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Staff "Complaint" - Ezuo


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BYOND Key: Ornias

Staff BYOND Key: Ezuo

Game ID: bRy-bigH

Reason for complaint:

On the round in question, I was playing my Mechatronic Engineer Zoe Le Moullec for the first time. I boarded the arrivals shuttle late into the round, and arrived on-station. Less than a minute of being on-station, I was attacked by a giant spider by the checkpoint. I ran away, after being bitten a few times, and was able to close the door behind me in departures. I called for a help a few times on the department radio through sobs, and was severely hurt by my injuries. Eventually, after a long wait, an unathi (quartermaster?) Bro'gan Darhamuz came up. He stabbed the spider to death with a variety of tools in a pretty cool way. He fixed some of my external injuries with a basic medkit, and shook me up. I, still poisoned, recently attacked, and crying laid back down. He then went and ate the spider, and walked off for a couple of minutes.

Then, he came back, and started forcing tea down my throat. I recoiled, and started emoting gagging and spluttering on the tea, and threw up on the ground. He emoted holding my jaw and continued pouring tea down my mouth. Even writing that feels like it could be included in some bad Salvador Dali knockoff. Despite pleading for him to stop amongst strangled sobs, gasps, and vomits, he continued to force-feed me tea. At this point it's like one of those fucked up greentext stories. I proceed to back away from him, and he walks off. To get more tea, I presume. He comes back and continues shoving tea down my throat. Now, in his defense, this was the funniest fucking thing. But, still, it was not heavy RP at all and I was pretty clearly showing that I was interested in playing like a genuine, real person, I ahelped.


And I was told by Ezuo it was an IC issue. He told me that the tea had some healing chemicals in it (I presume that chemistry had given him anti-toxin chems for fighting the spiders, I don't know). But that doesn't change the fact that in no concievable real-life situation would anyone pour tea down someones throat as they lie on the ground sobbing, gagging, and vomiting. I tried to explain my issue, but the round ended, and when I ahelped on the next round I was told that the ruling was final and to make a staff complaint if I had an issue.


It was funny. Even typing it made me giggle. But the fact that it was honest-for-god being taken for a legitimate heavyRP act really rubs me the wrong way. There is nothing heavyRP about coming up to someone lying on the ground after being violently attacked and, after rudimentary medical attention lasting all of fifteen seconds, and forcing tea down their throat non-stop. There's nothing, and I use the term loosely, 'human' about that. Even for a species like diona I'd have an issue with it, because it doesn't breed any kind of productive roleplay whatsoever.


Evidence/logs/etc:

I'm sorry, I don't have any logs on me about the incident, they cleared in-between rounds.

Additional remarks:

No offense to Ezuo, who's a gc. This is just me taking issue with the ruling, not the person.

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I guess I should put in my 2 cents, since this is about my ruling after all.


To add some context to this I should mention that I was actually watching this play out in departures, having gone there for the end of shift, and at no point during this whole interaction did anything strike me as entirely off. The main gist of your argument seems to be that, realistically, nobody would try and force feed someone else tea while they were injured and wanting to not be force fed tea. And while that seems reasonable at first, that's only because it lacks context about the tea itself, the mechanics involved, motivations, etc.


The major point is that the tea indeed has some healing properties. Mechanically tea will slowly counteract toxins as it is metabolized, meaning that drinking tea is a reasonable course of action to counteract small amounts of toxins. Now let's apply that to the situation at hand. You were injured after a spider attack. These injuries would have included bruises, cuts, bites, and the toxin damage from the venom of the spider. You might say that tea counteracting poison would never happen IRL, that it's just a mechanic represented in-game, and therefore would never be applied in a real life situation. I would beg to differ, however.


To me it seemed reasonable that, (A) certain herbal teas in the real world would have chemicals that counteract toxins within the body, and (B) that someone would have a knowledge of these properties. Taking these points into consideration I was able to envision a scenario in the real world where a victim of a toxin or venom would be fed herbal teas in order to help counteract toxins. That makes sense to me, it scans, therefore I don't really see a problem with it.


The only potential issue I could see with this interaction were the IC repercussions from it, and the issue that you were indeed being force fed the tea. This would be considered assault under corporate regulations, and could land the Quartermaster in some hot water. But that is a purely IC problem to do with IC regulations, and had IC motivations behind it (forcing someone to accept medical treatment in order to keep them alive). As I told you in the PMs, if I had some herbal tea that counteracted toxins and someone was dying in front of me from said toxins, you can bet your ass I'd be getting them to drink it if they wanted to or not.


