Guide to Prayer

[Kyet]

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of poor-quality prayers.

Want to be sure your prayer isn't one of them? Try following these tips.

 

1) Don't confuse prayers with ahelps, faxes, etc.

Anything regarding rule violations or OOC problems belongs in an ahelp, not a prayer. Trial admins cannot see prayers, so putting your report of a rule violation in a prayer, rather than an ahelp, may prevent admins from helping you.

Any question about game mechanics belongs in mentorhelp, not a prayer. Let the mentors help you.

Do not decide your religion is 'The Syndicate' or 'Central Command' or similar, and act like praying to these 'gods' gives you a hotline to CC/Syndi/etc. It doesn't. CC/Syndi/etc are not mind-readers, and these types of prayers won't be heard. If your character has a religion, make it something at least vaguely sensible.

Prayers should be messages intended for the gods - and nothing/nobody else.

 

2) In general, don't pray for obvious material aid, especially aid that compensates for your mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes in SS13. Sometimes, you die as a result. That's part of the game.

We don't want to encourage people to pray every time they think they can get some material benefit out of it, and as a result, we can/do often send lightning bolts instead of healing when people ask for heals without a really good reason.

Instead of asking the gods for material aid, ask your fellow crew members. There are entire departments (medical, sec, etc) that are there to help you. Use them.

 

3) Put effort into your prayer.

For example, assembling some objects in a pattern and praying for something related. RP a little in your prayer. Make the prayer about something that would truly add to the round, and be fun for all - not just fun for you.

Low-effort prayers, like 'help?' are typically ignored. Higher-effort prayers are more likely to be answered.

 

5) Understand that there are many gods, and they range from friendly, through hostile, to insane. You have no idea which god will get/answer your prayer.

Prayer is like spinning a roulette wheel. You never know what the result will be. Even two identical prayers, by the same person, in the same round, can have opposite results. You simply never know. If you haven't figured this out yet, that means prayers are HIGHLY RISKY, and generally not something you want to do unless you have no other options left, or you're RPing a religious character. For example, someone recently prayed to be turned into a dangerous beast with a secret mission. They got turned into a crab, with the objective to snip their claws at every head of staff. They were shortly turned into crab soup by the crew. Making a prayer is rather like asking a genie for a wish - it can do amazing things, yes, but you have zero guarantee that the genie granting the wish isn't malicious, insane and/or dedicated to granting the letter of the wish but not the spirit. There's also a good chance that the god answering your prayer will be outright evil, or simply choose to answer it in the way most amusing for them. Gods normally stay out of mortal affairs, but if you pray to them, you invite them into your life, and that will, quite often, end badly for you.

 

6) Understand that praying "I am bored" will result in terrible things happening to you.

In a shift yesterday, the head of security made the terrible mistake of praying "I am bored, I wish something would happen". Shortly thereafter, CC announced an unusual event: "Many tears in the fabric of time and space have opened. Expected location: EVERYWHERE". The HoS' office alone contained three tears, and thus three tears' worth of monsters. There were 50+ monsters on the station overall. The entire security team died fighting a horde of xenomorphs through the halls of the brig. I believe the HoS' last thoughts before passing away were "why oh why did I make that prayer?!?!?". Normally "I'm bored" prayers won't wreck the whole station, or even your department. But they often end very, very badly for you. A crew member praying "I am bored" is rather like a mouse standing atop a human-sized chair, squeaking "everything is perfect. Nothing can go wrong now!" - in an apartment with several cats. It is tempting fate to an astonishingly dangerous degree, so much so that even clowns would recognize it is a bad idea. Y'know how people in movies say "nothing can go wrong now!" and then they die horribly? Same idea. Do not tempt fate.

 

7) The gods do not care if you are a Chaplain, or Clown.

No, Chaplains are not more likely to get their prayers answered than any other crew. Chaplains work for their gods, NOT the other way around. A Chaplain who treats their god like a free-stuff dispenser will end up on that god's bad side fast.

Clowns aren't taken seriously by their fellow crew, let alone the gods. Indeed, sometimes the gods love to see clowns suffer just as much as crew do. 

Don't think that "because I'm a chaplain" or "because I'm a clown" is a good reason to get what you want out of prayers. It ISN'T. If anything, higher standards of prayer RP are expected from Chaplains.

 

8) Good results from prayers are not always obvious

Suppose you make an awesome prayer, and the gods grant it. Will you notice? MAYBE.

