Mimes who break their vow, or bypass it through other means, Round removal edition

[GamerAndYeahMick]

The current head admin ruling reads as the following:

We've had a discussion about this and decided to make mimes that talk subject to punishment by the crew for their mis-deed, functionally making them "valid".

Note that you should still avoid spacing/gibbing them for this, but you may otherwise enact punishment on them as you see fit.

As with all things, please bear in mind Rule 1 when acting on this.

Source: viewtopic.php?f=41&t=19699#p441114

In this thread I put forth my passionately held and genuine belief that any mime who talks either through breaking the vow or bypassing it (excluding writing, we can exclude writing it has too many niche edge cases and is probably ok it's not talking its writing whatever anyway) is a massive and genuine shitter, degrading the quality of roleplay on the server and shitting all over the chance of building a good standard of mime roleplay, therefore we should enable the crew to enact severe and serious punishment on them through ROUND REMOVAL not only will this instil fear into putrid failrp nrp mimes who do this kind of shit, it will also swiftly make them see the error of their putrid and heretical ways and boot their ass into line, you see taking that mime role and misusing it like this deprives genuine good hearted mime players from playing the role in a way that is inspiring and wholesome to watch, in a way that is funny to watch and can even bring a grown man to tears, just imagine the broken hearts crying out to the heavens because of the egregious acts of these mimes and then you will truly understand why we should round remove them. I will clarify this in saying that the policy should include a snippet about the onus of the validity of the kill being on the killer, there are of course certain times a mime is fine to talk (calling out cult, calling out big dangerous shit in general or asking for someone to help them from dying), I think that last bit would give admins leeway to enforce rules against someone killing the mime for speaking when it was an actual good reason, additionally the killer should have done some investigation to make sure for certain the mime was speaking, and not a comms agent or a hallucination.

Some ways that vow can be bypassed:
.Translation gloves
.Circuits
.There's probably others i'm not an expert? maybe i'm even wrong about the first one?

TL;DR - Talking as a mime is so stupid and against the point of the role you shouldn't get to stay in the round as a result and you know full well what you're doing, so eat the consequences you little ghost faced hoe (except for certain circumstances)

Dissenting opinions are allowed but mostly not appreciated, thanks for reading.

[Vekter]

I don't think I agree with them being a "massive and genuine shitter", but I do think that they should be valid in these cases. I like the creativity some people come up with, but this is one of those few "soul" things that I think works well in general and keeps most mimes from bypassing their restrictions. The only real alternative would be to make it punishable to do so, and I don't like the idea of having to moderate that considering we already have to deal with people using emotes to bypass speech issues.

I absolutely do not agree that they should be valid for round removal. That's entirely too severe. You can kill them, they come back, if you catch them doing it again you can do whatever I don't care.

E: The only exceptions I feel should be mimes using paper to write (that's fine, who cares) and mimes using a telepathy link via slime people, since that's not something they can do without needing to change races or the help of a non-roundstart race and isn't technically speaking.

[warbluke]

Paper is not acceptable and I refuse to read anything written a mime hands to me.

[Stabbystab]

Only time I saw a mime be creative with talking was when he spoke only in French

[Not-Dorsidarf]

The OP should probbably be clearer that this poorly-formatted thread's thesis is "Mimes who break the vow should be full valid and get round removed", instead of the current "Free to kill 'em but dont space/gib/whatever" ruling.

[Constellado]

Only one I think is acceptable was that one time a mime gave me a recorder to record a voice message for them. I decided to say.

"Aah I am the mime and need help..."

Then later on the mime walks up to me and plays the recording and it made me smile it's great.
Things recorded with tape by another person needs to be protected.

[Justice12354]

If I see a runechat on top of the Mime coming from the Mime, that Mime is dead. Shrimple as!
So be it puppets, statues, signing, or circuits. The only exception is emoting (*blush)

[8bot]

i myself always went to great, great, great lengths to hunt down and kill any mimes who did anything remotely close to talking. bitrunner avatars and sign language will not save you.

[Vekter]

To clarify my opinion:

Good - Killing mimes that talk via practically any means.
Bad - Round removing mimes that talk via practically any means.

