Revolutionaries Revolting Against Headrevs: Who's ordering who?

[DrAmazing343]

I've heard differing answers on this from coding, administrative, and player perspectives, so I figured I'd spin up a thread to debate and answer the question once and for all.

Are Revolutionaries required to listen to Head Revolutionaries?

From a code perspective, the flavor text does not appear to require them to do so at all.
From an administrative perspective, there don't appear to be any specialized rules for this situation.
From a player's perspective, it makes sense, but without a requirement, some may (possibly rightfully) choose to disobey.

ITT: We decide if it's within the flavor of Revolutionaries to allow Revs freedom from Head Revolutionary orders, or if there should be a rules precedent (possibly in line with brainwashing?) to allow Head Revs to give Revs mandated orders.

[Isratosh]

Rule 4 - Team antagonists can do as they wish as per lone antagonists, but their actions should neither harm their teams efforts, nor intentionally harm it through inaction.
Rule 4.2 - Xeno Queens/Broodmothers are treated the same as Malf AI and Cyborg as far as team antagonists go. Xenos/Spiders should prioritize following the directions of their leaders where possible.

These are the only directives regarding this role. Nothing in here indicates that you are required to listen to the head revolutionaries. That has never been the case in my time here. That also applies to things like cultist leader and nuclear operative leader. These "leader" roles are purely mechanical and flavour - they come with no real authority. It doesn't seem to make thematic sense to me either - the revolution is all about breaking the chains and bringing down authority. The head rev is just a guy with a flash. What could they possibly order you to do that you'd rather not? Not kill the heads of staff?

I believe the rules are clear and simple on this: kill the heads of staff, don't harm your team or let them be harmed. The rest is up to you. I wouldn't like to see this dynamic changed.

[Higgin]

I'm against adding an enforced hierarchy or control to those roles. Deciding how you're gonna do things and even having disagreements over them is no small part of the fun and freedom of them, and they represent the use of your one human life in-game. Spiders, enslaved malf silicons, and xenos all make sense having some directives from above from a flavor angle and given they've got a lot more opportunity to die, come back, and assume very specialized functions within the team.

[DrAmazing343]

I more or less agree with the Revs being untethered; it makes sense thematically, after all, and you guys raise points.

I still think we should add a precedent to reference towards in cases where folks are confused.

[MooCow12]

Rev flavor text also doesn't mention anything about the arbitrary system that defines if you won or not. "help them kill the head of staff" doesnt really imply "make sure heads of staff are either dead or off of the station z level before the same win condition is done against the rev heads."

The players are basically expected to meta that information just like there is an unwritten and silently agreed upon social contract that there is indeed some sort of hierarchy within the rev team although that hierarchy is...at least I believe to be based more on meta popularity/statics than it is the actual rev heads themselves. Revs are allowed to act on and even acknowledge individuals who they deem as unique or can be trusted to make decisions or complete a task, conversion antags like rev and cult see alot of play in this meta aspect of the game as individual players are picked out and the teams form usually with the expectation that a minority of key players on each side are going to participate to the best of their abilities.

[Vekter]

I feel like someone really needs a good IC reason to go against what their head revs want them to do.

A good example: We had someone on Manuel a while back who disobeyed a head rev's orders to exile the last member of command and just killed them instead. They claimed they did this strictly because they didn't want to drag the round on any further - their character had no valid IC reason to do it, there was no actual purpose behind it that wasn't rooted in OOC desires.

I feel like it should be okay for revs to disobey head revs, but they should only be doing so if there's a reason for them to do it in-character. Say the above happened, but the rev that killed the last command member did it because that command member tried to kill them, or because they were mistreated before being converted. I would be perfectly fine with them disobeying in this case.

[dendydoom]

just my thoughts so far:

it's an IC skill issue a lot of the time. there's sort of a sliding scale of orders. if the headrev wants you to lie low and then you immediately pick up the nearest circular saw and start wailing on dudes i would have an issue with this. but if the headrev wants to lead you to your own demise in a suicide charge, they should have to be charismatic about wanting to convince you to do so. having the entire reasoning begin and end at "well this guy's R is blue instead of red so i have to do everything he says without question" requires a lot of IC things to not be considered.

imo you should not be actively hindering your own team (obviously) and you should try your best to work together. ignoring very basic requests to the point that it's fucking your team up is something i would have an issue with. but ultimately revheads need to RP the role and be leaders if they want people to gleefully follow their orders.

the strength in revs is in their ability to snowball into a huge movement with a lot of momentum. having that blob of chaos struggle with keeping its own members in check feels like an important aspect of the intended atmosphere.

