Building broad-net deathtraps for team antags

[Scriptis]

I received a day ban today for the below scenario. I had an amiable chat with the banning admin, and can understand why I was banned, but this feels like a bit of a gray area, so I wanted to make sure it gets put down to paper somewhere: exactly when is it alright to build a deathtrap?

The example scenario is:

• There is an active revolution, rapidly approaching completion. You are the Chief Engineer. You have just watched the Head of Security get bludgeoned to death outside of the bridge.
• You install a reinforced plasmaglass disposals trap box thing in the bridge, and flood it with N2O.
• Ten-odd minutes later, due to a random Brand Awareness event, several (lethal) vending machines make it into the box. Having been shot more than once by revolutionaries, you opt to leave them there. The trap is now properly lethal.
• Over the span of the next fifteen minutes, around five revolutionaries attempt to break into the bridge, walk into your trap, and die. On several occasions they nearly kill you with lasers through the glass.
• One (innocent) security officer blindly walks into the trap and dies. How said security officer was not aware of the trap despite it being visible from above the bridge for more than half of the shift, nobody knows.
• Twenty minutes later, your unstoppable death machine ends the revolution.
• After the revolution ends, you are banned because of the security officer walking into your trap.

The big discussion question: at what point does a death trap like this become a policy issue?

The smaller discussion questions:

• Should traps built by non-antagonists even be allowed to be lethal?
• If not, when can they be lethal?
• If you're a team antagonist, what then?--around a year ago, I saw a similar trap used by the revolution to space heads of staff. What if you space a friendly revolutionary?

I personally feel that if your life is at stake, you should be allowed to put as large of a shotgun against your front door as you want. If my only option is to use actual weapons to fight the revolution or a cult, I'm at a major disadvantage--the team has a team whereas I have two security officers and an RPD. And I'm willing to bet money that the RPD can do more than a security officer ever could.

Anywho, that's all I've got.

EDIT: Oh, bonus question: if your trap starts out non-lethal but becomes lethal because of events outside of your control, is it still your problem?

[Gigapuddi420]

ban sounds lame, but not really here nor there to policy over a specific ban.

Non-antags should avoid lethal booby traps that innocents could accidentally walk into. I personally think circumstance should allow the possibility of it but the people doing it should try to do it carefully in a way that's unlikely to cause innocent deaths, an example of this for me would be a Chief Engineer and his department of boys he trusts barricading engineering and warning people to keep the fuck out.

Lone antags can do whatever, just don't make a lag machine or something.

Team antags have more freedom to make lethal traps but still need to consider their teammates. If the trap is irresponsible and arguably a hindrance to the cause then you shouldn't be doing it, just like flooding the station with plasma as revolutionary is counter productive in most cases. It's pretty contextual to the team's situation but you should avoid harming your team as much as possible.

[Pandarsenic]

Spoiler:

Several things I find Kinda BS about the ban:

1) the trap was built as a Head defending against a confirmed(??) revolution, which is basically soft antag status already
2) The trap was not built lethal; a station event made it lethal and (presumably) left it not easily disarmed, since... you know. Vendors, disposals, etc.
3) The security officer was collateral damage, which sucks I guess, but that shit happens. People get hurt, crit, or even killed by friendly fire because of loud Malf AIs, nuke ops, cults, revolutions, etc., all the time. Every time xenos show up, some dumbass with a flamethrower gets at least one other person killed. Why was this a special case?

Deathtraps by heads of staff against a revolution should always be fair game. Same for station against war ops, station against cult, against wizards/ninjas, etc. Even, I would argue, against a sufficiently skilled lower-power solo antag (DEsword noslip traitor, etc.), it can be fair, if it actually makes sense as a plan and works. I would point to the bomb rules, where you just have to be able to argue that it was necessary for the station's good or your own protection.

I personally feel that if your life is at stake, you should be allowed to put as large of a shotgun against your front door as you want. If my only option is to use actual weapons to fight the revolution or a cult, I'm at a major disadvantage--the team has a team whereas I have two security officers and an RPD. And I'm willing to bet money that the RPD can do more than a security officer ever could.

This is both important for two reasons:

• encouraging robust creative play, neutralizing your enemies with the janky pile of assets you have on hand
• discouraging players from arming themselves with weapons prematurely, since somehow it's less bannable to loot the armory than defend yourself with your RPD otherwise

And like the largest of puddings said, solo antags can do whatever, team antags just have to make sure it's significantly more dangerous to the enemy than to their allies/be prepared to explain why they thought it was a good idea.

