Lamest character deaths ever!

[Piratecat]

Friends were playing in a 2e game where the "lawful good" mage interpreted LG to mean "for the best good of the party." One notable incident which comes to mind --

The group is climbing Yggdrasil and is attacked by a guardian. The group fighter is grappled by the beast, screaming as it squeezes the life out of him.

The mage turns to the party cleric. "Do you carry raise dead?"

"What?"

"Do you carry raise dead?"

"Well, yes, but he isn't. . ."

And the mage turns around and casts chain lightning on both the fighter AND the monster, crisping them both.

 

[Westwind]

Many stories come to mind, but in terms of long-term value, there can be only one:

2e game with gobs of house-rules, most notably a farily open-ended critical hit/fumble system. d% and the DM (who was fun and a great guy, but had a thing for "realism") would do what he felt best.

Gnome fires a poisoned crossbow bolt and rolls a 1. d% ends up at 98, so he hits himself in the eye, killing himself. He's raised, but no one new the bolt was poisoned and he promptly fails his poison save and dies again. He's raised (again) and, thanks to his now lower Con score, fails his res. survival check.

We figured God was trying to tell us something and I rolled a new character.

 

[adwyn]

Back in our 1st Ed days, while dungeoneering on a remote island two PC's contract a horrible disease from the 1st Ed DMG and die of the runs two days later. As one of the dead was our wizard who had teleported us to that stupid barren rock in the first place we had a TPK as the surviving PC's slowly ate everthying there was. First the Puffins, then a few seals, then our own dead, then the zombie sailors in the caves, then some algae.

 

[Rokonin]

Well, it wasn't my character, but:

We were running a VERY light-hearted one shot, and we were walking through town when we saw a boy and his mother arguing. After a few minutes of passionate, squealing roleplaying, the boy kicked his mother in the shins. Now, seeing as how this was a humoresque game, the DM rolled an attack roll for the boy. First roll: 20 Second roll: 20 Third roll: 20. The boy had scored a critical hit, then a instant kill on his mother. Again, this was a light-hearted game, so the DM came up with some excuse (that I don't remember correctly) about blocking a vein or artery, and the loss of blood caused her to faint, and then she died somehow. We didn't care at the time, we were laughing our heads off.

 

[evildmguy]

While playing:

1E - I worked at a job where I had a 2.5 hour break. I had heard some guys were playing and was mad I was missing it. I showed up on my break to find out they were in the middle of a battle and needed help. I pulled out one of the few characters I had and the DM placed him in the battle. In front of the dragon. Right before he breathed. I was ash. I picked up my stuff and left, going back to work to hang out, after having been there maybe five minutes.

d6 Star Wars - Not a death but close. I am playing a Jedi and after a little background playing (we did some role playing when the GM left, which was often) we started to play. We are trying to stop some smugglers. There are eight of us playing. We go into the hanger and the smugglers appear, starting combat. The only smuggler that wins initiative shoots at my Jedi and incapicitates him! I don't think he made it but I don't remember.

While GMing:

I alternate feeling bad about this. Like other GMs here, I have many players, even after I tell them that some times the best course is to run away, who think that I won't throw anything at them that they can't handle. In DMing FR, I always make anything with the Zhentarim very tough to play them as I think they should be played. The group manages to kill a group of them but then finds the secret cache. I didn't expect them to find it and forgot they found it because of a spell their gods, i.e. me as DM, had given to them. They thought it was for them. They try and open it and a death spell of some kind goes off, killing three of them. The rest are cocky and think that's it and try and open it again when the second death spell goes off, killing two more. There is one big fighter left. He hacks at the chest with his axe, wanting to know what was in there. On top of the treasure was a mirror of entrapment, that when he finished bashing the chest open, he blatantly looked into the chest and saw it. TPK.

Good discussion! Thanks!

Have a good one! Take care!

edg

 

[Old Gumphrey]

In early 3e I ran Sunless Citadel for three friends. We had a gnome rogue by the name of Zifflewig. So the group is down in the dungeons poking around, and Zifflewig finds a hole about so big that only he can fit into (a human and a dwarf were the other party members). So he shrugs and gets into the hole, and starts climbing up the slope he finds inside. I don't believe there were any notes on what this hole was for so it went something like this:

DM (me): Alright. You climb up about 50', and it's pitch dark. You can see about 40' with your low-light and that torch.

Player: Ok. I keep going.

DM: Ok...you climb up about another 50'. Nothing.

Player: I keep going.

DM: Well...how long are you going to keep going then?

