Responsibility in escalation

[captain sawrge]

Bottom post of the previous page:

This is an extension of the Russelltalbott note. The gist of it is
-player does something shitty
-victim kills this player in escalation
-victim is held responsible by admin for not going out of their way to clone the aggravater.

Should players that kill/crit in reasonable escalation be expected to to revive the one that provoked it?

Personally I think in most cases a second chance is just another opportunity for them to come back and kill you and this isn't worth the effort. It favors people provoking fights and then killbaiting and taking the fight into an OOC issue.

[imblyings]

case 1, unless there are circumstances which cannot be foreseen

[Gigapuddi420]

similarly if you ask for OOC intervention, that is a massive de-escalation because you've just asked for an admin to come in and settle things. Or at least it should be this way. If you've asked for an admin to settle things but still want to settle things yourself well then dont ask for an admin.

Normally I go with this, but from time to time you get put on hold and left to stew in a shit situation. I don't blame anyone for solving something in character when left to hang in limbo for 10+ minutes after a admin responded 'I'll look into it'. Even worse if that limbo includes being locked in a room with no ID or equipment. It can be a bit of a slap in the face to finally resolve grief on your own long after you told a admin about it then hear about how the whole thing doesn't matter anymore. Comes across as the admin just wiping their hands of the initial ahelp by waiting for it to fix itself.

Sometimes things are happening fast enough a issue will resolve itself, but when it opens with a pretty clear cut problem and gets left that long it is very frustating.

[Grazyn]

Yeah the problem I see here is that usually in any other circumstance you can still choose between ahelping and solving the thing IC (which means escalating), so if you ahelp you're clearly forfeiting your right to escalate. Example, someone is consistently trashing your department for no reason and there's no way to make him stop, you can try to kill him or you can ahelp, obviously if you choose to ahelp and the guy is warned and stops you can't go and kill him anyway. Most people don't ahelp in this situation because they know the guy will just be let off with a warning, so they'd rather kill them to be sure they're at least punished for their actions by being put out of the round.

But if you're perma'd for no reason your only option is to ahelp (assuming the AI refused to let you out). You can't choose to settle things yourself because you're already stuck there forever. So even if you wanted to give the officer the beating of his life, something that you would be allowed to do in any other circumstance, you can't, and are forced to wait for the admin to step in, and watch helplessly as the officer is let go with a stern word and maybe a note.

[cedarbridge]

Look at it this way: If you ahelp a dude being an asshole and an admin talks to the dude, dude is told to fuck off and leave you alone and you then decide to go and "get revenge" on the dude you just ahelped about, I'm going to be upset at you. Pick and choose your battles. Either you want admin intervention or you want to handle it yourself. You don't get to cover both bases by calling for an admin to intervene in something you were clearly motivated to solve yourself.

A lot of ahelp issues do resolve themselves with the admin just waiting them out or the issue resolving itself before the ahelp convo is over. What tends to be a bigger issue is people who ahelp AND go seek personal satisfaction at the same time. As if ahelping were a second layer of "Fuck this guy" in case plan A falls apart.

[Gigapuddi420]

I bring it up partly to gripe and partly to bring up a example on why a player might continue on to take matters into their own hands. I'd like to think every time I ahelp the matter will be resolved even if that resolution is just the admin telling me it's handled or non-actionable. Continuing on despite ahelping may happen because the whole issue was left hanging and they were stuck for a long time in a shit situation. Sure, if you say hold on and the guy immediately seeks revenge, yeah he's being shit. You tell them to hold and and leave them locked in a room out of the round for 10-15 minutes that guy is going to be pissed and lost all faith in the process.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that we need more communication on long standing issues. The round is on going and that player could be stuck in limbo on their round as they wait. They'll want some idea on whether the matter was handled, not a issue or in the process of being handled. Being told once and hearing nothing of it again until much later is frustrating.

[Nilons]

Look at it this way: If you ahelp a dude being an asshole and an admin talks to the dude, dude is told to fuck off and leave you alone and you then decide to go and "get revenge" on the dude you just ahelped about, I'm going to be upset at you. Pick and choose your battles. Either you want admin intervention or you want to handle it yourself. You don't get to cover both bases by calling for an admin to intervene in something you were clearly motivated to solve yourself.

A lot of ahelp issues do resolve themselves with the admin just waiting them out or the issue resolving itself before the ahelp convo is over. What tends to be a bigger issue is people who ahelp AND go seek personal satisfaction at the same time. As if ahelping were a second layer of "Fuck this guy" in case plan A falls apart.

On the other side though, if I ahelp something and get IC issued Im not gonna count it as deescalated, I don't think just ahelping it deescalates, I think specifically an admin taking action or intervening does.

Or if there's no admins online and sure it'd be great if one could intervene from irc but I dont wanna bet on it if I can go valid that fucker.

