[Resolved] Jackboot Complaint.

[Candelaio]

BYOND Key: McKinney

Game ID: bRZ-akxA

Player Byond Key: Jackboot

Staff involved: Nursie Kitty, Alberyk

Reason for complaint: Antaging (and acting) in a way that does not add to the RP of the round

Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? Yes. We were told it was handled, as a result, they rp’ed more, only between themselves and the victims however, as such never added to the RP in the round,

Approximate Date/Time: December 17th, 2017, from 5pm-7pm Pst.

Now, that is the complaint. I will string together my side of the story, as an observer to the round I witnessed. At approximately 5:26pm, 20 mins into the round, I decided to observe as I had coding to do for schooling. Now what then happened is I witnessed, 20 mins after observing, the murder of Yuri Daruski (BV1000) The way in which I believe this happened was he was brought into the cockpit of the merchant shuttle by Azujuna Arahi(Jackboot) Which he was then told that Arahi needed money, after which was immediately killed. His body was then taken to the merchant station and left in the warehouse. Then, about 10ish minutes later, Jesse Pavlov (T1GWS) was killed in a similar fashion, with the shuttle jumping to merchant station with him aboard, where the same path of logic was followed. ‘I need money’ Then he grabbed Pavlov and slit his throat in less than 5 seconds. The issue I saw here, a glaring issue [to me] here, is that he attacked during a time the player could be typing to him as they were just asked a question, but I digress. After those two deaths, he had cleaned up, making sure there was as little evidence as possible on station and on his shuttle. To his credit, he did rp with his next three victims after being talked to by admin staff. However, that RP, I would argue added nothing to the RP of the round (The supposed reason for antags in the first place) What did happen was after five deaths, a total of four people were then involved (Excluding the dead) These people were Faysal, a Vaurca Miner, Mandy Blackwell, and Azunjuna Arahi [The murderer himself]. Now, my argument is, the want to go straight to murder is a bad move for Heavy Role Play, actually just for the antag rules, the biggest being to add RP. The removal of five characters with Roleplay limited to the antag and the five people one on one at a time, Results in more RP taken than given at the same time. Not to mention taking people out of the round rather early on. (To which Jackboot simply deflected all dissenting opinions by saying in dead chat “they could have just respawned” which is both telling people how to play and disregarding any and all criticism about his antaging.)

[Yuri Daruski]

Seeing as I'm involved in this I'll be putting in two cents, now, understanding that I already attempted to make a reply but pressed the wrong button so, not wanting to rewrite everything this will be a bit shorter and less concise, hope it still helps.

Being the first one killed, as well as being killed early-ish into the round, and early in terms of Yuri's life, I was able to watch most of the events play out. and I've come to the following conclusions:

- Originally in the first hour and a half the following rules were broken and rebroken several times through the encounters of the several killed. save for the character who was involved with Faysal: "The primary goal of antagonists is to DRIVE A STORY AND TO GENERATE INTERACTION." (Apologies for the caps but that's how it is worded, not my emphasis), "Only resort to killing if it makes sense or drives a story", "No ganking"

- A big part of being an antagonist is generating RP and interaction between the crew, and potentially for you and the victim, However, the actions presented generally boil down to "I need money" *slit throat for insta-crit* rinse and repeat. Most of these took place after only a few sentences, were out of the blue, and at times performed mid sentence, while perhaps it could be argued this is not ganking it is very close to it.

- No interaction or clue was given to the crew about the disappearance of 5ish crewmembers, for a good hour and a half of the shift. At which point it did not take place until the actions of Faysal, who has meta knowledge of the happenings as well as our feelings on the subject, to go nuclear and run off to kill the merchant. He had several clues yes, so I will not accuse him to any sort of meta-gaming in this subject however the thought is still there. Additionally the bodies were left on the outpost, which is unable to be gotten to by any means but the merchant shuttle, that fact is a bit more of a complain on the map design but I digress, in summery it essentially removes those multiple crewmembers from he round.