Gods tend to work in mysterious ways. If you pray for a light source while exploring dark maintenance tunnels, maybe you find one in the next room. Was that the result of your prayer, or just luck? You'll never know.

If you pray that someone finds your dying, crippled body, and then someone does... was that luck? Or your prayer? You don't know.

If you pray that the Captain suffer for their gross incompetence, and later on, their office is blown up... was that luck? You don't know.

I'm sure you get the point by now.
Much of the time, responses to prayers that are granted will not be obvious. You won't know if your prayer did anything, and if so, exactly what it did.

 

9) Watch out for hints after praying.

If an admin decides to send you a message in response to your prayer, the two typical ways it might appear are SubtleMessage (SM) and DirectNarrate (DN).

SMs are prefixed with "You hear a voice in your head...". If you get a message like that, especially shortly after praying, take it as a tip from the gods. You don't have to follow it, but in most cases, it would be extremely unwise not to. SMs are typically sent to people who pray for help with something they ought to know, but don't, like an engineer praying for help with engine setup, or a captain praying for guidance about what to do when the station has lots of antags. If your character gets a SubtleMessage, treat it as an extreme life protip. Often, people who fail to heed these suffer greatly as a result of their own actions. You can ignore subtle messages, but it is very unwise to. If the subtle message asks a question, the best way to reply is by praying again. Most subtle messages won't be questions, though.

DirectNarrates are different. Personally, when I reply to prayers, I tend to use DN to produce messages like "The Communications Console catches your eye." which act like hints. They're so subtle, you may not be able to tell them apart from normal game messages (except by looking at the game source code, and realizing there's nothing in the code that could produce a message like that). These too are usually ultimate protips, intended to help you without obvious divine intervention. The exception is if you get a message like "You feel a terrible [something] wash over you". A message like that indicates the gods may be cursing you for your prayer. If everyone suddenly has a wave of dread wash over them, especially if the message stating so is in bold, red text, that indicates that either a singularity has consumed a supermatter shard, likely reaching stage 6 and turning into one of the most destructive forces of nature in the game... or the dark gods are about to make life very interesting for the Cyberiad's inhabitants. Or a good god is sending a mass-protip to everyone that they need to have their wits about them in the near future, if they want to survive. That message can mean multiple things, but it generally always results in an adventure.

After praying, watch your screen carefully for subtle hints. Look around yourself carefully, too. Items may have moved, or appeared, while you were not paying attention.

 

10) Cookies are not always your friend, but you should eat them anyway

One of the many standard options for admins responding to prayers is to spawn a cookie. While the cookie is usually just a normal cookie, and means "we heard you, but we aren't going to do anything about that", there are variations. Some of the cookies will kill you, or turn you into a monster, if you eat them. Others may give you super powers. There is no way to tell what a cookie will do, short of eating it. If the cookie is cursed, throwing it away, or making someone else eat it, won't help you. It will probably just make your curse stronger. The gods really hate it when mortals try to turn curses placed on them to their own advantage. Such mortals typically end up as cluwnes or worse.

 

11) Max one prayer per round

Don't pray more than once per round. The more prayers you make in a round, the more likely you are to get a bad outcome. The gods get annoyed by repeated prayers from the same person in a short span of time. One prayer per round might seem like a low limit, but consider it an incentive to make your one prayer really good.

 

12) Don't treat prayers as get-out-of-jail-free cards

The purpose of prayers is NOT to give you some advantage that helps you out of a difficult situation.

The purpose of prayers is allowing your character to ask, ICly, for divine intervention that will make the round better for the crew at large.

 

Now that you know what NOT to do, let's look at some good prayers...

• As crew, with a terrible Captain and no IAA: "Lord Istomar, I pray, see this fool Captain suffer for their incompetence. They run around in their suit, for no reason, brandishing the nuclear auth disk, on green alert. They are an embarrassment to Captains everywhere. Amen."
• As a mime, tending to your fallen comrade, with incompetent medbay: "Divine Light, please help my comrade, Maximillian Arcturus, for they have fallen in battle with the dread spiders. Their body is wracked with poison, and their chances look grim. Medbay is overwhelmed with the injured, and you are their only hope."
• As clown, in a dull shift: "Great Honkmother, I pray, grant me something harmless but amusing, that I might bring cheer and HONKs to this dreary station."
• As chef, after some greytider murders all your animals: "Lady, the vile ruffian Joe Schmoe has snuck into my workplace, and murdered all my beloved animals. I beseech you for aid in bringing them back to the land of the living, or seeing Joe cursed for his attacks on the defenseless farm animals."
• As HoP, after Ian goes missing: "Great God of Paperwork, I have served thee in filling thy forms and dotting thy divine i's. I ask: help me find my poor lost dog, Ian, who needs me."
• As Chef, after an hour of Botany not doing their job: "Spirit of Summer, bringer of bountiful harvests, I beg thee: help me acquire the produce I require to bake my great feast. Botany has made not a shred of food this shift, and I am despairing. At this rate, I will never be able to feed the crew."