Then the player looks me dead in the face and says "I am going to keep going until something happens." At this point I figure the only things that are going to happen are running out of torches, a random event, or a wandering monster, varying for time. So I dice up a wandering monster after about 1 hour. So I roll on this table and get a Thoqqua. Thoqquas are CR 2. Thoqquas move faster than Zifflewigs. This is a 1st-level adventure.

DM: *roll* *roll* *scrunches face* *roll*

Player: *looking worried* ...what?

DM: Well, something happens. A worm-like creature with a head made out of what looks to be burning magma burrows out of the rock. Initiative.

Player: *Nat 1*

DM: *sigh* It leaps straight at you... *pause to roll* *scrunches face* *rolls again* ...and bores deep into Zifflewig's chest. You take 34 damage and die.

Then there was a rather large argument stating that "there's no way I'd just climb up this tunnel for over an hour". Meanwhile, the other characters are beginning to call up the hole after a while, and after camping the night down in the dungeon near the hole with no results in the morning, they went back to town assuming the worst. Pretty lame way to go, but that's what happens when you 'climb up a dark tunnel until something happens'. Be warned.

 

[RichCsigs]

Death by Shrieker!

This one didn't happen to me, but someone else in my group.

1st Ed., My brother's game again. At this time my brother did critical hits and misses, and also had a rule where if the initial damage that brought you under zero took you past -4, you were dead but if it was between 0 and -4, then you could bleed to -10.
It's our first adventure and we're exploring some caverns. We eventually get to an area where a Shrieker starts going off. The mage of the group (who has a 5 Con and 1 hp.) starts metagaming and says, "Wait, Shriekers don't attack, they just yell right? I go up to it and kick it." He rolls, and gets a 1. My brother rules that when he kicked the Shrieker, he slipped in some of the goo and guts of it and fell down, slamming his head against a rock for 1d6 damage. Roll. 6, bringing the mage to -5 and dead.
To this day it's one of my favorite D&D stories to share. "Did I ever tell you about the guy who got killed by a Shrieker?"

 

[KaintheSeeker]

Okay.. these weren't my characters.. but in a game (actually 3 in a row) that I played in

All three where CoC games..

Day 1.) First round of combat, player is in a light house with the rest of us when a literal HORDE of deep ones with spear guns attack. One shot out the DOZENS in the firefight hits.. Pins him to a wall for the entire five rounds of combat, while we merrily mow down the Deep Ones (not a one of us have a pistol/shotgun skill above 30% and that is what we're using). Not one of us get hit (besides for Kabob Boy who simply moans thorugh the combat)
After the fight, my doctor with a First Aid skill of 90% rolls a 00 and kills him.

Day 2.) He's now playing an assassin who the players haven't met yet casing the same cult leader who we were talking too. He's on a hillside with a high powered rifle watching us, a shadow falls over him. Fade to Black
2 hours later we find the spindled remains of the car and him smushed into the ground. Turns out he drew a random encounter and the dark young that found him got a critical hit first round. He never saw a thing.

Day 3.) Now another 3 months have gone by and our ensteened heroes are back in my PCs store (he was retired doctor who went into antigues) when this homeless man proceeds the player into the store by 1 round. He was playing an FBI agent called into question the players on the strange fire of the Cult Leader's house months earlier.
Just before he enters, the homeless man splits open and spikes my player into a display case, one of the other players comes unglued and goes indefinitely insane. Mr. FBI walks in.. eats 30 rounds from a steyr assualt rifle before the bell on the door finishes ringing. The Loon goes on to take out 6 cops and 10 swat team members before finally getting caught in the blast of the swat van when it went up.

Too this day I've seen folks with bad luck, no luck, stupid choices.. but I never have seen some not survive the first round of combat so many times. It would have been fun but he spent the better part of 2 hours making up a past on each.

 

[ewalden]

Temple of Elemental Evil

When I first started playing we had The Village of Homlet. We roled up characters and made a whole party, and got killed by the frogs on the way to the first encounter.

 

[Rackhir]

Way back when I had first started playing AD&D (1st ed) the DM gave us all a fifth level character to start the campaign with. So being new and impressed by the awesome power of lightning bolts I decided to run a mage. We went off to the underground fortified defense instalation, where we ran into a dragon of some sort, it breathed on us and I failed my save. So I fired my lightning bolt at the dragon, being too short a range it bounced off the wall and came back and hit me knocking me unconcious. After the battle was over my character was then murdered by one of the other PCs who had wanted to subdue the dragon and capture it. I think my char was taken to get raised, but failed his system shock roll... Definitely an ill fated character.