Add basic job expectations to LRP ruleset

[Fatal]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Alright, let me break it down for you, because that title might have some people wondering what the hell I'm talking about

Basically, over the years, I personally feel the LRP servers are slowly but surely drifting towards NRP. I'm sure some people who've been around as long as I have, probably feel a similar way

What I'm proposing, is to expand rule 5:

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role require a minimum amount of effort; generally considered to be not logging out at or near roundstart.

By including all jobs in that rule

Looking something like:

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role, require a minimum amount of effort to do their job and/ or assist their team directly or indirectly to accomplish their goals. Also players in any role should ensure their department provides a basic level of service to the rest of the station, unless there is a legitimate in-character reason to refuse this


I don't mind so much if that wording gets played with a little, but I think that sets the bar for what I'm trying to accomplish here. We get multiple adminhelps from people complaining that engineering didn't setup the engine before fucking off to space, or that medical staff aren't healing people. And you know what, the rules, besides rule 1, don't have anything against that

I'm not trying to take away peoples freedoms with such a rule, all I want is that people who sign up for a job, make a BASIC effort to ensure their department is running, especially when it's an important one to the round (I'm mostly looking at engineering / medbay / mining here) but honestly I think it should just cover all jobs because, in my opinion, the game plays better when people actually play their job

The obvious exceptions are assistant and mime / clown and such, nobody cares if they don't help anyone because honestly, that IS their basic expectation

And I'm not trying to take away any conflict with this one, if there's a legitimate in-character reason to refuse services or to do your job, that's part of the game. What I don't like seeing as people who take job equipment (paramedics I'm looking at you here with your syringe guns) and fucking off with it and never helping anyone

[Pepper]

► Show Spoiler

Some people seem to have misunderstand my proposed rule change

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role, require a minimum amount of effort to do their job and/ or assist their team directly or indirectly to accomplish their goals. Also players in any role should ensure their department provides a basic level of service to the rest of the station, unless there is a legitimate in-character reason to refuse this

This doesn't mean EVERY player has to do their job, with any real efficiency either, as long as SOMEONE in the department has taken responsibility for the very BASICS that the department would be expected to offer by the rest of the crew

Self service is a thing. This rule falls to pieces during lowpop - not to mention the thousands of potentially created tickets over some spit dribbler ringing the R&D desk bell 3 times then ahelping that nobody is doing science's job (or HoP, or engineering, or security, et cetera). I don't see how punishing people for organically being pulled away from their job to roleplay (and having the burden of explaining why always be on them) is going to help anything at all. All this will do is create more work for admins with next to no return on time investment.

► Show Spoiler

Here's some examples from what other people have posted:

Kieths engineer example, can I leave engineering and build a maint bar? - If you are the only engineer, the basic expectation is that you spend a couple of minutes (which is at very shortest rounds is going to be 10-5 percent of your round), setting up the SM to work. Once that is done, the basic level of service is met, and you are free to gimmick away

If you aren't the only engineer, I think as long as you spend a few seconds talking with the rest of your department (I know, talking right) and ensure that someone is going to setup the SM (even if they don't but they verbally take responsibility, that's on their hands at that point), you don't personally have to have anything to do with it and can gimmick away

We already have a huge problem with competent engineer staffing and this will only make it worse. Not to mention that when there's at least one half sentient engineer the SM usually gets set up anyways. The only times I see the engine going untouched is when there are no engineers on station, so I guess you'll have to settle for bwoinking the SM for not generating power.

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As for mining, given the intergalactic materials market thing is in, and miners have to earn points to buy skeleton keys for the tendril chests anyway, I don't think this rule would even need to cover them

Also very rarely an issue, unless you count the miners dying as neglecting their duties.

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As for the security example, I don't know what planet a "basic level of service" means "kill all the antags with no mercy or get bwoinked" comes from, and I don't think rule 5 would cover security anyway because they already have their own expectations

What is the point of this proposed change then? There's so many exceptions out of the gate that the entire thing just seems clumsy.

► Show Spoiler

Perhaps the rule needs a rewording regarding something like:

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role, require a minimum amount of effort to do their job and/ or assist their team directly or indirectly to accomplish their goals. Also players in any role should ensure their department provides a basic level of critical service to the rest of the station, unless there is a legitimate in-character reason to refuse this

You WILL spend an hour and a half doing wound surgery, medcuck. LOWPOP DEMANDS IT.

► Show Spoiler

GUYS GUYS GUYS, warden out of brig ban him right fucking now

You may be onto something here.

[dendydoom]

i'm with kieth here, a lot of players don't sit in the lobby screen and deliberate for ages. they pick their job like a tf2 class. it's just what they're used to, they know the department and its mechanics and they're comfortable with the identity of the job. but there are always emergent IC elements that will dictate what they do when they're actually in-game that will be more of an influence over how they choose to act rather than what job they are.

i think there could be some compromise where we address things like "we expect you not to goof off *every single round* if you pick a job repeatedly and are so insubordinate/inactive that the department ceases to function."

a while ago i did the classic chef gimmick of making really terrible food on purpose and then fending off people that had a problem with it and tried to break in to make their own food. i did it as a duo gimmick with the other chef because their whole schtick was that they were a burnt out line cook that has given up, and i was their foil as the completely incompetent newbie chef who was trying hard but fucking it up spectacularly. it was a great round and a lot of people mentioned that they enjoyed it but it's very clear that if i made a habit of doing that every single round then it would really get annoying very quickly.

i feel like this is perhaps the thing we're ultimately trying to address - that people who do this *every single time* need to be spoken to about perhaps being more mindful of their impact. but people who are just playing the game as it comes and a round happens to take them on an adventure that unfortunately means they're not around to man their station, i think this needs to be preserved as an enjoyable aspect of the game.

[BrianBackslide]

Not doing your job is an IC issue.
Not doing your job repeatedly is an administration issue. (Why didn't you just go assistant? Because you're probably powergaming, sweetie)
Not *wanting* to do your job is a code issue.

