Roleplay rules surrounding metagaming and 'staying in your lane' and the negative impacts they cause

[scapegoat]

This whole shtick revolves around two specific rules on Manuel. These two rules, actually:

Don’t use OOC information or knowledge that your character would not reasonably be aware of just to give yourself an advantage.
In other words, don’t powergame or metagame. This mostly means things like rolling captain every round just so you can always do xenobio, or rushing into chemistry at the start of each round so you can make a suicide grenade just in case.

Stay in your lane.
While you're capable of doing anything within the game mechanics, just let those who have selected the relevant job to attempt the task first. For example, breaking into medical and treating the burns you got from hacking the medical airlock would be a very strange real-life event if there are doctors literally standing there, and while a janitor mixing up some extra space cleaner is very much believable, if there are chemists working in chemistry you should consider asking them to make you your space-cleaner grenades.

These rules sound great in theory, and are usually effective in most situations. However, there are certain situations were breaking these rules is in the best interests of other players and not necessarily yourself. There are two specific examples of this that I will talk about.

1. Every fucking botanist ever
2. Paramedics and teleporters

Example 1: Botanists can do some pretty wack stuff with their job, but to DO wack stuff, they need unstable mutagen. The vast majority of botanists will simply go to tech storage and get themselves a chem dispenser board to make it with. No harm done, right? However, that breaks BOTH the above rules. It breaks the first rule because most botanists do not know molecular chemistry, and the second because that is technically the job of the chemists. But really, this doesn't negatively effect ANYONE and in the vast majority of situations only serves to better the station. (I'm not saying that bad things can't be done with mutated plants, but all in all being able to do the full extent of your job easily and readily is a good thing. This mainly serves to reinforce my second point.)

Example 2: Just recently, a paramedic player was given a week ban from medbay. Every round, he would go get the hand teleporter from the teleporter room, after asking permission from AI and/or command staff, and would use it to recover bodies that had teleporter beacons in them. This, again, is technically in violation of the above two rules. To put it bluntly, that's a hot pile of bullshit. This paramedic was banned from a job for a seven days (that's 168 hours, FYI) for doing something that made his job easier and improved the rounds of a large number of players, while having no negative effect on really, anyone at all. It's good to ban someone for powergaming if it's just to make their round better and break the immersion of the game. This paramedic was not doing either of those things, he was helping others recover from being a corpse so they could continue to enjoy the round. I would also argue that this doesn't really break immersion, either. I can't think of a reason why NT wouldn't want to use teleporting technology to aid in employee revival and care. Para was just the first guy to think of it, if anything he should be commended for that, not banned.

In short, these rules are a big pile of bullshit that are mostly effective but can lead to situations that make the game less fun for everyone. I put forward two things: either change these rules to take this into account, or ban every botanist main.
#PardonChewing2020

[Jack7D1]

This thread will hit the 10 page mark and will turn into something completely different by page 3.

[scapegoat]

This thread will hit the 10 page mark and will turn into something completely different by page 3.

Most likely. I will try my best to not start a flamewar, I just want to get chewing unbanned and these rules fixed

[Cupax3]

Roleplaying rules are a joke to begin with. To really solve the issue, the next round of headmins will have to rethink the implementation of anything MRP related on /tg/ and not just copy-paste rules from somewhere where the playerbase has a different mentality.

[Cobby]

When we say "affects no one" we mean nonantags right?

Being able to make your megahealing stat-maxed plants, or being able to easily pull bodies from hazardous areas like space certainly impact someone who is trying to keep someone dead.

I'm not going to vouch for any bans mentioned here but efficiency maxing at the cost of having to interact with players, particularly every round because you have the ability to, seems pretty powergamey.

That said, I would much prefer if we just kill 2 birds with 1 stone and trim the resource overabundance on maps.

[scapegoat]

When we say "affects no one" we mean nonantags right?

Being able to make your megahealing stat-maxed plants, or being able to easily pull bodies from hazardous areas like space certainly impact someone who is trying to keep someone dead.

