Player Complaint - Unionguy

[evandorf]

BYOND Key: Evandorf

Game ID: cGv-aaM2

Player Byond Key/Character name: Unionguy/Bishiop Sterling

Staff involved: NA

Reason for complaint:

During this round I late-joined as CMO and was made aware of the fact that Sterling, the shift psychologist, was being arrested for vandalism. He was only being fined, so interruptions to the department would be minimal but at the same time we were hosting the survivors from the previous round's event in the recovery ward. I looked up Sterling's records, which included a number of similar arrests over a short period of time, and my CMO bristled at the idea that Sterling was ignoring possibly traumatized patients to indulge in whatever it is they were doing which led to the arrest. When Sterling came back to the department we spoke in the CMO's office, and I basically told them that I expected them to do their job, to be professional, and that further incidents would result in suspension. They proceeded to argue with me, jumping from excuse to excuse saying they were doing their job, they had other patients (Miguel Garcia), that the survivors didn't need to be looked at right now, ect. I asked if they could show me reports or anything related to the work they claimed to be doing, to which they responded that full psychological notes/reports were not kept in the medical records system, but in another system which I had no access to due to privacy laws.

All of the above is IC context, but it leads to the reason I created this complaint; engaging in LRP behavior and then trying to shield his character ICly behind non-existent systems. I have no issues with characters who cause problems, but you have to deal with the IC consequences when they eventually arrive. Saying that proof exists of your doing your job only in some inaccessible system cuts the legs out of under any meaningful RP we could have. It ignores in-game reality and leaves me only with the option to pull rank and suspend you. When asked about his arrests he attributed it to him being "something of a comedian" but if he's trying to play some kind of psych who heals with laughter it only comes off as annoying at best, and unprofessional/unemployable at worst. In hindsight, I should have ahelped at the time, but instead I'm making this report.

Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation?

No, at the time I thought pulling rank and suspending them was enough. Thinking further on it though, it only addresses the IC events of that round, and it does not address any OOC aspects.

Approximate Date/Time: July 15th at 20:15 CST or July 16 02:15 UTC

[CampinKiller]

Myself and @dessysalta will handle this. 

@StewardsCap please post your side when able.

[StewardsCap]

I figured that at some point this was going to happen, surprisingly I have a good reason for why bishop did what he did. Even though I think most people knew I played him, I tried to keep it a secret and go with the "This guy is some rando" aspect given the gimmick. This, coupled with his fake personality, makes him I guess sort of an "enigma" and without knowing his intentions or the player behind him yeah, I can see it as LRP. 

I can understand where you're coming from here, but I don't think denying a recently arrived non-SCC patient under the guise of "I am busy, I am currently doing psychology things, they will need to slot in for next week" is LRP, I actually think it's the most realistic thing sterling could've done in the situation. Besides of course him goofing off with a toy wand, he was genuinely discussing Garcia's issues over cigars, his reasons for why he made threats, and then after that putting him on a plan. This is pretty much as "doing his job" goes for sterling and given that I was going to record a statement after the session I wasn't really interested in figuring out the actor's trauma; since the investigators were already doing that. I know in the past I have, amusingly, denied visiting patients, but at the slightest resistance I'd abdicate. The vandalism thing was breaking the already broken floor light on a misclick, but given the character, I just kind of rolled with it. Going back to the negligence, no I didn't ignore the patient, he had actually visited the ward three times after garcia, checking in and seeing the investigators talk corporate to them. He actually gets told to leave the ward because he goes in and starts shooting the toy wand at guwan as a joke.

Now, the shielding thing with MAPPA is an old psychologist trick, but I did have good reasoning. You had made a lot of wrong assumptions when you pulled me into your office. 

1) You said that I was lying about garcia being put on watch, and that he wasn't discussed about in the relay, then I asked you to pull up the console that had his record set to "Watch" under mental status, which I then pointed out to you ICly. This, to sterling, showcases that your CMO didn't do a lot of digging. 

2) You said that because of me "failing to do my duties", Usul Guwan had to conduct the pysch evaluation in my absence. Now first, I knew ICly that this wasn't true and that Guwan was just watching the patient in the ward with a coffee cup in her hand. As I mentioned before, I also noticed ICly that two investigators were talking with this survivor, so pulling them away would not only interrupt security procedure but take away from their roleplay. Secondly, if you knew that guwan was conducting an illegal evaluation, why didn't you stop her? This was something I brought up to you in that office like three times, which your angerly brushed off before confronting by making guwan stand witness to say that she didn't do an eval. This again showcased to him that you weren't really here about his "negligence", you just didn't like him. Given that after I defeated your points, you'd just say, "Well yeah but getting arrested isn't professional", which is fine, but it seems OOCly you weren't trying to go for that. 

