How is "grief" handled (specifically against non-humans).

[kieth4]

I'm making this policy discussion as I would like clarification about how grief against non-human races is handled. I've seen many times where the players are attacked for no other reason beaten almost to crit but because they're not quite killed it's ruled an ic issue. This seems like it should be some form of punishment as it must be breaking rule 1.

I've also heard that if you attack a species such as a cat you are justified to take their tail to make a whip, or a lizard's for wine even if it's against their will which will get ruled ic(Or so I've been told). This is the case even if the person doesn't fight back which seem completely moronic and straight-up grief.

I've asked around and a lot of players of non-human species seem to have such experiences that are negative only that simply is marked ic when as a human on human violence it doesn't happen as much. I want to see why there is so much lenience on what is blatant abuse for no other reason than species. Why does it take an actual *kill* to end behaviour that is problematic to the health of tg station and serves no purpose other than to drive players who don't want to play human away.

A rule that should apply is 7, after all, if it's constant mid-level grief targeting non-humans it's close to breaking the rules so should be treated as such. The many times it is ic issued however leads to this not being properly enforced.
Rule 7:
If you regularly come close to breaking the rules without actually breaking them, it will be treated as the rules being broken.
Repeated instances of the same rules being broken may be met with harsher consequences. Baiting people into situations where you can report them to admins will be dealt with harshly.

This also brings into consideration Rule 1: Don't be a dick. Which a lot of these players are breaking.

Not everyone is a super robust giganerd who can kill 8 people with nothing but a spear some players need this kind of protection and it's not being provided. You shouldn't have to even defend yourself from random non-antag attacks because you're not playing human.

Ideally, I'm also coming and asking for others with experiences to come forward so the scale of this issue gets exposed.

[damneddog]

I am a rather new player (300 hours) so I don't know the extent of how bad it is, but what I can say is that TG and more specifically Terry has left a rather bad taste in my mouth with how some people treat non-humans because "Non-human bad,"

I remember when someone wanted me to teach them toxins, so when they arrived at science, they almost immediately started harassing the lizard scientist for no reason other than "Ligger bad." After he brought his 2 other buddies to gang up on the lizard and then left, I tried to ahelp since this seemed like rulebreaking behaviour, but I was told since the lizard wasn't beaten into crit the admin wouldn't do anything. An encounter like this has made me hesitant to ahelp potentially rulebreaking behaviour, since it'll just get ignored because the people with the intent to harass and harm didn't kill someone and I feel that a lot of other players feel the same way from the same treatment. It's pathetic that you HAVE to wait for these people to accidentally kill you while beating you before any action is taken at all. This seems like the kind of behaviour that should fall under rule 7 or rule 1, but because people are hesitant to ahelp from the admin's robotic responses, it rarely if ever gets enforced.

These kinds of things drive people away, and it's just sad talking to someone who used to play often, but was driven away by the grief that's at most punished with a slap on the wrist.

I really wish the admins would be more strict about this kind of behaviour, because it's made me hate the community and always looking for a place to jump station.

[MooCow12]

Ive had incidents where hops wouldnt return my id when i use their line "for being a ligger"

Also an admin marking a lizard getting ganged up on as an ic issue just because they didnt crit him is kind of fucked, especially when we have wounds now so an admin better take that into account to.

[Pandarsenic]

Tired as fuck, used by people who just want to grief but never had the creativity or skill to do it in a truly robust way like the (in)famous figures of SS13 folklore.

Instead, they choose 'acceptable' targets to fuck with, solo or in a gang, and then insist it's "adding flavor to the round" or similar excuses. It's pretty much the McDonald's of self-antagging.

[oranges]

Terry is a product of the shit tier administration it gets

[Farquaar]

Manuel has the opposite problem. Beware the moth, lixard, and felinid metagangs.

[sinfulbliss]

There's probably a distinction to make between "grief" and "assault." Randomly assaulting someone is fine and should be dealt with IC by sec. But if someone is constantly attacking felinids for no reason and nearly killing them every round, that's clear grief. I guess the difference would be the frequency of severe assault and whether it's directed at a particular person/group or not.

