[Manuel] Manuel does not have roleplay

[remanseptim]

title is hyperbole, but you get it.

manuel is not a roleplay server. people do not take roleplay seriously enough for there to be actual, organic RP. there is not enough of a sincere investment in the narrative of the round. the only reason plenty of manuel regulars play is because it offers an alternative to getting killed. they're not there to roleplay, they are there to avoid going horizontal.

some people, myself included, would actually enjoy being able to roleplay. character-based interactions and drama can be fun, but they don't happen on manuel. the second you do anything that disrupts the peace of the round it results in a bwoink because somebody is upset their spaceman is no longer vertical.

I have seen more organic character-based and narrative-driven RP on bagil than I have on manuel. characters chatting about their backstories, forming allegiances, becoming enemies, etc.

Manuel just isn't dynamic enough. It's just people who wanna play pseudo-greenshifts, and you know it.

[Space Panda]

Manuel just isn't dynamic enough. It's just people who wanna play pseudo-greenshifts, and you know it.

I must agree with that. I do see some people who actually engage in lots of roleplay, but those are a minority. People get upset really quick when they die or get hurt, even if there was a nice and cohesive RP reason for that. And these same people most of the time are playing the game the same way they'd be playing on bagil.

Manuel feels like LRP for babies.

[Sheodir]

This take is not entirely incorrect but it is also very tiresome.

The fact of the matter is, there's no real right way to enforce roleplay in a server and every method is going to have problems. Manuel is in a weird spot where it both is trying to not be too strict with forcing flowery overly long dialogue like most HRP servers, where even the character's interior logic can get your bwoinked at (why did your old man character attack someone holding them at gunpoint with a toolbox, as someone else pointed out) but at the same time banning people for just wordlessly not even attempting to interact with the shift in any capacity and killing their way through people.

This has resulted, at times, in bans that are much too overzealous about any sort of conflict, and has led to people thinking Manuel is conflict-averse. Some people might be, specially Bagil refugees who are sick and tired of thirty minute shifts, but it isn't the overall goal, and even people who have at times been overzealous have gotten a lot better at not banning any instance of conflict. And as someone who sorta watches a lot of Manuel players talk and interact, most of them don't want greenshifts galore. Most do want some form of conflict, otherwise it's pretty boring, yeah. The issue is that keeping that balance without devolving into LRP or the straitjacket that is HRP is difficult, will always be difficult, and will be sort of an unclear and evolving process.

This is a very obvious thing, and my issue with players who whine about either side of the coin is that they pretend it isn't such a vague and hard thing to establish and they have the magic fucking solution to fix it. But y'know, reread your post. It's a lot of complaining without any solid suggestions of how to solve it. Because you don't know, I don't know, and everyone's trying to figure it out.

[NecromancerAnne]

I'm amazed I'm not banned for my frequent excessive violence. Maybe it's not as slow as people suspect and they're okay? Or maybe nobody has thought to tell me no yet?

Either way, it feels like telling people to take a chill people every now and again is a fine move for the server. It isn't telling you to be conflict adverse it's asking you to just, you know, actually engage with the game and let people play it.

[NecromancerAnne]

To expand upon that, most of what happens in LRP is that people who get the bad man role will set about ending the round for them and everyone else as quickly as humanly possible. The playerbase has essentially decided that the only good way to play the game is not at all, and to make sure nobody else can either. It was actually something goof was talking about with families and how he felt there was no way anyone was going to do anything in families that doesn't boil down to 'kill everyone', because most players won't deviate from that pattern now that they know they can do that and see other people doing that.

All that flavour shit is for nothing. Many people don't even interface with the game elements at all. It's just the green light to do whatever.

As a result, Manuel is an attempt say, fairly plainly, 'yeah don't do that'.

It's that fucking simple.

[remanseptim]

It's that fucking simple.

then why is it called a roleplay server if it's just LRP with less murder?

[Space Panda]

I'm amazed I'm not banned for my frequent excessive violence. Maybe it's not as slow as people suspect and they're okay? Or maybe nobody has thought to tell me no yet?

