Turning Normal Characters Into Nuke Ops

[Guest]

Yes, I know I said I dropped the mic earlier and I were to be done with it.

But, let me counter that statement, Keinto, since this seems to matter so much to you. Is it too much to ask for people to play how they want (provided it's still within line of the server rules), and not to be policed by people who have different tastes and methods of approaching things?

[Guest]

Being a peace op as an established employee character cane be justified to an extent. Actual hostile ops, where everyone is concentrated on hunting for 'hostile men in red suits', rather than some random assistant with a familiar face, is not. It gives you an obvious advantage, especially since a lot of players OOCly assume that crew manifest can bug out and leave people out of it. It's an OOC issue that disrupts the game. There are other ways to infliltrate, for example, using dopplers (which is much more interesting).

Counting on your character's IC and OOC popularity as an advantage is bad and is exactly to what a lot of people object to. That said, no one will really object here if it's Anna behind the nuke op mask, it is not that an unfair of advantage. Its the former example that I have an issue with, where existing, trusted, popular identities are used as infililtration tools.

Building on that, there is a reason many a HoS's dreaded having Carton as an officer during Nuke rounds, other than it being slighty immersion breaking. Carton would indeed, as Rech said, have a dilemma, which is exactly why I have issues with it. He's an officer that cannot OOCly be trusted, you know that, yet, you cannot do jack shit about it and are not allowed to, coz meta. It basically makes a character have an IC self-antag green card. You seriously don't see an issue with this?

Just to clear it up, Josh's character is not a topic, I'm just using it a best known and still the most successful example of it, as it did spark a lot of RP. It's still highly questionable.

[Tainavaa]

People would be counting on their popularity IC to get by to go on unnoticed. It isn't an OOC issue; in fact, it isn't an issue period.

This is something that would be abused in real life. It is something that HAS been abused in real life in regards to politics of ancient societies and even things of a more domestic nature such as walking into work on a day that you're off and taking thing from someone else's desk unnoticed.

It gives them an advantage. But it isn't metagaming. What you are literally asking everyone to do is to completely disregard the human psyche when playing, which has the potential to severely inhibit roleplaying possibilities. What is happening now, is an attempt at policing antag behavior.

And Carton's situation being an officer during nuke rounds is entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand anyway. In fact, that is quite the opposite.

 

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With Carton being an officer during nuke rounds you can't do anything about it IC because nothing has happened IC to make you do it. However with a normal person being a nuke, there is plenty of IC reason to pretend it's a normal work day to accomplish your goals. It's something that would happen IC if you completely stripped any sort of OOC from the situation. You have to ask yourself. "In this situation, and given their goals and intents, and given the circumstances. Would this person rely on their popularity to get by?" My bet is, hell fucking yes they would. I sure as hell would.

[josh1133]

I guess...being one of the first and as the good Bokaza said:

 

still the most successful example of it,

 

I should throw my two cents in here.

 

Being a peace op as an established employee character cane be justified to an extent. Actual hostile ops, where everyone is concentrated on hunting for 'hostile men in red suits', rather than some random assistant with a familiar face, is not. It gives you an obvious advantage, especially since a lot of players OOCly assume that crew manifest can bug out and leave people out of it. It's an OOC issue that disrupts the game. There are other ways to infliltrate, for example, using dopplers (which is much more interesting).

Counting on your character's IC and OOC popularity as an advantage is bad and is exactly to what a lot of people object to. That said, no one will really object here if it's Anna behind the nuke op mask, it is not that an unfair of advantage. Its the former example that I have an issue with, where existing, trusted, popular identities are used as infililtration tools.

Building on that, there is a reason many a HoS's dreaded having Carton as an officer during Nuke rounds, other than it being slighty immersion breaking. Carton would indeed, as Rech said, have a dilemma, which is exactly why I have issues with it. He's an officer that cannot OOCly be trusted, you know that, yet, you cannot do jack shit about it and are not allowed to, coz meta. It basically makes a character have an IC self-antag green card. You seriously don't see an issue with this?

Just to clear it up, Josh's character is not a topic, I'm just using it a best known and still the most successful example of it, as it did spark a lot of RP. It's still highly questionable.