All of that being said, I do not believe that any part of this interaction required OOC intervention.

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Hello I'm here because I was in the round in question and I supported Ezio's decision.

Let me explain my own reasoning in this issue as it's somewhat different from Ezuo's reasoning of why he let it go.


We have two characters in our play, Lizard and Human.

Now Lizard isn't a doctor, all he knows is killing spiders and eating spiders while the Human knows how to fix toasters.

The human is wounded got bit by something venomous (poison is ingested, venom is injected), so he grabs some band-aids and puts them over the bites, yet there is a second issue the venom.


Now this is the only part I'd judge as Powergaming because Tea from vendors by default cures toxin damage which I'm curious to how this character would know outside of the player knowing.

But aside from that he knows that tea helps against venom, so he starts feeding the Human tea.

But the human keeps vommiting this tea out even though it's helpful and the only way to prevent death, so the lizard tries again and again to feed this ungrateful human the anti-venom even though he refuses to take it.


You see the reasoning behind it? The character isn't a medical expert but he most likely knows that if Drug = outside, it isn't going to work so he tries his hardest to get it inside you, he could have most likely done this gently, he could have been nicer but he slaughtered a spider with basic tools and ate it as a 6 something lizard. That character doesn't seem the type of character to nuzzle you gently and offer your character respite in time of need.


We have a way of dealing with this, the Internal Reports your character could have used to raise a complaint against that character for acting so stupidly and brashly.

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The main gist of your argument seems to be that, realistically, nobody would try and force feed someone else tea while they were injured and wanting to not be force fed tea. And while that seems reasonable at first, that's only because it lacks context about the tea itself, the mechanics involved, motivations, etc.


The major point is that the tea indeed has some healing properties. Mechanically tea will slowly counteract toxins as it is metabolized, meaning that drinking tea is a reasonable course of action to counteract small amounts of toxins. Now let's apply that to the situation at hand. You were injured after a spider attack. These injuries would have included bruises, cuts, bites, and the toxin damage from the venom of the spider. You might say that tea counteracting poison would never happen IRL, that it's just a mechanic represented in-game, and therefore would never be applied in a real life situation. I would beg to differ, however.


To me it seemed reasonable that, (A) certain herbal teas in the real world would have chemicals that counteract toxins within the body, and (B) that someone would have a knowledge of these properties. Taking these points into consideration I was able to envision a scenario in the real world where a victim of a toxin or venom would be fed herbal teas in order to help counteract toxins. That makes sense to me, it scans, therefore I don't really see a problem with it.

 

I can 100% confirm that there are herbal teas out there that counteract certain toxins in the body, and that someone with sufficient knowledge in the subject would be able to treat someone over a period of time to deal with specific ailments. I'm being pedantic about this because it's something that you need to be pedantic about - there is no 'fix-all herbal tea' that just destroys poisons in the body, and even if there was, just due to the way that these things work, it wouldn't take effect for a day or so at least. Antioxidants can be good for dealing with stuff over long periods of time, but in no conceivable situation whatsoever would any kind of tea be given to someone to deal with an imminent poisoning case. It would be much more directed at people suffering from illnesses or similar ailments.


A quartermaster would probably not have gone through the kind of schooling required to identify the components and how they help people. But nonetheless, if they did, then they'd be able to tell you that shoving large quantities of it down someone’s throat isn't going to just fix them. Especially not when they're throwing up, struggling, and crying. Especially. especially not when you're less than two minutes away from a doctor who you could call at a moments notice.


I thought this was healing chemicals mixed with tea. The fact that this was just regular tea served out of the vendors only makes it worse. You're literally finding a spider-victim and pouring tea down their throat. ICly, you wouldn't even have any reason to know that tea would make any difference at all.

 

We have two characters in our play, Lizard and Human.

Now Lizard isn't a doctor, all he knows is killing spiders and eating spiders while the Human knows how to fix toasters.

The human is wounded got bit by something venomous (poison is ingested, venom is injected), so he grabs some band-aids and puts them over the bites, yet there is a second issue the venom.


Now this is the only part I'd judge as Powergaming because Tea from vendors by default cures toxin damage which I'm curious to how this character would know outside of the player knowing.

But aside from that he knows that tea helps against venom, so he starts feeding the Human tea.

