What is the worse thing you have ever done/put a character through as DM? (Deaths included)

[Kaptn'Lath]

I figured that most of us at the CBG are primarily DM/GMs more so than players and i thought i would start a thread detailing the worce thing you ever did to a CHARACTER, wiether it was deserved punishment, revenge, or simply playing on a "bad day" for the DM.

To start offi will tell a little story of what i did near the beginning of a very long running campaign. After playing once every two weeks for a few months we had to take almost two months off as a break for RL for just about everyone. During this time i was concerned that the story and fun wouldnt be as fresh after the break and it may take a few sessions to really get going again. Also blessed with spare time between sessions in addition to writing the adventure for when we returned to the table i also wrote a couple pages on what happend to the party in the mean time. You see at the end of our last session, the party had lost a battle when trying to break and bust their way into a suspected vampire lair in an old fort (the Vampire was still working with his real estate agent for the mountain castle lair). So this left the parties current situation very vague and gave me alot of room to work with. I eventually wrote in decent story form a few page span of the party being captured by the Vampire's minions and held in 4 cells for 2 weeks. So when the session started they had already been their for a while.

The party was a paladin of ilmater (FR campaign), a druid with a raven familier, a 2 month pregnant cleric of sehainne, a wizard who aspired to "maybe, eventually, someday, if it workds out right be a necromancer". I was the youngest at 23 and they where between 31 and 44 so it was a MATURE adult campaign. (one of the best i have been in really...) so i knew i could be hard with them and didnt have to leave it with "they tie you to a chair and beat you up" for a couple days. So i opened the dark side of my mind and went with personal torment on each character. This was dont just done to be mean, but also some of the players although old where kinda new again to RPGS and were disenfranchised with just hack-n-slash and wanted some deep roleplaying and they also werent concrete on their vision for their characters personality and i wanted to kick them in the butt alittle.

I told the story from the persepctive of the Jail Cells, not the party, so when one was taken "away" it wasent writen what happend exactly. It was always from the persepcitive of the people left behind trying to figure it out. Magical and Mundain posions and drugs where used to keep the party weak during the story and to keep things undefinate. With the hard things i through at the characters i wanted to make sure the player could say "that was a hallucisonation or trick" if i wrote something that didnt work for them. One character was feed each day, in a random rotation. The Druid was magically tricked into thinking he ate his bird on the third day and that it was dead for the rest of the ordeal, only to find that it was taken and exparmented on (the two leggs removed and replaced with four small tenticals, and it made noises like a goat). The Vampire would take him for "walks in the woods" while dominated and they would spread salt on the ground. The Druid was locked in an anti-magic room with sick and dying animals for hours multiple times. The Paladin watched as children where killed using his fathers holy sword. He was placed in the same anti-magic room with sick and dying children. Everyday for hours he had to watch a farm woman he had helped a couple times from a nearby village be raped. Using mind control magic he was forced to savagely fight the farm womans two older sons (think the end of Saving private ryan). The young wizard was put in a 4 foot by 4 foot closet that had 4 zombies in it. Their hands where encased in iron with chains attached to their own shoulders so they could not extend their arms. The zombies had hannibale lecter masks and their feet where spiked to the ground. This alowed them to endlessly groap at him feverously trying to kill him (think 28 days/weeks later for agressive zombie) this lasted many days. He had his face submerjed in vampire blood nearly drowning, unable to open his eyes or mouth even a flinch for fear of the blood turning him. The Wizard was burried alive in a shoddy wooden coffin with a half animated skeleton that kept trying to come alive with him in it. The Cleric of Sehainne had a miscarrage and i really shouldnt say anymore about that. she was forced to wear unholy symbols and read unholy texts, was tricked into burning down much of a nearby forest, being and elf she was sent to live with some orcs who lived near the fort (vassels of the Vampire lord, reward for a job well done).

Needless to say the Players were throughly motivated to break out and get some serious revenge (surprisingly it didnt cause them to go overboard either) and one of the players said on behaif of the party "you wounded the characters so badly that they became people". Mission acomplished.

