JKJudgeX

That was dismissed due to an OOC issue with another user on the forums which has been addressed. I was told I could re-submit in PM by Garnascus.

+1, Dr. Venteil is one of my favorite coworkers... competent and well RP'd.

BYOND key: JKJudgeX Character names: Vyleon Black How long have you been playing on Aurora?: Couple of Years? Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: Tired of not having a Research Director/Research Director is my favorite role. Why did you come to Aurora?: Wanted an HRP or even just good regular RP Server. Have you read the BS12 wiki on the head roles you plan on playing?: I've played and know every role in the science department and have been RD for years on other servers. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each. Give a definition of what you think roleplay is, and should be about: RP is about stepping out of the real world and working with others to produce a fantasy world complete with nuanced interactions, drama, and action. It's about being someone else for a while. It should be about forming a lasting and entertaining experience, and testing one's boundaries rather than trying to always play the action-hero. I've RP'ed/GM'ed since 1988 in various tabletop and online games, so I'm not a stranger to being in character, or DMing multiple NPCs simultaneously. What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: The Heads of Staff exist to provide leadership to a department and to guide the department's actions when necessary. The Heads should respond to emergencies and keep their employees safe and productive. Much like our bosses in real life, they should be in charge of making difficult decisions and cooperating with higher-ups in order to ensure efficient and smooth processes. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: Playing a head should be done with a mind towards consistency and playing by the rules. With the added power granted to the character, abuses of power, poor RP, metagaming, and powergaming are all magnified in their impact on the enjoyment of the round. A whitelisted player should be doubly mindful of this and ensure that his or her actions be always pro-RP, pro-fun, and anti-grief. Further, not AFKing while holding an important role, and communicating with admins and other heads when they are forced to exit the round prematurely are important. Please pick one of your characters for this section, and provide well articulated responses to the following questions. Character name: Vyleon Black Character age: 42 Please provide a short biography of this character (approx 2 paragraphs): Born in 2415 to Praleon and Naraa Black, Vyleon Black always carried a keen interest in the sciences. Raised to be straightforward and strong-minded, he is a fast thinker and eloquent speaker. His childhood was slightly impoverished and rough, but his interest in science kept him above it. Due to outstanding performance in school, he was able to enroll in college one year early, and from 2440-2447 earned a Ph.D in Particle Physics, as well as a Masters in Chemistry. Along the way, he married a competitive classmate, Itali Weir, and they had a daughter who was named after Vyleon's mother, Naraa. Unable to find employment immediately following college, he enrolled in an internship with Einstein Engines, which was cut short in 2448 due to the tragic disappearance of his wife and daughter, an unsolved crime which Vyleon is still suspected of being responsible for by some, though he was proven innocent. Vyleon believes that a large corporation kidnapped them in order to steal scientific research that Itali had been working on involving wormhole science. Vyleon suspects every major corporation including Nanotrasen, but keeps his suspicions completely secret. From 2448-2450, Vyleon worked for Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals as a Chemist while recovering from the loss of his family, and undertook night school to study Psychiatry as a coping mechanism. With his three degrees and solid field experience, Vyleon was able to secure a position with NT in 2450 as a Research Scientist, and eventually served as Research Director at various outposts and organizations under NT. In 2455, Vyleon applied to work off-planet, and was transferred to the Aurora as a Research Scientist, occasionally serving a shift as Chemist or Psychiatrist when the science roster was full. Today, Vyleon respects NT, but has trouble trusting the organization due to their over-reliance on synthetics, loyalty implants, and A.I. Vyleon is highly knowledgeable of the science department, and is usually willing to teach newcomers to the department how to do any of the related jobs. He is generally quiet and calculating, and from a command position very stern but not unapproachable. What do you like about this character?: Vyleon's past makes his consideration for his own well-being somewhat unimportant to him at times, which means he will take risks to help coworkers in need. He occasionally abuses drugs, but not enough to jeopardize his employment and not usually on the clock. He is a character that is easy to connect with because he doesn't pull rank unnecessarily, and enjoys one on one connections with coworkers and others. He's also very accepting of alien races and all forms of sentient life. What do you dislike about this character?: Vyleon is not much of a fighter, and will generally fold under physical threat. He is security averse, which makes him seem more suspicious at times. Playing an older character, to me, means to be more laid-back in general, which is not how I like to play all the time, but it's how I play Vyleon. He's also a little bit crotchety at times and will openly use profanity for effect, things I try not to do IRL/OOC. He's also depressed due to the disappearance of his wife and child, and this closes off any romantic opportunities immediately, and leaves him seeking Psychiatric treatment or other reprieve from time to time. What do you think makes this character fit to be a head of staff?: Vyleon has a ton of experience in the science department and can be relied upon to risk himself on behalf of the station, crew, or even just super important research. He puts science first and foremost above all things, and I think this is the mark of a good Research Director. He is generally clever and quick to apply department-specific solutions to station-endangering problems, and, he's played by a dedicated SS13 player with a few years worth of experience in the science department. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions. How would you rate your own roleplaying?: I'm great at it if I can get some cooperation or responses out of people. I even emote sometimes when I'm 99.9% sure no one is in range to see it.

