Famous Last Words: Character Death and You

[Harmonixer]

A random thought passed my mind while leveling the other day:

 

"I wonder how other people handle their own character deaths?"

 

More specifically, have you as a RPer ever considered ICly killing off one of you own characters permanently before? Done it already? What were the reasons and how much did it effect you (or others?)

 

I'm curious about the stories that may come of this. So please, share them!

 

Having recently talked to people that are very unhappy with their own characters and reconsidering their options, is death an answer for them? Or a 'simple' retconning.Fantasia has people divided if it's lore friendly or not, so some choose the darker path.

[Magellan]

In other forms of rp, I'm all for character death, even if I'm totaly happy with the character. If the story calls for it, if it seems like it'll make a strong contribution to the overall tale, then sure. In mmo, its a bit trickier, as there are countless pve hours to factor in. Do I *really* want to start from scratch again in leveling?

 

If I'm fantasiaing a character (I'm one of those people who think this should definitely be an ooc mechanic) I ask myself: 'would it be completely arbitrary to kill my character off to make room for this new one, or would it make more sense to simply retire them'

 

Then I act accordingly.

[Delilah Scythewood]

Lili is a character I've played in WoW. When she died over there there was no last words. It was in childbirth and it was a way for me to boy out of my WoW RP since it was dying for me and I wanted to jump into GW2 as fast as possible.

 

If it makes sense in the story or the person isn't totally GMing it then I'm cool!

[Chris Ganale]

I'm too attached to my characters to kill them off. And I cut my teeth in an RP environment where literally everyone was trying to kill everyone else, so it's burned into every fiber of my being to violently resist the deaths of my characters.

 

That said, I have petulantly debated sending most of them to their unceremonious doom in one of my varying stages of considering a ragequit from RP. Hasn't happened yet.

[Maril]

My alts are, in principle, kill-able. That not to invite anyone and their grandma to come try, but meant in the sense that if they end up in trouble they for sure will not escape alive, then that will be their end. The only reason why I have a no-kill reservation on Nailah is because she is my guild-leading character in a setup that relies a lot on her, and the guild would suffer and maybe even crumble if she died. But to that end, I also try vehemently to keep her out of potentially lethal danger. 

 

Characters come and go. On a few occasions I have killed off a main before because there simply was nothing more for them to achieve, they felt like they'd had their run, and I'd rather end their memory on a high note than sift through months of unsatisfying stale RP. When a character dies, it frees up new time to make a new one, and whilst that is a lot of work, it might end up being an even better character as you continue to grow as a roleplayer

[Domri Blackblade]

I roleplay permadeath and there are characters who were years old that ended up being killed off because of situations I got them into. I find it keeps me honest in my RP. If a character is actually in over there head, it makes me actually have to think of how to get them out without the comfort of plot armor.

 

There was a character who I RPed for over five years who I had to roll permadeath for because the plot he was in just took a huge negative turn and there was no real conceivable way to get him out. I really am not a fan of people who die then decide to Lazarus Project a little bit later. I feel it cheapens death as a whole.

 

My only rule for myself when it comes to killing a character off is it has to be a part of a good story so they go out with an exit and not, say, choke on a piece of rice.

 

If someone intends to change a character or is unhappy with their current, they can kill them off if they really have no intention of going back or just put them on hiatus and off-screen busy them.

[Kurt S.]

Everyone in my roster except Nah almost died once, all due to my OOC frustration. I saw them as failed ventures and already had ideas on how to kill em off-screen.

 

Kurt's probably the biggest. I was absolutely discouraged with him. Here I was being 'oh hey, I wanna rp his growth from 1 to 50.' And even after he got to 50 there wasn't any marked increase in his rp opportunities. He was supposed to die in that off screen WP run, instead I pulled fantasia out of my ass and turned him into Katarina Steel, working that shit into his canon and giving birth to my altitis.

 

All my characters are expendable, though for Ramona's case if she dies, she just won't be IC anymore. For Kurt, I'll go ahead and turn him into a lala warrior because that's something I've wanted to try out. For Nah, I will cry a lot.

[Aaron]

I bet Aarons life on a dice roll before because Im dangerous (and stupidly confident in my luck)

 

Needless to say, I won. 

 

Never tried it again.

[FloriaRaine]

I'm far too attached to my characters to kill them off. I don't get them involved in dangerous environments (you know, which stabby stabby, cutty cutty characters). Although this is mainly for my mains and comedic relief characters, some of my alts might be made just to throw away at a later date, perhaps for story purposes or because i'll grow bored of them and they were just a concept i wanted to try for a bit.

