RPR 9 and Community Expectations

[Vekter]

I think there's a discussion to be had here about the idea of when it's acceptable to stray from your lane into someone else's. I think some admins believe it's not okay for someone to do someone else's job if they're doing a really shitty job of it, and some admins do think that's acceptable for the sake of keeping the station running. As per usual, here's the full wording of the rule we're discussing, along with its precedents:

9. Stay in your lane.

This means that you should do the job you signed up for and not try and do other people’s jobs for them or lay claim to their department. If you need something from another player you should attempt to ask them to get it for you instead of just taking it. Straying from your lane at the expense of another player should only be done where strictly necessary.

Rule 9 Precedents

This rule is rooted in the experience of the players behind the characters you will interact with, remember this when playing and avoid justifying stamping on other’s experiences for personal gain.
The total absence of someone working the job which you require is always a legitimate reason to stray from your lane. Players simply being busy or unwilling to assist is not, however.
Where possible players straying from their lane should hand off their assumed responsibilities if another player becomes available to do it instead (if for example a missing roboticist returns to the lab after being revived while a paramedic is trying to handle a cyborg related issue)
Players are free to seek alternate routes that do not impinge on the games of other players to obtain the things they want where normal routes are closed to them. (An assistant that wishes to help a cyborg get upgrades while a roboticist is busy making mechs for security or augmenting patients may freely make use of a maintenance robotics bay, for example)

For the sake of discussion (and making my point more clear), here is a hypothetical:

Two cooks have signed up for this shift. The cooks decide, against better judgement, that they will intentionally be cooking bad food this shift as a gimmick. This includes any food that would normally disgust most of the crew members or just intentionally burning food when giving it to the crew. In the absence of reasonable sources of food, the chemists have decided to mass produce caramel patches, as they consider that the cooks are intentionally not doing their job properly and, effectively, are not "working the job".

Absent other forms of remediation (HoP firing the cooks and replacing them, obtaining food from vending machines, etc), if an admin were to get involved in this situation, would it be reasonable for them to state that the chemist is straying from their lane? Consider the above precedents, especially the first one, as I feel it's most relevant here.

Spoiler:

I understand that there are other IC solutions for this problem, but it's one that's come up in the past and I want to see what the players at large think of it and whether or not it should be ruled IC. If you recommend just having the HoP fire the cooks or getting food elsewhere without setting up a system that invalidates their job, I'm going to fire you into the sun.

[GPeckman]

For the record, vending machine food is deliberately nerfed so that it barely provides any nutrition. This is specifically so it doesn't completely invalidate the chef's job. More to the point, if it's gotten to the point that the HoP should be demoting people then I don't see why caramel patches wouldn't be acceptable.

[MatrixOne]

I'm also curious about a few other hypotheticals and questions, if anyone wants to share their opinions:

1. Medbay is operating, staffed, but a robust xenobiologist is printing lots of slime core full heals and putting them around the hallways. Most injured people, instead of going to medbay, use a core and go. Is this a violation? It doesn't invalidate the entire medbay, since they still do surgeries for organ damage and such, and healing cores are part of xenobio's lane.

2. Chefs are making normal, tasty food, but an assistant brings ingredients and machines from maint kitchen and sets up their own kitchen diner in the commissary. Is this an RPR9 violation? I feel like assistants in general go into lanes a LOT because assistant is a bit of a sandbox fun experience. Do assistants get more leeway with RPR9, or less, or the same? They're free to do anything, so it's very easy for them to stray into other people's lanes.

3. An assistant asks for a plumbing tool from a chemist, gets it, and builds a factory in dorms that prints heals, then distributes them all around the station. Is this a violation all on its own, or only if the chemist also wants to make heals?

4. Imagine there are no chefs, so someone puts out caramel. Then someone latejoins and starts cooking. Do you now have to remove the caramel? Are you obligated to keep checking if the ssd chef decided to wake up? What if it involves something way harder to remove, like if there were no roboticists so engineering built their own robotics lab, but then two robos join the round? Are engineers now forced to lock down their project? I'm basically seeking clarification on when people do a job but then the job gets filled and, does that warrant removing and undoing all your work and setup.

