My paladin once jumped into a Sphere of Annihilation thinking it was a portal leading out of a locked room.
A player who I DM'd for committed suicide after failing her save vs the Death Urge spell.
Using the old 1e "Good Hits and Bad Misses" crit and fumble charts a character in a game I was running managed to decapitate herself with a greatsword.
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A new player in a game I was running was playing a fighter who, over the course of the first two games of the campaign, hadn't managed to hit *anything*, and when the group were fighting some Barghests (sp) she was bound and determined to hit *something* or else.
So, on her next attack after saying that, she rolls a natural 1. We were using the GameMastery critical fumble deck, so after she confirmed the critical miss, I pulled a card from the middle of the deck for her - "you hit your closest ally and roll a critical confirmation check on that hit". She rolls a natural 20 and kills the party's Paladin with her greataxe.
Falling down the stairs.
-_- and then being landed on by a fat bard.
Telling an evil gnome wizard he couldn't pass.
Evidently, he did.
(probably not, I'd wager)
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Killed myself with an arrow of slaying. Hallway trap that teleported things to the beginning to make an endless loop, I fired one of my 20 arrows (one of which was the Arrow of Human Slaying) and when told to roll for which arrow it was, i rolled a 1. It was a very strange dungeon.
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Admitted, it happened to an NPC, but...
Being coup-de-graced by a (tiny) poisonous frog.
Tomb of Horrors - my low Wisdom Wizard discovered the sphere of annihilation in that face's mouth. After studying the phenomenon for several minutes, he'd deduced it was a portal to some very dark place and stuck his head in to see if he could see out the other side.
He was the first character to die in that attempt.
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Buddy of mine rolled up a Bear Warrior for a 1-shot romp some years ago. First encounter was with some funky prismatic ooze of some sort. Bear Warrior failed a save and was immediately shunted to a random plane which, in this case, turned out to be the Plane of Fire. He immolated immediately.
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okay this was actually in Morrowind, but I think it fits here.
Made a catfolk thief type, decided to steal from the first NPC I saw outside, failed, got subdued by the entire town, fell down in a puddle of water about 1 inch deep and drowned.
Made a new character, there was no coming back from that.
10 ft wide tunnel, has a 10 ft diameter pit, Fighter runs to jump over, fails his Dex check and falls into the pit, Cleric leans out over the pit to see what happened to the first guy. Finds out that the "pit" is the lair of a Purple Worm which rolls a natural 20 and bites his head off. Head of Cleric is swallowed along with the Fighter. 2 for 1
Back in 1st Ed. We were infiltrating a castle of corruption. After we had sneaked in we blindsided an opposing characters 'yes man'. After we interrogated him we locked him in a wardrobe locker and tossed it out a window...he never saw it coming.
I had a character who had been possessed. When she turned on the party and yelled 'I am Legion!' the party druid said 'you are a puddle' and she failed her save...she was a puddle.
Now that I think about it, her first death was pretty bad as well. Our paladin was standing in front of his great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather Lord Jacob. He was a skeletal warrior, you know, the golden circlet around his head and another around the controllers head type deal, but he was fighting it.
Both the half-orc barbarian and my female barbarian walked up to flank, just in case.
Lord Jacob lost it for a moment and attacked...Once. With one stroke he cut off the head of my barbarian. The other barbarian tried to attack, but Lord Jacob was using combat expertise and could not be touched...My character was dead already anyway.
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7th level Dwarven Slayer (homebrew barbarian), after fighting off a dragon, complains that nothing can kill him. So I roll on my wandering monster chart. A CR 1/2 badger drops out of the tree above him. I roll two consecutive crits while he was still in rage, just enough to knock him down to 0, he loses all temp hp from rage and goes way into the minuses, dying instantly.
Hands down, the most hilarious player death of my entire dungeon mastering career.
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Paladin got kicked by a mule and fell into a well and drowned.
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Another good one.
Playing Spelljammer. The party bard had a ridiculously high bluff skill. He'd been drinking a lot of some sort of intergalactic ale, but managed to very successfully convince everyone he was sober enough to drive the spelljammer ship. We lost two players that day, and the majority of the cargo, in the resulting crash into a volcano.
3.5/Pathfinder Playtest group.
