What exactly is the point of rule 12?

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Tarhalindur
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What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by Tarhalindur » #661353

I just want to ask this because I'm not 100% sure of the reasoning behind it but I am pretty sure that there are better options to solving whatever that problem is.

Why does rule 12 need to exist?
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by Timberpoes » #661358

It's a special edge case rule. It has very little practical application, but a lot of symbolic application.

Rule 12 basically asserts that LRP still has RP, and play-to-win "competitive win condition" fuckery that seriously impacts RP can be handled administratively.

Notable casualties of Rule 12 include zybwivcz whose entire playstyle revolved around silently arresting everyone they could see. Other include an engy that rushed a Durand **every** shift to validhunt. And another that included a CE that, while banned from security, tided a sec locker to abandon being a CE and play security instead.

However, when you have access to the ban/note database like I do, you'll see a lot of notes about "not powergaming".

Rule 12 was never intended to stop powergaming. It's not RP Rule 8. If you're an admin and you hate powergamers, go admin MRP. That's not what it's for.
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Tarhalindur
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by Tarhalindur » #661359

Isn't maximizing your progress towards a given goal literally the definition of powergaming, though? It feels like this is an anti-powergaming rule even if that's not your intention.

Plus, the latter two of those cases at least would've been against the rules anyways, to my knowledge. You're already banned from trying to hunt for antags without prior knowledge by rule 4.
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by mstachife » #661361

Tarhalindur wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:46 am Isn't maximizing your progress towards a given goal literally the definition of powergaming, though? It feels like this is an anti-powergaming rule even if that's not your intention.
Good luck finding a definition of powergaming that everyone agrees with. The problem here that I see that the rule attempts to address is a type of behavior that negatively impacts other people and the round, not a scientist rushing a toxins bomb for example.
Tarhalindur wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:46 am Plus, the latter two of those cases at least would've been against the rules anyways, to my knowledge. You're already banned from trying to hunt for antags without prior knowledge by rule 4.
"Im not hunting antags I'm just walking around in my durand that I can build as part of my job." and "I just want the sec gear in case anything happens.". That type of behavior is what the rule is intended to combat.
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by Timberpoes » #661362

Rule 12 is not about maximising your progress towards a given goal, but pursuing some competitive win-condition at the expense of everyone else in the shift.

Competitive win condition is very specific wording. When implementing the rule, we didn't want to stop people gathering items to make a cool base, or stop people that created RP opportunities through their problematic gameplay loops.

The common competitive win condition is killing all the antags. If you raid the armory and take every weapon possible to become a bodyguard, protecting your client and turning your idea into cool RP opportunities between you, sec and antags - Rule 12 doesn't apply. You're not ruining RP, you're creating RP. That's still true even if you systematically kill every single antag in the shift while protecting your client. Because it's not killing RP, but creating it.

If you raid the armory and take every weapon, then go around wordlessly killing and batonning everyone that does anything antagonistic, just to execute them because you can - Rule 12 will likely apply. Even though you can do anything you like to antags as per Rule 4, your gameplay loop is NRP play-to-win shittery and has no place on LRP under Rule 12.

Does that make any sense?
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by Tarhalindur » #661363

mstachife wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 1:01 am
Tarhalindur wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:46 am Plus, the latter two of those cases at least would've been against the rules anyways, to my knowledge. You're already banned from trying to hunt for antags without prior knowledge by rule 4.
"Im not hunting antags I'm just walking around in my durand that I can build as part of my job." and "I just want the sec gear in case anything happens.". That type of behavior is what the rule is intended to combat.
See the inherent problem for this is that this behavior is too vague to actually rule against. Building durands and grabbing sec gear isn't against the rules, so what you're doing is banning people based on what they intend to do with that shit which is impossible to prove.

And does building the Durand every shift change much? Imo if it can be done once without breaking the rules it wasn't disruptive to that round, so is there really a difference if it happens in 1 or 100 rounds?
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by Timberpoes » #661364

(Note that admins are globally not all experts at writing notes or ban reasons. And that admins are globally not all experts on Rule 12. You may find a lot of Rule 12 notes overturned for not being Rule 12, or reassigned to some other rule. Players just don't bother appealing them.)
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by serxule » #661400

Tarhalindur wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 1:11 am
And does building the Durand every shift change much? Imo if it can be done once without breaking the rules it wasn't disruptive to that round, so is there really a difference if it happens in 1 or 100 rounds?
if someone spends their time building a durand every round and walks around the station with it just to hunt for antags, thats a break of rule 12, an engineer making a side project of say a robotics lab and making a durand in that lab, but not using it as they continue working on other things (even if they do this every round) is not a break of rule 12, its how the gear gets used is what constitutes
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by mstachife » #661403

Tarhalindur wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:46 am
See the inherent problem for this is that this behavior is too vague to actually rule against. Building durands and grabbing sec gear isn't against the rules, so what you're doing is banning people based on what they intend to do with that shit which is impossible to prove.

And does building the Durand every shift change much? Imo if it can be done once without breaking the rules it wasn't disruptive to that round, so is there really a difference if it happens in 1 or 100 rounds?
Incorrect.. almost all rule 12 bans that I'm aware of are due to consistent behavior. As was the case with those examples. Thus they're pretty darn easy to prove if the person is literally doing it every round.

Do you think that dealing with those sort of issues are a bad thing? Cause if I have to explain why the same person wordlessly making a kited out mech for 100 rounds in a row so they can go hunt antags is bad we're probably going to disagree on a good deal about the game.
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by Fikou » #661424

Tarhalindur wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 1:11 am And does building the Durand every shift change much? Imo if it can be done once without breaking the rules it wasn't disruptive to that round, so is there really a difference if it happens in 1 or 100 rounds?
yes, there is a lot of behavior that is fine once or twice in some time, but will get you in trouble if its something you repeat every single round.
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by Tarhalindur » #661432

mstachife wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 5:44 am
Tarhalindur wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 12:46 am
See the inherent problem for this is that this behavior is too vague to actually rule against. Building durands and grabbing sec gear isn't against the rules, so what you're doing is banning people based on what they intend to do with that shit which is impossible to prove.