5. A question about taking over for incompetent people. I understand that it can be frustrating for a new player if someone pushes you out, but what if the thing you're doing is something crucial, like SM or reviving the captain, and thus you doing your job badly or slowly can result in the rounds being made worse for others? What if there's a string of 5 corpses and the intern medic is struggling, so one of the assistants starts the surgery in front of him and basically does it himself?

I feel like a lot of these are fine if people don't mind, but it gets less fine if people do mind. I'm not sure that Rule 9 is necessary for all this, it's more of a "don't be a dick" thing. And people respond differently to different things. Sometimes doctors might appreciate me, as assistant, coming in to make a virus cure because they don't know how (like if tirimol keeps puffing in their face). But sometimes they don't like it and tell me to leave and keep screwing it up. Their feelings on this should have an impact on whether I should be doing that or not, rather than some blanket rule. And even if the doctors don't want me making a virus cure, there are a lot of sick people outside whose shifts would be made infinitely better if they stopped catching on fire and passing out. So this is another good case to ask what you all think about a lane overstep like this.

Plenty of other jobs can infringe on people's lanes. Cargo can order everything - food to replace chefs, scrubbers to replace atmos, materials and solars, to replace engi, guns to replace sec, and corgis to replace Ian. The question is whether people mind, and appreciate the help.

Isn't it?

[Vekter]

I'm also curious about a few other hypotheticals and questions, if anyone wants to share their opinions:

1. Medbay is operating, staffed, but a robust xenobiologist is printing lots of slime core full heals and putting them around the hallways. Most injured people, instead of going to medbay, use a core and go. Is this a violation? It doesn't invalidate the entire medbay, since they still do surgeries for organ damage and such, and healing cores are part of xenobio's lane.

2. Chefs are making normal, tasty food, but an assistant brings ingredients and machines from maint kitchen and sets up their own kitchen diner in the commissary. Is this an RPR9 violation? I feel like assistants in general go into lanes a LOT because assistant is a bit of a sandbox fun experience. Do assistants get more leeway with RPR9, or less, or the same? They're free to do anything, so it's very easy for them to stray into other people's lanes.

3. An assistant asks for a plumbing tool from a chemist, gets it, and builds a factory in dorms that prints heals, then distributes them all around the station. Is this a violation all on its own, or only if the chemist also wants to make heals?

4. Imagine there are no chefs, so someone puts out caramel. Then someone latejoins and starts cooking. Do you now have to remove the caramel? Are you obligated to keep checking if the ssd chef decided to wake up? What if it involves something way harder to remove, like if there were no roboticists so engineering built their own robotics lab, but then two robos join the round? Are engineers now forced to lock down their project? I'm basically seeking clarification on when people do a job but then the job gets filled and, does that warrant removing and undoing all your work and setup.

5. A question about taking over for incompetent people. I understand that it can be frustrating for a new player if someone pushes you out, but what if the thing you're doing is something crucial, like SM or reviving the captain, and thus you doing your job badly or slowly can result in the rounds being made worse for others? What if there's a string of 5 corpses and the intern medic is struggling, so one of the assistants starts the surgery in front of him and basically does it himself?

I feel like a lot of these are fine if people don't mind, but it gets less fine if people do mind. I'm not sure that Rule 9 is necessary for all this, it's more of a "don't be a dick" thing. And people respond differently to different things. Sometimes doctors might appreciate me, as assistant, coming in to make a virus cure because they don't know how (like if tirimol keeps puffing in their face). But sometimes they don't like it and tell me to leave and keep screwing it up. Their feelings on this should have an impact on whether I should be doing that or not, rather than some blanket rule. And even if the doctors don't want me making a virus cure, there are a lot of sick people outside whose shifts would be made infinitely better if they stopped catching on fire and passing out. So this is another good case to ask what you all think about a lane overstep like this.

Plenty of other jobs can infringe on people's lanes. Cargo can order everything - food to replace chefs, scrubbers to replace atmos, materials and solars, to replace engi, guns to replace sec, and corgis to replace Ian. The question is whether people mind, and appreciate the help.

