What Playing Various Command Roles Is Like And What It Says About You, By A Guy Who Rarely Plays Command

[SampleTex]

I shouldn't have to, but I'm going to say it anyway, this is me poking fun at stereotypes (at least the ones I believe these jobs to have) as and with the view of a player (and not a staff member). Stereotypes are a thing for a reason, even if you don't fit them. This is a stupid meme I have put way to much effort into for the funny man points.
Quarter Master

Commonly the closest thing people get to being some sort of command without actually being command, with the exception of interims. QMs usually fall into two categories, over glorified cargo technician who just has slightly more access than the others and is generally chill. You'll get anything you order from cargo delivered, usually in a reasonable amount of time, and they're pretty chill about payments, sometimes forgoing charging people for departmental supplies unless they need the money to afford it in the first place. Only thing that sucks about them however is they will generally argue for their technicians regardless of what they did, which makes handling minor issues a pain in the ass.
The other one is Mr/Mrs micromanager, who does nothing besides sit in their office and yell at people for doing things wrong, even if they do them right, because they like the feeling of power. Expect high handling fees, slow delivery times, and being hounded for credits because you dare order some more chemicals for the pharmacist to use to make their blood pressure medicine. Thankfully these ones don't stick around and aren't very common.
Also, QM never was and never will be a command role. Go play HOP.

Expect gameplay to be exactly that of a cargo technician, though people complain to you rather than about you for slow delivery times.

Corporate Liaison

A role that's gone through so many different reworks that the only stereotype that exists for it is "Oh wait we that's a role we have, I forgot about that." That and they're generally very preachy over whatever they are representing, which makes sense icly. If you ever spot a while Corporate Liaison, make sure you give this endangered species some interaction and maybe they will return in the wild. Oh and also apparently no one ever bothers checking their office if there isn't one on shift.

Depending on the character, you might not find a whole lot to do, or your going to be swamped by the same several people. I haven't personally played this role before, but that's what it appears to be like for me.

Head of Security

This person likely is a security main, at least they are if they stick around for more than a round or two. Much like the QM, there is two flavors of HOS, the baby sitter, and the armchair general
The Babysitter HOS is one that spends a majority of their time trying to keep things reasonable with security, walking the fine line of balancing security officers' response to antagonists and actually giving antags a chance to drive a story. Now if they are actually good at this or not is dependent on a lot of things. A good one can actually let antags do their thing and interact with the crew before retaliating and doing so in an appropriate way that makes sense icly while allowing for the story to continue, while a bad one can't do that, and either accidentally crushes the antags too early, or gets rolled over by the antags because they responded way too late to them.
The Armchair General is kinda the opposite in a weird way, going out of their way to try and lead the group of security officers to victory and valids secured endgame screen. Some are competent at actually leading people, others suck and end up putting officers in bad spots where they get killed or can't effectively do anything. The quickest way to identify one is to see how quickly the armory is opened and lethal weaponry is handed out.
Unless you are the Armchair General, expect this to be like babysitting 1 to 7 other people of varying levels of competence. If you are an armchair general expect salt and/or a character complaint.

Research Director

Another rare one, since most of science is self governing and doesn't really like listening to what a command member wants them to do unless they really force them, in which case they won't be happy. RDs end up being rare because of that, and either are over glorified scientists or a command member that tries to organize a group project only to be ignored in favor of making bombs, weapons, and other various murder machines (including bee guns).
Over glorified scientists do basically anything a normal scientist would do, with the added access and occasionally needing to speak in command chat and give an opinion. If something big that needs a scientist actually comes up, they usually get tasked with picking someone to be the lamb to poke it with a stick before they do so themselves anyway. That is assuming they haven't blown themselves up already yet or aren't drugged to hell and back with their own mix of space drugs.
The Ignored Command Member usually tries to get peoples attention, organize projects, and then fails miserably, which is a shame because I have heard of some outright clever things that people have thought of doing with an organized science team. Next time you are playing science, maybe try and coordinate something with them and you could be pleasantly surprised with a new friend or a fun idea.
Playing an RD means you're either going to get ignored by everyone, or you already acknowledge that you are going to get ignored by everyone and then do your own thing until someone wants you to print them a battery cell or something.

Chief Medical Officer

Chief Medical Officer was originally the go to for being a super doctor, doing surgery, chemistry, first aid, and general check ups all wrapped up neatly in that light blue labcoat. Thankfully now of days they stick to one practice and actually allocate their team to doing things, or at the very least hope their team is competent enough to handle things and then step in when they turn out to be a bunch of idiots. They also tend to make really good hostage targets, since most of them are smart enough to not try and run off immediately, so you don't have to shoot them in the back immediately and then duct tape them to a chair. Personalities for CMOs are generally a mixed bag, some are genuinely nice, others are too tired to deal with your bullshit, and some probably only saved your life because they are being paid to do so. Expect a lot of poker face, there's usually a lot going on and because they are the CMO they get dragged around not only by their own department, but by others, usually security or the rest of command, because everyone knows people are going to end up getting hurt anyway. In short, good hostages, generally being overwhelmed, and really good at pretending to know what's going on usually.

Playing CMO is like walking into a room where everyone is running around on fire for some reason, there is a bald man in a grey jumpsuit screaming "LET ME IN" at the pharmacist because they won't make them space drugs, and for some reason there is a black kois outbreak specifically in the surgery operating rooms all while you have a miner who forgot magboots existed has punctured lung, good luck!

Chief Engineer

For some reason Chief engineers are either always some sort of alien species, or some sort of cowboy like human, rarely is there ever something else. It fits engineering quite well, almost a little too well, which might explain why there are so many cowboy like frontiersmen that find themselves in charge of a rag tag group of engineers who all either know how to single handedly fix most of the station or barely know how to turn on the shields. Chief engineers usually fall into two groups when its actually time to work however. These are The Hands On and Backliner.

