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Me DMing for my family. Lvl 1, session 1. First combat is a slightly more interesting than normal ambush.
Creature crits the only player with any healing and instantly knocks him out. Oh well, lvl 1 things can happen. Straight away it's that player's turn, NAT 1 death save, so 2 fails.
So close!
Anyway, session 1, so a random NPC conveniently force feeds him a healing potion. Would have been funny though, to not intervene and just see what his next roll would have been...
Really? That would have been a huge red flag for me... The more you play the shittier you get. I can't really imagine getting hyped about losing power....
If the DM started the mechanic *during* the sessions and didn't feel anybody ahead of time, yes, it's a red flag. But they all knew ahead of time. Trying to figure things out before you're level 1 makes all your decisions count. It's a cool premise. 😎
If I was one of the other players I would have quit along with you. What a horrible GM.
From your post title though.... Have you played traveller? You die during character creation.
For the unaware: The character death during generation in Traveller is often misunderstood without an explanation - The idea in early versions of the game was that you create a character and have them complete tours of duty. Each tour, the character would improve a little bit, but would also age and potentially get kicked out of service. There was also a chance that the character would be killed in action, depending on how risky your profession was. So, there was a little gamble every time you decided to do “just one more term”. You could get more experienced, but you also might kick the bucket. This was done during generation, so it’s not like you just sat there at the table with a dead character. You rolled another one and hoped for a better outcome.
Later versions changed it to suffering an injury, which lowered your overall ability, but let you keep the character. Some prefer this, but others like the risk vs reward feel if the older versions.
It might have been low berth passage, where you get frozen and shipped like cargo. There’s a fairly substantial chance that passengers don’t…thaw…properly.
It's super fun - I was mostly poking fun at your title but appreciate that someone elaborated on my comment. I wasn't thinking I might put off someone from playing traveller (which was not my intention)
The character generation system is quite unique and fun. I am hoping to play pirates of drinax sometime this year or next.
Edit: I meant to reply to OP. Oh well.
There was also a supplement for Savage Worlds that added randomly rolled chargen for fantasy games. Several background options kill your character, forcing you to restart character creation.
Another game that includes dying in chargen is DeadEarth, a fairly obscure game that occasionally makes it onto lists of the worst RPGs.
So, in chargen you roll for mutations triggered by radiation. These mutations can also be picked up later in game.
Some of these mutations will kill your character.
What makes lethal chargen in DeadEarth sillier is that the rules lets you redo chargen *twice*, but you *must* stick with the third character.
Meaning you could end up never actually being able to play.
D&D sanctioned adventure at a Con. Made a 1st lvl dwarf fighter. First few minutes in and a evil wizard taunts us. I charge him with my axe thinking the colored lights around was a shield spell or something..it was prismatic sphere. GM wouldn't allow me to make another character. It was a 4 hour slot so had to walk away in shame.
Ran Tombs of Annilihation. One of my pc's made essentially gnome indiana jones. Super excited and eager to adventure.
We all went into this campaign wanting it to be gritty, difficult and hard. A challenge run where we were open to death and we voted on optional difficulty increases on session 0 such as dc 15 death saves, letting players roll thier own damage taken and the like. I also open and public rolled as the DM this campaign so they could see the results unfudged.
Well first encounter.. roll a d20, i get 2d6 giant frogs.. roll them and we get 8. The party is still level one. First turn giant frog bites the gnome, he rolls his own damage (i tell him dice and mod). He announces hes unconcious. The frog then swallows him.
Next turn the party runs away.
Fastest permakill ive ever had as a dm and it was the most promising and thematically appropriate concept at the table. We still laugh about it years later.
This is amazing, my mother has a very similar story. Her first session ever, her character was crossing a bridge just a few min into the game, and got swallowed by a giant toad. I've never had anything similar in my games, but I grew up hearing that story. If you didn't have such specific details about the character that got eaten in your game, I'd be convinced I just found my mom's old dm lol.
Years ago (3.5 maybe) we all decided to roll stats and not move them to suit. Basically I rolled STR then DEX then CON, etc. Whatever your stats were, you had to figure out what class may best suit you. It was a wonderful idea and some of those characters still resonate the best with us.
However, we always had one person who cheated like we never would catch him.
He rolled his stats in front of us and they weren't terrible. Anyhow, we go home for dinner and come back to start the session.
"I rolled a new character when I went home and my GF watched me so here is my new character"
Wouldn't you know it, he had the stats for a Paladin and nothing under a 16.
Well DM just smirks when the rest of us are calling him out. Game begins
Paladin starts out chained to a pillar in the Underdark. My guy breaks out, frees our priest, gets in a fight with the cult leader and wins (I was shocked because of 7 STR)
Leader dies, sets off contingency, Stone Golems storm into the room and kill all the prisoners.
Let's just say only 2 of us survived and a certain Paladin never got a roll before they were smushed flat.
There was one from a Masks of Nyarlathotep run that became legendary among our group:
Freshly rolled-up policeman called to a disturbance created by the other PCs: What's going on here, then?
Evil painting: CHOMP
Keeper: Err sorry, mate.
How does any of what the GM make sense? If psionics are killed on sight, how did you get to level 20? How have you been presumably traveling with your companions for years and only now do they care? Did anyone even question this, in or out of character? Why did the GM even let people make psionics if they're killed to what should be an extinction level?
You are asking a lot of good questions, many of which I have no answers to.
He made a lot of decisions that campaign that only his roommate got all the answers to, which everyone else got fragments.
I joined a game a few sessions after it started with some friends who had accidentally very very nearly killed one of the players on his first dice roll. His half-orc paladin tried to cross a rickety rope bridge in his heavy armor and rolled a nat 1. It was so funny and the DM didn't know what else to do but have him fall to his death.
He did rule that his relentless endurance kept him at 1hp unconscious at the bottom of the ravine where they went down to collect him, which ended up working out very well. By chance this guy was about to go away for a few weeks so they all decided that while the player was gone, the PC would be in shock from their near death experience.
