Staff Complaint - Sadkermit

[Bolbos]

BYOND Key: Baldos
Staff BYOND Key: Sadkermit
Game ID: cpe-dfOv (this game id is the round after the incident)
Reason for complaint: Antag banned for trying to help out a fellow traitor during a fight with security.
Evidence/logs/etc: don't have the chat logs but I do have the antag ban note
Additional remarks: The arrest scene was a fight when I came in, the traitor was fighting a security officer IPC, I stepped in and shot them up but got hit with a disruptor bolt and a few hits from a stun baton causing me to flee, then I came back and found the traitor cuffed to a rollerbed with the captain and a security cadet standing near the traitor then I opened fire on them since I assumed they already know I'm helping out the traitor after the first fight

Yes we didn't have that much interaction since we met up in operations, but we both knew we were both traitors and on the same team ICCly, we even had encrypted comms to keep up with the progress of eachother's objectives where he robbed the vault so I don't see why I shouldn't help them during a fight? and before you say you silently opened fire on them, there was no time to talk the fight was already going on and there was no time to say anything

[Garnascus]

Can you go into a bit more detail on the type of interaction you both had prior to helping him in the fight? Did you guys agree to team up or anything like that? We of course would never bwoink a merc for helping out another merc or a cultist from helping another cultist but traitors are more a grey area since all of you are lone wolves by default and have to forge a relationship IC to justify it. 

[Bolbos]

We sort of teamed up, at the beginning OOCly I and him agreed to be psionic traitors, we then got encrypted radio comms and met up at operations we didn't stay there for long but his intentions were to rob the vault and he didn't need my help so basically this guy was known to me as an ally ICCly then I went to go and threaten a medical intern for talking crap about me in medical comms.

[kermit]

The reason I opted to go with some kind of moderative action in the end is because the basis of this conversation to team up was a 5 minute 'What are we both doing?' exchange where you never actually agreed to do anything together, and instead do things separately. The other antagonist wasn't expecting you to help them and expressed some surprise in OOC channels when you did. Your actions and escalation that round were entirely independent from the other antagonists, and it was not communicated in any way - through actions or verbally - that you were working together. I also don't see encrypted comms as a token of working together, as pretty much every traitor with some experience buys the encrypted comms key, even if it's just to spy on Security/Command comms. In addition to this, your last action before running at the scene of arrest with the psionic pistol was punching an intern; there is no escalation of conflict, it was like, ten to one-hundred.

Did you have a reason to go guns blasting? Yes, they were another psionic ally, which is fine. I do think this reason was retroactive on your part, as the primary reason you gave me was that you knew they were a traitor in the OOC sense.

Was this reason conveyed to others in the round as part of the antagonist's role of storytelling? I would argue not.

You near-killed several people and fired upon first responders even after all of security had disengaged, you later ran into Medical then began shooting surgeons. Did you make an effort to explore other avenues before resorting to killing, especially to bystanders? I would argue not.

The reason I opted to go with a 3 day antagonist ban is because you have numerous notes or warnings on antagonist conduct over a period of months. At least 3 of these relate to escalation, others were in the same vein as not telling a story through antagonist actions. 

Going off note/warning history and my own experiences with you, there is very little/the bare minimum attempt of roleplay behind your actions and, while it's unfair to expect every someone's antagonist round to have an intricate story or amazing roleplay, often the case with your antagging is there is little attempt at a story and little effort at roleplay, with you viewing things more through the mechanical/fun lens - absolutely fine, when there's some effort put into a story behind it or the proper escalation/roleplay to go with it. Mass-shooting everyone you can see demands a lot more escalation/story than what you'd done.

[Bolbos]

9 minutes ago, kermit said:

 

Did you have a reason to go guns blasting? Yes, they were another psionic ally, which is fine. I do think this reason was retroactive on your part, as the primary reason you gave me was that you knew they were a traitor in the OOC sense.

You near-killed several people and fired upon first responders even after all of security had disengaged, you later ran into Medical then began shooting surgeons. Did you make an effort to explore other avenues before resorting to killing, especially to bystanders? I would argue not.

