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.