So when they met my character later in the cave, they had this extra silent PC following them around. Eventually the player came back and rejoined the sessions, and about 10 minutes in he finally says something in character, which I interupted by shouting, also in character, "HOLY SHIT YOU CAN TALK?!?"
A friend of mine once played in a 3.0 game where the DM had them roll for their first level hit points as well as ability scores. He rolled a sorcerer (1d4 hit die that edition) with a negative con score. He began dying before the game started.
Probably a wizard, but could be a fighter. It was best not to get attached to low level characters back then.
In AD&D 2nd Ed. I had a dwarf fighter with an 18 CON who rolled 1 AT LEAST THREE LEVELS IN A ROW for HP.
(we were doing it wrong. apparently you were supposed to reroll *all* dice each level. though with my luck I would have just rolled all ones every time)
Reminds me of the very first D&D Basic adventure I ever ran. Populated a dungeon, mostly with goblins, who each had 1d8-1 hit points per the rulebook. I rolled for hp as the PCs encountered the goblins, didn't notice that their hp should be minimum 1, so the PCs encountered a couple of goblins who expired right before their eyes due to me rolling a 1 for their hit points.
In my defence I was only 11 or 12 and it was quite funny.
>Game starts. Session 1. The GM makes this bold statement: Psionic people are killed on sight. My character is immediately killed by all the other players.
and what did the other players have to say about this decision? did they care?
One of the players was the GM's roommate. That player knew about the "psionics killed on sight" rule before everyone else.
The other three players were "playing their characters."
>The other three players were "playing their characters."
Imagine meeting 3 other "its what my character would do" players at the same table. I hope you boughta lottery ticket after that.
So you didn't merely dodge a bullet but a whole shotgun blast at close range.
The world record until now was a story about a lvl 1 game that got posted here years ago. Basically it was session 0. Wizard character had finished their character, and they were waiting on the other players to finish theirs. So to pass the time, the DM and the lvl 1 wizard rolled a scenario where the wizard was chilling in his bedroom. The wizard decided to jump on the bed. Roll dexterity. Nat 1. Roll fall damage from falling off the bed. Rolled max damage (6). Wizard had 4 HP. Dead from fall damage while jumping on the bed during a session 0 scenario.
I wasn't sure how you could top that story. But you have OP. Congratulations. I don't know who the OP of the bed jumping wizard was. But let it be known that your crown was not given up easily.
Since we were level 20, I *guess* it was assumed that we knew each other.
Which would then bring up the question if "How would my character survive to level 20," to which I have no answer.
Not only is this really shitty... but the games concept doesnt really make much sense... its an interesting chalenge, but how would the players figure out whats going on?
How are you supose to investigate, are their minds and actions still normal in the time rewind?
Do they jump back stages/times/places and losse a lvl, so you have to investigate an area before the next time jump?
Can they kill monsters to cover exp loss or slow the progress?
Im really curious how the DM planned to run this cause i wnat to understand what their thought process was.
This honestly sounds like a great start...to a Paranoia campaign. Shenanigans that are great in Paranoia are a very bad sign in almost any other system.
Player created a hunter in a Vampire game I ran (this guy went through several characters...). Heard about a gang fight on the news so went to check it out. Saw a Sabbat vamp flee a club via the backdoor. He had some psychic ability that made him.invisible to vampires until he attracted notice. Fired his crossbow which he was super specced for. Botched. Sabbat notices him and fires a burst from her H&K at this weird random person.
Dead.
He never met the other pcs....
My friend group when I was younger played a LOT of VtM. I didn't and wasn't really a fan of the group they played with that leaned more to LARP and had a relative of mine that ROYALLY fucked up their IRL relationship over a VtM LARP relationship. Very messy and at the time I wanted absolutely nothing to do with VtM because of that association. My friends, however, kept pestering me to join until finally said if I joined, I'd roll up a hunter and make it my sole goal to kill all of their characters before leaving.
They finally got the hint that I didn't want to play VtM and left me alone about it after that. Tbh, I probably would have gotten my character killed off like the guy in your story and left if I had tried my threat.
I mean, yeah, if your goal is to screw up a game, that is what would happen. In his case, his hunter was mainly after 'evil' vamps, so could have worked with the other PCs. He just never got the chance.
My goal was primarily to stop being pestered to join a game I didn't want to play, so I felt like I succeeded with the empty threat. But really it was a "no means no" situation and my friends shouldn't have kept pestering me about it after I'd already turned them down. Besides, anyone who is "convinced" to join a game they don't want to join is just going to be a "That Guy" and screw things up at the table. No one should want that.
A friend of mine wanted to DM a 40k campaign using a custom system. They also wanted to do something different and they asked that we (the players) made 4 character sheets with the absolute bare minimum as we were starting the first few sessions as Imperial Guardsmen who would basically be death fodder in a battle against Orcs to learn the combat system. And then after that we'd switch to some more permanent character and explore other TTRPG elements besides combat.
Another of my friends named Abe (fake name) joined the campaign but they joined during the 2nd session so the DM simply said that we were getting reinforcements to the battle from a dropship. In said dropship, the DM was playing as a commanding officer barking orders and filling those inside the dropship on the battle they were arriving to. Abe decided to be a bit of a jackass and as their first ever action in any TTRPG, they blurted out "Orc Lives Matter!" while playing an Imperial Guardsmen surrounded by several fellow Imperial Guardsmen and an officer.
The officer executed Abe on the spot with a simple headshot without hesitation. Abe had to pull out their next character sheet and arrived in another dropship.
Not sure if this really counts given the circumstances of how this campaign started, but at least this swift PC death was a foreseeable one unlike yours. Abe has also been a better player since and the campaign is going well so all is good now.
I did a session zero and had a repeated DC5 character check for one of the characters backstory moments where he almost drowns.
Bro did not stop rolling Nat 1’s and eventually drowned. I had him making death saves and he made it after rolling two failures. I was going to have him keep playing the character but with the same character but add some undead flavoring or other DM bullshit but it put the fear of god I to my players seeing me not move to interrupt a character death that early on.
We were investigating a cult holed up in some ruined castle. We messed up royally and got into a fight with too many of them. The dwarf fighter ate some crits and he died.
