In all my 22 years of gaming...

...I have never seen what I did tonight.

I have never seen PC die--I don't mean "drop below 0 hp," I mean honest to goodness dead, no coming back--in the first game of a new campaign.

Not that there was a lot the rest of us could do, since he left us behind and went off on his own, but still. It was surreal, to say the least.
 

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My first time GMing 3rd edition (and the first time our group played it), I killed a PC...For some reason in all the previous editions, Ghouls never posed such a dangerous threat to a party of 6 1st level characters before.
Well that night they sure did...Then I decided to start learning the Challenge Rating System.
 

This actually happened to one of my players just the other day. I'm running Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, and I guess one of my players thought it would be fun to run into melee with a hill giant a two orcs...

A well, at least he learned his lesson!
 

Ne'er have I killed somebody dead in the first game of a new campaign. Killed three in the second game, though. First got eaten by ghouls. Second and third were in the same game, same situation. One of the players wanted to leave the game, so killed himself by rowing a boat into shark infested waters. Another player decided to go with him, despite my warnings. Both got et.

Demiurge out.
 

yeah my cousin is one of few people who get himself killed in my games. Always it's when he gets some idea in his head and runs off on his own.
 

PC deaths are no fun...grr one crit hit and you wish the cleric was about...not good times. lets hope it isn't a foreshadow of the rest of the adventure.
 

One day, I started a new campaign in which one character was a barbarian with Whirling Frenzy from Unearthed Arcana. He decided to create a quirk that he hated being attacked with magic, so he went into a frenzy whenever he made a saving throw against a spell. Unfortunately, a party member decided to Charm him for some silly reason, and he wound up killing him in one critical hit when he just meant to go into frenzy to teach him a lesson. Then the other characters drew their weapons and advanced, so the whirling frenzy guy killed them all. Later, he decided to commit suicide.

So that same night, we made a new campaign where the 3rd-level adventurers were defeated by 8 goblins (except the wilder), then totally defeated by an Astral Construct (except one character who decided to join the goblins rather than be slain and actually summoned the Astral Construct). Then the bad guy had the one last character throw the others in the derro pit, which caused him to regret his actions and jump down there to save them, where they all died.

This is probably the first time I've had a PC-death in the first session except the time that one PC made a chaotic-evil rogue without telling me, while the party had a paladin, a cleric of the god of paladins, a lawful good monk, among others. When the halfling stole from the party and attempted a poorly-rolled forgery check to put the blame for the kidnappings the party had been tracking on a PC wizard ("After careful perusal, you are pretty sure that this text was not written by Xanthar. Not only does it not resemble the angular script of his people, but you see some of the backwards-curling tails common of halflings). The monk attempted to chase and subdue the halfling, and he did catch up, being a monk, despite the halfling's magically-doubled movement speed. Escaping the monk's grapple with Escape Artist, the halfling defeated him in a duel and continued running, climbing up a tree as high as he could to try to make it out of arrow range. The paladin continually rolled terrible rolls with his bow, unable to hit the rogue, so the cleric pulled out his mace and slammed it into the tree in an attempt to flush the rogue out. When the cleric rolled a critical on this (yes, I know trees are normally immune to criticals), I told the halfling to make a DC 15 Climb check, and he failed by 10, falling to the ground. The fall killed him.

So PCs only die in the first session when the other players kill them, though the 8 goblins came close to a TPK.
 

wow Ari,

you need to get out more.

as a player and a referee i have seen it many times. in all the editions of the game.

of course, that doesn't even include convention play.
 

A pal of mine picked up the moniker "Dead Again Dave", for dying in the first session of every adventure we ever played.

Ghouls
Skeletons
Orcs
Goblins
Wells

In the 'well' scene a thief (1ed AD&D) with a climb chance of 99% fell down the well, got hurt hitting the water, and fell again climbing back out! Some people have all the luck...
 

Happens all the time. In my current game my party of first level characters were almost wiped out by a conspiracy of ravens.

When I first started playing Living Greyhawk (shortly after Third Edition was released), our first module ended in a TPK.
 

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