3) You absolutely misunderstood the "excuses" sterling was giving, saying "Doctor, I think the survivor should get acquainted with the vessel before I conduct an evaluation" or "Doctor, I can't just throw my schedule away to attend to a patient not assigned to me this week, and who isn't in a emergency situation." aren't excuses, and you playing it that way just made him believe you had no idea what you were talking about when it comes to how he does his job.

So, with these reasons, ICly sterling had good inclination to believe that you were bluffing and exercising a bias against him. This is reasonable, given sterling's black sheep status he is used to people wanting him gone and left for dead. However, your incompetence when it came to the psychological field, is the real reason I did the shielding thing. Sterling figured that because of your lack of knowledge, he could pull the MAPPA bluff and get them off his back. Assuming that the CMO takes a Chief of Surgery/ Chief of Medicine in practice, generally you can't just dig through their files.... to share them (The part I conveniently forgot to mention). Yes, your CMO was right in general, and the whole "oh so how do you know my scheduling plans?" was just him bluffing, as realistically yeah, you could see it off shift.

 

23 hours ago, evandorf said:

I have no issues with characters who cause problems, but you have to deal with the IC consequences when they eventually arrive.

You've not gotten the chance to really meet sterling on a high pop medical round, because I think you would've seen these consequences for yourself. He is absolutely hated, isolated, with some of the staff not even looking him in the face. He was arrested three times that round, the vandalism charge was purposely exaggerated by the player of othurr (who I had a good laugh with about the situation) for good reason. Security literally called me playing with the toy wand (which shoots a beam) Infront of Rrashs as me literally shooting her. Again, for good reason! Due to how he has acted, security and medical don't like him at all. He has done things that are more personal, unknowingly maiming a certain dionaes nymph, who confronted him at gunpoint about it. He had a toy gun, so he pulled it out and figured it was a joke given the pistol the dionae was using was the experimental sci-chipped one. Yet right now oblivious to him, that dionae is planning on hurting him and getting their retribution. Trust me, he is not getting away scot-free for all the things he's done. 

 

 

23 hours ago, evandorf said:

. Saying that proof exists of your doing your job only in some inaccessible system cuts the legs out of under any meaningful RP we could have. It ignores in-game reality and leaves me only with the option to pull rank and suspend you.

Again, as I showed you, he did actually do his job and the "in-accessible system" that he mentioned was just a bluff on MAPPA law. I didn't leave the patient without the chance of RP, much better roleplayers who were around for when the survivor was picked up gave them really good moments like them getting to pray at the chapel and just generally talking in the ward. I also think denying the patient can serve to strengthen RP in certain circumstances, it shocks both the patient and the entire command/medical department. It also showcases something that is a little rare as far as I have seen; people betraying their core virtues. Sterling acts like an agent of emotion and unprofessionalism, but when it suits him, he falls back to corporate policy and becomes socially sterile to the obvious moral issue. It also isn't FRP, again, it's not insane for a psychologist to ask for a reschedule on a walk-in. When ordered too, like with Pitra, he abdicates and is forced to conduct the psych examination. 

 

 

23 hours ago, evandorf said:

When asked about his arrests he attributed it to him being "something of a comedian" but if he's trying to play some kind of psych who heals with laughter it only comes off as annoying at best, and unprofessional/unemployable at worst.

The "something of a comedian" comment isn't serious, it's him dodging his recent history since time and time again he cannot come back with his dignity after explaining the context. The "pysch who heals with laughs" isn't his intention, more so a cover. Sterling was, before I deleted him after a burnout, my first ever character for this server. If I'm allowed to connect him back pre-deletion, he has been around with the SCCV Horizon since 2464, and he has seen his fair share of incidents. If you read into his history, I believe under his medical records, it mentions an incident with a Unathi patient in his previous job working for corporate prisons. In short, the young bishop believed that he was making a breakthrough with a guwan, when in reality this wasn't the case. The guwan lied to him so that he could lower the medical teams guard, which would allow him to take its own life without being stopped. On a spacewalk with just it and sterling, it overpowers him, jumps off the vessel and dies quickly to exposure. At first this incident was added to compliment his standoff nature with aliens, and his personal lack of confidence, the events of the horizon turned it to a deeper wound. When I had played as him, trying to be sincere and sane, people would brush him off saying "I don't need to be shrinked" or "I am all good." Most of these folks, a month or so later, would either lose their mind or take their own life. Hell in a few cases, sterling almost lost his to these supposedly "sane" spacers. After trying and failing, using things from bribery to literal command orders to get people to seek therapy, he was absolutely devastated. He figured that people didn't want to seek help because it made them feel week, and an upper-class posh fellow conducting an evaluation on you would signal to your fellows that you were not okay. After spending a lot of time in the residential wing, he gained a epiphany, if he didn't take himself seriously, people would be more comfortable going to his sessions, being able to play them off as a joke which he could then get them to confess in private. He figured if he came off as an unprofessional clown, no-one would be afraid of him. 

