Friendly antagonists

[YuiY1997]

One issue I feel strongly about is the overabundance of "Friendly" antagonists, especially on our MRP servers. While I like the idea of giving antagonists options when it comes to how they antagonize the crew, and to what extent they want to harm the crew, I don't think there should be people using antagonist as a means to acquire gamer loot. Friendly antags are too often just players with powergamer gear doing their normal job.

Antagonists are essential to the progression of a round and as such I feel like they need to do their job, which is to antagonize the crew. If players do not want to antagonize the crew, there is a reason rolling for antag is a game preference setting. Antag is not forced on anyone at roundstart. A lot of people would say this isn't a good idea because you "shouldn't be forcing people to play a certain way", but much like a head role it's something you opt into and have to take certain responsibility for.

In MRP settings, murderbone is against the rules and I can understand why some are apprehensive to go all in when it comes to antagging, but there are a lot more options to antagonize the crew than just killing and I often don't even see people do that. I believe in antags making room for RP, but to make RP happen they need to give the crew something to react to. Their job is to drive the story and create interactions and often times they fail to do so under the current antag policy.

tl;dr I think something like the "you must actively antagonize the crew" from Bay12 would be healthy for the game, and especially MRP.

[Mothblocks]

Roleplay rules--rule 5 precedent:

You do not have to act in a nefarious or evil way, but you should make an effort to add to the round in some capacity.

[YuiY1997]

Roleplay rules--rule 5 precedent:

You do not have to act in a nefarious or evil way, but you should make an effort to add to the round in some capacity.

oh so the problem is that it's not really enforced?

edit: I'd also like to argue that you should have to do something at least somewhat malicious, or at the very least illegal as an antag. Of course leaving room for various levels of severity and/or silliness.

[Jonathan Gupta]

you already do illegal shit as a antag(Steal, hold contraband, and other shit)

[Mothblocks]

oh so the problem is that it's not really enforced?

Maybe, I don't min Manuel enough to actually know, and I do agree it doesn't mention antagonism specifically. I figured it was at the very least a good start for the discussion, nonetheless.

[YuiY1997]

you already do illegal shit as a antag(Steal, hold contraband, and other shit)

The problem is that they are not doing these things.

[mrmelbert]

I'm not really convinced there's an overabundance of "friendly antagging" on Manuel currently. Would you happen to have any examples of what you've been seeing? Not asking for concrete names and round IDs, but just general situations.
It used to be a MAJOR problem but it's definitely much rarer nowadays than the past. And I don't see anything on par with what antagonists used to do ("I'm a ling, i'll help sec") because we bwoink that (usually).

Maybe there's a problem in that not all people who roll antagonist are...very good at providing constant antagonism? But it's extremely difficult to accomplish such a thing and I don't expect every player manage it.

[YuiY1997]

I'm not really convinced there's an overabundance of "friendly antagging" on Manuel currently. Would you happen to have any examples of what you've been seeing? Not asking for concrete names and round IDs, but just general situations.
It used to be a MAJOR problem but it's definitely much rarer nowadays than the past. And I don't see anything on par with what antagonists used to do ("I'm a ling, i'll help sec") because we bwoink that (usually).

Maybe there's a problem in that not all people who roll antagonist are...very good at providing constant antagonism? But it's extremely difficult to accomplish such a thing and I don't expect every player manage it.

I think the bigger issue is that the roleplaying rules precedent just says you "need to do something" which frankly might be too broad. If it were something that was currently against the rules, I would have ahelped it. That's why I brought it to policy discussion. I think the current policy is not good at getting players to generate quality rounds as antagonist.

The biggest example of this recently was the other day there was a "friendly" malf AI that just used all the borgs to build a structure off station instead of actually do anything to antagonize the crew. This particular player also forbade their borgs from doing things to antagonize the crew and instead tasked them all with the construction of the off-site structure. This is withing in the current rules and precedents, but literally fucking off from the station and not antagonizing the crew seems like pretty bad antagging. Another example was less so a friendly antag, but someone that rolled wizard roundstart and took far too long to actually do anything.

I think the title of this thread might not be very descriptive as to what I mean specifically. My issue is that the current policy on what antagonists are expected to do is too vague and leads to people just being crewmembers+. I think the line should be crossed a little earlier than actively AIDING the station's security's forces and distributing antag gear to nonantags for no reason.

[Cobby]

we cant enforce it either way if people dont report it (i mean we could but the rate at which that gets addressed is goign to be slower obv).

even if the metric is changed, what would that look like? you have to do X by Y time? Its a bit hard to enforce anymore than the current ruling imo.