Either way, it feels like telling people to take a chill people every now and again is a fine move for the server. It isn't telling you to be conflict adverse it's asking you to just, you know, actually engage with the game and let people play it.

I got a bwoink and a note yesterday for releasing a non-deadly and not hard to cure virus on the station. I had to explain all the story and context behind the action to the admin to avoid getting a full profession ban.

quick explanation of what happened

Spoiler:

my character was a virologist who was developing a virus that would quickly spread and cause people to fall asleep. His idea was for it to be a non-lethal chemical weapon that would avoid deaths in war. At the beginning of the shift, he messed up and lost his only unstable mutagen bottle, and after asking the chemist for more, he started getting harassed by the AI for being incompetent. The AI threated to fire him for that, even though the AI is not his superior.

When he was about to test the virus on his monkeys, his laboratory got stormed by security, since the AI told them he was making a virus to harm the station. He had to explain himself to the security guards, who accepted the explanation and went away. The AI then proceeded to accuse him of trying to harm the station on the common radio, making many people start harassing him through comms. He got very upset and angry and decided to destroy all his research and kill his monkeys, without caring if it'd get him infected or if he'd end up infecting others by consequence.

The virus quickly spread, but was quickly contained as well. It wasn't stealthy at all and the cure for it was bromine. It caused some uproar, but it only lasted for a few minutes. My character then got arrested (without much resistance) and got perma'ed. Ironically, in the end, the only person who didn't get a cure for the disease was himself. He also made friends with his cellmate, who was a prisoner of war and a crazy writer (A true roleplayer she was, I really liked it)

This would have been a perfect round for me if it weren't for the note. My character did something bad, but that didn't ruin anyone else's game, and got punished in-game for it. Having to explain all the story to the admin to avoid getting banned and still get a note is really what bothered me.

I don't got an issue with the admin, by the way, since they were really professional about it and seemed to be just enforcing the rules.

I believe the main problem with Manuel's MRP is how its specific rules work. They are focused on trying to avoid conflict whenever possible, instead of making sure every conflict has a proper reason behind it.

Organic conflict and its consequences are important aspects of roleplay. We should not have to avoid it if it makes sense, as it makes roleplaying a richer experience and creates interesting stories.

[saprasam]

bagil is fun because of the extreme amounts of conflicts between shitters but i dont like shitty forced rp that doesnt allow conflict so i dont play manuel so thats about all i go

[Space Panda]

bagil is fun because of the extreme amounts of conflicts between shitters but i dont like shitty forced rp that doesnt allow conflict so i dont play manuel so thats about all i go

manuel doesn't force rp any more than bagil does. The real difference is in how each server treats pvp conflict.

[Jin]

Being vertical is for pussies

[Stickymayhem]

I actually disagree.

Having toured all the servers for the last couple of weeks, playing on them all, the difference is fucking stark.

Here's my experiment: I played paperwork HoP on all the servers (Yeah boo paperwork but it's a good example). To be clear, I played a few rounds on each during mid/high-pop and this was the average result:

Spoiler:

Bagil: It goes well until the line is griefed. IDs stolen, people pushing and fighting, low-ranking crew griefing each other
Sybil: The line is empty, as the lights go out and the atmos system fails, I slowly suffocate in my office with Ian.
Terry: 10 seconds in someone breaks in, I throw them out. Two break them in, I throw them out. An officer demands AA. I refuse. The entire security department swarms in, arrests me, strips me, gives themselves AA and leaves me for dead with a swarm of fire axe greytiders, who promptly take AA, smash everything and leave. Every round the office being destroyed is inevitable, the question is only whether it'll be the greytide swarm or shitcurity. The choice is give AA to everyone or die.
Manuel: Everyone joins in, people are non-compliant in creative ways, like stealing stamps, using chameleon stamps, tricking heads into stamping paperwork which they then modify. Clowns mimes and people roleplaying morons rope in the lawyers to help them with complex paperwork.

