Non human heads

[Blacklist897]

I might be on a extended break but its a new headmin term so why not give this a try
we had non human heads on wallstation and we had some cool conflicts with asimov Ais, and manuel admins have also been running non human head rounds and the tg servers did not catch on fire, It might even bring back some of our leaving players

[britgrenadier1]

@Timber I'd like to see if I can change your mind on the topic. I read through your election thread responses on the matter, and I think there's a dialogue to be had about it.

[dragomagol]

I thought about writing a long and well thought-out post but honestly I feel like I've treaded this ground too many times before. So instead I will say that I don't mind if admins allow it on a per round basis (though it's not to my taste), but it's never going to be something I want us to allow permanently.

[Itseasytosee2me]

Assuming timber is keeping his campaign promise, this is already a dead end.

[warbluke]

I actually want non-human heads to be enforced even further. By that I mean Centcomm staff. If players aren't going to be allowed to play non-human heads, which is my preferred alternative, then neither should admins. It's a double standard or something like that.

[TheSmallBlue]

To sum up all the new people reading this post, both Timberpoes and DrAmazing (the term headmins) have showed conflicting thoughts on the matter.

DrAmazing ran on enforcing non-human heads, as seen here:

Enforce Human Authority: 0
I cannot promise that I will be able to get a Headmin majority vote for this, or that it is even in the cards for my term. Despite this, I'd still like to put it forward, and fight for it as hard as I can, because I believe that allowing nonhuman heads is exactly the sort of spice in the pot that could help to refresh the game for a lot of people. There have been endless debates over and over about lore justifications, or relative quality of Heads, but I'm hardly here for those. Instead, I'd like to campaign for this as a nod to all the players that I've seen excel in leading, who have a good head on their shoulders, and who deserve to enjoy at least some of the Head roles that are so oft cherished. Folks who will eagerly take the mantle from a Head of Personnel when their original Head fails to show to work, players who are an absolute joy to have at the head of the Departments— all denied because of what we've decided is right and wrong to be able to play here. I do not wish to make changes to roundstart Asimov, as I believe the push-and-pull friction between the AI and nonhuman Heads will still create a lot of good roleplay, but I do wish to permanently open the way for all players to enjoy at least a majority of the Head roles without having to awkwardly create a Human static or rename their Little Guy for the occasion. I know that this echoes Bmon's campaign sentiment in a lot of ways, but it is only because I agree ENTIRELY that I write it here.

Meanwhile, Timberpoes is (and has always been) against it, for a bunch of reasons, including:

Not interested because the policy implications are a pain in the ass.

It's spice and drama, but it doesn't vibe like interesting spice and drama.

It's very little to do with the lore or setting or making SS13 better. It's more to let the well known non-human players yank their jerky in the eternal popularity contest, so we don't get a human Head of Staff that's perhaps less knowledgable, less competent or less willing to run their department to absolute perfection.

Yet on the election's debate thread about Nonhuman heads of staff, Timberpoes has said

If the codebase added a more granular config option to prefer human authority - only picking nonhuman head roles if no human is eligible for them, I may be more amenable to activating that over wholesale equality.

But I wouldn't push for it to be added and I don't care about it.

To which DrAmazing said

I’d certainly be more than willing to compromise on something like that, especially in the pursuit of ensuring the Captain and the Head of Security are human-only

[britgrenadier1]

no better way to get something coded then to make a radical decision and then walk it back afterwards

[kopoba]

revers racist station wide event?
when heads of departments mutate in random non-human including captain
or when system pick random non-human from department and force him to be head.

Personally i have nothing against nonhumans as heads more diversity is good.

