Ideas for reducing criminal delinquency on Aurora

[Lady_of_Ravens]

You've probably noticed that a lot of people take advantage of the fact that they can ignore every bad thing they did last round to get demoted, permabrigged, executed, et cetera, to engage in highly questionable criminal RP. The sort that's stupid and disruptive, like using telescience to steal or kidnap people, or growing hallucinogens in hydroponics, or any of a variety of other petty mischiefs which they might get up to because they know, OOCly, that all consequences go away at the end of the round.

I find this to be annoying, both because it's a bother to deal with, and because it's just plain bad RP. However I also recognize the importance of voiding stuff like, say, being a revolutionary or traitor... not to mention knowledge of syndie gear and the likes. And I'm all for giving people who don't know better second chances (after all, chaos and delinquency are perfectly normal and acceptable on some servers)... I just don't like how it results in people playing characters who have no respect for the consequences of their actions and do the same shit round after round.

Unfortunately, I don't have a clear solution to this problem. Harsher (by which I mean less amazingly lax) sentences for crimes would be a place to start... if nothing else, it keeps the miscreants out of circulation for a while, and I don't know of anyone who likes being in the brig OOCly. But this still doesn't address the lack of long-term consequences, and the general miscreantism that it causes.

As such, I'd like to ask my fellow opinionated people for ideas to help with this. People who think the rules shouldn't apply to them need not respond.

[Guest]

One way to deter the back-to-back chucklefuckery between rounds would be having a centcomm officer come in, yell at them and fire them on the spot, would be equally entertaining, embarassing, and a good segway into getting someone jobbanned for them thinking the rules don't apply to them.

[Lady_of_Ravens]

Simple. Brutal. Effective. I like it. A lot of people won't, but I do. XD

[Guest]

An idea like this should suffice, really.

[Lady_of_Ravens]

Oooh, that could help a lot. Though I'm also very for temporary job bans for people who routinely play delinquents.

[the_furry]

I'm so not getting involved with this again but I do suggest people read my forum suggestion outlining why harsh punishment is a bad idea

[Frances]

Oooh, that could help a lot. Though I'm also very for temporary job bans for people who routinely play delinquents.

There's a difference between IC and OOC punishment. IC punishment is part of roleplay - OOC punishment is for players being bad. Because not all criminally-oriented characters are actually terrible, I'd find it hard to see jobbans enforced on any other level than how they're being enforced now. (Which is, afaik, you get jobbanned if you fail horribly at doing your job without bringing any RP, or are super annoying).

I never minded criminal/neglectful/chucklefuck characters done well. Felix Solano was a great example of that - most of the stuff he did would've gotten him fired ICly, but because he was so god damn hilarious, none of the players really minded.

Now, the easiest way to impose a limit on this is for players playing these sort of characters not to do it often. I peddled drugs and did ridiculous things while playing, but I didn't do it all the time - which ensured security/players didn't get fed up by having to arrest my character constantly every round.

The question is, is this enforcable? And I'm going to answer yes. In my time as an admin, I saw very few good criminal/chucklefuck characters, but whenever I did, I let them do their own thing. If you're bringing a valuable, non-frustrating contribution to the station's RP, you won't get in trouble. People who acted like complete idiots every round, however, and annoyed the crew to no end, would find themselves talked to pretty quick, and jobbanned if they didn't adjust their play.

If you see a person act like that, my recommendation would be to adminhelp or send a player complaint, and they'll be dealt with. That's not going to change no matter what we do, because regardless of rules, these people will have to be handled manually some way or another. The only difference is I fear we might end up restricting players who are actually reasonable with roleplaying non-antag crime.

[Jakers457]

Though most of departments are prone to SSD. Security is usually one of the more infamous ones in my opinion, with pretty much the entire department going inactive with shit hitting the fan shortly after. So trying to stop or deter criminal activity may just kill off the experience that is Security. Because let's face it, unless you're whispering with your erp buddy in the corner or have the ability to chill with a few people, you're going to be wandering the halls and tunnels or just standing at a post for most of the round, which kind of get's boring. We could argue that roleplay comes first and action comes second, but then again the core aspects of Security roleplay is the action.

What I'm trying to say is, when it comes to these sort of things we should consider Security's experience less we bleach that side of the roleplay.