Set some actual boundaries on antag fake announcements [Implemented]

I thought this was already covered a while back when there was a thread about awful rev rounds, but apparently not. There needs to be some logical boundaries on what people are allowed to pretend their character thinks is a real announcement from central command, especially when they are outside of any fathomable realm of possibility.

Some recent bad examples I have seen:

-There's a draft for the tajaran war and everyone is now soldiers, report for duty. Also make lots of guns to give to the war. (Why the bloody hell would tajarans have any sort of draft authority in Biesel? Why would they be recruiting from a research and mining station? Why would they order guns from a small-scale prototype weapons facility rather than a mass-production reliable gun factory?)

-Everyone has an exploding implant that they weren't aware of until now, and the station is to enter into a preposterous experiment/game of 'murder each other or you blow up until only one is left', straight out of a Saw movie. (Why would nanotrasen actually endorse this? What purpose does it serve? Isn't it actually illegal, like, everywhere in human space to murder each other?)

What particularly bothers me is that admins/CCIA either don't step in and do anything, or they just sort of blandly state that it's a real announcement because they don't want to ruin the antags round (I guess?). And a large amount of the crew blindly goes along with it, I guess because we don't perform any kind of discernment in the rules about what is okay for an antagonist to tell you is happening. A total lack of reply from central command, which in itself should be incredibly suspicious, after they make a monumental announcement like nonsensical drafts or stationwide deathmatches, is for some reason taken as a 'well, I guess we better take it for granted until we hear otherwise, even though it breaks IC laws and reason.' And being loyalty implanted should not mean you blindly follow clearly illegal orders from Nanotrasen without any followup confirmation, like 'execute everyone'.

I just want some feedback on if people think this sort of thing should be clamped down on. There are plenty of ways to make a round interesting with antag resources without sailing off the edge of the realm of plausibility and forgetting the actual setting we are in.

Fake announcements is a stealth antag's best tool, and limiting it will just make RP potential lessen. So what that some cause the round to be crazy? It is either that or you get only security and command in on the antag rp instead of the whole crew.

Also this is something for general NOT Suggestions and Ideas

This is a policy suggestion, so no, it doesn't belong in the general thread, unless posting policy changes is something that also changed. I guess it can also be moved if that's the case.

And I don't think that you really understand what I'm saying here. This isn't about 'stealth antags', this is about people who break any semblance of coherent canon setting to insert the crew into a situation that logically would never take place. If they can create a situation where the crew thinks they've suddenly moved into a world where a research and mining company suddenly becomes a last man standing deathmatch with one announcement because 'lol everyone has to pretend it's real no matter what it says', then it's a problem, because no one higher up will step in and do anything about it.

It should be more important to maintain the coherency of the setting then to just let it descend into formless chaos because 'it sounds fun'.

Maybe I'm literally the only one that cares about that and I'm wasting my time? I don't even know.

But even if you ignore the lore/setting part and don't give a damn, I don't feel like an antagonist should be able to create a situation where their 'antagonism' is passed off to the entire crew, allowing anyone to reasonably run around murdering each other. Nor should they make announcements that cause the loyalty implanted heads of staff to start being antags because 'nanotrasen said to kill erryone, so I guess I gotta lol' logic. Especially if it involves them immediately blowing themselves up to convince everyone that there are really bombs inside their bodies (this happened twice in the round in question), so they can sit in ghost land and watch the fireworks.

If they can create a situation where the crew thinks they've suddenly moved into a world where a research and mining company suddenly becomes a last man standing deathmatch with one announcement because 'lol everyone has to pretend it's real no matter what it says', then it's a problem, because no one higher up will step in and do anything about it.

 

The round you are talking about. We did get a EBS asking for confirmation, I was the only CCIA on at the time although since I was A Head I didn't respond. Had a response been given out, the gimmick probably would have been shutdown.

The round you are talking about. We did get a EBS asking for confirmation, I was the only CCIA on at the time although since I was A Head I didn't respond. if there was a response given out, the gimmick probably would have been shutdown.

Gimmicks shouldn't be sacred things that no one moderates. If I declared my unathi visitor was now captain of the station, I feel very strongly that someone would step in and shut that down.

But somehow this situation is allowed?

The round you are talking about. We did get a EBS asking for confirmation, I was the only CCIA on at the time although since I was A Head I didn't respond. if there was a response given out, the gimmick probably would have been shutdown.

