[Retracted]VTCobaltblood's Head of Staff whitelist application

[VTCobaltblood]

BYOND key: VTCobaltblood

Character names: My main character is Robert Bretscher, but I also have Pinneshiri Volvalaad, Irving Hatakenaka and Agathe Leclair, which I play or don't play occasionally

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How long have you been playing on Aurora?: uhh 1 month or so I think, I'm unsure

Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?:

My strong desire to create an actual command character comes from the inspiration some truly talented command players on the server have given me. I believe that I, as well, can give other players a sense of direction, play, in a sort, a role of the "micro game master."

Why did you come to Aurora?:

That is a pretty fun story. When I recently got into SS13, I chose LRP servers, because I thought that roleplaying in such a chaotic game would seem either untasteful (since antags need to provide utter chaos, right? Which seemed to me a direct opposite of RP) or utterly boring (because antags wouldn't do anything). However, a roleplay buddy of mine insisted that we play together on a RP server. I declined playing on Bay because I didn't like the military setting, so he suggested Aurora, without actually having ever played there - so I tried checking out the server myself. My expectations of boredom have quickly been proven wrong, so I sticked. (my friend didn't)

Have you read the Aurora wiki on the head roles and qualifications you plan on playing?:

Of course. However, I feel the need to admit that, despite having read the article a couple of times, my grasp on corporate regulations is somewhat loose. I believe that better knowledge of them will surely come with experience.

Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they?

No.

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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:

To me, RP consists of two concepts: obviously, playing a role, and collectively writing a story.

The first one can be defined as creating a character and acting how the character would act in a given situation and setting.

The second one comes from the first - by acting as your characters, you interact with the setting and the characters of other players, essentially collectively creating a piece of fiction.

Good roleplay is realistic characters whose traits provide hooks for creating an interesting story, creating fun for everyone involved.

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?:

Previously, I have mentioned the concept of a "micro game master." What I meant by that is that, while a head player doesn't have the admin tools, they have, most importantly, their imagination and their authority, which they can use to create an interesting round for everyone involved. A Research Director may arrive with directions from NTCC for as to research this shift, and coordinate their subordinates to execute these. A Chief Engineer may gather Engineering for a construction project. Ultimately, Command should give the department a sense of direction, and something to do as a group.

Of course, a different responsibility of a Command member is, as one of the most important people on Aurora, to be ready to interact with antagonists in a fun and fruitful manner for both sides. Heads will always be the antagonists' prime targets - hostages, assassination victims, etc. They need to be able to play along and provide meaningful conflict.

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?:

Of course, a big responsibility of a command member both IC and OOC is to help other players with any issues that may arise, and give them advice on game mechanics. I often try to help out people even while not a command member - even though my scientist character is grumpy and difficult to approach, I always try my best to help people OOC if it is difficult to do so IC.

Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau ceti and how it affected your character and their career?

As of now, Ceti space is in crisis, struggling from, first, the Frost attack, and then the Lii'dra invasions. As a result, the nation tries to assemble its own identity, attacks strengthening the patriotism in people. This, of course, has a different side as well - with the Lii'dra threat, racism against the vaurcae is rampant, and ATLAS may be soon gaining power.

My current character, Robert Bretscher, has only relatively recently immigrated to Biesel from Sol, almost right as the embargo ended. His reasons for immigration are not political. He has an especially dismissive, even somewhat aggressive attitude to his vaurcae coworkers, and may become a moderate ATLAS supporter if they gain influence, strongly supporting their "human-first" ethic, even though he doesn't live on Sol anymore.

What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted?

Head of Personnel, Internal Affairs, possibly Research Director

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Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking.:

Adelaide Delacroix, IAA

Ezekiel Sha, Research Director

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How would you rate your own roleplaying?:

I have around four years of RP experience. I believe that my strong suits are linking character traits to their backstories, roleplaying fear and being ready to handle whatever situation is thrown at me. Another one of my strengths is considering character disadvantages, weaknesses and flaws more fun to roleplay than positive and useful traits - I'm not the type of person to base characters entirely on their skills and good qualities, since that'd be very boring to play for me. My main weakness is maintaining consistency - sometimes I just don't feel inspired enough, and may make my characters act, although believable and not outright metagamey, not according to their personality. An example of this was when Robert Bretscher received an interim RD position - although I believe that I have accomplished my goals and responsibilities as a head of staff OOCly, I disregarded that this character is, possibly, the most unfit character in Science to take a leadership position in anything, making decisions as I would make them myself, rather than my character. I am working as hard as I can to correct this. I am also somewhat prone to retconning my characters, but it isn't anything too major.

Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action?

Yes

Have you familiarize yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles?

