[LRP] Rule 4 and deconverting

[Vekter]

We had an issue earlier today where a non-cultist captured and killed a cultist before sharding them despite multiple other characters telling them to deconvert them. I feel like there's this odd imbalance where we expect team antagonists to try and convert over just wanton murder, but because rule 4 says "you can do whatever you want to confirmed antagonists", the same isn't expected in inverse.

I feel like a precedent for rule 4 stating that team antags are expected to prefer conversion over wanton murder while non-antags are expected to deconvert when reasonable would be nice. Definitions of "unreasonable" would be situations where it's impossible to deconvert (no holy water) or the situation has degraded to the point where deconverting would be considered too difficult (Cult/Revs have hit critical mass, generally just the point where we'd stop caring about them killing instead of converting, ie Cult having halos).

[Jacquerel]

I think if you're just one guy and you find a cultist then killing them is fine
I think if several people have captured and are in the process of trying to deconvert a cultist then interrupting them to instantly round remove the person they are RPing with is cringe

[Timberpoes]

Just copying what I posted on Discord as my take:

I was under the impression that conversion antags should prefer conversion where practicable. And crew should prefer deconversion where practicable. Conversion antags interact messily with Rule 4 because they're able to have their antag status removed.

To me it's very similar to the choice to erase a subverted AI after you've carded it, instead of making an effort to get its laws reset. Versus the inevitability of erasing a malf AI. Of course, sometimes it's not practicable to reset and relaw.

But I'd prefer that the first choice when interacting as and with conversion antags is not acting like the game has a KDA scoreboard despite the fact it works that way with every other antag class.

[iain0]

Yeah, I think context is important here, if there's nothing obvious to hand I wouldn't have as strong an opinion, but when the context is a safe facility in a non hostile group that might be able to deconvert then I don't think spending excessive time disregarding even the calls of the group to stop should be disregarded in the persuit of a kill + shading.

The concerning part is that if its okay to just act what I consider to be more NRP in these situations and persue the kill/shadeing goal ignoring everyone else then the only way to stop them is to NRP them to crit before they achieve their goal, which is both an excessively trigger happy situation and makes for no real role play options in this environment, as spending time trying to talk just gets them closer to their goal. NRP begets NRP.

The situation that arose this question was totally gratuitous, single mindedly persued against the will of the group inside a medical facility where time was of no pressure and the dangerous cultist was soft locked in crit stasis, everyone had holy water in their bags, but no time was given to discuss any of this.

Therefor I think there should be a line for this sort of behaviour, I don't think it should be very high, I'm not against full on saying deconversion unless impractical, but there are certainly shades to "when reasonable" and I think this should be in place at some definition of "reasonable", i wouldn't be beyond that being as simple as "in safe territory and with possible options", I wouldn't push people to run around with a corpse if it's not safe to venture around openly - i.e. station is in chaos (though they do make good missiles), or spend significant time waiting for answers to see if there is deconversion, but when you're safe and it wouldn't make any difference to spend 10 seconds asking "can you deconvert?" then (particularly when everyone is telling you to stop) this seems reasonable to expect under LRP. I hope.

[Mimepride]

The context of the situation matters so much. While being killed instead of deconned sucks a ton, the fact of the matter is that sometimes the chaplain is dead and nobody grew holymelons. And even if neither of those are true, they might not be available to a particular player in a given context--forcing them to take drastic measures.

Cult is such a dangerous antagonist(and some people are so good at it) that killing before deconning is fairly reasonable. The situation you describe in the OP definitely isn't that, and maybe something should have been done. However, the fact remains that a single cultist can turn the tide cannot be ignored. I've witnessed this in action and lost the good fight. Broadly applied rules around deconning instead of killing won't be very effective, IMO.

[Vekter]

The context of the situation matters so much. While being killed instead of deconned sucks a ton, the fact of the matter is that sometimes the chaplain is dead and nobody grew holymelons. And even if neither of those are true, they might not be available to a particular player in a given context--forcing them to take drastic measures.

Cult is such a dangerous antagonist(and some people are so good at it) that killing before deconning is fairly reasonable. The situation you describe in the OP definitely isn't that, and maybe something should have been done. However, the fact remains that a single cultist can turn the tide cannot be ignored. I've witnessed this in action and lost the good fight. Broadly applied rules around deconning instead of killing won't be very effective, IMO.

Right, but I want the rule to exist so we can at least point to something and guide players towards preferring to deconvert in situations where they reasonably can. I can't really imagine a world where this would get someone banned by itself unless they're actively running around capping every cultist like ten minutes into the round.

[Itseasytosee2me]

Let rule four flow. Let the people kill the antagonists.

[iwishforducks]

i dont see why people should have any amount of mercy on people that's sole mission is to summon an inter-dimensional blood god to feast on the bodies and souls of everyone on the station

with that said, oocly, if people are actively trying to deconvert other people and you come in and just kill the person i can see why admin intervention is needed. but i dont think you should EVER have to carry the burden of having to sit down and deconvert them yourselves.

with that said I pretty much just have to give a +1 to iain0 on what he said about this:

Spoiler:

Yeah, I think context is important here, if there's nothing obvious to hand I wouldn't have as strong an opinion, but when the context is a safe facility in a non hostile group that might be able to deconvert then I don't think spending excessive time disregarding even the calls of the group to stop should be disregarded in the persuit of a kill + shading.

The concerning part is that if its okay to just act what I consider to be more NRP in these situations and persue the kill/shadeing goal ignoring everyone else then the only way to stop them is to NRP them to crit before they achieve their goal, which is both an excessively trigger happy situation and makes for no real role play options in this environment, as spending time trying to talk just gets them closer to their goal. NRP begets NRP.

The situation that arose this question was totally gratuitous, single mindedly persued against the will of the group inside a medical facility where time was of no pressure and the dangerous cultist was soft locked in crit stasis, everyone had holy water in their bags, but no time was given to discuss any of this.

Therefor I think there should be a line for this sort of behaviour, I don't think it should be very high, I'm not against full on saying deconversion unless impractical, but there are certainly shades to "when reasonable" and I think this should be in place at some definition of "reasonable", i wouldn't be beyond that being as simple as "in safe territory and with possible options", I wouldn't push people to run around with a corpse if it's not safe to venture around openly - i.e. station is in chaos (though they do make good missiles), or spend significant time waiting for answers to see if there is deconversion, but when you're safe and it wouldn't make any difference to spend 10 seconds asking "can you deconvert?" then (particularly when everyone is telling you to stop) this seems reasonable to expect under LRP. I hope.