[warbluke]

Only one I think is acceptable was that one time a mime gave me a recorder to record a voice message for them. I decided to say.

"Aah I am the mime and need help..."

Then later on the mime walks up to me and plays the recording and it made me smile it's great.
Things recorded with tape by another person needs to be protected.

You know, I refuse to read anything written by a mime but somehow this works for me.
I've never seen one do it but if you are willing to carry around a dozen cassettes to have a little phrasebook I'm down for it.
Not sure how I feel about making a bunch of picket signs though, which would be a similar thing you could do.

[Vekter]

Only one I think is acceptable was that one time a mime gave me a recorder to record a voice message for them. I decided to say.

"Aah I am the mime and need help..."

Then later on the mime walks up to me and plays the recording and it made me smile it's great.
Things recorded with tape by another person needs to be protected.

You know, I refuse to read anything written by a mime but somehow this works for me.
I've never seen one do it but if you are willing to carry around a dozen cassettes to have a little phrasebook I'm down for it.
Not sure how I feel about making a bunch of picket signs though, which would be a similar thing you could do.

I think this is an acceptable loophole because it involves a fair bit of effort, is extremely funny, and reminds me of Jacket from the Hotline Miami stuff in Payday.

Plus, it's not actually the mime talking, is it?

[PapaMichael]

Haven't seen it in a while now but mimes who egregiously abuse *me ("Silent gestures that he wants maints access") should absolutely have the book thrown at them by the admins.

[Jacquerel]

Haven't seen it in a while now but mimes who egregiously abuse *me ("Silent gestures that he wants maints access") should absolutely have the book thrown at them by the admins.

If you see and ahelp it I imagine most admins would indeed start throwing things

[warbluke]

Sign Mimes are good, I have decided.

[Vekter]

Haven't seen it in a while now but mimes who egregiously abuse *me ("Silent gestures that he wants maints access") should absolutely have the book thrown at them by the admins.

This is noteable; anyone using emotes to bypass speech restrictions will be slapped with a newspaper. This doesn't just go for mimes; using it to bypass things like head trauma restricting the number of words you can say, Pig Latin, or being unable to speak common will also get you bopped.

Good: *The mime gestures towards the nearby maintenance airlock, then to his ID.*
Bad: *The mime wants maintenance access.*

[TheSmallBlue]

Good: *The mime gestures towards the nearby maintenance airlock, then to his ID.*
Bad: *The mime wants maintenance access.*

I used to do what you considered good but even then it always felt scummy to me. Like, how could I point to a nearby maintenence airlock in a map that has none near the hop line? It Breaks Immersion.
Initially I got around it by doing "/me gestures to the red of tunnels that connects the station" but I thought that was *worse*, so since then I usually just grab a camera, take a picture of a maintenence door, point at the picture, point at my ID. Though even then I'm not sure how much better from writing "maintenence" on a piece of paper that is...

[Justice12354]

Good: *The mime gestures towards the nearby maintenance airlock, then to his ID.*
Bad: *The mime wants maintenance access.*

I used to do what you considered good but even then it always felt scummy to me. Like, how could I point to a nearby maintenence airlock in a map that has none near the hop line? It Breaks Immersion.
Initially I got around it by doing "/me gestures to the red of tunnels that connects the station" but I thought that was *worse*, so since then I usually just grab a camera, take a picture of a maintenence door, point at the picture, point at my ID. Though even then I'm not sure how much better from writing "maintenence" on a piece of paper that is...

Well, your actions obviously have to be reasonable within the IC environment around you. You can't just go "*starts flying." as a Mime just because you want to. Like, yeah, you're not using emotes to talk, but that's not a physically possible action for your character, so I absolutely get why you feel like that's scummy.
About your camera solution, that's absolutely genius

[NewtypeWoman]

It's prop comedy, so it's better.

Personally i do think there are times to break mime vow, but it's good to do it sparingly. I've done it to freak someone out when I'm an antagonist after not speaking all roun (especially changeling), or to sing a funeral song for someone who's freaking out over a close friend dying in a way they can't come back from, before silencing again for the rest of the round. I think there's a purpose to it, but it is easy to fall back on using it in a lazy way.