[Cobby]

If you ahelp and it gets ic issued I tell the person(if I spoke to them) that it's being IC issued and that the individual may come back so people are on fair playing fields.

[Supermichael777]

The problem is kill+clone does not fit into our current valid forever^tm rule-set. We need a de-escalation rule in our rule-set, basically if an ESCALATED fight breaks up then its back to escalation square one. clearly someone who comes at you with lethals right of the bat should remain valid but a disarm fight which escalated into tossing chairs shouldn't randomly break out into running spearfights over the next 20 min.

[Oldman Robustin]

The way that I generally enforce it is if someone wrongs you then 1-6 are all generally acceptable IC responses. If you don't want to suffer disproportionate bad consequences then don't wrong people in the first place.

But if you overescalate (5-6) like a psychopath over something minor then they're allowed to go nuts back, you've forfeited your killbaiting protection. If you don't want to get "killbaited" respond non lethally or call security or something.

Our policy is so inconsistent here that the people who follow your position are flipping a coin between getting banned or murdered. Plenty of admins would ban someone at the drop of a hat if they broke into robotics, roboticist started stabbing their eyes out with a screwdriver, and then the assistant gets a lucky push and murders the roboticist instead. Alternatively if they realize that and don't want to risk a ban, they may have to accept getting murdered if they're badly wounded and can't flee.

The "robustness" disparity also makes this problematic. Whether it's greytiders who can killbait by prodding people into attacking them before easily turning the tables or robust/powergamey crew who will easily butcher you the moment you trespass into their workspace, it just creates a free for all environment where virtually any encounter can be escalated into murder and the only "loser" isn't the person making unreasonable choices, but simply the guy who didn't graduate top of his class at Spessmen Murder Academy. Right now we don't really see that since like I said, I think most admins simply wouldn't punish someone for killing a trespasser but would readily punish someone for killing someone who tried to kill them for trespassing.

My view is its just better gameplay and better administration to bwoink anyone who acts like a psychopath when they aren't antag and the circumstances don't justify it. There's no incredibly vague line about what is killbaiting v. what is valid self-defense. Its a standard almost any player can comprehend because it's modeled after the way we live our lives - we don't allow people to "roleplay as a crazy person" here so roleplaying as a "roboticist who mutilates and destroys the body of any person who breaks his window" shouldn't be tolerated either.


@Others arguing that it's ok to let people ahelp over getting greytided but also giving them the option to just murder the tiders:

It's irrational. First, because we currently let people murder other people over offenses that don't go anywhere NEAR being ahelp-worthy. Second, because it is confusing when you try to equivocate IC escalation with admin intervention - one synonym for "valid" is "IC issue" but if someone can completely resolve a conflict IC (i.e. the admin won't take action if you murdered the guy, but would have taken action if you hadn't), but you're also saying the behavior would have justified admin intervention... alternatively if you insist that "talking to the other player and getting them to fuck off" means the other player can no longer "resolve IC" then it just sounds like you took an IC issue and needlessly upgraded it to admin intervention on the round.

[Arianya]

Policy is pretty consistent actually. You are allowed to defend your workplace, including up to killing the person, if they break in and refuse to leave when you ask them to.

If you break in and refuse to leave and then kill the rightful occupant of the workplace because "H-he attacked me!" then you're killbaiting. If you made a good will effort to leave but the occupant attacked you then say so and the admin will probably rule in your favour.

In essence, if you instigate the conflict (trespassing) don't get bitchy when the admin calls you out on instigating conflict FNR.

psychopath

Trying to apply IRL standards to spessmen, especially on a LRP server like ours, is inane. We live on a space station packed to the brim with explosive plasma where cloning is common and free, and at the drop of the hat anything from a wizard to space aliens to a black ops assault team can break in and murder you. Normal mindset does not apply.

My view is its just better gameplay and better administration to bwoink anyone who acts like a psychopath when they aren't antag and the circumstances don't justify it.

So basically what we already do. You just disagree with what circumstances "justify it".

[feem]

As has been said repeatedly in this thread and others, Robustin, admins are usually expected by both other administrators and by players to perform a certain amount of investigation and apply a certain amount of nuance to situations they investigate. There is often not a cut and dry 'if x then y' prescriptive policy that applies to every situation, and asking for creation of such a policy has in the past and would if attempted again inevitably lead to people getting confused, their situations resolved ineffectually or to the dissatisfaction of many, and just a general saltfuckpuddle.

The combination of the rules as they stand, the way that most administrators enforce them, AND the ability for players to appeal rulings in the forums and discuss policies, gives more than ample ability for most given situations to be resolved, and I have the feeling that your statements in this thread are more a complaint about specific rulings and specific admins than they are actually relevant to most situations.

