Supernatural Response Squad (The SRS)

[K0NFL1QT]

Given the rising method of Cult is now not to commit any actual crimes in the open, this makes it quite hard to stop the inevitable Narsie or three for anyone who doesn't join. This is especially prevalent on rounds that don't have a Captain or Head of Security who can maintain control of the Chain of Command to avoid the entire station becoming subverted and preventing the yet unconverted from actively acting against them.

I like the way it's played, it's just hard to deal with. And the moment a Chaplain says 'cultists' they get accused of metagaming. What I propose is thus;

 

• Expand the Chapel to its own department and make the Chaplain more akin to a 'Head of Supernatural Defense', with the possibility of underling priests.
  
  Like Security being able to identify some Syndicate items, the Chaplain and Priests should be allowed knowledge of cults and cultists, and should be able to identify one on sight of Cult-items, like the robe or the books, without being accused of metagaming.

 

This way, you don't have a single Chaplain faced with the possibility of facing the entire rest of the crew and gives Cult games a good 'loyal vs cult' dynamic, akin to traitor, only instead of Security robusting criminals, it's a battle of good faith and bad faith fought by the holy warriors of each invisible friend religion.

Thoughts, ideas and suggestions welcome, both by Cult-lovers and everyone else!

 

The SRS, hanging out at Medbay.

[Tenenza]

...Security can identify Syndi items on sight?

Since when?

I mean, the gun, that makes sense. Guns are illegal on the station except for certain cases.

But the majority of Syndi items shouldn't be identifyable on sight.

Even the powersink should just be a weird device to security, because they aren't trained scientists or engineers.

Plus, a decent amount of Syndi equipment can be made by a dedicated R&D, which would only make the metagaming worse.

Honestly, I can't think of any good way to do this without having massive metagaming stupidity.

Cult doing crimes in the open is stupid.

When that happens, it's just mostly murderboning.

And Murder Cult is almost as bad as stealth cult.

Honestly, most Cults are horrible at getting their act togeather as is.

Having twice as many people trying to kill them is only going to make cults either more murdery or more stealthy, making everything worse.

Cult is a game mode that is built around atmosphere.

If the cult is either too deep in hiding or actually murdering everyone, then the round is shit for everyone, and the shuttle gets called 2 hours in. Honestly, cult needs less metagaming from both sides, and start being more creative.

[Farcry11]

I've always thought that the chaplain, given the existence of vampires, wizards, Eldritch gods, and other mystical entities, should be given a position of higher importance. Security can keep their terrorists, traitors, and lings- but the faith can solve the more unorthodox problems. Would be pretty cool.

[K0NFL1QT]

...Security can identify Syndi items on sight? Since when?

 

They can only identify a few of them, like the gun and the chameleon projector. They at least know those things are contraband and reason to robust people caught with them. Cultists can walk around with their robes on and their book open, showing off their rune pages openly, and there's nothing Sec can do, and that's fine because it's not a threat Security is trained to understand. This leads to metagaming on both sides. Hence, expanding the Chapel with trained and knowledgeable personnel.

[Tenenza]

...Security can identify Syndi items on sight? Since when?

 

They can only identify a few of them, like the gun and the chameleon projector. They at least know those things are contraband and reason to robust people caught with them. Cultists can walk around with their robes on and their book open, showing off their rune pages openly, and there's nothing Sec can do, and that's fine because it's not a threat Security is trained to understand. This leads to metagaming on both sides. Hence, expanding the Chapel with trained and knowledgeable personnel.

 

Sec doesn't know about the Chamo projector. I've conned them out tons of antag equipment as RD as a result of this lack of knowledge. Cultists already walk around with books open. They aren't visible easily on sight. That's by design. As for robes, those are almost certainly useless. That's like Sec walking around in full riot gear on green. It's stupid. A gun is contraband, regardless of what kind of gun. Anyone can see this. Adding more people to the Chapel just to combat cult won't help. Cult is too often uncreative already. If you give them a clear foe, then you're only shoehorning them into more cookiecutter rounds of fighting.

