D&D General Throwback Thursday Fun: First D&D Death

[Lanefan]

The first character of my own that died was killed by his own party. One could argue deservedly so, or not; that's what the trial was for.

 

[iserith]

Just for fun this Throwback Thursday: the first D&D character you had die during play, how did it happen?

Mine was a cleric during the first play of the Metzner Red Box adventure. My two older brothers and I were playing and my father was DMing. All of us were new to ttrpgs, but my dad was a computer gamer and board gamer. It was 1985 and I was 10 years old.

My death was simple, brutal and fast: I decided to rummage under the old gate while my brothers' characters headed up toward the door to the castle. The carrion crawler attacked, I failed my saving throws, and was unceremoniously dragged under the gate to be devoured. My brothers did not even stop to check to see if they could loot my corpse and continued on in the adventure while I frantically rolled up a replacement cleric (who would live much longer before being turned to stone by a gorgon). This death informed my attitude about PC mortality both as a player and GM forever, which can be summed up as: quit drying and roll up a new character.

I died in the exact same adventure in the exact same way. RIP Nastar the magic-user, food for a carrion crawler.

 

[Marc_C]

Holmes box sometime in the fall of 1981. As a single player I rolled 3d6 per stat in order and got a Magic-user with 1 Hit Point and no Constitution bonus.

He died in the first cave of B2 against the same kobold four times in a row. The DM refused to give me more Hit Points saying 'those are the rules'. At which point I decided D&D was a stupid game. Didn't want to play again.

If my parent hadn't given me the D&D Moldvay red box that Christmas I might not have played D&D again. Needless to say I let players have maximum HPs at first level !!!

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Absolutely! You learn so much from being on the other side of the screen, and from seeing what another DM/GM does.

I do not remember the first character that died while I was DMing, but my brother does - his first character, first adventure. Cleric dead to a pit trap. And yet we still game together, all these years later.

Related aside: I think "forever GMs" should make an extra effort to site on the player side once in a while.

 

[Voadam]

I generally played tough, careful characters for a long time. In 2e I made an elven mage thief who was a change of pace, a jokester not designed for strong combat abilities. At one point an evil Tlaloc priest PC asked me to pass him a potion from the loot that he was claiming so with my juggling non weapon proficiency I tossed it to him and he had to make a dex check to not drop and break it. He barely made it, was kind of sweating it, and was annoyed that this amused me. Later in a fight against a spellcaster who charmed him he immediately turned and attacked my character. I remember pointing out charm person does not make you attack your allies, and it became clear it was deliberate as he started cackling and said he was attacking anyway. Multiclassed elven thief wizards do not have a lot of AC or hp even with tumbling and I did not last long. So a friend cackling over a successful betrayal for petty reasons.

 

[Richards]

Mine took place in the previous 3.5 campaign of my adult son. It's kind of complicated, but we were up against a lich whose phylactery was a cloud of souls of everyone who had died knowing his real name. As long as there were people who knew his real name, his body could be slain over and over again and he'd always remanifest. After some arcane research, we discovered this whole setup could be undone, but only from inside the "cloud of souls" phylactery. So, since we all knew his real name, we all killed ourselves, got sucked into the phylactery, and our souls continued the fight from there. (Once we had taken out the phylactery from the inside, we had allies return us to life and the campaign continued on from there.)

Johnathan

 

[Reynard]

I generally played tough, careful characters for a long time. In 2e I made an elven mage thief who was a change of pace, a jokester not designed for strong combat abilities. At one point an evil Tlaloc priest PC asked me to pass him a potion from the loot that he was claiming so with my juggling non weapon proficiency I tossed it to him and he had to make a dex check to not drop and break it. He barely made it, was kind of sweating it, and was annoyed that this amused me. Later in a fight against a spellcaster who charmed him he immediately turned and attacked my character. I remember pointing out charm person does not make you attack your allies, and it became clear it was deliberate as he started cackling and said he was attacking anyway. Multiclassed elven thief wizards do not have a lot of AC or hp even with tumbling and I did not last long. So a friend cackling over a successful betrayal for petty reasons.

Maybe don't hang out with EVIL priests?

 

[Dioltach]

I died in the exact same adventure in the exact same way. RIP Nastar the magic-user, food for a carrion crawler.

I'm starting to think this is the fattest, happiest carrion crawler in all of D&D history.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Carrion crawlers are the best!

But seriously, monsters that cause paralysis can be so deadly, especially for smaller groups or PCs that decide to go off on their own.

I'm starting to think this is the fattest, happiest carrion crawler in all of D&D history.

 

[Marc_C]

But seriously, monsters that cause paralysis can be so deadly, especially for smaller groups or PCs that decide to go off on their own.

GHOULS! Mouhahahaha !