+1, have had several good interactions with Night That Shatters Days, and this is a well-written application.

I'd like to note that A) I DID refuse to do the paperwork, but B) I undid and dismantled any work that was being asked to have paperwork associated with it. Vyleon generally doesn't disobey chain of command unless it's dangerous not to... but, instead of doing paperwork, he will gladly just do something else instead, which is what he did. I'll do paperwork as rules require for satisfactory running of the position.

BYOND key: JKJudgeX Character names: Vyleon Black How long have you been playing on Aurora?: Couple of Years? Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: Tired of not having a Research Director/Research Director is my favorite role. Why did you come to Aurora?: Wanted an HRP or even just good regular RP Server. Have you read the BS12 wiki on the head roles you plan on playing?: I've played and know every role in the science department and have been RD for years on other servers. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each. Give a definition of what you think roleplay is, and should be about: RP is about stepping out of the real world and working with others to produce a fantasy world complete with nuanced interactions, drama, and action. It's about being someone else for a while. It should be about forming a lasting and entertaining experience, and testing one's boundaries rather than trying to always play the action-hero. I've RP'ed/GM'ed since 1988 in various tabletop and online games, so I'm not a stranger to being in character, or DMing multiple NPCs simultaneously. What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: The Heads of Staff exist to provide leadership to a department and to guide the department's actions when necessary. The Heads should respond to emergencies and keep their employees safe and productive. Much like our bosses in real life, they should be in charge of making difficult decisions and cooperating with higher-ups in order to ensure efficient and smooth processes. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: Playing a head should be done with a mind towards consistency and playing by the rules. With the added power granted to the character, abuses of power, poor RP, metagaming, and powergaming are all magnified in their impact on the enjoyment of the round. A whitelisted player should be doubly mindful of this and ensure that his or her actions be always pro-RP, pro-fun, and anti-grief. Further, not AFKing while holding an important role, and communicating with admins and other heads when they are forced to exit the round prematurely are important. Please pick one of your characters for this section, and provide well articulated responses to the following questions. Character name: Vyleon Black Character age: 42 Please provide a short biography of this character (approx 2 paragraphs): Born in 2415 to Praleon and Naraa Black, Vyleon Black always carried a keen interest in the sciences. Raised to be straightforward and strong-minded, he is a fast thinker and eloquent speaker. His childhood was slightly impoverished and rough, but his interest in science kept him above it. Due to outstanding performance in school, he was able to enroll in college one year early, and from 2440-2447 earned a Ph.D in Particle Physics, as well as a Masters in Chemistry. Along the way, he married a competitive classmate, Itali Weir, and they had a daughter who was named after Vyleon's mother, Naraa. Unable to find employment immediately following college, he enrolled in an internship with Einstein Engines, which was cut short in 2448 due to the tragic disappearance of his wife and daughter, an unsolved crime which Vyleon is still suspected of being responsible for by some, though he was proven innocent. Vyleon believes that a large corporation kidnapped them in order to steal scientific research that Itali had been working on involving wormhole science. Vyleon suspects every major corporation including Nanotrasen, but keeps his suspicions completely secret. From 2448-2450, Vyleon worked for Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals as a Chemist while recovering from the loss of his family, and undertook night school to study Psychiatry as a coping mechanism. With his three degrees and solid field experience, Vyleon was able to secure a position with NT in 2450 as a Research Scientist, and eventually served as Research Director at various outposts and organizations under NT. In 2455, Vyleon applied to work off-planet, and was transferred to the Aurora as a Research Scientist, occasionally serving a shift as Chemist or Psychiatrist when the science roster was full. Today, Vyleon respects NT, but has trouble trusting the organization due to their over-reliance on synthetics, loyalty implants, and A.I. Vyleon is highly knowledgeable of the science department, and is usually willing to teach newcomers to the department how to do any of the related jobs. He is generally quiet and calculating, and from a command position very stern but not unapproachable. What do you like about this character?: Vyleon's past makes his consideration for his own well-being somewhat unimportant to him at times, which means he will take risks to help coworkers in need. He occasionally abuses drugs, but not enough to jeopardize his employment and not usually on the clock. He is a character that is easy to connect with because he doesn't pull rank unnecessarily, and enjoys one on one connections with coworkers and others. He's also very accepting of alien races and all forms of sentient life. What do you dislike about this character?: Vyleon is not much of a fighter, and will generally fold under physical threat. He is security averse, which makes him seem more suspicious at times. Playing an older character, to me, means to be more laid-back in general, which is not how I like to play all the time, but it's how I play Vyleon. He's also a little bit crotchety at times and will openly use profanity for effect, things I try not to do IRL/OOC. He's also depressed due to the disappearance of his wife and child, and this closes off any romantic opportunities immediately, and leaves him seeking Psychiatric treatment or other reprieve from time to time. What do you think makes this character fit to be a head of staff?: Vyleon has a ton of experience in the science department and can be relied upon to risk himself on behalf of the station, crew, or even just super important research. He puts science first and foremost above all things, and I think this is the mark of a good Research Director. He is generally clever and quick to apply department-specific solutions to station-endangering problems, and, he's played by a dedicated SS13 player with a few years worth of experience in the science department. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions. How would you rate your own roleplaying?: I'm great at it if I can get some cooperation or responses out of people. I even emote sometimes when I'm 99.9% sure no one is in range to see it. Extra notes:

Best response so far, imo. I see no reason why the HoS and Captain can't be turned into antags every once in a while, and I don't really see why that needs to be super difficult to make happen. It makes perfect sense for Rev, since killing those characters is part of the win condition, but elsewhere, it makes little sense and makes for, in my view, bad and boring outcomes when the loyalty implant becomes involved (probably adminhelped most of the time).

It's only partially about faith in the playerbase. I don't personally enjoy the round as much if I know what it is. The discovery of the roundtype can sometimes happen in interesting and surprising ways. However, I DID just leave a cortical borers event on Aurora because people were behaving in mildly meta ways from the beginning of the round... things not worth reporting but things they more than likely would not have done had they not known it was cortical borers... someone said "unknown biological entity in genetics" and was immediately told "smash it and we'll study it!" without any indicator of the size or nature of the entity. This and about 5 other things... I dunno. It just doesn't run as well... But that's just like, my opinion, man.

I think of them as something that triggers only when the person considers doing something blatantly anti-NT, like killing a coworker or blowing up equipment... not something that gets involved with the regulations and everything... then you'll have people having arguments like "you couldn't have disabled the camera in that room because your loyalty implant wouldn't allow you, and your suspicion that the A.I. was evil isn't enough to validate your action of breaking your loyalty implant's 7th rule, since disabling that camera is vandalism"... etc etc etc. Really, I'd like to see them relegated to their original purpose, which was to prevent/undo the effects of revolutionary conversion... and left purely for that purpose. Not as a general "I'm impossible to make into an antagonist"... but very specifically and carefully, logically chosen protections against one (revs) or two (maybe cult) types of conversion... especially since they are given for free at the beginning to some roles. If you have to specifically implant them, and there are only one or two on board unless you order more, then I'd be okay with them coming along with borg-like directives... but as it stands, I'd like to see these relied upon far less than they are... their total removal except for in revolution rounds would be fine, too.

