Traitor Security Improves Security and Sec. Players

Lovecraft · Post by **Lovecraft** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:28 am #84653

Letting Security Staff be on the roll for an traitor vastly improves the kind of quality those selected will preform at, as well as encourages more players to play Security roles for a chance at being a Syndicate on the beat.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and Security could be traitors, I never recalled a need for officers. The staff was there on hand, and if you'd believe from the forums that we're currently experiencing a Sec. player crunch re-enabling traitors could be just the push needed to give the department fresh blood. (From my own experience Security on Basil is rare to never)

Another reason to push for the return of Reds in Red is the conduct of traitorous lawmen. An average round for Joe Schmo is tight and tense as a member of Nano's finest, but when you're expecting them to pull a double act and live for the reward you produce a flawless man. In many personal experiences I can attest that peace keepers have a highly effective playstyle when playing as an antagonist, as they've got to clean their nose by cleaning the station.

Not to mention the more interesting scenarios that arise from not always having "the good guys" on hand, never knowing who to trust. Perhaps it's a personal thing but I find it ruins a bit of the paranoia simulation when I can always tug on Daddy Hoss' sleeve and trust him to take care of me without thinking twice.

How do you feel about this? This is just a discussion thread, it's pretty much set in stone that we as a community tend to be 50/50 on this.

Please note: This is a thread about security traitors, not all antagonists.

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:37 am #84654

Oh fun another reason for people to scream "HELP SEC IS KILLING ME" the instant they get tazed in the hallway for being a shitler.
I rather like the meta of people that scream that shit are 100% just shitlers.

Konork · Post by **Konork** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 7:02 am #84659

Saegrimr wrote:Oh fun another reason for people to scream "HELP SEC IS KILLING ME" the instant they get tazed in the hallway for being a shitler.
I rather like the meta of people that scream that shit are 100% just shitlers.

Alongside this, there's also the fact that not having traitor sec means it's actually easier to crack down on actual shitcurity. If security could be antags of any kind, it's a lot harder to hold all of them to any kind of higher standards because shitcurity starts blending with antag-security, and we run into really dumb situations like where someone gets arrested for no actual reason, ahelp it, and either 1) sec's a traitor, admins rule the arrest valid, guy tries bashing securities head in the next chance they get, 2) sec's not a traitor, admins tell sec to let the guy go, or 3) sec's not a traitor, admins rule it valid, guy possibly gets his round ruined for no reason. And besides, for there to really be paranoia, there has to be some trust in the first place.

TheNightingale · Wed Apr 29, 2015 7:30 am

It might work, but Security relies on trust - they don't have it at the moment (people can and will run up to you and steal your prisoner), and this certainly wouldn't help the anti-Sec meta.

I read somewhere about a 'loose cannon'-type Security antag: no uplink or objectives, but they're not bound by Security's standard regulations per se. That is to say, a dirty cop could legitimately harmbaton an assistant, and they'd only have to fear being caught by fellow officers and/or lynchmobs.

imblyings · Post by **imblyings** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 8:20 am #84668

No

No

The issue with security right now is little to none sec each shift. Bringing traitor security back may or may not fix the problem, but will definitely bring in ones of their own. I'll explain why.

About three factors influence how good security is- robustness, competency and sportsmanship. What we're concerned with here is the teamwork aspect of competency. It covers looking out for each other, helping each other and the two things require an implicit trust in each other. This is important because if we look at the current problem, and how probability of latejoin security increases along with existing security, we can make a reasonable assumption that the current population of security players in fact prefer being able to have an implicit trust in each other and have someone else to rely on when shit does hit the fan. If you remove that trust, then the implication is security players may be less willing to join, which only serves to worsen the problem

Security also don't need the extra paranoia. Security already face first strike dilemmas in cult, rev,.and gang, where they are under pressure to walk a blurry line between subjective stances on what is and isn't powergamimg and not being kicked to deadchat. They are prime targets in those game modes and still experience a heightened level of conflict in the other types. As stated earlier, security players join more frequently when there is a higher amount of security on the manifest already. We can make a very reasonable assumption from that to make, about how security probably already get placed under enough pressure and only becomes more appealing when there are others to share the load. With this assumption in mind, I'm wondering why you think more paranoia and pressure is a good idea.