Playing a Gnome Beguiler, and our improvised weapon Goliath Barbarian/Rogue removes the head of a hydra as I'm inspecting some stairs for traps. Sneaks up behind me and scares the bejeezus out of the gnome.
One failed reflex save later, the gnome goes tumbling down the stairs. The Axe pendulum trap seals the Gnome's fate, and he lands at the bottom of the stairs in two pieces.
And I was laughing at the absurdity of the death the WHOLE time!
(I was playing the Gnome)
So I had this Halfling Barbarian and had to fight an Owlbear...after trading a few blows it grabbed my character, picked him up and bit him to death.
"Would you like a sandwich?"
"Nah, well I'll take 'half'(ling)."
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This did not happen to me, nor was it in my presence, nor is it D&D or the like, but it definitely belongs here.
Famous story from the gaming club circles at the school I go to:
The game was Battletech - teams of mecha figurines run around and blast each other on an extraterrestrial tactical map.
The player was piloting an "Atlas" - one of the, if not THE, biggest, toughest, scariest mechs in the game.
The other mechs were skirmishing a little ways away from where this slow-moving hulk was situated.
He had yet to engage or be fired upon.
In frustration, the player yells "Fight me, you cowards! Fight me!"
Someone else tosses a shot his way: CRITICAL HIT - COMMAND MODULE.
This previously-pristine Atlas gets his head blown clean off in one shot.
Some say that on cold, misty nights on planet Wherever, you can still hear the mournful howl of the Headless Atlas...
"FIGHT ME, YOU COWARDS! FIGHT MEEEEEEE!"
Okay, a friend of mine was teaching me that game (battle tech) back in the 80s. He tells me he has an unbeatable mech of 95 tons.
I build a 60 ton mech, fully armored, full jump jets, full heat sinks and over sized engine...no weapons.
I run around the board like the duck at a shooting gallery and have to make piloting rolls every time I get hit (20 pts of dmg is more than 1 ton, so ya gotta roll or fall prone).
Finally I get tired of this and jump to his location. In melee I put my mechs fist through his cockpit.
He can't believe what had just happened, but declared he gets a simultaneous attack and does the same to my mech.
Those two mechs still stand there to this day...
This wasn't an RPG at all, but...
20 years ago, a good friend talked me into playing "Second Fleet", a strategic naval wargame from Avalon Hill played on a HUGE hex map of the North Atlantic. The game was published in 1987, and used used fleet capabilities from that year.
Anyway, I played the US Navy, and he played the Soviets as we fought a major naval battle in the North Atlantic.
I had the USS Nimitz carrier battle group (which included the battleship USS Wisconsin, two Los Angeles-class attack submarines, several missile cruisers, and a bunch of destroyers) trying to get from Virginia to the North Sea to help support the British Royal Navy suppress a naval assault from a combined Russian/East German/Polish attack.
My turn began in the middle of the Atlantic, about a thousand miles from any shore. We rolled for weather, and came up with "Strong Gale". This causes penalties to the "Detection" rolls. I knew that the Kiev carrier battle group was in the general area, but not specifically where. I rolled my detection phase: Satellites: fail; Aircraft patrol: fail; Radar: fail; Sonar: fail; spotters: fail.
Since I failed to detect the enemy ships, we continued to proceed to the North Sea under full power-- which gives you a penalty on defense rolls. Also, I only have a routine combat air patrol up (six F-14 Tomcats).
My opponent's turn: Detection phase-- Satellites: succeed; Aircraft: succeed; Radar: succeed; Sonar: succeed; Spotters: succeed. Since they know I'm there-- they attack, and I don't have my defenses up!
So, in other words, the Kiev carrier battle group sneaked up on me!
The dice didn't get any better on my attack or defense rolls-- they manage to cause heavy damage to the Nimitz flight deck, preventing me from launching aircraft; plus any aircraft in the air now can't land. And they're not in range to any other carrier or airbase, so I know I'm going to lose them too!
I manage to take out one of their destroyers and two of their MiGs, but they shoot down three quarters of my aircraft, severely disable the USS Ticonderoga and USS Los Angeles, cripple the Nimitz, and send the USS Wisconsin to the bottom of the sea.
This isn't a game where you ever want to say, "You sank my battleship!"
After this crushing defeat, the United States surrendered.
