Encouraging roleplay

[Rolan7]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Dress up and artistic options encourage RP to some extent. After expending effort looking fancy or making the perfect wire art/shrine people like to crow a bit.

This. And sadly the attempt to provide backstory for a murder-objective is nice, but would get in the way far too often. Like Miggles said.

[Kelenius]

"Here is an OPTIONAL backstory for your mission: ..."

[Facundo]

I think there was once a talk about being able to fill information on your character setup so it could be seen in the medical and security records, so they would be used somehow, that could enhance RP right?

[Koriath]

I have a small idea that would require LOADS of testing and player feedback.
Since we're a roleplaying game, why not draw inspiration from roleplaying games? As in: give a set of skills to each player.

It's known that when you have brain damage, you can't use consoles for instance. It's not that much of a stretch to assume that the security officer doesn't know how to operate the Chem Master, and can't use it.
Now, selecting your job at round start would give you a specialized advantage, and in my idea, encourage people to cooperate with each other, since you can't be a one man army that does everything. Keeping people alive (or cloning them) could be vital.
It would also elimate the 5 sec, 5 medics, 40 assitants problem since Assitants would be generalist, but lack any sort of specialized skills (maybe had ranks, Medic 1- Can CPR, Medic 2 - Can administer pills and use seriges, Medic 3 - Can use sleepers/cryo)

The only problem I'm seeing with this is lack of flexibility, and to that end, I propose to give a new purpose to the library: Skill books. Read them,perform a mini game/test (if some you implement character stats, INT could be usefull here) and you gain a skill. Mind you, adquiring EXTREMELY SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE should not come cheap/be available at all. Either rare books, or they are close guarded secrets that research must find first (and could then be stolen or distributed to the crew).

Lastly, maybe add a skill cap. To avoid the problem of "grinding" for skills and becoming the one-man army I meantioned earlier.
Add some flexibilty at the start (pick 3 of these minor skills, a la Elder Scrolls) and it could work.

PS: Like I mentioned, character stats could work here too. Endurance for HP/toxins resitance, Strentgh for carrying heavy stuff combat damage. Perception to see other actions, hear through walls (high levels. SUPERHUMAN levels even, maybe with genetics/surgery).

I dunno guys, it's something that could be greatly expanded, but REALLY needs fleshing out and testing because it's one of those great ideas that can be implemented in a such a shitty way that it kills the game.

PSS: Such a system needs to be very simple and intuitive. We already have enough whinners about "balance". I really don't want SS13 to become another ASSFAGGOTS where people complain what job is OP, and how the chaplain is good for jungling, and the HoS is a shitty carry.

[Kelenius]

-snip-

[Cheridan]

Sticking stats onto everyone's character isn't adding roleplay, it's adding gameplay. Roleplay vs Rollplay, as /tg/ would say.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Skills are just out of the question.

It also boggles my mind how some people think of fundamental game mechanics as "little".

[Koriath]

Well, I tried. It's not like we'd be making Dungeons and Dragons in space. Just making sure the HoS can't clone people, for instance.
Alas, I'm open to sugestions.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Just making sure the HoS can't clone people, for instance.

That's forcing a massive change of one of the fundamental things of /tg/station, that is being able to do whatever you can do. Not only it would be met with hostility from a majority of playerbase, it also doesn't add anything but forced "oh can you please clone this person I will just pretend I cannot do it myself" and makes incompetence a huge problem.

It's just such a huge change in any case and we can't even get hulks nonhuman.

[Rolan7]

It's a good writeup, and it's been suggested several times over the years, but it prevents Joe Assistant from doing whatever the fuck they want, so it'll never happen on this server. We choose to represent character skill by the player learning the intricacies of an a dozen unintuitive, lag-prone interfaces.

I think Bay does have a skill system, it just isn't code-enforced.

[Steelpoint]

Bay does have a skill system, but it has absolutely no impact on game play in any way what so ever. It's purely to help someone build up a character and to hold them to a certain in game standard of knowledge and skill.

[Kelenius]

Bay does have a skill system and you will get banned for doing something your character can't do. It has no effect on the gameplay.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Skill system on bay has no meaning at all. I'm not sure what it's for, you can run around with everything set to zero and you'll be fine. It's supposed to help admins I guess.

[Koriath]

I knew about the resistance to my idea. A few months ago I tried to sugest several diferent ways to control the massive assitant population (my only grip with the server, although wiring the singularity to the grid seems to have toned down their shenanigans). Of course I heard a lot of the "but I need to get into maintenance to save idiots that kill themselves!!!!11!!!".

