Staff Complaint - SonicGotNuked

[PTiberiusM]

BYOND Key: PTiberiusM

Staff BYOND Key: SonicGotNuked

Game ID: b4s-dnnY

Reason for complaint: Removal of Warning/Remedial Education for Sonic

Evidence/logs/etc:

Quoting Sonic's warning: "Wordlessly sabatoged telecomms as ninja. Telecomms being a teleport location isn't an excuse." There is almost a reason for why this warning is wrongly applied for every word in it.

To give some background:During this round, I was a ninja. Myself and the other ninja decided to go for a "Kidnap the Captain, hold him for ransom, maybe or maybe not actually hand him over". We plan around mostly non-lethals, wanting this to be as sneaky as possible and not lead to outright conflict. Our plan is this: SOMEHOW disable the station's ability to discern that we had grabbed the Captain. Other ninja pitched taking down the power, and I obviously say that is a bad idea (IC: Can't recharge our suits; OOC: Powergaming). Teleporting to the Bridge and grabbing the Captain in 10 minutes... IC and OOC not a fun option since "Ninja Grabs SpareID, Opens All Lootboxes" is done to death and, IC, "too easy". So we settle on taking out the Telecommunications, because it will work, isn't done to death, and hey would you look at that, its one of the default teleportation locations.

After messing with the SMES to Telecomms, allowing Engineers to find out there is a problem, causing power drains to recharge our suits, hacking every door on the way into Telecomms, almost getting caught by Engineers twice, figuring out we can't just work the computers, turn off the thermal controls, and FINALLY at just over 45 minutes into the round, we manged to take apart the receivers and transmitters, and pull the wires from three pieces of hardware, disabling Telecomms. The other ninja takes the three circuit cards, goes to toss them to space, we leave the rest of the system either in place or on the floor of the Telecomms room. The three cards, all of them had replacements in the Maintenance around the corner, didn't even touch those.

It's at this point the chain of messages from Sonic starts with asking me why I disabled Telecomms, telling him our plan and culminating in him saying, "There are other methods you can use to kidnap people without them screaming for help. Wordlessly sabatoging telecomms shouldn't be one of those methods. I'm going to be placing a warning on you for this."

1. As linked in our server rules on Roleplaying High RP means "Your character is expected to act consistently with regard to past behavior, to do their job with skill, and to not interfere with the jobs of other crew members without a good reason." and in a section just above that on playing an Antag: "Your objectives are your top priority but well-done Roleplay can improve the experience not just for yourself but for your target as well." Again, that is directly linked in the Server Rules page.
2. The word "wordlessly" is not found anywhere in any Rule or Guide, besides the one on ganking. Absolutely no ganking occurred here. The only mention of escalation in the Server Rules is: Only escalate conflict in a realistic manner - some characters might overreact... Again, your character must be motivated enough to commit to more drastic action, as they undertake it. Two ninjas try one way to disable comms, Engineers fix it, almost catch them, so they escalate to taking the receivers and broadcasters apart.
3. The very first line under playing an Antagonist role in the Server Rules is: Firstly, refer to Antagonist Guidelines before attempting to play antagonist roles. To that end...
4. The wiki on playing Ninja recommends in its very first tip to avoid combat.
5. The primary goal of an antagonist is to help create a story. We were creating a Ninja story. Not a Raider story, not a Mercenary Story, not a Traitor story, a Ninja story. You know, stealth, shadowy tactics, means to be hidden, sneak-in-and-sneak-out-oh-shit-we-got-got. Not randomly killing. Not ganking. Not powergaming. All three of those no-nos are explicitly prohibited in the Server Rules.
6. The Server rules clearly outline that "station's primary power source and atmospherics systems" are not to be touched without Uber-high-approval from on the mountains of on high-highness. So we didn't touch them. In fact, we used power sapping and turning off power output to generate some early warnings for Engineering. Who did respond. And turned it back on. If they hadn't turned it back on, power to Telecomms would have ran out over a longer period of time. And we wouldn't have had to go and...
7. Followed literally the first example on the Telecommunications guide for cutting Comms. Didn't blow it up, didn't turn it to ash, took apart 4 machines. 45 minutes into the round. After prodding Engineering that something was wrong. And left all but three parts lying on the floor of the room. When I was able to come back later, I saw that an engineer reversed our damage in less than 20 minutes.

To sum it up: Messing with Telecomms was is not prohibited in Server Rules or Antagonist Guides, Antagonist guides (for Ninja) encourage combat-less play, Server rules against powergaming and ganking were not broken as we did not break comms immediately on round start or destroy them in unrecoverable ways, follow-ed literally the Wiki suggested guide.