1. It wasn't just me knowing they are a traitor in the OOC sense but also ICCly too as we both communicated through encrypted comms about our objectives he was quite literally letting me know of his progress in the encrypted comms this wasn't just a random dude I knew OOCly that he was a traitor, he was a known traitor ICCly too to me

2. I never ran into medical and began shooting up surgeons, the only medical I fired upon was a first responder that had a laser carbine which I guess they picked up from the captain when he was dying and I wasn't doin this for no reason It was to try and rescue the traitor cuffed to the rollerbed and I later came back to medical to talk only to get hit in the face with a wrench and then shot at with a laser carbine then I got winded
 

13 minutes ago, kermit said:

Was this reason conveyed to others in the round as part of the antagonist's role of storytelling? I would argue not.

Yes I agree I immeditately shot them up, but as I said there was no time for talking when I arrived, if there was a standoff between the two I definitely would have came and joined his side and told them my intentions but there was just no time to talk when disruptor shots are flying everywhere and by your logic, if I talk to a fellow traitor but he got arrested and I break him out does that also break the rules since the ship didn't know we both are allies?

 

23 minutes ago, kermit said:

The reason I opted to go with some kind of moderative action in the end is because the basis of this conversation to team up was a 5 minute 'What are we both doing?' exchange where you never actually agreed to do anything together, and instead do things separately. The other antagonist wasn't expecting you to help them and expressed some surprise in OOC channels when you did. Your actions and escalation that round were entirely independent from the other antagonists, and it was not communicated in any way - through actions or verbally - that you were working together. I also don't see encrypted comms as a token of working together, as pretty much every traitor with some experience buys the encrypted comms key, even if it's just to spy on Security/Command comms. In addition to this, your last action before running at the scene of arrest with the psionic pistol was punching an intern; there is no escalation of conflict, it was like, ten to one-hundred.

Yes we both had different objectives so we didn't really work together but we both knew ICCly that we were allies, so he wasn't just a random dude ICCly to me but an ally that is on the same team as me, just a different objective, and yes there was no escalation of conflict, but all of this happened in an instant, by the time I arrived medbay was a fighting ring and as I said, if there was some sort of standoff I definitely would have joined his side and told security my intentions, encrypted comms was sort of a token of working together as we chit chatted on there for a bit while he told me his progress on his objective

[kermit]

30 minutes ago, Bolbos said:

2. I never ran into medical and began shooting up surgeons, the only medical I fired upon was a first responder that had a laser carbine which I guess they picked up from the captain when he was dying and I wasn't doin this for no reason It was to try and rescue the traitor cuffed to the rollerbed and I later came back to medical to talk only to get hit in the face with a wrench and then shot at with a laser carbine then I got winded

This sounds fair enough then.

30 minutes ago, Bolbos said:

Yes I agree I immeditately shot them up, but as I said there was no time for talking when I arrived, if there was a standoff between the two I definitely would have came and joined his side and told them my intentions but there was just no time to talk when disruptor shots are flying everywhere and by your logic, if I talk to a fellow traitor but he got arrested and I break him out does that also break the rules since the ship didn't know we both are allies?

The problem I had was you inserting yourself into this situation when there had been very little buildup/roleplay leading up to it, just the 5 minute 'Here's what I'm doing' and occasional updates over enc. comms to the point even the other antagonist wasn't really expecting your help. From the perspective of everyone else in the round, you appeared out of the blue shooting everyone, when before you weren't on anyone's radar, minus the intern because you had psionic-punched them. 

Arriving to a firefight makes things tricky, yeah, but I think with the lack of roleplay/build-up/story towards you inserting yourself into that situation, the best thing imo as someone who also plays traitor would've been to back off. You mention the hypothetical of breaking him out after his detention; that would have been fine because it's not a 0 to 100, it's not firing on everyone without any regard of their involvement/them being bystanders, and it establishes to everyone else in the round that you and the other traitor are working together.

30 minutes ago, Bolbos said:

Yes we both had different objectives so we didn't really work together but we both knew ICCly that we were allies, so he wasn't just a random dude ICCly to me but an ally that is on the same team as me, just a different objective

You didn't work together, you had different objectives, you just knew that they were also a traitor. I guess you were both using psionics, but with how the psionics were used they seemed more like a weapon/means to an end instead of something that was deliberate to connect you both as working together. I personally don't think it's a good enough reason to interevne on their behalf, but let's say it's enough to establish a team up between you two; you still didn't establish this team-up in anyway to other people in the round, there was no roleplay/story which connected you two. They got themself detained, you had ticked the box of saying 'We're traitors' to each other, so you used that to sprint over and shoot/nearly kill everyone involved or bystanding the arrest. I don't think it's enough, though maybe Garn will rule differently.