[dendydoom]

I think if you're just one guy and you find a cultist then killing them is fine
I think if several people have captured and are in the process of trying to deconvert a cultist then interrupting them to instantly round remove the person they are RPing with is cringe

this is basically my take and with some extra words around my reasoning:

imo players shouldn't be held to a standard where they must deconvert by going out of their way under dubious circumstances. eg, if there's any risk there's more threats out there, or they would put themselves in harm's way to get them deconversion treatment, etc, then they should just be able to stuff the corpse in a garbage can and walk off.

where i start to question these decisions are when it involves someone going out of their way or above and beyond what's reasonable just to ensure someone is removed. eg, a group of you kill a cultist, then against the suggestion of the rest of that group who have the means and resources to deconvert them, you go out of your way to husk/decap/gib them or whatever. this starts to seem unreasonable unless you have some kind of IC reason motivating you - they killed my dog/catgirl static bff so this is my personal revenge and other such roleplay nonsense etc etc.

[NecromancerAnne]

If deconversion is an option, it is reasonable and that process is taking place AND your fellows are telling you to not kill a deconvertable antagonist and round remove them, then I think you should probably follow their requests because there is effectively an invisible 'side' you're jeopardizing by going against their collective wishes just to validhunt. Don't be such a colossal piece of shit to your team mates.

[TheLoLSwat]

The context of the situation matters so much. While being killed instead of deconned sucks a ton, the fact of the matter is that sometimes the chaplain is dead and nobody grew holymelons. And even if neither of those are true, they might not be available to a particular player in a given context--forcing them to take drastic measures.

Cult is such a dangerous antagonist(and some people are so good at it) that killing before deconning is fairly reasonable. The situation you describe in the OP definitely isn't that, and maybe something should have been done. However, the fact remains that a single cultist can turn the tide cannot be ignored. I've witnessed this in action and lost the good fight. Broadly applied rules around deconning instead of killing won't be very effective, IMO.

^^

You only have time to deconvert if you are doing a victory lap and have holymelons everywhere and holy water everywhere and everyone implanted or some other utopia because the first cultist was found in 30 seconds after asking the CE "how do i play cult?". Cult converts (or kills if you cannot be converted) much, much faster than the anti-cult force does. Unless you have the aforementioned utopia, it is a detriment to have multiple people sitting around while someone tweaks out tied to a chair. Losing cargo is bad, losing medbay is very bad (for both the supplies and the amount of people that pass through), and even if they dont take them, you will be sitting ducks while the cultists convert at 3x speed while still being stronger 1:1 against almost anyone on the other side.

There are situations where you dont have a reason not to convert. I dont think those situations occur enough (without a reasonable argument to just kill them and move on) for it to justify a rule 4 precedent. It should really be case-by-case because there is a LOT of nuance that the crew has to think about when making the decision to deconvert or kill.

And ultimately, I think we are looking at it way too much like a videogame to win or lose. Cult is absolutely busted anyway and the only thing stopping their playrate from skyrocketing is that its ever so slightly harder to understand than just smacking the bourgeoisie like the other team antag. Choosing to deconvert or choosing to send them to narsie is an RP decision and reasonable in-house conflict in regards to how facing disaster and near-insurmountable odds can change the crew.

Also I doubt choosing to kill a cultist you have captured is a round losing mistake (and i would even argue for the opposite if you spend too much time doing it). Everyone standing around complaining about it can further show their loyalty by catching more cultists, especially if its their captain or HOS calling for the execution as they were trained for these situations

[datorangebottle]

I think if you leave the word 'reasonable' in there, the person doing the killing will just point to that and continue beheading cultists.
Deconversion usually isn't treated as a reasonable option on LRP because of how cult works. I think it would require code changes for deconversion to be reasonable.

[Vekter]

I think if you leave the word 'reasonable' in there, the person doing the killing will just point to that and continue beheading cultists.
Deconversion usually isn't treated as a reasonable option on LRP because of how cult works. I think it would require code changes for deconversion to be reasonable.

And they would be very disappointed when they get banned for beheading the first cultist they run into ten minutes into the round.

[Stabbystab]

I think if you leave the word 'reasonable' in there, the person doing the killing will just point to that and continue beheading cultists.
Deconversion usually isn't treated as a reasonable option on LRP because of how cult works. I think it would require code changes for deconversion to be reasonable.

And they would be very disappointed when they get banned for beheading the first cultist they run into ten minutes into the round.

A) be heading was removed
B) What is your fascination for trying to change the rules for a server you don’t even play. Like most of the lrp players in here have outright said this is a bad idea.
C) antags really shouldn’t have protections it’s just dumb punishing someone for killing a cultist who wants to turn everyone into demon robots.

[Itseasytosee2me]

I don't see the reason that we can't just ere on the side of player agency here.
Sure if you are going out of your way to spoil someones deconversion attempt thats a dickhead move and you can probably get rule 1'ed for it. I would say the same thing about a traitor who is captured and being interrogated by security.

Why on earth do we want to put administrative pressure on players in this way? Its just going to stress people out. I hate this.

And they would be very disappointed when they get banned for beheading the first cultist they run into ten minutes into the round.

You saying shit like this is what makes me feel like I'm walking on eggshells anytime I am either playing as or around an antagonist on MRP.

[GamerAndYeahMick]

Imho you don't need to deconvert feel free to shuttle gib but in situations were the deconversion is about to or is taking place you shouldn't do it - where I am iffy on this is a) the level of knowledge the player has and b) the level of admin engagement needed because I do subscribe pretty hard to the "just kill him" philosophy in these scenarios but frankly I do see why admin engagement would become necessary in these situations and if someone is going out of their way to do it in these type of scenarios i'd wager they are problem players also in general. I feel like maybe a version of this policy i'm interested in is that people who try to stop or do stop conversion antags that are being/about to be deconverted from being deconverted lose all metaprotection and cannot fight back and can additionally be gibbed by admins if they deem necessary.

