We just had a PC die due to great roleplaying

[Piratecat]

Quick summary: in my Merchant Prince 4e game the PCs are the children or servants of one of the great merchant families, the official spice merchants to the emperor. For three (real) years and 13 levels they've been tracking down a substance named willspice. When attuned via a ritual, ingesting willspice puts you under the permanent mental control of the person who attuned it. In my campaign it was accepting the gift of willspice that changed humans into tieflings, and the tieflings used it to pretty much destroy the dragonborn empire. Evil stuff.

The heroes were seeking willspice for their family to help hold together their empire, and to keep it out of the hands of a tiefling princess who very much wants it. The PCs purposefully died and descended into Hell to get it, then (completely surprising me) decided to destroy it instead. In the process the elven woman who was the foremost proponent of destroying the stuff was cursed to have a vial of it always on her. And - completely surprising me again - instead of returning to her body with her friends, she made the conscious choice to remain an uneasy spirit trapped between life and death so that the tieflings could never get their hands on the stuff again.

In other words, she'd rather die than let willspice reemerge in the mortal world. So she did.

It was a great, completely in-character decision. It was also one that completely changes how the rest of the campaign might go. In this one act of sacrifice we get huge changes in both the group and the campaign, and a whole lot of bad guys are thwarted.

So Eherli, elven archer and bodyguard? Choosing death via roleplaying is a pretty damn cool way to go. Thank you.

Okay! From you: incredibly cool in-character sacrifices you've seen in your game. Go!

 

[Desdichado]

Does it count if they sacrificed someone else? In one of my earlier settings, anthropomancy was a very effective way of divining the clues that they were looking for to proceed.

Er... yeah, I didn't think so.

I also had a player willfully sacrifice a character knowing that he was going to get some kind of gnarly reincarnation out of the deal. He came back as a pirate-hat wearing talking gorilla ship captain.

That's probably not exactly what you had in mind either.

I guess I'm "cursed" (although I love it and wouldn't have it any other way) with players who tend to make amoral scoundrels who act more like Jack Vance's Cugel the "Clever" rather than anyone who would actually sacrifice anything important on principle.

 

[billd91]

I've seen it happen as well. In a 1e AD&D game, part of a fairly long-standing campaign, the PCs had the opportunity to close a standing gate to Hell but it would require one of them to be permanently entombed in a rock seal that would plug the gate. The gate was a complication but not absolutely necessary for the plotting of the main campaign villains. Nevertheless, the knightly fighter character stepped right up to the task without any discussion on our part. The player simply said "This is in character" and sacrificed himself. It was a surprise but a crowning moment of awesome as well.

 

[WizarDru]

It's been a few years, but in one of my games, the party's rogue was granted a favor by a being she eventually realized was the avatar of her deity, a trickster god who also happened to be god of the dark elves (a mirthless elven race created by said god to mock the original creations of one of his siblings). She was offered the favor early on in a desperate moment and knew it would mean paying it back, sooner or later.

In the times that followed, she fell in love with another member of the party, an elven prince. The group encountered a prince of the dark elves on more than one occasion, who swore to hunt down and kill the prince. So it was agonizing for her when the avatar returned at midnight one night two years later and informed her she needed to lure her paramour alone and under false circumstances to a gathering of the dark elves, to face his opposite in mortal combat.

She roleplayed it excruciatingly well, knowing her actions in-character would break every trust her character had with the party, especially with the man she loved, who she was leading potentially to his death while implacable deities looked on. The consequences of that night were campaign altering, to say the least.

 

[Alzrius]

Last week (eight days ago, in fact), one of my players sacrificed his PC heroically.

In my Kingmaker campaign, the PCs were very reluctant to engage in any sort of hostile action with their western neighbor, Drelev, even after a raiding party from Drelev attacked one of their towns (the captured captain of the raiders said that they were actually assigned to chase a particular NPC, who just happened to flee into the PCs' country; so the PCs didn't presume that this was an actual attack from the leaders of Drelev).

After ignoring the affairs of their western neighbor for months, even after hearing tales about how law and order were breaking down there (thanks to a spy they'd send to the country), one of my PCs - a cleric of Iomedae - received a vision telling her to go bring justice to the people of Drelev, whose leaders had abandoned them in every meaningful way.

The PCs were relatively evenly split on taking action, since half thought they'd just destabilize things more, and half favored going in and eliminating the problem to make room for something better. The cleric's vision clinched her going, and three more PCs (out of seven total) went with her.

After sneaking into the capital city, the PCs were watching the main keep of Drelev's leaders at night, knowing that the mercenary stone giants in the nation's employ left the keep at night to patrol. What they weren't expecting was to see a half-dozen giants chasing a fleeing rider from the keep, who was then downed in front of them!

Deciding to intervene, the four PCs distracted five of the giants, and managed to make short work of the remaining one...but not before the other five heard the sounds of battle and came back to investigate.

At first, it seemed like the four PCs (the cleric, a barbarian, a rogue, and a ranger) would hold their own, as they were dishing out more damage than they were taking. But a critical hit from one of the stone giants - while using Power Attack with its two-handed great club - rolled near-maximum damage, and killed the barbarian. Things went badly from there.

Eventually, the cleric ordered the rogue and ranger to run for it, and decided that she'd hold off the remaining three stone giants by herself. She fought hard, and even managed to kill one of the remaining giants before they brought her down.

Her sacrifice was not in vain, however, as it allowed the other two to rescue the downed rider...who turned out to be the spy they'd sent to Drelev months before. He told them that a barbarian army had been raised, and even now was marching on their (the PCs') capital city. This let them hastily raise their own armies, which just yesterday managed to route the barbarians, though with heavy casualties.

