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Feeling kinda board at the moment and this question didn't seem anywhere near serious enough for the GM discussion board - and it's probably been asked in some way before, but to all you GMs out there, what has been the worst player death reaction you've personally encountered?
Mine was back in high school. I think it was with one of the first systems I ever designed way back when I started GMing.
I've always tried to be fair with my players and make it fun for everyone while providing a good challenge that keeps them on their feet and on edge, but without any unfair odds against them. (I also used to normally keep a close watch over PC health and try not to have unfair kills.)
I don't really remember what the adventure was about or what had been going on before, but one of my player's tripped a trap and got snicked by a dart that did something like 1 point of damage. For some reason that was all that he had left and he died. He immediately raged out and threw a chair at me (it missed).
That's the worst I've ever encountered. What about you guys?
Barbarian charged a cavalier on a bear mount after eating a Ride-by. He killed the cavalier, but left himself at 10 AC next to an angry bear. Even on 2s, I was crushing him.
I still have the d20 that he angrily threw at the table when he began a cursing tirade. This was made worse when they found a scroll of Reincarnate and he came back as a race that, according to him, didn't make sense with his concept.
Probably the teenager that broke into tears and left the table.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I'm not sure I've ever seen a truly inappropriate reaction from a player in response to their PC's death. But I've seen a lot of inappropriate reactions from GMs in response to one or more of their NPCs'/monsters' deaths (though thankfully nothing as severe as table-flipping or physical violence).
Well, there was this Chick named Marcie who really over reacted when her character Black Leaf died...
Leave my mom outta this!
I've seen pouting and going home. That's the worst I've seen in all my years of gaming.
I ragestomped out of a game once when my character died at the start of the first combat of a scenario I had really looked forward to for roleplaying purposes. Apparently I very nearly ruined the whole game for everyone present with my anger-sadness-fury.
The only thing that saved that game was me realizing halfway down the road from the place the game was being held that my character had a failsafe and might actually not be dead. So I ran back, rolled some dice, and we resumed the game.
I have a notoriously bad temper, and episodes like this are why I'll never be able to overcome that rep, even if I take anger management classes for a decade or something to that effect.
I've never had anyone rage about losing something, but I've seen them pout. Yes, grown men pout.
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I am one of those guys who typically loses his temper in the game. I haven't lost a ton of characters but I have gotten pretty steamed about what I felt were unfair rules decisions and the fate of my character being taken out of my hands.
There is also those moments when my character feels trivialized or seems to be receiving an undue amount of punishment
Of course now a days I do quite possibly the worst thing for someone who loses his temper when he is losing/feeling ganged up on... I GM almost exclusively.
I have thrown a bag of dice at my oldest friend.
I believe at least once I called an entire game because my temper got out of control.
I lost a player at a session because I lost my temper and called a 5 minute break to cool down. He claimed that my play style and his simply did not mesh. (I actually lost two (the guy and his girlfriend)).
I have never flipped a table... though. Not yet.
Nothing compared to the meltdown I witnessed during one of my games at the local store. A guy playing Warhammer 40k. I didn't notice him growing more and more angry until he finally started shouting.
Then he bashed his fist on the table and sent his Tau army (I'm sure ridiculously expensive) flying in every direction. He got up screaming and walked out of the shop without all his stuff.
Never saw him again, although I'm sure when he calmed down he came back for his stuff... Maybe?
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Well at least you ate the sheet and didn't leave it strewn all about Hama LOL
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A 3.5 game, I was running the main fighter. I kept getting killed and raised, loosing levels each time I was raised.
For me a big part of these games is getting batter as you go. But the rules were not letting me do that. I got frustrated and did'nt game for awhile. I did'nt think there was a point.
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Only bad reaction I've witnessed was a person's character dying because another player twisted things enough to justify a PVP scenario and the character died from it.
It was from this occurrence I lost all respect for the "it's what my character would do" as a valid reason for PVP shennanigans.
Also, *bored*, not *board*.
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When I was younger and a bit more rash I was six inches away from choking someone I respected a lot because their character had killed my character under an exceptionally questionable ruling at a nightclub LARP.
Self-awareness kicked in as I got to that point and I forced my hands to the back of the booth the guy was sitting in and then I profusely apologized for it, took a deep breath, let it out, and came to the realization that he wasn't aware of how questionable the ruling was, and promptly swore off that particular LARP and started cutting back on the amount of time I was spending playing that sort of game.