 

Gimmicks shouldn't be sacred things that no one moderates. If I declared my unathi visitor was now captain of the station, I feel very strongly that someone would step in and shut that down.

But somehow this situation is allowed?

And that is something that would happen. we only really intervene in a round if we are Faxed or EBS’d about it. We can shutdown a gimmick or modify it if it is too stupid or unrealistic but most of the time we support it because it isn't.

i would be happy if a nuke went off if centcom mentioned "pay cuts" or an AI mentioned "unknown hacker"

Couldn't this problem be addressed in character? If people are creating ridiculous messages that are supposedly from CentCom, then the crew could probably choose to respond with skepticism matching the absurdity. So you could have people choosing to believe that the message was faked, not complying at all, and maybe others reluctantly falling in line only because they fear corporate reprisal... And only diehard companymen really jumping on the bandwagon.

But it is still kinda dumb that people would make outlandish messages like that, so there should definitely be some guidelines in place. As it stands, letting antagonists draft a free-form message from Central is like giving a D&D player Wish. It's too powerful. They start acting like a chimp with a machine gun.

All that happens is the Command Staff try and ask Central Command if it's real, then the ccia or admins don't say anything because they don't want to ruin the 'gimmick', and they don't have any guidelines in place.

So then the Command Staff kind of flounders around before they decide whether they're going to ignore it or not. And a lot of times they do because they don't really have another option. At what point is a 'command' or 'decree' from Central too much? It's left entirely up to the players with no oversight.

If it's a rev round, have all other revs (And perhaps loyalists in the case of a tie or something), vote on the announcement that's going to be sent. Either a yay or a nay. If it's a yay, the announcement is made, and if it's a nay then it's not.

As for traitor announcements, those aren't even supposed to be from centcom, they ARE actually illegitimate because they're bought from the traitor uplink. It's just good practice to not reveal that you know that by faxing centcom right away.

As for traitor announcements, those aren't even supposed to be from centcom, they ARE actually illegitimate because they're bought from the traitor uplink. It's just good practice to not reveal that you know that by faxing centcom right away.

Naturally if an order sounds stupid, you'd be an idiot to follow it blindly and not ask for clarification.

My stance on this is generally quite simple.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Command/Crew are in no way shape or form obligated to blindly follow exceptional obtuse announcements that go beyond the realm of beliefs. Neither CCIA nor the Administration will back a CC announcement that is simply completely against the lore or beyond reason.

Telling Command/ISD to be super vigilant around people of a certain race or species is fine.

Telling the crew that "x crew member" is a wanted terrorist that needs to be detained, etc. etc is fine.

Telling the crew to begin the mass killing of a certain species is not.

Telling crew to "x visitor" is now the Captain is not. Especially when they completely lack the qualifications.

If a person wishes to waste their TC's on it, that's on them. If a person is simply doing this every round and not contributing to anything as an antagonist, ahelp them. We already enforce this, I can announce this again and have staff do a few more announcements on servers and notices on the AOOC chat.

My stance on this is generally quite simple.

 

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

 

Command/Crew are in no way shape or form obligated to blindly follow exceptional obtuse announcements that go beyond the realm of beliefs. Neither CCIA nor the Administration will back a CC announcement that is simply completely against the lore or beyond reason.

Telling Command/ISD to be super vigilant around people of a certain race or species is fine.

Telling the crew that "x crew member" is a wanted terrorist that needs to be detained, etc. etc is fine.

Telling the crew to begin the mass killing of a certain species is not.

Telling crew to "x visitor" is now the Captain is not. Especially when they completely lack the qualifications.

If a person wishes to waste their TC's on it, that's on them. If a person is simply doing this every round and not contributing to anything as an antagonist, ahelp them. We already enforce this, I can announce this again and have staff do a few more announcements on servers and notices on the AOOC chat.

That sounds reasonable, but if so, it should be made more clear to players somehow. Because, like I said, we had a round where the antag announcement was literally 'okay everyone, we're doing an experiment where you have to kill people by vote or we blow you up with secret implants we put in', and the HoS actually started following it under the excuse of 'it's an order from NT'. And then the staff on server did nothing to dissuade this.

My stance on this is generally quite simple.

 

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

 

Command/Crew are in no way shape or form obligated to blindly follow exceptional obtuse announcements that go beyond the realm of beliefs. Neither CCIA nor the Administration will back a CC announcement that is simply completely against the lore or beyond reason.

