Traitor Security

[Sometinyprick]

I think this should be a thing, haven't discussed this yet with fellow headmins but I'd like to see how players feel about this
Basically three options
Traitor security and heads.
Same thing as normal antags do whatever
Special rules for playing as an antag when Captain/Security
Essentially a limiting factor as to what traitor security can do such as arresting random people and beating them to death in a cell, I don't like this personally but it would be nice to see what people think.
Nope

I don't see why we need to trust security or the captain implicitly one of the themes of ss13 is paranoia and creating roles that we should have complete trust in takes away from that atmosphere and makes the game less interesting.

EDIT Some pros and cons which Kor pointed out
Pros:
-Can talk your way out of jail (he framed me!), jailbreaks can be organized by traitor wardens, etc
-Answering “valid” to a greytider executed by a traitor HoS is the most rewarding experience possible as an admin
-Vigilante officers, dirty cops, detectives tampering with crime scenes. More paranoia, less meta tests. Things will be uncertain
-Possibility of riots, uprisings vs corrupt security, etc (which I guess could be a con as well)
-More people will play security if they’re no longer throwing away their antag chance

Cons:
-People will be highly confused by traitor sec at first, the meta will take time to adjust
-Game balance is geared around security vs antags. With most improvised weapons nerfed, it may be harder for the crew to stop a rampaging traitor officer. Changeling with a starting baton would make people upset I’m sure. Would be better to add more ways to respawn though
-People will have to take shit into their own hands more (I don’t think this is actually bad, but there seems to be a strong anti-vigilante push)
-More work for admins. Players can not make perfect judgement calls all the time, innocent people will get robusted.
-Gulag would need to be removed so officers can’t easily remove bodies from the Z level. Same deal with officer maint access probably.

[Saegrimr]

Maybe on a server where people give a shit about roleplay, otherwise no thanks.

[Steelpoint]

Saegrimr makes a good point, traitor sec/command would be acceptable if the server was held to a far higher standard of role play, because in that case we would not have scenarios where officers would turn on one another on the drop of a hat.

If we were to return to sec antag all we would see is a decline in Security competence as good players would stop playing security due to the impossible pressure the role would have. No one would trust you, everyone would go out of their way to interferer with any arrest you make and you would never be able to trust anyone, not even your own fellow officers.

Security antag drives the kind of people we want out of security and encourages people who want a easier antag experience to play security. Furthermore it stigmatises security even further since why bother playing as sec when you can just be a assistant with a stun prod when said assistant is not at the same level of stress and personal risk in game.

It is anti-fun and if you want to destroy any ground gained in the competence, and trust, that security has gained, then giving sec antag status back is exactly how you erode both.

[Stickymayhem]

I still think this is a terrible idea.

We genuinely can't trust that enough people aren't going to bother to make things at all interesting.

Security is a lot better than it used to be. The only people who want to play it are the people who believe they are good at it. This may mean a lower population but for the most difficult job on the station this is expected.

I think a lot of people appreciate this simplicity, and traitors are entirely capable of infiltrating security effectively enough that they can pull a dirty cop gimmick if they really want to. Security antag should be a reward for putting the effort and taking a risk on a stealthy way to do things paying off in the trust and equipment you get.

Also, we've just been pushing to calm down the vigilantism and encourage people to use security as it's meant to be used, which more often than not stops issues going into OOC clusterfucks of escalation. This would ruin all of that in an instant.

[peoplearestrange]

Start of round antag officer/warden/hos takes all the armory and goes on unstoppable rampage.

Sec is already a shitty hard job without having to suspect your fellow officers. Plus from my perspective of IC, its the reason why all sec officers are implanted, to prevent that.

My view is anyone who starts the round with an implant should not have the possibility of being an antag.

[Cheimon]

-People will be highly confused by traitor sec at first, the meta will take time to adjust
-Game balance is geared around security vs antags. With most improvised weapons nerfed, it may be harder for the crew to stop a rampaging traitor officer. Changeling with a starting baton would make people upset I’m sure. Would be better to add more ways to respawn though
-People will have to take shit into their own hands more (I don’t think this is actually bad, but there seems to be a strong anti-vigilante push)
-More work for admins. Players can not make perfect judgement calls all the time, innocent people will get robusted.
-Gulag would need to be removed so officers can’t easily remove bodies from the Z level. Same deal with officer maint access probably.

Let's add to that list. First off, security officers and especially anyone above them (Warden, HOS) are ridiculously better geared. Changeling with a starting baton would be bad enough, but we're talking about things like tasers, a typically unblockable ranged stun, about things like flashbangs, a screen-wide deafening, blinding, and stunning grenade, about things like traitors starting off with solid armour and high quality restraints, all sorts of good things.

Second, it would make security teamwork vastly less likely, and therefore security a vastly less fun and effective department. The only reason I, as a security officer, can safely work with the rest of my team is typically because I trust them. When that trust is removed, the whole system is gutted. Teamwork is no longer fun, it's an incentive to get killed, because 90% of the time when you're attacked by a security member, the person who surprises you wins.

Third, it means nobody on the station can trust security, and so it validates greytiding. Why wouldn't you try to stop arrests if you knew that in the average round, at least one member of security was actively seeking to harm crew? There's enough trouble with people yelling that security are rogue already before actively making it valid for players to try and stop the only police force.