Outside of lowpop conditions, when do these issues matter enough that it causes problems for the round? Is it a bad thing that it causes problems? Should command staff hitch up their game and start brigging/demoting players that aren't doing "the bare minimum"?

[Higgin]

Coming at this as an HRP command main in my previous lives, I'm going to say: don't count on command to make people do shit that's unrewarding or that they fundamentally don't want to do.

You have very few meaningful consequences and rewards to give somebody in a round. On top of doing your own department's work, you probably don't have time, energy, or reach to do accountability. It gets tiring as fuck having to do it every single round for the same people who make a habit of being unreliable every single round too. They can just as easily wait you out, stop rolling the role, or work around you most of the time to where your carrots and sticks don't matter (and security is seldom interested or free to get involved in being the muscle for demotions - it's a minefield of bad feelings separate from the game of valids.)

The most effective command are the ones that channel people into doing what they already wanted to do more effectively than they could have done it themselves. You can't always assume, like dendy mentioned, that people pick a role committed to just grinding at that role's mechanical loop in the way that most serves others' ability to play all round.

You can hope, but you can't assume.

(E1: to be clear, when people don't already have an idea, goal, or sense of what might be fun to do, you can also help them realize that the job can be fun, provide direction, etc. - good command help people see and get involved with their roles where it's rewarding to do so. Bad command try to force the issue, get frustrated when they can't, and end up wasting a lot of time on trying to make people act like the head actually signs their paychecks for them to make rent and isn't also quite possibly an antag.)

E2: Opening up command to non-humans so you'd get more statics in those roles might get you more full command rosters, particularly at lowpop. It doesn't change the above dynamic wrt: leadership and management though.

The rule as written at least currently requires heads to make some effort, and playing as a head makes you a lot more visible. It gives you a lot more stakes in your reputation if you care about it.

In my experience, this means that people who main head roles tend to be some of the most reliable people in their departments or at least try to be.

But, you have to come back to it and ask: why aren't the reliable non-human statics playing command to begin with? Why is it more important or rewarding for them to play their static than to play a head?

I think the "thinness" of what head roles meaningfully offer and can do, described above, has a lot to do with it. On lowpop especially, playing any head runs the risk of being AC and having a lot of extra targets/expectations on your back, not unlike being the sole sec officer in the round after it's already been going for thirty minutes. MRP lowpop frequently sees nobody in sec and one or two people who can bear to play command get saddled with it by default.

[Constellado]

Coming at this as an HRP command main in my previous lives, I'm going to say: don't count on command to make people do shit that's unrewarding or that they fundamentally don't want to do.

You have very few meaningful consequences and rewards to give somebody in a round. On top of doing your own department's work, you probably don't have time, energy, or reach to do accountability. It gets tiring as fuck having to do it every single round for the same people who make a habit of being unreliable every single round too. They can just as easily wait you out, stop rolling the role, or work around you most of the time to where your carrots and sticks don't matter (and security is seldom interested or free to get involved in being the muscle for demotions - it's a minefield of bad feelings separate from the game of valids.)

The most effective command are the ones that channel people into doing what they already wanted to do more effectively than they could have done it themselves. You can't always assume, like dendy mentioned, that people pick a role committed to just grinding at that role's mechanical loop in the way that most serves others' ability to play all round.

You can hope, but you can't assume.

(E1: to be clear, when people don't already have an idea, goal, or sense of what might be fun to do, you can also help them realize that the job can be fun, provide direction, etc. - good command help people see and get involved with their roles where it's rewarding to do so. Bad command try to force the issue, get frustrated when they can't, and end up wasting a lot of time on trying to make people act like the head actually signs their paychecks for them to make rent and isn't also quite possibly an antag.)

E2: Opening up command to non-humans so you'd get more statics in those roles might get you more full command rosters, particularly at lowpop. It doesn't change the above dynamic wrt: leadership and management though.

The rule as written at least currently requires heads to make some effort, and playing as a head makes you a lot more visible. It gives you a lot more stakes in your reputation if you care about it.

In my experience, this means that people who main head roles tend to be some of the most reliable people in their departments or at least try to be.

But, you have to come back to it and ask: why aren't the reliable non-human statics playing command to begin with? Why is it more important or rewarding for them to play their static than to play a head?

I think the "thinness" of what head roles meaningfully offer and can do, described above, has a lot to do with it. On lowpop especially, playing any head runs the risk of being AC and having a lot of extra targets/expectations on your back, not unlike being the sole sec officer in the round after it's already been going for thirty minutes. MRP lowpop frequently sees nobody in sec and one or two people who can bear to play command get saddled with it by default.

I don't play LRP so I don't know how bad it is, but I fully agree with what Higgin here says. I play lowpop command on MRP and this is basically how it goes. Especially with the demoting part. It is very hard to demote a crew member that is not doing their job.

Note, my experiences only apply to MRP, which does have job expectations:
When I play CE I don't mind having engineers that dont do engineering work when asked, as usually in my experience they are probably AFK, a tot, or got killed/injured by something. Sometimes they are too tired to do much because they decided to play one more round in the middle of the night, and I dont think they should be punished administratively for that. I havnt seen any active engineers that don't do anything engineering, and if they are not doing anything, I just treat it as if they don't exist. Sometimes they are busy doing a project somewhere, that to me, is fun and interesting to see.
As long as the department is full, at least somebody will help out with big repairs, if not a borg. I don't feel the need to demote people much, and usually thats just caused by them being a tot, which security can deal with.

Because of the above, I like playing command and I don't feel like I am wrangling crazed monkeys every round. Does commanding LRP feel horrible due to the way players are there or is it about the same?

To be honest, I am scared to see what commanding LRP is like. One time I observed sybil and I saw a player bullying a CE (Who was spamming the scream emote and doing nothing else) which was quickly followed by somebody conducting a tesla delam. Goodness. The pure chaos must be a very different, and difficult experience to command in.