Some people prefer not to play certain rounds. Varying from person to person, it can be something like nuke, secret, extended, or the rare voted-in changeling or cult. You're giving the middle finger to people who would prefer to avoid certain roundtypes because they aren't enjoyable to that person, and isn't the whole point of this all so people have fun and enjoy themselves? We don't need to know the roundtype, and knowing it spoils some of the fun, and can potentially ruin the whole round. Honestly, I think "Heavy" RP would pretty much imply that we wouldn't know the roundtype going in, since that's meta information, and having it could reduce the quality of RP and immersion...

The community of my server is me and the other developer... so... no. Are you proposing that someone who runs another (unlisted, unpopulated) server is not welcome to offer suggestions for Aurora? Even if they've played here for over 2 years. That's kinda crappy.

Not asking for 180 degrees of anything. Asking for minor changes to "generally reduce" alternative races... not cripplingly nerf, not remove, not ban, not delete lore. I don't expect everyone to have the same view on the issues, if they did, the issue wouldn't exist, and I sure wouldn't have made a reddit thread, I'd have just assumed I could write all of the replies myself. Please don't be upset with me for making a suggestion.

[citation needed] There have been no discussed precedents to suggest that this is a reasonable solution. It's pretty vague, considering that any examples that actually have been given seem to be quite vapid. 1) Citations were given, both relating to this server and from other SS13 servers via reddit and anecdotes. 2) The precedents were discussed and examples given of some solutions other servers have considered and tried. The reddit thread above also contains some reasonable solutions that were tried, implemented, or suggested. Disagreeing is cool, but trying to pretend that the suggestion is illogical or completely out of place is low-minded. Frances is off my shit-list now for addressing you logically on my behalf, so, at least something good came of the thread.

You didn't get the answer you were looking for here, so you went looking elsewhere and tried bringing it here? Check and tracking. Okay. But the community, and the administration, has made the choice to go counter to your personal taste. And we will probably keep to our choice until otherwise necessary, you are free to keep to yours. Once again, decision from administration and majority of the community: we prefer mechanically different species. Also, from what I've seen, your idea of balance revolves around symmetric balance. Which is fine, but recognize that SS13 is almost always centered around asymmetric balance. Our design in races reflects this. True and false, depending on who you meet. Though, this is not really relevant to the topic. I would suggest making a player complaint if someone is really stupid about the lore, though. This sums up my view on the topic: Oh, and that admin is me. Balance is important, yes. But what kind of balance? I can assure you, having read what you have typed, our views are not matching, and yet you demand and expect them to be. I'm of mind to actually revert the IPC changes, minus the additional organs, for reasons I'll probably explain before doing so. When I'm not being lazy, that is. 1) I don't *only* play on Aurora. I went to reddit to find out what the general opinion of SS13 players are. I also have my own server and I intend to fit the specifications of my server to match the responses. I linked it here because it was relevant to this discussion. 2) I didn't demand or expect anything. I made a suggestion on the "suggestions" forum. Wanna change it to the "demands and expectations" forum? Also from another reddit thread: "Putting both a cap and a white list on it would ensure the levels of shit slinging from both sides decrease dramatically. With all this xenos outnumbering humans on various stations, I'm about as fed up as a fat man on an airplane." I'm just putting the Reddit responses here because I want to demonstrate that I'm not coming out of left field with this or attacking anyone... showing that this is a preference that many players have who may not be vocal about it. I really enjoy Aurora, it's probably my favorite server overall. Nothing about rejecting my suggestion or telling me "no" is going to make me suddenly dislike the server or anything. It was just a suggestion I thought I'd voice to see if there was any interest in moving the server to a less fantasy-alien feel. If that's not what people are into, that's cool. I had some extra time the last couple of days and thought i'd fish around. There ARE players who agree with me, both in this thread in part at least, elsewhere, and on the server. They probably aren't the majority on Aurora, so, I'm cool with that. No harm.

