I had an enemy who had a high AC and the players couldn’t roll to save their life, until one player had a crit, so I had the crit damage the enemies armor and knock the AC down, and it became an epic rallying moment for the PCs who were just getting beat down. They STILL talk about that moment.

@RedBeardNP

3 ай бұрын

Nice GMing! I will have to remember this if it comes up in one of my games!

@daelusraine2989

3 ай бұрын

That's superb!

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Good idea.

@Lickdamouse

3 ай бұрын

I'm stealing that idea, thank you!

@russellharrell2747

3 ай бұрын

I’ve had similar ideas in the back of my mind about crits doing cool stuff instead of just more damage. Stuff like causing the BBG to drop a weapon or even have a weapon break, shields splintering or just a knock back or knocked prone effect. Haven’t had many opportunities lately for that kind of stuff tho.

"..the DM is not an enemy. They are a collaborator." That needs to be on a plaque.

@dbf1dware

3 ай бұрын

Every time I see the word "plaque" I initially see "plague" and then correct myself. It amuses me.

@stefanjakubowski8222

3 ай бұрын

Next to "NPCs are a Dime a Dozen, PCs are Gold"

@rynowatcher

3 ай бұрын

I tend to prefer the gm as a referee. When they are a collaborator, they can and should tell you what to do with your character as you can and should tell them what to do with their world. That muddies the roles of the game.

@GoGoGlennzilla

3 ай бұрын

I fear you are reading into the "collaboration" role. I think of it more like "RPG Tennis". I serve up a situation or in-game conflict, and the players get to react, respond, and even retaliate. No intention or capability of manipulating the characters without the player's input is implied.

@rynowatcher

3 ай бұрын

@@GoGoGlennzilla no, I am not reading into collaborative in this context. Certain "story games" such as FATE or PbtA games have official rules for iteration of the games where the gm can directly make character decisions because "the gm is collaborating with the story, not telling it." This is a thing in story games that is actually enforced with the rule set of many, many story games. In example, in FATE the gm can force a player to concede or surrender a fight, dungeon world lets the gm use the "split the party move." Frankly, this is fair for this style of play so the gm is not passive in play as players can also affect the world in similar ways (ie, FATE as an aspect "i am always armed" that makes them always able to reach out and find a weapon of their choice in a scene or the "i know a guy" move in Crime World that lets a player make an npc on the fly to solve problems). The tennis analogy falls flat because normal rules without the "gm collaboration" is still playing the tennis game. In the example pdm notes, the bbeg was winning the fight through dice rolls going his way and the gm let their desperate attempt to win work. This is more like playing and the other guy serving the ball but quit trying to hit it back so you win at a certain point; the gm ruling to make you win regardless of the rules ceases to be a game. The gm as the referee is neutral in the conflict; the players might win or lose, but a tennis game is played if the player wins or loses. No one ever says the gm is a "collaborater" after a tpk; the story of a doomed party is still a story, though.

One thing that Matt did was to ask Sam something like: “you understand what the consequences are?” in a situation like this, when the DM believes that player is about to sacrifice themselves: it is so so important to make sure that the DM and the player are on the same page and that no one is hurt or surprised.

@hawkthetraveler6344

3 ай бұрын

thats a weird question if this video's description was accurate.

@michaelkemmet834

3 ай бұрын

@@hawkthetraveler6344 Not really in this case. It boils down to 5e "dead" vs. perma-dead. Matt was making sure Sam understood that the choice he was making was going to result in the perma-death of his character and not a 5e revivable "death". I think Matt was 95% sure Sam understood that, but he wanted to get that to 100%. The gray area came because they were both making it up as they went. This wasn't a pre-planned character trait/ability. Sam described that he wanted to detonate FCG's core, Matt asked if he understood the consequences, Sam replied with the first part of his goodbye speech as his answer. There have been a couple cases over the years where Matt and a player haven't quite been on the same page and it almost resulted in the unintentional perma-death of a character. (the goldfish incident and the more recent shard incident spring to mind) I think Matt has been doubly careful since the shard incident, thus the question to Sam.

@muizzy

3 ай бұрын

@@hawkthetraveler6344 It's balancing the line between player agency and consequences. You never want to take player agency away, even when their character is about to make the ultimate sacrifice, even if - as the DM - you know that sacrifice will be unnecessary. But you do want to make very sure that the player understands what they are about to do. In the game the actual words were Matt confirming: "You understand what this means? Just to be clear." The player confirmed by making a speech on how their character realized - for the first time - that they are alive, and that he's happily making the sacrifice to return that gift to the party. That kind of checkin creates a layer of safety that helps the players explore more comfortably without preventing them from going where they want to go. It's critical.

@Sniperwolf00

3 ай бұрын

This was THE moment....this was the point in which Matt was falling into the same mindset as Sam on what was about to take place. The question, like you said, was to just clarify to Sam that this isn't a Laudna moment, this is a PNR (point of no return) moment. With that question though, you knew that what was about to take place was nothing short of shocking and also breath taking. I'm a pretty solid fella.....thick skinned and can roll with the punches but I was like a weeping baby by the end of this episode (truly embarrassing lol. Soooo glad I worked from home watching this). What was more impressive was the realisation slowly sank in after that when the rest of the group also started realising what was about to happen. In my mind a true masterpiece of story telling. FCG - a true salute to a fallen warrior!

@twothirdsanexplosive

3 ай бұрын

Just adding to what others already said. In interviews, or maybe on 4SD, Matt said that he asks players after a character death if they have more story to tell for that character. If they do, then he'll figure out how to make that possible though not guaranteed. I took him saying that to Sam to speak to the fact that this particular act won't have that possiblity.

This past weekend one of my players died at level 1. He was sleep gassed, rolled terrible, never hit anything and was hit by a goblin for his full hp. It was the most uneventful, unmemorable life and death ever. He will not be missed nor mourned by anyone including the guy playing him.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

All hail No-name the Unmemorable! Somehow this will become a Deathbringer joke.

@normanlennox4949

3 ай бұрын

One of my characters was like that. Two sessions, and gone. It was a shame, because I was trying to play a class I'd never played before. But he bit it quickly.

@chadculotta8278

3 ай бұрын

This is basically what happened to my character in my very first game, lol! (April 1981, I was 12 years old) It was crushing and shaped the way I made characters and played the game ever since.

@Daxiongmao87

3 ай бұрын

We had someone literally join in session 2, introduced himself, and took massive damage from an insane trap roll. Instead of instantly killing him the DM gave him a death save to determine if he instead survived but with a gnarly scar. He became Frank the Faceless.

@satturnine7320

3 ай бұрын

His name was Robert Paulson

I see Dungeon Craft, I click Dungeon Craft

@KHfanz

3 ай бұрын

Ah, a man of culture

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@F2t0ny

3 ай бұрын

Exactly

@ironbomb6753

3 ай бұрын

Absolutely! And before my coffee even. 😊

@juarez1011

3 ай бұрын

A gentleman and a scholar

Many years ago I ran a one-shot game of Tunnels and Trolls for my younger brothers. In that game, one of the race options is a fairy. My brother loved playing fairies. Well, his unfortunate fairy rogue was on watch one night and saw a rats nest. He decided to crawl in and loot it, only to be swarmed by rats and killed. It was such a ridiculous way to die, none of us could be mad! We just raised a glass "To Nobb!" The next one-shot I ran for them, I decided to base it off of Nobb, who it turns out was actually a fairy prince. His signet ring and seal had to be recovered in order to crown the next prince of the realm. Thus, the legend of his nobility was born. Next, we played a standard one-shot, and again my brother played a fairy. This fairy had a giant tattoo across his back of his people's greatest hero, Prince Nobb! During the pandemic, we started a new campaign. My mother's character was connected to a mysterious cult she knew nothing about, and she was leaving it up to me to fill her in as we went. Thus, the cult of Saint Nobbius and the Noble Death was born. Best part was it took years for them to finally figure it out! They made it to a temple of St. Nobbius, and the priestess offered to show them their most sacred relic - a finger bone no bigger than a grain of rice from the saint's sword hand. My brother cried out "It's f-ing Nobb!". They all lost their minds! Best reveal in all of my years DMing!

@amianderson8866

3 ай бұрын

Wonderful! Wow, great DM-ing.