Started me thinking on an idea, as well.
When we have a character that we literally 'live' for an extended period of time, losing said character is a traumatic experience as it is a part of the 'self' that is being dealt the blow.
Thus 'Character Death Virginity', for lack of a better term. Until one has lost a character, they cannot grasp the depth of emotional turmoil that it can cause. One can recover from it, but it's also a cautionary method of 'not getting too attached to one's characters'...
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Play roguelikes frequently. It helps.
I did once send a set of dice to the very back of my secret storage location, where I haven't touched them to this day because I got 8 ones in a row, which is what killed me.
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I was DMing the Night Below boxed set for 2nd edition D&D, and there was a place in town where you could purchase dogs. All the PCs bought one, and took them adventuring. Eventually one of the dogs died, and my ex-wife, who was playing, rage-quit the session and made me sleep on the couch. No, ah, snuggling, for like a week either.
Wasn't even her character's dog, either.
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Playing in a different Living campaign many years ago.
A character died, the player seethed, and then obtained a copy of the adventure and sat in a corner of the room devouring it.
He discovered a DMing error; one of the minor characters in the encounter that killed him (a character that hadn't done him any damage) should/shouldn't have been invisible. Can't recall which, it was a while ago.
He kicked up a stink to the event organiser, "if the GM had done it right my tactics would have been different".
Death ret-conned. :(
I've only had one character die and he was Destrucion'd right before I was going to retire him out of frustration with how ineffectual he was anyway.
But in that same game, when the Barbarian finally at it his player got really pouty and passive aggressive and made the rest of the session uncomfortable. Of course he was like that anyway.
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Playing in a different Living campaign many years ago.
A character died, the player seethed, and then obtained a copy of the adventure and sat in a corner of the room devouring it.
He discovered a DMing error; one of the minor characters in the encounter that killed him (a character that hadn't done him any damage) should/shouldn't have been invisible. Can't recall which, it was a while ago.
He kicked up a stink to the event organiser, "if the GM had done it right my tactics would have been different".
Death ret-conned. :(
Oh man. I would've kicked him out of the group immediately.
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I hate it when they cry.
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Was your wife's name Tammy?
Tammy wouldn't pitch a fit, Tammy would get even. :-)
Or possibly take his finger, Tammy hasn't decided.
I've been fortunate, the worse I've had up until now is a bunch of dice throwing when the dice are cruel. Still kinda frustrates me when a bunch of adults act like that.
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Nothing compared to the meltdown I witnessed during one of my games at the local store. A guy playing Warhammer 40k. I didn't notice him growing more and more angry until he finally started shouting.
Then he bashed his fist on the table and sent his Tau army (I'm sure ridiculously expensive) flying in every direction. He got up screaming and walked out of the shop without all his stuff.
Never saw him again, although I'm sure when he calmed down he came back for his stuff... Maybe?
40k's a bit different. There's a large investment of money and time prior to playing the game, and many players don't seem to understand that the goal is for BOTH players to have fun. I've meet quite a few 40k players that really don't grasp how to make the game fun for both players.
Saw one game where some younger players had set up a "3-way" battle. Even armies per side. And yet, 2 of the players were ganging up on the one player. And they kept justifying it as very reasonable behavior. You could tell, the player being ganged up on was holding back tears. I actually spoke up on this one, as it was just bullying in a nerd format...
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To lighten up the mood, I actually had a pretty funny death with a PC...
Okay, I was doing a steampunk champain, and we had a gnome alchemist who was carrying most of the blackpowder, oil, and otherwise explosive material. They where wandering some ancient ruins when I threw a custom flame devil at them. The gnome was right next to the devil and had rolled a natural 20 on his initiative...
So I asked him what he was going to do. He said "I'm hugging it". After a moment of awkward silence I responded by asking "are you sure?" Sure enough he nodded and said "perhaps it's nice!"
Now, I did in fact have a monster react nicely before, but I had presented that monster as not-agressive. This devil was cursing at my party and searing to bring them death!
Anyways, I shrugged and rolled to see if he caught fire, and he did. And the smart one in the group spoke up and said "you idiot! You have all the blackpowder!" Sure enough the gnome failed his cheak to put the fire out and he destroyed the entire group...
My entire party was pissed at the stupidity of one member. It wasn't long before I had to step in and say that just the gnome died. Luckly that calmed them down enough for me to continue.
