User blog:SensibleCenobite/Only two characters have been killed in twenty two million years.

This is just a story. Please take and re modify for any campaign, vacation, or bed time story.

'''WARNING:  These are Shadowrun stories I told with a group of mixed experience. The idiot you are about to read about below was the most experienced player in the group. DO THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF GUY BELOW!'''

I've been a DM/GM/ST for twenty two years. There are two kinds of character deaths to me: Planned and beyond rare.

Planned: I ask the whole team to make up trash characters because I want to throw a boss fight at them. Or, they want to kill their own character dramatically to further the story and move on.

Beyond rare: I've only killed two characters while GM and they belonged to the same player in a Shadowrun campaign.

Case 1: A player made a character like Wolverine, including his temper. He got so mad because a NPC didn't release the auto turrets in less than 1 round of combat, even though the combat only lasted one round. Mind you that 1 round in Shadowrun is 3 seconds or something. He immediately storms into the room and threatens the commanding officer, who in story wasn't suppose to release the auto turrets for at least three rounds. Later in the night he gags him, hangs him from his feet, and threatens to kill him with a lethal injection. OKKKKK. The whole group is mad at this point because they walked away from the earlier combat with just one stun wound. Later during a major battle one of the other players worded a command to a Spirit saying "kill anyone in that building". HIS PLAYER knew the annoying character was in the building, but HIS CHARACTER didn't know that since the annoying character ran off and played solo. The Spirit goes in the room and easily rips the annoying character in half along with the main antagonist. He was not happy and rage quit, but... ;) 1st problem solved.

Case 2: This was the funniest and happened the next session after the first death. I had a nice campaign book I bought and did a lot of research on. The team was supposed to find a drug cartels hideout and see how they made the drugs. The annoying player from above was on Skype and he couldn't hear unless it was completely silent. Also, we couldn't hear him that well. They start the mission off by getting caught by the dock guards, so I deus ex machine them out of the situation. I put a lot of effort into reading this campaign book. Sadly despite all this, they mess up the mission royally at the last second. As the guy is holding on to a floating hover droid that would take him to the hideout, he gets off with the drugs!!! They decide to burn the super toxic drugs on the harbor and after a wind check, it blows into a residential area! The team is angry. No one wants to go meet the Johnson because they're afraid he'll kill them. I won't willing kill long term players for failure, but in the book it explicitly states that if the job got botched, car bomb. The only one who stubbornly goes on is of course the annoying player. He gets into the limo and without hesitating starts trying to defend the groups actions and make excuses. He din't even let me describe what was happening in the limo. No one was in it. The doors in the limo lock and the car bomb goes off killing the character. He rage quits Skype and won't let me apologize and resurrect his character. We didn't talk for three years after the second death :_) Good riddance!

Sometimes it's better to lie to the players than be right, Sensible Cenobite