Isn't it?

Jesus, wall of text.

1) This one's iffy because it kind of depends on the situation. I think this isn't necessarily crossing a line, but I also think it would be acceptable for Medbay to ask Xeno to stop doing it if it was bothering them that much. Probably an IC issue.

2) This is a RPR 9 violation. The exact same situation has happened with an assistant who made what was basically a fully functioning pharmacy in the main hallway and had to be asked multiple times to stop because it was resulting in people going to them instead of Chemistry/Medbay for healing. This is the kind of thing that RPR 9 is around to prevent - at that point, you're just doing their job for them.

3) This brings up an interesting part of this rule - if the department in question doesn't care that it's happening, I don't think we should care. The rule is mostly in place to prevent someone from completely taking over a department's job, but if that department doesn't care that it's being done, why should we care beyond consideration for realistic character knowledge? I think the key here is that, if you plan on doing something like this, you should be asking the department in question if they care that you do it. Or, ideally, just get a job change.

4) This is covered by one of the precedents. "Where possible players straying from their lane should hand off their assumed responsibilities if another player becomes available to do it instead." If you've built a lab to create caramel because a cook isn't around and one shows up, time to pack it up and let him get to work.

5) I think this ties back into what I said for example 3, but I also think it depends on the person who's stepping in. I have a lot more patience for someone who's coming into a delaminating SM setup and going "Hey, let me help. I've done this a lot. Here's how we fix it." than I do for someone who runs in screaming "YOU MORON THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORKS FUCK OFF LET ME DO IT".

I think your mindset on how the rule should be applied makes sense, but you also need to understand that the rule doesn't exist for the purpose of making every round perfect, or letting everyone do everything exactly as is best without any problems. It's there to make sure people have fun. I'm not interested in giving someone a complete pass just because they know how to do a job better than the person doing it, even if it would fix a problem that might not exist otherwise.

There's also consideration that needs to be made for the other reason RPR 9 exists - realistic knowledge. Why would an assistant know how to synthesize a cure for a virus? Why would the cook know how to fix the engine? This is something we can be flexible on, but I really don't like seeing players of a completely different job stepping in to do something wholly unrelated because the people doing that job don't know. For one, they won't learn without that experience, and for two, it doesn't make sense in a roleplay standpoint. I'm not okay with it outside of LRP.

[MatrixOne]

Jesus, wall of text.

Okay I mostly agree with what you said except for when people have to pack up their commissary or other big projects because a freshie joined in. Doesn't that seem like a lot? And assistants get maint kitchen, maint bar, etc, specifically to play around with these job mechanics without the stress of having to take the entire job on themselves.

realistic knowledge. Why would an assistant know how to synthesize a cure for a virus? Why would the cook know how to fix the engine?

I think there's a rule that basically permits every player to have all the knowledge, as I understand it

[Vekter]

Okay I mostly agree with what you said except for when people have to pack up their commissary or other big projects because a freshie joined in. Doesn't that seem like a lot? And assistants get maint kitchen, maint bar, etc, specifically to play around with these job mechanics without the stress of having to take the entire job on themselves.

This is the price that comes with doing someone else's job for them. The obvious, easy solution to this would be to get your job changed to the empty job slot if you're going to be doing that much work. You can also just talk to the person who showed up and see if you can work with them? In your commissary example, I could see the cook sending food to the commissary to have two separate counters, but I understand that might not work out too well for something like building a chem factory.

realistic knowledge. Why would an assistant know how to synthesize a cure for a virus? Why would the cook know how to fix the engine?

I think there's a rule that basically permits every player to have all the knowledge, as I understand it

That is a standard rule, though it's superseded by RPR 8 and 9 - a believable character would not know how to do literally everything on the station to the fullest extent, and doing everything on the station invariably will result in you treading on someone else's job content. It should only happen in situations where other players don't already exist in those jobs.