[Fatal]

► Show Spoiler

Some people seem to have misunderstand my proposed rule change

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role, require a minimum amount of effort to do their job and/ or assist their team directly or indirectly to accomplish their goals. Also players in any role should ensure their department provides a basic level of service to the rest of the station, unless there is a legitimate in-character reason to refuse this

This doesn't mean EVERY player has to do their job, with any real efficiency either, as long as SOMEONE in the department has taken responsibility for the very BASICS that the department would be expected to offer by the rest of the crew

Self service is a thing. This rule falls to pieces during lowpop - not to mention the thousands of potentially created tickets over some spit dribbler ringing the R&D desk bell 3 times then ahelping that nobody is doing science's job (or HoP, or engineering, or security, et cetera). I don't see how punishing people for organically being pulled away from their job to roleplay (and having the burden of explaining why always be on them) is going to help anything at all. All this will do is create more work for admins with next to no return on time investment.

► Show Spoiler

Here's some examples from what other people have posted:

Kieths engineer example, can I leave engineering and build a maint bar? - If you are the only engineer, the basic expectation is that you spend a couple of minutes (which is at very shortest rounds is going to be 10-5 percent of your round), setting up the SM to work. Once that is done, the basic level of service is met, and you are free to gimmick away

If you aren't the only engineer, I think as long as you spend a few seconds talking with the rest of your department (I know, talking right) and ensure that someone is going to setup the SM (even if they don't but they verbally take responsibility, that's on their hands at that point), you don't personally have to have anything to do with it and can gimmick away

We already have a huge problem with competent engineer staffing and this will only make it worse. Not to mention that when there's at least one half sentient engineer the SM usually gets set up anyways. The only times I see the engine going untouched is when there are no engineers on station, so I guess you'll have to settle for bwoinking the SM for not generating power.

► Show Spoiler

As for mining, given the intergalactic materials market thing is in, and miners have to earn points to buy skeleton keys for the tendril chests anyway, I don't think this rule would even need to cover them

Also very rarely an issue, unless you count the miners dying as neglecting their duties.

► Show Spoiler

As for the security example, I don't know what planet a "basic level of service" means "kill all the antags with no mercy or get bwoinked" comes from, and I don't think rule 5 would cover security anyway because they already have their own expectations

What is the point of this proposed change then? There's so many exceptions out of the gate that the entire thing just seems clumsy.

► Show Spoiler

Perhaps the rule needs a rewording regarding something like:

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role, require a minimum amount of effort to do their job and/ or assist their team directly or indirectly to accomplish their goals. Also players in any role should ensure their department provides a basic level of critical service to the rest of the station, unless there is a legitimate in-character reason to refuse this

You WILL spend an hour and a half doing wound surgery, medcuck. LOWPOP DEMANDS IT.

► Show Spoiler

GUYS GUYS GUYS, warden out of brig ban him right fucking now

You may be onto something here.

I don't see why this will cause any problems with engineer staffing, because all we're asking is players spend a few minutes setting up the engine and doing the very basics before leaving, if people can't do that, then they should play as assistant (you might not see engineers abandoning the SM but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and we do get tickets over it)

And if there are no engineers, then you at least KNOW that someone else has to go do it

As for the medical example, that's a ridiculous extreme and really not the point of this (unless you are being sarcastic for amusement sake but it's not that funny), it would be unreasonable expectation to ask anyone to spend that long solely doing medical stuff (and the ending of the proposed rule: unless there is a legitimate in-character reason to refuse this pretty much covers situations like this anyway

If you can justify why that service is not being given, from an in-character perspective with a reasonable reason, that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned

[sinfulbliss]

If you can justify why that service is not being given, from an in-character perspective with a reasonable reason, that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned

I feel a point people have brought up is being ignored here. The issue isn't being able to justify yourself or not. The issue is it would fuckin suck having to explain to an admin why your character isn't doing their job. Whether or not it's justified. People don't enjoy having to defend themselves in a bwoink, even if they're entirely in the right, it just kinda sucks and makes the round less fun. Especially if it's a long essay bwoink with one of the handful of admins you know are going to enforce this policy hardcore.

It's such a wishy washy policy to have to justify yourself against. Would telling the admin "I wanted to go fuck around in the bar" even make sense? Is that a "reasonable reason" from an "in-character perspective"? There could not be a more vague standard one could possibly set. Hell, most people don't even know why they do the shit they do in SS13, they just do it because they can.

It would just be a nightmare to have to get into a bwoink about "WHY ARE YOU ROLEPLAYING AS A BOXER INSTEAD OF SETTING UP THE SM?" Because I feel like it. "WHY DIDN'T YOU GO ASSISTANT IF YOU WERE GONNA BOX?" Because I didn't meticulously plan out what I would do the next round, it just popped up and I joined in. "NOTE: As a non-antag engineer, neglected his basic critical duty of setting up the Supermatter Crystal. Please ensure the power is up before going off to play Assistant+"

[zxaber]

I don't think that it's too much of a stretch for "if your role includes a component critical to the station or round progress, you are expected to do the bare minimum".

This really only applies to Engineering. Yes, you really should ensure the supermatter is at least running on a basic setup (or have verified someone else will do so) before collecting your free tide gear and bouncing.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

If you can justify why that service is not being given, from an in-character perspective with a reasonable reason, that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned

I feel a point people have brought up is being ignored here. The issue isn't being able to justify yourself or not. The issue is it would fuckin suck having to explain to an admin why your character isn't doing their job. Whether or not it's justified. People don't enjoy having to defend themselves in a bwoink, even if they're entirely in the right, it just kinda sucks and makes the round less fun. Especially if it's a long essay bwoink with one of the handful of admins you know are going to enforce this policy hardcore.

It's such a wishy washy policy to have to justify yourself against. Would telling the admin "I wanted to go fuck around in the bar" even make sense? Is that a "reasonable reason" from an "in-character perspective"? There could not be a more vague standard one could possibly set. Hell, most people don't even know why they do the shit they do in SS13, they just do it because they can.

