I killed a PC.

[quozaxx]

Recently, I was GMing a game and the bad guy shot one of the Player characters.

 

The player of that character said that the character didn't have his force field on.

 

I told him to roll for an INT roll to see if he turned it on and he failed it. So, he really didn't have it on. I rolled damage and killed him.

 

Now, he's actually seems OK with the idea of making another character, while the other players want their characters to go on a "spirit quest" to find his spirit in the afterlife.

 

Has anyone killed a PC by mistake?

 

How did you handle it?

 

With so many options on a "spirit quest" (including religious ramifications), any idea on how that should be handled?

[NestorDRod]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Nope, never.

 

But then again, as a GM, the dice aren't the boss of me.

[Asperion]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

While I have never had this happen, I have always used the system established in previous cases. If there are no previous cases, then this will (as lawyers say) create a president. In my system, the dead will stay dead, unless something extremely major happens. This could be Death deciding that the PC has been so good that he deserves a second chance. This might have a 1% possibility. All the rest of the time the PC will have to remain dead and the player will have to create a new character. What will happen in this case will depend on what has happened in the past or (no past) what the players and GM determine what will be the case. There really should have been something put down in campaign creation that would deal with this.

[Nevenall]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Was there some reason he couldn't abort to turn on his force field?

 

The spirit quest is an interesting idea though.

 

If the character was defenseless like that I'd roll damage in secret and fudge it if I had to.

Unless the bad guy was a major villian and the player could feel like they were dying for some reason.

[Greywind]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Carve a notch in your dice bag and move on...

[SimComm]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

You might want to talk with the PCs.

Time after death could be very different, especially if cultural expectations are different.

 

-SC

[ghost-angel]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Ask the player of the dead PC what they want - go with their wishes. Could be they might take the opportunity to pick up a different character they want to try out. Could be the idea of a spirit quest to rescue their PC is a cool reason to have a bit of Radiation Incident.

 

Could be they don't care. But ultimately, they have to play the Character left at the end of it all, so they invariably have the biggest say in the results.

[zagman]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Once in a Star Wars RPG game I was running, the PCs, inmates staging a jail break in our first session, decided that brute force was all that was necessary. Well being nearly defenseless at a low level against many storm trooper whom of which in my games act intelligently didn't go well. When a certain force sensitive died I rewound the scenario to the pc waking up from a bad dream the day of their attempt. I changed certain details of the compound to keep them on their toes. Needless to say the next time around they chose a scalpel instead of a hammer with only one pc on death's door. If the PC had any sort of precognition etc it is always a possibility.

 

Otherwise, dead is dead. If pcs don't have a fear of death they tend to act without thinking which usually brings down the enjoyment and excitement of playing(Genre Specific of course).

[Rapier]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Eh. It happens. It's part of the risk of being an adventurer.

[Wolf]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Meh, no one stays dead in supers comics.

[DJ Blackrock]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

I had a PC die kind of accidentally a while back. His name was Concussion, and he was a Teen Titans Cyborg clone. The PCs had found a previously hidden villain HQ on the 35th floor of an office building. An ally named Frostbite (a different version than the one I'm currently GMPCing) had led them into a trap because the VIPER Shadow Strike Team had set Frostbite up.

Either way, they burst in, and the leader of the team, Demolition Jackal, a power-suited very bad man, turns dramatically and begins monologueing, Concussion said "To hell with this" and Super-Leaped at Jackal.

 

He rolled to hit.

 

Got an 18.

 

Jackal simply stepped to the side, Concussion smashed through the window, and, even though I tried to catch him with another hero who was in the area, math won out, and we realized this particular hero wasn't strong enough to catch a terminal velocity DI Brick/Blaster.

 

He survived the impact with the pavement. The Storm sewer sent him into GM's discretion, the subway knocked him down to Zero body, and my randomly rolled for subway train reduced him to a greasy smear on the tracks. All they found was an arm.