I also do want to say, as an aside - I encourage people to actively take up jobs in cases where that job doesn't exist and you want to do it to fill the space. If someone arrives to actually perform it and you decide you don't want to, you generally don't have to unless you're command. As long as there's a HoP, I wouldn't fault you for going to them and asking if you can be a cook instead (since there isn't one), cooking food until he arrives, going "Oh cool, you're here, here's your stuff" and going back to the HoP to get your old job back. It stops being a problem of doing someone else's job if you're already that job.

[DaBoss]

I think first of all this rule should be based on department rather than job, since there's a lot of inter-job overlap in pretty much every department. Barman should be allowed to serve food, Coroner should be allowed to revive people and do surgeries, Cargo Tech should be able to supply the station with materials and so on. There's just too much spillover content that ends up in a legal grey area if this isn't the case, stuff like the mineral market and gibb floats.

Secondly there should be some kind of intrusion involved before it becomes a rulebreak. If a prisoner gets wounded by an explosion or something, and the warden decides to fix up their bones and damage using the tools in the brig medbay or fun chamber instead of wheeling them to medbay I don't see the problem. However if the warden wheels a prisoner to medbay and patches them up there now you're taking space and/or resources from medbay and this is where the warden starts stepping on medbay's toes. I don't feel the same way if a chemist (or any other medbay employee) did it, to me that's more of an in character issue with the CMO being able to make a final judgement on whether or not this is acceptible. Same for the assistant case - if they can cook up ghetto healing meds or beg for the tools to produce them, and then distribute them in the commisary, that's a way different story to them breaking into tech storage or sneaking into the med lathe for a plumbing dispenser to do the same thing or them doing this in the medbay lobby.

For MatrixOne's hypotheticals: in my opinion 1-4 is fine but 5 isn't, with the caveat that asking for consent to assist first makes it acceptible. Failing at a job is simply part of the game and shouldn't be seen as a bad outcome in the grand scheme of things. Besides, what if the engineer is purposefully making the engine delam or the doctor is purposefully drawing out the captain's revival because they're evil? They shouldn't be stopped from doing this by out-of-department busybodies.

EDIT: Also making competing bars or kitchens should be allowed if things aren't being stolen from service and people aren't tiding into places for supplies. The coffee stands are already a shitty alternative to bar/kitchen for assistants to use and it being against the rules doesn't make any sense. Also having a business rival is just fun gameplay.

[MatrixOne]

it's just that, if you get your job changed, a lot is riding on your shoulders all of a sudden. when I was a new chemist and only wanted to learn and make factories people yelled at me during viruses to make complex chems. I switched to assistant to do chemistry for a while so that no expectation was on me until I got gud.

though I guess I could job change to be covered from the admin perspective but not update my ID and still wear grey or something... but that feels like the IC stuff gets influenced by OOC a bit much...

another important question: how far do we need to go to obtain the consent? I once wanted to set up a factory in library and PDA messaged the curator, but he was in space and couldn't respond. I made my factory and when he came back he was happy to have company (curator moment...). But I can see a case where he comes back and whips me for it too.

A lot of chemists whom I ask for the plumbing tool literally don't respond and just keep working or leave, so I go to print it. Does simply asking once or PDAing them once cover me?

there's so much that can go wrong if the stars don't align

[Vekter]

I think first of all this rule should be based on department rather than job, since there's a lot of inter-job overlap in pretty much every department. Barman should be allowed to serve food, Coroner should be allowed to revive people and do surgeries, Cargo Tech should be able to supply the station with materials and so on. There's just too much spillover content that ends up in a legal grey area if this isn't the case, stuff like the mineral market and gibb floats.

They generally are. We specify jobs but it's generally departments. The only case where this would be a concern would be if a scenario like a Roboticist walking into the toxins lab and demanding the ability to make a bomb while a Scientist is already working there. If nobody else is doing it, we won't usually step in unless there's active conflict over it (and even then it's probably an IC issue).

EDIT: Also making competing bars or kitchens should be allowed if things aren't being stolen from service and people aren't tiding into places for supplies. The coffee stands are already a shitty alternative to bar/kitchen for assistants to use and it being against the rules doesn't make any sense. Also having a business rival is just fun gameplay.

