Player Mobs Acting Like Crew

[EvilBrage]

So something's really been getting under my skin lately - crew that've been transformed into slimes, aliens, robots, etc. acting exactly like their original persona. Not only does this happen, but the rest of the crew actually believes the big purple alien when it says it's actually the scientist. If you ask me, this is something that shouldn't be happening, so can some admin or mod chime in here on this topic?

It's getting to the point where the Staff of Change only gives the crew a new method to kill you.

[Guest]

so can some admin or mod chime in here on this topic?

 

Uh, I'm neither, but I'm going to provide some input anyway.

If you get turned into a slime, it's assumed you have a slime mind now, so you're not going to remember what lifeform you were before. Or, maybe you will, but it's going to be various snippet tidbits of memory. You're going to have mostly instincts of a slime, so perhaps a player should be roleplaying that. Blorble.

As for sentients or semi-sentients? Well, I guess it's still assumed you remember who you were, but you probably shouldn't be talking as a monkey. Or speaking Basic as a Vox Armalis.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Last night a xenobiologist turned himself into a slime (I don't know if it was on accident or anything) and was sitting in the escape lobby chatting about how sad he was for being a slime, and basically nothing changed except his sprite.

It looked like he was about to attack someone, so I said "If that slime harms anyone it's getting put down."

And everyone flipped their shit defending the slime saying "It's crew! That's a crew member!"

I-I just don't understand.

[LordFowl]

I got arrested for trying to contain a player slime, and then abandoned in brig.

For as much as I love xenobiology, some aspects of it irk me. Golems and certain aspects of slime morphing in particular. (Maybe when you morph into a slime, it should give you instinctual 'laws', like for when you spawn as a mouse or a maintainence drone, as a guideline to your RP)

[canon35]

If you randomly became a fucking slime or alien queen, then you would act like an alien queen.

[ZipZero]

If getting transformed means that all traces of your memories and personality disappear, then the staff of change is nothing more than a tool for gank.

Which it shouldn't be. I'm not saying that you shouldn't act any different after being transformed, of course. If you get transformed into a slime, for instance, you would likely be overwhelmed by hunger, and the desire to grow and split, all the while telepathically screaming for help. Being transformed against your will would likely be a very traumatic experience - we should see that RPed, not players acting the same as before the transformation, and certainly not taking them out of the round completely.

[Gollee]

When Inis was transformed into an Alien Queen by Jaylee Zaun the Wizard, she kept her original personality for a short while, fleeing from people who might see her; as she thought (Correctly) that she was a monster; however, as time progressed, her original personality became less and less dominant as her new form took full hold, leading her to attack Virology, and Xenobiology; only barely delaying long enough from an attack for the virologist to escape. Then she laid a bunch of eggs in Xenobio, left for somewhere... I've forgotten where, and while she was gone, Zaun got facehuggered in Xenobio, and popped on the escape shuttle during transit.

[LordFowl]

If getting transformed means that all traces of your memories and personality disappear, then the staff of change is nothing more than a tool for gank.

Which it shouldn't be. I'm not saying that you shouldn't act any different after being transformed, of course. If you get transformed into a slime, for instance, you would likely be overwhelmed by hunger, and the desire to grow and split, all the while telepathically screaming for help. Being transformed against your will would likely be a very traumatic experience - we should see that RPed, not players acting the same as before the transformation, and certainly not taking them out of the round completely.

 

Hardly gank. Just because you're roleplaying differently now doesn't make it a bad thing. That's like saying a hacking a cyborg is gank. Getting turned into a monster does not remove you from the round. As Gollee stated, there are numerous ways to roleplay a monster.

[ZipZero]

If getting transformed means that all traces of your memories and personality disappear, then the staff of change is nothing more than a tool for gank.

Hardly gank. Just because you're roleplaying differently now doesn't make it a bad thing. That's like saying a hacking a cyborg is gank. Getting turned into a monster does not remove you from the round. As Gollee stated, there are numerous ways to roleplay a monster.

If you are transformed into a slime, and then immediately killed for being a slime outside of containment? Then yes, that is gank. And that is what it seems some people are proposing should happen, which is why I am bringing it up.

[LordFowl]

Killing a slime outside of containment shouldn't be done normally. They ARE research items, after all. They should be put back into containment. But in reality, if you get turned into a normally hostile creature, you should at least roleplay as a semi-antagonist now. If you get turned into a slime, you should exploit that, and try to avoid crew so that they don't get a chance to fire extinguisher you to death. (It's actually a lot harder to kill a player slime than an NPC slime. They're pretty robust, and can slide through vents). Ultimately, you shouldn't be acting remotely similar to your former self, regardless of what path you take.

[EvilBrage]

And despite the overwhelming consensus we see here, in-game results tend to swing the opposite way, so perhaps it's time to give everyone a little RP blurb when they're transformed to help them along with the transformation, namely by informing them that they should not be acting like crewmen for very long. I can buy that their memories would fade slowly, or they would think themselves a monster and run away for a while, but my "start an alien invasion" plot has been ruined many a time by individuals who, instead of taking advantage of the fact that they were an alien, decided instead to charge headlong at me and attempt to murder me.