The setting: Our grave domain cleric used Channel Divinity to curse the newly hatched black dragon wyrmling we were facing (makes vulnerable to any damage) and then our sorcerer cast Magic Missile on it.
DM: All 3 missiles drill into the wyrmling, splattering gore across the back wall as it drops to the floor, dead. Damn, I was hoping you guys would take some damage from this fight. [We’re squishy level 3s]
Party: Wooo!
DM: However, the wyrmling’s pool of acidic blood is now slowly eating through the floor.
Druid: Umm, can I shape water to waterbend the blood out of the corpse, off the floor, and out the window? Blood’s mostly water, right?
DM, IRL fount of random scientific knowledge:…I guess? Hmm. I wonder, would that leave the acid behind? Is there now just straight acid on the floor reacting with the moisture in the wood?
Bard, IRL Master of Biomedical Science[paraphrased because this was 3 weeks ago and it got really sciency]: Well, if all the water was pulled out you’d have it reacting with things like sodium and you’d just end up with salt I think.
The two of them went on for another 5 minutes debating back and forth about what the acid would do out of solution, depending on concentration, type of acid, etc.
DM: OK, ok, I’ll let you waterbend the whole mess out out the window. You now have a desiccated wyrmling corpse, a corpse, and a vaguely burnt spot on the floor.
DM: So, now that the rogue managed to get the rubies out without electrocuting himself, you can see inside and see a button inside.
Magus: I’m the only one who sees this?
DM: You were the only one who asked to look instead of looting.
Magus: I stand there and stare at the button for a long time. I am sweating intensely. My +4 intelligence is telling me all the bad things that could happen, but my chaotic an curious nature are fighting against it.
DM: So?
Magus: Fuck it I press it.
DM: You hear a click but nothing happens.
Magus: Despite knowing that that button could’ve resulted in my death in many ways, I feel disappointed it didn’t do anything.
Paladin: Its okay, I understand the need to press mysterious buttons.
Magus: How can I NOT when I don’t know what they do! I need to know!
Paladin: Especially if they’re red and or on a panel that says do not touch.
Magus (loudly): EXACTLY!
-After beating a giant rat to find a large cache of cheese-
Rogue: Cheese…that’s all? Paladin: Doesn’t sound like you’re having a gouda day. Ranger: I don’t see your problem, cheese is grate. Cleric: I don’t disabrie. DM: Rogue, make a will saving throw. Rogue: ….6. DM: You take 5 points of damage and have disadvantage on your will saving throws until you take a rest
Backstory: The party is creeping through the city sewers, trying to find a bunch of little killer golems (think Mousers from TMNT). The ranger has a map of the sewer that includes marks for trapped areas. One such trap is a pressure plate with a barely discernible “X” on the surface. The party is single file along the side of a narrow sewer walkway.
Caven, our Ranger (whispers to Cleric): “Don’t step on the ‘X’! Pass it on!” Cleric (whispers to Sorceress): “Caven says don’t step on the X, pass it on!” Sorceress (whispers to Rogue): “Caven says to step on the X, pass it on!” Rogue: “Wait, what about Caven’s ex?” Warlock: “Caven’s having sex? Dude, we’re in a sewer!”
DM (me): “Very funny. So you can all move around the trap and-” Warlock: “What, no, that was totally in character. We set off the trap.” DM: “ … … .”
Death offers a game for your life. You decide on D&D.
“I assume you’ve never played?” I asked.
The cloaked figure across from me shook their head slowly.
“Great,” I said. “I’ll be the DM. I’ll walk you through everything. First, character creation.”
Six hours later Death sat leaned over the table with a mountain dew in one hand and a D20 in the other. Their hood was thrown back to reveal a bleached grinning skull.
We were in the company of four infernals from the depths of the Abyss. I don’t remember which of us invited each of them. Turned out we had quite a few friends in common.
They rolled a one.
“Oohh, tough luck,” I said with a smile.
“Fuck. This is the best time I’ve had in centuries, but I really should get back to work,” they said reluctantly.
“Yeah…” One of the demons agreed. “I actually have a meeting with some senators in like an hour.”
“Same time next week?” Death asked.
“I’ll be here,” I agreed.
I suspected they knew before we started that this was a game that didn’t have to have an end and didn’t have a winner.
For those who don’t know, this xkcd strip was done as a memorial when Gary Gygax died.
They came back the next week, and the week after that. After a month of weekly sessions, Death pulled me aside.
“Hey,” he muttered, shuffling his skeletal feet a bit and rubbing his arm. “I don’t want to be That Guy, but this game does have an end, right? I’m having a blast, but this is still technically work for me, and I have to file reports, especially with all the loopholes I had to pull on to get a multi-session game approved in the first place.”
“Oh, yeah, for sure!” I told him. “There’s lots of ways for it to end. “Your characters could all die, we could finish the story we’re telling together, or our group could even just stop playing.”
Satisfied, he took his place at the table, but for months thereafter, he would cock his head at me every time I ended a session with excitement to play again. All I could do was shrug.
The weeks turned into months, turned into years, and Death stopped his reminders that our game, like everything else in the world, would eventually have to die. He told me, once, that he was determined to see this through to the end because my absurdly long game would make for a good story, but I think he had grown attached to his gnome cleric. Her magic was from the Life domain, and his grin always seemed just a touch wider every time he healed someone.
Half a decade after we began, my players were as seasoned as their level 20 characters, and I was running out of curveballs that would challenge them, so I wrote an end to the campaign. I spent months on it, carefully tying up every loose plot thread I could think of and giving all five members of the party the best resolution I could muster. Three of them got married to each other.
There were tears flowing from every eye that wasn’t an empty socket as I narrated their proverbial rides into the sunset, before finally I folded my screen, looked at each of them in turn, and said “The end. Death, you can take my soul now.”
He froze, and the demons around the table turned as one to stare at him.
Then, slowly, he cocked his head the same way he used to. “But you won,” he said. “The object of the game is to tell a story with your friends, and you did.”
“But so did you!” I cried. “And everyone knows that when Death wins a game, he gets your soul.”
Death’s grin spread wider than it ever had when he saved someone’s life in-game. “Didn’t you just finish pouring it into a game that you shared with me?”