I'm not going to vouch for any bans mentioned here but efficiency maxing at the cost of having to interact with players, particularly every round because you have the ability to, seems pretty powergamey.

That said, I would much prefer if we just kill 2 birds with 1 stone and trim the resource overabundance on maps.

You're not wrong, but there are really, really easy ways for antags to get around people being able to recover bodies. There are plenty of easy ways to dispose of a body permanently: shuttlegib, emag + cremator, emag + kitchen, explosive, debraining. All of these remove the ability for the body to be revived. I admit that botany can produce bonkers things, but botany isn't my main point. My main point is that the ruling isn't consistent.

[scapegoat]

Roleplaying rules are a joke to begin with. To really solve the issue, the next round of headmins will have to rethink the implementation of anything MRP related on /tg/ and not just copy-paste rules from somewhere where the playerbase has a different mentality.

I agree. Personally, I'm a big fan of the MRP server, but the /tg/ base is very different than the goon base and some adjustment would certainly be useful.

[XDTM]

Roleplaying rules are a joke to begin with. To really solve the issue, the next round of headmins will have to rethink the implementation of anything MRP related on /tg/ and not just copy-paste rules from somewhere where the playerbase has a different mentality.

I agree. Personally, I'm a big fan of the MRP server, but the /tg/ base is very different than the goon base and some adjustment would certainly be useful.

The rules are meant to mold the playerbase, not viceversa. Once a ruleset has been decided, the idea is that either by people conforming to it or avoiding the server if they don't like them you end up with a population with a certain mentality. Rule tweaks are for when the resulting playstyle
A: is off the mark (e.g. with rigidly defined rules you end up with toe-liners)
B: is too exclusive (i.e. nobody wants to play it)
C: could be more fun for everyone, without altering the target mentality too much (e.g. not being able to make borgs law 2 suicide)

In this case, the botany issue should be solved via code in my opinion, since while interdepartmental cooperation is good for the game, it should be something required for the advanced side of the job, not to start it.
The hand tele issue is not a problem in my opinion as long as it stays fairly rare and doesn't become a must-do strategy like unstable mutagen for botany.

[Cobby]

You're not wrong, but there are really, really easy ways for antags to get around people being able to recover bodies. There are plenty of easy ways to dispose of a body permanently: shuttlegib, emag + cremator, emag + kitchen, explosive, debraining. All of these remove the ability for the body to be revived. I admit that botany can produce bonkers things, but botany isn't my main point. My main point is that the ruling isn't consistent.

You're totally right, antags could just antag 'better'. Is that what antags need to resort to because there's this one player that grabs gamer gear every round to trivialize the process?

Or rather the question should be do you WANT antags to do this on manuel? Is that the atmosphere you want to create where people are forced to respond in the most effective matter, regardless of how it might affect the victim (aka they now have 0 chance to be revived)?

If you're saying it should be okay to go out of your way to do the most effective strat round after round, it's going to create a domino effect. I would say this would be slippery slope but we've literally seen that play out in our other servers throughout the years.

Again i'm for just removing the 'extra' gear and not have to bring admins into it since the common issue here is that these individuals are just picking up unused map resources.

[scapegoat]

You're not wrong, but there are really, really easy ways for antags to get around people being able to recover bodies. There are plenty of easy ways to dispose of a body permanently: shuttlegib, emag + cremator, emag + kitchen, explosive, debraining. All of these remove the ability for the body to be revived. I admit that botany can produce bonkers things, but botany isn't my main point. My main point is that the ruling isn't consistent.

You're totally right, antags could just antag 'better'. Is that what antags need to resort to because there's this one player that grabs gamer gear every round to trivialize the process?

Or rather the question should be do you WANT antags to do this on manuel? Is that the atmosphere you want to create where people are forced to respond in the most effective matter, regardless of how it might affect the victim (aka they now have 0 chance to be revived)?