Ultimately, what you get is a gutted department, you get a number of players quitting security just as you get them joining (I play for the teamwork, this won't exist with antag sec), you get a station that can trust security even less and is therefore much less likely to cooperate with them, ever, you get much more greytiding, and you get a bunch of traitors with hilariously overpowered gear. Why would any of this be a good idea? You would literally in one swoop remove the only station force designed to combat antags and suggest that instead, station mobs should deal with lawbreakers (and to use your own words, "I don’t think this is actually bad, but there seems to be a strong anti-vigilante push"). That strong anti-vigilante push is because security is vastly less lethal than vigilante methods, they keep people in the round more often, and they're therefore more fun.

[Falamazeer]

Nothing is stopping a traitor from joining sec, honestly.
I like the idea if it means more competent players will join up so they don't have to exclude rolling for traitor.
But I wish it didn't mean for game balance they lose maint/gulag, can't they keep it? every job scales somewhat in usefulness, An assistant changeling is not as bad as a chemist, ever.

I say keep maint/gulag for sec, Make them antags, keep the heads un-antag-able and see what happens.

[Ikarrus]

If we do this can we let just the lower ranks of security be traitors?

Also remove their uplinks.

[Lovecraft]

I already stated my views in my thread, but still though, I'd love to see more people for this posting.

[Falamazeer]

Yeah... I voted yeah, but I feel like there should be an option for sec traitor but not heads. Just saiyan.

[Scones]

Validates vigilantes, results in a lot of shitty murderboning (Everyone has been ganked by TechnoAlchemist or even worse, Zaross, playing traitorsec - It is not fun. There is no counterplay. It is just /shit/)

Thanks but no thanks. Unless you have serious plans to cram roleplay down everyone's throat this is a fucking atrocious idea.

Traitor heads are an unrelated issue. I don't even see them as a balance problem considering people on this server have no qualms with instantly lynching their direct superior because he's probably an antagonist.

[Incoming]

I don't think traditional antag roles work with sec/heads given the attitudes of the playerbase. There should be more opportunities for sec/heads to end up antags though so playing them isn't seen as sacraficing your antag roll 90% of the time.

Currently when a round starts jobs are selected before antag status, and because of this except for a few exceptions to this rule anyone with preferences apt to land them in a sec or head roll will never be a traitor, ling, starting cultist, starting rev, or gang leader. If these selections were made before jobs were handed out, the job controller could make sure not to assign security/head to these antags to be, and no one would have to worry about giving up their chances because if they still ended up sec/head, they'd know that they got their roll in already. Obviously we'd have to shout this mechanic at the playerbase LOUDLY so people would actually turn their settings back.

We had this for a short time before. It was nice, but buggy as fuck and eventually reverted. Roundstart code is a terrible beast and I don't wish touching it on anyone, but it's pretty much the only real solution to this problem that doesn't require actually giving these jobs antag status again.

[imblyings]

Spoiler:

About three factors influence how good security is- robustness, competency and sportsmanship. What we're concerned with here is the teamwork aspect of competency. It covers looking out for each other, helping each other and the two things require an implicit trust in each other. This is important because if we look at the current problem, and how probability of latejoin security increases along with existing security, we can make a reasonable assumption that the current population of security players in fact prefer being able to have an implicit trust in each other and have someone else to rely on when shit does hit the fan. If you remove that trust, then the implication is security players may be less willing to join, which only serves to worsen the problem

Security also don't need the extra paranoia. Security already face first strike dilemmas in cult, rev,.and gang, where they are under pressure to walk a blurry line between subjective stances on what is and isn't powergamimg and not being kicked to deadchat. They are prime targets in those game modes and still experience a heightened level of conflict in the other types. As stated earlier, security players join more frequently when there is a higher amount of security on the manifest already. We can make a very reasonable assumption from that to make, about how security probably already get placed under enough pressure and only becomes more appealing when there are others to share the load. With this assumption in mind, I'm wondering why you think more paranoia and pressure is a good idea.

It's worth noting that this copypasta from the general subforum contained sentiments also expressed by other players.

I love Kor and I still do but a fair few of his pros are really just cons.

>Can talk your way out of jail (he framed me!), jailbreaks can be organized by traitor wardens, etc
It still rarely happens with job-change sec, there is nothing really stopping a traitor from taking the time to prepare for a jailbreak, we also have the greytide event. It has to be mentioned that jailbreaks will often instead be quick and ruthless killings of loyal security by a combined antag and antag/sec force, so unless you are condoning the most vicious security powergaming this server has ever seen, then this is probably not a pro.

>Answering “valid” to a greytider executed by a traitor HoS is the most rewarding experience possible as an admin
not going to dispute this one

>Vigilante officers, dirty cops, detectives tampering with crime scenes. More paranoia, less meta tests. Things will be uncertain
As stated, more paranoia is not necessarily a good thing. This doesn't mean to say that paranoia is bad, it's just that sec already deals with enough of it.

>More people will play security if they’re no longer throwing away their antag chance
You risk players unfit to play sec rolling for sec roles. The best solution is to ensure that the game picks for antags and then jobs. The second best is to introduce special security type antags.

[Sometinyprick]

Validates vigilantes, results in a lot of shitty murderboning (Everyone has been ganked by TechnoAlchemist or even worse, Zaross, playing traitorsec - It is not fun. There is no counterplay. It is just /shit/)

Thanks but no thanks. Unless you have serious plans to cram roleplay down everyone's throat this is a fucking atrocious idea.

