[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Various characters of mine have been reading along from the back of my head. None of those guys are as humane as Taylor, but the last of them gave up on O'Toole when he tried to use the lizard-woman to fool the guards and then used his powers to hide after that failed.

Of course, within the context of the story so far, Taylor has no way to know about O'Toole's moral transgressions.

Assuming both survive, there are ways to remedy that, of course. Taylor has Body Language at 21, Detect Lie at 20 and Psychology (Applied) at 14, with a conditional +2 bonus under most circumstances (and sometimes +3) for Empathy (Hypersensory). And if Taylor ever goes through these tunnels, he has Tracking at skill 23.

On the other hand, Taylor would most likely give O'Toole the benefit of the doubt as regards his motives. First firefight, hopeless situation, pitch darkness, understandable panic, being cut off, etc. Taylor would never assume such monumental malice from anyone without compelling evidence that rules out simple human frailty in a terrible situation, one, moreover, that O'Toole never should have had to face without protection from Taylor.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Just call him "Toole", I'm sure his ancestors have disowned him.

If he's got any watching him from beyond, they sure have. And, of course, his daddy (whether that's really Raul Vargas or not) left his momma before he even knew he'd sired a son, let alone that the son would turn out somebody who'd be a disappointment even for a sociopathic murdering drug baron. At least Vargas enjoys his villainy with a little style, even managing to be oddly charming in his unapologetically flamboyant Magnificent Bastard way.

O'Toole is the AT&T of people, indiscriminately spreading soulless villainy by rote without even the miniscule justification of increasing happiness in the world by enjoying it himself.

His player seems to be enjoying himself, at least. :-)
Which I guess is the really important thing.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I've a few character that wold blanch at his casual disregard for fellow humans and a few who think he just isn't casual enough.

Keep in mind that O'Toole does not have any traits like Callous, Compulsive Lying, Cowardice, Delusion (Solipsism), Loner, Low Empathy, Sadism, Selfish, Squeamish or Trickster on his character sheet. He's fully capable of feeling emotions or humane instincts. He's just using his Will 15 to elect not to act accordingly, because he believes he can get away with it.

O'Toole does have Impulsive (SC 12) and Self-Centered as a Quirk, but both were added in play as part of minor adjustments to the character, during the first session when O'Toole's player started to make character-establishing decisions in play, the first at his own insistence and the second at the unanimous vote of everyone else, on the theory that his character sheet should at least in some way reflect the way the character behaved.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Sounds like there's a fair chance of deaths when Tyrrell hears about this scene. If he doesn't have a stroke or heart attack himself, he may well kill someone.

Oh, he'll go spare. Absolutely ballistic.

Tactically, of course, dear lil' Cherry Bell took a situation where three guards and two other armed men were surrendering, rendering them safe, no longer threats and giving us access to their weapons, as well as any information they had about the tactical situation, location of the jammer, possible sites for hostages, hidden ambushes, etc., and changed it into one where Warden Tyrrell still has these men and their guns, we know little more than we did before and they'll eventually report about us being still in the barracks.

But I somehow doubt Warden Tyrrell will see the silver lining here. Especially as Taylor made his his skill check using Psychology (Applied) as an Influence skill to goad Tyrrell into rash and stupid action by 10, when he was speaking to him from the barracks intercom in post #46 ' What We've Got Here is a Failure to Communicate'.

I don't know what Tyrrell rolled in the Quick Contest, but considering his evident Obsession for Cherry Bell (probably good for a Will penalty) and the flood of incoherent profanity that followed from Tyrrell as an answer, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that he is suffering from some penalties to his IQ and Tactics when he comes up with his response.