Player Complaint - Quiet Cowboy

[La Villa Strangiato]

BYOND Key: Lavillastrangiato
Game ID: Longstanding pattern of behaviour. A specific round I am referencing is crc-aVqA.
Player Byond Key/Character name: Quiet Cowboy/Tim Bilbert/Dave Hilbin
Staff involved: Eddymakaveli addressed a concern I had about crc-aVqA, Melariara suggested I make a complaint.
Reason for complaint: Quiet Cowboy has been antag-banned before for repeated LRP or rulebreak antag play. While I can say that their antag play no longer outright breaks rules, unfortunately a lot of their antag gameplay is as LRP as it first began.

There are two main gimmicks that they stick to; being a traitor, and buying a psionic jumpstarter to teleport around and hide in various locations around the ship. This usually culminates in them getting their head blown off by security. The other gimmick that they do is they roll vampire, and proceed to make a character who goes something like "oooh, I have a fatal disease, I need blooooood. I need to eat blooooood". Eventually this culminates in an escalation where they go berserk-mode and get their head blown off by security.

In the meantime, Quiet Cowboy makes more or less the same character, a white Earther/Europan accent dude with Business 1 hair named something like Tim Bilbert, Dave Hilbin, or Jack Johnson. Then they spawn in the same round they died as antag, with their prefs still toggled, and play the same antag gimmick again.

I have never observed any notable character traits from any of their characters. Tim Bilbert is a First Responder Trainee, yet I have never seen them make much of an attempt to learn medical. Sometimes Tim Bilbert jobhops to Lab Assistant! I don't see him doing much science RP or gameplay.

To put it bluntly, I don't really get why Quiet Cowboy plays Aurora. They don't seem to have much interest in roleplay, which there's nothing wrong with in a vacuum. But if you don't want to roleplay or put effort into it, why play an HRP server? You would probably have a lot more fun playing on something like /tg/, Goonstation, or Fulp, where there's considerably more focus on gameplay, wacky events, and nobody really trying to play at being "reasonable". And there's nothing wrong with wanting to do that! It's just that Aurora works on a slower, more writing-focused game style.

Here's a decent microcosm of what I mean overall. In the round I'm referencing, Quiet Cowboy's first character and Dave Hilbin both became vampires and they both got headgibbed by security after they went hulk-vampire. Everyone went "oh, that sucks", and moved on with their round. But later on, Philo Nix got turned into a hulk-vampire! He grabbed someone and drank their blood, and immediately got subdued, but nobody blew Philo Nix's head off because Philo was a) a character who had friends and good interactions with the crew b) actually roleplaying. It created some interpersonal IC conflict that yeah, let's face it, was kinda driven by meta-feelings. When you play an on-ship character as an antag, people are OOCly more interested in engaging with you if you're an established character who has proven they can help drive a story.
Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation?: I ahelped asking if it was against the rules to spawn twice in a round and roll what is more or less the same antag gimmick, which is what Quiet Cowboy was doing in round crc-aVqA. Eddymakaveli answered the question saying it was not against the rules.
Approximate Date/Time: Again, longstanding pattern of behaviour, but crc-aVqA was last night around 11pm Mountain Time.

[Roostercat]

Hi. I'll be handling this complaint. As with most every complaint I handle, I will throw out a reminder to only post if DIRECTLY involved. Which in this case is pretty much just Lavilla and Cowboy. DM me if you want to post something and are not sure if it counts as involved. (On discord, not forums, I won't see it)

[Roostercat]

Hi. I have returned with a verdict. 

 

While some of the things Cowboy does can be seen as distasteful, IE the rejoining the round and rolling antagonist again, nothing on this complaint is actionable in the context of the rules. It is not against the rules to re-roll antag or rejoin the round, and they are things that are mechanically supported. I would suggest pushing for getting these changed mechanically if you are unhappy with them. 

As for their roleplay conduct, we can not punish people for having, in your opinion, sub-par roleplay skills. It would effectively be seen as a sort of roleplay elitism gatekeeping, as it were, and is simply not actionable via the rules. Generally, when we punish people for LRP conduct, it's when attempts to roleplay are not even made to begin with or when things are extremely out of the ordinary I.E. some assistant begging for meth from the pharmacist or something. Cowboy is still attempting roleplay, so this is not punishable. 

 

As for the claim that they jobhop to assistant, I don't really have evidence for this so the best thing I can say is to ahelp it when it happens so staff can deal with it. 

 

Overall, I won't be taking any action against Cowboy, and this complaint will be closed tomorrow unless anyone has anything more to say.