Pick a rule and give your thoughts on it

[MrStonedOne]

Understanding how headmins think about policy and rules can be helpful in sorting out the npcs from the thought leaders. The people capable of reading into nuance from those who can only reason around the most prominent examples.

Thinking about our rules on the game server, i would like to hear your thoughts on what they mean, and why you like or hate them. How ever we have a bunch so lets just stick to a few examples, whatever stands out to you. (oh, and do copy/quote the rule in here, so players reading this don't have to cross reference the wiki because they didn't memorize our ten-codes.)

[Fikou]

Question for OP: Is this just the main 12(13) rules, or stuff like mrp rules, escalaton policy, the secret rule etc?

10. Losing is part of the game.
Your character will frequently die, sometimes without even a possibility of avoiding it. Events will often be out of your control. No matter how good or prepared you are, sometimes you just lose.

This is one my favorite rules, though it's not much of a rule. It's a good reminder of the game works, and that your deaths are part of a greater story. Though it's not really used as a factor in administrative rulings, it is sometimes a good pointer for frustrated players that make an adminhelp to help them calm down. I also think it's in an area nearing rule 12, and merging those 2 rules could be a thing, I think they encompass the sense of "This is a roleplaying game, where anything can and will happen out of your control, to create an unique story that you serve a part of" that SS13 is really about.

[MrStonedOne]

all of rules, and not just the main rules, but the mrp rules and the policies too.

[kinnebian]

all of rules, and not just the main rules, but the mrp rules and the policies too.

I like global rule 5.

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role require a minimum amount of effort; generally considered to be not logging out at or near roundstart.
Notify admins if you cannot play these roles and must leave near round start and make an attempt to inform other players IC as well for head of staff or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed.

Its concise, and gets the main point across in the header. Our rules should be (and mostly are) easy to read and follow.

The only rule I find that is a bit questionable about this, is rule 12.

12. This is a sandbox roleplaying game
The purpose of the game is to have fun roleplaying. Play-to-win gameplay that ruins the purpose of the game at the expense of others is against the rules.

On a first read its not clear what it means, and its something that has to be explained to new candies constantly. (That is, the fact that it is NOT powergaming.)
The clarifying aspect of it is in the addendums, and I dont understand why something so crucial to understanding and following this rule is not part of the main body.

Playing-to-win is to focus exclusively on a competitive victory condition, such as killing all antagonists. It is not empowering yourself to achieve personal goals, or taking measures to survive the shift

[iain0]

I've always just loved this headmin precedent:

Validity when killing pets - If you perform an action which has zero benefit to you other than making others upset (like killing Ian) I will ban you if you adminhelp when someone kills you.

Sure, there's some element of not really liking runtime's near inevitable death every round I play CMO so being able to act on the few instances I find is nice, but its the wording in this rule that I love, it's basically an IC sliver of rule one in a way but "If you perform an action which has zero benefit to you other than making others upset" covers quite a bunch of stuff people can do and usually solely for the purpose of provoking a reaction. Could cover some types of baiting rule breaks too, but it's such a good concise description hidden away in a precedent somewhere.

Escalation policy plus the resisting arrest (gonna spoiler it because big) has come up elsewhere and I think is in a very good place of allowing normal crewmate conflict, ensuring everyone has a chance to recover and move on from there while ALSO then permitting round removal if there's a 2nd incident, so it both gives everyone a 2nd chance and also handles the people who will just unbuckle themselves in medical and rush right back to carry on the conflict (and these people may also be subject to bwoinking for breaking the 'its over, new conflict must occur and escalate' section of the policy).
Big fan of the valid arrest section, it both handles needing to be able to react to the few cases sec are bad (ling imposter/obsessed), without allowing sec to be turned into a circus by the grey tide constantly stealing everything. I'm all for /some/ crewmate vs sec moments but it shouldn't either the crewmates or security's main round content, that's generally for antags, and being a Terry-min main the greytide regularly needs checks to prevent either devolving into the inappropriate overthrow of sec or seccies just being loot pinatas. I could probably talk for a while about the fine line with crew vs sec based on things I've experienced as a player (long time since I played sec, my last experience completely put me off) as well as an admin.

