Fear Roleplay, Engagement of Conflict, Assessment of Risk, and cupcakes.

This is a cupcake. It is composed of three parts, top to bottom, the frosting, the cake, and the aluminum film.

Likewise, this topic is composed of a similar, albeit less eccentric, structure. The purpose of this topic is to better explain what the rationale of normal characters should be when roleplaying without entirely enforcing or barring specific mindsets beyond the basics of what every character should keep in mind and consider for roleplaying. We will start from the top.

Risk Assessment

Risk assessment is a fancy term to describe the rational analysis and critical thinking that goes on in a person's head when calculating the potential outcomes of a situation that has not yet happened or come to its resolution. This is better shortened down to the American catch-all of "weighing your options". The general idea is to come up with best-case scenario resolutions to problems without too many unintended consequences as a result of those resolutions to issues. This is at the top, because thinking over your options before approaching certain situations should always be the first step in roleplaying conflict. Dynamic roleplay is improved when characters take actions that make sense in their own heads and could be rationalized to make sense when explained to another person as part of their line of reasoning. If you cannot rationally explain to another person why you're going to do a certain thing without them being confused or completely juxtapositioned against your line of reasoning, you are likely not a person to be trusted with higher responsibility, and you will be told to avoid taking charge in certain situations as you could potentially cause more trouble than actually help situations. Being able to properly assess risky scenarios before going into them is the cream of the crop in properly roleplaying, as nothing makes the RP experience more immersive than being able to make your character think like a real person would and make responsible decisions as a real person would.

Engagement of Conflict

This refers to how a character deals with hands-on situations, with varying levels of intensity and inherent riskiness. These include anywhere between verbal or physical conflicts. A good man once said, "There is always a right way to do things." Such wisdom is immediately applicable in this circumstance. How you handle a conflict can make the difference between being a good roleplayer and a bad one. Ultimately, it boils down to what the circumstance is, the conditions as a result of the current situation, and what escalation has been used beforehand. Generally speaking, the optimal way to go about it without coming into trouble with staff through bwoinks is to match the direness of the situation with an equal amount of force (not just literally) that you know for certain would end the conflict in an efficient and ideal manner.

Though things can go wrong, especially when an antagonist comes into play and has very different motives than the average crewmember does. This guide isn't for the antagonist, however. Ideally, most or all crewmembers fear death or extreme harm, and as such would want to avoid any resolution that would cause due harm to themselves or end their own life. It's important to approach any matter of danger with caution and seek to avoid it or overcome it. Some characters might not even like confrontation, so walking away would be the best option for them. Sometimes the best way to deal with conflict is to decide to not bother with it at all. For other characters, their jobs are intensively focused on resolving conflicts by overcoming or overpowering obstacles, and as such, sometimes it isn't in their best interest in terms of their job to ignore an issue.

Some people might have friends or family on the line and will take greater risks to protect them. This is sensible and admirable in most cases, but often it is not ideal to rescue someone from a situation that they are not in any danger of being in, as it may inflate the problem and make the person perceptibly in trouble much worse off than they were. Engagement of conflict forms the basis of all roleplaying, direct confrontations or indirect ones carry over many concepts of interaction over to better make conflict complex and interesting to other players.

Fear Roleplay

This ties in with risk assessment, but is most notably involved with the more involved forms of conflict or potential conflict scenarios. Generally speaking, all characters have personal priorities. Their own needs generally come first before the needs of others, for they could not be of any help to another person if they were not situated with the tools or mindset to assist other people. The same observation comes into play when a character's life is at risk. A doctor would avoid front-line combat whenever possible, for if they were to come under great harm, they would not be able to assist other wounded people medically, and as such other people who become hurt have their lives be put more at risk due to the absence of a doctor who did not hold the preservation of their own life into greater account. Likewise, a dead security officer may as well not exist at all to defend the station from internal or external threats. It is important to try to stay alive.

This is not to say you should disenfranchise the efforts of antagonists trying to kill you, if you feel your death would contribute to the round for other people better than it would contribute for you, then roleplaying having made a grave error in trying to escape or fight them is absolutely fine. For more critical job roles this is less acceptable, as their presence is required for the round to function most times. Heads of staff can die in certain situations and they will not be penalized or criticized for dying in certain situations that would be considered fair play. It's important to balance between being a good sport and respecting that your character would not want to die, excepting certain escalated circumstances that would permit suicide or other situations. Fear roleplay is necessary in order to shape the best case scenarios of conflict the way it is.

It's important to understand there are consequences to every action. Take heed of it, or it could get you into trouble.

Naturally, if ever you should doubt how you should be roleplaying a certain situation and your inherent fear to something, shoot an adminhelp and we can always provide advice. Can't speak for how helpful each individual staff member might be in relation to that, I personally like to get real specific on how many options a person has. If that fails, asking other players for advice such as on discord or on the forums always works.