It would just be a nightmare to have to get into a bwoink about "WHY ARE YOU ROLEPLAYING AS A BOXER INSTEAD OF SETTING UP THE SM?" Because I feel like it. "WHY DIDN'T YOU GO ASSISTANT IF YOU WERE GONNA BOX?" Because I didn't meticulously plan out what I would do the next round, it just popped up and I joined in. "NOTE: As a non-antag engineer, neglected his basic critical duty of setting up the Supermatter Crystal. Please ensure the power is up before going off to play Assistant+"

I'm like 99% sure that "A reasonable reason" means "someone who isn't you did something to impact your round in some way that merits a response that would cause you to deviate from your expected job duties.". So, for example, say at the start of the shift, before you set up the engine, a graytide broke into the lobby and punched you four times before dipping as fast as they could because you called for security, you would be justified in leaving engineering without setting up the engine so that you could get medical treatment and then go on a wild goose chase to hunt them down.

Or the Captain, at the very start of the shift, announces that they are auctioning off the spare hand tele. You leave engineering without setting up the sm because the auction is a time limited event, buy the hand tele successfully, and use it to break into the vault instead of doing your job, and end up in perma.

Something like that. Meanwhile, you just up and deciding you don't want to do the most critical services of your job by yourself, spontaneously, would not be allowed.

At least this is my interpretation. Fatal can say whether or not this is correct.

[BrianBackslide]

I don't think that it's too much of a stretch for "if your role includes a component critical to the station or round progress, you are expected to do the bare minimum".

This really only applies to Engineering. Yes, you really should ensure the supermatter is at least running on a basic setup (or have verified someone else will do so) before collecting your free tide gear and bouncing.

Isn't this only necessary because all alternative power sources have been nerfed into oblivion or removed outright?

Would you punish a MD that decides not to revive corpses? What if their IC reasoning is that "death is the end"? Difference there, of course, is there are viable alternatives without simply having an assistant take over the job.

[zxaber]

I don't think that it's too much of a stretch for "if your role includes a component critical to the station or round progress, you are expected to do the bare minimum".

This really only applies to Engineering. Yes, you really should ensure the supermatter is at least running on a basic setup (or have verified someone else will do so) before collecting your free tide gear and bouncing.

Isn't this only necessary because all alternative power sources have been nerfed into oblivion or removed outright?

Would you punish a MD that decides not to revive corpses? What if their IC reasoning is that "death is the end"? Difference there, of course, is there are viable alternatives without simply having an assistant take over the job.

It's necessary because engine setup is on a time limit. If power is left to die, you prevent every other role from doing their job. No other department has this effect, across the entire station, and on the same guaranteed level.

[Redrover1760]

Lets be real. The only usecase for this policy is engineers and thus should only apply to engineers if it were to ever come about. Second, people need to stop whining about early sm delams. If you didnt want the sm to delam, you would run over and fix it yourself, which I and others, esp borgs, often do in mid pop or up. In addition the lack of any viable alternative energy source essentially kills the ability for anyone to recover from a sm delam without being a competent engineer with the dedication to completely rebuild/make a new sm in which case you would have set up or saved the sm in the first place, making this scenario virtually never happen.

Yeah, sure, on lowpop its a lot harder to get the access sometimes, but that's a lowpop issue. At that point, some kind of super lowpop code change to give more time for people to set up the SM by increasing power stored or decreasing power usage would be appreciated, although if an admin is on they can give the station extra power with a few buttons as well.

(But really, setting up sm literally takes only 3 minutes of your time roundstart if you speedrun it. Are people really that lazy? Its practically like captain not securing disk.)

[sinfulbliss]

I would love to hear a single example of when this policy would apply for any job that isn’t station engineer TBH.

[Fatal]

If you can justify why that service is not being given, from an in-character perspective with a reasonable reason, that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned

I feel a point people have brought up is being ignored here. The issue isn't being able to justify yourself or not. The issue is it would fuckin suck having to explain to an admin why your character isn't doing their job. Whether or not it's justified. People don't enjoy having to defend themselves in a bwoink, even if they're entirely in the right, it just kinda sucks and makes the round less fun. Especially if it's a long essay bwoink with one of the handful of admins you know are going to enforce this policy hardcore.

It's such a wishy washy policy to have to justify yourself against. Would telling the admin "I wanted to go fuck around in the bar" even make sense? Is that a "reasonable reason" from an "in-character perspective"? There could not be a more vague standard one could possibly set. Hell, most people don't even know why they do the shit they do in SS13, they just do it because they can.

It would just be a nightmare to have to get into a bwoink about "WHY ARE YOU ROLEPLAYING AS A BOXER INSTEAD OF SETTING UP THE SM?" Because I feel like it. "WHY DIDN'T YOU GO ASSISTANT IF YOU WERE GONNA BOX?" Because I didn't meticulously plan out what I would do the next round, it just popped up and I joined in. "NOTE: As a non-antag engineer, neglected his basic critical duty of setting up the Supermatter Crystal. Please ensure the power is up before going off to play Assistant+"

I'm like 99% sure that "A reasonable reason" means "someone who isn't you did something to impact your round in some way that merits a response that would cause you to deviate from your expected job duties.". So, for example, say at the start of the shift, before you set up the engine, a graytide broke into the lobby and punched you four times before dipping as fast as they could because you called for security, you would be justified in leaving engineering without setting up the engine so that you could get medical treatment and then go on a wild goose chase to hunt them down.

Or the Captain, at the very start of the shift, announces that they are auctioning off the spare hand tele. You leave engineering without setting up the sm because the auction is a time limited event, buy the hand tele successfully, and use it to break into the vault instead of doing your job, and end up in perma.

Something like that. Meanwhile, you just up and deciding you don't want to do the most critical services of your job by yourself, spontaneously, would not be allowed.

At least this is my interpretation. Fatal can say whether or not this is correct.

