Ending a Character's Story

First off, I'd like to apologize for my long absence. I don't really have an excuse. Things got busy and I kept finding reasons to put this off. Well, here's an early New Year's resolution: I will write here more often.

OK, on to my topic of today. I recently had a character I was playing in a D&D campaign die, and it was by my choice. His story had reached its end, and I thought this was the proper way to send him off.

A little background (skip this if you hate gaming stories): My character, Borodim, was a mad druid of the sea in a pirate-themed campaign. He was once a fisherman who was caught by mind flayers and aboleths and experimented on. He later escaped and joined a party of adventurers, driven to cover the entire world in 3 inches of water. (Like I said, mad.) Recently, the party returned to the undersea city of the mind flayers and aboleths, where Borodim had to confront his past. He and the party killed the mad wizard who experimented on him, and led a mass escape for many of the abominations slaves. In the course of the battle, Borodim was wounded and, a moment of lucidity, told the party to flee while he held off their enemies. ("Fly, you fools!") He was captured and fed to the Mind Flayer's Elder Brain, where his madness drove the brain into a seizure, crippling the Mind Flayers and Aboleths plans... for a time.

I had several reasons for killing off Borodim. First, he had returned to the beginning of his story, and had a chance to confront and defeat the demons that drove him. After that, I felt that there wasn't much reason to play him any longer. Second, his mad antics, while amusing, were starting to get a little stale to me (and, I think, to the other players.) Third, and this is the game mechanics reason, he was starting to prove less effective in combat and I was getting tired of playing a spellcaster (especially one who couldn't use his spells while shapeshifted.)

So, the battle in the undersea city seemed like the perfect moment for him to go. His death would show that the abominations were a grave danger that the party would have to return to fight. His sacrifice to the Elder Brain would incapacitate them for a time and allow the other players to escape.

So, with my GM's permission, I narrated a little story of Borodim's end, telling of how he was captured, taken to the Brain, and how it reacted. There were no die rolls, and everyone agreed that it was a good end.

The decision to kill off a character is often a troublesome one for a party of characters. First, the group usually depends on each character to fulfill a certain role (damage dealer, healer, battlefield controller, etc.). Removing one character can throw that balance out. Second, some of the players might object to the death of ANY player character, or resent the fact that you remove a character and then get a new one of the same power level. Lastly, the changing of a character can mean that your GM has to change around their plans, which might be a chore if he or she had a large role planned for you.

The only real solution to this problem is to talk it out amongst the group. Explain your reasons for ending the character's story and try to make a replacement character that fits smoothly into the group. Hopefully you can reach an accomodation where you are not stuck playing a character that has "jumped the shark" and the other players still get to enjoy the game.

Until next time...

Now Reading: The Code of the Lifemaker by James P. Hogan
Now Watching: Emma, a Victorian Romance