taking bribes as sec

[bman]

this is really interesting, because it has high-AR PEE implications; if i were to bribe a security officer to look the other way (from perhaps a murder), be it through giving them traitor items or something else, is the security officer engaging in antag behavior?

halal or haram.

[Cobby]

No, just don't do it consistently, ESPECIALLY with the same person .

Generally for me, as long as you aren't helping an antag kill people in a pretty direct way [actually harming people, stunning others so they can harm them, etc.] and you have a decent IC justification for it [He gave me a rare item would be ok in my eyes] then go ahead.

I've done this even as captain before where I let them go but we had no interaction *wink wink* should they get captured again. IIRC, I ended up getting their PDA while they were recaptured and deleted all the evidence of my collusion with them before they unfortunately got the chair. I would have saved them but they were too obvious and the evidence was damning.

[oranges]

good luck as any antag trying to get this to work

[imblyings]

I think it was in the rules or mentioned somewhere

Basically, you can assist antags with appropriate ic reasoning but you cant do antag things yourself. In more extreme or unsure cases, ask an admin for go ahead. Bribe are acceptable ic reasoning to assist antags- for more benign cases think tators giving emags to cargo and cargo assisting the tator in buying null crates and such. Looking the other way when a tator kills someone seems fine too, unfortunate if the victim is mad about sec, but that is the price of """rp""""""" sometimes.

[Lumbermancer]

Just take the bribe and give them a head start before the manhunt, have the cake and eat cake or something.

[CPTANT]

As HoP I am always open for bribes in return for access.

[DemonFiren]

Just take the bribe and give them a head start before the manhunt, have the cake and eat cake or something.

100% of the reason nobody bothers and murderbones instead

[Lumbermancer]

Nobody bothers with what? When you're caught, you're caught. Your only other choice is death.

[DemonFiren]

Exactly.
Bribes take resources that you need for a confrontation. If they can't avert that confrontation they are a waste.

[Anonmare]

I've taken bribes as a warden to "lose" something out of it. Like the ablative armour vest.

[J_Madison]

So I caught you red handed.
I tell them it's best to cooperate as they're out of options now.
I'll take your uplink, and any traitor items you have.
I'll implant you to ensure you don't suddenly kill me.
And if you swear you'll be good, stay out of crime, do your job, I release them.

That's how my bribes have went.
I have found successfully done this with multiple different people over multiple different rounds.
They get their greentext, and/or receive the right to enjoy the rest of the shift.
And it feels good. They're happy in OOC at round end.

This is the bribes I take.

Edited for sp to be a little less rp.

[Steelpoint]

Keep the stories to the "roleplay" forum.

Speaking of "bribes", I was curious on the policy, if any, on agreements between Security/Captain and Antagonists that can result in the death of crewmen.

For example, what if a Antagonist (Traitor, Changeling, etc) reaches an agreement with Security, and the Captain, of which this agreement involves Sec/Com allowing the Antagonist to kill a crew member, or even if Security apprehends and presents a crewmember to the antagonist so they can murder them. In this scenario, would this be acceptable or would the involved Security personnel, Head of Security and Captain be in breach of any rules?

[J_Madison]

no

The issue is doing vs ignoring.

You can ignore the fuck out of a traitor killing the prick HOP but you can't knowingly let go of a traitor with or without his kit and let him kill the prick HOP.

Of course there is proper escalation and RP like hitman jobs for prisoners, suicide squads.

But ultimately that shit is your responsibility.
Your sec officer catches a man dead to rights, you release them and can't control them and they murder your officer? Or more?
That's your responsibility.


I have released traitors who've then tried to murderbone. I have released changelings accidentally who have tried to murderbone.
I had to be on that shit. It was my responsibility. My own sec team was furious but I contained it and I was on top of it before worse shit happened.

And I have had traitors pull a hitman job on the changeling, I have had a released traitor who came back in a Durand mech helped security, jump out of their mech to revive someone, and didn't kill me when they had the chance.

I cannot stress the "your responsibility" part enough.
Once you get into bribes, paroles, and release that is your name linking to it and the ahelps will trace back and it is your responsibility for it.

[Dax Dupont]

If I am a CE and a traitor makes me a deal for my blueprints or whatever, I'll go sure whatever. Better than getting killed.

