Player Complaint: Terrence Frank/Bobbyswagger

[nanotoxin]

BYOND Key: Nanotoxin

Player Byond Key: Bobbyswagger

Staff involved: It's an ongoing issue with this character

Reason for complaint: Not rp'ing loyalty implants

Approximate Date/Time: Almost since the creation of this character

Exactly the reason. Multiple people can attest to this. He does it almost every round. He looks for problems and causes them, breaks CR.

 

 

Apparently this is all that having a loyalty implant means.

I'd like for either someone to teach Bobby how to rp a loyalty implant as my multiple attempts have been unsuccesful, or have his access to roles which have one removed. Especially a role such as IAA.

[Reyjakai]

Another major problem that I've discovered is his constant meddling in peoples' affairs. If he sees a group of people, he'll immediately get into the group and say, "What are you doing here? Why aren't you doing your jobs?" Internal Affairs is supposed to be an unbiased observer. They conduct interviews when they are doing investigations, /no other times/. I think we need to readdress what IA is and is not supposed to do. Clearly the baystation wiki doesn't answer the questions clearly enough.

Another major problem that I've found with them is them levying fines on people for breaking CR, or at least as they see it broken. It's happened several times, two of which I've seen and one that I've heard about. This would be taking bribes and he'd be outed immediately if he were a security officer. It'd be like saying, "Pay 500 credits to my officer or your Head of Staff will get a report from my office." If you're loyalty implanted, you /cannot/ intentionally break CR, as that would be against NanoTrasen's interests, right?

[Tainavaa]

Extorting the crew makes people feel insecure in NanoTrasen's ability to manage and maintain an operational work environment. This causes animosity in the professional relationship between NanoTrasen and its employees, and breaks the trust that people should have in the internal affairs department in moderating workplace behavior. Not only that but you are making a personal profit at the expense of NanoTrasen. This is working against NanoTrasen on several accounts.

Insulting the crew and making passive aggressive or otherwise snide remarks sparks animosity and resentment from the people that were insulted or had the remark against them. This causes a hostile work environment, which is what internal affairs is supposed to prevent. This is working against NanoTrasen.

Therefore, the loyalty implant is not being listened to.

Terrence Frank, aside from that, insists on doing security's job and I can attest to Terrence personally taking it upon himself to include himself in any situation that might be construed as more than petty. This is not how internal affairs agents should not be behaving, and is in fact calling for an internal affairs investigation AGAINST an internal affairs agent that IS loyalty implanted.

Behaving in a professional demeanor and doing what a proper internal affairs agent should be doing IS listening to your loyalty implant. Neither of those, it seems to me, is happening.

[Frances]

A few pointers

-Fines exist in corporate regulations as alternatives to certain punishments. They're not used enough, in fact, and I'm glad to see people trying to use them. But an IAA shouldn't be doing it, as that's the equivalent of having the IAA brig someone.

-IIRC (I might be wrong on all of this), it was decided some time ago that loyalty implants prevented the implanted from hindering NanoTrasen's interests. Implants rely on their holder's judgement - a loyalty-implanted person could break corporate regulations if, for example, they believed they would serve NanoTrasen's interests better by doing so than if they had observed the law. (It is expected players use common sense for that, and not go out of their way to sidestep rules.)

-If the role of IAAs remains undefined and open to interpretation at the moment, then no one is technically "right" or "wrong" about how they should be played (short of what has already been established - that IAAs can meddle into people's affairs to a reasonable degree, but shouldn't be doing security's job.) Any further clarifications should probably be established by a combination of the lore team and server staff.

I personally have no problem with Terrence Frank acting like, well, a hound. He's an excellent source of conflict that feels normal and believable, which is a refreshing change from the nonstop escape attempts of your average antagonist. And I want to give huge props to Bobbyswagger, because characters like Terrence are incredibly difficult to play. Terrence should not, however, be overstepping his bounds as an IAA, as his loyalty implant prevents him directly from doing that.

Perhaps something I'd like to know, is, do people here have an issue with Terrence's actions as a whole, or simply with the fact that he engaged in acts that clearly disregard his loyalty implant?

[Tainavaa]

-Fines exist in corporate regulations as alternatives to certain punishments. They're not used enough, in fact, and I'm glad to see people trying to use them.