EDIT: I am open to arguments that open up banning for just interrupting deconversions or conversions in general but I feel they would need to be done in particularly airtight cases

[Vekter]

I think if you leave the word 'reasonable' in there, the person doing the killing will just point to that and continue beheading cultists.
Deconversion usually isn't treated as a reasonable option on LRP because of how cult works. I think it would require code changes for deconversion to be reasonable.

And they would be very disappointed when they get banned for beheading the first cultist they run into ten minutes into the round.

A) be heading was removed
B) What is your fascination for trying to change the rules for a server you don’t even play. Like most of the lrp players in here have outright said this is a bad idea.
C) antags really shouldn’t have protections it’s just dumb punishing someone for killing a cultist who wants to turn everyone into demon robots.

A) Irrelevant
B) Because I care about people being treated fairly on all servers and I don't think it's reasonable to ask cult not to murder everyone and instead prefer converting while also allowing players to just kill anyone cult-adjacent when deconversion is an option, also weren't you just in an MRP thread a few days ago advocating for lowering antag restrictions or something?
C) I would say something like "Let's just remove all player protections and allow people to round remove for even the most basic slights" but I think you'd be okay with that.

And they would be very disappointed when they get banned for beheading the first cultist they run into ten minutes into the round.

You saying shit like this is what makes me feel like I'm walking on eggshells anytime I am either playing as or around and antagonist on MRP.

I don't understand why. I'm actually probably the most lenient admin when it comes to restricted MRP antags and have regularly told players who call an antag killing one or two people FNR "murderboning" that I'm not going to handle the issue unless it becomes a major problem. The vast majority of it is just "Don't kill a bunch of people without a good reason as antag, don't go around trying to kill antags as a non-antag unless they fuck with you or your department". It's pretty basic and, admittedly, I'm being hyperbolic here. I would never ban for this as a first offense unless it was REALLY bad, like running into security and killing a cultist who's in the process of being deconverted, and even then it'd be more likely a note and a talking to.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see a situation where you're doing something you genuinely think is okay based on the rules and you get fucking mollywhopped over it if you end up being wrong. If it's clear you're acting in good faith and doing something you think the rules say you can do, and your interpretation just ends up being different than ours, you might get a note? idk, you're allowed to make mistakes, there's very few things we will just outright ban you for.

E:

There are situations where you dont have a reason not to convert. I dont think those situations occur enough (without a reasonable argument to just kill them and move on) for it to justify a rule 4 precedent. It should really be case-by-case because there is a LOT of nuance that the crew has to think about when making the decision to deconvert or kill.

I don't really have anything to say about the rest of your post (Cult could actually benefit from some code love, most conversion antags could imo but this is Policy Discussion, not code discussion) but I will respond to this. Honestly? I just want to encourage players to consider deconversion over killing more often. I feel like the vast majority of LRP players don't ever really make that consideration and just go "Rule 4!" and kill them because it's more fun for them to do things that way, but it really sucks for the guy who has played cult maybe three times, fucks up trying to convert someone, and dies like 10 minutes in. I think deconverting is reasonable more often than you might think it is, but I don't think it's hard to understand when that call should be made.

[NecromancerAnne]

Imho you don't need to deconvert feel free to shuttle gib but in situations were the deconversion is about to or is taking place you shouldn't do it - where I am iffy on this is a) the level of knowledge the player has and b) the level of admin engagement needed because I do subscribe pretty hard to the "just kill him" philosophy in these scenarios but frankly I do see why admin engagement would become necessary in these situations and if someone is going out of their way to do it in these type of scenarios i'd wager they are problem players also in general. I feel like maybe a version of this policy i'm interested in is that people who try to stop or do stop conversion antags that are being/about to be deconverted from being deconverted lose all metaprotection and cannot fight back and can additionally be gibbed by admins if they deem necessary.

EDIT: I am open to arguments that open up banning for just interrupting deconversions or conversions in general but I feel they would need to be done in particularly airtight cases

I mean, how do you want to go about this; do you want admins to be proactive about it and act when players point it out/identify it is happening, or do you want a player to potentially make themselves not only valid for killing in-game but if they make the mistake of retaliating, end up in administrative trouble regardless?

One of those seems like an opportunity to stop the problem before it becomes a problem or as it arises. The other feels like a 'gotcha'. And I'd really prefer players not get into deeper hot water than they need too. A player getting tapped on the shoulder to be reminded that they're being a dick by just out and out killing and RR'ing an almost deconverted antagonist (and thus, soon-to-be crew mate again).

If we base it on the already existing policies around being a team player, just apply that to deconversions while they are taking place.

It doesn't matter how hard it is to deconvert cultists. That's not the point of discussion and I don't think should factor into any policy whatsoever, as that is subject to change that is outside of admin jurisdiction. Any policy should be futureproofed from code changes that are so specific. A player's/teams assessment and choosing to start performing deconversion is however something you can consider, as well as the justifications of the players for both A) why the group is deconverting, and B) why this person chose to RR a deconverting cultist should factor as well as that is player behaviour related. If deconversions are happening, we can safely assume that the difficulty of those conversions is not longer a matter of debate, right?

[Stabbystab]

I think if you leave the word 'reasonable' in there, the person doing the killing will just point to that and continue beheading cultists.
Deconversion usually isn't treated as a reasonable option on LRP because of how cult works. I think it would require code changes for deconversion to be reasonable.

And they would be very disappointed when they get banned for beheading the first cultist they run into ten minutes into the round.

A) be heading was removed
B) What is your fascination for trying to change the rules for a server you don’t even play. Like most of the lrp players in here have outright said this is a bad idea.
C) antags really shouldn’t have protections it’s just dumb punishing someone for killing a cultist who wants to turn everyone into demon robots.

A) Irrelevant
B) Because I care about people being treated fairly on all servers and I don't think it's reasonable to ask cult not to murder everyone and instead prefer converting while also allowing players to just kill anyone cult-adjacent when deconversion is an option, also weren't you just in an MRP thread a few days ago advocating for lowering antag restrictions or something?
C) I would say something like "Let's just remove all player protections and allow people to round remove for even the most basic slights" but I think you'd be okay with that.

And they would be very disappointed when they get banned for beheading the first cultist they run into ten minutes into the round.

You saying shit like this is what makes me feel like I'm walking on eggshells anytime I am either playing as or around and antagonist on MRP.