@mikebevibevi

3 ай бұрын

Awesome job!!! Such a great bit of story telling that could have amounted to nothing. Brilliant!

One of my favourite moments in this was Matt saying "That's 20d8. Here have some of my dice, everyone else join in" making it a group moment for everyone to participate in, so the rest didn't just sit around crying, watching without being able to do anything. The damage didn't reeeally matter, this was going to kill her either way. But rolling many dice and it being the dice of the whole group made it feel more impactful in my opinion.

@sarajamesaerial

3 ай бұрын

When he said "roll 20d8" my first thought was, "oh I hope everyone pitches in!" It made it feel so much more collective.

@GrayArmyGaming

3 ай бұрын

Brilliant insight

@sweebos

2 ай бұрын

That was a great decision, and wonderful moment. 🙂

@phoebegilliland8897

14 күн бұрын

This whole scene has a deeper meaning now.

My favorite character death, and one that still gets brought up today 3 years after it happened, was that of capable Epidemiologist Dr. Helen Walters. We were playing a Call of Cthulhu game wherein Boston was being locked down to combat an emerging and grotesque disease. We were key members of the CDC team sent to research this new disease. What it led us to ultimately was a Deep One city beneath the waters of Massachusetts Bay. We snuck through the city and found a gathering of Deep One's performing a ritual, presumably fueled by the deaths of the diseased, and reading from some book. Unsure of what to do about it, Helen decided to sneak away from the party, found some ceremonial robes to wear as well as a dagger, and snuck through to the center of the gathering. At a key moment she slashed out with the knife and sliced the book. She was immediately ripped to shreds by the Deep Ones, but it was a hell of a moment. o7

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!

Your video reminded me of a Dwarven warrior I played named Thorgar Stonefist. He was from a clan that had broken a promise to their king long ago and left their mountain home to live above ground. Despite his clan's past, Thorgar joined a group heading back into the mountains, knowing others might not trust him because of his heritage. In a big fight in an old throne room, Thorgar showed his true bravery. When someone threw a poisoned dagger at the king, Thorgar jumped in the way and got hit instead. As the poison started to kill him, he told his friends to save the king and leave him behind. He fought alone against a horde of orcs and ogres to protect his friends as they escaped. Thorgar’s last stand was about proving his loyalty and trying to fix his clan’s old mistakes. His story shows that heroes can come from anywhere and that it’s never too late to make things right. Thanks for making a video that brings up these kinds of powerful stories.

Great episode! I ran a homebrew Advanced Marvel Super Heroes campaign for around 16 years (technically, it's still only on hiatus). During the course of play, I had a couple or my players whose characters made the ultimate sacrifice. One of the most memorable sacrifices that comes to mind was when the team were battling a foe who had been plaguing them for a number of years and it was not going well for the heroes. During the battle, it was revealed that this villain was actually the symbiotic twin of a certain PC, who had Dark Matter and phasing powers. To save the party, he reached into his chest and phased out his own heart and crushing it, thereby killing himself and his brother. The rest of the group was shocked. Nay, dumbfounded. The next session we roleplayed the funeral (their decision), and it was incredibly moving. The next day, players were saying how awesome it was and how they actually felt like they'd been to a funeral and suffering real loss.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!!!

@sweebos

2 ай бұрын

I love hearing about long running campaigns like this. A superhero setting sounds very interesting. My brother-in-law really enjoys DMing and all the technical aspects of D&D. I've been playing with him in different campaigns for the last 10 years or so. I'm going to mention this to him and see if he's interested in, or thinks he technically can, craft something similar. The superhero vibe in a tabletop setting sounds really game sounds really fun to me. ✊

@Deadloke

2 ай бұрын

@@sweebos I can highly recommend the original Advanced Marvel Super Heroes by TSR. It is an amazing percentile based system where everything (and I mean everything!) is resolved on one chart - the Universal Table. AMSH, or FASERIP as it is also known, is an incredibly versatile set of rules that I have easily adapted to horror, wild west, fantasy and even Transformers! I have had some of my best RPG experiences running this system.

No sure if it was heroic, but my barbarian Gnome tried jumping a gap in cave because his party wouldn't stop arguing about how to solve a puzzle for 20 minutes. He died. The party argued less from that point forward.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Lol. Great story!

@orkcol

Ай бұрын

they did not die for nothing, a lesson seems to have been learnt

Thank you for not assuming I’ve ever seen critical role… Heard about it a lot of course but the only episode I’ve ever actually seen was one where there was a guest GM and they did Eldric horror as voice actors… Which was great

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Thanks!

@kentonbaird1723

3 ай бұрын

I tried one episode after hearing so, so much about it, so I tried something current (a new campaign, "exandia eternal" or something), and.... They spoke of poop for almost ten minutes straight. I dropped it with prejudice. I'm certain it's not all as bad as whatever the monkey-turd-hell that was, but first impressions are lasting.

@joelkurowski7129

3 ай бұрын

​@@kentonbaird1723pretty sure they're one of the primary reasons for jokey comedic characters being the majority of characters played in any particular D&D group

@ArticleNoun

3 ай бұрын

I 2nd this.

@Teschmacher

3 ай бұрын

​@@kentonbaird1723I hear you on the monkey turd, that was not a winner of a campaign intro.

As a teen, my character deaths were pretty ignominious, since the DM's were my peers. My best character, lvl 25+ died on a mountain top, holding his balls, from hypothermia because he did not bring the appropriate clothing. Rest well Kevin Landwaster and screw you John my dm and friend lol.

@NemoOhd20

3 ай бұрын

I too wish to die holding my balls.

@benjaminhoare5927

3 ай бұрын

Ignominious or not, the tale of Kevin's passing has made my life measurably superior, due to an ensuing giggling fit. So, I must raise a faux glass to Kevin. May his bereaved offspring never neglect to pack thermal underwear whilst scaling glacial mountain ranges. Cheers!

@FlintFireforge

3 ай бұрын

@@benjaminhoare5927 I am happy that Kevin's life has been redeemed 🤣

@oz_jones

3 ай бұрын

What did you learn? Layering, it's just the smart thing to do

@FlintFireforge

3 ай бұрын

@@oz_jones True 🤣

Superman isn't a hero because he has incredible powers. He's a hero because he risks his own safety and life even when he's lost his powers.

@Kinvarus1

3 ай бұрын

Yep. It reminds me of a line from an old episode of Stargate SG-1, where one of the team is trying to save them by risking their life and one of the other characters is angry and upset about it and the leader of the team just says to her "One of the hardest things about being on this team isn't risking your own life, it's watching your friends take chances with theirs."

I once had a group that was fighting a high level wizard that had a wall of force. The wizard kept taking them out with things like finger of death or power word kill from the other side of the wall. Finally, one of the characters blinked though the wall (the only one that could,) he threw down an earth elemental. He had the elemental grab the wizard's staff of power and snap it in half. Anyone who knows what the staff of power does when snapped knows that a nuke went off behind the wall of force. The wall of force made it so the nuke only killed the one player and the wizard, while everyone looked on. I don't think the player knew how the staff of power blows up when broken, but it was really epic.

It's very sweet to shout out the cast of your school's production of Mamma Mia.

My favorite character death was my runaway noble who became a Bard to become a stereotypical “hero”. In his final moments he got possessed by a demon, and fought the rest of the party, downing 2 of them, before getting executed by the party’s Paladin. The party kept the Heroism of him alive by never revealing how he truly died to the world. Just that he died heroically in battle against the forces of evil.

@garrettsweet9826

3 ай бұрын

Love these moments. Just a shared weight and burden made lighter by your comrades.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!

@Wyrmshield

3 ай бұрын

That must have been tough for the paladin to have to uphold the lie about the friend they had to execute

Unbelievable, Inconceivable! Another Dungeon Craft episode?!? Yes!

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@mkklassicmk3895

3 ай бұрын

I don't think that word means what you think it means. 😉

@RollForTuraco

3 ай бұрын

@@mkklassicmk3895 which word? Oh nevermind, took me a second. It WAS a loose reference, but to RUn DMC's song Tougher than Leather.

