I've had players leave my game (for various reasons) and a number of times, they've assumed that their character would be killed off after they left
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Storytelling is about drama, and a beloved character getting killed makes for more drama than them simply moving away.
I actually haven't had players leave my games partway, but I always figured that if any would, that would be a perfect opportunity to introduce some new plot twist. Here's an established character with a built-up history with the other characters, and his player has left, meaning that I can use him for whatever creates the most interesting complications for the remaining players. Now of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that the character with get killed... but the odds are that he's up for some relatively gruesome fate. Kidnapped, replaced by a doppelganger, turned to the dark side, whatever.
player left, and we showed up to her house to find no trace that she was ever there. turns out her family was erased from time, the house was there but it was as if the place had been untouched for ages. the store she worked in was empty and abandoned - we were the only ones who remembered her.
that was a dramatic turn of events and sent us off investigating.
Death is definitely one way to do it. We've had a 4th edition D&D game going for a couple of years, and one of our major players had to move to California. His character was a tiefling who supposedly had demon blood. Near the end, we find out he's related to a REALLY powerful demon (Graz'zt, for those familiar), and got forced into a complicated bargain that made sense with his history, which would take too long to explain. He would have to go away, and basically serve this demon. He arranged for someone to assassinate him; we had a fairly touching goodbye. I whispered to his would-be assassin to hold off so I could try to find a way to save him. We left, and then I stumbled across the corpse of supposed assassin... dead SEVERAL days.
There were OOC tears. The player is welcome back if he can visit, and I suspect he may be an antagonist if he does, which will be all the more heartbreaking.
I'm realizing that storyline is too complicated to do it justice in a short paragraph over here. :)
I actually haven't had players leave my games partway, but I always figured that if any would, that would be a perfect opportunity to introduce some new plot twist. Here's an established character with a built-up history with the other characters, and his player has left, meaning that I can use him for whatever creates the most interesting complications for the remaining players. Now of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that the character with get killed... but the odds are that he's up for some relatively gruesome fate. Kidnapped, replaced by a doppelganger, turned to the dark side, whatever.
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player left, and we showed up to her house to find no trace that she was ever there.
turns out her family was erased from time, the house was there but it was as if the place had been untouched for ages. the store she worked in was empty and abandoned - we were the only ones who remembered her.
that was a dramatic turn of events and sent us off investigating.
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There were OOC tears. The player is welcome back if he can visit, and I suspect he may be an antagonist if he does, which will be all the more heartbreaking.
I'm realizing that storyline is too complicated to do it justice in a short paragraph over here. :)
Reply
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