Metagaming issue

[xJustAShadow]

 

*Warning* Slight rant post

 

Okay, metagaming. Using sources outside your characters couldn't possibly know. We all know what it is and for the most part hate it. The reason I bring it up is because nothing is more frustrating than having your antag round ruined by some random civilian that knows exactly what you are and how to kill or deal with you.

 

For instance, imagine you're playing a changeling. You grab your victim and as you do so he finds out what you are some way and calls out on communications, "Changeling! Everyonebody, ___ is a changeling!". You're then captured and IMMEDIATELY taken to the chapel to be cremated or decapitated. To me this doesn't make sense. How on earth does the average person know what xenos, changeling, and syndicate / nuke operatives are and their weaknesses? The main reason being, once people know what something is, they carry this knowledge onto another session or character. Much like when you see a janitor preforming surgery perfectly. It's called ROLE playing. Know your role.

 

Now, this may be a server to server thing but when I used to play only heads of staff and specific people know about a specific antag. HoS was aware of Syndicate antags. ninjas, wizards, and other basic combat antags. I believe. CMO was aware of Changeling and Vampires. RD knew about how the Blob worked. Chaplin knew about cultist. If our system was like this it would vastly improve role playing in the sense of how we deal with antags. Correct me if i'm wrong, it's been a long time since I played on my old server.

 

I believe it's gotten to be this way because of how competitive people are which would make losing not enjoyable. However, look at it this way, if we all stuck to our role accordingly this would make the people playing antags want to role play too instead of solely murdering everyone without say or reason. They just become a thing we all want to kill.

 

Some of you might argue that because our character has experienced this antag before, they know exactly how they work. This is where I call bullshit. Mainly because at some point or time, your character has died and been cloned thus destroying most of their memories if done on the fly and not scanned prior or even down right just been obliterated beyond reincarnation. I can see bringing along small memories of friends round to round whatever, but when we use this information against the antags it ruins the mystery behind them, the lore, everything. As I said before, they just become a type of mob we want to kill. Often during xeno rounds or blob rounds you'll see people standing right in plain sight of these things because they no longer fear these antags due to knowing how they work exactly.

 

This post also applies to people who play characters that are just geniuses. Jack of all trades. Its annoying as hell to have departments with specialists to watch a clown set up singularity or something along that line. It's just not right. We're not all God's Gift to the station. We're regular people. We're not the hero of the story, we fear death, and we're not all fearless combat experts that charge into battle. We're characters that play a role in writing an epic ass story in the span of an hour.

 

All in all, I would love some kind of rp rule like this to be enforced because I enjoy some good rp instead asymmetrical team death matches every round. If any staff would back me on this that'd be great just to let me know I'm not a complete dumbass and just raging.

 

[Wintermote]

 

There is no way to really enforce it without a lot of admin babying. You're asking for paradise to become a 'hard' RP server when it is primarily a medium-light RP server; more or less roleplay if you feel like it, but don't expect it.

 

The best solution for what you want here, is something that would need to be accomplished by code; limitations on what players can actually do, given the role they have.

 

If you sign up as an engineer, you will simply be unable to interact with the telescience computer for example.

 

[Earthdivine]

 

This has always been a problem on the server and we have tried to deal with it, however the main problem is the influx of players from other servers, notable back when /vg/ servers went down and we got an influx of players from there, making it much harder to have players keep track of what's allowed and what's not.

 

As much as it hurts, the best way of handling this is to assume everyone knows. In a role playing sense, if Nanotrans is aware of everything after their work, why wouldn't they tell their employees what is after them? As much as this is a meta gaming problem, it also is an opportunity. This makes everyone suspicious of one another, and you can play off this fear. Make it look like its a different type of antag round and watch the meta gaming fly and people ignore you because their looking for something else. For example, you don't have to absorb living people as a ling, you can kill them and absorb the dead body to keep them from revealing you. People will see a dead body and usually assume traitor, particularly if you obscure the skin.

 

[Fox McCloud]

 

This has always been a problem on the server and we have tried to deal with it, however the main problem is the influx of players from other servers, notable back when /vg/ servers went down and we got an influx of players from there, making it much harder to have players keep track of what's allowed and what's not.

 

As much as it hurts, the best way of handling this is to assume everyone knows. In a role playing sense, if Nanotrans is aware of everything after their work, why wouldn't they tell their employees what is after them? As much as this is a meta gaming problem, it also is an opportunity. This makes everyone suspicious of one another, and you can play off this fear. Make it look like its a different type of antag round and watch the meta gaming fly and people ignore you because their looking for something else. For example, you don't have to absorb living people as a ling, you can kill them and absorb the dead body to keep them from revealing you. People will see a dead body and usually assume traitor, particularly if you obscure the skin.