Spoiler:

Escalation Policy
As a non-antagonist you may begin conflict with another player with valid reason (refusal of critical services, belligerent attitude, etc) OR if it does not excessively interfere with their ability to do their job. Whomever you engage is entitled to respond to your actions. If the conflict leads to violence and you had a poor reason for causing conflict in the first place, you may face administrative action.

If you are wronged, you are expected to handle the conflict non-lethally whenever possible, escalating in severity as the conflict continues. As the defending party the rate of escalation increases with you, up to and including violence, while the instigator is always able to respond in kind.

If a conflict leads to violence and either participant is incapacitated, the standing participant is expected to make an effort to treat the other, unless they have reason to believe the other was an antagonist. Once treated the conflict is over; any new conflict with either individual must escalate once again. If you get into a conflict again with that individual, they may be removed permanently from the round.

Conflict is automatically suspended when one participant is dead or incapacitated. A player who uses the state of incapacitation to take further action against the downed party chooses to extend the ongoing conflict past its original endpoint, and opens themselves up to further reprisal to avenge damage or recover stolen possessions.


Non-Antagonists Resisting Arrest
Non-antagonists should not harmfully resist or retaliate against valid arrests, but do not have to simply give up and allow the arrest to happen. They may instead non-harmfully escape or avoid the arresting officer in the spirit of the game.

If an arrest is not obviously valid, it follows standard escalation. Resisting or retaliating against arrests without good reason may break Escalation Policy and be handled administratively. Non-antagonist players may lose any OOC and IC protections if they choose this path and should consider ahelping if they believe they did nothing to warrant being arrested.

In resisting arrest, non-antagonists should not loot officers and should not detain or incapacitate officers any longer than is necessary to escape or explain themselves.

I'm gonna say I like rule 11, the bigotry rule, when I joined TG in 2019 Terry was the kind of place that I'd go out of my way not to share with "other people", and things have improved so very dramatically since back then, sure, it's still a fairly typical gaming community in terms of memes, internal trolling, some drama and so on but it's very much more the "normal casually-moderated internet" standard nowadays. I think the rule quite concisely hits the problem on the head without simply being overly broad blanket bans, which is the more "highly moderated" internet style. That said rule 11 has always been prone to a lot of discussion about how it works, and it was the hardest rule for me to try grasp when I became an admin - as a player, I simply never really go near any of that stuff, so my understanding was quite simple, but as an admin I have to enforce this rule so I really needed to understand it. There's some element of hoping that I have got it right, but I've been to appeal to make a stand for my interpretation before (which triggered a lot of discussion at the time), and will continue to do that where necessary, because either i'll get reaffirmed in my understanding, or someone can explain to me where I'm going wrong, kinda win win as far as understanding it goes.

11. Bigotry is not allowed.
Intentionally seeking to demean others due to their actual or perceived race, sex, gender, disability, orientation or the like is not tolerated. It is not our goal to create or enforce a list of banned words and instead our goal to eject the expression of bigotry from the community. Enforcement will be less PC based and more common sense based with that goal in mind.

This means rather than warning or banning for quoting a usage such as "Griff McNazi got banned for calling somebody a faggot" or even things like "nigga pls" and "what are you faggots playing" which are generally not statements made to be bigoted, we'll focus more on statements like "you talk like a [insert stereotype]" or "x is a [insert slur]".

That said there's a lot of "good" rules, like no metacomms, dont be a dick, IC OOC that are just necessary and good rules, but I don't think there was much depth to discussing these, they are there for obvious reasons and while "dont be a dick" has nuance, thats a bottomless topic.

Also big fan of rule 10 "losing is part of the game" as in it sort of amuses me, it's a good guidance but less of a 'rule' really. I'd love to see a pure rule 10 ban but I don't think its possible ; like anywhere you might be able to slip rule 10 in is probably just "dont be a dick" rule 1 anyway, with some rule 10 flavour dressing.

[xPokee]

I love Roleplay Rule 4, precedent 2.

The dead dog litmus test: Players may hunt specific threats or antagonists who have identifiably done something to wrong that particular player, the Ur-example being that players may seek revenge against those who harm their departmental pets. Players who choose this path are empowered to act as security in regard to that specific threat, but as per the main rule must also follow related restrictions on security play. This can also be applied to an assault of a character you've had significant interactions with, in the current round, and it does not apply to cross-round or OOC friendships.