I find the same thing running events. If I run a trader event on terry, that shit is getting bombed, the trader will be murdered and all valuable loot will be stolen for powergaming. On manuel they'll interact, trade, find creative things to do with their loot and actually try to build on the round. Manuel is a "Yes And" server. The others are "No fuck you".

Here's a manuel rp event story that wouldn't be possible on any other server:

Spoiler:

The other day I ran an event on manuel about a syndicate agent who had been trapped in the holodeck. He was copied across every simulation option, dying horribly either from corrupted holodeck monsters, or starvation, or suicide. It was a bummer. Multiple people on manuel spent over two hours engaging with this story.
They ran through sims trying to find a copy of the agent (Andy) who was still alive. Eventually they stumble on a simulation where he had enough regrowing food and a pack of cards to keep him from offing himself for 20 years. After all the depressing dead copies everyone is relieve to have found him, and they talk about his original mission (infiltrating the holodeck to sabotage it for all nanotrasen stations) and what went wrong. Realising they might be able to pull the holographic agent out if they cut the safeties to the holodeck, they ask the AI to turn them off.
The AI accidentally switches the sim and Andy disappears.
In my seven years playing this game I've never felt such a drop and from the reactions of the 3-4 people participating, I think they'd agree it was a stomach-dropping moment.
When they managed to get that simulation back online, they find him dead, having shot himself with his makarov. They keep trying to reset the sim but every time it's just a dead andy flopping out of his chair with a gun in his hand.
After probably another 10/20 minutes of effort running through every possible sim, they find another Andy, this one having just shot himself. He's in crit but alive and they manage to bring him back. This one has only been trapped for two weeks, and they have to talk him down because he doesn't quite remember them and he's still loyal to the syndicate. Eventually they manage to convince him they're here to help and try to devise a way to help him escape the holodeck. After some false starts they solve the puzzle: Cut the safeties, push andy out of the holodeck briefly and flip to the wildlife simulation where holocarps can escape the holodeck before andy fades away. It works and Andy is free.
Everyone is exhausted and relieved and we all go for a drink at the detective's office. The detective led this whole investigation and we're all glad to see it over.
Eventually they realise that Andy has a lot of other copies stuck in the holodeck, and Andy decides to blow the damn thing up to kill them so they can be at peace. They set up a syndibomb, have a glass of whiskey and watch it countdown from the holodeck window.
Then an eborg rolls by and noticing the bomb, freaks out demanding that the humans get to safety while it tries to disarm it. with 10 seconds left on the clock, Andy and the Detective try to stop the borg, and Andy manages to push the borg and detective to relative safety.
Andy gets caught in the blast, the detectives arm is blown off and he's left in crit.
Andy doesn't make it, and the detective wakes up in medbay with one less arm as engineers move in to make repairs to the blast zone. One of them finds Andy's gun amongst the wreckage, and gives it to the detective as a memento.

"Manuel does not have roleplay"

I've never seen a less true statement. Manuel is the only server with roleplay. No other server would have people interested enough in creating a story to participate in this. This is only my favorite example, but every single time I run an RP event on manuel, the mutual goal is to make a cool story, not to get antag status, powergamer loot, or greentext.

I agree that manuel is conflict-averse, I'd like to see us lighten up on antags just a little bit, so they're encouraged to actually do cool stuff. But personally I think manuel is the only place you could get away with doing a gimmick that doesn't include intense powergaming to support that gimmick.

[Stickymayhem]

This take is not entirely incorrect but it is also very tiresome.

The fact of the matter is, there's no real right way to enforce roleplay in a server and every method is going to have problems. Manuel is in a weird spot where it both is trying to not be too strict with forcing flowery overly long dialogue like most HRP servers, where even the character's interior logic can get your bwoinked at (why did your old man character attack someone holding them at gunpoint with a toolbox, as someone else pointed out) but at the same time banning people for just wordlessly not even attempting to interact with the shift in any capacity and killing their way through people.