And, I went ahead and asked on reddit how people feel about the issue in a very neutral way, just to see if some of the responses might include some of how I feel about the subject. Here's the link to that: Now, of course, these responses aren't couched completely in an HRP setting, and I realize that there will be some differences of opinion related to that, but I think it's important to at least acknowledge that I'm not coming out of the dark with this post. I'd like to highlight a couple of the replies that I felt align with some of what I'm saying in this thread... 1) "Alien races are a crutch for somebody to be unique. Many who pick to play as an alien do it to be unique, and they're not good enough at roleplaying to be unique as a person. Less of them or what's here now is fine." 2) "In an ideal world for me, Baycode would ditch Skrell, Unathi, Tajara, IPC and Vox, port the full-body prosthetics from Polaris, reimplement Vox as a much more thoroughly designed antagonist-only role focusing around their tech symbiosis, and if needed, add splicing or gene mods for the aesthetic aspects of catbeast and lizards that people play them for." - This is a bit harsh for my taste, but the idea of gene mods for the aesthetic aspects of certain races makes a little bit of sense for keeping it simple. 3) "Having a small selection to choose from is nice. There needs to be less, though. At least on Hippie we have 7 playable races since snowflake races were given to everyone and that's kind of insane. " 4) "Really don't care much about them. I like keeping some kind of borg around though." 5) "Less, please." I tried not to include xenophobic, "omg teh furrehs" replies because that's not why good players would like to see less aliens. For me, it's about aesthetic (I just don't like everyone being a different strange alien - it's taste) and balance (I would *barely* care if those aliens were almost purely "skins" without mechanical advantages). I also don't think a lot of people who play the alien races, even whitelisted, really commit to the race once they have the whitelist, and they don't necessarily stick to the RP guidelines...

I'll also point out that if your reply, (as most have been) is from the position that I'm requesting for IPCs and xenos to be removed from the game or nerfed to complete normalcy, that is NOT the suggestion, here. This is about the NUMBER of people playing the races causing a problem due to their special mechanics and considerations, NOT that there are special mechanics and considerations. Stop straw-manning my suggestion to REDUCE alternative races into "remove", "nerf" or "omg xenos are invincible and I hate them!!!!!!"... that's not what this is about at all.

That's not really relevant. This suggestion wasn't proposed as a magical meta-killer... It's a meta-reducing, pro-RP position. If I give you a phone battery that lasts 20% longer, you still have the problem of a phone battery that runs out. You still want that battery tho.

1) "Be more robust" is probably the worst answer. The target was not more robust because he submitted a whitelist application. 2) What makes you think I wasn't the target trying to defend myself? 3) I never claimed it was about winning or losing... but spending 40 minutes in the brig because of someone's whitelist-magic isn't very fun for anyone but the guy with the power... and, the rest of that round might just be extended now, which bores the rest of the whole playerbase. 4) You know what's not a good story? The Thing, where we make it so all of the people in the outpost are replaced with cyborgs, so when the alien attacks they are all just like "beep beep boop, no thanks, I don't have genes, lol." and they just kill the Thing and then watch them work their research terminals for 90 minutes until the credits roll. Play Pac Man, in your special copy of pac-man, the red ghost, even though he turns blue when you eat a power pellet, still kills pac-man. Does this improve the quality of Pac-Man in some way? It makes it more difficult for pac-man. Now, turn the tables and you are now playing as the ghosts in Pac-Man. Is it more fun for you to be the ghost that can never be eaten by pac man? Does it make the game better if pac-man has to eat both a power pellet and a piece of fruit before he can specifically eat your special ghost? Using the "RP, man!" shield to bat away all balance concerns isn't good for the game. Doesn't result in better or more RP, results in worse, and less RP.