I think there's some interesting space for this to happen, but it should involve either a completely separate niche (kitchen is making one kind of food, other food location is making something completely different, or like your example for a coffee stand) or be actively played out as "I disagree with you and am opening my own restaurant". If you're just doing it wordlessly as a job other than Cook, I'm not okay with it.

[Timberpoes]

it's just that, if you get your job changed, a lot is riding on your shoulders all of a sudden. when I was a new chemist and only wanted to learn and make factories people yelled at me during viruses to make complex chems. I switched to assistant to do chemistry for a while so that no expectation was on me until I got gud.

though I guess I could job change to be covered from the admin perspective but not update my ID and still wear grey or something... but that feels like the IC stuff gets influenced by OOC a bit much...

another important question: how far do we need to go to obtain the consent? I once wanted to set up a factory in library and PDA messaged the curator, but he was in space and couldn't respond. I made my factory and when he came back he was happy to have company (curator moment...). But I can see a case where he comes back and whips me for it too.

A lot of chemists whom I ask for the plumbing tool literally don't respond and just keep working or leave, so I go to print it. Does simply asking once or PDAing them once cover me?

there's so much that can go wrong if the stars don't align

Proper IC job switching or getting permissions from the appropriate staff members (head of department or the department staff themselves) is never a lane breach. Back when I played there was a virologist main who'd usually mash out a neat virus then come swing by genetics and help discover any remaining mutations as appropriate. I was always asked if I was okayed with it and I always said yes cuz why not.

By doing the proper IC channels, you can change your lane or gain additional lanes on top of your old ones.

If there are no staff around with which you can ask about the lane, it's also not a lane breach but you may need to stop when those staff return and start doing their roles again.

If you ask and they don't respond, you can find some other our-other-rules-compliant way to get what you want and that's fine. I've been denied stuff at Medbay that Science acquired for me, and denied stuff at Engineering that I got via Cargo instead.

[Vekter]

Proper IC job switching or getting permissions from the appropriate staff members (head of department or the department staff themselves) is never a lane breach. Back when I played there was a virologist main who'd usually mash out a neat virus then come swing by genetics and help discover any remaining mutations as appropriate. I was always asked if I was okayed with it and I always said yes cuz why not.

By doing the proper IC channels, you can change your lane or gain additional lanes on top of your old ones.

If there are no staff around with which you can ask about the lane, it's also not a lane breach but you may need to stop when those staff return and start doing their roles again.

If you ask and they don't respond, you can find some other our-other-rules-compliant way to get what you want and that's fine. I've been denied stuff at Medbay that Science acquired for me, and denied stuff at Engineering that I got via Cargo instead.

I can't speak for every situation or every admin, but personally, if you've asked someone for permission and someone else in a department complains, I'm very likely to rule it as an IC issue. That's a genuine conflict you need to sort out in-character. Same if that department's head gets involved, but they kinda get final say on the matter, so.

Basically, it's this: In my mind, RPR 9 is designed to ensure that everyone's doing their job while not stepping on anyone else's toes. If a job is actively being done, you should be asking permission or getting your job officially changed before stepping in. If you have a good, solid IC reason to stray into someone else's lane, I'm more likely to look the other way.

Spoiler:

A quick tip when dealing with me as an admin: I am willing to let people get away with a lot if they have good IC reasoning for doing it. The easiest way to bend the rules is make sure that it makes sense for you to be bending them in-character. Your desires should be based on something in game, not your OOC wants.

[PKPenguin321]

this is a weird rule to begin with. its hard to think of many cases where it would really be detrimental to the round (and the most extreme and obvious cases are probably filed under "powergaming" anyways) and almost feels like it exists so rules lawyers have something to yap about

[Timberpoes]

It's a counter to avoiding roleplay by just forcing your way through others to get what you want or need.

The RP rules limit player freedoms to avoid or bypass others, forcing interactions by limiting ways you can play while avoiding them.

RPR9 has little to do with what's detrimental to the round and more to do with what's detrimental to roleplay and interacting with others.

Protecting the ability for people who signed up for a role to be able to engage fully with their role safe in the knowledge players would come interact with them if they need something related to their role.