 

It brings me great joy to know the HOS's feared me when it was Nuke, but to be fair I always just joined the winning side. At the end of the day, that's all he is trying to do. Survive. ((Sometimes this back fired))

But I have to respectfully disagree....to a point. I don't think everyone and their mother should be mercs who would kill all their co-workers in the blink of a eye if you offered them money. But it's also created some interesting Roleplay and some of the best rounds I ever had. From the secret code that Winston and his wife made so they could talk about whatever they wanted without people being able to understand what they said, to Anna Lee and Winston drinking and throwing a party in the bar after a successful (( though non canon)) mission, its created some interesting things to happen.

I like to imagine them like the Templars from Assassins creed, they all know each other, they are a small group of people and they are very tight knit. The only person outside this little group who has any possible knowledge is Baranova and that's because Winston has expressed regret off his earlier actions (( Pre Sabre)), and when Dalton Industries fell apart. Now, people may find that using these characters is riding off their popularity and such is cheating as you do Kiento, but it also allows certain situations to arise. Think of it like this...if we played characters who didn't have some kind of personality behind the mask, people would have no problem killing them one round and forgetting their names. In fact, when I first joined the server I remember Nuke ops weren't talked about as characters, and they simply either killed the entire station via nuke or they died before I ever got to see one. (( Though to be fair I played Psych))

Now, everyone knows all these different names: Stein, Sabre, Prophet, Scorpion, Spanker, Phoenix, etc etc. They have become characters in their own right and people hate/love them now. Situations such as.....Stein being captured by the ERT and having a talk with Talia about why he decided to do what he did happen. It suddenly becomes harder to pull the trigger for some because your best friend is staring back at you, and now you have to deal with the thought (( Even if its for one round)) that your friend may have been using you this entire time.

I'm very tired when Im writing this, so I could be ranting, but the point of the story is there is a lot of Roleplay that could be brought because of this....BUTTT I don't think everyone should be a operative. There has to be some way to moderate it in my opinion, as it keeps things interesting for many people.

[Guest]

People would be counting on their popularity IC to get by to go on unnoticed. It isn't an OOC issue; in fact, it isn't an issue period.

This is something that would be abused in real life. It is something that HAS been abused in real life in regards to politics of ancient societies and even things of a more domestic nature such as walking into work on a day that you're off and taking thing from someone else's desk unnoticed.

It gives them an advantage. But it isn't metagaming. What you are literally asking everyone to do is to completely disregard the human psyche when playing, which has the potential to severely inhibit roleplaying possibilities. What is happening now, is an attempt at policing antag behavior.

And Carton's situation being an officer during nuke rounds is entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand anyway. In fact, that is quite the opposite.

 

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With Carton being an officer during nuke rounds you can't do anything about it IC because nothing has happened IC to make you do it. However with a normal person being a nuke, there is plenty of IC reason to pretend it's a normal work day to accomplish your goals. It's something that would happen IC if you completely stripped any sort of OOC from the situation. You have to ask yourself. "In this situation, and given their goals and intents, and given the circumstances. Would this person rely on their popularity to get by?" My bet is, hell fucking yes they would. I sure as hell would.

For the record, I consider anyone who deals with absolutes a childish. Maybe you don't see the issue, as there obviously is a fucking issue if people are talking about it.

This is not some ploy to get rid of Carton, and yes, it is relevant. If I remember correctly, Stein did the exact same thing you're talking about, gets unmasked and then admits they are Carton. This has over time developed him into a semi-canon station antagonist, allowing for limited self-antag behavior (I'm not saying they use it). This stuff results in security ignoring that character's antag behavior, not outright, but the lines the character is allowed to cross before they take action is much further. Why? Because people are discourged to speak out against popular characters, ICly and OOCly. How can you say then, that using a character's popularity as factor is not at all destructive, doesn't allow for abuse and doesn't give an unfair advantage?