I don't understand why. I'm actually probably the most lenient admin when it comes to restricted MRP antags and have regularly told players who call an antag killing one or two people FNR "murderboning" that I'm not going to handle the issue unless it becomes a major problem. The vast majority of it is just "Don't kill a bunch of people without a good reason as antag, don't go around trying to kill antags as a non-antag unless they fuck with you or your department". It's pretty basic and, admittedly, I'm being hyperbolic here. I would never ban for this as a first offense unless it was REALLY bad, like running into security and killing a cultist who's in the process of being deconverted, and even then it'd be more likely a note and a talking to.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see a situation where you're doing something you genuinely think is okay based on the rules and you get fucking mollywhopped over it if you end up being wrong. If it's clear you're acting in good faith and doing something you think the rules say you can do, and your interpretation just ends up being different than ours, you might get a note? idk, you're allowed to make mistakes, there's very few things we will just outright ban you for.

E:

There are situations where you dont have a reason not to convert. I dont think those situations occur enough (without a reasonable argument to just kill them and move on) for it to justify a rule 4 precedent. It should really be case-by-case because there is a LOT of nuance that the crew has to think about when making the decision to deconvert or kill.

I don't really have anything to say about the rest of your post (Cult could actually benefit from some code love, most conversion antags could imo but this is Policy Discussion, not code discussion) but I will respond to this. Honestly? I just want to encourage players to consider deconversion over killing more often. I feel like the vast majority of LRP players don't ever really make that consideration and just go "Rule 4!" and kill them because it's more fun for them to do things that way, but it really sucks for the guy who has played cult maybe three times, fucks up trying to convert someone, and dies like 10 minutes in. I think deconverting is reasonable more often than you might think it is, but I don't think it's hard to understand when that call should be made.

Still new to the forums didn’t know how to hide this quote
A) was a joke
B) that said thread was the maints one which if I remember correctly you wanted to effect lrp, so your point as you put it is irrelevant.
C) you don’t even know me buddy, if I’m such a murder happy guy then why do I have antags off for about a year, why do I play hos and not rr antags and instead give them second chances. I really don’t like all the assumptions you make all the time you act like your way is the only way but the truth is your just forcing your will on people who really don’t need or want such changes.

[TheLoLSwat]

Honestly? I just want to encourage players to consider deconversion over killing more often. I feel like the vast majority of LRP players don't ever really make that consideration and just go "Rule 4!" and kill them because it's more fun for them to do things that way, but it really sucks for the guy who has played cult maybe three times, fucks up trying to convert someone, and dies like 10 minutes in. I think deconverting is reasonable more often than you might think it is, but I don't think it's hard to understand when that call should be made.

I understand your point about wanting people to deconvert more (and on a grander scale just seeing options that arent KILL in bright red letters), but in this specific case i think it should be an IC issue. The crew fighting over shooting a cultist should be kept IC specifically because it makes too much sense from an RP perspective not to. If an officer (or a random thats converted) is disobeying direct orders from officers or command just to kill, thats enough for them to be thrown in the brig, or tossed out and told to go be triggerhappy in the battlefield if they want to so bad. If the captain or HOS (or whoever is in charge at the time) decides to do it they should have full reign to make that drastic decision as the person in charge. They should also be able to face the full IC consequences of alienating your dwindling force. We should not punish people for playing optimally or otherwise, and I dont think that the act of killing a cultist is enough of a rule 1 violation to bypass the hurdle that is rule 4 on LRP. Is it harsh to just beat them to death with hammers when you have holy water? Yes. Should the anti-cult reserve the right to all wear spooky masks and begin their own cult of beating cultists to death with hammers (although it is a terrible strategy objectively)? Yes. The most extreme examples im seeing in this thread are people who should be dealt with ICly through brigging or otherwise, or command staff who are entrusted by Nanotrasen to run the situation however they see fit anyway, and they have the authority to mass-execute narsie'ans.

Furthermore, I think just the question of "Are we going to kill this cultist or have them fight for us?" with all the differing angles that it can provide, is good enough storytelling that occurs often on cult rounds and we shouldnt muddle it with increased admin intervention, especially when its not needed or even wanted

[NoxVS]

There's no obligation for you to hold back or anything. Cultist comes at you? You're free to kill them then and there. Storming a cult base? It'd be stupid to say you can't kill them. Go ahead, fire into it with absolute disregard for the lives of those within. The only issue is when you start going out of your way to round remove them.

You should not be RRing cultists who you could deconvert without excessive effort. You aren't obligated to do it yourself, just as long as you don't make it harder for those who would want to deconvert them. If there's absolutely no holy water and the corpses would literally just be rotting in the brig? Sure, do what you think is necessary to prevent them from being revived back to the cult.

[GamerAndYeahMick]

Imho you don't need to deconvert feel free to shuttle gib but in situations were the deconversion is about to or is taking place you shouldn't do it - where I am iffy on this is a) the level of knowledge the player has and b) the level of admin engagement needed because I do subscribe pretty hard to the "just kill him" philosophy in these scenarios but frankly I do see why admin engagement would become necessary in these situations and if someone is going out of their way to do it in these type of scenarios i'd wager they are problem players also in general. I feel like maybe a version of this policy i'm interested in is that people who try to stop or do stop conversion antags that are being/about to be deconverted from being deconverted lose all metaprotection and cannot fight back and can additionally be gibbed by admins if they deem necessary.

EDIT: I am open to arguments that open up banning for just interrupting deconversions or conversions in general but I feel they would need to be done in particularly airtight cases

I mean, how do you want to go about this; do you want admins to be proactive about it and act when players point it out/identify it is happening, or do you want a player to potentially make themselves not only valid for killing in-game but if they make the mistake of retaliating, end up in administrative trouble regardless?

One of those seems like an opportunity to stop the problem before it becomes a problem or as it arises. The other feels like a 'gotcha'. And I'd really prefer players not get into deeper hot water than they need too. A player getting tapped on the shoulder to be reminded that they're being a dick by just out and out killing and RR'ing an almost deconverted antagonist (and thus, soon-to-be crew mate again).

If we base it on the already existing policies around being a team player, just apply that to deconversions while they are taking place.

It doesn't matter how hard it is to deconvert cultists. That's not the point of discussion and I don't think should factor into any policy whatsoever, as that is subject to change that is outside of admin jurisdiction. Any policy should be futureproofed from code changes that are so specific. A player's/teams assessment and choosing to start performing deconversion is however something you can consider, as well as the justifications of the players for both A) why the group is deconverting, and B) why this person chose to RR a deconverting cultist should factor as well as that is player behaviour related. If deconversions are happening, we can safely assume that the difficulty of those conversions is not longer a matter of debate, right?