Lastly, I need to throw in my own vast ingame experience and similar real life experience, and say that the quality of sec goes up and not down with antags being turned off.

What would be fine however, is a special loose cannon sec antag type as described above or if this isn't a thing already, for the game to pick antags before picking job roles, so those with sec set to on don't miss out on being antag.

edit-

sec antag would work but only on servers like bay where ingame context/canon, a certain level of sportsmanship as well as restrictions on antag behaviour are enforced. Yes we could have fun roleplaying cops from new york but cops from new york also don't regularly do their best to kill fellow officers and stash their body in the equipment locker so it never gets found. And as tired as this phrase sounds, tg isn't bay.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 8:34 am #84669

What if playing Security (starting the round as Security, but maybe not latejoining) awards you with antag points making you more likely to be antag when you play unprotected jobs?

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:33 am #84674

Security is moulded after trust, if we remove that aspect of trust then everything turns to shit. Sec antag was simply a nightmare in dealing with and highly discouraged good players from being in Sec.

Miauw · Post by **Miauw** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 1:01 pm #84684

Scott wrote:What if playing Security (starting the round as Security, but maybe not latejoining) awards you with antag points making you more likely to be antag when you play unprotected jobs?

a finicky system. this would require TONS of moderation and end up with a lot of people playing sec just to be more antag, e.g. this would probably reduce the quality of sec too.

picking antags before jobs is obviously a good idea, but roundstart code is a huge mess. it might already be that way, it might not. somebody may be able to tell you, but i can't.

Post by **Atlanta-Ned** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 2:51 pm #84702

Why don't we stop wringing our hands over this and just give it a fucking shot for a week or so? If it works it works, if not then turn it off. It's not like we need to chisel every single change on this into stone.

Miauw · Post by **Miauw** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 3:02 pm #84704

we gave it a shot for several years.

bandit · Post by **bandit** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 3:18 pm #84706

I've argued this from the start. Traitor security opens up new and interesting avenues of play, ones that "you can OOCly trust all security officers" does not. Traitors' uplinks have items just as powerful as anything security officers start with and in some cases more, so the "sec is too powerful to be traitor!" argument holds little weight.

The argument for removing traitor security was that it would reduce or eliminate graytiding, as people can "trust" the officers more. This has clearly, blatantly not happened. If anything, the opposite was happening for a while. People still scream SECURITY ROGUE at the slightest deserved provocation, people still fuck with security just to antagonize them, the works. It has also led -- and I've argued this before -- to the adversarial relationship between security and admins, as lacking any checks on their IC infallibility, those checks ended up with the admins, leading to a lot of unfair bans, drama and general ill will. The community generally despises all changes that stick around despite the reasons for their being implemented not happening in the slightest; why is sec antag an exception to this?

imblyings · Post by **imblyings** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 3:39 pm #84711

I really don't think so.

I'd like to see just what 'new and interesting' avenues of play open up when sec antag originally was dunking fellow officers into the perma toilet or dunking the station into the perma toilet as ling sec.

Sec is too powerful to be traitor is a valid argument, since we experienced the natural countermovement to sec antag, which happened to be yelling for sweet jesus each time security arrested you just in case it was an antag officer, which combined with all manners of unfit people rolling for sec antag and general shittiness on the part of non-sec players, resulted in grey tide.

The removal of traitor security did in fact help in the removal of greytiding, as admins were then free to more strictly enforce rules against greytiding, now that they had no reason to scream bloody hell and security were then put under closer scrutiny.

>People still scream SECURITY ROGUE at the slightest deserved provocation, people still fuck with security just to antagonize them, the works.

That's literally not the case anymore. The current problem is there being little to no sec each round, which is a problem I explained above.

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 3:51 pm #84719

bandit wrote:The argument for removing traitor security was that it would reduce or eliminate graytiding, as people can "trust" the officers more. This has clearly, blatantly not happened.

I really have to disagree, greytiding is at an all time low.

bandit wrote:If anything, the opposite was happening for a while. People still scream SECURITY ROGUE at the slightest deserved provocation, people still fuck with security just to antagonize them, the works.