You're 100% right this should be enforced under rule 1:

[...]unprovoked grief targeted towards specific players or groups (i.e. metagrudging) fall under rule 1. Admins may follow up on grief with allowing the affected parties to ignore normal escalation policy or measures such as warnings or bans.

I think it's just a matter of enforcement rather than policy, since there is definitely precedent to enforce it.

Namely if you get nearly murdered by a nonantag without fighting back for no reason other than "cat," that should probably be bwoinked over. But I guess it has to span multiple rounds to be considered "grief," since it defines grief as "metagrudging" in the policy.

[Stickymayhem]

Terry is a product of the shit tier administration it gets

It's an enforcement issue and an extension of sourcing admins that agree with the culture enough to conveniently turn a blind eye to obvious rulebreaking behaviour just because it's Terry culture

[kieth4]

There's probably a distinction to make between "grief" and "assault." Randomly assaulting someone is fine and should be dealt with IC by sec. But if someone is constantly attacking felinids for no reason and nearly killing them every round, that's clear grief. I guess the difference would be the frequency of severe assault and whether it's directed at a particular person/group or not.

You're 100% right this should be enforced under rule 1:

[...]unprovoked grief targeted towards specific players or groups (i.e. metagrudging) fall under rule 1. Admins may follow up on grief with allowing the affected parties to ignore normal escalation policy or measures such as warnings or bans.

I think it's just a matter of enforcement rather than policy, since there is definitely precedent to enforce it.

Namely if you get nearly murdered by a nonantag without fighting back for no reason other than "cat," that should probably be bwoinked over. But I guess it has to span multiple rounds to be considered "grief," since it defines grief as "metagrudging" in the policy.

Yeah, it's more so that it isn't enforced and from the people I've spoken to some have been driven away simply for it being marked ic issue all the time. Not everyone is robust enough to fight back and I guess I just want something written to stop this behaviour or at least give admins more power to clamp down on it. A lot of the time if marked ic it isn't noted/ noticed so players can get this shit marked ic and it will continue to happen with no record of it other than memory.

[damneddog]

Terry is a product of the shit tier administration it gets

I'd say this is pretty much the problem, but everytime you try to bring up most of these admins go "Just ahelp, go to policy, etc, etc."

Even if you do ahelp you'll likely get told they can't do anything or more likely that they don't want to do anything with absolutely no record for other admins to pick up on repeated borderline rulebreaking behaviour. Sometimes on hectic rounds it can be hard to respond to ahelps from an admin after ahelping so most people don't even bother during these kinds of rounds where rulebreaking behaviour is likely at it's peak.


It can sometimes feel like I'm not even talking to a person with how bureaucratic and cold their responses can be.

[Mothblocks]

If you feel like you have been griefed and it is being marked as IC issues, the best place to post about it is admin complaints.

There's not much policy to discuss here--seems like everything you mentioned, supposing it is true and not just one-sided hearsay, is grief.

[Riggle]

Since I got griefed numerous times, I'll add one of my experiences.

I think the worst one by far is when an assistant was trying to break into chemistry. Me and an MD tried to fend him off for around 5 minutes, when a security officer walked by and decided to stun me and push me onto a glass table, letting the assistant take a chem dispenser.
The biggest problem here is a security officer doing it, as a non-officer you have no way of retaliating against the grief, as doing anything would get you lynched for being a supposed antag, but I suppose this is an entirely different issue for another thread.

If you feel like you have been griefed and it is being marked as IC issues, the best place to post about it is admin complaints.

There's not much policy to discuss here--seems like everything you mentioned, supposing it is true and not just one-sided hearsay, is grief.

I think admins should try to be more proactive, but I do know many if not all of you have lives and can't just stare at the game all the time, so it's understandable that most non-ahelped instances of grief get unnoticed.

I forgot to specify that I did ahelp, but in this case it got ignored. It was not at maxpop and there were admins on.

[Fikou]

I've also heard that if you attack a species such as a cat you are justified to take their tail to make a whip, or a lizard's for wine even if it's against their will which will get ruled ic(Or so I've been told). This is the case even if the person doesn't fight back which seem completely moronic and straight-up grief.