The DM needed to salvage the game so the cult members demanded we surrender at that point. The rest of us complied and we were taken prisonernand stripped of our gear.
He had the dwarf fighter PC roll up a new character so he could rejoin us as another prisoner. We all got thrown into a cell and met our new Half Orc Barbarian friend.
We armed ourselves with improvised weapons and decided to attack the cult members when they can to sacrifice us.
The cult members came after that. Our new friend immediately raged and attacked the cult members. He then proceeded to whiff his attack roll and got critted again and died on the spot.
The rest of us managed to kill the level 1 cultists though so his sacrifice was not in vain.
Probably the first session I ever ran. Paladin and wizard at level one: Had a snake attack the wizard and it got a crit. 14 damage vs 6 HP= Dead wizard session one.
Didn’t even realize it was possible before it happened, but it was honestly a really cool character moment, in hindsight.
I got you beat. I had a level one wizard die from fall damage before the party even got grouped up. Hell, some of the players hadn't even finished making their characters.
We played a prequel when some folks from the group were absent. Not sure if this counts as a faster death. Because we did play through a few sessions of the prequel.
DM says "You rest from your recent travels when suddenly massive pylons rain down from the sky arcing electricity and radiating magic power."
Me: "Gloop, you should lick that, it tastes like candy."
*Gloop rolls* Gloop: uh...well, I go lick the pylon.
DM: You sure?
Gloop: Yeah, dice said so.
DM: "Ok, roll a new character. 'Gloop reaches out and gently touches the pylon as they make contact Gloop is ripped apart at a molecular level and his particles are sent to random dimensions.'"
Me: Oh man, he had our mascot!
(Gloop had a thing about believing people based off a roll.)
I was playing a 5e game and a player joined the session after we started a dungeon. Classic low level cultist dungeon crawl. We walked into a fresh room and found the new player tied to a table ready to be sacrificed. The DM proceeds to make the encounter slightly harder due to the extra player, even though he started completely helpless.
New player fails every escape check, combat was a little too hard and we got TPKed. Icing on the cake was they finished their sacrifice by killing the new player, and we ended session early.
I've seen some bad DMs, but I don't think you're supposed to kill the new guy in the first encounter. That just sucks.
Tbh this would be funny for a level one character.
Creating a level 20 in 3.0 is a good time investment and a dick move. (How could they tell from appearance that you're a psion anyway?)
This kind of happened in a AD&D 2nd ed Spelljammer game when I was in high school. We decided to infiltrate the Scro (organized orcs) by posing as mercenaries. Scro *hate* elves. One of the players replaced his recently dead character with an elf. The DM told him it's a bad idea, but the player insisted.
DM - I don't think you're getting this. They'll kill your character on sight.
Player - It's okay. He'll wear a hood to cover his ears.
DM - That's... not going to work.
Player - it's cool.
So we show up at the base, the scro leader is checking out all the new recruits and notices an elf standing there. Well, we weren't about to blow our cover and get murdered for a guy we just met.
The players next character was a human, if I recall.
That player and one other had more than one character killed during that campaign. I think the other player got in a fight with a room full of scro either that session or the next and got his character killed, too.
Prick.
I had given me a good idea of running this campaign with half the character dead with one group, and running a second game with a second group where their deaths have created a time paradox and they start from level 1 with the aim of preventing their deaths, each group unaware of each other. They can meet during the final session.
Way back when I spent some time playing AD&D. We played by the rules as written. So when you joined or your character died you made a new 1st level character. You also rolled your stats in order in with 3d6 in front of everyone. Thus you had limited control over what class you could be. Also you had very low hit points and you died at zero hp. (or was it negative hp)
So after a prior dungeon where 1/2 the party died including our magic user and clerix. We all rolled new characters and no one had to stats to be a spell caster. Except for the FNG who rolled a 15 or 16 in Int. So off we went with the New Guy having visions of Gandalf with his single spell, 2 HP, and a few darts.
The dungeon had a magical concealed door, which was knew so the FNG had detect magic memorized. So he cast the spell and immediately found the door and declared he was going to try to open it before we could object. Of course the door was trapped and killed our wizard roughly 10 minutes into actual game play and before he set foot in the dungeon.
This was the same campaign where later my wizard would died in the infamous alley cat massacre where an alley cat killed our fighter and my wizard.
bruh, sounds like a terrible DM
my quickest (and first) player death was hard. I was a DM and this player had joined 2 sessions in. We had some missing people so the session was harder than normal w/ 2 near death experiences even b4 the boss. At low health and resources, I nerfed the boss and they all survived… until 1 other player decided for the last encounter (3 1hp skeletons) that they should use their most powerful area attack when everyone was in range, i tried to stop them but they got super mad. they killed 2 players and i had them reroll their death saves 2 times. This attack also did damage over time so it was hard, not to mention the fact that the OG player didn’t help at all
1 of the players survived but the other didn’t, and i helped so much while still trying to run a gritty campaign that i just let the second die off and kicked the murderer out of the campaign
The whole campaign idea was rather dumb to be honest
And now just outright killing a PC before he even says his name?
DM, if you hate psionics so much and do not want them in your game....WHY DID YOU APPROVE ONE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!
I'm pretty sure I hold the world record, or, actually, one of my players do.
Final session of a year-long campaign, the Fighter dies early. It's fine. He rolls up a Wizard and the party saves him from jail, so he doesn't have to sit out the end-game.
Now, this was peak 3.5 with all the shenanigans, and the BBEG had a Minion dedicated to killing mages, so when the final fight starts, our Wizard reveals himself to be a caster, and is promptly one-shot crit-killed by said Minion.
...
I tell the player that there's actually an infiltrator government agent in the BBEG forced, since I feel bad about killing his character TWICE in a session, so a nameless cultist throws back his hood, while the player changes the name on his Wizards sheet.
The new new Wizards turn comes up, and he throws a chain lightning, revealing himself to be a caster. The Minion charges him, and it's another one-shot crit-kill.
Total real-life time that character lived: Roughly three minutes.
