I killed my wife's character!

[Werewolf_26]

In most situations, IF I'm concerned about a character dying, I'll have the monster throw in one or two "subdual damage" shots.

Since the character drops as soon as the current hit point total is below subdual damage (if I recall correctly), this in the situation of absent players allows a "buffer zone." PCs running the Absent PC's Characters might run the individual as a Meat Shield, but with the villians making those kinds of shots, it removes the Meat Shield without killing the character off.

How else do you explain captives among villians? Not all of them were "Eek! Lots of Orcs, We Give Up!"

As for Undead pulling these shots, MAYBE the controller/source of the undead wants some LIVE sacrifices to whatever.

If you wanted to logically have the character still alive, you could switch out a previous shot for a subdual damage shot. . . which would leave the character very beat up, and the player a little wiser. This does create an in game solution that wouldn't constitute a "it's a miracle, your alive!" scenario.

Werewolf_26
"Red Wizard needs food badly."

 

[Squire James]

I think the best thing to do is for the party to find a scroll of Raise Dead (such things already have the material component costs figured in, by the way), and for you to give a strong OOC comment about how it should be employed. The wife still loses a level from her mistake, and it isn't TOO far from what you would do for people you don't care about.

Then all you have to worry about is the player incompatibilities... your players deserve a chance to work these sorts of things out.

 

[Voadam]

You are in a bind. I feel it is a mistake to have other PCs play each others absent PCs or to have them risk death when not there. On the other hand you said up front this was one of the options with resulting risk of death and she agreed to that.

I would suggest figuring out if there are options in the game for dealing with the situation. Is she now a wraith spawn? Coming back as undead and going on a quest to be restored to life is pretty epic and fits what happened.

Another option to explain it away and bring her back is to have her corpse deform into a doppleganger corpse and now the PCs must find out where she really is. You will then have to come up with a backstory.

What was the reactions of the other PCs? Did they use her as a shield? Are they trying to bring her back to life, making no effort and not caring, etc?

What has been your policy on PC death so far, as stated and in practice?

Unless you end midway in a dungeon, it should be relatively easy to come up with a reason for the roleplayer to separate from the party for games she is not there.

If it is just hack and slash you can even introduce random chaos magic that cause rips in the space time continuum taking pcs and teleporting them to the party at a later date as if no time had passed for the PC. For her investigative side develop it as a metaphysic of the world such as the wild magic is in the realms, and come up with reasons behind it (gods wars, archmage rituals that destabilized time-space as a side effect, etc.)

 

[Balsamic Dragon]

Why do some husbands freak out when their wives get angry about something? It isn't the end of the world. I would be pissed too if my character died that way, but I would get over it. This isn't a problem that necessarily needs fixing.

What it sounds like to me, is that you really want her to enjoy gaming and you think that because she is angry about the game she will quit. If she does, then it probably wasn't the game for her. Talk to her about it and explain that in D&D, unlike some other roleplaying games, characters die ocassionally. Ask her if she would be more interested in playing a different game that is more cinamatic.

Most importantly, don't treat her as if she is some sort of elemental force of anger that cannot be reasoned with. She's a person, she can deal. Talk to her. Maybe her real problem is that she thinks that the other players put her in danger on purpose. Did they? After all, it might have been stupid to take on the wight in the first place. Maybe the problem is that she was supposed to be out of town for this and you deliberately planned the session to have lots of combat to please the other players without considering the possible results to her, non-hack and slash character.

You are not a bad GM for killing her character. But you would be if you refused to discuss reasonably what to do about it. And that goes for any player.

Balsamic Dragon

 

[Zog]

The problem, as I see it, is not so much that you as DM killed your wife's PC - it is that when she wasn't there, and her PC was under the control of other players, that the PC died.

Personally, I would be *VERY* upset if I returned to the table to be told 'oh, your character died last session when you weren't here'. If I'm playing the character, and I die, oh well. But someone else? No way.

Talk to the other players and your wife. Establish a firm rule: No PC deaths if player is not present. It really stinks.

Killing your wife's PC is not, or should not, be a big deal. Heck, I've killed my wife's character - brutally ripped apart by a summoned ape. She was a bit upset, but it was part of the game and she wasn't really all that upset.

As for the specifics of what happened - all you have to do is state that she is not quite dead, or nigh dead - not actually out. Make it very clear, this is only because she was not present - the same would happen to any PC whose player was not there. And that 'the dice will fall as they will'.


Or - as other folks suggested, find a group of gamers that fit your style better. Post an ad in the game store, use words like 'limited combat' and 'intrique/mystery' to try and get non-hackers for the game.

 

[Desdichado]

Sounds like your real problem is the group you play with. Talk to your wife, tell her what the various issues are; chances are she'll be understanding. I think (from your description) it sounds like she's seen the fun potential of a game like she likes, so she's not likely to quit gaming. She might very well quit this group though, if she starts to get further and further alienated by the group's preferred style of play.

For everybody concerned, I think you need to try and find some other players, and stipulate ahead of time what kind of player you're looking for.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Did your wifes character get sacrificed basically by the rest of the party or did she die fairly in a brutal combat?

IF it is the first then I would agree with her being pissed. If it is the second then she needs to grow up. You told her the danger and Im sure you gave an option where her character would not be present and as such completley safe.

My wife is pretty mad at me, even though I told her that there are ways to resurrect her character.

 

[SSS-Druid]

Here's an idea.

Have her read the thread, and see what she thinks of the replies here.

It may give her a sense of perspective on the whole thing, as well as how seriously some people take their gaming (for what that's worth).

 

[Valen]

Resolution

Here's an idea.

Have her read the thread, and see what she thinks of the replies here.

It may give her a sense of perspective on the whole thing, as well as how seriously some people take their gaming (for what that's worth).

That is pretty much what I did. I told her that I had posted for ideas and told her what some of them are and how other gamers thought things she be handled and gave her the option of creating a new character or picking up where her character was last time and playing out the journey her soul after death. She chose to make a new character and is taking her time now that she has more options as a 5th level character than she did when she started out at first.

 

[Ukyo the undead]

Really???

Oh man, a happy end!