Merge Psychiatrist with Chaplain

[Streaky Haddock]

 

Make Chaplain a medical job, maybe joint HoP/CMO and replace the Psychiatrist.

Psychiatrist/Psychologist will become an alt title.

 

Good idea y/n

 

[liran424]

No, I don't even have to explain why this is a bad idea.

[SpaceTimeNow]

Maybe make Psychiatrist something inbetween IAA and Medbay, most nutcases end up inside the Brig anyways. I feel like a Psychiatrist that could enter the brig would make him much more useful / practical.

[Dumbdumn5]

 

Maybe make Psychiatrist something inbetween IAA and Medbay, most nutcases end up inside the Brig anyways. I feel like a Psychiatrist that could enter the brig would make him much more useful / practical.

This would make more sense than merging it with a civilian role.

 

[Streaky Haddock]

Yeah okay. I just feel the psychiatrist has been shafted. Not allowed to practice physical medicine, but otherwise more ignored than chaplain!

[NTSAM]

Chaplain actually has some use sometimes tho.

[Farya]

Merging Psychiatrist with IAA make more sense. But brig already have one doctor.

[Doukan]

 

They're both RP roles, if people wanna get anything out of them at all they're gonna have to rely on other people wanting to join in the immursion.

I don't see why we can't have "counsellor" as an alt chaplain title though, I mean if you think about it in 500 years I bet there are more than a few religions based around 21st century BS.

 

[Streaky Haddock]

 

They're both RP roles, if people wanna get anything out of them at all they're gonna have to rely on other people wanting to join in the immursion.

I don't see why we can't have "counsellor" as an alt chaplain title though, I mean if you think about it in 500 years I bet there are more than a few religions based around 21st century BS.

 

We do! It's what made me think of the Chaplain as opposed to IA.

 

[SpaceTimeNow]

 

As sad as it is, if you want the Psychiatrist be worth something than you need to give him at least some authority. Because nobody will ever come and hand it to him, nobody cares and nobody wants him to maybe interfere.

 

Him being a optional thing where you can go if you want is all nice and good, but how often does it really happen that there is a patient willing to go to the Psychiatrist? Correct me if i am wrong but from what i can tell this almost never happens. This results in nobody actually playing the Psychiatrist role and the cycle of allways one side missing continues.

 

Where a Psychiatrist in my eyes would be super useful is the whole IAA process, being intermediator between co-workers, conducting inverstiations and determine the working ability of an employee. Since IAAs can also be lawyer they could call uppon the Psychiatrist in order to determine if a particular client is actually sane or if he might be better treated in a medical facility.

 

 

In my eyes the options are pretty clear:

- If you want to keep a Psychiatrist this niche thing that (in my experience at least) barely happens then you probably should go ahead and merge it with the Chaplain as some sort of counsellor. This would add more variety to both jobs, but i think that would be the final nail in the coffin (pun intended) for the Psychiatrist to be taken seriously for anything regarding law or other "official activities".

 

- The other more involved option i can think of, would be to make him part of IA/Medbay and imbue him some actual responsibilities and authority.

 

 

I am personally not really invested in this because i won't see myself playing a Psychiatrist either way. It's just not my thing, but i believe it could be interressting to involve a Psychiatrist if am working in or around security.

 

[necaladun]

 

The main role the psych fills is a non-vital person with some med access. It's a great job for newer players to get a feel of medbay with. Maybe if there was a nurse/intern/etc thing to replace it.

 

As for giving them authority - Security has a huge list of what they can and can't arrest for and all kinds of SoP, and a chain of command to keep them in check, and are often complained about. The idea of giving a psych any real authority to detain people because they're labelled crazy seems dangerous as fuck - especially with no clear guide to what is crazy, or how long they can detain for, etc.

 

[Kyet]

 

N.

 

Psychiatrist is a job where you try to keep a bunch of ax-crazy individuals, from many diverse alien species, happy and sane, while they are surrounded by deadly threats, on a remote space station, far from home, where nobody will hear or care if they all die screaming. Which happens. Every few hours. And when it does, the powers that be just send in their clones to try again. Even you yourself, the Psych, could be a clone because you were horribly [REDACTED!] just minutes ago, and you wouldn’t even know it. It would certainly explain why the crew can witness people being murdered in front of them without batting an eye - they’re all so desensitized to death and suffering that some of them have made the conscious decision "I will not let horrifying screams from the next room distract me from my work". And those are considered the normal ones.

