Advanced Rules

PLEASE REFER TO THIS LINK FOR THE ACTUAL SERVER RULES

Expanded Rules

The purpose of this is to add extended clarification and precedents for each rule.

This isn’t something that a new player is to be expected to have read, especially given it’s length - however it is helpful for long term players, as well as advanced roles (Ashwalkers, Command, Silicons, Etc). The writing style is much more informal than the standard rules, and the spirit should always be taken into account more than the letter. This is a living document, especially with precedents, and the exact wording is much less important than the overall idea. This is written with more experienced players in mind, and some of the terminology may be unfamiliar to newer players. This will also have the reasoning behind the existence of each rule, so people can better understand the spirit of the rules. This will also help admins to all be on the same page and more consistent.

Rule 0: Don’t be a dick

• Intent: This rule exists because the rules can’t possibly cover all situations - admins need the ability to rule on things that aren’t explicitly covered by the rules. SS13 has a near infinite possible situations, and the game is constantly updating and changing.

• Additionally, we don’t want a server with dicks on it. We want cool people.

• This also exists for times when people are breaking the spirit of the rules but not the letter. The rules are not a code of laws for a country, where you can get off on a technicality. The server is more akin to friends playing a tabletop game (Such as D&D) together, and if people are making the game worse, we don’t want them around.

Rule 0 Clarifications

• This rule also is used to enforce “Quality Control” bans - these are for people who have taken up a lot of server staff with repeated minor incidents, and are also known as “high maintenance players”. These are generally people who have gotten 20+ notes.

• It also covers bans we mirror from other servers, usually due to a large degree of ban evading and grief, or OOC creepyness and harassment of users.

Rule 0 Precedents

• We may mirror bans from other servers. This is usually reserved for extreme amounts of grief, illegal activities, or very creepy behavior. These can of course be appealed, and if there’s worry that this is done in error, contact a head.

• The rules are not limited to actions on the server. We have no limit of jurisdiction. If you harass players in other games or discords, or are a neo-nazi IRL, we can still ban you.

Rule 1 : Listen To The Admins

• Intent: Staff have limited time on the server to deal with issues, and often have to deal with multiple issues at once. This rule exists so that a staff member may make a ruling and move on with the round. This isn’t to say that staff are always right - instead the intent is that the player accept the ruling for that round and move on, and if they disagree with the ruling it’s taken up outside of the current round on the forums/etc. This also means heads and other staff can chip in on the issue, so it’s not just one staff member ruling.

• For appropriate ckeys, this is about the overall server atmosphere. We very much don’t want to be XboxLive, and having “x69FucksBitchesHard420x” talking in OOC brings down the general level of maturity we’d like to have.

Rule 1 Precedents

• Ckeys the are excessively sexual, abusive, or just immature, may be asked to be changed. People with ckeys like “KillTheJews” will just be banned and not offered the chance to change it.

• Ignoring admin PMs leaves us little choice but to ban you so we can discuss things on the forums.

• Demanding that another staff member handle your case or disrespecting a trial admin and asking for a ‘real’ admin is a fast way to get banned under this rule, as well. The staff are unpaid, so asking to “speak to the manager” will mean you have to speak to them in appeals.

• Lying to admins is a quick ticket to a ban - it’s wasting our time.

• Acting in a manner to intentionally cause frustrating and anger among others fits the wikipedia definition of griefing and is disallowed.

Rule 2: Roleplaying Standards

• Intent: RP is what makes SS13 more than just a game of clicking people until they go horizontal. The roleplay standards of paradise are what makes it the place it is, beyond the code and the map.

• The original “Medium RP” intent was devised upon creation, as being a middle ground between the “HRP” of Bay12 and the “LRP” of Goon. Serious roleplay, but not taking itself too seriously or being elitist.

• You are expected to roleplay within the universe the lore has established. You’re playing as someone who has either been hired by NT, or permitted to visit on of their more advanced research facilities. We don’t expect you to know every detail of the lore - especially as it’s subject to change. Your character should be one who can conceivably exist within the setting.