That's a pretty good interpretation yes, and along the lines of what I'm intending here for sure

As for having to explain yourself to admin as to why you aren't doing your job:

Personally, if someone adminhelped that the engineers have abandoned the engine and not set it up, before actually speaking to anyone, I would observe each one, and see where they are. If there's only one, and let's say, from the example above, that they're in medbay being healed, I wouldn't even speak to them about it because it's pretty clear what happened

And if you did have to speak to one, is it really so hard to quickly explain why? We're not some ban hungry goblins looking for any excuse to throw you off the server, provided you have a reasonable in character reason, I imagine such a conversation to be quite swift

As for an example of when it would apply to any job other than engineer. My main other thoughts when making this policy thread was medical. Often medical is highly staffed (especially when I play it) and yet I find myself alone in the treatment centre being the only player actually reviving people or performing surgery on people that people are unable to perform themselves, some wounds you can self heal, but often you cannot fix yourself, so that is my other department that comes to mind, however I feel to make this policy fair it must include all jobs (even those that clearly do not offer a critical service, or any service, such as clown and mime). In my example above, yes, I am in medical providing that critical service, yet multiple people have wordlessly run away from the department (usually taking the syringe guns with them probably loaded with an explosive mix) to do whatever gimmick they have in mind until a valid appears, or just goof off doing something else. This is fine occasionally, but when it comes an every round habit, it does get frustrating especially how critical medical is to keep people in the round

As for all the gimmicks sinful brought up: If you cannot spare 2 minutes of your round to actually do the bare minimum, then yes, join as an assistant, because an assistant has no responsibilities, and nobody gives a fuck if you go do a gimmick, and if you cannot spare 2 minutes of a 30 minute and longer round, to ensure other players can actually do the stuff they wanted to do as well because this isn't a single player game, then I think this rule does apply to you pretty clearly and a note would be entirely fair in that situation

I'm not asking anyone to meticulously plan out what anyone is going to do in a round, but I'm not asking for THAT much change to anyone's freedoms either

[Cheshify]

So if I may, what would be the exact wording and placement, as well as intent of this proposed policy?

[Fatal]

This is the rule as it stands now:

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role require a minimum amount of effort; generally considered to be not logging out at or near roundstart.
Notify admins if you cannot play these roles and must leave near round start and make an attempt to inform other players IC as well for head of staff or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed.

Here is my proposed change (open to suggestions for change to make this clearer for the intent):

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role, require a minimum amount of effort to do their job and/ or assist their team directly or indirectly to accomplish their goals. Also players in any role should ensure their department provides a basic level of service to the rest of the station, unless there is a legitimate in-character reason to refuse this.
Notify admins if you cannot play heads of staff/silicon/team conversion roles and must leave near roundstart and make an attempt to inform other players IC for head or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed. If your role includes a component critical to the station or round progress, you are expected to do the bare minimum

Again, I'm open to change on the wording

The intent is to stop players taking a job role (particularly repeat offenders), ignoring the job entirely and going off to do some gimmick and ignoring the aspects of the job any other player would reasonably expect them to do (the main obvious one is the power of the station), and to merely ask that players perhaps spend a few minutes at the roundstart to ensure the rest of the station can benefit from what their department provides, as would be reasonably expected.

The intent is not to punish people who want to have a gimmick, or decide they don't want to do the job for any good IC reason, or to force any optimal playstyles, or turn LRP into MRP-lite

[Chadley]

This tastes like MRP policy.

I can't see a world where not doing your job as a generic role is against the rules on LRP.

There's an argument that every job is critical. There's a reason why everyone suffers when a department isn't manned.

There's also a reason why anyone can go set up the SM, or arrest bad guys, or stitch themselves up. We allow for people to do multiple jobs on LRP.

If you want to change this policy it should it no way ever touch the LRP servers unless you no longer want people to do 2 jobs.

[sinfulbliss]

@Fatal: While bwoinks are usually fairly routine for admins, and very low-impact, this is unfortunately not how many players view them, from what I’ve heard. At worst bwoinks can be round-long endeavors, sparking a long heated argument that ruins the game for the player for the night — or worse, forces them into an appeal on the forums for even more time investment. At best bwoinks just interrupt your game experience for 5-10 minutes. But even this can be significant enough to put a damper on the flow of the rest of your round.

At the end of the day, I think the vast majority of LRP players would prefer a potentially dysfunctional department over a rule requirement forcing them to do their jobs. It’s just a tradeoff that, as most opinions in this thread have shown, players would prefer not to make, because of how sacred freedom is on LRP. Freedom is really the only benefit to playing LRP over MRP. The rounds are more chaotic, things are less functional, you have less control over your fate — these are all tradeoffs LRP players accept in exchange for the massive freedom the ruleset affords them. If they wanted a more curated game experience, with more OOC assurances their round meets a minimum bar of expectations, they would be playing MRP.

It’s critical that in keeping MRP and LRP separate, policy changes aren’t simply based on “does this sound like a good idea?” Of course this sounds like a good idea. I also love working power and medical and mats. But RP rules are also good ideas. Punishing antags in proportion to their crimes is also a good idea. Whether these ideas are good for LRP are different questions entirely, and should be evaluated with the unique advantages LRP offers in mind, with heavy consideration from regular LRP players and LRP admins.

[kieth4]

This is the rule as it stands now:

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role require a minimum amount of effort; generally considered to be not logging out at or near roundstart.
Notify admins if you cannot play these roles and must leave near round start and make an attempt to inform other players IC as well for head of staff or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed.