 

This to an absolute T. It was decided a very long time ago on Para (back around October/November of last year) to open up antag knowledge to everyone; it makes it more of a game of cat and mouse and playing human psychology off of itself rather than following a rule in the sky that says you have to behave like X in a given situation because of roleplaying. Yes, this does lead to some powergaming in some situations, but as Earth said, you can easily exploit this--A story worth mentioning is where the nuke ops mentioned a blue APC before cutting comms then promptly murdering the AI--the entire crew started storming the AI satellite in attempt to kill the AI while the nuke ops slipped onto the station, killed the Captain and quickly armed the nuke.

 

There's still roleplay in this situation, but it generates a LOT of exciting tension and gameplay that keeps things exciting for both sides.

 

[Eldrin-Kanthos]

 

I was playing early this morning as a changeling. People KNEW I was some kind or suspicious character, but I had covered well enough that they thought I was a traitor. Only on the shuttle did the AI notice I was a different race. Even then I had crew defend me from the captain as I had role played and made friends that round.

 

Basically, cover your tracks. Roleplay and make friends. Don't be an obvious antagonist.

 

[Fj45]

 

As Para is a medium RP server, this is a gameplay issue not lore/fluff one.

 

It greatly improves antags as they have to really FIGHT to win, they don't just get babied around, and as others have said, it creates far more tension and drama.

 

And you know what? I come here to play a game, not a chatroom with colour.

 

[Spacemanspark]

As Para is a medium RP server, this is a gameplay issue not lore/fluff one.

 

It greatly improves antags as they have to really FIGHT to win, they don't just get babied around, and as others have said, it creates far more tension and drama.

 

And you know what? I come here to play a game, not a chatroom with colour.

[Plotron]

 

As Para is a medium RP server, this is a gameplay issue not lore/fluff one.

 

It greatly improves antags as they have to really FIGHT to win, they don't just get babied around, and as others have said, it creates far more tension and drama.

 

And you know what? I come here to play a game, not a chatroom with colour.

 

You have to give all your heart to win. Do your best. Antags do not play lightly and neither should you. At least on this server, that's what I've learned.

Be merciless or face chaos.

 

Personally I CAN'T imagine giving more leeway to antags - the mechanics are there and they're doing just fine even without all this "oh, it's an antag, I'd better not spoil his fun!" shit. Not with this community. And you can't just change community.

 

[Rumiluntti]

 

It's not metagaming, it's just the fact that RPing "BUT VAMPIERS R NOT REAL xD" every vampire round gets damn old damn fast.

I do not like rules that force you to act like a retard in the face of danger.

 

[Fj45]

 

I do not like rules that force you to act like a retard in the face of danger.

 

 

A Quote from Flatoftheblade:

"I see this specifically with "powergaming" enforcement. I can tell you that in real life, first responders constantly have the concept of officer safety drilled into their heads, they train based on worst case scenarios, and they are constantly told not to let their guard down even if everything seems fine and "routine." Many "heavy roleplaying" admins seem to be under the impression that everyone should act like a stupid slasher movie character who has suicidally bad judgement, splits up from their allies, lets their guard down, doesn't equip themselves properly, etc."

 

[necaladun]

 

It's not metagaming, it's just the fact that RPing "BUT VAMPIERS R NOT REAL xD" every vampire round gets damn old damn fast.

 

 

This is one of the main reasons behind the ruling when I made it.

 

Lore wise, I've always assumed NT put out various safety briefings, that they produce action movies with ERT members gunning down xenos, etc etc.

 

[Fj45]

Its weird, HRP servers go full "But realsim!" with complaints against no antag knowledge...but then you easily refute them with the above...and it shifts to "the game is more balanced that way!", an even sillier argument.

[SpaceTimeNow]

 

I feel this goes both ways, if the antag goes through the full RP and takes his time to trick me, i am usually inclined to just go with it and follow him into the dark place, even though i may realize where my character would end up.

 

If he just uses game mechanics to kill me like silence and para-stings without RPing, that's fine with me but then i will use all kownlege and game mechanics availiable to try survive or get him caught. If you just flat out end my round without giving me some good RP in return, just so you can raise some score at the end, i will make it as difficult as possible for you.

 

[Fj45]

But at the same time, if someone does a really really terrible job of trying to drag me into that dark maint room, I sure as hell ain't going to just kneel over and let them kill me. Good antags know how to get people where they want without just going "COME WITH MEEEE."

[SierraKomodo]

 

I feel this goes both ways, if the antag goes through the full RP and takes his time to trick me, i am usually inclined to just go with it and follow him into the dark place, even though i may realize where my character would end up.

 

If he just uses game mechanics to kill me like silence and para-stings without RPing, that's fine with me but then i will use all kownlege and game mechanics availiable to try survive or get him caught. If you just flat out end my round without giving me some good RP in return, just so you can raise some score at the end, i will make it as difficult as possible for you.

 

That's pretty much how I (try to) go about things as a non-antag. Despite being present for many rounds, KATANA doesnt know that the purple infection icon is a xenomorph larva! It's simply an unidentified infection or infestation that should be investigate and possibly quarantined. Unless, of course, they're just murderbone rampaging everything. Then I'll just pull out all the stops on that regard.