 

The player wanted to have the "Concussion Memorial Hole" immortalized. It was a no go. Since he was a government licencsed hero, there was a huge televised funeral with full 21 gun salute and all that. And, of course it was raining, because http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals

 

Basically, what I'm trying to say is don't freak out about killing a PC, it happens in RPGs. Just add a kill counter to your GM screen (you DO have a kill counter, right?) and move on. It sounds like your player is perfectly fine with it. The player of Concussion is the one who talked me into killing him off. Sometimes your players can surprise you.

 

(P.S. I apologize for the TvTropes link, for whoever gets stuck, I am very sorry)

[Tasha]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Recently, I was GMing a game and the bad guy shot one of the Player characters.

 

The player of that character said that the character didn't have his force field on.

 

I told him to roll for an INT roll to see if he turned it on and he failed it. So, he really didn't have it on. I rolled damage and killed him.

 

Now, he's actually seems OK with the idea of making another character, while the other players want their characters to go on a "spirit quest" to find his spirit in the afterlife.

 

Has anyone killed a PC by mistake?

 

How did you handle it?

 

With so many options on a "spirit quest" (including religious ramifications), any idea on how that should be handled?

 

I had a PC die saving the horse of an NPC hero. The character was a very fragile Energy projector with 2x Body from Physical attacks. She interposed her body to prevent said Horse (superpowered as well BTW) from taking a massive Move though by one of the villains. She ate a 16d6 attack and would have survived (barely) but was finished off when the knockback put her though a nearby concrete wall.

 

The player wasn't annoyed, and was in fact kind of happy that his character went down so heroically defending her Psyc limits (Protective of Animals, Uncommon, Total). I asked him if he wanted her to be resurrected (this being 3rd edition when there wasn't such a power) and he decided that he wanted her to stay dead.

 

I learned that I needed to read/know all of the PC's Psyc Complications and susceptibilities.

 

I tend to like to let publically rolled dice stand. I will sometimes fudge dice rolled from behind the GM's screen to make battles more interesting (or to nerf stuff that is too tough)

 

I could have milked the whole thing for more than I did at the time. Oh well, I was young and my GM'fu was still weak.

[Legatus]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

The spirit quest idea is awesome.

 

But everything comes at a price and you don't expect all those who set out on that quest to return.

Maybe they have to bargain with the Keeper of Souls ("A soul for a soul! That is the rule since the beginning of time itself.").

Or one of the PCs gets lost or caught in the spirit dimensions.

Lots of possibilities! But there always should remain a tragic element in your story. As was said before don't create a precedent.

[bubba smith]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

While I have never had this happen' date=' I have always used the system established in previous cases. If there are no previous cases, then this will (as lawyers say) create a president. In my system, the dead will stay dead, unless something extremely major happens. This could be Death deciding that the PC has been so good that he deserves a second chance. This might have a 1% possibility. All the rest of the time the PC will have to remain dead and the player will have to create a new character. What will happen in this case will depend on what has happened in the past or (no past) what the players and GM determine what will be the case. There really should have been something put down in campaign creation that would deal with this.[/quote']

you're thinking of PRECEDENT,not president the words sound simular but are spelled differently

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Recently, I was GMing a game and the bad guy shot one of the Player characters.

 

The player of that character said that the character didn't have his force field on.

 

I told him to roll for an INT roll to see if he turned it on and he failed it. So, he really didn't have it on. I rolled damage and killed him.

 

Now, he's actually seems OK with the idea of making another character, while the other players want their characters to go on a "spirit quest" to find his spirit in the afterlife.

 

Has anyone killed a PC by mistake?

 

How did you handle it?

 

With so many options on a "spirit quest" (including religious ramifications), any idea on how that should be handled?

 

First, I agree with ghost-angel. Talk to the player and try and go with his wishes. Sure, he may seem OK with the idea of making another character, but make sure that's what he wants before just going with that.

