Policy action on the state of RP in the game

[Bawhoppennn]

I don't like writing these super long-winded walls of text posts, so I'll try and keep this somewhat short.

The state of the game has largely geared towards it being primarily treated as a TDM combat sim, and while that's nothing new, and isn't the case 100% of the time, I think it's time we actually made some policy to satisfy those who want a little bit of RP.

I'm not saying we should have Bay-tier RP where you try to act like a real person in that situation, but I think we should have a slightly higher standard than we do now. In my ideal view, the perfect RP-level is one where you can still be wacky and memey, and still have conflict in the game, but not act with the currently common silent drone stun-cuff-strip mentality, where you feel like you must prove your skills.

I know a lot of people have fun playing it like that, and that's fine, but I think a large amount of players want a little more than that from the game, so that's why I'd propose we enforce a little bit of standards on Basil, while leaving Sybil as it always was for people who enjoy that. That way, we'd not alienate anyone, and everyone could (in theory) be happy.

When I talked to PKP about this briefly, he said that with our current shortage of admins, this would be impractical to enforce, however I think that if we just had explicitly stated text saying what each server was oriented towards, with the rules that follow, most people would abide by the standards, and those who didn't wouldn't make much extra work than admins already have to do.

People have been talking about this kind of thing for years, and I hope that with a legitimate discussion, we could maybe finally get somewhere with it.

[BeeSting12]

Bagil has become new sybil, routinely getting higher pops for most of the day and having a similar RP level to sybil before bagil was placed on the hub. Also wew here's our yearly RP thread

[TribeOfBeavers]

What sort of rule/policy changes were you thinking of specifically?

[oranges]

back 2 bay

[Bawhoppennn]

Well, I personally thought that old ~30pop basil RP levels were pretty good and balanced RP-wise.

I think the best way to explain it would be in the rules page, with a simple broad statement, something along the lines of "Basil is for a slightly more RP-oriented experience. You don't have to be super serious, but please try to stay a little in character, and please try to always keep it fun for the person on the other end as well" along with some simple guidelines, and some general examples of behavior beneath it.

Those things, along with our already existing players who act like that, and our current rules, will probably be enough to instill the right mentality into people over time

[Cobby]

I feel like this does nothing except give basil players a way to talk trash to sybil because sybil is held to "lesser standards" even though they're the same.

[BeeSting12]

I'm all for higher RP but why bagil? Despite the fact that it's historically been the "medium RP" server, it also has much higher pops and higher pops tend to mean less RP/more action. I haven't been on sybil lately so I can't say anything for them, but given that they have the lower pops usually I'd say they're getting more roleplay than bagil is. Unless I'm wrong and both servers have the same, low RP level.

[captain sawrge]

roleplay is a buzzword

[Bawhoppennn]

I'm all for higher RP but why bagil? Despite the fact that it's historically been the "medium RP" server, it also has much higher pops and higher pops tend to mean less RP/more action. I haven't been on sybil lately so I can't say anything for them, but given that they have the lower pops usually I'd say they're getting more roleplay than bagil is. Unless I'm wrong and both servers have the same, low RP level.

I'd say they're roughly the same right now, except when they both get to lowpops.

[Qbopper]

I would love to have more "roleplay" focused (and though I hate sawrge's fucking "one sentence with little substance" posts he's right on it being a buzzword) gameplay but seriously what does that entail

What do we define roleplaying as

How do we communicate that to the players

How do we ENFORCE that among players

As nice as it would be to have a MOTD message about having higher RP standards, it won't work for a few reasons:

1. The above about defining/enforcing that policy - the admin team gets enough shit for not enforcing the current ruleset consistently, and if you add policy regarding something as subjective as RP you're asking for a bad time
2. Getting people to read the goddamn message - seriously it blows my mind how the majority of people actively avoid reading, and this is still prevalent in a game where literally half the screen is text
3. "Untraining" players from their mentality - how can we expect people to shift from their mentality towards the game to what we want? I have to constantly ask people to not use terms like "was X valid" or IC "it's [roundtype]". Hell, I started a big OOC shitfest because I had the gall to ask someone to not say "it's revs" IC. They made a fuss about how it's no different from "there's a revolution going on" or whatever blah blah blah

Unless people start actively proposing concrete ways to change player mentality these threads will do nothing but devolve into the same shitflinging we see every time, be locked by pkp, then someone will post something related to the topic and we start again

[NikNakFlak]

Why is the first thing baw says to promote roleplay is the BAGIL IS THE HIGH RP SERBER SYBILSHITS GO HOME

That everyone has heard a million gazillion jillion times.