And these people generally get banned. Nothing of value, etc.

Cheimon · Post by **Cheimon** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 3:55 pm #84723

I enjoy playing a security officer and being able to trust the rest of the department. Removing that is not making things more interesting, it is removing a fun and helpful part of what makes the department tick. Security already has a great deal of problems to face without having to worry about more attacks on them from outside and inside.

bandit · Post by **bandit** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 5:15 pm #84739

imblyings wrote:>People still scream SECURITY ROGUE at the slightest deserved provocation, people still fuck with security just to antagonize them, the works.

That's literally not the case anymore. The current problem is there being little to no sec each round, which is a problem I explained above.

I have to think you don't play security. It is very much still the case.

Saegrimr wrote:>The argument for removing traitor security was that it would reduce or eliminate graytiding, as people can "trust" the officers more. This has clearly, blatantly not happened.
I really have to disagree, greytiding is at an all time low.

Currently it's circumstantial as a lot of the greytiding a few months ago was caused by or in response to Pushes-and-Shoves/SoS and his buddies. However, it is definitely not at an "all-time-low."

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 5:23 pm #84742

People who do tend to cry out "shitcuirty" or something akin are usually antags attempting to garner some last moment support to escape custody.

Sec Antag keeps good players out of security and draws in the people you don't want to be playing as Officers.

Its a lose-lose situation for everyone except for the players wanting a easy antag experience.

Lovecraft · Post by **Lovecraft** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 5:26 pm #84744

I just wanted to feel the tides on this.
Thanks for the discussion, guys!

imblyings · Post by **imblyings** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 5:30 pm #84745

>I have to think you don't play security. It is very much still the case.

I can start recording logs if need be but for what's it's worth, the last round I was just in had a minimal amount of sec and nobody calling sec rogue.

The next round will probably be so, and the one after it. And as steelpoint mentioned, calling out greytide or sec rogue is a last-ditch tactic used sometimes by antags who got caught.

TechnoAlchemist · Wed Apr 29, 2015 5:48 pm

I often manage to get myself into security when I roll antag and I personally think that if you can find a way in as a non-starting officer, great. However, it sec could roll antag it would destroy the idea that security is safe, and that really needs to be a given in a game where any of your coworkers could be traitors. There needs to be a safe zone to allow for greater challenges for both sides of the issue. A solution for the sec population issue would be to have it so that antag rolls come before job rolls during sleeper agent type rounds. This way, if you had sec set to high but rolled antag you would roll the next highest preference that can gain that antag status

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 5:54 pm #84751

Antag Security is fucking horrible, why would I want to play Sec when my roundstart implanted coworkers could just be traitors with not only the same incredibly robust gear as myself, but also an uplink? Security is already the hardest department in the game and this would be a really awful way to make it borderline unplayable. It's not interesting to be shot in the back by a roundstart implanted officer because o lol he is the meme man. It's not 'fun' to have the entire Security team killed in the first 5 minutes because one of the officers buys an adrenal and emag.

I don't think people who play Security at any decent level could want this, ever.

Post by **Shaps-cloud** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:13 pm #84754

Security already has to play enough "he said/she said" when it comes to slap fights between two crew members swear the other tried to kill them and demand justice, as a sec officer I don't want to have to go into hyper "what if" mode every time a fellow officer asks for someone to be arrested. Did that random shitler assistant really kill the Captain with a spear, or is the sec officer just framing him for nefarious reasons? You can't trust your fellow professionally trained and vetted security officers any more than some random assistant, and that's shitty. Plus, you can't put trust in people who have proven themselves to be good security officers, because even though they've been fair to prisoners in the past, that could completely flip each round. Personally, I'm much more likely to cooperate with a security officer who's been nice in the past, but if willingly agreeing to go to the brig with Officer Friendly has even a small chance of ending up with me getting stunned, stripped of my headset and getting beaten to death with no chance of fighting back, I'd be much more likely to resist arrest, no matter how much of a headache it causes sec. Suddenly, security wanting to ask me a few questions about me beating up the clown and throwing them out of medbay turns into a manhunt for no other reason than me being reasonably worried about getting killed by the sec officer. It's a pain in the ass for everyone