[kermit]

Going back to encrypted comms, one thing to consider is that a lot of traitors tend to buy encrypted comms for different reasons. It, on it's own, isn't a token that shows you've teamed up, as sometimes people buy it for the eavesdropping or to just give updates/warnings. It sounds like they were using encrypted comms to keep you up to speed and appraised of security's behaviour more than anything, which tracks with their surprise when you did go to help out.

If, say, a third antagonist had bought encrypted comms earlier in the round for any purpose, then overheard you and the second antagonist talking, that too could be construed as a 'team up' and ticking the 'I know they're a traitor' box, when really your interaction with that third antagonist would have been minimal and wholly disconnected from your actions up to that point.

When you're not even working together and your actions/objectives are miles apart, any team up organised over antag-only channels, such as encrypted comms, needs to be communicated in some way to non-antags in the round as part of build up/a story, is my stance on things. Encrypted comms on it's own isn't really sufficient, unless you've agreed to work towards the same objectives and you're both doing the same/very similar actions, and it's clearly communicated through these actions that 'Oh yeah, this is a joint-job with 2 people working against us' or whatever.

Edited August 11, 2023 by kermit

[Bolbos]

10 minutes ago, kermit said:

The problem I had was you inserting yourself into this situation when there had been very little buildup/roleplay leading up to it, just the 5 minute 'Here's what I'm doing' and occasional updates over enc. comms to the point even the other antagonist wasn't really expecting your help. From the perspective of everyone else in the round, you appeared out of the blue shooting everyone, when before you weren't on anyone's radar, minus the intern because you had psionic-punched them. 

Arriving to a firefight makes things tricky, yeah, but I think with the lack of roleplay/build-up/story towards you inserting yourself into that situation, the best thing imo as someone who also plays traitor would've been to back off. You mention the hypothetical of breaking him out after his detention; that would have been fine because it's not a 0 to 100, it's not firing on everyone without any regard of their involvement/them being bystanders, and it establishes to everyone else in the round that you and the other traitor are working together.

I only shot security staff and the captain, not sure where you got the bystanders from unless you mean that first responder with the laser carbine, and yes I could have backed off but I didn't wanna let the other traitor get arrested as that would also get me arrested because of me assaulting the medical intern, I was basically a fugitive on the run and he just basically had a higher priority for security, yes I do agree there was very little buildup but that could be also attributed to the fact that medbay turned into a warzone very quickly, and yes firing on security staff was bad, but there was no way I could talk while they were all fighting.
 

36 minutes ago, kermit said:

You didn't work together, you had different objectives, you just knew that they were also a traitor. I guess you were both using psionics, but with how the psionics were used they seemed more like a weapon/means to an end instead of something that was deliberate to connect you both as working together. I personally don't think it's a good enough reason to interevne on their behalf, but let's say it's enough to establish a team up between you two; you still didn't establish this team-up in anyway to other people in the round, there was no roleplay/story which connected you two. They got themself detained, you had ticked the box of saying 'We're traitors' to each other, so you used that to sprint over and shoot/nearly kill everyone involved or bystanding the arrest. I don't think it's enough, though maybe Garn will rule differently.

I honestly think In my opinion knowing someone is a fellow guy who is working against the SCCV horizon is an ally no matter if our objectives are different, afterall the enemy of my enemy is my friend and I knew that ICCly which justifies what I have done, but we will see what garn will say about this.
 

[Melariara]

Hello. Apologies for the delay on this one. Give us a bit to go through all the logs and we'll get back to you soon!

[Melariara]

Hi there, sorry for the delay.

 

After reviewing everything available to me at this time, I've decided that this ban was justified.

Do keep in mind in future that there is always escalation needed for things, and escalation does not include your antag buddy being kidnapped. As the ban was only for three days, there is no further action needed as the ban is already over. Also keep in mind your knowledge of OOC (Out of character) knowledge in IC (in character) situations.

 

If there are no further issues, I will lock and archive this in twenty four hours.

[Melariara]

Locking and Archiving.