Space Ninja should be allowed to murderbone on manuel.

[iwishforducks]

As it currently stands, Space Ninjas are currently not allowed to muderbone on Manuel. I'm not here to discuss the follies of the murderboning rules (even though I'm about to tear it apart here), but rather request that the antagonist built for killing people to be exempt from its follies.

Before the massive rework of Space Ninja, they would receive objectives to obtain the heads of crewmembers and/or assassinate them. And they were equipped for it, with a strong blade, electrifying kick to disarm combatants, and other things I don't feel like listing here. Because of these focused objectives, the Space Ninja was never given a murderbone pass despite being fully equipped to take on a full crew. The new rework of the ninja has completely lifted all of the objectives, removing the assassination objectives completely. On top of that, the ninja has been equipped with syndicate assault borgs, whose soul purpose is to kill everything in sight. Which, the ninja's objectives are explicitly written to make these syndicate assault borgs. They literally can not greentext without doing so. These borgs are a huge dilemma for ninjas, because what I usually end up doing as a ninja is telling them to "yeah just go fuck off I guess I can't even use you without the Spider Clan firing me from being a space ninja. have fun.". Because, I might stress this again, these borgs are >specifically designed to kill<.

The Space Ninja is also a valid walking machine. The ninja is incredibly distinct, being unable to remove their gear unless they straight up don't want to be a ninja. Their objectives involve blowing a giant hole in the station, calling in space pirates (who will probably end up killing more people than the god damn space ninja) and turning the station's own borgs against them. There is no room for roleplay. It is literally impossible. "Oh uh... hey guys, could you PLEASE let me blow a hole into medbay and you know... subvert your borgs? No validhunt PLSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS IM FRIENDLY!!!!!!" People can just... silently walk up to the ninja and syringe gun them and there's nothing the ninja can do without literally killing everyone in sight. And that person would have their rights to shoot the ninja- because they just fucking blew a hole into the medbay.

The point is that the Space Ninja should not fear for the bwoink for killing people. They should have complete discretion as to who they deem a threat. I doubt Ninjas will suddenly start killing literally everyone in sight on Manuel because they're given the murderbone pass, because that's just not the environment of Manuel. I know for a fact that the Nightmare does not kill everyone on sight on Manuel, and hell, even Wizard (and yet still gets validated by the crew, but this is a whole different topic).

TL;DR - Space Ninja is made for killing people. Let them kill people.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Theres a difference between "killing someone trying to engage you" and "hunt every single person down and collect trophies from them".

[NecromancerAnne]

Space ninja is meant to be sowing discord and sabotaging parts of the station. They're kind of a station wide threat now, but they absolutely should be sticking to the sneaking and stealthing part. That's the point of the space ninja changes. To push them towards a more slow, methodical playstyle.

Let's not encourage them just going on a dime-a-dozen killing spree as one of the few antags granted enough power to pull off a stealth mission.

[Ayy Lemoh]

Space ninja is meant to be sowing discord and sabotaging parts of the station. They're kind of a station wide threat now, but they absolutely should be sticking to the sneaking and stealthing part. That's the point of the space ninja changes. To push them towards a more slow, methodical playstyle.

Let's not encourage them just going on a dime-a-dozen killing spree as one of the few antags granted enough power to pull off a stealth mission.

The ninja, katana in hand, can not go on dime-a-dozen killing sprees. He would just be too sneaky for that. Anyways, then he made a bunch of cyborgs that could go on infinite suicide missions and essentially get to just drop bodies 24/7 whenever they want.

Even in MGR, stealth was a joke. It seems fucked up if the ninja can summon antags that can basically kill whenever they want (yes, space pirates require RP) while the ninja is expected to be some stealth god.

[Timberpoes]

Usual preface - Ninjas can do whatever on LRP as a fully fledged antag. Nin nin.

Now to MRP.

The Space Ninja was redesigned to be a saboteur and not an assassin.

Its role is to stealth around the station causing chaos and sewing discord.

Its objectives support and encourage this. Murderbone spree goes against the spirit of the antag.

This is different from not being able to murder in general. Their objectives bring them into direct conflict with both the crew and the AI and they may well have to introduce their enemies to the taste of katana.

[NikoTheGuyDude]

Lack of murderbone pass doesnt mean you cant kill ANYBODY.

Sure, you might get bwoinked asking for your reasoning, but as long as you can /provide/ a reason, which you should be able to, you'll be fine.

[iwishforducks]

Ninjas are barely the arbiters of stealth. If you're actually playing the game and doing so much as entering the station, you will get spotted 3 minutes tops. There's nothing stealthy about emagged airlocks. There's nothing stealthy about "HACKING IN PROGRESS AT ARRIVALS CHECKPOINT". It's incredibly hard to be stealthy when, as stated in the OP, your abilities and equipment are extremely unique and can not be mistaken for anything else. Traitors might as well be more stealthy than a ninja for crying out loud. They can buy agent IDs, disguise themselves, and even gain full invisibility on top of all of that- something that the ninja can not obtain. It's a joke to insist the ninja is built for stealth.