[Atlanta-Ned]

Time to replace the servers with one button that randomly sends you to one of two servers. Death to the Sybil/Bagil wars.

[captain sawrge]

(and though I hate sawrge's fucking "one sentence with little substance" posts he's right on it being a buzzword)

This entire thread and discussion is already moot because "RP" means something different to everyone and unless someone writes up roleplay guidelines that enough people can agree on for it to be enforced the amount of "Roleplay" on the server is totally at the whim of the players online.
And if you ever want to get a set of enforced roleplay guidelines you need to convince enough people high-up that it is worth splitting the playerbase and driving the server in that direction, which no one has succeeded in doing in seven~ years.

[captain sawrge]

Humoring the idea isn't even worth it because historically everyone has been too scared to ever drastically alter the game's direction or policy and anyone that's made the attempt has faced attrition from one of the dozen or so different subgroups of players on the server that feels they best represent a very large and diverse playerbase to the point that they gave up.

If you want more a roleplay focused game, you're on the wrong server.
If you want more IC character interactions, find like-minded people and stick with them and hope that ban-happy admins and spiteful players don't stalk and harass you for being a human and making friends.

[cedarbridge]

I've said this a million times too. The only way you get higher levels of roleplay is by having players more interested in roleplaying and less interested in "winning." Part of this is our absolute focus on antag-driven rounds. If players were interested in RP the "suicide hopline" meme wouldn't exist. Neither would roundstart suicides for failed antag rolls. Instead its like the OP has said, we currently have a culture that has evolved to gearchecks and powergaming in a rules moderated tdm/rdm battle arena with toolboxes and tasers.

That's only going to change when the players decide they want it to change and not before. We can't really invoke policy on that without setting specific standards of RP or modeling something like VG uses. That, however, will still require a culture shift.

[J_Madison]

That's only going to change when the players decide they want it to change and not before. We can't really invoke policy on that without setting specific standards of RP or modeling something like VG uses. That, however, will still require a culture shift.

Could you (as an admin group) provoke shifts in culture, pull some strings, punish and degrade people that don't conform.

[captain sawrge]

That's only going to change when the players decide they want it to change and not before. We can't really invoke policy on that without setting specific standards of RP or modeling something like VG uses. That, however, will still require a culture shift.

This will never "just happen." Admins and coders are the ones that drive the game. If a culture shift ever occurs, it will be driven by the admin team and headmins. The people in charge of rules enforcement, policy, and OOC punishment are the ones with the most influence on the game's direction. The playerbase is fluid. People have come and gone and the entire playerbase has cycled out so many times since I started playing. They're not constant and there's no reason the people in charge should be so concerned with pleasing every single person if they believe a singular direction will be more beneficial to the server.
If you want a roleplay focused server, convince the headmins to instate roleplay-centric policies and have the admin team enforce roleplaying standards and policies that facilitate more character interaction.

[cedarbridge]

That's only going to change when the players decide they want it to change and not before. We can't really invoke policy on that without setting specific standards of RP or modeling something like VG uses. That, however, will still require a culture shift.

This will never "just happen." Admins and coders are the ones that drive the game. If a culture shift ever occurs, it will be driven by the admin team and headmins. The people in charge of rules enforcement, policy, and OOC punishment are the ones with the most influence on the game's direction. The playerbase is fluid. People have come and gone and the entire playerbase has cycled out so many times since I started playing. They're not constant and there's no reason the people in charge should be so concerned with pleasing every single person if they believe a singular direction will be more beneficial to the server.
If you want a roleplay focused server, convince the headmins to instate roleplay-centric policies and have the admin team enforce roleplaying standards and policies that facilitate more character interaction.