I got more, might add another one if others add to the thread. Cant wait to hear some horror storys from some of the people around here.

[Ra-Tiel]

Uhhh... wha? :huh:

Please don't take it personally, but I think that was way over the top. :P

First, while I know that the BBEG has to gloat sometimes, that Evil Is Stylish, and you often can't Just Shoot Them, this seems more comedic than dramatic. Perhaps you could use the Evil Overlord Checklist at some time. :P

Second, the cleric should go hang herself, or at least have nightmares for the rest of her life knowing that her unborn child died because of her arrogance or pride to keep adventuring in such a vulnerable condition (I'd prefer the latter). May I suggest introducing the Sanity check mechanic into your campaign at this time? ;) Seriously, any female with the least bit of motherly instincts would do her best to avoid putting herself into a situation that might endanger her child - if that means retiring from adventure and leaving her companions to travel alone, so be it. I may add, the character deserved what she got; she was basically begging for it. Therefore, good job on that.

Third, if my players were about to leave the game hanging in such a situation I would to exactly either of two things:
(1) pick up exactly where they left
(2) give them a short handout describing how they were captured, subsequently turned into vampires themselves one by one, and then tell them to role new characters.
My BBEGs don't tend to gloat and play with the PCs until they finally find a way to escape and kick them back. My campaign worlds are cruel and brutal, and definitively not forgiving of any mistakes. Really, in that situation I'd probably have "killed" the PCs off and made them the antagonists in the new campaign.

I know this may be harsh, but I (and my group) prefer it that way. The world is a dangerous place, after all. "If you play with fire you get burnt" and all that. ;) Having some supposedly evil mastermind torture and toy around with the PCs just long enough for them to escape has been done to death (sorry for the pun :P ) over and over.

Anyway, an interesting read still. I don't have anything that cruel to add to the list (at least none of which I can think right now - but I'll get back to it if my memory comes back ;) ), which is mostly because of my "no nonsense" BBEGs. :P

[LordVreeg]

Back in creative writing and fiction writing classes at 'Ye Olde University', It was drilled into me to almsot never explain anything, just show action.  Let the readers be voyeurs.  

I have always taken this to heart as a GM.  Let the players read what they want to in a chanracter or NPC.  The corrollary effect is that if I want to actually create something or someone truly evil, you have to show it and play it.  or, to take from the preceding paragraph, it may be the PC's world, but they aer just voyeurs, as well.

Also understand that Celtricia is a world of moral ambiguity.  Most of the PC's enemies and adversaries consider themselves morally justified in their actions.  As an example, The Winfire traders who were funnelling arms to the Firehazer humanoid tribe outside Igbar actually support the old government and feel morally correct in trying to get rid of the PC's and arm the tribal humanoids outside the town.

So when evil happens, I try to make it memorable.  And as Lath mentioned in his openning post, showing this kind of thing is normally the province of a MATURE, adult campaign.  

Pious Pilfer is one of the oldest PC's in my Celtrician setting.  He is currently in the semi-retired status, but he was played from 1985 until 1998.  As the name suggests, he started as a Priest of Lucky Ishma and as a member of the Eye of Igbar.  He was also one of 2 characters being run by the same player, and this was the 'throw-away' character.  This was also a character being played in College, so there were times Pious was played a lot.

As happens in my seting, Pious who was not supposed to survive did.  Somehow, characters with great stats and have 'future hero' written all over them get knocked off in Celtricia, while the more mundane characters slog onward.  Pious ended up an unlikely foil and thorn in the side of the latest generation of the greatest villain of Celtricia.  (this family has a genetically passed on mememory, so that they dimly remember things and have motivations going back thousands of years.  This is the  Arbor family, first servants of the Cairnhold, whose line began in the Age of Heroes with the Patricidal Archlich Arbor, who actually created the Dreadwing, for those of you who have been keeping score).