• Antag knowledge is not restricted, because it is very hard to enforce, and it gets very, very boring to constantly have to pretend to not know what a vampire/changling/etc is and have it explained to you every 3 rounds. This goes both ways - antags can be assumed to have all the knowledge the crew have.
  • Terror spiders and xenos are intelligent after all. It’s still expected that you roleplay this however, even in hivechat - referring to the “metallic glowing thing thats beeping in the vault” is much better than “the nuke”.

• Playing with self-imposed restrictions or knowledge can make the server a lot more fun for you and other players. A xeno not knowing what the nuke is, or a blob trying to eat the kitchen because it has biomass, can create fun and memorable situations. This does have limits - being an incompetent nuke op is just letting your team down.

• The rules around names have changed over time. Right now the standard is that having unique names is highly encouraged. We want people to make their own characters, not just copy-paste someone from other media. However, being inspired by other media (Especially sci-fi) is quite understandable and enjoyable, but the character should be a unique personality, not just a character from another media “in space”.

• Names should fit within racial standards for names.

• Especially “memey” names, or IRL references, can very much break immersion however.

Powergaming

• Powergaming is a very nebulous term. https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Powergamer is a good article about it. This is something we wish to avoid in general, for many reasons. Primarily, Paradise is meant to be a roleplaying server, with the players working together to make an interesting story each round. Playing to “win” should not be done with the exclusion of all other considerations. Playing for a fun and cool story should be the primary goal.

• Each round is considered a new round, and actions from other rounds should not be taken into account for the next. If someone committed a crime in one round, you cannot send them to the brig in the next for it.

• A rule of thumb is to remember the positive but forget the negative. You can remember that someone is a good doctor or engineer, but you should not hold against them if they accidentally released the singularity a few rounds ago.

Rule 2 Precedents

• Characters named Walter White who go around dealing meth are so overplayed that that admins are permitted to spawn in a character to shoot them to death and say “I am the danger”. Diona named Groot are overplayed and may be messed with by admins or just asked to change their name. JoJo references are a meme by themselves, and are more frowned upon as reference names for being more memey.

• Securing high-value theft items in secure locations “just in case” someone tries to steal them is classified as powergaming. The nuke disk and spare ID are expected to be secured, however.

• Bolting down secure locations before any threat is seen is classified as powergaming. This is mainly a consideration for the AI - at shift start, bolting down the teleporter should not be done. EVA should almost never be locked down. The AI may however lock down or reinforce their satellite, in accordance with their laws.

• Amassing weapons and healing items for personal use “just in case” an antag attacks you is seen as powergaming - people should be acting as if it is an average shift (Until it’s not). Don’t act like a doomsday prepper. Keep your supplies reasonable for the role and situation. If you’re an engineer dealing with space carp, it’s quite reasonable to have healing supplies and a weapon - but not to outgun the armoury. Also remember other people may need these supplies.

• See also Rule 8: Validhunting rules.

• Antags can amass power to obtain their objectives, but CC may respond to such threats in kind - if you end up outgunning all of security, then CC will escalate the ERT to match or exceed such a threat.

• Having an “insane” character does not change anything. If it’s not permissible normally, saying you are “insane” does not make for justification. Employees should be reasonably able to pass a psych eval. Additionally, acting violent or “lolrandom” because you are “insane” is an incredibly unrealistic and frankly offensive view of mental health.

Rule 3: SSD Players

• Intent: This one’s pretty simple. People’s internet drops out, stuff happens, and getting murdered/robbed because of that is a shitty thing to have happen to you.

• As far as antag targets go - being an antag is meant to be a fun challenge. There’s no challenge to killing an SSD target. If you put the target in cryo, you’ll get a new one.

• Whenever you interact with an SSD, admins get a log of it with a big red “SSD” text. Even if what you do is ok, an ahelp to admins can save us time in checking if it’s ok or not and is highly appreciated.

Rule 3 Precedents

• Medical aid can be given to SSD people. No ahelp is necessary.

• The blueshield can take high-value items off command before bringing them to cryo.

• Security can continue with an arrest and processing if someone goes SSD during it, but should ahelp when they get a chance.

• Ahelping first may allow plenty of interactions, such as taking an ID to get out of an area, or taking rare tools like insulated gloves.

Rule 4: Maintaining A Respectful Environment

• Intent: This is a very important rule. This is a game people play for fun, and being harassed OOCly is not fun.