[8bot]

no that's a terrible idea
that just removes another unique aspect of the game, and demolishes conflict for the sake of peoples' weird moth OCs being able to circlejerk as officers and get """respect"""
t. felinid main

[DrAmazing343]

As per my campaign promise, I’ve gotten Timber and Burger to allow me a two week test (read: temporary) of not enforcing human authority. Expect that to begin within the next few days, and you’ll find some solid data to work with one way (it being peak) or another (absolute trash dumpster fire, which it totally may end up being)

[TheSmallBlue]

As per my campaign promise, I’ve gotten Timber and Burger to allow me a two week test (read: temporary) of not enforcing human authority. Expect that to begin within the next few days, and you’ll find some solid data to work with one way (it being peak) or another (absolute trash dumpster fire, which it totally may end up being)

Hell yeah, on all servers?

[Roadto3k]

What is it testing and what data is collected? There will be some problem with asimov but everyone knows that already. If its sentiment of players how can you show opposition to it ?

[britgrenadier1]

There’s going to be the same growing pains there were on wallstation, namely cap/RD trying to mess with the AI roundstart. Admins just need to stay on top of enforcement for a bit and it will smooth itself out

[Mimepride]

I wish this was a MRP-only policy thread--because that's who's always been gunning for non-human heads the hardest since day one. I don't believe it's nearly as important to the LRP crowd. Manuel is still the only fucking server that I've been accused of real life racism in OOC because I support IC speciesism. It's hard not to see this as a further MPRification of the server's rules.

As someone who plays a human supremacist liz--I mean, "noble human", I strongly oppose this motion, and I still oppose the removal of human-only nuclear operatives.

As for it bringing certain players back--again it might bring some of the MRP crowd who are still disgruntled about the wallening, but I don't believe that many of the LRP crowd who left because of the wallening will return to the server over this.

Not excited for this upcoming two week test, because I really do think it's gonna open the floodgates--floodgates that should stay closed. NT's humanity-centric bureaucracy gives a ton of flavor to our game's setting--as opposed to the feel-good bullcrap of "everyone is equal! Even a fucking living lightbulb!"

If you play as a lightbulb: suffer
If you play as a lizard, you've self-griefed yourself when you inevitably die to temperature and can't thermoregulate. And yes, you should suffer.
If you play as a moth, you're a fucking goddamn moth and OF COURSE you should suffer
If you play as a plasmeme, you're a goddamn meme and you know it. That alone should disqualify you from command.
Don't even get me started on felinids.

And yeah, letting non humans be QMs and making QM a real head was and still is a mistake.

[Indie-ana Jones]

Yeah I basically agree wholesale with Mimepride here

[warbluke]

I think I've said this before but taking away human authority is a nerf to the species without anything to balance it out again. Now, if humans were given tableflipping beserker rage or the ability to throw good then balance would be restored.

[Stabbystab]

I agree with mimepride, but if this change must go through I say it should only allow nonhumans to play qm, ce, cmo. Theses roles are less subjected to ai scenarios and make slight sense since they are more subordinate.

[ItzRiumz]

Very much support this. Non-human heads on Wallstation with an Asimov AI brought a lot of interesting conflict. Expanding our heads of staff pool to players who play non-humans is also a good thing as it brings more people into the roles and helps fill vacant slots.

[wet socks]

I think the conflict between non-human RDs and AI would be interesting for like 3 rounds and then would get boring quick, Timber mentioned at one point, I forget when, that it would likely devolve into the crew trying to Crewsimov the AI at the beginning of every shift just to avoid said conflict after it gets old, and I agree with that sentiment.

[Vekter]

I like the idea of this being a "sometimes food", which is why I argued for the idea of it being a station trait. I don't love the removal of AI-based conflict that this implies - you can't really have non-human heads without the AI being set to Crewsimov and a lot of the conflict between non-humans and silicons just disappearing.

I also do like the idea of Nanotrasen not trusting non-humans as a world-building aspect but could do without it. The silicon conflict is something I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice.

[Timberpoes]

To be clear, I'm not permitting a two week run of nonhuman heads as a test.

There is no test being run by me. I permitted it to give DramaZing a small platform W in recognition of their platform in general. In the spirit of compromise and working as a team.

