More Freeform Conflict -- Random Actors

[Chada1]

Currently, we have afew consistent factors of conflict.

1. Round-based: Especially through Antagonists, usually the focal point of the entire round, they cannot be depended on to drive roleplay independently, they require a mix of freeform character-driven conflict to work most of the time, as well as a mix of mechanical.
2. Freeform: This is character-driven conflict, generally created via characterization and reaction to events, especially through interaction with other characters or situations in their job.
3. Mechanical: Conflict arising through a Character simply doing their job or a character not doing their job. Carp break ins, Slime outbreaks, Power failures, random events causing malfunctions.

Of numbers 1-3, only 2 (#2, #3) have a presence in every round type, as we know, Extended exists -- And it removes that factor of conflict, and instead places an emphasis on character driven conflict (#2) to hold the round up, as well as a mix of mechanical. Some players were arguing on Discord, not too long ago, that Aurora really needs to be a compelling roleplay experience without Antagonists at all, so what I suggest is a mixed stimulus to factors #2-#3 that'd persist between every gamemode so long as players were present to join.

That was a long-winded way to build up to the explanation of Actors. Actors are characters, similar to the Merchant role, who are not part of the Aurora Crew, but find themselves placed into the round through varying means, especially through Random Event. They, like Antagonists, would exist to roleplay with the Crew, and deliver a compelling narrative, but with much more reduced expectation of Antaggery. The merchant itself almost falls into this, as do the CCIAA, if they were to visit for more than just interviews.

The implementation wouldn't be difficult from a code perspective, I don't think. An event would fire, alerting ghosts to click a 'Join as Actor' button, not unlike the current emergency responder one. This would then spawn them and up to 3 others in an area to play out a role as whatever they choose to be. Lost miners, activist trespassers who want to protest NanoTrasen, any number of possibilities would work. However, whatever they spawn as, they shouldn't be given the same blank check as Antagonists, and they should only have expired visitor IDs for access. The conditions of where they should spawn are up in the air, but I'd say it could vary, too, as well as their equipment.

I think this'd make Extended and the game in general a lot more compelling to have random factors like this present in rounds, I think the Merchant was a step in the right direction, but that we still need more freeform, character-driven, random factors to help drive a compelling, non-same'y narrative. I think this'd serve to replace the current never firing 'Random Antagonist' event in a way much more conducive to HRP.

As a Final -- the main, final hurdle is to figure out what roles we would place these actors in, or whether to assign roles at all or leave it purely up to gimmick, or to make vague assignments for them. What roles could you see them in?

Edited March 13, 2019 by Chada1
Expanded a little.

[VTCobaltblood]

Couldn't you just spawn as a visitor?

[Chada1]

On 13/03/2019 at 03:14, VTCobaltblood said:

Couldn't you just spawn as a visitor?

Visitors couldn't spin the same narrative, but some people do that currently, too.

Ideally, these 'Actors' would be given a role unique to them that isn't equivalent to Visitor. Having the same access as a visitor =/= Narratively equivalent to visitor, and even then the access is up in the air, too. I specifically said 'Ideas for roles that could be generated with this are cool', and honestly it could be anything -- Even a shuttle docking for whatever reason. Just a narrative that isn't intrinsically linked to Antagonists and is supported by but isn't intrinsically linked to Crew.

Currently Aurora is stuck in a hole where if the conflict/narrative doesn't come from Antags, it comes from the Crew. There is no middleground between that. An outside factor really could spice things up and fill that void, and that'd make extended and other low-Antag round types a lot more fun.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Chada1
Continued on

[VTCobaltblood]

12 hours ago, Chada1 said:

Visitors couldn't spin the same narrative

Why?

12 hours ago, Chada1 said:

Currently Aurora is stuck in a hole where if the conflict/narrative doesn't come from Antags, it comes from the Crew.

Why is this "a hole"?

 

[Skull132]

2 hours ago, VTCobaltblood said:

14 hours ago, Chada1 said:

Currently Aurora is stuck in a hole where if the conflict/narrative doesn't come from Antags, it comes from the Crew.

