Clown law? Code of Comedy? (HONK)

[Kotlol]

After RPing with clowns alot on the RP servers and last shift. I decided it's time we do something about the "classic lubing clown" trope.

Clowns can be fun charaters to RP with, but if their only gimmick is "Haha lube funny, heres a nuke full of lube"
The joke goes from: "Funny" to "Everyone is critical sliding towards medbay, no one can appriciate the joke"

Wich my last RP shift had with 1 clown monkey but then 2 other people also being the clown monkey. All with flame throwers loaded with lube. Just lubing everything to the point they almost killed eachother as well as several others.
So here is CLOWN LAW (or the Code of Comedy) to help roleplaying clowns have more reason to do their jolly gags then "haha lube funny, no RP, just lube"

What is The Code of Comedy AKA Clown law?
It's not a rule set for clowns. They can go against it, it's more or less suggestions and guide lines for the clown.
If the clown is breaking clown law too much, it just gives sec a reason to take more drastic action right away.

Simply put... if a clown wants to go against Clown Law constantly, Sec may prosecute em harshly.

Why restrict the clown like this?
Clowns won't be restricted at all.... it's more or less Sec gets unrestricted to deal with unruly, near self antaging clowns who just wanna lube all day.
It's more an unrestriction for Sec then it is a restriction for clowns.

Why do you think this is needed?
Cause I notice people try to use clowning as a free "I can self antag" card with "It's just a prank" and sec has to give leeway since clown.
Also alot of people want to be clown but there is already one and those clowns cause more issues. Clown law is gonna still allow it but a good clown would put a stop to fake clowns.

What about the Mime?
Mime also has the code of comedy aka Clown Law. But Mime is technically exempt of it. Their might be a Mime code like if a Mime talks they are no longer considered a mime to stop fake mimes but eh.

NOW TIME FOR THE CODE OF COMEDY!

THE CODE OF COMEDY CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING LAWS!

1: Thou shall honk at each joke to confirm it was thou's!
2: Thou shall spread smiles upon thine station, not frowns!
3: Thou shall not cause extreme harm upon thy pranked.
4: Thou shall deliver a "setup" and "punchline" to thy pranks and jokes!
5: Thou shall never take off thine shoes unless for life saving scenerios!
6: Thine life is both a Tragedy and Comedy. Thine own life can be used for thy jokes but not of Thine fellow cremates!
7: There shall be only but one true clown. Only thy can allow others to join thine pranks but they may never be clown!

And that's it for now as for Mime the 1st rule would be:
"Thou shall be silent, as speech is a betrayal of miming"

But other wise that's it. Again these are just ment to help guide clowns and crewmates to engage into more RP about being a good clown and to weed out bad clowns.
This is also ment to be more for RP then Main. (And yes it is kinda a reaction to "Lube only clowns")
But I hope it helps out.

[DioChasek]

As a near clown main as MOPSY other things to note sometimes it is also good to not prank at all do something like make a balloon animals, hand out candy, make art on canvas instead of the floor for a change, and make hilariously bad food and drinks (or do it better than the bartender and chef if they are being rude as hell!)
That being said a lube shift can be fine just dont be the clown lubing the escape or by glass tables.( Unless of course the joke is to be played on you!)

[Froggit_Dogget]

i didnt read much but the first sentance of your thread about the lube reminded me of probably the funniest clown lube moment I remember. So im playing sec on revs, and the last revheads taken QM, with about 4 other people including the clown. Me and another officer walked in to get the revhead, when all of the sudden the clown EXPLODES into lube, lubing the entirety of qm, slipping me and the other officer, and allowing the revhead to escape. The clown then lays down and starts pulling us across more lube preventing us from catching up with the revhead. I was laughing the entire time, even as the revs beat us to death.

---

i should add this was before lube was visible, but the clown used smoke powder so we knew where it was anyway by seeing the giant cloud of lube

[alexandregtg]

A clown lubing the whole floor for an entire shift should just be ahelped, in my opinion. As the RP rules say, we're all here to have a good time. You should be considerate to your fellow players, and not strive to make the round worse as a non-antag. Being a clown is not a soft-grief free pass where your own fun comes before the experience of the whole station.

That being said, I don't really agree with the "it just gives sec a reason to take more drastic action right away" as that can just lead to escalating tension and frustration in a game where nobody ever gets the full picture. I've been blamed many times as clown for lubing incidents i've had nothing to do with, and I would not like sec to be like CLOWN CODE and be immediatly rude because of it.

I agree that there's a lot of bad clowns tough, and its frustrating because it gives even good clown this bad reputation. Sadly, I don't think there's much we can do about it short of ahelping them.

Freedom is a big part of the appeal to play clown, and I don't think those bad lubing clown would care about the clown code anyway. Even myself, I don't think I would follow most of those rules. I would certainly not honk at every joke and I had some pretty memorable moment in multiple clown rounds (bad ones too).
Also if you remove either your clown shoes, or your clown mask, even for survival, you are not going to Clownhalla. Think about it twice, the honkmother is watching

[AlyasGrey]

Clowns are supposed to be somewhat unstructured, formalizing the role just feels wrong.

Besides, if a clown is lubing everywhere and refusing to chill or stop there is already nothing stopping security from arresting them. Seems to me that this just creates another potential rules-lawyering mess to sift through every time someone gets upset about a clown or the clown gets upset about how sec/crew treated them.

Heck, I'm reminded right now of the dozens of times some scientist/staffie/bartender decided to lube the floors in order to frame me and it worked.

[Lady Birb]

make it so if a clown puts space lube in a flamethrower or in the same chem container as smoke powder, the gods rip their arms off for being unoriginal

[Kotlol]

Okay seeing the feedback on this I understand that the clown code was abit too much.

Thanks for the respectable replies and that lube only clowns should be Ahelped.

Also MOPSY I agree. Clowns should also try to be entertaining without resorting to just pranks all the time.
But in the end. I think this topic has run it's course and the clown code there for is merely a suggestion at best, but other wise don't implement it!

(Also most classes have a book that shows a code or rules or guidepoints and the clown had non, but eitherway.. this suggestion is dead for now!)