And again, I know it's not a very good system when put like that. What I just said can be summed up as a bunch of restrictions, and I believe restrictions are never fun if you don't have a way to go around or conquer/earn the right to override them.

With that said, I'm against any kind of character progression, But I do thing that the major problem in the station right now is lack of comunication. Say what you will about Bay, that's one of the things they do well. They talk. Maybe too much. But they do. And honestly? If people asked for stuff before entering my workplace, I'd probably even help them. (Yes, I'll help you vaporize the clown if you ask nicely).
If Randum Mcgrief couldn't use the Chemmaster, for instance, then he'd have no reason to break into chemistry. Or at least, there would be one less reason.
Just my two cents, I still think people that play this for far longer than me should have better ideas. I heard some in occ at least.

[paprika]

Character skills on bay are rough estimate of what your character can do, to put limits on your character and keep them in the job they do so you don't have the same issue as /tg/ with everyone being able to do everything regardless of if their character would know how to or not. Yeah, setting up the singulo is easy, and so is chemistry, but that's because it's a game. When you're in a roleplay-heavy server, you aren't expected to know irl advanced chemistry, but your character does (if you roleplay as such). It's a good system for heavy roleplay servers like bay to enforce (don't think of that as a bad word here, it's necessary for a lot of reasons on that server) heavier roleplay but would be another absolutely shitty administration obstacle here and interfere with the rounds in a bad way so let's not.

To add to this thread, I don't think there should be any code or administrative direct roleplay 'encouragements'. Can we stop trying to be the heavy roleplay server? Can we stop pretending that not having players that use 'me' commands and write paragraphs means we're /vg/ play 2 win no immersion ever?

We're fine as we are. We have good server policies that encourage roleplay over ooc metagame and as long as the admins enforce them as such there shouldn't be a problem. Wanting a server with 60+ people to have casual roleplay is fucking laughable at best. The only reason sybil has it much more rarely than artyom does, even though artyom doesn't even have an extended gamemode anymore, is because of player count and playerbase. You'll have tons more new players and players from other servers in sybil, and there's nothing you can do to encourage roleplay in a way that isn't hardcoded game restrictions like the ones bay has in place to practically force their uses to roleplay or get out. Which again, isn't bad, because it's a heavy roleplay server, and there is literally no room for play 2 win there at all.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Can we stop pretending that not having players that use 'me' commands and write paragraphs means we're /vg/ play 2 win no immersion ever?

But we totally are. It's not good or bad, it's just what this server is. A giant chaotic play-to-win gameplay focused shithole that we all adore and love.

[paprika]

I dunno I don't see a problem with how /tg/ plays right now, like, okay I know we want to be more roleplay and /tg/ but every time we try to make changes people cry b-bay! and m-metafriend roleplayer scum!

[Koriath]

Hey don't get me wrong. Beeing a chef having food fights with unruly people because I "can't cook for shit" is pretty funny, and when I roll medic all that chaos feeds medbay with injured people/corpses and I feel like a paramedic at an earthquake site. There's still a ton of good stuff and yeah, I didn't really meant we should go heavy roleplay.

All I mean is to stop certain behaviours or to give more depth to others.
For starters, the Library would have a great use. Second, you could pick some minorskills, so you're an officer with some med knowledge, you can assists other officers.
Or mayb you're a an engineer with some amateur-chemestry degree? You can make some simple chems, and provide spacedrugs to off duty engineers (tripping in the solars is dangerous but awesome).

If you want to go a diferent round, well... it has to start with fixing the assistants. I mean, they're the less roleplay oriented job right now. All other jobs have a certain dependence on one or two more departments, and comunication keeps things flowing nicely (or terribly). Beeing a trator among those jobs feels awesome.
But assitants... it's like they're playing on another server. But booth servers got merged and now we can see them and they can see us.

Grante, I've met plenty of helpfull assitants, and some proved their worth a thousand fold with bold actions or sheer comedy. But come on. Most of them make a spear, 2 IEDS and hide in maintenance waiting for taters/aliums to show up, chaarge them and die. Or worse, they get BORED. And you know exactly what a bored assistant does.

The "limit their number" argument never works (blah blah, training job blah blah, all slots full) but if we want to imporve comunications and roleplay, you gotta start with the parts of the station that pratice it the least. Either figure out why they don't and fix it, or cut the problem byt the root.

