Make up your mind on RP state

[Kelenius]

I am totally expecting a torrent of "you don't even play", but I have to say it.

I feel that at the moment the rules of the server is a complete mess created by two contradicting factors, one being "SS13 is an RP game! We are a medium RP server! We should encourage RP!" and the other being "We are not bay! We don't have to RP if we don't want to!"

For instance, the policy for traitor validness I could probably sum up as "You can do whatever you want with the confirmed antag, but if you go out of your way to find the antags, we will call you a validhunter which isn't banneable but we will complain about it, unless you are security, in which case you can validhunt all you want and you can kill the antags in a fight, but if you first manage to detain them non-lethally, you can't kill them anymore, unless the HoS or the captain allow you to do it."

The policy on powergaming is a complete mess to the point where it pretty much became a buzzword and is used in circumstances like "this guy took any measure at all to protect himself from a possible attack and I was so terrible at fighting him, he dunked me, and now I want him banned, but he didn't really break any rules, so I'll call him a powergamer and hope that it helps."

Remaining on this border and trying to be a roleplaying server and trying to not be one at the same time ends up creating many complaints where players that interpret some rules medium-RP style and players that interpret them light-RP-style clash.

One option would be to go for the light RP; in that case, RP is "encouraged but not required", weird RP-enforcing rules such as powergaming are dropped, and the only things that would be left of it would be a specific list of things that are considered metagaming ("you can't check locations of syndie ship places unless following them", "you can't cut AI from plasma unless you suspect it's rogue"), and everyone is pretty much allowed to do whatever they want in regards to confirmed antags (so no "he's powergaming", no banning security for executing antags, no frowning and whining about validhunters).

Alternately would be to actually aim for medium RP and make it a rule that antag status has no bearing on the validness and security reaction, only the crimes committed. Meaning that security can't perma someone for having a single emag (that'd be a single charge of contraband, maybe B&E if he used it to break somewhere) or a balloon (it's not even a crime); or that someone who kills an antag has committed murder. Also it'd have harsher rules on powergaming and metagaming (e.g. not allowing random searches when seeing covert items such as noslips).

Is anyone else feeling the same way?

[TheNightingale]

Alternately would be to actually aim for medium RP and make it a rule that antag status has no bearing on the validness and security reaction, only the crimes committed. Meaning that security can't perma someone for having a single emag (that'd be a single charge of contraband, maybe B&E if he used it to break somewhere) or a balloon (it's not even a crime); or that someone who kills an antag has committed murder. Also it'd have harsher rules on powergaming and metagaming (e.g. not allowing random searches when seeing covert actions).

Is anyone else feeling the same way?

I like the sound of this one. If we remove "Enemy of the corporation" as a charge, and instead charge people with what they actually do (e.g. you can execute a captured nuclear operative for attempted grand sabotage, mass murder, possession of restricted weapons and contraband, et cetera), the valid playstyle might decrease a little.
I'd argue that if you have reasonable suspicion to believe someone's shifty (like they're covered in blood with the wrong ID), it's not a 'random' search though.

[Kelenius]

I'd argue that if you have reasonable suspicion to believe someone's shifty (like they're covered in blood with the wrong ID), it's not a 'random' search though.

Typo, meant "items", like not allowing to search an assistant in black shoes or whatever is the meta now.

[Tornadium]

Alternately would be to actually aim for medium RP and make it a rule that antag status has no bearing on the validness and security reaction, only the crimes committed. Meaning that security can't perma someone for having a single emag (that'd be a single charge of contraband, maybe B&E if he used it to break somewhere) or a balloon (it's not even a crime); or that someone who kills an antag has committed murder. Also it'd have harsher rules on powergaming and metagaming (e.g. not allowing random searches when seeing covert actions).

Is anyone else feeling the same way?

