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How do you provide 'interesting RP' to a player you intend to kill?


K0NFL1QT

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I'm asking this as I review old warnings, and god knows what my notes look like. I want to do better and open this up to everyone for to contribute to, and to learn from. When most people commit crimes, they will generally not want to be arrested for it; ergo, a general goal of antags is to do shit and not get caught. The main reason I do not antag is because I click to make spacemen go horizontal and inevitably get bwoinked because the player complains, in situations where I have learned to just accept fates as a consequence of the round. I am an opportunistic antag; if I see a chance to do something that I am allowed to as an antag that I cannot as regular crew, and I think I can get away with it, I will try and do it. It gets me in trouble, so I do not antag unless the roundtype forces me to.


Do you owe every player a monologue and a chance to escape or report you to security, before you kill them? Is an hour and a half in a slowly escalating round of Malf, that everyone is in some way involved in, not enough of an RP environment to permit the occasional opportunist murder? Why do changelings have a silence sting and the capability to kill quickly and quietly if you have to give your victim chance to call security, fight back and escape? Why is it bad to efficiently kill a character as a traitor if it opens up roleplay opportunities for several other characters as a result? Where do you draw the line?

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Changelings are outdated, pure and simple, SS13 was never intended as a HRP platform and changeling doesn't work with it.

(But uh had a good interactions!!!!! - Yeah no, for every good interaction you have to endure 20 parasting instasucks)


And importantly.

TAKE YOUR TIME

You have TWO HOURS, TWO HOURS of gameplay where you can Pick a target, interact with a target, isolate the target, kill the target and dispose of the target.

As an antag your responsibility is to provide fun, it's your choice who is having fun we WANT for as many people as possible to have fun but we know that CAN'T happen simply from how many people play.

Focus on one target, one very very good murder can feel much better than a lot of badly done murders.


The monologue thing is bullshit, don't do it. Nobody cares why you're killing them when the bullet is halfway to their spine.

It's all about preparations! As a ling you're supposed to assume a targets identity, find a target, know how they act and what they do, observe their behaviour and quirks.

Same with traitors, vampires and all other silent antagonists, your job is to provide fun to yourself and to the victim and POSSIBLY to everyone else on the station, sometimes that won't happen it's simply not possible, you have to accept that.


Futhermore you have to accept, people are people and some people don't like losing.

For every gank complaint we have two complaints of an antag complaining he got validated because his victim dared to defend himself.

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I have always, personally, considered Antag RP to be of a higher necessary quality than that of the protagonists. Or, given that I don't like those terms very much with the implication it makes that the story belongs to any one character, I'll refer to them as Villains and Others. (I'd say heroes, but honestly some of the non-antags are as openly ruthless, cruel and vicious as the villains themselves.)


This is, because of the fundamental level of OOC understand that is necessary to correctly play an antagonist. Your goal is to make things not only fun, but interesting. You have to make a point of conflict in the story of the NSS Aurora for whatever reasons you so decide. (Let's all love Nar-Sie, Nanotrasen are bullies, etc.) However, that's not all you have to do. You have to lose.. Eventually anyway. I personally consider the rounds end to not be the end of the story for that particular scenario, I always assumed that Nanotrasen sets things right with its multi-trillion credit networth and budgets they'll reclaim the station or send in a Death Squad to wipe out particularly horrible infestations.


It's for that reason that the Antags CAN kill people so freely, because they will lose eventually and they have to lose eventually, just because they're a small group/individual/infestation standing up against what may be one of the most powerful megacorps to grace the Galaxy.

That rant aside, you want to know how to provide interesting RP to someone you're killing, so I'll say what I know from my experiences on a vast different number of servers and games.


Interact with them. You don't need to give them the chance to escape but there's no reason you can't go for the legs, down them and pull off their comms and then spend a minute or two divulging a plan, let them in on it. Failing that, interacting with them prior to the kill. (For those villains that can do that anyway; Revs, Traitors, Lings, etc). Get to know your target before you kill them, chat with them in the hallways, be friendly. Then rip the mask off for the grand betrayal, call them dirty Nanotrasen sympathizing dogs, give a little bit of your potential backstory out before sticking the knife in their throat.

Naturally there's some villains that just straight up can't do this; Ninja's, Mercs, Raiders. Someone's gotta die and that's OK! Not everyone survives every story, some people get the unfortunate situation of having their throat cut in maintenance so that the villain can use his comms to taunt and tease the rest of the station, to interact with them.


The issue that I see is that people don't like losing, which is normal. But people (especially the non-Villains) need to learn that losing is all well and good, and it's necessary to provide a fun entertainment for the server. Sure, it's not too fun to get your shit stomped, but you're also providing more fun for the rest of the server. It's very poor form to expect the Villains to take their deaths quietly if one or two non-Villains can't accept that they might die ignoble deaths every now and then. (After all it's only two hours out of your life.) Obviously if you're dying every round right at the beginning that's less fun and should definitely be looked at.


Rambling rant done.

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This is one of those 'it depends' questions IMO.

With each person you're going to kill, you need to consider why, and whether the person has taken actions which deserve that kind of punishment.


The thing that irritates me about the 'interesting RP' scene is the idea that throwing in a few sentences makes a death valid. If I pull a gun on someone and say 'you idiot, I'm going to kill you!' before shooting them, then that doesn't make the death any more engaging or interesting than me just killing them. If I specifically reveal myself to create more 'interesting RP' before assassinating the captain, then you know that 9 times outta 10 security is going to rush in to save the day. Sometimes you want that, sometimes you don't. Forcing yourself to act unrealistically for the sake of providing a few sentences to the victim is, imo, less engaging than killing sparingly but efficiently.