Lessons you can learn from the good prayers:

• If someone needs help, explain why, and mention why you can't get help from the regular mortal authorities.
• If someone really deserves to be smited, explain why. And mention why the regular mortal authorities cannot do it.
• Always focus on how your request helps someone else, or at least makes things more fun for the crew (ie: players). Never focus on how the request benefits you personally.
• Don't be afraid to use old-fashioned and descriptive language. Remember, this is meant to be a semi-formal request for your god. Not a throwaway line.
• Make it obvious which god you are praying to, both by name (e.g: Spirit of Summer), and function/portfolio (god of the harvest), so the admins have some context for which god they might pretend to be while they're replying.

 

 

Edited January 1, 2018 by tzo

[Miraviel]

This is a guide I REALLY needed, thank you!! I always wanted to use the pray function properly, but after making a few failed attempts (or did I just not notice the gods answering?), I gave up on it.

It'll be interesting to pray to my ancestors on my slime, but getting cluwned... That is a fate I never want to have.

[Rumiluntti]

Asking shit from admins is like asking shit from a genie.
Think about how it could be turned against you before you even utter the plea that might curse you.

[KingPhilipIII]

I once assisted the Chaplain in summoning Harambe a while ago. After we had like ten cultists chanting as the chaplain did a human sacrifice(Voluntary) the admins spawned in a monkey named Harambe and I can't remember what powers he had but he promptly butchered all his cultists because we forgot his bananas before sparking a stationwide manhunt through the tunnels.

[CPTCoffee]

Using prayer I have been granted  

-been healed from critical to full health

-struck down by lightning for saying hedonistic things

-multiple cups of latte and coffee for parishioner's consumption 

-a demon clown that was successfully summoned 

-a cookie that I couldn't eat because I was an IPC

-a plethora of pugs

-another horn for honking

-a single credit chip

 

[Bxil]

So far the only thing I managed was turning a seal to a clown spider. It was a wonderful round.

[CPTCoffee]

20 minutes ago, Bxil said:

So far the only thing I managed was turning a seal to a clown spider. It was a wonderful round.

That was YOU?

[LUCPIX]

Right, the praying system is WAY bigger than I thought in the beginning

Thanks, I'll use it wisely (paradoxically I also hope not needing to do it it 24/7, right?)

[Bxil]

3 hours ago, CPTCoffee said:

That was YOU?

Possibly? How were you involved?

[Drakeven]

I did not realize there was a guide. This is quite useful!

[wookie]

it works guys

[soniiiety]

really, this probes they are not even gods, but like the illumanati.

a god is only good, work for the proportional way and for the most ideal good.

i believe a god, would listen to any prayer and all prayers, they would love them depending on their values and qualities.

if there was a way i would want a way to pray to single one, yeah this could be made much fairer

[robveelben]

soniiiety who says gods are always good. you have cult gods which demands sacrifies. you have all the different cults made by the chaplain no not all gods work for the best interest even in real life most gods are not really morale.

[soniiiety]

27 minutes ago, robveelben said:

soniiiety who says gods are always good. you have cult gods which demands sacrifies. you have all the different cults made by the chaplain no not all gods work for the best interest even in real life most gods are not really morale.

then they are not gods, but corrupt creators, anyways i only believe in 1 creator, the golden source of the universe.

i believe that best of good will happen if people connect to the subconcious and the higherself to understand themselves.

[Spacemanspark]

the golden source of the universe would not have created evil if it did not have evil inside itself to create.

[RpgRocketeer]

This is really useful, I pissed off the gods alot by forcing everybody in the chapel to pray, causing a cluwne paranormal outbreak where everybody slipped, got cluwned, then I got killed with only a head left, left to sit on the table as the roboticists made new brains. Truely beautiful. Now I know not how to commit pissery at the gods

Edited May 13, 2021 by RpgRocketeer

[robveelben]

The more powerfull the prayer the stronger it reacts