FLUFFYGHOST - COMMAND WHITELIST APPLICATION - Take Two

[Fluffy]

BYOND key: Fluffyghost

Character names:

 

How long have you been playing on Aurora?: 3 months give or take, near every day in this timeframe

Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they?
I got a complain on my character when I first joined the server (I never played HRP before so I thought to make a funny character, that was corrected soon after thanks to ReadThisNamePlz instead of in-round as at that time no staff was available to respond to the ahelp of the other two players I was playing with, which I currently enjoy to play with and have fun to this day when I play the (revised) Ben, and it seems they likewise enjoy having my character around, or so I think) and a warning that's being sorted out because I fell asleep while playing thus looking like AFK.

 

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each.

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?:
The main OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is to ensure everyone in the department, and that interact with members of said department, gets treated fairly and according to the rules, in a believable way and if possible that they can get a fair share of fun out of it, that includes curbing down do-all know-all personnel, attempts to metagame, to mantain situation and characters believability while ensuring the department try to remain functional and perform its services, that the tasks are fairly distributed to all the people in the department and are therefore engaged with the game while retaining a healthy amount of leeway on personal choices.

You can also be tasked to teach and show to new players (or otherwise interns) how to do things inside said department, including etiquette and mechanically, or assign someone as a mentor to them to distribute the tasks, depending on how well stocked your department is.

OOC ultimately, I believe your first task is to mantain an healthy balance of the fun of all players in your department and be the first line of defense against rules violation.

 

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?:
Whitelisted (heads whitelist) players are expected to act responsibly with the power they hold, striking a balance between allowing anarchy to spread in the department and a 1984 absolute survelliance and order dystopia, you'll be referred to and are expected to uphold and help uphold the rules and regulations (and definitely not break them, at least the OOC ones, and the IC ones only with a good, RP believable and explainable reason), you are also responsible in try to help player retention (including via the means indicated above) and have your good share of knowledge, work with the staff and be the first line of defense against bad behaviours.

They also help to shape the events and atmosphere through their decisions, which must be believable.

Finally, granting all of what already said, you are responsible to get the things in your department done, usually indirectly: a department that do not function affect the whole round for everyone, it's your job to avoid it happening via IC or (hopefully rarely via) OOC means as appropriate for the situation.

I strive to uphold them through listening to all feedbacks and suggestions, working things out with other players or staff, double-doubting and trying to think well ahead of my decisions and actions.

 

Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau ceti and how it affected your character and their career?
Tau ceti is a boiling pot of anti-nt sentiment that continues to grow, one of my character is from the sol system and would like to see the system reunited with sol one day, but that applies for pretty much every system so except for the physical proximity it isn't all that much different to him than any other system or planet, though he would like to think that if tau ceti leaves the corporation it would open a door to negotiations to reunite with sol one day.

 

What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted?
Head of Security, eventually overtime to expand in other departments or even captain one day, in the future.

 

Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles?
I have read the wiki page for the HoS, the CMO and the Captain.

 

Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking.:
Fyodor Koesvyin - HoS (to be created)
Sigismund Frenzick - CMO (former psychiatrist)

 

Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action?
Indeed if I fuck up or ruin other people's fun, nuke me out of the whitelist, the server population's overall fun is more important than any whitelist.

 

Have you linked your byond account to the forums? 
Yes.

 

Extra notes:

Re- applying from 

After having talked with Matt, I was suggested to make a completely different character from Trovensky and play it for 2/3 weeks, therefore since then I only played Salvo Raccuso, as diametrically opposite from Trovensky as I could think of (within sanity), I also (sporadically) played Lenivier, an intern chemist, but it was only for some rounds so I don't expect anyone to remember having seen him around.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Fluffy
Added Sigismund Frenzick as CMO for the trial

[Zelmana]

I remember Fluffys first day, and it was rough.

They've certainly grown a lot since their grey days and I feel like this could be another step in their roleplay capability.

I would like to see them in command whitelist and to see how that drives them to improve.

[Flpfs]

I'm going to provide some criticism instead of a simple blind +1 or -1

I've played a lot of rounds where I have seen Ben Donitz and Trovensky, yet I have had a total of maybe one or two memorable personal interactions with them.

The only RP I have had with Trovesnsky is him running into the kitchen and asking for 3 burgers, then he got mad at me because I didn't insta make him so he could go back to antag hunting once the food bar was filled. Playing in security with him, I have seen that you play the job of security officer very well, but I see almost zero conversations or roleplay outside of the talking that you HAVE to do for your job.