Additional remarks:

I think Sonic thinks the job of Moderator is To Make Sure A Story I Like Is Told, and it ain't. Because there is absolutely no Server Rule, Guide, or general advice that was not followed in making and executing that Ninja roleplay. Warnings are supposed to reference a rule being broken. "Wordlessly sabotaged telecomms as a ninja" is not a rule, and I would argue the Server Rules, Guides, and all the linked materials actually argue for the opposite. "Telecomms being a teleport location isn't an excuse." - I think Sonic doesn't understand that doing something that negatively impacts the station isn't bad roleplay. Why, oh why, would the lobby outside Telecomms be an option for the Ninja if they aren't allowed to touch it? That would be like saying stealing the Captain's Spare isn't acceptable, even though there is a teleport directly to the Bridge about 3 Ninja-suit teleports away from it. If the warning on this stands, remove the Telecomms location from the Ninja teleport. The SM and Atmos aren't on the list. If you want them untouchable, by Rule, then put it in the rules and take the option away from the Ninja.

I do think that Sonic has engaged in OOC Chucklefucking: "...Our server is about establishing a certain atmosphere, and setting out to ruin that atmosphere, or the experience of other players in that atmosphere, is punishable." I feel I don't need to link the dictionary definition of "Ninja". Sonic seems to think there is a "right" and a "wrong" way to play a character. And if he doesn't like it, it's "wrong." If Sonic can't see that almost 45 minutes of prepping and executing cat and mouse sneaky with Engineering to get the comms offline is within the rules, I think he needs to re-learn the difference between the rules and his personal preferences.

[Garnascus]

I will look into this soon

[sonicgotnuked]

 

Right, we'll post this picture for reference. It was somewhat repaired at this point in the picture with some wires added back to the machines.

You also took the a couple of vital boards. Keep in mind, telecomms is a rather vital thing for the general flow of the round. I don't see how you're driving a story by teleporting into telecomms and sabotaging multiple machines with practically little interaction. Now since my points are reinforced, I'll go through yours point by point for why I made my decision then allow another staff member to look over it.

1 hour ago, PTiberiusM said:

As linked in our server rules on Roleplaying High RP means "Your character is expected to act consistently with regard to past behavior, to do their job with skill, and to not interfere with the jobs of other crew members without a good reason." and in a section just above that on playing an Antag: "Your objectives are your top priority but well-done Roleplay can improve the experience not just for yourself but for your target as well." Again, that is directly linked in the Server Rules page.

I really don't see how cutting telecomms like this really adds anything to the round.

2 hours ago, PTiberiusM said:

• The word "wordlessly" is not found anywhere in any Rule or Guide, besides the one on ganking. Absolutely no ganking occurred here. The only mention of escalation in the Server Rules is: Only escalate conflict in a realistic manner - some characters might overreact... Again, your character must be motivated enough to commit to more drastic action, as they undertake it. Two ninjas try one way to disable comms, Engineers fix it, almost catch them, so they escalate to taking the receivers and broadcasters apart.

I'm not talking about a ganking standpoint. It really just seems like to me that once the engineers came up, stealth, they turn it back on. Then just removed the boards and destroyed the machines. This wasn't something minor that any brain dead engineer could do.

2 hours ago, PTiberiusM said:

• The very first line under playing an Antagonist role in the Server Rules is: Firstly, refer to Antagonist Guidelines before attempting to play antagonist roles. To that end...
• The wiki on playing Ninja recommends in its very first tip to avoid combat.

I fail to see this as an excuse. You could accomplish even the same thing by bringing a multi tool up to the sec bus and just turning it off instead of ripping apart the vital machines and spacing the boards.

2 hours ago, PTiberiusM said:

The primary goal of an antagonist is to help create a story. We were creating a Ninja story. Not a Raider story, not a Mercenary Story, not a Traitor story, a Ninja story. You know, stealth, shadowy tactics, means to be hidden, sneak-in-and-sneak-out-oh-shit-we-got-got. Not randomly killing. Not ganking. Not powergaming. All three of those no-nos are explicitly prohibited in the Server Rules.

This drives into why I exactly warned you. You're story failed to attempt at encompass anyone except for a couple engineers who went up to check why comms suddenly died. It actually reduces and soils the round for the rest of everyone else when comms wordlessly shuts off due to multiple machines being ripped apart.

2 hours ago, PTiberiusM said:

The Server rules clearly outline that "station's primary power source and atmospherics systems" are not to be touched without Uber-high-approval from on the mountains of on high-highness. So we didn't touch them. In fact, we used power sapping and turning off power output to generate some early warnings for Engineering. Who did respond. And turned it back on. If they hadn't turned it back on, power to Telecomms would have ran out over a longer period of time. And we wouldn't have had to go and...

It's because these things retract from the experience. It's not fun for phoron to suddenly flood everywhere. It's not fun for the engine to turn engineering into a hole and power to die. It's not fun fun for telecomms to just be ripped apart when no one, except for maybe a couple engineers after the fact, knew there was even ninjas onboard. I will quote one of our rules.