Actually my main concern is deconversions actively in progress/about to be in process, and my other concern is making a policy that matches this idea that doesn't give admins enough wiggle room to over-define what is considered actively in process our about to be in process, I think that this should be mostly handled in character as going down a certain path trying to address this issue pretty much leaves the problem that MRP has, admin to admin consideration and too much oversight into antagonism/dealing with antags and policy being created via ahelps and word of mouth rather than official channels in a way that isn't helpful to keeping the spirit of rule 4 alive(also will probably just spawn more policy threads). I think that a way to help deal with this issue whilst keeping what LRP players enjoy about LRP and helping deal with awkwardness about when someone is being actively deconverted/converted is, if another player literally has them incapacitated and you are aware they either have the means to deconvert or is actively deconverting them then you are valid and cannot fight back as this would probably be killbaiting anyway, allowing them to interrupt the deconversion and round remove the person may open up opportunities to conflict and a chance to roleplay around an emerging situation, and leaves room for disagreements on how to handle somebody depending on factors other than their antagonist datum. When it comes to interrupting a conversion well that is probably already under not fucking over your team mates as an antagonist. I think that people could prevent a deconversion and also just doing it to grief but I find that those are the sort of people who start killing the people trying to prevent them or attack them back, and this is the type of person that should be banned so it's a kind of best of both worlds here.

Also on a side note I was actually thinking of the fact that crew-aligned people while not antagonists are technically on the same team and I could probably find a way to shoehorn that into not fucking over your team, but removing the opposite team from the round isn't really fucking over your own team, there would have to be other factors and each situation probably would play out different meaning a) more policy needed (booo) b) complaints and ban appeals opened up asking to clarify the scope of the enforcement meaning (more policy created boooo).

If anybody can think of a better way to handle this then let me know. But I am keen to preserve what LRP enjoyers actually enjoy and want to keep that around whilst dealing with scenarios were someone could take an action in good faith but then they could also do it in bad faith and should probably be dealt with somehow at least, and I want to do this without having to create a massive policy that covers every scenario that people have to memorise so they don't run afoul of the rules or by leaving a policy that is vague enough in which we in some aspect make LRP more like MRP than intended.

[kieth4]

I think that the problem here is how the game works, I've seen many a time where 3-4 capture a guy and spend forever deconverting them and then by the time they're deconned cult is like 1000x better and the guy like goes and gets reconned 30s later.

I do not think anyone should be forced to show mercy to a crazy blood killer dude and I think the roleplay aspect is the fact of well, he's a crazy bloodkiller dude we should not have to show mercy or babysit him- the people should be free to intersect ic and maybe like beat up the guy trying to stop them or w/e but I think it should be everyone's right to take it upon themselves to kill them if need be. I think the fun aspect of rule 4 is antags can do anything to you and you can do anything to antags- if conversion was a long yee ass process and people didn't convert because it was a huge crazy risk admins wouldn't mind either. The fact of the matter is deconversion is a huge hassle on cult esp and usually leads to so many negative outcomes even if the person is strapped down and being forced water idk.

[8bot]

it's LRP, let them kill the antagonist
stop trying to MRP it up, it's already half-dead, you don't need to keep on beating it

[NoxVS]

If anybody can think of a better way to handle this then let me know.

There's no obligation for you to hold back or anything. Cultist comes at you? You're free to kill them then and there. Storming a cult base? It'd be stupid to say you can't kill them. Go ahead, fire into it with absolute disregard for the lives of those within. The only issue is when you start going out of your way to round remove them.

You should not be RRing cultists who you could deconvert without excessive effort. You aren't obligated to do it yourself, just as long as you don't make it harder for those who would want to deconvert them. If there's absolutely no holy water and the corpses would literally just be rotting in the brig? Sure, do what you think is necessary to prevent them from being revived back to the cult.

"Do not go out of your way to round remove antags that can be deconverted, unless the situation has degraded to the point where it is necessary to do so."

This seems like it works fine as a solution.

[GamerAndYeahMick]

If anybody can think of a better way to handle this then let me know.

There's no obligation for you to hold back or anything. Cultist comes at you? You're free to kill them then and there. Storming a cult base? It'd be stupid to say you can't kill them. Go ahead, fire into it with absolute disregard for the lives of those within. The only issue is when you start going out of your way to round remove them.

You should not be RRing cultists who you could deconvert without excessive effort. You aren't obligated to do it yourself, just as long as you don't make it harder for those who would want to deconvert them. If there's absolutely no holy water and the corpses would literally just be rotting in the brig? Sure, do what you think is necessary to prevent them from being revived back to the cult.

"Do not go out of your way to round remove antags that can be deconverted, unless the situation has degraded to the point where it is necessary to do so."

This seems like it works fine as a solution.

I want it to work less in the realm of "can" be deconverted, and want less vagueness to stop it becoming too MRP-like or players having to go out of their way to deconvert first. I specifically want it to address someone doing it when someone literally is unable to fight back, there is no threat of them being revived/reconverted and it messes with their own team who are trying to get someone back to crew alignment - hope that makes sense?

[NoxVS]

"Do not go out of your way to round remove antags that can be deconverted, unless the situation has degraded to the point where it is necessary to do so."

I want it to work less in the realm of "can" be deconverted

Can be deconverted as in "is an antag with deconversion mechanics", not can be deconverted as in "you have the tools to deconvert on hand". Could probably just reword it to "conversion antags" but this way it covers stuff like obsessed, brainwashing, rogue AIs, etc

want less vagueness

Our rules are, and will always be, slightly vague. It's hard to explicitly map out every possible situation, and if we did it would just result in someone standing right on the line. Telling people not to be a dick is a vague rule, saying heads of staff need to put in minimum effort is a vague rule - How do you define minimum effort exactly? Vagueness allows players to act within the realm of what is reasonable without having to worry about where exactly the line is. And if an admin disagrees with the player on whether or not it's reasonable? That's what we have headmins for

to stop it becoming too MRP-like

No idea where MRP is coming from. This is an LRP policy, created as a result of LRP players taking issue with something that happened on an LRP server.

or players having to go out of their way to deconvert first

Good thing I never mentioned anything about players being obligated to do that then. As long as you aren't going out of your way to unnecessarily RR someone, this doesn't affect you.

