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My players don't do messed up things, I do it to them. The most f+!#ed up thing I've ever done in a campaign as a GM is a little in depth, but it took a lot of planning for me to do.

In our campaign universe, the players (who started at nothing and worked their way up) became these big heroes the kingdoms respected. They even formed their own guild, The Heroes Guild, which became a sort of international symbol of justice. The story of the campaign began a few years after another campaign (the one where they became heroes). In the story, leaders of the world are being assassinated by one guy, notoriously named 'Black Coat' because of the long black trench coat he wears. No one knows who this man is, but the kings and queens and emperors of the Council were all worried, so they employ the Heroes Guild to meet the increasing problem of 'Black Coat'.

In our universe, there's a religious organization called the Council of Meta, which works a lot like the Catholic church during Europe's feudal age, which means they don't answer to general forms of government and have a military. The general and spokesperson for the Church of Meta was a man called Ingram Logan, who hated the players because they failed to rescue him during a siege on a town that worshipped a demon. He was drawn and quartered but only lost his left arm, which was replaced magically with a steel arm that constantly causes him pain. You can see why he's a little pissed with them.

He sets aside his differences with the players and offers to lend his troops to the Heroes Guild, basically doubling their efforts. As the story progressed, players learned that 'Black Coat' was stealing souls and was using these souls to release my biggest bad guy ever created to date. Information was given to the players that Black Coat was going to kill the royal family of this country called Odlin, which had serious problems with neighboring countries but the leaders in power wanted to fix relations. Having them assassinated would mean reinstalling bloodthirsty rules, igniting war.

Players use the information gained but the assassination still happens (F@+@ed Up thing 1), and the players then learn how Black Coat can be everywhere and kill everyone all the time: It's not one person, but a whole group of people being led by one guy. With the assassination completed and war beginning and the Council of Nations falling apart, the Heroes Guild are removed from authority and replaced with Ingram's forces. Ingram, now basically in charge of running Council of Nation meetings, tasks the players with retrieving something called a 'Soul Gem' which he believes could end the war swiftly. Players get it to him and it turns out that the Soul Gem is a conduit of Psionic energy, meaning it's a weapon. Using the Soul Gem, Ingrams forces bring peace to the world again. Hurray! As this is happening, the Black Coat wanna-be's release the BBEG, Vine- The most powerful and one of the last Mind-Flayers in this universes existence (making him extremely terrifying to face).

In celebration of bringing peace back, the nations celebrate Ingram but the parties cut short by an angel that appears above everyone in shimmering white. The angel proclaims that there are false prophets amongst the people, and kills them (F&*&ed Up thing 3). Who he kills is actually the High Priests of the Council of Meta, meaning now Ingram is in charge of the entire church organization.

Fast forward a dozen or so story sessions to the calling of an emergence Council of Nations meeting, where all the leaders of the world gather. The players arrive as well. When the players arrive, Ingram takes to the stage. Church Soldiers now wear all black and guard the doors of the Council Chambers. Ingram then informs everyone that he is Black Coat (F#*+ed Up Thing 4), that while they have been concerned about the tensions of war he has created a force of Half-Flayers/Half-Humans with the help of Vine to make basically an invincible army (F#$#ed Up Thing 5), that the order has gone out to kill all Heroes Guild members (F~!$ed Up Thing 6), that he will kill every leader in this room (F*~#ed Up Thing 7) because in doing that he will be the only authority left and with his army no one will defy that (F#~*ed Up Thing 8), and that he's going to keep the players alive and pin it all on them (F@!+ed Up Thing 9) so that no one will question the massacring of the Heroes Guild. Cut to a massacre in the hall, the world is now unified under Ingram, the players are branded as villains, the world is now under the 'New Order' and that he will execute the players personally. They escape, and are now waiting for me to plot out Act 2 of the campaign.

Sorry that was so long, it just wouldn't have made ANY sense without background and it wouldn't have as much impact without it. Some players cried because they were so upset that this all happened. Some threw books at me because they were so mad. It was TOOOOOTTTAALLLLYYYY worth it though.

In the homebrew universe that I run my campaigns in, within the lore I have created a sort of 'purgatory' called the 'Madness Plane'. In the Madness Plane, I separate players from the group and do a sort of side quest with them there. In the lore, the madness plane is where one battles their inner demons to find penance with the gods before being sent to either Hell, Heaven, or Galmorrah. In the Madness Plane, dead players face their 'inner demons', regrets of their characters life and all that fun jazz. This basically is to keep the player occupied while the other players discuss how they want to fix the situation, whether it's resurrection or making a deal with the devil, or even using 'Plane Shift' and going to the Madness Plane in physical form to return the soul to it's body.

I've killed and watched people kill numerous characters in the past, but most recently I've killed only two. One was because the players were tired of killing intelligent enemies. One player literally said, "You know, we never actually TALK with any of these evil characters, we just attack on sight. Maybe next time we should talk to one and go with a nonviolent approach." It was honestly an admirable thing to do, but the next 'villain' they faced was a Lich who was the boss of a dungeon I created. The Lich held a sacred magical skull that a native group worshipped, and the players were going to take it back.

