Losing a PC and how it effects your emotions.

A couple of weeks ago in our 5e game we lost one of our PCs. A fellow PC adventurer actually betrayed us. He took us down one by one. The PC we lost got beheaded. There was no bringing her back. So what surprised me was the gamut of emotions I experienced. First, it was so exhilarating trying to stop the viper in our midst. Then, it got worrisome when he kept downing us. Lastly, I felt a melancholy come over the group at the lose of one of our own and the betrayal of another. Which was what surprised me most. I mean afterall it is just a character and the player can make a new one and rejoin the group. We all got over it quickly but still. I am interested in your thoughts on losing a PC and how you felt or how it effected the group. Plus, having one of your own turn on you that isn't an NPC. Thanks. (Hope all that made sense, I am new at D&D, so hopefully, I explained that all correctly)

One of my favorite parts of this hobby is that you get to play with your own emotions and experience things that you might never (hopefully) experience in real life. It's exhilarating and depressing all at the same time.

I'm running at D&D 3.5 game over Roll20 and Hangouts and we recently had a character get chopped in half by a demon. The player playing that character was thrilled and had so much fun. Another player was kind of depressed at the loss, but perked up as soon as she saw that the player whose character it was, was enjoying herself so much. My own emotions were kind of weird, too. I was sad that someone's character died, but I was a little proud of myself as the GM. I had given a true challenge and they had overcome it. Most of them.

Betrayal is a fun one to play with, too. Depending on the game and the group.

Yes, I could see this going very badly with some groups.

I think our group as a whole took the betrayal fine. One of the characters didn't, but IRL we all had fun with it and it added flavor to the session as well even though it was sad too. The player that died was actually going to have a baby soon but her death/exit wasn't planned for that night, so it surprised our GM too. The Barbarian hit her with 32 damage. And IRL it was her husband's character who killed her lol!

Oh yeah, I've seen a session explode into an argument because of exactly that. Funny thing is, it was only my character who got killed by the betrayer. It was a bit weird as everyone else was arguing on my behalf, I was simply looking through the books, making a new character...

We had a two year campaign end recently with deaths all around. Betrayed by one of our own, and even the gods turned against us. Seppuku for my gal was a mercy. Very tough stuff. My wife (who's PC was stabbed in the gut mortally by the betrayer) and I moped about for a week suffering from some sort of meta-loss/grief.

It light of some of these comments, I guess we all handled it really well then. :D