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[Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 2:46 am
by Bruce_Banner
Context: Playing as clown called sparkle. Walking hallways cuffed due to unrelated incident. Assistant Ana Wilson begins to drag me, takes me into maint. Strips me, throws metal rods at me untill I fall into crit. To make myself clear, I did not engage or talk to this player prior to her dragging me into maint. After beating me into crit, she drags me naked back to medbay and pops me in a sleeper. Healing me up. She then goes to drag me back into maint but a cyborg stopped her and managed to get me away.

I would like to make it clear I have no issue with the way Virtule John took the issue. He was chill the whole time, and help answer my questions.

Issue: After speaking with John it was made clear to me that as long as a player heals or clones you after beating you to death, they are free to attack you without any reason, or wrong doing before hand. I do not feel this type of action for players is healthy for the playerbase and can only cause to push us further towards accepting DM from non-antags.

Byond account and character name: Byond: Fllpz | Character: Sparkle
Admin: Virtual John
Time and Server(Bagil or Sybil) incident occurred: Bagil 03:15 GMT
ROUND ID HERE: 89378

This are my PM's with John

Code: Select all

PM to-Admins: ana wilson has just stolen me while I had handcuffs on, taken me to maint, stripped me and is now throwing metal rods at me into crit.

Admin PM from-Virtual John: looks like they healed you, then got stopped by a cyborg. Lemme know if this continues though.

PM to-Admins: Just because they healed me to get around the bwoink doesn't make it okay. I didn't antagonise her, or start anything. She just stole me and started beating on me. That isn't okay

Admin PM from-Virtual John: as long as they heal you, they can fight you and mess around. Its not a GOOD move, but they didn't leave you to rot in the maint tunnels

PM to-Admins: Are you talking about the rules of players hitting each other? I did not engage that player at all. I did not start, talk to or do any RP with them. She just dm'ed me becaused I was in cuffs for a laugh. That is not good quality gameplay. I confused why you feel this is an okay standard for players to be doing?

Admin PM from-Virtual John: I don't think its an okay standard for players, but thats what it is. You dont have to engage with the player prior to beat them. If they do start, they DO have to heal you up afterwards though. Thems the rules.

PM to-Admins: Can I get a link to those new set of rules.I feel like we might be miscommunicating. As far as im aware. As long as both players engage each other. Thats its fine. But when its just one non-antag beating up other players. That can't be inside those rules?

Admin PM from-Virtual John: https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Rules#Escalation

Admin PM from-Virtual John: They dont have to be wronged for them to attack you. But because they DID start the fight, they DO have to heal you up afterwards.

PM to-Admins: Okay. I guess we just have different opinions on it then. By your logic players can freely dm them, as long as they drag them to cloning after?

Admin PM from-Virtual John: They can, yes. But with anything, if they do it too much we can take action. Again, I dont approve of such methods myself

PM to-Admins: I accept your take on it. I hope you dont mind if I chat about this briefly in OOC to make sure this is the general consensus. Ill check on forums first to see if this has already been discussed.

Again, I want to be clear I do not have an issue with John, I can imagine adminning a community like this is a nightmare at the best of times and don't wish for grief to be handed out to you guys.

Re: [Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 2:58 am
by Virtual John
If they HAD continued their line of path, that would be noteworthy, and I or any admin would step in. If the borg had NOT stepped in, I gladly would have taken action. I was personally getting ready to do so when the borg took you outta their hands. The person in question was already on a watchlist for behavior that beginning to reemerge, as they did strip you down completely in the maint tunnels. I would rather they do it and it be in the logs so we can use the logs as irrefutable proof that they did do this, rather than try and predict their actions. I do agree that the actions they did were shitty, but nothing I could take action on. No hard feelings either, these discussions are important.

Re: [Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 3:14 am
by Saegrimr
"As long as they heal you, they can fight you and mess around. Its not a GOOD move, but they didn't leave you to rot in the maint tunnels"
"You dont have to engage with the player prior to beat them. If they do start, they DO have to heal you up afterwards though. Thems the rules."
"They dont have to be wronged for them to attack you."

The fuck?