I never said it was going to "just happen." Headmin and admin policies are ultimately dictated by the wants and desires of the playerbase that puts them at the head of the server. This is especially true where we elect and reelect our headmins every few months. I get your point that players come and go and I imagine that a lot of the culture we have now is driven by refugees from certain lower rp servers (evidenced by the sorts of rules and policies they cite when they first arrive and break rules here.)

The question always comes about though. If we're going to establish roleplaying standards to be enforced, there has to be an understandable point for players to start from. What sort of minimum standards of play would be required? We already saw the sort of backlash players have to even a simple names policy.

[Lazengann]

That's only going to change when the players decide they want it to change and not before. We can't really invoke policy on that without setting specific standards of RP or modeling something like VG uses. That, however, will still require a culture shift.

Could you (as an admin group) provoke shifts in culture, pull some strings, punish and degrade people that don't conform.

there aren't enough admins to even administrate sybil 12 hours out of the day

[Bawhoppennn]

My whole original intent was that we use the existing rift in the player base between those who want some RP (which is bigger than you think) vs those who don't, and move those groups each to their own server, and then promote the mentality of that server with rules and guidelines accordingly.



If people don't read things and get banned for it, that is their fault.

Also I would technically be fine with Sybil being the RP server, however traditionally it just makes sense for Basil going back to what it once was so old Basil players might be more inclined to return. The servers are really identical except for names right now anyways.

[Bawhoppennn]

Also to note, I think after the initial blast of enforcement, things would settle down quite a bit, and for the RP server, it would probably balance out to be roughly the same, considering that RP standards would likely solve many old problems (rule 1, rule 10, etc.)

[Qbopper]

(and though I hate sawrge's fucking "one sentence with little substance" posts he's right on it being a buzzword)

This entire thread and discussion is already moot because "RP" means something different to everyone and unless someone writes up roleplay guidelines that enough people can agree on for it to be enforced the amount of "Roleplay" on the server is totally at the whim of the players online.
And if you ever want to get a set of enforced roleplay guidelines you need to convince enough people high-up that it is worth splitting the playerbase and driving the server in that direction, which no one has succeeded in doing in seven~ years.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying I don't like how you do these one line posts and then act surprised when people think you take nothing seriously

I actually agree with what you wrote in this post and don't understand why you don't just say your actual opinion in the first place

Also I would technically be fine with Sybil being the RP server, however traditionally it just makes sense for Basil going back to what it once was so old Basil players might be more inclined to return. The servers are really identical except for names right now anyways.

bagilfags go home

Also to note, I think after the initial blast of enforcement, things would settle down quite a bit, and for the RP server, it would probably balance out to be roughly the same, considering that RP standards would likely solve many old problems (rule 1, rule 10, etc.)

I really don't like the idea of having an "RP server" because even if we ignore the fact that sybil has its own little pool of regulars who would likely be frustrated at one server receiving a change like this, it's not something I'd like to see as an admin

I like being able to have both servers open and wait for ahelps while I have some time as I do work/etc., having separate policies would kill that for me

this is a minority opinion but still

[Pascal125]

The problem is we did go home, and i believe TG suffered for it. People have got to stop making this into a "server war" at every corner and let you guys talk.
But honestly, Baw, you got good intentions but it's not possible with this administration or player-base, and i doubt people wanna come back anyways. There are much better servers and communities out there, let's face it. Man...
Qbopper seems like the most down to earth admin here, and even he seems to harbor a bit of contempt towards what you're saying and bagil.

[Bawhoppennn]

The problem is we did go home, and i believe TG suffered for it.
Honestly Baw, you got good intentions but it's not possible with this administration or player-base, and i doubt people wanna come back.
Qbopper seems like the most down to earth admin here, and even he seems to harbor a bit of contempt towards what you're saying and bagil.

Well it can't hurt to give it one last shot for old time's sake, can it?

[Owegno]

While I would like to have more RP/Sportsmanship on both servers I don't really see how this is going to happen. Nobody has suggested any specific policy changes and if we just institute a vague policy to "RP more" it will be a confusing trainwreck of inconsistent enforcement.