[mrmelbert]

I'm on the fence on this.

On one hand it would really stifle revs, like a lot - it'd kill a lot of the freedom and chaos of the antag if they all had to report to their nearest leader and ask for orders.
I like being converted to revs so I can go back to my department and think "okay, what can my job do to support the revolution?"
And with Dendy I think the "ball of chaos" of revs is really cool vibes. Like it just cascades.

But on the other hand making revs to listen to their leaders may open up interesting and fun gimmicks.
After all, it's a lot easier to get something going when one of your team members doesn't run off to stab their nearest head immediately.
All you need is one guy to do something stupid and get caught to completely ruin the rest of the revolutions plans.
I also really enjoy hushed revolution meetings while you discuss a plan, shying away from prying eyes. It's also cool vibes.

So it's tough.

It doesn't seem to make thematic sense to me either - the revolution is all about breaking the chains and bringing down authority

► Show Spoiler

[BrianBackslide]

Most of my experiences have either been working with my headrev (more babysitting them so they don't wander off and die) or the pure chaos of a mass conscription. I don't think I've ever really seen someone outright ignore a headrev's orders, but I've had a lot of experiences where we all just stand around until one of us decides to go loud.

[Vekter]

On one hand it would really stifle revs, like a lot - it'd kill a lot of the freedom and chaos of the antag if they all had to report to their nearest leader and ask for orders.

I think it's worth noting that I don't think any of us would consider "Follow the head rev's orders" as looking anything like that. It's less "You must obtain and follow orders" and more "If a headrev tells you explicitly to do (or not do) something, you must follow their orders".

[DaydreamIQ]

From personal experience its a coinflip whether or not your fellow revs will actually care about winning. I've seen two headrevs dragged off in front of an entire crowd of revolutionaries and not a finger is lifted to stop them. Though I chalk that up to people being fatigued with rolling it and self sabotaging by inaction

[MooCow12]

I feel like someone really needs a good IC reason to go against what their head revs want them to do.

A good example: We had someone on Manuel a while back who disobeyed a head rev's orders to exile the last member of command and just killed them instead. They claimed they did this strictly because they didn't want to drag the round on any further - their character had no valid IC reason to do it, there was no actual purpose behind it that wasn't rooted in OOC desires.

On the flip side it literally says in their flavor text to kill the heads of staff not get them off the z level, its meta information to know that getting them off the z level or in a locker will satisfy their brainwashed win condition especially if you consider lavaland base to be a part of the same collection of assets that are a part of the station, the win conditions for revs are somewhat arbitrary.

You could also ask the last head of staff to go ssd for a second and it would be the exact same level of metagaming as knowing you can exile.

[Redbert]

I feel like someone really needs a good IC reason to go against what their head revs want them to do.

A good example: We had someone on Manuel a while back who disobeyed a head rev's orders to exile the last member of command and just killed them instead. They claimed they did this strictly because they didn't want to drag the round on any further - their character had no valid IC reason to do it, there was no actual purpose behind it that wasn't rooted in OOC desires.

On the flip side it literally says in their flavor text to kill the heads of staff not get them off the z level, its meta information to know that getting them off the z level or in a locker will satisfy their brainwashed win condition especially if you consider lavaland base to be a part of the same collection of assets that are a part of the station, the win conditions for revs are somewhat arbitrary.

You could also ask the last head of staff to go ssd for a second and it would be the exact same level of metagaming as knowing you can exile.

I completely disagree about the meta information bit. Game knowledge should never be treated as meta information, it's hard to draw a line to separate the meta and not meta, i don't think it should be done at all.

I wanted to keep my head down because I feel like this thread was created partly because of my actions. I'm the one in question in Vekter's comment, the same round DrAmazing343 was a head rev who ordered the exile of the HoP, but I thought I'd share my thoughts anyway.
To give some context on that round. I absolutely didn't handle that round well. I won't go into too much depth, but prior to the exile order, I'd shot that final head of staff with a real nasty chem dart that was guaranteed to kill them. The only reason they survived past 30 seconds was because the revolutionaries had epi'd them and provided medical treatment. They were in hard crit with 40% blood from about 12 seconds after the dart hit to 6 minutes later when i finally found them again and killed them.