If you're saying it should be okay to go out of your way to do the most effective strat round after round, it's going to create a domino effect. I would say this would be slippery slope but we've literally seen that play out in our other servers throughout the years.

Again i'm for just removing the 'extra' gear and not have to bring admins into it since the common issue here is that these individuals are just picking up unused map resources.

I agree with you that we should just ditch some of the extraneous and unnecessary gamer loot on the stations, that makes sense. I think that the way the hand teleporter works is actually a pretty good way of fixing this issue. You can only teleport to people with the hand tele if they've prepared beforehand, I.E. carrying a beacon or using the det's tracker rounds or something along those lines. In almost all situations just stripping the person is enough to stop them being revived, the teleporter is just a small benefit to select people. That's different if your assassination target is the captain/HoS or someone that is likely to have that contingency prepared, but it SHOULD be harder to kill a member of command than a random assistant.

[scapegoat]

Roleplaying rules are a joke to begin with. To really solve the issue, the next round of headmins will have to rethink the implementation of anything MRP related on /tg/ and not just copy-paste rules from somewhere where the playerbase has a different mentality.

I agree. Personally, I'm a big fan of the MRP server, but the /tg/ base is very different than the goon base and some adjustment would certainly be useful.

The rules are meant to mold the playerbase, not viceversa. Once a ruleset has been decided, the idea is that either by people conforming to it or avoiding the server if they don't like them you end up with a population with a certain mentality. Rule tweaks are for when the resulting playstyle
A: is off the mark (e.g. with rigidly defined rules you end up with toe-liners)
B: is too exclusive (i.e. nobody wants to play it)
C: could be more fun for everyone, without altering the target mentality too much (e.g. not being able to make borgs law 2 suicide)

In this case, the botany issue should be solved via code in my opinion, since while interdepartmental cooperation is good for the game, it should be something required for the advanced side of the job, not to start it.
The hand tele issue is not a problem in my opinion as long as it stays fairly rare and doesn't become a must-do strategy like unstable mutagen for botany.

The hand tele is obviously not a must-do strategy, it's perfectly effective to not use it as a paramedic. The effectiveness boost it brings is all in all, pretty small. You can only even use it if the other person has been prepared beforehand, so it only really applies to people that have this contingency because they're more in danger than Steve McGunkin, assistant extraordinaire.

[Arianya]

I won't express an opinion on the botany thing but I'll tell you for free that the issue with the paramedic was less "staying in their lane" and more:

Every round, he would

There are plenty of things you can do without issue on an individual round basis that become tiresome or problematic when they feature in 100% of rounds involving you.

[CDranzer]

Just recently, a paramedic player was given a week ban from medbay. Every round, he would go get the hand teleporter from the teleporter room, after asking permission from AI and/or command staff, and would use it to recover bodies that had teleporter beacons in them.

Wait, Rats got banned for their teleporter gimmick? What the absolute fuck kind of horseshit is this?

Every time I roll Scientist, I go do toxins because nobody else wants to do it, and I always maxcap that shit, but it involves getting a pump from either the dorms or atmospherics because it makes things easier. Am I going to get banned for being too good at my job? Should I produce some subpar bombs and waste resources on purpose?

[Ayy Lemoh]

Example 2: Just recently, a paramedic player was given a week ban from medbay. Every round, he would go get the hand teleporter from the teleporter room, after asking permission from AI and/or command staff, and would use it to recover bodies that had teleporter beacons in them. This, again, is technically in violation of the above two rules. To put it bluntly, that's a hot pile of bullshit.

now that cloning is removed, people will actually have to put in effort to revive people. finally, we have saved the station known as slash tee gee slas- WAIT NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU CAN'T SAVE THEM LIKE THAT NOOOOOOOO

Sir, are you the man who constantly does his own job hyper efficiently if other people even comply with your batshit insane idea? Yeah, we're gonna have a problem here. Citizen, face the wall and prepare for final verdict.