[XivilaiAnaxes]

Nonsense ban appeal that shit

[cSeal]

Spoiler:

Several things I find Kinda BS about the ban:

1) the trap was built as a Head defending against a confirmed(??) revolution, which is basically soft antag status already
2) The trap was not built lethal; a station event made it lethal and (presumably) left it not easily disarmed, since... you know. Vendors, disposals, etc.
3) The security officer was collateral damage, which sucks I guess, but that shit happens. People get hurt, crit, or even killed by friendly fire because of loud Malf AIs, nuke ops, cults, revolutions, etc., all the time. Every time xenos show up, some dumbass with a flamethrower gets at least one other person killed. Why was this a special case?

Spoiler:

damn dude its a good thing that this thread isn't about the ban and your opinion truly does not matter

Deathtraps by heads of staff against a revolution should always be fair game. Same for station against war ops, station against cult, against wizards/ninjas, etc.

omw to maxcap the friendly wizard and kill dozens as collateral because pandarsenic from tgstation.org said it should be allowed

I would point to the bomb rules, where you just have to be able to argue that it was necessary for the station's good or your own protection.

The ruling you're pointing to v

max caps are ok to use if the station is gonna be owned from the thing you’re bombing so things like nuke ops if it appears they’re winning, cult is fine, anything where it looks like the station is going to be btfo’d if the thing is allowed to live (I’d even consider murderboners fair game if they’ve proven too much for security). As long as you can justify with your imperfect information I can’t really fault you for it.

1) This doesn't mention self defense (lol self defense bombs) and it has to have looked like the station would be completely fucked if you didn't do it. I would hardly consider revs on par with the nuke going off, or narsie being summoned, or a murderboner whos killed 2/3rds of the crew and is looking to wipe the station

2) The difference between something like a stationary death trap and a maxcap is that a maxcap can be much more easily controlled- one time use, you press a button and bam things die. Because of this, you're generally able to make sure its only used when its needed (cult is about to summon, a nukie with the disk is rushing back to his shuttle, etc.) a deathtrap generally persists until someone breaks it, and will affect people as long as they trigger it, which is quite easy to do on accident depending on the design and placement of the trap

[Pandarsenic]

Deathtraps by heads of staff against a revolution should always be fair game. Same for station against war ops, station against cult, against wizards/ninjas, etc.

omw to maxcap the friendly wizard and kill dozens as collateral because pandarsenic from tgstation.org said it should be allowed

I, too, am unable to distinguish murderbone wizards/ninjas from non-murderbone ones

[Farquaar]

I would hardly consider revs on par with the nuke going off, or narsie being summoned, or a murderboner whos killed 2/3rds of the crew and is looking to wipe the station

lolwut?
With revs, all heads have an objective to eliminate the team trying to kill them.
With cult, all heads have an objective to eliminate the team trying to kill them.
With nukies, all heads have an objective to eliminate the team trying to kill them.
Your poo-pooing of objectives for a single team antag is entirely arbitrary. All team antags work this way.

[cSeal]

Deathtraps by heads of staff against a revolution should always be fair game. Same for station against war ops, station against cult, against wizards/ninjas, etc.

omw to maxcap the friendly wizard and kill dozens as collateral because pandarsenic from tgstation.org said it should be allowed

I, too, am unable to distinguish murderbone wizards/ninjas from non-murderbone ones

should always be fair game

[cSeal]

lolwut?
With revs, all heads have an objective to eliminate the team trying to kill them.
With cult, all heads have an objective to eliminate the team trying to kill them.
With nukies, all heads have an objective to eliminate the team trying to kill them.

The difference between all of these is the consequences if each antag wins
Cult gibs everyone in the immediate are, sends a swarm of constructs to gib anyone else, ends the round
Nukies kill everyone on the station and ends the round
Revs... causes like 10 people to not be revived and the station is a bit ugly and disorganized now
Everyone who is the target of any antagonist tends to, y'know, not want to die, that does not justify the use of everything weaker than a nuke to accomplish it
Literally all I'm saying is people should use force in proportion to the threat they're facing

[Gigapuddi420]

For me it's circumstantial; non-antags need to justify extreme actions with extreme circumstances. Just the fact Revolution is taking place wouldn't be enough, but a revolution that is out of control with little resistance remaining opens up options for severe defense strategies. If your booby trap is just as likely to kill allied staff as it is to kill revolutionaries/cult then you shouldn't be making it or at the very least make better efforts to keep innocents from stumbling into it.

[CPTANT]

It's rev. It's a clusterfuck and everyone is trying to kill eachother

Is there really anyone who thinks it is a good idea to have one side be able to do whatever the fuck they want and heavily scrutinize the other side for even the tiniest bit of collateral damage?

[Screemonster]

did the deathtrap end the round, like, did the last headrev walk into it or something?