In case someone doesn't want to go "GREY TIDE HATER" on me, my solution would be simple:
Assistant slots start at 0. For every 2 sec officers, you add one. For every medic you add another, for every 3 scientists you add another... so on and so on.
This would make sure that there's always a spot for assitants (especially if you late join) yet keep the assistants:crew ratio a bit closer to 1 ( or 1/2, the ideal)

Again, an idea that requires tinkering, since the numbers and proportions need adjusting, and possibly something I oversighted at first could be abused by some.
I dunno. I like how we are. But we could be better, that's for sure.

[Konork]

-more skill stuff-

It's not happening. It more than likely will never happen. There's really no point in discussing it more

-assistant stuff-

Trying to solve greytiding by limiting assistants is fixing a symptom, not the problem itself. Get rid of tool-belt-wearing spear-wielding greyshirts, and you'll just get tool-belt-wearing spear-wielding doctors or scientists or cargo techs instead. Not to mention that assistants are intentionally unlimited to act as an "overflow" job for when there's more people than jobs.

[Koriath]

Well, I'm not against people beeing alocated from a normal job to assitant if there's too many of it.

Also, I don't believe you'd see an increase in "spear-wielding-doctors". for starters, they have mediguns for instance.
I do believe it would be rough for a time yes. Imagine you have 14 Scientists now, instead of the usual 4-5. It's gonna be a full month of "TOXINS ON FYAH".
Not mention the sharp increase in Shitcurity. But that's a transiotion period. I'm studying electrical engineering, and one thing we learn is that nothing is as dangerous to electrical equipment as transitions from one state to another. As such, we need to guaratee the system can hold until it returns to normal.
Same thing applies here. I know how shitty it would be for a week, two, or maybe a month. But what are the long lasting effects? That's what I want to discuss. On this or any other measure anyone comes up with.

[paprika]

The thing is, admins get criticized for grey banning people, but if someone is bad at their job you can jobban and potentially server ban them. If they say 'b-but we're being forced to play jobs! i don't want responsibility!' I'm pretty sure there isn't a single fucking person here who would want them around. Grey tiders are literally cancer and they know it. They'll spout 'umad u can't do anything about it?' but we actually can so who fucking cares about the opinions of the people who literally live to start shit all round as non-antags?

No really, I have yet to see a convincing argument by someone who primarily plays assistant as to why assistant count shouldn't be restricted, why grey bans shouldn't be handed out more, or why there shouldn't be a ratio imposed.

So why the fuck isn't it a thing? Does nobody want to be seen as the 'fun-hater'? This 'fun' is rule breaking 80% of the time and is griefing in disguise. Fuck people who play nothing but assistant for the meta greyshirt shit to be honest.

[AseaHeru]

New people who are still learning to walk.

If there could be some sort of timer for that sort of thing, say there is an unlimited "trainee" slot that is only available to those who started playing on the server for a week, AND have the assistant ratio thing...

You would probably just have the assholes create a new account every week then...
Well, there goes my idea.

[Deuce]

ok guess I'll roll atmos/cargo tech/engineer when greyshirt is full

cargo tech == greyshirt with gloves
engineer post setup == greyshirt with gloves and spacesuit
atmos tech == greyshirt with axe and spacesuit

[Munchlax]

I don't get how there can be 20 assistants and zero cargotechs, being a cargotech is being a greyshirt but with free shit and almost as little responsibility.

[Jalleo]

Solution remove tool storage and auxillary tool storage the tools that assistants get shouldn't be instant.

It will at least increase the amount of time until the grey tiders start breaking into secure areas because they got all the tools.

(Assistants do need to become the access of the good ol space tourist to deal with the issue of all this shitty acting by them it may harm the community short term but overall it will solve this issue the power creep of grey tiding has slowly increased by the new input of so many items over the years we need to start gutting unnessecary areas like tool storages and just leave small storage areas with tools for each department its going to be better for everyone)

I know this is technically not related to roleplay but seriously the assistant issue is the main barrier to consistent roleplay in my understanding because there is too much shitters who wont stop causing shit. If they are pretty much removed from most of the ghetto items it will be harder for them to stay in their current play pattern and become more lenient towards roleplay because they will have to talk with people.