[imblyings]

'your responsibility' kind of factors into it but in the same way we let antags cut deals, we will understand if bad things happen because it is a legit strategy to trick and betray people as a traitor. Just don't be blatantly irresponsible

>For example, what if a Antagonist (Traitor, Changeling, etc) reaches an agreement with Security, and the Captain, of which this agreement involves Sec/Com allowing the Antagonist to kill a crew member, or even if Security apprehends and presents a crewmember to the antagonist so they can murder them. In this scenario, would this be acceptable or would the involved Security personnel, Head of Security and Captain be in breach of any rules?

Security catching the victim with the full knowledge the victim is innocent to present to a traitor waiting to kill them goes too far. Allowing antagonists to kill people without sec intervening seems fine, if nasty. I'm sure some sec players will be entertained with the thought of having a tamed killer on the payroll to dispose of annoying assistants and the like. And if the killer frames one or two people under sec's nose, well shit happens.

[Digdugxx]

I captured the warden once and let him go on the condition he diverted every possible sec resource into killing the clown (a fellow ling who wanted me dead). It was glorious

[Lazengann]

If a traitor isn't going to remove a bunch of people from the round, I'm fine with letting them go if I can make an alliance with them. It depends very heavily on circumstances though.

[onleavedontatme]

The real tricky part rules wise comes when other loyalist crew tries to kill you over the deal.

Often when I try to strike deals with antags as captain or HoS it ends with me answering admin PMs about why I killed half of my security team.

[J_Madison]

The real tricky part rules wise comes when other loyalist crew tries to kill you over the deal.

Often when I try to strike deals with antags as captain or HoS it ends with me answering admin PMs about why I killed half of my security team.

that's why I write it down as responsibility and upon the person releasing them.

It is the role of the parole officer to handle parole. It is the role of the releasing officer to take responsibility for releasing someone.

[D&B]

I've always treated officers that do this as rogue, and due to aiding and abetting they get the same charge as the traitor.

Really doesn't sit well with me that you can kill other sec personnel to defend someone you made a deal with. Seems ban baity

[onleavedontatme]

The alternative is for it to be de facto bannable to ever talk to antagonists instead of silently killing them if talking to them means you're not allowed to defend yourself from being removed from the round.

[D&B]

The real alternative is shutting down the servers so no one can commit faults and break rules.

Oh look I can jump to extremes too.

[Cobby]

The alternative is for it to be de facto bannable to ever talk to antagonists instead of silently killing them if talking to them means you're not allowed to defend yourself from being removed from the round.

The enjoyment of helping antags as a nonantag should be covering up your tracks nonlethally and trying to hide the collusion as much as possible and accepting you've lost when you get caught, or at least evade the pursuers nonlethally as much as possible. The enjoyment shouldn't be derived from killing the entirety of a department because you think you're a de facto antag.

It doesn't seem very fair that someone can elevate themselves to being a pseudoantag simply by helping an antagonist and people rightfully trying to kill them. If that's what we're going to push for, I'd rather people just not help antagonists at all unless forced by the antagonist.

[onleavedontatme]

The real alternative is shutting down the servers so no one can commit faults and break rules.

Oh look I can jump to extremes too.

I don't think it is jumping to extremes when our tit for tat escalation rules basically got replaced by the "don't killbait" rules that nearly always put the instigator at fault.

Cobby's response about defending yourself from a mutiny/lynch mob being self antagging is great example of what I'm talking about.

Because then it breaks down to


-Killing antag

Pros:

You get to kill someone

You get their stuff

Cons:

Someone might whine about validhunting

-Negotiating/dealing with antag

Pros:

You get their stuff

Cons:

They might kill you

Security might kill you

You might get banned


Makes it a pretty easy choice what to do when you bump into them

[onleavedontatme]

It doesn't seem very fair that someone can elevate themselves to being a pseudoantag simply by helping an antagonist and people rightfully trying to kill them.

It doesn't seem very fair that people think they can revolt against the IC power structure with lethal force and then cry to admins if their coup fails.

[J_Madison]

-Negotiating/dealing with antag

Pros:

You get their stuff

Fewer people die.

Both people go home happy.

W H O L E S O M E

Great stories.