 

Imagine being a Psych in that environment. Even keeping yourself sane would be a challenge, let alone the rest of the crew.

 

 

If you want people to play Psych, give them some mechanics-based things they can do. E.g. drugs they can give out that counter various built-in, mechanic-based mental conditions. E.g: let people pick mental disabilities, not just physical ones, in char creation, and let the psych treat or at least manage these. What about hallucinations, for example? Adding that as a persistent mental condition would leverage all the existing hallucination code, as well as the Psych's anti-hallucination drugs. All it would require is the ability to save mental traits in char creation - one of which being "sometimes has bouts of hallucinations". Fairly easy to add others, too, like phobias about touching certain things, or an anxiety disorder that makes you jittery when too many people are around you.

 

Don’t merge Psych with Chaplain. Chaplains have got a truly ridiculous amount of attention/buffs in the last year. They’ve gone from being priests to holy crusaders, and treating psych like it could just be another alt title for them is even more power creep than usual, even for the already-too-prominent Chaplain. Also, would YOU ask the High Priest of HONK for counselling? Not bloody likely. It isn’t remotely close to their job. They’re priests. They have no medical training.

 

Also, I feel the "forceful psych" angle is very much overused. I've seen Psychs in SS13 straightjacket people for stupid reasons. Psychs shouldn't tranq or restrain their patients unless they absolutely have to for their (the Psych's!) safety, or the patient is wanted by security for processing after the psych releases them. Instead, the Psych should be thought of as a service provider. Rather like the chef (who provides food for the hungry), the Psych provides counselling and/or drugs for the ill. Although they do handle people who have gone totally off the rails, that isn't their primary job. Their primary job should be things like counselling the person who saw their dead body after cloning, ensuring the person who sees hallucinated aliens everywhere takes their meds, and providing advice on how to deal with coworkers that insist on stealing the minerals.

 

[Kirbyroth]

Be fun to mess with people with fear of clowns.

[davidchan]

 

I'm going to say no.

 

I don't regularly play either of these roles but some people do. And while some rounds (mainly cult) the Chaplain gets a bit more action than usual, its an RP role that's meant to be approachable by anyone. The psychiatrist on the other hand is usually an interaction pushed upon someone who is displaying insatiability; A suicidal patient or criminal, a Security officer or Head of Staff lashing out violently to criticisms, or in some cases if a Doctor or medical staff who snap during the stress of a round. There are the rare individuals who request a session with a psychiatrist, but these are typically metafriends to begin with who spend lots of time together anyways.

 

I really don't like any idea of merging roles, especially RP roles, that function independently anyways. I've always felt that the Chaplain should get basic security access so they can approach and speak with brigged or perma-brigged prisoners, but aside from that the role doesn't need that many changes as it's still a viable traitor role if you're good at RPing and can usual the general chaos to your advantage.

 

[SpaceTimeNow]

 

As for giving them authority - Security has a huge list of what they can and can't arrest for and all kinds of SoP, and a chain of command to keep them in check, and are often complained about. The idea of giving a psych any real authority to detain people because they're labelled crazy seems dangerous as fuck - especially with no clear guide to what is crazy, or how long they can detain for, etc.

Not sure if your response was directed to my post, but that was exaclty the reason why i said mix with IAA and not Sec. I allways thought of IAA as the "department" defending crew from overzealous security, lawyer being a alternative title for IAA agent. Same as IAA, the Psychiatrist wouldn't be able to arrest someone but might be able to add to defence and rather have someone transfered to medical instead to the cells.

 

Edited June 10, 2016 by Guest

[SpaceTimeNow]

 

Also, I feel the "forceful psych" angle is very much overused. I've seen Psychs in SS13 straightjacket people for stupid reasons. Psychs shouldn't tranq or restrain their patients unless they absolutely have to for their (the Psych's!) safety, or the patient is wanted by security for processing after the psych releases them. Instead, the Psych should be thought of as a service provider. Rather like the chef (who provides food for the hungry), the Psych provides counselling and/or drugs for the ill. Although they do handle people who have gone totally off the rails, that isn't their primary job. Their primary job should be things like counselling the person who saw their dead body after cloning, ensuring the person who sees hallucinated aliens everywhere takes their meds, and providing advice on how to deal with coworkers that insist on stealing the minerals.

Probably the reason why people abuse the Psychs and forcefully arrest people is because they have nothing else to do. Very very few people go willingly to the Psychiatrist. I would bet that on average you will get way less than one patient comming to you per shift. And on the flip side and the off change that you actually want to involve a Psychiatrist, that role is allways usused, because nobody wanted to gamble that maybe someone will need Psychiatrist this round. At least that's my perception of that role, but maybe i am wrong.