This has resulted, at times, in bans that are much too overzealous about any sort of conflict, and has led to people thinking Manuel is conflict-averse. Some people might be, specially Bagil refugees who are sick and tired of thirty minute shifts, but it isn't the overall goal, and even people who have at times been overzealous have gotten a lot better at not banning any instance of conflict. And as someone who sorta watches a lot of Manuel players talk and interact, most of them don't want greenshifts galore. Most do want some form of conflict, otherwise it's pretty boring, yeah. The issue is that keeping that balance without devolving into LRP or the straitjacket that is HRP is difficult, will always be difficult, and will be sort of an unclear and evolving process.

This is a very obvious thing, and my issue with players who whine about either side of the coin is that they pretend it isn't such a vague and hard thing to establish and they have the magic fucking solution to fix it. But y'know, reread your post. It's a lot of complaining without any solid suggestions of how to solve it. Because you don't know, I don't know, and everyone's trying to figure it out.

I think this is a very good take and I'm going to quote it at people whining about either side of manuel from now on

[oranges]

I have seen more organic character-based and narrative-driven RP on bagil than I have on manuel. characters chatting about their backstories, forming allegiances, becoming enemies, etc.

okay so go play on basil then you fucking spoon, the fuck are you soapboxing on the forums for

[Not-Dorsidarf]

The regular servers are not the "Non RP servers" while Manuel is the "RP server", they're all RP servers. Manuel is just an attempt at trying out a different, less bloody and chaotic form of rp.

[Stickymayhem]

The regular servers are not the "Non RP servers" while Manuel is the "RP server", they're all RP servers. Manuel is just an attempt at trying out a different, less bloody and chaotic form of rp.

In theory yes.

In practice Terry isn't being administrated very strictly. I've noticed a much bigger emphasis on not punishing people to avoid tedious appeals and complaints on those servers from multiple admins.

I've also repeatedly heard stuff along the lines of "If the playerbase want it to be chaotic and low rules then they're happy and we don't need to intervene". I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but the natural result is going to be towards lower restrictions and more chaos. AGAIN, NOT AN INHERENTLY BAD THING but it does make those servers lower RP. WHICH FOR THE THIRD TIME, NOT AN INHERENTLY BAD THING (I'm pretty sure someone is still going to strawman this).

As a result I think those servers have become more laissez faire than they used to be before manuel came about. It may also be the natural impact of pushing the people who want a calmer game to a specific server, leaving a higher percentage of the people who want violence and chaos.

[Agux909]

I disagree completely with the title of this thread and am displeased by the current usage of this subforum in this way.

Now addressing the OP directly:
Aside from the fact that there's no actual advise or ideas to "solve" this alleged problem you bring up, the problem itself doesn't exist in the light youre trying to put it. What are you even pushing for a change here? Because the OP is just yourself yammerin about why you think Manuel isn't a RP server, which is wrong.

What does Manuel being a RP server mean?
It doesn't mean 100% of the population all the time will RP or that they will do it in the way you define it in your head, because players are real people and not bots, and they will play however the fuck they want to play, and not however YOU want them to.

Manuel being RP means it is a place where you can feel comfortable to roleplay, and are strongly encouraged to. A place in which you ideally won't have to deal with extremely disruptive tiders toeing the line, silent murderboning antags, players that give priority 500% of the time to mechanics and powergame over lore, or that will prefer to just run past an opportunity for a potential creative situation with no second thought. It's a different space that needs to exist, because not everyone enjoys a gamestyle like that.

Manuel being RP means people knows it isn't encouraged to try to win at all costs and efficiently, nor it is doing their usual shitty gimmick at the cost of others' time or enjoyment. Instead, people is looking forward to a tidier and stricter environment in which organic and realistic interactions between everybody are promoted to exist, so collective enjoyment of the game can be achieved.

Is Manuel perfect? No it isn't and will never be, deal with it. There are too many factors to be expecting each round to be perfect or to have epic unseen RP every single time. There will always be players doing their own thing anyway, and that might differ with your view of RP, but this is applicable to countless other online games and not just this server and game specifically.

