1 dismissal Antagonists’ Failure to Escalate Should Have Consequences

[NG+7 Gael]

Since returning from a break away from Aurora some time ago, I've noticed that there's been a significant increase in antagonists who are failing to escalate until the 2:00 mark, if not later (during transfer or post-transfer). While I do understand such instances are likely to occur at times, particularly with first-time antagonist players, and that coming up with gimmicks and proper escalation for antagonist roles can be difficult, frankly I don't think these are good excuses, and I think that we're a point where it's absurd how frequently antagonist rounds have been going this way. It's also important to note that it's absolutely not only first-time antagonist players who have been doing this. Despite the "end of round" rules on antagonist behaviour, I think it's being made pretty clear that this is insufficient. In my opinion, people who opt-in to antagonist roles should be prepared to actively engage with the round in some manner, and should be held accountable if they fail to do so.

So, I would like to suggest the implementation of a new rule addressing antagonist escalation, in which players can receive a warning for the aforementioned behaviour which, if continued, would lead to an antagonist role ban for that player. I think this would serve to discourage people who are not prepared to play as an antagonist from doing so, and would only be an improvement to antagonist rounds. While this, of course, doesn't guarantee quality antagonist rounds or gimmicks, it would at least reduce the instances of rounds with antagonists who completely fail to escalate.

That being said, I don't currently have a specific proposal for a policy, and thus I would like feedback on the idea, and I would like to encourage anyone who has ideas regarding the topic (regardless of stance) to contribute, because I believe this is something worth addressing.

[Carver]

I'm not in an ideal state to write as eloquent of a response as I'd like to, so forgive me for that. But, I truly believe this is the anti-thesis of what Aurora should be moving toward. Antagonists should not be forced into being predictable theatre actors following a script - I see no issue with a 'failure to escalate' so long as the antagonist had done something with their time that would be atypical/disallowed for standard crew; whether that be silent manipulations, petty theft, sabotage or whatever. I can't see an antagonist as a failure unless they failed to notice/forgot they had such a role entirely, and only truly if it becomes a recurring issue for the player.

Do I dislike end-of-round rushes? Yes, but my solution for that would be to pressure them even less to 'escalate' and instead allow them to continue quietly - or if they hadn't really done anything, admit a fumble and move on. All that forced escalation will result in is subpar/overused gimmicks, gank and a further propensity for unnecessary combat. I cannot blame anyone who chooses subtlety when it's often that the manifest is, without an ounce of overstatement, 30-50% Security on some rounds.

I dare say that presently the expectations for antagonists under this mindset seem to exceed those of Command roles, which is quite a miserable state and more than likely to discourage a wider pool of antagonists even moreso if these expectations were furthered.

[Fluffy]

I agree that the failure to try to narrate an escalating story should be addressed in some way, but I also do not believe that a punitive approach is the correct way to do that (nor much of anything else, barring intentional malicious grief, really), instead, interventions methods such as positive behavior support should be used as much as feasible, as their effectiveness is very well supported even and both against severe misbehavior (McClean and Grey, 2007) (NHS, 2015) and challenging environments (HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2021) (Gagnon, 2018) (Polinsky, 2017).

This would also work twice the length: Both nurturing an healthy antag (or players in general, really) pool, teach them what to do and how to do it, and avoid unnecessary frictions/restrictions and removals of players, which, considering our fairly limited player pool, would indeed be optimal.

So, while I do agree with the proposal that interventions would be beneficial, I do not think said interventions should be with notes/warns/bans in any but the most hopelessly egregious cases (this goes for most of our other rulings too, but that's a story for another topic).

[BLUNTFORCE420]

1 hour ago, Fluffy said:

I agree that the failure to try to narrate an escalating story should be addressed in some way, but I also do not believe that a punitive approach is the correct way to do that (nor much of anything else, barring intentional malicious grief, really), instead, interventions methods such as positive behavior support should be used as much as feasible, as their effectiveness is very well supported even and both against severe misbehavior (McClean and Grey, 2007) (NHS, 2015) and challenging environments (HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2021) (Gagnon, 2018) (Polinsky, 2017).

This would also work twice the length: Both nurturing an healthy antag (or players in general, really) pool, teach them what to do and how to do it, and avoid unnecessary frictions/restrictions and removals of players, which, considering our fairly limited player pool, would indeed be optimal.

So, while I do agree with the proposal that interventions would be beneficial, I do not think said interventions should be with notes/warns/bans in any but the most hopelessly egregious cases (this goes for most of our other rulings too, but that's a story for another topic).

chatgpt write a court brief type beat

 

memes aside there can be interesting peace antag gimmicks that dont necessarily have to escalate, but if you're waiting until transfer vote to pop off then yeah i think you should at the very least get a note/warning 

Edited May 29, 2023 by BLUNTFORCE420

[NG+7 Gael]

To clarify, I'm not saying I think peace gimmicks should be disallowed. This post is specifically referring to antags who fail to engage with the round entirely and/or escalate as the round is ending.

As far as "subtle" gimmicks go, the proposed ruling isn't meant to punish players for "bad" gimmicks.

The only thing that I'm saying should be punished within the proposed ruling is as I said above: Failing to engage with the round and escalating as the round is ending. Personally, I believe this should include things such as vampires silently sucking people's blood with memory loss on the entire round before escalating as the round is ending, because frankly, I don't consider that a gimmick, and it isn't really interacting with the round imo. However, that's just my opinion, and isn't inherent to the proposed ruling.

Now, I understand this can be a bit complicated for enforcement, as what counts as "engaging with the round" isn't necessarily straightforward, and that is something that would need to be defined to some degree as well. However, I think there's plenty enough examples from recent times where it's clear that the antag(s) failed to interact with the round until the last possible moment, where they then decided to escalate, and I think that it happens enough that this would be beneficial to the server as a whole, because it's incredibly unfun seeing this happen so often.