I think it's important to follow the head rev's commands if the command is important for the overall victory of the revolution or makes sense in the context of the round. The command in question follows a round where the revolutionaries were wordlessly killing heads of staff and security, finally stopping 10 seconds short of round end with what was essentially, 'nah, provide medical attention to that guy and we'll exile them'.

[Festkongendk]

I was going to make a thread asking a question in this ballpark but it's similar enough that I think I can just ask it here: What is the minimum level of participation in the uprising that we should expect from converted revs? Today I was head rev and converted a chef. The chef refused to leave his kitchen and fight despite me directly ordering him to do and he said it was because he was useless "outside" of the kitchen and that he would die. I mentioned this in OOC after the round ended and opined that it was against the spirit of the mode but got pushback from a player (who admittedly didn't like Revs as a gamemode) because a) it's bad roleplay to convert someone and then immediately expect them to fight on the frontlines and b) Making a constant supply of food for the revs is a tactically justifiably decision since going hungry would reduce the effectiveness of the revs. I can kind of see the second reason's validity but how far does this extend? I don't think Chaplains should still be performing religious services as rev when there's sec to fight and heads to kill. I also would be annoyed if, say, I took a risk in converting an engineer and getting seen/disarmed and he just focuses on min/maxing engine output after it's already set up. But I also understand how medical staff revs would justifiably stay in medical so they could heal their wounded/dead comrades.

So it seems like a case by case basis for me, but circling back to my original question I'm wondering what we actually expect rank-and-file revs to do *at minimum.* If a fight breaks out in their vicinity and the odds are favorable for the revs if they join in, should we expect them to participate in that skirmish? There are too many people who get converted and then just keep doing what they were previously with no intention of helping. This is also a problem with cult albeit to a lesser extent.

[Higgin]

(good questions and examples, just snipping for length)
So it seems like a case by case basis for me, but circling back to my original question I'm wondering what we actually expect rank-and-file revs to do *at minimum.* If a fight breaks out in their vicinity and the odds are favorable for the revs if they join in, should we expect them to participate in that skirmish? There are too many people who get converted and then just keep doing what they were previously with no intention of helping. This is also a problem with cult albeit to a lesser extent.

if i was going to come up with a checklist of things to look for, it'd probably include

at least helping when the direct negative cost to you is little to none; then, not deliberately or negligently harming the team
then helping when the team is going to end (win or lose - basically, show up when the stakes are high and your contribution might matter)
then more generally helping in proportion to the amount of risk and effort it took to bring you into the team
(edit add: this is also currently on the books)

Furthermore, if someone had to go out of their way to convert you to their team, their goals, objectives, and directives become the priority.

► Show Spoiler

If you get flashed in public, sec sees immediately, and they start attacking your headrev,
-there is definitely risk to you
-the team is in danger of total loss if you let your comrade die or get caught
-even if they might've put 0 extra effort into flashing you, they took a lot of risk doing it

another example might be a cultist getting called to the final ritual by the team leader
-there's some risk, but by the time you summon, you've generally got halos - unless the station is gigafucked or full of other dangers, it's not really any additional risk to go
-in this case, the team ends by winning, and you might be decisive to that - your inaction might very reasonably stop the team from winning, not just from losing. worth saying though that the "cult leader" doesn't really matter in the way headrevs do. if you think they're making a doomed effort or want to stick around setting up a base elsewhere, or keep converting, whatever.
-the cult put some effort into converting you, and your addition directly increased the risk by making eyes/halos and whatnot happen sooner


part of the reason I don't like the idea of a chain of command here is because, let's say you get flashed, then three security run up and start kicking teeth on your headrev. they shout "HELP TIMMY" at you as security starts to cuff them. you are an unrobust assistant with nothing but the bag of wheat and fishing pole you brought.

do you take a doomed fight that might just as easily get you RR'd as deconverted if you lose? do you run off to find help among your other comrades or panic? do you freeze up? all of those are valid responses and a lot of responses are automatic in a situation like that.

