Enforce Human Authority: 0

[britgrenadier1]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Kinda curious where we are at on this. It's a topic that has been done to death, but after taking a peak through resolved topics there hasn't been an official "I want this to be changed" policy thread made. So here we are, I want this to be changed. Specifically the config option, I don't care about expanding which jobs can or cannot be non human. This isn't a "I want a code solution" thread.

Expanding the pool of available head players is a net positive for the quality of the role, and I think it would extend the length of rounds if we let competent non human statics into head roles. A lot of people cite muh lore as a reason to keep this set to 1, however our current lore says jack and shit about what species are meant to be in what roles. Old lore did, I vaguely remember there being a tidbit about lizards being heads until people on earth complained and it being rescinded afterwards.

I also don't think that there are more interesting stories that happen out of being promoted. You either get a flat yes or no with nothing that happens afterwards unless the actual head shows up. Also can't we flip this and ask about all the stories that aren't being told when there just straight up isn't a head of staff around? You'll still have promotion stories too, even nonhuman ones, its not as though these stories won't happen if we flip it on.

Turn it on for a bit, see how it goes, config stuff changes like the tide and I say we run with it for a while.

[Mothblocks]

my point is that as detailed as all the lore discussion is i'm not actually sure it's beneficial to either party here because i don't see head admins being as invested as you guys are in it, other than on surface level. not going to post more about this because i don't want to derail the thread but worth keeping in mind your target audience here

[Redbert]

my point is that as detailed as all the lore discussion is i'm not actually sure it's beneficial to either party here because i don't see head admins being as invested as you guys are in it, other than on surface level. not going to post more about this because i don't want to derail the thread but worth keeping in mind your target audience here

ah, i see. I agree that the lore/setting plays very little part in the decision. My main point was to refute those arguments and show they are invalid to the discussion

[wesoda25]

I'd rather not see this on tg

[TheLoLSwat]

I'd rather not see this on tg

this! lizards and felinids and moths commanding departments? keep that over there

[Blacklist897]

I'm fine with aliens for all heads apart from captain RD and HOS as you just know ais will fuck with a lizard hos to no end

[KateAnbolho]

I dont see why we cant just flip a simple config thing. Maybe there should be different config files if all the sybil players are coming out of the woodworks to say "No we dont need it"?

[AidenFinlay]

I'd rather see a moth as my HoP than I were to see a new player who did nothing but press randomize as a human and played janitor for 15 hours be my HoP.

[EmpressMaia]

I'd like more heads of staff. Non humans not being heads doesn't add much if any flavor to our world. Subordinates butting heads with their boss for being a cat sounds fun though. Let people play their funny little characters. Will be Good for the community

[Cheshify]

107 posts on if humans should be heads or not, the eternal question.

[Armhulen]

You'd get more heads of staff and better heads of staff if being head of staff meant more than spawning with extra toys and getting targeted by antags more. Like captain, if you give heads of staff the ability to direct the round a lot more than the average joe more people would flock to the role. I said this before but I'm just restating it because a big reason to disable human only heads is to pull more people to heads of staff

[ItzRiumz]

I like the idea of there being Non human heads of staff. It opens up the position to a wider variety of players with their own characters who bring more ideas and gimmicks to the role, which is very healthy for the game. Not to mention the idea of underlings refusing to work under their own boss because of them being a Non human, which can create more interesting IC conflicts to a round.

[AwkwardStereo]

107 posts on if humans should be heads or not, the eternal question.

humans are already heads

[JupiterJaeden]

Fun should come before any other reason.

The people who want non-human heads enabled are asking so because they want to have fun.
It is fun to play heads of staff on occasion, and similarly some players find it very fun to play their favorite- and likely non-human- character.
No lore, nor balance, nor anything should come so stiffly between letting people have fun in a game.

I can sympathize with some of the points, but they should never supersede players having fun.
If people want a story about promotion, then they will pursue so on their own volition instead of being forced into it.
If people want a mechanical implementation of the lore, then find ways to do so that promote fun instead.