[NecromancerAnne]

I feel like someone intentionally doing a bad job, in a way that is detrimental to others and negatively impacts others, is reason enough to circumvent them. I think Rule 9 is meant to give people the opportunity to play out the role they signed up for. If their choice, because they are the ones choosing to act this way, is to actively be unacceptably incompetent to the point where them not existing is better than them existing, they've chosen to forfeit that protection and someone else can step in to take up their lane.

This has two benefits; One, it creates an active conflict, which presumably the person doing a bad job intended. If they did not want conflict, they should have actually put some effort towards not doing a bad job. Two, it means players do not have to take someone deliberately fucking up their job without any recourse because of Rule 9. We want people to feel like they can react organically to in-round events. This is one of them.

In particular with chefs; if the main reason they are doing it is because A) others can't circumvent rule 9 so they can't overstep them in their role, and B) the reason they're doing it is because if anyone happens to take issue and try to get them out of the kitchen now has to meet their murderhands, then I think that is a degree of baiting and slightly rules lawyery.

If there are no actions on this policy, I think admins should just apply common sense and recognize where someone is deliberately fucking up in their role is not really even being in their lane to begin with, which means people reacting to this by overstepping them is not a rules break. Don't apply the rules without thinking about the context in question. All our rules are contextual and only relevant when the variables point towards the player in question acting in bad faith. Not wanting to eat the chefs carbonized dinner plates and instead making their own food shop is not a bad faith action.

[Vekter]

I feel like someone intentionally doing a bad job, in a way that is detrimental to others and negatively impacts others, is reason enough to circumvent them. I think Rule 9 is meant to give people the opportunity to play out the role they signed up for. If their choice, because they are the ones choosing to act this way, is to actively be unacceptably incompetent to the point where them not existing is better than them existing, they've chosen to forfeit that protection and someone else can step in to take up their lane.

This has two benefits; One, it creates an active conflict, which presumably the person doing a bad job intended. If they did not want conflict, they should have actually put some effort towards not doing a bad job. Two, it means players do not have to take someone deliberately fucking up their job without any recourse because of Rule 9. We want people to feel like they can react organically to in-round events. This is one of them.

In particular with chefs; if the main reason they are doing it is because A) others can't circumvent rule 9 so they can't overstep them in their role, and B) the reason they're doing it is because if anyone happens to take issue and try to get them out of the kitchen now has to meet their murderhands, then I think that is a degree of baiting and slightly rules lawyery.

If there are no actions on this policy, I think admins should just apply common sense and recognize where someone is deliberately fucking up in their role is not really even being in their lane to begin with, which means people reacting to this by overstepping them is not a rules break. Don't apply the rules without thinking about the context in question. All our rules are contextual and only relevant when the variables point towards the player in question acting in bad faith. Not wanting to eat the chefs carbonized dinner plates and instead making their own food shop is not a bad faith action.

I feel like I generally agree with you, but I also worry about situations where someone is intentionally doing a bad job but claiming it's unintentional in order to circumvent this rule. I think that could be handled case-by-case though.

I do feel like the policy needs some clarification added, as we've had multiple scenarios where I feel like other admins have used it in cases where it doesn't actually apply, which indicates to me that people aren't understanding it.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

If you aren't invalidating someone else's expected job content against their will, I dont think you're breaking the rules. So if the chef is just a bit behind the ravenous hunger of the crew, you're crossing a line by installing the Diabetomatic 3000 across the hall, but if he's insisting that he will only serve some weird dish he doesnt have ingredients for, or wish soup, or burned messes, then it becomes okay to step over the line and start filling in his role.

The chef can expect when he signs up for chef to cook food for the crew, take orders, make some specialty dishes, open the Annoying-Customer-O-Tron portal. But by comparison she shouldnt expect to be able to do some weird mandatory hunger strike enforcement.

[NecromancerAnne]

I feel like I generally agree with you, but I also worry about situations where someone is intentionally doing a bad job but claiming it's unintentional in order to circumvent this rule. I think that could be handled case-by-case though.

I do feel like the policy needs some clarification added, as we've had multiple scenarios where I feel like other admins have used it in cases where it doesn't actually apply, which indicates to me that people aren't understanding it.

