/tg/Station 13

Perma prisoners are currently allowed to be released and promoted to security - this should be changed.The only differences between a shift start prisoner and a maxcapping clown who ate Ian from an IC perspective, are that the shift start prisoner committed their crime before the start of the shift, so no one on station has any personal involvement with it - and the metaknowledge that perma prisoners can't be antags. Is it believable from an RP perspective that security would be okay with not only releasing a dangerous criminal, but then immediately handing them a gun and asking them to go kill things ?

Perma prisoners should be able to roll antag.

Perma prisoners should have a slightly higher chance of rolling antag than the average crewmember. Not enough to distort roll distribution too much, but enough that mathematically speaking, it’s more risky to arm a prisoner than a regular crewmember.

Considering that the RP server is about RP and story, wouldn't this be better left for people playing to develop on IC, rather than a blanket yes or no policy?

If this is about the mechanics of prisoners not being able to be round-start antags (therefore adding inherent risk to the interaction instead of their promotion being a no brainer) thats one thing, but why limit the space for RP and improv here otherwise?

Meta-knowledge and mechanics aside, everyone knows NT is a shady company, and not everyone is going to be qualified for the job they signed up for, nor would all prisoners be incarcerated for legitimate reasons, or all security officers be undeniably free of corruption.

Point is if my back is against the wall I know damn well I'm going to give the guy serving eighteen hard years for tax fraud a gun, a badge, and then point him at the nearest talking potted plant thats chanting Gregorian choir while bashing its way into the brig.

A believable situation does not always have to be a realistic one. Besides, who doesn't like a good redemption arc?

CPTANT wrote:Perma prisoners should be able to roll antag.

Farquaar wrote:Perma prisoners should have a slightly higher chance of rolling antag than the average crewmember. Not enough to distort roll distribution too much, but enough that mathematically speaking, it’s more risky to arm a prisoner than a regular crewmember.

When I PR'ed prisoners maintainers requested that they not roll antag. Anyone is welcome to try and adjust that now that the role has been around for about 6 months.

Part of the reasoning for not giving prisoners antag was to disincentivize people from rolling it for the antag slot, as several people seemed specifically interested in an antag breakout round. If prisoners can roll antag (especially if they get an increased chance for antag) we can expect to see a lot more catatonics in perma, which is the problem that prisoners were supposed to help with.

Ultimately I see players interacting with each other to be the goal of the role and something we try to cultivate. This makes promoting prisoners during situations that require it to be a bit of a necessary evil, but something that gives some kind of texture to the role and the sec experience.

Misdoubtful wrote:Besides, who doesn't like a good redemption arc?

I think this is in-line with our goal of providing novel emergent narratives, and I'd prefer not to lose it.

I feel like promoting prisoners is fine as long as it's an RP thing, not just "give me your ID you're a cop now". It makes sense in lower pop rounds - HoS is low on security officers so he conscripts the prisoners to help. Could make for some VERY interesting scenarios.

Misdoubtful wrote:Considering that the RP server is about RP and story, wouldn't this be better left for people playing to develop on IC, rather than a blanket yes or no policy?

If this is about the mechanics of prisoners not being able to be round-start antags (therefore adding inherent risk to the interaction instead of their promotion being a no brainer) thats one thing, but why limit the space for RP and improv here otherwise?

I think this is a good statement about the state of this policy discussion. I believe a good degree of prisoner Release (which does not necessarily mean promotion) should be left for IC reasoning. I remember observing a round or two where a prisoner got let out to do janitorial duties with a bucket and mop for very good behavior after an hour into the round. There was no job promotion and they were let go with their prisoner ID for the rest of the round, you could basically compare it to community service but there was more freedom involved (And the occasional security checkup).

Hell even if the chance of rolling traitor on prisoner is lower then average crew is fine in my eyes. So if somebody wants to PR that, no qualms from me. Just don't make it higher (or do and it will help cut out Antag Rollers on tg overall, but that's another problem)
Adding potential risk to full on conscripting or promoting a prisoner is a good way to dissuade repetitive prisoner promoting because of meta-knowledge. Not remove, just dissuade. And also encourages some more tighter surveillance and interaction from warden/officers on prisoners to see what they are up too.

