As a DM, I have presided over a disturbing number of character deaths and near-deaths and there-but-for-the-grace-of-the-DM deaths.....
I think my favorite character death (of my own character, that is), was a not-a-death-because-it's-cinema last year in a d6 Star Wars game at a con. It's my favorite not because of how impressive or cool it was, but because I took it REALLY WELL.
I was playing a journalist-type of person, not really a combatant, and a HUGE part of the evening had been spent with me *seriously* roleplaying and blackmailing one of the Imperials and getting him to flip to our side, promising him and his fiancee safety and a job, all for betraying the Empire just this *once*.
Well, it worked. My part, anyway. After that, we had a rather impressive and complicated break-in to the Imperial outpost to enact. With inside information, it should have been a breeze, right?
We creep in, everyone quiet, using as much stealth as possible while taking out the one guy manning the security post....
And just as we're walking past the ONE room in the outpost we didn't ask our inside man about (and which the DM forgot to mention as being occupied), blaster fire as a dozen stormtroopers storm out.
Yep. Full in the chest, no body armor... I was toast.
The DM, who I'd never played with before, gives me this look like "oh, my god, is she going to throw a fit?" and I just smiled and leaned back.
"It's okay," I said, knowing this was a game con and therefore I didn't need to play the character again. "I did my job-- they're doing great storming the castle, and this isn't my skillset anyway." I didn't know at the time about the cinema-death part of the game, and I was absolutely *stunned* when the other player characters insisted on dragging my still-smouldering body out of the outpost and into the escape ship.
The character woke up in the escape ship, mission completed, our inside guy and his girl present and thankful for their new start.
Incidentally, the DM team who ran that game happened to be local, and I now play in their biweekly game. |