[Lessick]

...Security can identify Syndi items on sight? Since when?

 

They can only identify a few of them, like the gun and the chameleon projector. They at least know those things are contraband and reason to robust people caught with them. Cultists can walk around with their robes on and their book open, showing off their rune pages openly, and there's nothing Sec can do, and that's fine because it's not a threat Security is trained to understand. This leads to metagaming on both sides. Hence, expanding the Chapel with trained and knowledgeable personnel.

 

Sec doesn't know about the Chamo projector. I've conned them out tons of antag equipment as RD as a result of this lack of knowledge.

Yo. Check it out. http://baystation12.net/wiki/index.php/Identifying_Antagonists

I've always referred to this when there's gray areas about what people should know about or not. It's not perfect, but a sec officer is fully in their rights to know that, hm, this isn't standard equipment, is highly suspicious, and is probably contraband. Re: chamo projector, anyway.

That said, because of the vague and variable knowledge about the devices, it -would- be easy as a research director or scientist to be like, no, hey, this is just science shit, don't worry about it.

ANYWAY. Re: Supernatural response squad. I feel like we would have to alter the lore or change the feel of some of the gameplay a degree by acknowledging these things as, well, things that exist. Validating cultists within the universe seems like it'd mean needing to validate wizards to a degree, and for NT to have this sort of squad would mean that in fact, supernatural forces are, if not common knowledge, knowledge at all, and something that the company recognizes.

I think it'd be cool on another server, but I don't know if it fits with Aurora, especially considering that the station is supposed to be a (generally secular?) work environment. Also, going by that page, the chaplain should already have limited knowledge, and people who call the chaplains out on metagaming for calling cultists cultists (when they're doing suspect religious things) are probably being overbearing. ...That, or the chaplain is taking things too far.

[K0NFL1QT]

Did you know the US military once conducted tests believing the LSD can induce psychic powers? That's an organization taking seriously something that on the whole disbelieves as real. All it takes is one person in a position of power to be convinced. And considering how easy it is to summon the nearly unstoppable force that is Nar'Sie, even on board what should be a high-security research station, I don't see how there would be no known record of it before. Either on research stations, military or civilian records from other planets and facilities. As far as I'm aware, there's nothing particularly special about the Aurora that permits its summoning. Now, if it needed the teleport gate or the singulo, that'd be a different matter.

[enkas]

I once asked Tablespoon if chaplains could have prior training about occult and supernatural, and thus, roughly know how to counter cults, rather than just sensing the things and waving the rod about it to make it dissappear. But I was told that it would give too much of an advantage for people in cult rounds, and this is probably not happening.

[Tenenza]

Yes, but what about the Wizards!

But no.

The Cult of Nar'sie, the Xenos, Changlings, Wizards, and other truly unknown stuff isn't something that is really known about at all.

Each and everytime is basically a first time occurance for anyone who isn't the antag, and that depends on the antag.

As for the US example, that sounds more like something that would happen stationside, rather then up the chain in management.

I mean, if the Chaplin can convince the Captain to expand his department and give him a team and weapons, cool, that might be fun.

But this shouldn't be something that happens every round.

 

I've always referred to this when there's gray areas about what people should know about or not. It's not perfect, but a sec officer is fully in their rights to know that, hm, this isn't standard equipment, is highly suspicious, and is probably contraband. Re: chamo projector, anyway.

That's kinda just common sense, since you know, a janitor walking around with a strange device is kinda weird. But they can defintely do this a right and wrong way. Going up to the person and demanding they hand it over because it's contraband is not a good way. Going up to them and asking what it is and why they have is a much better way. If a janitor can on the spot come up with a decent lie about what it is and what it does, then good for them. If they can't or get proven wrong, then they're very likely out a Chamo Projector, as well as on the way to the brig.