Why not use popularity as a tool? Because people have been talking about favoritism for last six months, so maybe we should really try to curb the supposed behavior, not encourage it further, regardless if its real or not. I'm not asking anyone to stop their basic psychology from functioning, I'm telling them not to abuse their characters popularity as a tool when their character shouldn't be a nuke op to begin with. You're not being true to your character, you're just abusing the popularity it has and the moment you say 'Welp, one of my character is popular, I'm going that fact to win.' Which you did, you're an obvious part of the problem.

 

-snip-

Yes, I might have been too harsh on your character. Other than the whole shittalking over comms being a bit overused, Carton is still an interesting character, albeit a bit immersion breaking, and still produces good RP.

I have failed to explain what I meant properly, though. Your character still, as far as I know, does not walk around the station as Carton during nuke rounds as an infiltrator. If he does, I think that's an issue. A Scooby Doo scenario is not an issue, as it does not give you an unfair advantage, Aka. you didn't steal the nuke disk as Carton, but as Stein.

[Tainavaa]

You have the wrong idea entirely. The world isn't black and white, and what irks me a lot about a lot of people in this game is that they only deal in absolutes. In fact, what Keinto is talking about is an absolute. However I'm digging down to the very root of the supposed issue.

It isn't an issue with the server. It is an issue with the player because "I DON'T LIKE THING." Basically, it's what I like to call, a personal problem.

If people end up ignoring Carton's antaggy-actions in other rounds because of what he's done then that is metagaming on their part. Not Carton's. Deal with the problem at its root. The cause of the metagaming behavior (positive or negative) isn't that Carton is a semi-canon antag. The source is definitely not it because it doesn't stem from Carton's behaviors. It stems on the stigma and fear of being accused of meta/powergaming despite it being a logical course of action.

You can consider me childish if you want. But, like anyone with a results-driven mind, I don't want to deal in bullshit. And the idea that Carton's actions are what causes their behavior is utter bullshit. The truth is that Carton's behavior has only served to accentuate their metagamey behaviors. Carton isn't the only example of this, and it isn't always to facilitate more antaggy behavior by the players. And I'll repeat that. Carton isn't the only example of this. Carton is not the first example of this. Ergo, Carton isn't the source of the problem. Ergo, neither Carton nor his player can be blamed.

Is he a problem in another regard? Maybe, I don't know. I don't really care. But not in this regard and therefore, it is irrelevant to this conversation.

 

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With that, I stick by my claim. Strip the entire idea of anything OOC existing and you'll find that there is no issue, because it is a thing that will potentially happen and reasonably so. The whole thread is about the idea that using an established character is metagaming. Keinto is approaching it from a strictly OOC perspective. I'm taking away that OOC perspective. What you're doing is adding on unnecessary detail that is for the most part, irrelevant.

To reinforce the idea of dealing with problems at the root rather than the surface, let me re-cap what I believe is Keinto's issue.

 

• People are using established characters names for nukes
• Said characters are boarding the station to fool others into a sense of comfort
  
• Said characters are abusing their trust
  
• Keinto sees this as metagaming for abusing their friends' trust to achieve their goals
  
• Keinto sees this as completely inconceivable from an IC perspective, and people would only abuse their friends trust from an OOC metagaming perspective, rather than these be the actual characters being played with their own motives and agendas

 

If I'm wrong Keinto, then correct me. Otherwise, Bokaza, don't add what doesn't need to be added.

[Baka]

I always take nuke ops round with characters being in it like an alternate timelines. I don't take it really as part of their character, nor do I really take it seriously.

That being said, if I see a character who was "Ex-Syndie turned Good Cop", can differentiate between a flashlight and an EMP kit, and blew the CEO of Donk Co. before going to NanoTrasen to know the secrets of the latest syndicate technology, I'm going full Little Bunny Foo Foo and bop them straight on the head.

[keinto]

Also, I never said that turning normal characters into ops was okay. Please don't put words into my mouth.

 

I don't see where I misquoted you on that, but alright.

However, isn't putting your established character's name into the text field you get when you are selected to be a nuke ops just that?

 

But, let me counter that statement, Keinto, since this seems to matter so much to you. Is it too much to ask for people to play how they want (provided it's still within line of the server rules), and not to be policed by people who have different tastes and methods of approaching things?