Same thing with Ben Donitz. I have never seen him exit the department, or have I ever seen him in the bar, kitchen or hallways. Mechanically, I have seen that you know how to do surgeries and are good with medical mechanics, but, again, I have not seen you speak to people outside of very simple conversations. To this day I still don't know both of your character's backgrounds, motives, actions or anything. Infact, I almost never see your characters outside of their department's waiting spots.

I don't think you are a bad surgeon or a bad security officer, nor do I think that the things you do are rule-breaking. It's fine to play the game this way, but I think it is extremely boring. I would suggest trying to create characters with more diverse backgrounds, studying the lore a bit closer to have more topics for conversations, and focusing more on roleplay.

[Fluffy]

6 hours ago, Flpfs said:

Playing in security with him, I have seen that you play the job of security officer very well, but I see almost zero conversations or roleplay outside of the talking that you HAVE to do for your job.

6 hours ago, Flpfs said:

Infact, I almost never see your characters outside of their department's waiting spots.

6 hours ago, Flpfs said:

I would suggest trying to create characters with more diverse backgrounds, studying the lore a bit closer to have more topics for conversations, and focusing more on roleplay.

That is what I did in the last 2/3 weeks with Salvo Raccuso, both Ben and Trovensky started as intern/cadet so they were both created with a focus of absorbing and practice mechanics, Salvo on the other hand can be found every round somewhere else roleplaying, at the bar (either deck 1 or 2 one), in front of the bridge (which was named roleplay spot in different loocs), in the consular office etc.

[Carver]

My sentiment from the prior app stands. I'd be curious to see how Fluffy approaches the position of Command, and I've had fairly positive experiences with Raccuso as of late - a rather social and competent (if occasionally incomprehensible) Officer.

+1

[MattAtlas]

On trial until 10JAN2023.

[La Villa Strangiato]

I think Raccuso is pretty fun to see around and fun! But Ben Donitz still feels more like a piece of furniture in medbay. Fyodor did not really stand out as a character to me either.

I also played a round as security with Fyodor where it was a burglar round with a Lii'dra vaurca and a black k'ois zombie, and it was utterly immersion-shattering to have Fyodor yell at my character for trying to execute the black k'ois zombie because "we could learn things from it" and "it can be saved maybe", when Lii'dra and their thralls are canonically shoot on sight. Naturally, this led to a black k'ois outbreak, which is the kind of thing that makes you go "what the heck". I understand that Fluffyghost was trying to extend the antag's gimmick, but come on, it's a black k'ois zombie.

I also found that sometimes I just had no idea what Fyodor was talking about. Take this with a grain of salt, because I can misinterpret things that should be really obvious sometimes and I sometimes struggle to parse a lot of chatlog text coming at me at once. The incident that jumps out to me during that same black k'ois round was when an assistant went up to security and was like "hey I'd like to do security stuff can I learn stuff about security" and the officers were like "yeah, we can give you some advice, hey Commander can we put a little beret on this assistant and have her shadow an officer, and maybe show her around the department?" and Fyodor was like "sure but don't let her in any areas she doesn't have access to", so me and another seccy take this assistant into the locker room and get her a beret, and then Fyodor comes in like "UM I said not to let her into areas she didn't have access to". And we're both like, "huh?" because we're assuming that she's both allowed to be toured around the department and shadowed by two officers when we're just getting her a beret. This is a very minor example! But the point being, I feel like it is kind of hard to parse the dialogue coming from Fluffyghost's characters and their communication is not always good.

I don't really have a +1 or a -1 to give here, this is just my observations of them in a round. I've never seen Fluffy play as CMO, and I might have more salient critique of them to give if they played CMO, since I'm much more experienced at medical than security.

[Faye <3]

I played medical w/you as my CMO, and I am not super impressed. I share the feelings from earlier that your characters are just not very present. It was quite easy to forget we had a CMO at all - you were seldom on comms, rarely gave orders, and just sort of didn't do much. I think the comparison to 'furniture' is a little harsh, but I think it is apt. When you did talk, it was terse and very minimal. This is more personal preference now, but a Biesellite CMO in default gear w/no FT doesn't super fill me with a lot of interest, especially when your communication needs work. You should focus on making sure you have more of a presence in round, as you kind of sit there and do little. 

[Fluffy]

1 hour ago, La Villa Strangiato said:

I also played a round as security with Fyodor where it was a burglar round with a Lii'dra vaurca and a black k'ois zombie, and it was utterly immersion-shattering to have Fyodor yell at my character for trying to execute the black k'ois zombie because "we could learn things from it" and "it can be saved maybe", when Lii'dra and their thralls are canonically shoot on sight.