I love robots, too. If uploading our minds is a thing that can happen in our lifetimes, I will be the first in line. I don't think there's an A.I. or Robot related big movie that I haven't seen a couple of times. I'm a software developer and I absolutely love real-life A.I. research and news. Robots are my jam, too. I would even play one... if they were more balanced... I kinda wish I could just "say" that my current guy is an android, but receive absolutely no special bonuses for it... he still lives and dies like everyone else on the station... but that's not in the lore. Video games and how they function and what they produce are my jam, too... I'm even writing one, very loosely based on SS13... in my spare time with an estimated completion date of "not gonna happen" even though I'm still trying (if you're interested I could probably show you sometime... it's online, browser-based, multiplayer, has logins, chat, real-time, animated spessmen, guns, eating, and chairs you can sit in, rotate, and drag... you can throw stuff, too... it's really just how I sharpen my coding skills)... but the reason I'm mentioning this is because I do have a pretty strong mind for balance and gameplay, and I have played SS13 for a long time now... I don't play an IPC or other alien race primarily because I don't think they are balanced, and I generally want to play the game in a balanced way. To some people "balance" is unimportant. To me, it is especially so. I don't play on Goonstation because I feel like they don't care about balance one iota. I play here because in the discussions I've seen, the disparity between races has been brought up as a balance issue and attempts to address it have been made in earnest by the developers... (an old IPC related thread I was in was talking about reducing the brute damage mitigation of IPCs, and possibly making them vulnerable to a few other things... not sure how far that went, but the discussion was alive with admins who seemed to acknowledge that balance was important... so I take that as good faith). So, until I feel like playing an IPC really confers NO advantage, I won't play one. Same reason I don't play a borg. Have you ever thought about the massive efficiency of a mining borg vs. a human miner? I don't play miner anymore because I played a mining borg once. It's ludicrously more simple and way overpowered, and no amount of being slaved to A.I. laws (which is actually cool and fun IMO) will even that out. "But, but, Ripleys tho!" ... nah, that's not available every round, takes a long time to get to, and still isn't as powerful at mining as it needs to be to catch up to the raw power of a mining borg. I don't like that, so I don't play the thing that's totally obsolete by comparison, and I don't play the thing that makes the other thing obsolete. That's just how I play. So that's why I bother to even make these suggestions and put effort into it. I'm legitimately not trying to hurt any particular person's gaming experience, I'm trying to propose things that we can agree upon that put balance and fun and real meaningful, RP-enabling diversity at the forefront, and pushes back the weird "my character is super awesome not because of something I knew or did but just simply because I'm whitelisted to be it". I was asked for examples of lore regurgitation... I'll give one but keep it anonymous, but this kind of thing happens all the time (and I hope the person who did this isn't reading or doesn't take offense, I'm not trying to be mean)... My character got hungry while working a few days ago, and I look over to my IPC coworker and go "Oh, I've got to step out and get a bite."... the IPC then goes into talking about how he/she doesn't ever need to eat. This is lore regurgitation. I'm a scientist, you're a scientist. We both obviously know that you're not scarfing down a double cheeseburger anytime soon and we know why, because obviously we're coworkers and you working here isn't amazing to me. Now that didn't make me mad or spoil my "immershunz" too badly, but, that's an example, and when I posted this originally, it was partially because these kinds of "oh by the way I'm not a human and that's important right now (even though it really and truly is not)" kind of interactions were happening a lot for me. This aspect of it is WORLDS LESS IMPORTANT than the general gameplay balance of the races is to me, but I think it's important to critique each other's RP in order to improve from time to time, and this stuck out as a minor blemish (which I have plenty of my own and am receptive to criticism... I've updated character sheets and modified my interactions with people many times in the course of playing here, even when it made me salty to do so). So there's that. How about this modification of the idea: Enrollments for IPCs, Vaurca, and Borgs (yeah I'm sneaking in a Borg whitelist in my example ) are open from date to date, Enrollments for Tajarans and Unathi are open from date to date, and we choose those dates based on the population of those races? If you didn't get accepted within the date range, just hang on and in a month or two it will open back up and your existing application will be considered then or you can put in a new one? Just as one of a million possible ways to "Generally Reduce alternative races". I'll go ahead and restate that I don't think there's a single thing mechanically wrong with Tajarans or Unathi. I don't care about claws. I am primarily concerned with ANY kind of outright immunities, big damage reductions, or quick incapacitation techniques, whether they come from your race OR role.

I just want to be clear that I wasn't proposing outright arbitrary denial of applications so much as slowing down the rate of acceptance, or perhaps closing whitelist applications for certain races for periods of time, to be re-opened as that particular race's population diminishes. Not so much a "nonhuman" quota, but a "not that many of that specific alien" quota, and in general requiring a lot more time played on the server before considering someone for a race, especially races that are potentially overpowered or often publicly reviled...

