Policy on Antag Recruitment

[Shenaanigans]

So when a round gets through its first 10 minutes or so of run time, the manifest naturally grows a bit more from the selection of people who were readied up and, to balance things a bit better, admins pick from users who have a given antag preference enabled to join the ranks of those who are tasked with spicing up our round. Reasonable? Outwardly, yes, but I've now run into the issue a few times where I decide to delay joining a round by a minute or two for the explicit purpose of not rolling antag, only to get it unexpectedly dropped on me some minutes later. I realize that ahelping with a "hey I don't want this" is a viable option that many use, and I could theoretically turn on and off antag types each round depending on what I would feasibly be okay with playing even if I late join just to dodge the biggest chance of rolling one.......... but I feel like there's an overall more effective approach here.

I'd like to propose a general policy where, in the event that an admin feels that special/antag roles are needed to keep a round interesting, they use the OOC announcements instead of wordlessly bestowing antag status on people. Just a quick "if you're interested in antagging for this round, ahelp". This would bring out the people who actually want to do so, but just didn't roll it this round, rather than casting the dice and possibly giving the roles to people who were either uninterested or uninspired and now have antagging responsibilities laid in their lap. The latter just seems like a recipe for bad rounds in my eyes, hurting the enjoyment of both the people who were chosen and the rest of the players. I am aware that this would effectively broadcast to everyone that this is Definitely Not Extended, but it's really not difficult to sleuth out a round type if you care to and it seems like a fair trade off to me for the sake of getting people who want to antag in those positions. A big part of me making this thread was to probe for other people's opinions on this as well, though, so if you disagree or have other propositions for how the current method could be approved feel free to toss them in.

[MattAtlas]

This seems like an odd thing to suggest because this is usually what happens. I'm not aware of any instances of what you're describing happen. Did you have that antag mode on in your pref? What admins usually do is click a button that gives the gamemode's antag types to the people that have them toggled.

[Carver]

Not to be rude, but per above this is predominantly avoided by disabling the preferences. Said preferences (excluding certain roles like Borer, Nuke Op, Wizard, Ninja and so on) encompass not just roundstart but mid-round antag-becoming.

This is somewhat more obvious when considering one of the most common and popular modes is named 'Autotraitor'.

[Doxxmedearly]

5 hours ago, MattAtlas said:

This seems like an odd thing to suggest because this is usually what happens. I'm not aware of any instances of what you're describing happen. Did you have that antag mode on in your pref? What admins usually do is click a button that gives the gamemode's antag types to the people that have them toggled.

Twice I've been made Head Rev by an admin mid-round without any announcement, and without any rev/loyalist prefs on.

 

"Turn your prefs off" is kind of a nuisance considering you'd have to go in and remember to flick them on and off when instead you can just go "Well I don't have any ideas for a ling/vamp/cult gimmick at this moment so I'll just latejoin to avoid that pick for this round." Seems like picking people who don't feel like antagging at the moment/don't have a gimmick in mind might lead to poor quality antags.

I don't think it's obvious at all that it applies to mid-round antagging (Apart from traitor obviously) since autotraitor is the only mode that actively drafts from people in-round after the round begins. Didn't have any idea about the button matt posted, either. This is new information to me and probably a few others and likely the OP.

I don't feel like it's a big deal to ask that staff try to remember to make an announcement for a special role and gather volunteers before clicking the button.

[Yonnimer]

It’s a lot easier for admins and players to just be randomly selected if they have their preferences on. Admins press a button, if a player doesn’t want it, they ahelp, admins removes it with a few more button presses.

if we have to do a announcement we have to take every ahelp, tell them the antag type, which risks meta gaming if they don’t want the role, then give them the role, or don’t if no more slots are open for it. Each of which requires a written response plus usually a question or two.

Different players make have different experiences, but this is generally how it goes when we do have a announcement for a “special role”

Edited January 31, 2020 by Yonnimer
changed a word from drafting.

[Doxxmedearly]

Those are fair points. If anything I'm glad this thread has clarified the process for us non-staff so we can understand how these choices are made by y'all. I had no idea that anything but traitor for autotraitor had bearing on being made antag after roundstart.

[Yonnimer]

Not fully related, but sorta.

There is a actually a very rare event that can spawn traitors/vamps/lings. Although it probably only happens once everyone week or so.

[Shenaanigans]

7 hours ago, Carver said:

Not to be rude, but per above this is predominantly avoided by disabling the preferences. Said preferences (excluding certain roles like Borer, Nuke Op, Wizard, Ninja and so on) encompass not just roundstart but mid-round antag-becoming.

This is somewhat more obvious when considering one of the most common and popular modes is named 'Autotraitor'.

I do realize that flicking all preferences off on any round I don't feel like antagging would fix the problem, but that's a lot of extra work to go in and out every round turning them on and off based on the chance that, despite late joining to specifically avoid it, I got picked as a supplementary antag. I know I'd forget to do it between rounds. Autotraitor is definitely the exception here because it's meant to draft people over time, so I have it off on all my characters as a result. I just wish that the solution of delaying joining by a minute or two actually ensured that I wouldn't get antag randomly because, sometimes, I really don't feel like it or particularly have any good ideas.

[Shenaanigans]

4 hours ago, Yonnimer said:

It’s a lot easier for admins and players to just be randomly selected if they have their preferences on. Admins press a button, if a player doesn’t want it, they ahelp, admins removes it with a few more button presses.

if we have to do a announcement we have to take every ahelp, tell them the antag type, which risks meta gaming if they don’t want the role, then give them the role, or don’t if no more slots are open for it. Each of which requires a written response plus usually a question or two.

Different players make have different experiences, but this is generally how it goes when we do have a announcement for a “special role”

I didn't know that it was as simple as a button press on the admin side of things, so that is extra information that I'm glad to have now! I also do follow the line of thinking that probing for antags would introduce potential metagaming, as I mentioned in my initial post, but it just seems to me like rounds will overall suffer more from unprepared people having antag dropped in their lap than it would from a few people now knowing that there are vamps/lings/cultists/etc. about. 

If it would introduce too much extra housekeeping on the admin's side of things to be reasonable, than I can only acquiesce. I'm (obviously) not an admin and have no idea what it's like to be managing all of this behind the scenes. It only seemed to me like a generally easier tactic than randomly dispersing the roles and then having to deal with people immediately wanting them removed.

[Alberyk]

The solution is simple:
 

If you are selected as antag after the round start, the game asks if you want it or not. If you say no, you are not considered anymore for this round.

[Alberyk]

Other solution:
 

Add a preference, that you can toggle at the joining round, if you want to be considered for antag at all during that round, so you can keep your individual preferences and just have a global toggle for being antag.

[Shenaanigans]

Oh damn. Either of those would be fantastic.

[Butterrobber202]

17 minutes ago, Alberyk said:

Other solution:
 

Add a preference, that you can toggle at the joining round, if you want to be considered for antag at all during that round, so you can keep your individual preferences and just have a global toggle for being antag.

i like this one alot