Is this the solution? No, in reality it has been only semi-successful at the cost of him being a major pain-in-the-ass. but I think it's pretty funny and allows for wacky things to happen, like me cursing a tajaran with a wand while failing to do a backflip. Stuff like that lightens the mood, and I think he fits the gimmick okay at least in my eyes. 


Look at the difference with him pre-deletion and post-deletion. You can tell that there have been some exaggerations in grooming style, as well as a lack of personalization of their uniform. 

[evandorf]

If this was a problem with IC interactions then it would be a IR and not a player/character complaint. I'm not hashing out the minutiae of Sterling's IC motivations or peoples' biases against him, but I will say that if you want other characters to consider your actions as in good faith then you should avoid getting arrested for the Nth time.

  

11 hours ago, StewardsCap said:

Now, the shielding thing with MAPPA is an old psychologist trick

The reason I created this report was because I was treating the MAPPA comments as genuine, which causes issues with RP from an OOC perspective as the system doesn't exist. The alternative is that Sterling is trying to fool the CMO with a lie so unbelievable it made me think you were operating off of some misconception in how collaborative/improvisational world-building worked. If that's how you want me to consider it in future, how else do you imagine things will play out but with swift suspensions? Either interpretation, IC or OOC, leads to contract termination/character removal or action from the moderation team respectively, so I don't see this "trick" as being as useful as you think.

[StewardsCap]

 

10 hours ago, evandorf said:

I'm not hashing out the minutiae of Sterling's IC motivations or peoples' biases against him, but I will say that if you want other characters to consider your actions as in good faith then you should avoid getting arrested for the Nth time.

The reason for me expanding on the IC detail was not to seek pity, if I wanted people to have good faith in sterling, I would've not made him how he is now. It was to explain what I was doing during the round and showing my intentions. 

You say that MAPPA is a system that doesn't exist, or simply too unbelievable in what you call 'collaborative/improvisational world-building' within aurora. I don't think this is true, as can also be said about patient confidentiality, both of these falls under what I believe as "de facto" world-building; things not outright stated but must be there due to how the world works. If you're running a professional medical center you have to have medical privacy procedure, if you're a psychologist you have to have patient confidentiality, these don't need to be outright stated but I do think they are important for HRP as a medical member. I have seen people take medical privacy into account, hell sterling himself got in trouble for violating MAPPA by him carelessly disposing records. I have also seen people use the patient confidentiality to deny people specific details on patients, usually non-medical of course. However, psychologists realistically have a stricter confidentiality to uphold, in-which certain details cannot even be known by the other medical staff (if it isn't necessary to their duties of course). If you think about it, it makes sense, since it stops the pysch from using his/her position to manipulate or abuse their relationship with patients.  

Now obviously the main issue isn't MAPPA itself, it's how I used it in this conversation. I can understand that hearing it from sterling, it makes it seem like I am saying a big "Fuck you" OOCly. I'll admit my original post is very brief, so I was exaggerating with my "bluff". The actual one is sort of a half-lie, after you ask to oversee sterlings work on garcia, sterling says something along the lines of "No Doctor, I cannot have you oversee the personal conversations, logs, or reports between me and garcia due to patient confidentiality and MAPPA. You'll have to get access from the Head of Psychology if you want to see my reports." The actual lie is you needed authorization from the Head of Psychology (who again, for a ship this big, would realistically exist), and the bluff was for you to be doubting your authority in a field you are not familiar with. I think this lie isn't absolutely unsalvageable if it doesn't work out for him, given that it just looks like is him arrogantly trying to shield his patient with the confidentiality card. There is also plenty of motivation to try and pull off this bluff here, but I've already spoken enough about the IC context. 

