Clown Harassment

[Itseasytosee2me]

(A light policy thread to break up the stagnation)
It is assumed that the clown has significant leniency when harassing other crewmembers. Pranks and other minor forms of grief for the sake of comedy. Slipping people randomly, spraying someone with baldium as a punchline, lighting up a cigarette in a plasma filled room. etc
My question is, to what limit is the crew allowed to abuse the clown in turn? The wiki makes serval references to the clown being the crew's walking punching bag.
Should the crew have the same amount of leniency with harassing the clown that the clown does the crew? More? or none at all?

[Farquaar]

(A light policy thread to break up the stagnation)
It is assumed that the clown has significant leniency when harassing other crewmembers. Pranks and other minor forms of grief for the sake of comedy. Slipping people randomly, spraying someone with baldium as a punchline, lighting up a cigarette in a plasma filled room. etc
My question is, to what limit is the crew allowed to abuse the clown in turn? The wiki makes serval references to the clown being the crew's walking punching bag.
Should the crew have the same amount of leniency with harassing the clown that the clown does the crew? More? or none at all?

As a clown main I always appreciate it when the crew is willing to lynch me after a delightfully devilish prank. That's how you know you did it right.

[Shadowflame909]

All escalation against the clown is greatly relaxed if they're griefing

That means if they try to space lube you out of an airlock, you can beat them into crit and heal them

If they do get you out of the airlock. You can murder them

[Pandarsenic]

The clown should get as good as they give, but if they're the rare type who does funny stuff that isn't at the expense of someone, don't fuck the poor gamer over

[CMDR_Gungnir]

Personally, I'm firmly of the belief that Clowns shouldn't be allowed to (lethally) defend themselves if the victim of their grief retaliates. We've got that ruling on grief shuttles about "if you incite a lynch mob you cannot lethally defend yourself, or it is self-antagging" and I see no reason why it shouldn't also apply to other forms of grief.

If you walk into Medbay, walk up to someone who just got revived after they got shanked, and spray 'em with some dumb shit and they beat you to death, y' kinda fucked around and found out.

I've actually been a little tempted to make a policy thread about the amount of Clown players who use it as a free license to grief, and don't let people retaliate when they take it too far.

[sinfulbliss]

Personally, I'm firmly of the belief that Clowns shouldn't be allowed to (lethally) defend themselves if the victim of their grief retaliates.
[...]
If you walk into Medbay, walk up to someone who just got revived after they got shanked, and spray 'em with some dumb shit and they beat you to death, y' kinda fucked around and found out.

As the defending party the rate of escalation increases with you, up to and including violence, while the instigator is always able to respond in kind.

The clown should be able to defend himself with lethals if he is attacked lethally, I don't see why his job being clowning around and pranking should restrict him from this.
I agree if he gets killed for being annoying enough he fucked around and found out. But to expect them to just sit there and walk around helplessly while they're being murdered is insane and even if it did have an OOC justification, it makes 0 sense as an RP decision.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

Personally, I'm firmly of the belief that Clowns shouldn't be allowed to (lethally) defend themselves if the victim of their grief retaliates.
[...]
If you walk into Medbay, walk up to someone who just got revived after they got shanked, and spray 'em with some dumb shit and they beat you to death, y' kinda fucked around and found out.

As the defending party the rate of escalation increases with you, up to and including violence, while the instigator is always able to respond in kind.

The clown should be able to defend himself with lethals if he is attacked lethally, I don't see why his job being clowning around and pranking should restrict him from this.
I agree if he gets killed for being annoying enough he fucked around and found out. But to expect them to just sit there and walk around helplessly while they're being murdered is insane and even if it did have an OOC justification, it makes 0 sense as an RP decision.

It also makes 0 sense from an RP point that NT would hire Clowns that do nothing but piss off their crew, but here we are.

The Clown shouldn't be allowed to defend himself with lethals if he's attacked lethally, if his entire 'Clowning' has just been griefing people. That's textbook kill baiting. You're actively trying to piss people off so they attack you, and you get to kill 'em.

The problem is that Clown is seen as a license to grief. People aren't trying to be funny, they just try to piss people off because they're playing the one job that gets the excuse to. A Clown's jokes should be most harmful to themselves, more than anyone else, unless they're an antag.

It's one thing to ask to be let into Chemistry and mix water+potassium because what the fuck did they expect when they let the Clown into Chemistry? For it not to explode???