But that represents the limit of my compromise. Regardless of the results, I will resist all further attempts to change it this term.

[NecromancerAnne]

And if the people want it, what then?

[britgrenadier1]

To be clear, I'm not permitting a two week run of nonhuman heads as a test.

There is no test being run by me. I permitted it to give DramaZing a small platform W in recognition of their platform in general. In the spirit of compromise and working as a team.

But that represents the limit of my compromise. Regardless of the results, I will resist all further attempts to change it this term.

I've been around this block a lot. Fighting the "Good fight" as it were since I started playing back in like... 2016ish? Man it's been a ride. I can't tell you how tired I am of this conversation. I've been down the dialogue tree enough times I could probably make a better argument against non human command than most people I engage with on the topic. Your take is very unique in this dialogue. I'll admit I've never had a discussion with someone who has come out of the gate with an assertion like:

"[Non-humans...]want the opportunities to run their departments to perfection without having to unhook themselves from that one specific nonhuman IC self-insert"

I took a double take when I read that in the debate thread. Here's a person, a respected headmin, one of my top votes, telling me that the reason I want to play as a head of staff is to stroke my ego. How presumptive! Someone who hasn't played the game in what... 3-4 years, who doesn't know the environment of the servers or the day-to-day happenings of whats going on is taking a stab at saying why people want a thing. Put simply: You're out of touch with why people want this. I'll quote myself from when I argued for it in late 2023:

Expanding the pool of available head players is a net positive for the quality of the role.... Lore aside nobody has really addressed the fact that more heads is just good for the game, or the fact that speciesism rp is only going to be improved by having heads be non human. There’s lots of good stories to be told.

I think it'd be better for the game. Simple as. Better stories, more interesting conflict, more people get to try it out to both enhance and degrade the average skill level of the job which is exactly what we want and need. We saw it on Wallstation. Prime time Sybil back then and prime time manuel for as long as I could remember had a pool of head players so small that I could probably rattle statics off without looking and nail 80% of them. Hell I don't even think you disagree with me. In that same thread you said...

As an aside, this isn't something I can promise and to the best of my knowledge can't be configged right now, but I do believe having any head in every department is globally better for gameplay than having none. A fully staffed Command crew makes the game way more interesting.

If the codebase added a more granular config option to prefer human authority - only picking nonhuman head roles if no human is eligible for them, I may be more amenable to activating that over wholesale equality.

What better way to encourage action within the coding part of the community and maintainer team than something radical like enabling non-human heads full stop. Before even posting this reply to your message, this PR popped up: https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/86886 which I am on the edge of my seat to hear your take on. I'm not going to argue with you about whether or not people want this because they'd like to stroke their egos, but I would certainly like to hear why you specifically think this would make the game worse to play and experience. Someone with your level of tenure should really have no problem expressing how they think the game as it is today would be impacted by a change like this. I'm more than open to changing my mind on the topic.

[Vekter]

-words-

For the sake of debate, I would like to hear your take on how non-human heads impacts interactions between the heads and silicons and, to a larger degree, the impact that having crewsimov be default would have on them.

[Roadto3k]

more people get to try it out to both enhance and degrade the average skill level of the job which is exactly what we want and need.

So what is stopping them ? They are not unavailable to the roles but theres something they won't compromise to play them. If it isnt attachment to a static then what is it?

speciesism rp is only going to be improved by having heads be non human.

It will not, speciesism RP is already a rare sight. With less in the setting to support it it will more likely disappear completely. You know what will happen if a subordinate rebels their head of staff over what species they are, in a setting where thats a fringe view and not supported by the Company.

[DrAmazing343]

Big important clarity that the only testing component is my curiosity— the others really did just throw it for me as a bone, but there's no chance of full activation this term. I hope I didn't get anyone's hopes up, I just want to see myself how it'd turn out and see how all the nonhuman head enjoyers would play like.