From the wiki page on the Lil'idra (https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=The_Lii'dra), it's indicated that "they [...] are typically killed on sight, assuming they are ever found to begin with."

It however also indicates in multiple points that "Outside of this information, little is known about the hive outside of Zo'rane archives and data gathered during the Invasion." and "since the failed invasion of Tau Ceti, and it is assumed that the Hive either broke apart completely due to their losses being far too great, or they have been taking the past few years to recuperate and prepare for their next move".

 

It is also not an assumption that they might be saved, but known from the game guide that, depending on the stage, they can (https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Lii'dra_guide) 

"As documented by the Lii’dra attacks where black k’ois were used, recovery after a few hours is possible, with minimum brain damage. The patient will likely be scarred because of the traumatic experience, but will be able to return to a normal life. However, if the mycosis is left untreated for longer, other effects may occur. After three days, black k’ois tumors will surround the head and may even cover the eyes. Those in this stage will be extremely hostile, and there is a high chance of vomiting black k’ois, infecting others. The damage to the brain is so intense that, once recovered, ability to move limbs may be reduced. Some individuals have been known to recover from this."

(Please also note they were not really infected with anything until they escaped the OR)

 

This was also the first time I ever see a lil'idra being used as a gimmick, so i had to quickly skim through the relevant guide to have an idea of what was going on, I'm not sure if i understood every part correctly, so I asked to the captain about my idea and they agreed to try to contain them with the idea of handing it over to science, the varuca one that is.

I yelled at you because you killed the varuca antag, which I, in agreement with the captain, were trying to capture; that information was relayed on the comms, but you proceeded to shoot the varuca in the head i think, decapitating him, and moved to do the same with the other one; i yelled at you because you ignored an order 3 times in a row, not for killing him, but since we had noone else to work with (since the varuca was killed), I thought to hand the zombie to science to give them something to do instead of the varuca, but I didn't exactly knew what it was at that point in time.

 

2 hours ago, La Villa Strangiato said:

Naturally, this led to a black k'ois outbreak, which is the kind of thing that makes you go "what the heck".

That is admin-spawned only, and was spawned after the escape from the OR because the surgeon decided to both wake up and put himself in between me and the zoombie as i was going inside to kill it after having talked with the captain, however if it's perceived as unreasonable to try to acquire more information from them, I'll avoid it in the future.

 

18 minutes ago, Faye &lt;3 said:

I share the feelings from earlier that your characters are just not very present. It was quite easy to forget we had a CMO at all - you were seldom on comms, rarely gave orders, and just sort of didn't do much. [...] When you did talk, it was terse and very minimal. [...] You should focus on making sure you have more of a presence in round, as you kind of sit there and do little. 

That's because i was trying to figure out how to do chemistry for a good part of the round and training the intern before that, after which if I see that everything is going acceptably what would be the point of sending orders around? I feel that would not be beneficial for anyone, I try to avoid to send down orders if it's not needed, would you prefer if I gave around obvious instructions that people are reasonably already doing?

 

I don't particulary like to send down orders if everything is going acceptably, or restrict what people want to do if there's no compelling reason to, or fill the chat with even more text to parse through (and it's already a lot) than what's needed, but if you guys prefer command that way, I'll try to assert more presence than I did.

Please also excuse my inexperience as command, the black kois is like the third and the CMO the fourth round I do in such a position, I'm still getting acquainted with the (overwhelming currently) amount of information and options to think of, and fast switching from IC and OOC perspective back and forth, I will try to practice more as I believe that comes with exercise, at least I hope.

[eddymakaveli]

Having interacted a fair amount with Fyodor Koesvyin and Sigismund Frenzick, I am comfortable giving this a +1. The characters are realistic and do not make insane decisions, and I believe that while some might've expressed some growing pains with Fluffy and their WL - it's natural and I have only seen the player improve. Their HoS isn't fraghappy and give proper leeway to antagonists -and their CMO is far from incompetent, as well as someone I've seen train others. Good job.

[Zelmana]

I would like to see you raise the bar on your current standard of roleplay, namely grammar. That means proper capitalization of proper titles and utilizing commas where needed. 

[Desven]

18 minutes ago, Zelmana said:

I would like to see you raise the bar on your current standard of roleplay, namely grammar. That means proper capitalization of proper titles and utilizing commas where needed. 

I agree with this. No punctuation is really off-putting in HRP, especially when it comes from a head of staff.

[Peppermint]

Played 1 round and it was really rough. No direction, no real idea of what's going on, lots of conflicting orders. Maybe a singular rough round, but I dunno.