Here is my proposed change (open to suggestions for change to make this clearer for the intent):

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role, require a minimum amount of effort to do their job and/ or assist their team directly or indirectly to accomplish their goals. Also players in any role should ensure their department provides a basic level of service to the rest of the station, unless there is a legitimate in-character reason to refuse this.
Notify admins if you cannot play heads of staff/silicon/team conversion roles and must leave near roundstart and make an attempt to inform other players IC for head or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed. If your role includes a component critical to the station or round progress, you are expected to do the bare minimum

Again, I'm open to change on the wording

The intent is to stop players taking a job role (particularly repeat offenders), ignoring the job entirely and going off to do some gimmick and ignoring the aspects of the job any other player would reasonably expect them to do (the main obvious one is the power of the station), and to merely ask that players perhaps spend a few minutes at the roundstart to ensure the rest of the station can benefit from what their department provides, as would be reasonably expected.

The intent is not to punish people who want to have a gimmick, or decide they don't want to do the job for any good IC reason, or to force any optimal playstyles, or turn LRP into MRP-lite

Not the biggest fan of the wording- feels like it's implying that some jobs can only do 1 thing. e.g engi set up power. medical set up healing etc. If someone wants to go heal in a fighting ring or build shit as an engi I think the rules should absolutely allow this as there are multiple fascets to these roles rlly.

[Redrover1760]

@Fatal: While bwoinks are usually fairly routine for admins, and very low-impact, this is unfortunately not how many players view them, from what I’ve heard. At worst bwoinks can be round-long endeavors, sparking a long heated argument that ruins the game for the player for the night — or worse, forces them into an appeal on the forums for even more time investment. At best bwoinks just interrupt your game experience for 5-10 minutes. But even this can be significant enough to put a damper on the flow of the rest of your round.

At the end of the day, I think the vast majority of LRP players would prefer a potentially dysfunctional department over a rule requirement forcing them to do their jobs. It’s just a tradeoff that, as most opinions in this thread have shown, players would prefer not to make, because of how sacred freedom is on LRP. Freedom is really the only benefit to playing LRP over MRP. The rounds are more chaotic, things are less functional, you have less control over your fate — these are all tradeoffs LRP players accept in exchange for the massive freedom the ruleset affords them. If they wanted a more curated game experience, with more OOC assurances their round meets a minimum bar of expectations, they would be playing MRP.

Bwoinks for me are anxiety inducing, and is absolutely not anyone wants to experience while trying to have fun in a game. Even being the one to ahelp or getting ahelped on can really put a big damper on the rest of the game as you sort out shit. I'd be pretty angry if on LRP I got bwoinked for not doing my job as a non head of staff, regardless of the circumstances.

Also, I said the usecase is only for engineers. Its not for medical doctors, as according to your policy doctors must man medbay all fucking shift long, because its a critical service that's always needed or what not. That's not "3 minutes of time spent doing something" that's absolutely something completely and utterly different. Security officers as well, which is what people like imitates have been trying to tell you. In addition, the wording is still terrible, you should know that some admins will stretch this policy/rule to hell if its ever made and there'll be a bunch of time wasted spending on "How dare you not do your job" to the engineer after something got blown up when they refuse to fix it or the doctor that is tired and wants to actually roleplay or do something else than surgeries all shift long.

A lot of the advantages of LRP is its relative freedom and fairly set in stone rules. There is a lot of freedom in the rules that actually lets you decide on how to handle things instead of having your hands held like a child and loaded with questionable restrictions that can be interpreted in different ways by different admins and lots of maybes, and nonsense. I quit after my first round of MRP antag from being unable to actually do anything other than stealth murder for objectives (which is in my opinion, the worst type of antagonism for all parties involved). Yeah, sure, that was before the death and destruction rules, but that doesn't change the point.

[Fatal]

This is the rule as it stands now:

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role require a minimum amount of effort; generally considered to be not logging out at or near roundstart.
Notify admins if you cannot play these roles and must leave near round start and make an attempt to inform other players IC as well for head of staff or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed.

Here is my proposed change (open to suggestions for change to make this clearer for the intent):

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role, require a minimum amount of effort to do their job and/ or assist their team directly or indirectly to accomplish their goals. Also players in any role should ensure their department provides a basic level of service to the rest of the station, unless there is a legitimate in-character reason to refuse this.
Notify admins if you cannot play heads of staff/silicon/team conversion roles and must leave near roundstart and make an attempt to inform other players IC for head or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed. If your role includes a component critical to the station or round progress, you are expected to do the bare minimum

Again, I'm open to change on the wording

The intent is to stop players taking a job role (particularly repeat offenders), ignoring the job entirely and going off to do some gimmick and ignoring the aspects of the job any other player would reasonably expect them to do (the main obvious one is the power of the station), and to merely ask that players perhaps spend a few minutes at the roundstart to ensure the rest of the station can benefit from what their department provides, as would be reasonably expected.

The intent is not to punish people who want to have a gimmick, or decide they don't want to do the job for any good IC reason, or to force any optimal playstyles, or turn LRP into MRP-lite

Not the biggest fan of the wording- feels like it's implying that some jobs can only do 1 thing. e.g engi set up power. medical set up healing etc. If someone wants to go heal in a fighting ring or build shit as an engi I think the rules should absolutely allow this as there are multiple fascets to these roles rlly.

My intent is to allow your examples there absolutely, and not to deny people the freedom to do that. My proposed change is to ensure that the basic service is provided but by no means does that mean or imply that it is all that a certain department can do

As for the issue with bwoinks, my personal feelings on this is that the effect it would have is minimal and would generate very few conversations between players and admins (and likely most with newer players)

As for some admins stretching this rules to hell: I don't believe any of our admins would stretch this to the point of extremes at all, and the argument that every job is critical? No, how is bartender critical to a round? How is botany critical to a round? When I say critical, I mean, the lack of it has a severe impact on the round as a whole, not just a single player complaining that the botanists grew weed instead of making stuff for them as chef because that's a big fat IC issue

Really not sure how this proposed change also has anything to do with people no longer being allowed to do multiple jobs. This is not "stay in your lane", this is not "you must do your job for an hour", and I don't want to remove the freedom for people to do what they feel like during the course of a round (which I know can change according to events in the round)

I'm always open to suggestions on changing to the wording to make these points clear (without turning the rule into a chapter)

[kieth4]

This is the rule as it stands now:

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role require a minimum amount of effort; generally considered to be not logging out at or near roundstart.
Notify admins if you cannot play these roles and must leave near round start and make an attempt to inform other players IC as well for head of staff or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed.