[spoiler=Adult campaign notes]In the 13 year running battle between Heliopolis Von Arbor and Pious Pilfer, Pious' best friend had his house burned down in Stenron, Pious' father was poisoned and blinded, one of his best friends and companions (and another PC) was mortally wounded and sacrificed to Anthraxus of the Cycle to further the aims of Von Arbor.  
He poisoned the Orphanage of Music,  which was supported heavily by Pious and his friends, causing the very painful death by asphyxiation of over a hundered children and the tutors there.
 And after capturing Pious' dog, Jared, Heliopolis fed 2 of the dog's legs to the unknowing Pious before letting Pious' friends rescue the mutilated, but still living Dog.  It was only then that the PC found that he had been fed his own precious dog's legs.  And as a kicker, he cursed the animal with powerful magics from the House of Death, so no healing would Ever bring those legs back.[/spoiler]

More currently, in Igbar, many of the Players lost their characters in their unwitting awakenning of the Antroo Vampyre Lord (actually a powerful servant and creation of the Dreadwing, who was in turn the ruined creation of The First Arbor, back in the Age of heroes).  Though they created new ones and the Igbarian experience continues unabated, unknown to them, their old characters are the 'first servants' of the Antroo Vampyre, and if the PC's continue on their path, eventually they will face their horribly twisted old characters.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Uhhh... wha? :huh:

.....

Please don't take it personally, but I think that was way over the top. :P

.....

I know this may be harsh, but I (and my group) prefer it that way. The world is a dangerous place, after all. "If you play with fire you get burnt" and all that. ;) Having some supposedly evil mastermind torture and toy around with the PCs just long enough for them to escape has been done to death (sorry for the pun :P ) over and over.

And that is exactly why we here at the CBG appreciate and respect that all DMs/GMs play the game differently :)

I thought Lath's was an interesting story in a Requiem For a Dream-type of way, and I applaud you being able to take a hand in such a mature(-sounding) campaign.  I will say that I now think you (Lath) are a complete and total nutjob psychopath( :-p ) , but evil often seems that way to those of us who don't quite ... "understand."

With that being said, I will say that I think LV's was actually the more "evil" of the two stories so far, but that's just because I love doggies so much. :(

Anyway, I have nothing to add to this thread yet, but I hope to see many more stories.

[Kaptn'Lath]

Thanks Ish, no one "Understands" me, never understimate the dark side of the nice kid who helped everyone is class. He knows your secrets... :) but your right everyone plays differently so long as everyone at the table has fun. Dark, Humerours, Epic, Fable, Anime/Comicbook, ect we all play many different ways at different times. This group happend to be starving for some serious drama, real motivating factors, (tired of loot and fame) and the one genre of movies they all liked alot. Horror. So i went with it, after talking with the party FIRST.

One thing i want to say to Ra-Tiel tho is that i think i missed making a main point. In the post everything was layed out "this happend to him, then this happend, and then this happend to her..." and really it was writin decently as an observer "a hidden prisoner". They main feeling the players got from reading it wasnt "oh my god" but rather "so what did just happen to me?" as everything was vague, away from the scenes, hinted at through clues and things the bad guys said. Once the adventure started they didnt really know for sure what had happend to them and what didnt. As they crawled the fort in certain rooms they had flash backs or found clues as to what happend in the room. That aspect of the ordeal was largely missed by my rushed posting. I couldnt just do "well there was raping of women, killing of children, unholy symbols, they drank blood from you and your all angry and traumatised" THAT is lame and not mature and just very cliche like you said. and now that i write that i understand why you took it that way. The PCs had bad dice luck and ended up surrendering befour someone died. I didnt want to "kill them off", my main concern accually was to give them a second chance with out them thinking "ok the DM wont kill us, no matter what" and test that theory.

If my story is over the top, i just want people to post some good clever storys of outwiting or teaching a PC a lesson. Got a good Wish spell Flip? Managed to get an over powered magic item out of the PCs hands without just making disapear? Got a story about a player who was being over the top against an NPC and the NPC got humours revenge? it dosnet HAVE to be EVIL or envolve DEATH and ATROCITIES. But it helps ;)

[Jharviss]

I so often feel that what I do, as a DM, is rarely as bad as what I allow my players to do to each other.