[Cobby]

"RP" often means "Playing in accordance with my playstyle" which in reality comes off as very linear and monotonous to me. Ausops had a great post about the roleplay buzzword so hopefully he can quote it here [i'm too lazy to look] or just repeat it because it resonates very well with me.

I will say I agree with Owegno in that I think we've lost much of our beloved Sportsmanship in the game. There are times people try to exploit/weaponize admins because of a situation that didn't go their way in game, and unfortunately I think the only way I'm going to have to deter this is to start handing out punishments.

Remember, postround OOC shittalking or just playing a different game while the round is going are the best medicines and have cured many a ill rounds for me where I was less than optimal and ended up getting dunked for it. What I DIDN'T do was take it to the admins, as I knew I was being kinda petty.

[onleavedontatme]

I think ERP is retarded but we probably drove out what people think of as "roleplayers" by banning it.

The short rounds, unrestricted murdersprees, and proliferation of conversion modes is not an environment people want to "roleplay" in but there is massive resistance to changing any of this. We value the antag experience above all else.

Metacomms/metafriending are some of the most harshly punished offenses. This ironically favours the kinds of people who dont want to socialize at all in the first place. Its understandable that we punish hard to detect cheating as a zero tolerance thing but it feels like there is a witchhunt atmosphere at times, especially around "metafriends"

Admins get bored like anyone else, and want a laugh out of people, and we often go for the cheap thrill of spinning everything/sending jokes from centcomm/spawning lots of monsters. We dont treat it seriously or respect the immersion so why would anyone else?

I dont expect changes on these points or even think it'd be wise to do so in every case but I think those are a handful of many factors other than "force people to RP"

[Cobby]

@Kor's post

With that said, just think of the stories that brought all/most of us to ss13.

I don't recall ever hearing "oh yeah you can grow corn", but rather "oh yeah man you can grow kudzu which can infect the entire station and mushrooms that strangle people to death".

I don't recall ever hearing "oh yeah you mess with monkeys", but rather "oh yeah dude you can turn yourself into a superpower hulk smash all seeing boss who can also go around space without a space suit!"

Most "advertisements" to ss13 involve either antagonist stories or pseudo-protagonist stories, so it shouldn't be surprise when people come on here to be an antag/protag. That's my experience at least, and I think that has a much bigger hand in this "issue" than the lip service it (doesn't) receives.

[Owegno]

The short rounds, unrestricted murdersprees, and proliferation of conversion modes is not an environment people want to "roleplay" in but there is massive resistance to changing any of this. We value the antag experience above all else.

Admins get bored like anyone else, and want a laugh out of people, and we often go for the cheap thrill of spinning everything/sending jokes from centcomm/spawning lots of monsters. We dont treat it seriously or respect the immersion so why would anyone else?

These are things I hate/hated about our administration. The general lack of seriousness in centcomm announcement and amount of low effort meme events is something that bothered me as a player and still bothers me. I also utterly despise the attitude that the fun of antags > the fun of others, though there are no admins currently that I have seen who obviously have that attitude.

[Bawhoppennn]

I agree wholeheartedly about the point about sportsmanship. Maybe RP wasn't the correct term to use originally. I never intended to ask for an extremely radical change to play-style, either.


I think one of the key problems, is punishments and other forms of enforcement are done to surface-level things, as opposed to where it really matters.

It seems like a lot of players, have largely devolved into doing just what they're allowed to get away with, often spending hours nitpicking the intricacies of each rule, not realizing that without understanding the intent of those rules, they are completely arbitrary.
It doesn't seem like enough admins enforce the spirit of a rule, rather just what is explicitly allowed by them. That's whole reason we have to have this policy board in the first place.

I do understand why Kor removed ban requests, I imagine he thought by people using it, they were missing the spirit of the game completely. I don't think removing it really succeeded in changing the mentality though.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Make bagil non-stop extended round then. No antagonists without buttons, and also a petri dish for coders/policy makers to use to properly look at the game & progression in a microsope. If you can extend & enhance Bagil's long-game you can summarily also improve the quality of sybil in its normal progression.