One of my favorite memories playing D&D was back in the early 90s in a 2e campaign. I had a wild mage gnome that also had a wand of wonder. Talk about chaos! I don't remember exactly, but we were mid-level and came up against a blue dragon. While it was younger, we really weren't strong enough to fight it and the DM expected us to run away. Everyone was feeling cocking and we attacked. We had some good tactics, we were spread out so it couldn't breath on all of us at once. We had someone that could fly and some good ranged attacks. We'd done some good damage the first few rounds, but then things quickly started going down hill. One of my wild magic surges resulted in me continually levitating upward. People are starting to drop unconscious. I'd used up all my spells and pulled out the wand of wonder. First roll summoned a rhino... needless to say rhino's can't fly. Splat! Things are really getting desperate, we don't want a TPK. So, the few PC that are still up start decide to run on their turn. Dragon turns toward me after it's previous turn. I'm up. I don't have the option to run as I'm just rising up in the air 20' every round. I use the wand again. The result is FIREBALL! The dragon fails it's save and falls from the sky... DEAD! Everyone's cheering, meanwhile, I'm still drifting upward with no spells left. The levitate ends. We had a homebrew rule that you were unconscious at 0 HP and dead at -10 (losing 1 hp each round unconscious). I fall 80 feet to the ground. Already low on HP, I died instantly. It was all worth it!

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Ouch! Epic! Thanks for sharing.

I have yielded to the rule of cool and and have had GM's yield for me. Once in particular while playing CPR. Most of the party was a heart beat from death, maybe all. We had achieved our intent and I was near an exit, I called for retreat and ducked out with the McGuffin information. Others started to follow when the bad-guy reinforcements arrived cutting one player off. The rest tried to return to fighting. I was playing a much older character, shouted something about "kids not listening." Aided by some insane rolls I was allowed to move my full distance without penalties from obstacles or acrobatics, retrieve an additional weapon and make more attacks than the rules should allow with the GM claiming because of the several crazy high rolls additional shots were "exploding" from the rolls. This did not clean up the mess but set the stage so that the others could sort it out and survive (with some permeant scars.) It all took place at what was to be the end of our session and there was nobody not whooping and hollering over that last 30 minutes, including the GM. All made possible because I said "This is what I want to try to do, how far can I get?" And the GM responded "start rolling and we'll see how far you do get." Then creatively bent rules in response to the dice. At one point I think I even said "No, I don't think I can do that, " over something the GM said. His response was "But this is so awesome that's what would happen if this was a film..."

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Cool DM.

My story goes like this: we were playing Curse of Strahd 5e adapted for the Grim Hollow setting. One of our characters was a paladin with an angelic transformation (can be found in the GH books), one of the few remaining beacons of pure light in the darkness dark, vampire-infested lands of Soma ruled by vampires. At one point in the story we were supposed to make a stand against an undead army, together with the city defenders (I think it was Kresk), and when we arrived there - one of the local good priestesses decided to sacrifice herself and summon the power of Light, but she... just dies. We had symbol of Ravenkind and were supposed to give it to her, but we understood her wrong and gave her a regular holy symbol. We were a bit shocked at this, but then our paladin goes "I'll do what she did." and the whole table was "What?!". Yeah, she decided to do the thing the priestess was supposed to do. In a single brave move, our friend offed a character she was playing weekly for a year. That was a paladin with a sunlight blade and that made the moment even more shocking and spectacular as nobody else was fit to carry it. The GM ruled that such a noble sacrifice was enough to stave off the undead in their entirety, allowing the mortal city defenders to regroup and flee together with us, so even though we've missed a grand battle - this moment alone was enough to steal (rightfully) the thunder that evening. She then returned with a new character the next session, but this didn't diminish the power of that moment.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Epic! Thanks for sharing.

Our best character death was in Icewind Dale. We had a goblin alchemist artificer (because anybody useful is welcome in Ten Towns). We rolled a random encounter with orogs at level 3 or 4, out in the wilderness. The goblin rolled poorly on death saves, and perished alone in the cold. The party took it extremely hard. We were playing virtually at the time due to COVID, and the player could have totally fudged his natural 1 on the roll, but honor won out. His new character was a cleric who eulogized the fallen goblin at the funeral pyre, along with the rest of the party. Guba, you will be missed and always remembered.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!

I was in a Star Wars Saga Edition game once. I was playing as a Miraluka Jedi who got locked in a container with a couple Ysalamiri (lizards that nullify force abilities around them). I was found by a Sith Inquisitor.... and died in a Lightsaber duel where I was blind. But not before leaving a massive gash in the chest of the Inquisitor. The campaign died out shortly after that, but that is one of my favorite character deaths of all time. I went down swinging.

We had a character death a little while back. Clifford was an old human artificer. He was pinned down by archers from the second story of a bandit fort and made a mad dash to the ground level, avoiding bolts whizzing past his head, only to be cut down when he tried slipping through an open window that was full of the toughest bandits in the whole fort. My forest troll sorceress liked that friendly old coot, even if they hadn't been traveling together long. She made it her mission to bring a gift from Clifford to his estranged daughter, who goes by the nom de guerre, the Copper Mantis. It does suck losing a character, but it enriches the story of a campaign when the stakes are high and the surviving members of the party mourn lost comrades, give them a decent burial, or, as in my case, make it one of their long-term goals to carry out the slain character's final wishes.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!!! Thanks for sharing!

The death of one of my favorite characters I ever played was also one of the saddest but most understandable moments for him. I'm a forever DM and rarely get to play when my younger brother offered to run a small campaign using the lost mines of phandelver I made one character for it and he died around session 3 greedly trying to get some sunken treasure that the rest of the party refused to go after, an understandable death but not the one I'm talking about here. My next character was a black dragonborn cleric of Tiamat, he had his cult wiped out when he was young and horribly misinterpreted Tiamat to be a benevolent being who would bring prosperity to every but especially dragons and would go around preaching her good name and trying to stop evil dragons. After hearing word about a dragon slaying sword in an ancient burial mound the party set off to retrieve it to fight the final boss of that campaign unfortunately the sword was guarded by an invisible stalker but he had already grabbed the weapon and stashed it on his back. Instead of dropping the sword he chose to stand and hold his ground against the stalker while the rest of the party ran. It's definitely the way Belassar would have wanted to go out.

I vividly remember a cool death scene one of my players had during House of Strahd (2e). It was during an epic back-and-forth battle with Strahd and the elven rogue/mage in desperation threw a fireball at Strahd which came back at her (thanks to his ring of spell turning), she failed her save and got vapourized! Strahd was eventually defeated but the whole combat was epic and the player who's character got nuked by her own fireball considered it a great ending for her so none of us at the table were terribly upset about it. This happened about 2 years ago and the player asked me if I would write a reprise so the party could travel back to Castle Ravenloft to retrieve her body/ashes. This has turned into another pretty cool story which we're playing through right now. It was a heroic death in the first instance and the reprise is turning into another interesting story too.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!

@BW022

3 ай бұрын

I remember my death sense from Ravenloft (1e). I was hit by some ghouls and paralyzed. The other PCs quickly stashed me in a room with no (visible) exits while they continued to fight outside the room. Unknown to us, the cards had Stradh always present in the secret room next door to where I was stashed. The PCs finished their fight, came back to check on me, and found me... blood and entrails smeared all over the walls. Yes the DM killed me "off screen" and it was hardly epic, but still over 40 years from now I remember it and my best friend and I still joke about the faces of the other players as he described the scene. Truly epic deaths are rare and DMs (and players) shouldn't try to avoid it, save the character, etc. I think my favorite was there was a reoccurring back guy I was really sick of running into. My character had a teleporting stone for 'emergencies'. During the battle with the bad guy (way beyond our power level), my gnome rogue ran up to him, grabbed his hand, and broke the stone in my other hand. When the DM asked where I wanted to teleport to, I just said 2,000 feet straight up. Neither of us had anyway to fly, so... a minute later we hit the ground and instantly died. The rest of the players made a shrine at the place we 'landed'.