"Note that these rules cannot cover the myriad of situations that will arise during gameplay. As such, the word of Moderators and Administrators ingame is final, and not up for debate past a certain point. If you take issue with an ingame ruling, you are expected to submit a staff complaint about it, or to contact a Head Administrator about it after the round has concluded"

2 hours ago, PTiberiusM said:

Followed literally the first example on the Telecommunications guide for cutting Comms. Didn't blow it up, didn't turn it to ash, took apart 4 machines. 45 minutes into the round. After prodding Engineering that something was wrong. And left all but three parts lying on the floor of the room. When I was able to come back later, I saw that an engineer reversed our damage in less than 20 minutes.

From what I personally witnessed, I think it was restored perhaps 10 minutes before CT. I'm sure there will be logs when comm chatter actually started that can double check this. I could be wrong. It doesn't matter much though. I can go into maint and cut a long hall of wires that would be fixed in twenty minutes, but that is still not something that should be done without prior escalation with the crew that is more then just drain APC, cloak away, then watch engineers fix it.

2 hours ago, PTiberiusM said:

Followed literally the first example on the Telecommunications guide for cutting Comms. Didn't blow it up, didn't turn it to ash, took apart 4 machines. 45 minutes into the round. After prodding Engineering that something was wrong. And left all but three parts lying on the floor of the room. When I was able to come back later, I saw that an engineer reversed our damage in less than 20 minutes.

The wiki isn't an excuse in my opinion

 

2 hours ago, PTiberiusM said:

I think Sonic thinks the job of Moderator is To Make Sure A Story I Like Is Told, and it ain't. Because there is absolutely no Server Rule, Guide, or general advice that was not followed in making and executing that Ninja roleplay. Warnings are supposed to reference a rule being broken. "Wordlessly sabotaged telecomms as a ninja" is not a rule, and I would argue the Server Rules, Guides, and all the linked materials actually argue for the opposite. "Telecomms being a teleport location isn't an excuse." - I think Sonic doesn't understand that doing something that negatively impacts the station isn't bad roleplay. Why, oh why, would the lobby outside Telecomms be an option for the Ninja if they aren't allowed to touch it? That would be like saying stealing the Captain's Spare isn't acceptable, even though there is a teleport directly to the Bridge about 3 Ninja-suit teleports away from it. If the warning on this stands, remove the Telecomms location from the Ninja teleport. The SM and Atmos aren't on the list. If you want them untouchable, by Rule, then put it in the rules and take the option away from the Ninja.

I do think that Sonic has engaged in OOC Chucklefucking: "...Our server is about establishing a certain atmosphere, and setting out to ruin that atmosphere, or the experience of other players in that atmosphere, is punishable." I feel I don't need to link the dictionary definition of "Ninja". Sonic seems to think there is a "right" and a "wrong" way to play a character. And if he doesn't like it, it's "wrong." If Sonic can't see that almost 45 minutes of prepping and executing cat and mouse sneaky with Engineering to get the comms offline is within the rules, I think he needs to re-learn the difference between the rules and his personal preferences.

 

The teleport isn't really a good excuse. It's more there because traditionally, there has always been a beacon at telecomms since the Exodus had a separate satellite you have to teleport too. It's more there for people to try vanishing behind a wall of turrets when being chased or into maintenance by teleporter use. Hell, even as a sneaky way for ninjas to board the station. This is why I don't agree on your reasoning.

 

It's all a matter of perspective and how the rules are interpreted. May I be in the wrong? I very much could be so. It happens. We all make mistakes sometimes. But that's why we're here because it gives us both a reflection after-the-fact on things. That's why we have staff complaints as an option for players.

[Garnascus]

On 30/11/2019 at 04:27, sonicgotnuked said:

It's because these things retract from the experience. It's not fun for phoron to suddenly flood everywhere. It's not fun for the engine to turn engineering into a hole and power to die. It's not fun fun for telecomms to just be ripped apart when no one

The rules explicitly state not to do the first two. They do not state anything about messing with telecomms. I think its reasonable to consider it a separate category and not comparable to the first two. The engine exploding and the air being filled with phoron are both catastrophic and game breaking while not having the use of your is a significant annoyance. I think that as long as it suits your goal then messing with telecomms is acceptable. 

[sonicgotnuked]

On 01/12/2019 at 21:52, Garnascus said:

The rules explicitly state not to do the first two. They do not state anything about messing with telecomms. I think its reasonable to consider it a separate category and not comparable to the first two. The engine exploding and the air being filled with phoron are both catastrophic and game breaking while not having the use of your is a significant annoyance. I think that as long as it suits your goal then messing with telecomms is acceptable. 

Sorry, I've been busy these last couple of days and I haven't looked into the server much.

 

Anyway, I am willing to agree with garn on this. We had a separate discussion about the acceptability and what is considered power gaming and acceptable to sabotage telecomms and some other general antag stuff. Got some clarification with more of the Why side of things. Does the player have a good reason?

 

Anyway, I'm willing to allow garn (or myself) to remove the warning from your history so it will not appear if other staff members are making a decision in the future. 

[Garnascus]

That being said i shall expunge the warning from your record. It shall be replaced with a note linking to this complaint. Said note is not a mark against you in any way, shape or form. It is merely documentation.