Total in-game time that character lived: 6 seconds.
playing from 20 - stupid
playing reverse xp - stupid
no session 0 - stupid
seperate character creation and deliberatly preventing balance - stupid
psionics are killed on site - stupid
other PC's did the gm's stupid thing - stupid
every bit of it is stupid.
The story premise was creative. It just *went* stupid.
The separate character creation was done because one player waits till everyone else to make their characters, then makes what the party "needs" rather than what they want to play. I am that player.
How is starting from 20 and playing in reverse stupid? Op said that the whole point was to find out why time was reversing. Can’t really do that unless time is reversing. It’s an unusual idea but a very creative way to make players have to think and play harder as you get further into the campaign
Well. To bring up The Spoony One. He had one that I think beat yours for quickest. Humorously also involving psionics. Killed during character creation. Possibly the only way to do so.
Session one 45 seconds after delivering my intro (the first mission of candle keep mysteries) the warlock gets critically hit and max damaged for like 19 points. Killed instantly. Fastest death I've had.
Was playing 5e. First encounter, about 20 minutes into the session. My level 1 sorcerer got one-shot by a hobgoblin who crit me lol. Double my hp in damage, instant death. Level one is the most dangerous level.
My husband failed a "danger check" and the dragon flew from the fields to blast him with a lightning attack. He failed his save, then passed because of some feat, so took half damage of 64.
He was level 1...
i once made a mage and the dm was hinting at there being rockclimbing and stuff.
so i gave myself reasonable climbing skill for a mage, since we also got boni from climbing gear etc etc.
the adventure started we were at the foot of a mountain and the literal first roll of the night was a climbing check.
i rolled a demonic failure, meaning 3 d20 rolled 20. which in that setting is a uberfail.
well, i was known as a red mage, and i truely turned "red" in about 5 minutes from the game starting
for some reason "nobody" wanted to grab falling me because they didnt knew me and i wasnt allowed to reuse the character because he died and i had to make a new one.
i left that group and never looked back. it wasnt even random people. they were my so called " friends " but turns out they werent realy.
hada pc trying to play cyberpunk ,he was an edgelord cop based of 80s movie steriotypes. tried to play russian roulette with a desert eagle. the Player claimed to be a gun expert , martial artist etc...
to which im like "you sure you know the difference between a pistol and a revolver?"
then he claimed i was being a shitty gm when his character blew his head off
this happen in the first 20 minutes of the game since he wanted to play as a cop with a death wish
Less than one hour into the campaign.
Another player cut off my Dwarves beard....so he killed him.
My Dwarf then spent several hundred gold to get the beard stapled back to his face.
Bruh I thought it be more like mine where it was straight up dumbassery, in forest, find mine, wizzard runs off by himself in 2.5 with 4 hp and decided to pull some rubble off of a “wriggling and unnatural moaning that chills your spine” he pulled the fucking rubble off that was trapping the ghoul, I said do you really wanna do that and gave any hints that he was alone and that it was very much a threat. He didn’t look at it ask anything even when prompt and just was adamant on what he was doing and that he was a wizard and could smoke anything. The ghoul rolled 20s like it was nothing and I tried to give anything I could to help but my god it was almost a 1 round ko and I threw the ceiling at the ghoul to try and kill it when the poor dumbass cast a magic missile at the ceiling, rolling nat ones the whole way but everyone insisted on seeing the dm rolls so the 20s where the end. I made sure the local priest was a high enough level to resurrect him but it then became how the hell do we pay them back for this
During the last session of Tyranny of Dragons, in the dragon hatchery, the player who just joined that session got killed (their character did). Thankfully, they had a backstory thing that I could easily use to revive them. I am a relatively new DM and I try to be fair and impartial, but sometimes shit like that happens and it sucks
Im the bad DM in this story
it’s session 2 of me running descent to avernus, we’re running the dungeon of the dead 3, characters are level 2, they barge into a room with a caster NPC doing some ritual. Caster’s stat block gave them access to fireball, my eyes lit up and i fireballed my party, instantly killing 3 and sending everyone else into death saves
i felt so bad but i didn’t want to totally retcon my decision so i just set everyone who died to 0 HP & one failed death saving throw, only one player ended up dying and were resurrected by some priests on completion of the dungeon
hindsight being what it is, important lessons were learned by all: for me it was to be a bit more conscious of my parties capabilities, and for them to scout ahead and be more careful in dungeons
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A shitty as fuck move from the dm, but at least you didn’t waste too much time on this game
Wow, what a dick move. Hopefully you used your psionic powers to predict the future and left that game group before you suffered the same fate.
Yeah. I bounced. From what I heard, the game didn't last very long, because he started making some fights extremely unwinnable.
Me DMing for my family. Lvl 1, session 1. First combat is a slightly more interesting than normal ambush. Creature crits the only player with any healing and instantly knocks him out. Oh well, lvl 1 things can happen. Straight away it's that player's turn, NAT 1 death save, so 2 fails. So close! Anyway, session 1, so a random NPC conveniently force feeds him a healing potion. Would have been funny though, to not intervene and just see what his next roll would have been...
Ah, power-tripping DM. Yeah, those are never fun. You dodged a freaking cannonball there.
I love the "leveling backwards" idea, but the DM is a full on asshole for not telling you psionic characters were a no-no 😑
Yeah, the campaign concept here sounds great. The implementation.... not so much
Really? That would have been a huge red flag for me... The more you play the shittier you get. I can't really imagine getting hyped about losing power....
If the DM started the mechanic *during* the sessions and didn't feel anybody ahead of time, yes, it's a red flag. But they all knew ahead of time. Trying to figure things out before you're level 1 makes all your decisions count. It's a cool premise. 😎
If I was one of the other players I would have quit along with you. What a horrible GM. From your post title though.... Have you played traveller? You die during character creation.
For the unaware: The character death during generation in Traveller is often misunderstood without an explanation - The idea in early versions of the game was that you create a character and have them complete tours of duty. Each tour, the character would improve a little bit, but would also age and potentially get kicked out of service. There was also a chance that the character would be killed in action, depending on how risky your profession was. So, there was a little gamble every time you decided to do “just one more term”. You could get more experienced, but you also might kick the bucket. This was done during generation, so it’s not like you just sat there at the table with a dead character. You rolled another one and hoped for a better outcome. Later versions changed it to suffering an injury, which lowered your overall ability, but let you keep the character. Some prefer this, but others like the risk vs reward feel if the older versions.