Why is this "a hole"?

Roughly because it's horribly limiting in terms of the external factors that you can apply. Even with looser restrictions on what you can roleplay, you'll still be an average Billy-Bob-Joe working at NT. Having people who are given more latitude to do shit, like say Vox refugees for a round, or something else, might be pretty neat for new roleplay arcs. Ones that are not necessarily security focused, either, since you could involve things like mysterious diseases, ayylmaos, or simply giving people food.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

41 minutes ago, Skull132 said:

Roughly because it's horribly limiting in terms of the external factors that you can apply. Even with looser restrictions on what you can roleplay, you'll still be an average Billy-Bob-Joe working at NT. Having people who are given more latitude to do shit, like say Vox refugees for a round, or something else, might be pretty neat for new roleplay arcs. Ones that are not necessarily security focused, either, since you could involve things like mysterious diseases, ayylmaos, or simply giving people food.

I dig it.

[VTCobaltblood]

1 hour ago, Skull132 said:

Roughly because it's horribly limiting in terms of the external factors that you can apply. Even with looser restrictions on what you can roleplay, you'll still be an average Billy-Bob-Joe working at NT. Having people who are given more latitude to do shit, like say Vox refugees for a round, or something else, might be pretty neat for new roleplay arcs. Ones that are not necessarily security focused, either, since you could involve things like mysterious diseases, ayylmaos, or simply giving people food.

I definitely don't think it's a "hole". There are still many, infinite, in fact, situations that I can roleplay without external factors coming into play. I'm not opposed to the idea, mind, the wording just struck me as weirdly horrible.

[LorenLuke]

If people vote for extended, why is there a need to throw in dollar-store antags into the fray? All these 'actors' appear to be are bargain basement antags without license to instigate conflict.

Make them an event if you want, but if you need to spice up things in the roleplay-only mode in your roleplaying game on a 'high' (quality and amount of) roleplay server, I dunno if it's being done correctly.

[Conspiir]

3 hours ago, LorenLuke said:

If people vote for extended, why is there a need to throw in dollar-store antags into the fray? All these 'actors' appear to be are bargain basement antags without license to instigate conflict.

Make them an event if you want, but if you need to spice up things in the roleplay-only mode in your roleplaying game on a 'high' (quality and amount of) roleplay server, I dunno if it's being done correctly.

This would in no way "take away" from roleplay. It's all still roleplay. It's spicing up roleplay in a roleplaying game on a high roleplay server... with more roleplay. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. There's a reason humans don't tell "the story of the day where nothing happened." Those slice of lifes don't a great folktale make. The best stories come from an external pressure (that would be antags or crew-on-crew conflict for us) on the heroes (that would be the station for us). This suggestion is saying "let's add a third possible external pressure" same as we see in the random events (such as a blob, which is the only random event that really does anything and isn't immediately stifled).

 

And for those of us that would rather not interact with the 'actors', we can do exactly as we've always done and ignore it in favor of doing our job or talking with coworkers or something. But changes in the way a day is planned to go isn't bad. It's natural. Getting caught up in something else can be great, and it sometimes bothers me that people are inflexible in that regard. But at the end of the day, it's a game, and you should be allowed to play it how you want, even if that means not playing it.

 

I think it would be neat to have small events like this pop up occasionally. Right now, they're usually spawned in by hand by admins. The problem would be, the random event would probably be considered fairly large, and those only fire later into the round, which reduces the amount of roleplay opportunity they can have. Joining as an actor 15 minutes before the transfer is called is no fun.

[Chada1]

7 hours ago, VTCobaltblood said:

I definitely don't think it's a "hole". There are still many, infinite, in fact, situations that I can roleplay without external factors coming into play. I'm not opposed to the idea, mind, the wording just struck me as weirdly horrible.

