Should off ship antagonists be able to use whitelisted species without a whitelist?

[4000daniel1]

I feel the addition of the non-whitelisted ghost roles have been a positive thing, so I was thinking why not give off station antagonists, i.e mercs, raiders, burglars, technomancers and what not the same privilege? Antagonists have the opportunity to choose their origins and factions and what not so its not like its NECESSARY for them to be playing non-human species. What I think it would do though, is offer way more gimmick versatility. With how many times we've all seen Solarians or bands of typical pirates, I think it'd be refreshing to have the opportunity to see, for example Lii'dra or Kataphract deserters! As it stands though, for these gimmicks to work ALL the antagonist players have to have the whitelist, which safe to say rarely happens, so non-human species are rarely explored as antagonists which I do think is unfortunate.

What I would consider suggesting is that if a merc team has a player with, for example, a Tajara whitelist, the rest of the mercs get to use that whitelist as well for that round. I'd say this is offers a bit of quality assurance since the whitelisted player would be able to ensure the gimmick makes sense with the species's lore and be able to advice the other antagonists briefly on that species's most important mannerisms. I'm very curious what the community thinks about this whole subject, though.

[Boggle08]

I would be more comfortable with this being a privilege granted by an overseeing admin, rather than something that runs autonomously; If at all.

Part of what the whitelisting process does is hold people accountable to not abuse the species' mechanics of whatever they're applying for. This suggestion operates outside of this paradigm. While it might be nice to get more uniform offstation antags, I think people will stop appreciating it once we get round after round of offstation antags mysteriously picking certain species' with mechanical proclivities towards combat, and pushing them beyond what's acceptable.

[Carver]

I do like that the current system, including species-limited antag equipment, does encourage people to explore the idea of whitelist applications where they otherwise may not have considered it. It's a nice little tunnel that leads them to acquainting themselves further with server lore.

[Gem]

i don't think unwhitelisted players should be able to play whitelisted roles, because it kind of defeats the purpose of whitelisting them in the first place.
if this is the case for away sites (which i think it is?) it shouldn't be a thing anymore.

[Carver]

6 minutes ago, Gem said:

i don't think unwhitelisted players should be able to play whitelisted roles, because it kind of defeats the purpose of whitelisting them in the first place.
if this is the case for away sites (which i think it is?) it shouldn't be a thing anymore.

It is to a limited degree, iirc it depends on the particular role (I believe mostly leadership roles demand a species WL while their lackeys don't).

[Dreamix]

1 hour ago, Gem said:

i don't think unwhitelisted players should be able to play whitelisted roles, because it kind of defeats the purpose of whitelisting them in the first place.
if this is the case for away sites (which i think it is?) it shouldn't be a thing anymore.

1 hour ago, Carver said:

It is to a limited degree, iirc it depends on the particular role (I believe mostly leadership roles demand a species WL while their lackeys don't).

How it is supposed to work:
- Leadership or specialized roles should require whitelists. Like the Kataphract Knight Captain should only be played by whitelistees, who know the lore and everything.
- Third party intern/trainee/low-authority/low-responsibility roles should not require whitelists. Like the Kataphract-Hopeful, who should listen to and obey the Knights, and the Knight Captain.
- The intention is to allow people to try out the species, clearly marked as "trainee" on their ID or name, and in a low-stress non-permanent setting. At the same time while being under supervision of a whitelisted player who could guide, correct, or even ahelp if very out of line.
- Mappers do mark the roles in the code, according to the above.

How it currently works:
- There is no mechanism that disables a ghost role if the player has none of the required species whitelists. For example, you can spawn as a Kataphract Knight Captain without a whitelist.
- This is a bug/oversight that will be fixed some time soon.

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IMO, antags are not "intern/trainee/low-authority/low-responsibility" roles - exactly the opposite in fact. They should not be able to pick any species that they are not whitelisted for, except when ahelping and having an admin be aware and potentially watching over.

Even disregarding game balance, there is huge potential for unwhitelisted antags misrepresenting the lore of the species. Quick example - random new player merc group going unathi, going against the theme of the lizards being all about honor and family. Now imagine that every second or third merc round.

[kermit]

Unwhitelisted players joining as the low-ranking species ghostroles -- definitely not all of them, there are people with good understanding just not the whtielist who jump in -- already flagrantly disregard basic lore concepts that would probably see an ordinary whitelisted player lose their species whitelist. At least with these ghostroles the spotlight isn't on them and the majority of the time they don't make it to the Horizon. I personally don't even like the idea of there being unwhitelisted species ghostroles.

There's also already a lot on the mind of people antagging. If someone now has to be a dedicated species mentor, that's going to absolutely shatter their patience, especially if there's someone who's both new to a species and new to off-station antagging and thus yet to click with a HRP environment, who then needs to be babysat throughout the round (which isn't uncommon). You then have to consider that some off-station antags take until 00:45 to even step foot on the Horizon, accounting for explaining lore, this'll easily and regularly push set-up up to and past the 1 hour mark.

Sure, this idea increases the variety of gimmicks, but there's going to be a marked lack of quality to a lot of them which makes this wholly unworth it.

Edited October 25, 2022 by kermit