Is Regal Rat an antag?

[itsswagga]

I played Regal Rat a few weeks ago, read the wiki (which tells you to chew wires, and in fact, you can do this) amassed many rats, ate cheese, vomited, and also, destroyed wires and APCs and SMES. Eventually the HOS hunted me down and killed me and I tried to kill the guys chasing me. All good and well, and no admin or player at the time complained.

Recently on Terry an admin (can't remember who) said that Regal Rat isn't an antag as he "doesn't have an antag datum" and that the goal of RR is to "make a base in maint and hang out there, no killing or sabotaging"

So which is correct? Why does RR have all these special powers if all he does is AFK in maint? How is that different to a regular simple animal mouse mob?

I don't know what was intended with Regal Rat. And anyway on Terry which is an LRP server, why would RR be subject to anti-murderboning and "you MUST follow objective" rules?

[Timberpoes]

Regal rat is bound by its flavour text on LRP as a minor/side antag. That's probably buried in code, but I'm phoneposting at the moment and can't dig it up.

Having all these neat roles players may have that create danger and conflict without turning them into a full rule 4 antagonist is neat and allows the coders to tune them to the right power level and rarity.

LRP has other restricted or semi-antags. Obsessed similarly can't murderbone on LRP, nor can abductors. Both have to follow the vibes of their antag type.

[Jacquerel]

Everything you described doing is covered by the flavour text of the role and explicitly encouraged.
At the sane time it's not considered a rule 4 antag by policy because people taking the "rp as a rat" role and using it to ventcrawl into engineering and turn off all the vents is cringe.

In my experience 90% of players instinctively understand how to rp as a giant rat so this seems to work well.

[DATAxPUNGED]

Regal rat is bound by its flavour text on LRP as a minor/side antag. That's probably buried in code, but I'm phoneposting at the moment and can't dig it up.

I gotchu

Code: Select all

assumed_control_message = "You are an independent, invasive force on the station! Hoard coins, trash, cheese, and the like from the safety of darkness!",\

[TheBibleMelts]

regal rat follows its flavor text and should not be used to systematically try to eradicate all life aboard the station.

[MooCow12]

The level of sabotaging a regal rat is capable of is already inherently limited to the mob itself, ie you cant space the station or flood it without dieing, you cant easily mess up the sm and get away with it. So policy is already semi-enforced mechanically on that end.

But you can break apcs and benefit from the darkness perfectly fine both mechanically and policy-wise, admins shouldnt be any strict over breaking them at all anymore especially after I made them easier to repair.

The sm is probably the only outliar in that you do benefit from somehow pulling that off (the entire station becomes alot easier to prowl and turn into your domain with the lack of power) but admins would probably slap you for that even though it would mostly be the non antag engineer's fault for not coming back to fix 2 pipes.

[zxaber]

I was under the assumption that the Rat is at the same level as Nightmare. In any case, that's how people have been treating in on LRP, on both sides; some crews move to eradicate a Rat King as soon as they show, and some Rat Kings mass a bunch of rats and mob anyone they find.

So I guess a proper ruling is necessary.

[Farquaar]

You gotta be the giant rat that makes all of the rules
See what kind of trouble you can get yourself into

[Vekter]

The way it's always been spelled out to me is that the regal rat is the king of maintenance. Their goal isn't necessarily to rise up and wipe out the crew, but to make sure their domain is kept clean and free of potential usurpers or trespassers. I'm cool with a "rising up from the sewers to take revenge" gimmick from time to time, but it should never be an excuse to just make everyone horizontal.

Ideal regal rat RP for me is someone stumbling across a room in maintenance filled with rats, one way bigger that threatens them. Maybe it's an idle threat to make them leave? Maybe they decide to take revenge for all the rats that've died to overcharged wires? There's a bunch of way cooler gimmicks to do with the role that aren't just "kill everyone".

So no, I don't think regal rats are antags in the sense of rule 4, but they are antagonists in the fact that they sometimes act against the crew.

