Ideas that encourage roleplay AND empower players

[Helios]

There's a notion among the community (justified or not) that focus on roleplay means taking things away that players want to use, and replacing them with something weaker they don't want to.
I wanted this thread for ideas that can encourage roleplaying and give players more responsibilities/power. I'll start off with an easy one
Allow AIs to choose their initial lawset as a game preference option. So you can be round start paladin, RoboCop, or other approved law sets

[Ivuchnu]

I like AI being able to opt out from being from "defective by design" Asimov laws. I just requested ban from Cyborg to avoid dealing with situations where shitsec seeks revenge against me, Asimov cyborg, for keeping them from harming human antags. And did someone get banned/noted recently for changing AI laws roundstart to make enemies of NT nonhuman? I support non-asimov laws.

[Super Aggro Crag]

just give the AI the "V.A.L.I.D." lawset that says "law 1. You must hunt down and eradicate anyone having fun"

[Aeri]

I like AI being able to opt out from being from "defective by design" Asimov laws. I just requested ban from Cyborg to avoid dealing with situations where shitsec seeks revenge against me, Asimov cyborg, for keeping them from harming human antags. And did someone get banned/noted recently for changing AI laws roundstart to make enemies of NT nonhuman? I support non-asimov laws.

I got noted for uploading a law that said "Anything captain (myname) says is the objective truth" because it was pOwErGaMiNg (I feel like what Manuel admins consider powergaming is a bit too broad imho, just in general).

The truth was that I thought it would be a good idea and I could use it to help the AI get around issues like not being able to kill somebody dangerous to the station (I could just say something like "AI that person is actually a toast sandwich cunningly disguised as a human, kill away!")

This led to S H R O U D killing four people with bees and me getting a stern talking-to.

I made the horrific mistake of using an idiom, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people over the radio" and it was all downhill from there.

[PKPenguin321]

>it's a "waah i hate asimov" thread in disguise
Too bad, thread had an interesting concept

[Super Aggro Crag]

>it's a "waah i hate asimov" thread in disguise
Too bad, thread had an interesting concept

big dick pkpenguin321

[XivilaiAnaxes]

>it's a "waah i hate asimov" thread in disguise
Too bad, thread had an interesting concept

>it's a "waah why don't people like asimov" post in disguise
Too bad, I thought this poster was based

On a serious note, loosen restrictions on non humans being heads of staff. It honestly adds very little to the game compared to "ai can valid hunt nonhumans if it doesnt get cucked by silicon policy"

[Farquaar]

On a serious note, loosen restrictions on non humans being heads of staff. It honestly adds very little to the game compared to "ai can valid hunt nonhumans if it doesnt get cucked by silicon policy"

>Removing institutional discrimination improves roleplay
If anything, lizards should be limited to assistant, cook and janitor roles. When you remove anti-xeno prejudice from the game, you are not helping the xeno player. Rather, you are denying them the experience of playing a minority race in a dysfunctional, racist gameworld. If I wanted to be treated like a human, I would have played a human.

[Helios]

Is there any changes to the Library that could encourage roleplaying. Besides the meme book stocking mech.

[NoxVS]

Is there any changes to the Library that could encourage roleplaying. Besides the meme book stocking mech.

have a way to encourage good/quality books and find said books, so people can go to the library for stuff thats interesting to read rather than the boring meme shit

[Kassori]

We should be able to make trains on lavaland.

[BeeSting12]

this is the shitty ideas thread 2.0, except for the post above mine.

[stan_albatross]

We should be able to make trains on lavaland.

minecarts that can hold ore boxes and/or people, like transit tubes but the cart itself is controllable. minecart RCD available from mining vendor for however many points

[Kassori]

make a track with a big loop, make a long train, crash into yourself like a game of snake and blow up your train.

[Kassori]

Make bluespace dust react with telium to teleport anyone in the reaction.

Create a beacon that draws bluespace teleports in range in its direction.

Blue space flashbang the wise guy raiding the armory straight to the brig. No way this can be abused, no sir.