Traitor heads are an unrelated issue. I don't even see them as a balance problem considering people on this server have no qualms with instantly lynching their direct superior because he's probably an antagonist.

I have no intention to force anything even something I like if the players it affects think it's a terrible idea.
It's the reason I made this thread

The general feedback I seem to see is that people think we lack the standard of role-play to give traitor roles to security due to the ease in which they can fuck everyone over.

[onleavedontatme]

If we do this can we let just the lower ranks of security be traitors?

Also remove their uplinks.

Their uplinks would certainly need to be restricted if nothing else. No adrenal implants, EMP implants, etc

The second best is to introduce special security type antags.

That'd probably be a better idea than straight up re-adding traitor security.

I find it very bizarre that people would rather have no traitor security at all than place any restrictions on the role. I think a middleground is possible. Maybe keep the HoS and Warden loyalists so they can watch the brig.

There is no counterplay..

Calling for help? Robusting them? The same "counterplay" against any antag?

I mean we already have an AI who can set the whole station on fire, I think getting batoned is pretty tame compared to that.

about things like flashbangs, a screen-wide deafening, blinding, and stunning grenade

Unrelated, but those should be nerfed anyway, speaking of "no counterplay." Security basically has magic missile right now.



Maybe my real issue is that security is overgeared so they can (poorly) fight aliens/nuke ops/malf AI, but horribly overgeared when it comes to stomping on traitors/revs/cultists. I know Sticky wanted "more creative antagonists" by limiting vigilantes, but I think the real barrier to being creative is praying the AI doesn't see you, report you on a channel you can't hear, and then having five officers come spam flashbangs at the death contraption you're building.

Maybe unrestricted traitor security isn't the answer (and judging by the responses so far, it isn't) but I think antag vs sec is a very boring metagame.

[Scones]

Flashbangs have a bit of counterplay but are still pretty crazy bullshit most of the time.

Maybe unrestricted traitor security isn't the answer (and judging by the responses so far, it isn't) but I think antag vs sec is a very boring metagame.

Antag vs sec is a bad metagame but so is antag + some of sec vs sec

I don't even know what the solution to the broader issue Kor brought up is. I definitely agree it's there, though. But I'm completely out of ideas as to how to fix it. It just seems really deeply ingrained into the game.

[Sometinyprick]

Flashbangs have a bit of counterplay but are still pretty crazy bullshit most of the time.

Maybe unrestricted traitor security isn't the answer (and judging by the responses so far, it isn't) but I think antag vs sec is a very boring metagame.

Antag vs sec is a bad metagame but so is antag + some of sec vs sec

I don't even know what the solution to the broader issue Kor brought up is. I definitely agree it's there, though. But I'm completely out of ideas as to how to fix it. It just seems really deeply ingrained into the game.

For me it would be a step in making the game more interesting, that is the only way to tackle a boring metagame. The game itself should always be unpredictable and never fair.
There were other points such as restricting it to the lower ranks and limiting the traitor items you can use, which to me seems like a good idea.

[Saegrimr]

For me it would be a step in making the game more interesting, that is the only way to tackle a boring metagame. The game itself should always be unpredictable and never fair.

Focusing on "the metagame" at all is what makes it a boring metagame. When you have a server full of people who would rather crunch numbers to get "the best" out of equipment, you're stuck with figuring out the meta and fighting strictly meta tactics.

Welcome to the "light" "rp" server.

[Sometinyprick]

For me it would be a step in making the game more interesting, that is the only way to tackle a boring metagame. The game itself should always be unpredictable and never fair.

Focusing on "the metagame" at all is what makes it a boring metagame. When you have a server full of people who would rather crunch numbers to get "the best" out of equipment, you're stuck with figuring out the meta and fighting strictly meta tactics.

Welcome to the "light" "rp" server.

But nobody is "crunching numbers" all I'm doing is proposing that we change something to see if it would make the game more interesting for players and I'm asking them if they think the idea should be given a go.

[MMMiracles]

Keep security antag-free, bring back traitor captain.

Full access and a license to condom led to gimmicks and all-around fun rounds. All traitor-sec brought was false arrests and harmbaton/husking in the perma bathroom.

[onleavedontatme]

Flashbangs have a bit of counterplay but are still pretty crazy bullshit most of the time.

Maybe unrestricted traitor security isn't the answer (and judging by the responses so far, it isn't) but I think antag vs sec is a very boring metagame.

Antag vs sec is a bad metagame but so is antag + some of sec vs sec

I don't even know what the solution to the broader issue Kor brought up is. I definitely agree it's there, though. But I'm completely out of ideas as to how to fix it. It just seems really deeply ingrained into the game.

We used to have antag vs antag vs crew vs greytide vs sec vs sec vs more crew vs medbay whores vs the clown vs the AI vs the comdom captain. I think it'd be hard to reintroduce now since the crew can't really fight back (whether because of rules or code changes) against a lot of antags.

I prefer when everything goes completely and horribly wrong in SS13 though, I realize that is not for everyone.

[Stickymayhem]

Of all the problems I've heard people talk about, boring metagame is not one of them.

The game has plenty enough complexity to keep rounds interesting, and even when the mechanics of the game are exhausted, there is roleplay on top.

Everything already goes wrong enough, and I'd rather see that happen through introduction of neat new gamemodes and antags than by throwing an entire department into the shitter.