The players aren't their species, they just think that being an alien race is cool.
Why punish that.

Most succinct and best way to put this. And all the supposed reasons how non-human heads would "ruin the game!!1" are just nonsensical. Also there is literally 0 reason that promotion stories and IC speciesism couldn't still happen with non-human heads. There will still be times where there is no head of staff roundstart lol. There will still be times people decide to RP speciesist characters (although again most of them are just low effort 'racism funny' types). None of that will go stop existing.

[Cheshify]

107 posts on if humans should be heads or not, the eternal question.

humans are already heads

I don't know anymore let's turn humans only off for a week so people realize it sucks

[AwkwardStereo]

107 posts on if humans should be heads or not, the eternal question.

humans are already heads

I don't know anymore let's turn humans only off for a week so people realize it sucks

[Redbert]

107 posts on if humans should be heads or not, the eternal question.

humans are already heads

I don't know anymore let's turn humans only off for a week so people realize it sucks

just a little bit, as a treat.

[Farquaar]

Implementing this would make me sad. A unique bit of SS13 flavour shouldn't be wiped away to appease a subset of players who are too closed-minded to play more than one character.

[kinnebian]

Fun should come before any other reason.

The people who want non-human heads enabled are asking so because they want to have fun.
It is fun to play heads of staff on occasion, and similarly some players find it very fun to play their favorite- and likely non-human- character.
No lore, nor balance, nor anything should come so stiffly between letting people have fun in a game.

I can sympathize with some of the points, but they should never supersede players having fun.
If people want a story about promotion, then they will pursue so on their own volition instead of being forced into it.
If people want a mechanical implementation of the lore, then find ways to do so that promote fun instead.

The players aren't their species, they just think that being an alien race is cool.
Why punish that.

i think its fun to play as an oppressed alien species
why is it only your fun and not others?

[britgrenadier1]

Fun should come before any other reason.

The people who want non-human heads enabled are asking so because they want to have fun.
It is fun to play heads of staff on occasion, and similarly some players find it very fun to play their favorite- and likely non-human- character.
No lore, nor balance, nor anything should come so stiffly between letting people have fun in a game.

I can sympathize with some of the points, but they should never supersede players having fun.
If people want a story about promotion, then they will pursue so on their own volition instead of being forced into it.
If people want a mechanical implementation of the lore, then find ways to do so that promote fun instead.

The players aren't their species, they just think that being an alien race is cool.
Why punish that.

i think its fun to play as an oppressed alien species
why is it only your fun and not others?

Why can’t you do that while I play as a head of staff again?

[Farquaar]

i think its fun to play as an oppressed alien species
why is it only your fun and not others?

Why can’t you do that while I play as a head of staff again?

You can already play as a head of staff. There’s nothing stopping you, as a player, from doing so.

[britgrenadier1]

i think its fun to play as an oppressed alien species
why is it only your fun and not others?

Why can’t you do that while I play as a head of staff again?

You can already play as a head of staff. There’s nothing stopping you, as a player, from doing so.

There’s also nothing that will change about the setting, or anything that will stop kinnebian from playing as an oppressed species if I play as a non human head of staff.

[TheRex9001]

I don't wanna slippery slope doom about this too much, but if this leads to crewsimov I am so fucking done. Non-humans not being head of staff is just one of their quirks and a bit of flavor, a bit of spice to the setting. NT is not a good company and them not trusting or liking non-humans should be fine. You can play another character or race, it sucks that people have gotten so locked into a mindset that they can ONLY play one character when you could just as easily switch and play a human if you want to be a head of staff. If your attachment to a character is actively hindering you from having fun by playing a head of staff that sucks.

[RedBaronFlyer]

107 posts on if humans should be heads or not, the eternal question.

humans are already heads

I don't know anymore let's turn humans only off for a week so people realize it sucks

Even better: For a week, Reverse everything so only non-humans can be heads of staff, the Asimov system is discriminatory towards humans only, and humans have the non-human pay rate while non-humans get paid in full.

