Arresting Chaplain for not deputizing in a cultist round

[carlarc]

Title. What are the administration's thonks on this. It just happened and I think it's omega stinky.

Stinkier is that apparently the entirety of sec and AI was in favor of it, and got mad at me for arresting the HoS for kidnapping and theft, refusing to even entertain my point - the Warden silently broke him out, even.

This 'rules for thee and not for mee' sec behavior is really grating to see. I dunno.

[Stabbystab]

So what happened? Sec arrested the chap due to him not wanting to help in a cult round? If that’s what happened then it seems stupid, player should be allowed to sit it out.

[carlarc]

So what happened? Sec arrested the chap due to him not wanting to help in a cult round? If that’s what happened then it seems stupid, player should be allowed to sit it out.

Yup. Not trying to bias things here that is just 1:1 what happened.

[kinnebian]

punishing people for not playing optimally is lame but at the same time i dont think its a situation that should be handled oocly at all

[Timberpoes]

In my opinion, participating in cult shifts is one of the few expectations people can have of chaplains.

If a chaplain is arrested and brigged for not helping against the cult, that's an IC issue to me. A rare few antag types naturally force interactions with certain jobs - like revs and heads. Cult and chaplain is another similar combo.

I don't see it from playing optimally, I see it as one of the effects of having a cult. The chaplain may find their shift derailed and interactions that stem from it are inherent to cult and a part of the cult ruleset rolling.

If that means the chaplain feels antagonised as a result based on how the non-cult crew interacts with them, then as long as it links back to the cult it's an IC issue to me. Freedom to choose links to the responsibility of facing the consequences of your choices when you're needed by the crew and reject them.

[Stabbystab]

I’m definitely pro keep a lot of stuff in character, I would never force a chap but if I saw it happening I wouldn’t think it’s ahelp worthy. Chap is key to crew winning against the cult so desperate Actions make sense like that.

[DrAmazing343]

I really don’t see a point in actioning against this except if it crosses into rule 1/executing or gulagging the Chaplain as soon as they say no or some dumb shit like that.

As Timber says— cult and Chaplain are inexorably linked, it’s part of your risk factor when rolling for it that you may have a call to duty that you cannot say no to without complications. Again, I’m not saying Sec can be dicks and RR someone who wants nothing to do with the fight, but honestly, pressganging/drafting fighters against a global stationwide threat just makes sense to me.

[Stabbystab]

I really don’t see a point in actioning against this except if it crosses into rule 1/executing or gulagging the Chaplain as soon as they say no or some dumb shit like that.

As Timber says— cult and Chaplain are inexorably linked, it’s part of your risk factor when rolling for it that you may have a call to duty that you cannot say no to without complications. Again, I’m not saying Sec can be dicks and RR someone who wants nothing to do with the fight, but honestly, pressganging/drafting fighters against a global stationwide threat just makes sense to me.

I like drafting random people especially interns during rev rounds as a head it’s very funny to just drag someone and go “your drafted, welcome to the reactionary counter revolutionary’s”

[Vekter]

I definitely see this as an IC issue. Security can and often will arrest you for refusing to follow orders if the situation is bad enough. It's unfortunate that this happened, but looking at it from the security team's perspective (all the chaplain really needed to do was bless some holy water, maybe help them fight cultists) it's very reasonable that they'd be pissed about the matter.

One of the things about our game is that, by playing, you acknowledge that your round is not always going to go the way you want it to. You are welcome (in most cases) to leave whenever you like, but there's always a chance someone's going to fuck up your round.

[NecromancerAnne]

I don't know how arresting a chaplain even actively helps. If the extent of brigging them is putting them out of the round permanently because they won't be let out of the brig until is dealt with (AKA the crew leave usually), then maybe we should have a talk about that specifically. Because I think permabrigging someone like that is effectively round removal, and to that extent.

Was the scenario a permanent brigging or just a single brigging with a timer? Because I'm going to make the argument that a chaplain in this scenario, should they be about to be round removed for this, could stand their ground.

Additionally, are we talking about exprcting to validhunt as chap or just provide holy water? Not doing the latter definitely seems unreasonable as a chap and good grounds for an arrest. I do not think chaplains should be expecred to validhunt as a non-protected role.

[DrAmazing343]

I agree that there should be absolutely no chance of round-removal for this, and that if it really crosses into rule 1, I’d very much like our admins to action it.

The biggest factors at play here as I see it are
A: Extent Security expects the Chaplain to help
B: Length/Time of “Punishment” I.e. Direliction of Duty?

A: If Security expects the Chaplain to solo carry or be “bait” or some such bullshit and prods them in the back with the barrel of a lasgun if they don’t play along, that’s Rule 1 to me. If they expect another rank and file? Okay, that’s fairly reasonable to me. If they just expect Holy Water, that’s basically the least you can do and it’s easy as fuck.

B: If it’s a whole altercation and arrest that goes over ten minutes (in parity with the current rulings on arrest timings for IC issues, iirc?) then it crosses into Rule 1. Same deal if they permabrig them or execute them for it.

It just crosses the line into spending more effort/manpower to “punish” the Chaplain for not gaming hard than to just leave them be. I’m writing this on an empty tank near the end of my shift so don’t consider it the binding end all be all of the thread, but as I see it, this is what’s what and what I would likely action under.

As always, feel free to pick away at this and tell me if you think I’m full of shit. I >was< elected to be the voice of the Players here, anyhow.

[MooCow12]

Chaplains bare-minimum responsibility is converting a single water tank into holy water so that crew and borgs can use holy fire extinguishers and or make holy water nades. A single button press can have so much impact on a cult round because it decides if crew can wipe cult spells and silicons can prevent wraiths from killing ai.

Whenever security “deputizes” chap they really mean him sitting in brig with warden for half the round until cult base is found or summoning is started, most of the impact chaplain can have in favor of crew is just left clicking a single water tank , its not worth it to take away the rest of the round from him just because he might be a cult target or the chance of him dieing in combat next to sec so they can keep his nullrod

[Mimepride]

100% an IC issue.

Anyhow, if you're a non-antag chaplain and you decide to sit out a cult round, you are both weak and stupid(but its still an IC issue). Like 9/10 times a non-antag chaplain has no real responsibility whatsoever; that changes drastically during a cult round, because whether you like it or not you're a threat to them and a major target. If you don't want to fight the cult that's fine, but at the very least you should bless a water tank or two. Even so, no admin intervention should occur if you shirk your responsibilities, but I think sec should be free to arrest you over it, since it's dereliction of duty, wrt your one fucking job--but execution and maybe gulag is going too far probably.

Stealing your nullrod though? 100% kino--remember normies can use it too and I've won against cult just by having a holy chainsaw replace my hand.

[GPeckman]

One thing to note is that chaplains can't really be demoted the way other jobs can. With most jobs, one person can be replaced by any other person; at most, the newly promoted person might be missing a skillchip or two, but they can still do the job well enough. That isn't possible with the chaplain; you can only bless holy water if your mind datum has the holy trait, and there is no way short of admin intervention to grant this trait to someone who didn't already have it by being a chaplain.

[GamerAndYeahMick]

IC issue

[Timberpoes]

Well I think that nicely wraps it up.

Timberpoes: IC issue, read my posts for more context.
DrAmazing: IC issue, read their posts for more context.
Burger: IC issue.