I do understand that using patient confidentiality is a gray-area, as it can easily be manipulated to block people from having meaningful RP. It can also be used to run-around people who have very little knowledge about real world medical terminology, or how something as niche as privacy works intricately in a medical setting. Again, hearing sterling say it can seem like I was just dangling the keys to the kingdom right before your eyes and teasing you, but that wasn't my intention. I think I used it for good reason here, even if it wasn't for a good cause. You ask how are things supposed to play out; how would your character retaliate? I don't think utilizing patient confidentiality here to shield garcia is something that warrants termination, as on the surface at least, it doesn't look malicious. A psychologist mistakenly asking the Chief Surgeon/Chief Physician/Chief of Medicine, to get the Head of Psychology's permission before seeing personal logs about psych patients isn't the most unbelievable thing out there. Yet understandably, it can play off as me using the gray-area of MAPPA and patient confidentiality to get back at you OOCly.

I have to stress that it wasn't meant to be an OOC retaliation, all of it was meant to be IC coercion. But going forward, I will be more careful with how I use it and word it. It is obvious I underestimated how unfair it can be to the recipient, and how if the person is unfamiliar with it can seem like an unwinnable tyrant to reason against. It is easy to make it seem like a personal attack, and for that I am sorry. 

 

Edited July 19 by StewardsCap

[evandorf]

20 hours ago, StewardsCap said:

...both of these falls under what I believe as "de facto" world-building; things not outright stated but must be there due to how the world works.

Your misconception of world building in-game is that you think something not specifically documented is free to be manufactured ad-hoc. You have the ability to create your own personal characters and backstories, but only staff (primarily lore and CCIA) has the prerogative to expand on systems that affect everyone. You're also attempting to create regulations (MAPPA) and positions (Head of Psychology) in a way that benefits you by shielding your character from consequences of their unprofessional behavior, whether you intend for it to be true or just the catalyst for an IC lie.

IMO, the above should be common sense. I try to consider people's actions with the most charitable interpretation of their intent, but I also know that LRP behavior will immediately put your intent under scrutiny. I don't hold any negative feelings towards you or the incident but I don't want to keep stretching this out longer than it needs to be so this will probably be my last response.

[StewardsCap]

No, that is not at all what I said when describing "de facto" worldbuilding, it requires it to be intuitive to the reader. For example, Biesel is a government, so it can be intuitionally deduced to have Taxes and a Postal Service, both of these things are systems that affect a good deal of people and are on the table to be talked about pretty much everywhere. Something wrongfully Ad-Hoc would be me, creating the "Human First Party" for sol, and using it as a rationale to say spacist slurs. This Party cannot be intuitively deduced and is not immersion breaking if removed from the equation, unlike a postal service or a tax bureau (under most normal circumstances).  Likewise, MAPPA was not created by me, it is actually a thing from real life if you can believe it. It preceded me, as it was intuitively deduced by medical players taking to more detailed RP, realizing that sharing peoples mental and physical issues was not something medical centers do. Pysch players also reasonably deduce that gossiping about their patients' traumas or personal secrets would be a violation of what they do. 

You say that I used this system to lord over you, and that it helped 'shield my LRP behavior', I can't really figure out what you mean by that. Do you mean the Vandalism? I was arrested for that, Lange and his imperial army could've cared less about MAPPA. Did it stop you from suspending me? No, and when you went to suspend me, I didn't call you out for "breaking patient confidentiality!" or whatever. Do you mean me denying an eval of the survivor? I've already explained that me doing that had reasonable intentions, didn't ruin any RP, and wasn't a gamey/no intention to roleplay move since I gain nothing out of denying it. The only thing the Patient Confidentiality Clause did was deny you hearing my explanation of what Sterling and Garcia talked about.

If I didn't pull that, the only thing that would change would be me giving you a roughly two-minute recounting of a conversation. Which your response would most likely be "Hmm, okay" or something around those lines. Instead, I pulled that clause because sterling's kind of a moron and gave you a situation to RP out. 
 

Quote

Try to perform your job to a satisfactory standard, especially in positions of power such as security or head roles. Minor failures at doing so will result in IC consequences, but constant, repeated failures without sense or reason can result in jobbans; your character would probably not be hired if they were completely unable to do their job. Note that you are not expected to be a role model employee, but are asked to not use your job to grief and to also have an OOC understanding of what’s going on.

Being a moron isn't FRP, as I had done my job to satisfactory standards; I started a therapy plan for an infamous employee, I allowed security to handle the survivor but checked on them 2-3 times. I didn't fail at my job; however, the toy wand joke and accidental vandalism were things that detracted from my work, and I got the IC consequence for it. The idea that doing your job to a reasonable but not exemplary extent, as well as being a moron, shouldn't be an OOC rule break.