THIS IS THE FUTURE MANUEL PLAYERS WANT!
/s

[britgrenadier1]

I don't wanna slippery slope doom about this too much, but if this leads to crewsimov I am so fucking done. Non-humans not being head of staff is just one of their quirks and a bit of flavor, a bit of spice to the setting. NT is not a good company and them not trusting or liking non-humans should be fine. You can play another character or race, it sucks that people have gotten so locked into a mindset that they can ONLY play one character when you could just as easily switch and play a human if you want to be a head of staff. If your attachment to a character is actively hindering you from having fun by playing a head of staff that sucks.

Thankfully changing roundstart laws is a code issue and we have a crew of maints who will oppose it, as they should. A lot of people have said “Just play a human” and like, fair point, but I think it’s a bit of a selfish take that doesn’t take into account the fact that characters are super important. You build reputation and relationships with a character, and it sucks to have to rebuild that if I’ve just spent the past however many years doing that on my lizard. I have a human character, I play heads of staff, nothing stops me from rolling HoS. It’s just not the same.

Also playing a human after playing a digi lizard for years is fucking easy. No glass, no temperature issues, Borgs don’t even fucking look at me when I execute prisoners. I like all of those things, I like the challenge and I want to take on more responsibility and play the game on hard mode while I do it. I want to leverage the relationships I’ve built on my non human character to teach people how to do things better from a position of authority, and god damnit I want to be a revolution target HoS or CMO on my non human too.

I feel like a broken record, but changing that 1 to a 0 opens so many doors and enhances my experience with the only real tangible change to someone else’s gameplay being that they have to compete with more people for their head of staff roll.

[BeansKidney]

I'd welcome it, it'd certainly raise the average head of staff skill level across the board /s

But seriously, I'd be fine with non-human heads of staff, as long as the captain role is excluded, or weighted to be less likely.
NT started out as a human company, it'd only make sense for the humans to be at the most senior positions.
At the same time, the game isn't exactly in the middle of human-controlled territory. Spinward is a far-off place, and it makes sense for NT to fill in the workforce with the locals.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I don't wanna slippery slope doom about this too much, but if this leads to crewsimov I am so fucking done. Non-humans not being head of staff is just one of their quirks and a bit of flavor, a bit of spice to the setting. NT is not a good company and them not trusting or liking non-humans should be fine. You can play another character or race, it sucks that people have gotten so locked into a mindset that they can ONLY play one character when you could just as easily switch and play a human if you want to be a head of staff. If your attachment to a character is actively hindering you from having fun by playing a head of staff that sucks.

Thankfully changing roundstart laws is a code issue and we have a crew of maints who will oppose it, as they should. A lot of people have said “Just play a human” and like, fair point, but I think it’s a bit of a selfish take that doesn’t take into account the fact that characters are super important. You build reputation and relationships with a character, and it sucks to have to rebuild that if I’ve just spent the past however many years doing that on my lizard. I have a human character, I play heads of staff, nothing stops me from rolling HoS. It’s just not the same.

The roundstart lawset is a server setting, to my knowledge. We just don't use it.

[britgrenadier1]

Huh, the more you know. Still wouldn’t want crewsimov. I like bombing the AI sat and tipping troublesome borgs too much

[DrAmazing343]

I'd absolutely love a way for people to play Heads as nonhuman; Asimov creates interesting gameplay situations on OCCASION, but ultimately is kind of a headache, and the disallowment of nonhuman heads precludes many skilled players from commanding in their element when normally they're not the type to go out of the way for a promotion that takes valuable time out of their round to attain.

I play a lot of human, but I know a SHITLOAD of nonhuman statics that are highly competent and would be great Heads. I WANT THIS.

[cSeal]

I'd rather see a moth as my HoP than I were to see a new player who did nothing but press randomize as a human and played janitor for 15 hours be my HoP.

Shamelessly cringe anti newfriend sentiment

Maybe there should be different config files if all the sybil players are coming out of the woodworks to say "No we dont need it"?