In my campaign that concluded last fall, we ended the game with the strongest character (she was well played, very much so) secretly betraying the party and taking them all on.  Successfully!  It's funny that we all have stories about doing terrible things to animal companions, 'cause she was definitely going to cook our cute little druid's pet wolf and feed it to her.  

Generally speaking, it's true - my players near their worst times when they are betrayed within the party. When the party cleric turned on the party after a secret dominate person spell, he almost ended the campaign right there. When one of my favorite characters, a half-chain devil, half-human monk betrayed the party, he came closer to world domination than any villain I could ever dream of, and that included the overwhelming destruction of his fellow players.  

I think the worst thing I've done is disintegrate a character. The idea of just disintegration goes in the face of everything I believe as a DM, but I did it. In the campaign I'm currently running, one of the players had killed off one of the villain's top workers and then stolen said deceased person's axe. Well, the villain wanted revenge and hunted down the player over the course of some 10 sessions, just wanting the axe and trying to make amends.  The player never relented fighting back!  Well, the deceased person's best friend (also working for the villain) ended up disintegrating said character, right before dying. Oh, silly disintegration. (A lot of people died that session; the player with the axe, two villains, and another member of their knighthood.  Wipe out.)

Oh well!

[Nomadic]

This depends really... Does a massive rubic's cube of death count as an evil thing to do to a player?

[Superfluous Crow]

In the campaign i recently started, one of my newly introduced players had a really bad evening. First a mysterious stranger-on-the-run fuses some kind of strange metal rod to his forearm (don't ask). Later, the guys looking for the stranger breaks into his house, kills his sick father in front of his eyes, questions him about the whereabouts of another item that he has passed on to another person, then knocks him out and ties him up. When he comes to his senses his arms are tied behind his back and one of the lamps has fallen to the floor, setting some flammable alight. Meanwhile, his dad seems to be getting to his feet and starts shambling towards him with a mindless expression on his face (*cough* zombie). Anyway, he proceeds to grab a knife, dodge the attacks of his flesh-eating father, then he cuts his own ropes, kills his father (again) and flees the burning building.
I'm going to bet that wasn't his best day.

[Ra-Tiel]

[...] With that being said, I will say that I think LV's was actually the more "evil" of the two stories so far, but that's just because I love doggies so much. :( [...]

Ah yes, Kicking the Dog. A classic. :D :P

[...] One thing i want to say to Ra-Tiel tho is that i think i missed making a main point. [...]

OK, now it becomes clearer. After reading what you just wrote I think it was a quite good idea. :) Although I'd still had the characters killed in the end. :P As said, my villains are smart and brutal and don't toy around with their enemies in critical situations. In other words, they are dangerously genre savvy. ;)

On a related note: yes, I do like TvTropes. Bite me! :P

[Ishmayl-Retired]

On a related note: yes, I do like TvTropes. Bite me! :P

Believe me, we can tell ;)

[Eladris]

In college I had a story arc in which one of Character A's family members was possessed by a demon.  The group intended to bring her to a local church to get advice on an exorcism (no Cleric), but during a particularly fierce and/or creepy bout of evil hysterics the Paladin of the group lost his cool and killed the family member.  The player of Character A had just lost their father to cancer a few weeks prior and this caused some serious waterworks.  There were no hurt feelings on either side of the table, but the player of the Paladin and myself both felt pretty bad about stumbling so blindly into the situation!

[Pellanor]

One of my Players was playing a Tiefling. His Grandmother was the source of his fiendish powers (a succubus), and player a fairly large behind the scenes role. She kidnapped his Father in order to coerce her daughter (a half-fiend who turned her back on demon kind) into working for her. When the PCs confronted her, she stripped them of all their possessions and sold them into slavery. Later when the teifling died, and the other players were forced to leave him behind, she bodynapped him and sacrificed his father to bring him back as a full half-fiend loyal to her, who then proceeded to lay a beat down on the PCs.