I had a character that was an ent sapling that was awakened by the nature goddess to purify her sacred groves that had become corrupted. I was a druid and the DM gave me the ability to burn both uses of my wild shape sorta like with moon druids to turn into different kinds of ents with different abilities. He was a little nieve to the world outside his own grove so there was some hijinks there but he was fully trusting of his party and there was no motive outside of healing nature for him so the party trusted him. He learned what it meant to be kind and learned humanity. The party was tasked with putting a stop to this poison that was leaking out of this mine as it had filled with toxic gas and pox ridden monsters. Fighting through the tunnels wore down the party and half of us had failed our con saves to resist being poisoned from the gas filling the Mines. We eventually got caught between a large gelatinous cube and a plague giant. The cube got dealt with but two of our party members were down, one fled, and the cleric was dragging the unconscious members to safety because he couldn't revive them as he was out of spells. Using my power to grow to a more powerful ent, I stayed back to fight the giant while the cleric dragged the others out of the Mines. Final words to the party were "I stay, you go, no following." Tears were shed, and it's still one of the players favorite characters I ever played. Gotta say, I loved doing the whole final stand while your friends escape and you sacrifice yourself thing. Out of all my characters, Gwyndod has been the only one that evokes "Hero" to me. I can only hope I can be so lucky as to have such an opportunity to do that again.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Epic! Thanks for sharing.

Long post, but think you will like the second one at the end: I have one character that has died twice. "Truligar Grit" A dwarf. I like to make a new version every once in a while in different games. The first time was many years ago. Party was in bad shape. Was a Dwarven defender. Party was fleeing through a forest trying to get to our ship. Two large devouring hungers pursuing. Truligar decided to turn, plant his adamantine tower shield down and hold them back to buy party a few turns. Meeting end from a critical hit on a vorpal bite. Second time I actually like more and was a bit of revenge on the party. Was one of the groups where had a murderhobo in party. Truligar was a holy paladin here. Protecting the weak, etc. Well, murderhobo causes us huge issues and we are getting beat down hard. Hobo decides whoops and dimension doors out with another. Monk runs, leaving Truligar facing off solo vs four big guys cause was protecting rest of party. Well, I said, 'since you all left, I want to resolve this in private with GM because I would not escape. Impossible. So after session, I handed GM my character sheet and said Truligar would never give up. Resolve it how ever you wish. Party comes back. Baddies left because were found out. Mission failed and in a pit they find what remains of Truligar with his trademark armor. Party seeking amends decide they wish to return the body to my order since resurrecting was not possible. They arrive and the whole city suddenly goes into an uproar. Keep in mind, this is GM making more backstory beyond what I had. Turns out, Truligar was a beloved prince and heir a dwarven throne. People line the streets in grief. The party is led before the king and queen who are overwhelmed with emotions and sorry.... Which suddenly turns to blood curdling rage. The king pulls his adamantine sword and cleaves the body in twain. Sundering the armor. The body and armor was not that of Truligar, but was an elaborate proxy fabrication vs the adamantine plate which would have resisted such a strike. Shame fell upon the party. Where was the prince. What had they done. Word spread fast and they were pariahs all over. Having to get help from my new character, a gnome barbarian who rode a giant centipede. I didnt know any of what this plan was. After my sheet handed over? That was it. No word or sign at all. Until one day, the cult is laying waste to a town when party arrives as part of a rescue team. The evil army commanded by non other than hell knight and fallen paladin, Truligar. Broken by unrelenting torture with nothing left but the memory of how quickly was abandoned by those he dedicated his life to protect. Essentially holy divine paladin became deathbringer because GM was frustrated with how other characters were acting.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

AWESOME!

My first character a 1st ed thief fail a save on a poison needle trap and died on the spot. The rest of the party looted his body and moved on leaving his corpse for the dungeon's scavengers. I was more than just a little hurt by this but I got over it. Yet another character, 2nd ed haflelf mage/theif got surprised and was stabbed by a poison dagger. The GM aloud one last act so I cast hypnotic pattern and made them believe it was so hot out and the vial of poison on there belt was cool fresh water. They failed their save and quoffed the vial in a single drink. The rest of the party were all making calls to come to my aid, but both the GM and I stood hard and fast on the notion he was on a scouting mission and no one else knew where he had gone. It was a good death, alone in a dark filthy alley, and strangely no one accused me of being a murder hobo because my last act was to extract revenge upon my killer. Differnt times.

"I want you to share your stories of your favourite fallen characters" That's... that's like the entire purpose of my channel. A celebration of my player's characters whose lives were tragically cut short. We also do burning of character sheets in a "Kiln of the Fallen".

@codydrebenstedt7221

3 ай бұрын

Congratulations, your comment has piqued my interest and I will now be checking out your channel.

Sam's always had a great understanding of the importance of holding onto your character with an open hand. Every campaign, his character's departure of irreversable transformation has been memorable and meaningful impactful. I still remember the shot I had when Scanlan left. At the moment, it came out of left field, but as the character's decisions settled, it felt right.

One of my favorite moments in a game was, my character (a 5e halfling paladin) moved through an enemy's square to get to the bbeg. I attacked him, his minions attacked me and the turns moved back to the bbeg. The bbeg had a staff of striking and he "smote" my character. I went down. The party druid cast healing word bringing me back to 1hp. I stood up and said, "That tickled let me show you the true power of the Divine." I then rolled with inspiration (advantage) and smote the bbeg. I then did an off hand attack and smote again, with a nat 20. I two shot the BBEG, but I was still surrounded by his minions, and they were up next. Needless to say it was an epic death.

I remember a time when my player gave his life to destroy an old manufacturing facility infested with mind-flayer brain things. He was a "Grey Paladin" whose Goddess had died in the last great cosmic war, and still retained his devotion to her after her death. The tragedy is no one knew of the infestation but him, and the place connected to a Duergar settlement, so he called out to evacuate them and his party took it on faith and obeyed. He died stoically and heroically in a world where there hasn't supposed to be anymore heroes. Hiraeth, follower of Sarenrae, a character I will never forget.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!

Love that you shouted your students out for their performance.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Great show!

I love all Dungeoncraft videos! I'm usually stuck behind the GM screen so I don't get a lot of opportunity for character death, but I've always been a big fan of heroic sacrifice and if a player goes for it I've always honored it. My favorite was a low level Pathfinder Cleric named Jean Deaux. We were in dungeon that was supposed to be a training ground gone wrong. We ran into a shadow at a point where I was really the only one who could damage at all and it wasn't going to be enough. Jean yelled for everyone to get out but we had a very new player who really didn't understand how bad of a situation it was and got very badly strength drained. Jean ran in and tossed the party member back to the rest of the group and made himself the most tempting target while the party ran away. He cried out to tell his wife he loved her very much before succumbing to the shadow. Had a good fun moment and the new players learned death can happen at any time, and most importantly doesn't need to be the end.

I played a Bard named Mordos, CG College of Lore. He had split-personality disorder, with an Alter named Kill who was CE. They adventured with the party and Kull was sorta like Eddie Brock/Venom with the two personalities switching at the sight of blood. Well the last session I had with him we were all pressed down in this dungeon almost like the Death House from Strahd. I was dying and the blood caused me to switch to Kull, but both of the personalities were finally in agreement on saving his friends. So Kull sacrificed himself to get them out and set the house on fire to save them, dying in the process.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Epic!!!

one of my favorite character deaths at my table was one of the first times I had ever actually killed a player character it was a city based campaign and the party was being hounded by a massive criminal gang that had more power than even the king did, at one point they made a bad decision and got caught with their pants down in the middle of the street surrounded by gangers, deciding to run rather then face certain death they eventually stumbled into an alleyway and started to climb up the buildings, however the gangers made it up to them and using their bows or spears they would eventually pull or knock them back down so one player, playing a massive friendly orc, decided to drop down and scream at them, attacking wildly at anyone who dared step close, buying the rest of the party enough time to make it to the top of the building and hide, the character died of course, they might have been a mighty orc but they were still nothing against nearly ten or twenty gangers with powerful weapons, but we never forgot that moment and we all still recount it to this day!

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!

35 years ago, I sacrificed my first ever character by jumping through a portal and closing it behind me to prevent demons from coming out. He's not dead, but trapped in another world somewhere. I would love to get a chance to play him again. RIP Caltan the Cavalier.

@drillerdev4624

3 ай бұрын

If he has a sturdy sock to fill with a good ol' stone, he'll be fine.

@beowulfshaeffer8444

3 ай бұрын

And when your latest party finds him again, he is wandering through the depths of hell, leaving a path of destruction in his wake. In their last groans of pain, the twisted horrors can talk only of "The Slayer."

I watched this moment again after Sam revealed why he took the time off and I think I cried harder than when I first watched it. It's moments like these that show how good Critical Role's cast truly is. Another banger, Professor!

