[RESOLVED] Warned by House of Synth for Not Enough RP (Improperly)

[JKJudgeX]

BYOND Key: JKJudgeX

Staff BYOND Key: House_of_Synth

Game ID: bP7-aheI

Reason for complaint: I got a note that I probably should not have.

Evidence/logs/etc:

I was changeling. I started trying to isolate targets for consumption. One of whom was a mute roboticist named Jet Jorge. In order to busy him, I put him to the task of building an Odysseus. Later, after I had made ready by printing myself some cuffs, I found him in the room and asked him to go ahead and see if he could print the Odysseus boards. He went to the computers (more out of the way), I flashed him, cuffed him, and dragged him into maint.

He was signing to me, I don't know sign language on Vyleon Black.

Vyleon Black has put handcuffs on Jet Jorge!

SeriousBee: Is there anything I have to do to be searched? I don't want to be shot over a misunderstanding.

[Common] Jesse Noble says, "Something is going on outside my office, and two men are harassing me"

Vyleon Black is trying to set Jet Jorge's sensors!

[Common] Arrivals Shuttle Oversight states, "Central Command Arrivals shuttle inbound to NSS Aurora. ETA: one minute."

[Common] Frankie Benford asks, "Hey, HoP around?"

Vyleon Black disables Jet Jorge's remote sensing equipment.

Vyleon Black has grabbed Jet Jorge passively!

[Common] HK-47 states, "Unit's laws preserve law states for Command staff."

Vyleon Black has grabbed Jet Jorge aggressively (now hands)!

Vyleon Black says, "Sorry about this my friend"

Jet Jorge shrugs

Vyleon Black says, "But you are perfect food in your silence."

And then I absorbed him while he used sign language to try and talk to me.

So, why the shrug? I'll address that in additional remarks, below

Additional remarks:

I've played what, 50 changeling rounds as ling here, and never been written up for not RPing with a victim? And I hit between 2 and 5 victims at least each time? (4 in that round, nobody else complained).

If you are going to play a mute character (there are too many by the way, it's getting kind of stupid), I think you should understand the amount of RP you're going to get out of people who can't understand your sign language is going to be extremely limited. I didn't see a point in doing classic villain exposition since I couldn't understand any of his responses, as he was handcuffed and mute (why can you sign while handcuffed btw? Strange).

I explained this in detail to House_of_Synth and he told me he was going to WARN me. I asked if he thought it was appropriate to permanently WARN a person's account over such an incident, and, apparently he did.

I'm 100% sure that I get less RP than was done here most of the time I get absorbed, there's no set up, no trap, and no more than 1 or 2 lines of "sorry I have to eat people, om nom nom nom" unless the ling has all the time in the world, which, I could have done more, admittedly, but this mute character couldn't respond, so, it was 100% pointless. I may as well have been talking to someone SSD and absorbing them.

I think that if you are going to make a mute character, you forfeit the right to complain about the amount of RP you get when you are killed by a ling, since he can't respond to your sign language. This was really silly. I was specifically trying NOT to fail RP on this guy with my setup, but, there was no way I could think of to do more once he no longer had a PDA, other than to engage in a game of charades lol. Also, I bolded the part where I was trying to talk to him, and he *SHRUGGED* in the middle of being murdered after being cuffed, etc... This greatly helped to expediate my actions because I kinda thought a *shrug* meant "Get on with it, and also I'm really bad at RP, since no one in their right mind would shrug while being stripped down in maintenance after being flashed, cuffed, and dragged in." So, yeah, I was more than a little surprised to then get bwoinked after I was pretty sure this guy wanted our encounter over with.

I'd like to see the WARNING expunged.

Thanks for your time.

Edited August 23, 2017 by Guest

[Azande]

From the rules:

 

Being an antagonist does not exempt you from any server rules. Being an antagonist is meant to give you easier access to character motivation with which to generate roleplay, and access to certain tools to assist with that as well.

•The primary goal of antangonists is to DRIVE A STORY AND TO GENERATE INTERACTION. Be creative when coming up with objectives, and try to do things which will be fun for others, not only yourself. Do not resort to the bare minimums of generating a story through mechanical means, either. This means: no unmotivated/not roleplayed out mass murders, etcetera. See the rules below for further clarification.

•Only resort to killing if it makes sense or drives a story. Randomly killing someone because you're a traitor will get you removed right quick. This also means that murder for the sake of murder is punishable. However, in certain situations, murder can serve as a tool, if none other applicable. If you're uncertain, ask for guidance via adminhelps.

 

He was clearly asking you questions, you weren't at much of a risk of being discovered but you didn't respond to them.