[Enla]

All my characters are killable, but I need a good enough reason to actually make that leap most of the time - particularly coming off of another MMO where there were a plethora of roleplayers who took great pleasure in adding your character's death as another notch in their proverbial belt. That said however, if the reason is good enough all of them can and will die without a single regret - and if they do I'll then fantasia them into something else so that I won't have to make an entirely new character either.

 

I'm much more lax with mutilations personally, and really don't care if people cute a character's arm off in RP so long as it doesn't come out of nowhere with the perpetrator loling off into the sunset.

[Flashhelix]

In other games, I've RPed completely mortal characters, but I think RPing a character WITHOUT plot armor tends to make me care less. I can invest more time in a character when I know there's not a chance of him getting stabbed dead in the street the next day.

[Harmonixer]

Everyone in my roster except Nah almost died once, all due to my OOC frustration. I saw them as failed ventures and already had ideas on how to kill em off-screen.

 

Kurt's probably the biggest. I was absolutely discouraged with him. Here I was being 'oh hey, I wanna rp his growth from 1 to 50.' And even after he got to 50 there wasn't any marked increase in his rp opportunities. He was supposed to die in that off screen WP run, instead I pulled fantasia out of my ass and turned him into Katarina Steel, working that shit into his canon and giving birth to my altitis.

 

All my characters are expendable, though for Ramona's case if she dies, she just won't be IC anymore. For Kurt, I'll go ahead and turn him into a lala warrior because that's something I've wanted to try out. For Nah, I will cry a lot.

 

 

Firstly, thank for everyone for all the replies so far!

 

I picked this post in particular because I feel as though I've been in a similar boat. My frustration for my character became really overwhelming and I was certain the only solution was to explode him in a blaze of glory. It started well enough, I had ambition to make him really grow as I played the game (not this one) and it just repeatedly failed. I wasn't good with the concept and I couldn't get into it. I ended up bailing on the whole thing and just left him to rot, not quite embracing his death on the off chance I grew more as a person and than wanted to come back to it.

 

I would never consider my characters invincible. I've allowed a few deaths to happen, but they weren't ever in MMOs. I don't know if it's my unwillingness to relevel them or it's more to do with the fact that I'm attached to them. I think... I think in the right conditions it could happen. It really depends.

 

I admit that I'm a person that is somewhat of a perfectionist. If I feel my characters are poorly represented by myself then I will do whatever I must to make them fit. Sometimes, this can cause a minor issue with others, but a lot of it is just the old tried and true communication thing.

 

 

I wouldn't want to have a perma on this game I don't think. The conditions again, would have to be perfect.

[Cliodhna Eoghan]

 

Kurt's probably the biggest. I was absolutely discouraged with him. Here I was being 'oh hey, I wanna rp his growth from 1 to 50.' And even after he got to 50 there wasn't any marked increase in his rp opportunities. He was supposed to die in that off screen WP run, instead I pulled fantasia out of my ass and turned him into Katarina Steel, working that shit into his canon and giving birth to my altitis.

 

All my characters are expendable, though for Ramona's case if she dies, she just won't be IC anymore. For Kurt, I'll go ahead and turn him into a lala warrior because that's something I've wanted to try out. For Nah, I will cry a lot.

you know i enjoy rping with kurt quite a bit, not sure how clio would take it ic if he were to die.....i just know she's fond of him as a younger sibling almost which is still a relativity new thing for her to have long term relationships with people so if he were to die randomly, i'm sure she'd at least be a bit shaken by it.

 

far as myself i only killed one character. it was the younger sibling to a different form of youkio. she was....four or five when it happened, he was suppose to be babysitting her but being a ten year old boy and annoyed with having to watch her; said get outta my sight and don't get into trouble. well one of their parents didn't put the lid back correctly on a bottle of blood pressure meds and left them out by mistake and he found her lying on the bathroom floor a few hours later.

[CrimsonMars]

I'm too attached to my characters to kill them off. And I cut my teeth in an RP environment where literally everyone was trying to kill everyone else, so it's burned into every fiber of my being to violently resist the deaths of my characters.

 

That said, I have petulantly debated sending most of them to their unceremonious doom in one of my varying stages of considering a ragequit from RP. Hasn't happened yet.

 

Pretty much this. Even if I quit this game, I'll more than likely continue Chiyo's story via fan faction. My alts though, are sometimes kill-able.

[Aaron]

Almost forgot. 

 

Im terrible with RP concepts and making new characters so I tend to avoid killing mine (and avoid situations where id have to ponder killing them) because

 

A - Nobody got time for a Fantasia or name change. That's $20 gone that coulda been a sub.

 

B - Nobody leveling to 2.5 content again.  That's hell on earth.

 

C - Im not farming gear and unlocking stuff all over.

