/tg/Station 13

Heretics seem to be just outright executed the moment they're caught. I'm seeing many excuses as to why line up one after the other; you can't take away the funny hand, you can't contain some of their types (AKA heretics who take rust or lock), and they're an existential threat to the round by still being present. I can't necessarily argue against those reasons, but this feels like copouts for both policy and forcing code changes that seemingly aren't accomodated/ would probably too meaningfully affect the role in a negative way. And I don't like policy by code and we should avoid it where possible.

Why do we still maintain them as restricted if their actions towards both crew and the security force are heavily limited, but outright anyone would have reasonable grounds to murderize a heretic because of their objectives?

So, my proposal is pretty simple; give them the same treatment as changelings by allowing them to exist in that weird grey area they occupy. If it is 'on brand' for a heretic, they should be allowed to do that thing with impunity.

Murderize sec with your magic powers and minions/turn them all into minions? Sure. Release a death virus to collect their corpses after? No sir, please keep it to your weird magic and curses. Kill a guy just because you wanna paint a department in blood? Cool whatever. Kill a guy because he's, like, the first person you found during the round after getting gear but you're doing it with pretty much only batons and lasers? No thank you, use a spell or something, you have those.

Just keep it heretical and I think it should be fine. At least justify why this role has to die immediately by reasonable policy permissions.

seconding on this: if they're they're making use of what the role offers them (loads of cool abilities to be a spooky evil blade-dancing bastard,) let them kill and enjoy relative impunity about stacking up bodies.

even more than changeling or progtot, they're channeled towards becoming an ultimate threat. they often get treated like it even when they don't have the slightest leaning to do so. if the toolkit is going to put them in a bind when they don't use it full-on loud, they should be given the grace to go full loud with it - especially with fewer heretics in any given round right now than we used to get in the past.

a conditional unrestriction for them around actually doing their shit heretically seems a lot fairer than the current status quo.

Time is a flat circle

Are heretics being killed on MRP servers because they're heretics or because they committed a crime that warranted their execution, taking the consideration that they may be impossible to contain in the brig into account as well? I don't think that heretic necessarily warps RPR6 for security as much as changelings do.

BonChoi wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 1:37 pm Are heretics being killed on MRP servers because they're heretics or because they committed a crime that warranted their execution, taking the consideration that they may be impossible to contain in the brig into account as well? I don't think that heretic necessarily warps RPR6 for security as much as changelings do.

I wasn't like actually going to take this thread seriously because I'm getting very tired of us continuing this cycle of "should (antag) get a free pass because security kills them a lot" but I guess I should explain what the actual issue is here.

Heretics are difficult but not impossible to contain. A lot of security players will use this as a reason to kill them on-sight on MRP. I'm not sure how other admins have been enforcing this, but I do not permit this if I'm online - Heretics have to actually do something that warrants permabrigging before they can be executed, just like traitors do.

For the record, I'm against this. Heretics don't pose a direct inherent threat from the word "go" like Changelings do and I don't think we should continue to play the game of "which antag gets to say fuck" until everyone does, at which point we are just LRP with a few extra rules. If security is executing them on sight, we need to handle that as a rule 6 issue. Going "Well, security already kills them on sight because they can't be bothered to contain them even if they haven't done anything worth being executed, so we might as well let them do whatever they want" is putting the cart before the horse; the issue isn't "Heretics deserve more freedom because security keeps killing them", it's "Security keeps killing antags who aren't valid for execution".

I was a supporter of the “Allow changelings to say fuck” policy thread because it made a lot of sense. Alien murder monsters who will be cremated/gibbed on sight if caught? Obviously they should be free to kill as they please. And so they were unrestricted and we all saw that a chunk of the playerbase sees the freedom to murderbone as an obligation to do so, with multiple people immediately using changeling rolls as a way to stop as many people from playing the game as possible. The lamest strategies to depopulate the server were employed and run into the ground. We were truly worse off for having made changeling unrestricted, and it has since been reversed.

We don’t need to make the same mistake twice. We can learn from our errors.

If an antagonist kills someone and can either justify it to me or I can glance at the situation and see something that makes sense, then I’m fine with it. How they carry out the kill is relevant - If you ambush an officer in maint to kill them, take their loot, and leave the body there? Even if you aren’t a known element yet, I’m fine with that because someone will come across the body eventually. If sec has no idea you exist and you’re ambushing, killing, and spacing them, then I’m not as fine with it.

Play the game in good faith. Do what results in an interesting round. If what you’re doing makes sense and can be justified without hypotheticals, I won’t care about it having happened. If your justification isn’t about to earn you a gold medal in mental gymnastics, you’re probably in the clear.