[Fluffy]

3 hours ago, Peppermint said:

Played 1 round and it was really rough. No direction, no real idea of what's going on, lots of conflicting orders. Maybe a singular rough round, but I dunno.

What round are we talking about? If it was one of the early ones I had, it's absolutely possible (and perhaps expected) given I was still getting acquainted with the role

[Zelmana]

I think a lot of these are from a Fyodor round last evening, around the time of posting.

[Fluffy]

55 minutes ago, Zelmana said:

I think a lot of these are from a Fyodor round last evening, around the time of posting.

If that's the case, I didn't realize it, but I was indeed threw off the track by the presence of the jammer with the captain trying to keep him updated on the situation, the antag had a jammer that kept cutting me, though I do not believe to have given any conflicting order, just updated ones based on the evolution of the situation, in brief summary for what I recall:

 

• I arrived to the hostage situation
• I tried to negotiate with the scientist hostage-taker (while another officer kept doing it themselves despite my presence for whatever reason)
• Seeing the hostage taker unreasonable, I ordered via radio to prepare the laser carabines (the ones with stun mode), CS and flash grenades
• The hostage taker moved in the other room with the hostage
• I kept trying to negotiate to exchange the hostage with the monkey, while waiting for the carabines and appropriate equipment to arrive
• I'm not sure if the message went through, but I asked if the warden received the order to prepare the laser carabines, and asked for them to be brought on scene
• One of the officers gave the monkey to the scientist without him releasing the hostage, which was what I was negotiating the monkey for, that threw me off
• Seeing the hostage not released and the carabines not arriving, I pulled back to go grab them myself
• I took a CS grenade and a flash and proceeded to ask the warden, that I found in the armory, about the laser carabines that were being stuffed into a bag
• I received via radio the indication that the officers breached in and apprehended the suspect, so I came back to science to verify the situation myself, not taking the carabines because they were not needed anymore (I presumed the situation escalated while I was taking the equipments)
• In the meanwhile of all of the above, the captain was trying to acquire the status of the situation, so I had to relay such thing multiple times because the jammer was screwing over our ability to talk
• I ordered to process the antag and for it to be interrogated
• The investigation said it was possibly psychopatic and suggested a psychological evaluation
• I went to medical to request as such, but was told by the CMO that noone with said ability was present (despite the guide stating that all medicals can diagnose it etc. etc. but whatever, I rolled with it)
• Other RP with the captain to update him on the interrogation and gave him the transcript
• Other RP with an officer
• Hivebots in our sec meeting room, ordered to the warden to issue weapons to clear it out but got back that the warden took care of them themselves, since it was in our department I left it at it, talked to the captain about that too (warden is responsible for the brig so I didn't see an issue in him going upstairs inside the same department to wipe the hivebots)
• More RP with the officer
• Went inside the department and RP with the engineer that fixed the room meanwhile
• Round ends

 

If you could tell me what conflicting orders I gave, I'd appreciate it, because I honestly do not recall to have given any (?)

[Zelmana]

Forgive me for the length of this post, but from my observations you are very good at receiving feedback so I do not wish to hold back per se, because I believe you can improve if given proper feedback. My intent here is to instruct not only you but others in the community on better syntax and prose.

Regarding your above post, I didn't complain about conflicting orders, and understood there was a radio jammer in Science/on the perp.
However, what I did mention, was lack of overall roleplay standards. Some notable things that stood out to me, 

• My character held his hand out to shake and I waited around 30 seconds and you never noticed, or reacted at all when I then emoted that I awkwardly returned it to my side.
• You never properly capitalized titles.
• Many times throughout the round I saw lack of proper punctuation such as good commas to support sentence flow.
  
   

Tonation and Utilizing Italics & Bolding

It is typically expected that someone in Command has a better grasp of grammar, and develops a tone of writing. Character tone is incredibly important to having a well thought out character. When you forego punctuation entirely, your character lacks proper intonation. Additionally, I do not recall you ever utilizing the SS13 specific text markup for assisting with even further tone/intonation that I would expect from a good roleplay. Those are the things that italicize or bold words for proper tone.

For example, my Captain character will often be very cool and collected in speech, but will emphasize certain words with italics to show an elongated pronunciation of a word. Using bold and italics for different stresses of speech are what I'd classify as detail oriented roleplay. If it is lacking your characters will seem bland and one dimensional.

In contrary, my bartender character is a synthetic. They speak very concise and robotic. They are utterly, and entirely, unemotional and totally service-oriented.

My main grief- in a conversation about a completely mundane topic, say, Skrellian Delicacies, could one tell a difference if they were speaking to Ben vs. speaking to Fyodor? I don't think so. They don't change the way they speak, they have no difference in tone, roleplay speaking cadence, or things like that.

