(MRP) Allow destructive sabotage under the murderbone rules.

[spookuni]

Bottom post of the previous page:

I've raised this proposal a couple times in admin channels, and it's generally approved of there, so I'm gonna post it out here to get more feedback on what the wider Manuel audience thinks of it.

Manuel's been having consistent issues for months centred around low energy rounds where nothing really happens, and I think a large part of the reason for this is the massive negative interaction between the murderbone rules as written and any attempt to engage in large-scale station sabotage. Under the current rules as written even a single invalid kill is classified as murderboning, and while I don't think that's a problem in small scale personal conflict (to be frank, valid reasons to kill people as an antagonist are incredibly easy to justify) it DOES basically prohibit any antagonistic action with the potential to kill many people. Something as simple as putting up a shocked grille in maintenance as an antagonist resulting in an assistant dying is technically murderbone, let alone something as cool as interesting as sabotaging the supermatter to release a singularity. (Clarification: to the best of my knowledge no one has ever been bwoinked for setting lethal shocked grilles up as an antag, and I'd personally probably instantly declare rule 0 if I saw it myself, frying assistants is a sacred right)

This has a further negative effect on the quality of actual RP on Manuel - In my recent experience nobody on Manuel cares much at all in character about the possibility of critical station sabotage in areas like atmospherics. The area is specifically listed as highly dangerous in the silicon policy rules but nobody has reason to care because of the OOC consideration that very few antags are ALLOWED to touch the bad times plasma pump. How your character actually acts is just as important to playing a role as what they say, and at this point people are treating massive threats IC as non-threats, because OOC they are.

With that in mind, my proposal is this:

Mass sabotage and indirect antagonist actions that are likely to kill people are allowed across the board so long as the antagonist who set them off does not take direct and specific personal action to maximise the bodycount of those actions.

Examples:
An antagonist who wanted to plasmaflood and then run around opening up air alarms to get the spicey going could do so, but they would be prohibited from taking an axe or esword to kill people escaping the flood.

Another antagonist wants to sabotage the supermatter and release a singularity, having beforehand set up a singulo beacon on the other side of the station such as to drag their new hungry baby through populated areas like medbay, they could do that, but running around stunning players attempting to flee and throwing them into the angry disk would be disallowed.

My hope is that this would result in returning freedom for antagonists to pull off dangerous gimmicks and simple but timeless strategies without resulting in the degeneration of antag play towards "how quickly can I make as many people as possible as dead as possible?"

[CMDR_Gungnir]

But we don’t because despite clear paths that give the player the right to do *this* if it’s in pursuit of their objectives admins twist and turn until they talk themselves into believing it’s trying to “maximize kill count”, when looking at the example for it shows it’s not the same at all.

As the author of the rule itself, you can sabotage if you can make the case for it. IE if you get pressed and you say “because I wanted to” might be a bit sus, but saying “because I wanted to distract the crew while I did my objective” then that’s perfectly in the realm of acceptability.

The rules goal is to defend against the guy systematically picking ppl off, whether that’s one or fifty people.

The purpose is to stop "Man buys No-Slips + DESword and goes from department to department killing everyone in sight" rather than "I was not perfectly safe at all times except when the game specifically told The Bad Man to kill me", right?

well yes, else bystanders and even people who have done no wrong except making the traitors job easier if they were gone (see pursuit of your objectives) would not be fair game for antags per the writing of the rules.

Yeye. I just figured it might be a bit easier for people to parse if it was put in examples you might see in round.

[Vekter]

From the new MRP rules posted today:

Without Objectives:
When wanting to cause death and destruction not related to objectives, restricted antagonists may instead rely on extremely relaxed escalation.
They may escalate lethally sooner and with less justification, may use more lethal methods to escalate and may rely on antagonistic reasons for escalating. Such reasons may include escalating against people who are excessively polite or helpful as well as being mean or rude, escalating against groups of people who exclude them or escalating against people who ignore or avoid attempts to communicate entirely.
They have no obligation to treat their victims but escalating over minor issues should not result in the antagonist taking steps to permanently round-remove the other player unless escalation policy would otherwise permit it.
Mass station sabotage that is likely to kill people is allowed so long as the antagonist does not take any direct and specific personal actions to maximise the bodycount beyond what the sabotage itself causes. Examples of mass station sabotage include plasma flooding, causing a supermatter delamination and spacing the station.

[NecromancerAnne]

So, in this distinction:

Say I, Eval Griffan, wanted to do some sabotage and make the station inhospitable. I think today, I'll use explosives to remove sections of the station

What would be allowed is; ringing the station with explosives so as to cause hull breaches and force people inwards, big explosion just kind of somewhere but probably at least a trafficked area to force people to maint, or hitting some key departments to make it nonfunctional. Maybe a combination, but more for intent of inhospitability than precision striking as many people as possible.

What wouldn't be allowed is; literally flattening the station with no chance of survivors. The ancient cargo McAirstrike spam, singletank spam, just an obscene amount of explosives in exactly the right spots and overlap to ensure nobody survives.

Have I got that distinction correct?

[Pandarsenic]

I would be fine with the latter as long as you aren't also going around directly finishing off anyone who makes it out but doesn't start shit with you + you make some effort to ensure an actual shuttle call

[sinfulbliss]

At the price of atmos’s future enjoyment I’ll say there are some risks in taking that approach Panda. The one factor preventing experienced atmos tekkies and toxins enthusiasts alike from flattening the entire station every time they roll antag is the crazy short 30-60 minute round times. Manuel on the other hand has fat juicy 90-120min round times, plenty for any bombing enthusiast to sink their teeth into and create something real nasty.

Now maybe that’s something y’all would like, and there is indeed a stipulation in the rules that says admins can ask you to knock off the flatten-everything-gimmick if you repeat it, so it’s not exactly an existential threat - but I’m not sure of a more efficient way of maximizing your kill count than turning the entire station into a hole.

[spookuni]

Given that the direct proposal (written by me, stolen by timber, stolen back by me and then implemented) of this thread has now been implemented into the RP rules directly, I'm going to close this thread here. Questions, proposals and requests for clarification can go in new threads if need be, so they can be more easily separated out and discussed specifically rather than sharing real-estate with an obsolete proposal.