Complaint - Cultists of the round 9/29/14 @ 10~ central PM.

[Susan]

BYOND Key: SueTheCake

Player Byond Key: See Below

Reason for complaint:

This is a complaint mostly aimed at the cultists that were in science that round, of which were Carlos Cortez, Quinn Giroux, and others. Basically, rather than interacting with the crew at large, the majority group of cultists (likely the 'main bunch', as I assume Carlos was the one leading everything amongst sciencecult) proceeded to confine themselves to the cameraless artifact storage room on the research outpost for nearly the entire round, with most if not all of the non-science cultists having been roundstart. They made no effort to interact with anyone outside of their department and simply powergamed words and cult mechanics in total seclusion until they decided to board the station, gather everyone who did nothing that round in the holodeck, and arbitrarily summon Nar-Sie with absolutely no build up or interaction at all.

It is my belief that this behavior should be considered unacceptable, poor roleplay, and powergamey. I do not want punitive action taken against these individuals; rather, I would like staff to consider just how boring and non-inclusive a stealth cult can be and in the future punish individuals or groups of cultists who sit in isolation to simply research words and beg ghosts to help them summon Nar-Sie when they decide to come out of hiding simply to end the round. I feel that, while one could argue that roleplay between cultists is a defense, that the actual reason an antagonist exists - especially in cult - is not to just sit in seclusion and roleplay with other cultists, but to make the round fun for other players. From what I could tell, the majority of cultists were scientists and I regularly ghosted to observe them on the outpost; they rarely left and kept to themselves. I feel that this is counterproductive to the type of roleplay an antagonist should support; you aren't there to have spooky Nar-Sie RP with your fellow cultists but to make the rounds interesting for the server as a whole. Sitting in the outpost for more than two hours and only showing up just to lol-summon Nar-Sie is reprehensible in my opinion and I only wish staff to consider these points and put a stop to these events before they happen in the future.

The cultists were:

Chendelure was Allison Shen (died)

Dr_thingamajig was Quinn Giroux (died)

MasterZipZero was Raelene Sagan (died)

LeonMiguel was Edmund Flashman-Adler (body destroyed)

Echotango23 was Carlos Cortez (died)

Joodles was Sawyer Merryman (died)

Ryog was Basko Kromm (died)

Xuforfid was Moya Desecrata (died)

Andrew Knight was Cassian Nash (body destroyed)

CoolfoolFTW was Frank Parkinson (died)

Andrew Knight was Eric Marriman (died)

[Frances]

Entirely stealth cult is very boring for the rest of the crew - essentially like a malf AI that does nothing but take over APCs, and suddenly end the round 2 hours in.

Should we begin to witness more of those, I am fully for either directing the players out of the hideouts, or force them to abandon them, through destruction or some such. While culting exclusively on the outposts does provide RP for the members of the cult, it leaves the rest of the crew devoid of it, until a random fully-equipped cult busts down their doors some hours in.

Antagonists exist to provide enjoyment to the rest of the crew - something I feel is especially important when the roundtype is centered around a potentially highly aggressive type of antag, such as nuke or cult. Killing your victims and taking over the station with minimal RP with the general crew essentially amounts to very unenjoyable ganking.

I'd still like to see what the cultists have to say on the matter, however, especially on the summoning of Nar'sie.

[echotango23]

At the beginning of the round Quinn Giroux(a scientist) went SSD and I offered to join in as a cultist in her place. When I (as Carlos Cortez) joined I took Allison Shen to the outpost and started to teach her the cult mechanics ICly because this was her first time(which I challange you to do any quicker). I want to stress that this was done ICly except for a few things we had to mention over LOOC. Me and one other person researched the words, all the while teaching her how to write runes, what they did and just how powerful cultists could be. I don't know where this idea that it was just scientists colluding comes from, when it was her and I and at some point we were nearly caught by a scientist who wasn't a cultist. We took the oppotunity to trap and convert him, and not with a stun rune and a drag but over a long period of time for a round, by the time we were halfway through the conversion 'ritual' a vote was called.

After converting that person we went on to invite some friends and convert them too, not as slowly and drawn out because we didn't feel we had all that much time since a vote had passed and thankfully been continued already, but with fanfare. I understand that at some point Quinn woke up from SSD, that left a total of 4 cultists running around who weren't involved in sciences shenanigans. Whether they were doing their jobs or converting or being creepy was not my concern, and this 'main bunch' you're talking about consisted of two people(this number only grew AFTER the crew transfer vote), it's not our faults that all the other cultists didn't live up to your expectations. I usually walk around being a creepy motherfucker but this time I wanted to do something different, something I hadn't seen in a long time which was actually summon Nar'sie. I've tried to find a balance between interacting with the crew and taking the time to research the words and teach newbies how any of it works all at the same time and it isn't easy.

You want to punish these small groups in comparison to the larger number of cultists for actually working on something that the cult can use to achieve their ends. The majority were infact not scientists from the start, about half the research team was converted by the end of the round but that took time and effort.

