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New Occupation: Professional Criminal


Aetherscald

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So in the month or so i've started playing SS13 and the past few weeks in particular i've hung around Aurora, i've had a recurring thought. Due to the heavy RP aspect of the server affecting gameplay to a significant degree, I wondered if there could be a more RP orientated occupation that manages to make waves if you can do it effectively. Something like Psychiatrist except with risk and reward implemented. To that extent I propose the occupation of a Professional Criminal. Now most may be thinking "People break corporate law just fine enough already, why would we add a job that focuses entirely on that?" and rest assured I have it thought out. Let me lay down how it would work.


Summary: A professional criminal or just professional to save words starts in a vacant office or in the bar if there is no vacant office when the new layout is implemented in the future. A professional will have some unique features at his or her disposal but it's entirely up to the player's imagination to decide what their goal is. Are they an intergalactic drug cartel kingpin? Do they specialize in aiding antagonists such as Vox Raiders with stealing or Syndicate with infiltration? This is entirely up to you. In game modes that require no real interaction with antagonists like extended, you can just as easily commit yourself to establishing a network of criminals amidst the station using your powers of persuasion and of course forms of leverage such as money, drugs, favors, etc.


Purpose: Ultimately the professional's job is to provide interesting interaction among station crew. This doesn't mean the role is geared against SEC or command personnel at all actually. Quite the contrary, the professional is likey to aid SEC in a myriad of ways in exchange for turning a blind eye to their clandestine operations. An example would be identification of revs, giving information that would lead to apprehension of antagonists, providing special services not available to them, etc. As said before this relies on the player's RP ability.


Mechanics: A professional needs to start out with the seeds to bear his or her criminal empire. These seeds would be something along the lines of a forged ID that can be rewritten to say that the criminal is one job when they are not. A criminal would start with a watered down traitor mechanic of getting items from a PDA code where they're able to procure special items such as a cryptographic sequencer that is RESTRICTED to only affect certain machines such as gibbers and autolathes. This is to encourage forming ties with other crew members to expand your criminal options in unique and interesting ways. For example, paying a chef to "handle some garbage" for you by using that gibber you "upgraded". Or acquiring an RCD from a scientist's hacked autolathe, to whom you promised energy weapons to in exchange for their silence and a moment of time in their laboratory. Another feature could be notes on where to find dead drops for you to unlock and use the contents to further your machinations. One idea is a machine that you can establish a network connection to your seedy organization (or Syndicate's) communications relays to redeem stolen items and equipment you procure for cash or points to access new tools or to pay off your patsies. Other items from the PDA could be insulated gloves, PDA cartridges, disguises, and even information on crew members to determine who would be the best to ask for their assistance in your dealings.


Interactions: It's entirely up to the player how this played and I can say it'd probably be one of the only roles that can both help and/or hinder the crew in it's special way. Distribution of illegal drugs and weapons can make medbay and sec's jobs a nightmare no doubt, but having an informant who possibly works with a real threat to the station could make their presence worth it. AI and borgs would no doubt be the Professional's only natural and consistent enemy due to the fact that they cannot be swayed with money or substances in general, and strictly adhere to their laws unless tampered with. Which would encourage a professional to make friends with his local Roboticist to rectify this threat. In-game, the general rule of thumb should be that no one knows this person is a criminal until evidence is found of their activities. Which could make for an interesting shift for Detectives or even sec officers who go out as undercover cops. It's up to everyone how they want to approach this role both in terms of playing as and playing with.


Off the top of my head this is all I can think of though i'm sure if anyone has anyone questions i'll be able to answer them sufficiently.

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As a security player, I don't like this idea.


We have enough problems with antags already. For example; in high pop rounds, where auto traitors creates a legion of them. Besides that, sometimes the crew itself can be a problem, no need to add more self-antaging or chucklefuck potential to where it happens a lot. Also, people can just pick this job to do antags related things without being one itself.

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I dislike the idea that security needs some sort of antag to be in conflict with.

It's a crutch, an idea that prohibits security from having different kinds of interactions with eachother.

It implies you can't have security roleplay anything other then either investigating and shooting and arresting and whatnot.

A character should not be just their department and job.

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Self antaging and other stuff aside, if this would be somehow implemented, I see lots of ways it could be abused. If they had these fancy ID's, every round would escalate from "hey you are not on the crew manifest" to "what is this pda, is this the id, are you a syndiecat?" in the first five minutes into the round. Sure, you could give them a random job, but how would this be different from a normal antag? Why even have 'professional criminals', when you can just turn on your antag preference on?


Also, chucklefucks that would use this as a excuse to welderbomb.

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We should step back for a second and avoid critiquing ideas based on worst-case scenarios.


However, I do not like the idea of a job focused entirely around antagonism. We already have enough of it during non-antag rounds. :/

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Antags I suppose have the choice to do whatever they please, I imagine, with whatever background/modus operandi they have at their disposal.


Only solution is to encourage rather than force.

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I like some parts of this idea... namely, having a criminal on the station who is approved to be an antag but is supposed to blend with the crew rather than start shit. Trying to be a criminal mastermind would probably be too complicated for a 2-4 hour round, but what about a criminal on the run. Like, not long after the round starts (not really sure if this should be a round type or a job or what) and centcom gets a message saying that a murder occurred and the guilty party is suspected of boarding a shuttle to NSS Aurora, along with a partial description and information on the murder weapon. And just for a bonus, the murderer has a murder weapon on them (perhaps a revolver with a few rounds of ammo, or a knife, or the likes) which could either be used as a weapon or used to identify the person. This would, ideally, create something for security to do besides wait around for someone to break station regs, while simultaneously having an antag who's supposed to be hiding rather than, like, doing bad shit. If done as a round-type, it'd also make a nice alternative to extended for people who like more RP-oriented rounds but still want at least some stuff to happen.