[Pratepresidenten]

Well, they might be mute, and you may not have been able to know sign language, but that doesnt really matter, just shorts out RP on his end. As you had him cuffed and in your absolute control in an isolated place, you could have taken your sweet time and made sure you let the mute sod know they were going to die in a horrible fashion. The need to roleplay doesnt have to be a whole evil villain monologue, but just.. Explain to the fuck that he is being ended so you may live.

[JKJudgeX]

Well, they might be mute, and you may not have been able to know sign language, but that doesnt really matter, just shorts out RP on his end. As you had him cuffed and in your absolute control in an isolated place, you could have taken your sweet time and made sure you let the mute sod know they were going to die in a horrible fashion. The need to roleplay doesnt have to be a whole evil villain monologue, but just.. Explain to the fuck that he is being ended so you may live.

 

I probably would have if not for the shrug, tbh, I was launching into talking about him being a meal. The mute thing is kinda cool but I can personally name 3 regular characters that do it, and that's getting a bit excessive.

I didn't *really* have unlimited time here, there were no distractions yet on station to busy security and random tunnel explorers, and I *did* hear someone in maint moving around only a couple of minutes beforehand who I was afraid might come back. Also, I felt that the setup and a couple of lines were sufficient and more than I am given by most lings, even when I'm actively talking and begging for my life.

I have no problem with a mod investigating someone saying the RP was too short/etc, but I think in this case, given that the guy was mute, there was some RP with the character beforehand, and he shrugged mid-conversation, that the RP was clearly sufficient. If you act unrealistically disinterested in your death, perform zero emotes as a mute, etc, I'm not going to belabor you with further RP, especially when it's like RPing to an SSD character.

This is a permanent note on my account, btw, 3 years of play and I get a warning from this is pretty disheartening, to be honest.

[Superiorform]

I just want to point out that while Judge could have RPed a lot more, so could have the roboticist. I've seen lings RP with mute victims, while the mute RPs shaking, being terrified, and the ling makes fun of his muteness, how easy it was because of the muteness, how horribly the mute is about to die, etc. You can still RP with mute people, but if the mute isn't RPing, and moreso, even shrugging to signify lack of caring, perhaps it's okay to eat him without further RP.

[SleepyWolf]

Just so you know, staff put notes on accounts for everything. It's just a noteboard where staff keep track of what's going on with a specific player. Notes are minor, warnings are bigger.

[Coalf]

As Sleepy pointed out, notes are just that, notes.

We simply note down any (most) moderator interferance with the round so that when people later, for example, complain we can go back and look if someone somewhere already did something about it.

[JKJudgeX]

I'm sorry, I wasn't sure if it was a note or a warning, turns out it was ACTUALLY a full on warning that I had to acknowledge. House_of_Synth said clearly that it was a warning but I for some reason was still assuming it was just a note (maybe because that would make a lot more sense but still be way, way out of line).

I'll update the language of my post.

And yes, this makes it much, much worse.

Also, I disagree that notes are just notes. Notes get referenced and used against you when you get adminhelped again in the future, so, an improper or ill-considered note will be used as fuel to make further ill-considered decisions. People need to be EXTREMELY careful with notes an warnings, IMO. They don't go away. Warnings don't either and are even worse for this. And this is for a WARNING.

I try to play a fair game and keep a fair record, here. I don't really understand how you guys could think after around 3 years of playing on Aurora (heavily into antags) that I'm out here murderboning or I don't know the rules and adhere to them. Hell, I LOOC up and remind people of the rules for their own good all the damn time. I'm not saying I'm infallible or that I won't slip up or have an off day and flub up a rule, but, this was in my view, in no way, worth a warning.

[Butterrobber202]

I just want to point out that while Judge could have RPed a lot more, so could have the roboticist. I've seen lings RP with mute victims, while the mute RPs shaking, being terrified, and the ling makes fun of his muteness, how easy it was because of the muteness, how horribly the mute is about to die, etc. You can still RP with mute people, but if the mute isn't RPing, and moreso, even shrugging to signify lack of caring, perhaps it's okay to eat him without further RP.

 

Yes, but the point is, Jet didn't do this. He was cuffed, hidden and had his tracking disabled. And he /shrugged/. That is the problem.

'Oh I'm dying? Cool. That's fine, I guess just do whatever.'

[HouseOfSynth]

Just as a note, I've seen this and will be responding properly within the next few days. I've been packing and am travelling for a holiday tomorrow. Apologies for the delay!

