what is the policy for secondary antags communicating with nonantags?

[Deitus]

when you get a message from a secondary antag that you know OOC-ly is in fact a message from a secondary antag, how should you respond to it in terms of IC behavior?

while revenants can do this as well with their telepathy, the main reason i ask this is because i often get pda messages from "central command" or other IC-ly "high positions" that i know OOC-ly are from lavaland base syndicates that tell me to do certain things such as arrest/kill a crewmember for "treason" or other similar such things. i normally sidestep the issue since iirc there was an admin decision some time in the past that said you should not act on hallucinations that might cause IC altercations (attacking crewmembers because you're hallucinating them to be slaughter demons, for example), but citation is needed on that since i might be incorrect.

i know this might be passed off as "exercise good judgement," but there have been increasing cases where major round events (mutinies, etc) have been started in this way, with some being given the OK while others have been actioned. i'd just like to have admins weigh in on their views on this matter so some baseline can be made for future events like this.

disclaimer: i have not been the "victim" of one of these kinds of events so this isnt meant to be an ided thread, i just genuinely want to know how these matters should be handled.

[kevinz000]

tbh I feel like this should be one of those "use common sense and act in good faith, think about what is realistically possible in an IC sense and then from those examples think about what is do-able without being a dick to everyone."
i've had sec officers get forged PDA messages from agents while I was HoS to arrest/repeatedly search/outright kill people, and it's lead to fun IC conflicts before, but if a blanket judgement is made and anyone and everyone is allowed to "CENTCOM TOLD ME TO KILL THAT GUY" that becomes unfun really, really fast, while if it's made in the other sense and people aren't allowed to listen to things they believe are forged, at all, we're removing another source of conflict that is actually interesting.

[Arianya]

It's a difficult one because I can certainly see that what one admin would think is "source of conflict that is actually interesting" is another admin's "self-antagging", so I do think the question bears some discussion.

Obviously there's levels of credibility ("From: Nanorasen Hgih Command - Kill the HoS!!!" vs "Due to the following crimes, the Head of Security is hereby demoted and should be apprehended with all required force by the crew of [station]") but I could see it becoming a very blurred line, especially where a character/player has secondary motive (i.e. got arrested by the HoS and his insulateds confiscated).

[RandomMarine]

Should be common knowledge for characters in authority roles that the message monitor console can be used by anybody with the password to send phony PDA messages, and that Central has their own official channels to communicate with the station.

I'm all for interesting sources of conflict but the message monitor is just too easy, lavaland syndies get the key at roundstart and it's rare for the CE to ever touch the paper on his table let alone take measures to prevent anybody from reading it.

[WarbossLincoln]

If you got a text message on your phone from a sender called "THE GOVERNMENT" telling you to go murder someone, would you do it? Maybe if a lavaland OP was watching a power crazy HOS murder people left and right and wanted to stir some shit up then they could start working on that angle. But murdering someone who isn't doing anything wrong as a non antag because 'lol my pda said to' is pretty silly.

[EagleWiz]

If your an assistant and you get a pda message from "Teh Centcom CEO" that says "HoS a valid, kill he" you probably shouldn't do it.

If your the CE, it looks like someone yelled over the radio about rogue AI and then coms cut out and you get a message from the cap telling you that bob engiman one humaned it you probably shouldnt get in trouble for trying to detain him

[Rustledjimm]

If your an assistant and you get a pda message from "Teh Centcom CEO" that says "HoS a valid, kill he" you probably shouldn't do it.

If your the CE, it looks like someone yelled over the radio about rogue AI and then coms cut out and you get a message from the cap telling you that bob engiman one humaned it you probably shouldnt get in trouble for trying to detain him

Oh god. I'm crying.

common sense in a policy thread.

there are tears in my eyes

[cedarbridge]

If you got a text message on your phone from a sender called "THE GOVERNMENT" telling you to go murder someone, would you do it?

This sort of hypothetical doesn't work on the average TG player.

[bandit]

If your an assistant and you get a pda message from "Teh Centcom CEO" that says "HoS a valid, kill he" you probably shouldn't do it.

If your the CE, it looks like someone yelled over the radio about rogue AI and then coms cut out and you get a message from the cap telling you that bob engiman one humaned it you probably shouldnt get in trouble for trying to detain him

not to emptyquote but

/thread

[MaximumOverlizard]

Given that, for example, it's trivial to get the message monitor key, as mentioned above, this really seems like a question of "Act like a reasonable fucking person." Don't look for excuses to pop a murder boner and you're fine? Rule 1, etc.

[DemonFiren]

do I see a challenger?

[Rustledjimm]

It appears common sense wins today in Policy Discussion.

Tune in next week and see if our daring hero will pull through.