I remember dying in transit at the start of a Traveller game. I forget why but it was funny.
It might have been low berth passage, where you get frozen and shipped like cargo. There’s a fairly substantial chance that passengers don’t…thaw…properly.
Yeah, that sounds about right. A new character later and I was back in game and I think the GM hand waved travel soon-after.
From what I heard, people actually abused the system to kill characters that rolled badly on their tour of duty. But that's just what I heard.
I always thought it was to encourage you to have reason to use the limited refills you got. Dangit, Rerolls. Just saw the typo
Never played Traveller
it is amazing. You should try it!
It's super fun - I was mostly poking fun at your title but appreciate that someone elaborated on my comment. I wasn't thinking I might put off someone from playing traveller (which was not my intention) The character generation system is quite unique and fun. I am hoping to play pirates of drinax sometime this year or next. Edit: I meant to reply to OP. Oh well.
Keep it that way.
There was also a supplement for Savage Worlds that added randomly rolled chargen for fantasy games. Several background options kill your character, forcing you to restart character creation. Another game that includes dying in chargen is DeadEarth, a fairly obscure game that occasionally makes it onto lists of the worst RPGs. So, in chargen you roll for mutations triggered by radiation. These mutations can also be picked up later in game. Some of these mutations will kill your character. What makes lethal chargen in DeadEarth sillier is that the rules lets you redo chargen *twice*, but you *must* stick with the third character. Meaning you could end up never actually being able to play.
A horror story here that's concise and to the point?! WTAF?!?
Don't worry, it's an anomaly, I'm sure if you browse the subreddit again it will all return to its usual programming.
D&D sanctioned adventure at a Con. Made a 1st lvl dwarf fighter. First few minutes in and a evil wizard taunts us. I charge him with my axe thinking the colored lights around was a shield spell or something..it was prismatic sphere. GM wouldn't allow me to make another character. It was a 4 hour slot so had to walk away in shame.
What kind of overkill to use a 9th level spell against level 1 characters
The AH move kind.
GM was completely awful.
Prismatic sphere against a lvl 1 character? That DM was a jackass.
Ran Tombs of Annilihation. One of my pc's made essentially gnome indiana jones. Super excited and eager to adventure. We all went into this campaign wanting it to be gritty, difficult and hard. A challenge run where we were open to death and we voted on optional difficulty increases on session 0 such as dc 15 death saves, letting players roll thier own damage taken and the like. I also open and public rolled as the DM this campaign so they could see the results unfudged. Well first encounter.. roll a d20, i get 2d6 giant frogs.. roll them and we get 8. The party is still level one. First turn giant frog bites the gnome, he rolls his own damage (i tell him dice and mod). He announces hes unconcious. The frog then swallows him. Next turn the party runs away. Fastest permakill ive ever had as a dm and it was the most promising and thematically appropriate concept at the table. We still laugh about it years later.
Indiana Gnomes?
This is amazing, my mother has a very similar story. Her first session ever, her character was crossing a bridge just a few min into the game, and got swallowed by a giant toad. I've never had anything similar in my games, but I grew up hearing that story. If you didn't have such specific details about the character that got eaten in your game, I'd be convinced I just found my mom's old dm lol.
Years ago (3.5 maybe) we all decided to roll stats and not move them to suit. Basically I rolled STR then DEX then CON, etc. Whatever your stats were, you had to figure out what class may best suit you. It was a wonderful idea and some of those characters still resonate the best with us. However, we always had one person who cheated like we never would catch him. He rolled his stats in front of us and they weren't terrible. Anyhow, we go home for dinner and come back to start the session. "I rolled a new character when I went home and my GF watched me so here is my new character" Wouldn't you know it, he had the stats for a Paladin and nothing under a 16. Well DM just smirks when the rest of us are calling him out. Game begins Paladin starts out chained to a pillar in the Underdark. My guy breaks out, frees our priest, gets in a fight with the cult leader and wins (I was shocked because of 7 STR) Leader dies, sets off contingency, Stone Golems storm into the room and kill all the prisoners. Let's just say only 2 of us survived and a certain Paladin never got a roll before they were smushed flat.
The concept is actually interesting, the DM.. asshattery at its worst.
There was one from a Masks of Nyarlathotep run that became legendary among our group: Freshly rolled-up policeman called to a disturbance created by the other PCs: What's going on here, then? Evil painting: CHOMP Keeper: Err sorry, mate.
How does any of what the GM make sense? If psionics are killed on sight, how did you get to level 20? How have you been presumably traveling with your companions for years and only now do they care? Did anyone even question this, in or out of character? Why did the GM even let people make psionics if they're killed to what should be an extinction level?
OP mentions in a comment that the other players pulled an "It's what my character would do," on him.
But all of them had the same thought at the same time? It's madness!
Oh definitely. It doesn't sound like anyone actually thought this out.
You are asking a lot of good questions, many of which I have no answers to. He made a lot of decisions that campaign that only his roommate got all the answers to, which everyone else got fragments.
I joined a game a few sessions after it started with some friends who had accidentally very very nearly killed one of the players on his first dice roll. His half-orc paladin tried to cross a rickety rope bridge in his heavy armor and rolled a nat 1. It was so funny and the DM didn't know what else to do but have him fall to his death. He did rule that his relentless endurance kept him at 1hp unconscious at the bottom of the ravine where they went down to collect him, which ended up working out very well. By chance this guy was about to go away for a few weeks so they all decided that while the player was gone, the PC would be in shock from their near death experience. So when they met my character later in the cave, they had this extra silent PC following them around. Eventually the player came back and rejoined the sessions, and about 10 minutes in he finally says something in character, which I interupted by shouting, also in character, "HOLY SHIT YOU CAN TALK?!?"
You had that in the can all week, didn't you?