'cause if so that's a: hilarious and b: arguably the "bomb the wiz" clause since the thing that caused one (1) collateral death did in fact end the round as a result of its deployment

honestly though when it comes to traps that cause collateral damage it should be malicious intent that gets a ban, not "shit whoops a guy you didn't intend to kill ended up dying incidentally and accidentally, beep boop one onantag death equals automatic ban regardless of context bleep"

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I feel that you shouldn't be held responsible for collateral for creative defensive measures, but you should be held responsible for collerateral for indiscriminate offensive measures

[Agux909]

honestly though when it comes to traps that cause collateral damage it should be malicious intent that gets a ban, not "shit whoops a guy you didn't intend to kill ended up dying incidentally and accidentally, beep boop one onantag death equals automatic ban regardless of context bleep"

This. The intent from this deathtrap seems to be, in a moment of chaos, to use the tools at your disposal in a creative way to kill antagonists that are repeatedly loitering in a specific area. Such improvised trap succeeding is a testament of the good qualities to be appreciated from the sandbox in the game.

There was clearly no malice, and the time spent on the trap which ended up being a hilarious and creative way to deal with the antagonists should be enough to invoke the secret rule and rule 10. This shouldn't be grounds for a ban at all.

[Valorium]

Not even commenting on the nature of the ban - that's not my place and I don't want to give this discussion further reason to be bonked as a peanut/"I bannd" thread - but I think that creativity should be encouraged in general when it comes to these large-scale team antagonist rounds, mainly because they often have a bad habit of becoming really...stale? Revolutions and cultist rounds oftentimes end up going the same way or feeling the same way all the time, so further discouraging creative play by heads (who - and I say this as someone who has more frequently been a head during a revolution than having ever been a revolutionary period - more often than not just barricade up in brig and make the round last an additional half hour than it needs to) seems, well, like a non-ideal solution. When dealing with revolutions, heads of staff should have similar protections to lone antagonists, owing to the simple fact that the majority of the crew is usually opposed to them like any other antagonist, at least to some extent. I can understand both positions, though.

[Cobby]

If you know it’s revs or some other large scale antag you should be free to build defenses so long as you let the people you might expect to come in know what’s up (for bridge I’d assume you’ve let heads know it’s rigged and the onus is on the hos or cap to relay to security).

Defending up common areas should fall under maxcap policy which is you better have a good reason for doing it cuz you are guaranteed to get some bystanders.

There’s a lot of permutations of what a trap might be and what the circumstances are that would warrant building such a trap so it is prob too broad

[cSeal]

did the deathtrap end the round, like, did the last headrev walk into it or something?

'cause if so that's a: hilarious and b: arguably the "bomb the wiz" clause since the thing that caused one (1) collateral death did in fact end the round as a result of its deployment"

There was clearly no malice, and the time spent on the trap which ended up being a hilarious and creative way to deal with the antagonists should be enough to invoke the secret rule and rule 10. This shouldn't be grounds for a ban at all.

Please remove the many worms infesting both of your brains. This is not a ban appeal, this is not a peanut thread. You're giving your opinions when you're lacking literally any context other than what was provided for the purposes of policy discussion

[cSeal]

There’s a lot of permutations of what a trap might be and what the circumstances are that would warrant building such a trap so it is prob too broad

This, basically. The way its handled now is fine, with it being up to each admin and dependent on the specific circumstances of the round. I don't really think a headmin ruling is necessary here

[Agux909]

did the deathtrap end the round, like, did the last headrev walk into it or something?

'cause if so that's a: hilarious and b: arguably the "bomb the wiz" clause since the thing that caused one (1) collateral death did in fact end the round as a result of its deployment"

There was clearly no malice, and the time spent on the trap which ended up being a hilarious and creative way to deal with the antagonists should be enough to invoke the secret rule and rule 10. This shouldn't be grounds for a ban at all.

Please remove the many worms infesting both of your brains. This is not a ban appeal, this is not a peanut thread. You're giving your opinions when you're lacking literally any context other than what was provided for the purposes of policy discussion

Instead of getting smug to do le epic own because you can't accept others opinions, try to use your own brain to process information better. Check how you're contradicting yourself in your post when you hurry up to shut down any opinion that you don't like.

I don't need any context because we are talking about policy, and there is no rule anywhere saying I can't use an example ban to construct an argument for policy. So you sit down and read what everyone has to say respectfully, just as you expect others to take your own posts seriously and respectfully.