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Also in the spirit of "Not quite RPG" I once won a game of Warmachine by having one of my characters dying. On my opponent's turn. The conversation went like this:
"Defense?"
"13"
"Armor?"
"12"
"Alright, I have to roll a 6 to hit"
*rolls a 6*
"Alright, he's dead... Good game. I lose."
"Wait... Really?"
"Yup. See ya later."
And it wasn't because he was being nice to me or anything. He really didn't stand much of a chance.
Eh? That makes no sense...
Female dwarven oracle of stone. Solo. Trapped in carriage by pair of orc raiders after I killed their leader by sneaking up on him,hitting him with a sling stone,defelcting overhead two handed power Attk from scimitar that would have ko'd me,and punched him square in the nuts with a Touch of Acid revelation. He died.
His buddies come back,see their boss dead and the obvious cause,I had climbed on top of the carriage to retrieve a heavy crossbow and snuck back into the carriage. They try to investigate,I cast cause fear to shake them up,then peek through the window,it sees me and almost skewers me with its blade thru the carriage wall. Using Guidance, I wait and when the orc shoves his ugly face in thru the window behind me,I roll a 18 and plant a close range bolt from the heavy crossbow into his only good eye as he wore an eyepatch. I survived the ambush after the last orc said muck it and fled.
First game I ever played in. 3.5. My half-drow Hexblade, along with the halfling Ranger and human Swashbuckler, were in a series of tunnels under a city trying to access the tower of the wizard/ruler from the subterranean levels. We'd found the tunnels inhabited by zombies and fled toward the center of the labyrinth, where we found the lower half of the tower surrounded by a chasm. My Hex shot a grappling hook on a rope across the break, secured it on their side around a stalagmite pillar, and the Ranger and I shimmied across. The Swash, rather than following, decided he'd get across better and prevent the zombies from following by cutting the rope and swinging across Tarzan-style.
Game stopped for 30 minutes while the Ranger's player - a math major - calculated terminal velocity and how fast he'd be going when he hit the far wall of the chasm, as he wouldn't stop arguing with the DM that "I could make it, I could make the Tumble checks for half damage!" when he declared him dead.
"GEROOOOOOOOOONIMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHSH-!"
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THIS AM ANCIENT STORY FROM LONG AGO. ONCE THERE AM THIS CASTY WHO AM ALL LIKE, 'HEY BARBARIAN, YOUR BARBARIMOM AM ORC!' AND BARBARIAN AM HIGHLY INSULTED, BECAUSE ORC BLOOD COME FROM FATHER'S SIDE OF FAMILY. CASTY DECIDED WANT TO STEP TO BARBARIAN. BARBARIAN AM ONLY LEVEL 5 AT THIS TIME, AND AM NEW TO CAREER. BARBARIAN CHARGE CASTY, BUT CASTY AM LIKE LEVEL 10 AND AM GOING ALL 'CONTINGENCY! I HAS A WALL!' ON BARBARIAN AND BARBARIAN AM LIKE 'OW, FACE AM NOT ABLE SUNDER WALL YET' AND CASTY AM LAUGHING, RIDING OFF ON HORSE.
BARBARIAN SWEAR GET REVENGANCE ON CASTY, BUT NOT SEE CASTY AGAIN FOR MANY YEARS. NOT UNTIL BARBARIAN AM BIG, BEEFY PILE OF AWESOMENESS ON FORUMS NOW. FINALLY SEE CASTY IN TOWN, CASTY DECIDING GO 'NICE MOUNT. THAT AM SOMETHING BARBARIMOM BIRTH TOO? AM LOOKING LIKE ORC.'
BARBARIAN CHARGE AGAIN. CASTY AM ALL LIKE 'CONTINGENCY! I HAS A WALL!' ON BARBARIAN AND BARBARIAN AM LIKE 'I HAS A LANCE THAT PIERCE FACES!' AND CASTY AM ALL LIKE 'OH CRAP' AND THEN LANCE GO THROUGH CASTY. CASTY'S FACE SO RED, LOOK ON CASTY'S FACE PRICELESS.
MORAL OF STORY AM NOT TO PICK ON CHARACTERS HALF YOUR LEVEL, UNLESS AM BARBARIAN.