I really dislike power gamers, or people who think players who RP or are lower skill are worthless because they dont play to 'win'. Usually the most interesting projects such as calm and collected wire-art, engineering etc come out of RP as well as moderate & collected practical gamers. Antagonists & high intensity players which easily convey over to ADHD griefers with nothing better to do and a ban deathwish usually end the round too fast for the slower folks to get anything going.

Punishment is a big issue, a lot of players ban bait while admins aren't online or are just ignorant to our rules because we don't push it in their faces and publically be seen to act on it. Closing down peer-to-peer ban requests made it difficult for players to rat out others truly disrupting the round out of round and IRC ahelps are hard to moderate, the only people we can effectively punish via the forums are admins, and this makes them cagey about doing anything because while you can't lose your head very easily, admins can be ousted quite quickly with a severe enough claim.

[onleavedontatme]

@Kor's post

With that said, just think of the stories that brought all/most of us to ss13.

I don't recall ever hearing "oh yeah you can grow corn", but rather "oh yeah man you can grow kudzu which can infect the entire station and mushrooms that strangle people to death".

I don't recall ever hearing "oh yeah you mess with monkeys", but rather "oh yeah dude you can turn yourself into a superpower hulk smash all seeing boss who can also go around space without a space suit!"

Most "advertisements" to ss13 involve either antagonist stories or pseudo-protagonist stories, so it shouldn't be surprise when people come on here to be an antag/protag. That's my experience at least, and I think that has a much bigger hand in this "issue" than the lip service it (doesn't) receives.

I often lament that the most exciting SS13 stories are the ones that get you banned but I didn't want to include another IC issue rant because I know everyone is sick of hearing that from me and it usually devolves into how much random violence we should or shouldnt tolerate from assistants.

The short rounds, unrestricted murdersprees, and proliferation of conversion modes is not an environment people want to "roleplay" in but there is massive resistance to changing any of this. We value the antag experience above all else.

Admins get bored like anyone else, and want a laugh out of people, and we often go for the cheap thrill of spinning everything/sending jokes from centcomm/spawning lots of monsters. We dont treat it seriously or respect the immersion so why would anyone else?

These are things I hate/hated about our administration. The general lack of seriousness in centcomm announcement and amount of low effort meme events is something that bothered me as a player and still bothers me. I also utterly despise the attitude that the fun of antags > the fun of others, though there are no admins currently that I have seen who obviously have that attitude.

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... ad#p285161

And right on cue. I do think the "all antags are dead or no antags were hit by my event so randomly killing players is okay" is part of the attitude that antags matter most.

Still, I'd rather be blown up at random than walk around upside down or see a giant pepe flying around at least.

[bandit]

Speak for yourself, I got into SS13 in the first place because someone told me it was this super-realistic Sealab simulator in space

[BeeSting12]

The short rounds, unrestricted murdersprees, and proliferation of conversion modes is not an environment people want to "roleplay" in but there is massive resistance to changing any of this. We value the antag experience above all else.

Admins get bored like anyone else, and want a laugh out of people, and we often go for the cheap thrill of spinning everything/sending jokes from centcomm/spawning lots of monsters. We dont treat it seriously or respect the immersion so why would anyone else?

These are things I hate/hated about our administration. The general lack of seriousness in centcomm announcement and amount of low effort meme events is something that bothered me as a player and still bothers me. I also utterly despise the attitude that the fun of antags > the fun of others, though there are no admins currently that I have seen who obviously have that attitude.

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic ... ad#p285161

And right on cue. I do think the "all antags are dead or no antags were hit by my event so randomly killing players is okay" is part of the attitude that antags matter most.

Still, I'd rather be blown up at random than walk around upside down or see a giant pepe flying around at least.