But the human keeps vommiting this tea out even though it's helpful and the only way to prevent death, so the lizard tries again and again to feed this ungrateful human the anti-venom even though he refuses to take it.

I disagree with this for a number of reasons, which basically boil down to two main issues.

1. Unathi aren't idiots. Just because they're honourbound and come from a different kind of society doesn't mean that they don't have a basic grasp on biological processes. For an unathi to even work here they'd need to learn Galactic Common, which would come with at least a bit of an understanding of other species. The unathi was intelligent to know how to use a medical scanner and identify toxins in the body, which means they have at least a small amount of understanding about how medication and the body work.

2. It fundamentally doesn't matter if the mechanics say "heals small amount of toxins per unit". There are a lot of small mechanical "exploits" if you will that you could use to accomplish things. There are a lot of intended mechanics you can use to overcome threats without roleplay too - disarming that merc gives you a damn good chance of taking him down if he drops his rifle, even if you're just a janitor. You could use the same arguement of "well, their motivation is sound, so the ends justify the means", but motivation is only one fraction of roleplay. Actually taking sane steps to reach that goal is equally, if not more, important.

 

You see the reasoning behind it? The character isn't a medical expert but he most likely knows that if Drug = outside, it isn't going to work so he tries his hardest to get it inside you, he could have most likely done this gently, he could have been nicer but he slaughtered a spider with basic tools and ate it as a 6 something lizard. That character doesn't seem the type of character to nuzzle you gently and offer your character respite in time of need.

I completely agree. But Nanotrasen doesn't hire mentally deranged characters. That's not an insult against the player of the unathi - it's saying that just because there's some form of motivation behind an action doesn't mean that it's immediately acceptable. No sane individual, unathi, human, tajara, skrell, would decide to start dousing some poor poisoned woman in tea. Characters (and, by extension, their actions) don't need to be nice. They need to be sane.


Again, I have no issue with the unathi because it was funny as fuck, and I'm fairly certain it was a meme. I ahelped because I just wanted someone to tell him "just cool it a bit", because I was trying very hard to roleplay my injuries. But I really can't see how this is being perceived as an acceptable HRP action.

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

You don't need formal botany schooling to know about a tea being able to counter poison. I have never taken a botany class in my life but I can identify aloe vera and prepare it to treat sunburn if I'm out camping in the desert and forgot a bottle. I did it once to impress someone and I only cut myself a little bit and got goop all over my hands. (I am kind of a survivalist bad ass)


I also know reishi tea specifically has immune-system boosting properties that can help you fight infection. It is VERY reasonable for a character to have offhand knowledge 'tea counters toxins'.


It would only be suspect if the character somehow knew the exact make-up, chemicals, and properties of the liquid that could only be identified via chemical dispenser.

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You don't need formal botany schooling to know about a tea being able to counter poison. I have never taken a botany class in my life but I can identify aloe vera and prepare it to treat sunburn if I'm out camping in the desert and forgot a bottle. I did it once to impress someone and I only cut myself a little bit and got goop all over my hands. (I am kind of a survivalist bad ass)


I also know reishi tea specifically has immune-system boosting properties that can help you fight infection. It is VERY reasonable for a character to have offhand knowledge 'tea counters toxins'.


It would only be suspect if the character somehow knew the exact make-up, chemicals, and properties of the liquid that could only be identified via chemical dispenser.

 

Yeah. But this wasn't sunburn, this was a spider bite from a deadly spider. Knowing that tea is good for you when you're ill or whatever is fine. But thinking "well, if I know for a fact that this tea is going to counteract this spiderbite entirely because that's how the mechanics work" would only be moderately acceptable if they had the proper schooling, and even then it would need to be done tastefully.

But, again, that's not the crux of the matter as far as the actual incident is concerned. The issue is the lack of any cohesive roleplay structure around the action.

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If I might cluck like one of the hens of the peanut gallery here like someone already has, might I point out the issue was that another character literally force-fed someone who was suffering from extreme toxins, only tea, and not attempting to get them medical attention either by transporting them to medical themselves or by calling for a medic.


That's the issue. No one cares if people know that tea fixes toxins damage, that probably makes a little bit of sense but what does not make sense is someone forcing that down someone's gullet and calling that first aid treatment instead of getting them the medical attention they need. These are bad roleplay priorities, awful roleplay execution, and would only fly on the other lower RP spectrum servers. There is no 'well the intention was good', the execution is all that matters. You can't say you had good intentions and then bomb the brig, for instance, because that's clearly not an act with good intentions.