Yeah, as long as it's a lower than normal but non-zero chance it will mean people won't roll prisoner FOR antag but it's possible

I've so far been on both sides of "prisoners getting recruited by sec" rounds, prisoner is a fun role and Manuel still has decently high Rev and Cult rolls at higher pop levels, so recruiting isn't uncommon when those gamemodes roll. I feel however, that there's a pretty significant difference between sec being forced into an "all hands on deck" type scenario, where antag status is honestly irrelevant because there's a shared much more dangerous enemy to deal with (traitors and cultists aren't generally friends even when they end up on the same station through dynamic or admin intervention). But there's a pretty strong difference between "you're there and we'll take anyone without glowing eyes and a halo (or anyone we can shove a mindshield into)" and "We have low sec so let's go recruit from the set of guys who are paradoxically guaranteed to not be antags, despite the fact that they are in fact prisoners who have committed SOME crime". On MRP at least, criminal status should take preference over antag status in regards to security decision making, if you wouldn't recruit a brigged confirmed traitor for something, you shouldn't be recruiting roundstart prisoners, if you would be recruiting a traitor for something roundending like a blob, cult, or revs, fair game though.

Simple fix: make prisoners inherent antags with only one objective. Escape the station alive.

Now if you promote the prisoner, you have to check up on them that they dont just go rogue and steal the armory to protect themselves.

Critawakets wrote:Simple fix: make prisoners inherent antags with only one objective. Escape the station alive.

Now if you promote the prisoner, you have to check up on them that they dont just go rogue and steal the armory to protect themselves.

Worst take yet. Would bring back even in a worse way the problem of joining prisoner only for antag-rolling. This time it would be guaranteed so prisoner would aways be a high-demand role only for the antag status, and sec would always have a reason to valid them because they know they're always antag, which would deter both parties to participate in any interesting rp scenario.


I think just like Rave and Spookuni here. It needs to be IC handled. It think one shouldn't be roundstart giving prisoners a sec job out of nowhere, but in case things go south or there is a high need for a job being taken, there's enough wriggle room for rp and creative situations to handle their fate ICly.

However, I also think there shouldn't be any bans nor strict ruling for this. If the HoS is or wants to be incompetent and promote prisoner to Warden, let them be incompetent and deal, just as well, with IC consequences.

However, I also think there shouldn't be any bans nor strict ruling for this. If the HoS is or wants to be incompetent and promote prisoner to Warden, let them be incompetent and deal, just as well, with IC consequences.

Being on the receiving end of a prisoner going nuts after they were meta promoted roundstart into security, which was the round that eventually prompted this policy thread, gotta say that having a policy of "oh deal with security being terrible / making terrible decisions IC" can lead to a bit of a problem for everyone else who had nothing to do with security deciding to metagame on the RP server when things go south, especially given sec's standard OOC protections. I'd argue that at the very least security should be OOC responsible for the actions of people they promote, especially when their reasoning is out of line with what should be an RP server.

RP wise it'd make more sense to go grab a random assistant from the bar and shove them into a uniform then it would be to promote a known and incarcerated criminal, And justification which boils down to OOC meta-information is non-congruent with an environment which is meant to foster or allow RP. There's a pretty strong difference which is easy to point to between sec either: doing something interesting and RP oriented with a prisoner (work release or parole would generally involve actual interaction), being forced by circumstance to bend or break the rules to adapt to a difficult situation, which I think everyone agrees is engaging emergent gameplay, or grabbing someone with minimal justification and shoving them into a uniform because "we need numbers" or what have you.

I think it'd be pretty reasonable if a real world prison, under the threat of all its occupants dying or suffering grievous harm, were to release and employ its incarcerated inmates to save the lives of both the guards and prisoners. It would be perhaps less believable, if for whatever reason if that same prison were to simply release its inmates, give them positions in the police, and set them loose.

spookuni wrote: snip

Yeah I agree with all this. I'm just saying I don't like the idea of strict ruling regarding the subject. You can't just, as OP says, have a ruling in which you ban everyone who promotes prisoners. It's a matter that can't be resolved by such tight ruling. Discretion on a per-case basis is needed in this case.

