/tg/Station 13

I've been curious about the general stance on TC trades, especially antag trades. Is there a specific admin policy that controls what is traded? Or is really just reliant on admin willingness?


Depending on the admin it seems like you'll either be told to pound sand and asked why you even have the antag enabled if you didn't wanna play it or if you don't want to use their tools, or you'll get some unrollable antagonist or niche item.

It seems like with the argument that items that aren't in the syndicate uplink being traded to make the round or gimmick more interesting being on the table, why wouldn't an entirely different antagonist be? Especially if it's one that can't otherwise be obtained.

Purely admin willingness and discretion.

Far too many TC trade requests boil down to "give me the antag I wanted instead of this". This makes admins hesitant to just switch antags over, especially when last year there were a lot of incidents where players enabled heretic just to TC trade it away. This leads to admins telling players if they don't want an antag they should disable it, or offering to remove their antag status entirely and call any supposed bluffs.

Similarly, far too many TC trade requests boil down to "surely you have an idea how to make the shift interesting, and I'm giving you the opportunity to try it". Admins are also DMs and can do this at any time. They don't need to wait for someone to TC trade asking for it, and many admins with good ideas run them irrespective of TC trades.

Both of these combined will often lead to you being told to pound sand unless you have a specific TC trade in mind with a specific gimmick that you're willing to play out. And if the admins think your idea sucks or they don't like it, they still might tell you to pound sand regardless.

Timberpoes wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:49 pm Similarly, far too many TC trade requests boil down to "surely you have an idea how to make the shift interesting, and I'm giving you the opportunity to try it".

Is this really super common? I remember I once tried asking an admin to run something in a 2 and a half hour round. But it was less of "Make the shift interesting" and more "Maybe run something for all the dead people?".

Admins are also DMs and can do this at any time. They don't need to wait for someone to TC trade asking for it, and many admins with good ideas run them irrespective of TC trades.

This is true, but if someone is willing to give up their own personal enjoyment in the hopes of an admin running an event for the whole server... is there a problem with that? I understand that admins aren't obligated to respect TC trades (this is how it always should be) but someone asking for an event is much better than someone asking for wizard.

However, if someone is asking for an event that only involves them, then yeah, they should definitely go pound sand.

Current TC trade policy is fine I'd be hugely against any edict from on high changing it

There's not really any formal policy beyond "Do something cool and fun with it, don't just be boring"

I can't speak for every admin, but I usually deny most TC trades out of hand if the person doesn't have an idea for how to make things interesting.

You have a much higher chance of getting it approved with me if you can give me something concrete you want to do with it and if it's going to be interesting or funny.

personally for me it comes down to a) will it not fuck up the round too much balance wise b) is it a novel idea that probably hasnt been run into the ground c) am i not distracted enough to push the buttons

a lot of trades ive done in the past while have just been in the vein of "i rolled sleeper agent traitor 40 mins into the shift, can you give me some items i could have easily gotten and prepared had i rolled it sooner" and that sort of tc-for-convenience trade always feels pretty comfy

the biggest thing is mostly just actually making an offer since when people ahelp "i want to tc trade what can you give me" 90% of the time i dont really have any interesting ideas and the other 10% of the time im just going to shrug and give you something incredibly fucking stupid at which point im just adminbussing with your tc

Do consider the latest related ruling on this when it comes to the antag trade part:

viewtopic.php?p=618975#p618975

Its not against the rules to ask to trade for another antagonist but rolling an antagonist with the exclusive purpose of trading for another may result in warnings or bans.

Admins can note and warn players who they suspect are only rolling an antagonist role with the intent to trade, this can include a note warning future admins of their intentions and encouraging them to deny trades from this person.
If a player admits that they intend to only use an antagonist role to trade then they can be warned that they will be banned from said antagonist role and given an opportunity for them to state that they will play the antagonist or disable it themself.
Bans invoked under this can be appealed when the player intends to play the antagonist role again.

Headmin Votes:
NamelessFairy: Yes
Dragomagol: Yes
RaveRadbury: Yes

As I said then I say now: Do people really need a certain particular has to be that one antag in order to make things fun / have fun?

Aside from it being a weak form of antag rolling.

It'll always be a roll of the dice though for TC trades though and I'm not sure this thread can actually reach a conclusion on that part, just get quietly shuffled away at some point.

Someone could always make an independent guide to asking for TC trades though, just like uhhhh... this thing someone on Paradise did for prayers: https://www.paradisestation.org/forum/t ... to-prayer/

Part of me just prefers the magic and power of prayers unless someone is going hard for a cool gimmick, but that's just me.

Personally, the only TC trades I think are worthy are ones that directly benefit a gimmick or gives players items they might not otherwise have access to. If you get traitor and want heretic, just turn traitor off.

It sucks that the antagonist system currently rewards people turning on every antagonist possible so they get more rolls, and I think using the system in order to get admins to give you the antagonist you actually want just feeds into this general "antag rolling" mindset.