What do you do when a Player dies?

[jdrakeh]

Last time this happened (I've sadly had it happen more than once), we just folded the game. Our friend committed suicide. There wasn't much to talk about. It just didn't feel right continuing on without him. I talked about it with my therapist as, I'm told, did other members of our group (with their therapists, I mean).

 

[billd91]

I've lost a few friends that I gamed with, none were active at any table I played in at the time they died, but I had played games with them for years before.

The first was Dave, a friend I met in college. He was an occasional RPGer but mostly played board games and war games. He was a wiz at Civilization and very hard to beat. Even the additional calamities and commodities of Advanced Civilization didn't slow him down. Another friend's tactic was usually to harry Dave throughout the game so that other players might have a chance to win. His death in the late 1990s was believed to be a suicide. When the rest of us met up for a mini-convention, we set up an Advanced Civilization Game and include him as Crete where we just had his population expand to the territory limits and otherwise left him alone.

Second was Mark - MintMMs here on ENWorld. Mark was a few years older and was a main vector of introducing kids in the town to D&D through the Boy Scouts. He would run games at summer camp on a picnic table in a screened tent for anyone willing to make up a character. He also introduced me to Squad Leader. In later years, his family would host a lot of cookouts and get-togethers where we would often play board games. He was always a calm and peaceful influence, mellow and easy-going. He died of esophageal cancer in 2016.

Third was Rob. Rob was my first DM (having been recruited to playing D&D by Mark) in 1981. He had gotten the Holmes Basic set for Xmas 1980 and we poured over that on the bus to and from school since we were on the same route. Rob was pretty social and made friends easily - he was constantly expanding our social networks and is responsible for a number of the friends I still hang out with. We spent a lot of time at each other's houses though middle and high school playing D&D, V&V, Gamma World, Traveller, and otherwise getting into mischief (bottle rocket fights, etc). He made up some of the most ludicrous characters - frequently gnomes. He died of a pulmonary embolism in August 2020 during the lockdown. He worked at the local VA, so that's where he collapsed. He was apparently joking with the people hauling him to the ER because he was making them work where he ultimately passed. We got the call during our online Thursday D&D game so we all talked about him for a bit and raised our glasses to him. But it was quite a shock.

 

[Morrus]

We've been in that situation twice. Once about 30 years ago when we were all about 20, and then about 10 years ago.

In the first case, the game ended (although we did start a new one a few months later). In the second case, we opted to continue the game after a few weeks.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I really mean Player, not their character.

One of my Tuesday Night Group lost a quick, but valiant battle with aggressive stomach cancer. He was only 51, and he had three (thankfully grown) kids, and a wife, who'd been with him, I think, something like 30 years. We'd been gaming together since early 2008, so 17 years of weekly (on average) get-togethers.

I'm really going to miss him.

But I'm not here for sympathy, and in spite of the thread title, I'm not really looking for advice. I'm sure I'll muddle along.

No, instead, I'd like to hear YOUR stories, if you don't mind me dragging you through some potential pain, to find some joy.

My buddy James loved stories, and he didn't let his very bleak diagnosis get him down. I hope I'm half as brave when it's my time.

Anyone want to share? I'm sure I'm not the only one here who's lost a table-mate.)

I had a friend named Bryan. He was autistic and not in great shape and went too early. When we met him, it took our group some time to really figure out how best to play with him. He had a couple of quirks we figured out. While he was laser-focused on loot, he wasn't greedy. It could seem greedy but it was just a clear thing in the game he could grab onto and so he always asked about loot. Once we figured that out, we had no problem with it. He also had a habit of asking if someone was mad at him even though nothing had happened. It was just a quirk. He'd look at someone and say "are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?" and it really threw people off. When I brought new people into the group, I'd send them an email telling him that this was just a quirk of his and that the right answer was "nope, you're doing fine" and he'd go right back into the game. If we did have a problem, we'd tell him and he would change and things were good.