Only current ruling regarding that is this:
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... 00#p348261

Removing cat ears and tails as punishment for a crime is not bannable, removing them in retaliation for some affront is not bannable, doing it at random as the clown or whatever is not bannable but it opens you up to serious retaliation.

[Naloac]

Terry is a product of the shit tier administration it gets

I think this is because of lack of people ahelping it in my honest opinion, Mix that with terrys lack of admin coverage recently and you get.

I think admins should try to be more proactive, but I do know many if not all of you have lives and can't just stare at the game all the time, so it's understandable that most non-ahelped instances of grief get unnoticed.

I forgot to specify that I did ahelp, but in this case it got ignored. It was not at maxpop and there were admins on.

Do you have the round id for this? There can be lots of reasons for an ahelp being ignored.

[Riggle]

Do you have the round id for this? There can be lots of reasons for an ahelp being ignored.

I tried looking for it but I sadly can't find it.

[LoveMirror]

To add to this, I got assaulted by a security moth purely because of having cat ears on my head. He pushed me over and batonged me twice for absolutely no reason other than "filthy cat".
Racism and insulting other species is 100% OK, but not when you actively prevent a player (who, in my case, was not even a felinid as I only play human) from playing the round due to some "xd lmao my character is in the space KKK" mindset.

Admemes keep talking about mild grief "opening you up for serious level retaliation" which is beyond dumb when it concerns secoffs doing it. Guess what'll happen to you when you bap a shitsec? At best, a borging; at worst, round-removal.

Seeing felinids get randomly attacked by shitters is getting tiring at this point. The cats I keep track of are always in medbay and end up getting pushed over while performing a surgery step, yet it's judged as an "ic issue" when multiple non-antags go out of their way to tide medbay and interrupt shit/harass the cats.

[Kryson]

I like being discriminated against and abused for being a cat.

It creates a source of conflict that isn't life or death, most of the time.

Of course it can go too far at times, but interspecies conflict & loyalty is important in making the different races play and feel different, rather than just being different flavours of human.

How often does someone steal your tail, 1 in 100 rounds, 1 in 300? Losing(your tail) is part of the game, the few times i've lost mine, the quest to get revenge or get a tail reattached have made those rounds so much more interesting than the round otherwise would have been.

[wesoda25]

Security abusing their position and gear to achieve moderate acts of grief seems the same as them abusing their position to steal from someone or something like that; it shouldn’t be allowed. The other stuff seems whatever.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Security abusing their position and gear to achieve moderate acts of grief seems the same as them abusing their position to steal from someone or something like that; it shouldn’t be allowed. The other stuff seems whatever.

yah sec is in that weird case where you can basically never retaliate against them for anything that isn't them making themself loudly instant round removal / becoming valid, and there's no real point at that level because that's the level of shittery when you can press f1 and get them secbanned instead. so there's like this big grey zone of "yeah you have to put up with sec's shit and there's no recourse other than hoping the captain is already annoyed enough at sec to give them a yelling-at" even though rules-wise they don't have metaprotection against this kind of low-tier shittery

[LoveMirror]

yah sec is in that weird case where you can basically never retaliate against them for anything that isn't them making themself loudly instant round removal / becoming valid, and there's no real point at that level because that's the level of shittery when you can press f1 and get them secbanned instead.

F1'd on a warden who was constantly attacking me with a baton while I asked him for a job as a roundstart prisoner, 3 minutes into the shift - he said my body will be of use to science. BrotherBeyond judged it as an IC issue.

Spoiler:

Ended up beating his ass and stealing his gloves. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Granted, diverges from non-human grief a little bit, but the biggest instigator of general shittery and hahatrolling is still sec.

[Pandarsenic]

Half the point of antag-protecting sec was so that sec could deal with shitters without "SEC ROGUE *bwoink* I thought they were an antag" every time they baton someone, but also could eat speedy bans for being next-level shitcurity for laughs.

[Lazengann]

getting discriminated against and treated unfairly is part of the appeal of playing nonhumans

[Rohen_Tahir]

To add to this, I got assaulted by a security moth purely because of having cat ears on my head. He pushed me over and batonged me twice for absolutely no reason other than "filthy cat".
Racism and insulting other species is 100% OK, but not when you actively prevent a player (who, in my case, was not even a felinid as I only play human) from playing the round due to some "xd lmao my character is in the space KKK" mindset.