Widening the gap between our servers is probably the worst result possible from this thread, id rather have nonhuman heads on every server than just one. no thanks !

A lot of people have said “Just play a human” and like, fair point, but I think it’s a bit of a selfish take that doesn’t take into account the fact that characters are super important. You build reputation and relationships with a character, and it sucks to have to rebuild that if I’ve just spent the past however many years doing that on my lizard.

This is another matter of taste that i feel much more strongly about.
This is GOOD. Making people branch out and create new characters with new reputations and new bonds adds more variety to the rounds, it encourages people to move outside their comfort zone and (hopefully) prevents this really caustic self insert playstyle some people seem to do
As someone who played nothing but the same moth for a good chunk of my time here, being forced to play a human to be able to be a head of staff was one of the best things that ever happened for my enjoyment of the game

[Itseasytosee2me]

Im really annoyed by so many of the people here thinking they are taking some sort of moral high ground in this thread.
The entire issue is completely based on personal preference. No one is wrong because they would think the setting would lose something if humans became heads. You just don’t feel the same way.
Who are you to say “your opinions are wrong, and my opinions are right” on an issue that is entirely subjective.

[britgrenadier1]

This is another matter of taste that i feel much more strongly about.
This is GOOD. Making people branch out and create new characters with new reputations and new bonds adds more variety to the rounds, it encourages people to move outside their comfort zone and (hopefully) prevents this really caustic self insert playstyle some people seem to do
As someone who played nothing but the same moth for a good chunk of my time here, being forced to play a human to be able to be a head of staff was one of the best things that ever happened for my enjoyment of the game

I think that this is going to come down to a difference in opinion which can probably never be resolved, I get where you are coming from. Like I said, I have a human, I play them on head roles, sometimes I want to play my other character in those roles. It’s as simple as that. This isn’t a matter of making new characters and branching out. I can’t make a plasmaperson CE, it has to be my human

[CMDR_Gungnir]

A lot of people have said “Just play a human” and like, fair point, but I think it’s a bit of a selfish take that doesn’t take into account the fact that characters are super important. You build reputation and relationships with a character, and it sucks to have to rebuild that if I’ve just spent the past however many years doing that on my lizard.

This is another matter of taste that i feel much more strongly about.
This is GOOD. Making people branch out and create new characters with new reputations and new bonds adds more variety to the rounds, it encourages people to move outside their comfort zone and (hopefully) prevents this really caustic self insert playstyle some people seem to do
As someone who played nothing but the same moth for a good chunk of my time here, being forced to play a human to be able to be a head of staff was one of the best things that ever happened for my enjoyment of the game

It's not going to do anything about the self-inserts of the server(s).

They're just going to be Saul Finzert the Human, instead of Inserts-his-Self the Lizard.

[TypicalRig]

just make non-humans head of staff a somewhat common station trait

[britgrenadier1]

just make non-humans head of staff a somewhat common station trait

Code issue. Flip the 1 to a 0 instead

[The Wrench]

If anything we need more space racism and not less.

[RedBaronFlyer]

If anything we need more space racism and not less.

It’s a player skill issue that a majority of those who try can’t be discriminatory towards other species without defaulting to stuff like ligger.

[Mothblocks]

just make non-humans head of staff a somewhat common station trait

Station trait wouldn't work, I've gone into this in the past.

You don't want to promote random people to head of staff, so you have to let them opt in for it.

But letting them opt in for it means them having head of staff high, and if they're a nonhuman player, they already will not be doing that.

[Higgin]

i think its fun to play as an oppressed alien species
why is it only your fun and not others?

Crucially the fun of playing an oppressed alien species involves somebody else oppressing you to not just be a setting detail for your own satisfaction - which you could just as well imagine without.

If nobody's there doing it or interested in doing it, it doesn't serve anything except to preclude the fun of being a head for someone else who wants to play a nonhuman (or their static) while doing it.