It's another to ask to be let into Chemistry and make a bunch of things you use solely to piss people off, because you were allowed to grief.

Edit: I can't believe I'm saying it, but Farquaar's got the right attitude about it. If that's the path you want to take, then being beaten to death should be your highlight, your sign that you did things right.

[Farquaar]

A Clown's jokes should be most harmful to themselves, more than anyone else, unless they're an antag.

Since when?

[CMDR_Gungnir]

A Clown's jokes should be most harmful to themselves, more than anyone else, unless they're an antag.

Since when?

Since we shouldn't be encouraging people to actively grief? Again, it's one thing to do something dumb if people trust the Clown to do something they really shouldn't be trusting them with, it's another to set out from the beginning to just cause trouble and actively be a nuisance.

There's a lot you can do with Clown that's interesting and entertaining for the crew, instead of resorting for the low-hanging fruit of just griefing people.

[Farquaar]

A Clown's jokes should be most harmful to themselves, more than anyone else, unless they're an antag.

Since when?

Since we shouldn't be encouraging people to actively grief? Again, it's one thing to do something dumb if people trust the Clown to do something they really shouldn't be trusting them with, it's another to set out from the beginning to just cause trouble and actively be a nuisance.

There's a lot you can do with Clown that's interesting and entertaining for the crew, instead of resorting for the low-hanging fruit of just griefing people.

Clown pranks that cause mayhem are the best because mayhem is what makes SS13 fun. Can you even call it a prank if people don't want to call security on you and/or lynch you afterwards?

[CMDR_Gungnir]

A Clown's jokes should be most harmful to themselves, more than anyone else, unless they're an antag.

Since when?

Since we shouldn't be encouraging people to actively grief? Again, it's one thing to do something dumb if people trust the Clown to do something they really shouldn't be trusting them with, it's another to set out from the beginning to just cause trouble and actively be a nuisance.

There's a lot you can do with Clown that's interesting and entertaining for the crew, instead of resorting for the low-hanging fruit of just griefing people.

Clown pranks that cause mayhem are the best because mayhem is what makes SS13 fun. Can you even call it a prank if people don't want to call security on you and/or lynch you afterwards?

There's a difference between causing mayhem and just griefing people, and I even agreed with you on that point.

[Valorium]

Personally, I'm firmly of the belief that Clowns shouldn't be allowed to (lethally) defend themselves if the victim of their grief retaliates.
[...]
If you walk into Medbay, walk up to someone who just got revived after they got shanked, and spray 'em with some dumb shit and they beat you to death, y' kinda fucked around and found out.

As the defending party the rate of escalation increases with you, up to and including violence, while the instigator is always able to respond in kind.

The clown should be able to defend himself with lethals if he is attacked lethally, I don't see why his job being clowning around and pranking should restrict him from this.
I agree if he gets killed for being annoying enough he fucked around and found out. But to expect them to just sit there and walk around helplessly while they're being murdered is insane and even if it did have an OOC justification, it makes 0 sense as an RP decision.

Clowns have a lot of tools to non-lethally disable people (water flower shenans, banana peels, their PDA, their native slipperiness, etc.), alongside all the traditional methods available (makeshift bolas, stun prods, stolen flashes, yadayadayada). If someone is lethalling you, it is not impossible to defend oneself and Yakkity Sax away without lethals. Like, clowns have nearly unrestricted griefing ability already, why should they be incentivized/allowed to murder the target(s) of their prank after they attempt to kill the clown when they can instead prolong their prankage? What's more clownish: stabbing someone to death with a sharpened survival knife after they retaliate lethally, or having the robustness and clownly power to slip them with a bar of soap, steal their toolbox, hit them with your horn, and waddle away unmolested?

[Timberpoes]

Escalation allows the Clown to do their classic japes and covers how other players can respond to the Clown for doing so.

Escalation also allows for the crew to prank the Clown and covers how the Clown can respond to the crew for doing so.

If your actions cause so much annoyance or grief that a lynch mob who want to see you 6 feet under forms, you probably shouldn't be violently retaliating against them if you really deserve it. However, the lynch mob is still bound by escalation when it comes to attacking you, killing you and round removal.

Since the current escalation policy effectively covers Clown-related scenarios so damn nicely, we feel that a tl;dr of "everything follows escalation" is all that's needed.

Block of Moths: Approve response
Melbert, Esq: Approve response
Tim B. Erpoes: Approve response