I specifically want it to address someone doing it when someone literally is unable to fight back, there is no threat of them being revived/reconverted and it messes with their own team who are trying to get someone back to crew alignment - hope that makes sense?

Are you able to give a reasonable explanation for why it was necessary to RR that cultist? Great, you pass the test. I don't really like the idea of "could be reconverted" as a reasonable justification, since I don't want security to just murder every cultist and stash their bodies away forever on the off chance they COULD be reconverted if revived, but there are definitely situations where the station has broken down enough to get to that point. As long as it's a reasonable explanation, I'm fine with it.

Seems to me like this works fine to stop the bad faith players who would go out of their way to RR someone who could easily be deconverted while leaving room for good faith players to play the game without worrying about either breaking some convoluted and overly detailed rule or having to deal with the previously mentioned bad faith player.

[Pepsiman]

I want it to work less in the realm of "can" be deconverted, and want less vagueness to stop it becoming too MRP-like or players having to go out of their way to deconvert first. I specifically want it to address someone doing it when someone literally is unable to fight back, there is no threat of them being revived/reconverted and it messes with their own team who are trying to get someone back to crew alignment - hope that makes sense?

I like what you are saying but i actually dont want the conversions/deconversions be covered by the policy/rules; just by how the cult/revs naturally work you want to convert people back into crew since that is simple one teammate back and it actually works, and it has worked since i have been here and still works, literally last round as a cultie the crew was deconverting people in medical and even after escaping they still didnt kill me and deconverted me.

I really dont see a point in adding more stuff to the rules that just cover the edge case that sparked this convo in the first place. AND!!! why would you add something to the rules when nothing stops me (or any other admin) from handling bad apples that grief decon? Because of rule 4 they dont break anything when they try killing the team antag however if they do start fucking around with crew that is handling the decon thats now escalation and i can just handle it under escalation and rule 1 despite that they are not breaking the rules by doing anything to the antag they still fuck with crew and thats a different story.

[GamerAndYeahMick]

My point is your sentence was worded subjectively enough to leave room for it to become a problem or go too far depending on the admins online if the former part of your sentence isn't vague at least the latter is, I don't want too much admin intervention when it isn't called for or cared about, being round removed is not an issue to me but stopping your own "team" (the crew) when they already have someone and are wanting to and are able to deconvert that's more of an issue, i'm just able to see scenarios in which it'd be okay to do as long as you aren't hurting or attacking them or distracting them too much, and I wanna keep it mostly dealt in IC unless the person is attacking people or becoming disruptive to people who are trying apprehend him or make him see reason.

[NecromancerAnne]

Not for nothing, burger, but admins are in fact empowered to act as necessary for the betterment of in-game health via Rule 0. One could easily already interpret this situation as a Rule 1 situation. Previously to this thread, they could have acted to correct this as needed. And that correction can be as simple as 'hey man, don't be an unnecessary dick to those guys on your side'.

I feel like your suggestion enables an equally pretty ill situation; by having no obligation to oblige your side's condition and mindlessly killing and RR'ing while a conversion antag is about, you're boiling all interactions to just more of that to deal with you if the other players are not down with you just ignore their deconversion attempts. That's not really roleplay to me, that's just more mechanics and making yourself a mechanical nuisance on top of that. It's even ignoring an actual, real roleplay consideration JUST to following the rules (an entirely OOC abstraction holding the PLAYER to behavioral standards) AND the suggestion still forces an admin intervention if the offending player decides to kill their upset aggressors. And, honestly, rewards that player with more mechanical interactions since nothing obliges them to just sit there and take it, just not actively resist. If they hightail it and get chased, they've just shifted more of the attention onto themselves and continued to become a problem in the round if they wanna keep undermining deconversion efforts.

I worry this evaporates the roleplay out entirely as even a consideration, I don't interpret needing to be killed via OOC honor rules of obligated pacifism immediately following an execution nobody liked as a resolution to the problem to be roleplay at all. I think, whatever reason that someone chooses to kill THAT one guy, it had better be a good one to cause all these problems with their follows.

[GamerAndYeahMick]

What counts as the bettering of the game? Does going against the wishes of the last LRP remnant count as bettering the game? I am not absolutist in saying that I would never support a rule 0 but I think the admin better present a pretty airtight case that it couldn't just be handled IC(either because of the person or the situation) and that it is better for the round/game that the person is punished(it doesn't always need to be a ban, a stern talking to, a gib and a note could suffice), I just do not want to set hard boundaries on this and want to judge each case by it's merit. For what it is worth most of the people who are going to act in a bad faith way in these scenarios are probably players who will get themselves permabanned or already should have been, my thinking is that there are entirely good faith and fun ways for scenarios like this to happen and i'd rather put up with the downside of limiting admin intervention until it's absolutely necessary so we can have chances of a better upside, and i'd rather not empower admins who would more heavily intervene in antagonism to feel emboldened to step in to often because I feel it may irritate our LRP playerbase.

EDIT: Also there is no good way to limit the specific edge case that this is all in reference too without causing problems, limit the players actions against deconversions then you also have to limit the antags ability to choose whether it would be better to kill or convert, I don't want people have to stop playing and explain to some admin who wants to check why they killed this one guy instead of converting/deconverting. so yeah. I am not biting on anything like this unless it is incredibly nuanced and written in a very specific way to limit it being overused

[Stabbystab]

To my understanding as someone who’s played a lot of both sec and tide if someone kills a antag without premision such as I as the hos cuff a cultist then as I take him to sec a mob beats him to death, to my understanding this is ic and now if I want I could arrest all those responsible for murder. I feel like not everything needs to have a admin response this is a roleplaying game and it’s up to the people to determine what there character would do. Would my character then go and arrest all the mob or would I just go not worth the trouble. More rules doesn’t equal better rp it just railroads it into being a script and not improv

[Timberpoes]

It's not that more rules equals more RP.

Rule 4 often equals less RP on the side of non antags. Non-antags are often seen furiously quoting it when they have limited to no IC reason to do what they did and are just relying on the rules in lieu of RP to justify their actions.

Which is fine. Just let's not pretend otherwise.

My goal isn't to make our LRP into MRP. It's to make NRP into LRP. And our core server rules should never get in the way of RP. Our core server rules should never protect optimal gameplay, merely allow it where it's appropriate.