Admemes keep talking about mild grief "opening you up for serious level retaliation" which is beyond dumb when it concerns secoffs doing it. Guess what'll happen to you when you bap a shitsec? At best, a borging; at worst, round-removal.

Seeing felinids get randomly attacked by shitters is getting tiring at this point. The cats I keep track of are always in medbay and end up getting pushed over while performing a surgery step, yet it's judged as an "ic issue" when multiple non-antags go out of their way to tide medbay and interrupt shit/harass the cats.

Oh no an officer is rendering himself valid for me just to knock items out of my hands and prevent me from moving for 15 seconds, I will never forget this traumatic event how could this happen THIS IS MAJOR GRIFE BAN HE!!!

Security abusing their position and gear to achieve moderate acts of grief seems the same as them abusing their position to steal from someone or something like that; it shouldn’t be allowed. The other stuff seems whatever.

Sec isn't supposed to be 100% pure chivalrous good guys every round.

Edit: Also, poster below is right.

[NecromancerAnne]

Just fucking kill them. They'll stop trying eventually. Or they stop playing. It's really just a new player thing and if they don't move past it they burnt out just as fast.

[Farquaar]

Just fucking kill them. They'll stop trying eventually. Or they stop playing. It's really just a new player thing and if they don't move past it they burnt out just as fast.

enjoy yer ban
shoulda ahelped :^)

[NecromancerAnne]

If they randomly attack me of the blue and without prompt, get killed and then ahelp, that's what we in the business call a bitch.

And also probably a killbaiter.

[LoveMirror]

To add to this, I got assaulted by a security moth purely because of having cat ears on my head. He pushed me over and batonged me twice for absolutely no reason other than "filthy cat".
Racism and insulting other species is 100% OK, but not when you actively prevent a player (who, in my case, was not even a felinid as I only play human) from playing the round due to some "xd lmao my character is in the space KKK" mindset.

Admemes keep talking about mild grief "opening you up for serious level retaliation" which is beyond dumb when it concerns secoffs doing it. Guess what'll happen to you when you bap a shitsec? At best, a borging; at worst, round-removal.

Seeing felinids get randomly attacked by shitters is getting tiring at this point. The cats I keep track of are always in medbay and end up getting pushed over while performing a surgery step, yet it's judged as an "ic issue" when multiple non-antags go out of their way to tide medbay and interrupt shit/harass the cats.

Oh no an officer is rendering himself valid for me just to knock items out of my hands and prevent me from moving for 15 seconds, I will never forget this traumatic event how could this happen THIS IS MAJOR GRIFE BAN HE!!!

Security abusing their position and gear to achieve moderate acts of grief seems the same as them abusing their position to steal from someone or something like that; it shouldn’t be allowed. The other stuff seems whatever.

Sec isn't supposed to be 100% pure chivalrous good guys every round.

Edit: Also, poster below is right.

Which part of "attacking sec gets you round-removed" did you not understand?

[Rohen_Tahir]

To add to this, I got assaulted by a security moth purely because of having cat ears on my head. He pushed me over and batonged me twice for absolutely no reason other than "filthy cat".
Racism and insulting other species is 100% OK, but not when you actively prevent a player (who, in my case, was not even a felinid as I only play human) from playing the round due to some "xd lmao my character is in the space KKK" mindset.

Admemes keep talking about mild grief "opening you up for serious level retaliation" which is beyond dumb when it concerns secoffs doing it. Guess what'll happen to you when you bap a shitsec? At best, a borging; at worst, round-removal.

Seeing felinids get randomly attacked by shitters is getting tiring at this point. The cats I keep track of are always in medbay and end up getting pushed over while performing a surgery step, yet it's judged as an "ic issue" when multiple non-antags go out of their way to tide medbay and interrupt shit/harass the cats.

Oh no an officer is rendering himself valid for me just to knock items out of my hands and prevent me from moving for 15 seconds, I will never forget this traumatic event how could this happen THIS IS MAJOR GRIFE BAN HE!!!

Security abusing their position and gear to achieve moderate acts of grief seems the same as them abusing their position to steal from someone or something like that; it shouldn’t be allowed. The other stuff seems whatever.