[YuiY1997]

we cant enforce it either way if people dont report it (i mean we could but the rate at which that gets addressed is goign to be slower obv).

even if the metric is changed, what would that look like? you have to do X by Y time? Its a bit hard to enforce anymore than the current ruling imo.

It's a bit difficult to answer that question because what qualifies as "Actively antagonizing the crew" can mean different things to different people and can change in scale according to server pop. What I'm asking for is VAGUE but the current ruling is just slightly better than "go do whatever." I think having policy in place that encourages antags to actively do things instead of be passive is a good thing. I don't think we should be banning people for not being gamer enough, and it's hard to ahelp when you don't know who the antags are (especially if they aren't acting like antags).

This is just setting a new standard as to what antagonists should be doing in a round, which similar to the current policy is a guideline. This is about having slightly stricter quality standards on antags, and also trying to encourage antags that make opportunities for the crew to react and RP with.

Sorry if I'm not being very clear, but the current policy is basically a vibe check and I don't want to suggest rocking the boat too much.

[Farquaar]

Friendly antagonists are the worst, except when they're not.
They're usually really boring though, and should be discouraged whenever possible.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

I think the bigger issue is that the roleplaying rules precedent just says you "need to do something" which frankly might be too broad. If it were something that was currently against the rules, I would have ahelped it. That's why I brought it to policy discussion. I think the current policy is not good at getting players to generate quality rounds as antagonist.

The biggest example of this recently was the other day there was a "friendly" malf AI that just used all the borgs to build a structure off station instead of actually do anything to antagonize the crew. This particular player also forbade their borgs from doing things to antagonize the crew and instead tasked them all with the construction of the off-site structure. This is withing in the current rules and precedents, but literally fucking off from the station and not antagonizing the crew seems like pretty bad antagging. Another example was less so a friendly antag, but someone that rolled wizard roundstart and took far too long to actually do anything.

I think the title of this thread might not be very descriptive as to what I mean specifically. My issue is that the current policy on what antagonists are expected to do is too vague and leads to people just being crewmembers+. I think the line should be crossed a little earlier than actively AIDING the station's security's forces and distributing antag gear to nonantags for no reason.

Heya, the AI in question was wanting to reply to this, but wasn't able to get their account to link properly. MSO's been notified, but in the meantime I've been asked to convey a message for them.

“Hi its me the malf ai in question here. Just would like to clear up some stuff from my perspective.

I did not have any intention of being a “friendly malf ai” the thing is, I’ve been here for only about a two threeish months. In this time I have solely mained ai, and I’ve got about 300 hours in it.

And in this short amount of time I am already rather bored with Deltaing or silently borg machining everyone.

Thing is, I know a lot of people hate force borging. I know at least three players with OOC discomfort with it. I know many more than three (on manuel at least) would ghost after being sent through a borg machine. (Even still, I use it tactfully)

Deltaing is worse, I like the idea thematically of an epic Satellite battle, which is why I do it from time to time when I DO roll malf. But thing is, as someone in the discord said, “its a shitty jojo fight where each combatant ones up one another. Deltaing is just a checklist of every weakness you have. (Again, I will still do it when I think it can add to the round)

I used to hate malf ai because in my eyes, all i could do with it was murderbone. but now I realize its usefulness. It is actually the only antag, where a single mind is in direct control of a bunch of people. I think thats a lot of potential. Room for some massive antag gimmicks. Six engiborgs building up a massive fortress for me sounds brilliant.

So when I roll malf, I use it to antag in ways I deem better than deltaing or assimilation.

I hosted a dating show where the contestants could win my hand or be borged.

The round you’re talking about, with the construction project was a zoo, once it was done I was going to kidnap the crew and force them to be its occupants.

I’m sorry but I think thats just a better way to antag.

And the borg in question who defied me to go “antag” well all they did was grief the shuttle. I don’t consider that good antaging, so I forbade it.

[Shadowflame909]

Friendly antagonists are the worst, except when they're not.
They're usually really boring though, and should be discouraged whenever possible.

Maybe with that rule 3 change, admins can spam erts to radicalize the antag into acting like an antag.

► Show Spoiler

Although knowing friendly wizards. They'll just kill their aggressors and then go back to acting like their not the main progressing force of the round

[JusticeGoat]

If the round gets boring ill sometimes help with that. more rules to force people to play a certain way is lame

[Pandarsenic]

I hate when antags just wanna be friends but you have to allow that if you're going to allow antags to pretend to be friendly until a timely betrayal.

[thgvr]

I saw a traitor ask nicely to kill someone, plant a calling card, take the calling card out after collecting TC, burn the calling card, and revive the person they killed

Very interesting stuff

[Djaubb]

((Warning long post ahead, you can skip to TL;DR and Edit, balance issue not policy issue.))

