General lack of RP and powergaming in security

I have been getting rather annoyed at security recently. Especially as an antag.

Firstly there is the issue of roleplay. This is an HRP server and all the antag guides repeatedly stress making things interesting and roleplaying your actions. But whenever I have any dealings with security there is virtually zero RP from their side. When I try to engage they usually just ignore me or give monosyllabic replies. Given that once you are in contact with security you pretty much dont get any contact with any other players (unless you kill the security, see below), this means that as an antag you basically get to cryo yourself in the brig and that is the end of the round. I had a recent round where I was arrested straight out of the medical bay after regaining consciousness. The officer refused to respond to me in any way other than the perfunctory execution of his duties. He charged me with something, but he never told me what, and it was a pretty flimsy charge as I found out later (I was an antag, I am not pleading innocence). When I got in the brig the warden was afk strapped to a chair in his office. I was putting in real effort to give my character a persona, and was hoping at least for an interrogation, but I got nothing. This is just one example, almost any dealings I have with security on this server mirror this.

Secondly there is the issue of powergaming, especially with regards to combat. I am a relatively inexperienced player, and I should probably get on an empty server with a freind and really train my combat up as a player, because I am not great in a fight. Having said that I am not the only player of this game that is not as proficient as someone who often plays security. If I am playing a mercenary or a ninja for example, a decent player can incapacitate me with ease, even if they are playing a cadet. This does not seem realistic. The fact that security doesn't role play much also makes this much worse. Even if I did train my player skills so I was good at combat, I would have to respond with extreme force without typing any speech or emoting anything because by the time I can shout 'take that!' they will have me disarmed and in a choke hold. The way combat works in this game is quite deterministic and follows simple principles. If you know what you are doing you win, and if two people know what they are doing and fight each other on equal footing, the one who has the best latency will win. Nevertheless security seems terrified of losing any combat, as though it shows a personal flaw in them as a player. They all want to play the deft badass who takes down all the baddies, no one wants to play the fat donut muncher who can't be bothered. Always pressing exactly the right buttons at exactly the right time without paying attention to story, RP or realism is pretty much the definition of powergaming, and that is something almost all security do, even the ones who RP really well when not fighting.

Yes I have contacted admins in the more extreme cases and yes the admins do what they can, but really it is up to security players to do this better. The admins quite reasonably dont want to come down hard on people for not roleplaying, and security needs to be given a lot of leeway because often RP is simply not possible for them i some situations. So if you play security, please try. We would all appreciate it. You do the mechanical part of your job so well, surely you could spare a few keystrokes for a word or a gesture. Surely you could take a minute out from your busy schedule to bully and intimidate a prisoner or even to try to help them reform their evil ways.

this means that as an antag you basically get to cryo yourself in the brig and that is the end of the round.

or you could break out?

Yeah, I seen this as a recent problem and people tend to ignore the antag inside the brig. If they try to do something, they just get thrown in solitary.

this means that as an antag you basically get to cryo yourself in the brig and that is the end of the round.

 

or you could break out?

The simple thing is, how? You are inside the brig surrounded by officers and the warden. They ignore you for a time and when you start breaking a window, they all rush in and spam the brigs flashes.

this means that as an antag you basically get to cryo yourself in the brig and that is the end of the round.

 

or you could break out?

Sure, and then be wandering the station without an ID in prisoner clothes. Last time I got some new clothes and some tools before I was captured but I did not make it to the step of testing the door wires so I could go anywhere. Any RP you try as an escaped prisoner is out of the question too.

But whenever I have any dealings with security there is virtually zero RP from their side. When I try to engage they usually just ignore me or give monosyllabic replie

...

Even if I did train my player skills so I was good at combat, I would have to respond with extreme force without typing any speech or emoting anything because by the time I can shout 'take that!' they will have me disarmed and in a choke hold.