A really brief summary of some example logic which demonstrates the degree to which the situation plays into the outcome, and how difficult it is to make a super-objective ruleset:

1) Don't fuck with people if you don't wanna get fucked with.
1a) If you get fucked with even though you didn't fuck with them or anyone they work with, you can usually retaliate without much worry for OOC consequences.
1b) If your ability to retaliate is limited or the fuck-withed-ness is sufficient for you to think it's legit grief, ahelp it.
2) If you fuck with people, expect to get fucked with.
2a) If you fucked with them to begin with and they fuck with you back and you fuck them over so bad that they die and ahelp from it, you're usually in the wrong because you started the fuck-withing, depending on the level of escalation by the second party. That may or may not result in a talking to, a note, or a ban, depending on the circumstance.
2b) If you fucked with them to begin with and they fuck with you so bad that you die and you ahelp from it, most of the time you're not going to receive much OOC support from the admins because you fucked with them to begin with and got dunked for it.
3) Some people think the game is boring if nobody fucks with anyone else, so don't be surprised if you get fucked with. You can retaliate, you know.
4) Some people think the game is awful if people fuck with other people for no reason, so don't be surprised if when you fuck with them, they fuck you over and go back to whatever they were doing. They can retaliate, you know.

[cedarbridge]

1) Don't fuck with people if you don't wanna get fucked with.
1a) If you get fucked with even though you didn't fuck with them or anyone they work with, you can usually retaliate without much worry for OOC consequences.
1b) If your ability to retaliate is limited or the fuck-withed-ness is sufficient for you to think it's legit grief, ahelp it.
2) If you fuck with people, expect to get fucked with.
2a) If you fucked with them to begin with and they fuck with you back and you fuck them over so bad that they die and ahelp from it, you're usually in the wrong because you started the fuck-withing, depending on the level of escalation by the second party. That may or may not result in a talking to, a note, or a ban, depending on the circumstance.
2b) If you fucked with them to begin with and they fuck with you so bad that you die and you ahelp from it, most of the time you're not going to receive much OOC support from the admins because you fucked with them to begin with and got dunked for it.
3) Some people think the game is boring if nobody fucks with anyone else, so don't be surprised if you get fucked with. You can retaliate, you know.
4) Some people think the game is awful if people fuck with other people for no reason, so don't be surprised if when you fuck with them, they fuck you over and go back to whatever they were doing. They can retaliate, you know.

Fuck

[feem]

i tried to speak the language of the people

[oranges]

when you turn rule 1 into a list with 8 items :ancap:

[NoH8OnlyLove]

When in doubt ahelp it out

[feem]

when you turn rule 1 into a list with 8 items :ancap:

i mean apparently a lot of people have difficulty with it

[onleavedontatme]

when you turn rule 1 into a list with 8 items :ancap:

Its clearly needed since our one sentence rule is labeled "escalation" but escalating is almost unanimously considered ban baiting.

[oranges]

or we could just ban all the people who are dumb and can't figure it out as a rule of thumb

[onleavedontatme]

Its difficult to figure out the ruleset when each admin has their own and most of those are opposite to what is written down.

Plus trial and error to figure it out is difficult when notes tend to snowball and you'll be making these decisions when another player is seemingly trying to kill you

[cedarbridge]

or we could just ban all the people who are dumb and can't figure it out as a rule of thumb

If I were allowed to ban everyone who was dumb we'd never hit population cap again.

[Pascal125]

or we could just ban all the people who are dumb and can't figure it out as a rule of thumb

If I were allowed to ban everyone who was dumb we'd never hit population cap again.

I wouldn't say that's necessarily a bad thing.

[Nilons]

I have a tale that I think will bring good discussion here

>go to robotics to ask to be put in a ripley
>argue for a bit about why theyre worse at mining than plasma cutters
>agree to be put in mech
>he takes my brain out and puts it in borg
>what fuck
>tells me hes tricked me
>refuse to work, figuring there's no difference between standing motionless as a borg and exiting the game because I dont wanna play a borg
>they take the brain out and I ahelp it, get told its being investigated
>being the good boy I am understand that its against policy to escalate while an admin is investigating the issue
>dont yell over comms that hes a traitor or att general forceborgging faggot of because thats escalating
>no admin response for a while
>get brain taken out of mmi and thrown in kitchen
>ahelp a second time because I wanna know what's going on
>oh shit yeah man that was valid he was an antag i didnt tell you because youll react differently if I tell you hes a traitor than if he force borgs you and leaves you on a counter to rot
>have now lost the chance I had to shout he was fucking with me over radio during the 5 minutes of being in an mmi because I followed policy and did not escalate further
>all because he told me was investigating it but didnt ic issue or tell me its valid
>argue with admin for 20 minutes about this shit
>somehow still thinks Ill respond different to literally being told "yeah hes a traitor" or "yeah thats valid" than if I had only been forceborged and fucked with extensively
a spaced faggot is a spaced faggot no matter the reason