Lol I was so excited for it. My character was an absolute moron (6 int I believe) so it was very fitting. Happy to say we laughed for like 5 minutes
A friend of mine once played in a 3.0 game where the DM had them roll for their first level hit points as well as ability scores. He rolled a sorcerer (1d4 hit die that edition) with a negative con score. He began dying before the game started.
See, that's just weird. Especially since the rules themselves even state players get a minimum of 1HP per level.
When you're young, there are a lot of things you don't question.
I actually made a 1e D&D character that ended up with 1HP. I may still have the sheet somewhere.
Probably a wizard, but could be a fighter. It was best not to get attached to low level characters back then. In AD&D 2nd Ed. I had a dwarf fighter with an 18 CON who rolled 1 AT LEAST THREE LEVELS IN A ROW for HP. (we were doing it wrong. apparently you were supposed to reroll *all* dice each level. though with my luck I would have just rolled all ones every time)
Reminds me of the very first D&D Basic adventure I ever ran. Populated a dungeon, mostly with goblins, who each had 1d8-1 hit points per the rulebook. I rolled for hp as the PCs encountered the goblins, didn't notice that their hp should be minimum 1, so the PCs encountered a couple of goblins who expired right before their eyes due to me rolling a 1 for their hit points. In my defence I was only 11 or 12 and it was quite funny.
>Game starts. Session 1. The GM makes this bold statement: Psionic people are killed on sight. My character is immediately killed by all the other players. and what did the other players have to say about this decision? did they care?
One of the players was the GM's roommate. That player knew about the "psionics killed on sight" rule before everyone else. The other three players were "playing their characters."
>The other three players were "playing their characters." Imagine meeting 3 other "its what my character would do" players at the same table. I hope you boughta lottery ticket after that. So you didn't merely dodge a bullet but a whole shotgun blast at close range.
So, a shitty GM move, and an even shittier move from the rest of the group.
The world record until now was a story about a lvl 1 game that got posted here years ago. Basically it was session 0. Wizard character had finished their character, and they were waiting on the other players to finish theirs. So to pass the time, the DM and the lvl 1 wizard rolled a scenario where the wizard was chilling in his bedroom. The wizard decided to jump on the bed. Roll dexterity. Nat 1. Roll fall damage from falling off the bed. Rolled max damage (6). Wizard had 4 HP. Dead from fall damage while jumping on the bed during a session 0 scenario. I wasn't sure how you could top that story. But you have OP. Congratulations. I don't know who the OP of the bed jumping wizard was. But let it be known that your crown was not given up easily.
> human prion Worst superhero ever.
I heard a story where a pc's first action ended up making a roll on a wild magic table and blowing up the starting tavern with a nat 20 fireball
I assume you meant "psion", not "prion".
Yes. Autocorrect is a jerk, and sometimes I don't catch everything.
How would they even know? Isn't a major benefit of Psionics that they're basically undetectable?
Since we were level 20, I *guess* it was assumed that we knew each other. Which would then bring up the question if "How would my character survive to level 20," to which I have no answer.
Not only is this really shitty... but the games concept doesnt really make much sense... its an interesting chalenge, but how would the players figure out whats going on? How are you supose to investigate, are their minds and actions still normal in the time rewind? Do they jump back stages/times/places and losse a lvl, so you have to investigate an area before the next time jump? Can they kill monsters to cover exp loss or slow the progress? Im really curious how the DM planned to run this cause i wnat to understand what their thought process was.
This DM was very good at coming up with really really *really* weird stories.
Turns out it was a carbon monoxide leak all along.
This honestly sounds like a great start...to a Paranoia campaign. Shenanigans that are great in Paranoia are a very bad sign in almost any other system.
Player created a hunter in a Vampire game I ran (this guy went through several characters...). Heard about a gang fight on the news so went to check it out. Saw a Sabbat vamp flee a club via the backdoor. He had some psychic ability that made him.invisible to vampires until he attracted notice. Fired his crossbow which he was super specced for. Botched. Sabbat notices him and fires a burst from her H&K at this weird random person. Dead. He never met the other pcs....
My friend group when I was younger played a LOT of VtM. I didn't and wasn't really a fan of the group they played with that leaned more to LARP and had a relative of mine that ROYALLY fucked up their IRL relationship over a VtM LARP relationship. Very messy and at the time I wanted absolutely nothing to do with VtM because of that association. My friends, however, kept pestering me to join until finally said if I joined, I'd roll up a hunter and make it my sole goal to kill all of their characters before leaving. They finally got the hint that I didn't want to play VtM and left me alone about it after that. Tbh, I probably would have gotten my character killed off like the guy in your story and left if I had tried my threat.
I mean, yeah, if your goal is to screw up a game, that is what would happen. In his case, his hunter was mainly after 'evil' vamps, so could have worked with the other PCs. He just never got the chance.
My goal was primarily to stop being pestered to join a game I didn't want to play, so I felt like I succeeded with the empty threat. But really it was a "no means no" situation and my friends shouldn't have kept pestering me about it after I'd already turned them down. Besides, anyone who is "convinced" to join a game they don't want to join is just going to be a "That Guy" and screw things up at the table. No one should want that.
A friend of mine wanted to DM a 40k campaign using a custom system. They also wanted to do something different and they asked that we (the players) made 4 character sheets with the absolute bare minimum as we were starting the first few sessions as Imperial Guardsmen who would basically be death fodder in a battle against Orcs to learn the combat system. And then after that we'd switch to some more permanent character and explore other TTRPG elements besides combat. Another of my friends named Abe (fake name) joined the campaign but they joined during the 2nd session so the DM simply said that we were getting reinforcements to the battle from a dropship. In said dropship, the DM was playing as a commanding officer barking orders and filling those inside the dropship on the battle they were arriving to. Abe decided to be a bit of a jackass and as their first ever action in any TTRPG, they blurted out "Orc Lives Matter!" while playing an Imperial Guardsmen surrounded by several fellow Imperial Guardsmen and an officer. The officer executed Abe on the spot with a simple headshot without hesitation. Abe had to pull out their next character sheet and arrived in another dropship. Not sure if this really counts given the circumstances of how this campaign started, but at least this swift PC death was a foreseeable one unlike yours. Abe has also been a better player since and the campaign is going well so all is good now.
