[Icelander]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Or, a more charitable view: The Player saw the situation as untenable and took decisive steps to to try to end it in the party's favor.

Nope. There was no attempt to aid anyone else involved.

The sum total of O'Toole's training in tactical shooting amounts to one Dabbler Perk for several skills taught in his Basic Combat Training eight years ago and a single point in Guns (Pistol). He doesn't have Fast-Draw (Pistol) or the kind of skill in rapidly engaging threats in close combat with a firearm to make it even remotely practical for him to try to headshot several armed men wearing body armour in a dark corridor before their automatic rifle fire cut him down.

Fighting the guards was never an option, specifically because when O'Toole was designed, the player refused to spend the points to be able to engage in action movie heroics without using his powers*, or even to be as competent in a firefight as the non-combat characters in typical action-y media.

O'Toole can lie, bluff, infiltrate, sneak and pretend to be someone else like nobody's business. Because of his very high Attributes (straight 14s) and escapades with his brother as a kid, he's also a mean barroom-brawler, deadly when grabbing a glass and striking from surprise. And he can palm things better than a professional magician and conceal an ace up his sleeve like a cardsharp. He can also escape from bonds like Harry Houdini, even if they are chains with a padlock.

All of which ought to have suggested that O'Toole was the optimal character to negotiate a surrender, but then maneuver himself into a position where he could accomplish something more useful than burning a security guard to death.

*The very existence of which is a Secret (Possible Death), so it's not as if he could just always use his powers.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I doubt he expected to fail his HT check against the flash-bang (being more distant - but not realizing the enclosed space actually makes it worse) and that even if he did fail, none of the guards would be capable of initiating action as quickly as they did, and that he might have Burr as back up.

O'Toole didn't fail his HT check for stunning. He failed a HT check for Hearing and while he succeeded against loss of Vision, he was still going from the beam of a flashlight into a corridor with no light, after an incredibly bright flash. His eyes just weren't adapted to the darkness, so -6 darkness penalty became -8 (-10 for one turn after the flashbang) and when he dived into the side tunnel, a -8 darkness penalty in there became -10 because of the additional -2 for lacking time to adapt to the darkness level. See Tactical Shooting.

O'Toole was planning to run for that side tunnel. He never intended anything that would have helped Townsend, Burr or Berrocal. His goal was to do something he personally felt was awesome, i.e. use telekinesis to pull a pin from a grenade, and to avoid capture for him personally.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

In other words, why ascribe to malice what is more simply a case of stupidity?

In character, we may not do so, depending on the results of various skill checks and Quick Contests. Of course, for Burr and Townsend, if they survive, it doesn't really matter whether O'Toole was being undisciplined and stupid, badly trained and reckless or cowardly and callous. The takeaway for them and the others at Onyx Rain is that he does not perform well enough under pressure to be trustworthy as one of their top-tier agents or operatives.

Out of character, I'm ascribing it to malice because the reason the player decided to do this was because 'it was too cool not to do'. That is, he just wanted to try out using his powers and an explosive device against people for the hell of it, to see what would happen, because he could. Classic sociopath behaviour.

That is, the player is suddenly playing O'Toole as a sociopath with impulse control issues, despite that not having been the design goal for the character.* O'Toole was meant to be capable of hiding his powers, personality and goals from the strictest background checks available. It thus struck me as somewhat incongruous when the character didn't even consider using all his skills at deception and subterfugue to delay the guards and manuever for for a better chance to act in some way. He just went right to the simplistic, crazy and wrong video game move.

To clarify, I'm not saying the player is a sociopath. He's a loving husband and father, sweet guy, kind to children and his grandmomma. Hurting fictional characters isn't evidence of actual mental illness or malice. Within the context of the game world, however, O'Toole's actions are evidence of such massive disregard for the welfare of other people as to amount to an inability to see them as real.

You think I'm being harsh? Just wait. I'm not caught up yet.

*Murderous sociopath was a perfectly valid character concept during our planning and creation phase. The player could have created a budding supervillain who was somehow so necessary to Onyx Rain that he was along on the adventure despite his horrible crimes, with a series of safeguards meant to prevent him from escaping or killing the other agents. But the player didn't want his character to have minders or restrictions, he wanted to have secret superpowrers.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

(Is the Player more used to, more happy, playing Murder Hobos?)

For the past decade or so, I doubt we've played many games featuring that sort of character. On the other hand, the player did say that he was sorry that he was not playing the emotionless, rootless, perfect pragmatist hitman character he played in a short-lived Cyberpunk campaign we had, because that way we wouldn't keep nagging him OOC to consider consequences, other people or basic humanity.

OOC, he also excused O'Toole's behaviour toward someone by saying that they were just an NPC and he didn't want to have to bother with them.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Sounds like you boys have a right proper dungeon crawl ahead of you... if you survive.

That's assuming we have any reason to go into the abandoned tunnels. Dr. Anderson is Curious, he might want to, but c'mon. Is exploring the dungeons of horror really the pressing issue?

Originally Posted by evileeyore

That lone shot sounds mighty ominous*.

* We know Taylor made it. He's the hero of this piece after all. ;)

This is a case where being ahead of the write-up in play really hurts readers. Plus, I posted wicked spoilers like two weeks ago, before I realised that I would write it all up so carefully. I've gone back and put spoiler tags on the worst ones, but I suppose the damage is done for some of you, for which I apologise.

On the other hand, I really wouldn't expect Taylor to have any kind of plot-immunity. Sure, I want him to survive and have a long and happy career, filled with heroics and a surprising amount of melodrama. We've not even scratched the surface of the emotional conflicts that might arise between his preexisting relationships and, well, any of sanity, morality or pragmatism, sometimes all three.

We're not adventuring in the safe and forgiving cinematic worlds that Superhero fiction is usually set in. Being prepared to lay down your life any time you come across an inviting windmill to slay or a Dulcinea to rescue is pretty meaningless if you can't really lose it. There are bold adventurers and there are old adventurers, but there aren't many old and bold adventurers.