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[1 dismissal] Hold Security/Command To Antag Standards


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What do I mean by this?
Add " The primary goal of antagonists is to DRIVE A STORY AND TO GENERATE INTERACTION." to the standards Security/Command is held to. Far too often, neither camp is very interested in driving the plot of the round, but ending it. I believe it's only fair that the burden of an enjoyable round is shouldered by all three parties.

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I'm not a terrible fan of the people who pick apart announcements from the very get-go or get ass-blasted at seeing their first cult rune, but to try and enforce Security or Command to potentially break immersion just to further a 'story' that's quite likely to be shit won't really improve any quality standards.

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40 minutes ago, ParadoxSpace said:

What do I mean by this?
Add " The primary goal of antagonists is to DRIVE A STORY AND TO GENERATE INTERACTION." to the standards Security/Command is held to. Far too often, neither camp is very interested in driving the plot of the round, but ending it. I believe it's only fair that the burden of an enjoyable round is shouldered by all three parties.

Yes, the primary goal of antagonists is to drive a story and generate interaction.
But as it stands this isn´t strictly enforced either.

It is not really possible to enforce "driving a story and generating interaction", because the whole thing is very subjective and it almost every action generates some kind of interaction.
Even throwing a ling / vamp into xenobio generates interaction (between the antag, the scientist assigned to study it and possibly security assigned to guard it).

Of course command and security should be encouraged to give the antags some wiggle room early in the round and go along with their gimmicks.
But this is a two way road.
There is a minimum standard those gimmicks and antag stories need to meet.

Let´s take a inspection by a governmental body for example.
Ofc there is the possibility that such a thing happens and command should go along with it.
Unless there are some obvious clues that something is wrong.
If those "inspectors" would board the station with combat rigs and weapons, then there is something off and command should not be expected to let them board.

There is a minimum burden of believability the antags need to meet aswell.
However, quite a few times they fail to do so.

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Security has direct obligation to be held to the same standard as antags as they're just another department like science or medical, unlike command that should be held to the same standard, as it is kind of a whitelist requirement for the role.

But that doesnt mean you shouldnt atleast try to make a better round for everyone as security. You have great power to shut down antags, and you shouldnt dispence justice just because you want to win. The antags are players too.

But then again, if you pick the murder and mayhem route, you're gonna get shot up by security.

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I feel like the trick here will be in enforcement. In the past, the problem has been that antags can only get away with so much before they begin to toe the line of the chip in the head of the HoS/Captain telling said person to shut it down. How will this be enforced with general consistency among the staff team?

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Quote

I'm not a terrible fan of the people who pick apart announcements from the very get-go or get ass-blasted at seeing their first cult rune

Quote

Of course command and security should be encouraged to give the antags some wiggle room early in the round and go along with their gimmicks.
But this is a two way road.
There is a minimum standard those gimmicks and antag stories need to meet.

Let´s take a inspection by a governmental body for example.
Ofc there is the possibility that such a thing happens and command should go along with it.
Unless there are some obvious clues that something is wrong.
If those "inspectors" would board the station with combat rigs and weapons, then there is something off and command should not be expected to let them board.

There is a minimum burden of believability the antags need to meet aswell.
However, quite a few times they fail to do so.

I think these two quotes are a great summary of some common problems. 

Half the time an announcement is made, there's a storm over common or departmental radios of people picking apart every tiny little detail, to try to unravel the legitimacy of said announcement without ever giving it a chance to progress. Leeway has to be given on both sides. Should you be expected to act like a total idiot to give every possible chance to antags who don't even try to be believable (as arrow said)? No, of course not. On the other side, should you expect the antag's announcement and story to be 100% watertight, with no flaws? Also no. That's just not going to happen. Leeway is the name of the game here. Command, maybe allow them to walk around while you fax central instead of keeping them cooped up (Or maybe don't fax central. Heresy). Antags, maybe don't load up on totally obvious weapons and gear if you're going to pose as an inspector or liaison. There needs to be concessions from both sides, as well as minimum standards of reasonable and realistic action. It's a balance. 

(At the same time, I understand why antags WANT to load up on all that stuff. 1) It's cool and 2) There's always that worry that security is going to shut you down and arm up, or ERT is going to come and erase you. But trust has to start somewhere.)

But as people have stated, this doesn't seem like a cut and dry thing to be able to enforce. I think this is a discussion the community needs to have, but as an official policy with actual enforcement? I don't think there's much we can change here. Arrow's point about interaction generation is a good one. I don't feel that there's a good way to implement this policy without it feeling kinda forced.

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

Picking apart announcements in bad faith is, to me, metagaming.

 

Good general rule for command though.

Edited by Marlon Phoenix
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Well, on a personal level, planning for when "things go wrong" and then allowing a certain gimmick is the best way to go.

I've heard a lot about the "shutting down" of antags and I can see it often by Security- can we just also shove that "hey, that's not cool, ok?" in the rules somewhere?

There's a line Security won't cross- Inspectors boarding with weapons, unauthorised personnel access to the Vault and/or Captain's Office, etc etc. But can we just try to be a little nicer?

Plan for when things go wrong, don't assume things have already gone wrong upon first contact.

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I have very little forgiveness for antagonist 'gimmicks' that involve fake announcements about stupid or nonsensical things, like deathmatches or xeno executions, and I'm not doing to start pretending they become plausible to protect the feelings of people who can't think of something that sounds vaguely plausible.

As for the other stuff, like not immediately arresting anyone doing something vaguely antagonistic, I can get behind that.  I still remember when Gonzales was doing a hilariously bad ling pretending to be human and got arrested for buying protohumans to succ, then got locked in xenobio for the rest of the round to be ignored.  His charge was 'suspicious conduct' of all things.

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They do follow those standards, Paradox. But antagonists are not beholden to the same guidelines of having to follow regulations in-character, so why should people follow horrifically bad, forced gimmicks?
 

48 minutes ago, Kaed said:

I have very little forgiveness for antagonist 'gimmicks' that involve fake announcements about stupid or nonsensical things, like deathmatches or xeno executions, and I'm not doing to start pretending they become plausible to protect the feelings of people who can't think of something that sounds vaguely plausible.

Perfect example of what I'm talking about. I will not sacrifice my own immersion just to play along with an objectively low effort gimmick.

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People going on bad faith over things like annoucements is also ahelp worth, and everyone is already held to the standards of the rules. Voting for dismissal, as I do not see how rules or etc could be changed to better reflect this.

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