 

The servers rules are not perfect, and shouldn't prevent people from discussing possible needed changes or loopholes in them like they can never ever be changed. And I reiterate, this is also just my opinion, I'm just not going to state that after every sentence.

 

But I have to respectfully disagree....to a point. I don't think everyone and their mother should be mercs who would kill all their co-workers in the blink of a eye if you offered them money. But it's also created some interesting Roleplay and some of the best rounds I ever had. From the secret code that Winston and his wife made so they could talk about whatever they wanted without people being able to understand what they said, to Anna Lee and Winston drinking and throwing a party in the bar after a successful (( though non canon)) mission, its created some interesting things to happen.

I like to imagine them like the Templars from Assassins creed, they all know each other, they are a small group of people and they are very tight knit. The only person outside this little group who has any possible knowledge is Baranova and that's because Winston has expressed regret off his earlier actions (( Pre Sabre)), and when Dalton Industries fell apart. Now, people may find that using these characters is riding off their popularity and such is cheating as you do Kiento, but it also allows certain situations to arise. Think of it like this...if we played characters who didn't have some kind of personality behind the mask, people would have no problem killing them one round and forgetting their names. In fact, when I first joined the server I remember Nuke ops weren't talked about as characters, and they simply either killed the entire station via nuke or they died before I ever got to see one. (( Though to be fair I played Psych))

... I'm very tired when Im writing this, so I could be ranting, but the point of the story is there is a lot of Roleplay that could be brought because of this....BUTTT I don't think everyone should be a operative. There has to be some way to moderate it in my opinion, as it keeps things interesting for many people.

 

Not everyone and their mother should do it, but what gives you the right to be one of the few besides the fact that you were one of the first to do it? Is it going to stay like this, or are people going to have to fill a whitelist for characters with antag-related backstories that will probably ignore/help the real antags of the round?

As for random characters behind the mask, I don't see how a new character can't start with a personality. That's what we all tried to do with our main characters when we began playing them. You shouldn't have to rely on players going, "Oh look! It's that person I know but now they are wearing a red hardsuit and today they are bad!" or, "Hm. It's that person wearing their usual uniform, there is a 99.9999999% chance they aren't a nuke ops, so I won't check the manifest." If you really want/need people to know your character and not feel like a total random, create a new character and stick with it for all nuke rounds. OOCly, people will start recognizing them and be excited to RP with you if they find you worthy of it. I don't know whether Sabre, Prophet, Scorpion, Spanker, and Phoenix are all supposed to be usual crew members turned nuke ops, and I might be wrong, but I think they could have just not made them their usual characters, and people would still like them.

 

Carton isn't the only example of this. Carton is not the first example of this. Ergo, Carton isn't the source of the problem. Ergo, neither Carton nor his player can be blamed.

Is he a problem in another regard? Maybe, I don't know. I don't really care. But not in this regard and therefore, it is irrelevant to this conversation.

 

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With that, I stick by my claim. Strip the entire idea of anything OOC existing and you'll find that there is no issue, because it is a thing that will potentially happen and reasonably so. The whole thread is about the idea that using an established character is metagaming. Keinto is approaching it from a strictly OOC perspective. I'm taking away that OOC perspective. What you're doing is adding on unnecessary detail that is for the most part, irrelevant.

To reinforce the idea of dealing with problems at the root rather than the surface, let me re-cap what I believe is Keinto's issue.

 

• People are using established characters names for nukes
• Said characters are boarding the station to fool others into a sense of comfort
  
• Said characters are abusing their trust
  
• Keinto sees this as metagaming for abusing their friends' trust to achieve their goals
  
• Keinto sees this as completely inconceivable from an IC perspective, and people would only abuse their friends trust from an OOC metagaming perspective, rather than these be the actual characters being played with their own motives and agendas

 

If I'm wrong Keinto, then correct me. Otherwise, Bokaza, don't add what doesn't need to be added.

 

I don't think Bokaza meant to say Carton was the source, but that he is the most notorious case, so it is relevant to the conversation.

If you take out the entire OOC perspective, then why keep discussing? We are the OOC and the reason for the IC world to exist is for us, the players, to dwell in it.

