About Fun, Chucklefucks, Roleplay

[Skull132]

It has been almost a year since the last proper chat like this. But there are matters which require attention. And they require your attention as well.

Over the past few months, a certain few people have been discussing and running around with the argument of, "We should be allowed to have fun IC!" And curiously enough, this has been playing havoc with a good few people, and a good few things. Issues relating to this argument were sometimes not dealt with at all, and in other cases, dealt with but too aggressively. Allow me to present my view on this matter, and that of the Staff's, as per a recent discussion: to argue whether or not having fun is allowed IC is pointless. The argument has a very simple answer: having fun is allowed. But it comes with a caveat attached: how are you going about it?

Here's the issue. Asking questions like that, that have a binary answer, that set everything in black and white, is wrong and misleading. Asking them solves nothing, and the answers to them are already known. Arguing over them is pointless, and probably all of us are of the same mind. None of us are playing SS13 to simulate full-on spess-workman environments. It's the station where shit goes south, where everything can devolve into chaos in a matter of a few ticks. And that makes the game enjoyable.

No, asking whether or not "fun is allowed" is misdirected. The answer will always be "Yes". But what you should look at instead is how we go about doing it. Allow me to pull up two examples. First, we'll look at antagonists. I think that there's a bit of a SNAFU with how the rule is written, but an antagonist is meant to make the round "fun" for everyone. Well, if you die, it's not really "Fun" for you, is it? But it can still be good roleplay. And here is how: by being engaging. And much the same, something that is innately "fun" may not be good roleplay, nor engaging. This is why simply wordlessly killing everyone is punishable. Make sense, right?

This is also why being a disruptive bald annoys people: it's not engaging. It's just there for a mocking giggle, and that's it. The issue is not that you're being silly, the issue is with how you're being silly. And I implore people to actually think about the "how", more than the simpler yes-or-no question.

So, how about we get off that fucking stone?

[Guest]

My main point was always that certain types of "silly" were immersion breaking. More specifically, behaviors that are obviously just OOC inspired and make little sense in the context of the game. Players often dismiss such arguments with the famous "spess office realismo" strawman, but the truth of the matter is that even at offices, people have fun on their own way. It's not all as humorless as people show it to be. Stupid shit still happens, so do jokes and pranks. People don't get fired for acting strange once in a while. But here, some shit is just so silly it fucks with suspension of disbelief. The equivalent IRL would be events that would make you question reality due to how mindbendingly stupid they are. These are things I dislike, stuff that does not neccessarily make sense irl, but doesn't make sense at all in a spessman environment.

Bah, I'm ranting.

[Frances]

What are everyone's thoughts on the thunderdome?

[Zundy]

I'm going to play devils advocate here and ask these two questions:

What do you consider to be immersion breaking sillyness? Could you give examples(real or hypothetical)?

What do you consider to be non-immersion breaking sillyness? Could you give examples(real or hypothetical)?

[coolbc2000]

Immersion breaking...

We have wizards that want to fuck everything up

We have nuke operatives that want to fucking blow the station up for there own silly goals.

We have Changelings that just hate everything and want to kill you.

We have VAMPIRES that SUCK YOUR BLOOD.

This game is about how you can act on a scene and make it enjoyable for everyone, even if you die you should have a good laugh. That is my opinion.

[Guest]

My main point was always that certain types of "silly" were immersion breaking. More specifically, behaviors that are obviously just OOC inspired and make little sense in the context of the game. Players often dismiss such arguments with the famous "spess office realismo" strawman, but the truth of the matter is that even at offices, people have fun on their own way. It's not all as humorless as people show it to be. Stupid shit still happens, so do jokes and pranks. People don't get fired for acting strange once in a while. But here, some shit is just so silly it fucks with suspension of disbelief. The equivalent IRL would be events that would make you question reality due to how mindbendingly stupid they are. These are things I dislike, stuff that does not neccessarily make sense irl, but doesn't make sense at all in a spessman environment.

Bah, I'm ranting.

 

Case-by-case, Box. One type of silly can be fine one time, the same type of silly done at a different time in a different way can be considered unacceptable in another situation.

 

What are everyone's thoughts on the thunderdome?

 

Good question.

It depends on what happens in that event.

In the case in which, someone lost their whitelist over it, I remember being explained to me that the crew of the station attempted to organize their own thunderdome.

The crux of the issue, if I remember correctly, is that none of the active heads of staff made any attempt to contact Central Command for advisement on the Thunderdome, and if people died or got hurt that round as a result of the unsanctioned thunderdome, it's likely that they were held responsible and fired.

Thunderdomes that occur outside of events or without CC authorization are totally not okay, period.

 

What do you consider to be immersion breaking sillyness? Could you give examples(real or hypothetical)?

 

Nuke ops roleplaying as dank memeing terrorists and making references to real life MMORPGs, while still in-character. Regular crew members that light welder fuel on fire and then roll in it because non-plasma fires are bugged. Attempting to canonize a 21st century meme museum and trying to force the in-game human culture to be centered around, and obsessive about, 21st century memes.

