Staff Complaint - Tbear13

[stev]

BYOND Key: Memescope McGee

Staff BYOND Key: Tbear13

Game ID: bX2-cbM0

Reason for complaint: Contesting player warning 

Evidence/logs/etc:

Game log: https://pastebin.com/USTMNCxN

Lichfield medical records: https://pastebin.com/4SQB1LB1

Player warning: https://imgur.com/7NxXksr

Additional remarks: 

The situation this warning was applied in was about as muddy as humanly possible, morally speaking, and I feel that it is inappropriate that this be a warning rather than a note as the action taken was, if a little grisly, ultimately the best call taken from an outlook of minimising casualties; as the character's background is that of a long-time medic from the lawless human frontiers, they would naturally be desensitised to situations like this and fall back onto a logical process of trying to get as many people out of it unharmed. In fact, I honestly don't agree with the idea that "Mutilating a corpse isn't something a sane person would be absolutely fine with" in an incredibly complex moral context like this, as in the context that would be the most moral choice in terms of minimising harm to the living, as going against the woman with a gun who's already killed the corpse in question is equally morally dubious, even from a self-preservation perspective. The character wasn't even in a position to act as an authority here - they were just the medic at a shooter situation that didn't want anyone else to get shot. She was only presenting the option of cooperating, which the ranking Security member approved.

As for the complaint of an unrealistic/"non-sane" character, a measure of desensitisation is pretty realistic for long-lasting medics who, it's reasonable to assume, have seen pretty much the worst of whatever area they work. Though to be fair, yes, describing them as a 'borderline psychopath' or sociopath was using too loaded a term - in future I'll use the less Hollywood term of 'borderline anti-social personality disorder' to avoid the overly dramatic and edgy associations. That's on me.

EDIT: tl;dr, this whole situation was a bit of a mess from an organisational standpoint, Sec was undermanned, largely afk and may not have handled things perfectly, but at the end of the day I believe this was mainly objectionable from an IC standpoint rather than an OOC one and don't believe I should be punished OOCly for that. Yes, the character's actions were highly morally questionably, but they did have moral reasons behind them, if a little twisted and cynical. 

Edited December 27, 2018 by stev
Realised I hadn't actually simply stated my most important argument.

[Garnascus]

Ill take a look at this tonight at work. 

[Scheveningen]

I had observed for the majority of this round and most of what just happened... happened, really. I hate to say that I gave this person advice on how to best make this complaint, but I was in VC at the time when the OP made mention of it and how they had mixed feelings about it.

It's within my opinion that characters are allowed to be moral relativists in dodgy kinds of situations. Especially if it's in yet another awkward confrontation with an antagonist while there is no organized security force to speak of and everyone is out for themselves. Especially when the very person who has antagonized has a sniper rifle and the possibility to get antsy if their demands aren't directly met.

I didn't think it was fair either, based on what the OP recounted about the round, that the OP was essentially handed a punishment out for their actions in which they couldn't have reasonably made any other decision that would've been in their best interest, given the unpredictable nature of an antagonist that gets told they can't get what they want.

That's all I essentially have to say, though.

Edited December 28, 2018 by Scheveningen

[stev]

For ease of reference, this is the same incident as the one in this complaint.

[Garnascus]

Decent points raised here but before i give a verdict i would like @tbear13 to post their rationale. 

[tbear13]

Alright, the reason I applied the warning wasn't really because you got the saw, which allowed the traitor to cut open the corpse. That was the logical move, and I won't deny that. The warning was applied because your character seemed completely okay with the corpse being sawed apart, with absolutely no remorse or disgust. A normal, sane person would probably feel disgusted or guilty for playing a part in the defiling of the corpse, even if they absolutely had to.

[stev]

33 minutes ago, tbear13 said:

Alright, the reason I applied the warning wasn't really because you got the saw, which allowed the traitor to cut open the corpse. That was the logical move, and I won't deny that. The warning was applied because your character seemed completely okay with the corpse being sawed apart, with absolutely no remorse or disgust. A normal, sane person would probably feel disgusted or guilty for playing a part in the defiling of the corpse, even if they absolutely had to.

Yes, they felt guilty to some extent. The round ended before I could express that remorse. As the character has a background in the Frontier underworld they wouldn't be willing to show weakness in front of others - I was intending on going off to a toilet when things had calmed down and throwing up violently. Her remark to Sophia about contacting guys in whatever jail she goes to was part of her trying to justify her own actions by trying to rationalise what she did as less disgusting. Sorry if I didn't make that clear in our PMs, I ended up getting overly defensive in the moment.

EDIT: Though on second read of your message it does seem there's a focus on the character being "normal" rather than "sane", only one of which, I believe, is listed under the character roleplay rules. Sure, they're less likely to react to gore than the average "normal" person, but that desensitisation comes as a pretty realistic consequence of being a long-serving field medic, especially when it comes to compartmentalising to get the job done in the moment.

Edited December 28, 2018 by stev
Noticed something when rereading my message + the one I was replying to

[Garnascus]

I think the reasoning on the part of the OP here is very solid all around. When i initially read your medical records and glanced over the "psychopathy" and "PTSD" portion i could not help but hesitate a little. Though if situations like this are how you intend to explore this topic i really do not see any cause for alarm. I suppose one could argue "why would we hire a dude with PTSD" but those are people are butts and i like fun. I think you role played the situation tastefully enough with respect to the rules and your character. 

I apologize @tbear13 this is not a personal attack against you or your judgement skills but i do feel that the point here is this person's character isn't "normal" . He is a little bit different given his backstory and i think it was used for decent role play. Thus i reckon this warning should be removed.

[tbear13]

@Garnascus After thinking about this some more, and seeing what Stev said, I'd say that's a fair ruling.

[Garnascus]

Excellent. The warning is hereby expunged from your record @stev . All that remains is a note detailing that a warning was expunged because of this complaint. Said note is not in any way against you, your character or your behavior.