[Dismissed] Loosening the Leash

[sdtwbaj]

There's a not uncommon sentiment that security are the only ones allowed to have conflict with antags. Generally I think this is the case, our rules are set up so that it's easy to punish people for fighting with an antag if they aren't command or security, especially if security is somewhere on the station.

I'll frame the tldr of the suggestion with real world American laws, that are basically what I'd like to see.

Some states have a 'duty to retreat' type of law, basically you legally have to run away or do whatever is in your power to avoid a fight if you can. This is how Aurora generally is right now, we expect anyone who isn't security to tuck tail and run if there's any opportunity, with little context to the situation or capability of the crewmember.

Other states have a 'stand your ground' law, you don't have that duty to retreat, you can handle a threat however you see fit, whether that's running away or fighting back to protect yourself. I want this to be where Aurora goes. It's a decent balance between allowing crewmembers in on the action, especially if it comes to them, and leaving validhunting outside of what's allowed. 

The gist of what I'm proposing would essentially allow the chef to stab someone who threatens them with a weapon, but not allow the chef to chase down that person and stab them. Less enforced fear RP, and more natural consequences, play stupid games win stupid prizes kind of thing. I don't think this would turn the crew into bloodthirsty validhunters, because most people are interested in other RP, and probably won't take advantage of this. The real intent is to shift the monopoly on action partially away from security, and let people do things without having to scream 'HELP MAINT' over the radio.

[Snakebittenn]

As long as we maintain that the chef does not hop over the counter and chase the antag down five hallways, sounds good to me.

[CampinKiller]

I’m cool with this, long as it’s reasonable. Someone who has a (potentially) deadly weapon defends themself? Cool. Let it flow naturally, play stupid games, win stupid prizes, maybe you get lucky and get away or disable the antag.

 

The one thing I don’t want to see, though, is an unarmed assistant rush a guy with a gun, or a group of guys with guns. That just shouldn’t ever happen

[Evandorf]

My gut reaction is to disagree with this suggestion.

-In your example, as a chef with a knife, it depends heavily on the situation. If they are armed and armored mercs with lethal weapons your knife attack is entirely unrealistic. If they are a changeling and are trying to absorb you, under the current system you would be well within your rights to stab them in an attempt to escape. Stabbing them repeatedly, especially if they are down, would be over the line.

-You have to remember that this is not your character's private home. You are at work and you've signed a contract with NanoTrasen that states you will abide by corporate regulations. Many IRL companies make sure their employees understand never to interfere with robbers, aggressive customers, ect. They want you to move to a safe location and call the police.

- Security usually has to respond with non-lethal means until the situation escalates. Unless the antag is a merc or heister with clearly lethal weaponry security will stun/detain you until things escalate. If they don't then they're looking at a sec jobban.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

There is nothing that says you cant defend yourself or rp with antags. The problem is when you are proactive (hunting down the antagonist like an endurance hunter) rather than reactive (stabbing the antag then running away when they're disabled).

Often "I want to RP with antags as a civilian" is used to shroud the ulterior motive of "I want to be allowed to brutally maul or kill the antagonist as a chef".

[BurgerBB]

Perfect harmony with antags/security/crew will never happen unless admins give out punishments for what I call "round whoring".

Round whoring is the act of trying very hard to be the center of attention of the round despite not being an antag. Usually because of this, other players feel less inclined to be involved because of how protective they are of their involvement. Janitors tend to exploit this will all access. Roboticists tend to exploit this with making a mech and validhunting antags. Some cargo/mining players do this by buying guns for themselves and starting 2 people militias at inappropriate times. Science players, mostly research directors, tend to exploit this via telescience or weapon crafting.

Its worse with obvious metacliques, where the antag is friends with the people they're interacting with and usually spend more time with them.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

What burger said is in the genre of what I said, and I agree with it, but I'd call it something less problematic.

[Scheveningen]

This already exists in policy. The staff do not have a habit of banning people for reacting to antagonists by killing them, but they're much more likely to do so if someone's execution in killing an antagonist was far more proactive (and thus is usually inherent to metagamey behavior.)