You just presented the same situation from two different perspectives. Security usually has a lot to deal with, especially with the constant Mixed Secret lately. As an officer, you need to be so careful with IC and OOC rules and regulations, and at any moment someone may try and kill you or interfere in your arrest by killing you brutally. Security Officers get zero mercy from antags; that in turn makes the players not want to be lenient when they will often get taken out of rounds when they give antag players a chance. A security officer who goes out of their way to chat to you when they should be arresting you will end up shot or strangled and hidden in maintenance.

Secondly there is the issue of powergaming, especially with regards to combat. I am a relatively inexperienced player, and I should probably get on an empty server with a freind and really train my combat up as a player, because I am not great in a fight. Having said that I am not the only player of this game that is not as proficient as someone who often plays security. If I am playing a mercenary or a ninja for example, a decent player can incapacitate me with ease, even if they are playing a cadet. This does not seem realistic.

Until character skills are mechanically enforced, the difference between robust and pathetic characters will be the competance of the player and how they feel like playing. But I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. I do know that sometimes a robust player will intentionally not go as hard as they are capable of in order to open up opportunities for others to beat them, but you can't expect that to be the norm. Combat prowess just comes naturally over time. In short, get good, let go of the salt, and stop expecting that just because you're the antag you should be the best badass around.

Nevertheless security seems terrified of losing any combat, as though it shows a personal flaw in them as a player. They all want to play the deft badass who takes down all the baddies, no one wants to play the fat donut muncher who can't be bothered. Always pressing exactly the right buttons at exactly the right time without paying attention to story, RP or realism is pretty much the definition of powergaming, and that is something almost all security do, even the ones who RP really well when not fighting.

As a longtime and regular security player, I can tell you most security players don't care if they win or lose in combat. Most Sec players do enjoy fighting out a conflict, regardless of who wins or loses. But ask yourself; would you rather play the hero, or have your character hacked to pieces in maint and you as a player removed from the round? Officers are more often than not the second if they give an antag half an inch.

As for 'playing the fat donut muncher', that's hardly an enjoyable longterm character gimmick, but there are players who do play less than competant security characters. Judging from the fact that a bunch of regular security players have organised themselves a discord to help each other improve, I can safely assume that regular security players enjoy playing as competant a security force as the rules allow, even if a Ninja is going to easily gank decap them down the line. I like the fact that openly incompetant characters are rare; such people realistically do not last long in corporate environments. The simple fact that Aurora staff have spent so long creating and revising security protocols, and a whole structure for dealing with IC and OOC complaints, just naturally encourages competance while weeding out the incompetant characters and players.

So if you play security, please try. We would all appreciate it. You do the mechanical part of your job so well, surely you could spare a few keystrokes for a word or a gesture. Surely you could take a minute out from your busy schedule to bully and intimidate a prisoner or even to try to help them reform their evil ways.

It's not securitys job to bully or intimidate characters, and doing so risks getting your character getting ICly and OOCly investigated, risking character termination or player security bans. Nor is it securitys job to reform prisoners. Securitys job is to enforce regulations and imprison those who do not abide by them. They don't need to be happy, friendly chappies; they need to know and enforce corporate regulation, by force if necessary.

You want Security to be a flabby, incompetant, bullying thug force who fuck up, can't fight or even do their jobs right, so that you as a new player can feel like a badass when you antag. You want several players to intentionally gimp themselves and get easily and regularly taken out of the round so you can have your fun. How about you try and play a crappy security character longterm first; fumble your baton, mess up arrest times, accidentally leave prisoners gear they can escape or kill you with, trip at crucial moments, ignore your superiors orders, needlessly harass inmates, etc. Play an officer who never uses a weapon because you're always talking to the antags instead and keep a note of how many antags don't kill you just because they can. Tell me how it goes.

I like the fact that openly incompetant characters are rare; such people realistically do not last long in corporate environments.