 

Using Emotes

While you do use emotes, they're not on the same level as some heightened standards of Command. Simple nods are the waterline but more is great. Again, the handshake thing- sounds like a simple miss but it notates to everyone around you're either not paying attention or can't keep up with the flow of roleplay chat.

 

Punctuation

Simply put, you do not separate clauses well. Use commas to separate independent clauses when they are joined by any of these seven coordinating conjunctions: and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet. You don't have to be perfect on this, but it makes a big difference when it comes to reading and sentence flow. Personally, it completely takes me out of my immersion if someone types like this:

McCool Commander says, "Okay I got it I will be heading to the armory."
McCool Commander says, "Warden see to it that the weapons are dispersed."

I am not a betting man, but I would be comfortable guessing that people who type like this rest easy knowing that our game will do the absolute minimum- that is, capitalize the first letter of your speech input and add a period. Wouldn't it be much better to read something like this:

McCool Commander says, "Okay, I got it- I'll be heading to the armory. Warden, see to it that the weapons are dispersed."
Note that although there is use of a dashed line here, and that may not be 100% grammatically correct, in roleplay syntax it is utilized as a pause in speech.

 

While some of our Command lack in some areas of the above writing advice, I put emphasis on some. Continually toeing the line on many of these sections, purely from a roleplay syntax and writing style, is lacking some advanced roleplay standards. Keeping in mind, none of this directly implicates your in-character actions, or lack thereof, and the grievances that some other users may have written. My main point in this is to show you that specific area of improvement, prose, syntax, and emotes.

[Zelmana]

Keeping in mind, and this is something that I am amazed at- your punctuation and writing style on the forums is admirable. Yet in-game it is just lacking so much. Why?

[Zelmana]

On 28/12/2022 at 14:36, Flpfs said:

one or two memorable personal interactions with them.

I see almost zero conversations or roleplay outside of the talking that you HAVE to do for your job.

.I have never seen him exit the department, or have I ever seen him in the bar, kitchen or hallways. Mechanically, I have seen that you know how to do surgeries and are good with medical mechanics, but, again, I have not seen you speak to people outside of very simple conversations. To this day I still don't know both of your character's backgrounds, motives, actions or anything. Infact, I almost never see your characters outside of their department's waiting spots.

I don't think you are a bad surgeon or a bad security officer, nor do I think that the things you do are rule-breaking. It's fine to play the game this way, but I think it is extremely boring. I would suggest trying to create characters with more diverse backgrounds, studying the lore a bit closer to have more topics for conversations, and focusing more on roleplay.

 

On 05/01/2023 at 19:35, La Villa Strangiato said:

This is a very minor example! But the point being, I feel like it is kind of hard to parse the dialogue coming from Fluffyghost's characters and their communication is not always good.

 

13 hours ago, Desven said:

I agree with this. No punctuation is really off-putting in HRP, especially when it comes from a head of staff.

 

On 05/01/2023 at 21:28, Faye &lt;3 said:

 but a Biesellite CMO in default gear w/no FT doesn't super fill me with a lot of interest, especially when your communication needs work. 

I realize that with such a long post going off on prose and syntax, I might as well have had some proofs from the above commenters. Note- I'm not in a position of authority or anything on this and my intent is to help show you where others are seeing the same things that I am seeing.

I would recommend playing a roleplay heavy job to improve. That means something like Bartender or Chaplain (Chaplain is very very hard to do well). Ideally, with a flavor text and customize some items on your loadout to add flair. Utilize good emotes as something like a bartender, and use italics, bold, and proper punctuation to create an interesting and pleasant to read conversation. Create a believable backstory beyond a person who has a job to do. Something they can talk about, relate to other characters, and be explored by other players for fun.

 

[Fluffy]

32 minutes ago, Zelmana said:

Keeping in mind, and this is something that I am amazed at- your punctuation and writing style on the forums is admirable. Yet in-game it is just lacking so much. Why?

I believe that simply because, I cannot do it all at the same time, if I spend time to properly check, capitalize, format and underline what I write, that's time I am not able to respond to other requests and reduces the output of the orders and instructions, time that cannot use to roleplay to establish the character with others, to catch up with the 20 chat messages that piled up while I was writing such a sentence, or do anything else that isn't going back and forth on a 20 characters large textbox to format everything correctly.