[Itseasytosee2me]

Throwing in two sense that restricting crewmembers from harming the regal rat would be weird. I'm sure being a giant fuck off rat counts as good enough IC reasoning to be attacked. Not that crewmembers should be expected to kill on sight, but to be a possibility.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Basically, yes, regal rat is an antag, but the admins are trying really really hard to not say it's an antag because if they just say it's an antag then all you get is nothing but people who use regal rat to murderbone or sabotage the SM and/or people who just murder the regal rat on sight because he antag he valid, when admins desperately want people to roleplay with regal rat.

[Jacquerel]

It's literally not an antagonist either in code or policy, or any other way. It's a ghost role with set expectations. Not all ghost roles are antagonists (most aren't, in fact).

[Vekter]

Basically, yes, regal rat is an antag, but the admins are trying really really hard to not say it's an antag because if they just say it's an antag then all you get is nothing but people who use regal rat to murderbone or sabotage the SM and/or people who just murder the regal rat on sight because he antag he valid, when admins desperately want people to roleplay with regal rat.

This is a really weird way to put it because it makes it look like we're doing mental gymnastics to avoid letting Regal Rats say fuck.

We're not. Regal Rats are not an antagonist as far as rule 4 goes. They can function as an antagonist in the sense that they could be acting against the crew, but they cannot kill anyone indiscriminately, nor can they be killed on-sight without having already caused problems.

This is one of those weird instances where us directly codifying that antags can do whatever they want results in us having to be tactful in how we say things because saying "Regal Rat can be an antagonist in the story of the round" is completely correct, but I can't actually say that because some idiot will turn around and take that as a valid reason to beat the piss out of them every time they see them, or to kill everyone as a rat because muh valids.

I guess the best way to put it as far as rules go is "Regal rats aren't antagonists but they can be bad guys sometimes".

[Not-Dorsidarf]

regal rats are a big stinky rat that breaks things, raises an army of rat minions, and causes as much nuisance as it thinks it can get away with without the sec team rolling up and obliterating it.

Maybe it eats lone stragglers in maint with the rat horde, maybe it invades the kitchen and demands cheese. You never know and I think that makes it more fun (and funny)

[SkeletalElite]

If a regal rat is turning entire crews horitzontal that is a massive skill issue. One or two blasts from a basic flamethrower will kill their entire army which takes 7 years of clicking a disposals bin to create and the rat on its own is a complete push over.

[Vekter]

If a regal rat is turning entire crews horitzontal that is a massive skill issue. One or two blasts from a basic flamethrower will kill their entire army which takes 7 years of clicking a disposals bin to create and the rat on its own is a complete push over.

No, it's an administrative issue. They shouldn't be doing it, ever, unless the crew is consistently trying to murder them one by one.

[MooCow12]

If regal rat is valid on sight they probably should be able to atleast go out of their way to perma round remove attackers and hide their corpse. It takes much longer to gather rats than it takes to kill them and it only takes a few toolbox hits to kill you, one time i died in the time it took for me to finish a sentence talking to security because a tider ran up to me and killed me then spent the rest of the round space exploring to avoid security from arresting them. Imagine having to deal with someone with that determination getting free extra attempts to kill you because medical revived them.

[Itseasytosee2me]

For the love of nar-sie, is it that hard to roleplay seeing/playing a giant fuckoff rat? Seems like one of the simplest scenarios I could imagine.

[Cheshify]

It's a flavour text threat, not a "you get to kill everyone now" antag. Somewhat similar to other midround ghostroles that could occupy this niche like the Comms Agent. You have flavour text, follow it. You're a big rat and you do big rat things. Big rat things do not include "murder everyone on station for no reason".

This should be pretty simple, and I guarantee we've answered this before.

Cheshify - See above
TBM - "we've answered this one like 5 times, it's a foavor[sic] text antag and not free reign to murderbone"
Fikou - n/a