Great Memories.

Feel good after the round.

Cons:

They might kill you

Security might kill you

You might get banned

[bandit]

It can lead to interesting situations, is a pro not mentioned. I remember one round I was a lizard warden, and a lizard was brought in for something small and turned out to have a cham projector in his bag. The AI wanted it executed, but I let the lizard off in exchange for his uplink code and a tracking implant. It helped that the lizard was cool about it unlike 90% of people arrested. Also being a fellow red lizard.

The AI told me "the HoS left something in his office," I played along knowing it was bullshit, AI bolted me in while its borg killed the lizard. The captain and actual HoS approved, but I felt bad for the guy getting executed without actually doing anything traitorous when I promised that they wouldn't, plus being a fellow lizard killed by the silicons, so I snuck the body past the HoS, then faked my own death over sec radio while bringing the body to cloning. (I also used his uplink to buy a binary key to spy on the AI to make sure it wasn't rogue and/or trying to kill me.) "Helping an antag" yeah, but it made for a really memorable round.

As far as killing, I think the thing there is that there are often methods to deal with situations like that which do not involve murder. I could have taken action against the silicons but instead tried to work around them. Likewise the AI could have killed me (possibly with flimsier grounds) but did not. I died, but the round was interesting instead of a total shitfest (not to mention the IRL shitfest of dealing with bwoinks).

[Lazengann]

Yeah it turns out having positive interactions with other players is more interesting than wordlessly beating them to death

[lumipharon]

I would welcome bribing in general situations more often, but it basically never happens, simply because it requires both the antag and the other guy to both not be shits.

So while I readily let traitors go as HoS/warden/cap if they get caught and aren't a murdering turbonerd (exchanging any tator shit/code for their lives and a tracking implant), I would never bother trying to actively bribe someone as an antag (with antag items atleast), and probably never would unless I was very sure the actual PERSON I was dealing with is a gud cunt, and wasn't going to just valid me/rat me out on comms immediately, which in itself is technically meta?

[Nilons]

had a chemist trade me an esword for my reactive armour as RD a few rounds back and it was much more pleasant than him murdering my entire department for it

[onleavedontatme]

Yeah I agree it leads to more interesting situations (it is why I do it!), but if admins start assigning a motive of "killseeking guy who is self antagging" when players decide to try diplomacy those players, who are already taking some pretty big IC risks and who are already the minority, are going to be driven off server pretty quickly.

[oranges]

implying any of them are still here lol

[Cobby]

It doesn't seem very fair that someone can elevate themselves to being a pseudoantag simply by helping an antagonist and people rightfully trying to kill them.

It doesn't seem very fair that people think they can revolt against the IC power structure with lethal force and then cry to admins if their coup fails.

I'd agree with that sentiment if the antag simply stole something and you let them off with a pat on the head but people went HUR DUR VALIDZ anyways. However, often times antags are tasked with taking someone out of the round or they simply choose to [myself included although I try to be honorbound if someone spares me].

I understand that dying is not fun for you, the person helping the antag, but I also think dying is not fun for the other side too and they're just trying to keep other people from dying because, as we've concluded, it isn't fun to die.

Maybe I'm just trying to keep everyone happy and should just slam down the IC button and get over it, but it just doesn't feel right that if you happen to roll HoS/Captain/any job really in a traitor round you get a very easy option to kill anyone who messes with you after releasing someone who's slaughtering the station themselves.

In practice though i'd probably be ok if someone killed out of self defense from an antagonist if they were trying to be discrete [Example below]. Perhaps I'm just doomsaying that someone is going to exploit the policy instead of being the big boy admin and discerning between someone being a shitler with their nonantag privilege and someone trying to "create an interesting situation".

I ended up getting their PDA while they were recaptured and deleted all the evidence of my collusion with them before they unfortunately got the chair. I would have saved them but they were too obvious and the evidence was damning.

[Ghodere]

It doesn't seem very fair that someone can elevate themselves to being a pseudoantag simply by helping an antagonist and [kill] people rightfully trying to kill them.

This is kind of on the side of the discussion, but do you think you could elaborate on why you feel this way, specifically it not being reasonable for someone trying to kill someone else (rightfully or not) to accept the possibility of instead being killed by that person? Are you more thinking of people exploiting the leeway and helping antags specifically to "killbait," I think it was, or would you say there should be a degree of safety when hunting a valid nonantag?