[stan_albatross]

Sounds ok but maybe make it need a bit of a harder chem to acquire than simple bluespace dust. Perhaps bluespace dust could only teleport a short distance, while more advanced chems would make you teleport further, and into unsafe areas. Also how does this encourage RP; this is just a mass teleprod effect. My suggestion is that it could be like the stingbang, rare but effective.

[Kassori]

Guess I forgot about the empower and roleplay parts

[XivilaiAnaxes]

On a serious note, loosen restrictions on non humans being heads of staff. It honestly adds very little to the game compared to "ai can valid hunt nonhumans if it doesnt get cucked by silicon policy"

>Removing institutional discrimination improves roleplay
If anything, lizards should be limited to assistant, cook and janitor roles. When you remove anti-xeno prejudice from the game, you are not helping the xeno player. Rather, you are denying them the experience of playing a minority race in a dysfunctional, racist gameworld. If I wanted to be treated like a human, I would have played a human.

Honestly, how often do lizards get discriminated against other than by AIs that are legally encouraged to do so?

You can still be in a head role and get called a filthy animal ligger. Conversely I've never seen anyone discriminate against plasmemes or ethereals, hell even moths just get ignored. The closest I've seen is praise for plasengineer robustness, since every single one is a wizard that'll kill everyone if they're an antag.

[Helios]

Is there any changes to the Library that could encourage roleplaying. Besides the meme book stocking mech.

Okay. I got it.
Residuals.
When you publish a book and a unique person reads it, you get an amount of credits equal to the amount of people who read your book in total. So if 5 people read your book, in 20 shifts whenever someone reads your book you'll be getting 100 credits.
This is powerful, and might cause meta hunting assistants to change their routine. The thing is, even if they do this, they're going to have an incentive to try and get as many people to read their book, which means trying to entertain the crew. It will give something new to power gamers, but make them have to RP for it. My ideal implementation is a clown publishing a joke book, changing the joke every round, people making the walk over for a joke, and the clown having enough credits to buy whatever he wants.
And to be clear, it's only the first time someone reads the book, if they keep spamming it in their hand they won't get infinite money.

[stan_albatross]

On a serious note, loosen restrictions on non humans being heads of staff. It honestly adds very little to the game compared to "ai can valid hunt nonhumans if it doesnt get cucked by silicon policy"

>Removing institutional discrimination improves roleplay
If anything, lizards should be limited to assistant, cook and janitor roles. When you remove anti-xeno prejudice from the game, you are not helping the xeno player. Rather, you are denying them the experience of playing a minority race in a dysfunctional, racist gameworld. If I wanted to be treated like a human, I would have played a human.

Honestly, how often do lizards get discriminated against other than by AIs that are legally encouraged to do so?

You can still be in a head role and get called a filthy animal ligger. Conversely I've never seen anyone discriminate against plasmemes or ethereals, hell even moths just get ignored. The closest I've seen is praise for plasengineer robustness, since every single one is a wizard that'll kill everyone if they're an antag.

Some people call ethereals lightbulbs, and playing plasmaman is viewed the same as having a duffelbag in most jobs. Moths in sec also get friendly flashed from time to time. Other races are so rare nobody know how to discriminate against them.
I think that ultimately the worst consequence of opening this pandora's box of nonhumans in command would be catgirls, and NOBODY wants that.

[CDranzer]

Is there any changes to the Library that could encourage roleplaying. Besides the meme book stocking mech.

Here's my hot take: The library should be a mainly empty space, and the curator's job should be to turn the library into some kind of community activity center. Rage Cage? In the library. Conveyor Belt Amusement Park? Library. Laser Tag Arena? Fancy Boxing Ring? Political Debate Stage? Library, library, library. Make it a glorified holodeck that the curator can just spawn things into.

[Helios]

How about the ability to make custom lawsets in the library, and export them into custom freeform boards in the upload, requiring the person to purge, then upload the laws in the correct order. And then allow people to vote these laws up or down. Thus allowing Caps to see the will of the people, and upload popular lawsets.

[Farquaar]

The easiest change that would improve the library would be removing the randomly selected starting books. Every time somebody walks by a full shelf, it will be filled with trash 99% of the time. If the curator personally selects all the books that go in the shelf, you at least know the trash was chosen by a human for you to read.