[Guest]

You simply walked in, flashed and handcuffed me then took me to a room with little to no words, you didn't even threat my character before doing so, it was literally IMPOSSIBLE for me to escape, Jet was mute before being cloned and I was rushed without any roleplay before the attack.

 

Yes, but the point is, Jet didn't do this. He was cuffed, hidden and had his tracking disabled. And he /shrugged/. That is the problem.

'Oh I'm dying? Cool. That's fine, I guess just do whatever.'

Spoiler: Show/Hide

 

He simply didn't consider any of the extremely slim possibilities of surviving, there was a man with a deformed face attempting to kill him using a proboscis. Keep in mind there is someone else behind the screen, taking them out of the round extremely quickly isn't fun for them.

https://prnt.sc/gca5ql

[JKJudgeX]

Oh, hi, Mystery, welcome to the server and the forums.

Let me start out by saying I'm sorry that your interaction with me did not meet your standards of RP interaction before death, sincerely, I apologize for that.

But, if I may, I'd like to offer some criticism regarding your own handling of the situation and general strategy:

1) Your decision to play a mute character will have some ramifications for your gameplay. It highly limits the amount of interaction you can have, when you are unable to communicate with people who don't know sign language. That's kind of on you and it would be nice if this would be acknowledged. Otherwise, playing a mute character, on Aurora, acts as a very strong anti-antagonist shield, forcing the burden of your condition onto another player in order to satisfy a rule.

2) If you are a mute character, you will need to depend heavily on emotes, which, you did not do here. You shrugged when told you were going to be food, and, contrary to your report here, that was before there was any kind of mutation to Vyleon Black's face. That shrug was a big part of why I went ahead and ate you without further exposition. It communicated to me that your character did not care about his fate or had no more will to struggle, at which point, you are food.

3) I hope that you acknowledged that we did have RP beforehand, my instructing you to build an Odysseus, our back and forth via PDA about cargo not providing you boards and my "attempt to sync the database" (which was faked because I wasn't yet ready to kill you, until a bit later, when I was). In the image that you linked, notice the underlined part that says a kill can be wordless at the scene. We even had a discussion regarding the fact that I didn't know sign language, long before I killed you.

4) Why would you expect that a murder would be escapable? That's nowhere in the rules. A calculating villain does not leave room to escape, he puts you exactly where he wants you and terminates you with as little chance as possible for him to be tripped up. I planned your demise down to the square you'd be standing on when you were flashed and which part of engineering I'd leave your body welded into. I took exactly the items from your corpse that I needed to perfectly imitate you in the event that I was caught eliminating my next target, which was Kunta X, because he had called me a nerd in the bar a few moments before.

I think this was plenty of interaction with you, personally, and, perfectly in line with a plot that you might see in a horror movie, and I assure you, there would have been more interaction if your disability did not prevent me from understanding you or Had you bothered to meaningfully emote or otherwise cleverly communicate something other than a shrug, which gave me nothing to play off of and made me feel like you were already finished with our interaction and resigned to your fate. It just turns out that this time, you were one of the monster's first victims and not the main character (who was Kunta X, by the way, whose friend was eaten as a result of our conflict, and who was tormented by Vyleon Black all the way back to the Odin, he survived multiple attempts on his life), and because your own character had a disability (and a general disinterest in his own continued life, apparently), his death wasn't very interesting.

Murder here:

A) Served as a tool - you were an easy target and provided an identity to rely upon in the event that I was caught elsewhere.

B) Drove a narrative - There's a changeling on board the Aurora, and it is murdering and eating people, able to transform into them as it gains power to feed on people more easily, hoping to eventually reach its ultimate form before being caught.

C) Was not a gank, it was planned for at least 10 minutes in advance. I do not gank. Ever. I do kill people as collateral via bombs, resulting venting, and other science-y things when I play Vyleon Black on some occasions. You will likely be a victim of this at some point, but there will probably be at least a few clues as to who the badguy is leading up to the unfortunate detonation. I'll happily take notes and warnings for that when it happens if I do not satisfy some level of menace and story with my terrorism/vengeance/etc.

I guess the bottom line here is that if antags get warned for killing mute people without "enough RP", it gives incentive to make mute characters, and maybe even a mute character with only one hand so, this way they couldn't be handcuffed, either, providing two layers of magical difficulty for antags who can't easily restrain/kill the person without an adminhelp flying out. I don't like this concept at all. It is already very difficult to be a successful antag as it is.

Thanks for reading, and I hope our future interactions run a little bit more smoothly. Please use emotes to enhance the RP capability if you are going to remain mute.

[Guest]

Oh, hi, Mystery, welcome to the server and the forums.