That being said, what if sec officers could get special mini-antag status at roundstart sometimes where, while they're still bound to the rules and can't go murderbone, they're told to escape with a certain amount of space cash or something else fairly inconsequential? They're not syndicate agents or anything, just slightly crooked cops looking to make a bit of extra cash on the side, even if it's through bribes or picking through the backpack of a suspect

bandit · Post by **bandit** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:19 pm #84755

Shaps wrote:Security already has to play enough "he said/she said" when it comes to slap fights between two crew members swear the other tried to kill them and demand justice, as a sec officer I don't want to have to go into hyper "what if" mode every time a fellow officer asks for someone to be arrested. Did that random shitler assistant really kill the Captain with a spear, or is the sec officer just framing him for nefarious reasons? You can't trust your fellow professionally trained and vetted security officers any more than some random assistant, and that's shitty. Plus, you can't put trust in people who have proven themselves to be good security officers, because even though they've been fair to prisoners in the past, that could completely flip each round. Personally, I'm much more likely to cooperate with a security officer who's been nice in the past, but if willingly agreeing to go to the brig with Officer Friendly has even a small chance of ending up with me getting stunned, stripped of my headset and getting beaten to death with no chance of fighting back, I'd be much more likely to resist arrest, no matter how much of a headache it causes sec. Suddenly, security wanting to ask me a few questions about me beating up the clown and throwing them out of medbay turns into a manhunt for no other reason than me being reasonably worried about getting killed by the sec officer. It's a pain in the ass for everyone

Suddenly, a lot of things become different:

- The detective actually becomes useful, because "THIS ASSISTANT BROKE INTO THE CAPTAIN'S OFFICE AND TRIED TO KILL HIM WITH A SPEAR" requires evidence and proof
- The lawyer actually becomes useful, because they might actually serve a purpose and have actual crimes to solve instead of trying to fight the almighty infallible police or, more likely, not existing or fucking off to the bar
- The HoS actually becomes a head, in that he has oversight of his fellow officers

imblyings · Post by **imblyings** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:26 pm #84757

>detective becomes useful
>detective can be an antag as well

>lawyer being useful
>lawyer ever once being listened to ever when we did have antags

>hos ever having oversight of his officers back then
>implying it's not fairly ok now with chain of command

bandit look if you want to argue for sec antag, you know go for it, knock yourself out but at least try to make good arguments for it.

Konork · Post by **Konork** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 8:05 pm #84772

I'm pretty sure the main reason why detectives or sec doesn't actually do any kind of investigations is just because they can't be assed to. I think it's a similar situation for lawyers as well, where they don't see much use because no one can be assed to hold a trial. Both of these still happened back when sec could still be antags and I doubt they'll stop happening if it gets reenabled.

QuartzCrystal · Wed Apr 29, 2015 8:18 pm

Just posting here to say:

No. We made this change for a reason. The game is vastly better because of this change.

Reimoo · Post by **Reimoo** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 11:25 pm #84808

I like the bad cop antag idea.

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 11:32 pm #84809

imblyings wrote:>detective becomes useful
>detective can be an antag as well

>lawyer being useful
>lawyer ever once being listened to ever when we did have antags

>hos ever having oversight of his officers back then
>implying it's not fairly ok now with chain of command

Ausops pretty much hit the nail on the head here. The Detective is already about as useful as they can be - Traitorsec wouldn't make Security into a force with a more steady and evidence-based process of investigation. It would make wild west justice all the more probable and easy to pull off, which is fun for literally nobody involved.

Lawyers lo

HoS is already a head. He's generally listened to by his subordinates. As for the chain of command, roleplaying is more or less dead so we really can't expect much out of that.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 4:12 am #84828

Traitor Sec simply encourages Security to operate on a individual basis, with little to no cooperation because if you do cooperate with other Officers odds are your going to get stabbed in the back. Yet when Sec turns into a lone wolf organization suddenly it loses a lot of its policing power since its much easier to beat a Sec force that is not cooperating with one another.