 

D - That's a lot of work 

 

E - Gotta ICly meet everyone again some way some how and all that drama

 

If I didn't have to basically crucify myself to get another character. id be betting their lives on dice more often. (Gotta admit I felt too relieved when I one that roll on Aarons life)

 

But till then? Nah.

[FreelanceWizard]

I've killed off characters before. Mostly they haven't been my mains, but when I stop playing an MMO permanently, I usually like to wrap up the stories of my characters, and sometimes, that involves their deaths. I've also killed off characters when their stories naturally come to an end or I feel I can't do anything more with them. A few of my CoH alts met their demises that way. In all of these cases, the players close to the character know it's coming OOC, so it doesn't come as a huge shock to them and their stories.

 

Ultimately, the death has to serve a story; in an MMO, I personally don't see the benefit of killing a player character off just to prove "no one is invulnerable" (NPCs, naturally, are a different thing altogether ).

[Dravus]

FFXIV isn't very alt-friendly so this is the first MMO where I only really have one main character. With that in mind it's unlikely that I'll kill off my character at any point in the immediate future.

 

If I ever reach a point where it's the only realistic outcome or I feel as though his ongoing story is becoming stagnant, however, then I'd happily go ahead and write a satisfying death as the conclusion for his tale.

 

In WoW I killed off quite a few of my major and minor characters over the years that I role-played there. It served to fuel the stories of those close to them so that was an added bonus.

[T'caska Khevo]

Is it bad that I've considered killing off T'caska at least 4 times since I've made her? I tend to be a very emotional person and I've built her up to be a lot like myself. When things don't go her way I sometimes feel like throwing my hands up and saying "F*ck it!".

 

Maybe that's irrational or immature but I sometimes wonder if I would feel differently if my main character was someone or something that was vastly different from the way I actually am.

 

It also doesn't help that I've been running to a ton of negativity from the RP community lately.

[Lekka Meyren]

I think I generally agree with a lot of the sentiment going on here. Since this is an MMO, I feel like killing off your character serves less purpose than it would in say... a long-term DnD game.

Other people you interact with have their own personal stories, and though you probably have some overarching story that binds you, it's not as focused an affair.

 

 

So I guess killing off a character mostly makes sense if you need to move on from it in some way; but others will still be persisting.

 

 

That said, Lekka is totally the kind of lady who would jump in front of a blade for a friend. Which is why I'm a little careful about initiating any kind of combat RP. Would have to be with only people I trust or she'd just go and get herself severely injured.

[Kismet]

All of my characters, in ANY MMO I RP in, can be permanently killed. (I find revivals to be pointless and tasteless, personally.)

 

In FF14, I'm a little reluctant for that to happen because that means $10 for a name change (each of my chars has at least 1 Fantasia -- dem baller Legacy perks). But at the end of the day, I take "IC consequences for IC actions" very seriously. That and if it makes for good storytelling while not seeming to be over-the-top dramatic or illogical, I don't see why not. My characters are tools, not people. I'm no more attached to them than I would be to a screwdriver or something.

[Branson Thorne]

I wouldn't really have an issue killing off Manasas, but then I'd OOC fantasia him into someone else, simply for the fact that I'm not going to level another character.

[Melodia]

Melodia is not really in a place to be killed but she is defintiely killable. I have no supremacy over the specter of death and should it happen it would happen. I probably wouldn't fantasia her.....just would put  a not in the info box that she was not rp-able as she was dead (as I am too poor to afford a fantasia)

 

Ruru is MUCH more likely to be killed as he lives in that world where the risk is huge. And honestly I'd considered doing it before. Had even thrown the suggestion Zhavi, my rp partner with Ruru and she spared him with big sad eyes lol. I have imagined Ruru's death more than a few times sadly and it makes me sad each time not because he'd be gone but because for his arc it's a trajectory that would make the most sense.

[Hammersmith]

Hammer's an old concept. A lot of his "story" is already put into frameworks, so I know what directions he's headed when he runs into people.

 

I know what happens when he dies, probably circumstances that'd lead to it, how it probably won't happen, and have for a while.

 

But, as others have said, it costs dollah dollah bills to deal with that kind of thing so as far as I'm concerned in this kind of Venue (MMOs) death isn't something you put on the table on a whim. 

 

Long haul yall.

[allgivenover]

I once tried to kill a character off when I switched mains, but other RPer friends convinced me not too. It was a mistake, as her story would have ended much better had she died. 

 

So if you ever feel like a character's time has come, don't let others change your mind.

[Makyn Loneseeker]

Oh yes, i've permadeath'd a character in GW2. Only a couple people know him,

though, fortunately. >u>

 

Mak is killable. Super killable.

 

Each time Mak goes into a fight, i roll on a death system i've devised for him. He can die in any one of a future fight. Death hardly comes at an oppurtune moment.