Nightmare Policy on Manuel, and in General

[Shirbu]

I am of the opinion that Nightmare policy is in a very bad place on Manuel at the moment. This is for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Nightmares have no objectives whatsoever.

Normally, what an antagonist is and isn't allowed to do (in terms of massive grief and killing) EITHER requires some level of escalation for the act, or for the act to be in line with their objectives.

Nightmares have no objectives, and therefore cannot properly justify their actions outside of escalation, for the most part. This makes explaining, for example, killing people that have lights on, a huge grey area, because the nightmare is actively taking damage from them, but the person may be doing so accidentally, making the escalation situation muddy.

It also means that nightmares have no aim. A nightmare is in essence, a shadowperson with an armblade, and that is all they get in terms of direction. The only "goals" that fit with their lore, however much there is of that, is breaking lights, and APCs, both of which can be used for escalation excuses by crewmembers.

Secondly, Nightmares are a RESOURCE to the crew. Harvesting their bodies for their hearts and eyes is common practice whenever they are discovered, granting free armblade and night vision.

This means that the crew has an incentive to find excuses to kill them, capitalizing on their relatively weak escalation guidelines, and the necessity for them to break pieces of the station to survive, and putting them in situations when the only method of fully avoiding admin scrutiny is to only retaliate when attacked.

When retaliating, there is no longer any restriction for any of the crew to kill them and harvest their organs, and so they will do so in earnest.


These properties of nightmares makes it very irritating and disheartening to play as them, and deal with the tickets that inevitably come up whenever they are in a shift.

I think that nightmares should have objectives of some sort, at the very least.

Example round: 131686

[Flatulent]

what is wrong with them going around just killing everyone

they are not very powerful and are a ling subtype(i mean they are an alien organism with an armblade) and their mechanics demand that they go around the station and kill apcs, they cant coexist with the crew in any way because crew wants gamer organs

[Tlaltecuhtli]

their lore is evil thing that lurk in shadow and spook people by killing them to death (and break apcs ) i dont see why you are bringing escalation on an ghost role antag, does blob have to respect escalation rules too?

[Stickymayhem]

they're murderbone antagonists dude

we dont expect space dragons to roleplay either. its a combat oriented threat that generates drama

[PKPenguin321]

Antag policy on manuel is kind of a mess in general right now. Way too many people play "friendly" antags because they don't want to deal with the escalation policy, even when being "friendly" is not playing your role.
I think having nightmares be an antag that's simply kill or be killed is a nice thing for manuel right now.

[cybersaber101]

Let the nightmares kill, im done dang tired of friendly antags. blobs are midround antags who mass murder too, why not nightmares.

[Shirbu]

If nightmares should take on the role of a kill or be killed antagonist, they should at least have one of the two following things:

1) Flavortext. This lets nightmares know something along the lines of, “You are an enemy of the light. Destroy it, and any who stand in your way.”

2) An objective. Blobs have an objective. This objective immediately puts them in a position where killing the crew is the most effective and reasonable way to get their objective done. It also gives them some direction, and makes having played as a blob more satisfying than simply being a sentient environmental hazard.

Nightmares have no way of knowing that they are a murderbone antagonist, because on Manuel, there are few others who operate quite in the same way. Every other murderbone antagonist (with slime and morph excluded, which should also get at least some flavortext describing what they are, and are allowed to do) has either objectives or flavortext, and nightmare has neither.

Nightmares are the exception and not the rule of antagonists on Manuel in this case, and should thus at least inform the nightmare player of this.

[Shirbu]

To be clear I am totally fine with them being this way. I just want something that lets the player know that they can and should be killing people, and that nobody needs an excuse to kill them on sight.

[Horza]

Nightmares are in a good place on Manuel right now unless you're an uncreative brainlet. For the meaningful past, they've been a random antag that exists to fuck up every light and APC they can find, and can murderbone anyone they want. They're not powerful enough to take on any concerted threat, though, and I've never seen them actually murderbone their way through a station unless that station is particularly retarded. Even a simple stationwide announcement of "Nightmare in maint, don't go in there unless you have lots of flashlights or a buddy" is enough to prevent most murderbone.

If they do anything meaningful it's to highlight how much of a pain in the ass it is to repair APCs.

[Cobby]

They are brainless kill mobs. It's an evil being.

[Flatulent]

To be clear I am totally fine with them being this way. I just want something that lets the player know that they can and should be killing people, and that nobody needs an excuse to kill them on sight.

why do players on Manuel need to be told how to roleplay a fucking pitch black monster creature that is harmed by light in the first place?!