[Hendricks]

I think I have struck a good balance personally, if they aren't hostile antags I would investigate out of curiosity, if they have a sword and say they will use it I don't mess with them. If it's a powerful wizard who is saying their in the bar doing tricks, who would sit in their department for 2 hours. I think as long as you do it realistically it's ok, if my character is in a corner or trapped and has no other choice and the antag gives a chance for interaction, I usually determine whether my character would fight, or if they are taken by surprise, my character has no problem sticking up to other employee's as she doesn't like tp be pushed around, but if it's a group of people on one, and it turns south I always run, if two people were approaching you with intent to beat you to hell, I would stick up my hands I would bail, I think same applies to Aurora, if it's a wizard or say, a person in stupid bright robes claiming to have powers, you can be skeptical and just get annoyed thinking it's a wacko and possibly conflict that way, challenging them verbally. Maybe a shove if it gets rude. But if a co-workers face suddenly extended a proboscis and you don't have a weapon on hand, I think you would back away freaking the hell out. I don't know, as people are saying it is HEAVILY dependent on situation, fighting back can be really fun but you need to accept that you ain't a master elite especially against aliens or people in suits with guns, if you have a knife you could threaten to attack which is what I do, /me pointing the knife at them and saying things like 'don't come any closer' that can be a lot of fun.

 

Either way I'd like this, because combat is fun when it is realistic, but I don't want to see everyone grabbing any weapon they can, stabbing a few hits in then backing away like it was self defense. I've experienced it, having a verbal debate then someone jumps counter grabs the bar shotgun and blasts your face. Like, you just need escalation that is where the fun is to me, if you got numbers, say a Unathi with a RIG and a huge fire axe, your going to feel a little more confident, if your on your own with a pen and a guy in a voidsuit comes, just a good idea to raise your hands. I've done it with BSA plenty of times and it is more fun then just attempting to fight. I've had a forced game of russian roulette instead of just being shot by them, I've been blown up by them, I've been set on fire by them, it's more fun when both parties give and take then a fixed goal of kill. Which is more fun the just killing, so I think -1. The rules aren't the problem, you can have just as much fun doing fear rp combat, like pointing objects or raising a bottle to throw. Also depends on antag, sometimes they just rush you. Situation dependent.

[Doxxmedearly]

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 Less enforced fear RP, and more natural consequences, play stupid games win stupid prizes kind of thing.

A good sentiment. I think this is a perfect summary of how I feel. 

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As long as we maintain that the chef does not hop over the counter and chase the antag down five hallways, sounds good to me.

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The problem is when you are proactive (hunting down the antagonist like an endurance hunter) rather than reactive (stabbing the antag then running away when they're disabled).

Definitely agreed.

I think Schev's right that this pretty much is already covered, though sometimes I do worry that my "fear rp" will be policed (though this is a baseless fret, as it hasn't happened to me personally) 

[Flamingo]

In your own example, the chef stabs the dude assaulting him. This is fine as if he is holding the knife and the dude starts trying to kill him, it makes sense you’d stab them, and then run away. The problem arises when people take it to mean that you can just keep trying to stab them 15 more times while they hit you back, often with weapons of their own. Even experienced fighters aren’t going to knife fight some dude breaking into their house, because they don’t want to be stabbed. Unless they’re cornered (which is already a viable reason to fight in the rules), it’s a far smarter move to back off and just wait for the police to come and arrest them. The rules reflect this because honestly, being an antag and having to fight 7 different dudes who happen to have something that could pass as a weapon in their bag is really dumb. 

I feel that the rules as they exist right now already sufficiently cover our general cases, and provide a good outline of when it is and isn’t okay to fight. Administration exists to cover any fringe cases, and in my experience, fringe cases are generally met with a “in the future don’t do this thanks” and not a ban. 

Your thoughts?

[Snakebittenn]

1 hour ago, Flamingo said:

Even experienced fighters aren’t going to knife fight some dude breaking into their house, because they don’t want to be stabbed. Unless they’re cornered (which is already a viable reason to fight in the rules), it’s a far smarter move to back off and just wait for the police to come and arrest them. 

 

 

What country you from? People fight off and even kill burglars in Burgerland all the time. Even I'll be damned if I'm just gonna wait for the police if I have superior armaments.

Edited December 26, 2018 by ParadoxSpace

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

@ParadoxSpace the problem is when you chase the burglar down the street, shoot them in the back so they drop, then walk up and coldly put two bullets in the back of their head, then call up your neighbors to brag about it.

Edited December 26, 2018 by Marlon Phoenix

[Flamingo]

4 hours ago, ParadoxSpace said:

What country you from? People fight off and even kill burglars in Burgerland all the time. Even I'll be damned if I'm just gonna wait for the police if I have superior armaments.

I live in America. 

 

59 minutes ago, Senpai Jackboot said:

@ParadoxSpace the problem is when you chase the burglar down the street, shoot them in the back so they drop, then walk up and coldly put two bullets in the back of their head, then call up your neighbors to brag about it.

This. 

 

Furthermore, this is in an isolated, high tech workplace where you specifically have security to protect you. This isn’t the middle of the countryside and no one is coming to assist. Nor is it the middle of the city where once the burglar escapes will you likely never see them again, with your personal, irreplaceable belongings. 