 

You aren't wrong. I agree. But what he did was extortion. Attempted, anyway.

 

-IIRC (I might be wrong on all of this), it was decided some time ago that loyalty implants prevented the implanted from hindering NanoTrasen's interests. Implants rely on their holder's judgement - a loyalty-implanted person could break corporate regulations if, for example, they believed they would serve NanoTrasen's interests better by doing so than if they had observed the law. (It is expected players use common sense for that, and not go out of their way to sidestep rules.)

 

You aren't wrong here either but what does on a regular basis is be a horrible example of IA and only serves to hinder the efforts of the crew and incite a hostile work environment; usually nothing more. At least in my experience. Everything else is irrelevant to my issues with him.

And "Be a horrible example of IA" doesn't mean he doesn't know how to do his job, because he does. My issue isn't the character. It is the decisions as a loyalty implanted individual. But answering that question changes nothing, and I stand by my claims.

[Frances]

I have seen Terrence Frank make snide remarks that toed on the limits of what would be ICly acceptable (as I have seen with many, many other characters), but I have never seen him outright insult the crew. Unless you have direct proof of that (not saying you don't, but we might be speaking about different things), that would be better suited as an addition to his IC complaint than here.

[Baka]

I will direct Bobbyswagger to the thread.

[Guest]

I feel like incident reports would be way way more valid in this case. And please note that Agent Frank recently recieved restrictions from the DO Corp. Also, I like that he meddles and such, honestly I think it causes great corporate badguy RP and as Captain Ive used Terrance more than once to get things done.

[Baka]

I have talked to Bobbyswagger over ahelps over this complaint.

Here's what I see.

This complaint doesn't have enough meat to go off on. Loyalty Implants are used for being, well, loyal to NT's policies and that's about it. Perhaps you would go farther with an incident report.

[EvilBrage]

Loyalty implants really only amount to a "this person is exempt from antag selection/conversion" device ported over that we've tried to justify on a heavy-RP server for some inexplicable reason, and if I may be so bold - it's not working. Get it? "If I may be so bold?" Ahahaha. Haha. Aha... ha ha. Ha.

Maybe it's finally time to walk away from the deus ex machina and instead assume that our captains, heads of security, and IA agents are loyal because they're afraid to lose years of hard work and dedication required for their positions, rather than a mind control probe, but that's for another thread.

[Killerhurtz]

Personally, I have a strong love/hate relationship with Frank.

On the one hand, he IS known to often cause more trouble than he solves and is often /VERY/ pushy and most often overstepping - I remember more than once him 'requesting' (which was never denied because he's very underhanded in his methods) to search someone for a minor infraction like having the RD stamp without being RD.

On the other hand, he IS someone who prevents chair-RP and that ensures proper operation that should be expected of a heavy-RP server (which mostly has to do with paperwork - if it wasn't for Terrence, I wouldn't have learned to consistently remember to request paperwork from people as a RD, and to do paperwork as normal crew), AND he gets things done right when needed.

Plus, that is only when the station is operating normally. When all shit breaks lose, Terrence goes from pushy asshole IAA to, most often, goddamn savior - he will put his life on the line to ensure the safety of this station, and when everyone else cowers and try to save their asses, he's the one who helps security (and whoever else assists them in restoring the safety) get things done and have more presence on the station. He never wields weapons (I think I remember ONCE Terrence having a stun revolver because he was getting targeted), he simply acts as security's mouth, eyes and ears. He is seriously one of the six characters that I know personally, on station, on Sybil's semi-canon 'whitelist' (which is a list of people she would never want to be in an bad situation or emergency situation without).

So overall, I say that Bobby's fine - contrary to MOST people, he actually makes things happen at all time, helps break down armchair RP, helps people interact - and that's saying something, because in most situations the role of IAA isn't entirely useful if not that active.

[Guest]

Just gonna say that having the RD stamp is theft and conspiracy to impersonate a superior officer.

[Killerhurtz]

Except that the RD gave it to us because we had a competent telescientist, he was going to sleep on the satellite BUT we needed his stamp for paperwork he verbally approved. AND by the time a security officer responded as summoned by Frank, we were true to our word and it was back there (and I got it back five minutes later after being promoted to RD myself since I had the qualifications).

[Baka]

Right. Locking and archiving. PM if you have questions or concerns.