[Thunder12345] Trexter555 - Banned for doing antag stuff as antag ghostrole

[trexter555]

BYOND account: Trexter555
Character Name: Skeleton [gateway skeleton]
Ban type: Antag/Server (2 week ghostrole ban, 2 day server ban)
Ban reason: went on station as bmp skeleton to do skeleton things such as making thralls and constructs, which killed people (paraphrased)
Time of ban: 2020-08-05 3:20am CST
RoundID: 143579

Stuff: Gateway skeleton spawn is an antag as far as I know, and it isn't stated anywhere else that it isn't an antag or that it isn't allowed to leave the gateway. The flavor text says to terrorize those on your path, nothing about not killing people or leaving the gateway, unlike all other ghostroles which specifically say if you should kill people and if you should stay or leave your area. If this ban appeal is what it takes to start an official policy thread on what the fuck the gateway skelly is supposed to do then great, but as of now there is nothing about it. If a headmin makes a hard statement such as "gateway skeleton is not allowed to leave the gateway/kill people" then great, I'll listen to that and not do it. 2 day ban and a 2 week ghostrole ban is a bit unfair for the above reasons. Most people I've talked to think that skeleton is an antag, and there's really nothing saying that there isn't.

[Thunder11]

All ghost roles exist to fulfill a specific purpose, in the case of the BMP skeleton that role is to be an opponent for people who come to the away mission. I don't see why it has to be spelled out in big red text to make it clear that you shouldn't be taking a role meant to be fighting people in the away mission and instead gathering every single piece of loot and going to the station to murderbone. Unless a headmin has a different opinion on the issue I'm denying this appeal.

[trexter555]

All ghost roles exist to fulfill a specific purpose, in the case of the BMP skeleton that role is to be an opponent for people who come to the away mission. I don't see why it has to be spelled out in big red text to make it clear that you shouldn't be taking a role meant to be fighting people in the away mission and instead gathering every single piece of loot and going to the station to murderbone. Unless a headmin has a different opinion on the issue I'm denying this appeal.

It doesn't say this anywhere at all, how are people supposed to know this? You can't ban people for something that literally isn't stated anywhere, or making up your own interpretation of an extremely vague flavor text.

[The_Silver_Nuke]

While I'm not an admin, I was playing this round and was privy to witnessing (and experiencing firsthand) the skeleton's thralls murderboning willy nilly. This isn't the first time this has happened either, as skeletons have been raiding the station for some time, and it never sat well with me.

Essentially the BMP Skelly has the following flavor text, "Walk this mortal plain and terrorize all living adventurers who dare cross your path."

https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Headmin_Rulings


As @Thunder11 mentioned the skeleton is meant to perform as an obstacle to adventurers. I can hardly classify anyone sitting in Medbay or on the emergency shuttle as an adventurer.

[trexter555]

even if it's limited to "adventurers" (what even is an adventurer) the flavor text is vague. i honestly dont care if the ban sticks, i just want an official statement by a headmin saying what the bmp skeleton is and isnt allowed to do, because as of now the literal only policy discussion about it is about ghostroles which says they must follow their flavortext. if anything, make the flavortext more specific, because it does not mention not being allowed to leave. the gateway itself is designed for the skeleton to be able to leave, with a bunch of infinite laser scattershot guns, and a literal winding path with a bunch of loot leading up to the gateway. and as for the thralls murdering people everywhere, i told them that they were allowed to do whatever, but that i preferred for them to not randomly murderbone people. obviously they just went around killing whoever they felt like.

[PKPenguin321]

This post was deleted by PKPenguin321 on Mon Aug 10, 2020 1:56 am.
Reason: Peanut gallery post

[Vekter]

I will say that precedent has it that ghost roles are generally not permitted on the station if they act in an antagonistic capacity. The exception to this is Charlie Station spawners as they aren't antagonists.

If shouldn't necessarily need to be explicitly stated that you aren't supposed to take a bunch of high end antag gear and go to the station to murder everyone.

[trexter555]

arent ash lizards literally allowed to invade the station to kill people? obviously it needs to be explicitly stated, people are retards, me included.

[zxaber]

Ash lizard text does specifically say you're allowed to invade. Best practice for ghost roles would probably be ahelping to ask if the flavor text doesn't mention the station.

[Jaredfogle]

Ash lizard text does specifically say you're allowed to invade. Best practice for ghost roles would probably be ahelping to ask if the flavor text doesn't mention the station.

I've been told by other admins (I think Shaps?) that ash walkers are not allowed to invade. It feels like every admin has a different response to this.