They should instead protect the bare minimum standards of roleplay to allow us to laugh at people when they compare us to the shitty NRP servers that keep popping up and trying to do us better than we do, then dying.

This is why obsessed and abductors are restricted even on LRP, even though muh Rule 4.

This is why conversion antags are encouraged to convert over kill where practicable, even though muh Rule 4.

And it's why the crew are encouraged to deconvert over kill and especially over round removal where practicable.

Because the optimal solution is always just to round remove any inconvenience at any time because they're an antag or acting like an antag. And sometimes, just sometimes, it would be nice for our LRP non-antag players to come up with a reason for doing what they're doing that isn't "the rules say I can".

Especially when they're fully huffed up on main character syndrome and behaving like the only person whose gameplay experiences matter is their own.

[Vekter]

Because the optimal solution is always just to round remove any inconvenience at any time because they're an antag or acting like an antag. And sometimes, just sometimes, it would be nice for our LRP non-antag players to come up with a reason for doing what they're doing that isn't "the rules say I can".

This is primarily my goal here. If we can get LRP players to do things because they have good reasons to do them, not because they want to OOCly, I think LRP will be in a great place.

[britgrenadier1]

Because the optimal solution is always just to round remove any inconvenience at any time because they're an antag or acting like an antag. And sometimes, just sometimes, it would be nice for our LRP non-antag players to come up with a reason for doing what they're doing that isn't "the rules say I can".

This is primarily my goal here. If we can get LRP players to do things because they have good reasons to do them, not because they want to OOCly, I think LRP will be in a great place.

Outside of the scope of this particular policy thread, but this isn’t what LRP is really about or for. Peak LRP is an assistant making “Maint properties” to sell to people, and one of those customers coming back and lynching the assistant because they sold them a 2 bedroom maint property when in reality it only had one (Real round on Sybil btw). Sybil was great at that, any gimmick someone was doing quickly became the round’s theme because people would just join when they wanted to do it without needing any real in character reason. I feel that in order to preserve the quirky chaos you also have to take onboard the idea that people will game the freedom to RR antags at the drop of a hat. I think it’s part and parcel of why people play LRP, and I don’t think trying to nudge the two rulesets closer to each other will satisfy anyone

[iwishforducks]

I’m going to have to be in full agreement with Burger/Gamer here. I’m not sure why we’re starting to spearhead this policy under the guise of “stopping NRP” when, as Necro kind of eluded to, the specific situation could easily have been interpreted as a Rule 0/1 issue. I don’t see the need for this kind of policy.

[iwishforducks]

It's not that more rules equals more RP.

Rule 4 often equals less RP on the side of non antags. Non-antags are often seen furiously quoting it when they have limited to no IC reason to do what they did and are just relying on the rules in lieu of RP to justify their actions.

I disagree entirely with this interpretation. I don’t know why this specific point you’re making is limited to non-antagonists, when John Murderbone is the antag equivalent of John Validhunt. I don’t think that answering admins with “Rule 4 says so” inherently means that you had no IC reason. Like I said, disagreeing with the interpretation.

This is why obsessed and abductors are restricted even on LRP, even though muh Rule 4.

This is why conversion antags are encouraged to convert over kill where practicable, even though muh Rule 4.

And it's why the crew are encouraged to deconvert over kill and especially over round removal where practicable.

I disagree with this interpretation. Abductors abduct because the optimal gameplay for abductors is to abduct people and complete your objective as a team. Because converting people to your side is in fact more optimal than laying waste to the station and staying a 3-man cultist team. And it’s much more optimal to convert people back to the crew- though, deconversion takes a lot more effort than conversion. So there are legitimate times where it’s more optimal to just kill the cultists.

The decisions made in all of the above are not made by some god written rules but are just practices made from just playing the game as it was designed and intended to be. In my eyes it feels like a much more organic way to play the game. I don’t agree with the interpretation that it’s about “RP” levels. Though I suppose you could argue that interacting with the game as such is roleplay in a way. There’s some agreement to be found there.

Because the optimal solution is always just to round remove any inconvenience at any time because they're an antag or acting like an antag. And sometimes, just sometimes, it would be nice for our LRP non-antag players to come up with a reason for doing what they're doing that isn't "the rules say I can".

Especially when they're fully huffed up on main character syndrome and behaving like the only person whose gameplay experiences matter is their own.

I agree but I’m just worried about policies like this creating a Manuel situation where people don’t take any sort of action because they fear the bwoink. I think allowing players to simply respond to admin pms with “the rules say I can” actually leads to players feeling empowered to act out in-game.

I’m not even sure if Terry has an issue of people just killing cultists on the spot. This thread was started because someone wanted to shard a cultist for their own amusement, not because they were trying to kill off cultists or whatever. Or at least that’s my understanding of the situation? I don’t know; I’ve only been able to piece it together loosely.

[NecromancerAnne]

I’m going to have to be in full agreement with Burger/Gamer here. I’m not sure why we’re starting to spearhead this policy under the guise of “stopping NRP” when, as Necro kind of eluded to, the specific situation could easily have been interpreted as a Rule 0/1 issue. I don’t see the need for this kind of policy.

Well, the problem I see here is that Burger's statement is that it is actually mutually exclusive to my own. His suggestion is that there should never be an intervention even with the pretense that it could be interpreted as these rules unless the admin can really make a good case, and I think Burger has made it clear that they probably can't do so. To be entirely honest, given this is THE only set of circumstances where I think an intervention could be beneficial for guidance, there probably isn't a scenario where intervention can occur using either of those rules without going against that statement.