Here is my proposed change (open to suggestions for change to make this clearer for the intent):

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role, require a minimum amount of effort to do their job and/ or assist their team directly or indirectly to accomplish their goals. Also players in any role should ensure their department provides a basic level of service to the rest of the station, unless there is a legitimate in-character reason to refuse this.
Notify admins if you cannot play heads of staff/silicon/team conversion roles and must leave near roundstart and make an attempt to inform other players IC for head or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed. If your role includes a component critical to the station or round progress, you are expected to do the bare minimum

Again, I'm open to change on the wording

The intent is to stop players taking a job role (particularly repeat offenders), ignoring the job entirely and going off to do some gimmick and ignoring the aspects of the job any other player would reasonably expect them to do (the main obvious one is the power of the station), and to merely ask that players perhaps spend a few minutes at the roundstart to ensure the rest of the station can benefit from what their department provides, as would be reasonably expected.

The intent is not to punish people who want to have a gimmick, or decide they don't want to do the job for any good IC reason, or to force any optimal playstyles, or turn LRP into MRP-lite

Not the biggest fan of the wording- feels like it's implying that some jobs can only do 1 thing. e.g engi set up power. medical set up healing etc. If someone wants to go heal in a fighting ring or build shit as an engi I think the rules should absolutely allow this as there are multiple fascets to these roles rlly.

My intent is to allow your examples there absolutely, and not to deny people the freedom to do that. My proposed change is to ensure that the basic service is provided but by no means does that mean or imply that it is all that a certain department can do

As for the issue with bwoinks, my personal feelings on this is that the effect it would have is minimal and would generate very few conversations between players and admins (and likely most with newer players)

As for some admins stretching this rules to hell: I don't believe any of our admins would stretch this to the point of extremes at all, and the argument that every job is critical? No, how is bartender critical to a round? How is botany critical to a round? When I say critical, I mean, the lack of it has a severe impact on the round as a whole, not just a single player complaining that the botanists grew weed instead of making stuff for them as chef because that's a big fat IC issue

Really not sure how this proposed change also has anything to do with people no longer being allowed to do multiple jobs. This is not "stay in your lane", this is not "you must do your job for an hour", and I don't want to remove the freedom for people to do what they feel like during the course of a round (which I know can change according to events in the round)

I'm always open to suggestions on changing to the wording to make these points clear (without turning the rule into a chapter)

Ok but when you say basic service it seems that you have a preconceived notion of what you want.

Can doctors ignore surgery and sit in the pharmacy doing their thing all round whilst completely ignoring bodied?

[Fatal]

I do feel that revival of bodies is a critical service, and, within reason, should be done by a member of medical staff yes if bodies are piling up (and nobody else is doing it)

Someone else mentioned (this was in admin discussions in discord) about a previous headmin term that was discussing having heads of staff ensure the basic services part (or something to that extent)

Would moving the critical services part to fall more under the heads of staff to organise and ensure those basic services be a better option?

[Higgin]

Would moving the critical services part to fall more under the heads of staff to organise and ensure those basic services be a better option?

As long as they can be antags, and even more when not, it opens a lot of doors for people to complain through to set this expectation in stone.

If they can be antags, it means that seeing them out of their dept. or just doing something else becomes even more of a potential tell.

If they can't, you're going to get some version of what would happen on Skyrat where the CE died (in one fabulously notable case right inside the SM airlock) and 8 or 9 people ahelped to say "ban CE they must be erping and ignoring their job."

It's less of a problem with medical since if medical are dead, they're usually sharing a space with the people who would complain about medical not doing their jobs - but it's much worse if medical is just doing something else or seemingly incompetent.


The best way to avoid toxicity and disappointment in a round, imo, even on MRP, is to set your expectations to nothing you cannot directly control yourself and be pleasantly surprised/grateful when other people come through.

[iwishforducks]

if this were to be enforced ever it should be entirely IC. so heads of staff being empowered to deal with things (ICly) is a step in the right direction. but do not make it an OOC expectation ever, pretty please. i think the only thing OOC enforcement would do is burn heads of staff out insanely quickly.

also to be completely honest empowering heads wouldn’t do too much since they’re antags half the time lol. and even then… it’s just a lot of work to deal with folks that aren’t doing their job. gonna have to restate my “who the hell cares” here because there’s a lot of wasted effort here

[dendydoom]

high thought i had and i have no idea if this is a thing already but: what about reducing the chance of rolling antag for heads? don't remove it entirely, because heads having the chance to be evil is a good thing for the ~paranoia~, but it might help somewhat to steer antag rollers away from head slots and slightly encourage people who actually want to run the department and not just have access to head access/authority/items on the chance they get antag? idk!

[iwishforducks]

Spoiler:

high thought i had and i have no idea if this is a thing already but: what about reducing the chance of rolling antag for heads? don't remove it entirely, because heads having the chance to be evil is a good thing for the ~paranoia~, but it might help somewhat to steer antag rollers away from head slots and slightly encourage people who actually want to run the department and not just have access to head access/authority/items on the chance they get antag? idk!

been saying this for years…

roll antag -> if antag, roll to *include* heads of staff in possible jobs -> roll job

so… if i roll traitor, the game then rolls say… a 30% chance to see if I can roll a head of staff. if the roll succeeds, then if I had any heads of staff in my preferences then i could do the usual job roll for them. if it failed, then even if i had RD on high I couldn’t become RD for that round.

alright im done shilling

[kieth4]

high thought i had and i have no idea if this is a thing already but: what about reducing the chance of rolling antag for heads? don't remove it entirely, because heads having the chance to be evil is a good thing for the ~paranoia~, but it might help somewhat to steer antag rollers away from head slots and slightly encourage people who actually want to run the department and not just have access to head access/authority/items on the chance they get antag? idk!