Years ago I played a monk with a tragic encounter with an undead in his backstory. Unfortunately, I had to leave the campaign due to military deployment. So my character was allowed to sacrifice himself saving the rest of the party and the DM worked in that he had been cursed by his childhood incident - and the curse passed itself to the nearest other PC when he went. An epic moment and a story hook to remember the character by.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!!!

It was definitely a great, unforgettable moment. Many of your words and gaming advice were on my mind as Matt didn’t pull any punches throughout the battle as the dice kept rolling in his favor. He even had a slight look of dread on his face as he tried to slightly make light of the session looking like a tpk. Sam is one of the best role players on air, and FCG’s sacrifice was EPIC! Thanks for the video and insights. Keep up the great work.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching!

Exandria...Alexandria was made BY Justin

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

I know. I screwed up.

@Bisclas

3 ай бұрын

Actually it was Alexander the Great in 331 BC.

@gabzi27

3 ай бұрын

Also Otohan Thull is a she/they.

@THELUBINTHEMORNING

3 ай бұрын

​@@gabzi27 "They" is plural.

@gabzi27

3 ай бұрын

Otohan Thull was referred to as "him" at 3:01 in this video.

Hail the victorious dead! Great gaming moment, well played Sam Riegel! I recently ran a game of Mothership where the team included two Androids. One failed his Sanity check and went psycho, turning on the team before fleeing. Later, as the team was surrounded by voracious alien creatures and trying to board a dropship to escape, the other Android grabbed an excavation explosive charge and ran in the direction of the alien creatures. He detonated in their midst, killing many and disrupting the others, giving the team a chance to escape. All the players cheered. Best moment in the game.

My GM created a similar situation for me. We were playing a supers game based on the eXiles comic. In the middle of the climactic battle he slipped me a note-“you can defeat him right now but you will die doing it.” I nodded and took over narrative control to describe how we met death together. I loved that character. I loved playing that character. And I celebrate his heroic sacrifice.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Nice!

Always happy to have another Dungeon Craft video to watch.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Thank you!

So we were playing Star Wars d6. Our group had evolved from free-lancing agents to rebels proper, and we were currently flying X-wings to escort two medical frigates. There were some 3000 people on board each: 750 crew, 750 patients, and about 1500 refugees and rebel evacuees. Suddenly, an Imperial Star Destroyer jumped out of hyperspace, spewing out TIEs of every variant, intent on killing every rebel scum they could find. We were seriously outgunned. We could perhaps save one of the frigates by focusing the fighter defence screen around that, and sacrifice the other. We didn’t like the scenario one bit. We looked at each other around the table, and nobody said anything, but silently an agreement took shape. We knew what we had to do. The guy playing the leader of the group went into character. “Green group, s-foils in attack position! Green two, focus on the shield generator. Three and four, punch us a hole through those TIES. Five, try to take out the hangars. Six, follow me to the bridge. Let’s sink that f*cker.” Or something like that. And the GM blinked. “What, you can’t do that!” “Stop us” someone said. “But, it’s an Imperial Star Destroyer!” “Yes, we know.” The GM drew a huge triangle on a sheet of paper. “This is the Star Destroyer.” Six small dots. “That’s you.” I think every GM in existence have used that trick. “Yes, we know.” To his credit, the GM didn’t try to stop us. He went outside for a smoke and a think. And when he came back, he ran that fight. He gave us a few rounds of free actions because the Star Destroyer commander was as surprised as he was, but then he was merciless. We lost two of us just diving in. My character did a kamikaze run towards the hangar, after emptying every proton torpedo I had. One rammed the shield generator. One managed to ram the bridge. One was killed on the way out. We all died, but both medical frigates got away. Six X-wings for two frigates and 6000 crew, patients and refugees. A bargain in our mind. Best ending of a campaign I have ever experienced.

@farflownfalcon1076

3 ай бұрын

Epic!

@commiedeer

3 ай бұрын

Now that was a glorious way to go out

@beowulfshaeffer8444

3 ай бұрын

Epic! Now the closest I can get to a toast :) kzread.info/dash/bejne/gJie26SLp7XgodY.htmlsi=SRZmBc8Ww4iwiU2y

I was playing a half-troll named Bjarni. The group was fleeing a castle keep and they just had to shut the gate behind them to prevent pursuit (that would have killed them all). The gate was a massive set of wooden double doors. The problem was that the doors swung inward and pulling them shut behind us would have slowed us down enough to get attacked. As the last party member ran through the gate they heard Bjarni say "Run!" as he pushed the massive gate shut behind them.

We were playing Traveller, big epic space battle trying to save a planet from a warlord. We had managed to destroy most of the enemy fleet but we were the last ship and out of ammo. So the PC who was playing the ship captain said "ramming speed";

I love ALL Dungeon Craft videos! Thanks for making my game better, Professor!

❤ Awesome stuff Pro GM. I love all your stuff, keep it coming.

I completely agree with heros sacrifice, not survive to 20th level. In a recent campaign where I actually got to be a player and not the DM. The campaign was one where all of the characters were all Orcs from the same tribe. We had just reached 5th level. 3rd - 6th level are where I believe the best gaming takes place. Our part was made up of my battle master fighter, a fanatical follower of the one eyed god (cleric) , a scrawny outcast orc whoncould barely control his unwanted magic powers (wild magic sorcerer) and stoic Orc who served as the clans animal handler (circle of the shepard Druid). Not that any of that matters. The point is my fighter had been tasked with guarding this weird group when they had been sent out to find out why a large army of goblins had enough backbone to invaded our mountain territory. We had tracked them to an abandoned dwarven mine. In the bottom we found why it had been abandoned. Deep in a flooded cavern we were surprised and ambushed by a black dragon. There is no way we were going to survive if we stood our ground. We could tell the DM was expecting us to turn and run back the way we had come. Looking at my companions I knew that even if we ran there was no way we were out running a black dragon while trying tonrun in waist deep water. So I turned to my team mates a yelled for them to run then I turned and charged at the dragon. I knew itnwould mean my death but hoped it would give enough time for the rest of the party to escape. The DM was shocked. The other players were speechless. Charging into certain death to attack a black dragon so your friends can escape is heroism. If Inhad run I could probably have lived but the sorcerer and possibly the druid would have died for sure. Instead I did what any true Orc warrior should do. I attacked.

A few months ago, one of the characters in my game died heroically in combat. The character was a guru and father figure to another character. Through demonic magic, the dead character keeps reappearing to the party, and each time the players are visably shaken. At the end of the last session some of them talked about how it effected them. I love how a character death can become part of the wider story.

I love all of Dungeon Craft videos! I should start watching CR again.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

It's lots of fun!

Probably the most epic death I ever had for one of my characters was in a Villains & Vigilantes game. My character was a Japanese navy officer from WW II that had been transported to an alien world instead of killed when his ship exploded, ala John Carter, only to return in the modern day. He had alien armor and it could could create any small weapon he could imagine (which was typically WW II era Japanese stuff). We were fighting a big bad on the edge of a lava field kind of like Mustafar, and nothing we did against this guy worked. He was smashing us down and wearing us out and it really looked like he was going to win and kill some of the other characters, his new friends who had helped him adjust to the modern world... so my guy tackled him into the lava, something even his alien armor couldn't protect him from. He died along with the villain, who couldn't survive the lava either. Epic, and the shocked and mournful reactions from the other players made it even better!

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!!!

We were playing Princes of the Apicalypse. My artificer was keenly wirried about the outcome of the upcoming boss fight which would decide the fate of the world. He made for himself a second bag of holding. Yep you guessed it, when things got really bad and it looked like a TPK or that s primordial god was about to enter through the portal we were unable to close because of its powerful defenders I broke off fron the group and got within 10 ft of 3 of the most powerful enemies. Then I stuff one bag of holding into the other. My artificer and the 3 enemies were sucked into the Astral Plane. I had not told anyone I eas planning on this and only let the DM know that I was making a second bag of holding, though I did nor tell him why. One of my famous quotes when playing abd things look grim is this "You're going to love my new character." I'm not looking for my characters to die but Im always orepared to go out like a boss if I can.

One of my players had been playing a reborn bardlock. He had become the defacto leader of the party and was always making things more complicated by dreaming up wild hi-jinx in an effort to usher in his idea of a utopia. Having cut a deal with an evil demi goddess of spiders they delved into the castle ruins of the long dead god of ambition. He got greedy and thought he could outsmart a trap in a dungeon filled with legendary magic items. The trap was an imprisonment spell and the rest of the party has no intent to wander back in there. RIP Dave...