[QuartzCrystal]

Nononononononononono.

Security being antags (ANY security) was painful for everyone involved. When we changed it there was basically no complaints. I don't know why this is something we're even discussing.

[tedward1337]

lmao, if you want implants to do something other then be a metagaming tool, head to bay

[DemonFiren]

lmao, if you want implants to do something other then be a metagaming tool, head to bay

Bay removed loyalty implants, they were 'too grimdark' for them. Poses no issue in Rev, since they also removed rev conversion via flashing.

[Incomptinence]

Unleash the beast. Actually it would probably be better if hos could authorize executions again, getting tied up in shitters because sos didn't want to die when he grey tided is an awful fate.

Or bring back traitor cap instead. A traitor captain was goofy and more fun than most admin events. Fact.

[Redblaze3000]

NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE.
non traitor sec now, non tator sec tomorrow, non traitor sec forever.
I've played it and agaisnt on other servers and its shit. Its too easy. Also here of all places would be ban due to the powergamey nature of most sybil players.

[bandit]

Reasons why the arguments against traitor security are invalid:
'
- When security antag was removed, the justification was that graytiding was a direct result of not being able to trust security. The increased scrutiny and sanctions on security came along with the change -- the policy, IIRC, was called Trustworthy Security. The fact that graytiding/"SEC ROGUE"/dragging off prisoners FNR did not remotely disappear when sec antag was gone -- in fact, for a while it increased tremendously thanks to SoS and his clownshow -- should have disproven this clearly. Once again: sec antag being gone is yet another change that was made under false pretenses, but kept around just because. In addition, the increased scrutiny on security contributed to the antagonistic relationship between sec and the administration/hosts that caused all that fuckton of drama not too long ago

- There are several checks on security officers already: the captain, the HoS, the warden, fellow officers, oh hey the AI -- people are seriously arguing "but the warden can steal the entire armory!" not realizing that the AI not only has sight there but a goddamn motion camera that alerts it when anyone sets foot.

- Security's weapons are no stronger than what any assistant, librarian or clown traitor can get from their uplink or from a security locker with an emag. Stunbatons? Stunprods exist. Handcuffs? Art storage is full of prospective handcuffs for anyone. Guns? Cargo can get a fuckton and people usually even play along. Even the strongest of security's tools are puny compared to what other departments get: science with bombs, gold slimes, death mechs and a fuckton of R&D goodies, engineering with the powernet, singularity, tcomms, atmos. A good indicator of this is actually, of all things, nations rounds -- the department that generally has OOC restrictions on what it can do isn't sec but engineering. Speaking of atmos, let's not forget (again) the goddamn AI, which can fairly easily turn the entire station into a death trap that regular traitors can only dream of. (Speaking of which, I don't know why cyborg traitors aren't a thing either, but that's for another topic.)

The argument against all that is that people are more likely to trust security than any of the above -- but this again is circular, because people trust security because they currently cannot be antag. That's it. That's all.

Reasons why traitor security is good:

- Artificial metagaming is bad. Security not being able to be antag is the very definition of artificial metagaming, loyalty implants being a weak justification that is inconsistent across the board. As Kor said: Antag vs. sec is a very boring and predictable metagame.

- Space Station 13 is fundamentally a game about paranoia. Otherwise, it is Office Simulator 2555 where all threats are clear and obvious. Paranoia creates fun, excitement and a sense of stakes. It can also create RP opportunities -- and the people who would boringly powergame as traitor sec would boringly powergame anyway, probably with an esword/ebow.

- Traitor sec opens up various fun, interesting and/or unique gameplay/RP possibilities such as:

-- Horrifying brig and/or gulag death camps
-- Perma fight club
-- Corrupt and/or loose-cannon officers and/or detectives
-- Suspicious fucking detectives building false cases against crew
-- Stealing high-risk items by arresting the guy who has it and putting it into "contraband" "storage"
-- Assistant/clown/lizard purges
-- Jailbreaks actually having a purpose rather than le gray le tide
-- Lawyers actually having reasons to argue for prisoners and trials, instead of being useless because everyone's probably automatically guilty
-- Actually being able to deal with grayshits in the fashion they deserve with no one being able to say anything

[onleavedontatme]

The game has plenty enough complexity to keep rounds interesting

Most players do not have the luxury of being able to ghost and hit buttons, and they are restricted by the rules and game mechanics.

They also don't have as much leeway for their IC behavior as admins do.

And I don't mean this as "hurr fuck admins," it's simply my observation from going back and forth between admin and player for years.

[imblyings]

> in fact, for a while it increased tremendously thanks to SoS and his clownshow -- should have disproven this clearly.

You've just argued against yourself. If there was a heightened level of greytiding because of SoS, and not anything else, then grey tiding was going to go on the decline and you couldn't have expected greytiding to immediately go away as a problem anyway. It has now, in any case.

> In addition, the increased scrutiny on security contributed to the antagonistic relationship between sec and the administration/hosts

I see you trotting out this line of argument a lot but I'd like to see you point out to exactly what antagonistic relationship between sec and admin/hosts exists today. A bunch of admins have already responded about not wanting sec antags from almost a sympathetic point of view.

>There are several checks on security officers already: the captain, the HoS, the warden, fellow officers, oh hey the AI

There are no checks against stabbing all of security in the back. Being an assistant vigilante would be preferable to having a target painted on your back for both antags and sec antags, you don't seem to understand this.