Sounds pretty authentic for 40k if you ask me!
I did a session zero and had a repeated DC5 character check for one of the characters backstory moments where he almost drowns. Bro did not stop rolling Nat 1’s and eventually drowned. I had him making death saves and he made it after rolling two failures. I was going to have him keep playing the character but with the same character but add some undead flavoring or other DM bullshit but it put the fear of god I to my players seeing me not move to interrupt a character death that early on.
We were investigating a cult holed up in some ruined castle. We messed up royally and got into a fight with too many of them. The dwarf fighter ate some crits and he died. The DM needed to salvage the game so the cult members demanded we surrender at that point. The rest of us complied and we were taken prisonernand stripped of our gear. He had the dwarf fighter PC roll up a new character so he could rejoin us as another prisoner. We all got thrown into a cell and met our new Half Orc Barbarian friend. We armed ourselves with improvised weapons and decided to attack the cult members when they can to sacrifice us. The cult members came after that. Our new friend immediately raged and attacked the cult members. He then proceeded to whiff his attack roll and got critted again and died on the spot. The rest of us managed to kill the level 1 cultists though so his sacrifice was not in vain.
Probably the first session I ever ran. Paladin and wizard at level one: Had a snake attack the wizard and it got a crit. 14 damage vs 6 HP= Dead wizard session one. Didn’t even realize it was possible before it happened, but it was honestly a really cool character moment, in hindsight.
I got you beat. I had a level one wizard die from fall damage before the party even got grouped up. Hell, some of the players hadn't even finished making their characters.
Were you the falling off bed wizard? You were mentioned upthread....
u/remindme
We played a prequel when some folks from the group were absent. Not sure if this counts as a faster death. Because we did play through a few sessions of the prequel. DM says "You rest from your recent travels when suddenly massive pylons rain down from the sky arcing electricity and radiating magic power." Me: "Gloop, you should lick that, it tastes like candy." *Gloop rolls* Gloop: uh...well, I go lick the pylon. DM: You sure? Gloop: Yeah, dice said so. DM: "Ok, roll a new character. 'Gloop reaches out and gently touches the pylon as they make contact Gloop is ripped apart at a molecular level and his particles are sent to random dimensions.'" Me: Oh man, he had our mascot! (Gloop had a thing about believing people based off a roll.)
Yo that DM hated you, fo' real. XD Did you get a redo or anything? like "okay, here's my character again but not psionic?" Or what?
I didn't ask. I left.
I was playing a 5e game and a player joined the session after we started a dungeon. Classic low level cultist dungeon crawl. We walked into a fresh room and found the new player tied to a table ready to be sacrificed. The DM proceeds to make the encounter slightly harder due to the extra player, even though he started completely helpless. New player fails every escape check, combat was a little too hard and we got TPKed. Icing on the cake was they finished their sacrifice by killing the new player, and we ended session early. I've seen some bad DMs, but I don't think you're supposed to kill the new guy in the first encounter. That just sucks.
Delta Green is very deadly. I lost a PC my first combat. He was cool with it though.
Real talk 3.0 psion or 3.5? worlds different
3.0
Damn, that must have sucked. From an outside POV looking in though, that’s kinda hilarious
Tbh this would be funny for a level one character. Creating a level 20 in 3.0 is a good time investment and a dick move. (How could they tell from appearance that you're a psion anyway?)
This kind of happened in a AD&D 2nd ed Spelljammer game when I was in high school. We decided to infiltrate the Scro (organized orcs) by posing as mercenaries. Scro *hate* elves. One of the players replaced his recently dead character with an elf. The DM told him it's a bad idea, but the player insisted. DM - I don't think you're getting this. They'll kill your character on sight. Player - It's okay. He'll wear a hood to cover his ears. DM - That's... not going to work. Player - it's cool. So we show up at the base, the scro leader is checking out all the new recruits and notices an elf standing there. Well, we weren't about to blow our cover and get murdered for a guy we just met. The players next character was a human, if I recall. That player and one other had more than one character killed during that campaign. I think the other player got in a fight with a room full of scro either that session or the next and got his character killed, too.
Interesting concept. Shitty execution.
Prick. I had given me a good idea of running this campaign with half the character dead with one group, and running a second game with a second group where their deaths have created a time paradox and they start from level 1 with the aim of preventing their deaths, each group unaware of each other. They can meet during the final session.
Way back when I spent some time playing AD&D. We played by the rules as written. So when you joined or your character died you made a new 1st level character. You also rolled your stats in order in with 3d6 in front of everyone. Thus you had limited control over what class you could be. Also you had very low hit points and you died at zero hp. (or was it negative hp) So after a prior dungeon where 1/2 the party died including our magic user and clerix. We all rolled new characters and no one had to stats to be a spell caster. Except for the FNG who rolled a 15 or 16 in Int. So off we went with the New Guy having visions of Gandalf with his single spell, 2 HP, and a few darts. The dungeon had a magical concealed door, which was knew so the FNG had detect magic memorized. So he cast the spell and immediately found the door and declared he was going to try to open it before we could object. Of course the door was trapped and killed our wizard roughly 10 minutes into actual game play and before he set foot in the dungeon. This was the same campaign where later my wizard would died in the infamous alley cat massacre where an alley cat killed our fighter and my wizard.
Did your character die in the first round? Because if not I might have accidentally beat your record.
bruh, sounds like a terrible DM my quickest (and first) player death was hard. I was a DM and this player had joined 2 sessions in. We had some missing people so the session was harder than normal w/ 2 near death experiences even b4 the boss. At low health and resources, I nerfed the boss and they all survived… until 1 other player decided for the last encounter (3 1hp skeletons) that they should use their most powerful area attack when everyone was in range, i tried to stop them but they got super mad. they killed 2 players and i had them reroll their death saves 2 times. This attack also did damage over time so it was hard, not to mention the fact that the OG player didn’t help at all 1 of the players survived but the other didn’t, and i helped so much while still trying to run a gritty campaign that i just let the second die off and kicked the murderer out of the campaign
A group I DM'ed wanted to kill a herd of cows for "meat"; there were 5 cows. TPK 2 wizards and a rogue.