In one of my Pendragon games, we were sieging a city. My character, Sir Arnold who was notably loyal to arthur, asked the king what I could do. "Take that wall!" I gathered my vassels and led the assault up the ladders, reaching the top of the wall due to his inspiration, Loyal(Arthur) which was a 20. He died at the top of the wall. The next day, the city surrendered. Arthur had Arnold's body sealed in a lead coffin and transported back to England and oversaw his funeral. My vassels survived.

@thewyldness

3 ай бұрын

incredible!

I undesrtand the point of the video. But I personally don't like to be in a table where things just don't have real consequences because the DM (or some player) thought it would be cool if the monster lasted one more round. One of the things that I love most about TTRPGs and in my opinion set it apart from other medias is the fact that your choices can have actual consequences. If you like to play by the "rule of cool", that's okay if everyone agrees with that. But I think "cool" is something very absctract, and can mean different things for each person. It wouldn't be cool for me if my character didn't die after I made a very risky choice, only because the DM or someone thought it would be cool if he had one more round to live.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

We are of the same mind. In the example I gave, I did not change the outcome of the battle, & the player never knew. If one of the characters had died, then they die. In fact, I roll all my dice in public, so the players know I am not pulling punches.

@dadoscriticos

3 ай бұрын

@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I see. I think I misunderstood the point, then. Thanks!

We just completed a homebrew campaign arc. The party had confronted the arcs BB and the battle had lasted a long time (multi-session) and the group resources were all but spent. One character, Bert, had received a special eye that replaced his missing natural eye - the item card stated that if the eye were to be removed, he would die. The character was very long lived and had a connection to a creature that made pacts and bargains. Ultimately, Bert bargained his eye away - killing him and in turn, killing the BB. The player remembered the connection and made the decision. There was even a spot where the character could have been revivified, but the player was, "No, Bert can now be at peace with his ghostly wife - also now at peace since he's dead." A noble sacrifice befitting the character!

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

2 ай бұрын

Cool!

My favorite character was a half-orc barbarian from back in the days of 3.5 d&d. he had an intelligence score of 4 and was really naïve. Anyways, on the first game of the campaign we raided an abandoned wizard’s tower and my half-orc gruzz found an old wizard robe, staff, and a moldy spell book and he figured he was now a wizard because he had all the stuff to be a wizard and no one could tell him different. After two years of playing and getting him to level 16 he sacrificed himself to save the party from the dragons. He was convinced that his “spell” was powerful enough to save everyone. So he picked up his axe to cast “wall of force” and charged and swung as hard as he could. The DM loved the idea and I rolled a nat 20 to boot. It was like the moment for that movie ring of fire. The dragons atomic acid got him though and he was welcomed to the eternal library by the god of magic because of his steadfast devotion to the arcane. Me and the friends there still talk about it to this day and will sometimes raise a glass to gruzz.

I'll click this video and every one I see pop up in my notifications

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Thanks!

"A role playing game is a framework of rules used to tell a dramatic story." This...this will become my personal DM Creed!!!!!

Amazing. Bonkers. Thrilling. Hilarious. Heartfelt. Devastating. Wall to wall tension. First time I've actually cried watching CR. Absolutely incredible episode.

It was Matt Colville’s description of Sam’s character’s tough decision at the end of Campaign One that got me to watch my first episode of CR. So, I watched the finale and then I wanted to know how they got there. For me, the “cast” are friends playing D&D who happen to be actors but because they are actors they make for a very engaging campaign to enjoy as a spectator.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing.

I played a Paladin named Sir Ash. He was based off the Evil Dead Ash and was cursed with the worst luck of any character I've ever played while at the same time somehow able to survive even the worst situations. We were sent to Ravenloft and while that was bad enough for him what was worse was that he had a Holy Avenger(+0) which if you know the rules is a Beacon. A Paladin alone can be sensed by the ruler of the Demi plane but with a Holy Avenger they can tell exactly where the paladin is at all times. He stepped in front of the mummies that came for the party and told them to run. A noble end to a punching bag of a character, it was amazing.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!!! Thanks for sharing!

Fantastic points - the hardest part of collecting the right players at the table is getting to know if they'll appreciate the heroics instead of crunching the numbers. There's nothing like a table gathered around the fire to create legends.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Legends are what make the game fun, in my humble opinion.

The Dwarf Cleric in our party detonated all of his fireballs in his necklace of fireballs when he was swallowed by the purple worm. Bits were raining down everywhere.

Death is a great part of the game in general. This is part of the draw with OSR [lighter rules, more challenge, persistent threat of death] but can easily apply to all tabletop games. The 1st level wizard who dies in the first scrap and is unmourned is not hard for a player to recover from and helps keep the players oriented that they should be on their toes. And it does make for some fun stories for the group of players (and diegetic story beats for the surviving characters). The 6th level rogue [or her player] who may have taken it for granted that all fights would be fair provides a good lesson to the rest of the party that, just like in real life, it's not always the case that the world is balanced and fair, and if you underestimate things, things can end fast. Player tags back in soon with a new character (maybe even a different class that the player wanted to try out for a while) and they are off on new adventures, perhaps a little wiser. [As a side note, my players, especially long-term ones from back in the day learned that whenever possible, you don't take a fair fight, and you always try to get the advantage in a situation or retreat and find a smarter 'in'... so they were rarely to cautious to open the door or try to unpuzzle the trap, since I basically would never kill them with something cheap like that, but they would always use the environment, bottleneck goons, prepare assaults with clever tactics and spell use, and genuinely approach most "combat scenarios" with considerably more creativity that "draw blades and rush to melee".] The 13th level cleric who dies in a blaze of glory to save the day. Who, as silly as our hobby is sometimes, will put a smile on the faces of every single player of that game when they think about them, even years later. When you lose a character, it can be hard, but it's not like the game is over. Hell, even if there is a TPK (which should be rare and should only result from massively bad decision making *and* ill-favor from the dice gods, in my opinion), there is something to learn and opportunities for next time. The old party is wiped. Next session, all players make new characters set at perhaps a level or two behind. The players can try different builds and the DM can grant them a different (and perhaps proportionally weaker) set of magical gear and boons. This was actually an adventuring party who was hot on the trail of the boss/antagonist that ended the last party, but was always one step behind and in the shadow of the glory of the former party. They hear news of the original party being wiped and they know they are not as strong and cannot win in a straight forward attack... they will have to be smarter. And when the players riddle out a new path with then new party, perhaps they recover 1-2 of the favorite [and sentimental] items of the lost heroes, to bring it full circle, and even though narratively their new characters may or many not have a real connection to their old ones, they feel like they avenged their old characters, not by brute force, but by being twice and clever and resilient than before.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

For my second ever DnD character I played a capybara barbarian who used path of wild magic. It was because my main character for that had gotten into some trouble and had to make a run for it, so we were pretty close to meeting up with that one again. So, while we were fighting a really hard boss I asked if I could use my wild magic surge to explode. It was a super memorable moment, and we still joke about it to this day since a capybara just detonating in a dramatic death scene was hilariously tragic.

I really appreciate this video, well said sir! As a forever GM my biggest gaming regret, and learning experience, is that rule of cool. In my first campaign, the Wretch Of The Campaign was a high-level wizard. I had a party chasing down the wizard for 3 or 4 years. Half my players were about to move 2 hours away and during our final game session, the party made it to the top of the wizard's tower to fight him. Years previously I'd built the stats for the wizard, but I made the mistake of allowing the rules as written to override the player satisfaction. The 10HP contingency teleport I'd written in went off and my players were left without a satisfying conclusion. Even though the wizard had only teleported one level down the tower, the players were so irritated that it ended up being that his disappearance resulted in the end of the campaign. Learn from my mistakes.

One of my players became trapped in a suit of magical full plate that was fused together in a magical fire after a critical fail on a saving throw. He was wearing a ring of sustenance and a ring of healing. He was taken by a band of orcs and worshipped as a mad prophet statue until he died of old age.