>Artificial metagaming is bad. Security not being able to be antag is the very definition of artificial metagaming

Good catchphrases. The server already allows for players to know everything, OOC 'artifical metagaming' already exists in the form of policy such as temporary loss of thinking skills when spessmen think about where syndies come from. The only detriment you've pointed out has to be weighed against all the others against antag sec. Trust, teamwork, being able to have someone else to rely on, are all immensely enjoyable aspects of the game that lead to good 'RP' opportunities. You're going to have to explain why a slight loss of opportunities elsewhere outweigh all of those aspects.

>Space Station 13 is fundamentally a game about paranoia.

Apparently not, since different servers approach the game differently, and /tg/ has settled into something involving doing your job placidly, doing gimmicks or projects for fun, playing with people you recognize, hunting down antags or fleeing from antags. Paranoia has already been touched upon by other players and the general consensus is that security already operates under a lot of paranoia- threats are not clear and obvious like you've stated for some reason.

>Traitor sec opens up various fun, interesting and/or unique gameplay/RP possibilities such as:

Most of these can happen with job change security and you're still under the hilarious impression that lawyers will ever be useful under sec or under antag sec.

>kor
>Most players do not have the luxury of being able to ghost and hit buttons, and they are restricted by the rules and game mechanics.

You're right, the game does get boring after a while. Fuck, I've gone through this, any player who's played enough of SS13 will go through this unless they've found something they really like. But like Sticky said, the logical solution here is to add more gamemodes and antags, or even try out the mulligan more, because players as a whole have yet to really deal with multi-antag rounds.

Still I'd be open to some loose cannon type sec antags. They should be able to run most of the apparently wonderful things we've been denied because of no antag sec without alienating other players from the role.

edit

About the only condition I can see that might allow full sec antags to come back is to remove the restrictions on vigilantes. Assistants and just about anyone else would be free to hunt and kill antags like before and to be honest, admins would may have to go hands off on people yelling things like 'sec rogue' for the slightest of suspicion. Most communities- most groups of humans that do something together, often go through an era of laissez faire wildness and gradually settle into an era of stability as things get codified, rules get established etc. Sec antag being removed is not a strange idea if you think of it that way. It's a trade-off between stability and freedom. Communities either then remain stable through new blood keeping the population mixed between new and old players constantly learning and teaching/contributing and receiving new things to keep it fresh or decline as things grind down into a pattern without any new blood to stop serious circlejerks from happening. We also need to learn from what happened in the past and not do it again.

I guess what I'm saying is there has been a major change to the server in how things play out. Going back to the gold old days may or may not work with the incredibly high amount of game mechanic knowledge and experience now entrenched into the playerbase. One of the major arguments for sec antag was to keep things fresh and I can understand that but a price will have to be paid for that sort of freedom. Then there's the question as to whether there are better solutions than sec antag to keep a community fresh and entertained and therefore not possibly go into a decline. I would say yes, given that we've got some new game modes and the mulligan and that a far better solution for this community would be to keep this stability and instead entice more new players to want to learn how to contribute new things, instead of reaching back for sec antag.

[bandit]

You've just argued against yourself. If there was a heightened level of greytiding because of SoS, and not anything else, then grey tiding was going to go on the decline and you couldn't have expected greytiding to immediately go away as a problem anyway. It has now, in any case.

No I haven't. My argument is that contrary to what anti-sec antag people always scream, the level of greytiding exists independently of whether security can be antag or not. There is little to no correlation. And the two largest variables recently are A) a major graytider and his graytiding friends leaving or finally copping bans, and B) the assistant cap, which is almost singlehandedly responsible for "it has now," not anything having to do with security. This should be plainly obvious, anyway; the average greytider doesn't give a shit whether security is antag. they just want to grief and will justify it however they think they can get away with it.

I see you trotting out this line of argument a lot but I'd like to see you point out to exactly what antagonistic relationship between sec and admin/hosts exists today. A bunch of admins have already responded about not wanting sec antags from almost a sympathetic point of view.

The past six months?

(a fuckton of threads related to SoS and security that unfortunately got deleted in the forum hack, but trust me, there were a lot)

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1891
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1372
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2079
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1337
https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1494

There are no checks against stabbing all of security in the back. Being an assistant vigilante would be preferable to having a target painted on your back for both antags and sec antags, you don't seem to understand this.

The checks against stabbing all of security in the back are the same as the checks against stabbing the rest of any other department in the back, except your targets are far more armed, harder to take down and likely to attract much more attention when they disappear/their mutilated body and/or husk shows up.

Good catchphrases. The server already allows for players to know everything, OOC 'artifical metagaming' already exists in the form of policy such as temporary loss of thinking skills when spessmen think about where syndies come from. The only detriment you've pointed out has to be weighed against all the others against antag sec. Trust, teamwork, being able to have someone else to rely on, are all immensely enjoyable aspects of the game that lead to good 'RP' opportunities. You're going to have to explain why a slight loss of opportunities elsewhere outweigh all of those aspects.