Being allowed to beat up those who kill your pets is amazing, along with being able to assault a character that has deeply wronged you in a round. In recent example I can think of the time a non-antagonist CMO handcuffed my prisoner and surgically removed her eyes for no reason. Being able to then break out of prison just to shoot the man who had traumatised my character with fentanyl only to immediately turn myself back in was funny, and being protected by rules like it adds a lot to the MRP experience.

[General Thrax]

0. Enforcement of these rules is at the discretion of admins. Admins are fully accountable for any consequences should they invoke this rule. Admins are also allowed to intervene in rounds when it is in the best interest of the playerbase.

I personally feel Rule 0 is very, very important to the admin culture of tg (something I frequently mention when training candidates). I covered some of this in response to Wesoda in my own thread, but in a game like this, situations are going to be radically, radically different round to round. Doing something well within (or way, way out) of the confines of the rules may either heavily hurt or greatly enhance the experience of other players playing (or anything in-between), the admins being allowed to greenlight or stop these in their tracks under Rule 0 is essential to the highly flexible nature of how events go down in SS13. Admin discretion is huge, and while it causes headaches on occasion, tends to benefit good-faith players and prevent line-toeing.

[WineAllWine]

I'd like to talk about my favourite rule. The Secret Rule:

This is a game that allows a lot of potential for great things to happen, and naturally the rules restrict a lot of that to ensure the minority don't ruin every round for everyone else. If you push the limits in the pursuit of something interesting for reasons other than your own personal entertainment, breaking the rules may be excused to allow for that freedom. This will always be at the admin's discretion of course, but if you want a large amount of freedom to make great things happen, you'll have to take on the responsibility for them. You won't be faulted if they go wrong in ways beyond your control, but this is a difficult line to tread so use it well. It's almost always better to consult an admin on this as they are more equipped to taking on that responsibility.

Everyone has a license to grief to a very limited extent. You can likely get away with borderline antagonistic behaviour (Never random murder, but stealing from the brig and triggering a manhunt, for example) occasionally, but it's when this becomes a frequent occurrence that people get frustrated and admins start to get involved.

Admins may handwave even severely antagonistic or rulebreaking behaviour if they believe it was ultimately beneficial, hilarious or awesome to the round. (F R E E D R O N E)

The Secret Rule's purpose is to allow admins to deputize to players. If an admin thinks a player is going to do something fun that would technically be against the rules, TSR allows this.
But it is a rule for admins. The best way for it to be used is to ask the admins. Perhaps you're a curator and the clown keeps slipping you. You ahelp "hey can I tie the clown to a chair and recite bad poetry to him while slowly poisoning him to death?".
That would be funny.
I'd allow it.
But doing it without permission is no bueno.

The point is The Secret Rule is the opposite of the common adage "it's easier to seek forgiveness than permission".

When it comes to The Secret Rule, it's safer to ask for permission than forgiveness.

[Sightld2]

Big fan of Roleplay rule 10. "There are a great many gimmicks, dramas and plans that result in excellent stories beloved by many, and part of idea of the higher roleplay environment is to make space for this to happen. Many of these experiences fade with replication however – constant repetition of the same tired jokes and stories is both boring and stifling to new ideas. The administrative team collectively have the discretionary power to request that players, or the server collectively (in the case of mass spam of the same high impact strategies such as plasmafloods) find new gimmicks or make changes to their playstyles in the name of keeping experiences fresh for the server."

It gives us the freedom to ask people to chill without outright banning or making new rules for the small stuff. I'm honestly not sure why its exclusive to the RP rules, didn't LRP admins ask people to stop spamming kudzu a while back?

For similar reasons I can't remember if we actually got in "blue moon" naming policy, but I liked the idea that certain names that break naming policy for gimmicks were good as long as they weren't every round.