Going off of this, I think seeing the shit meme rounds stop would be nice. A few days ago the admins set everyone to antagonist, enabled respawn, and summoned guns 3x because it was Cerestation or something. That was not a creative event, it just turned the round into a huge deathmatch which we could've had by forcing revs or whatever. Doing these sorts of events discourages the "roleplay" mindset that we're trying to go for. So if you guys want to encourage "roleplay" then maybe stop doing events like this.
Other events that discourage roleplay and encourage deathmatch:
Syndrone dispenser in maintenance. Round turned into a clusterfuck in under five minutes.
The one that Kor mentioned with the bio nades after all antags were dead.
Can't remember any others now but I'll mention them as they come up.

I'm not saying the occasional meme round is bad, because they aren't, or that all memey events are bad, because not all of them are bad. But when your definition of an event is see how many buttons I can press before players start screaming to stop and then do a poll after where the "don't do this again" result wins and you var edit it to lose, there's something wrong. If admins are going to push for roleplay they should start showing it in their events.

edit: And no, noone thinks making polls at the end of the round asking us to rate your event and only having a "Good" and "[admin] is the best admin ever" option is funny.

[imblyings]

who were the admins online then

you can pm me this or kor if you don't want to post here

[bandit]

The thing with those is, the players don't help when they mass suicide whenever there's any map other than Meta or Box. It literally doesn't matter what the quality of the map is, people just hate change, and express this by shitting on the round. I can't speak for the admins enabling those events as I wasn't there but I would be surprised if the reasoning wasn't "fuck it, this is what you assholes want anyway."

[Qbopper]

The thing with those is, the players don't help when they mass suicide whenever there's any map other than Meta or Box. It literally doesn't matter what the quality of the map is, people just hate change, and express this by shitting on the round. I can't speak for the admins enabling those events as I wasn't there but I would be surprised if the reasoning wasn't "fuck it, this is what you assholes want anyway."

this drives me fucking nuts

there is very little that tests my patience and I do my best to not abuse my powers but I have never wanted to rule 0 p;eople more than when they moan endlessly if the map DARES to be anything that isn't meta or box

map rotation is the best thing that's ever happened to /tg/ and I will fight to the death on this

that's off topic though

Going off of this, I think seeing the shit meme rounds stop would be nice. A few days ago the admins set everyone to antagonist, enabled respawn, and summoned guns 3x because it was Cerestation or something. That was not a creative event, it just turned the round into a huge deathmatch which we could've had by forcing revs or whatever. Doing these sorts of events discourages the "roleplay" mindset that we're trying to go for. So if you guys want to encourage "roleplay" then maybe stop doing events like this.
Other events that discourage roleplay and encourage deathmatch:
Syndrone dispenser in maintenance. Round turned into a clusterfuck in under five minutes.
The one that Kor mentioned with the bio nades after all antags were dead.

yeah please start taking names down of admins when you see dumb shit happening because nothing can be done is no one knows who's doing it

I'm personally a fan of the occasional (like, rarely doing these) meme events, like the time me and doctor pork had a danny phantom vs box ghost fight or shit like that, but when your idea of a gimmick is something that completely fucks the round and has no effort involved then I'm going to start taking issue

I remember when I first got started that highlander was the ridiculous no effort TDM round gimmick, and it was nice because it was very clear that this is not how the game is played normally - that isn't really the case any longer

The general lack of seriousness in centcomm announcement

I will defend the "exasperated centcomm official who knows the station is a ridiculous social experiment and doesn't care anymore" gimmick to my dying breath but otherwise yeah that attitude can be frustrating

[Scott]

How can you not control what admins are doing? Logs exist for a reason.

[Qbopper]

How can you not control what admins are doing? Logs exist for a reason.

Do you expect us to browse the logs every day for each round on the off chance an admin is doing something bad?

Do you expect us to parse the vomit that is a round log and figure out the context of the situation, and then how someone fucked up?

Do you expect the headmins to "control" the admin team when we already get blasted on a daily basis for not being able to enforce policy consistently?