 

Most people that could be considered insane will be arrested by security and will be way out of your reach, because why on earth would a officer call you? The officer has no SOP to do it and all the Psychiatrist would do is get in his way.

 

[SomanB]

 

Here's something that MIGHT make Psych docs more fun, least from the immursion side....psychotropic drugs.

 

No, I'm not talking about meth and haldol. Just some new drugs, that mechanically don't do anything aside from displaying the occasional text box message.

 

Hell, we could make a whole mini-medical system around it. Diseases like depression, bipolar, the like. Depression, for example, could start at "just feeling down" messages, go to moping and moving slower, on to suicide procs if untreated. Mania could be hyperactivity to start, on to randomly attacking people if left untreated.

 

Make the mental diseases uncurable, not show up on scanners, and symptoms only suppressed by the psych drugs noted above....and only the psych doc, by SoP, can hand them out. Bam, we've now made what was basically a medical greyshirt role into something with both game, and arrrpeee work to do.

 

[Farya]

Honestly I think it would be nice to give both chaplain and psychologist basic brig access so they could visit prisoners and talk to them. Maybe we could also add new alt.title for psychologist like "Parole/probation officer" who will be supposed to help criminals to return to law-abiding life on-board. Because some people start do shit just because they were wronged by command/security for real not because they secretly want to piss off security and just need an excuse for it. Psychologist could offer help to that people along with IAA.

[Kyet]

 

Very very few people go willingly to the Psychiatrist.

This is because the psych is the only staff member in medbay who doesn't cure any mechanic-driven health condition.

 

Here's something that MIGHT make Psych docs more fun, least from the immursion side....psychotropic drugs.

 

No, I'm not talking about meth and haldol. Just some new drugs, that mechanically don't do anything aside from displaying the occasional text box message.

 

Hell, we could make a whole mini-medical system around it. Diseases like depression, bipolar, the like. Depression, for example, could start at "just feeling down" messages, go to moping and moving slower, on to suicide procs if untreated. Mania could be hyperactivity to start, on to randomly attacking people if left untreated.

 

Make the mental diseases uncurable, not show up on scanners, and symptoms only suppressed by the psych drugs noted above....and only the psych doc, by SoP, can hand them out. Bam, we've now made what was basically a medical greyshirt role into something with both game, and arrrpeee work to do.

 

I've actually got a branch where I've coded some of these. I haven't submitted a PR for it, though.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8003

 

new alt.title for psychologist like "Parole/probation officer" who will be supposed to help criminals to return to law-abiding life on-board.

Warden's job?

 

[SpaceTimeNow]

 

This is because the psych is the only staff member in medbay who doesn't cure any mechanic-driven health condition.

I think we are good on stuff driven by game mechanics, why add forced pychos if we have enough running around already? Besides that, this could get old really quick.

 

[Farya]

 

new alt.title for psychologist like "Parole/probation officer" who will be supposed to help criminals to return to law-abiding life on-board.

Warden's job?

Warden have already too much responsibility. Process caught criminals, make sure they would not escape from brig, manage security records(never ever done), overseer officers, guard the brig and armoury and issue weaponry when the need arise. Thanks to brig physician, managing already brigged criminals is a bit easier now. You have someone who can threat them in brig or move them to medbay for threatment and return them back to cell.

Warden cant overseer people who served their sentence obviously. That why parole officer could have some use as karma job. With him warden could release with parole petty criminals and let that new guy to check them out and overseer them. If person on parole commit crime again, parole officer will warn the rest of security and criminal will be brigged as repeat offender. Some brig time addition for parole violation could also be applied.

 

[Knightedskull]

 

I have to say no on the merge as well.

 

A psychiatrist is entirely dependent on RP but that can be a powerful tool/weapon for them and they DO have an authority coupled with the CMO and, given enough cause/justification/sabotage can probably even undermine the CMO or deem any of the other chain of command as unfit for duty.

 

Don't underestimate the power of RP and paperwork.

 

[Jakers457]

I'll say no, they're kind of two completely different things. Just give the Psychiatrist more authority. Perhaps a fleshed out psych wing with nurses or whatever. Nothing like an asylum to shake things up.

[Kirbyroth]

Asylum that be fun till they break out

[KasparoVv]

I've had some great RP with a few really good Psych players. I think it's best left as its own job.