One of the things that amuse me most about gamers is their ability to remember their noble characters death in the middle of the brave battle and how the death pulled everyone through the fire and saved the day. But what about the ignoble deaths that slip under the carpet, never to be heard of again? Today I hope some of you will share with us, in the comments, some of your most ignoble deaths that your characters have suffered.
As a player, my most ignoble character death occurred in a game of Mechwarrior. I had a character that was the head of a mercenary group (Dogs of War) called Louis Armfeldt. He piloted an Atlas. He got some downtime and decided to head to Solaris VII to fight in the arenas. He did rather well and built up a nice nest egg when he entered a battle with another player. I was running a couple of characters around that time and my other character had badly set back this players character and so, even though it were not the same character, he came gunning for me. It was a close battle but in the end due to body heat and an imminent explosion of AC 20 ammo Louis ejected. The player of the other character wanted to shoot the ejection pod. GM said the only way that could be done was with a natural double 6 roll. He rolled, double 6 and my most successful Mechwarrior character was destroyed in a blast of PPC fire.
As a GM I have caused quite a few ignoble deaths but there is one that sticks in my head. It is the death of an NPC that one of my players caused in the Serpent Skull Adventure Path. In the second module of that path the party ally with a Cleric of Gozreh (god of nature kinda) called N’kechi (or something similar, don’t have my books on me). He was a bit of an oddball and a real joy for me to role-play. Anyhow, on their journey the group was attacked by a spirit being that was really quite a difficult sight. Aiming at the creature with her bow was the Cavalier Seleca and she let fly, with a natural 1… Now we use the critical hit and critical fumble decks and Selec’as player (my daughter Courtney) hit the button (it is an iPad version) and the result stated that the shot hits the nearest ally to the target and she had to roll to see if it were a critical hit and if it were it did 4 times the damage. Poor old N’kechi was in melee combat with the creature and already wounded by it. She rolled and it was a critical and ended up doing maximum damage. N’kechi dropped to the ground stone cold dead. The party always give my daughter wary stares whenever her characters pull out bows these days!
So let me know some of your more ignoble deaths. I would be glad to read them. Keep rolling!
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Artemis was an Elven archer of mine in AD&D 2nd Edition who met quite an ignoble end. She was never the luckiest character; in a fight against trolls (and standing on the back of a wagon transporting bows) she managed to critically fail five shots, breaking several bows and strings in the process but luckily not hitting anyone else.
Later she was hunting alone in the forest, and sighted a wild boar at some distance. She lined up a shot but missed, and the beast charged. The next shot also missed, and she decided the best course of action would be to climb a tree. Which she failed to do. The boar hit her, and though she switched to shortsword it gored her to death in but a few rounds.
When they found her, the rest of the party put what remains they could gather together into a leather sack in the hopes of finding a priest (and enough money) to resurrect her. Alas, by the time they found one, the remains had decomposed too badly to be of any use.
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I knew I had a story of an ignoble death but it took my son rolling 3 consecutive 1’s in our game over the weekend and my effort to console him in his bad luck to recall this event.
Many summer’s past I was playing Rolemaster 2nd edition. Our group of level 5 characters where looking for leads about a smuggling operation going on in town.
Estel, an accomplished fighter, was tasked with seeking rumours in a local tavern. The innkeeper wanted to talk in private and took me to a door to the basement before shoving me in with the intention of closing and locking the door.
Unfortunately a failed to notice any of these goings on and fell heavily down the stairs.
I incurred a crush critical during my fall and a 100 was rolled causing instant death broken neck.
I called upon our house rule allowing me one reroll per gaming session only to have to dice land on 66. Also fatality but this time slower and more painful as my internal injuries took 6 rounds to see me expire.
The group thoroughly enjoyed the following search for my missing character and ultimately the murder investigation.
Fun times…..
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That is one of the saddest deaths I have ever heard of! Pushed down stairs and died of internal bleeding. You win.
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The fun part was I took over as GM and ran the murder investigation. The old GM came in as a player running the local Sheriff It went really well as a detective, searching for clues, interviewing suspects type of game. A real change from our usual murder hobo mentality.
Critical deaths and kills were an ever present danger in RM2.
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Love it! Great way to turn it around and use it.