I'm using "metagaming" in its non-catchphrase sense: taking advantage of knowledge of game mechanics and/or the standard behavior of the sort of people who play 2D spessmens. This is different from players "knowing everything", as that is in-character knowledge that makes sense IC. Syndies come from the Syndicate, they send a shuttle, they generally use XYZ kind of gear, all checks out. There is no consistent IC reason for security to be 100% non-antags besides the current server policies and configs. Loyalty implants are inconsistent as fuck as any kind of IC reasoning, so they don't count. Generally speaking, metagaming is bannable in most cases and highly discouraged otherwise -- unless it's security antag, in which case it's essentially forced. Policy should be consistent.

In other words, it's the difference between "any assistant is allowed to know the Syndicate exists" (which is not an example of what I am talking about), "any assistant is allowed to know that the Syndicate shuttle will always spawn in one of six Z-level locations, if it exists" (which is clearly metagaming, and is bannable), and "any assistant is allowed to know that the HoP will never spawn as roundstart cultist" (which is clearly metagaming, but not only not bannable but expected, even argued for by anti-traitor security types).

As for trust, trust should be something that is earned. Instant trust is boring, both as a gameplay mechanic and an RP element. It is immensely more satisfying to trust somebody because they've proven themselves trustworthy than to trust somebody because there's a 0% guaranteed chance it'll go wrong, and immensely satisfying to have that leap of faith work out. And, shit, it's immensely satisfying in its own way even to be backstabbed at the last minute by your buddy -- there's a reason why this shows up often in all the stories threads, and not just by the guy who did it.

Apparently not, since different servers approach the game differently, and /tg/ has settled into something involving doing your job placidly, doing gimmicks or projects for fun, playing with people you recognize, hunting down antags or fleeing from antags. Paranoia has already been touched upon by other players and the general consensus is that security already operates under a lot of paranoia- threats are not clear and obvious like you've stated for some reason.

The key word is "settled"; what you are describing is a combination of Office Simulator 2555, desperately trying to break up the monotony of Office Simulator 2555 (and sometimes succeeding, though more due to sheer creativity/autism than anything), essentially turning spessmens into a chat room, validhunting or responding to antags, which is not the game I signed on to play.

As for the rest, once again, I have to imagine you don't play security. Every time I have played security, either things are remarkably quiet or antags have gone loud, and though it might not be clear where Urist McDoubleEsword has fucked off to or who set off a syndicate bomb on the bridge, it's generally pretty clear who's suspicious and who's not unless you latejoin. The only unclear elements are the new game modes (which I like, mostly because they foster paranoia) or whether Urist McShitter is an antag or just a grayshit -- which undermines your own argument that tiding has gone away.

Most of these can happen with job change security and you're still under the hilarious impression that lawyers will ever be useful under sec or under antag sec.

You're right, most of these can happen with job change security -- but people are reluctant to allow job change security because they know roundstart security officers can't be antag and job change security can, and in every round with job change security someone will point out, truthfully, that the only people who ask to be changed to sec are antags. It's artificial metagaming again.

Still I'd be open to some loose cannon type sec antags. They should be able to run most of the apparently wonderful things we've been denied because of no antag sec without alienating other players from the role.

I like this in theory but in practice this will be metagamed as "the new security role that only exists to be antag." Unless you're talking about sec getting survivor or something. I'd even be open to security's objectives being restricted or even different entirely -- it's not a perfect solution but I think it's better and easier to code (we already kept captains from stealing their own jumpsuits, for instance).

About the only condition I can see that might allow full sec antags to come back is to remove the restrictions on vigilantes. Assistants and just about anyone else would be free to hunt and kill antags like before and to be honest, admins would may have to go hands off on people yelling things like 'sec rogue' for the slightest of suspicion.

Those were the policies in place before sec antag was removed, along with "act like an antag, get treated like an antag." This is on the erroforums so I don't have an easy way to cite it (plus, I'm pretty sure the original announcement about this was, inconveniently, deleted), but several policies we take for granted today, like the heightened scrutiny on sec, were added as a direct result of it, sort of like "we'll take away your sec antag but you get this as well as a counterbalance." As for the latter, I don't have a problem with people yelling SEC ROGUE per se. I have a problem with graytiding. Because the problem isn't people yelling SEC ROGUE because of real suspicions. The problem is people doing it because they know it's a good way to start shit and don't give two fucks about whether sec is "rogue" beyond whether it spoils their tiding.

[imblyings]

>My argument is that contrary to what anti-sec antag people always scream, the level of greytiding exists independently of whether security can be antag or not. There is little to no correlation.

And it was explained that antag security was a factor which lead to all players screaming, which in turn lead to shitty players capitalizing on this and using it as an excuse to grey tide.

>the average greytider doesn't give a shit whether security is antag.

the average greytider gets banned.

>The past six months?

And its not the past six months anymore. The links you provided were resolved, admins were conscious not to antagonize security, and when it did happen unfairly, admins apologized and things were resolved. There is no antagonistic relationship currently between admins and security and this thread and the one in general are proof of that.

>The checks against stabbing all of security in the back are the same as the checks against stabbing the rest of any other department in the back, except your targets are far more armed, harder to take down and likely to attract much more attention when they disappear/their mutilated body and/or husk shows up.

The checks you want to happen is people screaming bloody murder any time they get arrested and a hilarious level of paranoia, both of which is something people don't seem to want.

>I'm using "metagaming" in its non-catchphrase sense:

Metagaming is the IC use of information gained OOC, your definition is not correct. There is a justifiable IC reason to believe that roundstart or latejoin security cannot be antags because we are allowed to know about everything, even if some people might frown up it. However, canon is not officially enforced, and anyone can just say that in their headcanon, all officers sent from centcom are thoroughly vetted.