[deedubya]

Example 2: Just recently, a paramedic player was given a week ban from medbay. Every round, he would go get the hand teleporter from the teleporter room, after asking permission from AI and/or command staff, and would use it to recover bodies that had teleporter beacons in them. This, again, is technically in violation of the above two rules. To put it bluntly, that's a hot pile of bullshit. This paramedic was banned from a job for a seven days (that's 168 hours, FYI) for doing something that made his job easier and improved the rounds of a large number of players, while having no negative effect on really, anyone at all.

Excuse me, what the fuck.

Asking for shit that helps you do your job better and being given it - as opposed to tiding in and stealing shit for your sole benefit - is not fucking powergaming. Whoever ate that ban should appeal that post haste, and whoever applied the ban should get the fuck off the MRP server and go apply to be an admin at Bay. That's the dumbest shit I've ever seen.

Seriously, it isn't even a technical violation of the two rules. That is exactly staying in their lane by asking for permission and using it to enhance their job, and it's not metagaming because the knowledge of bluespace teleportation isn't exactly forbidden knowledge.



The negative impact being caused by those rules isn't the fact that they exist, it's the fucking morons with purple names that are interpreting them incorrectly.

[XDTM]

The problem is that the hand tele is 'public', in the sense that no job has any particular claim to it, unless you consider commanding in general a job.

By taking it you're not causing too much disruption, and it's a nice change of pace when you can carry a beacon knowing someone will retrieve you if you die.
But taking it every round means that the hand tele is never available for any other potential use, and the uniqueness of the gimmick degrades over time.
Another player planning their own gimmick (for example, a whiteship kidnapping scheme by throwing people into one-way portals with the hand tele) will find out that the crucial item has been taken, again, for the same exact purpose as the previous round.

Essentially it's a problem of hogging something, which isn't exactly an rp failure, but it is in the wider sense of roleplay-as-sportmanship where you give up some optimization on your end to let other players have more fun.

[confused rock]

okay well if people were having issues with him hogging it it wasn't like he was hacking in every round command could've easily just said no to him you don't fucking weekban him and there are even two hand teles not just one, hell you don't need a handheld one to warp

"Just don't do it every round" is problematic, to say the least. It's a good idea for them and others, so people would want him to do it as much as possible.

"Okay, I've taken the hand tele two rounds in a row, gotta wait this one out so I'm not powergaming"

[XDTM]

The weekban seems a bit much to me as well, but

"Okay, I've taken the hand tele two rounds in a row, gotta wait this one out so I'm not powergaming"

this unironically, although i'd phrase it as "so this doesn't get stale too fast"

[CPTANT]

The hand teleporter is just a shitty item because it is classed as some super confidential item while it totally isn't secure or even that dangerous.

Yeah you could randomly teleport around to see if you can break into places whoopsiedoodle.

Also I still think banning people from all servers for non-blatant RP breaks like this is just dumb. If people obviously choose manual to grief then kick them off all servers, but stuff like this shouldn't ban a player from a server where the rule broken doesn't even exist.

[SkeletalElite]

Why is the argument about the hand teleporter? Only thing it can do the regular teleporter cant is be used anywhere and is two way. Thats really only significant for returning. A paramedic could do the same by just using the teleporter and standing at a crew monitor.

Edit: Also someone said stripping stops it. This is not the case if they have a tracking implant. Tracking implants are targetable by the teleporter.

[scapegoat]

I won't express an opinion on the botany thing but I'll tell you for free that the issue with the paramedic was less "staying in their lane" and more:

Every round, he would

There are plenty of things you can do without issue on an individual round basis that become tiresome or problematic when they feature in 100% of rounds involving you.

At the bottom line, I just disagree with you. I respect your opinion, but I don't agree with that. I don't see it as a problem.

[scapegoat]

The problem is that the hand tele is 'public', in the sense that no job has any particular claim to it, unless you consider commanding in general a job.