[Shirbu]

why do players on Manuel need to be told how to roleplay a fucking pitch black monster creature that is harmed by light in the first place?!

Because manuel has rules that make it hard to murderbone, and hard to instantly murder antagonists because of valids.

https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Roleplay_Rules

Antagonism and murderboning.
You're an antag, great! Treat your role as an interesting challenge and not an excuse to destroy other people’s game experience. Your actions should make the game more fun, more exciting and more enjoyable for everyone; you can treat your objectives as suggestions on what you should attempt to achieve but you are also encouraged to ignore them if you've got a better idea. You do NOT have to act in a nefarious or evil way, but you are not allowed to just go on a silent rampage and eliminate all the players in a power trip. We're all here to have a good time, after all.

Be kind to the bad guys.
Because antagonists are often the driving force for most rounds, some amount of goodwill should be extended to them. Basically, try to interact and communicate with antagonists and try to create an exciting narrative, rather than, say, immediately laser them to death when you see them. Communication and dialogue are expected on both ends (although not necessarily required.)

[Shirbu]

If nightmares are wordless roleplayless KOS antagonists, and are able to kill anyone with no roleplay, speaking, or reason, there NEEDS to be a way for players to know, "This antagonist does not need to follow manuel's antagonist rules. You are insta valid, and free to murderbone."

[Stickymayhem]

creative murder is still roleplay

it's not efficient to collect heads for your nightmare lair but I do it anyway for the spook

[PKPenguin321]

If nightmares are wordless roleplayless KOS antagonists, and are able to kill anyone with no roleplay, speaking, or reason, there NEEDS to be a way for players to know, "This antagonist does not need to follow manuel's antagonist rules. You are insta valid, and free to murderbone."

Outlining basic roleplay feels like a shitty idea to me. I feel like this should be incredibly obvious if you immerse yourself for even a minute. Bear with me here:

Imagine you get a job as a security officer for a big science lab. One day as you patrol a part of it that's usually well lit, you notice that suddenly all of the lights are out. You then see a huge monster that seems to absorb light around it that has a giant knife for an arm and is covered in blood. Maybe you think at first that you're hallucinating, but then you recall that the introduction to this position outlined this creature as distinctly evil and out to kill you and others.
How would you react in-character? If you play your role, the answer should be obvious.

Answer:

Spoiler:

- A fight or flight reaction would be the most realistic immediate response. If you fight and kill it, or if you fight and die, both would be in-character. If you flee, you'd most likely want others to know ASAP so they can look out.

- An especially stoic or skeptical character might approach it with words, foolishly. This is in-character but less realistic and generally less fun (you would more often than not just die unceremoniously).

[Jack7D1]

creative murder is still roleplay

it's not efficient to collect heads for your nightmare lair but I do it anyway for the spook

[XivilaiAnaxes]

I assumed the no murderbone rule existed purely for crew Antags like lings tators revs and to a lesser extent wizard. That nobody actually specified this was probably more of an oversight than anything.

Would you honestly expect war ops to just walk into the station and ask the captain "hey buddy we really want the nuke disk could you give it to us?" No, you expect them to gun down everyone in sight even if they're some paraplegic assistant with no limbs.

[Coconutwarrior97]

Any objectives given to nightmares are something that is going to be handled by the codebase.Though this policy discussion is just in relation to nightmares I'll take this opportunity to lay out murderboning in relation to all antagonist roles for MRP.

Certain roles by nature allow murderboning, for example: blob, nuclear operatives, xenomorphs, and nightmares. You are a terrifying menace to the station that requires the crew to rally together against a common greater threat, feel free to act like it.
Other roles allow for murderboning in specific situations.
Stealthily killing the entire crew as a malfunctioning AI is not good roleplay, however going DELTA and mocking the crew as they gather their resources in an attempt to stop you is.
With conversion antags, conversion should always be your priority when working towards your ultimate goal. However, under dire circumstances where conversion just isn't viable, murderboning is allowed in the interest of once again being able to viably convert people or as a last gambit to finish your ultimate goal.
Any kind of hijack objective also still allows for murderbone.

The roleplay rules page has also been updated with a handy chart here: https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Roleplay_R ... play_Rules

Heres a peek at it,


Headmin Votes:

Coconutwarrior97: Yes
Phuzzylodgik: Yes
TWATICUS: Yes