This one gave me quite a chuckle, we clearly have worked in very different corporations. The work of Laurence J. Peter, David Dunning and Justin Kruger suggest that I am not alone in this experience. Of course there are well-run and disciplined corporations, maybe NT is one of them. I am not strong enough on NT lore to definitively say. I hope some incompetence is tolerated/overlooked though because otherwise it will be hard to integrate really new players.

Thank you for acknowledging that I presented the same situation from two different perspectives, I was concerned I might have focused too hard on the antag side of things. I could just as easily write a thread about lack of RP and powergaming among antags, and to be fair, that bad antags are worse than the bad security guards.

I am disappointed however that you seem to have misinterpreted my intentions with this thread. In your final paragraph you say 'You want X' about several things, none of which I actually want. I really don't want any of those things. The parts of my text you quoted don't state a desire for those things the way I read them. My intention was to state aspects of interaction with security staff which I feel diminish my enjoyment of the game. I would not presume to tell people how to solve these issues, and in many cases there may be no reasonable solution. I would appreciate it if you could point out the parts that gave you the impression I wanted a whole imcompetent security force or players that intentionally gimp themselves (well actually, I kind of enjoyed the time I saw a guy with no arms or legs as a visitor, but his friend messed up the RP so badly it kind of spoiled the gimmick).

The only part of my post where I really suggested the security behave differently was simply to encourage them to RP a bit more (and I meant out of combat, although I forgot to specify) and maybe interact with prisoners a bit more. Do you really think security will get OOCly in trouble if they bully and intimidate prisoners? That is surprising to me. I thought if it was done in the spirit of good RP the admins would appprove.

As for your suggestion that I become a donut muncher myself, you read my mind. That was my intention before I posted any of this. I don't know where you get the idea that I expect antags not to kill me from though. I would be extremely disappointed with the role and a my own RP skills if antags didn't end up specifically seeking me out to vicitimise. My only fear with the role is that it could be extremely boring in extended rounds because ICly would not be able to really participate in the general goings on of the station, other than to hassle the cooks and the bartender occasionally in between eating and reading magazines. Losing is fun.

I may have underrepresented the fact that there are many players who play security really well, put in a lot of effort, and really make the game interesting. My point was merely that there are also a lot that don't do these things, and need to try harder. I don't know which group you are in, but if you say you are in the good group I won't question that.

The bottom line is, security is pretty much the role with the most inter-player interaction in the whole game, except maybe the heads and the bartender. Regardless of how good the core sec players are, there are plenty of people who drop in because they want some action and don't care about RP and they are hardly likely to take a role as a janitor or a librarian. I understand there is little the good players can do about this, or even that admins for that matter, but these people are there and they are annoying. That is my only gripe.

I suppose I am wasting my time though because probably only the good sec players actually bother to read the forums.

Surely you could take a minute out from your busy schedule to bully and intimidate a prisoner or even to try to help them reform their evil ways.

แคมฟรอก

No, this is a real problem. Ive personally had rounds where im arrested for something as antag and any conflicting evidence is disregarded, conflicting testimony ignored, charge definitions stretched and mercilessly stacked, and even implausible scenarios being seriously considered, for example a human drinking blood making no sense. There is a serious lack of not only good RP, but just a sense of making a round fun.

When you do things like mercilessly stalk an antag on the cameras with the "he stole something so i need to watch him exclusively for an hour", and you remove an antag, you just did the thing that makes people want to vote CT, because the round is boring. Antags dont expect you to hand them the round, but when you robocop the shift, its taking away from everyone.

I agree as a whole, except SodaPopBob's response. A random claim that someone who cryo'd 30 minutes ago actually admitted to framing them isn't good enough "evidence" as stacked to what you were up against.

BUT, I understand the post as a general thing. There's two endgames as an antag it feels like: Kill everyone or be in the brig. Otherwise you died, and you might as well be dead if you're in the brig. As an officer myself, albeit new, I attempt to always be able to question a prisoner, and I wish everyone else would too. I see other officers stun, cuff, brig, sentence literally without a word, and that interrogation room I've only ever seen used by myself or Noir on a special occasion. It's literally a common OOC quip that the goal of security is to create extended, whether it be by brig or execution, which is the shittiest outlook you can have as an officer.