By taking it you're not causing too much disruption, and it's a nice change of pace when you can carry a beacon knowing someone will retrieve you if you die.
But taking it every round means that the hand tele is never available for any other potential use, and the uniqueness of the gimmick degrades over time.
Another player planning their own gimmick (for example, a whiteship kidnapping scheme by throwing people into one-way portals with the hand tele) will find out that the crucial item has been taken, again, for the same exact purpose as the previous round.

Essentially it's a problem of hogging something, which isn't exactly an rp failure, but it is in the wider sense of roleplay-as-sportmanship where you give up some optimization on your end to let other players have more fun.

I wouldn't see hogging as a problem because A. there are two hand teleporters, B. nobody else ever uses the hand teleporter anyway.

[scapegoat]

The hand teleporter is just a shitty item because it is classed as some super confidential item while it totally isn't secure or even that dangerous.

Yeah you could randomly teleport around to see if you can break into places whoopsiedoodle.

Also I still think banning people from all servers for non-blatant RP breaks like this is just dumb. If people obviously choose manual to grief then kick them off all servers, but stuff like this shouldn't ban a player from a server where the rule broken doesn't even exist.

In the admins defense, he wasn't banned from the serb, just med. I still agree with you, though.

[scapegoat]

okay well if people were having issues with him hogging it it wasn't like he was hacking in every round command could've easily just said no to him you don't fucking weekban him and there are even two hand teles not just one, hell you don't need a handheld one to warp

"Just don't do it every round" is problematic, to say the least. It's a good idea for them and others, so people would want him to do it as much as possible.

"Okay, I've taken the hand tele two rounds in a row, gotta wait this one out so I'm not powergaming"

You've put it succinctly and better than I could have. Well done.

[Cobby]

Also I still think banning people from all servers for non-blatant RP breaks like this is just dumb. If people obviously choose manual to grief then kick them off all servers, but stuff like this shouldn't ban a player from a server where the rule broken doesn't even exist.

If he wasn't warned for this I'd agree with you in this specific incident (I don't know), but in general I think it's great. If you can't be arsed to follow the additional rules on manuel then go to bagil or risk being banned from both. If you want to ignore the deterrent then I could probably care less if you take a break from the game tbh.

[scapegoat]

Also I still think banning people from all servers for non-blatant RP breaks like this is just dumb. If people obviously choose manual to grief then kick them off all servers, but stuff like this shouldn't ban a player from a server where the rule broken doesn't even exist.

If he wasn't warned for this I'd agree with you in this specific incident (I don't know), but in general I think it's great. If you can't be arsed to follow the additional rules on manuel then go to bagil or risk being banned from both. If you want to ignore the deterrent then I could probably care less if you take a break from the game tbh.

I wasn't aware that he was warned for this, are you sure about that?

[XivilaiAnaxes]

You've been setting up the super matter every round, this ruins other people's games because there's a functioning engine bye bye

[Jack7D1]

I like chewing more as engineer. Very wholesome time teaching her Atmos.

[Yenwodyah]

Example 2: Just recently, a paramedic player was given a week ban from medbay. Every round, he would go get the hand teleporter from the teleporter room, after asking permission from AI and/or command staff, and would use it to recover bodies that had teleporter beacons in them. This, again, is technically in violation of the above two rules. To put it bluntly, that's a hot pile of bullshit. This paramedic was banned from a job for a seven days (that's 168 hours, FYI) for doing something that made his job easier and improved the rounds of a large number of players, while having no negative effect on really, anyone at all. It's good to ban someone for powergaming if it's just to make their round better and break the immersion of the game. This paramedic was not doing either of those things, he was helping others recover from being a corpse so they could continue to enjoy the round. I would also argue that this doesn't really break immersion, either. I can't think of a reason why NT wouldn't want to use teleporting technology to aid in employee revival and care. Para was just the first guy to think of it, if anything he should be commended for that, not banned.