 

If he wants the character to come back, the "spirit quest" is a great idea, and it should be a major deal for all involved. Legatus' idea of "a soul for a soul" is a good one, but remember that it doesn't have to be a PC's soul. You could have an old priest/pastor/shaman involved in the ritual, and after the PCs argue for a while over who takes their friend's place, the priest/pastor/shaman offers himself, since the heroes "still have much evil to fight in the world." IOW, don't let the PCs completely off the hook by him offering first.

 

Bringing "dead" characters back may be a genre thing, but it shouldn't be a casual, insignificant event, and it should have long-lasting consequences. Otherwise, it takes all the impact away from heroic sacrifices. I haven't brought a character back from the dead, though I've changed a potentially fatal situation into a non-fatal new plotline by GM fiat. More on that in a bit.

 

Yes, I've killed a PC by mistake, and also had a PC make a (nearly) fatal mistake.

 

The former was early in my GM-ing career. The PC was Powerstrike, whose resistant defenses (in an EC) were a Force Field that protected against the amount he Absorbed. He was hit with a Suppress vs. All Powers by Genocide before he was attacked with an autocannon. The Suppress lowered both the Absorption and the Force Field (I didn't think about the implications before hitting him with the Suppress), so the autocannon chewed him up. I offered to fudge the situation, but he said he'd rather create a new character. So I went with that.

 

The latter was Tempest, who was trying to save hostages from a supervillain group. She used a wind TK to pull a burning fuel tanker away from the truck containing the hostages. The only place she could move the tanker was basically right in front of her, with her hovering just beside a bridge. Can you say "fanning the flames"? I knew you could. BIG boom, practically at point-blank range to her. It was one of those "Nobody could POSSIBLY survive that!" situations (I think someone even said that). So I took the player aside and talked to her. We worked out a plan to convince the other players that her PC *did* die -- she wrote up and played a new character for a while -- but in reality she was KO'd and fell into the river along with chunks of the bridge. The unconscious heroine had amnesia, and she was found downstream by one of the escaping villains. He convinced her she was one of his teammates and I ran a "Dark Tempest" plotline before the other heroes finally rescued her.

 

That first experience, with Powerstrike, opened my eyes to the possibility of accidental PC death, so when I saw it coming with Tempest, I started thinking, "how can I make it so the situation doesn't *have* to result in PC death?"

[Balabanto]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Actually, my favorite example of this was when a PC did a move through on a villain and did so much damage that he destroyed the soulscape of his own other character he was trying to rescue.

 

We laughed ALL night.

[NestorDRod]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Actually, my favorite example of this was when a PC did a move through on a villain and did so much damage that he destroyed the soulscape of his own other character he was trying to rescue.

 

We laughed ALL night.

 

Your sense of humor escapes me.

[Beast]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

I had a super hero character die while trying to stop a mythos creature from trying to get to earth

her soul got mental essence got put on an engram plate and then stuck in a robot body that simulated her powers

later she found out she was a triplet(she knew she was a twin and knows her brother)

who was in effect was a Rogue clone

her robot body was damaged beyond repair and her sister absorbed her so she would not be lost

yrs later(real yrs)she went back to WW2 to get a cell sample of herself(she time traveled)got the cell sample

came forward to get it cloned(the technology said a 25% chance of success 8-)

4 embryos implanted,3 took

first one born got Fastball's soul and powers

Fastball came back in time to raise the babies and herself

Later she is captured by Nazis powers altered

since the babies all have Fastball's powers 1 of the ones is used(not the one who will grow up to become Fastball)is used as a template to restore Fastball's power

this works fine,but the 2 yr old baby is now 16 with the Elemental powers Fastball had

(Fastball was made into a 16 yr old Nazi dream girl(they tested the effect on her first before trying to make super soldiers out of loyal nazis first incase it did not work

 

this all to place over a 10 yr span of gaming

[Metaphysician]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Only had one PC ever die, due to trying to solve a death ray problem by smashing the death ray. It was a fair death, though other PCs later brought Hermes back via time travel begoobery. It wasn't intentional, but it was in-character.

