Dungeons & Dragons players are deeply familiar with the threat of in-game death. That characters with days if not weeks of combat, storytelling, and lore invested in them can die permanently is part of what makes playing Dungeons & Dragons meaningful. Dungeon Masters know this, of course, and the best DMs deal with player-character death very carefully. DMs also know that sometimes death isn't enough. Dungeons & Dragons players recently shared their experiences regarding when DMs gave their character a fate worse than death.
In a Reddit thread titled "Other than dying, what is the one thing you are afraid your DM might do to your character?" Dungeons & Dragon players are sharing their biggest fears and most frightening experiences. The thread is full of the awful ways a campaign has led to a nightmare for their character, whether it's a fitting end, a DM going overboard, or something entirely unexpected.
The top comment in the Reddit thread captures the basic idea behind a fate worse than death. Dungeons & Dragons player _Squint explains that their "happy Gnome father of 4" loved to tell little stories about their wife and kids throughout his adventures. That was, he loved to tell stories about his family before the villain of the DnD campaign "stole every memory of my PC's wife." That's the kind of tragedy that lingers, especially for the player who remembers how much their Gnome character loved his wife.
An example of a fate worse than death that's built more around Dungeon Master error than storytelling is summed up in a short sentence: "Let them survive when they should have died." Sometimes, a player-character dying is either the natural conclusion of a story or perfectly appropriate in a given scenario. Having them not die can take the teeth out of an adventure, derail a character's arc, and just reduce player investment in general. Doing what may seem kind may be a DM's biggest mistake.
Plenty of examples are also given of DMs just being jerks, whether due to being poor at the job or due to thinking it's funny. Examples include "undermining" a Dungeons & Dragons player-character's motivation or personality trait, forcing a PC to be unable to control the volume of their voice, unfairly overruling background decisions, or deciding a character's story arc ending without the player's involvement. One especially awful decision by a DM is to use a player's character as an NPC, at least without asking for approval first.
A lot of answers to the question ultimately came down to Dungeons & Dragons players seeing a poorly run game as worse than their character dying, which is entirely understandable. But the ways a campaign can go wrong also reveals the way it can go right. Communication and creativity are at the heart of every great Dungeons & Dragons decision, to the point that they can even make for amazing moments where a fate worse than death is exactly the right thing to do.