Please don't lower my chance to roll antag even more bro

[iwishforducks]

Please don't lower my chance to roll antag even more bro

it would not lower antag chance if it followed my system, it only lowers the effective chance of being a head of staff

[Chadley]

You should just play on Manuel.

[iain0]

This got pretty long, it's an interesting idea, not too often one thats an issue but yeah, if you're going to pick to play a job you should make some reasonable /minimal/ effort for that job.

For the pages of "but i wanna make conveyor stuff in hallways" then 1) ensure /someone/ set up the SM and then go do it, ask for admin help if you're unable to walk through it from the wiki like many do for their first time, or just 2) PLAY ASSISTANT if you have no interest in having to do any of a particular job. Why take the job. Other than free gear i suppose, but that really never stopped assistants before. assistant is literally the free pass to "no obligations"

[wesoda25]

I think this is perfectly reasonable and fair expectation to place upon players from any server. I highly doubt it will somehow compromise the "spirit of LRP" or whatever subjective thing people have been larping about. In most scenarios it simply places the burden of communication (God forbid) on players, and at worst they will have to step up and invest 5-10 minutes of effort before embarking on their personal project. Admins should be careful, though, not to punish people for incompetency when enforcing this.

edit: the concern that ppl will just roll assistant does seem fair to me, sort of the same dynamic of how someone would sooner be a scientist than an RD so as to dodge the extra responsibilities associated with the job. Something to keep an eye on, assuming this is tried if all it does is cause an exodus to assistant then yeah probably not worth it over all

[Chadley]

Here is the guide for making a new server.

https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Downloadin ... ource_code

[kieth4]

Closing thoughts (be4 I move on);

I'm not for the rule,

However,

If it's going to be implemented we need to make sure that it isn't an optimal play rule. At the moment discussion seems to be centered around "They must do this 1 specific part of their job" instead of "they must interact with any of their job content"

You are giving people a list they need to follow before they're able to engage with the rest of the content. These roles have multiple fascets and we need to ensure that all of these are fine to do

[sinfulbliss]

Even if it's just "you have to interact with your job content," that's still a bad rule for LRP. Things can come up in the round that have nothing to do with your job content, that aren't pressing matters, and yet that you still may want to go off and do. There's absolutely nothing stopping you on LRP and I'm not sure people want there to be this rule stopping them.

I like the idea of just making heads responsible for their departments providing the "crticial minimum" service. It also would help with the cringe telebatong validhunt heads that don't interact with their department. But not an ordinary jobbie just trying to have fun.

[Fatal]

Alright, here's where it was at with my current draft:

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role, require a minimum amount of effort to do their job and/ or assist their team directly or indirectly to accomplish their goals. Also players in any role should ensure their department provides a basic level of service to the rest of the station, unless there is a legitimate in-character reason to refuse this.
Notify admins if you cannot play heads of staff/silicon/team conversion roles and must leave near roundstart and make an attempt to inform other players IC for head or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed. If your role includes a component critical to the station or round progress, you are expected to do the bare minimum


Here's my tweak of it for the heads of staff change:

5. Players in a head of staff, AI/Silicon role, or a team conversion role, require a minimum amount of effort to do their job and/ or assist their team directly or indirectly to accomplish their goals. Heads of staff should make a reasonable effort to ensure their department provides a basic level of service to the rest of the station, unless there is a legitimate in-character reason to refuse this.
Notify admins if you cannot play heads of staff/silicon/team conversion roles and must leave near roundstart and make an attempt to inform other players IC for head or AI roles. Abuse of a job position, particularly Rule 1 breaking abuse, is not allowed. If your role includes a component critical to the station or round progress, you are expected to do the bare minimum unless there is sufficient in-character reason to not fulfil this, repeated failure to do this is an administrative issue.

I'm not sure on the wording at the end there, but that's basically for those people who REPEATEDLY take job slots and then wordlessly fuck off. Provided people aren't making a particularly bad habit of it, it won't be a problem. This way people won't get noted for a single / couple of gimmick rounds but if admins notice a pattern over a few days then it can become an issue we step in for

Hopefully this is a little more appealing, but I'm somewhat concerned it's getting too wordy.

I'm happy with both versions but it's really up to the headmins to decide if they want either at all anyway

[TheLoLSwat]

Setting up the SM is one thing (as it a static thing that has to be interacted with every shift), but are engineers expected to actually fix things in the middle of the round like med docs would be expected to healbot in the middle of a round?

[Fatal]

I think the CE should try and ensure stuff gets fixed as part of their management of the department, but engineers not fixing stuff is an IC issue (which the CE is well within their rights to demote people for)

And the same for the medical example, CMO should try and ensure people are getting healed, but if people aren't doing the job, that's grounds for a demotion if everything is going to shit and the doctors are goofing off somewhere

Such reckless abandonment of duties would only become an administrative issue for repeat offenders with my 3rd proposal

[chocolate_bickie]

If every non-antag is forced to do their job, then it'll be pretty easy to tell who the traitors are.

Right now, traitors have plausible deniability since they theoretically could be one of the several lazy parasites roaming the station at any given time.

Except on Manuel apparently, where non-antags not doing their job is never noticed.

[8bot]

(which the CE is well within their rights to demote people for)

I wish it were that simple but most times I have tried to demote people they are either protected by their metafriends or try to kill me (in the latter case I at least now have an excuse to hurl their tiding ass out the airlock)
that said, I prefer grappling with and punishing useless cretins in my department to having more superfluous rules tacked on

i don't even dislike tiders by the way, just don the grey shirt instead of taking up an actual engineer's shift. the worst part is, they know how to do their jobs typically to.

[TheBibleMelts]

let me know if you want this specific thread unlocked, but from what i felt out from the others it seems like my proposal at viewtopic.php?f=33&t=35253 is where we're going to be making steps to address this for the time being, and would encourage opinions to be directed to that thread.