I'm torn on this.

On one hand, heretics are unrestricted post-ascension, it is quite weird IC for them to be restricted before that point. Encouraging them to be an antagonist in a flavorful way that is neither just "rush ascension" nor "batong plus gunning people while ignoring which antag I even am" would probably be a good thing.

On the other hand, this just invites a ton of rules lawyering over where exactly the line is. Is it okay for me to make a stunprod and lasers to kill someone, if my goal is still to make them a minion? What if I've been caught by sec, had my blades confiscated, and released, then whatever non-heretic weapons I can scavenge are basically all I have left to antag with now. Can I still use them?

I'm also not convinced heretics being executed on sight is that prevalent of a problem.

I think my personal ideal solution would be something like "antags that are acting flavorfully and with respect to RP have more leeway regarding restrictions than those simply playing mechanically and looking to maximize killcount/objective completion" and cut the heretic specificity out entirely (although that is also very subjective too)

I don't think I've seen a lot of unlawful heretic executions in my time playing security on Manuel to be honest.

BonChoi wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 6:10 pm I don't think I've seen a lot of unlawful heretic executions in my time playing security on Manuel to be honest.

If anything, it's the opposite, where security plays catch and release one or two many times, and it blows up in their face. Granted I don't play heretic or security so obviously I don't see the instances where Jane Doe the heretic was insta-gunned down and removed from the round.

God no, the weeks where ling was unrestricted was bad enough when we had the same person rolling ling every day so he could abuse teleporters into chasms. If people wanna say fuck they gotta earn it by ascending.

I think what heretic needs in the rules is assurance they wont get in trouble for killing people that are trying to come after them. If the heretic is in a bind for time or under pressure from sec and cant wait for a moment to jump somebody alone, and has to in the middle of the hallway for example. All the people in the area have the right to try and stop that heretic by virtue of "You can always defend yourself and others from violent antagonists." . So as long as the heretic wont get in trouble for killing these people for trying to interrupt them doing heretic business then everything is working as intended. One situation that a is really tough for a heretic is if somebody walks in on you and catches you red handed doing heretic stuff, are you allowed to just straight up kill them to keep them quiet?. Its a 50/50 on if that person screams X is heretic or if they pretend they didnt see anything.

I always thought antags that couldn't bone already had those protections with being able to protect themselves or kill witnesses, they'd just get in trouble for being too reckless. It's like (at least last I checked) how you can bomb your target even if it kills innocent bystanders, but you can't just randomly bomb some populated area in the hopes that it kills your target that may or may not be there for shits and giggles.

Do we really need bespoke custom rules for every single antag type because that's the way this seems like it's headed.

I think trying to create bespoke rules for each antag is a little bit of a losing battle, yeah, especially in consideration to new players of both the antag and MRP as a whole. This may be an issue that's not as well-met with policy as it is with boots-on-the-ground admins; It would be interesting to hear from more on how they handle situations like this.

In the meantime, I think xzero's on the right track. Heretic SHOULD be able to kill anyone that purposefully puts themselves between them and their targets, and I'd argue should even be allowed to kill someone to keep them quiet if they see you atop a rune so long as there are not purposeful measures taken by the 'tic to round-remove that individual for the sole crime of having seen something they shouldn't have.

As with before, however, these are hard things to codify in policy, and perhaps shouldn't be at all in the interest of not elongating already quite long rules. I'm a fan of letting the Heretic say fuck in Mantic-Speak, but I also don't know how we should go about it.

why though? at least cling had a cope excuse of wanting to steal as many identities as possible. but heretic?

idk about this we already rolled back the cling murderbone rule for a reason and it's not like heretics are being round removed immediately upon being caught unless they've done something to warrant it

I'm opposed. Heretic should be primarily focusing on killing their targets. If they don't have an actual reason to kill random Joe Assistant who is just hanging out in the library, then why should they?

I agree with Vekter in that this is a security issue, not a heretic issue.

Changelings were and are fully 100% 'you may execute this antagonist immediately upon capture the moment you can confirm they are this antagonist' and unrestricting them just turned the entire experience of playing with them in the game into a race to the bottom.

Existence as a heretic is generally insufficient reason to immediately execute / round remove one as security, and instances of that being done should be ahelped and acted against - In other cases, if an antagonist demonstrates their incapacity to be contained or escalates to the point of being murderable under RPR 6, that's a them issue; sometimes you lose.