It wasn't that bad, it's just stupid as hell.
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So I asked him what he was going to do. He said "I'm hugging it".
When I first read that I thought it was a purposeful choice to maybe try take out the flame devil (with the force of the blast not the heat).
It wasn't that bad, it's just stupid as hell.
We should start a similar thread but for stupid deaths? :-)
I once had a group of PCs fighting a powerful opponent while standing in a watery area that was just above their ankles. The mage in the group had the wonderful idea of freezing the water. Enough said. He trapped the entire party as no-one had the strength to break free of the solid ice while their enemy just ripped his own feet free. (Though I do think they managed to win in the end.)
The second I had was not so much stupid as just funny. The PCs came to a river and began to rest and drink from it. While they were doing this one of the players, a Kender, whispered something in my ear. I then began to explain to the rest that the water had a peculiar taste to it which they could not quite pin down. They immediately without second thought decided the water was magical and some began drinking as much as they could while another PC began bottling the stuff. I then proceeded to tell them that they hear laughing from up stream and in turn see the kender urinating in the river. Not exactly the cleanest joke but it was awesomely funny at the time.
I had an oracle of fire character that I loved playing, she was about level 8. In his homebrew campaign the DM had an adult red dragon grapple her and take off. She had a +6 CMB the red Dragons CMD was like 39. He carried on savaging her until she was unconscious then dropped her 200 ft on the side of a mountain. When he said it was my own fault for not using dimension door to get away I may have shouted "I'm not a effing sorceress - that's a different campaign!"
I then rolled up a new character specifically designed to survive - he was an oracle of life with ridiculous save who could heal the party a disgusting amount each round and reroll most of his dice. The campaign imploded two sessions later. I have try to never again to take character death personally, cause all that happens is that everyone loses out if a player becomes a disruption.
Wow, eight, that's gritty!
To be honest, I killed my wifes first and only Pathfinder PC in her first session, and she has never tried the game since. She took the death very well though.
Nothing compared to the meltdown I witnessed during one of my games at the local store. A guy playing Warhammer 40k. I didn't notice him growing more and more angry until he finally started shouting.
Then he bashed his fist on the table and sent his Tau army (I'm sure ridiculously expensive) flying in every direction. He got up screaming and walked out of the shop without all his stuff.
Never saw him again, although I'm sure when he calmed down he came back for his stuff... Maybe?
40k's a bit different. There's a large investment of money and time prior to playing the game, and many players don't seem to understand that the goal is for BOTH players to have fun. I've meet quite a few 40k players that really don't grasp how to make the game fun for both players.
I only ever had problems on organized events, never on "just for fun" games.
One event I took part in was one where everyone had to do 3 fights vs other participants with the organizers ruling who fights whom in which scenario.1)So my Space Orcs had to storm bunkers held by the imperial guard - autoloose because I could not destroy the bunkers
Back to topic: GMs are worse when things don't go as planned.
2)After that I had to break through a Battle Sister's fighting line with at least 50% reaching the far end of the map - auto loose because flamers, flamers, flamers and melters.
3)Last was king of the hill vs black templars. I nearly won this against all odds. But the Templar's commander had an ability with which he could challenge my bosses to aa duel and after he won the whole mob was destroyed. So a lone orc vs a Space Marine commander, how fair.
That was the last event I took part in (not the first, but the others were not fun, too).
Two deaths in my experience that I would consider the "worst" in regards to OOC action/responses both had the same result - the players (it was two different ones, years apart) spending the next hour or two doing everything in their power to try and get the death retconned.
The first involved a character jumping off a cliff, swinging 200+ feet on a rope, and slamming into the opposite cliffside of the chasm at full speed. At level 1. He argued vehemently that he could make the Tumble check to survive the fall with reduced damage. It was only after my (then future) sister-in-law, a math education major at the time, calculated up exactly how fast he was going when he hit that he finally let the matter drop.
The second was even worse. The character was levitating in the middle of the battlefield and already injured, and got hit with a dispel that negated his levitation, dropping him for several dice of falling damage and landing him in a patch of mold, whose save he promptly bombed; the combination killed him. Throughout the following round, he was looking for every possible scrap of ways to survive the incident, despite the fact that he was breath of life'd on the cleric's next turn! Even after he was alive again, he continued to fuss and argue and nitpick while the rest of us were trying to finish the combat.