Expanded Crew Interaction with Uplinked Antags - Actor Recruitment

[evandorf]

This is a suggestion that I feel would help non-antag players engage in semi-canonical ways with antags during normal rounds. I say semi-canonical as it would only affect an individual player's canon, not the ship or universe's canon. As it stands, players create exploitables which are viewable from the uplink. The antag takes that info and runs with it or incorporates it into a gimmick and the player whose exploitable information is used tries to 'yes-and' to the best of their ability. The events that follow are often non-canon, like most antag related actions, and only affects a character's personal story if the player wants to incorporate them and if the events are relatively believable.

That's all good, but I regularly run into two issues:

• When someone has their exploitables leveraged, they are often in a grey area about what actions are acceptable for them to take. Are they emotionally charged? Are they under duress? Does the context of the exploitables used provide enough reason to take drastic action? Ect.
• Creating a meaningful gimmick or story with exploitables is hampered by a lack of direct communication between the players involved. Exploitables can't account for all gimmicks or the directions they might take. Being able to confirm details or desires of the players you choose to include in a gimmick is very useful but LOOC is cumbersome and can give away the whole game depending on who else might be nearby.

The basics of the suggestion is to allow uplink antags to recruit crew into actor roles to help resolve some of these issues. It would be similar to how you recruit people in Rev; you use the verb, select the player, enter a brief blurb about the gimmick you have planned, and they can choose to join or decline. They do not get an uplink or any special antag abilities, but being an actor does give them AOOC and marks them officially as an antag which may remove some hesitancy about acting in ways outside the norm.

This doesn't mean they would immediately be able to join the antag against the crew. They would be beholden to the context of their exploitables, and their backstory, which would still need to remain believable for a hire-able individual. They would be able to communicate with the antag, answer necessary questions about the character's background or motivations and be able to craft better set-pieces through planning.

There are some potential hurdles and questions. Should this cost the antag any TC or BC? Should this be used for gimmicks without established exploitables? Do potential abuses outweigh the positive aspects and does the moderation team want to deal with it? I'd like to hear opinions and see if there are any glaring issues I've missed.

[dessysalta]

Moderation side of things, I'd like to see some kind of limiter. I don't think any restriction tied to crystals would be sufficient seeing as it's either going to be all of their BC (i.e. some super high amount) or something negligible such that mercenaries could get three times their number in helper buddies. That said, I'd be amenable to a verb that explicitly states something about reasonable limits and self-preservation- better yet if it notified staff just in case? 

Otherwise, I think it's certainly a big help for solo antagonists and I'd like to see something like this- even if it doesn't give them "true" antagonist status and is more of a "this person can act like an antagonist for the purposes of the gimmick" sign.