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

[Kaychsea]

Two real goodies.
RuneQuest:
This guy had spent the best part of two years getting his Humakti initiate to RuneLord. He was a walking tank capable of dealing death at a phenomenal rate and perfectly happy to take the mantle of a Death Lord. I wasn't allowing training over 75% so it had been hard work.
The characters were chasing tuskriders back to their lair after a raid and fell into a trap, rapidly discovering they were surrounded. Our hero decides to lead the charge on his bison, all spells maxed. Even with a sword he went before almost all the other players, and, as he lashed out at the enemy warband leader, rolled 100. "Fumble, no biggie", he joked as he picked up the dice again. Hit nearest friend, critical. So maximum damage. No longer laughing he rolls location. Head.
At full tilt he effectively decapitates his own mount, failing to avoid taking damage from and being pinned under the body of the beast.
After a good ten minutes of trying to rules lawyer his way out of the situation, he picked up his stuff, swore a lot, left and we didn't see him again for six months.

Traveller:
On a recce mission the ordinance specialist checked out some grav tanks they came across, determining that they were booby trapped. Later in the session they are pulling out with a fighting retreat having been less stealthy than they thought. As they pass the tanks, same guy shouted "Follow me!" and promptly leaps into one of the tanks. Everybody else hit the dirt which saved them when the bomb went off, scattering them with bits of retired marine.
This one tried to convince us that his character would never have made that mistake and eventually threw his character sheet and dice out of the window before storming off.

 

[GameOgre]

When things looked bad for my favorite character (a rogue) I at first tried to bluff,then threaten then I tried to run away. When that didn't work I tried to trick and then beg! Then I finally broke down and cried and pleaded for his life.

When all that failed I even tried some in game tactics!


When the DM asked me for my dead characters sheet I threw dice at him and ran out of the house while lighting my character sheet on fire screaming you will never take him!

My DM stood in the doorway, open mouthed holding up his cell phone at me and recording the entire thing!

Finally after his dead body lay smoking on the floor I swore revenge and rolled up a new character.

 

[Talmek]

So two different instances - one where I was a player and one where I was DM'ing...

Player - I was a Dragonborn Ranger in a Black Sun campaign that a friend of mine had built an super-long story arc for and we were about halfway through it. During a major fight with another Dragonborn cult leader (and over half his cult in attendance) I repeatedly missed every attack...for ten straight rounds. As the major damage-dealer of the group this crippled the overall performance leading to my early demise. In response I very calmly removed myself from the table, went outside, doused my dice in lighter fluid and burned them to little colorful plastic puddles on the sidewalk. While we were all still laughing about it (including me) I could not help but feel betrayed by that particular set of dice.

DM'ing - My teenage daughter wanted to learn to play D&D for her birthday and so we put together a one-shot adventure. First fight out of the town she gets knocked unconscious and proceeds to CRY...HARD at the table. This is in front of her little sisters who are also playing (sort of...they were really too young to understand but had paper and miniatures and were having a grand time rolling the dice when it was their "turn), only to have them look up at her and start mocking her for being a crybaby since it "wasn't even a real game".

To take a character death in stride is never easy, especially once we have all played long enough to grow attached to them or worse, start to see ourselves in them as they develop.

 

[aramis erak]

The best handling of it was in Classic Traveller: "Oh, ok. Well, I'm glad. I wasn't looking forward to playing Int 2 Edu 2."
When PC's die in character generation, the in-play deaths tend to be taken somewhat easier...

The same player, "Whadda' ya' know... I survived the PGMP, only to be taken out by the doctor's incompetence." (PGMP: Plasma Gun, Man Portable.)

 

[Wednesday Boy]

The best death EVER was in our old CoC campaign, the Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep. The character was picked up by the Black Sphinx, dangled above its many maws, went instantly insane, and shrugged nonchalant as he was dropped in and chewed up. "I've seen worse..." were his dying words. Maybe you had to be there, but it was effing hilarious.

We had something similar in a CoC game. My character and another PC ran into Cthulhu in the dreamworld. My friend's PC missed his sanity check, lost 1d100 sanity, and was reduced to a blubbering pile. My PC made his sanity check and only lost 1d10 sanity. I don't recall the exact value but he lost more sanity when he saw a dead body earlier in the session than when he witnessed Cthulhu himself. And it wasn't a horribly disfigured or a gruesome corpse. We love recounting the story with my PC acting nonchalant in a Norm MacDonald sort of way.

"Whoa, that's weird. Hey--hey buddy. Do you see this thing?"
<incoherent babbling>
"I know. It's the most horrible thing I've ever seen. Except for that run-of-the-mill body we saw earlier. Now that was incomprehensible. Note to self: if you see another dead person, picture giant Cthulhu instead."

 

[Nebulous]

We had something similar in a CoC game. My character and another PC ran into Cthulhu in the dreamworld. My friend's PC missed his sanity check, lost 1d100 sanity, and was reduced to a blubbering pile. My PC made his sanity check and only lost 1d10 sanity. I don't recall the exact value but he lost more sanity when he saw a dead body earlier in the session than when he witnessed Cthulhu himself. And it wasn't a horribly disfigured or a gruesome corpse. We love recounting the story with my PC acting nonchalant in a Norm MacDonald sort of way.

"Whoa, that's weird. Hey--hey buddy. Do you see this thing?"
<incoherent babbling>
"I know. It's the most horrible thing I've ever seen. Except for that run-of-the-mill body we saw earlier. Now that was incomprehensible. Note to self: if you see another dead person, picture giant Cthulhu instead."

It sure doesn't make sense sometimes, but it's damn entertaining.

 

[BigVanVader]

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.

Yeah, I think because people put themselves into their characters, when their character image is ruined in some way(loses a limb, is disfigured, is gender beam'd, etc), it's hard for some of them to handle.

Back in the day when I was a younger lad, I used to play a LOT of masked characters. And if any DM even hinted at the possibility that they might get unmasked, I'd just badger him until he relented.