D&D 5E My Son's First PC Death (handled it pretty well)

[Sacrosanct]

Last night my son (13 years old, hasn't been playing RPGs very long) had his first PC true death. 3rd level sorcerer. Got eaten by reef sharks (we refer to him as Chum now, instead of his real name). I guess it's hard to make stabilization rolls when you're being chewed on lol. As his first PC ever to die, I was curious to see how he would handle it. I've seen some people, particularly kids, not take it very well lol. He actually handled it in stride. Death is a real risk; it happens. He wasn't happy, but shrugged and rolled up a new PC.

So this leads me to ask the question, what sort of reactions have you seen with players who experienced their first PC death?

 

[Astrosicebear]

Every.
Single.
Time.

 

[BigVanVader]

So this leads me to ask the question, what sort of reactions have you seen with players who experienced their first PC death?

Oh my god.

So ok, we're playing Star Wars D6 system. And on one hand it's really fun to make characters. On the other hand, the game is a goddamn meatgrinder. I mean, you roll, you get shot, you die, and then you build something else. If Gary Gygax became an astronaut, this is the game he would make. It's awful.

So, I've made a Gamorrean(A pig guard, you know those guys in Return of the Jedi, who wield giant axes?), and the other player(we were a three man band in those days, so one person ran a game, and two people played in it.) made something really advanced and powerful by that game's standards. Really high tech, he had a lot of credits to buy equipment with, he was decked out.

So, the game ensues, we're infiltrating some giant space party because it's Empire funded or something...I actually completely forget the premise it's been so long. But we try the stealth approach and that doesn't work. Eventually we're down in the cargo bay in a firefight, trying to just get back to our ship.

By this time, the other player looks over at my sheet(it's a compulsive thing, he couldn't help it in those days), and he notices that I'm just some stupid Gamorrean, with like the Star Wars equivalent of leather armor. He laughed in my face and said the immortal words, "My armor's better than yours!"

Right then, in front of us, the DM rolled to hit the player, because that's what he was going to do anyway. (The player didn't take cover during the gunfight, you see.) He rolled the equivalent of that game to a critical hit, and essentially evaporated the player's character on the spot. Damage in that game was no joke at all.

The player was almost sullen and quiet, as he slowly folded up his character sheet and then tore it up. And then, as the DM and I were continuing the game, and the player got up to go get some soda or get some food or something, he looked over at us and said icily, "I hope all your characters die. Almost immediately afterward, he started to nervously laugh and play it off like he was joking, but we both saw the look in his eyes. We knew he was serious.

It was high school when we had that game, and it's 2014 now, it's so many many years later. And every single time we see him(and we see him often), we laugh and make fun of him for that moment because we both agreed it was such a perfect beautiful moment.

So yeah, your kid took his character's death well.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I can tell you he took the actual death better than all of us referring to his late PC as "Chum"

"His name was Scriv, not Chum!"
"Not anymore. For Chum! Remember Chum!"

 

[Rhenny]

Oh my god.

So ok, we're playing Star Wars D6 system. And on one hand it's really fun to make characters. On the other hand, the game is a goddamn meatgrinder. I mean, you roll, you get shot, you die, and then you build something else. If Gary Gygax became an astronaut, this is the game he would make. It's awful.

So, I've made a Gamorrean(A pig guard, you know those guys in Return of the Jedi, who wield giant axes?), and the other player(we were a three man band in those days, so one person ran a game, and two people played in it.) made something really advanced and powerful by that game's standards. Really high tech, he had a lot of credits to buy equipment with, he was decked out.

So, the game ensues, we're infiltrating some giant space party because it's Empire funded or something...I actually completely forget the premise it's been so long. But we try the stealth approach and that doesn't work. Eventually we're down in the cargo bay in a firefight, trying to just get back to our ship.

By this time, the other player looks over at my sheet(it's a compulsive thing, he couldn't help it in those days), and he notices that I'm just some stupid Gamorrean, with like the Star Wars equivalent of leather armor. He laughed in my face and said the immortal words, "My armor's better than yours!"

Right then, in front of us, the DM rolled to hit the player, because that's what he was going to do anyway. (The player didn't take cover during the gunfight, you see.) He rolled the equivalent of that game to a critical hit, and essentially evaporated the player's character on the spot. Damage in that game was no joke at all.

The player was almost sullen and quiet, as he slowly folded up his character sheet and then tore it up. And then, as the DM and I were continuing the game, and the player got up to go get some soda or get some food or something, he looked over at us and said icily, "I hope all your characters die. Almost immediately afterward, he started to nervously laugh and play it off like he was joking, but we both saw the look in his eyes. We knew he was serious.

It was high school when we had that game, and it's 2014 now, it's so many many years later. And every single time we see him(and we see him often), we laugh and make fun of him for that moment because we both agreed it was such a perfect beautiful moment.

So yeah, your kid took his character's death well.

I loved playing Star Wars d6. Character death didn't bother me, but if something happened to my ship, even small breakdowns or broken equipment, I went ballistic. lol

 

[Rhenny]

Sacrosanct, that's pretty cool. He must be a level headed teen (very rare).

Usually when a PC dies in my games/campaigns, I figure out a way to make the player happy with it. Often, he or she accepts the death and moves on, in fact, I've been lucky with the last few deaths. In both cases, the player already wanted to try something new.

In other cases, I conspire with the player to work them back into the story some how or we convince his buddies to take care of his dead body (raise dead, resurrection or reincarnation).

In one campaign, the party wizard used polymorph to turn into a carrion crawler and then went into a room full of bad guys. He was killed. When the party brought his body back to a civilized area, they could only find someone who could reincarnate the character. We had him come back as a half-orc since he was a little reckless and too bold in his previous life. He still practiced magic, but was a little less effective because his racial attribute bonuses had shifted.

We all loved the outcome of that death.

 

[Nebulous]

Tomb of Horrors. Not exactly a "death", there's this trap that switches gender, right? And maybe alignment too. Anyway, the LG female paladin Leah of a female players gets changed into "Ta da!" Liam the CE male knight.

She was NOT NOT NOT happy about that.


I forget how she changed back. I probably hand waved it later so she'd just keep playing.

 

[Nebulous]

Oh my god.

So ok, we're playing Star Wars D6 system. And on one hand it's really fun to make characters. On the other hand, the game is a goddamn meatgrinder. I mean, you roll, you get shot, you die, and then you build something else. If Gary Gygax became an astronaut, this is the game he would make. It's awful.

.

I never played d6 SW, but i had a fair swing at d20, the first one WotC put out. Gorgeous books, but DAMN, the damage in that game was not right.

 

[BigVanVader]

I never played d6 SW, but i had a fair swing at d20, the first one WotC put out. Gorgeous books, but DAMN, the damage in that game was not right.

D20 was fun too. The damage was massive there, too, but you weren't camp counselors trying to fight Jason Voorhees, like you were in D6.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Tomb of Horrors. Not exactly a "death", there's this trap that switches gender, right? And maybe alignment too. Anyway, the LG female paladin Leah of a female players gets changed into "Ta da!" Liam the CE male knight.

She was NOT NOT NOT happy about that.


I forget how she changed back. I probably hand waved it later so she'd just keep playing.

That reminds me. Often it's not a death that upsets players, but something else. I was running a modern game and one of the players had his foot blown off. He was SOOOO mad lol. Never seen him angry about a PC death, but with one foot gone? Wow.