 

I tried to explain my issue, but the round ended, and when I ahelped on the next round I was told that the ruling was final and to make a staff complaint if I had an issue.

 

Staff also need to stop using the "this ruling is final" as a cop-out to avoid being told they're probably wrong in their first assessment of the situation and also avoiding doing more work. You literally volunteer to look into these issues and hear testimony from other players. Why are you in this volunteer position if you're not willing to go the extra mile to investigate further?

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I seriously do not see where the cluck is the OOC issue, we can have stupid characters, we can have people who act like assholes, we can have these people in emergency situations they are not usually trained for.

I don't think NT has a special "What to do when your co-worker is assaulted by a gigantic spider" course.

The person in question is a unathi, a Cargo unathi who's resolution to a giant spider assaulting his co-worker was banging it to death with tools instead of calling the appropriate department, again something worthy of a low-RP server except this is fine because?

Because perhaps he's a person who might feel more like taking things into his own hands is more reliable than calling other departments because he feels like he can solve them himself?


This is a textbook Incident Report, a character was being stupid ergo a character should be punished for being stupid.

Security officers sometimes give wrong sentences, chemists don't get prescription papers filled out, robotics don't fill out borging papers, medical insults you, cargo refuses to give service, a bartender charges aliens an extra tax.

All of these are people making dumb decisions and I do not see a reason why we shouldn't warn the person in question through a system we implemented specifically for these types of situations.

 

Staff also need to stop using the "this ruling is final" as a cop-out to avoid being told they're probably wrong in their first assessment of the situation and also avoiding doing more work. You literally volunteer to look into these issues and hear testimony from other players. Why are you in this volunteer position if you're not willing to go the extra mile to investigate further?

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Scheveningen gets the problem.


Incident Reports exist for people who do questionable/stupid but believable things. Lack of paperwork, violence, threats, disrespect, racism, etc. etc. Stuff that would be very rare in a corporate workplace but feasible that they could occur. And they're for getting people in trouble. I don't want that - like I've said a few times, it was funny as fuck, and I just wanted someone to give a quick poke of "hey, cool it with the memes".


The fact that it was just pure tea makes it funniest of all, IMO. I don't mean to make this into a back-and-forth, but while mechanically enough tea will counteract the toxins you need to consider that ICly this is just god-damn tea. You can know it's good for you, but you're not going to just think that it will magically cure a giant spider-bite.

 

we can have stupid characters

Agreed, but this isn't 'stupid', this is literally retarded. That's not ad homenim, but if someone had done that in a real life setting they would be arrested and tried for assault at the very least, then put into some mental asylum somewhere.

 

All of these are people making dumb decisions and I do not see a reason why we shouldn't warn the person in question through a system we implemented specifically for these types of situations.

We could use this for literally any issue short of flat-out bomb grief. Incident Reports exist for IC issues. This was not an IC issue. This was an issue of someone playing in a completely unrealistic and unbelievable way.


Oh, and:

Staff also need to stop using the "this ruling is final" as a cop-out to avoid being told they're probably wrong in their first assessment of the situation and also avoiding doing more work.

I completely agree, but this wasn't one of those cases. I'm not salt at Ezuo. I disagree with his ruling, and I don't want to see it become the norm or in any way acceptable in HRP, but if you ignore the outcome of the ruling he did a fine job here. The round was ending, and it can't be delayed for one disagreement.

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The only thing Scheveningen hit on the head was the fact that I talk too much to defend my own reasoning when I wasn't the one giving out the ban in the first place.

At this point we're arguing Plausible/impossible, I recognize you think it's retarded but I don't think it's THAT retarded, people are very very very stupid even "basically not even helping but just doing things because they think they're right" kind of thing.

I'll refrain from posting now since I said my piece of mind and I don't have much else to say.

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Right, so. I have talked to Ezuo and Ornias. I've heard both sides of the story. I haven't been able to get in touch with the Unathi player yet, but I don't think it's necessary. And I have read the logs. And to sum it up in basic terms, Ornias ahelped "I have a roleplay problem" and Ezuo responded with "mechanics". Those two aspects clash more often than this issue and it'a bit of a gray area unfortunately. In this case, however, I think Ezuo was a little quick in dismissing it as an IC issue. While the logic they put behind it is sound, however they did not actually check it and Ornias is right in that it's not a very heavy RP scenario. I would recommend making an IR about it because that is what it warrants, but Ezuo could do with investigating more thoroughly in the future.

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