Finish a campaign that lasted over a year on a completely triumphant note

>Finish a campaign that lasted over a year on a completely triumphant note
>Player caharacters have all accomplished their long-term goals, toppled the villain, and find themselves successful, wealthy, and influential.
>We end on the game with them leading exploration into new, uncharted lands as kings and leaders in their own right
>New campaign starts
>The very first note of the campaign is discovering that al of the old PCs have died in a border skirmish against the new big bad guy'a forces.
>We find their bodies desecrated and mutilated
>Session ends on the reveal that the BBEG's spear anihilates souls, meaning the old PCs are deader than dead - they're irrevocably gone beyond any magics

Am I a bad person for having lost all interest in the new game over this, and feeling a little bitter towards the GM? I get that this is supposed to make us really hate the new bad guy and sure, whatever, but I've been feeling awful about it. To play as an with these characters for over a year just to have them destroyed utterly, offscreen, and then put on display just feels fucking awful and I really have no motivation to keep going after that.

Am I just being too touchy or something?

I'd say you have a right to feel annoyed. They are your characters after all. Perhaps if the DM had left some way for them to be revived, perhaps even to help you later on, that'd be much more understandable.

I would leave the game and never come back

This would bring a fairly targeted "The fuck are you doing, GM?" from me.
As a player and GM, I have a rule: The pcs belong to the player, and are not to be used in a way that is disrespectful to the player or the character's accomplishments".
They are heroes (or villains), and they EARNED that title, dammit, it needs to be respected, or the magic is gone.
I would tell off the GM, explain why I was leaving his game, then wish him well and break away.

I used to game with a GM who decided to follow up an eight month long campaign where my Paladin had been an upstanding good guy in the face of unrelenting bad shit being thrown his way by revealing he had fallen to evil because the dutchess he had fallen in love with at the end of the last campaign was secretly a vampire. I think that was the only time where I left a campaign over being fucking pissed off at the GM instead of scheduling problems.

I would have been.... upset.
Like South Korean president upset.

I talked to the GM a bit about what happened and how I was feeling, and he explained tht in-universe the bad guy had earned the title of "The Demoralizer" for a reason, and this was the only way of making us as players feel the full extent of "devastation" his psychological warfare brings. I'm thinking it worked too well, because I really might just drop the game.

Agreed. You need to either:
a) tell your DM to fuck off
b) suggest he go out and come in again with a different stupid idea

If my current GM did that to our retired characters, I would be mighty pissed off.

I don't care that the new villain is called that, killing off the last characters off-screen is more cancerous than killing the background family.

Fuck that GM and Fuck his shit

Naw, man, a line was crossed.
He could have just as easily cast down some great work the old pcs did, or better, bring the old pcs low so that the new pcs need to rescue them, inheriting their titles.
Which would be awesome, and I want to do that. Run into an old pc, well into their years and settled down, but they take the time to impart to you knowledge of their skill and might for a new generation of heroes.
Fuck, I want that to happen to me...

That's cheap heat that doesn't even make sense in character. Why would your new characters care about some schmucks? They don't know your previous characters.

>>No see guys the new villian of the new game is AWESOME enough to beat even your bad ass characters
>>BBEG inevitably ends up being shit you beat in two rounds of combat and wouldnt have been able to do anything to your old characters
>>Shit DM is shit

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself becoming forgotten and irrelevant

You should slap him in the dick and tell him that was to 'demoralize" him

You're a whiny little child who can't hand the idea that BBEG kill heroes and present themselves as world ending threats.

This guy has a legitimate complaint. You're complainign that the heroes who saved the world were killed by an evil force out to destroy everything. That's what evil villains DO. They KILL HEROES. They present themselves as a threat to be overcome because the previous heroes died. They died fighting the good fight. You should be fucking happy they did, and go wrest vengeance from the heart of evil and defeat him.

Your feefeees being hurt because something bad happened to your previous character - whom you were not using, by the way, and was now a plot device for the GM to use - are why SJWs now rule the world and ruin good things.

Man up and take REVENGE, you limp wristed COWARD!

What's worse than flat out killing your old characters? Permanently crippling them so they can't affect anything, leading them to support the new generation of heroes.
Because killing them provides martyrs. Leaving them crippled and alive actually causes more morale damage.