That would worsen even more the areas of improvement that were indicated by others, I cannot yet at the same time:

• Go outside the department to meet and talk with various characters
• Send personalized instructions on what to for every change of the situation
• Send status updates along with the above
• Keep the captain and rest of the command updated, which is basically doing the same thing as above but in another channel
• Characterize the character with more distinctive quirks, writing and doing actions with the Me command
• Evaluate how the character would IC react to something
• Evaluate how OC is best for the round to react to something
• Merge the two together in a balanced way
• Get status updates from everyone on how are things going
• Coordinate with the other departments to involve them as possible in the gimmick
• Maintain and foster established knownship/friendship with other characters, recall what each said or did, what we were discussing, what was the last thing we talked about, evaluate what's appropriate for the round to talk about
• Go around checking how things are going in the ship
• Check the bridge and bridge crewmen to know and remain updated on the status of third party ships, including roleplaying with them
• Get to know new characters
• Observe the brig to ensure the correct sentence and proceeding is applied
• Check the IC law on the wiki to make sure of the above
• Remind everyone that we have investigators and to hand over the antags for the processing, to the investigators to go check things reported by the crew, to officers to go check potential calls
• Read the security history of the multiple POIs that the investigators print and assemble, which do not print the charges so you have to use the PDA
• Go hunt the antags with the rest of the security myself as possible
• Coordinate with other departments to prepare for medical emergencies, breaches, explosions, scientifical analysis and whatnot that makes IC sense
• Read through all the local chat, public channels and our channel to see if there's an emergency, someone asked something to me while i was writing or doing something, if I'm needed somewhere, if there's something I should be aware about
• Try to negotiate with the antags
• Feign ignorance on what is happening when comms do not work, the antag starts sucking blood, morph into some mass or whatnot, in a believable way
• Talk about it with the people present
• See when it's time to send bystanders away in a manner that makes sense for the IC reason to protect them without cutting the OOC fun of seeing the gimmick
• Probably more things that are not coming to my mind right now

That's simply too many thing to do all at once, I am improving (or so I hope) in all of them for what I gathered, but if I were for example to focus to fast improve on punctuations and emphasis, other people that gave other suggestions on what to improve would be disappointed in seeing little to no progress in what they suggested, and vice versa.

I would also like to point out that one of my favourite HoS that I played with when I started with trovensky in security seldom gave orders or instructions, and they were grinded down to a bare minimum when gave around, I consider him to this day one of the best HoS I ever had, he assumes we are competent and give us the freedom on how to approach things, with minimal inputs.

That's not to say that it is the correct or best way to do it necessarily, but I do believe that's a valid command style that some (like myself) even prefer over other options, perhaps I'm in the minority so I am also focusing on developing the opposite approach, but I do indeed believe that's a valid approach and - when I'm playing an officer - even prefer it.

That said I will try to improve on phrasing and emphasis more if that's the thing you believe would be more beneficial, but please reach a consensus on what is to focus on more that is manageable to do, because doing and even improving onto all of the above, all together at the same time, all expeditely, just isn't realistically manageable for me to do.

[Zelmana]

Hey Fluffy- the tone is shifting here a bit, but I want to be clear on why. The problem you had with my grievance is that you cannot manage to do so many things at the same time. Additionally, the piece that I pointed out to you- regarding prose, grammar, and character believability, are the cornerstone of great roleplay. Command is supposed to be not only an example of individuals capable of doing mechanics of a role, but doing them in a manner that is a) compliant with the ruleset b) encourages the round and flow c) with a developed character and most importantly d) doing so through roleplay, of which quality is ideally above par comparatively to the playerbase. That being said, there are many characters who are NOT command and roleplay AMAZINGLY, and conversely there are some in Command who neglect occasionally proper roleplay standards.

You posted a huge list. Below I have grouped them into categories. I believe that almost the entirety (except one) are 100% completely expected of someone who is both roleplaying well and running Command. It often times that a trial whitelistee is someone who roleplays well, or can do the role of Command well, but must be taught to do both at the same time.  I fear that through your trial you've demonstrated that both these skillsets (roleplaying well and the command role separately) need some work.

Anyway the list you posted above stating you can't do them all are categorized neatly into some broad subjects that are essential to good Command RP:

Departmental Orchestration & Running of Security (Heightened Responsibilities of Command & Difficulty Rating of Head of Security (difficulty is listed as one of the hardest in game))
Send personalized instructions on what to for every change of the situation
Send status updates along with the above
Get status updates from everyone on how are things going
Go around checking how things are going in the ship
Observe the brig to ensure the correct sentence and proceeding is applied
Check the IC law on the wiki to make sure of the above (You should, without a doubt, be able to have a decent knowledge of IC regulations as a member of Command, doubly so as a HoS. Many HoS can quote i-codes. This is just being familiar with IC regs which is expected as HoS)
Remind everyone that we have investigators and to hand over the antags for the processing, to the investigators to go check things reported by the crew, to officers to go check potential calls (Simple departmental orchestration, making sure people stay in their lanes)
Read the security history of the multiple POIs that the investigators print and assemble, which do not print the charges so you have to use the PDA (Not really needed, you can just stay informed through talking to your detectives and having roleplay conversations about people they've found interesting.)
Try to negotiate with the antags (Through Roleplay)
See when it's time to send bystanders away in a manner that makes sense for the IC reason to protect them without cutting the OOC fun of seeing the gimmick (Aka roleplay)