Edit: Also, time and time again I run around the station rping cult like a motherfucker, neglecting to find words, or actually do manage to convert somebody because I'd been working them for a while, and lo and behold it's two hours in and a vote is called and it's inevitable that "It's boring." "Cults not doing anything." And the shuttle comes. I apologize for the fact that the cult chooses not to get arrested by security, lose their book and their amulet to security because sec is 'tired of pretending to not know what that was'. You'll excuse me that I chose not to allow myself the luxury to actually get something done for the entire cult and find the words or teach somebody who doesn't know where to shit from what's what. I am simply tired of losing a cult round- And no I don't mean losing like losing and winning- To a crew transfer vote two hours in because glob fucking knows that if I start running around actually converting people from anywhere one of two things will happen: I happen to come across someone who doesn't hate the idea of cult, or the AI or security comes down like a hammer at the first sign of blood runes- I suppose there's nothing wrong with that and it should be that way but glob for fucking bid that I choose not to go through that for one round, fuck me right? It's not like there are other cultists who just maybe /were/ rping with people that round and just hadn't gotten around to converting or sacrificing or fucking in the face with a sword for whatever reason(no words, not enough words, no guts, the just like to tease, etc) and you just happened to not be a part of it.

Edit 2: So there is no pleasing the server as a whole but when Nar'sie ripped through the station and all those newly made ghosts were hollering and cheering for Nar'sie or for the survivors, it looked a lot like enjoyment for the server as close to a whole as I could manage it.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Guest

[ZipZero]

I was one of the cultists that round - a roboticist who was not part of the "sciencecult" - and I agree with most of what you just said. I had expected to be able to RP with my fellow cultists, but instead, they were nowhere to be found. I only knew the identities of two of the other cultists (Quinn and Edmund) until the end of the round, when we congregated in the holodeck. The only times I was able to interact with the rest of the cult was at the start and end - revealing my word and participating in the summoning, respectively. I never even found out the other words.

Regarding the summoning of Nar'sie, I feel it was a mistake to initiate that without some kind of build-up. I don't think it's a problem that the cult was stealthy for the majority of the round, but to end in such a way without providing the rest of the crew a chance to have some decent roleplay represented a serious lack of judgement on the part of the cultists - including me. I still feel guilty for participating in the ritual, though I'm sure the rest of the cult would have been able to succeed without me - I'm afraid my curiosity got the better of me, and I just wanted to see what would happen. For that, I apologize.

What needs to be done now, I think, is come up with a way to prevent this from happening in the future. Going off of my perspective, the major problem this round had was a lack of interaction - both cultist-cultist and cultist-crew. For the interactions between cultists, I think that the game mechanics should further incentivize working with each other. To encourage this, my suggestion is to increase the importance of knowing the meaning of words. Perhaps experimenting with random words could carry harmful effects, such as dealing heavy damage to the one who activates the rune. Words should also be more important in the summoning of Nar'sie, requiring all cultists participating to know all of the words, or perhaps requiring several runes consisting of all the words. As for encouraging cult-crew interaction, I think cultists should be discouraged from creating hideouts far away from the station. This could be done in several ways, such as an admin forcing them out through destruction, or a watchful AI inquiring about a crew member who has been away from the cameras for some time. Additionally, I think there should be certain additional requirements for summoning Nar'sie - say, an amount of sacrifices, or enough blood coating the floor of the station.

In any case, I don't think I will be playing as a cultist for some time.

[Skull132]

He-said-she-said. Okay, let's dive in.

On principal, stealth cult is something we've seen before, and it is not something I personally enjoy nor support. Regardless of the justification behind it, secluding yourself on the outpost for the majority of the round is rather shit, specially if it ends with a build-up lacking Nar'sie span (will swing around to this point. And Echo, as much as I love your cult play (without much exaggeration, you are one of the best cult players we have, or any creepy-crawly antag players), the fact that we have your fellow cultist echoing, no pun intended, the same complaint as the OP is relatively telling of the shortcomings for this round.

Now, how could this specific situation have been difused? Okay, you were teaching someone this round the mechanics of cult, fair enough. But you could have still run comms or backstage work to make sure the rest of the cult were communicating. Further more, once you left your "stasis", you could have presented yourself as a force to be reckoned with. A group of cultists who know all of the words, or majority, have the capacity to create relatively interesting RP, specially if they present themselves as the omnipotent, hide-in-plain-sight force that they can be (unless they go full dumb and order swords + armour).

How to encourage this in the future: if admins spot the issue, just kick the hornets nest in some IC manner. In my mind, cultists should be this, "Many people, one voice" type of deal -- communication should be flawless. Mechanical tweakings could also be considered, as outlined by Zip above.

Now, regarding Nar'sie, because I know someone will keep raising this issue if I skip over it. I do not have an issue with Nar'sie being summoned as the conclusion of a well played out cult round. I do have an issue with Nar'sie being summoned without the crew even knowing that something is horribly wrong.

[Frances]

Archiving. Contact me if you would like to reopen this complaint.