I like the sound of this one. If we remove "Enemy of the corporation" as a charge, and instead charge people with what they actually do (e.g. you can execute a captured nuclear operative for attempted grand sabotage, mass murder, possession of restricted weapons and contraband, et cetera), the valid playstyle might decrease a little.
I'd argue that if you have reasonable suspicion to believe someone's shifty (like they're covered in blood with the wrong ID), it's not a 'random' search though.

This "valid" playstyle isn't half as big of a problem as some people have managed to delude themselves into thinking.

[Kelenius]

This "valid" playstyle isn't half as big of a problem as some people have managed to delude themselves into thinking.

Good luck playing a non-murderboner wizard or nuke ops.

[CPTANT]

This "valid" playstyle isn't half as big of a problem as some people have managed to delude themselves into thinking.

Good luck playing a non-murderboner wizard or nuke ops.

"Friendly" wizards and nuke ops are horrible.

[TheNightingale]

It depends how they're roleplayed. A "friendly" wizard that jaunts into the Armory and Ei Naths the HoS, then claims "I'm friendly!"... isn't friendly at all.
But a wizard who comes to the station and takes on wizardly apprentices, teaching magic to the crew? That's pretty fun.

Similarly, operatives who just ask for the disk are boring... but operatives who invite the Captain to a tea party, then hold him hostage for the disk and Vault money, are interesting.

[Amelius]

As you said, there's two totally opposite parties here. I feel that originally, say, a year or two ago the majority were of the mind of 'light' RP, as described, whereas today it's more murky of a conflict, due to changes over that period from both coderbus and the administration pushing it in that direction, despite the wishes of the resident players at the time (e.g. those 2-4 weeks of 'no antag murderboning', interpreted fifty different ways by every admin, reduced antag rates that have yet to be restored, etc.). I believe in lieu of this, some of those types quit or play much less overall, e.g. Rob Ust. As we know, the statistics demonstrates that we've had the fewest new players this year in the history of /tg/, so I'd fathom that they haven't been replaced 1:1 either, but from my own personal experience, the newer players are more of the Bay variety in have very strong opinions. They see any disturbment in their round, by an antag or otherwise, that isn't justified purely by their objectives or RP, as distasteful and rageworthy, a different sort of salt compared to that usually would ensue from being killed in the past.

That said, it'd be ridiculous to decide on either one to pursue at this juncture (albeit it being somewhat too late) without polling the population actually on the server at different times of day, while thoroughly describing what light/medium RP actually entails. To put it simply, it shouldn't be the business of administration/coderbus to decide the direction of the game, rather, the players should, as they are the 'consumers' that without, there would be no /tg/station. Without coderbus we could stay on a stable version forever with no issue. Without administration someone else can take over or we can, as we do now, prop it up communist-style. Without the players, there is no game, and thus they are and should be the be-all and end-all in this discussion.

[Scones]

Powergaming has always been and will always be a buzzword.

You put people in perma for syndicate items because ENEMY OF THE CORP (THEY ARE A SUBVERSIVE AND DANGEROUS AGENT SENT TO SABOTAGE/KILL/STEAL YOUR SHIT)

That makes more IC sense than OOC honestly

And finally >rarely plays making policy discussion

[imblyings]

Hello rp policy threads, my old friend

The answer i give when asked by new players and the answer i remember other admins give when asked, is that tg is light rp. This is a bit of a misnomer but it serves its purpose.

Google has a nice pair of definitions of the word roleplay. Combined, it's basically 'act within context'.

Our context for roleplay is sparse. The best we have are unwritten rules regarding how characters are allowed to know everything but must suffer temporary losses of critical thinking skills when faced with nuke ops, the widely held and practised belief that life is cheap, and the two indisputable facts that our characters are in space, in the future. I guess our context hasn't included deep lore that supports characters being named weedlordgku420 shop so i guess there's also that.

People might mistake tg for light medium or nonexistent rp, but the context is loose enough for most actions to be consistent with it. And that fits and is the definition of roleplay. We are, if anything, hardcore roleplay, because this server demands IC to be separate from OOC.

Do not mix up a lack of willingness to conform to head canon, the issue of sportsmanship, and things that the server like to hate, love, or use as catch phrases,with the issue of roleplay.