[Scheveningen]

Chasing after a burglar that stole something from your shop that is already insured just to coldly plug two hunks of metal into their back is a scenario in which it is more likely for a mall ninja to fantasize about than for a real life person to ever want to happen even in defense of their own property. It is a very extreme minority of Americans that actively try to kill people as part of their 2nd amendment right.

This is, ultimately, an isolated corporate environment. This is no different from corporate compounds all the way out into the rural areas of American society. They rarely call the cops first, they call the on-site security force to internally deal with any issues that happens on-site. Most businesses on the spectrum of "large and in-charge" do not permit non-security staff to have firearms or weapons. If you are convinced to believe otherwise, you are probably a deluded mall ninja wanting an excuse to reactively murder someone else in the workplace while also actively attempting to excuse yourself from carrying a weapon 24/7.

Edited December 27, 2018 by Scheveningen

[Mogelix]

FearRP should be part of the natural way people RP. You shouldn't have to have a rule to tell ERPing blue haired nurses: "Please don't try to rush a entire merc team", but unfortunately since common sense is a rarity, we need it. However, maybe that isnt far enough, maybe it should be extended beyond:

"Well, I'm greatly outnumbered and they're all using that auto-aim thing on me, guess I'll surrender.".

Maybe we need the already touchy FearRP rule to also cover and prevent:

- Chasing after antags who have fled into maintenance but still clearly have ways to kill you if you pursued.

 - Attempting to rush a better equipped but unaware antag. IRL In most cases where unarmed people try to 'get the jump' on a criminal/terrorist, they typically get severely injured/dont survive. That's 2018. You'd think people would be smarter then to think they're some sort of superhero and jump a armed criminal completely unarmed in 2460.

 - Being a ROBO COP who never surrenders despite unwinnable odds because "I'm security, I will defend this station even if it makes the Battle of Berlin and the Defense of the Alamo look like winnable and fair fights.' One of the most interesting antag rounds I was in had to be when a traitor shell sec officer held me, also a sec officer, at E-swordpoint, where I surrendered and swore to tell nobody. I say most interesting and not most fun cause I then failed to kill myself several times due to the guilt of hearing of other people being killed but being too scared to give up the secret of who I knew was atleast involved in these murder cases.

Extending the definition of FearRP like such would improve RP and give antags more breathing room. I would support extending FearRP rules like such, since apparently its too difficult to FearRP without having the admins threatening you with the beanhammer, but unfortunately that would make the already pretty subjective subject of "What does my character fear?" have to be argued even more then it already is.

Edited December 27, 2018 by Mogelix
better articulating one of my points

[LorenLuke]

14 hours ago, Mogelix said:

 - Attempting to rush a better equipped but unaware antag. IRL In most cases where unarmed people try to 'get the jump' on a criminal/terrorist, they typically get severely injured/dont survive. That's 2018. You'd think people would be smarter then to think they're some sort of superhero and jump a armed criminal completely unarmed in 2460.

 

I agree with most the points you make except this one. As someone earlier said 'win stupid prizes'. The issue with this is when RNG smiles on the aggressor, and the moment they get pushed they lose all their weapons, as opposed to falling, rolling over, and emptying half an SMG clip into the poor bastard that bumped him.

 

When people believe themselves at advantage, they will strike. If you fail to maintain control of your weapon against an unarmed opponent who has the drop on you, it's on you for letting them get the drop when you have the weapon.

[Mogelix]

5 hours ago, LorenLuke said:

I agree with most the points you make except this one. As someone earlier said 'win stupid prizes'. The issue with this is when RNG smiles on the aggressor, and the moment they get pushed they lose all their weapons, as opposed to falling, rolling over, and emptying half an SMG clip into the poor bastard that bumped him.

 

When people believe themselves at advantage, they will strike. If you fail to maintain control of your weapon against an unarmed opponent who has the drop on you, it's on you for letting them get the drop when you have the weapon.

Yeah, alright, thats a good point, but the disarm function cant distinguish between 'ERT sent specifically to capture or kill a bad guy' and 'Wheelchair bound traumatised war veteran nurse who has never done anything physical since the war'. If even one chucklefuck sees he wont be BRAPped immediately, he will run for the disarm, whether it makes sense for the characters personality and strength or not.

Edited December 28, 2018 by Mogelix

[Alberyk]

I don't think this is needed, people have enough freedom to fight the antags if they have enough reason.

 

Voting for dismissal.

[Flamingo]

I’ve outlined my thoughts. There even exists leeway in the current rules as long as you aren’t ridiculous with it. 

 

Voting for dismissal.