Edit: Clarification, I do mean 'is a rust or knock heretic' fully demonstrates uncontainability - I don't expect security to act stupid if they do know that they cannot reasonably contain you. If a heretic player doesn't want to get murdered over this, it's on them to hide this fact, or as with traitors and holoparas, not take the thing that makes security unable to contain you.

I'd say that the dichotomy of restricted and unrestricted antags just isn't enough on MRP. One would hope that people would act more like actual people than on LRP because if you apply a touch of immersion, this issue doesn't seem all that big. If we take a changeling, I'd say that immediate execution upon seeing a person grow an arm blade, shoot tentacles and become hostile is completely reasonable in any case, because as a person, you'd go "oh, NOPE" and torch it with a flamethrower.

The issue with heretic is that they lie on a spectrum. They go from "Joe from accounting believes in some weird shit" into a station wide threat that is about to wipe out everything living. There is a progression and there are tells. If you just find a man making a wacky rune in maints on roundstart, you tap his shoulder ask "sir, are you aware that heresy is against company policy?" If you have him continually jaunting out of your cell, you can always go "m'kay, let's put that bozo into a wheelchair and see if he wants to jaunt out of that.", or you can exile him, put a tracker on him. Anything. If you have a late shift throughout which multiple people went missing in maints and see a heretic obviously killing people in the open with his wacky blade and ugly robes, I can see it becoming a capital crime given enough buildup.

That's all because there is a giant difference between how dangerous a roundstart heretic is compared to a round-end heretic. It's a spectrum I would love to see people engage with in more than just blanked "he's unrestricted, let's kill him" manner. I thought this is what MRP is for, but this mindset around antags just makes MRP look like LRP for unrobust people.

Bottomline is. I don't believe that a person whose track record is only "being weird in maints + a series of jailbreaks" should be ever executed until any violent intent has been proven, just because they're hard to contain on MRP. I think that alternative, albeit radical punishments should be a think. If someone is uncontainable, hack their legs off until their sentence is served, exile them, hell I'd not even be opposed to nitrousing them to sleep till the sentence is served. If they keep escaping, they are opening themselves to radical solutions. "Uncontainable" is not a thing, it's a lack of effort. It's a skill issue even.

I still fully believe that nobody on MRP is unlawfully executing heretics just because they're heretics and getting away with it. I just don't think that that's a problem that heretics face on MRP.

spookuni wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 8:51 am Changelings were and are fully 100% 'you may execute this antagonist immediately upon capture the moment you can confirm they are this antagonist' and unrestricting them just turned the entire experience of playing with them in the game into a race to the bottom.

Existence as a heretic is generally insufficient reason to immediately execute / round remove one as security, and instances of that being done should be ahelped and acted against - In other cases, if an antagonist demonstrates their incapacity to be contained or escalates to the point of being murderable under RPR 6, that's a them issue; sometimes you lose.

Edit: Clarification, I do mean 'is a rust or knock heretic' fully demonstrates uncontainability - I don't expect security to act stupid if they do know that they cannot reasonably contain you. If a heretic player doesn't want to get murdered over this, it's on them to hide this fact, or as with traitors and holoparas, not take the thing that makes security unable to contain you.

"Existence as a heretic is generally insufficient to be executed. Except rust or knock, fuck them in particular"

Rust and knock aren't even really uncontainable in themselves. There's a slew of implants that they can use, and escaping perma can be very tricky as you either space yourself as rust (and probably die) or you have to somehow knock your way out of 4-6 airlocks to escape. It's the same race to the bottom as allowing changelings to say fuck, only on the opposite side for what are generally the two weaker versions of heretic.

RPR6 should apply for the *crimes* done, not whether sec needs to check on their perma prisoner every once in a while. There is not a single word in RPR6 that says that security is allowed to execute someone because they'd be difficult to contain.

BrianBackslide wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 11:51 am RPR6 should apply for the *crimes* done, not whether sec needs to check on their perma prisoner every once in a while. There is not a single word in RPR6 that says that security is allowed to execute someone because they'd be difficult to contain.

Yeah, but, what is the baseline for those "crimes" done? I personally use Space Law as a guideline, and while it's not enforced OOC it allows me to make better IC decisions on how to deal out punishments, and if I were going off of space law I should also be able to apply the part that states:

Criminals can be sentenced to execution if they have established themselves to be uncontainable by available means.

Either way without using Space Law, I think that it's common sense that after two or three times of your prisoner magically teleporting out of jail or escaping by breaking down the windows / walls, they should be a candidate for more forceful means of containment, including death.