[carlarc]

the concept of human heads is incredibly soulful and fun, it does a lot of work in setting up the actual feel of the setting on-station as a tangible effect players know and interact with.
but its a big damn issue that we have 4 very unique and cool species, and they aren't allowed to play the authority roles.

why? because this means knowledgeable players who dive into interesting aspects of the game and inherently 'off-meta' species, are not allowed to play as heads, a job intended to be played by said experienced players who dive into interesting aspects of the game, without losing their unique character they've grown attached to over so many hours of playing.

meanwhile, players who are unaware/uninterested in complex aspects of the game and play the default species, have all these spots that are emptied out available for them to pick up and be bland, boring, or downright annoying in. and can they really be blamed? if they dont take the roles, who does?

this is a simple generalization, obviously not every moth player is a good head player nor every human a total bozo. but the trend is noticeable, especially if you actually play more than one server

all of this, alongside the propensity for heads to be antagonists so often (which is a separate topic), ends up resulting in a culture of nobody really giving a damn about heads, because they are either annoying, new, evil, or boring. way too often, you have the department full of interesting, unique people, and then this one person nobody knows or cares about at the top, not really putting in a good example, focused on some project they needed to be a head and thus human for, or flailing about helplessly.

i like the compromise of 'can be heads ONLY if nobody else rolls the role', i might look into coding that, maybe with some other caveats.

[NecromancerAnne]

I'll be honest, I'm not only more interested in playing my static as they are normally more than being a head. I find the lack of in-universe advantage much more entertaining. I like not having inherent AI authority and needing to tip-toe around Asimov as a non-human. It's great, some of my favourite interactions. The mechanical disadvantages are a bit of a pain (silicons are scary as an enemy), but I think the other interactions more than make up for it.

Being asked to give up all that interesting potential just to be some goofus in a cape and a target on their back with no inherent conflict sucks. I pretty much only play QM because of their special allowance as a nonhuman head. Anything else and that's a big 'no thanks' from me.

[britgrenadier1]

-words-

For the sake of debate, I would like to hear your take on how non-human heads impacts interactions between the heads and silicons and, to a larger degree, the impact that having crewsimov be default would have on them.

It won’t change from what is going on now. It didn’t change on wall sans a few early rounds where people would try to mess with the AI at roundstart. Admins handing out a few notes/bans fixed that pretty quick. I didn’t have more or less silicon beef than normal, and the only notable difference was that I always had a flash in my pocket. I do recall one round with a fun story related to silicon interactions from wallstation. A human assistant kept trying to hack into medbay and kept getting ejected by me. Eventually they came back and tried to kill me. After two more non lethal ejections the third and final time ended with his death. The AI didn’t see it, but heard him scream bloody murder over the radio while he was being killed. The AI sent Borgs which made ominous “We’re mad at you” type comments and we had a back and forth with them and the other med docs trying to convince them that the person tripped and fell on a circ saw 9 times. Good clean fun and a story that won’t happen here if we continue to listen to regressive “muh sovl” people.

I don’t like crewsimov. I don’t want crewsimov. I’ve played on servers with it and while it’s interesting how important things like the manifest are there the AI, I also like playing the game on hard mode more. This thread isn’t about crewsimov, and the big voices from my side of the debate wouldn’t push for it should this change be made permanent.

[britgrenadier1]

more people get to try it out to both enhance and degrade the average skill level of the job which is exactly what we want and need.

So what is stopping them ? They are not unavailable to the roles but theres something they won't compromise to play them. If it isnt attachment to a static then what is it?

speciesism rp is only going to be improved by having heads be non human.

It will not, speciesism RP is already a rare sight. With less in the setting to support it it will more likely disappear completely. You know what will happen if a subordinate rebels their head of staff over what species they are, in a setting where thats a fringe view and not supported by the Company.

What’s stopping them is that they’d like to play their non human character on a head role rather than their human character. I have both, I play heads, I still want to play my non human as a head.

Fret not your racism rp is here to stay. It stayed on wallstation and yes, we even got more of it when non humans were in head roles.