I'll give you my 2cents, I play on Terry so things may be different, but eh, I see a lot of friendly antags too.

As someone doing the "friendly antag" thingy, it's only for some antags and for some reasons:

- Traitor: since the progression thingy it's got just annoying to go full baddy. Before, I could take some tot items, prepare few things in my department, and then do the objectives, and if I was discovered or died then okey. Now, if I want certain items, either I have to do obvious tot objectives or wait 20mins? Like, the amount of reputation the objectives gives is too small... you have to do a few ones at the risk of being discovered near shift start, or you just wait and do other stuff in the meantime.
Of course I prefer to wait and use my TCs for fun. Maybe an objective here and there. Problem is, the objectives don't really push you toward aggressivity. Killing objectives don't come often (at least for me), and they are not worth it (compared to doing multiple stealth ones), and then again, you can wait for your reputation to rise by itself. I see a lot of friendly antags doing the same thing, some literally asking the head to let the in their office for [INSERT DUMB REASON, A BIT RP BUT YOU KNOW ITS TO PUT A BUG]. New objectives kind of push you to be stealthy and to buy items for it. Of course most of the time I keep TCs to bomb the shuttle but that's it.

-Revs: Serioulsy, I hate revs and deactivated them but you still can be converted. When you are converted rev, A LOT OF TIME, at least on Terry, the headrev doesn't explain to you how they want to do it/if a lot of players have been converted. You stand at a strange point where you are antag, but if you do antag thing you can fuck up the revolution. Opposite point, I wait to know when to attack the head of the department, the headrev goes alone and obviously die. So sometime I won't engage in rev actions because I don't care, I'll just go with the flow and before I know it, it's too late, the only last headrev is afk in a locker/dying alone.

Cultist: similar thing to revs. I didn't activate it, get converted, I don't know if we are supposed to be stealthy or not but it doesn't matter I'm already alone in maint. Okey well I'll just wait it out. Especially because I'm not really interested in cultists and I don't know any of their mechanics.

Malf AI: Since ModSuits I play A LOT of shift where roboticists don't build borgs/shells even when asked. They do modsuits/people break-in to do modsuits, and when they are done, well it's mech time. Why bother going all out when I have 1 or 2 borgs and no shell? You know it's already lost. So, I do my objectives if there is an opportunity, but eh, doesn't matter.

The worsts being revs and cultists. I don't really find them engaging, especially because most of the time I start rounds with goals in mind, and becoming antag after 20/30minutes in these personals objectives is just.... annoying. I just did half a shift of preparations for nothing... cool...

Others antags are okey because they have truly defined objectives and means to attain them.

Tho we still see from time to time the cringe friendly wizard, and that, I can't understand why. Wizard start with all its kit and objectives, they can do fun gimmicks and have an exciting round, but no. "hello i need to kill x" and then they are a sort of weird mix between an assistant and a walking nuke.

TL;DR: Some antags are forced, other are RNG reliant (tot:objectives/TCsales), other depends of how the round unfold. Some antagonists are not really pushed toward aggressivity, or not enough. But, down the line, you can't force people to be aggresive. Some people wants to have fun with differents tools (wiz/tots items) once in a while but are not bloodthirsty and won't go past the game's objectives.
Of course the opposite happen, I sometime get round-removed less than 1 minute in because the guy that spawned with me just want to murderbone. Its not fun either.

Edit: while re-reading my post I thought I wasn’t clear enough.
It's not a policy issue and shouldn't be enforced by admin.
It's a coding/balance issue paired with the inherent differences in behaviour from people to people.

The ways I see to fix this "issue" is purely code wise:
- More engaging and aggressive objectives for tots; killing 1 person as a wizard doesn't push you to go all out, killing a whole department do. Malf AI, same. Reputation with a lot of stealth objectives is the same issue.
- Green Text Coins: do metacurrency linked to account you get by greentexting. Players would be more likely to engage in tot objectives, maybe the coins could be used as antag tokens or event (station traits/activate random event) tokens, or maybe just special cosmetic stuff at roundstart.


I'm not putting more ideas here because it's a policy thread not coding idea, but you get the gist. The game should push antagonists toward aggressivity or at least to give a good reason to greentext.

Asking admis to enforce aggressivity shows that there is an underlying problem.

[NamelessFairy]

Friendly antagonists are already against the rules in our roleplay ruleset. On our standard servers antagonists are permitted to act as they see fit under rule 4 and thus are allowed to be friendly if they so choose.

Headmin Votes:
NamelessFairy: Agree
Dragomagol: Agree
RaveRadbury: Agree