I'd be pretty pissed too, but honestly is right. Just go along with the game and see where it leads. If it doesn't look like he had an actual plan other than shock value then do what you will. It's a little ridiculous to just stop playing on that note, it makes you look thin skinned and overly attached. GM is probably just trying to make this campaign more epic than the last so give him the next session.

Not being too touchy at all, that's pretty targeted.
It would be cool and all if the next campaign started after the death of your last characters if they died ins some interesting way, but not like this. Imagine if the GM told a tale of mighty warrior kings who lived a long prosperous life and are now dead in their old age. The kingdoms morn, a new era of strife will surely follow. That would keep the memory of your old exploits alive, allow for new conflict, and not feel like a dick move.

>not having the first session be with the old characters
>not investigating the new BBEG plans
>not falling into a trap and being swarmed by overwhelming forces
>not fighting with all your might trying to stall long enough to pass on an important info on the BBEG's weaknesses
>not having a dramatic and personal ending to the characters history
>not having closure
>having "lol they all died and were raped and mutilated and pissed on oh and also had their souls destroyed"
shiggy diggy
Don't listen to these faggots calling you a pussy, your DM is an ass

Sounds like a Neegan rip-off to me

>Turning your characters into Worf

Even taken at its best, this makes your GM lame.

killing off these characters..could work. However doing it off-screen is kinda shitty. You should have been there fending off low level mooks while the old party fights and dies

>bending over and letting the GM pound you
That's being a SJW, you worthless cunt.

Shit DM is shit. You're right to be pissed.

Ignore me

Ignore me please

Super Ignore me

...

Why can't we bee friend?

Nah, you're just a tired hack devoid of inspiration who can't figure out how to make your audience emotionally involved in your story without resorting to the lamest of cliches. You'd fit in nicely with OP's GM.

People like you are why players return to bad GMs like battered housewives
>I-it might be ok! He says he has a good reason!
>I can make it work!
>I have to stay, for the sake of the players!
No, you dumbass. When someone does something so mind boggling retarded and doesn't even grasp that they did something wrong, the correct course of action, if you can't talk then round, is to leave. Or at least get them to acknowledge it was a bad idea.
It's just going to happen again and again if you don't, because as far as he's concerned, it's a good idea and he may as well reuse it the next time he wants some cheap shock value

I had a gm do something kind of similar.
>Campaign ends.
>Party manages to eek out a victory against overwhelming odds.
>One pc wound up a tad corrupted.
>pc goes on to kill two other party members and maim a third in the interlude to the next campaign and then become the bbeg.
>maimed pc becomes guide for next generation of pcs before heroically sacrifices himself to save new pcs from bbeg.
It was a hell of alot of fun.

See, that's different. There's a damn good reason why that happened - if a PC basically got compleated, of COURSE he's going to turn evil. And you got closure with Obi-Wan sacrificing himself for you. Compare to "lol your PCs got shit on, get fucked, it's for the emotional impact"

I wish my players cared enough about the story to not see an old pc dieing as a symbol of of that can die I need to become mechanically stronger.
Why am I only ever able to find the murdest of murder hobos.

There's little difference. There's plenty of reason for OPs PC to have died. If they're such a big hero, of course they'd go fight the BBEG, and if the antagonists threat isn't bs and actually warrants a new campaign and not just having you old PCs save the day, ya he's gonna win and probably kill the PCs. The spear is just a solid way to make sure the campaign doesn't turn into "save and resurrect our spetial old characters".

Shit GM detected.

Here's the thing, though. Despite being heroes in universe, your new characters didn't know your old ones, right? It was a really meta move, and very uncalled for.

No it isn't. you're just triggered that the GM introduced someone who was tougher than your old characters.

Yet here you are, siding with OP's whiny little crybaby. He's not even man enough to take a stand, he's just going to go hide and cry about how the evilbad GM killed a character he isn't even fucking using. Triggered much?

"Nu uh, the bid bad gyu is too weak to kill my super special retired characters? Why should we have to do anythign at all, the big bad guy couldn't win against my ex-character, we'll justy let them solve the problem!"

You're like a little kid claiming the bullets are bouncing off your forcefield, because something bad could never happen to YOUR retired character.

Worse player complaining.

"But, but, muh special snowflake!"

he's right you know

>and was now a plot device for the GM to use
fuck off
as a forever GM, taking your players' characters for yourself, especially if they were attached to them and/or were just good characters, is a total dick move
manning up and getting revenge is one thing, but honestly I'd feel like shit if someone fucked up my setting or one of the NPCs I really like for their own purpose or something

As the kind of guy who always plays heroes, I'd be absolutely livid...