Something that helps contribute to Sec being the NanoTrasen military force is how often roles that shouldn't get involved do. Security Officers are to handle situations, supply warrants, detain a suspect, and process them, and the HoS on certain occasions finds themselves intervening as well. Cadets are NOT Officers, they are essentially Security Assistants. Forensic Technicians are NOT Officers, they are specialized units meant to investigate a scene for clues as to what happened. Officers are the people to detain and arrest, not this other jargon. This isn't even including the intervention of a Captain at times, which is a whole other issue. The Captain should NEVER be a Security Raid Boss, but it seems like that's how it goes a majority of the time the Captain is present. They are meant to keep the station's command in order, and being a Super Soldier Officer should not be a part of their job.

And holy shit, for the sake of roleplay, stop being soldiers. You guys are SECURITY on a RESEARCH STATION. If there were no antags, and that's the idea of Aurora, that every shift up until the one you're playing has been extended with no antags, your role of a security officer is essentially Mall Cop. You aren't an interesting character by being gruff, to the point, bad guy hating, and super robust. You aren't being an interesting character by having no emotions regarding any other crew member or suspect/prisoner. You aren't being an interesting character by blindly following every single thing someone tells you to do, even if you think it's wrong. For fucks sake, above all, security acts boringly! Isn't that the worst offense on a HRP server?

You aren't being an interesting character by having no emotions regarding any other crew member or suspect/prisoner. You aren't being an interesting character by blindly following every single thing someone tells you to do, even if you think it's wrong. For fucks sake, above all, security acts boringly! Isn't that the worst offense on a HRP server?

You would be surprised how fun it is to do the blindly following orders thing, one rev round as a head loy, I was a Security Officer and converted the HoS and Warden, while the other got the HoP and others, the rev leader, who was also a sec officer, would try to have people join while I attempted otherwise, causing funny debates where the poor bastard we were trying to convince would usually just run away, but I am getting sidetracked.... Ok, so head rev failed a assassination attempt on me when HoS saw it (it was outside sec lobby) and we hunted her down, she was detained, then something interesting happened.....the HoP took the body and called the entire crew to holodeck. We all went of course, and the HoP, once everyone sat down, make a speech then blasted the rev's head away. Everyone was petrified, and me, the HoS, and Lukas immediately planned to "deal with" the HoP and his officer escort. We all confront in the HoP office, and it was a standoff of two factions of Loyalists, one with me as Head loy, and the other one with HoP being the figurehead with the head loy chaplain recruiting for them. After we attempted to arrest the HoP, he fired the first shot and the HoP office became a bloody battleground, I managed to get HoP into crit before I went down and eventually died. Overall it was awesome being a loyalist civil war unfold all over the station.

In summary, many of those things you call "uninteresting" can be the highlight of the round, you could be a heartless Warden who has no care for criminal scum, or a loyal security officer who would not hesitate to commit some crimes to forward NT's goals.

I also want to add that antags get a lot better gear than the average security officer. If you do not choose to find sunglasses to wear and end up getting flashed, then that's kind of your fault.

If you don't wear armour and security shoot you down because you also have a weapon, that is your fault (Security risks less injury, if they are armoured and you are not).

Antags genuinely need to plan their attacks, they can't just buy a weapon and rush at someone and expect to 'win'

@aj[mention]ajstorey456[/mention]

I love how you condensed everything i said to one instance involving you as sec powergaming

Fucking kek

ITT:legitimate concerns being brought up, followed by sec powergamers brigade chanting "git gud scwub"

I haven't played in a while, but I get what you mean. I have had absolutely fantastic experiences RPing as an officer because I usually attempt to give the antag a chance OOCly, unless they are going ham and trying to murder everyone, in which case all bets are off. However, a lot of sec players don't think this way at all (a few examples spring to mind, but they may have changed so I won't name any names).