>It is immensely more satisfying to
>which is not the game I signed on to play.

While what people find enjoyable is a subjective thing and you may not be wrong, we're taking into consideration the majority of the playerbase here, and if security players and other players do not find this enjoyable and if they do find it to turn them off from the role, then that is how it is. Ignoring the fact you've trivialized a major part of why people seem to play SS13, what you've signed up to play does not neccessarily have to be what everyone else has signed up to play, as this thread and the other one has shown.

>As for the rest, once again, I have to imagine you don't play security.

That is a strange thing to accuse someone of, when their viewpoints match up with the viewpoints of others ITT, unless you're saying all of us have played less security than you. Maybe you shouldn't say this anymore.

> It's artificial metagaming again.

I've explained why this isn't metagaming.

>Those were the policies in place before sec antag was removed, along with "act like an antag, get treated like an antag."

It was a widely accepted but unwritten policy.

>I have a problem with graytiding. Because the problem isn't people yelling SEC ROGUE because of real suspicions. The problem is people doing it because they know it's a good way to start shit and don't give two fucks about whether sec is "rogue" beyond whether it spoils their tiding.

Graytiding is looked upon with incredible disfavor by admins. This thread is not about greytiding. The problem we have now with security, which you have failed to mention or address and in fact you've been trying to argue for changes which worsen the problem, is the low population security usually experiences.

[Steelpoint]

Security Antag is essentially a case of everyone screaming out aloud whenever they are arrested to ensure that the moment they stop screaming is the moment they are likely dead.

People would feel legitimised in taking hostile actions, or at least being antagonistic towards, security back during the days of sec antag. Dealing with security was a coin toss in seeing if you would either end up husked in the perma toilets or otherwise. Also lets not exclude the actual competent and good security players that stand to be the MOST disadvantaged from a sec antag system.

Security is a job where you want other people to be present to shoulder the burden, but when you can't trust those other people to not backstab you with the force of the entire armoury at round start then you quickly lose all incentive to play sec.

E: In a perfect world we would have a antag assignment system that did not take into account your job role, where if you were selected to play as a protected (Sec/Cap) role then you would be removed from those protected roles and placed into another non-protected role. But sadly that is not the case. I think one of the best things that could ever be done for security is to not exclude sec from antag selection in a way that swaps them out of sec if they get antag.

[bandit]

I think one of the best things that could ever be done for security is to not exclude sec from antag selection in a way that swaps them out of sec if they get antag.

I believe this is what currently exists. Certainly it exists for making people malf AIs if they roll malf, for instance.

The checks you want to happen is people screaming bloody murder any time they get arrested and a hilarious level of paranoia, both of which is something people don't seem to want.

The checks I want to happen, and that will happen, are traitor officers getting their shit slapped from here to the derelict by non-traitor officers, the captain, other traitors (who can pass it off as dealing with rogue security) and/or the AI once they are inevitably either discovered or fail to take down their fellow officers. People already scream bloody murder every time they get arrested. This will not change. As for paranoia, many people in this thread have stated that it is in fact something they want, and even the official site describes (and has described for ages) the game as "a paranoia-laden roleplaying game."

The links you provided were resolved, admins were conscious not to antagonize security, and when it did happen unfairly, admins apologized and things were resolved. There is no antagonistic relationship currently between admins and security and this thread and the one in general are proof of that.

Dude, were you in a coma for the past year? How the fuck can you say "there is no antagonistic relationship between admins and security" otherwise? The very existence of the links I provided are evidence that there is -- if there isn't an antagonistic relationship, there wouldn't be so many complaints about the same thing, over and over. (There were many more lost in the server hack, unfortunately it is literally impossible to provide links to them.)

Metagaming is the IC use of information gained OOC, your definition is not correct. There is a justifiable IC reason to believe that roundstart or latejoin security cannot be antags because we are allowed to know about everything, even if some people might frown up it.

You literally just contradicted yourself in two sentences. "We are allowed to know about everything" is OOC information. It refers to server policy. And "security can't be antags" is also OOC information. It refers to server configuration. As for "all officers are thoroughly vetted," that's both flimsy as an explanation (CentComm doesn't thoroughly vet heads of staff, their own second-in-command, or the AI?) and boring as a dynamic.

Graytiding is looked upon with incredible disfavor by admins. This thread is not about greytiding.

Given that one of the primary arguments against security antag, used by you among others, is that it promotes greytiding, it sort of is. It may be "looked upon with incredible disfavor" but I can name at least a dozen graytiders who have evaded bans for ages. The "disfavor" you are noting is likely a short-term reprieve due to the SoS stuff, but actions -- or in this case, lack thereof -- speak louder than words.

[imblyings]

> People already scream bloody murder every time they get arrested.

I've been observing rounds, many rounds, for some time now. This is not the case right now, do not misrepresent facts.

> As for paranoia, many people in this thread have stated that it is in fact something they want,

Do not blatantly lie either.

>How the fuck can you say "there is no antagonistic relationship between admins and security" otherwise?

Go ask an admin right now about whether they have an antagonistic relationship with security. Or read any of the many posts posted by admins in these threads.

>You literally just contradicted yourself in two sentences.

You have a poor understanding of policy and the concept of what is and isn't metagaming.