No one is obligated to give me the time of day. If you don't want to, roll on past or lock the topic. Making a topic shouldn't obligate me to reply to every single person in the thread, admin, mod, loremaster, or what have you. Now, back to the topic at hand... I'm not being aggressive towards other races... if you've seen me in OOC there's a good chance you've seen me telling people off for making racist/rude comments against aliens that I don't even enjoy playing alongside, and in-game the only entities that my main character dislikes are the A.I. and borgs, and he's not even completely negative about that all the time. I was trying to approach this in a way that lets everyone know that "too many aliens" creates an atmosphere that SOME PLAYERS do not find as interesting as "some aliens"... and to further bring in the perspective of the importance of game balance vs. good RP, and how those things relate. I spend a lot of time playing SS13, and my current and usual favorite server is Aurora, but my experience on other servers (presently and in the past) has been that there's something more enjoyable about a more "grounded" server, for both game mechanics and RP. I have my preferences for how SS13 should be run that are based on my experiences playing the game and my general likes and dislikes about the sci-fi genre altogether, and I'm sure everyone has a set of similar preferences. I thought this was the place to make those preferences known through suggestions. For example, I do not like the head whitelist. I like an A.I. whitelist, but I like race, A.I. and Borg whitelists, but I think that head whitelists cause for clunky round experiences half the time because of headless departments. I've mentioned this in OOC before and been "told" that a Research Director isn't important anyway, in the same round that the A.I. used its borgs to murderbone most of the people on the station, which the presence of a research director could have hindered greatly. Also, I play very late night pretty frequently, and it's common for there to be no Captain, no HoP, and no RD in the same round, despite there being 25+ players. For those reasons, I'd like to see at least the Research Director, and probably CMO come out of whitelist... but, I probably won't bother making that suggestion after this thread... at least not for a while (I'll wait for the playerbase to shift again - I've played here for about 2 years.) That being said, it was not my intention to offend anyone with my suggestion or single anyone out. Maybe my suggestion came from a strange place because I did make the thread after playing a couple of rounds that were pretty heavy on the Vaurca, IPCs, and Tajarans. Seeing the numbers of whitelisted players above made me realize that it was probably a fluke to see 3 Vaurca characters in the same couple of rounds, and did remind me of the IPC tide of many months ago (which if I'm honest, pushed me away from the server because I grew tired of having to deal with them on the few antag rounds I got to play, and I didn't feel like having to learn every strength and weakness that they had... plus the "shells" were super hyper-retarded). From a lore perspective, IPCs, if they work the way they do with their mechanics, COMPLETELY OBVIATE the need for humans... and it feels bad to do heavy RP repeatedly in situations where you're thinking ... "one of the IPCs should have just done this, since they are better than me in every important way for the vast majority of tasks on this space station".

I actually really like this alternative suggestion a lot. It really is more about not knowing more than anything. I mean, I know we want to give other players credit for not metagaming/validhunting specifically tuned to the roundtype because they're supposed to be better than that, but the reality is that a great number of players are not better than that, and they are alive and well and deceptive. I find it hard to believe that you guys have never been meta'd to death on Aurora...

I've had a particular interest in SS13's alien races for nearly two years (which is shameful. Nobody should spend that long nurturing an obscure interest on roleplaying aliens from a specific, little-known videogame.) Over my time on Aurora, I've seen people roleplay aliens in a lot of ways. Some of them were good, some of them were shit. Contrary to what you're suggesting, I'd like to bring up that very little of what I've seen concerning the lore was objectively bad. If anything, people ignore the lore a lot. Tajarans are supposed to be a race of conservative, somewhat repressed pre-wwii socialists, yet we've seen a lot of them act like sexually liberated hippie-revolutionists, trying to provoke furpiles and think they're the hottest thing for getting into a fight into security/whomever upon being called "cat". That's a stereotype of the Tajaran player. A character who falls completely flat by following the lore to a tee while ignoring proper characterization... isn't. I have literally not seen one character fall flat because they weren't venturing far enough from the lore. Now, characters who rely too much on popular tropes or Mary Sue-ish characteristics are pretty common. That's the biggest issue of immersion with aliens we've encountered (and species caretakers do their best to ensure this issue is curbed). But that's people that are ignoring the lore completely, not being constricted by it. What would be some examples of "lore regurgitation" that you have seen? What are solutions to this problem you would propose, other than limiting the number of players for each race? (Because that doesn't make the races better, it just hides the bad.) Again, you're obviously "welcome" to post on my topics by the rules of the forums though I've asked you not to, but I'm not going to engage you in my discussions. Maybe someone else will.