A hole is a situation in which there is one or two extremes and no middleground. You stand on the surface or you fall into the hole, and it's also hard to climb out of. It's a dichotomy. Antagonist-based conflict vs Crew-based conflict is the dichotomy that I'm referencing as a hole, and yes it is a hole.

Antagonist-based conflict is conflict that originates by an Antagonists actions or roleplay, Crew-based conflict is conflict that originates by the Crews actions or roleplay. There is no middleground between these, either the Antag creates conflict or the Crew does. And that is narratively limiting. What I'd hope this suggestion solves is making it so that events are not the only time the Crew can interact with those outside of NanoTrasen and solving that narrative limitation.

Being able to roleplay without external factors isn't the point and never was, but your roleplay won't be as capable of being the focal narrative of the round like Antagonists are, these won't be able to, either, but they'd be able to take the edge off of the same'y atmosphere of rounds without Antag involvement and contribute to an overall compelling narrative. (Also giving command and other Depts something to do, while at it). Skull pretty much hit the nail on the head with this.

6 hours ago, LorenLuke said:

If people vote for extended, why is there a need to throw in dollar-store antags into the fray? All these 'actors' appear to be are bargain basement antags without license to instigate conflict.

Make them an event if you want, but if you need to spice up things in the roleplay-only mode in your roleplaying game on a 'high' (quality and amount of) roleplay server, I dunno if it's being done correctly.

When people vote for extended a lot of them seem to want a calm atmosphere, where they can do whatever they want (Within their job and the rules) without worrying about Antagonists. This wouldn't complicate that at all, and that'd be because of the decision not to give them the license to kill that you seem opposed to.

And yes, the bottom line is what the problem is, we Do need to spice things up in a roleplay-only mode. Especially if we want the game to stand alone without Antagonists and hold up as a compelling narrative experience. Conspiir hit the nail on the head with this.

 

Edited March 15, 2019 by Chada1
Continued on

[Hendricks]

I too, am down for this. What have we got to lose but awful extended. Maybe make it a separate extended if people are so obsessed with their high drama rounds. Regular Extended - Actor Assisted Extended.

[VTCobaltblood]

1 hour ago, Chada1 said:

but your roleplay won't be as capable of being the focal narrative of the round like Antagonists are

I'm pretty capable of making my round fun, and I don't care about being the focal narrative of the round, thank you. 

[Chada1]

4 minutes ago, VTCobaltblood said:

I'm pretty capable of making my round fun, and I don't care about being the focal narrative of the round, thank you. 

Then refer to this by Conspiir:

3 hours ago, Conspiir said:

And for those of us that would rather not interact with the 'actors', we can do exactly as we've always done and ignore it in favor of doing our job or talking with coworkers or something.

 

[VTCobaltblood]

15 hours ago, Chada1 said:

Then refer to this by Conspiir:

Again, I'm not opposed to the idea of actors, but the wording of why this needs to be done just gets worse and worse every second. Although the addition of actors would be fun for sure, current rounds are also fun and capable of making conflict and stories to tell, including Extended. I don't feel that Extended is at all stale or boring, and in fact almost always prefer it over any other gamemodes. That's all.

Edited March 16, 2019 by VTCobaltblood

[Chada1]

7 hours ago, VTCobaltblood said:

I don't feel that Extended is at all stale or boring, and in fact almost always prefer it over any other gamemodes. That's all.

Well, should I explain how the majority of departments. (Security, Medical, Engineering) depend on conflict in one form or another to have a mechanical purpose? (And thus benefit even more from Antagonists than most other departments) Because, that's a thing. Extended by and large doesn't give them that conflict as it stands. 

Aurora FMPOV doesn't give these departments enough to really keep occupied outside of that ... that's part of the reason I believe Aurora can't stand alone without Antagonists at this current time, and what I'm hoping this solves, by making another vector of eventfulness/conflict (Conflict, again, just meaning narrative)

Regardless, this shouldn't negatively impact your enjoyment of Extended, I'm just trying to put into words why many people explained to me that they don't like it as much, as well as my views.

Edited March 16, 2019 by Chada1
Small wording correction.