Dear group,
I am running a campaign where the group is now 11th level and one of the players left on bad terms. The group has asked me kill him off and to be creative. I have some ideas but would really like to hear from you. If you have some really good, odd, weird, evil, clever ways of killing off a character let me know!
Thank you ahead of time for all your help!
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A. This is just about the in-game character, right?
2. If the player is already gone, why are you doing this?
D. This is going to end in tears.
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There is the "nice" method of an arrow striking him from the shadows then the attack begins.
I don't mean to sound rude and have no idea what the senerio in which the player left but to kill off his character like this seems petty.
If however some fun methods include the following: tripped on a bucket fell down and broke his neck, made a leap of faith and faith was not with him, one shotted from a CR 1 enemy on a critical, killed in a fight then animated by a necromancer and the party gets to kill him. Just a few
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If the group is asking you to kill off a character who's player left under bad terms, then the player probably had some in game habits that annoyed everyone. Use some comic relief and karmic justice to add levity to a bad situation, and kill the character off in a mockery of all of the former bad/annoying habits.
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I had this happen once but it was very early in the campaign. The player also left on good circumstances. However, I had his character go missing. Later on they found his corpse in the basement of a haunted prison. They left it and on the way out it was a zombie they had to dispatch. They got a kick out of it.
Personally, I would say, have the character leave the party, give it something to the effect of three sessions, and then have the rest of the party find out said character was apprehended by local authorities, tried and executed for their crimes. (And if it was a crime actually committed during gameplay, so much the better.)
How flexible is your story / campaign?
You wake up one morning after resting in the inn and he's not there any more. Perception checks reveal there's no signs of a struggle, but scuff marks around the window sill which suggest he left through there rather than the front door. Craft (Poisons) reveal a faint, but distinctive odour of some breed of sleeping poison in the bottle of wine still in the room. Gather information (diplomacy these days from memory) can be used to track down some of the shady types who can identify it (or maybe one of them specialises in poisons).
From here, does the rest of the party care enough to investigate? If not, it will be one of the great (HA!) unsolved (giggle) mysteries of their time (LOL!)... Right up until you use that char as a now minor henchmen of whoever the BBEG is.
Doing it this way gives power back to the PCs to control what happens. If they choose to ignore what's happened and look sullen because they assumed he'd "Just left", the reveal will be all that much better when it happens. You can drop hints along the way that now there is someone working against them that seems to have a bit more knowledge of their inner workings... Eg. If they manage to intercept a note or something, they are actually now referring to the PCs by name rather than just 'That elf with the bow'. Perhaps there is a targeting on things the PCs care about (family, towns, favoured inns, lovers, whatever).... things to suggest that the game has changed.
OTOH, if they choose to follow the leads, then they can choose to hunt the ex-PC down themselves. You have a ready made 'end of plot arc' baddie who DOES have intimate knowledge of the PCs abilities and tactics, and even ignoring whatever he does in the mean time, once they find out who is behind it all, they have a definite reason to pursue that goal. If they just go plain vengance, they might be able to get some further contacts or disrupt the BBEGs plan a little by working out who recruited him and getting information from either the ex-PC or his lackeys.... If they subvert him however, they get to feed mis-information to the BBEG for a while.
In truth this is a very crappy idea, and I do not recommend you do it.
Instead his character leaves the party and becomes a background character. They might meet him again in a tavern some day. If he ever comes back and you say, "Oh, yeah, we decided to be petty and kill your character" I doubt he will ever even talk to you again--or pester you incessantly if that is the opposite of your desire.
You don't even need to kill the character at all. Just recite those "bad terms" except in-game. "[Insert name] ended up getting in a fight with the group, so he left in a hurried fit, leaving the adventurers to fend for themselves". Its way more consistent with what previously happened, more convenient to do, and is also polite.
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Killing off the character seems superfluous and petty considering that the individual has already parted company. I would suggest to write the character off as having simply left due to finding no common ground with the party, a family emergency, threats from an unknown source, or simply that they didn't want to be there anymore. No need to practice bad form just because of your players (note I only say this due to it being implied by context of your post) having ill feelings or a grudge.