On an interesting side note, when I first started my character ended up dieing basically every session, just to get brought back the next. Nothing cruel intended by the GM who actually made it easy to bring me back, but just the luck of the dice.

[Ra-Tiel]

[...] The player of Character A had just lost their father to cancer a few weeks prior and this caused some serious waterworks.  There were no hurt feelings on either side of the table, but the player of the Paladin and myself both felt pretty bad about stumbling so blindly into the situation!

Ouch, talk about bad timing. :( I think some situations like these are unavoidable, especially with "touchy" subjects (murder of family members or pets, rape, forced abortion, etc) as not everyone is comfortable with talking about such personal experiences with his buddies (or outside the close family at all). Of course the players should be asked (at least at the start of the campaign) whether they want stuff like this happening in game or not, but I made the experience that even in a "mature" game some things are still off limits.

Believe me, we can tell ;)

:P

Hmmm I wonder if a thread about discussing certain (popular) tropes would be appropriate. :?:

[Moniker]

Not really something I forced the players to do, but a storyarc we're actually playing out now -

Synopsis
The player's characters are all criminals that have been imprisoned within the great city of Kahabro for very serious crimes. The gravity of their crimes would dictate immediate execution (if not torture as well for the rapist), but possess inherent qualities that single them out from the rest of the prisoners. They've been given an opportunity to find reprieve by carrying out a series of assassinations against a group of folk who are potentially dangerous to their mysterious employers. Note that they are forbidden from revealing their true names to one another; all's that matters is the mission. The names they carry are merely monikers given to them by their fellow prisoners. They are forbidden to leave the city, as all can identify them in the streets; they wear sorcerously-bound bracers around their wrists. This is a calling card of sorts for who they are. Moreover, they're forbidden to break any laws in the public eye. Even though they suspect that their employers are the wardens of the cities, they must act in complete secrecy as a cell unto itself. They have no formal contact with anyone, outside of their employer's faceman named Geralt. They must work in complete secrecy.

Now, this isn't such a bad set-up for a story. But their backgrounds really paint the premise of the story in a very different light...


The Players
One man is named "the Captain" (or "luckyfuck" for those who knew he abandoned his men to drown at sea). He's a battle-harded war veteran, who was detained for murder and regicide of his brother and his brother's wife, a Duchess. He was insanely jealous of their love, and in a fit of rage slew them both. He is a Warlord, naturally (Unaligned).

One is called "Prettyboy" (or "shitbreath" for his bad case of halitosis). Prettyboy is a serial rapist, and fled his country to Kahabro in order to escape execution. He was later captured for a petty crime, and the Kahabran lords of the city have become aware of his crimes back in his home country. Prettyboy is also a second-storey man and a Rogue (Chaotic Evil).

The other is called "Saint Pious" (or "holy roller" to those who hate his preaching). He's a cleric of the god of justice. An interent priest, he was accused of forced buggery, sodomy and homosexuality. He was stripped of his position and castrated. Interestingly enough, he's also a madman and claims to speak with the gods. He is technically a Fighter according to his character sheet, but swears by the almighty that his strength comes from his god the Red King (Lawful Good).


The Human Condition
Basically, there is a level of extreme moral ambiguity at play. The players are all obviously heinous people, and are bound by roleplay to specific personality traits (as defined by the 4e PHB). They're given almost total freedom, but at a very strict and difficult cost; not only are they assassinating their patron's foes, they're going to face the potential to engage in the same activities that landed them in prison. The game itself is partially about redemption, at least as far as one can redeem themselves for the worst of the worst crimes. Also, it's about the human condition, and what choices people make when faced with tough decisions and the veritable candystore of options.

It's all here, with exception of the true backgrounds. The players have not shared their class, their true name, their alignment (obviously) or their story with anyone else so I've hidden it in the wiki - http://deismaar.pbwiki.com/Gothric+Campaign

[Pellanor]

*snip*

I'm stealing your idea and running my players through it.