[NecromancerAnne]

I don't even know why allowing non-human heads has to always be the slippery slope into crewsimov. Like, come on. We can just block any attempts to undermine the crew conflict like we have already, yeah? Like, put that shit directly in the rules in silicon policy and we'll be peachy.

More importantly, if we would ban for Crewsimov already (well, mostly on MRP), we could just keep doing that with non-human heads around. It ain't hard, and we definitely have people trying to do it already.

[britgrenadier1]

I'll be honest, I'm not only more interested in playing my static as they are normally more than being a head. I find the lack of in-universe advantage much more entertaining. I like not having inherent AI authority and needing to tip-toe around Asimov as a non-human. It's great, some of my favourite interactions. The mechanical disadvantages are a bit of a pain (silicons are scary as an enemy), but I think the other interactions more than make up for it.

Being asked to give up all that interesting potential just to be some goofus in a cape and a target on their back with no inherent conflict sucks. I pretty much only play QM because of their special allowance as a nonhuman head. Anything else and that's a big 'no thanks' from me.

Holy shit I’m triple posting what a world. Nobody here is asking you to do any of this??? You don’t have to play head, this thread isn’t about crewsimov, the people in favor of this change like all the hard mode aspects too. You’re not giving up anything, just continue not playing heads if you’d like?

Edit: I misread this whoopsie

[NecromancerAnne]

I play a nonhuman, I'm not playing heads because they can't be nonhuman and I like the conflict of being a nonhuman that occurs with Asimov silicons. I would play a head role if I could be nonhuman, and I invite the conflict that comes with it and think that's important. I don't want crewsimov and I don't see how it is relevant to the discussion either. That's not something I brought up, thats what people against nonhuman heads have brought up as the eventual end result of that change. Which it isn't, or doesn't need to be if the goal is to maintain the AI/nonhuman conflict.

[britgrenadier1]

I play a nonhuman, I'm not playing heads because they can't be nonhuman and I like the conflict of being a nonhuman that occurs with Asimov silicons. I would play a head role if I could be nonhuman, and I invite the conflict that comes with it and think that's important. I don't want crewsimov and I don't see how it is relevant to the discussion either. That's not something I brought up, thats what people against nonhuman heads have brought up as the eventual end result of that change. Which it isn't, or doesn't need to be if the goal is to maintain the AI/nonhuman conflict.

Sorry, I totally misread your post. I incorrectly read it as you being opposed because you’d have to give up all of the fun parts of being non human and be ‘forced’ to play head of staff. My bad.

[Vekter]

-words-

For the sake of debate, I would like to hear your take on how non-human heads impacts interactions between the heads and silicons and, to a larger degree, the impact that having crewsimov be default would have on them.

It won’t change from what is going on now. It didn’t change on wall sans a few early rounds where people would try to mess with the AI at roundstart. Admins handing out a few notes/bans fixed that pretty quick. I didn’t have more or less silicon beef than normal, and the only notable difference was that I always had a flash in my pocket. I do recall one round with a fun story related to silicon interactions from wallstation. A human assistant kept trying to hack into medbay and kept getting ejected by me. Eventually they came back and tried to kill me. After two more non lethal ejections the third and final time ended with his death. The AI didn’t see it, but heard him scream bloody murder over the radio while he was being killed. The AI sent Borgs which made ominous “We’re mad at you” type comments and we had a back and forth with them and the other med docs trying to convince them that the person tripped and fell on a circ saw 9 times. Good clean fun and a story that won’t happen here if we continue to listen to regressive “muh sovl” people.

I don’t like crewsimov. I don’t want crewsimov. I’ve played on servers with it and while it’s interesting how important things like the manifest are there the AI, I also like playing the game on hard mode more. This thread isn’t about crewsimov, and the big voices from my side of the debate wouldn’t push for it should this change be made permanent.