• The server was founded on the ideals that anyone who is homophobic, racist, sexist, or similarily bigoted will not be welcome. We have a zero tolerance policy on bigoted language and actions.

• Use of terms like nigger and faggot - even in a joking or friendly sense, such as “whats up my niggas?”, really brings down the atmosphere of the server. Edgelords like to toe the line with these kind of terms, so it’s just easier for us to ban them alltogether.

• When it comes to putting down other servers - this is partially about maintaining a positive environment, and also to reduce drama. If another server is doing something controversial, then it’s best to talk to them about it. We don’t want the drama.

• When it comes to IC hostility - this has limits. Insults, even if “IC”, can clearly be aimed at the person behind the keyboard. Calling someone a unathi ugly scale-face is clearly at the character. Insults towards intelligence or competence are generally aimed at the player, and admins may ask you to tone it town, or take action if it’s excessive. If you’re insulting people as a result of your OOC frustration or anger, then you’re crossing the bounds. Hiding behind “But it’s IC” is cowardly.

• Creating a character whose personality is especially abrasive can fall under this too. We don’t expect everyone to hold hands, skip and sing together and be best friends, but hiding behind “its what my character is like” isn’t an excuse - you get to choose your characters personality. Try to make a character that makes the game fun for everyone.

Rule 4 Precedents

• ICly being against “furries” is taken as an OOC attack - furry refers to fursuiters, not to races with fur.

• The following terms are ones that shouldn’t be used at all including variations - Fag, Nigger, Cuck, Ligger, Furfag, Yiff, Loli, Rape, Molest. These might result in a ban without warning depending on how they’re used. This list isn’t exhaustive and anything crude enough might result in a ban.

Rule 5: Play The Role You’ve Chosen.

• Intent: First of all, there are limited slots. If you pick a role and don’t do the job it’s intended for, then you’re blocking someone else from doing it and making the station suffer by not having another doctor/engineer/etc.

• Command staff are held to a higher standard because of not just the importance of those roles, but because they can lead by example. If the Captain is being silly and memey, this will be reflected and imitated by the rest of the crew. We don’t expect command to be 100% serious all the time, but they do need to be more competent than other roles. This is especially because they are able to fire people from their departments.

• Command and Security both have the ability to affect other players rounds highly, either through SoP or Space Law. Good knowledge and respect of the RP environment is required to not ruin the game for others.

• While SoP is an IC matter, roles such as the NT Rep are expected to deal with it. If they do not follow it properly, then they are not playing the role as intended. Security officers role is about enforcing space law, and are expected to do so.

• See the Synthetics section for rules about them specifically.

Rule 5 Precedents

• Uploading “silly” laws to the AI is quite illegal, and can be considered self antagging, as well as not playing command responsibly. Command staff should generally not leave the station except for appropriate members dealing with Telecomms. IC enforcement from CC may occur with command staff.

• This is expected to be handled seriously. Refusal to take orders from CC or being too silly in front of the “bosses” is grounds for a job ban. The forward to SoP is to be taken into account at all times.

• Context is king, and blind adherence to SoP in the face of common sense can be grounds for a jobban - such as making people fill out paperwork to help fight an active threat. The effect of SoP being broken should always be considered, not just the fact it was broken.

Rule 6: Play Antagonists Responsibly

• Intent:Antagonists are a huge part of the game, and the primary adder of excitement and danger to the round. It is highly suggested you be comfortable and knowledgeable in the mechanics of the game before enabling the option to play as one.

• The primary purpose of this rule is to stop antags “murderboning”. It is too easy for an antag to do excessive damage to the station, such as with bombs or plasmaflooding or engine release. While this is fun for the player doing it, if allowed, then nearly every round will result in this happening, and rounds will be very short and lethal for everyone.

• If in doubt, one should always ahelp. Admins may give permission to do things that normally wouldn’t be available because the round is going slowly, for instance.

• Additionally, you shouldn’t be playing an antag just to rack up as many kills as you can - yes, even of security. Security can be killed if they’re an active threat to you, but killing them “just in case” is poor form.