If you go out of your way to kill someone, then you're going out of your way to take them out of the game, and owe them an interesting conclusion. But if you have to kill them to achieve your goal, then you shouldn't feel bad about taking them out to make things more engaging for everyone else.


In the same vain, if someone acts like an idiot, then you shouldn't need to hold back to create more RP for them. Someone who refuses to engage with the roleplay you're creating has given up their right to be involved with it - if someone doesn't respect the fact you have a gun pointed at their head, feel free to show them why they should.


That's just my opinion, though.

Also,

Why do changelings have a silence sting and the capability to kill quickly and quietly if you have to give your victim chance to call security, fight back and escape?

Same reason that wizards have 'turn-to-stone', an instant disable spell. Same reason that traitors have the parapen, an instant knockout item. Because they're tools that can be used for an interesting purpose. If they're not used effectively, then they're boring.

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My general MO as an antag (however rare that anomaly is) is to be excessively theatrical.


You can make any assassination or interaction fun if you just have it in your head to act like a supercriminal while you do it.

 

This A million times this. Malfing as AI for me is ALL about theater. You want stuff to build and build like a creeping dread. Random machine malfunctions, not targeting specific people, or not having a general object of hate makes people feel like the AI is more than a little square in some lower level. That its the station that's malfunctioning. Not the AI. When people think of the AI in this way, it becomes less of a angry box and more of a bodiless formless malignant entity out to get you in spess.

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This is such an issue for me. I agree with others here about making interesting RP, and being theatrical, and I think i’m fairly decent at it, besides Changeling.


Changeling is the hardest one to create interesting RP with. I can create good RP with it over time, I love being a horror monster, the problem is, in order to get to that point, you have to kill and suck people, which is extremely hard to make interesting without taking the risk of “HELP MAINT!!” and the entire round being over for you. Of course, I figured I had a few things in mind for reworking Changeling mechanics to better help RP.

https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9403


Anyways, besides that, I think something a lot of players need to realise is, sometimes you just die, stupidly and without flair. Is it ideal? Is it fun? Usually not, but sometimes your mediocre unheard death can benefit the round as a whole. Remember, cloning is a thing, respawns in 20 minutes is a thing. It’s one round. Try not to let it get to you, nothing will ever be perfect and I say live and let live and feel good that someone else feels good about it.


Slight ramble, but basically, in conclusion. Death happens, and it’s okay. Some antagonists unfortunately lend themselves to literally racking up kills, and at that point I blame the Antagonist mechanics, not the player. If an antagonist only rewards the player for killing people quickly and discretely, that’s a problem more with the mechanics than the players.


Ramble over.

People = Salty

Antagonists = Need Updates

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  • 2 weeks later...

alright you soy boy, let me give you a run-down. When you play antagonist the first thing you should do is mute LOOC, and OOC. Secondly, operate with the tempo of the round, this is both beneficial for roleplay, and gameplay. You have two hours, generally during this arc you need to start off slow, be subtle. No-one cares how much of an interesting way you killed them, just get it done. Instead, what really matters is foreplay. Talk with someone, develop a relationship and talk with them in-game. Be an interesting person and contribute, be friendly. Maybe, bring up the topic of a piano, and walk with them to the theater with a bright light. It doesn't matter, as soon as they've invested some trust they've already died. Now, grab them mid-conversation, have grab intent towards the mouth, you want to silence them. By this point, you should have a flash to be prepared, you need them to stay down. Once you've got a strong grab on them, just let them know what they did wrong, and their life is forfeit, and get that sweet succ. People will always be upset that they died, you can't change that, and sometimes not everyone gets a fantastical death in the narrative. People on this server aren't that robust, either. You can take some liberties that you normally couldn't, leave your body where you found it, hell if you want to be a super special guy, tear off it's limbs and leave it in the open. The roleplay that comes from Changeling isn't the kill, it's what happens as a result of the kill.

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Do you owe every player a monologue and a chance to escape or report you to security, before you kill them?

 

No because the second they are given the chance they WILL fuck you over and if they lose they will ahelp regardless of the situation. Hopefully you have a good reason for killing someone beyond "i want their ID". If so then you can lure them somehow to somewhere nice and quiet and blow their head off. You should only focus on not breaking rules. A singular player is absolutely not entitled to a monologue or even a chance at escaping. You're expected to drive conflict or a story for the round as a whole.

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Well you clearly don't want to just pop out and shoot their head off. What I like to do when I am antag and have to kill someone is kidnap them first to give them some extra time to arrpee, and failing that, I usually keep their bodies somewhere out in the semi-open where it will be found instead of decapping them and blasting them off into space.


Usually though I just stay away from killing people because it seems to be thin ice.

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Well you clearly don't want to just pop out and shoot their head off. What I like to do when I am antag and have to kill someone is kidnap them first to give them some extra time to arrpee, and failing that, I usually keep their bodies somewhere out in the semi-open where it will be found instead of decapping them and blasting them off into space.


Usually though I just stay away from killing people because it seems to be thin ice.

 

I think that is definitely a healthy way to play.

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I don't think the major issue is providing an interesting kill, it's to not murder someone with zero interaction, and to not murder someone without at least a bit of prior escalation with that character beforehand. This can't always happen, SO, you need an especially good reason (they aren't hard to come up with, let's be honest) to be removing a character from the round. Self-defense or them being close to blowing your cover, for instance, are the only two good excuses I can think of that permit wordless killing, not just murder, however. Don't catastrophically fuck up is the actual standard being upheld here, because it's impossible for people to execute perfect murders on a consistent basis because not every situation is the same or can be executed in an ideal fashion. There's a pun there.


People have a right to be upset if they get uber owned in-game. They also have the right to have an opinion that just so happens to be wrong, so put that into perspective.


If your kills don't fall under those check marks, you're playing badly, objectively speaking, because you're skirting close to breaking server rules.

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