Tear Jerker / The Lord of the Rings Online

• The fate of the ranger Amdir, who helped Strider rescue the hobbit/man PCs and the hobbits Mundo Sackville-Baggins and Celandine Brandybuck from the Blackwold brigands. He's stabbed by a Nazgûl with a morgul blade during the jail break, and he slowly begins to transform into a wraith and starts to lose his mind, eventually fully succumbing and requiring to be put down.
• When summoning the ranger Candaith to ride to Rohan to the aid of his chief Aragorn as a part of the Grey Company, he gives a small speech about how they do not know what they will face on the road, and that he will miss the lands that he calls home, but also that he knows the risks and that he will not break the oath he swore to Aragorn. Later in the same storyline, this exact scene is replicated in a cutscene. The reason for the cutscene? Candaith had just died in battle.
• The instance during the Epic quest, where you play Ori during the final stand in Moria. Ori dies fighting.
• The first quest of the Elf storyline has the player character's mentor, Talagan Silvertongue (whom the PC is hinted to have a close relationship with), sacrifice himself along with Skorgrím Dourhand, so that the latter can't get to some Elven relics. Ouch.
• In Rise of Isengard, the death of Théodred at the Battle of the Fords of Isen. This comes after the player will have fought alongside him many times during the course of the epic storyline and greatly fleshed out his character from the unseen, posthumous character in Tolkien's novel.
• Wynmar and Noriel in the Great River region, where the player serves as matchmaker for the Horse Lord, Wynmar and the Lorien Elf, Noriel. Not only does she rebuff his advances, but he becomes so heartbroken that he fails to pay any attention to the imminent Orc ambush upon the Rohirrim's camp. Noriel arrives to late to prevent him from being mortally wounded, revealing that she did return his feelings, but lied because she believed their different cultures and her immortality would keep them apart.
• In West Gondor, the farmer Fuirion is in love with Limril, his sister-in-law, but cannot bear to be around her, and thus he decides to take up a bounty hunter's life to stay away from her, lest he act upon his feelings. In the end, he is killed by a corsair captain, fulfilling his death wish.
• One enemy type commonly find among the forces of Angmar and in skirmishes is the Pale-folk, or Nimwaith, a Slave Race of stunted, degenerate Men. Some are non-hostile but attackable, and others are driven into a violent frenzy. The non-hostile ones are commonly killed anyway, whether it be because of callousness, a Mercy Kill, or simply the players' tendency to attack all available targets. When their brethren are slain they commonly cry out things like "Why did you kill him?". The sad part, mixed with Fridge Horror, is that while other hostile groups of Men, such as Easterlings, Haradrim, Hill-men and even Gauredain, have some backstory and at least one non-hostile interaction each, the Pale-folk do not. NPCs barely even mention them. It seems the Enemy has successfully annihilated their original culture, leaving no trace of their origins. All that is left of them are filthy, malnourished, pathetic little slaves. Some of the most recognition they get is a Slayer Deed in one particular instance, for which killing many of them grants the title the Sympathetic.
• The death of Horn can be this, if Halros was made to stay in the Shire. Horn had, until that point, been exiled from Rohan twice, brought into danger repeatedly, and clashed with his family. Then he finds and falls in love with Nona, a Dunlending woman from Enedwaith, and things seem to be looking up for the couple... but then Hildegard the Soothsayer foresees Horn's death at the Battle of Pelennor, creating a rift between the two, and eventually Horn resolves to go off and fight for his wife's sake, so that they might live the rest of their lives in peace. The real kicker comes when Horn elaborates on why he decided to go to war: Nona was with child. Knowing that Horn could potentially be leaving his wife and unborn baby makes it that much more heartwrenching.