, even ones that hardly ever or never get played. Each character to my players is a piece of themselves within them. They go as far as having their characters drawn by artists or cutting out comic book and anime clippings or printing anime or fantasy art characters and stapling them to the character sheet.

For our games to cause a character to be ripped apart is just pure sacrilege.

There's a lot of personality and background my players put into their characters, and even if they die, they're lamenated and remembered for all time, like a sort of memorial. Whether or not their character's accomplishments made an impact on the game, IC or OOC, they're still remembered, joked about, or honored in some fashion. There's still the chance they're resurrected, also. Of course, we take resurrection seriously. It just doesn't happen often, or even semi-rarely.

We've had LOST character sheets, but never a ripped one. It happened once when a player got pissed, but he ripped it once so it was easily taped together again LOL. Rewritten, though, afterwards.

Ripping character sheets in our games is just too blasphemous to us to ponder. Why destroy something you put so much time into?

Razz said:

Wow, that is so despicably evil. How could you all do such a thing?

Ripping character sheets in our games is just too blasphemous to us to ponder. Why destroy something you put so much time into?

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Hehe, I feel the same way, but like I said, my current DM likes to do it, and none of the other players care, nor do I. There is an exception however, if you die sacrificing yourself, or you die in a very heroic manner, you can keep it. It is just if you die by a random good combat roll or stupidity that it gets ripped.

EDIT: A sheet got ripped today, rest in peace Cade.

Sejs said:

I find the idea quite rude and disrespectful.


You do not rip up something that does not belong to you. That includes your player's character sheet.


Even beyond that, it seems a very hollow gesture. Pointless grandstanding. Sophmoric ego-stroking. Completely uncessary and rather juvenile.

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I couldn't have said it better myself. Having been fairly attached to several characters I've had, I'd rather they didn't do that. It's not only the sheet, but the story of the character, and even if he's dead, that doesn't mean I can reread it on occasion and smile at the fun I had.

Of course, if the GM asked permition from the player first, that's a different issue.

I do agree that ripping up a sheet is very harsh, and I would too view it as immature.

My character sheets are my history. I frequently enjoy going back and pulling out an old one and remembering the adventures they had. I have character sheets going back 20 years. And I wish I still had the sheets from 21-25 years ago.

On another note, I agree with the sentimental bit. I myself am a heavily sentimental person, and at resuly have loads of "junk" that most people would have gotten rid of.

I used to have a WFRP graveyard in my old gaming room, but I did not ever rip sheets up.

I have had nearly the opposite done to me when I was DMing. I was running a campaign with a liche BBEG. I had spent about 18 hours painting the bad guy - a skeletal liche figure on a skeletal horse rearing up. The party was victorious and all the players were high fiving - save one: He knocked the mini over saying, "He's gone now."

I was not pleased.

Delta said:

They could get raised or wished back. Save it in a folder marked "deceased".

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That was the best reason for not doing it IMO.

Though I admit I also like archiving old characters.

OK, it's allright to be a bit sadistic sometimes as a DM (it helps roleplay the BBEGs), but ripping up character sheets is kinda taking that too far out of the game for my tastes.

I showed this thread to a player/coworker of mine and we had a good chuckle over it. We can't comprehend someone ripping our character sheets up at a game session. It boggles the mind.

That said, we're considering a switcheroo at an upcoming game where I fake ripping up a player's sheet. We're wondering if he'll leap across the table at me or not.

The closest I've come to this is crumpling my own character sheet into a ball and throwing it at the DM. Of course, this is only after a particularly irritating or ignoble death, preceded by some assinine ruling on the DM's part, and is usually followed by me walking out of the game in a huff.

Fortunately, this hasn't happened all that often.