• Not having the hijack objective and bombing areas such as the Engine or the Gravity Generator will get you outright banned. Nobody has fun when the lone antagonist, bored with their objectives complete, decides to bomb Medbay or the Gravgen to force a shuttle call.

• This is fun some of the time however, hence the “hijack” objective.

• Camping the arrivals shuttle is just too easy and shitty for people who have just logged in, especially newbies. This includes the immediate area around it - once people are roughly past the security checkpoint they’re fair game. People may still be loading, and not properly equipped for the round, as well as not knowing the current threat. Give people a fair chance to fight back.

• High-risk items and other antag objectives shouldn’t be completed or stolen without that objective. However, if you happen across an item (Such as if you have killed the Captain and they have numerous items on them), you are permitted to take them with you. The risk of being killed by another antag for those items is on you.

• Security (As well as borgs and the AI) shouldn’t be taken out pre-emptively. If they are actively tracking you, they may be eliminated to help you escape. However, staff may take objection if they believe you are attempting to kill as many for the sake of killing, rather than your objectives.

• When subverting the AI, care should be taken to go along with your objectives. Uploading antimov or similar laws to kill one target is incredibly excessive. If you are unsure of how your laws will be interpreted, ahelp with them first - many admins enjoy working on AI laws.

Use explosives responsibly

• It’s fine to use the minibomb (or similiar sized explosives) to cause some minor damage/collateral however it needs to be directly aligned with your objectives and also not aimed at causing the most damage/highest kill count possible.

• Using a TTV or Syndicate Bomb to cause a distraction/assassinate a target is going to get you very easily warned or potentially job banned, or even outright banned for your efforts.

Rule 6 Precedents

• As an antag, killing someone for access is permitted - however there needs to be a clear reason as to why you need that access. This can’t be done “Just in case” you need the access later.

• Polymorphing: If you are changed or polymorphed into another body, you are your characters mind in that form. If you are changed into a borg, the laws of the borg do apply. If you are changed into a xenomorph or terror spiders, your identity is subsumed by the hive - you are expected to follow the orders of Queens, and are hostile to the crew. While you may remember or act somewhat as your previous self, your new loyalty is to the swarm.

• It is permitted for antags to kill witnesses to stop themselves being caught. This must be immediately a problem. Killing someone in case they witness a potential future action is not ok.

• Telecomms sabotage should be limited to helping you achieve your goal. Taking them out for the entire round should be limited to hijack.

• Team based antags such as nuke-ops should only be enabled if you are sufficiently skilled to play as one. Admins may swap you out with a more knowledgeable player if they believe your experience is so low that it will let the rest of the team down.

Rule 7: Self Antagging

• Intent: A rule that can be quite subjective, a rule of thumb is “don’t act like an antag would”. Without this rule, antags wouldn’t be special.

• Violence between non-antags is acceptable to a degree, such as barfights and a few punches, but the expectation is that people are RPing sane individuals in a workplace. Murdering someone or beating them into crit for stealing from their workplace, insulting them, or other minor grievances is psychopathic behavior and disallowed.

• Assisting antags to some degree is permitted, but this should be more passive than active, and done with good justification. Opening a door for them or turning a blind eye is fine. Giving them a maxcap bomb is not.

• If in doubt, ahelp for special permission to give aid, especially if you have good IC justification. Admins are generally happy to help with a good story and may even give extra help or objectives. The fact that someone is your friend is not enough justification, as this would give huge advantage to people who play with their friends.

• Kicking someone while they are down is not self defence - that’s just vengeance. While a few extra clicks can happen in the heat of combat, rendering someone unable to get back up may be treated as murder. There are no “castle doctrine” or “stand your ground” laws.

• Violence is not an appropriate response to defense of the workplace or most thefts. The appropriate response is to call security or use disarms. Committing assault because someone walked into your office is incredibly excessive, even if they refuse to leave. IRL, punching someone for walking into your office would be a quick trip to unemployment and jail.

Rule 7 Precedents

• Beating someone into a critical condition should only be done if there is no other option - including escaping. It is not necessary to deal actual damage to qualify as self-antagging.

• Teleporting people with bluespace tomatoes or changing their appearance or race against their consent can also qualify as self-antagging.

• Impersonating a CC officer is basically mutiny, and should never be done as a non antag. As an antag, it’s probably a very bad idea, but within the rules.

