[Matthew]

Arachne makes great points, and the more I think and reflect on it, the more I realize how much I could have done better. For instance, would it have been terrible to aim for imprisonment and explain, ‘Hey, I can’t give you a full scene right now, and this will likely end in your character’s death’, which in turn offers the other player the option to escape and continue their story. I wish I’d had the forethought to approach it from that direction and allowed for collaborative RP by leaving the decision of Athena’s story in that player’s hands.

If the Lieutenant had chosen to escape before a scene could happen, I think that still would’ve been fine. It wouldn’t have been zero RP, because it would have left room for future engagement or consequence. I realize it would have been better to preserve the potential of continuing your story rather than cutting it off too soon.

I also want to apologize to Athena for how things went down. It doesn’t change what happened, I know this, but I want you to know I recognize that I should have done more to protect your story to ensure there was more space for it to play out. Moving forward I’ll carry this experience and will do better in the future.

[Matthew]

I want to step in here since I was the one who ultimately made the call.

This wasn’t a case where someone set out to hunt down a Lieutenant. It was a wrong place, wrong time moment. While actively out in the mist people got pulled into combat. One was a Lieutenant who attacked the other person, and from there they lost. I wasn’t in a position to be fully involved when it was happening, so I delegated and gave a remote call. That decision, made at a distance, is what cut the story short.

At the time, my thinking was fairly binary: either a prolonged interrogation with little chance of survival that I didn’t have time to oversee or participate in, or an execution to move on. On that basis, I advised killing. What I didn’t realize then was that this ended up being zero RP. That’s where I see the real mistake. Not being more present to make sure the story had space to play out, even briefly. By defaulting to the “clean” solution, I halted someone else’s story, and that’s not what I want to promote.

I think we should talk more as a group about what to do with captured Lieutenants. Execution is the quick answer, but it risks shutting things down. Long-term imprisonment doesn’t seem sustainable. I struggle finding reasons where it makes sense to release, but want to find those kinds of solutions.

I’ll own my part in how this one played out, and I’ll handle it differently in the future. Sometimes these situations do come down to bad timing and imperfect information, but that doesn’t change the fact that better RP could have happened here. I appreciate everyone raising their perspectives, and I’d like to help work toward clearer expectations so we can balance danger with story in moments like this.

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