I'm not really sure how you would do non-human heads without them having direct authority over silicons. I guess you could do a modified version that specifies "humans and heads of staff"? How would you implement this while also dealing with the silicons just completely ignoring commands from non-human heads?

[britgrenadier1]

-words-

For the sake of debate, I would like to hear your take on how non-human heads impacts interactions between the heads and silicons and, to a larger degree, the impact that having crewsimov be default would have on them.

It won’t change from what is going on now. It didn’t change on wall sans a few early rounds where people would try to mess with the AI at roundstart. Admins handing out a few notes/bans fixed that pretty quick. I didn’t have more or less silicon beef than normal, and the only notable difference was that I always had a flash in my pocket. I do recall one round with a fun story related to silicon interactions from wallstation. A human assistant kept trying to hack into medbay and kept getting ejected by me. Eventually they came back and tried to kill me. After two more non lethal ejections the third and final time ended with his death. The AI didn’t see it, but heard him scream bloody murder over the radio while he was being killed. The AI sent Borgs which made ominous “We’re mad at you” type comments and we had a back and forth with them and the other med docs trying to convince them that the person tripped and fell on a circ saw 9 times. Good clean fun and a story that won’t happen here if we continue to listen to regressive “muh sovl” people.

I don’t like crewsimov. I don’t want crewsimov. I’ve played on servers with it and while it’s interesting how important things like the manifest are there the AI, I also like playing the game on hard mode more. This thread isn’t about crewsimov, and the big voices from my side of the debate wouldn’t push for it should this change be made permanent.

I'm not really sure how you would do non-human heads without them having direct authority over silicons. I guess you could do a modified version that specifies "humans and heads of staff"? How would you implement this while also dealing with the silicons just completely ignoring commands from non-human heads?

Why do silicons need to follow orders from heads of staff? We already deal with certain silicons acting like we don’t exist, so this wouldn’t change anything. I don’t need authority over silicons to play a head.

[Vekter]

Why do silicons need to follow orders from heads of staff? We already deal with certain silicons acting like we don’t exist, so this wouldn’t change anything. I don’t need authority over silicons to play a head.

I would assume that most members of command would get The Big Mad over a silicon refusing a direct order, even if they're not human. I guess that creates interesting conflict, and if it ever actually crosses into open hostility/attempts to kill the AI, we could handle that administratively.

That's my biggest stumbling point, though. I wouldn't really want rounds to turn into a huge bitchfight between command and silicons because the Captain ended up being a Felinid this time. If this ends up not being an issue, I can cede any concerns over world-building and Nanotrasen being a shitty company to work for. I kind of like the idea of them finally throwing non-humans a bone but just never actually updating their AI's laws to match because they're doing it for DEI brownie points, not because they actually give a shit about their non-human crewmembers.

It will not, speciesism RP is already a rare sight. With less in the setting to support it it will more likely disappear completely. You know what will happen if a subordinate rebels their head of staff over what species they are, in a setting where thats a fringe view and not supported by the Company.

I missed this earlier and I was focused on the silicon aspect of things so I'll respond to it now.

Species-ism RP is rare right now because Manuel tends to conflate it with actual racism and players can and will just murder the shit out of someone for saying "actually I think moth people are kinda gross". It's an enforcement problem, and one that I've been meaning to bring up to the new term, so I guess I appreciate the reminder.

Anyway I digress. It's like any other RP gimmick. I've seen it done in interesting ways and I've seen people run around calling lizards "tail-draggers" in an attempt to bait them into a fight. There's always going to be varying quality to it, and while I like the idea that Nanotrasen is run by soulless monsters who think non-human races are beneath them, britgrenadier is correct in that having species-ist characters have to take orders from non-humans would actually drive this kind of RP a bit better than the inverse.

[Mimepride]

Species-ism RP is rare right now because Manuel tends to conflate it with actual racism and players can and will just murder the shit out of someone for saying "actually I think moth people are kinda gross". It's an enforcement problem, and one that I've been meaning to bring up to the new term, so I guess I appreciate the reminder.