Regarding the issue of server and player base health and numbers, that's another beast entirely. I believe tg goes through the exact same cycles of life that other online communities go through and better paid men than me have written actual papers on this stuff. Getting fresh blood, making the fresh blood want to come back, then making that matured blood want to contribute back goes far beyond roleplay, which imo isn't a problem, to things like coderbus or making the players intrinsically want to perform certain behaviors. But that's out of the scope of this thread.

[Scott]

This "valid" playstyle isn't half as big of a problem as some people have managed to delude themselves into thinking.

Good luck playing a non-murderboner wizard or nuke ops.

RP is horrible

Part of the problem.

[Stan_Studnick]

This "valid" playstyle isn't half as big of a problem as some people have managed to delude themselves into thinking.

Good luck playing a non-murderboner wizard or nuke ops.

"Friendly" wizards and nuke ops are horrible.

"Friendly" is not the same fucking thing as "limit casualties on this op, okay men?" Holy shit.

Kidnapping the entire crew and taking them all back to planet Syndiecat IV is challenging and it's fun, or stealth nukeops who go in and mingle with the crew and accomplish their objective without ever being suspected is god-tier and it's hilarious when the bomb goes off.

Wizards who show up and RP as a Swedish wizard who's going to make the station part of his new homosexual fiefdom is funny.

In fact any antag who goes the extra mile to spice shit up is A+++ in my book. Fuck, most people can't even murderbone and make it interesting and on Basil that shit gets a restart vote called ASAP because nobody wants to watch that shit for a half an hour as they chase down the last guy alive.

[Amelius]

The problem is that if you're the only antagonist and you decide to do a gimmick that doesn't involve antagonism, then you're effectively forcing extended, and it's further excaberated by mulligan even if you ARE killed, slowing the round down even more. This is why many people detest friendly wizards on Sibyl.

[callanrockslol]

The problem is that if you're the only antagonist and you decide to do a gimmick that doesn't involve antagonism, then you're effectively forcing extended, and it's further excaberated by mulligan even if you ARE killed, slowing the round down even more. This is why many people detest friendly wizards on Sibyl.

Why can't wizard dying just force a shuttle call that can't be recalled, bring on full tensioner and be done with it.

[QuartzCrystal]

The problem is that if you're the only antagonist and you decide to do a gimmick that doesn't involve antagonism, then you're effectively forcing extended, and it's further excaberated by mulligan even if you ARE killed, slowing the round down even more. This is why many people detest friendly wizards on Sibyl.

Why is this bad? Extended rounds are fun. The only reason why rounds with friendly wizards (or any other type of round where people know there's an antag but there's not a lot of activity) are considered not fun is because instead of just playing the game as if it were extended people go hunting for the antag, and if they can't be found or aren't being fun then it becomes incredibly frustrating. We need more players making the RP decision of "You know what? I'm just an engineer, this isn't my job." and leave the issue to security.

[Cik]

well if you're an engineer and there's no antagonism there isn't really anything to do.

[Hibbles]

Is it really better to force it one way or the other rather than dealing with the issues of trying a bit of both? Isn't that kind of the point of TG as opposed to other places that do have a more unified direction?

Also there's the 'state religion' problem. Multiple religions would like to be the official one, but only one can be, maximum.

And you really don't want to lose that fight once you pick it.

[Stan_Studnick]

well if you're an engineer and there's no antagonism there isn't really anything to do.

... Then why did you pick engineer? You have all sorts of tools to build things and there's areas of the station where building things is encouraged. Expand things, redo things, get the CE to participate by using the goddamn blueprints, or you can go and actually fix the broken things all over the station.

QuartzCrystal's point is that less people make the decision to follow the absolute bare minimum amount of story each round has and sticks to their actual job.

Though I would prefer if shit went wrong randomly so engineers actually had a hard-coded purpose after the initial engine setup. Engineers and atmospheric technicians both would do well with having to repair things and diagnose problems.