Re: [Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:41 am
by Shadowflame909
Holy shit this is some top-tier ban-baiting. Isn't this just a player abusing the wording of a rule to there advantage?
In this situation, it should be the spirit of the rule and not the actual ruling itself! I personally see this as griefing a player and then healing them to get around the grief. Rule 0 should be applied here! Edit: To make it look cleaner

Re: [Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:52 am
by Shezza
"You dont have to engage with the player prior to beat them."

What is this new gamemode?

Re: [Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:55 am
by Yakumo_Chen
If the borg had NOT stepped in, I gladly would have taken action.
Why are you deciding on actions regarding breaking the rules based on the unrelated actions of a third party?


Beating someone to crit for zero reason with no other prior interaction is NOT proper escalation, regardless of the fact they were healed afterwards, and especially considering the player was also stripped of everything during this and subjected to other forms of needless torture for no rhyme or reason.

That's a textbook case of over-escalation.

Re: [Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 6:00 am
by oranges
I don't think kor intended that this would be an outcome of the escalation rules, and I dont' see any reading of the policy to support virtual johns ruling, which is why I encouraged this thread to be made.

Looking at the ruling
If a player wrongs you(theft, attacks, etc), you may retaliate. If you choose to retaliate with violence, you in turn have opened yourself up to violence
This is relating to you, if someone wrongs you, via some IC thing, you may choose to retaliate with violence, but you can expect violence in return, at this time there appears to be no valid reason for the greyshirt to have killed OP

The real meat however is this
You may instigate conflict with another player within reason (you cant completley destroy their department, kill them unprovoked, or otherwise take them out of the round for long periods of time) but they are entitled to respond with violence. If you think its unfair or excessive they killed you for taking their ID, consider not stealing next round.
This is where I just can't understand how virtual john came to the ruling that they did. The greytider was allowed to instigate conflict yes, but that has to be within reason and killing people unprovoked is explicitly denied, to kill people there must be both -> conflict instigation and then violence from both parties. OP was handcuffed and had no way to respond.

Greytider maybe should be noted or not but this is definitely a misread of the policy by Virtual John and I do not understand where this fiction of someone is allowed to beat the hell out of you if you don't retaliate to their instigation.

Players who are instigating fights are expected to wait for the other person to respond and then they can escalate the fight, and this never happened here.

John you totally could have stepped in and noted that guy or placed a ban

Re: [Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 6:14 am
by Virtual John
As I said before I do support these conversations, as having had them I see where I misinterpreted the policy. There was no reason for the greyshirt to attack the OP in the current round. OP was drug around the entire time by the greyshirt and assaulted him the entirety of their interaction.

He couldn't retaliate in any sense due being cuffed thus no fight occurred, only a one siding beating. I do realise I am in the fault here for not intervening with the event, and extend an apology to the OP.

Re: [Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 10:17 pm
by Not-Dorsidarf
I'd like to point out that this is a thinly-disguised ban request, not an actual complaint about the admin in question's conduct, is it not?

Re: [Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:31 pm
by Dax Dupont
Not-Dorsidarf wrote:I'd like to point out that this is a thinly-disguised ban request, not an actual complaint about the admin in question's conduct, is it not?
It feels like both, there is some error on Virtual John's part but it's hardly something that's a large issue.

Re: [Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2018 7:50 am
by CitrusGender
I don't believe it has ever been acceptable to grief anyone for no reason and kill them. You do not get a free pass if you heal the person, though the situation will be looked at differently. But that's not the case here, you can't just go around killing people for fun and be absolved of your sins by cloning them.

This complaint is accepted, but it's not too actionable other than just telling John otherwise. I'll leave it open for a little bit if anyone else wants to respond or other headmins want to.

Re: [Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:22 pm
by Bruce_Banner
I appreciate all your guys response. And I just want to say a big thanks to John. I respect a person more when their willing to take it on the shoulder and be humble about it.

Thanks for clearing things up. John mentioned the guy already have been noticed with this behavior before, So hopefully shouldn't be long before they get removed for it.

Cheers guys.

Re: [Virtual John] Interpretation of escalation rules

Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2018 12:18 am
by CitrusGender
Aye, thanks for coming by.

Accepted, just keep this in mind John. I wouldn't consider this to even really be a demerit though, but we do have some expectations of our admins to interpret the rules in a certain way set by the guidance of the headmins.