It's worse than that. People will scream "RACISM" for speciesism, which should be considered IC OOC because real racism, to my understanding of the game lore: 1) No longer fucking exists in our game's time period and 2)will get you banned because actual racism is against the rules and 3)Racism is literally not the same thing as Speciesism.

Do you know why speciesism can never be treated the same way racism is? It's because species are often so different from one another that they literally cannot co-exist, let alone communicate. As some entomologist once said, even if ants could talk(an extremely complex social species), we'd have nothing to talk about. We have different goals, lifestyles, body structures, nutritional requirements, adaptations and etc.--all of those things pretty much guarantee friction between species groups. Lets not turn the server into a Jainist paradise, shall we? It's not realistic at all, or pragmatic.

In the case of in-game lore, NT is like a capitalist nightmare, and it very much treats and uses non-human employees as an underclass and cheap source of labor. Hell, the entire backstory of plasmemes rests on the fact that they're a cheap and relatively disposal source of labor. Also, the fact that human beings would treat other species as lesser than them is just real life facts because I strongly believe(keyword: believe--not know) that the vast bulk of humanity is speciesist--and not only that, I also believe that most life on earth, whether they possess sentience and higher intelligence or not, are also fucking speciesist because preferring your species over another literally helps you survive in the food web.

As someone who plays multiple characters(and who rarely plays command, as a side note), you literally should just make a human character for when you play command. Lots of people do it and we have multiple character slots for a reason.

[NecromancerAnne]

Sorry, I totally misread your post. I incorrectly read it as you being opposed because you’d have to give up all of the fun parts of being non human and be ‘forced’ to play head of staff. My bad.

Its fine, text is a format perfect for misinterpretation.

[Roadto3k]

What’s stopping them is that they’d like to play their non human character on a head role rather than their human character. I have both, I play heads, I still want to play my non human as a head.

Fret not your racism rp is here to stay. It stayed on wallstation and yes, we even got more of it when non humans were in head roles.

Then its just as timberpoes says, he is not out of touch. Maybe you don't like the way he says it but the message is the same.
The speciesism will not last on its own, without it being supported by the setting. tg players seeing nonhuman heads in their game will respond to it as it is novel to them, but that will not last on its own.

In the case of in-game lore, NT is like a capitalist nightmare, and it very much treats and uses non-human employees as an underclass and cheap source of labor.

This maybe lingers in our minds but in game it is honestly hard to see. On a white dwarf SS13 seems like a good place to work, for something on a space frontier. It provides a lot of conveniences and freedom to its employees, more than real work places. Changing human authority is another move away from the supposed to be dystopic setting(pay modifier is 10%, so small it goes unnoticed).

[britgrenadier1]

What’s stopping them is that they’d like to play their non human character on a head role rather than their human character. I have both, I play heads, I still want to play my non human as a head.

Fret not your racism rp is here to stay. It stayed on wallstation and yes, we even got more of it when non humans were in head roles.

Then its just as timberpoes says, he is not out of touch. Maybe you don't like the way he says it but the message is the same.
The speciesism will not last on its own, without it being supported by the setting. tg players seeing nonhuman heads in their game will respond to it as it is novel to them, but that will not last on its own.

In the case of in-game lore, NT is like a capitalist nightmare, and it very much treats and uses non-human employees as an underclass and cheap source of labor.

This maybe lingers in our minds but in game it is honestly hard to see. On a white dwarf SS13 seems like a good place to work, for something on a space frontier. It provides a lot of conveniences and freedom to its employees, more than real work places. Changing human authority is another move away from the supposed to be dystopic setting(pay modifier is 10%, so small it goes unnoticed).

He’s incredibly out of touch. People want to have fun playing the game, it has nothing to do with wanting to be the biggest and best personality in the room. If you think people only want the job so they can punch down and make themselves look big then you’ve lost the plot.