 

Generally, I would say how to handle death depends on genre. I would, though, tend to go with "in a super hero game, death is never permanent and seldom actual." This applies for the PCs, but also other characters.

[DusterBoy]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

And of course, it's a given that Dr Big Bad will always come back, even if you were to cremate the remains, mix the ashes with garlic and scatter them into a particularly fast-flowing river.

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

I had one brick character die a spectacularly disastrous death. Understanding that nuclear weapons are precision instruments which will not go nuclear if anything sets the explosive off besides the precisely-timed detonators within it, I broke open the case preparatory to removing the uranium core (that character was radiation resistant). The GM, knowing perfectly well that any bomb will explode to maximum effect if hit with any sort of hammer, had the bomb detonate to its full, nuclear effect.

 

Of course, I knew that everyone else in the room had my specialized knowledge right up to the moment the GM almost gleefully announced: "The Bomb explodes, killing you and thousands of innocents! Write up new characters!" We fired him on the spot. We also habitually stopped and asked pointed questions regarding whether the GM's special knowledge agreed with the player's special knowledge before attempting to destroy anything more complex than an anvil.

[Blue]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Don't think I've had it happen in all these years. However, I think it's very superheroic to have the PCs unable to believe the character is truly gone.

 

Ask the player of the character that died what he really wants to do, without the other players around to sway things.

 

If he doesn't want to play a character that died (something I frequently don't want to do) then move on. Otherwise, you've got two options: The heroic quest to bring him back, or bring him back by other means (His clone made from the DNA taken during the super registration act or from the time he was caught by Dr. Destroyer and subjected to experiments; His soul is supernaturally captured by the Black Paladin who intends to use it to power an ancient magic item; Or have his evil twin show up, and the characters can try and convince him he's on the wrong side. Freedom to be cheesey is the best thing about the superheroic genre).

[hfergus]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Have I, as a GM, ever accidentally killed a PC? Nope. On purpose? With players approval in advance? Yup. Great for pathos/radiation accident. Did I ever have a PC of mine killed by "accident"? Oh yeah. You see, I had a dwarf that went berserk and charged into battle under certain conditions. I knew he'd get in over his head eventually, and had a backup character ready. Lasted a lot longer than I thought. Ended up charging a wizard and getting a fireball up his nose. Since he was so close, the wizard took some damage and wasted an area effect spell on one character. Saved the group. He would have loved it.

[Lairian]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

...

He survived the impact with the pavement. The Storm sewer sent him into GM's discretion, the subway knocked him down to Zero body, and my randomly rolled for subway train reduced him to a greasy smear on the tracks. All they found was an arm...

 

Man, those sewers can be deadly. The first player I ever killed lost to them too. Anathema (party Healer/Aider/Blaster, with all squishiness that implies) and company go off to respond to a trio of eco-terrorist metamorphs rioting downtown. They find a Tyrannosaur wielding a warclub, a Brontosaur in war barding, and a Pterodactyl with underwing machine guns, all wearing "Fauna First!" tee shirts. Yes, this was a random comedy episode.

 

The team engages the T-Rex first, but break off to stop the Bronto from smashing some high-rises (innocents screaming, etc). All the team but Anathema. T-Rex clubs him over the head, some fudging later and he's at 2 BOD and My Discretion Stun. He goes down into the sewer main through the street, PD preventing more BOD damage. He has no life support of any kind, the rest of the team blows perception rolls, nobody comes to haul him out. The player made me swear to in no way take back that death or resurrect him.

 

He said the ability to tell the story of his superhero who drowned in poopy was too valuable to him.

[Steve Long]

Re: I killed a PC.

 

Not to make light of the situation, but...

 

...every time I see this thread's title I "hear" it to the tune of "I Kissed A Girl" by Katy Perry....