Sec isn't supposed to be 100% pure chivalrous good guys every round.

Edit: Also, poster below is right.

Which part of "attacking sec gets you round-removed" did you not understand?

git gud. As long as it's not the warden you're trying to kill, assasinating a single seccie without having your true identity linked to that event by anyone else is really not that hard.

[NecromancerAnne]

You can kill a seccie but you can't round remove them first time around. Note that when I say kill, I mean kill and revive. You can only perma kill the second time. And for a seccie that's not likely to happen because his backup has full in-game repercussion immunity and you're ultravalid for killing sec.

If someone is gunning for you that intently they either accept the defeat and leave you be, or they're going to come for seconds, and your round is effectively over already if it's sec because people do not take killing sec lightly.

Sec is special. Because sec is unfairly represented in escalation and always has been. People abusing sec to get their colleges to kill you with impunity is apparently accepted gameplay despite it being a loophole employed to accomplish the same thing they wouldnt be able to do as nonsec. I've maybe seen it once in actual practice but it is a known thing that you could in theory do. Basically, act like an antag but punish the victim for fighting back because they cant protect themselves from the rest of sec. It's also why someone disguising as sec and sending the rest of sec after someone is basically leaning on that same loophole. It's attacking you with an ooc rulebook and less of an ic deception, though obviously antags are sacred in their actions and it's not like those guys are breaking the rules. It's just an issue that arises due to the rules.

My second advice is therefore; kill the seccie then airtank suicide, your round is over and nobody can help you. There are plenty of other servers. Hopefully an admin has a brain and realizes the seccie is exhibiting a problematic pattern of behaviour and deals with it. Don't bank on it being resolved now. Escalation is shit.

[sinfulbliss]

Sec is special. Because sec is unfairly represented in escalation and always has been. People abusing sec to get their colleges to kill you with impunity is apparently accepted gameplay despite it being a loophole employed to accomplish the same thing they wouldnt be able to do as nonsec. I've maybe seen it once in actual practice but it is a known thing that you could in theory do.

On the flipside, because of the responsibility and strictness around escalation attributed to security, people end up simply playing security as an assistant. You get to validhunt like sec but have none of the responsibility and barriers. You can go chemist, miner, scientist, or whatever job you like, and validhunt essentially in the capacity of an officer. The only difference is you don't get shiftstart sec gear.

That's a massive problem already and will only become worse if the leash around sec is tightened further.

You can kill a seccie but you can't round remove them first time around. Note that when I say kill, I mean kill and revive. You can only perma kill the second time.

If you are the instigator in a conflict and end up killing or severely impairing the round of the person you are fighting, you should make a reasonable effort to return them to life at least once or make amends, only seeking round removal if they continue to pursue you. This protection doesn't apply to an instigator being killed.

If an officer roughs you up for having cat ears, say, or makes themselves valid to you, you can kill them and probably even justify hiding the body (since letting them get revived would lead to near certain round removal for you), provided the officer was the instigator. The escalation rules are very clear that instigators to conflict won't be helped by admins if they die. Obviously you can't kill them for a single nonharmful baton though. You have to use your judgment.

My advice if you are abused/wrongfully arrested by an officer is to do the following in order:

1) Try to explain yourself calmly and logically. Preferably do this before you are arrested, since officers are much more likely to abandon a manhunt over abandoning an arrest. Your side of the story has much less weight in cuffs.
2) Ask for the HoS/warden/captain over comms to help and/or report the abuse. The captain is probably your best bet here. I have many times been HoS and had the captain intervene to free someone that pleaded their case (this only works if you were nonviolent). Additionally, you can complain to the cap/HoS/warden about the officer, and if you convince them the officer is being abusive, any decent cap/HoS/warden will discipline them for it. Again the captain is your best bet here if it's more minor abuse, since HoS/warden won't be as likely to care about minor scuffles.
3) If all else fails, retaliate and kill them. But know this will likely result in you being round removed, or at the very least rendered a criminal who has to flee sec for the whole round instead of playing normally.
4) Ahelp. Note this only works if you (a) didn't already retaliate IC, (b) were abused to the point of it actually impacting your round, and (c) were not the instigator.