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Why waste an opportunity? Turn him into a villain and let him plague the party. This way they can have the pleasure of killing the character. I would suggest either turn him into some sort of major undead like a lich or vampire. Or possibly have him be an evil outsider that managed to hide his identity from the party the whole time.
Just sell the character into slavery. You get his loot and more profit on top of that.
Mumps
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Here thar' be burning bridges.
This is probably not a healthy outlet for any negative emotions either.
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Whole lotta negative nancies in here.
Make it funny, first and foremost.
Have his death be such over the top overkill that even the guy who was playing him would have to laugh. "Well, Joe Bob was struck by lightning yesterday. He was fine, but a skunk pissed on his face to wake him up, and he ran off into the woods, blinded. A bear clawed him up real good and he got tossed down that hill over there, where he rolled into a tree and got a beehive stuck to his head. Not sure what happened afterwards but when we found him he was covered in bee stings and copious amounts of olive oil."
I remember one time the player of a monk with Bleeding Attack had to leave due to his job.
His character yawned, accidentally punched himself, and critted with Bleeding Attack on top of it. His head exploded and his neck became a geyser of blood. He ended up filling a room with truly ridiculous amounts of blood.
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It is indeed a great, healthy outlet for some negative emotions.
A cathartic release for the group that focuses on the character and not the player.
And it should be over the top, be it slapstick or gruesome or somewhere in between like some 80's schlock B slasher gorefest from Troma. But either way, make it memorable and just a bit ridiculous so that it does indeed take the edge off of it.
It should be a release for everyone and a form of closure.
As a rule, I tend to say 'kill the character.' Nothing humiliating or vengeful or something... just 'falls in combat' next time.
I've never really run a character in a game like this... that was.. 'ambivalent' enough to just 'walk away.' Usually the adventure hooks are SO GREAT that they have the motivation to see it through. Even if the rest of the party wanted to leave... he'd still try to save the world or rescue the princess or whatever it is.
Tossing up his hands and saying 'to heck with it' just doesn't seem realistic to me.
Now... some people suggested making him a background npc... and honestly I like THAT idea better. Break his leg or take an arm or something to 'motivate' him to retire... something that keeps him from tagging along, then let them run into him later as a tavern owner or something.,.. that sounds like a lot of fun.
Have him kidnapped by some necromancer, and when the other players come to rescue him (or grab the phat lewt from the neromancer) describe the scene in which the ex-character's animated skeleton is joined with it's own animated flesh in a dance macabre for everyone's benefit and joy.
Heart attack, died in his sleep. Short n sweet.
Takes an arrow to the knee and retires from adventuring.
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Helps to have more details...
I mean, there are tons of 'possible' ways to do it, but it should be done in a manner that addresses or is fitting for the situation...
Was his character a drunk? Have him drown in his vomit and be discovered in the morning, having overindulged on his stash.
Did he cross some legal lines? Have him get mobbed by guards/lawmen/enforcers and arrested to face his crimes.
Did he cross the wrong thug/assassin? Maybe insult the wrong ego? Gets a hit on him, and gets shived walking through the streets.
Find something that the character did that annoyed the other players, and then turn it into a brief but poignant karmic death/disappearance. Then move on with your game. Don't dwell on the topic too long, he isn't worth too much time, at least it doesn’t sound like he is.
Did A google search (looking for a specfic site from memory) and found several amusing stories. For some inspiration, I have listed some (edited) below:
"A pixie psion threw an owlbear at me, and it ate my face."
PC: "My (white wolf) werewolf leaps out of the skyscraper at the flying mage and land on his face!
[roll, fails, plummets]
GM: "...Gaia does aggravated damage"
"Cartwheeling goblin decapitation."
"Killed by a commoner with a freaking table leg"
"DrowendLeft to drown my pther party memebers ina sea of poo"
"Killed a bunch of (bugbear) children."
Last, but not least, so some inspiration, here is Ronoak's Famous last Words. Reload for new ones.
Have so that in the next fight, the PC turns on the party and allies with the attackers (preferably in way that has the other PCs go WTF). Once the PC is dead, have it's body turn into a doppleganger.
Leave a mystery of when the PC was replaced, or were they always a doppleganger?
This will also allow you to remove any excess gear from play, so that the PCs don't get to far above the appropriate wealth level for your game.