The last point in the list branches into other issues, like only the little 'Templar' circle ,as Josh calls it, knowing about the group of secret agents in the station and encouraging snowflakiness and elitism. What stops a player like this from making their character a permanent changeling, and what allows you to make your character a secret agent when in both occasions players plan to play them the same way? Is it that they only had 7 posts at the time they proposed the idea publicly instead of RPing it without asking anybody?

[Tainavaa]

Okay. I'm going to try and spell out the difference between your originally addressed complaint, and what Bokaza is bringing up again. I will also try my best to explain the similarities, and why they're irrelevant to each other in this specific thread. Right.

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Original supposed issue addressed

• People are using established characters names for nuke ops
• Said characters are boarding the station to fool others into a sense of comfort
  
• Said characters are abusing their trust
  
• Keinto sees this as metagaming for abusing their friends' trust to achieve their goals
  
• Keinto sees this as completely inconceivable from an IC perspective, and people would only abuse their friends trust from an OOC metagaming perspective, rather than these be the actual characters being played with their own motives and agendas

 

Bokaza's supposed issue addressed (to my understanding)

• Characters are canonically operatives doing self-antaggy things
• Behavior like this is becoming accepted and is facilitated by doing nothing about it
  
• Bokaza and Keinto are concerned that canon antags will become prevalent

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How these issues are similar

• Both of these addresses are founded in established characters affiliated with antagonists
• Both of these addresses are founded on the idea that people are metagaming

 

How these issues are different

• Keinto's address is founded in the idea people are only taking character names in nuclear emergency as a form of metagame to abuse character popularity
   
  
• Bokaza's address is founded in the idea that we are facilitating literal 'self-antags' on several levels
  
  • One of these methods of facilitation is the metagamey behavior of people ignoring self-antagonistic actions and ideals

 

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How one address is irrelevant to the other in this particular thread

• Keinto's address deals with people choosing names during nuke ops
  
  • Nuclear Emergency is a game mode that is 'self-enclosed canon' that is, has no relevance outside of the round once it is finished
    
    • That is to say, it never happened.
    • This does not mean that characters wouldn't have a reason to say "FUCK this station."
      
    • Nuclear Emergency is not necessarily hostile ops... However it usually ends up being it, no matter the intention. That's a story for a different thread, though.

[*]Bokaza's address deals with canon self-antags

• This includes extended, cult, traitor, nuclear emergency, wizard, mutiny, revolution, etc.
  
  • That is, no matter the round, this person is an [insert antag role here]

 

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Why I am stripping OOC from Keinto's address

• To put it simply; OOC is only being taken into consideration with this address, disregarding IC entirely.
  
  • Keinto is accusing those who use established characters are metagaming. Metagaming, by nature, is an OOC thing.
    
    • The theory is, if you strip all OOC consideration when dealing with a metagaming accusation and you find that it would still reasonably be done; then chances are, it isn't metagaming.

 

Additionally...

 

• Keinto's view on the situation might be fairly short-sighted
  
  Why?
  
  • Keinto seems to deflect any notion that any established character might reasonably be a nuke op at some point, even non-canonically

[*]Keinto might just have bad faith toward other players

Why?

• Keinto does not seem to have considered the idea that maybe the players might just want to play their established character during that round
• Keinto does not seem to acknowledge that established characters made nukes might be done for RP purposes
  
  • seems to have just jumped straight to "because I wanna win"

 

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Does that mean the two addresses are unrelated?

No, they definitely have some correlation however conceptually they're at opposite ends of the spectrum.

So why is it irrelevant to this thread?

Because it's a different supposed issue.

But you said they were related!

Yes, and they definitely are related, however, Bokaza's address holds no relevance to Keinto's original complaint.

But Keinto agrees!

That doesn't mean it doesn't belong in a different thread.

But why post it in a different thread if they're related and the OP agrees?

Organizational reasons. This discussion is already becoming very scattered and disorganized. A lot of my points were just reiterations of what I've said before in previous posts; HOWEVER since the discussion is already very disorganized as is and it is very difficult to maintain as is and I have a feeling a LOT of what I've said before this post has gone out the window, I feel that it's best if I restated them. So basically... To keep the thread (and forums) organized. It makes it much easier to navigate and manage.

