Going out with a bang

[Dominique]

What's the best way either you, or one of your players, has left a game? Back in the day, I had a guy who got tired of his character (don't ask me why), and I let him do a "Spock" (he went into a reactor to stop it from melting down), and died of radiation burns.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

We usually handle this by saying the character has contracted a nasty strain of NPC-itis and either goes solo or joins another NPC super-team.

[Narratio]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

Agreed. They went solo or had a sudden attack of NPC-itis. Killing a character off when the player may return was considered unfriendly, unless the person who was leaving specifically asked for it.

[David Johnston]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

When I retired one of my characters I suggested to another player who was also retiring his character, that his character finally act on that long held grudge and murder my guy.

[Mantis]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

I had a character become a Vampire.

[Vondy]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

Unless the player asks to have their character killed I don't do it. There are other options. The player can simply retire do to other concerns, move on, or become an NPC until a more solid story rationale for their departure can be brought into play.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

Another good option is "Hunted shows up and knocks character into coma. Conveniently, they won't recover from it until such time as the character is needed again."

[Remjin]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

let's see... not character deaths, but reasoning player's leaving or changing character's or otherwise... we've handled it many ways, but as others have said, it became about the story.

 

I once kicked a guy out of the group for many many reasons, but that guy also had a fascination with "tac nukes"... so I gave him one. Lo and behold, he used it, died in the resiltant blast, and was asked to not return. Kind of gave him his last request. =) It became part of the story since the nuclear explosion was a big deal and actually the result of subtle mental manipulation of our former hero. Thus, in one fell swoop I explained away that nutter's past behavior, removrd him from the game, started a great story-arc, and saved our game... all just by giving the guy what he wanted, and consistently whispering things like "real men don't hesitate" or "mushroom clouds taste better..." and other drivel. Oh, and putting a big red button on it with "do not push" on it.

[clsage]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

What's the best way either you' date=' or one of your players, has left a game? Back in the day, I had a guy who got tired of his character (don't ask me why), and I let him do a "Spock" (he went into a reactor to stop it from melting down), and died of radiation burns.[/quote']

 

Back in the old "Espionage" (AKA "Danger International") days I was

part of a campaign where the agents had been exposed to some

mutagenic cell cultures and had, as a result, developed "powers" which

were picked randomly from a short list we had given the GM. My

characters "uber-ability" was low level TK. Basically about 10 STR,

invisible power effect, fine work. Which became rather helpfull for a

freelance troubleshooting "secret agent". Eventually we discovered

that our employer was actually an alien and the campaign mutated

into a Star Hero campaign. A bit later the GM and his wife (the

other continuing "main character") ended up moving. The final

adventure had our agents out in hyperspace, discovering a planet

that some culture had converted to a FTL spacecraft. A spacecraft

which was locked on a collision course with the homeworlds of the

"good aliens" confederation. So we landed on this world and found

the control room. To turn off the FTL two consoles, at opposite

sides of the room, needed to be operated at the same time. So I

volunteered to stay and, using my TK, shut the drive down. The tidal

forces of returning to normal space tore the planet apart, leaving

me inside a smallish asteroid. I can still remember the mental

image of working my way out of the control room and standing in

my vac suit at the hatch, alone, looking out at the big dark.

 

-Carl-

[Beetle]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

My Champions characters usually end up retiring rather than having aiming for a glorious death. Fantasy characters I grow tired of, however, tend to start acting very recklessly.

 

I and another player were actually recently accused of attempting character suicide in the Firefly game that I'm in. It's known that we both plan to bring in new characters, but there's no hard timetable for it. We were also not enjoying the current plot line (which revolved around my character, so I couldn't avoid it). When it came time to storm a guarded building, we argued over who got to go first. But it wasn't really attempted suicide (though I wouldn't have shed tears) - my character just felt that since he was the captain and the whole mess was because of him, he should take the greater risk. And both characters survived.

[tgrandjean]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

... captured by a band of raccoons, then crucified.

(Okay, backstory: I had a mage better known for his ability with the quarterstaff than his skill as a wizard. Having a still prepared Magic missile and bedding down for the night I surprised a raccoon going through our packs. Needless to say, one punked raccoon later we continued on our way.

A couple of sessions down the road I ended up having to leave the game due to work. And so, enter the raccoons. Waiting to take vengence....)

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

I was playing in a D&D game in a large (12-15 player) group where each character was allowed one special ability or fantastic item (magical or modern-day), in addition to normal combat skills, spells and so on. One guy, for instance, carried a .45 automatic that never ran out of ammo. Another could create a cigarette lighter-sized flame anywhere (even inside somebody's heart, for instance). This becomes important in a minute.

 

Two of the characters died in some combat, so the DM told them to roll up new characters and he'd bring them in. After they were done, the party was walking down the road when, lo and behold, we see two people ahead. Obviously they are our new soon-to-be companions.

 

Unfortunately, two or three other players didn't like those two players much, so they started acting like real jerks (claiming the two were possible enemies, demanding they turn out their packs and hand over their weapons until "we can be sure you're no danger to us," etc.). A few more players chimed in, just to join in the stupidity I guess. This sort of thing was getting to be a normal occurence, and the DM was getting very irritated.

 

One of the paranoid-jerk player characters was the one who could start a flame anywhere, and he decided to generates a flame inside one of the new guy's "backpack." What he didn't know was, that player had decided his player's "big thing" was a Plasma Gun, Man Portable (of Traveller fame), with the plasma generator being the large "pack" on the guy's back. In a fit of pique, the DM decided that the flame made the PGMP go critical, generating a nuclear explosion that killed the entire party.