Let me start out by saying I'm sorry that your interaction with me did not meet your standards of RP interaction before death, sincerely, I apologize for that.

But, if I may, I'd like to offer some criticism regarding your own handling of the situation and general strategy:

1) Your decision to play a mute character will have some ramifications for your gameplay. It highly limits the amount of interaction you can have, when you are unable to communicate with people who don't know sign language. That's kind of on you and it would be nice if this would be acknowledged. Otherwise, playing a mute character, on Aurora, acts as a very strong anti-antagonist shield, forcing the burden of your condition onto another player in order to satisfy a rule.

2) If you are a mute character, you will need to depend heavily on emotes, which, you did not do here. You shrugged when told you were going to be food, and, contrary to your report here, that was before there was any kind of mutation to Vyleon Black's face. That shrug was a big part of why I went ahead and ate you without further exposition. It communicated to me that your character did not care about his fate or had no more will to struggle, at which point, you are food.

3) I hope that you acknowledged that we did have RP beforehand, my instructing you to build an Odysseus, our back and forth via PDA about cargo not providing you boards and my "attempt to sync the database" (which was faked because I wasn't yet ready to kill you, until a bit later, when I was). In the image that you linked, notice the underlined part that says a kill can be wordless at the scene. We even had a discussion regarding the fact that I didn't know sign language, long before I killed you.

4) Why would you expect that a murder would be escapable? That's nowhere in the rules. A calculating villain does not leave room to escape, he puts you exactly where he wants you and terminates you with as little chance as possible for him to be tripped up. I planned your demise down to the square you'd be standing on when you were flashed and which part of engineering I'd leave your body welded into. I took exactly the items from your corpse that I needed to perfectly imitate you in the event that I was caught eliminating my next target, which was Kunta X, because he had called me a nerd in the bar a few moments before.

I think this was plenty of interaction with you, personally, and, perfectly in line with a plot that you might see in a horror movie, and I assure you, there would have been more interaction if your disability did not prevent me from understanding you or Had you bothered to meaningfully emote or otherwise cleverly communicate something other than a shrug, which gave me nothing to play off of and made me feel like you were already finished with our interaction and resigned to your fate. It just turns out that this time, you were one of the monster's first victims and not the main character (who was Kunta X, by the way, whose friend was eaten as a result of our conflict, and who was tormented by Vyleon Black all the way back to the Odin, he survived multiple attempts on his life), and because your own character had a disability (and a general disinterest in his own continued life, apparently), his death wasn't very interesting.

Murder here:

A) Served as a tool - you were an easy target and provided an identity to rely upon in the event that I was caught elsewhere.

B) Drove a narrative - There's a changeling on board the Aurora, and it is murdering and eating people, able to transform into them as it gains power to feed on people more easily, hoping to eventually reach its ultimate form before being caught.

C) Was not a gank, it was planned for at least 10 minutes in advance. I do not gank. Ever. I do kill people as collateral via bombs, resulting venting, and other science-y things when I play Vyleon Black on some occasions. You will likely be a victim of this at some point, but there will probably be at least a few clues as to who the badguy is leading up to the unfortunate detonation. I'll happily take notes and warnings for that when it happens if I do not satisfy some level of menace and story with my terrorism/vengeance/etc.

I guess the bottom line here is that if antags get warned for killing mute people without "enough RP", it gives incentive to make mute characters, and maybe even a mute character with only one hand so, this way they couldn't be handcuffed, either, providing two layers of magical difficulty for antags who can't easily restrain/kill the person without an adminhelp flying out. I don't like this concept at all. It is already very difficult to be a successful antag as it is.

Thanks for reading, and I hope our future interactions run a little bit more smoothly. Please use emotes to enhance the RP capability if you are going to remain mute.

 

1) I understand this point, and will respect your opinion

2) I don't find it easy to type emotes mid-absorption, the proboscis action bar was loading.

3) See my Changeling Nursing Intern absorption, I roleplayed with the player beforehand and gave him a "mental evaluation" on the span of multiple minutes instead of a quick thing and he could've simply got up and defended himself when the absorption began.

4) The main issue is how you murdered me, you flashed, handcuffed and absorbed me instead of giving me any chances to run, I attempt to give people a chance to either get up and fight me or run away.

Thanks for reading.

EDIT: Minor mistakes.

[Scheveningen]

Note that there is a particular caveat for ganking, which was what this warning was phrased like.