I don't necessarily buy that it makes people any more character actors or makes stories better to force people to reset to play in different roles. It'd be more interesting to me personally if characters could move around more freely - so as to make it less limited "what does their work say about them as a character?" than "they are a lizard, so you'll never see them in responsibility (without this additional hurdle/some casual retcon like felinids who tape their ears and tuck their tails because they otherwise 'pass.')

Uniqueness, distinction, and differentiation is cool. Where it hooks up to aesthetics and identities people are attached to, some limits are less appreciated - especially when that sell, IC racism, isn't really what anyone's there for at the time.

It really is a skub thing at the end of the day, like a lot of folks have said, but I think it's at least worth tasting it in the tg millieu before asking them to accept the shirt they were handed (or just telling them to go to another server, ) but idk.

It's not a make-or-break for me. One thing I thought might be fun would be a rotation of making specific non-captain head-roles available to one specific nonhuman species (and still humans of course) each week.

Who does better? CatMO or Mothbay? Does Reddens-the-Text really, or does CS XIV do better as an HoS?

idk man do whatever

[TypicalRig]

just make non-humans head of staff a somewhat common station trait

Station trait wouldn't work, I've gone into this in the past.

You don't want to promote random people to head of staff, so you have to let them opt in for it.

But letting them opt in for it means them having head of staff high, and if they're a nonhuman player, they already will not be doing that.

isn't this just an issue of lack of visibility on station traits pre-round start. even for role overflow rounds, often people that would select the overflow role don't because they don't feel the need to check their character setup every round. this would be the same problem for non-human heads as a station trait, but could be easily resolved by making the station trait give a more obvious pre-round announcement. even something as simple as putting it next to the roundstart countdown timer would work (why isn't this already a thing for overflow traits)

[zxaber]

Code Solution™, but it'd be nice if we had a middleground where humans had priority for head of staff. That would keep some of the "NT hates aliens" feeling while allowing non-humans to nevertheless fill in for missing important roles.

[Mothblocks]

i would not merge that middleground

[britgrenadier1]

Code Solution™, but it'd be nice if we had a middleground where humans had priority for head of staff. That would keep some of the "NT hates aliens" feeling while allowing non-humans to nevertheless fill in for missing important roles.

I think that this is an interesting middleground. Lots of the arguments against seem to boil down to "I just don't want more competition on my head rolls." So that would keep both parties somewhat happy. Personally I'd rather just have it flipped on all the time, I'd like more heads of staff more often, which I think is objectively good for the game. I also want the have the stories that flipping it on will create. Let people have fun with the game with the characters they create.

[Redbert]

snip

... Lots of the arguments against seem to boil down to "I just don't want more competition on my head rolls." ...

i was wondering how much truth this had behind it and it looks like among the 12(?) opposed non-admins in this thread, 5 play head roles like 30%+ of the time. There's no way this isn't a factor

[Itseasytosee2me]

snip

... Lots of the arguments against seem to boil down to "I just don't want more competition on my head rolls." ...

i was wondering how much truth this had behind it and it looks like among the 12(?) opposed non-admins in this thread, 5 play head roles like 30%+ of the time. There's no way this isn't a factor

That theory is dumb.

[Mothblocks]

snip

... Lots of the arguments against seem to boil down to "I just don't want more competition on my head rolls." ...

i was wondering how much truth this had behind it and it looks like among the 12(?) opposed non-admins in this thread, 5 play head roles like 30%+ of the time. There's no way this isn't a factor

why would you remove non-admins?

[Redbert]

snip

... Lots of the arguments against seem to boil down to "I just don't want more competition on my head rolls." ...

i was wondering how much truth this had behind it and it looks like among the 12(?) opposed non-admins in this thread, 5 play head roles like 30%+ of the time. There's no way this isn't a factor

why would you remove non-admins?

i didn't include admins because i dunno how to evaluate the roles you guys play so i just didn't look.