I currently roleplay a janitor that has had around six months of a cadetship in training for security. That said, he's in no way trained to handle most kinds of threats. During my time since I've started playing said character, I've been attacked by many different forms of threats, that when confronted, I usually let them take control as my character isn't equipped mentally or physically to handle a major threat.

When surrendering, I usually get shot, beat, ect, all because I didn't pose a threat and let them go ahead with whatever. Acting passive against a threat with knowledge you're going to be abused because of it isn't very good OOC motivation to roll over.

It's important to understand there are consequences to every action. Take heed of it, or it could get you into trouble.

Yes please THIS.

This game isn't PvE (most of the time) there will be winners and there will be losers just accept that.

So stop complaining about getting arrested, blowing up, being culted or simply dying.

If you think it lacked RP, was ganky or plain bullshit ahelp it, we'll look into it and you can move on, screaming insults in LOOC doesn't help your case.

I currently roleplay a janitor that has had around six months of a cadetship in training for security. That said, he's in no way trained to handle most kinds of threats. During my time since I've started playing said character, I've been attacked by many different forms of threats, that when confronted, I usually let them take control as my character isn't equipped mentally or physically to handle a major threat.

When surrendering, I usually get shot, beat, ect, all because I didn't pose a threat and let them go ahead with whatever. Acting passive against a threat with knowledge you're going to be abused because of it isn't very good OOC motivation to roll over.

Mercilessness on the end of certain antagonists is something we're capable of speaking to certain players about. A level of sensible restraint is required to even be an antagonist in the first place. Being an antagonist does not mean the rules on properly roleplaying a character no longer applies to them, it means they have a specific investment role in the round to do something to make the round more interesting. Their role and expectations to fulfill that role is only variably different than what we expect from crewmembers, in that their investment to avoid breaking laws does not apply to them and they can thus engage in more relaxed terms of being able to engage conflict compared to anyone else that would be held under tighter scrutiny. Wantonly murdering without bringing an engaging narrative as to why they are doing that to the table is not making the round interesting, the purpose of an antagonist is not to kill people. Murder is a byproduct of conflict, but not a necessary example of it.

Last time I tried 'fear roleplay' and laid down on the floor when I saw a mercenary deathsquad, one walked over and shot me point blank in the chest.

Last time I tried 'fear roleplay' and laid down on the floor when I saw a mercenary deathsquad, one walked over and shot me point blank in the chest.

Hey, welcome to the club. Fear works when antags think realistically about their options. If they don't want to get ganked by sec, they shouldn't be taking out everybody that rolls over.

I mean adminhelping is available for a reason.

I mean adminhelping is available for a reason.

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Hey coalf, one tiny problem with your idea there. The problem being that we focus on the roleplay, and not winning or losing. So, if someone "wins", at least for the sake of winning, they didn't do a very good job. If they "won" for the sake of the story that's another thing.

This was very helpful!

Not only is there a lack of fear roleplay here, there is a lack of humanizing antags. When I am antag, I am forced to execute every security officer I see. This is because for the past two years I did everything I could to save someone's life if they were down and we weren't enemies. And not once did a security officer I rescued from death and uncuffed do anything but spam laser rifle on me and go "Hostile down. God I'm good at this." and run off. This has not changed, and I will not risk my roleplay potential with actual crew and RPers for some brainless sec officer who doesn't want to interact at all outside of spamming point blank on me.

I have NEVER had a hostage situation that security didn't barge in on with flashbangs and lethals.

I have NEVER pointed a weapon at someone as antag and seen them do anything but grab whatever weapon they can get their hands on and charge me with it.

Out of every single time I've ever been antag, I have only ONCE had an officer spare me once I was down and harmless. The other times I just lay there screaming "OKAY I SURRENDER JESUS FUCK STOP KILLING ME" until they baton my head to death.

The only times I get any roleplay as antag are the times I have already killed off the entirety of security after shooting them each a short monologue and hiding their corpses in lockers. I don't know what can be done to fix that, since only the victor will ever be viewed as a powergamer.

oh and double post - antags also suck a lot these days right now.

mercenaries that have a clear advantage like in crossfire and siege mode are insanely stupid and tend to just spend their time mouthing off on the radios about executing hostages in really obnoxious torture-fetishist ways. in my opinion not only is there almost no capacity for roleplay unless one side is clearly winning, but the roleplay people tend to get when they try is TOTALLY obnoxious and stupid. People babbling on the radio trying to milk emotion or feeling into a round while they really cant do anything but type an emote of ";leaves their headset on as you hear gunfire in the background.. and u can only assume ur friend has just been shot 2 death..." and then say "Haha WOW you shoudla seen her die man ah god that was awesome!" because if you did try to do any kind of exchange sec would just murder you so your only option really is to execute people over comms. And that's dumb

hostages are heck, it goes like this

take hostage, announce hostage

AI locks down room, security sits outside

security throwns in a flashbang, lasers hostage taker, hostage is wounded to the point of needing surgery but not dead, everyone goes home

I have seen this like 8 times since February but have yet to see a hostage situation not end like this (IE only seen 8 hostage situations since feb)