 

No ganking. While antags will sometimes kill, it is expected for you to provide interesting roleplay to your targets first, if your goal is assassination. This does not mean that you need to monologue your opponent before killing them: roleplay leading up to a murder can take place over the course of the entire round, for example, leaving the murder scene itself to be “wordless”. Collateral damage is acceptable within reason, but this means you must use common sense, and avoid creating scenarios with a lot of potential for collateral (setting bombs in high-traffic areas, etc.)

 

By this standard here, antagonists are allowed to kill people, even wordlessly, if it fulfills a perceivable accomplish-able goal as an antagonist and it makes way for more interesting roleplay later on. The only issue is when this is repeated to the extent where it is easily interpreted as murderboning without a solid attempt at roleplay.

The chatlogs displayed in the OP show otherwise. An attempt was made, it is at its worst a one-liner, at best it was a well-executed... execution, really.

The warning in my opinion was not necessary.

[JKJudgeX]

2) I don't find it easy to type emotes mid-absorption, the proboscis action bar was loading.

3) See my Changeling Nursing Intern absorption, I roleplayed with the player beforehand and gave him a "mental evaluation" on the span of multiple minutes instead of a quick thing and he could've simply got up and defended himself when the absorption began.

4) The main issue is how you murdered me, you flashed, handcuffed and absorbed me instead of giving me any chances to run, I attempt to give people a chance to either get up and fight me or run away.

Thanks for reading.

EDIT: Minor mistakes.

 

2) You were given some time before the absorption when I was typing a couple of lines to you. You chose to use it to shrug, again, before I had even started the absorption, which I went ahead and did because you shrugged, which to me, signified the end of our mime-like interactions.

3) Was the nursing intern mute? Did the nursing intern give you something to play off of?

4) As a rule, I don't give people a chance to run. Doing this, 9 times out of 10, will conclude your antagonist role within 5 minutes, as many people, given ANY opportunity, will spam your name, action, and location on radio almost instantly. I can't tell you the number of times i've pulled a guy's radio off JUST in time to see him say "Vyleon Black is killing me in R&D, Help!" after a quick flash and cuff, instead of any kind of realistic reaction or emote indicating the surprise of being suddenly attacked. I do things this way to prevent bad RP from ruining my round, and it proves to have been a good choice far more often than not.

I absorbed 4 people that round, you got the least RP because you are a mute who didn't emote along with me.

The most disappointing part of this is that the term "gank" was brought into it as if it was 100% wordless, as if our FIRST interaction in the round was me killing you when it really wasn't. I think that's at the very least a little bit dishonest and has caused me to have to come here and defend myself. It's not a "gank" just because there was no way out of it. Most antagonists leave very little way out of their attack on you, especially if they are alone.

I gave you 5 minutes at least of interaction in having you build that Odysseus and explaining to you that I didn't know sign language in 3 separate meetings before our fatal encounter. I also gave you 2 lines of unrequited dialogue with opportunity for more before absorbing you. A "gank" would have been more like if we had not talked at all beforehand and I just ran into the room, flash-cuffed you, pulled you into maint, and ate you with zero words.

I predict that with your definition of gank, playing a mute character, you will be "ganked" many times in the future. I'd advise being a little more conservative with those adminhelps, and honestly, being a little more honest and complete about situations that you choose to raise a flag on.

[Faris]

Judge is under no obligation to give anyone an escape chance. He also did not just round start mass absorbing people, his action was deliberate and he presented the facade he was just a random crew member by going through his duties as normal.

A wordless assassination is perfectly fine if it's just that, an assassination, with the purpose of accomplishing a goal and establishing a narrative.

In my opinion, I feel the warning shouldn't have been applied. I'll discuss this with the moderator in question, so you should hear about this soon.

[JKJudgeX]

Thank you! It felt pretty routine to me except for the whole mute thing.

[HouseOfSynth]

Hello, hello! First off I want to apologize for the long delay, the holiday accomodation had no WiFi and it completely sailed my mind when I got back. Abo did infact have a talk with me over discord and I agree, pretty much for the same reasons as stated above by Abo and Schev and am going to be removing the warning.

My main reasoning for giving you the warning was one, due to my own interpretation of the rules which I clearly see was incorrect (Perhaps I was thinking of the old rule? I dunno but I slipped up none-the-less) and second was due to a previous note regarding ganking within a fortnight roughly in comparison with this particular case.

I also agree that the victim also could've done a bit more to help themselves regarding RPing the situation, as you said, the shrugging does come off as "meh, I'm going to die, whatevs" so I understand why Judge simply moved on after that. It may be a little difficult to emote struggling considering you're against the clock but all in all anything is better to carry on from than a shrug.

So yeah, in conclusion I'm going to be removing the warning. Again, apologies for the long delay, I hope there are no hard feelings from this.

o7