As the actual question number five–about recurring NPCs–covers a lot of the same territory for me as the previous question, I’ve decided to go with one of the alternative options.
Question 5: Most memorable character retirement?
I’m taking this to mean something other than getting a gold watch and going to live in France; or finally winning a flying long-ship crewed by dancers…I’m thinking of it more in the sense of “routine retirement of a replicant”.
Perhaps I’m wrong in that presumption?
Anyway, there was this character–let’s call him Eddie–who was very like Fitz from the TV show ‘Cracker’. The original UK version played by Robbie Coltrane this would be. Expect Eddie also had a bit of esoteric business going on where he could tap into the minds of other folk and really get an understanding of what made them tick, sort of thing. He could see the clockworks whirring. Give them a nudge, here and there. It’s all good. Handy for solving terrible crimes and what not.
Trouble was, games being what they are, it only took a few bad dice rolls for Eddie’s careful finessing of people’s thoughts to turn into a wild bludgeoning that knocked people right out of their tree.
As I remember it, the dice just seemed to be breaking bad, every single time Eddie tried to check anyone’s mind, and things were getting seriously out of hand and this was when the game was reaching an after a fashion raggedy denouement …
And here’s the characters, who’ve just escaped from Some Nightmare, clutching terrible revelations close and wondering where the hell do we go now and Eddie–in a storm-swept tent somewhere west of we-are-lost, Alaska–decides to mind-beam the only person there who has half a chance of telling anyone what’s what, or what’s next and…
Catastrophic failure. Turned the target’s brain to mush, basically. No help to anyone no more. Just because Eddie couldn’t resist gambling with other people’s minds.
And that, your honour, is when Francis Walker shot him.
Good-bye, Eddie.
Narratively speaking it was perfect. Simmering resentments and arrogance on all sides culminating in angry, foolish acts of violence.
Cold eyes, unblinking. Roll credits.
In terms of the gaming group it was a bit more awkward for reasons I won’t go into. We put a lot into our games back then. Some times the tensions bled out into real life. It was certainly memorable.
In fairness, it wasn’t the first time you’d killed one of my characters in game, but it was certainly the most justified.