On Wizard and Polymorphs

[Sikroth]

I had a little talk with an admin during a Wiz with polymorph round, about the behaviour you should follow after being polymorphed by a wizard, and what effect should that have on your actions. They suggested that the more neutral approach is to act like your previous life is forgotten and go on from there (so a slime might choose to act docile or feed on people, xenos will likely be hostiles, etc).

There's a couple of potential issues with this approach, in my opinion. For starters, depending on what the polymorph rolls, it can turn the round from Wizard (which alone is a station-wide threat) to wizard + like 20 antag-like hostile creatures in a minute. I think that is arguably also a balance concern, as that'd make it heaps better than a wand of death, which only reduces the number of alive crew members, while Polymorph would permanently remove the crew member while actively creating a lot more threats on top.

Additionally, the polymorph itself is entirely unclear about what you're meant to do, anyway. All you get is a small message that reads, "Your form morphs into that of a Ash Walker/Xeno/Slime/etc.". At face value this sort of implies you're changing in shape, not mind. If the intent (or what the staff thinks is the best approach) is that polymorphed creatures act like such creatures, and not "who they previously were but in a new body", I think that needs to be clarified.

And if the text is vague on purpose, so people can choose to rp either or, I still think the transformation text, or maybe somewhere in the rules, could benefit from being expanded upon to mention that. So people are more clear about what they should, can, shouldn't and can't do without accidentally breaking some rule on murdering/validhunting/etc.

Just my two cents on this topic, maybe it's not a big deal for anyone else but I found it a little unclear and prone to missinterpretation.

[Sirryan2002]

Wizard is meant to be a very high chaos round so a bunch of polymorphed mobs isn't a bad/unbalanced thing for that round type. That being said, some feedback to polymorphed players about what they're supposed to do especially in relation to our advanced rules ruling on it would be very helpful.

[Pckables]

I believe a few years back there was a bit of a conflict between whether Wizard Polymorphed players should be acting like crew or hostile-life, but I don't think there was a definitive conclusion outside of the Syndicate Borg (since, if I remember right, you're given the Syndicate Lawset).

Might be good to have either a small warning/explanation given to the player when hit with a wand of polymorph, or just a footnote in the self-antag rules about polymorph and hostile-life.

[Leanfrog]

It has been stated before that if you become a Xeno or Terror, your consciousness is subsumed by the hivemind and you are to work towards the goals of said hive.

Syndie borgs are given the syndicate lawset as above,

Outside of those instances people shouldn't suddenly start wrecking up the place.

[Esenno]

9 minutes ago, Leanfrog said:

It has been stated before that if you become a Xeno or Terror, your consciousness is subsumed by the hivemind and you are to work towards the goals of said hive.

Syndie borgs are given the syndicate lawset as above,

Outside of those instances people shouldn't suddenly start wrecking up the place.

This, to the best of my awareness, has been the policy for at least as long as I've been an admin. Probably longer.

[Sikroth]

On 4/27/2022 at 11:17 PM, Leanfrog said:

Outside of those instances people shouldn't suddenly start wrecking up the place.

I am paraphrasing as my memory is crap, but during that round one of the active admins said something along the lines of "if you're transformed into a slime you should be feeding on everyone, not just targeting the wizard". Which would Imply that all transformations turn into non-crew, not just xenos/terrors, and also that you're not meant to work with the crew to valid the wizard, and instead sort of "wreck the place" (obviously at a smaller scale but still).

This is not to say that your interpretation, or the admins at the time's, are right or wrong, just that there is no universal "this is how it should be", and so I think it'd be beneficial to have one.

[PeakPerformance]

If you become a chicken, don't forget to take commander clucky out on a date !

Edited May 4, 2022 by Peak