(I am very much Bias towards using creative lies to more or less stroll around openly as an Antag, with everyone knowing OOC but no one knowing IC, so I'm not exactly empirical about people metagraming about Antag knowledge.)

[K0NFL1QT]

(I am very much Bias towards using creative lies to more or less stroll around openly as an Antag, with everyone knowing OOC but no one knowing IC, so I'm not exactly empirical about people metagaming about Antag knowledge.)

 

With you there. My last nuke as an op, I got on board and stashed everything then proceeded to act like an assistant, despite not being on the manifest. I even spent a time getting lung surgery by Phoebe. I laid low while a manhunt started for non-manifest crew. Waited for the right moment, then rushed the Caps Office with an Emag and got the hell out. My heart was pumping the whole time and I had to spend half the round hiding in dark corners in maintenance tunnels.

But Cult is different. You start off on the station, on the manifest, and you already blend in with the crew down to having access and functional IDs. I don't know exactly how many there are at round start, but a calm, quiet cult seems to end up with the majority of the crew by the end of the round. The number of cultists is not limited in any way, except for those with loyalty implants, and to start handing out loyalty implants in defense of cult is currently 'metagaming'. Unless they start killing people, there is literally nothing Sec can do. You can stand in the middle of the Sec lobby and convert everyone who walks past and it's not a crime. And that's fine. It's great. Not in their job description. But one lone Chaplain either has to convince Atheist Captains and SecHeads that Nar'Three is coming, without metagaming, or he eventually gets mobbed by cultists and dismembered.

The 'meta' is just weighted too much in the Cults favor.

[Tenenza]

I don't know exactly how many there are at round start, but a calm, quiet cult seems to end up with the majority of the crew by the end of the round. The number of cultists is not limited in any way, except for those with loyalty implants, and to start handing out loyalty implants in defense of cult is currently 'metagaming'. Unless they start killing people, there is literally nothing Sec can do. You can stand in the middle of the Sec lobby and convert everyone who walks past and it's not a crime.

 

First off, there is a serious issue with stealth cults, and I hate stealth cults. So much.

But that issue is not that there are too many. In fact, most stealth cults, as well as most murder cults, end up with just barely enough people to summon Nar'sie, before deciding to end it there and go summon Nar'sie. This is not fun for anyone not in the cult, which would be the majority of the crew. If a cult has ended up with the majority of the crew by round end, then they've done something very right, and that probably isn't going around murdering people or sulking in maintance or the outpost. That's part of the mechanics of cult, and why it's unique in atmosphere. The Cult is probably most terrifying if it seems like one by one, everyone you know starts acting strange, drifting away from you, attending strange meetings with people you don't know, and asking you to come along just once...

Cult as a game mode isn't traitor, changling, or anything else. It's a horror mode, theoretically. It should be scary for the crew.

As for security, they can arrest cultists for many things.

Making a Rune is vandalism to the station, and will result in brig time, questioning for why your blood rune is glowing, being sent down to science to be studied, getting cut up by medical to see what makes you tick, and so on.

Converting someone is a painful experience. This is noticable in the text as the rune is triggered. Security can arrest you for assault this way. If they press the reject conversion button and then you keep trying to convert them, they will explode in gibs. This is murder, and sec now knows these runes can kill people, upgrading using them to attempted murder.

As for the Chaplain, their job isn't to stop the cult. They are there to provide emotional support to the crew in all round types. Just because in Cult and Vampire they have extra usefulness doesn't make this different. If the cult is doing it's job, then the crew will be scared and paranoid, anyone and everyone could be in on it. A good Chaplain should not be running around bashing heads with the null rod, they should be providing emotional support to the crew.

As for the Cult's meta advantage, that's just the advantage of all antags. Antags know about themselves. They can have IC knowledge of what Nar'sie and her cult are.

[Guest]

IMO the worst thing we can do about game modes with antags is finding ways to explain the antag and then eventually shaft them because someone was aware of their presence and their activities.

Cult is easily made or broken. I'd rather not have the latter because it's difficult to ICly identify if it's cult.