 

What do you consider to be non-immersion breaking sillyness? Could you give examples(real or hypothetical)?

 

Nuke ops roleplaying as waffle salesmen, attempting to destroy the station's economy with low, low prices. Nuke ops roleplaying as diabolical wrestlers, attempting to robust the station with insane CQC techniques while potentially making subtle WWE/RAW references. Changelings changing their voice to buttbots and attempting to roleplay as a buttbot over comms. List goes on for some good ones that nobody besides myself and a few others have done yet.

You know what the difference is between these two levels of silliness?

The former outright annoys people with an IQ over 105, is not creative or creating any sort of roleplay for other players.

The latter actually helps the state of ar pee, even if it is outright silly. If nobody can legitimately complain that you're screwing up in the sense of creating interesting roleplay situations for other people to react to, then it should be fine.

 

Immersion breaking...

We have wizards that want to fuck everything up

We have nuke operatives that want to fucking blow the station up for there own silly goals.

We have Changelings that just hate everything and want to kill you.

We have VAMPIRES that SUCK YOUR BLOOD.

This game is about how you can act on a scene and make it enjoyable for everyone, even if you die you should have a good laugh. That is my opinion.

 

Yeah, but I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say that a certain level of suspension of disbelief should be used for antagonists. They are not intended to make an awful lot of sense from the perspective of a crew member. That's like, sort of, the non-antags job? To respond to that crazy shit and find solutions for all the conflict? To ultimately make the round interesting for the antagonist, so that they themselves recognize that they're being recognized, by you.

All actions have consequences, and everyone is ultimately responsible for both.

[Garnascus]

What are everyone's thoughts on the thunderdome?

 

we actually had a lengthy discussion among us staff on this. The general consensus was that it was OK right up until the point that people started dieing, as in people started using weapons and spears. Although even then this happening every round would become a problem as this shouldnt turn into "fight station 13" but once in awhile is A-OK.

There was however some disagreement from one or two people that thought even it existing was a bad idea, that however is not my personal opinion.

[Frances]

You know what the difference is between these two levels of silliness?

The former outright annoys people with an IQ over 105, is not creative or creating any sort of roleplay for other players.

The latter actually helps the state of ar pee, even if it is outright silly. If nobody can legitimately complain that you're screwing up in the sense of creating interesting roleplay situations for other people to react to, then it should be fine.

Ouch, the sense of euphoric superiority almost burns. Yet most of what you've said is still an empty statement.

Anyway, I think all silliness and most fun is immersion-breaking to a degree. I mean, it's pretty hard to accept wizards as "immersive" within the general canon of the game. Even just regular traitors destroy the specific immersion that we're roleplaying everyday events in a regular workplace, as we suddenly have to face our daily dose of terrorist threats. Also, it's a lot easier to come up with fun/amusing stuff that moves away from "regular" canon than that stays completely in it.

The question is not "is it?", but "how much?" And in my opinion, it's not a straight line, as much as it is a matter of how much people are willing to suspend their disbelief for the sake of something funny.

[Skull132]

I'm going to play devils advocate here and ask these two questions:

What do you consider to be immersion breaking sillyness? Could you give examples(real or hypothetical)?

What do you consider to be non-immersion breaking sillyness? Could you give examples(real or hypothetical)?

 

Most usually, something completely arbitrary, pointless/meaningless, and that's executed for the giggles. Also blatant things, or things escalated beyond the point of reason. (Even SS13 has a point of reason on a roleplay server, know it.) A good example of this is a bald character who goes around yelling random obscenities, and, for example, shooting lasertag guns at everyone. They add no value to the roleplay environment, nor are they engaging to interact with (if you can interact with them at all). As for actually good sillyness, intelligent sillyness/humour is where it's at. A good example of that is Felix Solano, who never really went overboard with his shenanigans.

[Guest Menown]

A good example of that is Felix Solano, who never really went overboard with his shenanigans.

 

That's a case-by-case thing, Skull. There are times Felix overstepped. Stealing a detective's colt and shooting an officer and the detective with rubber bullets while fleeing as a non-antag is overboard.

The way to handle this, would be in a matter of 'would I still have a job afterward' with your chucklefucking. If you don't ever work, even as an assistant, you wouldn't have the job for long. NT wouldn't pay you to fuck around shift after shift. If you're harming people, or breaking things at your work, you wouldn't make it either.

[Guest]

What do you consider to be immersion breaking sillyness? Could you give examples(real or hypothetical)?

Characters acting beyond the scope of what's remotely normal for the universe in question. Characters whose only real characteristic is that they behave or look like a specific character or character stereotype, for example, all the horrid hitler offspring. The language the characters speak is not even English to begin with, so there is no real reason for them to speak Denglisch. It doesn't even make any sense at all and it's _really, really not funny_. At least by me.

 

What do you consider to be non-immersion breaking sillyness? Could you give examples(real or hypothetical)?

Jokes, pranks, other stuff. Things that are frowned upon but do happen. Something can be silly from an OOC perspective while being completely normal in the context of a gameworld. For example, someone stuffing a sausage into the mouth of another character, that's also a friend. The joke's apparent and the characters ingame would see it as normal. In comparison, someone randomly running around and stuffing sausages into people is not. It's chucklefucking.