[Vekter]

Good: *The mime gestures towards the nearby maintenance airlock, then to his ID.*
Bad: *The mime wants maintenance access.*

I used to do what you considered good but even then it always felt scummy to me. Like, how could I point to a nearby maintenence airlock in a map that has none near the hop line? It Breaks Immersion.
Initially I got around it by doing "/me gestures to the red of tunnels that connects the station" but I thought that was *worse*, so since then I usually just grab a camera, take a picture of a maintenence door, point at the picture, point at my ID. Though even then I'm not sure how much better from writing "maintenence" on a piece of paper that is...

I recall Meta having at least one nearby. Either way, it's an example, don't take it that literally.

[Jeb]

Only one I think is acceptable was that one time a mime gave me a recorder to record a voice message for them. I decided to say.

"Aah I am the mime and need help..."

Then later on the mime walks up to me and plays the recording and it made me smile it's great.
Things recorded with tape by another person needs to be protected.

You know, I refuse to read anything written by a mime but somehow this works for me.
I've never seen one do it but if you are willing to carry around a dozen cassettes to have a little phrasebook I'm down for it.
Not sure how I feel about making a bunch of picket signs though, which would be a similar thing you could do.

The only time I read mime papers is if they treat it like a PDA message with just emojis. On paper I view it as if they just drew a picture.

The ones that write out sentences in full are pretty..meh.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

The only time I read mime papers is if they treat it like a PDA message with just emojis. On paper I view it as if they just drew a picture.

The ones that write out sentences in full are pretty..meh.

If a mime hands you a paper written message, hand it back and tell them you need it stamped by a head of staff to be sure its official. If they don't, it probbably wasnt an important message anyway.

[norsvenska]

The only time I read mime papers is if they treat it like a PDA message with just emojis. On paper I view it as if they just drew a picture.

The ones that write out sentences in full are pretty..meh.

If I was the HoP and a mime gave me something like this:
*The paper shows a crude drawing of a door. On one side of the door, there are two stick figures. One of them is smiling, the other one is kneeling at the door frowning. On the other side of the door are several sloppily drawn stars.*
That would be awesome
Would I know what they meant? Possibly not in the moment. But it's creative, and infinitely better than just writing what they want on a piece of paper.

► Show Spoiler

this was supposed to represent external airlocks

[GamerAndYeahMick]

Paper whatever, my main contention is when it appears like they are literally talking

[GamerAndYeahMick]

The OP should probbably be clearer that this poorly-formatted thread's thesis is "Mimes who break the vow should be full valid and get round removed", instead of the current "Free to kill 'em but dont space/gib/whatever" ruling.

character limit, title changed to reflect policy better

[Not-Dorsidarf]

The OP should probbably be clearer that this poorly-formatted thread's thesis is "Mimes who break the vow should be full valid and get round removed", instead of the current "Free to kill 'em but dont space/gib/whatever" ruling.

character limit, title changed to reflect policy better

Ta

[wesoda25]

Lord forgive me for this boringville take but: Current consequences seem severe enough to me. The lesson is taught and everyone has their fun. In teaching the lesson tho, sometimes the whole thing feels a little immersion breaking. I don't think we need to take it even deeper

[WineAllWine]

*silently opens and closes their mouth as in conversation*
*suddenly develops a panicked expression on their face*
*silently fights back against unseen opponents*
*is suddenly pushed back*
*as they fall backwards in slow motion grasps their neck as if struggling to breathe*
*comically sticks their tongue out to indicate death*
*keeps drifting backwards in this pose*

[lorwp]

current consequences seem fine. i have been a bit disappointed (at least on manuel) by how little mimes who speak actually get punished, it's pretty rare.

[kieth4]

"We will be amending this ruling. For the first death of the mime they are not valid for RR, just killing/beating up/ w/e. If after this they continue to speak they are valid to be removed.

Whilst we are here, we will also be adding a new ruling- clowns who refuse to put on shoes may be killed; this unlike the mime ruling is less of a blanket one. If the clown's shoes have burnt off, been stolen etc etc this ruling is not valid- it is more so to target those giga annoying clowns who try to game in the job whilst losing their clown-dom"