Mhm

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Extra notes:

i wrote half of this while having a fever

Edited November 1, 2018 by Guest

[Scheveningen]

I don't usually scrutinize applications unless at least one of the three factors are at play here:

1. the application is really bad

2. the application is ripe for potential drama

3. the application actually has some promise outside of generic mcwhitelist and is worth reviewing on its own

Congratulations, VT, you're the first to hit all 3-- just kidding, it's only #3 here.

RE: What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?:

I think it is actually pretty good that you drop terms like 'micro', but something I should try to clear up is that a head of staff in standard and nonstandard situations should understand how to lead from the front and from the back simultaneously. Leading from the front is great at times because it allows their subordinates to have very obvious standards to mimic and represent later down the line if those subordinates wish to become part of that leadership position at some point. There are some things that leading from the front can't replicate, however, and that's having flexibility as a concern compared to that of having concentrated effort as its own individual force that is hard to outright resist but easy to evade as an antagonist. In the cases of spreading your team out, you risk each of your individual measures getting caught out but you also increase the amount of risk that an opposing obstacle gets utterly flanked and clamped down upon, and sorted out decisively. The way that it does that is much more subtle and added up over time, rather than being resolved in a single situation.

This is something that antagonists have to respect as well. SS13 has some RTS strategy elements to it, the concepts of "micro" and "macro" are very clear in any multiplayer game but it's not to the exact effect like how games such as Starcraft execute it. Even in those games it's not painfully obvious to describe, though. In such a way, though, keep in mind that a balance of micro and macro are important based on what you intend on accomplishing in-game. Doubly so important when you play a head of staff, because you have more control over the micro/macro elements to move certain assets or characters around where they're supposed to be needed. You can play a "lead from the front" head of staff 24/7, but keep in mind the macro implications of doing that, and the fact you'll only gain success if the opposing force is so intensely overestimating themselves that they think they can tackle you + your department by themselves.

That aside, hopefully that's something that's easy to understand. I could've gone for a "the foundation is rotten" analogy but that doesn't make sense in this context. Anyway, the way I usually judge applications is that compared to judging the intent of the applicant and how they view the head of staff sphere of roles and responsibilities, lore/background is just meaningless fluff, and fluff by itself does not really indicate whether one is ready for leadership on a roleplay server that is supposed to take itself seriously.

I'd say +1, largely because while their characters are relatively sane and enjoyable to roleplay with (they make more sense once you recognize the reasons why they behave the way they do, shocker!!!), there's also the part where VT has taught me a substantial amount of integrated circuitry stuff and even helped me build some really neat and useful stuff as a result. Teachers of game mechanics are a very rare commodity around here.

[VTCobaltblood]

Alright, now that Schev has cleared his point up to me in Discord DMs, I can post my reply here.

It just so happens that I have picked command roles that either almost exclusively lead from the front (RD) or (almost) exclusively lead from the back (HoP and IAA). Nonetheless, this is an interesting concept and good advice, which I'll try to keep in mind if I try out other command roles, forming my gameplay style accordingly.

[Conspiir]

I'm sure most people by now know who Bretscher is. One of those characters you can't miss if you happen to play at the same time. But more than that, VT understands the crap that's going on overall. The lens of Bretscher doesn't stop VT's willingness to help or joke.

In advance, I'm so sorry for you making an IAA character. Really. So very sorry.

What I like about this application is you know your characters. You know Bretscher isn't about to be RD, that's not what this app is about. By opening up the opportunity to being in a head of staff position, you know you are letting go of time you spend playing grumpy smart man. I can see your RD being a great addition to science, willing to teach. That's what I look for in an RD; someone who is willing to take the time to assist someone in learning or exploring new things. And VT is that kind of person. I'd like to see them get a trial and evaluate from there +1

[Arrow768]

While Bertscher is not head of staff material, I have confidence in your abilities to play decent heads of staff with the other chars you outlined.

[VTCobaltblood]

While Bertscher is not head of staff material

(that's spelled Bret-scher)

Of course he isn't. I perfectly realize that - he's got a very bad medical record, is prone to insults and wild paranoia, and is totally unable to deal with stressful situations. I'm not trying to push Bretscher into Command (no matter how bad Bretscher wants to push himself into Command) - my new characters created specifically for command will be much more sane and respectful to others. Bretscher isn't in any way similar to how I actually act outside of playing him, perhaps even the total opposite of me at times, so I believe I have a good ability to create characters that won't behave like him.

[Alberyk]

On trial until 15 November 2018.

[VTCobaltblood]

I retract this app. Actually being on trial made me realize I'm not ready for Command just yet.

[Coalf]

Completely fine, feel free to re-apply when you're ready.

Locking and Archiving.