NecromancerAnne wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 10:50 am Kill a guy just because you wanna paint a department in blood? Cool whatever.

Is wanting to cover a department in blood and creepy runes not already sufficient reason to kill someone as a heretic on MRP? Because that sounds like great IC reasoning to me.

Vekter wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 4:47 pm I wasn't like actually going to take this thread seriously because I'm getting very tired of us continuing this cycle of "should (antag) get a free pass because security kills them a lot" but I guess I should explain what the actual issue is here.

Heretics are difficult but not impossible to contain. A lot of security players will use this as a reason to kill them on-sight on MRP. I'm not sure how other admins have been enforcing this, but I do not permit this if I'm online - Heretics have to actually do something that warrants permabrigging before they can be executed, just like traitors do.

If this is getting tiresome for you, then it is equally tiresome for me when I'm having contradicting discussions about this with people in the administration about related topics. So I do agree with you, and I probably enforce it as you suggest, but maybe this message isn't reaching others.

So, my goal with the thread is this. Either reaffirm that for antagonists, including heretics, that haven't done any major crime and could be contained with effort, that this effort is taken rather than execution; as well as making clearer acknowledgement as to what constitutes 'uncontainable' to warrant execution. Which may be the grey area causing this problem. That way I can tap the sign and go 'okay, cool, keep doing this as sec without good reasoning and you're the problem'.

OR, if we (the thread) can't agree on that, then at least allow this role to act more freely, in accordance to their thematic concept, which helps justify a heavier response from security that other restricted antagonists wouldn't receive. It is not total freedom. It is slightly broader permissions. And needs justification still, even if very permissive. That particular wrinkle is what is supposed to differentiate the current restricted version of changeling to their previous unrestricted version. This is not an argument for unrestricting entirely. Don't argue like it is. There is a careful nuance.

I've had the 'uncontainable' discussion before, and it often times results in people arguing that it broadly means 'cannot be made incapable of causing harm/fighting back while captured using some superior advantage inherent to them'. And I've had other admins argue that any power, even ones that do not directly contribute towards escaping confinement or escaping arrest and that cannot be completely removed or nullified is reason for execution. I've seen players make this argument as well (not necessarily too me but in some discussions in the past I've been privy too), so I feel it must come from a similar place.

Heretics can't have their powers removed. They fall into that category. Another example would be, say, martial arts. There are a few with strictly nonlethal options in them, so you can remain entirely nonlethal using them and be effective. But you can't really prevent that being used. So I've seen arguments for executing them under the 'uncontainable threat' condition.

So, for arguments sake; explain to me how you would contain someone in that category. In the security players shoes, what would you do?

GPeckman wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 4:41 pm

NecromancerAnne wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 10:50 am Kill a guy just because you wanna paint a department in blood? Cool whatever.

Is wanting to cover a department in blood and creepy runes not already sufficient reason to kill someone as a heretic on MRP? Because that sounds like great IC reasoning to me.

I'd accept it currently, so long as you have a goal with it all. I mean, flesh heretics can easily justify some random kills; they turn people into allies on their side, and those allies are very fragile and die very quickly, so they often need to refresh their pool of ghouls.

I cant comment on this properly because I see heretics BARELY
and I NEVER get to play heretic (like once a month maximum) so take my opinion with a grain of salt. How can I give good info if I have SUCH LITTLE DATA.
Can we raise roundstart heretics to two?


Anyway...
The one time I did get to play heretic recently (like 3 weeks ago) I did not encounter this issue. I was able to do what I wanted anyway. Oh, some officers followed me to my death trap? They all die! I don't get bwoinked for that because they went into my trap and they were chasing me. We don't need extra freedoms for that. Like, I can't see why more freedoms would actually change anything? all the gimmicks I can think of are already allowed in the rules. You get so many possible targets that if you do want to do something super murder like, you still have a big range of options. If the targets you have aint good, just reroll it! You are also allowed to defend lethally as an antag so thats not an issue. The only extra freedom I can think of would be giving a murderbone pass. Which, I don't want.

NecromancerAnne wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 11:57 pm So, my goal with the thread is this. Either reaffirm that for antagonists, including heretics, that haven't done any major crime and could be contained with effort, that this effort is taken rather than execution; as well as making clearer acknowledgement as to what constitutes 'uncontainable' to warrant execution. Which may be the grey area causing this problem. That way I can tap the sign and go 'okay, cool, keep doing this as sec without good reasoning and you're the problem'.