We have always made it a rule that if a player wants to sacrifice themselves, then they end up getting to do something game changing. When we played Warhammer 40k: Dark Heresy, my Psyker (Cromwell) had taken out the big bad on the first 3rd of the campaign by simply running up to them with an arm full of frag grenades and setting them off before the big bad opened the portal to the demon dimension (whatever that is in 40k). It was great! After that, the rest of the party wore buttons on their shirts or jackets that said "Remember Cromwell's Sacrifice"

I was running Tomb of Annihilation, heavily homebrewed to be like 28 weeks later. The whole island was overrun there was no safe place and sound constantly attracted hordes that were nigh unstoppable. My players got stuck in a house when a large horde hit breaking through the windows and ripping some of their retainers to pieces. My zombies come in several hordes of 10 with a 60-ft run speed so escape would not have been possible given their compromised position and the amount of noise they made up to that point during a struggle. The druid turned into a triceratops having recently seen one, set himself ablaze, and ran in the opposite direction through the horde goring and burning. The players were able to escape seeing a small mushroom cloud in the distance as the player detonated a fireball point blank for his death knell.

Best Death: Created a halfling monk named Badger for a westmarches game. Level 1. Other players level 3 with some magic items. Sessions starts with a bar fight. Sorcerer character wins initiative and casts tidal wave to clear the crowd. Badger gets knocked out before he ever does anything at all in the game. Fails three death saves. Badger we hardly knew ye. I picked up a pre-gen Half orc fighter and had a great time. Second best death: Playing Delta Green. We are in Afghanistan looking for monsters with US soldiers. My doctor is helping a wounded soldier when the LAV gets hit by an RPG. No save. No heroic death. No last words. Just gone. My friends laugh about how unlucky it was, I think it was awesome. My replacement DG character got smoked by a stray shotgun blast mid sentence several months later while sitting in a car. I would say random and arbitrary player death with little to no heroics or fan fare can make for some of the best game play moments.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Epic!!

I was playing a specialty character class back in 3.5 called a Beguiler. They are completely useless offensively but they deny enemies turns, control them, debuff them. A complete supporter in many ways. I loved it. To this day nothing has given me the same feeling. We fought a Hydra but were best on all sides by other enemies. I kept it at bay, denying its heads strikes and managing to enchant/beguile/warp them from killing my team. But then it broke and my healer was close to death, so I used an ability to make myself essentially taunt it. It didn't stop it from attacking, it just made it attack me. It was a moment I'll remember because he'd been a selfish little snot, but seeing his friends about to die made him want to do one last thing. The team lived, he died. I made new characters but none as special as that one.

In the first session of an online Starfinder game, my PC sacrificed himself for the others. We were in final battle against giant bugs (think Starship Troopers). My PC, a military chaplain of Cleric type class, put himself in harms way to heal another via touch. My PC took the killing blow and gave the others enough time to finish off the bug. It was awesome!

my favorite character death was when I played an eldritch knight who followed Nerull, and worked for a cult trying to resurrect their dead god and overthrow the raven queen. The group got their hands on the deck of many things and he pocketed it and returned the artifact to his masters. At that point he was retired as a PC, but returned at the end of the campaign as the final boss, now an avatar of Nerull reborn, and everyone had to fight and finish him off.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!

CoC 1890: A carriage chase at night. Something big is also moving in the sky between the clouds. The player decide to use dynamite to stop the pursuing carriage, but the Throw roll is badly fumbled and the supplementary Luck roll too. The dynamit stick falls on the floor of their own carriage. One of the player decides to block the possible explosion with his body to same the other players... The heroe dies and saves his comrades.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Epic! Thanks for sharing.

Well Bell’s Hells took out Otohan Thull (Kass) and only one of them died. Now they are going after Ludinus Da'leth (Vecna), and the chances of all of them dying is very high. Characters die in campaigns all the time. Back in 1e that happened almost every play session.

I've never had the noble death character. All of my characters I was able to keep alive save for two who couldn't stop dying. One was a NE half elf fighter/thief that got killed around every corner but the party or higher powers would keep resurrecting him. He was a bit like Riddick about a decade before the first movie came out. The other was a NG gnome fighter the party kept using an artifact to reincarnate. After about four times he came back as an ogre magi and ended up getting an immortality curse placed on him. He was better than most thieves in the party or encountered. It was hysterical.

"You killed them didn't you?" "... I did!" I love it!

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching until the end.

Back in the 90's I used to run three games a week in a game shop, one whole wall of the room we played in was a bulletin board. Every character who died would pin his or her sheet to this wall, usually with a few words about the death written across the sheet in magic marker. After three years that wall was covered with character sheets and the players could still remember a lot of those deaths when seeing the old sheets.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

That's an awesome idea!

@jobear41

2 ай бұрын

I love this so much.

I had a player who aligned his character diametrically opposite the cleric and paladin of the party. He played his character as a blasphemous offence to the one true god. In the end the rest of the group were forced to arrest him and turn him over to the inquisition. We roleplayed the inquisitorial investigation, allowing the PC an 'out', but at the opening gambit he cursed the inquisitors and blasphemed his way to a Guilty verdict. He was summarily burned at the stake, and all his possession, and records of his existence were erased or destroyed. Roleplay at its very best.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!

I have to say, although I have had issues with some of your content, today you hit the perfect note. Quite simply you are 100% spot on!!! EVERYTHING you said is bob on. With 45 years of gaming under my belt you evoked everything that is right and good about role playing. Bravo Sir.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Editing a new CR video now. Stay tuned.

A bit of a shorter story, but i recently lost my artificer in a big boss battle. Essentially, we were fighting an ancient beholder-kin on the level of a minor god that had been trapped for millennia and was threatening to break out. We were trying to eliminate its avatar and its summoner to prevent this, and we were fighting on its home turf: a section of the Far Realm. Instead of the usual anti-magic cone, the central eye created a massive anti-healing cone that covered about 90% of the usable map. Our party wizard had just collapsed to zero HP, our fighter was fighting death saves, our warlock was trying to get over to the fighter, and our rogue was way out of range of everyone else while being the sniper. I had my character (an owlin artificer) fly over the horror we faced and try to punch the eye to force it to blink to give it warlock the chance to bring the fighter back up. However, that placed me right over the horror's mouth. I got hit by a subzero freezing ray from one of the various eye stalks, and it reduced me to zero HP. My character was frozen solid, and I plummeted into the creature's mouth below. I didn't get a final action, but I know my actions helped us win by keeping that eye ray (and the previous one targeting me that missed) away from the others. RIP, Soren Nyroc.

this was a moving thing to discuss ... talking about how players between surviving and heroism i think this is a gray area were a player can feel between, 1- "i want to hold out and continue to help the group when i am best at" to 2- "no matter what happens, i'll have my teams back even if it makes my life cut short cause this is the most fun i ever had" players will have these delemas where they want to be heros or they want to survive as long as they can.. players that have a character for several months i say at least more then 5 to 7 months or at least 8 to 10 play session, some will grow a bond with the character and want more to do with it. so thanks for talking about this

A Polish comicbook author, Tomasz Grodecki said about his superhero's (Ćma, The Moth in English) heroism that it can be referred to as Supersuidalism. Because what makes you a hero of an action comicbook? The willingness to put your life on the line and not thinking, whose going to follow your footsteps or take your place (sacrificing themselves for others).

I played an Aasimar Trickster cleric named Saxon Coburg. I started him in the official D&D adventure league up to level 11, and was allowed to continue him in a homebrew for the Tyranny of Dragoons campaign. He was a liar among liars (actor feat helped a ton), wore glamoured armor to change clothing appearance, and could disguise self. He would literally look & sound like the king, ask for the gold, then leave. Just like Benny from the Mummy, he wore a necklace of the Gods and NEVER cast a spell under the Trickster God. He would infiltrate the enemy camp, dominate a brute from the bad guy side, then have the baddies kill each other, never lifting a finger. In just a couple sessions, the cult of the dragon firmly believed that they had an insurrection; and it was a continuous problem for the baddies. The GM sent an elite assassin squad to find the mole (me) and they resisted my attempts to charm or dominate...we had to flee. When we found a hole to hide in and finally take a long rest, I prepared and cast Planar Ally, pleading for help from Bahamut...which we got for free, a dragon ally that we could ride till Tiamat was stopped (the party size dwindled down to 2 players for almost a month). Fast forward to the final battle, the aspect/avatar of Tiamat was summoned. I used divine favor as a level 16 cleric and rolled a 03 on the percentile dice. The GM allowed me to narrate the divine intervention: I successfully got the attention from every single God I fake casted under. My body raised into the multitude of Gods, under judgement of falsehoods and perjury, while my party was getting thrashed by Tiamat. Bahamut, already knowing the situation due to my earlier pleading, joined the fray as his aspect/avatar. The GM allowed me to participate, playing as the aspect of Bahamut vs. Tiamat. (Bahamut gets a mass breath heal, so I was able to keep the party alive.) Each God tore a portion of my body apart, claiming flesh as payment for the my regular divine deception. Saxon was out of combat, no heals, no help, he was effectively done; the other players saw radiant light burst from wounds and holes in my body, till I was no more. When my body was gone, a final trinket came to view, the God of Trickery's holy symbol was left, as the God of Trickery said, "His soul belongs to me. He will reside with me, in my planar abode."

