Speaking of Sacrifice

[Greylock]

One of my characters does have something of a deathwish, even though he's cheated death twice now. If he is going to die, he wants to die on HIS own terms. Once he deliberately covered the retreat of his fellow party members. They were in a short valley before a defensive bulwark, being courted by an Ogre Mage. When things went bad, the OM whipped out some devilishly horrible mechanised thrashing undead. It was a certain TPK. My guy mounted up and took them on, alone, until the party could recover and get out of immediate danger.

Thought the guy was a goner, and if he had been slaughtered at that moment it would have been a beautiful way to go. Flame of Glory and all.

He made it however. His horse did not. Bards all over Maissen sing songs of her passion, fury and devotion now.

 

[Emperor Valerian]

I think the best example that happened in one of my campaigns was the following:

This tale begins with the story of Siabrey (a female half-siabre fighter) and Lucius, a human fighter/sorcerer. Siabrey was a PC, Lucius an NPC, and they met when she saved his life. Long story short, they fell in love, and eventually they got married. Except there was one problem. :\

Lucius' mother was an evil sorceress bent on world domination, capable of gating in an army of demons and fully intent on destroying anyone who opposed her. The party, including both Siabrey and Lucius, were trying to stop her at every point and turn, and the mother naturally wanted some 'alone-time' with her son to convert him, (by magical force, of course) to her evil ways.

Needless to say, she set a trap, which the unfortunate party fell into (they learned the hard way that when guards come to take you to a 'secure location' that you need to check for knockout gas along the way). Put into a forcecage, they watched powerlessly as Lucius was kidnapped by his mother and whisked away.

There was no time to cry for Siabrey, though, for the evil sorceress' armies were planning to attack the city they were in! After the party freed themselves, Siabrey found herself the only one capable of organizing the city's defense, a task she took to out of despair. When finally the great battle occurred, she was on the frontline, desperately holding the wall against all comers.

Until there was a flash behind, her, as Lucius teleported in. He was now demonic, evil beyond compare, and under the utter control of his demonic mother. His orders were simple; kill all who tried to stand in the path of his mother, of which Siabrey was on the top of the list. Now I (as the DM in this menagerie campaign) expected something tense ot happen, the choice in Siabrey's player's mind on whether to fight the character's beloved or not. As Siabrey had tended to be a rather rash and bold character, I expected some kind of combat, save she'd hold back at the end to try to save him.

Instead, (I think for one of the first times in the campaign), Siabrey sheathed her swords, and walked to her husband, even as he drew his blade and began buffing incantations. She tried to talk to him, calm him, asking him if he remembered her. He didn't, and only yelled that she needed to die. As he brought his blade down, she didn't draw hers, instead only uttering, "Even if you kill me, I shall always love you."

Fortunately for this story, the party's bard (variant style) had some sense, and used her magic to paralyze Lucius just before he could strike his wife with the first blow. The young man was held in such state long enough the party could rush him to the local high priest of Hieroneous, who helped break him of the curse.

I was really impressed with the player's empathy to her character and willingness, for the sake of roleplay, to possibly lose her character (she had no idea the bard was going to help, or if the help was going to work). Needless to say, there was a major roleplaying XP award at the end of that session!

 

[Cannibal_Kender]

I once played a paladin who willingly got into the path of an evil wizard's spell, to try to push several innocents out of the way. She knew she couldn't save them, and survive herself (she was injured), but she did it anyway.

 

[Enkhidu]

Weird. My group does this all the time - we've had multiple "hold the pass" moments over the years (though often the party ends up adopting the "never leave a man behind" mentality, which always runs the risk of the TPK).

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Self sacrifice requires the individual to hold something other than himself in high regard. In this respect, self sacrifice as a display of utter devotion to the greater cause, causes the sacrificee to become one with the cause. I say that self sacrifice is a form of immortality via ultimate union between figure & cause.

As a DM, I've never been able to deliberately create such a scenario, it would take a good player roleplaying an exception character in extraordinary circumstances. I know when I create my PC's I always give them strong self-preservation instincts, mind you the recent most character would follow legitimate orders even if it did threaten his life or liberty (as it soon will - been talking to the DM ooc between sessions, he may face jail for a decade). I guess self-sacrifice doesn't require death, just significant loss.

 

[Endur]

Have you had any interesting situations in your games where a PC has willingly sacrificed themselves?

sure.

Do you think a GM would be a bastard for presenting a situation in which the only way out was that a character sacrifice themselves?

If the sacrifice is mandatory, this works best at the end of the campaign. A deliberate mandatory sacrifice in the middle of the campaign is not fair to one of the players.
If the sacrifice is optional, it can work ok during the campaign.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Once one of my characters (one of my few characters cause I DM mostly) nearly commited suicide because he felt such shame and dishonor instead he fought another PC to the death in a duel (they both died). So thats sorta self sacrificing.

In game I DMed one of the PCs grappled the enemy Lich and dove with him into a volcano nearly killing himself (instead he simply singed all the hair off his body) later in the same game he flew up then fell from several hundred feet during a gladitorial match to kill his opponents and himself. He also would light himself on fire during gladitorial events and grapple opponents (this never killed him though).
He didn't believe in much of anything higher than himself anyway. It was all for glory.

I think self sacrifice is alright. I've never had it happend though and the player didn't come back from the dead. Which sorta negates an otherwise selfless (or in the case of the above mentioned PC a selfish act).

In a more gritty game with out ressurections a PC who intentionally dies in a heroic fashion would be truly epic though it hasn't happened yet...

 

[Brain]

Self-sacrifice is a commonly lauded virtue in fantasy yarns of the sort D&D hopes to emulate. Yet I've gotta say, I don't see it a whole lot in play.

Have you had any interesting situations in your games where a PC has willingly sacrificed themselves?

I've sacrificed many characters over the years.

Do you think a GM would be a bastard for presenting a situation in which the only way out was that a character sacrifice themselves?

Yes. If it's the only option, it doesn't mean much and seems forced. If the player decides on their own to sacrifice themselves to save others when they could have saved themselves or ignored the situation, then you've got something.

 

[Ds Da Man]

Had a minotaur once, who lead a pack of trolls off of parties scent, (they decimated the party the first go around) and I had to fight D6 times until sun up. DM rolls 6, I fight 5, lose on 6th by one roll.
(We had a cleric of Tempus with us, who ran and hid, so the DM resurrected my minny as a human, and made him a priest of Tempus, and stripped pals priest of powers!)

I think noble sacrifices are cool in a campaign. The ultimate-geeks-way-to-go-in-dreams type thing!

 

[the Jester]

On a number of occasions imc, one pc or another has given his or her life so that others may live. Good times.

There have been two times when I've used 'mandatory sacrifice' scenarios; in one, it was the (unfortunate) logical conclusion of a series of events involving a small keep inside an extradimensional space inside a pc's head (which space, at the appropriate moment, was dispelled, causing said head to explode as said keep emerged, causing much damage to the structure within which said pc and his pals were confronting big gnarly bad guy). The other involved a humungous quest to make the universe real after discovering that they were just pieces in a game, during which one of them had to leave his or her mortal perspective completely behind (and become an npc). It was actually an npc'ed old pc who did this, though; but it was perfect given the character's concerns.