[iwishforducks]

confession: I barely know the rules of /tg/station by code. you have to pay me some really good money or i have to be in a really petty mood to have to dig up the rules to rule lawyer. despite not knowing jackshit about the rules i've hardly run into issues in my nearly 1000 hours of playing.

which is why rules 0, 1, and 10 have always stuck out to me. they're not so much as "you can't do [x]. it's not allowed for [x] to happen." they're simply reminders that, at the end of the day- no matter how much bullshit redtape and policies there are- we're playing a game to have fun. sometimes i think people forget that and read rules and policies for what they are rather than what they try to achieve. as long as people are having fun and not fucking people up it's got two thumbs up from me.

► Show Spoiler

all of rules, and not just the main rules, but the mrp rules and the policies too.

fuck, this got a really good laugh out of me

[Pepper]

Rule 12 sucks.

12. This is a sandbox roleplaying game

The purpose of the game is to have fun roleplaying. Play-to-win gameplay that ruins the purpose of the game at the expense of others is against the rules.

I appreciate and concur with the intention of this rule and agree that hardcore powergaming is a problem that at times requires admin intervention. However, I despise it's implementation. This is Rule 0 worded in a nicer way. For brevity's sake:

0. Enforcement of these rules is at the discretion of admins.

Admins are fully accountable for any consequences should they invoke this rule. Admins are also allowed to intervene in rounds when it is in the best interest of the player base.

Rule 0 exists as the catch-all to allow admins to act in the best interests of the community for all the nebulous, convoluted, confidential or no-single-cause situations that inevitably crop up. It's a way to prevent the rules from becoming so excruciatingly long, covering every possible scenario to the point where it begins to become overbearing. Rule 0 is an extremely powerful tool to invoke as it theoretically has no limit in what you can apply it to. As such, it's only been used in sparing situations where the justification for it's application is almost always self-evident. Banning someone for Rule 0 is the nuclear option. Rule 12 is the same thing with the privacy/security/safety reasons stripped out because "Playing-to-Win" is subjective to the point of being almost meaningless.

Which is why Rule 12 existing as a nicer, sugar-coated alternative for admins to place bans for somewhat abstract reasons is a bad idea. Allowing yourself to act so laterally while mentally dissociating your actions away from effectively pressing the "fuck you" button that you are only raises the question if whether what you're doing is the right call in the first place. It allows for any doubts to be conveniently ignored by downplaying the implications of what you're actually doing. Or maybe it's about being so conflict-averse that some can't bring themselves to outright tell someone they're just a dick and aren't wanted around for the good of the server anymore. In my opinion, this kind of power is wielded in the wrong hands to someone with those sorts of inhibitions. It's a poor reflection of their character. If you're going to nuke a player out of the server, you ought to be upfront about it. There is nothing wrong with telling someone who truly is a habitual problem to get lost, and there is certainly no reason to spare the truth of doing so to yourself or others if it's truly justified.

Hell, Rule 0 even has precedents for this kind of thing.

2. Admins have intervened before and will do so again in situations where a player, regardless of antag status:

1. has repeatedly delayed round-end by recalling the shuttle when most other players are dead or want to leave
2. has habitually used the same strategies to cause mass death or destruction (i.e. bombs, hyper-optimized viruses, etc.) to the detriment of the rest of the server's experience

TL:DR; If you can't bring yourself to tell someone they need to fuck off and feel the need to sugar coat it, perhaps you should ask yourself if what you're doing is really warranted or if you're the right person to tackle these kinds of scenarios. If it's really worth it, just Rule 0 them.

[AwkwardStereo]

4. Lone antagonists can do whatever they want.

Bad things happen sometimes without a reason and part of the story is how people react to these actions. Gameplay is snappier when an antag doesn't have to justify their actions in character and just decides, "I want to make the world a worse place in whatever way I can." Then it's a scramble for other people to remedy whatever damage they cause and work to prevent them from doing anymore.

Or maybe they just decide to lock 60 monkey-men in a box with a hotmic'd radio and some spraytan smoke.

Limitless possibilities to fuck with people and the only limitation is your imagination, and its those player driven events that spawn stories that make people laugh or ask "What the fuck?"

1. Don't be a dick
We're all here to have a good time, supposedly.

We take far too damn long to ban the people who are consistently (round-to-round) a drag to play with. The advent of the QC ban, while not a bad side-grade, is just indicative of how weary Admins are of sticking their neck out to actually remove them for the community/server's sake. Nobody wants to deal with the appeal so it either gets tossed to Head Admins or very few Game Admins.