Ideally, if the races exist to satisfy an actual RP itch to play something other than human, that's cool, but they really could just be skins. The mechanical differences are okay if they weren't so "all or nothing"... and I wasn't even really refering to Unathi or Tajaran, though Tajarans are very much overplayed. It's a difficult subject to approach, to be honest, because people have emotional attachments to their creations and the things they are responsible for, and people who are already whitelisted mostly don't deserve a nerf or having their characters reverted into humans... but I think that if no one approaches the subject, we'll just see more and more people whitelisted for alien races and the general feel of SS13 on Aurora will turn to a very alien world... which I think sucks for RP reasons, as well as mechanical ones. I just prefer a more structured setting, where most people are more similar, and I don't feel like I need to read 19 books of lore in order to feel like an actual citizen of NT. To bring in a pen and paper comparison, many players do not enjoy Faerun ("Forgotten Realms") because it has been added onto and expanded for too long, and is laborious to become immersed in. Many players prefer a more flat and easy to understand gameworld such as that of Mystara, which has fewer related novels, stories, and intensely detailed regional write-ups. It provides better RP because your character didn't need to know when "shieldmeet" took place or who the governor of the local region's brother is in order to integrate. Some people prefer one way, some people prefer the other. I prefer the "less is more" approach, because it reduces the amount of time we spend getting history lessons and having to learn things from outside of the game's interface (Which I do not like to leave mid-game). I think the mechanics of race enable people who don't really want to roleplay at all to write up a whitelist application and be granted very powerful powergaming tools. I think the lore of race provides something for someone to RP off of, but also can be used as a crutch when the majority of a character's actions/discussions/interactions are related to their race. Where's the Dwarf? Do we expect him at the tavern with that accent drinking alcohol? If so, it might be time for dwarves to be played differently, because the sci-fi "Romulans are Mean"/"Vulcans are logical"/"Klingons are warlike" is a very specific, very tired kind of sci-fi that I don't particularly enjoy, and my suggestion is aimed towards a general reduction of THAT, as well as a reduction of the powergaming aspect.

I specifically said I didn't like Malf AI but said that's another thread. Malf AI would be included under secret in this suggestion, so, please read more closely in the future. The vote is already essentially binary, any option selected other than "extended" was already a vote for there to be antags. The ONLY difference here is that I'm trying to keep knowledge of the roundtype concealed, because it results in better gameplay. This has been talked about in OOC many times this week alone, not even by me. I vote "Secret" every time unless extended is tied for the win with another roundtype, at which point I acquiesce and vote that other roundtype, because extended sucks and a huge portion of the crew just AFK's or goes to cryo after a little bit, at which point OOC conversation fills the screen with bluetext for about 50 minutes, and then finally a crew transfer vote is pushed though after 3+ hours of dull play. Before you go there, yes, I have enjoyed some extended rounds as I enjoy playing non-antags just at work sometimes, but having conflict and a clear, common goal brings people out of their shell sometimes, and the best rounds I've ever played have been NON-extended... so... back to the actual point... I only said to take extended out of secret mode because when people vote for secret they generally don't want extended... so, whether that part flies or not is irrelevant, the "not knowing it's nuclear" or "not knowing it's wizard" really make it more fun. I'll throw in an anecdote of a wizard round I played a long time ago on Aurora... I infiltrated the ship and put on some assistant clothes, had a realistic name, and had plans for a fun event where I use mind-swap a few times (my wizard's goal was to steal a command-level identity)... strangely, though, the instant I was seen on screen, my lack of an ID was made into a large deal. I've been without an ID like a million times, and never been subject to the scrutiny of being looked up in the crew roster the instant that I mentioned I'd lost my ID, but sure enough, we voted wizard, and these guys knew I was lying. Had this been secret, they probably wouldn't have even asked why a 100% random assistant didn't have an ID. Coincidence? Maybe. We'll never know since everyone knew the roundtype was wizard. No one did anything that outwardly PROVED they were metagaming, but, I'm about 90% sure they were. You don't get to play many wizard rounds in SS13. The times you do shouldn't be spoiled by people knowing it's wizard, IMO.