Talking mimes shouldn't be valid

[deedubya]

Bottom post of the previous page:

See title. Dumb rule that limits creative expression in a role meant to encourage it, and encourages players to continue to be validhunting assholes. I've never not seen a mime immediately get lynched upon this rule being introduced. Give players a target and an excuse to murder them, and no force imaginable is going to stop them. It also gives the mime an excuse to self-antag. Break vow of silence>murder anyone that gets within screen distance of you. You're justified because everyone else could potentially murder you at any moment, all because you had something to say.

Spoiler:

not even an ided post, and I've even occasionally taken part in the mime lynching, but it's still dumb as fuck

[Davidchan]

Mines breaking their vow should be hit with such a heavy mood debuff no amount of mindbreaker and space drug should make them neutral.

[skoglol]

Mines breaking their vow should be hit with such a heavy mood debuff no amount of mindbreaker and space drug should make them neutral.

Or buckshot. Buckshot works too.

[Screemonster]

Mines breaking their vow should be hit with such a heavy mood debuff no amount of mindbreaker and space drug should make them neutral.

this

speaking isn't "acting like an antag" anyway so I dunno where nonantags get the idea they can just murder them unless they want to argue that the mime has attacked them by speaking somehow therefore it's escalation

[deedubya]

A clown that doesn't honk isn't valid.
An assistant that doesn't assist isn't valid.
An engineer that doesn't fix shit isn't valid.
A doctor that doesn't heal people isn't valid.
A chemist that doesn't make medicine isn't valid.
A scientist that doesn't do research isn't valid.
A cook that doesn't cook isn't valid.
A mime that doesn't stay silent is valid.

Where's the consistency? It's pretty obvious from every single other job on the station that not doing your job the way you're expected to isn't a crime worthy of death/lynching. Yet we make an exception for what is essentially the most harmless role on the station when done "incorrectly".

[Farquaar]

A clown that doesn't honk isn't valid.
An assistant that doesn't assist isn't valid.
An engineer that doesn't fix shit isn't valid.
A doctor that doesn't heal people isn't valid.
A chemist that doesn't make medicine isn't valid.
A scientist that doesn't do research isn't valid.
A cook that doesn't cook isn't valid.
A mime that doesn't stay silent is valid.

Where's the consistency? It's pretty obvious from every single other job on the station that not doing your job the way you're expected to isn't a crime worthy of death/lynching. Yet we make an exception for what is essentially the most harmless role on the station when done "incorrectly".

To provide a counterargument, if someone doesn't do their job gets demoted:

A demoted clown is just clumsy. Plus, it's not uncommon for unfunny clowns to get lynched
A demoted assistant is just a permabrig resident.
A demoted engineer, doctor, chemist and scientist has no special abilities.
A demoted cook has an ability that can only be used in the workspace that he no longer has access to (and presumably wasn't using before he was demoted)
A demoted mime will still have the ability to retake their vow of silence when it suits them, granting them access to annoying mime powers no matter what IC action is taken.

The mime is really one of the only jobs that has innate powers that you can't truly take away, and these powers are tied to whether the mime speaks or not. Is killing your coworker for speaking weird from an RP perspective? Yes. But it'll have to be replaced with serious IC consequences that go beyond a temporary inconvenience.

[deedubya]

snip

To provide a counterargument, if someone doesn't do their job gets demoted:

A demoted clown is just clumsy. Plus, it's not uncommon for unfunny clowns to get lynched
A demoted assistant is just a permabrig resident.
A demoted engineer, doctor, chemist and scientist has no special abilities.
A demoted cook has an ability that can only be used in the workspace that he no longer has access to (and presumably wasn't using before he was demoted)
A demoted mime will still have the ability to retake their vow of silence when it suits them, granting them access to annoying mime powers no matter what IC action is taken.

The mime is really one of the only jobs that has innate powers that you can't truly take away, and these powers are tied to whether the mime speaks or not. Is killing your coworker for speaking weird from an RP perspective? Yes. But it'll have to be replaced with serious IC consequences that go beyond a temporary inconvenience.

The punishment for breaking the vow is being locked out of your griffwalls for a not insignificant amount of time until you can renew your vow. In fact, that just made me think up a fairly decent code solution: The timer for being able to re-take your vow of silence resets every time you use the "say" verb, rather than it just being a static timer starting when you broke it in the first place.

Also, lynching the clown without proper escalation is still against the rules, so I'm not sure how that applies as a point in support of this.

[Cobby]

your post

Clowns do not get lynched if they are not funny, and demoted doctors can still drink doctor's delight for a buff. I would however permit valids for lubing, but that's not exclusive to the clown doing it.

The mime cannot use their powers while they are breaking their vow. If so, it's a bug.

[Coconutwarrior97]

There should be an exception for mimes on Manuel at least. I think there are more creative ways to deal with mimes who break their oaths than "VALID!!".

[Anonmare]

reee necromancer

[RaveRadbury]

Hi hey hello, seeing as this was brought back up and under the important new light of MRP, I'll weigh in.

I've got some anecdotal stuff that I'd like to share.

