Context : as of today (March 26 2026) this game have been running for one and a half year, almost once a week, every Monday. This time we played Sunday and Monday since a player was on vacations for the last three weeks and we couldn’t make it next week either.
This GM is the best : he takes into account backstory, brings believable plot lines to life and his NPC have soul and personality. I love him so much, he made me want to GM again after so many years of not doing it because of the pressure I was putting on myself. His games are really the most interesting things about my life. Buuut back when we met, for an other dnd game (witch is still running) two and a half years ago, we did a session zero, and he ask if there was anything we didn’t want in a game so I talked about the fact that I didn’t want father figures to die on screen since my dad’s death was (and still is) hard for me.
He must have forgotten.
Sunday ended on a cliffhanger, a battle was announced between two noble factions of my characterv’s city where we are currently playing.
(she’s the governor’s unique tiefling daughter, both her parents are humans, she was born this way because of a half-failed ritual summoning an arch-devil named Sybil instead of a deity of pleasure)
The next day, we jumped right in the most dramatic battle I’ve ever played. I’ve played epic before, I’ve played fun, and failed plans turn wrong, but never anything tragic like that. We were everywhere all at once. There was in fact two battlefields, the governor and his council where in a room on the first floor of a palace, and then there was the outside, where most of the battle took place.
And we were loosing. Bad rolls, some bad decision too. And of course when we got a grip on the situation we realized another faction arrived, and attacked my father and his allies upstairs. When the big bad of this new faction made his entrance, I was alone in the corridor, I tried to slow him down but I was out in a turn (I play bard college of the sword, and I’m quite squishy). Most of the good fighters NPC and one of the players character where fighting hard in the council room. My character was saved by another (very injured) paladin player character, and I got back to trying to get the big bad down (he had joined the melee), and, since I considered my character didn’t see her father was down (stabilized but 0 HP) due to the crowd of people fighting in the doorway, I choose to attack with a spell and try to get big bad to flee and take opportunity attacks. It worked eventually, and big bad was down. But he’s an orc. So he got up with one HP, and got another turn right after. Big bad orc chooses to aim his tree lasts attacks at the body of my character’s father (witch was his target all along, it makes sense, it’s just guts wrenching).
My character’s father’s died. I was in shock. I felt like I couldn’t quite breathe and I believe I made some weird desperate sounds. This night’s game was over, the combat took all of it, all 3 hours and 30 minutes of it.
At least I thought it was, everybody was talking of-game, and I started to express some of what I was feeling « I might cry » I believe I said. Then GM got to do what he does best : he twisted my arm and send me rolling downhill. Metaphorically of course. My character “other mother” Sybil, offered her a deal. A favor she said, against her father’s life. Of course I don’t know what the favor is, and my 19 year’s old character will do everything it takes for her father not to die. She doesn’t care about consequences (I know that for a truth, I would have done the same when mine died, and I was about her age).
I do. I’m scared as fuck about what’s next. And excited too, it’s gonna be good, I’m sure of it.
But I cant quite shake the trauma response caused by facing my character’s father’s death. I’ve stared at the ceiling for hours, then at the wall, and everything I’ve tried to numb the pain failed. I go back to the scene in my mind, to the whole battle, and try to figure out what I did wrong, what I could have done better. This battle was hard. Not impossible, just hard. For everyone, not just me, we were all exhausted from it at the end, especially the GM who ran so many NPC from so many factions beautifully. I can’t wait the next game. Two weeks is an eternity.
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