i wouldn't want to hold a hammer over people playing in good faith just because they didn't take a directive in the moment, especially not if there's also good IC for doing otherwise without actually sabotaging your team (like in vekter's example of killing the last head)

even if you're going to be "the leader," leadership requires engaging your followers. if you don't do that, or even if you try, there is (and should be) a large as possible space for people to try out different 'hows' of being on the team as long as they're not deliberately sabotaging it, other members, or refusing to show up out of spite/diffidence when they know it counts.

it sucks for large-scale gimmicks, but honestly, if we want to make those more practical, it might be better instead to have alternative/custom endpoints for something like revs or cult without forced conversion mechanics - I like the red rover and straightforward nature of cult and revs now, but something more open-ended with a voluntary prompt would probably work better for gimmick maestros if they don't want to play to the regular end conditions, which are also cool*

[DrAmazing343]

-Uwa~!-

-so-

-snip!-

The order to exile the last Head was given from a lack of information on my part; I'm glad we didn't draw the round out healing the Head to toss them in in some sort of masturbatory victory lap, and at the time I had no idea they were already one foot in the grave. I created this thread in order to ascertain the value and true ruling on how much Headrev orders should actually be considered after discussing it with a few people after the round had happened— I hope you don't feel like this was targeted or that there's bad blood at all, I respect owning the Head as that's kinda what we did with that speedrun round.

On Revolutionary minimum effort; this is certainly a bit more case-by-case and good-faith driven thing, a-la recent Hypnosis Objectives threads, but overall I think if a Revolutionary in the vicinity of a Headrev allows them to get carted off by Sec, that's almost throwing the match, there. If there's a skirmish and a Headrev's not at risk? Yeah, w/e, I'd prefer they fight but that's not really enforceable ever, as with a lot of this line of thought. Higgin's thoughts are really good here, but I think policy-wise there's not much to tack on more than there is here, the rest is just up to admin discretion.

[RedBaronFlyer]

Pretty much my thoughts. You shouldn't let your headrevs get dragged off by security but a lot of the time when cult/revs haven't gone loud yet, it's hard to get an idea on what you should be doing. This usually leads to people keeping their heads down for the initial bit. There was a round a few days ago where the station was in full revolt at that point and a headrev yelled on comms and would run around telling revs to follow them to lead an assault and it seemed to work pretty well.

[zxaber]

If a headrev wants to control people they convert with an iron fist, they should just play traitor with a hypno flash instead.

The minimum required for revs is to not intentionally work against their team, and put some form of effort into reaching the team goal.

[Kendrickorium]

zoomers don't understand what "leader" entails

color me shocked

[AsbestosSniffer]

zoomers don't understand what "leader" entails

color me shocked

"Leader", despite its official meaning, can be a lot vaguer than you think. What is the exact role of the leaders? What are their powers? What are their expectations of their followers? Are they relatively equal with their "comrades"?
Just because it says leader doesn't mean you have to follow their every order or face execution like it's Berlin in 1945, this isn't even mentioning what the actual ideology of the revolution is, which is a rabbit hole I'm sure you would all not like to get into.

[Higgin]

"Leadership over human beings is exercised when persons with certain motives mobilize, in competition or conflict with others, institutional, political, psychological, and other resources so as to arouse, engage, and satisfy the motives of followers" (Burns, 1978, pg. 17? the book is literally "Leadership" and it's a cornerstone in the area of people who actually study this stuff)

leadership means giving a shit about what the people who might be under you want. i'm not interested in the rules being rewritten to give more claims to those who want to boringly or selfishly inflict their vision on others. as long as their ability to play the game themselves isn't being impacted, as in by the most obvious sabotage, negligence, or refusal to help the team, we really shouldn't expand the claims these roles give players over each other.

leaders will naturally emerge, and people will naturally follow them, in most of these settings because most people are flexible and see the opportunity to play the other side as fun. somebody who says "ALL REVS TO CARGO, VIVA" is leading even if they aren't a headrev, and somebody who whines and pouts and kicks and shouts that nobody wants to group with them to do some cult bonding ritual while they're all busy going balls to the wall with fighting the rest of the crew (and having a blast while doing it) is not.

you can't and shouldn't try to mandate the relationship where it doesn't exist, just protect the conditions for it to emerge - or a bare minimum of on-sidedness.

[kieth4]

I'm sure the other head admins could fluff it up but I'm going to TLDR our discussions;

revolutionaries should not have to follow headrevs. It's an ic charisma skill issue.