I know it will cause people to whine because tool storage has basically always existed but its not just tools anymore its a place to make the fucking most op weapons easily and recharge them! It is also the center of the first calls of sec because MUH INSULATED GLOVES! (stun prods)

[Steelpoint]

But would the removal of Tool Storage only precipitate the increase of break in attempts into areas with access to tools? Areas like Robotics, RnD, Cargo and to an extent Engineering have easy to access tools and equipment, not to mention maintenance is littered with random tools and belts that would give the intrepid assistant their own Engineers worth of tools only slightly longer than normally?

I would be interested in the removal of the Insulated Gloves you can buy with a coin and replace it with a larger supply of Budget Insulated Gloves, say 1 coin for one Budget glove and it holds 10 gloves.

[Deuce]

roleplay is the stuff that occurs outside the mechanical parts of the game

to try to encourage better roleplay through game mechanics changes seems questionable

[Kelenius]

In all seriousness, ability to set your own medical/security records.

[callanrockslol]

In all seriousness, ability to set your own medical/security records.

An endless stream of crimes, stupid notes and space heroics.



But guys seriously, this is silly, you can't encourage roleplay through code, change the rules and different players will be filtered.

And then enforce them properly.

[leibniz]

Maybe some history would help.
I think it is good that we do not have a canon backstory because it allows a lot of freedom for interpreting game mechanics, anyway..

My impression is that most people dont have defined characters. Most characters I meet can be sorted into these categories:
- Clueless person (guy who started playing recently or antagonist pretending to be clueless to assassinate their target (#1 effective strategy, but dishonorable))
- Person who does their job well
- Assholes (Shitcurity, mimes in general)
- Vicious assholes (mostly banned)
- Person with accent
- Job supremacist
and rarely
- Character with existing personality

Maybe we could have some short stories that describe events from the SS13 universe but they would not be connected to each other and they would avoid dealing with they key points of the SS13 universe (like what NT is and why they do what they do, etc).
Small stories like "The battle of Moonbase ABC-123" and "The Riot on the New Colony", etc.
So when you hear reports on the radio you could comment to the people around you "Oh yes, I am remember the first time I saw a changeling during the riots..".
I guess this is not too deep, oh well.

Anyway, currently the average player thinks about these things before the game starts: "I hope I get antag" and "I will do <job thing/gimmick> this round.."
Which is fine and okay, but maybe if we had these little stories they could consider how their character would act during the described events while the gamestart timer ticks down. Which would increase depth.

But honestly I have no idea if it would work.

[MisterPerson]

Some guy on an escape pod just started yelling at me, and we started talking about my past. Somehow we progressed to security kidnapping my wife, the fact they were probably fucking her, and how much of a failure I was for not helping her. It got so bad that someone else in the pod called us faggots and jumped out.

So I'm inclined to think that giving people vague launching points for RP might actually work.

[paprika]

ic in forumoc

[Preamble]

Maybe some history would help.
I think it is good that we do not have a canon backstory because it allows a lot of freedom for interpreting game mechanics, anyway..

My impression is that most people dont have defined characters. Most characters I meet can be sorted into these categories:
- Clueless person (guy who started playing recently or antagonist pretending to be clueless to assassinate their target (#1 effective strategy, but dishonorable))
- Person who does their job well
- Assholes (Shitcurity, mimes in general)
- Vicious assholes (mostly banned)
- Person with accent
- Job supremacist
and rarely
- Character with existing personality

I laughed. The real question is would you want it any other way? The fact that tgstation players are willing to just go with the flow of what seems funny/cool/stupid instead of anally retentively trying to RP their special snowflake out is what makes this server worth playing on.

[leibniz]

Maybe some history would help.
I think it is good that we do not have a canon backstory because it allows a lot of freedom for interpreting game mechanics, anyway..

My impression is that most people dont have defined characters. Most characters I meet can be sorted into these categories:
- Clueless person (guy who started playing recently or antagonist pretending to be clueless to assassinate their target (#1 effective strategy, but dishonorable))
- Person who does their job well
- Assholes (Shitcurity, mimes in general)
- Vicious assholes (mostly banned)
- Person with accent
- Job supremacist
and rarely
- Character with existing personality

I laughed. The real question is would you want it any other way? The fact that tgstation players are willing to just go with the flow of what seems funny/cool/stupid instead of anally retentively trying to RP their special snowflake out is what makes this server worth playing on.

Well, I think it could add depth to the game. I wouldnt force players into it (I believe that many kind of players can have fun on our servers, and some of them are sure to dislike it), but if it was good, then players would see it is good and they would join in.