Act in a Chain of Command (Heightened Responsibilities of Command)
Send status updates along with the above
keep the captain and rest of the command updated, which is basically doing the same thing as above but in another channel
Check the bridge and bridge crewmen to know and remain updated on the status of third party ships, including roleplaying with them (Not always essential as HoS, but if you're the only Command, yes this is of course a requirement of being in Command)
Try to negotiate with the antags

Roleplay Capability (Expected of all Characters, Not just Command)
Go outside the department to meet and talk with various characters (not just doing your mechanic role of say just doing surgery quietly)
writing and doing actions with the Me command
Evaluate how the character would IC react to something
Evaluate how OC is best for the round to react to something
Merge the two together in a balanced way
Get to know new characters
Coordinate with other departments to prepare for medical emergencies, breaches, explosions, scientifical analysis and whatnot that makes IC sense (Otherwise known as 'responding to what's going on in round and roleplaying')
Read through all the local chat, public channels and our channel to see if there's an emergency, someone asked something to me while i was writing or doing something, if I'm needed somewhere, if there's something I should be aware about (Keeping up with the flow of text is expected of someone in Command. Like I mentioned, I waited about 20 seconds for you to shake my RPC's hand, and I did not see a typing indicator for your character. Unless you had this disabled I'm not certain what you were doing.)
Feign ignorance on what is happening when comms do not work, the antag starts sucking blood, morph into some mass or whatnot, in a believable way (This is a simple concept known as 'preserving round integrity' and should be done to an extent)
Talk about it with the people present

Have a Developed Character
Characterize the character with more distinctive quirks (this is just developing a character and roleplay vs. creating a 'John Doe' to play a role)
Go outside the department to meet and talk with various characters
Maintain and foster established knownship/friendship with other characters (Known as having character relations, something that is a must)
recall what each said or did, what we were discussing, what was the last thing we talked about, evaluate what's appropriate for the round to talk about (Otherwise known as 'Know whats going on')
Get to know new characters (And form relationships with them if you find them interesting? God forbid)

Not Always your Responsibility as HoS
Coordinate with the other departments to involve them as possible in the gimmick - This majority of the antagonists responsibility


Things You should actually probably not be doing unless necessary:
Go hunt the antags with the rest of the security myself as possible (You should definitely be on-scene, but spearheading major things when you have appropriate staff is not something the HoS should do so directly, and is called 'frontlining'. Further, doing so without like, putting on a bulletproof vest, is also seen as a faux-pas.)


Additional remarks: An ancedote regarding a gruff HoS doing the bare minimum to keep the department running is not something I want to see be an excuse for lack of good RP. They may have been a trial whitelistee, they may be under investigation for HoS removal, they may have had a player complaint immediately after the round for failing to RP well.

[Zelmana]

I would like to restate my desire to see Fluffy learn to roleplay well by playing a something like bartender to see if their quality rises. Otherwise, I do expect the nearly exhaustive list above of a Command/HoS character. I'm leaving my review as -1 for this go around but hope to see them take advice and learn some things as I've seen them do well previously.

I think I've said my piece.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Zelmana

[Desven]

I don't understand why you can't do all (or even, some) of that list. It's something everybody is expected to do, especially in Command. If you believe it is too hard, maybe continue playing and reapply again in a month or two when you're more comfortable with these tasks.

[Fluffy]

14 minutes ago, Zelmana said:

The problem you had with my grievance is that you cannot manage to do so many things at the same time.

I cannot manage to work on so many things at the same time, so while some becomes natural (aka by instinct), other have to cede ground for a bit.

I don't know if you ever did any programming, to take an example, but it would be like talking about what primitives, variables, classes and as such are one day and the next day talk about reference counting, mutexes and promises; sure, they all work on the same principles we saw the day before, but if I also expect you to finish writing them in a constrained amount of time like if you were someone who spent years doing it, of course you cannot do all at the same time - you'd need to think if what you're looking for is a class or a variable, follow the reference of what methods a promise returns to you, double check to make sure you're not writing a race condition and so on.