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Okay, a friend of mine was teaching me that game (battle tech) back in the 80s. He tells me he has an unbeatable mech of 95 tons.
I build a 60 ton mech, fully armored, full jump jets, full heat sinks and over sized engine...no weapons.
I run around the board like the duck at a shooting gallery and have to make piloting rolls every time I get hit (20 pts of dmg is more than 1 ton, so ya gotta roll or fall prone).
Finally I get tired of this and jump to his location. In melee I put my mechs fist through his cockpit.He can't believe what had just happened, but declared he gets a simultaneous attack and does the same to my mech.
Those two mechs still stand there to this day...
I'd been playing and running battletech events for years back home, when a college buddy of mine fell in love with the game. He asked me to come out and help teach some of his friend back home the game. He set up a scenario with the main opponent was a 60 ton rifleman. I said "they suck"... he says "no they're awesome!" I take a 40 ton lightly armed Ciceda fast mech... round one run behind the Rifleman, snap off one Med laser shot, Center torse rear hit, one point of damage goes internal, pull two crits and knock out its engine... my budy says "yeah they suck..."
Best RPG death was by my friend the sorcerer with an 8 CON at 3rd level who we stuck on top of the inn on the roof... where she'd be safe from combat... the "combat" begins with an illusionary red dragon diving on the inn timed up with a scroll of fireball targeted at the roof to set it on fire... BOOM, I think the damage dice were 4,5,6,6,6.... He got a Flaming Corpse Trophey to commemorate the achievement.
In a 1st-Ed AD&D game, I was playing a 3rd-level ranger, guarding the rear of the party, as we walked down a shadowy forest path.
The GM says, "OK, let's see..." and rolls a bunch of dice. We assume that he's rolling wandering monster checks. He then says, "You all hear Hal's character gasp, then gurgle. You turn to see him collapse to the ground, as a guy in black leather armor pulls a dagger out of Hal's back. Roll initiative! Except you, Hal-- you're dead."
The assassin, who had been invisible, successfully made his "Move silently" and assassination rolls against me. Nothing I could do: all of a sudden, BAMF! You're dead!
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Playing Curse of the Crimson Throne. My rogue won initiative against (unknown at the time) a Priestess of Urgathoa. She went next and finger of deathed me. I blew my Fort save. Whats worse, after she was transformed by Urgathoa, she turned my character into her undead servant and forced me to attack the rest of the party.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I was running a fight between a group of 1st and 2nd level PCs and a BBEG who was a 4th level ranger with Rapid Shot and favored enemy (human).
In the surprise round (from stealth) she takes the PC paladin to about 1 or 2 HP from a single arrow. She then wins initiative, and her first Rapid Shot arrow drops the paladin and the second drops the cleric in one shot. It's now down to the wizard and the oracle.
Wizard: "I use Force Missile and deal 4 damage. Done."
Next round, the wizard died.
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I've told this story before, but it always makes me smile:
I was running a homebrew game in an icy tundra area. The party had just finished dealing with an ancient city at the bottom of an icy lake, and they were headed back to civilization. Bad weather was rolling in, and they had the chance to stop in a nearby town for the night. I had an entire short adventure set up based on them staying in that village, but they determinedly wanted to set up camp in a copse of trees near a large stone outcropping.
They'd been complaining of a lack of recent encounters; 3 days tromping through the wilderness with no results on the wandering monster charts. The party ranger makes a Survival check to locate a good campsite, with the caveat that they're looking for a fight. He rolls a natural 20 [granted, does nothing for skill checks, but he was very proud of his roll], and I point them to the copse.
Shortly before the 2nd watch, one of them makes a Perception check and hears "a large creature of some sort near the camp." He wakes the rest of the party, and they come up with a plan to draw the critter into the camp, while the ranger hides in a tree with his bow. The human sorcerer and the halfling cleric take up positions by the fire and yell "Hooty-hoo!"
A bull mammoth charges into the clearing and heads for the first target it can see - the sorcerer. Negative hp in the initial hit. Cleric moves to stabilize the casty and takes a trunk slam to the chest, flinging him across the clearing and into a tree. Negative hp. Ranger manages to score several hits against the mammoth, a couple of which are criticals, before the beast drops.
The campaign ended right there. The two dead party members were aghast at what had happened, and I simply replied "you guys said you wanted an encounter."