For example, a raider was hiding out alone, with a ballistic weapon, in the oldmap mining outpost (I know, old example, but one of the most obvious I can think of). He had blocked off the narrow glass hallway leading to the second half of the mining outpost with an O2 tank, and was standing there. Neither me nor the other officers were wearing space suits, so a firefight would have gotten us all killed, as he could've shot out the glass before I could have taken him down. So, I order them back, so they aren't in the way of depressurization, and attempt to talk down the raider. We have an intense holdout situation, where I try to deescalate the situation while I wait for backup with voidsuits. We have an intense bout of RP, with me trying to convince him to surrender, and going with the argument of "I'm just doing my job, mate, I don't want to kill you." Suddenly, after a minute or two of this, another officer with a breacher suit comes in and lasguns the guy, who doesn't even return fire because he doesn't want to kill me with the ballistic weapons (I think I fired a few potshots to support the breacher). The breacher proceeds to then slaughter all of the other raiders without much resistance and certainly no RP, and captures the one I was negotiating, who is barely alive after a barrage of lasers.

I think it's a lot more enjoyable for both parties if people RP the former (IE an out of his depth cop trying to make the best of a bad situation). I try to do this most of the time, pointing guns at people and yelling "GET ON THE GROUND" before I open up, trying to help crew with daily problems with a hefty dose of "Ma'am"s and "Sir"s, or, my favorite, acting like an MGS guard when I may spot something suspicious (IE. investigating a little bit, going "Huh? What was that?" and then backing off saying it must have been nothing after a bit) like a cloaked ninja charging.

Sometimes I fall into the other camp though, because I must admit the idea of your officer becoming the antag's bitch when he's supposedly a tough guy is extremely unappealing (not that I mind that on other characters, like Francois, who gets taken hostage frequently).

So I just played my first round as an overwieght incompetent security guard nearing retirement. Just my luck I got extended. It was as boring as I had feared. I felt the need to post 50% of the entire chat log from the scurity channel though, I feel like it illustrates what I am talking about in this thread. I would have posted the other half but it was just as boring and less relevant.

@aj@ajstorey456

I love how you condensed everything i said to one instance involving you as sec powergaming

Fucking kek

ITT:legitimate concerns being brought up, followed by sec powergamers brigade chanting "git gud scwub"

ITT: Literal who's complaining their gimmicks are sometimes shut down by evidence, reason and judgement. I get 'give the antag a chance', but likewise, you can't expect the security players to bend to your whim when reasonable evidence leads to a conviction. I send lings to science whenever there's appropriate crew. Same with Vampires. I will defend muself and the crew from hostiles. I cannot completely disregard protocols and let antags go, just because they're the special round mob. Your goal is to not get caught, or have a plan for when you do.

So I just played my first round as an overwieght incompetent security guard nearing retirement. Just my luck I got extended. It was as boring as I had feared. I felt the need to post 50% of the entire chat log from the scurity channel though, I feel like it illustrates what I am talking about in this thread. I would have posted the other half but it was just as boring and less relevant.

Taken out of context, that does paint a bad light if you take it serious word for word. But consider, it's extended and people are bored, so they chat crap. And bored roboticists like to build mechs, sometimes. It was extended, even if the mech was made it was going to sit unused in the armory.

-snip-

To me, this just sounds like bored banter. Hell, it even sounds similar to conversations I've while working as an electrician. When you're bored, you talk about dumb shit. Cars, guns, girls, movies, politics, music, parties, fucking zombie apocalypse survival scenarioes and plans, whatever comes to mind. It's just a way to pass the time.

Taking into account the fact that the average player won't bring up pop culture references from the time period (ie movies their character watched recently or music they like) because they don't know what's good with that, you remove a lot of idle bullshitting topics. All they have is guns. It's all they know for certain.

Or maybe I'm just a nutcase who doesn't know what he's talking about. I probably am; I main 'borg.