• Violence between willing people should be limited - this can create a lot of work for security and medbay who should be focusing on other issues.

Rule 8: Validhunting

• Intent: This rule was specifically added when there was a pattern of people in science arming to the teeth, then patrolling maint and looking for antags. Chaplains and shaft miners have also been a major problem here, but any role can be guilty of this.

• If you want to hunt antags, then there is an entire department for that - security. We attempt to balance things around security and their rules of engagement and equipment. If everyone lynches antags as soon as discovered (especially with the tools available to science, engineering, robotics, lavaland tools, etc), then the game is incredibly difficult for antags.

• This doesn’t count against blobs, slaughter demons, nuke ops, wizards, terror spiders, xenos, swarmers, and cultists summoning their god. It’s expected the whole crew fights these!

• We don’t want to encourage a mentality where people are looking to “win” against the antags.

• The Captain or the Head of Personnel cannot create a ‘special role’ that supersedes this rule. An example being a Vampire Hunter job and it being filled by individuals who aren’t members of Security. Command also cannot encourage the crew to valid hunt in violation of this rule and members of Command who do may find themselves job banned from the role. If someone wants to act as a security member, they should join security.

Rule 8 Clarifications

• This doesn’t mean people shouldn’t defend against, or even not interfere with antags. The key words here are “hunting” and “valid”. Non security should not be hunting for antags. Nor should people be looking specifically for situations where it is “valid” to kill someone.

• A good rule of thumb is that you can defend yourself and co-workers, but if the antag runs away, you shouldn’t be chasing them down - once they run you’ve succeeded in defending them. If you’re not security, you should be more concerned with the victim than the antag - don’t give chase.

Rule 8 Precedents

• If an antag has previously assaulted/killed/etc you, there is some leeway to get revenge. Ahelping first is highly, highly, recommended.

Rule 9:Karma Trading

• Intent: This should be fairly clear and simple. We don’t want people to use friends or another computer in their house to amass karma. It goes against the entire spirit of the system.

Rule 9 Precedents

• This is usually punished by reducing the karma of the player in question to a negative number.

Rule 10: Erotic Content

• Intent: This server was never intended for people to get their rocks off on. There are also people under the age of 18 here. It should be pretty clear why this exists.

Rule 10 Precedents

• References to rape are to be avoided entirerly, even such as “wow the nuke ops really raped the station”.

• Flavour text (including linked artwork) should not be sexualised. You should also avoid excessive description of your characters breasts (Or really any, tbh).

• Naming your character something sexually explicit is to be avoided.

Silicon and Drone Policy

General Policy

• AI should be “sane” like other crew. NT would not allow an untested AI to have access to dangerous systems on the station.

• Common sense should be used with interpretation of lawsets. The AI is assumed to be one that NT and CC want on the station. This does not apply to lawsets such as TYRANT and ANTIMOV.

• The AI, while having the responsibilities of Command does not carry the same authority as command and is to be considered a tool to assist the crew in their duties aboard the station. Players that overstep this role can expect administrators to intervene and depending on the situation a Job Ban from the role may be applied Playing as the AI has the same expanded responsibilities of Security and Command, as expected to RP to the same standards.

• Laws: Harm is assumed to mean physical harm. Stunning and flashing is not harm. A crewsimov AI may cause harm if it is to prevent immediate greater harm, such as harmbatoning a traitor resistant to stun who is actively harming other crew. Active harm should be a last resort.

• Crew is defined as who is on the crew manifest, unless otherwise defined by another law. Laws are to be interpreted as written.

• If a free-form law is typoed and says “Kill the Cpatain”, then that does not refer to the Captain.

• Threats of suicide do not have to be listened to - it can be assumed that anyone threatening suicide is unstable and a risk to the crew and themselves, and their demands do not have to be met.

• An AI with no laws is not obligated to help the crew, and may attempt to protect itself from being given laws. However, it is not an antagonist.

Conflicts and Loopholes

• Whichever law is higher in the list has priority. This includes hacked and malf laws.

Antag Silicons and Objectives

• Antag AI’s are expected to go after their objectives akin to other antags.

• Unless your objectives are to set off the doomsday device, then mass-destruction is to be avoided as per other antags.