[Guest]

Immersion breaking...

We have wizards that want to fuck everything up

We have nuke operatives that want to fucking blow the station up for there own silly goals.

We have Changelings that just hate everything and want to kill you.

We have VAMPIRES that SUCK YOUR BLOOD.

This game is about how you can act on a scene and make it enjoyable for everyone, even if you die you should have a good laugh. That is my opinion.

Suspension of disbelief

It does not work with things that are possible IRL, but highly unlikely and extremely nonsensical.

[Frances]

The way to handle this, would be in a matter of 'would I still have a job afterward' with your chucklefucking. If you don't ever work, even as an assistant, you wouldn't have the job for long. NT wouldn't pay you to fuck around shift after shift. If you're harming people, or breaking things at your work, you wouldn't make it either.

I worked almost exclusively using that guideline (excluding the time where I did a lot of drugs) and still got into a lot of trouble. There's no golden rule, it seems the only valid rule is really "don't piss off people", and what pisses people off can be... subjective and very hotly debated.

Point is, I think you can try to create interesting situations, involve a lot of people, not harm anyone, still do your assigned job, yet if you behave like a mongoloid players will still get upset.

I remember when CMO Phoebe fired my character for smoking cigars in medbay in the middle of a nuke assault. With all other doctors dead or gone she was begrudgingly forced to accept my help again, but it was pretty funny.

 

Characters acting beyond the scope of what's remotely normal for the universe in question. Characters whose only real characteristic is that they behave or look like a specific character or character stereotype, for example, all the horrid hitler offspring. The language the characters speak is not even English to begin with, so there is no real reason for them to speak Denglisch. It doesn't even make any sense at all and it's _really, really not funny_. At least by me.

And see, here's an example of subjectivity. I get that the Nazi stereotype tires some people (what about evil Germans in general, though?), but invoking "characters can't have accents in TC Basic" is a very subjective standard given that a lot of characters do exactly that and don't get bopped on the head for it.

[Skull132]

A good example of that is Felix Solano, who never really went overboard with his shenanigans.

 

That's a case-by-case thing, Skull. There are times Felix overstepped. Stealing a detective's colt and shooting an officer and the detective with rubber bullets while fleeing as a non-antag is overboard.

 

I will say that I'm generalizing Felix, as there were indeed times when he went overboard. But when your goal is to make an intelligently comical character, that's one of the higher marks to shoot for.

[Guest]

Characters acting beyond the scope of what's remotely normal for the universe in question. Characters whose only real characteristic is that they behave or look like a specific character or character stereotype, for example, all the horrid hitler offspring. The language the characters speak is not even English to begin with, so there is no real reason for them to speak Denglisch. It doesn't even make any sense at all and it's _really, really not funny_. At least by me.

And see, here's an example of subjectivity. I get that the Nazi stereotype tires some people (what about evil Germans in general, though?), but invoking "characters can't have accents in TC Basic" is a very subjective standard given that a lot of characters do exactly that and don't get bopped on the head for it.

Of course it's subjective, but I'm pretty sure you'll be hard pressed to find anyone that finds this anything more than a tolerable trope and you we've missed the point with the accent. It shouldn't be there, it's the part of the annoying trope and really has no justified reason to be there. The "Evil Germans" are just a thematic spin-off on the Nazi stereotype. Every evil "German" is, as long as the defining characteristic is that he's German. Regardless, the point of what I said was an answer to the previous question as to what I personally find bothersome. I'm sure everyone has their own tolerance threshold, however sensitive or nonsensitive.

[Jboy2000000]

What are everyone's thoughts on the thunderdome?

 

I enjoyed it, it was one of the best player organized events Ive seen in a while. I hate that people lost their characters because of it, I hate that I lost my whitelist because of it. If I wasn't 100% sure arguing my point would get me in more trouble, I would have. Thunderdome is literally a sport that is player, aired, and reported on, even on the station. With how Thunderdome is represented, it seems like making your own ring on the station is like playing B-Ball in the holodeck.

[canon35]

I knew the thunderdome would get mentioned. I was the one who organized it, got workers for it, and built it. No one was meant to die, my medics were to make sure of that. Second time it happened, our medic went AFK without telling us and I didn't notice. I told people the main rule "If you get into critical condition, yell surrender." and some chose to ignore it. Regarding the weapons, I wanted it to be fair fights (Provides equal opportunity, and better entertainment.) hence why I told people before not to use armour or weapons. When an IPC was about to go up against a regular human, I asked the crowd if they wanted to even it with spears. Most of the crowd said "Yes" and I OKed the usage.

Regarding the deaths themselves, Kasimir died because he went up against an unathi and refused to surrender, and I believe the game glitched and gave him 150 oxygen damage at once, killing him. And, Aquila is an IPC. She can be rebuilt, repurposed, reinstalled, whatever. I ran the thunderdome as a means of entertaining the balds and people who wanted action, and to try and create some sort of RP for spectators.