To this day, any time we're about to try something suicidally brilliant, we yell "Hooty-hoo!"
Back in the days of the original Oriental Adventures, Our party consisted of 2 Rangers and one Samurai. I cannot count how many times our characters died and only one survived to drag the other 2 to a cleric. We were always broke and when we did get our hands on treasure it was normally to revive one another. Fortunately we also got a few wishes every now and again so we could wish our constitution back to what it was.
Our normal method of death was ninjas...if only we had been pirates....
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Star Wars...can't remember the campaign, I played a Med Droid. First battle. I natural 1 the stairs, fall, natural 1 holding onto my blaster, and (houserule: 2 natural 1's or 20's and do a third roll for critical fumble or kill) a third natural 1 and I accidentally shoot my own logic board out.
"I move down the stairs...well I fall down the stairs hanging on to my...well...dropping my blaster...and...I...umm, really? Siiiiigh. I shoot myself. For enough damage to kill me. I shoot my own logic board out."
Laughter...laughter...LAUGHTER...face palm.
Okay, I had a real kick butt elven archer (he had Elvis as one of his bonus languages...now that I think about it that may be the reason behind him being knocked off by the GM) He had this wonderful Great bow with super range and did 1d12 damage due to the arrows size as well as x4 crit!
He died from a spider bite...a little one.
I have another one, but it wasn't my character...it was an NPC of the GM.
We had a ranger in the party who, through his own actions that were contrary to his alignment, shifted alignments slowly towards evil.
When he made the final shift to evil it happened to be at a time we were hanging with a gold dragon.
When no one else was around on watch...*gulp*...the ranger was never seen again.
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Paranoia RPG: My name was Alyo-R-BAS, I was in the Sierra Club, my mutant power was Call Bots, and my primary mission was to "liberate" as many bots as I could by installing frollicking software.
Slightly Embarrassing Death: The first time I tried installing "FROLIX", it was on a big, wheeled thing. Once I'm done, it activates, starts gaily singing, and runs off...over little crunchy me.
Very Embarrassing Death: GM asks us at the end, "So, who accomplished their secret objective?" I respond in the affirmative because I thought it was over and time to tally up.
Turns out he was still speaking in character as the team's supervisor. Having effectively confessed to being in a secret society, I get shot.
I still had a couple clones to spare in the end, unlike some others, so my character made it, but still...dude.
That's harsh! Poor clones.
I was playing a Victory Game published game called James Bond (out of publication since the mid 80s and is still in the top 10 RPGs of all time) and I had 2 characters.
One was know for his non-subtle nature and raw Strength, while the other, just as strong, but used it in different ways, was a polite and upstanding sort; though he was a thief.
The thief (Robert Grey), was captured by the BBEG and given a 'last supper'. During his meal the BBEG (enemy of the brash character) threw down one of his 'ugly' knives. Robert replied, 'Ah, thank you. The steak was rather tough.'
With that the GM had the BBEG attack Robert with his other knife and kill him.
The GM couldn't figure out how my character had failed to survive the encounter and I had to explain. 'This was Robert Grey, not Mac (the brash, combat grizzled character), so Robert died due to me playing him in character and you playing to him like he was someone else.
I suppose this is a reverse 'most embarrassing character death seeing as how the GM realized his error.
The character remains dead to this day.
Wasn't my character, but...
The party (Human Fighter, Cleric, and Rogue, and Gnome Sorceror) were cleaning out the holding of the BBEG. For some reason the Gnome used a spell to make him look human. So four apparent humans enter the final room, and the BBEG, Human Ranger that has favorite enemy Human, sees three armored and one unarmored human enter the room. He targets the unarmored human, and despite not getting all his favorite enemy bonuses, kills the sorceror with a couple of arrows. Had he looked like the Gnome he was, the BBEG would have ignored him.
XCOM enemy unknown, my heavy moves into light cover and goes on overwatch. (automatic reaction shot if an enemy moves in his sight)
I have an ability that makes him take a second shot if his first on hits. two enemies pass by, he takes out both of them. he moves forward, right into 4 enemies on overwatch.
SC2, banshee harrassment. turns out my scan missed the fact that he had battlecruisers. I get 1 shotted by a Yammoto cannon.