The group had a Lawful Evil character in their party, but she understood how to be not only an Lawful Evil but also work with the group, even if the characters wishes were malevolent. She initiated the conversation with the Lich because she wanted to know if there was anything to gain from talking with it. The Lich 'promised' to grant the player a magical weapon, but only if she killed the natives living in the region. She could smell that the Lich was lying and knew that she would never convince the group to attack the people living nearby.

However, our Chaotic /Stupid/ Rogue heard the words magic and weapon together, so he immediately jumped into the conversation. The Lich saw his interest and offered the same deal, but the Rogue proposed a counter offer: Give HIM the magic weapon and then he would kill the natives with such an awesome weapon. The Lich, not being completely retarded, asked if the Rogue thought it was a fool and refused. Being an idiot, the Chaotic Stupid Rogue attempted to argue with it, telling the group he could get something out of the Lich and they wouldn't need to fight it.

Failing almost every single Charisma based skill save imaginable, the Lich demonstrated its power on the stupid Rogue, casting a spell that dropped him to Zero and below. Fortunately, the new sorcerer could save him, and she asked if the group agreed that after she saved him that combat should be initiated. The Rogue then said, "No, I want to die." The group was shocked by this and he told us that he wanted to kill off his current character and then become a cleric because he thought that the current Lawful Evil Cleric was 'cool'. Frustrated at his stupidity, I told him he could but that I have a rule (a rule I stuck by after 8 years of all this) which is that if a character dies, you start at one again.

I've made it so that dying is a very difficult thing to accomplish unless you are in a dungeon or in a 'story mission'. That being said, he wasn't too happy that he was now no longer a level 6 Rogue (which the party NEEDED) and now a Level 1 Damaging Cleric (which the party already had, at level 6 even).

The second time was because two advanced players thought it would be somehow 'funny' to initiate a new girl to the group by killing off her character immediately after making her character, therefore eliminating the character and forcing her to start over again. I swiftly responded by enacting the 'God Card', something I hope GM's never use because they break games, but I felt bad for the girl and the two guys were being a#~+@*+s. She was a Support Cleric who followed the god of Justice and Healing in our campaign universe. As such, the god from heaven resurrected her player and struck down the other players. Because I was pissed and they were now dead, I told them to rip their sheets and leave my house, not returning until the next week.

I think that as long as players know that there is a chance of having the dead character coming back, it's alright to kill them. I also, sometimes for story purposes, plot with players whose characters have deep connections with certain other PC's or NPC's. Their death at the hands of the BBEG means that others seek vengeance or justice. The dead player I recommend sitting out a few sessions until a period in the story where they can be revived through a heroic act or something via the story, whatever the stories plot is.

So...what's the difference between playing in TarkXT's game and playing Final Fantasy (or any other JRPG)?

Why compare the two? Obvious Final Fantasy has a more well written script. It's written by professionals who have made careers out of it. TarkXT and most DM's are amateurs. Comparing Final Fantasy or, frankly, any video game to a Pathfinder campaign is like comparing a nice painting your friend made to the Vatican's St. Peters Basilica. The difference between JRPG's and DM's trying to play a table top game is that DM's are just trying to make due with what they have.

Don't compare JRPG's and DM's doing tabletop. Because they are completely different.

I once played with a druid who was an old man hippie.

That's uhh... the end of the character. Pretty sure he didn't actually do anything. Or at least nothing I remember...

I once played with an Elf Druid who was addicted to hallucinogenic mushrooms and was constantly high. His signature move was grappling enemies and shoving either drugs or poisons down their throats. He wasn't a bad character, in fact he was probably one of the funniest characters and quirkiest character I ever played with, haha.

I've been a DM for at least six years. In my honest opinion, every new player no matter the age, 12 to 90, can get pretty obnoxious and annoying when they are just starting. But that's because they're new, and lots come out with fantastic characters. Like how in a recent campaign, a new player made an Orc Barbarian character named Be-otch Ballsdeep. He was a friend of mine who just happened to come over while we were starting a quest so he joined in after we did the paperwork for the character. Now, after one session, his character, who is still called Be-otch, is a great character that everyone enjoys having around and plays relatively well with the exception that he is new.

But I've gone far from the topic.

In my 10 years of playing table top roleplaying, and my six years of DMing them, the worst PC I've ever dealt with was one from just a few months ago. I had recently moved, leaving my old group behind, so I found a new one, with players who were new to the game, one of which being my girlfriend. There was one player, named Jake, who made a female Drow Rogue, which was nice because most were spell casters and tanks, and it's nice to have a skill monkey around. After about three or four sessions, he announced to the group that his character killed herself and that he was going to make a new one.

While the group was upset at the fact that he just randomly killed himself, it pissed my girlfriend off most, and I'll tell you why. His new character was a human character named Jake, who looked exactly like himself in real life, was the same age, height, and weight, and had literally copied my girlfriends cleric (alignment, spells, armor, deities, domains, you name it) because he thought 'clerics were cooler'. He then found out that he was an even worse cleric than a rogue. In the span of three months, he'd changed his character 5 more times, jumping between classes, races, and alignments, while simultaneously getting the party into trouble. My friend Lilandra ultimately punched him during a session after killing his 5th or 6th character, and he left the session in a huff.

See him around Wal-Mart sometimes now.