ITT: Literal who's complaining their gimmicks are sometimes shut down by evidence, reason and judgement. I get 'give the antag a chance', but likewise, you can't expect the security players to bend to your whim when reasonable evidence leads to a conviction. I send lings to science whenever there's appropriate crew. Same with Vampires. I will defend muself and the crew from hostiles. I cannot completely disregard protocols and let antags go, just because they're the special round mob. Your goal is to not get caught, or have a plan for when you do.

No one is complaining over being caught in the act. No one is complaining that they were caught with actual reasonable evidence. But Ive personally seen some very dubious evidence used to make arrests. Ive seen groups of people giving eye witness testimony that someone is innocent, and that guy still gets dragged off to jail. Ive seen people harassed for the most mundane things. And im not just taking about myself, Ive seen it happen to others and heard others talk about it. If you are playing your character responsibly, good on you. But lets not sit here and pretend like its not an issue. If you are sec, play sec. Don't play a powergamer that is looking for a set group of antags. When you find someone low on blood with fang marks on their neck, dont start religiously checking the blood bank cameras, etc.

@K0NFL1QT is it your position that there is no issue with bad RP or powergaming in security on this server, or just that it is not worse than other departments?

Taken out of context, that does paint a bad light if you take it serious word for word.

I am not sure what more context you want, That is like an hour of chat. I don't mind if someone's gimmick is being a gun nut, but here we have like 6 gun nuts, it is not a very imaginitve conversation in terms of RP. If one guy had been going on about women, or fast space ships, or anything else, it then there would only have been about 5 people that couldn't be bothered thinking up a personality for their character. But no one did.

@K0NFL1QT is it your position that there is no issue with bad RP or powergaming in security on this server, or just that it is not worse than other departments?

 

Taken out of context, that does paint a bad light if you take it serious word for word.

 

I am not sure what more context you want, That is like an hour of chat. I don't mind if someone's gimmick is being a gun nut, but here we have like 6 gun nuts, it is not a very imaginitve conversation in terms of RP. If one guy had been going on about women, or fast space ships, or anything else, it then there would only have been about 5 people that couldn't be bothered thinking up a personality for their character. But no one did.

Put it this way. For starters, pointing to RP logs where characters talk about things they like... is not evidence of 'lack of RP'. You actually provided evidence that directly contradicts your claim. You're free to think it's unoriginal that security characters have an interest in guns, but you'd have to then say it's unoriginal for Research characters to be enthusiastic about science, or engineering characters to be enthusiastic about construction. If anyone has real life private security experience, I'd expect over represented enthusiasm about guns to be realistic.

As for the presence or lack of powergaming; does Security powergame? I don't think so. Every facet of security, from their uniforms to their equipment to when they can use their equipment, has been set that way by staff and mappers. If there are issues, such as I feel there may be with shotguns right now, then treat that as an individual problem block in a whole jenga tower of otherwise functional blocks. Security has a lot of attention scrutinising their behaviour, IC and OOC. What they can and cannot do is very clearly outlined and strictly enforced and we have framework to keep things in check, player to player and staff to player. But, ultimately, Security is the primary antag facing department; it's first and foremost Securitys job to enforce regulations and protect the crew , which naturally brings them into conflict with antagonists every round there is one. They are a reactionary force, and on the whole they react as they are permitted and with the tools they are given.

security should stop trying to do their job and let me win. frankly i feel like security should be replaced with a private security force that people have to use IC credits to pay to catch criminals.

This makes me happy for some reason. Welcome back rrrrr

As for the actual post, I believe they are talking about ganky behavior by security. Take for example a situation where the antag kills security that could be considered ganking, where conversely it wouldn't be considered ganking if security does the same thing to the antag. It is indeed frustrating.

it's a vicious cycle but that's life on an rp server, the only way to win is for each side to do nothing but play to win as they are already doing

you guys aren't implying people should be doing the opposite, right? reasonable but not practical

I'm kidding, but is one more thread on this subject actually going to do anything, or?...