If that wasn't my fetish.

It's a huge bummer, for sure. Definitely a shitty move to take away player agency like that. And, while easy to fix with i l l u s i o n s or other bs, I can't imagine the game will get to the point where that's an option

Problem: That's make most players spite the GM rather than the villain.

There's a reason why unceremonious deaths of main characters offscreen are very rare, and when it does happen, is received very negatively.

More than that I think just recycling the setting is really lazy.

>Troll arguing with entire thread
Too obvious/10

That sounds like a plot twist from Dragonball.

Your GM seems confused. This is a game. Games are meant to be fun. You're not characters in his bullshit novel. A line was crossed, and you're justified in walking. Take the other players with you if you can and run a good game.

I see you're confusing 'edgy tryhard' with 'mature'.

Hope you're enjoying your winter break from school.

See I might have done this, because it is interesting and sets up the new campaign. But I never have done it off-screen. I would have let the players play their old characters one last time, fighting a hopeless last stand to let their new characters escape.

>Am I a bad person for having lost all interest in the new game over this

Ya, in a way you are. That's not your character anymore, that time is past, what you're playing right now is your character. And if you old PC is the big cool hero/leader you make them out to be, they'd sure as hell better go fight the worlds new BBEG, and if there's any really justification to this campaign, he better beat them bloody/dead. The spear is just making sure that this doesn't turn into a "save muh spetial peecees" campaign.

Honestly, considering all the typically "good" endings there are, there's nothing wrong with a "bad" ending in a sense, especially if it's to set up the BBEG. Hopefully the DM uses the former PC deaths well, and the campaign turns out solid.

>BBEG mind controls the old PCs
>Old PCs end up becoming boss fights for the new PCs
Is this cliche/corny as balls?

Back in my day, rusemen actually put effort into it.

It is very cliché, but it's cliché for a reason. It's cuz throwbacks like that are tight.

This bait is so obvious that I actually feel insulted.

You literally just threw the whole fishing rod into the water and expected the fish to impale themselves on the hook for your benefit.

For shame troll-kun, for shame.

>kings and leaders in their own right
>died in a border skirmish

That's some lazy writing right there.

There's a huge difference.

For one, the maimed PC actually served a purpose to the next generation of PC's and then died to protect the next generation from the BBEG.

Compare to OP where they just started the campaign with their old PC's dead, bodies desecrated, and souls irreparably damaged to the point where they could never be revived off screen with no way to affect the outcome in a meaningful way, just because the GM wanted to set up cheap drama that doesn't even work because only the PLAYERS will care about the old PC's since the new PC's never interacted with them and had no reason to care.

It's about on the same level as starting off campaign with the main character's family being killed/raped/maimed/etc. just to set up the BBEG as supreme evil of the land. On paper this should work but in reality, it just encourages the player to never give a fuck about the setting again beyond whatever monsters you throw into his way to slaughter for XP.

>on paper this should work but in reality, it just encourages the player to never give a fuck about the setting again beyond whatever monsters you throw into his way to slaughter for XP.

Yeah, if you are too willing to murder shit the players care about as a GM you'll push them into stopping caring. Heck, it also works in movies. No one gives a shit about the people who die in a gorefest horror movie as you know 90% of them are not making it to the end.

It's basically impossible that you've gone through a full campaign with that DM, without getting ample chance to figure out what a massive unbelievable faggot he was.

In fact, the chances that he would've cocked up the original campaign and given you good reason to hate him are over 90%, given what we know about him now.

So I guess it never happened. But otherwise, you should've seen the signs. You should've known: your disappointment was caused by your DM, but you could've prevented it.

You're right to be put off, but not because your characters died. You should be put off because this is incredibly lazy storytelling.

I too would drop this GM.

Yeah that's pretty cheap.
I totally understand it, but it's pretty lame.

There are times when a good DM falters and ends up backsliding into the realm of THAT GM user.

My best buddy is a forever GM and towards the end of our 5e campaign, he started to do shit like making someone's character auto-miss because he threw a (magical) ax at an airborne target because "it wasn't designed to be aerodynamic" and causing the same character to break one of his longswords because he rolled critically fumbled an attack roll.