-In his defense Jackboot simply stated, "They could just respawn," as Candelaio mentioned. However I would argue, this being a Heavy RP server, it is very likely for in-game characters to have stakes/plans/running RP, etc. that one has to completely forfeit if one respawns. Which was the case with Yuri, who has been trying to make plans with Ellie and Blackwell for ages and the stars aligned that shift. Moreover not everyone plays a throw-away character, or has seemingly endless characters they pull from, such as SmrikingKirk does (No offence to him at all just an example seeing as he plays several) Personally for me I only place Yuri, he's been with me my five years of SS13, and I just don't really play anyone else, that's on me, but it's what I do, and it removes any sort of interaction if I'm removed from the station, without a word or trace, in a world where in reality that would cause some alarm, but in SS13 many would assume I'm SSD. People die in SS13, I get that I really do, 5 years playing this game that's a given, however there's good deaths and bad deaths and I watch 5-6 (However many I lost count) people die in the same poor way, which boils down to "Kill crew, get money" in a role where operations funding can get you three crewmembers worth of cash, with that knowledge one should know there is a much better way to kill of people than "I need money" *insta-crit* and at least make it a bit more enjoyable to the person you are removing from the round.

-Answering the question, did he have a motive. Yes, he had a reason per say, And in a "realistic circumstance" it would be a valid approach and by all means believable. However in a role-playing game, such as SS13, some realistic plots do not work on an enjoyable level, for characters to die with little interaction and little to no hope of someone catching on. So while one /could/ argue he followed a story, it was not a good or enjoyable story for the majority of the participants. and no story was had until admin interaction/an hour after the first kill. Debatable even up to when Faysal went nuclear. I've seen Jackboot play for a long while, and he's not a chucklefuck from what I remember, however he should know better, and I know he can do better. I'm not as angry with what happened as I am disappointed in him. I don't mean to call him out for anything personally I'm simply saying I believe in him to do greatness, and he shouldn't be treated like any other rabble who's played for a week.

-While I'm pleased that the interaction ended with semi-crew interaction, and the recovery of the bodies, I am disappointed in performance of this antag period and I know there are better approaches to be taken, I hope to see improvement in the future. and I am disappointed that it took one and a half hours before anything worth while happened, which at such point the round was already effectively coming to an end, seeing as I had five minutes out of the cloner before a shuttle was called (Probably not five minutes it's meant as a hyperbole).

In summery I know there was a lot more I had planned and had talked about in my original copy, but I'll try to reply them when they come to me, or if anyone else responding to this complaint can remember some of the things I said in deadsay. Hope what I say helps with anything, thanks for reading this, etc. etc. *gets off soapbox*

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I peppered enough clues that anyone could have found out with any depth of investigation, which I eventually was. I even intentionally made mistakes. It is not my fault no one was able to exploit these in the time frame you wanted. Sometimes my murders are solved within 2 minutes even if I intentionally do my best to cover all my tracks, so I legitimately can't gauge if the evidence I DO pepper around is enough. I knew I was hiding people off-station and that is the majority of the reason I was turning around and draining their accounts and selling all their items, which I assumed would be crazy suspicious.

Alberyk bwoinked me about it and I specifically asked if I should be more obvious or merciful, and he said I was fine, but I changed my methods to be more considering of my victims.

Edited December 18, 2017 by Marlon Phoenix

[Garnascus]

Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? Yes. We were told it was handled, as a result, they rp’ed more, only between themselves and the victims however, as such never added to the RP in the round,

 

If this was handled in round a complaint is not going to change anything.

 

If the infractions described in the complaint have already been dealt with by a staff member in-game, a player complaint will not change the outcome of this. If you feel that the outcome was unjust, you are encouraged to post in the Staff Complaints section of the forums.

[Yuri Daruski]

As I said (Or at least hope I said) I have no lasting gripes about how the events eventually played out, The complaint was started before the round ended if memory serves correct (and posted after, adhering to the rules and all) so was likely influenced by sour feelings persistent from the round. The events were handled in-game by admins, and change of behavior was found. It took a while sure, but eventually things generally worked out. I'm not entirely sure what this complaint was set out to do, however I do not feel further action is required at this time.

[Garnascus]

Locking and archiving due to my above post.