And does building the Durand every shift change much? Imo if it can be done once without breaking the rules it wasn't disruptive to that round, so is there really a difference if it happens in 1 or 100 rounds?
Incorrect.. almost all rule 12 bans that I'm aware of are due to consistent behavior. As was the case with those examples. Thus they're pretty darn easy to prove if the person is literally doing it every round.

Do you think that dealing with those sort of issues are a bad thing? Cause if I have to explain why the same person wordlessly making a kited out mech for 100 rounds in a row so they can go hunt antags is bad we're probably going to disagree on a good deal about the game.
Well, no, I actually do understand why you want to ban it. However I think this is less about RP like is often claimed (since what is "good RP" is practically impossible to define) and more about fun. And I agree with you that a lot of those scenarios make the game less fun.

That said, something still doesn't seem...right about this solution. I still need to think about it some, but it just kind of feels like a bandaid, you know? Might post here later with my thoughts.
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by Agux909 » #661439

Rule 12 does indeed feel like a bandaid. A temporary solution to make the gameplay loop and expectations of our LRP servers lean more into our current MRP ones, without fully getting there, and this is not necessarily bad.

A middle ground between LRP and Manuel would be in my eyes the ideal, sweet spot for LRP to be in right now.
If the culture shifts enough with this rule in place, we won't even need it in the future.
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by nianjiilical » #661459

the thing you have to realize is that a lot of the admin team is actually really hesitant to ban people that are objectively making the game worse if we can't nail down a specific rule they're breaking, because we know the community has a lot of standards and opinions on these sorts of bans and the general expectation of what is and isnt good gameplay/roleplay varies a lot between different players/admins

its like if you worked at mcdonalds and some guy showed up every single day, stood across the street and held up signs calling you a shit eating dumbass and making crude gestures while staring at you through the window every day for a month. on one hand he isnt breaking any of the rules of mcdonalds and its not illegal to stand outside and call someone a dumbass but on the other hand he is very obviously being a huge asshole and should be removed

rule 12 is for people like that: players who have consistently over a long period of time shown to make the experience worse as a whole for other players with how they act and play, but who technically aren't actually breaking any normal rules. it's a written tenant we can point to to justify intervening with players who deserve the intervention in our minds even if we know a lot of the playerbase might disagree with the judgement

(and for whats its worth there have been a lot of times when multiple admins have all agreed someone needs talking to but nobody feels confident or comfortable actually *doing* it, which leads to problem players making rounds worse for far longer than they should simply because nobody has a solid case against them under the other rules_

basically ss13 is a roleplaying game and admins are also game masters, and sometimes we need to step in and tell people they're making the giant dnd table worse for everyone even when its less a single rule theyre breaking and more just the bad vibes they exude, and rule 12 is something we can point to to justify it
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by mstachife » #661460

Tarhalindur wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 1:29 pm That said, something still doesn't seem...right about this solution. I still need to think about it some, but it just kind of feels like a bandaid, you know? Might post here later with my thoughts.
Well, yeah if you think about it every rule after rule 1 is basically a band-aid intended to stop a specific behavior. This is one that provides a route for admins to deal with people who are toeing the line with regards to other rules as was said in the examples above. It's vague by design to allow a degree of flexibility.
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by Rohen_Tahir » #661464

It's a very pointy rule.
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by Misdoubtful » #661495

Its worth considering OG rule 3 from the very first wiki rules that lasted until a rules rewrite on 28 January 2015 where it became rule 4, and finally died during a serious overhaul on 12 August 2015:
3. This is a roleplaying game. The purpose of the game is to have fun roleplaying. Being an asshole, who ruins other player’s roleplay experience, just to win, is considered a ‘play-to-win’ style of playing. You can and will be banned for this playstyle. Be considerate of other players’ experience.
Compared to the current 12:
This is a sandbox roleplaying game

The purpose of the game is to have fun roleplaying. Play-to-win gameplay that ruins the purpose of the game at the expense of others is against the rules.

Playing-to-win is to focus exclusively on a competitive victory condition, such as killing all antagonists. It is not empowering yourself to achieve personal goals, or taking measures to survive the shift

Taking a few items beyond what you need to do your job is usually fine, especially if they're not needed by anyone else. Examples of okay items to take include taking a medkit from the public Medbay lobby or the insulated gloves from tech storage. Hoarding lots of station resources for poor reasons may break this rule and be handled administratively.

Genuine conflict with other players does not ruin the purpose of the game. Player conflicts will continue to be administrated in line with Escalation Rules.
Its as much a band-aid as it is a in your face sanctioned approach towards dealing with very specific behaviors proven to detract from the intended environment. In a way, the OG ruling clarifies the intended target with a bit more directness.

It didn't/doesn't say anything about just powergaming in general (optimizing for your success), it instead targets people specifically doing certain things in certain ways that negatively impact the game environment in the ways listed (in both versions).

I'd love to know why it wasn't kept during that big overhaul and had to be brought back years later, but I suppose I'll never know. It feels weird to call it a band-aid though, its more like finding something that got misplaced for a while.
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Re: What exactly is the point of rule 12?

Post by spookuni » #664071

Rule 12 is meant to deal with chronic gameplay patterns that ruin everyone's fun. Many things can be fun and interesting as a one-off or occasional gimmick. When individuals consistently and at all costs put mechanics and kill counts over community-based interaction rule 12 is applied for the sake of community health.

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