Sybil - Revs

At shift start bartender headrev runs into the theater and flashes the clown. I haven't had a chance to do anything and am really spooked, I manage to drag the downed clown in front of me causing the bartender to slip when he runs at me with the flash. Realizing that I will soon be against two revs I immediately run to security. Seeing as there's no one I can hand a message to, and given the very intense round start I just had, I figured that it would be within reason to break vow and out the bartender headrev. As a player I was interested to see how the rest of the crew would respond to such a situation.

Result: A bunch of people on comms hemmed and hawed about mime breaking vow. Sec didn't even seem to consider what was being reported. Eventually two assistants showed up and killed me. Mime body lies untouched by anyone for like 20 minutes until the headrev bartender finds it and then gibs it in the freezer, commenting on how the mime almost ruined everything and deserves such a fate.

Opinion: Pretty lame. I was kind of shunned? I expected more from it, I dunno. Bartender gibbing the mime for almost foiling his plans was the highlight. The only people who were actually interested in killing the mime were assistants who wanted to get their valids.

Manuel

I get permission from the HoP to break vow and sing a song in the theater. At this same time a comms syndie impersonates the mime and reads copypasta or something.

Result: The AI threatens to stop anyone who tries to kill the mime. The performance happens. Some people later ask if I spoke over comms. I shake my head.

Opinion: As far as I can tell no one tried to kill me. There was more handwringing I guess but no violence came about because of it.

Should talking mimes be valid?

Despite initial impressions I've found that the punishment of death for speaking actually heightens RP and makes breaking the vow more meaningful. Breaking your vow doesn't cause the entire crew to glaze over and repeat "kill mime" over and over. Crew can be shocked when a mime speaks, to have the death penalty removed from it seems like it would take the punch away from the act. Even breaking vow privately has an element of trust and suspense involved. Of course we have the in-game moodlet that discourages breaking the vow privately so largely it seems to be balanced out.

Killing valids is already discouraged on Manuel, so I'd imagine that any shitter attempts to break vow as mime would likely result in a court trail and/or perma.

This policy does not force players to kill the mime, it just opens up the possibility of it occuring.

tl;dr "Talking mimes = valid" actually makes for good RP and suspense. Keep it.

[Grazyn]

Space law doesn't say that talking mimes are to be executed, or that it's a crime at all. That's because talking as mime is simply such a despicable, unspeakable act that anyone who does it is waiving the very dignity of a human being. It the eyes of others, the mime becomes less than an animal, it becomes a disgusting vermin whose existence is blasphemy against Nature. Killing it isn't just right, it's necessary.

[Farquaar]

---

Based take, right here.

[angelstarri]

how about just don't fucking speak it's literally the one (1) job that isn't allowed to speak if you want to speak literally just pick any of the other available jobs in the station other than the singular, unique role that is unable to speak

[cacogen]

correct

[Gamarr]

The recent posters should really read the thread wholly as the points have been very well gone over already regarding this topic. Manuel doesn't really count as an example because the whole thing there is about not jumping the shark. Glad to hear it played out so wonderfully in the above story though.

There's a hidden attitude to playing on tg that is hating on mimes and you can just see the evidence of this weird bias in this thread. Nothing is held to standards but a talking mime is suddenly so offensive they have to die. All it is imo is a thin excuse/cover to valid a role that everybody cool dislikes, and thus will not argue over you murdering them for whatever lie you make up. You want to exploit the 'uniqueness' of the role to make it easy to kill them and then people bitch when they break it, and use it as an excuse to kill them.

Then the assistants don't get to bitch/ahelp when the mime murders a congaline of them for having talked. It's gotta go both ways and not be banbaiting.

[Arianya]

The recent posters should really read the thread wholly as the points have been very well gone over already regarding this topic.

All it is imo is a thin excuse/cover to valid a role that everybody cool dislikes, and thus will not argue over you murdering them for whatever lie you make up.

Perhaps you should take your own advice and re-read the thread before making wild assumptions (slash conspiracy theories??) about why something was implemented:

Don't pick the gimmick role if you don't want to play the gimmick.

Breaking your oath should be something you consider as having implied weight to it - the best way to enforce this in a round-based game where an "oath" is largely meaningless is making it dangerous for the player's continued participation in the round.

Giga does raise good points about things such as mistaken cases of mime's speaking, but largely these are no different to other possible "mistaken kill" scenarios - we generally can tell a good faith actor vs someone trying to slip under the radar.

[Grazyn]

If you purposefully do something that you know makes you valid and then kill those who try to kill you, it's killbaiting. That's literally the definition of it. The same goes for other stuff like reading WGW or killing pets.

[Screemonster]

If you purposefully do something that you know makes you valid and then kill those who try to kill you, it's killbaiting. That's literally the definition of it. The same goes for other stuff like reading WGW or killing pets.

there's a difference between deliberately provoking people (WGW, Ian) and something that makes you valid on a technicality and it's usually obvious which is which

people whose thought processes are limited to "I can get away with killing this person therefore I am compelled to kill them" aren't contributing anything useful anyway