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The idea worked moderately well with the Eldar Spy profession in Archangel Station (Not saying that Archangel Station should ever be the ideal server to model yourself off of), mostly because they had cool toys like faking central command messages. In all reality though, isn't cargonia already our professional crime racket? It feels like it, with our Jaylor Rameaus and our Jamison Stamos', and etcetera.

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Maybe what would be better is a "mafia" game mode where if there are three people in a department that aren't in a Head position, one of them is selected to be a goodfella and is given special orders. So if you're in SEC chances are you're a guy on the inside and you're able to manipulate your fellow wiseguys' earlier release if they get caught or delay investigations. Engineers can sabotage and arrange meetings in the maintenance tunnels. Scientists hack their autolathes to provide contraband and maybe even research illegal technology. Cargo smuggles things in, etc. And they're all given some universal tools to doing this and are given a goal like "steal $200,000 worth of stuff, escape without getting pinched" etc.

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

This really breaks the rule against self-antagging. As well as this, it's not a role Nanotrasen would just dump anyone in. Lore-wise Nanotrasen is such a massive behemoth that many things fall beneath its notice by virtue of the byzantine nature of corporate communication being limited and swamped in red tape and procedure, and this can allow consistent criminal behavior.


And the behaviour that you are trying to push through game mechanics can already be done and played with by taking the initiative. My HoP Houssam Jawdat was the server's first (and I think only?) 'mafia' family. It's been whittled down and is mostly just me in the family itself these days, but there is still very much a "professional criminal" element to it.


I did this without a dedicated job to it. If you pump out credits and use them to bribe people, or pay for information, people who are willing go along with you. Several rounds now Houssam has practically been a spymaster, because a high number of players who 'work' for him are on station, and give him information and updates on everything that goes on. When I'm not an antagonist, I try to use this to more or less keep the station running productively, or give early warning on other antagonist shenanigans. Of course, there's still the siphoning and rejiggering of department accounts, but I mean, c'mon. It goes to the people!


When an antagonist, I do a lot more antagonistic things. One of my favorite things is staging huge heists and letting security try to solve the case while I frustrate efforts with red tape and procedure, so it becomes a sort of "CAN YOU BEAT ME WITHOUT BEING A SHITLER???? HAHAHAHA F-F-F-F-U-C-K-K-K SE-C-C- S-S-S-T-T-T-U-U-N-N-ING-G M-E" then using the HoS' loyalty implant to my advantage to worm out of punishment.


But then there's like, poisoning half an ERT team while under arrest with disguised dexalin pills filled with sulphuric acid and chlorine.


Boiling back down to my point:


"Professional criminal" is a role that's 90% political. You can already do it be creating a character that can get people on his/her side, and be low-key with your shenanigans. You can be QM, HoP, bartender, or even an assistant. But you have to do it without making is super obvious that you're a terrible person committing terrible crimes, because then it just becomes a question of why that character isn't currently sitting in a court room being sentenced to summary harm-batonning for 20 years.

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We don't need a dedicated job for it; that just makes it so immersion-breaking. Just do little things within reason when you're not an antag, and larger things when you are. For example, even if you're a criminal who steals little things from other departments or embezzles gold coming through the cargo office, you'd still need a pretty damn good reason to kill someone and put yourself on the radar of law enforcement again.


Just use common sense.

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Someone wouldn't be hired onto a space station for the sole purpose of being a criminal. This sounds more like a character idea than a job position.


The purpose of the occupation appears to be "aid sec" and there is no clear explanation as to what exactly the Professional Criminal does for the crew. I understand that this leaves room for players to RP however they wish with the position, but it doesn't seem like the sort of thing one gets sent into space to do.

Purpose: Ultimately the professional's job is to provide interesting interaction among station crew. This doesn't mean the role is geared against SEC or command personnel at all actually. Quite the contrary, the professional is likey to aid SEC in a myriad of ways in exchange for turning a blind eye to their clandestine operations. An example would be identification of revs, giving information that would lead to apprehension of antagonists, providing special services not available to them, etc. As said before this relies on the player's RP ability.

 

If this Occupation serves no purpose to the station, it wouldn't be on it. I'm willing to listen, but there's not much for me to work with here.


I don't see any reason why NT would recruit people to go on their stations and spend shifts as a Criminal... Professional or otherwise.



As for having it as a game mode... I'll have to agree with Jackboot. It gets done regardless of Antag status.

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Someone wouldn't be hired onto a space station for the sole purpose of being a criminal. This sounds more like a character idea than a job position.


The purpose of the occupation appears to be "aid sec" and there is no clear explanation as to what exactly the Professional Criminal does for the crew. I understand that this leaves room for players to RP however they wish with the position, but it doesn't seem like the sort of thing one gets sent into space to do.

Purpose: Ultimately the professional's job is to provide interesting interaction among station crew. This doesn't mean the role is geared against SEC or command personnel at all actually. Quite the contrary, the professional is likey to aid SEC in a myriad of ways in exchange for turning a blind eye to their clandestine operations. An example would be identification of revs, giving information that would lead to apprehension of antagonists, providing special services not available to them, etc. As said before this relies on the player's RP ability.

 

If this Occupation serves no purpose to the station, it wouldn't be on it. I'm willing to listen, but there's not much for me to work with here.


I don't see any reason why NT would recruit people to go on their stations and spend shifts as a Criminal... Professional or otherwise.



As for having it as a game mode... I'll have to agree with Jackboot. It gets done regardless of Antag status.

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