Post by **Shaps-cloud** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 4:29 am #84831

HoS is pretty much the second most powerful guy on the station behind the Captain, and is probably the only head who bothers to demote his subordinates if they're acting shitty, so I'd say he's already a pretty significant head

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 11:29 am #84861

while the loose cannon antag idea is awesome we already have plenty of loose cannons as it is

Security being an unpopular job pains me because I actually really enjoy playing Security, most people really appreciate it when you take the time to listen to their side of the story and take their testimony seriously. even if they turn out to be guilty most people will simply accept it if they have the feeling you did not just act on a whim

remember you are the thin red line (and when you fail the big red blot on the floor)

Malkevin · Post by **Malkevin** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:48 pm #84944

Atlanta-Ned wrote:Why don't we stop wringing our hands over this and just give it a fucking shot for a week or so? If it works it works, if not then turn it off. It's not like we need to chisel every single change on this into stone.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it?

Post by **oranges** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 9:12 pm #84988

It doesn't matter because nobody plays sec anyway
[rimshot]

Cheimon · Post by **Cheimon** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 10:20 pm #85002

Malkevin wrote:
Atlanta-Ned wrote:Why don't we stop wringing our hands over this and just give it a fucking shot for a week or so? If it works it works, if not then turn it off. It's not like we need to chisel every single change on this into stone.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it?

Exactly, people aren't exactly wringing their hands here, they're mostly going "this is a bad idea, here's why I think so".

Fri May 01, 2015 12:32 am

If the underlying issue is that nobody wants to play security, then how about we change policy so that admins give sec more leniency over regular crew instead of less

imblyings · Post by **imblyings** » Fri May 01, 2015 3:51 am #85053

Security already have a lot of leniency since admins rule most timed sentences and even shitty shit like stealing things as IC issues- unless of course, it's repeated no-raisin sentences and such over the course of several rounds. Still, this might not be the leniency you're thinking of so if you have a specific case in mind, tell us.

I've already stated though, that it's not that nobody wants to play security. That's not the case at all, it's that nobody wants to play security alone. What could help this is antags scaling to sec population in high pop rounds for example. And for the people who worry about missing out on antag because of sec, and while I fully understand how horrible it is to ask someone to touch jobchange code, changing code to pick antags before jobs would also help a tiny bit as well. There are also certain initiatives admins could take in events, where security may receive some admin love and fun as well to deal with the FUN!!.

Cheimon · Post by **Cheimon** » Fri May 01, 2015 10:35 am #85090

I suppose in theory, this is where a non-BYOND game could do some sort of queuing option, where you could join as a security member and hang around for ten minutes. Then, if other people wanted to play security, you could all go in together.

The normal alternative to this is just to join up and bunker up in the brig for ten minutes while you hope other people arrive.

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Fri May 01, 2015 12:09 pm #85100

PKPenguin321 wrote:If the underlying issue is that nobody wants to play security, then how about we change policy so that admins give sec more leniency over regular crew instead of less

I'd love to see the day where Sec are the only ones allowed to cave someone's skull in on-site and greyshirts get banned for being vigilantes. It'd put some fear back into seeing a redshirt.

Malkevin · Post by **Malkevin** » Fri May 01, 2015 4:28 pm #85144

That day could be tomorrow...

Lovecraft · Post by **Lovecraft** » Fri May 01, 2015 4:55 pm #85152

Well the voting thread was locked.
Thanks for participating, everyone! I always like to revisit issues like this to see if the waters have changed.

hanshansenhansson · Fri May 01, 2015 6:41 pm

I think it would be enough to assign antag before roles. The only reason I do not play Security more is that I loose my chance to be antag-assistant. We had that for a while, didnt we? Why was it removed?

Post by **lumipharon** » Sat May 02, 2015 12:29 am #85229

That's really all it is.

Playing sec with a full team of atleast half competent people is an enjoyable experience.
Playing under staffed can be a nightmare - especially if you late join.

Someone tried to make antag selection work before job selection (ie: you could have sec on high, and roll traitor, and it would choice your highest priority job that isn't antag protected) but it was buggy as fuck.
Malf assistant was pretty great though.

Post by **Vekter** » Sat May 02, 2015 2:08 am #85243

This has been discussed at length in the Policy Discussion forum, voted on and locked by a headmin. We're not doing it, it's a bad idea, open and shut.

Please make any future posts re: server policy in Policy Discussion.