Telling Command/ISD to be super vigilant around people of a certain race or species is fine.

Telling the crew that "x crew member" is a wanted terrorist that needs to be detained, etc. etc is fine.

Telling the crew to begin the mass killing of a certain species is not.

Telling crew to "x visitor" is now the Captain is not. Especially when they completely lack the qualifications.

If a person wishes to waste their TC's on it, that's on them. If a person is simply doing this every round and not contributing to anything as an antagonist, ahelp them. We already enforce this, I can announce this again and have staff do a few more announcements on servers and notices on the AOOC chat.

 

That sounds reasonable, but if so, it should be made more clear to players somehow. Because, like I said, we had a round where the antag announcement was literally 'okay everyone, we're doing an experiment where you have to kill people by vote or we blow you up with secret implants we put in', and the HoS actually started following it under the excuse of 'it's an order from NT'. And then the staff on server did nothing to dissuade this.

I'm not saying you cannot follow it, you're simply not obligated to. If CCIA/Admins aren't prompted regarding the gimmick, it's generally assumed it's something command in general are fine with and are able to develop the narrative. CC just needs to be contacted about the "stupid" gimmick.

I'm not saying you cannot follow it, you're simply not obligated to. If CCIA/Admins aren't prompted regarding the gimmick, it's generally assumed it's something command in general are fine with and are able to develop the narrative. CC just needs to be contacted about the "stupid" gimmick.

But command staff DID respond, the CCIA just refused to counteract the announcement. Because they didn't want to 'ruin the gimmick'. They said so right in this thread.

So there is clearly not an across the board standard.

I'm not saying you cannot follow it, you're simply not obligated to. If CCIA/Admins aren't prompted regarding the gimmick, it's generally assumed it's something command in general are fine with and are able to develop the narrative. CC just needs to be contacted about the "stupid" gimmick.

 

But command staff DID respond, the CCIA just refused to counteract the announcement. Because they didn't want to 'ruin the gimmick'. They said so right in this thread.

So there is clearly not an across the board standard.

And that is something that would happen. we only really intervene in a round if we are Faxed or EBS’d about it. We can shutdown a gimmick or modify it if it is too stupid or unrealistic but most of the time we support it because it isn't.

Is this the statement you're referring to?

Yes

I'm not saying you cannot follow it, you're simply not obligated to. If CCIA/Admins aren't prompted regarding the gimmick, it's generally assumed it's something command in general are fine with and are able to develop the narrative. CC just needs to be contacted about the "stupid" gimmick.

 

But command staff DID respond, the CCIA just refused to counteract the announcement. Because they didn't want to 'ruin the gimmick'. They said so right in this thread.

So there is clearly not an across the board standard.

I've already said It was not that I didn't want to 'ruin the gimmick', I wanted nothing more than to shut it down. I simply couldn't because I was command at the time and no one else was available

I've already said It was not that I didn't want to 'ruin the gimmick', I wanted nothing more than to shut it down. I simply couldn't because I was command at the time and no one else was available

Oh okay I get it now. I didn't understand that you meant a conflict of interest as a staff member. Okay then.

Sorry for the misunderstanding!

Shouldn't there be special dispensation for 'no non-IC staff around?'

Would it be possible or preferable for the fake announcement purchase to come with a sort of OOC disclaimer? Just a little "Think about what you're doing, where this information is supposedly coming from, and how people are liable to react to it" sort of thing.

Would it be possible or preferable for the fake announcement purchase to come with a sort of OOC disclaimer? Just a little "Think about what you're doing, where this information is supposedly coming from, and how people are liable to react to it" sort of thing.

Assuming there isn't one already, something of this sort sounds pretty good.

Would it be possible or preferable for the fake announcement purchase to come with a sort of OOC disclaimer? Just a little "Think about what you're doing, where this information is supposedly coming from, and how people are liable to react to it" sort of thing.

I mean, yeah? As long as there's something backing that up, ie enforcement of bad announcements. Otherwise it'll just be like the old warnings that popped up every time you tried to open an Atmos shutter, people just flip past it.

I'll work on making this matter more out in the open and more visible so people are aware on what's expected when making announcements.

It's already a thing and it seems the case cited here was just a fringe case of no one able to interfere due to round involvement.

Is this satisfactory?

Sure, as long as something improves I'll be happy. I don't expect everything to instantly get fixed.

Closing this and deeming it implemented.

We also clarified it on the wiki.