If you know how to play a guitar, even if one day you learn all the notes and positions and how to pick them, the next day you won't do music on double lines, in fact the instructor will specifically forego the second line as you practice the first (which is the main melody), because even if you know perfectly where to press to make all the notes, you are developing the activity to do it instinctively, which will once developed free up the slower part of your brain (but capable of higher thinking) to focus on other matters as you do it reflexively.

That's what I mean by at the same time, you cannot expect someone to be proficient out of the gate at doing everything at the same time, -as an example- in different extended periods I introduced myself around by shaking hands and such, but if there's something that needs my attention more urgently than following capitalizations and commas or shaking an hand back, they will cede ground as needed and be reacquired later.

 

For your observations:

28 minutes ago, Zelmana said:

(You should, without a doubt, be able to have a decent knowledge of IC regulations as a member of Command, doubly so as a HoS. Many HoS can quote i-codes. This is just being familiar with IC regs which is expected as HoS)

I am familiar with the regulations, I specifically said to double check, to be sure they are correctly applied as worded, and that the total time is proportionate for the flow of the round.

29 minutes ago, Zelmana said:

(Not really needed, you can just stay informed through talking to your detectives and having roleplay conversations about people they've found interesting.)

Handing over a file is an expectation for it to be read, if you were to write a report to your boss and he would reply with "well whatever, narrate it to me" you would be quite and reasonably upset about that, that would just be bad management and disrespecting the time the person took to compile the report.

31 minutes ago, Zelmana said:

(Aka roleplay)

Not simple roleplay, the consideration of how the reasonable action the role would do (clear the area from civilians where there's an active or potential threat) is not part of what your role entails, it would be quite absurd for a SWAT team (or equivalent) to stop and think at which point they would send people away from the crazy man threatening everyone with a gun, because the question would be: immediately, that's an OOC perspective that needs to be merged and balanced with the IC one, accounting multiple points of view and scenarios.

36 minutes ago, Zelmana said:

(this is just developing a character and roleplay vs. creating a 'John Doe' to play a role)

47 minutes ago, Zelmana said:

(Known as having character relations, something that is a must)

Both of which are in my view perfectly valid, I do not expect to find amazing person with interesting background stories everywhere I go, you are supposedly in a workplace with people there to work, some will have an almost crazy amount of stories to tell you that span across the galaxy, others will be John Doe with a normal life that are there to make money to stay alive. Just like your average coworker if you work in most of the fields, I do not expect when I change employer to find a Rambo, a crazy scientist, a baron of a county and a off-the-grid conspiracy theorist within 50 square meters, you'd count such kind of people on your fingers in your lifetime. Nor I expect anyone to approach me and storydump their background, motives and whatnot out of the blue or after we saw each other for not even a week.

Fyodor has a nice set of stories, including an highly visible one by the lack of an entire arm and metal plates on the skull, how many times do you think I was asked about either? The answer is: exactly zero.

They are there for when it organically develop, and going out of my way to storydump someone about the life of the character is anything but organic development of a normal conversation, the HRP setting means to me that things will happen as if that was IRL, and IRL noone but the most extroverts I can think of come out of nowhere to loredump their past, future and motives at your common workplace, if it develops organically they might talk about it, maybe, sometimes depending how comfortable they are with you, otherwise many try to keep it to business, especially when you're working for basically the only option you have on the place you're also forced to live within for most of your awake time, in a corporate dystopia like we're supposed to have.

 

56 minutes ago, Zelmana said:

(Simple departmental orchestration, making sure people stay in their lanes)

(et al.)

That is, in my opinion, incorrect. You are supposed to have a group of appropriately-trained personnel able to mantain the department working even when and if you are not present and there's no command, reminding people (outside of cadets) what they should or should not be doing is something that would realistically happen in edge case scenarios, you won't see the chief of the police department order officers to write tickets to those parked in a forbidden parking spot, they should already know and be well aware of how and why to do it, likewise relaying updates around shouldn't be the work of the head either, as they should keep each other updated already even if the head is not present, you should not remind a police officer that the suspects have to be handed out to investigation to be interrogated, or searched and processed after arrest, that is something they already do when you're not around and should keep doing when you are around, you are in my opinion only supposed to give general directions, aka "set the aim", for what you want to happen using the criterias I outlined in the app.

[Zelmana]

Then you are, as your analogy puts, still learning the notes. Plenty of 'good roleplayers' without Command WL are capable of doing a majority of the list of things you listed you struggled with. I would say, analogously, they are 'playing songs'. Command is supposed to be above that. They are 'composers' in terms of quality, if you will.