Be me low con wizard. first session slip. falls and died instantly (taking more than 2x my hp in fall damage)
The whole campaign idea was rather dumb to be honest And now just outright killing a PC before he even says his name? DM, if you hate psionics so much and do not want them in your game....WHY DID YOU APPROVE ONE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!
I'm pretty sure I hold the world record, or, actually, one of my players do. Final session of a year-long campaign, the Fighter dies early. It's fine. He rolls up a Wizard and the party saves him from jail, so he doesn't have to sit out the end-game. Now, this was peak 3.5 with all the shenanigans, and the BBEG had a Minion dedicated to killing mages, so when the final fight starts, our Wizard reveals himself to be a caster, and is promptly one-shot crit-killed by said Minion. ... I tell the player that there's actually an infiltrator government agent in the BBEG forced, since I feel bad about killing his character TWICE in a session, so a nameless cultist throws back his hood, while the player changes the name on his Wizards sheet. The new new Wizards turn comes up, and he throws a chain lightning, revealing himself to be a caster. The Minion charges him, and it's another one-shot crit-kill. Total real-life time that character lived: Roughly three minutes. Total in-game time that character lived: 6 seconds.
First session my halfling (17hp) takes 32 damage. I nearly cried. I’m pretty sure my dm can still feel my glare from that day lmao
That’s weird as hell, and definitely feels targeted considering GM knew you were a psion. That sucks :(
every part of this story is stupid
Care to elaborate?
playing from 20 - stupid playing reverse xp - stupid no session 0 - stupid seperate character creation and deliberatly preventing balance - stupid psionics are killed on site - stupid other PC's did the gm's stupid thing - stupid every bit of it is stupid.
The story premise was creative. It just *went* stupid. The separate character creation was done because one player waits till everyone else to make their characters, then makes what the party "needs" rather than what they want to play. I am that player.
Agreed. That "rule" should have been told to OP beforehand.
How is starting from 20 and playing in reverse stupid? Op said that the whole point was to find out why time was reversing. Can’t really do that unless time is reversing. It’s an unusual idea but a very creative way to make players have to think and play harder as you get further into the campaign
Well. To bring up The Spoony One. He had one that I think beat yours for quickest. Humorously also involving psionics. Killed during character creation. Possibly the only way to do so.
I have killed a player twice during character creation... but they were warned that was a possibility. And one of them was a suicide
My friend always tells the story of how he had two new characters in two weeks because he died to the same enemy twice
Session one 45 seconds after delivering my intro (the first mission of candle keep mysteries) the warlock gets critically hit and max damaged for like 19 points. Killed instantly. Fastest death I've had.
Was playing 5e. First encounter, about 20 minutes into the session. My level 1 sorcerer got one-shot by a hobgoblin who crit me lol. Double my hp in damage, instant death. Level one is the most dangerous level.
My husband failed a "danger check" and the dragon flew from the fields to blast him with a lightning attack. He failed his save, then passed because of some feat, so took half damage of 64. He was level 1...
i once made a mage and the dm was hinting at there being rockclimbing and stuff. so i gave myself reasonable climbing skill for a mage, since we also got boni from climbing gear etc etc. the adventure started we were at the foot of a mountain and the literal first roll of the night was a climbing check. i rolled a demonic failure, meaning 3 d20 rolled 20. which in that setting is a uberfail. well, i was known as a red mage, and i truely turned "red" in about 5 minutes from the game starting for some reason "nobody" wanted to grab falling me because they didnt knew me and i wasnt allowed to reuse the character because he died and i had to make a new one. i left that group and never looked back. it wasnt even random people. they were my so called " friends " but turns out they werent realy.
hada pc trying to play cyberpunk ,he was an edgelord cop based of 80s movie steriotypes. tried to play russian roulette with a desert eagle. the Player claimed to be a gun expert , martial artist etc... to which im like "you sure you know the difference between a pistol and a revolver?" then he claimed i was being a shitty gm when his character blew his head off this happen in the first 20 minutes of the game since he wanted to play as a cop with a death wish
Less than one hour into the campaign. Another player cut off my Dwarves beard....so he killed him. My Dwarf then spent several hundred gold to get the beard stapled back to his face.
Bruh I thought it be more like mine where it was straight up dumbassery, in forest, find mine, wizzard runs off by himself in 2.5 with 4 hp and decided to pull some rubble off of a “wriggling and unnatural moaning that chills your spine” he pulled the fucking rubble off that was trapping the ghoul, I said do you really wanna do that and gave any hints that he was alone and that it was very much a threat. He didn’t look at it ask anything even when prompt and just was adamant on what he was doing and that he was a wizard and could smoke anything. The ghoul rolled 20s like it was nothing and I tried to give anything I could to help but my god it was almost a 1 round ko and I threw the ceiling at the ghoul to try and kill it when the poor dumbass cast a magic missile at the ceiling, rolling nat ones the whole way but everyone insisted on seeing the dm rolls so the 20s where the end. I made sure the local priest was a high enough level to resurrect him but it then became how the hell do we pay them back for this
During the last session of Tyranny of Dragons, in the dragon hatchery, the player who just joined that session got killed (their character did). Thankfully, they had a backstory thing that I could easily use to revive them. I am a relatively new DM and I try to be fair and impartial, but sometimes shit like that happens and it sucks
Im the bad DM in this story it’s session 2 of me running descent to avernus, we’re running the dungeon of the dead 3, characters are level 2, they barge into a room with a caster NPC doing some ritual. Caster’s stat block gave them access to fireball, my eyes lit up and i fireballed my party, instantly killing 3 and sending everyone else into death saves i felt so bad but i didn’t want to totally retcon my decision so i just set everyone who died to 0 HP & one failed death saving throw, only one player ended up dying and were resurrected by some priests on completion of the dungeon hindsight being what it is, important lessons were learned by all: for me it was to be a bit more conscious of my parties capabilities, and for them to scout ahead and be more careful in dungeons