Any questions?

[Guest]

I admit that I might have unpurposely derailed the thread.

I attempted to give examples for discussion by pointing out how this (picking names and even characters for nuke ops) might encourge the more complex issues I mentioned. The two, allowing people to escape suspicion and allow said people to escape with stuff they shouldn't, could go hand in hand by choosing an existing character. People could just assume that 'records were glitched' and just let it slide, regardless of popularity. My problem is that people who choose to do this and whose characters are new or unknown, do not share the same advantage.

There is an age old debate if we should take people's (disputably) earned or inborn advantage to make it more fair on the less gifted or priviliged. I've conluded that the answer is no, with a slippery slope. As someone said something smart today:

It's not our place to tell people how to play as antagonists. Antagonist rounds should not have any bearing on normal play.

Of course, if their play becomes stupidly damaging, it needs to be curbed, that is left to the staff. Keinto just wanted to discuss to what degree this specific behavior is acceptable and at which not. People will do it regardless of what any of us conclude.

As for the whole thing with people to get away with stuff based on popularity, that blame lies on people doing the ignoring and not the popular characters. However, statement that it is purely an OOC issue and that removing the OOC out of everything does not provide any real solution or answer, because as Keinto said, that's hardly possible. This question should be left for another thread as it is not the topic of this one, so I'll drop it.

So, a question to Tainavaa. Since you claim you have a problem solving mind, what have we actually concluded here, have we reached a solution or is the answer, again, that there is no problem?

[Rusty Shackleford]

Stop doing it. Unless your character's arch is to betray Nanotrasen FOREVER and only to be used as a Nuke Ops permanently, stop naming giving your agents the name of your usual character just so you can pass as one of the crew with your forged ID. It gives you an unfair advantage because you know players you normally interact with won't bother checking the manifest because it's a familiar character. Try a completely new character and give yourself an actual challenge if you want to pose as a crew member. Or like I said, do the bold thing of turning your character to the dark side without turning back, which I have yet to see anyone try doing.

I have seen three people already doing this gimmick and am growing quite tired of it. Give me one good reason that makes sense ICly, besides comparing it to when your character is a traitor.

 

I know I'm 4 pages late and there's no way in hell I'm reading all of that, but you could just take the easy way out and call them illegal clones of the regular crewmembers... because that's actually a thing...

[Gollee]

Stop doing it. Unless your character's arch is to betray Nanotrasen FOREVER and only to be used as a Nuke Ops permanently, stop naming giving your agents the name of your usual character just so you can pass as one of the crew with your forged ID. It gives you an unfair advantage because you know players you normally interact with won't bother checking the manifest because it's a familiar character. Try a completely new character and give yourself an actual challenge if you want to pose as a crew member. Or like I said, do the bold thing of turning your character to the dark side without turning back, which I have yet to see anyone try doing.

I have seen three people already doing this gimmick and am growing quite tired of it. Give me one good reason that makes sense ICly, besides comparing it to when your character is a traitor.

 

I know I'm 4 pages late and there's no way in hell I'm reading all of that, but you could just take the easy way out and call them illegal clones of the regular crewmembers... because that's actually a thing...

 

Yup, that's the entire reason the Trinity cell was made, to give a reason why nuke ops can have the same appearance as a normal character. It's where Whisper came from.

[Tainavaa]

That's one way of justifying it.

I do believe there is no issue still. What issue remains is a personal issue regarding this thread specifically. Keinto thinks there's absolutely no justification and is only used for metagaming purposes. You're asking for reasons why people would to prove you wrong about your metagaming claim but here's the thing, Keinto. You don't know. You don't know that character's story. And that's what I like. People don't know unless they're involved. Just like in real life. I don't want anyone to explain their character's story in this thread because someone doesn't like thing.

In order to make a claim for metagaming, the burden of evidence isn't on the accused, it's on the accuser. So unless there is clear evidence such as someone not naming themselves until they look at the crew manifest from the military PDA or such, I'd say it was just jumping to the worst conclusion because "I don't like thing".