[Roadto3k]

He’s incredibly out of touch. People want to have fun playing the game, it has nothing to do with wanting to be the biggest and best personality in the room. If you think people only want the job so they can punch down and make themselves look big then you’ve lost the plot.

Well its good that no one said that then. What timberpoes actually wrote sounds in touch to me.

[britgrenadier1]

He’s incredibly out of touch. People want to have fun playing the game, it has nothing to do with wanting to be the biggest and best personality in the room. If you think people only want the job so they can punch down and make themselves look big then you’ve lost the plot.

Well its good that no one said that then. What timberpoes actually wrote sounds in touch to me.

They have literally said as much. Here is the quote:

It's very little to do with the lore or setting or making SS13 better. It's more to let the well known non-human players yank their jerky in the eternal popularity contest, so we don't get a human Head of Staff that's perhaps less knowledgable, less competent or less willing to run their department to absolute perfection.

They believe that people want this so they can be a head, run their department to perfection, and stroke their ego in the process to show how great they are. I think this is ridiculous, presumptive, and out of touch for why people actually want this to go through. A quick read through last years debate thread on the topic will paint a pretty clear picture that people want it because: it’ll make the game better by having more head players, it’ll create more conflict between racist crew and heads, and it’ll make more interesting stories about characters who got the rare position they have.

[Roadto3k]

I read what he wrote. I dont see anything about punching down and making themselves look big. He did not literally say as much.

Im also aware of the arguments, but I don't think they will play out that way, I believe it will contribute to homogenizing species. More head players is not a big issue, and it can be addressed in a different way.

[britgrenadier1]

I read what he wrote. I dont see anything about punching down and making themselves look big. He did not literally say as much.

Im also aware of the arguments, but I don't think they will play out that way, I believe it will contribute to homogenizing species. More head players is not a big issue, and it can be addressed in a different way.

Punching down and making yourself look big is a part of ego stroking, idk what else to tell you.

Job content isn’t what makes species different, it’s the gameplay changes that we have already that does. The thing is, we already know how this plays out. It happened on wallstation. We saw it, the dynamics were there, the stories were there. Species weren’t homogenized. This idea that the game or species dynamics would become more bland is so hollow in the face of what happened there.

[Roadto3k]

Punching down and making yourself look big can be a part of ego stroking but they are not necessarily. Its not something you see in this server culture and its not the concern. Thats why he didn't mention it I believe.

Im about to start quoting myself so its clear that we will be going in circles. It was novel on wallstation, for tg players, it will not always be that way. Reducing differences in species, especially this one which is the largest, will reduce the differences in species. Wallstation was around for 2 weeks or so, it was not played out.

[Blacklist897]

I like the idea of this being a "sometimes food", which is why I argued for the idea of it being a station trait. I don't love the removal of AI-based conflict that this implies - you can't really have non-human heads without the AI being set to Crewsimov and a lot of the conflict between non-humans and silicons just disappearing.

Why not? Wallstation had it and it worked

[Bawhoppennn]

Non-human heads are so lame and we are going full cantina-station and removing any edge to the game if we go through with it

[Vekter]

I like the idea of this being a "sometimes food", which is why I argued for the idea of it being a station trait. I don't love the removal of AI-based conflict that this implies - you can't really have non-human heads without the AI being set to Crewsimov and a lot of the conflict between non-humans and silicons just disappearing.

Why not? Wallstation had it and it worked

I made the assumption that the conflict between non-human heads and an Asimov AI was going to cause too much bullshit for players to really care about it, but apparently most folks seem okay with this? That was honestly my only real hang-up so if we're willing to give it a shot while still not allowing crewsimov I'm all for it.

Non-human heads are so lame and we are going full cantina-station and removing any edge to the game if we go through with it

Bar RP isn't real, it can't hurt you.

[dendydoom]

how will this test treat speciesism as an ic cause for conflict? eg, disobeying/mutinying a lizard captain on the grounds that your character wouldn't take orders from a non-human? is this a valid IC reason for conflict or will it get you in trouble?