Regarding Player Character Death

[[Desolate Divine]]

You, as the GM, are capable of making and changing goals at whim. You had not established his goals or ideals, so any “out of character” behavior would have gone completely unnoticed.

This character is a pre-existing GCEA character, who will play a large part in the story. From the conception of the idea of his use in Platinum, his goals and ideals were established. They weren't made public as that would spoil the story. In this integral part of this characters arc, his introduction, consistency is key. For him to not kill William upon discovering he was the most dangerous threat there (by threatening to release a diseased Pokemon (Even if Robocop (not his real name) were able to stop the disease spreading like he said he would, William would still be dangerous in his eyes due to him being willing to sacrifice something much bigger than himself for his own safety)), would set the pattern of this character not following through with his ideals, and showing mercy, making that the standard throughout the rest of the story, which would conflict with other elements.

This is also deus ex machina

Wikipedia defines deus ex machina as "is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and seemingly unlikely occurrence, typically so much as to seem contrived.".

Team Galactic appearing was something set up from before William even joined the group. Had I just had a group randomly appear and start fighting would be Deus Ex Machina. Instead, the squadron found Matthias and Renny in Orebourgh, talked to them and discovered where the rest of the group were, and went to capture them. If you look closely, you will see I even coordinated the time skips between the two parties to allow this to make sense. Whilst it may have been predictable, it wasn't out of nowhere, Team Galactic come and save the day. It had been planned thoroughly to a lot of detail to allow the sequence of events to be plausible and realistic.

The “original plan” would have worked equally well under these circumstances. You control when Team Galactic arrives in the scene, and could have chosen that they arrive just in time to save William, as you had originally planned. It would have been no more contrived than having them arrive just after he is killed.

This is also false. As I mentioned earlier, William's threats made him in the eyes of Robocop a danger to the world they were in, whilst the Team Galactic Squadron were merely an annoyance. In his eyes they may irritate him, but William could cause the entire ecosystem to fail, and between the two, one needed to be dealt with immediately. Even if Team Galactic arrived five minutes earlier, Robocop would have still pulled the trigger on William because he has made it clear that he will harm the world he is in for his own safety. It would have been they arrived, and before he goes for them, he pulls the trigger on William. I only had them arrive as he does it for dramatic effect. To give players the chance to respond to his death before things go nuts with Team Galactic.

But please, don’t act as if your hand was forced or you had no choice in the matter. You are the only person who did have a choice. This was a scripted sequence wherein nobody but you had any choices to make, and you chose to deviate from it in order to kill a player character.

If this was a scripted sequence then how come only William was killed? You said yourself that his murder was justified in character. Marina and Drake tried to plead with Robocop. Cody (whilst this wasn't in the post, I mentioned this prior in Discord when you were present, and another player actually directed you to this comment) was attempted to stall and be ready to run when a distraction made itself apparent. There were options.

And ultimately, William chose the most aggressive and antagonistic of them, against a character who was already planning on killing him. Robocop hadn't responded to the others. You don't know that he wouldn't have stood down. He wouldn't have as it wasn't in his character but you don't know that Truly. Half of the issues you have had have been derived from the mindset of you knowing all. Even when you talked about how Robocop couldn't kill William without blowing himself up. Do you know how the weapon works? For the sake of context, the projectile only explodes upon contact with a surface that it cannot penetrate, as the energy built up needs to escape somewhere, for example the stone ground and road. However, something less dense, it will penetrate and transfer energy through, effectively burning it all at once, such as a person. You didn't know this, and that is okay. But what you did was assumed that you knew exactly how it works.

The fact is that there are two all knowing beings of GCEA. Arceus and myself. Even Rival Max, the creator, doesn't know some of the plans for Platinum to the detail I do.

But I’m unhappy with how things turned out: not that (or the method by which) my character died, but that he was thrust into an unskippable cutscene that came before being allowed to do any roleplaying. I feel like I wasted my time trying to write a character that would be fun to play and to play with. And I feel like I’ve been cheated, never getting a chance to play that character. It makes me angry, because this is not something I chose. The choice was never mine.

I agree that the circumstances surrounding William joining the team and how quickly he died are unfortunate. I would have liked to have seen some more roleplaying done prior, however this was an encounter planned for weeks, nearly two months. Robocop was always going to appear on Route 203 after the players got their first gym. I have actually mapped out where all the major NPCs are on each in game day. They are all on a schedule, performing tasks that make the story run in the background.

I mentioned the other day how I view the players of GCEA. Numbers dictate that more likely than not people drop off. As I said, there were probably about 25 players total in Hoenn, and by the end only four were still present. Besides myself and Rival Max, there is no guarantee than any given character would be present this time in a year, for whatever reason, be it life stuff or people just losing interest. A key moment like this in the story, that needs to happen at this given point in time, is not going to be moved because there are new characters joining. Unfortunately it is bad timing, but ultimately this was a response to William's actions.

But please, don’t act as if your hand was forced or you had no choice in the matter.

I am addressing this last, as the rest is important and I don't want that lost in what I am about to say. Ultimately Truly, you are one to dictate how William acts. You can say that you were forced into that situation by the circumstances and William's character, that it would have been out of character for him to try and reason, or even to not just antagonize and threaten, but why am I not allowed to have that same courtesy? If you honestly believe that there was nothing else William could do due to his character and that situation, then I was put in the same dilemma, where the circumstances and Robocops character dictated that he must kill William, and I guess we are all out of luck in that. But there is one difference. There is wiggle-room for you as the player to break character for the sake of William's survival, as simple as him backing down and shutting his mouth after Robocop called his bluff, and Marina tried to reason with Robocop. The opportunity to back off was there. As the DM there are circumstance such as this where I don't get that wriggle-room. One of those is dealing with a steadfast and driven character such as Robocop. I had zero guarantee that you, and in turn, William were going to be present by the second, third, fourth, all the way through eighth gym. I could only take each day at a time until I got to a point where I trusted you would be present. Robocop on the otherhand, I know will be present. So if I had to choose between a key character who will definitely be there later, and a new player character whom I have never RPed with before, having to break character for the latters survival, it would be the latter. Ultimately, it was not me who killed William. It was you.

Additionally, and this is just a personal note, from where I stand, and I have spoken to others who agree with me, it seems more like Williams actions were a challenge to me as a DM. To force me into a position where the only options were to do something undesirable (kill a player character), or to break the NPC, and in turn what is planned with them for the story, especially seeing as this didn't happen too much later than one of the numerous spirited debates between us about the NPCs and their role in the story. Ultimately, from where I stand, I had told you not too long before that the NPCs served a story purpose, and needed to be there for that, and you attempted to force me to see breaking that as the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately for you, in these circumstances, killing the player character was desirable.

I have work tomorrow so will be going to sleep now, but that is where I stand. Take it or leave it. You are more than welcome to create another character, however now you know just how seriously I take the worldbuilding of GCEA.