A Hero's Death

Never, ever, let someone die a straw death.  Even if you want to punish them for poor game play or for just being a jerk at the gaming table.

We all play to be heroes or heroines.  Not to die fruitlessly without merit or touch upon the world.  Even a first game session character should be treated appropriately.  If you think about the greatest game worlds out there, they are littered with old characters and their actions, each an everlasting tribute to their legacy.

Allow me an example.

On a certain game session night, one of my players had the greatest misfortune to have his rough, tough and stalwart character do little beyond eat sausage at a sausage shop and run around trying for the life of him to get a job to get out of the little one horse town he was stranded in.  Its unfortunate that halfway into the session he met his demise, leaving little behind as a legacy beyond the sausage he'd bought for lunch that day and the lingering cry of "Job!".

It was, to say the least, not one of the player's better nights.  However, its a funny thing how fate works.  His death rallied the rest of the players and the lot of the town.  They cleaned house on some uglies and bad politics that were making the place more of a hellhole.  My poor player's character was pretty much forgotten.  Except I couldn't let him die that way.  So, during the latter part of the session the smell of sausage and sometimes sausages themselves played tiny parts in the clearing up of the players' troubles.  Such an impact was made in tiny ways that, in short time, he became a patron of sausage and sausage makers (much to the ever lasting jest of my players) and a source of merriment for his job seeking antics.  Something that people in the town use as a label for job seekers today.

Not the most noble death by any means.  Yet it was not his dying or even manner of it (he died on the first swing of the night by his own hand) that made the difference but the tiny bits of game play he did have beforehand that I was able to build on.  In fact, once I planted the seeds, the other player actively helped (which made it all the more awesome) and it took on a life of its own.

Now, glorious deaths are easy.  Having someone remembered for act is the easiest, commemorated in stone, tale, song or some other medium.  Regardless of what you choose make it something you weave into your game as a lasting tribute to the player and the uniqueness of the character.