He was a real sport, too. Some of our favorite stories were about his characters, like the time, at 1st level, he was playing an aarakokra in a Ghost of Saltmarsh game. He flew to the roof of the mansion in the first adventure, immediately got attacked by a bunch of stirges, dropped to zero, fell to the ground taking a failed death save -- all before the rest of the group had even opened the gate to the mansion. He had a couple of other characters die, not through any fault of his own really. And he was always a great sport about it, both lamenting his character and laughing about the absurdity of it.

One day he stopped showing up. We tried to reach him but got no reply. I called the cops and they said that he had indeed been found by his family in his apartment. I got in touch with them and went to his funeral. He was well loved by his family and other friends. They were grateful he enjoyed our game -- he had been kicked out of a few others apparently. They mentioned how much the game mattered to him and we were happy to have shared those times with him.

I learned a lot from Bryan and shared a lot of great memories with him and our group. It's been about three years now I think but we still talk about him.

 

[Celebrim]

It's never happened to me, but I've lost two former players to tragedy after moves had separated us.

They still hurt.

 

[Committed Hero]

I had a player on a pbf game here pass away almost 20 years ago. I was able to figure out his real name and sent money to his family.

 

[Umbran]

I had a long-running Classic Deadlands game, and one of the players started having health issues, and decided to step away from the game until he got them under control. He specifically said he wanted us to keep playing, so he could come back when things got better.

Unfortunately, his health never did get under control, and he passed away from what had turned out to be brain cancer about a year later.

Given his last wishes for the group, we didn't stop the campaign - we played it to its epic conclusion, a couple of years later.

The group is still playing, with some changes in membership. We're about to return to that universe to play Deadlands: Lost Colony as my next upcoming campaign. I was thinking of adding a subtle nod to him as a recurring NPC.

 

[aramis erak]

I really mean Player, not their character.

While he wasn't a current player, a friend who had been a gamer died a rapid death from cancer - from diagnosis to morgue about 4 months.
At his widow's request, I MC'd his non-religious memorial, and read materials on behalf of family members of his who were absent.
I also eulogized him myself. It was hard.

He (D) and his wife (C) met in one of my campaigns of Pendragon... while she was dating one of the hosting players (E). When they broke up, C and D started to date. My wife officiated C&D's wedding.

C asked me to run some games at her place after D's passing. I did, we had a good time. E, my wife, and 3 others were there for her, not just during game, but when she needed some morale boosting. After a year or so, C&E got back together, and eventually married. C adopted E's son, and C&E adopted E's son's half-sister.

Another player, L, dropped from group because his congestive heart failure and allergy to cats were making gaming with us hard on him. A year or so later, he passed. There was a funeral, but we weren't called. We did have a moment of silence at group the session following being told. We then shared a few of our favorite memories of him in group.

 

[AnotherGuy]

We've lost one player and he was absolutely an amazing individual.
I got to know him through his nephew when I was looking for new players online. And as it turned out he was 4 direct steps removed from the person, my oldest friend, who introduced me into the hobby (small world).

Towards the end he had quite a few health issues and he was needing dialysis. We ran a handful of games at the hospital until he decided that this was not the quality of life he wished to have. He sent us all a message on whatsapp informing us that he was going to stop the dialysis. I still have that message on my phone and my reply to him. That was 7-8 years ago.

He had two characters, one of them being a cleric of Ka (from Mystara). In the last session he ran with us, I had Ka offer his patronage for his character's road to Immortality. He accepted. That was always my plan and I had sowed the seeds for this for a few months, I just had to do it earlier than what I wanted.
Both his characters still exist in our campaign as does his profile on our Obsidian Portal page.

 

[Longspeak]

Condolences. I lost a player - and a friend - when I was in high school. Alan was camping with a friend and they went for a walk. Never came back. Got lost and starved to death in the mountains.

Me and all of Alan and Rich's friends were pretty broken up by this. The ongoing game he was in died; we couldn't bring ourselves to play it. It was a few months before I could play anything. Eventually we got going again with new games, but those specific games never resumed.

My son's middle name is Alan, after Alan.