Admins and Antag conduct

[Aligote]

Back in January, there was an announcement and poll on the introduction of more PvE oriented rounds into the game (Dsdiy, discord). As the community meeting seems to near with every survey, a major issue should be on conflict balance and how it affects roleplay. Despite discussions of moving away from PvP, its shortcomings should be analyzed for more comprehensive solutions to be proposed.

Now, a major proponent of conflict balance are the antags, and what they do is crucial to the roleplay experience. However, by looking through the rules, admin statements, and admin conduct revolving around antag conduct and conflict, there is a clear lack of roleplay capacity for antags and conflict on Paradise.

The Rules

The Rules are the main authority on Antag conduct that both admins and players use to base their actions. A major factor for the current state of conflict and roleplay is because of how the rules are written. According to the main rules, "Remember the goal of an Antagonist is to make the round exciting, fun, and dangerous, within limits. You should make an effort to add to the round, as opposed to simply completing your objectives and carrying on normally."(Rules, Rule 6). This seems to align well with what Advanced Rules state in how "the primary purpose of this Rule is to stop antags 'murderboning'”(Advanced Rules, Rule 6). The implication is that there is some alternative to completing antagonist objectives that allows antagonists to add roleplay value to the round; that these rules merely prevent excessive killing.

However, the Main Rules elaborate that "you must work towards your objectives, not general mayhem."(Rules, Rule 6), which every other source of authority pins policies onto. For instance, Advanced Rules directly states restrictions against stealing high risk items, pre-emptively killing sec, subverting the AI, using low collateral bombs, or sabotaging telecomms unless they directly align with objectives(Advanced rules, Rule 6). Antag Policy reaffirms this statement multiple times in their own policies, such as how changelings are only allowed to use absorption in order to accomplish their objectives(Antag Policy, Changelings). There is a clear statement here that despite the initial remark against completing objectives and neglecting roleplay, antags are straightjacketed into focusing on their objectives only.

The rules state its intent is to prevent excessive murder, however, their definition of excessive is also misleading. For instance, the Advanced rules state that, "It is permitted for antags to kill witnesses to stop themselves being caught. This must be immediately a problem. Killing someone in case they witness a potential future action is not ok."(Advanced Rules, Rule 6). Which states that killing potential witnesses is restricted until they turn into a witness and become a threat to your objectives. This is a far more stringent condition than killing a person entirely unrelated to your objectives. Along with other restrictions like those against killing security, the logical conclusion is that excessive murder is any murder unrelated to objectives. Moreover, harm unrelated to objectives is not allowed.

Admin Statements

This interpretation of the rules is demonstrated in how staff respond and explain the matter to players. For instance, in two separate year old Discord discussions on Antag gimmicks and Antag killing unrelated to objectives, both admin responses stressed the need to align actions with objectives and to ahelp for clarification or permission(Meow19,discord)(Gatchapod,discord). It's important to clarify that these admins are retired but their statements are still supplementary information. It is how admins interpreted the rules on this topic a year ago and with the lack of opposing information, seems to be consistent.

Less dated and more concrete statements that support this interpretation can also be found in ban appeals. Additionaly, there is a visible trend of demanding certain behavior that restricts conflict and roleplay. In an antag ban appeal from August 2024, the stated ban reason was mainly for excessive violence and trying to fish for sec fights after completing objectives. The appellee explained how they were being chased by sec as a changeling in the shuttle and resorted to lethal force when cornered(Damian,Antag banned by dearmochi). In response, the admin stated, "regarding the fight on the shuttle...I'm simply confused as to why you were staying in the shuttle's medical area in full view of the brig area ... In my view, you were cloaked and had an entire shuttle to hide in (or simply an escape pod) but opted to stay in the medical area and pick fights with security which was not giving chase by that point, only attacking you when you were in full view of them."(Dearmochi,Antag banned by dearmochi). Which openly implies that antags must conciously evade confrontation if it doesn't perfectly align with their goals; that antagonists must act a certain way to minimize "excess" harm, to the point they must evade security, take a pod, or hide. Statements like this should be clear in how they affect roleplay, they punish interaction and instill fear for interaction.

Admin Conduct

This trend in admin oversight can be seen carried over to antag interactions in general. In another ban appeal from August 2024, the stated ban reason was for attacking a changeling that wasn't posing a threat(Withereal, Ban appeal for Witherael). The appellee explained how they suspected a coworker was a changeling for letting them die and hit the changeling with a hatchet before getting awarned. Then, when they got trapped together in botany later on, the appellee radioed to sec for help and resorted to self-defense when the changeling attempted to kill them(Withereal, Ban appeal for Witherael). The admin's stance was, "Though it is fine to call Security on an antagonist you've witnessed, it would be best to do so out of their reach because you are giving them a valid reason to silence you. By calling them out in front of them you are putting them in this awkward spot where they have to silence you which would push you to attack back, though not in a last resort kind of self defence."(Dearmochi,Ban appeal for Witherael). Which has an implication similarly imposed on antagonists. Crewmembers are forced to act in a very certain way that has to abide by stringent interpretations of validhunting rules by not just calling sec, but calling sec while not provoking the antagonist, even when trapped with them. These decisions punish conflict, they punish interaction, they ultimately punish roleplay.

The appellee made a great statement on this particular topic:

Quote

What you seemingly expect to happen is that I completely disengage with the changeling, despite sharing the changelings job and workplace, and instead magic my way out so as to entirely avoid conflict, violence or otherwise, which is arguably antithetical to the nature of the game and indeed, games as a whole. I don't understand why such a high level of expertise of the rules is required just to not do what a reasonably minded individual would do. This is what I refer to when I said your strict and blind adherence to the rules, because policy is written in such a way as to discourage nuance and repeat what is done, entirely forgoing other potentially correct courses of action. Why should I play a sandbox roleplaying game where a specific circumstance only has one correct response? And not that I even really need to play this card because it's not an issue specific to me, but as someone who struggles with cognition, the problems are that much harder for me to rationalize, especially 'in the moment'. There's no good reason for me to know the one correct answer to every single scenario because there shouldn't be one correct answer, and if I did know the one correct answer then what am I even playing for. (Withereal, Ban appeal for Witherael)

Conclusion

The current system of antagonist, sec, and crew interactions is flawed. Roleplay suffers as a result of the Rules and how it's implemented by admins. The Rules over Antag conduct encourage doing objectives and neglecting roleplay because there are no permittable Antag alternatives to objectives. Additionally, even if a minority of admins work like described here, the possibility you can be punished like this seems to be a reason roleplay continues to suffer. On another note, this seems to be a conceptual issue that a shift to PvE wouldn't fix. The burgeoning issues with rules and admin oversight will only continue until they are addressed. Finally, I want to state that this is a resolvable issue; every SS13 server has rules like this with their own ways of addressing roleplay. It's just a matter of acknowledging the problem and working on it.

Edited April 19 by Aligote
A quote was requested to be removed

[BryanR]

I retract permission for referencing my words or using them in this.

When I gave permission to use them, I was unaware of what context they'd be placed in and for what purpose it'd be used.

[Aligote]

1 hour ago, BryanR said:

I retract permission for referencing my words or using them in this.

That is fine, your words have been removed.

[BryanR]

I appreciate that. Thank you.