[trexter555]

ghostrole policies are not consistent across admins at all which is a major problem

[The_Silver_Nuke]

I've also been advised that Ashwalkers are allowed to invade, and have only seen an admin crack down on it once, though I'm sure there are more situations that I am unaware of that they were punished. Discrepancy in policy and players tendency to try to twist things to their advantage as much as possible in a way that puts a silicon to shame resulted in this situation I think. If this is to prevented in the future a hard yes or no should be clarified because people are stupid or antagonistic by nature.

Admin approving Ashwalker invasions:


All in all while I have many complaints about skellies invading the station, I don't necessarily think it's fair that a sole player is punished because of something that could have prevented by a firm stance on it. Rather than punishing trexter, I'd suggest a pardon and then crack down on any future offenses by him or other players in this specific regard.

[trexter555]

server ban's almost up, but it'd be great if a headmin could make a ruling on gateway skelly

[trexter555]

also would like to point out that a three ! red note is incredibly harsh considering i have a relatively good note history

[ATHATH]

'Ey, nice job making it to the exit gateway as an away mission skeleton, that's no easy feat.

Back on topic, I have precedent for away mission skeletons being antags (this is NOT a peanut post): I've murderboned and hijacked the shuttle (with necromantic stone and golem minions) as an away mission skeleton at least twice before during highpop Bagil rounds, and haven't yet been banned or noted (or even bwoinked, IIRC, but I might be misremembering) for doing so. Here are some screenshots as proof:

Spoiler:

This screenshot is from my first away mission skeleton 'bone on /tg/ (I had 'boned as my own runic golem before on Fulp by this point, but that's irrelevant). An atmos tech's plasma fire did most of the work for us; we just kind of ran into Disco Inferno (thank god for fireproofing potions, eh?) at the last moment and killed the handful of survivors that were hiding out there. I'm colored green in the image because I successfully greentexted with a greentext that round. The total population that round was 58 players, and more importantly, in the bottom right corner of that screenshot, you can see that bgobandit, an admin, was online by the end of the round.

Spoiler:

And these three screenshots are from my second away mission skeleton murderbone on /tg/. This time, my minions and I pretty much ended the round on our own; we had no plasmafire to help us. Instead, my skeles and shades ripped and tore through almost the entirety of the station's population, causing the shuttle to be called. I greentexted using a greentext again that round, of course. While I don't have any direct evidence of admins being present that round (that round took place at least a month or two ago), the population that round was 51, meaning that it was very likely that an admin was present.

Let's also take a look at the away mission skeleton's greeting text:

short_desc = "By unknown powers, your skeletal remains have been reanimated!"
flavour_text = "Walk this mortal plain and terrorize all living adventurers who dare cross your path."

It seems pretty clear to me that away mission skeletons are meant to be an antagonistic ghost role, like ash walkers. If you want to get technical, the crew of the space station could be considered to be "adventurers" because they're exploring the (mysteries of the) "final frontier", but I don't think that using that interpretation is necessary, as the flavour_text here makes it pretty darn clear that the away mission skeleton is not a nice person and gives it no obligation to stay in the area they spawned in (unlike, say, the syndicate comms base and cybersun ship ghost role spawners that we have). The away mission skeleton doesn't really have much else to do OTHER than leave after they've finished grabbing all of the loot in the BMP asteroid; the BMP away mission doesn't really have much that they can build/make autism projects with, and (partially due to our current gateway bugs) gateways are usually ignored by our playerbase, only being checked out once every 10 rounds or so, in my experience (and the people who do check out the BMP asteroid away mission usually end up dying on their own because they didn't bring a space suit anyway).

With how long it takes for them to finally break out of their away mission prison (which, as mentioned before, is NOT easy; most people can't get out of the FIRST ROOM) with good gear, away mission skeletons (who manage to escape) are effectively mid-round antags, like blobs, xenomorph infestations, and ash walker invasions.

[Screemonster]

'Ey, nice job making it to the exit gateway as an away mission skeleton, that's no easy feat.

Back on topic, I have precedent for away mission skeletons being antags (this is NOT a peanut post): I've murderboned and hijacked the shuttle (with necromantic stone and golem minions) as an away mission skeleton at least twice before during highpop Bagil rounds, and haven't yet been banned or noted (or even bwoinked, IIRC, but I might be misremembering) for doing so.

"I got away with it before without being bwoinked" is not precedent for an action being allowed. If I murder someone as a nonantag and the admin doesn't notice that doesn't mean murdering people as a nonantag is now permitted, and depending on the situation "invading the station with an army of skeletons" might fall under The Secret Rule as "rulebreaking behaviour that was fun enough to let slide just this once".

[Vekter]

This thread's getting a little out of hand. Thunder has denied this appeal and, barring a headmin's input, that doesn't seem to be changing.