[TheRex9001]

snip

... Lots of the arguments against seem to boil down to "I just don't want more competition on my head rolls." ...

i was wondering how much truth this had behind it and it looks like among the 12(?) opposed non-admins in this thread, 5 play head roles like 30%+ of the time. There's no way this isn't a factor

This is just super tangential and not really a relevant put down of an argument. Heads of staff should be human only because I want to roll more head of staff!!! Is so dumb because nothing aside from an extreme attachment is preventing anyone from playing a head of staff (15 hours in a department too I guess). Play a different character if you want to be a head of staff. And yes its extreme attachment if you say that you want to play a head of staff because its fun but won't because you don't want to be a human or don't want to stop playing your character.

[Redbert]

snip

This is just super tangential and not really a relevant put down of an argument. Heads of staff should be human only because I want to roll more head of staff!!! Is so dumb because nothing aside from an extreme attachment is preventing anyone from playing a head of staff (15 hours in a department too I guess). Play a different character if you want to be a head of staff. And yes its extreme attachment if you say that you want to play a head of staff because its fun but won't because you don't want to be a human or don't want to stop playing your character.

not really meant to be a put down, it was more in support of the suggestion to prioritize human heads. Unfortunately there is no way to tell without a proper poll, but if you asked the community as a whole, surely the middle ground suggestion would have a significant impact for the side of non-human heads? The specism is preserved, we get more heads of staff in a round, and current human head mains still get to keep their favorite positions

This was assuming mothblock's comment was saying she would block a PR that someone else made. If she was just saying she wouldn't make it herself, then I can volunteer.

As for playing a different character, I'll admit that, yes, I am attached to my character. I like the reputation and stories that I've built up. I have no proof for this, but I'll bet most players prioritize one character over another. I don't want to make a human character just to play a head of staff, I find them extremely boring outside of the ability to play heads. I'm more interested in the downsides of playing a non-human, the ones that have a genuine impact on gameplay and how I handle a threat. Things like forcing me to use non-lethals against humans or taking precautions against silicons if someone is out to kill me. I don't like that I'm barred from playing certain roles because of a part of the setting I have no interest in, and on Manuel which seems to have no interest in it either.

[BonChoi]

Yes, let's remove human head of staff exclusivity, and then we'll make the AI start on crewsimov round start and... oops! No more upsides to playing humans like there are with other races!

For real though, NT is meant to be mildly specist and that's one of the things that sets it apart from the Syndicate, which is meant to be more egalitarian.

[britgrenadier1]

Yes, let's remove human head of staff exclusivity, and then we'll make the AI start on crewsimov round start and... oops! No more upsides to playing humans like there are with other races!

For real though, NT is meant to be mildly specist and that's one of the things that sets it apart from the Syndicate, which is meant to be more egalitarian.

The purpose of this thread is to address human authority exclusively. Asimov is staying. Also no more upsides like other races? Lol. As if no temp vulnerability, normal brute damage intake, and normal flash vulnerability alongside infinite money and an AI lacky isn’t an upside.

[BonChoi]

Yes, let's remove human head of staff exclusivity, and then we'll make the AI start on crewsimov round start and... oops! No more upsides to playing humans like there are with other races!

For real though, NT is meant to be mildly specist and that's one of the things that sets it apart from the Syndicate, which is meant to be more egalitarian.

The purpose of this thread is to address human authority exclusively. Asimov is staying. Also no more upsides like other races? Lol. As if no temp vulnerability, normal brute damage intake, and normal flash vulnerability alongside infinite money and an AI lacky isn’t an upside.

My point is that it's a creep. Why have asimov anymore if we rewrite the lore to say that NT views non-humans and humans as equals by allowing them to hold positions that used to only be held by humans?

And in reference to my second comment, if I recall correctly (which it is very possible that I do not) in the character creation species select screen the two "Pros" for making a human are that they can 1. Hold command roles and 2. Are preferred by the AI due to the AI usually having the Asimov lawset.

If this policy thread is successful, what's gonna stop someone from making another one to get Asimov booted? What would the argument against that be? We already booted half of the human-preferential treatment that is set in place by the lore of the actual game, why not wipe it all?