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This thread is meant to be a mixture of discussion and story sharing so go nuts. Character deaths are often a difficult part of role play even in settings where they should be pretty common. Other players don't spare too much thought about nixing their creations. 

 

I'm curious how many people have killed off characters through IC events (or even implied it though the event was never written out). Did you do it primarily for plot reasons, or because you lost interest in a character - or maybe loss of interest in a character caused you to volunteer them to help another character's progress through events. Or on the flip side do you prefer never killing off characters, and if so why?

 

For those that have done it we'd love to hear the circumstances leading up/how they died. Did you give everyone involved a warning ahead of time, or was it something that came as more of a blind side - whether it was a death you planned in advance, or more a spur of the moment kind of thing. 

 

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I have had characters die when I come up with character backgrounds. The characters in question needed to for the plot to make sense. Though I will admit that the brothers and parents of one of my characters were written in as died because I didn't really want to npc them, there was no one interested in playing them and I don't like making my fandom oc character have too many connections. My fan fic stories are littered with dead characters in one way or another.

 

I've never willingly rped it. One of my characters did 'die' once but later it turned out that the rper who killed them had two powerful, god-like characters and pretended they were played by two different people. I no longer count that has having happened to them because of that manipulation.

 

I've no problem with characters being killed off if it is planned for the good of the plot and development of other characters in the story, but I don't like spontaneous, unplanned character deaths. Why? Because I think it's used too much by unhappy rpers when things don't go the way that they want it to, or by manipulative rpers who want to make people feel guilty for not doing a ship they wanted.

 

If being bored of a character is the reason why a character is killed off, it's still a bad reason for it. There are other ways you can write a character out of a story and you might change your mind about the character later once you've had a chance to reflect on things because it's pretty permanent (unless it's a MIA 'death' or some other way the circumstances around a 'death' might be ambiguous.)

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4 hours ago, Icewolf said:

I've no problem with characters being killed off if it is planned for the good of the plot and development of other characters in the story, but I don't like spontaneous, unplanned character deaths.

 

If being bored of a character is the reason why a character is killed off, it's still a bad reason for it. There are other ways you can write a character out of a story and you might change your mind about the character later once you've had a chance to reflect on things because it's pretty permanent (unless it's a MIA 'death' or some other way the circumstances around a 'death' might be ambiguous.)

 

I agree with this very much. I never killed a character because I was bored. Just because the plot circumstances were justifying the death. And I tried my best to make it memorable.

 

I have here 4 death scenes, posted at Morrighan's chalenge once. Three of them belong to the same mutiny plot: 

(I wanted to post them as url links, but it didn't allow me to, preferring to be this way).

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I have done it. It was for plot reasons. It’s always kinda bitter sweet when it happens but I like plots that evoke strong emotions. Death scares me IRL so it’s a way to look at it without actually looking it square in the face. 

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I've always been a little looser about killing characters. I've done it for plot reasons and simply being bored with the character and tired of trying to get them somewhere. I've also spontaneously killed them off. 

 

In cases of losing interest in the character, I usually attempt to steer it towards helping move other players plots along; other times nothing comes up and I just want closure for their story arc. Some characters just aren't successful, and I'm comfortable accepting that just because its my brain child doesn't mean they're a good character. And a character that's successful in one setting might not be successful in another, that's just the way things are. Why pile on the stress of managing a character you aren't interested in.

 

As far as spontaneous deaths, I've swung both ways - some of them were planned ahead for a while, and I kept it to myself, others were spur of the moment because it fit. 

A good example of the latter was from a semi-fantastical roman legion based setting I was involved in ages ago. My character was well received and sought after for play; in character he was a decorated officer, albeit in lower ranking. The tides of a major plot ending battle took a turn for the worst, and as it played out one of the high ranking characters was in a position where they were going to die - my character had a window to intervene, but there was just no reasonable way for him to do so and escape with his life. So spur of the moment I sacrificed him to save the more important character. 

 

It caused a huge shakedown both IC and OOC and personally I thought it was glorious, because it prompted so much more after the fact. 

 

In an instance of a planned out death, and I recently completed a plot that was pretty much Romeo & Juliette and Werewolves  in summary. Families hated each other, they got involved and both ended up dead. 

 

@Zozma brings up a good point as well. Role playing such events is a good way to confront fears, and provides a healthy window to examine something everyone has to deal with. 

 

All of that said, I have a multiverse MO so a character death isn't necessarily permanent. I can reincarnate them in a new setting whenever I want. 

 

 

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I'm not sure, on a forum, I've ever killed a character (as opposed to an NPC that was related to a character). If I get bored with a character, I'm much more likely to drop them and let them continue their life in the town as an NPC or move away from the city. (Mostly because I'm always nervous that I'll have a change of heart in a few days or months and want to play the character again -- and almost every forum I've been on has not allowed characters with resurrection-type powers)

 

In 1x1 stories or with NPCs though (like my character's friends and family), my characters die all the time. I like to work through the emotional trials of dealing with death, etc.

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I've willingly killed off one of my biggest characters to date - I put 3+ years into character development, so it felt like a significant chunk of time, anyway. The death was plot-dictated so it was definitely done on a whim. Later on, I felt bad about having done it, so I ended up creating a clone of the character. 😂

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It's rare I get the opportunity to kill a character properly however I chose "a bit of both" when it wasn't actually true. I've killed for less. I mean you can say "plot driven" but sometimes it's more like "That sounds like fun, lets do it". I'm hardly ever bored with a character. I have so many characters and I re-use them on many sites I'm on so it's actually unlikely I'm bored with them,

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Both were a few years ago, but I actually killed two characters due to their spouse (in an era where divorce was not a thing) being impossible OOC, either due to inactivity or just...being. The first served no other purpose and I do sort of regret it, but the second I was able to shift into something that impacted the entire board, so that was fun >D

 

Fortunately, in the years since I have learned how to work around that particular problem, so all my recent deaths have been either to further another character or at the natural end of an arc!

    

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm with @Morrigan in the "That sounds like fun, lets do it!" boat. 


One I'm proud of:

I had a Mercenary character who - flybynight got hitched with this super powerful dude on the board in a fit of whimsy. After three kids and getting annoyed at his uber-jealousy and controlling nature, she decided to divorce him. Well, that divorce didn't sit well, and Ex-Hubby sorta had a fit of madness. I decided that this was a good opening to kill her, as said character hadn't experienced an In-Character death yet. By killing her, we learned that a close friend of my Merc's turned out to be in love with her and never realized it. My friend took inspiration from Aeris' death in FFVII for the disposition of my characters remains, and I had a couple of proud tears for this unplanned heartstring tug.

I love it when Characters develop their own personalities inside your head and surprise you every so often. 

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