I feel like this is the fair way to look at things here. Heretics are not generally a problem unless they get deep into their sacrifice tree. My opinion shakes out a bit like this:

Good: I found someone with Heretic items in their backpack and someone told me they saw them near a rift. I'm going to brig them for a period, confiscate their stuff, and put a chemical implant in them. If they keep fucking around, then we'll kill them.

Also good: I found a Heretic at their rune covered in blood with a dead body nearby. I'm going to arrest them, take their shit, and have someone watch them while I wait for the Captain/HoS to authorize the execution. If they attack me, all bets are off - I'm killing them.

Bad: I found someone with Heretic items in their backpack and someone told me they saw them near a rift. Heretics can be difficult to contain so I'm killing them, because it's easier than dealing with them in proportion to their crimes.

(It's worth noting that the third scenario would also be bad if the Captain and/or HoS were involved - it doesn't suddenly become okay to bypass all the other stuff just because command approves it.)

tl;dr RPR 6 exists for a reason. The only reason Changelings don't necessarily get a pass is because containing them is almost impossible without building a BZ chamber to throw them in. There are ways to contain a Heretic that are significantly easier than that and letting them do their antag stuff is better than sniping them at the beginning of the round. I don't think making them unrestricted in reaction to people supposedly refusing to let them go or keep them in perma because they're difficult to contain is good, we should deal with the inherent behavior issue here, not try and enable it by changing the rules.

There's levels of uncontainability, and changelings are a BIG step above heretics.

Sure, some heretic types can easily escape prison if you toss them in perma unattended, but changelings can and will escape rapidly from cuffs while being held by an officerand are just as dangerous as if they'd never been arrested at all within a few seconds.

Sir another antag un restriction thread hit the forums.

Players have shown they can't handle the power of unrestriction. And admins have shown they can't handle cultivating good play without employing the hammer or going back on their words after 2 weeks

my thoughts on heretic has always been that i like it for being a niche sort of antag that has its own style and progression tracks that don't really fit in with the MO of other antags.

i like that they're restricted, heretics start off weak as shit and need to play defensively and carefully. they actually un-restrict themselves the closer they get to ascension. in the MRP rules this is explained under whichever clause has something like "restricted antags can become unrestricted through their actions."

we can either design antags to fit perfectly into these neat little "restricted" and "unrestricted" design boxes, or we can let some of them be a bit weird and wild and trust players to be sensible with it and admins to be logical with their rulings.

i am much more preferential to the latter option here.

The last time a major antagonist got unrestricted we had months of shitty murderbones before headmins are bothered enough to restrict them again.
Half our players on manny are not there to RP, but to soft grief, you simply can't trust a playerbase like that to take that in good faith
The second lings got unrestricted the hand tele pitfall was devised, I cant wait for the bitching when 30 players get dusted by the knock airlock portal into Sm, chamber trick.

I regret to inform you blacklist about this, but that sounds funny as fuck.

We need more blood thirsty hairy ticks

Give them the voice to say fuck, I would love to see more Heretic fun rather when they ascend.

Dunham wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2024 11:06 am We need more blood thirsty hairy ticks

Give them the voice to say fuck, I would love to see more Heretic fun rather when they ascend.

Except what you're gonna get is the same 2-3 gimmicks and a whole lot of administrative headache. It's just not worth it.

but what if i used space jaunt to teleport people into chasms wouldnt that be so funny

I mean, if you have a particular worried about people doing that, Jacq, you're in a much better position to resolve that than empty posting in a policy thread. We already have rules for overusing gimmicks to the point of lameness, that's not ground we need to retread.

yeah I still remain unconvinced on the merits of letting heretics go murder mode since most of the arguments are the exact same ones put forward for lings being unrestricted. For context, I supported lings being unrestricted and within a week and a half came to regret it. I actually kind of like the system right now where heretics get to go ham when they ascend as a reward for completing their goals. The issue with things like the handtele murder thing lings were doing is that it's funny like, twice, and SS13 players are notorious for finding something funny and effective and overusing it to the point that it's just fucking annoying to most of the playerbase (aka what happens every time Livrah does an exploit video, people copy it till the coders nerf it).

NecromancerAnne wrote: ↑Sun Mar 31, 2024 12:23 pm I regret to inform you blacklist about this, but that sounds funny as fuck.

the hand tele thing was funny the first time but not the ten or so times following that

I think this threads best closed, because the better discussion to be had has to do with 'reasonable containment' and a better definition for that.

Also, a reminder that we have Roleplay Rule 10, repetitive gimmicks are not something people should be doing over and over, even as unrestricted antagonists. And it isn't exclusive to just one person doing something on repeat, but also copycats doing the same, lame gimmick over and over.