I still game with him and tbqh the 5e campaign was starting to drag on since one player wouldn't shut the fuck up and another player couldn't focus to save his life but at the very least, I can see where someone might take a step back in quality or have a shitty idea during an important moment.

>all heroes and kings die in a heroic manner
Genghis Khan would like a word with you

Like basically everyone else here I think that was a bad move. Technically the old characters became NPCs and getting rid of them might be better than the GM being forced to play them - in the end they're still your characters and sooner or later he wouldn't be able to let them act as you would have. But the execution was poor.
At least he should have told you before the new campaign that he's going to treat them as any other NPC. Demoralizing the players from the get go wasn't the brightest idea in general. But if he goes for something like that, at least he should have given them an epic last stand against the new BBEG witnessed by the new characters in game.

What I can't support is the "burn all the bridges" some people promote here. Yeah, your GM pulled a bad move. That happens with humans. Transition between campaign can be difficult if you want to tie both of them together in an interesting way.
In the end you know your GM is able to lead interesting campaigns as proofed by a whole year of play, imho that should give him some credit. It might have been a bad start but jumping the ship might let you miss good games in the future.

Your DM needs a time out.

Next session give him a sheet and tell him he's playing. DM for everyone. Show him how it's done.

Why would a King be on the front lines of a border skirmish?

So, what do you pussies do when the DM says that the age has advanced 400 years and all of your old PCs are dead, buried, and probably forgotten? What's the difference between doing that and having them die off screen again?

One, the one you just listed is removing PCs from the game whilst still respecting them and their accomplishments. The other is outright killing them for an emotional "gotcha" as a hook. The first one let's you continue in an existing world without baggage, the other takes your accomplishments and shits on them.

There's a difference between "Your PCs had lives filled with adventure and romance, eventually succumbing to old age and rising to glorious Valhalla" and "Your PCs were brutally slaughtered well before their time, their bodies desecrated and souls torn asunder so even a glorious afterlife is stolen from them."

Really? Because it seems that its the reverse from a logical standpoint. One is forgotten, and the others die as a matyr. Seems like some double standards going on in this thread here.

Who said anything about that rising to glorious vallhalla? If they died of old age, they're sure as fuck not getting in. You only get in through battle. With the second option, going after the guy who killed the former heroes seems like a far better plot.

One is a natural consequence of mortality and still respects the PC's accomplishments by having their legacy be seen centures after their death.

The other is just reducing the old PC's to a cheap prop that the GM threw away for a cheap jab at drama without respecting their legacy as characters while retconning them from the narrative off-screen.

You're literally asking the difference between a time-skip where the old lady who gave your character a home died of old age and having the old lady be found dead in a pool of her own blood with a prolapsed anus without you having an opportunity to stop it.

If you can't tell the difference then you're the cancer killing ttRPGs.

>One is a natural consequence of mortality and still respects the PC's accomplishments by having their legacy be seen centures after their death.
How? They are forgotten.

>How? They are forgotten.
We still remember George Washington even though he died centuries ago user.

For PCs that became heroes and kings, it's highly unlikely that people would just forget about them unless you go out of your way to outright retcon everything that happened in the previous campaign.

At which point you're still a shitty GM.

>We still remember George Washington even though he died centuries ago user.
Then he doesn't qualify as "forgotten", now does he, genius?

I guess I'll have to agree with that. People do make mistakes, and not everyone masters DMing on the sort of philosophical level where you realize the underlying reason why never to do the kind of thing that OP's DM did.

So, yeah, I think you're right that OP's DM might not necessarily be full-blown That DM, but actually just an okay DM who fucked up big.

You're the one who brought up the idea of the PC's being forgotten because of a massive time skip genius.

I'll spell it out for you, i-f t-h-e-y a-r-e k-i-n-g-s a-n-d h-e-r-o-e-s t-h-e-n t-h-e-y w-o-u-l-d n-o-t b-e f-o-r-g-o-t-t-e-n.

You don't just become a hero or a king just by slaying goblins in some cave, you have to have accomplished something major that would've been worth recording in the history books. So your entire premise of the heroes being forgotten is flawed from the onset unless you go out of your way to retcon everything that happened, which would make you a shitty DM.

>the age has advanced 400 years and all of your old PCs are dead
Then that means the story of the old characters was untainted. Good end. Perfect. 10/10, would play with DM again.