I love the proud call out to your theater kids! Congrats to them on their show.

Closest I can come to this was in Everquest. We went into a room in a dungeon off of one of the Commons. There was a trap door in the floor, and I warned one of the other players to be careful, but he ignored me and fell through the trap, right into a battle with a group of monsters. With a sigh, my Paladin intentionally jumped in after him, as there was no way he was going to survive by himself. The others in the group were awe struck by this as the player had no one to blame but himself, but it was the Paladin thing to do.

Our Cleric of Sister Hawk, rebuilt the Temple of the twelve in Faddleburg after its loss to the Reaper of the Pelanor Fields. He had been blighted by a dragon’s blood, he was ascending to become an Angel of his goddess, and he had slain many monsters and gathered many converts to his faith. He met his end in the middle of an exorcism, but not before he drove the devil from the poor girl’s body and extinguished it. Our dragonized, angel, wood elf is still missed.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

EPIC!!! Thanks for sharing!

In 1987 we were playing in the Battletech universe. The players' unit had seen a very bad campaign and were currently conducting a retreat through a mountainous area guarding a civilian convoy. They had a hard time, even losing 2 PCs (it was the same player who lost his character in the first encounter and then the replacement shortly before the session ended. The dice...). When the second warrior died in his mech the company commander, the player, decided on one final effort to secure the escape for the civilians. To do so, he decided to ambush the pursuers, alone! His orders and last words played were (translated): "Sheperd them out onto the planes. I'll catch up!" His last command were the last words spoken in that session. We ended the session on those words, never played that fight, we all knew what would be the outcome. It took 15 minutes of sombre contemplation before a player started telling the first story about "The Commander".

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Epic! Thanks for sharing.

Great video Professor. I want to share a story about the heroic young bard named Oscar Comalla. Oscar and his companions just finished slaying the hobgoblin king. His companions went to loot the kings treasure and were sucked into a Bag of Devouring. Half the party were pulled into the bag and being devoured. Out-of fear no one wanted to reach into the bag to pull out their dieing friends because they could also be sucked in. Tick tock, tick tock...we were running out of time to take action and save them. Oscar dreamed of being a hero, and he wasn't going to stand by and let his friends die without trying to save them. Oscar had to roll a nat 20 to succeed because his strength was very low. He stepped up and reached in to save the Barbarian Nala. He rolled a nat 20 and grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the bag saving her. Everyone was shocked. It was hands down the coolest moment I experienced playing dnd. We lost two player characters that night but saved one at least. Oscar would go on and die a terrible death many sessions later. 😅

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Nat 20s at the right time are the best!

I had a scene in a Deadlands game where two characters killed each other. One was playing a Harrowed (undead) melee character, the other was a gunslinger who specialized in fanning (rapid fire). The harrowed player wanted to switch to a different character, so we set up a scene where the evil spirit that was animating him took over and his character turned evil and turned on the party. I gave his evil version a power boost and made it a boss fight. Turns out his character was incredibly hard to kill and the party was about to lose, so the gunslinger's player drew the Harrowed's attention by unloading all 4 of his revolvers into him in the course of two rounds. The rest of the party escaped, and then the gunslinger pulled out a stick of TNT he'd been holding onto and took himself and the other PC out in heroic fashion.

I went nearly 30 years without having a character die and in the last 2 years I've had two die on me. And at the time I didn't know that the two were somewhat linked. I'll mention the one that really matters cause its part of an ongoing campaign. Cadon Xavriel was the son of one of the rulers of Zakhara. A young man who kind of hated the inherited responsibility of being a general, and ran off to become a monk. During his monk training he encountered this party of adventurers, my old group I used to dm for, in a new campaign with one of my old players as he dm. I was remoting in as I had moved out of the area. After about 8 sessions we got into a particularly nasty fight and due to some lucky rolls by our GM, I was downed, I took one hit and was down a death save, and I rolled a natural one. In a desperate attempt to salvage the situation the party plane shifted to the shadowfell but it was too late. My dm, a guy I worked with for several years and a good friend asked me "do you want to be able to save Cadon?" And I thought about it and told him that I wanted him to do what he thought was best for the story, so he gave me a particularly nasty choice. I could be resurrected (the party was level 9 but they had access to spells to bring me back) but if I came back I would eventually succumb to the curse that was on the daggers that killed me. I'd eventually turn into some sort of shadow wraith and attack my friends. Cadon was a leonin and a proud and noble guy, he could not take that risk. In the end the party struck a bargain with the Raven Queen to imprison my soul in a gem, with the hopes of maybe one day finding a way to break the curse. At the very least allowing Cadon to rest in peace. What the players didn't know is that when I wrote Cadon's backstory he had a younger brother, a bit more hot headed and much more inclined to being a general, their father had sent him to bring Cadon back. So that was my way to introduce Faydrun Xavriel, Samurai. Cadon's death being somewhat up in the air allowed me to also write a great letter to the party, which ended up being quite emotional for the table (a bit to my shock since Cadon was a relatively new addition to the party). And in the next ensuing battle we managed to capture a lodestone powered skiff, the players managed to turn it back on me by naming this ship, Cadon's Pride. This little way of honoring Cadon's choice to remain dead and maybe forever imprisoned, meant a great deal.

The most recent episode (as of when this premiered) of the podcast WriterDojo covered character motivation. There are parts of that that really go along with this.

My most epic death came 2 years ago at Kublacon. It was the last day of the con and I finally got into a CoC game. The guy who ran the game is a fairly well known figure at the con and he always runs a Cthulhu game on the last day. I walked in and the room was full (about 8 people, maybe 9) and I could tell that almost all of them knew each other. It was a cabal! I let them know that this was my first CoC game but i was still a little nervous tryimg to learn a new game in front of people that knew hiw to olay and had played together for a long time. The gist of the game was that our players were attending Kublacon and something weirr was going down. But the start of the game had some Yrekkie fans come in and try to convert this con to a ST con. I played one of the ST characters. What the GM would do was leave character sheets out on the table and you pick which one you wanted to play. But all you got was a ohoto of the character. After you chose one, you flipped over the photo to see the stats and the secrets the character had. My character photo was a photo of the original Christopher Pike from the original pilot. Almost immediately the mayhem started and within five minutes my character was shot to death. To make it memorable I said "As I get shot i fall to my knees and raise my hands and yell 'CONNN!" Everyone clapped and laughed at the joke. I was in. In fact, last Kublacon I ran into the same GM and he remembered me. He asked me if I was in his game.the last day. I said I wasn't. He said that if I wanted to I could crash and he would get me in. That's when I had to tell him I was running games at the con and I had foolishly picked the last day.to run one of my games. I can be epically dumb sometimes.

I have an "epic death" rule, where if something like that happens and it makes sense, a character's epic death that results in a great, dramatic, or emotional story will grant the player +1 to all ability rolls for their next character.

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

Magnanimous.

KZread should show this video to ALL viewers interested in Dungeons and Dragons as well as ANY role playing game. SAGE!

@DUNGEONCRAFT1

3 ай бұрын

I would love that!

Last year, one of my characters died saving her friends from a collapsing temple. My DM told me I could help them escape and find a different way out, or go with them and survive for sure. I chose to hold up a part of the temple to let my party members through, and then I had to navigate the wreckage and find another way to get out. I rolled horribly, even when my DM gave me advantage, and so my character unfortunately ended up dying in the rubble. I don't regret doing it though. I got to make and play with another super awesome character. I have a habit of playing selfless characters and that's the one time its actually cost me anything haha