Anyway, let me rephrase the quote so it's easier for you to process what I was trying to say:

In a hypothetical, chaotic scenario in which a non-antag spends time on a trap which ends up being a hilarious way to deal with antagonists and there is one collateral, I think the situation should be enough to invoke the secret rule and rule 10. In this hypotetical scenario which hasn't actually happened and is only being discussed with the express purpose of getting to a policy consensus, a ban shouldn't be warranted, because, in this case, there would be no malice from the part of the perpetrator.

There, you're welcome.

[cSeal]

Instead of getting smug to do le epic own because you can't accept others opinions, try to use your own brain to process information better. Check how you're contradicting yourself in your post when you hurry up to shut down any opinion that you don't like.

I'm perfectly capable of talking to people who have a different opinion
The issue is half the posts in this thread start with "Urhm i dont have the full context but this ban sux lol!!!" and end with "a ban in this specific case isnt warranted!", including the one you were quoting in your first response. I apologize if I incorrectly assumed that you were doing the same thing, but rereading your post it still seems to me like you were vague posting about the ban

Anyway, let me rephrase the quote so it's easier for you to process what I was trying to say:

Go fuck yourself

In a hypothetical, chaotic scenario in which a non-antag spends time on a trap which ends up being a hilarious way to deal with antagonists and there is one collateral, I think the situation should be enough to invoke the secret rule and rule 10. In this hypotetical scenario which hasn't actually happened and is only being discussed with the express purpose of getting to a policy consensus, a ban shouldn't be warranted, because, in this case, there would be no malice from the part of the perpetrator.

Disagree. There are multiple situations that fit within your hypothetical scenario that would still, to me, not really always be acceptable. You really shouldn't be able to make a death trap in the main halls that ends up killing all the antags and some bystanders just because comms are down and medbay was bombed, for example, but that's still a pretty chaotic situation
Malice would also probably be determined by their note history, how public the trap is, general behavior in the round, the reaction to innocents who get caught in the trap etc... y'know, the additional context that admins investigate before coming to a decision

[Agux909]

In a hypothetical, chaotic scenario in which a non-antag spends time on a trap which ends up being a hilarious way to deal with antagonists and there is one collateral, I think the situation should be enough to invoke the secret rule and rule 10. In this hypotetical scenario which hasn't actually happened and is only being discussed with the express purpose of getting to a policy consensus, a ban shouldn't be warranted, because, in this case, there would be no malice from the part of the perpetrator.

Disagree. There are multiple situations that fit within your hypothetical scenario that would still, to me, not really always be acceptable. You really shouldn't be able to make a death trap in the main halls that ends up killing all the antags and some bystanders just because comms are down and medbay was bombed, for example, but that's still a pretty chaotic situation
Malice would also probably be determined by their note history, how public the trap is, general behavior in the round, the reaction to innocents who get caught in the trap etc... y'know, the additional context that admins investigate before coming to a decision

Now this looks more like a discussion. I still stand by my point and won't push it further than that. Assumming there is no history and the situation points to the non-antag having the priority focused on stopping antags and not on being a shitter, there is a grey line to walk through. Maybe it's bwoink worthy, and the admins can decide about what to do from there.

Go fuck yourself

Likewise.

[NoxVS]

I think something along the lines of the maxcap policy could be applied to this.

As a hater of bombs I think max caps are ok to use if the station is gonna be owned from the thing you’re bombing so things like nuke ops if it appears they’re winning, cult is fine, anything where it looks like the station is going to be btfo’d if the thing is allowed to live (I’d even consider murderboners fair game if they’ve proven too much for security). As long as you can justify with your imperfect information I can’t really fault you for it.

Blob being immune to bombs would be harder to justify but those can usually be communicated between everyone easier.

Obviously this can't be exactly used 1:1 but I think it would serve as a useful guide.

[Farquaar]

I'm perfectly capable of talking to people who have a different opinion

[citation needed]

[Stickymayhem]

Based purely on the scenario outlined with no extenuating factors this seems reasonable to do and I'd even encourage it if done correctly. It's a clever use of game mechanics to achieve a more interesting outcome than hiding in space lasering revs.

The example ratio of 5 revs storming the bridge to one officer is reasonable and demonstrates that the trap served its intended purpose, so future traps can do the same. Now there is an element of luck here too so when you do this and it goes catastrophically wrong you need to take responsibility for that. If you maxcap a wizard and it turns out ten people were in court right on the other side of that wall and die too, you need to take some amount of responsibility for that even if you were ignorant. It comes with a lesser sentence in the same way manslaughter does. Now if I was ruling I'd handwave it depending on the situation as per The Secret Rule so the best thing you can do if you do want to do these things is ahelp first, or make it so entertaining no one in their right mind would ban you.

I would argue the scenario as outlined falls into that category because you don't see an angry vending machine sleepbox every day