...all because of one cleric's sacrifice for her comrades.

 

[KidCthulhu]

I seem to remember a certain bard who sacrificed himself to take out a big bad guy who was bent on ascending to godhood...

 

[Pielorinho]

Heh--I seem to recall reading about that one too, KidCthulhu.

My own story: just before leaving for college, we ran a Werewolf game in which I played a teenage drug addict punk-kid. When he was abducted to become a werewolf, he turned out to be part of the Noble tribe (Silver Talon or some such, I forget what) of werewolves. And when we visited a shaman to find out information about an upcoming campaign-climactic battle, he told us he could see victorious werewolves on the battlefield surrounded by the dead--and that I was among the dead.

So I ran away.

I spent a session hiding from the rest of the werewolves, going into a heroin tailspin. But finally I came to terms with destiny, and I stole a bunch of dynamite from a quarry, and I came back just in time to face the Giant Robot Death-Wolf (it wasn't quite so silly-sounding at the time) that was devastating my friends. And I managed to cram my fist full of lit dynamite down its gullet before it tore my arm off with silver teeth.

This session of the game was also something of a going-away party with my dearest friends, and the GM played through this death scene perfectly, with my comrades bringing my broken body to the werewolf sacred grove before I died. I think I got something in my eye.

So it was a GM-planned death, but one that wrapped up a story quite well.

 

[MorningstarofEll]

I play..um..played Ehleri. What a cool Eulogy PirateCat! Stories of heroic sacrifices!

I played a lot of GURPS at one point and one GM through several campaigns finally told me that I was not allowed to take the Impulsive disadvantage for my characters. I played my other disads well..but not that one, even though I nearly always took it.

"But I really want to have that kind of character" I reasoned.
"I understand..but it is just not in your nature", he said. And he was correct.

It was one of the times when role playing gave me insight into my personality. I tend to think things through and not be very impulsive. I like to plan and to consider. I've played characters who have let me 'try on' other characteristics that I don't have..but not that one really.

So I am proud of myself for making an impulsive heroic gesture with a character of 3 years.

Day after regrets?

I gave piratecat a plot hook on character creation that someone was trying to assassinate me. Now I'll never know who!

I hope poor Ehleri doesn't slowly go insane in that little hallway..like some of the poor trapped spirits we've encountered in the campaign.

PirateCat does a really great job of rolling with the surprises we toss his way and this was no exception. He hadn't set this up as a sacrifice situation..it just occurred to me as a way to keep the world (and my half-siblings who I've been watching over ) safer. Even thought it means a bunch of rethinking for him, he let me turn what was meant to be a chapter ending into a heroic moment with a ton of grace on his part. Thank you!

It is better to die upon your feet than live upon your knees, as a certain bard once said. Or in this case..It is better to die upon your feet, than live with vial of evil dust in your pocket!

 

[Wild Gazebo]

Well I guess it was about twelve years ago. The PCs had spent the last several months tracking down a renegade warlord who was responsible for instigating a full blown multinational war. He was extremely powerful and the PCs new they needed help; but, with the climate of the countries and the traps of the warlord they couldn't keep their allies alive.

They finally tracked him down to an ancient dwarven city that they knew would be perfect for an ambush...they were right. They couldn't leave to get reinforcements because they didn't want to loose the trail again--so they forged forward.

They sprung the trap, the warlord waded into the party like he was harvesting grain his followers skirted the combat trying to pin the PCs with polearms and thrown weapons. The PCs tried there best to use the environment to their advantage filling a deep spiked pit with with thorns and setting it on fire. The knight, down to his last dregs of strength, roared and charged the warlord tackling him full in the chest knowing full well they would both topple into the fiery, spikey, pit.

Down at the bottom of the pit, skewered by spikes and thorns, in a roaring inferno, the knight kept his weight pressed down on the warlord pinning him...while they both burned to death locked eye to eye.

 

[the Jester]

My favorite roleplaying moment ever:

Sooo we had a female elven ranger, Egypt, and a human male priest of Nerull, Carrion. The two were in love.

In my campaign, Nerull's whole attitude about everything was pretty much "DIE". One consequence of this was that his priests (this was 2e, and I hardly ever even used generic clerics) were not allowed to accept healing. The idea of helping things live was pretty anathema to them. (Said priest could harm but not heal.)

Anyhow, the pcs defeated an epic bad guy and were brought to an assemblage of the gods, where each was given his or her heart's desire. When it came time for Egypt to ask them for her boon, she asked for Carrion's child.

Now, if helping things live is a horrible offense to Nerull, creating new life is even moreso. So the pcs spent a couple sessions doing downtime, vacations, etc., and Egypt and Carrion went away to an isolated tropical island for a vacation/honeymoon.

As they did, one morning Carrion said, "Egypt, I love you," and then attacked her with his scythe, trying to kill her. She didn't know what was going on; she fought defensively instead of all-out, taking serious wounds, until finally he cast his scythe down, spread his arms and cried, "Kill me!"

Egypt (and her player, and everyone else except for Carrion's player and myself, based on questions he'd asked me about Nerull's theology after the boon-granting session) was baffled. But when she demanded to know what was going on, he explained that she had to kill him, or else he would have to kill her- and their child.

So she did.

It was an amazing, emotional, kick-ass exchange. I didn't know what he was going to do in advance, only that he was conflicted. When she wouldn't really fight back and he threw down his scythe, demanding that she kill him, the look on Egypt's player's face was awesome. All the players were rapt, even though only the two of them were the only ones in the scene, and I don't think anyone else (myself included) said a word for about twenty minutes while it played out.

So awesome.