Making the round easier for the crew is not the same as making it better. "Losing is part of the game". This guy was powergaming in a really boring way to make every round less dangerous and therefore less interesting.
If you think that paramedics having access to hand teleporters every round is good for the game, you should PR it on github.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

okay well if people were having issues with him hogging it it wasn't like he was hacking in every round command could've easily just said no to him you don't fucking weekban him and there are even two hand teles not just one, hell you don't need a handheld one to warp

"Just don't do it every round" is problematic, to say the least. It's a good idea for them and others, so people would want him to do it as much as possible.

"Okay, I've taken the hand tele two rounds in a row, gotta wait this one out so I'm not powergaming"

IIRC the issue was that command people were giving him the high value item every single round because they knew that every single shift he did that same strat and that he was trustworthy because he was recovering bodies, and it was a metagaming thing? Like if you had a gimmick that involved the nuke disk and the cap gave it to you each shift because he knew you did it the last 10 rounds in a row even though him doing so is weird from a standalone view.

I dont agree with the ban tho

[oranges]

good job a policy thread that's a ban appeal.

[teepeepee]

the ban set a policy and people are here to discuss it, what's wrong with that? why is this quoted as a bad thing? isn't discussion of policy what this subforum is for?

[Arianya]

The issue becomes when discussion becomes more about a ban then policy/precedent set by it.

Threads spawned by a controversial or precedent setting ban are fine. Threads that are using policy discussion as a thin veneer to have a peanut gallery on a ban are not.

I.e.
"I don't think people should be penalized for playing the game a particular way, even repetitively" - A Good Policy Discussion Post

"This ban sucks I love [player/character/other]" or "This ban was great fuck [player/character/other]" - A Bad Policy Discussion Post

That's not to say all posts in here have been BadTM but there have been quite a few that are more discussion about a ban then a potential policy or precedent being set by it.

[Screemonster]

okay well if people were having issues with him hogging it it wasn't like he was hacking in every round command could've easily just said no to him you don't fucking weekban him and there are even two hand teles not just one, hell you don't need a handheld one to warp

"Just don't do it every round" is problematic, to say the least. It's a good idea for them and others, so people would want him to do it as much as possible.

"Okay, I've taken the hand tele two rounds in a row, gotta wait this one out so I'm not powergaming"

IIRC the issue was that command people were giving him the high value item every single round because they knew that every single shift he did that same strat and that he was trustworthy because he was recovering bodies, and it was a metagaming thing? Like if you had a gimmick that involved the nuke disk and the cap gave it to you each shift because he knew you did it the last 10 rounds in a row even though him doing so is weird from a standalone view.

I dont agree with the ban tho

inb4 he gets traitor with the objective to steal the hand tele and all this work has been to get people to trust him enough to hand it over without question

playing the long game

[Vekter]

The way I see it, the line is pretty generally blurry on purpose - every situation is going to be different. We've always handled everything on a case-by-case basis. The general idea is that you should mostly be sticking to doing your job unless circumstances require otherwise. Nobody's going to bwoink you for helping to heal someone if everyone in medical is dead or setting up the engine when there are no Engineers, but the latter is better handled by getting a job change. It's mostly there to prevent people from going around doing everything and keeping other people from doing their jobs. In a normal round with everyone you need to run the station, you should generally stay in your own lane.

The issue with the player grabbing the hand teleporter every round is it borders on powergaming - that player doesn't really have any IC need for it, they're just grabbing it to have it, likely either to use it to help them escape danger or make themselves a target for traitors. It's the same reason you're not allowed to throw up barriers and set up the brig prepared for a hell rush or weld all the vents shut for no reason - your character has no reason to be doing it, so why are you doing it?

If this bothers you, I heavily encourage you to play on one of our other servers. There are too many people on Manuel who either take umbrage with the rules or just don't care about them that could go repopulate those servers during peak.

My opinion on the ban is that I'm pretty damn well against how long it was, or even banning in the first place. Then again, I don't know his history or notes, so I can't really say otherwise. In general, violations like these should probably be handled with a simple "quit it" and a note rather than banning.