>I can name at least a dozen graytiders who have evaded bans for ages.

Then adminhelp them the next time they grey tide or you cannot complain.

>The "disfavor" you are noting is likely a short-term reprieve

Yet it still going on and you have presented no evidence whatsoever as to admins suddenly being less unfavourable to greytiders.

I don't want to pull a HG but I will. The division between what you're saying and common sense is absolute. I'm not interested in reading your poor and suspect arguments for the billionth time and won't be checking back in this thread.

[Steelpoint]

Firstly Security personal and the Captain cannot, from what I've been told, ever be selected for a on-station antag. I don't know about off-station antags however.

Secondly, non-antag officers will never get the chance to 'dunk' antag officers as said antag officers will have slapped the shit out of the non-antag oficers from here to the derelict.

[bandit]

Instead of arguing with retards who provide no evidence, I decided to play a round as security. I was one of two officers. This was an otherwise normal traitor round with badminnery that will be detailed at the end.

Arrest 1: Clown, breaking into construction area. Screamed for help and screamed that I was stealing his stuff when I was searching him.

Arrests 2 and 3: Clown, breaking into AI upload. The idiotic HoS only gave him 4 minutes for this, against captain's direct orders. HoS then attempted to mutiny the captain. I rescued captain, perma'd the HoS. The HoS screamed that I was committing a crime and threatened to adminhelp. In the meantime, the clown escaped.

The HoS somehow got the AI to let him out of perma, and attempted to "demote" me. The other officer intervened so he was not successful.

Arrest 4: Clown found, having also broken into the conference room. A miner immediately tried to disarm my stun baton, but he was not successful. Clown acted shocked, SHOCKED! that he was in perma for having broken into several secure areas. Whined constantly.

Also in the meantime the mime stole HoS access when the acting HoS gibbed himself on emagged Orion Trail but everyone collectively agreed that even a mime would make a better HoS.

Non-Arrest 4.5: I question and search a miner who is welding a door shut in maintenance by EVA. (Same miner incidentally as above) Came up clean. I don't even brig her. She still whines endlessly.

In the meantime, the warden and captain both commit suicide.

Arrest 5: The clown has escaped from perma. I catch it. Clown cries out that I am rogue over comms. The clown now has a stolen atmospheric technician's ID. Needless to say, he whines the whole way through.

(Arrest 6: Said miner is breaking into EVA, someone else handles it though.)

At this point I am made into a shade by a cultist miner (different miner) trying to investigate blood runes in mining and search the QM. But we all die an ignoble end due to Lord Singulo. At the end of the round, other than cultists converted after me, nobody above was antag.

We see here that the rate of whining is almost 100%. As well as the rate of people fucking with arrests. This is where you might argue that this round was a special case. It wasn't. Apart from the HoS being shit, everything that happened is par for the course during security.

[AdenAbrafo]

I, as well as many other people, could argue the exact opposite. I played security yesterday a couple times but I won't bother detailing everything I did. The arrests I made weren't interrupted and several assistants/doctors even helped me on occasion. The people who whined were even told to shut the fuck up by people on the radio.
Every situation and everyone who plays security officer is going to have a different experience based on their personality, how they act and what they say. Trying to predict what the outcome of this change is going to be by experiencing a round as security won't work.

Everyone agrees that the community, how the community plays and much more has changed since the time that this policy was put into place. What is the harm in switching antag on for the low rank security officers and seeing how it plays out? Hell, it's probably a better idea just to have low rank security antag on when the pop is above 50.

[Steelpoint]

What exactly do you want us to do Bandit Look for peer reviewed sources? I doubt I will find a published paper called "SS13 and Security, The robust rule the weak. 10th Edition".

Everything we can present, both you and I, is anecdotal at best. Yet in this very thread we have not only many veteran security players, but also many admins, claiming that security antag is a bad idea.

That's really all it boils down to, one opinion versus another. No facts or correct answers, but in this case 'no sec-antag' has more support.

[bandit]

A nice start would be for people not to call me "blatantly lying" for pointing out what happens frequently, and in my experience almost all the time, during rounds (I know that wasn't you, but still.) I didn't even have to cherry-pick -- every arrest I performed that round was in that post.

[tedward1337]

Y'all taking this game too damn seriously

[Saegrimr]

The HoS screamed that I was committing a crime and threatened to adminhelp.

I sure hope you ahelped for his retard OOC in IC. Fuck that guy.

[Steelpoint]

Y'all taking this game too damn seriously

Or maybe YOUR not taking it serious enough!



Got my eye on you.

[bandit]

The HoS screamed that I was committing a crime and threatened to adminhelp.

I sure hope you ahelped for his retard OOC in IC. Fuck that guy.

He didn't OOC in IC, his words were something like "CentComm will hear about this." But I didn't even get a bwoink so

[tedward1337]

Y'all taking this game too damn seriously

Or maybe YOUR not taking it serious enough!



Got my eye on you.

l m a o

[Sometinyprick]

This isn't supported by other head admin's except myself. There are a lot of problems with traitor security as people have pointed out in this thread and there are of course some good arguments in favor too. However at this point I feel opinion is way too mixed on it and the people are against seem to have very strong feelings on it and the change itself would upset them a great deal. So yeah there is no need for further discussion on this if it isn't going to happen.
PM me if you feel you have a important point or compromise that you feel the majority of people would be happy with.