There's no paranoia involved in ninjas. When a ninja arrives, you're not worried some cloaked assassin will take you out in maints alone. You know what usually happens? Some twerp will see me in maint and then point at me, and try to strike up a conversation. And you know what I have to do? I just have to leave. You could insist that the ninja could kill someone for pointing them out, but you know for a fact someone will ahelp that. And because of how the murderbone rules are written and applied, it's all up to the whims of fate of an admin. I don't feel like having to yell at an admin in ahelps, and I sure as hell do not feel like yelling at the admin here on the forums. Even if we were to insist that ninjas could do that, then honestly, why not just let them murderbone?

[Ayy Lemoh]

There's no paranoia involved in ninjas. When a ninja arrives, you're not worried some cloaked assassin will take you out in maints alone.

New players and veteran players (who don't know the changes) will fear that. It takes a certain kind of prick (that definitely exists even if not here) to play on a RP server, see an antag, and comfortably think to themselves "heh, diplomatic immunity! he doesn't have the gall to try and kill me!

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Still sounds like your problem is "murderbone needs to be explained better" and not "ninjas need to be allowed to commit genocide".

[Cobby]

Actions that would NOT be considered murderboning include:

•Antagonists are subject to relaxed escalation rules, they still cannot kill randomly, but slights against them can be met with lethal force. Such as people shoving them repeatedly, stealing from them or going out of their way to greatly insult them.

• Self-defense. Someone actively trying to make it difficult for you to complete your objectives is fine to eliminate in pursuit of completing your objective. This would include witnesses.

• Collateral. If you for instance bomb your target, it is not considered murderboning if other individuals die in the explosion. This can include self-defense situations where individuals dying from a result of being in a crowd after you would also not be considered murderbone.

• Directly benefits the pursuit of your objective(s). An individual carrying an item you have to steal or killing someone to get closer to your mark (IE a doctor whose patient just happens to be your target) would fall into this category.

In general you should think of murderboning as plasmaflooding/cuban pete-ing the station because "im antag", or you can view it as pass to sit in maint and kill anyone who comes by just because "im antag". If you are viewing murderbone as being able to kill people outside of your objective in general, you are viewing it incorrectly.

The notion that we should enable murderbone because manuel doesnt have that playstyle is silly because you've gotten the order mixed up. No murderboning dissuades people from coming to manuel, therefore creating the atmosphere you're currently touting.

[confused rock]

Space ninja is meant to be sowing discord and sabotaging parts of the station. They're kind of a station wide threat now, but they absolutely should be sticking to the sneaking and stealthing part. That's the point of the space ninja changes. To push them towards a more slow, methodical playstyle.

Let's not encourage them just going on a dime-a-dozen killing spree as one of the few antags granted enough power to pull off a stealth mission.

If the mechanics make stealth the better option, then isn't that enough? the fact that blatant murderbone is a bad idea and will get you killed because of how the antag works? Do we need to mechanically enforce punishing people for playing wrong?

on an transcendant level, is that even better? Is stealth ninja fun? I'm not so sure. If nobody even gets to fight the antag, that's no fun for anyone else.

[cacogen]

No, Manuel is the job simulator server and you should play Black Ops on one of the others.

[Mothblocks]

Space ninja is meant to be sowing discord and sabotaging parts of the station. They're kind of a station wide threat now, but they absolutely should be sticking to the sneaking and stealthing part. That's the point of the space ninja changes. To push them towards a more slow, methodical playstyle.

Let's not encourage them just going on a dime-a-dozen killing spree as one of the few antags granted enough power to pull off a stealth mission.

If the mechanics make stealth the better option, then isn't that enough? the fact that blatant murderbone is a bad idea and will get you killed because of how the antag works? Do we need to mechanically enforce punishing people for playing wrong?

on an transcendant level, is that even better? Is stealth ninja fun? I'm not so sure. If nobody even gets to fight the antag, that's no fun for anyone else.

Basically this. Ninjas in their current state are relatively straight forward to gang up on and take down when they lose their stealth. If they're not, that's a problem with the antag that should be solved with code, but even on wild west servers like Bagil, you don't (read: I don't) see ninjas going on massive murder sprees for this same reason.

[Misdoubtful]

The point is that the Space Ninja should not fear for the bwoink for killing people. They should have complete discretion as to who they deem a threat. I doubt Ninjas will suddenly start killing literally everyone in sight on Manuel because they're given the murderbone pass, because that's just not the environment of Manuel. I know for a fact that the Nightmare does not kill everyone on sight on Manuel, and hell, even Wizard (and yet still gets validated by the crew, but this is a whole different topic).

If things were to become people generally fearing they may be bwoinked for playing an antag and antagonizing I feel there'd be an enormous mistake being made in laying out expectations for antagging made somewhere. But I hope thats not the case, right?

All things considered the greet text for ninjas leaves something to be desired. It does lay out being sneaky as beneficial though.

Code: Select all

/datum/antagonist/ninja/greet()
	SEND_SOUND(owner.current, sound('sound/effects/ninja_greeting.ogg'))
	to_chat(owner.current, "I am an elite mercenary of the mighty Spider Clan. A <font color='red'><B>SPACE NINJA</B></font>!")
	to_chat(owner.current, "Surprise is my weapon. Shadows are my armor. Without them, I am nothing. (//initialize your suit by right clicking on it, to use abilities like stealth)!")
	owner.announce_objectives()

[Coconutwarrior97]

Space Ninja will continue to not be allowed to murderbone on MRP. As it stands their objectives bring them into conflict with the crew enough.

Headmin Votes:
Coconutwarrior97: Yes.
Domitius: Yes.
Naloac: Yes.