This should not be specific to mrp. It is extremely OOC.

It should be treated like a suicide bomb in that only in very specific instances should it be okayed for the sake of roleplay, but really we know everyone is doing it for the protection.

Prisoner works even on LRP because of the ooc knowledge they aren't antag so people shouldn't/wouldn't shit on them. I would be worried about enabling antag for them has cons on both ends.

what if they were relaxed-escalation non-antags in a similar vein to things like lavaland golems or purged AIs or whatever, so while you're not allowed to valid them on the spot for existing it'd still be a bad idea to promote them to sec at roundstart on the "they can't be antag we can trust them hurr" principle because they are allowed to just dumpster anyone that pisses them off for whatever reason

It'd be treated in a similar way to if you purge the AI and the AI decides to siphon that one asshole who keeps screaming "AI STATE LAWS" every two minutes

Maybe it's changed recently or it was admemes, but I've been a roundstart tator prisoner before on Manuel. The uplink spawned in a pen.

I don't like that there's one non-sec/captain that you KNOW isn't going to be an antag. It's a huge gray area and these are the problems I see.

1. If you disallow the chance for antag, then that's meta knowledge that players are acting upon. Everyone knows that the prisoner is not allowed to do anything more than a non-antag clown/mime could get away with. (Maybe less depending on the admin for that round?)
2. If you allow for antag, LRP sec is going to valid the shit out of them for being potentially antags. Better safe than sorry, right?
3. If you give prisoners an antag objective, even a soft objective such as escaping out of custody, LRP prisoners will take that cue to murderbone or sign up for prisoner specifically for antag status.

The way I'm seeing this, correct me if I'm wrong, is there's a feedback loop between problems #2 and #3 for LRP, and a meta knowledge problem for #1 on MRP.

Potential solution: Make Prisoner a ghost-role spawn. If you want it to be a "chill out role" then it needs to be separated from the station. (And forgotten about/ignored like Charlie Station or Drones)
Other potential solution: Prisoners can roll antag, perhaps at a slightly higher chance, but start out tracking implanted.
Other potential solution: Prisoners are always antag/soft antag, but sec has objectives to keep the prisoners alive and in custody.

I don't really see a problem with promoting prisoners to security as long as there's room for the prisoner to engineer their escape or disregard Sec. Make a dumb decision and get slapped in the face for it and all that.

BrianBackslide wrote: 1 Potential solution: Make Prisoner a ghost-role spawn. If you want it to be a "chill out role" then it needs to be separated from the station. (And forgotten about/ignored like Charlie Station or Drones)
2 Other potential solution: Prisoners can roll antag, perhaps at a slightly higher chance, but start out tracking implanted.
3 Other potential solution: Prisoners are always antag/soft antag, but sec has objectives to keep the prisoners alive and in custody.

1 It's way less appealing to be arbitrarily notified about spawning mid round as prisoner than other more interesting ghost roles, and less likely of sec giving a shit about you once the round is in progress. Leave it as a regular "job" as is.

2 You pick prisoner to play as prisoner. If you choose to pick prisoner for other than to play as prisoner, you are doing things wrong.

3 You pick prisoner to play as prisoner. If you choose to pick prisoner for other than to play as prisoner, you are doing things wrong.

Prisoners get a 30% chance to get the repeat offender role.
Repeat offendirs are completely identical to normal prisoners, unless VOLUNTARILY released by security. At which case they gain soft antagonist status (no boning).
This should solve all three problems presented.

Which means that giving a prisoner a badge and a gun is risky, but you can't just valid them while in jail.

We agree with some of the sentiments in this thread that prisoners should only be made into security if the situation demands it, such as needing all hands on deck to fight a blob, or more mindshielded crew to fight a dominant.
However in the absence of a good reason it should not happen, such as promoting them immediately roundstart. This is of course for MRP servers only.

Headmin Votes:
Coconutwarrior97: Yes, I usually prefer not to outright limit players from doing things like this since it can restrict people's creativity. However, if its roundstart promotion it does seem a bit out of character to insta promote convicts, not mention the meta knowledge they won't be a ling/traitor.
Domitius: Yes.
Naloac: Yes.