Log diving is good to confirm or deny a story/etc. - not only is it hilariously unfeasible to log dive, you don't get the background of the situation, you don't see the damage caused by someone fucking up, and more. This is a ridiculous idea - even if I wanted to log dive this specific situation, where do I start? I genuinely couldn't tell you because I don't have enough info to begin. Besides, it's a hell of a lot easier to just assume that you can trust the other admins and not have to start secretly checking their logs for any wrongdoing, and if you don't have that level of trust you're going to have a super unhealthy relationship with the other admins

This is the same situation as ahelps - people have decided for some reason that they don't need to ahelp people doing bad shit in game, and thus the admins aren't aware of when it happens, and then we hear about it 2 days later in a salt thread and then it's essentially hearsay and not actionable by then

I don't have a problem with people criticizing the admin team or admins, but this is such a ridiculously unrealistic idea I can't let that slide

[Lumbermancer]

Speak for yourself, I got into SS13 in the first place because someone told me it was this super-realistic Sealab simulator in space

I encourage you to RP as Hank Murphy, OP will be glad too.

[Aloraydrel]

Higher standards of roleplay can never be done until you remove those who don't want it and fill it with people who do

[Qbopper]

Higher standards of roleplay can never be done until you remove those who don't want it and fill it with people who do

this herein lies the problem

are we really willing to double down and say "if you don't like RP go elsewhere"/viceversa

[BeeSting12]

they say that we don't want to be like bay but we're moving closer to hippie which is not a good thing

[D&B]

Do you want rp or sportsmanship.

Would you be willing and able to define what you want by rp.

Because sitting in the bar talking with your metagang is considered by many admins to be the apex of RP, and that's boring as fuck and rejected by most.

[cedarbridge]

they say that we don't want to be like bay but we're moving closer to hippie which is not a good thing

There was a time where tg was sold to me as "not as strict as bay but not as lawless as Nox/LowRP/NoRP.

Now every day I hear "tg is lowrp stupid" "You mean this isn't hippie?"

We have either lost or ceded the middle ground.

[DemonFiren]

Because sitting in the bar talking with your metagang is considered by many admins to be the apex of RP

Who specifically, and are those admins treating that as a positive and desirable thing?
Because if so I smell shit, and if not I smell bias.

[Nilons]

To be honest when people do RP it tickles me pink because I know they want to, and are choosing to. I've found that people that RP are generally left well enough alone and even treated better because everyone understands they're putting in more effort. As it stands I think that if we start to enforce it it will become less fun, and treated completely normal. People RPing right now draw other people into their RP because it's fun, if it becomes forced it's just going to make people be less creative about it. Like the other day I rolled traitor and decided to buy carp and make the dorms my native land, murder boning people who entered and trading medkits for passage through while shouting over the radio about it, when sec caught me they didn't just put a bullet in me and space me they actually tried to work out a deal because I was semi-rping, if I had just been double es-wording everyone I wouldn't have had a prayer. If admins start enforcing RP it's gonna be A: Less fun for everyone B: Drive a large portion of the player base away. This is really rambling but I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who likes RP a decent bit, I play pen and papers every week. I just think that the server has a special place in the middle ground where people can play how they want. Cedarbridge nailed it earlier in the thread. People will only RP if they have more fun playing and less fun winning.

[Atlanta-Ned]

Do you want rp or sportsmanship.

My feeling is that a lot of people say they want more RP, but what they mean is better sportsmanship.
My feeling is that sportsmanship means better enforcement of rule 1.

[Cobby]

I often lament that the most exciting SS13 stories are the ones that get you banned but I didn't want to include another IC issue rant because I know everyone is sick of hearing that from me and it usually devolves into how much random violence we should or shouldnt tolerate from assistants.

My most memorable event on SS13 was me either being framed as a mime or talking as a mime and getting grieffed by Phoebe Lotsu and Derek Westbrook. That was one of those godawful rounds but I laugh about it now because in hindsight it was kinda hilarious.

[bandit]

Higher standards of roleplay can never be done until you remove those who don't want it and fill it with people who do

You can change the culture, though. One way to start is RPing yourself, which I kind of feel like a lot of people posting in this thread don't actually do. If you don't feel you can RP you can get pretty damn close by this server's standards by just doing your job in the way that involves interacting face to face with the most people. If you're an assistant, actually go around to departments asking if you can assist. If you're the bartender, serve drinks and start conversations. The thing about "a culture of griff attracts fellow griffons" is that the opposite is also true.