/tg/Station 13

This is a single-issue thread discussing a proposed change to the current lavaland rules segment of the rules page.

Currently, this reads:

Follow the flavour text you receive upon spawning to the best of your abilities. Unlike the rest of the rules, these roles are very much defined and guided by roleplay rather than a system of "valid" or "not valid."

Your life is cheap though, and escalation rules are greatly relaxed both for you and any crewmembers interacting with you.

In other words:

This leads to a reasonable number of ahelps in which people are confused by the intended impact of ghost roles. While it does address that these are primarily roleplaying roles, I think there could be additional clarity regarding the "valid or not valid" section, especially for new players.

It also unreasonably places relaxed escalation rules bidirectionally, suggesting that over-escalation is permitted or expected not just against lavaland roles, but for lavaland roles as well versus 'real' players.

While lavaland roles DO have Rule 1 et al protections from blatant grief, they have specific mandates (flavor text) and are generally 'less important' than the station roles.

In an ideal world, that lavaland roles aren't to be abused would be common sense. However, we live in a world in which there are often new players to the game, or people from other codebases, and I feel like we could make this policy a little clearer in order to eliminate any perceived ambiguities.

I propose a change to something like this:

Lavaland roles are not meant to be replacements for or equal to station roles. People shouldn't kill you for no reason, but you're expected to follow the flavor text you receive upon spawning, and escalation rules are relaxed against you.

While some Lavaland roles (such as Syndicate comms officers and ash walkers) are 'light antagonists,' emergent gameplay based upon your role should be your goal, not 'winning' or 'losing.' Don't spawn in expecting to nuke the station, but maybe help the nukies over the radio by watching their backs.

I'm very open to modifications to this change. I do not want to add more rules to our rules page, but I would like rules which players seem to have difficulty with, or which don't entirely match the way in which they're enforced, to be more clear, especially to new players.

Our lavaland role (and ban) extends to past/present/future space mob roles as well. Perhaps broaden the role generally to "ghost spawner roles" or the like. This would cover things like the past Hotel/Bartender roles, a personal project and anything else sentient in space ruins.

Maybe:

Lavaland/Spawner Ghost Roles

Lavaland and spawner ghost roles (such as golem shells, Lavaland syndicates, drones, space bartenders, or the like) are not meant to be replacements for or equal to station roles. People shouldn't kill you for no reason, but you're expected to follow the flavor text you receive upon spawning, and escalation rules are relaxed against you.

While some of these roles (such as Syndicate comms officers and ash walkers) are 'light antagonists,' emergent gameplay based upon your role should be your goal, not 'winning' or 'losing.' Don't spawn in expecting to nuke the station, but maybe help the nukies over the radio by watching their backs, for example.

While this policy does not necessarily extend to event-spawned antagonists such as swarmers or syndrones, or to any special role which is offered via a pop-up election prompt such as alien larvae or sentienced xenobiology mobs, always be sure to read your flavor text, presented upon spawning, to know what you're expected to do, and if you ever have any questions please adminhelp.

This is a little broader and more complicated than I wanted, since I was trying just to replace the explicitly lavaland-specific policy currently in the rules.

I think we could simplify the core policy by just obligating the player to follow the mob flavor text as a guide on how the mob should be played and then make or suggest edits to that flavortext to clearly deliniate where the role falls on the escalation spectrum.

I like the idea of simplifying it but until the role texts are vetted and updated I think this is a good solution. Also, while it's more complicated than I wanted it to be, I don't think this is a bad replacement for the current "Lavaland Policy" section of the rules.

It’s a line edit you can do it

since when do I have edit permissions on the wiki

We’re talking about the ic flavor text sweetie

I'm really not a fan of policy being set purely through code and just making flavor text better doesn't fix the existing issues with the policy as written.

The policy is based around a variable of code already (follow your flavortext).

I like the change but I think clarity of individual roles should be localized to their flavortext rather than policy since said policy just said you’re an extra so follow the text (although the texts could be pulled from policy as references)