As for how punishment is handled, warnings leading to an antag role ban is only my proposed idea. I don't really care how it's handled specifically, so long as it gets antags to stop waiting until 2:00 to escalate.

While I understand that, for antags with hostile intentions, escalating into security is dangerous and will often result in them being apprehended, this shouldn't matter. It's the antag's job to interact with the round, not to try their best to "win" regardless of what that means for the round. This is the same reason why I believe gimmicks like the one mentioned above should, in my opinion, be considered not interacting with the round- because it doesn't drive a narrative.

Edited May 30, 2023 by NG+7 Gael

[Peppermint]

They do. We speak to people who go whacky at the end, as well as people who just don't do anything all the time.

[Garnascus]

Concuring with what @Peppermint stated, While we do attempt to take action against antagonists who do absolutely nothing all round and then toss a few grenades around at the two hour mark on the whole we are incredibly lenient about this and its very hard to even get a warning over it. The TLDR is playing antagonist is hard enough as it is and if anything the rules are too strict as they are to be conducive to a fun environment for antags to play in. More rules will not solve the issue. More administrative action will only make the problem worse. 

As it stands if you want to play antagonist there is pressure on you to spend out of game time coming up with some sort of gimmick. You then have to execute that gimmick without having a single person on the server become disgruntled with your play. Maybe you killed them, maybe you created an environment where they personally are not having fun or maybe they feel your gimmick is breaking the lore. All of these are technically valid reasons to ahelp someone but again, you only need to do this to a single person and now you as the antagonist have to spend time defending yourself in an ahelp regardless if you're in the right or not. 

It is a special kind of stress not even security players have to deal with. The pressure placed on antagonists is absurd. It is a complex problem that does not have a simple solution. I believe it is a problem that our pool of antag players is so low. Just a quick list of problems would look something like this. 

1. Rules are probably too harsh. (Why do the rules put so much emphasis on others fun and not enough on my own?)

2. Mechanics of various antag jobs are hard to learn. Your first ninja round is gonna be rough. 

3. Our playerbase can be a little too entitled at times. Have a single bad janitor, surgeon or even a command round and nobody really cares. Have a bad antag round and people will never forget you. 

4. The antagonists fear the samurai bwoink. Its rough having a constant looming threat of a bwoink over your head. "Just dont break rules" is not a strategy that will save you. You still have to defend yourself.

This is just a short list and there are probably way more such as fighting security. Start doing your nefarious scheme and suddenly an entire department is beating down your door armed with laser rifles. Grouped together with all of the previous points i completely understand players who would rather not waste their time playing antag. Its like gambling your time away with worse odds than a league of legends match. 

[Fluffy]

2 hours ago, BLUNTFORCE420 said:

there can be interesting peace antag gimmicks that dont necessarily have to escalate

Escalate, in the context I meant is engagement-wise, as in, not something that starts and remains stealthy, not necessarily escalate as in bloody.

44 minutes ago, Garnascus said:

Rules are probably too harsh. (Why do the rules put so much emphasis on others fun and not enough on my own?)

52 minutes ago, Garnascus said:

The antagonists fear the samurai bwoink. Its rough having a constant looming threat of a bwoink over your head. "Just dont break rules" is not a strategy that will save you.

I agree with this, and I believe it's also a problem that they aren't very much clear, for what I was able to see, they seem applied more on a "vibe" base rather than according to what is written down, and fairly inconsistently in so. I believe this disadvantages the antags most (but really affects everyone, in particular also newcomers) because, due to their very nature, their are both in the position of toelining them most and under the intense scrutiny of near everyone for when they do so.

[OolongCow]

There is quite literally nothing wrong with antagonists choosing not to shoot security or kill someone. If they provided fun for even just three people (including themselves) that round and had someone talking about the round in the relay, it's okay. They did their job. Rounds should not be predicated on them doing something to be enjoyable for most players. This is an RP server, and if you can't have fun here unless John Sol pulls out a shorty AR and destroys the sec team on green, then I really don't know what to say.

Murderkilldiehell merc rounds will still happen. Ninjas deciding "let's just kill sec over the smallest slight because it's 1:30" will still happen. Let people have rounds where the antag justs mugs people in maintenance, gets arrested, and then has a rowdy fistfight in the bar after they get out. It's okay. Not every conflict has to have enormous, crew-destroying stakes.

Edited July 16, 2023 by OolongCow

[OolongCow]

As an aside, and as advice to antag players who don't know what to do, being someone who played it a lot a very long time ago:

Small stakes, with small escalation, at a personal level, is almost always better than a badly-executed high-level gimmick. If you play your traitor antag round with all that access to TC and BC as a poor, down-on-their-luck dreg robbing people in maintenance with a derringer because you're being fired and have nowhere to go, and commit to that gimmick, everyone who ever involved themselves with you will remember that round, remember the interesting and sadly unique scenario you put them up against, and want you to play antag more. Low stakes antag rounds where security knows they don't have to worry about being instantly stunned and sucked to death by a changeling, or of otherwise being put in a knife's edge situation where they will be taken out for half an hour, will make them much more cooperative and willing to entertain your gimmick. Sec players, believe it or not, do like to roleplay. They just don't like being forced to lose if they choose to engage in it, which sadly happens a lot.

Act like a person. Emote your hands shaking while you point a gun at someone. Apologize to the people you're holding hostage under your breath and promise not to really hurt them. Purposefully make mistakes that on an OOC level security players know are purposeful. You can get so much leeway to do cool stuff if you use emotes and just talk to people like you're playing a human being instead of being a mechanics-based robot.

[Arrow768]

Voting for dismissal due to the reasons provided by Garn.