Replace Valhalla with literally any other Good-aligned afterlife and stop splitting hairs. In games like D&D where souls are scientifically real and the afterlife is a tangible place you can travel to (or at least commune with), getting your soul destroyed is much worse than dying. Even without that D&D presumption, killing the previous PCs offscreen just to hype up your new Big Bad is cheap and clearly pisses some people off. You're better off honouring the old PCs than pulling shitty tactics like his GM did.

>You're the one who brought up the idea of the PC's being forgotten because of a massive time skip genius.
Yes, and you've failed to meet that qualifier at every turn, moron.

Note that his original post set up a bunch of absurd concessions that you have to make in terms of the premises for your discussion.
He's clearly not interested in discussing; his intent from the beginning has been to stir shit.

>having kings who don't fight on the front lines
Richard the Lionheart would like a word with you

Answer me this simple question, why would someone who is important enough to become a king or a hero be forgotten just because they died 400 years ago?

Short of some cataclysmic event that wiped out 99.99% of civilization, I cannot fathom how an important figure would be forgotten after only 400 years, especially if they earned that title by slaying some world ending BBEG that would've caused the end of the world as we know it.

It's poor story-telling, history doesn't go away just because a lot of time passed, otherwise we wouldn't have history at all.

An exception, not the rule.

>Answer me this simple question, why would someone who is important enough to become a king or a hero be forgotten just because they died 400 years ago?
Most people barely even care about history as it is, and you're asking why anyone from a medieval fantasy society, whose lifespans are on average about 50 years, would care about some nobodies who didn't do anything for them some 400 years ago other than maybe stop one tyrant from becoming the next tyrant?

You're over inflating the importance of modern day history and placing it as a burden on a fantasy society.

>Heroes and Kings
>nobodies

Okay, you're retarded.

Last (You) you'll get from me, make it last.

Cute. Come in here, fail every condition, then storm off butthurt. Great tactic. You can keep your (you), I don't need it.

If you spent more time being subtle about it then he probably wouldn't have left.

Here's a (You) from me too, now can you please GTFO?

No. I will haunt this thread and call you out until it runs its course.

>BBEG's spear anihilates souls, meaning the old PCs are deader than dead - they're irrevocably gone beyond any magics
Everything before this was a dick move, but I could grin through it if it was leading somewhere, but denying them even an afterlife, that's low, I'd probably interrupt the GM right there and demand to know what the fuck

"The Demoralizer" as an *in-universe* title? This is a joke, right?

This sounds like the nickname disgruntled employees would give to bad middle management, not the title earned by a ruthless villain through a campaign of slaughter. It's asinine.

Just try it out.
"Morgoth the Demoralizer"
"Saruman the Demoralizer"
"Lord Sidious the Demoralizer"

It's patently absurd.

Sounds good to me, honestly. Maybe stop pushing your opinions onto us for a moment?

>Maybe stop pushing your opinions onto us for a moment?

meanwhile in a slice of life some one can die even in a comical manner and their death will have huge weight to it because its unexpected, everyone is effected and the plot now has the consequences of a meaningful person dead

"Demoralizer" is on the same tier as tryhard edgy bullshit as Shad(ow) the H(edge)hog

It's the type of name you give a Saturday morning cartoon villain, not a serious threat that's supposed to inspire fear into the hearts of men.

Wow, it's almost like he's playing a dorky table top game or something.

Hell, remember when Mr. Hooper died on Sesame Street?

They actually took a moment and acknowledged his death even though it was a kids show about learning your ABC's and 123's.

>tfw Sesame Street shows more maturity then Game of Thrones or modern Comics

That is fucking stupid. Why not have some of them die and some be npcs?

ie- one of them now leads the [group you need to work with] so they're an important npc, one is missing and maybe you find out that he died but you get some cool item he had and the other former PC is like ya man rip in peace get his body back etcetc

Like, heroes deaths/epilogues.

aggh this makes me so angry

UNDER-FUCKING RATED

If you acknowledge that you're playing a "dorky table top game" then why are you playing it?

More to the point, why would you open up a new session with the old PC's dead and erased from existence if the point of tabletop is to fuck about with your friends? Do you just not understand how that would start off the campaign on a sour note after spending a year giving their old PCs a proper sendoff with all their accomplishments leading to a satisfying conclusion?

>If you acknowledge that you're playing a "dorky table top game" then why are you playing it?
Fun. What a retarded question. Why did you even bother responding?