Part of the argument also making it clear it is rooted in a very doomer preservationist mindset is also deeply unhelpful and the absolute worst way to think of policy making, but I think that's a long lost battle at this stage to argue about. (Also like, Terry is still pretty healthy popwise and using these rules, we really should be thinking about Terry as well here, they have to live with our policy changes)

[Mimepride]

I agree but I’m just worried about policies like this creating a Manuel situation where people don’t take any sort of action because they fear the bwoink

This is why I primarily observe on manuel, and only join the round by taking ghost roles I know won't get me bwoinked(sorry, I'm not ruining my good note record by playing there. I also disagree with server wide bans for MRP rule breaches but anyway...). Last week, I watched 3 tidermaster pirates spawn during manuel, and attempt to talk with the captain(trying to RP on the RP server--shocking I know). For this egregious act, they were IMMEDIATELY killed by a 2 person sec conga, after the captain IMMEDIATELY snitched on them. As you know, the pirates had no administrative recourse to this context; and I personally feel sec did absolutely nothing wrong(on the contrary, the pirates were wrong for not using brutal murder as a first tactic, according to my LRP mindset). Lo and behold then, when one of the pirates straight up admits how they had been bwoinked for going ham as a pirate on Manuel before, and thus feared to be bwoinked again. So yeah, I don't think we should be creating that situation for LRP in terms of cult or rev deconversion. Players should not feel afraid to brutally murder cultists if conversion is A) not available or B)Not practical.

I’m not even sure if Terry has an issue of people just killing cultists on the spot

This hasn't been my experience lately. I've seen a lot of deconversions going on. It really depends what's most optimal in a given situation. That sort of free-wheeling, wild west situation is kind of what LRP is all about.

The only thing I halfway agree with on Vekter about this is, that I agree that going out of your way to RR a cultist when your fellow crewmembers are actively offering to deconvert them and you yourself can see the deconversion methods with your own eyes on hand(either a blessed water tank or holy melons), is not very cool guy behavior. I'm pretty sure most of the LRPers posting agree with that sentiment too--although I personally don't think we need a specific rule for it.

[iwishforducks]

I’m going to have to be in full agreement with Burger/Gamer here. I’m not sure why we’re starting to spearhead this policy under the guise of “stopping NRP” when, as Necro kind of eluded to, the specific situation could easily have been interpreted as a Rule 0/1 issue. I don’t see the need for this kind of policy.

Well, the problem I see here is that Burger's statement is that it is actually mutually exclusive to my own. His suggestion is that there should never be an intervention even with the pretense that it could be interpreted as these rules unless the admin can really make a good case, and I think Burger has made it clear that they probably can't do so. To be entirely honest, given this is THE only set of circumstances where I think an intervention could be beneficial for guidance, there probably isn't a scenario where intervention can occur using either of those rules without going against that statement.

I don't think that specific point you brought up is mutually exclusive to what Burger was talking about. Admins already have tooling to step in where it's absolutely necessary. I'm not endorsing that admins should be stepping in every scenario under the pretense of rule 1, but I am endorsing that if someone is just bad-faithing and killing people that are actively being deconverted then I fail to see how admins wouldn't be able to act on that in the current ruleset. Regardless of that though, I think Burger is endorsing that in an ideal world it would be entirely resolved ICly with zero admin intervention. And I haven't seen any particularly strong arguments or evidence that this is a big issue that needs hammers to be swung to get people back in line.

Part of the argument also making it clear it is rooted in a very doomer preservationist mindset is also deeply unhelpful and the absolute worst way to think of policy making, but I think that's a long lost battle at this stage to argue about. (Also like, Terry is still pretty healthy popwise and using these rules, we really should be thinking about Terry as well here, they have to live with our policy changes)

Terry being the only surviving LRP server is part of the reason why I'm just full on willing to agree with Burger entirely here. I think it's important to remember that Sybil and Bagil are just straight up dead right now. I think the doomerism is more than well grounded.

[Timberpoes]

Any time any headmin endorses IC-only resolutions it effectively bars the admin team from acting on that topic until the next headmin term.

This is because even though technically any admin can do a thing, the internal cost-benefit analysis of how much they're willing to fight to take a small action they believe will make the game slightly better gets heavily weighed to doing nothing because it's just not worth the risk of fighting the headmin team over something so small.

Thus, Headmins endorsing IC-only resolutions are basically telling admins the cost of making associated decisions will be high and to not bother making them until a headmin term more sympathetic to them gets elected.

[Timberpoes]

I was under the impression that seeking to round remove converted crewmembers when it would be practicable to instead stop at anything-lesser-than-round-removal to allow deconversion was something that could be administratively discouraged.

It's genuinely news to me that there's a line of thought where a crew member becomes converted to an antag and now has less of a pass to kill and round remove than if they weren't an antag. That outcome sounds like an absurdity. It just doesn't make sense to me to restrict antags more than non-antags.

That the player from the OP that tried to prevent a conversion and round remove instead would have broken more rules if they were an antag trying to prevent a conversion in this way than a non-antag trying to prevent a de-conversion. It does not make sense.

I looked into a recent-ish past thread on the topic of a conversion antag and when the crew can murderhobo them. You can see a bit more of why I might think this way from that policy thread with Kieth quoting me in the finalised headmin outcome:
viewtopic.php?p=688933#p688933

I think the clear implication and discussion from that thread is that there is a point where during conversion rounds the only available options are kill-or-be-killed. It depends on the IC factors and how close the crew are to losing. For the situation to escalate to that point, the default starting point has to sit below kill-or-be-killed. Where everyone's prioritising conversion and deconversion until one side wins or it's no longer possible and everyone's just killing eachother after that.

There was no discussion of LRP becoming too much like MRP, because it was just taken at face value that this was the standard for an LRP team antag. Just lots of healthy discussion about where the IC factors supported killing over deconverting. And at no point did anyone cite Rule 4 "revs are just valid :)" or any nonsense like that.

My take is that conversion antags being solved by Rule 4 global antag validity is degrading the standards on LRP to slide towards a more NRP environment. I'd -1 any ruling that sought to change what I felt was the status quo in that way, or would discourage admins from making sure LRP stays in that LRP sweet spot and doesn't enshittify itself down to NRP.

[Vekter]

I'm probably going to bow out of this thread at this point, but I don't want to lock it because I do think there's still value in the idea. I think people thinking I'm somehow trying to ruin LRP by insisting that you should prefer conversion over killing have lost the plot tbh.

[Itseasytosee2me]

I find it easier to RP when I don’t have to worry about some arbitrary critera judging my actions. Implementing a ruling that forces players to prioritize deconversion would increase the quality RP around revs and cult by exactly 0%, and for me at least, it would probably make it worse.

[GamerAndYeahMick]

The following statement has been crafted by me and is agreed by all 3 head admins.

"The case that started this is on the edge of what typically happens, deconversion is the norm, each specific case that an admin takes issue with can be vibe checked with other admins or the head admins, after discussion we feel no policy is needed and it more healthy to not rigidly define this for LRP"