Comments on: Suicide is Painless

By: Sita

Sita — Thu, 20 May 2010 04:05:41 +0000

And I’m the med officer from that scene. Given that my character derived heavily form the Indian-derived background of the world concept, it made sense to her to die, as it would facilitate reincarnation, and becoming a slave was horrific to every sensibility she had.
I think this was one of the best scenes I have ever roleplayed.. so very many kudos to Malcolm for seeing it through to its conclusion!

By: I am Anton

I am Anton — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:52:19 +0000

Hey all… I’m the aforementioned helm officer. My logic was simple, they would never let Anton fly again. Having clipped wings was worse than death, at least the clone would get to have the pleasure of the only thing that seemed to give Anton a feeling of worth and satisfaction.

Just made sense. Freedom or death.

By: Kearsley

Kearsley — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:40:23 +0000

To reply to this from a player perspective, seeing as I’ve gushed to numerous people about this in the past day (it got easier once I could send an URL)

Note here that a few details were consciously and deliberately changed in the telling.

The skull-crushing was a detail added in after the fact to reflect character knowledge of the world and the fact that the character was deliberately trying to do this to the best of his ability (inspiration and willpower were spent on killing Sita and Anton.)

Mechanics discussions, though brief, were excised in retelling as well, for the sake of narrative.

So, basically, this is how I recall the last minutes of their lives. Some details are fudged, and a few statements are reduced from 3-4 lines to 1. But, on a whole, I think it accurately reflects the pace, the immediacy and the finality.

9:59:38 PM Kearsley: “I have one thing to offer at this point. If you die, your memories are backed up. And I can kill you quickly and painlessly.”
Aviva: I’m not sure, but I think it’s my best option.
“I snap Aviva’s neck, then crush her skull.”
Sita: My memories are what makes me me, and it’s simply a straightforward form of reincarnation.
“I snap Sita’s neck, then crush her skull.”
Anton: Then I’ll be back on the ship, rather than a slave.
“I break Anton’s neck…”
GM: Ok, they’re panicking and are trying to force you into an epileptic seizure before you do.
*rolls*
“…and crush his skull.”
Buck: I don’t trust cloning, I can’t.
“I get back on the gurney and twitch.”
10:06:39 PM Kearsley: Guards rush in, blanch and just stand with guns trained on us until our interrogator returns. She orders the guards to take the bodies to the lab, to see if they can reconstruct anything from their neural pathways. Then she just stands, trembling in anger.
Buck: You might want to go to private mode, so they all can’t hear what you’re thinking.
Mikhail (twitching and convulsing): By the way, giving me an epilepitc seizure wasn’t the best choice. If you’d disabled nerve impulses to my lower body, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything at all.
The interrogator tries to slap Mikhail across the face with a device causing pain. Mikhail stops convulsing long enough to grab her wrist, roll off the bed and throw her face-first into the wall. Twitching on the floor, covered in his own urine:
Mikhail: See. You should have blocked off nerve impulses below my neck. Also, if you’re going to hit me, please do it with a fist. Slapping someone is awfully demeaning.

At this point, she climbed to her feet, pulled out a gun and shot both of us, over and over, until we were reduced to our component atoms.
10:06:58 PM Kearsley: And Malcolm gaped.
10:07:39 PM Kearsley: “I think we win.”

After narrative, there was a list of post-game statements to sum up mood of stunned amazement, horror and shock.

10:12:50 PM Kearsley: I apologised to Steve (playing Buck) after, because we don’t remember any of this IC. I lied to him when I agreed not to kill him.
10:13:14 PM Kearsley: *was actively trying to commit police-assisted suicide*
10:13:29 PM knittingteacher: Oh dear
10:17:10 PM Kearsley: (I snipped the ‘she hits you in the face with a stun glove’. ‘Seriously, she slaps me in the face?’ ‘Yes. Take 4 bashing.’ ‘Wow. Can I act?’ ‘Sure, if you can fight through the epileptic seizure.’ ‘Ok, I’m fine there. Could you show me how she slaps me?’ *demonstrates* ‘Great, seeing as my specialty is Akido and redirecting force, I want to use that motion, plus rolling off the bed, to throw her.’)
10:17:31 PM Kearsley: Followed by stunned look on Malcolm’s face.

What I was thinking, at that moment, as motivation for Mikhail, was how advocates of the philosophy of the Propaganda of the Deed, which, well, FTPD says we are, went to their deaths willingly, as death is an act of propaganda, and it is possible to win via one’s own death.

By: magicbox

magicbox — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:34:35 +0000

Hi. I played Buck, the fifth who was vaporized for being smug and mean to the shocked Yamazaki. Malcolm was twitching during this scene, I think because he was shocked at our actions and all of us were sunk deep in gallows humour at the time, a little shocked at our characters’ actions too. There was no system for how Malcolm played the NPC. She just freaked out and did what we lured her to do. In fact, when she looked horrified around the room at the carnage that Mikhail had wreaked before succumbing to a seizure, I helpfully suggested that she go into private mode so she would stop broadcasting the horrifying images to the rest of the crew of the Manifest Destiny. We made no rolls past the various combat maneuvers and since my character was a passive observer to all of that, I didn’t roll a die.

In my honest opinion, situations like that need to be handled honestly and without contrived “random” elements like rolls to keep your composure, etc. Malcolm handled it superbly and it’s a game session that we’ll be morbidly chuckling about for years.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:50:04 +0000

You’re lucky to play with people who are able to be so productive with absolute freedom.I suppose that unity might be partly thanks to extensive group discussion on theme/setting/shared imagination space, except that you admit to not having been on the same page as them.

It’s not really luck. It’s developing our craft to a certain point and accepting the bumpy ride that got us there. This is something most groups could accomplish and many do.

Explicit consent and boundaries would have destroyed the veracity of the scene. It would have been a trite act under a model of explicit agreement.

To say nothing of the decisions you made as to what kinds of intents were achievable: they were able to dictate the actions of their jailer with cutting words alone! That’s obviously not something explicitly permitted in the Adventure ruleset. You’ve talked on your blog about soak and stats and all, but I’d love to hear more about the modifications you use to seek this feeling of “freedom.”

I roleplayed her.

By: Jagash

Jagash — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:51:18 +0000

Inspirational, thank you for sharing.

By: Nick Novitski

Nick Novitski — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:31:44 +0000

You’re lucky to play with people who are able to be so productive with absolute freedom. It’s comparable to throwing a handful of sand into the air hand having it come down as a pair of dice showing sevens. I suppose that unity might be partly thanks to extensive group discussion on theme/setting/shared imagination space, except that you admit to not having been on the same page as them.