 

Rocks fall, everyone dies.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

I joined a fantasy-setting game in mid-story, so I asked what kind of characters the party was lacking. HEALERS was the unanimous reply. I quickly discovered why, as it was about the most lethal campaign I have ever played in (most players were on their second or third character by the time I joined). Well the cleric I made basically did nothing but keep the combat monsters that composed the rest of the group from dropping like flies, which was all very well and fine, but in the combat intensive campaign, it got a bit boring. So I basically had the cleric push his healing abilities to the point that it killed him. The rest of the players were horrified that their healer just died, but the GM thought that the act was so selfless and in keeping with the cleric's character, that he had the cleric's deity ressurect him on the spot. Can't win for losing.

 

_______________________________________________________

Drained and blue

I bleed for you

You think its funny

But you're drowning in it too

- Alice in Chains

[Kenn]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

Heh.

 

When losing characters, if the player is continuing, the character has always slipped into retirement or NPC-dom, or been passed off to another player. And in the one main case where that happened, the new player did so much better with the character it's really not funny.

 

If I've lost a player, it's usually been a sudden bit of business, and frankly, real life stuff always took precedence over keeping the campaign clean. In most cases I again, just allow the characters to retire.

 

Once however, I did have a player who was leaving the country (to study in England for a semester), and new ahead of time (and this was in 1991 or so, so on-line gaming wasn't happening) so he asked me to have his character killed off.

 

Well, my then co-GM ran the next story. The heroes were in Kuwait, standing guard to keep the war (Gulf War) from going "metahuman". Well, a new super-villain called the Scud, who's not-at-all-secret identity was Saddam Hussein (he'd had his scientist make him a living WMD) attacked, and the former PC of the player who'd left got the worst of it.

 

Kind of goofy. But it meant that in the game world, Hussein was removed from power years earlier than in real life. One of those sharp left turns from reality, I guess.

 

As far as leaving a game... I've only done it a few times. In one fairly bizarre D&D game I only played a few sessions, and I think after I stopped playing, the character was sent home (a gameworld where no one is a native.)

 

The only Champions game I ever left while it was still going on, I actually left twice. It was an on-line game. It was still in the first initial meeting of the characters (the heroes were being recruited by the U.N.) and my character just walked out saying "get someone else from the U.K." The first time. After the GM begged me to forgive and come back, I did. Within a month I regretted it. Many of the problems persisted. Too many obviously deliberately obstinate NPCs, and circumstances that smelled of being rigged.

 

In the middle of the press conference at the U.N., announcing this new U.N. backed super team, a super villain/terrorist type popped up at Liberty Island, threatening the civilians, and the statue, the usual stuff. Now as a GM, I knew fairly sure it was intendeed to be dramatic timing, despite feeling forced. Next problem, about half the team couldn't fly, or at least not quickly. We don't have our Official Team Vehicle yet, so the U.N. agrees to just let us use one of their helicopters. We go to the helicopter. We take off. The UNLiason (who'd previously just been a pain in the @$$ bureaucrat came along) My character objected, seeing as he was a civilian. The PITAB then reached into the compartment under his seat and pulled out a jet pack and a blaster rifle (and maybe a force field belt.)

 

So maybe it's standard issue, so my character checks under his seat, and of course, there's nothing. (If there had been, I probably would have left it there, but...) So... the villain JUST HAPPENS to attack during the U.N. press conference. The U.N. JUST HAPPENS to have a semi-armoured troop helicopter standing-by at the U.N. building. And the PITAB JUST HAPPENED to sit in the one seat where there was a jet pack and blaster stored underneath. It was so forced it wasn't funny. So, I started playing the character that way, since the chain of coincidences had reached the point that it looked like a publicity stunt set-up. And the GM had the gall to aske me to stop playing my character that way, since it wasn't, it really was a chain of coincidences. So my character left the copter (he flew, just a lousy NCM), carrying his archer teammate (played by a buddy of mine who'd had enough of this crap too), and as we approached the island, the transdimensional interface in my character's gear that let him fly, etc. interacted badly with the explosive arrowhead's in his teammate's quiver, and our characters just blew up, and we got out of the game.

Don't know how the GM reacted.

 

For the record, the campaign never got past the fight on Liberty Island.

[Vondy]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

My Champions characters usually end up retiring rather than having aiming for a glorious death. Fantasy characters I grow tired of, however, tend to start acting very recklessly.

 

I and another player were actually recently accused of attempting character suicide in the Firefly game that I'm in. It's known that we both plan to bring in new characters, but there's no hard timetable for it. We were also not enjoying the current plot line (which revolved around my character, so I couldn't avoid it). When it came time to storm a guarded building, we argued over who got to go first. But it wasn't really attempted suicide (though I wouldn't have shed tears) - my character just felt that since he was the captain and the whole mess was because of him, he should take the greater risk. And both characters survived.

 

I had a character I decided to do "death-by-gamemaster" with. I could not, for the life of me, get that character killed. Every single time I ended up with inexplicably hot dice while the Game Master's went ice cold. And it happened over and over and over again. It turned that character into a legend. So much so, that when I retired them (about the same time I took over most of the GMing duties), the players kept trying to drag the character out of retirement as a GM PC. They liked her far more than I did.

[Balabanto]

Re: Going out with a bang

 

Killed by Santa's Demonically Possessed Elves.