And I can assure you that me, with a lot less playtime than you, have had unique and interesting stories I wish I had written down in around 85% of my rounds in Manuel.

[remanseptim]

find creative things to do with their loot and actually try to build on the round.

i straight-up don't believe you.
'creativity' on manuel, every time I've seen people claim it, is just a codeword for "at least I didn't kill people look at how chill I am"
see: friendly wizards, lings, and traitors
that's the type of thing manuel players deem creative, and I'm a first-hand witness to multiple occurrences of this.

[Sheodir]

find creative things to do with their loot and actually try to build on the round.

i straight-up don't believe you.
'creativity' on manuel, every time I've seen people claim it, is just a codeword for "at least I didn't kill people look at how chill I am"
see: friendly wizards, lings, and traitors
that's the type of thing manuel players deem creative, and I'm a first-hand witness to multiple occurrences of this.

You have plenty of stories here. The most I can say is that if you play during lowpop hours in Manuel it can get pretty miserable.

[Tlaltecuhtli]

Manuel being hugbox means it is a place where you can feel comfortable to roleplay, and are strongly encouraged to. A place in which you ideally won't have to deal with extremely disruptive tiders toeing the line, silent murderboning antags, players that give priority 500% of the time to mechanics and powergame over lore, or that will prefer to just run past an opportunity for a potential creative situation with no second thought. It's a different space that needs to exist, because not everyone enjoys a gamestyle like that.

fify

[Stickymayhem]

find creative things to do with their loot and actually try to build on the round.

i straight-up don't believe you.
'creativity' on manuel, every time I've seen people claim it, is just a codeword for "at least I didn't kill people look at how chill I am"
see: friendly wizards, lings, and traitors
that's the type of thing manuel players deem creative, and I'm a first-hand witness to multiple occurrences of this.

lol i accidentally edited your post instead of quoting

it's a bad post though so you can leave

[Sheodir]

Manuel being hugbox means it is a place where you can feel comfortable to roleplay, and are strongly encouraged to. A place in which you ideally won't have to deal with extremely disruptive tiders toeing the line, silent murderboning antags, players that give priority 500% of the time to mechanics and powergame over lore, or that will prefer to just run past an opportunity for a potential creative situation with no second thought. It's a different space that needs to exist, because not everyone enjoys a gamestyle like that.

fify

[vkalls]

Ok, what do you propose as a solution?

[Tlaltecuhtli]

how does this word not describe what the dude meant to say ?

[Agux909]

Except it's not, but nice try derailing the subject by only quoting part of my post and excluding the parts that weren't convenient for your little honky remark, little clown.

[wesoda25]

Hugbox safe servers are fucking stupid because they go against the idea of ss13, which is advertised as a floating death trap.

[Space Panda]

snip

don't respond to people without pfp

actually, don't even bother reading their posts

[NikoTheGuyDude]

Anyone who says "manuel is devoid of conflict" obviously hasn't ever played manuel.

For one, conflict between players goes beyond just "click spacemen until horizontal", there's a lot more aspects to it that can even make a "friendly" ninja or something tense and cause plenty of conflict, it just has to be done well and, from what I see, it usually is.

And second, manuel does have roleplay, but I don't exactly like the quality of it. I personally find it very annoying when someone speaks with no punctuation, says bruh and cringe ic, maaaybe saying bababooey occasionally.

[cacogen]

it's the age-old roleplay and jobs vs. valids and fun dilemma. jobs take too long to complete and death is too permanent. nobody wants to die because nobody wants to lose their progress. the solution is to let people have the option to rejoin as a random character after maybe 10 minutes of being dead so they can continue where they left off. job slots should also open when the person holding them has been dead for awhile.

[Coconutwarrior97]

There doesn't seem to be any goal or desired outcome in this thread other than to discuss Manuel in general so we're just gonna leave it as is.
Headmin votes:
Coconutwarrior97: Leave it, I don't know what the original point of this discussion really was except to complain about Manuel. Which is fine, its just better to have some kind of concrete suggestions in mind to go along with that.
Domitius: Leave it.
Naloac: Leave it.