Anyways, more on topic, I've been playing on CM a bunch for a while, and it's given me some new perspective on exactly this kind of thing. They say, at least, that the purpose of a round is to tell an interesting story (even though they have some rules that are enforced very heavy-handedly that cut down on this), and, looking at the game in that way, I absolutely think this kind of thing should be allowed the leeway to happen. Not for a sec officer to be allowed to immediately become a partner in crime who will drag victims off for murdering, but to be able to make reasonable decisions and trades that someone in power might; the first rule in improv acting is to say yes, and then add something to the story, because that is the only way that things progress. Personally, I'm even fine with them potentially eventually becoming closer to an actual antag through circumstance, if it makes sense, like escalation from being caught in a more minor act that's part of the trade.

I guess what I want to say is that I've got a newfound appreciation for the story of a round being its most valuable part, and that I'd like more situations like these to be able to progress in interesting and compelling ways that the players choose, with admin policy being to make sure that actions and reactions make sense and are believable.

[J_Madison]

There was a case of a prick HOS and captain that murdered anyone that was "confirmed".

Several sec officers quit, retired, went braindead ect.

I arrested a guy, stripped him out of sight.
Emag, literally just that.
Said his target suicided, literally just bought emag and only that.
Fuck this HOS.
Take his uplink, pocket the emag.
Nope he's clean HOS, I'm brigging him for minor trespass he wasn't the emagger.

I don't give a shit, that HOS and cap deserved to be killed or banned. I'm not going to perpetrate shitcurity by willingly handing someone over to be killed on the spot.

[Cobby]

It doesn't seem very fair that someone can elevate themselves to being a pseudoantag simply by helping an antagonist and [kill] people rightfully trying to kill them.

This is kind of on the side of the discussion, but do you think you could elaborate on why you feel this way, specifically it not being reasonable for someone trying to kill someone else (rightfully or not) to accept the possibility of instead being killed by that person? Are you more thinking of people exploiting the leeway and helping antags specifically to "killbait," I think it was, or would you say there should be a degree of safety when hunting a valid nonantag?

At the end of the day you're not suppose to be playing the "bad guy" of the station. That's why we have antagonists. If you get caught, you take it and the round is done for you [or try to nonlethally escape!] because you are not the designated bad guy of the round. This is really the only line that ISN'T blurred in our rules/game, and I don't understand what's to be gained by blurring them.

"but dying isn't fun"

I understand that dying is not fun for you, the person helping the antag, but I also think dying is not fun for the other side too and they're just trying to keep other people from dying because, as we've concluded, it isn't fun to die.

In all honesty I think that if the only way that you are inclined to make an interesting story is if you have to be given the license to kill [even if you are potentially ruining their fun by helping someone who is removing them from the round] then you don't actually give a hoot about the roleplay highground of "making an interesting story", you're just trying to find an outlet to raise your kill tally without winning the grief lottery.

Of course this is more of my general stance and for things like

if the antag simply stole something and you let them off with a pat on the head but people went HUR DUR VALIDZ anyways.

I honestly don't give a toss if you kill every valid hunter that comes your way in situations like that.

[bandit]

I think it's fairly easy to tell if someone has reasoning and RP elements for killing people or if someone is just leaping at the flimsiest excuse to kill anyone they can. On the admin's side, at least.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Half the problem with taking material bribes for things such as money is that there is a very limited amount of things you can buy using said money, because the only things of worth is a IC to OOC mutual understanding (very shaky, unreliable) and actually giving people stuff on the spot, in which case they don't need to be bribed at all because they can just kill or arrest & shakedown for all the things on your person.

[Lazengann]

That's why you cut a deal for them to have your back against the more dangerous traitors

[lumipharon]

Sometimes I would offer lings a choice as hos, if I thought they were alright. Gibber or become a security attack dog.
It's actually worked every time I've tried it, come to think of it. (or atleast, they did their new job along side any sidesuccing I never noticed)

[kevinz000]

That's why you cut a deal for them to have your back against the more dangerous traitors

i've had this backfire (successfully) on me about once after months of doing it