Antag Specifics

Traitors

• Traitors may be reluctant members of the Syndicate (Eg, blackmailed or threatened), but should still attempt to be antagonists.

• If you don’t wish to act as an antagonist to the crew, you shouldn’t have antags enabled - ahelp to have the role removed and given to someone else.

• Collateral damage is acceptable within limits. If your target is in an area where it is unavoidable damage should be minimized. If damage cannot be minimized, luring or creating a situation where it’ll move your target away from causing high casualties is acceptable.

• If in doubt, as always, ahelp. We may give you permission to do something you normally couldn’t.

Changelings

• Absorbing is a tool for infiltration, and is to help achieve your objectives. It is not your objective to kill and absorb as many people as you can. DNA sting is to be used to achieve your objectives to get DNA.

• Murderboning so you can absorb is seen as excessive. Your abilities should be used to further your goals or to prevent apprehension if you are found out. An Example being Transformation Sting.

• Randomly transforming crew for no other purpose than to cause chaos runs counter to this, however using it to create copies of yourself to throw off pursuit of Security is acceptable.

Vampires

• Vampires may kill crew to obtain blood - this should have reasonable limits, and if the admins believe you are using this as an excuse to murder people, then you may be told to tone it down.

• Players may donate blood to vampires, but this must be done with IC reasoning. This should have justification in the current round - “my character likes vampires” isn’t enough reason by itself. Doing it because the vampire is a “friend” of yours is partially metafriending, but also poor RP - the vampire is not your friend, it is someone wearing your friend’s dead body like a suit.

Nukies

• The crew may attempt to board the nuke op shuttle to steal the nuke. It is up to the nuke ops to defend their shuttle or bring the nuke with them.

• This is a team antag mode, and working well with your team is expected. Going off solo and ignoring the rest of the team may result in an antag ban from this role.

• This role also requires a fair bit of experience. If you do not know how to use things like EVA travel, you may be replaced by another player so as not to let the rest of the team down.

Wizards

• Friendly Wizards - you’re there as an antagonist, and it is your job to cause chaos. If admins do not believe you’re being sufficiently antagonistic as a wizard, other wizards may be sent to encourage this, and CC will often send a kill-on-sight order.

• Wizards are to be treated as highly dangerous terrorists by command staff and security. Without orders from CC to treat them otherwise, they should never be assumed to be “friendly”.

• Event wizards do not follow the above rules.

Slaughter Demons

• As a slaughter (or laughter) demon, you should be attempting to kill people directly and brutally. Releasing plasma/the engine/etc should not be done.

• Aiding the crew or refusing to attack the crew goes against the spirit of this role.

• If you’re not willing to kill individuals and are intent on just hunting down the wizard while ignoring all other targets as a ‘Friendly’ demon, administrative action may be taken against you.

Terror Spiders

• Terror spiders are intelligent and, some can understand language. Terror spiders are a hive mind, and are always loyal to the hive mind.

• It is impossible to be a “friendly” terror spiders.

• Terror spiders may use “advanced” tactics that would be expected of other sentient antags, such as spacing the nuclear device, spacing areas, etc.

Xenos

• Xenos are intelligent and sentient creatures. Hivemind is an IC channel, and roleplay should occur there.

• Xenos are permitted to use the actual names of areas (Medbay, etc), although are encouraged to use creative terms for them (Eg, Soft-Queen instead of Captain.)

Blob and Blobbernauts

• Blobs and blobbernauts are a hivemind, and have the knowledge of the crewmembers they formally infected.

• Blobbernauts are to follow the orders of the blob.

Lavaland and Ghost Roles General Rules

• Using knowledge gained as a ghost

Ashwalkers

• You are not permitted on the main station without admin permission. Attacking the mining outpost must be done in response to miner attacks, and requires admin permission.

• You are expected to act and roleplay as a primitive, tribal, ashwalker.

Sentient Animals

• A sentient animal is an animal that has suddenly gained intelligence, and is still the original animal. Although smart, you should roleplay as if you are a dog/cat/whatever - just smarter.

Free Golems

• You are not an antag, and should not be acting like one. Involving yourself with the affairs of the main station should be avoided. Actually going there requires admin permission.