Hands On Chief Engineers are hands on with the repairs, suiting up with the rest of the department and heading out to oggle at the damage from the safety of a hardsuit for a minute or two before getting to fixing the station as quickly as possible, usually because shit is vented as an antag set a bomb off in the hallway again. Generally these CEs are way to busy to actually teach you anything themselves but there is still a lot to learn just by watching them. The only reason they picked chief engineer is because the engineering slots are all taken and they don't want to play their engineering character as a visitor this round.
Backliner CEs are the opposite, they usually distribute their gear to the trusted engineers and organize things for them to do to try and keep things efficient, all while oggling at the damage from the safety of their office using the engineering cameras. These engineers usually don't want to teach you anything so they pick someone at random to do it for them. They know what they are doing, but they picked command to order people around, not do the grunt work after all.

Like playing Engineer/Atmos Technician, but you also need to know Atmos/Engineering and are expected to do them if the need arises, better hope the apprentice set the engine right this time as well, because if they didn't the first wave of blame is going to probably be going to you.

Head of Personnel

The Lord of Paperwork! But wait, you left your laptop in your office and lost your pen, again. Time to tell them to meet you in your office for that access change under the guise of needing to print and then file the paper work. HOPs usually see the more advanced greytiders, and by advanced I mean the ones competent enough to get to the HOPs office before getting bwoinked by admins for something they've done. If the Let Me In Meme was a person, it would be the ones that the HOP has to deal with, since that's the only time people remember they exist, or when they get snagged by the mercenary team again because people don't normally wander around command. There are technically two categories of two types for a HOP to fall into, depending entirely on the character. These are Office Lurker or Station Stalker, and Paperwork Nut and People Person.
Office lurkers usually just stay in their office and handle most, if not all their business over the radio. If you want something you need to go to them, because the only time they leave their office is when they are dragged out of it or its currently on fire. Station Stalkers rarely are in their office, generally toting a backpack full of IDs, a laptop, and their stamp, along with a briefcase stuffed with access papers so they don't need to print them in the future. If you want to find them you need to ask where they are over the radio and hope they don't go some place else before you get there.
Paperwork Nuts are self explanatory, requiring every piece of paper filled out perfectly and stamped before they will even look at your ID, and then you need to fill out another paper for the access request, and a different one stating why you want the access. Paperwork is their game, and picking HOP is admittedly appropriate for them. People Persons generally just fill the paperwork out for you and ask all the questions on the paper, only needing you there for your signature and nothing else. A great way to trick people into filling out paperwork for you with the use of copy and paste, especially because most are willing and prefer to do it that way!

Playing hop turns into a big question of what the antag is. You are either going to be kidnapped to issue them all access, or the station is going to promote you to interim captain and expect you to handle the problem for them. Either way, your life revolves around access, so you better hope your ID doesn't get stolen.
Captain

The role all newly whitelisted command players say they eventually want to play, and when they do, quickly realize it is not only a lot of work for little reward, everyone has their eyes on you. Oh, and don't forget, you are the ultimate hostage, with literal all access in your back pocket to anything and everything on the station, odds are your office was already broken into before you even get off the shuttle from the Odin. Captains come in a few flavors, but the most common I've seen are either the Fun Police, or the Only Just Existing captains.

Fun Police, also sometimes called Buzzkills, are exactly as the nickname implies. There is no quarter or retreat with them, the antag either completely fails, or completely gets away. Negotiations are only a formality with them and usually end in failure, since whatever the antag wants is either too much or the captain demands they get their half first so they can just send security in without the risk of collateral. Brutally effective, and a nightmare when trying to be an antag.

Only Just Existing captains are generally forgotten about shortly after the announcement over the Radio says they are coming in with that little whistle sound effect of days gone by. The only time you will ever see them is if command pressures them into making an announcement, you are a member of command yourself and are collaborating with them over the command frequency, or the mercenary/raider team took them hostage.

Playing captain is a nightmare, expect literally anything to happen and then not be prepared anyway. Either that or people treat you like an over glorified HOP and you have to deal with petty arguments over who should have gotten the last donut, and why it shouldn't have escalated into a fist fight.

[geeves]

>command role >quartermaster

delete dis

 

also my ass playing backliner CE without knowing RCON or Atmos like

[Alberyk]

The quartermaster is not a head of staff and will never be one.

[Lmwevil]

accurate 

[Lmwevil]

On 14/03/2021 at 20:58, geeves said:

>command role >quartermaster

delete dis

 

also my ass playing backliner CE without knowing RCON or Atmos like

>not knowing atmos?????

[SatinsPristOTD]

Captain:

"For fucks sake, why can't ANY of you actually lead a department? Degree's don't come in cereal boxes.

Paul Schmidt, if you mop the floors without a sign one more time, I'll put that broom up your ass.

Why is Medbay on fire? OH YOU THOUGHT IT WAS COLD. HAHA. RIGHT. Sleep with one eye open tonight.

Sec-- Sec-- No, you can't have the guns for target pra-- No, I don't care if the cadet signed a waiver. No- Who put the detective in an airlock again?!"

[Butterrobber202]

Captain:

*sitting in the bar chair RP'ing for the last 15 minutes*

Sec McCuck: "CAPTAIN SOMEONE BROKE INTO YOUR OFFICE!!!"

Captain: "Oh well investigate that please, was anything tak-

Engineering McChad: "Captain, atmos alarms in the Vault"

Captain: "Oh- Security theres a breach in the Vaul-"

Scientist McRandom: "I HAVE A BOMB!!!"

Captain: *sigh