There is a very distinct difference between unintentionally screwing up, and deliberately, and it is often evident in the results and the reactions of the people in the role. We've very few roles that are broadly crew affecting that the difference is so razor thin.

You know when a chef is doing an intentionally bad job. Just look at the food on display.

[PKPenguin321]

It's a counter to avoiding roleplay by just forcing your way through others to get what you want or need.

The RP rules limit player freedoms to avoid or bypass others, forcing interactions by limiting ways you can play while avoiding them.

RPR9 has little to do with what's detrimental to the round and more to do with what's detrimental to roleplay and interacting with others.

Protecting the ability for people who signed up for a role to be able to engage fully with their role safe in the knowledge players would come interact with them if they need something related to their role.

what does this tangibly manifest as? the closest i can think to invalidating someones job is chemistry making infinite heal patches but that seems to be ok because thats chemistry's job. this feels very arbitrary without concrete examples

[Timberpoes]

Global caveat, in all examples assume there is no valid IC reason or no pressing need beyond "we're IC metafriends" or "I'm bored" or "I can do it better than they can" or "I don't want to wait" without anything actual incompetence or undue delay etc.

Your buddy dies and you barge into medbay, push past the MDs and do surgery on them yourself as a non-medbay staff member.

You decide to open a second medbay in the hallways kitted out as well as the main medbay, causing players to come to you instead of visit the actual place they should go for healing.

The robo is rejecting your demands to make them a mech so you break in to do it yourself.

Medbay sets up a genetics lab and unlocks mutations on people that visit.

Engineering sets up a second robotics lab and augments people or upgrades the cyborgs or spams mechs.

Someone hops the counter and tries to make their own food or drinks, shoving the bartender or chef out of the way.

It's not using the public garden to plant stuff when there's a botanist, or doing a job when the department is understaffed, or cargo making a cargo SM - and in my opinion it's not using your own job mechanics and content to accomplish something another job could.

[feaster]

Your buddy dies and you barge into medbay, push past the MDs and do surgery on them yourself as a non-medbay staff member.

You decide to open a second medbay in the hallways kitted out as well as the main medbay, causing players to come to you instead of visit the actual place they should go for healing.

The robo is rejecting your demands to make them a mech so you break in to do it yourself.

Medbay sets up a genetics lab and unlocks mutations on people that visit.

Engineering sets up a second robotics lab and augments people or upgrades the cyborgs or spams mechs.

Someone hops the counter and tries to make their own food or drinks, shoving the bartender or chef out of the way.

Not to nitpick but what sort of action is taken in these situations? They seem to me like things that would be handled IC, with the offender just giving up their right to ahelp if they get smacked for it. It is so easy to contrive an IC reason to do these things, what decides whether that reason is acceptable?

[Timberpoes]

Action taken is usually warning maybe a note unless egregious or constant then ban.

The problem with handling it IC is the law of robustness comes in. The better you are at combat, the less the rules apply to you cuz you can just robust anyone that tries to stop you.

On Manuel you don't need to be robust to have an opportunity to do your own job. You just need to be robust to fight antags or security or other robust roles. And even then it may not be necessary.

[dendydoom]

people should be able to do the job they signed up for. if there is an IC reason why that isn't possible (they refuse service to you, they are absent from their place of work and you can't easily find them) then you should be allowed to find other routes to resolve that IC situation. rpr9 isn't for admins to impose their 1 way of playing a job onto players, it is to preserve the right of players to perform their own roles when there is no good reason for people outside of that role to steal it out from under them.

with regards to the heads of departments, we do not consider it a breach of rpr9 for that head to engage with the jobs in their department or give requests and orders to their subordinates. as head of that deparment, the entire department is their lane.

there are many cases where this rule is applied where rpr10 would be better. for this to be applicable, a pattern of behaviour should be established concerning the use of mechanics that are of such frequency and efficiency that they notably detract from the crew being able to engage properly with mechanics. "solving" a problem once is a unique and fun story. solving it every single round diminishes interesting and engaging aspects of the game where other players could come up with their own, new solutions.